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I used to notice 11:11 all the time, so one day I decided to do an experiment where for one week I would write down the time everytime I looked at the clock and see if 11:11 came up more than any other time. I started early on a Monday morning and wrote down the time. Later I walked into the kitchen, glanced at the clock, and guess what, it was 11:11! At the end of the day I looked at the clock, and omg it was 11:11. I looked at my piece of paper, and realized that I hadn't noted a single time since the 11:11 from that morning. I had been home all day, and I am certain that I must have glanced at a clock multiple times, but since the time wasn't "significant", I didn't even notice it. Experiment failed.
At the same time this experiment proves that 11:11 has the power to transport people from an unconscious state to a conscious one. | <urn:uuid:e40966dc-b807-4e09-bbb9-7afd2ee35939> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wicca.com/forums/index.php?topic=5820.msg161598 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987973 | 202 | 1.609375 | 2 |
General Motors recently announced that it will halt production of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid for up to five weeks due to poor sales and rising inventory numbers. In February GM sold 1,023 Volts, but at the end of the month the automaker still had 6,300 Volts in its inventory. Even worse, GM hopes to sell 45,000 units this year, but only selling 1,626 units in the first two months of this year is not exactly the pace that the Volt needs to set to meet that goal. Low Volt sales have been partially attributed to negative attention the vehicle has garnered over the last few months, as safety concerns rose over battery fires and Republicans turned the vehicle into a political punching bag.
Lacey Plache, Edmunds chief economist stated, “The oversupply of Volts suggests that consumer demand is just not that strong for these vehicles. The price premium on the Volt just doesn’t make economic sense for the average consumer when there are so many fuel-efficient gasoline cars available, typically for thousands of dollars less.” With a starting price at $39,145, before the $7,500 federal tax credit, the Chevy Volt is not cheap enough for many families. Even though gas prices are getting closer and closer to $5 a gallon, many buyers are flocking to cheaper, less complex models like the Chevy Cruze and Honda Civic, which are still very fuel-efficient.
In 2011, General Motors hoped to sell 10,000 Volts, but only managed to sell 7,671 units. Now that GM has excess inventory of the Volt, GM has informed its 1,300 workers at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in Michigan that it will shut down production for five weeks, starting on March 19th.
GM spokesman Chris Lee stated, “We need to maintain the right inventory levels and continue to meet demand.”
Although the Volt’s price may be a factor that has kept many buyers away from the plug-in hybrid, bad publicity around an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regarding the safety of the Volt may be another issue. At the end of last year, NHTSA opened an evaluation of the Volt following a severe-impact lab test on a battery pack that resulted in an electrical fire six days later. Following the investigation, GM made more enhancements to the Volt’s structure and battery coolant system to prevent the possibility of an electrical fire during a severe crash.
Volt sales may not be at the pace that GM hoped, but new government subsidies may make the Volt more attractive. President Obama is hoping new subsidies for green technology will be approved by Congress. One of the new subsidies will increase the federal tax credit for the Volt from $7,500 to $10,000. GM also just released a new Low Emissions Package for the Chevy Volt that qualifies buyers in California for a $1,500 tax credit. Lastly, the Volt was also named as the 2012 European Car of the Year, this week at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.
In this tough economy, price is clearly a huge factor for most buyers, and electric vehicles across the board sell at much higher prices than fuel-efficient cars from the same makers. Nissan reported low sales on the all-electric Leaf, as well. But poor sales of electric vehicles should not be misconstrued as a sign that EVs are failing in America. The Environmental Defense Fund points out that both the Volt and Leaf sold better in their first year than their hybrid counterparts first did. “When the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight were offered as the first commercially available hybrids in 2000, only 9,350 cars were sold. By the end of their first year, over 17,000 Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts were sold.”
With gas prices continuing to rise and EV innovation continuing to move forward, the future of the electric car is bright. “Whatever politically motivated attacks may be aimed at EVs, and whatever shortcomings these revolutionary new vehicles may display, one thing is certain: the move to EVs represents a rebirth of confidence in American innovation, workers, and competitive manufacturing,” writes EDF. “It also marks an irreversible national commitment to building a cleaner, more fuel-efficient transportation system for a prosperous American future.” | <urn:uuid:a796fd90-77cf-4afd-9f0d-ed292dfcf27d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/general-motors-halts-chevy-volt-production-for-five-weeks-due-to-poor-sales/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960643 | 878 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Stories from Wartime bring tales of conflict to the public at Regis
February 7, 2013 by admin
by Megan Barber |
An excited crowd filled the Adolph Coors Foundation Amphitheater at Regis University on January 29 for the start of Stories From Wartime, a 12-part lecture series in its 18th year. Students, war veterans, and the interested public filled the room to capacity at this free event in order to hear about war from the people who fought it.
Organized by Professors Dr. Dan Clayton and Dr. Tom Bowie, the seminars augment Regis University’s impressive archive collection at the Center for the Study of War Experience. But while relatively few students venture into the archive, the 2013 class of Stories From Wartime is its largest yet.
Each two-hour presentation highlights a specific war by bringing together its veterans to discuss their experiences. This novel approach supplements standard textbooks because, as Dr. Clayton explains, “If you are going to teach about war, you should hear from the men and women who actually did it.” The January 29th seminar introduced veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The audience listened attentively to stories from Jason Crow, a Captain in the US Army Infantry. Crow described his experience during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and his participation in special operations missions throughout Afghanistan. During his three tours, Crow learned to make hard decisions when soldiers’ lives were at risk. Today he works as a lawyer, advises politicians on national security, and advocates for veterans’ needs.
Perhaps the most shocking testimony came from Juliet Madsen, a paramedic who served in the US Army and fought in the Gulf War and the Iraq War. In Iraq in 2004, a roadside bomb hit her convoy. Juliet suffered a traumatic brain injury and endured years of physical and occupational therapy. She spoke about how war impacts not only veterans, but also their families.
A wife and mother of three, Madsen confided that her wartime experiences left her forever changed. Her injuries meant that for long periods of time she was bed or wheelchair bound. Even though she medically retired from the Army almost ten years ago, her family still feels the war’s effects. During a recent argument, Madsen’s 18-year-old son yelled, “You are not my mom. My mom died in Iraq.”
Although the most powerful moments of the evening were during soldiers’ testimonies, Stories from Wartime also benefits from the humor and direction of KEZW radio host Rick Crandall. Brought on 12 years ago and a long time veteran’s advocate, Crandall uses his experience conducting interviews to seamlessly move from panelist to panelist. He knows when to pause, when to laugh, and when to let a soldiers’ voice resonate in the large hall.
Many in the audience are veterans who will participate in subsequent panels. Mary and Howard Beasley of Arvada are in their 7th year of attendance and Mr. Beasley will be on a panel in April. A World War Two veteran who fought in the South Pacific, Mr. Beasley felt compelled to tell his story to “help students understand what happened in war and what people went through.” As Mr. Beasley emphasized, the lecture series is important because “Everyone has a story.”
The increasing popularity of Stories from Wartime proves that Mr. Beasley’s statement is correct. A show of hands indicated that nearly every student had a friend or family member in military service. When asked why they chose this class over others, some students said it fit best with their schedule. But others explained that they wanted to understand war and why we fight it.
Dr. Clayton argues that there “is nothing more riveting than a good, well-told war story.” The growing Stories From Wartime audience seems to agree!
The Stories From Wartime series continues with seminars on the Gulf War, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Second World War. All presentations are held on Tuesday evenings through April 23, in Regis University’s Adolph Coors Foundation Amphitheater, Felix Pomponio Family Science Center on the North Denver Campus. The events begin at 6:00 pm and are free and open to the public. Seating is limited, however, so the public is encouraged to arrive before 5:30 pm. | <urn:uuid:bfbbb82e-ff28-4b41-b586-1e2e84daaed5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northdenvertribune.com/2013/02/stories-from-wartime-bring-tales-of-conflict-to-the-public-at-regis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961127 | 915 | 1.773438 | 2 |
As I wrote in VDARE a few years ago, in 2006 I served on the jury of a trial in downtown L.A. that sounds like I made it up: an Iranian immigrant used car dealer was so crooked that he'd been banned from the used car racket. So, he started another used car lot, but had his brother-in-law sign all the legal forms claiming to be the sole owner and operator. Then the brains of the operation collected $4 million in sales tax but sent only $2 million on to Sacramento. He used the other $2 million to build a Persian Palace in San Clemente filled with, in the words of South Park in their parody of 300, the kind of gold-plated crap that only a Persian would think is cool. Eventually, state auditors kept asking why the dealership sold all of its used cars for only half the market price, so the Mr. Big fled back to Iran, leaving the brother-in-law to stand trial as the legally responsible party. But the idiots on an L.A. jury, half of them immigrants, couldn't grasp what had happened, so he went free on a hung jury.
That got me to thinking about extradition treaties. The lack of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and the home country of immigrants is an incentive to engage in crime. Not surprisingly, the U.S. can't get crooks back from Iran. But what about other countries that were not always threatening to bomb? So, I looked up which countries America doesn't have an extradition treaty with. (In movies, crooks were always running off to Rio because for a long time Brazil didn't have an extradition treaty with the U.S., but now, apparently, we do.)
The United States maintains diplomatic relations, but does not have extradition treaties with the following countries:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Croatia, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé & Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovenia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican, Vietnam, and Yemen,. [boldface mine]
Holy cow, no wonder the state is broke. That's like half the non-Mexican population of L.A., and about half the small businessmen.
The U.S. really, really ought to have an extradition treaty with Armenia. America did an excellent job turning the pre-1924 Armenian immigrants into solid citizens, but we're not doing so good with the latest wave of Armenian immigrants. There is plenty of human capital there, but we're just letting them abuse us because, compared to the old days, we are weak and stupid. Letting Armenians run scams in America and then scamper off to Armenia when the heat starts to catch up with them is like having a German Shepherd that's not housebroken. | <urn:uuid:670c057d-d26d-4e7a-b633-1f9d7c23c63b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/06/lack-of-extradition-treaties.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945879 | 752 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Canoe England Development Team is committed to increasing the number of females participating in Paddlesport as well as encouraging those already taking part to stay in the sport by providing greater opportunities and information for those already hooked! The project formally known as Girl Power has been reignited with the scope broadened to include all women not just the young (hence the name change).
There are many women out there who currently enjoy and participate in Paddlesport. Many more have the desire but are not sure how to start and a huge number unaware of what they are missing out on.
Did you know….?
Women and girls respond better to the social, health and well-being characteristics of sport rather than competition.
Adolescent females place greater emphasis on self-comparison and comments from adults than do adolescent males, who rely more on competitive outcomes as their basis for personal judgement of physical competence.
Girls, on average, have less self-confidence than boys and rate their performance or ability more negatively than boys
Self Confidence is also linked to competition. Although some women enjoy the competitive element of sport, many girls and women are turned off sport because it’s competitive.
For many girls training is too time consuming, boring and repetitive
For women and girls the relationship between body image and physical activity is a vicious circle; the more self conscious they feel about their bodies, the less likely they are to take part in sport, and yet, participation in sport has a positive effect on girls’ perceptions of their bodies.
We would value your feedback and consultancy through different stages of this project. If you would be interested in helping please email [email protected].
NEWS & ARTICLES
Racing training days
Royal Leamington Spa will be offering three one-off training days for women/girls on the following dates;
- Sat. 3 Nov.
- Sat. 8 Dec.
- Sat. 5t Jan. 2013.
Each event starts at 9.30 and will be off the water at 4.00pm. The cost will be £ 7.00
The days are for novice competitors, or anyone that has aspirations to compete in racing canoes -C1, C2, and C4. Equipment will be provided, single and crew boats, with experienced paddlers to help out. Experience is not required, only the commitment to compete
Enquiries should be addressed to Tibor Herbent, RLS, [email protected]
or tel: 02476 592247
Try Sport Days 2012, register a female's come and try it day or find something you fancy giving a go!
For more information click here
Female Focused Paddling Network- Devon & Cornwall
For information click here
WSFF Ultimate Sports Kit
Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation has launched a brand new online toolkit to help you deliver sports and fitness programmes for women and girls. The kit is made up of a number of downloadable sections and you can choose which sections best suit the needs of your particular activity. The following guidance can be downloaded:
- Thinking about your audience
- Breaking through barriers
- Planning your programme
- Tips for leaders
- The basics of marketing
- Example Press Release
- Targeting older Women
To access the Tool Kit click here
WSFF and Sports Coach UK have jointly developed a series of factsheets aimed at coaches who coach women or who are interested in coaching them in the future. The following fact sheets are available:
Coaching Female High Performance Athletes
Coaching Myth Buster
Developing Female Coaches
Female Psychology and Consideration for Coaching Practice
Female Physiology and Consideration for Coaching Practice
Socially Inclusive Coaching
To download the factsheets click here
CE Guidance for Clubs
CE Guidance on running a successful Women & Girls development day
Women Sports and Fitness Foundation (WSFF)
Sport England Small Grant Programme
Sports Coach UK
WSFF- How can Sports Clubs attract and retain Women and Girls?
WSFF- Teenage girls and Drop out
There have been several enquiries to the office regarding what funding might be available to set up a Women and Girls project at your Club. The best thing to do is contact your regions Paddlesport Development Officer. They will be able to advise you of funding that may be available in your region as many County Sport Partnerships have funding available for such projects, although every region varies. The other funding option is to apply for a grant from the Sport England Small Grant Programme. This scheme has been set up to support local community sport projects which seek to increase participation, sustain participation or develop opportunities for people to excel at their chosen sport. Grants can be awarded from £300 to £10,000. You can apply at any time and a decision will normally be made within 6 weeks of receipt of the application.
To find out more visit their website.
More guidance can also be found on WSFF Fact sheet on Funding.
Runningsport Tips for Small Grant Applications | <urn:uuid:a66bbaac-098d-4924-a7d6-43c39260f800> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canoe-england.org.uk/our-sport/women-and-girls/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93809 | 1,049 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Becoming an academy is first step in helping pupils to thrive
SKILLS or qualifications? A diploma or a degree? In Britain, we have been talking about the academic versus vocational divide in schooling for more than 100 years. And there is little sign of it being resolved soon.
In Westminster, the debate is especially active as Education Secretary Michael Gove, pictured, cracks down on semi-vocational courses in favour of more traditional subjects.
Out go 'horse-care' and hairdressing and in their place comes the so-called English Baccalaureate – history, modern languages, and the sciences.
In Tipton in Sandwell they are pursuing a less divisive approach. In a tough neighbourhood, facing similar problems of post-industrial transition as Stoke-on-Trent, the Royal Society of Arts has sponsored a new academy school.
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And last week I was lucky enough to get a tour of the campus from its deputy head and proud Stokie, Daulton Redmond.
The first thing Daulton told me was that the catchment area doesn't offer any excuse for low attainment. Overwhelmingly white, British and from historically working-class backgrounds, their 1,075 pupils have a free school meal eligibility rate way above the national average. That is a challenge for the teachers, not grounds for a cop-out. And while their results are not stellar, they are up markedly on the predecessor school and heading in the right direction.
OFSTED has graded the school as 'good', but 'outstanding' when it comes to capacity for sustained improvement.
As you would expect, they have the basics right. The pupils wear uniforms, there is no running and shouting, teachers are respected. There is a sense of structure and discipline – which is vital for children who come from often chaotic backgrounds.
Certainly, the school's design helps. Funded by the Labour Government's Building Schools for the Future programme, it cost near £30 million and is built to last. There is colour-coding for the different Houses to give a sense of individuality. Classrooms open on to outside corridors which look out over the gardens – some of which are being used to grow vegetables for the canteen. Cleverly the toilet blocks – often places for bullying and smoking – have private cubicles which lead into an open plan washroom. Of course, they have the latest kit. There are computer suites and music rooms and the kind of media facilities to make a BBC Newsroom jealous. There is also a well-stocked, well-used library.
And that gives you a sense of the RSA Academy's strengths – a willingness to engage with both vocational and academic courses. On my visit, there was an Opening Minds morning in session – when pupils get to choose a range of diverse, extra-curricula activities. It could be rugby, or designing a new App, or cookery, or technology, or it could just be extra teaching on Spanish. The syllabus is developed by both teachers and pupils to encourage a more innovative approach to learning.
In these classes, there is no teaching to the test. Instead, there is a broader appreciation of learning and development. What is more, classes last three hours. To my mind, a frighteningly long time but if broken up and taught effectively, I was told it can produce better results than the traditional 45-minute class and avoids all that lost time moving between classrooms.
But as well as the vocational, the school offers the International Baccalaureate. This is the Gold Standard qualification which demands pupils mix an array of humanities and sciences.
The IBac pupils I met were smart, motivated teenagers who were well taught and full of ambition. Indeed, the school is attracting international students from as far afield as Austria and Mexico. And let's be frank, Tipton is not an obvious destination.
Not everything is rosy. The school's results have some way to go. I would think they need to get more of their pupils educated in the academic basics.
But attendance rates are up and the sense of aspiration is obvious.
So what can our schools learn? First of all, that simply becoming an academy is not the answer: you need ambitious leadership, a flexible teaching approach, and a good relationship with parents and community. But perhaps we can also develop a curriculum which provides academic rigour as well as vocational options. This should not be about putting poorer pupils on 'easier' courses. It should be about encouraging them to learn and thrive in the 21st century.
And I think Tipton might provide a better way to do that than Westminster. | <urn:uuid:eb4221ba-896f-4412-8b7a-67c6c4c2ffaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/academy-step-helping-pupils-thrive/story-15400751-detail/story.html | 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 | 0.96643 | 993 | 1.65625 | 2 |
While cleansing products are designed to remove most traces of dirt and makeup, they can sometimes leave residue behind. Toners and clarifiers, which are formulated to detoxify and cleanse your skin, finish the job easily, removing even oil-based products that have been used to take away water-resistant eye makeup. A wide selection of toners and clarifiers that unclog and elucidate the skin are sold today including those that provide antioxidant, hydrating, or moisturizing protection. Toners and clarifiers have been specially formulated with all types of skin in mind, so there’s something for everyone.
Facial toners and clarifiers intended for daily use typically provide non-drying formulas that are gentle on the skin. Hydrating toners and clarifiers infuse fresh hydration, typically using one or more moisture-binding humectants as ingredients. They repair damaged skin that has become dehydrated, while also cleansing the skin in a soothing manner.
Toners and clarifiers that deliver refreshing capabilities often use gentle and natural ingredients to soothe the skin, alleviating redness and sensitivity, while also cleansing the skin and preparing it for the next stage of skincare. Oil-control toners not only do a good job of removing leftover bits of makeup and dirt, but they also treat the skin in order to control oil production effectively. | <urn:uuid:4c923bfe-d1ae-4529-9cd8-9e42eab01cd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spalook.com/skin-care-face-tonersclarifiers-products.aspx?avn=category%7Ccat_14%7C113%7CToners%2FClarifiers&fa=13&rosav=Concern | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947812 | 278 | 1.617188 | 2 |
posted on June 11, 2012 06:50
By Mike Handley
A New York incident has me wondering how many thousands of dollars I've tossed in the trash following a day in a deer stand.
For more than 40 years, in an effort not to booger up my hunting spots, I've been peeing in soft drink bottles -- being VERY careful to uncork the right Mountain Dew when thirsty.
Because I value scents and scent control, I start each season by buying dominant buck urine, never once considering that I could generate my own and not have to sniff the 20-ounce green bottles before quenching my thirst.
Sure, I've heard about guys who urinate in scrapes. But the notion of doing so has always struck me as risky, at best, and stupid, at worst. While deer might encounter all manner of urine in their environment, I doubt they regularly sniff the urine of something that eats cheeseburgers and drinks more coffee than Juan Valdez.
I'm not so sure now. Maybe I've been sending the ultimate buck lure to landfills from Alabama to Saskatchewan.
Before last season, Mike Canale had never peed in a scrape. Now, however, it's a pretty safe bet that he'll hit every one he encounters, even if he's made the scrape himself.
"During the summer of 2011, I read articles extolling the virtues of licking branches and mock scrapes. That inspired me to purchase some olfactory gland scent, doe urine for the dripper and to make a mock scrape complete with licking branch doused with the new glandular scent," the New York hunter said. "I also read some studies that suggested deer can't distinguish human urine from deer urine."
So he made one and doctored two real scrapes on his Ontario County farm. Every four or five days from the middle of October to mid-November, he peed in all three. As a result, the deer activity soared.
A few days into the shotgun season, Mike shot a new runner-up to the state record as it was walking toward a scrape about 50 yards from his stand. As a Semi-irregular, the deer's composite score is 207 1/8 inches.
The complete story will appear in Rack magazine in August. | <urn:uuid:6f656bf2-34fc-415f-8f52-0bbf3ca52a74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buckmasters.com/new-york-record-breaker-a-whizz-bang.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969182 | 474 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Ha! When you wrote "operator" previously, I didn't realise you were literally entering a user name of "operator", I thought you were using "operator" in the same way some people write "/home/user" or "/home/username" when they mean /home/<user name>.
Having said that, I had no idea that using the text string "operator" as a user name would cause the problem you experienced.
How did you discover that using "operator" for a user name was the cause of the problem? Trial and error, or Google?
Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to use "operator" as a user name? Wouldn't something more personal be better? "/home/operator" is not as immediately distinctive as e.g. "/home/alshain". If you want to set up the PC for multiple users, it's better to create multiple user accounts, and they can be set up to have access to each others files if you want.
For example, one could set up the accounts so that users "fatherbear", "motherbear" and "babybear" are members of the group "porridge" but user "goldielocks" is not.
Anyway, glad you are now set up correctly. Better than hacking an incorrect installation, and you have the satisfaction of finding a bug, to boot. | <urn:uuid:ee94bf95-88b5-4a33-bfa8-781ea57305cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.sabayon.org/viewtopic.php?p=123990 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959696 | 280 | 1.570313 | 2 |
|Please note that this is the Narutopedia's article on manga volume. If you are looking for the article on a chapter then you should head to A Suspension Bridge to Peace. For other uses, see A Suspension Bridge to Peace|
A Suspension Bridge to Peace
(平和への架け橋, Heiwa e no Kakehashi)
|Volume||54 (Read Online)|
|Next||The Great War Breaks Out!|
|Japanese||December 29, 2010 ISBN (978-4-08-870143-1)|
|English||January 3, 2012 ISBN (978-1-4215-4102-0)|
A Suspension Bridge to Peace (平和への架け橋, Heiwa e no Kakehashi) is volume 54 of the Naruto manga.
Chapter 505 Edit
- The Nine-Tails' Chakra, Freed!! (九尾チャクラ、開放!!, Kyūbi Chakura, Kaihō!!)
Naruto Uzumaki completes his training of gaining the Nine-Tails' chakra inside of him. Before Yamato, Naruto, and Killer B leave, Naruto senses Kisame Hoshigaki inside Samehada. Samehada springs into action but Naruto used his right hand to smash Kisame. Meanwhile, Might Guy arrives to the Falls of Truth. He starts to go into the Falls to confront his true self. His true self starts to appear behind the waterfall and ask Guy why he keeps on talking about the power of youth. Guy is furious and demands that his true self confront him. The true self is about to appear when Kisame bursts through the waterfall. In thinking that the "bizarre bug" who is Kisame is his true self, Guy proceeds to fight him.
Chapter 506 Edit
- Guy vs. Kisame!! (ガイVS鬼鮫!!, Gai Bāsasu Kisame!!)
After learning that "the creature" is not Might Guy's inner self and is an Akatsuki spy, Guy and Aoba Yamashiro begin to battle Kisame, but he continues to flee. Guy uses the Eight Gates, opening the Sixth Gate and pursues Kisame with Killer B's help. Kisame summons a shark and hides a scroll in its mouth, containing his gathered information. Guy goes after the shark but Kisame hides it in a wave of a thousand sharks. Guy opens the Seventh Gate and performs his rarely seen one-hit kill move, Daytime Tiger against Kisame's Water Release: Great Shark Bullet Technique.
Chapter 507 Edit
- An Existence of Falsehoods…!! (偽りの存在…!!, Itsuwari no Sonzai…!!)
Guy defeats Kisame, who, while unconscious, is restrained by Yamato's Wood Release, so Aoba can gather information from Kisame's past. In the past, when still a shinobi of Kirigakure Kisame was a bodyguard for Cypher Division, but he killed his comrades when danger of secret codes' leak appeard. Later, he killed his superior, who betrayed the village, and took is sword. Then, the Fourth Mizukage approached. Speaking with him, Kisame described his life as one big lie. He then spotted a person controlling the Mizukage. The person promised to release him from lies and introduced himself as Madara Uchiha. Back in present times Kisame bites his tongue and releases himself from stocks.
Chapter 508 Edit
- The Way a Shinobi Dies (忍の死に様, Shinobi no Shinizama)
Kisame bites his own tongue in order to force himself back to consciousness and prevent Aoba Yamashiro from obtaining any information about the Akatsuki from him. He then creates a dome of water around himself preventing Guy from attacking him and summons three sharks within it. He then remembers his first meeting with Itachi and considering Itachi's words, makes his own sharks consume him before Yamato has a chance to stop him. Watching Kisame sacrifice his life, Naruto comments that there are those within the Akatsuki who act to protect their friends. Then Guy says that Kisame lived and died as a true shinobi should and that he will always remember him. Guy then retrieves a scroll filled with information that Kisame had collected and Motoi suggests they take a look at it but when they open the scroll, it turns out to be booby trapped and a dome of water surrounds them while a shark takes the scroll and runs away with it. Meanwhile, Tobi and Konan are shown confronting each other in Amegakure where Tobi asks Konan where she's hidden Nagato and the Rinnegan to which she replies that she knew he would come and that she's been waiting to finish him off. Tobi replies by saying that he will not go easy on her just because she was a former Akatsuki member.
Chapter 509 Edit
- A Suspension Bridge to Peace (平和への架け橋, Heiwa e no Kakehashi)
Konan and Tobi face off in Amegakure standing on a lake. Tobi asks what it is about Naruto that made Konan and Nagato quit Akatsuki, and Konan replies that he is light personified and carries a flower called 'hope'. Tobi tells Konan that he was the one who got Yahiko to found Akatsuki, and the one who gave Nagato the Rinnegan. Konan attacks Tobi in an attempt to kill them both. Konan recalls Yahiko, and Nagato calling each other the bridge to peace, and states that she will be the support to both their bridges. Konan then asks if Tobi understands why she betrayed him. He replies no, and she says it's because he's darkness, and a flower will wilt in darkness. She reveals her ultimate technique and splits the lake beneath them in two.
Chapter 510 Edit
- An Unexpected Kinjutsu!! (まさかの禁術!!, Masaka no Kinjutsu!!)
Tobi falls into the chasm, and Konan continuously detonates exploding tags for ten minutes. Tobi survives, and states that he used Izanagi to escape from her attack. After Tobi explains how Izanagi works, Konan tries to kill him. Her attack is interrupted by Tobi, and he uses a genjutsu to force her to reveal the location of Nagato's corpse. Tobi then arrives at the shrine where Nagato is buried, and states that Nagato is the "third of the six paths" and a member of the Uzumaki clan.
Chapter 511 Edit
- We'll All Go Home (帰ってこよう, Kaette Koyō)
Tobi warps Nagato's body away, and leaves. After this time goes back when Jiraiya was training the Ame Orphans. He implements a secret method of communication using "Hop-In" cards and explains their use and importance to them. Meanwhile, as Konan's body lays floating in the water a bloodied piece of paper is blown off of Konan's body by the wind. The red paper lands in front of a plank inside the old hideout of the Ame Orphans. The four planks with red paper in front of them symbolise that Jiraiya, and the orphans have all returned home. At the Akatsuki hideout, Tobi with a new outfit declares it's time to capture the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.
Chapter 512 Edit
- The Truth about Zetsu!! (ゼツの真実!!, Zetsu no Shinjitsu!!)
Motoi sends a message to the Kage about the information leak. Naruto and B are to remain on the island as it is a moving fortress, and can't be tracked easily. Kabuto volunteers to capture the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails in Tobi's place. Tobi reveals his army of one hundred thousand white Zetsu.
Chapter 513 Edit
- Kabuto vs. the Tsuchikage!! (カブトVS土影!!, Kabuto Bāsasu Tsuchikage!!)
Ōnoki along with Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi fly to the island. Naruto and the others hide the islands animals inside the turtle's shell. Kabuto and Deidara locate the island, but are confronted by Ōnoki.
Chapter 514 Edit
- Kabuto's Scheme!! (カブトの目論見!!, Kabuto no Mokuromi!!)
Kabuto along with Deidara battle against the Tsuchikage, and his aides. Yamato convinces Naruto to stay inside the giant turtle and complete his mission. After coming to see the battle outside, Yamato is eventually captured by Kabuto, who then retreats back to the Akatsuki hideout. Kabuto explains that he will be able to produce even more Zetsu with Yamato. Tobi tells Kabuto to get to work, as his new left eye hungers for battle. | <urn:uuid:8ac601f3-19d8-446e-92da-af6d215805d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/A_Suspension_Bridge_to_Peace_(volume)?diff=next&oldid=628849 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941648 | 1,943 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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Now We Can Stop Paying Attention
Two years, billions of dollars worth of political ads, and a nearly infinite number of platitudes and lies later, the election is finally over and we're...back where we started, with a divided government run by the same people, likely to pursue the same policies and spend a similar amount of time in gridlock. Not all that surprising when you think about it, since the country is evenly split between two outmoded but antithetical worldviews.
What is surprising is that anyone thought the outcome of this election mattered in the first place. The sad reality is that the institutions that dominate the system no longer care who is "in charge." And all it takes to illustrate this point is a quick glance at the following chart of America's total debt, which is the sum of federal, state, and local borrowing, home mortgages, credit cards, student loans, business loans, etc.
Note that between 1980 and 2008 it rose steadily under both republicans and democrats. Even during the supposedly fiscally responsible Clinton years (1990 - 1998), while government debt fell a bit, total debt soared. Why? Because there are two ways for a government to fund its overspending: The first is to borrow, as happened in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. The second is to convince individuals and businesses to do the borrowing and to buy stuff with the proceeds, thus producing taxable income that helps balance the government's books. Either way, systemic debt goes up.
In the 1990s the Clinton administration chose the second strategy, using easy money to fuel a housing boom and tech stock bubble. The result was a torrent of borrowing, spending, and IPOs, which boosted federal tax revenue and produced a few years of balanced budgets. The government - for those who were focused only on the public debt - looked well-run. But to the tiny handful of Austrian economists out there, the fact that total debt was soaring, and that the average loan was becoming more and more speculative, led to the conclusion that we were creating a debt bubble that could only end with an historic bust.
That bust came in 2000, and republican George W. Bush was forced by its magnitude to leverage both the public and private sectors, producing a housing bubble combined with record government deficits. That bubble burst in 2008, leaving incoming democrat president Obama with a traumatized private sector incapable of leveraging itself further. He saw no option but to run deficits that a generation ago would have seemed physically impossible.
The system, in short, demands ever-increasing amounts of debt and couldn't care less whether republicans or democrats provide it.
Someday the markets will put a stop to the borrowing, but until then it really doesn't matter who we elect or what they promise. Debt, after it reaches a certain level, is all that matters - not immigration policy or health care or marginal tax rates or short term interest rates or gay marriage. All are irrelevant compared to the institutional momentum of increasing leverage.
Total debt is now about $175,000 per citizen, or $700,000 per family of four. The average family's income is something like $50,000, so it's clear that we've long since passed the point where a return to a 1980s version of placid normality is a viable possibility for the country, any more than it would be for a typical family that woke up to find itself $700,000 in debt. Going forward the choice is to inflate or die.
So Why Bother Watching?
This story is at least a decade old, and it's getting tiresome for all involved. For the majority who expect positive change from each election the disappointment must be exhausting, as each inevitable compromise moves their latest hero one step closer to impotence. For the small number of people who see the underlying truth, this show is even harder to watch because the obvious, inevitable ending just won't come. The zombie that should have died for good after the 2000 tech stock crash keeps shambling along, wreaking havoc or boredom, depending on whether you're in its path or watching from a safe distance.
The solution? Accept that time spent obsessing over a process with a predictable result but unpredictable schedule is time wasted. So just stop watching. Make the right - and by now obvious - financial and lifestyle choices and then tune out. Turn off the TV and stop reading the business and political sections of the paper. Use the resulting time to develop yourself and cultivate your community. You know what's going to happen, more or less: A decade hence your gold will be worth a lot more and everything else quite a bit less. And you know your friends will suffer and need your help. So prepare for the things that you can predict.
Once the markets stop providing unlimited leverage and the system crashes for good, then tune back in and add your voice and your capital to the debate over what to build in its place. | <urn:uuid:0ae37e2a-b34e-45b5-a86a-b1e79c514348> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.safehaven.com/print/27609/now-we-can-stop-paying-attention | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963548 | 1,040 | 1.601563 | 2 |
SHANGHAI (AP) — China's share benchmark has fallen afoul of the country's Internet censors by appearing to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
In an unlikely coincidence certainly unwelcome to China's communist rulers, the stock benchmark fell 64.89 points Monday, matching the numbers of the June 4, 1989 crackdown in the heart of Beijing.
In China's lively microblog world, "Shanghai Composite Index" soon joined the many words blocked by censors.
In another odd twist, the index opened Monday at 2,346.98. That is being interpreted as 23rd anniversary of the June 4, 1989 crackdown when read from right to left.
Public discussion of the Tiananmen crackdown, which the Communist Party branded a "counterrevolutionary riot," remains taboo. Analysts refused to comment on the numbers.
On Tuesday, a spokesman at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, who would only give his surname, Zhang, said nervously that he had no information to release. He would not say anything more.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the market watchdog, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
On Tuesday morning, the share benchmark was little changed.
On the popular Sina microblog site, searches using "June 4", "64.89", "stock market", and "benchmark Shanghai Composite Index" were all still blocked as of midday Tuesday. The number 23 was also off-limits.
Such searches draw the response, "According to law such words cannot be shown."
That prompted some users to comment on the "magical" nature of the market, while others groused about not being able to discuss the stock market online.
In Beijing, the anniversary passed without any major sign of protest. The front page of the party newspaper People's Daily trumpeted the "Stable, fast development of the Chinese economy: Advancing to be the World's No. 2."
The melee as soldiers fought their way into Beijing to clear Tiananmen Square is believed to have left hundreds dead. In response to the violence in the capital, demonstrations erupted in more than 180 cities and in some cases were quelled violently.
The government has never provided a credible accounting of the number of victims or arrests in the sweeping crackdown that followed.
Asked at a regular briefing if the government had changed its stance regarding the "June 4 issue" Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said, "I just knew you would ask this question."
"The political case you mentioned was concluded long ago by the ruling party and government," he said, objecting to a U.S. State Department call for a reconsideration of the party's stance as "rude interference in China's internal affairs."
In the semiautonomous southern Chinese city of Hong Kong, tens of thousands crowded into a large park to mark the anniversary. They held aloft white candles that transformed the area of soccer pitches into a sea of light, before observing a minute of silence.
Activists laid a wreath at a makeshift monument dedicated to the Tiananmen victims, bowing three times as is customary in traditional Chinese mourning.
Hong Kong is a former British colony that enjoys free speech and other Western-style civil liberties not seen in mainland China.
Associated Press writer Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:76a7be38-934c-446d-b5d7-aecb2384875c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/oddities-chinese-stock-index-evoke-tiananmen-135917056--finance.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957518 | 688 | 1.742188 | 2 |
There are certain parts of the world that just seem to emanate kindness. While on a recent trip to New Hampshire, I found myself in what seemed to be a paralell universe. I’m from New York and accustomed to rudeness, selfishness, and all around disdain for other human beings. Years of having doors slammed in my face, taxis stolen from me, and endless counts of people honking their horn when I move too slow have made me quite jaded. This mentality was not the same in New Hampshire. People were nice and it blew me away.
At one point during the trip my wife and I stopped to look at a map on the side of the road and a complete stranger actually came up to us and ask if we were lost and needed help. We were so dumbfounded that it took us a few seconds to reply. It seems as the stories of kindness keep getting more and more rare. We all have the tales of when a complete stranger stopped to help change a tire or jump our car, but that was a long time ago. Perhaps its the declining economy or other global issues that have made people more selfish, but its during times like these where a ripple of kindness can turn into a tidal wave. Kindness does not have to be native to a certain part of the country/world.
Even though it’s not cool to be kind, part of us wants to be kind. We just need someone to show us how, someone to break the pattern our culture has trapped us in. Considerate acts have a ripple effect, and we remember them long afterward. Kindness is contagious and now is the best time to spread the condition. In the face of trying economic times and social strife, it is absolutely necessary that we begin behaving like caring individuals. The next time yous see someone in need, simply take the time to help them out. The old saying ‘what goes around comes around’ is absolutely true. Starting shaping your karmic fate for the better right now by participating in random acts of kindness.
