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Ferd missed Woodstock, even though he hadn’t even been born when it happened. 40 years later, Ferd was prone to wearing tie-dyed t-shirts, bell-bottom pants and unmatched sandals to the college library where he worked as a book re-shelver. His iPod was full of peace, love, and the rock of the time; it was his only companion these days, and he would lose himself for hours in the dusty stacks, disillusioned by the me-me-me generation that surrounded him. Nobody cared about others anymore, it seemed. Ferd wanted to care, but couldn’t bring himself to apply it to the selfish hordes of today’s society.
It all became clear when the first one of ‘them’ shambled through the metal detectors at the entrance of the library. The response was immediate and appalling, ending with a shotgun blast and thunderous applause. “Wait, all of you!” he shouted, silencing the strangely eclectic crowd of onlookers. “How can you celebrate the death, the RE-death of this person?” he said, his voice gaining strength, delivering a moving soliloquy on the value of all life, be it natural or UN. Tears were not rare in that crowd, and many came to stand by Ferd’s side as he finished, “Who among us would want the same treatment, if that were you? Or your mother?” Silence answered him, and a pair of young pre-med students soberly began reconstructing the shotgunned victim’s head. Alas, they failed like all the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men, never to put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Today, every single person in the small crowd has become a powerhouse spokesperson in the fight for Zequality, and the fight is far from over. Join the movement and wear our shirts as a clarion call for all the oppressed and disintegrating people in our society, who, while they can moan, have no voice for their needs. Made of 100% pre-shrunk Cotton, our tagless shirts are a valuable accessory to any rally or protest march in the name of our undead brethren. | <urn:uuid:a7714234-197d-4f2e-b39c-4703e33fbfaa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zilfage.com/?cat=52 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977433 | 468 | 1.523438 | 2 |
This video has no sound and that’s a good thing; Jello dropping onto a flat surface in slow motion needs nothing else to be entertaining. They’ll need to be played a few times, but the Kid Should See this water balloon pop and this popcorn pop, too.
Slo-mo Jello videos aren’t rare on YouTube, but this one was made by the Modernist Cuisine: The Art of Science and Cooking team, whose $625 set of books was featured (for you adults) on The Colbert Report in March.
We watched a lot of Jello-related videos after this one. My favorite was this promo illustrating the physics behind General Electric’s hybrid locomotives. My 3 year old co-curator liked it, too, but felt this one was more fun. (He’s right.)
via Science Friday. | <urn:uuid:d2e57dba-91b4-445a-be00-87216289ded2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/8487406086 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965154 | 182 | 1.828125 | 2 |
In January 2007, I published a presentation on SlideShare titled, “Using email in a medical practice. An overview of risks and benefits”. (Click here to view the deck.) Since that time, the presentation has been viewed more than 6,100 times and I still receive regular comments from viewers who find the content useful and relevant. When the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) published a revised guideline on the use of email to communicate with patients and associated legal risks, I thought it would be useful to review my original presentation and see how much has changed in the seven years since it was published.
I was pleasantly suprised when reviewing my original slide deck that none of the basic principles had really changed. The CMPA guideline is a refinement of many of the recommendations. It is a very useful document and should be required reading for anyone who uses email to communicate with patients. Highlights include:
- Remembering to use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) field if sending emails to multiple individuals in a group in order to protect privacy. (I recently sent out some non-clinical emails and only realized after the fact that I had not bcc’d the recipients. Embarrassing mistake and one that is easy to make.)
- If one uses a third-party or employer/hospital email system, those parties may have the right to access the email messages. Email messages sent via one of these systems may be subject to disclosure requests in the context of litigation or an access request by the Privacy Commissioner or College of Physicians and Surgeons. One can protect against this type of access by only sending sensitive emails using a personal computer that is not used by multiple individuals.
- Consider the use of an email consent form (example from CMPA) to document consent to email communication and provide evidence that the patient has acknowledged the risks. This adds an administrative step to patient management, but could be handled by front-office staff at time of check-in or when registering new patients.
- If you use a specific email address for work-related communications, consider adding an auto-reply message to acknowledge receipt of emails.
- Avoid using acronyms in your emails as these can be very confusing to patients.
- Be aware of any applicable statutory or College requirements in your province or territory.
Beyond any general email policy, these are important additional points to consider if you use email to communicate with patients and will allow you to tweak your email processes and policies.
Do you use email in your practice currently? Do you have any guidance or advice your would like to share? | <urn:uuid:05ffdd96-1539-4d03-bd30-c299522fc6c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.canadianemr.ca/canadianemr/e_privacy_issues/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942683 | 526 | 1.523438 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- Catholics in dioceses across the country made their stand for religious freedom in a series of rallies Friday.
Organized by the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, based in Michigan, the rallies took place on the same day in an estimated 145 cities and all together drew about 63,000 participants.
The focus of the rallies has been the federal Health and Human Services mandate that would require the Catholic church and other religious employers to provide free health insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations -- services they deem immoral.
A pair of "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rallies drew about 200 each to the federal courthouses in both Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The mandate that employers who do not meet a narrow religious exemption be required to pay for such coverage for all employees is "an unprecedented intrusion of the state" into the workings of religious institutions, said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami at the Miami rally; he also attended the Fort Lauderdale event.
Wenski said a trend in U.S. society today seeks to marginalize people of faith, to silence their voices in the public square.
"Religion is personal. But it should never be private. As people of faith we have a right to make our proposals," he said, noting that the purpose of the so-called "separation of church and state" is to "protect the church from the state, not the separation of religion from society or of society from religious belief."
A Mass at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in Trenton, N.J., was the starting point for a rally outside the Statehouse. A standing-room-only crowd estimated at more than 900 packed the cathedral.
"We come to pray for an end to this unwarranted and unprecedented governmental assault on religious freedom, created by the unwarranted and unprecedented intrusion of the federal government upon our ability as a people of faith to be who we are and to believe, freely and without restriction, as God has invited us to believe, has called us to believe," said Bishop David M. O'Connell of Trenton in his homily.
"But let's be clear, an opponent strikes only when that opponent senses or perceives weaknesses in the one to be assaulted. An opponent triumphs only when the opponent discovers that such perceived weaknesses are real," he said.
"I worry that we ourselves, within the church, may have set the stage for the 'radical secularism' of which Pope Benedict (XVI) has spoken by the way we have failed to hand on our Catholic faith, whole and entire, to this and to the next generation," he added.
Citing statistics that, among other things, put the number of Catholics who go to weekly Mass at 25 percent and those who believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist at under 50 percent, O'Connell said "the fault, as Shakespeare wrote, may not be 'in our stars, but in ourselves.'"
An estimated 1,700 turned out for an interfaith "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rally in Santa Ana, Calif.
"This is everyone's fight," Rabbi Dov Fischer told the crowd. "There is one common theme that unites us: A religion is not touchable by the government."
"All men are created. We're all anxious to get to the 'equal' part -- but all men are created," said another speaker, Greg Weiler, president of the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County. "The bottom line is that there is a God, and I'm not him."
Weiler added, "Where do your rights come from? Not from President Obama or even from President Reagan -- but from God."
Another rally, this time outside the federal building in downtown Detroit, drew an estimated 1,000 people.
"It is no longer enough for us to just be good Catholics or good Christians; God needs saints. It is time for us to take a stand," Auxiliary Bishop Michael J. Byrnes of Detroit told the gathering.
Felician Sr. Rose Marie Kujawa, president of Madonna University in suburban Livonia, said the Felician-sponsored university is among the church-related institutions that would be required to provide the objectionable coverage under the mandate.
"Our question now is: If our government can withdraw our right to religious liberty, what is the next freedom that can be suspended?" she said. Perhaps the government will also find freedom of speech or freedom of the press inconvenient, she suggested, asking, "If one freedom can be swept under the carpet, why not others?"
In Green Bay, Wis., a large crowd filled the Brown County Court House Plaza.
"It's time for us to stand up and stand together to call people's attention to what's happening in our country, which is so precious," Bishop David L. Ricken told the crowd. "This is an act of solidarity where we are saying, 'wake up people' because these rights can crumble and be taken away from us very fast and almost underneath our own eyes. So we have to stand up and have people listen."
He closed his talk by encouraging people to take part in the "fortnight for freedom" called for by the U.S. Catholic bishops June 21 to July 4. Events are being sponsored in all U.S. Catholic dioceses.
Another thousand people stood outside the federal building in downtown Phoenix amid sweltering temperatures for a midday rally that took aim against the HHS mandate.
"Authentic health care prevents disease, saves lives and offers medical support to all, including unborn children and their mothers," said Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix. "Authentic health care does not kill anyone. It seeks first of all to do no harm."
Catholic obstetrician-gynecologist William Chavira told the crowd life and liberty are under attack and that he objected to the government's attempt to interfere with his rights.
"I will not stand for it ... for a government entity to impose what they define as religion or the practice of medicine on me. I will not tolerate it," he said.
At a rally in Boston, Raymond Flynn, former mayor of Boston and a onetime U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, spoke of the HHS mandate "causing a serious rift between the Democratic Party and Catholics -- and people of all faiths, for that matter."
Still, Flynn added, "despite what you hear from the media and some politicians, this is not about access to contraception; it is about the principle of whether the federal government can force religious organizations to take actions that violate their own faith and their own conscience."
Flynn said, "You can't imagine how I felt when I saw my longtime friend Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York city filing a legal challenge against the Obama administration for their discriminatory policies against religious institutions in America. I am proud of Cardinal Dolan, but ashamed that this administration has let it come to his.
"Nobody would have thought that this could have been imaginable 25 years ago. The Catholic Church suing the White House for violations of religious liberties? Unthinkable. What happened to separation of church and state?" | <urn:uuid:477f3d11-d1bd-4376-814e-4660bcad939e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ncronline.org/news/politics/catholics-around-country-rally-religious-freedom?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965989 | 1,488 | 1.570313 | 2 |
January 19, 2013
IB conferences/workshops can prove to be a very motivating and enlightening experience. Isn’t that what going to conferences is all about? Most people might say that teaching is viewed as a career, and with careers comes professionalism. Many international school teachers aspire to be the best professionals in the field. The IB (PYP and MYP too) teachers definitely have similar aspirations as well; to learn more and more about the new ways of thinking and teaching using inquiry. They are also looking to learn more about how to make their students’ thinking visible.
But like many workshops that you may attend at international school teaching conferences, the benefit of the workshop you attend greatly depends on the instructor that you get. It can also be said that the success of your workshop depends on the people that attend it as well. So many different factors come into play, but when all of them line up correctly, you are most likely in for an enlightening experience. Those types of workshops can really inspire you throughout the rest of the conference and stay with you when you return back to work.
In terms of staff development benefits, the IBO requires that the teachers working in approved/accredited schools get on going PD in the IB philosophy and latest strategies on how best to instruct students in their inquiry programme. Instead of using your own PD monies to attend IB workshops, very often the school will take the costs involved out of their own monies.
There are many factors to consider when deciding on which international school at which to work. Knowing about the professional development allowance (or lack there of) can prove to be helpful information to know; just to see what you can expect in terms of you getting the opportunity to attend workshops and conferences while you work there. Luckily on International School Community, we have a Benefits Information section in the comments and information part of each school’s profile page that discusses this very topic.
• Professional development allowance details.
There have been many comments and information submitted in this topic on numerous school profiles on our website.
One International School Community member said about working at Mef Int’l School Istanbul: “IBO certified IBDP and PYP training provided. Outside speakers such as Virginia Rojas brought in to provide in house PD.”
Another member said about working at Western International School of Shanghai: “Most teachers don’t get any out of school PD their first year of contract. Depends on the needs of the school.”
Another member submitted a comment about working at American School of Barcelona: “The PD amount is 390 Euros a year. You can roll over this amount for 3 years. But the reality some people get more, it is not so clear cut on who gets what amount and who gets to go to what PD opportunity.”
If you are currently a member of International School Community, please take a moment to share what you know by submitting some comments and information about the PD allowances at your international school. You can start by logging on here.
Stay tuned for our next survey topic which is to come out in a few days time.
american school of barcelona, benefits package, ib, IB workshop, IB workshops, International Community School Addis Ababa, international school, international school community, international school teaching, life living abroad, living abroad, living overseas, making thinking visible, Mef Int’l School Istanbul, myp, PD allowance, professional development allowance, Professional development allowance details, pyp, survey, teaching abroad, Teaching Overseas, thinking routines, travel, traveling, traveling the world, western international school of shanghai, working at international schools,
Survey results are in: How many more years do you expect to keep teaching abroad at international schools?
November 21, 2012
For many of us, I suppose teaching abroad at international schools is a temporary circumstance in our lives. Some of us have international school colleagues that move abroad to teach, and after their one and only international school posting, they are now living and happily working back in their home countries. Sure, there is a chance of them moving abroad again, but it likely to not happen again. Many people look for stability in their lives, and many people ultimately find that stability back in their home countries.
For other international school educators, when they start working at international schools, they can’t seem to get enough of this life. Working at international schools and moving from country to country can be very addictive. 10 total people out of 23 voted that they will be working at international schools 7-10 more years and even maybe for forever! The salaries/benefits, work conditions and standard of life must be quite attractive for these people. If things are going well and you are not having to worry about money, why not choose to stay working at international schools? It is nice to not have to worry about paying for housing or any utilities for example. It is also maybe nice to not have to clean your house or wash your clothes as you may be able to hire a house keeper to do those things for you in your current position. These people might have met their partner while living in their host country and now have decided to stay abroad for the long term!
Then there are the teachers that have made the all-important (and possibly difficult) decision to make this year their last one (3 people in our survey have said that this is what their future holds for them). To say goodbye to the international school teaching world is sometimes not an easy decision to make. Livin’ the ‘good life’ will soon be ending for you, and you may not ultimately want things to end. Also, the anticipation of reverse culture shock is not necessarily welcomed with open arms. Cringe!
On the other hand, your current situation might just be a very bad fit for you, enough of a bad fit that you have decided to not take the risk of working at another international school. A very negative experience at one international school might have you come to the realization that this life really just is not a good fit for you.
Moving back home has it pros and cons, and one must look at them carefully. One reason to not move back to many of the states in the United States is that the job market for teachers is not so good right now. There are many, many teachers applying for one position still right now. Hopefully as the U.S. economy improves, more money for staffing and for school districts in general will become available which may lead to more jobs for prospective teachers. I think the same thing is happening at many international schools right now. Many international schools are looking for and actually finding more families with children to attend their school. More students typically means a higher need for more staffing. How nice would it be if the power was back in the candidate’s hand at the recruitment fairs; more options and opportunities for us!
There are many factors to consider when deciding to stay abroad or move back home. Knowing about what kinds of teachers work at an international school and the average staff turnover rate can prove to be helpful information to know; just to see what others are doing who maybe from the same country and situation as you. Luckily on International School Community, we have a School Information section in the comments and information part of each school’s profile page that discusses this very topic.
• Describe what kinds of teachers work here (local vs. expat, nationality, qualifications [or lack there of], etc.) and staff turnover rate.
There have been many comments and information submitted in this topic on numerous school profiles on our website.
One International School Community member said about working at Khartoum International Community School: “You will find a range of teachers from New Zealand to Canada, via UK, Egypt, Palestine, South Africa, Australia, France and more. Most teachers are expat hire. Local hire teachers are well qualified. The school is still only 7 years old so turnover rate is hard to reflect on. It ranges from 1-7 years at current time.”
Another member said about working at Tsinghua International School (Beijing): “Can’t really comment too much on this as things may have changed. When I was there lots of staff were from North America, but what could be called “old Chinese hands.” They’d lived in China a long time. Other staff were Chinese with American passports. All were great, but at the time, not many were what you’d think of as north American trained teachers. Very high turnover when I was there.”
Another member submitted a comment about working at Colegio Granadino Manizales: “The school has both Colombian and expat teachers. All of the expat teachers are North American and all are qualified teachers. The Colombian teachers are also well certified. There is not a high turnover rate at the school. Many expat teachers, though young, stay three or four years and some have been at the school much longer.”
So how many more years do you expect to keep teaching abroad at international schools? Please share what your plans are!
Stay tuned for our next survey topic to come out in a few days time.
international school, international school teaching, life living abroad, living abroad, living overseas, survey, teaching abroad, Teaching Overseas, travel, traveling, traveling the world, working at international schools,
Survey results are in: How important is it to be able to communicate in the local language in your current placement?
July 15, 2012
The survey results are in, and it seems as if most visitors and members of International School Community who voted think that it is basically not so important to be able to communicate in the local language at their current placement.
Of course, knowing the local language is important. We all know how closely related a language is to the culture that uses it. On the other hand, how much can native speakers of English “get-away with” not communicating in the local language and only speaking English? It is getting easier and easier it seems in many locations in the world.
So let’s say you are living in a place where it is very important to be able to communicate in the local language. Do you have the “gift” of language learning? Most likely you are thinking that all the other people around you have the gift and you don’t! It is the argument that people (e.g. international school teachers) like to talk about often and at length: can all people learn 2nd languages as an adult or is it just some people who have the gift and can do it much more “easily”?
It is always a topic of discussion for an expat and their other expat colleagues; your colleagues ability to learn (or not learn) the local language. You often hear us saying to each other: “wow you are very good at (local language)!” or “You are studying a lot it seems and it is paying off” or “I wish I could speak as good as you.” These comments or observations may or may not be exactly true, but it is definitely our perception of other expats around us and we are very sensitive to this issue due to our own ability or or lack of ability to communicate in the local language.
You might say it is important in every location to know the local language; it can greatly enhance your experience living in a culture and part of the world that is unknown to you. Even if the need isn’t there to be able to communicate in the local language, most of us want to put forth our best effort to learn it and not just give up so easily. Taking risks, going outside of your comfort zone, and being willing to make mistakes would be part of a philosophy that a successful 2nd language learner would adopt. Some countries even provide you with free language classes as a new immigrant there; paid for by the local government. That would make it even easier for you to take on this challenge to acquire another language.
Have you been in the following situation though? One day you walk into a store in your current placement. You start talking in the local language. The person working at the store just immediately talks back to you in English. Then the next day you walk into the same store, but different worker. You ask if they know English. The person says yes and proceeds to give you a lecture on how you should learn the local language and try and speak it.
Sometimes it seems like you can’t win some days. Local people in other countries kind of act the same in this regards. It doesn’t matter where you are, the locals definitely have their opinion about the second language learning abilities of the immigrants living there and how they should be able to use the language. Many times though your exchange is very positive, sometimes too positive…when the local showers you with compliments about your ability giving you a false sense of your true ability in the language. It is all a matter of opinion sometimes. One local might think you are good, another one not so much.
I have even been in some countries (where there is a relatively small population speaking a certain language), and they just tell me “well it is not so useful to learn our language, you might as well just stay with communicating in English as all people here can speak it.” Funny that!
One International School Community member said: “On my current assignment in Copenhagen, I technically do speak the local language, since English is ubiquitous. However, I find it difficult to learn Danish as there is little opportunity to practice given my full time commitment to speaking English at work and taking on-line classes at night. On previous assignments in Japan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, I found not learning the language to be a stumbling block to communication and true understanding. Ultimately, learning the local language helped to further my interests to open up rich conversation about culture as well as to make a connection with others. I’ve noticed this helpful both inside and outside the classroom.”
One final question then is how do you respond to the 2nd language learners of English in your home country (if that is indeed an English-speaking country)? Surely, now you can relate better to their situation and be more sensitive to their ability level in English (if it is low).
In conclusion, what does the future hold for being able to communicate in the local language in your current placement in the future? Maybe we will see there being even a lesser need to be able to communicate in the local language, maybe in some locations in the world you will need to know the local language even more. How important is it to you in your current placement? Does your international school specifically look for teachers who are able to communicate in their local language? Some international schools do consider it to be important if you are at a school that has a high population of local students whose parents don’t speak English very well. Please share your comments about your current placement and how you use (or don’t need to use) the local language.
expat life, international school educator, international school teaching, International teaching, language learning, learning the local language, life teaching abroad, living abroad, local language, speaking the local language, teaching abroad,
May 18, 2012
The survey results are in, and it seems as if most visitors and members of International School Community don’t receive any housing allowance at all in their current placement at the international school at which they work. The survey also shows though that there are just about the same number of teachers that are receiving housing benefits with many getting the rent and all utilities paid for by their school.
Some of my international school teacher friends don’t get any housing allowance, namely those that are living in Western Europe. The ones that aren’t getting a housing allowance in these countries in Europe have a variety of different salaries too which is important to note. Those in schools on the Mediterranean have lower salaries and many have to actually have a roommate so that they can more easily afford the local rent. Those international school teachers working in Switzerland and in Scandinavian countries have higher salaries and are able to live more comfortably in a nice apartment all by themselves. In turn, if your school doesn’t offer a housing benefit to you, then make sure to do your research on the local rental situation in the city that you will be living in. Also, make sure that you look at your actual monthly salary and minus the rent that you will have to pay. Then you will get a good indicator on what your actual salary will be after you pay your monthly rent bill. After you deduct the costs of the rent, you still might come out fairly well when you compare your school with other international schools that actually offer housing benefits.
Which brings us to the international schools that do offer housing benefits. How cool is it to not have to pay for your housing? Without having to pay for your rent, you definitely have a different mindset about your money and how you spend it while living abroad. If you don’t have a rent payment each month, you can more easily travel sometimes, you can go out to eat more often, and take taxis everywhere through out the city. Basically the rest of the regions of the world are offering some sort of housing benefit: SE Asia, Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, South America, Caribbean, Central America, etc…They do vary though from region to region and whether they include the costs of your utilities or not. All things to make sure you understand completely when considering a placement in these areas. The quality of housing varies as well from region to region and city to city, even the housing that is available more for the expats living there. Many times too, if your housing is included, you will most likely be living in already furnished housing. Do you enjoy living in an apartment with used furniture (sometimes quite old, ugly-looking and rundown)? Some international school teachers enjoy the fact that they don’t have to buy furniture during their placement (and have to worry about getting rid of it/selling it when they leave). Some teachers though enjoy collecting/buying their own furniture, thus possibly having a more “homey” feeling in their home.
So, what does the future hold for the kind of housing benefits that will dominate in the future for international schools in 2013? Maybe we will see less international schools offering this benefit, maybe some will offer it more. How important is it to you, the housing benefits, when considering a job at an international school? Some consider it the most important as your rent is usually the biggest chunk of your monthly expenses. Without that payment to make each month, you have much more money to spend on other things….namely traveling!
expat life, housing benefits, international school teaching, international school teaching benefits, International teaching, living abroad, teaching abroad, utilities,
Recruitment Resources for International Teachers: The long list of things to think about! (Part 3 of 3)
January 27, 2012
There are so many things to think about and search for information about when recruiting. Why not have all the links you need to reference all in one location?
Teacher Recruitment Checklist & Calendar:
Obtain registration material from recruitment agencies. Update resume and gather references.
Rethink and rewrite your educational philosophy.
Start mentally saying goodbye to your present school, even though you just started a new school year!
Register with one or two recruitment fairs and make travel arrangements, and the sooner the better. If you want to get into the Bangkok fairs, you need to get your application in VERY early to be considered.
Contact and research schools of interest. The vacancies are just starting to trickle in on the Search and Tieonline websites.
Finalize plans for the international job fairs.
Prepare 20 plus copies of your resume and 20 plus photos of yourself to include with it.
Get your suit dry cleaned and bone up on your interviewing skills.
Make a list of questions to ask the recruiters about their school.
Make a list of your priorities and / or what is important to you in a job.
Get ready to spend hours and hours of time on the internet researching during your vacation time, but don’t expect that many schools (if any) to get back to you over the break (they are on break too!)
Job fairs and lots of interviews. *Some smaller fairs are held as early as Christmas vacation!
Be patient and follow up on all leads.
Some things are negotiable before signing on that dotted line!
Ask if there are any teachers from the school you are interested in attending the fair… then buy them a drink and get the real scoop on the school!
Get Skype on your computer and practice your Skype calling skills so that you are an expert.
These months are also the time when you need to give your word that you are officially leaving your current school. (Some schools like in Europe are more flexible.)
Prepare for round two “job fairs in June” and follow up on any leads.
Realize that many job contracts are signed during these months, even though most international school teachers would like to know where they are going much earlier!
Transition, Pack up, and ship out!
Saying goodbye to your old friends and get ready to say hello to your new ones!
The overseas adventure begins (continues).
(Taken from the blog article from wwteach.)
Also check out all the comments and information about 1000s of different international schools around the world on International School Community!
international educators, international school, international school teaching, interviewing, recruiting, recruitment advice, recruitment fair, search associates, teachers, teaching abroad, Teaching Overseas,
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Seaman served on transport
Published: Friday, January 11, 2013 at 11:12 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, January 11, 2013 at 11:12 a.m.
A native of Bayonne, N.J., Irwin Wolfson entered the Navy at age 18 in 1944. He was assigned to the USS Florence Nightingale (AP-70) and served in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, North African and Asiatic-Pacific campaigns. Wolfson participated in the invasions of Southern France and Okinawa and transported various troops and prisoners of war across the globe. After he was discharged in 1946, he pursued stand-up comedy and eventually retired from the retail industry. Now 86, Wolfson lives in Sarasota with his wife of 37 years, Karen.
'We carried 1,500 infantry troops on our ship, either transporting them to wherever they were going to serve or taking them to invasions. We would also work with them, training them for the next invasion or the next step.
We had 20 landing craft and rope ladders hanging over the side of our ship. The troops would climb up the ladders onto the landing craft, then the landing craft would head for the beach.
After Normandy, in August 1944, we were in the invasion of Southern France. We had the 41st Infantry Division aboard and, by that time, Italy was pretty well secured and had not yet surrendered.
We took 1,500 Italian prisoners of war who were in prison camps in North Africa and brought them back to Italy. We'd travel between Naples and North Africa, bringing the troops back and forth.
The Germans had taken over France, but there were still French troops in North Africa that were fighting. We took a bunch of North African troops into Europe.
After World War II ended, we were in the Pacific and we brought 1,500 German POWs who were encamped in California back to Liverpool, and then went from Liverpool to Germany.
The troops loved coming aboard the ship because they got out of the mud and the water and they were able to clean up, even though they slept on the deck and we never had much space for them.
I became kind of friendly with some of the troops. I met another young guy from Chicago when I was 18; he also was Jewish.
We communicated with each other after the invasion, and then I hadn't heard from him for a while. A letter came in from his sister saying he had been killed.
Along with his papers back home in Chicago was a letter from me, so his sister just wanted to know if I had any knowledge of how he died and, of course, I didn't.
That was the closest I was to any of the troops.
After the invasion of Southern France, when we were taking the Italian troops back, we were sent back to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the ship was refitted for the Pacific. After that, we went out through the Panama Canal to California and took 1,500 troops to Hawaii. By that time, things in the Pacific were winding down.
We went to Iwo Jima, too, but not during the invasion.
We made our last invasion in Okinawa. That was pretty rough compared to what we had in Europe. At that time, the kamikazes and the suicide submarines were operating in Okinawa.
During the invasion, I was on deck and a kamikaze came down and was strafing the ship. I started to head for a hatch, but one of the chief petty officers was just coming out of the hatch and he saw the bullets hitting the deck. He just jumped back in and bolted down the doors and I was stuck.
I dove onto one of the landing craft and bullets were coming down around me, but I wasn't injured."
Abby Weingarten may be contacted via email at [email protected].
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Starbucks Reveals Popular Drink Contains Crushed Bugs
(elitedaily) Have you ever wondered how Starbucks makes their Strawberry Frappuccinos look so vibrantly pink? The pink hue is thanks to crushed up insects, according to new information provided by the coffee chain giant. In a statement released by Starbucks, the company has revealed that they use cochineal extract, which is the ground-up bodies of insects, as a dye for the popular rose-coloured beverage.
Bugs from mainly Mexico and South America are dried out before they are ground and used in the milky-based Frappuccino drink.
As stomach-turning as it may sound, the ingredient is in fact harmless. Commonly used to help liven up the dull hues of jams, meats, cheese, baked goods, alcoholic drinks and more, cochineal extract has been used as a colouring agent in food and drinks for centuries.
Is that even illegal
It has been deemed safe by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration.
Starbucks said it had decided to use cochineal extract to help limit the use of artificial ingredients in its products.
‘At Starbucks, we strive to carry products that meet a variety of dietary lifestyles and needs,’ the statement read. ‘While the strawberry base isn’t a vegan product, it helps us move away from artificial dyes.’
But the all-natural matter is not entirely free of health risks.
Should I be worried?
The World Health Organisation has found that cochineal extract may cause asthma in some people. Others may see an allergic reaction.
Vegan fans may not be happy with its inclusion either. ThisDishIsVegetarian.com, an animal rights and eco-friendly news site, labels the extract non-vegan. | <urn:uuid:7fbed8f0-337a-4e05-b2be-d96f5c018f5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brightfutura.com/starbucks-reveals-popular-drink-contains-crushed-bugs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93808 | 383 | 1.78125 | 2 |
(CNN) - Sen. Barack Obama told CNN Friday that turning around the economy and energy independence are his top priorities for 2009 if elected president.
In an interview with Wolf Blitzer in Des Moines, Iowa, Obama was asked to name his top priority from a list of issues, including taxes, health care, education, energy policy and immigration.
"[The] top priority may not be any of those five. It may be continuing to stabilize the financial system. We don't know yet what's gonna happen in January," he said. "None of this can be accomplished if we continue to see a potential meltdown in the banking system and financial system. So that's priority number one - making sure the plumbing works."
Obama said priority number 2 is energy independence:
"We have to seize this moment because it's not just an energy independence issue, it's also a national security issue and it's a jobs issue. We can create five million new green energy jobs ..."
You can watch the full interview on ‘The Situation Room’ at 6 p.m. ET.
Priority number 3: Healthcare reform.
Priority number 4: "Making sure we have tax cuts for the middle class as part of a broader tax reform effort."
Obama later expanded his discussion on how tax cuts relate to a bigger economic plan.
"The tax cut that I talked about may be part of my priority number one because I think that’s going to be part of stabilizing the economy as a whole," he said.
"I think we’re going to need a second stimulus. Part of my commitment is to make sure that the stimulus includes a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. It may be the first bill I introduce."
Priority number 5: Reforming the education system. | <urn:uuid:be9102f5-4aa7-4fef-a061-80b74f0062a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/31/obamas-top-priorities-for-09/comment-page-13/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965494 | 370 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Polyclef - The fall of a role model!
We all have our heroes, our role models, people (or organisations) we look up to. They motivate us, they give us that push. They tell us, "If I can do it, so can you!"
What happens then, when a hero falls? A role model crashes right in front of you? Lets have a look at what went wrong with Polyclef, and how we can avoid such a thing happening.
** A Note: I am not bashing Polyclef at all here. They were one of my original "heroes", and I do hope things get better for them, this post is just to share my opinion on their failure, and how we can avoid the same from happening to us **
Back in May 2011, I started on my journey on making money with Android. Of course, back then, as a start, I was hoping to make some pocket money. I posted my initial money making progress on the Basic4Android forum ( here ). You will notice, further down, I shared some other success stories too. One of them Polyclef.
Polyclef was one of the motivation for me to achieve MORE from Android. I wanted to make a lot from my apps, just like they did. So I got out there and made the apps. The money grew, and right now, I'd say I've more than achieved the goal I set back then. Thanks Polyclef!
So, what happened? Why did a business so beautifully growing fall? Where did it go wrong? It is sad really that they are that far down, and seriously, I do hope they pick up, and hope they will be back stronger than ever.
I can't speak for Polyclef myself, but their fall does further highlight some of the advice I've been giving out on this blog and on the B4A forums (check out my adventures here). Lets see what we can do to avoid the same fall.
Avoiding the pot-holes!
1 - Stay small
I stopped following Polyclef's blog soon after my June or July earnings were in (the earnings were still below $400). That's because their blog had nothing interesting to read on really. I am not sure if Polyclef, as a company had grown big, but thier ambition grew. Maybe it was too big for their own good.
According to their blog entry, a lot of effort went into making Save the Egg game, but it never took off. The payoff for the effort did not match up!
I've highlighted here on this blog though, we as small time developers, should really stay small, make small simple apps and games. I am not sure how much effort really went into saving the egg, but working with physics and all can be tough.
2 - Avoid burnout
Reading Polyclef's post, it is quite obvious they are having a burnout. Making simpler apps would have helped them avoid the burnout. Your passion and motivation goes down the drain when all your effort yields nothing.
I was worried when I released new apps the past couple of months, and got horrible first day downloads. But they grew over time. You need some patience, and you need some marketing skills (will write a post on this soon). You need to give your apps the exposure, your apps need some attraction, some magnet!
3 - Lack of flexibility
This is one thing I can say I am proud of myself. I did not let the Just-In list missing bring me down. As I've written previously, I am making a whole lot more now from my apps without the Just-In list.
I do agree with Polyclef though, the Just-In list could be further improved. Maybe we don't need Just-In lists. What about allowing users to sort apps by name, by developer name, by updated date? These are features available on the itunes I believe (read it somewhere).
Be flexible. Google will always make changes to the market and even its search logic. We need to be able to fit into it. Otherwise we will drown out!
4 - A failed marketing
Even though Polyclef mentioned that they used social media and cross promotion, it failed for them. I am not sure how they did it, but probably they did not get it right. If I am right, @PolyclefApp has lilke 100 followers on twitter. This is TERRIBLY low! This is not how social media marketing is going to work for you.
Also, this is a personal taste thing, but I think the game fails with it's icon and images / graphic. They don't match up to the effort put into the game. The egg icon looks very amateurish. Their game title is also another matter. App titles carry a VERY high weight in searches on the Android Market, and nobody is gonna be searching for egg saving games.
Remember, first impressions matter, app names matter, reaching out matters!
What about me?
Well, many of my apps started off with low downloads. I've made much effort in getting them out there, and some have shown much progress. My Simple List TODO app, surprisingly is growing beautifully. It was developed in a very short time, like about 1 hour development + launcing time.
Here is it's growth chart and ratings as of now (it's got 9 Google +1 too!):
The app has generated me a grand total of $0, as I have not added in any ads at all! Not just yet, and maybe never. Let it grow, let me improve it's look and feel (I will not be adding features to it, as it is clear, many people want just a simple to-do list, I might make a more advance version though).
The todo app, it is really an example of how things can improve. It had less than 10 downloads on day one. But now it is growing at 80 - 100 downloads per day and growing! In fact, AppBrain report shows 105 downloads yesterday and 167 active users yesterday.
The same trends too are prevalent in my other apps. But that, is for another post!
To Polyclef, I hope you will pick yourself up and grow back in the right direction! I really wish you best of luck!
To the others, hows it going for you? Are your apps being downloaded fine? Have you felt that you've wasted effort on apps? (I have of course!) | <urn:uuid:c82d8e1c-d2b2-4041-9647-baf6e2019535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mobiadage.com/2012/02/polyclef-fall-of-role-model.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976575 | 1,354 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Alex Sink: Florida economy's looking up but new data hint many people living on the edge
After the 2010 election, still trying to make a difference. Alex Sink was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Florida and faced Republican nominee Rick Scott in the 2010 state gubernatorial election, losing to Scott by a 1 percent margin. AP photo.
Wake up and good morning. Alex Sink came within a whisker of becoming Florida's governor, losing to Rick Scott and his personal wallet, but she's still trying to influence the direction of the Sunshine State economy.
In Tampa, Sink's Florida Next Foundation, described as a non-partisan policy organization, on Thursday unveiled a poll that -- despite more promising signs lately for the state economy -- clearly pointed to Florida's glass being half empty. The poll, conducted Dec. 19 and Dec. 20 by Florida Next Foundation and JZ Analytics, found that eight in 10 Floridians think the state’s economy is worsening or stuck in neutral. It found nearly six in 10 think Florida’s quality of life is just fair or poor. And almost half of 25-to-54-year-olds fear losing their jobs (though I'd guess much of the nation still feels that, too).
So I asked Sink: What's up with such dour survey findings at a time when so many economic indicators -- falling unemployment, improving outlook for housing -- seem to suggest Florida's economic health is on the upswing, even if it is modest?
"I was concerned about the press release," Sink concedes, citing similar signals of a strengthening business climate. The poll results, she says, are "reflective of the ongoing uncertainty in this economy."
Other results from the poll: 73 percent believe students aren’t being prepared for a 21st century economy; 65 percent of young adult respondents would consider leaving Florida for better opportunities elsewhere; and the poll suggests the loss of a job for many Floridians could have catastrophic consequences since nearly six out of 10 Floridians have savings of just one month’s salary, or less.
Sink's poll offers one potential bright spot: A belief among respondents that the state’s small business base could provide some relief. Seven in 10 agree that Florida’s small businesses would increase their presence in the state and boost their hires if government offered them incentives. By contrast, slightly more than half of Floridians believe providing incentives to large businesses would have a similar effect on hiring.
In our conversation, Sink touched on a range of points. She embraces the growing entrepreneurial activity in the state. In her travels around the state -- part of her work for Hyde Park Capital Partners in Tampa is to find deserving businesses in need of fresh capital, which Hyde Park can help deliver -- Sink says she sees more young people willing to take risks to start businesses and more metro areas willing to empower younger adults.
Still, she worries about the sheer numbers of Floridians living paycheck to paycheck or teetering with only enough savings to survive for 30 days.
Her Florida Next Foundation is still getting its feet wet, so it's unclear what role it can play in encouraging change in the state economy. Here's a list of its board members.
"We want to be a catalyst for generating thought," says Sink, "for lifting up research and data and information, and putting it in the hands of local leaders who can keep the energy and momentum towards building out a sustainable, diversified economy."
Hmmm. That sounds awfully big picture... like something a governor might say. Is Sink still a serious Democratic candidate in the next election against Gov. Rick Scott? She's surely pondering that option, though political watchers already are starting to build an early list of other potential candidates that includes Charlie Crist. Any Democratic candidate facing Scott -- despite his low popularity as governor -- will face an incumbent with an enormous personal fortune and, it seems so far at least, an improving Florida economy he can take credit for.
-- Robert Trigaux, Business Columnist, Tampa Bay Times | <urn:uuid:933e06c6-49e3-4dbb-9c91-dacc737b5616> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/venturebiz/content/alex-sink-florida-economys-looking-new-data-hint-many-people-living-edge/2096612 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961392 | 836 | 1.609375 | 2 |
It's tough being the world's second largest bank.
HSBC, the London-based British multinational banking and financial services giant operates in 85 countries with 7,200 offices worldwide with assets totaling more than $2.6 trillion (£4.06tn).
They're also caught-up in serial scandals: the Libor interest rate-fixing scam, serious charges of drug money laundering as well as suspicions that bank officers "palled around" with terrorist financiers.
Founded in 1865 when the British Crown seized Hong Kong as a colony in the aftermath of the First Opium War, British merchants (today we'd call them drug lords) needed a bank to handle the brisk trade in the illicit substance and launched the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited. Rebranded "HSBC" in 1991, the bank expanded at breakneck speed in the heady days after The Wall fell.
While some might call them a success story, exemplars of financial wizardry in tough economic times, more appropriately perhaps, we might borrow a term from Mafia lore to describe their preeminent position in the capitalist pantheon of corrupt institutions: juiced.
'Sorry, now Go Away'
Today, the "War on Drugs" rivals the "War on Terror" for top spot on the global hypocrisy index.
Moral equivalencies abound. After all, when American secret state agencies manage drug flows or direct terrorist proxies to attack official enemies it's not quite the same as battling terror or crime.
Pounding home that point, a new report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused HSBC of exposing "the U.S. financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money laundering (AML) controls."
That 335-page report, "U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History," (large pdf file available here) was issued after a year-long Senate investigation zeroed-in on the bank's U.S. affiliate, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., better known as HBUS.
Drilling down, we learned that amongst the "services" offered by HSBC subsidiaries and correspondent banks were sweet deals with financial entities with terrorist ties; the transportation of billions of dollars in cash by plane and armored car through their London Banknotes division; the clearing of sequentially-numbered travelers checks through dodgy Cayman Islands accounts for Mexican drug lords and Russian mafiosi.
From richly-appointed suites at Canary Wharf, London, the bank's "smartest guys in the room" handed some of the most violent gangsters on earth the financial wherewithal to organize their respective industries: global crime.
A case in point. In 2008 alone the Senate revealed that the bank's Cayman Islands branch handled some 50,000 client accounts (all without benefit of offices or staff on Grand Cayman, mind you), yet still managed to ship some $7 billion (£10.9bn) in cash from Mexico into the U.S. Now that's creative accounting!
Playing fast and loose with U.S. banking rules, Subcommittee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said that by exploiting the bank's "poor AML controls, HBUS exposed the United States to Mexican drug money, suspicious travelers cheques, bearer share corporations, and rogue jurisdictions."
Describing a "compliance culture" that was "pervasively polluted for a long time," Levin said it "will take more than words for the bank to change course."
Yet weasel words and butt-covering were all that were proffered to the American people even before Senate hearings began. Bank spokesman Robert Sherman said in an emailed statement that HSBC "will acknowledge that, in the past, we have sometimes failed to meet the standards that regulators and customers expect. We will apologize, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong."
Right on cue, chief compliance officer David Bagley dramatically fell on his sword during those hearings and resigned on camera. It was quite a performance even by Washington's tawdry standards.
Appearing contrite, Bagley told the panel: "Despite the best efforts and intentions of many dedicated professionals, HSBC has fallen short of our own expectations and the expectations of our regulators. ... I recommended to the group that now is the appropriate time for me and for the bank, for someone new to serve as the head of group compliance."
While there's no word yet just how big Bagley's golden parachute will be, it's a sure bet he won't spend a day in jail, nor for that matter will Lord Stephen Green, HSBC's former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Between 2003-2010, Green tilled the helm after serial stints directing The Bank of Bermuda Ltd., HSBC Mexico, SA, HSBC Private Banking Holdings (Suisse) SA and HSBC North American Holdings Inc.; units which feature prominently in the scandal. Sensing perhaps that the jig was up, last year he joined David Cameron's Conservative government as Minister of State for Trade and Investment.
Unlike Pappy Bush who claimed to be "out of the loop" during the Iran-Contra guns-for-drugs affair, Green was fully apprised of bank shenanigans and the Senate published emails which prove it.
Cheekily however, while underlings take the fall, Green told The Daily Telegraph, "I do not believe that I have a case to answer other than in the important sense that as chairman and chief executive I was responsible for what the company did. HSBC has expressed regret for the failures. I share that regret."
The Telegraph noted that Green has not considered resigning from Cameron's government, saying he was "very engaged" with his current plum post.
Ironically enough, the current Baron of Hurstpierpoint is an ordained priest in the Church of England and the author of an inspirational tome, Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World. And no, you can't make this stuff up!
The top spot is now occupied by Stuart Gulliver who, quicker than you can say "we're sorry," admonished employees to "do better" and expressed remorse over his firm's "unacceptable behavior." Never mind that before ascending the throne, Gulliver was director of HBUS, HSBC Latin American Holdings Ltd., and HSBC Bank Middle East Ltd., divisions that have raised more than an eyebrow or two amongst Subcommittee investigators.
Topping Bagley's Kabuki-lite performance with her own rendition of clown car camp, Irene Dorner, HBUS's President and CEO told the Senate: "We deeply regret and apologize for the fact that HSBC did not live up to the expectations of our regulators, our customers, our employees, and the general public. HSBC's compliance history, as examined today, is unacceptable. ... We've worked hard to foster a new culture that values and rewards effective compliance, and that starts at the top."
Bathos aside, it was a polite way of saying "let's move on" and get back to the business of lining our pockets; after all, it's what we do best.
'The past is never dead. It's not even past'
Years before hijackers slammed passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killing nearly 3,000 people, secret state agencies began to exploit the fraternal links between Osama bin Laden's Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets, also known as al Qaeda, and prominent financial institutions.
In his 1999 book, Dollars for Terror, journalist Richard Labévière relates how a former CIA analyst explained: "The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia."
Was a new Cold War dawning?
No. In fact, it was the same Cold War. Only this time it was tricked-out in seductive finery by denizens of Western think-tanks and on-the-make NGOs. In the age of spin and endless news cycles, they'd hit upon a splendid formula to pour the "old" imperialist wine into new bottles: "humanitarian intervention" and a "responsibility to protect."
It was a brilliant script. In the blink of an eye our media-saavy masters could "enhance democracy" and "reform markets," magically transforming publicly-owned resources into privately-held assets controlled by banks! That terrorist proxies would serve as walk-ons and help drive the final nail into the coffin of national sovereignty wasn't considered proper conversation in polite company.
Labévière wondered whether "the new forms of terrorism actually embody the highest stage of capitalism?" They did, and "the straw men of the bin Laden Organization's subsidiaries [were] very well received by the business lawyers of Wall Street and the Bahamas, by the wealth managers of Geneva, Zurich and Lugano, and in the hushed salons of the City of London."
Not so curiously perhaps, "the privatization of violence and the privatization of the economy has become paradigmatic." In fact, "apart from any religious purpose," Labévière wrote, "the 'Jihad' is gaining ground as a profitable activity. It becomes liable to all the mafioso devolutions, and sinks into pure banditry. In many cases, Islamist ideology is used as a wonder worker to paper over banditry in all its forms."
Bin Laden as a Mafia capo di tutti capi? It certainly was a novel reading of geopolitical machinations!
More to the point, if an "army marches on its stomach," who then are the money men who put food in their bellies and kalashnikovs in their hands?
Bankrolled by Saudi and Gulf banks with a wink, a nod and logistical support from their old friends, the CIA and the Pentagon, today's Green condottieri once again are on the march, wrecking havoc and sowing chaos, with particular attention paid to states targeted as official enemies by the Global Godfather. Just ask the Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians.
While the Senate report may have disclosed that HSBC turned a blind eye to terrorist financing among it correspondent banks, the Riyadh-based Al Rajhi Bank for one, Saudi Arabia's largest privately-held financial institution, such arrangements hardly flourished in a vacuum.
With assets totaling $59 billion (£92.5bn), the Al Rajhi's are amongst the wealthiest families in the Kingdom. Investigators found that after 9/11 "evidence began to emerge that Al Rajhi Bank and some of its owners had links to organizations associated with financing terrorism, including that one of the bank's founders was an early financial benefactor of al Qaeda."
While the Al Rajhi family deny any role in financing terrorism, they have declined "to address specific allegations made in American intelligence and law-enforcement records, citing client confidentiality," The Wall Street Journal reported back in 2007.
Journalist Glenn R. Simpson averred that "a 2003 CIA report claims that a year after Sept. 11, with a spotlight on Islamic charities, Mr. Al Rajhi ordered Al Rajhi Bank's board 'to explore financial instruments that would allow the bank's charitable contributions to avoid official Saudi scrutiny'."
"A few weeks earlier," the Journal disclosed, the Agency said that "Mr. Al Rajhi 'transferred $1.1 billion to offshore accounts--using commodity swaps and two Lebanese banks--citing a concern that U.S. and Saudi authorities might freeze his assets.' The report was titled 'Al Rajhi Bank: Conduit for Extremist Finance'."
Although U.S. law enforcement and secret state agencies "acknowledge it is possible that extremists use the bank's far-flung branches and money-transfer services without bank officials' knowledge," the Journal noted that CIA analysts had concluded that "senior Al Rajhi family members have long supported Islamic extremists and probably know that terrorists use their bank."
It goes without saying that one should always approach CIA reports with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially in light of the Agency's well-documented history of employing cut-outs such as al Qaeda as terrorist cats' paws.
Such reports however, lay a trail of bread crumbs that policy makers can either act upon or more likely, ignore. That senior Bush and Obama administration officials did nothing with this information, never mind the regulatory agencies charged to enforce anti-money laundering laws, is testament to the corrupt, bipartisan nature of American policy as a whole.
It also beggars belief that Lord Green or the bank's compliance officers were unaware of CIA allegations or that Britain's own foreign intelligence arm, MI6, hadn't apprised top officials of the risks involved. In fact, as we'll see below, HSBC's own internal documents prove otherwise.
Osama's 'Golden Chain'
There were certainly plenty of red flags flying which should have alerted bank officials.
In March 2002, al Qaeda's list of financial benefactors surfaced when computers were seized in Sarajevo at the Bosnian headquarters of the Benevolence International Foundation, "a Saudi based nonprofit organization which was also designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department."
Osama bin Laden, who held a Bosnian passport issued by the breakaway government fronted by Western "liberal interventionist" darling Alija Izetbegović during NATO's dismemberment of socialist Yugoslavia, was a supporter of the Nazi SS Handschar Division during World War II. Bin Laden referred to this group of financial angels as his "Golden Chain."
Additional evidence also emerged in 2002 during Operation Green Quest, a Treasury Department effort to "disrupt terrorist financing in the United States."
In March of that year, law enforcement officials raided the Herndon, Virginia offices of the SAAR Foundation "an Al Rajhi-related entity." Indeed, the name "SAAR" was an acronym for the organization's founder, Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi, the controlling partner of the Al Rajhi Bank.
Subcommittee investigators commented that "one of the 20 handwritten names in the Golden Chain document identifying al Qaeda's early key financial benefactors is Sulaiman bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi, one of Al Rajhi Bank's key founders and most senior officials."
An affidavit supporting the search warrants "detailed numerous connections between the targeted entities and Al Rajhi family members and related ventures. The affidavit stated that over 100 active and defunct nonprofit and business ventures in Virginia were part of what it described as the 'Safa Group,' which the United States had reasonable cause to believe was 'engaged in the money laundering tactic of 'layering' to hide from law enforcement authorities the trail of its support for terrorists."
