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Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader by Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback
A Book Corner Review
Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader
By Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback
Harvard Business Press, 2011
Many books on management act as if they have the best answer for everyone. Instead, to its credit, Being the Boss offers a coherent set of questions that make it possible for each manager to thoughtfully tailor his or her own answers.
Linda Hill has been listening to, teaching, and studying practicing managers and how they got to where they were for more than 30 years. This book is built on her solid experience, responses to both editions of an earlier book, Becoming a Manager, and the reflective management experience of her co-author Kent Lineback. It backs up its questions with supportive explanations, stimulating observations, and an integrating case study.
The act of being the boss is actually practicing management and leadership. In many jobs, it is possible to excel independently. Management is different. In addition to dealing with complex and difficult situations that are continuously changing, its very essence is setting and achieving goals with other people. Their capabilities, capacities, desires, and needs all must be considered. The leader must create a functionally cohesive team and ensure its development.
Effective management also means building networks to take advantage of opportunities for support from others. A manager needs to develop a broad but selective range of reciprocal working relationships that are both essential to creating a strategic plan and instrumental in meeting more immediate operational goals. A third network is one for personal development that can help with feedback, negotiating difficult relationships, and navigating organizational politics. However, in building networks, things are not always easy. In addition to pursuing collaboration, it can become necessary to compete with some of the same network members.
The authors assert that management can best be thought of as a process rather than a posture. Each individual must continuously work on it to make progress. The process has a certain sink or swim quality that means that a successful manager must decide over and over again when, where, why, and how to jump in the pool. The experience he brings to the jump, combined with a framework thoughtfully spelled out in this book, make it possible for him to progressively meet the challenges of his unique journey through development. The framework recognizes that this journey should be guided by three imperatives, i.e. constructively: manage yourself, manage your network, and manage your team.
I find this approach both encouraging and realistic. It acknowledges that taking action is not just simplistic, but full of paradoxes that must be resolved. For example, having to develop individuals into a cohesive team, yet simultaneously evaluating their performance; or, not only executing today, but managing a larger organizational context and innovating for the future.
In my years of working with and coaching managers, I have never seen a truly successful manager who succeeded solely through learning by the numbers. Each follows his own path. She typically moves from being uncomfortable as a boss to becoming confident as a manager. This book can well serve both beginning and experienced managers as a guide for their own continued development. It is engaging to read, asks the right questions, and incorporates a compendium of the best research on leadership.
About the Author(s)
Sam Farry, MBA, writes frequent reviews in GBR that reflect his continuing support for education and learning as essential for both financial and moral success in business. As a consultant in management and organizational behavior and as a member of the adjunct faculty at Pepperdine, his career has consistently pursued these values. He is now retired, living in Big Bear Lake, CA and can be reached at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:2bd23129-cafa-41d7-bcea-939e0656dd9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2011/12/being-the-boss-the-3-imperatives-for-becoming-a-great-leader-by-linda-a-hill-and-kent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970811 | 768 | 1.75 | 2 |
A Climbing Life
By Arlene Blum
SIMON & SCHUSTER;
313 PAGES; $27.50
In 1967, a young climber and Berkeley doctoral candidate named Arlene Blum was eager for, as she termed it, "a big climb." With a few Cascade Range summits and some Latin American peaks under her belt, she set her sights on Alaska's Denali, the highest peak in North America. But when the expedition brochure arrived, it stated baldly, "Women are invited to join the party at base and advanced base to assist in the cooking chores. Special rates are available. They will not be admitted on the climb, however."
At a local American Alpine Club meeting soon thereafter, Blum's proposal for a women's team ascent drew only scorn: " 'Chicks? Climb Denali? You must be joking,' a man scoffed. 'No way dames could ever make it up that bitch.' " It took Blum three years, but she did assemble a women's expedition; by the summer of 1970 the six women reached the mountain's summit, posing for a photo around a "Denali Damsels" banner.
Blum's new memoir, "Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life," covers more than a decade and a half spent at high altitudes. In addition to the Denali climb, it includes an "Endless Winter" journey to peaks from Africa to Nepal; a Cold War-era attempt of Peak Lenin in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; three Himalayan climbs (Everest, Annapurna and Bhrigupanth); and a nine-month trek across the Himalaya. (The Annapurna trip was the source of Blum's earlier book, "Annapurna: A Woman's Place.")
Over the course of her memoir, Blum grows from a 19-year-old Reed College rookie on Mount Hood -- where, she notes, she climbed in her only pair of pants, wool dress trousers that wore through completely during a glissading descent -- to an internationally experienced mountaineer, wanderer and, eventually, mother. (Her daughter Annalise's first solid food consists of freeze-dried peaches served beside a tumbling glacier in the Italian Dolomites.)
The sexist world in which Blum begins climbing seems almost unfathomable to a contemporary reader. Women are excluded from expeditions for reasons that range from tenting arrangements to "excretory situations high on the open ice" and, according to one other climber, not being "lady-like enough."
As Blum weighs graduate programs, she first plans on attending Harvard's, until the Harvard Mountaineering Club president informs her flatly that his is the only remaining Harvard club that bars women. (She chooses MIT instead, before transferring to Berkeley.) An accomplished scientist as well as mountaineer, Blum documents her trips in meticulous detail. Writing of one high-altitude morning on Denali, she writes:
"Getting dressed that morning was relatively easy, as I had slept in my regular underwear, my long underwear, a cotton turtleneck, wool sweater, down vest, heavy down parka, wool pants, down pants, two hats, face mask, wool mittens, and two pairs of socks. ... My mind was so fuzzy that lacing my boots was an exacting intellectual exercise. Finally I put on my windbreaker, wind pants, boots, outer mittens, and daypack and then strapped metal crampons onto my feet. I struggled out of the small, oppressive cave and was shocked awake by the icy air."
Blum's ambitious efforts often stir as much controversy as respect. On Peak Lenin, she joins an international women's team despite having been rejected by the official U.S. team, provoking a low-grade international incident and drawing the silent treatment from the other Americans. She later bristles when the deaths on Annapurna overshadow what she sees as her team's primary accomplishment -- the first American women's summit of an 8,000-meter peak -- and is devastated by a letter to National Geographic that points out that the summit party was not in fact all-female, but accompanied by two male Sherpas. (She later learns the protest was co-authored by the late famed Berkeley climber and photographer Galen Rowell.)
In the high mountains, life is as fragile as a ridge-top cornice; unstable terrain, lethal exposures, capricious weather and impaired high-altitude judgment have often proved deadly. Thanks in part to blockbuster mountaineering books like "Into Thin Air," we have come to expect tragedy at 8,000 meters and above. Even so, the litany of deaths in "Breaking Trail" seems almost unbearable, as Blum loses friends, lovers and expedition partners to avalanches and falls. Her earliest mentor, John Hall, dies in an avalanche on Mount Saint Elias, in the Yukon; noted climber Bruce Carson plunges unroped off a broken cornice near the summit of India's Trisul; Annapurna partners Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz and Vera Watson die in a presumed fall during a summit attempt. The sense of loss is never far from the exhilaration of ascent.
Blum is, for the most part, an agile, self-aware writer. Seeking to understand the lure of her dangerous pursuit, she begins each chapter with short fragments that trace her painful childhood, drawing clean lines between bitter memories and later climbing episodes. Years later, after a conversation with another female climber, she gains a deeper, sadder understanding of the mountains' fatal attraction:
"[W]e both recalled at perilous moments having the feeling that it didn't matter if we lived or died," she says. "We didn't feel suicidal, or have a death wish. ... Rather, we had the sense that as individuals we weren't all that important." | <urn:uuid:48ebdeb8-252c-451d-8e08-15cd79711ab2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/A-trailblazing-mountain-climber-finds-woman-s-2559256.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962619 | 1,227 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Participants Look Forward to Fairy Shrimp Festival This Saturday
To celebrate Earth Day and honor a certain microscopic crustacean, UC Merced will hold its first Fairy Shrimp Festival April 22.
We wanted to have an arts-and-crafts fair and at the same time celebrate that we are a green campus, said Jim Greenwood of Student Life, who has organized the event.
The day will feature dance performances, live music and vendors selling jewelry, clothing and art from as far away as the Bay Area and as near as Atwater and Merced.
Christine Viney, 11, will have a booth at the fair to teach people how to make tissue paper flowers and will also sell her creations for a quarter apiece.
I heard about it through my dad, and it sounded like fun, said Viney, whose father is a professor at UC Merced. She has been teaching people how to make flowers at various Merced events and says a few students on campus even decorate dorm rooms with her flowers.
The fairy shrimp itself looks kind of funny, Viney said. But she'll be there along with dozens of other vendors to celebrate its preservation, and the entire community is invited to join them.
Building tours will be available for first-time visitors to the campus, and the UC Merced student government will hold an all-you-can- eat Shrimp Feed fundraiser later in the day. Departments and clubs will hold demonstrations on solar energy, recycling and how the campus is setting a standard for sustainability.
Greenwood said event organizers wanted to hold an annual event similar to UC Davis' Whole Earth Festival but with a Merced twist. Enter the fairy shrimp.
The rare shrimp was discovered in vernal pools near campus as construction began. Thanks to a conservation easement by UC Merced, the critter's habitat has been preserved for generations to come.
We are acknowledging that we do have many local species that need to be protected and at the same time we're taking a fun approach and celebrating arts and sustainable living, Greenwood said.
Admission to the festival is free of charge for all, and the event is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sacramento | <urn:uuid:e35542cd-55f6-4c1c-a0a0-4eaca52a3b58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucmerced.edu/news/participants-look-forward-fairy-shrimp-festival-saturday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968243 | 465 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Liverpool, UK: The power to write, record and produce music is more available today than ever before. And together with the increased opportunity to sell music online direct to listeners, artists have never had this much control over their own musical careers.
The SAE Institute in Liverpool will be running two workshops as part of the On Song Festival, which runs from the 1st – 29th September.
The workshop demonstrations will be focusing on the technology that is driving a new breed of songwriters, performers, producers and engineers. From the integration of modern live electronic performance with live music to an introspective to sound design, the SAE workshops promise to be exciting and insightful.
SAE will be providing two workshop demonstrations:
Limited places are available. To book please email [email protected]
About the On-Song Festival: On Song takes place at Carling Academy Liverpool, Hotham Street, between the 1st and the 29th September, 2008, and showcases the finest songwriters and artists, alongside local emerging talent. Featured events will celebrate the process of writing, crafting, and giving life to songs and celebrate all genres from rock and folk to electro and indie. Combining established musicians and up and coming artists, On Song reflects the range of music that exists in Liverpool and the city's rich, musical heritage.
On Song Liverpool 2008 will include workshops and showcases to discuss current songwriting and broader industry issues. These discussions are an integral part in the development of the 'On Song' infrastructure and encourage communications between the commercial music industry and public sectors.
About SAE: SAE Institute was founded in 1976 as the world’s first audio school. It has since grown to become a network of around 50 colleges in 20 countries offering courses in Audio Engineering, Digital Film, Web Design and Interactive Entertainment. With 32 years of teaching experience, SAE teaches students the skills necessary for successful integration into the audio and media industries. The concept of SAE is practical hands-on training, combined with solid theory knowledge. SAE offers courses in Audio Engineering, Electronic Music Production, Web Design + Development, Interactive Entertainment and Digital Film making. Students have the option to progress to Degree programmes, validated by Middlesex University, at SAE’s dedicated Degree Centres around the world. SAE is the first step into a career in the future-orientated fields of audio technology and media production.
In 2007 SAE was awarded Skillset Media Academy status by the Government and is one of only 17 such academies in the UK to gain this recognition. | <urn:uuid:cd80dfe6-5c82-4a96-9488-53dd8b972884> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2008/09/09/free-music-workshops-in-liverpool/ | 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 | 0.934646 | 528 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Indiana law makers want to require the state's welfare program to test people for drugs.
A new bill would deny welfare benefits to people who test positive. This week, lawmakers clearned this bill for a full vote in the house. If passed...everyone who applies for welfare assistance in the state of Indiana will have to take a drug test.
Indiana would be the 8th state to test welfare recipients for drug abuse.
Andy Downs is a professor at IPFW's Center for Indiana Politics. He says drug testing has become a hot topic is state legislatures in recent years.
According to Indiana's bill...people who apply for state welfare programs would have to take a written test to determine whether they may have a drug addiction. If there's suspicion they do, the state issues a urine or blood test. If you fail that then your benefits would be cut off.
So far, seven states have passed similar laws. Michigan was the first but in 2003, it was overturned by a federal judge.
The court ruling that random tests violate the fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Downs says the written test may be a way around that.
This week's committee vote passed along party lines which meas there could be a good chance of it passing on a full vote in the republican-controlled house.
WFFT's Robert Bumsted has the details... | <urn:uuid:b0981bee-c598-4443-9e8a-dc2ea655a82c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fortwaynehomepage.net/fulltext-luers?nxd_id=80682 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967295 | 278 | 1.84375 | 2 |
By Ross von Metzke
Originally published on Advocate.com June 12 2009 12:00 AM ET
When Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins used the 1993 Academy Awards ceremony as a soapbox to speak out against Haitians being detained in Guantanamo Bay for having HIV, they got themselves barred from ever attending the Oscars again. Two years later, they attended together -- and Sarandon won for Dead Man Walking .
Years before that, Jane Fonda was labeled a traitor to her country for her vocal opposition to the Vietnam War. Now, though some still question her tactics, Fonda is considered a pioneer and a hero by liberal antiwar activists.
There's nothing new about celebrities going out on a limb to shine the light on inequality and injustice -- but it doesn't change the fact that when they do, rest assured, they get attacked.
Take Rob Thomas -- smart, talented, certainly good-looking. As front man for the band Matchbox Twenty, he racked up a slew of hits. Partnering with Carlos Santana for the smash hit "Smooth" paved the way for a successful solo career, which has so far yielded the hits "Lonely No More" and the current chart-topper "Her Diamonds."
Up until recently, you'd have been hard-pressed to find much of anyone who has anything particularly negative to say about Thomas. Then he called Pat Robertson the devil.
He did it on Twitter ("If I believed in the devil, Pat Robertson might be him," were his exact words), and the hate mail started to flood in.
But that was just the beginning. The reference to Robertson was part of a bigger "Twitter-versy," as Thomas calls it. Thomas's big issue of the hour? "Why two people of the same sex shouldn't be able to make the same lifelong commitment and (more importantly) under the same god as straight people."
He followed it up with an excellent column for The Huffington Post . Titled "The Big Gay Chip on My Shoulder," the article, which Thomas wrote days before the California supreme court's decision to uphold Prop. 8, references McCarthyism, questions the motives of a "misdirected" Christian right, and suggests that straight people have an obligation to stand with their gay brothers and sisters for basic civil rights.
It's one of the most passionate pleas written on behalf of marriage equality, and it's written by a straight man who simply recognizes the need for "acceptance."
As he prepares for the release of his new album Cradlesong (in stores June 30), Thomas talked to Advocate.com about his passion for equal rights, his night with George Michael, and those "fucking great" rumors that his wife caught him in bed with Tom Cruise.
Advocate.com:It's been four years since your last album, (2005's Something to Be) -- did you finally take a break between projects or were you working the entire time?Rob Thomas: Mostly working, because when we put out the last solo record -- [ laughs ] we… I have a problem with my pronouns, because I'm so used to being in a band. I put out the solo record and then, there was like a year of touring that record. And then, as soon as we were off the road, we took maybe a month or so and started with a Matchbox record -- recording that, promoting that, and touring that. Understand, I've had a real job -- this is better. [ Laughs ] But it just constantly keeps going. Because I chose to have the two jobs of Matchbox and the solo stuff -- this would normally be the break between Matchbox records.
So you're a workaholic, then?Well, you know -- when you love your job, it's easy to not look at it that way. But my wife has to remind me sometimes to take a break.
The album is getting comparisons to all sorts of artists -- INXS, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson. Do you consciously try to channel certain artists when you're writing?Sometimes you do that in the production stage. But for the songwriting I really try to have as little pretense about any of it as I possibly can. I just go into it with a melody in my mind and I follow that melody until it's a song. Then, later on, I worry about, sonically, how it's going to come along.
You snagged Alicia Silverstone for the "Her Diamonds" video -- it's very different from the stuff she used to do for Aerosmith.Well, and I'm sure that's what she wanted to do. Dave Meyers, who directed the video, and who is just one of the best video directors... he's friends with her. We got out the look books of all the people that people had in mind when we were casting, and it was all of these models, these kind of Maxim girls. Because this song is a metaphor for this girl who has been crying so long, she's literally frozen by her fear and her pain, and because it's an acting job that's all in the face, we needed to have someone who we felt, her face and her eyes could tell the story. Alicia just has one of the most interesting faces, and her eyes are kind of dark, but haunting at the same time. Her idea was the wig, it wasn't mine, but I love the way she came across -- I think she looked amazing.
Well, and congrats, the video looks great.Thank you -- I'm really proud of it.
Another thing you should be proud of, and this is not so much a question as a comment -- your Huffington Post article on marriage equality is truly superb and is getting so much attention.Thank you -- I'm so glad that it has had the resonance that it's had. The Huffington Post is amazing in the sense that they let you write about whatever you want to write about. I could have written about pancakes. But I have a lot of gay friends, and I have a lot of friends who are in long-term relationships. A lot of people, when we talk about these social issues and civil rights issues… because the economy is in such a bad place and we're worried about nuclear war, some people say, maybe this isn't the time to worry about these issues. But if we're not worried about the inner sanctum of our quality of life, then the other stuff doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to save the earth if you're not saving it for some sort of a purpose. So the idea of how people are allowed to live the days of their lives is more important than ever.
Do you remember when you first became passionate about this topic… I know this isn't the first time you've talked about it. Is there a moment you can pinpoint?I think even in high school -- I was the kid in high school who a lot of the kids stopped hanging out with because they thought I was gay because I had gay friends. But I was never put off by it. If you need to put me down and you think that being gay is a put-down, then you're probably an asshole. I always had that thing where I thought, Really? You think I'm gay? OK, cool. Now, more than ever, with Prop. 8, it's a much more timely issue. And I wrote it a couple of days before the last verdict.
You have a lot of conflicting messages as well -- you have a vice president with a lesbian daughter who, the whole time he was in the White House didn't support gay marriage, but now, all of a sudden, he supports gay marriage. And you have a president who, obviously, I support… but I'm really disappointed in his lack of a stance on the issue as well. The best thing that he's done is try and push it off on the states, which I don't think is a great idea, but it's the only recourse that there is right now, the idea that maybe you can systematically get the states to do it and then it will fall into place. But that's not going to help people in some really red states. It's not going to help people in Tennessee.
One of the things people are accusing Obama of right now is that he's seeming very out of the times on this issue. What's your take on that?I think so. He's a politician. He won the lottery of being the main politician in the world. You can't expect a straight answer. I don't think that now, in this time, this is any more of a relevant issue than it was 10 years ago. I think this was a relevant issue 20 years ago too. I think now, luckily, it's just becoming an issue that more people are passionate about. And the more you see it, the more people realize this isn't an isolated issue, this is all over the world. This is my neighbor, this is my friend, this is my teacher.
Something people seem to have a hard time grasping.Well, if you think about the absurdness and the arbitrariness of the argument... I have friends who are conservative and, when they started talking about the idea of teachers being able to say that they're gay… being able to be openly gay teachers, there was an uproar. They're scared of some sort of gay osmosis happening to them -- they don't want a gay teacher teaching their kids because their kids will be gay. But they don't realize that the teacher's already gay. They're just talking about being able to be openly gay. So it's not some sort of a gay osmosis. If your kid is gay, it's already happened -- it's done.
I always think, "don't ask, don't tell" doesn't just apply to the military -- it applies everywhere. And it's even in our language. We have this idea of tolerance in our community. That's the wrong message to teach. Tolerating something means that in spite of the fact that something is wrong, you'll tolerate it. I'll tolerate that you're gay. I'll tolerate that you're black. I'll tolerate that you're latino. I think we need to teach acceptance and the difference between loving someone for who they are and tolerating them. Even in our vernacular, we teach that. "I'm OK that you're gay." Well, "Fuck you. Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be?" "I'm OK that you're black." "Well good for you, you've validated me. I'm so happy for you." [ Laughs ] It's so embedded in our culture, unfortunately, we still have a lot further to go with people.
Like many celebrities, you've been the subject of gay rumors -- there was, of course, the Tom Cruise rumor. Were you shocked when you read that?Oh come on, that was fucking great.
It was pretty brilliant.Are you kidding me? It could have been me and Screech from Saved by the Bell . But Tom Cruise is a pretty big star. I ran into him a couple of years ago at some NASCAR event and, after everything, it was so surreal. I said, "Hey, hey, come here. You're my boyfriend."
So if the tabloids gave you the opportunity to hook yourself up with someone, who would it be?OK, hold on, let me think. It wouldn't be Tom Cruise -- no offense to him, but… Maybe Snatch -era Brad Pitt. My wife has a crazy crush on Michael Pitt, and I get that one -- he's a cute guy. My wife and I are pretty good at going back and forth on her girl crushes and my guy crushes.
Do you each have a list?Yeah, it's always when you're watching the movies. She's like, "Well, I think he's hot," and I'll say, "Well, I don't get it." We were actually talking about this, certain guys -- remember Val Kilmer during Top Gun . He was this gorgeous guy and then, something happened to him. Not just getting older, but completely becoming this different human being. Same thing happened with Jason Patric -- like in Lost Boys , who was better looking than Jason Patric? And then, boom -- this crazy switch over.
We're starting to notice it happening with Brad Pitt -- he's arguably one of the best-looking men on the face of the earth and, little by little he's starting to make this transformation.
Yeah, well, doesn't he have something like eight kids now? That'll do it to you.[ Laughs ] Yeah, you're right -- God, eight kids.
What do you make of the celebrities who seem to get deeply offended by the gay rumors?I think you definitely have resentment in your heart if those kinds of things bother you. It's telling of their point of view. It would mean when they meet a person who is gay, they think there's something wrong with it -- wrong enough that they don't want it to be them. I'd understand it if somebody said, "Hey, you're a child molester." But if you're Pat Robertson, you don't know the difference. Gay and bestiality and child molestation is all the same, which is why I think he's the devil. But I think it does say something about you, and I think it means you have a certain amount of intolerance, even if you keep it down low and you don't talk about it. You're definitely saying there's something wrong with being gay.
I'm half gay on my mother's side, Ross… I don't know if you know that about me.
Oh, are you?[ Laughs ]
So you've got to tell me the story about you smoking George Michael while you're talking about Pink Floyd's The Wall .Well it started with… I just couldn't believe how much he hated The Wall, and I find that a lot of guys of that age that are English can't stand The Wall because they liked Pink Floyd before and considered that the jumping-off point, whereas me, at 37, that's when I first was introduced to Pink Floyd and then I started listening to the earlier stuff later.
But the smoking -- I know George, he's a friend, we have the same manager, and we hang out when we get a chance… I do this thing where I pretend to smoke celebrities, like a bong. I know that it's the most childish thing you could ever do. That's the reason I do it. When you meet people, and you have a few drinks and talk to them, it's fun seeing who's up for it -- who has the sense of humor where they don't take themselves too seriously, they're up for it. George, of course, was up for it because George doesn't care. So I actually got a great pic of George where he was smoking a spliff and I was smoking his toe.
Not many people can say that.Yeah, George is a good guy. He is, in my opinion, a true gentleman. He even handles his misgivings in a great way. I've never seen someone so eloquently speak up for himself and own up.
So now that the solo album is done and you're ready to hit the road and start promoting it, what are the chances of getting another Matchbox Twenty album sometime soon?Hopefully. We're going to start doing some writing right around the time we start hitting the road for the solo, and then hopefully after I'm done touring, we'll have some stuff ready to get started on. We're so spread out now -- I'm in New York, Paul's in L.A., Kyle's in Nashville, and Pookie's in Florida. We're so spread out we have to be equally inconvenienced now when we make a record. | <urn:uuid:5bde06e6-8a3c-4262-91d0-f4c56df6c535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.advocate.com/print/arts-entertainment/music/2009/06/12/something-be | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986104 | 3,318 | 1.710938 | 2 |
A wide range of trips throughout Southcentral Alaska.
Fairbanks: 55°/88°/Mostly sunny
Juneau: 49°/75°/Partly sunny
The Southcentral climate (Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula and the surrounding area) boasts relatively mild summers (highs near 70).
The Interior climate (Fairbanks and Denali) has warm summers (highs in the 90s).
The climate of the Inside Passage, where most of the cruise ships go, is usually warm and damp (summer highs in the 60s and 70s).
Coastal areas have more moderate temperatures than inland areas as well as more precipitation. Daily temperature fluctuations are wider inland.
In late spring and early summer (close to the solstice in mid-June), the days are the longest. Early summer has less rain than late summer and fall. | <urn:uuid:dd9ab29e-cd25-4db6-8e8c-a4e6949b9964> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alaska.com/2008/10/20/1890/whats-the-summer-weather-like.html | 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 | 0.939176 | 180 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Saturday Market in Murten
Early on Saturday morning, after lingering over coffee and croissants, my husband and I took the train to Murten. Murten, known in French as Morat, straddles the edge between French and German speaking Switzerland. It is situated in the canton of Fribourg above the shore of Lake Murten.
This small medieval town has a rich history and a generous climate. Nearby the Vully vineyards provide the region with good wine while the area between Murten and Neuchâtel is known as the Vegetable Garden of Switzerland. This area has long been recognized, from the time of the Romans and no doubt even earlier, for its fine temperate attributes and so this small town in Switzerland has a long and interesting history.
The Old Town of Murten itself is well worth just seeing. It's castle still stands at the entrance to the town. Though it is closed to the public it adds greatly to the atmosphere of the place rising above the other rooftops. Beyond the castle is a picturesque medieval town of three streets encircled by its 15th century town walls. Most of the ramparts and towers of this once heavily fortified town are still intact, reminding visitors of the strength and courage of the residents of the town and the Swiss Confederates in defeating the Burgundians and Charles the Bold back in 1476. In fact the ramparts are open to the public and tourists are encouraged to walk there and soak in the history as well as to admire some spectacular views of the town and surrounding countryside.
Besides the ramparts and towers the town of Murten boasts a beautiful gate, the Berntor, as you exit the Old Town on the medieval road to Bern. Just outside the Bern Gate, within view of Lake Murten, stalls were set up selling fruits and vegetables, fresh baked goods, meats, cheeses, olives and other market day fare. Of course I had to take a look around.
First I went to look over the vegetables. One vendor sold three types of aubergine. She showed me one long variety that I didn't know was an eggplant. Then she explained that her best selling item is her heirloom tomatoes. She lamented that she had nearly sold out of them then gave me several cherry tomatoes to sample. I have to say, they were delicious.
At the baked goods stand we bought several rolls, one shaped like a dove, one like a pretzel and another round roll sprinkled with pumpkin seeds. They were fresh and delicious. This vendor also sold small pies with happy faces cut into the top crusts. They looked so exuberant and friendly it was hard not to smile back.
The olive vendor had more types of olives than I have ever seen all attractively arranged in wooden barrels and offered samples of everything. As we were beginning to think of lunch we couldn't resist buying several kinds and a little bit of his herbed feta cheese to eat with our bread.
Further along we looked over the meats and sausages as well as the cheeses but decided we had enough for a small lunch, so we gathered our purchases and retreated within the Old Town walls.
There we found an inviting church yard beside the German church in the corner of the town. We sat on the stone wall of the yard and spread out our cheese, rolls and olives. A friendly tabby cat approached. Free of any language barrier, he assumed the role of a self appointed ambassador. He introduced himself by purring and rubbing against our ankles, sharing our company for a short while until duty called as other visitors approached.
After lunch we walked along the ramparts and looked over the pretty rolling hills of the surrounding area.
Then we walked through another church yard and took photos of Bumblebees grooming some pretty sunflowers.
Before we left town we checked out an awesome chessboard in the park outside the town gate where we had entered. The board and pieces were huge. Such chessboards are common in the parks in Switzerland. I saw a number of people playing quite seriously in Ouchy and Bern, but today this board was open for photographs.
What a surprise to find that these great looking pieces are made of a hollow plastic. For some reason I didn’t expect that.
On our way back to the train station we stopped at a Coop grocery and bought ice cream cups to eat while we waited on the platform. The weather was warm and the ice cream melted into a perfect soft pool. Just as we finished the train arrived and we rolled on to our next destination. | <urn:uuid:31bd4b7e-0ac5-4709-92f3-2b120edf13b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myownsweetthyme.com/2008/09/saturday-market-in-murten.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98164 | 941 | 1.523438 | 2 |
When it comes to extreme weather, do you take the warnings seriously?
Winter Storm Nemo has officially come and gone. Here in New York City, we have one foot. In parts of Connecticut and Boston where the snow is still trailing off, they have a whopping 38 inches. This morning, more than 650,000 homes and businesses are without power, some of which are in areas still struggling to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. More than 5,300 flights were cancelled through today.
The most striking news of all of this? At this time, four people are reportedly dead from storm-related causes. One woman collapsed while shoveling her driveway, the other three deaths all resulted from car crashes. It's horrible horrible news.
I can't help but wonder, though, if maybe these deaths could have been preventable.
Weather is no joking matter. Yeah, we've all fallen victim to sensationalized weather reports and have been through some sort of "major storm" that never really happened. However, in light of what happened after Hurricane Sandy and now Winter Storm Nemo -- we all need to take government warnings more seriously.
Many of the deaths from Hurricane Sandy could have been avoided if people actually listened to the government orders to evacuate. Instead, dozens who stayed to brave the elements were drowned by the storm surge in Queens and Staten Island.
Leading up to the snow's impact yesterday, people were told to stock up in advance, get off the roads, and stay put. Instead people everywhere were braving grocery stores mid-snowfall to get things they don't really need, driving over to a friend's house, and finding unnecessary reasons to get on the roads putting themselves and others in danger. The reality: Driving bans aren't just put into effect to protect us, they're put into effect so that emergency personnel and utility crews can get through.
Thankfully so many who ventured out are fine. However, my heart still breaks for the three that are not and their families.
When it comes to extreme weather, do you take the warnings seriously? Have you been impacted by Winter Storm Nemo? | <urn:uuid:b979ce67-f98c-4c73-9dc9-8dd0dab6cbe8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cafemom.com/group/99198/forums/read/18048542/When_it_comes_to_extreme_weather_do_you_take_the_warnings_seriously | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979018 | 430 | 1.671875 | 2 |
[ Sat. Jan. 3. 2009 ]
Talk about change was more plentiful in 2008 than loose coins in an old couch.
Despite all the lip-flapping, that place where gods and devils dwell -- the details -- was largely unexplored.
The Obama administration will soon offer its ideas for reviving the economy and reshaping America's foreign policy. But politicians aren't the only ones who can remake the world.
Scientists have at least as much power to transform our lives and history. What "game-changing scientific ideas and developments" do they expect to occur during the next few decades?
That's the question John Brockman, editor of the Web site edge.org, posed to about 160 cutting-edge minds in his 11th annual Edge Question. As in years past, they responded with bold, often thrilling, sometimes chilling, answers. | <urn:uuid:dfb11c7d-8643-44ee-ae77-776e3c65822f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edge.org/news/science-visions-dark-and-bright | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959122 | 174 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Obama has a bad record when it comes to taxes:
It looks more and more like Joe the Plumber was on to something about taxes, though you wouldn’t know if from most of the polls and media. The Heritage Foundation has the details in our new study: If a President McCain got his way on tax reform, Americans could expect to see jobs, the economy and their own disposable income grow much faster than if a President Obama were to push through his proposals.
As this chart shows, the economy would grow by $320 billion more in 10 years under John McCain’s tax plan than under Barack Obama’s, adjusted for inflation. More than twice as many jobs would be created by the McCain plan — 3.43 million, compared with 1.58 million under the Obama plan…
MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year — $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair. [. . . .]
MR. GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.
SENATOR OBAMA: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going. | <urn:uuid:f9711179-b609-4aad-a5c5-c2630ce053a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.illiteratewithdrawal.com/2008/10/different-tax-plans-different-futures/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976945 | 406 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Graphic designers and graphic design projects have one thing in common; both are in abundant supply. Graphic designers are always in the search for projects that are both lucrative and demanding enough to push their creative limits. The idea is to stay involved in new projects but to still keep oneself reachable and marketable to others at the same time.
Today’s we will uncover some secrets that will help make designers more marketable and ensure that new projects keep coming in.
Stay Active In Your Professional Network
One of the first things to consider is your current professional network. The number one benefit of maintaining an active professional network is that you are able to stay informed of any new development, trends and opportunities in the graphic design industry. It is great starting point to look for new work and to get valuable information about rewarding design projects. Stay active in your professional network whether it is on a community platform or a social media site. Engage in conversations; let people know you are there.
Let Everyone Know That You Know Your Stuff
Blogging is a great platform to establish yourself as a reputable professional. Many designers maintain an active graphic design blog where they share their professional work experience and offer practical advice. However, maintaining your blog shouldn’t be the only thing you do. Visit graphic design forums to get involved in discussions and help others. Establish yourself as a credible go-to person when it comes to design advice.
Showcase Your Design Work
In addition to sharing your experience and offering advice, show the viewers something they will never be able to resist, a glimpse of your actual work (provided it is allowed in your contract). Employers are particularly keen about seeing design drafts because it gives them a good idea of how capable you are and what kind of work you have done. Maintain an active online portfolio, either on a design website or your own blog. This is the best place for designers to show off their talent to thousands of potential employers instantly.
Utilize Social Media To Your Advantage
Social media has had a powerful impact on the success of graphic designers. A good designer is reachable through social media platforms like Facebook and Google+ and they are excellent platforms to take advantage of. Both allow users to include a banner on their personal page which designers can use to include some of their most artistic and appealing work. It helps give the page a designer’s touch and speaks volumes about your skills.
Advertize Yourself Smartly
In the end, that’s the main goal behind designers making themselves so reachable, to better advertize their services. There are many ways to go about that, both paid and unpaid. Guest posting on other design blogs is a great way to advertize yourself. Not only will it get you noticed in the design community, it gets you mentioned too. Write tutorials for your design community and actively participate in online discussions.