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You must be logged in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:ce1fdd7d-e502-4676-952c-b1a3a2d791f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timeisloveblog.com/2009/10/30/kindness-is-contagious/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977679 | 434 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Royal yacht idea considered by Cameron
A new royal yacht, built with private funding, is being considered by the prime minister, Downing Street says.
The government would "react favourably" to the Future Ship Project which aims to build a royal yacht for hosting royal events.
The BBC understands David Cameron has given his "full support" to the plan.
Education Secretary Michael Gove had expressed his support for a new yacht as a potential gift to the Queen from the nation to mark her Diamond Jubilee.
But he was criticised for suggesting public money could be spent on it.
The Future Ship Project for the 21st Century (FSP21) involves building a ship 600ft long, to be used for trade and business events, as well as a training ship for 200 young people.
BBC deputy political editor James Landale said Rear Admiral David Bawtree, who is behind the plan, said Mr Cameron wrote to him in October saying it was a inspirational initiative that had his full support.
Ministers say it is backed by the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne.
Mr Gove made the proposal in letters to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last year.
End Quote Downing Street spokesman
If there is something we can do as government to support this, we will look at this”
Fellow minister David Willetts also wrote to Mr Cameron.
Downing Street emphasised that taxpayers' money would not be used on any new royal yacht.
"Clearly there's a difficult economic situation," a prime minister's spokesman said.
"There are scarce public resources. Therefore we do not think it would be appropriate to use public money at this time."
But speaking about FSP21 later, No 10 added: "This issue is, what can we do as government to support this? If there is something we can do as government to support this, we will look at this.
"We would react favourably to that."
Mr Gove said the Queen's "highly significant contribution" to Britain and the Commonwealth should be recognised with a "lasting legacy".
End Quote Tom Watson Labour Party deputy chairman
When school budgets are being slashed, parents will be wondering how Gove came even to suggest this idea”
He wrote to Mr Hunt: "In spite, and perhaps because of the austere times, the celebration should go beyond those of previous jubilees and mark the greater achievement that the diamond anniversary represents.
"Events such as proms and the party at the palace organised for the Diamond Jubilee, and street parties, although excellent, are transient.
"It would be appropriate to do something that will mark the significance of this occasion with fitting ceremony.
"My suggestion would be a gift from the nation to Her Majesty; thinking about David Willetts's excellent suggestion of a royal yacht, and something tangible to commemorate this momentous occasion."
After criticism in the Commons over the expense of building a yacht - estimated to be £60m - Mr Gove aimed to clarify his suggestion.
He said that his letter had been quite clear that the Future Ship Project was one option "where no public funding should be provided".
The last royal yacht, Britannia, served the Queen for 44 years, carrying her and the Royal Family on 968 official voyages before being taken out of service in 1997.
The ship, currently in dry dock undergoing repairs, is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh.Economic climate
"The Diamond Jubilee must not be overshadowed by the Olympic Games, but form an integral part of this great year for our country," Mr Gove also wrote.
Labour Party deputy chairman Tom Watson said: "We're all looking forward to the Diamond Jubilee. The significance of the occasion should be celebrated across the country.
"But Michael Gove has shown he is out of touch with this proposal. When school budgets are being slashed, parents will be wondering how Gove came even to suggest this idea.
"This is not the time to spend £60m on a yacht."
A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesman said the palace had made it clear that the Diamond Jubilee celebrations should reflect the current economic climate. | <urn:uuid:1b5a243f-2b07-4a1c-b8fe-f9b2a5536a16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16578231 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969478 | 866 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Question: How do you know when an idea is going to catch on?
Gabe Zichermann: Well let me say this to you. I think I meet a lot of entrepreneurs, and now I speak to a fair number of entrepreneurs, which is a tremendous honor. One of the things that I’ve learned is that the most difficult thing in the world is to move that train one foot out of the station. 99.9% of the population has an idea that is stewing in their head right now and their train is firmly in the station. It’s the very, very small percentage of them who can move just ever so slightly and once you get that first little bit of motion the rest of it is momentum that’s surprisingly easy to accomplish. Ideas in and of themselves really aren’t that valuable. It’s the ability to take that idea and turn that into something meaningful and turn that into a product that ultimately people want to buy, whether it’s companies or individuals. That’s really the magic of entrepreneurship and so what I tell everybody, what I told a group of gay aspiring entrepreneurs, MBA students just this past week in Atlanta, what I tell everybody is that first foot, whatever is holding you back from moving your idea forward set it aside. Do it. Do something. Take it product… do a demo of your product. Build a prototype of your product. Mock it up. Do it. Try it. There is no downside to doing that first step.
Question: Who was your role model?
Gabe Zichermann: My role model is my mom, who is a crazy serial entrepreneur. My mom is literally the best salesperson I’ve ever met in my whole life and I’ve had the privilege of working with some astonishing salespeople. From a very early age my mom had these side businesses, which eventually became her principle [source] of income and effort. She was never happier than when she had her little company selling fancy imported food or cookware, which were the two businesses for which she is probably best known. From a very early age I used to sell with her. From around the age of ten we would go to these markets around Toronto, which is the city where I grew up and you know it wasn’t necessarily the most fun thing process-wise, because it was a 4am start on a Saturday morning. We’d get into the truck, load it up, and drive out to wherever the market was being held and we’d setup our booth. I’d spend a big chunk of my day in the booth selling jam or cookware or whatever it was that we were working on and watching my mom sell was the inspiration, probably, for everything that I’ve done. It’s that moment where you get out of bed and you get up in front of people and you say this is my heart on a plate and would you like to buy it is the moment that you can move forward and the moment that you can accomplish the things that you want to accomplish.
Question: When have you felt most successful?
Gabe Zichermann: I think you have lots of moments of tremendous elation and tremendous disappointment. When you’re an entrepreneur I think every single day is a roller coaster and in fact I don’t think there is a day that goes by that I don’t hit some new high and I don’t hit some new low. You wake up and think what am I doing? What did I do with all my money? What am I doing with all these other people’s money? What am I doing with all my staff’s time? This is crazy. We’re never going to get there. Today I spoke on the phone to one of our top customers. I actually personally call each one of our top customers on a sort of rolling basis because I believe in talking to them and finding out what they’re about and you know it was a… It was like Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza rolled into one experience. I mean he was talking my ear off about how much he loved beamME and how much it had changed his workflow and how it was meaningful and ours was one of the best products he’d ever used in his whole life. I mean what’s better than that? But similarly, when someone writes a bad, annoying review of our applications in the app store I’m on the far opposite end of the scale. Every day is a roller coaster and probably the most meaningful advice that I can give about the actual process of running a company is that you have to be ready for that, and being the CEO of a startup is probably the worst job in the whole world as far as I’m can tell because [when you're the] CEO of your own startup, you’re everybody’s bitch. You are your employee’s bitch. You are your investor’s bitch. You are your customer's bitch. Pardon the expression. You’re absolutely positively moved by what all those people do. You are here to turn this great creaking ship in the direction that you want to turn it in and you don’t get to fly off the handle and decide what you want to do and go to Aspen like everybody assumes you do, like CEOs of public companies do. CEOs of startups cannot act like that. I can’t say what is one my mind. If I said what was on my mind all the time I’d have no employees, investors, or customers. There is a lot of grin and bear it, and in that process you develop a unique skill set to filter what is important and what it not and you stay focused on the big picture or prize. And despite [the] fact that being an entrepreneur is one of the worst jobs in the whole entire world, I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Recorded on October 22, 2009 | <urn:uuid:7e986d85-6a4f-4044-ba71-665e6219e130> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigthink.com/videos/in-startups-the-first-step-matters-most | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977896 | 1,249 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Government and academia have a complex, often bitter, always unequal relationship.
Politicians value respect for authority; academics like to question authority. Politicians want the intellectual cachet they think association with a university brings; universities want the money that politicians control. When Florida State University's Myron Rolle became a Rhodes scholar or the Gators won the football national championship, legislators happily wrapped themselves in the college colors.
When there's a bust-up over teaching evolution or some professor wants to pursue research in Cuba, the Legislature pitches a collective hissy fit and tries to show the eggheads who's boss.
Tension between the corridors of power and the ivory tower goes way back: In 399 B.C. the ruling party of Athens accused Socrates of corrupting his pupils and introducing new gods. They didn't just deny him tenure, they forced him to drink hemlock. A little more recently (in the early 1970s) Sen. Dempsey Barron went apoplectic when FSU's Center for Participant Education offered a class called "How to Make a Revolution." In 2001 then-Education Commissioner Charlie Crist threatened to withhold state funding when students at Florida Atlantic wanted to stage Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi, which portrayed Jesus as gay.
Things have only gotten worse. "Florida has one of the most dysfunctional relationships between education leaders and the Legislature," says Paul Fain, a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Legislative leaders are not friends to the universities."
In the 1970s and 1980s, the state began investing serious money in higher education. It paid off: Florida's universities expanded and climbed in national academic rankings. There was a sense that everybody — taxpayers, government, business — had a stake in better-quality professors and students, and better facilities. No longer. Bob Graham, the former U.S. senator and governor who founded the Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida, points out that term limits and "lack of a long-term vision or willingness to place statewide interests over parochial concerns" have weakened ties between the state Capitol and state colleges.
Some legislators are positively hostile. Others see colleges and universities as private fiefdoms, resume-fatteners or sources of supplemental income. During the 2009 session, the House was hell-bent on gutting the higher education budget, proposing a debilitating 25 percent reduction. The Senate's plan was less vicious, and in the end, higher ed took about a 10 percent hit.
Even with the federal stimulus money, which runs out in 2011, colleges and universities will be laying off faculty and staff, shutting down programs and turning away students. Still, institutional starvation doesn't keep Florida politicians from feeding at the increasingly meager Florida college trough. By now, everyone knows about Ray Sansom, the former House speaker who didn't exactly become the poster boy for legislative probity with his $110,000 part-time job at Northwest Florida State College and the millions in state funds he slipped NWFSC for an aircraft hangar disguised as an educational facility. The hangar was, of course, a favor for developer Jay Odom, a big-time Republican donor.
Sansom, Odom and NWFSC president Bob Richburg have now been charged with various types of felonious misconduct. But their very public fall hasn't noticeably affected Florida's flourishing — and mostly quite legal — patronage culture. Legislators still get nice college jobs, often at higher-than-average salaries. Back in December, the St. Petersburg Times identified 18 current and recently retired lawmakers working in higher ed, though to be fair, not all of them have Sansom's cavalier attitude about pocketing money from an already-strapped education budget. Rep. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, for example, directs Florida International University's community and civic partnership program, but does not take her university salary when she's in Tallahassee.
Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, on the other hand, had no problem accepting a 33 percent raise from the president of Chipola College, even though she voted to cut education money. She currently makes $60,000 as the "special assistant for business and community affairs" at Chipola, a position which was never advertised. Former House speaker and U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio gets $69,000 from his part-time post at FIU's Metropolitan Center. As a legislative leader he steered millions to FIU's new medical school. At the same time, he presided over deep reductions in funding for the rest of Florida's universities.
Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, helped get the money for an FSU literacy outreach center in Daytona Beach: She's chair of the Higher Ed Appropriations Committee, after all. FSU then hired her to run it, forking out $2,300 a week. When the lavish level of her compensation hit the press, Lynn relinquished her salary and offered to work for free.
Sen. Mike Haridopolos got himself a nice gig at UF, teaching courses on the legislative process and 21st century politics during the fall, and helping to place interns in legislative or lobbyists' offices during the session. On the face of it, this seems like a fine idea: Haridopolos is a rising star in the Republican Party, on track to become state Senate president in 2010. But he's making $75,000 — far more than untenured faculty at UF usually get, more than most full professors with several scholarly books in history or political science. His peer-reviewed publications are, to put it charitably, thin. He has no Ph.D.
Haridopolos asserts that he's worth it. He's had more than a decade's experience teaching at Brevard Community College: "This is what I do for a living." He says it's good to have a politics practitioner in an academic setting, someone with "hands-on experience." Besides, he says, he's working on his Ph.D. in history at FSU and expects to be finished by this December.
This is news to Neil Jumonville, incoming chair of the FSU history department. "I haven't heard from Mike Haridopolos for five years."
Haridopolos was evidently admitted to work toward his doctorate in 2004 (though FSU's graduate admissions office has no record of him), with Jumonville as his dissertation director. But he doesn't seem to have made any progress toward fulfilling the degree requirements, which include enrolling for comprehensive exams ("comps") and producing a prospectus. Jumonville sent Haridopolos a reading list as preparation for his comps in 2004 and that's the last contact he had with the senator.
While Jumonville remains interested in Haridopolos' research topic — the history of the Republican Party in Florida — he says that at this point Haridopolos "seems like a fictitious student." As for Haridopolos' finishing his doctorate this year, Jumonville says, "That's ridiculous. We haven't talked about a single book on his reading list, we haven't seen a prospectus from him. We wouldn't really consider him a part of our program."
Overly optimistic representations of an academic career aside, there's something a little unseemly about the people who dole out money for higher education taking some of that money for themselves. Not that some former legislators haven't made a great success of subsequent academic careers. Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte represented Dade County in the Legislature from 1966 to 1972, presided over the American Bar Association, and later became president of FSU. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Jon Mills became dean of the UF law school in 1999; another former speaker, T.K. Wetherell, succeeded D'Alemberte as FSU's president in 2002 (he has recently announced his retirement), while former Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan is president of FAU. Bob Graham, with a 40-year career in public service, is now heavily involved in the center that bears his name at UF.
Perhaps not surprisingly, some of these politicos-turned-professors are critical of both government and the body which is supposed to run higher education. Sandy D'Alemberte, teaching law at FSU, says there's "almost no leadership." Bob Graham concurs: "Where is the Board of Governors? There is no functioning entity to rationalize relations between the Legislature and the universities. The Board of Governors was supposed to provide this, but due to passivity and opposition in the governor's office, the BoG has not taken on this central responsibility."
Jack E. Davis, a professor of history at UF, says, "A state with a quality, properly funded state education system is a state with vision. I'm not even talking about well-funded education, just properly funded education, which I don't think we have in Florida."
Legislators care about getting elected the next time, and they know there aren't a lot of votes in higher education. Sandy D'Alemberte says Florida "should aspire to be like North Carolina: a low tuition, high state support state."
North Carolina's sustained investment in its public colleges and universities has made it a leader in what Bob Graham calls the "postindustrial, information-intellectual economy." But then, North Carolina has had at least a few state leaders able to explain to taxpayers that universities are an engine for prosperity.
Graham makes the point by paralleling higher education funding and income. In the mid 1980s, when university funding was at its height, per capita income in Florida was 101 percent of the national average. Twenty-odd years later, we're back down to below the national average. Meanwhile, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Legislature prefer to fantasize about how the housing market will magically rocket back up, and hordes of people will move back down. As if concrete and drywall will save us.
Do Florida's citizens really see their universities as nothing more than respectable cover for semi-professional football teams? Are they okay with all those 21st century jobs going to North Carolina or Georgia or other states that have made higher education a priority? Legislators keep congratulating the universities on how cheap they are (as long as that cheapness doesn't extend to their remuneration). Mike Haridopolos sees no problem here: "Florida's universities are the most affordable in the nation." Jack E. Davis, the Florida history professor, replies, "Affordable education is not necessarily quality education."
After all, you don't get what you don't pay for.
Diane Roberts is professor of English at Florida State University. | <urn:uuid:aaf64de4-e8af-4865-b1b3-cdf416cf829a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/its-ugly-where-campus-capital-cross/1013465 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97109 | 2,219 | 1.726563 | 2 |
This Statement establishes accounting and financial reporting standards for capital improvements and services financed by special assessments. The special assessment fund type as identified in NCGA Statement 1, Governmental Accounting and Financial Reporting Principles, is eliminated for financial reporting purposes.
Transactions of a service-type special assessment should be reported in the fund type that best reflects the nature of the transactions, usually the general fund, a special revenue fund, or an enterprise fund, giving consideration to the "number of funds" principle. Service-type special assessment revenues should be treated like user fees. Assessment revenues and expenditures (expenses) for which the assessments were levied should be recognized on the same basis of accounting as that normally used for that fund type.
If the government is obligated in some manner to assume payments on special assessment debt in the event of default by the property owners, all transactions related to capital improvements financed by special assessments should be reported in the same fund types and on the same basis as any other capital improvement and financing transactions. The fixed assets constructed or acquired should be reported in the general fixed assets account group or in an enterprise fund, as appropriate.
For financial reporting purposes, a government is obligated in some manner for special assessment debt if (a) it is legally obligated to assume all or part of the debt in the event of default or (b) the government may take certain actions to assume secondary liability for all or part of the debt-and the government takes, or has given indications that it will take, those actions.
This Statement also provides guidance for reporting capital improvement assessment projects for which (a) initial financing is provided by existing resources and no debt is issued, (b) the assets constructed or acquired will benefit an enterprise fund, and (c) the government is not obligated in any manner for the related debt.
The provisions of this Statement are effective for periods beginning after June 15, 1987.
Unless otherwise specified, pronouncements of the GASB apply to financial reports of all state and local governmental entities, including public benefit corporations and authorities, public employee retirement systems, and governmental utilities, hospitals, colleges, and universities. Paragraph 26 discusses the applicability of this Statement. | <urn:uuid:869ee972-99b4-4c40-b079-7f43aa9898bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gasb.org/cs/ContentServer?c=Pronouncement_C&pagename=GASB%2FPronouncement_C%2FGASBSummaryPage&cid=1176156672696 | 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 | 0.942296 | 439 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Day of prayer marked with dissenting views
Supporters marked the 60th annual National Day of Prayer on May 5, just weeks after a federal appeals court dismissed a suit that challenged the law creating the day as unconstitutional.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson spoke of the "poignant moment" for the annual gathering on Capitol Hill after a federal court last year had cast uncertainty about future observances. "Millions of people prayed, and many of them here in this room, and God heard and answered prayer and here we are today!" said Dobson, husband of Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force.
While similar events took place in churches, on military bases and on courthouse steps across the country, about 400 people at the Washington observance prayed for relief from natural disasters and thanked God for the capture and death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"We are blessed to have the best military and the most sophisticated weaponry in the world," Shirley Dobson said. "They put their lives on the line to assure that justice was done."
President Obama, who discontinued his predecessor's annual observances at the White House, nonetheless issued a proclamation under the 1988 law that designates the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer.
Church-state separation groups continued to oppose the observances.
"It is bad manners and worse law for Congress and the president to exhort citizens to 'turn to God in prayer,' as the 1952 law enacting a National Day of Prayer does," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, copresident of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which recently lost the case about the observance.
Officials at the Baptist Joint Committee said official National Day of Prayer declarations are misguided and unnecessary. "The government shouldn't be in the business of telling the American people what, where or when to pray or even if they should pray," said J. Brent Walker, executive director of the 75-year-old religious liberty organization.
The annual observance does not represent a cataclysmic breach in the wall of separation between church and state, added K. Hollyn Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee. "There is little if any coercion of anyone's conscience," she said. But she added, "actual coercion" has never been the standard to judge whether or not government has overstepped its bounds in establishing religion.
Rep. Allen West (R., Fl.), who said that the Navy SEALs prayed before entering bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, defended the observances against opposition from advocates of church-state separation.
"That principle does not apply to separating me or any of us from our faith and belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," he said, drawing a standing ovation. "It does not apply to separating this great nation from its Judeo-Christian faith heritage."
Task force officials invited former Sen. Elizabeth Dole to speak "on behalf of" the executive branch, in lieu of a representative from the current administration. Dole, who served as secretary of transportation during Ronald Reagan's administration, spoke of Reagan's reliance on prayer, support of religious tolerance and belief in "how good can triumph over evil." —RNS, ABP | <urn:uuid:56495646-429e-49ae-ae5b-3743cb44cf03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-05/after-court-gives-ok-christians-mark-national-day-prayer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959029 | 659 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Google won't be able to compete with the attention lavished on Apple for the launch of the sixth-generation iPhone, but it did announce the notable milestone late tonight of half a billion device activations.
"Today is a big day for Android... 500 million devices activated globally, and over 1.3 million added every single day," said Hugo Bara, Android's director of product management, in a Google+ post. It's not clear how many devices are replacing older ones, though.
Barra said in June at the Google I/O show that 400 million Android devices had been activated and that the rate was 1 million per day.
He also noted that the Jelly Bean statue, which commemorates Android 4.1, is back on the Google sculpture gallery that shows off the various dessert-themed versions of the mobile operating system. The statue had to go back into the shop for repairs shortly after its debut.
Indeed, the transition to Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich is still grinding along slowly, with the earlier Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread still claiming 57 percent share of usage. Gingerbread is looking more and more like Windows XP: an operating system whose wide use means developers will have to support old technology for a long time. Ice Cream Sandwich has 20.9 percent of usage, now finally increasing steadily after months of little movement following its 2011 debut. Jelly Bean is at 1.2 percent, according to Google's measurements.
Updated at 3:22 a.m. PT to correct that 20.9 percent of Android usage today is with Android 4.0, according to Google's statistics. | <urn:uuid:99760daa-a517-4c1e-8325-f5d77ab4a742> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57510994-94/google-500-million-android-devices-activated/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966985 | 330 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The media's emphasis on the retaliatory nature of Israel's air strikes on Gaza distracts from the more consequential, newsworthy elements -- Israel's disproportionate use of violence and its upcoming Parliamentary elections.
That Israel attacked Gaza is no surprise. Since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel ended on December 19, it was only a matter of time before Israel responded to the increasing number of rockets fired across the border.
Under the blockade, Hamas' options were limited as the Palestinian people that elected them to power in the first place were increasingly powerless themselves. But on many levels it is foolish of Hamas to fire rockets arbitrarily at Israel since Israel's response will inevitably overwhelm them, not to mention the unwavering support from the U.S. and Britain for Israel.
For over a year, Israel has cleverly conducted a campaign in the West Bank that has caused further divisions between Hamas and Fatah, hoping that it would eventually lead to a shift in public opinion within Palestine, around the Arab world, and consequently result in the removal of Hamas from power -- regardless of the means.
Ever since the President's Fatah forces lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in 2007, the two groups have drifted further apart politically and have vowed to challenge each other.
In May 2007, Israel arrested 33 senior Hamas officials in the West Bank, and in the following months Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began closing down organizations that Hamas claimed were charitable and cracking down on Hamas' influence in the West Bank.
Saturday's storming assault -- or as Israel put it, "surgical strikes" on military targets in Gaza -- that killed over 300 Palestinians, many of whom are civilians, marks the bloodiest single day of violence since 1967.
Israel had hoped to change the situation on the ground and eliminate Hamas from the political and public sphere, but just as Gaza was surprised with the severity and strength of Israel's attack, Israel may unintentionally galvanize Palestinians to rally for Hamas and strengthen Iran's standing in the Middle East too.
Hezbollah was viewed by large swaths of the Arab world as the only Arab resistance group able to fight Israel in Lebanon. Now, Hamas has a chance to achieve the same recognition in Gaza.
What a damning start to the new year (it is also the Muslim New Year, which starts on December 29).
Israel's inability to recognize the desperation of Palestinians -- alongside Israel's destructive policies towards them -- and Hamas' inability to recognize the opportunity it creates for its enemy to successfully justify extreme violence with its largely ineffective rocket launches, suggests this war will not be brief.
The mortars fired into Israel from Gaza grant Israel the perfect opportunity to justify their attempts to eliminate Hamas -- and with elections coming up in February, they seem as committed as ever. But equally committed are the countless number of impoverished, desperate Palestinians crammed in Gaza who have seen their livelihoods lost and family members killed indiscriminately. It is the cliched "vicious circle," though hardly "an eye for an eye" -- more like "an eye for a head."
The European Union called for an "immediate ceasefire." France criticized Israel for the use of "disproportionate force." But the U.S. and Britain (the two countries that led the War in Iraq) chose not to condemn Israel, instead the Bush administration expectantly pledged its allegiance with Israel. Condoleeza Rice said in a statement, "We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence there."
But who will hold Israel responsible for the blockade of Gaza, which under the truce, was supposed to be lifted gradually?
Since Hamas gained total control of Gaza, Israel has imposed a systematic and terrorizing 18-month blockade on the strip, starving the 1.5 million Palestinians of fuel, electricity and medical supplies, which allowed for the death toll to climb higher as life-saving medical supplies remained unavailable to treat the wounded through a second day of fighting.
While the threat of rockets launched from Gaza can seem menacing, or even "terrorizing," it is incomparable to the terror that millions of Palestinians endure on a daily basis -- starving, living under an economic blockade, essentially imprisoned, desperate and demoralized.
Despite Israel's use of the threat of rocket fire as justification for its military attacks, the reality is that only one Israeli man has died from a Palestinian rocket attack since June -- and he died after Israel's bombardment of Gaza yesterday.
Death on either side of the border is disgraceful, but compare these two figures:
-- Since 2005, nine Israelis have been killed by rockets coming from Gaza.
-- Since yesterday morning, over 300 Palestinians have been killed by bombs and missiles coming from Israel.
Today, Israel acted on its announced plans to continue its "retaliation" against Hamas, proving yesterday's historic assault was "only the beginning." Israeli politicians hoping to demonstrate their ability to properly protect Israeli citizens have capitalized on a perfect opportunity.
As Israel's parliamentary elections draw near, politicians must be perceived as willing to do whatever it takes to protect Israel from the threat of rocket fire from Gaza. The aerial assault's main objective was to create a "shock and awe" effect, just as President Bush had done in his invasion of Iraq, that would produce a chaotic atmosphere facilitating a complete elimination of Hamas' military and security infrastructures and guarantee a sweeping and final victory.
Ehud Barak has been preparing Israelis for a full-on attack for some time now and stressed that he didn't intend to mislead them.
"It won't be easy and it won't be short," he said, offering an outlook that is more earnest and realistic than President Bush ever offered Americans in the run up to the Iraq War.
Israeli leaders who seem too keen on compromising with the Palestinians are likely to lose support from constituents. Aware of the fragile leadership in Israel following Prime Minister Olmert's corruption charges, Hamas leaders may have planned the increase in rocket attacks, despite warnings, to test both Israel and America's weakened image in the Middle East.
In a televised address, Olmert said it was his aim "to change the situation in the southern part of Israel." The campaign word of 2008 rolled off his tongue effortlessly. Change.
The change of leadership in America and the economic crisis are precisely what has so many in Israel worried.
America's reputation among many Arabs is damaged, as shown by this month's shoe-throwing spectacle. The general failure of the War in Iraq and the general perception of America's blind support for Israel are seen as one in the same, breeding new wells of anger and hatred that may be tapped to recruit new trainees for terrorism.
Any provocation coming from armed groups in the region -- for instance, Hamas' rockets -- may be an attempt to see how an unpopular, overstretched and economically bust America will come to Israel's rescue when its own economic and military viability is in question.
In the run-up to the general election, we were reminded that the next American president will be tested in the first 6 months of his presidency and that a 3 a.m. phone call was sure to come. But President-elect Obama is gonna need a switchboard and team of operators to field all the calls he'll be receiving.
Israel's ailing government has been preparing the Israeli people for a full-fledged effort to get rid of Hamas once and for all. In the days leading up to the attack, Israeli officials carefully and cunningly claimed they did not want the ceasefire to end, reminding the world it was Hamas that ended it in order to create the perception that Israel had not planned or hoped for an escalation of violence despite the reconnaissance missions they ran prior to the actual attacks. Hamas, on the other hand, argued that the economic blockade and strangulation of Gaza was what prompted them to end the truce.
Israel's insistence that their actions are defensive measures would work better if they had not prevented the international press from entering Gaza just a few weeks before they launched the assault.
As the attacks occurred, I was in Kuwait walking through The Avenues, one of Kuwait's newest mega-malls. With smooth, polished marble below me and dazzling chandeliers above me I was completely oblivious to the maelstrom raining above Gaza.
At home, flipping between channels, my family all gathered around the television and watched as Arab leaders and demonstrators from across the region blasted Israel and condemned the international community for its lack of leadership and fairness in ending Israel's escalating attacks.
Their statements were woven with startling images of bloodied bodies strewn across demolished buildings and rubble. Their comments often amounted to a blurred and blended stream of anger, frustration and curses of America and Israel and I wondered if any of this would ever reach an American audience.
Baghdad, Beirut, Amman, Cairo and Istanbul all saw large protests including both burning tires and candles. But in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, all of whom are geographically and emotionally much closer to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is there that the most roaring responses were heard.
In Amman, a city whose inhabitants are predominantly of Palestinian origin, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood called Arab rulers that have established terms with Israel criminals and demanded they cut ties.
In Lebanon, hundreds of thousands were in the streets to support the Palestinians in Gaza, and many demonstrated near the Egyptian embassy in Beirut.
Egypt, which brokered the six-month cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, has struggled to end the violence after President Hosni Mubarak met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and has also been unable to bring the clashing factions of Fatah and Hamas together.
"Today everybody has to stand by the Palestinian people's side and stop this blind military action," Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt's foreign minister said. But he also blamed Hamas for ignoring warnings that Israel would attack if they continued to send rockets to Gaza.
Hamas will never heed any warnings from Israel and will continue to fire rockets indiscriminately because it is their only means of fighting. Accordingly, Israel will always "retaliate" and justify their actions by focusing only on a short period of time where they can appear to be defending themselves against Hamas' largely laughable rocket attacks. This way they can drive a narrative that overlooks the oppressive, brutal blockade that encourages the continuation of rockets.
While Arab countries have unanimously condemned the attacks on Gaza, some seem to want to wait to see whether Israel's gamble that their attacks will diminish Palestinian support for Hamas will materialize before getting too involved.
When Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, called for the UN Security Council to meet to discuss the situation in Gaza and called for an emergency meeting with foreign ministers of the Arab League, Arab ministers postponed it, citing preoccupations with other affairs.
Hisham Youssef, a spokesman for the Arab League, said that the responsibility does not lay with the Arab league and instead deferred to the UN, claiming they have not taken any responsibility for stopping the offensive on Gaza.
There are many obstacles facing any lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but the elephant in the room -- or at least one of the bigger elephants-- is the lack of Arab unity on promoting the rights of Palestinians and trusting a unified Palestinian movement to secure a path towards peace.
Israel has shown no indication that it plans to change its course of action, despite the UN Security Council's call for an immediate halt to the violence, and they don't have to. So far, they have succeeded in diverting attention away from the crippling blockade and isolation imposed on Gaza and successfully framed their excessive use of violence as a defensive measure to protect Israelis from the fear of aimless rockets.
Once again the United Nations, with all its resolutions and supposed authority, is powerless when it comes to Israel's right to defend itself at all costs. Since the U.S. and Britain both hold veto power Israel will never have to take any decision taken by the UN seriously.
President-elect Obama and soon to be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spent much time arguing in the past about who would be more ready to lead America on day one. But following Israel's ambitious attack on Gaza, they are both going to have to show up more prepared than their predecessors since it is likely that a renewed anger towards Israel and America will send many figurative shoes flying their way.
Follow Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shihabeldin | <urn:uuid:cd22adcf-f46c-4720-8832-9deaf9b35937> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-shihabeldin/israels-blockade-becomes_b_153753.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967007 | 2,550 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Our grants are an essential part of our work to protect the nation’s heritage. You can find out about all the ways in which this work of protection is carried out in the National Heritage Protection Plan.
The grants we offer are intended for:
- People who own or manage individual historic sites and need to repair them or understand them better;
- Local authorities with historic sites in their care;
- Organisations who want to encourage better understanding, management and conservation of the historic environment in its many and varied forms.
In all cases we expect to have a dialogue with the applicant. Please note that we cannot grant aid work which has begun before a written grant offer has been made and accepted.
We will take account of our Grant Priorities in deciding which applications we will support.
We will assess all applications to establish:
- Whether there is a financial need for grant, including whether there is a lack of alternative public or charitable funding;
- Whether the work or activity proposed is required within two years;
- The scope for long-term viability of any activity or historic asset supported.
We will also take account of any wider benefits your project will provide. | <urn:uuid:a5eb56c4-7f9d-4d33-bdfc-cb745d42398d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/funding/grants/grants-available/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950033 | 240 | 1.625 | 2 |
Wednesday January 16, 2013 at 11:11 AM | 3 Comments
As we waited among the throng of people to go through Universal Orlando security near the drop-off parking lot in Orlando, Florida, it was clear I needed strategies to maximize this one day visit. Although, for my 20 year-old daughter, 11 year-old son, and myself, Universal’s Islands of Adventure’s thrill rides and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter were a perfect fit, without strategies we could not have the day we anticipated. Here are twelve. Happily, we’d already put two into play by the time we hit security.
1. Acquire discount tickets: Because my daughter is in the military, her ticket was free. We went to Shades of Green, the military resort hotel on Walt Disney World’s property to get her ticket voucher the night before. My son and I were able to buy our tickets there for a $5.50 discount. For those without a military perk, check your hotel for discount tickets. $88 dollars seemed to be the going rate for a one-day ticket.
2. Arrive early: We were in the park’s gate by 9:30 am which seemed plenty early, but given the crowd, earlier would have been better. The gate opened at 9.
Because we had tickets in hand, we sped through the turnstile to take in two attractions at Seuss Landing before 10.
As the day progressed, other strategies unfolded. Here’s what I learned that helped us see and do all we wanted to see and do and not spend a lot of money. Except for the ticket prices, I dropped less than $25 to keep us fed and hydrated.
3. Bring water bottles: We brought our water bottles with us. There are water fountains everywhere so refilling them isn’t a problem.
4. Only bring one backpack or large purse: I brought a large cloth purse big enough for my camera, our sweaters and sunscreen. Because some rides don’t allow carry-on items, only having one item to put in a locker helped us move quickly through the masses trying to figure out the locker system.
5. Be aggressive when scoring a locker but help others too: When scouting out a locker in one of the locker areas near every ride that doesn’t allow belongings, shoulder your way to the keypad where lockers are assigned. Using a locker requires following prompts and pushing buttons. Press hard and keep trying. One prompt instructs you to scan a finger. Once your scan is accepted, a prompt gives the locker assignment. To get items back, you’ll return to the same keypad and follow the prompts to retrieve items.
Helping others who are having problems (I was one of those people who needed help and then offered tips later) makes the locker experience more pleasant and keeps people moving through the locker area.
6. Take advantage of the free locker option: We used three different lockers (each time for a different ride) and didn’t pay once. The locker times for the free option seem to be timed so that you can put your items in a locker right before you get in a line and retrieve them right after you get off of the ride.
Once you open a locker, you have to go back to the keypad to get another one. Paying would be a good option if you brought things with you that you don’t want to carry at all for several hours.
7. Immediately head to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: We didn’t do this. We arrived at the entrance of this section of the park at about 10:15 where pleasant park attendants directed us to the waiting line that wound through Jurassic Park. While we were in the waiting line, we were given stand by passes to get into the Wizarding World. By 11 am we were able to turn in our passes landing us in Hogwarts.
8. If a line has a 20 minute wait, go for it since this is a short line: At 11 am, the line for the Dragon Challenge, a roller coaster with upside down loops was 20 minutes long. Despite my son’s, “I think I want to wait, I’m not ready,” response to our first major ride, I forged ahead. Plus, his sister bribed him $5. As I explained, 20 minutes could stretch into longer later. He went and loved it.
9. Buy food to eat while waiting in line or walking between rides: One soft pretzel, one turkey leg, one churrozo and two Butterbeer drinks were shared as we wound our way from ride to ride. Sitting down to eat might have been great on another day, but we were on a roll to get in as much as possible. (Total food and drink cost-$21)
10. Keep an eye out for discarded ponchos: When my daughter announced she was not going on a water ride because she didn’t want to get wet, I planned to fork over money for ponchos–until I saw three ponchos someone had left on a trash can. Discarded ponchos are common. People toss them once they are off a water ride. This find saved $24 dollars.
11. Go in the single rider line: While we were in line for the Jurassic Park River Adventure with a 90 minute wait, a voice came on over the loud speaker. “The single rider line has a 5 minute wait.” We, along with others, made a dash for the single rider option. Within 20 minutes, we were on the ride. Although we didn’t sit together (we sat one in front of the other), we had a blast. The single rider line is used to fill up empty seats.
We used the single rider line option to go on The Hulk roller coaster as well. My son ended up sitting next to me anyway. This ride was another one he wasn’t sure about, but the regular wait was 75 minutes. The single rider line was 15. He also loved this one.
12. Look for large signs that list the rides and current wait times: While we were walking towards Marvel Superhero Island from Toon Lagoon, I noticed one of these signs which helped us plan which ride we wanted to go on next.
Two tips for next time:
1. Bring food with us. Although you can’t bring in a picnic lunch, we could have brought in sandwiches and snacks.
2. Stay later. We left at 8:15 pm, almost two hours before the park closed due to our schedule. After 7 pm, we noticed ride lines were considerably shorter.
Within our 11 hour visit, which frankly felt like plenty, we were able to take in every major ride and see every show. Our longest ride wait, almost two hours, was for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Although this was a long wait, the last 45 minutes of the line was part of the attraction. Our shortest line was five minutes for Cat in the Hat. We went on that ride, a rollicking, clever trip through Dr. Seuss’s beloved book, first.