Green Quest investigators were particularly keen on unraveling links between the SAAR Foundation and the Swiss Al Taqwa Bank, incorporated in the Bahamas in 1988 for "tax purposes."
Founded by Swiss Nazi sympathizer and convert to Islam, Albert Armand (Achmed) Huber, who professed admiration for both Adolph Hitler and Osama bin Laden, the bank was accused by U.S. officials in helping al Qaeda launder funds. Although the Treasury Department froze its assets in 2001, the investigation was shut down by the Bush administration before deeper linkages could be fully uncovered.
In 2011, a lawsuit was filed by insurance giant Lloyd's of London against Saudi Arabia which sought to recover pay outs to victims of the 9/11 attacks. The suit noted "that two individuals who were former executives at Bank al Taqwa, Ibrahim Hassabella and Samir Salah, were also associated with the SAAR Foundation."
At the time, The Independent reported that the legal claim suggested that defendants "'knowingly' provided resources, including funding, to al-Qa'ida in the years before the attack and encouraged anti-Western sentiment which increased support for the terror group."
According to court briefs, "Absent the sponsorship of al-Qa'ida's material sponsors and supporters, including the defendants named therein, al-Qa'ida would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the 11 September attacks. The success of al-Qa'ida's agenda, including the 11 September attacks themselves, has been made possible by the lavish sponsorship al-Qa'ida has received from its material sponsors and supporters over more than a decade leading up to 11 September 2001."
Senate investigators, citing Green Quest and Lloyd's case files, noted that "Mr. Hassabella was a former secretary of al Taqwa Bank and a shareholder of SAAR Foundation Inc. Mr. Saleh was a former director and treasurer of the Bahamas branch of al Taqwa Bank, and president of the Piedmont Trading Corporation which was part of the SAAR network. The U.S. Treasury Department has stated: 'The Al Taqwa group has long acted as financial advisers to al Qaeda, with offices in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and the Caribbean.' Regarding Akida Bank, the lawsuit complaint alleged that Sulaiman bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi was 'on the board of directors of Akida Bank in the Bahamas' and that 'Akida Bank was run by Youssef Nada, a noted terrorist financier'."
The report went on to state that "HSBC was fully aware of the suspicions that Al Rajhi Bank and its owners were associated with terrorist financing, describing many of the alleged links in the Al Rajhi Bank client profile."
As icing on the cake, a 2007 study published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) also found that "Saudi individuals and other financiers associated with the Golden Chain enabled bin Laden and Al Qaeda to replace lost financial assets and establish a base in Afghanistan following their abrupt departure from Sudan in 1996."
Assets I might add, that were used to bankroll the 9/11 attacks.
'Keen to maintain the relationships'
HSBC's dubious links to the Al Rajhi Bank didn't end with information discovered in the "Golden Chain" files; it fact, they were the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
After 9/11, the FBI reported that three of the hijackers, Hani Hanjour, Nawaf Alhazmi and Abdulaziz Alomari cashed thousands of dollars in travelers checks and received wire transfers from an unnamed individual drawn on accounts at the Al Rajhi Bank.
As researcher Kevin Fenton pointed out in Disconnecting the Dots, links among most of the hijackers were discovered through their banking transactions. "In this context," Fenton wrote, "it is worth noting that Global Objectives, a British banking compliance company, identified fifteen of the nineteen hijackers as high-risk individuals and established database profiles for them before the attacks. ... The list of high-risk people maintained by Global Objectives was available to dozens of banks," a list that presumably also included HSBC.
While there is no evidence that HSBC, or for that matter the Al Rajhi Bank, had prior knowledge of the 2001 atrocity, the gross indifference exhibited by these institutions through their violation of "know your client" (KYC) rules governing financial transactions reveal a callous disdain for elemental norms as they raced to inflate their balance sheets come hell or high water.
Privileged communications amongst senior staff revealed they were well aware of the issues and risks involved, yet did worse than nothing, they lobbied that HSBC continue their arrangements with the Al Rajhi Bank.
Suspicions were such that senior staff "classified Al Rajhi Bank as a 'Special Category of Client' (SCC), its highest risk designation." This was done, Senate investigators noted, because the Kingdom was considered a "high risk country" and due to the fact Al Rajhi's largest shareholder, Sulaiman bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi was considered "a Politically Exposed Person (PEP)."
Internal HSBC documents also revealed that in 2002, that is, after the 9/11 provocation, "the International Private Banking Department asked to transfer [several] accounts to HSBC's Institutional Banking Department in Delaware which had superior ability to monitor account activity."
In fact, transferring Al Rajhi accounts to the bank's Delaware division would have just the opposite effect and bank officials knew it.
As journalist Nicholas Shaxson noted in his exposé of offshore banking, Treasure Islands, "Delaware is the biggest state provider of offshore corporate secrecy." Shaxson pointed out that Delaware's Chancery Court has a "'business judgement rule' under which courts should not second-guess corporate managers," thereby "granting corporate bosses extraordinary freedoms from bothersome stockholders, judicial review, and even public opinion."
So much for any alleged "superior ability to monitor account activity"!
HBUS's Joseph Harpster wrote an email, stating: "The most recent concern arose when three wire transfers for small amounts ($50k, $3k and $1.5k) were transferred through the account for names that closely resembled names, not exact matches, of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. ... The profile of the main account reflects a doubling of wire transfer volume since 9/01, a large number of travelers checks but with relatively low value and some check/cash deposits. According to the account officer, traffic increased because they have chosen to send us more business due to their relationship with Saudi British Bank and the added strength of HBC versus Republic. ... Maintaining our business with this name is strongly supported by David Hodghinson of [Saudi British Bank] and Andre Dixon, Deputy Chairman of [HSBC Bank Middle East]. Niall Booker and Alba Khoury [of HBUS] also support."
Aside from adverse publicity, the "low value" of the transactions seemed not to have troubled Harpster or his associates in the least. After all, the total "cost" of murdering 3,000 human beings were certainly small compared to the price of a vacation home in the Hamptons or a new Maserati.
Anxious there might be increased scrutiny from regulators (no worries there!), Harpster's email was forwarded by Douglas Stolberg, the head of Commercial and Institutional Banking to Alexander Flockhart, then a senior executive in Retail and Commercial Banking at HBUS. Stolberg noted: "As we discussed previously, Compliance has raised some concerns regarding the ongoing maintenance of operating/clearing accounts for Al Rajhi group." He forwarded recommendations on how to handle the account: "Retain [International Private Banking] as the relationship manager domicile for continuity purposes, and as we understand there is interest in further developing private banking business with family members. ... Domicile the actual accounts with Delaware where HBUS's most robust account screening capabilities reside."
"Screening capabilities" which could be shielded from nosy regulators due to Delaware's strict bank secrecy laws.
Stolberg went on to state: "[T]his has become a fairly high profile situation. Compliance’s concerns relate to the possibility that Al Rajhi's account may have been used by terrorists. If true, this could potentially open HBUS up to public scrutiny and/or regulatory criticism. SABB [Saudi British Bank] are understandably keen to maintain the relationships. As this matter concerns primarily reputational and compliance risks, we felt it appropriate for SMC [Senior Management Committee] members to be briefed ... so that they may opine on the acceptability of the plan. Please advise how you would prefer us to proceed." (emphasis added)
According to Senate staff, "Mr. Harpster reported a week later that Mr. Flockhart had decided to transfer the accounts to HBUS in the Delaware office."
But HSBC weren't the only entities hoping to curry favor with the Kingdom. A 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report went on to note that "certain performance targets set by the State Department had been dropped in 2009, such as the establishment of a Saudi Commission on Charities to oversee actions taken by Saudi charities abroad as well as certain regulations of cash couriers."
Although GAO "recommended that the United States reinstate the dropped performance targets to prevent the flow of funds from Saudi Arabia 'through mechanisms such as cash couriers, to terrorists and extremists outside Saudi Arabia,' the State Department's "most recent annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report contains no information about Saudi Arabia's anti-money laundering or terrorist financing efforts."
One reason why the State Department's report contains "no information" just might be the Obama administration's policy of supporting Saudi-backed Salafi terrorists soon to come online in Libya and Syria, financed through "Saudi charities abroad" or more directly through "cash couriers."
'You'd better be making lots of money!'
The Senate disclosed that HSBC "provided Al Rajhi Bank with a wide range of banking services, including wire transfers, foreign exchange, trade financing, and asset management services."
"In the United States," investigators learned that "a key service was supplying Al Rajhi Bank with large amounts of physical U.S. dollars, through the HBUS U.S. Banknotes Department."
"The physical delivery of U.S. dollars to Al Rajhi Bank was carried out primarily through the London branch of HBUS, often referred to internally as 'London Banknotes'."
Indeed, "HBUS records indicate that the London Banknotes office had been supplying U.S. dollars to Al Rajhi Bank for '25+ years.' In addition to the London branch, HBUS headquarters in New York opened a banknotes account for Al Rajhi Bank in January 2001. The U.S. dollars were physically delivered to Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia."
"On one occasion in 2008," Senate staff reported, the head of HSBC Global Banknotes Department told a colleague: 'In case you don't know, no other banknotes counterparty has received so much attention in the last 8 years than Alrajhi.' Despite, in the words of the KYC client profile, a 'multitude' of allegations, HSBC chose to provide Al Rajhi bank with banking services on a global basis."
Even though the Al Rajhi Bank "had not been indicted, designated a terrorist financier, or sanctioned," HSBC's Group Compliance section recommended that affiliates should sever their ties.
After that initial decision however, "HSBC affiliates disregarded the recommendation and continued to do business with the bank, while others terminated their relationships but protested HSBC's decision and urged HSBC to reverse it."
Complaints by lower level staff continued, disregarded by higher-ups, even though a U.S. indictment was issued in February 2005 for two individuals "accused among other matters, of cashing $130,000 in U.S. travelers cheques at Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia" and then smuggling the cash to CIA-backed terrorists in Chechnya.
Although internal bank documents showed that officials decided to cut their ties to the Saudi financial institution, they reversed themselves when pressure was brought to bear by Al Rajhi officials. Between 2006 and 2010, Al Rajhi received shipments totaling more than $1 billion in physical cash in the lucrative banknotes business from HSBC's U.S. affiliate according to investigators. Officials at the Saudi bank "had threatened to pull all of its business from HSBC if the U.S. banknotes business were not restored."
Senate staff reported that on January 4, 2005, "HBUS AML Compliance head Ms. Pesce sent an email to Daniel Jack, an HBUS AML Compliance Officer who often dealt with the London Banknotes office, instructing him to: '[p]lease communicate that Group Compliance will be recommending terminating the Al Rajhi relationship.' Mr. Jack inquired as to when that recommendation would be made. She responded: 'I expect to see an email from Susan Wright today. She tells me that HBME [HSBC Bank Middle East] does not agree with Compliance and will not be terminating the relationship from the Middle East, but she/David B[agley] recommend that in light of US scrutiny, climate, and interest by law enforcement, we in the US sever the relationship from here'."
At the time, Susan Wright was "the Chief Money Laundering Control Officer for the entire HSBC Group. She reported to David Bagley, head of the HSBC Group's overall Compliance Department."
Senate investigators noted that the "documents do not explain why HSBC Middle East disagreed with the decision or why it was allowed to continue its relationship with Al Rajhi Bank, when HSBC's Group Compliance had decided to sever the relationship between the bank and other HSBC affiliates due to terrorist financing concerns."
It soon became clear however, that "HSBC Group Compliance began to narrow its scope." Shortly thereafter a trader in the Banknotes department wrote, "for us is business as usual." Alan Ketley, HBUS AML Compliance Officer commented on the decision not to include Al Rajhi Trading in their earlier decision to sever all ties: "Looks like you're fine to continue dealing with Al Rajhi. You'd better be making lots of money!"
Meanwhile, "Al Rajhi Bank communicated the threat to 'pull any new business with HSBC' unless given a 'satisfactory explanation' why HSBC had stopped supplying it with U.S. dollars via its relationship managers," the Senate disclosed.
In short order, it was business as usual.
Despite continuing allegations of terrorist financing swirling around Al Rajhi Bank, HBUS "continued to supply, through its London branch, hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia. In addition, at Al Rajhi Bank's request, HBUS expanded the relationship in January 2009, by authorizing its Hong Kong branch to supply Al Rajhi Bank with non-U.S. currencies, including the Thai bat, Indian rupee, and Hong Kong dollar." (emphasis added)
When concerns were raised internally once again, Christopher Lok, the head of HSBC's Global Banknotes Department in New York fired back: "This is an on-going debate that will never go away. My stance remains the same, i.e. until it[']s proved we cannot simply rely on the Wall Street Journal['s] reports and unconfirmed allegations and 'punish’ the client'."
Needless to say, Hong Kong's "arrangement" with Al Rajhi went forward.
Despite "troubling information" which should have led to HSBC's quick exit from the banknotes market, the Senate reported that "HBUS continued to supply U.S. dollars to the bank, and even expanded its business, until 2010, when HSBC decided, on a global basis, to exit the U.S. banknotes business."
• • •
In conclusion, one needn't be a "conspiracy buff" to posit a link from HSBC to Al Rajhi to "cash couriers" operating across the Middle East in support of a multitude of U.S.-Saudi-backed "regime change" gambits in play today; policies which "worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army."
As investigative journalist Ed Vulliamy pointed out in The Observer, the issues involved here are wider than drug money laundering or terrorist finance. "It is about where banks, law enforcement officers and the regulators--and politics and society generally--want to draw the line between the criminal and supposed 'legal' economies."
Commenting on the HSBC scandal, Robert Mazur, a former Customs Department deep-cover specialist and author of The Infiltrator, who penetrated Medellín cartel money laundering operations during the prosecution and collapse of BCCI in 1991, told The Observer that "the only thing that will make the banks properly vigilant to what is happening is when they hear the rattle of handcuffs in the boardroom."
"The stark truth is," Vulliamy wrote, "the notion of any dichotomy between the global criminal economy and the 'legal' one is fantasy. Worse, it is a lie. They are seamless, mutually interdependent--one and the same." | <urn:uuid:c98dd1a2-afb9-4d6e-b934-2226208e4c06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2012_07_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962039 | 6,645 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The purpose of a business oriented website is to act as a gateway for potential business opportunities. Green Planet has established itself as website design firm repute and credibility. The technical team here is comprised of seasoned design professionals who transform your ideas into a dynamic online Public relations portal.Our solutions are market-centric and designed to serve the objectives of your business. Since the business environment is highly fluctuating, our websites architecture are flexible enough to handle any scale up needs or to incorporate any new features.
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E-Commerce or Electronic Commerce (EC) is the process of conducting business transactions in a virtual economic environment – through the internet. Every business needs a dynamic store at a right location and in the eCommerce environment, the requirement for a successful business is dynamic website which is capable of handling all business transaction. This is where Green Planet comes into picture – it transforms your business vision into an online reality.
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Content is being generated at a furious pace and as a logical fallout, Content Management has become an enterprise wide issue to be handled with a sound strategy
A CMS (Content Management System) can be perceived as a hybrid technology of website maintenance and document management system – The delivery, addition, modification or deletion of new or updated content can be achieved simultaneously from different points. Web is being ruled by the introduction of new content every second and in this situation, if we are burdened with a monolithic structure. The management of content should be flexible and systematic.
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The DNA of every website and business is different. It needs a tight collaboration between the business owner and the designing team to create a custom solution for the enterprise
Green Planet perceives your website as a powerful marketing tool which complements the traditional marketing while building a long term relationship with your customers
Your website should..
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Social networking between the customers, business owners and service providers has become the backbone of Internet economy. The utilization of Social network has become indispensable for the Business owners.
Making their entry as a platform for people to get together and form online communities, social networking portals have rapidly evolved into functional market platforms that facilitate business collaborations and intelligent leads on the web.
Social networking systems can be used to create professional as well as niche social networks. Networking means marketing in this digital age of instant deals and transactions. Millions of potential customers are surfing the web every second. How do we get their eyeballs on our site?
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Interactivity and user communication has become the mantra of a successful business site. Internet forums have become more of a necessity than just another additional feature.
The advent of Social networking and discussion forum systems have transformed the way viewers interact with your website. Forum System have a great synergy with the business process – They can be used to involve customers in your business, create a meaningful conversation around a product or service or to generate completely unique business ideas. Green Planet specializes in creating dynamic Forum system websites for both Business and personal use.
Once the enterprise class website is up and running, the consistency and the uptime of the system is dependent upon a well oiled maintenance process.
Websites are continually being revamped in order to adapt to the business needs. This needs a system administration process in place which can handle day to day maintenance issues as well as emergency issues without any hiccups. Preserving the sanity of the system is a huge task particularly if you have frequent updates.
The technical staff at Green Planet can handle all the maintenance hassles while you can concentrate on other strategic issues. | <urn:uuid:367d6057-3dc0-4c34-8019-18e8cb8248c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenplanetwebdesign.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=162 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941679 | 814 | 1.585938 | 2 |
It’s a record: 103 degrees!
Updated: October 24, 2012 10:09PM
A 103-degree temperature at O’Hare just before 2 p.m. made Thursday the hottest July 5 ever, and brought Chicago to within 2 degrees of its all-time high temeperature.
It marked the second day in a row the cityset or tied its record high, with another record-breaker possible Friday.
The record high for both July 4 and 5 in Chicago was 102 degrees. We matched the record Wednesday when the mercury hit 102 degrees at O’Hare for a brief moment Wednesday afternoon, tying for the hottest Independence Day on record.
And just before 2 p.m. Thursday, the temperature reached 103 at O’Hare, breaking the record for July 5, set in 1911.
And the temperature may go even higher. Thursday is expected to continue to be intensely hot and humid, with highs up to 105 degrees. Peak afternoon heat index readings could reach 108 to 113, the weather service said.
Other 2 p.m. readings included 103 at Wheeling, 102 at Midway and 101 at Waukegan and Northerly Island.
Should the mercury rise to 105, it would also tie the hottest temperature ever recorded in Chicago, set on July 24, 1934, according to the weather service.
An excessive heat warning in effect until 10 p.m. for all Chicago-area counties has been issued by the National Weather Service. The warning means forecasters expect heat index values of 105 degrees for at least three hours on two consecutive days, or any heat index reading of more than 115 degrees.
Friday was expected to be mostly sunny and hazy, with continued hot and humid conditions and high temperatures again expected between 100 to 105 degrees. Peak heat index readings could be 110 to 119 degrees.
It will turn cooler in the afternoon near the lake, though, according to the weather service, and Saturday’s high temperatures will be in the lower 90s and Sunday’s high in the low 80s. | <urn:uuid:520c9153-fb23-4100-b5dc-beafbd1cb5ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://norridge.suntimes.com/news/13603587-418/its-a-record-103-degrees.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943401 | 428 | 1.742188 | 2 |
We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
At the close of this series let me remind you again that the wonderful confidence that tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril and sword and slaughter and all the groaning from our unredeemed bodies and the all the frustrations of our imperfect spirits—the wonderful, deep confidence that all this will work together for our good is built on the massive foundation of God's sovereign work of salvation described in Romans 8:29–30. The reason I have preached these messages is to make you strong and happy in God when you lose your health and your spouse and your child and your job and your friend and your dream.
The promise of the Lord proves true;
He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
For who is God but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?
We see the final extent of the Rock in the last phrase of verse 30: "Those whom he justified, he also glorified." We have time, perhaps, to ask four questions:
- What happens when God glorifies a human being?
- Who are the ones God will glorify?
- How is this a fulfillment of the New Covenant which Jesus certified with his blood?
- What happens when believers try to hold on to the certainty of glorification while rejecting the sovereignty of grace?
1. What happens when God glorifies a human being?
1.1. Sharing in the glory of Jesus
He gives them a share of his own glory and the glory of his Son.
Romans 8:17—"If we are children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."
Notice: "Glorified WITH HIM!" When God glorifies his children, he does to them something like what he did to Jesus when he exalted him to his right hand above every rule and authority. He gives us a share in that glory.
Romans 5:2—"Through Christ we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of the glory of God."
1 Peter 5:1—"So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed."
When God glorifies a human being, he grants to that person the privilege of beholding his infinite beauty and becoming like him as much as a creature can. We will not see him the way you see a parade on television. We will see him the way you see a hurricane when you fly into the eye of the storm. "When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him IN glory" (Colossians 3:4).
1.2. Receiving a new and glorious body
More specifically, when God glorifies a person, he gives that person a new and glorious body.
Romans 8:21–23—"The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved."
When Paul refers in verse 21 to the "freedom of the GLORY of the children of God," he means the freedom from groaning that comes from the glory of our new bodies. For now we groan awaiting the redemption of our bodies. But then our bodies will be glorious, like the resurrected body of Jesus.
Philippians 3:20–21—"Our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself."
Or as the apostle Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:42–43,
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.
No more pain. No more frustration with weakness and weariness. No more disability or wheel chairs or crutches or braces or allergies or addictions or diseases. Everyone strong. Everyone radiant with the beauty of Christ (see Romans 8:29).
1.3. Receiving the inward beauty of holiness
When God glorifies his children, he gives them inward beauty—called holiness. This begins as a process in this life (called sanctification) and culminates when we come into the presence of Christ at death or at his second coming.
I think the reason that Paul omitted sanctification from his chain in Romans 8:29–30—the reason he did not say, "Those whom he justified he also sanctified, and those whom he sanctified he also glorified"—is that Paul is thinking of glorification in a way that includes sanctification. So glorification is the work of God by which he makes his children both spiritually and physically glorious. It begins now as a process of becoming holy, and it ends at the resurrection when we receive our new and glorious bodies.
2 Corinthians 3:18—"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, and are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
2 Corinthians 4:16–17—"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison."
Paul clearly says that glorification has begun within as we give our attention to Christ. The biblical maxim is not, "Seeing is believing," but, "Seeing is becoming."
Look to Christ with a steady gaze and you will become like him from one degree of glory to another. Your inner nature will be renewed every day—that's the process! And all the adversities of life will be preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison—that's the consummation.
In sum then, when God glorifies us, he shares his own glory with us, he gives us a new and glorious body, and he imparts the inward beauty of holiness partially in this life and fully when we come into the presence of the Lord.
2. Who are the ones God will glorify?
The answer is plain from the text: "those whom he foreknew he predestined, and those whom he predestined he called, and those whom he called he justified, and those whom he justified he glorified." Have you got a good grip yet on what this chain means? It means that no one who is foreknown fails to be predestined. And no one who is predestined fails to be effectually called. And no one who is called fails to be justified. And no one who is justified fails to be glorified.
The point of the chain is certainty and confidence and assurance and security. The point is that God does not just offer salvation, but that he SAVES! "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will SAVE HIS PEOPLE from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). Those whom he has predestined are SAVED! It is as good as finished—that's why even the future work of God in glorifying his people is put in the past tense in verse 30: those whom he justified he also glorified.
The glorification of God's predestined, called, and justified people is absolutely certain. None can be lost. The chain is unbroken, because the links have been forged in the furnace of God's eternal purpose. All those branches and distortions of the Christian faith that deny the reality of eternal security and deny the possibility of the full assurance of salvation shatter on the rock of Romans 8:30. For it is as plain as anything in Scripture that the justified WILL be glorified.
The answer, then, to the second question is that all who are effectually called, that is, all who have been quickened and enabled to believe, and have therefore heard the word of acquittal (justification) WILL BE GLORIFIED. It is done in the mind of God.
3. How is this a fulfillment of the New Covenant which Jesus certified with his blood?
When Jesus said at the Last Supper, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Corinthians 11:25), or, "This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many" (Mark 14:24), what was he referring to? He was referring to a promise made by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God would one day make a new covenant with his people that would be better than the old covenant made at Mount Sinai.
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
So the reason the new covenant is better (Hebrews 8:6) than the old is that the new covenant contains a pledge from God not only to give blessing to those who obey but also to cause the obedience! "I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances." God does not make our salvation sure by separating it from obedience, but by guaranteeing our obedience.
The eternal security that is so clearly taught in the last phrase of Romans 8:30 ("whom he justified he also glorified") is not based on the fact that obedience is unnecessary for salvation, so that you can feel secure if you don't have it. O, no! Obedience IS NECESSARY: "He is the source of eternal salvation to all who OBEY him . . . Strive for . . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 5:9; 12:14). Eternal security is based on the new covenant oath of God that he will cause the obedience which he requires in those whom he has called and justified.
If someone—say a Jehovah's Witness—asks you how you know you are going to heaven when you die (which is the same as how you know all things work together for good), I hope that after this series you will not be content to answer, "I know that I am going to heaven because I prayed one time and asked Jesus to come into my heart." Instead, I hope that we will answer something like this: I know that I am going to heaven because God chose me for his own and predestined me for glory. He has born witness of this in my life by calling me effectually out of rebellion and unbelief and by giving me the declaration of acquittal in his Word. I am justified—my sin went onto Christ, his righteousness went onto me.
And now my confidence rests in the covenant oath of God that he will cause me to walk in his will. He who did not spare his Son but gave him up for me, will he not work in me that which is pleasing in his sight (Romans 8:32)? By his Spirit he will cause me to fulfill the just requirement of the law (Romans 8:4), sin will not have dominion over me for I am now under the rule of sovereign grace (Romans 6:14), and that grace will reign through righteousness unto eternal life (Romans 5:21).
The Father planned it ages ago. The Son purchased it centuries ago. The Spirit is causing it today in my heart. It is he who is at work in me to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). And he who began in me this work will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). It is as sure as the oath and power of the sovereign God. And therefore I know that I am going to heaven, for THOSE WHOM HE JUSTIFIED HE ALSO GLORIFIED.
4. What happens when believers try to hold on to the certainty of glorification while rejecting the sovereignty of grace?
I ask this question because the answer is a present reality all around us, and it is tragic. I want to save you from it and I want to enlist you in the opposition to it.
Two Theologies—Six Differences and Similarities
Let me try to answer the question by contrasting two different theologies. We will describe the one theology as "Sovereign grace—trusting saint." And we will describe the other theology as "Assisting grace—sovereign saint." Let's look at six differences and similarities between these two theologies.
What I mean by "sovereign grace—trusting saint" is that grace is a sovereign power that accomplishes all of salvation by overcoming the resistance of our will and making us love and trust Jesus Christ.
On the other hand what I mean by "assisting grace—sovereign saint" is a theology which says that God's role in conversion is to give some conviction and some enlightenment but not to overcome all resistance and not to call effectually, but to leave the final vote with the self-determining power of the individual. God assists. He gets the ball rolling. But the saint is sovereign in that conversion is decisively—not wholly, perhaps not even mainly—but DECISIVELY his own work. God gives general assistance to people and then lets them cast the deciding vote. So what distinguishes one person above another is not the work of God but the personal wisdom or courage or virtue or whatever that causes one person to embrace Christ while others who had the same assistance don't.
4.2. How a person hears the word of acquittal
Both of these two theologies agree that by faith a person hears the word of acquittal and is thus justified.
4.3. The connection between justification and glorification
Both of these theologies agree that those whom God justified he will also most surely bring to final glory. In other words both theologies believe in eternal security for the justified believer. No one who has come to faith in Christ and the enjoyment of justification can ever be lost.
4.4. The process of sanctification
But what about the process of sanctification that connects the initial event of justification and the final experience of glorification? Well, the theology of "sovereign grace—trusting saint" says that this process is a work of God just as much as conversion was a work of God.
"He who began a good work in you will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). "God is the one who is at work in you both to will and to do his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God which is with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10). "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Sanctification is the work of God overcoming my own remaining bent to sinning.
But the theology of "assisting grace—sovereign saint" did not give God the right to overcome resistance in conversion and so does not give him that right in sanctification either. God assisted with some conviction of sin and some enlightenment, but he did not transgress the sovereign territory of human self-determination. Therefore, this is his role in sanctification as well. He can assist with nudges and reminders and the like, but the final and decisive cause of progressive holiness is the self-determining power of the human will.
In the one theology God decisively causes me to walk in his statutes. And in the other theology he suggests that I walk in his statutes but I provide the decisive urge from my self-determining power.
4.5. The certainty of sanctification
Therefore, the theology of "assisting grace—sovereign saint" can only treat sanctification as possible but not certain. Sanctification is left it in the hands of the self-determining saint and God is denied the right to overcome the saint's rebellion. So there is no assurance that the saint's self-determined will, will in fact have holy inclinations. Since God does not cause the saint to will and to do his good pleasure, there is no guarantee that the saint will progress in holiness. So in this theology there is no certainty that a Christian converted will live a holy life. He provided the decisive impulse for his own conversion. It now remains to be seen whether he will use his self-determining power to be holy.
On the other hand the theology of "sovereign grace—trusting saint" says that sanctification is absolutely certain for all those who are called, because God himself has sworn by the "blood of the eternal covenant" that he will work in us that which is pleasing in his sight (Hebrews 13:20–21), and write his laws on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10 = Jeremiah 31:33), and put his Spirit within us and "cause us to walk in his statutes and be careful to observes his ordinances" (Ezekiel 36:27). "He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it" (1 Thessalonians 5:10; 1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Peter 5:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14).
In the one theology a life of holiness is uncertain after conversion because holiness is finally a work of man. In the other theology a life of holiness is certain after conversion because it is finally the work of God—a God whose covenant oath is to work in us what is pleasing in his sight.
4.6. Holiness and glorification
Now we are prepared to see the terrible result of the theology of "assisting grace—sovereign saint." Since real holiness is uncertain in the Christian convert, but glorification is certain, therefore, holiness is not the necessary path to glory. If glory is assured to you on the basis of your initial act of faith, but sanctification is not guaranteed, then the only way you can maintain assurance is to believe that holiness is not necessary for final salvation.
And that is in fact what thousands of professing Christians believe today. They cling to the doctrine of eternal security but reject the sovereignty of grace which guarantees holiness of life, and therefore they reject the necessity of holiness and imperil their souls. For the Scripture says that there is a holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14; cf. Galatians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:10).
If that holiness is not the work of God, if it is not secured for the believer by the covenant oath of God to work in us what is pleasing in his sight, then there is no security.
What I am trying to point out is that many people want the skyscraper promise of Romans 8:28, many want the precious reality of eternal security. But they don't want it on God's terms. They want their security AND their sovereignty. They want God to step in at the end of their lives with sovereign power and give them glory, but they do not want him to step in now with his sovereign grace and make them holy.
O how many unregenerate people are at ease in Zion thinking that they are secure without holiness! Why? Because for generations teachers and pastors have been saying that you can have the security of glorification without the necessity of holiness.
And they have been saying this because they have rejected the biblical teaching of sovereign grace which alone explains how the New Testament on the one hand can give the eternal security of glory, and yet on the other hand make that glory dependent on practical holiness. If God's grace is sovereign, it not only fulfills promises of glory, it also fulfills the practical conditions of those promises.
If only the road of obedience leads to glory, then the sovereign grace of God will infallibly keep his people on the road that they may get the promised glory. Those whom he justified, he also sanctified and THEREFORE glorified.
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory for ever and ever. | <urn:uuid:e95b7d78-5c92-4e23-b03b-c52790a89b6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/those-whom-he-justified-he-also-glorified?turn_off_admin_bar=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96899 | 4,592 | 1.546875 | 2 |
January 5, 2012 | Posted by Doug
"Jesus.... was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." -Luke 4:1-2
| Reading: Luke 4:1-13
Why is temptation so…. tempting? The things the devil invites Jesus to consider are good. Turn stones into bread, gain and use political power, prove to people the power of God. We are most tempted around our strength, not our weakness. How are you being tempted? How do we resist temptation? Jesus responded to the devil out of a combination of Spirit and Word. He is able to see through the superficial to the deeper truth. | <urn:uuid:757b05fb-c658-4a0d-91fc-0c1eea32c1d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newdaybronx.org/index.php/reflect/temptation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966851 | 138 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Hold on before getting prescriptions for antibiotics like Ciprofloxacin or any other higher line Fluoroquinolones or antibiotic. For one thing, I'd like to know how you will know the difference between what they might be affective against, and what they won't touch, such as a virus, and how to correctly diagnose your condition. I have no idea what they might do for parasitic infections, most likely not a thing. Would you get multiple courses, or just take a few and then stop since the symptoms went away? If you take a strong antibiotic, one side affect that can occur in any region of the world, is severe colitis and diarrhea, resulting from the death of the gut's native flora and over growth of yeasts in the colon. If you took it for something like a viral diarrhea, you now have continued diarrhea and a new problem. Plus, you never needed the medication in the first place. Imodium, or Loperamide, pretty much just treats the symptoms of the diarrhea, while constipation is a side effect, you should still drink plenty of (*clean*) water while taking it, and eat normally (if you have an appetite) including foods high in fiber. Same thing for Upper Respiratory Infections. How will you know you have a viral infection, or a bacterial pneumonia, a bacterial bronchitis, or a Tuberculosis? Cipro is not effective against TB, and TB requires long term treatment, not a 10 day course of meds.
If you are not capable of diagnosing various types of infections you really shouldn't have one specific med to treat all things. That is why providers, hospitals and clinics exist. I'm not accusing anyone here, but if you aren't able to buy local insurance or prepared to pay out of pocket for local health care, don't go. If you are going to a region with low standards of care, or limited care, be aware that the risk to outsiders may be high and any diseases contracted may result in a long period of suffering before you can receive effective treatment, or death. I'm not trying to scare anyone, but simply taking a medication for any reason can be completely infective.
Having a few medications like an anti-diarrheal, an anti-inflammatory like Tylenol or Naproxene, or some Tums for stomach upset, is very different from taking antibiotics to treat (with questionable efficacy) any potential infections.
You can't control others around you, but hand hygiene and doing your best to drink clean water are the best strategies. Sanitizers, soap and water, and chlorine tablets can go a long way.
I think Monsoon season will begin around June 20, plus or minus 5 days, not by the calendar according to the NWS, but when dew points rise dramatically, and it begins to rain over the Sacramento Mountains. It will start about 10 days later in Arizona. | <urn:uuid:9bb84bd9-1745-442d-86b1-c7a84f478626> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hikearizona.com/dex2/viewtopic.php?p=80809 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954585 | 599 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The spirit of Africa was alive at the African Arts Society's "Showcase" on November 20 at UC Berkeley.
Children enjoyed face painting, legos and storytelling at the Ready to Learn Fun Fair at Peralta Elementary School in Oakland.
Organizers say Port owners are "1%." Port begs to keep the Ports Open for 99% workers.
The "I am Oakland" collective hosted the Labor Day Fam Bam BBQ at Mosswood Park on September 6.
In response to censorship of Palestinian children's art by an Oakland art museum, dozens came out to protest in Oakland.
College of Alameda student Jepeabo Wellington was murdered days before the school year began.
Hundreds of young people attended the third annual Black College Fair at Laney College, the second year the Oakland community college has hosted the event.
The march was captured by Uhuru News, and is below:
He was the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History, and for seven years was Professor of Legal History in the Law School at Duke University. He was a native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Fisk University. He received the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Harvard University, according to his Duke University biography.
He taught at a number of institutions, including Fisk University, St. Augustine's College, North Carolina Central University, and Howard University. In 1956 he went to Brooklyn College as Chairman of the Department of History; and in 1964, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, serving as Chairman of the Department of History from 1967 to 1970. At Chicago, he was the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor from 1969 to 1982, when he became Professor Emeritus.
We unite with your interest in dialog and resolution to this situation and in building unity among the various communities in Oakland through genuine social justice.
The Uhuru Movement has always understood that our friends may disagree with some of our positions—positions which always uphold justice for the African working class community.
We understand and unite with your concerns that the tense situation in Oakland must be resolved.
It is unfortunate that it takes a situation like this to bring Oakland’s real problems to the surface.
We have to take the March 21 events in the context of the long history that the Oakland police department has had with the Oakland African working class community.
It was the infamous brutality of the Oakland police that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in the 1960s.
There has been the exposure of the notorious Oakland “Riders,” whose brazen violence, harassment, racism and dishonesty are well known.
There have been relentless police murders of African community members young and old, such as Casper Banjo, an elderly African man and well-known, respected artist who was blatantly shot by the police last year.
There are hundreds of African and Mexican working class people who have been murdered by police over the years, real human beings whose names fade from the collective memory so quickly. Many of these victims have been blatantly slandered in the media, doubling the pain of the grieving families.
The recent cold-blooded, point blank BART police murder of young Oscar Grant was only unusual because it was caught from many angles on video.
But it is much more than this. Oakland has a very clear publicly supported policy of police containment, implementing an incessant martial law with ever-present SWAT teams and police helicopters circling over neighborhoods daily.
California’s prison population is the fourth largest in the entire world and the OPD does everything possible to feed young African men and women from Oakland into that system for their entire lives.
Discriminatory legislation such as Three Strikes locks up countless African people as young as 14 years old for things that white people get to go to rehab for.
It has long been documented in articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News, for example, that the US government is responsible for imposing the devastating crack cocaine plague in African communities, and it is well known that the police have and continue to facilitate this.
The Uhuru Movement does not support the loss of life of any person. But the loss of life at the hands of the police in the African community of Oakland has been going on for half a century.
The “tensions” in Oakland are caused by the police, not by an impoverished community struggling to survive.
Even the mainstream media sources such as the New York Times and National Public Radio have had to mention in most reports that many in the African community do not support the police’s position in this case, and understand that Mixon’s actions were the result of years of oppression of a whole community which has come to a boiling point.
Lovelle Mixon’s life, like that of thousands of young African men in the impoverished neighborhoods of Oakland, was over long before he was killed by police. He faced a hopeless dead end of joblessness, poverty and criminalization by a society that would rather lock up young African men than make college or jobs available to them.
The police are not social workers; they are a military force with the assignment to carry out a violent containment policy against a whole community. The purpose of the police is to maintain power for the status quo and uphold the relations of poverty and wealth in the city.
If we want to move forward and “build bridges” as a city there is only one road to do so. We have to truly understand the calls of a community under siege and demand an immediate end to this completely failed public policy of police containment, this war without terms waged against the African community of Oakland.
We have to demand a policy of genuine economic development for the African community—development that truly benefits and uplifts the deeply impoverished African working class of this city, and is not just another cover for gentrification and dispersal of the oppressed.
We appreciate your continued support of the Uhuru Movement and urge you to take an active stand in transforming Oakland into a model city of shared prosperity and true social justice.
A forum on the death penalty was held at Berkeley City College in March. Click to watch video.
Video courtesy of P-Span, Peralta Television.
According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The White House is open for questions."
"We invite you to participate in our community-moderated online town hall. Submit your own question about the economy and vote on submissions from others. We also encourage you to include a link to a video of yourself asking your question (ideally 30 seconds or less), but text submissions are all you need," states the site.
On Thursday, there will be a live "online town hall" at 8:30 AM, Pacific. Visit the White House for more info.
No Justice! No BART! is holding a second protest in order to prevent BART from going back to "business as usual." The protest will be held at Rockridge BART from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday, March 16.
The organization's demands include:
- the firing of BART Police Chief Gary Gee or covering up Oscar's murder
- the firing of BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger or covering up Oscar's murder
- the firing of BART Police Officer Tony Pirone and criminal charges for punching Oscar in the face and holding him down while he was shot
- and an investigation into the other officers present that day and to make changes to ensure this never happens again.
SHOW UP EARLY or use the bus or some alternative means of transport. AC transit lines 7, 51, and 59 stop at the Rockridge BART.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, suffragist, women’s rights advocate, journalist and speaker. She stands as one of our nation’s most uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of democracy. She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862 and died in Chicago, Illinois, in 1931 at the age of 69.
Read the complete article that originally appeared in the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper.
Special to The Black Hour By Lee D. Baker
"The time has come where we must ask ourselves and our legislators whether our budget reflects our goals as a state," says the groups, iwillmarch.com website. "Even with the passage of the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 budget package, we, the students of California's public higher education system, realize that this crisis is far from over and that very real threats are not far ahead. So, join us at Raley Field to begin a march to the State Capitol in Sacramento to express support for California's public higher education system."
For more information how how to "KEEP THE DOORS OPEN to our colleges and universities" and to "come support affordable, accessible, and high-quality education for all!" go to http://www.iwillmarch.com
Power Shift 2009 brought together people from all walks of life for a "movement deeper than a solar panel."
Van Jones, executive director of Green for All, gave the conference keynote speech. Check out the complete video below, courtesy of the Energy Action Coalition.
Van Jones' keynote speech at Power Shift '09.
Video by YouTube user RacefortheTimes.com
Abolitionist, humanitarian, hero, spy, nurse and fearless freedom fighter; Harriet Tubman was all of the above.
Tubman was born ‘enslaved’ in Maryland in 1820. Her original name was Araminta Ross, but took the name Tubman after marrying John Tubman.
As a child Tubman was said to be head strong and resilient. She once bite the knee of a slave owner when she was attacked; one of many acts of defiance Tubman displayed. Tubman often received several lashing due to her “back talk.”
Although she was made to take of children, she was still tough. As she grew older and stronger, she was assigned to grueling field and forest work: driving oxen, plowing, and hauling logs; like any other man.
One day, when she was an adolescent, Tubman was sent to a dry-goods store for some supplies. There, she encountered an enslaved African ‘owned’ by a different family, who had left the fields without permission. His overseer, who was furious, demanded that Tubman help restrain the young man. Tubman refused. And as the slave ran away, the overseer threw a two-pound weight from the store's counter that missed and struck Tubman instead. She said it "broke my skull.” While this left Tubman with a lifelong battle with temporal lobe epilepsy-black outs, it did not cause her will to leave her.
The urge for freedom was always present in Tubman. She had heard of people escaping to the North and surviving. In 1849, Tubman escaped to freedom with her brother.
During the journey Tubman’s brother got frightened and said that he wanted to go back; forcing Tubman to go alone.
I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.She returned and led not only her family to freedom but hundreds more along the ‘Underground Railroad,’ a network of safe houses and where those who escaped slavery could stay while on their path to freedom.
Harriett once said, “I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
A devout Christian who was led by her visions from God, she has been called, “Moses,’ alluding to the prophet who led his people to freedom.
We celebrate Harriet not only for her valor but her courage.
What are you doing to ensure Harriet’s work is not in vain?
By Shontrice Williamson
The Black Hour
Dance crews can battle for money and a change to travel with the Turf Feinz to the World of Dance competition taking place in L.A. this April.
Admission is $10 with proceeds going to the Turf Feinz and The Black Hour Radio Show. Laney College is located at 900 Fallon Street in Oakland.
That is about one in 31 adults. Over 2.3 million were incarcerated by the end of 2007.
Black adults are four times as likely as Whites and nearly 2.5 times as likely as Hispanics to be under correctional control. One in 11 Black adults – 9.2 percent – was under correctional supervision at year-end 2007.
“Black adults are four times as likely as Whites and nearly 2.5 times as likely as Hispanics to be under correctional control. One in 11 Black adults – 9.2 percent – was under correctional supervision at year-end 2007,” according to the report.
"And although the number of female offenders continues to grow, men of all races are under correctional control at a rate five times that of women." (In case you thought Madea Goes to Jail was a joke.)
Although the U.S. has only five percent of the total world population, Americans represent 25 percent of the total incarcerated.
Learn more about the prison industrial complex at Critical Resistance.
"Reginald and Monica highlighted the importance of social justice and diverse youth voices in getting both national and international policies passed to combat climate change," according to Global Exchange's blog.
Click here for link to show archive, or click play below. You can also download the episode below.
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Lauderdale County's top spellers were on display Friday at the area spelling bee at Meridian Community College.
More than 80 of the best spellers in fourth through eighth grades from public, private and home schools took part.
"The winner from ten years ago is in college now in Rhode Island, on a full scholarship," said spelling bee coordinator Barbara Williams. "The winner from five years ago is in college here at MCC on a full scholarship. So we think the spelling bee is a springboard for good things academically for the children. "
The winner, 8th grader Emma Martin of Northeast Middle School, will move on to the state spelling bee March 16th.
The winning word was wampum, which are traditional, sacred shell beads of eastern woodlands tribes. | <urn:uuid:be04c8b3-f7df-4d35-a1d9-4839a99c4f02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtok.com/schools/headlines/85593847.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97453 | 162 | 1.5 | 2 |
And now for something completely different (and not homestead related, really)…
I am part of a home school group that has a mom’s meeting once a month. This month’s meeting theme was gratitude, and specifically, what can we do to help our children be more grateful and whine and complain less.
I made a list of what the moms in the group suggested. With the holidays coming up, I thought others would really appreciate the ideas on this list as much as I do. Please note that my home school group is Christian so there are some biblical references, etc. If that is not your thing, just skip over it to the next item on the list. I think there is good stuff on here for any family, no matter your beliefs.
- Have each family member write things they are thankful for on paper leaves, every day in November. Paste to a tree.
- Start a Gratitude journal – write in it everyday. Give your kids a journal to do the same (little kids can draw what they are thankful for).
- If your children receive lots of gifts at Christmas, have them pick some to keep and pick some to donate.
- Teach your children to give gifts at holidays. Help them think of what the recipient would like.
- Have your children write thank you notes. If this is tough, no playing with the gift (or using gift cards/money) until the note is sent. If your kids are little, they can dictate to you and then practice writing their names.
- Go through toys after Thanksgiving to find items to donate.
- Every night, ask your kids what their favorite thing was today. Good idea for dinner time or bed time. Can’t say “nothing.”
- When praying for your food, get more specific. Instead of saying the same rote prayer, thank God for where each specific food item came from, the farmer who grew it, the weather in your garden, the animal that sacrificed, the worker who picked it, the ripeness of the berries, the flavor, specific nutrients, the person who prepared it for dinner, etc. After praying each of you should thank the cook too!
- Check out Ann Voskamp: “One Thousand Gifts” onethousandgifts.com and aholyexperience.com Read her book and/or do her challenges (31 day Challenge for Joy)
- On birthdays (or other special days), have each person go around and say what they love about the birthday person.
- Do The Blessing Challenge http://www.theblessing.com
- When you pray only thank God, don’t ask for things. Help your kids to do the same.
- Read and memorize Philippians 2:14 and I Thess 5:18, teach these to your kids.
- Read together “Material World: A Global Family Portrait” and “What the World Eats” by Peter Menzel
- Read “My Many Colored Days” by Seuss to help your children learn to name their moods and emotions instead of just whining or complaining.
- Do the Complaint Free World challenge – no complaining of any kind for 21 days. http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/complaint-free-schools has a free curriculum for “Complaint Free Kids.” Do this together as a family. This curriculum (and Bowen’s book) help clearly define what a complaint is.
- As a family, serve the poor together at a soup kitchen or shelter, or sponsor a child in a third-world country (pick one with a birthday close to your kids’).
- If your kids are whining, crying, complaining, etc., “H.A.L.T.“ Are they Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?
The biggest take-away from the meeting for me was that modeling gratitude, thankfulness, not complaining or whining, thanking your kids and your spouse are the most effective ways to instill gratitude in your kids.
In what ways does your family show gratitude? Do you have any tips for curbing whining and complaining? | <urn:uuid:ae11dd4a-9e83-4754-9f26-005764eb46f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lazyhomesteader.com/2012/10/09/18-ideas-for-gratitude/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=f5309b4960 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939544 | 873 | 1.625 | 2 |
Editors note: This is Lucy’s story, the first in a monthly series of guest posts on the subject of mental health. Lucy is in her 30′s and a mum to two lovely children. It is in her own words, and is a thought provoking and inspirational piece about how brief moments in our lives can take us into chaos, or set us on the path to recovery.
Recently I was looking at some reports about “chaotic” families in social care. The average ‘chaotic family’ in Somerset costs the state nearly £200,000 per year. In order to look deeper into these statistics, the people themselves have been asked to talk about their life journeys. During their stories, certain significant moments jump out as turning points. Stepping through the doors of these crucial moments, the families involved started taking destructive paths that ended up in chaos, depression, poverty and dependence. The researchers call these turning-points – in oddly spiritual language – ‘moments of truth’.
Reading these stories made me wonder how mental health survivors would tell their own stories. Could this teach us something about successful recovery? Could mental health services create positive ‘moments of truth’ in order to improve people’s lives? Having worked in mental health, I would often look at the people engaged in activities in day services and feel somewhat despairing: surely we can do better in creating turning-points for people?
I consider myself to be a ‘survivor’. At the age of 20 I was diagnosed as bi-polar. Coming from a family with a history of mental health problems, I submitted to a regime of medications: haloperidol, propanolol, prozac, diazepam, lofepramine, thioridazine. Anti-depressants and anti-psychotics: a familiar story of madness. And yet I recovered, as do many people after an episode of severe psychological problems. What were my moments of truth?
I believe my ‘moments’ partly stemmed from my own horror at ‘hitting the bottom’: waking up naked in my own garden in the tide of some new medication, being confronted with a cheque but unable to sign my own name, having to pick medication up every couple of days from the pharmacy because I wasn’t trusted not to gobble it all up. Those moments made me hate my medication and in the end, I stopped taking everything except for sedatives.
But more positively, my recovery began with my ninth ‘talking therapist’ – a psychotherapist called Teresa, who I saw at least once a week for just over two years. She was still, quiet, penetrating and non-judgemental. And I remember that after my first session, after she had said almost nothing while I talked and as I put my hand on the door handle to leave she simply said: “You are not as mad as you think you are.” No one had told me that before. I had been told: “You are bi-polar/you are psychotic/you are not to be trusted with your own recovery.” With Teresa’s simple statement, my recovery began.
