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President Obama’s canned explanation for his enormous deficits is so ridiculous, so ludicrous, the so-called fact checkers of the establishment media would be spraying Pinocchios with a fire hose if he were a Republican. [Continued below the chart]
A genuine explanation for the deficits would have to include thousands of spending line items, with entitlements being the largest category. But instead of giving his audience real information, the President repeats the same laughably simplistic script at every campaign stop and in every media interview. He assures us that he did almost nothing to contribute to the record-shattering deficits during his first three years. He inherited deficits, he claims, from “a decade of Bush policies.” A typical example was his Sixty Minutes interview when he said the deficits were
…a consequence of two wars that weren’t paid for, as a consequence of tax cuts that weren’t paid for, a prescription drug plan that was not paid for…
But as the chart above shows, compared to the rest of the federal government’s programs the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit that began in 2006 were tiny.
What does “not paid for” actually mean? The chart to the right shows government never collected less than ten times as much in tax revenue as it spent on the combined cost of the wars and the prescription drug benefit.
Of course there wasn’t enough tax revenue to pay for all government expenditures, resulting in deficits from 2002 on. But “not paid for” could be said of any of the thousands of budget line items.
By what criteria did Obama determine that these two expenses were the ones not paid for and that they cause the deficits even though they are but a tiny fraction of total spending? Why not blame ObamaCare or his $800 billion stimulus, or the Auto bailouts, or green energy subsidies, or Cash for Clunkers? He picked the wars and the drug benefit because they were Bush initiatives and he hopes they will be perceived by voters who don’t pay close attention as consistent with his his inherited-the-deficit narrative.
Ironically, whenever Obama speaks of the prescription drug benefit in the context of health care reform he criticizes it not for its cost but but for it not being generous enough!
What about “tax cuts that weren’t paid for”? [continued below the chart]
Obama’s mantra that the tax cuts “weren’t paid for” is contrived to create the false perception that tax revenue went down. But as the chart shows revenue was going down before 2003 when the current tax rates were enacted. Then, the trend reversed and revenue went up quickly for four years. Revenue did go down later, when taxable profits and incomes fell sharply due to the recession. But even though this recovery from recession has been the weakest on record revenue is coming back up, with no change from the Bush tax rates.
There is no historical basis for the belief so often expressed in the media that lower tax rates automatically bring in less tax revenue. There have been three rounds of major income tax rate reductions since World War II. Significant income tax revenue increases followed all three.
The reporters never ask President Obama the obvious follow-up questions:
- Regarding a tax cut, what does he mean by “paid for”? What would that look like?
- By his definition is there any historical example of any tax cut that was “paid for?”
Obama would be stuck for answers because his “paid for” assertion is not meant to be a statement of fact. It is meant to plant a false perception in the minds of the voters. | <urn:uuid:b2e58f47-b70a-4197-bf35-30489133bc50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://libertyworks.com/obamas-deficit-excuses-are-preposterous/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978933 | 770 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Evolution of a Visual Journalist
A lecture by Tom Kennedy
Former National Geographic Director of Photography and Managing Editor of Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive speaks about his and the visual journalism profession's transition to the digital age. Mr. Kennedy uses examples from his illustrious career to shed light on the future of journalism and lay out the 20 lessons he has learned from his experiences. Kennedy is currently a Resident Professional at the Knight Center for International Media at the School of Communication, University of Miami. This lecture took place on February 17, 2010 as part of the School of Communication's annual "Communication Week."
Produced by Trevor Green | <urn:uuid:5e294018-fef6-4b59-a43f-90481ab8716d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knight.miami.edu/index.php/site/story/evolution_of_a_visual_journalist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964242 | 127 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The World Today
ICELANDREYKJAVIK — Iceland’s most active volcano has started erupting, the national Meteorological Office said yesterday — just over a year after another eruption on the North Atlantic island shut down European air traffic for days. The eruption at the Grimsvotn volcano was accompanied by several small earthquakes. A no-fly zone has been designated for 120 nautical miles in all directions from the volcano, which is on the uninhabited Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland. Grimsvotn last erupted in 2004. Scientists have been expecting a new eruption there and have said previously that this one would probably be small and should not lead to the air travel chaos caused in April 2010 by ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.
New leader sworn in after unrestYAMOUSSOUKRO — President Alassane Ouattara was inaugurated yesterday, six months after outgoing president Laurent Gbagbo deployed the army to block roads leading to the hotel that had served as Ouattara’s campaign headquarters, touching off months of conflict. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and other heads of state attended the ceremony.
Woman held for fighting driving banRIYADH — Authorities detained a Saudi woman yesterday after she launched a campaign against the driving ban for women in the ultraconservative kingdom and posted a videotape of herself behind the wheel on Facebook and YouTube to encourage others to copy her. Manal al-Sherif went on a test drive in the eastern city of Khobar.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company. | <urn:uuid:ab15254b-e0e9-4e6a-befb-a11bdbd3a3ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2011/05/22/volcanic_eruption_reported_on_glacier/?camp=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955208 | 338 | 1.6875 | 2 |
It's already been noted that while the first scene of Zero Dark Thirty shows a terrorist being waterboarded, in reality, torture didn't yield information that led the CIA to Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. But now the film has the distinction of being labeled "grossly inaccurate and misleading" by three senators. The Wrap reports that on Wednesday, John McCain, Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin sent a letter (full text here) to Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton in which they write that the Senate Intelligence Committee found “the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program." Whether the film is endorsing torture, critiquing the practice, or simply showing that it was one of the methods used by the CIA at the time is up for debate, but according to the senators, the film "clearly implies that the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective" in the hunt for bin Laden. Though the senators are aware that the film isn't a documentary, they call out director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal for trying to have it both ways. They write that if the filmmakers are going to tout the extensive research that went into the film and open with the words "based on first-hand accounts of actual events" that gives them "an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather the part of the film's fictional narrative."
The letter goes on to condemn the United States' use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques and accuses the filmmakers of "perpetuating the myth that torture is effective."*
It's unclear how the senators want the studio to go about "correcting the impression" that torture played a role in the hunt for bin Laden, especially since the film opened in limited release on the day they sent the letter. (Reading a disclaimer from the Senate Intelligence Committee before every showing? Requiring actors to work the phrase "you know, they just made up all that torture stuff" into every interview?) Whatever the senators had in mind, it seems the filmmakers were unfazed by being dressed down on congressional letterhead. Sony responded with this statement from Bigelow and Boal:
"This was a 10-year intelligence operation brought to the screen in a two-and-a-half-hour film. We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden. The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes. One thing is clear: the single greatest factor in finding the world's most dangerous man was the hard work and dedication of the intelligence professionals who spent years working on this global effort. We encourage people to see the film before characterizing it."
* This post has been corrected. It originally mistranscribed the quote as saying "ineffective" instead of "effective," reversing the letter's intent. | <urn:uuid:b0e55476-8472-40a2-bcfc-36471f84a04e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vulture.com/2012/12/senators-blast-zero-dark-thirty-torture-scene.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965621 | 628 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Couples like Jennifer and Kendall travel to India because the cost of a surrogate pregnancy there is much cheaper than in the United States. At the clinic in Anand, having a baby with a surrogate costs roughly $12,000—instead of up to about $80,000 in America.
Because surrogate mothers in India make so much less money than those in the United States, some worry these women are being exploited. According to Lisa, this is absolutely not the case. "This is so transformative," Lisa says. "So many people from Europe and other countries come to the United States, but it's so expensive. No one says that American women are being exploited when they become surrogates."
To those who worry about exploitation, Jennifer says someone who hasn't been in her situation should not judge. "You have not walked in my shoes as someone who cannot have a child," she says. "And you don't know how it feels to not be able to pay for your children to go to school, to not be able to ... take care of your family. You don't know how that feels. And we were able to come together, [Sangita] and I, and give each other a life that neither of us could achieve on our own. And I just don't see what's wrong with that." | <urn:uuid:15619f57-39c3-4610-8010-471418ad714c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oprah.com/world/Wombs-for-Rent/6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989224 | 269 | 1.625 | 2 |
Alaska e-Post online
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Richardson children star in production at Post Theater
Fort Richardson PAO
The anticipation in the air was so thick it could be spooned up.
Excited laughter bounced off the walls as more than 50 children practiced their parts March 13 in the Fort Richardson Post Theater prior to their production of "The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe."
The children had the unique opportunity to participate in the play during spring break as a part of the Missoula Children's Theatre tour, a nationally renowned theater program that provides professional actors and directors to help children put on a theatrical production within a week.
MCT visited Fort Richardson March 9 through 13 with the basics to put on a play, to include scenery, costumes, props, make-up and lighting. All that was missing was the cast.
That's where the Fort Richardson children came in.
No prior acting or singing experience was necessary for children to participate, said Angele Bell, the Fort Richardson SKIESUnlimited director.
"I just wanted to try it," said 11-year-old Sinead Bolton, who portrayed Robinson Crusoe. "I never thought I would get the lead part."
Tryouts were offered for children in kindergarten through sixth grade, who participated in two free community performances March 13 and Saturday.
"I tried out because I wanted everyone to see me do great," said Aaliyah Warner, 6.
Warner played one of the 10 chameleons in the play, which is based loosely on the novel by Daniel Defoe.
"We get to act like real chameleons," Warner said. "It's very fun."
Touring since 1973, MCT visits nearly 1,100 communities annually in all 50 states, four Canadian provinces, the Canadian Arctic, Cuba, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim. They have also taken this unique theater experience to military installations around the world.
This is the first time they have been to Fort Richardson, Bell said.
"It's a great full-time job," said Rachel Penny with the Missoula Children's Theatre. Penny played the role of Friday in the production, while her cohort, Anna Miller, functioned as the play's director.
"The most rewarding part is to see a child that might be a little shy coming in, but by the end of the week they are the loudest one on the stage," Penny said.
photos by Sharon McBride/Fort Richardson PAO Click photos to enlarge
Anna Miller, with the Missoula Children's Theatre, fixes the make-up of a youth portraying a goat before a performance of "The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" March 13 at the Fort Richardson Post Theater.
The Goats, portrayed by Cameron Vohnoutka, Carson Tobin, Tyler Benton, Jimmy Bolton, Sarah Rowe and Maiya Dotson, rehearse lines March 13.
Momma Crusoe, portrayed by Jennifer Zamarron, and Wilson, portrayed by Maiya Dotson, take a break prior to their performance in "The Amazing Adventures Robinson Crusoe." the youth were just two of the actors chosen for parts during the Missoula Children's Theatre visit to Fort Richardson March 9 to 13.
Oscar the Octopus, played by Savannah Benton, gets some last-minute instructions before going on stage to perform in "The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" March 13.
Christian Colon, a member of the Very Hairy Frowny-Face Tribe, gets his wig adjusted by Rachel Penny with the Missoula Children's Theatre. The group visited Fort Richardson during spring break to give children registered with Child, Youth and School Services program a chance to star in a play.
Friday's family goes through their lines before their performance of "The Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" at the Post Theater March 13. More than 60 children tried out for parts when the Missoula Children's Theatre visited Fort Richardson March 9 to 13. | <urn:uuid:996374b2-21ab-4fc4-9801-a1bb627492da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usarak.army.mil/AlaskaPost/Archives2009/090320/Mar20Story20.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968282 | 834 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Post-mortem analysis on Jordan’s Prime Minister
Question #224 on the DAGGRE site resolved as “yes,” giving another surprise to many forecasters who gave a low probability for the question. Our Brier score, which refers to the distance between our forecast and the true answer, was 1.2. The Brier score ranges from 0..2, with perfect predictions getting 0, while a coin toss gets 0.5. This should prompt us to look back and see what we might have missed.
There were quite a few indicators available to forecasters before October 10 that Fayez Tarawneh would cease to be Prime Minister of Jordan. Going back to September 8, there were already reports of widespread distrust of the transitional government by the Jordanian people. Rising gasoline prices led to widespread protests demanding resignations from the Prime Minister and his cabinet. The lower house of parliament also signed a motion of no confidence against Tarawneh’s government.
An article from The Guardian on October 4 led with a sub-heading, “King Abdullah set to appoint fifth prime minister since start of Arab spring as opposition prepares for protest.” The article goes on to discuss how the current Parliament was being dissolved and even states that Tarawneh was only a “stopgap” for the rapidly evolving government. Jordan’s constitution states that the cabinet must resign within a week of parliament’s dissolution.
BBC News corroborated reports of Jordan’s dissolved parliament. The article notes that King Abdullah has made changes to the government in the past when the Jordanian people express discontent. Elections for a new government were expected to be set before the end of the year. | <urn:uuid:d0337c60-9ce8-4c98-9f28-d1c2175b5ab1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.daggre.org/2012/10/16/post-mortem-analysis-q-224/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970453 | 346 | 1.742188 | 2 |
“Mailer, after all, was the sort of author who could both dazzle and infuriate, often within the space of a single paragraph. He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his.”
David L. Ulin, LA Times Staff Writer
The trouble with reading books by Norman Mailer is there is too much of Norman in them. Such a dominating character in American literary art, to read him is to sense he is trying to dominate the reader as well. To “dazzle and infuriate” as David Ulin says above. His foray into the mysterious nature and ways of Lee Oswald in his Oswald’s Tale is a prime example of that. There are some new tidbits scattered about and his foray into Russia seeking new information regarding Oswald’s time there which is informative, but Mailer is sticking to the script. The Lone Gunman is staying alone. Much of the book features Warren Commission interview transcripts and abundant sections of written work by other authors (largely, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, interviewer of Oswald in Moscow in 1959 and Marina Oswald’s biographer and also, a known CIA dabbler which is never admitted to in this book.) Occasionally, Mailer throws in tasty little morsels of his own to consider.
Mailer back in the day, was a conspiracy believer and then at some point decided the evidence did not merit that view and joined up with the Lone Nut purists where he stayed during his final days. That influence can seen throughout the book. Mailer takes a conventional view of the life of Lee Oswald, though he seems fascinated with forays into his personal habits, idiosyncrasies and sex life. Ironic that Mailer explores Oswald’s sexual habits in detail while ignoring more celebrated topics, such as, was he an intelligence agent as his mother claimed? There are so many controversies here that Mailer never addresses as if he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the thing.
How Mailer Deals With Controversy
Mailer resorts to the same parsing of selective evidence as Posner, Bugliosi, and a host of other Warren Report defenders do. That of course, comes as no surprise.
A case in point his how his handles Oswald’s street scuffle with DRE member Carlos Bringuier while handling out pamphlets for the pro-Castro FPCC which has Oswald arrested, provides him local media time and establishes his persona as a communist in the public’s eye.
But along the way something odd happens that lets us know there is more here than meets the eye. Because Oswald mails a letter to the FPCC headquarters in New York vaguely describing the altercation. The trouble is, it was postmarked before the scuffle took place. This one little thing casts doubt on this street tussle being a spontaneous affair and implies it was a preplanned event. In CIA parlance, Oswald was being built a Legend. A common procedure of spy-craft.
And how does our great American literary figure handle this? Mailer recruits cabalist traditions and Classical Hebrew, with notions of calling things into being so as to create one’s future. In Mailer’s words, “To say, therefore, that you have done something that you have not yet done becomes the first and essential step in shaping the future.”
Sure, sure. Mailer resorts to metaphysics while missing the obvious–that Oswald mailed the letter too early for what was apparently a contrived event. Earlier, Oswald had approached the DRE to offer his Marine experience to Carlos Bringuier to train them. He offered them a donation as well and was rebuffed on both counts. It should be pointed out here, that the all Cuban DRE was being trained and financed by the CIA. A fact that Mailer never points out to his readers. Evidently, Oswald was on a fishing expedition, doing the labor of a “dangle” for somebody or some agency.
Frankly, I am perplexed as to why he would resort to this. It’s Mailer the novelist speaking here, not Mailer the seeker of the truth. I find it hard to believe that he even has confidence in these words. It is an odd way to brush off the controversy and it just doesn’t work on many levels. For a man so brilliant to revert to this weirdness is absurd but Mailer does so with no shame at all.
I guess when the mind is made up that there can’t be a conspiracy; that Lee Oswald is only lurching from one delusion and flight of fancy to the next, with no greater cause in effect.
While investigation Lee Oswald’s Russian period, Mailer gets access to KGB transcripts taken from bugs that were placed in Oswald and Marina’s apartment. Ample sections of these are reproduced in the book. Basically, I found them not to add much light on Oswald’s character and it all amounts to a lot of bickering between a newly married couple. It’s essentially boring.
However, one item stands out, and it’s another thing Mailer omits–and that is what language are they speaking in? While it is known that Oswald was an excellent Russian speaker, it is also known that during his time in Russia he didn’t show off that skill that much. He apparently did upon meeting Marina, who thought at first he was a local as he spoke with a Baltic accent. But when socializing with the Ziger family, they report he never spoke Russian in front of them, only in English to their father who understood English. Fearing being arrested for being spy, which he most likely was, Oswald never wanted this skill to be known to those who were listening in on him. It would denote a swift arrest for espionage.
Conversely, his wife Marina was apparently a very good English speaker but spoke little of it when she emigrated over to the United States. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, states that he saw Marina’s handwritten notebooks in the National Archives and they were all in English. Lee wrote Marina letters in English to her while living in Russia and those are in evidence. Even mother Marguerite reveals in her Commission testimony detailed conversations she had with her daughter in law–conversations in English, without anyone to render in Russian. Yet Marina needs a translator to give her sworn testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. What is going on here? Evidently, she was under similar pressures in America as Lee was in Russia. Which of course, would fashion her an operative as well. At any rate, both were in a Cold War contest to not reveal too much of who they are and what they know to the Big Players.
And all of this interesting stuff Mailer ignores to create his vision of Lee Oswald as Walter Mitty, with his visions of greatness, constantly encountering dead ends, seeing his destiny smothered before his eyes. The other Oswald, the one that was a shadow warrior for the Home Team, which would explain a lot of his mysterious undertakings, has no place in the narrative, Mailer’s narrative.
The Pay Off
So when the smoke clears we’ve got our lone gunman solely responsible for the act and it’s time to move along. It’s all a sad dream anyway. As I was reading this work, I kept getting the feeling that Mailer would rather have jotted this all down as a novel. After all, he considered the novel to be the apex of literary art, and art he had a gift for. He at times uses the same devices one does in fiction writing and those devices seem out of place, like when invents the metaphysical reason for Oswald’s forecast of a scuffle in a letter before the event happens to work his way out of that mess. This is what a fiction writer does–gives his character some luck out of nowhere to extract himself from a crisis. When Mailer doesn’t wish to deal with something troublesome, he ignores it. At times he seems set on exposing a deep truth and then veers off of it as it if the whole scene got too hot. Towards the end he refers to Lee Oswald as a ghost; the First Ghost he says. As if there are not hundreds of other ghosts haunting the American historical landscape. Once again, a metaphor better suited in fiction.
Oswald’s Tale takes off like it’s going to be an interesting, groundbreaking book, but that never happens as it fades into the same old thing for those of us familiar with the Oswald story. There are lots of fields left fallow, as Mailer never wants to deal with any of the major controversies in the case. After all, that might muddy up the nice, clean story being presented. Even at this late stage in JFK assassination research, by hundreds of researchers, Mailer still thinks the men selected to be a part of the commission were honorable and above reproach. You can still think that so long as your ignore their histories as Mailer does. Like many of his ilk, the Warren Report stands as the final authority on what happened and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the last official government investigation conducted in the late 1970s, which concluded in its report there was a probable conspiracy, is given no consideration at all.
Oswald’s Tale is really the same account of Lee Oswald’s life the Warren Report told us, just with better prose. | <urn:uuid:f76d7c64-4708-4a36-99f5-9417775148e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-review-oswalds-tale-american.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981404 | 2,003 | 1.5 | 2 |
Thursday, March 18, 2010
As I was reading the news stories of the day like I typically do, I came across a story I had grown too naive to expect. The Associated Press reported the story of a racist incident that occurred at a New Jersey Wal-Mart. An announcement was made over the PA system instructing Black patrons to "leave the store now". As the statement marinated into the minds of the customers, naturally, outrage broke out. Of course, there was a swift apology following the announcement.WHATEVER. But the act didn't frustrate me nearly as much as my reaction to it did. I was surprised...and I had to slap myself for being surprised. It was at this moment that I realized how complacent a lot of us (Blacks) have become with our status in American society. Racism isn't dead. And this article is just proof that it doesn't even necessarily have a new face. We like to think that long gone are the days where we were not welcome in most white-owned establishments. We've gotten 20 acres and half of a mule and we have settled. So concerned are we with not wanting to stir up any "trouble" and disrupt our bootleg paradise, that we lack the fight that our foremothers and forefathers had. This isn't a time for complacency...that is exactly what the members of racist America. President Obama's election didn't signal the end of racism, just a small victory in the journey to overcome it. Let's get our heads out of the clouds and not fall for the distractions. There is much work to be done, and it falls on our generation. We need leaders for TODAY; stop waiting for tomorrow or for someone else to grab the torch. We need to take action NOW. And the fight isn't ours alone. Back in January, ABC News ran a story where the set up a scenario in a New York deli. Hispanic actors attempted to order in very broken English, only to be met with harsh racial and ethnic comments from the clerk (who was also an actor). Sadly, the majority of the patrons in the deli did not offer much or any assistance. Truth be told, EVERYONE in America has lineage OUTSIDE of the United States (except the Native Americans). No one is more American than anyone else, and it isn't anyone's place to believe themselves to be better than ANYONE else, especially for a reason as STUPID, IDIOTIC, and IGNORANT as the color of their skin. How EDUCATED is that?! Not very.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The 2010 NFL Scouting Combine is over. We've witnessed top prospects NOT live up to the hype (*cough* Joe Haden *cough*), and some standout performances for some solid athletes. Yes, yes. But perhaps the highlight of the entire combine was USC's star safety Taylor Mays' stunning 4.4 forty. Safeties are swift. That's just the nature of the position. But let's look at Mays' size. The guy is 6'3", 230 lbs. His 40 time smashed those of some of the smaller and theoretically more agile running backs (i.e., Mississippi's Dexter McCluster at 5'9", 172 lbs). So what does Mays possess that some of these other guys don't? EXPLOSIVENESS. Anyone who watched Mays' 40-yard dash witnessed this explosiveness at the sound of the gun. Sheer power out of the gate. This power is going to be a great asset in the backfield for whichever team picks this guy up. Now, yes...he's a bit sloppy. But if he hones his skills, works on his coverage a bit, he could be GREAT. I may be a little biased; my favorite player of all time was an AMAZING safety (Ronnie Lott, San Francisco 49ers!). But I see the same strength and power in Mays...just unrefined. All in all, I'm expecting great things from him; I just hope he's mature enough for the league...and has that Ronnie Lott class.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Look at it. Mouth-watering goodness. Behold...the infamous McDonald's double cheeseburger. This little sucker right here has been a staple in my diet for, well, FOREVER. I'm pretty sure my Mom realized Happy Meals wouldn't suffice for me when I was about four. If it weren't for this amazing metabolism of mine (which I'm thankful for DAILY), I'd probably be on True Life: I'm Obese. Anyway, as I approach the tender age of 22, I'm at about three double cheeseburgers a week...on average. And you know what? I'm not the least bit ashamed of it. But what better to sacrifice for the Lent season than this? Well, it's been about two weeks now...and I'm DYING! The first three to four days were GRAVY. But slowly but surely, my body started to realize that something was missing. I literally feel SICK haha. From headaches to just not craving anything else. Cheesesteaks haven't even quenched the craving. Everyone says eating a regular cheeseburger would be considered cheating...so that's out of the question. I guess I understand how drug addicts feel. No bueno. But I shall not regress. My friends have already taken bets on how long I will last. Terrible. But I will prove you pieces of trash wrong! YES! But real talk, check up on me periodically to make sure I haven't lost my mind... | <urn:uuid:efda6427-2235-41ca-bbf9-ed04f280b618> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tifferbellnine.blogspot.jp/2010_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973403 | 1,170 | 1.632813 | 2 |
NEWS IN BRIEF
Tourism upswing propels visitor spending in state
Maryland tourists and travelers spent $13.1 billion on travel expenses in 2010 – a 4.3 percent increase over 2009 – according to a study released by the Maryland Office of Tourism Development, a division of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED). The study is based on The Economic Impact of Tourism in Maryland Tourism Satellite Account as reported by Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company.
