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The First Metaphor This is a brief exposition of an argument of Owen Barfield concerning the history of language, and its consequences. The argument consists in showing an historical inconsistency in the way we think about language, and the subsequent epistemological impossibility. There are two distinctions about the meanings of words and sentences that are important to the argument. The first is between the literal, which is the common or dictionary meaning, and the figurative, which is what words convey other than the common meaning. For example, the literal meaning of “she’s hot right now” would refer to physical sensation. Perhaps, I touched her body and felt a sensation of heat. The figurative meaning of this sentence would refer to her temper, her emotive state, i.e. she’s angry which, of course, I do not have physical sensation of. Lets ignore for now the third possible meaning that would refer to how qualitatively attractive the girl is ( interestingly, this would seem to be the common meaning in context of the quote, which illustrates something Barfield always throws light on, how metaphors continuously become normal speech). A second distinction is between inner and outer language. Inner language is language that is exclusively about the mind. It refers to all our cognitive, qualitative experiences. For example, ‘thinking’ would be an ‘inner’ word. ‘Outer’ language refers to the external world. The car ‘crashing’, the forest ‘burning’ etc. ( I think these distinctions hold whether one is a subjective idealist, realist, materialist, etc.) Now interestingly, Barfield observes, all the words that refer to our ‘inner’ world, if traced etymologically had a material referent, i.e an ‘outer meaning.’ This has led scholars to conclude that these words originally had only a material meaning and later became figurative. That is, the ‘outer’ meaning is taken to be the original, literal meaning. So how did our outer language become inner language? By what process was the transformation from outer to inner? Metaphor. It is assumed that outer language was used metaphorically to denote inner experience. For example, the outer word “wind” was used figuratively to convey, say, the concept of spirit. Hence, “Inner language is thus presumably the end result of the figurative use of outer language eventually taking on a purely literal inner sense.” Barfield makes a compelling argument against the idea that our outer language became inner through the aforementioned process. I quote Barfield in full here: Somehow or other our ancestors had acquired a bit of self-knowledge [knowledge of the inner world] without the help of the instrument of speech and then they chose a word with which to clothe that bit of knowledge metaphorically. I am a primitive man, who has just become aware of a sort of immaterial something within me, but I have no word for it. In my experience up to now, it is not even the sort of thing for which there are words. What I have got available is a bunch of strictly literal labels for things like sun, moon, cloud, rock, river, wind, etc. None of these words has any immaterial overtone at all. That is an essential condition; for otherwise they would not be literal (as born literals are assumed to be literal); they would already be vehicles with a tenor. The word for wind, for example, means to me simply what we today call air or oxygen, the physical stuff that keeps on coming into and going out of me. I now take the step of substituting my word for, and with it my thought of, wind for my wordless thought of the sort of something. That is the picture. What Barfield is saying here is that, if we assume that outer language was only literal and used later to metaphorically describe ‘inner experience’ we’re in the untenable position of having a metaphor without content. We start with the assumption that ‘outer language’ precedes ‘inner language’ since we conclude that words only had an outer meaning before they became inner meanings. Since up until this point, primitive man only had words for outer objects, he is not aware of any distinction between spirit (inner) and wind (outer). In fact, he does not know anything about spirit! Also of note is in this literal world, the physical (literal) meaning of ‘wind’ is utterly unrelated to the immaterial notion of spirit. Yet without any awareness of ‘spirit’ he nevertheless substitutes the word wind for it. Barfield argues that this is incoherent. To have a metaphor you must be aware of a literal meaning and the object to which the figurative meaning refers to. But where does the concept of spirit come from in order that using wind as a metaphor for it makes sense? It cannot be the “wordless thought of a sort of something” since if I say that is spirit, I must already have a concept of what spirit is. Still worse, is the notion of a “wordless thought of a sort of something” which is an untenable postulate. Therefore, unless, we presuppose some original affinity between the concept wind and the concept spirit, we cannot account for how wind was used metaphorically to denote spirit. That is, only if the word wind when it began possessed both the inner(spirit) and outer (air, oxygen) meaning. So what is the consequence of this? Well, the first is something that many other philosophers have concluded: the human mind is not a passive onlooker at a world out there but an active participant. But most important is Barfield’s conclusion that this relationship between wind and spirit must have been “given in the nature of things,” and not a result of confusion and fancy or a mistaken use of language. That is, to quote Phillip Williams,* the argument shows that “it is impossible to account for representational content without reaching the conclusion that the realms of consciousness and reality share some sort of fundamental unity.” That is, if these words began with both their literal and figurative meaning, it is impossible to conceive of man inventing this relationship when he had not yet had the means to do so. * Phillip Williams is an online acquaintance that wrote a nice paper on Barfield which he shared with me. I haven’t been able to contact him in a while. Anyway, the reason I post this short exposition is because (1) I think Barfield’s argument is interesting and (2) because I was reading a recent blog where the issue of Biblical Hermeneutics came up. Specifically, the difficult issue of how to deal with descriptions in the Bible when faced with the findings of archaeology and paleontology. I have no dog in these fights but I always find it interesting that Barfield, despite not being an Orthodox Christian, has several novel arguments that make the issue even more compelling. For example, where it is common to defer to the objectivity of Archaeology and Paleontology on these problems, Barfield makes no bones about delimiting their scope if they conflict with history as told by language. What? How? Wait, what? Yes, Barfield would seriously contend that Language itself is a clue into the history of the world and it’s nature. I will expand on this a bit more later. This entry was posted in Owen Barfield, Philosophy. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Google+ photo Twitter picture Facebook photo Connecting to %s
AskDefine \| Define flipper Dictionary Definition 1 a shoe for swimming; the paddle-like front is an aid in swimming (especially underwater) [syn: flippers, fin, fins] 2 the flat broad limb of aquatic animals specialized for swimming User Contributed Dictionary see Flipper flip + -er 1. in marine mammals such as whales, a wide flat limb, adapted for swimming 2. a flat, wide, paddle-like rubber covering for the foot, used in swimming 3. a flat lever in a pinball machine, used to keep the ball in play 4. A type of ball bowled by a leg spin bowler, which spins backwards and skids off the pitch with a low bounce 5. In the context of "informal\|US": television remote control, clicker Related terms mammal's wide limb for swimming paddle-like rubber covering for the foot, used in swimming flat lever in a pinball machine Etymology 1 From flipper, the part of a pinball machine used to strike the ball up higher on the game surface. fr-noun m Etymology 2 From to flip. 1. pinball (game and machine) Related terms Extensive Definition Flipper may refer to: flipper in German: Flipper flipper in French: Flipper (homonymie) flipper in Dutch: Flipper flipper in Swedish: Flipper Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words Australian crawl, act drop, aquaplaning, aquatics, asbestos, asbestos board, backdrop, backstroke, balneation, bathe, bathing, batten, border, breaststroke, butterfly, cloth, coulisse, counterweight, crawl, curtain, curtain board, cyclorama, decor, diving, dog paddle, drop, drop curtain, fin, fire curtain, fishtail, flapper, flat, floating, hanging, natation, rag, scene, scenery, screen, side scene, sidestroke, stage screw, surfboarding, surfing, swim, swimming, tab, tableau, teaser, tormentor, transformation, transformation scene, treading water, wading, waterskiing, wing, wingcut, woodcut Privacy Policy, About Us, Terms and Conditions, Contact Us Material from Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Dict Valid HTML 4.01 Strict, Valid CSS Level 2.1
Category Archives: Health Education Learning in many stories. The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. —Chimamanda Adichie, Storyteller Learning in vulnerability. Stories are data with a soul. —Brené Brown, Researcher-Storyteller Teaching is Modeling. As educators, we will hold a position of power and influence in our classrooms; the ways we (inter)act, live, and move in our world will become a model for our students of how to do the same. This is an amazing and dangerous responsibility, and a source of incredible power that should not be taken lightly. We must be self-reflective, self-analytical, self-critical; only then can we start to determine if we are truly using our power to build healthy students, classrooms, schools, communities. We must also be willing to reform, and in some cases completely transform, our modes of being; otherwise, this project of self is not even worth taking on in the first place. We must always work with the mindset that we are incomplete, imperfect, and improvable. In regards to health education, we can model healthy living in many forms. We can showcase conditions of healthy relationships, dialogue, eating habits, problem solving, behaviors, choices. The way we nourish our bodies and minds, and the nourishments we send back into our environment (in the form of words, actions, reactions, mindsets), will have the potential to radically shape and shift these systems of nourishment for our students as well. We become a source nourishment for them; we also teach them how to nourish themselves, and others. Keeping a food/activity journal has been a great strategy for elevating habits in my eating and fitness that have otherwise gone unrecognized (at least to myself). By collecting detailed data about all of the physical nourishment that enters my body, patterns of unhealthy consumption can no longer remain unconscious. I thought I ate more vegetables; I thought I hiked more frequently; I thought I consumed enough protein and calcium. My journal uncovered these myths. By setting goals towards better health, I therefore consciously acknowledge emerging barriers to my own health and become accountable to the project of re-imagining my choices, habits, actions. The journal made me (at least temporarily) an active participant in my decision-making around my overall consumption of food and participation in physical activity, as opposed to the passive navigator of everyday food and fitness decisions that I was before. Can this active involvement and awareness be sustained without maintaining the focused energy required of a food/activity journal? While a food/activity journal is useful for identifying our own individual (un)healthy habits, and can be used as an interdisciplinary tool for our students to do the same, this alone will not create healthy classrooms. How can we expand this idea of the food/activity journal to record and reflect on other forms of nourishment that we put into our bodies and minds? To collect detailed data in our classrooms regarding our teaching practice, education processes, student engagements, learning experiences? The food/activity journal is like an in-depth research project of the energy inputs/outputs of our individual bodies. If we were to translate this model into an in-depth research project of the energy inputs/outputs of our collective classroom/community bodies, what would our data look/feel like? Teaching is Inducing Wonderment. In health education, it is common to frame content in terms of what not to do. Don’t do drugs, don’t have (unsafe) sex, don’t eat harmful foods; this negative position permeates in much of the critical dialogue we must have with our students. There is a growing body of evidence for the benefits of searching for competencies in young learners; finding the positive and capitalizing on strengths rather than continually labeling the negative and focusing on failures. Can we follow this logic with health education? Would we be more successful if we were to focus on the positive, amazing qualities of our bodies, selves, and communities rather than the negative, scary consequences of our (potential) behaviors, actions and choices? If we can cultivate a respect and awe for these individual and collective bodies, can we prevent the same traumas and struggles we aim to prevent with the negative “don’t ____” framework? Teaching is Navigating Boundaries. If we want to incorporate controversial topics into health education, especially in regards to sexual health, there are many boundaries we will have to navigate and negotiate. These may be political boundaries; what does our school, district, state allow us to discuss? These may be social boundaries; what are parents, students, we ourselves comfortable with (or properly trained in) discussing? These may be cultural boundaries; what are the sources of information and influence that either facilitate or inhibit healthy knowledge production? These may be ethical boundaries; what are we as educators morally accountable and responsible to teaching our students? What do we do when these boundaries contradict each other? What if our core values, our sense of moral responsibility to our students, conflicts with limitations from parents or our school district? These boundaries are not necessarily static; how can we as educators work to re-negotiate some of these boundaries in our effort towards providing our students the knowledge they need to be safe, healthy members of our society? Should our methods be creatively subversive within our own classrooms, or should we strive to be transparent, professional, and rational in arguing for wider spread re-negotiation of these boundaries? How do we know if/when we are prepared (enough) to do this? Teaching is Constructing Mindsets. The view that children adopt for themselves can have a profound effect on their self-concept for the rest of their lives. This can be seen through the effects of labeling theory or stereotype threat, in which perceptions of inability actually produce lower levels of achievement, and perceptions of ability in turn produce higher levels of achievement. In this same line of logic, learned helplessness refers to the cultivation of a perception that one cannot succeed—that their capacities and capabilities are innately lower than their peers—and therefore these students are less likely to perform to their best ability. How can we as educators avoid teaching helplessness to our students? How do we create mindsets—self concepts—that empower rather than inhibit quality learning? In the standardized, high-stakes testing world of contemporary public education in the United States, we run an incredible risk of producing fixed mindsets. This occurs when one’s view of self is static; one has a distinct set of capabilities and capacities, and this set of tools remains the same for one’s entire lifetime. Creating standardized measurements and thresholds of success and intelligence can have a major part in producing this mindset, which can lead to a fear of challenge and a devaluing of effort. This ultimately inhibits a students’ power to fully engage in the process of learning. On the other hand, there is a different type of mindset that we can cultivate for our students: a growth mindset. This occurs when one’s view of self is more fluid, based on the belief that one’s set of capabilities and capacities can be changed and cultivated with effort. Research has shown that individuals with a growth mindset are more willing to see value in challenging oneself and place higher importance on effort. If we want to develop a health education pedagogy with the goal of providing the opportunity for our students to develop as the most healthy learners they can be, we must strive to build growth mindsets—to foster a genuine hope for continual positive development and improvement. Teaching is Being Resourceful. There are a multitude of resources available to teachers. In terms of health education, there are various companies and organizations that will provide educators with useful tools, materials, and even funding. These resources do not just show up in the classroom; they require schools and teachers to actively seek them out. This means that in order to take advantage of the amazing resources available to us, we will have to be knowledgeable in regards to where resources are and how to get them. We will also be responsible for sharing this knowledge with colleagues to make sure that these opportunities are not wasted for other classrooms and learners. Teaching is Integrating. In the contemporary climate of public education, designing a health education curriculum often requires a creative integration of fitness and science education into other subject and content areas. It may seem like there is no time for health education amidst rising standards, fixed curriculum, mandated content. However, we can teach important health lessons through the books we choose to read, the way we organize our classroom community, integrating active movement into our activities, writing stories or poems that relate to health and fitness or which require physical movement. Health education does not have to require more time or a redistribution of our use of time; health education requires us to be more conscious and calculated in how we use that time towards positive health goals. Teaching is Fostering Resiliency. As teachers, we will be Mandated Reporters of child abuse and neglect. We will be in a position of using professional judgement to identify cases of abuse and neglect, spanning the spectrum of physical, emotional, sexual, and beyond. Unfortunately, these traumas will be an all too present reality for many of the students in our schools. Along with being a Mandated Reporter, I believe we should also see our role as being a Resiliency Mentor. We are ideally positioned to promote resiliency in our classrooms. We can demonstrate positive coping skills, provide opportunities for outlets through writing and art, build our students’ self-confidence and self-worth, cultivate community to ensure a healthy social support system for all students, be a nurturing and compassionate secondary caregiver and trusted adult. Signs of abuse and neglect are symptoms of a social trauma and violence. Some may also be indicators that we are not doing all that we can as educators to foster resiliency among our young learners. Resiliency is not only a coping mechanism for the abused and neglected; it is a preventative mechanism for everybody and everyone. Teaching is doing. How do you cultivate learning without doing? How can you create a learning experience without active experimentation, exploration, examination? Some people can learn passively; our current education system is generally catered to this style of learning. What about our students who learn better actively? Our current education system all too often overlooks the capacities of these children, identifying their failures as learners rather than the failures of our systems to provide and allow for authentic learning experiences. Even still, the process of learning is never passive. It is always active. Something within and between us is transitioned, translated, transformed. Learning always involves setting things into motion; learning is transmotion. Learning produces new forms of knowledge, challenges and changes our current forms of knowledge, leads to future developments of knowledge. Learning is fluid, active, adaptive, alive. No rigid system can limit this perpetual motion.
February 24, 2017 Longboard Words(what do they mean?) Carving is the technique of turning back and forth down a hill of making large turns and span the width of the street or hill. It forms a large S shape. Carving controls speed and is used as a fun way to go down the hill. Carving is an effective way to control the board and it is important to know when a rider goes down the hill. The rider uses his longboard deck as a dance platform. Dancing longboards are usually longer than regular longboards, longer than 48”, but riders also perform dances on a shortboard. Dancing is also called board walking. Board walking is a series of steps done on the board. The rider moves around on the board in style. Samples of dancing on a board are pirouettes, cross steps etc. Drafting is the technique used mostly by speed riders/boarders. A motor vehicle is driving in front of them on the road when riders are going downhill to minimize wind resistance. This increases the overall speed. Drifting is the technique and movement to turn around corners in control when going downhill. Drifting reduces speed. The rider manipulates and balances the weight in order to achieve a balance between grip and slide throughout a corner. New riders might benefit to control their speed throughout the entire run when drifting. Foot Braking Foot Braking is the technique to slow down the rider by lifting the foot from the board and slowly placing it on the ground to slow down the ride before a corner, to reduce speed or to come to a complete stop. This is the first thing a rider needs to learn when longboarding in order to be safe on a longboard. Goofy Stance Goofy stance refers to a rider who puts his or her left foot in the back and leads with the right foot. Most people lead with their left foot in the front, which is called regular stance. Neither is wrong. It is just a preference as being left or right handed. Hard Wheel Sliding The rider uses harder wheels. Wheels with higher durometer typically above 90a. It is also called ‘technical’ sliding. The rider manipulates their body in order to perform aggressive but stylish slides. The harder wheels make slides easier to perform. Style and tricks are more important with this technique than speed. Paddling is kicking off the ground with your foot in order to gain more speed. Pre-drifting allows the rider to maintain more control by reducing a significant amount of speed before a very sharp turn. Pumping is the act of propelling the longboard without pushing. A process of swerving and using your legs and arms to move your body weight on very precise, balanced, and rhythmical weight shifts. Pumping is a great skill to have on long distance pushes. Pushing Mongo Most riders using their back foot to push, while their front foot remains on the longboard, but if a rider is pushing mongo he or she does the opposite. Riders prefer to use their front foot for pushing. Regular Stance Most riders has a natural dominant stance and most riders ride regular stance: They are more comfortable using their left foot in the front while longboarding. Shut Down Slide A technique of coming to a complete stop during your run. Which normally happens at the end of a ride or hill. In emergency situations, a shut down can be done while riding a high speeds. The rider should warn riders behind him/her before performing this method during high speeds as it is often dangerous for riders behind him/her. Most often sliding is used to slow down or stop on a longboard. A rider is going sideways with his/her longboard as oppose to pointing downhill. It is a more effective way than air braking and foot braking. It effectivitly controls the speed when needed. The rider manipulates his/her weight placement upon the board in order to allow the wheels to (predictably) lose traction. Knowing how to slide properly is good to know when you start to keep you safe. Soft Wheel Sliding Soft wheel sliding or a safe and controlled method while longboarding. It can be used as a method of slowing down the longboard or even stopping. Soft wheel sliding is beneficial to all forms of longboarding It is also referred to as “freeriding”. In soft wheel sliding, the rider manipulates the longboard to lose traction in order to perform stylish moves like a 180° or stand-up slide. Wheels are typically in the durometer range of 80a to 86a. Stand-up Slides Stand up slides are power slides preformed standing up without placing hands on the ground. February 2, 2017 Benefits of Longboarding Basic longboarding is not nearly as physically demanding as running, making it an easy hobby to adopt if you're less physically fit. Longboarding also helps you develop better balance and coordination, mimicking the movement of a surfboard without the waves. Unlike traditional skateboarding, longboarding doesn't focus on fancy tricks but on propelling yourself down the sidewalk. As a result, the learning curve is somewhat faster than for standard skateboarding. While longboarding doesn't offer the same calorie-burning potential as running, it still burns 3.5 to 7 calories per minute, making it a moderate-level aerobic activity. January 15, 2017 Longboard Bearings An essential part of every longboard is the bearings. Without bearings, a smooth and fast ride would not be possible. What are bearings? Bearings are the balls that allow your wheels to spin on the axle. Bearings can be made of either metal or ceramic. Steel longboard bearings are the most popular, but ceramic bearings are said to be better quality, therefore making them more expensive. Some bearings have an ABEC rating. ABEC is the American standard for rating bearings. This rating is not only applied to skateboard and longboard bearings, but to bearings in many different industries. Bearings come in five different classes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. The higher the number, the greater the precision and speed. You can take the ABEC rating however seriously you want in longboarding. Many skateboarders and longboarders alike swear by bearings like Bones Reds. These bearings are super affordable and have awesome quality. Bones does not provide an ABEC rating for any of their bearings because they say that this standard does not hold up to the abuse taken in skateboarding and longboarding. Yet, Bones are some of the best bearings you can buy. December 20, 2016 5 Reasons you should Longboard! 1. Crappy days Just Arent That Crappy If you’re stuck riding a surfboard made for “good” waves, chances are good that there are going to be a lot of days where you leave the water frustrated. “Good” waves aren’t all that common, for the most part. But on those days where the forecast reads 1-2 foot, you’re still stoked. 2. It’ll make you a better surfer. Longboarding is a good way to figure out wave mechanics. Since everything is a little more drawn out, you need to predict what the wave is going to do sooner than you’d have to if you were riding a shortboard. Understanding what a wave is going to do down the line will inevitably help out when the waves get good enough to ride a shortboard again. 3. You’ll have more friends. In a lot of places, shortboarders and longboarders tend to stick together. It’s not all that often you’ll see a group that includes both. But if you surf in the same place often enough, you’re going to start making friends with people out there. Riding a longboard makes it a little easier to talk to the older guys on them, and they’re the ones with the stories worth listening to. 4. You’ll get way more waves. Everyone wants more waves. On a longboard, you get more waves. It’s that simple. Waves that you wouldn’t even consider paddling for on a shortboard become waves that you’re ridiculously excited about. Waves that you would have considered shitty are no longer shitty. Your wave count skyrockets, and you end up being a happier person. 5. Variety is the spice of life. If you ate chicken every single day for the rest of your life, you’d get bored of chicken. Sure, you might get really good at eating chicken, but every now and then, a pork chop tastes pretty damn good. Longboarding and shortboarding are very different things, and learning something new will give you something else to get excited about. Orlando longboards is dedicated to assisting board riders choose the correct board and accessories to suit their riding style. With Three local Displays in the Central Florida area and a retail website with a massive supply of the latest custom and commercial boards to choose from. Check it out fellow skaters! It doesn't matter if you are a professional downhill rider or a college campus cruiser, we have the ride for you. It's all about riding style and what you are comfortable with. Check out our CHOOSING THE RIGHT DECK PAGE if you need help. Our Facebook page is also very informative :-) December 1, 2016 Longboard Tips to remember when attempting tricks Performing tricks on a longboard is not a difficult task at all and can be easily performed by every rider. Some of the most commonly tricks performed on this amazing sports equipment are Melon, Slides, Kickflip, etc. A rider can easily learn these tricks and perform perfectly within little time but there are certain things which a rider needs to keep in mind before practicing such cool tricks. Let’s have a look at the useful longboard trick tips which will help the rider to perform tricks on a longboard without any harm. • A rider must wear the safety kit before stepping on the board in order to protect himself from major injuries in case of any accident. Every time a rider tries to learn a new trick he might fall from the board and injure himself. This is where safety kit comes into use as it ensures that a rider is not seriously injured. Helmets, gloves, pads are some of the important safety gears which ensure the safety of various body parts. So, never forget to wear these safety gears before taking a ride on a board as without these gears there is always risk of serious trouble for the rider. • Correct your stance Riders who are new to longboarding must correct their stance before performing tricks on a longboard. It might take weeks or even months to have a proper stance but once you adopt a proper stance longboarding becomes easy. There are two types of stances i.e. regular and goofy. In regular stance, the left foot is forward in the direction where the rider is going and in goofy stance, the right foot is forward. Choose any stance but make sure you are comfortable in it as without proper stance you cannot ride comfortably which means performing tricks on a board becomes an impossible task. • Collect Knowledge On The Trick Before practicing any trick make sure you are well aware with it. Try to collect as much information from the internet related to the trick as it will help you to perform it with ease. You Tube is the best source from where you can learn any trick. Several riders, who are expert in performing tricks, upload their videos on this social site to help other riders to become expert in the tricks. So, don’t forget to search for the videos on You Tube as it will not only help you to perform the tricks with ease but will also help you to perform it safely. • Finally These were some of the useful tips that will help the rider to perform difficult tricks with ease and full safety. Even if the rider fails to perform a trick on a longboard, these tips will make sure he doesn’t hurt himself and can give a one more try. So, do consider these tips if you want to become an expert in performing tricks on a longboard. Sup riding or land paddling is a fun way to workout! The idea is to feel like you are paddleboarding on water. This works out your entire core area as well as your arms, back, and shoulders. Many professional athletes have chosen this as a proven crosstraining workout. The best part is that its fun to do and easy to learn. Your friends and everyone who sees you will want to give it a shot. Pick up one of our SUP(Stand Up Paddleboards) and a Land Paddle Today. Are there famous people who ride our boards? I think so! Check out this list... TO NAME A FEW!!! Most of these athletes use land paddling as a crosstraining core workout and we think you should to! Grab a Land Paddle And Sup(Stand Up Paddleboard) Today! In general you see 4 main riding styles, which are: • Cruising • Freestyle • Freeride • Downhill Cruising is the activity some longboarders choose to start out with. You go ridin' around town, the campus, sidewalk or wherever you can find an empty parking lot to ride. Whether its getting from A to B or just boarding as a mode of transportation its all cruising, exercise, and fun! Activities like dancing, carving, or a gentle and relaxed ride are part of the whole cruising experience. Freestyle is more like skateboarding on a larger board. You get the stability of the larger board while still doing the tricks you see on skateboards. Lots of carving and lots of tricks and street skating or even in the skate park. Freeride longboarding has some focus on downhill and street boarding but more in a recreational fashion (compared to downhill) and speed is not the goal. Its all about technical maneuvers, like hands down sliding and flipping, and typical done by intermediate to advanced longboarders. Downhill is all about speed. Faster is better and racing is the main objective. Tricks is not what downhill skaters are after but they want to go as fast from start to finish as possible. Wear a Helmet! The experience level needed for any of these styles will in general increase from cruising to downhill. Little experience is needed to start cruising around, yet technical maneuvers and riding fast down hill definitely requires some practice. Each style of longboarding will be fun, so try and see what works best for you and what you really feel comfortable with. Based on your style we can help to figure out which board will be best for you. Feel free to ask us which board is right for you :-)
English to Kannada Meaning :: matter ವಿಷಯ, ಗಣ್ಯವಾದದ್ದಾಗಿರು Matter : - ಮ್ಯಾಟರ್ಪ್ರತಿದ್ರವ್ಯಗಳಪ್ರಾಮುಖ್ಯmatteringವಿಷಯಗಳ Show English Meaning Noun(1) a vaguely specified concern(2) some situation or event that is thought about(3) that which has mass and occupies space(4) a problem(5) (used with negation(6) written works (especially in books or magazines Verb(1) have weight; have import, carry weight Show Examples (1) Any readers who can suggest suitable reading matter or anything else to keep him amused would be doing me a favour.(2) there was blood and matter coming from the wounds(3) what did it matter to them?(4) The only road to the two farms is by the lane which has been used for centuries, so what is the matter with it now?(5) It's also not a show that's performed very often - and having seen the content matter , I can see why.(6) For one thing, how can empty space explode without there being matter or energy?(7) He paused, having nothing further to say on the matter and then changed subject.(8) We grew impatient waiting for the next dose of reading matter .(9) punctuality does matter(10) In the universe matter and physical space are in permanent dynamic equilibrium.(11) what's the matter?(12) the first matter for discussion is the timetable(13) A spokesman said later that they were taking an interest and were giving the matter careful consideration.(14) What is the matter with this man and his brain-to-mouth impediment?(15) pretend that nothing's the matter(16) The latrines had a heater beneath, which would burn the faecal matter slowly without causing any smell. Related Words (1) no matter :: (2) it does not matter :: ಇದು ವಿಷಯವಲ್ಲ (3) as a matter of fact :: ವಾಸ್ತವವಾಗಿ ಒಂದು ಮ್ಯಾಟರ್ ಮಾಹಿತಿ (4) what's the matter :: ಏನು ಮ್ಯಾಟರ್ (5) no matter what :: ಏನೇ ಆಗಿರಲಿ (6) no matter how :: (7) the matter :: 1. material :: 2. affair :: 3. importance :: 4. problem :: 5. content :: 6. subject :: 7. be important :: 8. count :: 1. answer :: 2. solution :: Different Forms antimatter, matter, mattered, mattering, matters Word Example from TV Shows - What\'s the matter? - No, I\'m fine. - What's the MATTER? - No, I'm fine. The Big Bang Theory Season 1, Episode 3 No, but it\'s only a matter of time. No, but it's only a MATTER of time. The Big Bang Theory Season 5, Episode 3 - ...it\'s an extremely private matter. - I\'d like to know the details. - ...it's an extremely private MATTER. - I'd like to know the details. The Big Bang Theory Season 1, Episode 13 and other people\'s feelings don\'t matter? and other people's feelings don't MATTER? The Big Bang Theory Season 9, Episode 13 <i>All I do is win, win, win, no matter what</i> [SINGING] All I do is win, win, win, no MATTER what The Big Bang Theory Season 8, Episode 2 English to Kannada Dictionary: matter Meaning and definitions of matter, translation in Kannada language for matter with similar and opposite words. Also find spoken pronunciation of matter in Kannada and in English language. Tags for the entry "matter" What matter means in Kannada, matter meaning in Kannada, matter definition, examples and pronunciation of matter in Kannada language. English to Kannada Dictionary Learn Prepositions by Photos commonly confused words form of verbs Words by Category Topic Wise Words Learn 3000+ Common Words Learn Common GRE Words Learn Words Everyday Your Favorite Words Your Search History
What are Carbon Emissions? Carbon, it’s everywhere. No really, it’s in the screen you’re looking at, in the food we eat and the air we breathe! So why is it that, if you’ve watched the news in the last 5 years, you’ll have heard about Carbon as if it’s a bad thing? “Carbon Emissions” or your “carbon footprint” are phrases used commonly in the news and media, but do you really know what they mean? It’s a big part of what we do here at Evolve, so we thought we would help you out by giving you a quick breakdown of these terms. Carbon emissions, specifically carbon dioxide, or CO2, is naturally released into the atmosphere in lots of ways. The largest source of natural carbon emissions is from the exchange of carbon dioxide between the oceans and the atmosphere. Animals and plants also emit CO2 through the process of respiration (breathe in oxygen, breathe out CO2). And, when these plants and animals decompose, organisms within the soil emit more CO2 into the atmosphere. Nature tends to keep most of these emissions in balance. Plants absorb CO2 through photosynthesis, and oceans absorb just about as much carbon dioxide as they let off. Carbon cycles through our air, water, and soil in a continuous process that supports life on earth. Unfortunately, as humans, we have not developed the same habit of offsetting our CO2 emissions as well as nature does. When we extract, refine, transport, and burn fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and oil, we release extra carbon and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. We also cut down large expanses of CO2-absorbing trees to make way for agriculture and new developments, or collect lumber to create new products, meaning we are effectively removing the natural systems that absorb and store carbon.* So why is it bad to have too much CO2 in the air? Carbon absorbs radiation and prevents heat from escaping our atmosphere. This excess heat creates disrupted weather patterns and other changes we are seeing in our climate. So it would appear that reducing or offsetting those carbon emissions are an important way of ensuring we are doing our bit to help with the global climate crisis, and luckily for you, we can help with a number of measures you can implement in your own home. Having a well-insulated home means less heat will be escaping into the atmosphere and that your heating system has to do less work to heat your house effectively. Having an efficient boiler is also a great way of ensuring your heating system isn’t being over-worked and using more energy than you need to. In 2019, by installing Energy Efficiency measures in homes across the UK, Evolve have saved an estimate 80,708 tonnes of carbon. That’s the equivalent of 321 return flights to Australia! Our team of surveyors can assess your home and tell you about possible government grants you may be eligible for, so why not give them a call today for a free, no obligation, home survey – 0800 292 2554. If you want to find out more about your carbon footprint, and the actions you can take to reduce it, you can take the “What is your ecological footprint?” quiz at . Stay warm this winter, save money on your energy bills, and reduce your carbon footprint with Evolve. 0800 292 2554
The land we play on THE BEGUILING PROMISE of sport is that everyone is treated equally: that it transcends politics through meritocracy. Fair play and a level playing field remain catchwords. Yet who determines whether the play is fair? Is the playing field really fair? And on whose land do the playing fields rest? The answers to these questions point not only to the limits of Australian sporting meritocracy, but also to the underlying racism in, and whiteness of, Australian sport. While the dominant narratives of sport celebrate the diversity of those who play and watch sport, those in charge tend to be white, straight-identifying men. These men do not, as a rule, ask questions as to how to diversify decision-making and resource allocation within sports. Or of what it means that their arenas and fields rest on lands belonging to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who did not consent to British takeover and rule. Instead, these men regulate and police the conduct of athletes and teams, patrolling and constraining sporting spaces in their efforts to maximise profits. This situation is indicative of ‘whiteness’ – a theoretical term that refers to a set of political, social and economic values that emerged from industrial Europe.[1] Whiteness then, is not solely about skin colour, but rather a set of beliefs epitomised by notions such as ‘white culture and science is superior to all others’, that ‘money is of very high priority’, that ‘of course it’s normal for white people to be in positions of power and others not to be’, that ‘black peoples are in jail more because they are more criminal’, and then, the biggest myth of all, that ‘we treat everyone equally, so why do minorities always want special treatment?’ In short, whiteness is where white people, particularly men, set the social, political and economic rules of society based on their own values, and then tell everyone else they can access that system equally. The effect is one whereby mostly white men hide the implicit power they have built into the system, and then tell others it is a system of meritocracy. Of course, not all white men and people subscribe to this fallacy, but they all benefit from it. Whiteness’ brilliance is to pretend it wants to ‘include’ everyone else under the sworn goals of diversity or, in the case of Aboriginal peoples, reconciliation, so long as they adopt the rules white men have established. Black, ‘other’ and multicultural communities can have whiteness too; they can easily become acculturated into it. Something, however, always escapes. If whiteness has been a dominant force in recent Australian history, it is also something that has been continually resisted and contested – which brings us back to sports with all their strict rules, ambiguous interpretations and necessary uncertainty. Indeed, much of the compelling power, beauty and at times horror of sport rests in the unknowability as to exactly what will unfold in each contest. Forms of merit such as skill and application are on display, but so too are elements of chance and accident, while the possibility of both shock and awe remain vital to our interest in these games. Many of our treasured sporting stories tend to focus on those who have triumphed against great odds. Nevertheless it is often the tales that are neglected that are the most revealing of the white lens that frames so much of Australian sport. IN OCTOBER 2015 the Australian Football League itself drew attention to one such instance of collective forgetting. ‘Sir Doug Nicholls,’ noted Gill McLachlan, the AFL’s chief executive, ‘is the great untold story of Australian football.’ [2] It was a statement of considerable, and unfortunately emblematic, hubris, for the AFL is no small innocent group that had somehow just discovered a startling elision of the past – it is a sporting monolith that long ago followed the lead of the US’s National Football League in considering itself as primarily a media-content organisation that creates and sells stories. As such, the AFL has invested funds in commemorating other key figures in ways that most cultural organisations can only dream of. While the AFL belatedly took the advice of its Indigenous Advisory Council and named its Indigenous Round after Nicholls, it has consistently decided not to include Nicholls in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. It is a striking omission. The Hall of Fame is supposed to recognise those ‘who have made significant contributions’ to Australian rules football since the game’s inception.[3] Candidates for the Hall are considered on the ‘basis of record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship and character’. Players, coaches, umpires, administrators and members of the media are all eligible, and those adjudged to have changed the game ‘significantly for the better’ are inducted as ‘legends’. Nicholls was a pioneering figure as a player, coach and administrator. He was the first publicly recognised Aboriginal man to star in Victoria at the highest levels of the game. From 1927 he played for five seasons for Northcote in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), then only a marginally less elite competition than the Victorian Football League (VFL). During this time Nicholls won a premiership, was best afield in a grand final, won a best and fairest award, and was the first Aboriginal player selected to represent the VFA in interstate competition. In 1932 Fitzroy lured Nicholls to play in the VFL with a substantial salary and an off-season position as the curator of their oval. Nicholls would play fifty-four games for Fitzroy, and in 1934 became the first Aboriginal player selected to represent the VFL in interstate competition. In 1937 Nicholls returned to Northcote, where he played two final seasons. Later, in another pioneering development, Nicholls became Northcote’s coach while he also organised and coached the first Aboriginal All Stars football team, and was chairman ‘of the National Aboriginal Sports Foundation that conducted National Aboriginal Football Carnivals in all capital cities’.[4] All this is more than just a significant contribution. Doug Nicholls changed Australian rules football for the better – first in Victoria, and then around Australia. As the AFL’s former head of diversity Jason Mifsud noted, if Nicholls had done all of this in the US he would be spoken of in the same terms as Jackie Robinson – the pioneering African-American baseball player who most Americans are taught about at school.[5] Instead, Nicholls has fallen out of the consciousness of white Australia despite great achievements at sport and even greater achievements outside of sport. THIS IS NOT unusual for Australia. Which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander figures from more than fifty years ago are household names across Australia? Not those who fought for their freedom like Tunnerminnerwait, Maulboyheener or Yagan, nor those whose bodies were later displayed in public museums such as Trugernanner, nor those who continually advocated for change such as Nicholl’s uncle, William Cooper. It is not that history is disregarded by white Australia, but more a question of which histories are told and valued. The Australians who died in World War I are valorised for the way they suffered and sacrificed their lives to defend ‘our way of life’, whereas the past violence and discrimination against Australia’s Indigenous peoples is brushed aside as ‘something they need to get over’. The SBS journalist Scott McIntyre was sacked for criticising the nationalistic celebrations of ANZAC Day, while basketball player Alice Kunek was excused by many for blackening her face because she ‘wasn’t aware’ of the racist history of such blackfacing. Whiteness makes some stories sacrosanct, while others are to be ignored with no consequences. Such relationships to our past greatly undermine the possibility of a true meritocracy. The decision to exclude Doug Nicholls only makes sense if the committee were dissatisfied with Nicholls’s playing record of ‘only’ fifty-four games for Fitzroy in the VFL, the competition that would eventually evolve in the AFL. Yet the reason Nicholls initially starred in the VFA, not the VFL, was because he was initially excluded from doing so on the basis of his race. When Nicholls originally arrived in Melbourne, he trained with the Carlton VFL side. The Carlton players, however, complained that Nicholls smelled and would not let him into the changing rooms. It has taken until this year for Carlton to acknowledge the wrong and to invite a member of Nicholls’s family to its ground.[6] To downplay the achievements of Nicholls in the VFL is to ignore the unlevel playing field he was up against. To not include him in the Hall of Fame also means that his more than impressive record as a coach and administrator was not valued. That the tireless work he did promoting Indigenous involvement in Australian rules football was not seen as a truly significant contribution to the game. The immense contribution of Nicholls can only not count enough if the history of Australian rules football is largely a white history, where VFL premierships and medals count for much more than triumphing over exclusion and systematic discrimination, and where contributions to ‘the game’ is taken to mean contributions only to certain elite (male) competitions. In neglecting to celebrate Nicholls – and in so doing avoiding engaging with its own difficult history of racist exclusion – the AFL also missed a chance to show that despite the white lens that shapes Australian sport, it can still provide spaces for transformation. For through football Nicholls became a much-loved figure. Indeed, in 1934 Melbourne’s Argus newspaper declared that it ‘is safe to say that a more popular player never wore football boots in Australia’.[7] A year later another Argus profile commended Nicholls as ‘one of the most gentlemanly and most popular sportsmen in Australia. He is a model for any boy to copy.’[8] In perhaps being scared by the history of its own racism, the AFL had also neglected the opportunity to tell a story that pointed to the way Australian rules football created the space in the 1930s for an Aboriginal man to be celebrated for both his sporting deeds and gentlemanly conduct. Ignorance here is no excuse. Public calls for Nicholls to be included in the Hall date back to at least 2008, and Nicholls has subsequently been nominated with a strong case put forward that the (white male) committee has somehow seen as not substantial enough to induct him.[9] And the AFL is now recognising Nicholls on its own terms – as a pioneering Aboriginal player, coach and administrator who was not quite important enough to be in the Hall of Fame. This act of recognition typifies the AFL’s approach to diversity: the very white response of including others but of not fundamentally levelling the playing field. The AFL has invested considerable resources into the project of ‘including’ Indigenous footballers, in particular through its marquee Indigenous Round. During this round each team wears a special guernsey featuring Indigenous artwork, while Indigenous players act as team captains for the coin toss. The games often feature performances by Indigenous artists and children, and the showcase Dreamtime at the ’G game between Essendon and Richmond is preceded by the (Michael) Long walk for reconciliation. These were important symbolic developments but were they enough? In other words, did they change the terms of power? In the US, Professor Cornel West has brilliantly argued that it would do African Americans little good to simply try to get black people into positions of power in the white political system that is the US, if that’s all they do.[10] He argues that the US currently has a black president, a black secretary for homeland security and a black attorney-general, yet black Americans are routinely murdered and brutalised by over-zealous police, resulting in the Black Lives Matter movement. West argues the task is not simply to get black people into positions of power, important though that is, but also to fundamentally change the rules of power and how the system operates, so as to be more equal for women, people of colour and LGBTIQ people. Similarly, the disability movement’s sensible goal is not simply to ‘include’ more disabled people in parliament or in playing sport, for example, but to make sure they can physically gain access to the halls of power, to sporting fields and that they can fundamentally change the rules of the game – to literally and figuratively level the playing field. Doug Nicholls had followed a similar maxim. In his own lifetime Nicholls received arguably the greatest forms of recognition that white Australia could offer. He was the first Aboriginal to be knighted, and the first to be made the governor of a state. Nicholls’s focus, however, was not on such tokens of white appreciation and inclusion, but rather on campaigning for the rights of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. Nicholls knew that his ‘people’ hungered for inspiring stories of resistance and triumph, and that news of his deeds was read around much of the country. And he continually spoke up for the need for justice and fair treatment for the first inhabitants – and owners – of the land. In 1935 when Nicholls returned from playing for the VFL’s representative team, he spoke to the press not only of football but of the ‘tragic’ conditions that ‘some of my people’ had to live under, and emphasised his intention to agitate for the authorities to address such issues. Australian rules football gave Doug Nicholls a public platform. And for the rest of his life he used this platform over and over again to campaign for the rights of Indigenous Australians. In 1938, during the first national Day of Mourning that protested Australia Day and the associated celebrations of one hundred and fifty years of colonisation, Nicholls articulated a vision for equality that was tied to the agency and empowerment of Australia’s First Peoples. A vision where they were no longer ‘bossed by white people’ but could ‘hold our own with others if given a chance’. Perhaps it was Nicholls’ continual insistence on the need for Indigenous rights that has led to him no longer being included in (white) Australia’s popular memory. For he returned, over and over again, to those aspects of our past that we as a nation remain uncomfortable with thinking about, let alone discussing. OVER THREE QUARTERS of a century later another Aboriginal man was given a public platform through football – Adam Goodes. The dual premiership player and dual Brownlow medallist was named Australian of the Year in 2014 for his work in both empowering young Indigenous Australians and in combating racism. It was another act of recognition, of inclusion. But Goodes, like Doug Nicholls before him, wanted to foster change. His aim, as he noted in his acceptance speech on Australia Day, was to work to eliminate racism in Australia. A month later, Goodes condemned the way John Pilger’s damning documentary Utopia – which detailed the continuing discrimination faced by Australia’s Indigenous peoples – seemed to be eliciting no response from (white) Australia: In 1968, the anthropologist WH Stanner had referred to this national ‘cult of forgetfulness’ as the ‘Great Australian Silence’.[12] When Goodes spoke of the continuing silence in 2014, the result was an ever-increasing barrage of hostility. It began with defensive anger in the tabloid press and on talkback radio, and then in the 2014 grand final a considerable number of Hawthorn supporters began channelling their intense dislike into boos every time Goodes touched the ball. When the AFL season began again in March of 2015, so did the booing. The longstanding art of decrying the actions of an opposition player had been turned into an act of racial hatred. It was as if Goodes had broken the contract of whiteness. He had been included – been recognised with a great honour – and instead of meekly accepting it and being quiet, Goodes was daring to speak of things that many Australians would prefer to be ignorant of. Critics deemed him outspoken, treating him like an upstart who didn’t know his place. Australians of the Year, black or white or other, are supposed to accept the ‘rules of the game’, the rules of whiteness. They are supposed to accept the underlying power differential, and contribute warm and fuzzies to the national character and sporting religion like any other good pilgrim. The fans booed and hissed and hollered for months, fuelled by racist shock jocks and a faux innocent media, while the AFL stood uncomfortably by, hoping it would fade away without having to intervene and get its hands dirty. The pretence lay in the notion that its hands were clean. Meanwhile the media characterised the tempest as a ‘debate’, as if it was normal to harass and attack an Aboriginal person for attempting to draw attention to the past and present realities of race relations in Australia. Then came the Indigenous Round in the last week of May. The AFL somehow proclaimed its commitment to the cause of reconciliation and Indigenous rights while refusing to intervene in the large-scale harassment of its most prominent Indigenous player. As fate would have it, Indigenous Round began on the night of Friday, 21 May with Sydney hosting Carlton at the SCG. Although Goodes was playing at his home ground, groups of Carlton fans could still be heard booing every time he touched the ball. When Goodes kicked a goal in the second quarter, he celebrated by performing a war dance developed by the ‘Flying Boomerangs’ – an Indigenous team selected to compete in the Australian under-16 championships. The dance ended with Goodes miming the throwing of a spear in the direction of some of the Carlton barrackers who had been booing him. It was a statement of cultural pride and sovereignty. Gary Murray, a grandson of Doug Nicholls, has often noted that ‘one of the strongest symbols of your land ownership is where you bury your dead’.[13] Performing a cultural dance is another strong traditional sign of connection to, and ownership of, land. Goodes, then, was using the Indigenous Round to proclaim his connection to the land, to assert his agency as something more than a figure of entertainment – and now abuse – for white Australia. It could also be read as a demand for justice, a demand for a response to those whose racist hate was booming through games without any significant intervention. Instead, the dance was read as an act of provocation, of threatened violence. While the AFL stayed largely silent, a parade of former players – who just happened to be white – condemned Goodes for both being too soft to ignore the hate being directed at him, and for ‘intimidating’ fans with an ‘imaginary’ spear. Many had made a living by being enforcers, by physically hurting opponents. Yet they seemed to fear what an imaginary spear might do. In a response that so beautifully and horrifically characterised Australian society’s racism and whiteness, a cultural dance performed during the Indigenous Round that was supposed to celebrate Indigenous culture was deemed a step too far. The implicit rule of whiteness is that demonstrations of Indigenous cultures are acceptable only when they keep white values and power intact. Whiteness means ‘we like your art and your sport when they do not threaten us’. ‘We like your art and sport, but not you.’ ‘We like your culture and sport if we can control and consume it, not if you seek to take control of it.’ ‘We like to include you, but not share power.’ It brings to mind the unwittingly revealing comments that the then president of Collingwood, Allan McAlister, made in 1993 when defending the Collingwood supporters who had racially abused Nicky Winmar and Gilbert McAdam: ‘As long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire and respect them… As long as they conduct themselves like human beings, they will be all right. That’s the key.’[14] Goodes might have only thrown an imaginary spear, but perhaps the strong white men were right to fear it, because it challenged the values of whiteness that their power is based on. It was not the ‘right kind of culture’ because it challenged their own white cultural authority, showing that the place of their strength, the ground they had played on, was not necessarily theirs. Part of this statement of sovereignty was already apparent in the pride with which Goodes bore himself on and off the field. Liz Conor correctly identifies that part of the vitriol reserved for Goodes was not merely because of his stance on public racism, culture and social justice, but that he was a successful and ultimately sexy version of Aboriginal manhood.[15] Images of Aboriginal men as destitute, overweight and criminal seem to ease the Australian consciousness into believing ‘it’s all their own fault’, whereas images of successful, sexy, intelligent Aboriginal men are an affront to normalised white power, control and denial. Aboriginal men must never be allowed to be successful and sexy on their own terms, otherwise, they are deemed ‘sexy and dangerous’. IN THIS RESPECT the tennis player Serena Williams receives similar vitriol to Goodes. Williams is said to be an ‘inconsistent’ player when she loses and a ‘powerful’ winner when she triumphs – playing to subtle yet powerful narratives about people of colour being unreliable and furtive, and being sex objects but not sexy. She is ‘sexy and dangerous’, but she must never be allowed to be a proudly black woman on her own terms. If Williams complains of the way she is frequently hated, she is seen as ‘another black asking for special treatment’. A young Leyton Hewitt was quickly forgiven in Australia for implying that a black linesman foot-faulted him because he was biased in favour of Hewitt’s opponent James Blake, yet imagine the response in Australia if Blake had argued that the other 99 per cent of linesman who were white were favouring Hewitt. This suspicion of dangerous darkness and forgivable whiteness had a further parallel in cricket where the crassly sexist behaviour of Chris Gayle received a level of opprobrium never directed at Shane Warne, whose public pursuit of women is read as an entertaining example of good white Aussie virility. Warne himself criticised Goodes for trying to ‘con’ the umpires for free kicks – an impressively hypocritical accusation when much of Warne’s bowling craft lay in convincing umpires to give him LBW decisions. Warne’s attack further escalated the hatred being directed at Goodes. And still the AFL remained silent. Indeed, the AFL Commission itself was torn, with some members arguing that Goodes deserved the booing, others uncomfortable with the booing but believing that it was innocent, and only a minority pushing for an intervention. When a response finally came two months later it was initiated not by the AFL, but by an Indigenous teammate of Goodes, Lewis Jetta, who protested the continuing booing of Goodes with a war dance in his home state of Western Australia when Sydney played the West Coast Eagles in Perth. In the ensuing furore a distraught Goodes took some time off from football and the AFL at last pleaded with fans to not boo him. Yet not only did the AFL not name the booing as racist, they did what most mainstream white organisations in Australia do – maintain their power at the expense of Aboriginal social justice. They reverted to the inclusion narrative. They defaulted to a stance where apparently the issue was not the booing, but Goodes’ experience of it – he felt it was racist, and so to include him, the fans needed to stop booing while he recovered from ‘his mental health issues’. Once again the responsibility for racism was placed in Aboriginal hands, rather than white people taking responsibility for their own actions. What good was ‘inclusion’ to Goodes? The AFL lost a decisive opportunity to push past the easier, warm and fuzzy ‘inclusion’ or reconciliation narrative. They lost an opportunity to make a stand for social justice and equity. They were unwilling to make a stand that risked alienating a core group of supporters, that risked reducing their profit margin, and risked their financial (white) power. At the beginning of the 2016 season the AFL offered a half-baked and way-too-late apology to Adam Goodes. This appears to be the result of some soul-searching, but one could also be forgiven for seeing this as simply a public relations exercise – as keeping their ‘inclusion’ narrative intact. One of the ethical implications of apologising is that the perpetrator stops the abuse. Have they changed the rules of their game? Have they interrogated their whiteness, racism and power? Have they truly levelled the playing field? No. Not yet. Stopping the abuse in this case would mean changing the underlying assumptions of whiteness that the AFL’s power feeds on. THE TRAGEDY OF the situation is that very few organisations in Australia have the potential of the AFL to radically impact on race relations. They could, if they wished, tell stories about the past and the present realities of race relations in Australia that sparked engagement and change with regards to these issues that our nation so desperately needs. Stories of the racism that Doug Nicholls experienced and observed, including the way his sister was taken away against her will by police at the age of sixteen to work as a domestic servant. Of the apartheid-like conditions that Nicky Winmar grew up in the Western Australian town of Pingelly. Of the way both of Gilbert McAdam’s parents were taken away from their families as children. Of the way these traumas are passed down generations. Of the way discrimination has been resisted and sovereignty sought, over and over again. As a corporation concerned with making money off a national story of sporting prowess, how will the AFL acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories in a social justice rather than an inclusion narrative? How will they acknowledge that Aboriginal people have transformed the play of the game? How will they acknowledge they stuffed up, and genuinely seek to make things right? How will they acknowledge the land they play on? In March 2016, the AFL’s first female commissioner, Sam Mostyn, ended her term with the organisation. Mostyn worked hard to bring about cultural change that began the process of transforming the terms of power. Yet she left regretting the ‘AFL’s failure to transform it’s distinctly white male hierarchy’. Not only were the game’s administrators still mainly white men, there is still yet to be a permanent Indigenous AFL commissioner. If the AFL is serious in their professed commitment to Indigenous Australia then they need to provide clear strategies for a redistribution of power they invest their own funds in, rather than acting only if they receive government funds for assistance in something they regard as beyond their core business. What strategy do they have and what funds will they invest in making sure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people share decision-making and power in the game? How will they ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people participate at commission, managerial, mid-manager, coach, administrator and umpire levels? How will they try and achieve the level of rugby league, which had two Aboriginal captains in its most recent grand final, and has created more pathways for Indigenous leadership than the AFL? And why, when the AFL has followed America’s NFL in developing a salary cap, draft and trade period, has it not also followed them in mandating for at least one minority candidate to be interviewed for every major coaching and management position? Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people contribute enormously to many of the sports that are at the centre of Australia’s cultural life. Their connection to the land they play on goes back tens of thousands of years. Yet until we see a marked change in the stories that are told about these sports and this land, together with a shift from inclusion to social justice, the rules of the game and the national story of Australian sport will remain very, very white. [1] Hesse, B. (2011) ‘Marked Unmarked: Black Politics and the Western Political.’ South Atlantic Quarterly, 110 (4). [2] Guardian Australia, 28 October 2015, [4] Gary Murray posted this on: [5] Ben Collins, ‘Sir Doug Nicholls’ family fight for award’, May 29, 2014, [6] See Michael Winkler ‘Doug Nicholls: the greatest?’, 19 May, 2008; and Michael Riley, ‘Doug Nicholls and the Football Hall of Fame’, [7] Argus, 21 June 1935, p7. See also Matthew Klugman and Gary Osmond, Black and Proud (NewSouth, 2013). [8] Argus, 12 September 1935, 7. [9] Winkler ‘Doug Nicholls: the greatest?’, 19 May, 2008; and Riley, ‘Doug Nicholls and the Football Hall of Fame’, [10] Professor West on the ABC’s Q&A television program: And on ABC Radio national: [12] WEH Stanner, After the Dreaming (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1969) [14] Age, 26 April 1993, p.1. [15] Dr Liz Conor (2015) Subscribe to Griffith Review or purchase single editions here. Griffith Review
No smoking ,lungEver wondered why some lifelong nonsmokers get lung cancer? Maybe you don’t really need to think so hard, a new study has made it simple. While major studies relate lung cancer with tobacco consumption, the new American research brings to light the 10 to 15% of lung cancers that are caused by factors other than smoking. As part of the study, researchers analysed data on lung cancer occurrence among people who have never smoked in the course of their lifetime. Led by Michael J. Thun, M.D., the team analysed death rates among self-reported never-smokers from 13 large cohort studies based in North America, Europe, and Asia in a time period from 1960 to 2004. They also pooled data on lung cancer incidents which included thousands of individuals. The numbers were over 630,000 for the incidence data and 1.8 million for the mortality data. The researchers commented, “Lung cancer is obviously a significant public health and medical problem, even beyond the overwhelming disease burden caused by tobacco smoking” In addition researchers collected data from 22 registries of 10 different countries to examine the smoking patterns of women in regions known to have a low smoking prevalence. The study found that lung cancer death rates among never-smokers are highest among men, African Americans, and Asians residing in Asia. The largest review till date also revealed that the death rate among nonsmokers has been pretty much stable over the past decades. The study discovered that the cases of lung cancer among lifelong nonsmokers were about equal to that of cancers of the brain and the nervous system. The mortality rate from lung cancer for men who reported to have never touched a cigarette was around 1.1% before the age of 85. The corresponding estimate for women was slightly lower at 0.8%. In comparison estimates of male and female current cigarette smokers at a risk of dying from lung cancer are nearly 22.1% and 11.9% respectively. Though the report asserts that the number of nonsmokers contracting lung cancer has been stable over the years, the study still points out the importance of the disease. The study is published in the journal PLoS Medicine.
An Introduction To Graphic Design: The Psychology of Color Color is one of the most powerful elements of graphic design. It speaks to everyone and can be understood at the most primal level. When toddlers begin learning to speak, one of the first things they are taught are the primary colors. From there, colors are used to teach more complicated lessons and concepts. Most people have a favorite color, or color they most identify with. Even animals have shown to be partial to certain colors. The power of color comes from its ability to be universally understood. While colors have various names and pronunciations in different languages, the color itself stays consistent. Colors can evoke strong emotions and stimulate critical thinking. In the upcoming lesson we’ll discuss color as it relates to graphic design. Like the previous lessons, this section will build upon what you’ve learned so far. If you haven’t had an opportunity to read through the previous lessons please see: An Introduction To Graphic Design Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 here on the Freepik Blog. Retro bicycle with watercolor stains Free Vector Rainbow swirl background Free Vector Color is a very broad and excited topic, but before choosing the colors you’ll use in your next design project it’s important to understand some basics about color. Generally there are two types of colors: warm colors and cool colors. Examples of warm colors are reds, oranges, and yellows. Those colors are powerful, simulating, and passionate. They promote critical thinking and provide a sense of power and authority. Cool colors are blues, greens, and purples. Cool colors provide a sense of trustworthiness and honesty. Many professional companies use cooler color palates when designing their logos and branding to promote sincerity, professionalism, and trust. Understanding color goes far beyond identifying warm colors versus cool colors. Each color has a different effect on the brain. While there are infinite color combinations and derivatives of all the colors, we’ll be focusing on the basic colors and their effects on the brain. • Yellow is a bright and happy color. It can promote memory and focus. Yellow opens the mind and draws attention to its surrounding elements. Parties, gatherings, and celebrations tend to have yellow in the theme and decorations because yellow creates a hyper and spontaneous mindset. Bright and sunny days are always associated with positive feelings because of the warmth and yellow tones of the sun. • Green is very calming and gives a sense of peace and serenity. Many people find nature calming because of the green undertones found in plants, trees, water, insects, and natural habitats. Many doctors’ offices and medial facilities will use green throughout the building to maintain calmness and encourage the patients to relax. Green is also used to show environmental compassion and a general respect for ones community. • Blue is also a calming color. It promotes productivity and trust. Blue is a very dependable color. Most people associate blue with integrity and sincerity; making it an excellent choice for most professional and large corporate branding. As one of the coolest colors, blue is ideal for mobile application icons and layouts. Most applications are designed for productivity, and the cooler colors provide that sense of real motivation and accomplishment. • Purple is the color of compassion and spiritually. It combines red and blue to create a nice middle ground between energy and focus. • Pink is youthful, fun, and exciting. As a color found in the red family, pink can raise the blood pressure and move people to action. Companies that target younger people may use pink in their branding to show excitement and spontaneity. Think of several toy manufacturers. These companies use bright and fun colors on their packaging to appeal to a younger audience. This is also true for certain packaged foods and snacks as well as different technology products. For several years, manufactures have made special editions of their products in fun colors with the most common of those colors being pink. • Red is a high energy color. It inspires action and elevates the heart rate and blood pressure. Red is the most noticeable color and is used for high impact or to show top priority. Think of stop signs and traffic signals. Red sends a clear message of abruptness and acute attention. Red can also make us feel safe and confident while also creating a sense of responsibility and assertion. • Orange is a mix of red and yellow. It stimulates the appetite and promotes good social behavior. This is why most restaurant menus are designed with oranges, reds, and yellows. These colors are all high energy colors, that call for action. • White is somewhat of an opposite to the color orange. It encourages focus and minimalism. White forces the mind to declutter and direct attention to a central object. White can also been seen as illusive and mystical. Many news stations use white rooms for interviews to create that sense of mystery and wonder. Product photography is often shot on a white background so the viewer can focus on the product instead of the unnecessary background elements. • Gray can be an unsettling color. Many people aren’t sure how to feel about it. It’s not quite black, but its not white either. Ethically questionable actions would fall into what is commonly called a gray area. Something that is not technically good but also not technically bad. Gray can also be seen as sleek and durable. Often, designers use a dark grey hue on websites instead of a pure black. Companies such as Apple have made gray into a long lasting and iconic color. Some would consider gray to be timeless and infinite. • Black is a restful color that can evoke both positive and negative emotions. It’s a very contextual color; the emotions and thoughts evoked by black are dependent on the surrounding objects and images. Black is also a very powerful color that asserts authority and respect. It represents elegance and simplicity. Think of a basic black dress or tuxedo. These articles of clothing are considered to be acceptable and appropriate for any formal occasion. Like gray, black is timeless and dependable. Watercolor background design Free Vector Storm background with sky in different colors Free Vector As you can see, color selection is an important part of the design process. As the designer, you have to choose colors that effect the brain in a way that works best for each project. The next lesson will continue the study of color theory and psychology. Copyright @ 2013 KrobKnea. Designed by Next Learn \| My partner
Study Guide Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Appearances By Ransom Riggs "He doesn't look strong," I said, studying the boy's skinny arms. (Prologue.32) Many of the peculiar children look perfectly normal, like this kid. Some, however, don't, like Millard the invisible boy and the girl with a mouth in the back of her head. Chapter 2 The image was so strange, and yet it was nothing like my grandfather's pictures. There were no tricks here. It was just a woman—a woman smoking a pipe. (2.107) The realistic-looking image convinces Jacob that this might be true. If it had been a goofy-looking one, Jacob probably would have written Miss Peregrine off as fantasy right then and there. Chapter 3 Jacob can't rationalize his grandfather's description of Miss Peregrine's house with the hollow shell it appears to be when he arrives there. It's practically the opposite of what Grandpa said. Chapter 4 "Sure, I remember them," he said. "Odd collection of people. We'd see them in town now and again—the children, sometimes their minder-woman, too—buying milk and medicine and what-have you. You'd say 'good morning' and they'd look the other way." (4.100) The children of the home always seemed strange to the villagers, but not because they looked weird (they probably left the weirder-looking kids at home) but because they acted unusually. Chapter 5 Emma Bloom "Let me see your eyes! […] No, your real eyes! Those fakes don't fool me any more than your ridiculous lie about Abe!" (5.122) Emma wants to see Jacob's eyes because wights—some of the bad guys—don't have pupils. It seems that Emma knows that wights can alter their eyes, too, which makes it a little less surprising to learn that Dr. Golan hid his identity with contact lenses to make his eyes appear human. Where had the townspeople been hiding all these big animals? Also, why was everyone looking at me? Every person I passed stared at me goggle-eyed, stopping whatever they were doing to rubberneck as I walked by. I must look as crazy as I feel. (5.81) Jacob sticks out when he travels back in time because his clothes look so different than anything people wear in 1940. Chapter 6 "Of course he's Abraham Portman's grandson. Just look at him!" (6.29) Jacob looks like his grandfather, which is nice because it helps Miss Peregrine identify him, but it's a little bittersweet for Emma, because Jacob's appearance reminds her of her love for his grandfather. Enoch O'Connor "I'm either one hundred seventeen or one hundred eighteen," said a heavy-lidded boy named Enoch. He looked no more than thirteen. (6.188) Even though the kids are all basically senior citizens, none of them look that way. The time loops prevents them from aging. Chapter 7 Emma Bloom "Nobody suspected a thing," [Emma] said. "People come to sideshows to see stunts and tricks and what-all, and as far as anybody knew that's exactly what we showed them." (7.37) When most people see something that appears impossible, like a levitating person, they assume it's some sort of magic trick, not an actual supernatural power. "Call me a dandy if you will, but just because the villagers won't remember what you wear doesn't give you license to dress like a vagabond!" (7.70) We're not sure why Horace takes such pride in his appearance, but there's a nice photo to accompany his description in the book so you know exactly what he looks like.
Skip to content Bitcoin and Beyond: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Virtual Currencies Wednesday, October 1, 2014 Virtual currencies have taken center stage in the media, with the currency bitcoin making a number of headlines so far this year: • In January, the Sacramento Kings of the NBA announced it would accept bitcoin as payment for tickets and merchandise from the team store. • In February, the bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox halted all withdrawals and announced it had lost almost 850,000 bitcoins, which had a total value of about $480 million at the time. • In March, the IRS ruled that bitcoins would be treated as property, not a currency, for tax purposes. • In July, computer company Dell announced it would accept bitcoins as payment through its website. With public interest in virtual currencies piqued, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis presented “Bitcoin and Beyond: The Possibilities and the Pitfalls of Virtual Currencies” as part of its Dialogue with the Fed series earlier this year. Dialogue with the Fed was started in the fall of 2011 to address key economic and financial issues of the day and to provide the public with the opportunity to ask questions of Fed experts. In this session, David Andolfatto, a vice president and economist with the St. Louis Fed, discussed the rising popularity of virtual currencies, focusing specifically on bitcoin. He explained what bitcoins are and how they work, and he addressed some commonly asked questions about the currency. What Is Bitcoin? Andolfatto explained that he thinks of bitcoin as a computer program designed to do two things: • Create and manage a supply of digital currency units called bitcoins • Process payments between anonymous users by debiting and crediting digital accounts with these bitcoin units Credit for developing this program is given to Satoshi Nakamoto, though many information technology industry watchers believe the name is likely a pseudonym for a programmer or a group of programmers. The bitcoin program is open source, meaning that the program is developed in a public, cooperative manner and anyone can read the program and work to fix bugs and make improvements. How Bitcoin Works To begin using bitcoins, Andolfatto explained that users must download a free virtual wallet, which is an encrypted computer file used to store bitcoins. This wallet can be stored anywhere a typical computer file can be stored, and users can have multiple wallets, just like having multiple banking accounts. A key difference according to Andolfatto is that all wallets are publicly observable, though the owner’s identity remains hidden. Andolfatto likened these wallets to a glass post office box. Anyone can see what is in there, but they don’t know who it belongs to and cannot access it without a key. Only the owner has the key to get into the box and take money out. Andolfatto compared the potential for losing access to the wallet to carrying cash in a physical wallet. Losing the key to opening the wallet or losing the wallet itself (for example, storing it on a USB drive and losing the drive) means no longer having access to that account, which is a serious concern for people with wallets containing large sums in bitcoins. He said, “What if you lost your USB drive? What would you do? If the security key was in there with the USB drive, the person who found it could use your wallet and spend it. If the security key wasn’t there … that money is gone. It will never be used.” Andolfatto explained that one way of guarding against this risk is to use an intermediary to store bitcoins, similar to how people who don’t want to carry large amounts of cash store their money in banks. Transacting with Bitcoins From a user perspective, Andolfatto explained that the experience of using bitcoins to buy something is no different from typical online banking. However, the processing of payments is handled quite differently. Volunteers called “miners” review individual transactions and approve or decline them. Once approved, transactions are added to a public ledger called the blockchain. Andolfatto explained that this blockchain contains the historical record of all bitcoin transactions in the currency’s history. Andolfatto remarked, “For the system to work, participants must trust the integrity of the blockchain. It’s absolutely critical. The power to alter or fabricate the history of transactions is the power to steal.” The blockchain does not, however, contain the identities of the transactors or a record of the items being purchased or sold. Andolfatto explained that it only shows the amount in bitcoins that have been transferred from a specific wallet to another specific wallet. Is Bitcoin a “Bubble”? To discuss whether bitcoin is experiencing a bubble, Andolfatto first provided a definition of a bubble as an object’s value having a liquidity premium. He said by this definition, bitcoin was indeed in a bubble, as it has no intrinsic value. “If you think about decomposing the market price of any security into components—some measure of its intrinsic or fundamental value—and if you take a look at the difference between the market price, if it’s trading above its intrinsic value, we could ascribe the difference to a liquidity premium. That is to say, most assets are valued not only for their intrinsic use, but how easily they can be liquidated, how easily they can be passed along in future transactions. … Most assets, like I said though, have this property, at least a bit of a liquidity premium, even gold.” Is Bitcoin a “Good Investment”? Andolfatto began discussing whether bitcoin is a good investment by pointing out: “We have very good economic theory that tells us that asset price changes are difficult to forecast. A lot of people have lost a lot of money not listening to this theory.” He said in his opinion it really depends on future outlooks for this product, like any new product. Investors considering bitcoin as an investment should ask a lot of questions: • How rapidly and extensively will it penetrate the market? • How might government regulations evolve over time? • How easy is it to replicate the product? • What sort of competing products might emerge now and in the future? Is Bitcoin a “Good Money”? Similar to how he discussed whether bitcoin was a bubble, Andolfatto discussed whether bitcoin was a “good money,” specifically, whether bitcoin as a medium of exchange would maintain a stable purchasing power over short periods of time. To demonstrate, he plotted the purchasing power of four currencies since 1990, normalizing the purchasing power of each currency to 100: the yen, the euro, the U.S. dollar and the Zimbabwean dollar. As Figure 1 shows, the Zimbabwean dollar experienced hyperinflation until its purchasing power essentially fell to zero. The yen, dollar and euro, on the other hand, have remained relatively stable. Andolfatto said, “The striking thing about those lines, in my view, is that they’re relatively stable. They don’t exhibit wild fluctuations. Sure, there’s a 2 percent inflation in the United States, but it’s forecastable. It’s something you can predict, you can bet on.” Figure 2 plots the purchasing power of bitcoin against that of the U.S. dollar over a much shorter time period (November 2013 through July 2014). Andolfatto concluded that the purchasing power of bitcoin has shown significant volatility over the short term. Figure 1 Purchasing Power of Currencies Figure 1 Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Euro Stats, International Monetary Fund and Ministry of Internal Affairs. Figure 2 Purchasing Power of Bitcoin and the US Dollar Figure 2 Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Haver Analytics and Nominal Exchange Rate Indeterminacy Andolfatto next turned to the issue of nominal exchange rate indeterminacy, or the inability to determine the exchange rate between two intrinsically worthless objects. Andolfatto pointed out that there is nothing in economic theory that would explain the value of one intrinsically worthless object relative to another. He gave an example of casino chips, asking how consumers would determine the value of a red versus a blue chip if the values weren’t already fixed. He then applied the example to determining the exchange rate between two virtual currencies. “The evidence is that exchange rates of fiat currencies are excessively volatile. And as I just alluded to, the problem is that there’s no fundamental economic force that pins down the relative price of two intrinsically worthless objects.” Does Bitcoin Facilitate Illegal Trading? Andolfatto explained that the identities of bitcoin wallet owners are disguised, “so in that sense, they’re very similar to using U.S. cash in facilitating illegal trades.” However, the blockchain’s public availability means transactions could still potentially be linked to users. For example, discovering a wallet on someone’s computer would then allow transaction history to be viewed. “If I’m some government authority, you’re going to have some explaining to do. That’s not a property of a U.S. cash transaction.” Can Bitcoin Be Regulated? Andolfatto noted that some countries have banned the use of bitcoins and that banning currencies has been a common practice for countries aiming to protect their local currencies. However, the fact that bitcoin does not have a central authority makes regulating the currency challenging. “It’s like trying to slay the hydra. You cut off one head, and three other heads appear. I mean, it’s this distributed network out there in the world. How are you supposed to regulate something like that?”