Later in the day, the wait for Cat in the Hat was over an hour so maybe our timing for a visit to Harry Potter was just right after all.
My son was happy with a souvenir penny that he made at a shop on the way out. Cost of souvenir penny: 51 cents.
What are your favorite things to do at Universal’s Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida?
Post and photos courtesy of Jamie Rhein, member of the Midwest Travel Writers Association | <urn:uuid:5f194375-106a-4abb-b05b-0420b920af79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nancydbrown.com/tag/orlando | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972337 | 1,604 | 1.53125 | 2 |
minigallery: Vega VV01 launch campaign
The first Vega launch campaign began on 7 November 2011 at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana with the installation of the P80 first stage on the launch pad.
The two solid-propellant second and third stages, the Zefiro-23 and Zefiro-9, were then transferred from the Vega Booster Storage and Preparation Building and added to the vehicle.
All three stages underwent final acceptance, including testing of their thrust vector control system. The next step was to mate the AVUM – Attitude & Vernier Upper Module – liquid-propellant fourth stage to the vehicle.
The ‘upper composite’ – the fairing and payload – was moved to the pad and integrated on 24 January.
It was followed by the final checkout of the fully assembled launcher and the countdown rehearsal.
Vega flight VV01 lifted off at 10:00 GMT (11:00 CET, 07:00 local time) on 13 February 2012 from its new launch pad, and conducted a flawless qualification flight. | <urn:uuid:d51e405e-4d1b-4275-89fa-17ddb6251c7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Launchers/Launch_vehicles/Vega3/Vega_VV01_launch_campaign | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95019 | 223 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Afghanistan's first female provincial governor was appointed by President Hamid Karzai last week. Habiba Sorabi, former Minister of Women’s Affairs, has been selected to head the central province of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. According to Agence France Presse, 200 people went to the streets to protest her appointment but were soon overrun by 1,000 supporters who came out in the streets to celebrate Sorabi.
Sorabi sees her appointment as an opportunity to raise awareness about women’s rights that are enshrined in Afghanistan’s new constitution, reports Reuters. Sorabi told Agence France Presse that “the biggest challenge for women generally in Afghanistan is safety from warlords and commanders. Security is very important for women to be able to go to court or visit rights associations.” She also stated that reconstructing Bamiyan will be another great challenge because the region virtually lacks power and asphalt roads. | <urn:uuid:ebbef7a7-f2a4-4e7d-9096-f0213662deb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.msmagazine.com/news/printnews.asp?id=8939 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975462 | 191 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The 25th witness in Jean-Pierre Bemba's trial at the International Criminal Court today continued giving testimony entirely in closed session. Last Friday, 'witness 169' started giving evidence after judges had announced that all his testimony would be in closed to the public.
According to prosecutors, 'witness 169' is an "important witness," who will provide evidence that the court has not heard from any of the previous witnesses. Judges ordered that once this witness completes testifying, an edited transcript of his testimony should be made public. Judges will have to approve the redactions before the transcript is published.
'Witness 169' is the 25th witness called by prosecutors since the trial of Mr. Bemba, a former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, started last November. Prosecutors plan to call another 15 witnesses in their bid to prove that Mr. Bemba is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from his alleged failure to control his Movement for the Liberation of Congo soldiers, who prosecutors claim raped, killed, and pillaged during their deployment in the Central African Republic. The crimes, which he has denied committing, were allegedly carried out in 2002 and 2003.
'Witness 169' is scheduled to testify in closed session all of this week and the first two days of next week. Court will then break for a three week long summer recess. | <urn:uuid:ee95d19e-59e9-4eab-979b-184171e7add6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/201107070050.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983881 | 276 | 1.695313 | 2 |
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.
from "Extracts from Adam's Diary" by Mark Twain
When I first came up with the idea of devoting the month of March to women in Indian cinema I had no idea, really, what to call it, and I sort of half-jokingly toyed with the idea of calling it Adam's Rib after the 1949 film directed by George Kukor, starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (and which bore the tag line: "It's the hilarious answer to who wears the pants." Some days I think it's obvious who wears the pants in the business of cinema.)
The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought that perhaps it was the best name for what I hope to see happen in March, as I originally quoted from Women in Malayalam Cinema: Naturalising Gender Hierarchies, edited by Meena T. Pillai: a celebration of the "immense creative and productive potential" of women.
One interpretation of the idea of Eve being created from Adam's rib is that it represents the fact that she is, in fact, his equal; having been taken from his side, she complements and completes him. And I suppose that idea is precisely why it gets up my nose a bit at times when women are given short shrift, in any endeavour, but also in cinema.
In the end, I kind of think it's fitting to call a month celebrating women in cinema "Adam's Rib", in a tip of the hat to the fact that, in a kind of cinematic Garden of Eden, cinema would be much less rich without some of the wonderful women who make films, write films, and star in films -- and who, all too often, support men in the fringes of films.
So that's the plan for the whole month of March, and I'm giving everyone a head's up now so they have all of February to plot, plan, and write. There are no rules: just write about women in Indian (and diaspora) cinema. You could look at actors, directors, writers. You could just write about your favorite female actor if you want. You can look at women's issues, and how they're dealt with in film. Anything goes, as long as it fulfils the month's essential aim: to celebrate women and their creativity and talent.
If you would like to join in, let me know in the comments, and I'll put together a list of participants. I'll also collect the links on Delicious, and I'm going to suggest using the hashtag #adamsrib on Twitter.
Let's show everyone who wears the pants around here! | <urn:uuid:5671eb23-056e-4238-8c96-fe5bf1aaa577> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.totallyfilmi.com/2012/02/adams-rib-a-celebration-of-women-in-indian-cinema.html | 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 | 0.97992 | 575 | 1.578125 | 2 |
by Melissa Brunner
When tragedies happen, I suppose it's human nature to ask, "Why?" Certainly, as journalists we're trained to ask the question. It is one of the "Ws," after all. We ask questions until we're sure we understand the various aspects of what happened or is happening so we can clearly explain it to you, our viewers
Confession: Some things I will never understand.
I don't understand how someone could go to an elementary school and unload on classrooms filled with innocent children.
I can't explain why the bullets brushed past one child in the hallway but failed to spare the next.
I don't understand why some families will be planning Christmas celebrations filled with gratitude, while others will be planning funerals, filled with grief.
Who's to say why some of the very educators who protected and warned their students and colleagues paid for their efforts with their lives?
I don't understand how an adult could feel so... desparate? distraught? angry? ... that he (or she) would think harming children was the only outlet through which to express the emotion.
Many people live with mental illness. Many people suffer loss. Many people get frustrated with their families. Yes, many people are given a raw deal in life.
But very few pick up weapons, drive to an elementary school, get through the doors and open fire.
Speculation as to what drove the young man to attack Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday is well underway. We're asking about his background. We're asking how he got the weapons. We're asking about his personality. We're asking about any possible mental challenges, medical disorders or history of violent or erratic behavior.
We are asking why.
But I just don't think I will ever understand. | <urn:uuid:bec0941f-5896-4b70-b3c6-0f5fb953b992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wibw.com/blogs/melissa/I_Dont_Understand_183595841.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982129 | 363 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Government considers New Deal of the Mind
The New Deal of The Mind has a simple objective, but you could hardly accuse it of lacking ambition. Its aim is to boost employment in Britain’s creative sector - for the good of the entire nation.
This initiative, not even four months old, already has the ear of Cabinet ministers, leaders of the creative sector and, perhaps most importantly, the guardians of the public purse-strings.
The New Deal of the Mind developed from an article written in the New Statesman in January by its former political editor Martin Bright.
In this piece, Bright suggested that cultural elements of the Works Progress Administration, part of US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s post-Great Depression New Deal, be adapted for the UK today.
Bright listed the achievements of the WPA: 3500 branch libraries created; 4400 musical performances every month by the Federal Music Project; a collection of oral histories collated which featured the narratives of the last living slaves.
He then put together five suggestions for a contemporary New Deal of the Mind: the establishment of the brains trust; a national oral history task force; a national family history project; a new deal for music and drama; and a geeks and hobbyists charter. ‘If there’s a minister out there prepared to take up some of these ideas,’ he wrote, ‘do bear me in mind.’
As it turns out, there were two. Both Culture Secretary Andy Burnham and Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell expressed an interest.
‘It was a think piece,’ Bright says. ‘I just threw it out there - it got quite an unusual response.’
Others who rallied to the initiative were Lorraine Gamman and Adam Thorpe of the University of the Arts London - who invited Bright to work alongside them at the Central St Martins College of Art and Design’s Design Against Crime Research Centre - and Catherine Fieschi, director of the British Council’s Counterpoint think tank, who offered initial funding.
Shortly after writing the piece, Bright had dinner with Chancellor Alistair Darling and his wife Maggie (‘Not an everyday event,’ he says) where the conversation turned to the New Deal of the Mind. Maggie, a former journalist with a personal interest in the arts, suggested a seminar at Number 11. ‘It grew far beyond the original idea,’ says Bright.
Organised by Bright, along with Gamman and her office, the seminar, held on 24 March, attracted a staggering array of politicians, artists, designers and cultural leaders.
Alongside Burnham and Purnell were Conservative Shadow Culture Minister Ed Vaizey and Lib Dem spokeswoman for youth and equality Lynne Featherstone. Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, rubbed shoulders with Royal College of Art rector Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, BBC director-general Mark Thompson, and Wolff Olins co-founder Michael Wolff.
‘It was a collection of the people who hold the steering wheels,’ Wolff says.
What emerged from this impressive meeting of minds is a plethora of initiatives aiming to stimulate employment in the creative sectors, while tapping into that industry’s resources.
Thorpe says, ‘We didn’t want the meeting to be a case of the creative industries turning up and just asking for money - we were looking for opportunities for design to help society.’
Thorpe and Gamman are working on a design strand of New Deal of the Mind. This aims to team up graduate designers with the third sector through an internship scheme, to provide employment for graduates, and to provide design support for the third sector, which Thorpe describes as ‘an area that needs help’.
‘If the Design Council’s Design Index Report provides evidence of how design can help the private sector, just think of what it can do for the voluntary sector,’ he says.
Thorpe says he hopes this scheme will be funded through the Office of the Third Sector’s £16.5m modernisation fund, which comes on-stream in the summer.
While other proposals such as the plans for an oral history taskforce, welcomed by Heritage Lottery Fund chairwoman Jenny Abramsky, and initiatives for film-makers to shoot movies about diversity, supported to the tune of £1m by Phillips, are being developed, two other key aspirations should particularly turn the heads of the design industry.
The first is an aim to reinstate a version of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, introduced in the 1980s, which saw the Government pay benefits to help unemployed people set up their own businesses. Frayling says, ‘I wrote references for about 60 Enterprise Allowance applications in the 1980s and early 1990s - they work.’
The second is a plan to take empty properties - Bright suggests high-street stores vacated by bankrupt retailers - and convert them into studios, incubation spaces or New Deal of the Mind centres. He says a New Deal of the Mind proposal, which features these two ideas and others, is now winging its way to ministers.
But the key thing about the initiative, as everyone is at pains to tell me, is its open-source nature - any potential job creation ideas will be welcomed.
‘We need to move quickly,’ says Thorpe. ‘We need to be decentralised, and we need to be bottom-up, not top-down.’
Gamman concludes, ‘[We want everyone] to contribute their views and proposals for a New Deal of the Mind that provides jobs and opportunities and social capacity at a time of high demand. Together, we are strong.’
original aims of the New Deal of the Mind
• A brains trust - Prime Minister Gordon Brown should set up a group of the country’s leading intellectuals to give him a broader cultural and historical perspective
• National oral history task force - graduates should be employed to collate the oral history of Britain’s recent past
• National family history project - the Government should restore funding for the National Archive’s online census
• The new deal for music and drama - there should be an expansion of singing, music and drama in schools
• A geeks and hobbyists charter - the ideas of the country’s amateur innovators should be turned into business | <urn:uuid:80461195-36af-4cf3-84b2-b291c48762cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/government-considers-new-deal-of-the-mind/1141880.article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944241 | 1,331 | 1.664063 | 2 |
View search and A to Z
The arrangements for a burial are usually organised by a Funeral Director but this is not compulsory and a burial can be arranged by liaising directly with the Cemetery Office.
New lawn graves are available. These are for two coffin burials although additional depth may be available when the first burial is an infant of less than twelve months old. Cremated remains can also be interred in addition to the two coffin burials.
If there is sufficient space within an existing grave space then it can be re-opened for further burials. Authorisation to open the grave must be given by the Grave Owner(s).
If the Grave Owner is the deceased then the immediate next of kin/executor can authorise the burial and a formal transfer of the Exclusive Rights of Burial and Memorialisation should then be undertaken.
Graves are available specifically for cremated remains. Up to four sets of cremated remains can be interred within one grave space. (Each set must be within a biodegradable casket). Please note that memorial design and size is restricted on this type of grave.
It is not compulsory to purchase a grave at the time of burial. The option of purchase may take place at a later date. However, there are memorial restrictions on unpurchased graves.
The option of a Woodland Burial is available at Keele Cemetery. Each grave space is for one interment only and can be marked by the planting of a tree. More information can be found under Keele Cemetery
Specific areas may be available for individual preferences in some of the Cemeteries.
No, you purchase the Exclusive Right of Burial and Memorialisation to the grave space for a period of 50 years, which means that only you or a person of your choice can be buried within the grave. The actual grave belongs to the Burial Authority, as do the Burial Grounds.
Yes you can. At present graves can be reserved for a period of 50 years. There is a limited choice within the Cemeteries and an appointment at the Cemetery Office must be made in order to reserve a grave.
The cost of a burial includes the purchase of the grave and the right to erect a memorial and an interment fee for the digging of the grave and the interment of the deceased. All graves purchased prior to April 1990 do not include the right to erect a memorial thus an additional fee will be applicable in these cases. A full list of current prices is available from the Cemetery Office.
A grave can be excavated by machine or by hand. Due to the location of some graves a soil box is required and can be placed on an adjacent grave, restricting access.
After a burial there is a settlement period of at least six months before a memorial can be erected, with the exception of cremated remains graves where the memorial is erected directly onto a concrete foundation.
No, the cost of maintaining your grave and the Cemetery grounds is included in the fee you pay at the time of the burial. The graves will be turfed between nine and twelve months after the burial, dependent on the time of year and if you request new turf or soil then a fee will be applicable.
The type of grave available are lawn graves and additional items to the memorial are not permitted on and around the grave space. Any items that are left are left at the owners risk and the Council takes no responsibility for damages to, or loss of, items. Cemetery Staff may remove any items left if they are found to be hazardous or a hindrance to maintenance work schedules. | <urn:uuid:1ba92959-3127-4e29-9743-36b894057cfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newcastle-staffs.gov.uk/community_content.asp?id=SX2F90-A7809DD7&cat=1370 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941669 | 730 | 1.515625 | 2 |
• EVERY STUDENT, EVERY CHANCE, EVERY DAY •Dr. David E. Cash, Superintendent • 720 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 • (805) 963-4338
Editorial: Guest Opinion, Santa Barbara News-Press, February 17, 2011
A recent commentary by Fred Hofmann, an instructor in political science at Santa Barbara City College, invites these further thoughts on the histories of these leading Santa Barbara institutions.
Santa Barbara City College and UCSB emerged from the Santa Barbara School District, which was formed in 1866 and will celebrate its 145th anniversary this year.
In 1891, the Anna Blake School of domestic science was started in cooperation with the Santa Barbara School District. Later, the district took over operation and funding of this school, which became known as the Santa Barbara Manual Training School.
In 1906, a summer school for teachers was started at the Santa Barbara Manual Training School. In 1909, the teacher program became year-round and the state of California, at the request of the Santa Barbara School District, took the school over. At the same time, a junior college for grades 13 and 14 was established at Santa Barbara High School. This was the second junior college in the state.
In 1913, the teachers college moved to a newly constructed campus on the Riviera. In 1921, the junior college joined with it. Between 1921 and 1926, the official name of this institution was the Santa Barbara State Teachers College and Junior College.
In time, what became Santa Barbara State College became the immediate predecessor of UCSB. A new junior college was formed by the Santa Barbara High School District in 1946, and this junior college became Santa Barbara City College in 1959.
It is true, as Mr. Hofmann says, that the current Santa Barbara City College and UCSB have "distinct pedigrees." However, as he also notes, Santa Barbara City College now occupies the site on the Mesa that originally was intended for Santa Barbara State College and then, in 1944, the Santa Barbara College of the University of California when Santa Barbara State College became part of the University of California.
In many respects, the current Santa Barbara City College has inherited the spirit of Santa Barbara State College, though UCSB became the latter's institutional successor. Like Santa Barbara State College, Santa Barbara City College is located in the city of Santa Barbara and has high attendance by local students. By way of contrast, UCSB's roots are found as much in the University of California and it has a more diverse student body.
Leslie Westbrook writes in her recent history of Santa Barbara City College, "A Century of Success, A Future of Possibilities," that the challenge in writing on local higher educational history is "plumbing the unfathomable depths of . . . origins."
Santa Barbara is primarily an educational community. There are many great educational institutions here, including Santa Barbara City College, Westmont and UCSB. Mr. Hofmann should be commended for his contributions to increasing our understanding of the origins of local higher education.
Lanny Ebenstein is a past president of the Santa Barbara Board of Education | <urn:uuid:37f0a954-e03c-4e2e-84c5-ab1ec5444785> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sbsdk12.org/schools/history/SBCC-UCSB.shtml | 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 | 0.963975 | 639 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Today Show Wedding Contestants Must Be Able to Legally Marry in New York
Yesterday we told you about a problem in the application for NBC "Today Show's" wedding contest. The contest is called: "TODAY's Wedding: Modern Love," but the application form only lists “bride” and “groom” as the options for couples to choose. The blog "Good As You" first alerted GLAAD to this issue. It concerned us because the Today Show opened up its "Hometown Wedding" contest to same-sex couples in states where they could legally marry back in 2005. That happened following GLAAD's outreach and we assumed this contest was also open to our community.
After speaking with a representative from "Today" we found out that the actual wedding for this latest contest is going to take place at a venue in New York and the couple must be able to legally marry in the state. New York State unfortunately does not yet have marriage equality. Same-sex couples who marry legally outside of New York are, however, recognized by the state.
Statement from Today:
"For the TODAY show wedding, the couple must be able to be legally married in New York, which is where the wedding will take place."
"Today" has chosen New York to stay within budget, since most of its key crew and core operations are located there. While we understand production constraints and recognize this is not the "Hometown Wedding" contest, it's still disappointing that same-sex couples that can legally marry in Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington D.C. are not eligible to participate with "Today" since the show's contest requires a legal wedding in New York. "Today" should also consider New York same-sex couples that can legally marry elsewhere and are recognized by the state.
We're asking the program to look seriously at amending its rules to allow same-sex couples to apply for the contest regardless of whether they can marry in New York State, since committed gay and lesbian couples regularly declare their love in commitment ceremonies across the country. Why not throw a commitment ceremony on "Today" if a same-sex couple is allowed in the contest and ends up winning?
We also pointed out to "Today" that its current eligibility requirements do not specify that the wedding be in New York. GLAAD has asked NBC to revise the language so interested couples are aware of the restrictions. The network confirmed today that it would make the revision.
We're still discussing the overall issue with NBC and we'll keep you updated on any new developments in our outreach. | <urn:uuid:15cacb86-9190-4260-8167-896d3c15f4c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glaad.org/2010/07/01/today-show-wedding-contestants-must-be-able-to-legally-marry-in-new-york/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960197 | 536 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Beijing warns residents after off-the-charts smog
BEIJING (AP) - Beijing schools canceled outdoor flag-raisings and took sports classes indoors while hospitals saw a spike in respiratory cases on Monday because of the extremely hazardous air in China's notoriously smoggy capital following a weekend of off-the charts pollution.
City authorities ordered many factories to scale back emissions, and were spraying water at building sites to try to tamp down the dust and dirt that worsens the noxious haze that has hung over the city since late last week.
Demand spiked for face masks and air purifiers, and hospitals saw surges of up to 30 per cent in residents seeking help for breathing problems, state-run media outlets reported.
Schools in several districts were ordered to cancel outdoor activities, and in an unusual public announcement, Beijing authorities advised all residents to ''take measures to protect their health." | <urn:uuid:4776e1dd-0713-40dd-8c55-a8822bae35e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/asia/story/beijing-warns-residents-after-the-charts-smog-20130114 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956812 | 184 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Chairman Hunter, Chairman Smith, and other members of the Committee on Armed Services and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: thank you for this opportunity to participate in a forum on Implementing Department of Defense “Zero Tolerance” Policy with regard to Trafficking in Humans.
Since 1778, starting at Valley Forge, Inspectors General in America have served as independent extensions of the eyes, ears, and conscience of their respective commanders.
This Inspector General's commander is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who recently admonished all leaders in the Department of Defense never to “turn a blind eye" to what our Commander-in-Chief, in a speech last year to the United Nations General Assembly, singled out a “special evil.”
Before I go on, I want to express my gratitude to the Members of Congress who enacted legislative tools for us to deploy throughout the Department of Defense in our ongoing efforts to teach and train our troops about Human Trafficking and otherwise to suppress this “dissolute and immoral practice."
I would also like to acknowledge and thank the uniformed inspectors general of the military departments, with whom my mostly-civilian staff of professionals and I have been closely cooperating to suppress Human Slavery associated in any way with our Department of Defense around the world.
One might ask why, in the midst of the Global War on Terrorism, even as deployed American soldiers are risking the ultimate sacrifice for us in Afghanistan and Iraq, the President of the United States would devote almost a fifth of his United Nations speech last September to the subject of human trafficking. One answer might be the nexus between human traffickers and the arms traffickers supporting the terrorists who are killing our soldiers. Another answer might be that caring for the victims of human trafficking is a paradigmatically righteous thing to do for a President who refers to himself as a “compassionate conservative.” A more fundamental answer might be that to confront modern-day human slavery forces us all to focus on “first things first,” that is, principles that are worth fighting for, in order that we might better focus on “second things,” which include survival.
“[T]he principle of 'first and second things,' as C. S. Lewis calls it . . . [is] that when second things are put first, not only first things but second things too are lost. More exactly, when there are greater goods, or ultimate ends and proximate ends, if we put lesser goods, like survival, before greater goods, like values to survive for, then we lose not only the greater goods, the values, but even the lesser goods that we've idolized . . . [T]he society that believes in nothing worth surviving for beyond mere survival will not survive.”
Our currently available legislative tools for suppressing Human Trafficking include, of course, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and its 2003 reauthorization, which together prescribe a model “zero tolerance” standard not only for all Americans but for our Western Alliance partners as well. There is another legislative tool for combating Trafficking in Persons, less known but equally potent for those of us serving in the Department of Defense, known as the “Exemplary Conduct” leadership standard.
Congress first approved this leadership standard in 1775, and re-enacted it in 1997 to promote precisely the type of moral courage expected of military and civilian leaders throughout the Department of Defense in the face of relativists and cynics who say either that it's no use to take on the so-called “oldest profession known to man," or worse, and I have personally witnessed this pernicious attitude in Washington, D.C., and around the world, "they're just prostitutes."
Among the many “lessons learned” in the course of our joint and global Human Trafficking inspections in Korea, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo over the past two years, two warrant reiteration today. First of all, among the root causes of the recent resurgence of human trafficking, aside from the obvious profit motive of organized criminals, is a general reluctance of leaders at all levels to promulgate and to enforce principle-based standards for subordinates who create the demand for prostitution generally, and for sex slavery specifically. The second “lesson learned” that I would respectfully reiterate today is that whenever leaders, especially those of us who swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” become aware of humans being referred to as “just” something else (for example, “they’re just prostitutes”), we ought never turn a blind eye.
To actively subjugate -- or to “turn a blind eye” when others subjugate -- any group of humans to a category of existence beneath the dignity of individuals “created equal, [and] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [among which] are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is, in a word, un-American.
Simply stated, slavery is antithetical to the core principles that underlie our Constitution. By taking on this “special evil,” we focus not only on physically surviving the ongoing Global War on Terror, but on the very principles that define “survival.”
My testimony today draws upon not only two Human Trafficking Inspector General reports over the past two years, but also upon a draft article, the working title of which is “Examining Sex Slavery through the Fog of Moral Relativism.” Copies of the reports and the draft article are included as attachments to my prepared statement. The reports speak for themselves. The draft article is based on first-hand observations I have made while inspecting U.S. forces overseas.
In Korea, we found that leadership of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) had initiated aggressive efforts to address the problem of human trafficking. During the course of our assessment we noted some areas of the USFK human trafficking program that could be improved. General Leon LaPorte, USFK Commander, embraced our recommendations and acted promptly to implement them.
At the invitation of General LaPorte, I personally traveled to Korea – twice. During my first inspection visit to Korea, one of our Army MP escorts explained that the contracts for Russian entertainers on the so-called “Hooker Hill” in Seoul are sold weekly from one establishment to another. When I asked the young MP if he would like to do something about this blatant form of human slavery, he unhesitatingly responded in the affirmative, but then added that it was beyond his control. The young soldier was obviously waiting for a signal from the chain-of-command that would empower him to combat this affront to human dignity that, to him, seemed so morally wrong. Unbeknownst to this soldier, the top of his USFK chain of command had already sent the signal. It just hadn’t made it down to his level – yet.
Upon my return a year later, I found obvious indicators of substantial improvement: the message is getting out to all levels of command. The DoD’s zero tolerance policy is being effectively implemented thanks to the moral leadership of General LaPorte and his entire USFK leadership team.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, we found negligible evidence that members of U.S. Armed Forces patronized prostitutes or engaged in any other activities that support human trafficking. We did identify some opportunities to improve contractor awareness of the Department’s policy with regard to Trafficking in Persons. Subsequent to our report, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum to all the military departments, combatant commands, and Department of Defense offices implementing National Security Presidential Directive 22, establishing a “zero tolerance” approach to trafficking in persons. I have included along with my prepared statement copies of both Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz’ memorandum as well as Secretary Rumsfeld’s more recent memorandum on the same subject.
The principle conclusion from both Inspector General assessments is the need to educate service members on human trafficking issues and for leaders to be “vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all persons who are placed under their command.”
This leadership standard, which I referred to at the beginning of my prepared statement, was first drafted by John Adams and enacted by the Continental Congress as Article I of the 1775 Navy Regulations. More recently, in the aftermath of various sexual misconduct scandals of the 1990’s, Congress reenacted for leaders of all three military departments this same “exemplary conduct” leadership standard, thereby reaffirming “a very clear standard by which Congress and the nation can measure officers of our military services.”
In the coming weeks, I will be visiting the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart. The Marshall Center provides training for ambassador-level leaders, senior executives, and “young leaders” from all of Europe and Eurasia, focusing mostly on Eastern Europe and Eurasia. I intend to use this opportunity to review how well we are teaching and training our European allies not only on how, but also why, we expect our commanding officers and others in authority throughout the Department of Defense to be vigilant in inspecting for any indications of complicity in human trafficking, and otherwise to suppress this dissolute and immoral practice. During this trip, I will also follow-up on our efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, to help measure improvement and determine whether my Office can be of further assistance.
Secretary Rumsfeld has called upon leaders throughout the Department of Defense “to make full use of all tools available, including DoD Inspectors General and criminal investigative organizations, to combat these prohibited activities.”
In conclusion, to reiterate Secretary Rumsfeld’s orders, “No leader in this department should turn a blind eye to this issue.” | <urn:uuid:9a4de461-11ef-4c06-a10c-f8cbc2017f21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContentRecords.ViewWitness&ContentRecord_id=546&ContentType=D&ContentRecordType=D&ParentType=B&CFID=9258089&CFTOKEN=69792577 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950855 | 2,082 | 1.515625 | 2 |
It really depends on him. Since he is a half giant, it makes it more iffy. I have a giant in a 10 gallon currently, and I know he makes a lot of waste!
Is the tank cycled? Do you have a testing kit? If not I recommend API Master Kit which is 100% better than the strips.
Shrimp tend to be eaten, snails tend to be messy... A 10 gallon is really hard to find compatible fish for. Tetras can be nippy, or he may attack them. Female guppies (less colorful) may work, but again it really depends on his temperament.
If you do buy fish for the tank, find he is very aggressive or they are aggressive, do you have a back up plan?
Well he seems to be a pretty mellow happy fish and is rather silly at times, The tank is cycled everything is within it's levels last I checked yesterday, I thought about ADF, but I read that they can come with a rather nasty fungal infection that can kill them within 3 months, for one I don't want to house the frogs for 3 months to see if they don't have this fungal infection and 2 I love my king and I wouldn't risk getting him sick or worse. I thought about shrimp but again I bet he would most likely eat them plus they are very easy to kill by not being on top of the water conditions. So I was hoping someone with kings would have some suggestions as to what they have had sucess with otherwise poor elvis will live alone......
Well, it is not so bad if he lives alone :p I don't think I rust my giant with anything other than a female when breeding time comes around I never knew that about the ADFs... I had one, the one problem I had was he would nom the fish's fins :/
Well the problem with the fungal infection come from pet stores keeping the dwarf frog with the claw toes frogs the clawed toed ones are immune to the fungal infection and carry it while the dwarfs are not immune to it and die from it and it takes up to 3 months for it to kill them so the petstore owner may not even realize whats going on.
I have a giant, still a baby at only 2.5 inches, but still def a giant too in a 10 gallon heavily planted tank. Like so heavily planted I sometimes can't find him in the tank. I also have shrimp in that tank. Just some little ghosties. Since I sometimes can't find him, you already know I can't find the shrimp most days. But they are still in there after almost a month of having him. At least some are. Again, I couldn't give you a number since I couldn't find them all if I tried. Otherwise I don't think I would put anything else with him. I am fully aware that he could eat the shrimp. I am also fully aware that if he wanted to take a chomp out of anything he would probably mortally injure it with the first bite. His mouth is just huge. So keep that in mind if you get anything else!
Lots and lots of plants will also keep the water quality good so you won't have to worry about the shrimp. Though if you do get a floating plant like frogbit, make sure it doesn't cover the entire surface of the water if it grows well. :)
I would think that with a betta's eyesight (I've read it can be fairly poor) in a 10gal you could do ghost shrimp. They're totally transparent so they don't stand out hardly at all. I'm hoping to get some of these myself when my filter and therm comes in and I can begin cycling my tank. | <urn:uuid:5ee27879-3cb5-46cd-a492-f56c48e78e81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=126492&goto=nextoldest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986394 | 769 | 1.5625 | 2 |
President Barack Obama blamed the fiscal cliff standoff in Congress for the contraction in the U.S. economy at the end of 2012 and weighed in on the safety of football in a pre-Super Bowl interview Sunday.
During the roughly eight-minute live session with CBS host Scott Pelley, Obama said new concerns about long-term brain damage in football players "means the game is probably going to evolve a little bit."
"For those of us who like to see a big hit and enjoy the rock 'em, sock 'em elements of the game, we're probably going to be occasionally frustrated," the president said. But he added, "We want to make sure that after people have played the game, that they're going to be OK."
Obama spoke less than two hours before the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens played for the NFL title in New Orleans in the most-watched event in U.S. sports. Sunday's game comes as football is under new scrutiny, with more than 1,500 former players accusing the NFL in a lawsuit of hiding the dangers of concussions from them.
Another lawsuit was filed in January by the family of former linebacker Junior Seau, who argued his suicide in May was the result of a brain disease caused by violent hits he endured playing the game. Seau's brain was donated to science, and a study by the National Institutes of Health found he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy -- a neurodegenerative brain disease that can follow multiple hits to the head.
Obama said professional players "are grown men," well-paid and informed about the risks. But for players in the "pipeline," from the Pop Warner leagues through college, "I want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make the sport safer."
The interview came four days after government figures showed the U.S. economy shrank a tenth of a percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, the first dip in more than three years. The Commerce Department said a large cut in federal spending, primarily on defense, was one of the biggest drags on growth.
"It had to do with folks being worried about the possible impacts of the fiscal cliff and what goes on here in Washington," Obama said. "Washington cannot continually operate under a cloud of crisis. That freezes up consumers. It gets businesses worried. We can't afford these self-inflicted wounds."
Obama also defended his administration's decision to open positions in armed forces combat units to women and supported the Boy Scouts' move to end their national ban on homosexuals.
"The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives, and I think nobody should be barred from that," he said. The White House said in 2012 that Obama -- who as president, serves as the honorary national president of the Boy Scouts of America -- disagreed with the organization's ban. | <urn:uuid:71b0aa7f-4a23-45d2-b80f-ad9e58e3d22c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksbw.com/news/politics/Obama-on-the-economy-football/-/2124/18392372/-/item/0/-/12gedbn/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982541 | 601 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Maggie Gallagher outlines NOM’s messaging strategy on same-sex marriage
Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage was recently a guest on the radio program Religion, Politics, and the Culture to talk about her organization’s strategy to prevent states from legalizing same-sex marriage and to pass anti-gay marriage amendments in states that don’t already have them.
In the interview, she said that when marriage amendments are referred to as efforts to “ban same-sex marriage,” NOM’s efforts lose around 10 points in the polls.
Appealing to marriage amendment supporters, Gallagher said that they should talk about how gay and lesbian couples cannot have children.
“Just say, ‘I think marriage is the union of husband and wife for a reason: these unions make a new life and they connect children to their mother and father,’” she said. “‘So it’s a bad idea for the government to step in and change the definition of marriage.’”
She said the messaging that tests the best with the public is one that says gays and lesbians should live how they choose.
“The one-liner that tests well, that I find less satisfying, is the idea that gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose but none of us has the right to redefine marriage,” she said.
On how not to talk about banning same-sex marriage, she said it’s best not to mention that marriage amendments would ban gay marriage.
“I don’t like the phrase ‘ban same-sex marriage’ because I think it’s not true, and it also suggests that in respecting and protecting the historic understanding of marriage we are doing something that is pointed at hurting gay people,” she said. “So I always take the trouble of saying that we want to support and protect laws defining marriage as between husband and wife.”
She continued, “And it’s certainly true if you test the language ‘ban same-sex marriage’ that it produces probably a ten point drop in public support.”
“It also misleads people because then they go into the voting booth and they say marriage is the union of one man and one woman, they vote ‘yes’ but the ban language implies to some people, at least, that we are criminalizing as opposed to simply refusing to change our public and government’s understanding of marriage,” she said.
She said, “Our point of view is not that gay marriage should be banned, but same-sex unions are not marriages and therefore there is no reason to treat them that way.”
Here’s the full interview:
Maggie claims that Christians are against marriage equality. That is simply not true. Most Christians believe in the Christian principles of equality, social justice, and religious freedom. She is forcing her perverted “view” of Christianity on other Christians and non-Christians.
Christian: I don’t know about “most,” but certainly many. And minds are changing on this day by day… virtually always in the same direction.
Too bad for the NOM the federal court system shall erect a legal wall of insulation around the gays. The professional, Christianist bigots can try as they might, but once the gays get their way in court, the pious marriage bans will be powerless. Furthermore, I would like to see Maggie G., and Brian Brown, investigated, thoroughly, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for every violation they’ve committed. They deserve their faces rubbed in their mess they’ve created. Their families are a bunch of assholes too.
Gallaher says it pretty much like any good Nazi would… pretty much right out of their message book.
Developing nicer ways to trash gays is still an act of trashing gays. Maggie can spin until the cows come home, but straight couples lose nothing if gays enjoy marriage equality. Preventing marriage equality hurts gays and helps nobody.
NOM and its ilk really don’t believe in “religious freedom”.
There are many denominations supporting the right of gays and lesbians to marry. NOM seeks to impose its narrow interpretation onto the rest of us.
Our nation was founded on religious freedom. Our civil laws should be built upon religious tolerance, not upon one group’s narrow religious beliefs.
If you make something illegal, it’s a ban, no matter how much you want to sugarcoat it, Maggie.
By the way, thanks for giving us your entire game plan!
They can not “have children” … but MANY of them do “have children” … and those kids deserve the protections and benefits of marriage just the same.
And regardless, with all the complaining I hear from those people about how promiscuous gays apparently are, should not society be pushing commitments like marriage instead of banning them? What does that tell a gay kid growing up if all their leaders are tying to punish the couples that try and settle down (and with a supposed moral authority none-the-less)?
“I don’t like the phrase ‘ban same-sex marriage’ because I think it’s not true”
That is exactly what it does.
“it also suggests that in respecting and protecting the historic understanding of marriage we are doing something that is pointed at hurting gay people”
That is exactly what it does. Just like protecting, after people should have known better, the equally long and ‘traditional’ policies of mistreating racial minorities was an attack on racial minorities. These BANS don’t help a single soul, but do plenty of harm to millions. NOM has, by the way, fought against all kinds of protections for gay people, not just marriage.
Maggie lives her life to damage the families of others for money. I think it is time for her to go back home to her own family. You wouldn’t think she was married the way she ignores the existence of her husband.
