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XML structures of eBIZ/TC Upstream documents (2018-1)
Introduction to the XML document template
The structure of the XML documents is the very prescriptive part of the eBIZ/TC Upstream framework:
using the eBIZ/TC Upstream documents, the prescriptions must be completely respected about structure of the documents, names and coding,
optionality or mandatory use of elements, meaning of each element.
Otherwise the documents could be not validable with the XML Schema (that are the only way to check the
formal compliance of the documents) or could generate misunderstandings about the meaning of the message on the side of your partners.
The allowable customisations are about the use or not of a document or about the elements of the document that are declared 'optional'; they can
be used to simplify the documents (not all the elements are always necessary).
The (template of) eBIZ/TC Upstream documents of each release are on www.ebiz.enea.it or www.moda-ml.org and are represented by:
XML Schemas, public but that cannot be modified,
they must be used to validate the XML documents.
User Guides, that completely describe the structure and the aim of the documents,
together with the elements and their coding rules.
Compare version User Guides, with comparison against the previous version of the same document (available for this version: TRUE).
Equivalent JSON schema towards XML Schema of the document (available for this version: False).
in some cases, Samples and Stylesheets(XSL) might be available
and can be used to visualize with a browser the content of the XML documents.
The proposed stylesheets should be considered as a sample or a reference
to be used directly or customised or ignored and substituted with custom stylesheets.
Document Textile in Work Inventory Report
Textile in Work Inventory Report (Updated)
Inventory report of Textile in work
The present guide has been issued to assist the companies of the Textile-Clothing sector in the implementation of the standard XML document type “TEXTILE IN WORK INVENTORY REPORT”, providing all the instruction required for its use in the context of e-commerce in the Textile industry, as shown in the enclosed diagrams.
All the rules required for the construction and validation of the document are embedded into the specific XML-Schema, which is detailed in section "Implementation guide".
The present document can be used by a Subcontractor to inform his Client (Commission issuer), periodically or on demand, about the quantity of pre-works or in-work Textile items (Client's property) stocked at the Subcontractor's premises.
This inventory may refer to all the goods of one Commission issuer or just to those related to one Commission order; item quantities may be subdivided by type of stock and physical location.
This XML document has been realized by Guido Cucchiara supported by Angelo Frascella and Arianna Brutti, XML-Lab (initiative of ENEA and Forum per la Tecnologia dell'Informazione).
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Britain’s disillusion with banking grows by the day. As crisis follows crisis, and the banks pull in their horns to deal with piles of bad debt, beaten-up SMEs complain bitterly of a lack of lending and mis-selling of complex financing arrangements.
But, in the midst of the gloom, an opportunity could be emerging. The old-fashioned art of trade financing, along with other forms of alternative finance for businesses, is beginning to flourish again.
Banks are being spurred by regulation towards more tightly-drawn types of finance, including trade finance. New entrants, meanwhile, are hoping to fill the broader gaps left by the banks in financing SMEs that cannot get overdrafts on the terms that they used to.
And the broader need to rein in working capital as the downturn bites is opening up further opportunities for innovative financing.
Trade finance is by no means a new concept. William Tebbit, commercial director of Trade Finance Partners (TFP), describes it simply as “old-fashioned merchant banking”.
The principle is simple – a customer has an agreed order from a big company, but for whatever reason cannot pay a deposit for the raw materials required.
This is where the trade financier steps in, taking on the financial risk of buying the raw materials with the agreed order as its security.
It is, in one sense, merely greasing the wheels of world trade. But it is also proving to be increasingly popular.
“There’s a real squeeze on SMEs. Banks simply aren’t lending to small businesses,” says Tebbit.
Without overdrafts and bank loans provided in the usual way, trade finance can step into the breach. TFP started providing finance in earnest last year and made a profit in its first year of trading. It turned over £12.3m in the year ending March 2012, recording a pre-tax profit of £103,825.
It is aiming at the SME market. Backed by alternative fund management company The City of London Group and by Australian bank Macquarie, Tebbit and his colleagues aim to finance deals where the solvency of the end customer is not in any doubt.
“One of our clients is a clothing manufacturer. He had a large order to fulfil from Argos [a catalogue and online retailer] for a new range of baby clothes, but was unable to pay deposits or to open letters of credit.
“So we placed the orders with the factories, issuing a letter of credit to guarantee that they will get paid,” Tebbit says, describing a typical deal.
TFP has put up cash for trades involving pizza boxes for Pizza Hut, car batteries and recycling equipment. It makes its money on a mark-up – buying the goods from the supplier for £100, say, and selling them to its customer for £106.
Tebbit also says that while TFP recorded sales of £12m last year, “it is running a lot hotter this year”.
Others agree that they are seeing a resurgence of interest in trade finance, but not always for the same reasons.
Maurice Craft, ex-chair of the Asset Backed Financing Association and managing director of Regency Factors, another trade finance prov- ider, pinpoints new regulation as a key driver: “The banks, since the imposition of the Basel capital rules, have found that provision of overdraft facilities, traditionally the lifeblood for business, has become ‘expensive’ in capital adequacy terms, and have thus tried to steer their facilities offered to less ‘expensive’ products, such as invoice finance and leasing for capital equipment.”
John Bevan, Barclays head of trade and working capital for the UK and Ireland, agrees that the regulatory changes have driven banks towards trade finance: “From a bank’s perspective, trade products are structured. Therefore, they are much more efficient from a capital perspective. We can provide more [of them] and at a better price.”
He also highlights a broader perspective – that international trade trends are driving greater interest in trade finance.
“There has been a consolidation of supply chains over the past 12 to 18 months, particularly among SMEs, but also among larger corporates. Suppliers now come from further afield than previously.”
Because suppliers are often further away, trade finance can provide some kind of security. He adds that it is working the other way too. Barclays will also finance trades in the opposite direction, another market that is growing.
“On the export side, demand for UK products from more traditional markets, in the eurozone for instance, has declined. We are starting to see demand emerging from the BRIC economies,” says Bevan.
As supply chains lengthen, companies reach for trade finance as a way of getting both protection and certainty of payment.
But, on a more basic level it is just another way of managing working capital, limiting the amount of cash being used to run the business at any one time.
Robert Smid, a partner at PwC, tends to advise on bigger deals – helping companies to securitise a whole range of invoices rather than just getting finance for one trade. But many of the principles are the same.
Quite apart from security and other reasons, getting finance for a deal can work out cheaper than other more long-term forms of financing in some circumstances, he says.
“The overall indicator of what is cheaper is who has the better credit rating, you or the customer?” Smid says.
If you are selling to a big retailer that is good at paying its bills, then the finance company will be comfortable financing the trade and offering decent terms.
Smid says that was the reason why companies used to securitise their invoices – because their client was BT, or rather the state.
Suppliers could get money up front from the bank because it knew that the invoices were underpinned by the state’s credit rating.
One thing that is very popular at the moment, Smid says, is “reverse factoring”. This is the practice of arranging for a bank to pay your suppliers for you quicker than you would pay them.
“If I have a better credit rating than my supplier I can use that to help them get paid earlier. Some small suppliers can’t afford to wait 60 days to get paid. If I give a promise that I will pay the invoice in 60 days, an intermediary will pay them in 10 days. The supplier gets 99.5 per cent, but gets it 50 days earlier. And they would never be able to get that kind of financing.”
Bigger companies can gain an advantage by using those techniques too – offering them while at the same time pushing out their own payment terms and helping their own working capital.
With companies having 20 to 30 per cent of their sales at any one time tied up in working capital, there are plenty who are looking at ways to reduce those figures, and to make them ultimately less reliant on any forms of financing.
Bevan agrees that ultimately the use of trade finance comes down to a working capital requirement. “There’s a lot of myths around trade finance. It’s effectively just part of the working capital cycle of many businesses. Many people are not looking for a specific product, but want an end-to-end working capital strategy.”
Tebbit warns that the hotter market is bringing in some new and inexperienced players. The oil and commodities trade finance tends to be done by the big banks, while Bibby is another big player, he says.
“We are seeing there are a few private individuals who think there’s an opportunity to provide finance to SMEs – a lot of people who don’t quite know how to do it.” Hedge funds have been coming in too, he says.
“For some of the smaller businesses it’s quite dangerous.”
Craft agrees that it is a complicated area.
“Funding the purchase of goods or raw materials on behalf of an importing client needs to be structured in a way that will satisfy all parties to the transaction. The supplier has to be assured of being paid for the goods they supply, the client needs to be confident that the arrangement doesn’t spoil the relationship with the supplier, while we as financiers have to satisfy ourselves that we are secure at all stages of the transaction.
“The facilities are not the usual vanilla offering and they require tailoring to the individual needs of the client. The degree of skill required has limited the providers of the product thus far and its use is not as prevalent as it could be. Given time, it may well become as mainstream as factoring or invoice discounting.”
Alex Hawkes is a leading financial journalist who writes for several UK newspapers.
TFP in practice
Eric Bain is finance and operations director at Atlantic Enterprises,a UK packaging group, and has been using Trade Finance Partners (TFP) since December last year.
TFP helps Atlantic to finance its purchase of food packagingfor a major UK restaurant chain. The whole process takes a month,and Atlantic would normally get paid six weeks later.
“On that basis we would be waiting ten weeks for our money,”Bain says.
As well as avoiding the upfront costs of doing business, his Turkish supplier is “even more happy”, he says, because it gets cash up front.
“TFP pay cash on day one of receipt of goods. As a result I was able to negotiate a significant discount that covers any costs charged by TFP.”
Bain thinks trade finance has a significant advantage over invoice discounting and factoring, because Atlantic only ever sees its profits, and has no cash in its bank accounts that needs to be used to buy more raw materials.
Factoring and invoice discounting “gets you money quicker. But it doesn’t help manage cash flow. In tough times all companies use their cash flow, whether or not it’s their profit. They are teetering on the edge of insolvency. If you can trade on your margins rather than your cash flow, you won’t get into trouble”.
Bain used to work in property during the boom, when banks were lining up to lend: “This service wouldn’t have been relevant then.”
He adds that it is not for everyone – if you are selling to small companies or to consumers it won’t be much use, since TFP prefers to lend against secured orders from companies with excellent credit ratings.
Bain says that using trade finance will also enable Atlantic to bid for a much bigger contract coming up, which would otherwise have required £300,000 worth of working capital.
Illustration: Robert Nicol
- Business ethics
- Career talk
- Corporate finance
- Law and regulation
- Management accounting
- Networking and social
- Professional development
- Reporting and Governance
- Risk management
- Strategic management-economics
- Studying CIMA
- Sustainability
- Technology
- Studying Exam E1
- Studying Exam E2
- Studying Exam E3
- Studying Exam F1
- Studying Exam F2
- Studying Exam F3
- Studying Exam P1
- Studying Exam P2
- Studying Exam P3
- Studying Exam T4
- Studying Exam C02
- Studying Exam C03
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In the Congo, the death toll
is now close to six million people. Their civil war has been going on for ten years now, with no end in sight. Most of the deaths have been civilians — killed by starvation and disease.
And you didn’t even know there was a civil war going on in the Congo. (I didn’t either until a few days ago.) Who wants to hear about a civil war killing millions of people in some Third World country?The war
is between the Congolese army and different rebel groups backed by Uganda and Rwanda. This war has been called “Africa’s First World War” and “the world’s most neglected emergency.” They’re fighting over control of the natural resources in the area: diamonds, tin, copper, gold and most of all, coltan (I hadn’t heard of it either).
Coltan is a heat-resistant mineral that’s heavily used in cell phones and laptops. Because of the huge demand, coltan mining is bringing in millions of dollars to the governments and militias fighting over turf.
On the surface this looks like ethnic warfare. But the flames are being fanned by the corporations that are buying these minerals. All of the coltan is bought by just three companies: Cabot Inc. (American), H.C. Starc (German) and Nigncxia (Chinese). These are the only companies that are able to process coltan for use in electronic components. The final product is then sold to Nokia, Motorola, Compaq, Sony, etc.
In the “small world” department, Sam Bodman,
former CEO of Cabot Inc. is now George W. Bush’s Secretary of Energy. When Bush was governor of Texas, he permitted Cabot and several other major polluters to maintain or even increase their levels of toxic emissions.Weapons
from all over the U.S. and Europe are pouring into the Congo — just what they need.
Congo’s civil war is affecting everyone in the country. Farmers who have been displaced have practically no choice except to work in the mines. Many other people are forced into prostitution. About two million people in the region are HIV-infected.
The deforestation caused by the mining has wiped out endangered species. The increased poverty and desperation has led people to hunt gorillas and other endangered animals for food. The biodiversity of the region is irreversibly damaged.
The Eastern Lowland Gorilla is close to extinction. In 1991 there were about 8,000 of them. As of the year 2000, there were less than a thousand of them left.This article
“Somehow, it’s not surprising that this information isn’t included in the instruction manual that comes with your cell phone. Perhaps mobile phones should be outfitted with stickers that read: ‘Warning! This device was created with raw materials from central Africa. These materials are rare, non-renewable, were sold to fund a bloody civil war and have caused the virtual elimination of endangered species. Have a nice day.’ People need to realize that there is a direct link between the gadgets that make their lives more convenient and the frightening reality of the violence, turmoil and destruction that plague our world.”
cross-posted at Bring It On!
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I.T stands for Information technology. Information technology is the technology which includes all the data which is found anywhere (books or computer etc.) and process it through computer for useful purposes. In this 21st century, the modern era Information technology plays a vital role in many fields in the whole wide world.
If there will be no technology so we won’t be able to have a good lifestyle. As the lifestyle we are carrying is super easy and improved due to technology. The people of previous centuries lived a difficult life with lot of struggles. In next few years importance of I.T will increase. I.T has made all the things possible which we used to think was impossible.
Not only in computer science department, has it played huge role in medical department, business and more making society better. It has some benefits as well. Due to information technology there is increase in employment, it also makes communication easier and nowadays online shopping makes people life easier. It helps people to improve their lifestyles and also helps country to be developed in the following ways.
I.T department helps business to run more efficiently. It increases productivity and enhances quality. Every company, office or schools have their I.T department which helps company more smoothly. I.T department of any institute or office is something really important which should be extra secure and should not leaked or else the owner could face the loss.
Due to I.T it makes easier for teachers to do their jobs. Technology makes teaching and learning more easy and interesting for teachers as well as students. This process of teaching and learning gets more interesting and fun with the help new educational or technological applications.
Due to I.T, there more job opportunities for software or hardware programmers or computer engineers. It also helps to reduce unemployment rate and poverty. A person can do B.S (Bachelors in Science) in I.T (Information Technology) and get a good job in I.T company from Sydney. As I.T companies are progressing well in this modern world.
Due to Information Technology (I.T), the communication becomes easier and more efficient. A person can connect with other through chatting, voice calls or video calls. This easier, quicker way to stay in touch. Due to this, one country can have good relation with others.
Only Information Technology makes it possible that by sitting at home we can do shopping. Due to I.T we have this facility of having business open for whole day which is 24 hours. It takes shopping to another level that we can purchase by other countries as well which is easier too. We have to do nothing as it will be deliver to us without any hurdle.
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AIA Illinois 150 Great Places FAQs
Great Places = Great Communities
What makes a "Great Place?"
A special theme of the national AIA recognition program for the 150th anniversary is that of utilizing the AIA's 10 Principles of Livable Communities. First on this list was the principle of "design on a human scale," which emphasizes "compact, pedestrian-friendly communities." Other Principles include that of "mixed-use development," "preserved urban centers," and "vibrant public spaces." The list of Great Places includes many examples that illustrate these principles and more. More information about the AIA's Principles of Livable Communities can be found at http://www.aia.org/liv_principles.
What kinds of Great Places are there?
The AIA Illinois Great Places encompass the built environment of Illinois. The list included planned communities as well as individual houses. There was no specific limit on the types of places that could be nominated, but they all had to be publicly accessible. The requirement of public access makes the list tend towards civic and commercial structures and limits private houses to those that have been turned into "house museums." The Great Places list includes churches, schools, offices, court houses, museums, and planned communities. The Great Places list can be sorted by type of use, location, and architect, which will provide the viewer with a way to use this list for educational and tourism purposes. The Great Places list includes notable structures by famous architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, but also includes structures by anonymous builders and urban places with multiple designers.
One special aspect of this list is that of the "thematic" nomination. A thematic nomination had to recognize a specific kind of place or building that was consistently identifiable but was generally created by more than one designer. A regional example is that of the Chicago Bungalow. There are more than 70,000 of these in the city of Chicago, and a local organization to promote their continued viability. At the state-wide level there are the Carnegie Libraries. This was an era of library buildings in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century that was noteworthy for the classical revival style buildings.
How were the Great Places selected?
An AIA Illinois Great Place had to meet several criteria. First among these was the sense of how well did the place meet the AIA's 10 Principles of Livable Communities? These guiding principles help establish an overall framework. Secondly, the places had to be publicly accessible, which limited individual private homes and other structures that might be architecturally distinctive but did not help educate the public. A third and more difficult definition was that of size. How big could a place be and still be a place? The working definition for our selections is that of a place that could be experienced by standing in one location. The only exception to this was a designed landscape that was created by an identified planner or landscape architect. There are several communities that are listed because of their importance in urban planning and several parks that were designed by landscape architect. We did not include structures such as bridges which are primarily transportation infrastructure and not a pedestrian experience.
The selection committee for this project was created by the six AIA chapters of Illinois, under the leadership of AIA Illinois. Each chapter nominated a core of places based upon the population of their region. Each chapter developed its own nominating committee, and was encouraged to work with other local organizations. The total list was then developed to provide a range of place types, eras and designers that represent a wide spectrum of Illinois.
How do I find out more information about specific Great Places?
The AIA Illinois Great Places web site is the host location for visitors.
What is AIA Illinois doing to recognize these Great Places?
Each local AIA Chapter in Illinois will work with the individual sites for a recognition ceremony. AIA Illinois has created a graphic identity package of framed certificates, window stickers and plaques that can be used for local commemoration. The AIA Illinois Great Places web site will be maintained by AIA Illinois into the future.
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Principle #1: Make it Direct
In the earlier version of Gmail, the only way to label or organize messages was to select the row or rows, then navigate to the “Move To” combo box or “Label” combo box.
But last week (at least in my Gmail account) Google decided to Make It Direct. Why select a row and look for an action button somewhere- just grab that message and drag it!
The Drag and Drop Object Pattern, in Chapter 2 of our book explains the nuances involved in this pattern such as affordance- ie. letting the user know they can drag something to reorganize the relationship, and clearly indicating the available drop zone.
We did something similar in the new design of Zenoss, an open source systems management application. On Step 3 of Set-Up, the systems administrator can efficiently organize their infrastructure by dragging devices (right) into the proper category (shown on left).
Since this is a set-up screen folks will only use once, we decided to embed the instructions in the screens instead of using a dialog with the tip.
The Ajax framework Ext JS handles this perfectly right out of the box- click to watch the screencast.
Expandable Drop Zone
So does this mean I have to go click to expand to see ‘12 More’ before I can drag any messages into those folders? Nope- Gmail borrowed an slick interaction from the Mac – the Expandable Drop Zone.
Now in Gmail, you can select one or more messages, drag them to an expandable drop zone, and a layer opens dispalying all of the other labels. Bill mentioned to me that a slightly longer delay ‘on drop’ would help provide feedback that the messages actually ended up in the right label.
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After you purchase and use your cellphone for an extended period of time, you can change networks. However, the phone that you're currently using may not be offered on that network. If you wish to keep using your current handset but use another network, you must unlock your phone. This means that you unlock the phone to accept another subscriber identification module. The SIM card itself isn't unlocked.
Most cellphones you buy have SIM cards installed in them. SIM cards are memory chips used in cellular devices to store your account's information, your cellphone number, your phone book, text messages and other data. Because they contain such sensitive information, avoid removing them from the phone unless absolutely necessary.
Locked SIM Cards
Unless you specifically purchased an unlocked phone, your phone is likely to have a SIM lock on it. This feature prevents you from taking a particular provider's phone and using it on another network. The lock helps keep devices on their originally assigned networks. However, most devices can be unlocked using a SIM unlock procedure.
You can remove the SIM lock by performing an unlock procedure on the phone. Although the specific unlock instructions differ according to your phone model, the procedure consists of obtaining an unlock code from your existing mobile provider. You can also buy a code online if the provider is unable to give it to you. After you obtain the unlock code, you install another network's SIM card, power on the phone and then enter the unlock code when prompted.
Just because you unlock your phone doesn't mean that you can use the phone on any network. The SIM card for the new network must compatible with the network your phone currently supports. The major networks -- T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint -- are either GSM or CDMA networks. Therefore, if your phone is a GSM phone, you can't use it on the Sprint network, as Sprint operates a CDMA-based network.
- George Doyle & Ciaran Griffin/Stockbyte/Getty Images
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WURTSBORO, N.Y. -- The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is investigating the prevalence of northern snakehead, a toothy, invasive fish species native to Southeast Asia, in a Sullivan County waterway after one was recently caught there by a fisherman.
On Aug. 16, Cody Reynolds, submitted a photo to the DEC of a snakehead he said he caught in the Bashakill Marsh near Wurtsboro. The Bashakill lies in the valley between the Shawangunk Mountains and the Catskills, flowing south from about Summitville to join the Neversink River below the wetlands, and on to the Delaware River.
After examining the photo and determining it was a snakehead, DEC immediately posted signs at access sites on the marsh asking anglers to report the sighting or capture of northern snakeheads. In addition, DEC Fisheries staff conducted an electrofishing survey to assess the extent of the invasion. DEC did not find additional northern snakehead, but the Bashakill is heavily vegetated this time of year, making sampling difficult.
Northern snakeheads are long, thin fish with a single fin running the length of the back. They are generally brown with large, dark blotches along their sides and can grow up to three feet in length. Northern snakeheads have a somewhat flattened head and a large mouth with many teeth.
Anglers often call them “Frankenfish” for their ability to temporarily move around on land, and even breathe air. Read more on the DEC website.
Besides aquarium dumping, people also contribute to the spread of snakeheads by illegally using them as bait or unknowingly transporting juveniles in the water-containing compartments of boats, DEC said.
Juveniles feed on a wide variety of microscopic organisms, insect larvae, and crustaceans that native fish rely on for food. As adults, northern snakeheads feed mostly on other fish species, but also crustaceans, reptiles, mammals and small birds.
Northern snakeheads are similar to bowfins, which are native to this state’s waters. Bowfin can most easily be distinguished from snakeheads by a shorter anal fin and a rounded tail fin.
DEC encourages anglers to report sightings of northern snakehead and to support the state’s ongoing efforts to stop the spread and establishment of this invasive fish. Removal of these animals from the environment can be challenging if a population becomes well established or if physical conditions of the waterbody render efforts ineffective.
DEC will undertake a larger sampling effort in the Bashakill when aquatic vegetation begins to die back.
Until that time, DEC is taking water samples throughout the marsh in an effort to detect the potential of northern snakehead environmental DNA. Results from this effort will provide biologists with background information and advance a more effective electrofishing sampling.
Any northern snakehead caught should be immediately killed and reported to the Region 3 Fisheries Office in New Paltz at (845) 256-3161 or email at firstname.lastname@example.org.
According to the DEC website, snakeheads have been found in two ponds in Queens in 2005, and were eradicated from Ridgebury Lake in Orange County in 2008.
One was also caught last year in the Upper Delaware near Callicoon. At the time, DEC said it was collaborating with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and National Park Service to monitor these invasive fish.
UPGRADE YOUR OUTDOOR GEAR
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Smart Saving for College—Better Buy Degrees
Prepaid tuition plans allow parents, grandparents and others to prepay tuition at today’s tuition rates at eligible public and private colleges or universities so that they don’t have to worry about future tuition increases.
You pay for amounts of tuition (years, credits or units) in one lump sum or through installment payments. There are a number of options. Some prepaid tuition plans offer contracts for a two-year community college or a four-year undergraduate program, or a combination of the two, and can cover one to five years of tuition. Some plans even allow the contract to be applied to graduate school tuition.
Covered Educational Expenses
With only a few exceptions, however, most prepaid tuition plans do not cover other expenses, such as room and board. So you may want to consider other college savings options to cover these costs.
Guarantees and Safety Features
Most states guarantee that the funds you put into a prepaid plan will keep pace with tuition. Some states back their prepaid tuition plans by the full faith and credit of the state, meaning that if the program should find itself in financial difficulty, the state will step in to provide the necessary funding. Other states do not have a formal guarantee, but do have a formal process by which the state's legislature will consider making an appropriation if necessary. Some states offer no guarantees that the plan will fund the future cost of tuition or that the state will step in should the plan falter.
Residency Requirements and Other Limitations
Unlike college savings plans, most state prepaid tuition plans require either you or your child to be a resident of the state offering the plan when you apply. Some limit enrollment to a certain period each year. Many prepaid tuition plans also have age or grade limits for beneficiaries (i.e., future college students).
Prepaid tuition plans have no investment options. Under prepaid plans, the price of the contract is determined prior to purchase and usually depends on the type of contract, the current grade of the beneficiary, the current and projected cost of tuition and the projected rate of return. These programs then pool the money and make long-range investments so that the earnings meet or exceed college tuition increases. When a child is ready to go to college, the plan transfers funds to cover the tuition directly to the institution.
If your child chooses not to attend a college covered by the prepaid tuition plan, all is not lost. Although you will not get the benefit of guaranteed tuition, all prepaid tuition plans allow you to use plan money to pay tuition at other colleges and universities. Many state prepaid tuition plans will pay out an amount equal to the weighted average tuition and mandatory fees at your state's public institutions, not to exceed the actual tuition and fees you incur. Most prepaid plans also let you transfer the plan to a child's brother or sister (although age restrictions may prevent transfers to an older sibling). Unfortunately, if your child chooses not to go to college and a sibling doesn't use the plan, or you need to cancel the prepaid plan, most plans will only give you back what you originally contributed with a reduction or elimination of any interest earned. Some plans also charge a cancellation fee.
529 Plan Comparison Chart
|529 Prepaid Tuition Plan||529 College Savings Plan|
|Most plans allow you to prepay tuition at eligible public and private colleges and universities at today's price.||No lock on college costs.|
|All plans cover tuition and mandatory fees. A few plans allow you to purchase a room and board option, use excess tuition credits for other qualified expenses or cover all qualified education expenses.||Covers all "qualified higher education expenses," including: |
|Most plans set lump sum and installment payments prior to purchase based on age of beneficiary and number of college tuition years purchased.||Many plans have contribution limits in excess of $250,000.|
|Many state plans guaranteed or backed by state.||No state guarantee. Most investment options are subject to market risk. Your investment may make no profit or even decline in value.|
|Some state plans have age/grade limits for beneficiaries.||No age limit. Open to adults and children.|
|Most state plans require either plan owner or beneficiary to be a state resident at the enrollment time.||Most plans do not have a residency requirement. However, nonresidents may only be able to purchase some plans through financial advisers or brokers.|
|Most plans have limited enrollment period.||Enrollment open all year.|
Download the print version:
FINRA Investor Podcast, Smart Saving for College—Part 1: 529 Plans
FINRA Investor Podcast, Smart Saving for College—Part 2: Other Tax-Advantaged Options
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Welcome to Edison School. Welcome to a centre for learning where children are encouraged to reach and grow within an emotionally supportive community. Welcome to a school that pushes students academically but never forgets to nurture creativity, curiosity, social development and physical well-being.
We welcome you to join us as we celebrate achievement and imbue a lifelong passion for learning, exploration and self-improvement.
At Edison we place an emphasis on the attitudes of our students. Developing a positive attitude towards learning, teamwork, and setting and achieving personal goals is crucial to fostering happy, well-adjusted children that will grow to become positive contributors to society. While each member of our faculty believes in our core values of academics, community and leadership, we are aware that the foundational development of positive attitude starts in the home. The Edison community works in partnership with the parents and caregivers of our students to provide support and guidance to each family.
Our rigorous academic program is complimented by strong athletics, a broad arts program and social development through community involvement. Students from across all grades interact often, through whole-school events and inter-classroom volunteerism. A philanthropic mindset is encouraged from a young age, and our Upper School students are required to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh program. By graduation, most of our students have completed at least one Advanced Placement course, with many high school graduates entering university with nearly a full semester of university credit (some of our past graduates have successfully completed a full year of university credit).
Our curriculum has been refined through years of experience, and we are constantly striving to improve upon our strong foundations. National core requirements are fulfilled and built upon; we currently teach the Singapore Math Programme, and our language arts program is comprehensive and expansive. Vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing are taught from Kindergarten through Grade 12, and language development is further supported through other core courses such as social studies. A broad and growing range of elective courses are offered, and students’ individual interests are fostered and developed.
Edison was founded in 1993 by parents who were concerned with the development of their children as whole people. Today, we still work to achieve this goal. Every aspect of a child’s development is considered and respected. We support our students as they grow into confident, motivated leaders and develop a lifelong respect for the value of learning and community.
When we founded Edison School in 1993, our intention was to provide a unique experience for students, faculty and parents. Generated from ideas and energy, Edison has grown but never veered from our founding principles. Values are our foundation. We believe that providing an excellent academic experience without simultaneously building character is both myopic and hollow.
Edison educates learners in ways far beyond academics. Relationships amongst our three main pillars (students, staff and parents) are strong and interactive. Students interact with other age groups, are taught acceptance, respect and, most importantly, ethics and honesty. Self-confidence and self-advocacy are continuously cultivated at every grade level.
Although Edison has increased in numbers, our enrolment remains near our desired capacity. We intend to maintain our intimate and nurturing size; every student is significant. Our high expectations of Edison students are no less than we place on our staff and ourselves. We are proud that the Edison community still responds to the triumphs and challenges by fostering family-like relationships amongst all.
Constructed on a foundation of transferable and core human values, rather than trends and materialism, Edison School remains strong as we approach our thirtieth year. Our graduates are a testament to this strength as they promote our core values of integrity, academics and community in every aspect of their adult lives.
Beth Chernoff & Lonnie Antal
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Introduction to Vidor, Texas
The Texarkana and Fort Smith Railroad was constructed in this area in 1898. Following its establishment, the community became the site of heavy lumbering activities. Charles Shelton Vidor, a lumberman, took over the Beaumont Sawmill Company and then established the Miller-Vidor Lumber Company in the early 1900s. The community was named "Vidor" in his honor. The first post office was built in 1909. The Miller-Vidor Lumber Company provided employment to a large number of people in Vidor, but once the timber stands in the area were depleted, it moved to Lakeview. In 1929, the Miller-Vidor subdivision was laid out. Cotton, rice, and cattle became the primary local industries. Vidor was officially incorporated in 1960.
Vidor and Nearby Attractions
- Heritage House Museum
- W.H. Stark House
- Stark Museum of Art
- Big Thicket National Preserve
- Sea Rim State Park
- Armand Bayou Nature Center
Things To Do In Vidor
The Heritage House Museum showcases artifacts reflecting the life of people in the region during the late 19th and early 20th century. At the Stark Museum of Art, visitors can view collections of western American paintings. The 1894 home of William Henry Stark is a place of historic interest near Vidor. Armand Bayou Nature Center, a popular destination in the region, features live animal displays, and offers opportunities for hiking and bird watching. The 4,141-acre Sea Rim State Park, situated close to the Gulf of Mexico beach shoreline, provides amenities for the enjoyment of swimming, fishing, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and camping. Residents of Vidor also host the Texas Barbecue Festival in April every year.
Air transportation is available from Southeast Texas Regional Airport.
Vidor Higher Education
Colleges near Vidor include the Lamar State College - Orange, Lamar State College - Port Arthur, and Lamar University.
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Optometrist Ron Ferrucci was never prouder than when his son, Greg, decided he wanted to join him in his practice. Greg grew up helping his dad in the Milford office, helping patients read eye charts, filing papers, and visiting elderly clients in the nursing home, but when he went off to college, he wasn?t sure what career he wanted to pursue. He came back that first semester and announced, ?Dad, I want to be an optometrist.?
?It was very gratifying,? says Ferrucci of when Greg joined him as a partner three years ago at Greater Milford Eye Associates. ?I think he had a good sense of what the profession was all about from watching us work with patients over the years. It?s wonderful to be able to help improve people?s visions and do good things for people in that way.?
Today the father and son practice offer specialized services such as advanced contact lens fitting, refractive laser consultations, and low-vision examinations. ?Vision problems are inherent in society today, whether it?s children who can?t see the chalkboard or adults who are having problems driving at night,? says Ferrucci. ?
Optometry, ophthalmology, opticians: what?s the difference between the three ?O? professions? Optometrists (ODs) like Ferrucci mainly deal with healthy eyes, prescribing glasses and contact lenses; opticians dispense glasses and contact lenses, and ophthalmologists are medical doctors (MDs) who specialize in performing surgery on diseased eyes. The job outlook is good for all three ?Os,? but optometry in particular offers generous compensation; optometrists on average can earn as much as ophthalmologists ($148,923, according to the American Optometric Association Economic Survey) without the protracted medical education.
Q: What does it take to be an optometrist?
A: Admission to one of the accredited 20-plus schools of optometry is highly competitive, with only 1 out of 3 applicants accepted, preceded by at least three years of study at a college or university. All states require optometrists to be licensed.
Q: What?s the biggest challenge today as an optometrist?
A: Like any other health professional, we?re under the thumb of insurers, and the challenge for optometrists is to make sure we’re reimbursed at rates equal to the value of the services we provide.
Q: What sort of patients have you seen over the years?
A: They include a physicist who have helped launch astronauts to the moon; an anthropologist who was instrumental in redesigning parachutes for women during World War II; and a homebound man who was so impaired with low vision he couldn?t finish high school. But when he was fitted with an optic telescope over special contact lens, he was able to complete school, get a drivers license, and become gainfully employed. We try to allow patients to reach their visual goals, no matter what their lifestyles might be.
Q: How has the profession changed over the years?
A: The eye chart is digital now, so patients can?t memorize it anymore. I used to have people come in and laughingly say, ?TZVECL,? which was 20/20 on the Snellen eye chart for 150 years. Now the lines keep changing.
Q: And who does your eye exams?
A: My son Greg, of course. It?s always a pleasure to have him do it. I glow with pride.
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Part two of my sojourn into the world of free software begins with me wondering about moral issues in technology and setting myself some limits. Over the course of this project I’ve come to believe every computer user ought to ask herself certain questions about what she really wants from technology. Not answering that question, and not having that discussion with other people who also use technology has led to unpleasant social problems — made all the worse by their invisibility. Some of these I go into here; some I discuss in Part Three.
I’ve heard already from a reader that he was really interested in the first part of this series but he didn’t understand “computer stuff.” Twenty years ago it would have been easy to maintain a clear intellectual and emotional separation between one’s daily life and “computer stuff.” But no more. In the 21st Century, daily life is computer stuff. Not a citizen of this country goes a day without using and being used by computers. So I will do my best to break down the technical matters into plain language.
Wait — what did I mean, “used by computers”? Read on and find out…
There’s an old saw in behavioral psychology that environment creates behavior. While I am far from a determinist, the truth of the statement remains. The way one arranges furniture in a house influences how one moves in that house. It also influences the habits one develops. Taking that slight half-step up because the floor isn’t level. Reaching out to lower the toilet seat so that one doesn’t take a midnight plunge in the dark (because people, too, are part of the environment).
The same thing happens with a computing environment. Even on simple level, such as having to punch the Y key just a little bit harder because it sticks, the way a computer is designed controls the user’s behavior. This is no less true of its intellectual design than its physical design.
The problem is that, in the world of proprietary software computing, one cannot change the environment. If I keep bumping my knee against a table leg in my house, I can move the table or chair. With proprietary software I cannot move anything. If I dislike the ridiculous way Photoshop keeps resetting my keyboard so that my shortcuts do not work, I cannot change anything around because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other such absurdities prevent me from it. I cannot reprogram Photoshop, hack it, or even look at its code to see why it’s so rubbish. Instead I have to wait for Adobe to respond to my complaint and others’ — if they even bother, which they do not.
The same goes for Microsoft Word, or Oracle Database, or Final Cut Studio, or Google Chrome, or almost everything on most people’s computers. None of them can be altered by users who would happily improve on their more frustrating qualities. They are monolithic and jealously guarded. In short, users do not control these programs. The program owners control the users, and their uses.
My non-techie friends are often shocked when I tell them they do not own anything on their computers. Yet here we are. Because of the baroque terms of the EULAs (end user licensing agreements) that govern their use of their computers, software makers can pull their software from users any time they wish, for no reason whatsoever, with no reason given. It has already happened with Kindle books, iPhone games and on and on. Imagine General Motors showing up in the night to confiscate your automobile and erasing every trace that you ever owned such a vehicle, no reason given. It all sounds very sci-fi. Yet people accept this readily with their computers, which are, apparently, so awesomely cool and stuff that users should and will put up with any mistreatment.
The problem here isn’t just that users lack control over their devices. The problem is that such devices erode morality. Quoting the Software Freedom Conservancy, “Software freedom is essential for people to be confident their technology works in service to equality, justice, and democracy, and not as a tool for the privileged and the powerful to quash those values.” When people are not in control of their devices, they also grow to accept their devices as things that control them, and furthermore begin to believe that this is “the price we pay for technology” or some other such bromide. This rots the mind, the spirit, and the heart of humanity. It makes people passive, and futile. This in turn rots social discourse.
These things are on my mind as I stare at the blank terminal window.
Laptop acquisition–done. Basic setup–done. I’ve de-Chromed the computer completely. I’ve replaced the stock BIOS with John Lewis’s modified, free SeaBIOS. I’ve installed GalliumOS minus non-free components. The computer is slightly slower than it was under Chrome — it takes about thirteen seconds to boot — but I accept that. It’s still far faster than my desktop, yet has only 1/8th of the RAM.
This is Ground Zero. Phase Three begins: applications.
Applications. That’s what people really are interested in when they think about their computers. Sure, people often claim that they’re Windows or Mac people, whatever those are. But operating systems aren’t where people do their work. It’s the application level that matters. True, the operating system is really just a kind of big application, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the applications people use to do their work and spend their leisure. InDesign. Excel. Chrome. Final Cut Studio.
All of these applications are proprietary. And they create a proprietary world around their users. I want a free world.
If I were to rely completely upon this computer for security matters, I might wipe the entire drive and run the OS completely from a USB card or stick. I’m not, however, completely worried about security. It’s a common pairing of ideas in the free software world–freedom and privacy–but I’m less concerned with privacy right now than I am with a particular kind of freedom. Namely, the freedom to do with my computer what I want to do with my computer.
To that end I’ve had to draw a particular line: for me, and for the project, freedom begins after bootstrap. I’m insisting on Free Software. I’m not insisting on Free Firmware. There is an excellent argument to be made why firmware should also be free, and microcode, too, at the processor level. At present, however, those are too complex and esoteric and beyond the scope of this particular computer, and this project.
GalliumOS comes with a bunch of free software. I’ve removed it all to start from scratch. I need an office suite of some sort, an image editor, a video and audio player, an RSS reader/aggregator, and an internet browser. I decided on LibreOffice easily. I’ve been using it for years and they’ve always given me good support. VLC for video and audio was also a no-brainer. There are plenty of RSS readers but the only one that remotely appealed to me was Liferea. Others are either ugly, awkward, or unmaintained for years — or all three. I have a slightly different problem choosing an image editor.
The big stick image editor on the GNU/Linux platform is the GIMP. It’s the free software equivalent of Photoshop. But on a laptop that is meant to be fast, light and portable I have about as much need for the GIMP as a carpenter does for a spike maul. I decided to go with either ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick. Aesthetically I prefer GraphicsMagick, but I have decided to go with ImageMagick because it has an installer.
Ah yes, the installer problem. On Windows and OS X computers most software comes either as a fully packaged application or with an installer that loads the necessary files and creates the application on the computer.
This is rarely the case with a GNU/Linux machine. There are generally two ways to install free software on one’s GNU/Linux machine. The first and easiest involves using a package manager. This can be quite simple. On my laptop I can open up Synaptic Package Manager, search for the program, click the mouse three times and poof! Installed. It can be more difficult, such as having to pore through various repositories to find the badly-named program package, and figuring out the difference between an .rpm file and a .deb file but it’s still not a real brain-teaser, even for a newbie.