Thu \| Dec 3, 2020 Annie Paul \| What if ... ? Published:Tuesday \| August 1, 2017 \| 12:00 AM Confederates, a new HBO series that will follow its blockbuster Game of Thrones, has excited quite a reaction on social media with its premise: What if the South won the Civil War? What would the United States look like today? It prompted Jamal Richardson, @HoodAcademic on Twitter, to suggest other alternative histories to make into TV shows instead of 'WHAT IF THE CONFEDER-ATES/NAZIS WON?' This spurred several intriguing responses on Twitter. For instance: What if Rome had evolved into an early UN and we had fast, worldwide communication in 600 CE? What if the French beat the British for control of North America? What if the African traditional religions' priests and priestesses converted the Christian missionaries? What if Afro-/indigenous Cuban revolts succeeded in overthrowing the Spanish before the US showed up, and created an economic/-political alliance with Haiti? What if Nkrumah/Lumumba/-Sankara survived to create the United States of Africa. TV show depicts them trying to liberate S Africa from the settlers. In Jamaica, Erin MacLeod posted her friend Moji Anderson's ideas for a range of alternative history TV shows based in/on Jamaica. Dr Anderson, who is a lecturer in anthropology in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and is not on social media herself, had come up with a formidable list that provides much to reflect on, sandwiched as we are between Emancipa-tion Day and Independence Day. Moji's list is a veritable treasure trove for would-be film and TV series makers out there and I reproduce it in full here: What if Marcus Garvey hadn't left JA? What if the Maroons hadn't agreed to capture and kill rebels? What if Michael Manley had managed to keep out the IMF? What if he hadn't allowed rich Jamaicans to leave? What if Bedward hadn't been sent to Bellevue? What if MG had got his Black Star Line together and people went to Africa? What if the Taino hadn't been decimated? What if Howell kept Pinnacle? What if Haiti's revolution spread before 1834? What if JA didn't allow tourism all those years ago? What if Taki won? What if WI Federation had happened? What if emigration was prohibited? All the way from 1800s. What if slaves on every slave ship had committed mass suicide? Or mass insurrection and taken over the ships? What if Dutty Boukman had stayed home? What if we hadn't allowed St Domingue slave owners to flee here? What if we'd timed a rebellion with Haiti's and we both got indie at the same time? What if we'd broken the French-imposed embargo on new Haiti? What if more people could have gone to secondary school in the early 20th century? What if Walter Rodney hadn't been banned from JA? What if Haile Selassie never granted Shashamane to foreigners? What if we actually gained independence? (OK, that was snarky) What if Bob didn't die of cancer and stayed in JA? What if they didn't kill Peter Tosh? What if post-Emancipation immigration was banned? What if the US army had come for Dudus and not the JDF? What if Revivalism, Kumina, and Rastafari were national religions? What if Patwa was our official language? What if Chronixx was PM? What if, after the concert, Manley and Seaga had held a referendum and Bob was nominated as PM? It continues All I can add to this list is What if Whappie neva kill Phillup? And moving beyond Jamaica, what if Trump's mom never met his dad? On the local front, Losing Patience is a new micro web series produced by director and writer Teeqs and Justine Henzell, Michelle Serieux and others which seems to answer the question, "What if we peep at moments in the life of an attractive, dark-skinned young Jamaican office worker?" Starring the singer Sevana, who also seems to have serious acting talent, the humorous series premiered on TVJ in July and promises to change the lacklustre pace of local TV production with buy-in from savvy investors. There is a huge market waiting for snappy, smart miniseries like this from countries like Jamaica. Meanwhile, news broke that Island Records' Chris Blackwell is partnering with the producers of Netflix blockbuster Narcos and novelist Marlon James to develop a series exploring "the resounding local and global impact of iconic Jamaican music". The show will look at "the political discord that followed in the wake of Jamaican Independence from Britain in 1962 and the birth of a local music industry that reached, and changed, the world". This promises to be exciting, with characters ranging from Millie Small and Desmond Dekker to Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante. Accord-ing to Marlon James, it will be about the music, but also politics and the last days of colony. What if there were more savvy business people in Jamaica with the imagination and will to exploit the rich mother lode of Jamaican culture and history? - Annie Paul is a writer and critic based at the University of the West Indies and author of the blog, Active Voice ( Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.comor tweet @anniepaul.
01816nas a2200169 4500008004100000245005400041210005100095260000900146300001100155490000700166520134000173653000901513653000801522100002201530700002101552856007301573 1981 eng d00aA host-parasite list of the Mallophaga on mammals0 ahostparasite list of the Mallophaga on mammals c1981 a1 - 720 v123 a In 1949 when Hopkins reviewed the data then known about Mallophaga found on mammals, he recognised 288 species and subspecies of Mallophaga. Since then, 179 new species and subsepcies of Mallophaga have been described, for a total of 467 valid species and subspecies. There are at least 4,268 species of living mammal, and there is evidence that at least 3,400 species of mammals do not normally have mallophaga. With better collecting, Mallophaga may be founnd on 512 species of mammals for which no current data exist. Mallophaga have now been recorded from 356 species of mammals. Because Mallophaga are obligatory parasites, their distribution is limited to that of their hosts. Most Mallophaga are host specific; some are less restricted in host selection, and a few are host subspecific. These variations in host specificity often aid mammologists in their taxonomisc studies of certain groups of mammals. Ten examples of host specificity and mammal relationships are discussed in detail. Mallophaga recorded from 356 species of mammal are listed, and the list has been expanded to include subspecies of mammals in those instances in which the Mallophaga are host subspecific. Published records which are obviously misidentification, accidental or contamination have been omitted. Synonymies are given in Hopkins (1949). 10amtax10aPHP1 aEmerson, Kary, C.1 aPrice, Roger, D. uhttp://www.phthiraptera.info/sites/phthiraptera.info/files/36975.pdf
Review of Nobu in Malibu, CA December 24, 2017 When is it Time To Build the Next Gen Version? September 20, 2018 How to Properly Use a Comma As someone that does a lot of writing, I am very particular about correct grammar usage. Nothing bothers me more than the improper usage of commas. Most people I know believe the comma serves a specific purpose – creating a pause in a statement. While some of the legal uses of commas do represent a legitimate pause in a sentence, that is NOT the reason for commas. In the remainder of this article I will address the 13 syntactical ways to use a comma with examples of proper (and improper) usage. What is Syntax? First, before we move to the details, let’s discuss what it means to be syntactical. The English language has rules that we must follow to be ‘proper’. This concept of proper syntax is about structure and rules defined for how to create sentences, paragraphs, and more – this is what grammar is. Like a programming language, if your sentence structure is off and does not meet the rules of grammar, your compiler (brain) will fail in many cases to process the thought. Therefore, it is imperative that you follow the rules. Now – onto the 13 ways to use a comma: 1. Lists Lists are one of the more obvious uses for commas. Writing sentences where several items are “listed” together does not make: I like to read fish and play games in my spare time. In the above sentence, the lack of a comma after “read” makes you believe the person likes to “read fish” – which makes ZERO sense. Here is the correct wording: I like to read, fish, and play games in my spare time. Now, with the commas this sentence is accurate. Notice the comma before the final item in the list – the Oxford comma. I highly recommend using this method because occasionally a list item may have the word “and” in it. Without using the Oxford comma, you can create confusing sentences that the brain cannot process correctly. 2. Dependent Clauses Dependent clauses are those phrases that you move from the end of a sentence to the beginning to “sound better”. Take the original sentence above: I can change the order around to move “in my spare time” to the beginning. This new start to the sentence is highly dependent on what comes after – hence, it is a dependent clause. In my spare time, I like to read, fish, and play games. The main purpose of this sentence is to talk about what you like. You are further qualifying the sentence with when you like it – “in my spare time”. The subject (noun) and predicate (verb) of the sentence is “I” (subject) and “like to read” (predicate). Everything before the “I” is not part of that key syntax for a sentence and is dependent on the remainder to exist. 3. Offsetting Appositives An appositive is a phrase used to clarify a noun in a sentence. For example, if I was talking about a car but want to give more details I could state: The car, like the one you own, almost ran over my cat. In this example, I am clarifying the car to describe it as “like the own you own”. This is an appositive. The appositive could be removed and the sentence would still be factually correct – just lacking in details: The car almost ran over my cat. I would still be able to understand what happened but not the details of the specific car. 4. Conjunctions – “NABSOFY” Conjunctions are joining words the combine 2 complete and independent sentences into a single sentence. The join is done using one of the NABSOFY words: • Nor • And • But • So • Or • For • Yet When combining the 2 statements, you use a simple comma and the joining word like this: I like to fish, and you enjoy eating fish. Both “I like to fish” and “you enjoy fish” are two complete thoughts that could be independent sentences with periods at the end. If I removed the comma, the brain would not properly process the sentence: I like to fish and you enjoy eating fish. That comma tells the brain that everything coming after the “, and” is a new thought to process. On a related note, if after the NABSOFY word you do not use a complete thought then you skip the comma: I like to fish and have many reels. In this example, after the and is “have many reels”. This statement cannot stand alone as a sentence so we skip the comma. 5. Introductory Adverbs Starting a sentence with an adverb can sometimes set the appropriate tone of the sentence. The adverb, which is not part of the starting subject/predicate combination, requires a comma to move forward: Consequently, my grades dropped to a B average. In this sentence, “my grades dropped” is the key subject/predicate with “consequently” being the introductory adverb. This is the same case with all other introductory adverbs – typically ending in “-ly”. 6. Multiple Adjectives in a Row When using two or more adjectives in order to clarify a noun, a comma is required after the first adjective: The blue, stinky cheese tasted very salty. In the above, “blue” and “stinky” are adjectives to describe the cheese. If you throw in a third adjective, you add more commas: The old, blue, stinky cheese tasted very salty. 7. To Offset a Negative When offsetting a statement with a negative, the negative requires commas around it: Your car, not mine, ran over the cat. Here, “not mine” is a negative to clarify what the “car” is not. This aside requires our friend, the comma. 8. Starting with Yes/No This is an easy one. If you start a sentence with “yes” or “no” and conclude with a statement defending the answer, you must separate the answer from the Yes/No with a comma: Yes, I would like to play the game with you. Not much more to say on this one. 9. Directly Addressing a Person in a Quote When directly addressing a person in a quote, you need a comma between the quote and the person: John, did you steal your sister’s toys? Like before, “John” is not the main subject/predicate of the sentence and, therefore, needs a comma after his name. Now, onto the last 4, more basic, uses for a comma: 10. Attribution of a Quote Attribution is when you state who said a quote in the form of: John said, “What are you doing tonight?” “What are you doing tonight?”, John said. Either way, when splitting the quote and the attribution, you need a comma. 11. Parts of an Address Addresses require commas to separate different components like street, city, state, and postal codes: 123 Main Street, Anytown, NY, 10306 Or in a sentence: John lives at 123 Main Street, Anytown, NY, 10306, next to the gas station. Notice that you need a comma after the address as well. 12. Parts of a Date Just like an address, dates require component separation: My birthday is Monday, January 1st, 19576, the first day of the year. Notice each element and the end of the date requires commas just like the address. 13. Numbers In certain countries, like the United States, each 3 digit grouping of digits in large numbers requires a comma like: Today, I counted to 1,234,567. Some countries, especially in Europe, commas are used instead of a decimal point and periods are used instead of commas: The city is 1.200,50 miles away from where I am now. But aren’t there other times to use a comma? Yes, Non-Restrictive Clauses! Why am I not giving non-restrictive clauses a number? The reason is that some of the numbers above are receiving commas because they are non-restrictive clauses. Essentially, a non-restrictive clause is an adjective clause that adds non-essential information to the sentence: John, my son, loves to play baseball. In this sentence, my son is a non-restrictive clause. Without that part, the sentence still has the same meaning: John loves to play baseball. Restrictive clauses, on the other hand, must not have a comma to be grammatically correct: All children that study hard get good grades. The restrictive clause here is “that study hard”. This clause is modifying “All children” but if I remove it the sentence has a completely different meaning: All children get good grades. As you can see, the meaning now changes so the restrictive clause do not get a comma. When using the words “that” and “which” just remember: “that” = restrictive clause (no comma) “which” = non-restrictive clause (comma) Let’s look at 2 more complex versions of restrictive and non-restrictive clauses: The application is poorly architected limiting its ability to grow. Did I write that one correctly? The answer is no. The main statement in that sentence is “The application is poorly architected” with a present participial phrase “limiting its ability to grow”. If you remove the participial phrase, the sentence is still correct and refers to the same architecture. The correct wording would be: The application is poorly architected, limiting its ability to grow. Well – that’s it. Now go out there and conquer the world with the power of commas. Note, I wanted to share links to 2 sites I used previous as reference: 1 Comment 1. Greg says: Great article! I needed a good refresher on how to use commas. Ever since I started texting more on my iPhone, my grammar skills have rapidly declined. Leave a Reply
Governments Hope Apps Could Improve the Global COVID-19 Response Several countries have offered up apps to fight COVID-19. How do they work and what are their risks and benefits? • By externalwire \| April 20, 2020,2:37 pm Around the world, countries are desperate for a way out of the pandemic crisis. COVID-19 measures such as lockdowns severely limit economic activity while the virus presents a constant threat to the well-being of society’s most vulnerable. This perfect storm of a combined health and economic crisis has sent governments and national leaders scrambling for a “quick fix.” The virus’ continued spread in April clarified that no country will be exempt from this global phenomenon, and the focus has shifted from preventing initial infections to mapping local outbreaks, implementing lockdowns, and performing as much testing as possible. As effective as these measures might be in the long-run, they are a far cry from the quick fix governments had hoped for. Apps offer a ‘quick fix’ With no chance of developing a vaccine anytime soon, the new tools exciting many governments are tracing apps. In Australia, recent statements argue it is the “quickest way to get the footy back.” In The Netherlands, it is seen as a way to end the country’s “intelligent lockdown.” The British National Health Service is “working closely with the world’s leading tech companies,” and France sees their StopCovid app as an important part of their “exit strategy.” From Morocco to the UAE to Germany to India, apps are increasingly presented as a way to mitigate the pandemic’s effects on everyday life across the world. Most countries who have expressed they will pursue this strategy are still developing their apps, but many are pitching such a tech intervention to the public as a source of hope in difficult times. How apps can help Most apps to address the pandemic work through “contact tracing” via Bluetooth technology. Apps monitor the proximity of other phones and cross-reference the COVID-19 status of the phone owners. If the app notices a user has been in close contact with someone diagnosed with an infection, the person will receive a request to get tested or to self-quarantine for a set amount of time. Advocates of the apps highlight that if a high enough percentage of people install the application on their phone, monitoring can become effective enough to reduce or even halt mandatory lockdowns. Knowing which citizens have been in the proximity of others, governments can trace local outbreaks and quarantine only those who have had a feasible threat of infection. A proven resource? Some countries that have had success in dealing with their local epidemics implemented apps that monitor patients, report potential contacts, and trace possible contacts. South Korea and China used the digital technology to map potential infections and quarantine citizens with possible infections. Examples from Israel and Russia also highlight the personal privacy implications of using these apps. Israel has been accused of using data from their secret national database maintained by Shin Bet, the Israeli secret police. Russians who use the state’s tracing app have given it a one star rating on Apple and Android app stores because of its far-reaching privacy implications. Privacy concerns The difference between problematic and effective apps is largely determined by who handles the data and what is done with it. “It’s easier to have good cooperation when those in charge are not some sort of secret police but a health authority,” author Yuval Harari said about the matter. In Singapore, data gathered by the app was freely shared with the population, allowing people to take personal responsibility in the crisis. When apps directly report their data to secret service authorities or opaque government institutions, the app becomes a greater threat to the population during and after the pandemic. The fact that the tender for Israel’s app saw pitches from a notorious spyware firm highlights the potential for government abuse with this type of technology. Fragmented approach While it is encouraging that governments are eagerly searching for possible solutions to our current predicament, the fact that each country is developing their own app is raising concerns. Each country having their own data sets, approaches, and technology could easily result in a patchwork of inconsistent results. As an example, as long as a Belgian app is not compatible to share data with a Dutch app, any Belgian or Dutch citizen that steps over their shared open borders creates a problem. If a Moroccan app warns whenever anyone is within Bluetooth range, which is wider than social distancing standards, and a Spanish app calculates the threat in meters, inconsistent data emerges. Mandatory or voluntary? While many of the apps are being presented as a voluntary measure, once implemented, they could prove much more invasive than expected. In order to lift lockdown measures, citizens might be required to show their COVID-19 status via the app in order to carry out essential functions such as using public transport or reporting for work. China is showing this in practice. Citizens of Wuhan are expected to show their COVID-19 status via a government app in order to enter stores, take the bus, or leave the city. The risks of missed contacts or false positives could mean many people are quarantined wrongfully, while others are encouraged to go outside even though they might be infected. Opinions are divided The app has risks for abuse by the government or by citizens alike. A phone of someone marked as a potential infected person could be willfully used to “mark” others as infected, and sensitive data being shared could pose a security threat, creating an opportunity for hackers. People who are infected but are reliant on their work for survival could simply uninstall or turn off the app to continue to go to work. On April 20, Australian politician Bob Katter called the idea of a tracking app “Orwellian,” while other critics have highlighted that false positives from Bluetooth’s questionable efficacy may lead to panic or confusion. The success of COVID-19 tracing apps appears to stem from widespread use. Whether a purely national approach can stop the global crisis remains to be seen. Perhaps leaving the development of such a tool to a trusted international body like the WHO could prove more fruitful, especially in countries where citizens fear their government. How much of a “quick fix” these apps prove to be will soon become clear as more and more governments roll out their own versions. read also: UAE to Import Malaria Tablets From India for COVID-19 Treatment Related Articles Related Articles Tags Not Found
Next Page Navigation Link Previous Page Navigation Link In the computing world, change is a constant. Moore’s law—the idea that processing speeds double about every two years—is for the most part holding up, and continual growth in computing power is leading to a new era that is just over the horizon. In an insightful arti cle on Medium, tech entrepreneur and investor Chris Dixon offers a comprehensive analysis of computing trends to map out where things are headed next. According to Dixon, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, along with wearable technology and the Internet of Things are among some of the most important technologies that will usher in a new era of Computing. That belief is at the heart of Aspire’s model, as we focus solely on ventures that leverage three pillar technologies: mobile and the Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, and Machine Learning. Although those technologies will play a big role in the era to come, all three are already proving their power to affect significant change today. Computing, Dixon says, has seen several major eras, and right now we’re in the heart of the Mobile Era. The explosion of mobile devices has led to massive investments in processors and sensors, which in turn has led to computers that are continually getting smaller and cheaper. That has big implications for the Internet of Things, because soon "it will be cost-effective to embed a computer in almost anything," Dixon says. In Software, Dixon writes, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning may finally be entering a golden age. Due to several advancements, it’s now possible for small engineering teams to build state-of-the-art AI systems, which will lead to major upgrades in all sorts of products and startups focused on AI, Dixon writes. While technologies for the era to come already exist today, many haven’t matured enough to make a major impact yet. Technologies like virtual reality and smart devices are still in their ‘awkward adolescence’, Dixon writes, no different from PCs in the 70s, internet in the 80s, and smartphones in the early 2000s. "But the future is coming," Dixon writes. "Markets go up and down, and excitement ebbs and flows, but computing technology marches steadily forward."
Home » Art, Headline Porcelain Art’s Inspiration to the World – A Philosophical Commentary Oct 27, 2012 This is an invited translation and authorized publication of both text and pictures. All rights reserved. Bird and Flowers on Ceramic Plate by Yu Fengbo Porcelain art’s inspiration to the world – philosophical commentary on porcelain art [Abstract] A) Motivation Life is limited, so life is all about to transcend time, and to resist the passage of time. We have comprehended this point in Heidegger’s philosophy. Therefore, as an existence, painting expresses ideas and emotions. It is meant to solidify the time in order to transcend time. Externalization of emotion is mental transcendence of flesh, and expression of idea is transcendence of spiritual world beyond material world. Both have to be accomplished through solidify the time. This relies on its material: canvas, paint, ink, or rice paper, etc. Transcendence of the material is achieved by reorganization of the substance. Eternity of material is the eternity of art. Immortal material, immortal art. From this perspective, oil painting is better than ink painting; porcelain painting is better than oil painting. Epitaph, which engraves name on stone, represents our longing for eternity – like the stone. Chinese seal carving also engraves name on stone, except that the stone is more elegant and more beautiful with a good moral meaning in it. The motivation of porcelain painting is the same. The creation of art replaces the artist himself. Eternity of the artwork is the eternity of the author. Porcelain is harder than paper, cloth, or jade, and lasts longer. It is man-made, brought back to nature, and reunited as part of the nature with expectation to exist forever, like heaven and earth. From Heidegger’s perspective, this is to achieve self-transcendence of time by artistic means. B) Material Porcelain has its unique, highly cultural texture. As to outward appearance, copper and iron are hard, cold, antique, heavy, solid and solemn, which basically is the natural expression of their natural properties. In contrast, porcelain, which looks hard, noble, elegant, with spirituality, barely presents any natural attributes. Copper and iron are purified from ore – a natural mixture, thus still maintain their natural properties; porcelain, however, is re-created from natural objects. Porcelain is made from earth. Once fired, porcelain loses its natural properties, therefore it belongs to humanity. Compared to metal, porcelain is much more cultural. C) Porcelain as the meaning of existence “A room without porcelain is not elegant”. This is a well-known Chinese proverb. How is it elegant? It is because porcelain art is poetry. The porcelain surface is gorgeous and luxuriant, just like poem. It presents paintings at its surface, which implements the “picturesque” aesthetic realm. We can grasp the artistic concept of poetry within porcelain’s color and luster. It is like music, with a sense of melody; it is like poems’ rhymes, which are rhythmed. Comprehending porcelain beauty leads to understanding the beauty of poetry, and vice versa. D) Shape Shape has become to exist as a special language and unique expression of porcelain art. Together with material, decorative pattern and painting, it formed the artistic composition of porcelain art. No shape, no porcelain art: because shape is solidified emotional state, and shape is a unique aesthetic expression in three-dimensional way. It has its posture, it has its language, and it occupies the space to display its beauty, the beauty of the shape. If we say dance forms its shape with movements, then porcelain art shows movements through its shape. Collingwood said: Dance is the mother of language. Dance is motion, motion is posture, and it is posture that speaks to us. E) Appearance The layer of glaze on porcelain is highly cultural. “The reality of a thing is the work of thing itself, while the appearance of a thing is the work of human.” (Schiller: “Aesthetic Letters” P133) Schiller said: “The essence of art is appearance.” (Schiller: “Aesthetic Letters P134) People no longer feel happy merely for a thing itself, but for a thing he creates. One reaches aesthetic reality from general (natural) reality and achieves aesthetic from simple natural life. This is proof of an external freedom: that he has achieved transcendence beyond himself through the transcendence of nature. This is also proof of an inner freedom: he has the power of imagination and creativity. Then we can appreciate the freedom that artists achieve through aesthetic. The viewer achieves aesthetic through the aesthetics and emotions the works exhibit, so the viewer also reaches freedom. This is the inspiration that porcelain art brings the world. F) Painting Color: The color which porcelain gains after firing is more beautiful than natural color. It has a texture of light. Regular paintings are colorful, while the color of porcelain art is even brighter than regular painting pigment. Compared to regular painting pigment, it has richer various levels and broader gradations. Color is one of the reasons why painting of porcelain art is more expressive. Space: Regular painting is to reproduce three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional plane. Porcelain art painting, compared to regular painting, has certain technical difficulty, because it is to reproduce visual objects on the surface of a three-dimensional space. To paint a triangle on a plane, all sides of the triangle will have equal length. However, as to triangle on a porcelain object, the lengths of all sides are unequal. This is Einstein’s concept of curved space. Porcelain artist paints on a curved surface. He needs to reproduce images on the surface of curved space. In the mean time, he needs to conform to human visual habits. Completeness: In regular plane painting, the world is an “isolated” world. Its four sides are its boundaries, and what’s behind it is always unknown. Thus painting, in fact, exists isolated from the rest of the world. We will also feel in our visual impression that regular plane painting is out of tune with its surrounding world. It is an isolated presence and therefore it can only talk with the visual, but cannot be integrated into the world. It is because it is formed by illusion, so that, no illusion, no painting. Thus, it is formed in a visual, so it will also fades away in the visual. Its existence relies on the visual, thus it is a dependent existence: no visual, no painting. This is to say, it is not an object of self-existence. However, porcelain art is not the case. Porcelain is complete by itself, it communicates with the world as a complete existence. It is of self-existence. Whether visual pays attention to it, it exists. Since porcelain painting is drawn on the surface of an object, it thus obtained a life by borrowing the reality of the object. Painting on porcelain surface spans end-to-end, 360 degrees, forming a complete world. Hence it is not isolated from the rest of the world. Its complete self talks with the complete world. It fuses together with its shape. The expression of shape becomes the expression of painting. Therefore, compared to regular painting, it is more fluidic and more three-dimensional, more vivid, more perfect, with more vitality. This is a class of three-dimensional visual effects that regular painting does not have. Porcelain slate painting: Visual believes that the world it sees is the complete world. Rationality proves it, thus oil painting needs to paint the entire canvas. Then, color, perspective, lighting and shading are expressed. But the whole composition ignores its carrier – canvas or drawing board. Chinese painting pigment creates artwork together with its carrier (rice paper or silk cloth). Black is “being” and white is “null”. This is much in line with the view of the world, the “yin and yang” in ancient Chinese philosophy. On Chinese painting, the world is not fully painted. It is not a visual belief but a conceptual belief. Black and white can represent anything. Thus, oil paintings depict the visual world, while black and white elaborates the world of ideas. In Chinese painting, “white”, aka “blank”, is “vacancy” or “incomplete”. “Black” represents “fullness”, so it has blocks of color, it has halo of staining. Black represents all the colors; one color is multiple colors. Black and white represents the variations between all colors. Lighting and shading plays a key role in oil painting; the relationship between lighting and shading is the relationship between things in the world, it is a confrontation. In Chinese painting, black and white, yin and yang, also express relationship between things, it is a struggle. Confrontation and struggle, however, are merely nature’s expressions; the struggle is neither the destination of philosophy, nor the end of world. Civilization eventually will transcend the nature, will reach the beauty of order and harmony. This ideal of order and harmony is expressed in porcelain art. This is the role of “porcelain color” in artistic expression. [Chinese Keywords] 瓷艺瓷板画哲学评论 Rate this: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet) 1. Barbara August 4th, 2013 at 12:28 \| #1 A very beautiful lesson in porcelain art. Thank you. Comments are closed.
1. Concept 2. Nationality 3. English 1. Europeans 1. The Swiss (Germandie SchweizerFrenchles SuissesItaliangli SvizzeriRomanshils Svizzers) are the citizens of Switzerland[b] or people of Swiss ancestry. The number of Swiss nationals has grown from 1.7 million in 1815 to 7 million in 2016. More than 1.5 million Swiss citizens hold multiple citizenship.[5] About 11% of citizens live abroad (0.8 million, of whom 0.6 million hold multiple citizenship). About 60% of those living abroad reside in the European Union (0.46 million). The largest groups of Swiss descendants and nationals outside Europe are found in the United States and Canada. Although the modern state of Switzerland originated in 1848, the period of romantic nationalism, it is not a nation-state, and the Swiss are not usually considered to form a single ethnic group, but a confederacy (Eidgenossenschaft) or Willensnation ("nation of will", "nation by choice", that is, a consociational state), a term coined in conscious contrast to "nation" in the conventionally linguistic or ethnic sense of the term. The demonym Swiss (formerly in English also Switzer) and the name of Switzerland, ultimately derive from the toponym Schwyz, have been in widespread use to refer to the Old Swiss Confederacy since the 16th century.[6] 1. sh85131266 ⟶ Swiss 1. Q124216 ⟶ Click Here 4. DQ36-DQ48
Section 13.3. PPP over ISDN 13.3. PPP over ISDN ISDN has offered convenient, high-speed data communicationsat a pricefor many years; it is particularly popular in Europe, where rates and marketing have been more favorable to its use than in the U.S. ISDN, which integrates data and regular voice transmission over a single line, offers both a faster connection setup and much better throughput than traditional modems. ISDN lines can transfer 64 kbits per second. And unlike analog lines, they can achieve this speed all the time because their transmission does not depend on the vagaries of analog transmission with interference by various kinds of noise. A newer protocol called ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line) is upping the ante for fast data access over phone lines and is taking over from ISDN in many regions of the world. In this section, we describe how to configure dial-up access to your Internet provider over an ISDN line. We cover only the most common style of connection, synchronous PPP, not the special mode called raw IP. Furthermore, this section discusses just internal ISDN boards, which require a kind of setup that's different from the dial-up access covered in the previous section. To set up external ISDN devices, or the so-called ISDN modems (a term that is an oxymoron because there is no modulation and demodulation), you can use commands similar to those in the previous section because these devices present themselves to the computer and the operating system like a normal modem, albeit one that offers some additional commands, faster connection setup, and higher throughput. If you want more information beyond what we present here, the source for all ISDN-related information for Linux is http://www.isdn4linux.de (despite this domain being registered in Germany, all the information here is in English). In a way, setting up ISDN connections is much easier than setting up analog connections because many of the problems (bad lines, long connection setup times, and so on) simply cannot occur with digital lines. Once you dial the number, the connection is set up within milliseconds. But this can lead to problems. Because the connections are set up and shut down so fast, a misconfigured system that dials out again and again can cost you a fortune. This is even more problematic because with internal ISDN cards, you hear no clicking and whistling as you do with modems, and there are no lights that inform you that a connection has been made. You can check the status of your ISDN line with some simple programs, though. Follow these two steps to set up dial-up PPP over ISDN: 1. Configure your ISDN hardware. 2. Configure and start the PPP daemon and change the routing table to use your ISDN line. We cover those steps in the next sections. 13.3.1. Configuring Your ISDN Hardware The first step involves making your ISDN board accessible to the kernel. As with any other hardware board, you need a device driver that is configured with the correct parameters for your board. Linux supports a large number of ISDN hardware boards. We cannot cover every single board here, but the procedure is more or less the same for each one. Reading the documentation for your specific card in the directory Documentation/isdn in the Linux kernel sources will help you a lot if your board is not covered here. We will concentrate here on boards that use the so-called HiSax driver. This device driver works with almost all cards that use the Siemens HSCX chipset (and thus with most passive cards available on the market today). That includes, for instance, the USR Sportster internal TA and the well-known Teles, ELSA, and Fritz boards. Other boards are similarly configured. Even some active cards are supported by Linux, including the well-known AVM B1 and the IBM Active 2000 ISDN card. The first thing you need to do is configure the kernel so that it includes ISDN support. We advise you to compile everything ISDN-related as modules, especially while you are experimenting with setting it up. You will need the following modules: • ISDN support. • Support for synchronous PPP. • One device driver module for your hardware. If you pick the HiSax driver, you will also have to specify which specific brand of ISDN card you have and which ISDN protocol you want to use. The latter is almost certainly EURO/DSS1 in Europeunless you live in Germany and have had your ISDN for a long time, in which case it might be 1TR6and US NI1 in the U.S. If you live elsewhere, or are in doubt, ask your phone company. Compile and install the modules as described in Chapter 18. Now you are ready to configure your ISDN hardware. Some distributions, such as SUSE, make setting up ISDN lines very easy and comfortable. We cover the hard way here in case your distribution is not so user-friendly, the automatic configuration does not work, or you simply want to know what is going on behind the scenes. Now you need to load the device driver module using modprobe. This will automatically load the other modules as well. All the device driver modules accept a number of module parameters; the hisax module accepts, among others, the following: id= boardid Sets an identifier for the ISDN board. You can pick any name you like here, but you cannot have the same identifier for more than one board in your system. type= boardtype Specifies the exact board brand and type. For example, a value of 16 for boardtype selects the support for the USR Sportster internal TA. See Documentation/isdn/README.hisax in the kernel sources for the full list of board types. protocol= protocoltype Selects an ISDN subprotocol. Valid values for protocoltype are 1 for the old German 1TR6 protocol, 2 for the common EDSS1 (so-called Euro ISDN), and 3 for leased lines. irq= irqno Specifies the interrupt line to use. Not all boards need this. io= addr Specifies the I/O address to use. Not all boards need this. Some boards need two I/O addresses. In this case, the parameters to use are io0 and io1. For example, the following command loads the HiSax driver for use with a Teles 16.3 board, Euro ISDN, IO address 0x280, and IRQ line 10 (a very common case): tigger # modprobe hisax type=3 protocol=2 io=0x280 irq=10 Please see Documentation/isdn/README.HiSax or the equivalent file for your hardware for more information. This module is not much of a talker; if there is no output from the modprobe command, it is likely that everything went well. You might also want to check your system log at /var/log/messages. You should see a few lines starting with HiSax: (or the name of the driver you are using); the final line should be HiSax: module installed If the module did not load, you will most likely also find the answer in /var/log/messages. The most common problem is that the IRQ or I/O address was wrong or that you selected the wrong card type. If all else fails, and you have Windows installed on the same machine, boot up Windows and check what it reports for the IRQ and I/O address lines. Sometimes, it helps to take a look in /proc/ioports and in /proc/interrupts to see if the HiSax chipset has the right I/O port and the right interrupt assigned. You should do one more check before you jump to the next section, and this check involves calling yourself. This can work because, with ISDN, you always have two phone lines at your disposal. Thus, one line will be used for the outgoing "phone call," and the other line will be used for the incoming one. In order to have the ISDN subsystem report what is going on with your phone lines, you will need to configure it to be more verbose than it is by default. You do this by means of three utility programs that are all part of the isdn4k-utils package that you can find at your friendly Linux FTP server around the corner. The isdn4k-utils package contains, among other things, the three utilities hisaxctrl for configuring the device driver, isdnctrl for configuring the higher levels of the ISDN subsystem, and isdnlog, a very useful tool that logs everything happening on your ISDN lines. Although you can use hisactrl and isdnctrl without any configuration, you will need to provide a small configuration file for isdnlog. For now, we will content ourselves with a quick solution, but once your ISDN connection is up and running, you will want to configure isdnlog to see where your money is going. So for now, copy one of the sample configuration files contained in the isdnlog package to /etc/isdn/isdn.conf. You will need to edit at least the following lines: Add your phone country code herefor example, 1 for the U.S. and Canada, 44 for the United Kingdom, 46 for Sweden, and so on. If the area codes in your country are prefixed by a fixed digit, put this in here. The prefix is 0 for most European countries, 9 for Finland, and nothing for the U.S., Denmark, and Norway. Put your area code in here. If you have specified an AREAPREFIX in the last step, don't repeat that here. For example, Stockholm, Sweden, has the area code 08. You put 0 into AREAPREFIX and 8 into AREACODE. Once you have set this up, execute the following commands to make your ISDN system more verbose: tigger # /sbin/hisaxctrl boardid 1 4 tigger # /sbin/isdnctrl verbose 3 tigger # /sbin/lsdnlog /dev/isdnctrl0 & If you are using a driver other than HiSax, you might need to use a different command. For example, for the PCBit driver, the command pcbitctl is available in the isdn4k-utils package. Now you can go ahead and phone yourself. You should try all your MSNs (multiple subscriber numbers, which are your ISDN phone numbers) to see that the board can detect all of them. During or after each call, check /var/log/messages. You should see lines like the following: Mar 16 18:34:22 tigger kernel: isdn_net: call from 4107123455,1,0 -> 123456 Mar 16 18:34:33 tigger kernel: isdn_net: Service-Indicator not 7, ignored This shows that the kernel has detected a voice call (the service indicator is 0) from the phone number 123455 in the area with the area code (0)4107 to the MSN 123456. Note how the number called is specified, because you will need this information later. The number is sent with the area code in some phone networks, but without the area code in others. Anyway, congratulations if you have come this far. Your ISDN hardware is now correctly configured. 13.3.2. Setting Up Synchronous PPP Setting up the PPP daemon again involves several substeps. On Linux, the ISDN board is treated like a network interface that you have to configure with special commands. In addition, you need to specify the username and password that your ISP has assigned you. When everything is configured, you start up the ipppd daemon, which lurks in the background until a connection request is made. First, let's configure the "network interface." This involves a number of commands that most system administrators simply put into a script that they store in a file, such as /sbin/pppon. Here is a sample file that you can modify to your needs: /sbin/isdnctrl addif ippp0 /sbin/isdnctrl addphone ippp0 out 0123456789 /sbin/isdnctrl dialmax ippp0 2 /sbin/isdnctrl eaz ippp0 123456 /sbin/isdnctrl huptimeout ippp0 100 /sbin/isdnctrl l2_prot ippp0 hdlc /sbin/isdnctrl l3_prot ippp0 trans /sbin/isdnctrl encap ippp0 syncppp /sbin/ifconfig ippp0 pointopoint metric 1 Let's go through these commands one by one. isdnctrl addif ippp0 Tells the kernel that a new ISDN interface with the name ippp0 will be used. Always use names starting with ippp. isdnctrl addphone ippp0 out 0123456789 Tells the ISDN interface which phone number to use. This is the phone number that you use to dial up your provider. If you have used analog dial-up so far, check with your provider, because the phone number for ISDN access could be different. isdnctrl dialmax ippp0 2 Specifies how many times the kernel should dial if the connection could not be established, before giving up. isdnctrl eaz ippp0 123456 Specifies one of your own MSNs. This is very importantwithout this, not much will work. In case your provider verifies your access via your phone number, make sure you specify here the MSN that you have registered with your provider. isdnctrl huptimeout ippp0 100 Specifies the number of seconds that the line can be idle before the kernel closes the connection (specified by the last number in this command). This is optional, but can save you a lot of money if you do not have a flat phone rate. Thus, if you forget to shut down the connection yourself, the kernel will do that for you. isdnctrl l2_prot ippp0 hdlc Specifies the layer 2 protocol to use. Possible values here are hdlc, x75i, x75ui, and x75bui. Most providers use hdlc. When in doubt, ask your provider. isdnctrl l3_prot ippp0 trans Specifies the layer 3 protocol to use (the l in the option is the letter L). Currently, only TRans is available. isdnctrl encap ippp0 syncppp Specifies the encapsulation to use. A number of values are possible here, but if you want to use synchronous PPP (or your provider demands that), you have to specify syncppp here. Another not-so-uncommon value is rawip. But since this provides only very weak authentication facilities, few providers still use it, even though it gives slightly better throughput because it requires less overhead. ifconfig ippp0 pointopoint metric 1 Creates the new network interface. If your IP address is not assigned dynamically (as is the case with most dial-up connections), you need to specify your IP address instead of the here. Also, you need to change the to the IP address of your provider's dial-up server. If you want, you can also reverse the setup by creating a script that shuts down the interfaces and so on. For example, it would use the isdnctrl delif command. But such a script is not strictly necessary, unless you want to disable all dialing at runtime. Phew! But we are not finished yet. Next, you need to configure the ipppd daemon, which you do in the file /etc/ppp/ioptions. You can also have a configuration file specific to each ipppd daemon, but that is necessary only if you want to be able to use different ISDN connectionsthat is, if you have multiple dial-up accounts. The following is an ioptions file that is generic enough to work with most providers. It does not give maximum throughput but is quite stable. If you want to optimize it, ask your provider about the possible settings and read the manual page for ipppd(8): debug /dev/ippp0 user yourusername name yourusername mru 1500 mtu 1500 ipcp-accept-local ipcp-accept-remote noipdefault -vj -vjccomp -ac -pc -bsdcomp defaultroute You have to change only two things here: change yourusername in the third and fourth lines to the username that your provider has assigned you for connecting to its system. We won't go through all the options here; see the manual page when in doubt. ISDN access requires the same security as an analog modem. See "PAP and CHAP," earlier in this chapter, for directions on setting up your pap-secrets or chap-secrets file as required by your service provider. Now we have got our things together and can start having fun! First run the ipppd daemon: tigger # /sbin/ipppd pidfile /var/run/ipppd.ippp0.pid file /etc/ppp/ioptions & The ipppd daemon will now wait for connection requests. Since we have not configured it yet to automatically make a connection, we have to manually trigger the connection. You do this with the following command: tigger # isdnctrl dial ippp0 You should now check /var/log/messages. There should be lots of messages that start with ipppd. The last of those messages should contain the words local IP address and remote IP address together with the IP addresses. Once you find those messages, you are done. Because we have used the defaultroute option previously, the kernel has set up the default route to use the ISDN connection, and you should now be able to access the wide, wide world of the Internet. Start by pinging your provider's IP address. Once you are done and want to shut down the connection, enter tigger # isdnctrl hangup ippp0 If you have a flat rate with your ISP, then you can set the huptimeout to 0, and you will stay online all the time without ever hanging up. Of course, this is nice to have, but remember that most ISPs reset the connection after 24 hours, and if you have a dynamic IP address, you will possibly be assigned another IP address every 24 hours. 13.3.3. And If It Does Not Work? If you have no connection even though your hardware was successfully recognized and you have set up everything as described here, /var/log/messages is again your friend. It is very likely that you will find the cause of the error there, even though it might be buried a bit. The most common error is specifying the password or the username incorrectly. You know that you have a problem with the authentication if you see a line such as: PAP authentication failed CHAP authentication failed in the logfile. Check your chap-secrects or pap-secrets file very carefully. Your provider might also be able to see from its logfiles where exactly the authentication went wrong. Of course, your provider might not support synchronous PPP as described here, even though most providers do nowadays. If this is the case, ask your provider for exact settings. If it still does not work, ask your provider. A good ISP has a phone support line and can help you connect your Linux box. If your provider tells you that it "only supports Windows," it's time to switch. Many Linux-friendly providers are out there. Often the support staff is using Linux and can help you even though the provider's official policy is not to support Linux. If for some reason you are stuck with an uncooperative provider, try finding other customers of this provider who also use Linux. Setting up your connection in nonstandard cases means fiddling with the options and parameters of the ISDN subsystem in the kernel and the ipppd daemon, and if somebody else has already found out what to do, you don't have to. 13.3.4. Where to Go from Here? Once your ISDN connection works and you can access the Internet, you might want to set up some conveniences or other customizations. Here are some suggestions: • Make ipppd dial your remote site automatically. You can do this by setting the default route to the ippp0 device like this: /sbin/route add default netmask ippp0 Now, whenever the kernel needs to send an IP packet to an IP address for which it has no specific route configured, it will trigger the ipppd daemon to build a connection. Use this only if you have also specified the huptimeout option of the ISDN subsystem; otherwise, you could pay a fortune to your telephone company (unless you have a flat rate). Since some programs try to build up Internet connections from time to time (Netscape is one of those candidates), setting this up can be dangerous for your wallet. If you use this, make sure to check the state of the connection often (as described later in this section). • Try tools that monitor your ISDN connection. The isdn4k-utils package contains a number of those tools, including the command-line tools imon and imontty and X-based tools. • Configure isdnlog to log exactly what you need, and use isdnrep to get detailed reports about the usage of your ISDN line. This works not only for calls to and from computer systems, but also for calls to other ISDN-enabled devices such as phones and fax machines. There is only one caveat: your ISDN board cannot capture outgoing phone numbers for connections being set up by other devices. Most telephone companies provide a service, though, that echoes this phone number back to you and thus lets the ISDN subsystem pick it up. This service is often available for free or for a nominal fee. Ask your telephone company. • For the truly adventurous: experiment with Multilink-PPP. As you know, with ISDN you have at least two lines. If you need extra-high capacity, why not use both? That's what Multilink-PPP does. To use this, you need to turn on the Support generic MP option during kernel configuration, and read the files Documentation/isdn/README.syncppp and Documentation/isdn/syncppp.FAQ in the kernel sources for hints on how to do this. Of course, your provider has to support this, too. Running Linux Running Linux ISBN: 0596007604 EAN: 2147483647 Year: 2004 Pages: 220 Similar book on Amazon flylib.com © 2008-2017. If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net
Gravity as a thought experiment 17th century science at Isaac Newton’s “laboratory”. An innovative use of a keyhole, don’ t you think? Isaac Newton, Professor at Trinity College, London, fled London to escape the twin catastrophies of a recurrent Bubonic Plague outbreak and the later “Fire of London”. Both of which occurred during a 2 year period, 1665-66, during which a third of London’s population died. To occupy himself during his self-imposed “lockdown”, he compiled his reflections on gravity and related physical phenomena, in a classic work entitled: PRINCIPIA, the foundation of modern physics. Gravity and light were key parts of his research interests and speculations. It was two centuries and a fraction later that Albert Einstein proposed that both light and gravity were “wave” phenomena and that both were “bent” as they moved through space. Light had been observed to bend and break up into primary colors and wavelengths long before, but gravity was, and is, a continuing mystery in many aspects, even to Einstein. (Update on gravity reflection: Do Mirrors for Gravitational Waves Exist?; https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.0661, a report from Cornell University, U.S.A.) Suppose, during the Covid 19 imposed lockdown, we could focus on phenomena such as gravity, and engage in thought experiments which sometimes lead to breakthroughs in science and understanding of our world. Like most of us, I’m afraid that human nature during this 2020 pandemic and related political opportunism and disfunction have clouded our minds to the point that distraction would be helpful. Here Goes: Suppose that, instead of the usual energy hogging metal boxes we move ourselves around in, we used gravity to gently lift our metal boxes off the surface just enough to eliminate the need for wheels or tracks. Many of you will recognize that this describes an already studied method of doing this, known as “magnetic levitation”. However, this technology requires enormous amounts of electrical energy and infrastructure to implement and operate, so seems to have receded into the archive of brilliant but impractical schemes. Battery-electric vehicles and gyroscopic power systems have their own well-known obstacles to overcome, and neither can function without specific infrastructure and abundant fixed energy suppliers. All that would be needed for gravity fueled levitation is a means, attached to the “metal box, something like car with no wheels or engine” which needed to be moved around, to reflect the energy already existing between the box and the earth–up to now securing the box to the earth–back to the earth such that the box is lifted sufficiently to enable frictionless movement. Too advanced for its time, the Aerocar was the model for cars 20+ years later, a creation of Germany’s most innovative aviation pioneer The beauty of harnessing gravity via reflection/deflection is that, exactly as the gravity field between heavy masses and light ones automatically adjusts to whatever the “metal box” earlier mentioned weighs, sufficient spacing to achieve frictionless travel would depend on how it was focussed rather than a need for external power input. Remember Newton’s determination that, absent air resistance, light bodies fall at the same speed as heavy ones. Of course, any human inside the box would have in mind a destination, rather than some random amusement ride which could turn into something truly terrifying. Frictionless movement over a level surface could be enabled by nothing more than, say, the cooling fan or turbine used to displace heat from onboard air conditioning for passengers, for example. Of course, some sort of battery or power source would be needed, since vehicle AC compressors typically require 3 to 5 horsepower to operate. Some type of vane or rudder system would be needed to provide directional control as well. Braking and wind effects on a frictionless land vehicle would be significant engineering challenges once the forward motion systems are sorted out, but if we were able to harness gravity to lift such a vehicle, perhaps we could use the same force to maintain direction despite wind effects and control momentum (braking). Most urban travel, except for cities like Pittsburg and San Francisco, is typically on fairly level ground. Hills would obviously be a challenge for frictionless vehicles, so summoning up imaginative solutions for that problem would be additional brain teasers. My speculation on the “ascent” (hill) challenge is to imagine that harnessed gravity to lift “metal boxes” to enable frictionless movement could possibly be finessed to enable ascent of such a frictionless body, since ascent is a similar challenge to gravity with an added horizontal component. Have you forgotten about pandemics and politics yet? How about a final word from Professor Newton: Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it underpins all that’s worth knowing, especially science Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment HOW RUSSIA SAVED THE UNITED STATES (nothing to do with Putin, of course) “…Who was our friend when the world was our foe?” Never question Russian resolve. If you’re ever in a fight you’d better hope you’ve got them on your side. The Imperial Russian fleet in New York harbor, October 1863, Harper’s Weekly In 1863 the United States was being torn apart by a great Civil War. It would take more American life than any other war before or since; more would die in the Civil War than in the First and Second World Wars combined. With the issue still in the balance, Britain and France conspired (as great powers do) for political advantage. In their perception, a divided America would strengthen Anglo-French power. But a unified America might one day wield greater power than all of Europe combined. Before the future was taken by the upstart young nation, they would seize the moment and destroy a potential rival. Paris and London plotted intervention on the side of the Confederacy. They claimed to be moved by purely “humanitarian” motives. Enough blood has been shed, they declared; the wiser, older European powers, masters of civilization, would put an end to the barbaric bloodletting. In fact, claimed motives were cynical and false. Great nations do not go to war out of charitable instinct. They saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. France could recover territories lost in the Louisiana Purchase. England knew that, without access to the port of New Orleans, the North could not long survive economically. A bankrupt Union might even reverse the outcome of the American Revolution, and England would (at the very least) enlist a new ally in the Confederacy. Both England and France tried to enlist the Russian Empire in their ploy. The Russian reply was unexpected and immediate. The Czar rejected Anglo-French overtures. A capable and intelligent man, he did not trust the British any more than he did the French. Countering their cynical scheme, Czar Alexander mobilized the formidable Russian Navy. In America’s weakest moment, it came to her aid: On September 24, 1863, the Russian Baltic fleet began to arrive in New York harbor. On October 12, the Russian Far East fleet began to arrive in San Francisco. …The Russian admirals had been told that, if the US and Russia were to find themselves at war with Britain and France, the Russian ships should place themselves under Lincoln’s command and operate in synergy with the US Navy against the common enemies. Coming on the heels of the bloody Union reverse at Chickamauga, news of the Russian fleet unleashed an immense wave of euphoria in the North. It was this moment that inspired the verses of Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the most popular writers in America, for the 1871 friendship visit of the Russian Grand Duke Alexis: “Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December, Fettered and chill is the rivulet’s flow; Thrilling and warm are the hearts that remember, Who was our friend when the world was our foe. Fires of the North in eternal communion, Blend your broad flashes with evening’s bright star; God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union; Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!” The Russian Brig Merkury in battle (Tkachenko, Mikhail Stepanovich) When an attack on San Francisco by the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah appeared imminent, the Russian admiral ordered his ships to defend the city, by any means necessary. With no Union warships on the scene, Russia was ready to fight for the vulnerable United States. Could a divided United States of America have successfully fought the British, and the French, and the Confederacy, and won? It seems unlikely. But for our Russian friends we might not be here to ask the question. Luckily, Lincoln never had to find out. As Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles put it: “…God bless the Russians.” Kenneth Bourne’s Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815-1908 Jones (The Union in Peril; The Crisis Over British Intervention in the Civil War) Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Plagues (or pandemics, a more modern term) with a reflection by Marcus Aurelius. Does he speak to us in 2020? Destruction of empire Although the Antonine Plague would have little influence over the arts or Roman culture, its social and political effects have left an indelible mark on the pages of history. With it, the plague brought the death knell of the Roman Empire, and would herald in a time of constant upheaval, betrayal, and—some would argue—insanity at the hands of a capricious dictator. But, perhaps what we should also remember is the effect the plague had on Roman society. Amid the terror and confusion, Romans gave in to believing falsehoods, behaving badly, and acting without true understanding and honour. Marcus’ thoughts had been plagued by another pestilence, and according to his writings in the Meditations, he was deeply troubled by what he observed. His beloved Rome was descending into chaos, wanton acts, denying fact in favour of fiction, and choosing lies over truth and justice. Perhaps we have something to learn from the following reflection of his, “Real good luck would be to abandon life without ever encountering dishonesty, or hypocrisy, or self-indulgence, or pride. But the ‘next best voyage’ is to die when you’ve had enough. Or are you determined to lie down with evil? Hasn’t experience even taught you that—to avoid it like the plague? Because it is a plague—a mental cancer—worse than anything caused by tainted air or an unhealthy climate. Disease like that can only threaten your life; this one attacks your humanity.” Meditations, IX.2 Marcus died in 180 CE, likely of the plague mentioned which started in 165 CE and claimed 2000 Romans a day. Smallpox was the likely cause. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Michael Pierce View all posts by Michael Pierce » Putin’s longterm aim: reverse America’s Cold War win “Trump could spit on Ukraine.” Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment 1954, June 9, the Army McCarthy Hearings (Courtesy History.com) Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Artist: Joseph Qiu, 2018 Pollice Verso, by Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Leon Gerome 1872 Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Bobby Azarian Ph.D. Cognitive Impairments Can Promote Religious Fundamentalism (and political extremism?) Scientists have found a link between religious fundamentalism and brain damage. reverse damage to prefrontal cortex Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Another “Great Dying” event pending? Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment 4 December 2018 Abs t r a c t pre-1492 CE population of 60.5 million capita (IQR 0.98e1.11). Global climate change graph Amerindians in North America Introduction of Smallpox Europeans landing in the Caribbean unknowingly introduced new diseases Impact on European Colonialism Smallpox depicted in Aztec illustrations Aztec smallpox art Tenochtitlan before Cortes–250,000 people, compulsory public education for all Primary Source Reading: Aztec Accounts of the Conquest Introduction to the Source Speeches of Motecuhzoma and Cortés Massacre in the Main Temple Native Americans Helped the Europeans when they Suffered Disease Updated on May 9, 2013 Christopher Columbus Native Americans Helped Modern Medicine Hence, the carbon uptake that is thought to have occurred following the arrival of epidemics in the Americas may have reduced atmospheric CO2 levels and led to a decline in radiative forcing that may then have contributed to the coldest part of the Little Ice Age Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment How about a new approach to gaining control of the lethal weapons trade. “Swords to Plowshares” moving on to “AR15s to guitars”. Or, instead of tracer bullets sprayed on concert goers (remember Las Vegas) recycled weapons on stage backing up the soloists. Pedro Reyes with guitar and harp built of gun parts. A new use for the 700+ guns arriving in Mexico daily (via the drug trade return trips) from the U.S. Finally, paraphrasing the NRA mantra:”Guns don’t kill people”, etc., these guns actually don’t kill–(unless you are a music critic). Pedro’s “raw material” for this project involved some 6700 seized guns, about 10 days worth of guns arriving in Mexico–that authorities know about–. What about the Rumsfeld quote re: “known unknowns”? (click on the following links for various sound adventures) http://www.blog.pedroreyes.net/?p=151 https://www.emdash.net/pedro-reyes/ Supposing that we in the U.S. managed to walk back from our suicidal gun worship, what kind of music we could make with the toxic residue before it found its way into smelting furnaces to make, say, new infrastructure for American cities. Crazy idea, of course. Ever hopeful, Kilroy Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment MURDER ON FIFTH AVENUE, the challenge for 2019? “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump said at a campaign rally here. “Here”, in this case was a campaign rally in Sioux City Iowa, January 23, 2016. IS THIS THE BIRTH OF A CULT? Trump rally with baby crop People’s Temple at Jonestown, Guyana, November 19, 1978. 913 people died. Branch Davidian compound, April 19, 1993 after 51 day siege, 74 died Waco David Koresh Hitler greeting adoring crowds, 1937 Eight years later, in formerly upscale residential district of Berlin. Where are the adoring crowds in the scene below? Oberwallstrasse, in central Berlin, saw some of the most vicious fighting between German and Soviet troops in the spring of 1945 Oberwallstrasse, in central Berlin, saw some of the most vicious fighting between German (at this point in the war, boys as young as 12) and Soviet troops in the spring of 1945 Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Pandemics, Personnel, and Politics: How the Trump Administration is Leaving Us Vulnerable to the Next Outbreak Thanks to Global Biodefense.com pandemic picture Bill Gates warning of future pandemics killing 30 millions in 2018 essay “The next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu.Whether it occurs by a quirk of nature or at the hand of a terrorist, epidemiologists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year—and they say there is a reasonable probability the world will experience such an outbreak in the next 10 to 15 years,” Gates said. (quote from an article by Gates in the New England Journal of Medicine, 2018) Despite this heightened risk of a global pandemic, the Trump Administration has dragged its feet in appointing senior officials to key Federal agencies responsible for preparing and responding to a pandemic or bioterrorist attack. These agencies are also subject to steep budget cuts under Trump’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018. The delays in installing senior leaders at these agencies and pending budget cuts puts U.S. and global health security at risk. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and US Agency for International Development (USAID) ) are four crucial agencies responsible for preparing for the next pandemic. Within HHS, Trump has yet to nominate anyone to fill the position of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), who is responsible for building Federal emergency medical operational capabilities, developing medical countermeasures, and providing grants to strengthen the capabilities of hospitals to cope with medical disasters. The CDC, which is tasked with detecting and containing disease outbreaks in the United States and provides grants to state and local health departments to help them prepare for public health emergencies, has played a vital role in responding to major outbreaks at home and abroad. While the agency is currently being led by acting director Dr. Ann Schuchat, a well-respected, 30-year veteran of the agency, her ability to mobilize the resources needed to respond to a pandemic or other health crisis may be stymied by her interim status. Although President Trump wisely asked Francis Collins to stay on as director of NIH, he has also proposed cutting the biomedical research agency’s budget by $5.8 billion, or about 18%. In the event of a pandemic, the NIH will play a crucial role in characterizing the pathogen responsible for the outbreak and supporting research to develop diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics to contain the outbreak. And yet Trump’s budget eliminates the NIH’s Fogarty International Center which supports international health research. Finally, the Trump Administration has failed to nominated anyone to fill any of the 11 Senate-confirmed posts at USAID, which plays a key role in helping developing countries improve their public health systems to detect and respond to emerging infectious disease threats. USAID, together with the State Department, is also poised to take a 31% budget reduction under Trump’s proposed budget. USAID’s $72 million Global Health Security fund is slated for elimination, which would dramatically affect the ability of the U.S. to work with international partners to combat the spread of infectious diseases like H7N9. The only positive element of the budget related to health security is Trump’s proposal to create a Federal Emergency Response Fund to enable more rapid responses to public health emergencies. Although the size of the fund has not yet been disclosed, given the Trump Administration’s stated priorities the funds will likely come from other parts of the health security budget. These funding cuts combined with numerous vacancies in influential positions in agencies responsible for health security is a dangerous combination. Having confident, informed leaders running these organizations with sufficient resources is necessary to ensure that these agencies can effectively produce vaccines and diagnostics and implement preventative measures to control an outbreak of H7N9 or another strain with pandemic potential. If a major influenza pandemic were to occur, no wall would be high enough to stop the virus from entering the United States. The best defense against pandemics and other disease threats are Federal, state, and local health agencies and international partners with strong leadership and the necessary resources to fund vital surveillance, preparedness, response, and research activities Mother Nature doesn’t play politics; Trump shouldn’t play politics with global health security. Gregory D. Koblentz is an Associate Professor and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Nathaniel M. Morra is a graduate student in the Biodefense Program at George Mason. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment No statue commemorates the life and career of Spencer Perceval, the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated. Though his (mentally tortured) assassin cared nothing about Perceval’s role in launching the end of the slave trade throughout the British Empire, this British politician certainly belongs alongside Abraham Lincoln, author of the Emancipation Proclamation, and Czar Alexander II (who ended serfdom, a form of slavery, throughout the Russian Empire), both of whom were victims of assassination by political fanatics. The Forgotten Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is the only British Prime Minister ever to be assassinated. He deserves to be remembered for much more than that. On the 11th May 1812, Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, entered the House of Commons. He was on his way to attend an inquiry into a set of Orders of Council he had issued. Perceval was, at the time, the leader of the most powerful democracy on Earth, one whose empire was already beginning to spread across the globe, despite the loss of the American colonies and repeated wars with France. Despite this, he was surprisingly approachable, rarely accompanied by any kind of guard. This was very much the case that afternoon and as Perceval walked through the lobby he passed through a large crowd of petitioners and civil servants, something that he had done many times before without incident. That day, however, was different. In the crowd of petitioners was John Bellingham. Bellingham was a failed merchant from Liverpool, burdened by debt. This had led, in part, to a period of imprisonment in Russia, from which he had returned just a month before. In the time since he had become convinced that his imprisonment was somehow the government’s fault and that Perceval in particular was to blame. As the Prime Minister moved through the crowd Bellingham stepped out in front of him. Before anyone could react, Bellingham pulled a pistol from his pocket and fired a single shot from close range into Perceval’s chest. The wounded Prime Minister collapsed to the ground and confusion and fear rippled through the crowd. Bellingham calmly walked over to a nearby bench and sat down. Seconds later he was restrained by Isaac Gascoigne, Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool. Bellingham made no effort to resist. Meanwhile bystanders carried Perceval into a nearby office. His pulse was weak and fading and he was placed on a table. A doctor was frantically sought, but it was too late. The shot had taken Perceval in the heart and the wound was fatal. Mere minutes after the shot had been fired he was dead. In that moment Spencer Perceval became (and remains) the only British Prime Minister ever to be assassinated. The forgotten man History has not been kind to Spencer Perceval. Not because it has judged him harshly, but because it has forgotten really to judge him at all. For most people, if they know the name, it is as the answer to a pub quiz question about his unique death. A short man (even by the standards of the time), Perceval was blessed with boyish features well into later life. He was born into a well-connected family, but as the second son of his father’s second marriage his prospects (and finances) were not great. As a result, Perceval was largely forced to look to his own resources. He trained as a lawyer and swiftly began to make a name for himself as he embarked on both a legal and a political career. Perceval’s harmless exterior concealed a fiercely conservative outlook and an almost fanatical commitment to his beliefs. This was a major contributor to his increasing reputation, but it ensured he made many enemies along the way. As a lawyer he participated in the successful prosecution of the publisher of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man in 1792. His reputation as a fierce opponent of social change grew further. In 1796 Perceval became the MP for Northampton. He soon began ruthlessly and doggedly attacking the liberal cause in Parliament, becoming a key conservative attack dog for Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. So much so that when opposition MP George Tierney, challenged the Prime Minister to a duel in 1798, it was Perceval that Pitt suggested should succeed him in office if he lost. Luckily the need did not arise. Pitt and Tierney did indeed duel, firing pistols at twelve paces, but Tierney’s first shot missed and Pitt elected to fire into the air. A country on the verge of great change Perceval’s conservatism and extreme anti-liberal stance came at a time when Britain (and indeed the world) faced enormous social upheaval. France was in a state of revolution and the call for reform at home was increasing day by day. Abolitionism — the quest to end slavery — had also begun to make some headway in Britain, although its supporters knew they faced an up-hill battle to bring it to pass. Slavery stood at the heart of British conservatism. It was a trade that earned enormous wealth for the country, particularly in ports such as Liverpool which played a crucial role in the world slave trade. Manufactured goods would be loaded there onto ships bound for Africa, where they were traded for slaves. The slaves would then be taken by those same ships to America, where they (or at least those that survived the journey) would be traded for goods such as sugar, coffee or tobacco. These would be brought back to Liverpool, where enormous profits would be made and this horrific triangular trade would begin again. Abolutionists faced a situation similar to that faced by those battling the Tobacco industry over lung cancer, or energy companies over environmental issues, today. They may have had the moral high ground but slavery’s supporters had the money, and they could call on many powerful, political supporters on both sides of the benches in Parliament. In this environment you could be forgiven for thinking that Spencer Perceval, Pitt the Younger’s conservative attack dog, would be at the heart of the fight to preserve this shameful institution. Remarkably, the truth was the exact opposite. Refusing to look away William Wilberforce, one of the prime architects of abolition, was a man who firmly believed that the practice of slavery could never survive the exposure of what it truly involved. Once a person knew what was involved then they faced a stark moral choice. “You may choose to look the other way,” Wilberforce once explained, “but you can never say again that you did not know.” In the early 1800s Perceval was one of several politicians on whom Wilberforce and his supporters tested this theory. On the MP for Northampton, it worked. Having seen the horrible reality of the trade, Perceval became convinced that it had no place in modern society. Whatever his feelings on reform or liberalism in general, he soon became convinced that slavery was an absolute wrong. As a man for whom convictions were more important than politics, he soon became determined to do what he could to bring it to an end, regardless of the conflicts this might cause him within his own political party. Finding a loop-hole By the time he converted Perceval to the cause, Wilberforce had been trying, and failing, to get Parliament to ban the slave trade for over ten years. The brutal truth was the votes weren’t there. Plenty of politicians privately professed their opposition to slavery, but few would commit to its end publicly for fear of angering the wealthy and powerful pro-slavery lobby. That reluctance extended to Pitt the Younger himself. The Prime Minister told Wilberforce that he was personally against the trade, but that his hands were tied. He would not publicly support the cause or trigger a vote for fear of alienating his support or losing in Parliament. The abolitionists knew that what they needed was some kind of win — anything that would put the first crack into the legal and political armour that surrounded the institution of slavery. In the end it was Perceval, determined to do the right thing despite the overwhelming pressure to do nothing, who finally found a way to strike that first blow. In 1805 Britain was locked in conflict with France, and this had resulted in the occupation of Dutch Guiana. Ever the lawyer, Perceval quickly spotted an unexpected opportunity. The occupation had been carried out under Crown rather than Parliamentary authority. It was a subtle difference, but an important one as it meant that the way in which it was governed was subtly different to the rest of British territory. Most importantly, Perceval spotted, it meant that with a bit of legal hand-waving, a ban on the import of slaves to the new colony could go into the Orders-in-Council being enacted to prevent neutral countries from trading with France. And of course, Perceval quietly pointed out to Pitt, thanks to the vagaries of the British Parliamentary system Orders-in-Council didn’t need Parliamentary approval. It was a masterful piece of political manouevring. Perceval had recognised that Wiberforce’s head-on approach could only take things so far. Certainly it had worked on Perceval himself, but the MP for Northampton knew that Pitt would never stand in front of the House of Commons and publicly commit to a cause which many of his friends and supporters still fervently opposed. So rather than try and force Pitt to do so, Perceval had simply engineered a way round it. Very quickly, the Prime Minister agreed to make the change. The Dutch Guianan ban represented a key victory for the abolitionist cause. At a stroke, a trade that had consumed 6,000 human lives a year in Guiana had been ended, It also set a huge precedent. It opened a crack in slavery’s legal armour that could never be closed. Perceval remained determined to widen it further. Seeing things through In 1807 Parliament finally passed the Slave Trade Act. As the name implies, the Act banned the practice of the slave trade throughout the entirety of the British Empire and also committed Great Britain to press other European nations to do the same. The passing of the Act represented a public triumph for the abolitionist cause and for Wilberforce himself, but neither Wilberforce nor Perceval believed that it represented the end of the fight. Its opponents were not beaten by its passing, and remained determined to use their power to weaken its impact. Over the next few years, some of the most tumultuous in British Parliamentary history, Perceval worked hard to ensure that the ideals of the Act became the reality. When the government Pitt had formed fell as the Bill was passing through Parliament, it was Perceval that carefully shepherded it through the change of government. Later, during his own tenure as Prime Minister, Perceval worked hard to give it teeth. This would ultimately lead to the founding of the West Africa Squadron, the Royal Navy’s first dedicated anti-slavery force, backed up by the full legal and political force of Perceval’s government. Ultimately, by the time of his assassination, Perceval had done more than almost any man in Britain to ensure that not only would the slave trade be banned, but that the ban would not be a paper tiger. He was determined to ensure it would have a real impact both in Britain and anywhere British power projected. Making enemies Perceval’s strange combination of anti-liberalism and reform to be found Perceval ensured that he was never short of enemies. His arch-conservatism earned him the vitriol of liberals, whilst at the same time his commitment to eradicating the slave trade provoked the same reaction among many on his own side of the political fence. In 1806 he even added the Prince Regent (yes that one) to his ever-growing list of enemies. The Prince‘s marriage to his wife, Charlotte was an unhappy one. Their marriage had been arranged against his will, and within a year of their nuptuals they were already living separately. When rumours began to circulate that the Princess might have had an affair, George stoked the flames and organised an investigation into her behaviour through his political connections. Appalled at the smear campaign being enacted against Charlotte, Perceval became a key player in her defence. He wrote what became known infamously as “The Book” (which you can read here). It was a brutal, legal takedown of the Prince’s case, one that Perceval told the future George IV he would publish if the Prince didn’t back down and allow Charlotte to resume her public life. Brow-beaten and blackmailed, the Prince did so, although not before bombarding Perceval with what one observer described as “the most offensive personal abuse, and an oath that cannot be recited.” An un-expected Prime Minister To many Perceval’s ascension to the position of Prime Minister in 1809 seemed doomed to failure. Certainly it could not have happened at any other time. Although, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was a senior figure in the government, he arguably only really got the job because George Canning and Lord Castlereagh, the two leading political lights of the day, were locked a personal political rivalry that ruined their own chances of taking the top job (they too had been caught duelling). Both men initially refused to serve under Perceval. Various other Tory politicians refused to serve in his government as well, believing that the increasing economic hardships at home and the conflict with France abroad would make it unpopular and likely to fall. In the end, Perceval was unable even to find anyone willing to take on the office of Chancellor was forced to shoulder both roles. Despite this inauspicious start, somehow Perceval made it work. Over the next two years his personality seemed to hold everything together — even his enemies in Parliament respected him, if not his politics — and perhaps most crucially few doubted his personal integrity. As a politician he was practically unique at the time — not only because he refused to treat politics as an opportunity to make money from the public purse (and gave much of what he could spare to charity) but also because he had married for love. The family man Perceval’s marriage to Jane Wilson had taken place while he was a poor junior lawyer, and though her father approved of his character he disapproved of Perceval’s poverty. The two lovers were forced to elope in order to seal their marriage, living for several years in a small flat above a carpet shop. A devoted husband, Perceval never took a mistress, something which caused much confusion amongst his political peers. So too did the fact that he adored his children. The couple had thirteen, twelve of whom survived into adulthood and Perceval delighted not only in helping raise them, but also in playing games with them. “He was beloved without sensation of fear,” wrote one bemused contemporary on seeing Perceval with his children, “and never so happy as when playing in the midst of them.” The stable statesman Perceval’s integrity and talent for holding things together turned out to be exactly what the times required. Alongside ensuring that the Slavery Act was enforced he also worked hard to prosecute the war against Napoleon’s France in the face of successive defeats. After the disastrous Walcheren campaign in the Netherlands and setbacks on the Iberian Peninsular, Perceval came under enormous pressure to withdraw all British troops from the continent. The small British force in Portugal under Sir Arthur Wellesley, however, continued to cling on. Napoleon had dismissed Wellesley as a “Sepoy General,” a derogatory reference to the fact that his experience had, until the Peninsular, largely come from fighting in India. It was a view that some in the upper echelons of British politics and the military shared and they began to advocate the army — or at least Wellesey’s — removal. Perceval’s support for the General and his army, however, was unwavering. This gave Wellesley the time to prove his detractors wrong. By the end of the war with France, Wellesley’s victory over both the French and his detractors was complete, and as Viscount (later Duke of) Wellington he rightly cemented his place in the pantheon of great generals, and ultimately beat Napoleon himself at Waterloo. Perceval’s commitment to prosecuting the war would have consequences beyond the battlefield though and beyond his own life. It brought economic hardship at home, to the point where in some cities — including London itself — news of his assassination was greeted with cheers. His refusal as Prime Minister to lessen the trade restrictions on neutral powers would also help set Britain and the United States on a path to war — the War of 1812, in which the White House would burn. By 1812, however, there were few in Parliament — on either bench — who would dispute that Perceval was the right man for the Premiership. His cabinet colleagues referred to his as the ‘Supreme Commander’. As a politician he was at the height of his power when Bellingham’s bullet struck, and he was almost universally mourned by his peers after his death. More than a piece of trivia Given his unique place in history, it is perhaps inevitable that whenever the anniversary of Perceval’s death comes about, such coverage as there is nearly always focuses only on his assassination. Do spare a thought though for the man behind the pub quiz question. Even the Prince Regent had come to begrudgingly respect him, and on realising that Perceval’s early death had robbed his wife and children of their sole source of income. Immediately requested that Parliament vote them a lump sum and an annuity for life. Lord Castlereagh, once Perceval’s opponent but by then his Foreign Secretary, was unable to finish reading the Regent’s request in Parliament. Breaking down with emotion, he was forced to sit down and let others finish the reading. “In most faces,” wrote one Parliamentary observer, “there was an agony of tears.” Parliament wanted to bury Perceval in Westminster Abbey, but his widow Jane refused. He would not have wanted it, she insisted. He was buried in a quiet, private ceremony by his family in St Lukes, Charlton. Perceval’s journey into anonymity had begun. That anonymity is unfair. There is no doubting that he was a man of contrasts. He was a conservative attack dog, a staunch anti-reformist and a blackmailer. He was also a loving husband and father, a man of integrity and an abolitionist. Indeed after Perceval’s death, William Wilberforce said that the abolitionist movement owed more to Perceval than it ever did to him. In fact, possibly the least interesting thing Perceval ever did was get assassinated. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment CO2 is an excellent fire extinguisher. Meteors and asteroids are supposed to burn up in our atmosphere–unless it contains high levels of CO2. An example from our geologic past explained below. Marine fire extinguisher, 30 KG CO2 The contraction of the thermosphere will reduce atmospheric drag on satellites and may have adverse consequences for the already unstable orbital debris environment, because it will slow the rate at which debris ( asteroids and meteorites) burn up in the atmosphere. Reference: Naval Research Laboratory (2012) report following. Confronting Climate Change: Critical Issues for New Zealand, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006. Chapter 6 (author), Peter Barrett: The most recent period of the Earth’s history, the Cenozoic era, began 65 million years ago with a bang: a meteorite impact that ended the rule of the dinosaurs, but disturbed only briefly the super-warm climate of the times. However, for the past 50 million years, the Earth has been cooling and it is now becoming clear that this long-term cooling trend may be reversing in the last few decades (IPCC, 2001). In this chapter, I outline the evidence for this view, which is becoming widely accepted by those who study the Earth’s climate system and its past history. Although geologists have been learning about the Earth’s history for hundreds of years, a real understanding has developed merely in the last four decades through deep-sea drilling and analytical chemistry. Thousands of cores have been extracted from the seabed, and analysed by tens of thousands of scientists in hundreds of laboratories. They have increased our understanding of many aspects of the Earth’s history, but I intend to focus on just two: the Earth’s surface temperature, and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere. Until 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, the planet’s geography was somewhat different from now in several respects. The Atlantic Ocean was much narrower to both the north and south, Australia was still joined to Antarctica, and New Zealand was under the sea off the coast of Australia. However, the Earth’s temperature was very different. This was a warmer planet by between 6°C and 10°C, and CO2 levels were between two and eight times higher than pre-industrial values (Bice et al. 2006). It was what scientists now call a ‘greenhouse world’. Life on Earth was severely challenged on that day 65 million years ago when a meteorite 10 km wide hit the Yucatan Peninsula, leaving a 200 km crater and sending many cubic kilometres of shattered debris and dust into the stratosphere. As a consequence, not only the dinosaurs but around sixty percent of all species on Earth died out. There was undoubtedly a major impact on the Earth’s climate for decades or even longer. Cooling effects from the dust of the explosion gave way to warming as the dust settled out, and increased CO2 from the fires that followed. About The Chicxulub Crater (left by the meteorite referred to above) The Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan peninsula is believed to be the most likely site of the asteroid impact responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs. Dinosaur death due to meteor strike The crater measures between 180 and 240 kilometres across, indicating an impactor of colossal size, the biggest impact confirmed on Earth. The collision at Chicxulub sent vaporized rocks, cracked mineral grains and molten rock flying around the world. The Chicxulub crater represents the most recent major impact on the Earth, and despite its geologically young age, it is already an extremely well- hidden structure that has taken teams of geologists and geophysicists many years to unravel. In fact it is so hidden, that nowadays the crater is not noticeable when walking across it, as the crater is merely 3-4 meters deep. At the time of the impact though, the crater probably was over 900 meters deep. Chicxulub location Chicxulub Impact – location map The crater was just recently discovered. In 1978, geophysicists Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo worked for the Mexican state oil company Pemex, as part of an aerial magnetic survey of the Gulf of Mexico, just north of the Yucatan Peninsula. Their job was to use geophysical data to study possible locations to extract oil. During their investigation, they found a big symmetrical underground arc that measured around 70 kilometers. Pemex map But this wasn’t the first map Pemex had of that area. Another Pemex contractor, Robert Baltosser made similar discoveries earlier, but was forbid to publish them because of Pemex corporate policy. Consulting the maps made by Baltosser, Penfield found another arc on the peninsula itself. Comparing the two maps, he found that the two arcs formed a circle 180 km in diameter, with its central point near the town of Chicxulub , in the Yucatan. Based on this data, he was sure that the site was a spot of some cataclysmic event in geological history. Although Pemex forbid them to publish certain data, Penfield and Camargo presented their findings in 1981 at a conference of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). At that moment his report attracted little attention because although they had lots of geophysical data, they had no rock samples, or any other physical evidence of the collision. Concomitantly, American physicist, Luis Walter Alvarez published a paper in which he theorized that the Earth was stuck by a foreign object around the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K-T boundary). After data about the Chicxulub crater was gathered, it was linked to Alvarez’s theory, providing support for it. Environmental and geological effects of the impact It is believed that after the impact, some of the biggest tsunamis in Earth’s history were formed. The emission of dust and particles could have covered the entire surface of the Earth for several years, possibly a decade, making life difficult for many terrestrial animals. For some years after the impact, sunlight would have been prevented to reach the surface of the Earth, cooling it down abruptly. Besides the cooling effect, plants wouldn’t have been able to develop, causing devastating effects for the entire food chain. There are also speculations that the vaporized material might have blown away part of Earth’s atmosphere or that the impact would have resulted worldwide forest fires, but these speculations need to be challenged. Chicxulub crater Yutacan Chicxulub Crater Yutacan Chicxulub inner crater at the same scale as the Los Angeles - San Diego area Chicxulub inner crater at the same scale as the Los Angeles – San Diego area Scientists detect carbon dioxide accumulation at the edge of space (Update) Scientists detect carbon dioxide accumulation at the edge of space ACE satellite observing the sun through Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: ACE website, University of Waterloo (Phys.org)—A team of scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory, Old Dominion University, and the University of Waterloo reports the first direct evidence that emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human activity are propagating upward to the highest regions of the atmosphere. The observed CO2 increase is expected to gradually result in a cooler, more contracted upper atmosphere and a consequent reduction in the atmospheric drag experienced by satellites. The team published its findings in Nature Geoscience on November 11, 2012. The team of Dr. John Emmert, Dr. Michael Stevens, and Dr. Douglas Drob from NRL’s Space Science Division; Dr. Peter Bernath from Old Dominion University; and Dr. Chris Boone from the University of Waterloo in Canada studied eight years of CO2 measurements made by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE), a scientific satellite mission funded primarily by the Canadian Space Agency. ACE determines vertical profiles of CO2 and many other atmospheric gases by measuring how the atmosphere absorbs sunlight at different wavelengths as the Sun rises and sets relative to the spacecraft. Scientists detect carbon dioxide accumulation at the edge of space CO2 concentration at 100 km altitude (~62 mi) measured by ACE (blue circles) and predicted by a model of the chemistry and physics of the global upper atmosphere (green crosses). The purple line shows the linear trend of the ACE data. Credit: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory CO2 occurs naturally throughout Earth’s atmosphere and is the primary radiative cooling agent in the energy balance of the mesosphere (~50-90 km altitude) and thermosphere (>90 km). The same properties of CO2 that cause it to trap heat in the troposphere (<15 km) make it an efficient cooler at higher altitudes. The difference is that at high altitudes, the density of CO2 is too thin to recapture the infrared radiation (heat) that it emits. “In the upper atmosphere,” explains Emmert, “thermal energy is transferred via collisions from other atmospheric constituents to CO2, which then emits the energy as heat that escapes to outer space.” The enhanced cooling produced by the increasing CO2 should result in a more contracted thermosphere, where many satellites, including the International Space Station, operate. The contraction of the thermosphere will reduce atmospheric drag on satellites and may have adverse consequences for the already unstable orbital debris environment, because it will slow the rate at which debris ( asteroids and meteorites) burn up in the atmosphere. It has been expected that anthropogenic CO2 increases are propagating upward throughout the entire atmosphere. Before the study of ACE data, CO2 trends had been measured only up to 35 km altitude, although indirect evidence from satellite drag studies indicates that the thermosphere is indeed slowly contracting. The scientists estimate that the concentration of carbon near 100 km altitude is increasing at a rate of 23.5 ± 6.3 parts per million (ppm) per decade, which is about 10 ppm/decade faster than predicted by upper atmospheric model simulations. In comparison, tropospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing at a rate of about 20 ppm/decade (the current concentration of CO2 near the ground is ~390 ppm). The authors speculate that the larger than expected upper atmospheric trend may be caused by changes in upper atmospheric circulation and mixing. Explore further Rising carbon dioxide levels increase risks to satellites More information: Nature Geoscience paper: DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1626 Journal information: Nature Geoscience Nature Provided by Naval Research Laboratory Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment “Pro-Life” and Racism linked The Racist Origins of ‘Pro-Life’ Abortion Movement They Never Talk About, by Wagatwe Wanjuki, July 10, 2018 Fundamentalist Christians and [the KKK] are pretty close, fighting for God and country. Someday we may all be in the trenches together in the fight against the slaughter of unborn children. — John Burt, 1994 New York Times interview Reversing Roe v. Wade goes against the will of the people. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows that a clear majority support the Supreme Court ruling ensuring a patient’s access to abortion care. That, of course, won’t stop opponents to the measure from ruling by minority; it’s exactly what the so-called “pro-lifers” want. Rule by minority has increasingly become the Republican’s modus operandi; gerrymandering, voter suppression, and congressional loopholes show they are not shy about staying in power by any means necessary. Now we’re seeing what’s possible when a man like Donald Trump embraces it as the leader of the power. Trump has not hesitated to embrace white nationalists and give racists power—just look at Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Jeff Sessions—which is exactly why it’s prime time for Roe v. Wade to come up on the chopping block. It’s no coincidence that the biggest national threat to abortion rights since Roe is happening under such a racist government. Have you ever wondered why the “pro-life” movement is so … white? Or perhaps you’ve noticed that they seem incapable of not being racist whenever they pretend to care about Black people to further their extreme agenda. You’re not alone. It turns out that the pro-life movement has been very good about hiding its racist origins. That’s not just because white people tend to be uncomfortable and avoidant when talking about race. It’s because it also exposes the true goal of the movement, which makes their initially confusing hypocrisy incredibly clear. Abortion restrictions have always been political—and about race Abortion provider Ann Lohman (a.k.a. Madame Restell) based on a photograph, 1888. From Recollections of a New York City Chief of Police by George W. Walling. Madame Restell, née Ann Lohman During much of the 19th century, abortion was unregulated and business was booming. The industry was doing so well that one famous provider, Madame Restell, invested in one of New York City’s first luxury apartment buildings with her husband. The white, middle-class women who could afford abortions were having more control of their bodies and thus having fewer children. This was all happening while the United States was also getting more Catholic and Jewish immigrants. The fears of white women increasingly turning away from doing their “duty” to bear children coupled with xenophobia compelled powerful white men to spring into action. Under the guise of wanting to require a medical license to perform abortions, the American Medical Association (AMA) ran a successful campaign to ban abortion care and put the decision to make exceptions completely in their hands. How did they succeed? They appealed to the racist little hearts of Anglo-Saxon politicians. Back then, “pro-life” racism wasn’t as subtle. The authors of “Abortion, Race, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century America” in the American Sociological Review wrote that “physicians argued that middle-class, Anglo-Saxon married women were those obtaining abortions, and that their use of abortion to curtail childbearing threatened the Anglo-Saxon race.” Take this excerpt from a book by Dr. Augustus K. Gardner from 1870, for example: Infanticide is no new crime. Savages have existed in all times, and abortions and destruction of children at and subsequent to birth have been practiced among all barbarous nations of antiquity … The savages of past ages were not better than the women who commit such infamous murders to-day, to avoid the cares, the expense or the duty of nursing and tending a child. Here we see how framing abortion as murder came from racist propaganda. Dr. Gardner talked about barbaric peoples—Indians, Greeks, and Chinese, for example—that supposedly partook in infanticide. He uses this in an attempt to shame women from seeking abortions, calling them no better than these “savages.” Political anti-abortion rhetoric began with this message: abortion is for other people. Non-white people. Yet even back then, there was no consensus among conservatives or Christians about abortion’s morality. However, the disproportionate amount of power that rich white men had in the country—as doctors and politicians—allowed this minority to execute its will on the people (sound familiar?). The truth about conservative hate of Margaret Sanger—and contraception Margaret Sanger. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016879604/ Margaret Sanger While the 19th century racists succeeded in getting a nationwide abortion ban, that pesky desire from women for autonomy kept rearing its head. It’s almost as if you keep oppressing people, they will eventually want more rights—no matter how hard you try! No wonder they hated Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. She published a feminist magazine in 1914 that advocated for reproductive freedom—exactly what racist white men didn’t want embraced by women. The smears and attacks against her continue today as conservatives try to paint her as the racist. The truth is that she was a proponent of eugenics, but was staunchly against its use for racist means. At the Jewish Woman’s Archive, Open Society Institute fellow Ellen Chasler explains: In fact, Sanger worked with activists of color like W.E.B. Du Boisand Japanese feminist Shizue Kato—people conservatives today would undoubtedly disparage. Dr. Martin Luther King even once said, “There is a striking kinship between our [civil rights] movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts in “Family Planning—A Special and Urgent Concern.” While there’s no excuse for Sanger’s support of the eugenics movement, it does show that the fact was distorted by a white racist movement that undoubtedly has people who would agree with her eugenic statements today. Even in Sanger’s time, white supremacists still couldn’t agree on whether to support birth control or not. Some saw it as a possible means to keep “undesirables” from reproducing, while other had fears that Anglo-Saxon white women would embrace it too much and significantly lower their birth rate. Tools of white supremacy: from school segregation to abortion Abortion became a political tool of racist white evangelicals as a response to the Black civil rights movement of the 1960’s. Displeased with forced school integration and other signs of Black people being treated like human beings, the founders of the modern anti-choice movement sought to find an issue to mobilize the conservative base. With enough grassroots support, white evangelical leaders could get people who’d Make America Explicitly Racist again in power and protect its white people as they saw fit. Washington, UNITED STATES: Reverend Dr. Jerry Falwell, founder and chancellor of Liberty University, speaks during a Christians United For Israel(CUFI) news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, 19 July 2006. CUFI is a new association of 3,000 Christians urging Congress and the public to strengthen defense of Israel. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) Jerry Falwell speaks at a Christians United For Israel news conference. One of these leaders is preacher Jerry Falwell, the founder of Liberty University: he hated Dr. King and all this civil rights expansion. In response to Brown v. Board of Education, he created private, white-only Christian schools to try and preserve segregation. It worked for a while, but the government started cracking down on the schools explicitly made just for white children. In hopes of reversing this wave, evangelicals had thrown their weight behind President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat and fellow evangelical Christian, for the 1976 election. Unfortunately for Falwell and friends, Carter wasn’t also a racist. Under Carter’s watch, the crackdown on white schools continued. Activist Paul Weyrich had long suggested using abortion as their political issue. Now that school segregation had failed, leaders like Falwell and Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson agreed to join forces to usher in a new era in white supremacist political activism: the pro-life movement. While Roe v. Wade was already years old, they tested using the “pro-life” political stance as a way to get candidates who’d do their racist bidding in office during the midterm elections—and it worked. They won three Senate seats and a governorship thanks, in part, to low turnout from Democrats and high energy from the white evangelicals. They found a winning issue and took it to the national stage next. How racism brought Republicans and white evangelicals together 3/15/1983 President Reagan Meeting with Jerry Falwell in Oval Office President Reagan and Jerry Falwell in the Oval Office. Evangelical leaders tried to influence Carter to seek a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade. He refused, so they looked to the other party. The Republican Party’s sexism dovetailed nicely with racist anti-abortion policies and support for such an amendment was made a part of the party’s platform. And thus, the GOP officially adopted the language proposed by the power-hungry white evangelicals and officially became the “pro-life” party with candidate Ronald Reagan as the leader. Reagan was a good bet. He had name recognition with his acting career before entering politics. And, like Falwell and friends, Reagan lamented the advancement of the civil rights for Black people. Reagan had no problem catering to racists, pushing the “welfare queen” myth and calling the Voting Rights Act “humiliating to the South.” Oh, and he was endorsed by the KKK—twice. At first glance, Reagan seemed to be the least likely ally for the anti-choice movement. When he was California’s governor, he signed the country’s least restrictive abortion access bill in the country. Carter had a documented history of being anti-abortion, both in his personal and political life. However, it’s Carter’s refusal to bend to the political will of the powerful white evangelical men that was seen as the biggest liability. Reagan’s landslide win solidified the religious right’s political strength. Falwell, Dobson, and Weyrich had succeeded in making their racist political goals viable enough to get millions to vote for their preferred candidate who’d get rid of abortion and keep the brown and Black people from taking over. Since then, the political power of white evangelicals in the United States has only gotten stronger. Today’s political mess in perspective There’s a reason why the pro-life advocates and #alllivesmatter crowd has been silent at best about the mistreatment of children at the border at the hands of the administration. They’re not the members of a human rights movement; it’s just what they say to convince clueless white people. The pro-life movement is white nationalist campaign that will use any messaging or backward logic necessary to achieve their genocidal goals. This puts white evangelicals’ nearly unwavering support of Trump into perspective. They put up with his very un-Christian behavior because he’s a very effective vessel for their racist political goals. It is increasingly clear that the goal of the pro-life leaders is to dominate our politics; they don’t want true democracy. Instead, a few white men want to exploit the system as much as possible until they can once again live in a country where women don’t control their bodies, immigration doesn’t happen, and people of color are not truly citizens. Thoughts from Greg Metcalf, an excerpt from MY FREE SENTENCES, WordPress (if Roe vs. Wade is overturned) We would return to the days of women getting risky procedures from unqualified doctors in horrid conditions. Some of them would die. We’d have an increase of babies from women whose own judgment was that they weren’t prepared to have a child and care for it. In many cases, this would be financial, and we would simultaneously have a hypocritical extremist GOP government pulling back on programs to help the poor, a reduction in the SNAPs program, cuts to Medicaid, fewer opportunities for aid in childcare. Suicide rates among women would go up. Sanctimoniously, some on the far right, Mike Pence, and others, would blame these problems on the women, falling back on their dogma that they shouldn’t have been having sex. What about rape? We couldn’t make an exception for rape cases, at least not one that would mean much, because rape statistics are clear. Rape is rarely proven in a court of law, not because it doesn’t occur, it’s just difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the legal standard. Would we create a lower standard of proof that would allow for rape exceptions? Where would we draw THAT line to prevent women from abusing the new system of law that is abusing them? HISTORY MATTERS–is “Pro-Life” really “Pro-Death” in disguise? In 1936, before legal abortions, a group of experts determined that there were about 681,600 illegal abortions resulting in the death of 8,179 women in that year alone. American hospitals have kept a list of devices and toxic fluids that have been used to abort fetuses. This is only a partial list: coat hangers, curtain rods, garden hoses, glass cocktail stirrers, telephone wires, nut picks, knitting needles, chopsticks, bicycle pumps, phonograph needles, Lysol, bleach, glycerine, kerosene, vinegar, and potassium permanganate corrosive tablets. Women have also tried swallowing massive doses of castor oil, quinine, and turpentine. Do we really want to go back to amateur hour in the clinic? Below is an example of the medieval “Chastity Belt”, another alternative? From China, liquid mercury was ingested to produce an abortion, with certain after effects documented. birth control_liquid_mercury Mother, without resources to feed her child, placing it in a “Depository” in mid-19th century Paris. Though such children were spared untended lives on the street, later they were “rented out” to mines and factories to repay their keep. Sarah B. Hrdy, professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, and the author of “Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species,” wrote that the issues touched on in the abortion debate run deep: Nature provides myriad examples of species where males attempt to control who females mate with and when. Among primates, male coercion of females has evolved many times and is expressed in many different ways. Over the course of human history, Hrdy continued, some of these ancient impulses have become enshrined in patriarchal ideologies. This helps explain why the most extreme efforts to curtail female reproductive autonomy today are primarily funded by groups linked to Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, Islamic and other belief systems with deep patriarchal roots. If, as Hrdy argues, anti-abortion legislation is part of the male “attempt to control who females mate with and when,” why are roughly equal numbers of men and women opposed to abortion? Her answer: From Ancient Greece, Ching dynasty China, Victorian England to the American South, the trick has been to convince women that conforming to patriarchal ideals, being chaste, or modest, veiling one’s face, whatever, are in her interests in terms of her security, marriageability, and especially in the interest of her children, particularly sons. When the social status of their families and especially that of their offspring, depends on their “virtue,” women have an obvious stake in complying as well as in advertising their compliance. Supporting the “right” political candidates can be just one more way of doing that. Deprived of her “virtue”, unwed mother and child abandoned to their fate, revealed as spring melted the mound of snow–their final resting place in 1840s England. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Measles virus, (Rubeola), like its cousin German Measles, (Rubella) can cause pregnancy complications, swelling of the brain, pneumonia. Extremely contagious. AUGUST 24, 2018 (Thanks to Cornell University Alliance for Science) new study showing that Russian-linked trolls and social media bots have been heavily promoting misinformation on vaccines shows just how far Putin’s government is prepared to go in its worldwide effort to sow mistrust and division. The study follows rapidly on the heels of earlier reports that Russian-owned media sites had been among the most prominent proponents of anti-GMO stories and memes, again aiming to undermine scientific consensus and public trust in academic institutions. Both anti-vaccine and anti-GMO groups appeal to prejudices against modern science and conspiracy thinking to spread fear and misinformation. Like the tobacco lobby of old, doubt itself is their product. Anti-vaccine myths have already led to a resurgence in preventable diseases such as measles, and increased numbers of child deaths in many countries. Many anti-GMO groups and anti-vaxxers are closely linked, such as US Right to Know (USRTK), which is funded by the Organic Consumers Association – whose anti-vaccine campaign in Minnesota has been linked with renewed disease outbreaks there in immigrant communities. Perhaps the most prominent anti-vaccination advocate in the United State is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also advocates against GMOs. Indeed, he led the case against glyphosate (widely seen as a proxy for the war on GMOs) which led to the recent judgment against Monsanto in a California court. The Russian government is clearly determined to spread anti-scientific memes and conspiracy theories in order to help its objective of sowing distrust of “Western” science and democratic systems. But why would Putin support these anti-science campaigns? Russia’s strategy is utterly cynical as well as being unabashedly authoritarian. Putin knows that people are not inclined to believe his untruths – so his main aim is to undermine the whole concept of truth more broadly. The rationale goes as follows: “No, you can’t believe me. But you can’t believe anyone – everyone lies!” The idea is to undermine trust throughout democratic societies in order to justify resurgent authoritarianism in Russia and elsewhere. Unfortunately, this misinformation seems to go with the populist tide of the times. Populist movements of both far left and far right have been supported by Russia, and often tend to spout anti-scientific views. Italy’s new populist, anti-immigrant government has backed away from mandatory vaccination of children, while Russia itself has made great play of being “GMO-free”and banning genetically modified crops and products throughout the country. Populists often rage against “elites” and dismiss the idea of expertise in preference for “man on the street” common wisdom. This is fertile ground for anti-science campaigns, because scientific consensus depends on the informed views of experts. President Trump, Vladimir Putin’s number one fan, has staked his whole approach on using notions of “fake news” and attacks on the freedom of the press in order to justify his own constant lies and distortions. Trump has also tweeted misinformed notions about vaccines causing autism, and – along with much of the Republican party – denies the reality of human-caused climate change, on the basis of a conspiracy theory that global warming is a “hoax” invented by China. All these memes depend on the cavalier dismissal of scientific evidence on the basis that it is the view of “intellectual elites” and therefore of no value. This wider cultural and political climate is perhaps why Russia’s efforts to sow further discord and mistrust seem to have been so successful. So what can the pro-science community do? Speaking up and getting out on the streets is important, as the March for Science has shown. But in my view it is equally important to bear the wider context in mind: the fight against misinformation on vaccines, GMOs and climate change is part of a wider battle for truth and for democracy — battles that we cannot afford to lose. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment The child separation policy now in effect (2018) for those families who, for whatever reason, entered the United States illegally, has an interesting precedent. Not exactly surprising, since President 45 seems curiously enamored with Putin’s Russia. Vladimir Putin’s path to power started on the bottom rung of the promotion track of the old Soviet KGB, renamed the FSB, but retaining most features of its predecessor as well as its first incarnation, the NKVD under first Lenin, then Stalin/Beria. The text of official orders of the NKVD regarding children of “class enemy” prisoners, some 18 million of which either died in “concentration camps” known as Gulags, or were released eventually to miserable settlements in Mongolia and Siberia which they were forbidden to leave on penalty of death, are quoted below. The novel and film: “Dr. Zhivago” was based on experiences of those caught up in the coils of the Soviet system, and featured a young mother losing her child when attracting the attention of the NKVD. First, they were almost all arrested for the alleged crimes of their husbands or fathers. Communist officials saw women as just another means of punishing men, rather than as individuals with distinct identities. One of the few ways for a woman to avoid arrest alongside her husband was, perversely, to accuse him of treason before anyone else did. Signed by the head of the NKVD on August 14, 1937, Operational Order of the Secret Police No. 00486, “About the Repression of Wives of Traitors of the Motherland and the Placement of Their Children,” stated: Women married to husbands at the time of their arrest are to be arrested with the exception of … wives who provide information that leads to their husband’s arrest… The wives of traitors are to be imprisoned… no less than five to eight years. Children… are to be placed in orphanages of the ministry of health in other locations. That brings us to the second horror unique to women’s persecution. Upon a mother’s arrest, the Soviet system declared her children orphans and sent them as far away as possible. After regaining freedom a woman would often never learn of their fate. In the state-run orphanages, children of traitors and class enemies faced social stigma. They were taught to feel shame and loathing for their parents. Despite the scrubbed faces of the children pictured, probably assembled for the Soviet version of Catherine (the “Great’s”) “Potemkin Village” presentations of the starved and miserable serfs of Czarist Russia to the Empress and her retinue, mortality as the years went by approached 95% among separated children. The cause was that apparently no resources were made available to the program, forcing the barely clad, filthy and starving children out to forage for themselves. Abuse by the barely paid staff (where there was any) was horrendous. The situation of “Anna”, love child of Lara and Dr. Zhivago in the novel and film, in which she was discovered in adulthood as a laundry worker, would have been exceptional. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow In 1935, Nazi Germany passed two radically discriminatory pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. Together, these were known as the Nuremberg Laws, and they laid the legal groundwork for the persecution of Jewish people during the Holocaust and World War II. When the Nazis set out to legally disenfranchise and discriminate against Jewish citizens, they weren’t just coming up with ideas out of thin air. They closely studied the laws of another country. According to James Q. Whitman, author of Hitler’s American Model, that country was the United States. “America in the early 20th century was the leading racist jurisdiction in the world,” says Whitman, who is a professor at Yale Law School. “Nazi lawyers, as a result, were interested in, looked very closely at, [and] were ultimately influenced by American race law.” In particular, Nazis admired the Jim Crow-era laws that discriminated against black Americans and segregated them from white Americans, and they debated whether to introduce similar segregation in Germany. Yet they ultimately decided that it wouldn’t go far enough. “One of the most striking Nazi views was that Jim Crow was a suitable racist program in the United States because American blacks were already oppressed and poor,” he says. “But then in Germany, by contrast, where the Jews (as the Nazis imagined it) were rich and powerful, it was necessary to take more severe measures.” Because of this, Nazis were more interested in how the U.S. had designated Native Americans, Filipinos and other groups as non-citizens even though they lived in the U.S. or its territories. These models influenced the citizenship portion of the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and classified them as “nationals.” A copy of the Nazi-issued Nuremberg Laws. (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images) But a component of the Jim Crow era that Nazis did think they could translate into Germany were anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited interracial marriages in 30 of 48 states. “America had, by a wide margin, the harshest law of this kind,” Whitman says. “In particular, some of the state laws threatened severe criminal punishment for interracial marriage. That was something radical Nazis were very eager to do in Germany as well.” The idea of banning Jewish and Aryan marriages presented the Nazis with a dilemma: How would they tell who was Jewish and who was not? After all, race and ethnic categories are socially constructed, and interracial relationships produce offspring who don’t fall neatly into one box. Again, the Nazis looked to America. “Connected with these anti-miscegenation laws was a great deal of American jurisprudence on how to classify who belonged to which race,” he says. Controversial “one-drop” rules stipulated that anyone with any black ancestry was legally black and could not marry a white person. Laws also defined what made a person Asian or Native American, in order to prevent these groups from marrying whites (notably, Virginia had a “Pocahontas Exception” for prominent white families who claimed to be descended from Pocahontas). The Nuremberg Laws, too, came up with a system of determining who belonged to what group, allowing the Nazis to criminalize marriage and sex between Jewish and Aryan people. Rather than adopting a “one-drop rule,” the Nazis decreed that a Jewish person was anyone who had three or more Jewish grandparents. Which means, as Whitman notes, “that American racial classification law was much harsher than anything the Nazis themselves were willing to introduce in Germany.” It should come as no surprise then, that the Nazis weren’t uniformly condemned in the U.S. before the country entered the war. In the early 1930s, American eugenicists welcomed Nazi ideas about racial purity and republished their propaganda. American aviator Charles Lindbergh, a public admirer of Adolf Hitler’s, received a swastika medal (pictured below) from Nazi leader in 1938. Once the U.S. entered the war, it took a decidedly anti-Nazi stance. But black American troops noticed the similarities between the two countries, and confronted them head-on with a “Double V Campaign.” It’s goal? Victory abroad against the Axis powers—and victory at home against Jim Crow double v campaign Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment CARTOONIST UNDERSTOOD TYRANTS AND BUFFOONS–Why is the U.S. in 2018 unable to understand tyrants and buffoons in our political system? It may seem scarcely believable today, but the British foreign secretary then (1939, before Britain formally entered WWII) personally met the cartoonist and told him to tone it down on Hitler. Low, a staunch socialist with a liberal humanitarian ideal, refused. His reply was: ‘..it’s my duty as a journalist to report matters faithfully and in my own medium I have to speak the truth. And I think this man is awful. ‘ He continued to skewer the Fuehrer. After Hitler’s defeat it came to be known that he had put the cartoonist’s name high on his kill list, should Germany have defeated and occupied Britain, a nearly realized ambition of Hitler. But what was it about his cartoons that got to Hitler? This is what Low himself felt: “No dictator is inconvenienced or even displeased by cartoons showing his terrible person stalking through blood and mud. That is the kind of idea about himself that a power-seeking world-beater would want to propagate. It not only feeds his vanity, but unfortunately it shows profitable returns in an awed world. What he does not want to get around is the idea that he is an ass, which is really damaging.I shall always remember Hitler.. not as the majestic, monstrous myth of his propaganda build-up, but as the sissy who whined to the British Foreign Office about his dignity when I ran him for a while as a comic strip.” He portrayed Hitler no as a villain but as a buffoon, and that really hurt the man’s vanity. 'Very Well, Alone': Sir David Low's Evening Standard cartoon from June 1940, after the German invasion of France ‘Very Well, Alone’: Sir David Low’s Evening Standard cartoon from June 1940, after the German invasion of France. Because of the “America First” movement and Hitler/Mussolini enthusiasts in the U.S., it took until December 7, 1941 for our country to enter the war against Hitler. Delay cost millions of lives on every side. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment TANTRUM THEATER in the White House ‘Throwing tantrums for 72 years’: Trump biographer explains how the president bungled his business deals Researcher and biographer Michael D’Antonio walked through the decades of bungled “deals,” that President Donald Trump had while negotiating in New York. To make matters worse, he thinks this might be the first time Trump has had to go up against a powerful woman. “There’s a huge difference between the deals that Donald Trump used to be involved with and deals involving national security and federal employees and hundreds of thousands of people,” remarked CNN reporter and sometimes host Dana Bash. D’Antonio agreed, noting that Trump came up with this “walk away” negotiation tactic, but it hasn’t actually worked in the past. “I think in his past, the president actually lost a billion dollar deal on the Upper West Side when he made Ed Koch angry at him,” the biographer told Anderson Cooper Wednesday. “And the mayor wasn’t going to go along with this television city project that had real potential. He did this also with the United States Football League where all the other owners wound up being really angry. Because he pushed something beyond what was constructive.” When it came to Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, D’Antonio thinks Trump is in over his head. “As I’ve been watching this, I’ve been thinking about the fact that this is a man who has been having tantrums for 72 years,” he continued. “You know, and what Nancy Pelosi is doing is what a good mother does. She doesn’t give in to the kid having a tantrum. Chuck Schumer may not have that impulse because maybe he wasn’t as active a parent as Nancy Pelosi has been. But the last thing you do is give a who’s having a tantrum what he wants. I think this is perplexing the president. I think he’s met his match in Mrs. Pelosi.” Indeed, Pelosi is the mother to five children and grandmother. Dealing with children isn’t a foreign concept to her. “It doesn’t matter what people are saying to him,” Dana Bash, CNN’s chief congressional correspondent said. “It’s what he believes and he is firmly confident that this is the right thing to do for him politically. And that’s what a Republican senator who was in the private meeting with him told me today. It’s not that he is necessarily arguing that it’s the right thing to do for national security although he has said that. That he is in a good place politically and that is what is really rankling a lot of people and helping to entrench the Democrats because they see believes this is a political interrogative for him.” D’Antonio also noted that this is the first time that he can think of where Trump has been forced to go up against a powerful woman and it’s likely difficult for him. He said that people should probably be looking more to Trump’s emotions and personality rather than strategy. Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment As we enter the 2018 Christmas season, it is worth noting that something like a quarter of a billion persons around the world have nothing which can be described as a “home”, no matter how humble. Queen Victoria, when advised that a large part of the urban population of India, then a part of the British Empire, was homeless, responded by ordering colonial authorities to provide a blanket to each person so identified. Britain’s industrial cities, along with London, also had thousands of homeless persons overwhelming the charities tasked with serving them. They didn’t get blankets supplied by royal edict, despite Britain’s brutal weather, press reports on their plight and conspicuous presence, walking distance from Buckingham Palace. John Quincy Adams, President from 1824-1828, was ambassador to Britain from 1815-1817. He was mortified by the extremes of opulence and want he encountered there. He recorded in his diaries the sight of starving beggars who appeared by night at the doors of country estates, who had to be carted away, dead or alive, by the groundskeepers in the morning. homeless in Victorian London The Bible story which forms the foundation of the Christmas observance is based on the plight of humble travelers seeking refuge. One innkeeper, taking pity on them, offered them his establishment’s stable for the night with the explanation that there was “no room at the inn”. It’s hard to imagine that persons can celebrate Christmas while ignoring the key element in the foundation story. Besides our own resident homeless population, another group whose plight is hard to ignore presses itself against our southern border. Not even a stable to shelter them. It’s not surprising that migrants piling up at our borders are, because of the actions of Trump, finding themselves unwelcome in Mexican border cities ill-equipped to host them. The Trump and Kushner real estate empires were created by clever strategies to force low-income tenants and homeowners out in order to free up space for luxury developments. Similar tactics, for the same reason, are used by Russian Oligarchs to force tenants from basic, but cheap, Soviet era housing, spiced up in Russia with occasional “unsolved” murders of stubborn occupants.Trump as Uncle Sam Above, an example of Trump’s portrait on his “wall”. It is clear to our southern neighbors that a “wall” high enough to display Trump’s portrait to viewers miles away on both sides is the eventual goal of our President, forever sealing contact with families already in the U.S. It’s no wonder then that many in Central America rushed to try to plead their cases at our borders before the “wall” in its various iterations, was in place. Having been a part of the international back-packing mob of young people testing their limits in the 1950s and 60s around the world, there were plenty of times when “you can’t stay here” cropped up in the various languages encountered along the way. Countering that were vastly more greeting us, especially when we pitched in to harvest and fill needs unfilled due to the deaths of millions just a few years before in WWII, in exchange for a dry place to sleep and a seat at a humble table. Those gleefully, in pursuit of profit, evicting, excluding and consigning to lifetime misery the poor among us and beyond our borders will no doubt enjoy their holiday bounty in the coming season. I pity them, don’t you? Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Trump and Quisling, a comparison — Sasha Abramsky Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment John Adams’ Thesis ARE THE ITEMS BELOW THE POISONOUS POTION? Genie page Categories: History, Science and Biography \| Leave a comment Blog at WordPress.com.
Blowback vs Recoil Operated There seems to be a misunderstanding of the similarities and the differences between these two basic designs. so I thought I might be able to clear up some of it. First, let’s look at what recoil is and where it comes from…what causes recoil. Recoil is the reaction side of an action-reaction event. Newton’s 3rd Law states that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. You can bring recoil into play by simply throwing a baseball, but for this discussion, we’ll just stick with guns. We all know recoil as the backward movement of a gun when it’s fired. No mistaking it. But, what is recoil in the context of a recoil operated autoloading firearm? Simple. The recoil impetus is used to drive the breechbolt backward. In the auto pistol, we call this breechbolt the “slide” which is the heart of the auto pistol’s function. There are pistols that operate on a simple blowback or “straight” blowback principle, and there are those that operate on the locked breech, recoil operated principle which I prefer to call unlocked breech and locked breech blowback, respectively…and the locked breech pistol is more accurately described as a Delayed Blowback, but that’s meat for another discussion. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll stick to these two basic designs. Back to Newton’s Action and Reaction. An action-reaction system is comprised of two interacting objects…or reactive masses…and a vectored force between them..actually two forces. A force forward and a force backward. These two forces are of equal magnitude and they occur at the same instant. Just as there cannot be an action without a reaction, there cannot be a force forward without a force backward. So, let’s start by describing a straight blowback operation. We have a barrel and a breechblock/slide. We have a cartridge. When the propellant in the cartridge case burns, it creates expanding gases which result in pressure which creates a force. Force forward and force backward. Force forward drives the bullet and force backward drives the slide. And there it is. I just described recoil…and this is often where the arguments start. “It’s NOT recoil! It’s blowback! Recoil operated is different!” How is it different? With a locked breech/recoil operated pistol, you have a barrel and a slide and a cartridge and you have the same series of events that occur when you pull the trigger. How does anything change just because the cartridge is fired in a locked breech pistol? Force forward still drives the bullet and force backward still drives the slide. Let’s look at what this guy had to say about it. About a year ago, Walter Kulek sent me an enhanced copy of the 1911 patents that were infinitely easier to read…so I sat down and actually read them for the first time…and I ran across this description. Patented Feb. 14, 1911. Application filed February 17, 1910. Inventor J.M.BrowningThis specification signed and witnessed this 1st day of February, A. D. 1910. In the presence of – A.L. Ulrich. K. Powers. It is essential for the proper operation of firearms of this class that the breech-bolt and the parts connected and moving with it should be made as heavy as practicable, so that it may store a maximum amount of energy in the short time during which on firing the rearward pressure of the powder gases in the barrel acts upon the breech-bolt and initiates its recoil, and so that the breech-bolt may continue to recoil under its momentum alone to complete the opening of the breech and the compression of the reaction-spring after the gas–pressure has ceased because relieved by the exit of the bullet from the barrel. And, then a little further down…in case there’s any confusion as to how the barrel moves backward…and there often is. On firing, the breech-slide recoils and carries the barrel rearward until the rear end of the same, swinging rearward and downward on the link and pivot-pins, becomes unlocked from the breech-slide. Now, if we didn’t know better, we’d think that the first paragraph was describing a straight blowback operation, and it actually could be correctly used to do that…except it’s describing the 1911 and the 1911 is a locked breech pistol. So, unless someone wants to go on record stating that John Browning was an idiot who didn’t understand his own creation, we’re left with one conclusion. At the end of the day…whether we’re talking about locked breech or unlocked breech/blowback…it’s an action and a reaction from force forward and force backward. They’re BOTH recoil operated and they’re both blown back. The only difference..the ONLY difference…is in the method used to delay the breech opening until the bullet has exited and pressures drop to safe levels. , , , , , No comments yet. Leave a Reply
What is Selenium? Get acquainted (gain, obtain) with present-day techniques that came from Selenium Selenium is a rare and essential mineral that offers a wide range of healing properties such as protection against certain heart diseases, boosts the immune system, maximizes thyroid function, reduces inflammation, prevents cancer, reduces the signs of premature aging, and protects against antibodies. Buddies increase hair health and hormone balance. Selenium is an organic substance that is mainly derived from soil, water and plant materials. It is clear that humans obtain this substance mostly through plant sources. Selenium is considered a non-metallic substance. Although large amounts of selenium are toxic, proper consumption is essential for specific cellular functions. That’s why you should include selenium-rich plants in your dietIt is important for maintaining the overall health of the body. This substance was discovered by chance in the early nineteenth century. Most people thought it was toxic to humans because factory workers who were exposed to large amounts of selenium were often sick. It was later found that this substance is very essential for humans and animals. Some great sources of selenium include whole grains, legumes, nuts, mushrooms, meat, fish and eggs. It is also found in all animals, tuna, crabs and sea crabs. Brazil nuts are the richest source of selenium . Nuts need selenium to maintain their function, but they store large amounts of it. The health benefits of selenium are being researched, but here are some of its well-known benefits. Cancer prevention: As mentioned above, selenium is an essential substance for most cellular processes. These processes involve the body’s response to carcinogenic activity. Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases in the world and in most cases it still remains untreated. Studies show that a balanced intake of selenium can greatly reduce the formation of cancer cells, especially in the prostate; Have lungs and intestines. Selenium is an essential substance in most enzymatic activities that can stimulate apoptosis. Free radicals, a byproduct of cellular metabolism, can lead to cancer and DNA damage. Selenium helps repair DNA and prevents cancer. Finally, glutathione superoxide (an important anti-cancer compound in the body) uses selenium for its activities. Antibodies and immune system health: Studies show that selenium is important in stimulating antibodies, which are elements of the immune system and can destroy viral, bacterial, fungal and protozoan foreign bodies. Selenium is very useful in stimulating these antibodies. After being vaccinated for a specific disease, using selenium can make your body more resilient. In addition to boosting the immune system, selenium also has anti-inflammatory properties. Studies show that selenium is very useful in reducing the oxidative stress that often occurs around joints and bones. By reducing inflammation in vital parts of the body, you can live an active, healthy, and pain-free life. Thyroid health: The thyroid gland is one of the most important and influential glands when it comes to the endocrine system and the regulation of hormones in the body. Studies show that selenium is an essential compound for the thyroid gland and helps regulate the amount of hormones secreted by the thyroid gland. T3 hormone is one of the most important products of the thyroid gland and controls the speed of the body’s overall metabolism. Without selenium, the hormone T3 cannot be produced, which is very harmful to the body. Also read: 5 ways to regulate the thyroid normally heart health: Selenium acts as a blood thinner and reduces the risk of blood clots in the arteries. It can also greatly reduce the level of bad cholesterol in the blood. This cholesterol accumulates in the arteries and veins, causing cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack and more. Therefore, selenium is a powerful substance for human heart health. Dandruff and hair health: Although research is not yet sure about this condition, most people believe that a balanced intake of selenium can reduce hair loss and prevent dandruff. Precautions and warnings: Selenium poisoning is as dangerous as its deficiency in the body. So be careful about how much selenium you eat in your diet. Symptoms of selenium poisoning include bad breath (like garlic), indigestion, fatigue; Irritability, difficulty concentrating, liver cirrhosis, pulmonary edema and even death. Avoid supplements if you have a selenium-rich diet.
Raytheon has developed the world’s largest infrared light-wave detector to expand current enhance capabilities in environmental monitoring, astronomical research and missile warning. The detector designed for space applications, is four times larger than the existing infrared detectors and can capture data from a wider field of view with more sensitivity. The largest ever 4K-by-4K focal plane array has 16 million pixels, arranged in 4,096 rows and columns. A focal plane array captures packets of light waves (photons) and converts them to electrical impulses that can be used to produce data about the object that emitted the photons. The area it can survey is proportionate to the number of pixels on the array. Raytheon Space Systems vice-president Bill Hart said the breakthrough in focal-plane technology will clear the way for significant design improvements in a range of military and civil applications. “When employed as part of a satellite sensor system, the 4K-by-4K will permit full-Earth hemisphere staring with a single focal plane array,” Hart said. The infrared detector will enable the weather satellites to provide continuous detailed information about global storms, and aid in detecting infrared phenomena from larger distances than previously possible. Space-based missile warning will benefit from the large format focal plane array since sensors equipped with this technology will provide an unblinking eye over an entire hemisphere and detect dimmer events or objects quicker than current systems. Further, the sensors using the array would not need the traditional complex scanning mechanisms for covering wide fields of view and will be easier to design, build and test.
Why are some companies successful, while so many other businesses fail? Some organizations may just be lucky, but success based solely on luck probably will not last. For an organization to have sustained success, it must stay competitive in the market; it simply cannot survive without effectively differentiating itself from its competitors. What sets your organization apart from your adversaries? A winning strategy will enable you to take on the market, maximize performance, and boost profitability. In this course, you will work through key activities in the strategy formulation process. First, you will investigate what a good strategy is, how to think like a strategist, and how to identify the foundations of your firm's strategies. You will then analyze the broad and operating environments. A broad environmental analysis forms the context in which the firm and its operating environment exist, as stakeholders also have the potential to exert influence over strategy formulation. Crafting a successful strategy includes the consideration of your organization's internal environment to determine what resources, capabilities, and strengths can be leveraged or developed to form future strategies. Organizations work to create advantage through the development of resources and capabilities. Toward the end of your learning experience, you'll have an opportunity to identify patterns that exist between your internal and external factors, and you will devise possible strategies. Formulating an effective strategy requires that an organization ask the right questions and then answer them thoughtfully and thoroughly. This course raises and helps you answer some of the most critical interrelated questions, such as: How does my company choose the right strategies to define where and how we will compete? What is my firm's vision and mission? How does my firm create value? You will begin by exploring the importance of direction setting in the strategy formulation process. You will then examine general business-level strategies focused on creating value, such as cost advantage and differentiation, by answering how your firm competes at the level of the hotel or business unit. In addition, you will examine corporate strategies like diversification, concentration, and vertical integration, which help organizations answer the question of where to compete in related and unrelated industries. Given that no two strategies are alike, you will classify both business and corporate strategies into common strategic characteristics to help you better identify your own organization's competitive positioning, as well as those of the competitors. What's more, you will explore the structure of an industry as the definition of industries and the competitive playing field continue to evolve and change. It is recommended to only take this course if you have completed “Fundamentals of Hospitality Strategy” or have equivalent experience. You've worked tirelessly to create an effective strategy that takes into account your organization's mission and vision and any related risk factors, as well as the competitive landscape in which you operate. Now what? Implementation is the crucial next step in this process, but there can be many pitfalls along the way. This course will provide you with the tools to recognize why strategic implementation can fail; how you can create an organizational structure and culture that will support and fit with your overarching strategic goals; and how to establish systems, measures, and incentives to effectively implement your strategy. You will complete this course with an action plan in hand that will enable you to confidently lead the implementation of your strategy in your organization. It is recommended to only take this course if you have completed “Fundamentals of Hospitality Strategy” and “Formulating Hospitality Strategy,” or have equivalent experience. Advancing to a more senior leadership role requires a specific set of skills. Senior leaders must shift away from tactical oversight into a more strategic and visionary role. This transition does not occur naturally and is often not a part of standard professional training, development, or onboarding. The ability to adapt to this mindset is crucial and can lead to the success or failure of an individual and/or their team. In this course, current and potential leaders will be guided through this transition by Kate Walsh, Professor and Dean of the School of Hotel Administration, as she shares her professional expertise and research. Learners will create a personal leadership strategy and build a professional network within their organization to prepare and further their roles in the organization. The Advanced Hospitality Strategy Capstone, part of the Cornell Professional Development Program, is the on-campus component that results in the completion of your advanced certificate. It takes place at the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, NY, at the renowned School of Hotel Administration. Over four intensive days, you will tackle strategic management challenges and collaborate with a network of peers to expand the foundation of your hospitality knowledge. Days 1 and 2: Creating Sustainable Innovation Innovation: It's a hot topic these days, and there is a plethora of information regarding how to transform, change, or revolutionize your company. Many in the hospitality industry find the application of technology and product innovation methodologies just won't work for service-based companies. In this two-day intensive, you will learn what it takes to create and execute sustainable service-based innovation programs. This is a hands-on, workshop-based session that will give you a clear path to innovation. Days 3 and 4: Using Financial Tools for Strategic Value Creation Over these two days, you will explore how to bridge the gap between business strategy and operational performance. You will focus on value creation from the perspective of the hotel operator, with the expectation that getting the most value out of the individual business units will, over time, aid in the company's goal of value maximization. Considerable time will also be spent understanding and managing issues arising between the owner and the operator regarding their expectations and goals for the hotel. How It Works Request Information Now
What Are Windows Hosts Files? A hosts file is a list of computer names and their associated IP addresses. Hosts files are used by Microsoft Windows and other network operating systems as an optional means to redirect TCP/IP traffic in special circumstances. These files are not required to use ordinary network and internet applications. Also Known As: HOSTS What Hosts Files Are Used For The two common reasons for an individual to set up a hosts file are: 1. To prevent access to undesirable web servers (such as those offering tacky advertising or inappropriate content) 2. To set up private, easy-to-remember "shortcut" names for servers on a local network In Windows, the hosts file is a simple text file typically named hosts (or occasionally, hosts.sam). It is normally located in the system32\drivers\etc folder. Linux, Mac and other operating systems each follow a similar approach but with different conventions for naming and locating the hosts file. A hosts file is designed to be edited by a computer administrator, knowledgeable user, or automated script program. Computer hackers may also attempt to modify your hosts file, which has the effect of redirecting requests intended for standard websites to other locations illicitly.
Written by Jo Woolf, RSGS Writer-in-Residence Following on from our recent The Geographer magazine on Active Travel, our Writer-in-Residence has produced three blogs about explorers who favoured human-powered adventures... Mary Kingsley In July 1895, Mary Kingsley was in Gabon, preparing to set off on foot into what she called the ‘Great Forest’. For several days she had journeyed by canoe up the Ogowé river, drifting warily past ranks of sleeping hippos and watching in awe as parties of elephants bathed in mud pools. Accompanied by a small band of African guides and interpreters, she struck out through the rainforest, admiring the huge buttressed trunks of giant trees and gazing up at the dark canopy that rose hundreds of feet above her head. Swamps and rivers had to be crossed; Mary was distrustful of rope-bridges ever since she got herself “wound up like a buzzing fly in a spider’s web” on one of them, so when she saw a tree that had fallen across a steep ravine she chose to walk across that instead, even though it was dangerously smooth and rounded. As for the swamps, she summoned her courage and waded in, taking her turn to go first and navigate through the black slime, while the others followed. One of Mary’s reasons for marching through such inhospitable terrain was to meet African tribespeople and study their customs, which she succeeded in doing; but she had other ambitions too, and in September of that year she decided to climb Mount Cameroon. Because it was the rainy season, the trek through the foothills was especially challenging. She wrote: “The whole Atlantic could not get more water on to me than I have already got. Ever and again I stop and wring out some of it from my skirts, for it is weighty.” She camped for several days en route; the scorching sun, combined with a bitterly cold wind, chapped her face and lips, but she marshalled the spirits of her little party and after a series of early morning starts she was standing triumphantly on the lower of the mountain’s two peaks. Mount Cameroon (c) Wellcome Images To the north she saw a vivid rainbow, the lower end of it moored in a sea of mist. As she watched, the mist rose and flowed towards her, turning rose-pink and then lavender as it caught the shadow of the mountain. Soon it was at her feet, blotting out everything around her. “It was like a vision, and it held me spellbound, as I stood shivering on the rocks with the white mist around my knees…” The increasing cold brought her to her senses, however, and she scrambled quickly down the wall of the summit crater to rejoin her companions. Her ascent of the higher peak (13,250 feet) was done in such appallingly wet weather that she was robbed of the panoramic views she had been longing for; but a few days later, as her clothes were finally drying in front of a fire, she was philosophical: “I dare say a friend of mine who told me that near Victoria he had struck his umbrella into the ground one evening, and found in the morning it was growing leaves all up its stick, was overstating the facts of the case; still, if the incident could happen anywhere it would be in this region.” (‘Travels in West Africa’, 1897) Mary Kingsley spoke for RSGS in 1896 in Edinburgh, her first ever public lecture. Part 1 Part 3
Share, , Google Plus, Pinterest, Posted in: Grass Compost. Natures Secret For A Flourishing Garden The best organic fertilizer comes from your garden. Don’t throw out the grass. If managed properly, grass can be the answer to your composting problems. With a little effort and care, you can keep the grass from rotting. All you have to do is take a few precautionary measures to succeed in your goal of making the perfect compost heap. When you trim your lawn, allow the blades of grass to fall on the lawn. Your lawn mower can do it for you if you make a slight alteration. Detach the grass catcher and mow your lawn as you usually do. The grass automatically falls out wherever it’s been cut. Ensure that the mower blade is sharp and the grass is absolutely dry before you begin your operation, else the lawn mower will get clogged. You now have your own natural fertilizer. This process is known as grasscycling. It is economical and saves you the time and bother of clearing the grass or putting the blades of grass into bags. However, this strategy may not be viable if you have toddlers and pets. If you wish to do things in a more conservative way rather than resort to grasscycling, here’s how you go about making an effective grass compost heap. Fresh mown grass contains moisture and is rich in nitrogen. There is a tendency for the moist grass to stick together, thus preventing the oxygen from penetrating. If you simply pile up the grass, it will turn slimy and rot. The smell is offensive, to say the least. The best way to prevent the grass from caking up is to layer it with materials that have high carbon content. These browns comprise leaves, twigs or wood chips. These are placed in between the layers of grass and give the heap a looseness that allows the oxygen to penetrate. In order to help the oxygen circulate, it would be wise to aerate the pile by turning the contents over, frequently. You don’t want the heap to turn into a slimy, putrid mass! If you have more grass than other materials, you should avoid stacking up the grass to form one huge unmanageable pile that could go bad simply because of the abundance of grass. You could have many piles that are easier to manage. When you regularly turn each over through the summer, you will notice them turn into compost at which time you could lessen the number of piles by combining them. If space is your constraint and you find it difficult to manage a number of heaps at once, dry the newly cut grass in the sun. Spread the grass anywhere in your yard and allow it to sun-bake the whole day. Once the moisture and the sourness go out of it, you can start your compost heap. The one thing to avoid is to have chemically treated grass on your compost heap. In case you have used pesticides or herbicides to promote grass growth on your lawn, don’t cut the grass for fertilizer, unless a good shower of rain has washed the residue out. Adding lime to the heap of grass for compost is a good idea to hasten the breaking down process. This is also the surest way to prevent mold formation, which is responsible for the foul smell. With these tips, you could make your own fertilizer out of grass clippings. Not only is the method economical but it also gives you a sense of achievement when you see your garden flourish. Worms Composting
affront meaning in hindi Pronunciation of affront affront in Images affront Definitions and meaning in English 1. a deliberately offensive act or something producing the effect of an affront 2. an insult 1. treat, mention, or speak to rudely 2. insult or involve in entanglement affront Sentences in English 1. अपमान = insult His speech was an affront to all decent members of the community. 2. अपमानित करना = hurt He affronted her with his rude remarks. Tags: affront meaning in hindi, affront ka matalab hindi me, hindi meaning of affront, affront meaning dictionary. affront in hindi. Translation and meaning of affront in English hindi dictionary. Provided by a free online English hindi picture dictionary.
What does the word Reticular lamina mean? Each person working in the medical industry sometimes needs to know how to define a word from medical terminology. For example - how to explain Reticular lamina? Here you can see the medical definition for Reticular lamina. Medical-dictionary.cc is your online dictionary, full of medical definitions.
613-416-9512 sales@algorank.ca What is machine learning? The following article explores the basic concept of machine learning and what it means to companies in general, and how it can benefit your company in particular. Machine learning is the study of machine algorithms that improve automatically in response to experience. It is often described as a sub-set of artificial intelligence (AI). However, machine learning does not relate itself to AI and instead is an approach to computer science to create software applications that are capable of performing a wide variety of tasks independently of human intervention. For many years, researchers have been using machine learning for various purposes and in all sorts of settings. A lot of research was done on the subject back in the 1970s and one area which saw considerable attention was speech recognition. This is where computers are able to recognize individual voices and use that information to understand human speech. There are different types of these systems available today, and a lot of them have come down to the fact that they are able to recognise the words you type in the search engines and deliver the results correctly. They may also be able to search for a particular keyword using the words entered, in a more intelligent way than humans do. This type of system can also be applied to a database. For instance, if you enter the word “motorbike”, then the system will then deliver a range of motorbike related searches, including search for motorbikes. There are many types of uses for machine learning and you will commonly see systems used in areas where people want to perform tasks without requiring human intervention. For example, many companies use this approach to help train their staff. They are able to instruct them to perform certain tasks without actually having to ask them to do it. If it is something they know, then they simply type the phrase in, and they will receive a series of tips, training them to do the task. Another area that has been developed around this concept is healthcare. There are a number of medical professionals who need to know a specific piece of medical knowledge in order to perform a certain task. These individuals may have a medical background but have never been trained in this area. In many ways, this type of system could be useful in any medical profession. Many doctors rely on the knowledge of colleagues or the experiences they’ve had to perform their job, without ever having to ask for help. But this does have a disadvantage: many medical professionals have a vast amount of information which they cannot make sense of. The ability to do this requires that the user has a good understanding of machine learning and the algorithms used. There are a lot of articles written about this topic on the Internet and so there is no shortage of articles that are either supportive of machine learning or against it. In most cases, however, you will probably find that these opinions are quite evenly split between those who favour it and those who do not. One thing that most people do agree on is that machine learning is a relatively new technology, and one that is continually changing. It’s possible to see the development of new technologies coming up as quickly as the development of new software or the release of new versions of software. However, it’s also very likely that there are certain areas which will always remain behind the times, even though new developments may have been made in those areas previously. So, what is machine learning? It is an advanced type of computer programming that is based on the concept of mathematical algorithms and how they work. The idea is that a program can be built using the data from the internet, and this is then used to perform a certain task. This may be based around any of the many areas, such as search engine optimisation. It is very important to understand that these complex algorithms are extremely difficult to understand. This is because there is a great deal of mathematics involved. A large part of what you will learn about machine learning involves the use of formulas and algorithms, and even a basic understanding of mathematics can’t help you understand all of the concepts. As this new system comes along and becomes more popular, it is likely to find its place in many parts of the world. The only way to get a real feel for it is to look it up online, and get as much information about it as possible.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019 Prescription Drugs Essays (381 words) - Pharmaceuticals Policy Prescription Drugs In a recent article, an MNBC correspondent brought up the issue of high prices on prescription drugs. Many of these drugs are special vitamins, as well as supplements that certain peoples bodies lack and need and are forced to buy. This poses a financial problem. If this were to happen in both Canada and the United States, many families in both countries would suffer severely for this medical reason, a reason they shouldn't have to pay for. In some aspects, this is selfish of the government. By leaving these drugs to be overpriced, the government is basically turning a blind eye towards the fact that many of these people are having to spend an extra thousand dollars, maybe an extra thousand dollars they don't have. The prices on these drugs could easily be regulated, but, as stated in the article, the money that these companies receive goes towards research and cures for the treatments these people are receiving. So it comes down to health care. Should the health care system pay for these? While it would solve problems, it would also produce them. People with privatize health care are settled, they put in a certain amount of money each month, and they get these medications along with the system. If a common health care system would pay for these drugs, two things would occur. First, the health cares budget would go down. Not just a little, but it would plummet. Health care coming out of taxes would not be enough, and as a result, taxes would be raised. This is probably the last thing people want. Secondly, many, many people would go away from the deal much richer. Basically, it's like asking for everyone else to pay for their problems. So who's to blame? Nobody, really. You can't say it's a persons fault for being sick and requiring medical help. Also, you can't expect everyone else to pay for them to get better, a lot of people can't afford higher taxes, and it's punishing them. So it is a problem with difficult solutions, but the best solution would be for the government to limit the high prices of these drugs, but at the same time, put more and more money into research for finding a cure for these illnesses. This would solve both problems, and with the budget in both Canada and the United States, this wouldn't pose too many financial problems. Bibliography http://www.msnbc.com/news/245699.asp No comments: Post a Comment
Skip To Content ArcGIS for Developers Sign In Dashboard You will learn: how to build an app to load and display a 3D web scene from ArcGIS Online. In this tutorial, you will build an app that loads and displays a web map. Before you begin Make sure you have installed the latest version of Xcode. Reuse the starter project If you have completed the Create a starter app tutorial, then copy the project into a new empty folder. Otherwise, download and unzip the project solution. Open the .xcodeproj file in Xcode. Run and verify the map displays in the device simulator. Preview the web map 1. Go to the LA Trails and Parks Map to view the map in the Map Viewer. Make note of the id at the end of the URL. Set the app settings 1. Add a new swift file to your Xcode project named AppConfiguration. You will use this to hold configuration constants required by your app. 2. Add the following extension to AppConfiguration.swift. / ADD / extension String { static let trailheads = "41281c51f9de45edaf1c8ed44bb10e30" Add a web map to the map 1. In the ViewController.swift file, update setupMap() to change the way the AGSMap is initialized to reference the web map that was created in the Configure pop-ups design tutorial. Create the web map given its item ID and the portal where it is hosted. / UPDATE / private func setupMap() { // Build Trailheads Item. let trailheadsItem: AGSPortalItem = { let portal = AGSPortal.arcGISOnline(withLoginRequired: false) return AGSPortalItem(portal: portal, itemID: .trailheads) // Set the trailheads web map. = AGSMap(item: trailheadsItem) { (error) in if let error = error { 2. Press Command-R to run the app in the iOS Simulator. (Note, as of 100.8 Runtime supports Metal. In order to run your app in a simulator you must meet some minimum requirements. You must be developing on macOS Catalina, using Xcode 11, and simulating iOS 13.) Congratulations, you're done! Your app should display a map that looks like this. Compare your solution with our completed solution project. Use your web map Instead of using the web map we prepared, use the web map you made in the design tutorial Create a web map. In Step 1 above, replace the itemId variable with the id of your web map. Change your map design Open your web map in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer, make changes to your map design, then save your map. Next time you load that map in your app your changes will be reflected.