Yikes!!! The fat*ss from Jersey is at it again! Can we all chip in and send her a subscription to Jenny Craig?
Why on earth Maggie Gallagher wants to see the children being raised by same-sex marriage raised outside of the security of wedlock is beyond me. This woman is not playing with a full deck. What kind of person advocates a public policy that directly hurts children, just because you don’t personally approve of their parents???
Ms Gallagher did not need to be married to have a child; why dictate to others they have to be? And, Mags, I don’t want same-sex marriage; I want MARRIAGE EQUALITY…and you want to deny me that right. Why do you feel you can do that? Why am I not as GOOD AS YOU? And you claim to be “Christian?” To paraphrase Gandhi, “I like your Christ; your Christians…not so much.” Maggie, you give Christians a bad name; where does Jesus teach hatred and not love? I can’t find it in any Bible. Please help me understand.
Here is a great article, Hate’s Hideous Hooker Maggie Gallagher:
Maggie is also vastly incorrect about something else: The so-called “historical understand” and “societal purpose” or marriage that (she claims) is known and realized in every culture and every time period on Earth! Only thing is? She’s completely wrong. What she is doing, here, is rather clever and devious… She is arguing backwards; in essence, because marriage has principally only been THOUGHT of as heterocentric in the modern US and Western civ., than (according to her) that MUST be how it’s ALWAYS been! However, it’s not. There are samples that allowing Gay couples to legally marry is found all over the world, in every society. Maggie doesn’t want us aware of this, however, that the Chuckchi shamans, the Native Americans, the Mesoamericans, the Celts, the Greeks and Romans, ad nauseum, all allowed the FREEDOM to marry! It is so common, in fact, that the Anthropological Assoc. of America (the largest such body of scientists on Earth) has released a policy statement opposed any ban on Marriage Equality based not only upon thousands of years of historic data, but also upon more than 100 years of direct field work!
But, why should the fact that Gay couple cannot “naturally reproduce” mean a damned thing? What about elderly or barren couples? And, couples that get themselves purposely sterilized because they NEVER want to parent a child of their own or another’s? Why should these childless relationships–even intentionally-so–be thought of as “real marriages”, and the romantic life-long Union of a Gay couple cannot? Maggie has, to my knowledge, NEVER addressed any of this publicly!
Also, if Maggie is to be believed that marriage is about securing the rights of children to know and be loved by the parents who made them, than where are the rights of a Gay child to know and be loved by THEIR parents when their parents kick them out and even move away from them, or when they tell them that they don’t deserve to live once they Come Out as Gay to their parents? | <urn:uuid:9b532b81-280a-4c6e-a907-3c07bd751428> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanindependent.com/187920/maggie-gallagher-outlines-noms-messaging-strategy-on-same-sex-marriage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963757 | 2,004 | 1.546875 | 2 |
While many church people rally to defend an unapologetic celebration of Christmas, public officials are busy crafting public policy that will be anything but a gift for low-income Americans, millions of whom live in our inner cities.
Consider New Orleans and Uncle Sam's. . .er, Santa's current list of "gifts" for the poor in that devastated city. The Small Business Administration has processed only 1/3 of the 276,000 loan applications it has received from businesses and homeowners. The SBA has rejected 82% of those it has reviewed! Forty-seven per cent of the approvals have gone to well-t0-do neighborhoods in the city, while only 7% have gone to the poorer communities.
This dismal performance record doesn't really square with what the President said on September 15, 2005 when he spoke at historic Jackson Square.
"As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well," Mr. Bush said. "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. so let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality."
Santa's on-the-ground policy doesn't measure up to the political rhetoric that extended false hope to New Orleans residents, especially among the poor.
Or, consider the battle that rages on in the Congress as we speed toward the Christmas or Holiday break. Senator Frist called in every Senator and every vote this weekend, including Vice President Cheney who interrupted a trip to Pakistan to scurry back to the Capitol in case his tie-breaking vote were required on the Senate side. As it turned out, he cast one deciding vote on Wednesday.
The result appears clear. Billions of dollars in funding will be stripped away from programs benefiting low-income Americans, including nutrition, health care, child welfare and education initiatives. The very efforts our nation employs to extend new opportunity to working families will now be cut back even further.
Don't despair! At the same time our Congress squeezes the poor, it will provide even more billions in additional tax cuts to the rich!
Merry Christmas! God bless us every one!
It happened again on Monday of this week. And, I must say people didn't like it.
Our resource center assisted almost 400 families with food and other pressing matters. I have never seen our building more crowded.
Everyone was gracious. Everyone seemed grateful. But, not everyone was happy.
People who must depend upon charity to get by in life really don't like it. Put yourself in their shoes. You'll begin to understand.
We need more in this nation. We should be doing better by those at the bottom. What we have today is not only inadequate and short-sighted, it is simply not right.
I wish the folks who are so incensed about the Christmas-Holiday argument would turn their attention to the values of the person behind the celebration they champion. Maybe then things would change.
Announcement from Duke Memorial UMC
1 week ago | <urn:uuid:774050f0-bee4-498b-8d55-243fe026dfeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com/2005/12/merry-christmas-poor-folks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969722 | 626 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Readers of Ann Benson's bestselling The Plague Tales will bond immediately with this sequel and its unusual blend of historical romance and futuristic medical thriller. The book begins in 14th-century France--a country ravished by a war with the English, and also suffering from the deadly effects of the plague. A Spanish-Jewish physician named Alejandro Canches searches for a cure; he scribes a medical manuscript along the way.|
The Burning Road then moves to a town in Massachusetts in the year 2007, where another Doctor, Janie Crowe is fighting her own battle to cure sickness and disease. She looks to Canches's manuscript, his "Book of Cures," for clues.
Benson skillfully shows us the small details of everyday life and the events that both connect and separate these two doctors as they struggle with medical and personal problems. Canches seems to have isolated the cause of the bubonic plague, but his work is interrupted by battles with French troops and by worries about the safety of his foster daughter Kate (who is the illegitimate daughter of England's King Edward III). Meanwhile, Dr. Crowe is on the verge of a major breakthrough with a terrible genetic disease that afflicts Jewish boys.
The alchemy and magic may not be for every taste, but by linking her two physicians through 600 years of what passes for progress, Benson gives her strange hybrid a uniquely gripping aura.
Source: Dick Adler, Amazon.com. | <urn:uuid:ed2454a4-5d11-4bb2-b3a2-3a2dd734e13b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scifan.com/titles/title.asp?TI_titleid=1328 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964796 | 294 | 1.742188 | 2 |
I was asked Monday night on a television talk show about the impact of the revelations by Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York that he had “exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years…” and then engaged in a cover up when the photos became public.
My reply was that it probably wouldn't have much of an effect. The public's image of Congress as an institution, and of the members of Congress as a body, cannot get much lower.
This incident will, in all probability, serve to reinforce existing low perceptions of Congress rather than lowering them any further. In other words, by this point, when confronted by the sight of a tearful member of Congress confessing into the camera that he had "made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people I care about most," and that he lied about it afterwards, the average American most likely says, “So, what else is new?”
Let’s look first at the perceived honesty and ethics of members of Congress. This is germane given that Rep. Weiner directly lied to reporters and to the public when first asked about the photos.
We ask Americans each year to rate the “honesty and ethical standards of people" in a variety of professions, using a scale of very high, high, average, low, or very low. We usually report the percent who rate each profession “very high” or “high.”
At the top of the list this past November were nurses, with an honesty and ethics rating of 81%, followed by military officers at 73%, and pharmacists at 71%. Others with ratings at 60% or higher included grade school teachers and medical doctors.
At the bottom of the list? Lobbyists and car salespeople, with 7% honesty and ethics ratings each, followed in third place from the bottom by “members of Congress” at 9%. Rated as having more honesty and ethics than members of Congress were business executives, lawyers, newspaper reporters, and auto mechanics among a wide variety of other professions.
To be more specific, here is the breakdown of the honesty and ethics ratings of members of Congress by the American public:
- 1% very high
- 8% high
- 32% average
- 35% low
- 22% very low
The 22% "very low" rating for members of Congress is the lowest of any profession except lobbyists. Of course, given the frequency with which members of Congress become lobbyists, perhaps their proximity in the list is not surprising.
Now, what about confidence in institutions? The news is worse. Out of 16 institutions tested last year, Congress was dead last. Only 11% of Americans expressed a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, putting it below big business, health maintenance organizations, organized labor, and television news.
At the top of the list? The military, with a 76% confidence rating, followed by small business with a 66% rating, and the police with a 59% rating.
Given these already-low perceptions of the honesty and ethics of members of Congress and of respect for the institution, as noted, there is very little that a single member of Congress can do that mathematically would make the image of Congress worse.
Meanwhile, will Rep. Weiner's confession that he tweeted an inappropriate photo of himself to a young woman, that he exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with at least six women, and any new revelations still to come affect Americans' views of morality in this country?
Not likely. At this point, 3% of Americans rate the overall state of moral values in this country as excellent, and 20% rate them as good. That leaves 38% who rate them as only fair and 38% who rate them as poor. Furthermore, 69% say that the state of moral values in this country is getting worse (although that's actually not as negative as five years ago, when 82% said moral values were getting worse).
Rep. Weiner was at pains to point out that he never had "physical relationships" with these women "at any time." Based on his statements, he did not commit adultery, something which 91% of Americans say is morally unacceptable. | <urn:uuid:7ad54c8d-fbf8-490a-b69a-3ae43ab46d2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pollingmatters.gallup.com/2011/06/can-image-of-congress-get-any-lower.html | 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 | 0.979646 | 867 | 1.570313 | 2 |
TE'O of Pago Pago and TUFONO of Fagatogo, Plaintiffs
MAILO of Fagatogo, Defendant
Nos. 4 & 4A-1923
High Court of American Samoa
Civil Jurisdiction, Trial Division
[Land: "Utunonu" and "Milomilo" in Fagatogo]
SYDNEY D. HALL, President of the High Court; LEAANA, Associate Judge; and GAGAI, Associate Judge
It seems that during the year 1923, on the thirteenth day of June, Mailo appeared at the office of the Registrar of Titles and sought to register a certain piece of land situated in the village of Fagatogo as delineated and described in an accompanying map of survey and description. This land was designated as the land "Utunonu". In accordance with custom and procedure, a notice was posted by the Registrar of Titles, and at the expiration of sixty days, if no objections were had, then said land would be registered in the name of Mailo.
Within the sixty day period the "matai" Tufono, supposedly representing the Tufono family, and the "matai" Te'o, representing the Te'o family, appeared at the office of the Registrar of Titles and objected to the [1ASR363] registration of the so-called land "Utunonu" by Mailo, at the same time depositing ten dollars objection fees, respectively.
At a time previous to the beginning of these Court proceedings, the "matai" Tufono appeared at the office of the Registrar of Titles, stated that he desired to withdraw his objections to the registration of the land by Mailo, and as a result his objections were withdrawn.
Time passed on and on the fourteenth day of July, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-four, the High Court convened in an action of "Te'o versus Mailo" to try title to this land.
The trial had proceeded for a matter of one day, or perhaps two, when the family of Tufono appeared at the office of the Registrar of Titles and stated that they objected to the action taken by the "matai" Tufono in withdrawing his objections to the registration of the land in dispute, stating at the time that the family had not been consulted by the "matai" as regards the action that said "matai" had taken, and requesting protection of their rights and interests by the Court. And their claim as to the family not having been consulted is borne out by the testimony of the "matai" Tufono as given by the "matai" before this Court. And the testimony of various witnesses as given before the Court soon developed the fact tha,t the Tufono family were interested parties in these proceedings. And, as a result, the Court directed that the objections of Tufono, representing the Tufono family, be revived and the Tufono family, as represented by Tufono, be made parties in action.
Testimony, survey, and exhibits indicate to the Court that there was a piece of land, known as "Utunonu", lying West of the present Administration Building and extending in a westerly direction practically to the small stream just to the west of the American Judge's house; and, according [1ASR364] to the testimony of Mailo and some of his witnesses at least, extending in a southerly and northerly direction from the Main Road back to the boundary line of .the Naval Station, which divides the Naval Station from Fagatogo; and, the land which is [in] dispute lies in a northerly direction and adjacent to the description as just mentioned; and, as already stated, this land in dispute was designated by Mailo as the land "Utunonu".
Testimony as given soon developed the fact that the land in dispute and designated as "Utunonu" was known by other names by various witnesses, being designated in many instances as "Milomilo" and in one instance, as the Court recalls, as either "Milomilo" or "Falaga". This discrepancy in names raised a question in the minds of the Court as to what is the true name of the land which is the subject of these Court proceedings, and testimony was had at great length, and recourse was had to the records in the office of the Registrar of Titles to throw light on this matter as to what was the true name of this land and perhaps to furnish any evidence as to who had authority over the land in dispute. Plans existing in the office of the Registrar of Titles and transfers developed the fact that during the early period of the Government of American Samoa by t.he President of the United States, that transfers of land had occurred to the United States and that among the lands transferred were lands known as "Utunollu" and "Milomilo' and so forth, and surveys existed in the office of the Registrar of Titles covering these lands. And it further developed that the land "Utunonu", as shown in these plans, had been transferred, or at least a part of it, by Mailo; that the land "Milomilo," or at least a portion of it, had been transferred to Samia and by a person by the name of Krause.
Reference to these plans further disclosed the fact that, the testimony of the Defendant to the fact that this land [1ASR365] "Utunonu" sold to the Government extended from the roadway in the Naval Station to the boundary line between the Naval Station and the village of Fagatogo was not sold; that there was a narrow strip of land between "Utunonu" and the land in dispute; and that this narrow strip of land was designated in the records of the Registrar of Titles as "Milomilo"; so that the Court had presented to it this situation: to the seaward, the land known as "Utunonu" originally transferred to the Government, and in a northerly direction and adjacent to it, the narrow strip of land known as "Milomilo", and according to the records in the office of the Registrar of Titles, transferred to .the Government by Samia, and in a northerly direction and adjacent to this land, the land in dispute in these Court proceedings.
The Court will now leave this stated proposition for a minute as we have the locations definitely fixed in our minds and we will take up the claim of Te' o as to ownership and what the claim is based on. Te'o states in 'his testimony that the land "Utunonu" was obtained from if, Mailo-Matagi; that Mailo-Matagi had a sister by the name of Pafuti; and that she had a son who was Te'o; that this Mailo desired to erect a house for himself; and, as Te'o is stated to have been a carpenter, that Mailo requested his sister to request Te'o to construct this house, bearing this, in mind all the time: that Te'o is related closely to Mailo and practically a member of the Mailo family. According to the testimony, the house was built by Te'o and he received in return for the construction of the house the piece of land designated as "Utunonu" by both Mailo and Te'o. This claim did not carry much weight with the Court. As already stated, Te'o was a member of the Mailo family in accordance with Samoan Custom, it would have been very contrary to said custom for Te'o to have demanded payment for the construction of this house and [1ASR366] it would hardly be conceived by the Court that Mailo gave this land to Te'o as that also would have been contrary to Samoan Custom as Te'o had a certain obligation to Mailo as did Mailo owe a certain protection to Te'o. Mention has been made in the testimony as to the planting of coconut trees on this land by various persons with the idea by said planting to establish ownership but the fact remains that no sufficient evidence has been given to prove that a sufficient planting occurred to indicate that a plantation was involved and, in one instance, as the Court recalls, it was testified that the Missionary Leve had planted some coconut trees on the land so that the claim based on the planting of coconut trees on the land does not carry much weight with the Court to the extent that it would indicate ownership. No evidence has been given at any time which indicates that Te'o lived on this land so the Court dismisses the objection of Te'o and that leaves remaining the objection of the family of Tufono by Tufono, the "matai", to the registration of the land in dispute by Mailo.
Now, it is the unanimous opinion of the Court that the land "Utunonu" was controlled by Mailo and it is the unanimous opinion of the Court that the land "Milomilo," and this is in accordance with the testimony, was controlled by Samia in the interests of the Tufono family, so the question before the Court is: is the land in dispute "Milomilo" or is the land in dispute "Utunonu"? And these are facts that are borne out, not only by, the testimony, but by the records in the office of the Registrar of Titles.
We will now recall that the land in dispute is not a physical continuation of the land "Utunonu" as sold to the Government by Mailo. There is a narrow strip of land known as "Milomilo" lying between the land "Utunonu" sold to the Government by Mailo and the land in dispute. And this narrow strip of land was transferred to the Government by Samia as the records show. The defense, of [1ASR367] course, could not help but recognize the condition as it existed in the records in the office of the Registrar of Titles so, on being questioned by the Court as to this narrow strip of land known as "Milomilo," the testimony of the defense was that this narrow strip of land was given to Samia by Mailo but no sufficient reason has been given to the Court for the presentation of this narrow strip of land to Samia by Mailo.
Bear in mind that the land "Utunonu" is controlled by Mailo and the land "Milomilo" is controlled by Samia in the interests of the Tufono family and were the testimony true that the narrow strip of land to which the Court now refers, which the defense states was given to Samia, it is, logical in the extreme to feel that the land is "Utunonu" and not "Milomilo" as it was transferred to the Governrnent by Samia. What a strange gift to have made; a long, strip of land lying right in the middle of the land designated as "Utunonu" by the defense.
Therefore, it is the unanimous opinion of the Court that this narrow strip of land as registered in the office of the Registrar of Titles was the land "Milomilo" and was controlled by Samia in the interests of the Tufono family, this brings us to the land adjacent to and in a northerly direction from this narrow strip of land which is in dispute. Where did this narrow strip of land come from? Why the narrow strip of land came from the land which is the subject of this Court action. And from Whom did the Government purchase the narrow strip of land? Why did the Government purchased it from Samia? Keep in mind who controlled the land "Milomilo': Samia. Were there any objections to the narrow strip of land by Mailo? Evidently none, at least none that received serious consideration as the land was transferred to the Government. The weight of evidence as given to the Court indicates the name of the land in dispute to be "Milomilo" and that the [1ASR368] little strip of land sold to the Government by Samia was a part of this land.
The testimony developed the fact that when the house of Leve, the previous Missionary to the present Missionary, Afele was to be constructed that the Chiefs of the village requested permission of Samia that the house might be constructed on the land which is the subject of these Court proceedings. According to testimony, objections were raised on th part of Mailo to the construction of the present home of the Missionary Afele but an objection does not mean ownership, an objection does not even entitle one to consideration unless such objection is so conclusively confirmed by testimony and fact that there can be no controversion. No substantial evidence has been given that the land in dispute is a continuation of the land "Utunonu" or that it bears the name "Utunonu."
It is the unanimous judgment of this Court that the land in dispute is a part of the land "Milomilo" and the property of the Tufono family of the village of Fagatogo and it will be so registered in the office of the Registrar of Titles at the expense of said family. Court costs in this action are $150.00 which will be divided equally between Mailo and Te'o and these Court costs are to be paid within sixty days.
OPINION OF NATIVE ASSOCIATE JUDGES*
By Judge Gagai: In the beginning of the case and in listening to the testimony given by different witnesses and questions asked by the parties and also the Court and after personal consideration I think myself in the beginning in the case between Mailo and Te'o that Mailo had the authority to the land until the Court later found this strip of land which lies between the land "Utunonu" and the land in dispute. There I changed my previous opinion which I have already stated, in favor of Mailo, and this [1ASR369] small strip of land shows in the Government records sold by Samia to the Government without any objection by Mailo. The Court has failed to find anything to prove that that small strip of land was a piece of land given to Samia by Mailo, as Mailo stated on the witness stand, as the records of the Government show that it was sold to the Government by Samia and we all know that there is no such small land existed in American Samoa. No man would like to have a piece of land like that because it would be of no use and therefore, in consideration of this small strip of land which lies between "Utunonu" and the land in dispute, it is very plain there that it must be a piece of a big piece of land because of this Court procedure. Furthermore, it has been stated by witnesses called by Mailo himself that the name of the land in question is "Milomilo" although there are other witnesses who had different name but it proves to me from the testimony of the witnesses whom Mailo himself insisted in calling and also the fact that this small strip of land lies between "Utunonu" and the land in dispute, and therefore, it is my belief that Tufono is the owner of this land. Furthermore, it is true that Tufono withdrew his objection but the duty of the Court is to do justice, to seek justice, and to deal it without consulting the members of his family because these lands are family lands and the family is as much interested in the lands as is the head of the family. The Court is right in reviving the right of the Tufono family in this case.
By Judge Leanaa: In order to shorten up the discussion of the Judges about the decision of the case, I would say that I concur, absolutely, with all that Judge Gagai has said; however, there are a few things I would like to add on which I also base my opinion, including things Judge Gagai has said and in which I concur. Lutu is considered to be one of the oldest Chiefs in the village of Fagatogo and he testified on the witness stand that he knows that the [1ASR370] name of the land in dispute is "Milomilo" and that .the strip of land lying between "Utunonu" and the land in dispute which was sold to the Government by Samia was a piece of "Milomilo." Taamu is one of the "matais" of the Mailo family or division and he was called to the witness stand and he testified that in the construction of the house of Leve permission had been asked of SamiaTuiasosopo and the name of the land in dispute is "Milomilo". The present Mailo was not born in Fagatogo and therefore he doesn't know much about lands in Fagatogo. The ex-Mailo, who is " now Tinae, is a man whose veracity has been questioned.
*[EDITOR'S NOTE: To the recollection of this writer, this is the only High Court case in which the Samoan Judges have furnished written opinions.] | <urn:uuid:203566db-777b-4442-a621-d932e11670d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asbar.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3078:teo-v-mailo&catid=43&Itemid=228 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98348 | 3,585 | 1.710938 | 2 |
[Adduser-devel] Bug#398793: Default Homedir Permissions
doctormo at gmail.com
Thu Feb 17 16:55:16 UTC 2011
On Thu, 2011-02-17 at 15:24 +0000, Roger Leigh wrote:
> Yes, but like everything there is a tradeoff. A totally secure system
> is an unusable system. Having to instruct every user how to relax the
> permissions to allow others to access their files, or allow their web
> pages to be visible, is effectively pointless make-work if that was
> you wanted in the first place. And for most people, I would argue
> /is/ what is wanted.
You don't want to make it harder for users, but this is where design can
help. If we need to make a system which prevents cross user file
attacks, then we could fairly easily implement these things:
* Shared Folder, directory which is available to all users where they
can put explicitly shared contents (MacOSX does this).
* Make sure shared folders via smb/nfs are accessible, make it clear
that this would share files inside the system as much as on the network.
* A program which allows temporary file access to another user's home
folder after the user have authorised the access.
> Remember that historically, multi-user systems have been about sharing
> and collaboration, not isolation in walled-off prisons. I know which
> type of system I want, and it's not the latter.
Yes, but we don't make it clear that a user's home directory is a
free-for-all with all users. Folder indicators would be useful. But do
users know that they've signed up for this when they installed Ubuntu?
I think it's more likely that Ubuntu users think the data is protected
until the magic time when cross-user file access is demanded and then
it's unprotected for that one instance. Computers are magic after all.
Asking users would be key to answering that.
> 0755 is not inherently insecure. Others can't make any changes, but
> they can look. The only issue here is accidental disclosure of
> information intended to be private.
If public by default is the way we want to go, then why not have a
Private folder be default in the users home directory? Combined with the
indication emblem in nautilus; this might provide a space for users to
put data. ATM it's too hard to teach users how to secure a folder or
even how to set up an encrypted folder.
More information about the Adduser-devel | <urn:uuid:5947fc3d-d9c1-468c-9274-bbbfa459aaa3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/adduser-devel/2011-February/004104.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942386 | 560 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Mobile computing is one of the fastest moving areas of technology innovation and many of us have context-aware devices that can automatically connect to and engage with local infrastructure.
From a service provider perspective, we can choose either to accommodate, or to decline connectivity and availability for promiscuous connections from mobile devices. Generally this is done through a combination of business rules and user profiling.
However, it is apparent that some service providers see every connected device as an opportunity for maximum exploitation of data and contextual information, often far beyond the service user’s expectations.
I think therefore, as device owners, we also need to be able to define our own context-sensitive device profiles so that we can retain full ownership, control and accountability for our connectivity.
Of course, the onus for facilitating device management falls back to the device and service providers. But do they recognise the requirement and their obligations, or do they only think about the supply-side of the equation? | <urn:uuid:be6c1378-24ff-46ac-b551-49b277d9299e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colin-beveridge.com/index.php/a-context-sensitive-future-for-promiscuous-context-aware-devices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942538 | 195 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Fayetteville-Manlius High School has introduced a new program this fall known as Link Crew, wihere 87 upperclassmen are linked with the incoming 425 freshmen in an effort to smooth the transition to high school.
Tuesday was the first official day of the Link Crew program, andtwo upperclassmen led each group of about 10 freshmen through orientation. The Link Crew leaders accompanied the younger students through an abbreviated class schedule, and talked with them about social and academic issues.
Link Crew students will help freshmen navigate the high school on Wednesday, and then will call the younger students in the evening to see how their first day went, and check to see if they have any ongoing issues.
This is the first year for the program, which is part of the national Boomerang Project. Assistant Principal Nancy Kuhl said the idea is to get the freshmen acclimated to the school so they feel comfortable and help them feel engaged.
"Research shows the more involved students are in their school, the more successful they're going to be and you do that through connections,'' she said.,
The 87 upperclassmen, all juniors and seniors, were selected from among 300 applicants based on teacher recommendations, an essay and more. The Link Crew leaders will work with the freshmen all year long, and there will be special activities for the freshmen and the Link Crew teams A dance is set up for this weekend.
"I think I'd be a different person today if I were given this type of experience as a freshmen," said Link Crew leader Tyler Neveldine, a senior. "We introduce the freshmen to the social aspect of school and and help them feel comfortable so they're not surprised by everything when they get here."
"it also helps you build relationships, so you'll at least know someone in your class," said Linkj Crew leader Rachel Primo, a senior.
Freshman Cecelia Peters, 14, said she appreciates the program. 'It's definitely making me feel more comfortable already,'' she said. "I've learned about the high school and where I need to go without all the traffic of everyone being here."
Kuhl said the program "really helps us build that sense of community." | <urn:uuid:9cf7e87a-05b4-4dd5-809c-a4befaf04427> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/f-ms_link_crew_helps_freshmen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971603 | 455 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Last week, the Bush administration filed a long-anticipated legal brief in a case, Stoneridge Investment v. Scientific-Atlanta, with broad-reaching implications for investors.
Resisting pressure from the securities litigation arm of Trial Lawyers Inc. and its friends in Congress and elsewhere, U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement advised the Supreme Court not to expand the scope of private shareholder liability suits to third parties.
If the court accepts the governments advice and that of both U.S. stock exchanges and hosts of former Securities and Exchange commissioners and distinguished academics those of us concerned about Americas financial leadership will all rest easier.
The current turmoil in our capital markets notwithstanding, the United States remains a world financial leader, but cracks are beginning to show. Last year, European stock exchanges raised $40 billion more in public capital than ours, and total European initial public offerings outnumbered those in the U.S. almost 3-to-1.
Various commissions looking at our capital market competitiveness in the past year have invariably pointed to the American system of securities regulation and litigation as a competitive disadvantage.
The Stoneridge case is of monumental import because it threatens to increase these litigation costs substantially. In Stoneridge, the lawsuits, filed as class actions on behalf of a companys shareholders, seek money from equipment vendors that entered into what are alleged to be “sham transactions” with the company. Waiting in the wings are lawsuits filed against investment banks, with potential liability in the billions of dollars.
The law here is actually rather clear. Nothing in the securities laws as written enables private investors to file lawsuits over alleged frauds. Courts have inferred such “private rights of action” stemming from section 10(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, but the Supreme Court limited such private suits to “primary” violators in 1994 in a case called Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver. The court expressly declined to embrace liability for companies “aiding and abetting” frauds that injured shareholders.
After Central Bank, Congress quickly jumped in to clarify that the Securities and Exchange Commission itself had authority over an entity that “knowingly provides substantial assistance to another” in securities-related frauds. But Congress wisely decided not to extend such authority to private lawsuits.
If the Supreme Court decides to endorse such suits notwithstanding congressional inaction, the implications for U.S. competitiveness could be profound. Anyone doing business with a publicly listed American company would be subject to a potential lawsuit should that companys stock price tank and would thus have to hire extra auditors and take out insurance policies to protect against such lawsuits. The disadvantages for listing on American stock market, already significant, would be that much more substantial.
The threat posed to U.S. competitiveness by expanding shareholder liability should be borne in mind as trial lawyers and their allies try to argue that the Bush administrations position is “pro-business” and “anti-investor.” Investors in the American stock market are protected as never before.
Those who lose money from corporate fraud can recoup losses from the SEC directly through the “fair funds” provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Trial lawyers like William Lerach whose former firm and former law partners are under federal indictment for allegedly paying kickbacks to plaintiffs to gin up spurious lawsuits have argued that they fill a needed gap in deterring fraud, given the SECs limitations. But academic research shows that the vast majority of private lawsuits follow, rather than lead, SEC investigations.
The fact is that average American investors are ill-served by losing yet more of our public capital to private and overseas markets the direct consequence of giving the lawyers what they want in Stoneridge.
American companies have not heretofore faced a significant capital shortfall even as IPOs have increasingly moved overseas, but todays interest rate environment and congressional tax wrangling may imperil the private equity model that has sustained us of late.
Heres to hoping that the Supreme Court does the right thing, as a matter of law and for investors, as well as for businesses save the big-business behemoth that is Trial Lawyers Inc.
Original Source: http://www.examiner.com/a-893625~Jim_Copland__Bush_brief_may_help_slow_lawsuit_abuse.html | <urn:uuid:2ad7d2d7-7917-4286-a136-fa970f8859f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=5270 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955825 | 899 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Chapter 8: Medieval
The drawing-room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to
meet, for the carpet was new and deserved protection
from the August sun. They were heavy curtains, reaching almost to
the ground, and the light that filtered through them was subdued
and varied. A poet--none was present--might have quoted, "Life
like a dome of many coloured glass," or might have compared the
curtains to sluice-gates, lowered against the intolerable tides
of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance; within, the
glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of man.
Two pleasant people sat in the room. One--a boy of nineteen--was
studying a small manual of anatomy, and peering occasionally at a
bone which lay upon the piano. From time to time he bounced in
his chair and puffed and groaned, for the day was hot and the
print small, and the human frame fearfully made; and his mother,
who was writing a letter, did continually read out to him what
she had written. And continually did she rise from her seat and
part the curtains so that a rivulet of light fell across the
carpet, and make the remark that they were still there.
"Where aren't they?" said the boy, who was Freddy, Lucy's
brother. "I tell you I'm getting fairly sick."
"For goodness' sake go out of my drawing-room, then?" cried Mrs.
Honeychurch, who hoped to cure her children of slang by taking it
Freddy did not move or reply.
"I think things are coming to a head," she observed, rather
wanting her son's opinion on the situation if she could obtain it
without undue supplication.
"Time they did."
"I am glad that Cecil is asking her this once more."
"It's his third go, isn't it?"
"Freddy I do call the way you talk unkind." | <urn:uuid:af8e77d7-bef0-4986-aba0-5da5395b7c60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.literaturepage.com/read.php?titleid=roomwithaview&abspage=81&changefont=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983756 | 429 | 1.828125 | 2 |
May 24, 2013
Giant Anteater, Brazil
Photograph by Gerardo Ceballos, Your Shot
This Month in Photo of the Day: The Stories Behind Your Shots
I took this shot of a giant anteater in the Fazenda Barranco Alto, a 30,000-acre cattle ranch and wildlife preserve in the Pantanal of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. I had been looking for animals all day long, driving and walking through grasslands and forest patches that surround the endless lakes dotting the landscape of this region. During the day I had seen other giant anteaters, a giant otter, white-lipped peccaries, and many other interesting mammals. As the sun was setting, I saw a dark shadow on the shore of one of the lakes. I took my camera and walked slowly toward that moving shadow. With great surprise I found out that it was a giant anteater. I took the photo with a flash against the fading daylight. It was a memorable moment that was caught in my photo. —Gerardo Ceballos
This photo and caption were submitted to Your Shot. Check out the new and improved website, where you can share and connect with fellow photographers from around the globe.
Get tips on using flash »
Browse pictures of animals » | <urn:uuid:a7fc5ea8-96cd-4359-b39c-6b9a878021cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962021 | 273 | 1.796875 | 2 |
There are hundreds of reasons why you may want to shut down a application after a certain time, for example if your ISP has a unlimited bandwidth window at certain hours, you schedule the downloads to happen at those times, if you want to kill the download application when your ISP lifts the unlimited bandwidth window, you need to present in front of the PC to do it.
This can be easily done, but what if the download limits are between 12 and 6AM, would you wake up at 6AM just to close the downloads to save your limited bandwidth?
We have just listed a simple reason on why you may want to automate the process of killing applications, there are 100s of other things which you could think of.
Process Assassin is the right solution for such problems, as it allows you to easily terminate any process / application at a scheduled time, so you can easily schedule the download application to be killed at 5:58AM, just few minutes before your unlimited bandwidth window ends, without having to physically be present.
Process Assassin can also be used as a productivity tool, where you can close applications for twitter or games after a certain time. | <urn:uuid:0b4602e5-6bcc-4df5-bd67-634b667c94d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techie-buzz.com/softwares/kill-applications-at-a-scheduled-time-with-process-assassin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95311 | 232 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Written by The Chicago Defender
(AP) — Holiday shoppers can be easy prey for pickpockets blending into crowds at stores, on sidewalks and inside packed public busses and trains.
That's the warning from the Chicago Police Department, which has put out some safety tips for the holiday season.
Those include keeping purses under your coat, carrying wallets in front pants pockets or coat breast pockets and being alert to your surroundings.
Police say pickpockets often operate in teams and use deceptive ruses, like dropping loose change, fainting or bumping into someone. Once a shopper's attention is diverted, an accomplice may then take the person's wallet or purse.
The police are also warning against identity theft and encouraging people to keep an eye on their credit card and ATM receipts. | <urn:uuid:fdce6933-db8d-45c1-9673-75a0127eb800> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realtimesmedia.com/index.php/chicago/563-chicago-police-warn-of-holiday-season-pickpockets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94556 | 164 | 1.578125 | 2 |
If you’re like me, you have noticed how many of the traditional American food brands are apparently named after people. If you’re a lot like me, you’ve wondered if the people behind the brands were real human beings or simply the inventions of ad executives. Here are 10 major brands in the food and liquor industries that were named after real people.
Ettore Boiardi traveled from Northern Italy to New York City when he was just 17 years old, a talented young cook with big dreams that at the time did not include any mention of the word “Beefaroni.” Boiardi quickly rose up through the ranks of the Italian-immigrant cuisine establishment, catering Woodrow Wilson’s second wedding in 1915, and was soon able to open his first restaurant, Il Giardino d’Italia. It became known for its rich and spicy marinara sauce, which Ettore soon came to sell in bottles and jars. He soon realized that his delicious sauce could be mass-produced, and in some cases even canned with pre-cooked pasta and meatballs and sold for cheap, and his canned Italian meals soon dominated Depression-era America. The Boiardi line of cheap, hearty and virtually imperishable foods soon attracted the attention of the United States War Department as they began mobilizing for World War II, and Ettore Boiardi changed the name of his food product to his name’s phonetic pronunciation to ensure that American servicemen would remember the name of their favorite reheated spaghetti meal. The gambit paid off handsomely, and today, Chef Boyardee is basically synonymous with cheap but tasty canned pasta.
Before 1952, the name Duncan Hines did not mean delicious, fudgy brownies and sweets, but obscure restaurants. Hines was a traveling salesman for a Chicago-era printer long before the era of freeway travel and chain restaurants, so he ended up eating at hundreds of local restaurants with no idea how good, bad or expensive they were until he got inside, although Hines’ prodigious memory was able to remember the pertinent details of many of the restaurants he had visited, allowing him to share recommendations with friends and coworkers. After years of driving through and having eaten in all 48 inland states, Hines realized that he probably knew more about small-town restaurants than anybody else in America, and with the help of his wife, he wrote up a list of a few hundred good American restaurants for his friends.
The list was so popular with Hines’ friends and fellow salesman that in 1935 he expanded it into a book, “Adventures in Good Eating,” full of capsule reviews of his preferred restaurants and favorite dishes (including the Sanders Court and Cafe of Corbin, referred to as “a very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls and the Great Smokies”). His book later grew to include a guide to local hotels, motels and cabins, and soon he was writing a syndicated food column based on the recipes he’d collected from chefs all over the country. By the early '50s, Duncan Hines was a household name, and the Durkee Bakery Company recognized this when they offered to buy the rights to his name and the "Adventures in Good Eating" title in 1952.