The second way of installing free software on a machine is by far the most tedious: compiling from source. Compiling source code is, I think, probably the single biggest reason why more people do not bother with GNU/Linux machines. To a layperson who does not make a living staring at lines of code, compiling from source is about as comprehensible as the workings of the Antikythera mechanism. In his article “6 Reasons to Install Linux Today“, John Morris notes the following:
Windows and OS X cover up all the ugly operations and gritty details that go into making a computer work. The amount of knowledge required to do tasks is remarkably small. These operating systems just kind of work and do all the hard stuff for you.
Linux doesn’t shelter you from anything. It encourages, if not requires, you to understand how the computer works, how the operating system works, and how to best carry out a task. Mastering Linux teaches you a lot and makes you a better, smarter computer user.
Mr. Morris promotes this as a reason to try GNU/Linux. For most people this would be a reason never to try GNU/Linux. Most users have zero interest in understanding how a computer works, much less how an operating system does. They just want to run their applications and be done with it. But in the GNU/Linux world the base assumption is that one is already a programmer/developer otherwise one wouldn’t be mucking about with GNU/Linux in the first place.
Forcing users to compile programs exemplifies this prejudice in action. Sure, I understand the magic incantation:
./configure make make install
but why should I have to? On other operating systems I click a mouse button a couple of times, read some bogus EULA verbiage and voilà!
Compiling my own software means being a developer. With only 16GB of hard drive space, the Acer is not sufficient for being a development computer, and building programs from source code is not gonna happen. So I have chosen to restrict myself to a package manager to install free software. That premise–that I am not a developer–will indeed be how I restrict my computer experiment generally.
All right, here we go. Using Synaptic Package Manager I’ve added what I think is my minimal working software:
- Icecat (free software version of Firefox)
- Atom Text Editor
(because I realized I need to edit PHP)
I considered adding Calligra so I can use Braindump, but I don’t need another office-like suite of applications. I also considered adding HexChat since a lot of free software folks use IRC (yes, it still exists), but I have declined for now. If I need support later, that’ll be my choice.
There you have it. Six applications and a few utilities. This is definitely traveling light, which was the entire point. Using Synaptic to install the packages was relatively painless, although for some bizarre reason the version of IceCat in the repository is massively outdated. I’ll probably have to download it directly from the GNU server.
Phase four complete. My free laptop is now ready for daily use.
Even at this point it is clear to me that the price one pays for freedom is heightened responsibility and increased labor. It’s not that nothing works “out of the box”–some things do. It’s that decisions have to be made about things most electronics consumers never decide for themselves. And those decisions have to be made on a level most consumers never even imagine exists. Most of them buy a Windows box, or a Mac thingy, or a Chromebook, and simultaneously buy a world and a worldview: the corporate promise of a “walled garden,” where no one has to be truly responsible because someone else does everything. Buy a Mac, inherit the Mac worldview: a computer that “just works” with a pretty look to it, and a sharp design, but also virtually indistinguishable from all other Macs. Buy a Dosbox for Windows and get their worldview: everything is custom-made for you, everything is possible, because it is a “serious” machine with infinite dimensions of customization, etc. Neither of those is as comprehensive as its adherents think: Mac OS X is extremely serious, if one can be bothered to open the Terminal; a Windows box will “just work” if one stays neatly within the manufacturers’ expectations of one’s boundaries.
And GNU/Linux tells its own story of the world, too. There are those who are attracted to it because it is open source and “free.” But there are those for whom the “freedom” of it all is not the main attraction at all: they are more properly concerned with the power of Unix, its extensive history, its power to do almost anything a human being would ask. They accept as normal and desirable an even higher level of user tinkering than Windows, because that is why they have the machine in the first place–to tinker. That it’s open source or free is merely a bonus. Windows machine owners think they can design exactly the machine they want for their specific task: exactly the sound card, exactly the speakers, exactly the monitor, exactly the connectivity they want–without having to be programmers. But compared to the flexibility of GNU/Linux, it’s a joke.
I don’t buy into any of those particular stories. I want a machine that is free because I believe in freedom, but I also want it to work right out of the box with an elegant GUI and flexible options for hardware and software both, and I also want the right and the power–even if I rarely exercise it–to tinker with whatever I feel like on the computer.
Right now, to continue my exploration of the world, this laptop will do. Let’s see where it can take me.
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Mostly found in Thar
The Cholistan Desert also locally known as Rohi sprawls thirty kilometers from Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan and covers an area of 26,300 square kilometres (10,200 sq mi). It adjoins the Thar Desert, extending over to Sindh and into India.
The word Cholistan is derived from the Turkic word chol, which means "desert". Cholistan thus means Land of the Desert. The people of Cholistan lead a semi-nomadic life, moving from one place to another in search of water and fodder for their animals. The dry bed of the Hakra River runs through the area, along which many settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization have been found.
The desert also has an annual Jeep rally, known as Cholistan Desert Jeep Rally. It is the biggest motor sports event in Pakistan.
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India: Tough Talk And The Bali Trade Facilitation Agreement
August 1, 2014 - Bali
Last week India’s tip trade negotiators told a World Trade Organization (WTO) that India would not support the package of trade facilitation measures that had been concluded to final Dec during a Bali ministerial. Because adoption of these measures contingency be finished by accord among WTO members by Jul 31, India’s rejecting of a agreement now stands to describe indecisive a whole trade facilitation effort. New Delhi’s position not usually puts adult a roadblock on tellurian trade, though will effectively hindrance any efforts to prognosticate a incomparable aspiration for a U.S.-India mercantile relationship—which badly needs one—by signaling that India during benefaction does not wish to mount with a tellurian giveaway and open trade system.
Since a long-running Doha Round of tellurian trade traffic has achieved rather little—recall the collapse of talks during Jul 2008—the Bali agreement had been heralded as an critical benchmark to reaffirm that tellurian trade talks can still get something done. The Bali ministerial itself went down to a handle in Dec 2013, and afterwards opposite it, with a WTO’s new Brazilian director-general Roberto Azevêdo working overtime to promote a concede excusable to all members.
India’s then-minister of commerce and industry, Anand Sharma (C), congratulates a director-general of a World Trade Organization (WTO), Roberto Azevedo (2nd R), after a shutting rite of a ninth WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali on Dec 7, 2013 (Edgar Su/Courtesy: Reuters).
The outlines of a concede concerned securing a 2014 agreement on ways to ease trade around a world (such as etiquette facilitation, allege notification, etc.), joined with a coexisting joining to tackle troublesome issues of food security (stockpiling and subsidies) by 2017. Countries whose stream stockpiles surpass WTO discipline would get a postpone until 2017.
It’s critical to remember, generally in light of this week’s trade facilitation crisis, that India was inaugural among a discontented countries in a run-up to a Bali ministerial, and it was Azevêdo’s excellent work in Dec that achieved an agreement—to that India concurred. Press reports from early Dec 2013 all acknowledge India’s food confidence concerns as a primary jump that Azevêdo managed to clear. This title from the Hindu sums adult a Indian media take during a time: “India’s Stand Prevails in Bali” (December 7, 2013).
That’s since a Government of India’s sudden U-turn on a package it brokered has definitely astonished a world. What’s more, not a few Indian media reports have suggested that New Delhi’s eagerness to abstain a trade facilitation agreement in sequence to pull for faster swell on food confidence is a feat for India “against a West.” This is not true; such an interpretation relies on an aged opposition, severely misrepresenting a case. This is not India opposite a West though opposite itself and a world, subsidy divided from a terms of a understanding it participated in conceptualizing as recently as December.
The evidence done by India in Geneva is that sufficient courtesy to food confidence matters has not occurred in a 7 months given December, therefore India can't in good faith adopt a trade facilitation package. Since a timeline for food confidence negotiations was categorically set for a duration after 2014, it is really formidable to know a basement for such a clever conflict on miss of swell after 7 months.
Meanwhile, behind on a shared front—what we watch many closely—it’s no tip that Washington and New Delhi strike a severe patch on trade and economics over a final integrate of years. One effect of a turmoil has been difficulty, during slightest in Washington, to prognosticate a incomparable and some-more desirous mercantile bulletin with India. For example, India is not partial of a path-breaking Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiation—our many poignant bid in a rebalance to Asia—nor do there seem to be any pathways to get India within a TPP’s ambit any time soon.
Nor has a United States committed to ancillary Indian membership in a Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), a premier nonbinding Asia-Pacific organisation compelling giveaway and open trade. At a finish of June, we argued that Washington should pierce with dispatch to work with India on APEC membership. But India’s pierce to disentangle from a trade facilitation agreement will endorse a faith of many that India is simply not prepared for incomparable trade-expanding agreements. Until this week, it was always probable to disagree that India upholds a multilateral obligations it commits to; by subsequent week, however, it might stop to be a matter of fact.
There is a trail out of this mess, and that is for WTO members, maybe by Azevêdo’s good offices, to reaffirm their joining to examining a food confidence issues India has been lifting within a 2017 timeline concluded to in December. With that categorically renewed assurance, India could afterwards pierce to adopt a Bali package assured that a questions it wants addressed will be. That would concede a hard-won trade facilitation agreement to come into force as negotiated, and would safety tellurian courtesy to food confidence as designed.
India’s supporters in Washington are anticipating for a solution, since but one, it’s going to be a prolonged time out on a econ front.
Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa
This essay creatively seemed on a Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia Unbound blog and can be found here.
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SILENCING THE HARD DISK
I used an old 3.5" IBM 20GB hard disk that had a reasonably low 6.5W power consumption, but an unreasonable sound level.
To silence the rather noisy hard-disk, I suspended it with foam rubber mounts inside a die-cast box (170mm x 115mm x 55mm) and sealed the lid with a 1mm diameter drive belt from an old VCR. The result was quite astonishing. The high frequency whine that the disk made became inaudible. The HDD case is itself rubber mounted to the chassis to remove most of the lower frequency vibration. Each of the four mounts for the HDD case consists of two 8mm M3 threaded spacers super-glued into a short length of 8mm diameter rubber tube.
HDD enclosed, gel-packed and suspended.
A 1mm diameter drive belt from an old VCR
used as the gasket seal for the HDD box.
Unfortunately the IBM HDD did not have the on-board temperature monitoring of some newer drives, so I could not monitor the temperature while from the desktop but, measurements with a thermocouple on the drive in its case showed it running at 35°C above ambient (52°C) too hot for comfort and too close to the manufacturers 55°C maximum.
I decided to try to reduce the HDD temperature by improving the thermal coupling between the HDD and its case. In order to avoid any mechanical coupling I decided to use a gel pack. Initially I looked at medical gel packs which are well made and sealed, unfortunately one I had was too large and I couldn't find one advertised that was small enough to fit in the box with the drive, so I thought I'd try to make my own.
With a quick search on the web I found that water based gels are usually made with methyl cellulose and that this is found in many applications that need to absorb water, like disposable nappies (diapers) and, most usefully, wallpaper adhesive. I used a small zip-top bag, part filled with wallpaper paste mixed to the consistency of runny porridge, to fill the gap between the drive electronics and the lid of the die-cast box. The result was a 10ºC drop in temperature without any additional noise.
Original gel pack to help transfer HDD heat to the casing.
After a couple of months of use, I found that the foam rubber (actually polyurethane) had squashed down under the weight of the drive and, consequently, the drive had started to produce an audible hum. So, I took the opportunity to experiment further with the gel pack idea. I replaced the foam blocks, spacing the top of the drive away from the box, with a larger home made gel pack. After testing it for a couple of hours with some hard disk thrashing, the temperature of the drive reached 37ºC (about 15ºC above ambient). The drive was still pretty quiet (only the faint head seek clicks were audible in the workshop), but the large gel pack had coupled some of the drive noise to the HDD case.
V2: Larger gel pack.
Nine months later, I acquired a replacement for the original IBM drive, a much quieter 40GB Seagate ST-340810, and replaced the foam suspension with a rubber-based foam, used for sealing doubled-windows. The machine was then incredibly quiet; even the drive seek clicks were inaudible in normal use.
Version 3: A new quieter drive.
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By Jason Koestenblatt
Long Valley, New Jersey – By the way he acted, one would think Chico hadn’t seen his best friend in nearly a year.
His tail wagged hard enough to shake a body made of muscle and he couldn’t even muster a bark from his level excitement. For the first time since April 2013, Chico, an 18-month-old Pit Bull, could jump on his best friend David De Los Santos.
Lance Corporal De Los Santos has spent the last four and-a-half years in the United States Marine Corps, and spent seven months on a tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2013. He’s been on duty at his base since December.
Before being deployed last year, De Los Santos found himself a new friend, a puppy Pit Bull he named Chico. When the Marine learned he was going to be gone for close to a year, he knew Chico needed a home to stay in.
That’s when Dogs on Deployment came in, a non-profit organization that matches dogs and other domesticated pets owned by military personnel with foster homes while service members are away.
“It’s kind of like computer dating,” said Donna Muccione, whose family stepped up to help De Los Santos find a home for Chico. “When we saw Chico we thought, ‘we can do him.’”
Long Valley residents of 14 years, the Mucciones consider themselves “savvy dog owners,” but learned quickly that a puppy Pit Bull was going to take some time – and energy – to keep under control.
The family – which has six children, a dog and a few cats – is always on the go. Three of the Muccione children still live at home, and everyone played a role in keeping Chico occupied.
“He’s really high energy,” Muccione said. “We’d have to take him out on walks and runs up to 10 miles per day.”
Muccione’s husband, Steve, had proof. After just two months, his new running sneakers lost all traction, with the soles wearing through.
“The pack leader,” as Donna Muccione called herself, said she received great support from the community when they learned about her fostering a dog. Local dog trainer Leslie Curtis came by on a few occasions to help show the Mucciones techniques and methods to teach Chico, and residents were quick to assist with a large dog cage for the growing puppy.
The Muccione household is no stranger to fostering, either. One weekend each month the family takes in a dog that belongs to a member of the Army reserves, and each summer hosts an inner-city teen as part of the Fresh-Air Fund.
Chico’s days as a Long Valley resident are over as he goes back to New York with De Los Santos, but he’ll be back to visit.
“We’ll come back in the summer to say hi,” De Los Santos said.
If reuniting with his four-legged best friend wasn’t enough, it was also the Marine’s birthday.
“I definitely missed him,” De Los Santos said with a smile.
The feelings were mutual. Chico’s tail hasn’t stopped wagging.
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No matter where we come from, the vast majority of our ancestors were hunter-gatherers: were wild. The sky was their ceiling, they lived amongst the mystery and perfection of wild nature, and they knew that as home.
We have been modern humans for only a tiny part of our history, and instinctively yearn for that wildness, like a tiger born in captivity might yearn for the forest without ever having seen it.
There is a way of being human that few of us get to experience, where we know peace and flow as baseline, and we are in profound connection with our natural environment. Where we have a deep sense of purpose and belonging, and above all a powerful internal authority, guided by receptivity and intuition, that allows us to feel at home wherever we are.
We want to help you awaken this freedom; to awaken your Wild Heart.
Wildness is a movement into truth and away from dogma, gurus, and being ‘good’. To be in our wild hearts we must know ourselves, know how to move through our stuck places, have tools to process and express the many voices of being human.
Together we will explore this journey, and spend time in clearing a way, with practical, real world tools for embodying the power of the Wild Heart.
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The Words of Reverend Sun Myung Moon from 1983
Our Basic Attitude
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
March 13, 1983
Translator - Bo Hi Pak
Every country has a body of national law or a constitution from which all the laws of that country are derived. Every home or family also has some central policy which is set up by the parents, the central persons, and the rest of the family follows that policy. We find that there are basic principles everywhere, including the animal world, the mineral world, and the plant world. All these have governing laws which are invisible yet central to them.
The entire universe with its great numbers of heavenly bodies is also governed by one central natural law. Our own physical bodies are maintained by certain fundamental laws. For example, the five senses must gather certain types of information and impart direction to the rest of the body. There are certain common means by which most animals take food into their bodies.
The world can be seen as one global unit with certain basic laws or policies which need to be followed. The entire religious community needs to follow certain basic laws as well. We can expand the same principle to the spirit world, which exists and is governed by certain laws which must be followed by all of the inhabitants there.
Without exception, everything that exists and maintains life must follow certain principles or laws. All action is permeated by law. When we examine all of the existences of the universe and their actions, we can conclude that all of those existences are composed of the subject and object relationship. Through the give and take interaction of subject and object, the power and energy is derived to exist, multiply and engage in all activity.
One of the greatest discoveries of the Unification Church is the universal law of dual essentialities. Are these dual essentialities simply static or do they continually move forward and interact? They move forward. How and why do plus and minus move? Do they interact in order to lose themselves or to benefit themselves? If any interaction occurred for the basic purpose of losing something, then the entire universe would eventually become diminished by give and take action. Large give and take action would become smaller and smaller. But on the contrary, the smallest plus and minus, when they are in motion for the sake of mutual benefit, multiply and grow until they become much bigger.
Someone might wonder how it could be that every entity is supposed to benefit by give and take action and nobody is the loser. Some people think that if someone makes money then somebody else must be losing that money. What do you think? The entire cosmos is very flexible-it moves out and goes in, expanding and contracting like breathing. When you breathe in, you gain air inside of yourself; when you exhale, you lose that air. But by the overall action of inhaling and exhaling, you gain the total benefit of maintaining your life. That is a wavelike action; there is a certain climax and then the wave curves downward. That action is in every existence.
This curve exists in human life as well. From childhood we grow towards adulthood; eventually we reach our peak and then start to decline in physical strength and energy. When a human being is climbing upwards in his life there is another factor which is going down at that time, creating balance. While going up on the curve you create a space for something else to go down. Humans exist in the dual dimensions of physical world and spiritual world. Generally speaking, when one is young and energetic, the physical dimension of his life is usually his primary interest, while his spiritual aspect is rather neglected.
Think of yourself. Before you joined the Unification Church, many of you thought, "Who needs religion? That's for old people; we young people don't need it." When you are young and energetic, the physical part of life usually takes the initiative and the spiritual part tends to follow that. When you get older, however, the spiritual side takes the initiative and the physical side follows it.
In all of existence there is a certain shrinking and expanding within every system. In the Unification Church, we want to reverse the trend of the rest of the world. Therefore, while we are young we are placing our emphasis upon spiritual pursuits. We try to subdue our physical self so that it will follow our spiritual self. With this kind of attitude, we keep the spiritual aspect on top all the time. It continues to rise and maintain its subjectivity over the rest of ourselves, without declining or diminishing.
When plus and minus are equal, they offset each other and the result is neutral, or zero. Thus when the spiritual aspect is emphasized in old age and the physical aspect in youth, the result becomes zero. But when you change your focus and become spiritually strong when you are young, that plus on the spiritual side will always remain and will become your eternal asset. The total never declines to zero; it is something you earned. It is your property, or equity, which cannot be taken away by anyone.
That equity belongs first to you, but then it also belongs to the universe. The entire universe has been that much enriched because of your work. There are many people who live and die and whose plus and minus contributions balance each other out so that they have a zero result at the end of their lives. After those people are gone for a while, nobody remembers. However, there are some people who go beyond that normal pattern of life and sacrifice their youth for the sake of humanity; those people earn for the universe a shining store of equity which remains after they are gone.
The natural law for electricity works the same way. Electricity moves in waves but it builds up a certain "equity" in the form of positivity; otherwise, it would only cause a blinking effect. Thus light illustrates the natural law that works within our lives. We have two choices within our lives: first, you can follow the natural flow of things, going up and then going down, and then coming out at the end with a zero. That might be called the "normal" way of living. But the second way is by exercising one's will and exerting a certain amount of energy while one is young, thereby creating an equity which can be left behind when one leaves this earth.
There are all kinds of waves-short, medium and long ones. Which kind of wave would you like to create within your own life? You would naturally want to have a long and tremendously high wave. In that way, you cover a tremendous amount of territory and claim it as your own.
We have established that all the give and take action within the universe is for the sake of overall benefit. What is the law by which that give and take begins? When you have reached the maximum height of a wave, you must then go down because there is no higher place to reach. Once you hit the bottom, you cannot go any lower so you have to go up. This is why religious people start out from the very bottom, especially the Unification Church! Reverend Moon is not a dumb person so why has he brought everyone down to the bottom line? It is because when you start at the lowest possible place, you will create a certain momentum as you go up. You can go up in proportion to the depth from which you began. Therefore your wave becomes truly gigantic if you started from the very bottom. The Unification Church started out from the very bottom with a goal which is beyond the family, beyond the nation, even beyond the world. How high are we aiming?
Some people may think, "Why can't we be enjoying the highest possible Heaven?" but if you were at that place now, your destiny would be to go down lower. That is why the highest possible spirit world is coming down to the earth and the earth is moving up toward Heaven. When the Unification Church positions ourselves in the lowest possible place, the highest possible place in spirit world has to come down to us. Extremes come together-the lowest with the highest. Thus the greatness of the Unification Church is that we are starting from the very bottom in the lowest possible positions, and are aiming to the highest possible place. We must have the will and determination to cover the incredible distance in between; with that we can create the momentum with which we can reach the goal.
Every time we try to move upward, we must meet with a certain amount of pressure trying to push us down. We call that pressure persecution. From this point of view we can understand why persecution is not really a bad thing for us. If you are trying to move yourself upward and are always encountering some opposing force, you build up greater momentum and strength. When there is an area of low pressure in nature, an area of high pressure will try to push it down. Once it is pushed down, it has to start to climb, and that makes the motion of a wave. The high pressure area pushes the low pressure area down and then when it reaches the lowest point, it rises up on the strength of the momentum created.
When the Unification Church is welcomed by everyone in society, we will have reached the highest position. Thus we will have the destiny of going down again. As soon as the top is reached, destiny pushes you down. Exactly what is it that pushes you down? It is all the positivity which you have accumulated. In other words, within the Unification Church itself we generate the energy to push ourselves down. Before nature does it, a wise group will do it for themselves-Reverend Moon will push you down and humble you, once you have succeeded and won great fame.
The Unification Church is always living in this way. Whenever someone gains a lot of prestige and people are saying, "He must be a wonderful person. He has done great things for the church," I come along and criticize that person-even in public-and in that way I push him down. That is the way I apply the universal law in my way of leadership. Therefore the person whom I push down should not think, "Father doesn't understand me. I have worked so hard and he doesn't show any appreciation!" I am following the universal law.
For example, you seminary students and Ph.D. candidates might think, "I should be a leader now that I have gotten my degree. I shouldn't have to do menial work." But I will be kicking them down even further, to the bottom of the pit. My plan, and this is no secret, is to push those members down to do the most difficult possible missions. Therefore, they start out from Ocean Church or CARP; then they might become state leaders and then missionaries. You seminarians might think now that you have climbed up the hill you can stay there, but that is not the case!
Because I want to make the church leaders even greater, I will push them down. It is almost like driving a nail with a sledgehammer. Some nails bend and resist going down into the wood, but the best nails just take the blow and penetrate the wood without hesitation. In that way they can be driven completely down into the wood. Do you think the principle I am teaching this morning is just something "interesting" or is it true?
When the Unification Church becomes accepted and praised by the whole world and Reverend Moon is appreciated, I will be the one who will push all of the members of the Unification Church down. If I just push you down but I continue to stay in the upper position, then the universe will reject me and kick me out. Therefore, I must follow the law and go down, too. Anyone who wants to remain always in the highest position is a person who becomes recorded in history as a dictator or a tyrant.
This is our policy and our basic attitude. With this basic attitude, no matter how great the amount of persecution, we will move upward and make progress; we will have no way to fail. This is because we are traveling parallel with universal law; therefore everything within the universe is pushing us and assisting us.
Should we start out from a lofty position or a low one? We should begin from the lowest place, but should we stay there? No, our goal is to reach the highest place. In the Unification Church we start on the individual level and move up to the family level, the national level, the worldwide level, the universal level, and all the way up to the cosmic level.
The usual cycle of human life is for an individual to spend his youth having "fun"-eating, drinking, playing. However, when such an individual gets older, he is bound to suffer because of universal law. Therefore if a person is strongly motivated when he is young and strives for a certain goal with tremendous effort, that person will have a prosperous future.
Reverend Moon is a good example of this. When I was young I was totally motivated for one thing; I gave up everything for that goal. I went to prison and endured torture but by doing so I have been able to reach the worldwide level of the dispensation. My life has been like a wavy curve-certainly there have been ups and downs, but the overall motion has been upward. There has been tremendous persecution against me throughout my life but I have used that persecution as the extra energy to kick myself up higher and higher. By maintaining that upward curve eventually it will reach up to God.
The person who is centered upon himself will not be able to create an upward curve. If he faces persecution he will not be able to use the energy to go upward but will be shaken and weakened by one incident of strong persecution. When you are heading all the way up toward God you have to expect anything bad to happen to you. The key is to make one simple determination-no matter what happens to you, even if your ears and nose are cut off, you must push yourself upward. Reverend Moon started in the lowest possible position but he made up his mind: no matter what came to me, even death, nothing would stop me from making my journey to God.
If my life goes according to a certain curve, then all the Moonies are following the same direction because they are going parallel with me. Perhaps my curve is higher and deeper than yours but at least yours maintains the same direction and looks like mine.
There are many waves on the ocean. Why is it not smooth and still? It is because air moves in waves, influencing the water to do the same. The motion of air is to push and then retreat, push and retreat.
We have discussed the universal law but now we have to come to our own individual situation. Where are you going to begin? Will it be from a spiritual standpoint or a physical one? Will it be from a high place or a low one? Nobody else can make that determination for you-only you can do it. I have been teaching you the basic principles but it is up to you to fulfill them.
Do you think I have received a great deal of persecution here in the United States? There are many reasons why I have been persecuted. For example, I engaged and blessed many of you in marriage but the church rules require that you stay separated for three and a half years. How could anybody in his right mind expect such a thing here in the United States? In this nation of free sex and absolute self-indulgence, I am imposing such an impossible rule! But no matter who opposes us, I shall continue to teach this rule because it is not my rule, it is the universal rule. In order to maintain universal existence and action, the universal law must be observed. Do you think my mind is crazy or clever? If you want to be clever, then you want to follow my way, is that true? Then I will push you out, even if you don't want to go.
In the secular viewpoint you are going the worst way but from the Heavenly point of view, it is the best. In order for a nation to prosper, a tradition must be built by its young people of giving themselves for the sake of their nation, without complaint. If that particular tradition is established, there is no doubt that such a nation will prosper.
This is the way Reverend Moon thinks and this is why Reverend Moon is different from ordinary people. When you teach others the Divine Principle you speak of the dual essentialities of God, but you are often just saying the words. Actually, in order to reach that understanding I had to start at the very bottom and climb all the way to the highest levels of the universe. How high has Reverend Moon come? Let's say there is a horizontal line which would represent the zero level. He started at the lowest possible position, below the line and has come up higher and higher, above the line.
Often when someone first hears about Reverend Moon he thinks I am a terrible person. Later he might even start to feel fear when he learns about all the accomplishments Reverend Moon has made. But sooner or later that person will see all the reasons why great credit should be given to Reverend Moon. No matter what, in our world today there is only one person who is on an irrevocable, head-on collision course with world communism. When there is a big clash between communism and Reverend Moon. Who will be shattered? If two identical moving objects hit each other, the one moving faster will shatter the other. Therefore since Reverend Moon is moving like lightning, when the time comes for confrontation I will have no hesitation at all. I plunge forward at the right moment with no thought about myself.
On March 1, the entire movement was mobilized. Should that mobilization be lightning-fast or slow? When you are moving very fast toward your goal, do you have a lot of time for looking around? Let's say you were driving a race car several hundred miles an hour in the Indianapolis 500. Would you have the leisure to look around and see what other people were doing? Certainly not. You would have to be focused on your own goal and nothing else.
You should propel yourself forward and pierce the goal like a spear, with no hesitation. When you look from the point of view of universal law, are Reverend Moon's tactics right or wrong? I want you to understand the principle by which I am leading the Unification Church movement. Sometimes I will skip breakfast and go out at four or five o'clock in the morning, bringing other people with me. If this were accomplishing a downward effect and self-destruction, it would be wrong but because it is for the sake of moving upward, it is correct. Whatever the hardship you may suffer, if it is for the sake of going up, it is the right thing to do.
Anyone who complains against this principle must eventually decline. Ultimately his destination will have to be the depths of hell where darkness reigns. Those who have given their hearts to the Unification Church yet later leave and try to give their hearts to something else will always end up in misery. That is only logical, given the principle. This is why the Unification Church is a dangerous place, in a way. It is the place of showdown where there can be no halfway commitment or mediocrity. Either you make it or you don't.
Some of you might have been thinking, "I just don't understand why Father always does such strange things," but now you can see the policy and formula I am applying. A good example of the way I treat some of the leaders was with the late President Eu of the Korean church. He was the true pioneer of our movement and a number-one disciple, but I still criticized him all the time in public, humbling him constantly. Mr. Eu was very close to me yet he was also fearful-every time before he walked into the room where I was, he would hesitate and think, "I know I will be criticized again," but he would get up his courage and then say, "OK, I am ready," and then enter the room. That was his habit.
Why was I so hard on Mr. Eu? It is because Mr. Eu was in the highest position as a leader of the church and I didn't want him ever to become arrogant. I pushed him down and he became an example to all the other members. I could teach many lessons to other people through him. By pushing Mr. Eu down so far, I was creating for him a great area in which he could rise upward. Therefore he had tremendous territory in which he could maneuver.
The best school teacher is the most stern and demanding one. When a teacher demands quality and good work from his pupils, he is helping them. The student who follows his direction most faithfully will end up as the chief disciple of that teacher. This is the principle. Am I a fearful teacher to you? Yes, you have some fear of me but at the same time you feel love for me. As long as your loving feeling is a little bit bigger than the portion of your fear, then you are OK. If we are truly united as teacher and pupil, then I would be able to go to your home and freely inspect your bookshelves and check out everything. You would feel comfortable and have no complaint, but at the same time you would feel free to come to my home and do the same thing. In other words, my world is yours and your world is mine. Within the formula of love there is total freedom.
That is the way I want to make my relationship with God. God is a loving God, but at the same time I feel fear of Him because He has been so demanding of me. But I know that God loves me and therefore my loving portion toward Him is a little bit bigger than my fear of Him. But God is truly a cruel taskmaster; all my life He has been giving me work and is still giving me more and more. He has never told me, "Take a rest now." He just keeps pushing me forward.
When God approaches a place it must open up to Him, even the gates of hell. There is no secret place- even hell must be open to His inspection. The principle is very simple but very profound in its implications.
Do you want to begin in the highest place or the lowest one? Do you want to start from the position of a first-class American citizen of the world, or do you want to go down to the position of the underdeveloped nations in Africa? No matter what the world says about me, I know the principles of the universe so I have absolute confidence. Even if I were pushed down into the dungeons of hell, it wouldn't make any difference or make me abandon the principle or change my formula.
What kind of husband do you women want? Do you like the kind of man who just listens to you and follows everything you say? Not necessarily. The husband should be stern sometimes, standing strong like a pillar. You may not always like him that way, but in the long run you will trust him better.
You American wives, if your husband wrote you a letter and said, "I have just been appointed commander of a mobile team. For the next ten years, I have the mission of going around the entire world. I will see you in ten years," what would you do? Would you accept that and even welcome it? Suppose your husband was out doing his mission and you were left at home to care for the children and raise the money for all your household expenses. If the money got low, would you write a letter to your husband saying, "My dear husband, please send us some money for groceries and school for the children!"? The great Moonie wives would say, "No, I will take care of the family completely."
My first wife was in this exact position. I was doing my mission, far away from her and our child, and she was in the position to say, "I will take this as my destiny and free you to do God's work." However, at that time she said, "No, I can't do it. I don't understand your mission and why you have left us alone." From that point, history changed. If my first wife had fulfilled her 5% portion of human responsibility, the Unification Church would have been doing much better and would not have received such persecution. I was younger then and the success would have come much faster; we would have been able to make an impact on the world and the world would have been in a totally different position today. Your parents could have joined the Unification Church instead of you, and you would all be here today as blessed children. The providence would have advanced several decades sooner.
Now you women are being given the same position. You should be thinking, "My husband is in the same position as Reverend Moon was." You must be ready to accept your destiny according to only one principle: for the sake of God. If I had wavered back in those days because of my family-level of persecution, today's Unification Church would not even exist. You may think you are the first ones to worry about your parents trying to kidnap and "deprogram" you, but actually the first target for "deprogramming" was Reverend Moon. My parents tried many times and in many ways to persuade me against pursuing my mission, telling me, "You are not doing a wise thing. Be a good son, get married and have your own home," but each time they tried to persuade me, they were the ones to be persuaded. They couldn't stand against my reasoning and determination. I told them, "You will see how Korea will change in the next 20 years. The whole world in the next 40 years, too, will change so much and you will find out that I have been correct."
In 1960 when I was 40, there were 40 more years until the year 2000. From the end of World War II in 1945 until 1985, will be 40 years. During this time the world has been changing drastically. Western civilization has been enjoying a golden age up till now. However can you feel that it is such a noble and lofty civilization any more? By the same token, you can size up the communist world and see that they are below the Unification world in power and breadth. This is not empty talk but this is reality.
March 1, 1983, was the date of our new marching order. When you add up the numbers 1, 9, 8, and 3, you get 21. The first day of March, the third month, equals four. These are all important numbers. Adam was supposed to fulfill the meaning of the number 21 and the number 4. Therefore on 3-1-1983, all the Japanese women were mobilized. What should the American women be doing, then? How do you American husbands feel about it? All the Japanese women are working hard on the front line, so do you feel like just enjoying your own home life with your American wives? What about you Korean women?
Should the American women follow the Japanese women or should they be the first to go out? Why didn't the American women go first, then? It is because I know America very well. If the American women had been mobilized first, I'm sure there would have been tremendous upheaval among you. You would have complained, "But Father, you blessed us and said we should live together and then immediately you tell us to go out!" Well, that is certainly dramatic! Do you want excitement? You have been living together very happily as husband and wife but then all of a sudden you get the direction to go out. You wives should turn to your husbands and say, "Well, I got the mobilization direction so bye-bye, see you later!"
You will never find anything like this in the secular world. It is very dramatic indeed. The husband waves his wife goodbye as she goes off to work for the mobilization and every day he thinks of her and wishes for her success; perhaps he waits for even ten years. Think of it; in a husband or wife in the secular world doesn't come home one night, the next morning the spouse will probably be packing to leave. However, even though Unification wives don't come home for ten years, their husbands are faithfully waiting and praying for them. Certainly such couples will be truly happy.
With such determination, there is nothing we cannot fulfill or accomplish. Everything I am doing is to fulfill God's will, so there is no way you can lose if you are following me. Amen?
If you are following this principle faithfully, then you will have no concern for whether or not others are understanding or praising you. The sun doesn't rise nor the earth turn because somebody praises them. They do what they do because it is their own, ultimate duty. We are like them. Everything in creation gives itself for a larger purpose. The mineral kingdom exists for the sake of the plant kingdom; plants exist for the sake of the animals; and the animal kingdom exists for men and women. Ultimately, men and women should be existing for the sake of God. That is the kind of circular motion which God intended.
God and mankind exist together in a plus and minus relationship. Should their give and take benefit both of them or should one of them be the loser? Certainly they should both benefit. The consummated relationship between God and man creates a circle, and something higher is gained-the fulfillment of true love. People can go right into the heart of God and God can penetrate the hearts of people. This is like the balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces-the force moving all the way into the center and the force moving from the center to the outer limits. These two forces exist in a balance of give and take.
Suppose there is a spinning top, turning in a certain direction. If we turn it upside down, the spinning doesn't change but the direction is the opposite now. People are like that-their spiritual dimension is turning in a certain direction and their physical dimension is turning the other way. Actually they are not turning in opposite directions, they are only upside down from each other. When the two are merged, they create a spiral motion.
Every form of give and take on the material level requires the expenditure of energy or fuel; that energy always decreases. However, when human beings engage in the give and take of love, material energy is depleted but there is an infinite increase of spiritual energy. The power of love alone can embrace the entire universe, going all the way up to God or all the way down to the bottom. Therefore the central power behind the motion of the universe is love.
Not only humans but also the other forms of life want to partake in the love of God. You may think that only humans feel they are the supreme creation of the universe, but actually every being feels he is the supreme creation! But universal value is determined by the amount of love which a creation can receive and reflect. God occupies the center of His creation by His love; thus every form of creation is connected with Him.
God's love moves into and out of the center of the universe in a spiral motion. When this is drawn on a graph it is represented as an up and down wave. It is absolutely true that human beings exist in dual dimensions. Universal law dictates that all existences must have a center. Since God is the center of the universe then God's true love is also the center of the universe.
Within God's true love is the desire to give and the desire to receive. If we had to divide everything into two parts, we could do it according to their subject/object parts. There is no exception to the rule of subject/object give and take, and the center of all that give and take is the love of God. God created the universe for the fulfillment of His love. Thus, He created everything in subject object relationships.
This is universal law. Therefore, the best possible way of life within this universe is to live for the sake of others. This is because we recognize our universal center, that universal plus. All of creation is in the position of universal minus; that universal minus is destined to unite with the universal plus. The best possible way for that to happen is for the individual to live for the sake of his family, the family to live for the sake of the society and nation, the nation for the sake of the world and the world for the universe.
Only humans can become the center of true love. No animals or other form of creation can take that position. Centering upon man, there are two worlds, the spiritual and the physical. Thus man must go up and down. The creation is pushing man upward because they recognize man's position as the supreme form of creation. It is natural to want to go up higher but people must only be elevated centering upon their true subject, God. People forget they are the object to God in many cases and thus they become arrogant. When people go up and meet with God and receive His love, then they go down. This is the way of motion-up and down, in spiral motion.
America is declining in the world today because America has been going against this principle. It has become selfish; instead of living for the sake of others, everyone is pursuing his own self-interests. Young people are labeled the "Me generation" because "Me" has become the center of everyone's interest. In such an atmosphere, when ten people are together there are ten battles and there is no harmony or unity. But when ten people are living for the sake of others, everyone benefits and an environment of harmony and unification is created. There is no other way to bring harmony.
You want to receive parental love, don't you? If you serve your parents, instead of standing back and demanding that they serve you, they will automatically feel loving toward you. Suppose there were a war and a man were drafted into the army. If his wife protested to the nation, saying, "Where are my human rights? Why did you take my husband away?" would that be a valid protest? No, because her husband had to step into a higher mission, a larger realm of living for the sake of others. For the survival of the nation, that man had to join the armed services and thus perform his act of love for his nation. When you serve for the sake of the nation, you are expressing patriotic love.
Thus this nation has the right to draft its own president into the armed services for the sake of the world. Then, God could draft the president of the world, if there were one. That would not be the end because when you reach the top of service, you bring God down into the world. As you go up and up, higher and higher, once you reach God you can come back down, bringing His love into the world. By the time you return here with God, the entire universe will have become yours. You will be "breathing" with the universe. Do you follow?
Everything is looking to unite with a higher being in order to step upward toward God. The lesser seeks to become a part of the greater, according to universal law. Life came into being because of love; therefore, for the sake of love you must be willing to sacrifice your life. That is a law of life. Do you want to receive love throughout your life? Then go ahead and give your love and you will receive love.
Which comes first, love or living for the sake of others? Living for the sake of others comes first. This is because of the dominion of principle between God and men; you are still living in the indirect dominion of God. You must tread the path of the indirect dominion on your own. As a small object, you must find larger and larger subjects with whom to unite; in that way you will grow. As the small object unites with a small subject and becomes one, together they create a slightly larger minus. They are protected by universal law as they dwell in harmony. As the minus continues to move forward, uniting with greater and greater pluses, it follows the universal law.