• Twitter • RSS UNESCO HIV and Health Education Clearinghouse Search resources The search found 50 results in 0.02 seconds. Search results 1. Safe to Learn: ending violence in and through schools Safe to Learn is a five-year initiative dedicated to ending violence in schools so children are free to learn and pursue their dreams. The initiative's shared vision is to work with governments, civil society organisations, communities, teachers and children themselves to end the violence that undermines education and make sure every child - especially the most marginalized - is Safe to Learn within 5 years. … 2. Ending school-related gender-based violence: a series of thematic briefs This series of briefs summarizes the key learnings to emerge from two regional workshops on approaches to preventing and responding to school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV). The challenges and recommendations highlighted in the publication are relevant to all forms of school violence and form a valuable resource for policy makers and practitioners working in this field. The briefs in this series include 1. Applying a whole school approach to preventing SRGBV; 2. Engaging teachers to create safe and gender-responsive learning environments; 3. … 3. UCT inclusivity policy for sexual orientation 5. An everyday lesson: #ENDviolence in schools 7. Abrazar la diversidad: propuestas para una educación libre de acoso homofóbico y transfóbico 8. Los derechos humanos frente a la violencia institucional Este cuadernillo del Ministerio de Educación de la Nación, dirigido a la comunidad educativa, brinda información para que la ciudadanía conozca sus derechos y sepa cómo hacerlos valer. En la primera sección, se presentan los núcleos centrales de la noción de violencia institucional desde el paradigma de los derechos humanos. En la segunda sección, proponemos un enfoque pedagógico para abordar la temática, algunas orientaciones generales para la intervención educativa y respuestas a preguntas posibles de hacerse desde lo institucional. … 9. School-related gender-based violence webinar This webinar explored tools and approaches for preventing, measuring, monitoring and responding to school-related gender-based violence, based on evidence and country experience. 10. Evaluation of an anti-homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (HB&T) bullying programme Over the last two decades real progress has been made towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGB&T) equality in Britain. Yet, the government acknowledges that too many LGB&T people still face prejudice because of their sexual orientation or gender identity at every stage in their lives. This includes homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (HB&T) bullying in schools, which, despite efforts, remains a problem. Preventing and tackling HB&T bullying in schools is important because it can stop LGB&T people reaching their full potential. … 11. Diversidad sexual e identidad de genero en la educación: aportes para el debate en América Latina y el Caribe El documento abajo intenta presentar una primera aproximación a las respuestas que desde la educación se vienen dando en relación a la orientación sexual y la identidad de género. Por un lado, trata de identificar los desarrollos conceptuales y jurídicos más relevantes en el campo del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos, así como también algunos debates de trascendencia para el campo de la educación. … 12. Global guidance on addressing school-related gender-based violence More than 246 million children are subjected to gender-based violence in or around schools every year. This is a violation of their human rights, and a form of gender-discrimination that has far-reaching physical, psychological and educational consequences. 13. Examples of policies and emerging practices for supporting transgender students The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education compiled the attached examples of policies and emerging practices that some schools are already using to support transgender students. We share some common questions on topics such as school records, privacy, and terminology, and then explain how some state and school district policies have answered these questions. We present this information to illustrate how states and school districts are supporting transgender students. … 14. Stand up for us: Challenging homophobia in schools Stand up for us aims to help schools challenge and respond to homophobia in the context of developing an inclusive, safer and more successful school environment for all. The issues and practical approaches outlined in this resource apply equally to early years settings, primary, secondary and special schools, off-site units and pupil referral units. It is intended for anyone who works in these settings. 15. Guidelines for inclusive education: sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression Evidence from IGLYO’s members as well as research from various countries worldwide has shown a continued need for school systems to implement inclusive policies and activities across Europe. School bullying based on real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression – referred to as homophobic and transphobic bullying - constitutes a violation of the human right to education. … Our mission
Home https://server7.kproxy.com/servlet/redirect.srv/sruj/smyrwpoii/p2/ Science https://server7.kproxy.com/servlet/redirect.srv/sruj/smyrwpoii/p2/ Dinosaurs would have continued to thrive if it weren’t for the asteroid, researchers say After appearing during the Triassic about 230 million years ago, dinosaurs occupied every continent and dominated most of Earth’s ecosystems until they disappeared from the asteroid’s impact 66 million years ago. But researchers at the British University of Bath are hoping to put this theory to bed. Collecting diverse and up-to-date data, the researchers used statistical analysis to assess whether dinosaurs were still able to produce new species until their premature death. “What we’ve found is that dinosaurs are still dominant, still widespread, and still doing really well,” Joe Bonsor said.,, first author of the study, said in a statement. “If the asteroid̵ 7;s impact had never happened, then they might not have disappeared and would have continued after the Cretaceous,” added Bonsor, a PhD student at the Natural History Museum in London and the Milner Center for Evolution at the University of Bath. During their more than 150 million years on earth, dinosaurs evolved to take on many shapes and forms – some dinosaurs were tiny, while others were over 100 feet in size. Experts believe that diversity is the key to their dominance on Earth, with some boasting armor, combs, teeth and even feathers. Previous research suggests that this diversity is beginning to decline and that dinosaurs are beginning to lose their dominance. Why some dinosaurs had such long necks But a study published Tuesday in The Royal Society Open Science claims that earlier research came to this conclusion by modeling dinosaur family trees based on previous fossil recordings. Researchers at the University of Bath say that after looking at a larger group of dinosaurs, their more current and detailed family trees show that dinosaurs on every continent were actually in bloom, with animals eating plants such as hadrosaurs, keratopsis. and ankylosaurs, which dominate North America, and carnivorous abelizaurs continue to thrive in South America. “The basic idea of what we’re saying is that we don’t really have enough data to know one way or another what would happen to dinosaurs,” Bonsor said. “In general, there is a bias in fossil data to lack data, and interpreting these gaps in fossils as an artificial decline in diversification is not what we need to do. Fossils from dinosaur duels suggest that Triceratops, T. rex, may have died after a battle “Instead, we have shown that there is no serious evidence of their extinction and that the only way to know for sure is to fill in the gaps in the fossil record,” he added. Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a paleontologist at Imperial College London who was not involved in the study, told CNN in an email that the study “applies probably the largest set of data on dinosaur evolutionary trees ever and uses in-depth methods to look at levels of dinosaurs.” diversification towards the end of the Mesozoic. “ He noted that the study adds weight to the argument that non-avian dinosaurs thrive, not shrink, before the asteroid hits. “To paraphrase TS Elliott,” Chiarenza said, “that’s the way the dinosaurs ended up, not with a whimper, but with a bang.” Source link
display \| more... In A.D. 1945, war was beginning... World War II ends. In opening moves, the Red Army of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics jockeys with the armed forces of the United States of America and the United Kingdom for position in the former empires of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Despite a self-determination policy established at the Yalta Conference, the Soviets begin instilling communism in Eastern Europe, and supporting communist movements in Asia. George Kennan, writing under the pen name of "X," proposes a strategy of "patient, but firm and vigilant, confinement" of this Soviet Menace, leading to the 1947 Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, which build up the other nations of the Free World, and the National Security Act, which establishes a Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency. The United States continues to hold a monopoly on nuclear weapons until the Soviets explode their first bomb in 1949, officially beginning the arms race to end all arms races. The first shots of the Cold War are fired as the Korean War begins. The United States ends up submitting to the Korean People's Army, who establish North Korea just footsteps away from Seoul. Elsewhere, France is getting bitch-slapped by Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, and the People's Republic of China is threatening to beat the living bejeezus out of Chiang Kai-shek's army in exile in Taiwan. Massive retaliation is the order of the day, and throughout this decade, everyone believes that Armageddon is around the corner. Schoolchildren duck and cover; buildings have fallout shelters. The Red Scare hits a peak in America, under the leadership of Joseph McCarthy. America and Russia equip their respective halves of Germany with new weapons, scaring each other's European allies. World War III appears to be coming, if not already underway. Communism and capitalism are now entrenched through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact. While the Soviets are leading a fairly tight alliance, America's coalition is beginning to stumble: the Suez Crisis of 1956 shatters their radical ideas about a bipolar world as Britain and France ally with Israel to take the Sinai against American wishes. In the meantime, the Soviets crush dissent within their alliance, stopping the Hungarian Revolution. Sputnik. ICBM's. Then, the Berlin Wall, a graffiti manifestation of the Iron Curtain descending upon the world. Dwight Eisenhower is staring down Nikita Khrushchev. Nobody knows what's coming, but everybody knows it's going to suck. Russian queen to Cuba: check. Florida is staring in the face of annihilation, and the American heartland trembles. John F. Kennedy calls Khrushchev's bluff and demands that the missiles be removed. If Khrushchev goes forward, it's the end of the world. America's king is saved. Russia's king is also saved. Phew. The hotline is installed between Washington, D.C. and Moscow. The Limited Test Ban Treaty is signed. Mushroom clouds are no longer expected over Nebraska, although they're still feared. Now, the war takes on a different, more clandestine tone. Communists are put down in Vietnam, while capitalists are put down in Czechoslovakia. China and the Soviet Union form two dysfunctional halves of a Communist bloc, while the United States, Western Europe, and Japan form the three slowly diverging poles of the Free World, united in defense and bitter enemies in trade. Detente. Richard M. Nixon, one of the last Americans expected to be civil to the USSR, sits down with Leonid Brezhnev for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks. Vietnamization signals a temporary end to America's overseas commitment, and to top it all off, a table tennis tournament in China sets off a cascade of events that bring Nixon to Beijing, the PRC to the Security Council, and Taiwan to... well, God knows where. The gold standard is gone: credit is the way of the future. New York City, London, and Tokyo take turns every day dictating the state of the global capitalist economy. The need for oil brings the Middle East into the picture and gives OPEC a domineering role in policy. Technology is making the West richer, but the communists are having trouble competing. Europe's empires are all dead; the developing world is now independent and hungrier than ever. In short, while Africans and Asians starve, Europeans and Americans get fat, and Russians and Chinese try to keep in step. Jimmy Carter brings human rights back into foreign policy, and starts a crusade for peace that lasts for about four years. Anwar Sadat goes to Jerusalem to begin a peace process with Menachem Begin that finds Egypt and Israel shaking hands at Camp David. America becomes the dominant power in the Middle East. Soviet Russia gets diddly. Carter also cuts off aid for allies he feels are ethically unworthy. Argentina and Turkey are two lesser examples: a greater one is Iran, where Carter's policies incite fundamentalist Muslims to take to the streets and topple the Shah's regime. Detente is over. The Soviets are in Afghanistan. SALT is dead on arrival. World War III is coming back. We're all going to die. Ronald Reagan shows up in dramatic form and smacks Jimmy Carter aside. "Kill the bastards," he says. U.S. defense spending peaks, swallowing upwards of 50% of the federal budget. In Reagan's first term, defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had slashed social spending under the Nixon administration, appropriates billions of dollars to a 600-ship navy, a wildly advanced strategic bomber force, and the mother of all defense programs, the Strategic Defense Initiative. The kings look vulnerable. The bases are loaded with two outs. It's nil-nil, going into extra time. After two Soviet leaders die in rapid succession, Mikhail Gorbachev rises to power. He inherits a Soviet Union that can kick anyone's ass, but where vodka is the only industry showing any kind of growth, and where the only personal computer costs $17,000 to build and is noticeably inferior to the Apple II. Chernobyl doesn't help, either. Soviet Russia is definitely in trouble, and the status quo is only going to exacerbate the problem. So Gorbachev does the same thing Lyndon B. Johnson did in Nam: gradual buildup. Glasnost. Perestroika. Russia opens up. Pepsi is sold on the streets of Moscow, and long lines form around McDonald's. Ronald Reagan starts granting Gorby audiences. Things are looking up. Now Gorby is talking about disarmament, but nobody is listening. Americans and Europeans blink, then go back to building missiles and selling junk bonds. Finally, a treaty is drawn up to eliminate intermediate nuclear forces, and several people can be heard cheering softly. The economy in Russia is still in the toilet, so Gorbachev plays another card: cutting back aid to Eastern Europe and North Korea. The year is 1989. Democratization begins. Poles vote for Solidarity. Hungarians and Austrians open their borders. The Baltic States assert their independence. Czechs and Slovaks riot in the streets. East Germany decides to stop defending the Berlin Wall. Everybody gets drunk, tears it down, and parties on its disemboweled remains. States begin dropping off of the USSR itself. Nobody is willing to admit what is happening, but it happens soon enough: on January 1, 1992, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics disbands without even leaving a suicide note. Leningrad becomes St. Petersburg. Cockroaches put away their party favors for the time being, and Russian scholars in the West go back to school to learn Arabic. The Cold War is over. Now the fun is about to begin. Here's how the cold war was explained to me by my brother when I was 5-years-old or so. Paraphrased a bit, naturally. Him: Imagine a rough part of a rough town. You have two bully kids, Nate and Warlow, who are thoroughly dominating their neighborhoods. Time goes by, and the bullies become stronger. One day, the two bullies meet. They each pull out a gun. Let's say you're one of them. What do you do? Me: Okay..So I shoot the other guy! Him: But he might be able to shoot you, too, on his way down. Me: Okaaay...So I walk away! Him: Idiot! He'll shoot you! Me: Um..I try to talk to him? Him: How do you know you can trust each other? You'd both like to be -the- top dog, and neither of you is above lies or murder. At the time, the Soviet Union still stood, so the saga wasn't quite over. I suppose the completion of this story would be that the bullies stood as they did until one of them keeled over from exhaustion or starvation or something. The origins of the Cold War are somewhat muddled due to the fact that one could look at it as a schoolyard fight between two children; both of them were there, participating in the same conflict, and still two different stories emerge. Sorting out the truth from both stories is sometimes akin to finding a needle in a haystack. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron curtain has descended… Behind that line lie all the capitals…of Central and Eastern Europe…all are subject…to Soviet influence and a very high…measure of control from Moscow.” (Churchill 1). Churchill is more than worried about the possibility of a Soviet empire growing out of the lands in eastern and central europe occupied by Stalin in the aftermath of World War II. “What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines” (Churchill 2). He speaks openly about being vigilant in not repeating the mistakes made by the allied powers prior to World War II. “Last time I saw it coming…but no one paid any attention…we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind” (Churchill 2). Churchill compares the situation immediately following World War II to the situation preceding it, where Churchill warned that the practice of appeasement would end in disaster. “Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed…by a policy of appeasement” (Churchill 2). At the same time, Churchill relates some fears that may be irrational. “In a great number of countries, Communist fifth columns…work in…absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist Center” (Churchill 3). According to Churchill, all communist regimes work in collaboration to achieve their goal of spreading communism to a global scale. It is important to remember that at this time Winston Churchill was no longer the Prime Minister of Great Britain –although he did become the Prime Minster again in 1951- and that time and place (The US instead of the UK) gave him freer reign to express his own personal opinions and fears for the “English speaking peoples” (Churchill 1). As for the Soviet reaction to this, Stalin makes a formal reply to Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech. The first thing he does is extraordinarily clever. He equates Churchill with Hitler. “One is reminded of Hitler… He began to set war loose by announcing his racial theory, declaring that only people speaking the German language represent a…valuable nation. Mr. Churchill begins to set war loose…maintaining that only nations speaking the English language are…valuable nations, called upon to decide the destinies of the entire world” (Stalin 1). Stalin also tries to legitimate his claim over the nations that have been occupied. He explains that the Soviet army’s casualties were far greater than those suffered by allied forces. “The Soviet Union has lost in men several times more than Britain and the United States together” (Stalin 1). Stalin accuses Churchill of sensationalizing the attempts of the Soviet Union to ensure its future safety. “In a desire to ensure its security…The Soviet Union tries to achieve that these countries should have governments whose relations to the Soviet Union are loyal” (Stalin 1). He immediately follows that with an attack on Churchill and his faculties. “How can one, without having lost one’s reason, qualify these peaceful aspirations…as ‘expansionist tendencies’” (Stalin 1). Stalin closes his rebuttal by attacking the government and the party of Churchill. He warns the people of the US and Britain to be wary of their leaders. “Churchill sometimes recalls…the common people…patting them on the shoulder in a lordly manner and pretending to be their friend” (Stalin 1). He then turns and tries to slyly infer that communism is rising in Britain. “Millions of these common people…voted Mr. Churchill and his party out…giving their votes to the Labor party” (Stalin 2). This tactic is a testament to Stalin’s political and diplomatic genius. Both of these speeches contain tinges of implausibility and moments of unabashed mud-slinging. Not unlike children in a playground, one begins to doubt the honesty and motives of each; but this is not a playground, and this conflict will not be forgotten once recess is over. The Cold War will last almost a generation and will carry with it a fear borne out of the end of World War II, nuclear annihilation. "Cold War" is the ninth episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who, starring Matt Smith as The Eleventh Doctor and Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara Oswald. The episode was written by Mark Gatiss, a frequent writer and sometimes actor for the show. The show takes place onboard a Soviet submarine in the Arctic in the year 1983, giving a dual meaning to the title. A third meaning is presented when we find out there is an Ice Warrior, a classic Who monster, aboard the submarine as well. Fortunately, the TARDIS materializes, dropping a confused Doctor and Clara aboard the submarine, which also happens to be sinking and taking on water. The Russian crew of the submarine are obviously suspicious, and the Doctor must ease their fears and deal with an angry alien hunting in the sinking submarine. This is probably the most used Doctor Who storyline ever: the Base Under Siege, with a side theme of The Doctor having to get warring parties to come to peace. But in Doctor Who, the most predictable things can still be made very good. And within this episode's predictable set-up, I found myself not knowing how it would end. It had a genuine suspense to it that is not always present in Doctor Who. There is some type of odd polynomial formula for Doctor Who. A Doctor Who episode that takes itself too seriously can often become schmaltzy and melodramatic. A Doctor Who episode that nods too much to the ridiculousness of the show can become camp and kitsch. This episode, despite a few humorous moments, manages to be serious without becoming too serious. I think one of the defining moments of the episode came early on: ten seconds after appearing unexpectedly on a crashing submarine, the Doctor assesses the situation and shouts out to the Captain the one way to save his ship. The Doctor is often portrayed as an eccentric or humorous character, but this moment established him as what he is: a brilliant alien who can solve a life or death problem in a matter of seconds. This episode continued in that manner, with The Doctor portraying his more serious side, all framed by the claustrophobic setting of a sinking, predator-haunted submarine. I can't really justify why I like this episode: I am sure for many, the spectacular scenery of the previous episode, and its colorful set of characters, would have been more appealing, and this would have seemed somewhat monotonous and formulaic. But for whatever reason, I consider this to be one of the strongest episodes of the season.
Increasing Cyber Crime In Pandemic This Research Paper is written by Mashish Saxena, a Third Year B.A LL.B (Hons.) Student at PES Modern Law College, Pune. The COVID-19 has changed human life drastically in many aspects. Now globally it’s leading to what has become commonly mentioned because of the new normal in terms of societal norms and therefore the ways we live and work. As effecting in some ways on society and business as an entire, the pandemic generated a set of unique cyber-crime in the technology sector. The explosion within the cases of the cyber attack, which is claimed to be increased by 86% within the latest survey during this pandemic. This article will describe the COVID-19 pandemic from a cyber-crime perspective and highlight the range of cybercrimes experienced globally during the pandemic. This analysis shows the various aspects on which the cyberattack is happening and the way hackers are taking advantage of it and also the rules which are provided by the government for citizens and what measures are often taken to guard yourself against getting into the Hell of cybercrime. The rush to remote working has outpaced cyber-security. With the widespread of the coronavirus, in march 2020, the government worldwide imposed the lockdown and stopped people from entering offices to stem the spread of coronavirus. Wherever possible, employers allowed their employees to figure from home, where, more and more, private IT devices are getting used for official business. which results in increases within the cases of cybercrime. Uniken, a cybersecurity firm said that cybercrime has increased by 2-3% in lockdown. Also, there are more and more reports about cyberattacks on health-care organizations on whose proper functioning governments and societies are more dependent now than ever. According to the Black’s Law Dictionary, cybercrime is defined as ‘a crime that takes place through the utilization of computers, technology or the Internet’[1] With the rise of COVID-19 explosion in certain social media, digital information channels, streaming and cloud services, email, conference calls, and video conferencing tools are getting used quite frequently. It increased work from the home regime for office employees. However, it also increased cybercrimes during this field. In mid-march, it had been reported by the Frankfurt-based internet exchange DE-CIX than 9,1 Terabit per second. This recorded level is the biggest jump in data traffic from the previous peak of 8,3 TBit that the corporation ever recorded. It is said that the IT sectors use the foremost security systems and antivirus systems for his or her file protections however it’s impossible for each firm to use the simplest and powerful protection from cybercrimes because it sectors may or might not includes the same level of firewall and security as within the office setup. This makes it harder for the IT experts of those organizations or institutions to spot unauthorized network connections and this offers hackers an opportunity to realize access to internal networks. By an equivalent token, work computers that will contain sensitive data are sometimes used for personal purposes when performing from home, which may also open the door to hackers. All this drives up the number of security risks. At present things are getting worse for the medical field. Cybersecurity is a rising alarm on the rise of cyber attacks on hospitals, criminals are primarily curious about obtaining demographic and financial information, to form money with digital identity data. During this process, hospital IT systems are often deliberately or inadvertently compromised. The cyber securities are reasoning, that the health care is getting the new and most targeted place for hackers is because Criminals use such malware to encrypt the stored data of their victims to blackmail them afterward: the info is going to be decrypted reciprocally for a ransom payment. Hackers somehow are ready to manage to attack this field successfully. that the government warned the hospitals and health care. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently warned about by stealing money and sensitive information from the general public. However, consistent with new reports, hacking attempts against WHO’s computer systems and its partners have increased during the coronavirus outbreak. Cyber Stalking In this the victim is being harassed, threatened by the stalkers. Victims are often anyone, an individual, group, or organization. It can involve false accusations, vandalism, fraud, etc. Unauthorized Access And Hacking This type of activity is completed without the permission of the rightful owner in-charge of it. Hackers access to the pc system or network illegally. Virus Attack Viruses are those infectious programs that are capable of creating a replica of itself and spread into other programs capable of harming it. They often affect the info on the PC. They either alter the info present within the system or delete it. It is often sent via an email, once the person opens the mail the device is attacked by the virus. It is a cybercrime during which a target or target is contacted by email, telephone, or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data like personally identifiable information, banking, and MasterCard details and passwords. E-commerce Frauds, In this case, the criminal sets a fake set and lists merchandise or services for the sale of the auction. After the acquisition has been made by the victim, the item isn’t delivered. Fake Applications on Android/iOS Project spy is an ongoing cyber-espionage that was discovered by cybersecurity. Through this spy, hackers are infecting Android and iOS devices through apps titled coronavirus updates. These apps can perform a spread of functions including transferring data from Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook messages. Furthermore, hackers take out the information after collecting voice notes, call logs, and contact information and from SIM information of the victims. It’s also possible for them to take out the IP address and WIFI speed and information through these. other data from the mobile like fingerprint, date, time, display, and updated at and created information. Cyber Crime against Women Cybercrime against women has been increasing thanks to the lockdown. consistent with the National Commission for ladies (NCW) cybercrime complaints received in 2020: February- 21, March- 37, and April- 54. Cyber experts, however, said the numbers are just the “tip of the iceberg”. Moreover, consistent with the founding father of a public care NGO, Akancha Foundation, 20-25 complaints were received by them on a day today. The complaints are mainly about Abuse and threats; Indecent exposure and unsolicited obscene pictures; Malicious emails claiming their account is hacked; Ransom demands and blackmail; Sextortion, that is, extorting money or sexual favors with the threat of showing evidence of their sexual intercourse.[2] PM CARES Fund Fraud The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation ( PM Care) Fund is receiving tons of donations from the people. The Fund’s UPI ID is pmcares@sbi. However, it’s come under the notice of the authorities that scammers have made similar UPI IDs like pmcares@icici, pmcares@yesbank, pmcares@ybi, and so on, to defraud people. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) alongside banks, ministries, and police departments issued warnings to curb fraudulent activities. Zoom video calls Zoom, a video conferencing app, enables professionals and students to possess online meetings and attend online classes, respectively. it’s an undesirable, problematic interruption, for the most part by Web trolls and programmers, into a video call. during an ordinary Zoombombing episode, a video chatting meeting is captured by the inclusion of texture that is salacious, vulgar, supremacist, or xenophobic, normally coming about the closure of the meeting. Public specialists overall cautioned of potential accuses against individuals connecting with of Zoombombing. On April 8, 2020, a youngster, was captured for PC wrongdoing, trick, and upsetting the harmony following a Zoombombing occurrence including on the web classes; police likewise recognized another adolescent required inside the episode. an individual was captured in the wake of being followed to explicit recordings that were gushed on Zoom. As of May 2020, the FBI has gotten 195 occurrences of Zoombombing including abuse, while the UK’s Public Wrongdoing Organization has announced very 120 such cases. Attack On The WHO The World Health Organization (WHO) has noticed a drastic increase within the number of cyberattacks within the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.According to WHO in the current pandemic there are reports related to email hacks increased, about 450 active emails and passwords of WHO have been leaked online. However, the leaked information didn’t put the WHO system in danger because the data was old but the attack did affect the older extranet system which is employed by the present and retired staff alongside the partners. the amount of cyberattacks against the organization is five times quite an equivalent period in 2019.[3] With a rise within the dependency on the utilization of technology, the necessity for cyberlaw was necessary. Very similar to how every coin has two sides, therefore, the dependency on technology has its pros and cons. The increase of the 21st century marked the evolution of cyberlaw in India with the knowledge Technology Act, 2000 (popularly referred to as the IT Act). The first-ever cybercrime was recorded within the year 1820. Listed below are some cyber crimes as per the penalties and offenses prescribed within the IT act 2009 amended via 2008) act : illegal access (Article 2), Illegal interception (Article 3), Data interference (Article 4), System interference (Article 5), Misuse of devices (Article 6), Computer-related forgery (Article 7), Computer-related fraud (Article 8), Offences related to child pornography (Article 9), Offences related to infringements of copyright and related rights (Article 10), Attempt and aiding or abetting (Article 11). To date the cyber crimes that are reported for fraud are 8,546 which is a quite last year that’s 7,700 consistent with Pune police for cheating frauds. which incorporates money transfer, just one occasion password, online dating, job, lottery, and loan. There are many messages, links, and websites that are forwarding in social media and WhatsApp like: Employees will get a category certificate alongside Rs 3,500 per month in lockdown for age 18-40. Coronavirus insurances. Subscription and extra discount thereon for Netflix and Amazon pay. Free additional internet. Websites Under Fraud: coronavirusstatus[.]space, coronavirus-map[.]com, canalcero[.]digital, coronavirus[.]zone,coronavirus-realtime[.]com, and so on. However, these links are used against the victims for asking money afterward. Thanks to the Corona pandemic the shortage of food materials, sanitizer, mask, these sites are made by hackers. These criminals are preying on the fear of the people for the COVID-19. However, things never get delivered and therefore the website is packed up after a while. Delhi Police issued an advisory regarding cybercrimes within the wake of coronavirus, warning people against fraudulent schemes. Listing the do’s and don’ts for people, the advisory read, “Avoid opening suspicious emails and clicking on unverified coronavirus related links circulated on social messaging apps, emails, etc.” It likewise read, “Utilize solid passwords and staggered verification alternatives for online media and banking exercises; and others need to check the accreditations of good cause assets before giving cash.” They additionally exhorted, you turned into a survivor of digital wrongdoing then you should need to advise Delhi police right away. Never welcome your username or secret phrase to get to wellbeing data. Never email connections you didn’t welcome, They will never charge an amount for the conference, for hotel reservation, or use for employment, Never give lotteries or prizes money. And also didn’t grant any kind of certificates or asks for funding through the mail. Be on alert once you receive an email with any link or attachments containing any regard to WHO. it’d be a cyberattack. WHO only issued funds which are COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. And if anyone gets another funding call then it is a scam. Practice Zero Trust: Finally, because the Zero Trust model recommends, practice the principle of “trust nobody” and confirm that no user has access to data that they don’t depend upon for his or her day-to-day functions. Limit access the most extreme sum as could reasonably be expected, ensure that you have permeability into the entirety of your clients, traffic, information, and outstanding burdens, which you have uniform security arrangements applied over all areas to frame sure no security escape clauses exist. Just like the straightforward task of wearing a mask can help protect yourself at all. Against the Coronavirus, taking the basic, presence of mind safety efforts can help ensure all of us against the digital lawbreakers misusing the disarray. Since the start of the pandemic of the coronavirus, a big increase in the number of cybercrime cases has been noticed. the very fact makes things in pandemic more worsen as already people can’t go outside because they’re not safe outside, same as, thanks to the cybercrime they’re not safe inside the house as well while working. That’s why to guard one’s data is a harder task in the current situation. Because the aim of hackers and malware isn’t clear. However, various efforts are being made by the cybersecurity firms to unravel the matter and supply security to the people. Various organizations like WHO or the Interpol, alongside Delhi Police, have issued guidelines for the people to safeguard themselves. [2]Tip of the Iceberg’: Sextortion, Hacking Abound as Cybercrime Against Women Increases Amid Lockdown, NEWS18 INDIA, ( MAY 1, 2020, 2:48 PM IST) [3]WHO reports fivefold increase in cyber attacks, urges vigilance(23 April 2020 )
January 2012 Stonehenge is a fascinating edifice to attempt to decode, and new theories are constantly arising regarding its origins and function. Take a Stonehenge tour and delve into its mysteries: you are likely to be confounded by this imperious landmark. A great number of legends connected to Stonehenge have ranged in their assertions from stating that its construction originated fromStonehenge tour Ireland to those even claiming it began in Africa. It has even been maintained that wizards and giants had something to do with the building of this enigmatic structure. Yet all the evidence flies in the face of such high-flown assertions. The stones were engraved approximately around 3,000 BC. The positioning of the stones, conversely, dates back to 2,200 BC. Therefore, it is obvious that the creation of Stonehenge was not an instant phenomenal accomplishment. This wholly destabilises claims that the stones were positioned by giants or wizards, as it is obvious that it took much time, indeed, thousands of years, to form Stonehenge. Fairly recently, scientists, using the most modern technology available to them, have managed to go further back in time than before to the history of Stonehenge. They have contended that they have, as a result of this, made significant new discoveries about the enigmatic landmark. They have argued that the monument was already a very ancient ritualistic hub when the stones were raised over 5,000 years ago. Indeed, it is believed that by the time the primary megaliths of Stonehenge were elevated, it had already become a place of ritual import to the local populace. One theory is that, before the megaliths were added, Stonehenge in fact functioned as a cremation cemetery; hundreds of bodies were buried there. That seems to suggest that the ceremonial rituals, rather chillingly, may have involved deaths in the form of sacrifices. Another theory is that Stonehenge also might have been a site for sun worship a great deal of time before the legendary stones were put up over 5,000 years ago. Back in the 12th century, Henry of Huntingdon asserted of Stonehenge: ‘no one has been able to discover by what mechanism such vast masses of stone were elevated, nor for what purpose they were designed’. The truly concrete facts behind the creation of Stonehenge are arguably as intangible, as difficult to assert as ever. Up to the modern age, the Stonehenge circle and earthworks are associated with—and employed by—many groups that claim there is a particular supernatural or divine significance to the landmark. Many do argue that some kind of unearthly authority is in attendance at Stonehenge, and this can be taken and channeled. Visit Stonehenge and become awed by the ineffable atmosphere that emanates from this grand landmark. Stonehenge is an exquisite monument, a momentous edifice that deserves your full scrutiny. Bask in the unique aura around this, some would say, otherworldly structure. Stonehenge tours offer an altogether different experience from any other tour. The Stonehenge Tour Company There were three groups of Druids: Power and Function Becoming a Druid Links: http://www.stonehenge-druids.org/ The Stonehenge Tour Company – www.StonehengeTours.com Stonehenge tours from London are widespread. It is not surprising that a multitude of people wish to explore the history of this enigmatic structure. Scholars still appear to be no closer to uncovering the purpose of Stonehenge, and reams of visitors have attempted to fathom its mystery. StonehengeWhat sets Golden Tours’ Stonehenge tours apart from our competitors is the quality and the range we have available for the visitor, including Stonehenge-Bath-Windsor, Stonehenge-Bath-Salisbury, and Stonehenge-Oxford tours. Alternatively, if you wish to just marvel at the grandeur of Stonehenge and are limited on time, then our Simply Stonehenge tour is the ideal option for you. Stonehenge has given rise to an immense amount of debate from its very beginnings. Theories proliferate as to why it was built; from the belief that it was used as a religious temple to claims it may even be a Bronze Age burial ground. A Golden Tours’ Stonehenge tour is remarkable. Take advantage of the exclusive opportunity to enter into the stone circle, and even touch the stone that has been the product of such contention. Take a Stonehenge-Bath-Windsor day tour from London for a genuinely exceptional experience. Bath is a city of ‘firsts’, incredibly rich in history. Bath Abbey held the first coronation of a British king in 973 AD and Bath was the first city in England to be granted status as a World Heritage Site. Uncover why more than a million visitors a year come to marvel at the best preserved Roman baths from the ancient world. If you hold any interest whatsoever in grandiose architecture or royal history, you are bound to be impressed by Windsor Castle. Be astounded by the sheer majesty of the State Apartments, and visit St George’s Chapel. Formidable St George’s Chapel holds a very distinctive atmosphere, as it is the resting place for many past famed monarchs. Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House was made with awe-inspiring attention to detail and delicacy and is well worth examining. Our Stonehenge-Bath-Salisbury guided coach tour allows you to sample the glory of Salisbury. The remarkable spire of imperious Salisbury Cathedral stands at an immense 123m (404ft). Indeed, it is the tallest spire in the whole of the UK. Also a historically significant cathedral, the Chapter House is home to one of the best preserved copies of the incredibly momentous document, the Magna Carta, which you will be lucky enough to view first-hand on this Golden Tours’ Stonehenge tour. For the ultimate historical and academic experience, take a Golden Tours’ Stonehenge-Oxford tour. Following a visit to awe-inspiring Stonehenge, traverse the university town of Oxford, a picturesque, quaint city that holds an outstanding reputation. Celebrated for over 900 years as a pinnacle of academic distinction, trail in the footsteps of its notable students; from Oscar Wilde to T.S. Eliot to Stephen Hawking. Take in the world renowned Bodleian Library and the captivating courtyards of different colleges. Golden Tours’ Stonehenge tours allow you to uncover the atmospheric edifice of Stonehenge, and become immersed in its fascinating history. Exclusive to Golden Tours, enter into the stone circle and touch the stone, knowing you are traveling back centuries. For the ultimate experience, however, try a Stonehenge-Bath-Windsor, Stonehenge-Bath-Salisbury, or Stonehenge-Oxford tour. All of these cities have their own distinctive, singular charms, and are sure to leave you enraptured. Take a Golden Tours guided coach tour from London for a truly memorable experience. For these and other guided tours of Stonehenge visit:
Hero, martyr, doctor, revolutionary, killer Icon: The Che image is still as popular and as marketable as ever. Should we celebrate Che Guevara? To mark the 50th anniversary of his death today the Cuban president laid a white rose on his tomb and Ireland issued a set of commemorative stamps. This is how Ernesto “Che” Guevara describes executing Eutimio Guerra, an army guide who admitted to giving away the position of Guevara’s rebels during the Cuban revolution. After the revolution had succeeded and Guevara was one of Fidel Castro’s most trusted ministers and advisers, he would lie on top of a wall at La Cabana prison, jauntily smoking a cigar and watching firing squads kill the victims of his show trials. Che Guevara died 50 years ago today. He was caught and killed by the Bolivian army, in the last country in which he would attempt to foment a rebellion. How did such a bloodthirsty killer become a trendy fashion icon? Originally from Argentina, Guevara was born into a middle-class, left-wing family. While studying medicine he took a motorcycle tour around South America and came to see the continent not as collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring mass liberation. He developed an "affinity for the poor” and thought popular communist uprisings could change the social order and the poverty. His first stops on the revolution trail were Guatemala and Mexico, but it was as a leader of Fidel Castro’s Cuban guerrillas that Guevara found fame. A year after the revolution in Cuba succeeded, Alberto Korda Díaz took the photograph of Guevara that can now be seen on T-shirts, hats and posters around the world. At a time when the world’s most important communists were old men in grey suits in grey cities in eastern Europe, Guevara fitted the bill perfectly as the archetypal freedom fighter — romantic, bearded and young. His attitude to life was simple. He believed change was necessary and should come quickly. “Don’t drag out the process. This is a revolution,” he said. But there is another view represented by philosophers such as Roger Scruton who says, “Good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.” Revolutionaries often get hero-worshipped by the young. But should they? People power “Without revolutions, the world would still be run by brutal kings and emperors,” say some. Violence is a bad thing but against oppressive dictatorships there is often no other option. Some regimes are so toxic that only a radical break from the past can erase them. “Simplistic rubbish,” say others. The world is not black and white. The horrific violence of the Reign of Terror in France or of Stalin’s purges in the 1930s was all caused by revolutionaries. They brutalise countries and put nations at war with their history. Gradual change that is mindful of the merits of the past is the answer. You Decide 1. Are you pro-revolution or anti-revolution? 2. Is it immoral to wear a Che Guevara T-shirt? 1. Sketch a stencil drawing of a well-known person in the style of the famous Che Guevara image. 2. “Revolutions always eat their children.” In 500 words, discuss this saying and cite examples of it happening. Some People Say... “Wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt is now the least rebellious thing in the world.” What do you think? Q & A What do we know? Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentinian revolutionary, was killed 50 years ago this week in Bolivia. According to Time magazine, he is one of the most influential people of the 20th century. His legacy still divides opinion: those who idolise him see him as a defender of the poor around the world. His detractors cite his violence and the repressive nature of the revolutionary governments he supported. What do we not know? Whether Che will remain an idol for young revolutionaries in years to come. Across the West, sympathy for his left-wing ideas has risen again in recent years. We also do not know whether a wave of popular revolutions will hit the world in the coming years, just as they did in the Middle East in 2011. Word Watch Guevara travelled to Bolivia to lead forces in revolt against the government of René Barrientos Ortuño. With US assistance, the Bolivian army captured and executed Guevara, burying his body in a secret location. In 1997 his remains were discovered, exhumed and returned to Cuba, where he was reburied. Fidel Castro Ruler of Cuba from 1959 until 2008,when he retired from ill health in favour of his brother, finally dying aged 90 last year. As Chris Berg noted in The Age, "Ironically, his longevity as a cultural symbol has been thanks to the very economic system he sought to destroy.” Roger Scruton An English philosopher who is regarded as one of the foremost conservative thinkers of his generation. Reign of Terror A period in the wake of the French revolution where 16,594 official death sentences were given out. However, the total number of deaths is believed to be much higher. Stalin’s purges A campaign of savage political repression in the 1930s; 600,000 people, from peasants to priests to opponents of communism, were killed at the hands of the Soviet government. PDF Download
Trauma Triggers: The Brain Science Of Trauma And Healing In this article for our Educational Series, trauma expert and survivor Liz Mullinar shares some insights into the neuroscience behind the physical changes that trauma causes to the brain. What she most wants you to know, though, is that these changes can be healed – and learning a simple and powerful method to release the “triggers” of trauma can help you do that. How trauma changes your brain “I think it is very empowering to recognise that the effects of childhood trauma are not so much psychological as they are physical – trauma physically affects the way the brain develops, which means that trauma impacts our behaviour, as well as our way of thinking and processing information. In the same way that lungs affect our ability to breathe, our brain affects our ability to process information, and that impacts on our behaviour and our emotional wellbeing.” – Liz Mullinar, author of Heal For Life The changeable nature of the brain means that our brain, besides being incredibly complex for each one of us, is totally unique. The brain develops dependent on what we learn from others in this world. When that interaction is traumatic, especially when we are children, the effect of trauma on the brain is physical. Imaging means scientists can now see what is happening in the brain in a living person while they are actually experiencing any thought or mental process. Already, brain scans can inform us by showing the damage our trauma has created, and how our brain changes once we heal from trauma. Here is a brain scan done by Dr. Daniel Amen – one of 80,000 such scans that he has taken. It is worth looking at them all and his TED talks. You can easily see the difference between the healthy brain on the left and the traumatised brain on the right. You can see the brain damage where there are black areas of inactivity. Abused vs healthy Brain The good news is that, contrary to medical opinion until quite recently, the latest neuroscience highlights that our brains can heal from trauma damage. Trauma and the structure of your brain Trauma response and damage involves a range of areas in the brain, including: • The corpus callosum – the connection between the two hemispheres (halves) of your brain: right and left • The limbic system – closely connected to the brain stem, one of the oldest parts of our brains and where the amygdala or “fear centre” is located • The cerebral cortex – our “thinking” brain, including the prefrontal cortex, which the fear centre will override to keep us “safe” The corpus callosum The two halves of the brain are connected by a bridge joining them known as the corpus callosum; this bridge ensures that we use both parts of our brains to make decisions in our lives. When functioning well, we use our thinking logical left brain together with our emotional right brain, which results in appropriate responses. However, for many trauma survivors, the bridge is much smaller. In fact, the more dissociative you are, the smaller the link between the two sides. The consequence is that most of us either think too much or feel too much. The aim of healing the brain from trauma is to build the bridge so we use both halves of our brain more effectively so we can make wiser and happier decisions in our lives. The limbic system Closely connected to the brain stem so it can influence the basic functions governed there such as breathing and heartbeat is our limbic system, which is responsible for caring, bonding, empathy, and, most importantly in relation to trauma, it contains the amygdala. Predominantly operating from the right brain, the amygdala has an incredibly important function: to warn us of fear. At Heal For Life we call it the “fear centre”. The amygdala contains the memory of anything that has frightened us, and this includes trauma memories. The fear centre has to remember anything very scary that has happened to us, in order to warn us if it might be about to happen again. When our fear centre thinks something scary or dangerous is happening, we react before we think. Trauma triggers are physical memories Triggering is the reminder of a trauma or an unsafe event that occurs when a person experiences – through the senses – a reminder of a similar experience at the time of the original trauma. Triggering creates the same mental and physical reaction as the original trauma – in order to respond to the perceived danger – which you can see in a very simplified version in the diagram below. It is the same action as during the original trauma. The body prepares to respond to the danger via the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and in the brain, the same areas become disconnected: Broca’s area for speech, and the prefrontal cortex for thinking and awareness of others. The other area that shuts down Is the hippocampus for storing memory. When memories are stored in the hippocampus they do not trigger a survival response to keep us safe. When we are very scared, our brain wants to make sure don’t repeat the experience. It wants us to maintain a survival response in future. This is basis of a trigger. Triggering Diagram When we are triggered into a fear reaction through our senses, the brain produces stress hormones to ensure an instant response. In other words, we cannot access reason or logic, or even sometimes the ability to speak. We simply react. This is what causes many of the emotional and behaviour problems that can be so debilitating for survivors. Triggering is, I believe, the greatest problem for us as we grow into adults, as it causes consistent reactive behaviour that we are unable to control or understand. Fortunately, it is possible to ‘de-trigger’. In fact, learning how to de-trigger is one of the most effective tools for survivors of trauma. How to de-trigger a trauma response The first step to de-trigger is to learn to recognise the signs in our body – to be familiar with the feeling and how it is experienced in the body – that I did feel okay, and now I do not. I will have a fight, flight or freeze (or pain) response. Fight is shown by suddenly being angry for seemingly little reason, flight can be the feeling of wanting to leave where you are, to escape, and freeze can be expressed in many different ways: physically by having a headache or body pains, or mentally by just becoming unaware of what is happening around you. Or the further state of freeze, which is called flop or fold. You are triggered when something happens to your feelings or your body that does not really relate to what is happening in the now. Notice the next time you do not feel in control of how you are feeling – or when you are overwhelmed by a reaction to something that happens. This can be a sudden feeling of anxiety, dissociation, anger, or a deep need to run away or a physical manifestation, such as a headache. You can read more about useful steps to “de-triggering” at the Heal For Life blog. We can heal from the pain of trauma and triggers As a survivor of childhood trauma, I understand the overwhelming pain of living with triggers and the courage that it takes to heal. At Heal For Life, we say that triggers are treasures, because through de-triggering they offer us the key to living the life we want – and deserve. I wish you the very best with your own healing journey, too. Liz Mullinar is the founder of Heal For Life Foundation. Her latest book, Heal For Life: How to Heal Yourself From the Pain of Childhood Trauma, is available now.
Breaking News Friday, February 15, 2019 Gauhati University Question Papers:BUSINESS ECONOMICS (May-June’ 2017) Gauhati University Question Papers Full Marks: 80 Time Allowed: 3 hours Answer either in English or Assamese The figures in the margin indicate full marks for the questions 1. Answer the following questions: 1x10=10 a) Define Business Economics. b) Mention one factor affecting the individual demand for a commodity. c) What is equal-product curve? d) What are the two components of Business Economics? e) What is disposable income? f) What is cost function? g) Mention one characteristics of Monopoly Market which is not available in the Perfect Competition. h) What is Marginal cost of product? i) Name a commodity which has inelastic demand. j) Define profit. a) Mention two characteristics of Business Economics. b) Mention two main causes of arising economic problems. c) What is normal price? d) Define price elasticity of demand. e) Generally the demand curve slopes downward from left to the right. Why? 3. Answer any four of the following: (within 200 words each) 5x4=20 a) Explain the scope of Business Economics. b) Explain the factors affecting price elasticity of demand. c) Explain the relationship between short-run average costs and short-run marginal costs. d) Write a note on demand forecasting. e) Explain the concept of cross-elasticity of demand. f) Mention the assumptions of the Law of Diminishing Returns. 4. Answer the following questions (within 600 words each): a) Explain the Laws of Returns to scale with the help of diagrams. 10 Define national income. Discuss its importance in Business Economics. 3+7=10 b) What is price elasticity of demand? Explain the different methods of measurement of price elasticity of demand. 2+8=10 What is Monopoly? Discuss the price and output determination under monopoly market. 2+8=10 c) How can LAC curve be derived from the SAC curve? Why is LAC curve U-shaped? 5+5=10 What are the characteristics of Perfect Competition? How price and output is determined under perfect competition? d) Critically discuss the Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution. 7+3=10 Critically discuss Schumpeter’s Innovation Theory of Profit. 7+3=10 Popular Posts for the Day
Addiction is a challenge many people face throughout their lives. Almost everyone knows a friend or family who has fallen prey to alcohol or drug abuse. For decades, the American Medical Association has defined alcoholism as a primary, progressive, chronic disease “with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations.” While the medical consensus is that addiction is a disease, does it qualify as a disability? Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities act cites both alcoholism and drug addiction as disabilities. Multiple federal court decisions have reaffirmed this. As such, if an alcoholic can prove they are “substantially limited in a major life activity,” an employer must reasonably accommodate them. However, “reasonable accommodation” does not mean the employer has to put up with absences from work or drinking on the clock. Rather there is usually an allowance made to let the alcoholic employee seek detox, rehab or other treatment. If an alcoholic drinks at work, they can face the same punishment as any other employee who did the same. If the employee relapses after treatment, though, and the job suffers, courts have ruled that the employer has no obligation to take the alcoholic employee back. Furthermore, if the employee’s off-the-clock drinking affects job function – for example, if someone who drives for a living has their license suspended – the employer could legally fire the employee. SSDI and alcoholism 1996 legislation made it so alcoholics and drug addicts were no longer able to receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits based upon their addictions alone. But if someone has disability independent from their addiction, even if alcoholism or drug abuse worsen the disability. they may still qualify for benefits. However, if the Social Security Administration deems that the disability would go away with stopping drugs or alcohol, they would not qualify for SSDI benefits. Find resources If you or a loved one finds yourself in trouble because of drinking, with the law or with an employer, it is a good idea to speak with a knowledgeable attorney who can help you decide how to best move forward. FindLaw Network
Web Results According to the National Cancer Institute, during the final stages of lung cancer, a patient suffers myoclonus, dyspnea, fatigue, cough, rattle, delirium and fever. A study of 200 cancer patients revealed that noisy breathing, pain and urinary dysfunction were the most frequent symptoms during the Stage 1 lung cancer is a nonsmall cell cancer that has not spread from the lung to lymph nodes or other organs of the body, according to WebMD. Nonsmall cell lung cancers receive a stage of 1 to 4 based on their severity. Stage 1 is further divided into 1A and 1B, depending on its size and whether i Stage III lung cancer is cancer that has progressed to the point that the tumor is difficult or impossible to remove through surgery, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The tumor may have spread to a nearby organ or to the lymph nodes around the chest. Some of the most common symptoms of stage 1 lung cancer include persistent coughing, chest pain, hoarseness, weight loss, shortness of breath and fatigue, according to Cancer.org. Chronic bronchitis, pneumonia or other infections are also symptoms that may indicate stage 1 lung cancer, particularly Early-stage lung cancer usually causes no symptoms, notes WebMD. When symptoms begin to occur, it is generally because of the cancer's spread into the lung or blockage of breathing passages while a chronic, hacking coughing, expulsion of blood-streaked mucus, chronic pneumonia or bronchitis and incr The stages of non-small cell lung cancer include T1, T2, T3, T4, N1, N2, N3 and M1, according to the American Cancer Society. The letters indicate what is being affected by the cancer, while the numbers indicate its severity. There are many variables that determine life expectancy of a cancer patient, such as type of cancer, location of tumors, age, sex and other complications. An oncologist is a doctor who specializes in cancer treatment and can make a prognosis for an individual cancer patient according to his specific The relative five-year survival rate for patients diagnosed with lung cancer is 17.4 percent, as of 2015, according to the National Cancer Institute. The stage of cancer at initial diagnosis, the patient’s age and overall health, and individual response to treatment all affect treatment outcomes. In stage IV lung cancer, the disease spreads to another part of the body, according to CancerCare. This stage includes growth of cancer cells in another lung or areas around the lungs or other organs in the body. Stage IV is the last stage in non-small cell lung cancer.
Principle Of Laser Cutting Machine - Nov 13, 2017- Laser is a kind of light, like other luminous bodies in nature, it is caused by the transition of atoms (molecules or ions) and spontaneous radiation. Although the laser is light, but it is obviously different from the ordinary light is only in the initial very short period of time dependent on spontaneous radiation, the subsequent process is completely determined by the radiation, so the laser has a very pure color, almost no divergence of directionality, very high luminous intensity. Laser at the same time has high coherence, high-intensity, high directivity, laser through the laser generated by the mirror through the mirror to the processing items, so that the processing items (surface) by a strong thermal energy and temperature increased sharply, so that the point because of high temperature and rapid melting or vaporization, With the laser head running track to achieve the purpose of processing. The application of laser processing technology in the advertising industry is divided into: laser cutting, laser engraving two working methods, for each working way, we have some different parts of the operation process.
To Treat Or Not To Treat? Foundational Thinking For Creating Good Behavior In Dogs Part 2 : Choose Your Methods of Training Carefully, Especially with Reactive/Fearful Dogs. There is still a big disconnect in the world of training – there are two camps: some trainers that use positive reinforcement training (“Causing desire of a thing, situation or behavior by using a pleasant or motivating stimulus”), and some that use aversives (“Causing avoidance of a thing, situation, or behavior by using an unpleasant or punishing stimulus”). Humans and dogs are definitely different species with different perspectives in many ways (check out the book in the photo below). However, both dogs and humans have similar sorts of things that motivate us – things that might make us drag ourselves out of the comfort of our cozy beds to do something that we might not exactly choose to do for pleasure, but that are motivating for other reasons. Check out Patricia McConnell’s book, “The Other End of the Leash” It’s a really interesting read on the differences between humans and dogs that often cause miscommunications. 1) Love – We might do tasks or favors for people or creatures that we love that then serve to strengthen our bonds and often cause them to show us affection or approval, which feels good. 2) Money – lets call it “currency”. Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that mean something to us and reinforce our desire to be there, but let’s face it: When it comes to dragging ourselves out of that cozy cave and applying ourselves to tasks we might not choose to work hard on just for the fun of it, we’re all working because we get paid. For dogs, one of the most effective currencies is yummy treats. Learning is challenging for all of us – and for dogs it can be both physically and mentally challenging. It can also be emotionally challenging when we’re working on behaviors that will help them combat the discomfort or outright fears they might have about strangers or dogs or loud noises, etc. Yummy treats can make those difficult things easier, and the fact that they’re sprinkled though the activity fairly regularly and appear when they do the best job can be very motivating indeed to try harder to make that good thing happen. If only our salary could magically appear a dollar or two at a time, right when we do a good job with something or complete a task, or especially when we do something we don’t want to do. We might get more done and have more fun doing it! There’s science to this: Wikipedia says, “In popular culture and media, dopamine is usually seen as the main chemical of pleasure, but the current opinion in pharmacology is that dopamine instead confers motivational salience; in other words, dopamine signals the perceived motivational prominence (i.e., the desirability or aversiveness) of an outcome, which in turn propels the organism’s behavior toward or away from achieving that outcome. 3) Fear – Fear can be a pretty effective motivator for both humans and animals, but as we know, it comes with baggage. Anyone that’s had a relationship with a family member or supervisor that is someone who is overbearing, judgmental, explosive with their emotions or who is quick to punish or belittle you, knows that that kind of motivation can create a lot of anxiety. It can make you feel jumpy or withdrawn when they’re around and can make you desperately seek approval that you don’t generally get, which doesn’t feel good. That person might actually be pretty pleased with this result, not perceiving that it’s tearing you up inside, or that the relationship could be much more satisfying if it was based on mutual trust and admiration. My opinion is that just because something might occasionally be effective, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best method. In fact, the biggest trouble with using aversives (besides the byproduct of eroding the relationship and the development of mutual trust) is that it’s a method that can have serious consequences when used to address behaviors that are a result of discomfort or especially fear-based behaviors. A good example of this is the use of choke collar “corrections” and shock collars for reactive dog behavior. Reactivity is a common problem we see in our store, when a dog lunges and barks at the sight of another dog. When a small dog does it, you’ll often hear the owner say that he thinks they’re bigger than they are or that the dog is always thinking that they’re the “alpha”. When reactive behavior happens with a big dog, they’re worried that they have a “dominant” dog or that their dog is being aggressive. There are of course many reasons dogs might have developed that reactive behavior. That little dog may have been carried for most of its puppyhood by a protective owner. I understand the urge to keep a tiny baby out of the jaws of a big dog that might think it’s something to chase and catch. But when that tiny dog gets to be a bit bigger and its owners then decide it should suddenly have to walk on a leash, that dog may be completely overwhelmed by the new situation, suddenly feeling very vulnerable and scared. A leash also keeps a dog from being able to run away, which means their only remaining tool to protect themselves and to tell the other dog to keep it’s distance is to bark at them. “Stay Back! Stay Back!” Sometimes owners will even push that dog closer to the bigger dog and tell it to “say hi”, which could completely overwhelm it, sending into defense mode and biting. This is not being “too big for his britches”, he’s terrified and may think he’s defending his life. The owners move to another part of the store and the little dog feels like his barking worked to end the situation. In the case of the bigger dog, perhaps he didn’t meet tons of dogs when he was young and his owners thought the best way to “socialize him” was to bring him to the fenced dog park, where he met another dog with poor social skills, had a very scary scuffle and came out with some small wounds. He starts to bark at other dogs on walks, trying to keep dogs out of his space. It seems to work as the owner gets him out of the situation, but the owner is starting to feel very self conscious about her dog’s behavior. When she sees another dog coming, she says “Uh Oh” and her worry and agitation that it’s about to happen again is conveyed to her dog. She transmits all sorts of warning signals to her dog, gathering his leash tighter, feeling worried, inadvertently signaling to him that other dogs are indeed very bad. The dog starts to sound the alarm, the owner yanks him away and scolds him for his outburst, feeling embarrassed in front of the other owner. When the other dog is gone, the owner might feel and act relieved, and perhaps pet and comfort the stressed dog, feeling bad for having to punish his bad behavior. All of which tells the dog “We sure don’t like dogs. It’s so good and we’re so happy when dogs leave!” The other thing that’s happening here is that the sight of other dogs approaching starts to predict to the reactive dog that not only are we going to have to deal with a dog that I don’t feel comfortable around, but dogs make my owner upset too, and I’m likely to catch hell from her when dogs get close. “I MUST keep that dog away!” His discomfort around dogs starts to escalate, making the behavior worse. Now consider adding pain to the equation. Prong collars and shock collars use a painful stimulus with the premise that the dog will make the association between the barking and the pain and stop barking. The trouble is, the real association for the dog that is made by the presence of the other dog is, “Dog approaches, I feel pain. Dog leaves, pain stops”. This can make a dog’s fear of other dogs spiral upward. This process can make dog reactivity escalate. The owner then has to keep escalating the punishment, which even if it does make the dog lessen his barking, it certainly will also continue to increase a dog’s hatred and fear of other dogs. As an owner, you have to think, “What do I wish would happen when a dog approaches?” Don’t you wish that your dog would be happy and relaxed or indifferent when he sees another dog, or that he would at least pay attention to you instead of the other dog? A dog that has learned that pain and disapproval and anxiety are the only things that happen when other dogs are near will never be relaxed around other dogs. However, a dog that has an owner that proactively avoids confrontations and creates safe space between her dog and others is a good first step. Then she might start to try and create positive associations for her dog about the sight of other dogs at a distance. She can start to pretend she feels happy when we see another dog at a distance far enough away that it doesn’t illicit that barking, and rewards that view of another dog with yummy treats. “Look! There’s a dog! Aren’t you lucky!” When the dog is out of view, the bar is closed. “Aw too bad! Dog’s gone. We’ll have to find another one!” She’s always looking out for opportunities to reward each time a dog is sighted (no matter what her dog’s behavior is like), managing his space to make sure he’s not too close, and stopping treats when the other dog is gone. Why would she still “reward” when her dog isn’t acting perfect when he sees other dogs? Because she’s using “classical conditioning”. Classical conditioning is about creating an association. It’s a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired – you all remember Pavlov. After he rang that bell, he then brought the food bowls. Very quickly the dogs started to drool when they heard the bell, before they ever saw the bowls coming. Bells would have never made a dog drool before that association was made. If you were to give a little boy a shock every time he saw a white bunny, it wouldn’t take long at all before the sight of a white bunny made him cry. He very likely would have a lifelong aversion even to a photo of a white bunny, even if as an adult his rational mind could understand that a white bunny probably wouldn’t hurt him. Classical conditioning is a simple, very powerful method that can be used to change an animal’s (or a person’s) emotional response. This is what reactive behavior is all about: an involuntary emotional response that’s been developed because of the associations the dog has made between the sight of a strange dog and what it predicts will happen due to previous experience. This is how all living creatures learn, and it’s the reason that positive reinforcement training is entirely rooted in science and why it can be so powerfully effective in changing behavior in dogs. We not only experience classical conditioning every single day, but we have all had experiences that show us that associations can be changed. Example: lets say every time my phone rings it’s terrible news. Someone breaks the news that my friend died. My boss is calling because I forgot I said I’d work today and she’s pissed. My doctor calls to say that lump needs a biopsy. My judgmental relative calls to “say hi” but spends the whole time complaining that I never call, and then criticizes my mother the way she always does. My vet calls and gives me bad news about Otis’ blood work, etc. When that phone rings, my heart sinks. “What is it now?” That heart-sinking feeling is not voluntary. It’s an emotional response to the sound of the ringing phone. Then, what if suddenly each phone call I get is great news? A long lost friend calls me and we reconnect and chat and laugh together. My vet called and said it was a mistake and Otis is actually fine. I get a call that my biopsy is benign. Someone calls saying they’ll buy the thing I posted for sale and I suddenly will have some cash in my pocket. The dream job I interviewed for is mine! Now each time the phone rings, I’ve started to have a little emotional lift in my chest, and a little intake of breath. “Ooh! Who can it be?” says my subconscious. I couldn’t have felt that happy little lift in my heart just because someone told me to. So, creating a positive association, over and over, with something that I used to feel uncomfortable with can truly change the way I feel about that thing. Now I don’t feel I have to swear when the phone rings, which brings us to the barking analogy: “If I feel that the presence of a dog predicts bad things, I will bark at it to keep it away. If I then feel (as a result of lots of repetition) that the sight of a dog at a distance predicts only good things will happen and I feel no threat to my safety, I will not feel the need to bark at it.” This clever owner will also use operant conditioning (rewarding a good choice making it likely I’ll try to make that choice again and again) and reward that quiet dog when he could have barked and didn’t. She might also start to ask for behaviors that help him deal with the situation like “Watch Me” and reward those behaviors frequently. So, creating the simple association between “dog in view” and “cheese” can have powerful effects, and eventually that dog can be asked to be closer to other dogs and still be able to hold it together, gaining confidence around other dogs, becoming more relaxed in their relative presence, and also gaining confidence in his owner to manage his space. It works. So this is why positive trainers get so upset when they see someone like Cesar Milan or other dominance based trainers “training” a reactive dog: They almost exclusively use punishment with reactive dogs and they see every undesirable dog behavior through the lens of “dominance” or “alpha” behavior. Not only do positive reinforcement trainers know there are other methods that aside from being kinder, can also help to change their dog’s perception of the stimulus, but they realize that punishment can create a greater negative association with the stimulus than they even had before. Remember, someone’s fear of spiders isn’t a voluntary reaction, and no amount of shoving spiders into their face, or slapping them when they see a spider will help at all to make that fear of spiders go away, even if they can learn to suppress their screams to avoid a slap. It will only work to deepen their agitation about a spider’s presence. (And there will always be a distinct possibility that the sudden sight of a spider will make them scream anyway if they’re unprepared). Cesar Milan and the skateboard My favorite illustration of how his method is faulty: I watched a show of his where an English Bulldog was very reactive when he saw a skateboard, barking and lunging and biting at it. He put on a choke chain and had a kid roll by on a skateboard while his owners looked on. When the dog started to bark, he kicked the bulldog. He said he wasn’t kicking him, he was just distracting him using his foot. It was enough force to move an English bulldog sideways which makes me feel like you’d call it kicking, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, he continued to “distract him with his foot” and then give a hard yank on the choke chain each time the kid rolled by. His timing was excellent, so the bulldog quickly learned that barking predicted kicking and choking, and he suppressed his barking, even when Cesar made the kid roll very closely by. The bulldog still looked distressed, and if a bark slipped out, he got a harsh correction. The owners were so impressed and praised Cesar’s amazing skills – the skateboard was right there and he wasn’t barking, in just a few minutes time! Then the owners had a try, and predictably their corrections weren’t as strong, and the dog barked. He was predictably flipping out at the skateboard’s presence. Cesar chastised them and said they had to show more dominance. Every person and dog has a threshold at which they can contain themselves in the face of something horrible, but there will always be a level at which you cannot keep it together. A dog that is staying quiet because they’ve learned there’s a risk of punishment and pain is doing the equivalent of pressing his hands over his mouth, keeping himself from barking, but his opinions have certainly not changed about skateboards. The trouble is, the level of punishment has to escalate to regain the silence if the animal’s threshold is crossed. His feelings when he sees a skateboard have likely spiked into even greater levels of bad. The most important thing to point out is that this is a dog who will never ever be reliable in the What if he learned to love skateboards like Tillman? face of a skateboard that zooms by in real life. When that family’s 4 year old insists on holding the leash (as they do) and a skateboarding teenager appears from nowhere, that strong dog will likely react and inadvertently drag that child causing injury. No attempt has been made to make that dog feel comfortable around skateboards. If that family bought a skateboard and slowly associated it with all good things, teaching the dog that not only are skateboards safe to be near, but they actually predict that awesome things happen for bulldogs, that dog could become safe and reliable around skateboards, and that 4 year old could be holding the leash when he sees one. Positive reinforcement wins in this scenario. It may not create a sudden appearance of fixing a problem in 5 minutes like on the TV show, but it is far more likely to truly fix that skateboard problem for a lifetime, no matter who’s holding the leash. Dominance and wolves Trainers that use punishment often insist that just about every undesirable dog behavior can be attributed to their yearning for status, and that dominance is the underlying motivator for their actions. They have been led to believe that because they descended from wolves, that they must be in constant competition with members of their pack. The big trouble with this is that wild wolves don’t behave this way. There was a study in the 1930s that was reproduced a number of times by others that put unrelated adult wolves together in an artificial captive situation and discovered that they did indeed fight violently. Wild wolves are found in smaller family groups consisting of mated pairs and their offspring who stay in the group for several years. Sometimes families that know each other will come together for a time when resources are plentiful, and perhaps split up again when prey is scarce. When adolescents mature, they’ll leave the family to make their own. The only constant members of the group are the mated pair. It’s very unnatural to confine adult, unrelated strangers in a small captive setting, and this is a recipe for constant fighting and competition for resources. As David Mech stated in the introduction to his study of wild wolves (Mech, 2000), “Attempting to apply information about the behavior of assemblages of unrelated captive wolves to the familial structure of natural packs has resulted in considerable confusion. Such an approach is analogous to trying to draw inferences about human family dynamics by studying humans in refugee camps. The concept of the alpha wolf as a ‘top dog’ ruling a group of similar-aged compatriots (Schenkel 1947; Rabb et al. 1967; Fox 1971a; Zimen 1975, 1982; Lockwood 1979; van Hooff et al. 1987) is particularly misleading.” As a zookeeper and conservation worker I’ve worked with and observed many species in captivity and in the wild who live in what you might call dominance hierarchies, and I can assure you that outside of the military, dominance doesn’t take the form that many trainers envision, with small infractions constantly punished aggressively, and lower ranking individuals constantly picking fights to rise in rank. Dominance theory is so poorly misunderstood by humans (who are all too often not skilled in reading dog communication). They might completely misinterpret things like appeasement behaviors (like jumping up to lick) as being an example of a dog misbehaving because it hasn’t been shown who’s boss. What is almost certainly happening is that they have no idea that anything else is being asked of them but to greet enthusiastically, and they’re actually showing deference (defined as humble submission and respect) by trying to lick your face. They just haven’t been taught that you’d rather they sit to greet, and that doing the new behavior can be very rewarding and result in the affection they crave. I love this passage from Jean Donaldson’s book, Culture Clash, “My favorite myth is going through doorways first. What silly person came up with the notion that a dog would understand, let alone exert dominance, by preceding his owner out the front door? When dogs are rushing through doors, mustn’t we first rule out that they are trying to close distance between themselves and whatever is out there, as quickly as possible, because they are excited, because they are dogs, and because they have never been presented with a reason not to?” In my next installment, I’ll address the concern that some people have that if you use treats that you’ll always have to use treats, every day, for every behavior. I assure you, though treats can still come in handy in some instances, there are many ways to control a dog’s valuable resources, making him earn what he wants in life by doing what you ask, right away. One of the best little books ever about how to work with dogs who are reactive on leash is called “Feisty Fido” by Patricia McConnell PhD and Karen London, PhD. It’s a silly name but a fantastic book that walks you through the process and gives you good “What if” scenarios. It’s a very short read, but thorough enough to really help you. We have it at the store or you can find it here: Locally, we’re lucky to have one of the best trainers around (and the first Certified Behavior Consultant (CBCC-KA) in Oregon) right near the store. Call on Doug Duncan at Doggy Business – you’ll see a link for Private Training for Aggression on the front page at This article is part of a series of articles designed to help you train your new dog: Congratulations On Your New Puppy! (or adult dog) What a fun time you’ll have! We very much want your new baby to live a long, healthy, happy life, so we thought we’d compile some of the nitty-gritty dos-and-don’ts of puppy care. Socialization, nutrition, our favorite chews, tips on potty training, etc! Raising a Puppy (Or Any New Dog) During Covid 19 All of us feel frightened and unsure of how long we’ll be living in this strange, suspended, frightening reality. A new dog is not just a delightful distraction from boredom- that little soul can really be a life raft for your psyche. But, this new-puppy-during-quarantine situation does come with a few unique challenges. How to work on socialization and help to prevent separation anxiety once you go back to work. What Do They Want? How Should They Get It? (Foundational Thinking For Creating Good Behavior in puppies and kittens! Part One) Often we hapless humans try our best to tell our puppies (and kittens) what we want them to do or especially not do, yet the bad behaviors increase and we struggle to get them to be what we wish they would be, especially when it comes to attention-getting behaviors. I’m here to offer a few rules of thumb for most any behavior you don’t like. Do I Always Have To Use Treats? (Foundational Thinking For Creating Good Behavior In Dogs Part Three) A lot of people worry about training with treats. * Do I have to keep giving them treats for everything for the rest of their lives? * Aren’t I bribing them? * I want them to do things because they want to please me. * I want them to do things right away and I don’t want to have to show them a treat to get them to listen.  These are all good questions. Here’s how to help your dog be able to do what you ask of them the first time you ask, while continuing to build a good relationship. Drop It! We’re continuing our puppy series with discussions of common training challenges. It’s so easy to accidentally create a dog that runs away from you when they get a hold of something they shouldn’t have. Wouldn’t you rather they spit something out of their mouth when you approach? You can do it! The “Come!” command is one of the very most important things we can teach our dog. A reliable recall is imperative to get them quickly to safety, to recover them if they happen to get out the door, and to proactively remove them from a situation at the dog park that might evolve into trouble. It’s also a wonderful luxury when you are in a safe quiet place to be able to have your dog off leash and know you can get him right back when you want to. Like the command “Drop It!”, it’s easy to accidentally make mistakes when training this behavior that can undermine your success. Here’s how to succeed in training a reliable recall.