In case you haven’t noticed, the above tips are primarily geared towards establishing yourself as a reputable, professional graphic designer. These practices will make you the go-to source for graphic design and when you get to this point, new and exciting projects will start coming in.
The hard working designers look for design projects, the smart ones let design opportunities come to them. | <urn:uuid:8ab61399-a6ad-40c5-8271-291c94d5eafb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.logodesignguru.com/land-more-graphic-design-projects/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953013 | 662 | 1.609375 | 2 |
College Planning provides Marwen students and their families, who often have limited access to information and support regarding the college application process, with information about schools, preparing an application, and financial aid resources. Through this program, students prepare for SAT/ACT testing, learn how to create portfolios, explore college options, and research scholarship and financial aid opportunities.
Career Development programs are designed to teach students essential job skills and provide on-the-job professional training, allowing students to explore career options in the arts. Résumé development, portfolio preparation, and interviewing techniques are a few of the essential skills developed through these programs.
Marwen provides comprehensive Portfolio Development for students interested in putting together a strong portfolio for high school and college admissions, merit consideration, and general portfolio submissions, and admission for Chi Arts High School. We teach and assist students in putting together a body of work, documenting, presenting, and organizing work, and how to write a strong artist statement for college admission. We also offer opportunities to have student portfolios reviewed at any time by Marwen’s counselors/staff, and by artist professionals and admission representatives at our annual Portfolio Day. | <urn:uuid:8630f8c0-2e8b-4203-9e28-333fda2845c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marwen.org/programs/college-career/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944991 | 234 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Treaty Shopping: How Companies Tilt The Legal Playing Field For Investor-State Arbitration
from the hard-to-keep-up dept
Alongside globe-spanning treaties like ACTA and TPP, there are more subtle efforts to limit the power of national governments, through the use of free trade agreements (FTAs) and bilateral investment treaties (BITs). There are now so many of these that it's hard to keep up, although the dedicated site bilaterals.org is a great help here. The confusing multiplicity only adds to their attractiveness for those negotiating them behind close doors, keen as they are to avoid transparency as much as possible.
One key issue for both FTAs and BITs concerns investor-state arbitration procedures that allow companies, typically powerful global corporations, to take entire nations to court over actions that allegedly cause the company harm -- for example, by introducing stricter environmental legislation that requires additional expenditure at manufacturing plants. The trailblazer in taking advantage of these provisions is the tobacco giant Phillip Morris. Here's what it did in Uruguay, back in 2010:
The tobacco giant is suing Uruguay, alleging the country is violating Switzerland’s trade agreement by requiring that anti-smoking warnings cover 80 percent of cigarette packages. If World Bank arbitrators agree, Uruguay could be forced to pay the company millions of dollars.
But Uruguay -- whose Gross Domestic Product is $44 billion -- refuses to back down from Philip Morris, whose market capitalization equals $108 billion. And now the country is getting backing all across the world in its fight against tobacco.
It's also suing Australia for similar reasons:
On 1 December 2011 the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 received Royal Assent and became law in Australia.
A fascinating article on the infojustice.org site from a few weeks ago explains the strategy of the tobacco giant here:
The Act forms part of a comprehensive Australian Government strategy to reduce the rate of smoking in Australia. Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death and disease in Australia.
Philip Morris Asia is challenging the plain packaging legislation under the 1993 Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of Hong Kong for the Promotion and Protection of Investments. On 21 December 2011, the Australian Government provided its response to Philip Morris Asia's Notice of Arbitration.
So why didn't this American company go through the [the main US-Australia FTA]? Because that treaty (1) does not guarantee investor-state dispute, and (2) provides for exemptions to expropriation obligations for limitations on intellectual property rights. Phillip-Morris faced a greater likelihood of failure under the US treaty.
Phillip Morris is engaging in "treaty shopping" -- choosing to invoke those FTAs or BITs that contain terms most favorable to its legal action, whether or not they are the most logical or relevant to the dispute in question. That's possible because of the multiplication of these treaties, often with slightly different wording that allows the tobacco company to cherry-pick in this way. As well as deploying it against Australia, Phillip Morris is using the same approach in its fight against Uruguay by invoking the bilateral investment treaty between that country and Switzerland, not the US.
The Hong Kong BIT is also a particularly good choice for Phillip-Morris because, unlike other treaties, it does not include prohibition on claims brought by investors owned by citizens or entities of countries not party to applicable treaty. For example, the BIT with the Czech Republic states:
Article 2(2): Where a company of a Contracting Party is owned or controlled by a citizen or a company of any third country, the Contracting Parties may decide jointly in consultation not to extend the rights and benefits of this Agreement to such company.
Had the Hong Kong BIT contained this language, Australia could have stopped Phillip Morris International from going through their Asian subsidiary in bringing this claim.
This underlines why it is crucially important for nations to get the wording of investor-state arbitration procedures right when negotiating FTAs, BITs and multilateral treaties like TPP. If they don't, they may well find that global corporations will exploit favorable clauses through the kind of treaty shopping practised by Phillip Morris to put countries at a disadvantage when arguing before international tribunals. | <urn:uuid:bba210fa-d562-4d82-8085-ba41a2a5d883> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121226/09522221488/treaty-shopping-how-companies-tilt-legal-playing-field-investor-state-arbitration.shtml?threaded=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940356 | 865 | 1.804688 | 2 |
- Caring for One's Self
- Children Coping
- Coping with Grief
- Fathers and Grief
- Feeling Out of Control
- Helping a Spouse
- Holiday Letter
- Letting Go of an Only Child
- Letting Go of Illusions
- Revisiting Grief
- Surviving the 1st Year
- Unanswered Prayers
- What Others Can Do
- Support Groups
- Website Links
Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo
219 Bryant Street
Buffalo, NY 14222
- (716) 878-7920
- Map & Directions
Bereavement Support Services
Coping with Grief
There is very little written about expectations in the life of the grieving person. Many times the unrealistic expectations of ourselves and of others can greatly hinder the eventual readjustment for the bereaved. In wishing to “handle it better,” we often keep expecting more from ourselves that is possible at this time. When we don’t feel better, or act better, and yet think that we should, we become disappointed in ourselves. We have just expected too much of ourselves.
A timetable for grief may be part of the expectation. If I read that one stage took a certain length of time and I wasn’t there yet, I would panic that I wasn’t “where I should be.”
Often family and friends unwittingly place expectations on us. “It has been 3 weeks,” “3 months” or “8 months” and “you must be better now” “you must be back to normal.” These expressed or even implied, unrealistic expectations by or of others become a pressure on the bereaved.
After the shock and denial, the very pain-filled reality hits. This grief is unbearable heartache and sorrow. Unbearable. Yet we have no choice. We must go through it. Complicating this stage is the fact that most people expect that by now you’re recovering, when in reality you are not. Many find talking about their feelings helps. Generally, thinking them out them out is enough, since usually grief feelings can’t be intellectualized away or thought away. A common experience of many grieving people is that the people we expect to be most supportive often move away from us just when we need them most. This bewildering phenomenon can be attributed in part to a general lack of knowledge of what grief is, leading to unrealistic expectations being placed on the bereaved person. Sometimes it is helpful to communicate about our loss with someone new, since some old friends often just want us to return to our old selves again, which is unrealistic on their part.
After the holidays or anniversary of the death, grieving people may expect that everything will be much better. The New Year is often a time of resolutions – of intending to change some habit or attitude. It is not helpful to expect to be much better. When things do not get better, we become discouraged. It may be more helpful to consider January 1st as the day after December 31st. Without such unrealistic expectations of the New Year, or of the time after the anniversary, it may gradually become a time of healing and growth; not because we expected it, but because we did not have unrealistic expectations. It is important not to have a timetable for grief.
IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME…..
Unrealistically we hope that things will somehow be the same…that our life – our family – will get back to “normal/” As time goes on, we realize that “it will never be the same.” We will always miss our loved one who has died. At special holidays and family gatherings, there is always one person missing. Some family members and friends assume that we are back to normal. They just do not understand.
Copyright : HOPE FOR THE BEREAVED, all rights reserved.
Guidelines to Facilitate Healing and Wholeness Through the Grieving Process
- Let yourself grieve
- Be good to yourself, be gentle with yourself
- Allow yourself the necessary time to reflect and to feel your pain
- Accept all the feelings you are experiencing
- Know that you are particularly vulnerable when you are grieving
- Forgive others who do not understand
- Allow new people to come into your life
- When possible and appropriate, ritualize the loss
- Do not waste time and energy on attempting to re-kindle a relationship
that has been destructive and has not contributed to your growth
- Develop an on-going and caring relationship with someone
- Hold on to photos and other mementos that are important to you
- Be with the heaviness, the pain, when it is with you, and when is lifts,
be with that experience, as well
- Be comfortable with having a low profile
- Tears are a release and cleansing
- Proper nutrition enhances the healing process
Taking Care of Yourself:
- Rest every day.
- Set aside alone time to reflect.
- Share your loss with someone who cares.
- Exercise, if possible, to release some energy.
- Eat well to nourish your stressed body.
- Spend time with those you love.
- Live simply to reduce financial burdens.
- Begin a simple daily routine that may help motivate you in the morning.
- Allow others to comfort you.
- Connect with others who have also felt great pain in the past and survived. We all need hope.
- Set short-term goals even though you don’t seem to care much about life. As time goes on, you will be able to do more and more and may even occasionally enjoy some activities.
- Stay open to all experiences, and you will be led to a valuable path in life.
- Appreciate the little things in life by being present to each and every moment. All we have is the “NOW.”
- Understand that the process of grief takes a very long time and is filled with backslides---one step forward, two steps back. This is normal.
- Accept that however you feel is okay. No one has the right to tell you how to grieve or how long to grieve.
- Trust that human beings are self-regulating systems. Even without much effort, we begin to slowly heal from grief, so be gentle with yourself.
- Down the road, look for the deepest meaning of your sorrow---what you have learned. Often you will find that your life has been totally transformed because of being touched by deep pain. You will never forget your pain, and it is through the “remembering” of the pain that compassion extends from one person to another. You will begin to heal when you meet with someone who is grieving a new loss, and you reach out to help because you have the capacity and the willingness to care about this person. In opening yourself up to more than your own pain, the kindness and love will some how be reciprocated.
- Remember, that although it seems that there is no justice in the world, there is definitely compensation. It takes a very long time to realize this, but one day this awareness will come to you. TRUST… TRUST… TRUST.
- Pain is very much a part of life as is healing. You did not ask for the pain, but it came…just as the healing will come to you. Please have patience and be kind to yourself.
Grief is a normal reaction to loss that everyone at some point in life will experience. There are many types of losses such as personal death, death of a loved one, health problems, divorce, loss of work, failure in school or work, or destruction of one’s home or possessions.
Depending on the attachment to what was lost, an individual may grieve for an extended period of time. Most responses, although frequently appearing to be much too lengthy by others, are in actuality quite normal.
The following list encompasses symptoms of grief commonly expressed by those faced with a physical (tangible) or symbolic (psychosocial) loss:
- Shock or numbness
- Obsessional review
- Dreaming of the deceased
- Preoccupation with the deceased
- Withdrawing from life and others
- Yearning for what has been lost
- Sexual Dysfunction
- Appetite disturbances
- Sleep disturbances
- Sometimes relief
- Suicidal thoughts
- Feelings of going crazy
Physical symptoms during grief may include tightness in the throat, choking sensation, loss of muscular strength, somatic distress, sighing, empty feelings in the abdomen, back aches, anorexia, dry mouth, dyspnea, headaches and exhaustion or physical collapse.
Evidence is also accumulating to support the view that grief may well play a role in the etiology of disease. Stress experienced during the long period of grief may bring about feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. As a result of this hopelessness, physiological responses are triggered that restrain the body’s natural defenses.
Thus, when the immune system breaks down, the body is then susceptible to illness. Understanding this connection between grief, anxiety and illness may help us to realize the importance of grieving openly and learning some healthy coping mechanisms. This, in turn, may alleviate some of the internal stress in the body that plays a preconditioning role in organic illness.
The all-encompassing process of grief is considered to be highly personal and its duration varies from person top person. Previously it was suggested that grieving for one year was enough time to work through the pain. However, recent studies indicate that in the case of major loss, a person may not come out of shock or numbness for months or longer and then begin the slow process of intense grief work, which may persist for a very long time. The mourner’s whole life will be completely changed, but a different and enriched life can be established. The crisis has the potential to force the mourner to reach inside the reservoirs of unknown strength, courage and love that might surpass anything ever known before.
For those who wish to assist grieving individuals, it’s best to be present in a quiet manner, listen, show empathy, be patient and never judge. Rarely does pushing someone through grief or judging his/her behavior help. In fact, it may exacerbate the expression of grief and preclude healing communication. Being caring and compassionate can be much more accommodating during this painful life experience.
Needs for the Bereaved
Time: You will need time alone and time with others whom you trust and who will listen when you need to talk…months and years of time to feel and understand the feelings that go along with loss.
Rest, Relaxation, Exercise, Nourishment, Diversion: You may need extra amounts of things you needed before…hot baths, afternoon naps, a trip, a “cause” to draw you out of your mourning. Grief is an exhausting emotional process. You need to replenish yourself. Follow what feels healing to you and what connects you to the people and things you love.
Security: Get help on things that are stressful (e.g., financial matters, parenting, etc.). Let yourself be close to those you trust. Getting back into a routine helps. You may need to let yourself do things at your pace.
Hope: You may find hope and comfort from those who have experienced a similar loss. Knowing what helped them and realizing that they are surviving well can help give you hope that your grief, too, will become less raw and painful.
Caring: Try to let yourself accept expressions of caring from others, even though they may at times feel awkward. Helping a friend or relative who is suffering the same loss may bring a feeling of closeness with that person.
Goals: For a long time it may seem that much of life is without meaning. At times like these, small goals are helpful. Something to look forward to – like playing tennis with a friend next week, a movie tomorrow night, a trip next month – helps you get through the immediate future. Living one day at a time is a rule of thumb. At first, don’t be surprised if your enjoyment of these things is not the same. This is normal. As time passes you may need to work on some longer-range goals to give some structure and direction to your life. Counseling may help with this.
Small Pleasures: Do not underestimate the healing effects of small pleasures –sunsets, a walk in the woods, a favorite food, etc. Little things like these can be small steps toward regaining moments of peace.
Permission to Backslide: Sometimes after a period of feeling good, we find ourselves back in the old feelings of extreme sadness, despair or anger. This is often the nature of grief, and it may happen over and over for a while. It happens because we, as humans, cannot take in all the pain and meaning of death at once. We let it in a little at a time, and with each new step in awareness, we re-experience fresh pain.
Normal Feelings During Grief
Because grief can be so painful and seem overwhelming, it can frighten us Many people who are in a grief situation seem to wonder if they are grieving in the “right” way, and wonder if their feelings are normal.
It may be reassuring that most people who suffer a loss experience one or more of the following:
- Feel a tightness in the throat or a heaviness in the chest
- Have an empty feeling in their stomachs and lose their appetites
- Feel guilty at times; angry at others
- Feel restless and look for an activity but find it difficult to concentrate
- Feel as though the loss is not real, that it didn’t really happen
- Sense the child’s presence. Example: find themselves expecting the child to walk in the door, hearing his/her voice or seeing his/her face
- Wander aimlessly, forget and be unable to finish projects
- Have difficulty sleeping and dream of their child frequently
- Experience an intense preoccupation with the life of the child
- Feel guilty or angry over things that did or did not happen in the relationship with the child
- Feel intensely angry at the child for leaving them
- Need to tell and retell and remember things about the child and the experience of death
- Feel mood changes/cry unexpectedly over the slightest thing
- Feel out of place with other people
If you should have physical symptoms, it is a good idea to check with your physician. Your resistance to infection may be lowered and you need to take care of your health.
Personal Attributes That Help The Bereaved
You may not believe at first that you have these qualities in large amounts, but begin by assuming that you have some amount of all of them. Picture how you would act if you possessed them to a greater degree.
COURAGE – You need the courage to face your feelings in order to grieve. Courage is being afraid, but doing it anyway.
PATIENCE – Accept that you will not always be strong and that grief will take time.
RESILIENCE – The capacity to bounce back from stress and go on is something we can learn; our ability to do this increases with experience and age.
PERSEVERANCE AND ENDURANCE – Have the faith that lasting through the pain will get you through.
CAPACITY TO DISTANCE – It can be helpful to step back and view life from afar, see what has happened, is happening, and move ahead.
SENSE OF HUMOR – regaining your ability to smile and laugh is not a betrayal of your pain; grief is a curious mixture of many emotions. Laughter and humor provide some necessary relief and strength for the suffering you are experiencing.
OPENNESS TO OTHERS – Many people say that without friends and relatives to support them, they would have had far more pain and loneliness in their grief. Choose your confidants carefully and use them. You may be wise to choose more than one.
MESSAGES - These are possible messages you may choose to accept to guide your approach to life from now on (or you may create your own).
- I will not hide my love from people.
- I resolve to help my friends in need of support.
- I am strong; I can grow from pain.
- I intend to live my life to the fullest; my time is precious.
- I have learned ________________________________.
How We Respond to Loss
When we face the death or ending of someone or something we love, the loss may be expressed emotionally, physically, spiritually and psychologically. Due to the intensity of the grief, the responses expressed are considered normal and healthy.
- Inability to sleep or excessive sleep
- Exhaustion, no energy
- Appetite disturbances
- Tightness in chest area
- Loss of muscular strength
- Shortness of breath
- Tightness in throat or lump in throat
- Inner hollowness
- Guilt, self-blame
- Disorganization, difficulty in concentrating
- Changes in priorities
- Searching for meaning in the loss
- Thankfulness for the precious time with loved one before death occurred
- Strong interest in life after death
- Interest in premonitions
- Questioning and eventually maturing prior belief system
- Belief that loved one is now healthy, whole and always with them
- Belief in the ‘mystery’ of life and a purpose in every life, even though
profound loss is inexplicable from an intellectual perspective
- Mood swings
- Irritability and explosive responses
- Low self-esteem
- Inability to experience any type of pleasure
- Isolation over an extended period of time
- Lack of interest
- Prolonged negativity | <urn:uuid:106af3bd-1aab-40ef-99f8-1b1a437352d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kaleidahealth.org/Childrens/services/display.asp?pt=G&p=1233&s=665 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947654 | 3,725 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Power Switch News
April 22, 2001Earth Day, and the start of Green Power Switchs second year.
In its first year, more than 3,000 Valley consumers signed on to this renewable energy option developed through a unique collaboration between the Tennessee Valley Authority, distributors of TVA power, and the environmental community.
Weve learned a lot this year. Weve learned that people who sign up for Green Power Switch care deeply about the world they inhabit and want to know more about Green Power Switch. For that reason, we created Green Power Switch News to keep you informed about the programs activities, progress, and challenges.
There is progress, especially in participation. We expected participants to sign up for 9,200 blocks of Green Power Switch the first year. They signed up for more than 10,500. In fact, right now demand for Green Power Switch is greater than the supply, so the Green Power Switch team has developed a generation plan to erase the deficit and provide for continued growth.
The first goal is to complete the landfill gas generation facility this spring. This project was delayed, causing the production deficit. Once the facility comes on line, we can begin reducing the deficit.
The next goal is to seek ways to add more wind power to the nearly two megawatts of capacity already operating for Green Power Switch. TVA is looking for ways to add as much as 10 times the capacity of the Green Power Switch wind generators in operation today on Buffalo Mountain near Oak Ridge.
Finally, we plan to continue offering Green Power Switch through the 12 distributors of TVA power that participated in the market test and to add new distributors as supply allows. Looking back over the past year, the program exceeded many expectations. The Green Power Switch team is committed to continuing to provide a Green Power Switch option worthy of your financial investment and continued public support. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected], or call 615-232-6609.
Gary Harris, Chairman
Green Power Switch News is interested in knowing what youd like to read in future issues of our quarterly newsletter. Please write us at the address above or send an e-mail message to [email protected]. We will be happy to notify you by e-mail when future issues are published at this site. Thanks for your help and your interest! | <urn:uuid:73c9427d-dcc5-4933-854d-13a4a3897495> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tva.gov/greenpowerswitch/newsletter/issue_one/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938328 | 481 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Verizon Communications, Inc.’s Verizon Wireless unit has filed an action in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia asking the Appellate Court to invalidate the open-access conditions imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the upcoming January 2008 auction of soon-to-be-available 700 MHz analog airwaves spectrum.
Verizon claims that the open-access requirement is unconstitutional. The open-access conditions required by the FCC require that bid winners of the 700 MHz analog spectrum must allow consumers to connect to it with any application software or mobile device.
As the wireless carrier rules currently stand in the U.S., the network signal carriers control access to their bandwidth, the models of cell phones that are compatible with/can access their network and also the software that can be accessed and downloaded (e.g., ring tones) onto those mobile phones. The wireless carriers want to limit all aspects of the spectrum as much as possible for obvious business competition reasons.
Google, who is rumored to be considering entering the wireless carrier market with its own wireless phone(s), supports open-access standards and has petitioned the FCC to support this standard for U.S. consumers and as a means to increase competition among wireless carriers. Google has also asked the FCC to ask for more rules pertaining to the open-access standards so that network availability to consumers is kept at affordable prices and so that consumer options will be guaranteed after the spectrum is sold off.
Google is also rumored to be one of the major players bidding for portions of the 700 MHz spectrum in January. | <urn:uuid:6d15871f-62cf-434e-8f01-1ce90bfabd0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/1157-verizon-wireless-appeals-fcc-rules | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948598 | 325 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Clash of the Remixers
David Shields, professor of English at the University of Washington and author of the new novel Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, is one of many on the forefront of what could be called “the appropriation controversy.” Interviewed by Randy Kennedy for the New York Times, Shields speaks and writes in defense of a growing trend within the arts that makes use of the remix to transform old ideas into new ones. Appropriation, in essence, is taking something that was and turning it into something it wasn’t. He writes:
“My intent is to write the ars poetica for a burgeoning group of interrelated (but unconnected) artists in a multitude of forms and media… who are breaking larger and larger chunks of ‘reality’ into their work. (Reality, as Nabokov never got tired of reminding us, is the one work that is meaningless without quotation marks.)” (1)
Shields writes on behalf of artists like fellow novelist Helene Hegemann and the mash-up artist Gregg Gillis, also known as Girl Talk, who make use of materials in the public domain – songs and writings that form particular aspects of a subjective reality – and blend them together into new expressions that reflect their own creativity. The ongoing controversy centers on whether or not this practice of appropriation, especially in the realm of copyright, is legally justifiable. The questions now become: How can one defend the use of someone else’s intellectual property in another’s work? What limits should be imposed on the artist, especially now in the age of the Internet? As Marybeth Peters says in Brett Gaylor’s open source documentary “RiP!: A Remix Manifesto,” the answer will always depend on whose the work is and how upset they are. However, set within a balanced framework that benefits both those creating and those consuming, appropriation can become a vital part of culture as we recognize appropriation as a tool used actively by the mainstream and those outside it.
Remix, cultural borrowing, and appropriation have a long history that is, for better or worse, defended and upheld by writers like Shields as a tradition that helps bring about new ideas. Kennedy cites classical playwright Terence’s lament that “nothing is said that has not been said before.” The sentiment itself is expressed yet again by T.S. Eliot; That “because one has only learnt to get the better of words / For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which / One is no longer disposed to say it.” The struggle artists must contend with to make their art is underscored by the limitations of their language and implements. However, the world around them is forever in flux, along with a culture that responds to and incorporates the new with the old. In the West, and particularly in the U.S., there is already a long tradition of wholesale incorporation and appropriation of other cultures. As Deborah Root, author of Cannibal Culture: Art, Culture, and the Commodification of Difference, writes, “There exists a set of practices and ideas that can be recognized as Western culture, but that culture is not now nor has it ever been one thing, one historical moment… Part of the problem is the persistence of a historical legacy of appropriation. As the West sought to affirm colonial dominance over territory, the world increasingly came to be imagined as a vast warehouse of images.” (x-xi) This so-called warehouse of images already informs cultural expression as produced by the ruling society. Shields and others would argue that artists and writers have the right to make use of similar tools of appropriation to remake and remix current culture.
However, the work that remix and mash-up artists do should necessarily be contextualized by their intent and the time period they do their work in. Girl Talk’s remixes – musical collages that blend together such disparate artists as the Rolling Stones and the Black Eyed Peas – differs from other modes of musical expression not only because the notes and melodies he uses are not his originally, but that he works in an environment where the idea of intellectual property undermines the public domain. Cultural creations that exist in the public domain, according to Susan Scafidi in Who Owns Culture, are “accidental property.” She continues, “they originate in community practices outside the realm of commercial endeavors… [and] result in part from communal agency and in part from the influences of necessity, communal expression, and function.” (2) The idea of communal expression is limited within the confines of copyright law, where the defense of one’s ideas and creativity is paramount. Today, intellectual property is of particular concern because, with the advent of such technologies as peer-to-peer networks and the DIY movements within filmmaking and music production, law is challenged to control the use and distribution of copyrighted materials that consumers have greater access to than ever before. In this way, the work of the remixer in the YouTube generation takes on a rebellious character, even if they are doing exactly what their forbears did on and offline.
In the tug-of-war between those in favor of remixing as an art form and those for restricted use of intellectual property, artistic expression can thrive and further develop only if there is healthy debate. From the outset, the Internet changed how information is disseminated among massive groups of people. People need only plug in to the World Wide Web from their homes and are connected to one another through networks as they both consume and create new media. Ideas within the Western “melting pot” culture that could not have been exposed to one another just a few decades ago are now blending together into newer chunks of reality. Shields is on to something, and why shouldn’t literature catch up to the rest of the arts? As Scafidi writes, “At the end of the day, however, the central question, ‘Who owns culture?” can be answered only by its creators – all of us.” (xii) While there should be laws in place that prevent the wholesale use and abuse of people’s ideas, legislation in favor of major corporations stifles creativity outside the corporate sphere. Appropriation and remix done by independent individuals and groups fosters a dialog within media that benefits the consumer and enriches culture by reinventing it.
With doctrines like fair use in copyright and trademark law and organizations like the Creative Commons, such discussions can already be had on what constitutes art based on appropriation. People are already becoming freer as the Internet grows out of infancy and brings people into the fore of creative expression more than ever before. This prospect presents new challenges for creators and consumers as we venture to discern between the transformative and derivative. However, with greater study and more risk taking, society can only come to reap the benefits.
Kennedy, Randy. “The Free-Appropration Writer.” The New York Times 26 Feb. 2010.
Shields, David. Reality Hunger: a Manifesto. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto. Dir. Brett Gaylor. Perf. Girl Talk, Lawrence Lessig, Cory
Doctorow, and Gilberto Gil. National Film Board of Canada, 2008. RIP: A Remix Manifesto. Web. 20 Mar. 2010. <http://www.ripremix.com/>.
Root, Deborah. Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation, and the Commodification of
Difference. Boulder: Westview, 1996. Print.
Scafidi, Susan. Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UP, 2005. Print. | <urn:uuid:c1804595-b216-47bc-8080-d170b9a7a21a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opamedia.tumblr.com/post/490522726/clash-of-the-remixers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950453 | 1,609 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Some 800 people are to receive payments between $500 and $15,000 for false arrests carried out by the city of Chicago during a 2003 anti-war demonstration, according to the terms of a settlement offered by city attorneys on Thursday.
The settlement comes after years of litigation during which attorneys for the plaintiffs brought two class-action lawsuits that showed police allowed the demonstration to take place even without a permit, but later decided to begin making mass arrests without properly warning the crowd to disperse.
Some of the people arrested and charged spent more than two days behind bars. Over 10,000 reportedly took part in the march, and more than 500 were arrested, many for no reason at all.
Every single person arrested during the protest was later released and their charges were thrown out. A trial had been scheduled to begin later in February, but it will not go forward due to the settlement. The suit had previously been thrown out by a lower court, but the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said last year that it may proceed.
People who were charged and detained will get the bulk of the settlement payments, with individual amounts up to $15,000, while those who were arrested and not charged may get up to $8,750. People detained but not arrested or charged could get up to $500 each.
“We didn’t want to have to bring this lawsuit, and we don’t want to have to bring other lawsuits,” Melinda Power, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Tribune. “And we’re sorry that the people of the city of Chicago will be having to pay a lot of money because the city of Chicago falsely arrested people and then refused for nine years to settle this case, causing people to spend millions of dollars.”
The settlement comes at a crucial time for Chicago, which is preparing to host the G8/NATO summit in May. Activists from all over the country plan to attend, and “Occupy Chicago” has rented out a warehouse close to the convention site.
Adbusters, a Canadian counter-culture magazine that hatched the idea for “Occupy Wall Street,” said that activists would be holding a month-long “people’s summit” to call for more taxes on large net worth individuals, stock trading and pollution reforms and a greater law enforcement focus on corporate crime.
“And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the city of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights,” they wrote.
“[We'll] pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen,” Adbusters threatened. “And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us like they’ve done so many times before …we’ll flash-mob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.”
Raw Story is a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media. While giving coverage to the big stories of the day, we also bring our readers' attention to policy, politics, legal and human rights stories that get ignored in an infotainment culture driven solely by pageviews.
Founded in 2004, Raw Story reaches 5 million unique readers per month and serves more than 19 million pageviews. | <urn:uuid:cbf785d0-35a3-496b-9a94-c8b52131a945> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/10/anti-war-protesters-falsely-arrested-in-chicago-get-6-2-million-settlement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973894 | 742 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The ballad of Miss Rosa's cat
Published: Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, February 24, 2012 at 4:18 p.m.
Barbara Case Blaine, executive administrative assistant to the superintendent and Henderson County Board of Public Education, shows me the minutes from the Hendersonville Graded School System, which operated from 1901 until 1993.
I cart them into Conference Room 1A, where I sit, undisturbed, for the next five hours. The type is fading and, in some instances, I have to strain to read the school board minutes beginning with the year 1919. (Where are the records from 1901-1918? I wonder.)
On Jan. 27, 1933, mention is made of a note sent by the family of Mrs. K.W. Edwards in appreciation for a floral design sent by the board at the time of Miss Rosa Edwards' death.
I continue reading: "The cat owned by Miss Edwards was given to the Fourth Avenue School by her brother Mr. L.B. Edwards, and was accepted by the Board." There is no additional comment.
The word cat looks to be a typing strikeover. Could the word be cot? It might be cot. Perhaps she had a small cot where she used to rest when she became weary from the duties of the day. (Is there a way to find out? I wonder.)
I prefer "cat." And my imagination begins to create the story of Miss Rosa's cat and the joy it might have brought to schoolchildren. I become absorbed in an "unwritten" children's story of the school cat. Such thinking is the result of a ripe imagination, not fact. Still, it could be. I know of other locally famous cats.
I recall the cat mentioned as a permanent fixture in the old Shepherd-Drake Store, a cat owned by M.M. "Roe" Shepherd. Shepherd's cat could, according to Hustler newspaper, serve herself breakfast each morning by using her paws to juggle an egg free to drop to the floor. The shell broken, the hungry cat would gobble up the rich treat now available to her.
Here's the Hustler account: "Roe Shepherd's cat has anything beat I've ever seen. Mr. Shepherd's feline eats two eggs — raw eggs — for breakfast every day, and insists that they be fresh eggs, too. She carefully seizes an egg between her two paws, stands erect, lets the egg fall gently to the floor and then eats the contents, inserting its paw to the interior of the egg to make sure it gets all that's a'comin to it. After partaking of its morning meal, the cat deliberately walks to the front door of the store and sits in the sunshine slowly and daintily washing its face, and meditatively gazing across at the courthouse as though wondering how it seems, to be put on a salary basis."
Robroy Farquhar, the founder of the Flat Rock Playhouse, had a cat named Snodgrass. I recall how Robbie would make his curtain speech. Holding Snodgrass and stroking the oversized feline, Robbie would begin: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Flat Rock Playhouse." Snodgrass was the theater cat. Newsletters would be signed with a paw print.
I sit alone in the HCPS board room and imagine Miss Rosa's cat.
Cats have unique personalities. What was the cat's name? What did it look like? Was it allowed in the building? What did it do during the day — seek out the sunlight for afternoon naps? Where did it stay at night — in the principal's office? Did the schoolchildren write stories about the cat? "Miss Rosa's Cat."
Apparently "Miss Rosa" possessed a sweet, loving nature. for her passing is expressed this way — "Her death cast a gloom over the entire community."
"Miss Rosa" served as principal from 1919-32. The Fourth Avenue School became Rosa Edwards School on April 3, 1933.
As I return the minutes to Mrs. Blaine, I point out the sentence in the recorded minutes and ask: "Barbara, is that cat or cot?"
"It has to be CAT!" she replies.
I do hope "Miss Rosa" had a cat.
Miss Rosa Edwards is gradually becoming more than just a name.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:5563166c-d617-4e7d-b64f-c5a1754275be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20120226/NEWS/120229838/tickets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969079 | 953 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Fr. Peter Daly, pastor of St. John Vianney parish in Prince Frederick, Md., knows just how to find a sympathetic audience when one wants to protest a decision upholding Catholic morality and identity in the Church.
Write for The National Catholic Reporter.
Yesterday he recounted his recent trip to The Catholic University of America to speak at a meeting of CUAllies, the unrecognized LGBT student organization. CUA recently made news by denying official recognition to the group, citing a concern that it could become an “advocacy group.” Because of that decision, Fr. Daly wrote that “the students in CUAllies have more charity toward the [C]hurch than the [C]hurch, which once again this December, refused them recognition, has toward them.”
Fr. Daly compared the unrecognized student club to being a Christian in ancient Rome.
I felt like I was in a spy novel. Or maybe like a Christian in ancient Rome, trying to make contact with the [C]hurch of the catacombs. The email told me to stand in front of the student union building. Someone would meet me there and escort me to an undisclosed meeting room somewhere on campus. The location could not be announced ahead of time because the group itself did not even know where they would meet. They just had to find an empty room somewhere. As it turned out, the room we used was a lecture hall where I once taught a class on estates and trusts.