The jolly old African-American man who pleasantly smiles at you while you’re cooking up a pot of rice was actually based on two different men. The name and the rice came from a black, Houston-based rice farmer known only as Ben, who supposedly won a number of awards for the quality and yield of his rice crops. German-born scientist Erich Huzenlaub is said to have chosen Ben’s rice as the starting point for his revolutionary rice-treatment system. The Huzenlaub Process was a complicated system of vacuum-drying, steaming, and husking that turns out to have been incredibly boring but resulted in dry stored rice that was remarkably resistant to weevils and old age while being easy to cook and retaining all the exciting flavor of plain white rice.
As for the bow-tied gentleman on the front of every box of Uncle Ben’s, he is widely believed to be a representation of popular Chicago maitre d’ Frank Brown. Huzenlaub and his partner Gordon Harwell (a Houstonian food broker) enjoyed eating out in the Windy City and had been served by Brown a number of times. Lacking an actual picture of the real “Uncle Ben” (who was dead by the time they decided to start capitalizing on his reputation), Harwell and Huzenlaub decided that Brown was sort of an ideal picture of a respectable and easygoing black man during the 1940s, and ended up using his image to sell what became the top-selling American brand of rice until the mid-'90s. It is not clear if Frank Brown received royalties or compensation beyond the initial payment to take a picture of his face.
Virginian country-music star Jimmy Dean may have penned the 1961 pop/country hit “Big Bad John,” and his acting career may have included a turn on Connery-era Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever” and a TV show that introduced America to brilliant puppeteer Jim Henson, but it’s likely that this multitalented media personality is best known for producing a line of delicious, pre-cooked sausage treats.
Jimmy Dean put in a lot of time in Nashville studios as a producer, instrumentalist and occasional performer, and while his success was enough to support him for a number of years, Dean was determined to find a long-term source of income. In 1969, eight years after “Big Bad John” dominated the charts, Jimmy invested much of his earnings in his brother Don’s sausage company, which was just then beginning to move into the field of “instant” microwavable sausage patties and links. The newfangled Jimmy Dean Sausage Company became a major regional power, largely due to Jimmy Dean’s charming and funny improvised commercials. While Dean’s singing career remained on the sidelines forever, his sausage-marketing exploits made him a household name among Southern families.
Harland David Sanders did put in some time in the military, but he fell pretty far short of being a full colonel. His title at the time of his honorable discharge was “mule handler,” not normally a position entailing a high rank. Sanders had a long way to go and a lot of failures -- his first wife eventually split from him with a note saying she “had no business marrying a no-good fellow like you who can’t hold a job” -- before striking on the idea of opening a service station in Corbin, Ky., that sold chicken dinners and country ham on the side. The service station proved so popular that over time it grew into a motel with a 142-seat restaurant (currently the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum) that became nationally renowned for its fast, delicious fried chicken, and earned Sanders the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel” from the governor’s office.
Over time, Sanders developed both his chicken-cooking operation (pressure-frying instead of pan-frying chicken, and the famously secret herbs and spices) and his public image (growing out his mustache and goatee, and filling his wardrobe with all-white suits and black string ties). Unfortunately, his motel and restaurant folded in 1955 after the newly-built I-75 pulled most traffic out of Corbin. Undeterred, Sanders pulled $105 out of his first Social Security check and went out hunting for franchise opportunities. So many people wanted to cash in on the image of Sanders’ restaurant (as well as Sanders himself) that he was able to sell off the newly-rejuvenated Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation to a Kentucky partnership for $2 million in 1964.
Considered by many to be an outdated, racist caricature, the character of Aunt Jemima was first introduced in a song by controversial African-American performer Billy Kersands in 1875, and soon became a common fixture in minstrel shows as the archetypical “mammy” figure. Aunt Jemima was often portrayed as a happy, simple-minded, obedient slave, particularly in Southern minstrel shows. Even in the North, Aunt Jemima was an insultingly simple character, and more often than not was played by white men. It’s almost certain that when the founders of what would eventually become Aunt Jemima ready-mix pancakes were looking for a character to represent their brand, they ended up choosing what was actually a German immigrant man wearing blackface.
On the other hand, when it came time for the R.T. Davis Milling Company to hire someone to play Aunt Jemima at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, it was actual African-American woman and former slave Nancy Green who was hired on to cook pancakes in front of a fascinated crowd of tourists. Green’s pancake exhibition (and her adept people skills) won her a medal from the Expo and a lifetime contract to perform as the Aunt Jemima character in public appearances. The financial freedom from her contract (one of the first offered to an African-American) allowed Green to spend her spare time and money working for various anti-poverty causes until her tragic death in a car accident in 1923.
Can anyone really hope to capture in mere words the thrilling career of Indiana-born agronomist and businessman Orville “The Hammer” Redenbacher? Perhaps by inventing lots of fictitious details, like how his nickname was “The Hammer,” or examining the exciting world of agronomy as taught at Purdue University in the 1930s, or conceivably by working in some kind of strained popcorn metaphor, like how Redenbacher’s exclusive hybrid strain of popping-corn exploded onto the market in 1970 in a rich tide of buttery flavor. No, those are all too gimmicky.
The famous popcorn brand was originally going to be called “RedBow,” a combination of the name Redenbacher and partner Charlie Bowman, until ad consultants decided that the name and character of Orville Redenbacher was just folksy-quaint enough to sell millions in the hotly contested instant popcorn market of the '70s. Redenbacher appeared in numerous TV spots, eventually adopting a standard “costume” for public appearances just like Harland Sanders before him. He became surprisingly popular, appearing on daytime talk shows to assure the audience that he was in fact a real person, and through the magic of mildly creepy computer animation, he returned to TV commercials in 2007, 12 years after his death, proving not even the will of God can prevent Orville Redenbacher from selling popcorn.
CAPTAIN MORGAN AND ADMIRAL NELSON
It’s hard to buy rum today without being forcibly reminded of the heroic Age of Sail, a time when drunks and petty criminals were kidnapped from the streets of London and forced into years of grueling and dangerous service in the Royal Navy, where they battled starvation, disease, cannibals and the French, but typically got rewarded with gallons of delicious booze. Rum was the most common naval beverage, since the sugar from which it was distilled was already a major part of the trans-Atlantic trade network, and when combined with a sailor’s ration of citrus juice (to prevent scurvy) and stagnant water (to prevent death) it resulted in a tall pint of the traditional sailor’s cocktail known as “grog.”
So it’s not surprising that when the Seagram Company decided to go into the rum business, their flagship brand was named “Captain Morgan,” after the legendary Welsh privateer, Sir Henry Morgan. Captain (later Admiral) Morgan was born into an impoverished, semi-noble, Welsh family with almost no chance at being anything better than a country squire. After a stay in Barbados and a lot of time aboard legal/semi-legal/piratical ships in the Caribbean, Morgan emerged as a brilliant seaman, leader and naval tactician, leading several ground assaults on Spanish treasure-ports and generally deeply screwing up Spain’s New World operations. Based out of Jamaica and other British Caribbean possessions, Morgan became popularly associated with the rum trade that dominated the local economy.
As Captain Morgan enjoyed a second round of popularity as a rum frontman, second-string distiller Luxco (best known for bottling Everclear) decided to up the ante in both rank and historical significance with the production of Admiral Nelson-brand rum. Admiral/Viscount/Duke Horatio Nelson was one of the most brilliant and courageous men ever to command a ship, as well as a total mack who had fine women in every port, and his tragic and heroic death defending Britain from a combined Spanish-French invasion is a legendary milestone in British history. Although Nelson didn’t spend nearly as much time in the Caribbean as Morgan, putting his name on a bottle of rum is particularly appropriate, as after his death he was shipped back to England inside a barrel of rum to preserve his corpse.
A man (and a rum) of a decidedly different class and era than Captain Morgan, Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins was one of the first famous American tattoo artists, an enormously talented designer whose influence can still be seen today. Collins spent his formative years riding the rails, learning tattoo and life lessons from semi-mythic figures like Big Mike and Tatts Thomas, and practicing his skills on passed-out drunks. In 1930, he joined the Navy and was first exposed to the visual arts and tattoo traditions of Japan, China and Southeast Asia -- a crucial part of his iconic style -- and remained a licensed and practicing sailor until his death in 1973.
Collins’ art and style were continued after his death by his two students, Mike “Rollo Banks” Malone and Ed Hardy. Malone and Hardy's styles are close cousins to Sailor Jerry, and in 1999, the two artists established Sailor Jerry Ltd. to act as custodian of Collins’ artwork and to sell ashtrays, sneakers, cards, shot glasses and eventually a reasonably-priced, Caribbean-style, 92-proof rum. All Sailor Jerry products are produced in America or other countries that ban sweatshop-style labor, and the company sponsors independent musicians as part of an effort to “keep Sailor Jerry’s legacy alive and kicking.”
Next: Hilarious Photos on the Runway
Bonus: Mario, of Video Game Fame
Seattle-based contractor, developer and property manager Mario Segale became an unwitting and somewhat unwilling part of video game history in the early '80s after leasing a warehouse to an obscure Japanese electronics company that had trouble meeting its rent deadlines. In 1981, Segale finally got fed up with the company’s frequently absent paychecks and drove out to give these “Nintendo” folks a piece of his mind. But after confronting Nintendo of America President Minoru Arakawa, he was convinced that the company would soon be able to make good on its promises. In fact, Nintendo was soon able to pay their rent 10 times over after the release of the massively popular arcade game “Donkey Kong,” featuring the soon-to-be-legendary character of “Mr. Video.”
If the name “Mr. Video” (or his similarly uninspiring alias of “Jumpman”) isn’t really ringing a lot of bells, it’s because Segale’s appearance at the Nintendo of America headquarters/warehouse made such an impression on Arakawa and his staff that they decided to name the Donkey Kong protagonist after him. After all, Segale was a short, stocky man with dark hair, just like the character (although he apparently was lacking the classic Mario mustache at the time of his visit to Nintendo), and he had the sort of forceful personality that they could easily imagine leading a man to fight an ape in a crumbling skyscraper. Segale remains a major player in the Seattle real-estate scene, but is as reclusive and publicity-shy as a land development magnate can possibly be. The only publicly available and verifiable picture of Segale was snagged by tech discussion site Technologizer.com by going through old Seattle-area high-school yearbooks, and according to friends and business partners, Mario adamantly refuses to even mention his role in the creation of one of video gaming’s most enduring brands. Is it because of Nintendo Mario’s ridiculously heavy Italian accent? Is it because of Segale’s decidedly private nature? We choose to believe that it’s because Segale found 1993’s "Super Mario Bros." movie a sad waste of the talents of Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. | <urn:uuid:98ce78be-e17c-4767-ae34-8a0d1e11a8a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mandatory.com/2012/09/10/the-real-people-behind-famous-brand-names/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97671 | 3,544 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Bireli Lagrene: Return to Django
It's 1988, and guitarist Bireli Lagrene is onstage at the Village Vanguard. A decade earlier, at age 12, the gypsy phenom had stunned the world with his remarkably accurate interpretations of Django Reinhardt's ornate, precisely picked, urgently swinging gypsy jazz.
In the audience is Blue Note Records executive Bruce Lundvall, reveling in the recent signing of this budding guitar god. Also seated in the audience, in his usual spot near the door, is Vanguard proprietor Max Gordon, well into his 70s now, sometimes can be seen nodding off in his chair during any given set.
Lagrene's set proceeds in fine, swinging fashion, wowing the Vanguard faithful. Toward the end Gordon falls into snooze mode-only to be suddenly jolted awake when the guitarist stomps on his distortion pedal and launches into a ferocious overdrive solo that nearly knocks Gordon off his chair. Meanwhile, Lundvall has his face buried in his hands and is shaking his head as if to say, "What have I done?"
Lagrene hasn't been invited back to the Vanguard ever since.
Nearly 17 years later, the guitarist recalls the incident: "Wow! They were pretty upset," he chuckles over the phone from his home in the Strasbourg, France. Then 22, Lagrene was just delving headlong into the visceral power of electric guitars in the wake of an eye-opening European tour with Jaco Pastorius. He just hadn't told anyone of his plans to let it rip at the Vanguard.
Born a Sinti Gypsy on September 4, 1966, in the border region between France and Germany known commonly as the Alsace, Lagrene started playing guitar at the age of four, which is considered early even by Gypsy standards, and by age seven he was already fluent in jazz. His father Fiso, a rhythm guitarist who played in bands during the 1940s in France, was Lagrene's first teacher, although by all accounts the kid was a natural. "I actually picked up the instrument really fast and turned quickly to Django's music when I was five or six years old," Lagrene says. "And my brother and I, we played that music together every single day at that age. My dad taught me a little bit, a few chords in the beginning. And from what my brother says, I was very fast in picking up things, so my dad didn't need to teach me any further."
In 1978 Lagrene won a prize at a festival in Strasbourg and subsequently made a big impact during a televised Gypsy festival. Guitarist Larry Coryell recalls first meeting young Lagrene backstage at a festival in Strasbourg, where he and Philip Catherine were playing with legendary violinist Stephane Grappelli, Reinhardt's frequent collaborator. "Before the gig they brought this kid in. He was awkward-looking and kind of homely-this was before he had his teeth fixed," Coryell says. "And he was real small, really dwarfed by the guitar. His dad was there-I remember he was drunk. But Bireli took out his Django-style guitar and started to play, and I couldn't believe it. He sounded exactly like Django Reinhardt. It was incredible. And after he finished this little demonstration backstage, I remember someone-not his dad but another kind of representative of Bireli-saying, 'Monsieur Lagrene would like to play some titles with Monsieur Grappelli.' And it ended up that at the end of our concert, Stephane brought him on to play. I think he might've borrowed Philip's guitar because he had broken a string on his own-that's how hard he played. After he played I was traumatized. I remember thinking, 'My god, this cat is totally amazing!' Later that night, Stephane commented, 'We only need one Django.' But I was still amazed. This kid played just like Django Rein-hardt-just tearing through stuff. He was truly amazing."
In 1981, Ron Goldstein, then the head of Antilles and now president of Verve, had eyes to sign Lagrene. As he recalls, "Chris Blackwell [of Island Records] called me one day and started telling me about this Gypsy guitar player. We had just started the Antilles jazz operation and this very much interested me, so I went over there to meet Bireli. There was a first album that he had already recorded [Routes to Django: Live, 1980], so I went over with the idea of licensing that album for the States and then doing a new album with him. He was obviously young-very nice, very quiet. What I remember most was all he wanted to do was play music; that was on his mind all the time. The other thing I remember, vividly, was when the Island U.K. company brought him over to London, and he came over with a group of family people. They were all Gypsies-I don't know if they were brothers or cousins or whatever. I just remember that they were all carrying eight-inch knives."
After spending a decade growing up and playing in Djangomania, Lagrene rebelled. He spent the late '80s and early '90s rocking out with electric guitars, various effects pedals and Eddie Van Halen-style two-hand tapping techniques-as documented on his aptly titled 1988 Blue Note debut, Inferno, and his 1989 follow-up, Foreign Affairs, as well as on one boisterous track from 1991's Acoustic Moments, the defiantly punkish "Metal Earthquake."
But the late Max Gordon would no doubt approve of what Lagrene has been up to over the past few years, returning to the music that had won him so many accolades as a prodigious but puny kid. Now 38, the guitarist is a veteran who has grown into a bear of a man with two children of his own (17-year-old Timothee and 12-year-old Zoe). His wealth of musical experience allows Lagrene to approach Reinhardt fare like "Blues Clair," "Djangology," "Embraceable You," "Daphne," "Viper's Dream" and "Troublant Bolero" with a much deeper understanding of the material. Lagrene's flawless time, dazzling speed and fretboard filigrees are still very much a part of his guitar vocabulary, but now there's also a newfound sense of playfulness and daring in his delivery.
Simply put, Lagrene's bigger, stronger and more savvy now-far better equipped to squeeze the juice out of every note with his muscular finger vibrato, to drive a band with his powerfully propulsive right-hand strumming or to wring feeling from a phrase with a gracefully nuanced touch.
To see a prime example of Lagrene's take on Reinhardt, check out the recent DVD Live Jazz a Vienne (Dreyfus), which documents four hours of musical fireworks by Lagrene's Gipsy Project at a July 9, 2002, concert featuring special guests Martin Weiss (violin), Richard Galliano (accordion) and nine other Djangophile guitarists including Stochelo Rosenberg, Dorado Schmitt, Angelo Debarre, Sylvain Luc and Django's grandson David Reinhardt. (The DVD also includes rare footage of a 14-year-old Lagrene making his debut appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981.)
Lagrene's triumphant recorded return to Reinhardt's music was on 2001's Gypsy Project (Dreyfus), which featured the Hot Club of France-style lineup of two rhythm guitars (Holzmano Lagrene and Hono Winterstein), upright bass (Diego Imbert) and violin (Florin Niculescu). "I never thought I would go back, never in a million years," Lagrene says. "But I look at it in a different way now. I'm definitely taking a different approach now than when I was much younger. I think growing up helped me a lot. Now I put much more of my own personality into it instead of just trying to copy Django exactly. I try to move a little further with it when I'm playing those same tunes now."
As Gary Giddins observed in his Village Voice review of Gypsy Project: "Lagrene's understanding of Reinhardt is deep and abiding, but he doesn't belong to that world, and probably doesn't give much thought to it."
"I grew up with Django's music, so it's really easier for me to go back to playing it than someone who never played it at all," Lagrene says. "It's very natural for me to be doing this. I did have to woodshed for a few months because I was a bit rusty, but it all came back to me again."
Lagrene followed up the Gypsy Project success with another Reinhardt-inspired outing in 2002, Gipsy Project & Friends, which features the previous CD's core group augmented by special guests Stochelo Rosenberg and Thomas Dutronc on guitars and Henri Salvador on vocals. Now comes the potent Move, which has Lagrene and the Gipsy Project working through uptempo scorchers like Reinhardt's obscure "Hungaria," Denzil Best's knuckle-busting "Move," an impossibly fast rendition of Ray Noble's "Cherokee" and bassist Diego Imbert's jaunty opener "Un Certain Je ne Sais Quoi" as well as more subdued fare like Django's dreamy "Melodie au Crepuscule" or his tango-flavored "Troublant Bolero." Lagrene even manages to inject some fresh reharmonizations into the fabric of Reinhardt's classic "Nuages," a tune he has no doubt played thousands of times. On his original "Place du Tertre," Lagrene detours from the program somewhat to peal off streams of bluesy notes on electric guitar that sound more like Les Paul-isms than Django-isms. Likewise, on a sizzling rendition of Dorado Schmitt's "Mimosa," Lagrene's blazing fretwork on the electric guitar bears the postbop stamp of George Benson or Pat Martino. He ends Move on a beguiling note with the introspective solo original "Jadis," performed on a detuned acoustic guitar.
As Move proves, Lagrene says the obligation he once felt to live up to Reinhardt's legacy has been lifted. So now when the guitarist delves into renditions of "Swing 42," "Minor Swing" or "Djangology," he can relax, get into the groove and just enjoy the process of making music with his comrades. "When I was a teenager they wanted me to play that particular music and nothing else because they thought I was like a second Django. That's an amazing amount of pressure for any teenage kid to handle. And that's why I left everything behind me and just went on my own and was seeking something else. Now, after doing so many other things in my career, I have so much more fun playing and I enjoy being looked upon as just a musician, as a guitar player, and not as someone who copies someone else. That really gives me the freedom of going wherever I want musically. That's a good feeling."
The other big change about Move is the Gipsy Project's addition of saxophonist Franck Wolf, who replaces the extraordinary violinist Florin Niculescu, the Grappelli-esque foil to Lagrene's Reinhardt on the group's previous outings. Affecting a robust, smoky tone and easy swinging sensibility on both tenor and alto saxes, and soaring with high-note bravura on soprano sax on both "Cherokee" and the title track, Wolf lends a decidedly jazzy character to this crack ensemble, recalling some of Reinhardt's late-'30s encounters in Paris with Coleman Hawkins. "Franck is a longtime friend," Lagrene says. "We played together years ago, and for this new album I was thinking of him because we really get along very well, both personally and musically. His whole sound brings a new feel to the band."
Lagrene and the Gipsy Project will embark on an eight-city tour of America in March in support of Move, but before that he'll tour Europe with Hammond B3 king Joey DeFrancesco and the great French drummer Andre Ceccarelli, with whom he recently cut a studio recording. The common ground for Lagrene and DeFrancesco-aside from their eagerness to play at supersonic tempos-is Frank Sinatra. Both have recorded Sinatra tributes-Lagrene's Blue Eyes (Dreyfus) in '97, which features him in a rare singing role, and DeFrancesco's Plays Sinatra His Way (HighNote) in 2004. Expect the sparks to fly when these two burners get together.
Max, wherever you are, wake up; you won't want to miss this.
"I still listen to Weather Report once in a while as well as a little bit of classical music, like Bach. But most of the time I'm listening to all these guitar players who are sending me their CDs, and a lot of them are wonderful players."
Lagrene's main ax is a customized D-hole guitar with the standard Django-style cutaway made by the French luthier Maurice Dupont. He uses Argentine brand strings made by the Spanish company Savarez. "Someone told me that Django used that same brand back in the '40s," he says. "Those are special strings that go well with those kind of Django guitars." Lagrene recently acquired a new D-hole guitar made by the German luthier Stephan Hahl, and he also still has his Jacques Favino Django-styled acoustic guitar, which he bought in Paris at the age of 12. His electric guitar is a hollow body Gibson Super 5.
Originally published in March 2005 | <urn:uuid:fbb114fc-187c-44d8-8829-cd18415f9089> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jazztimes.com/articles/15296-bireli-lagrene-return-to-django | 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 | 0.982213 | 2,932 | 1.523438 | 2 |
We've had several recent tales at Sugar HQ of beloved kitties gone missing. Sad. When checking at area shelters, one staffer got a handout with "search strategies" that she was kind enough to share. It lists four types of cats . . . and four different ways to seek them, if they should go missing. Since I'm hoping your pets are still safe at home, check out these descriptions to see which fits Fluffy best.
- Curious clown. This cat loves exploring anything and anyone . . . and wants to be on the move to investigate.
- Care-less kitty. These felines are a touch aloof, but observing nonetheless. They may not react to company – positively or negatively – but wander short distances nearby.
- Cautious cat. Stable yet sometimes shy, they may hide in fear but generally can be coaxed out for meet and greets.
- Xenophobic feline. Disliking all things out of the ordinary, these kits may never even come out to greet your friends, instead seeking shelter in a quiet room to stay alone. | <urn:uuid:cd11b074-6054-4303-be5c-6ab761cad084> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petsugar.com/Which-Personality-Does-Your-Cat-Have-2994984?fullsite=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944064 | 224 | 1.539063 | 2 |
When I used to work at a coffee shop I was always very appreciative of people who brought their own reusable mugs or cup sleeves. We went through a mind-boggling amount of those every day and it was so nice to see people care about reducing waste.
And Mike likes to wear wrist cuffs – he claims that it keeps him warm in his freezing office. But it probably didn’t keep him warm enough because he needed to periodically head downstairs for cups of hot tea at the coffee shop.
The problem of over air-conditioning aside, I thought it would be fun to combine wrist cuff and cup sleeves! I also conveniently made this up for a beginner’s crochet workshop, so I tried to be as simple and straightforward as possible. There’s no buttonhole or anything complicated. But if you’re up for more challenge, I saw this reeeeeally nice beer bracelet pattern on Crochet by Faye – I’d like to try that out myself one day!
I find this website helpful when learning with videos of crochet stitches.
Here’s what I did:
Materials / tools:
Small amount of worsted weight yarn
2 large buttons (mine were about 1″ in diameter)
Needle and thread
A coffee cup for size-testing
Row 1: I made 9 chains (ch). You can make more or fewer ch if you want your cuff to be wider or narrower.
Row 2: ch 2, single crochet stitch (sc) in the 3rd stitch from hook, sc in each ch across.
Row 4 and on: Continue to make rows of sc or dc or both until cuff is long enough to wrap around wrist.
When cuff is long enough to wrap around wrist: ch 4, turn. Skip first stitch, triple crochet stitches (tr) across. This row serves as button holes for wrist cuff.
Continue to make a couple more rows of sc and dc until the cuff is long enough to wrap around the cup.
When cuff is long enough to wrap around cup: ch 4, turn. Skip first stitch, tr across. This row serves as button holes for cup sleeve.
Next row: ch 1, turn. Skip first tr, sc in each tr across. Fasten off.
Note: it’s better to make it a bit too short than a bit too long, it will stretch over time.
Finally, sew buttons on the first sc row. When sewing button on thick fabric (such as something crocheted), I find this instruction from Wiki How useful:
For buttons that get heavy use, try wrapping the long thread of the needle tail around the threads that hold the button, at least 4 or 5 times, tightly, then force the needle and thread through the tight bunch of threads that you have created. Try pushing the needle parallel to the the button’s holes, to avoid resistance. Use a thimble for pushing the needle. (The reason for this is simple: thread wear will cause the button to fall off sooner, unless you wrap the exposed threads with a protective wrap.) Once you have forced the needle through, push it back into the cloth, and tie it off with the long tail that you left at the starting knot.
This is how the sewn buttons would look:
Depending on who you’re making this cuff for, the tr row for the wrist may not be necessary. You see, apparently Mike’s wrist is the same size as the coffee cup…
I happen to have ridiculously small wrists due to Asian genes, so I needed the cuff to be adjustable. Anyway. I hope this is not too confusing. If you have any question, feedback or comment please feel free to drop me a note! And I hope you enjoy the cooler evening and hot drinks as our hemisphere welcomes the arrival of fall! | <urn:uuid:d4457039-db1d-453c-afdf-60075cd87dc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genuinemudpie.ca/2010/08/29/the-making-of-a-cuff-sleeve/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940358 | 794 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Two miles north of Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street‘s encamped, there’s another would-be hotspot of cultural change occupying a more genteel locale: the James Beard Foundation (JBF). Seriously? This epicurean epicenter housed in an elegant West Village brownstone with eternally well-tended window boxes, wants to stir up something more culturally significant than mouth-watering meals curated by celebrity chefs?
Well, yes. And it’s a logical move, if they don’t want to see their legacy (or their democracy) go down the toilet. After all, as Mario Batali once pointed out on CBS Sunday Morning, “When you think about it, all my greatest work is poop, tomorrow.”Ah, but not all excrement is created equal. On the one hand, intensive pork production’s given us vast pools of lethally toxic pig shit known as manure lagoons, more akin to radioactive waste than organic manure. On the other hand, there are worm castings, the highly fertile poop extruded by earthworms that looks like coffee grounds and smells pleasantly earthy.
The respective hazards and merits of various manures has not, historically, been the province of the JBF. This highly influential culinary center, founded after the legendary chef and cookbook author James Beard’s death in 1985 at the age of 81, is better known for its awards honoring outstanding chefs, restaurateurs, and writers.
But with the current American diet in such a dire state, the JBF folks are not content to simply celebrate culinary and literary excellence. Eager to play a more proactive role in reshaping our food system, the JBF has come down squarely in favor of a future that features more worm castings and fewer manure lagoons.
The JBF promoted that vision last week with its second annual JBF Food Conference, How Money and Media Influence the Way America Eats. In conjunction with the conference, the JBF also held its inaugural JBF Leadership Awards [PDF], which honored 10 “visionaries in the business, government and education sectors responsible for creating a healthier, safer, and more sustainable food world.”
Fittingly, one of the honorees was vermicomposting genius Will Allen, whose internationally acclaimed nonprofit Growing Power flourishes on a foundation of worm poop.
And while the JBF’s newfound fervor to reform our food chain may seem like a radical departure, it’s really more like a homecoming. James Beard, whose influence led Julia Child to declare him “the Dean of American Cuisine,” was advocating pure, regional, seasonally based home cooking half a century before Alice Waters and Michael Pollan sought to popularize that ideal.
Beard despised the prepackaged convenience foods that had already begun to displace real meals in his heyday. In a letter to his friend Helen Evans Brown in September of 1954, he wrote:
The food editors’ conference is going full tilt and we hear the results are horrifying. Soon, we are told, there will be no fresh foods on the market — just canned or frozen (this came from the lips of the Secretary of Agriculture).
The JBF Food Conference, co-hosted by Good Housekeeping at their conference facility in the LEED gold certified Hearst Tower, brought together chefs, scholars, entrepreneurs, economists, writers, advocates, and representatives from nonprofits and corporations to examine the financial underpinnings of our food system and the media’s role in shaping our food choices.
The goal was to find common ground among people with diverse agendas, and “establish a set of guiding principles around which we can organize and move forward together,” as the conference’s facilitator, Joseph McIntyre, announced at the outset.
McIntyre, president of the California-based think/do tank Ag Innovations Network, came to town a few days early to make a pilgrimage to Zuccotti Park.
I wanted to go down there and see what was going on. And you know what they were talking about? Money and media. I would argue that our friends in the Tea Party are talking about the same things. Underneath the great debate in America today about food, about finance, underneath the polarized positions between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, lie common aspirations for the future. How many of you do not want a world that’s better for your children?
The JBF’s Leadership Awards, which offer prestige but no monetary prize, personified the paradoxes that bedevil the good food movement. Michelle Obama, Alice Waters, and the aforementioned Will Allen were obvious shoo-ins, as was Fedele Bauccio, whose Bon Appétit Management Company has been the gold standard when it comes to sustainability in the food service industry.
Other honorees whose bona fides were impeccable included Debra Eschmeyer, the dynamic co-founder of the just-launched FoodCorps; the venerable Fred Kirschenmann, of the Leopold Center For Sustainable Agriculture and Stone Barns; and author/professor Janet Poppendieck, whose books Sweet Charity and Free For All: Fixing School Food in America offer thoughtful analyses on the root causes of hunger in our society and how to reform our shoddy school lunch program.
But the inclusion of executives from Costco, Unilever, and Sysco no doubt surprised some folks. Forbes writer Nadia Arumugam was pleased to see them included. She said:
… witnessing three high-level executives from three large corporations receive awards for their tangible and results-driven efforts to further the sustainable food movement, was surprising, but extremely heartening.
This is where the pragmatists and the purists collide. As Naomi Klein told Civil Eats, “The food movement is inherently anti-corporate and it is inherently about rebuilding a real economy.”
In honoring corporations who are making incremental changes that merit our support, the JBF challenges that assumption. And what are we to make of the partnerships that two of the honorees, Michelle Obama and Will Allen, have forged with Walmart?
It’s a dilemma that James Beard would have understood. As David Kamp noted in The United States of Arugula, Beard labeled himself a “gastronomic whore” after entering into an endorsement deal with Green Giant to tout their Corn Niblets and wax beans in his recipes:
In his heart, Beard knew that lending his name to processed foods was a betrayal of his core beliefs in seasonality and regionality … but his cooking school required a lot of money to operate, and his ever-increasing number of writing commitments required a full-time retinue of testers and ghostwriters.
Where does compromise end and co-option begin? As Walt Whitman famously said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Originally posted on Grist | <urn:uuid:f86d9f39-93f3-47d2-aee3-cd3576560da3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://civileats.com/2011/10/20/haute-cuisine-gone-green-james-beard-foundation-focuses-on-sustainability/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955978 | 1,466 | 1.742188 | 2 |
A Journey into the "Emerald Triangle"
In Northern California the is an almost mythical land known as the emerald triangle. Famous for growers and quite often the focus of the American drug war in the news…
Three counties in northern California make up the bulk of marijuana growing in the U.S. In the years since voters in California passed proposition 215 in 1996, pot production has exploded. Traditionally, Mexican cartels were the dominate supplier of marijuana to American consumers. Now the Mexicans are fighting to hold on to their share of the market. (video by Travis Fox / The Washington Post)
Cannagraphic Tagged: emerald humbold marijuana triangle video | <urn:uuid:ad62b6fa-670e-4799-88d0-80c10d1cb598> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cannagraphic.com/video/a-journey-into-the-emerald-triangle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947792 | 135 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Uber Is Disrupting How Urbanites Get Around
Uber has changed my life. Within minutes, a driver shows up to pick me up and takes me wherever I want. The driver is always nice and pleasant, and even opens the door for me. Inside the car is water or gum, sometimes magazines.
All I have to do is turn on my smartphone, open up an Uber app and pin my location down and a personal driver is sent my way.
The regular towncar was a bit pricey, much more than a typical cab so it took me a while to become a regular user. But it happened recently, and it's kind of addicting because it makes it really easy to get a driver. I was happy to be added to the beta program called Uberx -- all powered by hybrid cars to be more competitive with taxis.
I took Uber to work, using both the Uberx and regular Uber black car to compare the price differences. The base fare for a black car is $8 compared to an Uberx, which is $5.75. The SUV is more, starting at $15. The sliding scale applies to per mile and per minute charges. For me it cost about $20 to go to work in the Uberx and $30 in the towncar.
You don't have to worry about paying the driver directly; Uber saves your credit card information, so at the end of a trip, it automatically charges the card with the tip included. When you're done with your trip, a receipt is emailed to you. You get a map of your journey, including details like how far you traveled.
The hybrid car option is still invite only. Sign up here if you want to be added to the wait list.
So you have to wonder, why didn't Uber exist before? The adoption of smartphones has allowed app-powered limo companies to disrupt the traditional taxi dispatch system. Uber cab drivers have an iPhone in their car, so anyone with an iPhone or Android can download the Uber app on their phone and at the touch of a button book a personal driver. This beats having to hail a cab down, or call in and hope a cab comes -- or call hours ahead of time to schedule a private ride from a limo driver.
Ryan McKillen, a software engineer at Uber, said low-cost location-aware smart phones are what makes Uber possible.
"We can dispatch cars and match clients and drivers with just a touch to a screen. Clients can watch cars drive to them in real time. As time goes on, challenges of software engineering that were once difficult and expensive become easier and cheaper. Delivering the Uber experience before smart phones just wasn't possible," McKillen told me.
Other competition is moving -- offering a cheaper option. There's SideCar and Lyft, which also provide on-demand rides. Lyft cars have a big fluffy pink mustache hanging on the front bumper and operate instead through a network of people who want to share rides. Then of course there are the taxis that roam around the city, unconnected via smartphones -- that can be hailed down if you're lucky. For the time being, there seem to be plenty of options for a ride, most available at the touch of a button on your smartphone.
Boonsri Dickinson is the Associate Editor of BYTE | <urn:uuid:a183cad0-d25a-44e3-9292-05a7bb062887> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/mobile-applications/uber-is-disrupting-how-urbanites-get-aro/240006554?cid=SBX_byte_related_video_BYTE_Wireless_Radio_amazon_kindle_fire_iphone_5_more_mobile&itc=SBX_byte_related_video_BYTE_Wireless_Radio_amazon_kindle_fire_iphone_5_more_mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968834 | 678 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The College Board announced in a November 13, 2012 press release the 3rd Annual AP (Advanced Placement Program) District of the Year Awards listing Worth County, among only seven districts in the state, on the 2012 Honor Roll. This and more below:
The AP Annual Honor Roll ‘consists of the 539 U.S. public school districts that simultaneously achieved increases in access to AP® courses for a broader number of students and also maintained or improved the rate at which their AP students earned scores of 3 or higher on an AP Exam’.
The College Board press release also states achieving both of these goals is the ideal scenario for a district’s AP program because it indicates that the district is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are likely to benefit most from rigorous AP course work. More than 90 percent of colleges and universities across the U.S. offer college credit, advanced placement or both for a score of 3 or higher on an AP Exam — which can potentially save students and their families thousands of dollars in college tuition.
The seven districts in Georgia include Dekalb, Gwinnett, Walker, Rockdale, Madison, Oconee and Worth as the lone southwest Georgia school listed.
“We applaud the extraordinary efforts of the devoted teachers and administrators in these 539 districts, who are fostering rigorous work worth doing. These educators have not only expanded student access to AP course work, but they have enabled more of their students to achieve on a college level—which is helping to create a strong college-going culture,” said College Board President, David Coleman.
Worth County High School Parent Involvement Coordinator Kathy Conger said of the accomplishment, “All of the hard work from our teachers, students, staff, parents, and anyone else involved in our students’ education is really paying off.”
STUDENTS DOING THEIR PART
Worth County Middle School students were in town raising funds for the WCMS Basketball program Saturday. See a few of the participating students below:
To get involved with or contribute to the growth of athletic programs in Worth County Schools, contact the Worth Board of Education at (229) 776- 8600. | <urn:uuid:e820c950-ddbd-4112-a01e-28e8c4b4e72f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worthit2u.net/worth/2012/11/19/worth-a-mention-congratulations-worth-county-schools/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951957 | 451 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Howard University professor Dr. Daryl Michael Scott was recently named president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the organization announced.
"I am delighted and honored to be the new president of ASALH," Dr. Scott said in a statement. We at ASLAH are all about service. Our founder, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, believed mightily in service, and in his famous commentary, The Mis-Education of the Negro, he criticized so-called educated Blacks for their failure to serve the community."
"One of my major goals will be for us to rededicate ourselves to having the capacity to provide others with the opportunity to serve," Scott said. "Our most stalwart members are those who have read and taken to hear the need for them to serve the cause of spreading knowledge about people of African descent."