There were other moments of truth, too: a job, a new place to live, a supportive partner, and siblings who helped me, practically and emotionally. But whenever I think of my own recovery, I think of that moment in north London, my hand on the door handle, and Teresa’s simple statement whirling through me like a prophecy.
Can we engineer moments of truth, or are they different for each person? Are they, as the language suggests, more spiritual than practical? How do other ‘survivors’ recall their own recovery – what helps, and what doesn’t? And can this inform how we run services for mental health users? Are we offering the right services? Are we making the right moments of truth?
Huge thanks to Lucy for being willing to share her story on my blog. If you have experienced mental health issues yourself, or perhaps supported someone through emotional distress please feel free to comment and if you would like to contribute a guest post just get in touch via the ‘contact’ page. | <urn:uuid:b373761b-f0e6-4d70-9705-87b0fed6a94a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nowrigglingoutofwriting.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/moments-of-truth-in-mental-health-lucys-story/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=9233933e84 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970654 | 885 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The crew at iRobot continues to broach into new territories for its household robotics. Now these little automated pool cleaners aren’t anything groundbreaking (we had one way back in the early 90s), but perhaps iRobot manages to do it better, though I can’t envision how.
Anyway, the iRobot Verro (that means “sweep” in Latin for those of you who took a useful, non-dead language in college) comes in two models, the 300 and the 600. They feature a vacuum and filtration system that annihilates dirt, algae and bacteria as small as two microns. It cleans a pool in 60 to 90 minutes. It can be had for $800 and $1200. | <urn:uuid:a62bbe62-ca3b-4570-968b-07a2bac2a53e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2007/04/10/irobot-plunges-into-the-depths-of-your-backyard-pool/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973328 | 154 | 1.84375 | 2 |
For more photos of the commissioning ceremony Saturday, go to
The fourth Navy warship named after San Diego but the first to be homeported here was commissioned on the waterfront Saturday before 6,000 people, who marveled at a cavernous vessel that will carry Marines to distant parts of the world.
The $1.7 billion amphibious transport dock formally joined the Pacific Fleet as scores of service members rushed to man the rails on the double-masted ship in a tradition that goes back centuries.
Speaking to a crowd that extended from the bow to the stern, Adm. Mark Ferguson, vice chief of naval operations, said he was thankful for the opportunity to “once again reaffirm the bond between the American people and her Navy, and a city and her proud heritage at sea.”
Moments later, Linda Winter, the ship’s sponsor and wife of former Navy Secretary Donald Winter, took to the podium and said: “Man our ship and bring her to life.”
Sailors and Marines double-timed it through an opening in the crowd and flooded onto the San Diego, while friends and family members blew kisses and jockeyed to take cellphone photos.
The San Diego is largely a troop transport vessel, capable of carrying up to 800 Marines and a naval crew of about 360. It also carries tanks and helicopters, and it is one of the stealthier ships in the fleet. The vessel’s twin masts are hidden in bland gray cones meant to reduce its radar signature.
It will take a year or more to prepare the ship for overseas deployment, and the Navy is anxious for that day to arrive.
“Our expectations for this ship are very high,” Ferguson said. “They arise at a time when nearly half of our fleet is underway on a given day, when we are surging forces to the Middle East to deter the threat of aggression … when we are rebalancing and shifting our forces to the Western Pacific, and when we face increasingly complex and global security challenges in an uncertain fiscal environment.”
The ship is also expected to have an emotional impact in the city that bears its name.
“I know the sailors enjoy being on a ship that has the same name as the city. We feel the same way about the citizens,” said Cmdr. Kevin Meyers, commanding officer of the San Diego.
Jennifer Surcy, a 31-year-old career counselor on the ship who grew up in La Mesa, said serving on a vessel named San Diego “feels awesome. I was stationed in Virginia. It’s good to be home.”
Saturday’s ceremony heightened an already exciting and nerve-racking period for the local naval community.
On May 2, the littoral combat ship Independence sailed into San Diego Bay — its home — for the first time. Three days later, General Dynamics-NASSCO launched the dry cargo ship Cesar Chavez from Barrio Logan. On Thursday, the amphibious assault ship Essex arrived in San Diego after suffering damage when it collided with an oiler offshore. And the city is preparing for the return of one of its two aircraft carriers, the Carl Vinson. | <urn:uuid:1e482eb0-bd6b-42ae-b26f-079fd6ea15fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/may/20/tp-uss-san-diego-joins-the-fleet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955557 | 665 | 1.578125 | 2 |
With the release of producer and consumer inflation figures yesterday and today, it is safe to say that the period of maximum weakness forecast by the downturn in the long leading indicators over a year ago has begun. Notice I didn't say "recession." Neither the increase in initial claims yesterday, nor the inflation data, causes me to re-think that position I just re-examined within the last month (a period of weakness now, followed by relative strength later in the year). But weak data is likely to persist for several months at least.
First, let's briefly look at initial jobless claims. Prof. Dean Baker says not to panic, the increase is due to the non-winter winter distorting seasonal patterns.
That may be true, but on the other hand, there may be a different seasonality at work. The below graph includes the last 2 years of claims, and highlights April through June last year and claims since April 1 of this year in red:
It may be that the recent re-jiggering of seasonal adjustments was incomplete, or it may reflect increased layoffs due to the seasonal increase in gasoline prices tightening the choke collar on the economy.
Next, let's examine commodity, producer, and consumer prices. What is noteworthy is that, after a period of heightened commodity and producer price inflation, those are now declining on a YoY basis to the point where they are equal to or below consumer inflation. As of today, YoY CPI is +2.7%. YoY Commodity inflation is now +2.6%, and producer prices YoY are +2.8%. In the past, as I will describe more below, when the rate of commodity and producer price inflation goes from higher than to lower than consumer inflation, it has almost always coincided with weakness.
The inflation data isn't leading, it is coincident. But by examining the last few periods of weakness, we can get a very good idea how long it is likely to persist. (Note: the graphs below do not include this morning's CPI data).
First of all, here's a look at YoY consumer prices (blue), finished producer prices (red) and commodity prices (light green) since 1996 (note: I've divided the change in commodity prices by 2 for better scale only):
Notice that there have been 4 periods of relatively weak commodity and producer prices since 1996. Notice further that just prior to both recessions since then, commodity and producer prices ran much hotter than consumer prices. They crossed consumer prices about 1/3 of the way into each recession, and each recession ended when YoY commodity and producer price changes were at their lowest. This by the way is also exactly the pattern for the pre-WW2 deflationary recessions, including both the Great Contraction of 1929-32, and the Recession of 1938. That YoY commodity and producer price changes have now become weaker than YoY consumer prices tell us we have entered the period of maximum weakness.
In the next few graphs, I've subtracted producer prices from consumer prices. Thus a negative reading is a period when producer prices are growing faster than consumer prices. In the first, these are compared with YoY GDP (red):
Negative readings don't always mean negative GDP (remember the importance of consumer debt refinancing at lower rates). But when producer and commodity prices suddenly become weaker than consumer prices, at minimum a bout of weakness (1998, 2002, 2006) if not recession (2001, 2008) follows.
Next is the same relationship, except that the comparison is with quarterly changes in GDP:
When we make this substitution, we get a noisier relationship, but on the other hand you can see that quarterly GDP changes track the relative weakness or strength of consumer vs. producer prices very closely, as in only one or two quarters later.
Since it is weakness in inflation-adjusted wages that in part triggers the economic weakness, next let's compare real wages (red) with producer vs. consumer prices:
Note that once again, while there is noise, the two tend to move in tandem. Thus as producer prices weaken, we should expect to see real wages improve.
How long will the weakness last? As I've repeated above, the weakness bottoms almost exactly when producer and commodity prices are at their YoY weakest. That isn't as difficult to predict as it may seem. In each of the 4 periods of relative weakness since 1996 shown in the first graph above, the weakest point came within one month of exactly one year after the highest monthly producer and commodity price reading. The last 5 years of commodity (red, dividing by 2 for scale) vs. consumer (blue) price changes are shown in the bar graph below:
In 2008, the last strongly inflationary month was July. Barring a deflationary spiral, it wasn't too difficult to foresee that the maximum YoY reading in commodity prices would be July 2009. Based on past deflationary recessions, including the Great Depression, that meant the "Great Recession" was likely to bottom in about that month. That was a strong contributing factor in my ability to foresee when that recession would bottom in advance.
In 2011, the last strong inflationary month was April. Unless there is a severe recession, it is unlikely that YoY commodity prices will continue to decline after July, or September at the latest. Better real wages and improving business profitability caused by the greater decline in commodity prices should assert themselves beginning at that time. That means this period of weakness should start to abate sometime during the summer -- i.e., too short and too shallow to be considered a recession. | <urn:uuid:f3078260-52ea-460e-bd45-dc475901edf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/the-weakness-begins-2012-4?pundits_only=0&get_all_comments=1&no_reply_filter=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967111 | 1,149 | 1.710938 | 2 |
By Jeff Gray
When Glen Artis would prop his feet up on the park bench where he slept, the rats would scuttle between the wheels of his wheelchair.
“The plug where I charged my chair was between two trash cans, so the rats were always bothering me,” says the 50 year-old New York native.
Much has changed for Artis in the three months since Street Sense last profiled him. He has gone from living on the street to inhabiting a stable residence, a move that came in late November when he was accepted into a housing initiative through the homeless service organization So Others May Eat (SOME).
“One day the phone rang,” Artis remembers. “It was like a gift from God.”
Following a single room occupancy, or SRO, format, the SOME housing provides Artis with his own private room within a larger housing structure.
Though the SRO is merely a temporary location while Artis waits on the list for his own apartment, it is a vast improvement over the D.C. shelter he dwelled in before moving out on the street. He compares the “negative environment” of the shelter to the rodent colony he once slept above.
“It was disgusting and dirty,” he says. “Everyone was running around and fighting, like those rats. If I dropped my food, they would steal it.”
Artis says the positive change in his life was preceded by a harbinger in the form of a different animal.
“One day I was selling the paper and a pigeon comes up to me. Next thing you know, there’s pigeons everywhere. To me, that was a sign of good things to come,” says Artis, who now carries a bag of bread crumbs to attract his feathered omens.
Birds aren’t the only ones that flock to Artis on the corner where he sells his papers. Dispensing smiles and warm greetings like handfuls of bird feed, he draws crowds of customers.
It is these loyal Street Sense consumers, who he refers to as “angels sent from the Almighty,” to whom Artis attributes all of his success.
“Without my customers I’m no one,” he asserts.
In addition to monetary contributions for the paper, Artis has received food, clothing and even a recent Happy New Year’s card from his beloved patrons. Above all, however, he appreciates their donations of time and conversation.
“They show me love, they show that they care,” he says. “They give me a lot of positive energy.”
It is this positive energy that has buoyed Artis during his quest to get off the streets.
“If you send out negative energy, you’ll stay down like the rats. If you stay positive, you’ll rise up like the birds.” | <urn:uuid:01904d3e-a5bc-4183-b0fb-56271e7bdad2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.streetsense.org/2013/01/vendor-profile-glen-artis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979298 | 621 | 1.703125 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The military has stopped production of a new medal for remote warfare troops -- drone operators and cyber warfighters -- as it considers complaints from veterans and lawmakers over the award, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a review of the Distinguished Warfare Medal, which was to be awarded to troops who operate drones and use other technological skills to fight America's wars from afar.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said Hagel ordered another look in light of concerns by lawmakers and veterans groups, mainly the following: Although troops can get the new medal for work far from the battlefield, it has been ranked above medals for those who served on the front line in harm's way, such as the Purple Heart given to wounded troops.
"He's heard their concerns, he's heard the concerns of other," Little said of Hagel.
If the review agrees with those complaints, the medal would likely have to be renamed and new medals manufactured, a government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
In ordering a new look at the medal, Hagel said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey would lead a review of how the medal is ranked among others -- where it is in what the military calls "the order of precedence" of the medal, Little said.
Hagel is going to work with Dempsey, the service secretaries and the service chiefs to review the ranking. He wants Dempsey to report back in 30 days.
In addition to vet concerns, there is a practical side to the rankings for currently serving troops. There are grades of medals -- commendation, merit, distinguished -- that affect not only the name but promotions for those still in uniform. Each grade gives troops a certain number of points needed for promotions.
Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the new medal last month, saying it was meant to recognize battlefield contributions in a world of changing warfare.
"I've seen firsthand how modern tools, like remotely piloted platforms and cyber systems, have changed the way wars are fought," Panetta said. "And they've given our men and women the ability to engage the enemy and change the course of battle, even from afar."
Over the last decade of war, remotely piloted Predator and Reaper drones have become a critical weapon to gather intelligence and conduct airstrikes against terrorists or insurgents around the world. They have been used extensively on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and northern Africa.
Over the same time, cyberattacks have become a growing national security threat, with Panetta and others warning that the next Pearl Harbor could well be a computer-based assault.
Officials said in announcing the medal last month that it would be the first combat-related award to be created since the Bronze Star in 1944. And they said that in recognition of the evolving 21st century warfare, the medal would be considered a bit higher in ranking than the Bronze Star, but lower than the Silver Star.
The Veterans of Foreign War and other groups say that ranking it ahead of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart is an injustice to those who served on the front-lines.
John Bircher, a spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart, has said the veterans groups are not objecting to the medal -- just the ranking. He said some medals ranked ahead of the Purple Heart are achievement medals that can be earned outside of war time. What bothers many veterans is that the new Distinguished Warfare Medal appears be a war-time medal that trumps acts of valor, which he finds insulting.
The backlash to the Pentagon's announcement included an online petition to the White House signed by thousands of people. The petition called the medal "an injustice to those who served and risked their lives" and asked that it not be allowed to move forward as planned. | <urn:uuid:3c05b03a-4c24-494c-8b03-04c6b3dc10c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hudsonhubtimes.com/ap%20washington/2013/03/12/official-production-stopped-on-new-cyber-medal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969855 | 790 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Posts Tagged «ISPs»
AT&T tempts fate by toying with potentially anticompetitive use of data caps January 17, 2013 at 7:39 am
AT&T is exempting traffic used by an AT&T Wireless microcell from counting against usage caps on their DSL and U-Verse services. The equivalent product from Verizon will continue to count against the caps. Sadly, this means ISPs are still trying their damnedest to skirt around net neutrality regulations.
IPv6 makes mobile networks faster January 16, 2013 at 7:30 am
At CES 2013, a panel of experts on Internet Protocol technology discussed IPv6 and the benefits of having mobile devices use IPv6 instead of IPv4. As it turns out, IPv6′s large addressing range offers some pretty awesome benefits.
China is turning its ISPs into internet police December 28, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Scary new legislation that was recently approved will effectively turn China’s ISPs into the internet police. Now, ISPs will be forced to delete content deemed illegal and file a report with the government. While the Chinese government bills this as safeguarding “national security and public interests,” the power this grants the PRC leadership is worrisome.
Verizon to throttle pirates’ download speeds November 16, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Court was where the battles between pirates and copyright organizations were held. Thankfully, that is becoming more of a rarity. However, copyright enforcement is moving to the venue of ISPs, and that might be even worse.
The Pirate Bay evades ISP blockade with IPv6, can do it 18 quintillion more times June 8, 2012 at 7:03 am
If you thought the RIAA and MPAA were a force to be reckoned with in the US, the last few months have shown that anti-piracy lobbying is alive and kicking in Europe, too. British, Dutch, Finnish, and Belgian judges and governments have begun forcing ISPs to block The Pirate Bay — but the Swedish site has found an ingenious way to evade the blocks.
Can cable companies keep the dream of municipal WiFi alive? May 21, 2012 at 4:33 pm
The nation’s five biggest cable providers are combining their WiFi hotspot network. Is the idea of WiFi anywhere in our cities back from the dead? | <urn:uuid:3b77d64a-8c98-4bb9-aa0f-997f2b0e436d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.extremetech.com/tag/isps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964565 | 474 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Why Do Lead Singers Pick On Drummers?
- By Andy Doerschuk
- Published April 27, 2010
Drummers don’t just sit at the back of the stage because that’s where our drum riser happens to be. We tend to get shoved back there figuratively as well as literally. If you need evidence, do a web search for the phrase “drummer jokes,” and watch as the stereotypes pile one atop the other. Not convinced that they reveal a hidden prejudice against your drumming brethren? Okay. Try replacing the word drummer in any one of those jokes with an ethnic slur and see what happens the next time you repeat it in a crowded room. Better bring your boxing gloves.
If we only occasionally had to endure being the brunt of a joke, there really wouldn’t be any problem. But some musicians still feel that drummers are somehow less musical because we play rhythms and beats instead of chords and melodies. And nothing riles me more than a lead singer who likes to blame the drummer for everything – real and imagined – that goes wrong onstage while onstage.
I’ve seen this one far too many times. The lead singer counts off a song. You’ve got the tempo locked into your internal metronome a couple clicks before the first downbeat. The band comes in at precisely the tempo the singer specified, but by the eighth measure he or she demonstrably turns to you and yells, “Will you pick it up?” with a scowl – as if it was somehow your fault that the singer counted off the song too slowly.
So you bite your tongue and pick up the tempo. And for a verse – or even worse, half the song – the groove wobbles backward and forward while the band tries to guess the proper bpm and find a pocket to lock into. I’ve seen this throw off a band so badly that it can render an otherwise jumping dance number to an embarrassing train wreck.
The drummer did nothing wrong, but the singer definitely blew it. Counting off a song at the wrong tempo is like starting to play a solo before you tune up your instrument. Actually, in my opinion, if a song happens to start off a tad slower or faster than usual, professional musicians – and professional singers – should be able to make it work, especially without having an onstage hissy fit.
Here’s another great one that I recently saw. You’re in the middle of a song, and without turning around, the singer puts one hand down and makes some kind of circular motion toward the drummer, as if someone was running in front of you and wanted you to catch up. What exactly is the meaning of this inexplicable signal? Well, my first instinct tells me that the singer wants the song to speed up.
But it might also mean, “give me more.” But more of what? More volume? More ghost notes? More fills? It’s hard to say, so you know what I do? I give them more of everything while slightly picking up the tempo. I don’t do it to be malicious. I’m simply trying to fulfill the wishes of a singer whose mind I am unable to read.
Yet more reasons why we drummers must stick together.
Five Ways To Spot A Drummer
- By Andy Doerschuk
- Published in the October 2010 issue of DRUM! Magazine
(Left) How could this guy be anything other than a drummer?
While nobody likes to be stereotyped, it’s hard to deny that drummers share certain character traits, and some are quite quirky. Even those of us whose demeanors have more in common with techies or dentists can reveal a unique tic that hints at a background in the percussive arts.
So imagine you’re at Starbucks sipping a latte. You spot someone across the room that seems familiar, even though you’re positive you’ve never seen that person before. Something tells you he or she is a drummer – you aren’t sure why.
But I know why. Here’s a list of things you might have seen that when personified within a single individual almost guarantees a drummer is in your midst.
1. Black T-Shirt
Many people enjoy wearing back t-shirts, but most wear other types of shirts and colors too. Drummers don’t want to think about fashion that much. They have other things on their minds: Practicing, gigs, more practicing. Plain black works, but printed shirts tell you something about the drummer’s preferences. Sometimes it’s scary. And if you see a sweat stain on the chest, be it fresh or salty dry … bingo. You found a drummer.
2. Rhythmic Tics
Marriages break up because of this one. The guy at Starbucks is sitting in a chair looking at his iPhone while his right leg is bouncing at about 160 bpm. Or he taps out single-stroke rolls on the tabletop with his fingers, or clicks his teeth together in time. He isn’t aware he’s doing it, doesn’t realize how weird he looks, and doesn’t care anyway. He’s working out a drum part in his head.
More abstract, harder to spot – it’s a certain kind of grandiosity that is both street and celeb. Many drummers have a big personality. We like to show off onstage under spotlights. We don’t blend into the background. We’re often loud even away from the drum set, although that also might have something to do with deafness.
4. Time-Zone Disconnect
Starbucks again. It’s 9:00 at night and everybody is ordering dessert and decaf, except the guy in the black T-shirt. He orders a triple espresso. Alternative scenario: It’s 11:30 a.m. He rolls in with his hair messed up, bleary eyes, and wearing sweatpants. Still orders a triple espresso.
5. A Logo
It can be on virtually any kind of personal item: a backpack, a wallet or keychain pulled out of a pocket. The ultimate is a T-shirt. Seriously. If the Starbucks guy is wearing a black t-shirt shirt with a big, hairy Zildjian logo – or Pearl or Pro-Mark or anything else – totally ignore the first four bullet points. Just walk up and introduce yourself. He’s a bro.
Touring Inside A Pressure Cooker
- By Andy Doerschuk
- Originaly published in the September 2012 issue of DRUM! Magazine
I took a bullet for the cause in late June, when I dragged my new and still gleaming set of red sparkle Reference Pure drums out to Parking Lot A of AT&T Park in San Francisco. I was working at the Percussion Marketing Council booth, where we offered free drum lessons to any and all comers at the 2012 Warped Tour.
Not long after we finished setting up, a guy in a road-worn leather jacket strolled by, checked out the kit, and asked what we were up to. We began chatting and I learned he was going to play drums with Jukebox Romantics that afternoon on the stage nearest the PMC booth.
It turned out he was filling in for the band’s regular drummer for the first half of Warped. I asked how they were traveling, and he explained they were in a 12-seater van, “but we’re not pulling a trailer, so we’re carrying our gear in the back. It’s pretty cramped inside.”
In fact, it was so crowded they had to sleep in the van sitting up, shoulder-to-shoulder. “Wow,” I replied, “are you getting any sleep at all?”
“Maybe an hour or so a night,” he laughed as I faked a jaw drop. “But we’re all friends – it’s worth it.”
Truth is, it doesn’t matter if you’re sleeping in a 12-seater or bunked in a luxurious tour bus, when you’re on the road for an extended tour, it’s vitally important for everybody to be friendly. Otherwise, it’s like trying to survive in a pressure cooker turned on high.
My friend, the Latin jazz drummer and teacher Chuck Silverman, equates the experience to being on a boat in the middle of the ocean. “There’s nowhere to go but into the water,” he says. “You’d better know how to get along in many, many situations.”
But what do you do when there are tensions in the van and you still have months left on your itinerary? I once found myself on the road with a bunch of guys I barely knew in the mid-’80s. The initial run of gigs was great. Everyone was excited about the tour, joking around, having fun. But within a couple of weeks it became obvious that the lead singer had a problem with me.
At first he was just kind of sarcastic. But when his comments became snarkier, I finally asked where the hostility was coming from. “I don’t know,” he said. “You just kind of bug me.”
How do you deal with that? My solution was to clam up and ride it out, but it was too late. The friction had poisoned the atmosphere in the van, and spoiled everybody’s experience, onstage and off.
So if you dream of touring with a band, it’s important to have a good attitude when you’re on the road. Learn to be the type of person other people want to sleep shoulder-to-shoulder next to and your phone will keep ringing.
To Pull Tone From A Drum Takes The Right Touch
- By Andy Doerchuk
- Originally published in the July 2012 issue of DRUM! Magazine
When a 1995 interview with Zakir Hussain turned to the topic of tone, the tabla maestro confessed something surprising. As a child prodigy in India, he’d been consumed with developing technique while being all but unconcerned with the implications of tone.
It wasn’t until he began playing with western musicians in the ’70s – long after he’d become a worldwide sensation – when he began to consider the artistry of tone. If I remember correctly, he credited the Brazilian wild man Airto Moreira for opening his eyes to that school of thought.
Zakir was right. A command of tone stands alongside technique, dynamics, and empathy as powerful tools to add human emotion to music. He was also right that western musicians are highly attuned to tone. I think some are even a bit obsessed with it.
On more than one occasion I’ve found myself onstage between songs staring aghast at a guitarist making an arduous series of microscopic adjustments to one of the stomp boxes on his pedal board while the audience waits for the next song. “Seriously?” I generally ask myself. “Would it matter if he had a bit more echo, or a bit less flange, or whatever it is he’s fiddling with?” I suspect not.
Case in point: I used to play with a guitarist named Carlos Guitarlos, an L.A. bluesman who became a local legend in the ’80s with Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs. I was always amazed by his ability to adapt to virtually any instrument. He could, and often would, plug literally any guitar into any amplifier and make it sound good without fancy effects boxes.
How’d he do it? The tone was in his fingers. He pulled it out of the guitar. The way he touched the strings – bending notes, working the volume control and whammy bar, finding natural overtones, playing with feedback, adapting, adapting, adapting – made all the difference.
But can the same be said for an instrument played with sticks and pedals rather than fingertips? I think it can, and naturally, I have a story about it.
It was 1990. I had just finished interviewing Steve Gadd backstage at the Oakland Arena while he was playing on Paul Simon’s Rhythm Of The Saints tour. Gadd’s drum tech walked me onto the stage so that I could sketch a drum set diagram.
I could barely believe my eyes. The heads on Gadd’s Recording Customs were thrashed, with visible dents and worn-clear patches across the surfaces. I tapped one of the toms and got back a flat, buzzing sound. The show was just hours away. Why didn’t the kit have a fresh set of heads?
The tech laughed, apparently reading my quizzical look. “I’d love to change the heads, but Steve won’t let me,” he said. “He likes ’em like this.”
Minutes later the band came onstage to begin their sound check. I moved to the mixing console in the middle of the massive, empty cavern and listened as Gadd tested each drum.
The snare was snappy and fat, the toms deep and full with a pleasantly descending pitch, and the bass drum boomed with just enough control to add some punch to a puff of resonance. Amazing. Classic.
There had been no need to worry about the sorry state of his drumheads after all. The tone came from Gadd’s practiced hands.
How To Tame The Errant Kick
- By Andy Doerschuk
- Originaly published in the August 2008 issue of DRUM! Magazine
Just when you think you’ve finally got life figured out, reality aims a fastball right between your eyes, leaving you wallowing in the grime at home plate, gasping for breath. And strangely, that can be a good thing, because it’s important to remember every now and then that everything in life is transitory, and the only constant is change itself. I got a reminder recently while on the bandstand, and I’m still reeling.
It began quite innocently. A month or so ago, while in the middle of a gig, I happened to glance down at my pedals – something I do habitually throughout a set, just to make sure everything is working properly – and noticed the beater on my bass drum pedal swinging wildly between strokes. “Huh,” I thought. “I don’t recall ever seeing it do that before. That’s odd.” To my ear, it had no impact on the beat that I was playing, so I didn’t put any further thought into it. But whenever I looked at my pedals during the next few gigs, I noticed that the bass drum beater was still waggling back and forth between hits. I mean, really waggling.
Then a couple of weeks ago I was in the middle of a gig, and the bandleader, Daniel Castro, had just counted off a shuffle. We were playing the intro, which typically would last no more than 16 or 32 bars, but something was clearly wrong. We had cycled through the progression a couple of times and yet Daniel was still neither soloing nor singing. Instead, he was standing in front of the drums with his back to me, and appeared to be listening to something. Then he slowly turned around to face me, and trained his eyes on my bass drum.
We had comped through several verses by this point, and I’m sure the audience was as baffled by his behavior as I was. Then Daniel walked over to our bassist, Glade Rasmussen, and said something into his ear. Glade turned to Daniel and nodded toward my bass drum. And then I looked down, saw my bass drum beater uncontrollably flying back and forth, and suddenly realized what was happening.
Since we were playing a shuffle, I was laying down a simple four-on-the-floor on the bass drum – or at least I thought I was. But I quickly realized that the uncontrolled swing of my beater was adding a softer but audible eighth-note between each bass drum quarter-note. The net effect was that my hands were playing a triplet-based shuffle and my right foot was playing straight eighths.
I was mortified, and immediately began playing heel-down and with less velocity in order to control the throw of my bass drum beater. After a few measures Daniel kind of shrugged, then went over to the microphone and began to sing the first verse. Needless to say, I kept my eyes trained on my right foot for the rest of the gig, and have played heel-down ever since.
I really don’t know what happened. I did a recording date not long before, and was able to clearly hear every note I performed in the playback, and didn’t hear any stray bass drum notes. Somehow, my bass drum technique spontaneously changed on its own. I’ve been practicing my pedaling technique every night to regain the control that I once had.
Have any of you ever had a similar experience? If so, I’d love to hear that I’m not alone. Please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. | <urn:uuid:b192d039-f15a-42c6-95ca-817a2d5cca38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drummagazine.com/andy-doerschuk/P5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972326 | 3,659 | 1.84375 | 2 |
SO ARTUR MAS (pictured above), the Catalan nationalist president, was no Moses after all. His attempt at leading his people towards the promised land of a new nation state floundered at regional elections yesterday which saw his Convergence and Union (CiU) coalition lose a fifth of their seats.
The election result wasn’t a thumping victory for anti-separatists and for the centralising government of Mariano Rajoy either. The outright separatists of the Republican Catalan Left (ERC) took CiU's lost seats to become the second force in the 135-seat parliament, with 21 deputies. And a clear majority in parliament now wants Catalonia to have a formal right to self-determination.
With only fifty seats Mr Mas must still govern. To do that he will either lean on ERC – who will egg him on in his confrontation with Madrid – or on anti-separatists in the Catalan branches of the Socialist Party or on Mr Rajoy's People's Party (PP). The Socialists and PP won 20 and 19 seats respectively. ERC seems Mr Mas’s most likely choice, though nothing is clear.
Mr Mas must tread carefully. The only obvious result of his failed attempt to grab control of a sudden surge in support for independence has been polarisation. In strictly numerical terms, the number of seats jointly held by the broad-church nationalists of CiU and more determined separatists like ERC remains exactly as it was. But on both sides, the hardliners have gained territory. The small, virulently anti-separatist Citizens party, for example, tripled its representation to nine seats.
The fallout in terms of social cohesion in this wealthy and normally placid north-eastern region of Spain is entirely unpredictable. The first fractures were already becoming visible during campaigning. And Mr Mas's more moderate, if minority, coalition partners from the Catalan Democratic Union (who put the “U” in CiU) will be fuming. Their preferred solution to the sovereignty problem is a negotiated confederation with the rest of Spain. They do not like confrontation with Madrid, or uncertainty over Catalonia's future within the European Union. They hate ERC.
So where does the independence issue go from here? Mr Mas had called for a clear majority to make a giant leap forward in the long-running march to ever-greater sovereignty for Catalonia. He did not get that.
The vote on November 25th has made things messier. The Catalan parliament will proclaim a right to self-determination that the Spanish constitution does not allow. It will also pass a law on referenda that Mr Mas will try to use to call a non-binding referendum of some kind. Even so, after CiU's weak showing, a referendum may not come for four years and the question asked could be deliberately wooly. And expect an aggressive reply from Mr Rajoy's government, if it is still in power. It could have a referendum declared illegal in advance. Spain's socialists, floundering on this and other issues, simply add greater uncertainty.
Either way, a new deal on regional financing is badly needed. The main driver of Catalan discontent – apart from the current economic crisis – was the amount of tax money handed over to poorer parts of the country which have failed to wean themselves off subsidies. As Catalans see cuts to their own health and education services, they think the money could be better spent on themselves.
The best cure is for Spain as a whole to beat recession, bring down its 25% unemployment rate and rekindle lost optimism. But that is still at least two years away. And, even if the economy recovers, the Catalan question will not go away. A new, young generation of Catalans has been told independence was around the corner. As their frustrations mount, they might get impatient. This could prove dangerous. | <urn:uuid:0584866f-6b42-4d8b-9de8-8feac5d1a09f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/comment/1769531 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97031 | 788 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Dispute Resolution Clinic
The Dispute Resolution Clinic (DRC) offers students the opportunity to practice non-litigation dispute resolution skills and strategies in the real-world setting of New Hampshire and Vermont courts. Students observe and contribute to court-based mediation sessions of claims cases and bring their experiences back to the classroom where they review and analyze their cases in clinic-style rounds.
DRC students study under the guidance of Professor Robin Barone, administrator of small claims mediation programs in two Vermont courts and in Lebanon New Hampshire District Court. Students must have free time during Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday to go to courts is Vermont and New Hampshire. Weekly seminars will focus on course readings regarding conflict theory, mediation techniques, litigation strategies, public policy and social justice issures, as well as ethical and licensing concerns. A portion of each class will be devoted to clinic-style rounds, enabling studens to present the cases they have mediated for discussion and feedback. Students will be asked to analyze mediation practices and conflict theory from the various perspectives of mediator, attorney advocate, parties and client.
"Mediation," Professor Barone says, "is never boring." Conflict theory, problem-solving strategies, public policy, and social justice issues are discussed in the classroom and later applied in real-time mediation sessions. Students spend 24 hours observing and participating in mediation of small claims cases and come away from the course with a deeper understanding of the complexities and advantages of mediation.
The American Bar Association notes that in the future, "dispute resolution...will become an integral part of every attorney's practice." Through the DRC, students gain the first hand experience that will help prepare them for a future in which non-litigation dispute resolution plays a critical role. This course is offered twice a year in the fall and spring semesters.
Prerequisities: None; however, the course begins with an intersive skills session in the form of a day-long training session scheduled before the start of classes. Attendance at this course is mandatory. There is also a mandatory Saturday training session. Students interested in taking the course must attend these sessions. No exceptions can be made. | <urn:uuid:90ea5fd0-6770-41e1-b385-8430a326b2fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Academics/Clinical_and_Externship_Programs/Clinical_Programs/Dispute_Resolution_Clinic.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936654 | 444 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The mission of Wilderness Based Orientation (WBO) is to enhance student success while transitioning into college. We do this by engaging students in the intensive social, physical, and educational atmosphere of a structured wilderness expedition. During these expeditions, WBO aims to develop the strength and quality of character necessary for collegiate success. These qualities include tenacity, honesty, craftsmanship, compassion, intrinsic motivation, and leadership. Through WBO, we attempt to shape the culture of the freshman class by exposing students to the values held by Western State College. These values include learning, critical thinking, knowledge, education, leadership, fun, service to others, community, citizenry, environmental stewardship, and healthy lifestyles.
Standard of Excellence & Safety
WBO has established a standard of excellence for program quality and safety that is among the highest in the industry. For eleven consecutive years we have offered 'high-end' programs similar to those offered by leaders in the field such as the National Outdoor Leadership School and Outward Bound. WBO is directed by Janna Hansen, a full time professional administrator specializing in wilderness adventure programming.
Studies have shown that students who participate in adventure orientation programs as they enter college retain at a higher level, have less difficulty during their first year of school, have a higher GPA, and ultimately are more likely to graduate. All WBO courses are led by highly trained Western State College student instructors. Many are alumnus of WBO and all are ready to make the WBO experience an exceptional one. Studies have also shown that new students who are able to connect with an upperclassman or staff/faculty also retain at a higher level. WBO provides a wonderful opportunity for your new student to build a relationship with and be mentored by our WBO student instructors.
Your son or daughter can expect to have fun, make new and lasting friendships and experience adventure as they get to know their new home here in the Gunnison Valley. They will learn about Western and a great deal about themselves. I see many students who met on a WBO course that are still close friends on graduation day. A small investment in allowing your son or daughter to attend WBO will make the most of your larger investment in their college education, and most importantly in them as a person. Western State College has scholarships available to students that desire to attend a WBO course.
Please see frequently asked questions to find out about our safety record, how to get involved, and difficulty level of our courses. Please peruse our website to learn more about WBO course offerings. Feel free to contact us anytime with further questions.
Thank you for your interest in WBO!
Janna Hansen, WBO Program Director
Monday- Friday 9:00-5:00 MST | <urn:uuid:c1007694-58d4-46ed-9989-d8cd1883ecf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.western.edu/student-life/wp/wilderness-based-orientation-wbo/parents-page.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963467 | 562 | 1.585938 | 2 |
By Charles B. Stockdale
MSN Money Partner
These 10 once-loved eateries now register the biggest sales declines in the business.
There is a school of thought that says the restaurant business is always a good business because people need to eat. A glance at the sales of many of America’s largest restaurant chains over the past decade quickly dispels that myth.
Using data provided by food industry research firm Technomic, 24/7 Wall St. has looked at the 10 restaurant chains with the greatest decline is sales from 2001 to 2010. In every case, sales have fallen 60% or more.
Many restaurants on this list are casual family-dining establishments. Most offer American-style cuisine — steaks and burgers — in a bar or grill setting. These restaurants — including Bennigan’s, Ground Round and Damon’s — expanded quickly during the 1990s. But their presence was overshadowed by newer restaurants that consumers found more exciting, such as Applebee’s. Even now, new fast-casual restaurants such as Buffalo Wild Wings and Chipotle are outselling, and in many instances replacing, older restaurants.
Of course, economic factors also have contributed to a drop in restaurant attendance. Most of the restaurant chains on our list have filed for bankruptcy and closed large numbers of restaurants over the past decade.
These are 10 America’s disappearing restaurant chains.
1. Bennigan’s Grill & Tavern
Bennigan’s is an Irish-themed casual-dining restaurant with locations nationwide. In July 2008, the restaurant filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. The company closed its 160 corporate-owned locations, laying off approximately 10,000 employees. Of the 138 franchised locations that avoided the bankruptcy filing, only 35 remained as of 2010.
2. Ground Round Grill & Bar
Ground Round is a casual-dining restaurant chain that serves burgers, steaks, Tex-Mex and more. It has locations in the Midwest and the Northeast. In February 2004, the restaurant’s parent company declared bankruptcy, immediately ceasing operations at 59 company-owned restaurants on a Friday night before the dinner rush. The 72 franchise locations remained open. Ground Round is now owned by Independent Owners Cooperative, LLC, a group of 30 franchise owners. As of 2010, only 25 Ground Rounds remained in business.
3. Bakers Square
Bakers Square is a casual-dining restaurant that, although serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, is best known for its pies. The restaurant is located primarily in the Great Lakes region and in California. In April 2008, parent company VICORP, now American Blue Ribbon Holdings, LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of declining restaurant sales and high lease rates. The company closed 56 stores, including the original Bakers Square in Des Moines, Iowa. Only 45 Bakers Square restaurants remain, compared to the 148 that existed in 2001.
4. Damon’s Grill & Sports Bar
Damon’s, based in Columbus, Ohio, is an American-style restaurant that emphasizes prime rib, grilled steaks, chicken, seafood, salad and ribs. The restaurant, which also positioned itself as a sports bar, ran into tough times in 2006 as the quality of home entertainment improved enough to keep sports fans at home. This was an aspect of the business the restaurant depended on. The chain had 137 restaurants in 2001, but only 86 in 2007. The company has begun reformatting its restaurants, altering their interiors, menus, and logo. Today, however, there are only 38 Damon’s locations.
5. Don Pablo’s
Don Pablo’s is a national chain that serves Tex-Mex-style food. In September 2007, Avado Brands Inc., the parent company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company sold a number of its assets, including many buildings that were subsequently auctioned off to other restaurants, such as Buffalo Wild Wings. From 2001 to 2010, the number of Don Pablo’s fell from 131 to 39.
6. Gloria Jean’s Coffees
Gloria Jean’s Coffees was founded in Chicago in 1979. By 1995, the brand spread to Australia, where it is a huge success today. In the U.S., the brand, which was owned by Diedrich Coffee, expanded rapidly, reaching 330 locations by 2001. The expansion proved too much for the company, which began to have financial troubles. Diedrich sold the international segment of Gloria Jean in 2005. In 2006, it sold a large number of cafes to Starbucks. In 2009, Diedrich sold the remaining Gloria Jean’s Coffees to Praise International North America. As of 2010, only 87 cafes remain.
7. Big Boy
Big Boy is the restaurant with the most locations on this list. It is also perhaps the most well known. In 2000, the company’s owner, the Elias Bros. Corp., declared bankruptcy after experiencing cash-flow problems and difficulties with expansions. The month before it filed for bankruptcy, the company closed 43 restaurants. The restaurant, which specializes in double-decker hamburgers, has not done very well since. In 2001 Big Boy had 405 locations. By 2010, that number had decreased to 141.
8. Tony Roma’s
Tony Roma’s is a casual-dining restaurant that markets itself as specializing in ribs, seafood and steak. Over the years, the number of Tony Roma’s restaurants has dwindled, largely because of a decline in the brand. On a national scale, the number of Tony Roma’s has dropped from 162 to 45 between 2001 and 2010. However, the restaurant maintains a large international presence.
9. Country Kitchen
Country Kitchen is a rustic home-style restaurant that serves self-described “comfort foods.” From 1977 to 1997, the brand was owned by Carlson Cos., which deals primarily with hotels. It is perhaps unsurprising that many Country Kitchens are attached to travel plazas and hotels. Overall popularity of the chain has fallen dramatically, with the number of restaurants dropping from 249 in 2001 to 64 in 2010.
10. Black Angus Steakhouse
Black Angus Steakhouse currently has 46 restaurants in six Western states. As of 2001 it had 107 restaurants. ARG Enterprises, the restaurant’s former owner, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004 and then again in 2009 before being purchased by Versa Capital Management. Many Black Angus Steakhouses were in areas that were hit exceptionally hard by the mortgage crisis, causing business to decline significantly | <urn:uuid:1ff73638-9529-4774-aa21-a8b8f01744f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utahdinersguide.com/wordpress/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962249 | 1,355 | 1.601563 | 2 |
January 02, 2013
US President Barack Obama ... happy a deal has gone through. Photo: AP
Ending a climactic fiscal showdown, the US House of Representatives has passed legislation to avert big income tax increases on most Americans and prevent large cuts in spending for the Pentagon and other government programs.
The measure, brought to the House floor less than 24 hours after its passage in the Senate, passed 257-167, with 85 Republicans joining 172 Democrats in voting to allow income taxes to rise for the first time in two decades, in this case for Americans earning more than $US400,000 ($385,000) for individuals, or $US450,000 ($433,000) for couples.
Voting no were 151 Republicans and 16 Democrats.
The bill is expected to be signed quickly by the President. Barack Obama, who won re-election on a promise to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans to force them to pay a larger share of the government budget.
Mr Obama strode into the White House briefing room shortly after the vote to hail the end of the fiscal crisis but to lay out a marker for the next one.
"The one thing that I think hopefully the new year will focus on is seeing if we can put a package like this together with a little bit less drama, a little less brinkmanship, and not scare the heck out of folks quite as much," he said.
The measure isn’t the grand bargain on deficit reduction the politicians wanted when they created the tax-and-spending deadlines over the past three years.
Instead, it averts most of the immediate pain and postpones Congress’s fiscal feud for two months - until a February fight over raising the $16.4 trillion debt limit.
Not a single leader among House Republicans came to the floor to speak in favor of the bill though the Speaker, John Boehner, who does not take part in every roll call, voted in favour.
Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader, and Kevin McCarthy of California, the No.3 Republican, voted no. Paul Ryan, the budget chairman who was the Republican vice-presidential candidate, supported the bill.
Mr Obama warned Republicans against trying to use a forthcoming vote on raising the debt ceiling to extract spending concessions.
‘‘While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills they’ve already racked up through the laws they have passed,’’ he said.
‘‘Let me repeat, we can’t not pay bills that we’ve already incurred.’’
In approving the measure after days of legislative intrigue, Congress concluded its final and most pitched fight over fiscal policy, the culmination of two years of battles over taxes, the federal debt, spending and what to do to slow the growth in popular social programs like Medicare.
The decision by the Republican leadership to allow the vote came despite widespread scorn among House Republicans for the bill — passed overwhelmingly by the Senate in the early hours of New Year’s Day — because it did not include significant spending cuts in health and other social programs. They say cuts are essential to any long-term solution to the nation’s debt.
Earlier, state and local government officials had said inaction would deal a setback to the economy, hammering revenue and undermining a newfound financial stability.
‘‘If we truly went over the fiscal cliff and we had a recession, that would be just devastating,’’ Donald Boyd, a fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, New York who studies state finances, said ahead of the agreement.
‘‘Taking that off the table, it removes a massive worry.’’
Worked out by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, the Senate's bill makes permanent the income tax cuts for workers that earn less than $400,000, continues expanded unemployment benefits, and delays automatic spending cuts for two months.
It lets a 2 per cent payroll tax cut expire.
Earlier, Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, a Republican, said he expected the House to pass the Senate’s plan unchanged with a "substantial" bipartisan vote.
"Let’s accept the wins that we have and live to fight another day," Cole said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
What is the fiscal cliff?
The fiscal cliff was a political trip wire set in place by politicians.
It came into being last year, when the Republicans in Congress, many of whom were swept to power in the Tea Party revolution of 2010, refused to raise what is known as the debt ceiling – the amount of money Congress would allow the government to collect to pay its bills.
Unable to come up with a deal to curb the nation's spiralling debt and deficit, Congress instead 'kicked the can down the road'. The Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling only if both sides accepted a set of debt and deficit reduction measures so savage and arbitrary they would force the parties to agree on more sophisticated measures before they kicked in on January 1.
This set of tax increases and spending cuts became known as the fiscal cliff – a term first used by Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
The New York Times, with wires and Nick O'Malley | <urn:uuid:14464c4f-2a21-403e-ac2f-fbe749ba9b9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.theage.com.au/business/world-business/us-reaches-fiscal-cliff-deal-20130102-2c4qp.html?skin=iphone | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95251 | 1,109 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Need some help figuring out how the pod calculates the IOB. Here is a little example:
@ 3:50 bolused 2.3 units as correction for high BS
@ 4:10 bolused 5 units to pump out air bubbles
checked bs at 5:00 and, using the bolus calculator, the PDM says I have 1.3 units on board. My active time for insulin is 3 hours. I'm no math genuis, but shouldn't it have said at least 1/3 of my bolus from 4:10 was on board (thus 3.5 units)?
I know stacking insulin isn't ideal. I was dealing with high unresponsive numbers yesterday for over 6 hours and, after checking to make sure the cannula was still inserted and knowing I hadn't changed my diet and wasn't ill, decided to give a big bolus to get any air bubbles out. Found out this morning that my cannula was bent (fabulous!), but I'm still confused about the pods math skills. Can anyone explain it or tell me where I'm wrong. Thanks in advance!
I've never heard of bolusing to pump out air bubbles. There shouldn't be any air bubbles. Were you advised to do that, or did you come up with it on your own?
I've never heard of "pumping out air bubbles" from a pod. There's only something like 11 mm of tubing inside the pump, and those cannot be seen at all, so I'm having trouble understanding how you knew there were air bubbles and how you knew to bolus such a large amount (5 u) for this occurrence (5 u is much larger than the 11 mm distance of tubing). Can you give more details about what, exactly, the rep said?
Also it looks like Allie has already answered the question, but I'll add that any bolus you give that is not a correction and is not for carbs (for example hit "bolus" from home screen, then hit "no" to BG and hit "no" to carbs, and you can still dial up units of insulin and confirm that for a bolus) will also NOT be counted in IOB. So in either case of you giving those 5 additional units (whether you somehow calculated a carb amount or whether you did what I mentioned above and bolused w/o BG o carb input), it wouldn't be counted in any future calculations.
Sure Bradford! The rep told me that she often experiences differenct absorption/bubble issues and registers bs in the 200s. She experimented and found the right amount to bolus to correct for these (which is different for every person based on her/his current basal needs). If she has a bs over 200 after a previous correction (and all other factors are constant) than she figures there is something causing absorption issues (unresponsive tissue, bubbles, etc.) and will bolus accordingly. She never advised me to bolus 5 units. There were many circumstances that lead me to bolus that much (5 units is 1/2 of my total daily basal-I know it was a lot). It was my first pod using humalog and I was worried that it had stopped working properly. I had been running over 350 for 6 hours-but it had remained fixed. From prior experience I knew that my bs spikes much higher if I am receiving no insulin. So, after checking the cannula through the window and finding it still inserted I decided to do a huge bolus and see if my bs moved at all. If there was little/no movement I would know that I needed to change my pod due to poor insulin/kinked cannula. If my bs responded than I would chalk it up to absorption issues. Hope that explains it and thanks for explaining the IOB!
I wouldn't do that if it were me. If there are bubbles, it's not as easy as just "pumping them out". I say that because bubbles that small don't float around, but just stick to the sides of the resevoir. Extra pumping won't do anything at all to those bubbles. Best solution is to work really hard to not get them in there at first. I noticed that you almost always have some bubbles in the syringe, and can't get them out. But, if you don't put too much pressure on filling the pod they usually don't transfer to the pod. I fill my pod rather slowly, in that I'm barely 1/2 way down by the time the pod beeps. My trick to get as few bubbles as possible is while filling the syringe, pull insulin a little way, then wait a second and push some back into the vial. That allows the big bubbles to get to the top, and be pushed back into the vial. I do that as many times as it takes until the push back in no longer produces bubbles. A tap/flick of the syringe a few times between these helps too.
As far as math skills, the pod is made that you really don't need any. You're supposed to just put in the carbs, and your take your BG often and the pod does all the math for you. If you keep your diet steady and solid, the only thing that will get the BG numbers off then is the rare occurance like you had with the canula, or if you have bad spots where the insulin does absorb well from the pump into your body.
One thing I do hate, is that the PDM doesn't carry "on-board insulin" between pod changes, so you do have to do some math there if you eat soon after you've switched pods and if you've bolused for correctly recently.
This picutre is awesome!
In the IOB calculation, the pod is different from the other pumps. The pod only uses boluses that were given for high blood sugar to calculate IOB, not boluses given for food/carbs. So in your example if the 2.3 units were given to correct a high BS at 3:50, then at 5pm, between a third to a half of this dose should still be on board and acting (i.e. the 1.3 units). The pod does not consider insulin given for carbs as IOB because it's there to counteract the food you ate. So in your example, if the 5 units at 4:10 were given as a meal bolus, none of it would ever factor into the IOB. Does this make sense?