The basic law of the object position is to live for the sake of others. Thus you look for and unite with a plus or a subject. Therefore, during the growth period you must continue to apply this formula of uniting with greater and greater subjects and ultimately you will reach God. Do you know now why you must live for the sake of others? Each person must pass through the indirect dominion of God before he can reach union with God. Then true love permeates a person. In order to reach that true love, one must practice living for the sake of others. Nobody yet has been fulfilling this law to the fullest degree. We can make our settlement only after we become the recipients of the true love of God.
Therefore, I want you to understand that our Unification Church way of life is always looking for ways to serve the world and humanity. In order to understand Reverend Moon's credo and policies, one need only look at our mass weddings. That explains a lot. When white and black come together as husband and wife, they are bringing two extremes into unity. We bring together every extreme- east and west, north and south into marriage.
Within the Unification Church we seek to digest the things which the world hates to touch. Since division is caused by Satan, we are striving now to bring people into unity; Satan doesn't like that. We want to bring about the unity of world Christianity as well as the rest of the religions.
Suppose God threw all the religions of the world inside of a gigantic bed sheet and tied them up together. Underneath that big bundle, God would light a fire; all the impure, untrue things would be burned away and only the pure and true things would remain. When you melt gold over high heat, all the foreign elements are removed and only pure gold remains.
In the Unification Church, each of you is melted down into your purest elements and then cast into your ideal mold or form. You are being sculpted by God into a new form.
For winter to turn to fall, it must first go through spring and summer. That means winter has to melt and lose its cold, severe qualities. Likewise when nature turns from spring through summer to become autumn, it must move in an opposite direction, taking on opposite qualities. One is going up and the other is going down. The four seasons have to meet with their partners (spring/autumn; summer/winter) only by going down and then up; they are not linked side-by-side. Thus, in order for you Westerners to love the Eastern civilization, you must first love the Black civilization. There is always a curve to movement- either negative to positive, vertical to horizontal, etc. By this give and take, you gain your own "equity."
The Unification Church is trying to solve the most difficult problems of our world today, beginning with the problem of communism. Secondly, we are overcoming the divisions between religions, particularly Christianity. Thirdly, the degradation of morality in the world is a tremendous problem. Fourthly, the institution of the family is being shattered. The Unification Church is setting out to digest all these major problems. When you digest something you must have a healthy stomach, so the Unification Church has a stomach healthy enough to melt and digest these problems.
That is why we Unification Church members plunge into all the problems of the world. Look at the CARP movement-they face communists on college campuses and digest all their destructive activities. With the power of the principle we can melt all those weapons of Satan and totally disarm him. That is the formula of the Unification Church.
If a person plays the violin, he has to play certain notes-there are only a specific number of whole notes and half notes. These are written using five lines. If some violinist decided that he didn't like using five lines and decided to try to play music according to only two lines, he simply couldn't do it. The fundamental principle of music requires those five lines. All of the notes on the scale exist according to the laws of harmony; they are not subject to randomness. By the same token, the Unification Church has our own "five lines"-our own formula or form. The formula for the Unification Church is restoration through indemnity. In order to achieve our formula of restoration, we have the strong mandate to live for the sake of others.
Human responsibility and indemnity are the components of our formula. In this way of life, those who give their utmost for the sake of others and who suffer the most, become the mainstream of humanity.
In our universe the five basic components are the mineral world, the plant world, the animal world, the world of men, and then God. The journey of everything is toward love and love can be fully obtained only in the direct dominion of God. Therefore, in order to reach toward the direct dominion of God, each level serves one step higher. The lower forms of creation are absorbed by the higher levels, all the way up to man. Man serves God and receives His love, then he must go back and love the universe. In that way the love of God can simmer down all the way to the mineral kingdom.
Apart from this formula, there is no way you can achieve perfection. The more you serve for the sake of others, the greater your reward. Only by this principle will our universe become one. Do you agree?
Let us summarize what we have said today about our basic attitude. Why should you love yourself? It is because within your own body you have the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom. However, man is the only animal who walks vertically; likewise, man alone is linked to the spiritual world. Since all the rest of creation exists only on the horizontal level, eternal life is enjoyed by human beings alone and not any other animals.
People should not become like animals, looking toward only their physical satisfaction, but many people in Western civilization primarily follow their animal instincts for food and sex. Animals will fight for one thing especially - sex. Many times humans do the same thing; men have killed each other for the sake of a woman. But a true man will not act like an animal. Any man who does that is saying, "For a woman, I can sacrifice my life or that of another." A man is not supposed to give his life for the sake of a woman; he is supposed to give his life only for something greater than himself, that is the God, given value of human beings. For that reason a true man of God will say, "I will not fight over a woman. You can go ahead and have her."
Some of you in the Unification Church may be looking at each other and comparing your spouses, saying, "I wish I could have been matched with that person." However, when I tell you, "I don't think that person is good for you. This person is the right one," you accept my advice. Why is that? It is because you value your sacred relationship with God more than the love of any man or woman. It is far greater.
It is good to love yourself because your body is the microcosm of the entire universe-mineral, plant, and animal kingdom, and you have within you the deity of God. Thus by loving yourself you are also loving the minerals, the plants, the animals and God. If you love yourself with this attitude, you will have no problem. The problem is that people do not love themselves with this attitude but rather with a selfish, egoistic concept. That is very different.
Selfish interests drive a person to hurt and even destroy others for the sake of himself and his own desires. Self-centered love is destructive love. Self-centered love can also cause physical sickness because your body knows when your love is not public and God-centered. However, when you love yourself because God loves you, your body will be able to enjoy freedom and true health.
Each person is a small universe. The entire cosmos is contained within God-that includes the spiritual and the physical worlds-centered upon love. Thus the microcosm of the relationship between God and the cosmos is contained within the family. The family is like one cell of God's world. With the family as the formation level, the country is the growth level and the world is the completion level. Looking at it differently, with the nation as the formation level, the world is the growth level and the spirit world is the completion level.
God is like one human body with the cells of the family, society, nation and world. God created humans in His direct image and He created everything else in His symbolic image. Everything interrelates with everything else, centering upon love.
Man, woman, and children make up the family unit. Their love must expand to a larger level-the social level, the national level, the world, and finally to the cosmos level. In this way, you can encompass the entire creation and bring it all into the dominion of God. Thus love, centering upon the unit of the family, becomes the center of the cosmos. The same love is at the center of everything. Once you have fulfilled this formula here on earth you will go to spirit world and be automatically accepted as the center. What you sow here on earth you will reap in the next world; whatever you create here, you will receive the result of there. Thus the right job must be done here.
Many people say they are contented with their family and don't feel the need to go higher up to the society, nation, and world level. But unless they do that, they will be limited within a small area in spirit world and will not be able to enjoy the total freedom of the cosmos. Therefore everything we do in the Unification Church links us to the world level. You do not work just for the sake of your own family but for the world. The principle here is the same there-the individual exists for the sake of the family; the family exists for the sake of the society; the society for the nation; the nation for the world; and the world for the cosmos. Therefore, it is our destiny to complete the journey. We must go all the way to the highest level; then we can turn and come back.
Perhaps someone is thinking, "This is too hard. I just want to die now and escape going through this." However even though you die, you will still have to fulfill this formula. If you do not do it here, you will have to do it in spirit world and it is a million times more difficult there. Think about it. If you die without completing your journey, you will have to come back to earth and work through someone else's actions. Do you think that is an easy thing to do? Not at all. Even your own body doesn't listen to you too obediently now, so think about trying to inspire "John Doe's" actions!
The Unification Church way of life is derived directly out of this principle-love yourself for the sake of the universe; love your mate and your children for the same purpose. Therefore, since the largest value comes first, you are loving God and the universe more than yourself, your spouse, or your children. The problem is that most people want to stop with loving themselves and their families. Nobody really wants to put the universe and God first; but this is the way of life of the Unification Church.
If your love is centered upon yourself, you have nothing to do with the true love of God. Therefore, no matter how much of that love you engage in, you can build up no equity here on earth to take with you to spirit world. Everything you do should be done for the sake of God. It is all right to make money, as long as it is for the sake of God and the universe. When the universe comes truly alive, our families can be truly alive. When God can feel happy, we can feel happy. Thus when we offer everything we have to God, God will meet our needs. That is an automatic action. When you make yourself empty for the sake of God, He will fill you up. That is the universal law.
Consider my own life. Because I have always been centered upon loving God and humanity, I have not had much time to spend with my wife and children. My ideal goal is to consummate the love of God and humanity, and then return to the love of my own wife and children; thus my own life is the example of the formula.
This is not something which can be avoided. The husband must pave the way for his wife and children; the wife must pave the way for her husband and children. The children must think that they want to pave the way for their parents. When you truly dedicate yourself for the love of God, this all happens. The Bible says not to worry about what to eat or what to wear if you are a person of God. Jesus told his disciples, "If God clothes the lilies of the field so beautifully, will he not much more clothe you?" That is a beautiful, poetic expression of the truth. The important point which the Bible is teaching here is that one must seek after God's kingdom above all; once you have attained that kingdom, everything else will come to you. Prepare a "pasture" within yourself where God can come and enjoy a good nap. How wonderful it would be if God could feel such freedom within you. He would like to be able to dwell within you and reach out in every direction and feel no walls, just total freedom. That is what it means to be the temple of God. How precious you are, once you attain that status. That is why you must love yourself- because you were created to be the temple of God.
When I look upon myself, I must bow with respect to the fact that within myself is the temple of God. I am not my own property; I am God's property. That is truly the glorious life of a man and woman of God. Don't you want to give birth within yourselves to such men and women? Don't you want to have such children? There is only one way you can do it-become first the temple of God within yourselves.
There can be no separation or disconnection between you regardless of your different races because it is within God that you are united. This is the way we can understand Jesus' words in John 14: "I am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you." The Bible expresses profound truth but you need to know the principle for everything to be understandable.
You have a choice-do you want to be accused and persecuted Moonies or do you want to be gloriously comfortable secular people? What is your choice? If you truly choose the former, then God will say, "Hmm. I am proud of My Moonies,"-not Reverend Moon's Moonies, mind you, but God's own Moonies. God will say, "My Moonies," and the world will also say, "My Moonies," and the nation will say, "My Moonies," and you will say, "My Moonies." What would you swap for this? There is nothing else of such value in the entire universe.
When you men look at your wives, do not consider her as just your wife. Recognize that she represents the entire universe-the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, etc. Can you say, "My dear, I love you because I love the universe"? Each man represents the entire plus realm and your wife represents the entire minus realm-that is how you should think before you join together in love. Our love must be directly connected with God. Thus when the plus and minus of the universe come together in two persons, gigantic sparks are produced which brighten up the cosmos.
Suppose God is dozing somewhere. When you make the gigantic spark of true love, He will be electrified with your energy! He will just jump up and down and right into you and your spouse. It doesn't matter if you or your spouse has a Korean face, a Black face, or a White face. You each represent the entire half of the universe, regardless of what race you belong to. Out of your love children will be born who can be a delight to God, to humanity, to everything.
When you kiss your tiny newborn baby, God will be symbolically kissing him and so will the entire universe. Thus your love is the most sacred thing and you must be prepared when you express it. Lightning rods protect buildings because electricity always seeks out the closest available point. There must be the interaction of plus and minus for lightning to spark with a lightning rod. Likewise, a man needs a woman to create a spark, not another man.
People in the West shake hands with one another very readily-your hands can become numb after a while! In the Orient, people almost never shake hands. In fact they rarely touch, but when they do it is an electrical experience! When men and women are constantly touching each other, that is not so good. Isn't it much better to refrain from touching until the time of your spiritual completion? At that time, your physical contact can be so much more intense. Until you have accumulated a 100% store of electricity, you should reserve it, safeguarding yourself in total purity.
For this reason, the dating system here in the West is not a good one. It is far better for young men and women to preserve their love as they mature to 100% intensity, and then come together. As soon as they touch, the greatest spark of love will result. But most Western young people start dating very early, holding hands and kissing each other freely. Actually, young people who do these things cannot ever realize the true taste of love because they are wasting and dissipating it. They have some sensation of love-perhaps 30% intensity-but not the shining intensity of 100% purity.
Satan has been manipulating the dating system here for his advantage. When a young man is growing up, the most mysterious and sacred thing is the world of women, and vice-versa. But when that is abused, the mystery is destroyed. What remains? Men and women are trying to conduct themselves in animal-like love without any aspect of vertical love.
Suppose Mark here, instead of looking at his wife as the representative of the other half of the world, had the attitude, "Why did Father give me this short woman with a flat nose and slanted eyes? She doesn't even speak my language! Why didn't Father give me a tall, blue-eyed blonde?" If he came together with his wife and made love to her thinking in that fashion, that would be satanic. When you join together in love, you must be aware throughout yourself-in your body, your emotions, and your mind-of God and His glory. You must have the attitude of making love that will be respected by all of mankind. How wonderful that kind of love is!
You must realize that you were born to give love to your spouse, who represents the entire universe, just as you do. That is entirely different thinking from self-centered men and women who see each other only as their own husband or wife. You must unite together as husband and wife in order to complete the universe. That is a truly great attitude-to know that you are entering into your marriage for the sake of glorifying God and reflecting His entire image. Eliminate from your thinking any comparison, of your spouse on the basis of race or other externals. The principled way of life is the best.
When you go to spirit world, God immediately sees those people who lived for the sake of humanity and those who lived just for their own sake or their own kin. Which one will receive a welcome from God? Certainly, those who lived for humanity.
When you enter spirit world, you will discover that what I have been saying to you here at Belvedere is absolutely true. If you go there without having taken my words seriously, you won't be able to come back and do everything over again! You must do it right-here and now. You must come to that realization today, here on earth. During my entire life I have been untangling things here on earth; regardless of what persecution I receive, I cannot change my course. You have met the right teacher, haven't you? Now you must practice what you have been taught. Only by imitating your teacher can you become a great disciple.
Our basic standard is to love ourselves and each other from the universal standpoint and to expand that love to include the cosmos. If there had been no fall this would have been automatic, but because of the fall there is a great barrier to overcome. To overcome that barrier we must tread the road of indemnity. Understanding the law of indemnity can spur you to live that way of life, gladly pushing yourself to live for the sake of other. There are no denominations in our Unification Church because our mainstream is made up of those who live for the sake of humanity, who willingly go through the most hardship.
Any adult or child, man or woman living by this principle shall be welcomed universally-and when those people live together their world will be Heaven on earth. Can anyone object to that? The Kingdom of God will not be built by war and destruction, but by spreading the truth. In just a few hours this morning you have become new men and women; in the same way, the world will become new when this word is preached throughout the world. Imagine this message being televised by satellite; this world could be changed just as much as you are now. This is not too far in the future.
Even if I criticize you and push you, it is only for the sake of the largest goodness. By American standards it might not seem good; many Americans want time to think about everything and protest that they can't work so quickly.
You have to realize that you are new American citizens, not just ordinary men and women. Many people know how to love themselves and their families, but not how to link their love to the world and the universe. Now I have explained how to do all that.
You may not be perfect in everything but at least you can be right in your basic attitude. This attitude of love is what you will leave to your children when you die. This tradition will go down in your family from one generation to another. You can tell your children that this message is the most precious thing you can give them. Show them that they too must live this tradition and leave it for their children.
When you practice this truth the entire universe will open up to you; God and all of spirit world will rejoice with you. Even if we Moonies are misunderstood and persecuted now, it doesn't matter because we have the most precious way of life. The saints in spirit world didn't know this whole truth when they were on earth, but they accomplished to the best of their ability. Today we have greater truth and how proud we can be! When you live this truth you have nothing to be ashamed of before the greatest men and women of history; you can love God and mankind more intensely than anyone ever has.
Such a person is in the position of elder brother of love in the universe. You can proclaim that you made your settlement of true love on earth, that you perfected that love together with your husband or wife and children. That is truly something of significance. You can say to God and the spirit world, "Isn't that what you wanted to see accomplished on earth?" Everyone will say to you, "Amen." When you perfect that love, you will be praised by everyone in spirit world, and your life on earth will be glorified.
Today I am still walking that path. It is our unavoidable destiny. When you go out you hear laughter and secular music but you can feel that these things have nothing to do with you. Some day people will understand how wise it is to follow this path of love. Moonies should not be people who can be criticized for unrighteous deeds; we must not compromise ourselves with the ways of the world.
Can you pledge that you will go this road all the way to the final destination? God bless you.
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Table of Contents
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Talk:Army of the dead
I did a quick search in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and was unable to locate this specific phrase. Did J.R.R. Tolkien ever actually use it or did Peter Jackson coin it for his films?
- I searched my e-text of the LotR and couldn't find this phrase. They are called 'the Dead Men of Dunharrow', but not 'Army of the Dead', as far as I can tell. --Earendilyon 16:11, 4 March 2006 (EST)
- I'll have to go through The History of Middle-earth and see if it is mentioned in there, as well as Unfinished Tales. If I can't find anything then we should probably try to stick to using Dead Men of Dunharrow as opposed to Army of the Dead. --Hyarion 16:16, 4 March 2006 (EST)
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The Skunk Fire in Arizona started with a lightning strike on Saturday, April 19. Currently over 10,000 acres have been affected. It is located in the San Carlos Apache Reservation. The terrain in the area is very steep with boulders making it difficult for firefighters to traverse the area to fight the fire. The fire continues to grow to the north, but fire activity in the south has been stopped. The fire is currently 20% contained.
The National Weather Service is forecasting winds of 7-12 mph with gusting to 25 mph. These conditions coupled with extremely dry fuels and low relative humidity will most likely result in increased fire activity.
NASA's Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on May 15, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.
Explore further: NASA image: Fires in the Yucatan Peninsula in April 2014
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Week 4: Polish
In this week's class we will continue to build our games. We will introduce you to new Twine syntax, CSS, media, and other things that can be added to your text-based game to enhance the user experience. At the end of class we will have time for classmates to test and provide feedback for each game.
- Practice using Twine syntax to add multimedia and styles to your game.
- Complete your game.
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In this JSONPath tutorial we will cover JSON introduction and JSONPath introduction. JSONPath is a query language for JSON files which is very similar to XPath query language for XML.
JSONPath is used to search and extract property values from a JSON document.
In this JSONPath Tutorial we will learn about JSONPath Notation. JSONPath notation has two styles of notation, dot and bracket.
JSONPath uses the dot or bracket notation to represent nodes and their connections to adjacent nodes in JSON Document.
In this JSONPath tutorial we will learn about common JSONPath Operators.
We will look into very commonly used operators which are required to form the JSONPath query and extract the information from JSON document.
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Feather plucking is a very common behavioral disorder in domestic birds, and can be caused by many factors.
Feather plucking can frustrate and worry many bird owners. It is a major problem for birds, but is difficult to treat because of its many varied causes. The first thing you need to do is determine if your bird is really exhibiting feather plucking, and is not just grooming, preening, or molting. If your bird has patches of feathers missing, and seems to be plucking or chewing his feathers, this is abnormal and a cause for concern. Feather plucking can be a symptom of a more serious disease or behavioral problem. Either way, it is important that you locate the cause and fix it. If you are concerned about your bird’s health, you should talk to your veterinarian about possible treatments.
Causes: The direct cause of feather plucking is stress. Unfortunately, this stress can be caused by a host of problems, some very serious, and some very simple to fix. Here are the predominant causes:
- Disease: Any host of diseases can be an underlying cause of feather plucking, from viral and bacterial to cancers, endocrine diseases, and vitamin deficiencies. Thus, it is important to have your bird examined by a veterinarian if he is feather plucking.
- Pain: When birds feel pain, they often deal with it improperly, by plucking or chewing the area where they feel the pain. This pain could be as a result of almost anything, from disease to injury to a chronic condition.
- Behavioral: Boredom, loneliness, or lack of attention often leads to feather plucking. If your bird lives alone in its cage, this could very likely be a cause.
- Habitat: Where your bird lives could be a cause of his feather plucking. Some factors that could lead to this behavior are a lack of natural light or humidity and a cage that is too small or overcrowded.
- Diet: One of the most common causes of feather plucking, your bird’s diet has significant effects on his health. A one-dimensional diet is unhealthy and can lead to feather plucking.
- Allergies: Just like humans, birds can suffer from allergies, which lead to dry skin, and feather plucking. Some foods that birds are often allergic to are wheat, corn, and rice.
- Toxins: The household environment provides a host of foreign substances that your bird may not be exposed to in the wild. Chewing on various materials can lead to heavy metal poisoning, and your bird can also suffer from cooking fumes and cigarette smoke.
Treatments: To cure feather plucking, you will have to first identify what you think is the cause of the destructive behavior. Putting a collar on your bird will only stop the plucking itself, and will not treat the underlying causes, and could worsen stress or disease. Consulting with your veterinarian will help you narrow down the potential causes. Here are some ideas for treatment, depending on what you find:
- Disease and pain: Your veterinarian will know best. Follow his instructions and hope for a quick recovery.
- Behavioral: If you suspect that your bird is bored or lonely, try giving him new toys to play with, or spending more time with him. When you feed him, try changing the way you give him food so as to make it more challenging.
- Habitat: Try moving your bird’s cage to an area with lots of light and consider using a humidifier to raise the humidity. You should also think about moving your bird to a larger cage.
- Diet: Try to vary your bird’s diet by giving him fewer seeds and more vegetables or other foods.
- Allergies and toxins: Identify the cause of the allergies or toxins and remove it. Make sure your bird’s diet is allergen-free and his cage is not near the kitchen or cigarette smoke. If you think your bird has heavy metal poisoning, try moving him to a cage with non-toxic bars and make sure to not give him any metal toys.
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The Town of Reynolds had a population of 555 as of July 1, 2015. Reynolds ranks in the upper quartile for Diversity Index when compared to the other cities, towns and Census Designated Places (CDPs) in Indiana. See peer rankings below.
The primary coordinate point for Reynolds is located at latitude 40.7492 and longitude -86.8743 in White County. The formal boundaries for the Town of Reynolds (see map below) encompass a land area of 0.55 sq. miles and a water area of 0 sq. miles. White County is in the Eastern time zone (GMT -5). The elevation is 699 feet.
The Town of Reynolds (GNIS ID: 2396875) has a C1 Census Class Code which indicates an active incorporated place that does not serve as a county subdivision equivalent. It also has a Functional Status Code of "A" which identifies an active government providing primary general-purpose functions.
Beneath the boundary map are tables with Reynolds population, income and housing data, five-year growth projections and peer comparisons for key demographic data. The estimates are for July 1, 2015.
|Population in Households||555|
|Population in Familes||465|
|Population in Group Qrtrs||0|
|Average Household Size||2.46|
|Average Family Size||3|
|Total Housing Units||259 (100%)|
|Owner Occupied HU||170 (65.6%)|
|Renter Occupied HU||57 (22.0%)|
|Vacant Housing Units||33 (12.7%)|
|Median Home Value||$118,359|
|Average Home Value||$134,172|
|Median Household Income||$51,514|
|Average Household Income||$55,169|
|Per Capita Income||$22,560|
|(Compound Annual Growth Rates)|
|Median Household Income||1.46%|
|Per Capita Income||2.43%|
The table below compares Reynolds to the other 681 incorporated cities, towns and CDPs in Indiana by rank and percentile using July 1, 2015 data. The location Ranked # 1 has the highest value. A location that ranks higher than 75% of its peers would be in the 75th percentile of the peer group.
|Total Population||# 464||32nd|
|Population Density1||# 459||33rd|
|Diversity Index2||# 148||78th|
|Median Household Income||# 251||63rd|
|Per Capita Income||# 309||55th|
Additional comparisons and rankings can be made with a VERY EASY TO USE Indiana Census Data Comparison Tool.
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Definitions for uterine cervicitis
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word uterine cervicitis
U.S. National Library of Medicine
Inflammation of the UTERINE CERVIX.
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"uterine cervicitis." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. <http://www.definitions.net/definition/uterine cervicitis>.
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New Standard Supports Workers in High Places
Engineers use acoustic-emission testing to check the electric-shock protection of aerial buckets that hoist electric, telephone, or tree workers to high places.
A task group of Acoustic Emission Subcommittee F18.55 seeks participation as it develops a new standard that will provide a more complete inspection of insulated aerial personnel devices. The task group seeks aerial-device manufacturers, acoustic-emission testing contractors, equipment vendors, utility engineers, users of insulated aerial personnel devices, and other interested parties. The group will develop the standard under the jurisdiction of ASTM Committee F18 on Electrical Protective Equipment for Workers.
According to electric-utility engineer William C. Veal, fleet test coordinator, Georgia Power Co., Forest Park, Ga., techinicians will test aerial personnel devices with acoustic-emission and consider it complete, pronouncing it safe from defect. That is not the case, he says. Acoustic emission has to be used in conjunction with other non-destructive testing methods such as magnetic particle liquid penetrant and visual inspections in order to do a complete inspection of an aerial device.
The task group chairman, Veal says the group will attempt to reinforce quality and safety for workers, by determining where, how, and what type of non-destructive test methods should be used in conjunction with the following ASTM acoustic-emission standards:
F 914, Standard Test Method for Acoustic Emission for Insulated Aerial Personnel Devices;
F 1797, Standard Test Method for Acoustic Emission Testing of Insulated Digger Derricks; and
F 1430, Standard Test Method for Acoustic Emission Testing of Insulated Aerial Personnel Devices with Supplemental Load Handling Attachments.
What were attempting to do with this test standard, explains Veal, is to take these other non-destructive methods that we allude to in the acoustic emission standards and show people where they can use these methods, and at what point in the inspection they should use these methods, what kind of indications they will get, and how they can judge the indications as either being relevant or non-relevant by using these other methods.
Non-ASTM members can participate in electronic standards development without traveling to meetings. To join this activity or obtain further technical information, contact Bill Veal, Fleet Operations, Georgia Power Co. (phone: 404/608-5397). Committee F18 meets March 16-19 and Sept. 15-18. For meeting or membership details, contact Jeff Adkins, manager, Technical Committee Operations, ASTM International (phone: 610/832-9738).
Copyright 2003, ASTM
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ADRIAN — Adrian residents near a dairy manufacturing business were under a chemical safety advisory for several hours after a chemical release was reported at the plant Friday.
The incident, which was reported at about 9 a.m. at Dairy Farmers of America, 1336 E. Maumee St., was cleaned up shortly after 1 p.m. and the advisory was lifted, said Laurence Van R. Alstine III, deputy chief for the Adrian Police Department.
The chemical release was caused by a barrel containing 30-35 tons of nitric acid that was off-gassing after reacting with sodium hydroxide, officials said.
As a precaution, several roads were closed and residents were encouraged to stay indoors.
The company manufactures dry condensed evaporated dairy products.
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Mrs. Dix taught Mr. Cipar’s students how to make pillowcases in order to donate them to Ryan's Case for Smiles. The students made 20 pillowcases in all! The brightly-colored pillowcases are donated to children in hospitals around the world. Participating in the project were William Geib, Lucas Graybill, and Brody Bellinski. Not pictured were Christian Roberts and Remington McIntosh. The pillowcase project is an Ohio State Grange initiative.
Ryan’s Case for Smiles was founded in 2007 by Ryan's parents, Cindy and Gavin Kerr, and is located in. Cases for Smiles is designed to bring comfort and to support young patients and their families. Over 75,000 children have received a pillowcase each year. Over 362 hospitals participate in the project and more than 2,300,000 pillowcases have been handed out thus far. Ryan was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 12 and had 15 surgeries plus the amputation of his right leg. He kept his spirits up and graduated from both high school and college and lived his life to the fullest.
Visit Ryan’s Case for Smiles here https://caseforsmiles.org/.
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Neighborhood And Timing Are Things You Should Know When Buying Real Estate
There are many things you must know when buying real estate. Usually a property deal is a major transaction involving large sums of money and long term commitments. There are possibilities of very large profits, and possibly great losses too.
Timing is very important. Like all other markets, real estate markets move in waves. At times it seems that prices are rising inexorably and will never stop surging ahead. That is why many people leap in feeling that if they don’t make an instant move they will never be able to catch the wave.
Although it is not always possible to choose precisely the best time to buy it helps to know where one is in the cycle. There can be no doubt that the best time to buy is when the general market is just beginning to swell on a surge that will last for five years or longer.
When banks are selling properties that they have re-possessed from clients who are unable to service mortgages that they took out in good times it is a good time to scrutinize what is for sale. Although one always needs to be wary when dealing with banks there is at least a chance that they may be forced to sell at a price that is lower than they would like and therefore reasonable
Bargain prices always need to be treated with suspicion, even when the reason for fire sale prices seem apparent. A professional building inspector may be a worth while investment. However his report should be read carefully . Almost every building has some defects and it is not necessarily a shrewd move to pass up a bargain on the grounds of a few minor defects.
There are some areas where high winds or shifting clay might be environmental hazards that affect all houses but the area could still be a good locality because of the views, or some such characteristic. In such cases minor defects need not deter a buyer, since the advantages could outweigh the disadvantages. For example cracks are permanent features of houses in some localities that are popular for other reasons that outweigh the propensity to have cracked walls.
Buyers of property need to know about the importance of locality. When a location gets a good reputation and starts to attract upmarket or trendy inhabitants the scene is set for real estate profits. Conversely a road or sewage works that is built in a particular area can ruin it as a residential locality forcing prices sharply down.
The character of the locality is just another one of the things you must know when buying real estate. Town authorities should offer reliable information about plans for future developments that could alter the locality drastically. Agents can pass on common perceptions about the reputation of an area. However, the best way to make an independent assessment is to take to the streets, walk about observantly and listen to what the local residents have to say.
A attractive and unique place to live can be found when you invest in Tasmanian real estate. For additional information, take the opportunity to watch the Sheffield Tasmania real estate ,video. Article Marketing Strategy by SEO Services Tasmania
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BRIDPORT: Children in Dorset are being encouraged to enter a competition aimed at finding the nation’s most inspiring swimmers.
Baby and toddler swim school Water Babies say there are no set competition categories, but anyone nominated must be a child who has done something amazing when it comes to water.
Co-founder of Water Babies Paul Thompson said: “We teach 41,000 babies and toddlers to swim every week so it’s safe to say we are the biggest fans of this nation’s little splashers.
“We want to give Little Heroes the credit they deserve and encourage parents to get their own little ones water safe from as young an age as possible, so they can do great things too.” Although the awards are set to celebrate positive swimming stories, the inspiration for the awards is a serious matter.
Research commissioned by Water Babies this year revealed that half of parents surveyed said they didn’t believe their child could save themselves if they got into trouble in the water.
To nominate a child in the Little Heroes awards, email their full name, age, story and your contact details to firstname.lastname@example.org by August 29.
Each winner will receive a Water Babies Little Heroes trophy and a bundle of toys.
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poems and readings for
Most of the pieces listed here were written for carol services and are used at events each year in the UK and elsewhere.
What kind of Messiah? is a tongue in cheek reflection on how we would like the promised Saviour to behave. Skin starts at Christmas and follows Christ's life 'from the inside'. The last poem in the Magi sequence, The epiphany, can also be used effectively on its own as a longer reading.
More jokey pieces for one or more performers acting out a particular role are Light of the world, the mock bulletin News just in and A child is born, which works particularly well if you are able to use Powerpoint or similar slides to show the spoof questionnaire.
Incarnate - written for Christmas 2013 - has the broadest scope of any, a two-part telling of the story within universal history, usable as a single piece or split into a "prologue" and "epilogue" to an event.
As well as the shorter poems listed, any of The last straw can be used as short poems on their own - The word, The nativity and The magi probably best - as might the poems about the birth (Dancing) and the shepherds (Modus operandi ) from A Christmas commentary.
Finally there are four sequences which were created as narrative frameworks for a whole service or concert when mixed with other elements:
The last straw comprises eight short poems acting as introductions to some of the usual carol service bible readings.
The four longer poems of Magi provide a contemporary interpretation of the story which can be shared among any number of voices.
If you choose to use any of these in your events, or have other comments about them which you think may be helpful to me or others, please let me know.
News just in (for 1 or 2 voices)
Any poem from The last straw
four narrative sequencesmagi
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What is the Average Cost of living in Las Vegas per month/year?
Regardless of all the expensive, high-class hotels and restaurants in Las Vegas, it is about 10% cheaper to live in than the average city. The price of food, transportation costs and health expenses range between 5% to 15% more expensive than the norm. Items like clothing, restaurants, entertainment and repairs are right on the average while the cost of utilities such as electricity, gas and telephone is about 8% cheaper. The median listing price for housing is $235,166 and the median sales price is $129,300.
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The Large Hadron Collider has become that much mightier and it was restarted after two years break on Sunday. The Large Hadron Collider was switched off for maintenance and a major upgrade. Scientists hope to create Dark Energy and also possibly prove that Big Bang has not happened.
When the LHC works to its full capacity its collision energy will be 13 TeV (Tera Electron-Volts), which is about 65% more than its previous 8 TeV.
Researchers have switched the Large Hadron Collider after a brief hiccup and hope to start treading uncharted frontiers in particle physics.
Rolf Heuer, the director general of Europe’s CERN particle physics center, said Sunday in a statement, “Beam went smoothly through the whole machine. It’s fantastic to see it going so well after two years and such a major overhaul of the LHC.”
The LHC is one of the most powerful collider and it is also one of the most expensive. It is estimated to cost almost $10 Billion and its experimental team is composed of thousands of Engineers and physicists. The LHC control team is planning to send waves of protons in both directions around the 27 kilometer ring.
The researchers plan to smash the proton beams together and the LHC detectors will find the new particles which will be formed in this collision.
The collider was first run between2009 and 2013. The collider was used to detect a subatomic particle, Higgs boson. Existence of Higgs Boson was predicted way back in the 60’s but could not be detected till the arrival of LHC. Higgs was the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle known as the standard model, the theory which governs the particle physics.
The LHC accelerates the protons to incredible speeds almost reaching the speed of light. The protons are accelerated using a ring of powerful magnets which has been cooled to absolute Zero. The interconnection between the magnets has been upgraded to handle increased power.
In the first innings, the LHC’s collisions hit a top energy of 8 trillion electron volts, or 8 TeV. Researchers plan to raise it to 13 TeV, close to the machine’s maximum design level.
Joe Lykken, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab in Illinois said, “The only question in everybody’s mind is, ‘Can you crank it up to higher energies?’ … That’s the biggest jump in energy we’re going to have during my lifetime.”
The LHC would open the doors to new frontiers in particle physics — a new and extra dimensions of space, a new fundamental forces of nature, the constituents of dark matter, or a whole new particle which has never been discovered.
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However, despite the tendency to characterize payday loan default rates as high, several researchers have noted that this is an artifact of the normal short term of the payday product, and that during the term of loans with longer periods there are frequently points where the borrower is in default and then becomes current again. Actual charge offs are no more frequent than with traditional forms of credit, as the majority of payday loans are rolled over into new loans repeatedly without any payment applied to the original principal.
Cash Advance® is not a lender and does not engage in debt collection practices. Your lenders' collection practices will be disclosed to you in the loan documents. If you are unsure of the collection practices used by a specific lender, we recommend that you discuss this issue with your lender directly. Cash Advance® makes reasonable efforts to only work with established, reputable lenders who pursue collections of past due accounts with fair conduct and in compliance with the provisions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by the Federal Trade Commission.
A minority of mainstream banks and TxtLoan companies lending short-term credit over mobile phone text messaging offer virtual credit advances for customers whose paychecks or other funds are deposited electronically into their accounts. The terms are similar to those of a payday loan; a customer receives a predetermined cash credit available for immediate withdrawal. The amount is deducted, along with a fee, usually about 10 percent of the amount borrowed, when the next direct deposit is posted to the customer's account. After the programs attracted regulatory attention, Wells Fargo called its fee "voluntary" and offered to waive it for any reason. It later scaled back the program in several states. Wells Fargo currently offers its version of a payday loan, called "Direct Deposit Advance," which charges 120% APR. Similarly, the BBC reported in 2010 that controversial TxtLoan charges 10% for 7-days advance which is available for approved customers instantly over a text message.
APR Disclosure. Some states have laws limiting the APR that a lender can charge you. APRs range from widely and can be from 200% to 1386%. Loans from a state that has no limiting laws or loans from a bank not governed by state laws may have an even higher APR. The Annual Percentage Rate is the rate at which your loan accrues interest and is based upon the amount, cost and term of your loan, repayment amounts and timing of payments. Lenders are legally required to show you the APR and other terms of your loan before you execute a loan agreement.
“While admittedly another high APR loan option, if in a financial pinch, the fees and terms might be better than those offered by a payday loan,” explains McDermott. The key is to pay off the advance right away, before you begin racking up interest on the balance. If you allow the balance to linger month over month, your short-term loan could spiral into a long-term debt problem.
Contact your creditors or loan servicer as quickly as possible if you are having trouble with your payments, and ask for more time. Many may be willing to work with consumers who they believe are acting in good faith. They may offer an extension on your bills; make sure to find out what the charges would be for that service — a late charge, an additional finance charge, or a higher interest rate.
Disclaimers: Product availability varies by state. To see loan products offered in your state of residence, please visit our Rates and Terms page. MoneyKey – OH, Inc. is licensed as a Credit Services Organization (CSO) by the Ohio Department of Financial Institutions, Department of Commerce: CS.900134.000. MoneyKey – TX, Inc. is licensed as a Credit Access Business (CAB), License No. 16641-62815, by the Office of the Consumer Credit Commissioner and registered as a Credit Services Organization (CSO), Registration No. 20110150, by the State of Texas. All loans for which MoneyKey acts as a CSO and/or CAB are funded by an unaffiliated third-party lender and serviced by MoneyKey.
If you carry only credit cards for day-to-day spending, you could find yourself in a pinch when confronted with a cash-only situation, such as buying lunch from a street vendor, veggies at a farmers market or a sandwich at a mom-and-pop deli. In that case, a cash advance might be tempting. Some people also turn to credit card cash advances when they need paper money but don’t have enough in their bank account.
When you accept the terms and conditions for a loan offer, you are agreeing to pay back the loan principal and finance charges in the amount of time shown in the documents supplied by your lender. Additional fees or charges by your lender may request in the event that you are unable to repay your loan in full or if you make a late payment. We cannot predict the amount of the fees or charges that you will incur as a result of non-payment, late payment, or partial payment. Additionally, we have no knowledge of the loan details between you and your lender. Please refer to the late payment, partial payment, and non-payment policies detailed in the loan documents provided by your lender. Our company makes a reasonable effort to work only with reputable lenders who abide by Fair Debt Collection Practices. If you have a complaint about a specific lender, please Contact Us and one of our agents will look into the matter further.
Please note: This is an expensive form of credit and is intended only for short-term financial needs. Spotloans are designed to help you deal with emergencies such as rent, medical bills, car repairs, or expenses related to your job. Spotloans are not intended to solve longer-term credit or other financial needs, and alternative forms of credit may be better for you, including borrowing from a friend or relative; using a credit card cash advance; taking out a personal loan; or using a home equity loan or savings. Contact one of our relationship managers to discuss if a Spotloan is right for you.
A: Cash advance loans are a safe and convenient way to allow you to cover unplanned expenses or cover everyday bills when you're tight on cash. Typically, these are short term loans - such as payday loans - that provide quick cash. Whether your budget comes up short, or you need help with unexpected bills, a cash advance might provide the cash you need.
Keep in mind that this option might be the most financially advantageous, but it can also be the most tricky to navigate. Borrowing money from a friend turns a personal relationship into a business one — you need to be comfortable with the fact that you are indebted to that person and the relationship could turn sour if you fail to uphold your end of the bargain.
NOTICE: This disclosure is being provided to you pursuant to our terms of service with Google®, Inc. It is not required by any federal, state or local law. Our lenders may offer you a loan with an APR between 20% and 300%. The APR on a small dollar, short term loan represents the amount of your loan, cost of the loan, term of the loan and repayment amounts and timing. Loans on the lower end of the APR range may be for a larger loan amount and for a longer term. Loans on the higher end of the APR range may be for a smaller loan amount and for a shorter term. Depending on your credit needs and desire to pay your loan off quickly, your lender may only offer you loans with an APR near the high end of the range noted above. This is an expensive form of credit. A short term loan should be used for short term financial needs only, not as a long term financial solution. Customers with credit difficulties should seek credit counseling or meet with a nonprofit financial counseling service in their community. You are encouraged to consult your state’s consumer information pages to learn more about the risks involved with cash advances. State laws and regulations may be applicable to your payday loan. If you do not pay your loan according to its terms, your lender may: charge you late fees, send your account to a collection agency, report your information to a consumer reporting agency which may negatively affect your credit score, offer to renew, extend or refinance your loan, which may cause you to incur additional fees, charges and interest. We are not a lender. Only your lender can provide you with information about your specific loan terms and APR and the implications for non-payment of your loan. Ask your lender for their current rates and charges and their policies for non-payment.