Transportation and food accounted for the largest share of visitor spending, followed by spending on lodging, shopping and entertainment. The number of visitors traveling in the state has also been on the upswing. Maryland welcomed 32.2 million domestic visitors in 2010, an increase of 10.7 percent over 2009.
"Tourism continues to be a powerful economic engine for Maryland," said DBED Secretary Christian Johansson. "On average, spending from 166 visitors supports one job in Maryland – with 130,000 Marylanders directly employed in full-time tourism activities. The tourism industry not only creates and sustains jobs, it generates substantial tax revenue and business income."
Though Tourism Satellite Account data is available on a yearly basis, other performance measures – such as tourism tax codes – are available more frequently. The Comptroller's Office reported that these tax codes – in accordance with the formula used by the Tourism Promotion Act – generated $359.5 million in state sales-tax revenue during fiscal 2011. This increase of 5.1 percent over fiscal 2010 is greater than the 3.6 percent growth of overall sales-tax revenue by 40 percent.
Greg Shockley, chair of the Maryland Tourism Development Board and owner of Shenanigan's Irish Pub in Ocean City, noted that the nearly $360 million generated by tourism in sales-tax revenue represents "a return of $43 for every dollar invested in tourism funding," considering that state invested $8.3 million in general funds in fiscal 2011 for the tourism office and tourism board.
Governor's budget calls for improvements at parks
Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposed capital budget for fiscal 2013 includes nearly $23 million in funding for state parks and other public-land projects.
"Today, we're proposing to invest $22.7 million from our capital budget to make much-needed improvements to our state parks – an investment that will support nearly 300 jobs in our state, help us make our parks more sustainable and support our thriving tourism industry," said Gov. O'Malley, Jan. 13, at Sandy Point State Park near Annapolis. Our state parks are tremendous economic engines with a $650 million annual impact on our local economies, a great resource for Maryland families, and a big part of why our tourism industry remains so strong even in tough times."
Funding includes more than $14 million in enhancements from the governor's capital budget, in addition to $8.7 million derived from the Department of Natural Resources annual transfer tax allocation for a diverse set of projects to improve infrastructure, "green" state parks and protect the Chesapeake Bay.
The Maryland Park Service has embarked on a system-wide commitment to "green" its 66 state parks – which host more than 10 million visitors each year – as models of sustainability and conservation best practices. Strategic actions to date have focused on energy improvements, new state-of-the-art green building design and construction, sustainable trails and recycling, and environmental restoration.
New plan calls for redevelopment of two northern I-95 travel plazas
The Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) has approved a plan to redevelop and operate the two aging travel plazas along John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (I-95) in northeast Maryland through a public-private partnership with Areas USA MDTP, LLC.
Pending Board of Public Works approval and a 30-day review by the Maryland General Assembly, Areas USA will invest $56 million to redesign and rebuild both the 48-year-old Maryland House and 36-year-old Chesapeake House travel plazas, and will operate and maintain the plazas through 2047. The state retains ownership and oversight of the travel plazas, while receiving revenue over the course of the agreement estimated at more than $400 million.
"By joining forces with the private sector we can generate the type of investment needed in these tough economic times that will allow us to build the infrastructure we need and create jobs," said Mary Beyer Halsey, an MDTA board member and co-chair of the committee overseeing the travel plaza initiative. "In this case, the agreement to rebuild the travel plazas will bring an estimated 400 construction jobs to our state.
View renderings of the redevelopment plans for Maryland House and Chesapeake House.
Papa John's becomes first corporate partner of SS200
Gov. Martin O'Malley announced that Papa John's has become the first founding corporate partner of Star-Spangled 200 (SS200), Inc., the nonprofit affiliate of the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission. The commission and SS200 are planning a multi-year commemoration of the bicentennial, starting with an international maritime festival and air show – Star-Spangled Sailabration – in June at Baltimore's Inner Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay region.
"Maryland is the centerpiece of our nation's commemoration of the War of 1812," said Gov. O'Malley. "I'd like to thank Papa John's for supporting our state as we, the revolutionary people of Maryland, celebrate our revolutionary history."
The three-year partnership provides Papa John's with marketing, public relations, signage and advertising benefits, as well as exclusive pizza vending rights at all Star-Spangled 200 events, including Star-Spangled Sailabration, June 13-19.
"By partnering with Star-Spangled 200, Papa John's is not only promoting Maryland's state-wide commemoration, but also giving its Maryland customers a unique way to support the initiative, just by ordering their favorite pizza," said Bob Billman, operations vice president for Papa John's.
Help support the bicentennial: order online at Papa John's
- Order Papa John's pizza and get 10 percent off. Papa John's donates 10 percent of the price of the order to Star-Spangled 200. Use promo code: SS200.
- Or, order Papa John's pizza without a discount and Papa John's donates 20 percent to Star-Spangled 200. Use promo code: 1812.
- All orders must be online at www.papajohns.com. These promotions are good only for regular-priced items at Papa John's stores in Maryland.
SS200 hires Coiron to head sales of commemorative coins
Michele Coiron has joined Star-Spangled, 200, Inc. (SS200), as director of sales for the Star-Spangled Banner Commemorative Coins. She is coordinating the marketing of the coins – to be available in early March – with the U.S. Mint. Surcharge proceeds from the coin sales will go to the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission to help fund the state's bicentennial investments.
Coiron is a former executive director of the Historic Charles Street Association in Baltimore. Previously, she worked on the paper side of the graphic arts industry, managing U.S. sales territories for both a European and domestic manufacturer. A New Orleans native, she has resided in Baltimore for the past 10 years.
The Mint will produce 100,000 gold coins and 500,000 silver coins. A depiction of a naval battle scene from the War of 1812 is on one side of the gold coin. The reverse side has the words "O say can you see" in a reproduction of Francis Scott Key's handwriting. The silver coin has "Lady Liberty" waving the 15-star, 15-stripe Star-Spangled Banner flag with Fort McHenry in the background. A contemporary American flag is on the other side.
For information about purchasing the coins, call or e-mail Michele Coiron at 410-767-6279.
Western Maryland winery owner leads state wineries
Richard Seibert, co-owner and managing partner of Knob Hall Winery in Washington County, was elected president of the Maryland Wineries Association. He began his term Jan. 1. The association represents 53 licensed wineries and expects to add eight more in 2012.
Knob Hall is located in Clear Spring. It had its first harvest in 2009 and completed its first bottling in 2010. Since then, the winery entered four of its wines in the annual Maryland Governor's Cup competition and won three gold medals and one "best of class."
A Hagerstown native, Seibert spent 20 years at the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, D.C., where he directed public affairs programs related to energy, the environment and natural resources. After moving to Annapolis, he established a public policy think tank that addresses energy, environmental, health and safety issues.
Seibert inherited his family's 175-acre farm, Knob Hall, in 2006. The farm has been in his family for more than 200 years. In 2007, he began planting grapes. Seibert's wife, Mary Beth, is Knob Hall's winemaker.
Tourism sales-tax revenue up nearly 6 percent over last year
The latest issue of the Maryland Tourism Monitor — the Office of Tourism's monthly report on measures for visitation and marketing, tourism-related sales taxes and leisure and hospitality jobs — is available online.
Among its findings: Sales-tax revenue from tourism tax codes grew 5.8 percent — close to 40 percent more than the 4.2 percent rate of growth for overall sales-tax revenue through November of this fiscal year. Additionally, with an increased advertising budget, the tourism office has seen 76 percent more web advertising responses, 57 percent more print advertising responses and more than double the number of broadcast responses compared to the same time period last year.
The Maryland Lodging Monitor for 2011 is also available online. It includes Smith Travel Research data for Maryland counties and regions for the last calendar year.
||Maryland Life magazine's February issue features The Good Fight: Why the War of 1812 matters. The six-page spread includes a story by Ron Soodalter and artwork from the Maryland Historical Society. In a separate Q&A with Gov. Martin O'Malley, the governor discusses the legacy and upcoming bicentennial commemoration of the war.
Historic St. Mary's City received an Award of Merit from The Society for Historical Archaeology during the organization's 45th annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, held in Baltimore earlier this month. St. Mary's City garnered recognition for more than four decades of preserving, protecting, and interpreting Maryland's "ancient and chief seat of government" as an archaeological treasure for the public. The National Park Service had previously named St. Mary's City as "probably the most intact 17th-century English town surviving in our nation … represented entirely by archaeological resources."
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says it plans to conduct a public-opinion survey on a proposal to reintroduce elk to western Maryland, beginning in February. DNR Secretary John Griffin says the survey will cover issues ranging from the impact of elk on agriculture to potential economic benefits and tourism opportunities. The survey will focus on residents in western Maryland and a final report is expected in April.
January restaurant weeks offer new dining experiences
Explore area restaurants and new cuisines during these January restaurant weeks. Prix-fixe lunches and dinners at special prices are offered at participating restaurants. Check below locations for details.
Film festival for kids runs Jan. 28 in Frederick
The second annual Maryland International Kids FilmFest, a spin-off of the Frederick Film Festival, runs Saturday, Jan. 28 at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in downtown Frederick. Event includes animation workshops and the screening of more than 50 short films. Two Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit films – The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave – will be shown in the evening. Tickets are $10 for the day. Purchase information online.
MPT documentary takes a look at Maryland's historic barns
Maryland Public Television (MPT) broadcasts Historic Barns of Maryland: An Outdoors Maryland Special, Feb. 29 at 8 p.m. The hour documentary also airs, March 10 at 5:30 p.m., March 21 at 10:30 p.m., and March 22 at 1:30 a.m. View a preview.
"Historic Barns of Maryland features interviews with farmers, builders, preservationists, architects, artists, and historians," say MPT on its web site, "and examines the construction, use, and re-purposing of these classic American structures – from the tobacco barns of the lower Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland and the red bank barns of the Piedmont plateau, to an innovative barn quilt project in Garrett County."
Learn where to take tour groups in Baltimore
Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA) offers tour-guide training and certification in anticipation of the War of 1812 bicentennial commemoration. Two sessions of the full-day program – March 10 and March 24 – feature local historians and scholars, and a comprehensive bus tour of Baltimore sites and attractions. Cost is $75. Program includes lunch and a Greater Baltimore History Alliance Museum pass (more than 30 participating members) valued at $150. For more information, call BNHA at 410-878-6411. Or, e-mail Shauntee Daniels at BNHA, or Chris Riehl at Baltimore Rent a Tour. | <urn:uuid:365a4942-5094-4e48-8f71-8e9e3a85b39f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitmaryland.org/Newsletter/Insights/01.25.12/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934192 | 2,817 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Among the green-trimmed houses on High street in Edgartown, Norman Bridwell’s home sticks out. The shutters and doors are bright red. And in the window hangs a paper-sized illustration of a familiar dog — a big, red dog to be exact.
“Red has been good to me,” said Mr. Bridwell (84) at his home last week.
Fifty years ago Mr. Bridwell drew a picture of a little girl taking cover from a rainstorm under the chin of her larger-than-life bloodhound. Mr. Bridwell smeared the grass green, the little girl’s dress lavender and her hair blonde.
“When it came to the dog, I had a jar of bright, blazing red paint on my desk,” said Mr. Bridwell. “I thought, well, I got this big dog, why make him black, brown or white? I’ll make him fire engine red.”
That turned out to be a good idea.
On Monday Mr. Bridwell celebrated Clifford the Big Red Dog’s 50th birthday in New York city in front of the Scholastic headquarters. During the past half-century, Mr. Bridwell has written 90 books about Clifford that have been translated into 13 different languages.
Captured on a live stream reaching more than 5,000 classrooms across the country, 200 school children dressed in red and wearing floppy dog ears on their heads gathered on Broadway as Mr. Bridwell answered their questions, such as, “Why does Clifford always get in trouble?”
Mr. Bridwell chuckled and responded. “He gets in trouble because he’s trying to do things other dogs are doing. He means well, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. But he’s always forgiven.”
Clifford is not the only one known for getting in trouble.
Back in his Edgartown home a few days before heading to New York for the celebration, Mr. Bridwell spent the afternoon responding to fan mail, as his wife, Norma Bridwell, set out tea and cookies.
“Norman always had a funny comment about everything,” said Mrs. Bridwell. “And unfortunately that went all through school and it did not go very well with the teachers.”
Mr. Bridwell smiled. “I have to admit. My little wisecracks were not appreciated.”
He remembers even his college friends telling him “Oh, you’re just a young clown.”
“But it worked,” he said. “Clowning paid off.”
As a young boy growing up in the quiet town of Kokomo, Indiana, Mr. Bridwell would entertain himself on the walks to and from school by imagining adventurous characters and then in the evening drawing them on scrap paper.
“But I never thought about writing a book,” he said. “Any efforts to write on my part were discouraged by my high school teachers.”
He added, “I was no good at carpentry or fixing cars. Drawing was the only thing I could do. And even that wasn’t too good. If I’d been a better artist I might not have ever written the book.”
After art school and a few other odd jobs, Mr. Bridwell illustrated for a company in New York city that made film strips and slides. His job was to inject humor into the dry, dull strips.
Work slowed, and it was his wife Norma who suggested he try to illustrate a children’s book.
With a handful of samples, including the painting of the big red dog, he tried 12 different publishers.
“I was rejected at every place,” he said. “One woman said to me, ‘You know, you’re not very good. Your artwork is not beautiful or different. If you ever want to illustrate a book, you’re going to have to write one of your own.’”
Within three days he made up a story of what it would be like to have a big red dog. Norma bound his pencil drawings into a little book, and the book then moved quickly from their house, to a publisher’s desk, to the Scholastic office.
In September of 1962, Clifford the Big Red Dog was published.
“I got the phone call and was absolutely stunned,” he said.
In fact, he still seems a bit stunned.
“I was very fortunate to have one book published, I didn’t count on anymore,” said Mr. Bridwell. “I got to see a lot of stuff I never thought I’d see, all because of Clifford.”
Among the thousands of pieces of fan mail, he has even made some long-standing pen pals.
“I had one letter from a little boy. There was something about it. His spelling wasn’t perfect, his writing wasn’t very good. But his thoughts were kind of different. So I wrote back to him.” “Then I got a letter from his mother saying ‘You don’t know what you’ve done for my son. He’s always been kind of the butt of the jokes at school and kind of shy. He got your letter and showed it to the kids at school. It gave him a boost of morale. He’s changed, and more outgoing now.’”
The two still write to each other, Mr. Bridwell said.
Mr. Bridwell also travels to classrooms all over the world to read to children and draw for them, sharing his humor and humility.
“I would encourage the children to be creative. You never knew who you were talking to, who is out there. Some budding author or artist who might be a little discouraged as I was when I was in school.
“I never thought about teaching anything. But people see something in Clifford, just in his personality, of being helpful, making mistakes and being forgiven. They see things there that I didn’t dream were there. They are just part of the story to me.” | <urn:uuid:cf66cf83-3dfe-42e5-b1ae-cff5f08b44ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mailto:[email protected]/news/2012/09/28/happy-half-century-big-red-doggy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98429 | 1,328 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The Safe Place for Youth program needs volunteers to provide host homes for a maximum of 30 days and to support other program services. For volunteer information, call 363-0048.
Among the services
Safe Place for Youth services include:
Round-the-clock access to help, every day of the week.
Crisis assessment and stabilization.
Supportive case management.
Individual and family counseling.
Temporary host home.
Safe sites where young people can go to ask for help. There are 42 in Madison County.
The Madison County Safe Place for Youth program is looking for caring families willing to provide a temporary home for young people who are working out a personal or family crisis.
Betty Ann Liddell is associate vice president of the Childhood and Family Services division of Liberty Resources, the private not-for-profit that runs Safe Place for Youth. She said Madison County is one of three communities Liberty serves in New York state.
Safe Place — among its array of services — provides host homes for youths who are homeless or are at risk in other ways. Volunteers agree to house them for a maximum of 30 days and support other program services.
“The demand is there,” Liddell said. “We serve between 60 to 75 kids a year. During the daytime we hear from students, families, friends and counselors (and) in the evening we have the crisis line ... (so youths can) get in touch with crisis managers on call.”
Not every young person who uses the service needs a host home, Liddell said. But the temporary housing aspect is one necessary to receive federal funding, she said.
The program is losing its last volunteer home soon and needs to certify another this summer to avoid funding cuts, she said.
“We’re in panic mode,” Liddell said.
“I’ve been going to churches and organizations all over” to get the word out about host homes, said Matt Lowery, case manager for the program.
Liddell said, despite funding cuts over the last few years, the number of youth Safe Place serves has remained steady.
“I’m only in my office two hours a day at most,” Lowery said. “The rest of the time I’m at a client’s house or at a Safe Site or in the halls of a school.”
The program has set up 42 Safe Sites where youth can go when they are in a crisis situation. Twelve sites are in schools and the rest are in libraries, restaurants, convenience stores and other public places where young people typically congregate, so they feel comfortable when they need somewhere safe to go, he said. They dot the county from Brookfield, site of the Madison County Fair, to Bridgeport, almost 60 miles away on the Onondaga County border.
Liddell said she and Lowery solicit Safe Site participants and then train them how to help a young person who might show up.
“We train them in the protocol of what they can and can’t do, and after they are certified they can hang up the insignia ... on their door,” she said. “We also do annual Safe Site checks.”
Lowery said the crisis that sends a youth to a Safe Place for Youth program might be as simple as trouble with schoolwork.
“I’ll work with them to get them through it,” he said
On the other hand, the crisis could be more threatening, like drug or alcohol use, bullying or abuse at home, he said.
In those cases, he provides specific services or refers the youth to another specific service agency.
The program doesn’t work in a vacuum, Lowery said.
For example, being a member of the Madison County Drug Free Task
Force “gives me a chance to network with other agencies that work with young people, to find out what practices work for them that we can use in Safe Place for Youth,” he said.
By R. Patrick Corbett | <urn:uuid:02729405-e7f6-4eb1-b2e6-c49b655f17de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.syracuse.com/neighbors/2012/05/madison_county_safe_place_program_seeking_more_safe_places.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952454 | 852 | 1.632813 | 2 |
I have been a teacher in the Homewood community for more than twenty years. I am also a proud member of the Illinois Education Association. Today, however, I wear the hat of a citizen, a resident of Homewood. I want our community and ALL Illinois communities to understand the ramifications of Governor Quinn's Pension Proposal. It will not only affect me as a teacher. It will greatly affect the students in Homewood and all students in Illinois, now and well into the future.
First of all, understand that the villain in this crisis is Illinois government. Over the past several decades, the General Assembly has used our pension fund like a credit card. Many years, they have not contributed their share toward the pension fund, as stipulated in the Illinois Constitution. Instead, monies were diverted for other needs in Illinois. Meanwhile, teachers and school districts have paid their fair share each year. Now, like a credit card, the interest is too high and Illinois is facing a much higher pension price than would have been necessary if the bill had been paid on time year after year.
Now, in 2012, after many years of misuse of the pension fund on the part of state government, Governor Quinn feels that he "was put on this earth to solve the pension crisis". And, how does he plan on doing that? He will place the burden on teachers and the districts in which they teach. By law, teachers contribute 9.4% of each paycheck to their pension fund. Governor Quinn's proposal would raise that to over 13%. This is grossly unfair when teachers have paid their fair share. Also, it is in violation of the Illinois Constitution. Another part of his plan is putting part of the pension burden on the school districts themselves. In other words, he is putting the burden on our children. In Homewood, the Governor's proposal would cost Homewood 153 an estimated $1,000,000 annually. Add to that the proposed cuts in General State Aid and transportation, and the state making even less allotted scheduled payments in the future, and Homewood will pay over $2,000,000 more than it currently does each year. The Homewood community overwhelmingly passed a referendum last year and the Homewood teachers have already taken a pay freeze. The district has made the budget cuts it can without reducing staff and programs. We simply do not have the money to pay these added costs.
So, what will happen in Homewood if Governor Quinn's proposal comes to fruition? Hard decisions would have to be made. Personnel would have to be reduced. The very core of what Homewood prides itself on is what we are able to do for kids. Gone may be extracurricular activities, art and music classes, music programs, small class sizes, and so on and so on.... Who will lose out? The children will suffer because the quality of education will not be the same. Is it fair to put the pension burden on our children, our future?
We all know that if our schools are not doing well, the health of our community will soon decline as well. If Homewood cannot pay its bills because we lack the "surplus" funds that Governor Quinn seems to think all districts have, what will happen? Our students, our teachers, and our community will all pay the price for the mismanagement of funds by our General Assembly over many, many years. The price is too high. Everyone should be outraged by Quinn's proposal. Everyone needs to speak up. Contact your senators and representatives and demand fairness. Our kids are our future. We cannot fail them. They did nothing wrong. They are the innocent bystanders in this madness. | <urn:uuid:15198337-f525-4e11-b609-06e6861087e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homewood-flossmoor.patch.com/groups/wanda-gunters-blog/p/bp--quinns-pension-proposal-and-what-it-means-to-our-community | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976685 | 751 | 1.53125 | 2 |
||This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2013)|
29 October 1930 |
Norman Colin Dexter, OBE, (born 29 September 1930) is an English crime writer, known for his Inspector Morse novels which were written between 1975 and 1999 and adapted as a television series from 1987 to 2000.
Early life and career
Dexter was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and was educated at Stamford School. After completing his National Service with the Royal Corps of Signals he read classics at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1953 and receiving an honorary Masters Degree in 1958.
In 1954, he started his teaching career in the East Midlands, becoming assistant classics master at Wyggeston School, Leicester. A post at Loughborough Grammar School followed, before he took up the position of senior classics teacher at Corby Grammar School, Northamptonshire, in 1959.
In 1956 he married Dorothy Cooper and they had a son and a daughter.
In 1966, he was forced by the onset of deafness to retire from teaching, and took up the post of Senior Assistant Secretary at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) in Oxford – a job he held until his retirement in 1988.
Dexter featured prominently in the BBC programme "How to Solve a Cryptic Crossword" as part of the Time Shift series broadcast in November 2008 in which he recounted some of the crossword clues solved by Morse.
Writing career
He started writing mysteries in 1973 during a family holiday: "We were in a little guest house halfway between Caernarfon and Pwllheli. It was a Saturday and it was raining – it's not unknown for it to rain in North Wales. The children were moaning ... I was sitting at the kitchen table with nothing else to do, and I wrote the first few paragraphs of a potential detective novel." Last Bus to Woodstock was published in 1975 and introduced the world to the character of Inspector Morse, the irascible detective whose penchants for cryptic crosswords, English literature, cask ale and Wagner reflect Dexter's own enthusiasms. Dexter's plots are notable for his use of false leads and other red herrings.
The success of the 33 episodes of the TV series Inspector Morse, produced between 1987 and 2001, brought further acclaim for Dexter. In the manner of Alfred Hitchcock, he also makes a cameo appearance in almost all episodes. More recently, his character from the Morse series, the stalwart Sgt (now Inspector) Lewis features in 20 episodes of the new ITV series Lewis. As with Morse, Dexter makes a cameo appearance in several episodes giving him a violet flower.
Dexter suggested the English poet A E Housman as his "great life" on the BBC Radio 4 programme of that name in May 2008. Dexter and Housman were both classicists who found a popular audience for another genre of writing.
Awards and honours
Dexter has been the recipient of several Crime Writers' Association awards: two Silver Daggers for Service of All the Dead in 1979 and The Dead of Jericho in 1981; two Gold Daggers for The Wench is Dead in 1989 and The Way Through the Woods in 1992; and a Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1997. In 1996 Dexter received a Macavity Award for his short story Evans Tries an O-Level. In 1980, he was elected a member of the by-invitation-only Detection Club.
In 2000 Dexter was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature.
In September 2011, the University of Lincoln awarded Dexter an honorary Doctor of Letters degree - a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.