Scott succeeds former leader James Stewart. He received a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University and formerly served as chair of the Department of History at Howard. He also has authored a bevy of articles in scholarly publications on social policy and the origins of multiculturalism.
On Feb. 23, Scott will commence ASALH's annual Black History Month Luncheon at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in the District. Former U.S. Civil Rights Commission Chair Dr. Mary France will be the event's keynote speaker. Additionally, numerous historians, authors and scholars will be showcasing their latest books on African American history at the event.
For more information, visit: www.asalh.net. | <urn:uuid:567f4578-d334-4dc3-a200-8f3e2b6dce67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afro.com/sections/news/Washington/istory.htm?storyid=77359 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958743 | 321 | 1.703125 | 2 |
A recent article on the Today Show’s website explained some of the options for recovering data from a dead or erased hard drives. Some of the article was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it did provide some good information. Our own DIY recovery software, Data Rescue 3 for Mac, was mentioned in the article.
While only the Mac® version was mentioned, our parent company, Prosoft Engineering, has also developed a Windows® version. Both programs are award-winning recovery software, with features to go far beyond many other programs. For example, both the Windows® and Mac® versions ship with an emergency boot disk that allows the user to recover files from a computer that won’t boot into the native operating system.
One important feature that our software includes is excellent support via phone, email and website. Our technicians are available for assistance in both the installation and use of our program.
There are times, however, that a file recovery program won’t work. In fact, running a program on a physically damaged drive can actually cause more harm than good. In those cases, turn to The Data Rescue Center, our data recovery service, for efficient and safe hard disk data recovery.
Our recovery engineers are qualified and trained in the latest techniques. Our Class 100/ISO 5 cleanroom protects your drive from further physical damage. For extremely sensitive, crucial data recovery, we can also provide a Class 10 environment.
If you have any questions on what you need for computer or server recovery, give us a call today.
Latest posts by Jennifer Bell (see all)
- What is Data Recovery? - May 1, 2013
- Data Recovery Tips Part 1 – Understanding Hard Drive Failures - April 16, 2013
- How Data is Lost Affects Chances for Data Recovery - April 5, 2013 | <urn:uuid:cd4300c6-361a-41a8-bbae-4947ae054e73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thedatarescuecenter.com/blog/do-it-yourself-or-recovery-lab-options/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943061 | 373 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The area of my research is Numerical Linear Algebra which is a key component of most simulation software pertaining the fact that all computational problems operate on matrices and vectors. Indeed, during a numerical simulation (weather forecasting, engineering problems, financial markets, etc.) a significant amount of time is spent in numerical linear algebra operations (say 80%). My research aims at developing better algorithms for these operations which is crucial for the scientific computing community.
There are three main components to my research: algorithms, theory, and computer programs. My vision is that all three are equally represented and emphasized. Together with my students, we are designing new algorithms which are better than previous ones in various ways: they lead to more accurate solutions, algorithms are more parallelizable, solutions are obtained faster, etc. The second aspect of my research consists of developing an understanding
of the problems to be solved and of the algorithms. We develop condition number estimates and optimality bounds of the computational cost for the problems through error analysis of the algorithms and computational cost models for the algorithms. The third part of my research consists of implementing these algorithms and the experimentation thereof. While a large component of this amounts to being software engineering, there are two benefits for
spending the time in implementing our algorithms in reliable and robust software; foremost this enables us to confirm the previously developed theory and secondly the advantage is that once the implementation of an algorithm is done, the software program can then be distributed to the scientific community. These three parts of my research complement themselves nicely. Understanding the theory leads to insights on how to improve algorithms. Computer program
experimentation helps us to detect weaknesses in an algorithm and therefore enables us to find in which direction the algorithm design needs to proceed. | <urn:uuid:878c2385-3138-4fa1-9b71-3a6966227e6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/math/contact/DepartmentDirectory/Pages/JulienLangou.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939385 | 348 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The presiding Deity in the Spiritual Park is the eight-foot-tall granite Panchamukha Ganapati. This majestic five-faced, ten-armed Ganapati looks over azure blue seas facing India--a towering reminder of the original home of the nation's Hindus and of the importance of harmony in life.
The September Ganesha Homa is as usual a great encounter for thousands, with Lord Ganesha at the Park.
Singing devotional songs to build up the spiritual vibration.
At 9.00 AM a large crowd is already at the Park.
The ceremony starts with a an arati to Lord Ganapati.
Our ladies handling flowers brought by devotees.
Whether seated or standing devotion is high everywhere.
The monthly public talk from Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami's teachings.
The teachings are spiritual food for the devotees who listen attentively.
It is tradition for many devotees to bring a lighted clay lamp with their offerings. Hundreds of these small lamps are placed near the Pancha Mukha Ganapati shrine.
Inside the shrine….
This what you see when standing at the Ganapati shrine and looking at the Mandapam.
Himalayan Academy sales booth is another busy spot.
Devotees seated in the shade along the gravel path leading to the Mandapam…
Sanjeeva (left) was one of those first young men to be on Task Force for several months at the Spiritual Park when it was created in 1986. Now Sanjeeva is settled in California, USA. He and his family are very impressed by the recent infra-structural developments at the Park.
No Responses to “Ganesha Homa September 09- Mauritius Spiritual Park”
I’ve once visited this place, its really awesome. There’s always a peaceful& serene atmosphere prevailing. Its a place where one can meditates without any disturbance and if you have not been there, there’s still time to go
Bodhinatha's Latest Upadesha: "Detachment from Experiences; Importance of Daily Vigil" (May 5, 2013)
All experiences are good experiences, necessary to get us here. Awareness of aspects of ourselves that are constantly changing is a liberating perception, breaking our chains to mundane areas, detaching from instinctive and intellectual to go into superconscious. The greatest challenge facing youth today is the lack of relating to the devotional side of Hinduism. Daily practice, daily vigil, moves us forward spiritually. Commentary on Merging with Siva, The Master Course, Lesson 21. Listen Now Click here for all recent talks | <urn:uuid:21feb55d-0bdc-46da-bec7-2cf9afd542bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.himalayanacademy.com/blog/taka/2009/09/16/ganesha-homa-september-09-mauritius-spiritual-park/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935421 | 556 | 1.796875 | 2 |
But summer's far from over, so the organization fired off another ask Wednesday.
Donors of all blood types are needed, but those with O negative, O positive, A negative or B negative are especially encouraged to give. Anyone who gave blood at the start of summer may be eligible to donate again.
How much is needed? The Red Cross says that, above what it expected to collect, if at least three additional people give at each blood drive through the end of August there should be enough blood to meet patient needs through summer's end.
To donate: Call 1-800-733-2767 or visit redcrossblood.org to make an appointment. A blood donor card or driver's license, or two other forms of identification are required at check-in. Those who are 17 (16 with parental permission in some states), weigh at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible. Check the Web site for further requirements.
- Katy Muldoon; twitter.com/katymuldoon | <urn:uuid:88fad4a2-c567-4a6c-a83a-6f9e582d4d18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/08/red_cross_asks_for_more_summer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933331 | 209 | 1.5625 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — They survived hurricanes and oil spills, but Gulf Coast shrimp processors say there’s no way they can battle foreign governments to stay in business.
While Americans gobble up imported shrimp as never before, processors from Florida to Texas say they can’t compete with billions in subsidies that are propping up shrimpers in places such as China and Thailand while driving down the price for American consumers.
“You can buy shrimp cheaper than you can buy bologna right now. . . . We just don’t have the kind of money and backbone to stay in business competing against these countries,” said Richard Gollott Sr., a co-owner of Golden Gulf Coast Packing Co. in Biloxi, Miss.
With imports now accounting for more than 90 percent of the U.S. shrimp market, processors say it’s time to fight back: They want the federal government to put new tariffs on imported shrimp, making it more expensive to sell in the United States.
“This is just survival. We’re trying to survive, and that’s what this is all about,” Gollott said.
As two federal agencies prepare to begin considering the tariffs case this week, opponents say it would be misguided for Washington to intervene.
“Instead of seeing our friends in the Gulf industry innovate and try to improve their practices in the marketplace, they’re just trying to regulate the competition out of the business,” said Travis Larkin, the president of Seafood Exchange, a seafood importing company in Raleigh, N.C. “If you look at the big picture of it, it just doesn’t make any sense.”
Processors such as Gollott, part of a group called The Coalition of Gulf Shrimp Industries, predict that they’ll win. They say that foreign governments in the seven biggest importing countries have engaged in unfair trade by giving more than $13.5 billion in subsidies to their shrimp industries since 2009.
The processors say the case bears close watching, with Gulf shrimp sales amounting to hundreds of millions a year and their industry employing thousands.
“The public ought to care, because what’s happening with the shrimp industry is symptomatic of what’s happening to many industries, maybe most industries in this country,” said David Veal, the group’s executive director and a former professor of agricultural engineering at Mississippi State University.
Gollott, 68, said he’d been in the shrimp business since he was 13, following his grandfather and father. He has more than 60 boats, one of the largest shrimp fleets in Mississippi, though that’s half his former fleet. Last year, he said, his company only broke even, and more jobs disappeared.
“There’s no such thing as free trade,” said Gollott, who has more than 50 employees. “Somebody’s paying a price: An American worker somewhere is paying the price for free trade. It’s about the dollar, and we are just little people in the middle who are getting squeezed.”
Jonathan McLendon, the vice president of Biloxi Freezing and Processing Inc., said some Gulf shrimpers weren’t making enough to cover fuel costs for their boats.
“When the boats are not making money, they’re closing up, and without the boats the processors are going downhill,” said McLendon, whose company employs more than 75 people. “And it’s not only the jobs. This is generations of a way of life on the Gulf Coast that they’re putting into jeopardy.”
The coalition is challenging seven countries that exported $4.3 billion worth of shrimp to the United States in 2011, accounting for 85 percent of all imports and more than three-fourths of the U.S. market: China, Thailand, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The group, which represents processors in Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas, said it had documented more than 100 programs that provided benefits to shrimp producers in those countries, including grants, low-interest loans, tax breaks, even shrimp feed.
Among the examples cited: Thailand buys shrimp from farmers and sells it to processors at low prices; India provides subsidies to reduce ocean freight costs; China has provided financing to build the world’s largest shrimp-processing and export plant; Malaysia is spending millions to build shrimp farms and processing plants aimed at exporting more shrimp.
On top of that, Veal said, the countries pay lower wages.
Veal, of Biloxi, said that as recently as 30 years ago, U.S. processors accounted for 80 percent of all shrimp sold in the country.
But the Gulf shrimp industry has been particularly hit hard in the past decade, he said, enduring at least a 50 percent reduction in the number of shrimp vessels, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the largest oil spill in the nation’s history five years later. He said the industry was still contending with false fears that Gulf shrimp weren’t safe to eat as a result of the spill.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission are looking into the case. On Thursday, the Commerce Department will decide whether there are sufficient grounds to proceed with an investigation. On Friday, the International Trade Commission will have its first staff hearing to begin examining data. It could take a year or longer to resolve the case.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it didn’t comment on pending cases.
But Nkenge Harmon, the deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for public and media affairs, said President Barack Obama’s administration “has demonstrated that we will make our trading partners play by the rules.”
McLendon said the Gulf Coast processors were battling countries that were in much the same position as the United States not so long ago.
“They’re becoming industrialized, they’re putting people to work and the middle class is developing,” he said. “So they’re putting these stimulus programs together to not only put people to work but also to feed this newly developing middle class. And that’s fine and dandy if they keep the product in their own country.”
Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the U.S., with each American eating an average of 4.2 pounds per year, according to industry statistics.
Larkin, who in a previous job in the 1990s handled shrimp procurement for such restaurants as Red Lobster and Olive Garden, said the domestic industry – even in the best of times – no longer could provide enough shrimp for the vast U.S. market.
Imported shrimp has become a much bigger business than the domestic industry, Larkin said, providing thousands of jobs in the United States for truckers and longshoremen, on steamship lines and at ports, warehouses and supermarkets.
Overall, imported seafood accounts for roughly 454,000 jobs in the U.S., according to the National Fisheries Institute.
“Imports have stepped in to fulfill a market demand,” Larkin said. “The product is available all year around, the quality is consistent and the production is predictable. . . . This is a market-driven commodity.”
Gollott said prices had fallen sharply, noting that a pound of medium-sized shrimp, which sold for $4 in the mid-1980s, now goes for as little as $3, a drop of 25 percent. But while diesel fuel sold for 90 cents a gallon in 2001, it’s now $3.20 a gallon, he said.
McLendon, 34, said prices for some types of shrimp were even much higher than that in the 1980s.
“During Hurricane Katrina, our whole building was destroyed, and I actually found some financial statements and tickets from the late 1980s. They were paying as much as $11 a pound for some shrimp,” he said.
Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @HotakainenRob | <urn:uuid:8979c672-da79-493f-9c27-54385ad6186b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bradenton.com/2013/01/15/4352245/us-shrimp-processors-seek-federal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961473 | 1,712 | 1.828125 | 2 |
When we posted about Dropbox Uploader back in August, a lot of people got inspired and created their own version of the script by modifying the original and adding new functionalities. One of the most talked about functionalities was to add password protection and unique upload address for security and easier access.
After days of coding, reader Tomi tells us that he has created a new non-profit service called DROPitTOme which allows anyone to securely send files to your Dropbox account. This service is based on the script we posted back in August. Here is what he has to say:
I was so thrilled by your post "Allow Anyone To Upload Files To Your Dropbox Folder" that I created free service around that: http://www.dropitto.me/
To begin, you need to first allow DROPitTOme to connect with your Dropbox, and finally create an account by providing the username, password, and email. The username will be used as a unique address and the upload password will prevent hackers from uploading any virus.
You can visit my personal address here http://www.dropitto.me/nakodari to upload files but it is password protected. The maximum file size that can be uploaded is 75MB which is good enough.
Excellent work Tomi! | <urn:uuid:2e4265c4-346e-454c-ab83-30a8ea508ced> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-tips/dropittome-is-secure-way-to-let-people-upload-files-to-your-dropbox/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952402 | 262 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Hank Williams has 17462 friends.
You'll meet many just like me, upon lifes busy streets. With shoulders stooped, and heads bowed low, and eyes that stare in defeat. They're souls that live within the past, where sorrow plays all parts, for a livin' death is all thats left, for men with broken hearts.
You have no right to be the judge, to critize and condemn. Just think, but for the grace of God, it would be you instead of him. One careless step, or thoughtless deed, and then the mis'ry starts. And for those who weep, death comes cheap, these men with broken hearts.
Humble you should be when they come passing by, for it's written that the greatest men never get to big to cry. Some lose faith in love and life when sorrow shoots her darts, and with hope all gone, they walk alone, these men with broken hearts.
You've never walked in that man's shoes or seen things through his eyes, or stood and watched with helpless hands while the heart inside you dies. Some were paupers, some were kings, some were masters of the arts. But in their shame they're all the same, these men with broken hearts.
Life sometimes can be so cruel that a heart will pray for death. God, why must these living dead know pain with every breath? So help your brother along the road, no matter where he starts-- for the God that made you, made them too, these men with broken hearts.
Who I'd like to meet:
I reckon I'll see all my ol' Ma and Pa and the rest of my beloved on the other side, by and by. I miss missin' my dear grandson too.
- Status: In a Relationship
- Hometown: Montgomery
- Orientation: Straight
- Religion: Protestant
- Zodiac Sign: Virgo
- Children: Proud parent
- Smoke / Drink: Yes / Yes
- Income: $150,000 to $250,000 | <urn:uuid:84e38bb5-bf27-4fdc-8170-02cea4621b54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myspace.com/hankwilliams | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966421 | 423 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Hunting tradition drives gun ownership in rural Canaan
FALLS VILLAGE >> A tradition of hunting feeds rural Canaan’s status as the town with the highest per capita number of gun permits in Connecticut.
With a population of just 1,234, the second smallest municipality in the state, Canaan, more commonly referred to as Falls Village, has 167 pistol permits, accounting for about 13.5 percent of the population.
Thomas Poole, president of the Northwest Connecticut Rod and Gun Club, said the high rate of gun ownership in the area is a direct result of long-lived hunting and sportsmanship traditions. “Most of the fellas here hunt, run into target practice. They’re just into shooting,” Poole said. “For years, people have been hunting and fishing.”
The Northwest Connecticut Rod and Gun Club, founded in 1946, has 250 members from Canaan, Cornwall, Sharon, Norfolk and Salisbury; three quarters of the members are residents of Canaan.
According to its website, the club is “dedicated to the enjoyment and the preservation of fishing, hunting and the shooting sports so that the traditions of the outdoorsman can be passed down from generation to generation.”
Teaching young people to preserve and respect the hunting tradition the Northwest Corner offers is another significant goal for the club. “Everything we do is abiding by Connecticut laws,” Poole said. “Eye protection is a must and no minors are shooting by themselves, they’re with their parents. Everything is all safety conscious.”
Tom Grayson, resident of Falls Village and owner of several rifles and pistols, said the availability of the Rod and Gun Club in the local area and the rural nature of the town are likely why many residents have pistol permits and own guns.
“It’s a rural area and a lot of people hunt,” said Grayson. “When it’s hunting season, I always see the trucks on the side of the road with the men wearing orange.”
Before moving to Falls Village five years ago, Grayson lived in Torrington. He owned a shotgun and a .22 rifle but eventually sold them because he couldn’t find a place to use them. Now with two pistols and three rifles, he goes to the Rod and Gun Club as a member on a monthly basis to shoot alone or with friends.
“I own these weapons for the sport and self-defense,” he said. Continued...
Grayson said that even though “living here (in Canaan) is complete safety,” once the Chesire home invasion occurred in 2007, he felt he had a responsibility to protect his family since he didn’t have any “equalizers” at home.
“You think you live some place that is completely safe until you see those home invasions happen and then you realize that it could happen at any time,” he said. “It’s just a good feeling to know that I have them.”
“I feel safer because I know if someone did come into the house that Tom would have no problem using one if he had to for our protection,” his wife, Beth Grayson, said.
There are 31 gun clubs and associations similar to the Northwest Connecticut Rod and Gun Club in Connecticut.
About 170,000 people in Connecticut hold pistol permits, and the number of individuals seeking them has increased in recent years, especially since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Dec. 14.
After Canaan, the top five communities with the highest percentage of the population having pistol permits are Union, Harwinton, Hartland and Hampton, according to the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection.
Reach Sarah Bogues at 860-489-3121, ext. 328. Find an error in this story? Email [email protected].
See inaccurate information in a story? Other feedback and/or ideas for us to consider? Tell us here.
Location, ST | website.com
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Guide to Religious Services
Note: All listings are paid advertisements.
Unity in the Foothills
102 Prospect Street, Torrington, Ct 06790
A Course in Miracles Tuesday evenings 7 p.m
Transformational Prayer Group Thursday 1:15 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m.
Northfield Bible Church
10 Camp Hill Road, Northfield, CT 06778
Bible Doctrines Class: Sunday at 9:00 a.m.
Sunday Service at 10:00 a.m.
Bible Study: Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.
Pot Luck Supper every 4th Friday of the Month at 6:15 p.m.
ASSEMBLIES OF GOD
First Assembly of God
387 New Harwinton Road, Torrington, CT 06790
Sunday School for all ages 9:30 a.m.
Sunday Worship Service at 10:45 a.m.
Family Night Thursday at 7:00 p.m.
Adult Bible Study Prayer Service: Saturday at 9:15 a.m.
Cable 5 Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 3 p.m.
CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIAN CHURCHES
Founders Congregational Church
41 Birge Park Road, Harwinton, CT 06791
Sunday School and Services 10:00 a.m.
Bible Study: Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. and Thursday at 10:00 a.m.
Center Congregational Church
155 Main Street, Torrington, CT 06790
Sunday Services and Church School at 10:00 a.m.
Note: All listings are paid advertisements. | <urn:uuid:299ed4b4-94a1-41b5-bf22-0308d3231daa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2013/01/19/news/doc50fb76b7e6fac710984732.txt?viewmode=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932077 | 1,405 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Study leader and vice chairman of research at the Cancer Center explained to Bloomberg how he was blown away by the effects of the simple plant:
"This drug is just unbelievably potent in killing tumor cells," he said.
And just like with numerous other powerful substances like turmeric and ginger, mainstream science is still slowly confirming what many traditional practitioners have known for their entire lives. This is, of course, due to the fact that there is simply no money for major corporations in researching the healing powers of natural herbs and compounds such as the compound found in the thunder god vine.
Turmeric and ginger, for example, have been found to be amazing anti-cancer substances that are virtually free compared to expensive and dangerous cancer drugs.
Nevertheless, the Big Pharma sponsored corporate scientists have managed to ignore these spices as much as possible. In fact, they have even been caught time and time again faking thousands of studies to fraudulently demonstrate the supposed value of pharmaceutical drugs pushed by major pharma juggernauts - many of which are later forced to pay millions in fines which only slightly stack up against their billions in profits.
Profits that are threatened by the many real studies that were performed by scientists examining the rejeuvenating power of cheap ingredients like turmeric, which has been found by peer-reviewed research available on PubMed to positively influence over 590 conditions.
While it is great news that this study is bringing the beneficial effects of inexpensive and near-free plant compounds to light, the bad news is that the individuals responsible for the research are actually looking to create a pharmaceutical drug from the essential component triptolide.
A drug that will seek FDA approval and ultimately be patented, nutritionally ruined, and sold for exorbitant amounts of cash. Instead, just get your hands on some thunder god vine for yourself. | <urn:uuid:e8b53f76-3d55-4a57-9982-d0064abea1b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=92&contentid=10269&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962589 | 371 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The Birmingham News reports: Alabama, starting in 2012, would divide its nine electoral votes among presidential candidates based on the percentage of the popular vote they won in the general election, under a bill passed by a legislative panel Wednesday.
Alabama now awards all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes statewide. So do almost all other states.
Rep. Demetrius Newton, D-Birmingham, said he thinks the winner-take-all system discourages voting in Alabama. Republican presidential candidates have carried the state since 1980. Newton said some Republicans may have stayed home because they assumed a Republican win, and some Democrats may have stayed home for the same reason.
He said distributing Alabama's nine electoral votes in proportion to the candidates' popular votes would give both sides incentive to go to the polls. Newton noted that a third-party candidate, if he or she did well enough, also could get one or more of Alabama's electoral votes. "All of the winners and the losers have a voice" under a proportional system, Newton said. "Today, the losers have no voice." -- Alabama legislative panel passes plan to award Alabama's nine electoral votes proportionately, depending on the vote counts of the presidential candidates.) - al.com
Here is the bill:
By Representatives Newton (D), Moore (M), Rogers, Dunn, Todd, Graham, Knight, Robinson (J), Curtis, Schmitz, Spicer, Black, Kennedy, Guin, Boothe, Baker (L), Thomas (J) and Vance
RFD Constitution and Elections
Rd 1 03-FEB-09
SYNOPSIS: Under existing law, nine presidential and vice presidential electors are nominated at large and statewide by the political parties.
This bill would provide for the election of presidential and vice presidential electors in direct proportional relationship to the popular vote beginning in the 2012 presidential election.
TO BE ENTITLED
To amend Section 17-14-34, Code of Alabama 1975, relating to the election of presidential and vice presidential electors, to provide for the election of presidential and vice presidential electors in direct proportional relationship to the popular vote beginning in the 2012 presidential election.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA:
Section 1. Section 17-14-34, Code of Alabama 1975, is amended to read as follows:
Within Beginning with the 2012 presidential election and continuing thereafter, within 15 days after the time for making the returns, the Governor, in the presence of the Secretary of State and Attorney General, or either of them in the absence of the other, must certify the returns, and ascertain which electors are elected , and notify them by proclamation by the total number of popular votes for each presidential and vice presidential candidate. The number of electors for each candidate shall directly correspond to the percentage of the popular vote received by that candidate. The Governor shall then notify by proclamation each presidential elector as elected."
Section 2. This act shall become effective on the first day of the third month following its passage and approval by the Governor, or its otherwise becoming law. | <urn:uuid:00c044fb-ec13-4def-9ca0-8c048f69ec09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/2009_03.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946864 | 630 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Summer reads can be frothy adventures, easy to follow even in the midst of a hectic family vacation; or they can be heftier, hard-to-put-down epics that ask us for hours of silence and solitude. Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell's second novel, easily falls into the latter category. Set in Michigan in the late 20th century on a fictional river aptly named the Stark, the book is a violent but inspiring tale packed with colorful river dwellers, a working-class community of power company and metal workers, farmers, hunters and housewives. At the center of the story is Margo Crane, a teenage girl with an expert aim and an exceedingly messed up family, who finds much more to admire in Annie Oakley than in her own female relatives.
Spending her childhood learning how to hunt from her devoted father, Bernard Crane, and his lascivious half-brother, Cal Murray, Margo shows us what can happen when a gun becomes a person's most trusted companion. Family feuds between the Cranes and the Murrays easily turn gruesome; the men "growl at each other like bears" and women are often what inspire their aggression. Margo herself plays a significant role in the violence that befalls this clan. Having learned the law of the land from her forebears, Margo believes firepower is the only way to defend, avenge and survive. When her parents abandon her in the midst of her adolescence, Margo relies on hunting skills and a host of men, some more dependable than others, and is long unable to extricate herself from a legacy of oppression, rivalry, deception and distrust.
Many of the circumstances that Margo finds herself in are heartbreaking, but Campbell has created a character with an iron gut and a heart to match, recalling powerful heroines like Clara of Joyce Carol Oates' A Garden of Earthly Delights and Ree of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone. Margo has no qualms about using men, because they use her. She is frustrated by the way men label her and come up with fantastical or idealized ways of describing her. "She wasn't a wolf girl or a murderer or an heiress," she tells herself, "or a dream. She was a girl who needed some matches and boat gas." Being an impressionable young girl, she puts up with men for too long, but her end goal is sound: complete self-sufficiency, the inevitable, prideful product of being ditched by her self-absorbed mother. The past shadows her, driving her to suspicion, detachment and peregrination. But while these may be familiar states for Margo, we're given hope that they're not permanent ones.
Occasionally, the nonstop plot developments in Once Upon a River, many of which are marked by the appearance of some man or another, are hard to believe, hindered by slap-dash dialogue and hastily painted scenes — particularly those involving Michael, whose pretty house on the river conveniently provides Margo a comfortable life for as long as she wants it. But Margo is attractive, gutsy and mysterious; perhaps this is all it takes to get an impetuous but earnest proposal of marriage from a man, in fiction or in reality.
Embedded within the man-driven episodes are plenty of impressive passages, and even some strong, respectable good guys. Campbell is particularly adept at the mundane words exchanged between teenagers, and she uses Margo's above-it-all point of view to capture her mental resilience and to cast a punishing eye on any (usually male) character deserving of it. In one amusing passage, Margo watches a new lover as he falls into a drunken stupor: "She saw his eyes grow red and his lids droop. She watched his shoulders relax until he was slumping. Finally he tipped over into a relaxed fetal position, still clutching the empty pint bottle in his right hand." While this is happening, Margo is cleaning her gun, sober, incapable of getting herself into such an embarrassing state. This provides a swift but complete portrait of Margo, whose wits and determination eventually give her enough strength to outrun her past. | <urn:uuid:b0722241-f663-4e19-ae9f-0ac3d4100403> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/137638326/wild-water-river-runs-deep-with-ferocity-heart | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961705 | 862 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Gas Prices Surge More than 25-cents in Two Weeks
Summer may be several months down the road, but gas prices are starting to spike early. Nationwide, the cost of regular unleaded gas has surged 34-cents a gallon since January 18th.
AAA says this early bump in prices is because refineries are switching to their summer blends earlier than usual.
Over the past four weeks, the national average of regular gas has gone up every day.
In Montgomery, there's at least a quarter difference between gallons of regular unleaded gas around town.
According to GasBuddy.com, the cheapest gallon costs at $3.33 at Raceway on Eastern Boulevard, and the most expensive tops out at $3.59 at Chevron on Zelda Road.
"It's getting ridiculous for people who are used to paying $20, $30 and now we're paying $40 or $50 to fill up our cars," said Derek Landers, as he filled up his tank to drive home to Atlanta.
But the worst isn't over yet, the Energy Department predicts gas to jump another 30-cents by May.
According to the Lundberg Survey, Billings, Montana has the nation's lowest average price for gas at $3.05, Los Angeles has the highest at $4.10. | <urn:uuid:395c81c1-8440-46ac-869b-394a6fd476d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waka.com/home/top-stories/Gas-Prices-Surge-More-than-25-cents-in-Two-Weeks-191460011.html?skipthumb=Y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971676 | 270 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Roadmaps to NATO Accession: Preparing for Membership
Summary of the meeting with Chris Donnelly, Central and East European Advisor to the Secretary General of NATO, and Jeffrey Simon, Senior Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University.
Jeffrey Simon and Chris Donnelly addressed specific challenges facing NATO now and in the immediate future, and the impact of those problems on the enlargement process. Donnelly stressed that over the past ten years NATO has evolved from a purely defense organization into a security organization, taking on wider and larger tasks and challenges. But NATO's primary problem, and one that cannot be ignored, is that its structure and organization have not evolved to effectively accommodate these changes.
While noting that NATO and its members still have not taken any hard and fast decisions on further enlargement as NATO approaches its November 2002 summit in Prague, both speakers argued that NATO's internal and institutional problems should not be considered acceptable reasons for not enlarging. Rather, better efforts should be made to pinpoint areas in which the aspirant countries can better prepare for membership and on how NATO can internally adjust to these changes. In short, more focus needs to be directed towards how NATO structurally and organizationally can be adjusted to accommodate further enlargement and its wider role rather than on which countries ought to be admitted and when.
Both speakers emphasized that they did not see Russia as a barrier to further NATO enlargement. On this issue, Russia seems to be divided into two camps: President Putin and his supporters, who now have the upper-hand and who believe NATO is no longer a primary threat and are concerned only that NATO not become a barrier to Russian policy and basic interests; and the more traditional Russian political and military establishment, which still views NATO as a problem and a threat.
Simon emphasized that the objective of NATO always has been to support the evolution of a Europe whole and free. NATO policy should not create new dividing lines in Europe. This is why, when nine countries were not admitted in the last round of enlargement, programs such as the Partnership for Peace and the Membership Action Plan (MAP) were energized to enhance partnerships with those nations and to give them a sense of inclusion.
Simon contends that the MAP is an excellent way to measure the capacities of each country and to structure the enlargement process. Experience with the first three new NATO countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) since admission in 1999 has demonstrated that there has been a large divergence between what a country says it can do and what the country can actually deliver. Emphasis, since 1999, has been on addressing many of these discrepancies by developing the new members' military capabilities so that they can be effectively integrated within alliance structures and activities.
Simon observed that the performance of the three newest member states has not been good and this relatively poor performance has created a problem of credibility that will work to the detriment of the aspirant states. He lists seven specific areas of deficiencies within these states, including: force planning inadequacies; budgetary constraints; restructuring of military personnel; constitutional and legal system inadequacies; national security concepts, defense concepts, and military doctrines; defense planning complications; and declining public support for the military. The fact that all nine of the current aspirant countries are far weaker than any of the three new members highlights the importance of the MAP process and the need for more work to be done with these states before granting them membership in the organization.
Another important lesson to keep in mind, Simon emphasized, is that once new members are brought in, NATO loses leverage with those states, as their political will to make necessary political and military changes wanes once they are in the "club." It cannot be assumed, therefore, that the aspirant countries' performance will be as successful as anticipated.
Chris Donnelly stressed that NATO is merely a tool of the member countries, not an independent entity. Consequently, NATO headquarters in Brussels has less influence over the enlargement process than many realize. The states which wield the most influence within the organization on these issues, and those who must be convinced that further enlargement is a positive step, are the United States and, on the European continent, Germany.
NATO's primary focus should not be on who to admit or when, but on how better to prepare these countries and NATO itself for wider membership. From the European perspective, there are three main aspects to the enlargement process - political, military and administrative reform.
Politically, by and large, the enlargement process so far has been a success. In Donnelly's words, "the door to NATO remains open, but that door is on a moving train." The general mood in Europe is to favor a robust enlargement, primarily because Europeans see a direct benefit to having all of the countries in the same structure since it provides more security than leaving some countries out and creating new dividing lines. But, the real problem confronting NATO and the enlargement process is the gap between its antiquated structure and its new functions.
The military aspect of NATO enlargement is more complex. In the first round of enlargement, political issues were considered to be the most challenging and important, and it was assumed that the military problems would be easy to deal with after granting membership. However, the reverse turned out to be true. NATO runs better as a political alliance with the three new member countries, but the problems of military transformation were grossly underestimated.
Donnelly outlined that the military capacities of the nine aspirant member countries should be evaluated on the following three criteria: whether they have a necessary degree of self-defense, the ability to accept help from others, and the ability to send help to others. In this sense, it had been thought that an EU common defense system would be helpful but, Donnelly noted, this will not occur in the foreseeable future. Small armies from small countries cannot do much. What is needed is a combined force structure that allows for specialization, but this is still just a goal.
The administrative problems facing NATO are the least considered, but most serious, of the challenges. Here is where the gap between structure and function is most apparent. In essence, NATO has taken on additional tasks without receiving the necessary support or adopting the necessary organizational changes to conduct them. NATO and its staff are confronted with too many tasks and too much work. Yet, NATO's internal deficiencies should not be a reason for not enlarging. The member nations must address these issues now. The questions, "what will NATO's role be?" and "what function do members want NATO to have in the future?" are critical. On these issues, the views of the United States will be pivotal. Once these key questions are resolved, it will be vital to determine exactly how to restructure the alliance so that it can cope with these new roles and wider membership. | <urn:uuid:ac0ae053-cb72-4e4b-a58e-19651d4f2632> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/roadmaps-to-nato-accession-preparing-for-membership | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963489 | 1,380 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Donate Your Scrap Supplies
Whether your New Year’s resolution was to finally clean out your scrapbook space, or you’re reading our brand new column, “Get Organized”, which debuted in the March/April 2009 issue, it’s time to get rid of the old to make room for the new—the new, inspired you, that is! Once you’ve determined which items in your space are collecting dust, then it’s time to get rid of them. But don’t throw them away—donate them. Not only will you simplify your stash, you’ll feel good about helping others. Here are a few non-profit organizations that will use your supplies to help others.
Operation Scrapbook is dedicated to supplying all necessary items to foster children and children fighting cancer to creatively record their lives through scrapbooking. Their goal with both programs is “to record all the bits and pieces, people and places, and events and occasions that make up a life.” To donate your supplies, email Julie Newport at [email protected].
The Child Abuse Prevention Association (CAPA) helps children and their families heal from the effects of child abuse. Donated scrapbook products are used during art therapy sessions, and to create albums for children when they leave the center. For more information, call 816-252-8388.
Make-A-Wish Foundation grants wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions. A wish is granted every 40 minutes in the United States, and volunteers will use your supplies to create meaningful scrapbooks for each wish recipient, documenting the entire experience. To find your local chapter, visit their website or call 800-722-9474.
If you choose the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), your donated supplies will be put to good use during arts and crafts time at one of their 90 summer camps in the U.S. These camps offer specialize activities for children with limited mobility or who use wheelchairs because of a neuromuscular disease. For more information, visit their website or call 800-572-1717.
Many organizations in your own neighborhood could use your supplies. Make sure you call ahead and arrange a time to drop off your donations. Here is a quick list of community organizations that can use your help:
• Elementary schools
• Care or hospice centers
• Adult community centers
• Special needs centers
• Children’s hospitals
• Homeless shelters and/or women’s shelters
|You might also like...|
|To comment on this article you must be logged in. Not a member?| | <urn:uuid:2566b0e6-80d7-4001-993b-b347e9448bc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/articles/Donate_Your_Scrap_Supplies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937295 | 559 | 1.695313 | 2 |
It's scarcely believable that another Christmas has rolled around! I hope that 2010 has been a wonderful year for you.
In this year's Christmas podcast, I've compiled some of my favourite segments from the last few years. First up, I chat to Bianca Nogrady, who assembled a crack team of health experts to look into the health of Santa Claus. Not only does he eat copious amounts of sugar and drink gallons of beer, he is also at risk of altitude sickness, deep-vein thrombosis, jet-lag, zoonotic diseases from exposure to wild reindeer and countless other problems associated with lack of sleep and poor diet. Not to mention all the concerns associated with smoking. However, he does compile the naughty/nice list each year, keeping his mind active, and unlike many other elderly folk, he gets out of the house and travels. You can read more about the findings of the Santa-team in Bianca's original article Health alert for Christmas visitor, and also at Ep 98: Santa Claus - a fat, diabetic substance abuser?
Next up is a classic out-take from Diffusion Science Radio from the velvet-voiced Matt Clarke discussing the fact that some women are allergic to their partner's semen. You will also hear the laughing of myself, Darren Osborne, Lachlan Whatmore and Tilly Boleyn (and possibly Ian Woolf). These same folk then join me in an interesting, and irreverent, take on some of the mental aspects of cricket. These recordings were originally released in the episode North Koreans, Mammoths, Invisibility and what did not make it to air on the Diffusion Radio Science Show.