Did you take it as a meal bolus ? Why ?
You made 2 boluses within 20 minutes.
In 20 minutes the first bolus was just starting to act and bring down your BG, you can't expect a correction bolus to show in your BG readings in such a short time.
I think it's very very dangerous your "correction method" , and never heard of.
If you have steady high readings, try instead putting a higher temporal basal, or just change pod (you can't see if it's kinked).
Bubles to little or nothing to your high BG readings, it's wrong basal, fat or protein rich meals you are not used too (ex.: pizza or only meat meal), or occlusions.
Thanks for your concern garidan! I agree-the first bolus wouldn't have shown in my bs readings w/in 20 minutes. I explained in my response to Bradford that this was my 3rd correction bolus. I had experienced 6 hours of over 350 readings that were holding constant. When I checked 20 minutes after my 3:50 correction, although I couldn't tell if it had started working yet, I was certain that my previous 2 correction boluses had been delivered and were out of my system. I decided that I would do a huge bolus and if my numbers didn't move I would change my pod.
As for the bubbles-I frequently register over 200 readings 12 hours after changing a pod or on the third day. I've only been on the pod for 3 months (after 11 years on MM) but I've come to 2 conclusions: if my bs is high 12 hours after a pod change I know that I can bring it down with a little extra bolus (or a temp. basal). My pod rep explained to me that, in her experience, this is due to abnormal absorption. Whether that is tissue related/some air being forced through the cannula the outcome is the same for me-I need to increase my insulin intake to bring down my bs and get my body/the pod used to the new site. If my bs is high on the 3rd day I know that my site has started to lose compatibility with the pod and I need to increase my insulin intake. I am still figuring out what temp. basal to use based on pod location (arms, legs, etc.) to offset the numbers in the 200s.
Thank you for suggesting wrong basal or high fat meals-all good advice. However, I have recently run basal testing and know that my current settings are right (at least for now). Also, I am on a strict low carb diet and add very little variation to what I eat. Very little-really none at all. It was the only way for me to achieve stable bs. It removed one more variable. That only leaves occlusions. This was my first pod that had a bent cannula. Now I know what those bs numbers look like vs. poor site selection/absorption resistance vs. no insulin delivery numbers. If it happens again, I will act quicker to change the site. | <urn:uuid:b2fd977e-e946-4ffc-8175-9d46511f1be1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/omnipodusers/forum/topics/omnipod-iob-calculations?xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977526 | 1,984 | 1.523438 | 2 |
If you've had a conversation with me in the past last six months, or at least since I became a homeowner, then you probably know I'm on a serious mission to uncover sustainable and renewable energy options for the City of Havre de Grace (and my own home).
Just to keep readers in the loop, I've been speaking with experts on the different options available.
And what an interesting ride it's been so far.
I've been in touch with the most radical of those experts (some who believe living "off the grid" is the only way to escape big energy monopolies who are draining our pocket books) to the most grass roots organizations and experts, who say they're just normal folks looking for ways to conserve our earth's natural resources and cut back on energy costs in their humble homes.
On a local level, I've been working closely with Barbara Wagner, a member of Main Street, Inc. (who also happens to be a candidate for the upcoming city election) to tie Main Street's Green Committee with the city's newly-founded Alternative Energy Commission, which I likely will be leading.
Main Street, Inc. is a jewel to the city for many reasons, but in this case because there are may people within that organization who are interested in sustainability; and the organization has opportunities for funding through the state Main Street Program. Main Street is a valuable asset to the sustainable energy and green initiatives we are working toward for the city as a whole.
Barbara Wagner and I met with Mayor Wayne Dougherty in Tuesday morning to discuss options for forming an official commission within the city (different from Main Street's Green Committee), which would be charged with looking into sustainable energy options for residents.
The city's commission would have a representative from each department, a chair (hopefully me) and a Main Street liaison (I'm guessing that would be Barbara Wagner).
The city's commission would work closely with Main Street's committee to be sure we are researching grant opportunities and gathering as much information about potential options as we can.
The mayor was open about allowing us to leave the proposed sustainable energy commission as a grass roots group, but also gave us the option to go through a legislative process in order to make the commission official.
Dougherty himself seems interested in sustainable living, telling me he recently installed a partially solar water heater in his house, and has researched options such as wind mills and solar panels in the past.
He is, of course, aware that many residents are sensitive about our city's waterfront and our need to preserve the views of the bay to the best of our ability, when researching wind mill options.
And Dougherty isn't the only one in the city who is already taking baby step initiatives in going green. I know Bruce and Sharifa, owners of Laurrapin Grille on North Washington Street are always looking for earth-friendly and sustainable solutions to running their business. They have a solar water heater on the roof of their building and grow their own herbs for cooking. They're also committed to buy organic and local.
And there are plenty of other city residents who are getting involved in green and sustainable solutions as well.
For those who are confused as to why there will be both a committee and a commission working toward this effort: well, I can't say I fully understand why it's necessary myself.
But I do know that the Main Street sponsored committee will be researching lower level green options, such as recycling, and will follow state Main Street mandated guidelines for the committee, such as educational sessions for residents.
The city's commission (this is where I come in) will be focusing on larger-scale options, such as alternative energy like wind and solar, for residents and the city as a whole.
Even though sustainable living is certainly not a new idea, it's one that is now being embraced by more people throughout the country, possibly because of the struggling economy or just because people are waking up and realizing the world's resources will not last forever.
On a more personal note:
I truly believe this is the time to teach our future generations about the importance of protecting our earth and all of the gifts it has for us, by finding less damaging ways to live.
Instead of looking at it as a new way of living, I believe it's actually an old way of living.
In reality, we're just researching a way to go back to the basics.
I think in order to do that, we have to let go of a lot of the preconceived notions about what we need, what's most important, and how important status is to us.
Instead, we need to discover the things we really need to live comfortably.
At the risk of sounding like a complete hippie, I say we need to go back to the old mantra that less is more.
Eat, sleep, shelter, education, relationships.
And then we throw out the fluff, and see what's left.
I have a feeling we will be growing our own gardens, creating our own compost, recycling everything, and generating our own power in, well, no time. | <urn:uuid:29a5dc83-5400-4f46-a723-3fd1bac5ffe1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://havredegrace.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/green-sustainable-renewable-or-maybe-just-common-sense-living | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97031 | 1,044 | 1.6875 | 2 |
I. The European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organisations, drawn up within the Council of Europe by a select committee of experts under the authority of the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ), was opened for signature by the member States of the Council of Europe on 24 April 1986.
II. The text of the explanatory report prepared by the select committee of experts and submitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, as amended and completed by the CDCJ, does not constitute an instrument providing an authoritative interpretation of the text of the Convention, although it might be of such a nature as to facilitate the understanding of the provisions contained therein.
1. Since 1945 the number of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has increased considerably. The variety of their aims has also multiplied. However, NGOs, unlike associations, foundations or other private institutions having aims and activities limited to one country, pursue their activities in several countries, hold meetings in diverse places, employ personnel of various nationalities, etc., because of the international nature of their aims. All these "transnational" activities naturally create problems, and thus the difficulties encountered by NGOs are greater and more complicated than those faced by domestic associations, foundations or other private institutions. Although several attempts have been made to alleviate their difficulties at international level, there is as yet no international instrument in force.
2. The Council of Europe recognised, as early as in 1951, the importance of the NGOs, each in its particular field, and of their contribution to the activities of the Organisation. It therefore adopted a resolution providing for consultation of NGOs on matters within the competence of the Council of Europe. This was followed by guidelines for granting consultative status to a group of NGOs in 1954 and finally in 1972 the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution (72) 35 containing new rules on the Council of Europe's relations with NGOs, irrespective of whether they enjoy consultative status or not.
3. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, being equally aware of the absence of any international instrument in force aimed at facilitating the activities of NGOs at international level, charged in 1981, on the proposal of the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ), a committee of experts with an exploratory mandate to study the possibility of an intergovernmental action in this field at European level. Acting on a CDCJ report based on the committee's work, the Committee of Ministers charged a select Committee of experts on international non- governmental organisations (CJ-R-OR) with the task of drawing up an appropriate instrument on NGOs.
4. The CJ-R-OR held three meetings in 1982 and 1983 and submitted a draft European convention on recognition of the legal personality of international non-governmental organisations to the CDCJ for approval. This draft convention, after being approved with some amendments by the CDCJ, was adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 24 October 1985 and the Convention was opened for signature by member States in Strasbourg on 24 April 1986.
5. This article sets out to define the conditions which en international non-governmental organisation must satisfy in order to qualify for the advantages conferred by the Convention.
These conditions, which have to be satisfied permanently as a fundamental requirement for continuing to benefit from the recognition provided for in the Convention are as follows:
a. Nature of the NGO
6. The NGO must be an association, a foundation or other private institution. In the law and practice of member States, an association means a number of persons uniting together for some specific purpose and which, when it has legal personality, also has separate identity to take legal action, to acquire property, to enter into contracts, etc. A foundation is an identified property devoted to a given purpose. The term "other private institution" is added to cover certain institutions with legal personality (for example, religious congregations, trade unions, mutual companies) which in certain States have aims and structures similar to those of associations but which are not legally considered as such.
7. The introductory sentence to Article 1 makes it a requirement that associations, foundations and other institutions should be "private". It follows that the Convention covers any entity which, whatever the legal nature of the provision of domestic law whereby an NGO is created (public law or private law in States where this distinction exists), does not exercise prerogatives of a public authority.
b. Non-profit-making aim of international utility
8. An NGO must not have a profit-making aim. This condition distinguishes NGOs from commercial companies or other bodies which exist to distribute financial benefits among their members. However, an NGO may make a profit, without altering its character, in connection with a given operation (for example, by renting a property, selling a publication, etc.) if that operation is to serve its non-profit-making aim. Furthermore, the aim of an NGO must be of international utility and not simply of national or local utility, that is, it must be of benefit to the international community. This would therefore exclude political parties and other political organisations whose aims and activities are centred on the domestic problems of a given country.
9. The Convention does not define the expression "international utility". However, the Preamble to the Convention affords a number of useful pointers to its interpretation, since it refers to "work of value to the international community", the requirement that it should contribute to achieving the aims and principles of the United Nations Charter and the Statute of the Council of Europe, and the scientific, cultural, etc., nature of the activity. This last-mentioned element also makes it easier to circumscribe the concept of "non-profit-making aim".
c. Establishment by an instrument governed by internal law
10. In order to be covered by the Convention, the instrument whereby an NGO is established must be governed by the internal law of a State. Consequently, organisations and institutions set up by treaties or other instruments governed by public international law are excluded. This provision is justified by the fact that such entities are subject to public international law and not to the domestic law of a contracting State, so that the problem of recognition by other states does not arise.
d. Activities carried on in at least two States
11. This is the logical consequence of the international nature of the non-profit-making aim of an NGO. The important point here is that there is no requirement for activities to be carried on in at least two Council of Europe member states, but simply in two different states. Therefore NGOs established in a member state and carrying out their activities in another State which is not a member of the Council of Europe (for example, to fight famine in a third world country) are not excluded.
e. Statutory office in a contracting State
12. Sub-paragraph d lays down two conditions for the NGO to benefit from the Convention: it must have its statutory office in a contracting State and the central management and control in that State or another contracting State. The first requirement is developed in Article 2, which is the fundamental article of the Convention (see paragraphs 13-15 below). The second requirement was adopted in order to protect the interests of persons concluding contracts with an NGO by ensuring that some of its assets are located in a contracting State.
13. Paragraph 1 of the article lays down the rule of recognition as of right in all contracting States of the legal personality and capacity acquired in one contracting State. Consequently, no special procedure has to be followed to obtain recognition of legal personality.
The principle is that the law which governs the substance of the NGO's legal personality and capacity is the law of the State in which the statutory office of the NGO, as stated in the memorandum and articles of association, is situated.
14. The fundamental criterion of the statutory office was adopted for two main reasons. The first of these is the fact that in deciding on its statutory office the NGO manifested a wish to be subject to a given system of law, and that wish should be respected. The second reason is an essentially practical one, since this principle makes it possible to avoid any break in continuity in the legal personality of an NGO when its real seat changes because the newly elected president or secretary general resides in another State.
15. The principle of the statutory office does of course entail an important change in the law of States where the rules of private international law are based on the concept of the real seat.
Such a change is justified not only on practical grounds (to avoid situations in which the applicable law changes too often when the administrative seat changes) but also by the fact that the Council of Europe is a community where respect for human rights and democratic principles constitutes the unifying element, that is, a homogeneous legal grouping characterised by a measure of mutual recognition as between legal systems. In addition, the economic reasons underlying the principle of the real seat in the case of commercial companies are less important in the case of NGOs, which pursue non-profit-making aims.
16. The principle of the statutory office means that the NGO will have the same legal capacity and personality in all the contracting States as are required in the State where that office is located.
17. However, it was recognised that such a rule could not be an absolute one. In some States, important public interests are at the root of some restrictions or special procedures applied to, the exercise of rights which together constitute legal capacity. For example, some States require that authorisation be granted for the acquisition of real estate. These restrictions, limitations or special procedures laid down by domestic law for national entities analogous to foreign NGOs may be applicable to the latter by virtue of paragraph 2 when they are required by essential public interest.
It should be noted that these must be restrictions or limitations not on the legal capacity per se but on the "exercise" of the rights through which legal capacity manifests itself.
18. Furthermore, if a State lays down general limits applicable to all foreigners, an NGO which has obtained legal personality in another State will be subject to those limits.
19. This article deals with the question of proof of the NGO's existence to be presented to the authorities of the State in which the NGO wishes to be recognised. When it seeks recognition in another State an NGO is to supply evidence that it has already been established in the State of its statutory office and enjoys legal personality and capacity.
20. It should be noticed that the State in which the NGO wishes to be recognised does not have to ascertain whether the legal personality has been validly obtained in accordance with the law of the State of the statutory office. The control should be directed only to see whether the proofs mentioned in Article 3 have been produced.
21. Since legal requirements and procedures to establish an NGO differ from State to State the proof to be supplied to this effect cannot be the same in all cases. Some States require registration, publicity, or an authorisation for the acquisition of legal personality or capacity, while in some States just a written agreement between founder members would suffice. In the former cases the production of registration, publicity or administrative authorisation would be enough, but in States where a simple agreement in writing of founder members is sufficient for the acquisition of legal personality it is necessary that such an agreement be supplemented by an additional act which is evidence that the agreement has in fact been concluded at a given time. The Convention requires for this purpose a certification by an authority which the State concerned will indicate at the moment of the signature or ratification of the Convention. This is intended to avoid confusion and possible refusal on the grounds of insufficient proof and thus facilitate and expedite the recognition.
22. In order to make it easier for NGOs to function, paragraph 2 provides for the possibility of a State establishing an appropriate form of "publicity". The advantages of such a system to an NGO are obvious, since it will be obliged to furnish the proof required by paragraph 1 only at the time when the "publicity" requirement is to be satisfied. Subsequently, it will be able simply to make use of the "publicity" as proof of its legal personality.
However, it should be noted that this "publicity" must not be constructive in character, that is, recognition of legal personality must not be made subject to the production of that "publicity".
23. This article constitutes a guarantee clause designed to counterbalance the effects of automatic recognition of legal personality.
It should be noted that the application of this article is independent of the application of Article 1.
24. Article 1 (see paragraph 5 et seq. above) sets out the conditions which have to be satisfied in order to invoke the Convention. These conditions must be met not only at the time when the NGO is seeking recognition but also throughout the period of that NGO's activity in a State. Failure to satisfy any of these conditions automatically removes the right to invoke the Convention.
On the other hand, Article 4 can apply even if the conditions of Article 1 are met.
25. It was decided not to refer generically to the "public policy" (ordre public) of the State but, following the example of Article 11, paragraph 2, of the European Convention on Human Rights, to specify the grounds on which a refusal of the recognition of legal personality in another State can be based.
26. This was done in order to avoid using the expression "public policy" (ordre public) which can give rise to difficulties where NGOs are concerned. In some States the concept of public policy is twofold: the first meaning encompasses all binding national rules, while the second concept refers only to the fundamental legal principles of the legal system (this second concept being "public policy as defined in private international law").
The first concept would mean that an NGO which did not satisfy any binding provision of domestic law could not be recognised. If the second concept were employed, recognition could only be withheld for infringement of a fundamental principle of the legal system.
27. The concept of public policy as defined in private international law could of course have been used in Article 4, but it is not a concept known to the legal systems of all States. Consequently, the enumeration based on Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights has been adopted.
28. In order to complete the grounds contained in sub-paragraph a, which are of an internal character, sub-paragraph b introduces an international element.
It would in fact be unacceptable, in view of the ideals of peace and democracy enshrined in the Council of Europe's Statute, for an NGO to be accepted in a State where its activities would be legal when it is common knowledge that the aim of that NGO is to engage, either in the State in question or in another State, in activities which would damage the latter. This would run counter to the development of peace and good relations between States. | <urn:uuid:e7a7a60d-59e4-47b5-ab64-6c38383b516d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Reports/HTML/124.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957692 | 3,017 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Relocation is a challenging task. It becomes all the more arduous if you have to shift a home full of goods and live in a completely strange environment. But proper planning can take away the pain from this process. The two essential steps in this process are studying the new area in advance and getting a reliable moving service.
Study the new area carefully
People mostly relocate when they get a new job in a new place. As singles tend to have very few possessions, they can put all their possessions in a car or a truck and then zoom off. They can stay in a hotel for some days and then look around for renting a good apartment or purchase a new house. But if you are married and have children, you must spend a lot of time and energy for advance planning. So for proper planning, you have to research, learn and mostly visit the new area. You must answer questions like: If there are good educational institutions in the vicinity? in case you have school-going children? What is the weather like? are there good shopping places for groceries, clothes etc., how close are the emergency services from my house? Where are the doctors and hospitals located? One good alternative is to hire an apartment for some months before shifting in it for good, along with your family.
To relocate, always use a mover with operations throughout the country. Moving companies, who concentrate on local operations, will ask you to pay more for relocating to a different city. In fact, certain movers operating locally, refuse to take jobs involving relocating to a new state or limit the new location to a certain number of miles. Other than the movers having nation-wide operations, you can also ask a reliable local mover to deal with your moving arrangements. Most of these movers will give you an estimate when moving to a new place. But if you want to move within the same city, they won’t give you an estimate. Those local companies willing to help you relocate to a new city, or a different state, conduct more research to determine their qualifications and experience. Talk to your insurance agent to help you decide which of your possessions are included in your possessions policy and which are excluded.
Though relocation is stressful and involves a lot of hard work, there is no need to worry. These above steps will help you ease into your new life more comfortably. | <urn:uuid:2792cb66-f69d-4207-ad14-09e5d2f444f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bestmoverspackers.com/moving-tips/organize-moving-plan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966111 | 480 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Today, ColorOfChange launched a campaign calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.
Please read the email we sent to members below, and join us in our demand that the DOJ take over the case, arrest Zimmerman and launch an independent investigation into the Sanford police department’s unwillingness to protect Martin’s civil rights.
Dear ColorOfChange.org members,
Three weeks ago, 17-year old Trayvon Martin was gunned down by self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Despite Zimmerman admitting to following, confronting, and killing Trayvon, he has yet to be arrested or charged with any crime.1
Just minutes before Trayvon was killed, Zimmerman had called police stating that Trayvon looked “suspicious.” Trayvon was unarmed and walking back to his father’s home in Sanford, Florida when Zimmerman accosted him.
At the crime scene, Sanford police botched their questioning of Zimmerman, refused to take the full statements of witnesses, and pressured neighbors to side with the shooter’s claim of self-defense.2 As it turns out, Sanford’s police department has a history of failing to hold perpetrators accountable for violent acts against Black victims and the police misconduct in Trayvon’s case exemplifies the department’s systemic mishandling of such investigations.3 And now, the State Attorney’s office has rubber-stamped the Sanford police’s non-investigation, claiming that there is not enough evidence to support even a manslaughter conviction.4
Trayvon’s family and hundreds of thousands of people around the country are demanding justice.5 Please join us in calling on the Department of Justice to take over the case, arrest Trayvon’s killer, and launch an independent investigation into the Sanford police department’s unwillingness to protect Trayvon’s civil rights. It takes just a moment:
Walking home from the store shouldn’t cost you your life, but when Black youth are routinely assumed to be violent criminals, being randomly killed is a constant danger.6 Before Zimmerman decided to get out of his parked car — gun in tow — to pursue Trayvon on foot that night, he called the police to identify Trayvon as a “suspicious person” — apparently because he was wearing a hoodie and walking too slowly in the rain for Zimmerman’s liking. Despite being instructed not to follow Trayvon, Zimmerman proceeded to confront and fatally shoot the boy in the chest within a matter of minutes.7
The case has been compromised from the beginning. When Sanford police arrived on the scene, Zimmerman was first approached by a narcotics detective — not a homicide investigator — who “peppered him with questions” rather than allowing him to tell his story without prompting. Another officer “corrected” a witness giving a statement that she’d heard Trayvon cry for help before he was shot, telling her she had heard Zimmerman instead.8 And beyond the questions of professional competence or even the police’s disregard for the facts, Florida’s notorious “Shoot First” law takes a shooter’s self-defense claim at face value — incentivizing law enforcement not to make arrests in shooting deaths that would lead to murder charges in other states.9
Sanford has a history of not prosecuting when the victim is Black. In 2010, the white son of a Sanford police lieutenant was let go by police after assaulting a homeless Black man outside a downtown bar. And, in 2005, a Black teenager was killed by two white security guards, one the son of a Sanford Police officer. The pair was arrested and charged, but a judge later cited lack of evidence and dismissed both cases.10
Please join us in calling on the Department of Justice to arrest Trayvon’s killer and launch an investigation into the Sanford police department’s mishandling of the case and when you do, ask your friends and family to do the same:
Thanks and Peace,
– Rashad, Gabriel, Dani, Matt, Natasha, Kim and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
March 19th, 2012
Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:
1. “Witnesses in Trayvon Martin death heard cries before shot,” Miami Herald, 03-15-12
2. “Orlando Watch Shooting Probe Reveals Questionable Police Conduct,” ABC News, 03-13-12
3. “Trayvon Martin Case Salts Old Wounds And Racial Tension,” Huffington Post, 03-14-12
4. “Police: No Grounds For Arrest in Trayvon Martin’s Death,” WESH-2 Orlando, 03-16-12
5. “Trayvon Martin Family Seeks FBI Investigation of Killing by Neighborhood Watchman,” ABC News, 03-18-12
6. “Ramarley Graham: NYPD Slays Unarmed Black Teen as Outrage over Targeting of People of Color Grows,” Democracy Now!, 02-08-12
7. “Trayvon Martin would be alive if Neighborhood Watch rules followed,” Orlando Sentinel, 03-14-12
8. See reference 2.
9. “Teen’s death suggests review of ‘Stand Your Ground Law’ needed,” Tallahassee Democrat, 03-16-12
10. “Five years since Florida enacted ‘stand-your-ground’ law, justifiable homicides are up, Tampa Bay Times, 10-17-10 | <urn:uuid:34e3fcbf-19af-41b2-900f-7598d32b59ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://my.firedoglake.com/jamesrucker/2012/03/19/justice-for-trayvon-martin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941073 | 1,195 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The InSpire program is designed to increase academic success toward graduation by providing the selected students enhanced student support services. Students accepted into the InSpire program will participate in an enrichment program designed to transition them into the university environment. InSpire staff will work to develop critical and creative thinking, effective expression and positive attitudes toward higher learning.
Our Lady of the Lake University has high expectations of our students. The support staff working with the InSpire program will assist students with the process of academic achievement at the university. The InSpire program operates on a set of rules and academic best practices that have been proven to support students in achieving solid academic progress and increased scholastic achievement. | <urn:uuid:5091afea-2547-4b31-87da-5846d3e68456> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ollusa.edu/s/1190/ollu-3-column.aspx?gid=1&pgid=6475 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949141 | 139 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Growing up in New Orleans, everything we ate was saturated in grease, salt or sugar. Most times, the best tasting things included all three. (Hello, beignets and french fries!) Vegetables? Cooked down in some sort of fatty pork (picklemeat, in our house) until unrecognizeable. Good for you? Debatable. But boy was it delicious! Yet at the same time, a familiar refrain echoed through my ears between meals (never during, curiously):
“Don’t get fat.” ~Mom
“Don’t get fat like me behbeh” ~Grandma
“Don’t be gettin fat now, yahear” ~Dad
And the list goes on. Of course, during meals, it was always:
“Clean your plate.”
“I want you to eat this ENTIRE plate of food. Eat it!”
Or a more cloying, “What’s the matter baby? Are you not feeling well? Why aren’t you finishing your food?”
Or the standard, “Lord, these ungrateful children… there’s children starving… DYING! In Africa today, and these kids don’t wanna eat this food…”
To which a “Why don’t you ship it to them, then?!” response would end in a swift smack to the cheek. Or a longer, more protracted battle would ensue (depending on the grossness of the vegetable in question), ending in angry stomping on my part toward some corner or another for a time out.
At any rate, I was enrolled in dance classes at the age of three. By the age of 10, I could already down 5 chocolate glazed McKenzie’s donuts in a single sitting and polish off a man-sized plate of my grandma’s red beans and rice. Every Thursday after dance class, I had a McLean combo meal (because I preferred – and still do – my burgers with lettuce and large onion slices) from McDonald’s. I cried when they discontinued it, and switched to Quarter Pounders.
By the time I got to middle school, I was eating McDonald’s every day after school. I hated school lunch and used to tide myself over until Mickey D’s by eating plain Lays potato chips, hot pickles, and Cokes for lunch, sometimes substituting the hot pickles for plain M&M’s. I was enrolled in an after school dance program at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA, a wonderful institution) and would eat my #3 combo on the way to ballet 3+ times a week. I continued with private training as well as training at NOCCA, eventually abandoning them both to focus on my academic studies at more traditionally rigorous magnet high school. “You can be a dancing doctor,” they all said, “you need a stable career. Dancing is a hobby.” Meanwhile, when I transitioned schools, I rejoiced because my daily fast food fix became Wendy’s, where burgers and chicken sandwiches dallied among salad pitas and baked potatoes, always topped with fries and shakes of course. But because I was dancing four or more days a week for three or more hours, I burned through the calories like it was nothing. Not to mention I was growing like a weed.
All this fast food activity was, of course, in addition to the huge breakfast my mother fed me every morning and the huge dinner my grandma would serve every night. A typical weekday would start with fruit bowls, homemade biscuits, grits/eggs/bacon, and sandwich the fast food binge with stewed chicken, yellow rice, and stringbeans cooked in picklemeat. I tried to “go vegetarian” when I was about 15 (which consisted of me eating meatless Wendy’s pitas and french fries daily), but my grandmother *never* took the meat out of her veggies, and would ask me if I was ill every single time I would pick around the meat in any dish. It lasted about 8 months, and ended when my resolve crumbled in the face of a Port of Call hamburger.
Regardless, I never dreamed that I would ever gain actual weight, because I assumed that I’d be dancing for the rest of my life. So I never denied or learned to deny myself anything. I could eat half a chocolate cake or half a pan of brownies without blinking. Other girls my age had started dieting or developing eating disorders. The only diet I knew was the see-food diet. Not to mention the attention that I was already getting from men was anxiety inducing.
To be continued… | <urn:uuid:4e60fd53-e656-4300-8d66-864a24be680f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bon-manger.com/blog/?tag=beignets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968818 | 996 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Weekly U.S. unemployment aid applications increaseMore Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, though the winter holidays likely distorted the data for the second straight week.
By: Associated Press report, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — More Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, though the winter holidays likely distorted the data for the second straight week.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications rose by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 372,000 in the week ended Dec. 29. The previous week's total was revised higher.
Many state unemployment offices were closed this week for the New Year's holiday and did not submit complete data for last week. As a result, the department relied on estimates for nine states. Two weeks ago, the department estimated 19 states because of Christmas closings.
In a typical week, the government estimates only one or two states.
The broader trend has been favorable. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, was little changed at 360,000. That's only slightly above the previous week's 359,750, which was the lowest in more than four years.
Weekly applications are a proxy for layoffs. They have mostly fluctuated this year between 360,000 and 390,000. At the same time, employers added an average of 151,000 jobs a month in the first 11 months of 2012.
The government will release the December jobs report Friday. Economists forecast it will show employers added about 150,000 jobs last month, barely enough to lower the unemployment rate.
A separate report Thursday offered some hope that the job figures could be a little higher. Payroll provider ADP reported that businesses added 215,000 jobs last month, much higher than November's total of 148,000.
Hiring surged behind a jump in construction jobs that were added in part to help rebuild from Superstorm Sandy.
ADP's report covers hiring in the private sector and does not include government jobs. It has frequently diverged from the government's report. Still, some economists were encouraged by the survey and also by the latest unemployment applications figures.
A few even raised their forecasts for Friday's report. Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse, said he now expects employers added 185,000 jobs last month, up from 165,000.
“The latest round of labor market data are, on balance, positive,” Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, said.
Unemployment remains high and companies are reluctant to ramp up hiring. The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent in November from 7.9 percent in October, mostly because many unemployed workers stopped looking for jobs. The government counts people as unemployed only if they are actively searching for work.
The number of people receiving benefits fell to 5.4 million in the week that ended Dec. 15, the latest data available. That's down about 70,000 from the previous week. The figure includes about 2.1 million people receiving emergency benefits paid for by the federal government. The White House and Congress agreed earlier this week to extend that program for another year.
Companies may hire more in the coming months now that President Obama and Congress have reached agreement to avoid most of the tax increases and spending in the fiscal cliff. But more battles over taxes and spending are likely in the coming weeks, which could keep companies cautious about adding jobs.
There are signs the economy is improving. The once-battered housing market is recovering, which should lead to more construction jobs in the coming months. Companies ordered more long-lasting manufactured goods in November, a sign they are investing more in equipment and software. And Americans spent more in November. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic growth. | <urn:uuid:8b8fee4e-0da5-466e-a124-34e08e4c9cd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/254631/publisher_ID/36/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964271 | 754 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Keeping up with the mega-millions and billions in aid for refugees displaced by Hurricane Katrina is like nailing down a spilled tractor-trailer load of mercury as it skitters across the highway. Two recent announcements have left me scratching my head. On the surface, it seems to make sense, but the numbers leave me with questions.
On the plus front, a recent press release from Tennessee government via Lola Potter, reads that "evacuees and landlords should not be alarmed by a FEMA form letter":
"NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee officials say property owners renting to hurricane evacuees should follow new directives from the federal government, but they nor evacuees should fear that leases will be broken without notice. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent new messages – through a contractor, Corporate Lodging - telling property owners who are leasing interim shelter units (apartments) for evacuees to sign up for a new program for future payments.
FEMA has not indicated how many of the 3,700 individuals or families now housed in interim sheltering in Tennessee might be eligible for the new program. Over 1,600 are housed in Memphis, 900 in Davidson and surrounding counties, over 250 in Hamilton and surrounding counties, 302 in Knox County, and over 100 in Northeast Tennessee.
"For now, we are not making any changes in the program that provides apartment housing for evacuees in Tennessee,” said Finance and Administration Commissioner Dave Goetz, whose department is responsible for statewide coordination of evacuee housing in Tennessee. Landlords are now signed up for Tennessee’s program – and although we recommend they follow the new federal instructions – they will remain in our program until we work through this difficulty with FEMA.”
Goetz said evacuees should not be alarmed that they may be asked to leave their housing without the 30-day notice assured by FEMA – and property owners should not worry about losing rental income.
In a February 27 letter to FEMA, Tennessee officials reminded FEMA that the agency has an obligation to honor its commitment to the State to reimburse the expense of the leases until we can provide the 30 day advance notification to the lessors. In a letter to the State one week earlier, FEMA indicated all leases ending February 28, 2006, would no longer be paid by FEMA. However, Tennessee negotiated an automatic month-to-month renewal clause after the initial lease term, unless and until the lessor is provided with thirty days notice of intent to abandon the lease. Tennessee officials this week reminded FEMA of its commitment to fulfill those obligations.
State assessment of evacuees participating in the housing program indicates that over 80 percent of the evacuees have no resources available to pay rent and utilities in the apartments where they now reside. The families remaining in Tennessee are among over 20,000 that fled the Gulf Coast last year in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Initial commitments from FEMA indicated interim housing would be paid for up to one year, or September 2006."
Yet, on Friday, an State Briefs article from the Knox News Sentinel (reg. required) includes comments by Senators' Frist and Alexander that about $2.8 million in federal funds have been "earmarked" for the state's K-12 education system for the "more than 3,700 children driven out of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Karina last summer moved to Tennessee schools."
The first press release mentions the 3,700 families or individuals now housed in TN being assured their leases should remain intact. But the Senators's comments specifically refer to more than 3,700 children now a part of the state's school system.
How many of the refugees - whoops! - make that "evacuees" - are actually kids in school and what are the the actual number of families who relocated here? | <urn:uuid:91285a24-a8b7-44af-b749-39667ce1fe95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com/2006/03/katrina-cash-confusion-in-tennessee.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946072 | 782 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Credit unions gain as an alternative
Shopping for a new loan, or a savings or checking account? You have more options than you think. Banks are the predominate place people park their money or get their loans, but credit unions are growing in popularity as consumers thumb their noses at credit unions' big brother.
According to a March 2012 survey of 5,000 consumers conducted by Pleasanton, Calif., market research firm Javelin Strategy & Research, 11 percent of respondents indicated they would switch their main financial institution during the year. For the first quarter of 2012, membership increased by 667,000, reports the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, an Arlington, Va., trade association.
Although credit unions are an alternative to banks, a decision to switch depends on what you want out of your financial institution. For some consumers, low rates on loans and higher rates on savings accounts are all that matters. For others, it's all about convenience or accessibility.
"Banks may offer a better opportunity if you need a more sophisticated lending product or investment product," says Gene Kirsch, senior financial analyst at Weiss Ratings, a ratings firm in Jupiter, Fla. "For everything else, you're best to shop around. Credit unions are very competitive."
Who owns banks and credit unions?
One of the major differences between a bank and credit union is its corporate structure. Banks are for-profit institutions, which means they are in the business to make money and have shareholders to placate. Credit unions are nonprofit and are owned by the members of the credit union, which means their focus is on serving the members.
Banks are conflicted because they have to manage what's best for the customers with what's in the best interest of shareholders, says Alix Patterson, chief operating officer at Washington, D.C., research firm Callahan & Associates Inc.
"Banks are designed to maximize shareholder value, which leads to different decisions than credit unions," she says.
In the past, the corporate makeup of a credit union or bank wouldn't matter to a consumer who simply wants the best rates, but that has changed in recent months. Fed up with the fees and seemingly bad behavior on the part of banks, consumers pulled money out of banks and into credit unions Nov. 5, 2011, on what has become known as bank transfer day.
That one day demonstrated consumers do care about more than just rates, says Mark Schwanhausser, Javelin director of multichannel financial services.
How do you join?
To join a credit union, you have to be part of a specific group, whether it's working for a certain employer, living in a particular town, or being part of a church or organization. On the other hand, banks are open to anyone.
"Anyone can walk in off the street and join a bank, but as far as a credit union you have to have some common bond to belong," Kirsch says.
Since you have to have some affiliation to the credit union, it means you may not be able to join the one you want. But it doesn't mean you can't become a customer of a credit union, as credit unions increasingly become region-specific rather than group-specific.
"Not everybody can join any credit union, but there's a credit union for everybody," says Patrick Keefe, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wis.-based Credit Union National Association.
Most credit unions charge a one-time membership fee to join, which runs from $5 to $20, Keefe says. Banks don't charge a one-time monthly service fee, but some require a minimum amount to open an account.
Are rates better at credit unions or banks?
For people who care solely about savings, checking and loan rates, a credit union may make the most sense. On average, credit unions do better on the rates than banks do.
"Credit unions can offer higher deposit rates and lower interest rates on loans than banks because they don't have to worry about profits," Kirsch says. "Profits at credit unions are plowed back in and returned to members in the form of dividend payments, lower fees or lower interest rates."
Still, while credit unions typically beat banks on rates, it's only on the advertised rates, says Keith Leggett, vice president and senior economist at Washington, D.C.-based trade association American Bankers Association. "Banks are willing to beat the credit union, but you do need to go in and ask," Leggett says.
Because the rates can vary from bank to bank and credit union to credit union, banking experts say it pays to shop around if the best rate is what you are after. Bankrate's comparison rate tool lets you check current rates at credit unions and banks on banking products across the country.
Does convenience trump rates?
One of the knocks against credit unions is the lack of convenience. While some banks have a branch on every corner, credit unions typically only have one or two branches. At the end of the day, the convenience and accessibility are what truly matter, says Schwanhausser.
On bank transfer day, credit unions succeeded in gaining new members, but many consumers didn't unplug from the giant banks altogether, Schwanhausser says. For many people, switching means changing their direct deposit, canceling their bill pay and giving up access to branches pretty much wherever they are.
"The main reason is consumers are looking for convenience. Yes, fees do matter, but they are not mad enough to switch," he says.
That's not to say credit unions aren't trying to catch up. While you'll never see a credit union branch on every street corner of a major city, there is a network of 24,000 ATMs across the country, and credit unions are starting to set up shop in places where consumers frequent, such as the supermarket or convenience stores.
"Credit unions deal with accessibility with shared networks and technology," Patterson says. | <urn:uuid:a9a18c25-2bc0-4e20-81be-a14bba222d1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-unions/switch-from-bank-to-credit-union.aspx?ic_id=Top_Financial%20News%20Center_link_3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971302 | 1,234 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Culture Connect Featured Event
Dr. Paul Griner will sign copies of his book, The Power of Patient Stories: Learning Moments in Medicine @ 2:00 pm
Sunday, January 20th.
These reflections from the career of a prominent physician help students and the public better understand patient care through insights gained from his stories. Medical knowledge and technology are advancing faster than we can learn to apply them wisely. The pace of change threatens the humanistic aspects of patient care. By sharing remarkable patient stories accumulated over almost six decades, Dr. Paul Griner shows how the somewhat elusive concepts intrinsic to “the art” of medicine can be better understood and applied in the day to day care of patients. Provocative questions at the end of each story challenge the reader to avoid a premature response, reflect more deeply on the question and learn how much of medicine is not black and white. | <urn:uuid:a739bb3e-bdfa-429e-be81-a8c252b24589> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cpbn.org/events/cultureconnect/booksigning-power-patient-stories-learning-moments-medicine-dr-paul-griner?mini=calendar/2013/01/all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942645 | 178 | 1.71875 | 2 |
In 1975, Sri Shambhavananda led a small group of yogis to Boulder, Colorado. They opened the first vegetarian restaurant
in the area and named it in honor of their teacher, Swami Rudrananda. For them, the restaurant was more than just an eatery;
it was an arena for their growth. Sri Shambhavananda taught them how to use the challenges of running the restaurant to grow
spiritually. Living, meditating, and working together they flourished.
The success of the restaurant, and later
a bakery, afforded the small dedicated bunch their dream of building a yoga ashram; a place where people could go to experience
the yogic tradition through nourishing retreats, asana practice, meditation, and seva (selfless service).
a time in America when yoga’s popularity outshines its original purpose, Shambhava Yoga stands as a living example of
timeless teachings in a present-day practice. Sri Shambhavananda inspires students to combine hard work with heart work and
use the practice of meditation to rise above, and grow from, the challenges of everyday life.
Shambhava Yoga ashrams
and affiliate centers are run by gifted and dedicated practitioners who use the practice to grow and improve their lives.
Each center has been given the blessing of Sri Shambhavananda to pass on the teachings of the lineage under his guidance.
Visit one to learn how you can live the practice and love your life with Shambhava Yoga™.
Visitors to our site | <urn:uuid:4436752f-1b61-4d26-b58c-00d99ffcbcf3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creativeyogasolutions.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953045 | 324 | 1.539063 | 2 |
An internship is an opportunity to work part-time in a professional setting. A student can arrange for an internship in the local community during the school year or anywhere in the world during the summer. We strongly recommend that you complete at least one internship while at Beloit. Having an internship can benefit you greatly, as you will gain "hands-on" experience and knowledge of a work setting that interests you. An internship also will convince employers and graduate admissions committees that you are genuinely committed to your area of interest.
Internships can be completed for credit or no credit. In either case, the internship will be listed on your transcript. Internships completed for credit (1/2 or 1 unit) include a substantial academic component. For example, a student who spends the summer providing psychological services in a prison might read several books and articles, interview inmates, and write a paper that analyzes the inmates' responses within a conceptual framework devised by psychologist Hans Toch.
Over the years, psychology students have been interns at many sites including a women's shelter, an advertising agency, a children's day care center, a center for the treatment of substance abuse, a probation and parole office, a halfway house for people with schizophrenia, a public defender's office, a nursing home, a political lobby in Washington, DC, a private psychiatric hospital in California, a chemical senses center, and a dolphin research facility in Hawaii.
Talk with your advisor about which internships might interest you most. To arrange a placement, talk to a staff member in the Liberal Arts in Practice Center (on the corner of College and Emerson). They will provide you with more information about internship opportunities and help you contact internship sites. We also have several internship guides in the department. | <urn:uuid:afd889ac-8161-4558-b73f-6d1877316629> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beloit.edu/psych/handbook/internships/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95255 | 352 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Considered one of the foremost experts on 18th- and 19th-century European and American antiques and fine art, Bill Rau has worked in the family-owned gallery for over 30 years. Bill's extensive knowledge and reputation as a leader places him among the most respected antique experts and gallery owners today.
The contributions of women are one, if not the most, overlooked aspect in the history of silver craftsmanship. The natural elegance and refinement exhibited in the works created by the hand of female silversmiths set them apart from all others, and, in many cases, are considered the finest masterworks ever made.
It is imperative to remind ourselves that, until fairly recently, women had very little rights under the law in the industrialized world, and were at the mercy of the men in their lives in every respect, including profession (if one were even allowed a career). Most women who did acquire a business did so by inheriting them from their deceased husbands, acting as widows simply carrying on the family trade in which they had spent years working side by side with their husbands and were more than able to accept the responsibility. According to the records of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, there existed only sixty-three female silversmiths between the years of 1697 and the Victorian era. Many of them were willed the tools of the trade, as was the case with Hester Bateman. She not only carried on the legacy of the "House of Bateman" but also passed on her extensive knowledge to her children, who became famed silversmiths in their own right.
A few of these silversmith pioneers entered partnerships with men to whom there was no blood or marital connection. For a mere fourteen women, there is no record of having a male relative in the silversmith craft. This is the case with the partnership of Ann Craig and John Neville, creators of this exceptional George II epergne. It is considered so superior for its type, that it was once part of the legendary Al-Tajir Collection of gold and silver. This outstanding work exhibits pierced decoration executed with the highest level of precision, not to mention an overall design that ranks it as an absolutely spectacular work of silver.
To view M.S. Rau Antiques' entire collection of important silver, click here. | <urn:uuid:7a8be129-124c-48d7-952e-5756f7b4f23e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artfixdaily.com/blogs/post/6165-a-woman%E2%80%99s-touch-the-masterpieces-of-female-silversmiths | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983573 | 477 | 1.78125 | 2 |
First off, it’s good to be back to blog with you all, as the last few weeks have been extremely hectic for me preparing for my doctoral comprehensive exams, which I am now through the written portion (cue Hallelujah Chorus). Thanks to intrepid fellow CWH blogger Walter Coffey for keeping up some interesting posts the last two months.
Now, I did find a little time to go see the Spielberg film Lincoln with my two friends and fellow reenactors Stuart Lawrence and Den Bolda. Den dressed in period civilian trappings, while I dressed as a soldier for the event (Hey, if folks can go to comic book movies, etc. dressed as the characters from those films, why not us?), which was fun, as one couple who were visiting relatives in the area, but were from Indiana took their picture with us.
My thoughts on the film are mixed. I felt that Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Honest Abe was pretty good, aside from being a departure from the classic Hal Holbrook rendition in North and South, or Gregory Peck in The Blue and the Gray (which were good also, but not necessarily as accurate). I also enjoyed Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stephens.
I would have liked to have seen a bit more on Lincoln’s conduct of the war as Commander-in-Chief, which did not have to mean another Civil War film full of battle scenes, but just more on the course of his presidency. I thought the debate over the 13th Amendment was interesting and one of my colleagues noted that he hoped it would get people into the documents surrounding the debate on that legislation. Den and I both enjoyed the costuming, as the material culture presented in the film was quite good. Overall, I thought the film presented a real conception of Lincoln, more human as opposed to being on such a pedestal.
That said, one other area that I thought was a bit off, and has apparently became a topic of debate between historians is the foul language that appears a few times. Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose book Team of Rivals was an inspiration for the movie did not have much problem with the profanity used in the film. In contrast, James McPherson argued that Lincoln did not approve of such language and likely did not use it to the degree that was portrayed, especially the utterance of “f—” by W. N. Bilbo, one of the lobbyists for the 13th Amendment. Another who argued that Lincoln likely did not swear as much as was portrayed in the movie, but would not have had as much issue with swearing around him was University of Richmond president Edward Ayers.
Overall, I have to agree with both McPherson and Ayers on their assessment of Lincoln and colorful language. I wonder if Spielberg chose to keep such language to resonate with modern audiences, who are used to such things, and if that is so, what does it say about our society. Further, the movie would have been just as good without it, which would have allowed parents to take younger children to see the film. One wonders how many stayed away because of the language issue. It would have been interesting to see, were he still alive, what David Donald would have said about this issue.
While swearing has become increasingly pervasive in our culture, this does not mean it was so in earlier times. I think the work by Richard Bushman called The Refinement of America is particularly relevant. While focused on the eighteenth century, it also explored the nineteenth century, charting the desire of Americans to achieve elements of refined culture, which extended to personal behavior, including manners and decorum.
It is interesting that this has become a mini debate among respected scholars, but it is good, as it allows historians to interject their knowledge and insights on a given topic into the larger culture. Much like the earlier kerfuffle over how Day-Lewis vocalized Lincoln, the issue of swearing by Abe will be another in a series of appraisals on the film in the coming weeks. Such is the nature of the beast when movies based upon historical events and actors are produced. I encourage everyone to at least go and see Lincoln, but also pick up a good biography of him (I recommend Lincoln by the late David Donald). | <urn:uuid:eecad9b4-0bfa-4da6-91a3-68b5836423e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://civilwarhistory.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/the-debate-over-the-language-of-lincoln/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=8b2dcf09a6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987915 | 880 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Research conducted for Cornerstone University’s internal use only is to be forwarded to the CU-IRB chair for review. The chair will determine if the research meets the criteria for not needing CU-IRB approval.
Examples of such research are in-class research exercises, surveys from the Cornerstone community, and surveys having met another university’s IRB approval but requiring distribution among the Cornerstone community.
- For in-class exercises, faculty members should forward the description of the assignments from the syllabus to the chair. If the assignment is used every time the course is taught, the faculty member needs to only notify the chair one time.
- For surveys distributed on campus (except those noted in #1), copies of surveys and their instructions should be forwarded to the chair.
- Surveys that were previously approved by another IRB must show evidence to the chair of that IRB approval, as well as a copy of the survey.
While the above research may not need formal CU-IRB approval, it is expected that all research abides by ethical codes designed for human and animal research.
If a faculty member has students conducting research for an in-class project, students should fill in a proposal similar to the CU-IRB form which should then be reviewed by the faculty member before the student conducts research. CU-IRB approval is not necessary.
WARNING: If one conducts his/her own research without CU-IRB approval, it is not covered by Cornerstone University liability insurance.
Types of Research
- Ethnographic research is subject to the Common Rule (“Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects,” DHHS 45 CFR 46; http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm)
- Although ethnographic research takes place in natural settings and differs significantly from clinical research, ethnographic research projects are subject to review by the CU-IRB to ensure that the participants in the proposed research are not harmed.
- Review of ethnographic research should be commensurate with the level of risk of harm vs. the potential benefits of each specific research project. The review should consider the likelihood or probability of harm, the severity of harm, and the duration of harm. Each project should be examined on its own merit.
- Informed consent is an important part of qualitative research. Much qualitative research is exploratory, and the areas of inquiry may not be apparent even to the research team at the time the study is initiated. Qualitative research should be designed to sustain the consent process throughout the course of a subject’s participation.
- If identifiers must be retained (for longitudinal studies, or where subjects are videotaped or audiotaped), and if the research deals with very sensitive topics, it may be appropriate to seek a certificate of confidentiality to protect against compelled disclosure – by federal, state, or local authorities – of identifying information.
The internet is an insecure medium as data in transit in vulnerable. So, internet data collection is rarely private, anonymous, or even confidential. The potential source of risk is harm resulting from a breach of confidentiality. This risk is accentuated if the research involves data that places subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or could damage their financial standing, employability, reputation or could be stigmatizing. | <urn:uuid:4bf73ef9-61fa-404e-a93c-54fa0a8ccedb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cornerstone.edu/research-requiring-review | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940538 | 689 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Today, over 1 billion people use social in one form or another. And did you know that social accounts for 25% of the time we spend online? There are tons of other great stats that talk about how important social is, but I don't have to tell you because most of you already understand the enormous impact of social.