Inspector Morse Novels
- Last Bus to Woodstock (1975)
- Last Seen Wearing (1976)
- The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (1977)
- Service of All the Dead (1979)
- The Dead of Jericho (1981)
- The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983)
- The Secret of Annexe 3 (1986)
- The Wench is Dead (1989)
- The Jewel That Was Ours (1991)
- The Way Through the Woods (1992)
- The Daughters of Cain (1994)
- Death is Now My Neighbour (1996)
- The Remorseful Day (1999)
Novellas and short story collections
- The Inside Story (1993); Special edition, commissioned by American Express
- London: Pan, Pub date 1993, Paperback, 56p.; includes crossword puzzle
- Neighbourhood Watch (1993); Limited edition of 229 copies
- Richmond: Hartley Moorhouse and Geir Moe Sorenson ISBN 1-898154-00-7, Pub date May 1993, Paperback in slip case
- Morse's Greatest Mystery (1993); also published as As Good as Gold
- "As Good as Gold" [Insp. Morse]
- "Morse's Greatest Mystery" [Insp. Morse]
- "Evans Tries an O-Level"
- "Dead as a Dodo" [Insp. Morse]
- "At the Lulu-Bar Motel"
- "Neighbourhood Watch" [Insp. Morse]
- "A Case of Mis-Identity" [a Sherlock Holmes pastiche]
- "The Inside Story" [Insp. Morse]
- "Monty's Revolver"
- "The Carpet-Bagger"
- "Last Call" [Insp. Morse]
Uncollected short stories
- "The Burglar" in You, The Mail on Sunday, 1994
- "The Double Crossing" in Mysterious Pleasures, ed. Martin Edwards, London: Little, Brown, 2003
- "Between the Lines" in The Detection Collection [a Detection Club volume], ed. Simon Brett, Orion, 2005.
- "The Case of the Curious Quorum" in The Verdict of Us All [a Detection Club volume], ed. Peter Lovesey, Crippen & Landru, 2006, featuring Inspector Lewis.
- "The Other Half" in The Strand Magazine, February–May, 2007.
- "Morse and the Mystery of the Drunken Driver" in Daily Mail, December 2008.
- "Clued Up" in Cracking Cryptic Crosswords, 2009. (A 4-page story featuring Lewis and Morse solving a crossword).
- Cracking Cryptic Crosswords - a guide to solving cryptic crosswords Oxford: Offox Press ltd, 2010
- Oxford: A Cultural and Literary History Foreword by Colin Dexter, Signal Books, 2007
See also
- Colin Dexter at the Internet Movie Database
- Works by Colin Dexter on Open Library at the Internet Archive | <urn:uuid:b759b69a-230e-47af-aef5-4b3c89a8a275> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Dexter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947795 | 1,424 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Not long ago, laptop hard drives hit 500GB, which was, in my opinion, not a big deal. Nonstop leaps in hard-drive storage capacity over recent years have made me, and most of us for that matter, sort of desensitized, if not snobbish. Something of highest-number gigabytes has just come out and yet it already feels like "been there, done that. So what? There's going to be something bigger, soon!"
LaCie has put another Triple Interface external hard drive on the market today, and although it looks very similar to the rest of their line (Neil Poulton also designed this one), there's one striking difference: they've included an eSATA port in addition to Firewire 400 and USB 2.0.
External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment eliminates the need to translate data between the computer and the storage drive which speeds up the process to almost triple the speed of Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. We're hoping it'll usher in a new era of hard drives featuring … Read more
If your power strips are as overloaded as mine with cords and bulky transformers, you'll be glad to hear that eSATA--a standard that gives external hard drives the data transfer speeds of internal drives--is untethering itself from its power cord.
eSATA is an external version of the Serial ATA technology used to hook up internal PCs, but today external eSATA drives need their own power supply. But on Monday, the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) announced it's working on a version that will let external drives draw power over the cable that connects the drive to a computer. … Read more
LaCie announced yesterday its new Big Disk Extreme+ desktop hard drive, a fairly standard external drive whose standout feature is the massive capacity. It's available in 1-terabyte, 1.5-terabyte, and 2-terabyte capacities, starting at $350 ($850 for the 2TB drive). The design is LaCie's classic Neil Poulton d2 look: brushed gray body with a blue programmable one-touch button mounted on the front. Connection options include two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, and one USB 2.0 port. It comes bundled with LaCie's 1-Click Backup software, Silverkeeper (backup software for Macs), and two versions of EMC … Read more
LaCie, maker of storage devices, computer LCDs, and other computer peripherals, is one of the few companies to truly embrace original and clever aesthetic design. Why shove your gear into boring gray boxes (and then into a closet to hide the boring grayness) when you can encase it in colorful, whimsical designs that you want to show off?
LaCie's latest USB/FireWire hub is a perfect illustration of this marriage of tech and high design. The octopodal Huby (pronounced hub-ee) was designed by Ora-Ito, a French company. Each of the eight arms has a connector at the tip: four … Read more | <urn:uuid:23767b60-b436-4f41-9a01-a00af4fa9f48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reviews.cnet.com/8300-5_7-0-4.html?keyword=firewire | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936463 | 644 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Brucefield is situated in the historical fishing town of Arbroath in the district of Angus, on Scotland's East coast. Arbroath has long been famous for "Arbroath Smokies", a unique kind of smoked haddock, and has been awarded "Protected Geographical Indication" status by the European commission. This means that similar to Champagne or Parma ham, only fish smoked within an 8km radius of Arbroath can legitimately be called Arbroath Smokies.
Arbroath Abbey is associated with the signing of the declaration of Arbroath in 1320. The document, believed to have been drafted by Abbot Bernard on behalf of the Scottish nobles and barons, asked Pope John XXII to recognise Scotland's independence. Historic Scotland has recently completed a striking new £1.8m visitor centre bedside the Abbey. The centre provides interpretive displays and viewing galleries and explains the significance of the declaration of Arbroath.
If golf is your thing, then Brucefield makes an ideal home, with the world famous Carnoustie golf links a mere fifteen minutes away. Even closer is Letham Grange, which offers both the magnificent and challenging old course, as well as the relaxing and beautiful Glens course. The eleven courses at St Andrews are also easily accessible around forty minutes away.
The picturesque coastline from Dundee to Montrose has a character all its own with many unique villages, towns and walkways to be explored. Take a relaxing walk along the beautiful white sandy beach at Lunan Bay while watching the dedicated surfers brave the cold water, or take a casual stroll along the seashore at Broughty Ferry, stopping off at Visocchi's for a genuine gelato.
Arbroath is also home to one of the acclaimed seven wonders of the industrial world: the Bell rock Lighthouse, the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse. Designed and built by engineers Robert Stevenson and John Rennie between 1807 and 1810, it is considered one of the wonders of the industrial world because of the challenges faced in building it, and it's very high standard of construction which has endured to this day.
Brucefield is also ideally situated for those who enjoy the great outdoors. In Angus, Montrose Basin wildlife centre is a haven for migrating and resident birds. Alternatively take a bracing coastal walk along the Arbroath cliffs with their fantastic red sandstone formations. At Broughty Ferry, you could take a special boat trip to see the most northerly resident group of Bottlenose dolphins in Europe.
Photographs of Making Smokies at Arbroath Seafest 2002; Auchmithie Harbour; Arbroath Abbey; The 10th hole at Letham Grange's old course; Arbroath Harbour; Broughty Ferry Harbour at sunset; Lunan Bay; Auchmithie Bay and the Forfar Highland Games are copyright VisitScotland Angus and Dundee and used with kind permission.
Local Links - Please click to view the website | <urn:uuid:994d6231-1e05-426e-82ef-efd2fcb65531> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://brucefieldbandb.com/location.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940008 | 620 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The actual meaning that I want to convey is sort of like a good design covers up the nitty gritty technical aspects of a machine and provides a smooth experience when using it.
I want to describe this in a metaphorical manner with the imagination of a design as a "bridge" into the machine's world. I imagine that the surroundings of the journey into the machine's world is full of tangling wires and electronic boards in the background. There are moving tentacles at the sides of the bridge, making the journey a difficult one. It's like a Matrix world. A good design is a good bridge that would cover up all these ugly scenes/backdrop with a canvass of a blue skies and white clouds and make the journey on the bridge a pleasant and seamless one into the machine's world. The main gist is to describe the experience of walking from our normal realm into the machine's, comparing the raw experience with a "well designed" experience.
I am hoping that I could write this whole messy idea into a concise and expressive manner with as little sentences as possible. I wrote a a little bit of it but found it really really awful. It just doesn't even feel good when reading it, much less to lead the reader to visualise the scene.
The path into the machine's world is a curvy road with the tangling wires and tentacles in the surroundings. A good design flushes away these ugly scenes with backdrops of cloudy skies, making the journey into the new world a pleasurable one.
I was hesitant to even put up my attempt in writing this imagination because I feel it just reads so badly.
Any ideas of how I could paint this imagination out expressively in words? | <urn:uuid:56605908-0b6f-4c1d-b988-259d400e0d16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/5173/describing-a-machines-world-in-a-metaphorical-manner?answertab=active | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959832 | 346 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A crippling condition gave Linda Sills career direction.
At age 20, the Thornhill native developed rheumatoid arthritis.
The affliction left her so badly crippled she searched for a career that would allow her to work from home if need be.
Yet, she still wanted an interesting and meaningful career.
Ms Sills ended up completing a Master’s degree in international journalism at The City University in London in 1988.
The arthritis went into remission completely in her late 20s.
Since studying journalism, she has worked at the CBC, Reuters Television and the BBC, based mostly out of London.
Her resume is so jam-packed with big-time, meaningful assignments and titles, it is difficult to summarize.
The 52-year-old runs a weekly documentary series for the BBC called Our World and has been the series producer for the last five years.
She commissions and oversees the program as well as making films herself.
She was recently nominated for a Foreign Press Association Award in London in the Environment Story of the Year category for a BBC documentary she directed and produced about the health impact of 9/11 in Lower Manhattan.
The documentary was a follow-up to a film she did in 2006 that broke the story internationally.
Her film crew returned to Ground Zero to see how the people who were physically close to the tragedy were doing and to update the situation for the 10th anniversary of the attacks and their aftermath.
She explained the backdrop to her tale in an e-mail interview.
When the World Trade Center collapsed, a deadly cocktail of toxins was released into the atmosphere, including lead from 50,000 computers, mercury from thousands of lightbulbs, asbestos, pulverized concrete, equaling a million tonnes of poisonous fallout.
“First responders who went to the site for rescue and recovery, returning residents and workers to Lower Manhattan, started getting sick and they haven’t stopped,” she said.
The Environmental Protection Agency at first denied there was any hazard and told people it was safe to be at Ground Zero, Ms Sills said.
“The fires burned for 100 days. The air was foul. Now the cancers are emerging. And for years, they blocked compensation. But finally this year, they put cancers on the list of illnesses eligible for compensation.”
She knew this was an important story and that no one had done it.
“To this day, it’s still a politically-charged issue with all the elements of a political drama; government malfeasance, heroism and tragedy.”
There are those who still need to be held to account, she said.
“The chain of responsibility for misleading the public, and doctoring Environmental Protection Agency e-mails, goes straight up to the Bush White House. It’s all in the Inspector General’s Report of 2003. Sixty thousand people are now ill — the number is even higher than we originally predicted. Many of them could have avoided being contaminated if the government had done its job to protect the public from the fallout.”
Ms Sills’ father, Bill, says he is especially proud of her documentary Firing Line about problems news people have in combat.
“She brought out real truth and problems news people have. The shots she has taken are revealing. They are action shots,” he said.
Ms Sills was action-oriented growing up, according to Mr. Sills.
“She was not one to stand around and let things happen. She had to be in it (the action) herself,” he said.
But while Ms Sills’ work can be exciting and meaningful, it can sometimes be difficult, including the first film she ever made. It was filmed in Mongolia with street children who lived in sewers.
“That was tough logistically and emotionally and physically exhausting. I fell in love with the kids and wanted to rescue a bunch and bring them home,” she said.
But probably the assignment that was toughest physically was being in the Himalayan foothills in a tiny village in Nepal where she took a 12-hour hike up a remote mountainside. She was bringing a brother and sister together who had fought in opposing armies during Nepal’s civil war which ended in 2006.
“I got amoebic dysentery and every affliction that goes with it and there was no way I could hike out of there. I was too weak. The army came and airlifted us out in a chopper. It took months to recover from that one,” she said. “But in general, it’s always hard to talk with people who are gravely ill, or children who have been injured or maimed. That’s the most heart-breaking, and that really never leaves you if you have any heart at all”.
While getting nominated for the Foreign Press Association Award was a really good moment, her proudest career moment was knowing the impact of another film she did in the wake of 9/11. The film was about rendition and witch-hunts against Muslims. The U.S. government reversed its decision to deport an elderly Pakistani man who had been featured in the film.
“He had no one in Pakistan. All his family were in the U.S. and they were going to send him back, heart problems and all. When you help someone like that — that means more than any award,” she said.
Ms Sills attended Thornhill Public School and Thornhill Secondary School. Her parents still live in Thornhill.
“I’ve lived abroad (mostly London and two stints in Los Angeles) for more than 30 years, but still can’t get out of the habit of calling Thornhill ‘home’,” she said.
As for her future plans?
“To continue travelling, making documentaries as long as I’m physically able to drag my carcass on and off planes. I’m going to make a fictional short set in Gaza next year and finish a screenplay about war-profiteering in Iraq. I’d like to see that on screens within the next five years. I would like to mentor more young people. That’s something I do which I really enjoy. Mostly, I’d like to do more non-profit work and give something back ... and who knows, that just might be at home in Ontario”. | <urn:uuid:929c2e95-b0d9-4375-8b22-3b3e59ac55c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/1934710-life-on-the-edge-right-fit-for-journalist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980784 | 1,350 | 1.75 | 2 |
It is the dead of summer, that moment in our lives and in the life of the summer when there is as much summer in front of us as behind us.
For those of us who love the heat, who love the summer, who wait for it all winter and who yearn for it coming back when the fall puts its grip on us, it is a moment to fully enjoy and to observe, as so many of us do.
It is a moment when we face everything we have wanted for about six more weeks after having experienced warmth for about six weeks that are already behind us.
This week we are in the thick of it, in a perfect storm of beach, heat, humidity, thunderstorms, et cetera.
There is heat here. There is heat everywhere.
Air conditioning only goes so far. Stepping from a cool automobile onto a sizzling sidewalk under a burning sun during the heat of the day makes life miserable.
There are many people who refuse to use air conditioning for just that reason – and they too are miserable after their own fashion.
There is no escape form the dead of summer.
We all go to work but work doesn’t have the flavor or the zest of the beach at the dead of summer. Most of us would rather be doing nothing than putting on shirts and ties, dresses and work clothes and making the march into the T and a few minutes later into a downtown skyscraper.
The dead of summer is a great time to live and forgive us, a great time to go the other way. Dead of winter funerals, after all, are so hard to endure.
Above all, the dead of summer is a time to enjoy our lives, to live for the moment as if suspended in animation.
It is a time to step back and to enjoy the moment – for as we know – the summer passes quickly.
The dead of summer moment we are enjoying right now will pass like the snap of a finger, just like that.
It was written quite some time ago by one of the world’s great German philosophers that everything about our lives is fleeting, that our entire life is fleeting, in fact.
When we are young, we take no notice of the time passing by. When we are old, we look back and wonder where all the time went.
What we should be concentrating on is the moment, the right now, because that’s all we own when you come right down to it.
Happy dead of summer. | <urn:uuid:8a8455f4-1fdb-4c2b-afbc-4491c0575a71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reverejournal.com/2011/07/13/the-dead-of-summer-the-heat-is-on-full-blast/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961007 | 517 | 1.804688 | 2 |
So there is this relatively new fandangled technology that uses a digital method to print onto t-shirts. It is technically termed – Direct To Garment Digital Printing or DTG for short.
So how does it work?
Well basically it is just a large format inkjet printer…not too much from the one you would have at home to print out your photos etc. Instead of printing onto photo paper it prints on to t-shirts. It uses specially formulated inks that work on textiles. They have even developed a special white ink that prints onto coloured t-shirts. Check this video to see ours in action…(Note: The printing part of the video is sped up 600% in the video for times sake…its not a super printer)
The benefits are that it is good to print onto short runs under 10 pieces where set-up prices for screen printing would make things expensive. It also prints photographic images at a very high resolution.
There are negatives to the method though. The inks don’t have the long life of screen printing inks and will fade over time. The printing is expensive if you want larger runs done. It isn’t a retail quality product in our opinion, but does fill a gap in the market where people need one off or short run t-shirts.
The other problem is that there are a lot of people entering the t-shirt printing market with these machines. They tout them as the next big thing and promote the fact that there are no set-ups etc but don’t give the full picture of the life expectancy of the print or compare it with traditional printing methods.
It basically comes down to what you need. If you need a short run of t-shirts or photographic or high colour images and the longevity of the product isn’t a major concern then digital t-shirt printing is worth doing. If you are after a professional finish and a long lasting retail quality product then screen printing is definitely the best option.
Let me know any thoughts or questions you might have below in the comments. | <urn:uuid:80f38f0d-4b91-4e6e-933a-30764a7a6f13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psionline.com.au/2010/04/29/digital-t-shirt-printing-how-its-done-video/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940677 | 426 | 1.757813 | 2 |
This is ridiculous, but maybe it is time to talk about it some more:
I’m a blogger, not a journalist, reporter or commentator for anything remotely resembling the mainstream media. But I got journalism training, took journalism classes, was news director for one radio station and public affairs director for another. Years and years and years ago.
There’s a rule called “first reference.” In my blog articles, when I link to an article from the New York Times, the first time I mention that paper, it is the “New York Times.” From then on, it is the “NYT,” which is accepted blog shorthand. I even italicize New York Times and NYT. When I remember. But I don’t remember why I do that. I think it is from a style book.
When someone is first mentioned in a news story, their first and last name should be typed out. From then on, their last name can be used as a reference to that person. When the first and last name of a person is used as the initial reference to that person, this is called first reference.
The purpose of only using the persons last name through out the rest of the story, is to keep the article brief and straight to the point
The Associated Press and New York Times have style books. The AP calls theirs a stylebook, the NYT‘s is a style guide.I still have my pre-WWW copy of the AP Stylebook. There are a lot of other style books and manuals out there, and many mainstream publications or organizations have their own rules.
In the MSNBC segment, they mention that reporters or TV commentators sometimes go as far as first name on second reference (2nd reference means all references after the first one). In Alaska, we’re probably more that way than any other state, because so many people know each other.
It wasn’t just Sarah. It is Lisa and Don and Mark and so on. Until he died, it was Ted, or St. Ted.
Interestingly, nobody – I mean nobody – calls our current governor “Sean.” Most Alaskans don’t consider him one of us. I like Don’s (Rep. Don Young’s) name for him best – “Captain Zero,” which describes what Parnell is – a cypher .
I decided back in late 2009 to not EVER describe our current president as “President Obama” unless it was absolutely required for sake of accuracy. At the same time, I promised I’d honor him with his formal title if he did any of the following:
1). Evacuate the torture camp at Guantanamo Bay
2). Prosecute and imprison at least one of the many torturers or murderers we have employed there, and now shelter.
3). Prosecute and imprison at least five major banksters for their crimes that cost us trillions.
Since then, I’ve gotten new gripes, but if he did any of the above three, I’d begin to address him by the ceremonial title he owns in name. But I never call the guy “OilyBomber” or “Obomber,” or whatever. Nor am I willing to call him “Barack.”
Besides, didn’t we have a revolution between 1775 and 1781 that was supposed to end the concept of royalty and high titles?
What do you think? | <urn:uuid:536f4256-2597-4ce6-9e16-c67f9d4b8cfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/2013/01/12/msnbc-host-trashed-by-obama-supporters-for-not-always-calling-him-president-barack-obama/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964736 | 736 | 1.796875 | 2 |
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BEIRUT (AP) — Five unarmed U.N. truce monitors toured the battered city at the heart of the Syrian uprising on foot Saturday, encountering unusually calm streets after weeks of shelling as a throng of residents clamored for foreign military help to oust President Bashar Assad.
Their foray into a chaotic crowd in the city of Homs highlighted the risks faced by the observers, protected only by bright blue helmets and bulletproof vests. It came as the U.N. Security Council voted Saturday to expand the mission to 300 members in hopes of salvaging an international peace plan marred by continued fighting between the military and opposition rebels.
The observers, members of an eight-member advance team that has been on the ground a week, were seen on amateur video Saturday walking through rubble-strewn deserted streets lined by gutted apartment buildings. Activists reported only sporadic gunfire, but no shelling, and said troops had pulled armored vehicles off the streets. Two observers stayed behind in Homs to keep monitoring the city, after the rest of the team left Saturday evening.
The mission approved Saturday, initially for 90 days, is meant to shore up a cease-fire that officially took effect 10 days ago, but has failed to halt violence. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has accused Assad of violating the truce, and said Saturday that “the gross violations of the fundamental rights of the Syrian people must stop at once.” Rebel fighters have also kept up attacks.
It’s the first time the Security Council authorized unarmed U.N. military observers to go into a conflict area. Saturday’s resolution gave Ban the final say on when to deploy them, based on his assessment of the situation.
A previous observer team, dispatched by the Arab League at the start of the year, withdrew after a month, unable to halt the fighting.
Western diplomats put the onus on Syria to make the mission work. The U.S. ambassador, Susan Rice, warned that the U.S. would pursue sanctions if Assad doesn’t comply. Britain’s envoy,Mark Lyall Grant, said that “the mission will fail in its task if the regime continues to violate its commitments and obstructs the work of the mission.”
The truce and the observer mission are part of special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for ending 13 months of violence and launching talks between Assad and those trying to oust him. Syria’s opposition and its Western supporters suspect Assad is largely paying lip service to the cease-fire since full compliance could quickly sweep him from power.
So far, the regime has ignored such provisions and instead continued attacking opposition strongholds, though on a smaller scale than before the truce deadline.
Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, told the Security Council that Syria informed Annan on Saturday that it has withdrawn troops and heavy weapons from urban centers, but he did not make clear when it occurred. Opposition activists said that in some areas, such as Homs, armored vehicles were moved off the streets Saturday, but remained near populated areas.
Rice, in the toughest speech on Syria yet, warned that if Assad doesn’t make good on all commitments or obstructs the monitors’ work, the United States would pursue other “measures,” which in diplomatic language usually means sanctions.
“Let there be no doubt. We, our allies and others in this body are planning and preparing for those actions that will be required of all of us if the Assad regime persists in the slaughter of the Syrian people,” she said, adding the U.S. will not wait 90 days to take these measures if Syria keeps flouting its obligations.
Despite the violations, the international community sees Annan’s plan as the only way forward.
Russia and China have shielded their ally Syria against Security Council condemnation, Western powers oppose military intervention and Gulf country have failed to keep promises of funding rebels.
On Saturday, five observers toured rebel-held areas in Homs, a center of the uprising that has been battered by tank and mortar shells for weeks. Previously, the Syrian regime, citing security issues, had turned down a request by the observers to visit the city.
“We did not hear any shelling today,” said a Homs activist, who only identified himself as Abul-Joud, for fear of repercussions.
At one point, gunfire went off in the distance while the observers were in the Bayada neighborhood, accompanied by residents. The group ran into a house to take cover, according to Abul-Joud, who said he was walking with the observers. He said it did not appear the shots were aimed in the direction of the monitors.
In the Jouret el-Shayah neighborhood of Homs, observers were quickly thronged by residents who chanted, “The people want military intervention,” according to video broadcast on the Al-Jazeera satellite TV station.
The observers walked silently through the streets in amateur video from the same neighborhood, posted online Saturday. A man in military uniform, apparently a rebel, pointed to the destruction, telling the team that “it’s all destroyed buildings.” Dozens of residents chanted, “The people want to execute the president,” and “Freedom forever, against your will, Assad.”
A spokesman for the observers, Neeraj Singh, said two observers stayed on after Saturday’s tour “and have now been deployed in Homs as of this evening.” Their presence could discourage a resumption of regime shelling.
The advance team is to increase to 30 monitors next week, before the larger contingent arrives.
Under a preliminary agreement between the U.N. and the Syrian government, the enlarged mission will be able to walk and drive freely through the country. However, Syria has so far not agreed to a U.N. demand that observers use their own planes and helicopters, seen as a key to the mission’s success because it could reduce friction on the ground.
The challenges facing monitors became apparent this week when the advance team visited several hotspots. Large crowds of regime opponents surrounded the monitors, and government troops opened fire to disperse the protesters, in one instance while the observers were still present.
Reflecting concern about inadvertently setting off violence, the team decided not to go out on Friday, the main day for anti-government protests. The team leader, Col. Ahmed Himiche, said he and his men did not want to be “tools for escalation.”
Hilal Khashan, an analyst at the American University of Beirut, said he believes the regime will try to sabotage the larger mission because it could pose a threat.
The presence of observers “attracts large crowds and anti-regime demonstrations,” said Khashan. “If the observers spread throughout Syria, the extent of the protests will increase dramatically.”