Take care this break, and see you in the new year, when my family will have expanded by one!
Click play below or listen to this show here, and have yourself a merry Christmas!
Friday, 24 December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
A world first study conducted by Menzies Research Institute Tasmania has shown that skipping breakfast over a long period of time may increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes.
The study, Skipping breakfast: longitudinal associations with cardiometabolic risk factors in the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, followed up a 1985 national sample of 9–15 year old Australian children. The original work looked at whether these children ate breakfast before school. In 2004–2006, the authors of the new research tracked down 2184 participants of the original study (26–36 years of age) and enquired into their breakfast eating habits. This style of study is called a Longitudinal Study.
After adjustment for age, sex, and sociodemographic and lifestyle factors, participants who skipped breakfast in both childhood and adulthood had a larger waist circumference, higher fasting insulin, and higher total cholesterol concentration than did those who ate breakfast at both time points. The researchers conclude that skipping breakfast over a long period may have detrimental effects on cardiometabolic health.
I had a great chat to lead researcher Kylie Smith about her study. Listen in to this show here (or press play below):
Songs in the podcast:
"Breakfast At Tiffany's"
from "I Love Mancini"
|Amy Stephens Group|
"Breakfast In Atlanta"
from "My Many Moods"
Smith KJ, Gall SL, McNaughton SA, Blizzard L, Dwyer T, & Venn AJ (2010). Skipping breakfast: longitudinal associations with cardiometabolic risk factors in the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 92 (6), 1316-25 PMID: 20926520
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Being able to see your unborn child is truly an amazing experience. Ultrasound (diagnostic sonography) is a common diagnostic tool for, among other things, imaging the foetus to determine its age, look for abnormalities and observe blood flow in the umbilical cord. But possibly its most memorable effect is seeing your baby's heart beat - and in 3D/4D ultrasounds, seeing your baby's face.
The term "ultrasound" applies to acoustic energy (sound) with a frequency above the audible range of human hearing (20 Hz -20 kHz). When used in medical imaging, an ultrasonic sensor (or transducer) is placed on the mother's belly and produces pulses of sound. The frequencies used for medical imaging are generally in the range of 1 to 18 MHz. High frequencies (7-18 MHz) can be used to look for fine details but have low penetration, so to image deep tissue, lower frequencies (1-6 MHz) are used.
The sound waves are partially reflected from layers between different tissues inside the mother's body. Sound is reflected anywhere there are density changes - for example, at the baby's skin where it meets the amniotic fluid. The baby's internal organs can also be imaged depending on what frequencies you use. The reflected sound is then "heard" by the transducer, and the data analysed to produce the image. The amount of time it takes for the echo to rebound relates to how deep the sound penetrated, and the strength of the return signal relates to both the material it is reflecting off and its depth. The deeper the tissue from which the signal is being echoed, the quieter the return, simply because there is more sound loss (attenuation) the further the sound travels (it gets absorbed, scattered and reflected along the way). This information allows an image to be built up, whereby pixels at the appropriate depth are coloured by the strength of the return at that point. Generally, the sound waves are not 100% reflected at any stage - you can see "behind" objects because some sound penetrates through. However, as less sound is penetrating the deeper you go, the signals become fainter.
The typical ultrasound image is a "2D" image like the one above. In this image, the transducer is at the top and is sending sound waves down. The image is essentially a slice through the mother. It's called a 2D image as we can only see two dimensions - left/right and up/down. The 2D image is built by firing a sound beam down, waiting for the return echoes, and then firing a new pulse at a slightly different angle. This continues until an arc is swept. Combining the data from each line after the arc is swept gives the 2D image. The following images come from the excellent resource Basic ultrasound, echocardiography and Doppler for clinicians, by Asbjorn Støylen. The left image shows the transducer scanning whilst the right image shows how the pulses are sent down in lines.
Continual rescanning means that a 2D video can be produced with roughly 50 frames per second. The human eye can see about 25 frames per second and so the video looks smooth. This frame rate is also more than enough for 2D temporal visualisation of the baby's heartbeat (~70-150 beats per minute depending on age) and to watch blood flow through Doppler ultrasound. Due to the Doppler effect, the sound pulse will rebound with a higher frequency if it hits something moving towards it, and a lower frequency if it echoes from something moving away from it - this is the same reason the noise of a car has a high pitch when moving towards you, and a low pitch as it moves away. As blood is moving in the umbilical cord, the ultrasound can be coloured by the Doppler information to show the blood flow.
3D images are a fairly recent advance in diagnostic sonography. Instead of just seeing a slice through the mother, the images can show a surface - essentially adding depth (the third dimension) to the 2D image. Imagine you are looking at a car from front on - you have no idea how long the car is and you have no information on how many doors it has or if the boot is open. However, if you look at the car from another angle, you can figure this out, and the more angles you look down, the more depth information you can gain. This is essentially what a 3D ultrasound does - it stitches together multiple 2D shots from different angles to produce the image. Modern transducers have the ability to scan multiple cross-sections. If the baby is moving, there may be some blur, but as image processing is becoming quicker, the 3D images are becoming clearer. The colour of the image is not real as there is no way to see colour inside the mother. 3D scans provide information for the diagnosis of facial anomalies, evaluation of neural tube defects, and skeletal malformations, and also helps the parents bond with their unborn child (it's very cool). However, when compared to 2D scans, they aren't as useful for the diagnosis of congenital heart disease and central nervous system anomalies. One of the reasons why this is the case is because they are static, which leads us to...
The term 4D refers to the addition of time to 3D scans. This is a very recent advance as it is only in the last few years that we have had the computing power to not only stitch together the 2D images to make the 3D images, but to create the 3D images quickly enough to play them consecutively as a video. Modern 4D scans play at roughly 12 frames per second, so they are a little jumpy.
Here is a little video I put together of our 4D scan.
I don't know if there is an upper bound on what ultrasound technology can do - as the speed of sound is ~1540 m/s in human soft tissue, and you have no choice but to wait for the return signal before you can process the image, it may be that a high video frame rate with decent resolution is unobtainable. Resolution depends on how many different lines you fire down to make the first 2D image - more lines mean better resolution, but currently you have to wait for the echo from one line before sending down the next, which means it takes longer to produce an image. I imagine one way of improving this would be to send down all the lines at once with slightly different frequencies or waveforms, and as such when the echo is received you would know where it came from. Perhaps this is already being done - let me know if you know more!
Check out the video of Massive Attack's Teardrop in which there is a singing foetus, and I also have more images over at my ultrasound set on flickr.
- Kurjak, A., Miskovic, B., Andonotopo, W., Stanojevic, M., Azumendi, G., & Vrcic, H. (2007). How useful is 3D and 4D ultrasound in perinatal medicine? Journal of Perinatal Medicine, 35 (1), 10-27 DOI: 10.1515/JPM.2007.002
- Carrera, J.M. (2006). Donald School Atlas of Clin. Application of Ultrasound in Obs/ Gyn www.jaypeebrothers.com DOI: 10.5005/jp/books/10226
- Khanem, N. (2007). Donald School Textbook of Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, 9 (2), 140-140 DOI: 10.1576/toag.126.96.36.199325 | <urn:uuid:be78918e-06bf-48e5-9dc9-260500c21d75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrscienceshow.com/2010_12_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938122 | 2,384 | 1.5625 | 2 |
UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. -- Brian Roberts said having 20 volunteers working around his home Friday made him grateful and a little guilty.
“I wish I was able to be out helping them do all the work,” said Roberts.
Roberts had to watch the volunteers dig the ditches, lay the concrete and clear the trees off his property.
He’s confined to a wheelchair two and a half years after being injured in Afghanistan.
“I got blown up,” said Sgt. Brian Roberts, retired.
The volunteer project, called the “Wounded Warrior Home Re-work,” is sponsored by the Veterans Family Fund of America.
The volunteer crew was made up of mostly fellow-veterans like Specialist Danny Biskey.
Biskey lost his left leg following an IED explosion in Afghanistan. He wanted to help Roberts, who he served with in Afghanistan.
“It’s kind of me giving back because I’ve had days I can’t get up and I really need somebody come to help me,” said Biskey.
“My ‘honey-do’ list is growing shorter. I’m running out of things,” said Roberts’ wife, Sharon.
She thought the work would help her husband’s recovery, both physically and emotionally.
“It will just make my husband come a little bit out of his shell,” said Sharon Roberts.
Brian Roberts hopes to regain the ability to walk.
When he does, he said he wants to volunteer for a similar project.
“I hope to pay it forward someday,” said Roberts. | <urn:uuid:75b3d61c-df9f-4527-9dc7-f82eb3058db4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.king5.com/news/local/Veterans-helping-veterans-who-cannot-help-themselves-169853476.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974552 | 354 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Purpose: The Index of Dental Anxiety and Fear (IDAF-4C+) constitutes a theory-grounded, reliable and valid instrument, which, due to its modular structure, allows different uses such as assessing dental anxiety levels, establishing preliminary dental phobia diagnoses and identifying feared stimuli. This study aimed to develop a Spanish version of the original IDAF-4C+ and evaluate its psychometric properties.
Materials and Methods: A sample of 231 Spanish undergraduate students (70.6% female; mean age 21.4 years) completed a questionnaire comprising the Spanish version of the IDAF-4C+ and other measures related to dental anxiety. The structure, reliability and validity of the adapted IDAF-4C+ were analysed.
Results: The adapted IDAF-4C fear module yielded a single-factor structure and demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha) and test-retest reliability. It shared a greater amount of variance with phobia diagnoses than the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) and a single-item measure of dental fear (SIDF). Moreover, the IDAF-4C was moderately to highly correlated with the MDAS and the SIDF measure, as well as with variables connected with dental anxiety such as negative dental thoughts, having had a negative dental experience and negative affect. The frequency of dental visits was also linked to IDAF-4C scores, and IDAF-stimulus items involving cognitive vulnerability, interpersonal and cost concerns were associated with dental attendance.
Conclusion: The Spanish version of IDAF-4C+ presents similar psychometric properties to the original version which, considering the advantages of this instrument, qualifies the adapted one for its use in different research and applied contexts.
Keywords: assessment, dental anxiety and fear, dental phobia, dental visits | <urn:uuid:54ce3adf-104e-4a60-b324-1fe8844aad0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quintpub.com/journals/ohpd/abstract.php?iss2_id=1092&article_id=12784&article=3&title=Adaption%20and%20Psychometric%20Properties%20of%20the%20Spanish%20Version%20of%20the%20Index%20of%20Dental%20Anxiety%20and%20Fear%20(IDAF-4C+) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937374 | 371 | 1.625 | 2 |
Situations in which members of Afghan security forces and others who work for NATO forces kill western troops are becoming more common. This year alone 34 coalition troops have been killed by Afghan trainees and others.
A few attacks have involved militants simply using Afghan uniforms to gain access to bases. Others involve Taliban supporters infiltrating the armed forces and then carrying out attacks. The number of insider attacks has been growing.
In 2012 alone there have been 25 insider attacks, while in all of 2011 there were only 21. One out of every 12 American soldiers killed in 2012 was killed in an insider attack. However the commander of ISAF( International Security Assistance Force) General John Allen said:"Every case where one of these occurs,..that same day there are tens of thousands of interactions between the Afghans and ISAF forces that don't go that way."
There are still 84,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan although by October the number will decline to 68,000. There are also 40,000 troops from other countries plus 332,000 Afghan forces including army and police. All these forces are fighting an estimated 20,000 militant fighters!'
The Taliban often claim that attacks are the result of infiltration of the security forces. However a defense department official told a CBS reporter that the insiders were not insurgents. A report said:"Investigations have determined that a large majority of green-on-blue attacks are not attributable to insurgent infiltration of the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces), but are due to isolated personal grievances against coalition personnel,"
Both recent attacks took place in Helmand province an area where Taliban influence is quite strong. Major Lori Hodge said that the most recent incident took place in the Garmser district of Helmand. An Afghan working at an installation shared by Afghans and foreign forces killed three U.S. troops.
In an earlier incident on Friday an Afghan police officer shot dead three U.S. marines after he had just shared a meal with them in Sangin province. The attack happened just before dawn in the Sangin district. In both cases the gunmen were taken into custody. No doubt there is strong opposition to foreign forces in Afghanistan not just among the Taliban but among many who are being trained to be part of the Afghan security forces. | <urn:uuid:4b2ff669-acd9-46f9-b9bd-97bc1599998f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitaljournal.com/article/330596 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972854 | 458 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Report: Exemptions benefit athletes
If grades make you a long shot for college, you're much more likely to get a break if you can play ball.
An Associated Press review of admissions data submitted to the NCAA by most of the 120 schools in college football's top tier shows that athletes enjoy strikingly better odds of having admission requirements bent on their behalf.
The notion that college athletes' talents give them a leg up in the admissions game isn't a surprise. But in what NCAA officials called the most extensive review to date, the AP found the practice is widespread and can be found in every major conference.
The review identified at least 27 schools where athletes were at least 10 times more likely to benefit from special admission programs than students in the general population.
The NCAA defines special admissions programs as those designed for students who don't meet "standard or normal entrance requirements." The NCAA says such exceptions are fine as long as schools offer the same opportunities to everyone.
At Alabama, 19 football players got in as part of a special admissions program from 2004 to 2006, the most recent years available in the NCAA report. The school tightened its standards for "special admits" in both 2004 and 2007, but from 2004 through 2006, Crimson Tide athletes were still more than 43 times more likely to benefit from such exemptions.
Alabama coach Nick Saban offered no apologies.
"Some people have ability and they have work ethic and really never get an opportunity," he said. "I am really pleased and happy with the job that we do and how we manage our students here, and the responsibility and accountability they have toward academics and the success that they've had in academics."
The NCAA defines special admissions programs as those designed for students who don't meet "standard or normal entrance requirements." The NCAA says such exceptions are fine as long as schools offer the same opportunities to everyone from dancers, French horn players and under-represented minorities as they do to fleet-footed wide receivers and 300-pound offensive linemen.
Texas was one of seven schools that reported no use of special admissions, instead describing "holistic" standards that consider each applicant individually rather than relying on minimum test scores and grade-point averages.
But the school also acknowledged in its NCAA report that athletic recruits overall are less prepared. At Texas, the average SAT score for a freshman football player from 2003 to 2005 was 945 -- or 320 points lower than the typical first-year student's score on the entrance exam.
School officials did not make coach Mack Brown or athletic director DeLoss Dodds available to comment.
In all, 77 of the 92 Football Bowl Subdivision schools that provided information to the AP reported using special admissions waivers to land athletes and other students with particular talents. The AP spent three months obtaining and reviewing the reports through state public records laws.
Outside The Lines:
Admissions at Florida State
Earlier this month, former Florida State learning specialist Brenda Monk told ESPN The Magazine's Tom Farrey that during her time working with Seminoles student-athletes, more than a third of the football team and three-quarters of the basketball team had learning disabilities. Story | Watch
Ten schools did not respond to the AP's request and 18 other schools, including Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and USC, declined to release their reports. The reports do not identify specific students who benefited from admissions waivers, but they are identified by sport in many cases.
The NCAA sets minimum eligibility standards to compete once a student is in college, but leaves admissions decisions to individual schools and does not compare "special admits" across schools.
Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president for academic and membership affairs, noted that NCAA schools face penalties, including losing scholarships, if athletes' graduation rates are too low or if they fail to show adequate progress toward a degree.
"While it's an institution's decision on who they bring in, we're most interested in what they do once they get there," he said. "And if they're not successful, there are consequences."
At California, one of the country's most selective public universities, Golden Bear football players were 43 times more likely to gain special admissions than non-athletes from 2002 to 2004.
"It doesn't matter to us if that student is a junior Olympian in taekwondo or the best oboe player in the United States or someone who can really run fast and jump high," said Walter Robinson, admissions director at Cal. "We still look at that student with the same consideration: Can that student be successful at Berkeley if admitted?"
While schools can tout the high graduation rates of athletes, they are not required to track the academic performance of special admits -- and few do.
Gerald Gurney, incoming president of the National Association of Academic Advisers for Athletics, favors a return by the NCAA to the minimum test score requirement abandoned several years ago. He said the NCAA's "virtually open admissions standards" threaten academic integrity.
"Special admissions, in and of itself, isn't something to be ashamed of. It does add value to a university," said Gurney, senior associate athletic director for academics and student life at Oklahoma. "However, when you have students who need such a great deal of remediation, it jeopardizes the very essence of the university."
Six schools besides Texas reported no use of special admissions on campus: Air Force, Connecticut, Kansas State, Purdue, Tennessee and Virginia.
The AP review also identified eight schools where athletes were no more likely than other students to get a break with special admissions: Arizona State, Arkansas State, Boise State, Iowa, Kent State, Mississippi State, New Mexico and West Virginia.
At South Carolina, All-American linebacker Eric Norwood recently graduated early with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.
Norwood was twice denied admission to South Carolina before being accepted as a special admit. The school softened special admission standards in 2007 after coach Steve Spurrier threatened to quit when two recruits who met NCAA eligibility requirements were turned down.
"When I got here I applied myself," Norwood said. "I had great support from the academic staff, great support from the football staff. And my teammates, they held me accountable."
South Carolina athletic director Eric Hyman dismissed critics who call special admissions simply a way to land athletes.
"It's also a way to get better artists, better musicians," he said. "It's not all athletes. If you graduate, if your people are successful, there's going to be more flexibility. And that's what we've done."
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
MORE COLLEGE FOOTBALL HEADLINES
- Ex-Penn State QB Bench transferring to USF
- Host Finebaum joining SEC Network, ESPN
- Ex-PSU prez seeks dismissal of criminal charges
- Sims won't return to Houston for senior season | <urn:uuid:5c785811-03b3-4e3e-a3e5-ebd3b172ce70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4781264 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97127 | 1,394 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The story that I want to tell you cannot be found in a book. They say that the history of the west was written from the saddle of a horse, but it's never been told from the heart of one. Not till now. I was born here, in this place that would come to be called the Old West. But, to my kind, the land was ageless. It had no beginning and no end, no boundary between earth and sky. Like the wind and the buffalo, we belonged here, we would always belong here. They say the mustang is the spirit of the West. Whether that west was won or lost in the end, you'll have to decide for yourself, but the story I want to tell you is true. I was there and I remember. I remember the sun, the sky, and the wind calling my name in a time when we ran free. I'll never forget the sound and the feeling of running together. The hoof beats were many, but our hearts were one. | <urn:uuid:04908114-1e7f-425d-80c7-53f76c2ce33a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://westernheart.tumblr.com/post/6957407650/planesandplantains-the-dawson-place-storm-on | 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 | 0.994305 | 207 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Large parts of the black forest were damaged by Hurricane Lothar on December 26th, 1999. This image was photographed a couple of weeks later. The panorama is stitched from three full frame fisheye images (15mm Sigma lens/ Olympus OM1) in landscape orientation. The camera was handheld, no tripod was used.
This version of the panorama uses a small source file
in equirectangular projection, which is displayed by PTViewer.
Copyright ©2000,2001 Helmut Dersch [email protected] | <urn:uuid:9a1d6fef-5344-4ecf-9892-333827b3dbee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.panotools.org/dersch/Lothar/LotharPTVJ.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947374 | 118 | 1.546875 | 2 |
53 stories tagged ‘African American’
Sophomores Alexander Moore and Joshua Scott have been selected as the 2013 Hill-Stephens Scholars, an honor awarded annually to two African-American sophomores or juniors at Harvard College who display exceptional commitment to academic achievement and community involvement.
Artist Kerry James Marshall’s massive woodcut print, on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, challenges the artistic status quo.
Letters and email notifications of admission to Harvard College have been sent to 2,032 students. More than 60 percent of families of students admitted to the Class of 2016 will benefit from an unprecedented $172 million in undergraduate financial aid.
Michael Fosberg learned of his African-American roots as an adult, and will tell his story at Harvard on April 6 in his one-man play “Incognito.”
In what many participants called a “historic moment,” scholars from around the world gathered for three days at Harvard to explore issues of race, racial identity, and racism in Latin America.
Du Bois Institute's exhibit and mammoth publishing effort
Archaeologists examining the African-American past are broadening their focus to include a greater understanding of Africa, according to Christopher Fennell, who spoke at the Harvard African Seminar.
Du Bois Institute hosts a book party celebrating former and current fellows’ recent publications, including a title that examines little-known slavery in the North.
The Harvard Black Men's Forum (BMF), which pays tribute to the contributions that black women have made to Harvard and to society at large, recognized former Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, among others, at its Celebration of Black Women event on April 29.
Social ethicist and African American religious studies scholar Jonathan Walton has been named assistant professor of African American religions at Harvard Divinity School, effective July 1.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. received the 41st NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work (nonfiction) for his book “In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past.”
Risk factors for childhood obesity may be evident before birth and are more likely to occur in African-American and Hispanic children than in Caucasian children. Researchers studied 1,826 mother-child pairs from pregnancy through the child’s first five years of life.
PBS will air “Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness,” a documentary that examines the towering influence of controversial anthropologist Melville Herskovits, on Feb. 2 at 10:30 p.m. as part of the series “Independent Lens.” Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal will host the program.
The 100th anniversary of the discovery of the North Pole was marked this year on April 6. For more than 20 years, Harvard Foundation Director S. Allen Counter has made it a mission to bring to light the work of Matthew Henson, the African-American Arctic aide of Robert Peary, the sole explorer credited for reaching the North Pole in 1909.
In 1991 the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., paid homage to players from the Negro Leagues, an artifact of segregated America that had faded away three decades earlier.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s PBS documentary “African American Lives 2” has won the Parents’ Choice Gold Award for Television, awarded last month by the Parents’ Choice Foundation.
The Harvard Black Law Students Association’s (HBLSA) Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial team won first-place honors at the Black Law Students Association’s Northeast Regional Conference this February. The team will move on to the National Conference in Irvine, Calif., on March 18.
On Monday (Feb. 9), a team of experts assembled at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) to examine the history and profound impact of the tall, awkward, self-taught man from rural Kentucky who is credited with bringing about an end to slavery and saving the nation’s cherished founding principle of democratic rule.
The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University recently gave a Masonic membership certificate signed by Prince Hall, a minister, abolitionist, and civil rights activist known as the father of Black Freemasonry in the United States, to Houghton Library.
For the first time in a generation, urban policy is back on the national agenda. Advocates for the nation’s cities have been thrilled by the announcement that the Obama administration will include a White House Office of Urban Policy.
Chinua Achebe, the esteemed Nigerian novelist and poet, delivered this year’s Distinguished African Studies Lecture at the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS). Greeting the standing-room-only crowd in Tsai Auditorium earlier this week (Nov. 17), Achebe surprised the group by announcing that he had an unusual program in mind.
Not long ago, Harvard cultural anthropologist Marla Frederick sat on a wooden bench in a slum of Kingston, Jamaica. She was interviewing local churchgoers about the Christian “prosperity gospel” often promoted by American televangelists. It offers up a simple (and controversial) idea: The more you give, the more you receive.
Tommie Shelby’s airy office in the Barker Center is piled with papers. His desk is a blanket of white. Books and academic journals litter the floor. The look is, in a word, chaotic. The scholar is anything but.
In the United States, a black man can expect to die, on average, 10 years earlier than his white counterpart. For black women, that racial gap in life expectancy is five years.
A former Harvard professor returned to campus last week to explain how he makes opera swing. Anthony Davis, a composer known for his diverse approach to music, incorporating diverse elements like jazz, improvisation, minimalism, and the Javanese gamelan (an Indonesian musical ensemble that includes gongs, xylophones, and bamboo flutes) into his work, recently discussed his unique spin on the art form in a series of talks sponsored by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. | <urn:uuid:6cf776fa-49f8-446b-a97f-e7f5c2788712> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/african-american/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944808 | 1,297 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The following is an edited transcription of the audio.
Does our ability to act morally depend on who we worship?
Yes. If we don't value God for who he really is then our behavior, which is intended to be the fruit of our valuing of God, is going to reflect that skewed understanding of God.
The very essence of morality is not the deed that we're doing—such as helping somebody change a tire on a cold winter night or not stealing—but the essence of morality is the mindset out of which the deed is growing. It is the deed together with the mindset.
If the mindset has its roots in a flawed perception of God then the God who is being reflected through the deed is going to be poorly reflected. I believe the reason we tend to think that morality is not affected by a flawed view of God is because we don't understand the essence of morality as being the mindset, the motive, and the display of God.
This is why I have a problem with talking about a "Judeo-Christian ethic". If you say "Judeo" and you mean Jews who do not believe in Jesus Christ but hold to the Ten Commandments, then you're introducing a flaw into worship which is utterly profound.
The New Testament is written to say that those who do not honor the Son do not honor the Father. So the concept of a Judeo-Christian ethic as the goal to which people ought to aim is profoundly mistaken, because ethics has to grow out of a true view of God. And to reject Jesus Christ is to have an absolutely flawed view of God. Therefore the ethic of morality that flows from this kind of flawed view of God is going to be flawed, even if some of the behavior is the same.
The point of ethics is not merely the shell of the behavior, but it is the inner convictions of the mind, the disposition of the heart, and the goal of what we're displaying. If Jesus Christ is omitted from that then I don't think we have Christian ethics or morality. | <urn:uuid:48f18981-15df-4879-9030-93676d3254b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/does-our-ability-to-act-morally-depend-on-who-we-worship?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965875 | 416 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Conservatives who point out the declining audience for the big television network newscasts, and declining public trust of the media in general, often underestimate how much clout the liberal media still have.
For example, while the economy has had near-record highs in growth rates and in the stock market, with near-record lows in unemployment and inflation, polls show that the public thinks the economy is in big trouble. A steady diet of gloom-and-doom spin in the liberal media has worked. The death of media influence has been greatly exaggerated.
More is involved than partisan attempts to undermine the Bush administration. For decades, the liberal media and the intelligentsia have had to struggle mightily against good economic news. Their whole vision of the world -- and of themselves -- is at stake.
It's not easy. Even Americans in the bottom 20 percent in income have higher real incomes than in the past and such staples of middle class life as microwave ovens and motor vehicles are now common among "the poor."
What can the liberal-left do? They can keep pointing out how the bottom 20 percent's share of the national income is declining.
Of course people don't live on percentage shares, they live on real income. Moreover, it is not the same people permanently stuck in the bottom 20 percent. Three-quarters of the people in the bottom 20 percent in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent at some point over the next two decades.
Nor is there anything mysterious or sinister in the fact that the percentage share of the national income going to the bottom 20 percent has declined.
How do most people get income? They work for it. What happens when pay for work goes up? The gap between those who are working and those who are not widens. Most of the people in the bottom 20 percent are not full-time, year-around workers.
There are, in fact, more heads of household who are full-time, year-around workers in the top 5 percent than in the bottom 20 percent.
Regardless of what the facts are, you can always find exceptions to those facts. The liberal media inundate us with stories about those exceptions, who are presented as if they were the norm.
The middle-aged single mother struggling to make ends meet, while working at a minimum wage job, has become a staple of these journalistic tales. In reality, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only about 2 percent of workers who are 25 years old or older have minimum wage jobs.
But you would never guess this, judging by media hype. | <urn:uuid:733805a7-07ef-4e9c-97ff-87faeaf1d418> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2006/05/31/preserving_a_vision_part_ii | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965832 | 526 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Jeremy Deller: New Commissions: It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, 2009
Installation view, New Museum, New York
Photo: Benoit Pailley
Photo courtesy of New Museum
Jeremy Deller: It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq
NEW YORK • New Museum • Ongoing
|It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq is a new commission by British artist Jeremy Deller. In an effort to encourage the public to discuss the present circumstances in Iraq, a revolving cast of participants including veterans, journalists, scholars, and Iraqi nationals who have expertise in a particular aspect of the region and/or first-hand experience of Iraq have been invited to take up residence in the New Museum’s gallery space with the express purpose of encouraging discussion with visitors to the Museum. |
The first and most significant artifact that will be on display is the remnant of a car that was destroyed in March of 2007 by an explosion on Al-Mutanabbi, a street in Baghdad. This tragedy killed over thirty people, and has taken on added significance because the street, named after a well-known Iraqi poet, was the site of numerous book markets and cafés, and was considered the nexus of Baghdadi cultural and intellectual life. Evidence of the violence continuing to take place in Iraq, the car is meant to ground conversation in the facts, figures, and eyewitness descriptions that have been so lacking in most information about the Iraq war made available to the public. The second is a handmade banner by artist Ed Hall, who has collaborated with Deller in the past and is known for his work for trade unions and other interest groups. The last is a wall graphic juxtaposing two maps—one of Iraq and one of the United States.
New Museum Web Site
Conversations About Iraq Calendar across the United States from New York to California, with conversations conducted at more than ten public sites.
New York, NY 10002
Tel: (1) 212 219 12 22 | <urn:uuid:04d9e789-6665-4f3a-8908-541f8173e14a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.culturekiosque.com/travel/item14544.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939162 | 409 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Gebbyblybyb (3.5e Deity)
From D&D Wiki
|Home Plane:||Far Realm|
|Portfolio:||Gebbys, Birth, Psionics|
|Domains:||Healing, Space, Spectrum|
|Favored Weapon:||Morning Star|
Gebbyblybyb (Gehb-bib-lib-ib) appears as a large, winged gebby progenitor with Gills, and five tentacles protruding from both of it's sides. According to gebby (Gehb-bee) mythology, Gebbyblybyb was a demi-deity of birth and fertility who, along with the rest of another pantheon, watched over a different material plane, before an unknown entity started destroying it. The only thing all the stories are consistent about is that Gebbyblybyb survived, and that the plane, along with the rest of the pantheon, was destroyed forever, and that Gebbyblybyb defeated and took on the trait of progenitation from a beast of the Far Realm, and consumed vast amounts of the multicolored light shining from what was left of it's corpse before giving birth to the first gebbys, and later the second generation of gebby progenitors. What the beast was called, what it looked like, and it's previous roles in the story all vary wildly. The two most popular versions state that it was a creature that either Gebbyblybyb just came across and killed as a means to an end, or that it was the thing that destroyed the plane and pantheon, and that Gebbyblybyb only needed to finish it off in it's weakened state. Gebbyblybyb has never had anything to say about these stories in recent history.
The one thing Gebbyblybyb cares about more than anything else is the perpetuation of the gebby race. She values her people adventuring out into the many different planes, and ensuring their survival.
Clergy and Temples
Gebbyblybyb's Clerics, who are almost always gebbys or half-gebbys, Usually dress in cloths that are the color of their blood, with jade trim. If they are not a gebby, or have jade blood, or mutant blood, they wear black with jade trimming. Her temples usually act as an entrance to the Gebby gestation caverns, and they are the first sign of civilization that the pupae see. The temples are where the pupae live until their homes are built, they give the pupae their signs, facilitate their home's construction, and gather the lusii for the caverns. Her temples are decorated with jade statues, malachite floors, and murals depicting the gebby life cycle. | <urn:uuid:04a6ec2c-7540-4050-b0c5-db0ae98d6f9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gebbyblybyb_(3.5e_Deity) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950093 | 600 | 1.640625 | 2 |
In a moment, you will see everything
When you log in to SEB Bank’s Internet services website, and you for the first time select menu item Financial Planner, you will see your six recent months’ income and expenses distribution by type. The information is continuously updated.
When you indicate the amount of money and the purposes for which you intend to spend your money next month, your monthly budget is provided formed taking into account your average expenses.
Adapted for personal needs
Expenses that were distributed by type in advance can be redistributed, and, if needed, additional types can be added. Amounts of the envisaged expenses can be reduced and increased, depending on the situation.
No invisible expenses
Each cent received or spent can be clearly seen. You see:
Information is very well visualised, therefore, you can clearly see where most your money goes and where you can save, if you cut some of your expenses at least a little.
It is possible to link several persons’ (for instance, all family members’) accounts opened with SEB Bank, individually add any preferred statements of other bank accounts or introduce information on any separate transactions.
No need to follow expenses by collecting all your payment slips
If you pay by a payment card or electronically, you no longer have to collect all your payment slips for the calculation of your expenses at the end of each month. Income and expenses are calculated automatically, also, they are shown graphically, therefore, it is easy to compare, analyse and assess them.
Easier to achieve your objective
Analysing the diagrams you will see where you should spend less, and how much less, so that you could save for other important objectives. If you form a separate type of expenses on which you would like to economise and if you indicate what amount should be saved per month, you will be able to easily follow your progress in saving. When you see you are able to put aside the amount you planned, it will be easier to reach your objective. | <urn:uuid:0065ef58-8c3a-4864-9bfd-ceab71f96d33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seb.lt/pow/wcp/templates/sebcollection.cfmc.asp?DUID=DUID_ADC37FF118AA5947C12579AC002E848D&xsl=en/sebcollection.xsl&sitekey=seb.lt%20en&lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939997 | 417 | 1.539063 | 2 |
By Patrick McGreevy
We visited Qana six weeks ago. To get there from Beirut, you pass through Tyre and then head southeast. The village clusters about a hilltop less than eight miles from Lebanon's southern border, and about thirty miles from Nazareth. There is a scholarly debate about whether this was the site of the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle, creating wine from water. The Roman historian Eusebius and St. Jerome both believed this was the place. On our first journey to Qana a year earlier, we had looked in vain for the stone wine jars, when a boy and girl on a donkey had instructed us to follow them. I later photographed the girl. Now I wonder about her whereabouts and her safety. | <urn:uuid:a6a4cba3-e295-49b5-8dcf-29216cdbc995> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.citybelt.org/citybelt/2006/07/index.html | 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 | 0.98349 | 160 | 1.828125 | 2 |
If you think you know every hike the Smokies have to offer, think again
by Ken Wise
The Great Smoky Mountains have more than 900 miles of official trails, providing hikers with reasonably easy access to most of the higher peaks and larger watersheds in the park. For the most part, these trails are well-graded, well-maintained, and clearly marked with signposts. However, for the hiker wishing to get far from the madding crowd and find a little extra excitement in their closeness with nature, let me suggest taking an off-trail excursion into the Smoky Mountain wilderness. Here are details of five of my favorites.
Bear Pen Hollow
Up until the time that the Alum Cave Trail was completed to the summit of Mount LeConte, a rudimentary path following Bear Pen Hollow Creek was the primary access to LeConte from the south side of the mountain. At its best, this trail was never more than a faint trace through the woods, so donâ’t expect to find a path to follow.
The â“trailâ” begins one-quarter mile above the loop-over on Newfound Gap Road at a point half-way between Cole Creek and Bear Pen Hollow Creek. The lower stretch of Bear Pen Hollow Creek is heavily infested with rhododendron. Do not get in it. The objective is to work around the rhododendron, then to follow the creek to its ultimate source at the top of a steep headwall.
Once above the upper end of the headwall, the trail mounts a knife-edge ridge and follows the crest of this ridge to the summit of West Point, the high peak just west of Cliff Top. Finding the correct ridge is not difficult, but hiking along it is another matter. Be prepared to squeeze through fir thickets and crawl through a couple of laurel tunnels.
The ridge extends straight to the summit of West Point, at which point the old Bear Pen Hollow Trail turned east to follow the rugged, fir-infested spine that extends between West Point and Cliff Top. The trail eventually emerges out onto the Alum Cave Trail just where it turns the corner around Cliff Top on its approach to LeConte Lodge.
Mill Creek Falls
Mill Creek Falls, the highest cascading waterfall in the Great Smoky Mountains, is situated remotely in a remarkable forest of magnificently large trees. The hike to Mill Creek Falls is not terribly difficult, but there remains a high probability of getting lost and not finding the falls.
The best place to begin hiking is a half-mile along Forge Creek Road (near the Cable Mill in Cades Cove) where an old wagon track can be found on the crest of a low ridge immediately to the left of the road. There are actually two old wagon tracks in the vicinity and both will lead eventually to Mill Creek. Upon reaching the creek, turn up stream and follow the wagon road where possible. The wagon road forded the stream several time on its journey to Sugar Cove, but the hiker may find it much easier to avoid the stream crossing by not following the road. In many places the road has been effaced by time and the elements of nature, so do not count on finding the road as a path of least resistance.
At Sugar Cove the road ends and the hiker must begin bushwhacking through the wilderness adjacent to Mill Creek. Eventually the steepness of the slopes adjacent to the stream will force the hiker to the right hand side of the stream and into one of the most splendid cove hardwood forests anywhere in the world. Great trees abound in a lush woodland environment. The grade gets continually steeper but the persistent hiker will be rewarded at Mill Creek Falls with one of the most spectacular displays of violently rushing water in all the Smokies.
John Barnes Cabin
This off-trail excursion actually has a trail that can be followed most of the way, but it still qualifies as a bushwhack. At the end of the trail are the remains of a primitive log cabin, a tiny cemetery, and a patch of lush grassland that appears to be out of place in this part of the Smokies.