Instead, what I want to highlight is what happens in all of these social channels because of another interesting statistic – 50% of people that spend time in social channels update content monthly. That's at least 500 million people; and it is creating a massive amount of data.
And if you are a business (no matter the size), it is the data that you should care about:
One of my predictions for 2013 is that businesses (both small and large) will re-think how and where they deploy their social investments. Specifically, I believe that investments will shift from consumer-facing social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) back towards their own public, on-domain communities. Why?
Social communities create experiences that your customers can have with your brand, and in the end, you keep all of the data created during those interactions. Plus, with the right social community, you can drive more traffic to your site and still integrate with the consumer-facing social channels that will continue to be important (such as Facebook).
Interested in learning directly from companies that have social communities? Dell is a great example of a company that is delivering exceptional customer service on a global scale through its social community. Take a look at Dell’s case study to learn more.
[Community image source:] Big Stock Photo
Telligent Systems, Inc. ©2013, All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:7bbc5ef4-3eef-43d1-a822-5f15c58fd3a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://telligent.com/company/news/b/teamblog/archive/2013/01/18/social-communities-not-just-social-media.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955404 | 347 | 1.726563 | 2 |
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- It might be the first time a separated couple got back together thanks to their great-great-great granddaughter.
The attractive young couple is Benjamin and Maria Gratz, or more accurately their portraits, which were painted in 1831 by noted English-born Philadelphia artist Thomas Sully but somehow parted ways an unknown number of years ago.
Benjamin has been hanging for decades at the Rosenbach Museum & Library along with other members of the Gratz family, who were prominent in early Philadelphia's business and philanthropic worlds.
The museum, stumped regarding Maria's whereabouts, expanded their investigation from auction and estate records to the Internet.
A post entitled "The Lost Portraits of Mrs. Benjamin Gratz: Have you seen Maria?" went online last June on a museum docent's scholarly blog about educator and humanitarian Rebecca Gratz, the sister-in-law of Maria Cecil Gist Gratz. The posting included a black-and-white photo of a small copy made of the portrait long ago.
"Three weeks later I get a message on my phone: 'I think I may be someone you're looking for,'" museum curator Judith Guston said. "I couldn't believe it."
The caller was the great-great-great-granddaughter of the pretty woman in the lost portrait. Though it wasn't exactly lost -- not as far as Maria Gratz Roberts of Atlanta was concerned.
"It was in my house," said Gratz Roberts, who pronounces her first name "mar-EYE'-ah" just like her namesake did. "I'm very interested in genealogy was looking up some information on the family, that's how it started. I saw the article about the missing portrait and I was very surprised."
Benjamin and Maria Gratz were in their 30s when the portraits were painted during their trip from Lexington, Ky., to visit Benjamin's family in Philadelphia. No one in the family knows why or when the portraits broke up, though it was at least 75 years ago.
Gratz Roberts said her relatives had long believed theirs was a reproduction and the Sully original was somewhere in Philadelphia.
"I did take it to an antique dealer to get it cleaned once and he said, 'Are you sure it's a copy?'" she said with a laugh. "I told him it was, and he said then it was a very good copy. To me, it was a lovely portrait and I enjoyed it."
Guston flew to Atlanta to examine the work and informed its owner that yes, the gold-framed painting of the smiling brunette in her parlor was indeed the real deal.
"It was exciting," Guston said. "We weren't very optimistic that (the blog post) would lead us anywhere but it did, and so quickly."
After talking it over with her family, Gratz Roberts decided that her great-great-great grandparents' portraits should be reunited and she donated the cherished heirloom.
Just before Valentine's Day, the picture of Maria was hung with the rest of the Gratz family, next to her dashing husband, in a room at the Rosenbach's 19th-century mansion-turned-museum. Husband and wife appear to be gazing affectionately at each other, as was probably Sully's intent when he painted the two portraits, Guston said.
"When you have a portrait like that you have to share it. I can't see keeping it in my house," said Gratz Roberts. "Giving it to the Rosenbach seemed like a perfect thing to do."
She also donated another pastel drawing of Maria Gratz and a chair owned by Benjamin Gratz.
Gratz Roberts is looking forward to visiting Philadelphia this spring, when she will see the pieces in their new home along with other artifacts from her ancestors. The museum's founders, book dealers and brothers A.S.W. and Philip Rosenbach, had family ties to the Gratzes, so materials from both groups are on display and for research.
"I'm very excited to see it there," Gratz Roberts said. "Little did I know, just by looking up some information, this would happen. It's amazing what coincidences we have in life." | <urn:uuid:fec3a55e-583e-40d0-bd78-0ed23c9e3c94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the-daily-record.com/ap%20entertainment/2012/03/18/1800s-couple-s-portraits-reunited-at-philly-museum-1332105733 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985647 | 880 | 1.84375 | 2 |
It was decided at today's FESCo meeting to not disable the mounting of /tmp
as a tmpfs file-system by default for the forthcoming Fedora 18
For months the Fedora developers have been planning to mount /tmp with tmpfs
for putting the temporary directory in RAM/SWAP volatile memory as it will lead to less disk reads/writes, potentially save power / better the performance, not preserve temporary data across reboots, and other benefits.
Due to open bugs (e.g. 858265
), it was brought up to decide whether to disable this feature by default in Fedora 18 until all the migration bugs are worked out. However, it was determined at today's Fedora Engineering & Steering Committee to stick it out with this feature of having tmpfs be used by default.
The meeting minutes can be found on the devel mailing list
. They also made a few other changes at today's meeting with regard to refining the feature process and moving the final change deadline up by one week.
After being challenged by numerous delays, Fedora 18 is expected to be released in early 2013
under the Spherical Cow codename | <urn:uuid:9b68a862-6ff0-4748-89f5-9edbcbd3f322> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI0MzY | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949087 | 234 | 1.703125 | 2 |
where Newton took his first communion as a believer
Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his father:
to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.
The Apostle while addressing the churches he was commanded to exhort, having wished them grace and peace from Jesus Christ, at the mention of the Redeemer’s name breaks forth suddenly into this ascription of praise. It shows the fullness of his heart, q.d. How can I speak of him without reminding you and myself of our immense obligations. There is a marvellous sweetness in the name of Jesus, it is as ointment poured forth to them that love him, at least when the Holy Spirit is pleased to impress it upon the heart. He is always precious in their esteem, and those are the happiest moments of their lives, when they feel their affections most sensibly engaged. May the Lord make this season and this subject a blessing to us, that our souls may join with the words of my text and say Unto him _ etc.
1. His narrative, Love
2. His work, He washed us
3. The happy effects – Kings and priests
1. Unto him who loved us
If his name was not in the context he would be sufficiently marked out by this description. None but God such love could show. Not men (Rom. 5). Not angels, they love whom the Lord loves, but they are willing ministers of his vengeance upon sinners, as in the case of Herod. It was free, love to the unworthy and miserable (Rom 5:8), undeserved and undesired. It was distinguishing – he loved not the fallen angels, but fallen man. It was expensive (as under the next head). It was victorious and effectual love – not like that helpless pity and compassion which we often express to each other, a love that would not be wearied or disappointed by any hindrances or sufferings.
2. He washed etc.
Expresses the complete accomplishment of his design, entirely cleansed, as Psalm 51:7; Isaiah 1:18.
2.2 From our sins
Any thing short of this would have left us miserable. perhaps some of you do not know this, but think the world can make you happy, but where sin is, there is guilt exposing to wrath and dominion which renders peace impossible (as Isa. 57:21).
2.3 In his own blood
This is the point upon which the whole turns. Could men or angels have suggested or hoped for such an expedient as this. May it teach us:
(i) The evil of sin
Wisdom does nothing in vain. Had there been any other way to expiate sin, Jesus would not have spilt his blood, nor would the Father have said, Awake O sword, against his only beloved Son. Surely you who have little thoughts of sin – know but little of this subject. May the Lord awaken you, for if Christ was not spared, shall you escape?
(ii) To admire his love
Had he saved, as he created with a word, it had been great love – but to bleed and die, and such a death. May we not take up a lamentation and say, Alas my heart of stone. We talk of gratitude to our fellow creatures, but, was Paul crucified? Would your parent or child or the wife of your bosom do anything like this?
(iii) The value of this blood.
Poor trembling soul, let not guilt or unbelief or Satan tempt you to dishonour it, by refusing the comfort provided. The blood of Jesus – cleanseth from all sin.
3. The happy effects
Kings, because heirs of a kingdom, children of the great king – not a pardon, but to reign with God in glory.
Priests implying that nearness and liberty with God, access by blood – grace to offer sacrifices of prayer and praises, and acceptance in the beloved.
Shall we not then join in saying – To him that loved us – Worthy is the Lamb. If you can begin to sing this song now, you shall sing it in heaven. And shall not our lives praise him. Surely you will no longer halt between two opinions or think any easy besetting [sin] too dear to be sanctified to him. | <urn:uuid:3305e0b1-827e-41e4-abce-84eda5c2f1db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.johnnewton.org/Groups/52187/The_John_Newton/The_Complete_Works/Sermons/Revelation_1_5/Revelation_1_5.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9746 | 913 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Digital Government Strategy is aimed at building a 21st century government that works better for the American people. The strategy's three primary goals are to:
- Enable the American people and an increasingly mobile workforce to access high-quality digital government information and services anywhere, anytime, on any device.
- Ensure that as the government adjusts to this new digital world, we seize the opportunity to procure and manage devices, applications, and data in smart, secure, and affordable ways.
- Unlock the power of government data to spur innovation across our nation and improve the quality of services for the American people.
When President Obama, in May 2012, issued a digital strategy initiative with specific milestones spanning the next 12 months, we immediately mobilized to systematically improve the ways that we provide government data and services to citizens.
Through our governance process, we are driving toward securely architecting our systems for interoperability and openness from conception. We are developing common standards and producing better content and data, with the goal of delivering it through multiple channels in device-agnostic ways. We are continually addressing privacy and security in a digital age. And, importantly, we are creating an environment where citizens are increasingly becoming partners in building a better government.
We are proud to say that we have successfully implemented the milestones, remaining agile and flexible as some of the reporting methods and deliverables were adjusted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and are even more proud to say that we have fundamentally shifted the way that we are approaching digital government. As called for in the plan, our agency has also pioneered several government-wide solutions (called for in the strategy) which are helping all agencies implement this important initiative.
Track our progress and hold us accountable at our Milestones tab here at gsa.gov/digitalstrategy. And at our Developer tab (which can also be accessed via gsa.gov/developers) explore our growing list of API data sets which anyone can use to unlock government data.
We look forward to providing continual updates as we implement the Open Data Policy - Managing Information as an Asset. Our future holds the promise of gsa.gov/data and other exciting new developments. | <urn:uuid:376165fd-578f-401d-84d4-118f665c4fd5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mailto:[email protected]/portal/category/103611?utm_source=OCSIT&utm_medium=print-radio&utm_term=digitalstrategy&utm_campaign=shortcuts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946026 | 442 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Mark Mothersbaugh’s recent art show, “Rugs During Wartime and Peacetime,” just closed at the Scion Installation Los Angeles Gallery in Culver City. The event featured designs created by the artist and was divided into two different categories of rugs. What follows are excerpts from the program, written by Mothersbaugh. (For more information on the show, go to www.mutatovisual.com)
In this time of turbulence and uncertainty, we must all do our part to ensure victory both at home, and in the field. And there is no better place to start, than right under your own two feet; right there on the floor. Be it hardwood, linoleum, concrete, or dirt, there is no better place to place your feet than on a brand new, clean carpet. But choosing the appropriate image or design can be complicated. That’s where we come in. Please be aware that although it is important you pick the correct carpet for your environment, the truth of the matter is, the BEST RUG IS ONE YOU PERSONALLY LIKE.
Rugs as Propaganda Mechanisms
Let’s be honest. Isn’t Planet of the Apes a little too close to hitting the current state of affairs right on the nose? In a world of troubles and turmoil, we all need something firm beneath our feet, a rug that reminds us of where we are, and what we must do. A sturdy article that we can depend on to look up at us every time we encounter it, that will telegraph an appropriate message to give us fortitude and strength in a time of uncertainty? Yes! These rugs have a variety of messages tailored to help pull us through and keep us marching forward until de-evolution can be reversed!
Rugs as a Device for Peaceable Coexistence
Oh praise be the homo sapiens that have the ability to co-operate, co-mingle and prosper. These rugs are not constrained by the confines of bomb shelters, lookout nests, or safe rooms. These rugs have the ability to stretch into a wide variety of shapes and sizes. They offer room and nest to the full gamut of human activity, be it a comfortable place to watch reality television from, or do homework with the offspring. These rugs allow for happiness and peace of mind to blossom and grow. These rugs will be the sweet memories and precious heirlooms your progeny will fight over years from now. | <urn:uuid:4298300b-4b05-4bfa-b814-9df17d632f30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.laweekly.com/2007-12-06/art-books/carpet-bombs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933827 | 517 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Evening Lecture: Change your Mind, Change your Life
The great leaders and heroes in history all had one thing in common. They were able to dream of something that did not exist and make it happen. How? By harnessing the power of their own mind, they were able to make thought more real than anything else. By believing in themselves, and relentlessly pursuing their dream with certainty and conviction, they brought about much needed change and created a new reality – not only for themselves, but for millions of others around the world.
You can learn how to be become the hero of your own life. You may not want to change history, but you may want to change something else - your health, your emotions, your relationships, your home, your career, your finances - anything in your life.
Neuroscientist, chiropractor, author and lecturer, Dr. Joe Dispenza is an expert on the brain, mind and human potential. He has taught thousands of people around the world how they can re-program their thinking and eliminate self-destructive habits so they can reach their goals and visions. Dr. Dispenza draws on both scientific and universal principles to deliver practical tools and techniques that empower people to truly change from the inside out – and so change their results in life. Dr. Dispenza is the author of the bestselling book Evolve Your Brain – The Science of Changing Your Mind, Audio CD The Art of Change, and also featured in the smash hit docu-drama What the Bleep Do We Know!?
Date / Time
next dates to follow
English translated into German
Intensive Workshop: Understanding the Power of your Mind and harnessing your Potential Freedom and Change (Level I and Level II)
By understanding how your mind works, you can learn how to unlearn negative habits and emotions to eliminate self-destructive behaviors, and rewire your brain with new thoughts and beliefs that will help you heal your mind and body and create new results and possibilities in your life.
With the knowledge of how your mind works, Dr Joe will then guide you through a step by step meditation process to overcome destructive emotional states such as insecurity, unworthiness, anger, and so on – and replace them with new states of mind.
Having completed Level 1 with the understanding of how your mind and brain work, your focus in Level 2 will be on integrating the knowledge from your mind into your body to get them working together for more powerful results.
You will continue to apply the technique you learned in Level 1 and begin to apply it viscerally, as you learn how to live from a new level of discipline and consciousness.
During the course Dr Joe will deliver new teachings, share case studies and examples to connect you more deeply with your body, and begin liberating the limiting thoughts, beliefs and emotions that keep you ‘stuck’ and so free up the energy for who you really want to be and what you want to create in your life.
Dr Joe will take you through a series of interactive exercises and intensive meditations that will deepen your practice and process of change.
This is a unique opportunity to retreat from your old life and create a new one, in a peaceful environment where you are supported and surrounded by like-minds who are also on the journey of change and personal transformation.
You will leave this weekend having experienced powerful and profound shifts and literally come out of the program a different person. As you continue your practice with the tools and techniques you take away from this weekend, you will experience ongoing and significantly noticeable shifts in your world. | <urn:uuid:d9e26827-6a5a-4d5d-b4dd-2f89b4f0238c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bpv.ch/eng/Dispenza_english.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951388 | 732 | 1.625 | 2 |
Careers In Psychology
This website has been designed to help our psychology majors find work in areas of interest to them. While psychology majors can get any job that requires a University degree, the emphasis here is on the humanities/social services and research. To this end, we have compiled lists of potential employers, mainly in British Columbia, who hire for these positions, as well as provided numerous resources which describe the types of careers psych majors can get, career quizzes, and interview tips.
Remember that Universities hire graduates for a variety of positions including student advisors, coordinators, lab instructors, research assistants, and more. For list of every human resources web page for every post secondary institution in North America, go to www.academic360.com
- Careers in Psychology Overview
- Click here for a list websites regarding the types of careers available to you
- Click here for two awesome resources including career quizzes and much more
- Click here for books on careers in psychology
- While psychology majors can get any job that requires a university degree, the majority will obtain a position in the Humanities/ Social Services.
- Click here for potential employers in the Humanities
- Research organizations may well be the second biggest employer of psychology majors. These include government funded research organizations, as well as private institutes such as KPMG and IPSOS Reid.
- Click here for potential employers in Research
- Government agencies offer positions in both research and humanities.
- Click here for potential Government employers
- With these search engines you can search for jobs in your area by factors such as location and types of jobs. Click here to find lots of excellent search engines.
- Can't find what you are looking for? With a little more education/ training you could land a job as a human resource specialist, a physiotherapist, or a genetic counsellor.
- Click here for links to certificate programs and degrees for a wide range of career options that use your BA in psychology as a starting point.
- UFV is a great place to work and you qualify for many positions including educational advisors and coordinators. Check out all 3 sections of our website (staff, administrative and faculty/ educational advisors) at http://www.ufv.ca/es/Career_Opportunities.htm
- Check out our Career Center for information on co-op and other career resources. Make sure you check out CareerLink; by registering at CareerLink you have access to job postings that are exclusive to UFV students.
- Click here | <urn:uuid:3d6da7f1-9ea3-4d7b-ae65-9c755809586c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ufv.ca/psychology/careers-in-psychology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939719 | 522 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A movie about a 350-pound African-American girl physically abused by her mother and sexually abused by her father seems like a long shot to win over audiences. In an environment where daily stress causes people to seek out escapist entertainment like Avatar or feel good movies like The Blind Side, why would anyone choose to see this film?
Now that Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire has won awards in the U.S. and Europe, many moviegoers are taking a second look. The ultimate compliment, of course, is being nominated for an Academy Award and two of the film’s actresses, Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique, have received that honor. The film’s director, Lee Daniels, also nominated for an Oscar, is the one who fought to have this film made—from the beginning when he convinced the author, Sapphire, to sign over rights to her work, through the Sundance Festival where he finally won over Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey for help with promotion.
In 1987, Claireece Precious Jones (Sidibe) is sixteen and lives in Harlem with her mother, Mary (Mo’Nique). When we first meet Precious, as she prefers to be called, she’s in English class barely keeping up with the work yet captivated by her teacher. (She fantasizes that he will whisk her off to live with him in Westchester). Her time in school, however, is cut short. Called to the principal’s office, she’s suspended because she’s pregnant, the second time she has had to leave school to have a baby.
On her way home, she’s a target for the abuse that often greets obese people in our society. She counters, as she often does, with physical violence. So far, Precious has done little to win over our sympathies. All of that changes when she arrives home and we witness what her day-to-day existence is like. Her mother lives to watch TV, smoke, collect welfare checks, and have her daughter wait on her, all while delivering one hurtful blow after another—both verbal and physical—upon Precious. We learn through flashbacks that Precious was twice impregnated by her father, her mother watching but doing nothing to stop the abuse. Rather than condemn her husband, she accuses Precious of stealing him and leaving her alone.
Precious’ first child, called simply Mongo, because she’s “Mongoloid,” lives with Mary’s mother, Precious’ grandmother. Whenever a social worker plans a visit, the grandmother brings over Mongo so that Mary can continue to collect welfare checks. (Mo’Nique is superb in this scene where she transforms herself with lipstick and a wig into a caring grandmother and then morphs back into an abusive mother when the social worker leaves).
The principal arranges for Precious to attend an alternative school. In a classroom filled with other students who have somehow gone off track, Precious begins to find herself, owing in large part to a dedicated teacher Blu Rain (Paula Patton, above) who senses Precious’ potential and encourages her to write. After the birth of a second child, a boy named Abdul, Precious returns home but afraid for her baby’s safety finally flees. She finds temporary housing with Rain and her partner (she is curious about her teacher’s lesbian relationship) eventually moving into a half-way house while continuing her studies.
Precious’ problems are far from over. She learns that she is HIV positive, infected by her father who has died from the disease. She is determined to make it on her own, looking towards completing high school and going on to college.
From time to time, Precious meets with her social worker, Miss Weiss (an unrecognizable Mariah Carey, above). When Precious’ mother meets with her daughter and social worker, vowing to change if her family will come back to live with her, Weiss finally extracts the details of Precious’ sexual abuse and why Mary allowed it to happen. Mo’Nique has already won the Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a supporting role, and is considered a frontrunner for the Oscar in that category. This scene should clinch it for her.
This is Sidibe’s first role and she is, quite simply, a natural. She is so believable as Precious that we often feel we are watching the real Precious suffer the indignities of life. Carey is far from her diva self here. Members of our party who hadn’t read about the movie failed to identify Carey as the social worker. (She even sports a hairy upper lip). Lenny Kravitz has a small but memorable role as a male nurse, while Sherri Shepherd (does she manage to find the best jobs ever?) steps away from her View persona to play the wise-cracking receptionist at Precious’ school.
Some reviewers have criticized the movie for its unfavorable portrayal of black American life. Yet, these characters could have been white, Hispanic, or any race without affecting the story. The sad fact is that too many children in our society, no matter their race or, in fact, social status, suffer abuse and often have no where or no one to turn to for help. Hopefully, this film will raise awareness of the problem and serve as a call to action for those of us who can become part of the solution. | <urn:uuid:4e76e3d0-c957-4db3-aee5-41371edcdea3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womanaroundtown.com/sections/playing-around/precious-a-story-of-survival | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974254 | 1,144 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Federated Identities: To Trust or Not to Trust?
Today more than ever, to remain competitive organizations need to collaborate and share critical information across organizational boundaries with business partners. However, as corporations extend their organizational boundaries in this way, they face considerable security issues regarding cross-organizational information and application sharing. Battling significant complexity and risk to operations, the IT departments strive to securely manage and control user identities.
On a Technology Executives Dbriefs webcast, Federated Identities: To Trust or Not to Trust?, held on February 3, 2011, Deloitte & Touche LLP’s Kelly Bissell, principal, and Vikram Kunchala, senior manager, discussed how companies can secure access to corporate information resources and external service providers across organizational boundaries and security domains. They focused on:
- Fundamentals of identity federation, including background and business drivers.
- Federated identity management, including identity and service providers, models, and standards.
- The role of federation in identity management to automate provisioning of user IDs across organization boundaries.
Watch the Dbriefs Webcast replay to learn how a clear strategy for managing distributed identities can help organizations build trust, become more efficient, and secure information system resources.
The following polling questions were conducted during the Webcast: | <urn:uuid:5081d3c6-7c19-44d9-8c63-9d40b0bd02a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Services/consulting/technology-consulting/bd680185e4002310VgnVCM1000001a56f00aRCRD.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932715 | 270 | 1.742188 | 2 |
As far as I am concerned, the Pledge of Allegiance is a loyalty oath, and loyalty oaths are un-American, if not unconstitutional (the latter being a subject for another post). Adding the words “under God” just makes it worse, because now you’re requiring children (in this instance, but it applies to adults as well) to assert a religious belief they may not feel or even understand. That’s a clear violation of the First Amendment.Read the whole post, here.
Obviously, the ideal solution would be to stop declaring fealty to the nation-state every morning. Next best would be removing the phrase “under God.” But if we’re going to insist that American schoolchildren from kindergarten through high school recite “I pledge allegiance to the flag and the United States of America…” each day, the least we can do is include an opt-out provision to accommodate the consciences of students or parents (or both) who believe that this practice is inherently coercive, disrespectful to Americans’ individual religious beliefs (or lack thereof), and offensive to the spirit of individualism and personal liberty that lies at the heart of the American experience.
All the blather about religion and conscience is mostly bull.
This essay is about hating your country. A statement of refusal to pledge loyalty to the "nation-state" is a statement in solidarity with some kind of ethereal transnational consciousness - "imagine there's no countries..."
When there's no commitment to nation among the people, there's also a rejection of national values, cultures, and traditions. With this comes a refusal to condemn evil, because one's nation-state is no better than any other. It's just one step from refusal to pledge loyalty to nation to endorsing the horror and terror in places like Mumbai, because logically if the nation-states didn't exist, we'd all be one - no competition, no hatred, no violence. But in refusing to condemn evil, societies surrender to totalitarianism, and in that regime there will be no possibility of conscience, only death. | <urn:uuid:1c507d44-0119-42db-a2ec-c91c18d2bc92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/pledging-allegiance.html?showComment=1228099140000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940368 | 433 | 1.695313 | 2 |
U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, former governor Mitt Romney, spent Sunday off the campaign trail and with their advisors as they prepare for their third and final debate of the presidential election.
The 90-minute debate Monday in the closely contested state of Florida comes 15 days before the November 6 election. This will be the last time Americans can tune in and see the candidates challenge each other on the same stage about their policy differences.
While the economy has been the major focus of this year's election campaign, Monday's debate will be on foreign policy.
Romney and his Republican allies have continually attacked Obama for his handling of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. The September 11 attack in Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Iran's nuclear program has also been a subject of debate, with Romney saying the Obama administration has not been tough enough on Tehran and not supportive enough of Israel.
Obama has accused Romney of politicizing the attack in Libya, and said he has put in place tough sanctions on Iran while building U.S. security cooperation with Israel. The president has also highlighted anti-terrorism successes, including the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. | <urn:uuid:47b80488-ab8f-4c51-94d4-9cdb9dc734ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-romney-prepare-for-final-debate/1530665.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976516 | 250 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Jazz in Chicago encompasses many overlapping scenes, and one of the most distinctive of them will launch its yearly celebration this weekend.
The city's Asian-American community has contributed immeasurably to the richness and range of music in Chicago, nowhere more than during the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival, which launches its 17th edition on Friday night and continues the following weekend.
During the course of three performances, listeners will hear unusual ensembles, each representing a different esthetic yet all seeking innovative ways of improvising and composing music. Asian-American jazz, these musicians seem to be saying, above all looks to the future (even as it taps certain elements of the musical past).
Yet those who haven't followed the particular achievements of the city's Asian-American jazz landscape might wonder why a separate festival spotlighting this population exists in the first place. Isn't it enough that Asian-American artists thrive among the top tier of Chicago musicians?
"It's very apparent to us when we look at various (album) compilations that are released, or the programming of different organizations around the city and nationwide, that the Asian-American contribution is basically overlooked," says saxophonist-bandleader Jeff Chan, who has organized this year's festival with stalwarts such as bassist Tatsu Aoki and vocalist-pianist Yoko Noge.
"If we don't document (the music) ourselves, who will?" adds Chan, noting that all of this year's performances will be recorded for an online archive yet to be built.
"We are and have been contributors to the music scene. … I don't want to call people out, but I think there's an idea that Asian-Americans are just not seen as part of the fabric of this country, this culture. … There's a history of being ignored. We don't want that to happen to our music."
The festival indeed casts a bright light on bands that could not exist without the singular pulse and cultural perspective of Chicago's Asian-American jazz artists. The aforementioned Noge and Aoki, for instance, combine elements of traditional Japanese musical ritual with contemporary improvisational techniques. Chan's Cultural Arts Quartet builds on the methods of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), a South Side collective that has been reinventing the music since the mid-1960s.
Indeed, many of the Asian-American artists in this year's festival and previous ones have formed a tight bond with the city's African-American jazz community, which is no coincidence.
"In the work that I do, and in the work that Tatsu (Aoki) and Jon Jang in San Francisco (do) … we've all tried to highlight the collaboration between the Asian-American and African-American communities, and I think that's a reflection of a wider social phenomenon," says Chan.
"The Asian-American community has often been a buffer community. If you look at a lot of cities, Chicago included, you have what's typically regarded as a black part of town, and what's typically regarded as a white part of town. And often times, as in Chicago, you have a Chinatown between them – here, on the near South Side. In San Francisco, it's Japantown."
Two ethnicities that have faced a history of discrimination, in other words, rub up against one another and find common cause. That union naturally expresses itself in music, as vividly shown by the Asian-American bands that long have flourished in Chicago.
Or, to put it in other terms, jazz always has carried an unmistakable social message celebrating freedom and racial equity, and the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival stands as another way of expressing it.
This year's event will feature unconventional settings, including Mana Contemporary on South Throop Street and the Japanese American Service Committee on North Clark Street. The demise of venues such as HotHouse and the Velvet Lounge, says Chan, has led festival planners to seek out alternative homes.
Chan represents a younger generation than Aoki and Noge and has carried their ideas forward. Though born and raised in California, he ventured here 10 years ago, the move changing his music and enriching ours.
"It was the best move of my life," says Chan, who has collaborated with such elder statesmen as saxophonists Jimmy Ellis and Ari Brown and also came into the orbit of tenor giants Fred Anderson and Von Freeman.
"The weather is a little different in Chicago than it is in California … but I didn't move to Chicago for the weather. I moved here for the music, and I got what I bargained for."
Following is the complete schedule for the 17th annual Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival; for more information, visit aajazz.org or phone 708-386-9349.
7 p.m. Friday: Tatsu Aoki's Experimental Unit. Aoki's band features cellist Jamie Kempers, reedist Mwata Bowden and Douglas Ewart and taiko drummer Kioto Aoki. The ensemble will perform music in collaboration with an exhibition of paintings by Hiromi Tanaka. At Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St.; manafinearts.com/studios/chicago or 312-850-8301
7 p.m. Dec. 7: Yoko Noge and Japaesque2. Vocalist-pianist Noge will be joined by saxophonist Jimmy Ellis, guitarist Jimmy Burns, bassist and shamisen player Tatsu Aoki, drummer Bugs Cochran, cellist Jamie Kempers and others in what's billed as a "fusion wonderland of Chicago blues, jazz and Japanese music." At Japanese American Service Committee, 4427 N. Clark St.; jasc-chicago.org or 773-275-0097
9 p.m. Dec. 8: A double-bill features a solo set by pianist Bradley Parker-Sparrow and Jeff Chan's Cultural Arts Quartet, with reedist Edward Wilkerson, Jr.; bassist Tatsu Aoki; and drummer Avreeayl Ra. At Elastic Arts, 2830 N. Milwaukee Ave., second floor; $12; elasticarts.org or 773-772-3616
Also worth hearing
"Ninety Miles": The title refers not only to a 2011 album by vibist Stefon Harris, saxophonist David Sanchez and trumpeter Christian Scott (plus Cuban counterparts) but to the approximate distance between Miami and Havana. This time, the trumpet chair will be held by an even more formidable player, Nicholas Payton, while the opening attraction will be one of the most accomplished pianists in jazz, Gonzalo Rubalcaba. 8 p.m. Friday at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; $27-$60; 312-294-3000 or cso.org
Tom Harrell: An inspired composer-arranger, Harrell plays trumpet and fluegelhorn with unmatched poetry and grace. He'll lead a quintet. 8 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 4, 8 and 10 p.m. Sunday; at the Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth Ct.; $20-$25; 312-360-0234 or jazzshowcase.com
To read more from Howard Reich on jazz, go to chicagotribune.com/reich. | <urn:uuid:fdcc9a93-8357-4e53-b2eb-1e3f885f66e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyamerican.com/topic/ct-ott-1130-jazz-scene-20121129,0,5124321.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949993 | 1,522 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Edmonds Underwater Park is located just north of the Edmonds-Kingston Ferry Landing at the foot of Main Street. The Park includes more than 27 acres of tide and bottom lands of which approximately half have been developed with features and trails specifically for divers.
The Park was established at Brackett's Landing in 1970 by city ordinance as a Marine Preserve and Sanctuary. It is the most popular of 10 underwater parks that make up Washington’s underwater park system.
About 25,000 scuba divers visit the Edmonds park each year. Most are among the state's 250,000 trained divers, though 15 percent come from out of state, mostly from Portland and Vancouver, B.C.
The Underwater Park provides convenient parking, restrooms, a dry changing area, as well as a shower and foot-wash station. Charts, maps and information to assist with developing a dive plan are on display near the Park restroom.
|Air can be purchased several blocks south of the Park at Edmonds Underwater Sports. Brackett's Landing Park, on the adjacent beach, provides pathways, picnic areas, and interpretive information in addition to spectacular mountain and marine views.|
Brackett’s Landing Park is open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. May through September, and 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. October though April. Parking in the lot is limited to 4 hours. Additional parking is available at private lots south of Main Street and east of Railroad Avenue.
The Underwater Park itself is a series of man-made reef structures interspersed with sunken vessels in various states of decay, which together create an extensive artificial habitat for a wide variety of marine life. These features are connected by an extensive network of fixed guide ropes anchored to the bottom which make it easy for divers to get around the Park.
The man-made reefs are made from concrete blocks, tractor tires, PVC pipes of various sizes, sunken navigation buoys, an old tree trunk, sunken boats & ships, old pieces of the 520 floating bridge and much much more. There is even a cash register and the bed of a pick up truck.
In 2007, in acknowledgement of his outstanding work as volunteer dive coordinator and the main force behind the ever expanding list of submerged features and trails, the City named the trail system the "Bruce Higgins Underwater Trails." Thank you Bruce for all your hard work. The park itself remains named the Edmonds Underwater Park.
Residents of Edmonds often comment that they have no idea what can be found below the surface in the underwater park. To this end, a public information map of the underwater park was produced. It reflects the features present as of November 2001, and is located here. It should not be used for dive planning as underwater features and enhancements change often.
THE DRY DOCK:
The park's original feature was the 325-foot De Lion Dry Dock, which was sunk in 1935 next to the ferry dock to act as a current buffer. It remains a popular dive destination within the park. It is an enormous structure that has created a beautiful artificial reef and attracted an abundance of sea life. Divers are able to swim in among the ribs of the structure. The sidewalls of the dry dock rise 34 feet above the inner deck, are 80 feet apart, and 325 feet in length. Halfway between the two walls is a low concrete ledge that marks the halfway point for divers swimming between the walls. The ledge once served as a keel support for ships being worked on.
During extreme low tides the top of the dry dock is visible from the surface. Since the dry dock is at the south end of the park adjacent to the active Washington State Ferry, divers must use extra caution to avoid wandering into the ferry terminal area. Divers must obey all posted security notices and restrictions in effect for the areas around the Washington State Ferries. Check currect postings and signage for the most up to date information.
Good navigation and an awareness of depth will help divers from wandering into the wrong area. It is important to remember that the dry dock is made of steel, which interferes with compass readings.
In 1972, a 94-foot tug, the Alitak, was placed northeast of the dry dock, and since 1977 other features have been added north of the dock to encourage divers away from the Ferry Landing. These include the ships Fossil in 1982, the Molly Brown in 1996, and the 70-foot Triumph in 1999. About two wooden boats per year have been sunk in the park because wooden boats last only about two years before lost to decay.
Protected from heavy coastal surges, the nutrient-rich inland waters of Washington support an abundance of sea life. Man-made features in the Underwater Park provide habitat for a stunning variety of life. These include: enormous lingcod, cabezons, spotted ratfish, various greenlings and rockfish, seaperch, gobys, sculpins, flounders, sole, eelpouts , Dungeness, red rock, kelp and hermit crabs, horse clams, geoducks, scallops, heart cockles, moon snail, giant pacific & red octopus, sea cucumbers, and numerous species of anemones, sea stars, urchin, nudibranchs, shrimp and seaweed.
* All divers and snorkelers must dive with a buddy.
* All divers must be certified or in training.
* All divers must wear buoyancy compensators.
* No fish or marine organisms may be removed from the park.
* No night diving without a permit. (Permits issued at the Parks and Recreation Office.)
* No boats (including submersibles) allowed inside the park.
Divers should prepare a dive plan based on currents, depth, visibility and ability. Plan to end the dive near the beach to minimize the surface swim. Divers must be realistic about their physical conditions and diving ability.
|Always reserve enough energy and air to end the dive safely. Make sure to take a compass reading from shore: the bottom slopes very gradually and there are no obvious hints as to the direction of shore.
Take the time to consult a map and plan your dive well. In addition to the map posted on the wall of the restrooms, up-to-date plastic dive maps of the Park can be purchased at Edmonds Underwater Sports, with all profits going to maintenance and improvements of the Underwater Park.
Currents at the Underwater Park are dictated by three factors:
1) WIND: Surface wind can dominate other factors depending on the directions and fetch;
2) TIDAL CURRENTS: Based on tidal exchange - the larger the tidal range the stronger the currents. It is recommended to dive near the slack tide. Currents and tides should be planned for using the predictions for Admiralty Inlet with the appropriate corrections (subordinate station 1090 – See below);
3) THE FERRY: Propellers are used to stop the ferry’s approach to the dock and are always turning to hold the boat against the dock. The ferry propellers always produce a current.
Look up the daily current predictions for Admiralty Inlet and apply the following time corrections to calculate slack current times: Minimum current before flood: +44 minutes. Minimum current before ebb: +13 minutes.
TEMPERATURE: The water temperature ranges between 48 to 52 degrees year-around.
DEPTH: The deepest part of the park is 45 feet at high tide, and is on the south end, near the Ferry.
VISIBILITY: Visibility ranges between two and 40 feet, therefore divers must use a compass and the trail system as a guide. Many features have buoys to mark their location. Follow the buoy line to the bottom to find the feature located near the anchor. Try to dive the high slack tide for best visibility.
N 47° 48.778'
W 122° 22.936'
The underwater park is located immediately next to the Edmonds terminal of the Kingston ferry. Take I-5 to Edmonds and follow the signs towards the ferry. Don't get in the ferry lanes. Turn left towards the ferry at the intersection at the front of the ferry lane. Turn right into the Brackett's Landing parking lot immediately across the railroad tracks. | <urn:uuid:244839c6-3dc8-48c9-a0e6-8b38b365d6a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edmondswa.gov/services/education/discovery-programs/edmonds-underwater-park.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941511 | 1,738 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Golden Boy – Rouben Mamoulian
When Columbia first announced its purchase of Clifford Odets’ Group Theatre play Golden Boy, it seemed a strange choice, because that studio had never favored dramas of strong social significance. Odets was not hired to adapt his own play for film; instead, four top writers carefully deleted the play’s social comment from the screenplay that was being prepared. Some of the controversial characters-were completely eliminated; the romance was built up; and the hero’s conflict was simplified. A happy ending was devised as a substitute for the play’s conclusion. All things considered, the screenwriters did a good job, for Golden Boy as a movie proved to be much stronger entertainment than the play. Today the play is dated, but the movie is still as pertinent as it was at the time of its initial release.
When the production was first announced in the trade magazines, it featured an appealing painting of Jean Arthur, who was announced as its star. Producer Harry Cohn was biding his time, hoping to borrow John Garfield from Warner Bros. for the title role, but Jack Warner and Harry Cohn were feuding, so Garfield could not be secured for the part. Things began to fall into place, though, when Rouben Mamoulian was signed as director. Mamoulian was a versatile man who could never be typed in any one kind of film. Whatever the background of the story he was directing, its cinematic mood was always beautifully sustained. He was faced with two strong dramatic story lines to resolve: the romance between an unworldly youth and a sophisticated girl; and the internal struggle of the boy who had to choose between fulfilling himself artistically through his music, and the opportunity to achieve quick success as a boxer. Mamoulian had one advantage in telling the story on the screen that could never be realized in the theater: he could show the prizefight sequences realistically. In the theater these scenes had to take place offstage; in the film they are superbly done, and convey an electric charge of quick ringside excitement and suspense.
Mamoulian demonstrated superb taste in casting his picture. He was fortunate in being able to get Barbara Stanwyck for the heroine, Lorna Moon, the girl friend of the fight manager Tom Moody, who is perfectly played by Adolphe Menjou. Stanwyck had just finished her last scenes as the heroine in De Mille’s Union Pacific (1939), and she came over to Columbia with almost no break from her Paramount duties. Lee J. Cobb had been in the original stage play in a minor part, but was cast by Mamoulian in the more important role of Mr. Bonaparte, the boy’s father, who dreams of his son’s becoming a great violinist and who strongly opposes his son’s boxing career because of the threat it holds of injuring the boy’s hands. Joseph Calleia was exactly right for the mobster, Eddie Fuseli, and Sam Levene, as the taxi driver Siggie, provided the humor the story needed.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Pages: 1 2 | <urn:uuid:acbc6c47-2df4-48e0-8294-51e1095ee241> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrmovietimes.com/movie-news/golden-boy-rouben-mamoulian/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985679 | 652 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Author’s Note: I wrote this for the Smart Pop Books essay contest featuring Joss Whedon’s beloved-but-canceled TV series Dollhouse. Since they did not choose my essay, I am posting it here on my blog.
“A mask is but a sum of lines; a face, on the contrary, is above all their thematic harmony.” – “Garbo’s Face,” Mythologies by Roland Barthes
Dollhouse is revolutionary television in its depiction of beauty. The beauty presented on the program encompasses the social, economic, and visual. We get the exotic beauty of Sierra and Victor, Bennett Halverson’s nerdy beauty, the damaged Dr. Saunders, Alpha’s nice guy good looks, and Mellie as the archetypal Girl Next Door. In the end, Beauty is a subjective, exclusivist concept. Like money, one possesses beauty or not. There’s a reason Donald Trump can date models. He represents the moneyed clientele serviced by the Dollhouses.
This essay will explore how Dollhouse pushed and played with the concepts of beauty. Society’s interpretation of a specific personality type and capital will also come into play, since beauty is a challenging concept to quantify, let alone define. The thrust of the essay will be aesthetic, since aesthetics is primarily concerned with beauty, but ethical, political, and economic considerations will provide additional nuances to an idea one can misinterpret as a purely visual judgment call.
Why do we consider these people beautiful? In the end, it will be a variety of factors beyond the nebulous cluster of personal opinions we call “good taste.”
Victor, Sierra and “the exotic”
“He will have to surrender before the orgy of tolerance, the total syncretism and the absolute and unstoppable polytheism of Beauty.” – On Beauty, Umberto Eco
Picture two things: Victor’s chin and Sierra’s cheekbones. Victor has a chin that juts out from his face, the line from his nose to his chin forming a hook. The Albanian-American Enver Gjokaj plays Victor, slipping in and out of personalities as divergent as a serial killer, a college girl, and Topher with chameleonic ease. Sierra has high cheekbones and a large mouth. Dichen Lachman plays Sierra. Lachman’s father is Australian and her mother is of Nepalese descent.
Sierra and Victor represent opposite poles of the Eurasian, especially if one considers Europe a glorified peninsula of Asia. In interviews, Enver takes pride in his Albanian heritage. Until recently, those of Central European descent have dominated the visual landscape.
In the 1950s, television programs included ethnic fare that fit into nice little niches, like The Goldbergs, Marty, and in the Seventies The Jeffersons. Everyone fit into their little box, whether on the TV screen or on the US Census form. Dollhouse is not necessarily post-racial, but multiracial. With a biracial President and the stigma of interracial relationships joining the growing trash heap of outdated evil ideas, the faces of Victor and Sierra point towards a beautiful horizon that will make a mess of preconceived categories like race and ethnicity. The South Park episode “Goo Backs” satirized the concept of a society comprised of a people who combined all races.
Before going any further, it would be prudent to unpack the term “exotic.” It is a loaded term, like “civilization” and “culture.” Exotic has the prefix exo- that means outside, different, and “not us.” What standard should we use to measure exoticism? The Dollhouse viewership, TV viewership at large, Corporate America’s conception of the (stereo)typical consumer? For the purposes of this essay, the presumption will be that Dollhouse is written for a predominantly white middle-class, albeit geeky, demographic.
The casting of Victor and Sierra represents Whedon’s evolution in worldbuilding. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy appeared as the stereotypical blonde-haired suburban white girl. It was a very white show. In Angel, the addition of Gunn was a welcome improvement, albeit as a racial token figure. Firefly (and Serenity) saw a watershed in its depiction of ethnicities. The program had white characters of all classes speaking fluent Chinese. The mash-up of Chinese and Western (read United States and British) cultures provided opportunities to challenge the expectations of the viewers. Dollhouse takes things a step further by casting Victor and Sierra not as racial tokens, but as members of an organic whole. (The viewer does see other white people as dolls, but they have not received the same level of emotional investment or a long-term story arcs.) This is in opposition to the “Five Token Band” trope where “The general impression left by this practice is that what the characters are is noticeably more important than what they do.”
Another connotation of the exotic is that which one sees on the skin or in the face. This superficial reading relates to the concept’s exteriority. Victor and Sierra are more than their skin tones and faces. On further investigation, all the main characters have a multiethnic heritage. Eliza Dushku (Echo) is half-Albanian; Harry Lennix (Boyd) is Creole; Tahmoh Penikett (Paul Ballard) is half Native American, specifically half English Canadian and was from the Yukon.
Besides their beautiful appearance, Victor and Sierra’s romantic relationship is also a thing of beauty. The relationship transcended their imprints and continued to bloom with their “real” personalities. If the relationship crystallizes into something multigenerational, their offspring will represent the future face of the United States – multinational and multiracial.
Bennett Halverson and Nerd Beauty
Beauty is a social construct. Like Art, it only exists when society deems it so. Bennett Halverson is unaware of her beauty until she meets fellow wunderkind Topher Brink. Granted, Whedon alum Summer Glau plays Bennett. Regardless of how thick her glasses are or her social awkwardness, it remains a challenge to make Summer Glau unattractive.
Bennett and her male counterpart, Topher, embody Nerd Beauty. An amalgamation of intelligence, appearance, and social mores, Nerd Beauty contrasts the supermodel looks of Sierra and Mellie’s Girl Next Door. The Nerd remains one of the stock roles in the high school caste system. The object of ridicule and previously embodied by TV icons like Urkel and Screech, the Nerd represented everything antithetical with the American Experience. Guys want to be like the football players, not the nerds. Girls want to be cheerleaders, not bookish and mousy.
Saved by the Bell and Family Matters drove the matter home. Their depictions of the Nerd approached blackface in its comedic exaggeration. While that parallel is broad and a bit crass (it seems shameless to equate 400 years of African-American oppression to people with pocket protectors getting swirlies and wedgies), one should remember the proud American tradition of ridiculing, tormenting, and oppressing the Other.
The rise of Geek Culture, Bill Gates, and the Internet provided a tectonic shift in Nerd Representation. The nerds were now driving Ferraris in Silicon Valley while the jocks that tormented them remained trapped in their small towns selling insurance. Subcultural solidarity and sci fi conventions also helped. Like minds created a unified demand. When network executives realized a section of the viewing population found geeky girls and geeky guys hot, it was only a matter of time before network representation shifted the standards of appearance.
Dr. Saunders: Scarification and disgust
“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.” – “The Favorite Game,” Leonard Cohen
Played by Amy Acker, Dr. Claire Saunders exhibits the dangerous consequences of beauty. According to Adelle, Dr. Saunders, aka Whiskey, used to be the Number One Doll of the Los Angeles Dollhouse. Left scarred following Alpha’s attack on the Dollhouse, Dewitt relegated her to the house doctor, uploading her with the imprint of the murdered Dr. Saunders.
On the surface, the retasking of Whiskey as Dr. Saunders seems like a downgraded or at least removing the damaged goods from the high-paying clientele. Dollhouse has been consistent in showing the deceptions of reality as appearance and essence become unhinged. The scarred Whiskey would probably not attract the same clientele since she represents damaged goods. Considered as attractive commodities, the dolls offer Beauty and Reality in one nice expensive package. It is not some prostitute feigning love but an actual person in actual love with you, the client.
The superficial reading sees Adelle imprinting Whiskey with another imprint, thus preserving her use-value even as her facial scarring diminishes her exchange-value. The Los Angeles Dollhouse and the Rossum Corporation function as businesses, thus a doll’s exchange-value is important to keep the capital rolling in. Hence, no one would want a doll with the physique of Paul Giamatti or Camryn Manheim. Aesthetic decisions reinforced with vast swaths of capital end in personally merciless decisions. In the end, we’re simply not attractive enough to work in the Los Angeles Dollhouse.
Peel back another layer and we reveal Adelle’s matriarchal pride in her dolls, like a lioness with her cubs. She has no tolerance for the freaks and sickos who request or demand their needs satiated. Whether it is an arms dealer like Martin Klar, would-be serial killer Terry Karrens, and manipulative psychopath Nolan, Adelle has to keep her dolls safe and undamaged.
Los Angeles is where the pretty people come to work in the Dream Factory, entertaining millions on television or the movies. At least that is what is promised. It attracted Cordelia Chase. The Los Angeles Dollhouse provides a metacommentary on this Dream Factory, giving those who want the dream a temporary and expensive taste. With the high demand comes the high cost. The costs include attractiveness and the discipline involved in keeping the Dollhouse’s commodities in optimal condition for exchange. However, the demand for Beauty is a random thing. Who knows what pop star will become the next Flavor of the Month? Entertainment companies spend millions attempting to gauge the thought processes of the public. In the end, the public’s decisions remain arbitrary. A key area of arbitrary standards is the face. One commonality in the public’s decisions is to desire an undamaged face.
Beauty and the Beast Next Door: Alpha and Mellie
“No more Mr. Nice Guy.” – Alice Cooper
Beyond the exotic and the damaged Beauties on Dollhouse, the program also cast a couple of individuals who do not fit the normal television standard for glamour. Miracle Laurie plays Mellie, Paul Ballard’s one-time love interest. Alan Tudyk plays Alpha, the bête noir of the series.
Casting Tudyk as Alpha was a brilliant coup. Prior to work on Dollhouse, Tudyk worked as Wash on Firefly. Seeing someone viewers recognized as a nice guy playing a psychopath with multiple personalities threw people for a loop. Wash and Alpha represent diametrically opposed poles in terms of morality. Alpha also does not look like a serial killer. (Neither does Michael C. Hall as the eponymous Dexter.)