Syria denies it is facing a popular uprising, claiming it is being targeted by a foreign-led conspiracy of criminals and terrorists. Ja’afari, the Syrian U.N. envoy, reiterated Saturday that the regime reserves the right to respond to “armed terrorist groups.”
Even Russia’s envoy appeared to be skeptical about the regime’s latest claims that it has pulled troops and tanks from Syria’s cities.
“If indeed this is the case, this is a very important step in implementation of the Kofi Annan plan,” said Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin.
Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed reporting. | <urn:uuid:eacfc4c7-9bf8-41c9-b143-a061ea49522d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailytribune.com/article/20120421/NEWS05/120429930/1004/ap-source-brees-fujita-smith-meet-with-nfl/un-monitors-visit-syria-opposition-stronghold | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963639 | 1,606 | 1.710938 | 2 |
It is with deep sorrow that I inform you about the untimely death of Dr. Charles (Bob) Schuster, a much admired and respected member of our scientific community and past NIDA Director.
Bob's prodigious career includes seminal contributions that will continue to illuminate the path of future generations of behavioral pharmacologists and neuroscientists. His achievements would be too many to list. But he was a true visionary, well ahead of his time, who saw the potential of addiction immunotherapies, for example, almost three decades before other researchers would finally commit resources in what is now a rapidly maturing and promising treatment strategy. He left us not only a plethora of discoveries and achievements from which to draw inspiration, but also the memory of a gentle and generous man who was able to make a difference in the lives of millions through the work that he so much loved.
Bob received his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1962, after being mentored by Professor Joseph V. Brady at the University of Maryland. After holding numerous and prestigious faculty positions, he founded the University of Chicago's Drug Abuse Research Center. From 1986 to 1992, he served as the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a position from which he oversaw the development of grant and contract programs to fund research into the etiology, prevention and treatment of drug abuse, and its medical and social consequences. In 2000, he became Director of the Addiction Research Institute at Wayne State University, a position he held until his premature death. He is a past President of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence and a Nathan B. Eddy Award recipient. Bob has been a prolific writer, having authored or co-authored over 200 scientific journal articles, as well as numerous book chapters and several books.
Please join me in expressing our deepest sympathy to Bob's vast circle of loved ones, our appreciation and gratitude for the wisdom and knowledge he has bequeathed us, and the certainty that he will be sorely missed.
Nora D. Volkow, M.D.
This page was last updated February 2011 | <urn:uuid:dbdb604e-bd08-4552-8aee-78a0071b204b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/directors-page/messages-director/2011/02/passing-former-nida-director-bob-schuster | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96824 | 422 | 1.585938 | 2 |
St Martins Place Trafalgar Square
London WC2H 0HE
The National Portrait Gallery is home to over 120,000 portraits of famous British men and women from the 16th century to the present day. Families can enjoy special art activities and workshops throughout the year and during school holidays. The 3rd Saturday of every month at 11:30 am and 2:30 p.m., children 5+ and their carers can explore portraits in the Collection with Family Art Workshops, followed by an art activity. The workshops are free, but places are limited and tickets are allocated on a first-come, first served basis from the Information Desk in the Ondaatje Wing Main Hall. The sessions last about 90 minutes and children must be accompanied. Also on the 3rd Saturday of every month, children 3+ and their carers can join the free drop-in storytelling sessions. Storytelling is at 2 pm and 3 pm, and lasts about 30 minutes no ticket is required, just meet in the Ondaatje Wing Main Hall. Throughout the school holidays children aged 5+ can print their own t-shirts, make special portrait mugs, decorate a bag to take on holiday, create a poster, mix and match faces and hairstyles, create a hanging gallery of their favourite portraits, and even make themselves into a jigsaw puzzle. Most workshops are at 11:30 a.m. or 2:30 p.m. – check the National Portrait Gallerys website for details. Free tickets are available an hour before each workshop from the Main Hall. There is a nice restaurant on site as well as a cafe serving light lunches – the cafe is better suited to families with young children. There is a quiet area ideal for new parents as well as baby changing facilities next to the Ondaatje Wing Theatre. Admission is free, as are all of the family workshops.
Opening Hours: Open daily 10 am – 6 pm, open til 9 pm on Thurs & Fri.
Rate National Portrait Gallery and you could be our next winner!
National Portrait Gallery was recommended as great for kids. What do you think? Rate it below and tell other mums and dads what you thought. We’ll thank you by popping your name in the hat for our next prize draw. Tell me more… | <urn:uuid:115d14eb-f829-46bf-a19b-defb6d965bc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reallykidfriendly.com/national-portrait-gallery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957239 | 475 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was on life support and "no longer responsive" on Wednesday, two days after he was admitted to a hospice, his family said.
The 90-year-old former U.S. senator from South Dakota suffers from a variety of ailments "that have worsened over recent months" due to age, the McGovern family said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon.
McGovern is best known for his unsuccessful 1972 run to unseat Richard Nixon on a platform that included ending the war in Vietnam. He lost 49 of the 50 states to the Republican incumbent, who was forced to resign in the Watergate scandal less than two years later.
McGovern won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1956 and was elected to the Senate in 1962. He returned to the Senate after his presidential campaign, but lost the seat in the Republican wave that accompanied Ronald Reagan's election to the White House in 1980. | <urn:uuid:e8b0d936-fb28-48d8-8f4a-a48d589c0ea8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kjct8.com/McGovern-on-life-support-family-says/-/163252/17029398/-/q5pdi4/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98734 | 188 | 1.609375 | 2 |
'Wet and wondrous' location is ideal for adventure holidays
Travellers planning adventure holidays in Africa should consider visiting Botswana as the country's Okavango Delta is 'wet and wondrous' according to a travel writer.
In an article in Wanderlust magazine, Dale Morris praised the area as a uniquely perfect destination for adventure holidays.
He writes that "there is no place in Africa, perhaps even the world, that embodies the spirit of wilderness and wildness" as the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
An element of travel which is impossible to get from guidebooks for friends' photographs is the auditory nature of places. Mr Morris attempted to explain the musicality of the Okavango Delta.
"I looked at the elephants … and I looked at the eagles, who had started eating their fish," he said.
"A lion roared somewhere close by; a hyena giggled in response. A hippo snorted and the elephants played a mariachi tune."
The Okavango Delta is the largest inland delta in the world; it covers an area of around 15,000 kilometres squared. | <urn:uuid:c7f3edb8-9d21-4451-8dbc-7da888276aef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.explore.co.uk/features/4371-botswanas-okavango-delta-offers-wondrous-adventure-holidays?cc=IE&nr=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945969 | 233 | 1.710938 | 2 |
In today's New York Times opinion column, Timothy Egan asserts that we're headed toward a "Nanny Nation," where everything that is virtuous about environmentalism becomes mandatory by law. He points to plastic bag surcharges in Seattle and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposal of fines for unsorted garbage as evidence of "forced high-mindedness."
Here on the West Coast, we sort our garbage—or else. We rummage through our food scraps, just ahead of the worms. We take our little canvas bags to the grocery store lest we get caught with the embarrassment of a dreaded paper-or-plastic denouement, and the scorn of neighbors.
If we smoke cigarettes, we do it in the alley—huddled with the other losers. We've banned junk food from our school vending machines and soon—in 32 square miles of Los Angeles where a moratorium on new fast food restaurants will be in place—it will be treated like tobacco: the cheeseburger as death-wich.
We do this because we're so-o-o-o virtuous, and our self-regard is tied to the size of our curbside proclamations. Mostly, we do it for others—the poor, the fat, the ill-informed. Of course, we would never smoke, or get caught finger-licking the extra-crispy runoff from KFC, or tossing a foil wrap in the trash.
This makes me wonder:
• Is trash, as one commenter on the article remarked, a common resource that should be regulated?
• Egan says in the column, "if you make a fruit forbidden, it only becomes more enticing." But does this apply to environmental efforts, like recycling and eliminating plastic bags? It seems hard to believe that a charge on plastic bags will make us want them more. Same for sorting trash—will anyone get a hidden thrill out of throwing bottles and cans in the regular trash, just because that act carries a fine?
• Does "leading by example," as Egan says, really work? In another commenter's words, "Sometimes a rule or regulation teaches people how easy compliance can be." Incentives, rather than just examples, do wonders for changing behavior. | <urn:uuid:766e4253-ae93-4e5a-854e-2688aaba385c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/fresh-greens/2008/08/07/three-questions-about-the-nanny-nation_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941452 | 460 | 1.671875 | 2 |
For Immediate Release
September 28, 2011
Wenham, MA—Two years from now, fans of Jane Austen’s classic storyPride and Prejudice will celebrate the 200th anniversary of its publishing. But the Gordon College Theatre Department has officially begun the festivities with its fall production of Joanna Norland’s new play Lizzie, Darcy and Jane, commemorating not only Austen’s writing contributions but premiering Norland’s play in the United States.
The show opens October 21 in the Margaret Jensen Theatre in the Barrington Center for the Arts at Gordon and runs through October 29, with evening performances at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday matinees at 4:30 p.m.
“We had thought of waiting a year to produce this show because of the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice,” said Jeffrey S. Miller, professor of theatre arts and director of Lizzie, Darcy and Jane. “But with so many great women’s roles and such rich language, we decided this would be a great opportunity for our students and our community to be the first to tell this story on an American stage.”
Miller discovered the play a few years ago on one of Gordon’s global education theatre trips to England. He was browsing through a bookstore, picked up a copy of the play and was intrigued at how the playwright integrated Jane Austen’s real-life events into interesting characters. In Lizzie, Darcy and Jane Norland speculates about the story behind Austen’s writing of the classic novel. It includes her family circumstances, her poverty and even how a broken engagement sent her into such despair she stopped writing.
When Miller decided to produce the play and received permission from the publishing company, Norland found out and contacted Miller to see if there was anything she could help with. The director and the playwright even met in London this past August while Miller accompanied another of the theatre arts trips there.
“I think Joanna was intrigued that a man was directing her play,” Miller said. “But this is a show that explores important themes for women and men, themes like what it means to be true to your calling and gifts even when you’re confronted with heartbreak and disappointment. I’m hopeful women will come and bring the men in their lives so they’ll see how insightful Austen was about all kinds of human relationships.”
The show stars Bekah Jordan ’12 as Jane, Kelsie Davidson ’12 as Elisabeth, and Chris Preyer ’12 as Mr. Darcy. Other cast members include David Alvarado ’14, Olivia King ’14, Sarah Hand ’15 and Chole Eaton ’15. Supporting Miller’s direction, Christine Alger is the costume designer; Amber Primm, manager of BCA, has designed the set and is the production manager. Carissa Gerber is the scenic and props artisan, and Russ Swift is lighting designer.
“If women had been allowed to write for the theatre at that time in England, Austen’s wit and agility with language would have put her squarely in the tradition of Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw,” Miller said. “My hope is that this show awakens a new interest in Austen in time for the celebration of one of her greatest books.”
The show runs October 21–22 and 25–29. Tickets for Friday and Saturday evening performances are $10 regular admission, $8 for students, seniors, and Gordon faculty/staff. Tickets for Tuesday–Thursday shows and for Saturday matinees at 4:30 p.m are $7 regular admission, $5 students, seniors, and Gordon faculty/staff. The show is two hours with an intermission. For additional ticket information, please see the Gordon Theatre Schedule page.
Gordon College is a multidenominational Christian college of the liberal arts and sciences on Boston’s North Shore, offering majors in 38 fields with graduate programs in education and music education. Gordon is nationally recognized for excellence in academics and in character building, and ranks as one of the nation’s top Christian colleges. www.gordon.edu | <urn:uuid:ffa1f8e0-c5fd-4968-94c8-76d5142c5c18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gordon.edu/article.cfm?iArticleID=1184&iReferrerPageID=5&iPrevCatID=30&bLive=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951338 | 896 | 1.5 | 2 |
Posted at 7:54 AM on February 28, 2008
by Julia Schrenkler
Stephanie Hemphill reports a group of experts are designing efficiency at Duluth conference:
"More than 1,000 builders, architects, and homeowners are learning about energy-efficient design at the Energy Design Conference in Duluth this week."
What are your energy-saving secrets? Which design choices would make the most impact? Join the Living a Sustainable Life group to post images or kick off discussions about sustainability. | <urn:uuid:8d408b19-cfdd-492a-b7a7-29ce5aeb0c96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/objects_in_mirror/archive/2008/02/how_would_you_d.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941671 | 104 | 1.789063 | 2 |
John Horn : Well, congratulations for all being here, but I'm gonna start with a study that you may have seen that was published yesterday or two days ago. Here's what the study found. Just under 24 percent of all U.S. movies programmed for the Sundance Film Festival between 2002 and 2012 were directed by women. Women were much more likely to direct documentaries than narrative films. Thirty-four percent of U.S. documentaries shown at the festival last decade had female directors, while only 16.9 percent of U.S. narrative films did. And if you look closer at the data, in terms of submissions, in terms of narrative submissions, every woman who submits a film, there's six films submitted by a man. Every woman who submits a documentary, there's three documentaries submitted by a man. So it's not just the festival, in terms of what it's choosing and showing its bias. Women aren't making nearly as many movies as men are. And I'm curious if any of you have any ideas why that might be.
Liz Garcia: Yes.
Liz, go ahead.
Garcia: Well, I think that there is just a deep and abiding sexism that's part of your life from the moment that you're conscious as a female. And you are afraid to step into the idea that you could be an authority figure, that you could be a boss, that you have a vision that other people should listen to you on a set, for instance. And I think that you therefore don't allow yourself access to the dream of being a director. It took me a long time. Much longer than I was actually conscious of wanting to be a director.
Naomi Foner: Not as long as me.
Naomi, it's been how long?
Foner: Oh, I would say 30 years.
Now, has that been because you have tried and failed? I mean, do you think there's ...?
Foner:No. It was because I thought I needed to know more than I actually needed to know. Because I thought I needed to know what lens to tell the DP [director of photography] to put on. And I thought that there was a level of skill required that actually isn't required. What you need to have is a vision. And so I think we edit ourselves out of it. You know, we definitely decide something—it's fear. It's just as simple as that. And I think it's—
Hannah Fidell:But that's universal. I don't think that's specifically gender.
Foner: But the gender part of it I think comes along with the things you lose when you do it. The culture doesn't tell you out loud, but actually it does seem to go along with taking that kind of power. I mean, I thought for a long time about somebody like Willa Cather, who was a gay writer in the 1880s. I don't think she actually was gay. I think she was defined out of being a woman by a world of men because she was trying to do things that men do, and that's what was left to her. And, you know, that's something that may not actually be true. But in my mind, I think that you give up a lot. Unless you fight for it. And having kids is a full-time job. And I don't know any woman who isn't constantly fighting between the exquisite selfishness required to be an artist and this exquisite selflessness that's required to be a parent. Every minute when you have a child—
Are you guys parents? Hannah, do you have kids?
Fidell: No, I don't.
So, you were about to say something else. That it's true in every occupation? Is that what you mean, or in terms of barriers to entry?
Fidell: Barriers to entry, that fear that you're talking about, of knowing what lens to tell the DP, I think that is not specific to any gender.
Foner: I think the barrier to entry isn't made by someone else. We make it ourselves. | <urn:uuid:3577d6e1-a064-4698-91de-b9ba3208f896> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courant.com/topic/la-et-sundance-transcript-20130127,0,6017947.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98861 | 857 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Story and photos by Pete Shaw
On the morning of January 16, soon after Ron Austin had gone to work, Debbie Austin and her two children awoke to the sound of the Multnomah County Sheriffs and Portland Police banging on their door. At the demand of Fannie Mae, the police forces entered the Austins’ home at 4207 NE 77th Avenue, and forcibly evicted them. Fannie Mae has now placed a private security force at the house to guard against the Austin family from moving back in with the help of the community.
When Debbie and her children were removed from the house, they quickly went to their next door neighbor’s, and now are living safely in another neighbor’s home. Because she and her daughters were forced out of the house so quickly, Debbie was unable to bring with her many essential items, including her cancer medications. On January 17, a lawyer for Fannie Mae said he would allow her a small amount of time to gather what she needed.
The Austins were the first family in Oregon that publicly fought their eviction, a battle that began in December 2011. Even with Ron and Debbie both enduring cancer treatment, they had made all their payments, but Fannie Mae said that they missed one, even though this may have been due to a clerical error on the part of the bank. The Austins sought justice in the courts, but like many contesting foreclosure, their case was thrown out because they could not afford a lawyer.
It is no small irony that Fannie Mae is evicting the Austins and hiring private security to guard a currently vacant house. Fannie Mae is a publicly owned company, a government-backed mortgage regulator that controls half of all mortgages in the United States. We the People, including Debbie and Ron Austin, own it, yet the Austins’ tax dollars–and all Portlanders’ taxes–are being used to fund Debbie’s, Ron’s, and their daughters’ eviction. These tax dollars are creating empty houses so that banks and developers can increase their profits.
Like many families dealing with foreclosure and eviction, the Austins fell into trouble after battling health bills. In any other industrialized nation this would not have been an issue, at least in terms of paying the mortgage, because those other countries have accepted health care as a human right and have established some form of universal health insurance. “We are told in the corporate media that people fall into foreclosure because they have made irresponsible choices, but the number one reason it happens is because of unexpected health bills,” said Kari Koch, an organizer with We Are Oregon. “This is not about people being irresponsible, but government being irresponsible.”
Still, no evictions would be possible without Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton who oversees all evictions in the county. He is using tax dollars and public resources to enforce these evictions and as a result is helping create blighted neighborhoods instead of strong communities. “Ultimately we hold Sheriff Staton personally responsible for this and for all evictions in our community,” said Koch. “We’re demanding no more evictions and no more empty houses.”
Staton will soon be hearing that message. On the evening of the January 17 over 30 people fanned out to canvas residents living on the blocks surrounding Debbie and Ron’s house in the Cully community, informing them of the Austins’ eviction, what they could do to fight back, and signing them up for the We Are Oregon Rapid Response Network (RRN). The Austins clearly have a lot of support. Signs opposing evictions dot many of the lawns in the neighborhood, and as the canvassers huddled on the corner of 77th and Prescott before heading to knock on doors, three neighborhood residents, familiar with the Austins’ fight, expressed their support, including offering money to help their neighbors.
After the third person gave one of the canvassers twenty dollars to give to the Austins and then went home to tell Sheriff Staton that she wants an end to all evictions, Koch noted how of all the homeowners with whom she has worked, the Austins have the most support from their neighbors. From that support, which they have received since beginning this fight, it is clear that the Austins are considered an integral part of their community. “That tells me,” noted Koch, “that the Austins–not some security guards–deserve to be in that house.”
Want to get involved? Call Sheriff Staton at (503) 988-4300 and let him know that you support the Austins and that you want all evictions stopped.
Sign the petition to Fannie Mae telling it to stop evicting people from their homes. The petition is at: http://action.weareoregon.org/page/s/tell-fannie-mae-to-stop-taking-our-homes
To sign up for the Rapid Response Network to get text alerts about stopping evictions, text @ploc-openrrn to the number 23559.
For more information about Oregon’s housing justice movement, visit www.weareoregon.org. | <urn:uuid:6cc6b078-d4d7-4223-a8f3-2d16985bb546> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2013/01/21/sheriff-ousts-family-spends-tax-dollars-to-maintain-their-houselessness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974679 | 1,081 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Responses to last week's column about my youngest son's silver tooth, or "cap," have been enlightening. I've learned many things:
I shouldn't be afraid of fluoride.
My kids' cavities might be my fault.
Then again, maybe not.
My son drinks too much juice.
And, most important, I'm not alone.
There are a lot of silver teeth out there, and even more fillings. I know because mothers wrote me to say, "me too" and "I'm glad I'm not alone," but also because I've seen it for myself this past week.
Like a pregnant woman who suddenly thinks everyone else -- from celebrities on magazines to virtually every single person she passes at the store -- is also pregnant, I have noticed a great many silver teeth since my son got his. Everywhere I look: Cavities! Decay! Silver! While talking to people, I've reflexively inspected their teeth and noticed every flash of color coming from their molars.
Interestingly, however, I've quit seeing my son's silver tooth. That's the good news for other mothers out there grieving over new metal in their child's mouth. At first, all I could see was the dreaded tooth. It was a searchlight coming from his mouth. How could anyone not notice? Now I've nearly forgotten about it. Or maybe the silver has simply dulled.
In any case, outside of mothers commiserating with me, I also received messages from seemingly every pediatric dentist in the world. No, not really. But I did have a lengthy conversation with a pediatric dentist, Dr. Jonathan Shenkin, based in Augusta, Maine, who saw my column and contacted me. Shenkin put my mind and my guilt at rest, but he, like my own dentist, still won't allow me the comfort of falsely believing there isn't more I could have done.
"You just didn't know all the information when he was a baby," Shenkin says. He adds that most parents don't.
Shenkin believes parents often see the dentist too late. That is, after the age when they could have received the basic information they need to ensure good oral health and avoid dental treatment down the road. Preferably, children should go to a dentist when they are 1-year-old, or 6 months after their first tooth erupts.
There's more. Did you know most children should start using fluoride toothpaste when they are 2-years-old? Did you know that 44 percent of children don't brush their teeth twice a day and that more than 50 percent of them will have cavities by the time they are in second grade? Did you know that brushing your teeth isn't enough to prevent cavities?
Shenkin is on a mission to educate parents and, perhaps more important, the medical community -- gatekeepers of health information for most children -- about basic preventative dental care before cavities appear. He says that filling cavities without correcting behaviors is like cutting limbs off diabetic patients and then saying, "Look at how good we are at treating diabetes."
The keys to good oral health, he says, are brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste and limiting sugar intake.
I complained that mornings are crazy and I can't always be sure my boys have brushed their teeth. "That's like putting a bicycle helmet on your child 50 percent of the time and then being surprised when they have an accident," he said. And the twice-a-day routine should begin as early as possible, like when the first tooth appears.
But baby breath smells so good, I said. I never thought their mouths could be dirty. Plus, I told Shenkin, in my 12 years as a parent I had begun to think fluoride was poison. There are so many warnings about not letting kids swallow it and only using a pea-sized amount. I let my children use "training paste" too long for fear they might die from the fluoride.
Shenkin said that before a child can spit, using a pea-sized amount of toothpaste is enough and safe.
Maybe my kids' teeth are just soft, I said, trying to cheer myself up.
Shenkin says there's no such thing. For most people, personal behaviors and hygiene are the sole causes of tooth decay. There is no evidence to support naturally occuring, cavity-prone teeth.
I sighed. So I messed up, I said.
"But you didn't know," Shenkin said again, echoing my dentist's thoughts. Shenkin says it is the system that fails, not necessarily the parents. "If no one told you to get your child vaccinated and then he got sick, would you say that's your fault? Or is it the system's fault?"
I'll go with "the system" because it makes me feel better.
Children's dental health, or the lack of it, is taboo in the culture of motherhood. Maybe that's because none of us really know what we're doing, and also because we're ashamed of the outcome -- cavities. Shenkin hopes to change that by educating providers and the public.
But that won't fix my son's silver tooth, which he will have now until he's 11 or 12. The damage to his teeth was already done, long before I first took him to the dentist too late, at 3-years-old. Now I live with the silver reminder coming from his back molar.
Still, my son doesn't care. One day he smiled up at me, shrugged, and said, "Well, at least it's not a wooden tooth like George Washington."
Yes. There is that.
|Family and Spouse|
Navy wife Sarah Smiley is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the author of Going Overboard: The Misadventures of a Military Wife (2005) and I'm Just Saying (2008). She has been featured in the New York Times and Newsweek, and on Nightline, The Early Show, CNN, Fox News and other local and national news outlets. Her liferights were optioned by Kelsey Grammer's company, Grammnet, and Paramount Television to be made into a half-hour sitcom. Visit www.SarahSmiley.com for more details. To contact Sarah, you can also visit her Facebook page.
Why didn’t you tell me that (except for the flowers) spouses are not really recognized at retirement ceremonies? My husband of 25 years calmly told me that there is not really a place for spouse recognition in the retirement ceremony. He wants to know if they did recognize me, what would I have to say ... Continue Reading | <urn:uuid:c8cdf213-50b1-4e69-87e7-bc4fb77cfeda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.military.com/spouse/relationships/parenting-tips/responses-to-silver-tooth-enlightening.html?comp=7000022925651&rank=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980538 | 1,377 | 1.742188 | 2 |
UCLA School of Law > News and Media > News
Professor Volokh Comments on Legal Consequences of Sending False Tweets in Wall Street Journal Article
November 5, 2012 -- Professor Eugene Volokh commented on the possible legal consequences of tweeting false information. His comments appear in a Wall Street Journal article.
