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is a fantasy MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
set in the 7th century AD, along the Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
between China and Europe. The game requires no periodic subscription fee, but players can purchase premium items to customize or accelerate gameplay.
Silkroad Online is noted for its "Triangular Conflict System" in which characters may select one of three jobs, trader, hunter, or thief to engage each other in player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...
combat. Thieves attack traders who are protected by hunters. Hunters kill thieves getting experience to level up to a higher level of hunter. Traders complete trade runs which gives experience to increase their trader level, and thieves kill traders and hunters to level up. Thieves can also steal goods dropped by traders to take to the thieves' den in exchange for gold and thief experience.
In the Legend I update for Silkroad, the European classes and areas were introduced to the International servers, in Legend II, Fortress War was introduced. In fortress war, guilds fight to take hold of a fort which gives them the ability to raise taxes and hold some prestige over other guilds. In Legend III, Roc Mountain was added and the level cap was increased to 90. In addition, 9th Degree Armor and Weapons was added for both races. In Legend III+, the Bandit Fortress was added to iSRO, as well as Devil's Spirit silk dress.
In March 2009, Legend IV was introduced to the international version of Silkroad. Included in Legend IV are 10th degree weapons and armor for both European and Chinese characters. Also included was Ch'in Tomb, with monsters ranging from level 70 to 100. To enter the tomb, a character must be level 70 or above. The new unique monster added in Legend IV was Medusa, a level 105 snake from Greek mythology.
Players are given the option to create either a Chinese or European character. Each of the races has its own advantages, disadvantages, cities, weapons, armor and classes.
In April 2005, Silkroad Online received a score of 8.4 ("nice") out of 10.0 from GameSpot Korea
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
. The reviewer praised the game's three-way player versus player system, character customization, and berserker mode, but found the quests and storyline lacking.
Official sites and resources | <urn:uuid:0b106ffd-4b4d-45d0-b3f2-18da1197ffd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Silkroad_Online | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964764 | 666 | 1.523438 | 2 |
With the first 60mph lap not far away there was general concern about the speed and safety of the machines that lined up for the 1922 races.
Plans to restrict the Juniors to 250cc and the Seniors to 350cc were scrapped, but the ACU did introduce a separate five-lap race for the Lightweights.
Meanwhile, the cost of organising the races had caused a rift between the ACU and the Manx government. The ACU threatened to stage the event in Yorkshire and were also considering an invitation from Belgium; the Manx authorities countered by saying they would run the races through their own affiliated organisation.
Both sides saw sense and there was a good entry, in terms of both quality and quantity, for the three races. Journalist Geoff Davison won the first-ever Lightweight race on a two-stroke, Levis, while a certain Walter Handley set the fastest lap at 51.00 mph before breaking down.
Another rider to figure in later TT results, Stanley Woods, made his debut in the Junior on a Cotton and finished fifth, despite setting fire to himself and his machine at his fuel stop. The race was won by Manxman Tom Sheard, riding an AJS. It was the first 'home' victory at the TT, and did much to restore 'diplomatic relations' between the warring parties.
Joining Woods and Handley, as a 'fairly promising newcomer' was Jimmy Simpson, who raced a Scott in the Senior. Alec Bennett won the six-lap event on a Sunbeam, becoming the first rider to lead a TT from start to finish. | <urn:uuid:4d66d258-aa0c-403f-8aac-0ff0731d6034> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iomtt.com/TT-Database/Events.aspx?meet_code=TT22%20%20&era=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984244 | 332 | 1.664063 | 2 |
I knew it would be controversial when I wrote a post a few weeks ago stating that for most professionals, public speaking training is a waste of money. I heard from trainers around the globe that their way was different and uniquely helpful. Which may be true. My point was that the majority of public speaking training is focused on the mechanics of body language and speechifying that while interesting, isn’t what the average professional is being asked to do.
Professionals need to influence others and move groups to action, present to senior executives and boards, and inspire change operationally. Most rising executives want to be noticed and secure a seat at the table.
To achieve these professional feats, they need presence, credibility, and passion.
And yes, you can learn these skills in some presentation trainings — just not in most of them.
My advice to anyone out there who is considering honing their presentation skills: if you opt for training, make sure your instructor will be able to show you how to do the following.
1. Get comfortable.
It’s stating the obvious, but for most people, presenting is difficult when it’s uncomfortable. Staring down a board of directors with bad news, for example, might be one of those times. Or proposing a new business line to the senior team.
You’ll do better if you can find a way to be as calm as possible, given the stressful situation. For many people, this means practicing so you feel you have the information down pat. For others, it’s figuring out what gets you in the zone — deep breathing, music, laughter, warm-up conversations in the room, etc. I recommend setting a situational intention (discussed here) to focus your conscious thoughts behind the emotion you want to impart to others.
2. Accept discomfort.
If the stakes are high, no matter how much you try to get comfortable, some butterflies are going to remain. Instead of trying to eradicate the feeling or letting it spiral, accept the anxiousness. Acknowledge it, and realize that it has no bearing on your performance. At all. You can physically perform just as well, nervous or not.
Plus, nerves can even help you emote and show energy. After all, nervousness is excitement directed inward.
3. Speak to the individuals, not the group.
Common public speaking advice is to know your audience. But in typical corporate presentations, which are to groups and teams, you do know them. The problem is that they are all over the map in what they care about so it can be hard to tailor comments. A frequent misstep is to try to cover everyone’s concerns or speak to the middle.
Learning to top-line your points to hit the right ones is a critical skill. For mixed groups, my general advice is to speak to the highest level in the room in the level of detail they care to know. Let the others ask questions to fill in the gaps or clarify specifics. Meetings gravitate to the highest level naturally.
Remember, you are speaking to individuals with individual concerns. Don’t litter your comments with what you care about the most, and beware of falling in love with your content. It’s about the other person, not about you. | <urn:uuid:dab791a8-fc1d-4e3c-86ed-adc6be027bb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/05/21/five-ways-to-make-people-hang-on-your-every-word/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/27-12284-4427 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960611 | 677 | 1.671875 | 2 |
By SGT Volkin
The Marines, Army, Air Force and Navy all have badges or ribbons for qualifying as an expert in small arms (rifle and pistol), which can be earned during basic training. The Navy fires shotgun and pistol, and the other branches fire M-16 rifles. The Coast Guard does not fire live weapons at basic training. Regardless of what type of weapon you will be firing at basic training, there are a few simple tips to follow that will help you to qualify as an expert marksman.
-Remember to breathe and breathe normally. There is a tendency to hold your breath when shooting in order to keep your site on target. However, holding your breath actually causes you to shake and skew your aim.
-When squeezing the trigger, slowly pull the trigger back in one continuous motion. Quickly jerking the trigger back will move the weapon enough to miss your target.
-Don’t anticipate the recoil (i.e. the kick). There is a natural tendency to jerk your weapon down slightly in anticipation of the “kick.” This is especially true when firing pistols. The best way to avoid jerking your weapon is to imagine there are no rounds (bullets) in the weapon. You can practice this by actually dry firing (pulling the trigger of an empty weapon), and keeping your hands steady. Before going to the firing range you will spend time getting familiar with your weapon, at which time you will have the opportunity to practice dry fires.
-Squeeze the trigger after you exhale and before you inhale. This is known as the natural respiratory pause. This is the point in your breathing cycle where you’re best able to center the weapon on your target.
This article was written by SrA Nick VanWormer, author of The Ultimate Air Force Basic Training Guidebook. SrA Van Wormer earned the small arms expert marksman ribbon for both the M16 riffle and M9 pistol at basic training.
Be prepared for basic training and pick up a copy of The Ultimate Air Force Basic Training Guidebook. | <urn:uuid:5d34ac06-b4fd-4172-9915-e45ff0529114> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ultimatebasictraining.com/blog/2012/10/how-to-qualify-as-an-expert-on-the-firing-range/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947071 | 429 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The familiar and brilliant sound of a lapwing! Never have I seen so many all together – the fields here at South Stack are full of them, like the starlings, curlews and thrushes too. They caught my eye instantly with their lazy almost butterfly–like flight. And if you’re lucky enough to get close you can admire their brilliant almost iridescent plumage of green and purple – how wonderful! Golden plover have been spotted here too in large numbers by our Site Manager Dave, they are not so easy to spot however as they are brilliantly camouflaged! Atleast, that is my excuse for not having seen them yet...
What else will great us at this time of year? Of course with all the snow and ice it is a difficult time for birds to find food. They will visit frost free spots rich in food from all around just to keep their energy levels up during the harsh winter months. Some of the friendly Robins, Blackbirds and Thrushes that you see busily searching for food have come all the way from Northern Europe to spend the winter in milder climates.
The Chough that are resident here at South Stack are reliant on soft soil to dig into the ground with their long beaks to find invertebrates; frozen ground makes this job all the more difficult. Thankfully, due to the mild coastal climate, even during cold spells the ground here will remain frost-free. Ian, our Catering Manager, is particularly fond of the Chough pair (mouse-trap) that regularly feed opposite the Cafe. Beside serving customers and cooking you may catch him, with binoculars to the window, quickly looking for any birds to be seen! Mark, our enthusiastic information officer, was also delighted to spot a female Black Redstart from the cafe earlier this week! Well – what are you waiting for? Who knows what you might encounter when you enjoy a brew at the South Stack cafe?
A quick thank you to Mo our local volunteer who has put up some amazing photo's of South Stack in the snow! If you havn't seen already just look at our South Stack page.
From all the team here at South Stack – goodbye for now and see you soon!
I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of all the staff at RSPB South Stack to say a special thank you to all the visitors, customers and volunteers that have given their custom, time, support, love and sacrifice for the good of the RSPB South Stack Nature Reserve and all it’s habitats and wildlife in 2010 – and wish each and every one of you the very best of love and wishes for this coming 2011 year.
Ps. Just to let you all know that South Stack Café will be closed from the 5th January 2011 for refurbishment.
We plan to re open the cafe for year round opening on the 4th of April 2011.
The reserve is still open so if you fancy a walk with a burst of crisp winter sunshine and fresh air what better place to do it than beautiful South Stack Nature Reserve.
please watch this space for further updates
Thank you for your patience - see you all soon – enjoy yourselves and be careful !
Love – Peace and Respect
Mark – Visitor Information Person | <urn:uuid:7d800b27-1895-40c3-959b-2c688f9b33ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/placestovisit/southstackcliffs/b/southstackcliffs-blog/archive/2010/12.aspx?PostSortBy=MostComments&PageIndex=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956868 | 667 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The Next Disruptive Tech on the Web? Trust
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
After reading that headline, I can see some (maybe lots) of you scratching your heads saying: "Wait a minute -- trust is a not a technology!"
A decade ago that would have been true -- it is not now.
Our digital lives were once confined to e-mail, some web surfing and an occasional online purchase (for the braver among us). A mere decade on and our lives are increasingly being lived online. Yet, while our dependence on the internet has grown exponentially, the technologies we use to navigate the sometimes dangerous, somewhat untrusted waters of the internet remain the same -- largely confined to incremental improvements in narrowly defined segments of security or access. The unfortunate result is that the trust gap is more "gaping" than ever.
Read entire article >>> | <urn:uuid:a0d81bbb-2393-485d-a149-70d75e532e0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unboundedition.com/at_issue/2010/feb/16/next-disruptive-tech-web-trust/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946383 | 177 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Body image and weight is a struggle for many women, but when you’re an actress governed by Hollywood’s rigid beauty standards, being outside the norm can not only limit your success, but can do a number on your self-esteem.
In MTV’s new show, This Is How I Made It, the network takes a look at how some of the entertainment industry’s brightest talents achieved their dreams. In an upcoming episode, former Glee standout Amber Riley discusses how she became a household name.
In one poignant scene, Riley discusses how being a young, plus size black actress in Hollywood nearly shattered her self-image.
She tearfully recounts:
Hollywood is a very hard place to be in. It really is. Being the person I am, you know, the size I am, being a woman, being a black woman, there’s not a lot of roles for us. After I did St. Sass…I was being offered the girl who sits in the corner and eats all day, the girl who wanted to commit suicide because she was fat. It was never anything that I felt had a good ending. I never wanted to play a character that hated herself. I wanted people to know that those aren’t the only kinds of roles for women like me. Normal girls.
Going to the auditions and having the casting directors say, ‘I think you need to lose a little weight,’ I couldn’t understand why people couldn’t accept me for who I was and the rejection started wearing on my self-esteem. That’s when my mom and I decided to stop.
…I’m not gonna conform and hurt myself and do something crazy to be a size two. My parents always instilled knowing that you’re beautiful and knowing that you’re fearfully and wonderfully made and no one can tell you who you are. You know who you are.
I’m a healthy person. I have great friends around me that are positive and I think that’s the key to life is making your own path. Set your own rules because there is no set rule, there is no set look, there is no set anything. You make your own rules in your life. You make your own decisions.
Riley, who recently finished a stint in the Broadway musical Cotton Club Parade, serves as a role model to many young girls who may be struggling to accept themselves. Her advice, “to make your own rules” serves as a wonderful reminder to all women no matter what they look like or field they pursue.
Check out the exclusive clip of Riley on This is How I Made It on the Entertainment Weekly site. | <urn:uuid:9bdb8c3e-0803-4c6d-a109-067516d315a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://frugivoremag.com/2012/11/amber-riley-breaks-down-talking-about-body-image-weight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972265 | 562 | 1.5 | 2 |
U.S. hiring has slowed sharply with employers adding only 115,000 jobs in April. That's well below the 160,000 jobs economists were expecting. The modest numbers released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department suggest the U.S. recovery may be losing steam. The White House insists the nation is still moving in the right direction.
American employers eased up on hiring in April. But upward revisions to the job numbers in the previous two months, along with a decline in the number of people looking for work, brought the nation's unemployment rate to a three-year low of 8.1 percent. White House economic adviser Alan Krueger said the evidence suggests the economy continues to heal from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
"The numbers as you know are very volatile. We're going to have ups and downs. That's the nature of the economic recoveries, but I think we are on a stronger path," said Krueger.
'The Street' is not impressed
Wall Street was not so forgiving. Stock futures fell sharply after the opening bell and oil prices dipped below $100 a barrel on fears the U.S. recovery may be losing momentum. At the current pace of hiring, economists say it could take years to bring unemployment numbers to near-normal levels of around 5 to 6 percent.
But Nobel prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps said it may be time to consider a new normal.
"We're not looking at an economy nearly as healthy as it was in the middle of the 90's. My seat-of-the-pants [intuitive] feeling is that the new normal is in the neighborhood of 7 percent," he said.
White House defends progress
President Barack Obama acknowledged that more needs to be done to put Americans back to work. But Friday on Fox News, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney took the job numbers as an opportunity to attack the president's economic policies.
"We seem to be slowing down not speeding up. This is not progress; this is very disappointing," said Romney.
There are some bright spots. The construction trade says employment is up in nearly half of the country's major metropolitan areas.
"For the first time in five years it looks as if construction overall will be higher than it was in the previous year, but not every region of the country, not every segment of the industry is benefiting. It's a very spotty improvement," said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America.
Despite increased hiring in retail and professional services, the number of unemployed Americans remained virtually unchanged. About 12.5 million Americans are still looking for work - more than 5 million have been unemployed for six months or longer. | <urn:uuid:1b74c109-249a-488f-9e2a-9aa7e0386815> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/us-hiring-disappoints-but-jobless-rate-ticks-lower-150240075/370074.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971498 | 552 | 1.75 | 2 |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — One victim of the recent storms in Oregon is a stretch of road in the Coast Range expected to be bypassed by the state's most expensive highway project.
High water in the Yaquina River eroded the foundation of Oregon 20 six miles west of Eddyville in Lincoln County, and part of the shoulder collapsed into the river.
Spokesman Rick Little of the state Department of Transportation said Wednesday traffic will be reduced to a single lane, with flaggers on duty, until repairs can be made. That may take about four days.
The project designed to replace a twisty, dangerous section of the highway has been dogged by delays and overruns — the $130 million price tag has reached an estimated $300 million. The new stretch may be ready in 2015. | <urn:uuid:4ac41d5b-613a-4bb4-877e-3f55c849a2b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kgw.com/news/182218121.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937524 | 165 | 1.632813 | 2 |
'Lights, camera, action' are three words I have become used to in my professional career. If my stint at Charminar is anything to go by, then 'Arrested 'is going to be a new phrase I will become accustomed to as an activist with Greenpeace India.
My first Greenpeace police detention or arrest came on Monday afternoon when I joined a team of activists who had organised a banner-drop to mark the opening of a major United Nations conference on biodiversity, on one of Hyderabad's most iconic land marks, the Charminar. The demand: Indian government, hosts of the UN conference, needs to stop their wanton destruction of the forests with their environmentally flawed mad dash for coal.
The reason I decided I had to be part of this direct communication to Dr Manmohan Singh and his government is because I rejoice at my country's rich biodiversity. According to the UN, India is the 7th most environmentally diverse place on the planet. Yet my country's government has placed itself on the fast track to environmental vandalism. It has agreed, some say in suspicious circumstances, to wave after wave of licenses to big mining companies who are being allowed to rip up the pristine forests to make way for their mines and power stations.
So if I am proud of my country's environmental diversity then I will be a patriot by protecting it.
One of the greatest assets India has is not the commodities we manufacture or the minerals we have deep in our soil, but our respect for the diversity of our people and our culture – it is a respect deeply embedded in our collective DNA.
Yet that profoundly important characteristic of respect is being felled alongside destruction of the forests by Dr Singh. As a direct result of his government's coal mining expansion programme, tens of thousands of forest dependent communities are being forced to leave their homes.
These are villages and villagers who have been part of the forests for thousands of years. These are communities that have been the guardians of the forests – never over exploiting the resources, only taking what they needed. These communities are the true protectors of India's biodiversity.
Today these same people of the forests, whom we can learn so much from, are being shifted from their traditional homes and forced to live in so called 'rehabilitation centres' which is corporate spin for concrete blocks. This is a total anathema to the traditions and lives of these communities.There is a de-facto human cleansing of the forests and that is something every Indian should oppose.
We are already seeing the impact on these traditional communities. Migration from traditional areas into the cities is on the increase. Some of those who remain in their traditional homelands are being coerced to work in the very coal mines for the very companies who have destroyed their way of life. This stain on our collective character must be addressed now before it becomes indelible. We have to find a way to get these communities back to where they want to live.
The coal crimes of this government go beyond the tragic human price our oldest indigenous people are paying for this government's programme of forest destruction. Another innocent victim of mass deforestation is one of India's most iconic animals – the Tiger.
According to scientists there are just over 1,500 tiger left in the wild and by wild I mean forests. You don't need to be a rocket scientist or an environmental scientist to know that if you wilfully destroy the natural habitat of the tiger then you will increase the likelihood of the tiger becoming a species of the past. It would be a crime for future generations here and around the world if the only sighting of the Indian tiger were the Indian Tourist Board posters.
India has brought me great successes and for that I am grateful. That is why as an Indian I must speak out against the coal crimes that my government is presently engaged in. It may well be that I will have to experience the inside of another police station before we win this campaign – but win we will if we can harness the passion the Indian people have for their environment and the sense of fairness and justice we hold so dear.
So I'm asking you, if you can't spend time in a police station, then join the quarter of a million people who have already signed up to our fight against the destruction of the forests, the homes of people and the habitat of our endangered tiger.
Amala Akkineni is a renowned film actor and an environmental activist.
See Amla's demands and be part of her campaign to protect the forests and stop coal crimes. | <urn:uuid:53da8073-e5bc-45b6-b88d-c91ccc551197> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/Blog/Community-blogs1/as-an-indian-i-speak-out-against-coal-crimes/blog/42591/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969809 | 918 | 1.523438 | 2 |
From sports to technology and business to ‘wellness,’ Jewish foundation will offer campers new specialty camp experiences for 2014 season.
So, your son is too busy with his startup ventures to bother with color war? Your daughter is happier in a science lab than in front of a campfire? The idea of your organics-only child exposed to S’mores and bug juice makes you queasy?
That’s no reason not to send the kids to Jewish overnight camp.
Or at least it won’t be as of June 2014, when four new programs are slated to hatch from the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC)’s second “specialty camp incubator.”
Designed to attract more children and teens to Jewish camping —widely regarded as one of the most influential Jewish educational experiences, the FJC created its first incubator in 2008. That effort yielded five camps that launched in 2010, including the 92nd Street Y’s Passport NYC in Manhattan and the eco-focused Eden Village Camp in Putnam County. This time around, the incubator has selected four would-be Jewish camps — focused respectively on sports, science-technology, “business and entrepreneurship” and “health and wellness” — for three years of training, coaching and startup funds.
“In our RFP we said were looking to serve unmet needs in the Jewish camp world,” Jeremy Fingerman, FJC’s CEO, told The Jewish Week. “Those unmet needs could be geographic or programmatic.”
In selecting four projects, “we had to match up the market potential with what we felt was the capacity of the director to execute it. We had to make some tough calls, and we chose what was sustainable and could reach the most kids,” he added.
So far, all five “Incubator I” camps have exceeded recruitment goals, collectively enrolling 1,255 children and teens last summer. (In addition to Eden Village and Passport NYC, the “Incubator I” camps are Adamah Adventures, Ramah Outdoor Adventure and Six Points Sports Academy.)
According to a survey commissioned last year by the Jim Joseph Foundation, 40 percent of new campers at the five specialty camps in 2011 had never before attended a Jewish sleep-away camp and 63 percent of the middle and high school campers reported they “would have skipped Jewish camp completely” had their specialty camp not existed.
The camps have also enjoyed an over 50 percent return rate, unusually high for specialty camps, Fingerman said.
“In the private world, most specialty camps don’t have that retention, you don’t return year after year,” he added. “This sort of says that what these camps did not only provided the specialty experience, but also a sense of community that made campers want to return.”
The specialty camps not only attract new families, but they also serve as labs for testing new ideas that can be applied to the larger Jewish camping field, Fingerman said.
The Reform movement will operate one of the “Incubator II” picks as well: Six Points Science Academy, which will be located in the Boston area. (The sports camp is in Greensboro, N.C.)
Paul Reichenbach, the URJ’s director of camping and Israel programs, told The Jewish Week that Six Points Sports “exceeded our expectations” and that 80 percent of its campers had never been to Jewish camp before.
At Six Points, camp leaders have been pleasantly surprised to discover that campers appreciate the Jewish programming as much as the sports programming.
Initially, leaders were “shy” about pushing too much Jewish content, Reichenbach said. “What we discovered was that when we were good at doing [Jewish programming] they loved it. While they loved their sports, what brought them back in the second and third year were the friendships and this wonderful Jewish community we created.”
Six Point’s success spurred the Reform movement to explore another specialty camp for Incubator II.
One initial idea was an arts-themed camp, but the large number of established nondenominational arts camps means a “tremendous amount of competition and that we would not necessarily be breaking new ground,” Reichenbach said.
“We believe there are lots of kids and parents out there who will really love the idea of being able to participate in a high-level, hands-on, fun science-technology program that is also meaningfully Jewish,” Reichenbach said, adding that the specialty camps present an “opportunity to capture a whole new audience of kids.”
In addition to Six Points Science, the other three Incubator II camps are:
♦ Camp Inc., a “business and entrepreneurial” camp based in Boulder, Colo., and operated by the Boulder JCC.
♦ Camp Zeke, an East Coast-based “health and wellness camp” focusing on “pure foods, energizing fitness activities, and culinary arts,” according to a Foundation for Jewish Camp press release.
♦ JCC Maccabi Sports Camp, a sports camp in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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The Jewish Week feels comments create a valuable conversation and wants to feature your thoughts on our website. To make everyone feel welcome, we won't publish comments that are profane, irrelevant, promotional or make personal attacks. | <urn:uuid:49b3f2f2-dc92-4621-b163-0292c6e201f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/incubating-summer-fun&favtitle=Incubating%20Summer%20Fun%20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963117 | 1,164 | 1.578125 | 2 |
On July 15, 2008, WWUH will celebrate its
40th Anniversary on-the-air and you can help us celebrate!
HAPPY 40th ANNIVERSARY WWUH
In mid-July, 1968, a new sound began to travel along the airwaves of greater Hartford -- WWUH signed on the air for the first time.
This new FM-stereo radio station came about through the efforts of a dedicated group of individuals, led by University of Hartford student Clark Smidt. From his first day as a freshman at the University, Smidt began investigating what it would take to start a student-run radio station on campus.
Smidt enlisted the support of several other students including Robert Skinner and Randy Mayer. With the generous donation of an FM stereo transmitter from WTIC radio in Hartford, and the support of the University’s Board of Regents, work proceeded on the construction of the station, and preparation of the application for an FCC license. On July 15, 1968, official approval was received from the FCC in Washington D.C. and the station took to the air at 6PM that evening.
A few months after the station was on the air, it received a significant monetary donation from the family of Louis K Roth. Roth, a member of the University’s Board of Regents, supported the concept of a radio station on campus, but passed away before he could see it built. This donation secured the station’s near-term financial future, and allowed it to grow.
From the start the station, had three missions: First, to serve the public’s interest, through its programming, Second, to provide a training ground to students in communications, engineering, and broadcasting, and Third, to present a positive image of the University to the general public. All these missions continue today, but WWUH has become much more than just another college radio station.
The volunteer staff of WWUH has always believed that to serve the public, the station must present programming that cannot be found elsewhere on the radio dial. This is the concept of Public Alternative Radio, where alternative music, alternative entertainment, and alternative viewpoints are presented to the greater Hartford community.
In four decades, this commitment has led the station to broadcast thousands of hours of alternative rock, jazz, classical and folk music, all of which are difficult to find on other area radio stations. Regular specialty programs include bluegrass, blues, electronic music, and rock and roll oldies. The station has devoted regular weekly timeslots for programming to the region’s ethnic groups. Currently, this includes programming for the Hispanic, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Italian, Polish, and Indian communities. Regular time is also dedicated to both locally produced, and nationally syndicated news and public affairs programming that examines issues not presented by the mainstream news media.
This tradition of alternative programming has been made possible through the commitment of our staff, our management, the University of Hartford, and perhaps more than anything else, the regular support of our listeners. Regular contributions during our annual fundraising marathon in the Spring, and our Fall fundraiser tell us that YOU our listeners, believe in what we are doing, and that you support it, even in tough economic times.
As we prepare to enter our fifth decade of broadcast service, we’ve been spending some time looking back at our history. Over the last several months, we’ve been recording interviews with dozens of current and former UH radio staff members. We’ve also been collecting stories about our history, and going through old tapes from our archives, and from the collections of our staff members.
Throughout July, as part of our regular programming, we’ll be broadcasting excerpts from these interviews, along with sound clips of our programming through the last 40 years. Although the sound quality of some of the old tapes has deteriorated with age, we think the memories they bring back will more than compensate.
On July 15th, we will also be broadcasting a special anniversary program that will include interviews with some of the founders of WWUH, as well as audio clips from our very first broadcast day in 1968.
If you’re a longtime listener we hope you’ll enjoy the memories, and if you’re new to WWUH, we think you’ll be surprised by the wide range of programs we’ve offered over the last 40 years.
Please tune in...
Share in our celebration of
Public Alternative Radio!
John Ramsey, WWUH General Manager
WWUH Program Guide 2008 | <urn:uuid:8fce87b0-2583-497b-89f6-a08ac92860d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwuh.org/program/articles/julaug08/uhanniv.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965143 | 942 | 1.53125 | 2 |
What is Endowment policy?
Endowment policy is type of life insurance policy which provides insurance cover and maturity benefits too. Basically, endowment plan is term insurance policy with maturity benefits. In case of demise of policyholder, the Sum Assured is paid to the beneficiary. On survival of policyholder, the accumulated amount along with bonuses is paid.
Endowment plans are priced a little higher than term plans because of maturity benefits.
Generally, Endowment plans have two types of bonuses:
- Reversionary bonus: Also called regular bonus, this is annual bonus which depends on the performance of the insurer and is added to the fund every year payable at the end of policy period.
- Terminal bonus: An additional loyalty bonus offered by the insurer at the end of policy term
Under Section 80C you can avail tax benefit, yearly premium (not more than 1lac) will be deducted from taxable income.
Under Section 10(10D) death claim is completely tax free.
Endowment plans have both death and survival benefits.
The bonuses accumulate over time to give good maturity lump sum
Endowment plans are priced higher than term plans.
Policybazaar Judgment on Endowment Plans:
Endowment plans is for people looking for survival benefits along with death benefit. Though priced higher, it is worth it to buy endowment plans since its no profit no loss equation as premiums paid are returned in form of survival benefits. And you get insurance life cover which is important thing to have. | <urn:uuid:46aeda83-0f78-465a-8588-a8f245e08ec2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knowledge.policybazaar.com/life-insurance/item/222-what-is-endowment-policy?.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953891 | 306 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Views on commodities and energy
Gasoline shortages in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and parts of Florida have driven some consumers to desperate measures as they hunt for places to fill up. “Some people are even following tankers to the station and then they descend upon the station,” said Randy Bly, a spokesman for the AAA’s Auto Club South Chapter, Rebekah Kebede and Bernie Woodall report.U.S. gasoline inventories shrunk to the lowest level since 1967 after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike shut Gulf Coast oil refineries. Thursday, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman reiterated that the country was not seeking emergency fuel supplies from abroad.
Elsewhere in commodities:
The CFTC is probing the silver market, the wsj.com reports. In May of this year, the CFTC released a report finding no manipulation of the market. Yet Stephen Obie, acting director of the agency’s division of enforcement, tells the Journal the CFTC takes “the threat of manipulation in the futures and options markets very seriously and employ a number of measures to prevent, identify and prosecute it.”
Funding for two iron ore projects in Peru has been delayed because of the global financial crisis, Australian miner Strike Resources Ltd said on its website. | <urn:uuid:734b2a5e-d2c4-437f-9f68-8d857ea48f58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/commodity-corner/tag/peru/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938368 | 262 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Eating is one of the great pleasures of a trip to Italy. These recommended books and moblle apps about food in Italy will help you learn what to eat and where to eat it. These are good books for foodies interested in Italian food as well as travelers planning a trip to Italy.
Italy for the Gourmet Traveler is one of my favorite books about Italy and has been since the first edition came out in 1996. I've used the old book many times to plan travel, find restaurants, or read about regional food and wine. The updated fifth edition was released in May, 2010, and it's still a great book with many good recommendations for places to eat, drink, and shop for food.
Why Italians Love to Talk About Food is another book about regional food, written by Umberto Eco's Russian translator who has lived in Italy for 20 years. The book takes the reader on a journey through Italy's regions, talking about the region's history and culture and moving on to the food of the region. The book is written in an enjoyable narrative style rather than being a reference book so it's good for armchair travel or as reading before you go to Italy.
If you have an iPad or iPhone, this is a great reference for eating in Rome. Written by Elizabeth Minchilli, a Rome food writer, this app has recommended restaurants in all parts of Rome. You'll find 150 entries for restaurants, wine and coffee bars, gelato shops, bakeries, and more in an easy to access format.
In this compact book, Carol Coviello-Malzone gives a good introduction to the traditional food of Rome and how it will be different from Italian food in the US. She gives great restaurant recommendations with good descriptions throughout central Rome and even tells you how to avoid tourist traps. There's a handy food glossary at the end and it's small enough to carry with you easily. A great book for anyone planning a visit to Rome.
If you're traveling to Tuscany and enjoy good food, check out Tuscany for Foodies, an app for your iPad or iPhone written by James Martin. The app is filled with great places to eat as well as small specialty food producers, gelato shops, wine bars, and even a truffle festival. Each entry has a map to help you find the location.
In this comprehensive book David Downie recommends great restaurants, bars, bakeries, and food shops in the Italian Riviera, Genoa, and inland Liguria. He gives a good introduction to foods and wines of the region and suggests itineraries. The book also has stunning photographs by Alison Harris. A great book if you're heading for Liguria, or even for armchair travelers interested in food.
Cafe Life Venice is Joe Wolff's third Italian Cafe Life book and my favorite. In this book you'll not only find recommendatoins for 17 friendly family-run cafes, gelato shops, and bakeries but you'll also learn out about cafe life in Venice and the interesting history of these recommended cafes. With lots of great photos, it makes a good coffee table book, too. | <urn:uuid:c2ad6ae3-d7ef-47a2-a6a8-e7fde97a417e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goitaly.about.com/od/foodandwineofitaly/tp/italy-food-books-apps.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965971 | 644 | 1.617188 | 2 |
"It's become the Wild West out there, with each state doing what it pleases," says Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis, who has lobbied for changes in the Bush administration policy. "We have nothing that assures the research will be done ethically--laws should be passed on this." Others, including Caplan, believe that international treaties will be necessary to head off concerns over egg sales. One danger is that without oversight, nations may pull away from the international stem cell exchange and cooperative research altogether. "If there are differences in standards, countries could turn isolationist," Colman says.
That slowdown is certain to occur in at least one arena. After seeing how Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, a senior co-author who purportedly played a minor role in Hwang's experiments, was carried along in the downward spiral, Moreno says, "people will think twice about collaborating." Potential co-authors of the future may painstakingly assess a project before consenting to give their names--and journals may be pressed to monitor more carefully the contributions of all involved. As for scientific relations with South Korea specifically, Snyder reports that "some of our philanthropic support sent a message: essentially, 'Don't work with the Koreans.' They have no problems with the field, but the Koreans are radioactive now."