Despite the arrangements, this was not a spy rendezvous in a John le Carré novel. It was an ordinary meeting of CUAllies, the gay student group at The Catholic University of America.
He pointed out that the students use social media like Twitter to communicate “just like the pope.”
He wrote that at the meeting he told stories about gay people who had been mistreated and said of the gay couples, “they paint a picture of authentic love. Those relationships do not seem ‘intrinsically disordered.’”
Then he wrote:
They also show how the [C]hurch or the society was more concerned about rendering judgment than showing compassion. How can followers of Jesus be so cruel? Why does cruelty pass for orthodoxy? French essayist Anatole France said, “It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.”
At the end of my talk, one of the students asked, “What does the Catholic [C]hurch have to teach gay people?” I was touched that he would care what we have to say. I thought for a moment.
“The [C]hurch can teach gay people the same thing we want to teach all people. Love is the measure of our lives. When we speak about love, we also want to speak about commitment, fidelity, respect and dignity in human relationships. Also, everyone is asked to carry a cross at times. Everyone is asked to be chaste at times in their life.”
The students in CUAllies have more charity toward the church than the church, which once again this December, refused them recognition, has toward them.
The Catholic University of America is recommended in The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College.
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PETER CHARLES KYLE.
To write a full, complete, and deserving detailed review of the incidents and interesting surroundings, associated with the ancestral family and individual life of the gentleman whose name appears at the head of this article, would require a book of itself, but limit calls a halt in a work of this magnitude, and we must therefore ask pardon for the brevity exercised in his case; nevertheless, we shall endeavor to give to those who follow after him, a sketch, full enough to leave them in no doubt as to his whereabouts from his birth up to this writing. Peter Charles Kyle is a native of Saarlouis of Rhenish, Prussia, four or five miles from the frontier of France, long in the possession of that country, and was fortified by Vauban in the reign of Louis XIV. The Congress of Vienna gave it to Prussia in 1815. The date of his birth was on the eleventh of November, 1839. His father's name was Christian Kyle, his mother's maiden name Gertrude Herring. The father was born in Berlin in 1794, and served as Second Lieutenant on the guard of the King of Prussia, during the War of 1812. The mother was born at Saarlouis in the year 1796. In November, 1840, when our subject was only one year old, his father and mother ans what children they had at that time, sailed for America in a sailing vessel and were ninety days on the ocean from Havre to New Orleans. They remained there some time, and then journeyed on up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Madison, Indiana, where the old man engaged in the stone masonry business. In this he continued for four years, when an accidental fall produced conjestion[sic] of the lungs, and death ensued. The wife and widowed mothe was thus left with five children to care for, the eldest ten years, the youngest, six weeks. The subject of this sketch was at that time only five years of age. The mother, by her own labor and the exercise of motherly economy, successfully cared for her little ones, until they arrived at an age that justified calling them to her assistance. the children were blessed with an intelligent energy that relieved the mother, and since 1870, she has found a welcome, comfortable home with her son, the subject of this sketch. On the 28th day of December, 1886, Mrs. Kyle departed this life at the advance age of ninety years, and it is comforting to know that in giving up a long, well spent life to take on one more full of sunshine, all was peace and fearless submission.
Mr. Kyle, the subject of this sketch, was educated at the Madison, Indiana, public schools, and, during his life in that city, learned the art of bricklaying. During the year 1857, he went South and settled in Bayou La Fourche Parish, Louisiana, and there followed his trade up to the twentieth of May, 1860, when he joined the Louisiana Army and was made Lieutenant of the Assumption Blues. Soon after he was sent with his command to the mouth of Bayou Le Fourche River and there built, or assisted in building, a fort. At the completion of this work he received a discharge from the State and immediately set to work recruiting a company for the Confederate Service. He was not long in doing this, and with his troops joined the Eighth Louisiana Regiment and was sent to Virginia. From Virginia he was permitted and directed to return to his home and recruit and reorganize a company of cavalry. This company was recruited to its full number in a short while, and under the command of Captain Albert Cage, was assigned to Gen. Wirt Adams' command. Subsequent to this, he was placed on detached duty in the Signal Service Corps and assigned to the commands of Generals Pemberton and Bowen, at Grand Gulf and Vicksburg, Mississippi.
He surrendered, with Pemberton's command, to General U. S. Grant on the fourth day of July, 1864, and in the following September was exchanged. He again re-entered active service and was assigned to the cavalry under General Wirt Adams. His daring disposition lead him, with two comrades, to make a night raid into Natchez, and, as a result, all three of them were taken prisoners, and sent to Camp Morton, Indianapolis, Indiana, where they arrived Christmas day, 1864. Mr. Kyle was held a prisoner of war until May 14th, 1865, when he was set at liberty. The war having terminated, he left the prison walls and settled in Thorntown, Indiana, where he remained until February, 1867, when he removed to Henderson.
On August 5th, 1865, he married, at Thorntown, Miss Phoebe Ann Thompson, granddaughter of Captain Phil. Thompson, who found with the Harrison Guards at the battler of Tippecanoe, and afterwards settled near Stockwell Indiana. By this marriage there were five children, four of whom are now living, John W., Louisa, Peter C. and Edward. The eldest child, Jacob, met a tragic and most distressing death. He was quite a child, and while out driving on the road, the horses became frightened, ran away, and little Jake was killed. On the twenty-third day of October, 1873, Mrs. Kyle, whose life had been devoted to her husband and children, departed this life, and thus the bereaved husband was left with four children to care for and bring up in the world. Faithfully he performed this duty until the twentieth day of January, 1880, when he took unto himself a second wife, Miss Louise Thompson, sister of his first wife, who has performed the duties of maternal head of the family most satisfactorily from the date of her marriage up to this writing.
Mr. Kyle is a contractor of brick and stone work, doing a large business, and enjoys the confidence of the entire community. He served a term of years as Superintendent of the streets of the city, and it is said by knowing ones that the position was never before or since so well filled. He was at all times watchful, diligent and active, and all of his work was done with an eye to permanency and not slushed over as is so often the case. In politics he recognizes no party, but holds himself aloof to vote and think as his own conscience dictates. In religion, he was born a Catholic, but has never affiliated with the church--in fact, he is not much of a churchman in any sense of the word. Yet, he is liberal to a fault, open hearted, willing at all times to do unto others as he would be done by, loves his friends and has a host of them. He is a leading member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Knights of Pythias, and has represented his lodges in the grand bodies of the State.
The History of Henderson County, Kentucky by Starling 1887 page 727-29;
Return to the Henderson County KyGenWeb Home Page | <urn:uuid:9b4e8b7a-8641-4ca1-a201-082f0e4ee929> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://home.comcast.net/~hendersoncountyky/bio/kyle_peter_charles.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987952 | 1,469 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Michigan's high court is considering an issue that has yet to be seen in the state, until now.
Starting Wednesday, the court will hear oral arguments on whether a baby conceived using the frozen sperm of a deceased father has the right to collect Social Security benefits.
The child was born via in-vitro fertilization from the sperm of a Michigan woman's dead husband.
The woman applied for survivor benefits for the child from the Social Security Administration (SSA).
SSA denied the mother's claim saying the baby was born after the father had died and therefore the baby did not "survive" the husband.
The SSA sited state code for Estates and Protected Individuals in their decision to deny the application.
The battle has made its way to the Michigan Supreme Court and the issue is the first of its kind to be debated in the state | <urn:uuid:c4b24e7f-1df4-4525-b6d8-092c22448116> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/news/Michigan-s-high-court-to-decide-if-child-born-after-father-s-death-should-get-Social-Security-benefits/-/4714498/17402204/-/i939uvz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974698 | 177 | 1.523438 | 2 |
A few years ago, I had started to doubt whether I’d ever have a child. I wanted to, fervently. There were only two problems: I had not yet met the man with whom I wanted to raise a child, and my entire reproductive system seemed to be in an uproar.
Like many undiagnosed celiacs, I’d struggled from puberty with hormonal problems. Through my twenties, I suffered with ovarian cysts. Menstruation was never regular, and I was always left wondering when the next cycle of exhaustion would begin again. Then, in early 2003, I fainted from blood loss, ending up at the emergency room. The doctors there said I had a fibroid tumor the size of a grapefruit, and advised that there was no choice but to have a hysterectomy. That day.
Luckily, I fought the decision. I insisted on seeing several more doctors, ultimately finding one who was practising more modern techniques. She removed the fibroid and left me with the chance – and the hope – of having a baby.
Then after I was diagnosed with celiac disease, everything changed, miraculously. My reproductive system corrected itself. Now I know that my lifetime of suffering was actually caused by the celiac.
Active celiac sprue is the leading cause of unexplained infertility, leaving women around the world disappointed, month after month, when they cannot get pregnant. On the face of it, nothing seems to be wrong. What could be behind this misery? they wonder. Gluten, it turns out, can cause many women (and men) to be infertile. Worse yet, there are legions of women who suffer multiple miscarriages, without any sense that their diet could be leading to these devastating losses.
I feel blessed to have skipped that struggle. Doubly blessed to have met my lovely husband after my celiac diagnosis. By the time we were ready to start trying to have a baby, I had been in good health for more than two years.
Still, I worried. Studies suggest it takes at least nine months of living gluten-free for the body to heal itself fully for pregnancy. Did all those years of undiagnosed celiac damage me in some way I couldn’t see? Would my “advanced maternal age” of 41 prevent us from holding the child we longed to love? Would I lose the chance to have a child because of years of eating hamburger buns?
Five months of trying seemed an eternity. But I’m one of the lucky ones. By eating well and living my life fully, I’d been preparing my body. On the morning I ran to my husband in the bedroom, quaking with joy at the double plus sign on the stick, I was the healthiest I had been in my life. And soon, I will be giving life. All because I let go of gluten.
For Shauna’s “Chickpea Salad with Feta” recipe – see Allergic Living magazine’s Summer 2008 issue.
To order that issue or to subscribe, click here.
Shauna James Ahern’s first book is Gluten-Free Girl, published by John Wiley & Sons.
Shauna James Ahern’s and Daniel Ahern’s new cookbook is Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, published by John Wiley & Sons. Their blog is Glutenfreegirl.com
Celiac expert Shelley Case on: | <urn:uuid:0f1dd924-50fd-4f1a-bd79-e492d2996414> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allergicliving.com/?p=740 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970784 | 725 | 1.710938 | 2 |
There are many books available that discuss the game of blackjack. One such book is the Blackjack Bluebook by Fred Renzey. The author is a high stakes expert poker player and has written several books on gambling with different sub topics. The Blackjack Bluebook was first published in 1996 by Chicago Spectrum Press and then released in 1998 with an updated cover. The updated cover has a subheading to the title that reads: “Featuring beginner, intermediate and advanced level strategies for the game of “21”.
The book is divided into three sections and each section discusses various stages of blackjack and the information that goes along with those stages. Section A is the first part of the book and it discusses the nature of blackjack and why players choose to play the game. It also discusses the rules of the game as well as going over the house edge during the game.
The next section of Blackjack Blue Book is the B section. It contains information on blackjack myths. He goes in to detail on the various myths of blackjack and what is fact and fiction. Also discussed in this section is how gambling works-what makes people want to gamble. Section C is next and it is the strategy portion of the book. Basic blackjack strategy is reviewed as well as proper strategies. Borderline blackjack hands, as well as the high card/low card axiom is discussed.
The last section of the book teaches players about counting cards. Information on how to keep track of the cards is in this section as well as the key card count and the black ace count. This section also contains information on the art and science of skillful play as well as recommended reading. The book also contains a blackjack quiz to help readers maintain what they have learned.
The book was written by Renzey to help players improve their games. The book has seven close-call hand scenarios that displays the percentages so that you can make a play depending on what other cards are on the table. He gives these examples to show you don’t always have to hold when you could play with a close call. The information in the book is easy to read and understand. | <urn:uuid:4a7245c0-0abe-4172-a45b-097f4a28d420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blackjack.org/books/blackjack-bluebook.html | 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 | 0.979376 | 442 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Make every step count in your leadership journey.
How did American military leaders in the brutal POW camps of North Vietnam inspire their followers for six, seven, and even eight years to remain committed to the mission, resist a cruel enemy, and return home with honor? What leadership principles engendered such extreme devotion, perseverance, and teamwork? In this powerful and practical book, Lee Ellis, a former Air Force pilot, candidly talks about his five and a half years of captivity and the 14 key leadership principles behind this amazing story. As a successful executive coach and corporate consultant, he helps leaders of Fortune 500 companies, healthcare executives, small business owners, and entrepreneurs utilize these same pressure-tested principles to increase their personal and organizational success.
In Leading with Honor: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton, you will learn:
This book is ideal for individual or group study as a personal development, coaching, human resource development, or executive training.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
©2012 Lee Ellis (P)2012 Oasis
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If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action. | <urn:uuid:8fbd04d7-33fe-4f82-9eb3-f785df998851> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/ref=cat_12?asin=B008FOQKQG | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937767 | 283 | 1.726563 | 2 |
I know that everyone probably has an elevator story. How could you not? Riding in an elevator with strangers is an awkward thing. While I have certainly seen strange things and heard weird conversations in elevators, today the oddest thing happened to me. I walked into the lobby of my building, pressed the button for my floor and when the doors opened I stepped in. Behind me a middle-aged man stepped in. So far nothing too unusual. So as the elevator starts climbing I am in the middle of thinking about my breakfast, which I was going to eat immediately when I got to work, when the man looks at me and says, “You know, the man is always supposed to get into the elevator first.” Because I wasn’t sure if I heard him correctly I cocked my head to the side and said, “What?” He looked me straight in the eye (serious as ever) and said, “The man is always supposed to get into the elevator first to make sure its working.” I looked at the guy and tried to force a smile on my face and nod. I guess the theory kind of makes sense, but isn’t it safe to assume that the elevator is working when the door opens? What could he possibly ensure by stepping in it before me? Needless to say, I thought the fact that he said this to me was really odd.
First of all, I have always been under the impression (especially living down in the South) that women are the first on the elevator and the men hold to the door for them. Women are also always the first off the elevator too. It’s just the way it works, at least where I am living. I always judge the manors of a man by whether or not he lets me on or off the elevator first. Second, why on earth did that man feel the need to tell me this? It wasn’t as if we knew each other or had even seen each other before. Was he upset that I got on the elevator first? Was he trying to teach me some sort of lesson? Or is just plain crazy and thinks that what he said was normal?
I may be overreacting, but having to stand there with this man who said that he should have been allowed on the elevator first made me feel a little uncomfortable.
Anyways, my experience today reminded me just how awkward elevator rides can be. So, for those of you who think men should be on the elevator first, here are some elevator etiquette tips (because you probably need them):
- ALWAYS let women on and off the elevator first. While I say always, there are obviously situations in which this doesn’t necessarily apply. For example, when you were the first one there and a herd of women comes up behind you it is probably ok for you to enter first. But in my opinion, if I were a man, I would let the herd of women go before me. But that’s just me.
- NEVER step onto a crowded elevator, wait for another one. I hate when that one person steps onto the elevator and makes everyone inch that much closer to one another. Why can’t they just wait? Are they really in that big of a hurry?
- ALWAYS face the elevator doors. It is really strange when someone steps into the elevator and faces the people standing behind him/her. I am never quite sure why people do this. Why not just face front like everyone else? I don’t care if you know someone in the elevator, no one wants you staring at them the whole way down.
- DON’T talk on your cell phone in the elevator. At most you will be on the elevator for a few minutes, I think the phone call can wait.
- GREETINGS are ok if they are short and sweet. Don’t go into too much detail and ask everyone in the elevator what they did that weekend or for their political point of view.
- DON’T take the elevator to go up just one floor. I cannot tell you how much I despise those people who get on the elevator just to go to the 2nd floor. I, on the other hand, have to go up to the 18th floor and get frustrated when people are too lazy to take the stairs. Maybe that’s why most of America is fat today – they are too busy riding elevators.
- DON’T fart or burp or do anything else that will leave a lingering smell. No one wants to get trapped with your stink.
Have you ever encountered something strange on an elevator? Would you add any additional elevator etiquette rules to my list? | <urn:uuid:8082acbf-972e-4b25-9721-d504c214bda0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mrsprofessionalism.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975885 | 968 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Saudi to non-Muslims: Respect fast or be expelled
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi authorities warned non-Muslim expatriates on Friday, the first day of Ramadan, not to eat, drink, or smoke in public until the end of the Muslim holy month's sunrise-to-sunset fast — or face expulsion.
The Interior Ministry of the oil-rich kingdom called on expatriates to "show consideration for feelings of Muslims" and "preserve the sacred Islamic rituals." Otherwise, a ministry statement said, Saudi authorities will cancel violators' work contracts and expel them.
Saudi Arabia's population of 27 million includes some 8 million expatriates, including Asians, Arabs, and Westerners, according to government figures.
The ultraconservative Sunni kingdom is the home of Islam's holiest sites. The warning — which is issued at the beginning of Ramadan every year — serve as a reminder that the Western-allied monarchy must answer to a strict religious establishment that holds de facto veto power over many of its policies.
With challenges to the established order growing bolder from a population nearly half of which is under 30, Saudi Arabia has recently made some moves to show moderation. It is sending female athletes to the Olympics for the first time this year. King Abdullah has promised to allow women to run and vote in municipal elections in 2015. He also has tried to rein in the country's feared morality police.
But Saudi rights advocate Waleed Aboul Khair believes that while such moves give impression that the grip of hardliners has eased, "when you look around, nothing has changed and suppression has not changed." He is facing trial for "tarnishing the kingdom's reputation," mostly by his political activism for women's rights and other issues.
Warnings or no warnings, he says, "expatriates are always at risk of expulsion for the least offense in the kingdom."
The prince newly appointed to handle most aspects of law enforcement is known as a strict adherent to religious rules. Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz was governor of the holy city of Mecca before becoming Interior Minister.
Saudi Arabia is wary of the wave of Arab Spring uprisings that has toppled longtime authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and neighboring Yemen.
It followed a carrot-and-stick strategy to contain unrest by pledging around $120 billion for the kingdom's lower income groups. It has heavily cracked down on protests, especially in eastern regions dominated by Shiites demanding greater rights, and is steering a middle course between conservatives and reformers among the Sunni majority. | <urn:uuid:7a1714e9-9d91-4e27-a9d9-d8ac00ea53bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnsnews.com/news/article/saudi-non-muslims-respect-fast-or-be-expelled | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95966 | 527 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Animals, man. I’ll tell you: I can pretty much be in the most fantastic place anywhere and if so much as a dung beetle makes an appearance (as one tireless and determined one did pushing its dungball through the grasses of the plateau of the Toltec ruins we explored; but I’ll spare you) I almost immediately bring my camera to bear upon it.
Such was the case of this lizard, which my sharp-eyed Susan spotted at the top of a 10-foot rock wall as I photographed details of the pyramid’s base adjacent to where it was hanging out and catching some rays, giving me plenty of time to mount my 300-mm lens and pull it in closer (click for moderate enlargification):
Somewhat surprisingly there wasn’t a whole lot of indigenous fauna to be found throughout our travelings. Not counting the countless stray dogs and grackles — and the dung beetle, of course — I had somewhat been expecting more variety of wildlife. | <urn:uuid:fde1f3e0-28fb-4574-9f15-ac1020331703> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wildbell.com/tag/toltec/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966364 | 211 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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As multimedia services become more widespread, there is a need for standardized methods for assessment of the quality perceived by the end user. ITU-T SG12 has been at the forefront in defining and validating subjective and objective quality assessment methods for many years and has issued many recommendations in this area. Subjective assessment remains the definitive methodology but objective methods are now becoming mature enough to provide very accurate results, especially for voice, and much more convenient to implement. However, currently available objective quality estimation methods can require a lot of computational resources, which makes them difficult, or even impossible, to be deployed operationally in a large network. Attention in SG12 is now heavily focused on lightweight models based on parametric or bit stream input, which enable large-scale real-time QoE assessment in a network. These models have a potential to simultaneously monitor many, or even all, of the audiovisual sessions in a network.
Date of Publication: Nov. 2011 | <urn:uuid:4e22854b-7f34-48fb-b856-fe573cd81e0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&tp=&arnumber=6021859&contentType=Journals+%26+Magazines&sortType%3Dasc_p_Sequence%26filter%3DAND(p_IS_Number%3A6021440) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962327 | 200 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Many things going on require a lot of effort to stay informed about. If you want to remain healthy, for instance, you need to be informed about the food supply, big pharma, vaccines, chemicals and pollutants assaulting your health virtually at every breath, as well as invisible electromagnetic energy. And you need to know about radiation.
If you want to know about politics and wars and global chessboards, you need to do a lot of reading from news sources around the world, plus blogs, and sift through a lot of information that could conceivably take you all morning, every day, just to have a rough idea of what's really going on. That's presuming you've already been at it for a few years and have looked at the 'about us' pages of those expert opinions, and recognize the various factions and how they array themselves across think tanks, academia and the media, making allowances for their extravagantly funded biases. And even with that effort, you still wouldn't know anything much for certain because of the disinfo mixed in, and all the black ops.
We could certainly spend a couple of hours ripping apart and posting on "news" every day. Trust us we could have written a hundred posts in the past two months, if we had wanted to take the time away from other pursuits. It wasn't for lack of material. But we no longer have the time or inclination to follow things closely. We still think there are things to be said, points to be connected. Truths to be driven home. We will try to contribute something at this late stage, because things can change. But we don't know about spending a dozen hours or so per post. Things might seem a little more 'seat-of-the pants' from here on out, but everything rests on the foundation of work that has already been laid.
For those just starting to pay attention, good luck you really do need it. We all do but especially those who are just twigging onto the greatest shit show on earth.
In the end, the problem we all face is the invisible nature of the threats to our well being, and the effort required to apprehend them. So much is hidden, so much is invisible. So much is misdirection. At some point, you just have to go with your gut instincts, because the barriers to knowing things with certainty are so high as to be practically impossible. However, once you have a framework of understanding, it's just a lot faster to trust your instincts and connect to that directly, and to let instinct be your guide. Unfortunately, we can't exactly give you a link to our instincts. Everyone is on his or her own.
You can't see radiation. Well you could see that explosion of Fukushima reactor 3, but after that, invisible problems. Anyone remember the neutron beam that was spotted 13 times at the very beginning of the Fukushima meltdown? "This is not a dangerous level of radiation." No of course not. Down the memory hole, more or less. Nor can you see the heavy metals sprayed out of airplanes, coming out of the sky and into your food supply, which has been happening for a couple of decades. Well you can, but it's only a contrail, you paranoid freak --those stripes are water vapor spreading across the blue sky. Sure.
You can't see the things happening at the molecular level, at the cellular level, in your own body, from the shots you've received over the years and from whatever else you may have ingested, etc. But the radiation is there. The heavy metals are there. The cellular damage is there. You really don't need a lab in your house to prove it, do you? You probably don't have a lab at home, right? We don't either. But it does not stop us from having an opinion that a big explosion, followed by 13 neutron beams, followed by all the rest of the things that they *admitted* happened, means we have a very serious radiation problem from Fukushima, even as we acknowledge that we don't know the half of it, and we have much disinfo to sort through *if* we want to attempt to know anything at all. We know enough to know we don't know the half of it. What more do we need to know, as a private citizen with no more access to information than any other citizen? Imagine the worst, just from a basic management perspective. Best case worst case most likely case scenario. Business school 101. Similarly, if you accept that 911 did not go down the way of the official story, if you have spent any time at all looking into it in the past eleven years, and you realize the official story has been proven impossible, do you really need to know how it went down exactly? Does not that one disproof alone -- that it could not possibly have gone down as officially recorded -- give you a wealth of information about our government and media?
You must use your common sense and your gut instincts to suss it out. Science is the veil that they hide behind. All these invisible things that you can't see and you can't measure -- they tell us these things are nothing to worry about because they are so tiny. And actually, that is precisely what makes it all so diabolical. The things are invisible to the naked eye. That's the point. You have to use a different way of seeing, of knowing, because you don't have a lab to verify, and you can't trust anything they tell you. Not to state the obvious, but EVIDENTLY it still isn't obvious to a lot of people. Not that those people would ever read here, because they are too busy watching teevee; so again, what kind of a freaking waste of time is this? Do the spooks laugh themselves silly as they watch the cute little bloggers uselessly pecking away at our keyboards? Do they take our research and use it to fine tune their mind-fuckery? Are we just working for them in the end, in the giant social engineering experiment, giving them all sorts of valuable opinions and free critiques so that they do it better next time?
You smell what we're stepping on?
On top of that, you have the time-delay problem. We've talked about this many times before here -- the slow kill method. A huge gap exists between the time you may take the deadly ingredient into your body, via breathing it, swallowing it, being bitten by it, believing it, or via syringe, and the onset of your misery.
Sam Vaknin, a self-described psychopath, describes the way psychopaths work: like a slow-acting poison.
"They are not dramatic. They are pernicious. Most psychopaths are subtle. They are more like poison than a knife, and they are more like slow-working poison than cyanide." ~ Sam Vaknin"So what bullies usually do, they start and stop, start and stop. That achieves the maximal stress syndrome, and this is the great secret of bullying. Never overdo it. Small doses. The victim will do the rest." ~ Sam Vaknin
The evil are patient. Evil people in positions of power have many tools at their disposal to murder people. But they still have to do lots of planning and be patient in order to get away with it.
You can be outside watching your child run around on a baseball field, and you may inhale a single plutonium particle that drifted on the jet stream across the pacific ocean from Fukushima, after reactor 3 exploded a year ago, and the particle may embed in your lung and maybe a year after that you will develop a chronic cough and maybe another several months go by before you get a chest x-ray (more radiation) and then more tests, and then the diagnosis of lung cancer so shocking to you who never smoked a day in your life. Will you ever know why? No you will not. But there's a reason. There was a day when it all went down, invisibly, with that one invisible particle that came from some evil man-made contraption which regrettably exploded months or years before, maybe even decades, since the 1950s...?
Maybe the particle wasn't from Fukushima. Maybe it was from Chernobyl or any of the many nuclear tests that were done in the past sixty years. Who knows. You have no way of knowing, and it is completely deniable in any case. Plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years. There's plenty of it around and in terms of being able to kill us, even the oldest particles are still brand new. It's not like some executive from TEPCO, or the military, or Mikhail Gorbachev himself, will take responsibility and say sorry and pay for your children's education, because you died prematurely from the stray plutonium particle that regrettably blew out of their nuclear device. You just had bad luck. Fate. You poor slob. There but for the grace of God go I blah blah blah. As if God has his certain special people that he specially looks out for. As if he steers the plutonium only to the blade of grass that a bonafide confirmed lifetime psychopathic asshole will stretch out on for a picnic martini. Seems to us that is not how it happens. Your child has just as much chance of breathing it in as you. After all, it's invisible. And it's only one of the invisible problems.
This is what we mean. This is a nightmare, and we all live inside it.
The point is, you have no way of knowing for certain what comes at you each day, and you have no defenses. The link between cause and effect has been effectively broken by two important things: 1) the nano-scale of the deadly poisons, and 2) the time lag between you ingesting an invisible poison and the onset of your misery.
In this way, many people have suffered and died, and those responsible have gotten away with murder. There was no link back to the cause. There was no apology, no reparations, no nothing. We expect that technologies exist to prevent, substitute for, and clean up most of these problems, but we expect they are held in secret.
So you can educate yourself and take some reasonable precautions, but you still have to get out there and live your life. Thus, even when you grasp something of the scale of the nano-assaults, and the scale of the lies we all face every day, the scale of the injustice, and how long they've been working the knobs... when you realize there's really no escaping it, what have you really gained? Nothing except that you have glimpsed the truth, and you see that it is hideous. Hard to believe that represents improvement, but we think it does.
And then you take it one step further. It wasn't Mother Nature or the Angry God who engineered and bio-engineered and experimented and plotted and planned and built and exploded and flew all these things into our environment, and who lied about it and continue to lie every day, who get away with murder. It was people. And what sorts of people make their life's work the creation of poisons and death and destruction and lies? Terrorists, or smart, prestigious people working in world-class facilities, in think tanks, and in the media? What exactly is the distinction? They are one and the same. These people have been around since the beginning and probably they will always be around. It's the experts you have to worry about, the ones in the labs and paneled boardrooms, the ones on teevee, the ones in the military, the ones with special lineage, the ones telling you what to worry about, and defining beauty for you, and defining the enemy for you. And it is the daffy people who listen to them, who take them so seriously, honor them and worship them and encourage you to do the same, that will follow their orders with all sincerity.
We live in a horrifying shit show of the most spectacular proportions. We feel that it is unsustainable, but remarkably, it keeps going. And we suppose we all have to keep going too.
as I walk the hills and by the riverPoem by Kenny.
or maybe on a wide city street
lined with cherry trees
I breathe deeply to savor the moment
and in that moment the breath will define what I am to become
I'm fading now, my own end of time
only recalling a single movie line that seems to say it all
the shooter, the jerk
"random son of a bitch" | <urn:uuid:35906671-6a44-4b4b-b657-43721e4031e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://twelfthbough.blogspot.jp/2012/05/how-far-is-heaven-part-4.html?showComment=1336428215596 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967605 | 2,583 | 1.554688 | 2 |
MUMBAI: Transport planners and traffic management experts in Mumbai are keenly monitoring developments in London, where city authorities are gearing up to implement a five pound (approx Rs 395) levy on every motorist entering the central area of that city from February 17.
This, said experts, is in sharp contrast to Mumbai where the government continues to pander to private car owners by splurging money on new flyovers and bridges, which public transport buses like the BEST are not allowed to use.
Private car owners here constitute barely 14 per cent of the city's daily commuting population. Experts said it was time car owners were discouraged from bringing their vehicles into congested areas during peak hours. In London,mayor Ken Livingstone is currently at the centre of a major controversy after he sanctioned plans for a 'traffic congestion charge' for private vehicles entering central London districts between 7 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. on weekdays.
Despite strong opposition from motorists' groups and some local politicians, Mr Livingstone is pushing through his plan in order to cut down the "chronic traffic congestion'' in central London by 10-15 per cent. The objective is to make these congested parts safer for cyclists and pedestrians and reduce pollution levels.
About 230 cameras have been installed to catch motorists who have not paid the charge. Those who fail to pay up will be fined 80 pounds ( approx Rs 6,320).Motorbikes, disabled drivers, taxis, buses, coaches and emergency service vehicles will be exempted from this fee. Residents living within the congested zone will receive a 90 per cent discount. Traffic experts observed that it was time such a plan was implemented in Mumbai too, considering the increasing numbers of private vehicles flooding the commercial business district in south Mumbai. Said traffic management expert P.S. Pasricha, who is currently additional director general of police (administration), "Singapore introduced this traffic restraint technique more than two decades ago. Also, those driving alone are made to pay more money. This ultimately encouraged car-pooling,'' he said.
"It will be necessary Mumbai to implement scheme soon after improving our public transport system,'' he added. BEST general manager Swadhin Kshtriya said a public transport policy should put in place to help decongest busy localities during peak hours. Supporting a levy on motorists, Mr Kshtriya said BEST would augment fleet by an additional 600 buses under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project.
Transport specialist consultant to the World Bank, Arun Mokashi said the Atkins report, which prepared a comprehensive plan for Mumbai in 1994, had suggested "congestion pricing''. "This is a levy where vehicle users must pay for creating congestion,'' he said. However, Western India Automobiles Association president Sunil Merchant said people are forced to their cars because they not want to travel in overcrowded local trains. | <urn:uuid:cd985426-414e-43f8-8f90-2fcb21ee1b3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2003-02-02/pune/27263258_1_public-transport-traffic-management-congestion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964263 | 588 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Are you in love with being in love? When that infatuation fades are you the type of person who moves on to someone else? According to experts, you could be addicted to love — and we're not talking about a song by Robert Palmer, but a real problem that can cause brain reactions similar to drug addiction.
"When you first meet somebody and you feel that connection and all the buttons are going off, that causes changes in the brain similar to ... taking cocaine," said Dr. Judith Orloff, author of the book "Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life." "It's the brain on drugs, basically, when you fall in love."
Orloff said our desire to want to feel in love is hard-wired in our biology for species survival, but we can get addicted to the rush. Once the fascination wears off (in about a year) the chemicals stabilize, "and then the hard work comes in because you have to start relating to them just like any other person," she said, adding that this is when most love addicts jump ship.
"A chemical connection has a lot of razzle dazzle but it's limited," Orloff said. "It's the deep, intimate connection that comes later that I encourage people to find because they're so satisfying and they can last a long time."
Stephen Arterburn, author of "Addicted to Love: Recovering from Unhealthy Dependencies in Love, Romance, Relationships and Sex," said parental neglect is often the trigger for love addiction.
"When they find someone who has that interest in them, there's a sense of fulfillment and completion," Arterburn said. "It feels like it makes up for all they didn't have when they were younger."
But when there's conflict, the love addicts often think this means the relationship is doomed — which may not be true, Orloff said.
"There are the positive traits of someone and the negative traits," she said. "There's no way you're going to like everything about somebody. But when you choose to take the relationship to a deeper level, it's is such a great teacher because it allows you to learn tolerance and to teach you deep companionship ... through all of life's trials and tribulations."
Here are some characteristics of a person who is in love with being in love:
You wait for lightning to strike.
"I recommend if you have lightning strike, to run in the other direction because that's a sign of neuroses and a sign of destructive patterns that don't serve you," Orloff said. "On the other hand, if you meet someone and you feel a little glimmer of something, you want to stoke it like a fire and see if there's something there."
It's not you, it's them.
"One of the reasons people do this for so long is they don't think this is unhealthy behavior, but that they have high standards," Arterburn said. "If the relationship doesn't fulfill them they feel the other person is falling short — but what's really happening is they are trying to fill a need and they feel incomplete if they're not involved in a romance. They feel like something is missing."
For women: You have few female friends.
"Most often a female romance addict will have a few or no same-sex friendships," Arterburn said. "They jump from male relationship to male relationship. Maybe they were rejected by dad so this is a way to fill that need."
Your friends have dropped hints that you don't want to hear.
"Really take a look at what people have said to you — people who care about you or maybe even people you've broken up with. What messages have people tried to communicate to you that you have resisted?" Arterburn said.