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said he believed the New York law could survive the Supreme Court ruling in Alvarez, though he said some of the law's language could be too imprecise to survive a challenge. Justice Stephen Breyer in his concurrence in Alvarez gave a nod to laws that prohibit lies about "the commission of crimes or catastrophes," Prof. Volokh said.
"I don't think there's an Alvarez problem there, but there is potentially a vagueness problem," Prof. Volokh said, pointing to phrases in the New York law such as "not unlikely."
To read the entire article, click here (subscription required). | <urn:uuid:b3ecc24e-93ab-4bda-9684-c7669f2299ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.ucla.edu/news-media/Pages/News.aspx?NewsID=2222 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930943 | 214 | 1.5 | 2 |
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Visit the Last Great Frontier
Alaska is one of the most well-known cruising destinations. The last "great frontier," Alaska is home to a fantastic assorment of wildlife, mesmerizing glaciers, awe-inspiring scenery, and a culture deeply affected by its strong Native American presence. The state flower, the "Forget-Me-Not," was undoubtedly named after the sheer amount of things to see and do within its home state. Due to the climate and fluctuating amounts of sunlight, Alaskan cruises take place strictly during late Spring through late Summer, with July and August being the peak visiting times.
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There Are Many Exciting Ports to Choose From
Alaska's ports include Anchorage, Haines, Juneau, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Seattle, Seward, Sitka, Skagway, Valdez, Vancouver, Victoria, College Fjord, Glacier Bay National Park, Hunnard Glacier, Tracy Arm Fjord, Icy Strait Point, Prince William Sound. | <urn:uuid:63f11311-c397-4d94-861f-ba32eb7d1abd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onlinevacationcenter.com/cruise_alaska.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932539 | 278 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Besides free pizza, pepper spray and those Guy Fawkes/V for Vendetta/Anonymous masks, one of the enduring symbols of the Occupy Wall Street protests has been the base camp at Zucotti Park. The park reopened in 2006, rebuilt by landlord Brookfield Properties after years of neglect followed by damage on 9/11.
It turned out to be a convenient location for protestors, as it is one of the largest open spaces near Wall Street, but the powerful Brookfield has been trying to evict the protestors all week. Now, the NYPD is taking the side of the protestors for once, saying thanks, but no thanks.
One of the five biggest office owners in the city, the Toronto-based Brookfield typically holds sway with City Hall. At first, it began taking matters into its own hands, posting signs with all the newly forbidden activities—no tents, no sleeping bags, no bikes or skateboards—but it needed the NYPD to enforce any such measures.
(The park is not really a park but a POPS, a privately owned public space, which began popping up all over the city in the 1970s and ’80s. In exchange for building these “parks” and plazas, developers got huge building bonuses, allowing their new office towers to shoot up many more stories.)
Yesterday, according to DNAinfo, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the department could not—or at least would not—bar protestors from Zucotti Park, though it appears he is open to letting Brookfield try and clear the space out:
“In building this plaza, there was an agreement it be open 24 hours a day,” Kelly said of the park near the World Trade Center, which is owned by Brookfield Office Properties but operates as a public space.
“The owners have put out regulations [about what's allowed in park]. The owners will have to come in and direct people not to do certain things.”
While protestors continue to camp out in the plaza, DNAinfo notes they are also careful to keep things clean and have even set up a recycling center.
It seems clear why neither the police nor Brookfield wants anything to do with driving the protestors out. If corralling a protest at Union Square was bad, can you imagine trying to evict them from their temporary home? | <urn:uuid:c58fe3ad-7c33-4b2e-ad85-589aa090a808> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://observer.com/2011/09/brookfield-bummer-occupy-wall-streets-occupation-of-zucotti-park-will-continue-nypd-says/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970555 | 477 | 1.539063 | 2 |
I wanted to dip into the archives this week; Fast Company published a wonderful series on the Apollo missions that reminded me of the wealth of beautiful images from NASA Archives. If you haven’t already taken a mini adventure through NASA Images powered by the SF based Internet Archive – it is definitely on the top ten list of sites to visit for a space suit enthusiast. Some of my favorite rarely seen photographs that are found deep within this vault of many treasures are survival training photographs- my favorite of which are stills from Mercury Group 3 Training.
These Mercury boys had yet to go the moon; Mercury / Apollo Test Pilot Alan Shepard didn’t become the first American in space until 1961 ( as a point of reference – JFK made his famous “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech in 1962). American manned exploration accomplishments during the Mercury program era were limited, but the possibilities were endless. I think that is why these survival training photographs are so charming. Throw a bunch of lifetime military men in the desert – that’ll get ‘em ready for the final frontier. Not going to lie, their headdresses made out of parachutes make them look more like Devendra Banhart than 1960′s American rocketman. | <urn:uuid:1c492df4-07bc-4478-8df3-1977b3464dd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefoxisblack.com/2013/02/08/space-suit-of-the-week-121/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962292 | 251 | 1.773438 | 2 |
TORONTO - Becoming the first openly gay premier in Canada is "historic" and "exciting," but it shouldn't overshadow her role in governing the country's most populous province, Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne said Sunday.
The premier-to-be said she feels a "special responsibility" to young gay people who are looking for a more accepting world, but she's not a gay activist and doesn't plan to spend the next few months talking about her sexual orientation.
"It is important to me that young people and people who are frightened see the possibilities," she said. "And if I can help people to be less frightened, then that's a wonderful, wonderful thing."
But for her, the real historic moment is becoming the sixth woman premier in Canada.
"We've wondered about why we haven't had a higher percentage of women in legislatures and in Parliament," she said. "Well, maybe now we're reaching a critical mass."
Wynne's victory as Ontario's Liberal leader and next premier is a significant historic moment for the country, said Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, a national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered human rights group.
But having an out, progressive woman to lead the province is something to be proud of too, she said.
"It sends a strong message to those young kids who are cautious and nervous about their own journey with respect to their sexual orientation and gender identity, that you can do it if you're true to yourself," Kennedy said.
It's also important for the parents of LGBT children to know that their kids can be and do whatever they want, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, she added.
It's a "giant leap forward" at a social and cultural level for Ontario, said Bryan Evans, a politics professor at Toronto's Ryerson University.
"But at the end of the day, I think issues of identity are secondary to 'Are we electing somebody who can do the job and move Ontario forward in a difficult time'," he said.
Wynne, 59, was married to a man and had three children before she came out at the age of 37. She is now married to her longtime partner, Jane Rounthwaite.
While her sexuality wasn't a secret at Queen's Park and Wynne didn't shy away from it, it wasn't something she spoke about publicly in her work as a cabinet minister.
She didn't shrink from questions Sunday about a new sexual education curriculum for elementary schools, saying she intends to revamp it nearly three years after some controversial changes forced Premier Dalton McGuinty to put it on hold. But she'll consult with parents and education groups in putting a new curriculum together.
Homophobia always comes up in her campaigns and did in this one too, with a Toronto newspaper editorial asking if Ontario is ready for an openly gay premier.
The question is posed to her as an electability issue, but it underestimates Ontarians to assume that sexual orientation is going to determine how they vote, she said.
And Ontario is ready for a gay premier, Wynne told Liberal delegates in a rousing speech Saturday at the leadership convention.
"The province has changed, our party has changed. I do not believe that the people of Ontario... hold that prejudice in their hearts," she told the crowd.
Wynne also thanked Rounthwaite in her victory speech Saturday for being "on the front line" during the gruelling three-month campaign, as the crowd erupted in cheers, chanting "Jane! Jane! Jane!"
Wynne may have a difficult road ahead of her, said Kennedy.
"I'm not naive enough to think that homophobia and transphobia are still not alive and well in Ontario and around the country," she said. Wynne can work around it, but she'll need a lot of support from all the opposition parties.
But Wynne, who's served as minister of education, aboriginal affairs, municipal affairs and transportation, also has a solid reputation as a politician who can prevail even when the odds are stacked against her.
The former school trustee and Harvard-trained mediator beat a Conservative cabinet minister when she was first elected to the legislature in 2003. Then in 2007, she trounced Conservative leader John Tory on his own turf in the Toronto riding of Don Valley West.
Despite trailing in second place behind her rival Sandra Pupatello in the leadership race, Wynne managed to pull ahead at the convention and win.
Wynne rose to the top job because of her ability to lead and who she is as a person, Kennedy said.
"I think the first thing that people will judge her on is her ability to get the job done," she said.
"I think she will be judged ... on her policies, before they will judge her on her sexual orientation. It is a part of who she is, but it's one part."
Note to readers: CHANGES to LGBT in para 9 | <urn:uuid:ef0d2dc5-acf6-49f9-9145-5db75e87363d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Becoming+first+openly+premier+Canada+exciting+says+Wynne/7879248/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98079 | 1,026 | 1.796875 | 2 |
A Castle On the Ocean
A friend of mine came across this while surfing the Web and thought I’d like it. He knows I like paper craft (as anyone one the blog has figured out) and he knows I like castles (as my first pop-up book can attest) – so the combination of these is a sure fire favorite. I was stunned at the level of complexity and sophistication achieved in this tour de force of paper craft. Check out some of the amazing photos at Tokyobling’s blog as well as get some info on the exhibition. A young art student named Wataru Itou spent FOUR years working on this project to complete a degree at a Tokyo art university.
A few more images can be found at the main Japanese website for the Uminohotaru gallery.
Also, I was able to find an article on the paper craft castle here. Since I don’t read Japanese, I had to rely on Google translate to get the gist of the story but it looks like the sprawling town (complete with a castle, construction cranes and moving train) was displayed in a student exhibition earlier this year. At the end of the show, this labor of love was to be burned to the ground! At the last minute, the owner of the gallery rescued it from the flames and found an exhibition space in the underwater Uminohotaru gallery off the coast of Tokyo.
So glad to see this work of art survive to enchant future audiences. Including me. | <urn:uuid:946f91c4-b955-4786-8a7d-35e6ca2b2113> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kyleolmon.com/blog/2009/07/02/a-castle-on-the-ocean/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968204 | 309 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The FINANCIAL -- European commissioner
Algirdas Semeta criticised Austrian policies on banking secrecy Friday,
suggesting in an interview that the EU might file a complaint on the
"A country like Austria cannot exchange banking information with the United States, but refuse it to European partners," Semeta told the Austrian daily Der Standard.
He referred to an agreement being negotiated by Austria and the US that would provide for an automatic exchange of information on US citizens who hold bank accounts in Austria.
Semeta said that if an EU member accorded better conditions to a third country than to partners within the European Union, "that is a violation of the law, which could lead to a complaint by the European Commission."
Austria and Luxembourg are the only EU members that refuse to divulge the identity of EU residents that own bank accounts in their countries, owing to principles of banking secrecy.
"I see no reason that justifies Austria and Luxembourg blocking advances within the EU," said Semeta, who is commissioner for taxation and customs union.
Information exchanges "would allow other countries to recuperate the taxes due them," he noted.
The European Commission would also like EU members to give it a mandate to negotiate an exchange of banking information with Switzerland.
But Semeta charged that "Austria and Luxembourg are blocking" the process, which must receive unanimous approval.
As EUbusiness announced, Austria has concluded separate agreements with Switzerland and Liechtenstein to preserve banking secrecy, and Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter reaffirmed Thursday that "we do not accept automatic exchanges of information."
That would allow Switzerland "to become a (fiscal) paradise in Europe, along with other smaller states like Saint-Marin, the Canary Islands or Monaco," she added. | <urn:uuid:ff2d79c6-fc99-4f90-9a02-286c3d7dddfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://finchannel.com/Main_News/Banks/122705_Commissioner_criticises_Austrian_bank_secrecy_/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956258 | 359 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Thought Process and Planning Behind Meal Prep for 1 Week
This is what goes through my mind on a weekly basis – it’s how I know that I am in control of what my calorie intake is, and that if I don’t see results in the gym or notice something different with my system – it’s easy to point to the source or the problem!
One day a week to do grocery shopping – this means I have a serious list that accounts for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for at least 6 days. How to make that happen– pick one recipe for breakfast, lunch and dinner and calculate the number of ounces/cups/tbs needed for each ingredient (protein/carb/veggie) to feed the number of people in your house. I have staples like almond butter and jelly, tuna, condiments and bread to supplement the change in schedule and eating out that occurs on the weekends. I also have nuts, protein powder and cheese cut up and measured into individual servings for snacks. Also on the list is enough fruit for each of us to have 2-3 serving a day.
I know it sounds boring to eat the same thing every day for a week, but I make sure the meals I choose are flavor packed and filling so I am not left craving other things. Who cares if you don’t have a new fresh cooked meal every night for the family? They will probably appreciate having a relaxed spouse/parent who can spend more time with them and less time stressing and cleaning after an already long day. This is my gift of time to myself and my Patrick– who helps with meal prep by the way. I do the same for grocery shopping (imagine only going to the store 1x a week –and actually using a legit budget for it) and laundry – it is done on the same day every week so our free time is not chore time. Life is too short for me to be worrying if I have time to run to the store after work again or stay up and put a load of laundry in every night. If you have kids – they should be helping!! Think of the life lessons of preparedness and scheduling you will impart on them. Fail to plan, plan to fail - show them how easy it can be if you establish a routine, and have them help you!! Henry Ford had a great idea with that assembly line thing.
Time and money savers:
Mason jars, much cheaper than Pyrex, longer lasting (and in my opinion safer/better for the environment) than plastic. Get the - sold separately on the shelf above them - plastic lids so you don’t have to worry about hand washing the metal lids they come with.
Frozen Veggies – do I look like I have time to wash/chop/steam 10lbs of veggies a week? Thank you technology for alleviating that 1st world problem from my shoulders.
Measure and portion your food into containers once you cook it!!!! This means you will be 100% less likely to eat more than you need/budgeted for, will not have to go back to the store and get more and will stay on your calorie plan so when you splurge on the weekend it will be truly earned!
Cooking meats simultaneously - pick meals where one meat cooks in the crock pot or on the stove top and one that cooks in the oven or on the grill. With these recipes it is important to remember to adapt the size of the crock pot and the amount of seasoning to cook the amount of meat you require - not that the recipe recommends.
-Brown and drain ground beef and make your own spaghetti sauce - make a big batch and freeze some for later.
-Roast a couple of 5lb chickens stuffed with garlic, onion and lemon at 350 for 2hrs then de-bone, take skin off and chop the meat to be stored in 3-4 oz servings. Use in salads, casseroles etc. There will be extra - freeze it to save time on another week.
-Bake a spice crusted pork loin, seasoned pork chops, or a ham.
-Baked or grilled salmon covered in Old Bay seasoning, or Lemon Pepper seasoned Tilapia.
-Bake a giant ground turkey meatloaf held together with egg whites and oat crumbs (pulse some instant oats in the food processor).
-Buy pre-portioned salmon or turkey burgers and season them while on the grill (I live in an apartment and am too lazy to go to the grill, I put them in the oven in a roasting pan so they drain).
-Buy a couple pounds of frozen cooked and shelled shrimp to use in salads.
When I make rice or pasta, I make as much as I can, store it in 1-2 cup (prepared) portions and freeze what I don't need to save cooking prep later on.
For every Costco suggestion I make I am confident that there is a similar option at Sam's or other big box clubs in your area.
Example: List for 1 week for two people eating 1500-1700 calories depending on snacks
Breakfast: BTW it only takes me 20 mins to make this…I pack lunches, enjoy my coffee and watch the news while waiting for it to finish.
-Eggs - 4 whites for me, 3 whole for him x 7 days = 49 eggs or 4 dozen (I will cut out an egg or two to make the 4 dozen last all week) Costco sells free range organic eggs by the 2 dozen.
-Frozen hash browns cooked to package directions (just potatoes, no seasonings or oils added in packaging) 2 cups for me 2 cups for him x7 days = 28 cups, buy enough bags to have the servings needed
-Coconut oil – 2tbs/day to cook potatoes in
-Coconut or olive oil cooking spray (saves calories) to cook eggs in
-Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle seasoning – used to season hash browns
-Coffee or tea, we use around a lb/week
Salsa is always in our house – I get a tub every week – we will put it on something or other -at least breakfast. And yes you could make this from scratch, but the world has not come to an end yet…knowing how to is enough for me at this point.
You will never see cereal or milk in my suggestions...I have my reasons against grains, lactose and legumes - whether you are intolerant or not these are very difficult to digest, cause gut inflammation and water retention...just eat real food, stay away from the processed stuff. I'm not in the cult of Paleo, but there is a lot of good science behind some of their rules.
Morning snack – pre-workout (about an hour before training)
1 piece of fruit, 1 scoop protein powder = 12 bananas about 6.5- inches long and 1 container of protein powder (should last 2 wks)
I have tried many protein powders, they can suck, I get it. I have come to find Isopure is not terrible and they offer a "natural" option that has no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. Find something you like, try a few different ones... and get used to mixing it with water. Save the calories, save the money.
Post Workout or lunch
*It is important to get around 25g protein and 50g carbs after about an hour-long bout of vigorous training
3 oz lean protein
1 medium size piece of fruit
½ cup cooked rice or 4oz potatoes
1 cup Veggies
List for two people x 6 days =
-36oz meat (2.5 lb chicken, ground turkey, pork loin etc)
- 5lb bag of potatoes or rice (you will have extra for next time)
-1-2 heads of cabbage shredded with food processor and sautéed in a little oil or bags of frozen broccoli/green beans –take some out and microwave (Costco has 5lb bags of organic green beans and broccoli)
-12 apples about 2-2.5 inches in diameter
Lightly spray a baking dish or Dutch oven and bake or roast the meat (you could also grill it).
I like to use the seasoning mixes made by Weber– kickin’ chicken is what I use when I roast chickens and Smokey mesquite is what I use on pork. To season ground beef for tacos I usually brown meat and drain of as much fat as possible then use (per lb of meat) 1tbs chili powder, 1tbs cumin, crushed red pepper to your taste, ½tbs garlic powder, onion powder and basil.
Additional/Optional Snack (depends on calorie allowance and macronutrient ratios- but having these on hand always helps!) Cut up and measure out ahead of time so you won’t cheat and grab extra!
1 oz nuts x 2 people x7 days = 14oz – what the heck get 1lb and have the extra (to save money I usually get the 3lb bulk bags at Costco found with the baking stuff, usually priced better than the stuff in the snack area)
1oz cheese x 2 people x 7 days =14oz – go for the lb to have extra.
1 piece of fruit x 2 people x 7 days = 14 medium oranges or 14 cups frozen berries (Costco has organic mixed berries frozen in 5lb bags)
3-4 oz lean protein
½ cup cooked rice or 4oz potatoes ( I double this for myself because I am training really hard right now and need the carbs, otherwise you can probably live without them right?)
1 cup Veggies
Repeat steps from lunch planning
36 oz meat (2.5lb)
5lb bag of rice or potatoes (red skin or sweet potatoes)
-I like to cook my rice in chicken broth or sauté garlic, mushrooms, onions and carrots then add rice and broth, bring to boil then simmer until rice is cooked, for a pilaf
- I usually wash chunk and roast my potatoes at 425 in a lightly sprayed baking dish (usually takes two to hold them all) I mostly season by sprinkling them with crushed rosemary and garlic powder – I don’t measure, just lightly cover and toss.
Here we are deep in week three of the New Year, everyone still on the wagon? I am hoping this will be lucky thirteen for everyone. To make good on that hope I wanted to share a few tools I personally employ to reach my goals. Setting a goal is the easy part, figuring out what you have to do to get there involves some work, and then there is the business of actually getting it done.
A few years ago when I set out to become certified as a trainer and to participate in the Tough Mudder I was not sure exactly what I needed to do – just that if I started reading and exercising more I could make it happen. I came upon a planning gem while listening to Todd Durkin on a podcast interview; he mentioned a concept called “No Brown Days”. It is a planning system to help you see the bigger, quarterly and annual picture. This was a big idea for me – having a true “year plan”, who is that organized I thought? I checked it out and started thinking of how I could use it for my new goals, as a kind of check in every few months. By employing the strategies in this system, my goals became more defined, charting how to accomplish them became simpler – and I found out when I was biting off more than I could chew.
Starting this check up on myself helped me reach huge goals in small steps. The best part was developing coping mechanisms, like rethinking my path when I saw I was truly not making any progress. It allowed me to be honest with myself. If I saw my ideas were not working I started looking up different approaches and strategies to work around the obstacles I faced, both real and self-imposed. Today, I have accomplished both my goals and my annual roadmap for 2013 is the most detailed yet. As I continue to look for ways to streamline all the work that I do I have still take time each quarter to see what I have accomplished, what is still left to do and how to turn my setbacks into learning experiences.
Here is the link to the planning system http://nobrowndays.com/. I hope that you can use or adapt it to maximize your results this year and reach all your goals. One way I use it is to set a goal number of workouts for each quarter (this time it’s 60) and mark a “T” on each day I train. It feels good to rack them up and having a number to reach is so much less stressful of a constraint than saying, “I will exercise every Monday through Friday for three months”. Let’s plan to succeed rather than set ourselves up to fail!!
This is the daily planner I use - http://www.amazon.com/Action-Day-Planner-2013-8x11/dp/9935907414 - also an incredible tool that has made my life even less stressful!
All this talk about goals make you wonder what is you truly want? Robin Sharma has some great ideas on where to get started - http://blog.success.com/channels/wealth/sharma-the-8-forms-of-wealth/. One strategy to try is - once you decide on some goals, set three tasks for each quarter that will put you closer to reaching them.
One week since my certification and I am deep in getting myself off the gound. So far I have gotten insured, reworked my resume, edited my Ideafit profile (and became a member), discovered that CPA's know everything, found forms waivers for your guys, helped my first client, lost myself in Quickbooks and the list goes on and on. For anyone out there who would appreciate a trainer that understands that your life is busy and cannot always revolve around training - I get it, trust me!
Time -not having enough- is the number one factor that people list as the reason not to exercise, train, meditate...basically take care of ourselves. It is a barrier for myself some days, but just like the commitment I have to giving my clients 110% I have to remeber to give myself 110% as well.
Whether it's getting some you time to meditate, losing the weight that you feel is holding you back, or developing inner strength from your outer strength training - I truly believe that when we take better care of ourselves we can better serve those around us.
Time for you to get started. What are you going to do to start fresh today? Whatever your goal may be, once you commit to it, the time will be easier to find. Selfish or scary as it may seem for some, it's ok to put yourself at the top of the list. | <urn:uuid:6b58557a-2956-4e66-b631-28ae129d147d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.ideafit.com/blogs/rebeccca-lothamer/2013/3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957961 | 3,111 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Andre Dubus III begins his memoir, Townie, with a Bruce Springsteen lyric about boys trying to look tough. The quotation ultimately sets the tone for the book, which tackles the grit, drugs and street fights that accounted for much of the author's experience growing up in a small New England town in the ‘70s. It also focuses on his ascension out of a potential future that feels almost predetermined, as well as his sometimes tumultuous relationship with his famous father.
Dubus, whose first book, The House of Sand and Fog, was a finalist for The National Book Award, writes prose that is precise, deliberate, and meticulously crafted. This style is matched word for word by his own narration. Having the author perform a piece of work that is as raw and personal as this one makes for an incredible listening experience. The narration is slow and intimate there's a feeling of being drawn into Dubus' turbulent boyhood, of being alongside him as he comes of age in a strange time and in a strange family situation.
The family situation, in which his father leaves him and his siblings with a hardworking if somewhat financially destitute mother, might as well be another character in the story. Dubus is put in the position of basically having a child for a father. The fact that this father also happens to be a famous writer is rightly relegated to the sidelines most of the time. “Pop”, as he is lovingly referred to, turns a blind eye to his ailing family. He drinks and parties with his children. He philanders. He can never stay with one woman for very long. And yet, it's obvious that he has an immense amount of wisdom, commands great respect, and truly loves his family. He just has a weird, somewhat aloof way of showing it.
One of the triumphs of the narrative is that Dubus does rise above his situation, first through an interest in weightlifting and later through his own career as a writer. What starts as an endless loop of bar brawls, rundown cars, cheap beers, and neighborhood characters ends in a kind of Zen-like state that yields forgiveness and personal success.