ACE is adopting and implementing procedures in substantial conformance with generally-recognized and accepted guidelines and/or standards for website accessibility ("Standards"). While these Standards may change and/or evolve over time, they are currently the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. ACE continues to make accessibility of its Website a key focus of its software development and design efforts.
As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau notes on its site, these loans are typically for small amounts but give lenders access to your checking account or require you to write a check for the full balance in advance, which the lender can deposit when the loan comes due. Worse still, payday loans carry sensationally high interest rates, with some costing as much as 400%. That’s serious money for a cash-strapped consumer, and though state laws and other factors influence charges, you’ll want to enter a payday loan agreement carefully.
The content on this page provides general consumer information. It is not legal advice or regulatory guidance. The CFPB updates this information periodically. This information may include links or references to third-party resources or content. We do not endorse the third-party or guarantee the accuracy of this third-party information. There may be other resources that also serve your needs.
If approved for a loan, your lender will present you with the exact fees and interest rate of your loan prior to your acceptance of the loan. Cash Advance® has no control or knowledge of the loan details between you and your lender. You are under no obligation to continue with the loan request if you find a particular lender’s loan terms unsuitable.
Payday lenders have made effective use of the sovereign status of Native American reservations, often forming partnerships with members of a tribe to offer loans over the Internet which evade state law. However, the Federal Trade Commission has begun the aggressively monitor these lenders as well. While some tribal lenders are operated by Native Americans, there is also evidence many are simply a creation of so-called "rent-a-tribe" schemes, where a non-Native company sets up operations on tribal land.
Paying bills on time is crucial to financial management, but what about paying yourself as part of that commitment? People who consider their future selves just as important as their monthly mortgage are more effective at building savings accounts. To build up your savings on a consistent basis, start "paying yourself first" by setting aside a certain amount each pay period for your savings account. Treat this account just like you would a recurring bill and, if possible, make it automatic. You can also download a tool like Digit, which reviews your spending and finds unused funds to transfer into an FDIC-insured savings account.
The interest rates for cash loans online are competitive with other companies offering similar services. You can expect to pay rates and fees competitive with other companies offering similar services for pay advance loans, pay day advances and other cash advance loans online. Cash advance loans should only be used for emergency purposes and not considered a long-term solution for ongoing cash shortages.
The USA PATRIOT Act is a federal law that requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account. You will be asked to provide your name, address, date of birth, and other information that will allow us to identify you. You may also be asked to provide documentation as proof of identification. Approval is contingent upon successfully passing this mandatory identification confirmation.
In terms of online lending, a cash advance usually refers to a short-term loan that is quickly funded to your bank account after approval. Typically, the amount you borrow for a cash advance loan is relatively small, which often means you can pay it back in only one or two payments. These short-term loans are very similar to what many people call payday loans, but cash advance loans don't always require a single repayment on payday.
Affiliate Disclosure: There are links on this site that can be defined as affiliate links. This means that I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you) if you purchase something when clicking on the links that take you through to a different website. By clicking on the links, you are in no way obligated to buy.
Please Note:The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Always consult a professional before making any financial decisions.
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“I think he’s wrong. I pointed out to him that actually a strong, United Europe working with a strong, outward-looking Russia — this is the right recipe,” said the American President on the air CBS News, adding that it has so far failed to “fully convince” Putin.
While Obama noted that for the unity of Europe far-right nationalism is very dangerous, in some cases, it can exploit such policies as Putin, who “is not always committed to the idea of European unity”.
Earlier Vladimir Putin called the main problem of Europe is that she gave a part of the sovereignty of the USA, refusing to uphold its own interests, transfers TV channel “Russia 1”.
“The problem of Europe in that it does not conduct an independent foreign policy. At all. She, in fact, refused. Delegated part of their sovereignty, may be one of the most important parts of their sovereignty to the block. The focus in this case is that it is not just a supranational body, and in fact this part of the sovereignty given to Europe is not even in NATO, as the leader of NATO – the United States,” Putin said.
In the text “national security Strategy of the Russian Federation” approved by the decree of Vladimir Putin, says that Russia is ready to develop relations with NATO if the Alliance stands ready to consider Russia’s interests. “The Russian Federation is ready to develop relations with NATO on the basis of equality in order to strengthen common security in the Euro-Atlantic region”, – quotes the document TASS.Related posts:
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The idea for The Lifeboat — Charlotte Rogan ’75’s debut novel set in 1914 about a group of people who spend three weeks at sea after an explosion on an ocean liner — emerged in 1999. Grace Winter, who would become the novel’s main character and narrator, was part of another story Rogan had written. On and off over the next 10 years, Rogan worked on Grace’s tale.
Since Rogan started writing fiction 25 years ago, she has produced four other novels. Occasionally she tried to get them published, but she wasn’t much interested in or very good at the selling process.
Enter Sara Mosle ’86. She had heard that Rogan had triplets and contacted her in 2008 to see if she could interview Rogan’s children for a story she was writing for The New York Times. Rogan and Mosle became friends, and Mosle introduced Rogan to her literary agent. The Lifeboat was published by Reagan Arthur Books/Little, Brown and Company in April.
The novel opens after the boat’s rescue as Grace, a 22-year-old American, and two other surviving passengers are about to go on trial, accused of committing a crime on the lifeboat. Then the scene shifts to the lifeboat, and Grace retells the story of those days and nights waiting for rescue.
Newly married, Grace has secured a place on the overcrowded boat, but her husband has not. The only seaman on board, John Hardie, takes charge and makes tough decisions to ensure the safety of the passengers — refusing to save a boy in the water and beating off three men who try to board the boat. At one point, to ride out rough seas, it is determined that two people must sacrifice themselves to lighten the boat, and the men on board draw straws. At other times passengers mysteriously disappear. Eventually an overthrow of Hardie brews. The last part of the novel returns to the trial.
Rogan “circles around society’s ideas about what it means to be human, what responsibilities we have to each other, and whether we can be blamed for choices made in order to survive,” wrote Publishers Weekly, which called the novel “a complex and engrossing psychological drama.”
An architecture major at Princeton, Rogan worked in the engineering branch of Turner Construction Co. and took graduate courses in architecture, civil engineering, and business. “I never found what I should be. I was never at all sure,” she says, that is, until she began taking creative-writing classes in her 30s.
The Lifeboat was chosen as a “must-read” debut novel by The Sunday Times of London and made the British bookseller Waterstones’ list of the best debut novels of 2012. At a Waterstones party for the 11 new novelists on the list, Rogan, 58, thought the other writers would be “adorable young things.” As it turns out, another was also in her 50s and someone else 49. Says Rogan: “The message to other unpublished writers is to stick with it. It can happen.”
WHAT SHE JUST READ: Tom McCarthy’s Remainder
What she liked about it: “I don’t like novels that open with endless exposition and explanation. McCarthy just throws the readers into his story midstream and trusts that they can swim.”
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A regional perspective on the credit view
An explanation of how regional credit-market performance can affect local economic activity, showing how imbalances in financial capacity across regions cause capital-poor regions to be underfunded. This reduced financial capacity is related to economic activity in states that are experiencing low growth.
Volume (Year): (1991)
Issue (Month): Q II ()
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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Stephen D. Williamson, 1984.
"Costly Monitoring, Financial Intermediation, and Equilibrium Credit Rationing,"
583, Queen's University, Department of Economics.
- Williamson, Stephen D., 1986. "Costly monitoring, financial intermediation, and equilibrium credit rationing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 159-179, September.
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1 Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism Jayson L. Lusk and F. Bailey Norwood It is now fashionable in many circles to advocate vegetarianism, and many activist groups are vocal in their aim to convert the human race to vegetarians. What would be the economic costs and benefits of a shift away from meat consumption? In this article we provide some partial answers to this question. In three separate analyses we show (i) that it is much more costly to produce energy and protein from animal-based sources than from some plant-based sources, (ii) that sizable demand shifts away from meat consumption would result in significantly lower corn prices and production, and (iii) that the average U.S. consumer places a higher value on having meat in his or her diet than having any other food group. This information should help move forward our understanding of the economics of vegetarianism and provide an objective stance from which to evaluate the claims being made by advocates of vegetarianism. Key Words: cost of nutrients, crop production, dietary costs, livestock production, value of meat, vegan, vegetarian In her bestselling book Food in History, Reay Tannahill begins, For 12, years there has been a steady undercurrent of antagonism between vegetarians and meat-eaters (Tannahill 1988, p. 1). In the Old Testament a sacred text shared by Judaism, Christianity, and to some extent Islam humans began in the Garden of Eden, where to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb (Genesis 1:3). The interpretation of this text to some scholars is clear: this should be interpreted to mean: every green herb and nothing else (Soler 1996, p. 52). Yet humans left the Garden of Eden, and along with it, their herbivore diet. The natural history of humans, including archaeological evidence, suggests that Homo sapiens have always eaten both plants and animals (Tannahill 1988). For the vast majority of their existence, obtaining nutritional needs was a daily challenge for humans, and famine was a recurring threat. Given the scarcity of nutritional resources, it would seem odd for humans to restrict their diet for religious or cultural reasons, but that is exactly what they did. Jayson Lusk is Professor and Willard Sparks Endowed Chair, and Bailey Norwood is Associate Professor, both in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. For example, as early as the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras and his followers led a vegetarian life (Spencer 2). Because of religious beliefs, many cultures have restricted their consumption of animal products in different ways. Reverence for the Old Testament caused some Jews to view vegetarianism as closer to the ideal life that God planned in the Garden of Eden. For this reason, Jews prefer to eat meat only from animals that are vegetarians, and thus ban the eating of pigs, which are omnivores. During the Middle Ages, meat was seen as a sign of earthly strength and power. Nobles who behaved poorly and were thus deemed unworthy of their power were punished by prohibiting the eating of meat, sometimes for life. The Catholic Church urged its congregation to seek spirituality and shun the pursuit of earthly power. To abstain from meat was to announce a preference for the spiritual world over the earthly world. Hence, the Catholic Church banned the eating of meat on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and all the days of Lent. Depending on how the ban was enforced, these days of meat-fasting could comprise half the days of the year (Montanari 1996, Tannahill 1988). Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism maintain a belief in reincarnation, and a specific belief that humans can be reincarnated as livestock and vice versa. For these adherents, eating an animal can mean eating an an- Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 38/2 (October 29) Copyright 29 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association
2 11 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review cestor, so it is not surprising that vegetarianism is more popular in the regions where these religions took hold. Ancient India became heavily reliant on dairy products from female cows and the labor from male cows, and urged against the killing of cows because the animals were generally worth more alive than dead. Combined with the idea of reincarnation, the Hindu Sacred Cow emerged (Tannahill 1988). Similar beliefs existed in ancient Egypt, and like some Catholic priests, many of the Egyptian priests also abstained from meat (Spencer 2). Pockets of vegetarianism also existed in American and European cultures, such as the experimental vegetarian commune that settled on the Kansas frontier shortly before the Civil War (Gambone 1972), but they were unusual. Vegetarianism can denote a specific diet, or be used as an umbrella term for a variety of diets that restrict consumption of animal products. When used to denote a specific diet, the term vegetarian refers to the abstaining from all meat, fish, or shellfish, but does include eggs and dairy products in the diet. A pescatarian shuns the eating of all animal flesh except fish, and a vegan excludes any product derived from animals; dairy, eggs, and even gelatin are not part of a vegan diet. This paper largely concerns vegetarianism, as it focuses on the consequences of changes in meat consumption, but some of the empirical results also consider dairy and eggs, which are pertinent to vegan diets. A number of recent cultural and technological changes have made vegetarianism a timely topic in the Western and Eastern worlds alike. Livestock production technologies, such as improved feed formulations, have made it cheaper to raise chickens and hogs indoors exclusively. For egglaying hens and swine, these facilities confine the animal to cages or pens barely larger than the animal itself. Gestating sows are confined to stalls so small that they prohibit the animal from turning around, and laying hens are allotted 67 square inches of space at most, despite the fact that the hen needs 75 square inches to stand comfortably and 144 square inches to spread its wings (Dawkins and Hardie 1989, United Egg Producers 28, Mason and Singer 199, Singer 21, Singer and Mason 26). Opponents of such practices refer to these facilities as factory farms, and, beginning with Ruth Harrison s book Animal Machines (Harrison 1964), have opposed such farms and urged consumers to abstain from animal products. For example, Singer (21, p. 177) states, The most urgent task of the Animal Liberation movement is to persuade as many people as possible to make this commitment [to stop eating meat], so that the boycott will spread and gain attention. Opposition to factory farming is becoming more prominent and has led to more than just propaganda. In Arizona, California, and Florida, it is now illegal for farmers to confine hogs to small crates (Arnot and Gauldin 26). Egg producers have been persuaded to increase the size of hen cages (Smith 27), Burger King has begun buying eggs from cage-free production systems (Martin 27), and retailers such as Whole Foods have created an animal-compassionate label for its meat products (Martin 26). As consumers become more aware of modern farming practices, vegetarianism may rise. When the president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America was asked the major reason children adopt vegetarianism, he responded, Compassion for animals is the major, major reason (Stobbe 29). However, it would be a mistake to attribute vegetarianism to animal welfare concerns solely, or to any one single concern. In the United States, modern vegetarianism arose largely from the counterculture movement of the mid-196s and a cultural movement that seeks pure food that is removed from animal production, less processed, generally less affected by scientific advancements, and sometimes associated with New Age spirituality (Spencer 2). Health concerns are a major reason for vegetarianism, especially for those concerned with cholesterol. Although a healthy diet can certainly include meat, there is increasing evidence that a vegetarian diet may be healthier (Sabate 23). As the environment has become an increasingly important policy issue, some individuals see vegetarianism as a way to personally combat agricultural pollution (Spencer 2, Stuart 26). Livestock production is often seen as a food factory in reverse, consuming more energy than it produces. Opponents of factory farms contend that such operations represent inefficient methods of food production. Moreover, activists often consider calories fed to animals as wasted in that they represent calories that could have been used to feed hungry humans. The argument is that by converting to vegetarianism, there would be fewer crop acres planted and hence less pollution from
3 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 111 fertilizer runoff and pesticides. Furthermore, a portion of the acres no longer needed to feed Americans could be used to feed less fortunate parts of the world (Singer and Mason 26). By ignoring the fact that this reverse-protein factory creates form utility (i.e., some people prefer eating meat to raw corn), vegetarian advocates argue that meat production is inefficient and unethical. However, meat-eaters would contend that the loss in calories is acceptable given the increase in eating satisfaction that results from turning corn into steak. Identifying which concern (animal welfare, religion, health, or the environment) is the main driver of vegetarianism is difficult, and probably the wrong question to ask. Perhaps a question more amenable to the tool-kit of economists is, what would be the economic effects of increasing vegetarianism? The number of vegetarians in the United States is small, representing only about 3 percent of the population (Vegetarian Journal 23, Norwood, Lusk, and Prickett 27, Stobbe 29). However, as previously noted, advocates of vegetarianism have become more prominent and often make no attempt to hide their objective of converting the population to vegetarianism whatever the means. Such claims are made in all seriousness, and as such, one should seriously evaluate their consequences. Given the stated aim of the vegetarianism advocates and the increased acceptance of vegetarianism as a lifestyle choice, it is surprising that so little work on the economics of vegetarianism has been conducted. For example, a search for the word vegetarian in the database EconLit yielded only 5 peer-reviewed journal articles, and only one of these explicitly attempted to investigate the economic effects of vegetarianism. In the only paper on the issue, Risku-Norja and Maenpaa (27) constructed an input-output model of the Finnish agricultural and food production system and forecasted that an increase in vegetarianism would reduce the need for agricultural land and lead to positive environmental outcomes such as lower greenhouse gas emissions. However, these authors also projected that greater vegetarianism would generally have negative economic consequences for the agricultural production sector. The purpose of this article is to empirically study the economics of vegetarianism from several different angles. We do not claim to provide an exhaustive treatment of the issue. The goal is to move forward our understanding of the economics of vegetarianism and to provide an objective stance from which to evaluate the claims being made by many vegetarians. In the next section of this paper, we first tackle the issue of the relative cost of producing calories and protein from some plant-based and animal-based sources. This analysis is intended to provide insight into the economic efficiency of the present-day agricultural production system as compared to one in which food is produced only via plant-based agriculture. Of course, simple comparisons of costs cannot fully reflect how crop prices and consumption will change if a large portion of the population decides to eschew meat consumption. Thus, in the third section, we study the interrelationship of corn and livestock markets and investigate the effect of a shift away from meat consumption on corn prices. Although the first two analyses provide insight into the economic efficiency of eating meat, people care about more than the efficiency with which food is produced. In particular, people care about which foods they eat and how they taste. Although many advocates of vegetarianism suggest that people can, over time, easily give up meat, it is an open question as to how much people value having meat in their diet. The penultimate section of this article seeks to determine the value that consumers place on maintaining their current level of meat consumption in their diet. The final section concludes. Cost of Producing Nutrients It is often argued that producing meat is inefficient. For example, Francione (24, p. 116) argues that respected environmental scientists have pointed out the tremendous inefficiencies and resulting costs to our planet of animal agriculture. For example, animals consume more protein than they produce. For every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of animal protein produced, animals consume an average of almost 6 kilograms of plant protein from grains and forage. Similar arguments can be found in Singer (21). The economic question, however, is not necessarily the rate at which an organism converts raw inputs into nutrients suitable for human consumption, but rather the relative cost of producing nutrients from various sources.
4 112 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review To address this issue, we utilize data reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture s Economic Research Service (ERS) regarding the cost of production for various agricultural commodities (USDA 24 and 25). As shown in Table 1, ERS estimates indicate that the average cost of producing corn was about $387/acre from 24 to 25, whereas the average cost of producing wheat was only about $197/acre over the same time period. The fourth column in Table 1 takes information on average crop yields over this time period to convert the cost from the units of acres planted to pounds produced. Of the four crops shown in Table 1, corn is the least expensive to produce on a per-pound basis, whereas peanuts are the most expensive to produce. The last four rows of Table 1 carry out similar calculations for livestock, poultry, and milk. The ERS reports cost-of-production data only for hogs and milk, so we gathered cost of production data on cattle from Lawrence (25). The poultry sector is highly integrated, making detailed estimates of cost of production difficult to find. As such, we turned to Canadian budget data for 1999 produced by the Manitoba Chicken Producer Board (1999) for an estimate of the production costs for broilers, and used Georgia broiler prices to confirm the validity of this estimate (National Agricultural Statistics Service 26). 1 The fourth column of Table 1 reports the estimated costs of farm production on a per pound basis, which factors in the dressing percentage for each animal species. Results reveal that it is significantly more expensive to produce a pound of meat (or milk) than a pound of commodity crops. However, the nutritional contents of crops and livestock are not identical. To determine the nutritional content of each of the commodities listed in Table 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Nutrient Database was consulted (USDA 26). The database contains detailed nutritional information for a wide variety of foods. For each commodity, we searched the database to find products that most closely resembled the raw, uncooked, unprocessed commodity, and collected information on two primary nutritional categories for each food 1 We used the currency conversion that prevailed at the time the budget was published, which was UR$1 = Can$1.5. type: energy and protein. For meat, this raw commodity was the carcass. The fifth and sixth columns of Table 1 report the nutritional content of each commodity on a per pound basis. Peanuts contain more energy and soybeans contain more protein than any of the other commodities listed in Table 1. Meat products contain more protein than corn and wheat, but less protein than soybeans and peanuts. The last two columns in Table 1 report the ultimate statistic of interest: the cost per nutrient produced, which is obtained by dividing the cost of production by the nutrient content of each commodity. A comparison of the plant-based foods to the animal-based foods reveals that obtaining nutrients from plants is much cheaper than obtaining the same nutrients from meat or dairy products. Obtaining a kcal of energy from the cheapest meat product (broilers) is 5 times more costly than obtaining a kcal from the most expensive plantbased product (peanuts). A similar result is true for protein. Obtaining a gram of protein from the cheapest meat product (broilers) is 3.26 times more costly than obtaining a gram of protein from the most expensive plant-based product (peanuts). These cost differences are remarkable when one considers that suggested daily energy and protein intake is about 2, kcal and 1 grams, respectively. Of course, these price differences reflect not just costs of production but also the utility that individuals receive in obtaining nutrients from various sources. It may be cheaper to obtain energy from corn than from cattle, but some people prefer eating beef to eating corn. That is, there are legitimate reasons why consumers choose to obtain nutrients from more expensive food sources. This is a topic we return to later in the paper; this section seeks only to analyze cost differences in nutrients, acknowledging that the eating experience differs by food source. One important qualification regarding the results in Table 1 is in order. The costs of producing each of the nutrients are at the farm level. However, most agricultural commodities go through some form of processing before they arrive at the grocery store or restaurant. This processing, in addition to other expenses such as labor and transportation, increases the cost of each food item as the product moves from the processing to the wholesale and retail stage. If these costs differ
5 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 113 Table 1. Cost of Producing Nutrients from Various Agricultural Commodities Production Costs a Nutrient Content b at the Farm Level Cost per Nutrient Produced Commodity Cost of Production Yield Cost ($/lb) Energy (kcal/lb) Protein (grams/lb) Cost of Energy ($/kcal) Cost of Protein ($/gram) CROPS Corn $387.3 per acre bushels per acre; 56 lbs per bushel $ $.1 $.2 Soybeans $256.7 per acre 46 bushels per acre; 6 lbs per bushel $ $.1 $.12 Wheat $ per acre 38.1 bushels per acre; 6 lbs per bushel $ $.1 $.31 Peanuts $ per acre lbs per acre $ $.2 $.35 LIVESTOCK, POULTRY, AND MILK Hogs (farrow to finish) $5.53 per cwt live weight gain 75.5 lbs of meat per live cwt $ $.8 $.218 Cattle (finishing one steer) $ per head live weight 115 lbs per head;.65 lbs of meat per live lb $ $.19 $.321 Broilers $.33 per lb live weight.7 lbs meat per live lb $ $.1 $.115 Milk $2.57 per cwt 1 lbs per cwt $ $.16 $.29 Cost of production data for all commodities except cattle and broilers are from USDA-ERS Commodity Costs and Returns data (USDA 24 and 25) averaged across years 24 and 25. Production costs for cattle, averaged across years 24 and 25, are from Lawrence (25). Production costs for broilers (converted from Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars) for year 1999 are from the Manitoba Chicken Producer Board (1999). a All nutritional information was obtained from the USDA-ARS National Nutrient Database (USDA 26). Nutritional information for livestock is based on the entire carcass. b
6 114 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review for plant- and animal-based foods, the relative cost of obtaining nutrients from animals and plants at the retail level will be altered as well. In fact, it is the case that many plant-based foods undergo more transformation than animal-based foods. For example, wheat is processed into flour, which in turn is mixed with other ingredients and baked into bread, which is then packaged and shipped to the supermarket. By contrast, a steak or hamburger at the retail level has undergone relatively little transformation from the farm. To account for these differences, Table 2 reports the farmer s share of the retail dollar reported by the ERS (USDA 25) for each of the commodities analyzed. The farmer s share of the retail dollar for cereal and bakery products, which includes corn, soybeans, and wheat, is only 5.7 percent. This implies that 94.3 percent of the costs involved in transforming corn, soybeans, and wheat into products that people consume at the retail level are incurred post-farm. By contrast, almost half of the costs of producing beef occur on the farm. To arrive at the cost of nutrients at the retail level, the costs of nutrients at the farm level are divided by the farmer s share of the retail dollar for each commodity. As shown in Table 2, when the post-farm processing and transportation costs are considered, overall, plant-based nutrients remain less expensive than meat products, but the cost differences are not as stark. At the retail level, energy obtained from any of the crops is less expensive than the least expensive meat item, broilers. In terms of the cost of protein, all crops are less expensive than pork, beef, or milk; however, poultry is a competitive provider of protein, as it is less expensive than corn and wheat and is similar to soybeans. What Table 2 shows is that the cost disadvantage of animal-based products is not nearly as pronounced at the retail level as at the farm level. 2 Our findings are generally consistent with the nutritional literature investigating the relationship between energy density and cost (e.g., see Drew- 2 Should large portions of the population convert to vegetarianism, it is unclear how these marketing margins would change. On the one hand, as people rely more heavily on plants for food, the products may undergo more processing to compensate for the loss in variety from forgoing meat. On the other hand, with more food processors focusing on plant products, greater research and economies of scale may cause marketing margins to fall. nowski and Specter 24, and Drewnowski and Darmon 25). Of course, this does not mean that vegetarians (or meat-eaters) spend less on food if they supplement corn, soybean, wheat, and peanut items with relatively expensive fruits like blueberries, strawberries, and lettuce. Whereas cheap energy is obtained from some plant-based foods such as bread and pasta, lettuce and strawberries are very expensive energy sources. Nevertheless, other studies have shown that, consistent with our results, vegetarian diets reduce food costs. For example, using consumption data from a sample of French consumers, Drewnowski, Darmon, and Briend (24) showed that increasing the number of meat products in a person s diet was associated with significantly higher diet costs. One interesting fact about these nutritional studies is that the authors considered cheap calories as a bad, arguing that cheap calories lead to weight gain and obesity. Thus, depending upon whether one is more concerned about people becoming overweight or about the economic efficiency of nutrient production, the fact that animal-based foods are relatively more expensive than plant-based foods can be considered a positive or negative. Most vegetarians appear to fall into the latter camp as it supports their argument that vegetarianism results in a more efficient means of producing the world s food supply. Many nutritionists, by contrast, suggest taxing cheap sources of calories under the assumption that the price of such calories is too low from a social perspective. Of course, as just mentioned, not all vegetarian foods are more efficient than meat in terms of cost of energy and protein produced. Of particular consideration are fruits and vegetables. The production of such foods requires high-quality, productive land. One benefit of livestock production is that cattle, hogs, and chickens can be produced on relatively unproductive land. There are certain types of land that can support only livestock production, with cattle having the ability to produce meat and milk from materials like grasses and forages that would be otherwise inedible to humans. Indeed, Peters, Wilkins, and Fick (27) recently found that strictly vegetarian or vegan diets required more land to produce food than a calorie-neutral diet that involved the consumption of some meat. The authors concluded that including some meat in the diet resulted in increased
7 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 115 Table 2. Cost of Producing Nutrients at the Farm and Retail Levels Cost per Nutrient Produced at the Farm Level Cost per Nutrient Produced at the Retail Level Commodity Cost of Energy ($/kcal) Cost of Protein ($/gram) Farmer s Share of Retail Dollar a Cost of Energy ($/kcal) Cost of Protein ($/gram) CROPS Corn $.1 $.2 5.7% $.9 $.359 Soybeans $.1 $ % $.17 $.23 Wheat $.1 $ % $.21 $.543 Peanuts $.2 $ % $.9 $.26 LIVESTOCK, POULTRY, AND MILK Hogs (farrow to finish) $.8 $ % $.26 $.71 Cattle (finishing one steer) $.19 $ % $.41 $.685 Broilers $.1 $ % $.25 $.285 Milk $.16 $ % $.5 $.928 a The source of farmer s share of retail dollars is USDA (25). The share for corn, soybeans, and wheat corresponds to the farmer s share of cereal and bakery products, whereas the peanut farmer s share of the retail dollar is assumed to equal that for processed fruits and vegetables. efficiency of land use. They attributed their findings to relative differences in land quality requirements for livestock and vegetable production. One important observation that arises out of the statistics reported in Tables 1 and 2 is that simple comparisons of the amount of energy/protein consumed versus the amount of energy/protein produced by a plant or animal as in Francione (24), Singer (21), or Peters, Wilkins, and Fick (27) can be misleading. The reason is that many crops, as typically consumed, require significantly higher levels of processing than animalbased products, and as such the full cost of transforming the raw commodities into products that people actually consume needs to be considered. If such processing is also associated with greater pollution (as greater economic activity usually is associated with greater pollution), the environmental benefits of some types of plantbased food consumption are less pronounced when taking into account food processing. Pollution arises from the processing, wholesale, and retail stage of food production as well as the farming stage, yet opponents of modern agriculture tend to focus only on the farm. These authors should consider the entire food marketing channel, and not just one component of food production. Effect of Reduced Meat Demand on Corn Prices and Production Arguing that people should become vegetarians based on philosophical and ethical arguments is one thing, but it is an entirely different issue altogether as to how a mass shift towards vegetarianism will affect food prices. As previously indicated, many have argued that producing meat is inefficient. The previous section provided some evidence for this claim, but the simple statistics reported in Tables 1 and 2 do not consider the interrelationship between crop and meat production. How much cheaper or more expensive would crops become if people stopped consuming meat? It is impossible to answer such a question, as this would require extrapolating outside of the world we observe, but it is possible to draw inferences at the margin. We address this question by turning to the crop sector that is most intimately tied to livestock production: corn. It is difficult to overstate the reli-
8 116 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review ance of modern U.S. livestock production on corn. For example, USDA-ERS data indicate that in the 24/25 marketing year, almost 58 percent of corn disappearance was a result of livestock and poultry feed use (Baker, Allen, and Bradley 27). 3 As such, we focus on the effect of reduced meat demand on corn prices and production. Wheat and soybean are also used as animal feed, though not as extensively as corn. Because soybeans and wheat are substitutes in human food as well, the three crop prices are positively correlated. Other commodities used as livestock feed (e.g., oats, barley) would be expected to exhibit similar, though less pronounced, relationships with meat demand. As Tables 1 and 2 show, it is less expensive to obtain nutrients from corn by consuming it directly than by using it as animal feed. Thus, if there were a massive shift from meat to vegetarian diets, one might expect a decrease in the demand for corn if the reduction in livestock consumption of corn outweighed the increase in human consumption of corn. If such an effect were to occur, the price of corn would fall, making the cost difference between obtaining nutrients from plants and meat even more pronounced. However, a reduction in the price of corn would reduce the price of meat. To assess these impacts arising from a shift towards vegetarianism, a general equilibrium model of meat and corn markets is employed. Marsh (27) recently reported estimates of the supply-demand interrelationships in the livestockpoultry and corn sectors. We make use of the estimates in Marsh (27) to construct an equilibrium displacement model that specifies the supply and demand equations for corn and livestock as deviations from an initial equilibrium given exogenous shocks to the system [see Alston (1991) or Wohlgenant (1993) for more discussion in equilibrium displacement models]. The estimated supply curves in Marsh (27) contain lagged dependent variables, allowing for separate analyses of short- and long-run effects. In this paper, we focus solely on the long-run effects, and convert the short-run supply elasticity estimates to longrun estimates by dividing the reported short-run supply elasticities by one minus the coefficient on 3 The percentage of corn disappearance that is attributable to livestock feed fell to about 5 percent in 26/27, primarily as a result of increased ethanol production. the lagged dependent variable. The appendix contains Marsh s original equations and a brief discussion on how they were used to arrive at the equations shown below. The supply and inverse demand equations for corn, respectively, are (1) Qˆ =.469Pˆ CN (2) Pˆ =.371Qˆ +.44Pˆ +.127Pˆ Pˆ, CN CN CN B where the subscripts denote the commodity (CN = corn, B = beef, P = pork, and CK = chicken) and where Qˆi and Pˆi represent percent change (i.e., ˆX = dx/x) in the quantity and price of the ith commodity. Supply and inverse demand equations for slaughter cattle (beef) are (3) Qˆ =.817Pˆ.278Pˆ P CK B B CN (4) P ˆ =.565 Qˆ + S, B B B where S B is an exogenous demand shifter we introduced that represents the percent change in the initial equilibrium price for slaughter cattle (beef). More precisely, S B represents the percent change in willingness-to-pay for slaughter cattle. Greater interest in vegetarianism would reduce the demand for retail beef, which would be translated into a reduced demand for slaughter cattle by the beef processor. A reduction in demand for beef would be represented by a negative value for S B. Supply and inverse demand equations for slaughter hogs (pork) are (5) Qˆ = 1.555Pˆ.71Pˆ P P CN (6) Pˆ =.641Qˆ + S. P P P The supply and inverse demand equations for processed broilers (chicken) are (7) Qˆ =.695Pˆ.344Pˆ CK CK CN (8) P ˆ =.133 Qˆ + S, CK CK CK
9 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 117 where S P and S CK are exogenous demand shifters in the pork and broiler equations, respectively. To analyze how small changes in the demand for cattle, chickens, and pork influence corn prices, equations (1) through (8) are used. Although some variables such as the boxed beef and wholesale pork price included in Marsh s (27) original equations (see the appendix) could be considered endogenous in a larger general equilibrium model, one can consider the demand shocks used here as proxies for changes in wholesale meat prices, given that the purpose of including these wholesale prices in Marsh (27) is to proxy for consumer meat demand. Equations (1) through (8) represent a system of equations characterized by eight endogenous variables (the price and quantity of each of the four commodities) and three exogenous variables (the demand shifters). Collecting these equations into matrix form, the system can be represented as (9), where X is the vector of endogenous variables, and A and B are matrices containing constants. To illustrate, the first row of the A matrix contains the parameters associated with equation (1), the corn supply equation, and the last row of A contains the parameters associated with the inverse demand for broilers: (9) AX=B, or (1) P =.28S +.59S +.385S CN B P CK (11) Q =.131S +.28S S. CN B P CK The result in equation (1) indicates that for every one percent decrease in willingness-to-pay for slaughter cattle (i.e., S B = -1), corn prices will fall by.28 percent and corn quantity will fall by.13 percent. Similarly, for every one percent decrease in willingness-to-pay for slaughter hogs (i.e., S P = -1), corn prices will fall by.6 percent and corn quantity will fall by.3 percent. Changes in demand for broilers have the largest influence on corn prices: for every one percent decrease in willingness-to-pay for processed broilers (i.e., S CK = -1), corn prices will fall by.39 percent and corn quantity will fall by.18 percent. These elasticities are calculated using recent empirical data, and thus reflect the supply and demand relationships for the range of prices and quantities observed in recent history. One could choose values of S B, S P, and S CK to reflect zero meat consumption, but this would be outside the range of the data used to obtain the estimates, making the corresponding results suspect. 4 However, it is possible to evaluate the impact of a small change in meat consumption on corn prices Pˆ CN Pˆ B Pˆ P Pˆ S CK B = Qˆ CN Qˆ S B P 1 Qˆ P.133 Qˆ S CK CK Solving for X as X = A -1 B identifies the changes in the equilibrium quantities and prices as a function of the three demand shocks. By inserting particular values of S B, S P, and S CK, a reduced-form equation showing the response of corn prices and quantity to meat demand shocks can be calculated. For example, by assuming S B = 1, the first element of X equals -.28, which implies that a one percent decrease in willingness-to-pay (WTP) for slaughter-cattle decreases corn prices by.28 percent. Because equation (9) is linear, a 2 percent decrease in WTP results in a.28*2 =.56 percent decrease in corn prices. Solving equation (9) for corn prices and quantities yields the following: 4 Suspect, but not uninteresting. Researchers regularly characterize the amount of oil reserves by counting the number of years left until all oil runs out, assuming oil prices are unchanged as oil becomes increasingly scarce. In a similar spirit, asking how a 1 percent decrease in meat would change corn prices is equally useful, recognizing the assumptions being made. We can simulate the effect of a complete shift towards vegetarianism by finding the magnitude of the demand shocks that would cause a 1 percent reduction in the equilibrium quantity of livestock produced and consumed. Solving for the values of S B, S P, and S CK that reduce the quantities of meat produced and consumed to zero (i.e., the values that set Q B = Q P = Q CK = -1) yields the values S B = -236, S P = -27, and S CK = That is, if willingness-topay for slaughter cattle, hogs, and broilers were to fall by 236 percent, 27 percent, and 242 percent, respectively, the predicted equilibrium quantities of beef, pork, and chicken produced and consumed would each fall by 1 percent, to zero. Plugging these demand shifts back into equations (1) and (11) yields the percent change in corn price and quantity that would result from the negative meat demand shocks of such magnitude to eliminate production and consumption of meat. If all consumers were to become vegetarians, the model predicts that corn prices would fall 172 percent and corn production would fall 81 percent. Of course this magnitude of price change cannot be literally true (because it would predict negative prices); however, the results are consistent with the idea that if a mass shift towards vegetarianism were to occur, corn would be much cheaper. The reason for the extreme price reduction is that equilibrium displacement models rely on observed data to derive predictions along with the assumption of constant elasticities (i.e., linearity).