Changes there may have to start from the ground up, where the culture is "saturated with distorted patriotism and ultra-nationalism," wrote one Seoul National University professor in a Korea Herald editorial. Some even predict a pendulum shift in the way science is conducted. "We'll see very strict regulation set up in Korea," Caplan speculates. "They'll overemphasize high standards."
For all the questions raised by the offenses, many in the business hope that the public can simply home in on the true offender: Hwang himself. Scientists doubt that the man's reputation will ever recover, because "he had every opportunity to come clean, but he went on blaming other people," Colman points out. Ultimately, Moreno asserts, "this is not about profound questions or about ethical line crossing for research. It's about something we can all agree on: we shouldn't lie." | <urn:uuid:e070f336-ba08-4b2b-a554-7832f1908f8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=down-in-flames&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962076 | 452 | 1.515625 | 2 |
In July the second anniversary of the signing of the Dodd-Frank Act passed, giving community bankers an opportunity to consider where things stand. For some banking institutions, particularly larger ones, it has been an active two years even though at least half of the regulatory requirements of the Act remain to be finalized. For smaller institutions, as will become clear, the action appears to be just beginning.
The sweeping overall scope of the Act is underscored when one considers there have been significant delays to much of the parts and pieces of the regulatory actions required under the Act. Yet much has been done. According to various reports, there have been more than 100 finalized regulations under the Act and, there has been public comment requested on nearly as many significant proposals.
The most critical regulations for smaller financial institutions are those proposed in recent months: new regulations on capital adequacy and new consumer lending regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the formation of which is thought to be one of central accomplishments of the Act.
One of the other centerpieces of the Act, the Financial Stability Oversight Council has, like the CFPB, been slow in developing over the past two years, considering the importance of the FSOC to the overall goals of the Act. That is not likely to continue; in 2013, after the presidential election, it is likely there will be a period in which the regulatory tempo will increase and that smaller institutions will feel much of the impact.
The financial crisis that led to the Act is most reflected in Title I of the Act, which sets out legal framework for the establishment of the Council to monitor and limit systemic risk in the financial system. This title does this by, among other things, giving the FSOC the power to instruct the Federal Reserve to impose additional regulation on systemically important financial institutions. This includes bank holding companies with at least $50 billion in assets and nonbank entities that have been designated as SIFIs. Such designations remain one of many undone regulatory tasks. The scope of the additional regulation emitting from Title I and related provisions of the Act includes among other things, enhanced requirements for capital, liquidity, resolution planning, credit exposure, asset concentration, stress testing and public disclosures.
Some specific progress toward these regulatory goals of the Act for the largest financial institution has been made in the last two years. For example, nine of the largest banks in the country submitted resolutions plans on July 1, 2012, and earlier in 2012, the Federal Reserve proposed rules for SIFIs to enhance prudential standards, covering among other topics single-party credit limits, enterprise-wide risk management, overall leverage limits and required stress testing. Designations of nonbank SIFIs are likely to be made in 2013, along with the finalization of a number of these regulations that are intended generally speaking, to limit and provide oversight of enterprise risk for these large institutions.
Two of these rules, which pertain to capital adequacy, are of particular interest to smaller institutions. These regulations, known as the Basel III capital requirements, were surprising to smaller institutions because they expected to be exempt from them as they are from various aspects of the Act. The regulations as proposed by the Federal Reserve on June 7, 2012 (with comments due on October 22, 2012) will directly impact smaller institutions as well as larger ones. The regulations will be phased in beginning on January 1, 2013, and, generally speaking, will impose on community banks the following: higher capital requirements in the form of new regulatory capital categories including a new capital conservation buffer concept, an overall requirement for reduced capital leverage, generally higher risked-based capital requirements, a likelihood of increased volatility in regulatory capital accounts in times of increasing interest rates, and further limits on dividends and executive bonuses. For example, for purposes of the prompt corrective action regulatory scheme, the well-capitalized category as amended will require tier 1 risk-weight capital of 8%, up from 6%.
It is the initiatives of the CFPB however that will almost certainly have the most significant impact on smaller banking institutions in the coming weeks and months, even though the CFPB does not have direct regulatory authority over such institutions with less than $10 billion in assets. During the two years since enactment of Dodd-Frank, the CFPB largely has been focused either on its internal issues like staffing and developing a framework for administration of the agency or on external issues such as integration with other federal and state banking regulatory agencies (because the CFPB has become the primary regulator with respect to most existing consumer regulations).
The controversial recess appointment of the CFPB’s first director in January 2012 began the agency’s working life in earnest however. Even though the CFPB does not have direct examination authority over institutions with less than $10 billion in assets, its supervision and examination manual was published in early 2012 and will be a touchstone for all institutions and their regulators, and the CFPB's rulemakings regarding key issues such as the definition of “unfair, deceptive and abusive” practices also will be closely followed by institutions of all sizes.
That the CFPB now has begun to function as a financial institution regulator can’t be over emphasized. The CFPB consumer response center became operational earlier this year for example and it remains to be seen whether industry fears that this will become a permanent database of frivolous or unsubstantiated complaints will materialize. It also has begun to define its authority over nonbanks such as credit reporting agencies. The CFPB has imposed its first regulatory fine this year (in connection with credit card marketing) and it has begun to include enforcement counsel to its routine visitations and examinations, a distinct departure from the past practice of the Federal Reserve and the other regulatory agencies that previously enforced consumer financial regulation.
Earlier this summer, in what is likely to be the first of a number of substantive proposals, the CFPB proposed two regulations intended, among other things, to revamp the disclosure requirements imposed on the home residential mortgage industry which has for many years been a source of complaints from both consumers and bankers. The new disclosure regime is an attempt to shorten the transaction disclosures required under Truth In Lending and related regulations.
So even though two years have passed since the Dodd-Frank Act was passed, much remains undone and uncertain. And the uncertainty was increased somewhat by the filing in June of a lawsuit by a small community bank (State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas) and two public interest organizations in Washington, D.C., challenging the constitutionality of the Act. Among other things, the suit focuses particularly on the powers of the FSOC and the CFPB, arguing that they offend the Constitution's separation of powers.
If the outcome of the lawsuit is uncertain, it is certain that the next steps under the Act for the nation's bank regulators will be the hundreds of regulations that remain un-finalized. For smaller institutions, the key areas to watch will be developments in bank regulation, particularly capital adequacy requirements, and developments regarding increased consumer protection requirements, including in particular the developing reform of the residential mortgage industry. And they might also keep an eye on the lawsuit. | <urn:uuid:166c00b4-8283-4bf6-b0c2-68f62e6ec28b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankingandfinancelawreport.com/tags/regulation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965471 | 1,450 | 1.6875 | 2 |
When people walked out of jail Thursday morning they were greeted by volunteers with the Peaceful Streets Project. The grassroots group works to educate the public about their civil rights.
Two volunteers set up outside the Travis County Justice Complex a little before 3:00 a.m. After two hours, Joshua Pineda says they had reached out to 8 people leaving jail. The table he sat at had water, food and cell phones.
"This way we can interview them and get their story out there and get them in touch with civil rights attorneys," explained Pineda, if that is needed.
Pineda is part of the group founded by Antonio Buehler who claims he was a victim of police brutality following an incident on New Year's Day. Buehler started taking photos of what he says was two officers being rough with a woman during a DWI stop. One of the officers told Buehler he was interfering and according to police he spit in an officer's face. Buehler says that did not happen and knows the video shot by a witness will prove otherwise.
An internal APD investigation found the officers were not in the wrong.
Buehler has been charged with a felony and misdemeanor and while he waits for trial he is trying to spread the word. While he didn't make it to the morning complaint department, other volunteers with the group did. It's the first time the group set up during the overnight hours.
"This is for the community and what is best for the community and that's no brutality or civil rights violations. We've had many stories but we want to hear nothing happened," explained Pineda.
The project plans to hand out 100 cameras to citizens at a summit on Saturday to document police interaction. | <urn:uuid:4c7703f1-e49a-4424-96ee-d1533a73199a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/19007648/group-holds-overnight-police-complaint-department | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983699 | 357 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Dense Fog Advisory/Freezing Fog Possible – Slick Spots
A Dense Fog Advisory has been issued for the entire Tennessee Valley until 9:00 am this morning. A few accidents have already been reported this morning along the I-65/I-565 interchange in Huntsville due to icy patches. Dense fog has also been reported in many locations, especially in Huntsville, Scottsboro and Fayetteville, Tennessee. As of right now it seems like the highest concentration of freezing fog is across the central Tennessee Valley, near the I-65 corridor, as that is where temperatures have fallen below freezing. Visibility could be reduced to less than 1/4 mile in spots. In communities where temperatures have dropped below freezing, freezing fog is possible, with slick spots possible as the moisture freezes on surfaces. Also lingering moisture from yesterday’s precipitation has created some patches of black ice as well. Use extreme caution if you are heading out to early morning church services, or anywhere else. Slow down and use your low beams if you approach fog. Below are the 5:00 am temperatures and visibility map.
The Limestone County EMA have reported that many bridges and roads are iced over due to dense freezing fog and that travel is hazardous. Madison Public Works has also reported icy bridges and overpasses in the city of Madison. Metallic and elevated surfaces, such as bridges and overpasses are at greatest risk for icy spots. Any fog will lift quickly after sunrise and icy spots will be mostly melted by mid to late morning.
- Jennifer Watson
Facebook: Jennifer Watson WHNT | <urn:uuid:8d1a4902-cd06-4200-b6e8-8c44c27332d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://valleywx.com/2013/02/03/dense-fogfreezing-fog-possible-patchy-ice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958873 | 325 | 1.546875 | 2 |
On September 27, 2009, about 1550 eastern daylight time, a Bombardier CL-600-2B16, N190MP, was substantially damaged while landing at the Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY), Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. The two certificated airline transport pilots and two passengers were not injured. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed and an instrument flight rules flight plan had been filed for the flight that originated in Denver, Colorado. The personal flight was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Use your browsers 'back' function to return to synopsisReturn to Query Page
The airplane was being flown by the pilot-in-command (PIC) and was cleared for the instrument landing system (ILS) approach to runway 24, a 5,504-foot-long, 100-foot-wide, asphalt runway.
The flight crew reported that the landing was performed utilizing a flap setting of 30 degrees based on the landing conditions, with a landing approach speed of 135 knots.
The PIC reported that he experienced a left to right crosswind of 24 knots, while the airplane descended on the ILS. The approach was stable, "all the way down to the flare;" however, when airplane was about 15 feet above the runway, "the aircraft suddenly lost airspeed and landed hard." The airplane bounced approximately 15 to 20 feet back into the air, before it contacted the ground, and bounced about 5 to 10 feet. The airplane subsequently landed and rolled out on the runway without further incident.
In a written statement, the copilot reported, "…We broke out about 500 feet above the ground. All operations were normal and we had briefed the approach and to be aware of the possibility of windshear due to the conditions. At about 20 feet, the PIC reduced the throttles to idle for the landing flare and just as he did so, there was a loss of about 25 knots of airspeed. The aircraft landed on the main landing gear and bounced. The aircraft then settled on the nose gear and bounced, then landed on the mains…."
An airport operations supervisor witnessed the accident and stated that the airplane landed hard, about 1,500 feet down the runway. He further stated that the airplane appeared to be traveling at a high rate of speed, when he observed the airplane's spoilers deploy, with the airplane about 3,000 feet down the runway.
The PIC reported that the airplane was visually inspected after the hard landing without any abnormalities noted, and the flight crew departed MVY about 15 minutes later. After takeoff, when landing gear was selected to the up position, the nose landing gear door open light remained illuminated. The PIC elected to divert to Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, Connecticut, where the airplane landed without incident.
Subsequent inspection of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed substantial damage to the nose section of the airplane, which included wrinkling at the forward pressure bulkhead. The airplane was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and an enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS), which were retained for further examination. The airplane was not equipped; nor was it required to be equipped with a flight data recorder (FDR).
The CVR was sent to the Safety Board's Vehicle Recorder Laboratory, Washington, DC, for readout. The CVR recorded four channels of audio information for 30 minutes; however, none of the audio was pertinent to the accident. The audio captured was consistent with the CVR being overwritten or recorded over by subsequent events.
The EGPWS was downloaded at Honeywell, Inc, Redmond, Washington, under the supervision of an NTSB investigator. Review of the data recorded by the EGPWS revealed a "too low flaps" warning activated when the airplane was about 300 feet above the ground, followed approximately 14 seconds later by a sink rate warning, when the airplane was about 50 feet above the ground. The airplane touched down at airspeed about 150 knots. There were no windshear alerts generated by the EGPWS for the accident flight.
The PIC reported 7,220 hours of total flight experience, which included about 710 hours in the same make and model as the accident airplane. He further reported that he did not experience any mechanical malfunctions with the airplane during the accident flight.
The airplane operating manual, Supplemental Procedures Section 3, Precautionary Actions, "when windshear activity is known or suspected at arrival…" included the instruction, "Select the minimum flap setting acceptable for the runway length to be used."
According to the manufacturer, the airplane was certified for normal landings with the flap system at 45 degrees only, and there was no flight test data to certify the airplane to land with the flap system not at 45 degrees during normal operations. At the time of certification, the airplane was tested for abnormal conditions, including wing flap system malfunctions, with landings at flap settings other than 45 degrees, and corresponding abnormal procedures were published in the airplane flight manual; however, the abnormal procedures and the use of flaps at a setting other than 45 degrees for landing were to be used only in the event of the specific abnormal conditions, and as specified by the appropriate procedure.
After the accident, the manufacturer revised the airplane operating manual Supplemental Procedures Section 3, Precautionary Actions, "when windshear activity is known or suspected at arrival…" by deleting the sentence "Select the minimum flap setting acceptable for the runway length to be used."
A weather observation taken at MVY, about the time of the accident, reported, wind from 120 degrees at 16 knots, gusting to 23 knots; visibility 1 1/4 statute miles in heavy rain and mist; ceiling 400 feet broken, 900 feet broken, and 1,900 feet overcast; temperature 18 degrees Celsius (C), dew point 17 degrees C; altimeter 29.61 inches of mercury. | <urn:uuid:3bfa266a-ca3e-48b5-86db-f92abac4f78a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20090929X61856&ntsbno=ERA09LA538&akey=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957352 | 1,206 | 1.75 | 2 |
Death is an inevitable part of the cycle of life. Animals, humans included, have a limited life span, but at least we can in most cases create the next generation and thus our lives continue. With four daughters, all of whom except for one all have grown up (the remaining one soon will) and a couple of grandchildren, my life's main purpose is over and done with. And unlike many others, I can be proud of what I have produced, although of course it hasn't happened without the help of another person. Unlike former President Bush I can truly declare "Mission Accomplished".
We live in a time when there is an epidemic fatal illness affecting institutions, jobs and businesses. It is as if the dreaded Spanish Flu and the Plague have returned, this time not attacking people directly but the very fabric of our society. Casualties are already many and increasing by the day. Of course there are those whose lives are not yet in jeopardy and others who don't admit that their AIDS is full-blown, no longer a worrisome infection of HIV. Some can be kept alive artificially but most will succumb sooner or later (read sooner). Yes, the organizations can resemble a giant tortoise or some long-living avian species but they can also be similar to a mouse or even a dragonfly. A museum or an ancient library could be compared to a tree that can live seemingly forever.
Today marks the last issue of a local Seattle newspaper. The Hearst Corporation has become the Hearse Corporation. The death of the Seattle P.I. (where the P stood for "Post" but now means "Past") could be followed by others, such as the once-mighty San Francisco Chronicle. Perhaps the time for the printed media is approaching its end. Just about everything you read today was available on the radio, television or the web already a day before. Nobody really is interested in yesterday's news. Yes, there remains the backbone of great newspapers, investigative journalism, but today's average person has a very short attention span and doesn't really care for anything surpassing 300 words. In general, the shorter the information, the better. Today's tech-savvy person seems to prefer the 160 mark limit of a text message to a slightly longer but more detailed email. With the limited length, spelling and grammar have gone out of existence and the resulting texting lingo has created a language, or gibberish, of its own. Thus reading through a long investigative report is too much to ask for most readers and if they attempt to see what the story is about, the headline is read and perhaps the first two or three paragraphs.
Will I miss this paper? Yes and no. On one hand they have done a great service to the local community by exposing numerous scandals and outright criminal activity in local politics and even in law enforcement. They have had a terrific managing editor. Some of the columnists have been excellent. Yet the paper has at the same time kept a few totally inept and thoroughly corrupt people on payroll, especially in areas that were close to me. These "reporters" have shamelessly promoted like-minded people and friends of theirs, essentially wanting to decide who was to survive and succeed. Objectivity was never thought of. I told my wife years ago just to wait patiently as the paper, as we knew it, would be history. She thinks I may be a clairvoyant, as most of my predictions have already materialized, including the present financial mess which I saw coming quite a while ago. I am not overly optimistic a person but not a true pessimist either, rather a realist. The P.I. will continue on the web, just as the excellent Christian Science Monitor will after they soon cease their print edition. However, the competition will be fierce from other such publications and blogs.
The practice of art criticism is rapidly disappearing. There is a thought-provoking article by David Hajdu in the January-February issue of Columbia Journalism Review, titled Condition critical: can arts critics survive the poison pill of consumerism? This link will take to one of the many reprints available on the web. Warning: you need to read more than the first two paragraphs. Other than an occasional issue of the New York Times, the "Arts" section (having in most papers been renamed "Entertainment") has at most one or two reviews or articles about "classic" arts. The pages are full of popular culture which in my humble opinion has very little to do with art. Entertainment is a better description, to most people. But even then I doubt the demand for such topics is there. The audiences know what they like and buy the tickets and support their idols totally independently of any press coverage. The opinion has also long been that if a critic praises something, it is a good reason to stay away from the film or show. Just recently in my home country a new film was ridiculed by the leading paper. The producers took out a whole page ad, printing the worst parts of the review, using this method of reverse psychology to their advantage. After all, how many real success stories at the box office have received raves from the media?
Today's news via the web also tells about the Baltimore Opera filing for Chapter 7. Another article speculates which group in that city will be next to fall. The Baltimore Symphony is mentioned in this context. At least people are openly talking about the grim situation, unlike here, where silence seems to be golden and the topic is next to taboo. There was an item recently in the surviving daily revealing that donations have dropped up to 50%. The local tabloids have been a bit more vocal, bringing attention to a struggling group in a nearby city which, with help from Down Under, seems indeed to be going down under. From back home, a surprising news item just surfaced. The Finnish National Opera (which in the European fashion also includes a ballet company), long a black sheep because of their financial struggles, actually turned up a profit of around $1.5 million last year. This was a result of careful cost cutting much before the current fiscal mess, and also smart programming. The ticket sales have been at an enviable 87% and instead of international (=expensive) superstars the company has relied on the vast talent pool the country has to offer. Nobody knows what kind of figures this year will bring, of course, but if the balance sheet stays in the black, perhaps they have a model the rest of us could emulate.
An entertaining review of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic was picked up by a search engine. This one comes from Lebanon of all the places (I didn't know the country was safe enough to have concerts) and was published in the Daily Star. This is a prime example of writing which results in the reader actually witnessing the event. Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:fec6c801-2c9d-4755-8995-838a28f5813c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schmaltzuberalles.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973175 | 1,389 | 1.609375 | 2 |
On July 21, 2002, just after my 13th birthday, I was bitten by a Northern Pacific rattlesnake (the snake was originally identified as a Western Diamondback rattlesnake, but that species is not found near Yosemite). I was located on a trail in a hiking area near Yosemite National Park, California. The bite occurred when I was sitting on a small boulder at a distance of 4.5 miles from the trailhead with my cabin group at camp. I had my arms dangling at my side, and a 5 foot long rattlesnake bit me in the middle of my left palm.
From this point, an amazing rescue took place, taking 4 hours to transport me the 4.5 miles to the trailhead. The camp director had previously called the hospital, and a helicopter was waiting at the trailhead. During the 30 minute helicopter ride I was going in and out of consciousness, having trouble keeping my eyes open. We arrived at the Modesto, CA hospital, where the doctor in the emergency room decided that my case was too severe to treat at that medical center. He told me this, which was the last thing I heard before going unconscious.
Although I was unconscious for approximately the next 24 hours, I have heard about the following events from my parents.
I was taken from the Modesto hospital to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, the trauma center for Northern California. My snake bite was determined to be too severe for Modesto to deal with. Starting at the time that I left the Modesto hospital and over the course of the next day or two, I was given 30 vials of antivenin (also called antivenom). At the UC Davis hospital I underwent a fasciotomy, which involved the doctors cutting open my arm from the palm up to about the middle of my biceps. This was to relieve the extreme pressure that had built up in my arm from the rattlesnake venom, making my arm as hard as a rock until the fasciotomy.
I spent the next 35 days in the UC Davis hospital, had 8 surgeries performed for cleaning out the dead tissue from my arm, and finally had a skin graft from my leg to close up my arm, which had remained open for 30 days after the fasciotomy until the skin graft surgery. That is 10 surgeries in total at UC Davis.
I was released from the hospital on August 24, 2002, had 4 months of intense occupational therapy, and flew to Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina for a follow-up surgery. This was a vascular flap surgery, during which they took a chunk of skin and muscle from my back, attached its blood vessels to the ones in my arm using microsurgery, and then stitched it to my arm. Although 2 emergency surgeries were required within 24 hours on account of blood loss, the vascular flap was a success, and after 6 more months of occupational therapy, my hand had had a significant improvement in mobility from when I left UC Davis and could move each finger only 2-3 millimeters.
My hand now has fully mobility and is about 80% as strong as it was before, thanks to my Dad and I resuming our rock climbing after a 1 year break due to the lack of strength in my left hand. I use it for about 90% of the things I used to do with my left hand (I am right handed). 13 surgeries, $700,000 worth of helicopter flights, surgeries, and hospital stays (paid by my insurance of course), and 20 months later, I am very happy with the outcome of this experience and my good fortune of getting through all this without any significant loss. | <urn:uuid:0fdcb01b-92d1-4e89-8e55-c2938df09d88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rattlesnakebite.org/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984107 | 749 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Only in Utah would a liquor store miles away be considered convenient. Yet, that’s exactly what the Legislative Auditor General has determined in an audit, released May 24, of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The auditors recommend closing liquor stores in Provo, Orem, Salt Lake City and St. George because of other stores in close proximity. For example, in St. George, they write that a new store is “only 2.35 miles” from an older store—which happens to be the only other state liquor store serving the city—so the older store should be closed. These stores aren’t losing money, because the state liquor monopoly couldn’t lose money if it tried. Customer service, however, is apparently a foreign concept to auditors.
Back on the Horse
The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah has filed a lawsuit—something they haven’t done since 2005, as detailed in a recent City Weekly cover story—with the Utah Supreme Court on behalf of Farley Anderson, an independent candidate for governor who collected the 1,000 required signatures to have his name on the ballot. But some of those signatures were electronic, which the Utah Elections Office claims are not valid. The hearing is scheduled for June 2, and a ruling in favor of Anderson could help Utahns for Ethical Government, which is trying to put ethics reform on the 2012 ballot. Electronic signatures are already considered valid for everything from license renewals to tax returns, yet remain inadequate for petitions. It’s a digital world, and hopefully the Supreme Court justices can help push the state into the 21st century.
Despite a tight budget that requires measures like dimming street lights, Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker wants to spend $100,000 to study a plan to develop marshlands west of the airport. What won’t be studied, however, is whether the LDS Church’s proposed Northwest Quadrant project, which could house 100,000 people, should even be built. When Councilman Luke Garrott challenged the so-called progressive Becker about the study in a recent City Council meeting, Becker said the “no-build” option would be studied later. Which makes sense, because the best time to realize something shouldn’t be built is after it’s finished. | <urn:uuid:5846a498-7a40-4d6c-a2a1-8aad1934dd9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-320-11311-lir-stores-e-signatures-northwest-quad.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947969 | 477 | 1.632813 | 2 |
PC World is warning laptop users about the increased processor power that Windows Vista may use to power some of its flashy graphics. Thankfully, it seems like the problem can be avoided by using Vista’s battery optimization features.
- “If Vista is run in full Aero mode, with none of the Vista-provided power management settings turned on, it is likely to demand more power, and have an impact on battery life,” said Dell spokesman Ira Williams, in an e-mail interview. “That said, if you run Vista in battery-optimized mode (using a non-3D interface), we would not expect the battery life to be significantly different from XP in that scenario.”
So, if you’re upgrading to Vista and you’re really excited about those Aero windows, understand that they may come with a price, at least while on the go. —MEGHANN MARCO
Vista Could Sap Notebook PC Battery Life [PC World] | <urn:uuid:f1da37c6-90a6-41c6-80b8-53c11ebf3c45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://consumerist.com/2006/12/19/warning-vista-may-drain-laptop-batteries/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942611 | 205 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Rising energy costs may soon force industries to raise prices, industrialists said yesterday.
Consumers may first pay more on transportation fares, as oil prices have been surging since late last year.
"We are considering raising ticket fares as fuel costs keep increasing," Lu Chieh-shen (
The TRA has been reporting losses from declining traffic over the past few years because of the economic downturn and competition from other means of transportation, including long-haul buses and the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit system, said Liu Chih-cheng (
Although the TRA can propose price adjustments every two years, the last set of proposals were turned down by the legislature for political considerations, Liu said. As a result, fares for train tickets, especially short-distance ones, are lower than for alternative modes of transport.
For example, the train fare from Panchiao in Taipei County to Sungshan in Taipei City is NT$18, while the bus fare for the same distance is NT$30 or more.
Long-distance bus operator Kuo-kuang Motor Transport Co (國光客運) said it was considering fare hikes to its administrator, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau (國道高速公路局), as the company has been suffering losses of NT$7 million to NT$8 million per month because of the rocketing oil prices, said Feng Pao-lo (馮保羅), manager of Kuo-kuang Motor.
Smaller private long-haul bus operator Aloha Bus Co (
Taxi drivers also bear the brunt of the fuel costs and suggested a fare rise early this year. The proposal was withdrawn as taxi drivers feared that customers would turn to mass transportation, said Chen Teng (
Electricity may be the next to rise, as the price of coal has risen from US$27 per tonne last year to US$52 per tonne this year.
"We may propose asking the government to raise electricity rates starting next year," Lee Chuan-lai (李傳來), a public relations official at the state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), said yesterday.
Last year, Taipower bought 89 percent of the coal it needs for this year, and therefore there was no urgency for the company to raise electricity rates at the moment, Lee said. However, the increased price of coal, along with freight costs that have more than doubled, would cost Taipower NT$20 billion this year, while Taipower is required to give NT$15.5 billion to the government this year, Lee said.
Furthermore, consumers will be billed more for water, as Taiwan Water Supply Corp ( | <urn:uuid:45bc4a7b-fbe4-4962-91d6-51279426ce6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2004/03/27/2003107975 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970341 | 576 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Google is an aberration. I work with many different companies, and the average age can vary greatly according to culture. Google has a very young average age, heck I think half the males there can't even shave yet. Startups also tend to be very young. But then go take a look at medical technology companies. A much higher average age. Animation studios: very young. Petroleum engineering: higher age. Financial trading: somewhere in between. Military contractors: much older. Other miscellaneous companies I've seen have also ranged from the very young to long in tooth.
I am talking about the SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS in these companies.
I think the two factors that push the average age downwards are: 1) The trendiness and hipness of the company. Kids want to go work for Apple and Google, and not for IBM or Oracle. Older workers shy away from these because they feel uncomfortable. Then there's 2) the cultures at software companies that emphasizes newer languages, technologies and platforms. "Newer" being relative of course. | <urn:uuid:5bd6b813-e9e1-4359-a693-7473a54341ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://slashdot.org/~Brandybuck | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963499 | 212 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Funding for the project included a PA Green Energy Works grant, using federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds and utilization a federal investment tax credit grant. In addition, EcogySolar and Longwood Gardens provided additional funding. Longwood Gardens is also appreciative of the analytical support provided by the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware.
In 1906, industrialist Pierre S. du Pont (1870-1954) purchased a small farm near Kennett Square, PA, to save a collection of historic trees from being sold for lumber. Throughout his life, Mr. du Pont indulged his passion for gardening, turning his farm into a magnificent horticultural showplace. Today, Longwood Gardens is one of the world’s great horticultural displays, encompassing 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, meadows, fountains and a 4.5 acre conservatory. It is also home to an impressive array of horticulture education programs for all ages and levels of interest. The Gardens also have long-served as the backdrop for showcasing top performing artists. Since Pierre du Pont first welcomed his good friend John Philip Sousa to the Conservatory Gardens in 1922, Longwood has hosted some of the finest artists from various performing genres, including Martha Graham, Van Cliburn Medalists, Symphony Orchestras, Grammy-winners and more.
Longwood Gardens is located on Route 1 near Kennett Square, PA and is open daily. Admission is $18 for adults; $15 for seniors (age 62 and older) and $8 for ages 5-18 (or with valid student ID). Ages 4 and under are free. For more information on the gardens and its programs, visit www.longwoodgardens.org. | <urn:uuid:f8a2c736-fa73-4924-aa50-97ad83dd06f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bignews.biz/?id=1207065&pg=2&keys=SOLAR-ENERGY-ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944377 | 364 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Horse meat withdrawn from Northern Ireland college campuses
Burgers containing horsemeat have been discovered at two agricultural campuses in Northern Ireland, the agriculture minister has confirmed.
Michelle O'Neill said the burgers had been supplied to Eurest outlets that supply Greenmount and Loughry campuses.
The news came on Thursday in reply to a written assembly question from UUP agriculture spokeswoman Jo-Anne Dobson.
Ms O'Neill said Eurest's parent body, Compass, had withdrawn the burgers.'Precautionary measure'
In her reply, the agriculture minister said burgers containing horsemeat had been supplied to the Eurest outlets at Greenmount and Loughry campuses of CAFRE (College for Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise).
"CAFRE has a service contract with Eurest, a subsidiary of Compass, which commenced in August 2011, to provide catering across the three CAFRE campuses," she said.
"Compass took the precautionary measure of withdrawing from the menu all burgers supplied by a manufacturer within its supply chain whose products were referred to in the media and sent samples for testing."
She said test results received on Thursday of last week revealed traces of equine DNA "which Compass notified immediately to CAFRE management".
The minister said all staff and students were informed of the situation as soon as CAFRE received written confirmation from Compass on Friday.
The campus at Enniskillen has not been affected, a spokesman has said. | <urn:uuid:fc39ad6f-85b3-435b-a81d-760aebd20692> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-21532793 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979077 | 304 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Half a century ago, the Sheraton Maui Hotel opened its doors as the first hotel in the Kaanapali Beach Resort.
A special introductory rate was $15 per night, and the hotel was the only high rise along the beach in the planned resort community, said hotel officials and those who remember the hotel's beginnings.
Fifty years later, rates have climbed with the times, with a check online of available hotel rooms today going for $360 per day to more than $800.
Tourists swim in the waters below Pu‘u Keka‘a, or Black Rock, at the Sheraton Maui at Kaanapali in the resort’s early days. The resort celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
What is today known as the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa is no longer a loner. It is surrounded by other hotels and time shares in the resort area, designed by Amfac Inc., which derived from American Factors, one of the so-called "Big Five" companies in the Territory of Hawaii.
Yet some things remain, such as the nightly cliff dive ceremony off of Pu'u Keka'a, or Black Rock, the massive lava flow that juts out to the ocean next to the resort. The cliff dive is a tradition dating back to the days of Hawaiian royalty and Maui Chief Kahekili.
To commemorate its history and birthday, a 50th anniversary Celebration Maui Nui Luau by Tihati Productions will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday on the hotel's ocean lawn. Tickets are $63, as in 1963, when the hotel opened.
The event, which is open to the public, will feature the history and culture of Maui and Kaanapali through song and dance of Maui and the Pacific.
Reservations may be made at 877-4852 or via the Internet at sheraton-maui.com.
Events such as the luau and special anniversary packages, including promotional rates for family-friendly 'Ohana suites, are part of the yearlong celebration, the hotel said.
The hotel boasts an award-winning architectural design that incorporated the resort's prime natural feature, Black Rock, that was a whale lookout in the 1800s, the hotel said.
Those who remember the Sheraton in the beginning said the lobby was on top of Black Rock with the hotel tower built up against the natural feature. Visitors had to head "down" to their rooms. The current, more traditional lobby is in a separate structure south of Black Rock.
The Sheraton was recognized for its use of Black Rock in its design and was the first Hawaii hotel to receive an award for architectural enhancement of a natural locale, the Sheraton said.
In 1968, Hawaii Visitors Bureau designated the Sheraton-Maui Hotel as one of the leaders in the development of Maui, particularly Lahaina-Kaanapali, as a major tourist destination resort.
Just three years after its opening, the hotel had 240 rooms. The resort currently has 508 rooms, with 83 percent of its rooms and suites facing the ocean.
Although the Sheraton is Kaanapali's oldest resort, the hotel is one of the "newest," having closed from 1995 to 1997 for a $160 million complete redevelopment, resort officials said. | <urn:uuid:d8c8e314-bfa4-4d8c-a529-471cb9bf2dbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/569192/50-years-for-Sheraton-Maui.html?nav=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966132 | 695 | 1.570313 | 2 |
According to a new market research report, “Solid State and Other Energy Efficient Lighting Systems, Application and Market Trends (2010–2015),” published by MarketsAndMarkets.com, the total global solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting systems market is expected to be worth $53.5 billion by 2015, out of which the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) market will account for nearly 31.2 percent of the total revenue. The global market is expected to record a compound annual growth rate of 9.7 percent from 2010 to 2015. The scope of the report covers solid state and other energy-efficient lighting technologies from CFLs to light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
The field of lighting has witnessed dramatic technology developments in the past few decades, especially in the subfields of solid-state lighting and other energy-efficient lighting technologies. According to MarketsAndMarkets.com, conventional incandescent lamps are likely to reach obsolescence with the arrival of high-brightness LEDs.