Townie is also about two very different worlds. Dubus' life is laid out as a kind of double exposure, growing up with one foot on each side of the invisible fence that is class and education. More than anything though, it's about the decision to leave one kind of life for another, to grow disciplined in the face of hardship. Dubus starts as a townie, but ends up as something else. Gina Pensiero
Andre Dubus III, author of the National Book Award–nominated House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Last Days, reflects on his violent past and a lifestyle that threatened to destroy him—until he was saved by writing.
After their parents divorced in the 1970s, Andre Dubus III and his three siblings grew up with their exhausted working mother in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and crime. To protect himself and those he loved from street violence, Andre learned to use his fists so well that he was even scared of himself. He was on a fast track to getting killed—or killing someone else—or to beatings-for-pay as a boxer.
Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash of worlds couldn’t have been more stark—or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father. Only by becoming a writer himself could Andre begin to bridge the abyss and save himself. His memoir is a riveting, visceral, profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love.
©2011 Andre Dubus (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
“The best first-person account of an author’s life I have ever read.” (James Lee Burke, New York Times best-selling author)
“In this gritty and gripping memoir, Dubus bares his soul in stunning and page-turning prose.” (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)
“Powerful, haunting. . . . Beautifully written and bursting with life.” (Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review)
I believe a reviewer should finish a book before submitting a review. What do you think?
I have mixed feelings about this book, Dubus 111's memoir. It is raw and naked, violent and gentle and is about redemption. Dubus grows up in the mean streets near Boston. He is of in my generation, a teenager living with the backdrop of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Vietnam War on the television, the movie Billy Jack, Dave Brubeck on the parents turntable and lots available of drugs and sex. His absent father, not there at all for young Andre and his siblings, is always on Andre's mind and in his heart. As an adult, Dubus 111 clearly forgives his father and is abundantly understanding of why he and his sisters and brother were virtually ignored. He quotes his father as saying he felt as though he was "dating his children" since he was afforded only a weeknight and weekend day visitation schedule. I couldn't help but wonder if this contact schedule was self imposed or mandated.
Poverty stricken adolescent Andre turns to violence; is it because of the cultural, interpersonal, internal and familial conflicts he endures? And in the face of his violent acts he strives for clarity. His wish is granted; he comes to believe that all violence just breeds more violence and as he says, it hurts.
Although it makes sense to me that an author would want to narrate his audio book, especially a memoir, I don't think Mr. Dubus' narration does his prose favor. The narration is flat and monotone and although this in a way works, as this is indeed Andre's voice, maybe it's the editing I disliked. His voice comes on and off in spurts, clearly read in random segments so it was mottled in terms of tone, volume and clarity. Overall, I do think I liked this book, and I do so love this author's other works, it just was a bit of a mix for me. I look forward to others' reviews.
I loved this memoir. Dubus zeroes in on the angst of being a poor young man in a single parent household and methodically lays out his life for all to see, moving from a kid who allows himself, his friends, and, most painfully, his family, to be pushed around and bullied at will by others, to his years as a fighter, and one who made a point of interceding on behalf of others' turmoil. Finally, he begins writing in earnest, and through his writing begins to understand his best role in the world. It is heartfelt, open, and honest. I found it difficult at times to hear of the physical confrontations with others, but he redeems himself, both for himself and the reader. Great memoir, highly recommended.
I really liked this book, and the narration was very good. The only issue I have with it is the author's rather monotonous descriptions of situations. I lost count of the amount of smell references he made to scenes and places and the amount of cigarette smoke references were multiple.
That said, the second half of the book is truly compelling and a real coming of age tale, the first part did take some getting used to for me.
Mr Dubus has created a wonderful, harsh, rawly open read that could only come from his depths...by digging deeper into his being than most of us are willing to even contemplate and examine in detailed accounts of his life experiences from his earliest recollections in his parent's home to the finality of a father's burial. This is not a feel good read but rather an intense self evaluation of chilhood lived in poverty, of human struggle and growth expressed with both quiet composition and understated power. Through out the read, I felt the author's character in his commitment to remain true to his recollections no matter how unflattering to his person and come away feeling privileged to have been allowed to share his journey and life lessons.
Although this memoir has elements in common with other memoirs by adult children of neglectful or abusive parents, this is FAR BETTER than Jeannette Walls "The Glass Castle" or Mary Karr's "The Lairs' Club."
It is as good as "House of Sand and Fog" and few works are.
I am an unabashed fan of this author's father and am delighted by this author's own novellas, essays and short stories.
This autobiography touched me in a way that few autobiographies could.
Of course I had "known" the elder Andre Dubus only as he presented himself in his work. I was surprised by the depths of my outrage toward him as I realized how he had neglected the children of his first marriage and how that neglect nearly -- but did not -- destroy his children.
On the whole, this is an eye-opening, triumphant and inspiring autobiography and the son's acceptance and forgiveness of his father allows me to continue to love that writer's work.
I read the NYT review, which praised Townie but said "until it loses traction in clichés about redemption at its very end" and I disagree with this evaluation.
This book deepened my admiration and respect for the younger Andre Dubus and I found the ending cathartic.
Like his father, Dubus is a writer's writer as much as he is a reader's writer.
Despite the elder Dubus' well-known act of heroism and the loss of limbs it cost him, if one is going to compare the two, know this: the younger Dubus learned more from his father's mistakes than his father learned from them.
I look forward to reading more work from Andre Dubus III and I thank him for reading what must have evoked at times painful memories.
As an Austinite, among my favorite lines: "That’s what Texas did to me, took my hatred of bullies and bullying and institutionalized it."
And Andre Dubus III did something for me no other writer has: he eloquently explained to me how the same release found in engaging in acts of violence could be found in writing. Bravo, Mr. Dubus, Bravo!
What a good memoir about the author of The House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III ! It had all the characteristics that I would look for in a good memoir. First of all, Andre had a tough life ??? a tough childhood. So that gives the reader lots of drama, conflict, and suspense. Andre IS good at describing these conflicts so that the reader really feels them. Then, he has two different turning points in his life that provide him revenge and then redemption. In this way, Andre???s internal conflicts are finally resolved, and it felt really moving to see how these changes manifest in his life.
The only fault I have with the book is that the drama leading up to both of these turning points goes on too long. Before Andre shifts into revenge mode, there are too many times when we see him being bullied and scared. Then, after he starts lifting weights and training as a fighter, there are just way too many confrontations and bloody battles. I already got the point about Andre fighting to make up for all the earlier times he was bullied and couldn???t defend his family or himself! I really think the book would have benefited by shortening these two sections. I almost wanted to give up on it at one point.
My favorite parts were some of those involving his ???redemption.??? When he becomes a writer, his analogy of how clearing his head with writing was as good and better than doing so by fighting was really moving. His marriage and the birth of his kids helped him to overcome his brutal past as well. His description of caring for his kids as ??????a love so large my body could not hold it all, ??? is great. Then when he talks about his dad???s funeral and looks back on his past and we get a condensed view of how far he and all his family have come, well, I thought that was a really emotional ending. He does it by describing a car full of punks who interrupt the funeral briefly. This sets him on a fantasy of following the car as he might have done in the past to beat up the punks. This description is interwoven with the minister at the funeral reading The Lord???s Prayer. It???s like the prayer was for him and how far he and his family have really traveled to be able not to be ???led into temptation??? and for him to be able to forgive his father for all his many shortcomings. It was a great way to put his whole life in perspective and end the book.
I was bored and I didn't get the point. His life is interesting to a point, but not enough to write a book about. And his narration is very monotone and hard to listen to after a while. I wouldn't use a credit on this one.
Perhaps, only because the author himself is narrating and it's his story.
Andre (III), of course. I loved following him along in his journey. I would like to hear from his youngest sister some day. I wonder if she saw things differently?
Both. What a triumph over terrible circumstances. This story is fascinating. I thought that it was going to be about boxing and I wasn't thrilled about that. Thank goodness I was wrong.
Parts of it irritated me and his writing got a little monotonous at times, but later on found myself thinking back to it. So maybe that's the sign of a good novel. I wished the story had a few more twists in places, but I guess you can't demand that from a memoir. He lapses into a bit too much navel-gazing at times, but the ending is touching.
The book is interesting. It is a memoir without intrigue and cohesive story.
The narrator is awful: steady soporific voice hypnotizes. Be careful listening this book in the car - extremely dangerous. Read this book it is safer.
Report Inappropriate Content | <urn:uuid:0c2b28fd-6175-4d61-b80b-79c505429716> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=pd_rsp_2?asin=B004NX2OV8&_escaped_fragment_=/followNotice/close | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988056 | 2,947 | 1.507813 | 2 |
You've got about 24 hours to get your bids in on a piece of super-cool Cold War hardware - a stealth warship the government no longer wants.
The General Services Administration is taking bids on the U.S. Navy's Sea Shadow, built by Lockheed Martin in 1983 for the Navy to test radar-evading capabilities and other weapons systems. The ship has outlived its usefulness, and the Navy is trying to unload it to avoid maintenance costs, the Los Angeles Times reports.
"It is not cost-effective for the Navy to maintain the ship in an inactive condition any longer, and the ship no longer serves any operational or research purpose," Navy spokesman Christopher Johnson told the Times. "Our only disposition option is dismantling and recycling."
Which means if you submit the highest bid, you won't be taking the 118-foot-long, 499-ton Sea Shadow for a three-hour tour with Gilligan and the Skipper.
"The ex-Sea Shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the U.S.A. Dismantling is defined as reducing the property such as it has no value except for its basic material content," read the conditions on the GSA auction site.
That seems to have dampened the interest of evil madmen bent on world domination. (The Sea Shadow is said to be the inspiration for the villain's vessel in the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies.")
The GSA website reports only 10 bidders so far, with the top bid at $139,100. Bidding started at $10,000.
The winning bidder will have to pick up the prize from the Maritime Administration National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California.
The Sea Shadow comes complete with a covered barge/floating dry dock, so once you bust it up you will have a keepsake to remind you of what could have been.
Bids are due by 6 p.m. ET Friday. Good luck. | <urn:uuid:0c77c1d8-ce3a-475b-8db8-459708df577d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/03/heres-your-chance-to-own-navy-stealth-ship/comment-page-6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949979 | 410 | 1.632813 | 2 |
PHEBA, Miss. (WTVA) - Hebron Christian School in Pheba is a private school that serves students in Clay and surrounding counties.
Educators there decided to be a part of "National School Choice Week" to show their support for the many educational options available to parents and students.
Hebron Christian School Administrative Assistant Laura Fulgham told us why as a parent it was important that her children attend there.
Fulgham said, "For us, it was the best choice to come here. There is the smaller atmosphere, the one-on-one with the teachers, and meeting people we wouldn't have otherwise."
One teacher, who's been at the school her entire career, says as a parent and teacher it's important to have choices in education.
Teacher Audrey Hood said, "We are able to talk about God and pray. We're able to do the things in private school that we can't do in public school."
Student Carley Doss said, "Our teachers are great and they're real nice. I like the special classes and everything."
The "National School Choice Week" celebration aims to promote high-performing traditional public schools, public charter schools, home schooling and private schools like Hebron.
Hebron is among schools in Mississippi and around the nation officially recognizing the special week.
Supporters of school choice say they're not trying to knock public schools or any other places of learning.
But they do think every student and parent should have options.
Teacher Audrey Hood said, "I do think that public schools can offer things we can't offer out here because of money, budgets and tuition we have to take up. I do like the choice of being able to send your child where you want to send them." | <urn:uuid:7d13cd41-2d7c-4324-b7b2-44635f940353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/Promoting-school-choice/t6lB59RFC06Hhn3M4bvmew.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981838 | 369 | 1.507813 | 2 |
November 07, 2012 22:32
Peres: Russia-U.S. cooperation crucial to world stability
MOSCOW. Nov 7 (Interfax) - Israeli President Shimon Peres argued on Wednesday that Russian-U.S. cooperation is crucial to global stability and indispensable for the prevention of global disasters.
"It would have been impossible to defeat Nazism without interaction between the United States and the Soviet Union. If they saved [the world] from Hitler then, now these two countries should join forces to save nations from the new Hitler," Peres said during a reception marking his current visit to Russia.
He said he personally knew the Russian and American presidents, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, quite well.
Peres praised Russia. "The words 'Great Russia' mean 'a great heart,'" he said.
He mentioned that the Israeli population includes 1.2 million immigrants from countries of the former Soviet Union.
"It was here that the State of Israel was born, for the majority of founders of our state come from here," he said.
"Just as ourselves, Russia has experienced a great deal of suffering," Peres said.
"Thank you to the Russian people from the Jewish people, thank you for something that has been done for centuries," he said.
He credited the Soviet Union with a large role in saving the Jews from annihilation during World War II.
"I feel at home here," Peres said.
He said, however, that, though "there has been a lot of sunshine" in Russian-Israeli relations, "there have been some shadows as well."
May 20, 2013
Belarus PM urges more exports to Russian regions
Human rights commissioner, defense and regional development ministers to speak in Duma Tuesday
Two thirds of Ukrainians displeased with Ukraine's economic development - poll
Second Makhachkala bomb was equivalent to 50 kilograms of TNT - investigative committee (Part 2)
Skolkovo Foundation says lawmaker Ponomaryov may have cheated it
Lavrov hopes stabilization trend will continue on Korean peninsula (Part 2)
CoE's representative office to be reorganized into program office
N.Korea's short-range launches without ballistic trajectory not banned - Lavrov (Part 2)
Makhachkala bombings death toll rises to 4 - ministry
Opposition should take part in conference on Syria without preconditions - Lavrov (Part 2)
Conference on Syria needs diplomacy, not impulsive moves - Lavrov
Suspected militants killed near Moscow thought to have been trained in Pakistan - source
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has given an interview to Interfax ahead of his visit to Russia on May 16-19 in which he speaks about the goals of his visit, pressing tasks that the UN face, the organization‘s reform, as well as topical issues on the international agenda, including situation in Syria and the Middle East settlement.
Deputy NATO Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, who is visiting Moscow for an informal conference of former U.S. ambassadors to Russia and Russian ambassador to the United States, has given an interview to Interfax in which he speaks about NATO-Russia cooperation, as well as pressing issues on the international agenda, such as the missile defense issue, North Korea, Syria and Afghanistan.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has given an interview to Interfax‘ journalist Olga Golovanova ahead of the 2+2 meeting slated for March 13 in London, on which he speaks about the agenda of the upcoming 2+2 talks, the whole range of British-Russian relations, including human rights, as well as pressing international issues notably Syria. | <urn:uuid:4d4e90c3-a238-4de5-b3cd-3701c677370c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=373604 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958385 | 747 | 1.742188 | 2 |
It’s not necessarily surprising that during the week of O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention (aka OSCON), companies release open source code — just as they often release flashy consumer products during tradeshows to garner the most buzz from contingent news cycles.
So it goes with Adobe’s announcement today that they’re releasing two new open source projects, one for rendering text on the web and the other — the Open Source Media Framework — for playing back video and streaming content.
It may have been upstaged by Microsoft but Adobe’s strategy with its Open Source Media Framework looks very similar.
That strategy is to co-opt the term open source, make it corporate, and maintain dominance of the future.
Microsoft is supporting Linux tools so Linux can live in a Windows world, and Adobe is delivering an open source project so that open source, as a concept, can live in its world of corporate media.
At stake in this case is the standard for video in HTML 5.0. The World Wide Web consortium has a bias in favor of royalty-free, open source standards. While the H.264 codec had market dominance, it had no open source street cred.
The corporate nature of the Adobe effort is emphasized on this page, where it lists “plug-in partners” from the worlds of advertising, publishing, and analytics. Its goal is to drive the Adobe Flash platform. That means Adobe’s Open Video Player, code-named Strobe
It has already achieved big success since HTML 5 stopped specifying Ogg Theora in June, meaning no codec is currently specified. Don’t say no is a big step on the way to saying yes to H.264.
In the standards war open source is a necessary coating. We will now see whether open source is just that, a cloak on corporate ambition, or a true bottom-up phenomenon driven by communities like Ogg Theora.
Dana covers much of the concerns that I have about this announcement — so I’ll simply let his analysis stand.
What I want to highlight here, as I’ve done before, is the point that he makes about
[co-opting] the term open source, [making] it corporate, and [maintaining] dominance of the future.
A year ago I wrote about parsing the “open” in Facebook’s then-called “fbOpen” platform, taking them to task for licensing their code under the Common Public Attribution License and offering up only a portion of their platform — which came handicapped with all kinds of redistribution restrictions.
A year on and the results of Facebook’s approach are evident: no external Facebook community has developed; no alternative open source Facebook Platform implementations have been attempted. Facebook is still roundly in charge of the platform and get to use the term “open” as though it means something.
Adobe and Microsoft are now engaged in similar forms of open-washing, applying the tastes-great, less-filling label, while doing everything they can to maintain their control and dominance in a given area — further cementing the historic distinction between “free” and “open”.
Adobe is clearly concerned about the progress of the HTML5 video tag and is coming out aggressively against it, shielding themselves in the cloth of “open” in an attempt to staunch criticism and dissent. One needs only to examine the language of the Open Video Player project or consider the “partners” involved to realize that nothing about the “Open Video Player” project has anything to do with open and everything to do with inhibiting a free and open media web from emerging.
In my estimation, the hallmark of empty “open” rhetoric is incomplete or conflicting legal guidance and documentation — since this is the information that determines how you may be able to modify, redistribute or contribute to a project. Specifically, Adobe has released the OSMF under v1.1 of the Mozilla Public License (annotated version), but uses this patent policy: “By releasing OSMF under MPL 1.1, Adobe is granting certain patent rights to this code. Adobe may seek patents for innovations in OSMF to defend its technologies against patent assertions.”
While this kind of language makes perfect business sense, it is anti-community and creates FUD.
For example, if someone wanted to try to take the OSMF and build it into a popular, open source web browser — or otherwise use the OSMF to advance the HTML5 video work (outrageous as that idea may be!) — it is unclear whether such use would be permitted by Adobe under the terms of this policy.
In some respects, this is why the Open Web and Apache Foundations exist: to clarify legal issues like these and make it possible for companies and developers to maintain reasonable expectations about the projects to which they contribute and collaborate on.
3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
If you want to protect and promote open source and freedom in the cloud, understanding these legal issues are essential to evaluating the claims to “open” that companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Facebook have made and continue to make with announcement like today’s. It’s also critical to remember that there’s much more at stake here than just source code transparency — what happens with video and media on the web and in HTML5 can have a great amount of impact on the potential business opportunities for Silverlight and Flash — and Microsoft and Adobe (and Google and Apple) will do whatever it takes to ensure that their particular version of the future is secure — including co-opting “open” to make it so. Those of us who believe in the essentialness of openness and freedom of choice on the web must continue to remain vigilant about such abuses, distortions and misappropriations of the term “open” — and do what we can to spread awareness of the importance of free and unfettered technology development. | <urn:uuid:46ce47e1-d524-4c8c-ad55-a7070f0f6a5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/07/21/parsing-the-open-in-adobes-open-source-media-framework-announcement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933237 | 1,430 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Film Review: Slow Justice
NESHOBA: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM (on DVD; First Run Features)
In 1964 a mob of Mississippians killed three civil rights workers who’d come to the state to register local blacks on voting rolls. The documentary
shows that it took decades for any sort of justice to be meted out; ringleader Edgar Ray Killen was convicted in 2005. It’s somewhat satisfying to see the unrepentant old racist rolled off to jail in a wheelchair, but interviews with local people suggest that the hateful attitudes that fueled the murders persist. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” says one man—but the filmmakers, by retelling this sordid tale, are quite willing to wake the beast and do battle with it. | <urn:uuid:d823e988-e637-4cf9-a8c4-a48a25dd762e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utne.com/Arts-Culture/Documentary-Neshoba-Film-Review.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937826 | 163 | 1.625 | 2 |
What is that in my balcony?
Guess what? my balcony is A Green Balcony, and that is a new label on this blog. My bro S loves growing stuff. He has nurtured a few plants, we have a Brahma kamal, Peace Lilies, Hibiscus and Tulsi in the decorative category and for the kitchen he grows Lemon Grass and Mint. I am helping him expand the green in our home but I will focus on growing something for the kitchen. In the upcoming posts I will share both my bro's and my experience on growing our greens in our balcony in this Metro.
This post inaugurates the new category on this blog. As our little balconies become green, we need to sustain them with compost and other care. We are also committing ourselves to Upcycling the waste generated by our busy Kitchen.
What you see in the picture above is called a Khamba, I purchased it from the Daily Dump clone in Sion, Mumbai just today. I am so happy to have this composting unit in my home. It consists of 3 large Terracotta pots of about 15 liters capacity each. The pot that sits on the floor is the one with a bottom. The other 2 pots are bottomless. They just have a rope grid in the bottom, as you see in the pics below. The middle and top pots are used for dumping the daily waste from the kitchen.
It's set up in my balcony at the further most end leaning against the wall for good support. Here is how I started it up.
Step 1: Filled half of the bottom pot with dried leaves.
Step 2: Put the empty middle pot above it. Notice the rope grid on the inside.
Step 3: Placed the 3rd pot on the top. It has the same rope grid, as the second on the inside. Covered it with a sheet of news paper.
Step 4: Added some dry leaves, to form a bed for the wet waste from the kitchen.
Step 5: Then added the wet waste from the kitchen, peels, used tea leaves, wasted food etc. Plastic should not be added, not even in traces. In my home we have separate bins for wet waste and dry waste (papers, plastic, glass etc.)
Step 6: Sprinkled 2 tablespoons of the Compost Accelerator. Sprinkled some water.
Step 7: Sprinkled 2 handfuls of sawdust on the pile. Covering the waste with saw dust avoids growth of maggots.
Step 8: Need to sprinkle 3 tablespoons of Neem after 3 days, to keep the pile fit and free from harmful microbes and fungi.
Step 9: Covered the pot with a lid.
Now every day till the pot is full, we will repeat the step 5 and 7.
I will share with you the happenings in our Khamba as we go along on this journey of composting at home the Daily Dump way.
These are the other accessories we got with the Khamba unit, a compost sieve (the pink basket), a short rake and a pair of gloves. | <urn:uuid:f3397265-c707-42f0-ad07-ea81c16b701f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://annaparabrahma.blogspot.jp/2012/05/composting-daily-dump-way.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945394 | 648 | 1.84375 | 2 |
[Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies]
- Hermione. Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,
'Tis past enduring.
- First Lady. Come, my gracious lord,
Shall I be your playfellow?
- Mamillius. You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if
I were a baby still. I love you better.
- Mamillius. Not for because
Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
Become some women best, so that there be not
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle
Or a half-moon made with a pen.
- Mamillius. I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now
What colour are your eyebrows?
- Mamillius. Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose
That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.
- First Lady. Hark ye;
The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall
Present our services to a fine new prince
One of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us,
If we would have you.
- Second Lady. She is spread of late
Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!
- Hermione. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
I am for you again: pray you, sit by us,
And tell 's a tale.
- Mamillius. A sad tale's best for winter: I have one
Of sprites and goblins.
- Hermione. Let's have that, good sir.
Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best
To fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.
- Hermione. Nay, come, sit down; then on.
- Mamillius. Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;
Yond crickets shall not hear it.
- Hermione. Come on, then,
And give't me in mine ear.
[Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others]
- Leontes. Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
- First Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never
Saw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them
Even to their ships.
- Leontes. How blest am I
In my just censure, in my true opinion!
Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed
In being so blest! There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
Is not infected: but if one present
The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk,
and seen the spider.
Camillo was his help in this, his pander:
There is a plot against my life, my crown;
All's true that is mistrusted: that false villain
Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him:
He has discover'd my design, and I
Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick
For them to play at will. How came the posterns
So easily open?
- First Lord. By his great authority;
Which often hath no less prevail'd than so
On your command.
- Leontes. I know't too well.
Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
Have too much blood in him.
- Leontes. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;
Away with him! and let her sport herself
With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes
Has made thee swell thus.
- Hermione. But I'ld say he had not,
And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,
Howe'er you lean to the nayward.
- Leontes. You, my lords,
Look on her, mark her well; be but about
To say 'she is a goodly lady,' and
The justice of your bearts will thereto add
'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:'
Praise her but for this her without-door form,
Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight
The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands
That calumny doth use—O, I am out—
That mercy does, for calumny will sear
Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's,
When you have said 'she's goodly,' come between
Ere you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known,
From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
She's an adulteress.