You need a relationship to be happy.
"If you're going to a gas station to be filled up by somebody else, that's not going to make you happy because that tank will keep running out," Orloff said. "... One thing I stress is that nothing on the outside can make you happy unless you have happiness inside yourself. I mean money, success, fame, fortune, love — none of that can make you happy. It can add to your happiness, but you have to have some kind of inner peace and something that you can bring to somebody else first." | <urn:uuid:2dca208f-dbd1-4d7e-9a3f-0994fc53a75d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsbtradio.com/wsbtam/lifestyle/careers/ct-tribu-weigel-love-addiction-20121016,0,6591389.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979311 | 910 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Here is eco-friendly design home collection – This amazing and original project for home, not many eco-friendly design home collection with feature green spaces for every floor of the building. The eco-friendly design home collection named Meera House was designed by Guz Architects and is located on the island of Sentosa in Singapore. According the architects: The plots on the island of Sentosa are not large and neighboring buildings are built close to the sides of each house. Thus our strategy was to build a solid wall to each side neighbor to provide privacy where possible, while creating a central light and stair well which would funnel the sea breeze through the centre of the building.
The eco-friendly design home collection with the front and rear of the building with terrace each storey to have visual or actual access to greenery. The intention was to try to allow each roof garden provided a base for the storey above allowing the layered effect to make each storey feel like sitting in a garden. This eco-friendly design home collection in the Sentosa island with green building design is wonderful architecture idea. (Photographer: Patrick Bingham Hall) | <urn:uuid:959f9739-d26f-422c-a004-a01250e6215e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alspics.com/eco-friendly-design-home-collection-in-singapore/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957129 | 229 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Writer's Cafe is a set of power tools for all fiction writers, whether experienced or just starting out. The heart of Writer's Cafe is StoryLines, a powerful but simple to use story development tool that dramatically accelerates the creation and structuring of your novel or screenplay.
Designed by published novelist Harriet Smart, Writer's Cafe also includes a notebook, journal, research organiser, pinboard, inspirational quotations, daily writing tips, writing exercises, name generation, and a 60-page e-book, Fiction: The Facts, distilling 20 years of writing experience.
Writer's Cafe is designed to be a playground for the imagination, making writing fiction fun and fulfilling. But it's also a serious tool for professionals, with highly configurable formatting, import/export and reporting facilities. | <urn:uuid:1fca3390-9377-4dbf-ba9a-7633c455b1a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.softcns.com/business/review-writers-cafe_138730.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941478 | 161 | 1.523438 | 2 |
SAUDI ARABIA. Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who led Saudi Arabia’s terrorism fight while in his dual role as interior minister, has died. He was in his late 70s.
The death of the heir-apparent to King Abdullah was announced yesterday by state television, which cited a Royal Court statement. Details of his death weren’t given. The Swiss government said he died in Geneva, according to an e-mailed statement. Nayef left Saudi Arabia last month for scheduled medical tests and a vacation, the Royal Court said at the time without elaborating. The prince also had medical tests in March in Cleveland.
Nayef had been Saudi Arabia’s most powerful prince amid the turmoil that has rocked the region. He put down attacks by al- Qaeda and backed the religious police in the Sunni Muslim kingdom, the world’s largest oil producer. He was the second crown prince to die in less than a year, renewing questions about succession as the Saudi leadership ages. The king named him Oct. 28 to succeed Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, who was born in 1935, followed Crown Prince Sultan as defense minister.
“I don’t think this will have any impact on the stability of the country,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told Bloomberg in a phone interview. “The selection process is pretty clear. Prince Salman will most likely become the next crown prince.”
Nayef’s death comes as Saudi Arabia confronts unemployment, an issue cited by some activists during the unrest that led to the toppling of leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya during the so-called Arab Spring that began in December 2010. Joblessness reached 27% for Saudis between 20 and 30 years old in 2009, according to official data.
King Abdullah unveiled a US$130 billion spending plan in the first quarter of 2011, including allowances for government workers and salary increases for military personnel.
Six kings have ruled Saudi Arabia since it was established in 1932. Abdullah changed the kingdom’s succession rules in 2007 to give an appointed commission of princes, the Allegiance Council, more power to select a new ruler.
Nayef was one of the influential brothers known as the Sudairi Seven, the sons of the kingdom’s founder, King Abdulaziz Al Saud, and one of his wives, Hassa bint-Ahmed al-Sudairi. The late crown prince was born in 1934, according to the website of the Saudi Embassy in Washington. His Institute for Research and Consulting Services at the Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University said he was born in 1933. Neither provided his date of birth.
Prince Salman is a Sudairi brother who was a former governor of Riyadh province. Other senior royals include Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal, who was born in 1940, and Khaled al- Faisal, governor of the Mecca province.
King Abdullah’s son Mutaib is head of the National Guard, a 110,000-man Bedouin force loyal to the royal family, and another son, Abdul Aziz, is the deputy foreign minister. Sultan’s son Khaled is deputy defense minister, and Nayef’s son Mohammad is the deputy minister for security affairs.
“Succession is very complicated,” Mohammed al-Qahtani, a democracy advocate and economist, said by phone from Riyadh, the capital. “They will think about stability. Salman will make a good candidate for crown prince for the royal family.”
A funeral prayer was to be said today for Nayef at the Holy Mosque in Mecca, the official Saudi Press Agency said. The Royal Court offered condolences to the Saudi people on the prince’s passing, “praying to God Almighty to bless his soul and to reward him for his services to his religion and homeland,” according to its statement.
“Nayef was known for his courage and dedication to the security of his country,” U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Smith said in a statement on the website of the American Embassy in Riyadh. “Crown Prince Nayef was a strong leader and a good friend to the United States.”
U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said Nayef “served the kingdom for many years with great dignity and dedication and his contribution to the prosperity and security of the kingdom will be long remembered,” according to a statement.
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa announced a three- day mourning period for the Saudi crown prince, the official Bahrain News Agency reported.
Nayef pledged in February last year to stand by the people and government of Bahrain against all that affects its security, stability and national unity as security forces confronted Shiite Muslim protesters, the Saudi Press Agency reported. About a month later, Saudi Arabia sent troops to the neighboring Sunni country as part of a Gulf Cooperation Council force to help put down the Shiite protests.
In September 2010, Nayef, who had led the Interior Ministry since 1975, said Saudi Arabia was able to “crush” the ideology of terrorism. The ministry’s forces had arrested 11,527 people since Sept. 11, 2001, for their alleged involvement in terrorism, according to an April 2011 ministry statement. Under Nayef, the ministry set up a 35,000-strong unit to protect its energy infrastructure and its oil reserves, which were the world’s largest.
After the announcement of Nayef’s death, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index (SASEIDX) fell as much as 2.7% to 6,565.82, the lowest intraday level since Jan. 31, after earlier gaining as much as 1.1%. The benchmark was down 0.3%, to 6,724.46, at the close in Riyadh.
“Saudi institutions are well established to ensure the continuity of economic policies,” Jarmo Kotilaine, chief economist at the Jeddah-based National Commercial Bank, said by phone. “The key strategic goals are widely shared and well anchored.”
OPEC’s June 14 decision to keep its output quota unchanged puts the onus on Saudi Arabia to cut supply should crude prices extend their drop below US$100 a barrel. Increased production from Saudi Arabia has been blamed for plunging prices by members including Shiite-led Iran, a regional rival whose exports will be subject to a European Union embargo starting July 1.
Saudi Arabia will make sure there is enough supply in the global crude market, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said at the OPEC meeting. Crude for July delivery rose 12 cents to US$84.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange June 15.
The kingdom’s economy expanded 6.8 percent last year as it benefited from additional government spending of 224 billion riyals (US$60 billion) and oil prices that averaged US$95 a barrel, up from $80 in 2010. Economy Minister Muhammad al-Jasser said on May 22 that he hopes the kingdom’s real gross domestic product growth will be at about 6% this year. | <urn:uuid:28a37008-7b13-4a81-bbf2-30c88da68818> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=58186&t=1&c=35&cg=2&mset=1011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968004 | 1,531 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Reprieve and local partners have this week launched legal action in the Lahore High Court on behalf of seven ‘disappeared’ Pakistani citizens currently detained in the notorious US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan.
The lawsuit challenges the Pakistani government’s role in the illegal abduction, rendition and detention of the men, who are held indefinitely without charge or trial.
Reprieve identified and located the seven prisoners, contacting them via their families to offer free legal assistance. Pakistani Advocate Salman Akram Raja then filed a case against the government of Pakistan and its agencies for violating the prisoners’ human and constitutional rights.
Reprieve’s claim was heard yesterday by Lahore’s High Court. Reprieve argued that by becoming “mixed up in the wrongdoing” against their own citizens, the Pakistani government and its agencies violated several provisions in Pakistan’s Constitution, including the right to security, due process, and freedom from torture. As a signatory to the Convention against Torture, the Pakistani Government has also violated international law.
The prisoners’ families asked the Court to secure the immediate release of their loved ones, and to bring criminal charges against the Pakistani Government and its agencies for violations of Pakistani and international law.
The seven claimants are Awal Noor, Hamidullah Khan, Abdul Haleem Saifullah, Faizal Karim, Amal Khan, Itfikhar Ahmed and Yunus Rahmatullah. All are Pakistani citizens who are being held indefinitely at Bagram without access to lawyers and without having been informed of the evidence against them. Some have been there for many years. Some have been abused there. One claimant was a juvenile (a mere 14 years old) when he was seized two years ago. Another was not permitted to speak to his family for six years, and is apparently in a grievous physical and psychological condition.
The prisoners’ families have suffered great emotional and economic hardship and are desperate to see their loved ones again. The father of Abdul Haleem Saifullah, upon learning that his son was in Bagram, became so sick with worry that he died one year later. Amal Khan’s mother breaks down each time she tries to speak to her son via the International Committee of the Red Cross. Awal Noor’s family, who relied on the income he earned as a goat-herder, struggle to make ends meet.
In the last six months the Obama Administration has attempted to legitimise Bagram Prison, claiming that conditions and procedures there have been improved, and conceding that many prisoners are wrongfully held. This case will test the Obama Administration’s resolve.
Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif has now sought a reply from the ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, directing the lawyer representing the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), to request a report from both the ministries by October 19.
Reprieve's Pakistan investigator Sultana Noon said:
"Pakistan's government has badly betrayed seven of its citizens, and shown disgraceful contempt for Pakistani and international law. These men disappeared into the US-run Bagram Prison, a legal black hole far worse than Guantánamo Bay, where they are now held indefinitely without trial and far from their families. Yet instead of protecting them, it appears the Pakistani government has actively assisted in their kidnap and illegal imprisonment. Reprieve is bringing this lawsuit to force Pakistan to do the right thing for these prisoners and their traumatised families, and to ensure that this never happens again."
For more information contact Salam Akram Raja [email protected]/ 0321-844-9932 or Reprieve’s Katherine O’Shea: [email protected]/07931592674.
Notes for Editors:
Hamidullah Khan is a sixteen year old boy currently imprisoned at Bagram Airbase. He was picked up in July 2008, when at the age of fourteen he traveled from Karachi to his father’s village in Waziristan to salvage the family’s possessions in their home during the ongoing military operation. His friend, Khairullah, traveled with him by bus from Karachi up till Dir Ismail Khan. When Hamidullah parted with his friend, he told him to wait for his return from Waziristan within two days so they could travel back to Karachi together. Khairullah never saw Hamidullah again and since then his family has been desperate for his return. Hamidullah’s mother, Din Roza is desperate for his return and continues to fast from dawn till dusk even during the scorching summer months of Karachi with the hope that her prayers are answered and her son is returned to her.
Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves.
Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 25 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.
Reprieve has represented, and continues to represent, a large number of prisoners who have been rendered and abused around the world, and is conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of ‘ghost prisoners’ in the so-called ‘war on terror.’ | <urn:uuid:1723a8ac-62bf-444f-a043-6c97d8dedc02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2010_10_05_Bagram_action/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967141 | 1,153 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The gardening season here in the ‘North’ is starting to ramp up which means that, as someone who works in the garden retail industry, my work hours are starting to increase and my work week lengthen. That’s great for the bank account but, unless I’m careful, will wreak havoc with my garden and all my plans for this season. So, I’ve decided to look at all the little ways that I can streamline my gardening…without losing any of the joy, of course.
Tip #1 is the ‘aha’ moment from yesterday when, while looking through my seed packets to determine what next needed to be sown inside, I came across some sweet pea and Brazilian verbena seeds. Either flower can be started inside or sown directly into the soil outside but both flower earlier and, in the case of the perennial verbena, are hardier when sown inside. The trouble is that sowing inside is more time-consuming (potting up and hardening-off are two steps not necessary when sowing outside) and I save my precious time for plants like peppers and tomatoes that, unless started inside, will not produce anything due to our short growing season. So, I decided the risk was worth it and I’ll sow them directly outside when the weather warms up a bit (can you believe we still have a bit of snow?).
To cover my bets a bit, I’ll inoculate my sweet pea seeds. Inoculant contains Rhizobia bacteria which helps the members of the legume family (such as peas and beans) fix nitrogen from the air which makes them more productive. This bacteria is less active in cooler soils and, since sweet peas are always sown in the early spring when the soil is just this side of unfrozen, a little more of the Rhizobia will only be helpful.
The Brazilian verbena, however, is on its own. | <urn:uuid:214d9237-9b99-4089-99eb-7e49c76b344f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seedandbean.com/blog/?p=1279 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949601 | 404 | 1.625 | 2 |
Card victims told 'don't call police'
Victims of debit and credit card fraud are being told not to bother reporting the crime to police.
A change in the law means that from Sunday they should contact their bank instead.
The move was called 'astounding' by security experts, who suggest it amounts to the privatisation of the justice system. They said it appeared to be an attempt by Government, police and banks to push the crime - which costs the nation £428m a year - under the carpet.
The changes, hidden in the small print of the 2006 Fraud Act, cover any deception involving cheques, plastic cards or online transactions. They come into force on 1 April.
Banks will be responsible for collating fraud figures and passing these to police, together with any evidence they uncover of major criminal gangs. But critics suspect the banks will be able to manipulate card fraud figures to mislead the public about the severity of the issue.
They also warned that police teams with expertise in investigating card fraud are being disbanded. Last year, there were 700,000 individual cases of card fraud, with the average loss totalling £608.
The changes were spelt out by The Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), which is the trade body for the plastic card operations of the big banks and credit card companies.
It said: 'In most cases consumers will be required to report instances of this type of fraud straight to their bank or building society and not to the police.
'It will be up to the financial institution involved, and not the account holder, to pass details of the relevant crime on to police.'
The group's communications director, Sandra Quinn, insisted the changes were an attempt to cut bureaucracy.
'This change simply removes an additional level of reporting and will provide greater consistency for the reporting of fraud losses in the UK,' she added.
'Apacs will provide the Home Office with the industry's fraud figures for cheque, plastic and online banking fraud losses - these losses will then be published as part of the Government's annual crime figures, thereby giving a more realistic picture of the scale of this type of crime.'
Where a card is taken as a result of a second crime, such as the theft of a wallet or burglary, these second crimes should continue to be reported to the police. Miss Quinn added: 'The threat of fraud is, unfortunately, a part of our daily lives . . . the industry remains committed to a multi-layered approach to tackling card fraud.'
Card fraud expert Andrew Goodwill, managing director of the security firm Early Warning UK, condemned the shift in responsibility as 'good news for plastic cheats'. He added: 'Our police officers receive some of the best training in the world when it comes to collecting evidence of fraud.
'Why are we now being shortchanged by allowing the banks to collect this evidence? Fraud is a criminal offence. What extra training will bank officials receive to do the same job? I doubt any. With the banks then reporting these crimes en masse, will the banks report all instances of card fraud to the police in this way or will they pick and choose and just report the ones where they suffer a loss? If the banks don't report all card fraud, simply writing some of it off, the result will be a distortion of the extent of credit card crime.'
And he added: 'The problem is that the fraud is increasing rapidly and the police just do not have the resources to cope. Rather than give the police the tools to deal with this, the Home Office has hived the problem off to the banks and tried to bury it. If the criminals see that the police are no longer investigating most card fraud and it is treated as merely a commercial issue, then the problem will inevitably increase.
'The criminals will take the view there is much less of a risk of being caught.' | <urn:uuid:4656b969-2138-40dc-a63f-8f501213df65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cardsloans/article-1608642/Card-victims-told-dont-call-police.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958879 | 792 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Perkins Borrowers Leaving SOU: Repayment Information
All Perkins loans must be repaid within ten years. The minimum monthly payment is $40.00; the actual amount the borrower will pay depends on the total amount borrowed. There is no penalty for paying off the loan early. Students may check on their total amount borrowed for all loans, including Perkins, on the web site for the National Student Loan Clearinghouse.
If you experience financial difficulties due to unemployment, illness or other economic hardships, don't be embarrassed or afraid to ask for help. Unlike other consumer debt, such as credit cards, you have options. You may be eligible for a temporary payment plan, deferment, forbearance, loan consolidation, loan cancellation/discharge, or loan rehabilitation. Call the Long Term Loan office before the account goes into default!
If, for any reason, you do not make a scheduled payment on your loan for 60 days, you will be in default. Default means you failed to make payments on your student loan according to the terms of your promissory note, the binding legal document you signed at the time you took out your loan. Your school, the financial institution that made or owns your loan, and the federal government can take action to recover the money you owe. Here are some consequences of default:
- National credit bureaus can be notified of your default, which will harm your credit rating, making it hard to buy a car or a house.
- You would be ineligible for additional federal student aid if you decided to return to school.
- Diplomas, grades, and transcripts (official and unofficial) will be not be released.
- Loan payments can be garnished from your paycheck.
- State income tax refunds can be withheld and applied toward the amount you owe.
- You will have to pay late fees and collection costs on top of what you already owe.
- You can be sued.
- Sent to Department of Revenue or an outside collection agency for further collection action.
- Permanent assignment to the Department of Education.
All defaulted Perkins Loan borrowers are eligible for rehabilitation. This includes borrowers who have a judgment rendered on their loan. However, borrower payments on a loan on which a judgment has been rendered must be "voluntary." Any payments that are equal to the amount the borrower is required to make under the judgment are considered voluntary.
The benefits of rehabilitation are the following:
- Restoration of Title IV eligibility;
- Restoration of the benefits and privileges of the promissory note and a return to regular repayment status;
- A new repayment period of up to ten years;
- Removal of the default from the borrower's credit history. | <urn:uuid:4a691252-f67e-44c4-b8bf-67bd36518fdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sou.edu/enrollment/financial-aid/loans/perkins-loan06.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942232 | 550 | 1.59375 | 2 |
PARKERSBURG - A summer reading and nutrition program is looking for mentors and coordinators.
Energy Express will be conducted for eight weeks this year at Emerson, Martin and Franklin elementary schools in Parkersburg.
AmeriCorps is seeking individuals to help children through the program. Applications are now being accepted for summer positions in the statewide program administered by the West Virginia University Extension Service and AmeriCorps. Statewide the program helps 3,000 West Virginia children maintain and improve their reading skills.
Last year the program served 160 local children.
"The program is designed to provide learning opportunities and nutrition during the summer months when children are most at risk for falling behind on reading levels - a preventable loss known as the summer slide," said Jodi Smith, Wood County West Virginia University Extension Service agent who assists in coordinating the local program. "We will have some returning mentors and community coordinators, but we need more."
Energy Express mentors are college or college-bound students who work with small groups of elementary school-age children by creating a safe, enriching environment focused on reading, writing, art and drama, crafts and recreation activities.
About Energy Express
Energy Express is a program under the leadership of WVU Extension Service's 4-H Youth Development program.
This AmeriCorps program is funded, in part, by grants from the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts and Volunteer West Virginia, the State's Commission for National and Community Service.
The National Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University named the Energy Express program one of the nation's best summer learning programs in 2009.
In addition, children in the program receive family-style nutritious breakfast and lunch. Mentors in the program eat meals with the children, make family visits and assist with a community service project.
"Our activities help create a special bond between the mentor and the children," said Alicia Cassels, literacy and academic success specialist with WVU's Extension Service. "This program is designed to help shape the lives of the children who the mentors serve, but in the process, we find that the mentors often have a life-changing experience, too."
The community coordinator is responsible for recruiting volunteers to assist Energy Express children during reading, writing, art, drama and non-competitive recreation activities.
Other community coordinator duties include raising awareness and involving the community and family members in children's learning. Each community coordinator will also complete a community service project with other Energy Express AmeriCorps members.
"Energy Express is about impacting children's lives, but it also has a huge impact on the lives of the volunteers," Cassels said. "When community members work together to help children succeed it makes for a better experience, and we depend on our community coordinators to help us build those relationships."
In return for their 300 hours of service, AmeriCorps mentors and community coordinators receive a $1,850 summer living allowance and a $1,175 Segal AmeriCorps Education Award valid for up to seven years to pay for college tuition or loans. AmeriCorps' Energy Express mentors must be at least 18 years of age before June 7. Community coordinators must also be 18 years of age by June 7.
Applications for both positions are available online at www.energyexpress.wvu.edu, or by calling 304-293-3855. The selection process begins March 1. Applications are accepted until all positions are filled. | <urn:uuid:3e88beb0-4ad9-4f99-bbc4-435b0a086814> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/557796/Energy-Express-seeks-mentors.html?nav=5056 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945903 | 707 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Dozens of unemployed people will work as “ward service assistants” at three West Midlands hospitals, in which they help feed patients and clean wards.
The government-backed work experience scheme is set to be introduced across Sandwell and West Birmingham hospitals trust following a successful pilot scheme.
On Monday night, unions criticised the move as “health care on the cheap” amid fears it showed a “worrying glimpse of the future”.
But the hospital defended the scheme, insisting jobseekers were not replacing staff who provided clinical care to patients.
Participants did not carry out any duties requiring nursing training but instead gained “valuable health care experience”.
The eight-week pilot scheme was operated at Sandwell Hospital, West Bromwich, in which where six unemployed people helped with with the care for patients on wards.
The jobseekers helped with general tidying, welcoming visitors, serving drinks to patients, running errands and reading to patients.
Officials insisted all six participants were subjected to checks by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and underwent two weeks of training at Sandwell College.
The group, identified by the red T-shirts, helped make “hot and cold drinks for patients”, helped feed them and collected medication from the hospital pharmacy.
They also helped with “general tidying, such as straightening up magazines on a bedside table or hanging up a dressing gown”. The scheme comes as the Trust attempts to find £125m worth of budget savings over the coming five years.
“Now the hospital is making moves to deliver health care on the cheap, by using people on work experience to help with patient care,” said Ravi Subramanian, the head of the Unison union in the West Midlands.
“Patients and staff will rightly be very worried about the standard of patient care as this scheme is rolled out.”
A Trust spokesman denied jobseekers were involved in “nursing or health care assistant roles” but instead “helped support patients through their hospital experience”.
“The project gave participants the opportunity to gain confidence, training and experience, under supervision,” she said.
“The pilot is now complete and, after further consultation with trade unions and managers, we are aiming to run similar programmes across our three hospitals and make a difference to the lives of local unemployed people, by giving them an opportunity to gain valuable health care experience.”
Pauline Jones, Account Manager at Jobcentre Plus, added that two of the participants were offered jobs outside the hospital following their placement. | <urn:uuid:8e707f78-62ff-424a-af50-25b5b9683a2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9280695/Jobseekers-NHS-patient-care-scheme-health-care-on-the-cheap.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962392 | 544 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Useful Tips on How to Approach the CSSLP
BackBy Ken Wagner —I’m working as a senior software engineer in Java/J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) technology. I have more than five years of experience in software development life cycle (SDLC) and more than three years in secure software development. I’m planning to do a certification in Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP), but can’t find any related material. Could you guide me to tutorials or a study guide and provide more details regarding this certification, such as registration, preparation and so on?
(ISC)2’s CSSLP is one of the few security certifications available for people involved with the software life cycle. Like the SSCP (Systems Security Certified Practitioner) and the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), it consists of seven domains aimed specifically at software, analysis and design.
There are several study resources available, and I always recommend using more than just one.
To start, the following books can serve as a good resource: The CSSLP Prep Guide: Mastering the Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional by Ronald Krutz and Alexander Fry and the Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CSSLP by Mano Paul (due out soon).
For computer-based training, consider the CSSLP Certification Training Video Course on CD from CBT Planet. For class-based training, there are the seven-day boot camps from training providers like Firebrand as well as the 2010 CBK Review Seminars.
However, the first place to look for information on and register for the CSSLP would be (ISC)2’s own Web site.
Keep in mind that once you gain the CSSLP credential, it doesn’t stop there. According to (ISC)2: “Recertification is required every three years, with ongoing requirements to maintain your credentials in good standing. This is primarily accomplished through earning 90 continuing professional education (CPE) credits every three years, with a minimum of 15 CPEs earned each year after certification. CSSLPs must also pay an annual maintenance fee of USD 100 per year.”
One thing I’d like to point out is that you need to get endorsed by another (ISC)2 member in order to gain the full (ISC)2 credential. You can get endorsed by (ISC)2 directly; however, the process is comparable to being audited.
Put it on your to-do list to check out prices for the (ISC)2 exams. There are two prices: early and standard. Early registration applies to registration and payment received 16 days prior to the exam date and is $50 cheaper.
One other thing to keep in mind is that beginning this year, Pearson VUE will be offering (ISC)2 exams starting with the CSSLP; the rest will be phased in over the next three years.
Viewed 8681 times. | <urn:uuid:0d5806ba-c429-4514-a165-d333fe20e19a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.certmag.com/print.php?in=3942 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939597 | 612 | 1.65625 | 2 |
This Present Darkness
This Present Darkness is a 1986 novel, written by Frank E. Peretti. It is his first novel, and details the interactions between heavenly beings (angels and demons) in the small northwestern town of Ashton. It has been widely praised and criticized by many; however, most of the criticisms are based on personal opinions rather than biblical evidence.
The title of the book is derived from Ephesians 6:12: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
The plot involves the spiritual fight between angels and demons. The main antagonist in the novel is the New Age movement, which is the demons' method of decieving the people of Ashton—and later the world. The main characters are Bernice Krueger (reporter for the town's newspaper, the Clarion), Marshall Hogan (the editor and owner of the Clarion), and Hank Busche (pastor of the Ashton Community Church).
The story begins on the night of the Ashton Summer Festival. Bernice Krueger takes a photograph of several mysterious people (later revealed to be several of the villains). She is arrested thereafter on false charges of prostitution and jailed. Marshall Hogan, her boss, visits her the next morning to try to bail her out. The chief of police, Alf Brummel, claims that it was all a "misunderstanding"; Marshall leaves without believing, and later discovers that his daughter Sandy's college professor is teaching Eastern mysticism.
When he is arrested on false rape charges, he meets with the pastor of the local community church, Hank Busche, who was also arrested on false rape charges. The two, after talking, discover that the Omni Corporation, a mysterious organization that bought the college, is trying to take over the town. The next morning they are let out, the FBI is contacted, and the heads of the Omni Corporation are arrested. A wave of demons that had settled over the town is driven away, and their leader, Rafar, is destroyed. | <urn:uuid:a972bc2a-c4d3-4f28-925a-d5cbccc65a8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservapedia.com/This_Present_Darkness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972552 | 435 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Whether is it's a tweet from a colleague or a face pile on a site, social proof can be a wildly effective form of marketing. But like all marketing, the effect can vary greatly for a number of reasons.
In this week's Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses different ways to approach your social proof and tactics to increase the potential conversion rate by increasing the specificity of your efforts.
What do you do to enhance your social proof? Has anything really worked great for you? Share and discuss in the comments below!
"Howdy SEOmoz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to talk a little bit about the power of social proof. Now social proof is a psychological, like behavioral psychology type of phenomenon whereby human beings are interested in what other human beings are doing, and by showing that other humans are interested in something or are taking some activity, you can actually encourage people to take that same activity.
It's not that we're all sheep or lemmings. It's just that we like each other. We tend to follow each other. We tend to be interested in and remember the behaviors of those around us.
This gets used all the time in inbound marketing and web marketing all over the place. You can see this, for example, in search results. Think when you perform a search on Google and you see all those star ratings, and it's been rated by this many people, and it's 4.5 out of 5 stars. Now they've got the Zagat ratings and local. They have product ratings. You can see the number of times that someone has +1'd something, so it will say, "This is +1'd by 3000, 4000 people." There will be their profiles on the right-hand side. Google is clearly doing this.
You can see this in Yelp and Urbanspoon, places like that, that rate local restaurants. You can see this in all sorts of places that rate hardware, rate software, rate anything. You can see this on a lot of people's websites, where they've got the Facepile widget installed, and they show the faces of people like you who have subscribed. If you're logged into Facebook, they'll show you, "Oh well, Rand, your friends, Mike and Adam and Sally, they've all subscribed to this email newsletter." All right. Great. Or they've liked this brand on Facebook.
This sort of social proof stuff is used all over the place, and primarily the activity that you're trying to drive toward is some type of conversion. You're trying to get someone to engage in an activity like share something socially, like something, +1 something, click on something, or you're trying to actually get them to convert. But social proof has varying degrees of effectiveness, and that's what I wanted to talk about a little bit today.
There's been a lot of research into this area and a lot of interesting tests performed online. I might try and cite some of those in the link here or on the page here or maybe in the comments below. You can see this type of varying effectiveness. So saying something like, and you'll see this on the front of a lot of websites or on their landing pages, where they'll say, "40,000 small businesses use GetListed.org." Or you might see, what's a good example? Box.net has something where they say, "92% of Fortune 500s use Box. Why aren't you? You should give us a try." That kind of thing.
What's essentially being said here is, "Lots of other people use us. Therefore, this is a good data point to indicate that we're reliable and trustworthy and we're popular." Usually even better than this generic is when you get much more specific. There's been a lot of good research to this effect. So, "141 restaurants in Portland, Oregon use GetListed to manage their online listings and SEO." Oh, well, if I have entered my information and GetListed knows that I'm a restaurant in Portland, Oregon, wow. This essentially says to me that may not be nearly as many as the 40,000 number, but this says, "People like me. My peers, my equals are doing the same thing. They're using this product. Therefore, this must be a good product." In fact, this proves out to be, generally speaking, much more effective in converting than the generic ones, and the more specific you get, the better it gets.
We talked about the Facepile widget saying, "141 restaurants in Portland, Oregon, etc., and your friends." Then these are your friends that are logged in from Facebook or from LinkedIn or Google+, whatever it is. These people in your network, especially if you've already done an email connect of some kind, and you can show who those people are, now this is very, very effective. You might be saying, "Well, okay, but this is a pretty specific use case. You've got to have a lot of information about somebody before you would be able to say, even the specificity of this, although you can get pretty specific if you know who your target customer is." Including the Facepile or something like that gets much harder because you have to get someone to log in with a social network, provide those details. Facepile, obviously, if they're already logged in, you get it automatically, but this actually works tremendously well for social networking itself.
One of the things that we do here at Moz is we look at multi-touch attribution, and we look at where people have seen us and those types of things. We can actually see with some effectiveness that a lot of people, who eventually take a free trial of Moz or make a purchase or those kinds of things, have seen us, been exposed to us on a social network. In fact, they probably followed a link to us from a social network, often Twitter, at one point or another in their buying cycle, which by the way is usually about seven visits long.
In here, there's a lot of social proof in social networks themselves. If you've seen several people in your network mention a brand or a product or a place or a person, you are much more likely to think positively and to have a brand memory of that place. Seeing tweets like, "I just used GetListed to check my local listings," and you see that from two or three of your friends, and the funny thing that happens here is that people, who are exposed to just a few messages from close inside their network, often have a belief that a product is much more popular than people who see messages like this saying, "40,000 small businesses."
The fact that it's in my network, "oh well, if two people in my network mention it, it must be a huge product." As opposed to, "Well, it could just be that it's doing really well in your network." This isn't the psychological belief that we tend to have as people. So this can be very effective. Hence, social media as a branding tool becomes very effective for providing social proof.
Then perhaps not surprisingly, one of the really interesting ones to me, this is in offline use, but in person, if you are out with a group of folks, let's say you're at a conference or an event or a dinner or something like that and someone says, "Oh, have you heard about GetListed.org? They're a great site to do these local listings," and someone else at the event says, "Yeah, they're awesome." These people who have never heard of it before will actually have the most positive impression and the highest likelihood to have a positive brand memory because that in person social behavior is so incredibly powerful.
We have to assume that they're actually going to remember it and that they'll have a brand association from that memory. But this in person stuff is the most powerful one. This is, in fact, why you will see . . . I think there was some great research done. I can't remember exactly the book. I'll try and pull it up. There's some great research done about online auctions versus in person auctions and why Christie's and Sotheby's continue to do auctions, a lot of expensive places, charity auctions, continue to get people together in person. It's because our social behavior and the power of social proof in person, when we're standing together next to each other and hearing from each other, is so much more powerful, and that turns up the dial on what people are willing to spend, how high they're willing to bid, and therefore all the big art auctions and charity auctions and these kinds of things still do in person because the web is not yet providing the same power of social proof as a psychological behavioral modifier that you see in these other ones.
Still I think these can be tremendously effective for your marketing efforts. I would urge you to try these out, if you're not already, on your landing pages, in the search results that you're trying to get, in your social media efforts, in your email subscriptions. Social proof, a very, very powerful tactic.
All right, everyone. Hope you've enjoyed this edition of Whiteboard Friday. We'll see you again next week. Take care."
SEOmoz doesn't provide consulting, but our friends at Distilled still do. Rock on!
Copyright © 1996-2013 SEOmoz. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:9b3b9848-8c94-49d3-907e-5913ab59209f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-varying-effectiveness-of-social-proof-whiteboard-friday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974241 | 1,961 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Danish authorities have blamed the crash-landing of an SAS Bombardier Q400 aircraft Saturday in Copenhagen on a landing gear problem different from one that caused two earlier crashes.
Last weekend’s crash along with two similar SAS incidents in September caused SAS to remove the Q400 from its fleet permanently. See the crash video here.