According to the report, LED lighting is gaining double-digit growth because of its high energy efficiency, high efficacy, long working life, and robust weatherproof design.
The report also states that the imminent ban on the use of incandescent lamps in the United States and parts of Europe and Asia will significantly boost the solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting market, which is estimated to reach $53.5 billion in 2015 from about $33.6 billion in 2010.
The Asia-Pacific region dominated the solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting market in 2008 and stood at $13.0 billion in 2009. It was expected to have the largest market share in 2010 and comprises 46.3 percent of the global solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting market in 2010. Asia has a large pool of solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting products manufacturers due to the lower labor and overall low manufacturing costs in the region; the region is also a major consumer. Developed economies such as the United States and Europe are also major consumers of these products.
The LED segment of the lighting market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.3 percent from 2010 to 2015 due to its increasing penetration into backlighting and pure lighting application markets.
In addition to market sizes and forecasts, the report also provides an analysis of trends and factors influencing market growth, offering geographic details of the solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting applications markets in the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific and rest of the world. The report draws competitive landscape of the global solid-state and other energy-efficient lighting market, providing in-depth comparative analysis of the technological and marketing strategies adopted by key players in order to gain an advantage over competitors. | <urn:uuid:61b186af-ca56-4db7-b16b-d559bf24b5c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecmag.com/section/lighting/report-solid-state-and-other-efficient-lighting-systems-rise-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943493 | 568 | 1.828125 | 2 |
NAW Government Relations
Legislative Issue Briefs
Your NAW government relations staff engages the legislative and executive branches of government on the industry's behalf to effect the outcome of a wide range of legislative issues of interest to wholesaler-distributors across all commodity lines. Periodically, your Capitol Hill advocacy team provides briefs updating industry executives on the status of the most significant of these issues and provides insight on what the immediate future may hold. To view the menu of issue briefs currently available, click find out more below.
The executive branch of the federal government implements federal law by issuing regulations. The judicial branch has its say in the application of laws by issuing decisions interpreting them. Regulatory initiatives and judicial decisions are frequently as, if not more, important than legislative activity in affecting the ability of wholesaler-distributors to manage their own businesses. When a significant regualtory or judicial decision is concluded, NAW prepares advisories summarizing the action and its potential impact of industry firms. To view the menu of advisories now on-line, click find out more below.
NAW E-Alert Grassroots Program
A critical component of NAW's ability to effectively engage the Congress on the industry's behalf and positively effect the outcome of legislation of importance to wholesaler-distributors is grassroots; i.e., generating from the "folks back home" contacts with their own Senators and Representatives, thus bringing the views of real constituents and voters to the attention of lawmakers. NAW's E-Alert program is designed precisely for that purpose. Using the magic of 21st century communications technology, NAW is able to reach out to affiliated executives and they, in turn, to their federal legislators on legislative issues that matter to ensure the wholesaler-distributor's voice is heard when the legislative process is at a critical juncture. Always be on the lookout for e-mail communications advising of the need for grassroots contacts with Members of the Senate and House, which will provide direction on how to engage the E-Alert program.
Contribute to WDPAC
NAW's political arm, the Wholesaler-Distributor Political Action Committee (WDPAC), was created to affect the composition of Congress by helping elect pro-business candidates supportive of the wholesale distribution industry. In addition, WDPAC provides resources for essential political activities such as voter registration drives and supplying detailed information about candidates.Find out more »
Washington Action Network
NAW's Washington Action Network identifies and catalogs personal relationships between Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and industry executives. Our ability to generate constituent communications from businessmen and women who enjoy personal relationships with their elected officials provides a uniquely valuable, effective tool in our grassroots lobbying efforts.Find out more » | <urn:uuid:81436f4f-046e-43be-9efe-9acc935ff44b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naw.org/govrelations/gindex.php?resize=R | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930298 | 564 | 1.5 | 2 |
LAFAYETTE — In response to demand for trained health care workers in Acadiana, a new $16 million, 60,000-square-foot health and sciences building for South Louisiana Community College is on a list of more than $245 million in community and technical college projects proposed for legislative approval in the upcoming session.
“Hopefully, it will reduce the waiting lists for programs and solve some of the needs in this area,” Louisiana Community and Technical College System President Joe May said.
He made the comment during a visit to the SLCC campus Tuesday for meetings with staff and faculty to explain the system’s goals for the upcoming session. Visits to other campuses within the system are planned prior to the legislative session.
The Lafayette project is one of 24 planned at 14 campuses across the state to increase space for in-demand workforce training programs and to improve student accessibility to campus services with the construction of “one-stop centers” on some campuses, May said. Construction would be phased starting in 2015 through 2017.
The cost of the proposed construction package is $245.5 million with campuses required to find private donors to fund at least $18.5 million toward the projects. In Lafayette, SLCC must secure a $1 million private match before construction could begin in 2016.
“If there really is a demand and need, then we need to engage private employers to help with that,” May said.
Other recent system construction projects in Lake Charles, Houma and New Orleans have received private contributions, he added.
The SLCC campus’ programs in licensed practical nursing and surgical care technology have waiting lists, and the college also offers health programs in clinical lab assistant, nurse assistant, pharmacy tech and soon, it may add a registered nursing program.
In July, technically focused campuses that were formerly part of the Acadiana Technical College in Lafayette, Opelousas, Ville Platte, Crowley, St. Martinville, New Iberia and Abbeville merged with SLCC. The merger expanded general education course options in the outlying areas, and the college has proposed about six new training programs specific to regional workforce needs, said Natalie Harder, SLCC chancellor.
Currently, 742 students are enrolled in health programs at SLCC, while more than 4,820 jobs in the health-care field are vacant in the Lafayette and south Louisiana region, according to figures provided by the system.
The new building will enable the college to double its enrollment in popular programs such as licensed practical nursing and patient care technician training, Harder said.
She added hospitals have also expressed interest in the college offering radiation therapy and occupational therapy technician programs.
The new building would free space in its Ardoin building, which houses its technical programs in Lafayette, to expand other in-demand programs in welding, industrial technology and drafting, Harder said. Classroom space dedicated to the Early College Academy in the college’s Devalcourt building would be moved to a separate wing in the new building that will offer more course openings for college students. The ECA program is in partnership with the Lafayette Parish School System and enables high schoolers to earn a high school diploma in tandem with an associate’s degree in four years.
The system’s request comes as the system wraps up a nearly $174 million bond package approved by the Legislature in 2007 for 23 construction projects on 14 campuses. Two Acadiana campuses were on the list. The Gulf Area campus in Abbeville received more than $5 million in major renovations, and work on construction of a new $9.2 million, 32,000-square-foot campus in St. Martinville will begin this summer.
The 2007 request included direly needed projects to replace and repair major structural issues on campuses, May said.
The new proposal creates needed space to grow the system’s enrollment from 73,000 students to 220,000 students to meet workforce demands throughout the state, May said.
“It’s really a race for the jobs and the economy,” he told SLCC faculty members.
Copyright © 2011, Capital City Press LLC • 7290 Bluebonnet Blvd., Baton Rouge, LA 70810 • All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:3feba7f2-c9eb-4b9d-931a-8ea0bfac78ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theadvocate.com/csp/mediapool/sites/Advocate/assets/templates/FullStoryPrint.csp?cid=5227459&preview=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952305 | 873 | 1.523438 | 2 |
You want me to share songs from the Civil War era in my senior living sessions? Hmmm…so I spoke to the residents. “That was before our time.” was their response. Talk about a challenge! Making music from the Civil War …...―
.......and quite a lot of them from Perry Miniatures and Wargames Foundry! ∙ My fixation with the dead and stricken continues.......Ray is slightly concerned! ∙ Pictures could be better but Ray took them! ∙ p―
Peace has become an elusive dream for the whole world especially now that the world powers are scampering for world supremacy. Each powerful nation seems to have a secret nuclear arsenal that is on standby in case some other super country is...―
..........a drunk on duty! ∙ Lovely set of figures from Foundry, little use to the game other than eye candy but what does that matter, the less useful the set is to the actual game the more I seem to like it!―
At the end of 1862, in the wake the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, Abraham Lincoln took a bloody and ugly Civil War to a far higher level – he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In bold and ringing words it was declared; ∙ ...―
The advent of the portable camera changed the face of the art world. By the American Civil War, the camera had made accurate portraits available to just about everyone. Although the large cameras with their bulky flashes, were by no means easy to...―
He was fiercely devoted to the Confederacy; ∙ She, fervently dedicated to the Union. ∙ One risked life to save a Cause-- ∙ The other, honor, to save a life. ∙ Praised by readers of romantic and historical fiction since ...―
It's that time of year again over at Curts blog ( Canadian Thor look-a-like!) and a fellow reject and he has launched his annual painting challenge (otherwise known as Ray's cheating challenge), I'll be honest that I didn't want to enter this ...―
Liberty and no UnionSecession is in the air. I’ve been keeping an eye on the rapidly evolving situation in the States. The latest information I have is that the Texaspetition now has well over 110,000 signatures, almost four times over the...―
Not one single STATE has filed anything suggesting secession. Why? First, because no state government is stupid enough to lose the benefits they get from the central government. Secession is illegal. The Civil War decided the issue and ...―
Last Thursday we had dinner at the Pancake Parlour, Andy & I. ∙ He ordered the ...
Tweet I am a member of the Collective Bias Social Fabric Community. This shop has been ...
It’s no surprise traditional black and white eReaders like the Amazon Kindle are ... | <urn:uuid:c790984a-6f0a-4fba-a7e1-1d783a1a1b96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bloggers.com/topics/american+civil+war | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968761 | 595 | 1.640625 | 2 |
"Inslee, school districts warn of high-tech job crises"
June 10, 2008 · Updated 5:34 PM
"Washington will face a job crisis unless schools start teaching technological skills earlier in their curriculum, according to Rep. Jay Inslee. It's going to be the great bombshell that will explode on this country, Inslee said. Inslee met Sept.1 with vocational school administrators from districts comprising the West Sound Consortium. They discussed how Washington schools can increase the number of students leaving high school with high-tech skills. Consortium members, citing a study by the American Electronics Association, said the state and nation are falling behind the demand for high-tech workers. Although the number of high-tech jobs grew 21 percent between 1990 and 1998 in the U.S., the number of high-tech degrees dropped five percent. The study said Washington schools should hope to supply at least technical workers a year by 2008 to keep up with the number of jobs available. Inslee said one of the reasons for the shortage of skilled techies is that high schools have been preparing students for college, not high-tech jobs available after high school or through vocational schools. We have had a really skewed definition of what success is. In schools, we have thought that if you go on to college, you're a success, Inslee said. To me, that's warped. There are a lot of ways of being successful. Funding was cited as a major obstacle blocking technology education. Jim Adamson, an Olympic High School teacher who has helped several students secure high-paying technological jobs right out of high school, said he is overworked and underfunded trying to keep up with the latest technology. Adamson said many of the programs he teaches are updated every year and he does not have time to learn them or the money to get them for his classes. There all these new programs, but I can't teach them because I'm teaching summer classes, Adamson said. He also said that students need to be exposed to computer technologies earlier. Since students can't start taking his classes until high school, administrators suggested students start taking technology classes as early as seventh grade and that districts curb elective requirements to make room for computer classes. Administrators were unanimous in asking the federal government for more money. WIth levy failures and tighter budgets, administrators said they cannot do even what they want to do. They cited the federal Karl Perkins Grant program, which gives money to schools, but said it is only a small part of what is needed to update computer labs and programs. Inslee said there are two education-funding camps in Congress: one wants to give parents vouchers so students can go to private schools, while the other wants to give more money to public districts. They talk about school choice and then they force vouchers down their throats, Inslee said. Inslee also said he is trying to pass a bill to pay the college loans of any graduate who teaches for five years after college. Math and education teachers would have to spend just three years in the classroom to pay back their loans, he said. " | <urn:uuid:6c441e3e-422b-4059-8c03-2c15ab6ef31c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northkitsapherald.com/news/19736339.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980784 | 623 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Patsy Bueno in May 2007 when then Utah Governor Jon Huntsman visited the school district.
During the Carbon County School Board meeting on Jan.13, Superintendent Patsy Bueno announced her retirement after a total of 38 years of service for Carbon County School District. During board member reports, Barry Deeter, board president, announced that Bueno would step down. All board members and several people in attendance expressed their gratitude for her hard work and commitment that she showed towards her position.
Other reports focused on training sessions members had attended in Salt Lake City. They offered positive comments relating to the different information members had acquired. Throughout the meeting, the point was made several times that continuing education is important and helps all involved.
Carbon High School went before the board to receive funding for needed repairs for their baseball field. They had previously submitted plans for repairs and expected funding that would be necessary. Jones and Demille Engineering drew up plans and were in attendance to answer any questions that the board presented. More than 20 companies submitted bids for service to the school. Nelson Construction was awarded the job.
The project will focus on drainage issues in the outfield. New piping will take the water off the field into a new line which will connect to the football field drains as well. The main project goal is to have the quality of the field increase in time for the season's first games. Construction is expected to be completed by the middle of March.
The school board has a rule that newly proposed policies must undergo three separate readings before they are adopted. These readings allow the board or anyone else to find items needing to be changed or to determine aspects of the language of the document that need to be changed as well.
The first policy to come before the board was the Special Education Program. The district has never had a special education policy included, so it is a new policy that needs to be worked out. The state must approve the policy. Pat Frandsen, special education director, noted that Utah has already approved the submitted copy. The special education system currently in place serves 605 kids in the various programs offered at different schools. The number is likely to rise in January. Head count is taken every month. Frandsen said that programs are doing well and helping a lot of children who need it. The only problem is that funding has never increased for the program. even though operating costs have.
The school board also discussed the building rental policy. Several mistakes were found relating to the language of the document. Also, some key issues were not addressed. One such issue was the absence of a hold harmless clause. This would ensure that when a building is rented, the school district cannot be held responsible in the event of injury to anyone at such an event.
Future readings and evaluations will take place at upcoming board meetings. | <urn:uuid:67907cb7-f395-4100-950a-cd50213f5d35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunadvocate.com/print.php?tier=1&article_id=17567&poll=233&vote=results | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984752 | 571 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Author Homer Hickam, whose best selling autobiography, Rocket Boys, is the selected read for this years One County One Book program has at least one tie to Beaufort County.
Hickam was befriended by Shane Smith of the Dulamo community on St. Helena Island back in 1986. At the time, Smith was living in Savannah and managing a ships store at a marina. Hickam, an engineer for NASA, was on vacation with a buddy when he arrived at the marina to meet a friends boat for a sail to the gulf coast of Florida. The boat failed to arrive on time and Hickam and his buddy found themselves in a strange city with no place to stay.
Smith, a New Zealand native and skilled sailor, had been in similar predicaments in her days of traveling the Atlantic by boat. She sympathized with Hickam and invited him and his buddy to stay in her home with her family until his boat arrived.
As it turned out, the anticipated arrival of the boat to Florida did not occur until ten days later. By then, Smith and family and Hickam and his pal were all fast friends. Smith said Hickam is friendly, highly energetic and very smart. He is also athletic and ran every day during his visit. Smith said Hickam turned out to be an unusually nice man who remembers to thank people for their kindnesses.
Hickam eventually completed his voyage and returned to his job in Huntsville, Ala. where he worked as a computer engineer for NASA and taught astronauts to maneuver in a weightless state. A long-time skin diver and athlete, Hickam felt at home in a weightless environment. As a gesture of gratitude for her hospitality, Hickam sent Smith tickets to the launch of the space shuttle Challenger at Cape Canaveral. Smith sent her 9-year-old-son, Andrew to the launch along with a school mate and the boys parents.
It happened to be the ill-fated shuttle that blew up and killed all aboard. But, fortunately, young Andrew and his friends did not witness that portion of the launch. Now, Andrew is a man of 29 who operates his own computer business in Atlanta. He said he will always remember the excitement of the launch and the friendly man who stayed with his family years ago in Savannah.
Smith also remembers Hickam fondly and is delighted about his success as an author. She looks forward to attending some of the One County One book events scheduled this month by the county library.
Hickam was also a close friend of Swede Larson, the great grandfather of Korey Hansen, a sixth grader at Robert Smalls Middle School, grandfather of Shawn Sproatt, a graduating senior at Beaufort High School and father of Suzanne Larson of Ladys Island.
H.V. Swede Larson was a USMC and CIA pilot and soldier of fortune. Hickam wrote the book, Torpedo Junction, based on some of Larsons WW 11 experiences and an article for Air & Space Magazine based on Larsons adventures as a contrabandista in South Texas in the early 1980s.
Larson and other retired CIA pilots would fly American appliances into Mexico and sell them on the black market. They packed their goods into used DC3s stripped of all insulation to allow more space and fly at night with their lights off. It was perfectly legal in the US, but a bit risky in Mexico.
The aging veterans, apparently unexcited by the prospect of settling into the lackluster tranquility of retirement, welcomed another opportunity for adventure. The fun lasted until Larson and his crew members were captured by the Mexican Army and spent 8 months in a village prison in what Larson thereafter referred to as my expensive Mexican holiday.
Larson and Hickam became good friends and visited frequently. Hickam has written film scripts based on both Torpedo Junction and the contrabandista story.
Larson died in 1996, but his family is proud of his exploits and pleased they have been immortalized by Hickams writing.
If they make a movie -- I hope Clint Eastwood, Jude Law or Hugh Jackman will play my Grandfather, Sproatt said.
Sproatts father, USCB Professor Rod Sproatt, will lead a Rocket Boys book discussion presented at the county Library on Scott Street on Saturday, May 14 at 1 PM. | <urn:uuid:aae1cdfc-a4d9-4cd1-b523-851b94a7de22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beaufortcountylibrary.org/htdocs-sirsi/onecounty11.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98368 | 884 | 1.632813 | 2 |
In 2007, NAHB polled architects, designers, marketers, and manufacturers in an effort to identify the characteristics of the average home of 2015. The experts predicted that houses would continue to increase in size for a time, then gradually level off, stabilizing at somewhere around 2,400 square feet.
In the years since that prediction was made, of course, the housing market has taken a world-class beating. Recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the forecast leveling-off arrived ahead of schedule, and after a period of contraction. But smaller houses doesn’t necessarily translate into disappointed buyers: Findings from two consumer surveys suggest that many potential homeowners actually prefer small houses, and that customer satisfaction among production-home buyers hit a new high this year.
Two-year drop. According to the Census data, the average new home in the U.S. declined from 2,277 square feet in 2007 to 2,215 square feet in 2008, and then to 2,135 square feet in 2009. That 142-square-foot decrease is the first in this century and the largest in a generation: The last decline of any magnitude was a modest 25-square-foot dip in 1994 and 1995, and although the late ’70s and early ’80s were marked by a large drop — one comparable to the one we just experienced — it was spread over four years, not two.
House size, says NAHB director of economic services Stephen Melman, has indeed peaked — and “we’re probably going to stay on this plateau for a while.” He attributes much of the current dip to a general feeling of insecurity. “It’s true across the board. Buyers of small low-cost houses are scaling back, and a buyer who might have been looking for a 3,600-square-foot house is now thinking 3,200.” But two other factors, he says, also come into play.
First, average house size has likely been pushed downward by disproportionate numbers of first-time home buyers — who tend to buy small homes — attracted by first-time-buyer tax credits. Although those credits expired at the end of April, the resulting change in the buyer pool hasn’t yet shown up in the statistics.
Second, Melman says, there are larger demographic forces at work. As baby boomers age, many are relocating and moving into smaller homes. “They don’t need five bedrooms anymore,” he says. “They need three bedrooms. The house itself may be high quality and have lots of amenities, but it will have a smaller footprint.”
Buyer preference. Evidence of growing interest in smaller houses comes from a July survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults by the market-research firm Harris Interactive for the real estate search company Trulia.com. The survey asked participants to specify their ideal home size. The most popular category, selected by 28 percent of all respondents, was 1,401 to 2,000 square feet, closely followed by 2,001 to 2,600 square feet, which was preferred by 27 percent.
In other words, well over half of all respondents were clumped up on either side of today’s average home size, as one would expect. But things get more interesting closer to the margins. A surprising 9 percent expressed a preference for homes in the 800- to 1,400-square-foot range, with another 9 percent opting for a home of 3,200 square feet or more.
Happier customers. Building booms have an obvious upside: They’re profitable. But they have a downside, too, and another recent survey touches on one aspect of it. The just-released annual study of new-home quality from J.D. Power and Associates found that customer satisfaction among buyers of new production homes in 2010 was at its highest level since the market research company began tracking this number in 1997. The nationwide average of 826 (on a 1,000-point scale) also marked the third year in a row that customer satisfaction has been on the rise, from 779 in 2008 and 811 in 2009.
NAHB’s Melman attributes that uptick to improved building technology and materials. “Manufacturers are producing better products,” he says. “There’s been an explosion of choices in things like flooring, lighting, and windows over the past few years.”
And then there’s the possibility that builders are simply finding the time to do a better job. In so many ways, the boom-induced problems they struggled with earlier in the decade — finding skilled workers and qualified subs, returning phone calls, and keeping quality at an acceptable level — translated into unhappy homeowners. Now that the pace has slowed, buyers are feeling more cheerful. The challenge will be to keep them that way. | <urn:uuid:dc4e1014-3f7a-4ae9-b5d9-9b33f1c9a535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jlconline.com/design/as-houses-shrink-buyer-satisfaction-grows.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967482 | 1,013 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The classic cars from the ‘70s and ‘80s you want to save from extinction the most
Motoring laws you may not know you’ve broken
Legislation to make driving under the influence of drugs a specific offence has been welcomed after it was announced in last week's Queen's speech. It's already widely known that driving after taking banned drugs such as cannabis or cocaine is illegal but did you know that patients on prescription drugs also face prosecution if their driving is impaired by medication?
Nowadays, driving in the UK can feel like being in some sort of Big Brother-style experiment; with speed cameras, congestion charging and CCTV watching your every move.
To stay on the right side of the law, a modern driver needs to be fully aware of the catalogue of potential motoring offences that they might be committing, for the list sometimes seems to be growing by the day.
Here are 10 examples of less common offences that might catch you out:
Warning fellow oncoming motorists
Warning other drivers of a police speed trap could land you with a fine of up to £500. A 64-year-old male motorist from Grimsby helped a fellow driver avoid a potential prosecution and was hit with a fine and costs totalling £440 by magistrates.
Dirty number plate
Number plates that obscure the registration details can lead to a £1,000 fine.
Beeping your horn
Sounding your horn while stationary is illegal, unless to warn a moving vehicle of danger. In fact, you can't use your horn on a residential street from 11.30pm till 7am in any circumstances.
Changing a CD
...or, sipping a hot drink, eating food or doing your make-up while driving could be considered careless or even dangerous.
Pulling over to take a mobile phone call
You may still be considered by police to be 'driving' and therefore breaking the law if the engine is running, even if you are parked at the kerbside. Be safe: park up and switch off or use a hands-free phone.
Playing loud music
Playing loud music, especially with your car windows down, could be regarded as causing a distraction for either yourself or other road users.
Cradling a babe in your arms
As a passenger, holding a baby while the car is moving, even if you are wearing a seatbelt, is unlawful and the driver is responsible. All children must have a 'restraint', such as a booster seat or baby seat, until their 12th birthday or reaching 135cm tall. Travelling in a taxi is an exception.
Being abusive or making rude hand gestures to a fellow road user or pedestrian can be judged inconsiderate, careless or dangerous driving.
'Morning after' drink-drivers
Convictions of motorists who are over the alcohol limit from the previous night are on the rise. Some people who stop drinking alcohol at midnight may still be above legal limits for driving at 4pm the next day - 16 hours later - depending on the amount consumed.
Even beyond these less well-known laws there are numerous motoring myths that can land you in trouble. Inaccurate but commonly-held beliefs, such as the 'two-week leeway for changing a tax disc' or the 10% speed limit discretion, often get motorists fines or points on their licence, which can in turn lead to an outright ban via the totting-up system.
Solicitor Natali Farrell of Just Motor Law said: "It is useful for motorists to refresh themselves of the law by re-reading the Highway Code to avoid some of the myths.''
"Knowing the law can help a motorist avoid breaking it. Some offences are less clear-cut than say, speeding, and open to interpretation, which means there may be scope to challenge on several grounds."
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Regarding warning oncoming motorists of a speed trap
Surely it cant be an offence to prevent a crime being committed
Remember people, clean your car everyday so your number play doesn't get dirty, disconnect your horn, don't wave at someone you know if you've passed a speed trap, listen to the same songs over and over again, that way you remember the lyrics, don't play your music loud it might hurt your hearing and if someone annoys you whilst driving, just wave and say thank you, invite them round for tea and cakes and then wish them a pleasent onward travel.
If you cradle a babe, well that just dam right stupidity anyway so I have nothing to say with regards to that.
And remember if you do drink drive be careful not to spill any. What a waste that would be.
Seriously some of the laws in the country are a load of B....cks!!!
'As a passenger, holding a baby while the car is moving, even if you are wearing a seatbelt, is unlawful and the driver is responsible.'
No dung Sherlock. If baby needs comforting stop and call ahead, why would you risk the life of your child?
'Travelling in a taxi is an exception.'
Why is this the case? Taxi drivers are no safer than any other so why shouldn't you be required to make your child safe in a taxi as if your own car. I guess that would be the same as why don't bus passengers have to wear seatbelts or drivers have to wait for you to be seated safely.
Oops. I may have occasionally told car drivers to get something more in keeping with their driving ability, like a bus pass on occasions. I will confess that when on bike I do take it rather badly when someone is dangerously stupid nearby. Sorry to stereotype but usually in soft roaders, on the phone or of course both.
How is it if you watch police series see them driving and using a radio,whats the difference to a mobile.One law for one, one law for joe public.
I remember when the most dangerous thing you could do was match cross ply tires with radial tyres.
When you were more likely to be killed by a seatbelt, than saved by one.
When the speed limit was based on how fast your could go.
Trusting that your car had done the journey enough times to remember the way home, then waking up in bed.
Keeping the back seat cleaner than the front.
I am a bit of a loud mouth in the real world and have been known to point out to members of our police farce when they are breaking the laws it is their job to uphold or simply behaving inconsiderately or disrespectfully. They want respect they have to earn it same as anyone else. Ever so popular me, as you can imagine.
So yes I totally agree with you. When the blues are on and they are travelling at pace I give them all the room to pass I can safely, they do save lives everyday. When not they are just another car driver and should set a good example.
1) Most people dont realise that nearly all court judgements in the UK are written out BEFORE the hearing has even taken place, ie fiddled,. The law is not real, it is just there to stop the masses committing anarchy and making the majority THINK that we have justice ( a myth) in England .
The reality is our legal system appears to be one of the most corrupt in the world.
2) The pensioner who was fined for warning of a speed trap , should have appealed or employed a solicitor, instead of representing himself.
3) Anyone who tries the straw man crap or not attending summons ,etc. will end up like the Pensioner in 2) with a fine , or worse in Prison and and or made homeless.
"Its a Statute not Law", is the best news I have heard this year. The Human rights Act is therfore not a Law (common Law) so there is nothing to stop us sending illegal immigrants back to their country of origin.
We can happily send alleged criminals back to be tried in the courts of other countries.
We don't even have to pay benefits and house anyone of working age if they refuse and are capable to work.
So when is a Law not a Law?
There are places you can go with no speed limits and have a great time driving flat out until your heart is content. They are called race tracks and most have days when the public can use them.
I thoroughly enjoyed blasting around one on my bike years ago and was able to play in a manner that would have endangered many innocents if I did so on the road.
Roads are not designed to be fun, they are designed to enable you to get from one point to another. Sorry to burst your bubble. Race tracks however are totally the opposite, as you end up where you start but they are laid out to be pure driving or riding pleasure.
Latest Cars videos
On the road with the landmark Lambos for special golden anniversary drive.
Date 13/05/13, Duration 4:26, Views 8598 | <urn:uuid:e0f8193b-2cab-4bdc-8d00-194a19874496> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cars.uk.msn.com/features/motoring-laws-you-may-not-know-you%e2%80%99ve-broken | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967587 | 1,872 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Analysing norwegian forest management using an optimal harvesting rule
Author: Nyrud, Anders Q.
Source: Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, Volume 19, Number 5, October 2004 , pp. 74-81(8)
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Ltd
Abstract:Norwegian forest management was investigated empirically through estimating an optimal harvesting rule stepwise with a growth function, for both a pooled and a panel data model. Norwegian forest management implied an average annual rate of return within the interval 2.53.7%. The rate of return required from forest investments was low compared with alternative investment options. The results were consistent with observed forest management and were probably influenced by forest owners' time and risk preferences. Furthermore, the required rate of return from investments in forestry was probably affected by public policies, e.g. public subsidy programmes and tax legislation. The results may also imply that forest owners maximized the total benefit from their forests, and not exclusively profits from industrial roundwood production.
Document Type: Research article
Publication date: 2004-10-01 | <urn:uuid:c2f73629-32ff-45d3-9f1c-9190a32feae0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/sfor/2004/00000019/00000005/art00010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9412 | 217 | 1.585938 | 2 |
BlogsMixing Alcohol and Energy Drinks Has Sexual Side Effect
In addition to increased binge drinking, mixed drinks like Red Bull and vodka are linked to drunk and casual sex.
MF Editors Recommend
As part of the “hook-up culture” on many college campuses, mixing alcohol with energy drinks, like Red Bull and Rockstar, is pushing many students toward risky sex, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Buffalo found that college students who drank alcohol and energy drink mixes were more likely to have intoxicated or casual sex during their most recent hook-up.
"Mixing energy drinks with alcohol can lead to unintentional overdrinking, because the caffeine makes it harder to assess your own level of intoxication," study author Kathleen E. Miller said in a press release.
Previous research has highlighted the dangers of mixing alcohol with energy drinks—increased drunk driving, binge drinking, and fighting. The researchers point out that a Jägerbomb/Red Bull won’t make someone have casual sex, but it increases their chances of doing so.
Drunk and casual sex both have potentially dangerous consequences, like unintended pregnancies, sexual assault, and sexual transmitted diseases. The good news is that the study, published in the Journal of Caffeine Research, found that students who drink alcohol and energy drink mixes weren’t less likely to use a condom during their most recent sexual encounter.
Still, with almost a third of sexually-active students mixing alcohol with energy drinks during the previous month, the dangers of these mixed drinks still loom large, especially when it comes to risky sexual activities. | <urn:uuid:4270a9a9-2d39-4280-9119-ee1cbe62eada> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-drink/mixing-alcohol-and-energy-drinks-has-sexual-side-effect | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955983 | 330 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Protopresbyter Michael Ivanovich Pomazansky (Russian: Михаил Иванович Помазанский; November 7, 1888 – November 4, 1988) was a Russian theologian, teacher, and Pastor.
He was born in the village of Korist, in the governorate of Volhynia. His father was Archpriest Ioann Pomazansky who was the son of Father Ioann Ambrosievich. Fr. Michael's mother, Vera Grigorievna, was the daughter of a protodeacon and later priest in the city of Zhitomir.
Upon completing secondary school, Fr. Michael entered the Volhynia seminary where he attracted the particular attention of Bishop (later Metropolitan) Anthony Khrapovitsky, who left in his heart traces of his broad social, intellectual and moral influence.
When, after graduating from seminary Fr. Michael left Volhynia, he continued to maintain contact with Vladika Anthony through correspondence. It was with Vladika Anthony's help that in 1914 Fr. Michael received a position as a teacher of Church Slavonic in the Kaluga Seminary.
From 1908 to 1912 Fr. Michael taught in the Kiev Theological Academy. There in Kiev he took graduate pedagogical courses. In 1913 he married Vera Feodorovna Shumsky, the daughter of a priest, who became his faithful and inseparable companion on their long path together in life. After a brief stint on the missionary field combating sectarianism - through which he formed a life-long attachment to the study of the New Testament - Fr. Michael taught in the Kaluga Theological Academy; his time there coincided with the First World War. The Revolution and the consequent closing of ecclesiastical institutions obliged him to return to his native Volhynia.
From 1920 until 1934 Fr. Michael taught Russian philology, literature, philosophical dialectics and Latin at the Russian Lycée in Rivne.
In 1936 Fr. Michael was ordained a priest and moved to Warsaw where he was the first assistant to the rector of cathedral, a position he held until June, 1944.
Upon his arrival in America in 1949, Fr. Michael was appointed by Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) as an instructor at Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, New York. After the death of his wife, he moved into the monastery, where he remained until his death on November 4, 1988.
Fr. Michael passed away on Friday November 4, 1988, at 6:30 in the morning, the feast day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Archbishop Laurus (Škurla) performed the funeral service on November 9. Present at the service were Fr. Michael's former students - Fr. George Larin, Fr. Vsevolod Drobot, Fr. Gregory Kotliarov, Fr. Ioasaph Yaroshchuk, Fr. Victor Lokhmatov and Fr. Deacon Andrei Papkov.
Father Michael Pomazansky was known for his adherence to the teaching of dogmatic theology as a way to maintain understanding and unity within the various Eastern Orthodox communities. The work that he is most remember for is indeed named after this precept: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.
- Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition. 3rd Ed. St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood Press, 2006. 434pp. ISBN 9780938635697
- Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky. Transl. from Pravoslavnaya Rus’. Orthodox America. 11/14/88. (ROCOR biography) | <urn:uuid:2010c210-7542-49fc-807b-5c90acc6edbe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Michael_Pomazansky&oldid=109353 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959039 | 775 | 1.679688 | 2 |
An Acts Matter Essay
Last December, on a plane from Denver to Medford, I happened to sit next to one of my best childhood friends. We had grown up in Yreka, Calif., but hadn't seen each other in over a decade. During the flight home, we laughed until tears came to our eyes as we reminisced about our school days. At one point, Emerson said, "Do you remember Charlie in sixth grade?" I looked at Emerson and we both went quiet.
Held back a year in school, Charlie was the biggest kid in our class. His brother was 10 years older, in and out of detention centers, notorious throughout town as a vicious drug dealer. Charlie never knew his father and his mother never wore anything in public but a robe and nightgown. I remember my father shaking his head when he saw Charlie walking downtown one morning. "That boy doesn't have a chance," he said.
• Name withheld by request, graduated AHS in the 1960s: "I was born and raised in Ashland to a pretty poor family. I was a little on the heavy side, but had many friends. I was elected to be one of five cheerleaders and had the experience of my life feeling so special. I tried out for cheerleader again the next year but didn't make the cut. I recall crying in a heap on the girls bathroom floor when another girl who tried out and failed walked in the bathroom. She told me to shut up and stop crying; that I only made cheerleader the prior year because of a family tragedy and everyone felt sorry for me. I have rarely felt such a 'sting,' and although I hated myself throughout the rest of high school for the 'pitiful fat girl who made cheerleader just because everyone felt sorry for her,' I, of course, have long ago realized that the girl who made the comment to me was feeling the pain of not making cheerleader herself. And in the nearly 50 years since the unkind comment, I've never told anyone who made that comment to me."
• Mike Case, class of 1969: "There weren't many bullies at AHS, but of the ones that were there, they were all the same. They smoked cigarettes, drank, did pot and fought at every opportunity. It made them feel superior if they could hurt someone else. I stood up to the wanna-bes and was able to make them back down, but two real bullies were dangerous and had to be dealt with through the police. They did a lot of damage to vehicles parked on the street, such as throwing pieces of scrap metal through windshields and piercing tires with weapons made in the forging and welding shop."
• Name withheld by request, graduated AHS in the 1960s: "I had a male cousin who acted somewhat feminine and was teased and bullied. I always came to his defense, since the taunting was nearly constant throughout his high school years. Later, as Ashland became more open-minded, he did come out of the closet and still wasn't accepted. He ended up moving to San Francisco. How sad back then, but so happy doors have opened since."
• Gordon Brown, class of 1974: "When I was a sophomore, the most popular initiation involved kids having to roll pencils with their noses, resulting in a scab. I recall others having to wear adult diapers on the outside of their pants. I personally didn't have to do either."
• Jamila Elliot: "I was a student at Ashland High School from 1998-2001 and was both a victim and witness to hazing, which was shockingly widespread. Shockingly obscene, slanderous words about me were spray-painted on three different sites on campus. I would hate to see any student go through the daily hell I was subjected to and watched so many others be subjected to."
What I remember most about Charlie was that he was a bully. Each morning he lined up Emerson, our friend David, and me and then punched us as hard as he could on the shoulder. If we made noise or complained he hit us in the stomach. This happened every morning of every school day of sixth grade, and yet none of us ever told our teacher or our parents, nor did we ever really talk about it with each other.
In the silence of the airplane I knew Emerson and I were returning to the pain and shame we felt during those years — something we still couldn't really talk about, even 30 years later.
Sugar Mejia, director of the Schools Program at Mediation Works, teaches ChoicePoint, a bully awareness and bystander empowerment training. She recently sent me some of the testimonies she's collected from middle school students across Jackson County. These testimonies are written anonymously, collected by facilitators and then read back to the students and teachers to help create awareness of the impact and pervasiveness of bullying. Reading the words of local students, I made contact with the mixture of helplessness, anger and loneliness I experienced as a sixth-grade boy. Here is a sampling from the many testimonies they have collected:
As we rose to get off the plane, Emerson turned to me and said, "You know Charlie died this year? He was a meth addict. He was running from the police and jumped off a bridge into the Klamath River and drowned. I guess he got what he deserved." I paused and felt real sorrow for Charlie. Strangely it was the same sorrow I felt for him in sixth grade on the last day of school — the last day that Charlie lined us up for punishment. I remember he looked at me sadly and said, "Do you know why I hit you every day, Yaconelli?" I shook my head. "Because you have a good life."
Looking through the testimonies collected by Sugar, I not only heard my own pain and fear as a victim of bullying, I also heard Charlie's voice in a note written by a local middle school student, just this past year.
On Thursday, The Hearth: Real Stories by Regular Folks will try to help mitigate the silence around our experiences as bullies, bystanders and targets as six community members share a true story of their experience of bullying. The all-ages event will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Jan. 24 at the Unitarian Fellowship at 87 Fourth St., Ashland. The cost is $5 and all proceeds will go to the ChoicePoint program at Mediation Works.
The stories are told from various perspectives and are full of courage, humor, hurt and sadness. Listening to these stories told by local adults might help all of us remove the shame and silence of bullying as well as create greater insight as to what our young people need from us now.
Mark Yaconelli is the program director for the Center for Engaged Compassion at Claremont School of Theology and the founder and director of The Hearth: Real Stories by Regular Folks. He has written four books, including "Wonder, Fear, and Longing: A Book of Prayers" (Zondervan). | <urn:uuid:4bb5bef6-a3a8-4fd2-a7dc-f8f221083d04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130123/NEWS02/301230303 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987342 | 1,445 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Night Worker
In the process of musing about our perennially awake world for my Social Psych blog, I started to think about our present work world and how its operations have changed the lives of millions of workers.
I manage a 24/7 emergency crew (mental health). We handle callers from early evening until 7 AM, plus weekends and holidays. During the course of the night, we talk to hundreds of people from all walks of life. Until a few years ago (except for intermittent wartime production requirements), the people who worked through the night were limited to emergency services (police, fire, hospitals), the telephone company, a few booming manufacturing plants, and the military. Now we expect to order items, day or night, by telephone. We demand that support services for all our transactions be available 24/7.
How do night workers cope? For some, night work is a blessing, freeing up daytime hours for childcare or school. For those with limited skills and reduced income potential, moonlighting at night is a chance to earn a decent income. But night workers also pay a price: they never get quite as much sleep as their daytime compatriots. There is always so much more to get done during the business day and they receive constant interruptions from a world operating on an opposite schedule. After a period of time, they either adapt or quit.
Studies have shown that night workers suffer more injuries, make more errors, and experience more medical problems than do first shift employees. Those figures suggest that we function more efficiently in the historical tradition of sunup to sundown. We are not, by nature, nocturnal creatures.
The most difficult schedule to absorb, though, is one that undergoes frequent change. In some companies, shifts change monthly. I worked with a large manufacturing company years ago (a lot of their employees suffered injuries and needed my services), that held weekly seniority bids on all frontline positions. This meant that relatively new employees might work days one week, swing the following week, and graveyard the next. When I pointed out a possible connection between these horrible work schedules and the company's accident rate, I was told that the Union refused to allow any changes in the system.
Now unions are supposed to represent the needs of the workers, aren't they? How could they possibly justify the stress they were causing their own members?
I finally figured out (sometimes I'm a little slow!) that their members with seniority liked the system because they could easily change their work hours for a week if something came up or they wanted to avoid working for a particular foreman.
Those who had the luck to get in early had a terrific advantage over the newbies. Like the initial members of pyramid schemes or Multi-Level-Marketing scams, they were on the gravy train. And the newcomers - the recently unemployed, minorities, women, the disabled - were left the dregs to fight over while mired in their constant vulnerability to layoff.
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com | <urn:uuid:e63123ab-0192-4d6c-95b6-feb1630efdb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.technoworldinc.com/careers/the-night-worker-t8557.0.html | 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 | 0.966231 | 690 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The just-published study by the California Association of Scholars concludes that Left-wing bias on all the campuses of the University of California is more pervasive than ever. And what is true in California is true nationally. Most American universities have become Leftist seminaries.
If Americans do not undo the intellectual and moral damage done by professors in the “social sciences,” our country will drift into historical amnesia – no University of California campus requires a single course in American history – and the moral confusion endemic to the Left.
To help undo this damage I started Prager University two years ago. Its intent is to present many of the finest minds in the world on every great issue of life – including economics, politics, morality, sexuality, psychology, history, religion – even happiness.
Aside from the quality of lecturers, what renders Prager U. unique are its use of internet-based video (through its own website using YouTube), very high quality illustrations to accompany the lecturer, and that every course is only five minutes long.
This is in recognition of a) the current power of video, b) that many people are so busy that they have little time beyond work and family, and c) that the present young generation often does not have the patience or inclination to read or to watch lengthy presentations on serious subjects.
We want to do right what the universities are doing wrong. They are unconscionably expensive; our courses are free. They teach students to hold America and its traditional values in contempt; we teach them how uniquely great they have been. They often use grad students to teach classes; we use the best minds in the world. They take months to propagandize; we offer wisdom in five minutes (Our motto is "give us five minutes and we'll give you a semester.")
I'm going to be regularly contributing at Ricochet because the people involved here are kindred spirits engaged in meaningful dialogue. I want Prager University to be a part of it.
Our newest course is called "The Welfare State and Selfish Society." In it, I call into question the conventional wisdom that says, "Free enterprise is the system that produces selfish people," and show how it is the welfare state that produces selfish people. Watch it. Share it with your friends. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think of our course. | <urn:uuid:dda0ae28-022b-4c2a-a22f-6f62b4039182> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Prager-University-Comes-to-Ricochet/(comment)/338775 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959132 | 478 | 1.5 | 2 |
AskMN Instant Chat Reference Service Grows
AskMN, a live online interactive service for information and research help available to all Minnesota residents and students, has just released its annual report for 2012 which shows it saw a 51% increase in questions from Minnesota patrons over 2011, and it received questions from residents in 84 of Minnesota’s 87 counties. Great River Regional Library (GRRL) was one of 13 academic and public libraries that joined AskMN during the year. Visitors to the GRRL website can access AskMN by clicking the Ask a Librarian link and then linking at Instant Messaging. AskMN users are able to chat with a librarian and get their questions answered in real time 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Participating libraries in AskMN help each other's patrons when their local library is not available. AskMN is itself part of a larger cooperative called the QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative that allows Minnesota patrons to get questions answered via instant messaging when Minnesota libraries are normally closed. In exchange for participation, GRRL staff ready to answer questions monitor the AskMN helpline five hours weekly.
AskMN accepted a total of 31,329 questions during the year, of which 27,352 were from Minnesota patrons and 3,977 were from non-Minnesota patrons. A total of 946 questions came from residents within GRRL's service area. | <urn:uuid:8913ed07-4fd9-44b6-bdb6-264225e7d290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.griver.org/library-news/askmn-instant-chat-reference-service-grows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955005 | 280 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Could Twitter be deliberately exploited to promote evil?
“Was last week a watershed week in terms of unsubstantiated online gossip?” Andrew Neil asked Richard Bacon on the BBC current affairs programme ‘This Week’ last week.
On Twitter, as @richardpbacon, Bacon describes himself as a ‘minor celebrity’ (and we all know how much I admire celebrity) but, following his brave battle against internet trolls, Bacon needs to be taken seriously on this issue.
“Yes” said Bacon. “From people with only a small number of followers, (Lord McAlpine) is asking for an apology and a token £5 (to Children in Need) and … it has turned it into a watershed moment. People’s attitudes about tweeting and, more crucially, re-tweeting libellous comments will change as a result of this.”
“In the Twittersphere, and social media in general, will we see a pulling back from the nastiness?” asked Neil.
“I hope so” replied Bacon “One of the solutions would be if providers of social media compelled users to see their real photo and their real name, a lot of that nastiness would dissipate because people are emboldened by anonymity.”
AC Grayling made this point in 2007: “Let us get rid of anonymity of posts on (The Guardian blog) and agree or disagree, support or lock horns vigorously, in the open – with common courtesy as the only system of governance we need.”
With my advertising and marketing hat on, I know that, from a commercial point of view, anonymous users are of no value whatsoever to Twitter. Free-to-use sites can only survive with advertising revenue. And advertisers need to know precisely who they are promoting to. ‘If its free, you are the product’ goes the mantra. If Twitter doesn’t know who you are, and at least one of your contact details, how can they sell you to anyone else?
Yes, Twitter can be harmless fun. Who would want to gag @DrSamuelJohnson or Pippa Middleton’s bottom? But to what extent is ‘harmless fun’ outweighed by the ‘nastiness’ of Twitter to which Richard Bacon referred?
Lord McAlpine lawyers reckon they can identify no less than 10,000 Twitter users (1,000 original tweets and 9,000 retweets) who made ‘untrue pervert accusations‘ against him.
Now 10,000 is a heck of a lot of people to have been provoked into a physical act, even as simple as a retweet, to malign an innocent person. Talk about the Wisdom of Crowds (not).
But were these 10,000 tweeters nasty? They were wrong and they were malicious, but were they nasty? And, if deliberately plotted, how much nastiness could Twitter provoke from its gullible users?
On the same TV programme, the former Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo compared human behaviour on Twitter to road rage: “You see it even with people in a car (where) people make gestures and yell obscenities at people. Somehow that little bubble of a car protects them from normal human behaviour.”
What does it take to turn people from normal to abnormal behaviour, from nastiness to evil?
After all, in road rage, stepping out of the bubble of a car can lead to physical assault and even murder – as a quick online search shows has happened in countries as far apart as Abu Dhabi, America, New Zealand and India. And, in the UK, the 1996 road rage murderer Tracie Andrews has been in the news again this week.
Is there an online equivalent of this behaviour?
Could we see, one day, the anonymity of Twitter being cold-heartedly exploited in a planned and calculated way by an evil person? Could Twitter be used to incite physical violence and murder?
I think it could. I believe there is a scenario where, say, religious or political zealots could plan and develop Twitter campaigns to provoke an instant, mass-market, evil response.
So, we need to be careful. And, as non-politicians, we should stop it happening before rather than after it happens.
In the McAlpine case, not only should Twitter be forced to publish the identities of its gullible users but made jointly liable with a fine, not of a fiver, but at least £5Million for enabling 10,000 human beings to falsely accuse an innocent man of being a paedophile.
That should do it. | <urn:uuid:e0763968-02a8-4f87-9205-2b9df5775710> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2012/11/28/could-twitter-be-deliberately-exploited-to-promote-evil/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957219 | 973 | 1.507813 | 2 |
“I’m addicted to Twitter!” she says. “I forget that I have over 130,000 followers. I’m just on there talking to my friends.”She also works on giving herself “permission slips,” the aptly named title of her recently published memoir that comically chronicles her life and its successes and mistakes. “Women try so hard to be perfect,” Shepherd says. “We need to give ourselves permission to say, ‘It’s OK that I made a mistake as long as I can get up, keep smiling and keep going.’”Shepherd has come a long way since 1990, when she juggled work as a stand-up comic with a day job as a legal secretary. These days she's talking candidly with such role models as First Lady Michelle Obama.“Michelle is a very strong woman,” Shepherd says. “She can be in a crowd surrounded by people who are all trying to get her attention, but when she’s talking to you, she makes you feel as if you’re the most important person in the room.”Want more? Get your own copy of Shepherd’s book Permission Slips: Every Woman’s Guide to Giving Herself a Break.Warding off diabetesLifestyle changes make big improvements to your health and prevent diabetes from taking its toll. According to the Diabetes Association (ADA), eating healthier, losing weight, and exercising just 30 minutes a day can delay the onset of diabetes better than medications can. The ADA offers these steps to take: 1. Eat a rainbow of vegetable and fruits, in many colors and types, especially non-starchy ones like spinach, carrots, broccoli and green beans with meals.2. Go for whole grains, for example, eat brown rice or whole wheat pasta.
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The latest news, tips and recipes for people with diabetes.
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Yoga for Back Pain
Pets HelpYour Heart
Are YouMoney Smart? | <urn:uuid:c833bdb2-a42d-4cd7-a3cc-6bcd8dfb04be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lifescript.com/diet-fitness/articles/h/how_the_view_host_sherri_shepherd_shed_41_pounds.aspx?o=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946316 | 484 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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You hear the term “professional” used in the detail business a great deal. But does anyone really know what differentiates a professional detailer from one who is not? Do you consider yourself a professional? If yes, then let us consider what other occupations come to mind when you think of a “professional.”
Would an attorney, a doctor or a certified public accountant be considered a professional? Why? What do these occupations have in common? If you said, “They all require continuing education to maintain an active license,” you’d be correct.
While detail chemical companies and equipment suppliers offer some training programs for detailers, there really is no governing body that tests and certifies detailers as to their knowledge and skills. The burden falls on to the individual to educate himself, and, sorry to say, few do.
In examining this further, you will find several factors become evident. In order to become the best at your profession of detailing you will need to focus on three things: Attitude, knowledge, and skills.
Of the critical success factors, attitude is the most obvious and, unfortunately, the most underrated. How many times have you had a new detailer come to work and be a ball of fire doing quality work and putting out two to four complete details a day? They are not doing this based on exceptional knowledge or highly developed detailing skills. Instead, their success is based almost exclusively on their enthusiasm for the job.
Ever arrive early for a professional sporting event? What do you see? At NFL games, quarterbacks are taking snaps and throwing passes to their receivers. Kickers and punters are working on their timing, etc. What the professional athlete is doing is all about getting their mind right. Yes, the physical aspects are necessary, but the mental preparation is key to victory on the field. Take time to mentally prepare yourself each morning and to commit to getting the most out of the day’s opportunities.
While most suppliers to the detail industry provide some information to educate detailers, it is usually only on their product line. This is not really specific enough to offer a conclusive value. Moreover, it is the same information available to competitors.
You need to read all the detail publications that report on new technologies and ideas for detail business owners. You need to access the detailing forums; attend educational seminars; and join industry associations. All these things are necessary for you to grow.
The third factor represents the basics to the detailing profession: Detailing skills. You cut down the tree better if the axe blade is sharp. So sharpen your detail skills (as well as the skills of your employees) and you will get more production per employee, per day and better quality work.
There are 10 key areas to focus on in order to be a professional detailer.
1. Prospecting: No matter how effective you become as a detailer, you must have business. As the owner you must have a plan for getting business for the year; by month, by week and by day. If you wait for them to come in, you will fail.
2. Meet and greet: You need to make a favorable impression to all walk-ins and phone calls. Dress yourself in a professional manner and make them notice you, not the uniform. Let them know you are a professional and that you respect them by being well groomed and dressed as a professional.
3. Build rapport: To be successful you will need to get them to like and trust you. Be open, be yourself, and always smile. On the phone let them “hear” your smile.
4. Conduct an interview: Never interrogate a customer. You can be thorough about their car by asking thought provoking questions. Take good notes and paraphrase. It shows the customer you are listening to them.
5. Sales presentation and walk around: Always try to evaluate the customer’s vehicle before quoting prices to show the need for the detail services. If they do not know the need, how can they make a decision to purchase? You create the need; you are the expert. If they thought they needed only a wax, but the paint needs a buff, polish and wax, show them and explain why.
6. Closing: Too many detail business owners take themselves out of the sale. When you have established the needs of the vehicle, ask for the sale.
7. Handling objections: If you have properly established the needs of the vehicle, the objections are more easily overcome. You need to have some ready explanations to overcome possible objections, most often price.
8. Negotiation: You need to be ready to negotiate with some customers. “Never discount, but offer more value” – added services. However, if price is an obstacle then reduce the service. Eliminate the engine or trunk clean. Or, do a one — step process instead of a three — step etc.
9. Follow-up: Always follow up with a customer a day or two after the service to ensure they are satisfied. Then, follow up with them every three months without fail. You lose customers because you do not keep in contact and your competitor does.
10. Time management: Use your time wisely. Establish a system to keep organized by filling your week and the time of your employees.
Remember: A professional climbs to the top of the game by developing their skills. The best remain there by continually improving all areas, every day. | <urn:uuid:50185512-ecf6-446c-a680-67608542da10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carwash.com/articles/the-professional-confessional-4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960341 | 1,136 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Eric Lindros was perhaps the most heralded junior-hockey player in history -- at just 18 years old, he was 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds. With a blend of dominant skill and overwhelming size and strength, many had pegged him as the next great NHL superstar, following closely in the footsteps of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
Taken by the Quebec Nordiques with the first pick of the 1991 NHL Draft, Lindros resisted signing with the club. He spent the 1991-92 season playing junior hockey and skating for Canada at the 1992 World Junior Championship and the 1992 Olympics. Lindros reiterated to the Nordiques that he would play outside the NHL in 1992-93 and re-enter the draft in 1993.
Faced with the possibility of losing Lindros with no compensation, the Nordiques began entertaining offers for Lindros' rights, with the culmination of that effort set for the 1992 NHL Draft in Montreal.
June 20, 1992 marked one of the stranger days in NHL history: Just prior to the start of the draft, the Nordiques twice traded Lindros' rights -- first to the Philadelphia Flyers then to the New York Rangers.
After a week-long arbitration process, the result was the biggest trade in NHL history, which saw Lindros' rights awarded to the Flyers in exchange for six players (Steve Duchesne, Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci and Chris Simon), two draft picks and $15 million.
Then, on Oct. 13, 1992, Lindros played his first NHL game against the team he spurned in a province that viewed him as the definition of the spoiled professional athlete. Lindros lit up Le Colissee with a pair of goals, but he was showered with vitriol by jilted Nordiques fans.
The Lindros affair changed the fate of three franchises and four cities. As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of Lindros' first NHL game in Quebec City, NHL.com looks back -- through the words of those who experienced it -- at his unique arrival in the League and that memorable debut in Quebec.
'92-93 SEASON: ERIC LINDROS TRADE
Part 2: Flyers, Rangers each make a dealBy Adam Kimelman - NHL.com Deputy Managing Editor
Just prior to the start of the 1992 NHL Draft, the Nordiques twice traded Eric Lindros' rights -- first to the Flyers then to the Rangers. After a week-long arbitration process, the result was the biggest trade in NHL history. READ MORE ›
Part 1: 'Kid is going to change the face of hockey'
Chuck Gormley, Philadelphia Flyers beat writer for the Camden Courier-Post
"It was the press conference that [Flyers general manager] Russ Farwell had pre-draft, probably two weeks before that draft, and I brought up Lindros because I knew Lindros was king in Canada and the comparisons to Gretzky, and I remember asking Russ Farwell, tell me what your impressions of Eric Lindros are. And I was asking the question to get some background and get a local flavor of what somebody from the Flyers thought this kid would be. Would he be the next Gretzky? I remember Farwell saying this kid is going to change the face of hockey. He's going to make kids in the U.S. and Canada want to be just like him."
Neil Smith, New York Rangers general manager
"I'd been friends with Rick Curran, and Rick was Eric's agent back then, and from the time he was in Junior I was always keeping tabs on him through Rick on what's going to happen. So when he was drafted by Quebec, or before that, I knew the feelings of the kid and the family that he didn't want to go there."
Jay Snider, Philadelphia Flyers president
"I went back to when we first heard about him when he was a teenager and a phenom already and being spoken about as the next great thing since Gretzky and Lemieux and thought it would be great if we had a chance to get a guy like that. It became serious when it became apparent that no matter what Quebec would offer, he wouldn't sign there. Like any other team at that time we started thinking about making a play for him if Quebec in fact went to trade his rights."
Russ Farwell, Philadelphia Flyers general manager
"We thought there were maybe three or four teams that were even in the running. We just didn't feel there were very many teams that would have both the motivation and the assets to do that trade. That was our own debate there. That's how we went into it."
"[Farwell] went on to say just how much he [Lindros] could change a franchise and I started thinking, the Flyers are in trouble right now. Maybe they'd be interested and I started beating that drum. For it to actually happen, there were so many rumors about who might be involved, what it would take to get him."
"We went through it -- the top teams we didn't feel were going to part with their assets that were in place and proven and were going fine. Some of the other lower teams didn't have the assets. We felt the combination of players and dollars, we would be one of the more realistic teams to make that trade. That's the way we pursued it. But that went on for months and months before it ever finally came to that trade."
"We figured out early on that there probably would be a handful of teams only that would step up. And we thought there'd be cash involved, and the teams that had the wherewithal to include cash or the desire would only be certain large-market or very aggressive teams. We figured us, the Rangers, maybe Toronto, Detroit. In our minds we had it narrowed down. Chicago we didn't think would do the money part. So in our minds we had it down to four or five franchises that would make a serious run at this and we'd be one of them."
"We knew we had the players because we had some conversations with Pierre [Page, Nordiques GM]. But you really didn't know how close you were until you got to the draft. They wanted it to come to a crescendo and have an auction at the draft and that's what they did."
AUCTION IN MONTREAL
"[The Nordiques] had a suite and were holding meetings in their suite so they were shuttling teams in and out of there. I don't remember how many times we were up there negotiating a package, but it was a lot of times. This went on pretty much all day and deep into the nights for several days. I can't remember if it was two or three days."
"Pierre Page had a little fortress set up in the top of one of the Montreal hotels and had his whole staff up there. There were teams that would come up and talk to him about Lindros and present what they could ... it would start on the phone and Pierre would say what he wanted and if you had something close to what they wanted you'd go up and meet with him face-to-face."
"We were a struggling team, we hadn't been in the [Stanley Cup] Playoffs and we wanted to regroup. We deemed Eric, if he was the next great player coming into the League, and we said, 'If you could have traded for Gretzky at 19 years old, what should the price be, or what would you pay?' And that's how we got ourselves to that level."
"We knew that we had to keep some veteran players, some good players. We couldn't trade everything. Some of this would have to be future prospects. But after the first meeting we had no idea where this would go. Honestly, we were nervous about the size of the package all along, even right to the end. It was a lot to give up. And we ended up believing it was short-term going to be painful, but long-term, if Eric reached his full potential, it would be worth it for potentially one of the great players in the history of the game."
"Farwell was trying to get Peter Forsberg to come here and leave Sweden and Forsberg wouldn't do it. I think Forsberg was 19 at the time. He had played one year in Sweden and the Flyers wanted to get him to come to North America to play for them as a 19-year-old and [Forsberg] said he needed another year in Sweden."
"I was asking the question to get some background and get a local flavor of what somebody from the Flyers thought this kid would be. Would he be the next Gretzky? I remember Farwell saying this kid is going to change the face of hockey. He's going to make kids in the U.S. and Canada want to be just like him."
-- Chuck Gormley, Flyers beat writer
"I went over there [to Sweden], I spent a lot of time with [Forsberg's agent] Don Baizley, and we wanted him to come. They thought it over and decided he wasn't ready, he wasn't prepared to come that year. We were looking at another year with not putting anything meaningful into our lineup. And there's some pressure in Philadelphia when you don't perform. We decided we were going to make that trade. If [Forsberg] would have come we wouldn't have. I don't know if we would have even been at the table to that extent."
"My meetings were always with Pierre and then Pierre would leave the room for it seemed like an hour and come back. One time he left the room so long I turned on Spectravision and watched a movie. Then he came back to the suite. I left there the night before the draft in the middle of the night not knowing if the deal was going down or not."
"I put together the hockey part of the trade. And Jay came up with ... I don't know if Marcel [Aubut, Nordiques owner] just set that financial number or if there was any bargaining at all, but I wasn't involved with spending the $15 million. He didn't push back. At one point I remember they wanted [Rod] Brind'Amour in that trade and we just didn't feel we could do that. We set what we wouldn't do from a hockey standpoint. That's where I was involved."
"I think [the money] more or less was something they could ask for and get. It would be more like they would be able to get it from any of the final bidders, 'X' amount of cash. So they get that no matter what and now they're going to get to the best player package they can get and the money is a sweetener. All things being equal, if there was a club that had an equal player package but no cash, they're going to go with the one with the player package and the cash."
"I never did meet with Marcel in Montreal, but I put Stanley Jaffe [Rangers owner] together with Marcel on the money component because I really didn't want to deal with the money part."
Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @NHLAdamK | <urn:uuid:a12d28bd-a749-4bcd-8064-bd048bc4a424> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=643345&navid=DL%7CNHL%7Chome | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989129 | 2,347 | 1.5 | 2 |
“We can expand intellectually. We can expand literally and fill these open fields with what we want …. a place where students want to grow, learn, change their lives to be better.”
Elizabeth sees her teaching role as a symbol of change. A professor of educational leadership and services, Hansen doesn’t define “teacher” in the traditional sense of the word. Rather than serving as a technology “instructor,” Elizabeth sees her classroom responsibility as a “leader,” a “guide,” and a “champion of change.” And the fact that this University encourages her to help her students in ways that go well beyond imparting technological skills and knowledge is what makes SVSU, according to Hansen, the best place she’s ever worked.
Being the best one can be requires growth, and growth requires change. Elizabeth Hansen is up for the challenge, even if it requires helping to change just one student at a time.
“Why would I be in education,” Hansen asks rhetorically, “if I didn’t feel I could change students by helping, mentoring them to be the best they can be?”
Hansen’s willingness to be an agent for change, coupled with her patience for influencing even one student at a time, spills over into her personal life and how she views her role as a citizen of the world. She has become an activist for her Saginaw neighborhood and feels that just as students can be changed one at a time, so can a community one block at a time. Though a resident of Saginaw for just five years, her neighborhood work garnered hera 2004 nomination from The Saginaw News for “Saginawian of the Year.”
Changing students, changing neighborhoods, and yes, being a part of a changed university, are defining moments for Elizabeth Hansen. As the chair of the College of Education’s strategic planning committee, and chair of the College’s new Department of Educational Technology and Development, Elizabeth continues to see well past the valley fields into the Saginaw Valley’s future. | <urn:uuid:0602338c-d7a5-4298-afa1-83f438d2a8b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://svsu.edu/secondaryeducation/facultytestimonialelizabethhansen/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964972 | 449 | 1.664063 | 2 |
What Breakfast should you try in Vietnam?
Breakfast plays a very important role as it is the energy source for a whole hard working day. In the past, breakfasts were cooked by deft hands of women in a family which enhances much the taste of the foods. In this day and age, Vietnamese women are busier with their social roles and cannot cook breakfast so frequently, so street-food stalls and restaurants are more appropriate choices. Here are some foods to try for breakfast while visiing Vietnam.
Pho is not only the most popular breakfast in Vietnam but is also internationally renowned as a symbol of Vietnamese gastronomy. Thousands of Pho stores deliver thousands of taste, that's why some Pho stores are much more well-known than the rest, and the mystery hidden in the broth of Pho. Although the same ingredients are stewing bones of cows and pigs to cook Pho Bo (Pho with beef) and stewing bones of chicken and pigs to cook Pho Ga (Pho with chiken), an excellent pot of soup is determined by extra spices. Rice noodle used in a bowl of Pho is made of a special type of rice called "gao te" which is famous for its fragrance. Best served Pho are Pho Bo Tai (rare fillet) and Pho Ga (boneless white chicken meat). Others variety of Pho are Pho Bo Gau, Pho Bo Tai Nam and Pho Sot Vang. Lemon and chilly are indispensible for the best taste of Pho.
2. Bun (Rice Vermicelli)
Similar to Pho, Bun is made of rice flour but instead of flat triangle shape like Pho, Bun has small and circular shape. Recipes to make Bun's broth are even more diverse than Pho, which result in different vermicelli dishes, most popular ones are Bun Cha (vermicelli and grilled chopped meat), Bun Rieu (vermicelli and crab meat soup), Bun Thang (varied vermicelli), Bun Ca (vermicelli with fried fish) and Bun Oc (vermicelli and snail), while Bun Bo (vermicelli with beef) is specialty of Hue. Specific trait of Bun is an adequate sour taste the main ingredients of their soup are tomato, garcinia cowa and lemon lime.
3. Mien (Cellophane Noodles/ Glass noodles)
Mien has a similar shape to Bun; however, this Chinese originated noodle is not made of rice flour; seaweed and cassava flour are used instead. Thanks to this, Mien is a less-calorie food as well as a vegetarian favorable by on-diet people. Basically, main components of Mien's broth is the same with Pho, however, its spices are sourer and maybe more fishy because Mien usually eaten with sea-foods. Mien Luon (Mien with eal) is the most popular type of Mien in Vietnam, especially in Hanoi. Broth to cook this special Mien is made of eel's bones and gingers; then sliced fried eel would be added later. Fresh uncooked vegetables are recommended to eat with Mien Luon to eliminate the fishy taste of it. Other variables of Mien are Mien Ngan (Mien with goose meat), Mien Cua (Mien with crab meat) or Mien Ga (Mien withj chicken).
4. Xoi (Sticky Rice)
Although Pho is well-known all over the world, it is hard to tell whether Pho or Xoi is more popular for breakfast in Vietnam. Even in the smallest lanes in Vietnam ones can find a street-stall selling Xoi in the morning or recognize one or two people carrying a basket of Xoi, covered by banana leaves, on their head of bicycles advertising their Xoi loudly. This sticky rice varies from simple low-price ones like Xoi Gac (Xoi colored with Gac's oil), Xoi Do Xanh (Xoi with green beans), Xoi Lac (Xoi with peanuts) or Xoi Ngo (Xoi wih corns) for commoners to higher ranks like Xoi Trung (Xoi with egg), Xoi Pate (Xoi with paste) or Xoi Cha (Xoi with meat rolls).