- Hermione. Should a villain say so,
The most replenish'd villain in the world,
He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
Do but mistake.
- Leontes. You have mistook, my lady,
Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!
Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar: I have said
She's an adulteress; I have said with whom:
More, she's a traitor and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself
But with her most vile principal, that she's
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
That vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy
To this their late escape.
- Hermione. No, by my life.
Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then to say
You did mistake.
- Leontes. No; if I mistake
In those foundations which I build upon,
The centre is not big enough to bear
A school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison!
He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
But that he speaks.
- Hermione. There's some ill planet reigns:
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
The king's will be perform'd!
- Hermione. Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,
My women may be with me; for you see
My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;
There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress
Has deserved prison, then abound in tears
As I come out: this action I now go on
Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:
I never wish'd to see you sorry; now
I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.
- Leontes. Go, do our bidding; hence!
[Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies]
- First Lord. Beseech your highness, call the queen again.
- Antigonus. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer,
Yourself, your queen, your son.
- First Lord. For her, my lord,
I dare my life lay down and will do't, sir,
Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless
I' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,
In this which you accuse her.
- Antigonus. If it prove
She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.
- Antigonus. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
You are abused and by some putter-on
That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,
I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven
The second and the third, nine, and some five;
If this prove true, they'll pay for't:
by mine honour,
I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,
To bring false generations: they are co-heirs;
And I had rather glib myself than they
Should not produce fair issue.
- Leontes. Cease; no more.
You smell this business with a sense as cold
As is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't
As you feel doing thus; and see withal
The instruments that feel.
- Antigonus. If it be so,
We need no grave to bury honesty:
There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten
Of the whole dungy earth.
- First Lord. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
Upon this ground; and more it would content me
To have her honour true than your suspicion,
Be blamed for't how you might.
- Leontes. Why, what need we
Commune with you of this, but rather follow
Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness
Imparts this; which if you, or stupefied
Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not
Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves
We need no more of your advice: the matter,
The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all
- Antigonus. And I wish, my liege,
You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
Without more overture.
- Leontes. How could that be?
Either thou art most ignorant by age,
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,
Added to their familiarity,
Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,
That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation
But only seeing, all other circumstances
Made up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding:
Yet, for a greater confirmation,
For in an act of this importance 'twere
Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
Of stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle
They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,
Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?
- Leontes. Though I am satisfied and need no more
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
Give rest to the minds of others, such as he
Whose ignorant credulity will not
Come up to the truth. So have we thought it good
From our free person she should be confined,
Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence
Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;
We are to speak in public; for this business
Will raise us all.
- Antigonus. [Aside]
To laughter, as I take it,
If the good truth were known. | <urn:uuid:e406023e-2cae-49dc-a72d-c9cab6dcc3c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=winterstale&Act=2&Scene=1&Scope=scene&LineHighlight=671 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937111 | 2,607 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Gold earrings that are not pure gold might tarnish and this can affect the ears. Always ensure you keep the earrings clean by washing them gently in soaping water over a basin (not over the sink as you don’t want them to disappear down the plug hole!) and rinse them well afterwards. You do not want any soapy residue to get in the fitting or the clasp or anything that touches the ear as they might also cause a reaction or react to sensitive skin.
Ensure they are full dry also before putting them on or even putting them away.
Of course gold earrings will last longer if they are not worn all the time.
It is good, like with many other things, to have several so that you can interchange them and they will last much longer as a result.
It is also better to get gold earrings that are say 14 or 10 carat as they are more durable and harder than pure gold, 22 carat, since they have been mixed with harder metals such as silver and bronze for example.
The size and type of earrings are an important factor also and these should be selected not just with a fashion sense but also suitability for the ear to hold for long periods of time.
Check with your dealer or seller that the earrings are what is stated they are.
Ensure, if they are particularly valuable say with a diamond or other gem included, that you have a guarantee that the gem is also what is stated by the dealer. You may even need an appraisal of the stone and to ensure that the setting that holds the stone is adequate and fit for the purpose so the stone does not get lost.
Keeping the above in mind, buying gold earrings can be a safe and rewarding experience with earrings that give great satisfaction. | <urn:uuid:5f3f8fb3-bb84-449c-b6f7-ced329a2ec17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goldprice.org/gold-jewellery/2006/04/gold-earrings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978958 | 365 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Be it a Muslim who abandoned his car 50 metres from Westminster cathedral to go sightseeing (rather than wait for the breakdown truck) and returned to find his car had been broken into by the police.
"The police's actions were extremely arrogant and unprofessional, they treated me like a terrorist. They were never interested in listening to my real story."The Muslim women kicked off a bus in London
Two Muslim women have claimed they were refused a bus ride because one had her face covered by a veil.How somebody puling down a woman's face covering is a racist act (which it is).
Ian Brazier admits pulling niqab veil from Muslim womanTime and time again, the bBC will report on any negativity expressed towards Muslims as a racist hate crime. But for all their rush to promote Islam as only a victim, the bBC refuse to extend that courtesy for screaming
When Scottish school boy Kriss Donald was kidnapped in board daylight, thrown in the boot of a car, driven over 200 miles, beaten up, stabbed and set on fire, the bBC refused to call it a racist hate crime even when it came out that the main reason he was attacked by a bunch of Islamic thugs was due to his skin colour.
When 15-year-old Henry Webster was attacked by 7 Islamic men armed with hammers inside a school, the bBC refused to refer to it as a racist hate crime.
When gangs of Islamic men are found guilty in the UK of targeting white girls under the age of 15 for sex, the bBC refuses to refer to them not only as paedophiles but also as racists.
And so it is with how the bBC reports on the sad tale of 29-year-old Serioza Lawskoski who was dragged out of a private party by a gang of Muslims who had broken into the party and murdered Serioza in broad daylight. Racist hate crime? Not to the bBC. I quote the headline to their whitewash of events:
Oh, and that story about the two so called Muslims kicked off a bus. Here is what the bBC doesn't tell you about the story:
A bus driver accused by two students of banning them because of their Islamic dress has been cleared after CCTV showed he had actually barred them for their abusive behaviour. The 22-year-olds, Yasmin and Atoofa, from Slough, told the BBC that they had been refused access to the bus at Russell Square because of their dress. Yasmin was wearing a hijab and her face was uncovered while Atoofa was wearing a niqab, which covers the face.The bBC, the traitors in our midst.
But the Standard has learned that the students, who asked for their full names not to be revealed, were denied entry "due to abusive behaviour towards bus driver and other passengers".
On-board CCTV of the incident, on Monday last week, showed the women banging on the front doors and attempting to board the bus when it had come to the end of its run. They then get on through the rear doors and begin arguing with the driver. They get off and wait for the bus to start its journey back to Paddington - but another exchange follows, and the driver refuses to set off unless they disembark. | <urn:uuid:934c9961-cc4d-46da-b88e-1146ad523d03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the-eyeontheworld.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-bbc-has-become-apologist-for-islam.html | 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 | 0.987115 | 675 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Lehman Brothers’ collapse, early on a Monday one year ago, ushered in one of the most terrifying and catastrophic periods on Wall Street. The New York Times and other publications are taking an extensive look at what’s changed — and, probably more importantly, what hasn’t — since Lehman slumped into bankruptcy, sending world markets into a tailspin.
While some of Wall Street’s biggest names have disappeared, much of the Street looks similar to a year ago, The Times writes. The biggest banks have restructured only around the edges, pay is already returning to precrash levels, and some people believe the window for broad regulatory reform may be closing.
In a video, The Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Gretchen Morgenson and Joe Nocera recount the events of the fateful weekend that Lehman failed. The Times also has an interactive graphic and audio from Wall Street insiders speaking about the crisis.
Go to Video from The New York Times »
Go to Interactive Timeline from The New York Times »
Go to Interactive Graphic from The New York Times »
Go to Audio of Wall Street Insiders from The New York Times »
The Times also looks at the different paths that some Lehman workers have taken since the firm’s collapse. Some have landed on their feet — sometimes quite comfortably — while others have struggled to find their place. A few have ended up in surprising places, Forbes.com reports.
Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd C. Blankfein, in a Q&A with The Times, talks about the financial crisis and the leadership lessons he’s learned.
One year later, Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, doesn’t see much to be cheery about: He tells Bloomberg News that the “problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis” and says “too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger.”
The Los Angeles Times says that, on the whole, Wall Street “has recovered more quickly than expected with little difference in how it does business.” Investment Dealers’ Digest suggests that “it’s very possible that little will change, aside from Lehman employee business cards.”
In case you’ve forgotten just how chaotic it was a year ago, The Times looks back at what was being written in the newspaper during this wrenching period. The Times’s Joe Nocera suggests in his column that, with a year’s hindsight, the collapse of Lehman Brothers is beginning to look like a necessary evil.
The Times’s Gretchen Morgenson argues that senior regulators who allowed the seeds of the crisis to be planted have since been “rewarded with even bigger jobs or are jockeying for increased responsibilities.”
Sir John Gieve, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England, says he was “astounded” that the U.S. government let Lehman go under, but praised how it handled the meltdown that followed.
As the anniversary arrives, President Obama travels to Wall Street today to speak from Federal Hall.
He is likely to cast himself as a “reluctant shareholder” in America’s biggest industries and financial institutions, The Times writes — but the U.S. government is the nation’s biggest lender, insurer, automaker and guarantor against risk.
For full coverage of the Lehman anniversary, go to our special section below:
Stocks regained ground in New York after global investors were rattled by signs of a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing and a potential easing of central bank support for the economy.
Years in the making, the deal was hailed as a step toward more enforcement cooperation between the two countries.
The nominees, Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar, are familiar with the Wall Street regulatory agency’s business through their work.
Refining Canada’s petroleum-soaked oil sands produces petroleum coke, and the question of what to do with it has found at least one answer in Detroit, where a large coke pile covers an entire city block.
A blistering heat wave in north and western India has caused widespread electricity cuts and led residents to protest and even attack power company officials and property.
A nonprofit group representing scientists dings officials at both ends of the political spectrum for global warming distortions.
President Obama asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to scrutinize Justice Department investigations and said he was “troubled” that such inquiries could hinder reporters.
A new product, Twitter Amplify, will help brands match advertisements with Twitter commentary by viewers.
Content marketing is expected to be a big growth area for the ad industry and Robert J. Murray, global president of iProspect, a leading digital agency, is signing up.
A federal judge’s ruling could halt the resale of digital music as well as other digital good like e-books.
A world-renowned physicist meets a gorgeous model online. They plan their perfect life together. But first, she asks, would he be so kind as to deliver a special package to her?
The Winklevoss brothers have moved on from their battle with Mark Zuckerberg and are more active than ever.
Thirteen insurers had been chosen to sell policies through the insurance marketplace — or exchange — being created under the law.
Nearly 23 years after the Americans With Disabilities Act went into effect, patients with disabilities continue to receive inadequate medical care — and many cannot even get a doctor’s appointment.
A new report from ConsumerLab.com shows that some bottled varieties of green tea appear to be little more than sugar water, while some green tea leaves are contaminated with lead.
Kenneth deRegt, the executive in charge of Morgan Stanley’s once-powerful fixed-income department, is retiring. | Jamie Dimon is looking to mend fences with regulators. | Tesla Motors repaid a federal loan nine years ahead of schedule. | A look at the battle over Herbalife.
Sign up for the DealBook Newsletter, delivered every morning and afternoon, and receive breaking news alerts throughout the day. | <urn:uuid:d2653408-7c88-4ef7-a64b-aebe92826e97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/life-after-lehman-one-year-later/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955794 | 1,284 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Admissions Mailing Aims at Image
10,000 Counselors Get New Newsletter
The admissions and financial aids office this week for the first time began mailing a special newsletter to 10,000 high school guidance counselors aimed at bolstering their opinion of the College.
The five-page newsletter, which officials wrote this summer, is a response to a national decline in the ability of counselors to gauge an individual student's qualifications as an applicant, said Admissions Director William R. Fitzsimmons '67.
Budget cuts at the local level have increased counselors workloads, making it difficult for them to track students' progress and the admissions standards of competitive schools like Harvard, he added.
Fitzsimmonssaid that he "hopes [the newsletter] will improve our image" with counselors because they have a great impact on the quantity and number of applicants of the college.
The admissions office normally sends a brochure and sample application to high schools on its mailing list at the beginning of each academic year, said L.Fred Jewett '57, dean of admissions and financial aid said yesterday. Officials "felt that it was useful to try to address counselors on issues and concerns" that affect them as "part of a general attempt at bettering" Harvard's reputation. Jewett added.
The newsletter tries to dispel misconceptions about Harvard, officials said, including the belief that only once person in each high school class can get in as well as only the rich.
Admissions intern Lisa M Quiroz '83, for merly a minority student recruiter, says that high school counselors have often refused to see her. She recalled one man who "said no one could ever be admitted to Harvard from his outreach," When she went to the school and talked to students, quiroz found that several were "outstanding in ways which would get them in."
The five page newsletter includes sections on:
*profiling the class of 1987;
*describing the various financial aid options;
*recommending special high school programs for college-bound students;
*emphasizing the importance of detailed teacher and counselor recommendations.
*discussing early action versus regular action, and
*listing admissions officers and the regions they cover
The newsletter went out to high schools that during the past few years had requested an application brochure or sent Harvard one application, Fitzsimmons said.
Other Ivy League schools made no extra effort at reaching high schools. Brown Admissions Director James H. Rogers, said that his school decided against sending out extra material because "we were aware that a lot of other colleges were sending things out an we decided to let them do it"
Yale sent out its regular information bulletins and course catalogues to 3700 schools, from where three or more students had applies during the past five years, an official in the admissions office said yesterday | <urn:uuid:fee506af-a129-4b52-923e-6f2a74c758eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/9/24/admissions-mailing-aims-at-image-pthe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969539 | 589 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The diversion of tolls for unrelated projects undermines the "user pays" principle behind transportation tolls and weakens public support for them, Chris Plaushin, director of federal relations for AAA, told a hearing of the highway subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
A bill introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., the subcommittee chairman, would give the secretary of transportation the power to reject toll increases on highways and bridges that receive federal aid if they are judged to be excessive. Plaushin and a trucking official said they support the bill, but an official representing state departments of transportation expressed concern that it would hinder the ability of states to pay for transportation needs.
Federal and state gas and diesel taxes have paid for the bulk of highway costs since construction of the interstate highway system began in the 1950s. But Congress hasn't raised the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gas tax in nearly two decades. Not only has the buying power of the tax eroded, but tax revenue also is down because people are driving less and the fuel efficiency of cars is increasing.
But raising fuel taxes, especially when gas prices are already
"We're not anti-tolling, but we think some accountability in the process is needed," Plaushin said.
The hearing was prompted by significant toll hikes approved last year by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It now costs as much as $12 for motorists paying cash rather an using an automated toll system to cross between New York and New Jersey using the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, or the George Washington bridge and other bridges. Because of those and other recently approved increases in the Northeast, by the year 2015 a trip from Baltimore to New York will cost a 5-axle truck more than $209 in tolls, said Steve Grabell, chief financial officer of the New Jersey trucking firm NFI, who testified on behalf of the trucking industry.
The hearing was marked by several acrimonious exchanges between Lautenberg and Bill Baroni, the Port Authority's deputy executive director. When Lautenberg questioned Baroni on whether he thought $12 was a "fair" toll, Baroni ignored the question. Instead, he switched the subject, pointing out that at one time Lautenberg had a free E-Z Pass—an automated toll charging system that enables motorists to use faster toll lanes—paid for by the Port Authority because he had formerly been a Port Authority commissioner.
Lautenberg, apparently caught by surprise, said he wasn't going to allow Baroni to discuss such "silliness" and cut off his remarks. Instead, the senator pressed Baroni for information about conversations between Port Authority officials and the offices of the governors of New York and New Jersey leading up to the toll hikes.
"I'm not going to comment on who said what and when," Baroni responded.
"You are going to comment," Lautenberg fired back, reminding Baroni that he had an obligation to testify truthfully. Baroni said he was "offended" by the inference he wasn't telling the truth.
After several more testy exchanges, Lautenberg abruptly gaveled the hearing to a close.
Follow Joan Lowy at http://www.twitter.com/AP—Joan—Lowy | <urn:uuid:f7e32f78-69ab-4031-85b5-42b177e2b7d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eveningsun.com/nationworldnews/ci_20424080/aaa-motorists-tolls-used-roads-they-dont-use | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967424 | 685 | 1.84375 | 2 |
We all know that sleep is essential for your general well being and good health. Sleep deprivation may lead to many other problems which can be difficult to treat and cure. So if you think that you are not sleeping too well these days and this fact is disturbing your life then it is time to start doing something about this problem. Though insomnia is bad, just a few sleepless nights does not mean that you are suffering from insomnia. This trend of sleeplessness can be the result of many other factors. By making some easy and simple changes in your daily routine, you will be able to get your beauty sleep back.
#1. The first thing you will have to do is set a specific bed time and adhere to it no matter what. This will give your body the message that at a specific time, it should prepare for sleep. Setting a specific time for waking up in the morning will also help.
#2. If for a first few days, the body is getting adjusted to this routine and therefore you are not getting enough sleep, you can take power naps in the day. This will make up for the loss of any sleep at night.
#3. You will also have change the use of your bed. You will have to use your bed only for sleep and making love. This will help your brain to get the message that when you enter your bedroom at night; your body needs to sleep.
#4. Prepare the bedroom for sleep encouraging way. It means that your bedroom should be cool, dark and cozy. The bed should be comfortable for your needs. You can also use soft music to calm your mind which will relax you further and make you sleep.
#5. Your eating and drinking habits also make a difference about how you sleep. Therefore avoid eating heavy food and drinking alcohol just before your sleep time. Eat a light meal and tale care that you have at least 2 hours between dinner and sleep time.
#6. Reducing the caffeine intake in the day will mean that you will sleep better at night.
#7. Regular exercise and being active in the day will make your body sleepy at the end of it. So be active and busy in the day for better sleep at night.
#8. Taking hot bath before 1and ½ hours before bed time will make you sleep better.
#9. If you feel sleepy after dinner way before your bed time, then indulge some mild activities like reading something light or listening to music. These activities will keep you awake till your bed time but will not activate your brain too much that it will be difficult for you to sleep later.
#10. Don’t spend too much time in front of television or computer screen just before you are going to sleep as it affects the quality of your sleep.
So by taking these simple precautions, you can improve the quality of your sleep which will ultimately result in better productivity in the day. | <urn:uuid:677e78bc-6f60-482d-9838-5d491d4f2e41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digmlm.com/sleep-better-at-night | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961171 | 594 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Planning Ahead: A Case Study on Student Performance Standards and Accommodations for an Internship
My name is Michael and I am about to graduate with a social work degree. I have a spinal cord injury that has resulted in a mobility impairment and several health issues.
I recently failed my social work internship at the local rehabilitation hospital. The Social Work Department policy does not let students repeat a clinical experience if they have failed. I appealed my situation to the director of the Social Work Department because I did not receive negative feedback about my performance until my final review on the last day of the placement. I was surprised at this outcome because I always contacted my site supervisor to let her know of weather-related transportation delays or absences due to health issues. Then I was told that frequent late arrivals, missed days, and delays in turning in reports were the reasons I did not pass the internship.
The Social Work Department director contacted the fieldwork supervisor to discuss my performance. In this case the director confirmed the lack of adequate feedback, clear expectations, and supervision throughout my placement. I also worked with the campus disabled student services office to assess the accommodations I would need to be successful - an extended time period for my placement and a later daily arrival time.
Following mt meeting with the disabled student services office counselor, the director granted me permission to repeat my internship under specific conditions. The supervisor agreed to meet with me weekly to discuss my performance. I started work one hour later, and my internship was extended for an additional week. If I had any additional absences, I would need to work with my supervisor to make up the time and the work.
This case study illustrates the following:
- Students who have disabilities should be held to the same performance standards as those for other students.
- Students with disabilities should work with campus disability services counselors, advisors, supervisors, and/or field placement coordinators to determine what accommodations, if any, are needed for a fieldwork placement.
- Flexibility that includes a part-time schedule, adjusted work hours, and/or extended time to complete the fieldwork or internships may be necessary for students who are prone to absences due to health or transportation issues.
Last update or review: January 23, 2013 | <urn:uuid:42054bcb-0534-42d6-bc29-547f1ae97740> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washington.edu/doit/Careers/articles?300 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959737 | 456 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Last week, we spent a bit of time thinking about games and, er, time – the relationship between a game when it’s dormant and when it’s being played, what happens when games you made recede into the difference, what happens if you slow the process of playing a game right down. And instead of arguing about it incessantly, we decided it was probably better to all go away and write up a bit of what we thought.
Time in a game can be a lot of things.
It can be a score – how long did you survive? Or: how long did it take you to succeed?
If can be a straightforward measure of how much potential play is left: an hourglass running through, some number in a corner on a screen, bigger numbers on an LED display over the stadium.
There is a version of this post in which I logged all of my network traffic, from all of my devices, for two weeks, and interpreted the data as audio. In the beautiful interactive timeline visualisation I produced, patterns appear. Human rhythms, work and play, rest and arousal. The pervasive digital hiss of our machines automatically organising themselves around us. Sudden slabs of noise as content is streamed and consumed.
Hide&Seek’s central concern as a studio is with the creation of games for public spaces. As our practice has developed, we have sought out ways that our designs can support public play without the need for human intervention in the form of an event. Projects such as Tate Trumps (Tate Modern, 2009) and The Building Is… (Gâité Lyrique, 2012) create experiences where play is mediated by technology, while retaining the live, human, social qualities of festivals. Our work situates video game design in the public realm, claiming it as a form of civic culture.
We like to think that there is no secret to making a good game, no magic bullet that shortcuts the unpredictable trials of testing and balancing and bug fixing and refining. We’re kidding ourselves, though. There is an absolute, guaranteed, three step process for making a good game. It’s this…
You can’t touch a game. You can touch the book containing the rules of a game, you can touch the playing pieces, you can touch the disc or cartridge it comes on, but you cannot touch a game. Games only exist as mental constructs in the minds of the players and the observers. Chess, when you’re not playing it, is a list of rules, a board and some pieces. Only when you engage with those rules and pieces does the game itself come into existence. | <urn:uuid:1b8ae3d5-0dbe-4c03-b622-1638d50c9f02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hideandseek.net/tag/time/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947711 | 546 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Noted economist and defender of development assistance Jeffrey Sachs re-ignited the age-old disagreement about the value of foreign aid in a recent essay on the Huffington Post web site. In lambasting aid critics Dambisa Moyo and Bill Easterly, he set up his straw men and knocked them down, but in doing so, he failed to get to the heart of the disagreement. He just managed to slur two people who have a valid point to make about the effectiveness of aid.
The fact that Moyo and Easterly received a scholarship or a grant does not invalidate their skepticism about the effectiveness of foreign aid. Calling them hypocrites mixes points that confuse people and doesn’t help resolve this longtime disagreement. Reasonable aid critics do not say all foreign aid is bad. The main point they make is whether the aid helps to achieve long-term self-sufficiency or whether it creates ongoing dependency. It is not cruel to suggest that much of the billions of dollars in aid that has been extended over the years never reached the intended beneficiaries. We know aid money has been misappropriated and/or stolen. So to suggest that Moyo and others are calling for suffering is disingenuous. It is the governments that fail to apply aid properly that are responsible for much of this suffering.
The prime examples Sachs and others offer as countries that have used foreign aid to become self-sufficient always seems to feature South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel and other countries not in Africa. The best Sachs could offer of aid recipients on the continent weaning themselves from aid are Egypt, which he describes as being “on the path,” and Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana. The issue critics raise is how long it takes to become self-sufficient and whether the aid itself or policy changes to encourage entrepreneurship is the reason for progress in eliminating poverty.
Rwanda, for example, is now heavily dependent on foreign aid, which supports an estimated 70% of the government’s budget. Rwandan President Paul Kagame is furiously trying to lessen this dependency. As Moyo points out in her response to Sachs, if a continued high level of aid were the answer, why is Kagame trying so hard to reverse course? Moyo points out that after all the aid provided in the last couple of decades to African countries, 70% now live on US$2 a day as opposed to only 10% in the 1970s. Where is the success in that?