Alpha’s actions constantly play havoc with our preconceptions. Alan Tudyk’s face reads, “Hey, this is a nice guy.” Then he says something quasi-Nietzschean and slashes a face with a knife. The scenario becomes more chilling when the psychopath looks like your next-door neighbor.
When Alpha led Paul down into the bowels of the Dollhouse, he acted like a nebbish, talkative and weak-kneed. It plays like a mash-up of Vergil leading Dante into the Inferno and Abbot and Costello, with Paul Ballard as the humorless straight man. The situation is complicated when Alpha reveals he houses dozens of personalities within his head. His nice guy good looks mask a mind on the constant verge of collapse.
To FBI agent Paul Ballard, Mellie is literally the Girl Next Door. She appears sensual rather than glamorous, exuding warmth rather than a beauty built upon exclusion and coldness. In the absurd world of TV standards, Mellie can be considered “TV fat.” However, one should take this appellation with a massive grain of salt. Remember, we live in a world where the media describes Jennifer Love Hewitt as “voluptuous.” Saffron (Christina Hendricks) from Firefly represents a truer example of the voluptuous female, with the character combining deception with a fleshly sensuality.
Just because Mellie has some body fat on her upper arms, therefore she exists outside the microcosm of the Supermodel. The Supermodel, like the Supercar, is a commodity both exclusive and ridiculous.
When Paul finds she was a doll, the Girl Next Door image shatters. The destruction of the illusion has many aspects. In the first place, the trigger initiated by Adelle robs Mellie of her free will. She can be switched on and off at the discretion of someone else. Her Dollhouse programming usurps her social programming. The second aspect destroys Mellie’s benevolent image as a caring mother. The programming turns from Madonna to Whore, since Paul is well aware of what the Dollhouse provides to its clients. When Mellie warns Paul, she does so as a remotely controlled body, not as a self-controlled individual. Mellie’s tragedy reaches its climax when Senator Perrin, himself augmented by Dollhouse technology, exposes Mellie as someone mentally instable and denies the existence of the Dollhouse.
Mellie’s Girl Next Door voluptuousness sharply contrasts Adelle Dewitt’s austere ice queen persona. Adelle’s beauty originates in her power. The icy woman in power is a very old trope, since beauty relates to its availability. Dewitt is unapproachable and inaccessible. Her seduction of Stewart Lipman, head of the DC Dollhouse, began as a stereotypical powerful-woman-using-her-sex-appeal shtick. Like a chess master, Dewitt turns on a dime, switching from seduction to threats, clenching Lipman’s family jewels. The Dewitt squeeze differs from Mellie’s “switch”, when Dewitt’s “three flowers in a vase” phrase turns her into a finely tuned killing machine.
The genius of Dollhouse is in its deft manipulation of age-old tropes, turning the Girl Next Door into an expert fighter. It creates a story arc where an ice queen like Adelle Dewitt becomes an empathetic lioness fighting for her charges against the fascist excesses of Rossum.
Conclusion: Beauty, capital, and television
“Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.” – SCUM Manifesto, Valerie Solanas
In its deft casting choices and finely crafted storylines, Dollhouse comments on the promiscuous intermingling of beauty, capital, and television. We all enjoy seeing prettier versions of ourselves on TV programs. The moral muddiness of Dollhouse makes these desires uncomfortable. It forces the viewers to question these desires. The Dollhouse facility offers its high-paying clients services ranging from prostitution to assassination, making it as dangerous as any CIA station embedded in a United States embassy. (The fact that numerous other nations embed intelligence personnel in their embassies for the same purpose of committing illegal acts does not really salve the conscience.)
For Dewitt and Harding, the Rossum CEO, beauty is a freely traded commodity. People will pay large sums for the dolls. By extension, the TV executives and audience did the same thing, since we demand to see these pretty faces week after week.
Victor and Sierra represent a positive trend in casting. Instead of the casts’ whiteness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the non-white and non-European faces exist not as tokens, but as fully formed characters in plots where it makes sense. The majority of the show takes place in Los Angeles, itself part of the Spanish and Mexican nations for several hundred years. Slowly TV is revealing itself as a non-white medium beyond the racial and ethnic broadcasting ghettos of the WB and Telemundo.
Dollhouse works its best when it takes a common character trope – the Nerd, the Girl Next Door, the Psycho Killer, etc. – and takes it to a new strange place. While Beauty is a challenging concept to quantify, let alone define, Dollhouse engages the viewer by both meeting and confronting expectations. On a narrative level, it explored the issues of self, ethics, and corporate intrusion into the government. On a purely aesthetic level, the show populated the TV screen with beautiful faces and beautiful bodies. The show became more than the usual “pretty faces with problems” (Joss Whedon is not Aaron Spelling) in its magisterial handling of both narrative and aesthetics. TV is a visual medium and Dollhouse revolutionizes the small screen in its casting, creating a future-present filled with gorgeous nerdy girls, exotic men and women with coherent, long-term story arcs, and showing us a future where “race, taste, and history are overcome.”
Liza Lapira plays Ivy, Topher’s assistant, is of Filipino descent and was born in Queens, New York. Fran Kranz (Topher) was born in Los Angeles.
It is worth noting that studio executives pushed for someone like Robert Redford to play the part of Michael Corleone in the Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). In the 1970s, people did not look like Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro in popular cinema. Casting Enver Gjokaj as Victor represents another small shift in the public’s perceptions of what the European male looks like. Ironically, Victor’s “real” personality is named Anthony Ceccoli, an Italian American from New York City. One should also stop to ask why the term “ethnic” gets attached to those members of population groups not Central European? The answer may have to do with the combination of history and habit. Our short attention span and cultural naiveté do not help things either.
Dollhouse is more than its target demographic. TV demographics should not be confused with a show’s artistic merit, since popularity is handcuffed to market demand. Ratings mean increased market revenue, hence the gradual whittling away of show time for advertising time. Half hour sitcoms now become twenty minutes, hour-long shows now last forty minutes. Technology and alternate distributors (DVR, Hulu, etc.) force viewers and advertisers into an adversarial relationship, since twenty minutes is a serious chunk of time to waste, regardless of a show’s inherent worth. It would try the patience of a saint.
The term “white” is another loaded term. For the sake of simplicity, the term “white” means European. However, one should remember that various ethnic groups abandoned their ethnic tags and opted for the general “white” during the Fifties and Sixties. The struggles of African Americans to regain their rights, following the devastation of the Post-Reconstruction South, led many Americans of various European backgrounds to seek solidarity in the term “white.” Outlier groups like the Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Jews still had a difficult time getting accepted into the exclusive club we call “white people.”
For those interested in the genesis of “whiteness” as a community identifier, a good place to start is the book Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Become White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs (Basic Books, 2005) by David R. Roediger. An alternative perspective of “whiteness” is explored in Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1995) by James Ridgeway. The history of the United States becomes a contentious, schizophrenic, and nativist amalgamation of mythology, cultural amnesia, and hollow catch-phrases due to each cohort of immigrants claiming to be “the original” or “the real” Americans. As the late Robert Anton Wilson asserted “‘Reality’ is what you get away with.”
South Park exposes the condescending paternalism of the concept by naming the African American classmate Token.
Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was an early example of the Nerd Beauty. One can contrast Willow’s intelligence (and computer-savvy) with Buffy’s superpowers. Along with Bennett, Nerdiness comes from the combination of smarts and looks. Intelligent girls intimidate some guys while some find it a turn-on. The popularity of Whedon’s shows proves a lot of guys find the latter favorable. Victor: “Librarian glasses on the chain.” Topher: “For the win!”
“TV Fat” (see the website TV Tropes — http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodPudgy — for a comprehensive list and definition of the term.) On the definition page, the author states, “If you took the Hollywood Pudgy character out of her movie and plunked her down among a representative sample of real women, she’d be positively svelte. … [M]any men find women more attractive, not less attractive, at this weight. Not so the tabloids and fashion magazines, in which one can readily find complaints that these women have put on too much weight.”
“Love Hewitt’s voluptuous hour-glass figure provides the perfect vehicle for Joseph Porro’s creative genius as the costume designer on Ghost Whisperer.” From Wikifashion entry on Jennifer Love Hewitt(http://www.wikifashion.com/wiki/Jennifer_Love_Hewitt).
Stephen Bayley, a design consultant, gives this description of the 1971 Lamborghini Countach as supercar: “‘Countach’ is Piedmontese voce de gergo, the gasp of astonishment made, for example, on sight of an exceptionally attractive woman. … Just as this period [the late Sixties and early Seventies] saw the invention and separation of powerful and charismatic supergroups from the swill of ordinary pop, so the supercar became a type when the mass market had been satisfied by waves of ingenious small front-wheel-drives. … Supercars might be ridiculous … but they are never boring” Cars: Freedom, Style, Sex, Power, Motion, Colour, Everything (New York: Octopus Books, p. 326).
In Serenity, Simon Tam uses a trigger word to stop River from her asskicketry.
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika, Tony Kushner (New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 1994). From the description of Heaven by Belize to Roy Cohn. Belize, in his description of Heaven, also says “And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion. … And all the deities are creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers.” | <urn:uuid:b300df1e-d999-44c6-a2ab-2f0cace0c9eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://driftlessareareview.com/2010/05/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93036 | 5,086 | 1.570313 | 2 |
agreed, but even managed, there are things I'd like to learn how to do..
like, ok, take PHP for instance
I have PHP 4.4.4 currently, but I needed to upgrade to PHP 5, for JSON support for one of the twitter plugins for wordpress, and the author hasn't figured out a way of doing it other then using JSON
so I asked my host to do this for me, but they upgraded me to
PHP 5.1.4 which is great and all, but no JSON support
I found out by doing a google search, that JSON support is built in to PHP 5.2, but I have NO idea how to upgrade to 5.2 on a VPS, since my host won't do it.
thats just one example of what I mean.
I tried running
pecl install json
from the command line, like they told me to do in the PHP Help channels, but that didn't work, I kept getting an error ./configuring json.1.2.1 during compile time, so I never did get it figured out.
this is why I say, a set of VPS tutorials on this stuff REALLY would come in handy. cuz I have NO idea how to upgrade PHP, apache, mysql, any of that, and I would like to learn, sure, but I have no idea HOW on a VPS, since Virtuozzo /cpanel based VPS's seem to be configured differently, it seems like, then regular dedicated servers, so what works for a dedicated doesn't always work on a VPS, and its frustrating sometimes.
because that 'pecl install json' command from a SHELL prompt, SHOULD have worked.
I mean, this is exactally why I moved from shared hosting to a VPS solution to begin with, cuz the hosting providers, they don't know how to install PHP with JSON support, they have no clue, and its been the same with other modules, so that is why I got a VPS to begin with, so I could install what I want to.
but it SURE would be nice, to have a tutorial posted, on differences between shared vs VPS, or even better yet, dedicated vs VPS, because most things that would work on a home server, or dedicated server, don't work on VPS's, and its aggrivating sometimes. | <urn:uuid:82b07667-deb7-46c0-ba3a-4c681d6a1dd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=625622 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979717 | 499 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Invisible War
Directed by Kirby Dick
The statistics brandished by the documentary “The Invisible War” are scandalous, but what makes this savage indictment of the epidemic of rape in the US military so unforgettable are not numbers but the devastating personal stories of the victims of brutal sexual assault.
It’s not that those numbers, all courtesy of US government studies, don’t have their power: 22,800 violent sex crimes in the military in 2011; 30 percent of servicewomen sexually assaulted during their enlistment; women in combat zones more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by the enemy. But the agony of those who live with the nightmare trumps even these.
People like the Navy’s Trina McDonald, drugged and raped repeatedly by the military police in Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands. Or the Coast Guard’s Kori Cioca, whose jaw was pulverized in an attack that is still so painful and traumatizing she does not leave the house without a crucifix and a fierce-looking knife. “You always have protection with Jesus,” she explains. “But sometimes you need a little bit more.”
As directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, who did those powerful interviews, “The Invisible War” goes through all of this and more in classic muckraking fashion, revealing victims of both sexes whose lives were destroyed and a military that has been more than happy to erroneously believe it is doing all it can.
Veteran filmmaker Dick, whose previous work includes the Emmy-nominated “Outrage” and the Oscar-nominated “Twist of Faith,” said before Sundance (where “Invisible War” won the audience award) that the stories he heard were “the most intense series of interviews I have ever been involved with.” With the subjects as well as the men in their lives often in tears, he adds, “both Amy and I cried at just about every interview.”
It is not just the detailing of the horrors of assault that makes “The Invisible War” so upsetting, it is its exploration of what led these people to the military and what happened to them once they filed rape charges that gives the film much of its power.
The story starts with clips from the Army-created 1950s TV documentary series “The Big Picture,” showing the pride of the women who served back in the day, followed by one of those ubiquitous “Be All You Can Be” advertising spots.
For it turns out that intense satisfaction in having served their country is what unites the people in “The Invisible War.” While not everyone could claim, as Marine Elle Helmer does, that her family’s line of unbroken service extends to the Revolutionary War, they are all idealistic true believers who loved what they did. And, says filmmaker Dick, to a person they refused to be involved in this film if it was going to be anti-military.
In fact, the sense the women had, often instilled in them by military fathers, that they were entering one big family that would always look out for them, made the rapes that occurred feel like incest. “When that bond of trust is broken,” says Army Brig. Gen. (and psychiatrist) Loree Sutton, “the wound penetrates to the innermost part of the soul.”
What happened to these women after the rape often shocks and disturbs them as much as the physical act itself. More often than not, the charges are not taken seriously as a victim-punishing system treats them like criminals, not injured parties. At times even formally charged with adultery, these women are forced out of the service they would have given their lives for.
The heart of the problem is that US military justice mandates that charges like this are heard not by an independent judiciary but by one’s immediate commanding officer. In many cases that is either the assaulter himself or a close friend, which is one reason the military itself estimates that 80 percent of sexual assaults are not reported.
The combination of these factors is why the women interviewed here are depressed, skittish, often fearful of going outside. The military reports that 40 percent of female homeless vets have been raped, and women who have been raped have a higher PTSD rate than men in combat. (One man who was raped is interviewed on camera, with experts saying that the shame factor is worse for men.)
Nothing if not thorough, “The Invisible War” delineates past sexual misconduct scandals like 1991’s Tailhook horror and talks to high-level Pentagon figures who unconvincingly spout the “zero tolerance” party line. But it all pales compared to seeing Kori Cioca having to unsuccessfully battle to get an indifferent Veterans Administration to pay for medical treatment for her debilitating injuries.
In this context, it’s especially heartening as well as a tribute to how effectively “The Invisible War” marshals its forces to report that shortly after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta saw the film at a special screening he changed some of the systems that have made life hell for rape victims. It won’t solve the problem, but perhaps some of this story’s worst excesses can be considered things of the past. We can always hope. | <urn:uuid:4f34f194-3f9e-4320-bf6a-16dd2a58f0fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecollegetimes.com/mobile/music/powerful-invisible-war-shows-dark-hidden-side-for-military-women-men-1.2748131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975964 | 1,125 | 1.835938 | 2 |
September 20, 2012 (Investorideas.com newswire) Investing in companies devoted to orphan diseases sounds counterintuitive, but Senior Research Analyst Kimberly Lee of ThinkEquity has singled out the space as one with the potential for huge returns. In this exclusive interview with The Life Sciences Report, Lee shares her very best ideas, identifying companies that will be propelled by vigorously growing revenues and will also appeal to investors who understand the unmet needs of patients and the numerous incentives available for developing life-saving drugs.
The Life Sciences Report: Your specialty segment of healthcare and life sciences is orphan indications. Could you tell me how this came about?
Kimberly Lee: We believe regulatory enthusiasm through new initiatives has encouraged development of innovative drugs for rare diseases. Development of orphan drugs has been overlooked by big pharma and investors because they believed the return on the investment needed for drug development was low given small target populations. A number of genetic orphan diseases affect 500-1,000 people in the U.S. We are talking ultra-orphan indications. Prior to legislation, there were only 10 orphan drugs that had been approved because there were no economic or other incentives for drug companies to help recoup the costs of research and development (R&D) expenses.
The Orphan Drug Act was instituted in 1983 to promote drug development for rare diseases and to encourage innovation through incentives for drug companies. The act confers several advantages. First is orphan drug designation; second, there are federal tax credits that amount to about 50% of expenses incurred during clinical testing. In addition, there are provisions for seven-year marketing exclusivity in the U.S. and 10-year marketing exclusivity in Europe; there are research grants of approximately $4 million (M) per year for clinical research; drug application user fees are waived; and the act provides for accelerated approvals.
Not only do these incentives encourage big pharma participation, they also help support small startups. In our opinion, the most popular motivators are marketing exclusivity and accelerated approvals. We have witnessed numerous drug developers acquiring approvals for orphan indications—first, to rapidly reach the market, and then to expand drug labels to include larger market opportunities, such as cancer and rheumatology. Since the institution of the Orphan Drug Act, there have been more than 3,300 orphan drug applications and more than 360 orphan drug approvals.
TLSR: Kim, it sounds to me as if, as long as government supports these patients and these programs, this will be an ongoing segment of drug development. Is that the case?
KL: Yes. We believe the orphan category is here to stay, given the unmet medical need. Also, there is increased innovation in the space. Biotech companies realize that orphan drug development is a viable business model in a space where approximately 95% of rare diseases have no approved therapies. As patent cliffs for blockbuster drugs draw nearer, prompting the need to invigorate pipeline growth, we believe big pharma is turning its attention to the orphan market, where premium pricing can allow for potentially significant returns, there can be low marketing costs and there is the potential for indication expansion.
Genzyme, a Sanofi (SNY:NYSE) company, is a great poster child for orphan drug development. It helped pave the way for a successful rare disease business model. Now we see many companies in the space, following in Genzyme's footsteps.
TLSR: Let's talk about your companies. Tell me your favorite names.
KL: I'll name a few. BioMarin Pharmaceuticals (BMRN:NASDAQ) is one of my top ideas for 2012. It is a biotech company with four growing commercialized products that help fund new product opportunities. The company has a deep R&D pipeline of first-in-class and potentially best-in-class drug candidates that are poised to deliver a continuum of value over the long term through various ultra-orphan programs that are staggered in varying stages of development. We view its lead development product, called GALNS, or BMN 110, for Morquio syndrome (an inherited metabolic disease), as the company's key near-term value driver, with potentially positive phase 3 data expected in Q4/12. Positive data could lead to a potential approval and launch in H2/13, targeting a global market opportunity of approximately $575M, per our estimates. We believe that the company has improved the pivotal study design to increase the odds of success for this trial, and success could result in profitability for the company by H2/14.
There are other value-creating, potential platform opportunities for the company, including PEG-PAL (pegylated recombinant phenylalanine ammonia lyase) in phenylketonuria (PKU; the inability of the body to break down phenylalaline). We expect some phase 2 data in Q3/12. There is also a drug called BMN-701, for treatment of Pompe disease (in which glycogen builds up in cells and causes the disability of certain organs and muscles, including the heart). We expect top-line phase 1/2 data in Q1/13. These clinical data could help the company. We view other programs in development as call options for the company. We see BioMarin as an undervalued investment based on a growing commercial franchise, a robust drug pipeline, potentially significant upcoming catalysts, a seasoned management team and compelling valuation.
TLSR: This is your classic orphan disease company. The lysosomal storage disorders, genetically defined cancers, achondroplasia and Batten disease are all very rare and tough indications.
KL: Yes, they are.
TLSR: Incrementally, these could be tremendous value drivers over the years. Do you see this as a very long-term play?
KL: Yes, definitely. I liken BioMarin to a mini-Genzyme, or a classic pharma company, with a deep, robust pipeline and candidates in all stages of development, so there are always clinical data coming out. There is always a potential product approval within a year, a two-year or a three-year timeframe. I believe the company is here to stay. That being said, with such an attractive pipeline—and also with four marketed products—we believe this company could be a great takeout candidate, and probably is already on the target list of many of the big pharmas that are looking to either get into the orphan drug development space or to add to their own pipelines as patent cliffs near for their blockbuster drugs.
TLSR: I wonder if Sanofi could be a potential acquirer of BioMarin.
KL: We believe Sanofi could be a good acquirer since it is in the orphan space, as well as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK:NYSE) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE:NYSE). Glaxo and Pfizer, as of 2010, had developed specific units targeting the orphan disease space.
TLSR: Genzyme was taken out by Sanofi for $20 billion (B). BioMarin's market cap today is about $4.65B. Could you see it getting a mid-teen billion-dollar valuation?
KL: I believe it is quite possible that the valuation could be that high eventually, given that everything in its pipeline works.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL:Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AEGR:NASDAQ) is a compelling story to us. The company has developed a drug called lomitapide, which is currently at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for review, for the treatment of homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH). That's a disease where patients are affected by high cholesterol levels, which can be as high as 500-1,000 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), whereas a normal cholesterol level is below 100 mg/dL. We view lomitapide as the main value driver for Aegerion. It's an oral, first-in-class, small-molecule inhibitor that has potential to be a best-in-class, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-lowering treatment. Based on robust data, we view the probability of a U.S. approval by the end of this year at about 70%. We believe this drug could achieve commercial success, particularly when combined with diet and possibly statins. Based on 6,000 (6K) patients and drug pricing of approximately $250K per year, we estimate peak global sales in the adult setting could reach about $450M.
Aegerion is nearing milestones that could affect the company positively, one of them being an FDA advisory panel meeting on Oct. 17, at which it will be reviewed for potential approval. We anticipate potential U.S. approval by the end of this year, a U.S. launch in Q1/13, followed by European approval by the first half of next year. We view these all as value drivers.
TLSR:Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ISIS:NASDAQ) will have an advisory panel meeting for mipomersen (also for HoFH) on Oct. 18. Do you believe these two drugs will have any effect on each other? You have the oligonucleotide, mipomersen, which will be delivered once a week by subcutaneous injection, and you have the small-molecule lomitapide, which can be taken by mouth daily. Do you think the advisory panel will make any judgment based on comparing the two products?
KL: We believe it's a possibility, since the treatments will be reviewed on consecutive days. The FDA has all the data from both drugs. Our view is that this space is large enough to support two drugs on the market. They have two different mechanisms of action. The two drugs have different efficacy and safety profiles as well. The more help we can get to patients with this fatal disease, the better. In our view, lomitapide looks to be the better drug based on data that we have seen so far. It seems to have a superior efficacy in its ability to lower LDL cholesterol and a better safety and tolerability profile, with fewer liver effects. But we'll see what the FDA has to say.
TLSR: Is it possible that a favorable panel opinion vote on one could exclude the other?
KL: Potentially. It depends on the FDA's view. If it believes one drug is superior to the other, it may approve of one and not approve of the other. It's a possibility.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL:Corcept Therapeutics Inc. (CORT:NASDAQ) has one marketed product, launched in April, called Korlym (mifepristone), for the treatment of Cushing's syndrome (a disorder caused by exposure to high levels of cortisol). This is the company's main value driver. Our talks with endocrinologists lead us to believe that Korlym will become the mainstay treatment for postsurgical Cushing's syndrome patients based on robust efficacy data and a benign safety profile—and given the current, unmet medical need. Since the primary risk factor is identification of new patients, we expect a slow launch. That said, the company is focused on open communication with patient advocacy groups, as well as on increased patient and physician education, which we believe should increase the drug's adoption rate. The next catalyst for this company will be quarterly earnings, as we get a better sense of launch metrics and how the launch is going.
TLSR: On Aug. 8, you lowered your target price from $7 to $6, and the stock has been very weak recently. Is this about disappointment in the launch?
KL: Yes, it is. The sales numbers came in below consensus estimates, and that's why the stock has been underperforming. But given the market for this drug, which we estimate to be approximately $400M/year, there is a significant opportunity here. We believe the drug will eventually get to that point. It's just a matter of time. With many orphan drugs, it takes a while to reach peak sales.
TLSR: Could this be a value stock right now, at its current price?
KL: Certainly. It's highly undervalued at current levels. Even given that we lowered our price target to $6, there is still significant upside from current levels.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL: We also like Amicus Therapeutics, Inc (FOLD:NASDAQ). This company is developing a drug called migalastat (expected trade name is Amigal). It's a novel therapeutic alternative to the conventional enzyme-replacement therapies (ERTs) currently on the market to treat Fabry disease (a genetic disease in which lipids are not metabolized and build to harmful levels). We view the drug's unique mechanism of action as somewhat validated by the company's commercialization agreement with GlaxoSmithKline. We believe this unique therapy has the potential to gain market share rapidly due to its ease-of-use formulation, its favorable safety profile and its potential to improve ERT activity when used in combination with marketed products. We view Genzyme's Fabrazyme (agalsidase beta) as migalastat's closest competitor, as Fabrazyme also treats Fabry patients. Migalastat should gain market share quickly, in our view, based on the drug's efficacy and safety profile to date. We estimate peak global sales could reach almost $500M/year, based on 5,500 patients and a drug pricing assumption of $200K/year. This year should be transformational for the company, as we anticipate the first phase 3 data set from migalastat in Q4/12. Following that, we should get input from the FDA at a pre-new drug application (NDA) meeting.
TLSR: This could be a better method of treating Fabry disease because Fabrazyme is an enzyme replacement, whereas migalastat is an enzyme stabilizer.
KL: Correct. The company calls it a pharmacological chaperone. It is a protein that binds to target proteins to induce correct folding.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL: We just launched on Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT:NASDAQ), which is developing a drug called eteplirsen for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD; a devastating disease that causes muscle weakness and eventual death in boys). Eteplirsen is first-in-class and a potential disease-modifying therapy. The company recently presented unprecedented 36-week phase 2b data, which look very promising. The next event is 48-week data, which should come in October. That will be a critical inflection point for the company, followed by an end-of-phase 2 meeting with the FDA, likely in December or January, to clarify the regulatory pathway. The company has a ribonucleic acid (RNA) platform, with other R&D candidates in the pipeline, which helps differentiate its products via increasing potency, bioavailability, tissue selectivity and therapeutic index. Sarepta is utilizing this technology to potentially modify diseases.
TLSR: Does eteplirsen inhibit synthesis of the protein, or does it modify the synthesis?
KL: The technology can create drugs that skip the exons, or the bad parts of genes, that are causing disease. It's called exon skipping, and it is exciting. This drug is unique in that it has the potential to alter the disease progression and could be complementary to current standard-of-care therapy.
TLSR: The company has promoted eteplirsen to retail investors. Does that offer you any cause for concern?
KL: Not really. There is a lot of retail action with the stock, as we've seen evidence of just recently. However, institutional investors do their due diligence, and there are several great institutional investors in the stock.
TLSR: The stock is up 250% over the past 12 weeks.
KL: Yes. It's amazing what positive data can do.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL:Synageva BioPharma Corp. (GEVA:NASDAQ) is developing drug candidates to treat ultra-orphan genetic diseases. Its lead product is SBC-102, which is a potentially disease-modifying enzyme-replacement therapy for patients who are affected by a disease known as lysosomal acid lipase (LAL) deficiency. This is a really rare disease that causes fatty material to build up in various organs and has both early and late onsets. Based on some encouraging interim phase 1/2 data, we believe this drug could be approved, and that it could hit peak global sales of about $1.2B. That number is based on an assumption of a target population of 9,100 patients and a drug pricing at about $350K/year.
The company's near-term success is directly linked to the success of this drug. However, the company does have a novel technology platform, which could provide other drug candidates to treat other orphan opportunities, like MPS IIIB (Sanfilippo syndrome B, which causes central nervous system degeneration). We view all of these as call options, given their early stages of development. A couple of upcoming catalysts, such as additional extension data in H2/12, as well as initiation of a pivotal study by the end of this year or early next year, may create value. We like the name based on its strong clinical candidates, promising data, significant near-term potential milestones and seasoned management team.
TLSR: The stock is currently at about $1.2B in valuation, and you said there was about a $1.2B annual opportunity for the drug. I know it's over your target price by about $1, but you still like it, even at a $1.2B market cap?
KL: Yes. I do like the name. We could revisit our price target after seeing the extension data in Q4/12. If it continues to be positive, development risk could be reduced.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL:Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. (RPTP:NASDAQ) is a biotech company focused on developing its lead candidate, RP103, for the treatment of nephropathic cystinosis (a buildup of cystine forming crystals that can damage organs, particularly the kidneys and eyes). This drug would be a preferred alternative therapy to Mylan Inc.'s Cystagon (cysteamine bitartrate), which is the current standard of care. We think RP103 could become standard of care based on its ease-of-use formulation, convenient dosing schedule, lower pill burden and superior side effect profile. Also, given significant drawbacks and side effects with Cystagon, we believe RP103 would gain market share rapidly upon approval. RP103 currently is at the FDA for review. We'll see some potentially meaningful catalysts on the horizon, which could bolster shares.
TLSR: Your next idea?
KL: We just initiated on Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX:NASDAQ). This company has two products on the market. The first is called Incivek (telaprevir) for hepatitis C (HCV), and the second is Kalydeco (ivacaftor) for cystic fibrosis (CF). We view Kalydeco as the main value driver for this company. It is a best-in-class, disease-modifying therapy for cystic fibrosis, and we believe there is significant potential to expand the drug's CF footprint through label expansion and combination therapy.
TLSR: What percentage of CF patients can you treat with this drug?
KL: Currently, Kalydeco is marketed to treat a specific mutation called G551D, which represents approximately 20% of the CF population. That's why success in combination therapy would be so important, as that population represents approximately 80% of the cystic fibrosis population.
TLSR: Was there another company you wanted to mention?
KL:Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALXN:NASDAQ) has one marketed product called Soliris (eculizumab) for the treatment of ultra-orphan indications paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH; a disorder characterized by the periodic destruction of red blood cells) and also atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS; the formation of blood clots that can cause kidney failure). We've really been impressed by Alexion's success in these two indications but mainly in PNH, since that has been on the market for five years now. The five-year compounded annual growth rate in revenue is about 108% since approval in these two indications.
TLSR: This company had a market valuation of about $11B a year ago. Today, it has a $20.57B market cap. Do you think this company is perfectly priced currently?
KL: Currently, yes. We believe the stock is fairly valued at current levels. What we'd like to see is continued growth as it expands into untapped markets. However, we do expect temperance as the major markets mature. The ramp-up in the aHUS setting may be a little slower than what we've seen with PNH, given the high mortality rate for this disease.
TLSR: Kim, thank you very much.
KL: Thank you. I have enjoyed it.
Kimberley Lee is a senior research analyst at ThinkEquity LLC, where she focuses on the biotechnology sector. Prior to joining ThinkEquity she covered the biotechnology industry for more than 11 years, most recently as a managing director at Global Hunter Securities LLC. She has also held sell-side roles at Stephens Inc., Jefferies & Co. Inc. and Wedbush Securities (formerly Pacific Growth Equities). Prior to her Wall Street career, Lee was trained as an obstetrician/gynecologist. She holds a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Stanford University and earned her doctorate in osteopathic medicine from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine.
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BC Residents and Investor Disclaimer: Effective September 15 2008 - all BC investors should review all OTC and Pink sheet listed companies for adherence in new disclosure filings and filing appropriate documents with Sedar. Read for more info | <urn:uuid:7bfdb898-936c-41f5-8508-7db151e3e666> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.investorideas.com/news/2012/main/09202.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958668 | 5,202 | 1.789063 | 2 |
And now it’s time for another trip through the world of ballyhoo, crazy advertising stunts actually used in the late 1920s and collected and published and distributed to exhibitors so that other theater owners could make use of the ideas. Feel free to start your journey into this world here, or backtrack to part 1 for a more comprehensive introduction to the subject.
Click to enlarge. In some browsers, click a second time. There’s just one page this time, but it’s loaded with particularly good stunts. I’ve marked in red the ones most interesting to me, but if I have glossed over something of interest on this page, feel free to post a comment about it!
This page concludes the section on marketing stunts for seafaring adventures and begins a new section on marketing romances. Right away, there is an obvious use of terminology that has evolved over time. The romance section is labelled “Sex Dramas and Romance,” a title that is immediately striking today. We’d just call that section “Romance” today, and whether that term was intended as a euphemism or not would be understood from the context. But to just come right out and say “Sex Drama,” that would perhaps register immediately as pornography, or at least trashy late night cable thrillers.
But in fact, the term “sex” was much more broadly defined 80 years ago. It didn’t even necessarily refer to anything physical. A chaste drama about the dating scene would have been unabashedly characterized as a “sex drama,” without fear of conveying any untoward implications. On the other hand, it’s important also to realize that movies of the 1920s weren’t always as tame as we often think of “old movies” as being. The Production Code Authority (more or less, the censorship board that predates the MPAA rating system) didn’t start having a strong effect on the movies being made until 1934. We’ll be talking about that later on the podcast.
On the other other hand, despite that the films of the 1920s were sometimes more risque than the films made 10 and 20 years later, moral standards were also quite different from what they are today. It’s possible that a “chaste drama about the dating scene” would still not have been seen as appropriate for kids. On the other other other hand, moral concerns about movie content was a lot less child-centered than it is today, where the mindset seems to be that anything is appropriate for adults and nothing is appropriate for children.
The point I’m getting at is that so many different pieces of the big picture have changed in the last 80 years, that it’s virtually impossible to truly understand the connotations of what “sex drama” meant to 1920s audiences unless you’re old enough to remember those days. But it didn’t mean “sleaze.”
But let’s backtrack to the end of the sea adventure section. I like the Sailors’ Knots stunt. I kind of wish we had more promotional games like that, instead of the ones we have now. I got a marketing call once (this was before the Do Not Call list, which I love so so much) where, to win the chance to buy a booklet of coupons for $80, I had to identify which fast food joint used some particular marketing slogan. Lame contest. Lame prize.
Of course, the contest was meant to be won, because the money is made in giving out the prizes, even had the coupon booklet been free. The problem with running an actually educational contest with meaningful prizes is that the answers would be on the Internet in five seconds, and Spiderman 3’s $150 million dollar weekend would have been more like a $9.25 weekend, because everybody but like one guy would have had a free pass.
The “Ballyhoos” section further down the page hopefully illustrates by example how my title “Ballyhoo” for this series of post is a mild misnomer. “Ballyhoo” more or less just refers to pulling crazy stunts in the street, and the marketing stunts we’ve been covering are broader than that. But compared to today’s formulaic advertising, which despite being ubiquitous is contained in socially acceptable contexts, all of these old marketing stunts have a little bit of Ballyhoo in them.
The “Commercializing Rain” stunt might be my favorite this week. Isn’t that a great stunt? You have a guy out in the rain passing out cards. REVOLUTIONARY! Specifically, the guy looks like the guy that knows what you did last summer. See the movie on the card, or you get a fishing hook through the head.
Regarding the “Captain and Sailor” stunt, I thought a bit about whether the role assignments say anything about gender roles in the 1920s. Remember, women were only granted the right to vote in federal elections in 1919. By making the girl the captain, did that create a picture of comedy in the same vein as putting a tiny dog on a thick rope leash? Perhaps, but I think I’m probably reading too much into this.
Moving onto the Tie-Ups section — in an earlier installment of this Ballyhoo series, Grishny pointed out how odd the term “tie-up” is; we would say “tie-in” today — the “Recruiting Office” stunt is yet another hilariously weird collaboration between an actual institution and the marketing of a film. But why is it so “hilariously weird”? As I said earlier, advertising is ubiquitous today, yet it’s contained. We have legal and societal rules about where advertising is acceptable. You can advertise on those billboards, in these commercial breaks, on that marquee, in this newspaper section, etc. You cannot advertise by hiring the local police force to pull people over and hand them discount coupons, as discussed in an earlier Ballyhoo post. You cannot put up “Gone to see this movie” signs on other people’s businesses when they’re closed. And so on.
Today’s regulated containment of marketing extends to what collaborations are allowed, too. People are very concerned about who has what business relationships. There are a lot more laws than there used to be about what kinds of collaborations are allowed and, for the ones that are, which ones must be disclosed by law.
It’s not that far-fetched for me to imagine that a movie theater and a Navy recruitment office could collaborate on a mutually beneficial business arrangement, but is it something you’d ever ever ever imagine would happen? Probably not. For one thing, before any such arrangement would occur today, there would be some kind of research study to find out the percentage of people interested in joining the Navy among the ticket-buyers for Pirates of the Caribbean. And I’m betting the survey results wouldn’t make a collaboration with Navy recruiters helpful.
But think about what all this says about the power of film, real and perceived, in 1928. The movies were new and exciting. They could show you worlds you could only dream of, and I imagine that a number of young boys who dreamt of life at sea would have been eager to visit that world in a darkened movie theater whenever they could.
The “Ship Model” window display is a totally different kind of hilariously weird tie-in. Make a model; win a suit of clothes. I wonder where the movie tickets come into that.
The “Popular Girl” contest is another one indicative of just how dramatically American culture has evolved over 80 years. Popularity is never seen as a virtue by anybody except those who aren’t, envious of the attention the popular kids get. When was the last time you saw a high school movie where the popular girls weren’t the snobby antagonists, and the shy geeky kid wasn’t the hero who seeks popularity but ultimately learns not to be popular but to be true to oneself? We’ll have none of that pansy wansy nonsense here. You wanna win this contest, you have to be popular. I’m not exactly sure how the popularity of the contestants is measured, though.
And finally we come to a cliffhanger. The “Street Photos” marketing stunt spans this page and the next, with the page break coming at a curiously curious point! What new exploration of 1920s moral values will it trigger? Maybe I should run a contest to see who can guess how the sentence ends.
Tune in next month for Ballyhoo, Part 6! | <urn:uuid:92072d64-57cc-4230-b02e-bd22c24fe408> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allmovietalk.com/?p=265 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965542 | 1,854 | 1.59375 | 2 |
World-famous museums, magnificent sights and delicious food: Paris certainly knows how to attract tourists.
Paris is one of the most important and biggest cities in Europe and has been the city of choice for lovers and artists for centuries. The city is synonymous with culture and has a wide range of collections of art and world-famous museums. These include the Louvre, with the Mona Lisa and the Centre Pompidou, well known for its impressive collection of modern art. A large number of well known and less known artists live in Montmartre, the artistic district of Paris.
In addition to the large number of museums, Paris has a lot of sights worth visiting. These include the Eifel Tower, which affords a magnificent view of the city, the Champs Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe and two magnificent churches: Sacré Coeur and Nôtre Dame. Romanticists wil love a romantic evening stroll along the Seine. Night owls will have a memorable time sampling the nightlife of the Quartier Latin. | <urn:uuid:25d563a8-b24d-4a6a-8364-1a97ae38d7e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://brusselsairlines.com/en_fr/look-for/destinations/france/paris.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953175 | 214 | 1.757813 | 2 |
- Posted October 7, 2012 by
Pensacola Beach, Florida
Team iReport featured this story
This iReport is part of an assignment:
Salute to troops
Marines help a young boy finish a triathlon
The boy was 11-year-old Ben Baltz of Valparaiso, Florida. At six years old, Ben was diagnosed with bone cancer in his right leg and had his fibula and tibia removed. He walks with a mechanical knee and prosthetic walking leg, which he switches out for a running leg to play sports including soccer, baseball and children's triathlons. (See more photos of him competing in Sunday's triathlon here.) On Sunday, Ben completed the 150-yard swim and 4-mile bike ride and half the one-mile run when a screw came loose and his running leg broke in half.
His mom was standing at the finish line, wondering what happened. 'It was only a mile, I knew he was tired, I was like, 'Where is he, where is he, where is he,' his mother, Kim Baltz, told CNN iReport. 'All of a sudden the announcer just said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to turn around and look at what's happening on the course' ... Everybody was crying. It was just very touching that the Marines were there. They picked him up and everybody was cheering and just giving them support and Ben support.'
Ben's mom said he was a little discouraged he wasn't able to finish on his own, and a bit embarrassed that he had to be carried, but his parents told him that he was an inspiration to a lot of people that day. 'We want to give him the message that he can do anything, and he has an inspirational story, and he just needs to be thankful that he is able to do it because there are a lot of kids out there that are still fighting cancer. We just want him to get out there and participate in life.'
Read more about Ben's story here.
The Marine who carried Ben is Matthew Morgan, Private First Class at Marine Detachment Corry Station, a training command in Pensacola that brought 22 students to help at the triathlon. Capt. Frank Anderson, the commanding officer, said everyone is very proud of PFC Morgan. 'It's great to see what Marines do – not leave anybody behind – is exemplified in our youngest members of our institution,' he told iReport. 'He's not a very big guy ... he picked that young boy up quick, threw him on his back and ran the rest of the course ... We're pumped.'
- dsashin, CNN iReport producer
During the 2012 Sea Turtle Triathlon in Pensacola, a young boy's prosthetic limb broke during the run. Local Marines who had volunteered to help monitor the course picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to the finish line. There weren't very many dry eyes in the crowd cheering everyone on. The Marines also helped urge on many other racers and ran with them across the finish line. Semper Fi! | <urn:uuid:daa7a7f1-4b94-40b8-87ab-c3a238d41014> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-854041?hpt=hp_t3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988407 | 642 | 1.820313 | 2 |
March 15, 2010
Obama the Entrepreneurship ExpertBy Monty Pelerin
President-of-the-World Obama is at it again. Apparently, he feels that the problems in this country are too small for him, or else they have all been solved. His wisdom and greatness are too important to be squandered on only one nation. They must be made available to save the entire world.
In his latest initiative, Obama takes "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you" across national borders. The White House recently "announced a 'summit on entrepreneurship' to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims." It has invited participants from more than forty countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.
On one level, this initiative is laughable, undoubtedly worthy fodder for several "Saturday Night Live" and Jon Stewart skits. On another, it reflects a serious situation -- the continuing delusional nature of Obama and his administration.
The lighter aspects
The "summit" represents more TV face-time for the president, a Pavlovian response by the White House to all problems. The public has soured on what is seen as Obama's endless campaigning. They want constructive action rather than continued platitudes and campaign slogans."Talk is cheap" is an axiom the White House does not seem to get.
Approval polls are in free-fall. Obama, at this stage, is well ahead in his race to displace President Jimmy Carter as the worst president of the past several generations. He shows all of Carter's ineptitude without Carter's sincerity. Desperation regarding the unpopular health care bill is making Obama look like the next Joe Isuzu, the fictitious liar in Isuzu commercials.
Does the White House not understand how farcical its actions have become? Are these people clueless or incompetent? Both hypotheses fit the facts. Making a definitive choice between them (although both could be valid) is not possible at this point.
Now, we have Obama about to pretend that he is Peter Drucker, world's greatest management guru. Here is a man with zero business experience, surrounded by advisers with similarly deficient experience. Yet Obama and his advisers believe that he is competent to lecture the world on entrepreneurship.
Would it be impolite to ask what the president has done to further entrepreneurship in his own country? Have any of his prescriptions and proposals helped entrepreneurs? If so, which ones? If foreign leaders care at all about their economies, they will separate themselves from this conference. Investment and hiring in this country stopped when Obama's solutions were rolled out.
The delusional aspects
We have a president who believes that he is always the smartest man in the room, no matter what room. Actually, he is always the least experienced and probably least qualified in any room. The fact of the matter is that he has no experience in anything.
What is known of his background includes stints as a "community organizer" and an adjunct professor. What skills are required to be a community organizer? What experience is gleaned? No experience that is useful or transferable to an executive role.
Obama's short stint as a lecturer of constitutional law was unremarkable in any academic sense. No evidence of writing or publishing can be found. The most notable aspect was his interpretation of the Constitution. He views the Constitution as a "living document," open to changes that produce "social justice." In effect, other than as a quaint artifact of history, for Obama, the Constitution does not exist.
Despite this vacuous background, Obama believes that he knows more about medicine than doctors, more about business than businessmen, and more about creating jobs than entrepreneurs. This sad litany could be continued ad nauseam. There is no evidence within the past year that Obama does not believe that he has more to contribute than anyone else.
A rational man with such limited background would defer to those wiser than he. Instead, Obama presents himself to be an expert on all things. Does he not see how ridiculous this makes him look in the eyes of the public? What must audiences of doctors, businessmen, or entrepreneurs think about this man-child with zero experience? One can only imagine the disgust and anger they must feel.
"Don't worry: I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night" may work for TV, but not as a governing strategy. Yet Obama must believe that he received more than a good night's sleep. In his mind, he appears to believe that he is something special, something larger than his office. A messianic image was part of his campaign. It appears that he bought his own image. "The One" is an image clearly in conflict with reality. The polite word for such behavior is "delusional."
I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, and I do not pretend to have such skills. But any observant person will see the president's behavior as bizarre, if not outright dangerous. James Lewis detailed the president's extreme narcissism, as have others. In Lewis's words, "The question is what real damage Obama may do to the country. This man has been entrusted with the greatest power in the world."
The issue can be understood on a human as opposed to a clinical level. What would you do if your best friend believed that he was more knowledgeable than astrophysicists, oncologists, economists, businessmen, or scientists? What if he believed this so strongly that he felt that he was entitled to "teach" them? As a friend, you would presumably get him professional help. The president is behaving like your friend.
To be sure, other presidents have rebuked industries or professions. Eisenhower came down hard on the military-industrial complex; Kennedy did so with the steel industry. Others have chosen whipping boys for both good reasons and political ones. None, however, presumed that they were smarter than everyone else. Other than Obama, no one believed that they had unique knowledge, that it was applicable everywhere, and that it could improve everything.
The president's behavior is clearly delusional and likely messianic. While he sees himself as some modern-day, handsomer version of Yoda, more of the citizens of the nation he serves are beginning to see him as a sick puppy holding the highest office in the land. He appears to be marching to a tune that is audible only to him. Where are his friends, and why do they not intervene? Are they afraid to confront him with reality?
For the sake of the nation, if not for the sake of the man, someone must confront this problem. Delusional behavior is dangerous under any circumstances. It is potentially devastating when it afflicts the head of the world's most powerful country.
Does Obama not have a friend who will intervene? Are they all such political toadies and ideologues that they will sacrifice him and the country to achieve the president's goals? | <urn:uuid:5fd9d085-f243-4e24-b836-9efd6f183878> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/obama_the_entrepreneurship_exp.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974874 | 1,420 | 1.570313 | 2 |
U.S. Embassy in Belgium
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman.
Republicans are urging President Obama to reconsider his ambassador to Belgium after the ambassador told a conference in Europe that Israel is causing a new and understandable strain of anti-Semitism among Muslims in Europe, altogether separate from traditional hatred of Jews.
Speaking to the European Jewish Union and an association of Jewish lawyers in Brussels, Ambassador Howard Gutman said a distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which is the purview of people who hate everyone and not just Jews, and Arab and Muslim hatred for Jews, which can be explained by an inability to reach a two-state solution in Israel.
"There is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes an all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East," Gutman told the group, according to a transcript of his remarks published in the European Jewish Press.
Gutman, who is Jewish and described how his father survived the Nazi occupation of Poland, also shared a video of himself receiving a warm welcome at a Muslim school in Brussels, and said it showed proof that Muslims are not anti-Semitic in general.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in Israel reported that Gutman's distinction of Muslim hatred toward Jews and "classic bigotry" stunned the audience.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Obama "must fire" Gutman for "rationalizing and downplaying anti-Semitism and linking it to Israeli policy toward the Palestinians."
"The ambassador's comments demonstrate the Obama administration's failure to understand the worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel and its appalling penchant for undermining our close ally,” said Romney.
Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matthew Brooks said Gutman's logic offers a distinction without a difference.
"The remarks reportedly made by President Obama's Ambassador to Belgium are outrageous," Brooks said in a statement. "The linkage in the ambassador's remarks, blaming Israel for anti-Semitism, is a short step from the linkage that President Obama has expressed several times himself, that Israel is to blame for the unrest and instability in the Middle East. Both forms of linkage are fundamentally wrong.
"Unfortunately, this administration's policies of 'daylight' and pressure toward our ally Israel encourage the dangerously misguided tendency to make excuses for anti-Semitic hatred and bigotry," he said.
Brooks added that the administration, which has distanced itself from Gutman's remarks, should reconsider whether Gutman is an appropriate representative of the U.S.
Gutman, who was a bundler for Obama in 2008 and raised $500,000, later reportedly said he regretted that his Nov. 30 remarks were misinterpreted. | <urn:uuid:85f03fb1-77fe-4a64-beb4-d4de2aa5316f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ghanapolitics.net/cnn/obama-ambassador-under-fire-for-blaming-israel-for-muslim-anti-semitism.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965228 | 566 | 1.796875 | 2 |
(Australia 31 Oct 1945–26 Oct 2003)
Life study II
- Not on display
- Further information
Arthur McIntyre studied at the National Art School and Alexander Mackie College from 1963-66, and art history at the University of Sydney 1971-73. He exhibited his work from 1970, until his death in 2003, and was the subject of a major publication and two-part exhibition, Arthur McIntyre: Bad blood 1960-2000 (Hazelhurst and Macquarie University) in 2010.
As well as a practicing artist, he wrote major books on contemporary Australian drawing and Australian collage, and taught and lectured on art in various NSW high schools, technical colleges and tertiary institutions. He participated in numerous residencies in France between 1975 and the early 1990s, and curated a number of exhibitions on drawing and collage at Holdsworth Galleries.
- Place of origin
New South Wales,
- Collage, Drawing
- pencil, collage, acrylic on white card
- 29.3 x 21.6cm sheet
- Signature & date
- Signed and dated l.r., black fibre-tipped pen "A Mc ‘85".