Authorities say that a preliminary investigation shows the landing gear failure in the most recent crash was not caused by the corrosion of a bolt that led to the September crashes.
That report shows a rubber O-ring blocked an orifice in the landing gear preventing the gear from extending fully.
The twin-engine turboprop plane’s right landing gear never extended much beyond the wheelwell where it was stowed in flight, so when the plane landed, the aircraft tipped toward the right until the right wingtip struck the ground. No passengers or crew members were seriously injured.
Other airlines flying the Q400, including SeaTac’s Horizon Air,have kept their Q400s flying after the latest incident on the advice of the plane’s manufacturer. Horizon has 33 Q400s and 15 more on order.
The two previous incidents triggered a worldwide grounding of the aircraft while they underwent inspections.
Horizon canceled hundreds of flights but found no significant problems with its Q400s. | <urn:uuid:d882a108-0ceb-4bd3-9c55-71b6dc74cbff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.thenewstribune.com/business/2007/10/31/bombardier-crash-landing-has-different-cause/2009/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944217 | 273 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Don't mention the bugged wheelie bins
Technology roll-outs can sometimes prompt surprising reactions, but few can have been more extreme than last week's media frenzy about schemes using RFID tags to help measure and record household waste.
"Germans plant bugs in our wheelie bins," screamed one tabloid headline, as if our European partners were enacting some clandestine plot to achieve world domination by looting our leftovers.
The lesson is, no matter how innocuous and helpful technology may seem, if its introduction could be construed as secret or underhand in any way, then someone will be up in arms about it.
Particularly if the supplier comes from a country that fought us in two world wars and (England, at any rate) in a handful of keenly contested football matches.
Don't misbehave - we have your fingerprints
Pioneering London comprehensive Holland Park School has long had a reputation for progressive, liberal schooling, which makes its plan to trial fingerprinting every pupil in an effort to track attendance more than a little baffling.
The school seems set on the £4,500 system, which will see electronic pads installed outside every classroom and children signing in to lessons by placing their index finger on the pad.
The school and the local Kensington & Chelsea Council have so far brushed off all concerns about human rights, data protection and the like - as well as students' worries that it will make them feel like criminals.
Downtime plans to keep a watchful eye on this one. And of course, in the unlikely event that Computer Weekly is required reading at Holland Park School, we would love to hear your views.
Health service bargain hunters head for Zanzibar
Downtime cannot help feeling that the high-profile first purchases on government agency OGCbuying.solutions' new e-procurement hub, known as Zanzibar, did not quite have the right big-savings-from-cutting-edge-technology message.
London NHS hospital trust St Mary's was the first to take the plunge with the new system, which is designed to cut procurement costs across the public sector.
And what, you might wonder, were the first transactions that will in time save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds? Well, since you ask, St Mary's bought three nurses' tunics for £20.
Just how many cut-price tunics does it take to pay for a government e-procurement hub? A fair few, wethinks.
It seems mobile phones also have long memories
Hot on the heels of warnings from the BBC about the perils of dumping our PCs without getting them professionally wiped first, it now seems mobile phones should come with the same health warning.
To make the point, security firm Trust Digital bought 10 phones on eBay and claims to have used widely available software to resurrect more than 27,000 pages of documents from just these devices.
Among the messages uncovered was a racy exchange between a married man and a woman where he warns that his wife is getting suspicious and they need to cool it for a bit. In a less gossipy but more troubling vein, another phone contained information on one firm's plans to win a multimillion-pound government transportation contract, and yet another offered up bank account and password details.
"We found a mountain of personal and corporate data," said Trust Digital CEO Nick Magliato, whose firm may or may not have a vested interest in getting us all worried.
Contribute to Downtime: If you have a funny IT-related story, we want to hear from you. [email protected]
Vote for your IT greats
Who have been the most influential people in IT in the past 40 years? The greatest organisations? The best hardware and software technologies? As part of Computer Weekly’s 40th anniversary celebrations, we are asking our readers who and what has really made a difference?
Vote now at: www.computerweekly.com/ITgreats | <urn:uuid:ed9dadf7-14de-4712-8d81-7039e79eb3f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240062181/Downtime-Dont-mention-the-bugged-wheelie-bins | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958452 | 827 | 1.5 | 2 |
Although social media are still hyped as the “new frontier” of marketing, your organization may be starting to get a little...disenchanted with them.
Maybe your Facebook fan page has stagnated at 150 members, and nobody ever shares your posts. Maybe you try to reach out to your followers on Twitter, but no one ever replies. Maybe you looked at Google+ or Pinterest, even created circles or boards, but you can’t figure out how it will help your organization’s bottom line.
Maybe social media are not all that they’re cracked up to be.
Understanding social media
Perhaps this is an overly negative assessment of social media marketing. But it reflects the frustrations that many organizations experience. The free and direct connections to consumers—as well as the overzealous opinions of well-meaning bloggers and “gurus”—have created the impression that social media marketing is easy.
This perception of ease has masked an important fact: Success on social media is similar to any other kind of marketing—if you don’t have a clear understanding of your goals, you’ll never feel like you get results.
Once you define your goals, it becomes easier to plan an approach that will lead to success. Most organizations have a tangible goal that they are trying to achieve, like a donation or a purchase. However, in order to be successful on social media, you cannot jump directly to “the ask.”
Social media users are not on the Internet exclusively for the purpose of buying. They are looking for entertainment and connections—perhaps with their family and friends, or people who share common interests. They may be looking for information, but are only sporadically interested in making a purchase. As a result, if you frequently post hard-sell content, your fans and followers will be more likely to ignore you—or stop following you entirely.
The marketing funnel
The marketing funnel has long been considered the ultimate guide to the buying process. Potential customers seemed to move smoothly through a linear flow—from awareness and interest, to evaluation and purchase, then on to a committed relationship with the brand, repeat purchases, and referrals.
Although this loyal consumer is still highly desirable, the marketing funnel and its assumption of a linear buying process is no longer considered reliable. In an article for Forbes magazine, Steven Noble of Forrester Research discussed the challenges facing brands today, writing that “marketing has grown increasingly complicated over the past decade, media choices have exploded, and consumers have asserted themselves more visibly than ever before. So it's no surprise the funnel struggles to account for many of these new realities.”
In place of the marketing funnel, Noble proposed the consumer life cycle, reflecting the fact that changing needs and experiences will inevitably lead to changing buying patterns. Other writers have used the analogies of a maze, or a neural network—metaphors that reflect the different paths now available to a consumer making a buying decision.
The 5 types of social media content
Whether you prefer the metaphors of funnels, mazes or neurons, the Internet in general—and social media in particular—has changed the way organizations reach an audience with their products, services and ideas. However, the stages laid out in the original marketing funnel remain basically the same, even if consumers no longer follow them in a recognizable pattern.
These stages are guidelines for the types of content that we should be sharing on social media. Each type of content serves a different marketing goal, but at its heart, each goal is about building relationships with your audience, because those relationships are what will make “the ask” for you.
- Awareness content. If your customers don’t know that they need a product or a service, they won’t buy it. Awareness content is all about education, and you need to talk about subjects that are bigger than your organization alone. What general topics might your readers need to understand in order to become interested in what you offer?
- Evaluation content. Evaluation is often blended with awareness content, because it takes the same principle and gets a little bit more specific. How have people who used this product or service benefited from it? Highlight positive outcomes—again, in general terms—and provide tools that help them determine if they want those outcomes too.
- Engagement content. On any social network, content that is not shared will stagnate quickly. That is why engagement is such an important goal for social media—you want consumers to talk with you and with each other so that you can increase your reach and build relationships. Remember—sometimes all it takes to increase engagement is to ask for it.
- Decision content. Most of the time, social media content should reflect the first three categories on this list. But it is important to show why you are unique, too—that’s why you share content that gives your fans and followers a reason to choose you over your competition. Decision content can include testimonials, links to your blog, or new portfolio pieces.
- Purchase content. Once in a while, it’s not a bad idea to highlight your specific products, services or ideas—especially if you can offer an incentive! Use social media to highlight special offers and regular promotions, and if you have a new offering that you’re excited about, don’t be afraid to share in moderation.
When you do social media right—mixing in important elements like humor, emotion and great graphics—another type of content will emerge naturally over the course of time. This highly desirable advocacy content originates with your fans and followers, who spread the word for you. Social media make it easy for customers to provide advocacy content, but it is the responsibility of each brand to earn their trust and readership with posts that reflect both marketing objectives and consumer needs.
Carolyn Capern is the co-founder and communication director of CT Social in Orlando, Florida. She looks forward to socializing with you through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or Pinterest. | <urn:uuid:0d3a3f14-edaa-4d57-9007-d98f68b49981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2013/0313/Capern.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946656 | 1,239 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Reviewed by Travis (age 9)
Then, Sunday afternoon, before they were going home, a boy in the family made Henry skis and poles. Then Henry remembered his mouse. When he came back out, they were gone.
Then, Henry grabbed his skis and poles and went on his way. He went over hills, through valleys, and over frozen streams and brooks. When he entered the woods, he saw something - a coyote!
The coyote chased Henry into a field. The snow was deep. The coyote stopped. It was dark. Henry slipped into the road. There was a car coming! Read the book to find out what happens to Henry.
Cross-Country Cat reminds me of my cat, Spazz. When Spazz would run, his front paws would go off the ground a little. Then he would move his head when he heard music.
My favorite character is Henry. He doesn't think a lot. He just goes and does something. Henry does not like to be left behind, so he takes matters into his own hands.
My favorite part is in the woods where Henry meets a coyote. It was very dramatic! When he was in the woods being chased by a coyote in the book, he looked like he was going to hit a tree.
I recommend this book to kids of any age. Kids who like adventures that are about animals and people will like this book. | <urn:uuid:e717201b-9f61-4190-8f36-d29b8b9c5460> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spaghettibookclub.org/review.php?review_id=9025 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993112 | 294 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The world is getting automated more quickly than we think—and when the robots take over it will throw our capital-labor balance out of whack and decimate the middle class:
"Until a decade ago, the share of total national income going to workers was pretty stable at around 70 percent, while the share going to capital—mainly corporate profits and returns on financial investments—made up the other 30 percent. More recently, though, those shares have started to change. Slowly but steadily, labor's share of total national income has gone down, while the share going to capital owners has gone up. The most obvious effect of this is the skyrocketing wealth of the top 1 percent, due mostly to huge increases in capital gains and investment income."
PUBLISHED: May 14, 2013
LENGTH: 17 minutes (4423 words)
Picks this week from Mother Jones, Slate, Grantland, The Washington Post, Film Comment, The Paris Review, and a guest pick by The Boston Globe's Baxter Holmes.
Deinstitutionalization moved thousands of mentally ill people out of hospitals and into the prison system. States are cutting mental-health funding. A look at America's mental health care crisis:
"'Homelessmentallyilldeinstitutionalized was one noun in the media at the time,' says SAMHSA's Roth, who is the source of the oft-cited data point that a third of America's homeless people are seriously mentally ill (helping to rebut the misconception then that they all were). In 1984, Dr. John A. Talbott, then president of the American Psychiatric Association, apologized for the association's role in the disaster. 'The psychiatrists involved in the policymaking at that time certainly oversold community treatment,' he said, 'and our credibility today is probably damaged because of it.'
"'Think of it as haircuts,' says Roth, who watched deinstitutionalization unfold in her 37 years as chief of evaluation and research at the Ohio Department of Mental Health. 'In the age of the great gothic castle on the hill, mentally ill patients had everything taken care of. Health care, sleeping, eating, etc. When they got out, they were supposed to have everything. They got Medicare and Medicaid, but [policymakers] didn't think about food. And haircuts. Clothes. How to find a place to live.' How to do laundry; how to grocery shop. How to ensure people who need meds take them. What to do with people who had too many behavioral problems to avoid being evicted six times in a row."
PUBLISHED: April 29, 2013
LENGTH: 33 minutes (8317 words)
A collection of stories from Salon, Jane, The New Yorker, New York Times and more.
PUBLISHED: March 30, 2013
LENGTH: 3 minutes (996 words)
A look at mental illness and the death penalty:
"The doctor would later testify that Andre was 'really mentally ill,' as if to stress that this wasn't just your run-of-the-mill crazy person. And then there was this detail from the physician's records: "Thomas," he wrote, "is psychotic. He thinks something like Holodeck on Star Trek is happening to him." If you don't know what that is, and there is no good reason you should, a holodeck is a simulated reality facility—a place where nothing is real.
"Finally, the patient wanted to know whether he had volunteered for his life, or been forced to live it. Maybe that was the final straw. The doctor referred Andre to the hospital's mental health unit and filled out an emergency detention order to hold him against his will. But while staffers waited for a judge to sign the order, Andre simply wandered off. The hospital called the police, but there's no evidence that officers went looking for him at the home of Andre's mother or any of his other relatives. The next time they saw him, he was walking into the Sherman police station to confess to killing his family."
PUBLISHED: Feb. 12, 2013
LENGTH: 24 minutes (6080 words)
A look at the families who are not just affected by returning veterans, but display similar symptons:
"Brannan and Katie's teacher have conferenced about Katie's behavior many times. Brannan's not surprised she's picked up overreacting and yelling—you don't have to be at the Vines residence for too long to hear Caleb hollering from his room, where he sometimes hides for 18, 20 hours at a time, and certainly not if you're there during his nightmares, which Katie is. 'She mirrors…she just mirrors' her dad's behavior, Brannan says. She can't get Katie to stop picking at the sores on her legs, sores she digs into her own skin with anxious little fingers. She is not, according to Brannan, 'a normal, carefree six-year-old.'"
PUBLISHED: Jan. 17, 2013
LENGTH: 36 minutes (9091 words)
Why are violent crime rates still dropping, even during the recession? The latest evidence suggests lead—in the air, in our gasoline, in our paint—was responsible for the rise in crime in the 1960s & '70s, and the drop in the 1990s:
"And with that we have our molecule: tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive invented by General Motors in the 1920s to prevent knocking and pinging in high-performance engines. As auto sales boomed after World War II, and drivers in powerful new cars increasingly asked service station attendants to 'fill 'er up with ethyl,' they were unwittingly creating a crime wave two decades later.
"It was an exciting conjecture, and it prompted an immediate wave of...nothing. Nevin's paper was almost completely ignored, and in one sense it's easy to see why—Nevin is an economist, not a criminologist, and his paper was published in Environmental Research, not a journal with a big readership in the criminology community. What's more, a single correlation between two curves isn't all that impressive, econometrically speaking. Sales of vinyl LPs rose in the postwar period too, and then declined in the '80s and '90s. Lots of things follow a pattern like that. So no matter how good the fit, if you only have a single correlation it might just be a coincidence. You need to do something more to establish causality."
PUBLISHED: Jan. 3, 2013
LENGTH: 21 minutes (5326 words)
From The Daily Beast's David Sessions, a collection of stories on gun violence and policy in the U.S., featuring The Atlantic, Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek and Mother Jones.
Internal memos and documents show how the sugar industry worked to cover up evidence of its dangerous health effects:
"In January 1976, the GRAS committee published its preliminary conclusions, noting that while sugar probably contributed to tooth decay, it was not a 'hazard to the public.' The draft review dismissed the diabetes link as 'circumstantial' and called the connection to cardiovascular disease 'less than clear,' with fat playing a greater role. The only cautionary note, besides cavities, was that all bets were off if sugar consumption were to increase significantly. The committee then thanked the Sugar Association for contributing 'information and data.' (Tatem would later remark that while he was 'proud of the credit line...we would probably be better off without it.')
The committee's perspective was shared by many researchers, but certainly not all. For a public hearing on the draft review, scientists from the USDA's Carbohydrate Nutrition Laboratory submitted what they considered 'abundant evidence that sucrose is one of the dietary factors responsible for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.' As they later explained in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, some portion of the public—perhaps 15 million Americans at that time—clearly could not tolerate a diet rich in sugar and other carbohydrates. Sugar consumption, they said, should come down by 'a minimum of 60 percent,' and the government should launch a national campaign 'to inform the populace of the hazards of excessive sugar consumption.' But the committee stood by its conclusions in the final version of its report presented to the FDA in October 1976."
PUBLISHED: Oct. 31, 2012
LENGTH: 20 minutes (5042 words) | <urn:uuid:8fc61255-ebe3-4ce6-9b89-6c8d973cde85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://longreads.com/search/Mother%20Jones/ | 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 | 0.970199 | 1,760 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Congress’ job performance rating is 10 percent. Lawyers’ popularity stands about the same. And although there’s no official ranking for whining, entitlement-seeking aliens, I can’t image that they do better than Congress or attorneys.
So it’s no surprise that when Daniela Peleaz, a Florida high school alien student, her lawyer Nera Shefer and U.S. Representative David Rivera (D-FL.) held a Capitol Hill press conference last week, everyone ignored them.
Rivera used the occasion to introduce his tedious Studying toward Adjusted Residency Status (STARS) legislation. I say “tedious” because Rivera’s is another in a long list of DREAM Act-type bills than Democrats and Republicans have soundly defeated for more than a decade. In these turbulent months leading up to the November election, STARS has no chance —none! — of even getting to the House floor for a vote.
Peleaz, although introduced as a DREAM Act poster girl because of her good grades and valedictorian status, is instead representative of aliens for whom nothing is ever enough. To date, Peleaz has already benefited from taxpayer fully subsidized K-12 education and recently had a deportation order stayed, largely because of the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion policy. Peleaz still yearns for more. She wants you to underwrite millions of aliens’ university tuition fees.
I have extremely bad news for Peleaz, as well as for the others who advocate for illegal immigrants selfish causes. According to well-placed Capitol Hill insiders, namely Congressional legislative aides who know what’s going on behind the scenes, the agenda to promote more immigration and alien benefits is deader than a doornail.
Democratic leaders have effectively nixed a DREAM Act vote or anything remotely resembling legislation that would give citizenship to illegal alien teens that go to college or join the military. The same terminal fate awaits dozens of pending bills promoting more visas for foreign-born workers.
I’d like to report that Congress finally came to its senses to realize that rewarding illegal immigration and promoting more of if it is unfair to American citizens. And I wish I could say that Congress did that math and discovered that with only 69,000 jobs created in May, adding more overseas workers to the population hurts unemployed Americans’ job chances. Sadly, however, I must tell you what you have already probably figured out. The decision to end discussions on the DREAM Act and to authorize additional visas is—surprise, surprise—politically motivated.
The Democrats don’t have the votes. And going into November when all but the most secure congressional incumbent seats will be at risk why, the thinking goes, swim against the tide?
Ethnic identity lobbyists such as La Raza that demand liberalized immigration legislation aren’t satisfied with partial bills like the DREAM Act. Broader legislation, however, like comprehensive immigration reform means certain death for office seekers.
As for Pelaez, she’s off to Dartmouth College, a private Ivy League institution. Because of its lofty standing among elitists, I’ll wager that Dartmouth was misguidedly impressed with Pelaez’s alien status and all the hoopla surrounding her.
In case Pelaez has you buffaloed too, here’s something to consider. Every year, Dartmouth receives about 20,000 applications and rejects more than 90 percent. Since it’s expensive and time consuming, few apply to Dartmouth frivolously. Among the 19,000 rejections are thousands of qualified Americans. But in this fall’s freshman class Pelaez, an alien, will take one of their places.
©2012 Joe Guzzardi and Capsweb.org – Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact Joe at [email protected].
- The American Dream: Dead Or Alive? by Tom Purcell The American dream is dead — for…
- Message To Obama: Stop DREAM-ing And Seal The Border! by Joe Guzzardi During a decade of trying to pass…
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A digest of important news from sources selected by our local editors. Delivered weekday mornings.
Earlier this fall, when I was writing a story about MBA students starting companies, I was contacted by David Klein, who was on a leave of absence from the Wharton MBA program to work on a company that he and two other people he met in the program were starting.
The company, which is based in New York, is called CommonBond and Klein is scheduled to announce its launch this afternoon at the end of a speech he’s giving as part of Wharton’s Perspectives on Leadership series.
Klein is its CEO; Michael Taormina, who is taking a leave from attending the MBA program Wharton offers on its San Francisco campus at the end of this semester, is its chief financial officer; and Jessup Shean, who received a Wharton MBA and Penn Law JD in May, is its legal adviser. The company also has five other employees and is hiring.
CommonBond plans to use crowdsourcing to raise money from a college’s alumni base to provide education loans to the college’s current students. It intends to provide loans to more than 50 Wharton MBA students in December and expand nationally next year. The company said the loans will have a fixed rate of 6.24 percent and the alumni who supply the money for the loans can expect an annual return of more than 4 percent on their investments.
CommonBond has raised $3.5 million — $2.5 million from alumni to fund loans and $1 million from a super angel to fund its operations.
Peter covers education, energy, labor, technology and venture capital.
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Ken Starr vs. transsexual in Prop 8 case
Posted on March 4, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized
Kenneth Starr and Shannon Minter, lead attorneys in the California Supreme Court case that will decide the fate of same-sex marriage in the state, are as different as the competing sides they represent.
Starr, dean of Pepperdine University School of Law, is best known for leading the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern.
Since then, the former federal judge and U.S. solicitor general has dedicated himself to conservative causes, including writing briefs for the Mormon church in a previous gay marriage case in California.
Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, is a transsexual who spent his first 35 years as a female. He was a lead counsel in the state Supreme Court case decided last May that allowed same-sex couples to marry, a ruling that was reversed in November when voters approved Proposition 8.
Starr and Minter will square off Thursday in the most closely watched California Supreme Court hearing in a generation. They’re set to deliver oral arguments in three suits in which supporters of gay marriage contend that Proposition 8, which limits marriage to a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.
Minter, 48, representing gay rights groups, will be the first attorney to address the court in San Francisco. Starr, 62, will deliver the final arguments on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign.
California Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments in Prop 8 Legal Challenge on March 5
Legal Groups, City of West Hollywood to Host Viewing of Oral Arguments in Proposition 8 Challenge
California gay rights timeline
Equality California Launches Statewide TV Ad Campaign on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Movement | <urn:uuid:dccb4ed5-ba16-4f20-acbc-d4552f3fcf3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pinknews.co.uk/aroundtheworld/2009/03/ken-starr-vs-transsexual-in-prop-8-case/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93797 | 367 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Roger Dean (born August 31, 1944) is a visual artist who has been responsible for the majority of Yes album covers and stage designs.
Designing for Yes Edit
The first Yes album that Dean designed was Fragile (1971). The year after that, he also designed Close To The Edge. The beautiful green textured cover with the new Yes logo contrasted so starkly with the inside picture where everything was literally "close to the edge". Then in May 1973 Yessongs was released with the four Roger Dean paintings that continued the story commenced on Fragile.
It was around the period of Yessongs that Roger Dean felt that he had developed a good relationship with the band. He joined them for a period on the Close to the Edge tour and was with them in Japan when the early seeds for the Tales From Topographic Oceans album were sown. The design of the cover involved a lot of consultation with the band, particularly Jon Anderson. As Roger has stated, "With Tales From Topographic Oceans [cover], we talked for hours about it."
This closeness to Yes led to Roger’s first stage-set design for the Topographic Oceans tour that commenced in England in November 1973. As noted in Dean’s book, "Views", the initial stage used on the English tour was incomplete, in part due to the smallness of the English theatres. Also, the sculptural forms used were only the patterns from which the molds were cast for the final stage used in the American tour that commenced in February 1974.
In looking at the reviews of this English tour on Peter Whipple’s Forgotten Yesterdays website, it is notable that the only mention of the stage-set is a quote from Chris Welch where he mentions the "elaborate drum rostrum", so clearly it was in rudimentary form at this point.
Indeed, it was the Tales tour of North America in 1974 that really announced Roger Dean’s broader involvement with the group. Roger commented on this, "We did a lot of stuff on that tour that had never been done before and I mean the stage was one obvious thing. My brother (Martyn) did most of that. He supervised a lot of design and building of that stage. I think the band was very willing and very interested in experimenting and I went and talked to them about wouldn’t it be good to do it. They thought it would be great, so we did."
The final castings used on the American tour were composed of thin translucent fibreglass that was lit inside and out. Martyn designed and built the drum rostrum that was the centre of the stage, while Roger designed the doorway, the backcloth and organ pipes.
On Forgotten Yesterdays, the first mention of the stage-set is from the Roanoke concert on February 12 where Edward Kyle reports, "The fiberglass set pieces were jewel-like and beautiful but I was surprised to see 'idiot cards' with handwritten lyrics to the Tales suites taped to all the green 'rocks' at the front of the stage." Another comment taken from Forgotten Yesterdays from the second Madison Square Gardens concert on February 20th ‘The stage was done in huge chunks of floating "earth" (papier machete) like the album cover art. Wakeman was inside a huge dinosaur skeleton rib cage that glowed orange! White was on a rotating drum platform that spun around during his solo!’ Bill Pate, also reporting on Forgotten Yesterdays, describes the Pittsburgh show. ‘….Yes emerged from a huge pink conch shell onto a fog-shrouded "underwater" stage. Monitors covered to look like mossy rocks pulsed an eerie green. Manta ray wings in the canopy above White's Ludwigs flapped back and forth. Smoke issued from the spine of a whale's rib cage guarding Rick's Moogs, mellos, RMIs, Hammonds and grand piano.’ Another dramatic report from the March 5th Bloomington, Minnesota concert by Kevin. ‘At the climax of Ritual, White began the frenetic percussion, joined by Steve, Chris, and Jon on other percussive instruments (John played timpani if I remember correctly). As the pace built, the set "came alive". The "tentacles" of lights began to writhe up and down..... the lights within the set pieces began to strobe, flash, and move in a swirl of greens, reds, and blues. Smoke (dry ice) began to pour forth out onto the stage from behind White's kit. There were (sic) a pair of "pods" over White's kit that began to "unfold" like wings and began to "flutter" amid the lights and smoke. The entire set seemed alive and breathing with movement as the percussion pounded.’ But the stage-set was only a part of the Roger Dean contribution to that tour. As Roger commented, ‘we also did something afterwards, that’d not been done before. We organised tour merchandising across the whole of the United States. Up to that date, all of the different promoters organised their own tour merchandising and sometimes it would look awful and sometimes it would look absolutely bloody awful. It rarely looked good. And we did it not so much for commercial reasons but more for an aesthetic reason, you know, to help identify the band and give consistency to that. But, in fact, it turned out to work incredibly well commercially as well. We designed everything. You know, T-shirts, posters, tour books. Prior to that, all kinds of different people had produced different things and it was random and appalling.’ He went on to say ‘I organised a lot of the shipping. We flew out two tons of paper at one point. We were sending out shipments by air every other day. This was not only commercially successful, but it set a standard for future rock tours. In addition, Roger noted that ‘the two guys who went over there and did the actual selling.….were the core that became Brockum which became a $400 million company. That was their first foray into the States and went on to become a huge merchandising giant.’
After the Topographic Oceans tour and the departure of Rick Wakeman from the group, the sets were modified to accommodate Patrick Moraz for the first leg of the North American Relayer tour that commenced in November 1974 and for the spring tour of the UK in 1975. These can be seen on the Live at QPR DVD. The second leg of the North American tour in 1975 had a new stage-set designed by Martyn Dean and built by him and Cliff Richardson in just three weeks. Roger Dean designed the backdrop, which featured sharp black rocks in silhouette with a tree in green and scarlet that was made by Felicity Youette. Many Yesfans are unaware that two different stage-sets were used during the Relayer tour and a number of reviewers on ‘Forgotten Yesterdays’ have clearly got their tours mixed up. The 1975 stage-set has been described as the ‘barnacle stage’ with huge immobile shapes spread across the back of the stage that had colours that ran and changed from reds to greens to resemble marine life. Some have commented that they looked more like tulips than barnacles. Indeed, the construction team noted this just before the tour started and they tried to rectify it at the last minute.
According to Roger Dean, the backdrop from the Relayer tour is still being stored in a barn in England. He joked that maybe it could be cut into small pieces and sold to Yesfans, though he says ‘I think nature has probably already had a go at redesigning it.’ Although the actual stage-set is not existent, Roger says ‘we have all the tools, all the molds. We don’t have the actual stage. I think Alan White had it and then he left it behind when he sold his house, and I don’t know where it is now. We could make it again.’
The final Dean stage-set for the 1970’s was for the 1976 solo tour. Again, Martyn designed the stage and Roger the backdrop. This is known as the ‘Crab Nebula stage’ and had the ‘three-headed crab’ described as follows on Forgotten Yesterdays ‘I was blown away by the three-headed monster they had that spit out a fan of green laser light. It looked great piercing the mist that filled the air. When it started to spin like a rotating hand, the music and the lights combined to lift us out of our chairs.’ Another description states ‘the set was fantastic. Steve, Jon, and Chris each had his own spotlight in an arm that came out from a central section. I remember Steve blazing away at a solo when the arm came down and the spotlight got so intense everything just became white brilliance.’ The sets were embellished by multi-coloured laser lighting, long since banned in the United States due to concerns about radiation. A third vivid description from the Jersey City show by Michael Kennedy on Forgotten Yesterdays states ‘I especially remember the visual interpretation of Relayer, how during the battle sequence, "the devil’s sermon", the outer-worldly bio mechanical crabshell-like spaceship, which was around 20 feet wide with 3 long cartilage like necks with some kind of featureless heads at the ends and hovering over the drum kit, was blasting out lazerbeams all over the stadium, into the outstretched hands of all the concert goers.’
The next Dean stage-set was for the British leg of the Drama tour in 1980. Martyn Dean designed the ‘crystal stage’ that again was built and delivered within a three-week deadline. The crystal shapes were put in two clusters behind the keyboards and drums. The crystals were lit from inside and the lighting sequences went in every direction. A lightning bolt was on the backdrop. Like the barnacle stage, the set was immobile.
On the ABWH tour of 1989 there was a minimalist Roger Dean stage-set. Bill Bruford’s drum set was mounted upon a 1½ metre high rostrum with narrow rectangular gold edged shapes that were lit. Stairs curved around either side of the drums, on one side leading to a platform for Tony Levin located behind Rick Wakeman. Fanning out behind the drum kit were numerous trapeziform shapes upon which the lights were directed. The backdrop was also of much larger trapeziform shapes that spread out like the outer layers of a fan. Rick’s keyboards were fronted by narrow vertical triangular shapes upon which various lighting effects were used. All of this can be seen to good effect on the ABWH video/DVD ‘An evening of Yes music plus’.
These Dean stage-sets lived in Yes memory and for years many fans hoped that it might all happen again. So when rumours started to appear that there would be a Roger Dean stage set for the 2004 35th Anniversary tour, excitement mounted everywhere. I asked Roger about how it came about and he said ‘I first talked to the band about that in Sydney and Melbourne (on the 2003 Full Circle tour). I talked to them in much more detail in Hawaii in September (the following week). The band has been very enthusiastic and supportive and apparently so have the management’.
The US$ 4million dollar set consisted of five stage-based white inflatable structures colloquially known by the crew as the dog, the rooster, the chicken, the toupe, and the lilo, with a further inflatable (‘the crab’) flown above the stage. Various multicoloured shapes were painted on the inflatables that appeared with UV lighting. In addition they were equipped to have internal lights. I asked Roger what had been the inspiration for the design. ‘So much stuff, as a matter of fact, and going back so far too. The shapes really, in a way, are much more obvious than they seem. A lot of people think that these things are really abstract and they give them names, for example, the contracts with the manufacturers for the pipes for the things behind Rick, they call them ferns because they think it looks like a fern. In fact they really are just sort of wildly enthusiastic organ pipes, if you like organic organ pipes, you know the kind of inspiration from the instruments themselves. The shapes behind Steve kind of evolved from way, way back. If you go and look at Yessongs, which was the first album cover I did for the band playing live, there is a kind of giant city structure in the background and it is a shape that I have played with. It appeared in Yesshows and again in a different version in the Yesyears packages. I should say that it would be cool to build something like that. I played with a lot of other shapes and ideas and sculptural forms, and this is not meant to be a city, it is meant to be, I don’t know, somewhere between a desert rose, a cactus and coral in its form. The idea really was to, and I’ve done it before, make shapes of things that look like something. You look at it and think ‘Oh yeah, that’s like whatever it is’, but it doesn’t look abstract, it doesn’t look unintentional. It looks like it has a right to be, but it isn’t actually anything that you can pin down.
According to Roger Dean, the Alan White piece was conceived as ‘a giant robotic entity playing bass drums so they’re digitally slaves to Alan’s foot. So what he plays with his feet, they play. Otherwise they kind of look like robotic drum kits.’ The robo drums were translucent fibreglass that had internal lighting. Four drums were mounted either side of the actual drum kit on an armature.
Chris and Jon did not have any designs behind them. As Roger explained ‘Well basically the very pragmatic way of looking at the stage is that Alan and Rick are fixed. Wherever they are they are. Their equipment ties them down. They can get up and walk about but they can’t get up and walk about with their equipment. The other three are very free on the stage. They can go anywhere they like and the shape behind Steve isn’t really connected to Steve. It’s just that it’s balancing the stage. So the only two that I have designed something specifically for them are Alan and Rick, as I say they are in a fixed position on the stage. They don’t perform at the front edge of the stage. They are hidden by their equipment to a large degree. So I just decided to make much more of that space they were in and evolve shapes and forms from their equipment. But the other three are free as it were, they move around. So really the rest of the stage is making an environment where they can all be and perform. It is like going from a Yes stage to a Yes world.’
Unfortunately, when the first North American leg of the tour commenced in Seattle in April 2004, the stage-set was incomplete. Much of the internal lighting was missing so that the lighting effects were muted. There were mixed reviews from fans but one comment frequently made was that it was much more effective further back in the audience. Up close, the inflatables simply looked like inflatables.