10 118 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review as an investigative peek into the consequences of large-scale vegetarianism for corn prices. This is accomplished by assuming that the demand for all three types of livestock falls by one percent. When S B = , S P = -.268, and S CK = , the equilibrium quantity of beef, pork, and chicken decreases by one percent. Correspondingly, when the consumption of each farm product falls by one percent due to these shocks, corn prices fall by 1.72 percent and corn quantity falls by.81 percent. The results are, of course, sensitive to any measurement errors in the Marsh (27) study, and standard errors could be calculated using the methods outlined in Davis and Espinoza (1998). This section, however, seeks to provide a best estimate, and thus leaves sensitivity analysis to future research. This result highlights the interdependency of livestock and corn production. When the consumption of livestock falls by one percent, corn prices fall by almost two percent. One would then conclude that large-scale movements towards vegetarianism would cause large decreases in corn prices, making the cost advantages of vegetarianism even more pronounced. Should the decrease in meat consumption become significantly large, there would be a point where corn prices reached the minimum average variable cost for the most efficient producers, at which point corn prices would become insensitive to changes in meat production, and be at their lowest possible value. Of course, a shift towards vegetarianism by one portion of the population would reduce corn prices and hence meat prices for the remaining meat-eaters, as lower corn prices reduced the cost of feeding animals. Assuming S B = , S P = -.268, and S CK = , corn prices fall 1.72 percent, beef prices fall 1.81 percent, pork prices fall 1.43 percent, and poultry prices fall 2.29 percent. Large-scale shifts towards vegetarianism not only make vegetarian diets cheaper due to lower corn prices, but make non-vegetarian diets cheaper as well. Given these percent changes in prices, movements towards vegetarianism may actually make meat consumption increasingly affordable relative to vegetarianism. A major motivator for many vegetarians is to reduce pressures on cropland, thereby reducing fertilizer use, pesticide use, and runoff. The model results suggest that movements towards vegetarianism do reduce acres planted to corn. When consumption of all meat products falls one percent, the quantity of corn produced falls by.81 percent. Assuming that this lower corn production is met by retiring crop acres, or putting those acres to an alternative, less polluting use, vegetarianism is environmentally friendly. Vegetarians often claim that the reduced corn acres needed for American consumers can be freed to fight famine in developing countries (Spencer 2, Stuart 26). However, farmers are unlikely to plant additional corn acres to feed the hungry without compensation. If the negative value for the meat shocks (S B, S P, S CK < ) are not accompanied by a positive shock for corn demand (S CN > ), say for example by charities purchasing corn and delivering it to areas of famine, vegetarianism will not achieve its goal of reducing hunger. That is, for the market to remain in equilibrium, the demand curve for corn would have to shift out by an amount equal to the charitable corn donations given to developing countries. The Value of Meat to Consumers Many advocates of vegetarianism have argued that most consumers can, without much trouble, eventually switch their diets away from meat consumption. It is true that eating meat is not necessary to live a healthy life (Sabate 23). However, simply because meat consumption is not necessary does not mean that consumers do not strongly desire it. How strongly do consumers desire meat? According to a leading advocate of vegetarianism, Peter Singer (21, p. 88), those who switch to a vegetarian diet will, over time, enjoy their food at least as much as they did before. These sentiments are echoed by Reagan (24, p. 335), who argues that there are many other tasty foods besides those that include meat we are not being asked to choose between eating meat or harming ourselves by depriving ourselves of the opportunities for the pleasures of the palate. In this section, we seek to determine whether there is any empirical evidence for such claims by evaluating the value that individuals place on prohibiting a forced reduction in their meat consumption. This analysis does not assume that individuals decrease meat consumption due to a change in tastes or preferences, such as a volun-
11 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 119 tary adoption of vegetarianism. Instead, it assumes that tastes remain the same, and that a policy, perhaps driven by significant political power of animal rights groups, forces consumers to reduce their meat consumption through higher meat prices. Conceptually, the value of meat consumption to an individual is simply the person s maximum willingness-to-pay for each unit consumed less the price paid times the number of units consumed. Thus, the value of meat consumption is simply the area below the meat demand curve and above price. Measuring this value requires an estimate of consumer demand for meat. Although numerous such studies exist in the literature, it is important that the estimated demands are integratable, meaning that the underlying indirect utility or expenditure function can be recovered from the demand estimates. This is essential because the utility or expenditure function needs to be known to properly calculate the welfare change that would result from eliminating meat from one s diet. In addition to this requirement, we sought published studies that reported sufficient price and consumption information so that changes in the expenditure function could be evaluated. These requirements led us to utilize the food demand estimates reported by Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22). The food demand estimates reported in Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22) stem from a linear expenditure system. In particular, the authors reported results of a system of demand equations for nine food categories (meat, non-alcoholic beverages, cereals and bakery products, dairy, fruits and vegetables, sweets and sugars, fats and oils, food away from home, and other food at home) applied to a data set on a sample of U.S. households weekly food expenditures. Nine expenditure equations were estimated for each of the j = 1 to 9 goods. The estimated expenditure functions took the form (12) E = p β +α ( Y p β ), j j j j k k k = 1 where E j is the household s weekly expenditure for the jth good, p j is the price of the jth food, and Y is household s total weekly expenditure on all nine foods. Pollak and Wales (1969) show that 9 this estimated function implies the following demand function: (13) α x ( Y p ), 9 j j = β j + kβk p j k = 1 which results from maximizing the following utility function: (14) 9 U = αk ln( xk βk). k = 1 Plugging equation (13) into equation (14) yields the indirect utility function, V(p,Y ), which depends on food prices and total food expenditure. Inverting this indirect utility function gives the expenditure function E(p, V ), which indicates the minimum level of expenditures required to achieve a particular level of utility. How can this linear expenditure system be utilized to estimate the value of meat consumption? Ideally one would estimate individuals maximum willingness-to-pay to maintain their current level of meat consumption, as opposed to reducing their meat consumption to zero. Obtaining such estimates requires observations of consumer purchasing behavior when meat consumption is zero or close to zero, and behavior under contemporary levels of consumption. However, no data exists where meat consumption is remotely close to zero. Thus, instead of estimating the value of prohibiting a 1 percent reduction in meat consumption (which would imply vegetarianism for all), we consider a small movement towards vegetarianism. Specifically, this section estimates the monetary value that individuals place on prohibiting a policy that would reduce their meat consumption by one percent. We generally follow the approach introduced by Hausman (1996) and utilized by Hausman and Leonard (22) and by Dhar and Foltz (25). In these applications, the focus was on estimating the value of new goods, but the approach is also applicable to identifying people s values for any existing good. The approach is as follows. First, let j = 1 represent meat at home and let the current price of meat at home be given by p 1. This implies that the expenditure function at current price levels is E(p 1, p 2, p 3, p 4, p 5, p 6, p 7, p 8, p 9,
12 12 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review V ), where V indicates utility at current price levels. Second, for the good in question, in this case meat, utilize equation (13) to find the virtual price of the good that would reduce meat consumption by one percent. 5 Let this virtual price of meat be given by p V 1. Third, determine the compensating variation that would occur from this price change: CV = E(p V 1, p 2, p 3, p 4, p 5, p 6, p 7, p 8, p 9, V ) E(p 1, p 2, p 3, p 4, p 5, p 6, p 7, p 8, p 9, V ). As the price of meat rises from p 1 to p V 1, the budget constraint moves inward and changes slope, moving the consumer to a lower indifference curve. Additional income is needed to shift the new budget constraint with its altered slope up to the old indifference curve. The amount of this additional income is the compensating variation CV. The calculated compensating variation is the change in welfare that would occur if meat consumption were reduced one percent and the prices of all other foods were held constant at the levels prior to the meat reduction. Using the data and estimates reported in Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22), we find that meat prices would have to increase 1.12 times their current level for meat consumption to be reduced by one percent. 6 Due to the nature of the data, it is assumed that this meat reduction comes exclusively from food consumed at home. Whereas the average weekly household expenditures on food at mean prices and consumption levels was about $82.18/week, results reveal that were meat consumption at home forced to fall one percent (i.e., meat prices for food at home increased 1.12 times above current levels), food expenditures would have to increase to $82.34/week to hold utility constant. This means that the value of eating meat, at home, at current levels relative to a 5 There is another, more technical reason for investigating a one percent reduction in meat consumption instead of a 1 percent reduction. In the linear expenditure system, the quantity demanded for good j cannot be set exactly to zero if β j is positive because the utility in equation (14) would be undefined. The coefficient β j is usually described as the subsistence or pre-committed quantity level. 6 Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22) let the β j parameters vary by demographic characteristics. The results reported in this paper correspond to the level of β j calculated at the means of each of the demographic characteristics. Although the authors report this value in their Table 4, we obtained slightly different figures when doing the calculation ourselves; thus, we utilize the mean β j obtained from our own calculations. Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22) also segregated their analysis by poverty and non-poverty households, but we report only the results corresponding to the non-poverty households. Similar results are obtained from both groups. one percent reduction is $.16/week ( =.16). To put this value in perspective, it is instructive to compare the relative value of each food category analyzed by Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22). To conduct these relative comparisons, we carried out the above steps for each food type to determine the change in expenditures that must occur to keep utility constant if the particular food price were to rise to such a level that consumption of that food would fall by one percent. The estimates of the value of each food category are reported in Table 3. Even if we focus on the relative value, we find meat to be the most important food category behind food away from home. Of course, food away from home includes meat and non-meat items. Assuming that people eat meat in roughly the same proportion to their overall diets away from home as they do at home, the results imply that meat is the most valuable food group to consumers. 7 These results suggest that giving up meat is no easy task. Singer (21, p. 88) argues, in regard to the difficulties associated with not eating meat, that these are minor human interests that we should not allow to outweigh the more major interests of nonhuman animals. The calculations provided here suggest quite the contrary: eating meat is no minor issue for most Americans. Meat is the most valued food source. It is perhaps not too surprising, then, that vegetarians are estimated to represent less than 4 percent of the U.S. population (Ginsberg and Ostrowski 27); humans derive great pleasure from consuming beef, pork, 7 Some readers may be interested to know whether we extrapolated outside the data to estimate the value of prohibiting a 1 percent reduction in meat. Given the data used by Raper, Wanzala, and Nayga (22), the closest the data allow to answering this question is to evaluate a 1 percent reduction in meat consumed at home, not counting what is referred to as subsistence quantities of meat. Meat prices would have to rise 31 times their current levels to cause a 1 percent reduction in at-home meat consumption, not including subsistence meat quantities. To compensate for this higher meat price, food expenditures would have to rise to $ per week to hold utility constant. This means that the value of eating meat, at home, to the average household is $2.48/week ( = 2.48). Stated differently, a person would have to be compensated an extra $2.48 each week to make them indifferent to whether they eat meat at home, without changing their restaurant consumption habits, assuming the price of other foods is unchanged. This calculation implies an annual value derived from eating meat of almost $1,5 per household in 1993 dollars. Given that there are roughly 125 million households in the United States, the value of meat consumption to U.S. consumers is about $1.3 trillion in 1993 dollars or $1.8 trillion in 26 dollars. Of course, this result requires one to extrapolate far outside the range of data, but it is a useful way of illustrating the importance of meat in Americans diet.
13 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 121 Table 3. Consumer Welfare Loss from a One Percent Reduction in Consumption of Competing Food Categories (in 1993 dollars) Food Category Value of Food Category to Consumers ($/week) Food away from home $.66 Meat $.162 Other food at home $.139 Fruits and vegetables $.83 Cereals and bakery products $.79 Non-alcoholic beverages $.36 Dairy $.35 Sweets and sugars $.11 Fats and oils $.4 and poultry. One may question whether the tastes of consumers would change after a prolonged experience with vegetarianism, or whether children raised in a vegetarian household would develop preferences similar to those reported in Table 3. One cannot question, however, the great extent to which the American consumer values meat. Conclusions This paper reported three separate analyses aimed at providing some insight into the economics of vegetarianism. Despite the fact that many vegetarianism advocates routinely make claims about the economic effects of vegetarian diets, there has been surprisingly little systematic study of the economics of vegetarianism. The purpose of this study was to partially fill this void in the literature. Our initial analysis indicated that it is much less costly to produce nutrients (i.e., calories and protein) from some plant-based sources compared to animal-based sources. This cost advantage, however, is partially offset by the significantly higher marketing bill for crops as compared to livestock. Many crops undergo significant transformation prior to being consumed at the retail level, and it would be a mistake to ignore such costs when comparing the efficiency of nutrient production across animal and plant sources. In addition to this budget-based approach, we also considered a model of the interrelated corn, livestock, and poultry markets. This analysis suggested that demand shifts away from meat products would result in significantly lower corn prices and corn production. Meat prices fall as well, sometimes by a larger percentage than corn prices. This represents a positive outcome for consumers, as commodity plant-based food would be cheaper and less land would be in crop production (resulting in fewer environmental externalities). However, a reduction in prices and production of crops and livestock implies reduced revenues to the farm sector. Meat production is a value-added enterprise; it takes plants like corn, soybeans, and grass, and converts them into a more valuable item like ground beef and pork chops. Adding this value necessarily requires economic activity, and forgoing this activity would cause economic hardships to those working in the livestock and meat processing sector who would then have to find alternative employment. Also impacted economically will be crop producers, as large-scale adoption of vegetarianism will result in a decrease in the value for their product, especially corn and soybeans. These economic impacts can be significant in the short run, and devastating for some families. Some studies have shown that consumers generally care more about the financial well-being of farmers than farm animal welfare (Norwood, Lusk, and Prickett 27), so policies promoting vegetarianism may confront additional political obstacles when the public begins to associate vegetarianism with financial hardships in the farm sector. The flip side of this argument is that some types of farms could benefit from an increase in vegetarianism, as consumer demand for certain plant-based foods shifts outward. Finally, in response to claims made by advocates of vegetarianism, we determined the importance of meat in a consumer s diet. Results revealed that meat is the most valuable food category to consumers. This finding underscores the difficulty activist groups have in prompting a mass shift towards vegetarianism and suggests that the claims that consumers can easily give up meat-based diets are overstated. It could be that the demand and utility parameters used to calculate the value of meat consumption would change once people became accustomed to the vegetarian lifestyle. Children raised in a culture free of meat
14 122 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review or animal product consumption may acquire different tastes as well. These are long-term considerations, but persuading individuals to give up meat requires short-term adjustments. The fact that meat is the most valued food source indicates that it would require considerable persuasion for the average American to forgo meat. There are many issues related to the economics of vegetarianism that this paper does not address. For example, do vegetarian diets lead to better health, and what is the economic value of this improved health? Moreover, the cost of vegetarian diets is perhaps better addressed by documenting exactly what vegetarians eat. Another issue worthy of consideration is the relative magnitude of the environmental externalities imposed by animal- versus plant-based agricultural production. It would also be useful to quantify the costs of increased vegetarianism on the agricultural production sector. Finally, it is important to note that vegetarianism is only one small part of the agenda of many animal rights organizations. It is more likely that such groups will be successful in pushing for changes in the way farm animals are currently raised than in converting large portions of the population to vegetarianism. The question then becomes one of the costs and benefits of improved animal welfare standards. References Alston, J.M Research Benefits in a Multimarket Setting: A Review. Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics 59(1): Arnot, C., and C. Gauldin. 26. Arizona Vote Turns Out Bad Night for Industry. Feedstuffs (November 13). Baker, A., E. Allen, and N. Bradley. 27. Feed Outlook. Report No. FDS-7h, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Davis, G.C., and M.C. Espinoza A Unified Approach to Sensitivity Analysis in Equilibrium Displacement Models. American Journal of Agricultural Economic 8(4): Dawkins, M.S., and S. Hardie Space Needs of Laying Hens. British Poultry Science 3(2): Dhar, T., and J.D. Foltz. 25. Milk by Any Other Name Consumer Benefits from Labeled Milk. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 87(1): Drewnowski, A., and N. Darmon. 25. The Economics of Obesity: Dietary Energy Density and Energy Cost. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 82(1): 265S 273S. Drewnowski, A., N. Darmon, and A. Briend. 24. Replacing Fats and Sweets with Vegetables and Fruits: A Question of Cost. American Journal of Public Health 94(9): Drewnowski, A., and S.E. Specter. 24. Poverty and Obesity: The Role of Energy Density and Energy Costs. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79(1): Francione, G.L. 24. Animals: Property or Persons? In C.R. Sunstein and M.C. Nussbaum, eds., Animal Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gambone, J.C Kansas A Vegetarian Utopia: The Letters of John Milton Hadley, Kansas Collection: Kansas Historical Quarterlies. Ginsberg, C., and A. Ostrowski. 27. The Market for Vegetarian Foods. The Vegetarian Resource Group. Available at (accessed August 15, 27). Harrison, R Animal Machines. London: Vincent Stuart. Hausman, J.A Valuation of New Goods Under Perfect and Imperfect Competition. In T.F. Bresnahan and R.J. Gordon, eds., The Economics of New Products. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hausman, J., and G. Leonard. 22. The Competitive Effects of a New Product Introduction: A Case Study. Journal of Industrial Economics 5(3): Lawrence, J.D. 25. Estimated Returns to Finishing Medium No. 1 Steer Calves to Choice Slaughter Grade, Iowa So. Minnesota. Addendum to M-1284a, Cooperative Extension Service, Iowa State University. Available at and C/C5.pdf (accessed September 26, 27). Manitoba Chicken Producer Board Guidelines for Estimating Chicken Broiler Production Costs Based on 5 kg per Cycle (October). Available at ca/agriculture/financial/farm/pdf/chickenbroiler.pdf (accessed September 26, 27). Marsh, J.M. 27. Cross-Sector Relationships between the Corn Feed Grains and Livestock and Poultry Economies. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 32(1): Martin, A. 26. Meat Labels Hope to Lure the Sensitive Consumer. New York Times, October Burger King Shifts Policy on Animals. New York Times, March 28. Mason, J., and P. Singer Animal Factories: Revised and Updated. New York: Harmony Books. Montanari, M Peasants, Warriors, Priests: Images of Society and Styles of Diet. In L. Kritzman, ed., Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Columbia University Press. National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). 26. Georgia Poultry Highlights. Georgia Field Office, NASS, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Athens, GA. Available at tions/annual_statistical_bulletin/27/27poultry.pdf (accessed September 26, 27).
15 Lusk and Norwood Some Economic Benefits and Costs of Vegetarianism 123 Norwood, F., J.L. Lusk, and R.W. Prickett. 27. Consumers Share Views on Farm Animal Welfare. Feedstuffs (October 8). Peters, C.J., J.L. Wilkins, and G.W. Fick. 27. Testing a Complete-Diet Model for Estimating the Land Resource Requirements of Food Consumption and Agricultural Carrying Capacity: The New York State Example. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 22(2): Pollak, R.A., and T.J. Wales Estimation of the Linear Expenditure System. Econometrica 37(4): Raper, K.C., M.N. Wanzala, and R.M. Nayga. 22. Expenditures and Household Demographic Composition in the U.S.: A Demand Systems Approach. Applied Economics 34(8): Reagan, T. 24. The Case of Animal Rights. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Risku-Norja, H., and I. Maenpaa. 27. MFA Model to Assess Economic and Environmental Consequences of Food Production and Consumption. Ecological Economics 6(4): Sabate, J. 23. The Contribution of Vegetarian Diets to Health and Disease: A Paradigm Shift. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 78(3): 52S 57S. Singer, P. 21. Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins. Singer, P., and J. Mason. 26. The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Inc. Smith, R. 27. Welfare Must Be Accountable. Feedstuffs (April 23). Soler, J Biblical Reasons: The Dietary Rules of the Ancient Hebrews. In L. Kritzman, ed., Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Columbia University Press. Spencer, C. 2. Vegetarianism: A History. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows. Stobbe, M. 29. First U.S. Count Finds 1 In 2 Kids Are Vegetarian. Available at washingtonpost.com (January 11). Stuart, T. 26. Bloodless Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Tannahill, R Food in History. New York: Three Rivers Press. United Egg Producers (UEP). 28. United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg Laying Flocks. Available at (last accessed November 4, 28). U.S. Department of Agriculture. 24 and 25. Commodity Costs and Returns. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Available at (accessed September 26, 27) Price Spreads from Farm to Consumer. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Available at Data/FarmToConsumer/pricespreads.htm (accessed September 26, 27) USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 19 (Nutrient Data Laboratory homepage). Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Available at gov/nutrientdata (accessed September 26, 27). Vegetarian Journal. 23. How Many Vegetarians Are There? (May/June). Available at vj23issue3/vj23issue3pool.htm (accessed May 3, 29). Wohlgenant, M.K Distribution of Gains from Research and Promotion in Multi-Stage Production Systems: The Case of the U.S. Beef and Pork Industries. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 75(3): Appendix What follows are the original supply and demand equations reported in Marsh (27). The long-run versions of these equations were used in the text, and our analysis focused only on the variables pertinent to this study. The supply and inverse demand equations for corn are (A1) Q ˆ ˆ ˆ CN = PCN ( 1) +.212P.484Pˆ.412Pˆ +.151D +.11T (A2) LN FT SY P Pˆ = Qˆ +.191Pˆ +.44Pˆ ˆ B( 1) +.127P ( 1) Pˆ, CN CN E CK where the variables P FT, P SY, D P, and T refer to the price of nitrogen, soybeans, a dummy variable for production flexibility under the FAIR Act, and a time trend variable, respectively. A (-1) in the subscript denotes lagged variables. Supply and inverse demand equations for slaughter cattle (beef) are ˆ = Pˆ.61Pˆ.64Pˆ ˆ CN ( 1).26PF.4T +.77Qˆ (A3) QB B( 1) CW( 1) B( 1) (A4) Pˆ ˆ.754 ˆ B = QB + PBX +.113Pˆ +.194Pˆ.1 T, BV where the variables P CW, P F, P BX, P BV, and P L refer to the price of cull cows, feeder cattle, boxed beef, cattle by-products, and food marketing labor L
16 124 October 29 Agricultural and Resource Economics Review costs, respectively. Supply and inverse demand equations for slaughter hogs (pork) are ˆ = Pˆ.11Pˆ +.8T +.845Qˆ (A5) QP P( 1) CN( 1) P( 1) (A6) Pˆ ˆ.412 ˆ = QP + PPX +.225Pˆ.27Pˆ.8 T, PV where P PX and P PV are the prices of wholesale pork and pork by-products, respectively. The supply and inverse demand for processed broilers (chicken) are (A7) Qˆ ˆ ˆ CK = PCK ( 1).45P.55Pˆ +.6T +.869Qˆ BL L CN CK ( 1) (A8) Pˆ ˆ 1.45 ˆ CK = QCK + PBR +.45Pˆ.3Pˆ +.43 Pˆ, BX PX L where P BL is the retail price of broilers. To convert these equations to their long-run form requires some simple algebra. For example, suppose that a supply equation is written as Q = a + a 1 P + a 2 Q (-1), where Q (-1) is the value of Q in the previous period. In the long run, Q = Q (-1), so the equation can be rewritten as Q = a + a 1 P + a 2 Q, or Q a 2 Q = a + a 1 P, or Q(1 a 2 ) = a + a 1 P, or Q = (a + a 1 P)/(1 a 2 ). The equations in the text ignore every variable except the price and quantity changes of cattle, chicken, pork, corn, and the meat demand shocks. The other variables are considered exogenous for our analysis, or alternatively can be interpreted as being subsumed in our meat demand shock variables.
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Remember the Road Runner cartoon? In nearly every episode, Wile E. Coyote would devise some elaborate method for killing the bird... and his plan would invariably fail. The Road Runner was resilient. But as Commentator Rex Buchanan tells us, in the real world, it's the coyote who gets high marks for resiliency.
Commentator Rex Buchanan recently retired as director of the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas. He's now director emeritus.
The book mentioned in this essay is titled Coyote America, by historian Dan Flores.
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by Michael Hill
Research Branch, NC Office of Archives and History
Lake Mattamuskeet—so named by Algonquian Indians—is North Carolina’s largest natural lake. The ancient body of water has not escaped man’s intervention. Originally, Mattamuskeet was a shallow, self-contained lake without creeks or rivers feeding it. The lake’s waters were solely the product of rain, runoff, and ground water. Europeans first viewed what became known as Lake Mattamuskeet in1585, during one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s first expeditions to the New World. The native cultures living in the lake region were disrupted by European settlement during the colonial period. Following the Tuscarora War, a reservation was established at the lake in 1715 for the Core, Cotechny, and Mattamuskeet Indians. White encroachment continued, however.
In the nineteenth century, the first attempts were made to drain the lake in order to claim its fertile bottom as farmland. In 1837, with the lake under ownership of the State Literary Board, a seven-mile canal was completed (using slave labor) from the lake’s south shore to Wysocking Bay on the Pamlico Sound. Partially drained, the lake was reduced to 55,000 acres, or less than half its original size. Farming flourished in the rich soil surrounding the lake, even without fertilizer. In 1909, the legislature authorized the creation of the Mattamuskeet Drainage District. More canals were dug, and a pumping system was devised to drain the lake. In 1915, the village of New Holland was laid out near the pumping station. Between 1916 and 1926, Lake Mattamuskeet was drained and reclaimed three times. On the third try, the drainage system kept the lake and surrounding farmlands relatively dry for more than five years. But the drainage efforts (through a series of owners) were costly and fraught with natural difficulties. Nature prevailed, thus ending an era in the region when man tried to harness forces beyond his control.
In 1934, the lake was acquired by the U.S. Government, and the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge was established. Mattamuskeet Lodge (the old pumping plant) welcomed its first hotel and restaurant guests in 1937. The lodge operated until 1974. The building, in a state of deterioration, was closed to the public in November 2000. Today, scenic Lake Mattamuskeet (at 40,000 acres) remains a major stopover for thousands of migratory birds traveling the Atlantic coast. The lake area also enjoys a lively tourist trade, with about 50,000 visitors annually.
C. R. Edgerton. 1990. “Mattamuskeet’s Struggle to Maintain Quality,” Coastwatch (June-July issue).
Forrest, Lewis C. 1999. Lake Mattamuskeet, New Holland and Hyde County. Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub.
Patrick H. Garrow. 1975. “The Mattamuskett Documents: A Study in Social History." Carolina Comments.
Mattamuskeet Foundation: http://www.mattamuskeet.org/welcome/welcome.htm
Sharpe, Bill. 1958. A new geography of North Carolina. Raleigh, N.C.: Sharpe Pub.
2 August 2010 | Hill, Michael
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How to count and add coins together by putting them into piles. In this animation, El Nombre helps a child raise money for the school bell by charging 10p for each child, but he struggles with adding up how much he has saved. El Nombre sorts the money into groups of the same coins, totalling each group and then adding them together.
- This clip is from:
- First broadcast:
- 3 November 2000
Real money could be given to the children to count and add up. Start adding the same coins first, then mix them with different coins which will help them to count securely in steps of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and so on.
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Definition of immerged
imp. & p. p. - of Immerge 2
The word "immerged" uses 8 letters: D E E G I M M R.
No direct anagrams for immerged found in this word list.
All words formed from immerged by changing one letter
Browse words starting with immerged by next letter
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The California Legislative Analyst's Office recommends that the Legislature turn groundwater over to the state, which would remove local controlAs I have told numerous audiences, California and Texas agree on two things: No to gay marriage and No to statewide control and monitoring of groundwater.
[farmers] say they fear that the state would require water meters, find out how much water everyone's using and charge for it.
Valente, vineyard and orchard manager for John Kautz Farms, says farmers assume that if you own a piece of property and you have water underneath it, you're allowed to use that water.
While the Legislative Analyst's proposal would increase state administrative costs to establish new programs, there would be long-term savings to public and private entities across the state
Although I am not going to talk about gay marriage (except to say, yes please), I am going to repeat my complaint that unregulated and unknown groundwater withdrawals of groundwater are California's BIGGEST water policy problem. Why? Because we cannot even price or market water if we do not know actual supply or demand.
Will the farmers' worst fear ("we may have to pay for water") come true? Probably not for the farmers who DO control ALL the rights to the aquifer they use. Farmers who share their aquifer with others MAY have to pay a price -- if that's the only way to slow down the currently unsustainable overdrafting (mining) of water supplies.
Someone told me that there is 13MAF of pumping capacity installed in California's Central Valley. Given that this FAR exceeds the sustainable yield of aquifers (2-3 MAF?) and that surface water deliveries are going to be tiny, the likelihood of overdrafting, collapsing aquifers and other bad outcomes is extreme. Farmers will be destroying their future as they race to outpump each other today...
Bottom Line: The only way to sustainably manage a resource is to know how much of it you have and control access to it. Without these simple guarantees of property rights, a tragedy of the commons will result.
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This practice provides information and techniques for evaluating performance qualities of a correctable film ribbon. It can be used to evaluate typewriter ribbons for general office use.
Formerly under the jurisdiction of Committee F05 on Business Imaging Products, this practice was withdrawn in March 2015. This standard is being withdrawn without replacement due to its limited use by industry.
1.1 This practice provides information and techniques for evaluating performance qualities of a correctable film ribbon. It can be used to evaluate typewriter ribbons for general office use.
1.2 The values stated in inch-pound units are to be regarded as standard. The values given in parentheses are mathematical conversions to SI units that are provided for information only and are not considered standard.
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.
2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.
D685 Practice for Conditioning Paper and Paper Products for Testing
D882 Test Method for Tensile Properties of Thin Plastic Sheeting
D3460 Specification for White Watermarked and Unwatermarked Bond, Reprographic, and Laser Printer Cut-Sized Office Papers
F497 Practice for Use of the Electric and Electronic Typewriter as a Test Instrument
F1050 Test Method for Determining Winding Torque and Tension of Typewriter Ribbons
F1125 Terminology of Image Quality in Impact Printing Systems
F1174 Practice for Using a Personal Computer Printer as a Test Instrument
F1443 Practice for Using 0.008-in. (0.203-mm) Aperture Reflectometers as Test Instruments for Measuring Visual Image Quality of Business Copy Images
ASTM F1454-99(2008), Standard Practice for Comparing Correctable Film Ribbons (Withdrawn 2015), ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2008, www.astm.orgBack to Top
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The Wireless Mighty Mouse was a Bluetooth version of the (corded) Mighty Mouse that was released a year before it. The original Wireless Mighty Mouse used the same opaque white coloration as the corded Mighty Mouse.
The Mighty Mouse was the first Apple mouse to have multiple buttons. The buttons consisted of two touch-sensitive areas on the top of the mouse and two “squeeze areas” on the sides of the mouse. Because it had no physical buttons, the entire body of the mouse could be clicked. The top of the mouse also had a mini free-spinning track ball that allowed scrolling in any direction.
The Wireless Mighty Mouse makes a sound when the scroll ball is rolled that is produced by a tiny internal speaker in the mouse. The sound cannot be disabled by settings.
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In the past, Pope John Paul II announced that there was no conflict between evolution and faith, noting that evolution is "more than just a theory."
Now we have Benedict XVI announcing that the war between evolution and creationism "is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such."
The article also points out that Benedict reminded followers that evolution doesn't explain the question of "where does everything come from?"
It's not meant to. Evolution deals only with how species arose once life was already started. It's a shame Creationists frequently forget this as they wade through their fields of strawmen. Evolution is about getting from point X to Y. It doesn't concern itself with how to get from A to B. But I suppose for people who are so used to making the arrogant assumption that their magic book tells them how to get from A to Z and that there's actually more beyond Z, that they're blind to how small steps actually work.
Also encouraging is that the pope is also encouraging stewardship of the planet. That's a nice change from what we get from many Christians who feel it's perfectly fine to rape the planet since Jesus should be coming any day now.
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Though dental care seems to have advanced in leaps and bounds in recent decades, there was another time in recent history that saw a great advancement in general dentistry. Following the Second World War, the level of technology and sterilization practices changed and improved substantially for the good of dental patients and dentists everywhere.
During the 1960s, sterilization techniques became more sophisticated and safer. Dentists began using sterilized disposable needles and sterilizing their instruments in an autoclave and with cold sterilization. This reduced the number of infections and illnesses caused by unsterile dental practices. High-speed drills and reclining dental chairs were also gaining in popularity and use in dental offices everywhere. The 1960s were also the time when dental restorations, such as dentures, were beginning to be custom-made in specialized laboratories. Many techniques and commonplace objects found in a dentist’s office today were invented and popularized during the 1960s.
Just as general dentistry has advanced, so too has University Associates in Dentistry . We constantly strive to provide our patients with the most up-to-date dental technology, including dental implants and dentures in Chicago. Please call us at (312) 704-5511 to learn more about our growing technology.
Dentists are always willing to part with a few tips and suggestions to keep their patients’ oral health in good shape. Several of these tips can also address many patients’ cosmetic concerns about the look and color of their teeth and mouth.
Tip #1: Avoid staining foods and liquids.
One of the leading causes of discolored teeth is the various foods and liquids that can cause staining. Tea, wine, soda, and coffee regularly are the primary cause teeth staining. Berries, such as blueberries and blackberries, are also foods that commonly stain teeth. If consuming these foods and liquids regularly, drink plenty of water and/or brush your teeth after you have eaten.
Tip #2: Refrain from smoking.
Smoking cigarettes and chewing tobacco should be avoided at all costs to reduce cosmetic dental problems, as well as oral and dental health issues. Over an extended period of use, patients will notice their teeth begin to yellow and may even turn brown. This can easily be avoided by refraining from smoking.
Tip #3: Prepare during contact sports.
To avoid potentially cracked or dislodged teeth, patients should be mindful of their dental health during contact sports. In sports dentistry, patients are recommended to wear a custom mouth guard while playing football, hockey, and other contact sports. If a patient is hit in the mouth, he or she should visit a dentist to ensure there are no dental problems.
Tip #4: Practice good oral hygiene.
In addition to the previous tips, patients should always practice a strong, daily dental routine. By brushing at least twice a day and flossing once a day, patients can help negate daily staining effects brought on by foods and drinks. These daily practices also help prevent periodontal issues that might affect the teeth and gums.
Call University Associates in Dentistry at (312) 704-5511 to learn more about our cosmetic dentistry in Chicago. Our dentists and staff can recommend several cosmetic procedures , such as teeth whitening and porcelain veneers, to address all of our patients’ concerns.
Sleep apnea is a disorder that affects 1 in 6 people. It has the potential to be extremely dangerous to your health, as it greatly raises your risk for heart attacks, strokes, and high blood pressure. Sleep apnea involves your airways being blocked during sleep, which causes you to wake up possibly hundreds of times per night without knowing it. Risk factors for developing sleep apnea include weight gain, alcohol or sedative use, a large neck, smoking, gender (male), age, and high blood pressure.
Often the first obvious sign of sleep apnea is loud snoring on a regular basis. If your spouse wakes you up by snoring-or to tell you that you’re snoring-you’ll want to ask yourself or your partner these questions:
- Have you ever slept all night just to wake up feeling exhausted?
- Do you often wake up with headaches?
- Do you have a tendency to fall asleep in the middle of the day, maybe even at inconvenient times like meetings?
- Are you afraid you might fall asleep at the wheel?
All of these are symptoms of sleep apnea. Thankfully this condition is highly treatable. If you live in the Chicago area and think you or a loved one may be suffering from this serious sleep disorder, contact University Associates in Dentistry at 312-704-5511 and learn about our alternative treatments and devices today.
- Dental History
- Gum Disease
- Dental Implants
- Dental Health
- Teeth Whitening
- Sleep Apnea
- Bad Breath
- Dental Veneers
- Sports Dentistry
- Dental Bridges
- Dental Crowns
- Tooth Loss
- CT Scans
- DEXIS CariVu
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Definition of downhaul
n. - A rope to haul down, or to assist in hauling down, a sail; as, a staysail downhaul; a trysail downhaul. 2
The word "downhaul" uses 8 letters: A D H L N O U W.
No direct anagrams for downhaul found in this word list.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after downhaul (in bold), or to adhlnouw in any order:
s - downhauls
All words formed from downhaul by changing one letter
Browse words starting with downhaul by next letter
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In anticipation of the Microsoft's September BUILD conference, the flow of information about Windows 8 is building. In a Wednesday blog post, Microsoft's director of program management, Alex Simons, offered a glimpse of commonly used features that are due for an overhaulthe dialogs that control file moving, copying, renaming, and deleting.
In an introduction to the post, Window head honcho Steven Sinofsky wrote that these actions comprise "one of the most used features, and one we have not improved substantially in a long time."
On the rationale for the redesign, Sinofsky went on to say that "with the increasing amount of local storage measured in terabytes, containing photos (in multiple formats and very large files), music, and video, these common operations are being taxed in new ways." He also noted that there's been consistent user feedback requesting changes.
Microsoft knows through its "telemetry"Windows usage data sent back to the companythat these file operations account for half of all Windows command usage and 20 percent of them take longer than 2 minutes to complete. Simons admitted that the existing version of Windows Explorer doesn't excel at handling large or multiple simultaneous operations. He outlined the three overriding goals for the changes as: place to manage all copy jobs; clear and concise; and user in control.
Probably the most visible change to the copy and moving processes mentioned is that multiple operations will all appear in one dialog, and you'll be able to pause and resume them individually. This could be useful if you have a couple of large video files you're transferring, but want one to finish before another. A "More details" button will even show graphs of each transfer's throughput. Though some skeptics may note that the Macintosh has presented multiple file transfers in a single dialog for years, that dialog doesn't offer the options coming to Windows 8, since it doesn't break out info on each separate transfer operations or allow pausing.
While Simons claimed that anticipating time remaining for these actions accurately is "nearly impossible," he assured us that the team "focused on presenting the information we were confident about in a useful and compelling way. This makes the most reliable information we have available to you so you can make more informed decisions."
Another big help in the new system concerned filename "collisions." If you tried to copy a file to a folder that already had a file with the same name, Windows presented a rather confusing set of choices about which ones to keep. Currently, a user gets three choices in case of such a collision: Copy and Replace; Don't Copy; and Copy, but keep both files. The file you are copying will be renamed. In Windows 8, these choices will be replaced by thumbnails for all source and target files with checkboxes letting you choose whether to keep them.
Finally, Simons noted that the copying and deleting experience will be smoother thanks to the removal of "confirmation dialogs that you've told us are annoying or feel redundant." These include things like "Are you sure you want to move this file to the recycle bin?"
For more, see Windows 8: What We Know So Far. To see the new copy and move features in action, watch a demonstration from Simons in the video below.
For more from Michael, follow him on Twitter @mikemuch.
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Every year, an estimated 10 million girls aged under 18 are married worldwide with little or no say in the matter. In the developing world, one in seven girls is married before her 15th birthday and some child brides are as young as eight or nine.
Child marriage is not only a human rights issue. Marrying at a young age and early sexual contact put girls at higher risk of sexual health problems, including HIV.
The Alliance brings a broad knowledge of how HIV affects children and their sexual and reproductive health to the partnership. By working as part of Girls Not Brides, we hope to empower the activists and organisations that work to end child marriage in their communities by enabling them to share best practice and to work together to raise awareness of the importance of ending child marriage.
“Becoming part of this global partnership is of great importance to the Alliance, allowing us join forces to end this practice that threatens the health and survival of so many young girls” said Kate Iorpenda, the Alliance’s senior advisor on children and impact mitigation.
You can find out more about Girls Not Brides here and read more about the Alliance’s work with children here.
Child marriage threatens the health and survival young girls
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(MENAFN Press) A new study designed to help large, organized retailers determine where and how to best enter Sub-Saharan Africa's rapidly growing retail sector is published by A.T. Kearney (http://www.atkearney.com), a leading global strategy consultancy firm, today
Download the report - PDF (2Mo): http://bit.ly/1e94g8i
Download the ranking table: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/photos/table.png
Rwanda, Nigeria, Namibia, Tanzania and Gabon occupy the top five places of the inaugural A.T. Kearney African Retail Development Index (ARDI). South Africa ranks seventh due to the developed nature of its retail market
The ARDI is a useful framework for retailers because it not only identifies the markets in Africa most attractive for retail expansion today, but those that offer the most potential for the future.
Africa is brimming with opportunities, not only for local and regional players, but also for large global brands and retailers
South African brands and retailers have been at the forefront of African expansion but may soon see global competition coming in. For South African players to keep their competitive advantage, sound strategies and investment plans will be required
With a billion people and growing economies, seven of the top 10 ARDI countries are among the 10 fastest growing ecomomies in the world
"Formal" retail, which takes place in malls, shopping centres, and other defined trade areas, remains in the early stages in most Sub-Saharan Africa countries, with the exception of South Africa, and is limited primarily to a handful of urban areas.
Low rates of formal retail coupled with increasing urbanization and the relative stability of many African economies represent massive room for retail growth.
Mirko Warschun, A.T. Kearney partner and ARDI co-author says, "The top 10 countries in the Index are diverse in terms of scale and growth potential.
"It is essential that retailers understand where African countries are in the evolution of the retail landscape and the stages of market development to craft their expansion strategies for Africa.
The ARDI is based on four elements: Market Size, Market Saturation, Country Risk and Time
Pressure and ranks the potential and urgency of moving into each country accordingly. The top 10 markets in the Index are segmented into three high level approaches: Start with the Basics, Move Quickly and Differentiate
Start with the Basics: The vast majority of Africa, including Rwanda, Tanzania, Gabon and Ethiopia, has limited market saturation, but also low maturity. While these markets are promising because of favorable demographics and recent growth trends, the major retail markets remain small, scattered and informal. The largest opportunities available in these markets revolve around offering basic consumer packaged products at low prices
Move Quickly: The countries in this group - currently only Nigeria and Gabon from the Top 10 - have rapidly evolving retail dynamics and demographics, with some established retail players and many other global retailers planning entries. According to A.T. Kearney, there is no time to spare entering these markets before these first movers gain an advantage as they establish their brands early and secure loyal customer bases.
Differentiate: These markets, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, have Africa's most advanced retail sectors as well as an existing presence of international retailers. These markets offer opportunities for retailers that can offer differentiated products or formats that are hard to find and appeal to a growing middle class and globally minded citizens.
Bart van Dijk, A.T. Kearney partner and ARDI co-author says, "There are wide differences in infrastructure and supply chain development across African countries. Understanding the opportunities and limitations from country to country is a critical element of the retail expansion decision.
By 2020, nearly half of all Africans will be living in cities. As disposable incomes rise, consumer spending will grow to almost 1 trillion. Even with the challenges of entering and succeeding in Africa, the opportunity is impossible to ignore
"Although there are many challenges, Africa has reached a point in its economic development where global retailers must evaluate the significant potential for growth in this market," says A.T. Kearney partner and ARDI co-author Mike Moriarty.
The 2014 Africa Retail Development Index Ranking and Recommended Approach (http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/photos/table.pn
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Firearms • Free training has been offered before but demand is up since Connecticut mass school shooting.
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Concealed-weapons instructors are offering free permit courses and mass violence response training to public school teachers, an effort to arm more teachers in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shooting.
Utah is one of two states Kansas being the other that allows individuals with concealed weapons permits to carry their guns in a school.
Instructors with the Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC)will offer Utah's concealed weapons course to school employees noon Thursday at the Maverik Center in West Valley City.