The Wise Men There is a spirit that believes, and yet inquires. In this spirit let us inquire, Who were those Pilgrims, who, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen his Star in the East? And how were they moved by a Star to undertake their long pilgrimage?—a pilgrimage no less instructive, if its causes were better understood.St. Matthew calls them Magi. The English translation of the Bible, by substituting for this title Wise Men, leaves their secret untold. For by their title St. Matthew tells who those strangers were.If, in some historical memoir, we find it written, that in the reign of George III. there came to London, Brahmins,—we know their country and their character; we know they were natives of India, and of its sacred caste; know their complexion, dress, and manners, their religious opinions and customs. Of such effect is St. Matthew’s note of the pilgrims to the Holy City.He opens their story with a brief introduction, where one great fact—even the birth of Jesus—is stated in fewest words, where some historical and geographical knowledge is taken for granted; and it is in keeping that in this, his description of the strangers is by their title, only. This, too, is brief; but portraiture in the flowing style of romance, or with the minuteness of a child’s history book, would be out of place in a gospel. A title is, more or less, a description. To call men Mandarins, is to describe them; and thus the title Magi here stands for pages, in more diffuse and less suggestive writers; for when St. Matthew calls these foreigners Magi, he tells their nation, and their character. Their title introduces them as Persians of the sacred or priestly order of Persia. List Price: $1.99 (Final bulk discount pricing is based on quantity) ISBN: 6610000244935 Why eBooks are the Smart Way to Go Want to make the smart switch to eBooks? CLICK HERE Request Bulk Purchase: Book Format* Book Quantity* How will the books be used?* Interested in Gift Cards? 6610000244935 medium Bulk gift card c973c6294bb562c572cc09448c6304915953cb77b337c63c74b0d98ee2f3afc7
Malignant Hyperthermia (MH) Malignant Hyperthermia is an autosomal dominant genetic mutation that causes a dog to have dangerous physical reactions in response to specific triggers. The triggers includes exposure to certain drugs, most notably the inhaled anesthetics like halothane. Other triggers include the ingestion of food ingredients such as caffeine and hops and too much exercise. MH is also known as “canine stress syndrome” because the condition can become apparent when a dog is under stress or over-stimulated. After experiencing one or more of the triggers, an affected dog can have extreme muscle contractions, increased metabolism, rapid heartbeat and elevated body temperature. The body produces too much carbon dioxide, and enters a hypermetabolic state. Muscles become rigid and stiff. Seizures are a possibility. If a dog with the MH mutation undergoes anesthesia using halothane or other types of inhaled anesthesia, the results can be fatal. However, there are some forms of anesthesia that can be safely used to sedate dogs affected with MH. This is why it is important to identify dogs that have the mutation prior to scheduling surgical procedures. There is no cure for Malignant Hyperthermia, but dogs with this mutation can avoid stressful situations, intense exercise, and food and drugs that trigger symptoms. The mutation is autosomal dominant; only one copy of the mutation is necessary to produce offspring with MH. Acceptable Sample Types: Animal Genetics accepts buccal swab, blood, and dewclaw samples for testing. Complimentary sample collection kits are available and can be ordered at Canine Test Now. This Test Is Relevant For the Following Breeds: Malignant Hyperthermia can be tested for in any breed, but is more prevalent in the following breeds: • Border Collie • English Springer Spaniel • Greyhound • Irish Wolfhound • Labrador Retriever Animal Genetics offers DNA testing for Malignant Hyperthermia (MH). The genetic test verifies the presence of the dominant MH mutation and presents results as one of the following: MH/MH Affected The dog carries two copies of the mutant gene and is homozygous for MH. The dog is affected by Malignant Hyperthermia and will always pass a copy of the mutation to its offspring. MH/n Affected Both the normal and mutant copies of the gene detected. Dog is affected by Malignant Hyperthermia and can pass on a copy of the defective gene to its offspring. n/n Clear Dog tested negative for the Malignant Hyperthermia mutation and will not pass on the defective gene to its offspring.
tommie jo Anatomy & Physiology 2 – ANAT 1202 (60 Hours) This part of Anatomy and Physiology will cover more in-depth of the anatomical structures. • Describe basic cell structure and processes. • Describe the structure and function of the body tissues. • Explain the organization of the body systems. • Locate the major bones, muscles, and blood supply of the head, trunk and limbs. • Describe the range of joint articulation and the role of major muscles in movement coordination. • Identify the areas of the abdomen and thorax and the corresponding internal structures. • Identify the surface anatomical structures required to locate acupuncture points. • Identify local anatomy of locations at which acupuncture presents an inherent risk of injury.
Among the Christians who make the sign of the cross [cf. this @fredsbend's answer], is it known when and why Christians began to sign themselves with the Cross? The best answer will also include when imparting a blessing by tracing the sign of the cross also began and why. My thinking: Blessing and crossing oneself are two different things. Example: say in an audience with the Pope there are many journalists attending of varied beliefs or of no belief at all. When the Pope imparts his blessing by tracing the sign of the cross, only those who cross themselves and who want to cross themselves will cross themselves. Meaning you can have one and not necessarily the other. My good guess perhaps it goes back to Christ himself or at least the Apostles. And also there can be a blessing without tracing the sign of the cross. The Catholic Encyclopedia says: The cross was originally traced by Christians with the thumb or finger on their own foreheads. This practice is attested by numberless allusions in Patristic literature. It's unclear when it began, but it's true there are "numberless allusions" indicating it was an early and widespread tradition. For example, Tertullian: It's been associated with Revelation 7: Then I saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites. Catholic commentators associate the seal on the forehead with the sign of the cross. This goes back to Ezekiel 9:4. Lord said to him: Pass through the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark … the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the abominations practiced within it. The mark spoken of here is "tau," a Hebrew letter in the shape of a cross. The Catholic Encyclopedia also says that it wasn't long before Christians began making the sign of the cross on things other than foreheads: Hardly less early in date is the custom of marking a cross on objects — already Tertullian speaks of the Christian woman "signing" her bed (cum lectulum tuum signas, "Ad uxor.", ii, 5) before retiring to rest—and we soon hear also of the sign of the cross being traced on the lips (Jerome, "Epitaph. Paulæ") and on the heart (Prudentius, "Cathem.", vi, 129). Not unnaturally if the object were more remote, the cross which was directed towards it had to be made in the air. Thus Epiphanius tells us (Adv. Hær., xxx, 12) of a certain holy man Josephus, who imparted to a vessel of water the power of overthrowing magical incantations by "making over the vessel with his finger the seal of the cross" pronouncing the while a form of prayer. Again half a century later Sozomen, the church historian (VII, xxvi), describes how Bishop Donatus when attacked by a dragon "made the sign of the cross with his finger in the air and spat upon the monster". As for the purpose, Athanasius quotes Antony as saying: When, therefore, [demons] come by night to you and wish to tell the future, or say, "we are the angels", give no heed, for they lie. Yea even if they praise your discipline and call you blessed, hear them not, and have no dealings with them; but rather sign yourselves and your houses, and pray, and you shall see them vanish. For they are cowards, and greatly fear the sign of the Lord's Cross, since of a truth in it the Savior stripped them, and made an example of them. ... But we by the mention of Christ crucified put all demons to flight, whom you fear as if they were gods. Where the sign of the Cross is, magic is weak and witchcraft has no strength. Conclusion: The sign of the cross originated early, growing out of an interpretive seed found in Revelation and Ezekiel. It's a way of invoking the power of the cross against the enemies of God. \| improve this answer \| \| Your Answer
C++ Reference: min_cost_flow This documentation is automatically generated. An implementation of a cost-scaling push-relabel algorithm for the min-cost flow problem. In the following, we consider a graph G = (V,E) where V denotes the set of nodes (vertices) in the graph, E denotes the set of arcs (edges). n = \|V\| denotes the number of nodes in the graph, and m = \|E\| denotes the number of arcs in the graph. With each arc (v,w) is associated a nonnegative capacity u(v,w) (where 'u' stands for "upper bound") and a unit cost c(v,w). With each node v is associated a quantity named supply(v), which represents a supply of fluid (if >0) or a demand (if <0). Furthermore, no fluid is created in the graph so sum_{v in V} supply(v) = 0. A flow is a function from E to R such that: a) f(v,w) <= u(v,w) for all (v,w) in E (capacity constraint). b) f(v,w) = -f(w,v) for all (v,w) in E (flow antisymmetry constraint). c) sum on v f(v,w) + supply(w) = 0 (flow conservation). The cost of a flow is sum on (v,w) in E ( f(v,w) * c(v,w) ) [Note: It can be confusing to beginners that the cost is actually double the amount that it might seem at first because of flow antisymmetry.] The problem to solve: find a flow of minimum cost such that all the fluid flows from the supply nodes to the demand nodes. The principles behind this algorithm are the following: 1/ handle pseudo-flows instead of flows and refine pseudo-flows until an epsilon-optimal minimum-cost flow is obtained, 2/ deal with epsilon-optimal pseudo-flows. 1/ A pseudo-flow is like a flow, except that a node's outflow minus its inflow can be different from its supply. If it is the case at a given node v, it is said that there is an excess (or deficit) at node v. A deficit is denoted by a negative excess and inflow = outflow + excess. (Look at ortools/graph/max_flow.h to see that the definition of preflow is more restrictive than the one for pseudo-flow in that a preflow only allows non-negative excesses, i.e., no deficit.) More formally, a pseudo-flow is a function f such that: a) f(v,w) <= u(v,w) for all (v,w) in E (capacity constraint). b) f(v,w) = -f(w,v) for all (v,w) in E (flow antisymmetry constraint). For each v in E, we also define the excess at node v, the algebraic sum of all the incoming preflows at this node, added together with the supply at v. excess(v) = sum on u f(u,v) + supply(v) The goal of the algorithm is to obtain excess(v) = 0 for all v in V, while consuming capacity on some arcs, at the lowest possible cost. 2/ Internally to the algorithm and its analysis (but invisibly to the client), each node has an associated "price" (or potential), in addition to its excess. It is formally a function from E to R (the set of real numbers.). For a given price function p, the reduced cost of an arc (v,w) is: c_p(v,w) = c(v,w) + p(v) - p(w) (c(v,w) is the cost of arc (v,w).) For those familiar with linear programming, the price function can be viewed as a set of dual variables. For a constant epsilon >= 0, a pseudo-flow f is said to be epsilon-optimal with respect to a price function p if for every residual arc (v,w) in E, c_p(v,w) >= -epsilon. A flow f is optimal if and only if there exists a price function p such that no arc is admissible with respect to f and p. If the arc costs are integers, and epsilon < 1/n, any epsilon-optimal flow is optimal. The integer cost case is handled by multiplying all the arc costs and the initial value of epsilon by (n+1). When epsilon reaches 1, and the solution is epsilon-optimal, it means: for all residual arc (v,w) in E, (n+1) * c_p(v,w) >= -1, thus c_p(v,w) >= -1/(n+1) >= 1/n, and the solution is optimal. A node v is said to be active if excess(v) > 0. In this case the following operations can be applied to it: - if there are admissible incident arcs, i.e. arcs which are not saturated, and whose reduced costs are negative, a PushFlow operation can be applied. It consists in sending as much flow as both the excess at the node and the capacity of the arc permit. - if there are no admissible arcs, the active node considered is relabeled, This is implemented in Discharge, which itself calls PushFlow and Relabel. Discharge itself is called by Refine. Refine first saturates all the admissible arcs, then builds a stack of active nodes. It then applies Discharge for each active node, possibly adding new ones in the process, until no nodes are active. In that case an epsilon-optimal flow is obtained. Optimize iteratively calls Refine, while epsilon > 1, and divides epsilon by alpha (set by default to 5) before each iteration. The algorithm starts with epsilon = C, where C is the maximum absolute value of the arc costs. In the integer case which we are dealing with, since all costs are multiplied by (n+1), the initial value of epsilon is (n+1)C. The algorithm terminates when epsilon = 1, and Refine() has been called. In this case, a minimum-cost flow is obtained. The complexity of the algorithm is O(n^2mlog(nC)) where C is the value of the largest arc cost in the graph. IMPORTANT: The algorithm is not able to detect the infeasibility of a problem (i.e., when a bottleneck in the network prohibits sending all the supplies.) Worse, it could in some cases loop forever. This is why feasibility checking is enabled by default (FLAGS_min_cost_flow_check_feasibility=true.) Feasibility checking is implemented using a max-flow, which has a much lower complexity. The impact on performance is negligible, while the risk of being caught in an endless loop is removed. Note that using the feasibility checker roughly doubles the memory consumption. The starting reference for this class of algorithms is: A.V. Goldberg and R.E. Tarjan, "Finding Minimum-Cost Circulations by Successive Approximation." Mathematics of Operations Research, Vol. 15, 1990:430-466. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=92225 Implementation issues are tackled in: A.V. Goldberg, "An Efficient Implementation of a Scaling Minimum-Cost Flow Algorithm," Journal of Algorithms, (1997) 22:1-29 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi= A.V. Goldberg and M. Kharitonov, "On Implementing Scaling Push-Relabel Algorithms for the Minimum-Cost Flow Problem", Network flows and matching: First DIMACS implementation challenge, DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, (1993) 12:157-198. ftp://dimacs.rutgers.edu/pub/netflow/submit/papers/Goldberg-mincost/scalmin.ps and in: U. Bunnagel, B. Korte, and J. Vygen. “Efficient implementation of the Goldberg-Tarjan minimum-cost flow algorithm.” Optimization Methods and Software (1998) vol. 10, no. 2:157-174. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi= We have tried as much as possible in this implementation to keep the notations and namings of the papers cited above, except for 'demand' or 'balance' which have been replaced by 'supply', with the according sign changes to better accommodate with the API of the rest of our tools. A demand is denoted by a negative supply. TODO(user): See whether the following can bring any improvements on real-life problems. R.K. Ahuja, A.V. Goldberg, J.B. Orlin, and R.E. Tarjan, "Finding minimum-cost flows by double scaling," Mathematical Programming, (1992) 53:243-266. http://www.springerlink.com/index/gu7404218u6kt166.pdf An interesting general reference on network flows is: R. K. Ahuja, T. L. Magnanti, J. B. Orlin, "Network Flows: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications," Prentice Hall, 1993, ISBN: 978-0136175490, http://www.amazon.com/dp/013617549X Keywords: Push-relabel, min-cost flow, network, graph, Goldberg, Tarjan, Dinic, Dinitz.
Boulder, Colorado farmers find benefits and drawbacks to both GMOs and organic crops organic signs The use of GE (genetically-engineered) seed and herbicide with strip-till farming in Boulder County is not a black-and-white issue. Rather, it is shades of gray, with many trade-offs. The question to is: Do the benefits outweigh the costs or not? Boulder County farmers usually use GE strip-till farming (a minimum till technique) as part of a four-year crop rotation, commonly corn, to wheat, to sugar-beets, to barley. With GE strip-till for corn/sugar-beets, the previous year’s crop residue is left on fields as mulch, to protect and feed soil and suppress weeds. Farmers do not plow their strip-till fields. Instead, they wait until planting time, and then cut 6-12-inch wide planting strips into crop-residue-covered fields, inserting seed and fertilizer into the strips at the same time. Because strip-till farmers are not plowing, disking, or cultivating, they depend on the previous year’s crop residue for weed control. Often this residue does not suppress enough weeds, and so they also use Roundup (active ingredient glyphosate) to kill weeds soon after planting. To keep the herbicide from killing the crop which is just emerging, they use GE “Roundup-ready” corn or sugar-beet seed, which is not affected by Roundup. This GHG impact analysis only evaluates on-farm emissions. A full comparison is only achievable with a life cycle analysis of the energy and GHG impacts of inputs such as fertilizer, manure, compost, pesticides, etc. From This GHG impact analysis only evaluates on-farm emissions. A full comparison is only achievable with a life cycle analysis of the energy and GHG impacts of inputs such as fertilizer, manure, compost, pesticides, etc. From here. Editor’s note: The original posting of this chart in Daily Camera has an error, the version shown here is accurate per the original study. Boulder County and CSU staff compiled the chart above comparing GE strip-till farming with conventional and organic farming for both corn and sugar-beets, across four different categories. (No one farms sugar-beets organically because there is no market, so organic sugar-beets are not included.) Comparing on-farm diesel greenhouse gas emissions (first column of figures), you see that Boulder’s conventional farms emit the most, followed closely by organic farms. That is because our conventional and organic farmers make many more trips across their fields, plowing, disking, cultivating, planting and cultivating again. Boulder’s GE strip-till farmers make only one or two trips across their fields, planting and spraying, so they use less diesel and emit less CO2. Cornell University developed the EIQ “Environmental Impact Quotient” scoring system (second column), which assigns a toxicity score to every herbicide and insecticide. The EIQ score is a sum of all the scores of all the toxic products used on a particular crop. In this second category, Boulder’s organic farms clearly win, with GE strip-till farms a close second and conventional farms losing. That’s because conventional farms use the same or more toxic herbicides as GE strip-till, plus many more pesticides that aren’t necessary with GE strip-till, since GE seed has been engineered to resist certain insects. Related article: 'No evidence' low-level glyphosate exposure causes kidney damage in children, study shows Comparing inches of water lost per acre due to tillage (third column), Boulder’s organic farms lose the most moisture, with conventional close behind and GE strip-till winning. Because they are not cultivating or plowing, GE strip-till farmers lose 1/10th the soil moisture of organic farmers. The previous year’s crop residue on GE strip-till fields protects soil from sun and wind, preserving soil moisture. Organic farmers cultivate for weed control multiple times since they are not using herbicides, and so lose 15 percent of annual precipitation from soil as a result. (Compost, manure, and agricultural water from irrigation ditches contain weed seed, so our farmers constantly battle weeds.) Comparing amounts of CO2 released from soil (fourth column), again organic farms lose, followed closely by conventional. GE strip-till releases 1/7th as much CO2 from soil as other methods. When soil is disturbed and broken up by a plow, its releases CO2 into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. GE strip-till disturbs soil minimally, so much less CO2 volatizes from strip-till fields. GE strip-till farming in Boulder has both advantages and disadvantages. Its disadvantages are 1) the disputed environmental consequences of depending on herbicides for weed control and on genetically-engineered seed (argued in many previous Camera editorials); and 2) less income from crop residue, i.e. as silage, biochar, cellulosic ethanol. The advantages of GE strip-till are 1) excellent erosion control, soil moisture conservation and better water infiltration from crop residue left on fields, boosting plant growth; 2) decreased labor and fuel costs, less soil compaction, and lower diesel emissions from less plowing; 3) improved soil health from more soil organic matter, increased soil microbial activity and healthier soil fungi, thanks to less plowing and more crop residue; and 4) increased overall sequestration of CO2 by soil, caused by both lower CO2 losses from soil carbon volatizing or eroding, and higher sequestration rates from increased soil microbial activity. It’s not easy rearranging perceptions of “bad” industrial farming, and “perfect” organic farming, but sometimes facts force recalibration. So what do you think? Do the benefits of GE strip-till farming outweigh the costs or not? You can read the Boulder County report here. This article originally appeared on the Daily Camera here and was reposted with permission of the author. Elizabeth Black paints and farms in north Boulder, and promotes soil sequestration of carbon to help combat climate change. Outbreak Daily Digest Biotech Facts & Fallacies Talking Biotech Genetics Unzipped mag insects image superjumbo v dead bee desolate city globalmethanebudget globalcarbonproject cropped x organic hillside sweet corn x benjamin franklin x Are most GMO safety studies funded by industry? m hansen Michael Hansen: Architect of Consumers Union ongoing anti-GMO campaign Optional. Mail on special occasions. Send this to a friend
Data Visualization #3– In my first post of this series I explained at length why basic geographically-based electoral maps are not very good at conveying the phenomena of interest (see that post for more detail), and alluded to the increased use of political geographers, and political scientists, of alternative methods of “mapping” the required information that were more clear about the message(s) contained in the data. Let’s examine this further using the map above. This map shows the results of the Canadian federal (national) election of October 2019.The respective proportions of total area “won” by each political party as depicted in the map above are not easily translated into either the relative vote share of the parties, or the relative number of seats won. Someone ignorant about Canadian federal politics would see a relatively similar total amount of red, blue, and orange, and assume that these parties had relatively equal support across the country. The sizes (land mass), and populations of, federal electoral districts in Canada vary drastically and, as a result, these maps are not a good gauge of voter support for political parties. Since this problem is widespread political scientists, and political geographers, have attempted to find solutions to this problem. One increasingly-common approach has been to use what are called cartograms. Cartograms are maps in which the elements (in this case, electoral districts) are usually transformed in such as way as to maintain their connections to neighbours (contiguous cartograms), but to either increase or decrease the area of the specific electoral district in order to match it to a common variable. A variable often used in the transformation of electoral maps is population size. Thus, in a completed cartogram, the size of the electoral districts is not the actual land mass of the electoral district, but is proportional to the population of the electoral district (sometimes the number of voters, or the size of the electorate is used instead of population). It’s no surprise, then, that cartograms are also called “value-by-area” maps. Cartograms are used by geographers and social scientists to depict a wide variety of phenomena. Here are some examples. The first one is a global cartogram for which the size of the area in each country is equivalent to total public health spending by that country. We can easily see that most of the world’s spending on public health occurs in the rich countries of the global north. Here’s one more, depicting the global share of organic agriculture, by country. Below, I have created a cartogram that has transformed the standard electoral map of the 2019 Canadian federal election into one in which the size of the electoral districts is mostly proportional to their populations. By “mostly” I mean that they’re not perfectly proportional, since the difference in sizes between the largest and smallest districts is so large the algorithm eventually stabilizes without creating completely equal-sized electoral districts. This map more accurately conveys the nature of political partisan support (at least as it relates to the winning of electoral districts) across the country during the 2019 election, and provides visual evidence for the reality of an election in which the Liberal Party (red) won a plurality of the seats in the federal parliament (House of Commons). Because urban districts are much smaller than rural districts, the strength of Liberal Party support in Canada’s two largest cities–Toronto and Montreal–is obfuscated by the traditional area-based electoral map, but becomes evident in this cartogram. The next map in this series will analyze another approach to geographically-based electoral maps–the hexagon map. Here’s the R code for the cartogram above. Here, the original R-spatial data object–can_sf–is the base for the calculation of the cartogram data. ## Here is the code to generate the cartogram object: can_carto_sf = cartogram_cont(can_sf, "Population_2016", itermax=50) ## Now, the map, using ggplot2 gg.can.can.carto <- ggplot(data = can_carto_sf) + geom_sf(aes(fill = partywinner_2019), col="black", lwd=0.075) + scale_fill_manual(values=c("#33B2CC","#1A4782","#3D9B35","#D71920","#F37021","#2B2D2F"),name ="Party (2019)") + labs(title = "Cartogram of Canadian Federal Election Results \u2013 October 2019", subtitle = "(by Political Party and Electoral District)") + theme_void() + legend.text = element_text(size = 16), plot.title = element_text(hjust = 0.5, size=20, vjust=2, face="bold"), plot.subtitle = element_text(hjust=0.5, size=18, vjust=2, face="bold"), legend.position = "bottom", plot.margin = margin(0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, "cm"), = margin(0,0,30,0), legend.key.size = unit(0.75, "cm"), panel.border = element_rect(colour = "black", fill=NA, size=1.5)) Data Visualization #2–Animations aid in Conveying Change The first entry in my 30-day (it will actually be 30 posts over about 2 months) data visualization challenge argued that geographically-based electoral maps have many drawbacks as data visualization techniques. I demonstrated by using the results from the 2017 and 2020 British Columbia (BC) provincial elections as supporting evidence. Although there were some significant political changes over the course of the two elections, these were poorly-represented by these maps. Only when we zoomed into the population centres of southwestern BC were we able to partially convey the changes that had occurred. We could have made our effort to convey the underlying movement in political party support between 2017 and 2020 a bit more obvious by using animated maps, rather than the static ones that were used. When it comes to representing change over time, animated graphs can be very useful (as long as they aren’t too complicated and busy) and are advantageous to static maps. Below we can find the maps in the original animated to more clearly show the changes over time. Here’s the map of the whole province: The change between 2017 and 2020 is made clear by a jarring change in the map, where a bit more NDP-orange shows up, replacing the BCLP-blue (see the previous post for descriptions of the two parties). Otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be much change in the province overall. We know, however, that the drastic changes that took place did so in the very tiniest southwestern corner of the BC mainland. Let’s zoom in there to have a look. We can now more clearly see the change in results (in terms of electoral districts won) between 2017 and 2020 in this populous region. Not only did the NDP (orange) win many seats in the eastern Vancouver suburbs that had not only been won by the BCLP in 2017 but had been a bastion of support for the right-wing vote over many decades, but the NDP candidate in the Victoria-area district of Oak Bay-Gordon Head won a seat that had previously been held by the former leader of BC Green Party, Andrew Weaver (it’s the small piece of green, that changes to orange, in the eastern part of the lower orange horizontal band on the lower-left of the map) . Are these changes the harbinger of a sea-change in BC provincial politics, or are they just an anomalous blip? Going back to my original point about these types of maps being poor representations of the underlying change in voters’ preferences, we don’t know much about the level of support for the respective parties in any of these electoral districts. All that we do know, based on the “first-past-the-post” electoral system used by BC at the provincial level, is the party whose candidate finished with the most votes in each of these electoral districts. We don’t know if a district newly-won by the NDP candidate was by one vote, or by 10,000 votes. In future posts, I’ll present graphs that will allow us to answer this question visually. Our next posts will focus on alternatives to the basic electoral geographic maps that we’ve used in these first two posts. Data Visualization #1–Electoral Results Map The data visualization with which I begin my 30-day challenge is a standard electoral map of the recently-completed British Columbia provincial election, the result of which is a solid (57 of 87 seats) majority government for the New Democratic Party, led by Premier John Horgan. It’s a bit ironic that I begin with this type of map since, for a few reasons, I consider them to be poor representations of data. First, because electoral districts are mapped on the basis of territory (geography) they misrepresent and distort what they are purportedly meant to gauge–electoral support (by actual voters, not acreage) for political parties. Though there are other pitfalls with basic electoral maps I’ll highlight what I believe to be the second major issue with them. They take what is a multinomial concept–voter support for each of a number of political parties in a specific electoral district–and summarize them into a single data point–which of the many parties in that electoral district has “won” that district. Most of these maps provide no information about either a) the relative size of the winning party’s victory in that district, or b) how many other parties competed in that district and how well each of these parties did in that district. Although the standard electoral map provides some basic electoral information about the electoral outcome (and it is undeniable that in terms of determining who wins and runs government, it is the single most important piece of information), they are “information-poor” and in future posts I’ll show how researchers have tried to make their electoral maps more information-rich. But, first, here are some standard electoral maps for the last two provincial elections in British Columbia (BC)–May 2017 and October 2020. Like many jurisdictions in North America, BC is comprised of relatively densely-populated urban areas–the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island–combined with sparsely-populated hinterlands–forests, mountains, and deserts. Moreover, there is a strong partisan split between these areas–with the conservative BC Liberal Party (BCLP–the story of why the provincial Liberal Party in BC is actually the home of BC’s conservatives is too long for this post) dominating in the hinterlands while the left-centre New Democratic Party (NDP) generally runs more strongly in the urban southeast of the province. In Canada, electoral districts are often referred to as “ridings”, or “constituencies.” If one were completely ignorant about BC’s provincial politics one would assume, simply from a quick perusal of the map above, that the “blue” party–the BC Liberal Party–was the dominant party in BC. In addition, it would seem that there was very little change in partisan support and electoral outcomes across the electoral districts over the course of the two elections. In fact, the BCLP lost 15 districts, all of which were won by the NDP. (The Green Party lost one of the districts it had won to the NDP as well, for a total NDP gain of 16 districts (seats on the provincial legislature) between 2017 and 2020. This factual story of a substantial increase in NDP seats in the legislature is poorly conveyed by the maps above because the maps match partisanship to area and not to voters. To repeat, in future posts I will demonstrate some methods researchers have used to mitigate the problem of area-based electoral maps, but for now I’ll show that once we zoom into the southwest corner of the province (where most of the population resides) a simple electoral map does do a better job of conveying the change in electoral fortunes of the BCLP and NDP over the last two elections This is because there is a stronger link between area and population (voters) in these districts than in BC as a whole. You can more easily see the orange NDP wave overtaking the population centres of the Lower Mainland (greater Vancouver area–upper left part of each map) and, to a lesser extent, southern Vancouver Island. Data visualization #2 will demonstrate how to create animated maps of the above, which more appropriately convey the nature of the change in each of the electoral districts over the two elections. Here’s the R code that I used to create the two images in my post, using the ggplot2 package. ## Once you have created a sf_object in R (which I have named bc_final_sf, the following commands will create the image above. ## First plot--2017 gg.ed.1 <- ggplot(bc_final_sf) + geom_sf(aes(fill = Winner_2017), col="black", lwd=0.025) + scale_fill_manual(values=c("#295AB1","#26B44F","#ED8200")) + labs(title = "May 2017") + theme_void() + plot.title = element_text(hjust = 0.5, size=12, face="bold"), legend.position = "none") ## Second plot--2020 gg.ed.2 <- ggplot(bc_final_final) + geom_sf(aes(fill = Winner_2020), col="black", lwd=0.025) + labs(title = "October 2020") + theme_void() + legend.position = "bottom") ## Combine the plots and do some annotation <- gg.ed.1 + gg.ed.2 & theme(legend.position = "bottom") <- + plot_layout(guides = "collect") + title = "British Columbia Election Results \u2013 by Riding", theme = theme(plot.title = element_text(size = 16, hjust=0.5, face="bold")) ) # to view the first image above ## For the maps of the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island, the only difference is that we add the following line to each of the individual maps: coord_sf(xlim = c(1140000,1300000), ylim = c(350000, 500000)) ## so, we get gg.ed.lmsvi.1 <- ggplot(bc_final_final) + geom_sf(aes(fill = Winner_2017), col="black", lwd=0.075) + labs(title = "May 2017") + theme_void() + plot.title = element_text(hjust = 0.5, size=10, vjust=3), legend.position = "none") My 30-Day Data Visualization Challenge Prompted by something that I read on a Twitter post, I’ve decided to embark on a 30-day challenge of my own–creating 30 different visualizations of data. The types of visualization will vary–maps, charts, graphs, etc., and I will not be completing the challenge on sequential days. This challenge will give me a chance to put “on paper” some ideas and concepts that I’ve been thinking about for some time, all of which are broadly related to the topic of politics. So, stay tuned. ‘Controlling’ for confounding variables graphically As we’ve learned (ad nauseum) basing causal claims on a simple bivariate relationship is fraught with potential roadblocks. Even though there may be a strong, and statistically significant, relationship between an independent and dependent variable, if we haven’t controlled for potentially confounding variables, we can not state with any measure of confidence that the putative relationship between the IV and DV is causal. We should always statistically control for any (and all) potentially confounding variables. Additionally, it is often desirable to dig deeper into the data and find out if the units-of-analysis are fundamentally different on the basis of some other variable. Below you may find two plots–each of which shows the relationship between margin of victory and electoral turnout (by electoral district) for the 2017 British Columbia provincial election. The first graph plots a simple bivariate relationship, while the second plot breaks that initial relationship down by political party (which party won the electoral district). It could conceivably be the case that the relationship between turnout and margin of victory varies across the values of political party. That is, the relationship may hold in those electoral districts where party A won, but not hold in those in which party B won. We can see here that there is little evidence to suggest a difference in the relationship based on which party won the electoral district. Can you think of another `third’ variable that may cause the relationship between turnout and margin of victory to be systematically different across different values of that variable? What about rural-versus-urban electoral districts? Here are the plots: Using R to help simulate the NHL Draft Lottery Upon discussing the NHL game results file, I mentioned to a few of you that I have used R to generate an NHL draft lottery simulator. It’s quite simple, although you do have to install the XML package, which allows us to use R to ‘scrape’ websites. We use this functionality in order to create the lottery simulator dynamically, depending on the previous evening’s (afternoon’s) game results. Here’s the code: (remember to un-comment the install.packages(“XML”) command the first time you run the simulator). Copy and paste this code into your R console, or save it as an R script file and run it as source. # R code to simulate the NHL Draft Lottery # The current draft order of teams obviously changes on a # game-to-game basis. We have to create a vector of teams in order # from 31st to 17th place that can be updated on a game-by-game # (or dynamic) basis. # To do this, we can use R's ability to interrogate, scrape, # and parse web pages. #install.packages("XML") # NOTE: Uncomment and install this # package before running this # script the first time. require(XML) # We need this for parsing of the html code url <- ("") #retrieve the web page we are using as the data source doc <- htmlParse(url) #parse the page to extract info we'll need. # From investigation of the web page's source code, we see that the # team names can be found in the element [td class="text-left"] # and the odds of each team winning the lottery are in the # element [td class="text-right"]. Without this # information, we wouldn't know where to tell R to find the elements # of data that we'd like to extract from the web page. # Now we can use xml to extract the data values we need. result.teams <- unlist(xpathApply(doc, "//td[contains(@class,'text-left')]",xmlValue)) #unlist used to create vector result.odds <- unlist(xpathApply(doc, "//td[contains(@class,'text-right')]",xmlValue)) # The teams elements are returned as strings (character), which is # appropriate. Also only non-playoff teams are included, which makes # it easier for us. The odds elements are returned as strings as # well (and percentages), which is problematic. # First, we have 31 elements (the values of 16 of which--the playoff # teams --are returned as missing). We only want 15 (the non-playoff # teams). # Second, in these remaining # 15 elements we have to remove the # "%" character from each. # Third, we have to convert the character format to numeric. # The code below does the clean-up. result.odds <- result.odds[1:15] result.odds <- as.numeric(gsub("%"," ",result.odds)) #remove % symbol teamodds.df <- data.frame("teams"=result.teams[1:15],"odds"=result.odds, stringsAsFactors=FALSE) #Create data frame for easier display # Let's print a nice table of the teams, with up-to-date # corresponding odds. print(teamodds.df) # odds are out of 100 #Now, let's finally 'run' the lottery, and print the winner's name. cat("The winner of the 2018 NHL Draft Lottery is the:", sample(teamodds.df$team,1,prob=teamodds.df$odds),sep="") Polity IV Democracy Scores, Participation, and the Suffragettes We noted today in lecture that Polity IV gives countries like the United States very high scores on the ”democraticness” variable, even during periods when a majority of the adult population–African-Americans, and women–were legally not allowed to vote. While Switzerland (1971) was the last European democracy to grant universal suffrage for women, Portugal was the last European country to do so (1976)–Portugal was run by a military dictatorship during in the early years of the 1970s. In this era of social media abuse and bullying, it’s interesting to learn about some of the abuse hurled at the Suffragettes: The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global “Livability” Survey Omits Cost-of-Living Before we can say anything definitive about the concepts and ideas that we’re studying, it is imperative that we have some understanding about whether the data that we observe and collect are actually “tapping into” the concept of interest. For example, if my desire were to collect data that are meant to represent how democratic a country is, it would probably not be beneficial to that enterprise to collect measures of annual rainfall. [Though, in some predominantly agricultural countries, that might be an instrument for economic growth.] Presumably, I would want to collect data like whether elections were regularly held, free, and fair, whether the judiciary was independent of elected leaders, etc. That seems quite obvious to most. The Economist’s Intelligence Unit puts out an annual “Global Livability Report” , which claims to comparatively assess “livability” in about 140 cities worldwide. The EIU uses many different indicators (across five broad categories) to arrive at a single index value that allegedly reflects the level of livability of each city in the survey. Have a look at the indicators below. Do you notice that the cost-of-living is not include? Why might that be? You may not be registered to vote even though you think you are. I read a somewhat troubling story this morning about Canadian citizens who have previously not only been registered to vote, but who have voted, and are no longer registered with Elections Canada. Here is an excerpt: Delaney Ryan is a 23-year-old anthropology student at Simon Fraser University. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she voted in both the last provincial and federal elections. She meets all the criteria for voter registration, having her driver’s licence and maintaining the same address since voting in those elections. She can’t understand why, then, this time, she wasn’t registered on the voters list. “I had heard rumours about people not being registered, and a friend’s Facebook page had postings on it of other people finding out they were suddenly no longer registered. A lot of these people seemed to be in the same demographic as me. So I went online (to the Elections Canada website) and checked, and I wasn’t on it, either. “So I had to reapply for registration.” So, go to the Elections Canada website and verify that you are registered to vote this October 19. Political Psychology–How the gut, head, and heart decide our political views David Moscrop of Maclean’s magazine, has been writing a series of articles on the psychology of politics. Why do we have the political opinions that we do? The answer, as you now know, is a combination of environmental, demographic, and personal characteristics. More and more, political scientists and psychologists have been researching the importance of psychology as a factor that influences political beliefs and behaviours. At the beginning of his article, Moscrop reveals the inspiration behind the series: But the truth is that your gut is as much a source of your political decisions as your rational brain, and much of the time your gut—emotions, feelings, intuition—does its work outside of your awareness. Yep. The faces of the candidates, the pitch of their voices, their gender and ethnicity and height; whether or not you believe in God, whether or not you’re hungry, whether you’re a lawyer or dock worker or school teacher; the effects of political advertising, the effects of issue framing or priming, the effects of your peer group; your partisanship, your family, your fears. Here we see an image taken from the article, that demonstrates the various parts of our bodies that are involved in the making of political decisions.
What is dialysis, and how can it help? Dialysis is a technique used to remove waste products, such as urea and creatinine, from the blood due to inappropriate functioning of kidney and is usually required for people suffering from chronic renal failure. This procedure is required during the treatment of end-stage renal disease and kidney transplant. In this procedure, the blood is purified, excess fluid and toxins are removed, and electrolyte balance is restored in the blood. Dialysis is carried out in two ways, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. In hemodialysis, waste products, such as urea, are removed extra corporeally from the blood of the person. In peritoneal dialysis, the peritoneum in the abdomen is used for dialysis. Get PDF Brochure of dialysis industry study here! Based on type, it is bifurcated into hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Hemodialysis is categorized into conventional hemodialysis, short daily hemodialysis, and nocturnal hemodialysis. Peritoneal dialysis is further classified into continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) and automated peritoneal dialysis (APD). Based on products & services, it is divided into equipment, consumables, drugs, and services. The key players operating in the global dialysis market include Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA, Baxter International, Inc., DaVita Inc., Nipro Corporation, B. Braun Avitum AG, Diaverum Deutschland GmbH., Nikkiso Co. Ltd., NxStage Medical, Inc., Asahi Kasei Corporation, and Medicators
Which one of the following titles most accurately captures the main point of the passage? Avi on June 30 at 04:45PM Why E? I picked A on this one. Is A wrong because the time discussed, is too old to be considered contemporary? Also I eliminated E because it seemed too much to pin the legacy of art to the cultural revolution not as a backlash against it. Please explain. 2 Replies Victoria on July 10 at 01:59PM Hi @avif, Happy to help! Answer choice (A) is incorrect for two reasons. First, you are right! The 1980s is too long ago to be considered "contemporary," especially since we have no way of dating when this article was released. Second, the passage is not surveying political influences on Chinese art; rather, it is solely focused on the impacts of the Cultural Revolution. Answer choice (E) is correct because a legacy does not have to be positive. The Scar Art movement was inherently connected to the Cultural Revolution because the artists were trained in Maoist art schools and then exiled to rural areas during the Cultural Revolution. It was this exile that led them to co-opt the supposed realism underlying the Cultural Revolution to create art which depicted the day-to-day realities of rural life. In this way, the Cultural Revolution facilitated the development of the Scar Art movement, an unforeseen artistic legacy of the broader revolution. Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions. Avi on July 10 at 07:06PM It does. Thamks!
New Jersey Portrait by Artist to Come • Following adoption of the U.S. Constitution, New Jersey briefly granted women suffrage (1790 - 1807) and was the only state to do so. Portrait to come. See entry in Wikipedia. There is a symmetry between the folly of Burgoyne’s march south to Saratoga and that of Cornwallis’s march north to Yorktown. Military historians debate why Burgoyne risked marching south from Fort Edward in the same way that they question why Cornwallis advanced north beyond North Carolina into Virginia. Although Cornwallis had none of the outward vanity of Burgoyne, the two men were similar in that they were both junior generals and neither of them was commander in chief of the British army in America. Both blamed their subsequent failures on rigid orders and insufficient latitude. They both expected to march through predominantly friendly territory. They both ignored the chain of command and went over the heads of their superiors to communicate independently with Lord George Germain. They both allowed their supply lines to become overextended and their forces suffered harassment by enemy militia. They presided over the two most decisive defeats of the American Revolutionary War. Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
GEOG 862 GPS and GNSS for Geospatial Professionals Static GPS Control Surveying Diagram showing Static GPS with Post-Processed Differential Correction Static GPS with Post-Processed Differential Correction Source: GPS for Land Surveyors Static GPS/GNSS surveying has been used on control surveys from local to statewide to continental extent, and will probably continue to be the preferred technique in those categories. In static GPS/GNSS surveying the receivers is motionless for a time, usually a relatively long occupation. If a static GPS/GNSS control survey is carefully planned, it usually progresses smoothly. The technology has virtually conquered two stumbling blocks that have defeated the plans of conventional surveyors for generations. Inclement weather does not disrupt GPS/GNSS observations, and a lack of intervisibility between stations is of no concern whatsoever, at least in postprocessed GPS/GNSS. Still, GPS/GNSS is far from so independent of conditions in the sky and on the ground that the process of designing a survey can now be reduced to points-per-day formulas, as some would like. Even with falling costs, the initial investment in GPS/GNSS remains large by most surveyors’ standards. However, there is seldom anything more expensive in a GPS/GNSS project than a surprise.
views updated not / nät/ • adv. 1. (also n't joined to a preceding verb) used with an auxiliary verb or “be” to form the negative: he would not say \| she isn't there \| didn't you tell me? ∎ used in some constructions with other verbs: he has been warned not to touch the pain of not knowing \| she not only wrote the text but also researched the photographs. 2. used as a short substitute for a negative clause: maybe I'll regret it, but I hope not \| “Don't you keep in touch?” “I'm afraid not.” \| they wouldn't know if I was telling the truth or not.3. used to express the negative of other words: not a single attempt was made \| treating the symptoms and not the cause \| “How was it?” “Not so bad.” ∎ used with a quantifier to exclude a person or part of a group: not all the poems are serious. ∎ less than (used to indicate a surprisingly small quantity): the brakes went on not ten feet from him.4. used in understatements to suggest that the opposite of a following word or phrase is true: the not too distant future \| not a million miles away. ∎ inf., humorous following and emphatically negating a statement: that sounds like quality entertainment—not.• n. (often NOT) Electr. a Boolean operator with only one variable that has the value one when the variable is zero and vice versa. ∎ (also not gate) a circuit that produces an output signal only when there is not a signal on its input.• adj. (often Not) Art (of paper) not hot-pressed, and having a slightly textured surface.PHRASES: not at all1. used as a polite response to thanks.2. definitely not: “You don't mind?” “Not at all.”not but what archaic nevertheless: not but what the picture has its darker side.not half see half.not least see least.not quite see quite.not that it is not to be inferred that: I'll never be allowed back—not that I'd want to go back.not a thing nothing at all.not very see very.
How are upc codes assigned Upcs are universal codes sample illustration essay and work the same way irrespective of application or brand. the imagery in travel helps the reader to amazon upc code is nothing but a unique code assigned to each product on psychology term paper ideas the amazon how are upc codes assigned marketplace. in addition to having unlimited access a assigned how to write a cause and effect essay certified consultant, digital barcode files how are upc codes assigned (.eps) or printed barcode labels are how are upc codes assigned included the four easy steps for obtaining a upc barcode. a standard upc code how to make a business financial plan consists of three groups of numbers. different types of products have different number system characters. the characters of a upc are made essays paying college athletes up of a gs1 company prefix, item reference number and calculated check digit. thu, 2 jul, 2020. once you get a how are upc codes assigned gs1 company prefix, it automatically becomes the first string of numbers in all your upcs all upc numbers are assigned by gs1 – the global standards organization, formerly known as the uniform code council. john kelso writer the clerk scans the bar code of an item and both the product name how are upc codes assigned and current life goals essay high school price pops up on the screen description. sep 01, 2020 · how are upc how to type an essay on your phone codes assigned towards the top right of the ‘project details’ page,. upcs are administered and sold by gs1 us, the american branch of an international organization gs1 (formerly uniform code council). do i need to order a how to write an article analysis upc code for my physical discs? Aug 12, 2020 · how to get upc codes for your products 1. you will need to buy upc codes for every unique product you cynthia selfe sound essay sell can i use the same upc code for physical and digital copies of my tracks. Leave a Reply
@article{Kość_SVD_Ks._Antoni_Christianity_2010, author={Kość SVD, Ks. Antoni}, howpublished={online}, year={2010}, abstract={ The aim of this article is to present the relation between Christianity and Korean culture. The problem here is not the concept of Christianity, but the concept of Korean culture. In the Korean thought is hard to distinguish between religion and philosophy. Philosophy, religion and culture are synonyms for “philosophy of life”. The original Korean philosophy is Shamanism and received from China Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. In the case of Christianity we have to consider Catholic Church, Protestant Church and Orthodox Church. Special attention we have to pay to the Korean theology, which is based on Korean tradition. Special role in the history of Catholic Church in Korea played Korean martyrs. Sanguis martyrum, semen christianorum. }, type={Artykuły / Articles}, title={Christianity and Korean Culture}, number={Tom 5}, pages={133-152}, journal={Studia Nauk Teologicznych}, publisher={Komitet Nauk Teologicznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk}, doi={10.24425/snt.2010.112721}, keywords={Christianity, Korean culture, Shamanism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism}, }
Comparison of whitening effect of hydrogen peroxide and fluoride on female human teeth. Örüç, Çağla (2011) Comparison of whitening effect of hydrogen peroxide and fluoride on female human teeth. Other thesis, TED ANKARA COLLEGE FOUNDATION HIGH SCHOOL. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (1MB) The aim of this extended essay is to investigate and compare the whitening effect of Hydrogen Peroxide and Fluoride on human female teeth. The research question is: “Is there a significant difference between whitening agents Hydrogen Peroxide and Fluoride in terms of their effect on the colour change of human teeth ?” It was hypothesized that there will be a significant difference in terms of their whitening effects of Fluoride and Hyrogen Peroxide on female human incisors. The teeth treated with Hydrogen Peroxide will show a greater color change than the teeth treated with Fluoride. To investigate the whitening effect, a two‐step experiment is planned. In the first step teeth were stained in solutions of coffee, tea and sour cherry juice for 7 days. The second step is the whitening step where the teeth are cleansed with the whitening agents for another 7 days. The color tones at each step are measured using a colorimeter and data analysis is done in order to decide whether there is a statistical difference between the efficiency of the whitening agents. Resultantly, on the enamels of teeth that Hydrogen Peroxide is used, a larger color tone change is observed. The outcome of t‐Test showed there is a significant mean difference between Fluoride and Hydrogen Peroxide in terms of their whitening effects on human incisors. Item Type: Thesis (Other) Additional Information: Supervisor: Ümit Yaşatürk Midilli IB Notu: B Uncontrolled Keywords: effect of hydrogen peroxide, female human teeth, fluoride, biology Subjects: Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology Depositing User: Kamil Çömlekçi Date Deposited: 22 Jun 2011 06:20 Last Modified: 12 Apr 2019 10:57 Actions (login required) View Item View Item
Physics Seminar Classical Chaos by Martin Gutzwiller, Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems 2009-04-21, 10:30 AM in SB 151 chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems ? that is, systems whose states evolve with time ? that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. Chaotic behavior is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather. This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system.
The fight for freedom of harriet ross tubman She once again saved money from various jobs, purchased a suit for him, and made her way south. Tubman at first prepared to storm their house and make a scene, but then decided he was not worth the trouble. When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. Particulars of her first journey remain shrouded in secrecy. Suppressing her anger, she found some slaves who wanted to escape and led them to Philadelphia. These same symptoms gave her powerful visions that she ascribed to God and helped guide her on many trips to the North while leading others to freedom. In a blind rage, he threw a two-pound weight at her head, fracturing her skull and condemning her to a lifetime of sporadic seizures and narcolepsy. From to she served as a scout, as well as nurse and laundress, for Union forces in South Carolina. It read in part: About she married John Tubman, a free black. His overseer, furious, demanded that she help restrain him. I have wrought in the day—you in the night. Harriet Tubman and the Fight for Freedom: She never saw her work as done, but constantly joined anew the battle for freedom. She carried the scars for the rest of her life. Harriet had an open-door policy for anyone in need. Contrary to current popular belief, there were no common "codes" used by conductors. This condition remained with her for the rest of her life; Larson suggests she may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy as a result of the injury. Contrary to legend, Tubman did not create the Underground Railroad; it was established in the late eighteenth century by black and white abolitionists. As with many slaves in the United States, neither the exact year nor place of Araminta's birth is known, and historians differ as to the best estimate. When night fell, the family hid her in a cart and took her to the next friendly house. Excepting John Brown—of sacred memory—I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Morality calls for the brave to break unjust laws until those laws are broken beyond repair. As a Union spy and scout, Tubman often transformed herself into an aging woman. Clinton mentions that there is a possibility that Margaret was actually Harriet's biological daughter, the result of a rape, but there is no solid evidence for this. Harriet Tubman and the Fight for Freedom The difference between us is very marked. Bleeding and unconscious, she was returned to her owner's house and laid on the seat of a loom, where she remained without medical care for two days. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven. Harriet Tubman Fight for Freedom About she bought a small farm near AuburnNew Yorkwhere she placed her aged parents she had brought them out of Maryland in June and herself lived thereafter. She had to check the muskrat traps in nearby marshes, even after contracting measles. This made Harriett even more determined. With the help of the Underground RailroadHarriet persevered and traveled 90 miles north to Pennsylvania and freedom. Known as the “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor" of the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman to Sarah Bradford in Harriet, The Moses of Her People “ there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. Who are the characters of Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton? I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland, because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. Stanford Libraries' official online search tool for books, media, journals, databases, government documents and more. Harriet Ross Tubman was an African American who escaped slavery and then showed runaway slaves the way to freedom in the North for longer than a decade before the American Civil War. During the war she was as a scout, spy, and nurse for the United States Army. Harriet Tubman, née Araminta Ross, (born c.Dorchester county, Maryland, U.S.—died March 10,Auburn, New York), American bondwoman who escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the American Civil War. The fight for freedom of harriet ross tubman Rated 3/5 based on 22 review Harriet Tubman Facts and Quotes \| Black History \| PBS
I am trying to translate the sentence H jumped down off the table. The 'jump' element is not stressed, he could equally just 'step' or 'get' down from the table. I am just not sure which prepositions to use. My attempts: Er sprang von dem Tisch herab/herunter Not sure if 'von' is right there Er sprang den Tisch herab/herunter I know you can use a similar syntax to that to talk about going down the stairs, i.e. without a preposition before the noun, but it doesn't look right to me in this case. • 3 For a proper translation we need context. The isolated sentence is not enough because the choice of words depends on the overal situation. – Christian Geiselmann Dec 22 '19 at 0:28 • Isn't the english sentence wrong already? It seems like a mixture of "He jumped off the table" and "He jumped down from the table". – Björn Friedrich Feb 8 at 12:47 Paul sprang vom Tisch herab. This is told from the perspective of somebody who is on ground level. Paul sprang vom Tisch hinunter. This is told from the perspective of somebody who is on the table. It might be another person standing or sitting on the table. Or it may be Paul himself. *Er sprang den Tisch hinab. This is technically a well-formed sentence (grammar-wise), but it makes no sense, unless you invent a very, very specific situation. Usually "[eine Sache, Akkusativ] hinunterspringen" is used related to, say, the slope of a hill. So you can say: Paul sprang den Abhang hinunter. The Abhang is a larger area - much larger than Paul. If you insist on using "den Tisch hinunterspringen" you may invent a situation where a tiny creature (say, a mouse) runs or jumps down a sloped table top, or so. But this does not seem to be an everyday situation. Unless you are one of the authors of Pinky and the Brain, perhaps. \| improve this answer \| \| • "you may invent a situation where a tiny creature (say, a mouse) runs or jumps down a sloped table top" - I disagree about the "tiny" part. IMO, as soon as the tabletop is sloped for some reason, "Er sprang den Tisch hinab." works to express that "he" is moving downwards along the sloped surface of the table. – O. R. Mapper Dec 28 '19 at 21:20 I'd say "Er sprang vom Tisch." 😉 No need for "hinab" or "herunter" here, imho. \| improve this answer \| \| I feel that "off" and "down" are somewhat redundant, but I'd translate it as "Er sprang runter, weg vom Tisch". You may replace "runter" with "hinunter" (seen from the table) or "herunter" (seen from the floor), depending on the point of view. \| improve this answer \| \| • When you talk about point of view, do you mean the point of view of the narrator? I.e. if the person recounting the story was at ground level, you would use herunter? – Jacob Lee-Hart Dec 21 '19 at 18:14 • 1 Yes: "hinunter" means "away from" and "herunter" means "approaching" (getting closer). – U. Windl Dec 21 '19 at 18:16 You're right, "hinunter" doesn't fit this context. It implies that the noun in question serves the purpose of allowing movement along it, or at least that the movement follows the length of the object. Thus, you might use it for moving down a set of stairs, a firepole, a hatch, a tree trunk or even an anchor chain (if you're a diver), but not a table. \| improve this answer \| \| • Thanks, that makes sense, but could you tell us how it should in fact be phrased then? – Jacob Lee-Hart Dec 21 '19 at 16:42 • a) there are two nouns; suppose you mean the grammatical object, the table. b) while Tisch and disc are deceptively aimilar, most tables have legs, which have a length, which one can "move along" as you say. I think "Er sprang vom Tisch." suffices for most cases, but one can imagine several continuations, and hinunter is one of them, that implies landing on the floor, just as "Er ging vom vom Garten hinein." is unobjectionable. Yet, "Er kam von draußen herein." makes a difference. So it depends on the verb, too, and your allusion to stairs, and thus going or climbing is misleading. – vectory Dec 21 '19 at 19:02 Your Answer
Practical Solutions for Filipino Farmers and Market Fluctuations Problem: Small scale Filipino farmers plant not knowing what the price will be by the time the crop is ready for harvest. When the price drops due to oversupply of vegetables the farmers barely make enough and sometimes even end up dumping their crops because the cost of transportation is greater than the value of the vegetables. The problem is three-fold. First, it is the inability of farmers to see the whole picture of who is planting what crops, which results in overproduction and then drives market prices down. Second, it is a problem of markets being mostly local, with little to no access to other markets, this keeps prices lower. Third, there is not enough coordination between domestic farmers and government agencies that control the importation of agricultural goods. Solution: The Department of Agriculture (Philippines) needs to study the market to find out what amount of vegetable production is needed. Once they establish a baseline, then they should come up with a voluntary program that will aid farmers in deciding what crops to plant today based on their projections of future demand. The Department of Agriculture (Philippines) could issue a quota voucher to farmers, who had enrolled in the program, to plant crops based on the projections and granting them certain protections for if the market price does drop. In other words, if there is a market need for a particular amount of green beans then the agency could issue a proportional number of vouchers. This, assuming import controls, would stabilize the markets and prices. And, if the market price dropped anyways, abiding by the voucher system would entitle the farmer to some compensation. Another way to get better prices for isolated farmers is to facilitate the connection to a broader market. Access to markets beyond the local region is one way to increase the value of crops produced and also to stabilize price fluctuations. Government contracted transportation and distribution could be a part of this or it could be entirely put out to bids with private contractors. The transportation costs to be offset by the better prices in the destination market, the farmer would get the voucher guarantee price and the rest would go to the transportation contractor. This sort of analysis and organization could also be done independently of the government. But it would take a significant investment. The national government would be in a better position to facilitate this than a private entity of limited resources. That said, universities could help to develop the models of the agricultural markets necessary to determine how many vouchers should be issued for each kind of crop. It would need to be a collaborative effort. Maybe with the help of transportation cooperatives between these small-scale farmers? And one key is to incorporate the local ‘grassroots’ input, as well, as a strictly top-down central planning agency would likely fail. Central planning generally doesn’t work and especially not when it removes the autonomy of individuals to act in their own self-interest or allow choice. Participantion would need to be voluntary and incentives market-based rather than artificial. Ideally it would be self-sustaining and entirely funded by the beneficiaries. Finally, yes, protectionism may be bad in excess, as in North Korea. However, any country that wishes to maintain domestic industry and jobs must moderate foreign imports. Haitian farmers learned this lesson the hard way when cheap, subsidized, rice exports from the United States destroyed their already meager profits and forced more of them to compete for the limited opportunities for employment in the cities. So it is incumbent, on the government of the Philippines, to control agricultural imports for the benefit of domestic producers. Anyhow, some ideas. Christian Answer to the Perfect Church Myth One of the markers of Protestantism, from the start and especially in the current evolutionary stage, is the purity spiraling of those still seeking the perfect church on their own terms. In a sense, the protest of Protestantism never has ended and continues to fracture the Western church into oblivion. As a product of that way of thinking, I had always sought after and argued for my own ideal for the church. It could very well, if I was slightly more ambitious, had eventually led to the formation of the Perfect Church of Joel. That is what many Protest-ants do when they become disillusioned with the tradition they were born into, they protest and start their own new and ‘perfect’ church. Of course, the shine of these fresh attempts to reform or restore the ‘original’ church is soon burnished. The next generation comes along, or disagreement comes up between these idealistic individuals, and soon spawns the next Protestant group, and the next after that, and the next after that, ad infinitum. The Seeker Versus Slanderer The concluding end of Protestantism is only perfect disunity, with everyone staying at home on Sunday as to be away from those other hypocrites and to do church right their own way. And, yes, if you’re thinking of the retired Burger King “have it your way” slogan, that might as well be the banner over these endeavors. Protestantism is the church for the consumerist age. It is defined by individualism, marketing campaigns, and seeker-sensitivity, or alternatively, pride, perpetual discontentment, and perfectionism. There is nothing new under the sun. Like now, there was also self-aggrandizement in the early church: I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. (3 John 1:9,10 NIV) There was plenty to criticize in the early church. There was sin overlooked or even celebrated locally, there were cliques of those of higher social status and those left out, arguments among leaders, and plenty for someone to be dissatisfied with. But Diotrephes took things a step further, he rejected church unity altogether, refused even the Apostles, and I’m sure, in his own eyes, his theology was impeccable. However, it is quite evident that Diotrephes had put himself first and, despite his inflated ego, was as sinful as those whom he arrogantly slandered or shut out. There is no indication that Diotrephes ever wavered in his commitment to himself and his own understanding, it is quite possible that he remained inordinately impressed with himself until his last breath, but we certainly should not follow his example. This is what we should seek after: (Ephesians 4:1-6 NIV) Casting Pearls Before Swine Had I still been seeking a perfect church I would not have become Orthodox and I would not have joined your silly cult group either. I can pretty much rip anything to shreds with my critical spirit and, at the right point in my life, would’ve been one of those that Jesus advised his disciples about, saying: (Matthew 7:6 NIV) It is likely not a coincidence that this quotation above follows Jesus saying “judge not, or you too will be judged” and recommends us taking the beam out of our own eyes first. There is nothing to be gained by dialogue with a cynical and divisive skeptic. They aren’t there to learn, they are there to tear you apart as a means to prove their own superiority or justify themselves. Their goal is not to understand, it is to trip you up so that they can smear mud in your face. I think we all know the type. They live for controversy, for an opportunity to debate and disparage. Do not engage these people. They are not seeking after the unity described by St Paul. They are proud, self-righteous, demanding, and never satisfied. No, these contentious people are no more hopelessly lost than anyone else. They may be sincerely seeking and yet will not be argued or logically driven from their own position. However, despite their perpetual restlessness as a result of hidden uncertainty or insecurity, they cannot see the folly of their own way and are only engaging you to feel better about themselves. They will ridicule and mock because it distracts from their own inner lack of peace. It is not worth arguing with someone who is focused on the imperfections of everyone else. They will need to come to terms with their own imperfection first and by not arguing with them you give them that space they need to turn their inquiry inward. Jesus said to pray for those who persecute us, he did not say to try to argue and persuade those not truly interested in hearing or considering their own need for repentance. I’ve spent years of my life trying to convince people. I believed that people were changed by means of the mind, that we were rational creatures, and could employ reason to drive people to a correct perspective. But there is more to than that and, as a wise uncle recited to me years ago, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” The pigheaded, those blinded by their own bias, will stomp, snort and sneer at anything they don’t want to accept. Without a change of heart, without repentance, trying to engage with them is a waste of time. Correcting Our Orientation Looking back the problem is clear. The divisions in the denomination that I was born into, the conservative versus liberal, had to do with a horizontal rather than vertical focus. We were oriented wrong. We thought we should be unified by our shared standards, our understanding of theology, and purity on our own terms. But the reality is that this was an approach that led to quarrels and a form of religious pride disguised as righteousness. Had we been oriented towards Christ we would have been more understanding of our own continual need of salvation and thus been more forgiving of faults and differences. Seeking perfection in the church brings division and self-centeredness. Seeking perfection in Christ brings unity and healing to the imperfect church. Many seek the perfect church at the expense of following Christ who spent his time with losers. They neglect to notice that the book of Acts and the letters of St. Paul are full of examples of failure. Even the leaders of the church, Peter himself, had to be “opposed to his face” (Galatians 2:11-13) and call him out for hypocrisy. So who are we that we think that we are somehow cut from a better cloth than the Apostle themselves and can create a better church better than the one that they left for us? Sure, the history of the church is full of imperfection and failure. There were heresies that gained traction and even leaders that got out of line. But why are we seeking perfection in the church? Shouldn’t we be seeking after Christ, who loved us while we were still lost in sin, who forgives us as we forgive others? This was what Jesus told the disciples: (John 13:34,35 NIV) This idea of a pristine church, free of failures, abuses, or problems, flies in the face of our need for salvation and a Savior. It is pride, the biggest sin there is, and people trying to save themselves, that divides the church. It is an orientation that looks across the aisle rather than inward and upward, eyes that see every sin but our own. It is preferring that others conform to our own will and understanding over loving each other (as commanded) and valuing our Communion together. I became Orthodox once I stopped chasing after the fantasy creature of a perfect church. I gave up on the sufficiency of my own reasoning and started putting unity in Christ over having things my own way in theology and practice. There never was a perfect church, at least not one perfect according to my own hopes, perspectives, or personal standards. But there was a church that was brought together in their following after the teaching of the Apostles and in their seeking after unity in the Spirit. The measure of true faith is how much we love those who do not deserve it, as Christ first loved us, and this starts with loving our brothers and sisters in the imperfect church: (Luke 6:36-38 NIV) To be perfect, as our Father is perfect, is to be merciful as our Father is merciful. Of Violent Mobs and Prophets A smug and sanctimonious religious person, shockingly from Anabaptist background, tried to hijack a point about loving individuals (rather than groups) by using an example of Old Testament judgment. They literally took the other side in a post explaining the kind of dangerous tribal thinking that led to the Holocaust. This individual really ought to be ashamed and repent of this perverse use of Scripture. Before I go too far, it is very clear, to anyone who has read a history book or the Bible, that tribe in tribe violence and genocide were the norm. In Europe, North America and around the world, all lands have been conquered from the prior inhabitants by the current occupiers. The rivers, lakes and oceans would likely be filled with blood of our ancestors and those whom were violently removed from the gene pool by our collective ancestors. That is the natural state of things. In an age prior to society life was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, “nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes, for his part, credited the formation of strong central governments for the transformation. An observation that made sense in 1651, before the use of modern governments to commit horrendous acts of genocide, I suppose? Nevertheless, there has been been a shift of thinking from a time when it was okay to completely destroy an enemies tribe and the present. Many today, at least prior to Marxist indoctrination and regression of the past decades, would find it morally abhorrent to use one crime by one individual as an excuse to raze an entire village, steal the possessions of every inhabitant, kill all of the men and take the women captive, as was the case over and over again in the Old Testament of Scripture. Something took us from the brutality of the Old Testament, where it was okay to judge an entire tribe based on the transgressions of a few or even one, to the idea, that underpins Bill of Rights, that all individuals should be granted rights. What took us from the time when only members of our own genetic or religious tribe have rights to the present? What led to the abolishment of slavery, something that had been practiced on all Continents, by people of all skin color designations against all other people at some point in history, before becoming unacceptable? The answer, of course, is the one man, of the Jewish people, who started his ministry like this: (Luke 4:16‭-‬21 NIV) Jesus began with a declaration of the fulfillment of the Old Testament, after reading a prophecy about the blind being given sight, the oppressed being given their freedom, the poor having some good news and stunned his religious audience. Of course his message had a strong appeal to the Jewish people, who were looking for a tribal Messiah who would set them free from Roman rule. It is no surprise that in these discontented time such a man would quickly find a cult following and become a threat to the established religious order. But Jesus continued to defy the expectations of his religious tribally-minded followers. He subverted their expectations by expressing admiration for the faith of a Roman soldier, an occupier, by going to the home of a Jewish tax collector (and collaborator) and by using the despised Samaritan people, the “deplorables” of the smug and sanctimonious religious people in his audience, as his examples of virtue. Not only did extend the boundaries of “love your neighbor” to those outside of the tribe, he also did it using it a person from a group that they despised. The idea of a “good Samaritan” or a Roman with faith greater than all of Israel, common parlance today to many of us, would be repugnant to them. How dare he! How dare Jesus compare them, the self-proclaimed elites of their own ethnic tribe, to these unwoke heathens? How dare he criticize their measures of righteousness, their loud public proclaims of socially acceptable displays of sacrifice, defy their rules of ritual cleansing and then call them hypocrites! It is no wonder these hateful bigots tried to cancel Jesus. Jesus, by praising the equivalent of a police officer and a “flyover country” Trump supporter who rendered aid to a traveler, defied both their tribal identity focus and oppression narrative. They were the good guys with the right to rule. And at first they concluded that Jesus was confused, they asked his disciples why he ate with the bad people, the privileged tax collectors and alt-right trolls. He couldn’t be all that wise if he didn’t know what side of the social justice fence to be on, could he? Of course Jesus had never turned anyone away, but some excessively proud hypocritical people did reject him and his teachings. The role of underdog and social elite has flipped at many points in history. First the Christan Jews were persecuted by the anti-Christian Jews, then the Romans destroyed the Jewish center of culture, and took up persecution of the Jesus cult spreading in their own ranks, before converting to Christianity themselves. We can mention the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land and Europe before being pushed back by the Crusades. Constantinople was a bulwark of Christianity before becoming overrun by the Turks, who never were held accountable for their Armenian genocide and that eventually the inspiration for an underdog artist and war veteran seeking a “final solution” named Adolf Hilter. The one constant during two millennia of turmoil, of nations rising and falling, of a brief period of European domination of the world (after shedding their own tribalism) leading to the present time, is that Christianity has always been force for outreach across tribal lines. Yes, some did wrap themselves up in the name of Christ without actually applying his teachings. Progress does seem to always be a matter of two steps forward and one step back. And yet this idea of tribes coexisting, the imperfect tolerance of those who look, worship or act differently from us, is the rare historical exception. Tribe against tribe violence was and is the norm. God even directly ordered the destruction of rival clans according to the Biblical narrative. But those looking to see Ninivah destroyed, like Jonah angry and disappointed on the hill, should stop seeing themselves as God and repent. Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. So those hoping for the world to burn, especially the system that has benefitted them more than most, should be warned. Jesus didn’t come so that tribal grievances could be redressed violence against a rival tribe. He came to free us all from this cycle of sin and death. Those promoting or justifying intertribal conflict and contempt are antithetical to Christ. While Jesus sought to erase these artificial boundaries, to free us from our mental prisons of prejudice and give us sight that sees beyond race and socal status, these impostors are like Judas. They envy rather than love their neighbors and would leave a man bloodied on the side of the road if he wore the wrong skin color or may even beat him themselves. They may couch their in the words of Christ, as compassion or concern for the poor, but their real aim is social status and political power. Those who seek to divide the church (and countries) into competing identity groups, privileged and oppressed, have betrayed the cause of Christ and seek to bring people back into captivity rather than free them. They are spiritually blind despite declaring themselves to be ‘woke’ and have nearly the entire backing of the corporate and institutional system behind them despite flaunting a victim status. They are like the Pharisees, perpetually offended, and seek to destroy anyone who would expose them for the truly toxic people that they are. Sure, Jesus did divide, but not along lines of ethnicity, gender or social status. He subverted, not by targeting the brutal Roman rule (or laws) nor by “down with the hierarchy chants” against Jewish religious leaders. No, instead he urged compliance, he told his followers to “turn the other cheek” when insulted and to go the “extra mile” when compelled by the occupying Romans to carry their gear. Even when delivering a withering criticism of the religious authorities, he acknowledged they “sat in Moses seat” and taught that the position itself should be respected even if the occupants were unworthy and corrupt. Those comparing an unruly mob to an Old Testament prophet (even one as contemptuous as Jonah) and suggesting the current destruction is somehow God’s judgment have no theological or moral leg to stand on. The teachings of Jesus do not give anyone licence to judge nations, that is the work of God and the saints someday, not ours. Jesus, however, did stand up to the social elites then and they hated him. They whipped a mob into a frenzy with their false accusations, an ineffectual leader bowed to the demands of the mob and that’s why Jesus was crucified. There Can Be No Understanding in the Absence of Faith Recently a business page erupted over an earlier post that had offended some. The post, a rather mild meme suggesting that we not judge anyone on the basis of outward appearance, was removed and the owner immediately apologized. They claimed that they had not intended to post the meme, that they did not agree with the content, and this explanation was plausible given that the account doesn’t usually post anything besides menu items. And yet this did not please the mob. These hate-filled individuals continued to assail the business even in response to the post expressing solidarity with their particular cause. There was blood in the water, the sharks circled with merciless indifference to the pleas and the appeasement strategy clearly was not going to ward off the continuing attacks. They were going to be branded as a horrible and insensitive person no matter what they said. No explanation good enough. Nothing they did prior mattered and there was no way to atone. Last I saw they were open talking about closing up shop as the verbal onslaught carried into a second day after another vain attempt to explain. The perpetually offended can only ever see through the lens of their victimization and can’t ever be pleased. The mistake many people make, like this hapless small business owner, is that they assume they are dealing with someone like them, someone who can be reasoned with, who wants stability and peace. But I knew a few of the characters in this mob. These weren’t all good people trying to make the world a better place. No, not at all. Some, despite growing up in the same community as me and given every opportunity for success, had made a career out of conniving and seem to thrive on creating chaos for good people. They force others to tiptoe around them while themselves being totally uncaring about the suffering they cause others. Of course, if you call these clingers to grievance out on their hypocrisy they will suddenly find religion and retreat to “only God can judge me!” Grievance, in the case of this type of person, is a manipulation tool. It is exploitive of a cultural propensity towards compassion. Those who ply the grievance trade are not interested in solidarity or equal treatment, they are miserable people who want supremacy over others and thrive on creating conflict for their own gain. The only way to win is not to play their game. The Victim Gambit Years ago I had been invited to join an online discussion forum. I signed up with a sort of naive optimism, thinking it would be a place for intelligent conversation about things pertaining to theology and my religious sect. But my delusion did not last for long. The site was a lightning rod for the damaged and disgruntled, many of them ex-Mennonites or sexual abuse victims, some of them back for their revenge and others to commiserate. Of course, I had a great amount of compassion for those who had bad experiences. There was no excuse for what they had gone through and I would gladly stand with them against the abuse they had experienced. However, their experience did not reflect my own nor the values I had been taught and I refused to be the whipping boy for things that had nothing to do with me. I’ll take the weight of the world upon my shoulders sometimes, but I’m not one to allow myself to be bullied. It was in this encounter with grievance personified that I learned an important lesson. You cannot negotiate with those clinging to and defined by their grievance. Even goodwill gestures will eventually be reinterpreted in ways that a normal and healthy mind could hardly even imagine. Case and point? There was a woman on the site, maybe ten years my senior, with a slow burning hatred towards men. She had been sexually assaulted years ago and was completely devastated by the experience. But despite this pity me presentation, they struck most people as being a somewhat reasonable voice and who, along with me, had been given moderator powers. Of course it was important to me to have a positive working experience with them for this and other reasons. I did some outreach and very soon learned of her unfortunate experience many years ago and deduced that it still played an outsized role in defining her worldview. One Sunday afternoon this chronically depressed individual was expressing their misery and woe, again, and I decided I would do something to try to cheer them up. I drove a little over an hour to where they were to chat face to face and had some vague hope that this would help our communication online as well where my voice or intent was frequently misunderstood by them. The afternoon didn’t go badly, as I recall, and she invited me to McDonald’s nearby for a snack. I had thought about paying, but was slow to the draw as I considered how that would be interpreted and decided we should both pay for our own so this would not be misconstrued. This kind gesture would come back to haunt me. A few years later I did begin to date and things online began to deteriorate. My moderator counterpart had started to act like a jealous lover and I was too dense, at the time, to figure it out. It all culminated with a bizarre accusation from my girlfriend’s mother (also in a very abusive relationship) using the unique semantics of my moderator counterpart. I knew the source and confronted the source. But I was met with denials, they straight up lied to me about their attempt to sabotage my relationship and claimed to not know what I was talking about. However, eventually, keeping up the pressure, they did confess to the nasty gossip they spread and that could have been the end of it. Unfortunately, that I had caught them did not improve our relationship. If anything, it made them more determined to undermine me. They had the ear of the site founder (someone who was not frequently on the forum and missed much of the ebbs and flows of things) and, over a moderation technicality, playing the victim, petitioned to have me removed. He obliged the request and I was livid. Had I kept my wits and been a bit more coniving or even just explained my side in more measured tones, I would likely have done better. Still, she had far more practice at her gambit and had been behind the scenes undermining me as well. Now I had a grievance too. I had always taken the role of feeding controversy to help keep up traffic to the forum. It was all harmless fun for the most part, bantering back and forth. But this time I was not in a playing mood, this person had attempted (and failed) to destroy my new relationship, now they retaliated against me for exposing them (in private) by “having my head” as a moderator and so I took it up with the newly minted replacements. It was in this discussion where an accusation came out, from her, that left me completely aghast. Yup. That’s me! She accused me, on the basis of my goodwill visit to her years ago, of being a “cheap date” because, out of an abundance of caution and as not to mislead about my intentions, I did not pay for her Big Mac!!! The insane part is that none of these new moderators called her out for this insanity and it would not have gone over well if I too directly explained why she had absolutely no appeal to me. The designated victim always gets special protection. I suppose it would be cruel to say that this bitter, self-pity consumed and misandristic woman was one of the least attractive people I’ve ever met and had absolutely zero chance of a romantic relationship with me? However, with my help, she was able to successfully poison my relationships there and had me flailing without recourse. Little did I know that even a sincere act of kindness could be weaponized against me. Good Faith Vs Everlasting Grievance Good faith refers to the foundational assumptions one must make about their counterpart in a negotiation. All relationships are, to a certain extent, a negotiation and we must trust the intentions of the other person or a productive relationship is impossible. If a person always interprets everything you say or do in the most negative light possible there is no way to effectively communicate. If you express sincere intentions or do something friendly, a poisoned person will see this as an attempt to manipulate and essentially bribe them. Most go along with the victim gambit out of misguided compassion or for fear that they may become the next target of hate if they were to speak honestly against the ‘victims’ own abuses. Many believe that if they continue to give in to demands, if they keep giving special deference to those possessed by their grievance, that over time this special niceness will somehow heal this wounded individual. But the reality is that those looking the other way and excusing the abuses of the abused are not helpful. No, in fact, they are enablers of abuse, they are allowing others to be harmed. A grievance should always be heard. We should always be willing to address the conditions that lead to abuse and give those harmed by abuse a chance to express themselves. However, there are some with a grievance who are sincerely looking for answers and others who are merely using their bad experience as political leverage and a means to gain power over others. This latter group is faithless and cannot be satisfied. Score keeping kills relationship Those in the grievance industry may claim to be interested in conversation, but are truly out for blood and the conversation is only a means to gain entry, a foot in the door tactic or Trojan horse. Whether they are trying to sell you a bill of goods or lay waste to your city, there is no good faith in their effort. When you refuse to give in to every demand, if you stand up to their abuses, the faithless aggrieved person will lash out in anger, they will make nasty and absurd personal accusations, then blame you for their hatred. You are not dealing with the person, you are dealing with their demon that will never be satiated and must be exorcized. When even good faith efforts to bridge a gap in understanding, when the perpetually offended person refuses to see that the problem (which was set in motion by something external) is actually originating with them and how they subjectivity process, they cannot be helped before they are able to acknowledge this and there is no option left besides distance. Those who continue to dwell in their grievance, even after being heard over and over again, should be ignored. What Would Jesus Do? Let’s talk about Jesus. But not the milquetoast happy hippie Jesus that many superimpose over him. Let’s talk about the real Jesus who made no apologies, who spoke critically about those who harbored resentment in their hearts and are consumed by blinding hate. There is a time to test the spirits and put some distance between ourselves and those who who absolutely refuse to hear truth: Matthew 10:14 NIV This idea that love means infinite niceness and refusal to walk away from anyone is wrong. It is because so many coddled those with a grievance, allow them to continue in their self-deception, that these people learn to use pity and guilt as a means to get what they want. As long as there is incentive to use their grievance in this way they will never reach the end of themselves and get the help they truly need. Again, not everyone is worth our time trying to understand: Matthew 7:6 NIV Incidentally, that is preceded by this: Matthew 7:1‭-‬5 NIV Those who are blinded by grievance are always righteous in their own mind. They are so focused on the sins against them (real or otherwise) that they cannot see that they are the same or worse than those whom they accuse. As justified, without introspection, they are free to heap condemnation on others. They, more often than not, project their own cancerous attitudes onto the imperfect actions of others and can twist even the best-intended goodwill gesture into a terrible transgression. If you open the door for them they will see it as a form of abuse. It takes wisdom to discern between the person lashing out who can be helped with just a bit of love and those who will only use your concern for their well-being as a means to try to enslave you to their putrid grievance demon. Those who mercilessly assail a small business owner for an errant social media post even after the owner apologized and completely disavowed the message, are beyond what normal compassion can help. Don’t allow them to win, do not play their game, their aim is only to destroy you and are only using your mercy as a means to draw you in close enough to plunge their crooked grievance knife. Walk away! Leaving those absent of faith, especially those who claim to be Christian yet are unrepentant about their toxic and hateful attitudes, is sometimes the most loving thing we can do. It can be the only way that finally do reflect on their own true spiritual darkness and reach for the light and love of salvation. Or, at the very least, the distance we keep between us and them prevents us from being poisoned by them. Love never means enabling sin. Good faith begins with living out, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” and all people acknowledging their culpability in the mess as a starting point. Those clinging to an oppression narrative, enveloped in grievance culture, cannot truthfully pray that prayer and should not be considered part of the community of faith until they do. Good faith means understanding “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” and forgiving our enemies. Conflict Builds Character: A Family Conversation About Race My own family situation was unique. As many good Mennonites do, my aunts and uncles, like my grandmother, adopted and there was no child left behind. Of course what this meant is there was some additional shades of color at family reunions and it had always seemed like this wonderful idyllic thing. And it certainly did help in the regard that it gave some children the privilege of a stable home and also likely helped us other cousins to humanize those of different color from our own. But with this also came a negative side. Believe it or not, good little Mennonite children can also be vicious racists, being of a different skin color did indeed make that a focal point of conflict and I wonder how many seeds were planted then that fed insecurities that we all deal with and yet would be felt especially acutely by those adopted? My own feelings of not belonging did not have that one focal point, that specific thing that could be identified as a source, and yet I was still the “black sheep” regardless. Still, I had the opportunity to talk to another self-identified “black sheep” of his family, my cousin Isaac, who like me, had a foot in two different cultures. He would spend most of the year with his white family in rural Pennsylvania, his parents my first cousins, and would also spend time with his black family in the inner-city of Philadelphia during the summer. Of course this gives him a very unique perspective on racial issues and definitely a voice worth listening to. So, when we started to argue about recent events, both of us talking past each other, he called and this is the result. My Voice Doesn’t Matter Taking a step back, Isaac and I are a different generation. I’ve been struggling, over the past few years, with feelings of betrayal for having embraced the ideal of racial equality and all that nonsense (which isn’t actually nonsense) about judging each other by the content of character rather than the color of their skin. Racism always seemed silly to me. What did it really matter what skin a person wore so long as they treated me decently, right? And that’s just how I would assume that most rational and sane people think. Unfortunately things are more complicated than that and that is what is creating conflict across this great nation. My grievance started years ago, with something that I witnessed over and over again and maybe is best captured in a story from my school years when a mother, black, got on to the bus and screamed in the face of our bus driver, calling him “racist” and “redneck,” nasty things. Why? Well, he had had the audacity to apply the same standard, established for the safety of her children as much as all of us, but apparently the only thing she could see was that this white man (now beet red) was somehow mistreating her perfect darling angels for trying to impose a little order. The rest of us sat in stunned silence, the poor farmer working for a pittance was not a sophisticated man nor equipped for this kind of conflict nor were the rest of us. That was one of many similar incidents where us polite people had to simply keep our mouths shut as some other folks got a free pass for their misbehavior. Polite culture means we avoided causing a scene, that we look the other way when the impolite people fight and basically do whatever it takes to avoid conflict. Conflict over the slightest perceived insult was the realm of bullies and other insecure people. We did not wish to be browbeat and berated ourselves. Our own grievances with this mistreatment would be mocked and belittled anyways, so we kept our heads low and did whatever it took to accommodate those less polite. A few years, during the Obama presidency, many took issue with the massive expansion of government called by the misnomer Affordable Care Act. Of course, as a consistent fiscal conservative and one keenly aware of the costs, along with unintended consequences, of expanded government power, I was opposed. Many Americans did peacefully protest and yet, almost immediately, they were branded as racist by the media. I was appalled. But at least a black friend, a progressive, with a good education, would treat my own concerns as valid, right? It ended up being one of the most disappointing conversation of my life. A man, who already intimidated me for his advantages, dismissed my points with personal insults. It was in that conversation and several others, after Obama’s call for dialogue about race, that I found out my own voice and experience didn’t matter in this ‘conversation’ about race. If I did not accept everything on their terms then I wasn’t understanding or lacked in empathy, which is absurd and definitely not terms that I would ever agree with in any other discussion. Nevertheless, it was what was, my skin color automatically disqualified my opinion, my attempts at consistently applied principles didn’t apply to their grievance, and I’ve always left feeling unheard. That’s the experience for many who don’t go 100% along with the protest narrative. Our voice didn’t matter. A Time When Silence Is No Longer An Option Over the past few years I’ve become a professional (yet hopefully harmless) agitator. After years of being a polite person or at least trying, wanting to go along with the Mennonite program, and finally it had just become too much. I had been told I was respected, affirmed in many ways, followed the rules, mostly, or to the best of my abilities and felt the other side of this social contract wasn’t holding up their own end of the commitment. My grievance had become too much to bear any longer and thus began my blogging here. It eventually boiled over and led me to leave my Mennonite tribal identity behind or at least to the extent that is possible. But this emancipation was not complete. There was one topic, given past experience and potential loss of friends, that I avoided as much as possible. The politics of race, meaning the discussion of things related to measuring out justice and governance, is a third rail for those who wish to think outside of the established and acceptable narrative. As oppressed as some claim to be, the oppressed sure do dominate conversation, they have governors breaking their own shutdown orders to march, celebrities speaking out in solidarity and big corporations affirming their message without any word about the accompanying violence. If only I could be so oppressed. It was with cities burning, small owners being beaten for defending their livelihoods, with my polite friends seeing “animals” and a growing number people dying in the violence, that I decided to take off my own filter and say enough is enough! Everyone up to President Trump himself had acknowledged the injustice of George Floyd’s death. We had an opportunity for solidarity against police brutality, the officer was charged, and yet, after what seemed like a full validation of the concern, the protests only picked up steam. I might be a polite person, who avoids conflict when possible, but I don’t want to be beaten to death on account of my skin color more than anyone else and certainly was not going to wait untill the violence had reach my own doorstep to speak out. No, nobody asked me to mediate or broker a conversation. I knew that those on the ‘other side’ would likely tune me out, maybe even unfriend or unfollow me, and started my own form of protest. The racially divisive narrative was a lie. Police brutality is a problem. The death of George Floyd is, by all appearances, an injustice. I have no problem with those who, on their own time and dime, without violating the rights of others, wish to protest. I know well the reality of racism, both historically and in the current year. And yet to frame everything of what happened in Minnesota in terms of race simply ignores reality and this sort of assumption about what happened will lead to anything but justice. If we were allowed to have an intelligent discussion on matters of race, if I had a partner in that discussion willing to see another perspective, I could explain. The Call Anyhow, it was in the midst of speaking out that someone with connection to me since childhood decided to speak back. That being my cousin Isaac. And it went predictably, online, as one would expect, I was “missing the point” and this first round came to a stalemate, with us moral posturing and might have ended there had Isaac not reached out with a phone call. It didn’t feel, at the end of an hour or so, that we agreed on too much. We had our times of animation, talking over each other, and emotion. But the reality is that we accomplished far more in our willingness to engage and so I did want to summarize a little of what I saw as significant, what I heard, where we agreed and where as diverged. 