5. Banh Mi (Vietnamese Bread)
Banh Mi has its origin from France during the colonial period in Vietnam in the late 1800's. Since then, French eating behaviour has been strongly affecting Vietnamese gastronomy, including bread for breakfast. Goose's liver paste should be the best crepe for bread when this food was first introduced. Gradually, Vietnamese bakers has innovated more variables of crepe to create a unique type of bread in Vietnam, which are uncooked vegetables, shrimp, sausage, pig's liver paste eaten with tomato or chili sauce. Recently, Vietnam has adopted Donner Kebab bread from Turkey, which is highly appreciated by its civilians.
6. Banh Cuon (Rice Flour Steamed Rolls)
Rice seems to be the mother of many Vietnamese delicious foods, yet, another specialty made of rice flour: Banh Cuon. Banh Cuon is covered by a thin, wide sheet of steamed rice flour and its core filled with seasoned ground pork, and minced wood ear mushroom. Banh cuon is usually served with Cha Que and special dipping sauce named "nu?c ch?m" made only for Banh Cuon. In the past, the dipping sauce was added some drops of Ca Cuong's oil for the perfect flavor. Nowadays, although ones can still taste Ca Cuong's oil, it is getting scarce and much more expensive.
7. Cháo (Congee/Porridge)
Congee or rice porridge is one of the most common meals in Vietnam in not only breakfast but also lunch and dinner. Cháo is very to cook since almost every electronic rice-cooker has porridge cooking function. Although it is considered as the poor's food, Cháo could be much fancier when cooked with a variety of meats. To illustrate, Chao Ga is chao boiled with a whole chicken with bones to get the tastiest broth. Other varieties of Cháo such as Cháo V?t (porridge with duck); Cháo Luon (porridge with eel) and Cháo Cá (porridge with fish), are cooked with the same method.
8. Trung Vit Lon (Balut)
Trung Vit Lon is actually duck's embryo still laying in its shell going through fertilization process and then boiled in steamy heat. Due to this characteristic and its appearance, this dish is listed among the most terrific food for Western visitors. However, if ones can manage your fear to taste it one time, you may find it thousand times more delicious than normal chicken egg as well as a huge amount of protein good for your heart. In Vietnam, Trung Vit Lon is favored by most people and appears in every breakfast stalls.
9. Vietnamese's 'banh'
Banh or cake. Vietnam offers many breakfast cakes and each of them is as popular and tasty as another. Some most common cakes can be named as Bánh Chung Rán, Bánh Giò, Bánh Khúc, Bánh Rán, Bánh N?p, Bánh T?, Bánh Ðúc, Bánh Dày or Bánh Bao. There are still many more Vietnamese traditional cakes can be used for breakfast which may cost a whole essay to list out not to mention trying all of them. These are often savory and easy to pack (like Mochi in Japan) and often stuffed with Mung beans. You can find them in many street food stalls and from the ladies wandering the streets with a pile of Banh on their shoulder.
* * *
Published on 6/17/12 | <urn:uuid:0bcd4b61-0854-41cd-b93d-41d710b9a541> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thingsasian.com/stories-photos/53955/55269209/0/thm0_mrec | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961366 | 1,669 | 1.8125 | 2 |
MUMBAI: Seeking to check demand of gold, a RBI committee on Wednesday proposed a slew of measures like mandatory quoting of PAN numbers for high-value purchases, restriction on gold loans and check on NBFC branches dealing with gold loans.
The Reserve Bank committee also suggested cheque payment for gold purchase beyond a threshold, introduction of other savings products to discourage investment in physical gold, prohibition of bank finance for buying gold and revival of the two-decade old proposal to set up a Bullion Corporation.
"There is a need to moderate the demand for gold imports considering its impact on the current account deficit," it said, adding that RBI may impose limits on volume and value of gold import by banks under "extreme situation".
Currently, banks account for about 60 per cent of the total gold import.
It suggested that NBFCs may obtain a copy of PAN Card in all the loan proposals exceeding Rs five lakh per borrower to strengthen mechanism of KYC. Currently, PAN card is mandatory for jewellery purchases beyond Rs 5 lakh.
The committee underlined the need for continuous monitoring of rapid growth of assets, borrowings and branch network of gold loan NBFCs, while making a case for reviewing fund raising by them.
The recommendations include making use of idle gold reserves, which is about 20,000 tonnes, by setting up a gold bank and using the reserves of exchange-traded funds to productive use, but said there was no case for granting gold loan NBFCs a status at par with banks.
Giving its rationale for setting up a gold bank, the report said, "the proposed gold bank may be given powers to import, export, trade, lend and borrow gold and deal in gold derivatives." | <urn:uuid:950ee94d-da88-4141-b0fc-d5e311fba7a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/Make-PAN-must-for-high-value-gold-buy-curb-on-NBFCs-RBI-panel/articleshow/18367847.cms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937325 | 350 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Speak to enough brand managers of a global brand in countries around the world and you’ll soon come to expect the all too common refrain: “…but my market is different.”
Ask them to elaborate, and you’ll get the low down on how consumer habits in their market are different, their consumers’ purchase behavior is different, preferences and tastes are different, how the media and the retail trade are different, and how their consumers and customers require unique, tailored, and delicate handling.
And while you’re wondering “different from what?”, the brand manager will be on to her next refrain: “why do the folks at HQ just not get it?” “How can they not see, or choose not to see the differences?”; “why do they prefer a standardized, cookie-cutter approach, when a tailored approach would put us miles ahead of our competitors….”
In the eyes of the HQ manager responsible for the global brand (and, yes, for global standardization), these protestations are either irrelevant, or they are merely ways for local managers to justify (magnify?) their crucial role as interpreters of the global brand for the local market.
Fact is, it’s a bit of both – local differences exist, and local brand managers love to dwell on them.
We can all agree that there are some differences you have to adapt to: McDonald’s must advertise in French in Quebec, and will not serve beef patties in India. These aspects require localization or you can’t play in the local market.
But the friction inside the multinational tends to be about the more subtle differences: the Kellogg’s brand manager who says Raisin Bran is too bland a breakfast choice in Korea; or the chocolate company brand manager who says that black is not the right packaging color choice in China.
Of course, both HQ and the local managers are really trying to assess:
- How large are these local differences, and do they “matter”?
- In other words, should they affect how the brand is positioned and presented?
- Are the differences sufficiently important to undermine the central premise of the brand?
The tricky part is that the answers to the questions are subjective. Local managers see these differences up close, so they seem big; global managers see plenty of such differences in local markets, so they seem trivial.
How the company responds to them depends on the culture of the company and the extent to which local managers have a say.
Over the next couple of decades global brands expect a good chunk of their growth to come from China, India, and other emerging economies.
As these markets grow in size and importance, so will the influence that local brand managers in those markets have on the direction of the global brand and product portfolio.
If the multinationals are savvy, they will take new product ideas and even brand propositions from China and India, and bring them to the rest of the world through their global networks.
McCain Foods, the world’s largest frozen French fry maker, finds that there’s a large market for aloo tikki
(Indian potato patties) in India. But since no one in India sells them frozen, McCain seizes the opportunity. As the global specialist in frozen potatoes, the company develops and launches the popular snack in India. Its a success, and it even wins the SIAL d’OR (at one of the world’s largest food trade shows, the Salon international de L’alimentation
) prize in Paris.
And eventually, the company may even find that there is a global market for a well-positioned aloo tikki
In that not too distant scenario, the local brand manager in India may be placed in the unfamiliar position of arguing that consumer preferences worldwide are in fact similar: “everyone’ll love an aloo tikki!”.
>> This post appeared originally in Just Marketing
; the author retains all rights. | <urn:uuid:0c127eda-0cce-4a76-8fea-10ce6c40a9c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.insead.edu/2012/09/no-really-my-market-is-different/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937748 | 844 | 1.5625 | 2 |
INDIA: Hunger strike protester dies while demanding fairness in food distribution
February 20, 2009
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - HUNGER ALERT PROGRAMME
Hunger Alert Case: AHRC-HAC-001-2009
20 February 2009
INDIA: Hunger strike protester dies while demanding fairness in food distribution
ISSUES: Right to food; corruption
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received the information from the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) that a young man died of hunger while on a hunger strike held in Varanasi district on 12 February 2009. Until he died, the deceased victim had been demanding issuance of a ration card under the Public Food Distribution System (PDS) which was ignored by local administration. On the other hand, the Assistant Development Officer (ADO) and Station House Officer (SHO) of Phoolpur police station made attempts to stop the hunger strike and even threatened the human rights activists against supporting the poor in Varanasi.
Mr. Keshaw Ram (age 28) died on 12 February 2009 during a hunger strike held in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh state (UP). He lived with his mother, his wife and two children in Shivpuri village, Pahala Block in Sitapur district of UP.
On 10 September 2008, Keshaw had applied for an Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) card under the PDS which issues these to the poorest of the poor living below the poverty line. His fair demand was ignored by the village council and block development council dealing with various government welfare schemes for the poor including issuing of ration cards.
Keshaw struggling against hunger and government neglect since then, attended the hunger strike in Pahala Block of Sitapur district organized by Voice of People (VOP). He made an impassioned plea for an AAY card drawing the government's attention during the hunger strike. His pleas fell on deaf ears. Keshav died. There was no food grain found at his home when he died.
Not until his death, did the local administration issue the AAY to his family and 30 kilograms of wheat as well. The VOP requested the local administration for providing financial support the the victim's family which has been yet responded. Furthermore, Keshaw is not the only one who suffered from hunger and food insecurity in his village. There are more than 200 families facing a similar situation. According to the PVCHR, the families are demanding AAY cards, land for housing, land for farming, and other developmental government projects. Despite, the local administration has been consistently ignoring their starvation and poverty.
It is alleged that the local administration neglects its duty of preventing hunger deaths. It not only fails to implement various government policies for the poor, but also attempts to violate their cultural rights. The local government compels the victim's family to cremate the corpse while it is customary for the family and the community to bury the dead.
DETAILS ON HUNGER STRIKE:
The VOP organized a hunger strike on 12 February 2009 in 60 Blocks of 22 districts including Sitapur district in UP. It has been asking for more attention on the issues faced by the marginalized and socially weak groups such as the Dalit community. Despite many written statements to the concerned authorities, the administration failed to respond. The VOP therefore decided to organize a hunger strike with the intention of sending a distress signal to the State government as well as the local administration concerning the food insecurity and absence of basic infrastructure suffered by many villagers. Mr. Vijay Raj Yadav, the District Secretary of VOP had already intimated the Chief Minister of UP and District Magistrate (DM) of Varanasi by post on 23 January 2009.
When the hunger strike was on in the Pindra Block of Varanasi, the DM of Varanasi came and assured the participants that he would fulfill their demands by 17 February. The participants' demands were as follows:
1. Employment under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
2. Pension for the old, the widows, and the handicapped.
3. Installation of hand-pumps and construction of roads in the villages inhabited
by marginalized communities.
4. Implementation of family welfare schemes.
5. Construction of houses for the villagers living below poverty line.
All these demands are nothing new. They are all government schemes to ensure the right to food and to prevent hunger deaths in India, which is enshrined in Supreme Court Order 2005 on the right to food. What the people were demanding was that the government implements these promises which had so far remained on paper.
Instead, the Assistant Development Officer (ADO), Pindra Panchayat pressurized the protesters to call off the hunger strike. The protesters did not succumb to the pressure and continued their hunger strike expecting the District Magistrate to honour his promise. Moreover, although the strike was peaceful, the Station House Officer (SHO) of Phoolpur police station Mr. R N Pandey attached to Pindra Block also threatened the protesters with dire consequences and insisted that the human rights activists call off the strike.
The SHO of Phoolpur police station has slapped false charges against the human rights activists of the PVCHR. The Phoolpur police often threaten them and withdraw their support to the poor, thereby violating the right to freedom of speech and expression. For the previous appeals regarding the Phoolpur police' violent action against human rights activities, please see AHRC-UAU-007-2008, AHRC-UAU-004-2008, and UA-305-2007.
The intimidation of the local police and the negligence of local administration illustrate their unwillingness to prevent hunger deaths and ensure the food security in India. Rather, they attempt to conceal the true picture of hunger and poverty, and force the human rights activists to be silent.
Till date, on 18 February 2009, thirteen protesters of Pindra Block of Varanasi district continue to struggle for these demands while the local administration consistently ignores its duty.
Please send a letter to the authorities mentioned below expressing your concern about hunger deaths in Varanasi. Please take a note that not until the death of a protester, did the local government take any action for the poor suffering from food insecurity.
The AHRC has also written a separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food calling for intervention.
To support this appeal, please click here:
INDIA: Please stop hunger deaths in Uttar Pradesh
Name of victim: Mr. Keshaw Ram (age 28), a resident of Shivpuri village, Pahala Block, Sitapur district, Uttar Pradesh
Relevant government officials and authorities:
1. Chief Minister of UP
2. DM of Varanasi district, UP
3. DM of Sitapur district, UP
4. Pahala Block development Authority, Sitapur district, UP
Name of persons threatening human rights activists and attempting to halt the hunger strike:
1. Mr. Ashok Singh, the Assistant Development Officer (ADO) of Pindra Block Council (Pindra Panchayat), Varanasi district, UP
2. Mr. R N Pandey, Station House Officer (SHO) of Phoolpur police station, Pindra Block, Varanasi district, UP
I am writing to express my concern about the victim who died of hunger during hunger strike in Sitapur of Uttar Pradesh, on 12 February 2009. Mr. Keshaw Ram, the deceased victim lived in Pahala Block, Sitapur district of UP.
I am informed that the deceased victim attended the hunger strike organized by the Voice of People (VOP) on that day. He had been suffering from starvation and demanding an AAY card earmarked for the poorest of the poor living below the poverty line, in order to buy the rations subsidized by the government and sold at a cheaper price.
I am informed that on 10 September 2008 Keshaw had applied for an AAY card, which was denied by the village council. Since then, he had to starve and was compelled to join the hunger strike. The hunger strike was an attempt to raise an alarm about hunger and starvation faced by more than 200 villagers. The victim was desperate due to the fact that the local administration neither made available the government welfare schemes for the poor nor paid attention to their suffering. There was no food found at the victim's home when he died.
I have learned that not until he died, did the local government issues the AAY card to his family along with a meager 30 kilograms of wheat. The government also provided land and relief fund for the family which was came out all after his death.
I have studied that various forms of government schemes for the poor are enshrined in Supreme Court Order on the right to food (2005) in order to prevent hunger deaths as well as ensure food security in India. However, no government seems to have the willingness to prevent hunger deaths.
On the contrary, the Assistant Development Officer of Pindra Block Panchayat forced the peaceful demonstrators to call off their strike held in Varanasi district.
Although the strike was conducted in a peaceful manner, the Station House Officer (SHO) of Phoolpur police station Mr. R N Pandey attached to Pindra Block also threatened the participants and human rights activists to stop the strike. Both, the local administration and the police violate the right to freedom of speech and expression. I am aware that the Phoolpur police station has imposed false charges on the human rights activists, threatening and interrupting their support for the poor.
In Pindra Block of Varanasi district, thirteen participants are still on a hunger strike calling for the government's attention and immediate action to prevent hunger deaths and ensure food security for the poor.
I, therefore, request you to take the following actions:
1. Provide all government welfare schemes including ration cards and land for the deceased victim's family and other families facing the same hunger situation in Pahala Block of Sitapur district without any delay;
2. Fulfill the demands of the hunger strikers so as to ensure food security for the poor in Varanasi;
3. Punish those who neglect their duty of preventing hunger deaths and implement the government schemes for the poor, the absence of which causes hunger deaths, and;
4. Punish the local administrative officials and police officials violating the right to freedom of speech and expression and even threatening the participants to stop the hunger strike.
I will keep monitoring the hunger strike and the government response.
I am looking forward to your immediate action and more attention on this issue.
PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:
1. Ms. Mayawati
Chief Minister's Secretariat
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Fax: + 91 522 223 0002 / 223 9234
2. Justice Mr. Balakrishnan
Chief Justice of India
Through the Office of the Registrar General
Supreme Court of India
1 Tilak Marg, New Delhi
Fax: +91 11 2338 3792
3. Ms. Meira Kumar
Minister, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
Sardar Patel Bhawan
New Delhi - 110 001
Fax: + 91 11 2374 2133
Fax: +91 542 228 2345
5. Mr. Sanjay Kumar
Fax: +91 5862 242 615
6. Director General of Police
1-Tilak Marg, Lucknow
Fax: + 91 522 220 6120 / 522 220 6174
7. Country Director
World Food Programme
2 Poorvi Marg, Vasant Vihar
New Delhi 110057
Fax: +91 112 615 0019
Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission ([email protected]) | <urn:uuid:bae195c9-19c5-4257-8fb9-7ac5bad14ff2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humanrights.asia/news/hunger-alerts/AHRC-HAC-001-2009 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945575 | 2,468 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Photo: gendot united (flickr)
Some Muslims are flocking to Saudi Arabia to perform umrah during the month of Ramadan.
Umrah is a smaller pilgrimage than the annual hajj. Completing umrah during Ramadan has a particular appeal for some.
“Once there, I will switch off my mobile phone, almost cut myself off from the world and try to concentrate on prayers,” Mumbai resident Tabrez Rubberwala said. He has completed the umrah for the past six years.
719 Filipino pilgrims will take the umrah as well, reports the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos. | <urn:uuid:67c71a95-4abe-4dfc-956d-19482e36cdaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://muslimvoices.org/ramadan-popular-month-pilgrimage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936626 | 128 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Save Lives, Promote Organ Donation
UW Organ and Tissue Donation is a founding member of Donate Life Wisconsin - a statewide donation coalition.
Jay Deppe and Roni Lawrence with their license plates
"Kevin's family donated his organs, and by doing so forever changed my life," said Deppe.
The new Donate Life license plates were created to help promote organ, tissue and eye donation public education efforts statewide, as well as to help defray the costs of the new online donor consent registry, which will roll-out in 2010.
People who wish to personalize their Donate Life license plate can do so for an additional $15.00, which goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Roni Lawrence, Clinical Manager at UW Organ and Tissue Donation, personalized her plate to promote organ donation.
"It's a fun way to share my personal donation message, and to help promote donation in a highly visible way," said Lawrence.
The plates can be ordered by mail or in person at any Wisconsin DMV Service Center. | <urn:uuid:442112cc-caf6-4730-ba2e-3c1fc9e8ce32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uwhealth.org/healthinfo/save-lives-promote-organ-donation/20550 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960077 | 215 | 1.820313 | 2 |
While nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population has a weight problem, statistics from the American Obesity Association say that only about 40 percent of physicians ever discuss the problem with patients. With obesity rates in children and adolescents running close to 15 percent, it’s no surprise that half of all adolescents watch two hours of TV a day. But their parents are not faring much better, chained to desks and imprisoned in cars on a long, daily commute.
Scores of food and beverage companies such as Sara Lee, Pepsi and Hershey are partnering with associations such as the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition to get practical solutions for tackling obesity into the hands of parents, teachers, communities and policy makers.
We do have a problem in this country and we do need more healthy food choices. But let’s not get this one basic fact wrong: McDonald’s and Wendy’s hamburgers are not going away anytime soon. Snacking in the car is not going away either. But fasten your seatbelts and lower your tray tables because now more snacking options are in the offing as the airlines allow passengers to buy better-tasting (I wonder) meals at 35,000 feet. Just what dieters need—another reason to buy food when you’re bored and forced into inactivity for several hours.
At the supermarket check out a few weeks ago, the checker informed me that I had won a prize. It was a little container of Chips Ahoy conveniently packaged to fit my car cup holder. I would never in a million years purchase a bag of Chips Ahoy. And it’s not because I don’t like them. I just can’t have that kind of thing in my house. But now here I am holding the mini cookie version for my cup holder. I loved them. Yes, Nabisco, you are tempting me to buy the mini Chips Ahoy again. I may not be happy, Nabisco, but you definitely have a winner on your hands.
The point is we all have a choice to eat and purchase different types of food and we all have the freedom to make good or bad choices. The obesity problem has become more complex than “just say no” to high calorie foods. So the debate on how to quell the great American appetite remains elusive. I’d love to know what you think food manufacturers can do to help solve the problem. | <urn:uuid:a2ef3a36-6d77-4c73-b175-47b98f42ced8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/print/editor-s-note-how-to-quell-the-great-american-appetite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957538 | 503 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The desire of many people—maybe even some of your clients—to achieve wealth tends to drive many into making decisions based on their emotions rather than logical ones based on reality. Emotional choices usually provide some immediate short-term gain, while in reality most have unfortunate long-term consequences. A prime example of this is many times champion American Quarter Horse exhibitor, Rita Crundwell. The Dixon, Ill. comptroller is charged with embezzling $53 million of public money since 1990 to fund a lavish lifestyle, which most people who knew her assumed was due to her highly successful horse breeding business. As we are now learning, the reality of Ms. Crundwell’s ‘wealth’ is something quite different. Assuming all the charges against her are true, how does someone make such bad emotion-based decisions, all for the desire of short-term greed/perception, rather than the ethical reality that wealth comes from a long-term, patient process?
The same premise holds true in the investing world, where people invest based on their perceptions rather than reality. It seems many investors are continuously looking for the Holy Grail of wealth—since they perceive that the newest trading strategies, market timing trends or the most recently discovered guaranteed investment somehow will create enormous amounts of wealth overnight. Furthermore, we have mass marketing campaigns from large financial institutions that promote the perception that opening an online brokerage account and analyzing some stock charts with buy or sell points will generate that same wealth, instead of just delivering higher commissions for the online brokerage firm or bank. If investing was that quick and easy, wouldn’t everyone be rich?
Famous individual investor Jesse L. Livermore said it best about the common investor’s desires:
“The average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn't even wish to have to think."
The reality? Investing and creating wealth isn’t easy and it never will be. Why, then, do so many people continue to believe, and act, as if the opposite were true? Many basic investors trying to time the market sold out of the stock market around the lows of March 9, 2009, and are still sitting on the sidelines looking for the next big buy signal to get back into the market. They perceive to have “saved” their money from the recent Armageddon, when the reality is they lost more of their money due to selling versus the some +87% market return since then, assuming the S&P 500 range of 2009’s low of 667 to 1250 at the end of 2011. The truth is that more investors believe in the perceptions of investing rather than the basic realities, indirectly allowing those perceptions to drive them toward emotional decisions rather than educated ones.
The chart below shows all negative calendar year returns for the S&P 500 TR index from 1926 through 2010. When analyzing the data span of some 85 years, only 24 of those were negative, representing roughly 28%. Of those 85 years, only six had negative calendar year returns in excess of 20% or just 7%. Furthermore, only three of the 85 years had negative returns in excess of 30% or roughly 4%. These fluctuations are to be expected; otherwise it would be a utopian environment if the stock market was never in negative territory.
These calendar year probabilities breathe opportunity, not disaster. While I’m definitely not suggesting everyone should invest in the stock market with 100% of their assets, 50% or at all, the perception most people have of the market is in no way a reflection of the reality based on the data above.
Unfortunately, society is becoming more and more brainwashed with investing perceptions rather than reality. Of course the greed of wealth, as noted earlier, tends to drive some of those perceptions, therefore, not only is our value proposition as advisors to help decode investors’ perceptions of investing, but also to educate and explain the realities of accumulating wealth as noted in one of my previous articles entitled “What’s Different About the Wealthy? They’re Patient” published by Advisor One this past January.
Good luck in your efforts to separate fact from fiction and investing perceptions from reality, because, as you know, most people follow the crowds. | <urn:uuid:1eb15ce3-1951-48cc-a839-fd188eb980a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.advisorone.com/2012/05/19/creating-wealth-isnt-quick-or-easy-so-why-do-so-ma?t=careerstthe-retiree&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968205 | 905 | 1.75 | 2 |
Table of Contents
At New Research Park, Collaboration Will Be Name of the Game
As the planning and construction continues at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston's Research Park at the intersection of Cambridge Street and East Road, it's becoming clear that the new campus will more than live up to its name.
The complex will be home to three independent programs - the new Dental Branch, the Neuroscience Program and the Biomedical Research and Education Facility (BREF). The area also will include the Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research (CABIR), a collaborative effort between UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the health science center, in cooperation with GE Healthcare and the Texas Enterprise Fund. Each of the structures will include features that will put the faculty members they will house on the cutting edge of research.
"The new research facilities are centered around the concept of providing facilities particularly focused on the translation of basic research discoveries into their clinical application in man," said Peter Davies, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for research for the health science center and faculty member at The UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
The new Dental Branch building will enable the school to increase class size from the current 84 to 100 students, offer advanced clinical and clinical simulation facilities, along with classrooms and learning spaces equipped with up-to-the minute technologies and learning systems. It will offer improved access for patients.
"We want to be known for the quality of our patient care, the impact of our research and the caliber of our graduates," said Catherine Flaitz, D.D.S., dean of the UT Dental Branch. "A new building will help us attract the best and brightest students and faculty. It will help us deliver a high-quality educational experience for our students as we work on our most important mission-educating dental professionals to deliver competent, compassionate and contemporary care." Funds supporting the building are being provided by the Dental Branch's "Open to Health" fundraising campaign.
The new Dental Branch's neighbor at the Research Park, the Neurosciences/ BREF Building, will be split between research into neuropsychiatric research programs on the first three floors and biomedical research and educational facilities on the top three floors. "Research within this facility will include a major emphasis on how new technologies of human genetics and advanced imaging can be combined with clinical psychiatry and neurology to create a new level of understanding of the underlying causes to many devastating psychiatric and neurological diseases," explained Davies. "By bringing together researchers interested in neuropsychiatric disease with start-of-the-art imaging and laboratory facilities, the new campus will serve as a nucleus for enormous progress in the understanding of these diseases and the development of therapies."
Other major areas targeted for development at the Research Park are regenerative medicine, biomaterials and reconstructive medicine. Scientists are learning how to harness the power of stem cells and biomaterials research to develop new approaches to the replacement of damaged cells and organs as well as the reconstruction of complex tissues and organs, and the BREF will offer them a facility in which they can continue their work.
"There are great opportunities to develop new therapies for the treatment of devastating illnesses such as stroke and traumatic brain injury, the repair of damaged hearts and the reconstruction of complex structures such as the jaw and face," Davies said.
The CABIR will offer multi-technology translational imaging, synthetic and analytical chemistry laboratories, and production of clinical-grade imaging agents for faculty at both the health science center and UT M. D. Anderson.
The CABIR also will house The University of Texas Department of Biomedical Engineering, which will bring together scientists, engineers and students with a common interest in the development of advanced imaging technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The work of this group will particularly focus on how to use technology in areas of cardiovascular research, diseases of the brain and the nervous system and the detection and treatment of many forms of cancer.
"The synergy created by the CABIR facility and the Research Park will enable scientists and engineers to work together and accelerate the development of new technologies," explained Davies. "Our goal is to bring together some of the most talented scientists and biomedical engineers in an environment that will foster collaboration." The Research Park development follows on the heels of the opening of the new research facility adjacent to the UT Medical School at Houston, which features open and shared research space designed to inspire collaboration.
The new research space is home to scientists studying infectious diseases, stem cells and regenerative medicine, neurosciences and genetic disorders, along with other research. It also will be the home for the John S. Dunn Gulf Coast Consortium for Chemical Genomics' high throughput screening lab.
By Shannon Rasp | <urn:uuid:e6766326-0ebd-4e17-a1ac-3ff29601a305> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uthouston.edu/distinctions/archive/2008/november/archive.htm?id=538492 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944946 | 966 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Newton Township is one of the fourteen townships of Pike County, Ohio, United States. The 2000 census found 2,006 people in the township.
Located in the central part of the county, it borders the following townships:
Along with Seal Township, it is the only Pike County township completely surrounded by other Pike County townships. The other twelve all touch townships from neighboring counties.
No municipalities are located in Newton Township, although the unincorporated community of Jasper lies in the eastern part of the township.
Name and history
It is one of five Newton Townships statewide.
The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees, who are elected in November of odd-numbered years to a four-year term beginning on the following January 1. Two are elected in the year after the presidential election and one is elected in the year before it. There is also an elected township fiscal officer, who serves a four-year term beginning on April 1 of the year after the election, which is held in November of the year before the presidential election. Vacancies in the fiscal officership or on the board of trustees are filled by the remaining trustees. | <urn:uuid:b934dbfb-12d0-4077-a163-adba9b6a74b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Township,_Pike_County,_Ohio | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971535 | 239 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Editor's Note: Thanks to the Patch user who submitted this news. Click here for detailed instructions on posting announcements on Patch.
Should the school year be extended? How does physical activity affect student learning? Is homework an effective tool to increase student achievement?
These are just some of the topics being explored by candidates in the doctoral program in educational leadership at Manhattanville College. The program, offered through a partnership with the Center for Educational Leadership at Putnam Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Education Services, launched its third year Thursday, with 45 experienced educators participating.
“It is enormously gratifying to think about the cutting edge research that is being generated about educating the PreK 12 student population,” said Shelley Wepner, Dean of the School of Education at Manhattanville. “Our doctoral students are experienced educators who understand deeply what it takes to excel in a field that is constantly under the critical microscope of politicians, legislators and entrepreneurs.”
Monique Kelly, a teacher in the White Plains school district who began the program two years ago with the first cohort or class, is studying how physical activity affects learning.
“The most valuable part of the doctoral program for me has been that it not only allows me to follow my passion, but is helping me to do it in the most professional way. I feel valued and validated and that the research I am doing is important,” said Kelly, who has been teaching for 23 years.
Ellen McDonnell, an assistant principal at Rye City Middle School and High School, said she was attracted to the program because of the way it was structured, with students moving through the program as a cohort or class.
“The cohort model lends itself to creating relationships and sharing research. It is not an isolated semester experience,” said McDonnell, who recommended that her colleague Julia Chung, an assistant principal at the high school, enroll as well.
McDonnell also cited the program’s emphasis on the changing nature of suburban school districts as an attraction.
“For someone working in a small city school district, this program seemed targeted to what I do,“ she said.
Paul Fanuele, executive principal at Arlington High School in Dutchess County, said the doctoral program was “already paying dividends because what we do in class translates to my job and vice a versa.”
The three-to-four-year program includes two years of coursework, with one-third to be completed at PNW BOCES’ Yorktown campus, one-third at Manhattanville and one third online. After completion of coursework, participants must write a five-chapter or three-article dissertation.
To accommodate the busy schedules of working educational leaders, classes are held at BOCES’ Yorktown campus during the fall and spring semesters, while candidates go to Manhattanville during the summer. The class schedule is also arranged around the public school schedule, with classes meeting during after-school hours.
For Letitia Payne, a middle school teacher in Ossining who earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Manhattanville College, choosing the doctoral program was a no brainer. “It just made sense to go back to where I knew the people and knew that I will be supported.”
Alex Levine, a teacher in the Hendrick Hudson School District, said he chose the program because he had had a positive experience with another graduate program offered through BOCES’ Center for Educational Leadership.
“I saw that that program worked well and thought this would as well,” Levine said.
“It was very heartwarming today at the first retreat for doctoral candidates to hear how this program has impacted them personally and professionally,” said Renee Gargano, founder of the Center for Educational Leadership. “Several candidates already are engaged in the dissertation process. These are all top professionals who are upwardly mobile. Many already have moved into positions of greater responsibility since beginning the program. We are very proud of all that we have accomplished and our students are certainly the beneficiaries of this effort."
Admission for the fifth cohort of doctoral students has officially begun with an Information session scheduled for Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. at the Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES. Interested candidates may contact Renee Gargano at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:bab2ab3c-7659-47af-ace1-0b3bc47fb4aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rye.patch.com/groups/announcements/p/an--doctoral-program-for-school-leaders-grows-899419f8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971433 | 904 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Maersk Line’s environmental message reached a potential audience of more than 300 million people recently as the Discovery Channel’s Green Life show told the United States about the greener side of container shipping.
Undisputed leadership, said Maersk Line CEO Eivind Kolding, is leadership in the eyes of customers. Jacob Sterling, Head of Climate & Environment from the Sustainability team, played his part in supporting the CEO’s statement as he explained to the Discovery Channel in the US, the role of container shipping and particularly that of Maersk Line in shaping a greener future.
“It was quite exciting to convey what we do to a large target audience which Discovery Channel represents,” recalls Sterling.
“The challenge was to communicate our environmental initiatives — most of which are highly technical — and make them understandable and relevant for Discovery’s viewers.”
Right and sustainable direction
The location for the shoot was the busy berth 51 at Port Elizabeth, APM Terminals’ facility in New Jersey, US. The fact that Maersk Line was featured, accentuates the company’s ambition to drive the industry in a more sustainable direction.
“Shipping is the most energy efficient means of transportation, but we know there is room for improvement. We are making our intentions clear by supporting a push towards a low-carbon future,” explains Soren Stig Nielsen, Head of Maersk Line Sustainability.
This includes a relative carbon reduction target of 25 % by 2020 (against 2007 performance levels).
The appearance on Discovery Channel is part of the strategy to ensure that our customers and in turn their customers are clued up on this.
“We want to increase the awareness of our environmental efforts and the value our investments represent to our customers’ supply chains,” says Nielsen. | <urn:uuid:d69c4bf9-fd3d-45d2-8849-75f6b2e7c406> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maerskline.com/link/?page=news&path=/news/story_page/11/Discovery_Channel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943384 | 385 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Skateboarding company Baker Skateboards has come under fire for a new t-shirt that depicts two Asian men riding in a car meant to represent the "Dukes of Hazzard." The Asian American Justice Center has called for the shirt to be recalled in light of its blatant racism.