And David Burnell, CEO of OPSGEAR, will instruct teachers on how to respond to an attack and tactics to disrupt an attacker and save lives.
Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council, said he expects the class to reach its limit of 200 people and more will be turned away.
Friends or family of school employees can take the course for $35, with the money being donated to charity. Participants will be responsible for their own $46 application fee to the state to obtain the concealed weapons permit.
USSC has offered the course to teachers before, typically around the fall break, but after a Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 28 dead, including the gunman, there was demand for another class, Aposhian said.
"We just wanted to do something," he said.
Participants do not need to own a firearm, but if they bring a weapon it must be unloaded.
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I was tardily looking through Belle's school folder this morning, hoping there wouldn't be any homework assignments in it, when I found the letter that every parent dreads.
A case of head lice has been found in your child's classroom...
Oh my God! I thought. This letter has been sitting in her backpack all weekend! Worried that she had already caught it and spread it around the house, I rushed to check her scalp.
To my immense relief, I didn't find anything. But I am bracing myself for her to come home with it one of these days.
As a preventative measure, I put her hair in ponytails, hoping that would help her keep her hair to herself. What I really wanted to do was slather her hair with Vaseline, braid it tightly and then cover her head with a shower cap.
Later this morning I looked online for preventative measures. I found this:
Coconut Oil Shampoo & Conditioner
Coconut oil shampoo and conditioner is said to keep lice at bay, and coconut oil shampoo and conditioner smells terrific. Even when head lice aren't a threat, have your kids wash their hair with coconut oil shampoo and follow up with coconut oil conditioner. It will make their hair shiny, manageable, and head lice won't be attracted to their hair.
Olive Oil Shampoo & Conditioner
Washing the hair with olive oil shampoo and following up with olive oil conditioner is also said to be an effective way of preventing head lice. Many salons sell olive oil shampoo and conditioner, and besides preventing head lice, olive oil shampoo and conditioner, will leave the hair soft and shiny.
Tea Tree Oil
Tea tree oil is touted as a great treatment for preventing head lice, especially in locations known for severe head lice infestations. Tea tree oil can be found at many health food stores as well as online. If you want to save money, shop online to find the lowest prices.
Add tea tree oil to your usual shampoo, and wash the hair every other day. Alternately you can mix tea tree oil with water in a spray bottle. Apply it to the hair on a regular basis in an effort to prevent head lice. You might also consider lightly spraying pillowcases as a preventative measure.
I'm going to get some coconut shampoo tonight, and I think I might add a few drops of tea tree oil to the spray bottle I use to wet her hair down in the morning. According to the NIH, early studies have shown tea tree oil to be effective against head lice.
On the positive side, if she does get lice, I'll probably get an obsessive satisfaction from combing the nits out of her hair. I remember constantly combing out her cradle cap when she was a baby, and I can't walk by the dogs without wiping the crusty sleep from their eyes. I'm a bit of an obsessive groomer.
Your thoughts? Comment below, or email me.
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Gayathri is a variation of Gayatri which means 'way of going; song, hymn' in Sanskrit.
Sanskrit Name Ratnaprabha (Sanskrit रत्नप्रभा) literally mea..more
Sanskrit boy name Kavindra (कवीन्द्र) means prince among poe..more
Sanskrit word Janya literally means born or arising or produ..more
The boy name Purnendu (पुर्णेन्दु) is derived from Sanskrit...more
http://www.pitarau.com/ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Clicking on an Amazon link from http://www.pitarau.com/ does not increase the cost of any item you purchase.
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There is no worse person to be than the project manager at the end of a failed project. As an IT project manager, I have experienced that feeling and I can tell you it’s not nice. IT projects are particularly difficult to manage. In fact there really aren’t any IT projects, just projects that have elements of IT in them.
The trouble with these projects is that often you are doing something that hasn’t been done before, is unproven or cutting edge. Customers expect a good result not excuses, even though these projects are frequently a journey into the unknown. If we take the construction industry, building a new bridge for instance, we have been building bridges for hundreds of years and know how to do it. We understand how things are going to happen, in what order and the expected result. This is rarely the case with IT projects.
Avoiding the common pitfalls of IT project management is not rocket science, it is simply a case of taking some sensible measures. Identified here are five killer mistakes of project management:
Who Owns the Project?
The nature of projects is change and change often encounters resistance. People don’t like change so they need to know it is necessary and what benefits it will bring. In order for a project to deliver change it needs the backing of senior management. Without it the project will proceed very slowly. The sponsor (senior management) is the person that drives the change forward and the project is the mechanism for change. A project without support from senior management will struggle.
Make sure you have the top down backing from senior management. There must be direct communication from the sponsor to the stakeholders. The message must be, “we are serious, this thing is going to happen so you are either with us or you are not” and beware those that are not.
Be careful as project manager to make sure the sponsor does not take the project over and become the de-facto project manager.
Getting Users Involved
Lack of user input and involvement is the recipe for a bad project. This can either be because of the “we know what you want” mentality from the IT department or lack of interest from the customer. Either way it must be avoided.
The IT department must take time to understand the customers requirements before proposing any technical solution. Often IT is blinded by the latest, newest thing available and try to shoehorn the requirements into it. On the other hand, customers must devote the time and effort necessary to ensure a successful project by interacting with the IT department and making sure all requirements have been fully defined. Ensure you have spoken to all stakeholders to gathered their requirements and that they continue to work with you for the duration of the project.
Stopping Scope Creep
Scope creep is the cause of more project failures than anything else. Not knowing exactly what a project is aiming to deliver or setting off in a fit of enthusiasm but little else, is a recipe for failure.
Ensure that the business case, requirements and scope are clearly defined and documented. Make sure the stakeholders understand them and sign them off. Stick rigidly to the scope and if changes are required then put them through a change management process where they are documented, justified and then agreed.
Often there is an expectation that IT is like a magic wand you wave and suddenly a miracle occurs. During a technology project expectations can inflate to a ridiculous degree. It is the role of the project manager to manage expectations to a sensible level.
One way to avoid this is to break a project into smaller pieces or phases. I equate this to a sausage machine, where you feed in the raw material at one end and out it comes as small, perfectly formed, packages or sausages at the other end. The same can happen with IT projects where you take small packages of requirements and push them through the machine, producing several deliverables over the life of a project. This way you manage expectations by making frequent deliveries to demonstrate what the technology can really deliver. This approach ensures the project delivers to the customers expectations by giving them early visibility of what you are building.
Understanding the Lingo
Have you ever stood next to a group of IT professionals and wondered what on earth they were talking about. It is like a whole new language and to non-IT people it often is. The pitfall comes when the customer and IT think they are talking the same language when in fact they are not. This leads to a problem when the IT department delivers what they understood the customer wanted and it turns out to be something different.
Communication problems are the hardest to resolve as often it is only looking back that the problem is identified. Regular communication and a close working relationship with the customer will help. What you really need is a person with a foot in both camps. Someone who understands the business and the IT equally well. If you can identify this person make sure you keep hold of them, they are hugely valuable. If you are unable to find this person, the next best option is to have two people, one from the business and one from IT. By working closely together and sharing information they can minimise any communication problems.
In 1995 The Standish Group surveyed IT executive managers for their opinions about why projects succeed. The three major reasons given that a project will succeed are user involvement, executive management support, and a clear statement of requirements. Concentrating on these three aspects alone will give your project a good chance of success.
Don’t become the victim of a failed project, put measures in place that will ensure your success. After all it’s not rocket science!
Read more about IT Project Management
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Learn more about Pediatric Cardiology Specialists and how to choose the right one for you
A pediatric cardiologist specializes in caring for children with conditions and diseases of the heart and blood vessels. Pediatric cardiologists diagnose and treat many heart diseases and problems from the fetal period through adulthood, including cardiac arrhythmias and congenital heart disease. When heart surgery is needed, pediatric cardiologists work closely with specialized pediatric heart surgeons to provide comprehensive care. Pediatric cardiologists are also experts in preventing and treating risk factors for adult heart disease in children.
A pediatric cardiologist typically:
Evaluates a patient’s medical history and educates the child and family about heart health and heart disease prevention
Performs a physical exam including evaluation of blood pressure and vital signs, weight, and the health of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels
Orders and interprets laboratory and imaging tests and prescribes medications
Diagnoses and treats acute and chronic diseases and conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels, including arrhythmias and congenital heart disease
Screens, treats and monitors conditions known to increase the risk of adult heart disease in children, such as hypertension, smoking, obesity, and high cholesterol. For some complex risks, such as having diabetes, a pediatric cardiologist will provide referrals to other specialists such as a pediatric endocrinologist.
Performs procedures, such as EKG, echocardiogram, and cardiac catheterization
Works closely with your child’s primary care doctor and other specialists to provide optimal care
There is 1 specialist practicing Pediatric Cardiology in Topeka, KS.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I make a same-day appointment with a Pediatric Cardiology Specialist in Topeka, KS?
How can I find a Topeka, KS Pediatric Cardiology Specialist who takes my insurance?
How can I find a female Pediatric Cardiology Specialist in Topeka, KS?
How can I book an appointment online with a Pediatric Cardiology Specialist in Topeka, KS?
How can I find a Topeka, KS Pediatric Cardiology Specialist who sees patients after hours?
How can I find a top-rated Pediatric Cardiology Specialist in Topeka, KS?
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THE STORY OF BEAUTIFUL GIRL
New York Times bestselling author of RIDING THE BUS WITH MY SISTER, BUILDING A HOME WITH MY HUSBAND, and others, has written a love story about a developmentally disabled couple. In the late 1960s, Lynnie, a young white woman with limited speech, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are placed at the Pennsylvania State School for the Incurable and Feebleminded. Despite the poor living conditions, abusive staff members, strict rules, and a language barrier, Lynnie and Homan fall in love. They escape the institution to a farmhouse owned by Martha, a retired schoolteacher, where Lynnie gives birth to their child, Julia, whom they leave with Martha when Lynnie is apprehended and returned to the school. Although their lives diverge and unfold in different ways, their short time together nurtures Lynnie and Homan over the years as they develop confidence, learn to sign and speak and finally reunite.
(Talk and signings: 2/21 at Eagle Eye Bookstore and 2/22 at Peerless Bookstore, 8465 Holcomb Bridge Rd., Alpharetta, 30022)
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Not all employers have to carry workers' compensation insurance in Missouri. If a company has less than five employees total, that employer does not have to carry workers' compensation insurance. There is an exception to this rule for certain construction contractors, who must buy workers' compensation insurance even if they have only one employee. However, an employer with less than five employees can still elect to be covered under the Missouri Workers' Compensation law by purchasing insurance. Many small employers want to do this, even though it is not required, because purchasing workers' compensation insurance prevents the employer from being subject to getting sued in state court if their employees become injured on the job. Employees who work for covered employers can only bring an action against their employer for their injuries in the workers' compensation tribunal.
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- This page includes the show Transcript and the Daily Curriculum
- Use the Transcript to help students with reading comprehension and vocabulary
- The Daily Curriculum offers the Media Literacy Question of the Day, Key Concepts, Fast Facts and Discussion Questions
- At the bottom of the page, please share your feedback about our show and curriculum
March 5, 2014
Eastern Europe, South America, North America, Africa: These are the places discussed on today's international edition of CNN Student News. You'll hear about subjects ranging from protests to poaching, and we'll even provide a lighthearted lesson about good grammar before we go.
On this page you will find today's show Transcript, the Daily Curriculum, and a place for you to leave feedback.
Please note that there may be a delay between the time when the video is available and when the transcript is published.
Media Literacy Question of the Day:
Why might a news reporter take risks to cover a violent protest? In your view, are the benefits worth the risks? Explain.
Key Concepts: Identify or explain these subjects you heard about in today's show:
2. budget proposal
Fast Facts: How well were you listening to today's program?
1. How has the crisis in Ukraine impacted Russian markets? What is the international community considering with regard to the crisis in Ukraine? What economic ties does Russia have to other parts of Europe?
2. Why are some Venezuelans protesting their government? According to the report: How does the Venezuelan government characterize them? How do they characterize themselves? What differing views do Venezuelans have on former President Hugo Chavez?
3. How much would President Obama's 2015 federal budget spend? What would see increased government funding under this proposal? How would this be paid for? What does the president say about his proposal? What do Republicans say about it?
1. What might be some reasons why developments in Ukraine are important to the U.S. and Russia? What might the U.S. and other countries hope to accomplish by threatening economic sanctions against Russia? What might they risk in threatening these sanctions? Why might Russian President Vladimir Putin be willing to take economic risks to remain involved in Ukraine?
2. What do you know about socialism? What makes this form of government controversial? What are some of the reasons behind violent protests in Venezuela? Can you see any potential diplomatic solutions to the unrest in Venezuela? What do you think will happen there in the days ahead?
3. How would you characterize today's report about poaching in the Republic of Congo? Why do you think that some people poach, despite the risks to themselves and to endangered species? Why might the experience of a former poacher be important to a government that wants to eradicate the practice? Do you think poaching can be stopped completely? If so, how? If not, why not?
CNN Student News is created by a team of journalists and educators who consider the Common Core State Standards, national standards in different subject areas, and state standards when producing the show and curriculum. We hope you use our free daily materials along with the program, and we welcome your feedback on them.
We're looking for your feedback about CNN Student News. Please use this page to leave us comments about today's program, including what you think about our stories and our resources. Also, feel free to tell us how you use them in your classroom. The educators on our staff will monitor this page and may respond to your comments as well.
Thank you for using CNN Student News!
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Today in 1971, The Rolling Stones album "Sticky Fingers" started a four-week run at No.1 on the US charts, the group's second US No.1 album. The artwork for Sticky Fingers, which, on the original vinyl release, featured a working zipper that opened to reveal cotton briefs, was conceived by American pop artist Andy Warhol. The cover, a photo of Joe Dallesandro's crotch clad in tight blue jeans, was assumed by many fans to be an image of Mick Jagger. The album also features the first usage of the "Tongue and Lip Design" designed by John Pasche.
Also, Today In:
1958 - Jerry Lee Lewis arrived in London with his 13-year-old child bride, Myra, who also happened to be his cousin. This was not well-received in most quarters, and the tour ran out of steam fast.
1965 - "Ticket To Ride" by The Beatles was #1 on this day.
1989, Rap group Public Enemy fired one of its members, Professor Griff, after he made anti-Semitic remarks in the Washington Post.
1999 - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band set a new record for the number of concerts to be performed during a continuous run at a single arena. When tickets for their reunion tour went on sale for their shows at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, only five shows were scheduled initially, but overwhelming demand raised the number to a total of 15 shows.
2009 - White Stripes drummer Meg White married Jackson Smith at ex-husband and bandmate Jack White's Nashville home. Jack and Meg White were married for four years and divorced in 2000.
Morrissey is 55 today.
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Mallick: Jungle medicine for drug addiction
Amazonian medicine enters the brain to change the way drug-users think.
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What if I told you there might be a new way to treat drug addiction?
I don’t mean spending billions failing to police the drug supply, or mopping ineffectually at addiction’s results, which are ill health, violence, sold bodies, damaged families . . . let me reword that, blood infections and oozing facial sores, fractured skulls, oral sex in alleyways and toddlers weeping in shock at a mother’s slap or a father’s sexual fondling.
We throw up our hands and claim not to understand why people want hard drugs in the first place, those drugs that make them beautifully high and pain-free for a brief interlude, gosh that’s mystifying.
But even if we don’t have an abundance of empathy, perhaps we might help in a practical way and consider supporting a new approach to treating human emotional pain, a technique that doesn’t just treat symptoms but goes to the core of why people damage themselves this way.
And what if this radical new strategy actually worked? It’s cheaper. If that is how we measure things now, and it is, this could be a moral and medical triumph.
On Thursday at 8 p.m., the CBC’s The Nature of Things will present a documentary, The Jungle Prescription, about just such an approach. It’s about an Amazonian medicine called ayahuasca, the so-called “vine of the souls,” that enters the brain to change the way drug-users think and feel about the original hurts that made them take up the heroin needle.
Dr. Gabor Maté, the Vancouver doctor who has treated the drug addicts of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for many years, has drunk ayahuasca himself. Me, I trust a doctor more if he has tested some wild new treatment on himself before prescribing it for others and Maté has gone down the drug’s dark road several times, to make sure.
He thinks it will help addicts face their pain-soaked memories and change the way they react to them.
When you are hurt, often when terribly young, your brain is imprinted. It remembers and reacts. When similar events occur, or anything triggers that memory, the brain travels old pathways reinforced like scar tissue. We drink, smoke, overeat, snort and inject just to cope.
Maté says this strange new liquid will help. Made from two plants mashed, cooked and juiced, ayahuasca looks deceptive, a watery spinach soup in a cup. But its effect is extraordinary, hyperactivating the parts of the brain where emotional memory is stored and processed. Rather than revisiting the same old neural connections, it forms new ones, letting people look at a painful event they could not normally contemplate without agony and altering the way they see it.
When ayahuasca fades, they feel calm, refreshed, able to view hurt in a new way rather than rushing to find a fast opiate way to stomp out an old emotion.
It takes courage to swallow the drug, which is why Maté says it must only be taken in controlled settings of safety and comfort. Imagine your worst nightmare. Imagine deciding to risk revisiting that nightmare while awake.
Only the addict who truly wants to turn the boat around midstream will dare do it. But the rewards do seem to be remarkable.
I talked to Maté in Toronto last week. He is an intelligent man of great warmth. He radiates compassion. If you’re going to swallow something that tastes horrendous and makes you vomit with abandon for an elusive goal of repairing your shattered life, this is the person you want by your side.
But will it work? Yes, he says. Look at us. “We are a stressed, traumatized, medicated society.” We try to manage the symptoms of this in the most expensive wasteful way possible, but instead we should “enliven and invigorate our natural healing capacity.”
It sounds like shaman talk, it sounds hippie-ish and not-our-world. But the thing is, it sounds like it works. Watch the documentary and think for yourself, especially in your lowest moments when you reach for a drink or a smoke, something to grease the skids of this painful life.
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- Canada’s first TV debate was also a headache
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** happy memorial day weekend **
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the Civil War), it was expanded after World War I.
FLY YOUR FLAGS ALL WEEKEND!
http://XmasDVD.com - Watch Christmas clips, movies, commercials, cartoons and more, online all year long!
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Harry is five, and tired in an I'm-not-tired-Miss way, despite having travelled for four hours on a bus from Wolverhampton to the capital. He has walked up the marble entrance stairs of London's National Gallery, and up another flight to reach Room 1. Here, surrounded by artworks, his words come in a seamlessly rhythmic stream, untroubled by doubt or pauses. "When I saw a picture of it real I thought it's not real but it was real Peter Paul Rubens did it and I was amazed I've forgotten which one's mine I like drawing like any artist sort of thing there's other rooms there's computers and stuff and you see a real artist's room it's better things in real life."
Harry's emphases are clearly for my benefit. Room 1 is noisy, and he's making sure that I understand things clearly. A thorough sort of chap.
Harry's here with a selected troupe of children from Castlecroft Primary School in Wolverhampton, and his last six words have absolutely nailed the purpose of their visit: it's better, things in real life.
In this case, things mean great art, and real life means actually seeing great art. The children are here because the finger paintings of Castlecroft's four- and five-year-olds were selected from entries from 170 primary schools around the country in the National Gallery's Take One Picture scheme (on until 13 July).
The idea is simple and has been successfully deployed in other places such as Room 13 in Scotland, and the Clore Duffield Foundation. More than 80,000 school children visit the National Gallery every year, and primary schools are invited to take part in projects based on artistic responses to a particular great painting. This year, it's Rubens's An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, probably painted in 1636.
"The National Gallery has always been aware of the huge potential that looking at paintings has for unlocking children's imaginations and also as a vehicle for learning," says the gallery's schools officer Alexandra Hill. "What has been particularly fascinating with Take One Picture is the different directions the schools have taken the project in. The children's ideas have often exceeded everyone's expectations."
The scheme inspires cross-curricular work in primary classrooms, using the image both as a stimulus for artwork, and for work inunexpected curriculum areas, she says. It has generated a satellite scheme called Take One Picture: North, East, South West, in which the National Gallery worked with regional galleries, the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle and Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery, which now runs its own Take One Picture projects with local schools and communities."
Take One Picture is linked with teacher training programmes at five universities. The National Gallery offers 176 placements each year for trainee teachers from these institutions, when they learn how to use the Gallery's collection to teach across the curriculum.
In Room 1, Thomas and Harjorth – four and five, respectively – are holding hands, and will remain palm-Velcroed to each other for the next two hours, presumably as protection against being teleported even further into a world that, for the moment, seems a little strange. But no stranger, surely, than the sight of their local Labour MP, Rob Marris, wedged into a corner behind the children for a photo-op.
The Castlecroft pupils release him from their barbican, and are bristling with energy despite having had to wait until Oxford for a loo-break. They have suffered stoically for their art and now, in this dimly lit room, can see their finger-paintings of trees next to the Rubens, and the work of the other selected primary schools.
"Take One Picture is a fabulous project," says Castlecroft's headmistress, Tish Keech. "It frees up the curriculum." By that, she means that it injects new vigour into other subjects, such as dance and drama. The school's own encomium highlights higher than average Key Stage 2 scores, and exceptional provision in sport and arts. There are regular visits to their local art gallery, and to Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
But what about the art in Room 1? Apart from Castlecroft, the selected works come from Enborne CE Primary School, Newbury; Esher Church School, Surrey; Maun Infant and Nursery School, New Ollerton, Nottinghamshire; Ruskin Junior School, Swindon; Southam Primary School, Warwickshire; St Mary's CE Primary School, Bridport, Dorset; St Nicholas CE Primary School, Radstock, Bath; Takeley Primary School, Bishops Stortford; and Wheeler Primary School, Hull.
Several of the art projects are exceptional. The collage produced by the first-year class at Takeley Primary School is a startling response to An Autumn Landscape. Rubens's vision is languid and limpid; the eye is firmly led, by the angles of a muddy cart track and lines of trees, into a world of quiet rural order. The pupils at Takeley overlaid an essentially urban collage on a framed copy of An Autumn Landscape, which is obliterated by queues of cars, road signs, terraces, blocks of flats, compressed green spaces. All we see of Rubens's painting are tree-tops, two birds, and high, mustardy cloud.
For these pupils, autumn and landscape in the world's third most densely populated country have become largely denatured phenomena. But seen and accepted, or seen and objected to? The work hovers between fleeting juvenile polemic, and a naive pleasure in the patterns that can be generated by semi-rural life in 21st century Britain. The composition of the superimposed imagery has been applied with the greatest care. It seems scarcely conceivable that this is the work of primary school juniors living in the Spreadvilles and Boomburbs of the Herts-Essex borderland, who might think that irony was what fire-grates felt like.
Just above a marvellously vivid "country" theatre set composed by children at Enborne CE Primary School – Rubens's bucolism restored – float Maun Infant and Nursery School's starkly boxy cows with loo-roll tube legs, heavily daubed with black-and-white paint. They're hilarious, but mounted in this way, well above head-height, they radiate a certain surreality: an innocence given power not so much by the art objects themselves, charming though they are, but by their elevated positioning. We normally have to look down at small children, and their creations, don't we?
The poetry trees produced by eight- and nine-year-olds at Ruskin Junior School are an obvious enough idea. They've turned the content of Rubens's scene into words. Plants and trees produce sports of nature – sudden, unexpected variations of colour or form; and so do the word-barked branches of these trees: "Twigs elegantly reaching, thin and fragile" borders on haiku; and "the tree has been here for years and years watching time pass by", may well prove to have been the work of a future Friend of the Earth.
But it is the artwork next to the poetry trees that is surely the star of the show. Using cardboard, glue-guns and heavy-duty scissors, senior pupils at Southam Primary School have produced a riveting series of angular reliefs, abstracting country scenes in a way that recalls the symbolism of British postwar modern painters. It's true that the children were helped by an artist-in-residence, but one can see the childish hands in the work, and this is what makes it compelling. Bernard Jacobson, the legendary Cork Street gallerist, would love this stuff.
Later, explaining three selected paintings in the National Gallery, Castlecroft's guide Paul Kavanagh, in pale grey suede shoes and outsize glasses, wins over Tish Keech's protégés with consummate ease, despite having to explain Poussin's The Adoration of the Golden Calf, Pierre Mignard's The Marquise de Seignelay and Two of Her Sons andTurner's The Fighting Temeraire – next year's subject for Take One Picture. "God gave Moses something when he was up the mountain," he explained, pointing at Poussin's depiction. "Do you know what it was? What's that? A burning bush? No! It was rules!"
The flow of his information, cross-references to music and history, and his amused, prodding questions is virtuosic. As a result, Maia, five, whose dazzling hair would certainly have interested Rossetti, puts her hand up to answer every question. But it is Arthur, 10, who actually seems to have the answer to everything. There is mass tittering when Kavanagh refers to Cupid in Mignard's portrait: "If you were sent a golden arrow, all will be well. If you get a lead arrow from him, you're going to have a lot of trouble. I think the Marquise de Seignelay must have been very rich, don't you? Is anybody here very rich? You are?"
Daniel, seven, is looking rather pleased with himself. "You've got £5? No? You've got £85! You have? That's more than I've got!"
In front of The Fighting Temeraire, Kavanagh goes into overdrive, with a brilliant fugue invoking history, shipbuilding, sea battle conditions, shanties, and the death of Nelson. "If you were on that ship, the night before the battle, you might want to write a letter to your girlfriend." A ripple of giggles, and pinking cheeks. "And what about Turner and Nelson. They're dead, but on a dark night, they could have a chat about this painting. You never know!" Young Arthur sits forward, alertly, on message and ready to clarify matters. "He knows about Moses!" exclaims Kavanagh. "He knows about Nelson! I'm very glad you're here today."
More information from: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/education; www.clore duffield.org.uk; www.room13scotland.com.Reuse content
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Hashanie Chithranganie, a Researcher at CMEV, expressed her ideas on the importance of the de-limitation process and its impact on electoral reforms in the country. She co-authored the book ‘History of the de-limitation process in Sri Lanka & a brief introduction on previous commissions’, recently published by CMEV. She has discussed on the findings of previous de-limitation commissions, the respective special features and other matters including the de-limitation review committee which has been appointed under the Ministry of Provincial Council & Local Government.
The program named ‘Talk Back with Jayasiri’ was presented by W. Jayasiri and was produced by Lanka Puvath Ltd. as per the invitation of CMEV, a project being implemented in partnership with Open Society Foundation. Lanka Puvath Ltd. is the only state news agency of Sri Lanka which was established in 1978 and is a member of the Organisation Asia – Pacific News Agencies- OANA Pool.
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A Serum-Free Medium for the Culture of Insect Cells and Production of Recombinant Proteins
W. F. Hink
In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology
Vol. 27A, No. 5 (May, 1991), pp. 397-401
Published by: Society for In Vitro Biology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4296672
Page Count: 5
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A low protein aqueous lipid supplement (Ex-Cyte VLE), in combination with pluronic polyol, is an effective replacement for fetal bovine serum for insect Sf-9 cells. Serum-free medium with lipid supplement and pluronic (SFM-LP) supported higher cell viability and maximum cell populations than serum-supplemented medium. No adaptation procedures are required when switching cells from serum-containing medium to SFM-LP, and growth rates remain constant during continued passages in SFM-LP. The amounts of recombinant proteins produced, which is the major use for the Sf-9 cells, are better or equal in SFM-LP compared to serum-supplemented medium. SFM-LP also supports growth of the TN-368 cell line but IPLB-SF-21AE or IZD-Mb0503 lines grow poorly in this medium.
In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology © 1991 Society for In Vitro Biology
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While Microsoft is finally getting a clue and incorporating its Zune media playing and Xbox game capability into its new Windows Mobile, mobile Linux is making its own improvements. First, Intel and Nokia are merging their mobile Linux distributions into a single operating system: MeeGo. At the same time, Adobe and Google has partnered up to bring Adobe Flash to Android.
MeeGo has great promise. I always liked Intel's Moblin, and merging it with Nokia's Maemo is a smart move. As Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, which has served as midwife to this move, observed, the merging helps create "one open-source uber-platform for the next generation of computing devices: tablets, pocketable computers, netbooks, automotive IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment) and more... With MeeGo, you have the world's largest chip manufacturer and the world's largest mobile handset manufacturer joining forces to create an incredible opportunity for developers who want to reach millions of users with innovative technology."
All true, but what's more important is that it's a move toward unity of mobile Linux distributions. One of the big reasons why Linux's ancestor, Unix, was never successful in becoming a major operating system except in servers was that there were always half a dozen or more competing systems that were always competing with each other. SunOS was battling with AIX, which was slugging it out with HP/UX, which was having it out with SCO OpenServer, etc. etc.; meanwhile, Microsoft Windows was left free to mop up on the desktop.
Linux is still divided into factions: the Debian/Ubuntu family; Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its relatives, such as Fedora and CentOS; and Novell with SUSE Linux Enterprise. But unlike the bad old Unix days, it's not hard to move applications from one Linux distribution to another on the desktop or the server.
But on mobile devices, it's harder for ISV (independent software vendors) to move applications between platforms. Mobile ISVs have to deal with a wider variety of hardware and network compatibility issues than their server and desktop programming counterparts. That's why MeeGo is an important move. By presenting mobile ISVs with one less platform to support, it makes life easier for them to support mobile Linux.
As Zemlin also points out, MeeGo will not focus on just the desktop or smartphone, but on "a wide variety of devices, and that takes full advantage of the superior computing power of each device category -- longer battery life, better screens, location services, touch, 4G broadband, new vehicle technology and stronger processors... [It's] not an OS designed for a legacy purpose that is being crammed or expanded into a new device form. In other words, this isn't a square peg in a round hole -- MeeGo is a next generation mobile operating system designed for the next generation of mobile devices."
Again, what I think is even more important is that, to quote Zemlin, "Intel and Nokia understand true innovation in computing is not restricted to private silos, no matter how big. They are opening up this platform to the broader community. MeeGo, as Linux Foundation project ... will be helpful for Linux as a platform. It combines mobile development resources that were recently split in the Maemo and Moblin projects into one well-supported, well-designed project that addresses cross-platform, cross-device and cross-architecture development. Android, Chrome OS, the Palm Pre, Bada, and dozens of traditional Linux desktop efforts use many of the components in MeeGo."
In other words, MeeGo, like Linux, will serve at the common foundation for many Linux-based mobile operating systems. This, in turn will make Linux much more attractive to application designers.
At the same time this news was coming out, Adobe was announcing that it was bringing Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR to Google Android mobile Linux. Since Flash is the de facto video standard on the Web, this will make Android devices even more attractive. That's especially true since Apple has zero interest in supporting Flash on its iPhone, iPod and iPad product lines.
What all this adds up to is that even more Linux mobile devices like Motorola''s Droid and Devour coming on soon. In addition, you can expect to see a slew of mobile Linux-powered netbooks and the first samples of, yes, the Linux-powered answers to Apple's iPad tablet.
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Here in North America, we are surrounded with rhetoric denouncing the feasibility of climate change mitigation. It’s not possible to reduce our emissions, people say. It’s not worth it.
The situation in the U.S. Congress regarding this issue is becoming so bizarre that hopes for an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have grown faint. Without the U.S. on board, many countries (see: Canada) will bail out entirely.
Not all countries are waiting for everyone else, however. Many developed countries, particularly in Europe, have gone ahead and achieved significant cuts in their emissions. Let’s take a step out of the little bubble of North America and see what the rest of the world managed to do while we bickered about whether or not there was even a problem.
Countries: the European Union (EU), representing most of Europe
Emission Targets: 20% below 1990 levels by 2020
How They’ll Get There: The EU started a cap-and-trade system in 2005. They also plan to target energy efficiency and develop the use of renewable energy.
How They’re Doing : The total emissions of the EU have declined slightly since 1990. This is partly because many Eastern European countries are still transitioning from communism, and their emissions are fairly low while their economies recover. However, some rich countries such as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK have made significant cuts in their emissions, and, as of 2008, were already around 10-20% below 1990 levels.
Country: the United Kingdom (UK)
Emission Targets: 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2012, as per their Kyoto targets. Through their Climate Change Acts, the UK has also set a goal of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
How They’ll Get There: The government is aiming for 40% of their energy to come from low-carbon sources (both renewable and nuclear). They are also focusing on efficiency, and planning a cap-and-trade system.
How They’re Doing: The UK is well on track to meet, and even exceed, their Kyoto agreements. By 2010, their emissions were predicted to be 11% below their Kyoto targets.
Emission Targets: Norway has some of the most ambitious targets in the world. Not only are they aiming for emissions to be 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, they are planning a carbon-neutral economy – 100% cuts – by 2050. If a major international agreement comes to pass, like Copenhagen was supposed to be, they will pledge for carbon neutrality by 2030.
How They’ll Get There: In addition to their cap and trade system, Norway is investing a lot of money into carbon capture and storage (CCS). They have also introduced taxes on natural gas and stricter efficiency standards for new houses.
How They’re Doing: Norway’s emissions have increased by 8% since 1990. Hopefully their extensive plans will reverse that trend.
Emission targets: If an international agreement comes to pass, Australia will reduce their emissions to 25% below 2000 levels by 2020. Otherwise, they will shift that target to 5-15%. Normally, using a baseline that’s later than the standard 1990 is a warning sign, a clever trick that governments use to make their targets look stricter than they are (see: Canada). However, since Australia’s emissions fell slightly between 1990 and 2000, the equivalent target with respect to 1990 is actually more than 25%.
How They’ll Get There: The Australian Parliament has had difficulty passing cap-and-trade legislation. They are hoping to implement this eventually, but will focus on energy efficiency and renewables in the mean time.
How They’re Doing: Originally, Australia refused to sign Kyoto, but in 2007 a new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was elected. He committed the country to Kyoto targets, just a little late. So far, it looks like Australia will easily meet their targets of 8% over 1990 levels by 2012.
Emission targets: Japan has set solid targets of 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050.
How They’ll Get There: Japan has a cap-and-trade system, and is considering a carbon tax. They also want 10% of their energy to come from renewables by 2020.
How They’re Doing: Japan’s emissions have increased slightly since 1990. As of 2008, they were about 6% above 1990 levels.
Emission targets: The Canadian government has pledged to reduce emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. However, emissions in 2005 were quite a bit higher than they were in 1990. When you adjust this estimate to the standard baseline, it’s actually a 2.5% increase. The Environment Canada website describes this as an “ambitious target”. Go figure!
How They’ll Get There: So far, the Canadian government has tightened up fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles, but that’s about it. The current administration refuses to consider meaningful action until the United States does. In fact, the House of Commons recently passed a bill setting meaningful emission targets (20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050)…but the Senate, which has a Conservative majority, voted the bill down with absolutely no debate. Given the fact that Senators are appointed by Prime Ministers, not elected by citizens, it’s hard to see this action as anything less than anti-democratic.
How They’re Doing:By 2008, Canadian emissions had soared to 24% above 1990 levels.
This data almost makes me feel ashamed to be Canadian, to be a part of such an obstructionist country. Look at what countries in Europe have managed to do. It wasn’t impossible, like so many North American politicians warned. And then look at countries like the United States and Canada, that have not only failed to reduce their emissions, but have actively worked against any kind of a plan to do so.
Future generations will not look on us kindly. We will become the villains of our own history books.
Update: By popular request:
Country: United States of America
Emission targets: None
How They’ll Get There: Despite not having a formal target for emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to regulate emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants and refineries in late December. The Republican Party is resorting to all sorts of silliness to try to change this.
How They’re Doing: As of 2008, US emissions were 14% above 1990 levels.
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One of my early childhood memories... I am sitting on my Uncle Cecil's lap in the henhouse, candling eggs.
Before setting eggs under the hen to brood, we would candle the eggs to make certain they were fresh.
We would hold the eggs up to a lamp in the dark henhouse with the large end up.
Good eggs look clear and the white spot, or air cell, at the end of the egg is small, not larger than a dime. The yolk is at the center.
If the egg cell is large, and a dark yolk moves around, the egg is not fresh.
While the eggs are brooding, they can also be candled to check the progress of the embryos. The video above shows a live embryo moving around in an egg that is being candled
The Worland Family in America and Beyond
I began my life in the Puget Sound area of Washington State, on an island filled with forests and wild rhododendrons. I was separated from my Worland family there at an early age. Recently, I was reunited with my family and learned of my heritage. And so, this journey to know my ancestors began. The Worlands, Gideons, Newtons, Conards... they were the colonists, the settlers, the pioneers. They fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War. This is their story, and the story of a nation. -Deci Worland MacKinnon
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University of Phoenix
Dr. Anthony Matias
March 24, 2011
The premise of this paper is to identify deficiencies in daily managerial processes by using systematic statistical process controls and make the necessary improvements. The paper will employ various examples and calculations along with supporting data to explain control limits and its importance to the statistical process control. The effects of seasonal factors and its relevance to a process will also be highlighted and how confidence intervals are important in giving insights into data sets that improve the entire statistical process control. Process Improvement Plan
In every successful organization, management is continual finding ways to tweak operational and managerial process to ensure efficiency and maximize profitability. Through learning curves, flowcharts, and statistical process controls improvement plan enable leaders to advance the company’s business interests through refining the structure of operations as opposed to solving problems singularly. It also eliminates traditional behaviors such as placing blame and pointing fingers and focuses on how the organization on a whole can work together. A true process improvement plan uses historical knowledge and the statistical implementation of data to minimize variations, rid the process on unwanted activities that are noncontributory.
Improvements in any process start Statistical process control, which is the random testing of a sample of output from the process to determine whether the process is producing items within a preselected range (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006). These samples may be either fit or unfit for example taking random samples from a batch of newly made Motorola I Pad. Testing may discover that some will work accordingly whereas other will not power on. Companies set determined statistically parameters that control the...
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We hope you are having a good Social Work Month. The following comes from the MSW program at USC. I thought it was worth sharing. ~Liz
Often times, people don’t realize social workers are influential professionals in our local communities and have led some of the most important social movements that have changed the fabric of our culture. Also many misconceptions persist about what social workers do and their role in many workplaces. Social workers are people who work tirelessly to help others and can be found in many key industries and professions, such as healthcare, business, human resources and government. Their experience working with culturally diverse audiences and shaping the public policies that help our most vulnerable populations gives them a diverse skill set that is transferrable to many different types of careers.
March is National Social Work Month, sponsored by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), and this year’s theme, ”Social Work Matters” is meant to showcase the impact of more than 642,000 professional social workers in America. In honor of this important month, our “Social Work 101″ infographic, highlights the rapid growth projected for social work employment, the likely careers and employment settings where you’ll find social workers, and famous social workers who made a difference in our world.
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“...11. We recognize that agriculture plays a crucial role in addressing the needs of a growing global population and is inextricably linked to poverty eradication, especially in African countries where majority of the population depend on it for their livelihood. We reiterate that supporting integrated and sustainable agriculture and rural development is essential to achieving food security and food safety in Africa.
12. We also recognize that African countries have taken a number of measures at the national, sub-regional and regional levels to boost agriculture and rural development, including policy responses aimed at reversing the decline in agriculture and boosting production to achieve food security.”
“15. We call for concerted and collective response by African countries and the international community, working in partnership to support integrated and sustainable agriculture and rural development approaches, and stress the importance of food security and strengthening the agricultural sector, as set out in, inter alia, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme of the NEPAD. We call upon development partners including the United Nations system to increase their assistance to Africa, in particular to least developed countries and those that are most negatively affected by high food prices.”
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Owning a property in a highly desired catchment area means we can find you a great tenant at a competitive price, matched with outstanding service.
An extremely important consideration for families when buying or renting a property is the catchment area. In short, catchment areas are defined boundaries whichnare associated with a school. If you buy or rent a house in one of these areas, then your children will receive priority
over other applications from people living outside the demarcations.
At the beginning of March, thousands of parents across the country found out which primary or secondary school had offered a place for their child. Many will have got a place a place at their first choice school, however others will not.