I first saw the set at Wembley on the second leg of the tour. The stage was shrouded with a curtain that only lifted during the Firebird Suite and then we caught our first glimpse of the stage set. We were quite away back and from a distance it was extremely impressive with the different lighting effects The stage-set had been further refined since the US tour. At the climax of each half of the show – during ‘Yours is no disgrace’ and ‘Ritual’ – large ‘flames’ appear around the stage – a really incredible appearance seen to best effect at the drum/percussion section of Ritual with deep red/orange lighting. The ‘flameboys’ were a metal box with an internal fan that blew silken flames of 2-3 metres in height. Two of them were located in ornamental pots on the front of the stage, the rest were at the backline. I was then fortunate to see their last two shows in the US at Concord and Universal on the second North American leg. The stage set further evolved from the European leg with large signs about the height of the stage and on either side of the stage with the word PEACE written vertically in a typical Roger Dean blue script. As the show progressed the other major change was in the lighting where more lights have clearly been placed inside of the blow-up shapes and Alan's drum kit. Now the shapes and Alan's bass drum glowed from the inside and changed colour with the mood of the music - much more effective than before. Thus, by the end of the 35th Anniversary tour the stage-set had evolved to being close to Roger Dean’s original vision. Now we have to wait and find out whether this was the last Yes show with a Roger Dean stage!
- Close To The Edge
- Tales From Topographic Oceans
- Classic Yes
- Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe
- Keys To Ascension
- Keys To Ascension 2
- Open Your Eyes
- The Ladder
- House Of Yes: Live From House Of Blues
- In A Word: Yes (1969 - )
- The Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection
- The Word Is Live | <urn:uuid:9a7d37e4-eb77-4261-a9cb-6892bcd94d5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yes.wikia.com/wiki/Roger_Dean | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982772 | 3,694 | 1.585938 | 2 |
LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) has noticed with concern the reports in the US media that the Pakistan government has given a free run to the United States to conduct drone strikes in the Pakistani territory.
In a press release issued here on Monday, the party expressed its dismay at the continuing drone strikes and the contemplated increase in them.
“These strikes have not reduced militancy; in fact are a major stimulant to terrorism,” said PTI Chairman Imran Khan.
“This particular fact has even been pointed out by studies carried out by Stanford and New York University law schools. Most neutral observers have also come to a similar conclusion,” he continued.
He said in the last eight years nearly 360 strikes were carried out with a large proportion, of them over 300 during the tenure of the Obama administration. A conservative estimate, according to him, is that nearly 4,000 people were killed, including a large proportion of non-combatants, women and over 200 children. These statistics tell a story not only of tragedies for the people of FATA but why there has been a huge increase in militancy.
About continuing attacks on troops and horrendous terrorist attacks in different cities, Mr Khan said the perception that Pakistan was a partner of the US in these tragic drone strikes had hugely contributed to it.
He said the US link had provided the militants with a Jihadi narrative where they had been able to paint the struggle as between Islam and infidels. “Unless we get out of this partnership with the United States, hard core nucleus of militancy will continue to use it as a motivational tool for preparing suicide bombers. It is the suicide bombers that have resulted in the tragedy of nearly 40,000 people being martyred in Pakistan,” he said.
Drone strikes, he said, were the single most visible manifestation of the US aggression for the people of FATA and they must end.
The PTI leader lambasted the Pakistan government for not standing up for the protection of its sovereignty and becoming a “willing partner” in the carnage that was continuing to kill innocent men, women and children in FATA.
“This war and the tragedies that ensue as a result of it would never end if we do not dispassionately analyse the causes behind it,” he said. | <urn:uuid:e322cc03-ef5f-4732-bebb-64274441a454> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dawn.com/2013/01/22/imran-criticises-us-drone-policy/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973236 | 487 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Pentagon is readying for the possibility of intervention in Syria,
aiming to halt Syrian President Bashsar Assad's
violent crackdown on protesters, the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday, citing a US military offical.
According to the official, the intervention scenario calls for the establishment of a buffer zone on the Turkish border, in order to receive Syrian refugees. The Red Cross would then provide the civilians humanitarian aid, before NATO crews would arrive from Turkey and join the efforts.
The measure would pave the way for the US to declare an aerial blockade on Syria.
The intercession is to be modeled after NATO's efforts in Kosovo, which brought an end to the Serbian control of the region. NATO's plan of action included prolonged aerial shelling.
The US' diplomatic efforts have yet to yield an effective international resolution that would stop the bloodshed. More than 100 protesters have died over the weekend alone, human rights activists said.
According to Asharq Al-Awsat, the Pentagon does not anticipate a change of heart on the part of China or Russia, who have opposed foreign intervention or sanctions against Syria. But the US expects the two nations to join the humanitarian aid efforts, support a ceasefire between the Syrian regime and rebels and send special UN envoys to investigate the developments in the country.
The next step in the reported US Department of Defense plan would be to appoint a team of UN observers to monitor the humanitarian aid, and enter Syria. They would need aerial protection, which would eventually lead to an aerial blockade.
The military official said in the interview that the plan is a cautious one, and takes into account the Syrian air force's advanced capabilities.
In his most forceful words to date on the Syrian crisis, US President Barack Obama
said Friday the US and its allies would use "every tool available" to end the bloodshed by Assad's government.
"It is time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government," Obama said in Washington, adding that it "absolutely imperative for the international community to rally and send a clear message to President Assad that it is time for a transition. It is time for that regime to move on."
As government troops relentlessly shelled rebel-held neighborhoods in the besieged city of Homs, thousands of people in dozens of towns staged anti-regime protests under the slogan: "We will revolt for your sake, Baba Amr," referring to the Homs neighborhood that has become the center of the Syrian revolt.
Opposition groups reported that 103 people were killed on Friday by the regime's forces. | <urn:uuid:2b89a3bb-847e-4eed-9460-bb0557f9fd45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4194506,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963497 | 526 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The other day a reader of this blog tweeted that she was disappointed with the tone of one of my posts. I don’t like disappointing anyone, so I thought a lot about what she’d written. I think what she was getting at was that I suggested colleges & universities in the USA are looking to China as a ‘cash cow’ (please note: I dislike this term but use it here to illustrate a point), and I referred to a number of recent news articles which seemed to support my point.
With the release of IIE’s Open Doors report last week, it appears that colleges & universities in the USA have discovered China as a source of prospective students. Of course, American institutions have been engaging in and recruiting in China for a long time, but the news articles that came out in response to the Open Doors report just made it seem as though every US HEI was jumping on that bandwagon. And the fact that most Chinese students can pay their own way was certainly not lost in the news reports. From The Chronicle of Higher Education, “The survey results… suggest that a sizable share of students from [China] can afford to pay all, or a substantial part, of their college costs….The survey suggests that colleges could stop giving financial assistance to many Chinese students without affecting their admissions rates.”
I don’t think American colleges & universities view Chinese or any international students simply as sources of revenue. Neither do I think higher education institutions in Britain or Australia or anywhere only view international students as ‘cash cows’, as someone recently suggested to me. But I do think that the economic contribution of international students is an important factor in every university’s decision to recruit international students. It cannot be ignored and it would a serious detriment to internationalization discussions to do so. The truth is international students contribute to a university’s bottom line and they contribute to their host nation’s economy. A student who chooses to study in another country does so because he or she wants to, and their economic contribution is a part of the whole system.
- From NAFSA: “Foreign students and their dependents contribute approximate $20.23 billion to the US economy…”
- From Universities UK: “International students contribute over £5bn to the UK economy…”
- From the New York Times: “The money that international higher education students contribute to the Australian economy…” is $9.4 billion Australian dollars (scroll down to middle story)
- From the GlobalHigherEd blog: “In 2008, international students to Canada contributed $6.5 billion (CAD) to the national economy”
With education hubs on every continent and world-class universities spread across the globe, many nations are enjoying the economic contribution from overseas students; it’s not just universities in the USA pocketing Chinese students’ fees or institutions in the UK pulling in more students from India. Nigerian students go to Malaysia to study, Sri Lankan students study in Singapore, students from Kazakhstan study at institutions in the Middle East. Student mobility is global and nearly every nation wants to benefit from it. | <urn:uuid:656330a3-1208-44d3-90e1-c4a4cba82d0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theinternationalstudentrecruiter.com/the-economic-contribution-of-international-students/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959793 | 652 | 1.75 | 2 |
It seems that lately, I am finding that Martial Arts is some kind of parallel universe to mainstream thought.
I'm reading a book call "Animals in Translation" by Temple Grandin, an autistic who earned a degree in Animal Science and became a consultant for many high-level meat-industry companies who sought humane solutions to difficult animal-processing (hate that term!) problems.
She puts forth, with some difficulty, a rather balanced, insightful, and well articulated case for the similarities between animals and autistics.
But as I read her story, I'm finding an increasing number of parallels with what I might term as "traditional" Martial Arts concepts.
What I am referring to is the vast richness that exists beyond " how to hit the heavy bag harder".
Yes, that IS important and not to be ignored.
But there is a complete mindset/school of thought embodied in Martial Arts that is becoming somewhat "under shadowed" in a modern world that may equate "Martial Arts" with "Ultimate MMA Fighter" or whatever those shows are on TV.
I like the hard physical training, but the payoffs somehow translate into the mental, I don't know why. Just the mystery, I guess.
I posted about this here because Ms. Grandin is a female author, but also, I would encourage anyone looking for a good "Summer read" to check it out and give it some thought. It's a Best-Seller.
I'll be happy to exchange views/comments with anyone who actually reads the book.
The music spoke to me. I felt compelled to answer. | <urn:uuid:29f0d863-755b-4d92-a045-87fdee1093e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uechi-ryu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18021 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966959 | 330 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Their hardwares are beautiful. Their softwares are simple. Apple is genius. But their genius strategy has good and bad implications.
The first point of attraction is of course the hardware. No Windows machine offers the kind of integrated art/science that Mac machines offer. Mac machines are pleasing to the eye. No wonder, because, at Apple, engineers follow designers.
The second point of attraction is the software. Mac OS is the OS for everyone, really. As a child of Unix, it meets the needs of superusers. Logic and Final Cut make things easy for musicians and directors. Ported Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office Suite serve night owls and early birds. And the easiness and the prettiness of Mac give its users some happiness while they do the things they have to do. This happiness is something Windows could not provide since XP.
I believe this is because Windows, essentially, plateaued since they switched to NT kernel in XP. While this switch generated great happiness to everyone who used PC back then, since then, no significant changes came to Windows. It still had registry problems, firmware problems, driver problems, and other problems that arose from platform fragmentation. Mac, on the other hand, listened to users and got rid of these problems by integrating their products.
Like I wrote before, Mac made things easy and pretty. By integrating their products, by supplying a complete set of pretty hardware and easy software, Apple made it unnecessary for users to get rid of problems. Apple did it for them. Superusers didn't have to search the web for solutions to system problems. Apple supplied all the resources like firmware and drivers in a single disc. Non-superusers didn't have to search for superusers because Apple made installation/uninstallation as simple as drag-and-drop. No registry meant no indexing so Macs didn't require the periodic maintenance that Windows required. So dumb people didn't require smart people to fix their computers.
It sounds like Apple did a good job, but their good job has a bad implication. Apple's "easy and pretty" strategy makes its smart users dumb and dumb users dumber. Macs produce less problems. Less problems means less questions. And less questions mean less intellect. Admittedly, this is a good thing for people who are not technologically inclined and do not care about computer education. They can just focus on doing their jobs on a easy and pretty machine. To those who are technologically inclined and care about computer education, this means a bad thing. With the advent of iOS and Mac App Stores, Apple will reduce the number of hackers in the world.
Of course, I am aware that I am assuming a few things here in making this argument. One of my assumptions is that users first learn about computers by playing with programs. Eventually, after a thousandth time of manual installations/uninstallations, the user would have a basic understanding of how computers behave. They would know some programming and markup languages, even. I believe this is a reasonable assumption about computing. With the App Stores, however, I assume the user would never learn anything about computing. They'd essentially be zombies with credit cards, clicking/tapping icons for an instantaneous amusement. Thus the App Stores will prevent the coming of future generation of hackers.
My argument is that a world of hackers is better than a world of zombies. I have no doubt that capitalists prefer a world of zombies over a world of hackers. Zombies follow the rules, pay for things, and cause no trouble. Hackers, on the other hand, never adhere to the Terms of Agreements, never buy the latest bundle of Windows or the package of Family Guy DVD, and never stop jailbreaking the iDevices. But these seemingly bad things are actually good things. In a world of hackers, all these bad things will result in a net positive instead of negative, for intellectual competition between hackers will yield better intellectual properties for the consumption of the general public. It would mean better trade agreements, better IP laws, better protection of copyrighted materials, and better scrutinization of black hats. Id est, hackers will check and balance themselves. In a world of zombies, on the other hand, the general public will be ruled by an oligopoly of technocrats. It may be a peaceful world, but it will be a stupid world, prone to an insidious exploitation.
My argument, however, is a value judgment. I am perhaps biased against stupefying computer users because I identify myself as a computer geek. Maybe the App Stores are not so bad. Maybe they are the products of computing evolution. Maybe they are the solution for IP violations. By regulating IPs in a closed hegemonic platform and by making this platform too easy and pretty to cultivate hackers, the App Stores solve the problem of piracy and thus create a safe market. And in this market, the consumers gain from the accessibility to products, the producers gain from the protection from piracy, and Apple gains a whopping 30% from every transaction between them. In the Android Market, too, Google gains 30%. It's a win-win-and win for everyone involved, especially Apple and Google. I see a potential problem with this, but not everyone might share the same concern. I leave it up to you to form your own opinion. | <urn:uuid:f5e6a346-0b10-4e78-9eb1-4173d6312abe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aendrea.com/2010_11_25_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950409 | 1,079 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Two weeks ago, the authorities in Mexico City announced that a 9-year-old girl gave birth to a baby and they were searching for her 17-year-old boyfriend. It appears the story wasn’t entirely true, reports the Huffington Post on February 13.
When Dafne gave birth to a 5 pound 15 ounce baby girl via C-section on January 27, her parents told the authorities she had been dating a 17-year-old boy who left when he found out she was pregnant. Dafne and her baby were released to her family’s care, but not before receiving a subcutaneous birth-control device, reported KSDK channel 5.
An anthropological study of the girl has revealed that she is actually between 12 and 13. Her parents, who did not have a birth certificate for the child, claimed she was 9 years old when she gave birth.
DNA testing has also revealed that the baby’s father is actually the young girl’s stepfather and not a 17-year-old boyfriend as had been assumed.
According to the Washington Monthly, Mexican laws consider children between 12 and 14 to have reached the legal age of consent for sexual relationships, but do consider sex with a parent incest.
No word has been given regarding charges against the stepfather or mother of the girl. | <urn:uuid:f040c0e0-675f-4d0d-a474-3c8f8c9e3865> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/9-year-old-mother-at-least-12-impregnated-by-stepfather-says-mexican-officials | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987783 | 275 | 1.804688 | 2 |
It’s basketball state tournament time and many teams are chasing the dream of a state championship that will be so exciting now and live on to be a cherished memory in years to come. With that in mind I would like to honor the 1963 R.E. Lee Lady Rebels, who captured the AAA State Championship with a perfect 32-0 record. This year marks the 50th anniversary of this significant accomplishment.
Coach Jim Cavan’s squad was made up almost entirely of underclass players, with only one senior on the roster. That senior was team captain Pitta Middlebrooks. Most of this squad had been working together for many years as Coach Cavan has almost hand-picked many of the girls and nurtured them along at the junior hiogh level and onto the high school scene. These ladies were prepared to be good.
In the 1962-63 season, the rules for girls basketball in Georgia called for three forwards on the offensive end of the floor and three guards on the defensive end. No one could cross the center line, so all of the scoring was done by the forwards. When a team scored a field goal, the officials would throw the ball to mid-court where the other team would enter the ball into play on their offensive end. Although this seems archaic today, we didn’t know any other way in 1963.
This alignment didn’t make much difference to Coach Cavan and his girls. If our girls missed a shot and the other team rebounded, our forwards turned into defenders and they could handle this responsibility about as good as anybody’s guards. Our guards were multi-talented also, as they could handle the ball and rebound as well as play lockdown defense. This team really had no weaknesses.
They played in the old Lee gym and if you didn’t get there early you didn’t get a seat. They filled that little ole barn up and kept the place rockin’. The rumor is that the giant crowds came to see the girls’ game and then left before our less-talented boys played. I’m sure some of that may have happened but we had large crowds too, spurred on by a great girls’ team.
This was a dominant team that seldom received a serious challenge. Nineteen of their victories came by 20 points or more. Only seven of their wins came by less than ten points. The closest contest was their season-opening 55-52 victory over Milner High School.
In addition to the state title, these Lady Rebels won the Atlanta Jaycee Invitational Tournament during the Christmas holidays and then easily captured the Region 4AAA championship with a 42-20 victory over Avondale at Georgia Tech’s Alexander Memorial Coliseum. In winning this title they became the first ladies team to ever play at Tech’s round facility.
The Lady Rebels then journeyed to Valdosta for the AAA state tournament. They defeated Richmond Academy 52-30 in the first round and then beat a very good Warner Robins team, 59-51, in the semi-finals. In the finals the Lee ladies knocked off Cherokee, 69-62, to win the AAA state crown and wrap up a perfect 32-0 season. Wow! What a year!
Joining Middlebrooks at the guard positions were Luanne Daniel and Annette Hammock. The starting forwards were Joannie Cavan, Helen Middlebrooks, and Gwen Murphy. Donna Wilson was the first reserve at both the forward and guard positions.
The rest of the squad consisted of Carol Nelson, Florrie Bellew, Frances Lifsey, Christie Tyler, Sue Holloway, Dorothy Wilkes, Bobbie Whittington, and Barbara Hardeman. Team managers were Marie Vining and Carolyn Mitchell.
Cavan, Murphy, Hammock and Pitta Middlebrooks were named to the AAA All-State team and Helen Middlebrooks was selected as the team’s Most Valuable Player. Cavan led the team in scoring with a 27.3 per game average while Helen Middlebrooks averaged 17 points and Murphy tossed in 11 points per contest.
In celebrating the 50th anniversary of this team’s great season, it is sad to say that some of these wonderful ladies have passed away. My knowledge of the whereabouts of all of these ladies is very limited but I do know that Sue Holloway, Dorothy Wilkes, Florrie Bellew, and Annette Hammock have all passed away. And of course Coach Jim Cavan has passed away as well.
As a 10th grade member of the 1963 R.E. Lee boys basketball team, I was privileged to see this team play almost every game. I traveled with them on the bus to out-of-town games and saw the confidence, determination, and concentration that they possessed that combined with their superior skills to make them successful. They just had the confidence that no one could beat them and that they would do whatever they needed to do to win a game. They always played very hard and were very, very special!
As a young and inexperienced player, I was amazed at how this group handled their challenges and their success. They had supreme respect and love for Coach Cavan and, believe me, he was a superior basketball coach. There was no better girls’ basketball coach in Georgia than Jim Cavan.
I was in awe of these girls in 1963 and I truly respect these ladies today. They always supported the boys team and were some of our biggest fans. I’ll always remember that!
I am proud and privileged to call all of these ladies my friends today. They were a special group of girls who brought great honor to our community and did it with dignity and pride. | <urn:uuid:f52e7bd3-f018-4f9b-b88b-175d11a3c86b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thomastontimes.com/view/full_story/21845072/article-The-1963-Lady-Rebels-A-50th-Anniversary?instance=popular | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982708 | 1,178 | 1.515625 | 2 |
I would like to be able to move features by small (preferably predefined) increments using the keyboard arrow keys? Can this be done?
There is no way of doing it with the arrow keys.
But you can do precise movement by specifying a delta offset as Mintx suggests. The one problem with the delta movement is that it leaves your feature's origin un changed and that might be undesireable.
However, a left-of-field quick-and-dirty solution that would not require any programming could be to create a fine mesh over your data (you can get ESRI to do it with 'Create Fishnet' or Hawth's Tools) and then use snapping. Obviously this is VERY 'Heath Robinson' and would be unworkable for huge areas but could be serviceable. | <urn:uuid:79d0b1ea-c6e5-4dd9-a800-356a41500cde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/20311/can-i-move-selected-features-in-arcmap-with-arrow-keys | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961518 | 165 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Solidarity Request: Brazil: Medical Council Of Rio De Janeiro Causes National Outrage
Resolutions prohibit midwives and doulas in hospital birth and doctor support for home births.
Women’s response: “No more violent births to sell c-sections”
A coalition of non-governmental organizations, representatives of social movements and women and men in favour of healthy, humanized birth choices are organizing a protest on Sunday (August 5) in Rio de Janeiro, and other Brazilian cities, against two resolutions released by the Medical Council of Rio de Janeiro (CREMERJ) published July 19.
The first resolution prohibits women in hospitals and maternity wards to have any assistance from university-trained midwives, or from doulas (an experienced woman who offers emotional and practical support during and after childbirth). Nurse-midwives, under doctors’ supervision will be tolerated. Non-compliance with the resolution by hospital directors will be considered an ethical violation and punished accordingly.
The second resolution prohibits any doctor to participate in out-of-hospital birth, directly, or previously agreeing to provide second-level care for women transferred from Birth Centres or home births. Punishment can include their medical licence being revoked. It also establishes a mandatory reporting to the Council of any out-of-hospital births, and punishment for non-reporting as an ethical offence.
The caesarean section rate in private hospitals in Rio de Janeiro is over 85% of all births. Given the pressure in hospitals to submit to elective c-sections or to aggressively managed vaginal birth, many women are choosing midwife care, delivery in birth centres, or home births, with support of a variety of on-line networks and resources in favour of informed choice.
Alternative places and providers in childbirth are usually strongly opposed by doctors, but never to the point of calling for them to be outlawed, as in these two resolutions. Last June, women in Brazil took to the streets to protest against the same CREMERJ, that time because of the council’s attempt to punish Jorge Kuhn, an obstetrician from São Paulo who declared in a popular TV show that, in selected cases, home birth can be an acceptable option for women. His opinion was considered an ethical offence by the Rio de Janeiro Medical Council, who reported him to the São Paulo Council. The Home Birth March was organized through web-based social networks, with demonstrations in over 30 different cities across the country, to affirm women’s right to informed choice, bodily integrity and a healthy birth experience.
These two resolutions are considered by activists to be the Council’s reaction to that march. Women have responded that CREMERJ’s new resolutions are illegal, against the best scientific evidence concerning care during childbirth, and a violation of women’s human rights. They are also contrary to the Ministry of Health guidelines for intra-partum care and World Health Organization recommendations.
The Rio de Janeiro Medical Council is strongly against the training and participation in childbirth care of direct-entry midwives and doulas. Midwives and doulas, as well as Birth Centres integrate the Ministry of Health programme for a more humane, safe, woman-centered model of care (Rede Cegonha), and their benefits are based on solid scientific evidence. According to the Cochrane Library, women in midwife-led care have a greater chance of spontaneous vaginal deliveries, less demand for analgesia, a greater sense of control during birth, and better chances to start breastfeeding. Twenty-one clinical trials with more than 15,000 women showed that those receiving continuous support during labour reported greater satisfaction with the experience of childbirth, had a shorter duration of labour and lower risk of caesarean delivery, among other advantages.
According to doctors supporting women’s groups, the resolutions are contrary to the Code of Medical Ethics, which promotes respect for patient autonomy. Despite the fact that, under a doctor’s supervision, the presence of nurse-midwives in hospitals will not be forbidden under the new resolution, the Rio de Janeiro Nursing Council (COREN-RJ) released an official statement repudiating the Medical Council’s resolutions and defending the inclusion of midwives and doulas in a women-centred model of care in any setting (both hospital and out-of-hospital births).
Brazil has occupied a leading position in the world ranking of caesarean rates for several years. C-sections accounted for more than 52% of all births in 2010, exceeding 84% within the private health care system, with several cities reaching an incredible 100% rate (the maximum recommended by WHO is 10-15%). High rates of elective pre-labour c-sections before 39 weeks are associated with poorer outcomes for mothers and infants, such as an increase in prematurity, low birthweight and maternal mortality and morbidity.
The protesters highlight CREMERJ’s conflict of interest in the perpetuation of a violent model of childbirth, trying to usurp the power and right to choose from women, thus violating their reproductive rights. One of the protest’s slogans is “No more violent births just to sell c-sections”. Several studies showed that the alarming rates of caesarean section in Brazilian hospitals cannot be justified by women's demand, since most of them state a preference for normal childbirth.
According to women’s groups and their allied health providers, including doctors, the Medical Council is by contrast selectively tolerant of other serious ethical violations, such as over-estimating risks to babies in vaginal birth to pressure women into “elective” c-sections; the abuse of painful, potentially harmful interventions such as liberal episiotomy, inductions and forceps (again to offer caesareans as “better”, comparatively); the sadly common sexual humiliation of distressed birthing women when they ask for help (using phrase such as “when you made that baby you liked it, now don’t complain”); and other forms of gender-based abuses. Activists also denounce that doctors frequently violate the federal law that ensures women the right to have someone of their own choice accompany them during childbirth, making the birth experience more stressful for women.
Together with public demonstrations, the protesters are organizing legal actions against the Council, gathering media coverage, and demanding a formal and firm reaction from the Ministry of Health and other related institutions.
PLEASE SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION, now with an English version:
Facebook of the Ação contra o Cremerj (Action against Cremerj, Portuguese) | <urn:uuid:05392513-2dbd-423b-b288-090ac6d96f0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://awid.org/Get-Involved/Urgent-Actions3/Solidarity-Request-Brazil-Medical-Council-of-Rio-de-Janeiro-causes-national-outrage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954069 | 1,351 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A new supermarket in Jackson Square will not only reflect the community, but change the face of the shopping centre, says the manager of the downtown landmark.
The upcoming Nations Fresh Food store will cover 55,000 square feet of space in the west end of the building, much of which has remained vacant for the bulk of the past 20 years, Scott Kyle said. There was a farmers market in the space from 2009 to 2011.
The target date for opening is May 2013.
Management is also working on securing an additional retailer to occupy a 7,000-square-foot section on the north side of Phase 4’s main corridor. This would be a “complementary-use” retailer, Kyle said.
The Mr. Print All copy shop in that corridor will be relocated in the building. The main-level dental office will be removed along with a number of other stores north of the Sheraton Hotel.A layout of the new Nations store
“Everything’s going,” Kyle said, gesturing to the vacant concrete interior of the space, occupied only by pillars, and sinks that were installed for the temporary farmers market.
Yale Properties, which runs Jackson Square, will be adding two passenger elevators, a freight elevator, “and a mile of construction hoarding” to the building in upcoming months to prepare the facility for Nations to begin its renovation, said manager Jocelyne Mainville.
The ceiling inside the space will also be raised to about 18 feet.
Jackson Square management had been working on getting a grocery store in the building for about the past two years, Mainville said.
“We talked to just about all the major grocery chains,” Kyle said, but most required too much space.
Nations’ format — a new store type of the Oceans Fresh FoodMarket — fit the space they had available. Mainville had been negotiating details with Oceans’marketing manager Frank Ho for the past year, she said.
As part of sussing out the company, Mainville visited one of the current Oceans stores. There are currently two in Brampton and two in Mississauga.
“I was floored,” she said of her test shopping experience. She wasn’t expecting such world variety in one store.
“What I wanted to see was — I have three young children — am I going to be able to do all of my shopping in this store?” Mainville said. “Absolutely.”
Through a Nations store, she wouldn’t have to go elsewhere for the tapioca balls to put in bubble tea, she offered as an example.
A key factor in signing with Nations was that the store tailors its merchandise mix to the community, Kyle said.
Nations will cater their food selection “depending on the ethnic mix of the community,” Mainville said.
Oceans is opening its first Nations store in Woodbridge shortly. Hamilton’s Nations will be the secondstore, but the largest of the two, Kyle said.
It will also offer an “experiential” atmosphere, Kyle said.
Apprentice chefs from Liaison College will perform different styles of cooking throughout the store.
“One will demonstrate, say, Indian cooking while another teaches German and another, maybe Parisian,” Mainville said.
“All at the same time,” Kyle chimed in.
The store will also have a “huge hot table area in their café,” he added, emphasizing that people in the area, including Sheridan Hotel guests, could stop in for a take-out lunch or dinner.
The two managers hope that the opening of the store will also extend the mall’s overall retail hours.
Nations is planned to be open daily from at least 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. With success, it could be opened longer, Mainville said. Other retailers’ hours “are likely going to be extended as well.” | <urn:uuid:013debbf-415d-4bbd-90eb-6d3927043d41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2012/08/17/hamilton-grocery-store.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95924 | 843 | 1.515625 | 2 |
After weeks of attacks from President Obama and his Democratic allies, Mitt Romney is out with a new television ad defending his record as governor of Massachusetts.
The 30-second spot, called "Strong Leadership," claims Romney "had the best jobs record in a decade," reduced unemployment to "just 4.7 percent" and "balanced every budget without raising taxes."
And, in an obvious attempt to appeal to independents and swing voters, the ad notes, Romney "did it by bringing parties together to cut through gridlock."
The ad, which features footage of Romney talking to voters and speaking on stump, then shifts back to the theme of Romney's other general election TV ads, touting what he'd do on "day one" of his presidency.
"From day one as president, Mitt Romney's strong leadership will make all the difference on jobs," a voiceover declares.
The ad is sure to come under fire from the Obama campaign, which has argued that Romney is casting his Massachusetts record in a far too positive light.
They've argued that while Romney's record appears positive, Massachusetts' job growth was actually slower than the rest of the country at the time. And they've pointed out that Romney was required to balance the budget by state law and that he did so by raising state fees, which they've argued is the same thing as a tax increase.
The non-partisan group FactCheck.org analyzed Romney's jobs claim in an analysis last summer, concluding Massachusetts' unemployment was below the national average for his first three years in office. But in 2006, the last year of Romney's term as governor, the state's unemployment rate jumped to 5 percent—higher than the national rate—which the group concluded means the Massachusetts' growth was slower than other states.
By December 2006, Romney's final month in office, the rate was back down to 4.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—roughly equivalent to the national average.
Romney's campaign did not disclose how much it is spending to run the ad or where it will air. But it's likely to focus on swing states--including Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia--where Romney has already purchased millions of dollars in television air time over the last month.
A New York Times analysis of ad spending so far this campaign found the Romney and Obama campaigns have bombarded television market of modest size so far this campaign, concluding that 2012 may be the first election year where candidates are spending the most money to target the fewest people. | <urn:uuid:a2d8f549-1708-45c7-be71-8d89bf67bb49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/romney-touts-massachusetts-record-tv-ad/story?id=16524224 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976325 | 513 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Cook Medical Completes Enrollment in First International Trial of First-of-Its-Kind Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent
September 10, 2008
“This is a landmark day for Cook Medical. Completing enrollment in this international trial puts us ahead in the race to bring the benefits that drug-eluting stents have brought to millions of patients with coronary heart disease to the even greater number of patients suffering from peripheral arterial disease,” said Rob Lyles, global leader of Cook Medical's peripheral intervention business unit. “Based on preliminary results, we anticipate that the Zilver PTX Stent will be found safe and effective by the world's medical regulatory bodies, and we expect to put this uniquely advanced medical therapy into the hands of the world's physicians in the near future.”
In many cases, PAD patients who have been treated with balloon angioplasty and stenting experience restenosis, or renarrowing of the arteries, over time and must undergo more invasive treatment such as bypass surgery to restore blood flow to key arteries. The Zilver PTX trial (www.zilverptxtrial.com) was designed to determine whether the combination of Cook's Zilver stent and a paclitaxel coating will keep peripheral arteries, specifically the superficial femoral artery (SFA), open over time.
“I am honored to have been selected as global principle investigator of the clinical evaluation of this device,” said Michael Dake, M.D., Professor of Radiology, Internal Medicine and Surgery and Chairman of the Department of Radiology at the University of Virginia Health System. “The Zilver PTX stent could become a breakthrough device in treating peripheral arterial disease with the potential to improve the quality of life of millions of patients suffering from this increasingly common disease. I commend Cook Medical for its commitment to bringing this important technology to the market, and hope that the positive early results we've document are reflected in the study's final data.”
Cook has enrolled an additional 780 patients in the European Union, Canada, and Korea in a clinical registry to evaluate the safety of the Zilver PTX device. That data has been used for a submission in Europe for CE Mark approval to market the device there, with additional regulatory submissions pending in additional markets. In addition, the revolutionary stent already has regulatory approval for commercial use in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, where it has been used to treat patients suffering with PAD.
“Bringing together converging technologies, like medical devices with pharmaceuticals in the case of Zilver PTX, is a critical step in developing new advanced medical devices to treat many large, unique patient populations,” added Lyles. “At Cook, we are continuously driving to improve the quality of patient outcomes.”
Cook Medical's Zilver PTX, a self-expanding nitinol stent, uses a proprietary, polymer-free technology to coat the device with paclitaxel, an antiproliferative drug that has been used successfully to reduce the risk of renarrowing of arteries following angioplasty in coronary disease patients. Cook's unique ability to adhere the drug to the stent body without using a polymer may be a major clinical advantage, since it eliminates the risk some patients may face due to allergic reactions and other potentially poor outcomes that may be associated with the polymer coatings used on the current generation of drug-eluting coronary stents. Cook licenses the rights to use paclitaxel on peripheral stents and other non-coronary medical devices from Angiotech Pharmaceuticals of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Preliminary findings presented by Dr. Dake at the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) meeting in June revealed clinical improvement in patients treated with the Zilver PTX, excellent stent durability (i.e., fracture resistance), high rates of event-free survival and freedom from target lesion revascularization. This preliminary information suggests no safety concerns, and promising effectiveness results, Dr. Dake reported to his medical colleagues at the SVS event.
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) affects blood vessels that lead from the heart to other areas of the body, such as the legs, feet and kidneys. When these blood vessels become blocked due to the build-up of fatty deposits, blood circulation is restricted. Untreated, PAD results in pain when walking and can lead to gangrene and amputation. The condition is widespread worldwide, with few interventional medical treatments available to address the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque within the artery that restricts blood flow.