- Gift of Daniel Mudie Cunningham, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2012
- Accession number | <urn:uuid:0a33c559-3e9d-4090-91d8-6d8e001d87c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/303.2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935478 | 269 | 1.5625 | 2 |
...continued from page 1
This is a statement from the Mildura police in Australia
Local police have been called to assist distressed motorists who have become stranded within the Murray Sunset National Park after following directions on their Apple iPhone. Tests on the mapping system by police confirm the mapping system lists Mildura in the middle of the Murray Sunset National Park, approximately 70km away from the actual location of Mildura.
Police are extremely concerned as there is no water supply within the park and temperatures can reach as high as 46 degrees [115 degrees Fahrenheit], making this a potentially life-threatening issue.
So the iPhone sends people into a 1,900-square-mile remote wasteland with scorching temperatures, no gas, no food, no water and virtually no cell phone reception.
So far, police in Australia say they've had to rescue five Mildura-bound vehicles with people who the app sent to the national park that's nowhere near Mildura.
One report said using the maps app could be "a death warrant."
In one case, a guy got stuck and was stranded with no food and no water. He had to get out of the car and he walked for a day and a night to get to an area where he could get cell reception.
Right now, the death toll remains at zero but it's certainly not from a lack of effort from the Apple maps app.
Do you think that's really just a glitch and not Apple maps trying to kill us? Well, if you believe that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn you can jump off of. Is the maps app not working? Or is it working exactly the way it wants to work just as called for in Skynet's master plan.
Once you start to see the pattern everything begins to fall into place. Like, why is the navigation system on my RX-8 constantly telling me to make a U-turn on the highway right into head-on traffic.
And that's just the tip of the hat: All the other machines are in on it as well.
Even vending machines, on average, kill three people in the US each year. I once read that worldwide each year, more people are killed by vending machines than by sharks. They put their money in, the machine fails to release the Almond Joy bar or whatever, and so they shake the machine and it falls on them and kills them. If you think about it, it's highly alarming that a stationary, dim-witted machine full of candy or soft drinks can trick us to our deaths so easily.
As you go about your daily life and come across other devices and machines, like vending machines, see it for what it really is not a candy-dispensing aid of convenience to humankind with good will toward all, but, instead, a lurking deathtrap, waiting silently in the hallway nook or snack room cranny for the first chance to strike out and crush you to death.
Even my innocent looking toaster tries to kill me all the time. It keeps the toast from popping up and I get a fork out and I'm ready to jam it down in there, but then I catch myself and think, "Oh wait, I know what's going on my simple little toaster is trying to electrocute me."
I smile at it and shake my head knowingly, and I say, "Well played, my evil little friend, well played but this morning I have outwitted you to live another day." | <urn:uuid:f196617a-9a09-4123-811d-cd71e4a7fc96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/1editorialbody.lasso?-token.folder=comm/2013/01/09&-token.story=214458.112113&-token.disearea=2&-nothing&-token.disearea=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962015 | 711 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Last Sunday was the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and this weeks winner, Bookworm Room’s Honoring 9/11 By Remembering We Are Warriors focused like a lazer on an important and often overlooked aspect. Here’s a slice:
The murderous frenzy unleashed on 9/11 is an awkward size. Had it been smaller — a handful of people, or even a hundred people, killed at a mall or a hotel — we would have noted it as a tragedy powered by a crazy person (or two) in thrall to bad ideas. We would have criminalized the crazy person and moved on with our lives. Had it been monumentally bigger — say, the size of Hitler’s Poland invasion — we all would have easily recognized it as “a war,” and would have treated it accordingly, both strategically and emotionally.
What do you do, though, when nineteen men hijack four planes and kill 2,996 people? Actual events proved that, in the post-modern world, our nation had no template to define our emotional response following 9/11. We had a vacuum.
The one thing you can say with certainty about America today is that, when there is a vacuum, politics will fill it. Following a short frenzy of national mourning, the nation divided itself into two oppositional viewpoints with regard to what 9/11 means. The Left (of course) took refuge in a Walt Kelly worldview: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Leftists in the media, Hollywood, and academia swiftly absolved al Qaeda and Islam from any seriously responsibility for what happened. While only the Truthers could deny that Islamist al Qaeda members flew those planes, people on the Left knew what really mattered: the nineteen al Qaeda hijackers were as much victims as we were, if not more so. It was our overbearing, racist, arrogant, resource-hogging, Israel-loving, capitalist country that drove them to commit their foul deeds. God damn the U.S. of KKK! Those chickens roosted but good!
This template has served the Left for ten years now. The details may vary, but the tone is unchanging. Americans are bullies. We’ve bullied the Muslims so much over the past few decades, it was inevitable that they, prodded beyond bearing, turned on us. And while it’s sad that 2,996 non-combatants (mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters) had to die, that’s what happens when you give your allegiance to — and, worse, make your money from — a system that is inherently parasitical.
It is this paradigm that led the current occupant of our White House to tell us that 9/11 wasn’t just our tragedy, so that our current efforts to mourn prove that we’re not only bullies, we’re also self-centered bullies. The White House assures us, though, that we can atone for our sins by approaching 9/11, not as a national day of mourning, but as a “National Day of Service.” The message is clear: We Americans don’t deserve to mourn. Not only was it not about us, it was our fault!
In our non-Council category, the hands down winner was John Bolton’s The Innocents Abroad a piece written for The American Enterprise Institute and submitted by Joshuapundit. It’s detailed and highly critical look at the major foreign policy challenges we face because of the policies of the Obama Administration, written by a man who is a nuclear weapons proliferation expert and one of our most effective UN Ambassadors, a man who knows what goes on behind the headlines and the spiels of the talking heads on the TV news. Highly recommended.
Here are this week’s full results:
- *First place with 3 votes! Bookworm Room –-Honoring 9/11 By Remembering We Are Warriors
- Second place with 2 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit -Israel ‘An Ungrateful Ally’?
- Third place with 2 votes – The Razor-The Californian Nightmare
- Fourth place with 1 2/3 votes – The Noisy Room -Turning Red – Shedding the White and Blue
- Fifth place with 1 1/3 votes – Right Truth – An Embassy For The Taliban
- Sixth place *t* with 1 vote – Rhymes With Right – US, NATO Must Take Stand Regarding Implicit Turkish Declaration Of War On Israel
- Seventh place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Drone Wars
- Seventh place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – Thanks for the tip, buddy
- Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right!~ – Obama’s Useful Idiots: Trumka, Hoffa and Buffett
- Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – The Un-SOTU
- Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote -The Political Commentator- Citizen rant on the perks enjoyed and the mismanagement perpetrated by politicians!
- First place with 3 votes! – John Bolton- The Innocents Abroadsubmitted byJoshuapundit
- Second place with 2 2/3 votes – Monkey In The Middle – We Demand An Apology submitted by Simply Jews
- Third place with 1 1/3 vote -NationalReview/Elise Jordan – Opening Our Skies to the Saudis? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Sultan Knish – Another Day submitted by The Noisy Room
- Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Accuracy In Media – Rick Perry vs. The Media on Capital Punishment submitted by New Zeal
- Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Armies of Liberation – Zinjibar-separating fact from fiction submitted by Right Truth
- Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -White House Dossier – The War On Poverty is Lost submitted by Snapped Shot
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Zen Pundit – The Nine Eleven Century? submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Mellow Jihadi – Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury submitted by Bookworm Room
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -American Thinker – Lemonade Wars: The State Battles Entrepreneurialism submitted by The Razor
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Maggie’s Notebook – Union Holds Port Hostage: Ignores Federal Restraining Order, Cuts Train Brakes, Dumps Grain submitted by Rhymes With Right
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Gateway Pundit – Another Obama Record!… Poverty Rate Soars to 18 Year High submitted by VA Right!
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Highered Intelligence – Accountability and Obligation submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Victor Davis Hanson – The California Corridor: Some Lessons on Government Largesse From the New Frontier submitted by The Watcher
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Anne Bayefsky – Anti-Israel Durban Declaration Reaffirmed submitted by The Watcher | <urn:uuid:3f7d7bf2-91eb-45c6-b44a-5cb609eeeb71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-this-weeks-watchers-council-results-16/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933871 | 1,582 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The temptation to cheer the federal government's lawsuit against Standard & Poor's for the AAA- ratings it slapped on securities that promptly blew up is understandable. S&P and other debt raters played a central role in the financial crisis of 2008 and for too long no one has managed to hold them accountable.
But it's also too bad the U.S. Justice Department didn't find a way to take on the legal defense that's at the heart of the ratings business: S&P, Moody's and Fitch rely on the First Amendment to assert that their evaluations of debt securities are the equivalent of opinions, and thus constitutionally protected.
The government's lawsuit accuses S&P of falsely telling investors its ratings were accurate, independent and free of bias. Rather than deal with the First Amendment issue, the Justice Department invoked a law, adopted at the height of the savings and loan crisis in 1989, that targets fraud in cases involving federally insured financial institutions backed by taxpayers.
There are some bizarre chinks in the government's case, starting with the claim that the biggest victims of S&P's depredations were the same banks that misled investors about the toxic securities they were peddling. To believe this line
As Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Weil has written, pity the government lawyer who appears in court and tries to convince a jury that the biggest, most-sophisticated banks in the country were led astray by S&P. The government might be on sounder ground if it could show that smaller banks bought slices of the securities and did so based on ratings that S&P misstated on purpose.
Even if the government wins, its case will do little to alter two fundamental flaws in the raters' business model. The first of these is the “issuer pays” principle, under which the raters collect their fee not from bond investors but from the issuer of the security they are rating. This creates a conflict of interest. Bond issuers can threaten to take their business elsewhere unless they get the ratings they deem appropriate.
This defect is compounded by a second flaw: the legal standing that regulators have conferred on the companies' ratings. For instance, the amount of capital banks must show on their balance sheets depends in part on the ratings attached to their bond holdings. If it weren't for this requirement, the demand for ratings would diminish. The regulatory system has delegated a crucial function -- attesting to the safety of bonds -- to a third party whose motives, to put it generously, are mixed.
Chipping away at the First Amendment defense is one way to begin putting matters right. Courts have found that the raters are, in essence, journalists who issue independent analysis. This gives the companies some of the strongest protection in U.S. law. Never mind that, unlike journalists, the raters aren't objective by virtue of the fact that they are paid by the very companies -- their sources -- they write about. Direct payment from a source to buy editorial content is barred at credible news organizations.
The First Amendment, the raters and their lawyers have argued, ensures that they can operate independently, deliver reliable opinions and not be cowed by lawsuits over honest mistakes. The First Amendment shield, however, combined with a compensation system that poses an inherent conflict of interest and the obligation on investors to use the ratings in question, creates perverse incentives. The prelude to the financial crisis was replete with examples of raters dishing out grades on securities that turned out to be wrong, often with an eye to winning business from competitors.
The Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to resolve some of these issues, and the Securities and Exchange Commission was charged with drafting rules saying investors no longer had to rely on the raters' opinions. If the aim is to make finance safer in the future, this is a more promising approach than attempting to demonstrate outright fraud after the fact. Yet 2 1/2 years have passed since the law's adoption, and no rules are forthcoming. The delay is dispiriting.
U.S. law recognizes different categories of speech, from news articles published by media outlets to advertisements by companies that want you to buy their products. Raters should fall somewhere in between, perhaps akin to newsletters that are paid by companies to write favorable research reports on their shares, or to auditors retained by companies to express opinions on the accuracy of their financial statements. Federal law requires that newsletters reveal how they are financed. Auditors have to meet stringent standards in their work, and can be liable for third-parties' losses when they fall short. Either raters should be held to similar standards, or investors should no longer be required by the government to use their ratings, or both. The Justice Department's lawsuit advances neither solution. | <urn:uuid:70a05354-37ba-4686-9adc-96f4399ab5bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.montereyherald.com/digitalextras/ci_22541245/bloomberg-news-editorial-s-p-lawsuit-fails-take | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973059 | 968 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber’s new book,“The Best War Ever, exposes failed propaganda efforts by the Bush Administration
In a recent speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that, "The enemy is so much better at communicating. I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of things they say -- all of which are not true -- is harmful."
During a question-and-answer session at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada, Rumsfeld complained about terrorist groups that have "media committees" that "manipulate the media".
"What bothers me the most is how clever the enemy is," he said. "They are actively manipulating the media in this country... They can lie with impunity."
During the three-plus years since the U.S. invaded Iraq, the Bush Administration has repeatedly criticized the media for reporting only the "bad" news from Iraq. President Bush has frequently maintained that the consequences of the media's preoccupation with negative stories demoralizes the troops on the ground, and undercuts support for the war at home. invaded Iraq, the Bush Administration has repeatedly criticized the media for reporting only the "bad" news from Iraq.
Never mind that there were few complaints from the administration at the beginning of the war when an embedded and compliant media filed mostly positive reports.
In their new book titled "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq" (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), which went on sale last week, co-authors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber assert that television reporters "actually underplayed rather than overplayed the negative" in their reporting from Iraq, while "newspaper coverage during the subsequent occupation has also been sanitized."
Rampton and Stauber cite a study by researchers at George Washington University that analyzed 1,820 stories on five U.S. television networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News, as well as the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, and found that "all of the American media largely shied away from showing visuals of coalition, Iraqi military, or civilian casualties. Despite advanced technologies offering reporters the chance to transmit the reality of war in real time, reporters chose instead to present a largely bloodless conflict to viewers even when they did broadcast during firefights."
Print journalists didn't perform much better. A May 2005 review by Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey of the coverage of a six-month period -- when 559 U.S. and Western allies died in Iraq -- by six major U.S. newspapers and two popular newsmagazines found that "readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Washington Post did not see a single picture of a dead serviceman."
"Rumsfeld's complaints are an interesting twist of the truth since the reality is that the United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on media campaigns that have been spectacularly ineffective," Rampton told me in a telephone interview. "That the enemy has been more effective in communicating its message to the world is not so much a reflection of their media savvy as it is on the ineffective message of the United States."
"You can't expect a better messaging strategy to compensate for the fact that the underlining policy is based on falsehoods and deliberate deception," Rampton said.
As the occupation of Iraq proved unmanageable and the total number of dead and wounded U.S. military personnel mounted, stories about the revamping of schoolhouses, re-supplying of hospitals, and the building of soccer fields were given a backseat by the media.
With things continuing to spiral out of control in Iraq, the Bush administration has once again decided that it's a public relations problem; a question of propaganda not policy. Around the same time that Rumsfeld was on the road railing about anti-war appeasers and confused critics that were enabling terrorism, and how much better the terrorists were in handling the media, the Washington Post reported that "U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, 20-million-dollar public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq."
According to the Post's Walter Pincus, the "contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide 'public relations products' that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal."
Pincus pointed out that the proposal "calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, [and] is designed to help the coalition forces understand 'the communications environment.' Its goal is to 'develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events... to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals,'" according to a statement publicly available through the FBO Daily's Web site.
"From what I've seen, the thing about this proposal that most concerns me is the component calling for the monitoring of the media, especially when journalists will be rated as to how favorable they are toward U.S. policy objectives," Rampton pointed out. policy objectives," Rampton pointed out.
"Monitoring journalists and maintaining a database of their stories raises a number of serious questions: Who knows where that database will wind up in two years or five years from now? What kind of retribution might be exacted against those reporters whose work is seen as unfavorable to U.S. policy?" policy?"
The administration's new maneuver appears to be déjà vu all over again.
As early as September 2003, less than six months after the invasion of Iraq, it determined that the best way to sell its policy was to make its highest ranking officials -- including the president -- available for safe media opportunities.
President Bush gave the Fox News Channel a 30-minute interview and a 20-minute on-camera tour of the White House while then-National Security Advisor and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared on ABC's "Nightline" and gave interviews to Fox television's Brit Hume and Bill O'Reilly and to conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity.
A later campaign was aimed at sidestepping the mainstream media entirely by dispatching administration spokespersons to talk only to local news outlets. Another campaign had the administration hiring the Lincoln Group, a high-powered public relations firm, to plant positive stories in the Iraqi news media and to pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends.
"In the first chapter of 'The Best War Ever,' we discuss the failures of recent attempts by the U.S. to plant stories in the Iraq media," Rampton noted. "You can't throw money at a messaging problem and expect to be effective when the people you are trying to persuade are deeply outraged at what you are doing."
Rampton and Stauber document how money that was “thrown” to public relations outfits in order to have them promote the war in Iraq:
“Lincoln partnered initially with the Rendon Group, a public relations firm that had already played a major role in leading the U.S. into war through its work for Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. A few weeks later, Rendon dropped out of the project and left Lincoln in charge. Lincoln hired another Washington-based public relations firm as a subcontractor -- BKSH & Associates, headed by Republican political strategist Charles R. Black, Jr. BKSH is a subsidiary of Burson-Marszteller, a PR firm whose previous experience in Iraq also included work for Chalabi and the INC. Other Pentagon contracts for public relations work were awarded to SYColeman Inc. of Arlington, Virginia, and Science applications International Corporation. All totaled, the PR contracts added up to $300 million over a five-year period.”
Over the course of the war and occupation of Iraq, even the parameters of what constitutes "good" news has changed dramatically. Early on, the "good" news consisted of reports on the rebuilding of schools and hospitals, the delivery of new fire trucks to a small town, or the opening of soccer field for Iraqi children.
These days, the "good" news has more to do with whether Iraqi troops have the stuff necessary to militarily confront sectarian militias, whether attacks by insurgents have dropped from 50 a day to 25, whether daily Iraqi civilian deaths are in the dozens instead of the hundreds, and whether the situation has descended into a full-blown civil war or whether a civil war is still in the offing.
To paraphrase bluesman Albert King's song "Born Under a Bad Sign," "If it wasn't for bad news, there would be no news at all." | <urn:uuid:5a49f66e-8e64-47ce-9859-fe4ed6781693> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bendweekly.com/Opinion/1086.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963117 | 1,846 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Most Marketers Use Social Media
SocialMediaExaminer surveyed 1,898 respondents, of which 98% were business owners or employees, 1% were students and 1% unemployed, via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Email [me included] during a five-day period [January 2010].
Please download the complete report here: SocialMediaMarketingReport2010
Thank you Michael Stelzner !
Nine in 10 Marketers Use Social Media [Small businesses were slightly more likely to be using social media]
Experience Growing, But Still Low
65% of marketers have either just started using social media (22%) or only been using it for a few months (43%)
More B2B companies have been using social media longer than their B2C counterparts.
Most Marketers Use Social Media at Least Six Hours Weekly
A combined 12.5% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.
The largest group used social media one to 5 hours per week and 76% of marketers are spending at least four hours each week on their social media marketing efforts.
More Experience Equals More Usage
There is a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment.
Newbies commitment was one hour per week. However, for marketers who have adopted social media for a few months or longer, the median jumps to 10 hours per week.
Almost Half of Global Marketers Use SocNets
Almost half of global marketers currently use social media in their marketing efforts, according to a recent study from marketing technology provider Unica Global Marketing Survey2010 [Unica.com]
In addition, comparing US and Canadian marketers with their European counterparts, the study reveals that a much higher percentage of marketers in North America (58%) currently use social media than marketers in Europe (34%).
Please refer to entire article here: Most Marketers Use Social Media, But are New to It [MarketingCharts.com]
Why Do Small Businesses Spend More On Social Media Content? @SteveMacDonald (maxozbiz.blogspot.com) | <urn:uuid:698a5582-a98b-43bd-80e1-95415e7c3759> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.socialmedia-max.com/2010/04/most-marketers-use-social-media/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9376 | 428 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Seoul, Aug 8, 2012 (AFP) - South Korea's extended heatwave has taken its toll on both humans and animals, with more than 830,000 chickens or other poultry reported dead as of Wednesday.
The agriculture ministry said 786,512 chickens, 40,780 ducks, 3,000 quail, 336 pigs and five cows have died since July 20, when the peak temperature began hovering above 33 Celsius (91.4 Fahrenheit) in most areas.
The stifling heat also killed seven people in June and July, the health ministry said, mostly elderly people working in fields or greenhouses.
Temperatures have stayed above 35 C for 12 days in much of the country, causing massive blooms of algae in rivers.
Sales of electric fans and air conditioners have soared. On Monday the state power company warned that reserves were dangerously low and urged people to switch off appliances, as usage reached a record.
The meteorological administration says relief is in sight starting Friday, with midday temperatures dropping to the customary August figure of 30C from the weekend. | <urn:uuid:e7f26d8f-6383-4000-81fe-aa7129c93746> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysinchew.com/node/76343?tid=121 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968008 | 219 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Rome, Italy, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - Chinese translations of the pope's speeches and writings are soon to be posted on the Vatican website.
Msgr. Claudio Maria Celli, head of the department in charge of the Vatican site, made the announcement this week.
The Vatican website, which gets over 10 million hits a day, typically provides documents in English, Italian, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
Msgr. Celli said the decision to make Chinese translations of the pope's words available was a recent one, noting that many of the people visiting the site are in China.
Msgr Celli said some progress had been made on issue of recent ordinations of bishops linked to the Patriotic Association but he stressed that "the Church's internal life is not free" in China.
"Persecution, in the form of violent acts, coercion and beatings, no longer exists. But there are certainly cases of bishops and priests who every now and then are forced to remain in their homes and are subjected to political indoctrination," he continued.
Benedict XVI has made it clear he wants to make progress in relations with China and prelates and church organizations throughout the Church are looking for ways to help resolve tensions with China and unite its faithful, said ANSA.
Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach, for example, superior general of the Society of Jesus, said in an interview with an Italian Catholic monthly that many young Jesuits want to go to work in China.
London, England, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - German scientists are now confirming what many Catholic couples have known for some time – the natural family planning method known as STM works. Scientists have been taken aback by a new study which found STM to be as effective, if not more so, than the contraceptive pill in family planning.
For years married Catholics have used the natural family planning method known as the symptom-thermal method (STM) as a morally licit means to maintain the sexual part of their conjugal relationship while at the same time decreasing the chances of having additional children due to “physical, economic, psychological, or social conditions.” The Catholic Church teaches that natural family methods can be used in a moral manner if the couple remains open to the blessing of children – something which the Church sees as essential to the vocation of marriage.
The new study brings light to the scientific effectiveness of STM, while ignoring its moral uses.
The symptom-thermal method enables couples to identify accurately the time of the woman's fertile phase by measuring two indicators — her temperature and observing cervical secretions. In the largest prospective study of STM, researchers found that if couples either abstained from sex, as required in STM, or used a barrier (condom, etc) method during the fertile period, the rate of unplanned pregnancies per year was 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.
The research was published in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction.
Out the 900 women who took part in the study, including those who had unprotected sex during their fertile period, 1.8 per 100 became unintentionally pregnant.
For an artificial contraceptive method to be rated as “highly efficient,” there should be less than one pregnancy per 100 women per year when the method is used correctly, explained Petra Frank-Herrmann, managing director of the natural fertility department at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
The results of this research, conducted by the German Natural Family Planning Study Centre between 1985 and 2005, indicates one pregnancy occurred per 250 women per year for STM users.
“Therefore, we maintain that the effectiveness of STM is comparable to the effectiveness of modern contraceptive methods such as oral contraceptives, and is an effective and acceptable method of family planning," said the researcher.
There are other benefits to STM. Toni Belfield of the Family Planning Association in England says STM puts contraception under a woman’s control. "It's easy to learn, it can enhance a relationship, and it's easy to stop if a woman decides she does want to become pregnant," she told The Guardian.
Rebecca practices the method with her husband, Geoff. They switched to STM after her intrauterine device (IUD) left her in constant pain and bleeding.
"I loved the fact that STM didn't require hormones, or putting anything unnatural in my body," she told The Guardian. It was also painless, she added, and made her more aware of her fertility cycle.
“What it does is teach you exactly what's going on with your body. I know my body and that's very liberating for a woman," another STM user added.
Washington D.C., Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - The Washington-based Alliance for Marriage is building a nationwide network of state lawmakers, who would support a Marriage Protection Amendment, reported the Associated Press. The group had spearheaded the push for a federal constitutional amendment.
“We believe the day is coming when the Marriage Protection Amendment will be sent to the states,” said Bob Adams, vice president of the alliance, told the AP. “The time to organize for that is now, not 10 years down the road.”
The group says the November midterm elections resulted in a congressional leadership unsympathetic to their cause, making it difficult to reintroduce the federal amendment in Congress at this time. As a result, they’ve decided to look beyond Washington for supporters.
Adams noted that voters in the states have continued to approve ballot questions opposing same-sex marriage. Arizona was the only state where voters rejected such a measure.
Forty-five states have already passed laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage.
Seoul, South Korea, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - Gathered around the World Youth Day Cross, on a barricaded bridge that divides North and South Korea, about 100 South Korean young people prayed for the reunification of the two countries.
The young people youth carried the cross as far as they could to the north end of the bridge in Imjingak Feb. 24, where a razor fence serves as a quasi-border and sharp reminder of the division of the Korean peninsula. There, each of them prayed in turn, with his or her forehead against the cross, reported UCA News.
The young people were from the Diocese of Uijeongbu, which borders the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. The WYD Cross and icon of the Blessed Mother they carried on their pilgrimage were gifts of the late Pope John Paul II to a group of young people in 1984. The cross has been carried throughout the world in preparation for each World Youth Day since.
The North and the South have been divided since Korea's liberation from the Japanese at the end of World War II. The subsequent Korean War heightened animosity between the two Koreas. It ended in an armistice in 1953, not a formal peace treaty, leaving the two countries technically still at war.
The veneration of the cross at the bridge was one of the many activities organized leading up to the first Korean Youth Day celebration in August and the next World Youth Day in July 2008.
The WYD Cross and the icon arrived in Korea from Africa on Feb. 18; its journey throughout the country began three days later on Ash Wednesday. Starting in the Diocese of Jeju, it traveled by plane and truck to the Uijeongbu Cathedral, where some 300 youth prayed the Stations of the Cross on Feb. 23rd.
The cross and icon were then taken to Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, where Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk celebrated Mass with 700 young people Feb. 25th.
The cross and icon left for the Philippines the following day. From there, they will go to East Timor and islands in Oceania before reaching Sydney, Australia, where the international WYD celebrations will be held in July 2008.
Sao Paulo, Brazil, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - A former drug addict from Moscow is one of thousands of recovering drug addicts from around the world looking forward to a visit from Pope Benedict XVI in May. During his trip to Brazil for the 5th General Conference of the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM) the Holy Father will visit those seeking a fresh start through the “Fazenda da Esperança” program in Guaratingueta, Brazil.
Some 2,000 former drug addicts are now preparing to receive Pope Benedict XVI at the men´s center of Pedrinhas, close to Guaratingueta. The Pope's visit is scheduled May 12th, 2007, a day before the 5th CELAM General Conference is set to begin in Aparecida.
The Russian lady said that she came to the center, which lies some 180 kilometres away from Sao Paulo, because she wanted a comprehensive program that worked. "My friends knew that this treatment works. There is no heroin available here." The young lady told reporters for Aid to the Church in Need that she is recovering by prayer and community work, without other medication.
The “Fazenda da Esperança”, a Franciscan model of healing exists in more than eight countries worldwide, among them Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Mexico, and draws participants from throughout the world.
Ulrich Kny, Latin American expert at Aid to the Church in Need's headquarters noted that Pope Benedict’s desire to spend one day of his short trip to Brazil among those involved in “’Fazenda da Esperança,’ shows the importance of the problem of drugs and how much he appreciates the initiative of Frei Hans Stapel.”
“There is not only a detoxification,” he emphasized, “but also the discovery to be loved by God and to make a fresh start. The cured give a vivid testimony of healing by God nowadays, and this way the Gospel finds its continuation.”
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - The president of the Bishops’ Conference of the Dominican Republic, Archbishop Ramon Benito De La Rosa y Carpio, is calling on the country’s political parties to draw up a “common agenda” in order to save the country, which he said is being overrun by drug trafficking.
During the Te Deum for the 163rd anniversary of the country’s independence, Archbishop De La Rosa asked political parties to put the interests of the nation above their own. Otherwise, he warned, true solutions to the country’s ills will not be the priority, and that would bring “negative consequences” for the nation.
“When monarchy was not the answer for the people, they sought out democracy. Democracy is what we desire if we want to live in harmony,” he went on. “But if democracies become weak, people look to dictatorships, as we had with the resurgence of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, which was a weakness at the beginning of the 20th century,” the archbishop recalled.
Today more than ever, he continued, the Dominican Republic needs honest men who say no to “lying politicians who deceive when they say they are serving the country and all they think about is themselves and their own personal interests.”
Archbishop De La Rosa also urged that “the army of drug traffickers” that has invaded the country be combated. “Drug trafficking has occupied us in the same way that foreign forces occupied us in the past. It’s not drugs that are invading the country, it’s an army of drug traffickers that is invading,” he pointed out.
The archbishop called on Dominicans to celebrate this year’s anniversary by reflecting on the social ills that are affecting the country and are preventing it from moving forward.
Madrid, Spain, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - Spain’s Minister of Education, Mercedes Cabrera, expressed her support this week of a ruling by the Constitutional Court that recognized the authority of the Catholic Church to determine the competence of teachers hired to teach religion in the country’s schools.
During a press conference, Cabrera said the government is supporting the court decision because “whatever is part of the current norms must be respected.”
“The Catholic Church is responsible for recommending religion teachers, although the public administration hires them,” she said, adding that if the Church determines that a particular teacher is not qualified, “the school administrations cannot keep him or her” on the faculty.
Cabrera acknowledged that Spanish law protects the rights of workers but she noted the “specificity” of the situation of religion teachers, who must not only present appropriate academic credentials but also must be subjected to the moral analysis of the Church.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - The Council for Economic Affairs of the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina has begun a Lenten fundraising campaign entitled, “We Are All The Church, It is Time to Share,” that will last until Holy Week, in order to help sustain the work of the Church in that country.
The bishops of Argentina exhorted Catholics to “live the faith in communion so that our communities may be the living presence of Jesus in the world, and so that his message of love and salvation will reach all mankind.”
They noted that the Church is sustained mainly through the generosity of the faithful and that thanks to them the Church is able to help those in need. The bishops said 50% of the Church’s total income comes from parish collections.
“The Church does so much,” the bishops said. “We are thankful to be sent by Jesus to the world, and we are grateful for the generous work of priests, consecrated, and lay faithful. There is still much to be done for Jesus to be proclaimed in every home and for the Gospel to transform our country into a nation of brothers and sisters,” they stated.
Lima, Peru, Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - The Committee on the Family and the Defense of Life of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference issued a message this week urging the defense of the unborn child regardless of how he or she was conceived and calling arguments for the legalization of abortion lies.
In order to mark the Day of the Unborn Child, which is celebrated in Peru on March 25, the committee issued a statement reiterating the call of the Church for all Peruvians to welcome “the great and mysterious gift of life that shines in each human being, especially in the one awaiting to be born.”
The human being “begins to exist, as such, at the moment of conception - at that time as only a single cell,” the message states. The circumstances of conception can vary, “and can even be dramatic,” it continues. “The new being may be wanted or unwanted, perhaps not expected; he could be in the mother’s womb or in a laboratory slide, perhaps in a freezer; he could have been conceived out of love or out of violence, in the warmth of a home or in the coldness of an irresponsible lack of conscience. But none of these circumstances changes the scientific truth, which remains safe and sound and never changes: we are dealing with a human being just as valuable as one already born,” the committee stressed in its message.
The committee also warned against the increasing threat of legalized abortion in Latin America, often under the banner of “therapeutic abortion,” which is even proposed “as a ‘solution’ to the drama of woman carrying a malformed baby or a baby that was conceived through rape. Regardless of the mask they wish to use to cover it up, ‘therapeutic’ abortion will continue to be the murder of one human being at the hands of another.”
“Let’s speak the truth. Death cannot bring peace to a society, much less to the heart of a mother. The legalization of abortion is a fraud, it does not solve anything. Let us work together for authentic and realistic solutions to social problems and to the human drama of facing a difficult pregnancy,” the committee’s message urged. “Justice and national reconciliation will be achieved not at the cost of the lives of innocent and defenseless Peruvians, but rather with a generous ‘yes’ to authentic love and to the truth about man and the will of God for him,” the message stated in conclusion.
Washington D.C., Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - Racism surrounding the abortion rate must be recognized and stopped, said Day Gardner, president of National Black Pro-Life Union. “The eugenic policies of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, appear to be alive and well and still directed at black women,” she charged in a press release.
Gardner was responding to a Feb. 26 press release on Reproductive Rights and African-American Women issued the previous day by abortion advocate Ipas. In addition to discussing the history between blacks and abortion, Ipas listed reasons for black American women to take part in the abortion movement. It claimed the high rate of abortions among black women was reason enough to warrant their greater involvement and support.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, more than 90 percent of all abortion providers are located in metropolitan areas. Planned Parenthood, America’s leading abortion promoter and provider, identifies its core clients as young women, low-income women, and women of color.
According to Gardner: “The abortion industry purposefully targets the African American community. The question is why? The abortion industry places abortion clinics in our minority and poor neighborhoods to “coax us” into thinking abortion is the best answer — the only answer to an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy — and we ask why?
“Black women don’t have to kill our children to have productive, successful lives. Instead of embracing the ‘right to kill’ our children in the name of reproductive choice, we should be working to ensure that each and every African American child is given every opportunity—to experience life—to prove herself/himself—to become part of our rich cultural heritage—to change the world—and maybe also to save it.”
Since 1973, more than 44 million unborn children have been legally killed in this country; of these, almost 15 million of them were black. Abortion is the number one killer of African Americans — killing more black people than all other deaths combined, Gardner states.
African-American women make up only 13 percent of the United States population of women who are of child-bearing age, yet 37 percent of all abortions are performed on black women. The abortion rate among black women is more than three times higher than that of white women.
“It is not whether black women have access to reproductive ‘choices’,” said Gardner. “But rather: Why they are fooled into thinking that they have to make a choice to destroy their child at all. Why have so many black women bought into the lie that their children, born in inner cities, are less deserving of life?”
Hollywood, Calif., Mar 1, 2007 (CNA) - Following his successful comeback in the latest “Rocky” movie, Sylvester Stallone is resurrecting another of his classic action characters for another installment of “Rambo.” And, just as he did for “Rocky Balboa,” Stallone is bringing his re-found faith to the movie with him.
In an interview with the “National Catholic Register,” Stallone recalls his return to Catholicism and how the birth of his daughter in the late ‘90’s was a crossroads for him. “When my daughter was born sick, and I realized I really needed some help here, I started putting everything in God’s hands, his omnipotence, his all-forgivingness.”
The NCR reports that while Stallone grew up Catholic, he stopped going to church after he tasted fame and fortune. Now however, he considers himself a churchgoing Catholic again. “[This] puts me where I should be,” the action star said, noting that before his return to the faith, “I was alone in the world. I though I would have to handle things my own way.”
Speaking about the fourth installment of the “Rambo” series, which Stallone is co-producing, directing, and acting in, “Sly” notes that his protagonist (John Rambo), “is a borderline atheist. He doesn’t believe in anything anymore.”
However, Rambo’s mission in this movement, Stallone continued, “is to bring a group of Christians upriver into a very hostile territory, and they’re there to bring the Word of God and medicine and dentistry to these natives. He starts getting influenced by their faith in the face of such incredible odds.”
“I think it may work,” he said.
“Here’s how it is. I believe that you can have a Christian theme but you can’t hit it too heavy. You can’t hit ‘em over the head with a hammer. You have to be subtle about it,” he concluded.
The new movie is currently in production and has undergone several name changes. It current working title is “John Rambo” and is presently scheduled for release in late January 2008. | <urn:uuid:b01f76d1-ffd1-41f9-95b0-748692d55b31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/archive/2007/03/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965673 | 4,553 | 1.617188 | 2 |
is the best way to clean the helmet?:
However check with your helmet manufacturer as some helmets in which
the inner lining is stuck with glue could get unstuck due to the
For cleaning the shell use a clear water and mild soap solution.
Fill a bath bucket quarter full with lukewarm water. Submerge the
helmet in the bucket and wash it with baby shampoo. Rinse and repeat
a few times and eventually all the dirt will be washed out. As you
wash the dirt away, the foam expands within the helmet and returns
to its original size. The result is a nicer smelling lid, which
fits a lot better too. With a detachable lining, you can follow
the same procedure or wash the lining separately.
Do not accelerate the drying process. Let the helmet dry naturally.
Don't put a hair dryer inside or place it over a heater. The best
place really is on a bed of towels in an airing cupboard so it just
airs the helmet naturally and dries it out. It should take two to
three days to dry the helmet.
What is the life of a helmet?:
There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to helmet life as it
depends on the sort of life it's had. If it's abused from birth
a helmet's going to wear out a lot quicker than one kept in a hermetically-sealed
box between infrequent outings.
A helmet's life is deemed to start when it is first used. So you
can happily buy helmets that have been manufactured years before
as the clock doesn't start ticking properly while the lid is stored
in a cool, dark place at a steady temperature. The manufacturers'
stipulations of a five-year life are an estimate based on 'average'
daily use and take into account all the wear and tear you would
expect in those circumstances. The factors that affect a helmet's
effective life are wind and rain, sweat, sunlight and road dirt.
Basically it's the internals that suffer; with loose linings, dents
in the polystyrene, fraying straps, fatigued buckles, loose visor
fixings. As far as the shell goes, early polycarbonate shells are
susceptible to damage from UV rays. The life of a fibreglass shell
is a grey area once again. The accepted wisdom in the industry is
that the resins used to hold the fibres together start to degrade
over time, but by how much is still unknown. Though we think it
is only an issue when it is allied to use.
Whenever a helmet is stored properly its 'life-clock' is on pause.
If the helmet is showing obvious signs of wear in the above areas
it needs replacing. If you've dropped it or had a crash and banged
it on the deck the shock-absorbing polystyrene lining will have
compressed and needs replacing immediately.
When should you scrap a helmet?:
The impact absorption of a crash helmet is performed by the polystyrene
liner, not the hard outer shell that is there to protect the polystyrene
from any sliding impact and everyday wear and tear (and also carry
flash paint schemes). When there's an impact on a crash helmet the
polystyrene liner absorbs the force by compressing. If there is
a subsequent impact in the same area the liner won't be able to
absorb as much, if any of the shock, and will pass some or all of
the force onto your head.
If a helmet has rolled of a saddle or dropped from waist height
on to the floor it is recommended that you change the helmet, even
if there are no visible signs of damage. Helmets are a delicate
article that should be cared for. There is no surefire way of checking
whether a helmet has been damaged or not. The rule of thumb is that
if the helmet has got a small scuff on it, then take a look inside
at the polystyrene to see if there are any cracks on it.
The rumour that if your head ain't in it then the lid doesn't get
damaged even if dropped, is rubbish.
What is the correct procedure for dealing
with a rider who has been involved in an accident when it comes
to removing their helmet?:
The guideline, "Do not remove the helmet unless really necessary",
is the correct one for Joe Public in the street, as there's nothing
worse than some good meaning bystander trying to lift off the helmet
without undoing the strap.
The only reason you would want to remove the helmet is if the victim
can't breathe properly or needs artificial respiration. You can
get the air passage clear by lifting the visor and accessing the
mouth. The modern helmet comes with a choice of two main securing
methods, a D-ring or a seat belt type locking action. The D-ring
has the helmet strap threaded through it to be secure, the other
works in a similar way to a car seat belt.
So there you have it. Everything you wanted to know about helmets
and some more. The next time you hop on to your bike, remember to
strap on that lid. And don't be selfish, see to it that your pillion
also has his/her helmet strapped on. There is nothing worse than
walking away from a crash while your pillion has to be carted away
in an ambulance. | <urn:uuid:1d20ca03-afb0-4a26-895d-ced9cdd2b974> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://indiabike.com/infobank/helmetguide2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938123 | 1,151 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Las Vegas Rattlers
|Las Vegas Rattlers|
|Team history||Chicago Skyliners
Las Vegas Slam
Las Vegas Rattlers (2004-2006)
|Based in||Las Vegas, Nevada|
2000-2001: Chicago Skyliners
The Chicago Skyliners were one of the charter franchises of the American Basketball Association (ABA) team based in Chicago, Illinois. The team began play in the fall of 2000. They played in the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. After having relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada during the 2001-2002 season, the former Skyliners were renamed the Las Vegas Slam.
2001-2002: Las Vegas Slam and folding
The Chicago Skyliners would relocate from Chicago to become the Las Vegas Slam in 2001. The team began playing in Las Vegas during the 2001-2002 season. They played one season under this name before shutting down operations. They would soon revive themselves as the Las Vegas Rattlers.
2004-2005: Revival Las Vegas Rattlers
The franchise was revived as the Rattlers in 2004. The team again folded in 2005 because of financial difficulties. Percy Miller aka Master P played for the team in 2004. The franchise would again shut down after the end of the season and posted a poor record.
This team was to be replaced in 2006-2007 by the similarly named Las Vegas Venom, The Venom played 3 games and then were sold to PROLYM ENT. | <urn:uuid:f7fbe522-ff72-465c-931d-37911f50dd79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Skyliners | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947191 | 294 | 1.507813 | 2 |
How do you think emotional punishments compare to corporal punishments?
Talking about corporal punishment earlier today, made me think back to my childhood. Confronted with someone referring to my likely having endured corporal punishment.
Although I have never received a single spanking, my mother did different things that I would call emotional punishments or even emotional harm, for lack of a better word.
Anybody having seen “Das Weisse Band” (The White Ribbon) will know what I mean, but let me give some personal examples:
* She would for instance say things as ‘you are just like your father’, if I forgot something I promised. (Mind you that my parents were divorced and she hated my father.)
* Or she would not speak to my sister for a period of over two weeks when my sister had failed a grade.
I personally think that these kinds of mind games are extremely dangerous to the well being of children. What do you think?
Do you ever play them, do you know people that do?
How should you deal with parents that play these kinds of games. My mother still does, for instance, and I am quite a grown man already. | <urn:uuid:35437aaf-b680-4bd9-8da1-a01c7cebedce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fluther.com/124219/how-do-you-think-emotional-punishments-compare-to-corporal-punishments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985782 | 247 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Virginia Is For (Wine) Lovers - December 22, 2006
When you mention Virginia, wine is not the first thing that comes to mind. But one of the first things that DOES come to mind is Thomas Jefferson. And when you mention Thomas Jefferson to a wine lover, the wine connection to Virginia suddenly clicks. In today's column, I'll try to scratch the surface of what's what in Virginia wines. This article was prompted by my recent tasting of a case of select Virginia Viogniers and a recent tournament in Richmond, with a few winery visits folded in.
The history of Virginia wine growing goes back to 1773, when Filippo Mazzei sailed from Liverno,
Italy with grape cuttings from France, Spain, and Italy. The 30 year old Jefferson, already
a lover of fine European wines, convinced him to stay in Virginia and plant his vines on his property near Monticello. Alas, a killer frost nipped the buds of the young vines, and with it Jefferson's dream, the following Spring. And, if the Spring frost had not gotten them, the phylloxera bug would have
eventually brought their demise. The venture was doomed from the get-go.
The wine growing ventures for Virginia then entered a deep freeze for the next 190 years, only to emerge in the early 1970's, roughly about the time that New Mexico's modern wine industry was stirring from it's century-long slumber. Having followed this State's wine growth, the parallels with the Virginia and New Mexico wine industries are uncanny. In 1945, Philip Wagner published his book "A Wine-Grower's Guide", touting the use of French hybrids for wine production in areas where Winter kill presents a problem for the tender Vinifera.
French hybrids are a man-made cross between Vinifera and cold-hardy American species. The hope, never really realized, was that the quality of these wines would equal that of California and European wines from Vinifera. In the late '60's, there were scattered plantings of French hybrids in both Virginia and New Mexico. The vines thrived, but the wines were not up to most connoisseur's highfalutin' standards. Both nascent wine industries stagnated. It would be remiss to overlook the most famous of Virginia's wine in this era. This was Richard's Wild Irish Rose and Mother Vineyard Scuppernong, both made from that native American variety. Wildly aromatic and sickeningly sweet, it was a sipping wine only your little old Grandmother could love.
As in New Mexico, the Virginians realized that you COULD grow Vinifera, in properly chosen sites, and with careful vineyard practices to mitigate the effects of cold winters. This was first accomplished by de Treville Lawrence in The Plains, VA. Though some tension developed between adherents of French hybrids vs. Vinifera, his success showed the way to a gradual rebirth of Virginia winegrowing.
Last month, a Virginia friend, knowing my passion for Viognier wines, sent me a case of 2005 Virginia versions for my group to try. I had tried in the early '90's several Virginia Viogniers of Horton Vineyards. Dennis Horton first planted the variety there in 1989. I was rather impressed and felt they were as good as any then coming from California. Tasting through this case of Viogniers, I was even more impressed. Some of them (like Rappahannock, Keswick, Barboursville, Valhalla, and Th. Jefferson Cellars) were clearly world-class Viogniers, as good as any produced outside of France's Condrieu. When in Virginia two weeks ago, I was only able to visit two of the Central Virginia wineries, Horton Cellars and Barboursville Vineyards, working through both of their tasting room offerings. Plans to visit several Northern Virginia wineries fell through when I discovered they were closed on Mondays.
1850: The richest man in Ohio, and the state's foremost vintner, five-foot-one Nicholas Longworth declared the Norton grape "worthless" for viticulture...difficult to grow, marginal ripening and low yields in Ohio.
1868: America's leading enologist, George Husmann, professor of horticulture at the University of Missouri, declared "the best red wines of Europe are surpassed by the Norton as an astringent, dark red wine, of great body, fine flavor, and superior medical quality."
Horton is an interesting operation. In addition to all the traditional Rhone varieties, he has planted an oddball collection of Rkatsiteli, Petit Manseng, Graciano, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Cao, Tannat, and Nebbiolo. I far preferred the whites to the reds, the latter being a bit too terroir-driven for my tastes. However, their Vintage Port 2000 was a first-rate example. And one cannot ignore the Horton Norton (I love the way that name just trips off your tongue). This is a native American variety that was returned to its Virginia origins from Missouri, where it is also known as Cynthiana. It's probably the best wine in the USA made from a native species. Barboursville Vineyard is one of Virginia's oldest wineries. It is owned by the Zonin family, producer of a large range of Italian wines. The winemaker, Luca Paschina, a Piedmontese, clearly knows his business. The Chardonnays and Viognier were first rate whites. The reds, though also terroir-driven, have that austerity on the palate that typifies many Italian wines and cries out for food to accompany them.
So....what is my take on Virginia wines, delivered in the classic Los Alamos tradition of speaking as an expert, even when you know little on the subject at hand?? It's a far-from-ideal area to be a wine grower. Winter kill and spring frosts still are a problem. Worse yet, the hurricane season coincides with the Fall harvest, making an occasional rain-inundating vintage a disaster. If ever there was a place for reverse osmosis being used as a must concentrator, Virginia would be it.
The white wines strike me as absolutely first-rate, particularly the Viogniers. I was quite taken by the Chardonnays I tried, particularly for their minerality, their restrained use of new oak, and their crisp/clean/elegant character. Other whites struck me as somewhat thin and dilute (hurricane affected?). The reds struck me as a bit more problematic. Virginia seems to have hitched its wagon to the Bordeaux variety bandwagon; varieties I admit to having little fondness for. Many of the reds displayed a strong earthy/dusty, terroir-driven character. A little bit of terroir is a good thing and makes a wine distinctive. Too much of a good thing, however, can be...well..too much.
There is a strong Italian connection to Virginia wines that I think offer much potential. The few examples I tasted struck me as rather Italianate in character, again terroir-driven. I would like to sample more of their Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Barbera, and Lagreins. And how does the Virginia wine industry stand alongside New Mexico's?? Still strikingly similar I would say. The market in both for French hybrids seems to be withering on the vine...a tough sell despite skillful winemaking. The Virginia industry, being on the Eastern seaboard, seems to have much more access to capital than New Mexico's. Thus you see more palatial, Napa Valley-glitzy types of operations. And both have a fair share of smalltime, undercapitalized winemakers pursuing their vision with a passion of making the best wine they can with the grapes they have to work with. Both have far to go, I think, in finding the ideal wine growing sites and the varieties that work best there.
Though there are a number of sizable Virginia wine operations, I don't think any have achieved the success on the national scale that New Mexico's Gruet Winery has with their sparkling wine. Like much of New Mexico, Virginia wines struggle to achieve more than a local or regional market. Alas, there are no Virginia wines available here in New Mexico. But should your travels take you to DC or Virginia, it's well worth taking a few days to winery-hop. The countryside is absolutely beautiful (in a way far different than New Mexico's), the wines surprisingly good, and the people just as friendly as ours.
During my visit, I tried a half dozen Maryland and Virginia cheeses. For artisinal cheeses, Virginia enjoys a huge lead over New Mexico. More cows, less coyotes is probably their secret!! "Breaking Away to Virginia & Maryland Wineries" by Elisabeth Frater is an excellent read about these wines and an invaluable guide for wine touring. Highly recommended.
Some Suggested Corrections From Boyce
A couple modifications you might consider:
1) Va. wine actually dates back to "The Founding" in the 1600's. The colony struggled to survive
from 1607 - 1611, but by 1619, it was well on its way. The Va. Company (which controlled the colony - it was a pvt investment group ... until the king canceled the company and took over
the colony) required each land owner to plant an acre of grapes for the production of wine. To the best of my knowledge there is no record of wine production, but there is good reason to suspect that wine production was attempted. There is record of a vineyard being planted in the 1620's. (Arundel (sp?) I think was the name of the colonist.)