The shirt features two Asian men riding in a car meant to be a play on the "Dukes of Hazzard" series, only instead of "Dukes," the shirt reads "The G--ks of Hazzard." The term is offensive to Asian people, explains the Asian American Justice Center, which has labeled the shirt "unacceptable."
"Baker Skateboards, and the outlets that sell this shirt, should be aware that use of the term 'g**k' on their apparel is offensive and quite simply amounts to racism for sale. No one should seek to profit from racism. It's unacceptable for Baker Skateboards to create a depiction of Asian Americans which uses racial slurs and perpetuates racist stereotypes," a spokesman for the AAJC told TMZ.
According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, "g--k" is defined as "offensive, chiefly US, a foreigner, especially a person of SE Asian descent."
"We would say that t-shirt is obviously racist and we agree with the comments that suggest this is essentially a case of racism for sale," Paul Kearns of Show Racism The Red Card told the Huffington Post. "We hope to see it withdrawn in the very near future. It promotes racial stereotypes and it is unacceptable."
The shirt is not the first to cause outrage. In April, Urban Outfitters was the target of serious backlash after producing a yellow t-shirt that featured a six-sided Star of David. Many saw it as a reflection of the Holocaust, in which Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David for identification.
"We find this use of symbolism to be extremely distasteful and offensive, and we are outraged that your company would make this product available to your customers," Barry Morrison, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a letter to the company. Urban Outfitters quickly removed the shirt from its line and stores.
Baker Skateboards has yet to respond to the charges from the public. | <urn:uuid:ba7acea8-1fa5-4ed2-ad7d-ae3d43cb6788> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianpost.com/news/skateboard-company-and-asian-slur-t-shirt-causes-outrage-79347/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971958 | 469 | 1.539063 | 2 |
FROM BUZZFEED, Team Romney’s diabolical plan to buy the presidency.
Mitt Romney has adopted what top Republicans describe as a Cold War strategy to defeat President Barack Obama: To spend him into oblivion.
As Ronald Reagan’s expensive defense build up stretched the Soviet Union thin, the Romney campaign’s massive ad buys are aimed as much at broadening the playing field as at persuasion, forcing Obama and his allies to spread their resources thin and to play defense in formerly safe states. Wednesday, there were early signs that the strategy is working, as Obama reported a “burn rate” far in excess of the Republican’s.
If people take today’s Washington Post story to heart, he’s going to need a lot of money to get it done.
Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.
During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Let’s not pretend, however, that Pres. Obama isn’t making a substantial financial bid for the presidency himself. But wouldn’t it be interesting if Mitt Romney’s money advantage turned Pres. Obama into an underdog?
What would happen if the national media pick this story up and it gets framed as The Buying of the Presidency?
I’m going to do whatever I can to help, because maybe people will start understanding that their little $5 donations are a joke on them, simply to keep people hooked on their particular brand of political crack, because you can’t really impact the presidential race at all.
That is, unless you vote. But even then the Supreme Court could nullify it.
Maybe now you fully understand why I put a question mark in my logo after “We the People?”
So, consider the next time you think of giving money to Pres. Obama or national Democrats, perhaps you should instead donate to one of your local candidates running for office. You have more impact and your voice can actually matter more locally than you can playing in the Super Bowl of Politics between Team Obama vs. Team Romney, where your $5 or $10 or $20 is just to keep you hooked into believing you’re “part of a different king of politics” when you’re not. | <urn:uuid:e674b801-9ddb-46fb-9f9c-2fa255058f1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taylormarsh.com/blog/2012/06/buying-the-presidency-romney-as-reagan-obama-as-the-soviet-union/ | 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 | 0.966617 | 554 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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"This table wobbles!" said Charmian.
"It does," said I, "but then I notice that the block is misplaced again."
"Then why use a block?"
"A book is so clumsy--" I began.
"Or a book? Why not cut down the long legs to match the short one?"
"That is really an excellent idea."
"Then why didn't you before?"
"Because, to be frank with you, it never occurred to me."
"I suppose you are better as a blacksmith than a carpenter, aren't you, Peter?" And, seeing I could find no answer worthy of retort, she laughed, and, sitting down, watched me while I took my saw, forthwith, and shortened the three long legs as she had suggested. Having done which, to our common satisfaction, seeing the moon was rising, we went and sat down on the bench beside the cottage door.
"And--are you a very good blacksmith?" she pursued, turning to regard me, chin in hand.
"I can swing a hammer or shoe a horse with any smith in Kent --except Black George, and he is the best in all the South Country."
"And is that a very great achievement, Peter?"
"It is not a despicable one."
"Are you quite satisfied to be able to shoe horses well, sir?"
"It is far better to be a good blacksmith than a bad poet or an incompetent prime minister."
"Meaning that you would rather succeed in the little thing than fail in the great?"
"With your permission, I will smoke," said I.
"Surely," she went on, nodding her permission, "surely it is nobler to be a great failure rather than a mean success?"
"Success is very sweet, Charmian, even in the smallest thing; for instance," said I, pointing to the cottage door that stood open beside her, "when I built that door, and saw it swing on its hinges, I was as proud of it as though it had been--"
"A really good door," interpolated Charmian, "instead of a bad one!"
"A bad one, Charmian?"
"It is a very clumsy door, and has neither bolt nor lock."
"There are no thieves hereabouts, and, even if there were, they would not dare to set foot in the Hollow after dark."
"And then, unless one close it with great care, it sticks--very tight!"
"That, obviating the necessity of a latch, is rather to be commended," said I.
"Besides, it is a very ill-fitting door, Peter."
"I have seen worse."
"And will be very draughty in cold weather."
"A blanket hung across will remedy that."
"Still, it can hardly be called a very good door, can it, Peter?" Here I lighted my pipe without answering. "I suppose you make horseshoes much better than you make doors?" I puffed at my pipe in silence. "You are not angry because I found fault with your door, are you, Peter?"
"Angry?" said I; "not in the least."
"I am sorry for that."
"Are you never angry, Peter?"
"Seldom, I hope."
"I should like to see you so--just once. Finding nothing to say in answer to this, I smoked my negro-head pipe and stared at the moon, which was looking down at us through a maze of tree-trunks and branches.
"Referring to horseshoes," said Charmian at last, "are you content to be a blacksmith all your days?"
"Yes, I think I am."
"Were you never ambitious, then?"
"Ambition is like rain, breaking itself upon what it falls on--at least, so Bacon says, and--"
"Oh, bother Bacon! Were you never ambitious, Peter?"
"I was a great dreamer."
"A dreamer!" she exclaimed with fine scorn; "are dreamers ever ambitious?"
"Indeed, they are the most truly ambitious," I retorted; "their dreams are so vast, so infinite, so far beyond all puny human strength and capacity that they, perforce, must remain dreamers always. Epictetus himself--"
"I wish," sighed Charmian, "I do wish--"
"What do you wish?"
"That you were not--"
"That I was not?"
"Pedant!" said I, somewhat disconcerted.
"And you have a way of echoing my words that is very irritating."
"I beg your pardon," said I, feeling much like a chidden schoolboy; "and I am sorry you should think me a pedant."
"And you are so dreadfully precise and serious," she continued.
"Am I, Charmian?"
"And so very solemn and austere, and so ponderous, and egotistical, and calm--yes, you are hatefully calm and placid, aren't you, Peter?"
And, after I had smoked thoughtfully awhile, I sighed.
"Yes, I fear I may seem so."
"Oh, I forgive you!"
"Though you needn't be so annoyingly humble about it," said she, and frowned, and, even while she frowned, laughed and shook her head.
"And pray, why do you laugh?"
"Because--oh, Peter, you are such a--boy!"
"So you told me once before," said I, biting my pipe-stem viciously.
"Did I, Peter?"
"You also called me a--lamb, I remember--at least, you suggested it."
"Did I, Peter?" and she began to laugh again, but stopped all at once and rose to her feet.
"Peter!" said she, with a startled note in her voice, "don't you hear something?"
"Yes," said I.
"Some one is coming!"
"And--they are coming this way!"
"Oh--how can you sit there so quietly? Do you think--"she began, and stopped, staring into the shadows with wide eyes.
"I think," said I, knocking the ashes from my pipe, and laying it on the bench beside me, "that, all things considered, you were wiser to go into the cottage for a while."
"No--oh, I couldn't do that!"
"You would be safer, perhaps."
"I am not a coward. I shall remain here, of course."
"But I had rather you went inside."
"And I much prefer staying where I am."
"Then I must ask you to go inside, Charmian."
"No, indeed, my mind is made up."
"Then I insist, Charmian."
"Mr. Vibart!" she exclaimed, throwing up her head, "you forget yourself, I think. I permit no one to order my going and coming, and I obey no man's command."
"Then--I beg of you."
"And I refuse, sir--my mind is made up."
"And mine also!" said I, rising.
"Why, what--what are you going to do?" she cried, retreating as I advanced towards her.
"I am going to carry you into the cottage."
"You would not dare!"
"If you refuse to walk, how else can you get there?" said I.
Anger, amazement, indignation, all these I saw in her eyes as she faced me, but anger most of all.
"Oh--you would--not dare!" she said again, and with a stamp of her foot.
"Indeed, yes," I nodded. And now her glance wavered beneath mine, her head drooped, and, with a strange little sound that was neither a laugh nor a sob, and yet something of each, she turned upon her heel, ran into the cottage, and slammed the door behind her.
|Art of Worldly Wisdom Daily|
In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.
Shakespeare wrote over 150 sonnets! Join our Sonnet-A-Day Newsletter and read them all, one at a time. | <urn:uuid:f5d6ffb1-41e0-40ee-a40f-9812545b96ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.online-literature.com/jeffrey-farnol/broad-highway/48/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969259 | 1,835 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Amy Eddings is the local host of “All Things Considered,” which airs from 4 PM until 8 PM weekdays. She started hosting in 2004, after long-time host JoAnn Allen left for the West Coast. Before ATC, Amy was a reporter. Her favorite topics were--and still are--garbage and recycling, which she still reports on whenever she can get out of the studio.
U.S. Open Gets Greener
Thursday, September 03, 2009
GARZA: This grand slam is two weeks. We have 700,000 people come to this facility.
Rita Garza is senior director of corporate communications at the United States Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open.
GARZA: It's a lot of volume in a short amount of time.
That means lots of media, and their TV trucks and laptops, drawing energy. Hundreds of staff, printing out programs, stat sheets, and press releases. and thousands of players and fans, eating and drinking.
GARZA: We sell about 500,000 plastic bottles, between our water and our iced tea and Gatorade and things like that. And sell about 20,000 aluminum cans. That's a lot.
Garza and I are standing in one of the many hallways that lace through the guts of Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main showcase court at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. She just finished showing me the loading dock, where the USTA has installed a new chute and compactor just for recyclables. It's done so because this year, for the first time at the U.S. Open, the USTA is setting out recycling bins throughout its entire 43-acre site, to collect plastic bottles and metal cans. In the past, the organization relied on its waste carting company to recycle, trusting it was picking the materials out of the garbage. Another first: the USTA is recycling the 18,000 to 20,000 plastic tennis ball containers used at the Open.
It's just part of a comprehensive 'green-up' plan the USTA has been developing over the last two years, with the help of the environmental advocacy group, Natural Resources Defense Council and the prodding of one highly-influential person in the world of sports.
HERSHKOWITZ: Billie Jean King, the tennis legend, reached out to NRDC after the tennis center was named for her.
Allen Hershkowitz is a senior scientist at NRDC, and he directs its sports greening initiative.
HERSHKOWITZ: She felt that, now that the tennis center had her name on it, it needed to be a socially responsible operation.
So, starting in 2007, the USTA started reviewing its operations, top to bottom, to see how it could reduce its carbon footprint. In that time, it's cut its energy consumption, bought utensils made of corn starch, instead of petroleum and started an environmental awareness campaign for fans. This year's efforts include increasing the recycled paper content of paper products, and making sure 10 percent of the vegetables and fruits used at the Open were from local farms. The USTA is also piloting a composting program.
One key element of a tennis match that seems pretty resistant to eco-friendly changes -- or ANY changes, for that matter -- is the ball itself. Jason Collins, global business director of Wilson Tennis Balls, says the last big revolution in the tennis ball was in its color.
COLLINS: I’m embarrassed to say that tennis balls were white, and in 1978 we changed them to yellow.
Ninety-eight thousand balls are used during the Open. Most of them will get re-used in tennis clinics at the tennis center, but they can't be recycled. Collins says it's not feasible to recycle a tennis ball like you would a plastic bottle, breaking it down and re-shaping it into something new.
COLLINS: From a finished product point of view, once the felt is on it, because you have adhesives under the felt, it makes it very complicated to re-use.
Collins says Wilson is looking into other sustainability initiatives. One of them involves the ball container. Wilson started making it out of 25 percent recycled plastic about two years ago.
The environmental movement is 40 years old. Collins says it took a while to engineer a pressurized can using recycled plastic. Okay. But the timing of the recycling program itself at the U.S. Open raises more questions. New York City residents have been required since 1993 to recycle metal and plastic. The USTA started doing it with a pilot program last year. It would seem to be a no-brainer, at a big sports event, where plastic bottled water and sports drinks are common, for an organization to collect them. The USTA's Rita Garza says recycling seems simple, but it actually posed complicated organizational challenges:
GARZA: We hire several thousand temporary employees, and that becomes the staff that empties receptacles and gets them to the proper place. And then our waste hauler, we had to change how our waste hauler did their business, in terms of frequency of pickups, and where that waste hauler would take that recycling. So all of that was, we didn't know!
NRDC's Allen Hershkowitz concedes the environmental movement has been late to the game when it comes to focusing on sports. But he says the USTA, and the U.S. Open, have been aggressively making up ground to reduce environmental impacts, and raise fan awareness.
HERSHKOWITZ: I’m happy they happened now. I wish they happened a long time ago. But the good news is that, foolish is the person who does nothing because they can only do a little. We're starting, and I think they've taken a great big step.
And more big steps are being promised. The USTA's Rita Garza says next year's goals are to recycle tennis ball cans at the tennis center year round, get USTA local organizations to start conserving energy and recycling, and, ultimately, to have other Grand Slams follow in the U.S. Open's smaller carbon footprint. | <urn:uuid:39d7d9c7-b93e-4257-838f-33a798a765c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2009/sep/03/us-open-gets-greener/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965492 | 1,290 | 1.515625 | 2 |
ATLANTAIn patients with resectable rectal cancer, routine short-course preoperative radiotherapy results in a significant reduction in local recurrence and improved disease-free survival, compared with a selective postoperative approach. Furthermore, local recurrence is strongly related to the plane of surgical dissection, according to preliminary results of the Medical Research Council CR07 Trial. David Sebag-Montefiore, MD, of the Yorkshire Centre for Clinical Oncology, Leeds, United Kingdom, presented the results at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (abstracts 3511 and 3512).
This was the first report from this phase III trial of 1,350 patients, a collaborative effort of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Colorectal Cancer Study Group and the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC).
Patients with clinically operable adenocarcinoma of the rectum less than 15 cm from the anal verge and without metastatic disease were randomized to short-course preoperative radiotherapy (25 Gy in five fractions) followed by surgical excision and pathological examination of the circumferential resection margin (CRM) (the PRE group) or to surgery, followed by pathological examination (the POST group). CRM-negative patients received no postoperative irradiation while margin-positive patients received chemoradiation (45 Gy with concurrent 5-FU).
At a median follow-up of 3 years, all outcomes in the intent-to-treat analysis favored the PRE over the POST arm. Local recurrence rates were 5% vs 11% at 3 years and 5% vs 17% at 5 years, respectively (HR 2.47 , P < .0001). There were 34 fewer disease-related events in the PRE arm, mainly due to a reduction in local recurrence. Disease-free survival was improved from 75% to 80% at 3 years and from 67% to 75% at 5 years (P = .03). Five-year overall survival was 72% and 62%, respectively (P = .07), in the PRE and POST arms.
"In the PRE arm, the curve shows the local recurrence rate is rising very slowly, with very few local recurrences beyond 3 years. In contrast, the POST arm shows a continuing rise in local recurrence. Overall survival data are premature, but the curves are diverging as well," Dr. Sebag-Montefiore observed.
"The data confirmed findings from other trials that CRM status is a clear predictor of local recurrence, with a much lower rate seen in margin-negative tumors, compared with margin-positive tumors [7% vs 18% at 3 years]," he said.
In patients with negative CRM status, local recurrence was reduced from 10% to 3% in the PRE group (HR 2.91); CRM-positive patients in the PRE arm had a nonsignificant reduction from 23% to 16% (HR 1.56). "In CRM-negative patients there is a very clear treatment effect. You also see an effect of preo-perative radiotherapy on the CRM-positive patients, but it is too small a group (n = 193) to make definitive conclusions," he said. | <urn:uuid:62cdb1a1-c5fa-4dbc-af83-d1a9d12ee60a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cancernetwork.com/news/display/article/10165/108073 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943857 | 673 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Lots of stuff going on in the world lately; not a lot of posting here. Chalk that up to crazy busy real life. I have been following the news, as I know you have, and one huge story is the declaration of martial law in Pakistan. It isn’t exactly a huge shock that a military dictator will do anything to hang on to power, and I know I shouldn’t be surprised that the response from the Bush administration has been a bit subdued. And I wouldn’t be the first to comment on the similarities between the two, er, regimes — using the specters of judicial activism and terrorism to trash opponents and stifle dissent. Hmmm, where have we heard that before?
Anyway, if the Bush administration is so upset with Musharraf, it seems the first thing to do would be to cut US aid to Pakistan. Money talks, right? And it turns out it also walks. Away. With no supervision.
After Pervez Musharraf declared martial law this weekend, Condoleezza Rice vowed to review U.S. assistance to Pakistan, one of the largest foreign recipients of American aid. Musharraf, of course, has been a crucial American ally since the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001, and the U.S. has rewarded him ever since with over $10 billion in civilian and (mostly) military largesse. But, perhaps unsure whether Musharraf’s days might in fact be numbered, Rice contended that the explosion of money to Islamabad over the past seven years was “not to Musharraf, but to a Pakistan you could argue was making significant strides on a number of fronts.”
In fact, however, a considerable amount of the money the U.S. gives to Pakistan is administered not through U.S. agencies or joint U.S.-Pakistani programs. Instead, the U.S. gives Musharraf’s government about $200 million annually and his military $100 million monthly in the form of direct cash transfers. Once that money leaves the U.S. Treasury, Musharraf can do with it whatever he wants. He needs only promise in a secret annual meeting that he’ll use it to invest in the Pakistani people. And whatever happens as the result of Rice’s review, few Pakistan watchers expect the cash transfers to end.
George W. Bush hands over hundreds of millions in cash to Musharraf — this after shipping billions in cash to Iraq (that was money that actually belonged to the Iraqi people, not that they got any say in how it was spent) — with no accounting and no accountability, and he wants to accuse the Democrats of fiscal irresponsibility? Not to mention, all that cash hasn’t prevented parts of Pakistan from becoming safe haven for al-Qaeda.
Once again, the US has propped up a dictator because he was our dictator, dammit. And now he’s done what dictators are known to do. Is it any wonder some people are seeing parallels with the Iran of 30 years ago?
The shah was America’s friend, just like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He was our staunch ally against the bogeyman of that time, the Soviet Union, just as Musharraf has been America’s partner in fighting al-Qaeda. The shah ignored America’s admonitions to clean up his undemocratic regime, just as Musharraf has. And as the shah’s troubles deepened, the United States hoped that moderate opposition leaders would keep the country safe from Muslim zealots, just as we are now hoping in Pakistan.
And yet the Iranian explosion came — a firestorm of rage that immolated any attempt at moderation or compromise. A similar process of upheaval has begun in Pakistan — with one terrifying difference: Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
If there is regime change in Pakistan, I doubt we’ll see new leadership that is friendly toward the US. The people of Pakistan know that we’ve been meddling in their affairs, propping up Musharraf without demanding real reforms or putting any strings on that cash we send his way. Cash that, by the way, rarely flows down to the Pakistani people:
Only about ten percent of the $10.58 billion since 9/11 has gone toward development aid and humanitarian assistance, according to the CSIS report — even after Pakistan suffered a devastating earthquake in October 2005. “Close to 90 percent goes to the military-led government,” [Rick] Barton says. “Some of it is directly into the military, and the other pieces go into the Musharraf government.” | <urn:uuid:8135196d-8798-4ac2-b3ed-422c16a20f8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.queervoice.net/kmcmullen/2007/11/07/why-am-i-not-surprised-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964974 | 967 | 1.570313 | 2 |
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The world craves the idea of unattainable perfection, and the superhero—an aspirational figure who is stronger, faster and smarter than the average human—is the epitome of human perfection. For more than two centuries, philosophers, comic book artists, writers and academics have debated the role of the superhero, from how they should interact with society to what they should wear when they're saving the world. And now, with the rash of superhero films in Hollywood, the debate becomes who should portray these larger-than-life characters on the big screen. Here are the actors and actresses who have been chosen to represent the mighty superhero. Whether it's running faster than the speed of light or stopping a speeding train with one hand, these performers are renowned for bringing the vision of the superhero to reality.
Onscreen Superheroes 36 people in this group
These celebs are always in the limelight so a healthy diet is a must—hence, they’ve gone vegan! While some have jumped on the bandwagon, others have made it a part of their lifestyles. From Bill Clinton to Jane Lynch, see which other celebs are getting healthy all while saving the animals with their more animal conscious diet.
Vegans 32 people in this group
Despite their fame and fortune, celebrities aren't immune to all the problems that afflict ordinary people. The problems of drug and alcohol addiction plagues many stars, particularly those who enjoy hard-partying lifestyles. Fortunately, many talented individuals have been able to kick their addictions and lead healthy lives. Here are some celebs who have sobered up.
Sober Celebs 55 people in this group | <urn:uuid:cacb530d-5c2f-440e-9f3e-a65206120663> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biography.com/people/tobey-maguire-9542472/photos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948169 | 378 | 1.664063 | 2 |
afforded no information to the traveller; for age had rendered it useless.
The boys were gazing upon him with much curiosity, when he beckoned them towards him, and inquired the way to the village of Eldenby.
The eldest, a fine intelligent lad of about twelve years of age, pointed to the path, and asked if he were going to any particular place in the village.
" No, my little lad," said the soldier ; " but it is on the high-road to Frome, and I have friends there ; but, in truth, I am very wearied, and perhaps may find in yon village some person who will befriend a poor fellow, and look to God for a reward."
" Sir," said the boy, " My father was a soldier many years ago, and he dearly loves to look upon a red coat—if you come with me, you may be sure of a welcome."
" And you can tell us stories about foreign parts," said the younger lad, a fine chubbycheeked fellow, who, with his watch-coat thrown carelessly over his shoulder, and his crook in his right hand, had been minutely examining every portion of the soldier's dress.
The boys gave instructions to their intelligent dog, who, they said, would take good care of the sheep during their absence; and in a few minutes
the soldier and his young companions reached the gate of a flourishing farm-house, which had all the external tokens of prosperity and happiness. The younger boy trotted on a few paces before, to give his parents notice that they had invited a stranger to rest beneath their hospitable roof; and the soldier had just crossed the threshold of the door when he was received by a joyful cry of recognition from his old friends, Henry Jenkins and his wife ; and he was welcomed as a brother to the dwelling of those, who, in all human probability, were indebted to him for their present enviable station. | <urn:uuid:dde7eb8a-1404-4943-9004-9108e4196317> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.google.com/books?id=_CUTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA126&output=text | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.994213 | 406 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Homeowners looking to compare energy companies' prices may be interested to learn independent firm first:utility plans a national smart meter roll-out.
The firm plans to conduct the operation with experienced smart meter installation company OnStream, which it has been working with since the beginning of October, reports SmartMeters.com.
First:utility intends to begin the roll-out in the east and west Midlands and plans to help customers switch energy practices to adopt greater efficiency and produce reduced emissions within the home.
Martin Moir, head of sales at first:utility, told the website: "Since our launch, first:utility has always aimed to provide our customers with a real alternative when it comes to a more intelligent approach to energy."
The government also plans to launch a nationwide roll-out of smart meters at a cost of nearly £10 billion by 2020, but specific details have not been released.
Energy suppliers stand to benefit from the roll out as they will no longer have to send round staff to read meters.
If you want to find out more about your energy options and how you could save up to £378 in minutes, click here. | <urn:uuid:a079e582-ed66-42b9-a6da-a3441356a77f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energyhelpline.com/mirror/fri/Domesticenergy/news/article/19432865 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953482 | 237 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The NY Times has the full transcript.
According to Bloomberg News, Clinton's big early applause line about the huge advantage in jobs created during Democratic versus Republican administrations is true:
since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs.Actually, Bloomberg didn't really find any significant factual errors in Clinton's speech. That's partly because he didn't do what many other Dems did last night. Consider Elizabeth Warren's address, as the Times reported it:
So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 (million). (Cheers, applause.)
Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Senate candidate, summed up Mitt Romney’s tax plans this way:“He wants to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires,” she said. “But for middle-class families who are hanging on by their fingernails? His plans will hammer them with a new tax hike of up to $2,000.”
The Times noted that this charge "is not entirely accurate." That is odd phrasing, but easily explained. The problem is that Warren, like other Democrats, correctly calculated that the Romney tax "reforms" (including significant rate cuts and unidentified reductions in "loopholes") cannot possibly be revenue-neutral, as intended. As Clinton aptly noted on many occasions, the arithmetic just does not work.
Thus, Warren and others assume that the lost revenue would be made up primarily by closing loopholes that benefit the middle-class, such as the mortgage tax deduction or other benefits related to payment of college tuition.
The Times explains the problem with Romney's vague plans for the budget and taxes:
Former President Clinton avoided this problem, as Bloomberg noted, because "he showed the possible choices that Romney’s constraints would force."Many tax experts — from the left, the right and the center — do not think there is any way to do all of those things.When you cut tax rates that much, rich families’ tax liability falls considerably. For the tax plan to raise the same amount of money as it does now, someone would need to pay more.But it is not clear that Mr. Romney would raise taxes on the middle class. Instead, the plan might add to the deficit, make smaller cuts to marginal tax rates or take away preferential rates on investments and savings.
It does seem a bit unfair that Democrats would be criticized for stretching the truth about Romney's tax and spending policies precisely because his plans are so slippery and unworkable.
Incidentally, the Times also called out some Democrats for repeating the Romney line I've discussed about him allegedly liking to fire people. Fair point. Then again, the Republicans made a similar untruth the organizing theme of the convention.
Also, Democrats are essentially accused of hypocrisy for claiming that anti-terrorism initiatives will not "run afoul" of civil liberties or constitutional protections. Again, fair point. The drone war is deeply unsettling.
Unfortunately, the problem is primarily that President Obama has not reversed all of the egregious policies initiated by George W. Bush and other predecessors in the Oval office.
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Or for basketball, baseball, movies or other stuff, follow this personal twitter account. | <urn:uuid:15ec3b77-9733-42c8-b9e6-bf6d4951f0e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rpayne.blogspot.com/2012/09/bill-clinton-and-facts-at-dnc-2012.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961778 | 701 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Spa at Norwich Inn: A History
For over 75 years, The Spa at Norwich Inn has been a destination for discerning guests seeking luxury, comfort and tranquility in the Connecticut woods.
Built in 1929, the original Norwich Inn was a haven for the rich and famous of the day, drawing such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw, Charles Laughton, Frank Sinatra, and the Prince of Wales. The Inn benefited not only from its premium location, midway between New York and Boston in beautiful eastern Connecticut, but also from the word-of-mouth inspired by its architectural elegance and unrivaled surroundings. The classic Georgian Colonial revival structure, with its handsome front portico, door, and fanlight, included 75 guestrooms and boasted an expansive, rolling golf course.
The Inn changed hands several times in the years surrounding the Second World War, and eventually, a period of gradual decline set it. The fortunes of the property hit bottom when, having been purchased by the City of Norwich, the core structure was operated as a boardinghouse, while the basement was used as a holding tank for overflow prisoners from the police department. Finally, there was good news. In 1983, the Edward J. Safdie Group recognized the Inn's potential and made an offer to purchase the property. The group immediately set out to create a truly exceptional inn and spa facility, modeled after one of their most successful properties, the Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa in California.
Mr. Safdie commissioned a complete renovation of the inn, including all guestrooms and public spaces, and built a freestanding Spa building. He also developed 160 condominium villas on the 42-acre property. Safdie created a style for The Norwich Inn and Spa that was the epitome of glamour and beauty. The property soon attracted a new generation of celebrities, including Barbara Streisand, Joan Rivers, Michael Douglas, and a bevy of super models such as Cheryl Tiegs, Elle Macpherson and Rachel Hunter.
In 1994, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation purchased the Norwich Inn and Spa. Continuing the Safdie Group's precedent, the tribe instituted a forward-looking plan of expansion and improvement. Most significantly, in 2000 the tribe completed a $15 million renovation that doubled the size of the Spa, making it the largest spa on the East Coast at project completion. This renovation project also included the redecoration of the property's 100 guest rooms, in both the inn and the adjacent villas. To signify the importance of these changes, the renovation project concluded with the renaming of the facility as The Spa at Norwich Inn.
Today, The Spa at Norwich Inn is an intimate retreat and home to an elegant, full-service spa offering a blend of fitness programs, nutritional instruction and beauty and body treatments designed to restore and rejuvenate the mind, body and spirit. The essential ingredient to a stay at The Spa at Norwich Inn is personal attention. Guests do not have to conform to routines, regimens or schedules; instead, the Spa's staff makes it a point to conform to the individual needs of guests who come for a day, a long weekend or an extended vacation. Guests may choose from a range of program packages or select from an a la carte menu of services and amenities.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, The Spa at Norwich Inn continues to welcome the celebrities of the day - stars like Hilary Swank and Chris Rock - along with another generation of connoisseurs who come to be pampered, soothed, relaxed, and renewed in the privacy and peace of the Connecticut woods.
The Spa at Norwich Inn is a member of the Historic Hotels of America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For information, visit on the web at www.historichotels.org. | <urn:uuid:031d72bc-8773-4bb6-acda-d75ebbb59571> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thespaatnorwichinn.com/experience_history.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942916 | 781 | 1.742188 | 2 |
SUNNYVALE -- They traveled 1,300 miles and toiled long hours, earning the equivalent of $2.66 an hour in Mexican pesos while working in the Bay Area for acclaimed Silicon Valley tech startup Bloom Energy.
"It wasn't right what they were doing. It's not the way to treat people," said a former Bloom Energy contractor who claims he blew the whistle to authorities about the company's mistreatment of the workers, who were brought to this country on visitor visas from the Bloom Energy plant in Chihuahua.
"The first complaint I heard was from someone who said, 'I don't know why I came up here. I could be down there making the same money and be with my family,' " said the contractor, who spoke to this newspaper but
Bloom Energy, which has won national attention for its innovative fuel-cell technology, boasts a board of directors that includes former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and prominent venture capitalist John Doerr. Officials announced this week that the firm was ordered to pay $70,000 in back wages, damages and fines in a case that Labor Department official Ruben Rosalez called "appalling."
The company and its attorney did not respond to several requests for comment Wednesday.
U.S. officials said the Mexican workers, who did welding and other manufacturing jobs, came here on a type of
"It was clear the employer had knowledge of labor laws," said Labor Department spokeswoman Deanne Amaden.
Authorities said Bloom Energy paid the Mexican workers in pesos by wiring funds back to bank accounts in Chihuahua. Bloom also paid for the men to stay in a Sunnyvale motel and provided each with a meal stipend of $50 a day.
But their pay amounted to less than a third of the minimum wage required under federal law, Amaden said. Labor investigators also found the men worked an average of 51 hours a week but were not paid the legally required overtime rate when they worked beyond 40 hours a week.
The men were given a few days of training and then put to work alongside U.S. workers for about three weeks, before being sent back to Mexico in a cycle that was repeated several times, the whistle-blower said. Labor officials said the men moved back and forth between Chihuahua and Sunnyvale as they were needed, over the past two years.
Bloom Energy has a 74,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Chihuahua, according to the Facebook page of a Mexican company called Intermex Industrial Parks, which says it built the facility for Bloom in 2011.
Intermex apparently played some role in recruiting the workers, added Labor Department spokesman Jose Carnevali. But he said U.S. officials determined Bloom Energy was liable for the Mexican workers based on several factors, including the fact that Bloom directed their work in Sunnyvale, and because Bloom paid for their motel rooms and issued them work clothing with Bloom's logo.
Efforts to reach an Intermex representative were unsuccessful Wednesday.
While the case produced relatively minor penalties, the
"We have not seen this elsewhere in the tech industry, and to our knowledge this is not a common practice," she added.
Bloom has reportedly raised $550 million in venture funding since it started in 2002. It opened a new facility in Delaware last year and said then that its workforce had grown to about 1,000.
Immigration officials said they have no record of any public enforcement action against either Bloom Energy or Intermex, although they said they could not comment if any investigation was pending.
"While there are circumstances under which welders could enter the U.S. on valid nonimmigrant visas to work, that would be uncommon," said Sharon Rummery of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. She added, "We won't speculate on actions of any specific company in securing foreign workers."
Mercury News staff writer Joe Rodriguez contributed to this report. Contact Brandon Bailey at 408-920-5022 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:7392711c-2c66-44c4-a3bb-efcff1b013e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_22536219/exclusive-bloom-energy-whistleblower-tells-workers-paid-pesos?source=most_viewed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983652 | 838 | 1.554688 | 2 |
CURATE: The Digital Curator Game is available for download to all Network Members.