About Cook Medical:
Cook Medical was one of the first companies to help popularize interventional medicine, pioneering many of the devices now commonly used worldwide to perform minimally invasive medical procedures. Today, the company integrates minimally invasive medical device design, biopharma, gene and cell therapy, and biotech to enhance patient safety and improve clinical outcomes in the fields of aortic intervention; interventional cardiology; critical care medicine; gastroenterology; radiology, peripheral vascular, bone access and oncology; surgery and soft tissue repair; urology; and assisted reproductive technology, gynecology and high-risk obstetrics. Founded in 1963 and operated as a family-held private corporation, Cook is a past winner of the prestigious Medical Device Manufacturer of the Year Award from Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry magazine. For more information, visit www.cookmedical.com. | <urn:uuid:97cbad22-8404-4b92-9835-f39f1b8e5f99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cookmedical.com/newsDetail.do?id=3829 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930008 | 1,133 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Speaking of gifts
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Mitt Romney recently blamed his overwhelming electoral loss on so-called "gifts" that President Barack Obama conferred on certain Democratic constituencies to win their votes. Mr. Romney was rightly criticized for his comments by several members of his own party, including some governors.
The irony is that the election results were probably influenced, at least partly, by a gift from Mr. Romney himself to the president in the form of the infamous "47 percent" video.
On an unrelated topic, during the election season and prior to the recent hurricane, Sandy, we all heard about the great things that private capital can accomplish. Since the storm, I have not heard one word about private capital rushing in to repair the devastation and damage caused by the storm. The cleanup and restoration work is being handled with assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an agency that would be abolished if Mr. Romney had his way.
First Published November 24, 2012 12:00 am | <urn:uuid:5ba1a54e-89bc-418d-9224-d02b522dc70f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/letters/speaking-of-gifts-663430/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985974 | 200 | 1.523438 | 2 |
WRITING in the Washington Post today, James Baker urges Congress and the president to “build national agreement” on Iraq. Predictably Mr Baker says “the best, and perhaps only, way” to do this is by embracing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which he co-chaired. This is an odd claim. Mr Baker highlights the fact that ISG’s report rejects the idea of setting a timetable for withdrawal. Yet, for better or worse (we say worse), recent polls show that nearly 60% of Americans favour the timetable that the Senate has proposed. In other words, a majority of Americans do agree on the way forward in Iraq, they simply reject Mr Baker’s approach.
Similarly, George Bush, in recent days, has suggested that the public is on his side in the battle over Congress’s war-funding measure. The fact that it isn’t (see the poll again) doesn’t mean that Mr Bush’s war strategy is wrong per se, but it does make his pronouncements, like Mr Baker’s, sound a bit hollow. I’d prefer if they simply said, “Our ideas are better than yours.” | <urn:uuid:c441d107-7a51-48e6-a4fe-14b87ac28c61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2007/04/the_iraq_study_group_was_so_20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960046 | 254 | 1.664063 | 2 |
OGDEN — A court decision in Arizona means the U.S. Forest Service may reduce or eliminate recreation fees in some of its forests, but there are no changes yet in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache, which covers most of the Top of Utah.
Several forests in California have already eliminated some fees. A Feb. 9 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may force the Forest Service to trim the fee program even more.
The appeals panel ruling, in a case involving parking fees in the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, concluded that the charges were improper. The judges sent the case back to a lower court for further consideration.
The opinion applies to the seven Western states in the 9th Circuit, including California, but not Utah. The court did not toss out the entire fee program but essentially said the Forest Service had overreached in executing it.
Agency officials said they are reviewing the ruling and could not comment on its implications.
Forests charge recreation fees to help with the cost of maintaining trails and other recreational facilities. Most of the fees stay in the forest where they are collected.
The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache has two fee areas, in American Fork Canyon and the Mirror Lake highway. In those areas, people can drive through for free, but if they want to hike, fish or use other facilities, they have to pay $5 per vehicle.
In 2010, the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache collected $1.18 million in fees and its share of passes that the public buys for use in all U.S. parks, Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service fee areas.
That year, using some fee revenue from previous years, it spent $1.4 million for maintenance, repair, visitor services, habitat restoration and law enforcement.
Spokeswoman Kathy-Jo Pollack said the Forest Service is reviewing fees but the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache has heard nothing about changes.
The Forest Service Intermountain Region collected $5.1 million in fees in 2010. Charity Parks, spokeswoman for the regional office in Ogden, said there is no proposal, yet, to change or eliminate any of those fees. The Intermountain Region covers national forests in Utah, Nevada and parts of Idaho and Wyoming.
In California, the Forest Service proposes eliminating fees for three-quarters of the forest areas where they are now imposed, including 19 in Southern California. The charges in Southern California take the form of the regional Adventure Pass, which costs $5 a day or $30 annually.
Many trailheads, day-use sites and general forest areas where fees are now in effect in the region’s four national forests will become free, said Tamara Wilton, a California Forest Service manager.
Adopted as part of a demonstration program in 1996 and later modified by Congress, the national recreation fees have been extremely controversial. Hikers greeted them by slapping bumper stickers on their cars declaring, “Can’t see the forest for the fees.”
Some people said the fees kept low-income families from public lands, and others complained the charges amounted to double taxation.
“It’s been so detested for so long,” said John McKinney, the author of 25 hiking books. “The program never had any political support. ... (It) ended a 100-year tradition of free access to public land.”
McKinney, who has refused to buy an Adventure Pass, said he was thrilled by the court decision. “I don’t think a nature hike is a forest product and that hikers are forest consumers. We’re out there for something that you can’t put a price on.”
Congress reacted to public fury over the demonstration program by passing legislation in 2004 to limit situations in which the Forest Service could charge day-use fees.
The agency reduced the size of areas inside national forests where fees are required, but still maintained nearly 100 of them nationally, including 31 in the Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino forests.
Cars parked in those heavily used areas are required to display an Adventure Pass.
The Forest Service launched a national review of the fee program last year. In many areas where fees are eliminated, the agency proposes to continue charging for use of certain busy sites that are equipped with six specific amenities outlined in the 2004 law. Those include toilets, interpretive signs, trash cans and picnic tables. | <urn:uuid:d88127fc-1b70-4e5f-ba7f-a5599d420a6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/02/29/forest-service-may-cut-fees-no-changes-yet-top-utah-areas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951562 | 925 | 1.625 | 2 |
By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Warhol once predicted 15 minutes of fame for everyone.
But 25 years after his death, the pop artist's reputation and impact on the contemporary art world show no signs of fading. His iconic images of everyday consumer objects and celebrities consistently command high prices and draw enthusiastic crowds to museum and gallery shows.
But before he catapulted onto the world stage, the young artist was already producing some of his most iconic pieces. In a new exhibition, Warhol is captured in photographs at the very cusp of the pop art movement.
"Before They Were Famous: Behind the Lens of William John Kennedy," at the Site/109 gallery in lower Manhattan, features rare shots of Warhol and artist Robert Indiana posing together with what were soon to become their most celebrated works — Warhol's "Marilyn" and Indiana's "LOVE" logo.
Kennedy, a freelance photographer when the photos were taken, had nearly forgotten about them and only rediscovered the images several years ago in a "beat-up cardboard box" while sorting through his archive, he said.
He took them when Warhol "was a known entity but had not yet exploded on the scene," said Eric Shiner, director of the Warhol Museum, located in Warhol's hometown of Pittsburgh. "They capture Andy both in production mode and also having fun mode."
The 82-year-old photographer, who lives in Miami Beach, Fla., said he set out to record "the rising stars of the new movement in pop art." He sensed immediately that Warhol would become "a giant in the industry" but said he "was amazed to meet this very withdrawn and taciturn man."
Among his favorite photographs is one of the pop icon working at his Manhattan studio, The Factory.
"Piled up in the corner were 50-75 sheets of acetate. Andy said 'Those are proofs of my work,'" Kennedy recalled. As he unrolled one, "there's this huge face of Marilyn Monroe — a transparent proof of his silkscreens."
He had Warhol hold it up in front of him, creating a portrait within a portrait.
In another image, the photographer posed Warhol with one of his early flower paintings standing in a field of black-eyed Susans, located in a most unlikely spot — an industrial section of the Flushing neighborhood in New York City's Queens borough.
These and about 50 other silver gelatin prints of Warhol and some 30 of Indiana capture the artists in their studios, relaxing, editing, painting and chatting on the phone. The works — presented by the Miami-based publishing house Kiwi Arts Group — are shown alongside some of the artists' originals works.
Kennedy shot hundreds of images of the artists; 100 will be placed in the permanent collection of the Warhol Museum.
The exhibition, which runs through May 29, also includes a 40-minute documentary film featuring people still living who were involved with Warhol, including such Warhol superstars as Ultra Violet and Taylor Mead.
"What's great is all these people are in their 80s. We were able to capture them in this juncture about a period that was almost lost in the early 1960s at such a monumental, pivotal point in the pop art movement," said Kiwi Arts founder Mike Huter.
Warhol, who used every available medium to create his brand of imagery, died in 1987 at the age of 58. His output was prolific.
"If you amass all the sales of Warhols, he is by far the most sold ... in the art world" today, said Alex Rotter, Sotheby's pop art expert, adding that Warhol began attracting museums and collectors in a big way in the 1980s.
The current auction record for a Warhol is $71.7 million. Privately, one of his works has sold for more than $100 million.
The show at the Site/109 gallery is just one of many current or planned Warhol exhibitions around the world.
A major Warhol retrospective is now on a five-city tour of Asia. After it concludes in Tokyo in 2014, it may travel to New York, Mexico City and possibly Istanbul, said Shiner.
During New York's Frieze Art Fair next month, the Warhol Museum will show some 20 Warhol Polaroids alongside those by Jeremy Kost, a young New York artist who works under the rubric of the great pop artist. And Affirmation Art, a nonprofit art space in Manhattan, is showing 50 Warhol photographs, eight of which have never been seen outside the Warhol Museum. | <urn:uuid:2e1d5b66-183e-4962-96d3-439151f31217> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2012/04/21/nyc-photo-exhibit-captures-warhol-as-young-artist?s_cid=related-links:TOP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971732 | 960 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The new frugality is not about being cheap, says author Chris Farrell. It means finding ways to preserve what’s important while minimizing the costs.
Mary Knox Merrill / The Christian Science Monitor / File
Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.
The title of this book hooked me from the start. What am I writing about at The Simple Dollar if I’m not writing about “the new frugality”?
Chris Farrell, the author of the book, is a name I’m familiar with having been a long-time faithful listener of Marketplace Money (and it’s other Marketplace brethren) on NPR. I expected a well-written book that offered lots of insightful thoughts on the “new frugality” along with some practical tips.
That’s precisely what I got. Let’s dig in.
1 | The Rise of the New Frugality
Farrell opens the book by making a strong effort at defining what “new frugality” means. I think it’s best summed up as “seeking the best value, not the lowest price.” Quite often, frugality has meant the same thing as cheap, but the “new frugality” means something different entirely. It means finding ways to preserve exactly what’s important to you while minimizing the costs, with costs going far beyond just dollars and cents. The cost is about the environmental impact. It’s about the time impact. It’s about even the emotional impact. Really, the new frugality is simply being mindful of the many ramifications of the purchasing decisions we make.
2 | The Great Transformation
How did we get here? This chapter is basically a history of modern consumerism, particularly focusing on the housing bubble of 2008 and the rise in environmental and social awareness of people over the past decade. Farrell’s argument seems to be that the current economic stagnation along with a growing sense that our actions have ramifications far beyond ourselves add up to a new attraction to frugal, simple living for people. I can’t argue – I largely feel the same way.
3 | A Margin of Safety
What’s the result of all of that uncertain feeling? People have begun to desire a margin of safety – something many of us felt naturally until the events of the past decade have shaken that sense of a margin of safety right to our core. How do we get back that sense of a margin of safety? By living within our means and preserving the resources we have – but without abandoning many of the enjoyable perks of today’s life. We seek a balance that wasn’t there in the Depression and wasn’t there in the spend-spend-spend 80s and 90s.
4 | The New Frugality Rules
Keep it simple. Pay yourself first. Invest in yourself. Worry about the downside. Borrow rarely and wisely. Give back. These are the new frugality rules that Farrell proposes – and they pretty much describe a financially stable way of life that maintains that balance we all strive to have. I think the first one is key – keep it simple. The best way to do that is to make all of your saving as automated and straightforward as you possibly can, making it easy for you to make do with what’s left.
5 | Make Frugality a Habit
One big way to make all of this work is to simply make frugality a part of your everyday life. The best way to do that is to simply start being mindful of every dollar you spend. It’s fine if you want to splurge on yourself sometimes – that’s not the point. The point is to think about it first. At the same time, think about what you’re buying at the grocery store or when you go out to eat or anywhere else. Farrell offers tons of ideas on reducing your spending in sensible ways, but they all boil down to this one basic idea: think about what you’re spending and why every time a dollar leaves your account. The more you think about it, the more you’ll likely realize there are better ways of doing it that achieve the same result for lower cost. When you find those routes, that’s nothing but a big victory for you.
6 | Borrow Wisely
The best debt is no debt, of course. When you do borrow, however, make sure you’re borrowing to pay for something that will generate value (like an education) or will at least retain it (a sensible home purchase – meaning not a McMansion in a large metro area). Also, always borrow only when you have a margin of safety – in other words, don’t borrow money when you’re already hurting to pay your own bills and you don’t have any savings in the bank. There’s also a discussion about setting up your own debt repayment plan if you’re already under a heap of debt.
7 | Investing the Simple Way
The investment advice here is pretty straightforward. If you have a 401(k) available to you that offers a company match, jump onto that and get every drop of that match. If you don’t, get a Roth IRA. Put at least some of your money into something safe, like CDs or possibly treasury notes. If you want to take on more risk, buy some index funds – they’re low cost and help you to diversify your money very widely. Use dollar cost averaging – in other words, set up a regular automated investment plan that puts a certain amount into your investment every month.
8 | Live Long and Prosper
This chapter has the most honest answers about retirement I’ve ever read in a personal finance book. Farrell simply says that there’s no way to know if you have enough set back for retirement – and you don’t. No one knows when or how their number will be up. How can you save, then? Your best bet is to save as much as you possibly can. Then, when you retire, rediscover the simple pleasures in life. It’s a lot easier to cook yourself an inexpensive but amazingly delicious meal at home if you’re not running back and forth to an all-encompassing career.
9 | Home, Sweet Home
Should you rent or buy? Much of this chapter focuses on this question. Farrell seems to point people towards the P/R ratio, which is the price of a home you would buy versus the cost to rent similar housing for a year. That ratio should be somewhere around 16 – if it’s higher, you’re probably better off renting. Most of the actual advice on mortgages is very solid – only buy when you have 20% down (unless you want to be hammered on the mortgage(s)), make a “thirteenth” payment each year by making half of a monthly payment every two weeks, and don’t worry about the myth of maintaining a mortgage for a tax writeoff.
10 | The College Sheepskin
What about paying for college? Farrell argues that an education is very worthwhile, but the premium paid for a degree from a prestigious school rarely makes up for the huge difference in tuition costs. In other words, the huge additional cost for a typical student to go to Harvard versus their local four year state school will likely not be made up for after graduation. Your best strategy, actually, is to control costs (unless you get very lucky with a scholarship). He also recommends using a 529 savings plan if you’re saving for your child’s future education.
11 | Generosity and Gratitude
The book closes with a look at charity and the “keep it simple” mantra applies here. Identify charities that match your values. That takes time, because for many of us, a lot of charities sound good. What’s important is to figure out our true purpose in giving. What is our mission with the money we give? Let that specific mission lead your giving and you’ll find that you’re truly building a better world.
Is The New Frugality Worth Reading?
What makes The New Frugality stand out isn’t the advice. For the most part, the advice in this book is the standard personal finance stuff that you can find all over the place. What makes The New Frugality stand out is the broader awareness of the writing, which brings the book to life in a unique way.
I enjoyed reading this book for many of the same reasons that I enjoy listening to Marketplace on NPR. It takes information that I could get anywhere and places it in a social and cultural context that not only brings the ideas into a new light, but also makes clear the connections between our money and the broader world around us in ways that aren’t always obvious.
I enjoyed it if for no other reason than it cast some new lights and angles on a lot of the ideas I already knew. That type of book is always a refreshing read.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on the link above. | <urn:uuid:7f1d6307-4196-423f-91d6-47dc7f59a822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Simple-Dollar/2010/0615/Book-review-The-New-Frugality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946633 | 1,987 | 1.710938 | 2 |
You Never Can Tell with BeesPosted on April 20, 2009
Sometimes things just don't work out. Take the time I wanted to build a hovercraft from a lawnmower. Or the time that a 6th grader convinced me that if I sang Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" for the entire school bus on our ride home that his dad who worked at a radio station would record it and play it on the air. I was destined to be a star.
A few months ago I felt similar disappointment when farmer Torrey Olsen of Gabriel Farm in Sebastopol, CA told us that the bees the FruitGuys FarmSteward program donated to help with pollination had vacated the hive. "It looks like the bees were getting too cold and they left the hive," said Torrey, adding that, "it happens sometimes." Torrey called his friends at BeeKind,(the company from whom we purchased the bees) and luckily they have a guarantee on their bee installations (who would have known). They were to bring new bees this week.
But in a Winnie The Pooh development, last week a giant wild swarm of bees began to gather in the pine tree by Torrey's driveway. "When they first swarm it's a big cloud of bees," he said. "Then they settle down and start balling up around the queen-kind of like the Winnie The Pooh book where there's this big basketball shape of bees hanging from a branch in a tree. So at that point I decided to try and coax them into the now empty hive boxes. I ran and put a pallet under the tree and set a box on top hoping they might find it and say, 'oh well, let's just move into this box,' since they usually look for protection. The branch was about six feet high and really flexible so with my able-bodied assistant Lucy (Torrey's wife) and me decked out in my beekeeper suit and the smoker, I tried to reach up, bend the branch down, and scrape them into the box. I soon realized that they were too embedded in the pine needles and could only get a few so I brought out the saw, cut off the branch and put it in the box for about an hour. The bees moved right in and now are doing quite well."
Torrey says it's a big apple year and the bees are already exhausted. Sometimes things that don't work out can work out anyway. Such is life. Learn more about our FarmSteward program here.
Whether you are West Coast, Mid-West or East Coast, you can see exactly what's in your box on our In the Mix page.
Any questions? Email us at [email protected] or call us at 1-877-FRUIT-ME. Enjoy and be fruitful! | <urn:uuid:7fa73d59-9a43-41fa-857c-fc3ea6882936> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fruitguys.com/news/000239.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981868 | 580 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Businesses are entering the green marketplace at breakneck speed to keep pace with customer and societal demands to reduce their environmental impacts. But greening one’s business is no small feat. While clear opportunities abound in this new economy, business leaders pursuing a green strategy are finding few roadmaps and established rules and plenty of hidden twists and turns.
So, how does a company succeed in a world gone green?
In Strategies for the New Green Economy, Joel Makower, one of the world’s foremost green business experts, provides a clear roadmap for this challenging terrain. Makower offers insights and inspiration gleaned from his 20 years’ experience helping Fortune 500 companies and start-ups alike formulate strategies that align environmental and business goals. Providing a comprehensive and realistic look at both the opportunities and challenges, Strategies for the New Green Economy shows how leadership companies are finding their way in the green economy, while their competitors struggle.
Joel Makower is Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com® and other websites, research, and events produced by Greener World Media, Inc., of which he is cofounder and chairman. He has 20 years’ experience advising companies on green strategy and marketing and is author of more than a dozen books, including The Green Consumer and The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business. | <urn:uuid:dab878c1-43e6-428a-aaa8-38ff1fa8f6ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.joytutela.com/strategies-green-economy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935841 | 275 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Munro cites an example from the previously mentioned textbook of forensic psychiatry (3). A 57-year-old former coal miner, referred to as Zhu, who had been an enthusiastic participant in Mao's Cultural Revolution, began to write extensively on political matters after he retired. He spoke to local political leaders and sent his writings to political journals, always signing his own name. His speech was logical, his behavior polite, and his lifestyle orderly. However, when subjected to psychiatric evaluation he was found to be suffering from paranoid psychosis on the basis that his theories were "conceptually chaotic" and in conflict with the principles laid down by the Central Committee. Moreover, "Zhu's views and utterances were incompatible with his status, position, qualifications, and learning; the great disparities here clearly demonstrated his divorcement from reality." | <urn:uuid:d098ffea-2d8f-4b8d-a21b-ccb777c54f12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=86518 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990933 | 165 | 1.554688 | 2 |
In a front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal we learned that Mark Zuckerberg the founder and CEO of Facebook never consulted with his board of directors before negotiating a $1 billion deal to acquire Instagram. Normally a board of directors is comprised of individuals with disparate skill sets who advise and consult with the CEO on corporate issues including strategy. A visitor to my class on restructuring at Northeastern University, a former bankruptcy judge, remarked once that in his opinion most bankruptcies are caused by CEOs who ignore their board of directors. Obviously no one would suspect that Facebook is a likely bankruptcy candidate; but that does not mean that Mr. Zuckerberg was right in what he did.
I suspect that his behavior was an unintended consequence of his previous success. My friend the bankruptcy judge explained that successful CEOs had to fight naysayers on their way to success. He felt that this caused many of them to assume a me against them mentality - even when they're all on the same team such as with the Board of Directors. I don't think Mr. Zuckerberg had too long or too arduous a battle on his way to Facebook success. In fact, I suspect this unintended consequence derives from his arrogance as a result of rapid and unprecedented success.
This unintended consequence is not going to bankrupt Facebook. After the company goes public however, public shareholders may object to his handing out 1% of their company for an acquisition of a firm with no revenues and no profits. After all, Instagram was not the only photo sharing and photo manipulating app out there. | <urn:uuid:9e226345-166b-4b65-a433-a89aa50caa11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harlanplatt.com/1/post/2012/04/who-said-boards-of-directors-are-just-window-dressing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987082 | 307 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Snowdon is a neighbourhood located in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough of Montreal. The sector is centred around the intersection of the Decarie Highway and Queen Mary Road and it’s served by the Snowdon metro station.
Snowdon is a primarily residential neighbourhood, named for James Snowdon, who owned a farm where the neighbourhood now stands.
Queen Mary is a large, 4 lane road that expands up from a small residential street west of Decarie until it intersects with Cote-Des-Neiges Boulevard in the east. You can find restaurants, grocery stores as well as several kosher eateries there. You will also encounter the Marie-de-France College, as well as the impressive St. Joseph’s Oratory, located on the right just before Queen Mary Street reaches the intersection with Cote-Des-Neiges.
Snowdon metro station has three parallel vaulted tunnels; the blue line platforms on one side, the orange on the other, with the stacked corridors running between them to the mezzanine and entrance. The tunnels are joined by smaller transverse tunnels. The station is on Queen Mary near Decarie. It houses both the short Blue line as well as the much longer Orange line.
The stretch of Victoria Avenue runs through the heart of the Snowdon neighbourhood. It’s one of the more ethnically diverse areas in Montreal and many newcomers settle in this area. As a result there are food shops and clothing stores that reflect a global range of tastes.
Key features in the neighbourhood include the former Snowdon Theatre.
Snowdon. Photo : © ProvinceQuebec | <urn:uuid:e098b763-a343-4add-965e-f2c160116735> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.provincequebec.com/montreal/snowdon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962022 | 349 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Do you know that less than 30% of our obsolete electronics is re-sellable for different purpose? Do you know that over 70% gets thrown away if not properly recycled? In this time, we can buy and upgrade new monitors and computers easily. After we purchased the new version of computer, how about the old ones? Did you just throw it away? For your information, many of computer and monitor products contain high levels of leachable lead and other heavy metals. Biodegradability of it is very slow and no re-use of the raw materials occurs.
When it comes to land filling computers and monitors, there is no direct legislated prohibition exists. If you want to throw your old computer and monitors, you can call e waste recycling phoenix now. E-waste harvester has been committed to recycling and reducing landfill waste since the company was inception. From now on, you can count on E-Waste Harvesters to help you throw your computer. This company provide complete and environmentally responsible disposition of your IT assets. With arizona computer recycling, you can get corporate asset disposition such as recycle, redeployment, destruction, and disposal. Security risks and asset redeployment or disposal are important factors in an assets total cost of ownership.
If you need hard drive destruction services, you can order from E-Waste Harvesters. E-Waste Harvesters on-site data destruction and hard drive destruction service are available before removal and electronics recycling takes place. With on-site hard drive shredding gives the client a chance to watch the process take place from the office. The service provides clean ad secure destruction of hard drives, cell phones, backup tapes, LTO, thumb drives and other data storage devices. This process may be witnessed by client to ensure all organizational requirements are being met. If you are interested and need more information, you can visit the official website. | <urn:uuid:b6b54d84-347b-46c8-a927-329c7d17fa9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalwarmingcrusade.com/arizona-computer-recycling-services-from-e-waste-harvesters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939043 | 390 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Daniel Tilles from Krakow, Poland raised an important point in this month's issue of The Economist which I think all Remont followers will feel strongly about. According to Daniel, photographs of East Europeans featured in The Economist have perpetuated stereotypical images of babas wrapped up on the streets rather than "the dentally challenged villager" demographic group (pictured above according to the author's information). I'm not sure if Daniel's defense of the dentally challenged is an objection to the media avoiding less attractive subjects to immortalize in print, which would indeed be an injustice unless I am reading the paper with a meal.
This editorial then goes on to helpfully suggest several other underrepresented demographics: "Roma using horse-drawn carts on main roads, elderly veterans in Soviet-style uniforms and furry hats and vodka-soaked vagrants would broaden the picture."Such pictures would surely go a long way towards destroying stereotypes about Eastern Europeans. Perhaps including pictures of bureaucrats taking bribes and angry youths with shaved heads chain-smoking should be added to his list? | <urn:uuid:b988bf9a-91d9-4b04-b000-73b746540be5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eternalremont.blogspot.com/2009/02/equal-opportunity-ugly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93433 | 213 | 1.632813 | 2 |
I was there in Delhi on December 16, when the savage rape and battery of the 23-year-old student of physiotherapy by a gang of cowardly criminals took place on a moving bus. The whole country was absolutely shocked by the wanton brutality of that barbaric act. A week later, huge crowds were marching in the streets of Delhi, demanding justice and major changes in the criminal code, to prevent any repetition.
We know that such changes are essential when we learn that the conviction rate for rape cases is only 26 per cent, down from 46 per cent the previous year, that there is a long backlog of 40,000 pending trials and that suspects roam the streets on bail. There are apparently 65,000 police officers in Delhi, but 20,000 of them are too busy providing protection for politicians and VIPs! Even more alarming is the impunity of police officers when they, themselves, commit rape and theft, which seems to be common knowledge in India, and when they fail to investigate reported complaints or perform timely forensic tests and when some dismiss reported cases with remarks like “she was dressed for rape”, referring to the victims!
It reminded me of a statement by a very senior minister in Yemen a few years ago. When he heard that European women were regularly “touched” at the Salt Market in Sana’a, he said, in my presence: “Well if they dress like that, they deserve to be molested!” It also reminds me of the story published on March 6, 2007, about a Saudi woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped and then beaten by her brother, subjecting her to 90 lashes — for meeting a man who was not a relative. However, what could be more horrendous than the story of the Somali 13-year-old girl, stoned to death by militants after she had been accused of “adultery”. Reports indicate that she had been raped by three men while travelling on foot to visit her grandmother in the war-torn capital, Mogadishu.
The Delhi incident invites comparison with other countries. Apparently, South Africa “is the rape country of the world”! According to an article by Roni Caryn Rabin, published on December 14, 2011, 1.3 million American women annually may be victims of rape or attempted rape, i.e. around 1 per cent of American women. According to Eleanor J Bader, in an article published on December 21, 2012, women prisoners endure rampant sexual violence. What is less known is that between 1 and 2 per cent of males have been raped, many when they were younger than 11.
An interview by Al Jazeera of an Indian female reporter on December 23, indicates that rape occurs every 20 minutes in India, i.e. 72/day or 26,000/year. The comparative figure for the US is 85,000/year. However, the population of the US is only a quarter of that of India!
The Times of India published practical steps to make women safe — including harsher punishment such as chemical castration. Death penalty was mentioned, but it was also pointed out that rapists may then kill their victims to snuff out evidence. Fast tracking the slow court system, better surveillance and gender sensitisation of the police were listed, in addition to public and especially police education. However, while these are important and necessary steps, the problem cannot wait another two decades while they begin to work and while another half a million women are raped and brutalised.
But why has the government unleashed its own violent suppression of peaceful protest? Apparently, it is because of Section 144 of the criminal code which deals with demonstrations, in this ostensibly democratic country! We have seen the police using long, heavy, truncheons on peaceful unarmed demonstrators on TV, most of whom were female. There seems to be a major disconnect between economic progress and human rights in India, judging by what is happening today. I watched Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promising to form yet another advisory committee, but in the same breath, condemning violence. The only violence I saw on TV screens was by the Delhi Police and the medical testimony seems to confirm the dead policeman did not suffer any injury.
As those huge demonstrations fizzled out, another rape victim took her own life, leaving a note indicating that the police did not act on her complaint for three weeks, which confirms that the main cause of the problem is police incompetence and apathy in applying existing laws. One placard caught my eye, which said: “Prime Minister, what if this was YOUR daughter?”
In an interview on Al Jazeera TV, an Indian woman said: “We are only here to express our outrage at this rape and to make sure that the perpetrators are so severely punished that no one will ever think of committing such a crime ever again.” Another statement was: “The government is wrong if it thinks that the youth of today will be intimidated by the actions of the security forces. Today, India is a new country.”
It would seem, therefore, that the fear which ordinary citizens used to harbour in the Middle East, and in India, has now evaporated and they will not rest until change does occur and justice is seen to be done. Sadly, whatever changes do occur, it is too late for this victim who died in Singapore last Friday.
Dr Qais Ghanem is a retired neurologist, radio show host, poet and novelist. His two novels are Final Flight from Sana’a and Two Boys from Aden College. His non-fiction, My Arab Spring, My Canada, was published by Amazon. | <urn:uuid:2319b431-abbe-4345-9a98-eb3aec206027> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/the-brutality-and-barbarism-of-rape-1.1126447 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979133 | 1,159 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Psalms - Chapter 147 <--- PREV NEXT --->
1. Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.
2. The LORD doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.
3. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
4. He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
5. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
6. The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.
7. Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:
8. Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.
9. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.
10. He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.
11. The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
12. Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.
13. For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.
14. He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.
15. He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.
16. He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.
17. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
18. He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
19. He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.
20. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.
<--- PREV NEXT ---> | <urn:uuid:453cb27c-6d36-4553-a917-0d017f4c3c92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://faithfamilyjesus.com/biblesearch.php?biblebook=19&biblechapter=147 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950946 | 482 | 1.5 | 2 |
Insulated and ready to go.
Take a step back in time with us to the beginning of Jonathan Bellow's Fencl build. Many of you have asked about insulation with "Why do you need it?"' and "How do you do it?" being to of the most popular questions. I thought I would focus on this aspect of Jonathan's build for today's post.
Now, what you don't see in this first picture is the aluminum flashing that Jonathan applied to the bottom of the framing. You have to staple it really well, leaving no gaps for any critters to climb into. Then you flip the whole frame onto the trailer so that the aluminum flashing is now on the bottom of the trailer. The frame is them screwed to the trailer. Here's a few more shots of Jonathan's handiwork:
The instruction on how to do this can be found at the very beginning of our plans. For instance, if you have a copy of the Popomo plans, you will find the information on the 2nd illustrated page. If you don't have a copy yet, it comes free with your purchase of The Small House Book.
One more thing: We've added a Berkeley workshop to our schedule! Make sure to check it out; we'd love to have you there! | <urn:uuid:6b0034ee-84e0-434d-b4c4-30ed131f46fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/blogs/tumbleweed/5913003-insulated-and-ready-to-go | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958427 | 263 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Human Rights Watch to publish report that shows some victims experience fresh trauma from police neglect in rape cases
Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover “disturbing evidence of police failure” in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital.
But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.
“This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied,” said Carol Tracy of the Women’s Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases.
Human Rights Watch began looking into the situation in Washington after discovering evidence that the city’s Metropolitan police department (MPD) were refusing even to document a significant number of reports of sexual assaults coming in from the central hospital where victims are treated.
Full details and statistics will be disclosed by HRW in its final report, due to be published on 24 January. | <urn:uuid:933839f3-f00d-460a-92b1-d770b3623d88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theinternetpost.net/2013/01/18/washington-police-accused-of-disturbing-failures-to-investigate-rape/ | 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 | 0.945888 | 289 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Podcast: Health Reform Myths & Realities, Part 3
April 23, 2010
Download the mp3 of this podcast (3:12)
This podcast is part three in a series of podcasts on myths about health reform and its impact on the federal budget deficit. I’m Shannon Spillane and I’m joined by Jim Horney, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy at the Center.
1. Jim, some opponents of the new health reform law claim that it is financed with a number of gimmicks and as a result will increase the federal deficit. We’ve looked at each claim of budget gimmickry and found each one misleading or inaccurate. Today we’re focused on a particular claim: that the health reform law’s Medicare savings are meaningless because whenever Congress enacts Medicare savings, it later cancels them before they take effect. Is this true?
No, it is absolutely false. This is one of those myths that gets repeated and repeated until everyone thinks it’s true. But it’s not.
Congress has repeatedly adopted measures to produce very substantial savings in Medicare and has let them take effect.
2. And you actually looked back at the history of such measures and found that to be the case?
That’s exactly right. We examined every piece of major Medicare legislation enacted in the last 20 years and found that Congress has allowed the overwhelming majority of cuts in Medicare to be implemented.
Four pieces of legislation included significant Medicare savings. Virtually all of the Medicare savings in three of those pieces of legislation — the 1990, 1993, and 2005 budget reconciliation bills — were successfully implemented. In addition, nearly four-fifths of the savings enacted in the fourth piece of legislation — the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 — were implemented.
And that’s actually fairly amazing, because in that case there were extraordinary circumstances. The year after the 1997 legislation was enacted the budget was balanced – four years before the scheduled date. And in addition in 1999, Medicare spending actually went down. The conclusions we’ve reached about Medicare cuts have not been challenged because they are a matter of historical record. Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped critics from ignoring the record and continuing to assert that "Medicare cuts don’t stick." In fact, they do!