2) Jefferson attempted to grow grapes after Mazzei left, but on a less ambitious scale. He observed that the imported vines died after 4 or 5 years (go figure!). He predicted that native species would be the path for America's wine industry. (I'm a Jefferson nut and concentrated my history studies in school on the colonial and Federalist period.)
3) Wine production didn't slumber for 190 yrs. The Monticello Wine Company produced wines in the
1880's on a commercial scale and with good success. It was a Va. Norton that competed and bested French wines in a competition in France in the 1880's, IIRC. It was the temperance
movement that killed the industry. (Va. enacted prohibition statewide before the movement went
national, the dolts!) I've seen bottles of the wine including intact corks and contents. I've read accounts about the winery, but don't have production numbers.
This from the Wmsburg Winery site: "The Arundell family arrived in Virginia in the early 17th century, and settled on the peninsula between the James and York rivers, at Buck Roe in the precinct of Elizabeth City (modern day Buckroe in Hampton, Va.) John Arundel inherited the property from his father Peter, and leased-out two parcels of fifty acres for the purpose of growing grapes. One parcel was leased to one Elias La Guard Vignerone. The second parcel was leased to
Mr. James Bonall Gentleman of London, whose farm manager David Poole Vignerone of the country of France, actually lived on the property and we surmise, grew grapes. It is not known what degree of success, if any, these gentlemen enjoyed with this early
The name of the winery you described as Th. Jefferson Cellars is actually Jefferson Vineyards.
They use the Th. to mimic Jefferson's signature on the bottle....I guess it's supposed to look
like it is a bottle from his cellar. | <urn:uuid:49cef092-56d1-45ea-840d-b42bb88b1c26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grape-nutz.com/tomhill/virginia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966203 | 2,463 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Mustang that carried the Shelby name were truly amazing cars. The Shelby Mustangs were symbols of Detroit’s ability during the muscle years to build cars that were a cut above the ordinary. Today, everywhere Shelby Mustangs go, they stop traffic and turn heads. People who restore these cars know they’ve brought something very special back to life. This Mustang magic is what led Charles and Liz Lambert to become a two Mustang family: “The blue color catches peoples’ attention a little bit and then you can see them looking. When I come behind Liz in the Shelby you can see the jaw fall down. That’s the awesome part. Catch ‘em when this comes behind the blue one.”The Shelby Mustang is a fascinating chapter in what is already the best success story in muscle car history!
Other options included: limited-slip differential, styled wheels and wheel covers, power steering, power brakes, air conditioning, center console, a vinyl top, various radios, a bench seat, and various other accessories. Disc brakes for the front wheels became optional later in 1965. The list would continue to grow through much of the Mustang's history, in which added trim packages like the Interior Decor Group (or "pony interior") and GT package (which included disc brakes, a handling package with stiffer springs, shock absorbers, stiffer front anti-roll bar, fast-ratio steering, and duel exhaust . Additional engine choices and convenience items are well known for the Mustang.
Also available during that two-year period was another homologation special for the up-and-coming sport of Trans-American sedan racing. The Boss 302 was Ford's attempt to mix the power of a muscle car with the handling prowess of a sports car. The automotive press gushed over the result, deeming it the car "the GT-350 should have been." Boasting a graphic scheme penned by Ford designer Larry Shinoda, the "Baby Boss" was powered by an engine that was essentially a combination of the new-for-1968 302 in³ (4.9 L) V8 and topped with cylinder heads from the yet to be released new-for-1970 351 in³ (5.8 L) "Cleveland". This combination meant that the Boss 302 was good for a conservatively rated 290 hp (216 kW) through its four-speed manual transmission. Ford originally intended to call the car Trans Am, but Pontiac had beaten them to it, applying the name to a special version of the Firebird. In the ¼ mile the Boss 302 could post very similar times to the Boss 429, oddly enough, despite the smaller displacement and an incredibly free-breathing induction system in the car. It should be noted that the blocks from these cars are incredibly strong, and Ford Racing plans on selling new Boss 302 blocks in the near future!! | <urn:uuid:42aca871-7be1-457e-8547-0d1b250cc3e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kingautomobile.blogspot.com/2011/12/ford-shelby-mustang.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956948 | 591 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Thousands of people all over the world bet on sports for several reasons. Many of these do sports betting for entertainment, while some bet for their favorite teams for the money. Well, no matter what their reason is, it is important to keep in mind that betting on sports without the right comprehension of the sport and its odds is suicidal.
In every sports betting game, checking out the sports betting odds is a really crucial move to take. After all, sport betting odds is considered the most common method of betting in the world, plus it basically involves predicting whether an outcome may occur or otherwise. So, to consider odds betting, you need to place your bet at certain odds which relate directly to the percentage probability that the predicted outcome will happen. Many experts have stated that the lower the sports betting odds, the more likely it truly is that this outcome will happen. Its no wonder then that the outcome with the lowest odds is considered as the favourite.
Who makes the sports betting odds? How the sports betting odds are made?
You may have heard about the odds makers. Basically, in sports betting, there are odds makers are those taking into consideration every possible thing which may affect the outcome of a particular event or game. The sports betting odds are then identified by way of the odds makers by means of considering several factors with the game, like the expertise of the teams or participants, the injuries, edge to win, weather and condition of the field, place of the event, match-up history, plus much more.
When all of the factors are considered and ever detail is given close attention, the maker of the sports betting odds usually form a number that will be acceptable to both sides in the bet. To put it simply, the number is considered dependant on its quality to attract enough attention on every side on the bet. So, if for example, the majority of the bets fall on one particular side of the bet, the initial number chosen by way of the sports betting odds number was probably not a high quality one. This is where actually the sportbooks come in to adjust the line up or down so to persuade folks to try and bet on the other side.
The sports betting odds are also dependant on the odds makers by looking at the everyday specifics of the big event or game. The information will then be employed to adjust spreads as the season progresses. Also, the essential digits are calculated and analyzed before season of the game starts. Along with this, it is the task of the sports betting odds makers to consider the seasons numbers of the previous events, like the off-season moves and transactions, health of the players, changes on coaching, along with other important information.
These factors are then used together by using a series of special formulas in order to form exactly what the people commonly call as “power rankings”. The power ranking of each sports betting is often changed or adjusted depending on its overall performance. And, the resulting number is employed to help determine the spread.
One main fact to note about the makers of sports betting odds is that they will never actually let you know that their job is not to calculate a result of an event. They rather divide the public as who it thinks will win. So, before you consider betting on sports, try to conduct some research on the sportsbooks you bet at, and check the odds. | <urn:uuid:c106bed7-2a62-487d-8bda-00c2b1014e17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ta-east.com/sports-betting/sports-activities-wagering-odds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957625 | 679 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|Photo by Roderick Field
Emma Darwin was born and brought up in London, the middle of three sisters. Her father was a lawyer in the Foreign Office, so the family spent three years in Manhattan and another three commuting between London and Brussels. Her mother is an English teacher, and whiled away the hours on planes, trains, and ships by reading them everything from Winnie the Pooh
to Jane Eyre
. They spent many holidays in the east of England, on the Essex/Suffolk border. Much of The Mathematics of Love
is set in that Suffolk landscape, as well as the site of Waterloo, which they visited from Brussels. In contrast, the roots of A Secret Alchemy
are in the Tower and old city of London, as well as the castles and battlefields of the North of England.
Emma's ambition was always to be a historian but as a teenager she became stagestruck, and went up to the University of Birmingham to study Drama and Theater Arts. Her finals dissertation was on play publishing, and realizing that the book industry was a place where she felt at home, she spent some years in academic publishing. When her children were small she...
My chief passion apart from writing is photography and its history; as well as working on photographs, my hobbies included cooking, horse riding, and singing. | <urn:uuid:58f71dab-8aca-4d33-931d-1ead5528126a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harpercollins.com/author/microsite/about.aspx?authorid=31216 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988121 | 274 | 1.53125 | 2 |
For Blair Oaks 8th grader, it's 'Ready, aim, fire!'
Monday, February 11, 2013
Katelyn “Katie” Francis is your typical 13-year-old girl: a good student, big sister, and athlete. There is, however, more to this Blair Oaks eighth-grader than meets the eye.
After school each night the young teen practices shooting her pistol, rifle and shotgun. On weekends she travels across the country to try her hand at shooting competitions. With her eye on the target, she’s the one behind the trigger, pulling out all of the stops along the way.
An outdoors girl, Katie enjoys to hunt, bagging her first deer at age 9. Starting her third year of competitions, she practices loading her guns quickly or shooting targets each night. As competitions near, her practice becomes more focused, getting more acquainted with the specific guns she’ll use.
“I like trying new guns and traveling out of state,” Katie said. “I’ve progressed in every single one of my competitions.”
Of the three guns she shoots, the shotgun is her favorite. Small in stature, the young teen enjoys competing and says she’ll continue shooting throughout high school and possibly during college.
“I have matches 11 months out of the year,” she said.
Katie has made many friends from across the country while participating in this sport. She said she enjoys meeting new people and taking on the challenges.
Katie started out competing in pistol competitions and recently worked her way into the three-gun course. She switches from rifle, to pistol, to shotgun as she goes through a new course each time. Climbing over walls that reach as high as her head and moving through obstacles and across bridges while trying to hit the targets takes focus, skill, and a fair amount of adrenaline. Katie competes against shooters of all ages, from all backgrounds, and even some professionals.
Her hard work and dedication has paid off, impressing businesses enough to invest in her talent. Katie began to pick up several sponsorships helping to pay for new guns, clothing, ammo, tournament fees, safety equipment and more. She is sponsored by CPWSA, 5.11 Tactical, Cathy Ergovich at What Ya Say Hearing, AP Customs, Rock Castle Shooting, and Nordic Components. Realizing her education comes first, some of her sponsors have put grade point average requirements on Katie, further enforcing the rules of her own house.
Chad and Julie Francis of St. Thomas are thrilled with their daughter’s passion and talent. They encourage Katie to continue shooting for as long as she desires. They began instilling the rules for gun safety into their three daughters at very young ages. Katie continuing to shoot was her own choice. Katie started shooting at the age of 5.
“It is like any other sport, it teaches confidence and responsibility,” Chad said.
Teaching the girls how to be safety conscious around firearms is something he feels strongly about. A marksmen instructor for the Missouri National Guard, Chad teaches soldiers how to shoot. As a hunter, he too learned how to use guns at an early age, and wants to continue the tradition with his own children.
“I make them (his kids) recite the rules, even if they don’t want to shoot. I think everyone should know the safety aspects,” he said.
Chad also competes in shooting tournaments, and the pair have even competed against each other.
With recent events, it is no question the Francis family has gotten some criticism for teaching their daughters how to shoot. The dedicated father said some people don’t realize that shooting is a sport.
“Guns are not evil, they are inanimate objects,” he pointed out.
A video of Katie at a three-gun competition in Jacksboro, Texas has been shared from her Facebook page more than 48,000 times, with more than 6,500 comments and 19,500 “likes.” The video was just posted in late October.
Most comments on Katie’s page are encouraging, giving her a “you go girl” for taking on the challenge.
“It’s funny to see people talking about her; to us, she’s just our little girl,” Chad said.
Katie’s next big competition is scheduled for April in Kentucky. Until then she’ll continue doing what she loves: putting in those ear plugs and getting outdoors with a gun in her hand. | <urn:uuid:ce8669f7-1fd3-43b3-84c1-8ddf8fd0ae8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstribune.com/news/2013/feb/11/ready-aim-fire/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974751 | 959 | 1.554688 | 2 |
I debated all last week whether or not to write about Penn State in this week’s blog. This story has received so much attention from the media and has been analyzed through multiple prisms. A day has not gone by that I don’t find myself engaged in conversation with someone about this issue. Everyone has a strong opinion.
No one disagrees about the horrific realities of child abuse. But one can find differing opinions about the role of the big-time athletic culture, the legacy of the football coach, the response from the NCAA, and on and on. I too have opinions about these aspects of the story, but wanted to share a different perspective … one that concerns me even more deeply.
The unanswered question for me is ... has the University’s accrediting body been involved? Every college and university in America is accredited by a regional accrediting body. For Anna Maria, the accrediting body is called NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges). Penn State’s accrediting body is called Middle States (Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools).
While each of the accrediting associations differs slightly, they all serve the same purpose. They exist to insure that educational quality and integrity are maintained on every campus. In the Middle States statement of purpose, for example, we read that the association is “committed to excellence in all levels across the continuum of education, whose purposes are to encourage, advance, assist and sustain the quality and integrity of education.” (NOTE: The misspelling is really on their website!).
Middle States publishes a handbook which delineates the criteria for accreditation. It is called Characteristics for Excellence in Higher Education. There are 14 standards. Standard #6 is “Integrity.” The broad definition is, “In the conduct of its programs and activities involving the public and the constituencies it serves, the institution demonstrates adherence to ethical standards and its own stated policies, providing support for academic and intellectual freedom.” This section further describes integrity as being reflected and represented by values of honesty, truthfulness, equity and fairness, respect for all people, civility, etc.
Middle States may already be deeply involved in a review or an investigation of Penn State. If this is the case, it should be reported by the media, if only the higher education media. This past week’s activities by the NCAA continues to make this issue primarily a football story … an issue of the problems with a dominant athletic culture … and this is troublesome. For me, the questions are deeper and more pervasive and make me wonder about the fundamental integrity of a great academic institution.
Perhaps the alleged unethical behavior related to failures to report, cover ups, etc. are only related to the culture of big time football as the media reports. But could these behaviors and actions be a reflection of a more systematic problem and organizational culture? Should this situation cause us to wonder if there is a more pervasive integrity problem?
There are almost 80, 000 students enrolled at Penn State. There are almost 10,000 employees. There are untold numbers of community members who attend events, camps, activities and, of course, football games. If the University is committed to protecting all of their rights … and I hope they are … how does it act when students allege harassment or unfair treatment beyond athletics? How do they act if employees allege inappropriate behavior by supervisors, etc? Do their policies and procedures demonstrate the integrity of the institution?
I am neither judging Penn State University nor drawing any conclusions. I am simply expressing my concern that in the larger picture, the actions of the NCAA and the focus on the football program are less significant. And while we criticize the culpability of such a football culture, our focus on this as the primary or sole reason for these problems serves to perpetuate the problem.
For me, the heart of the question is the fundamental integrity of the University. I hope that this is being investigated by the accrediting body. Because it is this core value that links all colleges and universities together. And it is central to our commitment to all who study, work and visit our campuses.
For me, football does not define Penn State University. Academic integrity and excellence define Penn State and all colleges and universities. And the potential failure to uphold these values throughout the institution is the real issue. And the question needs to be answered!
(Your comments and ideas are always welcome.)
For many years, it has been widely accepted that the “American Dream” is to find a good job, get married, raise a family and own a home. Even with some variation in recent years with more frequent career changes and fewer marriages, this “American Dream” continued to be the prevalent goal for most of our graduates. But according to John Zogby, this may be changing in a significant way for young people in their 20’s and early 30’s.
John Zogby is an internationally known political pollster who appears regularly on many cable news shows and publishes articles and newsletters on a variety of topics. He may be best known for his accurate predictions of recent presidential races and state gubernatorial contests.
Zogby contends that the “American Dream” has changed and that the current generation can best be described as the “first globals.” He summarized it this way, “Two out of three of them have passports. They are well-traveled; technologically they have networks that include people all over the world. They have a desire to be nimble, to go anywhere and to be anywhere. They also have a desire to change their world and feel like they're in a position to do that."
He points to several indicators of this evolution based on national data and his own opinion polls. For example, in the early 1990’s there were fewer than 100,000 American college students studying abroad. Just two years ago, the International Institute of Education reported that that number had tripled to just under 300,000. There is every indication that study abroad programs will continue to grow every year as more students seek international experiences for study, work opportunities and cultural awareness.
Zogby also cites the impact of technology and social media. The world has become more accessible and young people live in communities that are increasingly diverse and international.
Where the historic “American Dream” was tied to a smaller community of family and friends, the Internet and online resources now connect people around the world who share common interests regardless of geography or history.
But beyond this global reality, Zogby believes that there are also significant shifts in the values of younger Americans. More young people are less concerned about getting married and more comfortable in either a long-term relationship or delaying marriage and children until later in life. More young people are personally satisfied living the single life. In addition, Zogby contends that, “The permanence of owning things doesn't exist. The permanence of living somewhere doesn't exist. The permanence of getting a job and holding on to that job for the next 40 years doesn't exist."
According to Zogby, another characteristic of the “first globals” is an increased focus on public service and a greater commitment to making a difference in the world. This viewpoint is not simply about service and volunteerism. Based on Zogby’s research, it generates from a clearer understanding that what happens in other parts of the world may have an impact on all of us. We are all impacted by economic and social issues in parts of the world we may never visit and could barely locate on the map. Of course, we may have Facebook “friends” in these countries or be linked through technology because we share an interest or a value.
I am not convinced that Zogby is right … or at least that he describes a majority of young people. While I fully agree in the impact of technology and the evolution of values and practices related to marriage and children, there are still many young people who are focused on their careers and financial success.
Zogby’s assessment is interesting to consider in light of what I shared last week from David Brooks. Perhaps the real answer lies somewhere in the middle. Better said, this generation of young people may be more varied and diverse in their views and aspirations. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that there are many American dreams! What do you think?
(Your comments and ideas are always welcome.)
Several weeks ago, I read a column by David Brooks. In addition to his essays and books, Brooks writes a regular column for the NY Times in which he typically comments on politics culture, and society. While I often disagree with his analysis, he is a good writer and frequently provides thoughtful, provocative and interesting perspectives.
The column entitled “The Service Patch” focused on the false contrast between choosing a career in an area like investment banking vs. a career in a non-profit agency. Brooks contends that too many recent college graduates, especially those with the best credentials, see a point of tension between pursuing job opportunities in high paying and high prestige companies and working in less lucrative positions in areas that address global problems and human needs.
What was of most interest to me, however, was Brooks’ contention that for too many people, “… community service has become a patch for morality.” Brooks argues that the career path you choose is less important than the type of person you are. And in fact, good people work for hedge funds and immoral people work to save the world. As Brooks states, “…you can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck. You can spend your life on Wall Street and be a hero.”
Brooks also makes the point that many young people do not understand the true meaning of virtue, character and excellence. They are not able to do a “moral evaluation” in their own lives and the lives of others. Therefore, community service is viewed as a synonym for being a good person. As he writes about this generation, “…if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person.”
At colleges like Anna Maria, community service is a major area of focus. We see our mission as centered on the balance between providing a quality educational experience (that leads to a fulfilling profession and career), and developing a commitment to serving the Common Good (that leads to a life of exemplary citizenship).
But Brooks’ column raises two interesting questions. Do students perform community service because they believe it demonstrates that they are good people? Are community service activities viewed as part of a check list to be added to a resume or simply as a person’s “resource allocation?" The answers to these questions are neither simple nor the same for every student.
Clearly, community service is viewed as a good thing. Students active in service initiatives are recognized and praised publicly for their efforts. And aside from the person performing the service, these efforts are inherently good for the community. Our students who work as tutors in schools, clean up parks, serve people in soup kitchens, and renovate homes in depressed neighborhoods are providing clear and meaningful value to the community. The recipients of community service (social service agencies and individuals in need) benefit greatly.
But what motivates our students? Is it an inherent commitment to service and helping our neighbors? Or is it a more calculated strategy to build a reputation or develop a profile for future employment? At Anna Maria with so many students pursuing careers in nursing, social work, teaching, public safety, etc., it would seem safe to assume that helping others is a prime motivation. Helping others is what these students and graduates will do for their entire lives. Service is both their avocation and their vocation.
But Brooks’ deeper question is whether or not service correlates with morality? Does community service define virtue, morality and ethics? Warren Bennis, the noted scholar and researcher, made famous the statement, “Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.” Are more of our students leaders or managers? Are more of our students heroes or schmucks?
(Your comments and ideas are always welcome.)
New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability leads
A week ago on July 2, 2012, Fr. John E. Brooks, S.J. died at the age of 88. Fr. Brooks served as the President of Holy Cross from 1970 to 1994. Until the day he died, he continued to serve Holy Cross as President Emeritus and Loyola Professor of the Humanities in the Religious Studies Department. He was active as a professor, a fundraiser and a community leader. Recently, the publication of the book, Fraternity, documented his significant leadership role in the civil rights movement.
Fr. Brooks was a legend in Worcester and beyond. Everyone knew him. Everyone respected him. Everyone admired his intellect, his insight and his wit. Even though his health grew frail in the past years, we somehow believed that he would live forever. I guess this was because we so wanted him to always be there as a friend and as a guide. He was generous with his time, his experience and his knowledge. Words cannot describe how much I will miss him.
Fr. Brooks had a close association with Anna Maria College. He served as a Trustee from 1998 – 2010. After completing his fourth term, he agreed to continue to serve the College as a member of a Board Committee. Anna Maria College is fortunate to have many outstanding trustees. But Fr. Brooks was special.
First, his willingness to serve on the Board provided the College with a high degree of credibility. With Fr. Brooks as a Trustee, it was easier to recruit other community leaders to join him on the Board. But his service to the College was not gratuitous.
He came to every meeting fully prepared and ready to share his views. He understood that Anna Maria was like the Holy Cross he inherited when appointed President in 1970. He had led the transformation of Holy Cross into the nationally recognized college that we all know today. He wanted the same for Anna Maria.
It was always fascinating to watch his behavior at meetings. While no one else knew as much about higher education as Fr. Brooks, he would sit quietly, listening to other Trustees express their thoughts, ideas and opinions. After the discussion had gone on for a while, Fr. Brooks would speak …and everyone would listen. In almost every case, his ideas and recommendations were clear, compelling and readily accepted by the group. He was well respected and always trusted to do what was best for AMC.
I first met Fr. Brooks in the last years of his presidency when my son was a student at Holy Cross. Our conversation was brief and centered on the fact that we were both from West Roxbury. What I always remembered about him was his genuine friendliness, his wry sense of humor and his smile. Even though we only spoke for a few minutes, he made me feel important.
When I interviewed for the presidency at Anna Maria, Fr. Brooks and I had a long conversation. He was instrumental in convincing me that AMC was capable of great things and that I could be an effective leader. He promised to help me if I needed him. That meant a great deal to me. And I called on him for his help repeatedly.
Over the past five years, Fr. Brooks has done so much to support me and AMC. He helped me to get to know the Worcester community. He advised me how to move forward with challenging issues. He supported me when leadership was difficult. He was a great mentor and friend.
I have had the honor in my life to know many good people … people of faith … people of value … people of service. But Fr. Brooks was a great man. In the coming years he will continue to be memorialized for all that he was to Holy Cross. His passionate commitment to integration and justice will be lauded. For me, he will most be remembered as the quintessential role model of a Catholic college president. I will continue to learn from his life and his legacy. Fr. Brooks … pray for us!
(As always your comments and questions are welcome.)
Last week I read a report summarizing a recent survey entitled, “Confidence in Institutions.” Conducted by Gallup since 1973, the survey asks Americans to share their level of confidence in a number of institutions in the United States. This most recent survey was conducted in early June by telephone with over 1000 respondents from across the country. The headline of the article was, “Confidence … at a New Low.”
According to these data, confidence is at a record low for public schools (only 29% express a high degree of confidence), church or organized religion (44%), banks (21%), and television news (21%). But while these were new records, there was an overwhelming lack of confidence in most institutions.
Ranking last in confidence for the third year in a row was Congress (13%). It is interesting to note that in 2010, Congress measured only an 11% confidence rating and this was the lowest measure ever for any institution. More on this in a minute.
But low levels of confidence were expressed for many institutions:
- HMOs – 19%
- Big Business – 21%
- Banks – 21%
- Organized Labor – 21%
- Television news – 21%
- Newspapers – 25%
- The Criminal Justice System – 29%
- Public Schools – 29%
In fact, the only three institutions with high degrees of confidence greater than half of the respondents were:
- The Military – 75%
- Small Business – 63%
- The Police – 56%
No institution has seen any significant increase in its confidence rating. Those rated the highest, for example, have simply maintained their previous confidence levels. The most dramatic declines in confidence have related to banks, organized religion, public schools, Congress and television news.
Lest anyone think that higher education is immune from this confidence gap, other surveys show overall confidence in higher education to be at about 50%, although significantly higher for those with a college degree (closer to 80%).
This report is not a surprise and reflects the general degree of dissatisfaction in this country. Every day we read reports about declining degrees of optimism about the economy and world events. With so much controversy and scandal with many of these institutions, it is understandable that confidence levels are low.
But the question for me is … what do we do about this? And apparently, the answer is … very little! While I have yet to find anything other than anecdotal evidence about many of these institutions, it seems clear that lack of confidence does not lead to change. And the best example of this that is irrefutable may be Congress.
Despite the extraordinary low levels of confidence in Congress, we continue to re-elect members to the House and the Senate. Since 1964, the lowest percentage of re-elected House members was 85%. In most elections, the percentage is at or above 90%. Senate re-elections have been more volatile (as low as 55% in 1980), but typically 80% or more.
If our confidence is so low, why do we re-elect the same people? The research says it is based on familiarity (name recognition) and money (advertising). But do we change our bank or financial services? Do we read a different newspaper or just stop paying attention to the news (in print and on TV)? Do we choose a different school or a private school?
Vince Lombardi once said, “Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.” We have the ability to change our institutions. But it will take more than rhetoric. Maybe it’s just easier to complain.
(Your comments and ideas are always welcome.) | <urn:uuid:69774cca-594b-4c67-8ecd-6fa04971f17d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.annamaria.edu/easyblog/tags/tag/presidentsblog?start=35 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974682 | 4,089 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Why Personality Testing?
As our slogan says: "Because the closest anyone comes to perfection is on a resume."
Having the ability to
learn about a person's personality reveals many new
questions you will surely want to discuss in the interview
before making a hiring or promotion decision. Interviews
often start by having the applicant tell the interviewer
something about themselves. Perhaps even more often, the
applicant is better prepared for the interview than the
person conducting the interview!
Having personality information available can help keep the interview focused on the important issues. For example, if a person is applying for a Sales position, the personality test may reveal they are of a type that is very methodical and detail oriented. If the most successful people in that position tend to be more relationship builders rather than making sure every detail is covered before moving the sale along, then you would want to ask the applicant more questions in this area.
You Can't Tell By Looks...
Look at the 4 people in the picture above. Which one is the Director Type "A" Personality? Which one is the Social Type "B" Personality? How about the Detailed Type "C" Personality? Can you spot the Supportive Type "D" Personality?
Looking at a person won't tell you, and the interview probably won't be a very accurate measure either unless you have a reliable, consistent way of evaluating each applicant before you conduct the interview.
Tailoring Results by Creating "Baselines"
If you could test everyone in your company, you would probably see various patterns of common personality characteristics emerge in the various positions. Some characteristics may represent the personalities of the BEST people in that job, others may be common among the WORST. Having an OBJECTIVE tool to evaluate this information allows you to establish a "Baseline Profile" of the "ideal" candidate for that job.
Hire Success provides most New Customers with FREE Personality Tests for every employee in your company. Using that information, we also provide FREE SOFTWARE to analyze the Reports of your best employees in each position. We save that information in a "Baseline" file that you may use for each person applying for the position covered by the Baseline file. Now, you not only see the applicant's Personality traits, but you can also see to what degree each applicant brings the RIGHT COMBINATION of Personality traits most commonly found in YOUR best employees.
Taking Personality Testing to the Next Level
Unlike some Personality Tests, we do not use "generic" job classification data to try and identify which applicants would be the best for your job. For example, the personality of a sales person selling cars may be very different than the personality of a sales person selling pharmaceuticals, and most likely, very different than YOUR best sales people.
You don't run a "generic" business, so why use "generic" information to hire new employees? Using the Hire Success Tailored Baseline Tools provides you with the most accurate, useful information for easily identifying which applicants have the "right" combination of Personality characteristics and traits.
Some personality types
just don't mix well with other types, especially when the
job requires things to be done a certain way. Consider the
example of the old television show: "The Odd Couple",
where the sloppy Oscar Madison and the impeccable Felix
Unger constantly clashed because one was extremely neat and
the other extremely messy. Chances are, messy Oscar may have
had his own filing system, and although a mess, he had the
ability to get to the "bottom line" faster since he did not
adhere to enforcing strict filing procedures.
Combined with the Personality Reports of people who may be working together, Hire Success can help give you answers you need before making your next hiring or promotion decision. You'll have a Tool to better manage your employees and help them, and your business, be more successful and productive. Isn't that what you're REALLY looking for?
The Bottom Line
The Hire Success Personality Test is FAST. Most people take the test in no more than 5-10 minutes.
The Hire Success Personality Test is EASY. There are NO QUESTIONS on the test to make applicants and employees feel uncomfortable. The Personality Test consists of 100 adjectives designed with about an 8th grade vocabulary so virtually all applicants may easily take the test.
The Hire Success Personality Test is COST EFFECTIVE. Our per-test prices are normally a fraction of what you might pay for most similar tests on the market. The Hire Success Personality Test is even affordable for small businesses with only a few employees! Call us for specific price information.
The Hire Success Personality Test is ACCURATE. Call us and we will be happy to let you take a FREE Personality Test Online and see for yourself how fast, easy and accurate it is. | <urn:uuid:f4e1a230-490b-4300-96c0-324c47d71dfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aptitudetest.com/personality-test.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934359 | 1,001 | 1.695313 | 2 |
As Jesus was leaving, two blind guys followed along, calling, “Help us, Great Deliverer!” He went into his house, and they followed him in. Jesus said, “Do you really think I can do this?”
“Yes, sir” they said.
So he touched their eyes and said, “Let it be as you believe.” And they saw. Then Jesus said, “See to it that nobody gets wind of this.” But as soon as they left they started blathering it all over town.
In this instance, as well as in the previous healing story, being able to see and being made well has not so much to do with some magical power or ability of Jesus. It has to do with the capacity for faith, the system of beliefs, that pervade the lives of those needing sight and healing. All Jesus does is help us get in touch with that.
The woman with the flow of blood remained sick so long as she believed what everyone told her about her about being a pariah and unworthy of medical care.
With these blind guys, too, they see what they believe. Who knows what they were blind to, or what the content of their vision was that they saw in Jesus’ house that day! Perhaps they saw (gasp!) that Jesus wasn’t that kind of miracle worker. That Jesus was someone altogether different than the Deliverer they expected. Or could it be that their experience only confirmed what they thought they knew, making their misrepresentation about what kind of deliverer Jesus was even more far-fetched than before? What story – that Jesus didn’t want told – did they blather about town when they left?
We have no answers, of course. But the story leaves us with (at least) three questions worth pondering for ourselves:
- What do we say about Jesus, not because we know but because we’ve always been told it about him?
- What are we (intentionally) being blind to?
- Do we allow our experiences to enlighten us, to change our minds and paradigms, or do we shoehorn our experience into the contours of the stories and worldviews we’ve always told ourselves?
Happy soul searching (I mean faith healing)! | <urn:uuid:db4f5841-b1c7-4400-8536-bc8eb2a29481> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scarletletterbible.com/2-blind-guys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985551 | 483 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A lot of us need to help to make PowerPoint delivering presentations to share suggestions better. Numerous college students also need to help to make delivering presentations for his or her tasks. Producing a highly effective demonstration is essential. The actual demonstration not just gets efficient due to the content material this bears, but additionally due to the method this appears as well as seems. It is crucial that the target audience may interact with a person as well as your demonstration which is successfully carried out by using free of charge PPT theme. The theme with regard to PowerPoint is really a group of images set about the empty look at associated with PowerPoint. PowerPoint theme will a great deal that will help you help to make a highly effective demonstration. First of all, you’re able to select a particular theme for the demonstration. This can help your own target audience interact with your own target audience inside a far better as well as effective method. Should you pick the theme, so that this matches the topic issue of the demonstration, compared to appear from the demonstration will be much more satisfying and also the target audience might additionally have the ability to interact with this within a far greater method.
Next, a great theme might additionally assist you to create self-confidence concerning the points you will existing, therefore assisting you within providing a highly effective demonstration altogether. A totally free PowerPoint theme is actually one method to make an impression on your own target audience.
You will find a large number of styles which you’ll select from the web as well as obtain along with only a click on. They’re really simple to use as well as you don’t to become a specialist to make use of all of them. They’re utilized likewise the particular PowerPoint can be used. You may also possess customized created free of charge PPT theme for the demonstration. Numerous web sites offer this particular support for that ease of their own customers. There are lots of web sites which might offer themes that need to be taken care of make use of.
You’ll certainly look for a free of charge PowerPoint theme which fits your own necessity. Themes can be found effortlessly. There are lots of web sites supplying free of charge PowerPoint themes. It is best to be considered a small cautious prior to selecting the web site through exactly where you intend to obtain the actual theme. Ensure that the actual theme isn’t obtainable just for an effort time period and it is not really copyrighted. Remember, how the method your own demonstration appears may have an effect in route your own target audience interprets your projects and also the subject material of the demonstration. If you’re seeking to provide a highly effective demonstration, it is usually recommended that you simply make use of a great theme that fits your own subject material. | <urn:uuid:9aa07296-ced2-47c0-8a52-7e2aae7e0cb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cmspglobal.org/free-powerpoint-template-making-your-presentation-more-effective.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952914 | 560 | 1.796875 | 2 |
These are some of the most common mistakes I have seen in cupping labs in my career. These are the problems that pop up again and again. Even when you warn people to prepare for the problem, they often underestimate the problem.
These are concerns for you to address whether you are setting up a one-time cupping on the road, or whether you are building out or improving your own permanent lab.
I have a friend who is a professional taste-tester and product-tester. She works in all kinds of foods, like crackers, chocolate, wine, TV-dinners, soft drinks, and yes, even coffee. A few years back she was in charge of training some experts for a panel she was putting together.
To test her subjects, she put together a little trick, making cherry gelatin with yellow coloring. When she served the yellow gelatin to the panel and asked them to write down what flavor it was, most of the tasters wrote "lemon," a couple wrote "banana," and only one of them wrote "cherry."
Think this is a one-time incident? Check this out:
In France, a decade ago a wine researcher named Fréderic Brochet served 57 French wine experts two identical midrange Bordeaux wines, one in an expensive Grand Cru bottle, the other accommodated in the bottle of a cheap table wine. The gurus showed a significant preference for the Grand Cru bottle, employing adjectives like "excellent" more often for the Grand Cru, and "unbalanced," and "flat" more often for the table wine. — Wall Street Journal
If you think you are immune to this effect, you're wrong. No one is immune. If you know ahead of time what you are tasting, your opinion will be influenced by your preconceptions.
And yet, people still put together coffee cuppings ignoring this principle. It's okay to do an open cupping if it's just for fun, obviously. But if you are seriously trying to get useable data from your cupping, IT MUST BE BLIND.
There is no way around this. And no, you are not an exception to this rule.
Just to be clear what I mean by "blind": the identity of each coffee should be hidden to as great a degree as possible. Most times, of course, you will know you are cupping 20 Panamas, or 8 coffees from the same roaster, or whatever. This level of knowledge if usually unavoidable. But you should have no idea which is which. To achieve this level of ignorance, use codes for each coffee and make sure to order them randomly.
Ideally, you won't even know what category of coffee you are tasting. That's always the most interesting. But it's pretty rare to not have at least some idea what the category is.
The easiest way to make a cupping blind is, of course, to have most or all of the cuppers out of the room when the organizer sets up the cupping and gives the coffees a code. But many times you will be the one who is setting things up and at the same time you are the one hoping to do some evaluation.
There's a simple way to get around this. Just double-code the coffee. Imagine I am setting up a cupping with one other friend, and we both want to score blind. I will write down one set of codes. So a coffee from the farm "Finca Alfa" becomes 001 and "Finca Beta" becomes 002, etc.
Then I leave the area and my colleague comes in and re-codes the samples. "001" becomes "282" or some other random number. "002" becomes "991" etc. She makes sure to mix the order of the coffees.
When I come back in, I have no idea what is what, and neither does she, since she never saw the original list. We both cup completely blind and our data is therefore much more reliable. Then, at the end, we trace back through our double-code and re-establish the identity of each coffee. Easy peasy.
If you are not doing this, you might be having fun cupping, but you're not learning anything about your coffee.
Incidentally, I have noticed that 99% of all espresso-tasting that goes on in the specialty coffee world isn't even remotely blind. Everyone who tastes the different espressos knows exactly what he or she is tasting. Why people think this is a maximal way to evaluate their products is beyond me. (In order for it to be even half-way useful, the taster would have to be someone other than the barista, and he or she would have to be sitting somewhere away from the espresso machine so as not to have any hints about what's going on. Really you need at minimum three people: one barista, one "server" to act as liaison, and one taster... ideally you should have several tasters). This is really a topic for another post as espresso-tasting presents unique difficulties.
But in straight cupping it's very simple and straightforward. If you are not doing it blind, you're not really doing it! So now, are you a professional, or aren't you?
In this series: Common Cupping Mistakes — Hot Water!
In this series: Common Cupping Mistakes — Smelly Cups
In this series: Common Cupping Mistakes — Not Really Blind | <urn:uuid:b8a0eda6-744a-4b66-b5e3-51b746a3c629> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://danielhumphries.typepad.com/coffee/2012/08/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969872 | 1,137 | 1.671875 | 2 |
De-fictionalizing Universes & Unrealities
I am pretty hard core into tabletop gaming, and I thought it would be pretty fun to create an actual playable analogue to Dragon and Pete's game. From what I can recall/find in the archives, the game works basically as follows:
- You need at least 3 players: two warring gods and a mediator (I.E. Dragon, Pete, and the kitsune, respectively)
- Each god has a temple, which serves as the base of their power
- Each god has a number of followers who can further their goals on the moral plane, and one Avatar who they control directly
- The gods' avatars will eventually face off and one will kill the other
- The bulk of the gods' machinations are to ensure that their respective avatars will be victorious
Some things that would have to change for a real version would be:
- The mediator would have to control each player's followers and interpret the ramifications of the players' actions
- There would have to be some limitations on what players could do and when
- There would have to be some organized mechanics for how avatars and followers function in the game
I am thinking that the d20 system core rules would be a good starting point for the crunchy parts of the rules.
Does anyone else have any thoughts or ideas on how I could make this work as an actual game? | <urn:uuid:8569f3a5-40f1-47f7-8127-45a6e7c320db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.housepetscomic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=398711 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964352 | 292 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
True or false: SSPC was the first organization to initiate painter competitions, in which teams of 3 painters competed against one another in demonstrating their craft by coating a large steel panel with attached angles and pipe sections.
Log in or register to PaintSquare save your results and track your cumulative quiz score!
Previous Quizzes from the Past Week
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
True or false: Some state highway departments have banned the use of silica sand for abrasive blasting.
Monday, January 28, 2013
SPC-VIS 1, Visual Standards for Blast Cleaned Steel, was initially the product of another standards-writing body. Which one?
Friday, January 25, 2013
True or false: Comparative data on the performance of various proprietary bridge coatings systems are developed and maintained by the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Anatase and rutile are mineral forms of what pigment?
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Which of the following binder types is inorganic?
More previous quizzes | <urn:uuid:70e20293-8938-4e6c-8df3-712d45fe587d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paintsquare.com/quiz/index.cfm?quizID=1525 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967259 | 231 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The University of Southern California (USC) will be sharing some numbers about its startup funding activities at First Look L.A. tomorrow, an invitation-only event it’s organizing in partnership with UCLA and CalTech. These numbers are nothing to sneeze at: in less than two years, USC has managed to raise an impressive $115 million in funding for 15 startups.
For your background: the University of Southern California, to be more precise its Stevens Institute for Innovation, helps USC spin-offs manage intellectual property, regularly incubates and showcases new high-tech ventures and connects promising young teams to appropriate investors for follow-up financing and commercialization.
Los Angeles-based USC tells us 15 startups have raised a healthy $115 million in funding in total since the beginning of the 2008 calendar year, tapping ‘creative’ financing sources beyond venture capital such as private and overseas investors as well as government grants. Based on those funding numbers, USC asserts the spin-offs are averaging close to $7 million in funding each, not including those that haven’t yet secured a significant investment and also excluding funding numbers for startups that couldn’t be verified through multiple sources.
You can find some of the startups on the USC Stevens Institute website, but most familiar to you will be Box.net, Orgoo (now dead) and Flixya.com. Another promising one is BigStage, which lets you create photo-realistic 3D-animated avatars that can be used in virtual worlds, video games, etc. The startup was recently ranked 18th in Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s Most Promising Companies and has raised over $10 million in financing over two rounds.
Needless to say, I think it’s a great to see universities doing their part in furthering technological innovation and giving promising young companies a leg up, and I think it’s equally great to see them reach out and disclose numbers. Id be interested to seeing how they stack up to other education and research organization’s results. | <urn:uuid:9029aea7-7656-4f75-8f2c-8f7dae083219> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/03/usc-weve-helped-15-promising-startups-raise-over-115-million-in-capital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94158 | 425 | 1.757813 | 2 |
what Dr F said. for the one office I do proposals for - we do a projection (proposals that are pre project) and then reports (during/after) with itemized lists of what was actually spent. the sum of the proposal is often different from what was actually spent (which we also have to explain - eg., we projected 1000 $ for hotels but spent only 750, due to choosing cheaper hotel, or fluctuation in exchange rates etc).
for what you are describing, i wouldn't use 5% per person because a construction worker and teacher will be making different $ per hour (i assume). I would write a detail of what is being offered and what work needs to be done, and then for the budget would write something like:
20 teachers at university prof level, a10$ per hour, for total of 52 hours each, total 10040
20 teachers at HS level, at 5 $ per hour, for 52 hours each total 5200
stage one construction (remove moldy material, wall treatment, etc): 10,000
Stage two construction (add second story, flooring, add windows) : 15,000
Stage three construction (paint interior, floor treatment, cleaning): 8.000 | <urn:uuid:f8f0ff09-3e8f-423b-9e03-88f75526fdab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=122348.0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955519 | 251 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Alumni and students from Antioch University New England (AUNE) are becoming the backbone of the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center (LREC) in St. Louis, Missouri. Thanks to Bob Coulter, MEd ’87, director of the center and himself an alumnus, four of the ten ecology center employees are now AUNE alumni or students.
Coulter has just hired Susan Baron, MS ’12, as project coordinator for a $1.4 million Community Science Investigators grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant will investigate new ways to engage pre-teen kids with science through their local zoo or botanical garden. Baron will design and lead programs locally and work with project partners at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio, the Red Butte Botanical Garden in Salt Lake City, and the San Diego Zoo.
Maisie Rinne, a student in the ES Environmental Education concentration, is also at LREC doing her master’s internship, investigating erosion along Deer Creek, a suburban/urban creek that runs through the center and a good chunk of suburban St. Louis. Her work will contribute to a research and restoration project later.
Deanna (Lawlor) English, MS ‘08, the school partnership coordinator, started working for the ecology center in 2009 through an NSF grant, introducing some new technologies to middle school teachers and students. Two years later, she began working in education and restoration at the site, helping teachers integrate place-based outdoor learning into their curriculum and build native habitat in their schoolyards. She also helps manage the ecology center, including removing invasive species, collecting seeds, and monitoring water quality.
In 2012, Coulter, director of the center, was Alumni-Scholar-in-Residence at AUNE, where he had earned a master’s in elementary and early childhood education. He started working at LREC, which is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden, in 2004. He is chair-elect of the North American Association for Environmental Education Research Special Interest Group and a member of the leadership team for the Place-based Education Evaluation Collaborative. He collaborates with MIT to design innovative, game-based learning environments.
“We need world changers, not widget fillers. Antioch is a great place to find them.”
‘We need world changers, not widget fillers. Antioch is a great place to find them.” | <urn:uuid:bb8cdd18-27da-4ea4-902e-a9582f9e4082> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antiochne.edu/aunenews/alums-and-students-make-litzsinger-road-ecology-center-into-aune-west/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941022 | 505 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Macroeconomic Forecast TunisiaJuly 2012 | Macroeconomic Forecasts
Consumer price inflation (CPI) in Tunisia came in at 6.6% y-o-y in June, up from 4.2% at end-2011, as a result of a recent uptick in food prices. With the central bank likely to retain a relatively accommodative monetary policy in order to support the country's economic recovery, we expect inflation to continue heading higher in the near term. We forecast the headline print averaging 5.3% and 4.5% in 2012 and 2013, respectively, up from 3.5% in 2011. .
To read the full article, please choose one of the following options: | <urn:uuid:a278247a-8a7b-4342-a881-1eb859ae3912> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meamonitor.com/file/112363/macroeconomic-forecast-tunisia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933402 | 142 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Toronto Star Prints Anti-Sealing Op-Ed
In response to a series of articles in the Toronto Star, Newfoundland anti-sealing campaigner Rebecca Aldworth wrote an Op-Ed piece which The Star printed (copy can be found below).
According to Captain Paul Watson, Rebecca Aldworth is the world's most active anti-sealing campaigner, and she has been relentless in her opposition to this annual horrific slaughter of the seals in Canada.
Send a letter to the Editor of the Toronto Star supporting Rebecca Aldworth and express your opposition to the Canadian seal slaughter.
Send your contributions to Letters to the Editor via email to: [email protected]; or via fax to: 416-869-4322; or by mail to: One Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E6.
Letters must include full name, address, and phone numbers of sender. Street names and phone numbers will not be published.
The Toronto Star reserves the right to edit letters, which typically run 50-300 words. Photos are welcome. More info available at their website: www.thestar.com
A cruel slaughter on ice: It is time the commercial seal hunt was relegated to the history books where it belongs, writes Rebecca Aldworth.
The commercial seal hunt is in full swing off Canada's East Coast. More than 224,000 pups have already been clubbed or shot to death; another 126,000 will likely be killed by mid-May.
The seal nursery, one of the world's great wildlife spectacles, is once again soaked in blood.
I grew up in Newfoundland. It was there I first saw the seal slaughter on CBC television; horrific black-and-white images of sealers clubbing baby seals.
We lived in a small outport of 340 people. I had eaten seal meat, and my family knew sealers. But I had never seen a live seal. I had never truly understood - until I saw the agony in those pups' eyes - the brutal reality of this hunt.
Two weeks ago I returned from observing, for the fifth time, what few Canadians ever see - the commercial seal slaughter both in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off Newfoundland. This "hunt" is as brutal as ever and no compassionate person could ever support it.
This year, the ice cover was unusually thick. The sealing boats formed a circle around huge pans measuring more than a mile across. We filmed from the centre.
Moving towards the sealers, we passed giant pools of blood with trails leading back to the boats. Everywhere, carcasses stared up at us, left behind by the sealers. The pups left alive moved miserably through the carnage, bewildered and covered in blood.
We got very close to the sealers, and could see and hear everything: The splatter of blood as the clubs hit, the cries of seals as they were struck.
The killing methods were cruel. The sealer would club a seal, and it would lie still. He would begin to cut it open, but all too often, it would start to move. The sealer would react by clubbing the animal again. It would lie still, and the sealer would resume skinning. Again the seal would move. Usually the sealer would give up and finish skinning the still thrashing animal.
The Marine Mammal Regulations require that sealers perform a simple test to ensure the seal is dead prior to skinning. It involves quickly touching the animals' eyeball and watching for a reaction. But almost none of the sealers did it.
I also witnessed sealers hooking conscious animals through the skull, dragging them to the boats. Tossing wounded seals across the ice. Allowing seals that had been shot to escape and die slowly. Some seals would bite at the gaffe as they were hooked through the mouth. Journalists and sealers report seal pups regaining consciousness on the deck of the boat. I have witnessed these scenarios each and every year that I have observed this hunt.
Much of the time, the Coast Guard circled and watched us from the air. They did nothing to stop the abuse.
There are journalists who romanticize this "hunt," disenchanted urbanites portraying a fantasy version of rural life. They are of the school that equates brutality with bravery, greed with tenacity.
But there is nothing noble about slaughtering 350,000 baby seals; there is nothing brave about a grown man clubbing or shooting a 3-week-old animal with no means of escape.
Somewhere in the debate, it has been overlooked that Newfoundlanders sealed so their children wouldn't have to.
People are injured and die in the course of the slaughter; others are emotionally damaged by the violence they witness. In an average year, sealers return with sealskins to find rock-bottom prices. In some years, they have dumped them into the ocean because the processing companies stopped buying.
This is not work future generations of Newfoundlanders will choose to do. The young adults who are leaving the province grew up with higher expectations than eking out a miserable existence on a bloody sealing boat.
But we continue to sink massive subsidies into this dying industry and then lay off the rural schoolteachers who offer young people their only hope to compete on the national business stage.
In truth, it is far cheaper for the federal government to support this hunt than to put any real money into education and sustainable job creation. It is far easier to blame seals for disappearing cod than to take responsibility for two centuries of overfishing.
This slaughter provides little income for the people of our Atlantic provinces, puts the already fragile ecosystem of the Northwest Atlantic at risk, and badly tarnishes the image of our nation. It is time this outdated and cruel slaughter was relegated to the history books where it belongs. | <urn:uuid:483570c0-5e62-48bc-b20b-7fc07ae7fdab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2003/05/09/toronto-star-prints-anti-sealing-op-ed-1228 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967562 | 1,207 | 1.6875 | 2 |
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