Four-tenths of a mile along Ramsey Prong Road in Greenbrier, an old wagon track angles steeply up to the left. The track is bordered on one side by an impressive rock fence that follows the old road until it reaches Bird Creek. A path crosses the creek, proceeds through an old home site, then turns uphill and follows a wide flat ridge that extends eastward towards the foot of the Catstairs.
After proceeding for approximately a half mile the trail turns and crosses to the far side of the ridge and disappears as it approaches Little Bird Creek. At this point the absence of a trail is not important. Just turn upstream and follow the creek bed as Little Bird Creek will likely be dry. Eventually the trail can be found again on the far side of the stream bed as the grade becomes steeper.
The trail will eventually wind around until it comes upon a small cemetery consisting of four headstones enclosed with a sagging barbed-wire fence. A short distance away are the remains of the John Barnes family cabin, mostly a chimney surrounded by a few rotting logs. The cabin is situated along the upper lip of a two-acre bowl of marshy grassland.
The hike to Three Forks is a difficult excursion but it leads to one of the prettiest settings in the Smoky Mountains. Years ago there was a rudimentary trace called the Breakneck Ridge Trail that started out along the ridge just adjacent to the McGee Spring Backcountry Campsite. It descended to the head of Raven Fork at a place where three streams, emerging from a forest of fir and spruce, converged at right angles to one another to form a pool 30 feet wide and 12 feet deep. The pool was appropriately called Three Forks. At the edge of Three Forks is a wide open space once used for backcountry camping.
The hike from McGee Spring to Three Forks is no more than two miles, but the descent is very steep, the path indiscernible, and the rhododendron virtually impassable. But then, the hike to Three Forks is worth it. The best way to find Three Forks is to get a map, orient on the ridge above McGee Spring, and just begin descending in the approximately correct direction. At some point a stream leading to Three Forks will appear.
Lodge on Bear Branch
Across the highway from the Park Headquarters Building is the lower terminus of the Old Sugarlands Trail which follows the trace of unused highway Tenn. 31. A mile and a half up Old Sugarlands, the trail veers left and proceeds to Cherokee Orchard while the abandoned road trace for Tenn. 31 curls away to the right and continues until it stops immediately on the banks of the Little Pigeon River.
Now, back away from the river about 100 yards and begin bushwhacking through the woods on a course parallel to the river, going upstream, and maintaining the 100-yard margin. Within the next half mile, the hiker should cross two streams. The second, larger stream is Bear Branch. On a high level bench on the far side of the stream stands a stone building that resembles a lodge. The building is obscured by heavy vegetation and is not easily spotted from either across Bear Branch or below the bench.
The building is an abandoned one-room structure constructed mostly of stack river rocks with a low sloping kitchen unit affixed to the back. It sports a large fireplace at one end and what appears to be an outside porch or deck on the opposite. The building apparently had a wood floor and a loft, but these, along with the roof, are completely gone. Rock structures such as this one were rare in the upper reaches of the Smokies and it raises the question of who built it, why, and why here.
These five are only a few of the many possible off-trail excursions in the Smokies and all five possess an interesting landmark along the upper terminus. But the purpose of any off-trail excursion in the Great Smoky Mountains is not so much the pay-off at the end, but the satisfaction of knowing that one is alone and passing through an astonishing wilderness environment where few have gone before.
Ken Wise works at the University of Tennessee Library, and is author of four hiking books, including Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky Mountains.
PLEASE NOTE: As with any off-trail excursion, there are certain elements of risk that should be taken into consideration. The risks of getting disoriented or of incurring an injury are the most serious. Becoming hopelessly lost off-trail is highly unlikely, but can be quite unnerving to the inexperienced hiker. Similarly, the possibility of serious injury is not likely, but in the off-trail environment the situation understandably becomes more difficult. Hikers planning off-trail excursions should always let someone know the exact intended itinerary and adhere closely to the Boy Scout motto, â“Be Prepared.â”
⢠A Kayaking Quest: Kim Trevathan goes on a summer-long expedition to find the original rivers feeding our man-made lakes.
All content © 2007 Metropulse . | <urn:uuid:5291ce44-8960-46b8-acc3-46ed813e94f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metropulse.com/news/2007/oct/11/coverstory_3-2007-41/ | 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 | 0.950739 | 1,926 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Free Ticket to ‘Apartheid’: Israel’s Palestinian-Only Buses
“At least we are not treated like dogs and made to feel so uncomfortable,” Amjad Samara, 30, a labourer from Nablus in the northern West Bank told IPS as he and a group of Palestinians waited at the checkpoint near Qalqilia to cross into Israel for their day job.
Samara was referring to the new Palestinians-only bus service that the Israeli authorities have introduced in the West Bank to “spare” Israeli settlers travelling on buses from the occupied West Bank to Israel the “discomfort” of having to share their transportation with Palestinians.
The introduction of the Palestinians-only buses followed complaints by settlers to the Israeli military authorities that Palestinians travelling on “their buses” posed a security threat. West Bank settlers last year petitioned the army to sign an order banning Palestinians from riding buses servicing West Bank settlers.
The Israeli government has denied claims by human rights organisations that the new bus service is either racist or a form of apartheid. It said in a statement that the new bus service was “designed to improve transportation services for Palestinians entering Israel.”
Some liberal members of the Knesset, or parliament, however, were not convinced. “This is what apartheid looks like,” stated Meretz party chairwoman Zahava Gal on her Facebook page.
Yariv Oppenheimer of the anti-settlement Peace Now organisation said the new bus lines sent a bad message.
“Instead of fighting racism, this government is actually collaborating with the racist system and creates different buses for Palestinians and for Israeli settlers,” he said. “In the West Bank, it’s not a democracy. It’s much closer to apartheid than to democracy.”
Transport Ministry officials said that Palestinians are not officially banned from riding on settler buses, but the experience of many Palestinian labourers tells a story different from the official policy.
“In the past when I tried to catch buses before with settlers on, often the bus wouldn’t stop for me and just drove past. Or if they stopped for settlers the driver would tell me I’m not allowed to get on,” labourer Adnan Omar, 28, from Azzun Atme told IPS.
“Even when we were allowed on it was a very unpleasant experience having to travel with the settlers who made it very clear we were not welcome. We would get dirty looks and sometimes verbal abuse,” Samara told IPS.
The bus drivers from the Afikim bus company said it was not they who would order the Palestinian labourers off; once they reached a checkpoint Israeli soldiers would order the Palestinians off.
Several journalists who monitored the situation have reported seeing Palestinian labourers denied entry or ordered off.
Yirsael Maidad, spokesman for the Jewish Settlers Council, said Israelis felt justified refusing to share buses with Palestinians because of Israel’s experience with suicide bombers.
According to some of the 29,000 Palestinian labourers who travel to Israel daily for work, there are, however, some advantages in the new bus lines.
“These buses are cheaper than the Palestinian mini-buses which are often used by many of my colleagues to travel to the Israeli green line. We also feel safer avoiding the settler buses and are more comfortable not being subjected to hostility from the settlers which at times has led to physical confrontations and assaults,” Omar told IPS.
While some Israeli officials have privately admitted that the introduction of the new bus service was not altogether for altruistic reasons, this development follows accusations of an increasingly apartheid system being perpetrated by the Israeli authorities against Palestinians on land which belongs to the Palestinians according to international law.
The West Bank is divided into Area A under nominal Palestinian control, Area B under joint Israeli and Palestinian control, and Area C (which comprises 60 percent of the occupied territory) under full Israeli control. The more than 300,000 Israeli settlers in this area have privileges denied to the local people.
“Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benefits,” said Carroll Bogert, deputy executive director for external relations at Human Rights Watch.
“While Israeli settlements flourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp – not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes. By making their communities virtually uninhabitable, Israel’s discriminatory policies have frequently had the effect of forcing residents to leave their communities.”
HRW looked at both Area C and Israeli occupied East Jerusalem and found that the two-tier system in effect in both areas provides generous financial benefits and infrastructure support to promote life in Jewish settlements, while deliberately withholding basic services, punishing growth, and imposing harsh conditions on Palestinian communities.
Such different treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin that is not narrowly tailored to legitimate goals violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law.
This article was originally published at IPS News.
Read more by Mel Frykberg
- Palestinians Prepare a Bitter Welcome for Obama – March 20th, 2013
- A Third Intifada on the Horizon? – December 19th, 2012
- Children Face the Fallout of Gaza War – November 27th, 2012
- Christians Worry Over a Future in Egypt – October 23rd, 2012
- Shadow Fighting Erupts Over Gadhafi – October 8th, 2012 | <urn:uuid:36689584-253e-446e-910e-2ee7c89bcce0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://original.antiwar.com/frykberg/2013/04/08/free-ticket-to-apartheid-israels-pl/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960718 | 1,173 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Please pardon Peter Prickett if he seems a bit tired this week. It sure seems like he’s everywhere!
We’ve been keeping Peter busy this past week with media appearances related to a host of issues, though the recent focus has been what the impending “Fiscal Cliff” negotiations could mean for all of us who work and live the Fox Valley.
There is a lot of uncertainty about what a resolution will look like, and Peter took on the task of explaining what the potential outcomes would mean in terms that could be easily understood.
“It will hurt Wisconsinites pocketbooks, and from my perspective as a banker, I think it’s going to have some trickle down effects,” Prickett said during an interview he gave to NBC 26.
Prickett says another big blow to the state are $1.2 trillion in cuts that would be split between domestic and military spending.
“I personally don’t think it will send us into a recession. I do think it will be some drag on the economy,” he said.
Peter also appeared Dec. 5 on FOX 11 as a group of governors met with President Obama. In that interview:
First National Bank – Fox Valley president Peter Prickett says he doesn’t believe the U.S. will fall into a recession as some economic pundits argue if a fiscal cliff deal isn’t done. But believes it can impact business growth if people are spending less to offset paying higher taxes.
“Most of my business customers are what’s called a ‘Sub S’ corporation,” said Prickett referring to the IRS business listing of companies who report business income and losses on their personal tax returns and are assessed at their individual income tax rates. “If they’re fairly successful, that’s going to be a big chunk out of what they’ll have to pay to the government, which is that much less to invest in new equipment or new employees.”
We think Peter did a great job this week. It’s always nice when your experience and expertise are recognized as valuable. If you missed them the first time, please check out the links to the stories. You can follow all of the latest FNB-Fox Valley news at www.fnbfoxvalley.com and our online newsroom.
More importantly, though, is that he was able to provide insights about what events happening in Washington really will mean to all of us, to our families and to our businesses. | <urn:uuid:f9c5b643-c4b8-4cfb-b675-905885790800> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.fnbfoxvalley.com/2012/12/07/peter-prickett-speaks-out/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=c8d80d4293 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974344 | 531 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, known as CARA, now has a blog that digs into the whys and wherefores of statistical reports on the church.
For instance, a recent post compares data on how often Catholics attend church, as reported by various sources, balanced against actual counts of how many people are in the pews.
Another post looks at a recent Washington Post story, “Many Women Targeted by Faith Leaders,” which reported that one in 33 women who attend religious services said they had been the subject of an inappropriate sexual advance by a religious leader. CARA digs deeper into the report by Baylor University researchers of data from the General Social Survey and puts the statistic reported by the Post into more thorough context by explaining the question asked immediately before the one reported which had to do with women who worked for their church or synagogue.
Filed under: CNS | <urn:uuid:acbf1fdf-eed1-4ea4-9b70-12782784f65a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/enough-church-stats-to-keep-any-numbers-geek-happy/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=dd1ec55e91 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983724 | 187 | 1.734375 | 2 |
For the past few years, we keep witnessing a phenomenon that is, quite frankly, getting a little freaky! We call it the ‘Peckasso Phenomenon’. The first time we saw it, it was pretty cool. A bird seed block that had been pecked to the point of an interesting organtic form….
We had been putting bird seed blocks out for many years, but had never seen anything like this. I’m not sure if it’s just because we never noticed, or the birds pecking it had never created such an interesting piece of ‘art’.
So, after this, we did notice!….It was hard not to notice, because now, every bird seed block that we put out is transformed into something! But what’s weird, it’s not just any something! It’s always a sculptural representation of the critters in Todd’s Backyard. For instance, the next creation was on a seed block out in the middle of the yard where lots of rabbits hang out….
Then, right after Gerti, our tortoise, came to live with us, this is what we found at the seed block that was just outside her enclosure…
Ok.. you might be thinking, tortoises don’t stand up like that. Well, Gerti actually does like to pull herself upright along the wall…kinda weird.
The next installation was created, again, on the seed block in the middle of the yard. It was in the spring when all of the quail are running around with their babies…
Maybe a stretch, but, hey, I can see it!
Can Peckasso top this one? I think so!
We were astounded to discover this last week on the seed block that sits right outside the chicken coop…
Weird, True, Freaky!!! | <urn:uuid:6cfb825a-9584-4732-9844-f086aa8048ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toddsbackyard.com/tag/birds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973196 | 395 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Can you remember feeling frustrated that the parachute games did not go to plan? Children running under when the game needed holding of the chute, grabbing the shute, trampling over others etc? This is because we need to LEARN about cooperation. Whenever the parachute activity does not work I say "the parachute is not fun unless we work together" as I pack it away. I hope that they will "get it " and they will cooperate next time but also it just makes me feel better.
Next week I will try sitting down quietly without the chute and asking the kids what we need to do to make the game work. I think it is much more successful when the rules come from them.
Some parachute games and songs at Early Childhood Games. | <urn:uuid:c4d32cb9-9bdf-43bd-bac4-24a1591b4f4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://earlyplay.blogspot.com/2011/04/cooperation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963631 | 154 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Friday, March 25, 2011
Another first for Thunder Bay's knowledge based economy. The Centre for Regenerative Medicine, which recycles human bone and tissue, now has designation from the Trillium Gift of Life Network in Ontario. CEO Robert Thayer says it essentially gives the non profit company a new lease on life. They now have the legal right to be a bone and tissue bank for the Regional Health Sciences Centre
Thunder Bay residents are being asked to turn off their lights tomorrow from 8:30 until 9:30 in recognition of Earth Hour. The city has supported the program since its inception and will be handing out prizes for participants who power down for those 60 minutes. | <urn:uuid:b06eea5c-b756-4b08-81ed-3c61af4b9074> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thegiantnews.blogspot.com/2011_03_25_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950572 | 136 | 1.703125 | 2 |
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CC Madhya 20.6
saṁsāra ha-ite tāre mukta karena gosāñā
It appears from this statement that Sanātana Gosvāmī, who was formerly a minister of the Nawab, was trying to cheat the Muslim superintendent. A jail superintendent had only an ordinary education, or practically no education, and he was certainly not supposed to be very advanced in spiritual knowledge. But just to satisfy him, Sanātana Gosvāmī praised him as a very learned scholar of the scriptures. The jailkeeper could not deny that he was a learned scholar, because when one is elevated to an exalted position, one thinks oneself fit for that position. Sanātana Gosvāmī was correctly explaining the effects of spiritual activity, and the jailkeeper connected his statement with his release from jail.
There are innumerable conditioned souls rotting in the material world, imprisoned by māyā under the spell of sense gratification. The living entity is so entranced by the spell of māyā that in conditioned life even a pig feels satisfied. There are two kinds of covering powers exhibited by māyā. One is called prakṣepātmikā, and the other is called āvaraṇātmikā. When one is determined to get out of material bondage, the prakṣepātmikā-śakti, the spell of diversion, impels one to remain in conditioned life fully satisfied by sense gratification. Due to the other power (āvaraṇātmikā), a conditioned soul feels satisfied even if he is rotting in the body of a pig or a worm in stool. To release a conditioned soul from material bondage is very difficult because the spell of māyā is so strong. Even when the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself descends to deliver conditioned souls, asking them to surrender unto Him, the conditioned souls do not agree to the Lord’s proposal. Therefore Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī said, “Somehow or other, if one helps another gain release from the bondage of māyā, he is certainly recognized immediately by the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” As Lord Kṛṣṇa states in the Bhagavad-gītā (18.69):
na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ
bhavitā na ca me tasmād anyaḥ priyataro bhuvi
The greatest service one can render to the Lord is to try to infuse devotional service into the heart of the conditioned soul so that the conditioned soul may be released from conditioned life. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has said that a Vaiṣṇava is recognized by his preaching work — that is, by convincing the conditioned soul about his eternal position, which is explained here as nija-dharma. It is the living entity’s eternal position to serve the Lord; therefore to help one get release from material bondage is to awaken one to the dormant understanding that he is the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. Jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’. This will be further explained by the Lord Himself to Sanātana Gosvāmī. | <urn:uuid:8d19e851-8aa4-4422-918c-fb748e24c83d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vedabase.com/en/cc/madhya/20/6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953661 | 757 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas, , at sacred-texts.com
We must now consider the consent to which an oath or carnal intercourse is appended. Under this head there are two points of inquiry:
(1) Whether an oath added to the consent that is expressed in words of the future tense makes a marriage?
(2) Whether carnal intercourse supervening to such a consent makes a marriage?
Objection 1: It would seem that if an oath be added to a consent that is expressed in words of the future tense it makes a marriage. For no one can bind himself to act against the Divine Law. But the fulfilling of an oath is of Divine law according to Mat. 5:33, "Thou shalt perform thy oaths to the Lord." Consequently no subsequent obligation can relieve a man of the obligation to keep an oath previously taken. If, therefore, after consenting to marry a woman by words expressive of the future and confirming that consent with an oath, a man binds himself to another woman by words expressive of the present, it would seem that none the less he is bound to keep his former oath. But this would not be the case unless that oath made the marriage complete. Therefore an oath affixed to a consent expressed in words of the future tense makes a marriage.
Objection 2: Further, Divine truth is stronger than human truth. Now an oath confirms a thing with the Divine truth. Since then words expressive of consent in the present in which there is mere human truth complete a marriage, it would seem that much more is this the case with words of the future confirmed by an oath.
Objection 3: Further, according to the Apostle (Heb. 6:16), "An oath for confirmation is the end of all . . . controversy"; wherefore in a court of justice at any rate one must stand by an oath rather than by a mere affirmation. Therefore if a man consent to marry a woman by a simple affirmation expressed in words of the present, after having consented to marry another in words of the future confirmed by oath, it would seem that in the judgment of the Church he should be compelled to take the first and not the second as his wife.
Objection 4: Further, the simple uttering of words relating to the future makes a betrothal. But the addition of an oath must have some effect. Therefore it makes something more than a betrothal. Now beyond a betrothal there is nothing but marriage. Therefore it makes a marriage.
On the contrary, What is future is not yet. Now the addition of an oath does not make words of the future tense signify anything else than consent to something future. Therefore it is not a marriage yet.
Further, after a marriage is complete, no further consent is required for the marriage. But after the oath there is yet another consent which makes the marriage, else it would be useless to swear to a future marriage. Therefore it does not make a marriage.
I answer that, An oath is employed in confirmation of one's words; wherefore it confirms that only which is signified by the words, nor does it change their signification. Consequently, since it belongs to words of the future tense, by their very signification, not to make a marriage, since what is promised in the future is not done yet, even though an oath be added to the promise, the marriage is not made yet, as the Master says in the text (Sent. iv, D, 28).
Reply to Objection 1: The fulfilling of a lawful oath is of Divine law, but not the fulfilling of an unlawful oath. Wherefore if a subsequent obligation makes that oath unlawful, whereas it was lawful before, he who does not keep the oath he took previously does not disobey the Divine law. And so it is in the case in point; since he swears unlawfully who promises unlawfully; and a promise about another's property is unlawful. Consequently the subsequent consent by words of the present, whereby a man transfers the power over his body to another woman, makes the previous oath unlawful which was lawful before.
Reply to Objection 2: The Divine truth is most efficacious in confirming that to which it is applied. Hence the Reply to the Third Objection is clear.
Reply to Objection 4: The oath has some effect, not by causing a new obligation, but confirming that which is already made, and thus he who violates it sins more grievously.
Objection 1: It would seem that carnal intercourse after consent expressed in words of the future makes a marriage. For consent by deed is greater than consent by word. But he who has carnal intercourse consents by deed to the promise he has previously made. Therefore it would seem that much more does this make a marriage than if he were to consent to mere words referring to the present.
Objection 2: Further, not only explicit but also interpretive consent makes a marriage. Now there can be no better interpretation of consent than carnal intercourse. Therefore marriage is completed thereby.
Objection 3: Further, all carnal union outside marriage is a sin. But the woman, seemingly, does not sin by admitting her betrothed to carnal intercourse. Therefore it makes a marriage.
Objection 4: Further, "Sin is not forgiven unless restitution be made," as Augustine says (Ep. cliii ad Macedon.). Now a man cannot reinstate a woman whom he has violated under the pretense of marriage unless he marry her. Therefore it would seem that even if, after his carnal intercourse, he happen to contract with another by words of the present tense, he is bound to return to the first; and this would not be the case unless he were married to her. Therefore carnal intercourse after consent referring to the future makes a marriage.
On the contrary, Pope Nicholas I says (Resp. ad Consult. Bulg. iii; Cap. Tuas dudum, De clandest. despons.), "Without the consent to marriage, other things, including coition, are of no effect."
Further, that which follows a thing does not make it. But carnal intercourse follows the actual marriage, as effect follows cause. Therefore it cannot make a marriage.
I answer that, We may speak of marriage in two ways. First, in reference to the tribunal of conscience, and thus in very truth carnal intercourse cannot complete a marriage the promise of which has previously been made in words expressive of the future, if inward consent is lacking, since words, even though expressive of the present, would not make a marriage in the absence of mental consent, as stated above (Q, A). Secondly, in reference to the judgment of the Church; and since in the external tribunal judgment is given in accordance with external evidence, and since nothing is more expressly significant of consent than carnal intercourse, it follows that in the judgment of the Church carnal intercourse following on betrothal is declared to make a marriage, unless there appear clear signs of deceit or fraud [*According to the pre-Tridentine legislation] (De sponsal. et matrim., cap. Is qui fidem).
Reply to Objection 1: In reality he who has carnal intercourse consents by deed to the act of sexual union, and does not merely for this reason consent to marriage except according to the interpretation of the law.
Reply to Objection 2: This interpretation does not alter the truth of the matter, but changes the judgment which is about external things.
Reply to Objection 3: If the woman admit her betrothed, thinking that he wishes to consummate the marriage, she is excused from the sin, unless there be clear signs of fraud; for instance if they differ considerably in birth or fortune, or some other evident sign appear. Nevertheless the affianced husband is guilty of fornication, and should be punished for this fraud he has committed.
Reply to Objection 4: In a case of this kind the affianced husband, before his marriage with the other woman, is bound to marry the one to whom he was betrothed, if she be his equal or superior in rank. But if he has married another woman, he is no longer able to fulfill his obligation, wherefore it suffices if he provide for her marriage. Nor is he bound even to do this, according to some, if her affianced husband is of much higher rank than she, or if there be some evident sign of fraud, because it may be presumed that in all probability she was not deceived but pretended to be. | <urn:uuid:35e599c5-f3ed-4cd5-a544-265726bfb2b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum591.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968007 | 1,767 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Surrender your life to love, not fear
By Father Joseph Breighner
If I were on my death-bed right now, what would be my final prayer? Personally, having already had strokes and pulmonary embolisms, I’m not expecting to have a great deal of time to compose any lengthy prayers. What would I say?
My first choice in prayer would be: “Jesus, remember me.” These were the words of the ‘good thief’ on the cross: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus’ reply was: “This day you will be with me in paradise!” If the ‘good thief’ could steal heaven, maybe there’s a chance for me as well!
My second prayer would be: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” This was the prayer of Jesus dying on the cross! It’s hard to improve on God! This was also the prayer of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Christians are not only called to live as Jesus lived, but to die as Jesus died.
All of Christian prayer is summed up in the Lord’s Prayer, in the Our Father. The Our Father is not just a prayer but an attitude toward prayer. Given enough time, this would be a third prayer. Allow me to offer a short meditation on the prayer.
For us to say: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” is to forever name God as our Father. We don’t live and die as slaves of God but as children of God. Any sense of inadequacy is erased by the word Father. We are made in God’s image and likeness. Could God reject himself?
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. This is essentially to: “Let go and let God!” In life, we surrender to the presence of God, so God can work through us. In death, we surrender to that same presence. We surrender to love.
“Give us this day our daily bread” is our assurance of God’s protection. God gave manna in the desert. God gives us the Eucharist, the bread of life and the bread of eternal life. We have food for the journey of life and food that will sustain us in eternal life.
“Forgive us our trespasses” is our plea for forgiveness. If Jesus could hear the lonely cry from the cross, will He not hear our plea? When we ask for forgiveness we are forgiven.
“As we forgive those who trespass against us.” God’s forgiveness frees us of guilt. Our forgiveness of others frees us from bitterness and resentment. On our death-beds, none of our petty grievances and grudges will have any meaning. We will be freed by death. Why not free ourselves in life by forgiving others as God forgives us. Jesus gave us the command to forgive. He also gives us the power. As I’ve said before, if you don’t want to forgive out of love for the other, forgive out of love for yourself. You set yourself free from all those negative feelings.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” I’ve never needed God to lead me into temptation. I’m good at finding those myself, with a little help from the devil! The more literal meaning of this phrase meant something different for the first Christians. They were praying that they would not be subjected to the trials at the end of time. They prayed to be spared of the pain of the end of time. On our death-beds we may have many trials as well – worry, fear, pain, doubt, regret. Turn to the Lord in those final moments and God will lead us through all those valleys of darkness. Remember, we are surrendering our lives to love, not to fear.
Copyright (c) June 8, 2012 CatholicReview.org | <urn:uuid:cb7dd096-48fa-4de5-ab2d-afef5d56c792> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholicreview.org/article/commentary/father-joseph-breighner/surrender-your-life-to-love-not-fear | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960527 | 862 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Inflation edged lower last month as higher petrol pump prices were offset by softer clothing costs and utility bills, official figures revealed today. According to the Office for National Statistics, the Consumer Prices Index annual inflation figure fell to 2.5 per cent from July's figure of 2.6 per cent.
Inflation edged lower last month as higher petrol pump prices were offset by softer clothing costs and utility bills, official figures revealed today. According to the Office for National Statistics, the Consumer Prices Index annual inflation figure fell to 2.5 per cent from July's figure of 2.6 per cent. Last month's increase had prompted fears that inflation would not fall to the Bank of England's two per cent target. The largest downward pressures behind August's change in the CPI rate came from furniture, household equipment, household services, especially domestic gas, clothing and footwear. These were partially offset by upward pressure from transport costs. The broader Retail Price Index measure of inflation fell from 3.2 per cent to 2.9 per cent. The ONS attributes this to downward pressures on household goods, clothing and food, although upward pressure came from travel costs. Dr Brian Sloan, Chief Economist at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce said that further falls in inflation are unlikely and called on the Bank of England and the Chancellor to take action to reflect this. He added: "Whilst an easing of inflation will be welcomed by consumers, they continue to be squeezed and the rate of inflation is not falling as quickly as many commentators and the Bank of England had expected. "The fall today is very much in line with our expectations and - apart from gas - probably reflects some discounting. However, we must be mindful that fuel and food inflation are in the pipeline and will prevent further substantial falls in inflation. In addition to this, there have been some sharp rises in commodity prices recently that are pushing up producer input prices. "The Bank of England must change its strategy of quantitative easing and the Chancellor's Autumn Statement must again extend his deficit reduction target to allow for a reallocation of spending on capital projects."
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Date: February 08 2013
Former world cycling anti-doping chief Anne Gripper wants Australia's football codes to consider a strict no-needles policy for their clubs and players.
One of the more unsettling aspects of the Essendon supplements crisis is the revelation that players were given injections into their stomachs.
The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and the AFL are investigating the Bombers over the supplements that were given to players last year.
Gripper, now the Triathlon Australia (TA) chief executive, played a key role in setting up the UCI's anti-doping unit in 2006 and had the role until 2010.
Cycling introduced a no-needle policy for everything except acute medical needs two years ago.
"That just has such a great effect on changing the culture of dependence," she told AAP.
"There are players and riders who build up this psychological dependence ... the impact on your psyche of putting something straight into your blood system is really powerful.
"That's something cycling has done that would be a clear next step for certainly the football codes, because I think there probably is a bit of a prevalent injection culture happening there as well."
Gripper said the first thing sports needed to do was to ensure all relevant staff were committed to doping-free competition.
She said TA was about to follow the recommendation of last year's Wood report into Australian cycling and introduce a declaration of integrity for all relevant personnel.
"They really need to be on their guard, all the time, about what their staff and the people you should be able to trust are doing," Gripper said.
She said Thursday's federal government bombshell about match-fixing and the use of performance-enhancing substances in Australian sport had some unsettling echoes.
"The parallels between what was revealed yesterday, what's happening in Australia, and what the situation in professional cycling was 10 years ago are quite strong," she said.
"For me, it is a sense of those people in the sport, who you should be able to trust, have let the athletes, players, clubs and employers down."
But she added the government announcement was not all bad news.
"Even though it's been said yesterday was a blackest day in Australian sport, it was an exceptionally bright day for athletes, coaches and sports scientists who choose to do the right thing," she said.
Gripper added that not many countries had enough resources to crack down properly on doping.
"There are only two countries in the world that could do this - that's the US and Australia.
"The UK are getting there."
Gripper helped introduce the biological passport to cycling and there is little doubt this has had an effect on doping in the sport.
But she said it only worked for blood doping at the moment - not peptides or growth hormones.
"It's getting to the point (with) hormone-based substances, there will be some way of detecting human growth hormones - it's still a little way from that," she said.
But Gripper said the current biological passport program could be applicable to the AFL.
"Certainly AFL players, they run 10km or something in a match, so that would make EPO and blood transfusions relevant to them," she said.
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[ The Age | Text-only index] | <urn:uuid:5c01acb0-f034-4ba9-a7d1-a41223676785> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-sport/ex-antidoping-chief-says-no-to-needles-20130208-2e46h.html?skin=text-only | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978194 | 705 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Originally from the US, Kim is an enthusiastic and innovative globally-minded educator. Kim has been teaching internationally for over 10 years, first in Munich, Germany, then in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, currently at the International School Bangkok in Thailand, and soon to be at Yokohama International School in Japan. As an Apple Distinguished Educator, her work focuses on helping core subject teachers authentically embed current and emerging technologies in the classroom to create a global and collaborative learning environment. Her inquiry-based, constructivist approach to teaching utilizes project-based learning experiences developed using the Understanding by Design process combined with the MYP Technology Design Cycle. Kim regularly consults with other international schools interested in implementing 21st century learning, has been profiled on a number of educational websites and journals, is a member of the K12 Horizon Report Advisory Board 2008 - 2010, and is a regular presenter and keynote speaker at conferences and professional development sessions throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Her professional blog, Always Learning (http://kimcofino.com/blog), is an invaluable resource for teachers seeking examples of authentic student engagement. | <urn:uuid:cfdb7033-846d-4250-8a94-5a5de6a0ed8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flatclassroomconference.com/kim-cofino.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936057 | 228 | 1.648438 | 2 |
[How to join] [Mailing List] [Other sites] ["Join #WASHU#" Program]
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Once upon a time, there was an anime series named Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki, which became very popular among many anime fans. From among these fans, there came to be organizations which were dedicated to specific characters within the series. From Sasami to Ryouko, and even Kagato.. However, as time progressed, some of the fans of the anime series noticed something not quite right with the whole situation--there was no organization dedicated to Washuu-chan!
One day, as Achan was chatting with Dr. Briefs on IRC, the subject of character-specific organizations came up, and it was revealed that Achan had wanted to begin such an organization for our beloved Washuu-chan, but there didn't seem to be enough people interested in such an organization. The possiblity of creating such a club/society existed, but time was just not ripe.
Some time later, discussions on the Tenchi Muyo Mailing List displayed a growing number of Tenchi fans who were also quite fond of Washuu-chan, and wanted to be in some kind of organization devoted specifically to her. With this, Achan was persuaded to carry out what she had only been musing of, and from this, came--#WASHU#!
#WASHU# was originally named...?
And so it came to be that now, Washuu-chan had her very own group of fans, who formed an organization for her namesake.
However, all was not completely well, as when the organization was started, it was tentatively named "The Washuu Appreciation Society"; in a 'Net environment filled with Appreciation Societies, starting with the Sasami Appreciation Society, some members felt that the name did not do the organization justice--it sounded like a "me too" organization, instead of a real one.
It was then decided that the members should try to come up with a name that really showed the true greatness of Washuu-chan. Several different names were suggested; a vote indicated that the name "Washuu's Academy of Science and Higher Understanding (#WASHU#)" (suggested by Rahvinn) was most liked, so it became our official name.
©1996-2000 #WASHU#, Washuu's Academy of Science and Higher Understanding. Tenchi Muyo! and all its characters are copyright AIC and Pioneer LDC, used with permission. Special thanks to Achan and Yagami.
Page created by Dr. Briefs, Capsule Corp. on Sunday, Dec. 22, 1996
Dr. Briefs is also a member of #SAS#, The Sasami Appreciation Society.
|Winner of Woozles' "Washuu Award"| | <urn:uuid:215f01be-1ac8-454e-aeaf-6d73f12e36ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capcorphq.com/WASHU.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980643 | 603 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Recent travels have delayed this posting, but the headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention were stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it.
Read more: HERE.
Reminded me of this old blog post (some links broken) from 2006 ...
Disseive, ME --
One of the first things you notice upon entering the Church of St Judas the Wonderwinker is how similar it looks to most other Orthodox Churches. That is, until closer inspection ...
The icon of the Mystical Supper above the holy doors looks just like others you may have seen. However, where Judas is usually portrayed reaching across the table to dip some food, here we see Jesus reaching out and shaking Judas’s hand. If you look closely you will notice that the two buddies are winking at each other.
The same is true of the large iconic depiction of the Crucifixion; there stands a male and a female figure beneath the Cross but, rather than St John the Divine and Jesus's mother, it's Judas and Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene looks enraptured and, of course, Jesus and Judas are winking.
The pews of St Judas the Wonderwinker are full to capacity on this bright spring day. The priest, Miriam Knott, whose patron is Mary Magdalene, first bishop of the Resurrection, has pastored the church since its founding in 2004. "Many claim that our fame and phenominal growth is due to Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code
, and other recent discoveries," she said. "However, I like to think that it's all about the truth. Finally, after all these centuries, the ancient light of the truth has dawned upon us. People are hungry for the truth and here at St Judas, that's what we're all about."
It is the belief of the church that, since Mary Magdalene was the first bishop of the Resurrection, only women should be ordained. However, Pastor Miriam's ordination to the priesthood was not without controversy. See, she used to be a man. "That's right," she says, "I used to live my life trapped in the guise of a man." She's quick to add, "But God had other plans."
"Besides, body = bad
, spirit = good.
[I had to note that while I was interviewing the Priestess, she kept batting one eye. When I asked her … er, him … uh, whatever, if there was something in his/her eye, she (you know who I’m talking about) said: “Why do you seek the speck in my eye when you’ve got a big log in your own?” Then, or so it seemed, she winked at me.]
The Liturgy at St Judas the Wonderwinker is a mish-mash of the Byzantine and Western Rites, along with a dash or two of Anglicanism and some cherished contemporary pagan rituals. During the exchange of the Peace the members greet each other with the words, “The Peace of Judas” and a wink. When I asked about the more common “Kiss of Peace,” they reacted with horror. [I later learned that since the former Scriptures portrayed Judas and kissing in a bad way, this was frowned upon.]
Most Gospel readings are taken from non-Orthodox (or, Orthodox, depending on your position) sources such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas
, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and other so-called “Lost Books
” of the Bible.
On this day, Mother Miriam blessed the Reader to read the Lesson from the book of Genesis. When I asked "you know who" why there was only an Old Testament reading appointed for that day, YKW explained, “There’s been so many lies about God and truth -- from the very beginning of Creation -- that we must begin at the beginning in educating God’s people.
"The Reading is from Genesis:"
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
"The Word of the Lord."
And the people responded, “Thanks be to God.”
[I must say, dear reader, that I was baffled by this shortened version of the Old Testament passage. Yet, when I asked about it, I was told that so many things had been added to the Scriptures over the years -- by scribes with agendas -- that the struggle toward truth requires constant vigilance and careful editing
Since the parish is obviously concerned about the authentic and ancient truth, I asked what role modern scholarship and current science played in the life of St Judas. "Oh, you ask an important question," YKW replied. "We are constantly finding out, through science and scholarship
, the truth. New revelations are manifest daily!"
When I asked by what authority the parish made such claims, I was told that they are completely led by the spirit
. "Yet," Knott added, "not all scholarship is reliable. Some goes up in smoke
All in all, I must confess, all that winking made me uncomfortable. But, the faithful of St Judas the Wonderwinker assured me that it is an ancient gesture which signifies the Enlightened ones.
I forgot to ask if their Bible included this scripture: Proverbs 6:12 - 19
Makes you wonder. Wink, wink. | <urn:uuid:ba6e0904-b247-4350-afee-a7ab94ea4d83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971505 | 1,299 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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