Last year, the proportion of pupils getting a place at their first choice of school across the country remained at 83.5 per cent of first choice applications resulting in an offer and 94.6 per cent of parents received an offer from one of their top three preferences. According to Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, “Since 2010, the government has created 735,000 new school places across the country. We will continue to build on this by investing £5.8billion to create even more good school places, because we are determined to give parents choice when it comes to their children’s education.”
Figures pulled from www.schoolguide.co.uk show that the following schools have been voted as the ‘Top 5’ in Nottingham.
Top 5 Secondary Schools in Nottingham;
- Nottingham High School
- Nottingham Girls' High School
- Trinity Catholic School
- The Becket School
- Bluecoat Academy
Top 5 Primary Schools in Nottingham;
- Greenfields Community School
- Sneinton St Stephen's C of E Primary School
- Welbeck Primary School
- Huntingdon Academy
- Edna G. Olds Academy
You can view a full league table of all Primary and Secondary schools in Nottingham here.
How Belvoir Can Help
Despite the promising figures of getting your children into your first-choice school, there is also the possibility of not being accepted into your preferred school because of reasons such as living in the catchment area for a different school. Belvoir are able to offer assistance to both Landlords and Tenants when it comes to all things catchment area related!
Do you have a property that falls within the catchment area of a school that is in high demand, for example any of the school listed above?
Due to the demand and the fantastic area your home is situated, Belvoir will be able to get a great tenant at a competitive price matched with outstanding service. Check catchment areas for different schools here: (link)
If you’re a tenant and you want to relocate to the catchment area of your first choice primary or secondary school, we can help you out!
Firstly, look at the catchment area that you need to be in, in order to be granted a place at your preferred school, you can do that here. You can then take a look at the many amazing properties that we have to offer that are situated in a variety of excellent catchment areas.
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Lake Trips That Are Different
Read This Carefully
(Courtesy of Vintage Views Archives*)
PROVIDING for the comfort and convenience of our guests during their cruise on the Great Lakes and interpreting the pleasures of a yachting trip is a profession with the Chicago, Duluth and Georgian Bay Transit Company.
The two lake trips, offered by this company, embody the best thought of men who began to study Great Lakes transportation problems twenty years ago. This season — 1918 — represents the sixth year of this service. The trips were inaugurated by the Chicago, Duluth and Georgian Bay Transit Company, in 1913, and gained immediate popularity with the traveling public — 6000 people making the trip on the one boat (S.S. NORTH AMERICAN) during that season. This tremendous travel that first Summer necessitated the building of the second ship (S.S. SOUTH AMERICAN) which was placed in service the Spring of 1914.
The trips this season are so arranged as to be complete in their scenic schedule without becoming tedious or tiresome. Both trips contrive to stop at some port of scenic or historical importance each day. Ample time is allotted for sightseeing at all ports of call.
The two big ships NORTH AMERICAN and SOUTH AMERICAN represent the acme of comfort and convenience in water travel, being modeled after the larger and newer of the trans-Atlantic steamers.
The ships were built primarily for passenger travel and their entire complement of officers and crew are, at all times, at the service of the guests. The NORTH AMERICAN and SOUTH AMERICAN are 2317 and 2612 tons respectively, and have four decks or staterooms with two promenade decks. In addition to the regular staterooms, each boat has parlor rooms, completely furnished with large double or twin beds, mahogany dressers and private bath or shower. Large social assembly halls, ballroom, card-rooms, sun-parlors and children’s playgrounds are included on both boats. The children’s playground is on deck enclosed with heavy meshed wire and contains a large sand pile, swings, games, etc. These playgrounds are in charge of competent women attendants. The social assembly salons are equipped with pianos and Edison cabinet phonographs. A large variety of records are always at the disposal of the guests.
No detail is overlooked to make the trip a pleasant and memorable experience. An orchestra plays during luncheon and dinner, and in the glass enclosed ballroom each evening. (Sundays excepted.) A hostess is employed to arrange entertainment during the evening for guests who do not care for dancing. Many unique performances have been staged on the boats, as it is the duty of the hostess to discover any celebrity of talent making the cruise, and induce them to lend their especial gifts for the benefit of the other guests.
Careful attention is given the cuisine of the boats, which is unexcelled. The food is well served by neat waitresses and the dining rooms and kitchens are large, light and modern in every respect.
We invite correspondence, or, if possible, visits to our offices and agencies. Your inquiry will receive careful and personal attention.
The Chicago Duluth & Georgian Bay Transit Co.
Editor’s note: The S.S. North American sailed until the early 1960s (although not regularly during its final years). The S.S. South American stopped sailing in 1967. To learn more about these and other passenger ships on the Great Lakes, visit the Marine Historical Society of Detroit online (mhsd.org).
*Historic brochure text, advertising copy and nostalgic prints are reprinted with permission from the personal archives of M. Christine Byron and Thomas R. Wilson, owners of Grand Rapids-based Vintage Views Prints (vintageviewsprints.com), authors of books including “Vintage Views of the Mackinac Straits Region” (Arbutuspress.com), and avid collectors of the past (see Wavelengths, page 12).
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What It Is?
Implementation is the point at which all your planning and preparation come together. Among theactivities critical to your program's success are:
- planning the program's launch
- holding a news event to publicize your messages
- taking advantage of unexpected opportunities
- defusing potential threats to your efforts
How It Is Done?
Prepare for launch
- Preparing for your launch includes:
- producing your program materials
- issuing requests for proposals (RFPs)
- awarding funds to have program work done by outside entities
- hiring and training your staff
- planning launch promotion
Producing your program materials
- Get organizational clearance for your program materials and decide what level of quality you can afford. Produce them in the amounts needed to support your program activities.
- The process for producing audiovisual and print materials will vary depending on whether you're using existing materials or developing new ones. When possible, consider using or adapting existing materials.
Issuing requests for proposals (RFPs)
- If your program or evaluation activities will be carried out and/or managed by outside organizations, issue requests for proposals (RFPs) to ensure fair competition for the work. (See SOC_RFPProcess.pdf[145 KB, 7 pages] for a sample RFP.)
- Conduct some form of price or cost analysis for every procurement action.
- Price analysis is determining if a price is reasonable. A web search on "vendor price analysis" will bring up sample forms to use for this purpose.
- Cost analysis is the review and evaluation of each cost item on the budget to determine if costs:
- are clearly allocated (i.e., you know what each cost covers)
- are reasonable
- are allowable under your guidelines
- Allow 3-4 weeks for bidders to respond to your RFP. Allow enough time for your team to evaluate the proposals.
Hiring and training your staff
- Hire new staff or consultants as your program plan requires. Having your staff on board and ready to launch the program is key to success.
- To solidify staff roles:
- Update staff job descriptions to reflect any new responsibilities.
- Review supervisory duties
- Develop review criteria to assess staff performance in their new duties.
- Get feedback from staff before the launch to avoid any problems or challenges they may see.
Plan program launch
- Decide whether to have a public launch with media attention or a "soft launch" (a low-key startup announcement for staff and partners).
- Identify the audiences that will hear about the launch. These audiences could be staff, partners, community leaders, prospective clients or the media. Develop talking points with the messages you want to convey to them.
Execute and manage intervention components:
- Directing staff toward the attainment of program objectives, using an effective leadership style and motivational strategies.
- Coordinating the efforts of all personnel, including the ongoing clarification of roles (people have to know what to do, whom they report to and who reports to them) and the resolution of conflicts and misunderstandings.
- Making sure that policies and procedures are followed and making corrections when they're not.
- Planning and directing modifications in program activities when evaluation feedback indicates a need for changes (see Step 6.4).
- Ensuring smooth communication via staff meetings, e-mail updates, newsletters or other means, so that all staff, partners, contractors and vendors are aware of progress toward objectives, and solutions to any challenges.
- Reviewing your vendors' and contractors' work to ensure that their progress and payments proceed as planned.
- Tracking and making necessary adjustments to other financial inputs and outputs.
Execute and manage the monitoring and evaluation plans
- Intervention and monitoring activities should be implemented simultaneously.
- As soon as the program is launched:
- begin to document your intervention activities
- spot-check them for fidelity to your plan
- have a system for recording target audience feedback on your intervention activities, communication materials, services and products
- gather staff feedback on the progress of your intervention activities in 1-on-1 sessions or formal meetings.
- To disseminate your findings, use the channels and venues that best suit the needs and interests of your stakeholders. A single, uniform report summarizing the results of your program rarely meets all needs, so you should think about various formats for your findings. Some stakeholders will want detailed reports, while others prefer brief summaries of the results and conclusions.
- Determining what lessons were learned involves reviewing program steps from planning and implementation through feedback and evaluation. When you are looking for lessons, be sure to:
- examine both positive and negative outcomes to learn what worked and what didn't
- look at both hard and soft data
- strive for balance, clarity and objectivity when developing your report
- Develop a schedule for releasing your information and revise your dissemination plan as new circumstances dictate.
Modify intervention activities according to feedback.
- Use audience feedback, program monitoring and evaluation data to revise your overall program model if your assumptions proved to be incorrect. Or use the data to tweak activities to better serve your target audience.
- For each major program adjustment, make the necessary changes in the supporting documentation, such as:
- communication plans
- staffing requirements and reviews
- monitoring and feedback protocols and instruments
- evaluation designs
- Page last reviewed: August 9, 2010
- Page last updated: August 9, 2010
- Content source:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Page maintained by: Division of Public Affairs (DPA), Office of the Associate Director for Communication (OADC)
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MUSE 353 - Secondary Generl Music Methods
Focuses on philosophy, techniques, and materials needed to teach a general music course in middle and high school settings. Emphasizes teaching skill development, musical characteristics, needs of adolescents, performance-based assessment, technology, classroom management, continued portfolio development, and field experiences. Prerequisite: C or better grades in MUSE 100, 150; permission of the director of the school.
College: Fine Arts
Prerequisite: MUSE 100
Prerequisite: MUSE 150
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New York QSSS treatment - tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2015
The information on this page is applicable for tax years that first begin on or after January 1, 2015, as corporate tax reform significantly altered the Article 9-A tax for such tax years. See New York QSSS treatment - tax years beginning before January 1, 2015, for QSSS information for years prior to corporate tax reform.
What is a QSSS
A QSSS is a corporation which is a qualified subchapter S subsidiary as defined in IRC section 1361(b)(3)(B).
An election must be made at the federal level by the parent of the QSSS to treat the subsidiary corporation as a QSSS. The parent must be a federal S corporation and must own 100% of the stock of the subsidiary corporation to be eligible to make the federal QSSS election. The subsidiary corporation can't be an "ineligible corporation" as defined under IRC section 1361(b)(2).
How is a QSSS treated for federal tax purposes
For federal tax purposes, a QSSS is not treated as a separate corporation apart from its parent.
All assets, liabilities, and items of income, deduction, and credit of a QSSS are treated as assets, liabilities, and items of income, deduction, and credit of the parent S corporation.
How is a QSSS treated in New York for tax purposes
In most instances, New York will follow the federal QSSS treatment in the Article 9-A franchise taxes. When the federal QSSS treatment is followed, the assets, liabilities, income and deductions of the QSSS will be included on the parent's franchise tax return.
However, with regard to other taxes under the Tax Law, such as sales and excise taxes, the QSSS will continue to be recognized as a separate corporation.
In all instances where the federal QSSS treatment is followed, the subsidiary is exempt (on a separate corporation basis) not only from the income-based franchise taxes, but also from the fixed dollar minimum tax and from the capital tax.
An exempt QSSS is a QSSS that is exempt from tax under Article 9-A of the New York Tax Law:
- For Article 9-A purposes the QSSS is not treated as a separate corporation apart from its parent.
- For Article 9-A purposes all the assets, liabilities, income, deductions, credits and all other tax attributes and elements of economic activity of an exempt QSSS are treated as those of the parent corporation.
How to determine New York QSSS treatment under Article 9-A
♦ Are both the parent and the subsidiary general business corporations?
Excluded corporation - QSSS treatment will not be allowed unless parent and subsidiary are both general business corporations. The parent and subsidiary will each have to file on a stand-alone basis if one is an Article 9-A taxpayer but the other is an Article 9 (transportation, transmission, utilities) or Article 33 (insurance) taxpayer (or is a foreign corporation not taxable by New York State that, if it were taxable, would be subject to tax under those articles). This is an exception to the general rules that follow below.
♦ Is the parent a New York S corporation? (This includes a parent that is mandated to file as an S corporation under Tax Law section 660(i)); see S corporations - tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2015 for more information on the mandatory S corporation election.)
New York will follow the federal QSSS treatment when the parent is a New York S corporation. The parent and subsidiary will be taxed as a single New York S corporation under Article 9-A (and the shareholders of the parent will be taxed under the Article 22 personal income tax). This treatment will apply whether or not the subsidiary, viewed on a stand-alone basis, is a New York taxpayer.
♦ Is the parent a New York C corporation?
New York will follow the federal QSSS treatment (a) if the subsidiary is a New York taxpayer, or (b) if the subsidiary is not a taxpayer but the parent makes a QSSS inclusion election. In both instances, parent and subsidiary will be taxed as a single New York C corporation (and the shareholders of the parent will be treated as shareholders of a C corporation). On the other hand, if the subsidiary is not a taxpayer and the parent does not make a QSSS inclusion election, the parent will file as a New York C corporation on a stand-alone basis.
♦ Is the parent a nontaxpayer?
New York will follow the federal QSSS treatment where the subsidiary is a New York taxpayer but the parent is not, if the parent makes the New York S election. The parent and subsidiary will be taxed as a single New York S corporation (and the shareholders of parent will be taxed under the Article 22 personal income tax). If the parent does not make the New York S election, the subsidiary will file as a New York C corporation on a stand-alone basis.
How to make a QSSS inclusion election
As indicated above, if the parent of a QSSS is a New York C corporation and the QSSS is not a taxpayer and is not an excluded corporation, the parent may make a QSSS inclusion election to include all assets, liabilities, income, deductions, and credits of the QSSS on the parent’s New York C corporation return.
This election can be made by completing Form CT-60, Affiliated Entity Information Schedule, and attaching it to your franchise tax return (CT-3, CT-3-A, CT-3-S). The election is effective for the tax year for which the election is made and for all succeeding tax years of the corporation until the election is terminated. If you elect to include a QSSS you must also include any lower tier QSSS owned by that QSSS.
You are required to complete Part 2 of Form CT-60 to make the election, and you are required to complete Part 2 for each succeeding tax year for which you wish the election to be effective.
How to terminate a QSSS inclusion election
If a QSSS for which the election had been made in a previous year is not included in Part 2 of Form CT-60 it indicates termination of the election.
For more information see:
- Corporation tax forms and instructions (current year)
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Every relationship has its challenges. And we often find ourselves overwhelmed, unable to resolve tensions, and in some cases making the situation worse. We tend think of these challenges as problems to be solved or even escaped. But in order to make any progress, it’s important to understand how these issues arise. We need to be able to see the issue in its entirety, and not just what appears on the surface. We need to be able to look deep beneath the surface and understand what is at the root.
As I’ve observed these issues in my own relationships, as well as in others, what I’ve come to find is that so many of our difficulties arise from a sense of insecurity. But don’t accept my word on this. I would encourage you to examine your own relationships and see if this is true.
We can find many examples of this sort of thing, but I really just want to focus on the insecurity itself. What does it mean to feel insecure? And can we be rid of it?
Insecurity is simply fear. It’s the fear that we might lose something. It may be the other person, or it may be our own sense of self. But there is some fear that things will shift or even fall apart. We want to have the sense that the relationship is going to be consistent, stable and continuous. But deep down we’re concerned that it may not be this way.
We might try to secure the relationship by imposing rules and restrictions, by limiting one another’s freedom, and by making compromises, but these attempts will often cause more harm than good. We might try to secure the relationship by getting married, which involves taking vows and signing a contract, but I think the evidence is clear that this also does not guarantee anything.
It might seem that no matter what we try we cannot overcome this underlying sense of insecurity. And this fear slowly erodes away the foundation of the relationship, leading to a number of frustrations and difficulties, and in some cases causing the relationship to completely collapse.
So, is there anything at all that can be done about it? Is there any way to overcome this sense of insecurity, to be completely rid of it?
The first thing is to accept the fact that we feel this sense of insecurity. Acknowledge it and own it. Be aware of it, and be aware of how it affects the relationship. Notice how it influences our thoughts and behaviors. See how it influences so many of the problems that arise in relationship. Notice all of this without any judgment, without any attempt to manage it or suppress it. Simply examine it so you can understand the role it plays.
Often when we observe our insecurity, understanding how it creates to so many problems, we naturally want to be rid of it. But how do you just drop it? How do you simply throw it out? It never seems to be that simple. And I’m not suggesting that we try. I’m only suggesting that we examine it. The more we understand it, the more we become free of its influence naturally, without having to make any effort to get rid of it.
But it’s not enough to simply understand how insecurity leads to so many of the problems we have in our relationships. We need to understand the insecurity itself. We need to understand where the insecurity arises from.
As I pointed out before, insecurity is fear, and what is fear but a manifestation of desire? It’s the desire to have stability, consistency, permanence. So is there a way that we can have these things? Would that be the solution? Or, does the solution lie in the acceptance that we can never have these things?
Insecurity rests on the sense that we don’t have this kind of stability, but what makes it problematic is that it doesn’t accept this fact. Rather it is a resistance to it. So what I’m suggesting is that rather than resisting it, can we simply acknowledge and accept it?
The fact is that we have no certainty about how the relationship will unfold. Relationships evolve and change because people evolve and change. So there is no consistency, no stability. This isn’t to say that the relationship won’t last, but we can’t assume to know whether it will last or not, or in what way it may evolve.
So what I’m suggesting is that the way to overcome insecurity is to simply accept the fact that there is no security in the relationship and there never will be. Any sense of security is a false sense, and even that is something which we struggle to maintain because it has no basis. So can we accept that there is no security? If the idea causes you to feel uncomfortable, that’s insecurity creeping back in. Remember that insecurity is resistance to this fact. I’m asking whether one can drop the resistance and simply accept it.
Can we simply accept that there is no security in the relationship? This doesn’t mean that we throw the whole thing out, or that we take a pessimistic approach. In actuality, this acceptance will improve the overall quality of the relationship. Remember that insecurity is what causes so many of the problems, the frustrations, the tensions, the resentments and so on. If we can accept that the relationship has no guarantee of stability and consistency, and we can simply allow it to flow naturally without any resistance, perhaps we can be more appreciative of it, rather than taking it for granted. If we can let go of our expectations, there will be no disappointments. If we can let go of needing to control, there can be more ease. We can relax. And two people who feel relaxed with one another are going to get along beautifully.
The truth is that we don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know if our partner will always be there with us, or how either of us may evolve over time, whether we will grow closer together or further apart. We don’t know how we may change over the course of time. None of this is certain. So can we accept this? Can we let go of the idea that the relationship is supposed to be a certain way, or that it’s meant to last a lifetime? The fact is, we don’t know these things. But the more we come to accept uncertainty, to embrace the unknown, the more we can appreciate and enjoy the moment. And if there is anything which might contribute to a long-lasting, intimate relationship, it is this sense of appreciation and enjoyment.
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Early College valedictorian will dig into global poultry industry
Grayson Walker gets some odd looks when he tells people what he wants to study in college.
The Caldwell Early College High School valedictorian will attend N.C. State in the fall with a major in poultry science.
Walker has wanted to be a veterinarian since he was five, but poultry wasn’t always in the plan.
“I would have probably laughed if you told me a year ago that I would be attending N.C. State to study poultry science,” Walker said. “But now, I have no doubts.”
The poultry science program at N.C. State is one of six in the country, preparing students to work in one of the leading segments of North Carolina’s agricultural economy.
Poultry represents nearly 38 percent of cash receipts from agriculture in the state, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture. And North Carolina produces almost 10 percent of all poultry consumed in the United States, according to the Department of Poultry Science at N.C. State.
Walker pointed out that poultry is also the largest source of meat protein in the world.
“It is a vital industry in North Carolina, but also an industry that the world cannot function without,” he said.
And it’s a personal interest for Walker, who owns, houses, feeds and hatches ducks and chickens.
So Walker will go to State to study a global industry many people have never heard of but that’s a major driver of the state economy.
He’ll likely get his bachelor’s degree in two years, at the most, thanks to the two associate’s degrees he earned at the early college. After that, he’ll apply to veterinary school.
He got a head start at the early college – an opportunity he said he couldn’t pass up. But it quickly became more than a way to get started on college at little to no cost.
“CECHS is part of my family in so many ways,” Walker said. “Like I said earlier, I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I had not attended CECHS.”
Unlike some, Walker knew he wanted to be valedictorian of his class from the beginning. He was determined to keep his GPA perfect throughout elementary, middle and high school. There was only one hiccup: a B in third grade.
“The beauty of having goals,” he said, “is found in the accompanying motivation one gets. The path toward becoming the valedictorian has been rough at times, but I have made it.”
As he looks ahead to college, Walker has a million and one things he wants to do.
He’s looking forward, with some trepidation, to larger classes at N.C. State – a sharp contrast to Collettsville School and the small-on-purpose early college. And he wants to make time, in his two years of undergrad, to study abroad.
Then his plan is to follow his passion, right where he started – with a veterinary and agricultural career in Caldwell County.
“I want to return to Caldwell County and give back to this community,” he said. “Because it has given so much to me.”
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Image of possible Mars Polar Lander sites. Image D is identified as the spacecraft's parachute, while Image E is the lander itself. Further imaging and analysis will take place later this summer. Image
A sharp-shooting spacecraft has spotted a candidate Mars Polar Lander touchdown site suggesting that the once lost to the planet probe may well be resting on the surface, perhaps in one piece.
That revelation has come via NASA's veteran red planet orbiter, the Mars Global Surveyor, as well as the crafty photo wizardry of Michael Malin and his team at Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) of San Diego, California.
In a statement newly issued on the MSSS Mars Global Surveyor web site, the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) has been tentatively identified. Moreover, imagery taken suggests that the vehicle could be more-or-less intact, sitting in a south pole region of Mars, notes the MSSS web site.
"The loss of Mars Polar Lander in December 1999 was a traumatic experience not only for those of us intimately involved in the mission," explains the MSSS web site. "But also for the U.S. Mars Exploration Program. Following the failure, exhaustive reviews of what happened and why led to major shifts in the way planetary exploration was implemented. Without telemetry, the cause of the failure could only be surmised. It would be extremely important if, through some observation, it were possible to confirm the failure mode."
Furthermore, given the candidate locale in which Mars Polar Lander may sit, it serves as a target for further imaging by MGS during Mars' southern summer this year. In fact, this month, the prospective landing site is just beginning to shed its cover of seasonal carbon dioxide frost.
Small, bright spot
According to a statement on MPL from Malin Space Science Systems, the MGS photo shows brightness of a candidate "parachute" unfurled on Mars. In addition, the MPL candidate location image also shows a brightness difference in the martian terrain -- conceivably mussed up by the lander's engine blast.
Sitting in the center of that disturbed surface is a small, bright spot - ostensibly the one and only, but long silent: Mars Polar Lander.
"The observation of a single, small 'dot' at the center of the disturbed location would indicate that the vehicle remained more-or-less intact after its fall," the MSSS web site explains.
Damaged goods on a distant planet
Photo interpretations, notes the MSSS Internet site, seem consistent with the proposed MPL mode of failure as outlined by mishap investigators that hunted for clues to the lander's true fate.
That is, the probe's deployment of landing legs sent a faulty message to onboard software suggesting that touchdown had occurred. That flawed signal, it was later deduced by a troubleshooting team, likely shut down the Mars Polar Lander's engines prematurely.
The craft then free fell to Mars and became damaged goods on the distant planet.
Details of the ongoing detective work regarding Mars Polar Lander -- as well as how Mars Global Surveyor has been utilized to catch sight of other landers on the red planet -- is carried in the July issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, authored by camera sleuth, Michael Malin.
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Your Own Animated Video
...Now here is the Easiest way to Converting your Videos to Streaming FLV Videos and then Displaying them on Your Own Website!
(.AVI, .WMV, .MOV, .MPG, .FLV, .VOB, .ASF, .MP4)
I know - FLV, Streaming, Conversion, Frame Rate, SWF...all that stuff might sound a bit complicated at first, and I don't blame anyone, as the Web offers TONs of information and solutions in regards to this subject.
Back in 2008 I wanted to upload a video taken from my digital camera onto one of my site's web pages.
Back then I didn't know how to do that, so like everyone else, in order to do that, I used YouTube®.
Very quickly I realized that this is a bad idea to display videos on my Website...
First of all, I'm dependent on someone else's favors...
What if one day they decide to remove it from some reason?
I also noticed that by the end of each video display on my site, they offer other videos from other people, distracting my visitor's attention from my site. (Read: it made them leave my site...)
Thanks guys, but no thanks!
At that point I realized that the best thing is to host my videos on my own site, I certainly don't want to rely on someone else,
I wanted to be able to control everything else as well:
The design, style and colors of the video player, video quality and size, arranging several videos in a playlist etc.
Great, so now what? How can I do that? Who can help me with that...?
I spent days on the Web trying to find something or someone who can help me to easily display a video taken via my home digital camera on my website.
Problem was, that there were too many solutions out there, too complicated, too expensive - I was confused...
Back then I knew basic HTML, I learned about the different video formats, and understood that I need to convert my 'raw' video to FLV (Flash Video) format, at that point I bumped into...
Convert this...copy that code...paste it there...
Man, it was complicated, confusing and frustrating.
I couldn't get that video to work on my site...
I knew that there must be an easy way to do that.
After days of trial and error I was finally able to do all that by myself.
The results were awesome!
I must admit that it made me being proud of myself :)
Over time, I even found several PROVEN techniques that helped me transform my "plain" Webvideos into powerful marketing tools that attracted more visitors to my websites (maybe I'll show you that later...).
Take a look at the video below.
It took me about an hour to create the 'raw' video file by gathering several videos taken from my Canon® digital camera + adding effects + adding the background music (In a minute I'll give you a tip where you can get it from).
You won't believe what I used in order to create this 'raw' video and it didn't cost me anything - even a 10 years old kid can easily handle this...(I'll teach you that in my free training PDF below).
Then, it took just 5 more minutes to add it into this web page, right here...
. . .
Bottom line: I can teach you how to do all that for...FREE!
(1) How to edit and 'polish' your videos before adding them to your site so they look professional - something to be proud of. After all, you don't want to add dull videos to your site, right?
(2) The easiest (and CORRECT) way to convert your videos to streaming FLV videos.
(3) How to upload your converted FLV videos to your own website (using professionally designed video players), all by yourself, and without any favors of external video hosting services - keeping everything on your side and under your control.
Ready to roll...?
OK, let's put everything into a simple diagram, just to give you the big picture perspective, then I'll drill down into more details.
Here is what it takes to properly add videos to your Website:
See you inside,
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My Dad (1927-2002)
My Cat Drakkar (1988-2001)
The Vermont Years
Chris' Vital Stats
DJ / VJ Music & Video
Logan Lipton Fan Club
The Book I Wrote
Asbury Park NJ
St. Paul & Minneapolis MN
Cape May NJ
Vintage Postcards & Magazines
Ryan Hotel at 6th & Robert, Demolished in 1962
Ryan Hotel (left), Downtown Saint Paul was originally located at Robert
Street North and 6th Street. Built in 1882, the hotel was
demolished in 1962 (remember the song "they paved paradise and put up a
parking lot"). A parking lot replaced the hotel until the
Minnesota Mutual Life home office was built on the site in 1981.
Currently, the Minnesota Historical Society is active in saving the
history of Saint Paul and Minnesota. Unfortunately, they couldn't
save this great hotel.
Robert Street Looking South
from just north of 7th St
(above right) featuring Robert Street is this interesting postcard view
looking south from 7th Street towards the Robert Street bridge and the
Mississippi River. If you look carefully, you can see the famous
Emporium Department store on the left. Further down the street,
close inspection of this postcard shows a small sign for the Ryan Hotel
which sat next to the Emporium.
Eliminated from Saint Paul in the late 1950's, the famous Trolley Car.
The image (below) of a trolley coming through the Selby Tunnel.
The tunnel was built so the trolley cars could make it up the hill from
Downtown. The tunnel landed the trolley car in front of the
Cathedral of Saint Paul. You can still see remnants of the trolley
tracks and tunnel today.
Trolley Car Coming Through the
The famous trolley cars of most American cities were eliminated and
eventually destroyed as the automobile from Detroit became the popular
means of transportation. Trolley systems remain in very few cities
today, but in no way provide the 'mass transit' they were once famous
understand from a local postcard collector and historian that this image
was 'created' for the postcard and was not a possible view. If you
look at the image of Robert Street above, you will notice that the
Emporium was located among many buildings on Robert Street and did not
encompass this massive open space as this image indicates.
The Emporium Department Store.
Hotel Lowry (below) was located at 4th & Wabasha Streets in Downtown Saint Paul. This image is
from a postcard dated August 3, 1937. The postcard describes the hotel as the
largest in St. Paul and "absolutely fireproof". "Every room has
private bath and circulating ice water." Rates in 1937 were $2 to $4 per day.
|An image near my old home on Hyacinth Avenue by Lake Phalen. This is from a postcard (no postmark) describing the "Home for Crippled
Children on Phalen Park". This would become the Gillette's Children Hospital.
Only one of the buildings was saved and is currently used by the Humanities Commission of
See More St. Paul Minnesota Images Here
Here you will find several images
of Minneapolis, Minnesota Past. Click on an item to view the image described...the
image will open in a new window for viewing. After viewing, click the 'X' in the
upper right hand corner to close the image.
Postcard - Art Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota; published by H. A. Olson Specialty Co.,
St. Paul, Minnesota.
Postcard - Calhoun Boulevard, Minneapolis, Minnesota; published by Board of Park
1900's Postcard - New Millard Hall, University of Minnesota; photo by C. J. Hibbard &
Co.; As printed on the postcard - "...arrived at 1:00 this morning ... very beautiful
place so far..."
All images are from my personal
collection of postcards.
Postcard Copyrights Maintained by
Original Photographer or Publisher
Last Updated, October 2006
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The lawsuit, filed jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and immigration advocates, contends that immigration detainers are typically issued without probable cause and thereby violate an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
» The latest on traffic, delays and road construction delivered to your mobile phone. Click to sign up to receive text alerts!
Immigration detainers are issued by ICE officials to local and state law enforcement agencies when they suspect a person in custody has been charged with a crime that makes them eligible for deportation. The detainer, or hold, requests that the local or state agency notify ICE of the individual’s pending release and also be detained for an additional 48 hours to allow ICE to take custody if the individual is targeted for removal.
The lawsuit, filed June 19 in a Los Angeles federal court, stems from an immigration hold that was placed on a Los Angeles County resident and American-born citizen. ICE eventually lifted the hold against the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks the release of all people currently held on detainer. About 35,000 detainers are issued in California on a yearly basis, said Karp.
Although ICE officials declined to comment on pending litigation, it did release a brief statement noting that it “takes very seriously claims of U.S. citizens being improperly detained for immigration enforcement purposes.
“As a matter of law, the agency cannot assert its civil immigration enforcement authority to arrest and/or detain a United States citizen,” the statement said.
The detainers have been used extensively as part of the federal program Secure Communities, which aims to remove immigrants who have been convicted of high-level offenses.
An estimated $65 million is spent detaining undocumented immigrants under the Secure Communities program in California, according to an August 2012 report by Justice Strategies, a New York-based criminal justice and immigration policy analysis center.
Critics of Secure Communities claim that the program has swept up immigrants that it was never intended to target.
An estimated 400,000 immigrants in the country illegally are deported on a yearly basis, said Alan Mobley, a San Diego State University criminal justice professor.
The massive effort needed to transfer immigrants from local custody to federal authorities and eventually out of the country for the most part takes place out of the public’s view, he said. Yet there are plenty who do take note.
“We can be sure the recent immigrant community has been noticing,” he said.
State Attorney General Kamala Harris had issued a directive in December stating that local law enforcement agencies were not mandated to comply with ICE requests for immigration holds.
A state bill, called the Trust Act, would limit who state and local police could hold for ICE and passed the Senate Public Safety Committee earlier this month.
Immigrants with straight misdemeanor convictions or prior deportation orders would be exempt from immigration holds under the act. A prior version of the Trust Act had been vetoed by Gov. Brown last year over concerns that it exempted too broad of a group of individuals from such holds.
That earlier version would have barred local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with ICE even when the person arrested had been convicted of child abuse, drug trafficking and selling weapons.
In his September 2012 signing statement, Gov. Brown stated it would be “unwise to interfere with a sheriff’s discretion to comply with a detainer issued for people with these kinds of troubling criminal records.”
Staff Writer, Copy Editor Julio Morales can be reached at 760-337-3415 or at email@example.com
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How many lbs in 1 kilo?
The answer is 2.2046226218488.
We assume you are converting between pound and kilo.
You can view more details on each measurement unit:
lbs or kilo
The SI base unit for mass is the kilogram.
1 kilogram is equal to 2.2046226218488 lbs, or 1 kilo.
Note that rounding errors may occur, so always check the results.
Use this page to learn how to convert between pounds and kilos.
Type in your own numbers in the form to convert the units!
1 lbs to kilo = 0.45359 kilo
5 lbs to kilo = 2.26796 kilo
10 lbs to kilo = 4.53592 kilo
20 lbs to kilo = 9.07185 kilo
30 lbs to kilo = 13.60777 kilo
40 lbs to kilo = 18.14369 kilo
50 lbs to kilo = 22.67962 kilo
75 lbs to kilo = 34.01943 kilo
100 lbs to kilo = 45.35924 kilo
You can do the reverse unit conversion from kilo to lbs, or enter any two units below:
The pound (abbreviation: lb) is a unit of mass or weight in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. Its size can vary from system to system. The most commonly used pound today is the international avoirdupois pound. The international avoirdupois pound is equal to exactly 453.59237 grams. The definition of the international pound was agreed by the United States and countries of the Commonwealth of Nations in 1958. In the United Kingdom, the use of the international pound was implemented in the Weights and Measures Act 1963. An avoirdupois pound is equal to 16 avoirdupois ounces and to exactly 7,000 grains.
The kilogram or kilogramme, (symbol: kg) is the SI base unit of mass. A gram is defined as one thousandth of a kilogram. Conversion of units describes equivalent units of mass in other systems.
ConvertUnits.com provides an online conversion calculator for all types of measurement units. You can find metric conversion tables for SI units, as well as English units, currency, and other data. Type in unit symbols, abbreviations, or full names for units of length, area, mass, pressure, and other types. Examples include mm, inch, 100 kg, US fluid ounce, 6'3", 10 stone 4, cubic cm, metres squared, grams, moles, feet per second, and many more!
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Amid the debate about stop and frisk in New York City, its relationship to reductions in crime, and concerns about racial profiling, one question has gone largely unexplored: How does being stopped by police, and the frequency of those stops, affect those who experience them at a young age? In New York City, at least half of all recorded stops annually involve those between the ages of 13 and 25.
This new study from Vera’s Center on Youth Justice examines this question. The results reveal a great deal about the experiences and perceptions of young New Yorkers who are most likely to be stopped. Trust in law enforcement among these young people is alarmingly low. This has significant public safety implications as young people who have been stopped more often are less willing to report crimes, even when they themselves are the victims. The report includes a set of recommendations aimed at restoring trust and improving police-community relations. It also features an infographic summarizing the findings.
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Things We Are Not Taller Than: Aachen is part of a series. You can read about the origins of our travel tradition here.
Before I met Tim, I didn’t know anything about the city of Aachen. Even after I met him, I understood that it was a “study town”, home to one of the best technical universities in Germany. It wasn’t until I made my first trip to this small city near the Dutch border that I realized how historically important (and historically rich) Aachen—and specifically the Aachen Cathedral—truly is.
Things We Are Not Taller Than: Aachen, Germany
Built in 796, the Aachen Cathedral was commissioned by none other than Emperor Charlemagne (or Charles the Great), the first king to rule a united Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. Intended as Charlemagne’s palace chapel, the cathedral took roughly twenty years to complete. In 814, it took on additional historical importance when it became the burial site of the Emperor.
After Charlemagne’s death, the Aachen Cathedral became the coronation church of the German emperors (think of it as the Westminster Abbey of Germany). From Charlemagne’s time through 1531, thirty out of forty German kings were coronated there. And every king came to Aachen to be officially enthroned on Charlemagne’s throne, which is still inside the cathedral today.
Inside, the cathedral shines with gilded ceilings and intricate mosaics. The aptly named Glashaus has over 1000 square meters of stained glass and soars to a height of 27 meters. In fact, the overall height and span of the cathedral is something of note (hence why it became the foundation of our Things We Are Not Taller Than tradition). After it’s creation, it remained the tallest structure north of the Alps for over 200 years.
Over the years, the Aachen Cathedral suffered damage from Vikings raids and the Allied bombings during World War II. Luckily, most of the important historical relics were preserved, even if the structure suffered. After the war, the cathedral underwent massive restoration. By 1978, restoration was complete, and the cathedral became one of the first 12 sites on the UNESCO Heritage List.
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WILLIAMSPORT - Fleetwood Travel Trailers, which has a plant in Williamsport, has been shipping thousands of trailers destined for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
A shipment went out by rail Wednesday from Hagerstown's south end.
Fleetwood spokeswoman Amy Coleman said Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency designated a contractor to buy two groups of trailers on the government's behalf. She did not know which contractor.
The first group, of 7,500 units, had to be delivered by the end of December.
The second group, of 3,100 units, is due by the end of March.
Coleman did not know how many of the 10,600 trailers would be produced at Fleetwood Travel Trailers of Maryland in Williamsport.
In October, Melinda Ford, the general manager of the Williamsport plant, estimated that 800 to 900 of the first 7,500 units would be made there.
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Let us start when the first version of Windows XP was released. It included a feature that was not available in Windows 2000: ‘System Restore’. It was basically a set of hidden copies of system files that could be restored to the system on demand. It was a highly useful feature at the time as a lot of bad device drivers were around and installing one could destroy the system to an extent so that reinstalling the system would often be faster than repairing the damage (not to mention that repair would sometimes require skills that many users did not have). It saved my day at least 10 times back in the mid-00′es – in particular before the release of Servicepack 1 for WinXP that ‘hardened’ WinXP a lot against such ‘bad driver attacks’.
‘System Restore’ is still available in recent Windows. I will concentrate on Windows 7 here. In Windows 7 ‘System Restore’ uses a technology what is a part of the NTFS file system: ‘Volume Shadow Copies’. If you have ‘System Restore’ enabled (for the system as a whole or for specific partitions) Windows will automatically and periodically create ‘shadow copies’ of all folders and files. It can also be done on demand. You probably have noticed that a lot of installers do. A set of ‘shadow copies’ created simultaneously is basically a file system snapshot, but what is particular about the implementation is that ‘shadow copies’ are NOT files/folders themselves. The current working copy of a file/folder and all existing ‘shadow copies’ of same are contained in ONE file/folder.
‘System Restore’ will simply ‘promote’ ‘shadow copies’ of system files to current working copies and restart the OS. But ‘shadow copies’ can be accessed from programmers’ interfaces and even from the Windows GUI. And then it does not only apply to system files.
Some recent backup tools for Windows will actually create ‘shadow copies’ and next export/copy selected partitions/folders/files to a file. This includes my preferred set of tools for backup and hard disk management. Also the system backup tool that is included with some editions of Windows 7 does the same.
Even a user can ‘promote’ a ‘shadow copy’ to a current working instance. Just right-click on any file system object in Windows Explorer, select ‘properties’ and activate ‘Previous Versions’ tab and available ‘shadow copies’ are listed. You can ‘promote’ (restore), view and copy.
Here you will see a MySQL 5.5 /datadir with a number of ‘shadow copies’. So if something here was recently messed up, I could just ‘promote’ a ‘shadow copy’ of the /datadir to current instance and next use the binlog for recovery from the time of the snapshot (if I had been smart enough not to have the binlog in the /datadir, of course)? There was a question mark – and the answer is NO. It is not safe. MySQL may have executed changes to data that are not written to disk yet and if that was the case when the snapshot was created it will result in an incomplete and possibly inconsistent snapshot. All sorts of weird and inconsistent errors may result from this. If system tables are affected, the server may even refuse to start or access could be denied for users. MySQL has no interface to Windows that will ensure that a ‘shadow copy’ is consistent. InnoDB will (or should, at least) be able to recover to a consistent state if all files needed for recovery are there and restored from simultaneous ‘shadow copies’, but this is not the case for most other storage engines.