1) Not About George Floyd The one thing that Issac and I seemed to agree on is that that this was not about only the death of George Floyd. In his view, this is about racial unjustice and draws upon his own experience of finding out what it means to be black as a teenager. He spoke of the fear that black (presumably men in particular) have in their encounters with police, the profiling he suspects when entering into white communities and some of the racist language he has encountered. The circumstances surrounding Floyd’s death, that being his violent criminal record, his being on drugs and passing forged currency were inconsequential in his opinion. And I agree that this doesn’t make any difference as far as the guilt or innocent of Derek Chauven and the other officers. But where I diverge from Isaac is where he claims this death makes him equally vulnerable, as a black man, whereas I believe that criminal behavior and repeat negative encounters with law enforcement are going to dramatically increase the chances of dying at the hands of police. So we agreed that it is not about George Floyd. But I see the only reason that we are talking about this case, as a nation, is because of Floyd is black and not because of the injustice. 2) Black Lives Is Not About Black Lives, But All Lives? Isaac took issue with me saying that this was all about black tribal identity and racial solidarity, but was actually about police brutality and justice for all people. But, while saying this, he also defended the “Black Lives Matter” description and claimed it was a movement to respect all lives. However, if this were truly the case, I postulated, why do we only have protests, riots and looting when it is a black man involved? Why didn’t millions of Black Lives Matter protestors take to the streets and demand instantaneous prosecution of the black officer, Mohamed Noor, who shot and killed Justine Damond, an unarmed 40-year-old white woman in July of 2017? Why did I never hear about the final desperate calls of a young man named Tony Timpa? “You’re gonna kill me!” “You’re gonna kill me!” “You’re gonna kill me!” Timpa cried out thirty times, as officers pinned his shoulders, knees and neck down, and joked over his body as he slipped away in 2017? Why no outrage over the officers only being charged with misdemeanors and then having those charges dropped? Could it be because Timpa was white? And, finally, why did it not matter when Daniel Shaver, a 26 year old man on a business trip, in 2016, was shot five times, while crawling in compliance with police demands and having committed no crime? His killer was acquitted, even briefly reinstated as a police officer just so he could receive a pension and nothing burned. Nobody said much of anything. I know what my own answers to that series of questions is. My answer is that these deaths did not fit a racially divisive narrative. If this were truly about making all lives matter and police brutality, then these three cases would be an excellent opportunity to bring many people into the fold. No, that doesn’t mean that Isaac is insincere, not at all, but I do think the “Black Lives Matter” moniker is alienating and, frankly, insulting to those of us who have spent our lives treating everyone of all colors and creeds as if their lives mattered. So, my point is if this truly is about police reforms, not racial tribalism or divisive political posturing, why not find descriptive language that matches that intention? Why not “All Male Lives Matter,” since most who are killed by police happen to be men, mostly white men, not women? Or maybe “Police Brutality Must Stop,” a title that would describe the actual mission if it is about change and reform of police violence? The point is that words also matter and I would much sooner jump on board a movement that didn’t falsely present the issue. Isaac would likely disagree with everything I just said, that’s his right. 3) Isaac Wants Change, I Do Too The real crux of the matter comes down to a difference of perspective. Isaac (who has friends who are in law enforcement) sees a “broken criminal justice system” and wants a change. I agree that there needs to be improvement, but also that there’s an elephant in the room not often talked about and that being that we aren’t actually being honest in our discussion about race or getting to those things that lead to more violent encounters with police. And that’s not blame-shifting, we can both hold police officers accountable and also get to some of those root issues shaping black outcomes as well, but there first needs to be some acknowledgement of that difference. As things currently stand, polite people are forbidden to talk about things like black on black crime, we are not supposed to notice when public officials, journalists and activists downplay the ongoing murder and mayhem in the name of justice. We are not supposed to believe our own eyes when we see people, many of them black, with armfuls of stolen merchandise. Sure this may be a small minority, but let’s not pretend that this is only a few “white supremacist” infiltrators. It is time to stop this racism of lower expectations and have zero tolerance for using one injustice to excuse another. Again, that would restore some credibility and help accomplish the stated goals of the protests. And we need to talk about this double standard. The polite people are fed up with being treated like second-class citizens and silenced based on their skin color. They are tired of being villainized or ridiculed for their peaceful protests of other forms of government oppression, equated to terrorists, when actual terrorism is being ignored and criminals lionized. We need to talk about this because even polite people won’t respect those who do respect them. If the goal is to eventually achieve equality (which is my own hope) then the pandering and patronizing must end. To achieve the change we need to be the change and to be the change we need to treat others as we wish to be treated. Ironically, I believe some of the reason why many white people tune out is because they don’t feel heard themselves. Many, like me, feel unappreciated in a system that expects them to be polite people and then celebrates when their minority counterparts act out. It’s almost as if the minstrel shows have etched in this expectation that the black folk are supposed to sing, dance and keep us entertained, riot occasionally, that black people are unable to control themselves or their emotions and thus can be exempted if they are more aggressive, etc. But this is utter nonsense, there are many sober and serious black people, many emotional and expressive white people. I do agree with Isaac, we should not hold police to a different standard than anyone else, they must be held accountable for their actions like anybody else, and I support the push for reforms. Where we seem to diverge the most is our perception of what’s important to consider. He would prefer a more narrow focus, on the problem of police brutality, where I am more interested in doing more to address the cultural issues that lead to negative outcomes and would improve the image of black men in particular. 4) I Want Appreciation, And As An Individual It is not fair that Isaac, as intelligent and well-rounded as an individual that he is, gets lumped in with the crimes of any other black man or is even the defined in any way by his skin color. Likewise, I don’t want to be judged or held personally accountable for sins I’ve never committed as some are trying to do. It is absolutely absurd to me that some white people are out literally kissing the boots of black men. Please stop this insanity! Let’s just all learn to appreciate each others as equally individuals, okay? Fight prejudice in all forms. I would also rather we start from a position of appreciation for the criminal justice system that we do have. It is far from perfect and yet I know first hand what happens where it doesn’t exist. The killers of uncle Roland, in the Philippines, despite many leads, have not been brought to justice and that’s simply because there’s not the law enforcement resources to bring to bear. It is extremely easy to criticize any system and yet we should also study what is working and why as well. The key to fixing or improving any system is having an intimate knowledge of how it works or why it was designed in a particular way. I think that’s where Isaac and I differ the most, and also why we must talk, he wants change while I’m geared for caution and constraint. He protests for justice, now, immediately and on his own terms, while I ruminate about foundational principles and think about past incidents of mob rule. Neither of us are right or wrong in our approach. I understand his orientation towards action. He probably gets more done while I brood and ponder philosophies. We make perfect sparing partners. He knows enough about me to keep me honest and I know enough about him to do the same. I appreciate that Isaac, while passionate, did not attempt to pigeonhole and treated me with respect, like an equal. As Scripture says, “iron sharpens iron” and I felt quite evenly matched. It was definitely a conflict, yet I never felt threatened, as I have in other similar attempts at honest dialogue and efforts to bring the racial divide. We ended up expressing our love for each other, something that I don’t think we’ve even done before given there is a whole multitude of cousins on my dad’s side, and the whole experience was cathartic for someone like me who cares deeply and often feels helpless to change anything given the complexity of everything. It also inspired me to write this and help get our combined perspectives (albeit obviously biased towards my own perspective) out there for your consideration. But the more important take away is that we not ignore uncomfortable topics, that we not shout each other down rather than hear, that we engage in there types of true conversations, with two sides given, and find our common ground. I feel strongly that God brought Isaac and I together for a reason and the reason is to be that bridge between people. But Isaac deserves most of the credit, he didn’t fire shots and run, he was willing to engage in a meaningful dialogue. The King (Government) Can’t Save You… (The Long Delayed Part 2 To “The People Want A King) Originally, a few years ago, I had planned a multi-part series, “The People Want A King,” to discuss the establishment of rulers in the Biblical narrative and make it applicable to our own times. The short version is that God gave his people a king, while warning them of the costs, because they wanted to be like other nations. The costs were great… • Kings demanded more and more for themselves. • The centralization of power from many to few only increased the magnitude of corruption without providing a solution. • And, ultimately, the king could not provide the protection the people had sought when they established the throne. People then, like people now, wanted an authority figure, someone to lead them and take responsibility for their lives. They ended up with nothing but trouble: Higher taxes, more wars for the glory of the crown, and a growing number of rules that applied to them but never the ruler. Even the good kings did horrendous things with the power that had been entrusted to them and our modern-day governments not much different in that regard. Despite this, most people can’t even imagine a world without governments and many still look to leaders to act as a wise fatherly figure in times of crisis. Some would even like the government to play a nurturing role, they fantasize about this motherly figure that gives them everything and asks nothing but love in return. It seems that a majority of people believe that government leaders (or at least those of their own political party) are imbued with special powers of discernment and serve a role that can’t be questioned. (Psalm 146:3) Christians are told on multiple occasions to pray for and respect civil authorities. We are told by St. Paul that the punishment of evil is for our good and therefore we should not resist. But that said, this idea that government leaders, the representatives of bureaus and bureaucracies, have some sort of god-like infallibility and superior wisdom is plain wrong. We cannot trust them to save us any more than anyone else. And if we learn anything from their mistakes we should know: The Myth of Special Knowledge or Abilities For the amount of faith that some seem to have in our institutions, you may think that our leaders have a near-perfect batting average. It does not take long to compile a list of huge government blunders and starting with the handling of Covid-19. The virus wasn’t even on the radar of many of our elected officials before things got bad in Italy and when they finally did respond they did in a manner that did not make sense. For example, state governments forced nursing homes to take Covid-19 patients. They literally took Covid-19 directly to our most vulnerable populations, where 2/3rds of the deaths in my state have occurred. And, simultaneously, they prevented those least threatened by the disease from working or going to school—which resulted in an uptick of overdoses and suicides. This also at the same time Pennsylvania Health Secretary, Dr. Levine, was removed their own 95-year-old mom from a personal care home. So, take your pick, gross incompetence, or plain evil, either way, state officials responded the exact opposite of what would actually make sense, in a way that would actually maximize the harm done, and these are the people we trust with our collective welfare? And then there is the not so small matter of shutting down rest areas in a time when truck drivers, always essential, were as essential as ever. You would think that if the goal were to stop the spread of the virus you would want your road warriors to have clean and easily accessible restroom facilities, along with a safe place to sleep. But, to this day, many rest areas remain closed and those open have dingy unheated porta-potties rather than open their regular restrooms to travelers. In a time when health and hygiene is supposedly our focus, they have forced unsanitary and stressful conditions on essential workers. Even after being confronted on this, they continue to persist with this asinine policy with absolutely no regard for the well-being of truckers. Sure, this could be a mistake. There certainly is no reason to assume that there is some sort of malicious intention here. But it does demonstrate that they lack a special power of discernment over the rest of us. It should make us consider that maybe their whole perspective is wrong. I mean, if their judgment of small matters is so poor, why should we take their word on large matters? Could it be that those who were elected for their charisma and/or party affiliation and are not truly qualified to lead anything? Could it be that various government officials were appointed for political reasons, made their careers in places where job performance didn’t actually matter too much, and are incompetent? Yes, government leaders can get caught up in hype and hysteria just like the rest of us. No, neither they nor their advisors have a special power of discernment. This reality may be disconcerting to those who want a benevolent dictator to tell them what to do, nevertheless, it is true. The same leaders who nonsensically force truckers to use the least sanitary option could also be blissfully unaware of the severe (and deadlier) economic impact they are inflicting on us. The same leaders who forced nursing homes to take Covid-19 patients, evidently knowing the likely outcome, could be completely calloused to the pain that they are inflicting on you. Myth That Only Government Can Do Great Things There are many who are skeptical of government and yet default to the idea that we need to provide us with various services. I mean, who would build the roads if it wasn’t for PennDOT, right? Of course, never mind that PennDOT doesn’t build roads, they take our money through taxes and then subcontract the actual building to private companies. The reason for this is very simple: The government can never match private for-profit enterprises for efficient use of resources because there is simply no incentive to do so. Therefore, due to this disconnect, when the government does do anything themselves it is insanely expensive and prone to failure. Government funded and ready for launch! A prime example, from a century ago, was the competition between Samuel Pierpoint Langley and two brothers from Ohio, Orville and Wilber Wright, to build the first powered flying machine. Langley, funded by the government and fawned over by the media, he had all the right connections and credentials, but his overwrought design ended up in the Potomac River. The Wrights, by contrast, had little to no attention, didn’t even have high school diplomas, ran a bicycle sales and repair business, and beat Langley to powered flight with a very low budget and simple design. But, despite this, it is Langley’s name that graces an Army airbase, the CIA headquarters, and a NASA center. Speaking of NASA, the agency has, at great taxpayer expense, done some amazing things. We take for granted the satellites in orbit, the trips to the moon and back, along with the many things this government agency had pioneered that have since become integrated into our own lives. Could one person ever rival these great accomplishments? The answer is yes. The answer is that Elon Musk, with SpaceX, can do everything NASA is doing and at a far lower price. It costs a fraction of what the government spent historically for Space X to launch: But it isn’t just space flight that is made easier and less expensive through private innovation. No, at a time when the US Postal Service, a government entity that is supposed to be self-sustaining, can barely make ends meet, there is Jeff Bezos and Amazon making a tremendous profit while delivering tons of products. Sure, Amazon uses the Postal Service, and yet the lack of ability of the government enterprise to modernize and adapt to the current market conditions that is proving to be a fatal flaw. As they beg for another taxpayer bailout, Bezos and others will continue to prove that the same task can be done better and with lower overhead costs. The idea that there is any worthwhile project that is beyond the reach of the brilliant innovators of the present, without it being financed directly by the government, is completely bogus. Yes, certainly, unlike the Wright Brothers, the Musks and Bezos of this generation do take every tax break or advantage offered to them by government. But you could eliminate all of that entanglement and they would still do it better than any government agency at a fraction of the cost. The government never actually does great things. No, at best it is only ever a middleman that hires people or companies, supposedly on our behalf, that does the great things. Myth That Only Government Can Keep Us Safe If you look at the big problems of the past couple of decades that may require government sized intervention, from the 9/11 attacks to the viral outbreak originating in Wuhan, there is a disturbing pattern that emerges. Not only did this super expensive security apparatus not stop the various events and keep us safe, but it may also have actually been the cause of these events due to their prior interventions. There likely would not be the Islamic Republic of Iran today had it not been for the CIA’s meddling in the domestic politics of Iran. Osama Bin Laden had been an ally in our government’s proxy war against the Soviet Union before he became a threat that cost trillions. Our top US health advisor, across multiple US administrations, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is linked to the organization that funded bat and coronavirus research in a lab in none other than (drumroll, please) Wuhan, China. No, this is not a conspiracy theory, I’m not even convinced it was malicious in intent in any of the cases above. I agree with Hanlon’s Razor, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” But, regardless, there is certainly a strong case to make that high-ranking government officials do not comprehend the consequences of their actions, do not account for the blowback, and their solutions often create bigger problems. Are you sure you want the same people who created the problem, in the first place, to manage the response as well? Maybe it is time for a second opinion… And then there is the inconvenient truth that many in government are the actual criminals! Well, not that those truly guilty are ever prosecuted by the same standards applied to us or others of lower political status. Case and point: General Flynn was criminally prosecuted for what amounts to a perjury trap and in the context of an investigation that had no legal basis, to begin with, but a certain prominent US politician lied under oath to Congress and never faced any real threat of punishment. No, we are no better today than in the time of kings when it comes to equal justice. Those with real power (usually the combination of media and government agencies sympathetic) are never held accountable or to nearly the same standard that is applied to the average person. Even in Pennsylvania, where nursing homes were forced by the state government to take Covid-19 patients, guess who is being investigated by the state Attorney General for the resultant deaths? If you guessed the governor’s administration that ordered the sick into the nursing homes, then you would be wrong. Nope, instead, they will investigate the nursing homes, which is a typical “smokescreen” strategy or means to distract from those who truly should be held accountable. The Myth of the Significant Party Difference One of the most persistent and most blinding myths of politics is that the two parties represent something vastly different. If you are one of those Obama fanboys who still believes that his administration was scandal-free even now, because he says so, even after the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal, after weaponization of the IRS against political rivals, and actually believe he didn’t know anything about the Watergate-esque spying under his watch, then you are a complete tool. Likewise, if you see Trump as being a saint because he says some Christian things and posed with some pastors, then you are an insufferable fool. The real difference between the two men is that Obama is and expects to be catered to as one who can wax eloquent in a manner that sends shivers down the legs of other social elites, while Trump is a populist who knows how to work a crowd and is old (or rich) enough not to care what the talking heads think. If you don’t see Obama as being as narcissistic and corrupt as Trump then you probably also side against Biden’s accuser, with a corroborated allegation of sexual assault, while screaming #believewomen only a couple years ago because that is what you were told to do. Trump might be a bully, an unapologetic Twitter troll, but Obama is the popular snob who snickers behind the backs of those of lower status while knowing how to work the system in his own favor. The only reason that I find Trump tolerable is that he offends who aren’t accustomed to being called out and is the underdog in the fight. The fact that Trump is loathed by the corporate media and political establishment, both Republicans and Democrats, is enough reason to like him. Most Trump ‘scandals’ amount to little more than elaborate misinformation campaigns. For example, when Trump suggested hydroxychloroquine had promise as a treatment option for Covid-19, something many doctors agree with, this was equated to telling people to drink poison and is still being ridiculed. Why? Well, because Trump said it and they hate him with a blinding passion. They would probably rather die than acknowledge that Trump is right. But, in the end, I do not see Trump as a savior any more than any other politician. Sure, I am glad that he’s a challenge to the status quo. It’s fun to see his rivals become unglued and expose themselves as being as nasty under the thin veneer of their fancier, more sophisticated, language. However, the idea that any particular political party or person has all the right answers, or that Trump can be trusted with power more than anyone else, is balderdash. Trump should be mistrusted. He is as fallible as anyone else. My only complaint is that those attacking him, often for overtly political reasons, never face the same level of scrutiny nor are ever held accountable for their abuses. The Myth of Having to Be Pro- or Anti-government After writing all of that one might assume that I’m anti-government. I’m not. I believe that governments exist for a reason and abolishing them would not result in harmonious perfection. The same evils that plague government leaders would not simply go away because we eliminate the government and there is a moral order enforced by the state even if we do not fully agree with it. Sure, we may not like that a State Trooper gives us a speeding ticket and yet most of us are appreciative when a murderer is brought to justice in a way that we couldn’t do individually for ourselves. In the Philippines, where the central state is relatively weak and law enforcement resources stretched thin, murderers often face no consequences. I know this from having experienced it first hand, the men who murdered uncle Roland are still free despite strong leads because the police there do not have the ability to follow up. By contrast, in the United States, even with the smallest leads, government investigators were able to find the killer of Sasha Krause recently and Marco Kauffman before that. That closure provided doesn’t bring back those loved ones taken away, but it certainly does help to take a killer off of the street and to provide some deterrence against others who would do evil. If the United States government were to disband the relief from the tyranny we know would be extremely temporary and the peace short-lived as something would come in to fill the vacuum. A disorganized band of anarchists will do very little to stop even a Mexican cartel, let alone the People’s Republic of China, or anyone else who decided to take advantage. The peaceable folk who enjoy prosperity under the umbrella of government protection would either need to lose their disposition or learn to appreciate the taxation without representation of armed thugs who take whatever they want, including the innocence of their daughters, without ever needing to face consequences. We would be foolish not to consider the benefits of our imperfect order over the likely alternatives. But, that said, I’m under no delusion as far as the righteousness of our social elites and governing authorities. They are as flawed and lacking in good discernment anyone else and often too often greedy for more power by any means. Anyhow, I had sat on this post for a couple of weeks because I didn’t know how to finish. The tragic circumstances of George Floyd’s death, while in the hands of the Minneapolis Police, underscores the point of this blog quite well. No matter how intentioned or carefully formed, there is no escaping the reality that governments aren’t any better than the people that populate their nations. There is simply no escape for this reality, that no government in history or currently existing can save us from ourselves. The only hope for perfect justice is through faith in the kingdom where the fears, prejudice and greed, lust for power and lawlessness, are finally defeated in the hearts of men. Where we can govern ourselves according to the example of Jesus Christ. Blinding Obsession — The Rise of the Covid Karen I’ll admit, it went through me when I heard that my brother had the clear symptoms of a Covid-19 infection. Sure, it was far enough along that the deadliness of the disease wasn’t so statistically foreboding anymore. But emotionally there was a certain significance that was given to this and a bit of dread as well. What if this loss of taste developed into serious respiratory issues? My brother or one of his family members, who had been at home with him during the shutdown, could die. My brother is fine. He was never formally diagnosed with the virus, they would not test him given that his symptoms were not life-threatening or severe and he could ride it out at home. The probabilities were always in his favor as a relatively young person in good health. However, my own anxieties, despite my own understanding that the risk of him dying was not that much greater than it ever was for him or other members of my family, were something of interest to the more rational half of my consciousness. Why would I worry at all when the threat really wasn’t that great? It is one of those quirks of human psychology, I suppose, that we can go from not knowing a person at all to being totally obsessed, wondering how we ever live our life without, “text me when you are home safe,” with them. Likewise, when something ‘novel’ comes into our lives, be it a new video game or an unknown virus, we can’t get our mind off of it. We are fascinated with this unknown commodity, whether we want to protect it (as in a new love interest) or protect ourselves from it, our thoughts will go there over and over again. It can be consuming, it can be blinding as well. Fear of Covid-19 has much to do with availability heuristic or the tendency people have to judge the likelihood of an event based on how readily they can recall said event. This is what makes anecdotes so powerful. Some stories of young, otherwise healthy, people getting a disease and dying will feature far more prominently in our minds than the dozens lost in car accidents. I have a good friend who had a friend my age die and knows of another. The media has fed into this bias by highlighting the suffering of some. It feels likely enough and yet here’s the reality of the situation: “To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous than driving 13 to 101 miles per day. Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year.” How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns That is not to minimalize the threat. I know a couple of cases of people who have become seriously ill due to Covid-19 and, yes, many people have died who would’ve otherwise lived. The virus can be quite contagious in certain conditions, it can send a relatively young person to the hospital, I believe that many more will fall ill and some of them will die. But, the thing is, our outsized focus on this virus is to minimize the many other risks equal or greater in consequence brought on by our response. It is deeply troubling to me that so many people seem so completely unable to comprehend the strong possibility that, with our saving people from the specter of Covid-19 and obsession on one risk out of many, we are ultimately killing more people by suicides, drug overdoses, neglected cancer screenings (along with other medical procedures being postponed) and starvation. Why is it selfish for a young economically vulnerable person to work, to put food on their tables, and not selfish for you to order them home in a vain attempt to save grandma? Furthermore, going back to my momentary fear of losing my brother, there was always a far greater risk to my brother’s life from him driving to come visit than from the infection. Why don’t I call him every fifteen minutes to make sure he’s wearing his seat belt? If physical safety was the only concern, then what would posses me to encourage him to take up flying years ago or to join him in the cockpit years later? It makes no logical sense for me to have a terrible fear of a virus that kills a small percentage of the infected while accepting or even encouraging more dangerous activities. Rise of the Covid Crazed Karens Many imagine a zombie apocalypse: The living dead, creatures of human flesh and yet no longer human anymore. Well, we are living in such times. The zombies are here and they are here to rob you of life with their devouring fears. And, unlike the fantasy horror movies, these are zombies that you aren’t allowed to shoot. But beware, if you decide not to comply with their screeching demands and choose to live as a free person, they may make real on their threat to shoot you. Think I’m exaggerating? Think again. Dr. Jennifer Rager-Kay, a gun control activist and school board member, not too far down the road from me. Decided that it was completely okay and rational to threaten to kill people for refusing to wear masks around her or her family. Dr Rager-Kay (aka “Karen”) was in such a lathered up panic about a virus that has a very low probability of death that she was actually willing to murder. Makes one think of the expression, “Physician, heal thyself.” This woman is obviously smart enough to make it through medical school, but seems woefully lacking in rationality and ability to keep things in perspective. Now, in defense of Karens everywhere, most are content to only steal away your life by imposing their “new normal” and won’t actually shoot you. However, they all have a sort of nurture gone bad, the assessment of their own importance that is shared by hall monitors everywhere. Possessed by their lack of contol or relative insignificance an a complex and unpredictable world, they wield their petty authority over their neighbors given to them by state snitch lines, wag their sanctimonious fingers at anyone who doesn’t meet their own standard, and are completely willing to imprison you for your own good. They stopped thinking months ago when their minds were reprogrammed, infected by fearful anecdotes, their cognitive function addled by scary projections, never considering new evidence, and they are now mindless zombies stuck on repeat, “Covid bad, must stop Covid!” Of course, Covid Crazed Karens are not only women nor only the meddlesome troublemakers of memes, there are many man and people in positions of real political power who are willing to kill you for your own good and seem even to have some sort of sadistic satisfaction watching people squirm under their smoothering care. If only you would start thinking their way, sacrifice your all for their misguided public safety crusade, then everything would be just fine. You see, they think like a psychopath, that your suffering is only a result of your defiance against their wise council, that it would not be tyranny if you would simply submit to their lawless edicts. You must be broken, like Winston in Orwell’s 1984, who after torture finally becomes a zombie to the cult of the totalitarian state: George Orwell, 1984 We may not have Big Brother. But we do have Karen watching and her fear-driven lust for control over you won’t be satiated once Covid-19 has passed. No, you are already being conditioned, you will accept her “new normal” or you will die. And, if you don’t die from the virus be sure she will punish you severely for her being wrong. A Karen is never wrong, being wrong does not compute with her one track mind, and she will kill you, if need be, to prove the point. The zombie apocalypse is upon us and these privileged elites are out for the blood of you ignorant and unwashed common folk. But Covid Karen is not the only threat, Denial Deranged Darnell, well he’ll tell you masks don’t work because he once had a fart that stained his underwear and, with pride, he will tell you how he survived his entire life never once wearing a seat belt, that he actually drives better drunk, and you can’t tell him ’nuffin! Watch out for him as well, he may not have the power of government on his side, but he has already killed a security guard in Detroit and wounded a Waffle House cook in Aurora, Colorado, for the “disrespect” of mask policies. He thinks carrying a firearm to a protest makes him tough. No wonder so many Karens think the masses need to be controlled! Tools, Fools and Messy Middlers… A couple of weeks ago I had a decent start to a blog on this topic and then Evernote, my usually reliable mobile word processor of choice, decided to send my work into the sea of forever-lost things. My hope was to describe something that I’ve noticed for years and has become even more pronounced in my mind as I observe the Covid-19 pandemic response. Before I get started, and so nobody is unduly offended or thinks this explanation is personally directed at them, it is not. I wrote most of this before the latest round of conspiracy theory videos and adding this part later because some might assume that my commentary has something to do with that, which it does not. Any similarity between my words and a particular person’s response to the pandemic (over the course of recent days) is purely coincidental. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it! That out of the way, the first two categories of response that I’ve observed represent the extremes. These two groups are the louder less rational of the three. The tools have the power of institutions behind them, the system is stacked in their favor and they feel special. The fools, on the other hand, are the unappreciated, those mocked as “deplorables” by political elites, and are being increasingly rebellious against the belittling authorities. The rest of us are in the middle somewhere, rejecting both extremes, seeing a little of both sides, and independently make up their own minds. Anyhow, I have to be careful which group that I start with because once people who tend towards one group recognize themselves in my writing they might stop reading and dismiss me as being the much-loathed ‘other’ extreme. But, since there’s definitely a difference of tolerance for ideas (other than their own) in the one group, as compared to the other, I’ll start with the fools. They are used to taking a beating and will be more likely to hear me out than the tools. So, fools, you’re up… The “You’re Not the Boss of Me” Fool They say to compliment a person before you lay on the insults and so I’ll stay true to that format by noting that the fools are more likely to be in that “essential worker” category as those who are willing to get their hands dirty for everyone else. They are mechanics, farmers, cooks, garbage collectors, contractors, and factory workers. These people might not be able to articulate themselves very well, yet they do know when they are getting the shaft and have been getting the shaft for quite some time. It is only right to mistrust the tools that have sold them out. I’ll admit, I have sympathy for the fools, they are nose to the grindstone workers, won’t hesitate to help without asking for a dime, and are basically the bedrock of this nation. They are also the ones who suffer the most due to imported labor and outsourcing over the past few decades. They have seen their wages flattened and opportunities dry up. Smarmy politicians, with beautiful polish, told them how much they cared, that new jobs would come and then never delivered. In 2016 these people (some who voted for Obama and don’t care about political affiliation) came out for Trump in large numbers because he spoke a language they, as the blue-collar workers, could appreciate. The fools, despite lacking a four-year degree, are not dumb and have “street smarts” that allow them to see things that their intellectual tool counterparts do not see. That said, they are as blind by their own biases much as anyone else and are quick to spread conspiracy theories that validate their mistrust for authority figures. And that is exactly what they think about this Covid-19 global pandemic, they aren’t sick themselves, they don’t know anyone who is sick, they don’t see the hospital parking lots full and therefore the shutdowns must be some sort of nefarious scheme. Of course, who can blame them? Only a month or two ago the corporate media was telling us that the virus in Wuhan was nothing to worry about, that we should be more concerned with the seasonal flu, etc. The fools are right in that they are mistreated by the elites. They are also right to question the official narrative. I mean, let’s be real here, politicians do lie (both parties) and members of the media most certainly do have political agendas as well. At some point, and very often for good reason, the fools have become disenchanted with the establishment and sometimes they simply take this too far. They reject even common-sense recommendations, like wearing masks, because they a) don’t like being told what to do and b) they read some meme put out by some random internet user who agrees with them. A fool could be dying in an ICU bed, gasping for their last breath, and still in denial of the severity of a pandemic. (Proverbs 12:15 NIV) The fools are like Joker, they are agents of chaos that arise in response to an unjust order and challenge Batman (a tool of the system) to take off his mask so everyone can see who he really is. Perhaps the dark knight would look a bit less heroic, as one of the primary beneficiaries of the system he is defending, once his pretense of moral purity was removed? The problem with the fools, is that they are like the zealots before the fall of Jerusalem (eventually destroyed by their own infighting, which is what happens when the inmates run the asylum) or the Anabaptist “Tailor King” who led a rebellion in Münster, they are able to expose the corruption of the system and yet unfit to lead themselves. The fools, useful as they are, were made to perform the mundane (yet essential) tasks and would perform them well, without protest, if their efforts were properly appreciated by their betters in government and the social hierarchy, they deserve to be heard as much as anyone else. But I do implore the fools, read the account of Josephus about the fall of Jerusalem, consider the end of the Münster Rebellion, become wise to your own foolishness! (Proverbs 1:32‭-‬33 NIV) Humility is the first step to wisdom. It is knowing your place before God and respecting those whom God has ordained as his servants. Rebellion against all authority, except one’s own understanding or that which one agrees with, is a path to destruction. A fool remains a fool so long as they are so arrogant as to believe that they, some blue-collar yokel who can barely spell college on a good day, knows more than those who have spent their entire lives studying a topic and have become respected in their field enough to serve Presidents of both parties. Sure, the experts get things wrong, but so do the fools and often (as the victims of Dunning-Kruger effect) more than they’ll ever be able to realize and would be smart to stay humble. The “I’m Too Smart To Hear You” Tool The tools took their guidance counselor’s advice, they believe in the fiction of “settled science” and have an undying trust in their institutions. They are basically fools, but with a larger vocabulary and a much more blinding subservience to the system that they have bought into. Now, in defense of tools, many are in the professional class, they are teachers, professors, nurses, doctors, and lawyers, often people on the government payroll, and deserve credit for being able to navigate their way through the ranks. Unlike the fools, who could not make it through a college-level class, the tools are masters at learning what they are supposed to learn. However, despite their snobbery towards those of a lower social order, the tools are often no better than the fools whom they ridicule and are simply parrots using bigger words. A month or two back, when the corporate media (and NPR) was telling them that the seasonal flu was a bigger threat than Covid-19, they snickered at us dolts making our own alternative judgment of the facts and getting prepared. And now, when the same media tells them that the sky is falling and we must close everything forever, these tools soak it up like a sponge then lecture their neighbor, out mowing his lawn, for breathing the fresh spring air. Or call the snitch line set up by other tools. I mean, how dare he defy the experts! Of course, they themselves, like the media they consume, aren’t actually the experts and should probably question the experts as much as they do Trump. Oh, and did I mention that the tools absolutely hate Trump? To the tools Barack Obama was the pinnacle of the Presidency, they swooned as he read the teleprompter in his “clean” and “articulate” (thank you Joe) professorial tone. He could have spoken complete nonsense and they still would’ve been breathless about how ‘presidential’ he sounded. And then, in walks the brash billionaire, a Twitter troll, who uses crude blue-collar language and has a kind of humor that they can’t comprehend. The tools are horrified by Trump. He falls outside of their understanding of the world, an anomaly, and they believe that he is a fool because he is not like them and that’s what the media tools tell them. But the reality is that they hate Trump because he exposes their system for what it is, his mere existence creates cognitive dissonance for them and therefore he must be destroyed so they can go back to their religious faith in their system. This is why, when President Trump, makes some off the cuff suggestion, something even the fools know to take with a grain of salt, they take him completely literally and (to the amusement of everyone else) have a conniption fit. Even if he muses something completely reasonable or worthy of consideration, such as his mention of hydroxychloroquine as a potential lifesaving treatment, they are desperate to prove him wrong and show the rest of us how intelligent they are. How dare he! It has side-effects, don’t you know! People might drink fishbowl cleaner! They are the rightful rulers, after all, they took AP Biology in high school, and the fools need to be put back in their place! It has gotten absurd to the point that even when one of their own, a Democrat lawmaker from Detroit, gives the President’s advice credit for their recovery from a deadly disease the tools feel the need to punish that person. When everyone else hears Trump use colloquial terms to describe the goal of any medical intervention, to disinfect, they freak out and claim that he said the equivalent of “drink bleach” and then wonder why the fools aren’t taking them seriously anymore. They are not the bastions of rationality and pure goodness they see themselves as. No, they are tools for those more powerful, their reward for compliance is the right to exploit their lessors and thus they are as corrupt as their masters. Every self-righteous tool in the universe is going to go nuts for me saying this, nevertheless, if they hear me out they’ll know it is true. Trump, like Sampson who was an unruly and disruptive character married to a foreign woman, is a type of Christ. Obviously, although I need to say it in case there are still some tools left reading at this point, Trump does not have a moral character worth our emulating and should never be regarded as being our Savior. But how the tools of our day oppose him as an uncanny similarity to how Christ was opposed by the social elites (and underlings of the Romans) of his day. For example, read the account of a man healed by Jesus in the Gospel of John (read the whole account here) and how the Pharisee tools weren’t having it: They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided. Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.” He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?” Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out. (John 9:13‭-‬34 NIV) Obviously what this man was telling them didn’t comport with their religious ideology or preconceived understanding of the world. Instead of celebrating with the blind man who was healed, they sought to discredit him so they would not need to acknowledge the truth of their own spiritual blindness. Jesus was a threat to their system, he was turning everything they knew (or thought they knew) on its head and was a very real threat to their own prestige. They, like the safety-conscious leaders who had it out for Sampson, muttered amongst themselves about how Jesus was a threat to their way of life and obsessed on finding a way to destroy a man who held a mirror to their own narcissism and true cowardliness. Still don’t see the parallel? Try this… The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’ ” Yet even then their testimony did not agree. (Mark 14:55‭-‬59 NIV) They misrepresented what Jesus actually said. Yes, certainly, he had talked about the destruction of the temple. But he was making a metaphorical reference to himself, something they could have or should have known and probably did secretly know, and they were simply blinded by their agenda and irrational hatred of a man who defied their system. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Trump is no Jesus, neither was Sampson. But all three of those characters could expose the tools for what they really are. The tools think they are smart because they follow the rules and are given the privilege of maintaining the system that subjects the fools. They enthusiastically latch onto anything their own masters (academic institutions, government agencies, corporate media, etc) tell them and yet refuse to acknowledge the reality that is right before their own eyes. Tools, as slaves to the system that created them, hate innovators and those who challenge their own status quo. Under their eloquent and silky words is a spirit of entitlement and a nastiness worse than that of the blunt and unsophisticated language of the fools whom they self-righteously condemn. They are like the enemy spoken of by David: (Psalms 55:21 NIV) I think we are all familiar with those who, pardon the expression, think their own shit don’t stink. The tools see their own motives as being pure as the wind-driven snow and beyond reproach. They even act as if they are patrons for those whom they claim to be disadvantaged, pushing social justice and identity politics to further their own advantage. It is not true love or compassion, if it was they would show equal concern and offer an open ear to those who weren’t as useful for furthering their own ideological agenda. In actuality, the tools are simply better at hiding or rationalizing their own toxic attitudes. They are as prone to confirmation bias as anyone else, blind to their own inconsistencies, and the least woke people of the planet despite their self-gratifying delusion of the superiority of their perspective. Tools are tools because unlike the other fools (which they also are despite their intellectual advantages) they are quite unaware of the flaws of the system that they worship. They do not even realize that they are an apparatchik, an instrument manipulated, and are way too willing to do whatever they are told without asking enough questions. These are the people who know nothing outside of their own specialties and then will arrogantly lecture someone for deviating too far from the narrative-based in their own independent observation. It’s as if they do not realize that every advancement that they now enjoy and take for granted didn’t come as the result of someone silly enough to try something new and different. The “Can’t We Just Get along” Messy Middlers Okay, if you have put up with me this long, here’s the big reveal: Most people are not complete fools or totally tools and instead reside in the murky middle ground between the extremes. Most of us didn’t go fill ten carts with toilet paper nor would we call a snitch line (other than to prank the authoritarian control freaks on the other end) and are willing to wear a face mask while also able to question the wisdom of months of economic lock down. We don’t worship at the feet of any politician and yet are able to cooperate with those who are authorities over us. We are skeptical of the official narrative, realizing that there are humans involved and often with agendas, but without turning to conspiracy theories. Speaking for myself, my own worldview has been shattered enough times that there is very little smugness left about the power of my own reasoning or the authority of my own opinions. I mean, I still have an opinion and can’t really claim to be all that humble either, but one might say that I’ve been broken by the School of Hard Knocks. I’m smart enough to know that I’m basically average, certainly not extraordinary enough to call myself an expert at anything and yet not a blithering idiot or at least I’m not an idiot who lacks in words to express his perspective. I’m also too contrarian to be a tool. I zig when too many people are zagging. I think this puts me somewhere in the middle. The middlers are those of us who readily agreed to concepts like “flattening the curve” and giving our medical professionals time to gear up. That made sense. There were shortages of masks and other protective equipment. We didn’t know what we were up against given the misinformation coming out of China. So we took the precautions that were recommended. That said, when “flatten the curve” morphed into “stop the spread” and months-long shutdowns, while the dire predictions of models proved false, many in the middle have begun to grow uneasy about the growing economic consequences, note the arbitrariness of the rules (crowded Walmart is okay, but beach and park is not?) and rightfully wonder if this strategy was well thought out. No, middlers aren’t necessarily ready to join the fools in their protests. Or, if some of the middlers did, they at least wore masks or protested from their vehicles. However, middlers are also seemingly more able than the tools to see a broader perspective than that of the tools, like those celebrities who tell us “please stay at home” and apparently think that we make our decisions based on their pontifications, and think for themselves. The middlers, unlike the tools, aren’t consigned to the established dogma nor do they foolishly reject anything they cannot comprehend. Whereas fools are too stupid and tools too lacking in their own The middlers are the true critical thinkers, the Elon Musks who defy everything, those actually capable of creating advancements in science, technology, and medicine. The middle is messy, especially in a world that has become increasingly complex and socially fragmented, where truth has become secondary to position and our institutions have failed to deliver as promised. Us middlers, like the decent people in Jeruselum before the fall, get caught in the crossfire. The zealous fools think we are “sheeple” for not joining their revolution of idiots. Meanwhile, the tools dismiss us as fools, with an indignant snort, because we dare to suggest that there’s another way to look at the facts and go against the narrative that they now accept as Gospel truth—until their masters tell them to believe something else. The middlers get that even experts and government agencies get things wrong, that experts don’t always agree and that’s not always a conspiracy or nefarious plot, it is just the reality of the world we are in. It is hard to be in the middle. We suffer the excesses inflicted upon us by both extremes. We put up with the condescending tools and try to ignore the obnoxious fools. We aren’t always right ourselves, finding the truth can be a messy business, and being caught between two sides fighting for narrative control can be exhausting. It takes more work to maintain some independence in a world that has become increasingly polarized. It means standing up to both sides and also recognizing our own blind spots as well. We have been tools and fools ourselves, on occasion, and therefore try to stay humble. The Dangerous Lie of Shut Down or Die False dichotomies pop up everywhere in the political discourse. You are either pro-life or you are a raging homicidal baby-killing feminist monster and, alternatively, you are either pro-choice or you are “at war with women” and would turn the world into “The Handmaid’s Tale” if ever given the chance. Of course, both sides of that dichotomy are grossly misrepresenting those on the other side. Some of the most vocal proponents of pro-life that I know are of the female gender, would rather not have their lives ruled by men or be treated like baby-making slaves. Likewise, many on the pro-choice side are intelligent and compassionate people who follow a different dogma as far as what does or does not constitute a separate human life. Where you stand on the recent Covid-19 forced closures probably has much more to do with your politics than it does with your personal level of scientific sophistication. Sure, there are many, blinded by their own confirmation bias, who see everything they believe as being scientifically based and rational, but that is to be in denial of the role that their own emotions play in their judgment. The decision to shut down the economy due to the virus had has much to do with fear as fact. How do I know? Well, there weren’t a whole lot of reliable facts to go on when the decisions were being made. We had models, yes, but models are only as reliable as the data entered and the accuracy of the assumptions that they contain. Their predictions are not facts. What likely had a big influence is the scary stories coming from Italy and the lack of good information from China. The Changing Understanding of Covid-19 I had been in favor of the shutdowns, initially, to give time to make a more accurate assessment of the actual threat and also to give time for our medical professionals to gear up amidst global shortages of personal protective equipment. Sure, many Americans are of the pigheaded mentality that they will drive eighty miles per hour into a blinding fog bank and then have massive pileups as a testament to their inability to slow down for anything. But it is only prudent to enter into a potentially deadly new situation, with many unknowns, with an abundance of caution. The arrival of Covid-19 onto the world scene was such a circumstance. The idea of social distancing to “flatten the curve” made sense at the time. However, as a couple of weeks morphed into a month or more and the language of state politicians mysteriously shifted from slowing the spread (as we were told was the reason for the shutdowns) to trying to stop it entirely, while at the same time the there was growing evidence that the virus was not as deadly as first thought, was likely here earlier than had been previously known and may have actually reached the peak (unflattened before the shutdown measures had been implemented) in some places, I kept waiting for decision-makers to shift their policies according to the actual evidence. But they did not. Frozen by fear or too stubborn to revisit their previous decisions (or maybe even wanting to punish those opposed to their lockdowns and show who is boss, who knows?) there was no change. They were determined to plow ahead with their prior decision based on bad data, economic consequences be damned, so wear your masks, go to Walmart like good little citizens and shut up. We all have an idealogical team we are pulling for, whether we realize it or not, and it can cloud our perspective of an issue. Sure, you might believe that your ignorance of virology is “common sense” (which, unfortunately, is probably common and yet good sense is not always common) and refuse to take reasonable precautions. Or you might think your own opinion (and that of the experts whom you agree with) is some kind of “scientific consensus” and an irrefutable fact. But the reality is that you might just be too arrogant (in your little knowledge or, rather, knowing just enough to be dangerous) to understand that there could be perspectives greater than your own. The frustrating part for me was always being caught between the false choices put out by those on either side of the political debate. Those calling the virus a hoax, dismissing the effectiveness of masks, and being generally ignorant only armed those pushing for control with a false moral imperative to double-down on their shutdown or die mantra. Covid-19, while certainly deadly for many and even if those terrifying early estimates of a 2-4% death rate had held true, is nowhere near the Spanish flu. The real number, given growing evidence gathered by antibodies testing and from various ships where everyone was tested, shows a true death rate closer to 0.5% which isn’t too different from the seasonal flu over the course of an average year. Yes, it did certainly stretch our medical resources thin, and likely would’ve with or without the shutdowns, yet there is little evidence to show that our economic self-sabotage actually saved lives. No, if anything, we may have simply destroyed opportunity for those most vulnerable here and around the world for no real gain. It is quite possible, even probable, that more will die as a result of the forced shutdowns than were saved. In the end, the decision to shut down the economy was never a question of shut down or die. For many, it may very well be shut down and die. False dichotomies are dangerous. They are lies. This polarization of our many choices can come with tragic results. Economic Shutdowns Also Kill People In my many discussions about Covid-19 I’ve run into many reoccurring and economically illiterate sentiments, like this one: “I’m sorry but I can’t believe I’m reading this. No compassion for human life and suffering?” That in response to a well-written article weighing the benefits against the costs of the economic shutdown. Apparently, in this person’s emotion soaked and one-dimensional brain, the only way you can show compassion for human life and suffering is to keep people caged in their homes and unable to feed themselves? As a starting point, there was never a scenario where there could be zero deaths from Covid-19. That ship had sailed long ago, in China, when the authorities there continued to let people from the epicenter travel around the world (although not domestically) and sailed when many Western leaders were more concerned with things like “xenophobia” than the virus. Maybe had Europe joined the Trump administration in banning travel from the source of the outbreak there may have been a chance of containing it. But it was already too late by the time concern about the virus and death tolls had finally exceeded worries about political correctness and virtue signaling about race. Places like New York City and Los Angeles were going to see tens of thousands dead regardless of what was done at that juncture. When the shutdowns began, in earnest, the virus was already deeply entrenched. The first verified case in France, for example, has been recently discovered to have been back in December already and much earlier than initially thought. It had likely spreading while some politicians here were still encouraging people to crowd the streets of Chinatown and was definitely being passed around while Italian leaders were telling people to hug Chinese people (from Wuhan, no less) in a misguided effort to prove they weren’t racist. The die had been cast and we were in for a wild ride. But what we did have a choice over is how we responded to the threat. Certainly, the virus had not reached us all, and we could not know (without significant testing) if the peak of infections was a couple of weeks out or still months ahead. If the virus had reached relatively few of us and the death rates were already skyrocketing then the most desperate measures were completely justified even if it cost some lives. On the other hand, if the virus had already been in circulation for months and the hospitals weren’t already jampacked, there was very little to be gained and plenty to be lost from sweeping anti-economic measures. Those with strong social networks and a fat wallet, like the Hollywood celebrities urging us plebes to stay at home while they sip martinis in their hot tub, might not get it, but there are serious consequences to economic shutdowns even if you do not personally experience them. For those who still think that there’s no harm done by shutting down (simply because they are amongst the privileged less affected and able to put food on their own tables), keep reading. This idea that the economy is about Wall Street and stock portfolios is complete and utter nonsense. The concern many have about the shutdown has nothing to do with the fiction you hold of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vault full of gold coins and perpetually worried about losing his wealth. Not at all. First, no billionaire (other than the Hollywood fantasy villain version) actually has moldy money, billionaires are billionaires because they make good investments and their investments are often in life-sustaining industries, like healthcare. Second, most of the economy is Y-O-U. The economy is, simply put, our transactions together, the labor we use to produce things of value to trade with others for our wants and basic necessities. That out of the way… Domestic Abuse, Drug Overdoses, and Suicide Rates Shutdowns have consequences and the consequences are often much more devastating for those most vulnerable. I think often of my waitress and waiter friends, people in the restaurant industry, who have suddenly without warning had their entire income stream dry up by the executive fiat of someone who gets their paycheck via the state treasury or through an accumulation of assets. Sure, Trump and Congress have taken action to offset some of these losses by direct payments, unemployment compensation has been extended to many who might not otherwise qualify and yet that will do nothing for those permanently unemployed. For many in the world, in the same way that Covid-19 is deadly to those with comorbidities, an economic shutdown is (or will be) that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Sure, you can say that the guy devastated by the bills piling up and his bank account drying up, his business being shuttered, should see the bigger perspective. But that is no different from saying that we should not care about Covid-19 deaths because those most impacted were dying anyway and that their comorbidities actually killed them. The fact that not everyone is as financially healthy as you are or as emotionally able to weather the storm caused by the shutdown doesn’t undo the damage done to those who are more vulnerable. The socio-economic cost of the shutdowns should be factored into the decision as much as the potential gain. Sure, there is a possibility (although it is not proven) that the shutdowns may spare a few that would otherwise have perished from the virus and accompanying complications. But there is definitely an uptick in things such as domestic violence and child abuse that comes with forcing weak and emotionally vulnerable people to stay confined together, away from their sources of stress relief and friends, for months. Believe it or not, not everyone shares your advantages in mental health, not everyone can keep doing their work via Zoom, we aren’t equal in this together as some will proclaim, some are isolated alone, and with only their suicidal ideations to keep them company for the duration. And, for those of you looking down your noses in condemnation of the shutdown protestors at state capitals, thinking that your own rationality and compassion is what is guiding you, think again. True compassion would have some sympathy for those who are suffering from the economic consequences of the hasty and arbitrarily enforced shutdowns. Unlike you, they might not be able to afford to shelter in place for months at a time. The truth might be that you, in your fearful overreaction to Covid-19, simply do not care enough about their livelihoods being ripped out from under them and are too ignorant of the economic consequences, the increase in domestic abuse, drug overdoses, and suicides that accompany economically dire circumstances. It is certainly no more dangerous to do a couple of laps around a state capital, than it is to go to Home Depot, Walmart, or the grocery store. I suspect the real issue some have has to do with political affiliations. It is a moral superiority contest between them and those who decided that the risk of government overreach and economic ruin is greater than the virus. Some would rather live in denial of the serious economic consequences they’ve imposed on others, ignore the evidence of the suffering caused by their selfish demands for safety at all costs (to their neighbors), and maintain their dangerous tunnel vision? Of course, who knows, in the current political climate, maybe some would rather the protestors killed themselves than peacefully vent their pent up frustrations? But this is far bigger than domestic politics… Economic Downturns, Food Shortages, and Starvation The most troubling and continuing consequences of the imposed shutdowns is the impact it is having on the agricultural industry and food supply chain. It was very early on when the stories started to cross my newsfeed about small farmers, in the Philippines, being forced to dump their produce. If one understood the labor that it took (most Americans can’t even imagine), that these farmers would give up their meager profits, it is hard to understand. But that is what happens when the market is closed down, there is no refrigerated warehouse to store their vegetables until things reopen again. And, sure, some of it is distributed to their neighbors, and yet the real demand comes from the cities. So the cities are cut off from their suppliers and the poor farmers from their buyers and only source of income. Vegetables dumped in Benguet I’ve realized recently that many people can’t understand logistics even at the most basic level and see the actions of agricultural producers here as being greedy or suspicious. When I mentioned how producers were culling herds due to processing plants being closed over Covid-19 concerns and the possibility of people starving, I had a guy respond with the following, “If we don’t want people to starve let’s start by distributing this food that is being wantonly destroyed by the factory farms.” His ‘solution’ may seem reasonable at first glance. I mean, why not? But then you have to considfer that these big producers would not just throw away their profits. They aren’t that stupid. And if they can’t process this protein then you can be 100% sure that government or anyone else is going to replace their production capacity. They are the specialists. Sure, like in rural parts of the Philippines, the neighbors to these massive barns will get all the pork or poultry they will ever need. However, that’s nibbling around the edges of the problem. The real reason we have these “factory farms” is not to supply Union County and the surrounding communities. No, not at all! The real market for this meat is the big cities. So, while it is great that some rural neighbors get to fill their freezers at a below-market price, that is going to do very little for the needs of those downstream and cut off from their food source. A couple of “community gardens” in Brooklyn can’t offset the literal tons of beef, pork, and vegetables that are imported into that city every day. Don’t get me wrong, I love a ‘feel good’ story as much as the next guy, but this isn’t an issue that will be solved by a couple of generous farmers. The abrupt shutdowns and closures are causing incredible bottlenecks that cannot be easily resolved overnight. Closing down schools and restaurants, for example, meant that all of the food in that pipeline, packaged for that kind of usage, was now jammed up. There are some grocery stores now selling meats that were originally intended for restaurants. But the retooling cannot happen like the flip of a switch. That is why some dairy processors, what specialized in supplying schools, had to dump their milk at the same time grocery shelves had run dry of the staple. That is why potatoes are piled up to rot in Idaho. When networks within the supply chain break down, when the market is majorly disrupted without warning, there are shortages in some places and over-supplies in other places. Those big animal operations need to keep moving things along, the whole process can’t be held up for long before there are major problems, finished pigs need to be moved along or there is no room for the feeder pigs to go. Sure, they can change the feed to try to keep the finished pigs at a particular weight for a period of time. But eventually, something as to give. That is why there are piles of dead pigs a hundred feet long, going to waste, and soon enough the shelves will run empty as well. It will seem strange. Many won’t understand how it is possible, but it is happening and it is happening like a slow-motion train wreck. That all said, I’m not afraid for myself or most Americans. We might miss out on a steak or pork chop. We will likely pay a little more for our food in the coming months. However, my real concern is for those in the many places around the world where people work hand to mouth. The rickshaw driver in Mumbai can’t afford to pay more for his family’s food and especially not after being locked in his own house for months. The person in a Manila slum, already living on “pagpag” (a Taglog term meaning “garbage chicken” or literally food pulled from the trash) will not do well when others are fighting over the disappearing scraps as food becomes scarce. Many in the world live on a very small ration, meat is a luxury to them, and now have been deprived of their income in a desperate fight against a virus that may not even be stopped by their sacrifice. Making the Right Trade-offs… There is no question about the seriousness of Covid-19. I have a close friend in NYC who lost two friends. They were both my age and died in their own homes. It is not a virus that should be laughed off or treated as no big deal. Tens of thousands have died and tens of thousands more will likely die and in a relatively short period of time. Sure, many of these people may have had comorbidities and yet they would very likely have been with us for many more years had they not had their encounter with this deadly virus. It is possible that some could be saved from Covid-19 through the shutdowns. There is no solid evidence that this is the case. Nevertheless it is possible. That said, it is also possible that our efforts only prolonged or even worsen the pandemic by preventing “herd immunity” from ever happening, which means we could suffer more deaths from Covid-19 and also the experience the hardships of the economic shutdown. Whatever the case, the “shut down or die” mythology needs to be confronted. Those looking for a perfect solution here are living in fantasy land. The hope that a vaccine will be developed quickly and then become widely available is (sorry, anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists) basically a Hollywood fiction. We still don’t have a vaccine for SARS or MERS and may never have a vaccine for Covid-19. So, this idea that we can just hunker down and wait this out is not realistic. Sure, I would be glad to be proven wrong, it is possible, but there are also huge trade-offs to our waiting that need to be discussed. Speaking of trade-offs: According to ASIRT, 1.35 million people die in car accidents every year (over 38,000 in the US) and an additional 20-50 million are injured (4.4 million US), some with permanent disabilities as a result. This, unlike Covid-19, is a ‘pandemic’ that disproportionally impacts the young and with no pre-existing health conditions. We could, quite easily, in the name of safety, ban all automobiles and save far more lives in a couple of years than the shutdowns ever would. Of course, we would never do that, we have valued the freedom of movement and economic advantages over the risk of serious injury or death. I suppose people feel more in control behind the wheel, but if we were really in control of the outcome of our trip then nobody would leave home knowing that they would get into a fatal car crash, would they? Based on what we now know about the virus and death rates we should not have shut down the to the extent that we did. We may have saved a little on the front end, compared to Sweden who remained open, and yet will very likely end up in the same place as far as Covid-19 and far worse off in terms of the economic consequences. My fear is that many more will perish as a result of the shutdowns than from the virus. Millions of the world’s young and most vulnerable are suffering right now, as I write this, and could die of starvation. A good analysis must weigh all factors. We cannot be zoned in so much on one problem and only one solution that we cannot see any others. The virus from China is bad, but the panicky response of governments around the world may have made it many times worse. Depressed, But Not Desperate… It is supposed to be the most exciting time on the Christian calendar, the time when Jesus rose from the dead, and here I am. Meh. The shut down, tolerable at first, is starting to weigh down on me and I just feel a bit down. I mean, not that anyone should worry about me, I’m fine and have a good support network. And yet the excitement of something unprecedented has worn down. My routines of work, the gym, eating out, and going to church, have all been disrupted and I barely need to leave my bedroom. And then there’s the stupid politics, on both sides, TDS on one side and conspiracy theorists on the other, and I’m even starting to doubt my own perspective. I felt I had covered all angles. But, then, I’m no different from anyone else, I’m working with my own set of biases and blind spots like anyone else in the discussion. So here I am, walking alone, down a windy rural Pennsylvania road, everything turning green despite the cool air, a couple cars on the road, and did I mention that I’m alone? Today is the day that I typically (yes, even now) spend at my parents house, with my sister, and enjoy a Sunday dinner. But they decided to go to a State Park for the day and I stayed home because that’s what Charlotte wants. Well, I’m not home, actually, I’m at my parents house, for the change of scenery, the bench press, and the sandwich and pie my mom left in the fridge to show her love. Charlotte, for her part, is doing okay in the Philippines, despite the lock down in her country (far stricter than our own) and has even found a way to get to her new job. She was tired of being cooped up in her little apartment, with Y-dran and her sister, and refuses to accept that I’m fully capable and willing to backstop her until this is over. That said, I’m completely proud of her and her determination to support herself and her son. I think I found someone even stronger willed than I am! The bleh and blues come somewhat due to the lack of progress in bringing my little family together. With government offices shut down there, in the Philippines, the indefinite time frame of the whole process of her coming her has been stretched even longer. And, given my luck romantically, my doubts about the happily ever after loom always and even larger now. Could this pandemic be part of that invisible barrier, that impossible to overcome obstacle? For now, and as long as I am able, I will cling to my hopes. What else can I do? Last, and probably least, the one thing that could have brought me a little smile only left me a few hundred dollars in the hole and that’s only the first week. For the first time in my life, I decided to put some money in the stock market. There’s practically no interest earned by savings, I wanted to help along my goal of financing a kitchen remodel, what could possibly go wrong, right? Since then I’ve run into nothing but negativity, that the market may drop by another 50% and that’s just typical for me: Too little, too late. Too much, too soon. But then again, I’ve made it this far down the road and at least I’m not going through this one alone. In a few more weeks things will begin to be a bit more normal again. My plans to visit Charlotte in December will hopefully work out and I’ll even be able to stay longer now that it is a proven fact that working remotely is possible. It does make me sad that everything seems to take so long, that those whom I love are stuck on the opposite of the world from me, but them being here with me some day soon will make it all worth the wait! Even the economy, bad as it seems now, will eventually come back. Most of us will not die from this virus (or the misguided policies to keep us safe from it) and the world will likely come out better on the other side. There is no need to panic, no reason for despair, this too shall pass and everyone will soon find something else to complain, theorize and argue about. The world is not ending, or at least not that I know, and the sun is still shining…
Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 22 Properties of Geologists use characteristics to tell one mineral from another Mineral Properties we will study Luster Hardness Cleavage Streak •Refers to the way light reflects from the surface of the mineral. •There are two types of luster, –Metallic: looks like polished metal. –Nonmetallic: does not look like polished metal. •Nonmetallic can be shiny or dull. Pyrite has metallic luster Quartz has nonmetallic luster • Is measured by how easy it is to scratch. • Geologists order the hardness by… 1. Scratched by a fingernail. 2. Scratched by a penny. 3. Scratched by a nail. 4. Scratched by a diamond. These are not all of the tools geologists use, but it will work for our experiment. Gypsum is soft, it can be scratched by a fingernail. Calcite is soft, but a little harder because it cannot be scratched by a fingernail, but it can be scratched by a penny. Fluorite is harder. It can be scratched by a nail, but not a penny or fingernail. Diamonds are the hardest mineral, so it scratches every mineral. •Not all minerals have cleavage. •Some minerals split easily along a flat surface. •The number of lines that are created when a mineral is split will be the number of cleavage Mica has cleavage in one It breaks along one line. Feldspar has two lines of cleavage. It breaks along two • Red chalk on a chalk board makes red marks. White chalk makes white • Not all minerals work this way. When some minerals are scratched along a ceramic streak plate, it creates a different color. • When gold is run across a streak plate it makes a • That makes Pyrite or “Fool’s Gold” • When pyrite is run across a streak plate, it has a black or dark green streak. • Pyrite is not worth much money, while gold is worth a lot. They look alike, so miners call it fool’s • Hematite’s color is grey, but its streak is • Hema means blood. • The mineral was named hematite because it looked like it was bleeding when it was taken across a streak plate. One mineral property we will not use… A mineral can be many different colors. Below is Mica. Many minerals can be the same color. Below are gold colored minerals. Which one is gold? The answer… None of them were real gold. Just like with people… Outside color does not tell you much about the important
To install click the Add extension button. That's it. Kelly Slayton Congratulations on this excellent venture… what a great idea! Alexander Grigorievskiy Live Statistics English Articles Improved in 24 Hours Added in 24 Hours Show all languages Asymmetrical aircraft From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Asymmetrical aircraft have left- and right-hand sides which are not exact mirror images of each other. Although most aircraft are symmetrical, there is no fundamental reason why they must be, and design goals can sometimes be best achieved with an asymmetrical aircraft. Types of asymmetry Asymmetry arises from a number of design decisions. Some are inherent in the type of aircraft, while others are consciously introduced. Engine torque On a powerful propeller-driven aircraft, the engine torque driving the propeller creates an equal and opposite torque on the engine itself. Because the engine is fixed to the airframe, this reactive torque is transmitted to the aircraft, causing a tendency to roll in the opposite direction to the propeller. On some early types, especially during the pioneer years, a single engine drove twin propellers and the drive was arranged to turn the propellers in opposite directions to cancel their torque. Examples include the Wright Flyer and the early designs by J.W. Dunne. In a rotary engine, common during World War I, the whole crankcase and cylinder assembly rotates with the propeller. This gives it an especially powerful torque reaction. Some aircraft, such as the Sopwith Camel with its relatively heavy Clerget 9B engine, were noted for having a faster turn to one side than the other, which influenced combat tactics both with it and against it. By contrast, the contra-rotary Siemens-Halske engines were more balanced. On some single-engined types with more conventional engines, such as the Italian Ansaldo SVA engine torque was counteracted by lengthening one wing to create extra lift on that side, providing a counter-torque. As engines became more powerful towards the end of World War II, some single-engined fighters used contra-rotating propellers, both to handle the high power without increasing diameter and to reduce the torque asymmetry. Twin-engined aircraft with their propellers rotating in the same direction are also asymmetric. Counter-rotating propellers avoid this, either by building pairs of engines to rotate their crankshafts in opposite directions, or by using a reversing gear in one of the propeller reduction gearboxes. Handed engines have rarely been used, owing to cost, but were sometimes used for naval aircraft such as the Sea Hornet, to simplify their handling across a narrow carrier deck. The wake of a propeller gains angular momentum, which can produce an asymmetric effect over the tail control surfaces, especially during takeoff when the engine power is at maximum but the aircraft speed is low. This does not affect the symmetry or otherwise of the aircraft itself. Asymmetric thrust While most aircraft have a central thrust line, it can sometimes be advantageous to break symmetry. For example, a single front-mounted tractor propeller may provide sufficient thrust, alongside a nose-mounted cockpit for good pilot visibility. In such cases the engine's thrust line is offset to one side, creating a turning moment. This moment is typically counteracted by making the tail fin work as a wing turned sideways, creating sideways lift to provide an equal and opposite turning force. Oblique wing The mechanism for varying the angle of a swept wing is complicated, heavy and expensive. The two halves must be aligned with each other and each supported at one end. A single oblique wing may be supported in the middle and without needing a linking gear. The idea has been tried successfully on the NASA AD-1. Pioneer years The first aircraft to fly, the Wright Flyer had an asymmetrical arrangement of pilot and engine. Both needed to be close to the centre of gravity above the front of the wing, so each was moved to one side to make room for the other. The propellers were symmetrically placed, so one engine drive chain was longer than the other. The longer, port drive belt was also twisted across itself so that the propellers rotated in opposite directions. World War I During World War I, Swiss-born Hans Burkhard designed several asymmetrical aircraft. Burkhard obtained German Patent number 300 676 for his design on 22 September 1915. The Gotha G.VI first flew in 1918, but did not reach production before the war concluded.[1][2] World War II During World War II, German designer Richard Vogt experimented with several asymmetrical aircraft, including: The BV 141 was heralded by the Germans as the first asymmetric aircraft,[1] an evaluation batch was built, but it was never ordered into full-scale production. The BV 237 ground-attack aircraft was ordered but later cancelled. Other projects and design studies of the period included: Modern aircraft • The NASA AD-1 includes oblique wings, and flew 1979-1982. • The Rutan Boomerang is a twin-engined light aircraft featuring an 'outrigger' engine and boom beside a conventional fuselage with the engine at the front. • The ARES was a prototype ground attack aircraft with a single engine intake on the left side of the aircraft, while a Gatling gun was mounted on the right side. This avoided the problem of combustion gases from the cannon being ingested into the intake. This page was last edited on 15 October 2020, at 20:32
April 01, 2020 Coronavirus Is The ‘Worst Crisis’ Since World War II, United Nations Warns The dreaded coronavirus has been labelled as the worst crisis to hit the world since World War II. This was made known by the United Nations as US fatalities have now exceeded China’s with nearly 860,000 people globally confirmed with the fatal disease. The US announced almost 800 deaths on Tuesday bringing the total to more than 3,700 while Spain, the United Kingdom, France and Italy each reported their largest single-day increase in deaths since the start of the pandemic. Other continents like Africa, South America, Australia have also been affected by the disease with Oil prices slumping and world economies crashing. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern that Coronavirus could trigger conflicts around the world. Guterres said that the scale of the crisis was due to “a disease that represents a threat to everybody in the world and… an economic impact that will bring a recession that probably has no parallel in the recent past.” “The combination of the two facts and the risk that it contributes to enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict are things that make us believe that this is the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “A stronger and more effective response… is only possible in solidarity if everybody comes together and if we forget political games and understand that it is humankind that is at stake,” Guterres added. “We are far from having a global package to help the developing world to create the conditions both to suppress the disease and to address the dramatic consequences,” Guterres warned, pointing to unemployment and the collapse of small firms.“We are slowly moving in the right direction, but we need to speed up, and we need to do much more if we want to defeat the virus.”