The CURATE game is designed to be used as an exercise that prompts players to put themselves into digital project scenarios in order to address issues and challenges that arise when institutions engage with digital curation and preservation.
- Welcome to CURATE Presentation
- Game Board (PDF)
- Game Cards (PDF)
- About the Game (PDF)
- Rules (PDF)
- Record Sheet & Closing Questions (PDF)
We would kindly ask all Network Members who play the game to return completed (anonymous) record sheets to [email protected] in order to further inform the curriculum framework.
Once you've played the game, we would be grateful if you could fill in our short survey. This is available HERE and will take you no more than 10 minutes. This survey is open until Monday 22nd April 2013
Many thanks for your interest!
The DigCurV Team
- Welcome to CURATE
- About CURATE
- Gameplay and Rules
Game Cards Preview
You've successfully archived your collection!
Advance to the nearest corner box
You've got the support of policy-makers and senior management for long-term digital preservation and access.
Go forward 2 spaces.
You've successfully secured funding to digitise part of your collection.
What are the most important things to consider before the project gets started?
What do you think the most important training and qualifications are for managers working in digital curation?
Your project funding includes enough money to hire three additional people.
What roles are most important to recruit?
You followed best practices and your content conforms to standards and has been archived. Congratulations!.
The content is available for re-use in your next project; what are the benefits?
You had the knowledge and skills to procure services wisely and your project is delivering high quality results.
What would your advice be to newly appointed managers of similar projects?
You need to decide between purchasing specialised equipment for the project and out-sourcing the work. You need to find advice to make the best choice for your project.
To what resources would you turn to for advice?
You need to recruit a technical specialist for the project. It's not an area that you're familiar with.
How do you assess whether their qualifications match the project's needs?
You’ve advertised for project workers but in spite of the economic crisis, you cannot recruit because none of the applicants have the technical expertise that you’re looking for.
What can you do?
Finding sustainable funding proves difficult in the current economic climate. It looks like the project will cease to exist when funding ends.
What can you do to preserve the collection?
Five years into your digitisation project you learn that the archival format standard the community has been following is being deprecated and a new standard is being recommended.
What do you do?
You are the manager of a digital curation project and one of the funded partners is not cooperating
How do you handle the situation? What are some steps you can take to rectify it?
You are in year 3 of a 6-year project and you’ve just hired a new technical manager who, once in situ, disagrees with the choices of his predecessors
How do you resolve this conflict of opinion?
The company that the project chose to host it’s online collection has gone out of business.
What needs to be done to migrate the collection to a new service provider?
Collection owner and Curator do not see eye-to-eye. Owner is concerned that digitisation will damage the collection.
Hold a project meeting and lose your next turn
Unfortunately your funding has been cut mid-way through the project.
Go back to START and begin writing a new grant proposal.
New member of staff lacks key skills and your budget doesn’t allow for professional development.
Meet with senior management and lose next turn.
Oh dear, the digitisation was done by a company that conformed to minimum standards. Transferring the content to an archival conformant repository will involve the creation of metadata.
Lose your next turn.
Your personnel budget has been cut and you have to let a member of staff go.
Please send the team member to your right back to the START box.
Your project website has crashed.
Lose next turn while you troubleshoot the issue.
Funding proposal rejected.
Go back to START.
Frequently Asked Questions
Information about the methodology of the game and what organisers need to do in order to prepare can be found in the ‘About CURATE’ PDF in the game download.
The game is available for download by DigCurV Network Members. If you are interested in using the game, join the network at
In order to play the game, you need to download the artwork for the game board and game cards (three decks – ‘DigCurV,’ ‘Caution Mind the Digital Curator Gap,’ and ‘Danger You’ve Fallen into the Digital Curator Gap’) and source a printing company to produce the materials for you. You will also need to download and print the following documents: ‘Gameplay and Rules,’ ‘Record Sheet’ and ‘Closing Questions.’ There is a PowerPoint presentation, ‘Welcome to CURATE,’ available for download that you can use to introduce the game to players. ‘About CURATE’ details sourcing game pieces and printing specifications.
The record sheet exists in order to capture the main themes of the conversation and brainstorming that takes place during the game, as prompted by ‘DigCurV’ and ‘Caution Mind the Digital Curator Gap’ cards. DigCurV asks that those using the game in training events share their record sheets (anonymously) so that the feedback and ideas obtained through game play can be incorporated into project deliverables.
The ideal number of players per game is four to six, with one player appointed to act as a facilitator – a person willing to jumpstart conversations and ensure that all players have the opportunity to contribute. As many games can be played simultaneously as the organiser wishes.
A game played with five to six players can produce a winner when played for 45 minutes. At that point in time, the winner can begin the game again from the START box, or simply watch as the other players vie to be the second to finish, participating in group conversations as prompted by the game.
The game board requires a large-format printer and glossy finish poster paper, so it is best to source a printing company to produce it. However, the game cards and A4 documents can be printed on a standard printer. See the ‘About CURATE’ document for details.
Caution Mind the Digital Curator Gap cards raise important considerations for practitioners engaging with digital curation and prompt discussion and problem-solving, whereas Danger You’ve Fallen Into the Digital Curator Gap cards present players with some of the more difficult issues related to engaging with digital curation and send them back to START or force them to lose their next turn.
CURATE is copyright of DigCurV. You are free to share the game and game materials under the following conditions. We ask that you attribute the game to DigCurV and share the game under like conditions. If you wish to establish a translation of the Game and Game materials, or have ideas to build on this work we ask that you contact us to obtain permission and that you distribute any resulting work under a similar licence with the same conditions. | <urn:uuid:c78d8f8f-1e6b-40e8-a512-a61f52b6ccf4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digcur-education.org/ltu/Saltiniai/CURATE-Game | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94373 | 1,599 | 1.632813 | 2 |
This year’s California navel orange crop, estimated at 93 million cartons, should be a bit larger than last year’s estimated 89 million cartons, but grower-shippers hope for a continuation of the prices they enjoyed last season.
As of early October, dates for the first shipments remained up in the air.
In an effort to provide end users with a better-eating piece of fruit than in past years, the state’s growers have agreed to implement what they’re calling the California Standard.
That means some growers may have to hold onto their fruit a bit longer than usual until it meets a specific maturity — and taste — standard.
“We’re never sure when we’ll get started,” said Neil Galone, vice president of sales and marketing for Booth Ranches LLC, Orange Cove, Calif.
“This year, it’s even more in question.”
Galone estimated that Booth Ranches will start harvesting the third or fourth week of October with limited availability for shipping the first week of November. The company expects “reasonable availability” by mid-November.
Cecelia Packing Corp. in Orange Cove also should start shipping navel oranges in late October, a bit earlier than last year.
“A lot of items have been a little earlier this year than they were last year, and navel oranges are no exception,” said Randy Jacobson, sales manager.
The company plans to ship navels until mid-May.
Volume at Cecilia Packing will be up slightly compared with last year, in line with the state’s overall orange crop.
Jacobson attributes the larger crop to good growing conditions.
He’s optimistic about fruit size, despite survey results from the California Agricultural Statistics Service indicating that, as of Sept. 1, fruit diameter was slightly smaller than the five-year average.
Despite increased competition from mandarins, prices have remained surprisingly steady on navels, he said.
“The crop size has not been overwhelming, so we’ve been able to manage the crop pretty well and do a fair job on the pricing.”
Galone agreed that navel prices have stayed steady or perhaps gotten stronger, even with good-size crops and the fact that “the mandarin varieties are compromising somewhat the demand for navels.”
On Oct. 2, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was reporting f.o.b. prices of mostly $18 for 15-kilogram cartons of Chilean navels and mostly $16-17 on size 64s.
South African navels were selling for mostly $18-20 for 15-kilogram containers of size 40s, 48s and 56s. | <urn:uuid:fa3644f2-1553-4db4-9bae-58bd486de14b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-enewsletter/Issue_Announcement/CaliforniaArizona-Citrus-overview-173938281.html | 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 | 0.952342 | 585 | 1.5 | 2 |
ATI Radeon 4770 Performance Preview
Ever since it was launched last fall, weíve been huge fans of ATIís Radeon 4830. The chip is based on the same RV770 core found in the hugely popular Radeon 4850 and Radeon 4870. This gives the GPU a highly capable foundation to build on, and fortunately ATI didnít cripple it to the point of irrelevance: ATI deactivated two SIMD cores, leaving 640 stream processors, a 256-bit memory interface, and decent clock speeds (575MHz core/900MHz memory).
Overall the Radeon 4830 is a good performer, capable of running most games at 1600x1200 with 4xAA/8xAF (even 8xAA in some cases) and high quality settings with good frame rates. In comparison to its closest competitor from NVIDIA, the GeForce 8800/9800 GT, the Radeon 4830 is pretty even, with each card trading wins in various games. Only under 8xAA does the Radeon 4830 really pull away from the GeForce card.
But as good as the Radeon 4830 is, it does have a slight problem: falling GPU prices. When the Radeon 4830 was originally launched, it was priced at $130. But thanks to falling GPU prices, 4830 cards now sell for as little as $87-$100 online ($77 after rebate). Thatís a reduction of over 30%.
While this is great news for consumers looking to upgrade, this isnít good for ATIís bottom line. Falling GPU prices reduce their profit margins. And while RV770 isnít a massive chip, it still isnít very cost effective for ATI to sell it in a $90 Radeon 4830 card, and with the way prices have been going, the 4830 could be another $10+ less in another month or so.
To address this issue, ATI needed a GPU solution that was custom built from the ground up for this segment of the GPU market. Rather than concoct a purpose-built 4830 ASIC at 55-nm, ATIís decided to go even smaller, pressing TSMCís 40-nm manufacturing process into service for their new RV740 GPU.
But a smaller manufacturing process isnít the only move ATI has made to RV740 to reduce costs, the chip also sports a narrower 128-bit memory interface. To make up for the simpler interface, ATI has decided to integrate speedy GDDR5 memory into RV740: the board ships with the same 800MHz GDDR5 (3.2GHz effective) that was first used on the Radeon 4870 last year. This allows the card to boast very respectable memory bandwidth figures despite its 128-bit interface.
The most impressive part of all though is that thanks to high clock speeds, the RV740-based Radeon 4770 is actually faster
than the Radeon 4830, despite its name. Itís actually a little closer in performance to the Radeon 4850 than the 4830! Letís see what else is new under the hood of this chipÖ | <urn:uuid:84bf07d6-c4d1-47f7-a465-4c87512af04c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_4770_performance/default.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93557 | 615 | 1.578125 | 2 |
No Show Like Home
The Alvin Ailey Dance Company’s Home Spotlights the Fight Against HIV
by Chip Alfred
Deep where the sun don’t shine
Is a place that I call home.
When the planetary alignment is right
And the DJ cuts out the lights
Deep is where I’m home.
—”Underground Is My Home” by Dennis Ferrer from Home
Presented at the newly-renovated historic New York City Center on World AIDS Day, Home honors the memory of founder Alvin Ailey, who died on December 1, 1989. The dance piece, which will be performed across the country on the company’s 2012 national tour, represents the culmination of a year-long project sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb, the REYATAZ Fight HIV Your Way Contest [A&U, August, 2011]. More than 1,300 people from across the country submitted a photo and essay depicting their battle with HIV. The top ten winners received a trip to New York and tickets to see the Ailey company perform the dance influenced by their contest entries. This marks the third installment of the Bristol-Myers Squibb contest, which highlights the struggles of people touched by HIV, helps reduce the stigma many still face, and encourages those infected with the virus to continue their fight.
“Home is a bold new work—Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s first-ever original dance to recognize the continued HIV epidemic. As long as AIDS exists, we’re still fighting,” said Robert Battle, who kicked off his inaugural season as the company’s artistic director. Battle acknowledged the contest winners in the audience as he introduced Home, describing it as “a celebration of life. It is a tribute to Alvin Ailey’s enduring spirit and pioneering legacy.” The contest winners, who were treated to a backstage meet and greet with Harris and the company’s dancers, watched the show in awe. “It was brilliant, incredibly inspired and poignant,” raved Kurt Weston, a Huntington Beach, California, photographer and artist living with AIDS and legally blind as a result. Dr. Sherry Meltz, a psychotherapist from Roswell, Georgia, who works with HIV-positive patients, exclaimed, “I’m overwhelmed. It was probably one of the most phenomenal events I’ve ever attended in my entire life. I saw some of everybody’s story in it. It’s about living positively and productively and hopefully.”
“Ailey’s mission has always been about using dance to celebrate the human spirit and bringing new works to life that share important stories,” said Judith Jamison, who succeeded Alvin Ailey and served as the company’s artistic director for more than twenty years. “This tradition aligns perfectly with the Fight HIV Your Way initiative by using the power of the arts to raise awareness about a very significant issue.” The evening of dance featuring Home as the centerpiece belonged to Alvin Ailey, the man who founded what has become one of the most celebrated dance companies in the world. Choreographer Christopher L.Huggins opened the show with Anointed, a moving segment about Ailey passing the torch to Jamison before he passed away. Revelations, choreographed by Alvin Ailey and performed by his company for the past fifty-one years, closed the show in signature Ailey style. The legendary dance suite still thrills with contemporary gospel music and African-American spirituals—taking the audience on a roller coaster ride of emotions, and nobody in the house seemed ready for the ride to end.
“Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people,” Ailey once said. “I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings,” he explained, at the time referring to racial barriers and discrimination. Now his words resonate as well with people impacted by the disease that claimed his life. The Alvin Ailey dance company delivered an unforgettable homage to its creator, a truly remarkable man whose light shines on. Essence Magazine writes, “You don’t just see an Ailey performance, you feel it.” It’s doubtful anyone walked out of the theater that night feeling the same as when they walked in.
For more information about the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, visit alvinailey.org. To see the winning photos and essays of the Fight HIV Your Way contest, visit fightHIVyourway.com.
Chip Alfred interviewed designer Kenneth Cole for the November 2011 cover story. | <urn:uuid:9c01d720-e12e-47f4-adc3-5a17431eb644> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aumag.org/wordpress/2012/01/18/no-show-like-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950554 | 975 | 1.820313 | 2 |
We have posted on our website a policy webinar, “Parity and Health Reform: Important Changes for Behavioral Health.” You can listen to the webinar by going to: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/action/policy-issues-a-z/healthcare-reform.
Entries Tagged as 'Legislative'
Mental Health America’s David Shern and Kirsten Beronio have co-authored an article in the National Council Magazine, “Prevention is Better Than Cure,” that looks at how health care reform impacts prevention and mental health and addiction services. To view the table of contents and download the full magazine, visit http://www.thenationalcouncil.org/cs/about_us/national_council_magazine.
Mental Health America today joined with women’s health advocates and Congressional champions in the fight against Postpartum Depression to celebrate the enactment of the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act.
The initiative to combat postpartum depression was signed into law as part of health insurance reform. The law, which was authored by U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), will establish a comprehensive federal commitment to combating postpartum depression through new research, education initiatives and voluntarily support service programs.
Mental Health America was a stronger supporter of the law. Postpartum depression is a widespread problem that must be acknowledged, assessed, and treated as the serious health issue that it is.
Not enough has been written about the positive steps the new health care reform law takes to expand and improve mental health and substance use coverage and services.
Mental health care and addiction treatment are included on the list of essential benefits that must be covered in new plans offered to the uninsured through the state exchanges. In addition, these plans must comply with the federal mental health parity law.
I think we will look back at the passage of the Wellstone-Domenici parity legislation as a watershed event. The law created a platform for advocates to push for mental health and substance use coverage in reform. | <urn:uuid:ccd98912-d933-4bca-9177-90601a17ad8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nmha.org/blog/archives.cfm/category/legislative/page/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950461 | 449 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Locally made ‘Promised Land’ eyes drilling controversy
By William Loeffler
Published: Thursday, January 3, 2013, 9:01 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Another fracking controversy is brewing. But this one is on the big screen.
“Promised Land,” which opens Friday, is a film whose fictional story revolves around the controversial practice of crushing shale underground to release reserves of natural gas. Parts of the story were filmed in the region in April and May, primarily in Avonmore in the Alle-Kiski Valley.
Matt Damon stars as a land agent for a global natural gas company. He travels to the economically depressed town of McKinley, where he deploys an aw-shucks charm to persuade local farmers and other landowners to lease their land for hydraulic fracturing. While some see the offer as the chance at economic rebirth, an environmental activist played by John Krasinski (“The Office”) begins rallying residents against the idea. The two antagonists also compete for the affections of a local schoolteacher played by Rosemarie DeWitt. Frances McDormand, a 1975 graduate of Monessen High School, plays Damon's associate.
Damon and Krasinski co-wrote the screenplay. Directing the film is Gus Van Sant, who directed Damon in “Good Will Hunting.”
As of October, more than 4,000 well permits have been issued in the state, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. By comparison, more than 350,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania since the first commercial oil well was developed in 1859. The commonwealth first began regulating drilling in 1956. Industry estimates say a typical well could generate $4 million for landowners over its life. Some environmentalists and health officials say not enough research has been done on the potential hazards.
And attorneys such as James J. Brink say landowners can be duped. Brink and Steven C. Townsend are partners at ShaleAdvice LLC, Downtown. They represent landowners to make sure they get fair terms when they lease their land to natural gas companies.
“I've been to meetings where we'd be sitting in the back and listening to what is being said by gas companies,” he says. “The first thing out of their mouths is, ‘Everybody in this room will be a millionaire.' That's not true.
“The folks are promised that the streets could be paved with bricks of gold,” Brink says. “Then they realize they've signed something that's going to affect their land for the rest of their lives and their children's lives.”
But others say environmental fears are exaggerated.
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a local nonprofit coalition, will run ads at selected “Promised Land” showings, says spokesman Travis Windle. The ads will direct audiences to a web-site called learnaboutshale.org.
“A lot of folks think they understand the nuclear industry because they've seen ‘The Simpsons,' but we don't want people to walk away from this fictional film thinking it's an accurate depiction of how the natural gas industry conducts its business,” Windle says.
“Promised Land” also was shot in New Alexandria, Apollo, Delmont, Export, Slate Lick, West Mifflin, Worthington and the Grand Concourse at Station Square in Pittsburgh.
Donna Belajac served as location casting director for the film. She cast about 15 speaking roles. Generally, she auditioned 20 to 30 actors for each part. She composed a description of each character after consulting with director Van Sant. She says the director was keen on hiring actors who looked like everyday people.
“It was mostly professional actors with a handful of regular people who had a good look,” she says.
The latter included non-actor Gerri Bumbaugh, owner of My Buddy's Place, a bar in Avonmore where several scenes were shot. She plays a bartender named Jesse who makes a bet with Damon's character that involves doing shots of vodka. Damon doesn't realize that she's actually pounding down shots of water.
“It was pretty easy, because that's what I do, (work as a) bartender,” she says.
Bambaugh describes Damon and Krasinski as “very nice guys. We had a good time.”
Krasinski has family ties to the Pittsburgh area — his grandparents, the late Leo and Regina Krasinski, were residents of Natrona Heights, Harrison, and other relatives still live here.
Bambaugh says Krasinski's parents visited the set. “He took me over and introduced me to them,” she says.
The film's subject has generated some strong opinions locally.
“I know several guys that do that for a living,” she says. “A lot of them were kind of mad, but others said, ‘It's only a movie.'”
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Like most every environmentalist "documentary", Promised Land is 80% bu||sh|t. | <urn:uuid:06cc5c8c-7c0a-4fee-85e7-a1439cc8e433> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://triblive.com/aande/movies/3206756-74/promised-says-damon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973413 | 1,190 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Stan Lorge, CEO, Computershare South Africa
Computershare South Africa established the Mike Thomson Change a Life Trust to sponsor anti-crime and crime victim support initiatives following the brutal murder of senior manager Mike Thomson at his Johannesburg home on 27 September 2007.
The Mike Thomson Trust is dedicated to a peaceful future for all South Africans. It supports effective, grassroots programmes that aim to address the causes and symptoms of crime. The DNA Project is fortunate to be one of the beneficiaries of this incredible initiative.
Computershare launched Change a Life in South Africa in 2008 to help combat the scourge of crime and to strive for a hopeful future for all South Africans. Change a Life supports five grassroots projects aimed at crime detection and prevention as well as providing training and leadership skills for talented youngsters in difficult social and economic circumstances. Funds raised by Change a Life South Africa are channelled via the Mike Thomson Change a Life Trust, which was set up to help combat crime following the tragic murder of senior Computershare manager Mike Thomson in September 2007.
Change a Life’s primary fundraiser is the annual Change a Life Cycle. To date, the cycle tour has raised R12 million for recipient projects.
In the recent 2011 Change a Life Cycle, a team of 70 executive cyclists travelled more than 500 kms across the Namib Desert’s vast and surreal landscapes towards the foggy ocean shores of Swakopmund. The tour fulfilled its promise of “Wild West” adventure with hot dusty roads, shifting sand dunes, ancient flora and fauna, wonderful desert camps and star studded desert skies – and it became self-sustaining for the first time, with 100% of the fees and the matched funds channeled directly into recipient projects.
The 2010 Change a Life Cycle involved 70 participants cycling 520 km from Malawi’s capital Lilongwe along the Lake Malawi shoreline and then southwards to Zomba Pleateau. A highlight was the third day’s Amazing Race, which included a 40km cycle, a circuit on the lake on dugout canoes and an 8 km race on specially manufactured bicycle ambulances, which were donated to local rural communities. Nearly R3.5 million was raised for Change a Life’s five anti-crime projects.
The 2009 Change a Life Cycle, in partnership with Rovos Rail, raised an additional R3.5 million for the Change a Life Trust as 60 company executives embarked on a five-day “Mystery Tour”, which took them via Rovos Rail to the Orange Free State, parts of the Northern Cape and through some of Lesotho’s most gruelling mountain passes.
The inaugural cycle event took place in September 2008 along the Zambezi River and attracted 81 senior company executives, who each contributed R20 000 to Change a Life. Computershare matched all cyclists’ fees rand for rand, raising R2.3 million in total after costs. | <urn:uuid:538382bd-9dff-4a44-aff4-c762840e2878> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dnaproject.co.za/change-a-life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934699 | 612 | 1.507813 | 2 |
CAIRO — The Egyptian pound is weakening at an alarming rate. Hard currency reserves are dwindling. Unemployment is up; investment is down. Imports are being restricted, and banks are no longer giving out loans. The list of worrisome indicators goes on, but there is no word that better encapsulates the severity of Egypt’s economic situation than “solar.”
The problem is much more serious than just wasted time or the occasional flare-up during the long waits.
This is what Egyptians call diesel fuel, the lowest grade of fuel available on the market. Solar, like all energy in Egypt, is government-subsidized, and it accounts for the bulk of the fuel consumed. It powers cars and the small pickup trucks that are the backbone of the local economy, transporting day laborers, produce, construction material and so much else.
Solar is used by farmers to run tractors, pumps and, where electricity is scarce, generators. It is used by bakers to fire ovens — affecting another crucial subsidized good, bread, which accounts for one third of poor Egyptians’ caloric intake.
But subsidizing solar costs the government a staggering 10 percent of Egypt’s entire annual budget, and the fund allocated to that ran out last month.
CARACAS — Hugo Chávez’s resounding election victory in the Venezuelan presidential election on Sunday set me at war with myself.
Petrostates aren’t like normal countries. They depend on the black goo they pump out of the ground, and in turn the people and the companies depend on them.
My thinking self isn’t at all surprised by what happened: it’s easy to account for the charismatic president of a petrostate being re-elected in the middle of an oil boom. But my feeling self is crushed. My country has now squandered its last best hope to stop its descent into all-out personalism. More than a president, Venezuela has something like an elected monarch, who rules with absolute authority and no checks and balances.
The argument about how difficult it is to dislodge a populist leader when oil prices are in the triple digits is straightforward. Petrostates aren’t like normal countries, where governments depend on the people and the companies they tax to ensure a reasonable funding stream. Instead, they depend on the black goo they pump out of the ground, and in turn the people and the companies depend on them. The basic balance of power between the state and the individual is upended.
Venezuelans are reeling this week from the deadliest accident in our nation’s industrial history. On Saturday a gas leak at the state-owned Amuay plant, the country’s largest refinery, set off a massive explosion, leaving at least 48 dead and hundreds injured, and leveling dozens of homes nearby.
It’s the sort of tragedy that normally brings a country together in somber grief. But in hyper-polarized Venezuela, and just six weeks before a bitterly contested presidential election, there was never any chance of that. | <urn:uuid:340aa3bc-63df-4120-91db-9e2c2e9b6e80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/oil-petroleum-and-gasoline/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939496 | 632 | 1.828125 | 2 |
People's Democracy(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
July 29, 2007
Justice Must Not Be Discriminatory
AS we go to press, three more people have been delivered the death sentence by the special TADA court hearing the 1993 Mumbai serial blast case. The total number of those sentenced so far has, thus, gone up to 91 out of the 100 convicted. Of these, eleven have been handed capital punishment while 17 others have been sentenced to life imprisonment. The Mumbai serial blasts, readers will recall, killed over 250 people and injured over 700.
While it is welcome that finally some justice is being delivered in this case of mindless killing of innocent people, it must be remembered that it has taken more than fourteen years for these sentences to be pronounced. Fourteen years is the normal period of time that constitutes life imprisonment. Even now, the convicted can appeal to the Supreme Court against these sentences. Given the track record of the system of delivery of justice in India, one need not be surprised if this process continues to drag on for a long time.
Such apprehensions are substantiated by the fact that it has taken nearly two decades for known and identified culprits to be sentenced in the ghastly communal riots in Bhagalpur. The perpetrators of the Maliana (Meerut) communal massacre of 1987 have so far only been legally charge-sheeted! Again, after two decades, the Nanavati Commission had submitted a report on the post-Indira Gandhi assassination killings of Sikhs in 1984, without nailing the culpability of any. The perpetrators of the post-Godhra Gujarat genocide continue to roam free while mountains of circumstantial evidence has not led to the necessary convictions.
Then, there is this glaring case of the findings of the Justice Srikrishna Commission on the post-Babri Masjid demolition, 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai. In fact, the 1993 blasts were widely propagated as being the response of minority terrorism to the majority terrorism unleashed in the communal riots. Far from taking any action against anybody indicted in the Srikrishna Report, the Shiv Sena-BJP government initially tried to reject this report officially when in government nine years ago. Later they settled for rejecting the report in practice. The subsequent Congress-NCP governments have also failed in ensuring delivery of justice. Yet again, the justice delivery system in our country has failed to convict and punish the perpetrators of communal violence and crimes.
These are not the only instances in independent India when justice has simply failed to be delivered to the victims of communal riots. There have been at least five important judicial commissions of enquiry that have submitted their voluminous reports, and yet justice has simply been elusive. These are the Justice P Jaganmohan Reddy Commission of Inquiry into the Ahmedabad Riots of 1969; the Justice D P Madan Commission on the Bhiwandi riots of 1970; the Justice Vithayathil Commission on the Tellicherry riots of 1971; the Justice Jitendra Narain Commission on the Jamshedpur riots of 1979; and the Justice P Venugopal Commission on the Kanyakumari riots of 1982.
The Kanyakumari riots were the result of a conflict between Hindus and Christians while the rest have been Hindu-Muslim riots. The RSS was indicted in all of these.
Clearly, the conflicts between different religious communities that inhabit India have all universally denied justice to the victims. For how long can the modern secular Indian republic afford to not improve its justice delivery system in such instances?
The question of punishing the perpetrators of communal strife is necessary not only from the viewpoint of humanism and compassion. It is absolutely imperative that justice be delivered in order to strengthen the secular democratic foundations of the modern Indian republic.
There is a universal adage that justice delayed is justice denied. Not only must justice be delivered promptly, but it can never afford to be seen as being partial. While justice in the Mumbai blasts is, to repeat, welcome, the refusal or the reluctance to deliver justice in the various instances mentioned above, only gives the impression that the justice delivery system is not only a system of inbuilt delays but also a system with inbuilt discrimination.
At the expense of repeating what we had stated in these columns two weeks ago in relation to some Indians being detained in connection with the Glasgow terrorist attacks, it needs to be underlined that terrorism cannot be associated with any one religion. Terrorism is a crime against humanity that needs to be erased. But this cannot be done by targeting any one specific community as this can only be counterproductive by creating the atmosphere that breeds terrorism’s recruits. We had also noted that even mainstream Hindi cinema (such as Fiza, meaning environment) has chronicled such instances.
In India’s case, the victims of terrorist attacks have been of such a diverse range that the terrorists cannot be straight-jacketed into any single religious group. We have experienced the agonies of attacks on Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, tribals, Hindus, lost two erstwhile prime ministers through terrorist assassinations, Mahatma Gandhi himself a victim of terrorist bullets, in the sixty years since our independence.
What is required is to deal effectively with the environment that continues to breed and perpetuate terrorism as the prime minister himself recently stated. A system of delivery of justice that is seen to be discriminatory only vitiates such an environment further. While the other elements crucial to improving such an atmosphere have been detailed by us earlier and the need to be urgently addressed, this aspect of improving the system of delivery of justice needs immediate attention.
In the final analysis, the strength of the Republic is measured in its capacity to treat all its citizens equally without any discrimination. The Indian Constitution promises to do so in its very preamble. The incapacity to deliver this promise can only undermine the foundations of the Republic. India cannot simply afford this. The secular democratic foundations of the Indian Republic must be strengthened by strengthening the equality of all before law. | <urn:uuid:d0615ac6-0a42-4182-bd35-5801a34d108e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pd.cpim.org/2007/0729/07292007_edit.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953397 | 1,235 | 1.617188 | 2 |
A human rights group has said it believed that at least 88 people, 10 of them children, have died in detention in Syria during five months of anti-government protests - a dramatic increase that coincides with the government's bloody crackdown.
Some of the victims were as young as 13, Amnesty International said, adding that in recent years the annual number of deaths behind Syrian jails had been about five.
"These deaths behind bars are reaching massive proportions, and appear to be an extension of the same brutal disdain for life that we are seeing daily on the streets of Syria," said Neil Sammonds, Amnesty International's researcher on Syria.
Mr Sammonds also said the group had heard accounts of horrific torture.
The victims, all men or boys, were arrested after mass protests began in March. All the victims are believed to have been detained because they were suspected of being involved in the protests, Amnesty said in a report. In at least 52 of the cases there was evidence that torture or ill-treatment caused or contributed to the deaths, the report said.
Deaths in detention have also been reported in five other areas: Damascus and Rif Damashq, Idlib, Hama and Aleppo, Amnesty said.
Amnesty International has called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, to impose an arms embargo on Syria and to freeze the assets of president Bashar Assad and his senior officials.
Meanwhile Syrian security forces searching for anti-government protesters have raided houses in central Syria.
Activists said troops backed by tanks and military vehicles entered districts in Homs and Hama as part of efforts to crush street protests against President Bashar Assad.
The raids come a day after security forces killed seven people as thousands of protesters poured out of mosques and marched through cemeteries at the start of Eid al-Fitr, a holiday when Muslims traditionally visit graves and pray for the dead. | <urn:uuid:6bfbf58b-b75d-4934-948e-4cdcca20bde0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/amnesty-torture-in-syrian-jails-28652677.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979397 | 387 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Mississippi's unemployment rate ticked up in June, amid signs of a stalling economy.
The state's jobless rate rose to 8.8 percent, from 8.7 percent in May as the number of people with jobs fell, according to figures released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It's the first time that the unemployment rate has risen in Mississippi since hitting its post-recession peak of 10.9 percent in July 2011.
A year ago in June, the state's jobless rate was 10.8
The number of unemployed Mississippians rose to 118,200 from 116,500 in May, well below 145,500 from a year ago.
A separate survey of employer payrolls shows the number of non-farm employees in the state fell during the month and was also below its June 2011 level.
Alabama's unemployment rate rose to 7.8 percent in June, an increase that state officials are calling
It was up four-tenths of a percent from May's unemployment rate of 7.4 percent, but it's still well
below the jobless rate from a year ago.
Alabama Industrial Relations Director Tom Surtees says the unemployment rate is up because more people were out looking for jobs as the summer break began in June. He calls the increase an inevitable seasonal fluctuation.
The jobless rate represents 168,775 people who are seeking work in the state. | <urn:uuid:4ab7269c-6d4e-4a5c-8651-f06a44b1a263> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtok.com/news/mississippi/headlines/Miss-jobless-rate-rises-in-June-as-economy-drags-163223606.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967326 | 291 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Another common obstacle to prayer is an enslavement to “feeling.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
They assume that prayers are only efficacious when they rise from an eager and emotional heart. We should keep our appointment with God, whether we feel like it or not. The meek submission of our will deepens our surrender; our resolution to engage in prayer strengthens thought control.
Faith, not feeling, measures the efficacy of prayer.
There are many obstacles to having a strong prayer life and none more employed and observed than the lack of time or busy-ness. It’s a shallow obstacle because we clearly find time for less important things–entertainment and friends. We rarely use that excuse meaningfully to excuse our lack of time spent with those closest to us. Christ stole time from his sleep to pray. Just begin with 15 minutes/day and try to grow that over time.
Prayer is like a ladder, an ascent to God, step by step. This imagery can show us where prayer begins and to what heights it is capable of rising.
Step 1: Emergency prayer. Prayer commonly begins with the cry of escape. The lowest step on the ladder of the soul is the cry wrung from disaster or adversity.