Thanks for joining us, Jim. To learn more about the new health reform law, check out our special series “Moving Forward with Health Reform” on the Center’s website, CenterOnBudget.org and look out for future podcasts on this topic. | <urn:uuid:0e4d2b0b-409a-4b4d-9f4d-25353e045e21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3165 | 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 | 0.955904 | 530 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Omari S. Ra – Self-Portrait (2012)
Omari S. Ra was awarded the Institute of Jamaica’s Silver Musgrave medal in 2011 and, as has become customary, is honoured with a small tribute exhibition in the 2012 National Biennial. The following is the citation that was read as the Musgrave Award Ceremony at the Institute in 2011:
The Institute of Jamaica recognizes Omari Sediki Ra for outstanding merit in the field of Art.
Omari Sediki Ra (also known as “Afrikan”) was born in Kingston, 1960. He studied painting at the Jamaica School of Art (now the Edna Manley School of the Visual Arts) and graduated in 1983. More recently, he completed his Master of Fine Arts studies at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth. Omari Ra’s exhibition repertoire is quite extensive beginning with his 1983 graduation group exhibition at the Jamaica School of Art and the first Young Talent exhibition at the National Gallery of Jamaica in 1985. That same year, Ra held his first solo exhibition at the Suti Gallery in Berne, Switzerland. Ra continues to be a regular participant in major Jamaican exhibitions such as Curator’s Eye I and the National Biennial – where, for the latter, he was awarded the prestigious Aaron Matalon Award in 2004. Ra has continually maintained his international presence, exhibiting throughout Europe and the Americas. Important international exhibitions include the 1986 and 1994 Havana Biennale and the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale.
Omari S. Ra – Jesus Christ (1986), mixed media on canvas, Collection: NGJ (Guy McIntosh Donation)
Omari Ra – Figure with Mask, 1987, private collection
This post focuses on one of the major figures in contemporary Jamaican art, Omari S. Ra. His work also provides an interesting perspective on the symbolic significance of Haiti in the African Diaspora, which has new poignancy in the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake and which has motivated the timing of this post. The text is adapted from the doctoral dissertation of Veerle Poupeye, the NGJ’s Executive Director.
Omari Ra, also known as Afrikan, is one of the most significant artists to emerge from the 1980s and his work has helped to define the course of contemporary Jamaican art in the last twenty-five years. He was born in Kingston in 1960 as Robert Cookhorne but later changed his name to the Afrocentric Omari S. Ra. He graduated in 1983 from what was then the Jamaica School of Art (now Edna Manley College) and has more recently completed MFA studies at the University in Massachusetts in Dartmouth. Informed by his radical African Nationalist politics, Omari Ra’s work provides provocative, satirical commentaries on the historical and contemporary issues that have shaped the African Diaspora. Ra was originally a painter, who worked mainly in mixed media and collage on paper, but his recent work includes three-dimensional objects and installations and large drawings on fabric. Ra has exhibited regularly at the National Gallery, including the National Biennials, where he won the prestigious Aaron Matalon Award in 2004, and Curator’s Eye I (2004), which was curated by Lowery Stokes-Simms, then Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. His overseas exhibitions include the 1986 and 1994 Havana Biennale and the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale. He lectures in Painting at the Edna Manley College, where he currently also heads the Painting Department. | <urn:uuid:1a2300a8-de60-4a02-8473-4e0b5a70d088> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nationalgalleryofjamaica.wordpress.com/tag/omari-s-ra/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973391 | 733 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Mickey Mouse - The Terrible Tsunami (D 2000-113, 2002)
Joaquín Cañizares Sanchez learned the comics profession at José Casanovas's academy in Badalona. He began his career working as an inker for the publishing house Bruguera. He joined the Comicup studios in the early 1980s and shared a studio with Angel Segura Moreno and his childhood friend Miguel Fernandez Martinez between 1981 and 1984. He was the regular inker of Carlos Grangel on Disney comics like 'Winnie the Pooh' and 'The Wuzzles'. He became the penciller of these comics when Grangel left the studios.
Winnie the Pooh - Piglet's Pony Ride (1988)
In addition, he illustrated several 'Big Bad Wolf' and 'Little Hiawatha' stories for Anders And & Co. magazine. From 1991, now associated with Tello Art, he worked mainly on 'Mickey Mouse' stories for both the pockets and the magazines (Anders And, Onkel Joachim and Jumbobog). Since 2005 he is doing only magazine stories. In the 1990s he shared a studio with Miguel Fernandez again, as well as Juan Manuel Muñoz Chueca. It was during this period that the artists started working on the 'Mickey Mystery' sub-series. | <urn:uuid:3f606ebe-efbd-4f7f-bb7e-b261d7c8d30a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/canizares-sanchez_j.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950119 | 280 | 1.5625 | 2 |
SANFORD — Literacy Volunteers of Greater Sanford (LVGS) has received a $500 contribution from Kennebunk Savings to support its project with the York County Shelter Programs in Alfred.
Through this project, LVGS reaches out to adult residents of the York County Shelter who may have literacy needs to assist them with short-term and long-term goals, including obtaining important documents, assessing literacy levels, creating resumes, and improving literacy skills. The goal is to provide opportunities for individuals to build self-esteem and become more independent community members.
The staff, board members and volunteers at LVGS are grateful for Kennebunk Savings’ continued support of its programs.
The mission of LVGS is to support the literacy needs of adults with free, confidential, one-on-one tutoring by trained adult volunteers. Founded in 1986, LVGS helps adults improve their literacy levels and change their lives. Whether the goal is to fill out a job application, understand a label on a prescription bottle or read a bedtime story to a child, LVGS offers opportunities for adult learners to improve their skills and achieve their goals relating to family, career, and participation in community affairs.
To learn more about LVGS, please call the office at 324-2486 or visit online at www.sanfordliteracy.org.
LVGS is grateful to have strong community support, including from the United Way of York County. | <urn:uuid:d78de7a8-5744-472c-aadf-d502354b6313> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121122/GJCOMMUNITY03/121129848/-1/SANNEWS&CSProduct=fosters | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95123 | 292 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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"Creating Camelot" Photography Exhibit, Featuring More Than 70 Images of JFK and Family, Opens April 12
WASHINGTON, March 20, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On April 12, the Newseum will open a new exhibit, "Creating Camelot: The Kennedy Photography of Jacques Lowe," as part of its year-long exploration of the life, legacy and death of America's 35th president. The exhibit features intimate, behind-the-scenes images of John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jacqueline, and their children, Caroline and John, taken by Kennedy's personal photographer.
To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kennedy-images-lost-on-911-to-be-displayed-at-the-newseum-199076121.html
The original negatives of nearly all of the 70 images displayed in "Creating Camelot" were lost forever in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Lowe, who died in May 2001, had stored his negatives of more than 40,000 Kennedy photos in a World Trade Center bank vault. All of the negatives in the vault were lost in the attacks, with the exception of 10 negatives out on loan at the time.
The only existing images from the lost negatives were on Lowe's contact sheets and prints, which fortunately had been stored in another New York City facility. The Newseum, working closely with the Lowe estate, digitally restored the images to museum quality for the exhibit. Imaging technicians in the Newseum's exhibits department digitally scanned the surviving contact sheets and prints, which were never meant to be used in place of negatives for printmaking, and spent more than 600 hours working to remove scratches, dust and other blemishes from the images. The restoration work creates a comprehensive digital archive of Lowe's Kennedy photographs and enables the Newseum to exhibit the photos at a resolution and size at which they have never before been seen.
A touch-screen monitor in the "Creating Camelot" exhibit will allow visitors to view more than two dozen of Lowe's original contact sheets, including the editing marks that indicate which images Lowe selected for publication in various newspapers and magazines.
"Lowe's photographs helped shape Kennedy's image in the news media and in the public's imagination," said Cathy Trost, vice president of exhibits and programs. "Thanks to his unprecedented access during the presidential campaign, he was able to supply candid and intimate family images to the press, which had never before been used to that extent in politics."
Lowe was 28 when he met the Kennedys in 1958 and was hired as the family's personal photographer. Over the next three years, he shot more than 40,000 images of the couple and their children. Lowe's photos span from Kennedy's 1958 U.S. Senate re-election campaign through his early years in the White House. The iconic images helped create the legend of the Kennedy presidency that later became known as Camelot.
The exhibit opens in conjunction with another JFK exhibit, "Three Shots Were Fired," which examines how the news media reported the events that began with Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. A Newseum-produced film about Kennedy's presidency and family life in the White House, "A Thousand Days," also will premiere on April 12.
The exhibits and film will be on display through Jan. 5, 2014.
About the Newseum
The mission of the Newseum is to champion the five freedoms of the First Amendment through education, information and entertainment. One of the top attractions in Washington, D.C., the Newseum's 250,000-square-foot news museum offers visitors a state-of-the-art experience that blends news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits. The Newseum is a 501(c)(3) public charity funded, in part, by The Freedom Forum. The First Amendment Center at the Newseum and in Nashville and The Diversity Institute serve as forums for the study and exploration of the First Amendment. For more information visit newseum.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Restoring the Kennedy Photography of Jacques Lowe
©2012 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:1861e360-1ddd-459f-9905-a2011254e4f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news10.com/story/21730571/kennedy-images-lost-on-911-to-be-displayed-at-the-newseum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959906 | 943 | 1.703125 | 2 |
If you asked your kids what you spend money on and what you don’t, what would they say? Our kids are learning a lot about what we value and how we use our money to promote our values.
In our family, both of our kids know that we invest in education. We’ve told both of our kids that we’ll do everything we can to help pay for their college education and that we’ve been saving for that since they were born. (Of course, we were surprised at how much a college education costs once our first child started college.)
Our kids also know we’re big savers. My husband, who grew up in Tanzania and Kenya, wanted to take our family to East Africa to walk through the house he grew up in, to see his elementary school and high school, to meet his African friends who still lived there, and to experience what it was like for him to grow up overseas.
We saved for more than a decade for that trip. In the meantime, we did short, inexpensive family getaways, such as staying overnight for a few nights at a hotel with an indoor water park and driving to a nearby cabin and cooking all of our own meals.
Our family was thrilled when we finally saved enough to take this trip. My oldest son, however, quickly remarked that this was no vacation when we got to East Africa. Once he viewed it as an adventure instead of a vacation, he went with it. (Traveling in a developing country of another culture is more about expanding your experience than it is about relaxing.)
Our kids have also seen us deal with tight times. For a few years, one of us got pay cuts (instead of a layoff). Since I’m self-employed, my kids have watched how drastically my income can change. I’ve had lucrative years and also barely-making-it-by years. They’ve learned the trade offs of being self-employed and also working for a company. There are pros and cons to both.
Recently, we got hit with a lot of unexpected expenses. My husband’s dad got stage 4 cancer. Since he lived in another state that wasn’t close enough to drive to, there suddenly were a lot of unexpected trips and eventually we all had to go to a funeral. Six months later, my husband’s uncle died, and off my husband flew, out of state, for that funeral as well. As a family, we talked about these unexpected expenses. We talked about how we value family and that unexpected things can happen, which is why we have an emergency savings account (that is now completely empty).
All this is to say that the way we use our money says a lot about our values. What do you value most? Does the way you use money reflect those values? If not, what are you really saying about what you value by the way you use money?
Kids and Money, Parentfurther.
Bank It: http://www.bankit.com/.
Image via yomanimus on Flick’r | <urn:uuid:0bcc2792-aa89-4bd1-b837-25ba4fffb170> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentfurther.com/blog/value-of-money | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984222 | 640 | 1.734375 | 2 |
BOOK OF GOD'S PROMISES
Love For Us
J. Stephen Lang
-- Love is such an overused word -- don't we "love" hot dogs and
apple pie, and "love" going to the beach? But love in the Bible has a much
richer meaning, particularly when applied to God's feeling toward his people.
The Bible describes a kind of love that goes far beyond the greatest human capacity.
The LORD watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing
love. We depend on the LORD alone to save us. Only he can help us, protecting
us like a shield.
Psalm 33:18, 20
"I have loved you, my people, with an
everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself."
Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who
trust the LORD . So rejoice in the LORD and be glad, all you who obey him! Shout
for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!
The Word became human
and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.
And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the
world to condemn it, but to save it."
We know how dearly God
loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us
while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight
by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's judgment. For since
we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were
still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his
life. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God -- all
because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of
Romans 5:5, 8-11
We know that God causes everything to work together
for the good of those who love him and are called by him.
is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, that even while we were dead
because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It
is only by God's special favor that you have been saved!) For he raised us from
the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms
-- all because we are one with Christ Jesus. And so God can always point to us
as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown
in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus.
experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand
it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from
Anyone who does not love does not know God -- for God
God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world
so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that
we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love
each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in
us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us.
And God has
given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.
1 John 4:8-13
See also Comfort in Times of Trouble
The Book of God's Promises -- Copyright, 1999 by J.
Stephen Lang. All rights reserved, used with permission.
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need. | <urn:uuid:33d1ee73-f9e9-4a67-9814-d705ad514ff5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/cbnTeachingSheets/promises_God's_Love.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970142 | 882 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Christmas is only 13 days away, and if you haven’t already, it’s time to hit that shopping list hard. I’ve posted a few more literary gifts that are sure to please the bookworms on your list.
They make playing cards with Disney princesses, Star Wars characters and even Littlest Pet Shop figures, but these might be a little more appealing to adults on your list. And at $10, they make a unique stocking stuffer.
They are described on The Reader’s Catalog web site as “beautiful playing cards with quotes and illustrations on every card. Every card features a quote from Lewis Carroll’s original “Alice in Wonderland” tale or his companion book, “Through the Looking-Glass,” with the full-color artwork of famous English illustrator Sir John Tenniel as featured in the classic original first edition.
The text on these cards by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) has delighted children and the literary elite for over a century. Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) is one of the most famous illustrators in English literature. Each deck contains 54 cards with a blue back. 3.5″ x 2.25″.”
I’ve always had a fascination for bookplates and longed to have a beautiful set for my own books. These are sold by The Reader’s Catalog and is a classic choice.
As described on the web site, they are “based on the design of the cover of the first edition of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” published in 1876, in the collection of The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Conn.”
The web site also says “a portion of the proceeds of the sale of these bookplates benefits the education programs and ongoing preservation of this National Historic Landmark.” They are printed in black and gold on Nile blue stock. There are 25 bookplates per pack.
You’ll also find a variety of design choices at www.bookplates.com. They are a little pricey. The minimum order is 125 plates for $90, but they do come with your name printed on them. Barnes and Noble also offers a pretty good variety of bookplates that are much more affordable – you just write your own name on each one. B&N also sells clip art so that you can design your own.
Anyone who loves to read and has an interest in gardening would probably enjoy this book. It’s similar to The Book Lover’s Cookbook I mentioned in a post earlier this week, but instead of featuring recipes, it gives step-by-step instructions on how to recreate gardens made famous by literary works.
The description on Amazon says the garden plans are accompanied by excerpts from the works of
A practical step-by-step guide accompanies excerpts from the works of Louisa May Alcott, Ivan Turgenev, Carl Sandburg, D. H. Lawrence, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charlotte Brontë, Thomas Hardy, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Victor Hugo, and others.
Twilight Barbie dolls
Twilight fans are hardcore, so if there’s one on your shopping list, these dolls might be just the thing to make their holidays merry and bright.
Team Jacob fans are sure to be giddy about the new doll, which is, of course, shirtless. You can pre-order the Jacob doll, and it will be shipped in January.
To me, Edward’s doll looks a little “off,” but that’s probably a discussion for a different day. | <urn:uuid:14ed660c-7092-42e7-958c-0c2089e10cb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcmessenger.com/blogs/shelfspace/?cat=15&paged=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948158 | 764 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Yesterday in Parliament, David Cameron suggested that even more legal restrictions may be introduced to control our Trade Unions. He favoured the idea that no strike may be called unless at least 50% of the union members cast a vote.
We already have probably the most draconian anti trade union laws in Europe, a fact which ‘New’ Labour , to their shame, did little to balance. The right to withdraw labour in persuit of a just settlement in a dispute is a right that if abolished leads along the path back to serfdom. The benefits, comforts and rights that we enjoy to day in our standard of living have been hard won by thousands of our forebears and we owe it to them and indeed to ourselves and to our children, to stand up to those who seek our domination.
Yes, in the event of strike action we the public may suffer some inconvenience but that is a price worth paying for freedom. The early trade unionists suffered far worse for future generations; abuse, violence, imprisonment and deportation. Are we now so softened by the life improvements that they gave us that we no longer have the guts to stand up to injustice?
Cameron believes that over 50% should exercise their vote in a strike ballot; well, how about applying the same rule to electing MPs. The voter turn-out can be 30% or less in some constituencies and very, very, few are elected with more than 50% of the votes cast. Now there would be a problem! | <urn:uuid:ca69e2db-96fe-4a09-96fc-ca68db39daa9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freethinkeruk.wordpress.com/category/trade-unions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969928 | 303 | 1.726563 | 2 |
To many people, Foursquare simply is the childhood game they played with their friends in the playground. For other, Foursquare is a way to stay connected with their friends and to learn more about the city they are in. Foursquare is a location based application that aims to make cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. Users check-in to venues using smartphone application, mobile web or text messaging. Their check-in location is shared with friends and each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges”. There are many types of badges and some badges require users to check-in to a venue a certain amount of time. Foursquare allows users to bookmark information about places that they want to visit, to read friend’s suggestions about the venue and also to see other user’s suggestions about nearby places . Businesses and brands utilize the Foursquare application to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences. Businesses owners are able to use the information and statistics provided by Foursquare to see who comes through their store and better target their marketing and advertising towards the right demographic.
Read the rest of this entry » | <urn:uuid:458acaf8-f8c5-4282-a5d6-e04ab9814ca3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cultureandcommunication.org/tdm/nmrs/sp2/tag/foursquare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959044 | 246 | 1.8125 | 2 |
(Reuters) - Repairs will cost $20 million and take six months to complete on a key bridge connecting southern Indiana with Louisville, Kentucky that was abruptly closed three weeks ago because of a serious crack in a beam, the two states said on Friday.
The Sherman Minton Bridge over the Ohio River -- which carried 80,000 vehicles per day -- was closed to traffic on September 9 and ordered to undergo extensive testing after the crack running the length of the 1,600 foot span was found during routine maintenance and inspection.
Three weeks of testing uncovered weld defects at numerous locations and confirmed closing the bridge was the right thing to do, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear said in a joint statement.
The bridge is one of only three spans across the Ohio River connecting southern Indiana with Louisville, forcing both states to reroute traffic, according to the Indiana transportation department.
The repair plan calls for installing new steel plating on both sides of a cracked bridge tie that runs the length of the 1,600 foot bridge. The repairs are expected to give the bridge 20 more years of useful life.
The closing of the bridge was just one day after President Barack Obama in a speech touting a jobs creation plan referred to badly decaying roads and bridges across the United States and made a reference to another Ohio River bridge that connects Ohio with Kentucky. On Thursday, the president used a Cincinnati-area bridge as a backdrop for a speech supporting his jobs plan.
The 49-year-old Sherman Minton Bridge serves Interstate 64 and U.S. Highway 150, which run east-west from Virginia to Missouri.
Indiana has the lead responsibility for the repairs and will issue bid documents to contractors Tuesday. The bids will be opened in mid-October. The job includes up to $5 million of incentives for finishing the repairs early.
Bridge costs are shared equally by Indiana and Kentucky.
(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune) | <urn:uuid:a5ced627-a28c-4b13-a61e-7ed79907d0d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtaq.com/news/articles/2011/sep/30/indiana-kentucky-key-bridge-repairs-to-take-six-months/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96386 | 395 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Fitness Nutrition produces safe and effective supplements that steadily increase your strength and endurance while making it easier to burn fat. Whether you're an amateur or a pro athlete, you can improve your health and wellness by making Fitness Nutrition products part of your daily routine.
Fitness Nutrition knows how important it is to supply your body with nutrients that are lacking in the average diet. Nutrients such as fiber, minerals and amino acids are crucial when you're trying to burn fat and increase muscle. Fitness Nutrition in no means indicate that their supplements take the place of a balanced and healthy diet; they merely seek to enhance your diet with supplements that induce energy and help with muscle recovery.
All Fitness Nutrition products have been tested and approved by Informed-Choice, an independent testing and certification program which screens supplements for banned substances. All Fitness Nutrition products are made in the USA, contain pure ingredients and have no additives. | <urn:uuid:f5455ccf-a87c-45bd-8ba4-9f68b841cdc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swimoutlet.com/Fitness-Nutrition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944767 | 181 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Based on Mlodinow's extensive historical research; his studies alongside colleagues such as Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne; and interviews with leading physicists and mathematicians such as Murray Gell-Mann, Edward Witten, and Brian Greene, Euclid's Window is an extraordinary blend of rigorous, authoritative investigation and accessible, good-humored storytelling that makes a stunningly original argument asserting the primacy of geometry. For those who have looked through Euclid's Window, no space, no thing, and no time will ever be quite the same.
©2009 Leonard Mlodinow; (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
A book about math, I know almost the definition of boring. NOT THIS ONE! I laughed and couldn't wait to get back to listening whenever I stopped. I was very sorry that it was over when done. I would buy a sequel in a heartbeat. The author is funny and makes the complex ideas understandable with everyday examples. Wonderfully well written and enjoyable.
I thought the author did an excellent job---particularly with the history up through Gauss---of crafting an interesting "story" out of the history of Geometry. Lots of fun anecdotes, many of which were new to me, and I think would be of interest to a reader interested in the subject.
I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but for someone who likes interesting non-fiction, it's not bad.
Private intellectual, writer, and retired academic. Currently R&D director for Gravitational Systems Engineering, Inc.
I would describe this book as analogous to a community brown bag feast. There were quite a few good bits, but equal amounts of dense tough inedible bits of uncertain origin. I think the author tried and failed to cover much to wide of a field, and in the end left me with more questions than answers. I did gain a better understanding of the nature and role of geometry in modern science. But the author's tendency to digress into quick recitation of abstract and abstruse formulas was extremely frustrating. I recommend this book to those who want to understand the history of science, although there are quite a few better texts available from Audible. I don't recommend this book to anyone who is looking to learn more about either Euclid or Geometry.
If you just want to know about Euclid the stop after the first three chapters. Discussion on Einstein helped me explain Relativity to my spouse in general terms. Area on Newton was OK but left out other contributors of the Age. I plan a second listen soon. More on the Ancients would have been nice since that is what I expected from the title.
The author of this book was surprisingly funny. He did a good job bringing you through the history of geometry. I just have one question, Wheres Euler?
Mlodinow's Euclid's window does not get the reader too deep into Geometry but presents more of an overview of the development of our abstract understanding of space. The part of the book that stands out for me is the development of Elliptic and Hyperbolic geometry with Riemann and Gauss. Here Mlodinow really shows the depth of his knowledge and does a great job. He also touches on interesting facts that Gauss had read Kant 5 times and then dropped his ideas as inadequate. He also seems to present a thesis that Mathematicians are born not made, as only 1 in 3 million individuals contribute creatively to the field. I did not feel that the development from Riemann to String Theory to Ed Witten’s M theory had the concepts as coherently explained as the section on curved spaces.
You will also find a bit of a polemic against religion and philosophy mostly in the first half of the book. The most interesting section was his story of Hypatia, and if you are looking to confirm anti-theist sentiment this is pretty persuasive. On a wider scale this book fits with the growing number of scientists that are anti-religion and anti-philosophy. Some of the stand out writers of this type are Stephen Hawking, Dan Dennet and Richard Dawkins but you also have second tier writers like Steven Weinberg and Leonard Mlodinow. You cannot learn too much science from books like this but the cultural voice of the physicist is interesting in pointing out how religious dogma holds back the pace of discovery and the freedom of the individual to follow wherever the facts lead. Anti-philosophy is also part of the mix for Mlodinow, for speculations without the guide of experiment mean nothing, he appeals to both Gauss and Feynman who called philosophy BS. There is a sense that to understand the world that science and mathematics is now the only path and that religion and philosophy should be left behind. The big question remains, who well can science, replace religion and philosophy?
The author accomplishes a masterful survey of geometry from the beginning of time until today. I know, you are already yawning; that is probably because your high school geometry teacher was like mine. The level of detail was a perfect amalgam of accuracy and clarity. The historical characters he introduces throughout have more dimensions than just their mathematical prowess. These people, like his examples, are multi-dimensional and, in general, quite relevant.
A good book for the student (high-school or above) or adult who merely wants a better understanding of the geometry that permeates our experience.
The author does an excellent job of bringing subject matter from the realm of math and physics PhD's to those of us who can grasp the concepts but lack the training and tools to apply them. I enjoyed the narrator's performance and thought the dry wit of the author hit the right tone.
I especially enjoyed the historical connections and practical examples that were not difficult to visualize even without looking at text.
I am a 25 year old nurse that loves fantasy and science fiction.
I love non fiction and learning about something new. I was very surprised at how clever the writing was in this book. Some one-liners downright had me laughing out loud. At one point, my brother (22 years old and a law student without much math or science in his background) sat through an hour long car ride in which I listened to this audio book, and even from a random point in the book, he found himself exclaiming in surprise at some interesting facts he learned, and laughing at the clever jokes and side comments.
I have to say that I learned something, but furthermore enjoyed learning it. It didn't feel tremendously technical or too plodding and long. It also explores the contributing social circumstances and history of the various mathematicians and scientists mentioned within its pages, which helps create a broad knowledge base on the topics at hand and about the people behind the discoveries as well.
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If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action. | <urn:uuid:f3baa0d6-e0bd-4290-b78c-9a37c79be9ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=cat_2?asin=B0036G94VG | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973249 | 1,439 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Nearly 62% of people in America in the 18-29 age group use wireless internet, and about 48% in the 30-45 age group access internet through mobile devices (Source: Pew Research Center). In this context, for any B2B organization, it is just not enough to develop innovative products, they also need to ensure that sales associates of their channel partners/distributors have good product knowledge and are trained to pitch product benefits effectually to customers. Here are some of the ways mLearning can be used to reach out to channel partners as well as their sales staff.
Just-in-time learning on pricing – educate channel partners on price structure, discounts and incentives: The price structure, discounts and incentives offered to channel partners are revised periodically and it is not always possible to have a face-to-face interaction to keep them updated. mLearning can be effectively used as a quick and viable option for this purpose.
Learning bytes on product knowledge – provide easy product and industry updates: Normally, company sales people are informed of product updates first, and they then pass on the information to their channel partners. The delay in this information reaching the sales staff could prove costly in a highly competitive environment. Providing access to such information directly to the sales staff of channel partners will ensure that they are brought up to speed with current information and can service customers better.
Reinforce product training with product selling tips: While product training (either through classroom training or eLearning) provides comprehensive product knowledge, it is not always easy to remember all the tips that were shared during a long training session. Simple selling tips and checklists can be good content for mLearning modules that act as a supplementary knowledge base for sales staff.
Inform about best practices: Multinational organizations would like all their channel partners to adhere to the best practices envisioned by the parent company. Mobile technology can be used to educate channel partners about best practices and the importance of adhering to them for mutual benefit. It provides a quick option to demonstrate solutions to a problem, process or procedure in a visual form using mobile devices.
Make podcasts of motivational sales talk: Companies such as Amway provide motivational and inspiring talks for their sales staff to help them sell better. Podcasts can be created even for essential information, to be accessed by sales people before facing customers. Since it is readily available to them through their mobile devices, they have access to information just when they need it.
Many organizations have successfully adopted mobile technologies to address the challenges faced by their channel partners and their indirect sales force. Mobile devices such as laptops, Smart Phones or tablet devices are ideal for reaching retail sales force, direct sales force of channel partners, or distributors spread across different geographical regions. | <urn:uuid:dc1cc83a-7ffa-4414-a4da-731ec5331d74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning/mlearning-for-channel-partners | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953354 | 554 | 1.796875 | 2 |
- Posted May 22, 2009 by
New York City, New York
This iReport is part of an assignment:
Your Statue of Liberty shots
Statue Of Liberty 1964
This is a photo I have of the Statue of Liberty taken in April of 1964. I was Ten years old and was in New York City with my basketball team. We were there to play a New York team. I forget who they were, it was quite a while ago. But if I can remember right, we got smoked. But back at home in our youth commission league we were Champs. That's another reason my coach took us there. Plus the World's Fair was there. We had a great time and visited all the New York City attractions like the United Nations and the Empire State Building. The second picture is of me at the fair. I am the little one in the front. I was wearing my hat and my basketball sweater. It was a great time and doing this iReport brings back a lot of memories. | <urn:uuid:4df5d141-91b1-4b65-92d1-76c26e4adc5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-261866 | 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 | 0.985129 | 205 | 1.585938 | 2 |
I've been catching up on reading I've been meaning to do while traveling recently. I found the CLIR report on Copyright Issues Relevant to Digital Preservation and Dissemination of Pre-1972 Commercial Sound Recordings by Libraries and Archives to be very interesting. Like discussions of copyright issues often must be, this report tends towards scenarios, likelihoods, and trends rather than absolute conclusions. I think that's OK. Even if there are no easy answers, knowing more about the issues involved is certainly beneficial.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this report is the discussion of how state copyright laws still affect audio preservation activities in libraries. The report's appendix summarizes state laws in California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Virginia. Each of the states examined include language in the criminal statute cited by the report indicating that reproduction for profit or commercial gain is illegal. Some, but not all, include specific exemptions for educational or non-profit use (under which library preservation activities would presumably fall?), but all specifically say what's illegal is profiting from the copying. This is a very different tone than today's discussions of copyright issues, where intent rarely enters into the argument. I wasn't previously aware of this shift, and wonder if state laws such as these could help serve as models as federal copyright law undergoes future revison. | <urn:uuid:095238be-8537-45b7-9841-7dfbba1482ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/02/copyright-for-sound-recordings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962178 | 266 | 1.632813 | 2 |
I just wanted to make some observations about the last campaign for the presidency.
Nate Silver is a pollster who has established himself as a genuine prognosticator. In 2008, he correctly predicted the winning candidate in 49 of the 50 states. I believe pollsters such as Silver have taken the suspense out of election night.
The combination of more refined computer technology and the improved skills of pollsters such as Silver have almost completely erased the uncertainty that is relevant to election- night results.
The first debate between President Obama and Gov. Romney was a disaster for Obama. I think that his advisers suggested that he should play it safe. As a result, he appeared to be defensive, timid and lacking in confidence. If President Obama had lost the election, this debate would have ranked with the first Nixon-Kennedy debate in 1960 and the 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. In those debates, Nixon's and Carter's poor performances, combined with Kennedy's and Reagan's fine debating skills, probably cost Nixon and Carter the presidency.
During the campaign, Romney had to move his political views over to the right in order to appeal to the strong conservative portion of the party. As a result, this shifting probably reinforced the opinion of some voters that he tended to flip-flop his political positions in order to win votes. Romney was the nomination, but probably lost the votes of a good number of moderate Democrats
In other words, he couldn't "have it both ways." He won the nomination, but lost the election. | <urn:uuid:f2734910-9ec1-415e-b528-f57e7db35cf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_22712705/looking-back-at-presidential-election | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980673 | 310 | 1.625 | 2 |
A Love of Books leaves a lasting legacy
A shared love of reading and books that led to two people falling in love and getting married has provided a lasting legacy for Rochdale's readers. The late Annie and Frank Maskew first met in the early 1950s when they were both regular visitors to the old Rochdale Central Library and they eventually married in 1955. Annie was a very popular teacher at a local grammar school where she encouraged and nurtured a love of reading and literature in all her pupils. Sadly, both have now passed away but their mutual love of books led Annie and Frank to leave a bequest to the Library service. Their wish was that the money should be used to buy a special collection of books to promote English Literature and Philosophy and to ensure that classic works are available to future generations. We are now busy preparing to launch the "Maskew Collection" at the Wheatsheaf Library in September.
The collection will include books for adults and children, including prize-winning authors; classic works of literature and popular philosophy titles. The collection will also include a wide-range of CDs and DVDs to complement and support the books in the collection.
Paul Young, head of Customers and Communications, believes that it will be a very special collection. He explained:
"We want the Maskew Collection to be accessible to all and will be developing events around it such as creative writing sessions and debating groups. The collection will be a lasting legacy to Annie, who I know was devoted to inspiring others with her love of literature, and a fitting tribute to her husband, Frank, whom she met in the library"
If you visit the Wheatsheaf Library over the next couple of months you will start to see some of the changes we will be making to prepare for the collection. To prepare for the arrival of some fabulous new stock, the layout of the library will be changing and exciting new display features and shelving are going to be installed
Reading and Writing Events
Across the Borough we have a varied and interesting programme of Reading and Writing Events. Regular "Meet the Author" sessions are complimented by Creative Writing and Poetry Workshops. For details of these and other events and activities in our libraries please check our website:
In anticipation of National Poetry Day on Thursday 7th October, why not put your pen to paper and join in the celebrations by entering our free Poetry Competition. The theme this year is Home and poems must be no longer than 20 lines in length. Conditions of entry can be found on our website and the closing date is September 7th. The Prize Winners and 10 runners-up will have their poems presented in a small booklet on National Poetry Day and will also be invited to perform their poems at our Poetry reading Event that same evening. We are currently collaborating with "Just Poets" to put together an entertaining programme for the evening and look forward to working with local secondary schools and the Youth Service to stage a Poetry Slam.
Launch of Feature Film DVD collection
The popular actress and singer, Kym Marsh dropped into the Wheatsheaf Library for a special question and answer session with children from Matthew Moss High School and Redwood School. The children had been invited to meet Kym as a 'thank you' for providing their ideas on how libraries could be improved. They got the chance to quiz their television favourite about her character on Coronation Street, her upcoming wedding, gruelling filming schedule and life as a pop star. She then officially launched the library's new DVD loan service. Over 100 Feature Film DVDs are now available to borrow from the library, titles include blockbusters such as Avatar and new releases are being added each week. Kym, who confessed to being an avid film watcher herself, cut the ribbon to open the collection before taking time to chat to fans and sign autographs.
For further information contact:
Pamela Taylor- Bramwell, Tel: 0170 692 4941 | <urn:uuid:d2388ddb-7e3e-4fba-ab2e-80baf864b42f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time-to-read.co.uk/Feature/2010/july.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965484 | 808 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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