So the lessons are:
1) Do not rely on a backup tool for Windows making use of ‘Volume Shadow Copy’ technology for backing up MySQL data – unless you are perfectly sure that the snapshot is consistent (what is most simply achieved by stopping the server for the few seconds it takes to create the snapshot).
2) Don’t ‘promote’/restore a MySQL /datadir (fully or – even worse – partially) from a ‘shadow copy’ – also not unless your are perfectly sure about the consistence of the snapshot.
Actually I’d prefer – for production systems at least – to have the MySQL /datadir on a separate partition where ‘System Restore’ is turned of. Then ‘shadow copies’ will not be created, and mistakes in this respect are avoided.
But it would be nice IMO if Windows could manage MySQL for safe creation or ‘shadow copies’. I think it would require the steps: 1) make the server read-only 2) FLUSH everything 3) create a ‘Restore Point’ 4) make MySQL read/write again. And now add the 5th step: export/copy the ‘shadow copy’ created for the MySQL /datadir – and you will have a backup tool for MySQL on Windows not so much different from LVM-based backup tools for Linux, I believe. However it can be done manually if you can afford a few seconds downtime: Stop MySQL and create a ‘Restore Point’ manually from Control Panel .. System. Once completed start MySQL again and copy the ‘shadow copy’ created for the /datadir from Windows Explorer.
(finally I’d like to thank Vladislav Vaintrub from Monty Program and my colleague Vishal for clarifications to the content of this blog)
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Yagasu – Research and Monitoring Division of Yayasan Gajah Sumatra (Yagasu) conducted research on carbon stocks in mangrove forests in 4 villages in Langkat Regency, North Sumatra in September and October 2021.
Research on carbon stocks as described by Yagasu’s Research and Monitoring Manager, Grace Yanti Panjaitan, is one of regular work programs of the research and monitoring division. Grace explained that carbon stock is the average value of carbon stored in plant bodies and soil which generally uses units of tonC per Ha. The stored carbon stock is determined by several factors, including trunk circumference (diameter), height, species density, soil type and tree age. “The more carbon stored in a tree, the better the air quality in the environment, and it can cope with global climate change,” she said.
This research involved Yagasu’s monitoring staffs, village officials, students, local communities, Langkat Forestry Service and international researchers. This project was carried out in 4 villages spread across Langkat Regency, North Sumatra, including: in Pulau Kampai Village as many as 55 plots out of 1,035, 76 Ha, in Pangkalan Siata Village with 36 plots out of 876, 88 Ha, and in Halaban with 12 plots and in Salahaji Village with 15 plots out of 252, 51 Ha.
(Yagasu’s research team was collecting soil sample in Mangrove forest in Pulau Kampai Village, Langkat Regency, North Sumatra)
In regard to the selected research location, Yagasu proposed that these 4 villages have preserved mangrove forests, various species of mangroves, and varying levels of density, either high, medium, or low. Therefore, this area can represent the existing mangrove forest and is suitable as an object of research.
The output of the research is to get the value of biomass and carbon stocks that obtained from the field measurement, then will be proceeded to be color gradient, graphic and table data sets that can be used to analyze the carbon stock from satellite image with machine learning non-linear method.
“We hope that through this research which is funded by the Global Mangrove Trust (GMT) and KUMI, we can provide scientific information about the spatial distribution of carbon values in each mangrove forest. The data is useful as a reference for development of environmental policy to mitigate the global climate change,” she added. She also stated that the wider the mangrove forest that is maintained, the greater its ability to absorb carbon.
Yagasu (Yayasan Gajah Sumatra) is a Non-Governmental Organization with over 21 years of practical experiences on biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration and protection, climate change mitigation and adaptation, capacity building, environmental education and local economic reconstruction through the facilitation of generating income for local communities on green livelihoods. Established on July 17, 2001, the organization initial concern was Sumatra’s elephant conservation. In 2006, Yagasu changed its management structure and officially registered with Yagasu Aceh as its legal name. In recent years, yagasu has been focused on restoring mangrove restoration, environment and climate change, and local community empowerment in Aceh, North Sumatra, East Java, and Wet Java Province.
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Yuasa, Japan Sister City
Yuasa town is located in the southwestern part of Japan, along the ocean. The population of Yuasa is approximately 17,000. Yuasa is known for many products in Japan's culture including:
- 50% of the nation's harvest of oranges
- pure mineral water
- hot springs
- the origin of soy sauce
- the origin of "Kinzanji Miso" (bean paste)
About 1,500 years ago a powerful Samurai family named Yuasa founded the town of Yuasa. The Yuasa family was a warrior class and was known for its strong naval force. The Yuasa family held power for 300 years in Japan, China and Korea. Today Yuasa is known as the cultural and administrative center for this area of Japan.
Sister City Relationship
In March 1986, the sister city relationship between Yuasa and Cambridge began. In March 1994, Yuasa founded "YICES" (Yuasa International Cultural Exchange Society).
Cambridge visited Yuasa in 1994, 1995, 1999, 2002 (for the 150th anniversary of Taikyu High School), 2003, and 2012. Yuasa visited Cambridge in 1996 and 2001.
For further information connect to the City of Yuasa website »
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Your brain requires a constant stream of quality fuel to keep you feeling energized, focused, and motivated throughout the entire day. New research suggests that the food we eat directly affects the structure and function of the brain, which ultimately impacts how we feel and behave on a daily basis. Nutrient-dense whole foods provide our body and brain with essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that help to minimize inflammation and protect against oxidative stress. The nutritional link between the foods we eat and how we feel over time has to do with the connection between our gut microbiome and our brain. Certified F45 Sport Nutritionist Kim Bowman provides an overview of how the food we eat can either positively or negatively impact our mental health, along with gut-friendly food recommendations.
How does our gut health impact our mental health?
The gut microbiome is the body’s largest hormone-producing organ and contains a large variety of beneficial bacteria that live throughout the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract). These bacteria are essential for both physical and mental health, as they influence the key hormones in our gut that affect our mood and brain health. Specifically, these hormones provide neural connections to our brain and any disruption to a healthy balance of bacteria in the microbiome can cause the immune system to induce inflammation. This can negatively impact our overall mental health, including our mood, focus, and emotions.
How does digestion affect how we feel?
Serotonin is a key hormone that stabilizes our mood, sense of wellbeing, behaviors, and overall happiness. It also plays a key role in sleep, eating, and digestion. The majority of serotonin is produced in the digestive tract and is highly influenced by our gut microbiome and the amount of ‘good bacteria’ that are present. A healthy gut microbiome forms a protective barrier against toxins to minimize inflammation and ensure that the neural pathways between the brain and gut are working optimally. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the food we consume and digest plays a role in our overall mental health and mood.
How does refined sugar negatively impact the gut microbiome?
Diets high in refined sugar can have negative impacts on our body, brain, and cognitive function. Foods high in refined sugar—such as pre-packaged desserts, pastries, and sodas—negatively impact our body’s regulation of insulin and can also trigger inflammation in our body. Nutritional studies have linked excess sugar consumption with impaired brain function, depression, and a decreased bioavailability of good bacteria in our gut microbiome.
How does a healthy diet boost brain health?
Not only does a nutrient-dense diet boost brain development, but it also boosts the amount of good bacteria in our gut. By enhancing the amount of good bacteria, we minimize inflammation to positively affect cognitive function and mood. Additionally, the neural transmitters between our brain and our gut are interlinked. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is produced in the digestive system. Therefore, quality nutrition ensures these connections are able to function effectively and efficiently to optimize mood and mental health.
What are the best foods for optimizing mental health?
Studies have found that adopting a Mediterranean-style diet can be one of the best approaches to optimizing brain function. This eating pattern consists of unprocessed grains, lots of fruit and vegetables, legumes, quality fats from plant-based oils (olive, avocado, fish, and various other types of seafood. A diet that consists of only modest amounts of lean meats and dairy in addition to avoiding processed carbohydrates and refined foods will allow the gut microbiome to stay healthy and function effectively. Additionally, fermented foods that contain active cultures of good bacteria—such as sauerkraut, miso, or Greek yogurt—can help to improve the health of the gut microbiome and benefit the production of serotonin.
From a nutrition perspective, what can I do to start positively impacting brain health?
The simplest way to benefit your mental health is by incorporating quality foods into your diet on a regular basis while avoiding processed foods. For one week, aim to cut out just refined sugars. Once you have successfully cut out refined sugar, start to minimize the amount of fast food and heavily-processed food. It’s easiest to make small, consistent changes over time versus cutting everything out all at once. While refined sugar can be one of the most difficult processed foods to cut out of our diet, we can start to replace these processed items with natural sugars, such as organic raw honey, fresh fruit, or dates.
What are essential vitamins and minerals for brain health?
While there are a variety of key minerals for brain health, a few key minerals include zinc, magnesium, iron, and selenium. Omega-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects that boost brain health and development, while B Vitamins (especially B-12, B6/pyridoxine, B3/niacin, and B9/folate) regulate energy release in the brain and facilitate the action of the neurotransmitters.
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Learn more about other poetry terms
Falling Without Sight Fly Back Into Your Routine Still Nothing Is Seen
Dear Father I don’t call you “Dad” Because I don’t feel you know me The thought of opening up to you makes me want to flea
I should get an Olympic gold medal, since Every day I hear that we’re all so smart. Experts at graphs and charts, Eyes so small,
Dear Mr. Willis, Last year I found you Dead on your doorstep with your hand Just out of reach Of yesterday's newspaper. Your neighbors say they didn't notice. How can you not notice
I wake. I cry. 4 A's, but a blemish. The single smudge on my reigning crown. The shade on my everbright domain. The hungry caterpillar to my blooming garden. The ominous C.
When I left home A short five months ago I had my priorities set And was not prepared to roam College was what I had prepared for Before I knew the alphabet could rule my life
With no change, comes no growth; As the pendulum swings, we watch as time goes by, faster than the blink of an eye; Mid semester, junior year, work starts to pile up, work not handed in,
I've gotten one semester through The months left for summer are few In the second semester I vowed to do my best I got a hundred on my first test My grades are all excellent, phew!
Grades have forever defined me. They no doubt made an effort to confine me. But this year was the year they designed me. A 30 on my ACT FINALLY free college for me! A chance for me to get to be
These classes are higher than stormy waves, And are taught at such a hasty pace! I know, the teacher never promised me all A’s, But will they offer very little grace!
Why did you do this to me? Why did you crush all my hopes? You took all my hard work And threw it to the ground Like it meant nothing. Do you hate me or something? Why do you hate me?
5 A.M. The alarm clock goes off like a fire alarm waking me from my dream state. I stumble through the labyrinth gathering my stuff and getting dressed.
Always trying hard. Abusive devil drinks near. A senior I'll be .
Education, noun. The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction Usually in a school or university, according to the oxford dictionary. So why has it turned us to mindless obstruction
I can't remember the last time I told myself who I am Everyone always says, You're so perfect in every way. Good grades, Good body, Good personality You're just so good.
Grades are the only way to reach the top. I sweat and work until I hear my pencil drop. College is a necessity, it's what I need.
I’ve always enjoyed reading, writing, learning But I’ve never enjoyed having to attend school Ever since childhood, school has made me feel…
I just need an A. Shakespeare, I love you, but soft -- What are you saying
We often forget the purposeof red brick buildingsin the nine hour hurry upand wait We often forget the purposeof pen and paperin the technicolor dream ofgoogle docs
You say we are selfish That we are spoiled and it's eating youth. You say that it's hard, that we should just learn the truth. When you were in our positions, what's it feel like to cough 24/7?
After kindergarten You had gradually discovered The code of the alphabet
Not getting straight A’s,
I am a liar and I lie to myself everyday Wake up every morning, telling myself that it’s just another day But I already know what kind of day it is I’ll be just like every yesterday that I hated
I want to learn, i want to grow, but need your help in doing so. My goal is true, my grades are high, with just a little help, i can aim for the sky!
When I lose I stumble on. When I win I grin ear to ear. Pride never falters, it flows with finess. It courses through your veins, strengthening you. It challenges you to do your best.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. —Albert Einstein
The world today is abandoning values We are all simply numbers An amount, a score, a grade What categories do we fall under? 4.0? You're a great person 3.0? You're like the rest
Fear and fear the grades are comingthe destiny awaits and depends on it,your grades will decide if you are worth loving,Work hard and study so you can earn profit.
Here I sit, once again, pondering why Why did I take this class? Am I crazy? I tap and tutter, releasing a sigh. I don't understand; study more, lazy. Chemistry, O Chemistry, thou art death.
Fuck first semester And financial aid and scholarship applications and just money in general. And the 3.5 I needed if I wanted to come back. And my parents. And money And society for revolving around money
A is the motivation for you to Be better than what society has been Creating you as. The Demoralization of the young nation Fails to be seen when all the adults See
Why is it, That no matter how hard you try at it, It's only about the grades today? No matter if you get it or not Or what knowledge you've got! It's only about the grades today.
"It's good enough" "a C+ is passing" The motivational speech my teachers gave me in high school I know I wasn't that bright, I was told many times I know my struggles with my academics, I see it in my records
Living in a world where it’s a crime to be sad If you aren’t starving or deprived… Maybe, I’m just a whole lot of mad When I can’t take a break from the things that craze me The things that break me
Everyday it goes like clockwork through school and back, just to do homework. And I sit in your class with each passing minute, Dreading each lecture where I must silently sit.
That white sheet of paper gets handed back. The test D+ I went to school... for THIS? I love it
I want an A in this class (before registeration) Im going to earn an A (first day of the semester) Im going to get an A (during midterms) I deserve an A (check grades after finals B)
i am not a single letter. i am not a number. so why do you assign me these things that constitue my "success"? i am more than one letter in a report card. i am more than a number in the class rank.
Everyone is a number. You are given a grade, a percent, and a level. Who you are does not matter because in the classroom, a number is all that defines you Are you 100? Or are you 50?
I care not for how smart you say I am,Nor for a grades on my report card.Why waste time doing what I know I can?Schooling should never be thought of as hard... Our grades should not be what sets the bars.A's should not mean just memorization,B'a s
I have a dream, Similar to Martin Luther King, I want us all to succeed. The words, "We have finally made it" to be uttered through our hearts, Shared by Our differences,
I love my school, I love my class But you my teacher can kiss my ass Like when you think that it’s OK To teach me nothing for the day And give me homework every night
just go retire. get fired. now. please.oh wait. we can’t get rid of you?then you might as well listento what all you trashy teachersalways have to say
the grades and the curriculum try to define you build you up and break you down Or at least they try to the greater the number, the larger the crown but numbers are miniscule, how can they hold so much power?
Eighty-five, eighty five every time. Eighty minutes, eight hundred minutes; every time.
I would sigh and I would cry Why can't you, go suffer too? You know what, EFF you I don’t care about your glares Piss in your pants and lie in despair You little ant You know you can’t
Hey! My grade isn't my life! Seeing this letter on a sheet of paper, it's not going to change anything. Except, maybe this "F" in red ink, will make me hate you a little more.
All of my life, I've been subject to Tests full of bubbles, Tests that determine Where lie my troubles. My ears can take no more of this talk. I am more than a statistic.
One, two, three, four Red, yellow, blue, and more Five, six, seven, eight Raise your hand and sit up straight These things we learn in elementary They stay with us more than a century
See when I was younger my momma said when you turn 18, You either go to college or get a job or you won't be staying, In my house. So every since the 9th grade I've been grinding,
Leaving this place Still not knowing the value of X An unspoken race Formed by society No piety Creativity
All the excitement killed when you walk through the door It was built to be such a great time in my life Eating lunch wherever Feels like your whole time in high school was supposed to be spent in the halls
A poem is A poet's ways Of portraying life Precisely as it is With a twist, Betwixt a reality And no sense of rationality (Rationally-speaking, of course). A poem can
You struggle, and study and sweat. But the score isn’t there. You feel like you just keep trying, and torturing yourself to be better. And it’s never enough. Never enough. Never ever enough.
Im not up to your standards so tell me how to be more black My looks are substandard so show me how be more beautiful I didnt get a perfect score on ACT like my best friend so tell me again how I'm stupid I am
What is this force that wraps us in warm embrace? Steel wrought chains wrapped around us, within the darkness.
I hear glass bottles breaking Babies crying Tear drops dripping (CLUNK) Cars beeping their horns. Teacher's yelling like no tomorrow. Chairs banging against the table (BANG).
Pressure, pressure, the need to be the best Is sucking me, pulling me, and making me a mess Every paper, every grade, every solemn word I speak Has been thought up, reviewed, and perfected till made bleak
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Assessing the role of host-symbiont interactions in maternal care behaviour
Alteration of gut microbiota with a broad-spectrum antibiotic does not impair maternal care in the European earwig
The role of microbial symbionts in governing social traits of their hosts is an exciting and developing research area. Just like symbionts influence host reproductive behaviour and can cause mating incompatibilities to promote symbiont transmission through host populations (Engelstadter and Hurst 2009; Correa and Ballard 2016; Johnson and Foster 2018) (see also discussion on conflict resolution in Johnsen and Foster 2018), microbial symbionts could enhance transmission by promoting the social behaviour of their hosts (Ezenwa et al. 2012; Lewin-Epstein et al. 2017; Gurevich et al. 2020). Here I apply the term ‘symbiosis’ in the broad sense, following De Bary 1879 as “the living together of two differently named organisms“ independent of effects on the organisms involved (De Bary 1879), i.e. the biological interaction between the host and its symbionts may include mutualism, parasitism and commensalism.
So far, we have relative few studies that explore the role of symbionts in promoting social behaviours such as parental care. Clearly, disentangling cause and effect when assessing the functional significance of symbiotic relationships in general is extremely challenging, and perhaps even more caution is needed when assessing the role of symbionts in the evolution of parental care, given the high fitness benefits to the offspring of receiving care. An interesting study on the symbiotic relationship between termites and their eukaryotic gut symbionts proposes a role of gut flagellates in the origin of subsocial behaviour (extended offspring care) in the termites through proctodeal trophallaxis (i.e. anus-to-mouth feeding), driven by mutualistic beneficial interactions (Nalepa 2020). Van Meyel et al. (2021) hypothesized a role of gut symbionts in promoting maternal care behaviour in the European earwig, and set out to test this idea in a carefully executed experimental study. They used a broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment to alter gut microbiota in mothers and examined its effect on maternal care provisioning. While the antibiotic treatment altered the gut microbiome, no effect on pre- or post-hatching maternal care was detected. The authors also investigated a broad range of physiological and reproductive traits measured over a major part of a female’s lifetime, and detected no effect of microbiome alteration on these traits. The study therefore does not provide evidence for a direct role of the gut microbiome in shaping offspring care in this population of European earwigs.
Within populations, earwigs show inter-individual variation in the expression of maternal care (Meunier et al. 2012; Ratz et al. 2016), and there is evidence that genetic and environmental factors contribute to this this variation (Meunier and Kolliker 2012; Kramer et al. 2017). The study by Van Meyel et al. (2021) is the first to analyse microbiome composition of the European earwig, and they study host-symbiont associations in a single population. A next step could be to explore among population variation in the gut microbiome, to achieve a better understanding on host-microbiome variation and dynamics in wild populations. Depending on the nature of host-symbiont associations across populations, new perspectives on their functional significance may arise (Hird 2017; Johnson and Foster 2018). It is therefore too early to conclusively confirm or reject the role of microbial symbionts in the expression of parental care in this system.
Correa, C. C., and Ballard, J. W. O. (2016). Wolbachia associations with insects: winning or losing against a master manipulator. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 3, 153. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00153
De Bary, A. (1879). Die Erscheinung der Symbiose. Verlag von Karl J. Trubner, Strassburg.
Engelstädter, J., and Hurst, G. D. (2009). The ecology and evolution of microbes that manipulate host reproduction. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 40, 127-149. doi: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.110308.120206
Ezenwa, V. O., Gerardo, N. M., Inouye, D. W., Medina, M., and Xavier, J. B. (2012). Animal behavior and the microbiome. Science, 338(6104), 198-199. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1227412
Gurevich, Y., Lewin-Epstein, O., and Hadany, L. (2020). The evolution of paternal care: a role for microbes?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 375(1808), 20190599. doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0599
Hird, S. M. (2017). Evolutionary biology needs wild microbiomes. Frontiers in microbiology, 8, 725. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00725
Johnson, K. V. A., and Foster, K. R. (2018). Why does the microbiome affect behaviour?. Nature reviews microbiology, 16(10), 647-655. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-018-0014-3
Kramer et al. (2017). When earwig mothers do not care to share: parent–offspring competition and the evolution of family life. Functional Ecology, 31(11), 2098-2107. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12915
Lewin-Epstein, O., Aharonov, R., and Hadany, L. (2017). Microbes can help explain the evolution of host altruism. Nature communications, 8(1), 1-7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14040
Meunier, J., and Kölliker, M. (2012). Parental antagonism and parent–offspring co-adaptation interact to shape family life. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 279(1744), 3981-3988. doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.1416
Meunier, J., Wong, J. W., Gómez, Y., Kuttler, S., Röllin, L., Stucki, D., and Kölliker, M. (2012). One clutch or two clutches? Fitness correlates of coexisting alternative female life-histories in the European earwig. Evolutionary Ecology, 26(3), 669-682. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-011-9510-x
Nalepa, C. A. (2020). Origin of mutualism between termites and flagellated gut protists: transition from horizontal to vertical transmission. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8, 14. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00014
Ratz, T., Kramer, J., Veuille, M., and Meunier, J. (2016). The population determines whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events in an insect with maternal care. Oecologia, 182(2), 443-452. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3685-3
Van Meyel, S., Devers, S., Dupont, S., Dedeine, F. and Meunier, J. (2021) Alteration of gut microbiota with a broad-spectrum antibiotic does not impair maternal care in the European earwig. bioRxiv, 2020.10.08.331363. ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Evol Biol. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.08.331363
Trine Bilde (2021) Assessing the role of host-symbiont interactions in maternal care behaviour. Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology, 100121. 10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100121
Evaluation round #2
DOI or URL of the preprint: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.08.331363
Version of the preprint: version 4
Author's Reply, 24 Feb 2021
Decision by Trine Bilde, 14 Feb 2021
Thank you very much for the thorough revision in response to the reviewers’ and my comments. When I read the revised version, I came to think about one more point that I would ask you to consider: If the gut microbiome if expected to shape maternal care behaviour, this assumes that there is a tight association between the gut microbiome (or specific taxonomic units OTUs) and the host. You allude to this when you mention transmission from mothers to offspring. Do you have any prior information on the microbiome composition or on inter-individual variation in the gut microbiome of your species, to support this assumption? Or is your study the first of the microbiome composition of the species? In either case, you could mention that this is an expected relationship. Your data allows you to assess this assumption directly. Would you consider including a few sentences in relation to this point in the introduction/discussion?
Minor editorial changes:
Line 24 (in marked documents) – remove ‘a’ so it says ‘in host biology’.
Line 88: change ‘antibiotherapy’ to ‘antibiotic treatment’
Line 352: ‘strains’ instead of ‘strain’.
Otherwise, I am pleased to recommend your preprint.
Evaluation round #1
DOI or URL of the preprint: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.08.331363
Author's Reply, 12 Feb 2021
Decision by Trine Bilde, 08 Jan 2021
Thank you for submitting the preprint of your article "Alteration of gut microbiota with rifampicin does not impair maternal care in the European earwig" to PCI (https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.08.331363).
I apologize for the handling time, the combination of the pandemic and the festive season made it difficult to find and secure reviews. I am happy to inform that I have received three reviews, and all are positive about the study, while providing constructive comments and recommendations for revision. I enjoyed reading your article, and include a few additional comments (attached in the PDF), for your consideration.
I would be happy to recommend the article pending revision according to the comments provided. Please consider the comments from the reviewers carefully, you will them pasted in below.
With best wishes for a Happy New Year!
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SUDBURY—Rainbow District School Board (RDSB) is instructing students and families to prepare all of the materials they may need to learn from home in January in case provincial public health restrictions put a temporary stop to in-person education.
“Given that the situation with COVID-19 continues to evolve rapidly, we have asked students to please bring home any materials they may require for remote learning before leaving school for the holidays,” stated RDSB Director of Education Norm Blaseg in a December 17 open letter to parents and guardians, shared on the board’s website and social media channels.
“On behalf of our schools, I would like to thank students and families for following health and safety protocols to limit the spread of COVID-19. Let’s continue to choose our actions wisely over the holidays to make the return to school as safe as possible,” Mr. Blaseg said. “Thank you for working together to keep everyone safe.”
The letter is related to a December 16 directive from the Ontario Ministry of Education to the heads of all school boards, asking them to prepare their students for fully virtual education in case the province closes schools amid a still-rising second wave of COVID-19.
The memo does not guarantee that this action will take place; rather, it seeks to ensure school boards and families are as prepared as possible.
RDSB is also asking parents to fill out surveys on its website, asking about what tools and resources families may need to help students pivot to fully online learning.
The board has asked parents to fill out one survey per student and it has created two separate forms, one for Kindergarten to Grade 8 students and another for secondary school students.
Questions include whether each student has access to an electronic device to support remote learning and whether a home internet connection is reliable enough to support live classes.
RDSB is asking parents to complete the surveys by Tuesday, December 22 at the latest.
For links to the surveys and Mr. Blaseg’s full message, please visit https://www.rainbowschools.ca/parents/covid-19/enjoy-a-covid-safe-holiday.
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Sorry Twihards, this post has absolutely nothing to do with that dismal phenomenon. Although we did find plant-pots that sparkled in the sun; I found that funny. This post is about our very successful harvest of Numex Twilight chillies, which has just come to an end.
Twilight is a pretty new cultivar, as far as I can tell, and it is variously described as "medium hot", "very hot", "the hot, hot chilli", "to 45cm", "60cm" and "to 1m tall". Which I think indicates fairly clearly that your mileage may vary if you decide to have a go with these.
Certainly the ones we grew were at the outside edge of our heat tolerance, and ultimately stood 140cm tall. They packed a heck of a punch.
We grew them from seed, starting in late February. They took a very long time to germinate - which should have indicated what we were up against, as hot chillies take longer to germinate than milder ones.
The USP for Twilight is that you have this prolific crop of fruit, with red, yellow and purple glossy, upright chillies all appearing at the same time. In fact, they seem to ripen from the middle of the bush outwards, so you have a flush of red in the middle, shading up through orange and yellow to purple on the outer edges. So it looks like a sunset. Twilight. Sunset. Very nifty.
Paul's fertilising regime, of Chilli Focus, Tomorite and super-phosphate led to a lot of fruit. Early on in the season we wanted to thin it out a bit, so I picked 300g of the purple chillies to make a sort of Tabasco-esque sauce. Sadly it lost the lovely colour, while retaining the heat, so we ended up with an innocuous-looking creamy yellow sauce that contains the fires of hell. Deceptive.
The problem with these chillies was our ability to consume them. When you have hundreds on a bush and adding a single chilli to a pot of curry makes your eyes water and your mouth tingle, you really have to look around for ways to use them.
I took bags of fresh chillies in to work.
I made pots of delicious savoury Thai chilli jam, which I have then used in egg sambals, nasi goreng and as a base for soup.
I made pots of sweet and spicy apple and chilli jam, which will make its way into quesadillas and onto cheese-boards.
And finally, at the end of the season, I developed an amazingly good chilli sauce recipe. I think this is a really good model for a chilli sauce - you get a good texture and body with the proportions, and it isn't too sweet. If you use a different variety of chilli, you will get a different flavour sauce. Nice and adaptable.
300g fresh tomatoes, chopped
3tbs golden caster sugar
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
250ml white wine vinegar
2tbs coarse sea-salt
Roughly chop the chillies and place in a stainless steel saucepan with the tomatoes garlic, sugar and vinegar. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then place in a food processor or blender with the salt and process until smooth-ish. The seeds won't break down, but they are going to be strained out anyway.
Push through a conical sieve into a sterilised pyrex jug, and then fill sterilised bottles and seal. Makes about 500ml.
I made a couple of batches of this, and the most successful variation was with smoked chillies. I spread the chillies out in a single layer in a steamer, and placed it in the bottom of my smoker, next to a pile of beechwood smoking dust. I positioned the vent over the chillies, to encourage a good flow of smoke up from the dust and over the fruit. After about 15 minutes I closed the vent and let them just sit in the smoke, for a total of an hour.
The smoked version came out a slightly darker colour, and has a rich but subtle smokey flavour. I took one bottle into work, where it is disappearing at an incredible rate. I know exactly where this year's chilli crop is going to go.
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Definitions for naval forward logistic site
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word naval forward logistic site
Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms
naval forward logistic site
An overseas location, with port and airfield facilities nearby, which provides logistic support to naval forces within the theater of operations during major contingency and wartime periods. Naval forward logistic sites may be located in close proximity to main battle areas to permit forward staging of services, throughput of high priority cargo, advanced maintenance, and battle damage repair. Naval forward logistic sites are linked to in-theater naval advanced logistic support sites by intratheater airlift and sealift, but may also serve as transshipment points for intertheater movement of high-priority cargo into areas of direct combat. In providing fleet logistic support, naval forward logistic site capabilities may range from very austere to near those of a naval advanced logistic support site. Also called NFLS or Naval FLS. See also logistic support; naval advanced logistic support site; staging.
The numerical value of naval forward logistic site in Chaldean Numerology is: 3
The numerical value of naval forward logistic site in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3
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Have you ever been really scared? Perhaps it was a moment when you did not have control. For example as a passenger on a turbulent plane ride, or you realized someone was targeting you to pick your pocket, or you were stuck in a big crowd of people pushing you opposite to where you wanted to go. The adrenalin rushes associated with those scary moments can be exhausting. Your body may shake, you may squirm, run or panic or even freeze.
Try hard to remember that feeling. It will make you a better parrot trainer.
So many people think what they are doing to an animal is no big deal because they know it is not going to hurt the animal. Think of the parrot that is being restrained against its will for a nail trim. Many parrots show significant signs of stress and fear when restrained by a towel. So much so they are terrified at the sight of a towel. I have also seen this happen with parrots who have been strapped into a harness involuntarily. While the humans may know no physical harm will come to the parrot, the birds dont know that. Their panic is real. Having empathy for that fear is important.
Getting past a fear response is not about forcing an animal through the experience until the event is over. An ideal strategy is to avoid creating the fear response in the first place. This may mean taking things a bit slower. And more importantly it usually meaning pairing things you know your parrot likes with the experience.
I was recently at a friend’s house talking about desensitization and counter conditioning procedures and the different processes that can be used. We decided to explore some of the differences with a cute little terrier named Blue. First we used systematic desensitization. Blue was resting peacefully on a chair. While she lay there we gradually moved a big scary vacuum closer and closer as long as Blue remained relaxed. We made sure she could see us moving the vacuum and watched her responses. Eventually the vacuum was right next to her and she showed no need to be anywhere else and continued resting peacefully.
In the next steps we moved the vacuum cleaner to the center of the room and put treats all around it. Suddenly her body language changed. She sniffed, licked and explored every inch of the vacuum. Later when we moved it to the side she wouldn’t leave it alone, even though all the treats were long gone. Her tail was wagging and her focus was on the vacuum. By pairing something Blue liked with the vacuum we went beyond tolerance to loving the machine.
I use these same procedures with parrots all the time. I certainly don’t want my parrots fearing things like scales, towels, nail trimmers, etc. I start with systematic desensitization and then switch to classical conditioning, and then many times start incorporating operant conditioning. I use shaping with approximations to teach my parrots to actively present specific actions related to the no longer scary object, such as stepping onto the scale or taking fluids from the syringe. But first and foremost I avoid creating a fear response at all costs. Because I know fear is not always easy to overcome.
It’s true I am comforted when a pilot tells me turbulence is expected and for how long. However the truth is I am still much happier when there are no bumps at all. My flight is even better if there are movies to watch and snacks to enjoy.
Be empathic when your parrot shows a fear response. Take a little time to help him overcome what he fears. The end result is worth it.
Check out this awesome project! Artist extraordinaire Arlene Powers has made a painting based on one of my photos of Sirocco the kakapo. How cool it that?
Here is the best part. This original painting could be yours! This painting is being raffled off via the Chirping Central Conservation Fund. For just a single dollar you could potentially be showing off your own piece of fine art featuring the one and only Sirocco. (If you have not read about my adventures with him, be sure to visit my blog about training Sirocco. It was the thrill of a lifetime)
All funds raised are going directly to the Kakapo Recovery Program. This means your contribution will help save kakapo in the wild. This unusual, nocturnal, flightless parrot is down to only 127 individuals. The team is working nonstop to ensure a sustainable population is here for generations to come. Having been privileged to meet Sirocco in person I can say kakapo are simply fascinating and unlike any parrot I have ever seen. The team has had great success increasing their numbers, but there is more work to do and your entry will help. The drawing for the winner will take place at the American Federation of
Aviculture conference in August. No limit on the number of tickets you
can buy. Go for it! Get your tickets here!
Many people have an interest in working with animals as a profession. In truth there are many different types of jobs one can consider. Animal related professions include veterinarians, veterinary technicians, zoo keepers, pet store employees, wildlife educators, breeders, wildlife rehabilitation, animal rescue and welfare organizations, groomers, boarding facilities, field biologist, and of course animal trainer!
In the world of animal training there are additional categories. You may have an interest in presenting educational or entertaining shows or training zoo animals for health care. Some people train animals for TV and film. Other animals are trained for search and rescue and for assisting people. Animal training expertise is also required to work as a consultant to help solve animal behavior problems.
Every type of animal related profession requires certain skill sets and some require college degrees. The world of animal training is no exception. The science that is the foundation behind all animal training is called Behavior Analysis. Individuals interested in becoming trainers should invest time in studying this science. There is no secret to animal training, nor is there any whispering involved. Influencing animal behavior is all based on the principles of behavior analysis.
Knowing the science and applying it are two different things. Animal training is all about practical application. This means practice, practice, practice. Ideally you want this to happen with the guidance of an experienced trainer. This will help you improve your technique tremendously. You can learn about the science and how to train by attending animal training lectures and workshops. You can also get your feet wet by watching instructional DVDs.
Getting educated is an important part of being a great trainer. However hands-on experience is also critical. Find ways to spend time with animals. In the beginning it may mean volunteering or accepting the less glamorous jobs working with animals. However any professional animal trainer will tell you, those experiences are worth their weight in gold. There is always something to learn from the time spent caring for animals. Zoos, animal shelters, wildlife rehab facilities and some veterinary facilities will accept volunteers. Take advantage of these opportunities to enhance your hands-on experience. Exceptional volunteers are often the ones who land full time jobs. Treat your volunteer work as an important step towards becoming a professional in the animal world.
If you are looking to hang out with millionaires, keep in mind most animal professions don’t lead to six figure incomes. However working with animals can certainly be rewarding on a personal level. And if you are a positive reinforcement trainer you can bet your work is making a difference in the lives of the animals you train. You also get to be on the receiving end of a lot of love coming right back at you. If animal training is your dream job, go for it! The world needs more people sharing kind and gentle ways to work with animals.
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Simon Schama: Academic History Is Dull!Roundup: Talking About History
Jonathan Thompson, in the London Independent (Feb. 22, 2004):
Simon Schama, one of Britain's best-known historians , has accused fellow academics of making the subject too dull.
Professor Schama is calling for a return to a "golden age" of historians of the calibre of Gibbon, Macaulay and Carlyle. He says modern-day historians - with a few notable exceptions - have lost the ability to inspire the public with tales of the past in the same way as their predecessors.
"History's adventure has become a bit lost," said Professor Schama. "It's not as explosive or exciting as it used to be. What we need to recover is our reckless literary courage." He blamed the subject's demise on the "juggernaut of academic history" which is obsessed with scientific data and obsessive footnotes rather than good storytelling.
On the eve of his new BBC television series, Historians of Genius, Professor Schama holds up the great historians of the 18th and 19th centuries as examples of how history should be written. Three of these - Thomas Babington Macaulay, author of The History of England, Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , and Thomas Carlyle, who wrote The French Revolution - are dealt with in depth during the series, which begins on BBC4 tomorrow evening. Professor Schama won great acclaim for two lengthy and highly popular television series on the history of Britain
"Macaulay was the first person to really bring history to the mass reading public," said Professor Schama. "His writing had great propulsion and he was very proud of the fact that he could entertain people without making anything up.
"Carlyle, too, was an exhilarating read - a fantastic dramatist. It was as though he kicked open a window and dumped you in the very room you were reading about."
But Professor Schama, who teaches at New York 's Columbia University , said today's books pale in comparison with those of the Victorian era. Although he conceded that narrative British history does have some proponents - notably Antony Beevor and Niall Ferguson - these are the exception rather than the rule.
"Popular narrative history was never entirely lost. It was just condescended to by the juggernaut of academic history which seemed to dictate how and to whom you wrote."
Professor Schama's comments look certain to provoke argument within academic institutions, but he received support last night from another high-profile historian - David Starkey, the Cambridge don and television presenter.
"Undoubtedly, academic history is deadly," said Dr Starkey. "A lot of books have become rarely animated footnotes. In fact, they should really be written upside down, with the footnotes at the top and a drip of text underneath. Footnotes aren't new, but what is new is our worship of them."
Dr Starkey, whose series on Elizabeth I and the six wives of Henry VIII helped win him the title of Britain's highest-paid TV presenter, added: "When I was at university, writing a readable book was seen as the height of frivolity: academics were taught to write for each other. There's this entire lack of public presence. Things like revisionism have led to utter trivialisation in the name of scholarship."
Professor Niall Ferguson, whose recent Channel 4 series on the British Empire led to him being nicknamed "The Errol Flynn of British history", was more guarded on the perceived crisis. "Happily, most of my colleagues understand that to reach a mass audience, one must make certain sacrifices", said Professor Ferguson, who recently left Oxford University to teach in New York . "For example, sacrifice of footnotes and of long historiographical introductions. And one must also strive to write rather more fluently - indeed grippingly - than is usual in the academic world."
Despite Professor Schama's criticism, record numbers of history books were sold in the UK last year. According to figures from The Bookseller, sales in 2003 totalled pounds 32m - or 3 per cent of the total market.
Last night, the president of the Royal Historical Society, Professor J L Nelson, denied claims that history isn't as good as it used to be. "History is very much more diverse in the things it covers now," she said. "There are more people studying history - it's more popular than ever.
"People do write in a different style nowadays. There's not such a large vocabulary, but that doesn't mean we're not writing interesting things."
But Bettany Hughes, presenter of The Spartans and one of the new generation of television historians , was less convinced: "There is definitely a danger that academics will simply sharpen their wits on each other. Throughout the 1970s, history became increasingly scientific, focusing on data, process and analysis rather than on comment and argument. There was almost a denial that you could be passionate about your subject.
"We need to reinforce the idea that it is the study of the living rather than the study of the dead."
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Even fancy species of goldfish, which stay a bit smaller than other types, will get as big around as a softball plus fins or bigger. A ten gallon tank simply will not work for goldfish long-term.
In an unheated tank, there really aren't many options for you as most fish species available are tropical and would require a heater in the tank. The white clouds already mentioned are nice fish. The Vietnamese variety are particularly stunning. If you got a heater, we would be able to recommend a lot more fish to you.
Since you cannot keep goldfish in your tank long-term, I would suggest returning them as soon as you can. Next you'll want to do a fishless aquarium cycle (which may well already be underway due to the goldfish being in the tank). There are plenty of guides available on this forum (for example, here
). A good liquid test kit is really your best friend when cycling a tank as it will tell you how far along the cycle is and ultimately, when it is complete.
Once that's done, it's really just a matter of knowing your other water parameters (pH, hardness and temperature) and we can give you all kinds of ideas for fish!
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