Step 2: Confession. The next step of the ladder is the stage when prayer for outward help becomes a cry for deliverance from sin. Initially there is no thought of anything but the calamity which has befallen us. But slowly, as a person prays for help, there steals on him the strange conviction that he needs something deeper than assistance and that he is a sinner. So we cry out for a clean heart and right spirit.
Step 3: Request for personal virtue and grace. Deliverance is not everything if our walk is to be well-pleasing before God. We must become something, something in the image of Christ Himself, full of patience and courage and control. This can only happen through grace.
Step 4: Real submission to God’s will. We have to learn to get to the place where we can honestly trust God with the phrase, “Thy will be done.” This is the point at which we can have joy in prayer. Most people pray out of duty and not joy. Joy can’t be found in prayer if we come to God demanding our own way. Joy is born when we come to God wanting nothing but God and His ways.
Recently a church in South Carolina abolished “membership” in their congregation. Everyone started with a clean slate. No one was a “member” anymore.
They replaced it with “ownership.” Congregants could sign up to take ownership of the local congregation. This includes signing a covenant to attend worship regularly, be a part of a small group, serve in the church or in the community, and give regularly.
Why? Membership in our culture implies “getting something” from the body. While ownership suggests “taking responsibility” for the health and well-being of the body.
I like that concept. What do you think? Am I missing something or is this something more local churches should be doing?
Ephesians 5:18b says that we need to be filled with the Spirit. How do we know if we are?
1-2. Speaking and Singing (Ephesians 5:19) within the context of worship. But Paul isn’t just talking about vertical “God praise.” It should be to one another. There is a horizontal dimension to worship. In praising God we consciously should be directing our worship so it edifies others. Of course our hearts should be directed to the Lord (5:19b) and not in any attitude of “performance.”
3. Giving thanks (5:20). Thanksgiving is a natural outflow of the Spirit-filled life.
4. Submitting (5:21). Despite the “break” in most translations, grammatically this fits with the previous section. In submitting ourselves for the good of others, our crucified and risen Savior shines powerfully through us and we are filled with His Spirit.
Eating together builds relationships. It’s no accident that the oldest surviving recipe in the world is for a social beverage: beer. The greatest single indicator of healthy relationships in a family? Shared meals. The family that eats together (five nights a week) stays together.
First, the children of God are known by their actions:
- They love each other (1 John 4:7).
- They believe in Jesus (1 John 5:1).
- They love God and keep his commands (1 John 5:2).
As a result, children of God receive certain blessings:
- We have victory over the world (1 John 5:4).
- We have an intimacy with the Father by which we can call him “Abba” (Romans 8:15).
- We become fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).
- We await future blessings when Jesus returns (Romans 8:19-21).
So…are you a child of God? How have you been blessed as a result?
My son Micah made an astute observation after watching news of Black Friday near riots and crime. He said, “That’s ironic and sad. On Thursday we thank God for all that we have. We’re content. And then the next day we act like we NEED something so bad we’d trample other people.”
I think Black Friday should be renamed, “Ungrateful Friday.”
If you missed it…here’s one Walmart… | <urn:uuid:f36de1b0-1b54-497e-8785-4d4fa38a2a4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smalltownpastor.wordpress.com/category/spiritual-self-examination/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949375 | 1,204 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Students support diversity with Day of Silence Schools & Kids, posted by John Adams, a member of the Amador Valley High School community, on Apr 3, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Margaret and Ro, my family fully supports you and your partners as valued members of the community!!
My daughter came home today with her GSA T-shirt for the Day of Silence. We are so lucky to live in the bay area where she can have friends from all walks of life. All her friends are welcome in our home.
I am curious to know how this could possibly be related to the parcel tax though, and I am aware that by just asking this question this thread will probably be immediately CENSORED!
Posted by mac, a resident of the Del Prado neighborhood, on Apr 3, 2009 at 9:04 pm
My three kids all supported this movement on campus over the past 8years. It is nice to see them take a stand for those who have felt silenced.
I cannot find where it is in anyway tied to the parcel tax, John. Maybe I am not researching it enough. It would be a completely silly assumption and connection. Either way, it is doubtful that censorship will ensue. Most cases have been necessary due to comments that were completely off subject or completely out of line...and I'm thankful that someone is willing to draw the line from time to time.
Posted by Katie, a member of the Amador Valley High School community, on Apr 5, 2009 at 5:11 pm
As a Christian student in high school I somewhat disagree with this "day of silence". I understand being gay/lesbian/bi etc.. etc.. can open you up to harsh words and criticism. I do not make fun of people that choose that type of life style. Even though I don't agree with it, I respect them for their choice. My only question is this; as a Christian in high school facing an atheist world, I get made fun of AT LEAST once a week for my beliefs. I wear a purity ring, and wear a cross necklace symbolizing my faith in God. Why don't they have a day for us Christians? Or any other religion for that matter? It seems hypocritical because they want to be excepted, but then they have their own day for themselves and their beliefs?? On that day, I will be proud of my belief, and wearing as much Jesus clothing as I possibly can. | <urn:uuid:237320a0-36a3-46c1-b10c-ce9c6a81f802> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pleasantonweekly.com/square/index.php?i=3&d=&t=1613 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979955 | 498 | 1.554688 | 2 |
To hear the film makers and marketers talk, it is the ultimate example of technology in the service of pure art: George Lucas's Star Wars trilogy, which began a special effects revolution 20 years ago, has been refurbished using even more advanced computer wizardry and will be rereleased in thousands of theaters on Friday. Mr. Lucas has described the project as a loving gesture to a new generation of fans who had never before witnessed Luke Skywalker's quest on the big screen.
Commerce? Don't be silly. There has, perhaps, been a bit of marketing surrounding this unusual event -- heavy advertising during the Super Bowl, for example, and licensing deals involving everything from tacos to Christmas ornaments -- but don't think for a moment that hype has been on the minds of Mr. Lucas's company, Lucasfilm, or 20th Century Fox, the studio unit of the News Corporation, which is distributing the blockbusters.
''This isn't about marketing,'' insisted Jeffrey Godsick, the spokesman for Fox. ''It's something for the fans, and we don't want to lose sight of that.''
But for all the professions of innocence on the part of the spin meisters, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, as the new films are known, is being described by experts as one of the most impressive and tautly engineered pieces of marketing prowess ever conceived, as well as an example of what the movie industry has become: art in the service of a huge commercial superstructure that needs constant feeding.
Indeed, Mr. Lucas's staff has produced a poster-sized, color-coded chart circulated among the hundreds of Star Wars licensees that details, month by month, every merchandising and marketing event related to Star Wars from early last year until the millennium. Marketing experts describe the plan, in its depth and breadth, as the most ambitious attempt to date to exploit a film franchise.
''I've never seen anything like it,'' said Michael Schau, executive editor of the Entertainment Marketing Letter. ''It's so well delineated. This is more than well thought out. It goes till the next century.''
That perception rubs the film makers the wrong way, since their whole sales pitch depends in large measure on the appearance that the marketing just sort of happens and that the real work is in creating art. ''This really doesn't have anything to do with the film coming out. All of this is independent of the film release,'' Lynn Hale, the Lucasfilm spokeswoman, said of the tsunami of merchandising.
But, as analysts point out, this is no amateur production. Since the first Star Wars movie opened in 1977, Mr. Lucas's parable about good and evil, clunky robots and rebels hatching plots in places like the fourth moon of Yavin has become the most lucrative movie franchise of all, generating an estimated $4 billion in revenues, from box-office receipts to T-shirt sales. The new marketing plan could well double that as Mr. Lucas prepares audiences for his next trilogy in the Star Wars series, to hit theaters beginning in 1999.
The meticulously scripted product rollouts fall into 35 categories, from a new Star Wars Monopoly set to books, action-figure toys, home furnishings and potato chips. Pepsico Inc., which won the license to use Star Wars to sell its soft drinks as well as its salty snacks and fast foods, plans to spend the equivalent of about $2 billion between now and 1999 in promoting Star Wars.
In building up to this year's re-release of the movies, sales of Star Wars toys by Hasbro Inc, and Lewis Galoob Toys Inc. have already shot up from $21 million in 1994 to $70 million in 1995 and more than $200 million last year, according to NPD Research, which tracks the industry. | <urn:uuid:0d40bb32-8a7d-48e8-9867-882f198a85c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/30/business/the-return-of-the-merchandiser.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961151 | 776 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Lean manufacturing is full of surprises. The shops I visited recently could attest to this—not just the shops in our August issue, but also the ones newly captured in video. For all of them, lean manufacturing delivered benefits and change beyond what they expected. This positive surprise is one further aspect of lean that deserves to be highlighted.
In a way, lean shouldn’t be so surprising. Lean entails a disciplined and even relentless focus on eliminating sources of waste. Lean is serious.
Yet, it’s also transformative—and those who experience a shop before and after lean get to see seemingly unchangeable aspects of the process, including some people, perform in strikingly different ways.
Start with the “clean.” Clutter is where waste hides, so a lean shop is a clean shop practically by definition. As various messes and stockpiles disappear, it can be amazing to discover just how clean it was always possible for the shop to be.
Similarly, other surprising changes are so basic that they can only be fully appreciated after they have occurred. Those changes might include any of the following:
1. Work now proceeds without meetings. “Meetings” and “manufacturing” seem to go together, given how often many shops huddle to get basic questions answered. By contrast, a lean process aims to get the right information to the right people as a matter of routine. Once this starts to happen, meetings of all sorts become dramatically less necessary and frequent.
2. Inspection isn’t a stick. The title of an article this month is, “If You Want to Improve Something, Measure It.” That becomes the motto for measurement in lean. Because the lean process is stripped of variables leading to error, measurement is no longer a pass/fail yardstick. Instead, measurement is valued for the upward pressure on quality that results whenever any indicator of performance is measured and tracked.
3. Failure is no cause for fear. When change is occasional, failure is remembered for a long time. However, when improvement is continuous, failure is just a means to progress. The lessons are soon incorporated into subsequent success.
4. Resisters become advocates. Some employees resist lean, but not necessarily because of lean itself. They resist because they have grown accustomed, rightly or wrongly, to being swept along in changes they have no power to affect. However, when these same employees are tasked with participating in 5S teams, they often find an outlet for insight and creativity that the employee or the shop never brought into play previously.
5. Productivity is actually easy. Another reason for resisting lean is the fear that employees will have more to do. It’s a valid fear; the output of a lean process is likely to increase. However, the input decreases at the same time. As a result, employees at work in a lean environment often discover just how much more satisfying and rewarding their effort can be once they are part of a process that fully values their time.
blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:83f949f3-a778-478e-8a77-a1d868c22198> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mmsonline.com/columns/lean-from-the-inside | 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 | 0.966777 | 622 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Stimpson’s authorial debut is a remaking of the timeless fairy tale that includes both a wonderfully fleshed-out city circa the 1930s and an ending that is happy for everyone.
Jack’s Fast Food is a hopping café run by Jack and his mother out of an old, broken-down burger truck. But when the new overpass closes the street out front, Jack and his mom fall on hard times. Per tradition, Jack spends their last coins on a can of magic baked beans, which his furious mother hurls outside. In the morning, Jack climbs the cans-of-beans–festooned beanstalk to find a friendly but lonely giant busily counting his money, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fummy, / I’m always counting money. / Be it silver or be it gold, / It’ll make me happy— / Or so I’m told.” Jack, the giant, the magic radio and the giant chicken all bond over lunch, but a beanstalk mishap extends their visit indefinitely while opening a whole new chapter for the Baked Beanstalk Café. As in The Polar Express, Stimpson’s artwork masterfully evokes both the mood and setting of the story. Retro styling, colors and type all work together to convey an old-time, urban feel to the digital illustrations, which portray a world where suits and dresses are the dress code (both incomplete without a hat), and the streets are filled with classic cars.
Stimpson’s money-can’t-buy-happiness moral goes down easily with the help of his wonderfully atmospheric artwork. (Picture book. 3-9) | <urn:uuid:accb99a3-92d4-485a-9534-c82e4ec90924> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/colin-stimpson/jack-and-baked-beanstalk/ | 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 | 0.931549 | 357 | 1.835938 | 2 |
I've seen this variety of work and I highly recommend spending some time with each piece.
I've written the City and found there to be additional information for the residents of Manitou to know. It is always good for residents to get involved and I encourage the towns people to do so. It is always important receive additional facts, and perhaps provide helpful information.
There will be a review and debate by the City Council on April 6, 2010 at 7:00p.m. at Manitou Springs City Hall. Looks like the decision will be made then.
My family lives in Manitou. We own our home. We have a child in the school system.
We stopped getting trash service 3 years ago as a way to save money and be a little kinder to our environment. It also helps in keeping the bears from 'hitting' our trash every night. (We are shocked at the lack of concern in Manitou for the wildlife.)
We purchased bins, kept them inside the house, and began recycling plastic, aluminum, metal cans, bottles, paper and cardboard. We drop off our items on the way to purchase groceries once a week.
We compost our fruits and veggie waste. This is recycled into our garden when it turns into usable compost.
Our actual trash we take to a friends house, also once a week. Both of the families are small & both recycle. Together, we barely fill a trash can.
We have a system that works and have absolutely no interest in a streamline trash service, especially with the single purposed company at hand. (Which by the way, hit and took down a needed street light on our block, and over a year later, it still has not been replaced.)
In the past 4 years, all of our utilities have skyrocketed, our taxes are some of the highest in the state, and we struggle to save enough money for energy efficient upgrades to make our early 1900's home warm enough for winter living. WHY are we looking at adding yet another bill to our already struggling resident's list?
One solution to this 'Carbon Footprint' struggle, may find its way into the partnering of the Manitou Historic Preservation and the Manitou 'Green Team', both of which can work together to present viable solutions to homeowners when it comes to updating hundreds of existing structures in Manitou for energy efficiency. One may think this could be a more productive project for our children's children.
Dictating what company will provide the trash service also destroys FREE ENTERPRISE. The definition follows: Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy.
Manitou has approximately 5000 residents. One may think that if almost 1700 of the residents have NO trash service, there may be other reasons besides the fact we have narrow roads.
Our family wants to continue to have this CHOICE. We're just doing the best we can.
All content © Copyright 2013, The Colorado Springs Independent
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India financed problems for Pak in Afghanistan: Chuck Hagel
- Trouble mounts for Sreesanth as Mumbai cops gather more evidence
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In a sharp contrast to US view on India's role in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama's Defence Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel has alleged that India has over the years 'financed problems' for Pakistan in the war-torn country.
A video containing these remarks from an unreleased speech of Hagel at Oklahoma's Cameron University in 2011 was uploaded by Washington Free Beacon, sparking a strong reaction from India which said such comments are 'contrary to the reality' of its unbounded dedication to the welfare of Afghans.
Hagel, during the speech said, 'India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front, and India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border'.
"And you can carry that into many dimensions, the point being [that] the tense, fragmented relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been there for many, many years," Hagel said.
Reacting to this, the Indian Embassy here said, 'Such comments attributed to Senator Hagel, who has been a long-standing friend of India and a prominent votary of close India-US relations are contrary to the reality of India's unbounded dedication to the welfare of Afghan people'.
It added that India's commitment to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan is unwavering, 'and this is reflected in our significant assistance to Afghanistan in developing its economy, infrastructure and institutional capacities'.
'Our opposition to terrorism and its safe havens in our neighbourhood is firm and unshakable'.
"India's development assistance has been deeply appreciated by the people and the Government of Afghanistan, and by our friends around the world including the US. We do not view our engagement with Afghanistan as a zero sum game," the Embassy said.
Hagel's remarks are in sharp contrast to viewpoint of Obama Administration that has always been in praise of India's developmental role in Afghanistan and in fact has been pressing New Delhi to do more in Afghanistan.
- Destitute, orphan students outclass rest in Andhra Class 10 exams
- To re-energise ties, PM wants to visit US, waits for confirmation
- NIA court says no terror link, frees 'Hizbul militant' Liyaqat on bail
- CBI arrests its coal allotments investigator on bribery charge
- ‘Cricketer-bookie Amit may have used Jiju to reach Sree’
- BCCI chief N Srinivasan says police must prove spot-fixing allegations | <urn:uuid:34d73796-f193-46ad-a2ee-d7a8d0a2e61b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indianexpress.com/news/world-power-bullied-by-street-corner-headache/1080062/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954169 | 592 | 1.507813 | 2 |
An abundance of older white voters gave Hillary Clinton some help in the Louisiana Democratic primary Saturday, although not nearly enough to seriously challenge Barack Obama's vast advantage among African-Americans in the state.
On the Republican side, a record turnout of self-described "very" conservative voters — their greatest share in any 2008 primary to date — boosted Mike Huckabee, as did young voters and the majority presence of evangelicals, his core support group.
But older voters kept John McCain competitive, as did the nearly three in 10 who were focused on experience and electability. Huckabee won young voters by 22 points, but McCain won seniors by 14 points — and they were more than twice as prevalent.
There were no exit polls in Saturday's caucuses, in Washington, Nebraska, Kansas and the Virgin Islands.
In Louisiana, the Democratic results extended the sharp racial split that divides the party.
Clinton won whites — men and women alike — by a 28-point margin, 58-30 percent. Obama answered with more than 6-1 support among blacks, 86-13 percent; at 48 percent of Democratic voters, they proved an unassailable voting bloc.
Louisiana's share of black voters has been surpassed only in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, all states Obama also won.
Here as elsewhere, the presence of blacks in the Democratic primary stands in sharp contrast to their absence in Republican contests — just 4 percent in Louisiana, and just 2 percent in all GOP races to date this year, versus 19 percent in all Democratic contests combined.
Young voters, a generally pro-Obama group, were in short supply, with under-30s accounting for just 10 percent of the turnout, toward the low end in Democratic primaries this year.
Twice as many were 65 and older, and white seniors — a Clinton group by 69-24 percent — outnumbered black seniors by more than 2-1. (While elsewhere Clinton has been particularly strong among older white women, in Louisiana she did well among older white men and women alike.)
There were relatively few late deciders — only about one in 10 decided on election day, while 51 percent said they made up their minds more than a month ago, more than in almost any previous primary.
Obama won all the time-of-decision groups, but those who decided between last week and the last month went for him most heavily by far.
The Louisiana Democratic electorate was notably less liberal than elsewhere – about a third identified themselves as liberals, compared with 49 percent in all primaries to date.
Obama generally has done better with liberals, but in Louisiana he did as well among moderate and conservative Democrats.
The top issue in Louisiana, as elsewhere, was the economy.
Nearly half of Democrats called it the single most important issue in their vote; about three in 10 said it was the war in Iraq; about two in 10, health care.
And, again as elsewhere, by far the most desired candidate attribute was the one who can best "bring about needed change"; it beat both empathy and experience by 40-point margins, and Obama won those "change" voters by 74-21 percent.
Obama's advantage among blacks crossed other demographic lines; among whites, though, there was one notable difference: He did much better among white independents (45 percent support, though they were few in number) than among white Democrats, 25 percent. | <urn:uuid:35ec4079-a0af-4a41-8dc0-275e97f7e6fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Vote2008/story?id=4267655&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981394 | 685 | 1.53125 | 2 |
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams talks about her ongoing India tour, growing up with an Indian father, and about her friendship with Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian woman to travel to space.
These are all six chapters of a Wall Street Journal investigative series that ran in a serialized form on India Real Time last week. This Wall Street Journal reconstruction was compiled through dozens of interviews and court documents.
India celebrates Ram Navami, the birth of the Hindu Lord Ram on Friday. Anand Neelakantan, author and expert on Hindu mythology, explains the origins and significance of the festival.
India's old caste system collides with its new egalitarian democracy, in the novel "Bharathipura" as in history.
Does criminalizing marital rape have "the potential of destroying" the institution of marriage? India's Parliament seems to believe so.
One of the long-term priorities of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar is to make the House more eco-friendly.
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A romping novel in which a woman searches Mumbai for her missing husband after the city is thrown into chaos by a dirty-bomb attack. Sam Sacks reviews Manil Suri's "The City of Devi."
India celebrates Holi, the all-colorful festival involving powder-paint, water bombs and bhang. Here's a look at the history of the festival and how people celebrate.
After years as a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, its director wants visitors to feel equally at home.
In chapter one: A Hindu idol is slipped into a mosque in the dead of night.
Pressure is mounting on India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party to announce its prime ministerial candidate for the country's next federal elections due before May 2014.
This year's Jaipur Literature Festival features marquee names -- the Dalai Lama and Anish Kapoor, for starters -- but it's also bringing in academic heavyweights from Harvard.
A six-part Wall Street Journal investigation delves into the long-running dispute in the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya that has shaped modern India. In this final chapter, a visit to Ayodhya today and some thoughts on the potency of the dispute to reignite the nation.
Harvard University has decided to drop summer courses taught by Janata Party politician Subramanian Swamy because of an anti-Muslim piece he wrote.
Nayantara Kilachand looks at why there is a dearth of critics in Mumbai, and elsewhere in India, especially in fields that have witnessed terrific growth, such as food, music and art.
A six-part Wall Street Journal investigation delves into the long-running dispute in the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya that has shaped modern India. In chapter five, the litigants have their day in court and the site of the Babri Masjid is excavated.
In Chapter three, a Hindu awakening follows a perceived threat from Islam and Rajiv Gandhi grapples with how to appeal to both Hindus and Muslims caught up in the dispute.
A six-part Wall Street Journal investigation delves into the long-running dispute in the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya that has shaped modern India. In chapter four, efforts to reach a settlement fail and Hindu activists take matters into their own hands, 20 years ago today.
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments. | <urn:uuid:0db86d90-1e69-4c12-a492-951e4fe3369c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topics.wsj.com/subject/h/Hinduism/2887 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942777 | 746 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Why am I talking so much about pollination
Some have commented to me that I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my blog on the topic of pollination, and have asked why.
There are several answers. One is that good pollination information is hard to find, though there are many sources of inadequate, or just plain wrong information online. And a lot of garden and farming literature simply ignores pollination completely.
I was just looking around on the Internet at various Extension publications about watermelon culture, both for those who sell them and those who just raise them for home use. It’s surprising to me how many of them say nothing about pollination. To me, this is a disservice when a serious Extension publication purports to teach growers, yet assumes pollination will just take care of itself.
I have seen entire fields of watermelons, squash and other crops that were unharvestable or had to be severely culled, because of pollination failure. Pollination is a vital input in agriculture today, but it’s the least understood of all inputs.
So, as you can see, I am working on an article on watermelon pollination. If you don’t understand watermelon pollination, you don’t understant the plant!
A second reason that I concentrate on pollination is that this was my livelihood and specialty for my career. Although I am now retired from active duty in the contract pollination field, I figure it’s my responsibility to make sure I share the things I have learned in years of experience, observation, and study.
A third reason, is that I have available the many years of photos that I’ve taken, so I can usually well illustrate the points I make – and this makes it more interesting and clear for my readers.
You could say, this is the payment of dues for my spot on this earth. And I hope it does help!
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Minister makes speech on Middle East Peace Process
On Friday the 16th April the Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr. Micheál Martin T.D. made a speech to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on the Middle East Peace Process. This follows his trip to Gaza in February which was discussed here and which was characterised as a humanitarian trip to highlight the crisis created by the blockade of Gaza which he also referred to.
In his speech to the ICTU the Minister acknowledged the work undertaken by the Trade Union movement and other civil society groups in Ireland in highlighting the situation within the Middle East. He also drew attention to the importance of having an informed debate on this topic.
Interestingly the Minister also stressed the importance of a resolution based upon a two-state solution and ‘the central importance of achieving progress towards a comprehensive settlement, based on a two-State solution.’ In doing so he lay emphasis upon the apparent acceptance of such a solution by Prime Minister Netanyahu in June 2009 where he stated that:
In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbors security and existence.
The Minister further emphasised the Irish Government’s support for the US efforts led by Senator George Mitchell, who was heavily involved in the Northern Ireland peace process as well, in reaching a settlement. The strongest language in the speech was left to the issue current blockade of Gaza, where the Minister stated that,
Most of all, we need to end the completely unjust, unacceptable and counter-productive blockade of Gaza.
The Minister had previously condemned the building of 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem, joining other EU countries in doing so. In that statement the Minister called into question Israel’s commitment in achieving any progress within the talks.
The Minister also referenced the relationship between the EU and the countries of the Middle East, particularly Israel, and asserted that it was the Government’s position that such relations should be based upon the EU-Israel Association Agreement. This aim of this Agreement is to strengthen EU-Israeli ties and to eventually integrate Israel into EU policies. The EU’s language with regard to the Middle East conflict tends to be quite tame, a recent Declaration by HR Catherine Ashton stated that, ‘[t]he EU calls upon all parties to avoid any provocation and move towards lasting peace.’
Interestingly the Minister did not make any mention of the use of Irish passports in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhhouh which we blogged about here. Indeed the Department of Foreign Affairs appears to have gone silent on the matter. This may be contrasted with the UK which expelled a Israeli diplomat in late March in response to state sponsored identity theft. This perhaps better reflects the Government’s largely guarded tone when discussing issues related to the Middle East. | <urn:uuid:5421ad93-6140-45f6-a6f4-6761f60e1076> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://humanrightsinireland.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/minister-makes-speech-on-middle-east-peace-process/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967803 | 600 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Posted: Wednesday Mar 28, 2012
March 28, 2012
A group of Saint Vincent College students interested in building a stronger sense of community on campus today launched an initiative they call The One.
Working in conjunction with the offices of student affairs and multicultural and international student life, the students are inviting the entire campus to take part in a variety of activities designed to enhance the already strong sense of community. “While Saint Vincent is well known for its community life rooted in its Benedictine values, this initiative will work to rekindle the individual flames of growth, understanding, and respect,” student spokespersons Mercedes Guilford and Maria Salvatori said. “Our goal is to create awareness and to discuss issues such as sexual violence, harassment, racism, prejudice and ignorance. We plan to do this by training student leader groups as well as sports team leaders and any department that works directly with the student body.”
“Since The One strives to bring all of the Saint Vincent community together, it is essential that we include and encourage all parts of the College for support,” they continued. “We will begin marketing for this initiative today with a launch party in the Robert S. Carey Student Center from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. featuring talks, entertainment, displays, food and giveaways.”
The concept for the campaign was developed by Amanda Jaber and Michael Barkowski last year and was continued by Ms. Guilford, Ms. Salvatori, Deven Gross, Jocelyn Matenje, Karla Romero and Carl Jeune this year. Deanna Wicks and Bob Baum of the office of student affairs and Jeff Mallory of the office of multicultural and international student life are serving as advisors.
The Saint Vincent community has been teased with mysterious posters asking, “are you the one?” for weeks but the specific intention was kept a secret until it was unveiled today. Representatives of the Student Government Association, Activities Programming Board, clubs, cheerleaders, pep band, dance team and other organizations which are in touch with students were all involved.
A specially-designed t-shirt and bracelet were also unveiled today.
“Our plan is to keep people entertained while we are giving them information and motivation,” they explained.
Looking ahead, they are planning to hold regular monthly events they have dubbed One Day Monday to keep the discussion and effort moving forward. “Success will not come in one day,” they admitted. “But, in the long run we would like to see our student body get stronger together, stand up for one another and take care of one another. We want students to be more aware of their actions and how they treat one another.”
“This effort is about everyone in our community,” they concluded. “It’s not about leaving anyone out. It’s about every single student and caring for each student, accepting the differences and bringing them together. You can accept differences and still be friends and care about them because that is what we are made to do.”
Ms. Salvatori is a senior business administration major from the South Hills of Pittsburgh. She is also active in Women in Business, Habitat for Humanity, Delta Mu Delta business honor society, Campus Ministry, has participated in the honors program and been named to the dean’s list. A 2008 graduate of Seton LaSalle High School, she is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dominic Salvatori. After she completes her undergraduate studies, she plans to either work in human resources, higher education administration or pursue the study of law. She is a member of Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin R.C. Church in White Hall.
Ms. Guilford is a junior middle school education major with a mathematics concentration. A prefect in the Saint Benedict residence hall, she is involved in Women in Business, Colleges Against Cancer, Activities Programming Board, Multicultural Student Coalition, Alpha Phi Omega and varsity lacrosse. A 2009 graduate of Mount Olive High School in Budd Lake, New Jersey, she is also completing work on a book of poetry, Lyrics of Life, which she hopes to have published this summer, and forming a non-profit organization called Moving Forward that will provide supplemental activities for inner city youths. She is the daughter of Demetris Guilford of Newark and plans to become a school superintendent after she completes her degree at Saint Vincent. She is a member of Living Waters Ministries, a non-denomination church.
“Saint Vincent College really does include everyone and accept everyone,” they concluded. “That is what we like about this school. And that is why The One initiative is so perfect because it embodies everything that the school already is. It is not something we have to start.”
Photo: Maria Salvatori and Mercedes Guilford
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Like us on Facebook: Saint Vincent College Public Relations | <urn:uuid:58527e50-38bd-4cb6-9f84-2068373dd290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stvincent.edu/newsDetail.aspx?id=2147485590 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964971 | 1,037 | 1.554688 | 2 |
In a recent Internet posting, the Writers Guild of America chose Casablanca as the greatest screenplay of all time. The list of 101 titles included only two foreign films—Renoir’s Grand Illusion and Fellini’s 8 1/2—worth including. I don’t know how people find time for such insipid silliness, but they do. This is not to deny that the film, which was directed by Michael Curtiz (1888–1962), frequently appears on lists of favorite films, and I admit that Casablanca has an ingratiating charm, even after several viewings, but the film is no closer to being the best than its signature song, “As Time Goes By,” is to rivaling Mozart. Casablanca is not even the best American film of 1942.
It is hard to argue with Andrew Sarris’s assessment that Casablanca is a happy accident, one that’s difficult to account for in auteurist terms. Over his 50-year-career the Hungarian-born Curtiz worked in numerous European film industries before coming to Hollywood in 1926. About 80 percent of his silent films are lost, but Sodom and Gomorrah (1922) and Moon of Israel (1924) were sufficiently close to the spectacles of D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille to bring Curtiz (then Michael Kertesz) to the attention of Jack Warner. At Warner Brothers, Curtiz became involved in the studio’s nascent sound experiments, and continued his exploration of Biblical themes with Noah’s Ark (1929). In Hollywood, he worked in all genres, but unlike Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh, his films didn’t reveal a scintilla of personality. His work with Errol Flynn, James Cagney, and Joan Crawford was praiseworthy, but Curtiz’s versatility and availability for all assignments mitigated against attempts to elevate him above the level of a very competent hack. In short, there’s no “there” there. What can one say about a guy who could follow up The Egyptian with White Christmas, or jump immediately from Francis of Assisi to a John Wayne western?
Humphrey Bogart had already worked for Curtiz in three previous films, and the director helped save us from many bad memories by insisting on Bogey rather than the announced first choice for the role of Rick: Ronald Reagan. The great Ingrid Bergman somehow won out over Ann Sheridan. Much of Casablanca’s continuing popularity has to be attributed to its glowing ensemble cast. The script, by the Epstein Brothers and Howard Koch, is first-rate, and the film, photographed by Arthur Edeson (All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, The Maltese Falcon) does look good and authentic. Even the work of composer Max Steiner, usually given to excess, is tolerable. No doubt, Michael Curtiz was around for all this and may have given helpful suggestions, but his whole career argues that he didn’t give a fig for the romantic issues facing Rick and Ilse, or the cosmic issues facing the world in 1943. He was, no doubt, already looking ahead to his next assignment.
My recent post on John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon got two responses. This is certainly welcome, since I’m never quite sure anybody out there is paying attention. I do want to reply to the gentleman who cited Huston as the foremost American adapter of literary works, comparable to David Lean in Britain. I would not disagree with this, but it seems to me a relatively minor achievement in the context of the dozens of major cinema artists who have made original contributions to the medium, which is primarily visual. Some of the greatest films have been adapted, after all, from literary works of the pulp variety, films by John Ford, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks, to cite just a few. | <urn:uuid:e9abcaff-0a9c-47da-9c08-11e0f867f4e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/05/31/michael-curtizs-casablanca | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955892 | 835 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Three years ago wildlife photographer David Slater spent three days photographing a group of crested black macaque monkeys in an Indonesian national park. As he was trying to fend off some monkeys, another monkey approached his tripod-mounted Canon 5D and started playing with the remote shutter release.
They were quite mischievous, jumping all over my equipment. One hit the button. The sound got his attention and he kept pressing it. At first it scared the rest of them away but they soon came back – it was amazing to watch. [#]
Afterward, he found hundreds of photos taken by the monkeys on his memory card, including some self-portraits and even a portrait of Slater.
Here’s an interesting question: doesn’t the monkey technically own the rights to the images?
(via The Guardian) | <urn:uuid:287c35d2-7200-4cd0-a09f-a2683bae69f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://petapixel.com/2011/07/05/monkey-hijacks-photographers-camera-and-shoots-self-portraits/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976464 | 170 | 1.585938 | 2 |
not annonymous wrote:
I would love to hear a decent explanation of why a concave bottom should flatten out at the tips.
Concave adds some stiffnes to the board and therefore progressive flex through the board. Not having concave to the end of the board, leaves the tip flexier.
If you make the concave too small, let's say just between the feet, it is going to produce vacuum under the board, therefore you will need a lot of strenght to get it out of the water when jumping. I guess it produces more drag too. | <urn:uuid:994f6105-38a2-4d6e-a751-9cd9e975e60c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=2365467 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949763 | 120 | 1.609375 | 2 |
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