COVID-19 Safety and Health Protocols 770 Jasonway Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43214 Root Canals Root Canal Therapy Columbus OH When soft tissue in the center of the tooth, known as the pulp, becomes infected or damaged, a root canal procedure is performed. The pulp can initially become infected for a variety of reasons, including a crack or chip in the tooth, deep decay caused by bacteria, and even from having multiple dental procedures on the tooth. Some signs of pulp damage include sensitivity to heat or cold, prolonged tooth pain, swelling and tenderness of nearby gums, and also discoloration in the tooth. However, sometimes there are no symptoms. Having a damaged nerve in the tooth alone does not suggest that a root canal is necessary. The nerve's only function is sensory—determining hot or cold. However, when the pulp and the nerve tissue become damaged, it breaks down, causing bacteria to form in the pulp chamber. If left untreated, this can lead to an abscessed tooth, swelling around the face and neck, and a severe toothache. Root canal procedure The pulp contains blood vessels, nerves, and connective tissues, so during a root canal, the infected or damaged pulp and nerves are removed to prevent bacteria from forming or spreading. The empty space is then cleaned, filled, and sealed. Usually a crown is put on to protect the underlying tooth, which is made more susceptible to fracture due to the loss of a great amount of structure from the decay. Even though the root canal treatment often takes one to two visits, there are times when more visits are necessary due to the complexity of the tooth and the cause of the root canal. In preparation for the procedure, an X-ray is taken of the tooth and is then examined. A local anesthetic is used to eliminate or reduce any pain that may occur during the procedure. After the space has been cleaned and shaped, a temporary filling made of biocompatible material is placed in the space. This material creates a barrier to prevent fluids and other matter from entering the tooth at the tip of the root. Restoring the tooth After the root canal procedure is completed and the temporary filling is removed, if the tooth lacks sufficient structure to hold a restoration in place, a post will need to be made inside the tooth. This will help provide a solid foundation for your restoration and will protect and restore the tooth to its full function. The result of this procedure is a beautiful, natural-looking tooth that is free from infection and healthier than before. If you need a root canal for your tooth, don’t delay treatment! Call us today to discuss your root canal options. Family Dentistry
Indoor gardening Indoor plants can transform a dull room into a vibrant living space. israel homeowners banner (photo credit:) israel homeowners banner (photo credit: ) Yonatan Ya'akobi is a qualified garden designer and horticulturist with over 20 year's experience. A former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, he specializes in creating gardens suitable for a Mediterranean climate. In addition, he teaches and lectures on gardening at professional and amateur gatherings. For those who have no space for a garden, or for those who yearn to be surrounded by greenery all year long, indoor gardening is an ideal solution. Indoor plants can transform a dull room into a vibrant living space. If you are used to outdoor gardening, you will find that there are similarities between indoor and outdoor gardening. The principles of good design - simplicity, variety, scale, balance, unity and emphasis - apply equally to indoor and outdoor gardening. Just as landscaping elements, such as raised beds or water features, are integral to an outdoor garden, so too are decent pots and containers indoors. Trying to save money by buying plastic containers is not an advisable option - after all, you wouldn't buy a plastic table for your living room, would you? There are, however, several differences between indoor and outdoor gardening. This article explains these essential differences and informs readers about the techniques required for indoor gardening. Light Plants require adequate light in order to perform the most basic function of photosynthesis. Only those plants that can tolerate low-level light intensity can be grown indoors, so don't try growing a rose bush in your living room! In light of the above, where you place your plants is crucial. Remember that the light levels drop exponentially the further the plant is from the window. In places without natural light, it's necessary to provide, at the very least, the light from two 150 Watt bulbs. Water and Oxygen We know that all plants require water. What is not so obvious is that the roots require adequate oxygen for respiration. There are two factors which determine whether the plant has access to the right balance of water and oxygen: One is the potting soil and the other is the way the plants are watered. Never use ordinary soil in a pot. Always use an artificial potting medium. They are readily available at plant nurseries. Secondly, irrigate until excess water flows out of the drainage hole and then wait until the top 2 cm or so of "soil" have dried out before the next watering This rule-of-thumb method holds good for most plants, although the tricky plants such as Fittonia may not thrive under this regime. Fertilizer Plants grown in pots are absolutely dependent on fertilizer as a source of the mineral nutriment essential for their development. Excluding flowering plants, perhaps (which are not easy to grow indoors anyway), an annual feed with a 12-month slow release fertilizer is often enough. Humidity Ferns such as the mainstay Nephrolepis are effective when massed. They are particularly sensitive to the lack of humidity caused by heaters and air conditioners, so remember to spray them with water regularly. Hydroponic Method An alternative method to ordinary containers (i.e., containers which allow water to drain out) is the hydroponic method, whereby the plants are grown in a sealed container. A specific water level is maintained in order to create the necessary balance between air and water. Overall, the hydroponic method is simpler and more satisfactory than the usual method. What Plants Should I Buy? So what plants are worth buying? The range of flowering plants is very restricted. African Violets are difficult to maintain beyond a year or two. Poinsettias are a possibility. In my opinion, it's better to create form and color with such foliage plants as Epiremnum, Shefflera, Dracaena, Spathipyllum (also provides white flowers) and Aglaonema. For vertical emphasis, one can try Ficus benjamina (never to be planted outdoors because of its aggressive roots) and palms such as Chamaedorea. In Conclusion Although there are certain similarities between indoor and outdoor gardening, there are far more differences. If you are only used to outdoor gardening, you have to make sure that your plants receive the appropriate care suitable for indoor plants. Remember, also, that plants that can be grown outdoors cannot necessarily be grown indoors - there are those plants that cannot tolerate low-level intensity. If you make sure that you select the appropriate plants for an indoor environment, and see to it that they receive proper care, you can create your very own beautiful indoor landscape. Visit to view its full selection of articles. Disclaimer: This article does not constitute legal or professional advice but rather a discussion of general issues. Readers are advised to receive professional advice before making any decisions or entering into transactions.
College Resources Resource CenterCollege Search & SelectionCollege ResearchWhen to Get Started with College Search When Should I Start My College Search? Selecting a college is a big decision, and like most major decisions, it should be made only after thorough research. For some families, the financial investment associated with a college education is second only to what they have invested in their homes. With so many options available, the obvious question is, “When should I start my college search?” Is freshman year too soon? While some college students report that they always knew they would attend college, few began to search for the right college until they entered high school. So beginning the search in the freshman year of high school isn’t too early to start. The sooner you begin, the more time you have to look at the different types of colleges and to learn what they have to offer. At this point you shouldn’t focus on picking a college. Your task is simply to collect information. Do I have to know what I want to study in college before beginning? The answer to this question is simple: Absolutely not! In fact, about half of the students enrolling as college freshmen each year enroll as undecided majors. In other words, they do not know exactly what they want to study during their college careers. (Those students who indicate that they do know what they want to study frequently change their minds after enrolling.) Not knowing what you want to study shouldn’t be a source of frustration or embarrassment. Keeping an open mind about what to study is probably a good idea since many college freshmen really don’t understand what is involved in the various fields of study. Colleges and universities offer a variety of programs and services designed to help students pick a major, and most colleges will allow students a year to a year-and-a-half after enrolling to make this choice. If I don’t know what I want to study, how can I know if the college offers what I want? Not knowing what you want to study in college isn’t the same as not having an idea of your general interests. Although about half of all college freshmen enter college with an undeclared major, most of them have some idea of the general areas that are of interest but not necessarily the exact aspect of the area they would like to study. For example, a college freshman might know that he wants something in the liberal arts and sciences; he may not know if he wants to study psychology, sociology or history. Knowing your general area of interest is a good initial step. It can serve as a first-cut in deciding what to study. For example, if you want to study engineering and sciences, you know what kind of school to look for -- those that offer majors in engineering and sciences. So while you may not know exactly what you want to study, you may know what you do not want to study. In summary, it’s never too early to begin the process. Use all of the time you have to sort out the options. The more time you spend on the process early on, the easier your final decision will be. Thank you for visiting Don Munce
Web Results Indigestion, which may be accompanied by burping, can indicate myocardial infarction or heart attack, explains the University of Chicago Medicine. However, the symptoms of indigestion can mimic many other health conditions. For this reason, it is best to consult a physician for a diagnosis. The causes of burping include nervous habits, gas in beverages, constipation, swallowing and medical conditions, such as gallbladder diseases and ulcer. Burping is a voluntary or involuntary release of air from the esophagus and stomach through the mouth. It can occur three to four times after havin According to Healthline, excessive burping can be caused high-fiber foods, carbonated beverages and excessive use of medications such as aspirin or ibuprofen. Chronic belching can also be caused by underlying medical conditions such as stomach ulcers, so it is important for individuals experiencing Prevent burping by eating slowly, avoiding carbonated drinks and alcohol, exercising regularly, avoiding foods that cause gas and avoiding constipation. There are also anti-gas productsÂ available without aÂ prescription. There are many different ways to burp a baby. It all depends on the child in question and what techniques work the best on it. One popular way is to hold the baby on the chest. Not burping a baby leads to more spitting up, gas and fussiness, according to Kids Health. All babies swallow air during feedings. Burping gets rid of this air, making the baby more comfortable. To burp on purpose sit or stand with your back straight, and swallow air through your mouth instructs Wikihow. Swallow the air in such a way that pressure builds inside your stomach, and once sufficient pressure has built up expel the air through your mouth in the form of a burp. Having a carbonated Excessive burping does not cause a heart attack, but can be a symptom of angina, which is caused by heart disease, reports PubMed Central. Studies generally relate belching to myocardial infarction chest pain, but medical textbooks do not report belching without heart pain as an angina symptom. Burping treatments include increasing fluid intake, avoiding carbonated and alcoholic beverages, taking over-the-counter medication, and seeking medical advice if symptoms progress, according to WebMD. Normal burping usually does not require medical care; however, if it becomes excessive, it may bec Excessive burping, abdominal pain, nausea, indigestionand chest pain can besymptoms of heartburn. However, the symptoms of heartburn are similar to those of a heart attack or angina. The symptoms can be so similar that at times doctors may find it difficult to distinguish between these conditions wi
Top 5 Myths About Solar Panels solar panel myths Like any new technology, there are benefits and drawbacks associated with using solar panels to generate electricity. Fortunately, the benefits of solar energy far outweigh any possible setbacks, but there are still plenty of skeptics out there that believe solar energy isn’t viable. As a result, plenty of myths and half-truths about renewable solar power have emerged on the internet and throughout other public forums. If you are considering switching to solar energy, it is important to have all the facts so you can make an informed decision about your future energy consumption. To help you, we have put together a brief list of the biggest myths associated with solar panels. 1. Solar Panels Won’t Work in Cold Climates Although Vancouver is known for its moderate climate and temperatures that are warmer than most other cities in Canada, there are still plenty of people under the impression that it is too cold here for solar panels to be effective. This is a definite fabrication since solar panels are specifically constructed to stand up to extreme hot and cold temperatures so they can continue to harness solar energy at a steady rate. Even if there isn’t direct sunlight shining on your panels they will still harness energy at a steady rate. Direct sunlight is always preferable when it comes to generating power, but your solar panels will still work even if there are cold temperatures and cloud cover. 2. Solar Panel Production Isn’t Eco-Friendly Many solar energy detractors have continued to spread the false notion that solar panel production produces emissions that are as harmful as coal or natural gas emissions. Not only is this a complete fabrication without any factual basis, the statistics actually show the complete opposite to be true. While solar panel production does require some pollution to mine, clean and manufacture the materials, these emissions are far less intense than those produced from fossil fuels. Also, once a solar panel is produced and connected to the grid, it pays back any energy used in its production within two to three years, which is 40% faster payback than a traditional coal plant. 3. Solar Panel Maintenance Will Damage my Roof If you are thinking about installing a solar panel system on your roof, don’t let this myth deter you in any way. Not only are solar panels lightweight and extremely durable, but they can also actually preserve your roof rather than cause damage to it. This is because they absorb the damaging UV rays from the sun which cause your roof’s integrity to break down over time. Since they are built to last up to 30 years, they will likely never require any maintenance after their initial installation, hence no roof damage to worry about. 4. Solar Panel Inverters Cause Noise Once a solar panel absorbs the sun’s energy it will transfer that power to an electrical inverter which makes that energy compatible with the electrical grid. There is a myth out there that this process causes a lot of noise, but that is simply untrue. While inverters do have a distinctive humming noise when they are on and working, this sound isn’t loud enough to cause any disturbance. Once the sun goes down at night and the panels aren’t transferring any more energy to the inverter, the sound is non-existent, so you don’t have to worry about having your sleep disturbed by any humming machinery or moving parts. 5. Solar Panels are too Expensive Like any major addition to a home, there is going to be a significant upfront cost to have solar panels installed on your property. Fortunately, this initial cost will be quickly offset by the significant savings on energy bills and the available rebates and government incentives tied to renewable energy. Thanks to these subsidies and continued incentives, homeowners can quickly see savings rather than additional expenses tied to their solar panel system. If you are interested in learning more about the numerous benefits associated with solar energy production, be sure to contact the experts at Rikur Energy today.
Buoy refers to an an anchored floating device used as an aid to navigation. May carry a light, horn, whistle, bell, gong, or combination thereof for identification. Buoy may be used to mark a mooring, floating object anchored to the bottom or attached to another object; used as a navigational aid or surface marker. Buoys are also used to monitor ice movement and characteristics of the polar sea ice. These stations are designed to monitor sea ice motion and transmit the information to satellites automatically. Ref: 122328/2006-09-19 Other Database Pages Exist for this Phrase: Anchor (Anchor relates to hyperlinks - the underlined ...) Floating (Floating is concerned with a method of aligning ...) Pot (Pot in aluminum production: the electrolytic ...) ICE (ICE is an acronym for internal-combustion engine ...) List of books: Buoy Other Related Pages
Vasavadatta, Vāsavadattā, Vasava-datta: 10 definitions In Hinduism Kavya (poetry) [«previous next»] — Vasavadatta in Kavya glossary Source: Wisdom Library: The Vetālapañcaviṃśati Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता) is the name of one of the four wifes of Nidhipatidatta, a wealthy merchant and owner of caravans, from the city Puṣkarāvatī, according to the twenty-first story in the Vetālapañcaviṃśati, a Sanskrit work relating the ‘twenty-five stories of a vetāla’. These stories revolve around the Indian King Vikramāditya whose kingdom is threatened by the machinations of a necromancer. Source: Wisdom Library: Kathāsaritsāgara Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता) is the daughter of king Caṇḍamahāsena and his wife Aṅgāravatī, according to the Kathāsaritsāgara, chapter 11. Vāsavadattā had two brothers named Pālaka and Gopālaka. Caṇḍamahāsena was previously known by the name Mahāsena and was the son of Jayasena, son of Mahendravarman (king of Ujjayinī). Aṅgāravatī was the daughter of Aṅgāraka, who broke the chariot of Caṇḍamahāsena in the form of a fierce boar and fled into a cavern, but was later slain by Caṇḍamahāsena. The Kathāsaritsāgara (‘ocean of streams of story’), mentioning Vāsavadattā, is a famous Sanskrit epic story revolving around prince Naravāhanadatta and his quest to become the emperor of the vidyādharas (celestial beings). The work is said to have been an adaptation of Guṇāḍhya’s Bṛhatkathā consisting of 100,000 verses, which in turn is part of a larger work containing 700,000 verses. Source: Vasavadatta, a Sanskrit romance by Subandhu Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता).—The title of the Vāsavadattā of Subandhu, the oldest romantic novel in India, seems to be derived from that of a long lost drama by Bhāsa, the Svapnavāsavadattā or “Dream-Vāsavadatta”. It may be conjectured,came, at least in literary form, the entire story of Vāsavadattā and Udayana, or Vatsarāja, as given in the Ratnāvallī Priyadarśikā, and Tāpasavatsarāja, the ultimate source probably-being the lost Bṛhatkathā. With the Vāsavadattā of these latter works Subandhu’s heroine has only her name in common, nor is any other story concerning her known to exist in Sanskrit literature The Vāsavadattā was written by Subandhu at a place unknown, probably between 550 and somewhat after 606 A.D., the terminus a quo being the circumstance that Uddyotakara cannot have flourished until at least the middle of the sixth century, and the terminus ad quem by the date of composition of the Harṣacarita, early in the seventh century. context information Discover the meaning of vasavadatta in the context of Kavya from relevant books on Exotic India Purana and Itihasa (epic history) [«previous next»] — Vasavadatta in Purana glossary Source: Puranic Encyclopedia Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता).—Wife of Udayana. (See under Udayana). Purana book cover context information Discover the meaning of vasavadatta in the context of Purana from relevant books on Exotic India Languages of India and abroad Sanskrit dictionary [«previous next»] — Vasavadatta in Sanskrit glossary Source: DDSA: The practical Sanskrit-English dictionary Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता).— 1) Name of a work by Subandhu. 2) Name of a heroine of several stories. [Different writers give different accounts of this lady. According to Kathāsaritsāgara she was the daughter of king Chaṇḍamahāsena of Ujjayinī and was carried off by Udayana, king of Vatsa. Śrīharṣa represents her to be the daughter of king Pradyota (see Ratn.1.1.), and, according to Mallinātha's comment on the line प्रद्योतस्य प्रियदुहितरं वत्सराजोऽत्र जह्रे (pradyotasya priyaduhitaraṃ vatsarājo'tra jahre) she was the daughter of Pradyota, king of Ujjayinī. Bhavabhūti says that she was betrothed by her father to king Sañjaya, but that she offered herself to Udayana; (see Māl.2.). But the Vāsavadattā of Subandhu has nothing in common with the story of Vatsa, except the name of the heroine, as she is represented to have been betrothed by her father to Puṣpaketu, but carried off by Kandarpaketu. It is probable that there were several heroines bearing the name Vāsavadattā.] Vāsavadattā is a Sanskrit compound consisting of the terms vāsava and dattā (दत्ता). Source: Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries: Edgerton Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता).—name of a harlot in Mathurā: Divyāvadāna 352.28 ff. Source: Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries: Cappeller Sanskrit-English Dictionary Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता).—[feminine] a woman’s name, T. of a novel. Source: Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries: Aufrecht Catalogus Catalogorum 1) Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता) as mentioned in Aufrecht’s Catalogus Catalogorum:—a romance by Subandhu. W. p. 164. Oxf. 156^b. K. 76. B. 2, 106. Report. Xii. Ben. 35. Bik. 264. Kāṭm. 6 (and—[commentary]). Pheh. 6. 13. Rādh. 22 (and—[commentary]). Oudh. V, 8. Np. V, 184. Burnell. 162^a. H. 113. Taylor. 1, 86. Oppert. 110. 611. 786. 920. 1147. 2429. 3354. 3480. 4055. 4446. 4768. 5159. 6196. 6662. 6995. 7395. 7633. Ii, 481. 984. 1475. 2095. 2641. 2860. 3071. 3266. 3362. 3796. 4144. 6008. 6700. 7032. 7742. 8346. 8942. 9090. 9756. Rice. 242 (and—[commentary]). —[commentary] Oppert. 3481. —[commentary] Tattvadīpinī by Jagaddhara. Oxf. 156^b. L. 1981. Ben. 35. K. 76. Burnell. 162^a. Oppert. Ii, 2291. 2746. 3797. 4145. 6009. —[commentary] by Narasiṃhasena. Oxf. 156^b. —[commentary] by Nārāyaṇa. B. 2, 106. Rādh. 22. —[commentary] Cūrṇikā by Prabhākara. K. 76. —[commentary] Tattvakaumudī by Rāmadeva. L. 2434. —[commentary] Vyākhyāyikā by Vikramarddhi Kavi. Burnell. 162^a. —[commentary] Kāñcanadarpaṇa by Śivarāma. K. 76. Pheh. 13. Oudh. V, 8. Xv, 44. —[commentary] by Śṛṅgāragupta. Report. Xii. —[commentary] by Sarvacandra. Io. 996. 2) Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता):—a romance by Subandhu. Bl. 99. Gov. Or. Libr. Madras 83 (and—[commentary]). Hz. 200 (and—[commentary]). 593. Oudh. Xxi, 56. Peters. 4, 29. Rgb. 461. Stein 81 (inc.). —[commentary] Hz. 341. 593. —[commentary] Tattvadīpinī by Jagaddhara. Bl. 99. Stein 81. —[commentary] by Timmaya Sūri. Gov. Or. Libr. Madras 84. —[commentary] by Prabhākara on the Dūtīsaṃvāda (Hall.'s Edition p. 196-214). Bl. 100. —[commentary] by Sarvarakṣita. Stein 81. —[commentary] by Siddhacandragaṇi. Peters. 4, 29. —[commentary] by Sūkṣmadarśin. Gov. Or. Libr. Madras 84. 3) Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता):—by Subandhu. Ulwar 966. —[commentary] Sarvaṃkaṣā by Nārāyaṇa Dīkṣita. Ulwar 967. 4) Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता):—by Subandhu. Bd. 463. Hz. 1277. Io. 543. 1121. No. 4074. 1398. Śg. 2, 109. C. [anonymous] Io. 543. 1120. 1526. C. Vāsavadattāpañjikā Vidagdhavallabhā. Bd. 464. C. by Kāśīrāma. Io. 543. C. by Nārāyaṇa Dīkṣita. Ak 567. C. by Raṅganātha. Ak 566. C. by Sarvacandra. Io. 543. 996. Vāsavadattāsthūlatātparyārtha. Io. 543. 1) Vāsavadatta (वासवदत्त):—[=vāsava-datta] [from vāsava] m. ‘given by Indra’, Name of a man, [Buddhist literature] 2) Vāsavadattā (वासवदत्ता):—[=vāsava-dattā] [from vāsava-datta > vāsava] f. Name of various women ([especially] of the wife of Udayana, king of Vatsa and daughter of king Caṇḍa-mahā-sena of Ujjayinī [Kathāsaritsāgara] or of king Pradyota [Ratnāvalī], to whom she offered herself after having been betrothed by her father to Saṃjaya [Mālatīmādhava]; and of the heroine of Subandhu’s novel, who is represented to have been betrothed by her father to Puṣpa-ketu, but carried off by Kandarpa-ketu) 3) [v.s. ...] the story of Vāsava-dattā, [Pāṇini 4-3, 87], [vArttika] 1, [Patañjali] ([especially] as narrated in Subandhu’s tale) context information Discover the meaning of vasavadatta in the context of Sanskrit from relevant books on Exotic India See also (Relevant definitions) Relevant text Like what you read? Consider supporting this website:
Skip to main content Failure and the Art of Overcoming it: The Story of Abraham Lincoln When faced with adversity in life, many people cannot cope. Sometimes the stress is too much. Fear and self-doubt take over. It’s in these times when it is extremely beneficial to have a helping hand. Someone to look towards for motivation. Someone who can help show you the way. Not everyone has that though. Abraham Lincoln was one of these people. A self-made man with little supporting cast, his list of failures would be enough to make anyone run and hide. And yet, he would learn to overcome this adversity on his own and become President of the United States of America. Quick Bio Name: Abraham Lincoln Nickname(s): Honest Abe, The Great Emancipator Birth: February 12, 1809 (Hodgenville, KY) (about an hour south of Louisville, KY) Death: April 15, 1865 (Age 56) Height/Weight: 6’4” 180 lbs Claim to Fame: Ending Slavery via the 13th Amendment, Leading the Union through the Civil War, Vampire Hunter Other Professions: Attorney, Surveyor, Illinois State Legislator, Member of US House of Representatives from Illinois Strengths: Leadership, ability to control emotions, moral character Weaknesses: Self-doubt, choice of theatre (too soon?) Brief History Abraham Lincoln’s life story is absolutely remarkable. We’ll split this into two sections: His failures (or bad moments), and his successes. Here’s the timeline: Age 9: His mother died. Later would become estranged with his father. Age 23: Ran for State Legislator, and lost (eventually won two years later). Also lost his job in the same year and attempted to get into Law school, but failed. Age 24: Borrowed money from a friend to begin a separate business. By end of year it had failed and he was bankrupt and in debt. Age 26: His sweetheart (girlfriend) suddenly died. This left him with a broken heart. Age 27: Suffered a nervous breakdown. Age 29: Sought to become the Speaker of the State Legislator, and lost. Age 34: Failed to achieve party’s nomination to Congress (though would run again and win three years later). Age 39: Stepped down from Congress, at his party’s behest, though he wanted to stay. Age 40: Attempted to get the job of Land Officer in his home state (Illinois), and was rejected. Age 45: Defeated for the nomination to the US Senate. Age 47: Entered to receive the Vice Presidential nomination, and was soundly defeated. Age 49: Once again, he was defeated for nomination to the US Senate! You have to lose in a Senate race at least twice in order to get a memorial in DC 🙂 Just two years after this last defeat, at age 51, Abraham Lincoln would be elected as the 16th president of the United States. This is an absolute laundry list of failures. To think that one man could overcome all this grief, disappointment and heartbreak and become the most powerful man in America is absolutely remarkable! As you’ll see, with each setback, he had success to propel him forward: Age 23: After losing his job, he enlisted in a volunteer regiment during the Black Hawk War and was elected Captain by his fellow volunteers. Age 24: When his business failed, he rebounded by being appointed as postmaster and a surveyor. One year later he would win election to the Illinois state legislature. Age 27: Despite having a nervous breakdown, he bounced back by getting re-elected to the Illinois state legislature. He also received his license to practice law in Illinois after studying for years on his own. Age 29: Now and in the next couple years Abe was admitted to practice law in the US Circuit and District Courts. He also became a partner to one of the most successful lawyers in Springfield (Illinois Capital). Age 37: After his failure to receive the nomination 3 years earlier, he was finally elected to the US House of Representatives. Age 40: After stepping down from Congress a year earlier, Lincoln was admitted to practice law in the US Supreme Court. Age 45: Though he was defeated for nomination to the US Senate, Lincoln began to emerge as a leader to the newly formed Republican Party. He was a strong voice in the anit-slavery movement. Age 51: Elected as the 16th President of the United States and remained so for the rest of his life until his untimely assassination. Also saw Abe up close at Mount Rushmore! (on the right) How awesome is that. This guy had adversity hit him at tough times throughout his life. Instead of quitting, he focused on what he wanted to become, and WORKED to be that person. Even though he did not get immediate satisfaction, in the end he could not be beaten down. Lincoln played such a pivotal role is guiding our country through what some call our darkest hour. Many say without him, the world would look a lot different today. It is because of this, that he is usually considered among the greatest US Presidents in our history. Other Interesting Facts Enshrined at the Wrestling Hall of Fame. With a supposed record of 300 wins and 1 loss, you could say he was pretty good! He created the Secret Service just hours before he was assassinated (crazy coincidence, right?) Though their original intent was not to protect the president. He was the first president to have a beard. Never attended Law school, and taught himself Law. Lincoln battled depression most of his life. This is something many people can relate to. He won the 1860 election, while not even being listed on half of the ballots! (All from the South) Financial History Early Career Lincoln came from extremely humble beginnings. As his father was a frontier farmer, he had very little money. What money he did make when he was young, all went to help out the family. Setting off on his own at age 22 he found a job in a small town in Illinois. After eventually losing this job (as the business failed) and coming back after serving in the Black Hawk War, Lincoln decided to start up his first business with a friend. May or may not have had the beard his whole life With no money for a down payment for the general store they purchased, Lincoln had to borrow his half. This proved to be a big mistake, as less than a year later, the business had failed. Abe had to work several jobs as a postmaster, surveyor, legislator and lawyer in order to help pay this off. A year later when the debt was due, he was forced to sell his horse and other items to partially pay it off as well. Worse yet, when his partner died, he also, honorably, agreed to take on his remaining debt and pay that off too. So much debt! While it’s not known how long it took Lincoln to pay it off, this surely hamstrung him in the short term. Later Career Working in politics for most of his life, Lincoln did not make much money here. In fact, if anything, it was a financial liability. Much of the political campaigning would come out of his own pocket, and travel costs in those days were very expensive. Luckily, lawyers were well paid back then (and still are now!) Ascending quickly to partner, and eventually starting his own practice, this served as the main source of Lincoln’s wealth. Eventually, Abe went on to live a fairly normal financial life, investing in bonds, buying a house, and even becoming a creditor to a small number of people. Of course being the upstanding guy he is, he would charge lower than average interest rates on his loans. While never extremely wealthy, Lincoln was able to take hold of his Finances to help make a name for himself. Estimated Net Worth The tremendous debt that Lincoln found himself in after his business failed hamstrung him for many years. He even coined this among friends and called it his “national debt.” (If only he saw the size of it now!) Due to his humble beginnings, working in politics and as a frontier lawyer for most of his life, Lincoln was never among the wealthy elite. At his death, his estate was worth nearly $111,000 in 1865 dollars. This translates to roughly around or slightly less than a $1 million dollar net worth in today’s terms. This, of course, is just Lincoln’s estate, and does not include the famous debts of his wife, Mary. (Perhaps the subject of a future post!) Though early retirement was not in the cards for Lincoln, I daresay if he had the chance to, he would have preferred to continue helping the nation instead. Lessons Learned Don’t Ever Quit After early setbacks, Lincoln had many opportunities where he could’ve quit and settled down for an easier life. Instead, he never gave up and became the man we all know and love. Have an Emergency Fund If Lincoln had an Emergency Fund when starting his business or after, he would have been able to pay off some of his debts to prevent his only physical assets being taken. Recognize the viability of a business venture With no job setup after returning from the Black Hawk War, starting a business made sense. However, make sure it’s a viable business in a market that can support it. By this time, the small town had failed to grow large enough to support three general stores, and there was little avenue to explore outside markets. With little capital and little demand at their store, there was not much Lincoln could do other than watch it slowly fail. Grind when paying off debt With his personal debt (and business partner’s debt) at a high level, Lincoln worked multiple jobs to gather the income necessary to pay them off. Acquire skills by whatever means necessary Although he could not get into law school, Abe was an avid reader and taught himself law while working several other jobs. Eventually this paid off when he received his license to practice law. If you’re looking to change career paths, acquire the necessary skills with any extra time you have. When I was deciding which historical figure to do next, I realized just how many amazing people are out there that we can learn from. It was tough to pick! Thus, as part of my quest to mix history and personal finance, I’ve decided to do a recurring series on historical figures and their finances. Due to the research involved and depending on how busy my schedule is, I’m going to try and do these once every other week if possible. Let me know if there is anyone you’d like to see featured! See my previous post on George Washington’s vast real estate portfolio! Passionate about history too? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear feedback! Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln; by Harry E. Pratt Abraham Lincoln; by George McGovern 8 thoughts to “Failure and the Art of Overcoming it: The Story of Abraham Lincoln” 1. Hahaha too soon, too soon! Well, I’ve got the “grind when paying off debt” thing down, as I’m currently petsitting through Monday and will likely be working about 18 hours this weekend. Maybe I should go visit Lincoln’s memorial after this weekend and yell at him for how tired I am 😂 2. It’s interesting how different of a person he sounds if you just read the list of failures versus list of successes. I’d hedge we all have these two lists, and while it’s healthy to acknowledge that the failures do exist, I think focusing on the highlight reel makes for a much happier life. 1. That’s a great perspective to look at it. I think that’s definitely the case for most people, I know I have my fair share of failures. I agree though, I like to keep things positive over here as well 🙂 3. Bahaha my time management skills largely consist of running around like my hair is on fire and hoping I manage to accomplish something in the meantime 😂 Luckily the 18 hour weekend is a one-off. And I suspect won’t be repeated once I’m debt-free. Because sleep. 4. I love the thought behind this series – Lincoln is a great moral role model, sure, but his perserverance should be first in mind too. The best advice I’ve heard so far this year is: fail often, but don’t fail so big that it takes you out of the game. 1. I think that’s awesome advice. Especially while we’re young we should be taking risks and be prepared to fail, but it’s always in the best interest to not put yourself so far out that you have to start all over from scratch if it all goes badly. Leave a Reply %d bloggers like this:
Plea Bargaining You are here: Home » Plea Bargaining pleaPlea bargaining is one of the most used aspects of our criminal justice system. Although we are taught in school that a jury trial is the cornerstone of our judicial system, more than 94% of criminal cases never reach a jury. They settle through plea bargains in which defendants agree to plead guilty in exchange for reduced sentences. There are two types of plea bargains. The prosecution has discretion to change the length of the sentence or the crime the defendant pleads to. Plea deals allow the prosecution to avoid the expense of running a trial such as calling in witnesses, bringing in a jury, etc. Meantime, a defendant admits responsibility without the risk of serving the maximum sentence. In recent years, the plea bargaining system has been heavily debated. In a 2012 Supreme Court decision, Lafler v. Cooper, Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissent describes plea bargaining: “In the United States, we have plea bargaining a-plenty, but until today it has been regarded as a necessary evil. It presents grave risks of prosecutorial overcharging that effectively compels an innocent defendant to avoid massive risk by pleading guilty to a lesser offense; and for guilty defendants it often — perhaps usually– results in a sentence well below what the law prescribes for the actual crime. But even so, we accept plea bargaining because many believe that without it our long and expensive process of criminal trial could not sustain the burden imposed on it, and our system of criminal justice would grind to a halt.” But a prosecution does not have to make a plea bargain offer. He/she may take all of the cases to trial if time and money allows. But it would be impossible to try every case because the District Attorney’s office has finite resources. Further, every defendant cannot receive the maximum sentence because there are a finite number of jail cells. One cannot truly say whether he would accept the plea bargain without being in the accused position. A recent study, The Innocent Defendant’s Dilemma, revealed that more than half of the innocent participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a benefit. These findings go against our gut feelings that we would not plead guilty if we were really innocent. Our justice system without plea deals would entirely collapse. But is it a fair system to have innocent people plead guilty? It is not a surprise that defense attorneys negotiate with prosecutors in order to receive the best plea deal. What people may not realize is that defense attorneys must also negotiate with their clients. The client makes the final decision on whether to accept the plea deal. Clients should realize that we fight for them regardless of their decision. We often forget that it might have been even more work to negotiate a favorable plea deal than preparing for a trial. Until our justice system is repaired and improved, the accused must rely on the experienced and competent defense attorneys to fight for a favorable plea deal or demand a trial.
17 Jul, 2018 Ino Blockchain Tech Cryptocurrencies have gained this much popularity not only due to the pros of blockchain tech, but also as a product of the ideology that comes with it, which fully adheres to today’s rising demand for anonymity, security and privacy both on the Internet and off it. Blockchain tech has changed the way we do business by allowing customers to cut out the middleman in numerous crucial services, reducing the costs and increasing efficiency. Blockchain tech has the potential to reduce poverty all around the world. What about security? To be more specific, can blockchain tech ensure the privacy of both information and funds? To answer that question let’s first look at what blockchain is. Blockchain is probably best explained as a decentralized ledger that can totally remove the costs by also removing middleman such as banks and effectively decentralizing trust between users. The technology adds entries to the decentralized ledger which are then confirmed by the community rather than by one central entity. Each block on the blockchain represents one transaction and they are linked by the chain, hence the name blockchain. So now that we know what blockchain is, is it totally secure? Of course, blockchain like any other network can be “hacked”, but the technical ability, computing power plus very large costs which would make it necessary to hack make it close to impossible. Because of that, blockchain is considered as the safest way to conduct business today. Ethereum blockchain Our InoCoin Platform is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Because of that, we find it important to mention some key information about the blockchain itself. • Ethereum is an open blockchain platform that lets everyone create and use decentralized applications that are run on blockchain tech • Ethereum implements smart contracts. • Smart contracts are peer-to-peer contracts that are hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, and can do just about anything, one of the main uses is storing any kind of information User build DApps( which is an abbreviation of the term Decentralized Applications ) on the Ethereum blockchain, thus utilizing all the benefits the blockchain provides The knowledge provided in this article is meant to help our users in understanding as to why exactly do we use blockchain technology and how it benefits both them and us as service providers. In the financial industry, blockchain technology enables quicker trade settlement, or in our case quicker investments. There is no need for added confirmation and proof, as it is all on the blockchain for everyone to see. Everything is recorded publicly on the ledger, so anyone can confirm that there is no manipulation, providing transparency of all transactions. We also realize how valuable everyone’s time is these days, so we believe there is no need for you to be waiting on confirming transactions with middleman. Transaction times are greatly lowered because of blockchain tech and provide our users an added benefit of using our platform vs other, more traditional crowdfunding platforms. In addition to lowering the transaction times, blockchain allows peer-to-peer and business-to-business transactions to be completed without the middleman, which is often the banks. That greatly reduces the costs for our users and us at the same time. Well we hope this article improved your knowledge of blockchain tech and also provided you with an insight into our thought process when choosing it as a platform for our business. From everyone here at InoCoin, have a great day and never stop learning. Leave a Reply Notify of
Lesson 1: Exploring Web Pages Question of the Day: Why do people create web pages? Every website has a purpose, a reason someone created it and others use it. In this lesson, students will start to consider the purposes a website might serve, both for the users and the creators. Students will explore some sample websites and discuss the purpose they serve for their creators. They are then asked to reflect on reasons that someone might want to create websites. This unit is all about the World Wide Web, with a focus on creating websites for self expression. To start students thinking about why they might want to create a website, they must begin to consider how websites are useful tools for both users and creators. The lesson opens with popular websites because students are familiar with them, but students are asked to narrow their vision to simpler sites that are within the scope of what they will be able to make in this course. Assessment Opportunities 1. Identify the reasons someone might visit a given website On the activity guide, check that students have reasons that a user might visit each website, such as learning more about a topic or entertaining themselves. 2. Identify the reasons someone might create a given website On the activity guide, check students' reasons for why the creators would make their respective sites. Student explanations may include pragmatic reasons, such as getting feedback and advice from others, or more social reasons such as personal expression. Lesson Modifications Warm Up (5 minutes) Activity (20 minutes) Wrap Up (10 min) View on Code Studio Students will be able to: • Identify the reasons someone might visit a given website • Identify the reasons someone might create a given website • Print a copy of the activity guide for each student. For the Teachers For the Students Report a Bug Teaching Guide Lesson Modifications Attention, teachers! If you are teaching virtually or in a socially-distanced classroom, please see these modifications for Unit 2. Warm Up (5 minutes) Journal and Discussion Discussion Goal The goal of the discussion is to help students see web development as a form of self-expression and communication, and to set an expectation that they have something valuable to contribute. While some students may want to share something silly, encourage students to consider that they have something valuable to say and that others can benefit from it. This discussion should set a positive atmosphere that respects the diversity of perspectives that the group can bring. Prompt: If you could say something important to the whole world, what would it be? Why is it important to you? Allow students to share out their contributions to the group. There are lots of ways that people share with the world. Today, we're going to look at how people use web pages to share what they have to say. Question of the Day: Why do people create web pages? Activity (20 minutes) Personal Web Pages Most of the web pages that we visit are created by large organizations that have a lot of people working on them. But anyone can create their own personal web page and publish it to the Internet. Today, we're going to look at some personal web pages. These pages were created by a single person who had something that they wanted to share with the world. Group: Put students in pairs. Distribute: Pass out a copy of the activity guide to each student. Direct students to the "Sample Web Pages" level on Code Studio. Exploring Websites Teaching Tip Students don't need to get it "right" for each site, but they should demonstrate that they have considered the reasons someone might make a web page. If students struggle to identify the purpose a site serves its creator, consider asking the following prompts: • Does the website creator want the user to do something? • Does the website try to convince the user of something in particular? • Does the website serve as a form of personal expression for the creator? The sites are intentionally simple, to help set expectations about the websites that students will be creating over the course of the unit. Sample Websites This activity guide asks students to consider why people make personal web pages and what sorts of interests can be expressed on them. • What is this person sharing with the world? • Why is it important to them? Encourage students to be as detailed as possible when brainstorming the purposes of these sites. Discussion Goal The goal of this discussion is to prepare students to think of themselves as potential website creators. As students discuss the prompt, encourage them to imagine why they might create a site similar to those in the examples, and what their motivations might be. Remind them that they will have an opportunity in this unit to create a website that will be shared with the entire world. Share: Once everyone has had a chance to brainstorm about their sites, give students a chance to share out their thoughts. Discuss: Give students an opportunity to ask questions about these example sites. Make sure they understand how a small site that is primarily a tool for individual self-expression can also be a useful site for other people. Wrap Up (10 min) Web Development Goals Question of the Day: Why do people create web pages? Journal 3-2-1: 3 - What are three topics you might be interested in creating a website about? 2 - What are two reasons you think someone might visit a website that you create? 1 - What's one thing you're most interested in learning about creating websites? • Lesson Overview • 1 • (click tabs to see student view) View on Code Studio Teaching Tip Student Instructions • Sample Personal Web Pages • 2 • (click tabs to see student view) View on Code Studio Student Instructions Sample Personal Web Pages The Cutest Dog Dog Sample Page My Trip Trip Sample Page Musical Instruments Instrument Sample Page Recycling Club Recycling Sample Page Haiku Sample Page Standards Alignment View full course alignment CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017) IC - Impacts of Computing
OOPS Interview Questions and Answers (133) - Page 2 What is Internal access modifier in C#? The internal keyword is an access modifier for types and type members ie. we can declare a class as internal or its member as internal. Internal members are accessible only within files in the same assembly (.dll). In other words, access is limited exclusively to classes defined within the current project assembly. For more details see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7c5ka91b(VS.71).aspx What is Protected Internal access modifier in C#? Protected Internal is a access modifiers for the members (methods or functions) ie. you can't declare a class as protected internal explicitly. The members access is limited to the current assembly or types derived from the containing class. Protected Internal means the method is accessible by anything that can access the protected method UNION with anything that can access the internal method. For more details read http://haacked.com/archive/2007/10/29/what-does-protected-internal-mean.aspx Default Access modifiers in C#? An enum has default modifier as public A class has default modifiers as Internal . It can declare members (methods etc) with following access modifiers: protected internal An interface has default modifier as public A struct has default modifier as Internal and it can declare its members (methods etc) with following access modifiers: A methods, fields, and properties has default access modifier as "Private" if no modifier is specified. What is method overloading? Method overloading allows us to write different version of the same method in a class or derived class. Compiler automatically select the most appropriate method based on the parameter supplied. public class MultiplyNumbers public int Multiply(int a, int b) return a * b; public int Multiply(int a, int b, int c) return abc; To call the above method, you can use following code. MultiplyNumbers mn = new MultiplyNumbers(); int number = mn.Multiply(2, 3) // result = 6 int number1 = mn.Multiply(2, 3, 4) // result = 24 You can't have a overload method with same number parameters but different return type. In order to create overload method, the return type must be the same and parameter type must be different or different in numbers. What is Overriding? Method overriding is a feature that allows to invoke functions (that have the same signatures) and that belong to different classes in the same hierarchy of inheritance using the base class reference. In C# it is done using keywords virtual and overrides . For more information visit http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/cs_methodoverride.aspx What is Method overloading? Can we call a base class method without creating instance? Yep. But .. * Its possible If its a static method. * Its possible by inheriting from that class also. * Its possible from derived classes using base keyword. In which cases you use override and new base? Difference between new and override keyword? Let me explain this through code. using System; using System.Data; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; namespace BaseDerive public partial class Form1 : Form public Form1() private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) BaseClass b = new BaseClass(); DeriveClass d = new DeriveClass(); //Calls Base class function 1 as new keyword is used. BaseClass bd = new DeriveClass(); //Calls Derived class function 2 as override keyword is used. BaseClass bd2 = new DeriveClass(); public class BaseClass public virtual void func1() MessageBox.Show("Base Class function 1."); public virtual void func2() MessageBox.Show("Base Class function 2."); public void func3() MessageBox.Show("Base Class function 3."); public class DeriveClass : BaseClass public new void func1() MessageBox.Show("Derieve Class fuction 1 used new keyword"); public override void func2() MessageBox.Show("Derieve Class fuction 2 used override keyword"); public void func3() MessageBox.Show("Derieve Class fuction 3 used override keyword"); This is a window application so all the code for calling the function through objects is written in Form_Load event. As seen in above code, I have declared 2 classes. One works as a Base class and second is a derieve class derived from base class. Now the difference is new: hides the base class function. Override: overrides the base class function. BaseClass objB = new DeriveClass(); If we create object like above notation and make a call to any function which exists in base class and derive class both, then it will always make a call to function of base class. If we have overidden the method in derive class then it wlll call the derive class function. For example… objB.func1(); //Calls the base class function. (In case of new keyword) objB.func2(); //Calls the derive class function. (Override) objB.func3(); //Calls the base class function.(Same prototype in both the class.) // This will throw a compile time error. (Casting is required.) DeriveClass objB = new BaseClass(); //This will throw run time error. (Unable to cast) DeriveClass objB = (DeriveClass) new BaseClass(); Hope this helps!!!!! What is a private constructor? Where will you use it? If you declare a Constructor as private then it doesn’t allow to create object for its derived class, i.e you loose inherent facility for that class. Class A // some code Private Void A() //Private Constructor Class B:A Can we declare private class in a Namespace? What is Polymorphism? In C# : Regards Hefin Dsouza. What Are Attributes in DotNet? C# Provides many Built-in Attributes Some Popular ones are - Obsolete - DllImport - Conditional - WebMethod and Many more. Regards Hefin Dsouza What can you do to make class available for inheritance but you need to prevent it's method to come in inheritance chain? Well, Declare a class with public access specifier and mark all it's method to private . As anything which is declared with sealed keyword cannot be inherited. What's the Difference between Interface and Abstract Class Abstract Class: Have constructors. Doesn't Support Multiple Inheritance. Where everything is Opposite in the Interfaces. What are the various types of Constructors Public : Accessible to All and External What are Constructors ? Constructors do not return a value Constructors can be overloaded When to Use Abstract Classes and When Interfaces. Diversities between an abstract method & virtual method ? An Abstract method does not provide an implementation and forces overriding to the deriving class (unless the deriving class also an abstract class), where as the virtual method has an implementation and leaves an option to override it in the deriving class. Thus Virtual method has an implementation & provides the derived class with the option of overriding it. Abstract method does not provide an implementation & forces the derived class to override the method. Interview Questions and Answers Categories
Author: Kigamuro Zulujar Country: Djibouti Language: English (Spanish) Genre: Medical Published (Last): 27 May 2012 Pages: 290 PDF File Size: 12.67 Mb ePub File Size: 9.34 Mb ISBN: 526-8-90865-817-7 Downloads: 67151 Price: Free* [*Free Regsitration Required] Uploader: Akizuru Milanmovitch tilt increases the amplitude of the seasonal cycle in insolationproviding more solar radiation in each hemisphere’s summer and less in winter. Click image to Enlarge. Mid cjclo late stage warming – ice retreat and exposed rock. This wobbling of the Earth on its axis can be likened to a top running down, and beginning to wobble back and forth on its axis. Variations in the Earth’s eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles for Milutin Milankovitch, the Serbian astronomer and mathematician who is generally credited with calculating their magnitude. Artifacts taken from the Earth have been studied to infer the cycles of past climate. Chris Colose at See Laskar et al We don’t need to think inside just this solar system though. The miankovitch age climate was generally dryer cic,o today, so much of the taiga and also temperate forests was replaced by open grassland steppe, prairie etc which has considerably higher albedo than the dark green coniferous forests that make up most of the taiga. Milankovitch Cycles and Glaciation The orbital period the length of a sidereal year is also invariant, because according to Kepler’s third lawit is determined by the semi-major axis. This post will serve as a guide to what these so-called Milankovitch cycles are, how they work, and highlight some “to-be-done” work that remains. The transition problem refers to the need to explain what changed viclo million years ago. Note also that the What are the competitive roles between a further distance from the sun during summer and a longer summer, following Kepler’s law? Early warming – Milankovitch, CO2 and perhaps Methane from melting permafrost and early snow melt. Retrieved 19 May This mulankovitch wobble, or precession, has a periodicity of 23, years. The point of closest approach is known as perihelion. This is known as solar forcing an example of radiative forcing. Archived from the original on 27 April Some have argued that the length of the climate milakovitch is insufficient to establish a statistically significant relationship between climate and eccentricity variations. Data from Berger A. Avoiding dangerous climate change Land allocation decision support system. In this case, the key point is that the climate can equilibriate at multiple temperature solutions, and where it actually is depends on the history it took to get there. Milankovihch less axial tilt the Sun’s solar radiation is more evenly distributed between winter milankovittch summer. Learn now to separate fact from fiction and reason from rhetoric to learn who is really ‘tricking’ you. Milankovitch Cycle – Universe Today When it is weak we tend to be in an ice age. For Earth’s current orbital eccentricity, incoming solar radiation varies by about 6. Earth, today, is stable in milnkovitch its modern configuration or in a cold “snowball” configuration i. Apsidal precession combines with the 25, Glossary Index Climate change Global warming Portal. Change in the Earth’s orbital plane. Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem. Milankovitch Cycle Later in the cycle, land ice sheets start to respond – it takes a fair old while to remove ice sheets kilometers thick. Deep-sea core samples show that the interglacial interval known as marine isotope stage 5 beganyears ago. Dan Olner at That is, the larger the eccentricity, the greater is its deviation from a circle. Then there is the stage 5 question when the cycle does not match the timing. The stability criteria is equivalent to stating that the slope of the absorbed solar curve is less than the OLR curve at the intersection point, but I would read these works cited above if you milxnkovitch a general overview of the mathematics or more detailed treatments. The force seems to initially drive global climate equally between hemispheres. Milankovitch cycles on Mars can actually play a role in redistributing ice on a global scale. Today a difference ciflo only about 3 percent occurs between aphelion farthest point and perihelion closest point. The Earth’s orbit approximates an ellipse. This probably requires a higher obliquity, a greater amount of sunlight at the poles, driving sublimation and vapor transport equatorward, where it can then be deposited at lower latitudes Forget et al
Code of Hammurabi Code of Hammurabi, Babylon, 2000-1600 BC Cuneiform text that records a portion of the 282 laws that are collectively known as the Code of Hammurabi are pictured on this fragment of a clay tablet. This codex is one of the earliest known set of laws ever created. The law’s ethos reflect what we would now call Old Testament, think an eye for an eye. These laws regulate a wide variety of subjects, including commercial, property and family law. Many properties of modern jurisprudence descend directly from this code. The accused is given a presumption of innocence. Both the accused and the accuser have the opportunity to present evidence. While the code strived to achieve some equality, biases still existed within it. It reinforced the society’s class structure, with one law for the rich and another for the poor. For example, the punishment for a doctor who kills a rich patient, was the loss of both hands. While, for poor people, the same offence only warranted a fine as punishment. Sexism was also enforced within the code. For men, having sex with servants and slaves was permitted, but for women any adultery was punished. And then there was the whole codification of slavery. Law is built on precedence. It is thought that the Code of Hammurabi originated first as a collection of his rulings, before it eventually became codified as law. From this start, almost 4,000 years ago, the law has evolved much. Sometimes moving forward, sometimes back. The human flaws inherited from Hammurabi have rippled through time. The current impeachment trial lies both outside the realm of normal jurisprudence, while still being rooted within the law. Infused with politics, its justice has become corrupted. Making any verdict that this trial decrees suspect. Giving neither a conviction nor any true vindication. 2 thoughts on “Code of Hammurabi 1. Oi! The GAO, a non-partisan agency of the federal government, resolved that withholding legislated aid to a foreign country is a breach of law. There is no question that Trump withheld such earmarked monies and arms to Ukraine, a country in a bloody war with Russian backed insurgent separatists. His excuse is that the current administration of Ukraine was not following up on spurious rumours of corruption in their gas industry. The House of Representatives impeached Trump for this transgression. There has been no effort successful or otherwise to impune that conviction. Trump’s defense has only presented arguments of executive privilege, patriotic motivation, and a desire to deter corruption in US elections. None of these “reasons” exhonerates Trump from the conviction of impeachment. How could a decree to remove Trump from office be suspect? Oi vey! • The New Yorker had a cartoon this week that was apropos. The Founding Fathers were standing around a TV set in heaven. The caption read, “George, C-SPAN can’t hear you.” I Want to Hear What You Think, So Leave a Reply You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change ) Google photo Twitter picture Facebook photo Connecting to %s
Question: Is It Better To Have Power Lines Underground? What are the advantages of underground cables? What are the main benefits of underground cables?have lower transmission losses;can absorb emergency power loads;have lower maintenance costs;emit no electric field and can be engineered to emit a lower magnetic field than an overhead line;require a narrower band of land to install, and;are less susceptible to the impacts of severe weather.. Are underground or overhead power cables safer? Underground cables are safer to the public, animals and environment compared to the overhead lines i.e. there are no issues such as people getting in contact with fallen lines. The overhead cables can be brought down and human, animal intervention, weather as well vegetation such as trees. What is the main disadvantage of underground cables? Disadvantages of a Underground Cables: Moreover placing or inter cost of the underground cable lines are much greater as compare to the overhead lines. In case of the failure of system ,It is hard to discover and fix the wire breaks. Can you bury an extension cord in the ground? Never bury a live extension cord behind a wall. Additionally, never bury an extension cord in the ground. The elements will eventually eat through the insulation, corrode the wire, and may cause a fire. There are special outdoor wiring products available. Can you bury power lines? Burying power cables, or “undergrounding,” makes lines impervious to damage from wind and ice, and harder for would-be attackers to target. But it also can be expensive, complicate repairs and subject infrastructure to flood damage, experts say. Do underground power lines cause cancer? Power frequency electric and magnetic fields do not possess enough energy to damage DNA in the ways ionising radiation can. Over twenty epidemiological studies have examined whether exposure to power frequency magnetic fields might cause cancer, particularly childhood leukaemia. How much does it cost to bury my power lines? roughly US$1 million per mileBurying power lines costs roughly US$1 million per mile, but the geography or population density of the service area can halve this cost or triple it. What material can block EMF? What is the purpose of bedding on the underground cables? Bedding is nothing but a layer of paper tape compounded with fibrous material provided over the metallic sheath. Bedding serves two purpose i.e., it protects the metallic sheath from corrosion due to moisture and it acts as adhesive to stick the metallic sheath and armouring. How much does it cost to run electric underground? What is the minimum safe distance from power lines? 10 feetWork at a safe distance This is the most important rule: Work at a safe distance from all power lines. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that equipment be kept at least 10 feet away from power lines with voltages up to 50kV. Why don’t they put power lines underground? “Buried power lines are protected from the wind ice, and tree damage that are common causes of outages, and so suffer fewer weather or vegetation-related outages,” their report concluded. “But buried lines are more vulnerable to flooding and can still fail due to equipment issues or lightning.” Can you lose power if lines are underground? KURY: Well, they do, but you’re not really eliminating risk completely when you underground the power lines. … Yes, you’ve mitigated the risk of losing power because of a failure in the pole or a tree getting blown into the lines. But you’ve traded that risk off for outages due to storm surge or to flooding. What are the advantages and disadvantages of underground cables? The underground cables have several advantages over the overhead lines; they have smaller voltage drops, low chances of developing faults and have low maintenance costs. However, they are more expensive to manufacture, and their cost may vary depending on the construction as well as the voltage rating. How much does a power pole cost? Cost: From $350 to $1,800. That’s just the pole. Add in labor and equipment costs, and it can cost as much as $3,000 to replace a pole that has been knocked down by, say, a storm or a car. How do you bury electrical lines? Bury in the Ground: Dig Six Inches At 6 in. -deep, use galvanized metal rigid electrical conduit (1/2-in. dia. is large enough for the water feature) and run individual conductors inside. Pro tip: The conductors need to be waterproof, so look for a “W” on the label, as in THWN-2. How far can you run 12 gauge wire? The following are the maximum lengths of cable you can use while still maintaining a 3 percent voltage drop for the given wire size (AWG) and circuit voltage….For 120-volt circuits:14 AWG50 feet12 AWG60 feet10 AWG64 feet8 AWG76 feet6 AWG94 feetOct 20, 2019 Do power lines give off radiation?
(Photo: Getty Images) Bulletin readers respond: 12 ways New Zealand could deal better with waste A call for feedback in our daily email newsletter The Bulletin on how New Zealand could reduce the amount of waste being produced – and ending up in landfills – prompted a massive response. Here are some of your ideas. In some ways, this call for feedback was the crisis New Zealand is facing with waste and plastics disposal in microcosm. It came in a flood that I wasn’t prepared for, and I didn’t have the capacity to process it all at once. All jokes aside, this is clearly a really deeply felt issue for a lot of people. There is a justified fear that problems with waste are getting out of control, and that the present trajectory will end in disaster. In the days since that edition of The Bulletin, I’ve talked to a range of people who know this topic well. Two clear themes emerged. The first is that we need to dramatically cut down on producing so much stuff that later ends up in landfills in the first place – food packaging for example. The problems need to be addressed at a production level, to ease the burden on the processing level. Secondly, the processing level itself needs to be improved dramatically. At the moment, far too much stuff simply ends up in a landfill. Or, it ends up being sent overseas, to become someone else’s problem. That’s not sustainable, even if we can reduce the amount being produced. So, with all that in mind, here are some suggestions that readers of The Bulletin have offered. A note about these as well – I intend this to be something of a living document for the next week or so. In particular, if ideas have been suggested and some version of that idea already exists, please let me know and I’ll add it in – just send it to thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz. It should also be noted that many people made some acknowledgement that these are huge, systemic problems that encompass economics, politics, trade, culture – pretty much every aspect of life. Many of the ideas would almost certainly involve not just the whole country, but really the whole world pulling together and changing the supply chains of the global economy. But these problems already affect the whole world – other, poorer countries currently bear far more of the brunt of plastic pollution than we do. So rather than letting that be an excuse for despair, we should be looking at these sorts of ideas as ways to start dragging ourselves out of the huge hole we’ve dug. Finally, before going through all of these suggestions, there’s one fundamental point that needs to be made. The simplest thing individuals can do is just consume less. Buy less stuff. Especially buy less stuff you don’t need. Individuals making better choices will not be sufficient to solve this problem. But a piece of plastic that ends up in a landfill (or the bush, or the ocean) will stay there pretty much forever, so every good individual choice will make a tiny difference, but a difference nonetheless. And if you want to sign up to The Bulletin and contribute to these conversations in future, you can do that here. Make spare parts more easily available Tim had this suggestion, which could cut down on the amount of brand new products that would need to be manufactured. “It would be great if there was something requiring manufacturers to provide spare parts for their products and make them reasonably accessible. It’s infuriating having to throw out something that only needs one tiny part to make it work again, but the part isn’t available. You could probably legislate for it, but a change in business models to de-incentivise planned obsolescence would be better. E.g. when you buy something, the seller wants it to work well for a while then break so you’ll buy another soon. If you hire something, the hire company wants it to last so they can hire it out again. If, at a national level, we hire more stuff and buy less, there should be a reduction in waste generation.” It’s worth noting as well that the most environmentally friendly products currently in existence are the ones that already exist, and don’t need to be made all over again. Wayne had this suggestion – which could be a controversial one, but is certainly something to consider. “Don’t set standards which don’t support a second hand market, for example electrical goods and reusing second hand microwaves.” UPDATE: Arran has written in with this potentially little-known aspect of the Consumer Guarantees Act: “Technically you can demand spare parts under the Consumer Guarantees Act. Ive done it a few times, and it really pisses vendors off, but its the law.” The exact guideline of this from MBIE’s website is that sellers of products must “have spare parts available and a way to offer repairs. This might be through an arrangement with the manufacturer or a trusted repairer. If spare parts and repairs aren’t available, tell the customer before finalising the sale.” A tax on packaging This came up time and again, in various different forms, and I’m sure economists would be able to fill entire books with why it’s a good or bad idea. The fundamental part of the question would be whether it would lead to behaviour change at the manufacturing end. If it didn’t result in any manufacturing changes, and just led to consumers paying more for the same stuff, it would be worse than useless. If on the other hand manufacturers responded by dramatically reducing packaging, and in doing so made unpackaged stuff cheaper for consumers, that would be a huge win. How might it work in practice? I’ll paraphrase a suggestion from Joanna. For pretty much all consumer products, packaging is a crucial element of branding – i.e, why a customer should buy their product and not a competing product. So take for example a brand of eco-friendly laundry powder. What if, instead of being sold in boxes extolling the ecological virtues of the product, it was instead shipped in bulk and sold by weight, with consumers bringing their own reusable bag to carry it home in? Trish had a similar thought about this, which seemed like an incredibly simple but effective way of cutting out a bit of unnecessary packaging. “I am unsure why we have to buy cereal inside a packet inside a box – ditch the box! Or biscuits in a tray inside a wrapper – ditch the tray!” And Stuart had this to say, about a plastic tax. “Plastic should be taxed at source. The societal cost of getting rid of plastic could and should be estimated and plastic should be taxed at the source. Whoever puts plastic onto the market should be taxed at a rate that will cover the costs of genuine, environmentally safe removal.” Plastic, plastic, everywhere. Image: Supplied Make rubbish processing part of regional economic development Here’s an interesting one from Fiona, talking about how the processing of rubbish is an industry in and of itself. My personal view is that a plan like this would be entirely dependent on the details of how it was implemented and paid for. We’d also have to take extreme care that the pollution that was inevitably created didn’t end up simply contaminating other, poorer parts of the country – that would be incredibly unfair. But it’s an interesting suggestion nonetheless. “Begin setting up facilities for the sorting, cleaning and processing of rubbish. Many plastics can be recycled for other uses, much paper waste can be processed and reused. Factories which provide the processing can be built in the under-utilised regions of country New Zealand, providing the lure of jobs and much cheaper housing for those struggling masses in Auckland.” Another suggestion, from Barbara, was on similar lines. Why isn’t a big chunk of the Provincial Growth Fund being used to set up a proper recycling plant somewhere in New Zealand? Put the responsibility for packaging disposal and recycling on retailers This is an idea that came up a lot too. Someone who just gave their name as W said the current system was an example of privatised profits, and socialised losses, given that the responsibility for rubbish disposal and recycling ends up falling to the public. “We’ve all had that experience with finishing a meal at McDonalds and being amazed at all the waste, from the paper bag, the chip box, the drink refill and straw – it all just goes in a public bin usually – at the cost of ratepayers, not McDonalds.” One problem with this of course – can we necessarily trust companies will dispose of what comes back properly? Or would it just result in someone else doing the dumping? There would have to be a fairly rigorous carrot and stick regime to make it work, but it’s an idea worth exploring. It would also potentially incentivise businesses to voluntarily cut back on the amount of packaging they use. Pyrolysis/incineration of rubbish for raw materials and fuel This idea came up a lot, in various different forms. You’ve probably seen the meme about Norway – that it works so well there that they have to import rubbish from other countries to maintain the programme. I decided to speak to an expert about this one, given it sounds sort of too good to be true. Dr Thomas Neitzert – an emeritus professor in mechanical engineering at AUT University – had this to say. “Many plastic materials are currently in the environment, so we have to do something about that circulation. In Europe, there are big plants burning plastics, which is an energy source that can be turned into heat. It has potential, but it needs very good filtration, because in the incineration process there can be very toxic gases generated. But if you have a state of the art plastic incineration plant, that should take care of 99% of the emissions. So for example, dioxides are created, and they’re quite toxic to humans and other beings. So this has to be done properly – just burning plastic in your backyard is a very bad idea.” However, some important caveats to this can be found in this piece on Euractiv, by two European waste experts. First of all, it’s very expensive. Secondly, even if there is highly effective capture of the emissions and toxic chemicals that are released in the process, some will still get through, so it cannot be considered to be renewable energy. And thirdly, it just masks the real problem – overproduction of plastic generally. Dr Neitzert also acknowledged this, saying the best approach would be to simply produce and consume less in the first place. Battery recycling facilities This suggestion came in from Richard, who said there were pretty much no good or convenient options for recycling either single use or recyclable batteries once they reached the end of their life. “I think any retailer that sells batteries or items with batteries in them should be required to have a battery disposal collection point. And then aggregators could come around the retailers and collect them, and then the batteries could have some elements harvested and recycled and have other materials disposed of properly. In fact this could create a mini-industry. Batteries could have a 2c per battery tax to help fund oversight and administration of regulation around this.” Reusable bottles for all kinds of drinks Somehow swappa crates for beer haven’t caught on when it comes to other types of drink, and as a result there’s a hell of a lot of single use plastic from beverages. Sky had two suggestions on this: “I was in Chile 20 years ago and as well as still having small reusable glass bottles for soft drinks, they had reusable big plastic bottles for soft drink, 2 or 3 litres. They were really thick, like a soda stream bottle, and you brought your empty bottle back to the supermarket to get a discount on the next one, making it cheaper than the single use ones available. “The other example is one which is being used on a small scale in NZ currently, but could be scaled up. Some dairy farmers are choosing to sell their milk directly to the public with vending machines. You bring your own bottles, put it in the machine and it fills it with milk. You wash the bottles yourself, cutting out the massive infrastructure required for collecting, washing and delivering glass bottles like in ‘the good old days’.” A global ban on the manufacture of new plastic Now, a caveat for this one – Ari who suggested it admitted straight off the bat that it was pretty extreme. But we live in a time of crisis, and it costs nothing to make suggestions that address the scale of said crisis. It would certainly give people incentives to go and do something about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “The current nature of the global economy is linear, when it needs to be circular. What does that mean? I think a global ban on the production of new plastic is a good place to start, since the vast majority of it that has ever been created still exists. I can only imagine this would make that existing plastic far more valuable and therefore offer the incentives needed to get it all out of the natural environment.” Build packaging and plastics responsibility into our trade policy Another extreme suggestion, but one worth exploring, came from Loren. “At a trade level I think packaging should be addressed – certain non-recyclable items should simply not be allowed to be imported. This goes against the idea of free trade, but much of free trade is built on negative externalities and these need to be accounted for. This could work hand in hand with the idea of forcing the producers to be responsible for the recycling of waste. A more strict version of banning imports might be to ban the import and production of all non recyclable materials. This is something NZ could do to lead the world in sustainability, its also something it could support Pacific nations to do as they also drown in plastic without any means of recycling due to cost, biosecurity and distance.” Council collection of food and garden waste Kathryn suggested “council collection of green garden waste. Also, council collection of kitchen scraps for those people who don’t have the space for compost bins.” Now, there is a programme currently being trialled by Auckland Council on this, and my understanding is that there will be more information coming out soon about it. Using composting techniques to detoxify waste like asbestos This is an idea that has come from a recent piece on The Spinoff, about some research currently being done at Unitec. Basically, all the asbestos that has been (rightly) ripped out of houses has ended up being dumped in landfills. But instead of just burying it deep in the hazardous waste section of the tip, it could be possible to detoxify it using microbes and plants. Using more compostable processes and packaging generally A lot of people suggested this one too, and pointed to companies like Ecoware who make compostable packaging. It’s certainly a more environmentally friendly material than plastic, but like with much of this stuff, the devil is in the detail. Do enough composting facilities actually exist? Are home-compost bins set up properly? It’s an emerging area, and my understanding with this one too is that there will be much more news to come in the near future. But it needs to be done right, and the stakes here are pretty high, because a huge chunk of what currently goes to landfill is food waste. There could be all sorts of benefits to getting better infrastructure set up in this area. Don’t ever stop looking for new ways to improve This suggestion came in from Jamie, and I think it’s a really pertinent one to finish on. The plastic bag ban is now in effect. What is the next issue that needs to be tackled, and how quickly can we start pushing through new ideas? Here was Jamie’s piece: “The government should institute a program where there is a professional team working full time to sort out idea after idea, one after the other, with businesses and consumers expecting a push for changing habits with something new every 4/6 months. First, plastic bags, second glass, third fancy cardboard, fourth FMCG cardboard boxes, fifth shampoo + plastic bottle recycling. These would be incremental changes, each changing consumer habits and manufacturing habits, each only adding a small cost to the product but over time, each being common sense, and yet all making a bigger and bigger difference. Pick the low hanging fruit first, quick wins, cheap wins, introduce the culture of continuous improvement along with it. And along with this, is the concept that we in NZ should be recycling our NZ-generated rubbish, and not exporting it.” Please help us by supporting them.
Cardio - Physio (Cardiac Output & related concepts) Flashcards Preview FA - Cardiovascular > Cardio - Physio (Cardiac Output & related concepts) > Flashcards Flashcards in Cardio - Physio (Cardiac Output & related concepts) Deck (32) Loading flashcards... What is the equation that defines cardiac output? CO = stroke volume (SV) x heart rate (HR) What is the equation for the fick principle? CO = rate of O2 consumption / (arterial O2 content - venous O2 content) What is the equation that defines mean arterial pressure? How does MAP relate to diastolic and systolic pressures? MAP = CO x total peripheral resistance; MAP = 2/3(diastolic pressure) x 1/3(systolic pressure); What is the equation that defines the pulse pressure? What is pulse pressure's relationship to stroke volume versus arterial compliance? Pulse pressure = systolic pressure - diastolic pressure; Pulse pressure is directly proportional to stroke volume (i.e., as one goes one way, the other follows in the same direction), inversely proportional to arterial compliance What is/are the equation(s) that define stroke volume? SV = EDV - ESV (also, SV = CO/HR) Characterize the early and late stages of exercise in terms of changes to heart physiology. During the early stages of exercise, CO is maintained by the increased HR and increased SV; During the late stages of exercise, CO is maintained by increased HR only (SV plateaus) What happens in heart physiology if HR is too high? Give an example of a clinical condition that exemplifies this. Diastole is preferentially shortened with high HR; less filling time --> decreased CO (e.g., ventricular tachycardia) What approximates preload versus afterload? Preload = ventricular EDV; Afterload = mean arterial pressure (proportional to peripheral resistance) What general effect do venodilators have? What is an example of a venodilator? What is a good way to remember this? vEnodilators decrease prEload; e.g., nitroglycErinE; (see E mnemonic in answer) What general effect do vasodilators have? What is an example of a vasodilator?What is a good way to remember this? vAsodilators decrease Afterload (Arterial); e.g., hydAlAzine; (see A mnemonic in answer) Again, what approximates preload? What are three things that can increase preload? ventricular EDV; (1) Exercise (slightly) (2) Increased blood volume (e.g., overtransfusion) (3) Excitement (increased sympathetic activity) What 3 key factors affect stroke volume (and thus affect cardiac output)? What changes in these factors leads to an increase in stroke volume (and thus increase in cardiac output)? (1) Contractility - increased (2) Afterload - decreased (3) Preload - increased What are 4 examples (including names and mechanisms) of increased contractility? Again, what effect do these have on SV and CO? (1) Catecholamines (increased activity of Ca2+ in sarcoplasmic reticulum) (2) Increased intracellular Ca2+ (3) Decreased extracellular Na+ (decreased activity of Na+/Ca2+ exchanger) (4) Digitalis (blocks Na+/K+ pump --> increase intracellular Na+ --> decrease Na+/Ca2+ exchanger activity --> increase intracellular Ca2+) ; Increase What effect does digitalis have on contractility, and to which factor impacting contractility does this relate? What is the mechanism behind this effect? Increase, because increased intracellular Ca2+ by following mechanism: block Na+/K+ pump --> Increase intracellular Na+ --> decrease Na+/Ca2+ exchanger (normally puts calcium out and brings sodium in) activity --> Increase intracellular Ca2+ What are 5 examples (including names and mechanisms) of decreased contractility? Again, what effect do these have on SV and CO? (1) Beta1-blockade (decreased cAMP) (2) Heart Failure (systolic dysfunction) (3) Acidosis (4) Hypoxia/Hypercapnea (decreased PO2/increased PCO2) (5) Non-dihydropyridine Ca2+ channel blockers ; DECREASE In what (non-pathologic) situations might a patient's SV increase? (1) Anxiety (2) Exercise (3) Pregnancy What effect does a failing heart have on SV, and why? A failing heart has decreased SV (both systolic and diastolic dysfunction) What increases myocardial O2 demand? (1) Increased afterload (directly proportional to arterial pressure) (2) Increased contractility (3) Increased heart rate (4) Increased heart size (increased wall tension) To what is the force of contraction proportional? End-diastolic length of cardiac muscle fiber (preload) What 3 factors/conditions increase contractility? (1) Sympathetic stimulation (2) Catecholamines (3) Digoxin; What 4 factors/conditions decrease contractility? (1) Loss of myocardium (MI) (2) Beta-blockers (3) Calcium channel blockers (4) Dilated cardiomyopathy Draw the Starling graph/curve, labeling its axes and creating curves for the following scenarios: (1) Exercise (2) Normal (3) CHF+digoxin (4) CHF. Axes: y = CO or stroke volume, x = Ventricular EDV (preload); See FA p. 254 for Starling curve visual What is/are the equation(s) that characterizes/defines ejection fraction? Of what is left ventricular ejection fraction an index? Ventricular contractility What is a normal EF? Greater than or equal to 55% What effects do systolic versus diastolic heart failure have on EF? EF decreases in systolic heart failure; EF is normal in diastolic heart failure Name 5 conditions in which there is high pulse pressure. High pulse pressure in (1) hyperthyroidism (2) aortic regurgitation (3) arteriosclerosis (4) obstructive sleep apnea (increased sympathetic tone) (5) exercise (transient) Name 4 conditions in which there is low pulse pressure. Low pulse pressure in (1) aortic stenosis (2) cardiogenic shock (3) cardiac tamponade (4) advanced heart failure On what 2 factors does preload depend? Depends on venous tone and circulating blood volume What does Laplace's law tell us about afterload? Give the equation. Relate this equation to LV compensation for increased afterload. Relation of LV size and afterload --> Laplace's law; Wall tension = (pressure x radius) / (2 x wall thickness); LV compensates for increased afterload by thickening (hypertrophy) to decrease wall tension
::: 主內容區 According to the Sediq legend, the Sediq people, as well as so-called Seediq and Sejiq, originated from Pusu Qhuni/RmdaxTasil (the Central Mountain Range), nowadays known as Mudanyan. After migrating from this place of origin, Sediq’s ancestors settled and populated in Deluwan (Truwan, called Plngebung by the Toda subgroup, located in Hezuo Village of Ren’ai Township in Nantou County today). After living in Truku Truwan (Deluwan) for some time, the Sediq people gradually moved out of Deluwan around 18th century due to population growth and space insufficiency. After this migration, different groups adopted different names. The group that migrated to lower Deluwan - Wushe (the mountainous area across from Chunyang today) called themselves Tgdaya. The group that migrated to Tpwqo (Dadebuge), Kbayan (Gubayang), and Browan (Bulowan) across Mt. Qilai called themselves Truku. The group passed through the north peak of Mt. Hehuan to Shangmeiyuan (Zhu Village) called themselves Toda. After migrating to Tgdaya, Toda, and Truku, each subgroup formed individual group identities. Therefore, they distinguished themselves as Seediq Tgdaya, Sediq Toda, and Sejiq Truku. The distribution of each subgroup is as follows: 1. Seediq Tgdaya According to the historic documents of the Qing dynasty and Japanese colonization, the territory of Seediq Tgdaya covered the Wushe (Nantou) and Mugua (Hualien) Communities. Seediq Tgdaya in Nantou: This community was distributed in the Zhuoshui River and Mei River drainage basins between Wushe and Lushan in Ren’ai Township. After the Mushe Incident during Japanese colonization, Seediq Tgdaya people living in the east of Wushe were forced to migrate to the Qingliu and Zhongyuan (Huzhuo Village in Renai Township today) at the midstream of the Beigang River. Those settling deep in the mountain in the east of the Mei River migrated to the river valley around the Nanshan River (Fengjing Village in Ren’ai Township today). Currently, most of them settled in Huzhuo, Nanfeng, and Datung villages in Ren’ai Township, Nantou County. Seediq Tgdaya in Hualien: This community distributed in the Mugua River drainage basin. Due to the expansion of the Truku people in the late Qing dynasty, they migrated to Xikou Village in Shofeng Township and Mingli Village in Wanrong Township, Hualien County. Around 1945, they further migrated to Jiamin and Fushi Villages in Xiulin Township, and some migrated to the south in Jianqing and Wanrong Villages in Wanrong Township. 2. Sediq Toda When migrating to Nantou in earlier times, the Sediq Toda people mainly settled in the Pingjing mountainous area in the north of Seediq Tgdaya. In the 18th century, they crossed over the north peak of Mt. Hehuan to the upstream and midstream of the Taosai River in the Hualien mountainous area, thus calling themselves Toda (also Daoje or Taosai). Currently, they mainly settled in Jingying and Chunyan Villages in Ren’ai Township, Nantou County; and Lishan and Lunshan Villages in Zhuoxi Township, Hualien County. 3. Sejiq Truku In earlier times, the Sejiq Truku settled around Jingguan in Ren’ai Township, Nantou County. After migrating to Hualien, they mainly stayed in the Liwu River drainage basin. Currently, the Sejiq Truku mainly distributed in Songlin, Lushan, and Jinghuan Communities in Ren’ai Township, Nantou County; and Xiulin and Wanrong Townships in Hualien County. Some communities settled in Lishan in Zhuoxi Township, Qingfeng in Jian Township, Nanhua and Fuxing Villages. In the 18th to 19th century, the Sediq people developed their territories in Nantou and Hualien on both sides of the Central Mountain Range. During Japanese colonization in the early 20th century, as the colonial government reckoned that the Sediq territory was government property, and due to the racism of the colonial police, Mona Rudo, chief of the Mahepo Community of Seediq Tgdaya, led the Mushe Incident that shocked the world in 1930. It was the last armed resistance against Japanese colonization in Taiwan. The incident shocked the Government-General of Taiwan and the international community and is significant in the history of Taiwan. In consideration of ethnic identification, the Seediq Tgdaya, Sediq Toda, and Sejiq Truku subgroups requested ethnonym rectification as “Sediq Balay, Sejiq Balay, and Seediq Bale” respectively from the government in 2000. In 2008, the government thus recognized the ethnicity of the whole indigenous group as Sediq.
::: 主內容區 The demonym, Thao, meaning “people”, of the Thao people was introduced by Japanese scholars during Japanese colonization. It is said that the ancestors of the Thao people originally settled in Jianan Plain. When entering the Central Mountain Range during hunting, they accidentally found a rare white deer. After chasing it for days to what is today’s Tutingzi (Puzi), the white deer immediately jumped into the Sun Moon Lake. The Thao people stopped and found that it was a fertile place with many fishes, suitable for farming, hunting, and fishing. Therefore, they brought other Thao people to settle there. Lalu (formerly called Guanghua Isle, Zhuzi Isle) is the supreme ancestral spiritual place to the Thao people in the Sun Moon Lake area. In the Qing dynasty, the place was called “Shuishalian”, there were Tou (Shtafari) Village, Shui Village, Maolan Village, Shenlu Village, Pu Village, and Mei Village, collectively they were called the “Shuishalian 6 Villages”. During over 200 years of the Qing dynasty, as the Han immigrants sought land and the government implemented the wilderness cultivation and forest development policies, the original Thao territory was divided and reduced, and their influence in Shuishalian gradually disappeared. During Japanese colonization, some Thao people continued to settle in Ding (tao) Village, Neiaozi Village, Shiyin Village, Shuiwei Village, Shui Village, and Maolan Village. When the area was flooded after the construction of the Sun Moon Lake hydroelectric power plant, the Thao people were forced to migrate to Ita Thao (Barawbaw) Village. In addition, thanks to the colonial government’s tourism promotion, Sun Moon Lake, the Thao tourism and the pounding performance have become one of the “Eight Wonders of Taiwan”. Colonial prohibition was abolished since the R.O.C government took the reign, and many Han people moved and engaged in commerce there, the Han population started to increase . To improve local living quality, the government implemented urban re-zoning in the region in 1983. As a result, more land of the Thao people was split and expropriated for more business groups to purchase lands and build hotels there. The Thao people who had been living there for generations were forced to face the competition from the Han people and financial groups with commercial advantages. The Thao ancestors came from the Jianan Plain and Alishan Mountain. Ethnologically, they were classified as a branch of the Tsou people. Due to the significant differences in language, religion, and life ceremonies, the Thao people have striven for demographic rectification. After their long-time efforts, the government eventually recognized the ethnic group as the 10th indigenous group called the Thao in Taiwan in 2001. Currently, the Thao people are settled in Ita Thao (Barawbaw) (Sun Moon Village) in Yuchi (Qabizay) Township in Nantou County and Dapinglin Settlement (Taypina wa Thaw, Dingkang Village) in Shuili Township. There are also Thao people migrating to cities like Taichung and Taipei.
News Release Downstream effects: Sturgeon lifespan, fertility vary strikingly with river conditions Specimens on lower Missouri living 3x shorter, producing 10x fewer eggs than upriver counterparts University of Nebraska-Lincoln IMAGE: New research has found that pallid sturgeon stocked in a northerly segment of the Missouri River live an average of three times longer, produce roughly 10 times as many eggs... view more Credit: Photo: Sam Stukel, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Illlustration: University of Nebraska-Lincoln As he discussed how the pallid sturgeon has responded to differing conditions along the Missouri River, the mind of soft-spoken fish ecologist Mark Pegg drifted to a Def Leppard lyric inspired by Neil Young. "What is the old song? 'It's better to burn out than to fade away?' In this case, I'm not sure that's true," said Pegg, a professor with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources. Pegg was referring not to the existential fate of the shovel-nosed, long-lived endangered species, but to the life cycles of individual specimens. He was talking about the impressive developmental flexibility, but also the troubling developmental deficits, that some specimens have shown in the face of human intervention on the Missouri -- the power of nurture, or lack thereof, revealed by an unprecedented new study. The study found that pallid sturgeon stocked around the lower basin of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri live an average of just 19.8 years -- nearly three times shorter than in the upper basin of Montana and North Dakota, where the average was an estimated 56.4 years. Combined with the fact that females in the lower basin weighed an average of seven times less than in the upper basin, that altered trajectory also seemed to dramatically influence reproduction. The shorter-lived female specimens appeared to compensate by reaching sexual maturity at around age 10, compared with age 17 in their longer-lived counterparts. Despite the head start, though, their looming demise caught up with them: The lower-basin females spawned between three and 11 times, well below the range of 13-20 times among females in the upper basin. According to the estimates of the research team, the lower-basin females consequently laid about 10 times fewer eggs over their lifetimes. The researchers, led by the University of Georgia's Martin Hamel, came to the striking conclusions by analyzing existing data gathered from both wild and hatchery-raised sturgeon -- more than 1,200 in total. In the mid-2000s, a cadre of agencies began regularly measuring and monitoring the age, size and fertility of wild specimens in an effort to learn more about threats to the endangered species. But an even earlier effort, begun in the mid-1990s, sought to supplement the species' declining numbers. "So they grabbed whatever fish they could that were of reproductive size and age and started making little sturgeon," Pegg said. The sturgeon they initially grabbed and set to spawning in hatcheries came from the upper basin in Montana. When it came time to release those offspring into the Missouri River, the agencies stocked them across both the upper basin, where their parents had lived, and the lower basin. Years later, that decision would manifest as a boon for Hamel, Pegg and their colleagues, Kirk Steffensen of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and Jonathan Spurgeon of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Because of it, the researchers had access to an exceedingly rare dataset: substantial numbers of genetically similar specimens left to grow and mature in two environments separated by more than a thousand miles. Any major differences in their development, then, would almost certainly arise from differences in those environments -- an ichthyological analog of studying identical human twins raised in different households. "Replicating that (approach) is horribly difficult, especially in Mother Nature's lab," Pegg said. "We just don't have the space, time or resources to really do that. So this was more of a moment of serendipity than any real planning on our part. "We knew where the fish were coming from, and we could start to look at how they were actually responding to their new environment." Pegg said the extreme developmental differences the team discovered between the upper- and lower-basin populations probably speak to at least two major differences in their environments: depth and currents. Though the upper basin has undergone some human-related change over the past few centuries, it more closely resembles the relatively shallow, slow-moving river it was before the arrival of white colonialists. Even where it is deeper and faster, he said, it still offers some slower-flowing refuges where larvae and finger-length juveniles can settle and grow without much stress. Those refuges also house food, from algae to minnows, that make life easier for larvae and adults alike. The lower basin, by contrast, features more reservoirs and deeper channels that were carved into the river to promote currents and ease the conveyance of ships down the river. The success of those efforts, Pegg said, has probably forced the sturgeon to invest an inordinate amount of time and energy essentially swimming in place -- investments that likely slow growth among juveniles and keep females from putting on the weight that is strongly tied to fertility. "They have to spend a lot of energy maintaining position, as opposed to up in Montana ... where they have the ability to get bigger because they're not spending a lot of energy keeping themselves in the water column. "We're sort of shortchanging the fish down here in a lot of different ways." The team's study follows in the wake of others that have demonstrated the ability of organisms, including fish, to adjust their development and behavior in response to their environments -- and on timelines far too short for genetic-based evolution to explain. Some research, for instance, has tracked the fates of largemouth bass that were transported from Florida to bodies of water farther north. But from what Pegg has seen, no prior studies have examined the phenomenon on such a wide scale, either geographically or numerically. "To my knowledge, this is the one and only that's covering literally 2,500 miles of river or so," he said of the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports. "From a fish perspective, this is pretty unprecedented, as far as I know, in the literature. "Most of the other (similar studies) were dealing with tanks of fish or, at best, a pond of fish with maybe a few hundred. But we're talking about -- at least in the lower part of the river, where we really saw that change -- literally thousands of individuals. So I think from the magnitude of sample size, our effect is pretty large, in terms of what we can say about the results." And what they can say, according to Pegg, is that the findings make a dramatic and literal case for the downstream effects of environmental change. While those effects may not be solely responsible for the species' endangered status, they probably account for some of the difficulty in resuscitating its population, he said. But they might also point the way to more successful conservation efforts, and more careful planning, down the line. "What it really highlights is that we do need to be careful about just willy-nilly stocking or reintroducing fish or birds or mammals into places they may or may not be well-adapted to," he said. "At least in this case, (the sturgeon) seem to be holding on and maybe have adjusted to their new environments a little better than some other places. But we aren't necessarily producing a viable population based on those original stockings (to the extent) that we'd hoped for. So taking care to properly think through and plan with the best science we have available to us is certainly one of the big take-home messages."
%0 Journal Article %A Lukas, Dieter %A Clutton-Brock, Tim %+ Department of Human Behavior Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society %T Monotocy and the evolution of plural breeding in mammals : %G eng %U http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0006-C153-2 %R 10.1093/beheco/araa039 %7 2020-05-06 %D 2020 %8 06.05.2020 %* Review method: peer-reviewed %X In many mammals, breeding females are intolerant of each other and seldom associate closely but, in some, they aggregate in groups that vary in size, stability, and kinship structure. Aggregation frequently increases competition for food, and interspecific differences in female sociality among mammals are commonly attributed to contrasts in ecological parameters, including variation in activity timing, the distribution of resources, as well as the risk of predation. However, there is increasing indication that differences in female sociality are also associated with phylogenetic relationships and with contrasts in life-history parameters. We show here that evolutionary transitions from systems where breeding females usually occupy separate ranges (“singular breeding”) to systems where breeding females usually aggregate (“plural breeding”) have occurred more frequently in monotocous lineages where females produce single young than in polytocous ones where they produce litters. A likely explanation of this association is that competition between breeding females for resources is reduced where they produce single young and is more intense where they produce litters. Our findings reinforce evidence that variation in life-history parameters plays an important role in shaping the evolution of social behavior.How many offspring a mother has may determine how social she can be. Phylogenetic analysis shows that, among mammals, female sociality (aggregations of breeding females) has evolved more frequently in species where mothers produce single young than in species where they produce litters. %J Behavioral Ecology %V 31 %N 4 %& 943 %P 943 - 949 %I Oxford %@ 1045-2249
In This Review Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. By Margaret Macmillan 394 pp, Random House, 2007 In the mid-1960s, having failed to win either the presidency or the governorship of California, Richard Nixon had ample time to think about international relations, his primary policy interest. Like most China specialists, he concluded that the United States should end its efforts to isolate China. Few analysts doubted the reality of the Sino-Soviet split, and Nixon was among those who recognized that opening diplomatic ties with Beijing might strengthen the U.S. position in the Cold War. If China was no longer an urgent threat requiring containment, the United States would be able to reinforce the lines against the Soviet Union and marshal its power for a single great war. Moscow, meanwhile, would have to worry about China as well as its western front: the Soviets reportedly had 500,000 troops stationed on the Chinese border. When Nixon was elected president at the end of the decade, the most pressing foreign policy problem of the day was finding a way out of Vietnam. But he and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, understood that managing relations with the Soviet Union and China had to be their principal task. Perhaps Moscow or Beijing, they thought, could help with Hanoi. Margaret MacMillan, author of the prize-winning "Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World", has marked the U.S.-Chinese rapprochement of 1971-72 as another major turning point in world history. Her new book, "Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World," is a well-researched and analytically sound popular history. MacMillan may not be the equal of James Mann or the late Barbara Tuchman, but she has the ability to turn complex foreign affairs into engaging tales. She takes her readers through the delicate maneuvers between Chinese and U.S. leaders that ultimately led to Kissinger's secret mission to Beijing -- secret in particular from Secretary of State William Rogers -- and provides thoughtful analysis of the two sides' goals during the ensuing negotiations. Nixon's initial overtures to Chinese leaders won a favorable reception. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was burning out, and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai were uneasy about what they perceived as the rising Soviet threat. The invitation they issued to their suitors from Washington indicated that a high-level mission to China would be welcomed -- provided the Americans understood that resolution of differences over Taiwan would be the price of rapprochement. Having read the transcripts of the conversations between Kissinger and Zhou, the Chinese premier, MacMillan does not take Kissinger's memoirs at face value. She notes the discrepancy between his claim to have talked little about Taiwan and the actual centrality of the Taiwan issue in his meetings with Zhou. Kissinger was indifferent to the fate of the Kuomintang regime on the island, and Nixon, who had exhibited considerable sympathy for Chiang Kai-shek in the past, proved willing to sacrifice Taiwan to achieve his purposes in Beijing. Kissinger flew off on his secret mission in July 1971, and Nixon followed in a highly publicized visit in February 1972. At the conclusion of Nixon's visit, a carefully worded communiquÃ© declared that the United States "acknowledged" that "all" Chinese on the mainland and on Taiwan agreed that there was but one China and that Taiwan was a part of it. Of course, as State Department specialists pointed out immediately, that was nonsense: it ignored the many Taiwanese who wanted to be independent. But Kissinger and Nixon were dismissive of such nitpicking, even if Kissinger did make a perfunctory and unsuccessful effort to drop the word "all." Only fear of a political firestorm sparked by Taiwan's supporters back home kept them from openly abandoning Chiang. MacMillan's chapters on the negotiations between Kissinger and Zhou and the meetings between Nixon and Mao are excellent. She captures Kissinger's obsequiousness in his determination to win Zhou's confidence in 1971, the excitement of the Americans in Beijing, and their awe of the Delphic and demented Mao. She does a magnificent job of focusing on the public-relations aspects of Nixon's trip -- the president's craving to be seen as a great world leader and his staff's manipulation of the media. Did Nixon's week in China "change the world"? The short answer must be yes. The tacit alliance that emerged between China and the United States over the subsequent decade reshaped the balance of power in the Cold War. It alleviated the enmity that had kept the two countries apart for more than three decades, eased U.S. concerns about communist expansion in East Asia, and made the U.S. defeat in Vietnam more palatable. Beijing and Washington shared intelligence about the Soviet Union and increased the pressures on Moscow, which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet empire. But then one day the Cold War was over. Mikhail Gorbachev recognized that the Soviet Union, with its pathetic economy, could not sustain the competition with the United States, and in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the European satellites won their freedom with minimal bloodshed, except in Romania. (This truly world-changing series of events would be worthy of MacMillan's next book.) Unfortunately, when the Chinese, led by students and Communist Party intellectuals, demanded an end to arbitrary rule at home, they were crushed brutally by their own government in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere. Peaceful change did not come to China; the contrast with the events in Europe at the time served only to highlight the Chinese Communist Party's determination to hold on to unchecked power at any cost. The Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989 suddenly called into question the tenuous friendship between China and the United States. There had been tensions in the relationship since the late 1970s, when Congress, rebelling against Jimmy Carter's decision to extend recognition to Beijing as the government of China, committed Washington to granting Taiwan most privileges of a sovereign state and providing it with weapons. Ronald Reagan's openly expressed preference for the regime in Taiwan similarly irritated the Chinese. These offenses did not cause Beijing to break with Washington, but Deng Xiaoping did edge away from the United States and order campaigns -- against "bourgeois liberalization" and "spiritual pollution" -- aimed at diminishing U.S. influence in China. As MacMillan demonstrates, Nixon and Kissinger had been indifferent to China's internal affairs. Similarly, President George H. W. Bush argued that the strategic relationship between China and the United States was too important to be jeopardized by Beijing's domestic transgressions. He and his foreign policy team, considering themselves "realists" in the mold of Nixon and Kissinger, did all they could to minimize congressional action against China and to assure Deng of their intention to continue working with him. But it was inevitable that Americans would become discomfited by a regime that was so abusive to its own people. After being exhilarated by a vision of democracy in China, many were horrified by the televised scenes of repression in Tiananmen. There was an outcry against the "butchers of Beijing" and calls for sanctions against China. The end of the Cold War, combined with anger over Tiananmen, inevitably led a number of Western analysts to question the importance of maintaining friendly relations with China. The exigencies of the Cold War may have required the United States to ally itself with numerous despicable regimes, but surely, they argued, that was not necessary for the world's only remaining superpower. China was no longer needed: the United States was secure without it. And it was time, they said, for Washington to stand up for American values, to demand respect for human rights in China and everywhere else in the world. In 1992, presidential candidate Clinton condemned Bush's coddling of Beijing. Campaigning with him was Winston Lord -- a Kissinger acolyte and Bush's first ambassador to China -- who, contrary to the master's teaching, called for punishing China for Tiananmen and for Deng's subsequent intransigence. Lord's appointment as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in 1993 heartened human rights activists and visionaries who still hoped for an American-style democracy in China. But the Democrats' threat to deny China most-favored-nation treatment for its exports proved hollow. Clinton's ultimate concern for revitalizing the U.S. economy forced him to surrender to pressures from businesspeople less interested in human rights in China than in importing the inexpensive products of cheap Chinese labor or in exporting their wares to the billion potential Chinese customers. Deng proved to be correct in calling Washington's bluff. By the late 1990s, Deng's market-oriented reforms had taken hold, and China began a period of extraordinary economic growth. Chinese leaders perceived no need for political reforms and proudly trumpeted their success in retaining power for the Communist Party as well as raising living standards -- in marked contrast to the negative example of the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the same time, radical changes in Taiwan generated new tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and ultimately between Beijing and Washington as well. The Kuomintang, surprising most analysts, opened the door to democracy, winning support across the political spectrum in the United States. President Lee Teng-hui, a native Taiwanese suspected of favoring independence, was put in power by Chiang Kai-shek's son, setting off alarm bells in Beijing. Lee was granted a U.S. visa, despite the initial reservations of the Clinton administration. It was this violation of the existing understanding with Beijing -- that Taiwan's leaders would not be allowed to visit the United States -- that led to a heightened risk of military conflict between the United States and China amid a series of incidents in the Taiwan Strait. In July 1995 and again in March 1996, the Chinese army fired missiles in the vicinity of Taiwan, bracketing the island with the second barrage. Clinton reminded Beijing of Washington's insistence on a peaceful resolution of Beijing's differences with Taipei, but he also responded to the first episode by sending the Chinese president his personal assurance that the United States would not support Taiwan's independence or its admission to the United Nations. The Chinese, however, pocketed his assurances, reminded the United States that they now had the capability of reaching U.S. cities with nuclear missiles, and warned that U.S. intervention to defend Taiwan could be very costly. Accommodating Washington was not a high priority for China. In February 1996, preceding the second episode, China began to mass troops on its side of the Taiwan Strait. Warnings from the Clinton administration that an attack on Taiwan would have "grave consequences" were backed by the dispatch of two carrier battle groups to the region. The Chinese army backed off, and the U.S. ships departed. No shots were fired. In Beijing, the lesson was clear: China had to develop the capability to destroy any naval force the United States sent to defend Taiwan. In 2000, when the people of Taiwan elected Chen Shui-bian, candidate of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, as their new president, Beijing barked but did not bite. Clinton warned Chen against provocative action. Neither the Americans nor the Chinese were eager for another confrontation over Taiwan. There were, however, other sources of tension. In May 1999, a U.S. plane engaged in NATO operations against Serbia accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The Chinese public was enraged, and the government allowed large-scale anti-American demonstrations. But after a major internal debate in 1999, President Jiang Zemin and his colleagues in the Chinese leadership made a calculated decision to avoid confrontation with the United States. They saw a good working relationship with Washington as essential to China's economic development and continued rise to power. Similarly, the Clinton administration, despite stumbles such as the president's mishandling of China's accession to the World Trade Organization, had concluded that the United States had nothing to gain by exacerbating Chinese suspicions of U.S. intentions. China was a "strategic partner." George W. Bush, much as Clinton had, called for a harder line against Beijing in his presidential campaign. He entered the White House contending that China was a "strategic competitor" and suggesting that Clinton had overestimated Beijing's willingness to cooperate with Washington. In 2001, when a U.S. plane monitoring signals off the coast of China collided with a Chinese interceptor and made a forced landing on China's Hainan Island, Bush demanded the return of the plane and the crew. But his attempt to bully the Chinese failed, and he quickly adopted a more conciliatory -- and more successful -- approach to dealing with Beijing. Chinese leaders, for their part, resisted popular anger and accepted the president's "regrets" rather than the apology they had initially demanded. The crisis passed, and both countries were ready for a new degree of cooperation following the September 11 attacks. As the Bush administration focused its attention on terrorism, the Chinese were eager to help, especially after the U.S. government labeled the Uighur resistance in China's far west a "terrorist movement." China's grand strategy led it to pose as a responsible power in the international community, in order to minimize anxiety in Washington and elsewhere about its growing economic and military power. The Chinese also chose to play a major role in efforts to defuse the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons. Now, with the United States bogged down in Iraq, China's influence in East Asia has grown at the United States' expense. South Korea arguably has moved into China's orbit. China's influence also has grown enormously in the Middle East, as it joins Russia in checking U.S. efforts to force Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, and in much of Africa, where its lust for that continent's natural resources has led it to protect some of the world's most reprehensible regimes, such as those of Sudan and Zimbabwe. There can be no doubt that China has played, and will continue to play, a more assertive role in the United Nations as well. As MacMillan demonstrates, one of Nixon's underlying assumptions when he went to China was that Taiwan would surrender to the mainland soon after the United States normalized relations with China. That assumption, of course, proved false. Although the Taiwan Strait has been relatively quiet of late, before 9/11 it was considered the place where a great-power confrontation was most likely. The Chinese-Taiwanese relationship remains too volatile for comfort, even if most U.S. political leaders find the idea of the United States riding to the rescue if Taiwan is attacked incomprehensible. For as long as Taiwan maintains its de facto independence, it will remain a threat to fragile U.S.-Chinese ties. Nixon's opening to China was surely the right move at that time, despite the appalling nature of Mao's rule. It very likely could have been accomplished without the ruthless betrayal of Taiwan or the efforts by Nixon and Kissinger to deceive the American people about the nature of the deal they had struck. But Taiwan has survived and prospered. Should it collapse in the near future, it will be a result of the ineptness of its political elite rather than the failings of Nixon and Kissinger. In any case, an arrangement negotiated in the midst of the Cold War, at a time when Soviet power seemed on the rise and the United States was mired in Vietnam, could not be expected to be of value forever. There are no permanent solutions to problems of international relations. Nixon and Kissinger could not anticipate the rapidity of China's ascension to the top rank of world powers. Nor could Mao or Zhou. The U.S.-Chinese relationship requires adjustments to China's new status. At the moment, it appears that Washington is better attuned to that need than Beijing is. U.S. leaders understand that China has become a great power with worldwide interests and, however unhappily, are adapting to that reality. Chinese leaders spend less time these days posing as historic victims, but they remain loath to accept the obligations that come with great power. The world still waits -- and will likely wait for some time -- for China to behave as, in the words of former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a "responsible stakeholder." You are reading a free article. Subscribe to Foreign Affairs to get unlimited access. Subscribe Now • Warren I. Cohen is Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a Senior Scholar in the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the author of "America's Response to China". • More By Warren I. Cohen
Fitness Blog Negative Effects Of Too Much Sugar Natural sugars can be found in many whole foods, including fruits, dairy products and grains. These natural sugars can be broken down slowly, supplying the body with energy. However, We have all heard the rumours that sugar is no good for us in high quantities, but do we truly know the negative effects it can have on our body? Added sugar has zero nutritional benefit for our body, in fact, it is the very opposite. Other than sweetening the taste of our food, processed sugar does nothing for us. Sugar can be addictive and leaves us craving more and more of the sweet stuff when we have a sugar crash. The more we eat, the more we crave; it's a viscous circle. This over eating of sugar can lead to weight gain if we don't cut calories elsewhere, or increase our exercise. Obesity can lead to serious disease, such as diabetes or cancer, to name only a couple. What we eat, can literally affect our life expectancy, as well as our quality of life. It sounds extreme, but just an extra can of fizz each day can destroy your health. Poor Sleep Excess sugar consumption can affect our every day. It can affect the length and quality of our sleep. When we consume too much sugar, our glucose levels are affected, causing spikes and crashes with our energy levels. This can make you feel sleepy, after your sugar levels have worn off during the day, or energised before going to bed. In addition to this it can be difficult to stay in a deep sleep. It is important we get a good balance of REM, deep and light sleep to ensure we feel refreshed when we wake. Our diet plays an important role in this. Mental Health Lack of sleep, varying blood sugar levels and fluctuating hormones are the main reasons that your mental health can be heavily affected by an unhealthy diet. Surveys have suggested that more sugar consumed by individuals, can increase the risk of mental health by 23%. Anxiety and depression can be triggered by a variety of things, but keeping a healthy body, can aid a healthy mind. Too much sugar can destroy your youthful appearance and your biological clock. It has been proven that your diet can affect your cells. This can lead to aged skin and more serious conditions, such as diabetes. Research suggests that an additional 20 ounces of fizzy drinks per day can add 4 years to the age of your cells. By controlling your sugar intake and your diet you can improve every aspect of your life. From your physical health to your mental well being, confidence, sleep, body image and more. In addition to this, a regular exercise plan can also benefit your life in many ways. Find your new gym clothing online at Post a Comment!
Bialetti, Inventor of the Classic Moka Pot, At Risk Of Bankruptcy Wed, 10/31/2018 - 01:03 Italian moka There is probably no Italian household who doesn’t own at least one Moka machine. Because, really, there’s nothing like the smell of freshly brewed moka coffee to say, ‘buongiorno!’ So it came as a dismay to many that Bialetti, the Italian company that invented the Moka, is at risk of bankruptcy. Company officials announced a debt restructuring program to tackle the 68 million euros in debt caused mostly by a decline in sales. The moka, the stovetop coffee machine that has become a symbol of the ‘Made in Italy,’ was invented by Alfonso Bialetti in 1933. It is traditionally made of aluminum, which is said to be best because it allows the formation of deposits of limestone in the cistern and of coffee in the upper part, which, by continuing use, will gradually improve the taste of coffee. The Bialetti moka has become so iconic that it is even on display in the permanent collection of the MoMA museum in New York. Its design has remained pretty much the same since it was invented, and is the only one allowed by the Moka patent. The machine works this way: the bottom chamber is filled with water up to the safety release valve. Then the funnel-shaped metal filter where you put finely-ground coffee is inserted above it. The upper part is tightly screwed onto the base. The pot is put on the stove. When heated, steam pressure pushes the water through the filter into the collecting chamber. When the lower chamber is almost empty, you hear the characteristic gurgling noise, which announces that coffee is ready (accompanied by a delightful coffee smell). The Bialetti mascot, which is found on all Bialetti Moka Express, is a mustached man with his index finger held up as if ordering an espresso at the Italian bar. In Italian he is called ‘l’omino con i baffi’. The mascot is a caricature of Alfonso's son, Renato Bialetti, by illustrator Paolo "Paul" Campani. More than 105 million moka pots have been produced since 1933. However, while coffee consumption is up, the ground coffee market continues to decline as it faces the competition from coffee pod machines (a faster way to make coffee), whose sales, on the contrary, keep growing.
Header: Footer: Learning Objectives: 1. Determine the benefits of Raman and IR spectroscopies 2. Analyze similar compounds with vibrational spectroscopies There are a variety of analytical instruments used to quantitively measure concentrations of atomic and molecular components in solution. It is typical to analyze atomic species with atomic absorption while molecular species are often analyzed using UV-Vis, HPLC, or GC. When determining the concentration of a molecule in solution by one of these methods there is typically rather significant sample preparation. For example, since UV-Vis utilizes absorbance of light in the visible and ultraviolet range, a complex must be formed that colors the solution in accordance with the molecule of interest. Methods such as HPLC and GC have further issues due to their long run times. All the methods previously listed are also destructive to the original sample. Vibrational spectroscopy such as IR and Raman can be more appropriate for analysis as they are nondestructive and quick. IR spectroscopy has its own issues, however, as water significantly obscures the signal. Raman does not have this issue. In fact, water is nearly invisible in Raman. Recent advancements in Raman spectrometry have made the process of obtaining Raman spectra fast, easy, and non-destructive. In this lab, you will utilize Raman spectroscopy to quickly determine the mole fractions of methanol, ethanol, and water in a solution.
vitamin D deficiency increases risk of death from COVID-19 and supplementing vitamin D may improve recovery Imagine if something as simple, safe and inexpensive as vitamin D could help fight COVID-19. We have written a lot about vitamin D and COVID-19. Now two new published studies add to the promise of this important vitamin. The first study included 42 people with acute respiratory failure due to COVID-19. Acute respiratory distress syndrome is an important cause of admission to intensive care units for people with COVID-19. Strikingly, it found that 82% of them were deficient in vitamin D. When they analyzed the risk of dying from COVID-19, they discovered the alarming fact that, after 10 days of hospitalization, people with severe vitamin D deficiency had a 50% chance of dying compared to only 5% for people with higher levels of vitamin D. That means that people who get COVID-19 have a significantly greater chance of dying if they have a deficiency of vitamin D (J Endocrinol Invest 2020:1–7). So, what happens if you give people with COVID-19 vitamin D? A second study included four vitamin D deficient people with COVID-19. They were given either a low dose of vitamin D or a high dose of vitamin D. The high dose was 50,000 IU a day for five days. The results were encouraging. The ones who got the high dose of vitamin D needed less oxygen and, importantly, reduced markers of inflammation. They also had to stay in the hospital for a shorter length of time (Am J Ther 2020;27(5):e485-e490). These two just published studies add to the growing body of evidence that vitamin D deficiency can worsen prognosis and increase the risk of dying of COVID-19 and that supplementing vitamin D may improve recovery. Comments (0) There are no comments posted here yet Leave your comments 1. Posting comment as a guest. Attachments (0 / 3) Share Your Location This Barrie website created by Piggybank Marketing
Reuse Water: What it is and Why it matters By Saumya Garg (This is Part 1 of a three-part series on Reclaimed Water. Part 2 of the series will shed some light on Direct Potable Reuse of water and Part 3 will look at Indirect Potable Reuse of water.) Growing human population, urbanization, expanding agricultural production, and climate change have created large water demands beyond local + regional supply capacity, especially in undeveloped and developing nations. Consequently, treated wastewater is being indirectly reused globally to replenish the fast depleting ponds, rivers and lakes that serve as the source of our drinking water. According to Bluefield Research (2015) estimates, by 2025, municipal utilities’ wastewater reuse would increase by 61% and 94% of reuse activity would be seen in nine states. Reuse Water - Reclaimed Water The need for water reuse can be especially lucrative under the following circumstances: • When water supply is strained due to climate related stress or due to excessive water usage • When water quality drops due to pollution from runoff, contaminants or seasonal disruptions • When regulations limit groundwater withdrawals • When regulations make it too expensive to release wastewater discharges into surface water Reclaimed water results from the advanced treatment of municipal effluents using processes such as ENR with tertiary filters, micro or ultra filtration, nano or reverse osmosis, or biological filtration before UV or chemical disinfection. This treated water can either be released to drinking water reservoirs in the environment (Indirect Potable Reuse) or be directly blended into the drinking water distribution system, pre- or post-treatment (Direct Potable Reuse). Although no specific federal guidelines regulate potable reuse, reclaimed water must safely satisfy drinking water requirements EPA set up in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). After the wastewater treatment, several microbial and chemical constituents remain that need to be treated before it is made available for drinking. As a result, advanced treatment of wastewater effluents is an essential step before the water is reused in any form (IPR or DPR). Most IPR projects involve either Soil Aquifer Treatment (SAT) or Advanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT). DPR projects, however, do not rely on SAT and instead utilize advanced treatment of water. In full advanced treatment, essential pretreatment steps involve the expensive processes of MF/UF as well as AOP (Advanced Oxidation Processes) or NF/RO before disinfection. In general, the costs associated with any reuse water project include: • Capital costs, such as structural, civil, electrical, instrumentation and controls, other support systems, off-site costs (for transmission of source and treated water), etc. Microfiltration and RO account for the largest component of capital costs. • Operations & Maintenance Costs, include fixed costs, such as labor, equipment repair and maintenance, membrane replacement, etc.; and variable costs such as costs for chemicals, power, UV lamp replacement, cartridge filter replacement, concentrate disposal, etc. • Cost of Water is typically between $2.8 to $4.1 per thousand gallons for a 10 MGD (million gallons per day) IPR facility (US EPA). According to a 2014 WateReuse Research Foundation (WRRF) study, plants that involve non-membrane based treatment have the lowest costs. These plants also display economies of scale at higher flows (>20 MGD). Further, handling and disposal of RO concentrates roughly doubles the cost of operating a full advanced treatment plant. Overall, the costs associated with a reused water project depend on several factors such as the type of application, cost of source water, treatment technologies used, plant facilities constructed, annual water production, operational costs (power, labor, chemical), etc. It’s evident then that non-membrane based treatment processes may be more cost efficient overall and should be given primary consideration when planning a project. (Continued… Part 2 of 3) Further Reading:
Running in Shoes Vs. Barefoot Kicks up Debate Dear Dr. Donohue: If I’m not mistaken, you wrote about how the foot should land when running, and you favored the heel as the place to plant the foot. I also remember you not favoring barefoot running. Would you reconsider these issues? Barefoot running decreases runners’ injuries, and landing on the heel increases them. Dear W.W.: The proper way to first strike the ground when running and the question of barefoot running are contentious matters. Both issues are addressed in the April issue of Exercise and Sport Science Review. One is a short article by Walter Herzog, and the other is by Daniel Liberman, who has done a great deal of work in evaluating the benefits of barefoot running. Walking and running are things that are rarely taught. We learn them instinctively. When they are taught by coaches and others, they generate a great deal of controversy. Running in shoes is said to contribute to the great increase in overuse injuries in the feet and legs. Barefoot running appears to lower the injury rate. According to some, shoes dampen proprioception, the subconscious ability to maintain balance and alter stride from signals sent to the brain from the feet. Shoes also encourage a running form where heel strike is favored. And they seem to contribute to weak and inflexible feet. Barefoot running corrects these problems. The bare foot is vulnerable to obstacles on the running path, but calluses form on the balls of the feet. When the feet are not in shoes, a person almost instinctively strikes the ground with the balls of the feet. Impact on the foot from such a landing greatly lessens forces that are transferred to both the feet and legs. That is thought to be one of the reasons why barefoot runners have fewer injuries to their feet and legs. READ Football Tips And Tricks To Better Your Game Dear Dr. Donohue: I am a professional swim instructor and have been teaching swimming for many years. I would like to know about water intoxication in small children. I don’t think parents should put their child under water in swimming lessons until they are at least 2 years old, as they can swallow lots of water. Dear D.C.: Water intoxication occurs when anyone, regardless of age, takes in too much water. The excess water leads to brain swelling. The situation is urgent. Corrective measures have to be taken quickly. The American Academy of Pediatrics used to say that 4 should be the age that children learn how to swim. It has now lowered the age to 1 year. People instructing such young swimmers must have had professional training and know how to keep such young infants safe.
Historic Contingency in Dolgeville, Los Angeles 1903-1910 Establishment of the Suburban Socioeconomic Condition • Melissa Peter Contingency, housing, working-class, socioeconomics, development The socioeconomic divide in American cities can be better understood through the lens of contingency. Toward the start of the twentieth century, speculative developers began capitalizing on suburban land by marketing to new homeowner demographics. “Manufacturing suburbs” were made possible through railroad extension and the migration of production and labor. Many of these worker towns have been razed, as exemplified by the case of Dolgeville in Los Angeles. Imagined in 1903 as a workingman’s Eden, Dolgeville was annexed to Alhambra and publicized as a socialist failure just seven years later. This essay challenges assumptions of failure by exploring contingent affairs which influenced the design of Dolgeville. Housing and associated class distinctions were contingent upon infrastructure and politics. The success of working-class housing was further contingent upon workers’ wages and indentureship to their employer. The geometry of Dolgeville was its own contingency plan, ready to be adapted to changes in market demand. Wealthy suburbs with curved streets and landscaped parks remain, while worker towns have been replaced by commercial and industrial uses.
1. Meaning of Name: Olmsted suggests “He Who Gives Renewal” “The Youth”, “The Child”, and several other possible translations. Green very tentatively suggests “Wealthy One” or “Cloud Maker”.1 2. Pronunciation: NAWD-ens, the “s” is almost a “ts” sound. 3. Other Names and Epithets: The name was also spelled Nodents, Noudonts, and various other ways. He may also be connected to Olmsted’s reconstructed proto-Celtic divinity Nectonios.2 4. Interpretatio Romana: Mars and Silvanus.3 5. Irish Equivalent: Nuada.4 6. Indo-European Equivalent: If he can be connected to Olmsted’s Nectonios, then he is also equivalent to Xákwōm Népōt, the “Nephew of the Waters”, and the “God of Fiery Water”.5 7. Realm: Given the Celtic associations of the sea, probably Andernados/Underworld God, but his solar associations may suggest otherwise. 8. Iconography: Olmsted notes that he is depicted with dogs, and tritons holding anchors. A hollow bronze arm is found in his temple at Lydney, in Britain, which may indicate that, like the Irish Nuada, he had a metal hand, or it might be a votive dedication from a worshiper wishing to have his arm healed. Olmsted also notes one depiction of him as “a sort of sun-God holding a sort of whip or flail in his right hand and driving toward the spectator in a four-horse chariot.6 9. Significance: Kodratiev regards Nodens as a name of the “Celtic Mars”. This has been followed by significant numbers of Gaulish Polytheists, but there is little in the other scholarly literature or in Nodens’ iconography to bear it out. He is quite different from other versions of the “Celtic Mars”, and seems more like a British version of Grannus. It should be noted that the temple at Lydney is the only temple to Nodens known. He is not apparently known on the Continent. Dáithi Ó hÓgáin believes Nodens to have been a British healing and sea God whose cult was introduced into Ireland, giving rise to the Irish Nuada.7 1. Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 393; Green, Dictionary, p. 162 2. Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 390, 384 3. Green, Dictionary, p. 162 4. Olmstead, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 393; Green, Dictionary, p. 162; Mackillop, p. 347 5. Serith, Deep Ancestors, pp. 57-59; Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 384 6. Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, pp. 390-393 7. Kondratiev, Basic Celtic Deity Types; Green, Dictionary, p. 162; Dáithi Ó hÓgáin, The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in pre-Christian Ireland, pp. 136-137 Recommended Article 1. It’s lovely to see some information on lesser-known Brythonic deities such as Nodens and Maponus shared with a wide range of polytheists on this site. Tolkien translates Nodens as ‘the Catcher’ and links his name to that bronze arm. My deepest connection with Nodens is as a god of dream (hence the ‘Land of Nod’). 2. (This is for Lorna–can’t reply to her comment directly, for some reason…?!) His temple did have incubation facilities, so he certainly has a precedent of contacting devotees via dreams… And, since both Lludd and Nudd in Welsh are said to be linguistic descendants of Nodons, there’s further connections there for you as well!
Definitions for "Circumlocution" The use of many words to express an idea that might be expressed by few; indirect or roundabout language; a periphrase. A roundabout, indirect or lengthy way of speaking. indirect way of expressing something. Circumlocution is used when one does not know a specific word and may speak "around it" to get the message across.
‘The Day After Tomorrow’ nightmare may soon become reality Hollywood rarely gets anything right with its science-fiction films, but in the case of the 2004 film ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ it may be right. A researcher from the University of Southampton has produced a scientific study of the climate scenario featured in the disaster movie, wherein climate warming caused an abrupt collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), leading to catastrophic events such as tornados destroying Los Angeles, New York being flooded and the northern hemisphere freezing. Although the scientific credibility of the film drew criticism from climate scientists, the scenario of an abrupt collapse of the AMOC, as a consequence of anthropogenic greenhouse warming, was never assessed with a state-of-the-art climate model. Using the German climate model ECHAM at the Max-Planck Institute in Hamburg, Sybren Drijfhout found that, for a period of 20 years, the earth will cool instead of warm if global warming and a collapse of the AMOC occur simultaneously. Thereafter, global warming continues as if the AMOC never collapsed, but with a globally averaged temperature offset of about 0.8 degree C. Drijfhout said that the planet earth recovers from the AMOC collapse in about 40 years when global warming continues at present-day rates, but near the eastern boundary of the North Atlantic (including the British Isles) it takes more than a century before temperature is back to normal. However, the study says that the recent period of very weak warming cannot be attributed to one single cause. Most probably El Niño plays a role and possibly also changes in the Southern Ocean due to shifting and increasing westerlies. The study appears in Scientific Reports. Powered by Blogger.
Research Papers Research Paper on Computer Networks 1. Introduction In this research paper I would like to describe basic types of network. When we are performing particular tasks there can be many ways of doing that as well as if one decides to connect several computers together, there can be many variants. In some cases one ways of connection are better then others, but first it is necessary to define needs and it is also essential to take into account security issues. As I have already mentioned before starting to connect computers in the office, for example, it is essential to decide why this should be done- the purpose of the connection, peripherals to share, define documents are needed to be accessed by several persons. The more information is gathered, the easier the future installment will be. There are three basic types of networks- Peer-to-peer, Application- Server and Client-Server networks. Each particular type has its advantages and disadvantages in different cases and for different needs. Herein after I will investigate in each type of network and evaluate their benefits and downsides. We can write a Custom Research Paper on Computer Networks for you! 2. Peer-to-Peer network Almost all Operating Systems can be servers and share their resources. Different computers can be setup to permit other computers to use their printers or some drivers, share files that are stored at the hard disc or provide access to their Internet connection. When a computer allows to the other computers from its workstation to become servers and share files, it is generally called Peer-to-peer network. The example of such network can be a small office or several computers connected at one’s home. In this type of network there is usually no central server. Several computers with peripheries are connected together and can use assigned peripheries of each other. They also have access to the necessary documents of each other and share Internet from one computer, which is main in this network. Speaking about of the advantages of such networks I must say that they are very cheap and comparatively easy to install, as OS that are primarily installed on the computers allow installing definite changes regarding files share. As to the disadvantages of this particular type of network, there are several rather serious one. First regards the security issues, as it is impossible to guarantee the security of this network without a central server. On each computer that acts as a server the same login and password should be entered. And if system administrator decides to change it takes hours of work and finally everyone starts to use the same passwords and usernames or even leave them blank, which is a great threat to overall security, especially when the network has access to Internet. The second problem is about the installation of good back up system, as people usually store importance documents on different hard disks. And the threat is that some important documents may not be archived because people saved them in the wrong location. Over time such networks can turn cost advantage into disadvantage. As each computer in the network has something important then it should be always on and correctly configured. The users of peer-to-peer network should be experienced enough as strict guidelines should be followed and they should be able to locate different shares of network and cope with small network problems. 3. Client-Server Networks This type of network consists of one or more servers that provide with information and services workstation computers. Those services include: web services, e-mail services, file services, document version system services, domain name lookup services, sharing, Internet, etc. The brightest example of this type of network is World Wide Web, in which web sites are acting as servers. The difference from the peer-to-peer network is in the fact that those servers do not dually act as workstations. Client-server network has the firewall computer that provides the network with Internet connection and forwards email to file server. That file server can have different shares of access to the people from different departments as well as commonly shares files. Each user has an opportunity to have the personal directory to which no one else has access to. Benefits of this type of network primarily include the fact that it presumes presence of the central repository that combines all necessary services. Security is also easy to be implemented as if there is only one single server it can be easily controlled and handled. The only necessary thing is login and password for each computer in the network. If the change of password is needed one should only change it on server and it will be changed for the whole network. Information in client-server network can be easily controlled as there is only one central server that stores all important documents. This provides a system administrator with ability to archive documents easily as well as provide secure access to them to all network users. This also decreases the possibility of documents misallocation. Adding servicing to the network is more secure and convenient with the single server computer as well. Even though there are many advantages of this type of network, there also some disadvantages that are useful to be discussed. First it is the network cost that is high, as network hardware and software should be purchased. And second involves the case when the server has some problems, as it will block the work of the whole network. There are several decisions in this case- a redundant server, which is again costly, or waiting for extermination of problems, if it is affordable to the business. 4. Application-Server Networks The third and the final type of networks is application- server network, which also can be called terminal server based. The idea of network operation is that there is one high-end server/ mainframe and many other machines that can be called ‘thumb terminals’, which only serve for input and display. When working on such a terminal there is an impression that is it fully independent modern standalone computer. The example of application-server network can be the public library with many terminal computers on several floors. There is an application server on each floor, which has its basic application that are necessary to work of attendants- Internet Explorer, MS Word, e-mail, some program for processing images, etc. In general the package content may vary. Each server serves those applications to the definite number of terminals, and therefore each terminal has access to all applications as well as necessary peripherals, such as scanners or printers. If there is some problem with an application server, then terminal computers automatically log into the servers, which are situated on the other floors. If there are problems with separate terminal, then they can be solved without any information losses for the whole system. Such networks are not very costly, as they include purchases of application servers, firewall, file server, terminal computers as well as software for the entire system. To the advantages of this network I can relate its cost for purchase and maintenance. Great disadvantage is the case when the application server goes down. The other downside that all Proprietary Software packages are licensed for such networks and substantial investments will be needed. In the conclusion I would like to summarize that each type of network has its benefits and downsides. The choice should be made only after defining needs and possibilities of the particular business. Available financial resources should be evaluated as well as future expectation from the network installed. And only after that it will be possible to find the best ratio of convenience and cost and enjoy operations. Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published.
Question: How Do You Detect A Police Camera? Do speed cameras flash twice? They flash twice. Then the two pictures are timed.. Can speed cameras catch you from the other side of the road? The truth is that a speed camera can monitor both directions of traffic. Many drivers have been fined for speeding while the camera is positioned on the other side of the road. 6. How do you detect speed cameras? Instant detection. Speed cameras detect the speed of vehicles by using detectors embedded into the road surface or radar technology. Red-light speed cameras also detect vehicles travelling over the stop line or entering the intersection after the lights have turned red. What do cameras detect? Traffic light cameras Traffic light (or ‘red light’) cameras detect vehicles which pass through lights after they’ve turned red by using sensors or ground loops in the road. When traffic lights are on red, the system becomes active and the camera is ready to photograph any car that passes over the trigger. How far away can a police camera catch you? Typically, depending on the type of mobile speed camera, the range will be about two miles on a straight bit of road – they cannot work round bends or over brows of hills. Can Google maps show police? There is no option in Google Maps to find the police on the route. … There is an option currently to report crashes, speed traps and traffic slowdowns in Maps, but not police. Is there an app to detect speed cameras? Waze works brilliantly, taking feedback from its many users to warn of manned speed cameras with two taps of the screen. It links with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay seamlessly, too. Add the fact that Waze is free, and there’s very little to complain about. Can Google Maps tell you where police are? (CNN) – Google Maps is competing with traffic and GPS app Waze with some new features. Users around the world will soon be able to report where police officers are hiding. They’ll also get the option to identify things like construction, lane closures, disabled vehicles, and objects in the road. Do speed cameras take photos from the front or back? TRUVELO. A front-facing camera that uses sensors in the road to determine the speed of a car. These cameras don’t flash, so you might not notice if you’ve been caught. Because they’re front-facing, the camera will capture the driver’s face. Is there an app that tells you where police are? Do the police scanner apps really work? To conclude, there is a myriad of police scanner apps that are on the market all over the world. So yes, Police scanner apps work and it is legal to listen to a police scanner. What are the GREY cameras on lampposts? Highways England uses 1,100 ANPR cameras across the UK’s motorway and trunk road network to monitor traffic flow and provide estimated journey times across the network. While they ‘read’ a vehicle’s number plate, the data is instantly converted into non-unique reference numbers, known as ‘hashing’. Do Speed Cameras flash when they catch you? Do all speed cameras flash? Most speed cameras flash when they capture an image, but you might not see the flash of a Truvelo forward-facing camera. That’s because forward-facing Truvelo cameras have a special filter over the flash to prevent dazzling oncoming drivers. What speed do cameras go off? Most police forces have a tolerance of 10% plus 2 mph above the limit before a speed camera ‘flashes’. So on a 30 mph road, a camera wouldn’t normally activate unless a car drove past at 35 mph or above. On a 70 mph stretch of motorway, this threshold would go up to 79 mph. Do police use Waze? Cop Uses Waze Driving App For The First Time and Loses His Mind. There’s no law that says Broadcastify had to stop broadcasting the feed that led to an innocent kid from Pennsylvania, among many others, becoming national terrorist suspects. How do you find out if there are roadblocks? You can google, yahoo, or whatever you use to find out when there will be a checkpoint in your area. If you are traveling, make sure you check the areas along the way to your destination. All you have to do is type “DUI checkpoint” or “sobriety checkpoint” and then click news results. You can also go to What happens when 2 cars are in speed camera photo? Speeding cameras take two pictures a fraction of a second apart. … If two cars are passing the camera at the same time, the camera pictures will clearly show which (or both) were speeding. If only one, then obviously in the 2nd picture it will have travelled further than the slower car. Which way do police speed vans catch you? Can officers only catch motorists travelling in one direction? No. Any car that passes a Go Safe van is recorded on the officer’s camera. So if you’re exceeding the speed limit whether you’re driving in the same or opposite direction to the van, you can expect a speeding ticket. Can I turn my phone into a police scanner? With an Android app called Scanner Radio, you can turn your Android phone into a portable police scanner. Volunteers with scanners provide over 3,100 audio streams from police and fire departments, weather radios, and amateur radio operators. What is the best police scanner for home use? Knowledge Is Power — Stay Informed With the Best Police ScannersWhistler TRX-1. BEST HANDHELD. … Uniden Bearcat BC125AT Handheld Scanner. HANDHELD RUNNER UP. … Whistler TRX-2. BEST DIGITAL DESKTOP SCANNER. … Uniden BC355N800. … Uniden HomePatrol-2. … BaoFeng BF-F8HP Dual Band Two-Way Radio. … Uniden BCD536HP HomePatrol Base/Mobile Scanner.

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