When many of us in the Africanist community first expressed support for the African Growth and Opportunity Act in the 1990s, we were criticized for wanting to cut aid in favor of trade. The fact that Africans wanted to be self-sufficient was lost on some U.S. government officials who thought Africans couldn’t succeed on their own without aid. There is nothing more damaging to progress for Africans trying to overcome poverty than the bigotry of low expectations. To borrow an old phrase: Africans need a hand up not an everlasting handout. | <urn:uuid:2618e198-88a8-4071-a2ee-b59643d85fb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://africarising2010.blogspot.com/2009/05/beating-up-straw-men.html | 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 | 0.96529 | 608 | 1.84375 | 2 |
NTEU Media Release - Government Must Heed Calls for Increased Student Funding if Quality is the Priority
NTEU has today warned the Federal Government that unless public funding per student is increased, the growth in student numbers required by the Federal Government’s push to have 40% of 25 – 34 year olds holding at least a bachelor degree by 2025 will not be achievable.
NTEU President Jeannie Rea said “We agree with the Education Minister in that growth must be sustainable. However, just adding more students to the system, without considering the impact this will have on already crowded classes and strained teaching and student support resources, will not resolve this problem.”
To view NTEU's Media Release please click on link below. | <urn:uuid:83e83a69-373c-44e7-a71c-0077c9c53c15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nteu.org.au/article/NTEU-Media-Release---Government-Must-Heed-Calls-for-Increased-Student-Funding-if-Quality-is-the-Priority-11165 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939088 | 153 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Prominent Australian right-to-die campaigner Philip Nitschke said on Friday he wants to set up an assisted suicide clinic in Fiji, but the government in Suva downplayed the idea.
Nitschke, a doctor who has campaigned on euthanasia issues for more than a decade, wants the clinic to operate like the Dignitas center in Switzerland, where 144 people, virtually all of them foreigners, ended their lives last year.
Nitschke, head of Exit International, said the proposed clinic would make it easier for people from the Asia-Pacific who wanted to end their lives to do so, rather than having to travel to Europe.
“Given the logistical problems faced by those in the Asia-Pacific traveling to Europe when seriously ill, Exit would suggest that a mirror clinic is well warranted in this region of the world,” he said.
He said he had written to Fiji’s attorney-general who had asked for more details, and hopes his organization can go to the Pacific nation to discuss the idea.
“The reality is that it’s a very humane process, and a country which shows some compassion and concern for its neighbors, I think would entertain such ideas,” he said in a separate interview.
A Fiji government spokesman confirmed they received Nitschke’s proposal, but said it was highly unlikely a death clinic would be approved in the predominantly Christian nation.
“As with all submissions received by the attorney-general’s chambers, details of the proposal were requested. There is no plan to establish such a facility in Fiji,” she said.
Assisted suicide, or euthanasia, is banned in Australia, although it was legal for a time in the Northern Territory before the law was overturned in the 1990s.
When it was legal in the Northern Territory, Nitschke became the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, voluntary, lethal injection to end a life.
He said only seriously ill patients found by a psychiatrist to be of sound mind would be permitted to use the service proposed in Fiji. | <urn:uuid:d9519be2-dd2b-461d-b797-4bcf0abea645> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/08/26/2003541234 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9808 | 428 | 1.789063 | 2 |
It’s a tale of two cities, 200 miles apart, with serious money problems. But while Fresno’s getting by paycheck-to-paycheck, Stockton’s already hit financial rock bottom. Over the summer, Mayor Ann Johnston filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, making Stockton the largest city in the country to do so.
Several factors led to Stockton’s financial woes. The housing bust dried up property taxes; the city funded expensive projects, including a new baseball stadium and hockey arena; generous medical and retirement benefits provided since the 1990s started to depleted the reserves; and, more recently, city hall began making risky bond and credit moves that failed.
We asked Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin whether the Central Valley’s largest city is in danger of going bankrupt, too. She says, that’s not likely, because Fresno and Stockton are very different.
Stockton has a population of 296,000, with a total city budget of $521 million. Fresno has more than half a million people, with a total city budget of at little less than $1 billion. But Stockton’s deficit – at $26 million – is more than half as large as Fresno’s at $12 million.
But both mayors have run into the same obstacle – stalled negotiations with its police unions. Officers say they’re fed up with taking pay cut after pay cut, while watching their benefits decrease and their numbers drop, as well. Jacky Parks is president of the Fresno Police Officers Association. He says, "We deserve, with our tax dollars here in Fresno... we deserve to have the most ethical, the most professional police officers, most highly trained police officers. We shouldn't just be settling. When you settle, you end up having what's happening in Stockton."
Members of the FPOA have consulted with their Stockton counterparts about how to handle upcoming negotiations. SPOA president Kathryn Nance says, “Everybody might have to give a little to keep the city afloat and we understand that and I hope that Fresno understands that also, that everybody might have to give a little bit. But the question becomes, is it fair and equal across the board? Is everybody making the same concessions, from the city manager down to the janitors, everybody should be doing the exact same thing."
Fresno’s contract with the police union doesn’t expire until 2015, but Mayor Swearengin says, she’d like to see it agree to voluntary concessions, to make sure big budge problems are avoided. She says, “As we move forward over the next three years, there are significant negotiations that we'll have to have and that we'll have to see savings from those contracts. There's no other way forward for Fresno but to see those savings."
Parks adds that avoiding bankruptcy is a goal everyone has; “We're here. We're committed to this community and what's going on right now is gonna affect us and our families for a long time. So it's important to us, absolutely." | <urn:uuid:623e2277-c3c5-4890-9de6-5137dca74f2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbs47.tv/news/local/story/Special-Report-Can-Fresno-avoid-Stocktons-Fate/Jz5g3LpbP0WL5OgJIn3yxw.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966132 | 639 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Since our Sun burst into life on the 17th May and found it's Mojo I have been looking for signs of any Erupting Volcano's and larger then average Earthquakes that fall into the Piers Corbyn "Red Warning" period for the 18th - 21st May.
So far I have come across the following News reports...I stress they are not significant
....more to follow
Mount Marapi Volcano Erupts Again
-frenchtribune.com...A report, published in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, has unveiled recently that a volcano, namely Indonesia's Mount Marapi, erupted early Friday at 7:15 a. m. local time, lasting for nearly ten minutes.
It has been found that the volcano has had several such eruptions since when its alert status was updated last August. Also, the same has erupted for a total of around 454 times since the late eighteenth century till 2008.
Three strong earthquakes with the same epicenter 11 March 2011: Fear in Japan
Meteoweb.eu - Google Translate Italian - English...Between 18 and 19 May, over three hours, three earthquakes of magnitude 4.7 to 4.8 and 5.0, have affected the area that caused the great Japanese earthquake of magnitude 9.0 in the previous 11 March 2011.
Also: Chile Rules Out Tsunami Following 6.2-Magnitude Earthquake | <urn:uuid:d26e5c44-b885-4fc3-b029-9e9c74344329> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9655&linkbox=true&position=19 | 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 | 0.946907 | 290 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Students at Pinetree Community School donated 1,333 food items and 26 nonfood items to Help the Children Santa Clarita during a food drive organized by the school's student council earlier this month.
Nearly 60 students at Peachland Elementary School participated in the annual PTA-sponsored Reflections Program.
Expansive bubbles were blown, objects were flung through the air with wild abandon, tables were cluttered with all manner and colors of goop and substances - and it was all done in the name of science, under the watchful eyes of school officials.
The Oak Hills Elementary Rock-n-Jog was more than just a fundraiser as the event served as a lesson in team building, health, fitness and music.
We did a lot of events during Red Ribbon Week. First, on Monday we had the whole school wear red T-shirts to represent Live Oak's pledge to remain drug free. We enjoyed an awesome BMX show to kick-off Red Ribbon Week. The team's name was "Team Soil." On Tuesday, we wore sweatshirts and/or sweat pants - the motto for the day was "Drug Free is no Sweat." On Wednesday, everyone had to wear their clothes ...
On Oct. 29, members of the Santa Clarita Elks Lodge No. 2379 visited third-grade students at Pinetree Community School.
Placerita Junior High School eighth-grader Alex Guerrero knows what it takes to take charge of saving a life.
Students at Live Oak Elementary School got a chance to discover the artist within when the school held its first Kids Art Fair.
The bell rings at 2:10 p.m. and the students start filing into room 617. They talk amongst themselves, excited to help out in the community and hang out with the coolest teachers, Ms. Stauch and Mrs. Skoczylas.
Arroyo Seco Junior High School students got a visit from the school's new Conquistador mascot to help build school spirit. "Seco Sam" also took time to pose with students for photos.
On Sept. 16 to 18, Rancho Pico Junior High School ASB and Peer Mediation went to Pali Mountain near Lake Arrowhead.
Oak Hills Elementary School parents, teachers and students gathered Sept. 14 for a live concert as part of the second annual Oak Hills Elementary Jog-a-Thon.
Students at Valencia Valley Elementary School began the school year on a health kick with their Physical Education Release program.
On Sept. 10, Rancho Pico Junior High School held a ceremony that deserves great honor - recognition that we are a California Distinguished School!
Canyon Vista students David Peraza and Nicholas Encinas sign a "Message for Peace" poster during Canyon Vista's celebration of International Peace Day on Sept. 21. | <urn:uuid:cd44a16f-8b3c-4a95-98bf-1b07115e71f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.signalscv.com/archives/section/28/?page=4&archive_page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967728 | 581 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Department of Biostatistics and Computational BiologyThe Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology is the home of researchers trained in quantitative sciences. Their mission is to advance cancer research and cancer treatment, both directly and by providing their expertise through collaboration.
Department of Cancer BiologyThe Department of Cancer Biology focuses on fundamental problems in biology of relevance to cancer.
Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDSThe Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS investigates fundamental questions in the development and expression of immune responses in cancer and autoimmune disease, as well as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Department of ImagingThe Department of Imaging provides state-of-the-art technologies for imaging-based research, diagnostics, and drug development.
Department of Medical OncologyThe Department of Medical Oncology seeks to gain insights that lead to the prevention of cancer and to improve diagnosis and treatment of adult patients with cancer. The Department engages in a broad range of basic and clinical research, patient care, and teaching.
Department of Pediatric OncologyThe Department of Pediatric Oncology is committed to promoting laboratory research, translational investigation, and clinical studies to better understand and treat childhood cancers.
Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative CareIn 2008, Dana-Farber created the new Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care. This was done in recognition of the growth and evolution of these fields and their centrality to cancer care.
Department of Radiation OncologyThe Department of Radiation Oncology is committed to combining advances in clinical and laboratory research with developments in radiation physics. The goal is to promote a better understanding of the biology of cancer and normal tissues and to improve the treatment of cancer.
The Center for AIDS ResearchThe Center for AIDS Research is a program shared with Harvard University. Its mission is to expand, promote, and facilitate collaborative, multidisciplinary activities in HIV/AIDS research, education, and training among CFAR members and associate members throughout Harvard University, in order to help end the AIDS pandemic.
The Center for Community-Based ResearchThe Center for Community-Based Research (CCBR) develops innovative ways to lower cancer risk by working with community groups and organizations. CCBR uses the power of the community to study the factors that play a role in improving the prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer.
Center for Patient SafetyThe mission of the Center for Patient Safety is to reduce the burden of medical injury in cancer care. The Center has a special interest in understanding the role that patients and families can play, together with clinicians, in preventing medical errors.
Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care ServicesThe mission of the Cantor Center is to reduce the burden of cancer through scholarly inquiry and rigorous research. The focus of the Center's research is the patient/family experience of living with a predisposition to or diagnosis of cancer, as well as survivorship issues post-treatment.
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Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 | Call us toll-free:
(866) 408-DFCI (3324) | <urn:uuid:f62aebd9-8df4-4db0-a79c-f259ff072cac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dana-farber.org/Research/Departments-and-Centers.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930823 | 657 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Protect your Identity
Tips on how long to keep important financial papers
Consumer Reports’ testers fed the 19 shredders about 25,000 pages (left over from a recent printer test). Two types of shredders were tested: With a pull-out console model, you empty the device pulling out a drawer that collects the shreds; with a wastepaper-basket shredder, you lift the shredder mechanism off of a basket that holds the shreds. Each one met its claims for paper handling and destroying credit cards. The units that claimed to handle data discs (CDs and DVDs), paper clips, and staples, managed those items too.
Testers didn’t find any serious safety hazards with any of the tested shredders during testing. It would be extremely difficult for a child or an adult to put a finger into any of the shredders.
In an era when online scammers are targeting your credit-card information, Social Security number, and other important data, it’s just as important not to be lax with your paper documents.
One of the best ways to help protect your privacy is to make sure you shred important documents before you toss them. Cross-cut shredders are very effective at doing that because they slice papers horizontally and vertically.
The full review of paper shredders as well as accompanying pieces “Shredding 101: Documents to shred and those to throw away” and “How long to keep important financial papers” will be available at http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/papershredders at 6 a.m. on October 19th. The review of paper shredders will also be available in the December issue of Consumer Reports magazine, on newsstands November 1st.
How to choose
If you have the room, consider one of Consumer Reports’ recommended models. They are 20 to 25 inches tall, which means that they can store more waste between emptying. You can also find desktop models, which have a smaller footprint. Keep in mind that this type might shred more slowly, and you might need to empty it more frequently than larger, more-expensive machines.
If you store your annual tax records or other important documents on data discs, make sure you choose a model that can handle them. If you’ll shred papers only occasionally, say when you sort through your monthly bills, consider a model with an “auto” button. This feature lets you keep the shredder at the ready, without the noisy motor running, until you insert papers and other items. You won’t have to turn the shredder on and off as you work.
If you frequently shred large piles of paper, consider a model like the Swingline EX100-07 Stack and Shred ($225). It lets you stack up to 100 sheets on an interior shelf and then slowly shreds while you attend to other tasks. Because you’ll want to keep tabs on the shredded paper so that the bin doesn’t get too full and possibly interfere with the shredding, look for a machine with a window for monitoring the shredded buildup. Some machines, including the GoEcoLife GXC120Ti ($200) and the Staples SPL-TXC10A ($100), lack a window but have an indicator light that lets you know when the drawer is full.
Shredding 101: Documents you should shred and those you can safely throw away
Below are listed are some of the documents CR’s experts recommend you should shred, the ones you don’t have to shred but might want to for extra security, and papers you can just toss without shredding: Shred; Monthly bills; Receipts or other papers that show your signature; Employer pay stubs.
Statements from your bank, credit-card companies, 401(k) administrator, and broker and other investment statements.
Anything that contains your Social Security number.
Expired credit cards, and prescreened credit-card offers and application.
Tax forms and tax-related documents more than seven years old.
Any documents that list a password or PIN, and anything else with personal information that you wouldn’t want a stranger to see.
All mail from your financial institution, including change-of-terms notices.
Documents from companies you’ve done business with recently, including those from recent travel. Thieves could call you masquerading as a representative from one of those businesses to try to trick you into disclosing personal information.
Toss without shredding:
Mail that contains only your name and address, if that’s public information and easy to find elsewhere. That includes items such as catalogs or flyers that aren’t from a financial institution.
Junk mail addressed to “Resident” or “Occupant.”
Source: Consumer Reports is the world’s largest independent product-testing organization. | <urn:uuid:320b8a17-d1cc-41a3-afef-726212505950> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businesslife.com/articles.php?id=2035 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943793 | 1,022 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Caregivers: We Need to Work Together for Change
My 92-year-old grandmother recently fainted while walking to get her mail. She fell forward so hard she fractured bones in her face and arm. The fall and the low blood pressure that caused the fall disoriented her to the point where she forgot where she was. She ended up in the hospital and then in a temporary nursing home to regain her strength. Even though she continued to be disoriented and lose consciousness in the hospital, we had a hard time convincing her that she would still need help when she was strong enough to return home.
My grandmother has always been fiercely independent and ahead of her time. When her kids were grown, she went back to college then had a full career as a high school teacher. She has traveled all over the world. At 88, she voluntarily moved to an assisted living home but quickly moved out and into her own apartment when the other residents “got too bossy.” The transition from being self-sufficient to needing round the clock care was quite sudden for her and the whole family. And it changes everything.
In my job with the California Work and Family Coalition, I help build statewide activism around the rights of parents and caregivers in the workplace. I am a parent myself and I usually say that working caregivers and parents have similar needs – time, flexibility and economic security. But the experience with my grandmother has taught me that caregivers are in a uniquely difficult situation. They have to help a respected and loved family member deal with loss of independence while struggling to balance their own jobs, increased financial stress and an almost impossible workload.
According to US News and World Report, eventually most US families will be involved in some form of caregiving. The senior population is growing faster than any other group. By 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be at least 65 years old. We are moving into unchartered territory where people live longer, caregiving needs are growing and many elders have no retirement funds let alone long term care plans. The increased need for caregiving combined with the changed economy means that more full and part time workers are also caregivers.
Caregiving often has a negative impact on a family’s finances when the caregiver has to take unpaid time off work, go part-time or stop working altogether. In 2002, the Work and Family Coalition fought for the successful passage of the first paid family leave law in the country. Workers who pay into SDI can take paid leave to care for a spouse, child or parent. We are working on expanding this to grandparents, parents-in-law, siblings and adult children. Paid leave programs provide some economic security to caregivers who need to take time off work.
Taking on the job of caring for a family member can be daunting at first. Recently, I was invited to speak on a panel about caregiving at an American Library Association conference. Audience members wanted information about family leave laws but they were most hungry to talk to each other, share stories and ideas.
I understand the need to hear about others’ experiences. I was talking to a union friend about caring for his grandmother. Before she left the hospital, her nurse asked him if he wanted to feed her. His first thought was, “I don’t know how to do this.” And then he realized he did know how to do it. In fact, he had done it before for his two children when they were little. He picked up the spoon and began.
As a country, we will have to do better to support family caregivers. Working caregivers need flexibility on the job. And all caregivers need respite, financial help and a way to connect to others for information and support. Looking to organizations like Family Caregiver Alliance is a great way to get resources and learn from others in the same situation. To join the movement to make workplaces more ‘caregiver friendly’ go to Family Values @Work to find a coalition near you. Together we can make a difference for all families.
Jenya Cassidy is editor of Labor Family News and directs community outreach for the Labor Project for Working Families.
This blog post originally appeared on the Family Caregiver Alliance Blog. Cross-posted with permission. | <urn:uuid:aa113dbd-a535-4b29-a253-d9ddeabc3743> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://workfamilyca.org/blog/?p=237 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978951 | 865 | 1.78125 | 2 |
What's your opinion on this head position?
Nice picture of a great triathlete working on her freestyle extension.
Evaluate the picture first, then watch the video to see if you still think what you initially were thinking.
Short and sweet. This is going to be a regular feature on goswim.tv. Interact, and you'll have a chance to win a free month's subscription to goswimtv.com. Our new subscription site contains 1,000+ videos featuring some of the greatest swimmers ever.
This week's set is for beginning swimmers (and for advanced swimmers who need to hit REFRESH on their technique page). If you are a goswimtv.com subscriber, you can link to video of great swimmers demonstrating the techniques.
This is an old fine point for breaststroke, but it still needs to be reinforced frequently when teaching swimmers of all ages.
Here are some frame grabs from the clips uploaded so far to goswimtv.com featuring Roland Schoeman.
This week's pic is of Olympian hero, Jason Lezak setting up for a massive pull.
Butterfly! Look for the levers in the body in this image.
Keep your head down to avoid resistance and to get into a great gliding position on every stroke.
Olympian Roque Santos answers questions from our app and website users: Where should your head be on breaststroke? How do I get a better shrug?
It's amazing what having your hips just a couple inches higher in freestyle can mean to your efficiency and speed.
While there are many examples of great swimmers loping, or falling, into the water after a breath, for most of us normal swimmers, it's a much better idea to maintain a direct and stable body position while swimming freestyle.
Let us know what strikes you the most from this freestyle image.
Getting stuck in a swimming mantra, or a generally accepted "way" to do things, is very typical of all swimmers. Breaking through to find the way that works specifically for YOU is atypical, but necessary for you to reach your potential. The mantra that yours eyes should be looking DOWN is one of those mantras that each swimmer needs to examine for him... or her self. | <urn:uuid:d4264541-9eaa-4c37-a012-bf6f4d0436eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goswim.tv/tags/head+position.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955374 | 483 | 1.570313 | 2 |
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Stephen Williams (Bristol, West) (LD): We have had a good debate, albeit the Back-Bench speeches have finished slightly earlier than normal. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) on securing a debate on this important topic. In the interests of Front-Bench fraternity, I welcome the new Minister with responsibilities in this area to his first debate on skills. I am sure that it will be the first of many, particularly in this part of the House of Commons.
The hon. Member for Blaydon mentioned the reportwhich I confess I have not read but would be interested to seeproduced by the Coalfield Communities Campaign and others, which he said was called What a Waste. I empathised with a great deal of what he was saying, drawing on both that report and the experiences of his constituency. I cannot claim to represent an area of declining industry. Bristol, West does not fit that description at all. However, I did grow up in what was then, at least, a mining village, Abercynon, and Mountain Ash in south Wales. My father left school at 15 to work in a coal mine. Both my grandfathers worked in a coal mine. Three of my four great-grandfathers also worked in the south Wales mining industry. Therefore, I at least have that personal heritage and understanding of growing up in a community that was badly scarred and damaged by the 1980s downturn in the coal and steel industries.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the long-term effects of mass unemployment, which can be felt to this day. Employment opportunities that had been around for generations suddenly disappeared, and he mentioned the long-term health problems, including mental health problems.
Mr. Anderson: My father worked in the south Wales mines, and the decline in the 1980s was not the first in the mining industry. There was also a huge decline in the 1960s, when new industries were put in place in the new towns, and a lot of education was provided through new technical colleges. The difference in the 1980s was that there was absolutely no support and no help, and that is the real reason why the problems that we have now are becoming endemic.
Stephen Williams: The hon. Gentleman is right. We should not spend too much time on the industrial history of south Wales, although I studied it as part of my geography A-level. We went to Cwmbran, which was a new town that had been constructed in the 1960s. As a Cardiff Member, the Minister will be familiar with these issues.
The hon. Member for Blaydon mentioned the long-term social effects of the unemployment experienced in the 1980s. He also mentioned crime and drugs, which were new problems resulting from the despair in communities.
Mr. Clapham: One statistic relating to Barnsley stands out hugely in the debate. In 1975, the crime level in Barnsley was 15 per cent. below the national average. In 1995, it was 15 per cent. above the national average. In between, we had experienced something that we had not previously seenthe influx of drugs into the town.
The hon. Member for Blaydon mentioned the skills gap, which is the topic of the debate. He mentioned Leitchs 2020 targets for our skills base, which are extremely ambitious and stretching in many ways. However, he rightly said that in many communitieswhether in the north-east, south Wales or other areas that share the characteristics that he mentionedthe skills gap is even wider, and we are even further from achieving the ambitious targets in the Leitch report. As he rightly said, it is important that people are not left behind in the current recession, but enabled to reach those ambitious skills targets.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the important role of community groups. Another characteristic of previous recessions, including in the 1980s recession, as I saw for myself in my village, is that a communitys entire infrastructure can be pulled away. If one industry, such as coal mining, is closed down, an awful lot goes with it, including the social clubs, the music bands, the first aid centres and the informal training provided in the community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen), who has had to go to a Statutory Instrument Committee, mentioned the characteristics of his constituency and particularly the declining textile industry. He also saidmany economists have commented on thisthat much of the focus of current Government policy is on reducing unemployment by inducing employers to take people from the dole queues, rather than on stemming the increase in unemployment by subsidising employers to keep existing employees in work. I was interested to hear examples of practice in Germany and Wales, where regional governments have not tried to take people from the dole queue, but have subsidised training in companies to keep people in their existing jobs so that they can meet their existing obligations.
My party would support such an approach. We advocate redirecting the growth in the Train to Gain budget towards subsidising employers off-the-job training costs so that they can maintain in employment apprentices who are working in the industry. It would be a tragedy if people who had entered into modern apprenticeshipsseveral contributors to the debate have praised these programmeslost their places simply because their employer could no longer support their employment, which is an essential and integral part of the apprenticeship.
Mr. Clapham: The hon. Gentleman mentioned his partys industrial policy. Does his party also agree that the architecture of the RDAs will be essential to creating new jobs in the new industries that will emerge as we come out of the current recession?
I had actually noted down the point that the hon. Gentleman made about the RDAs in his speech and I was coming to it next, but I will deal with it now. Yes, I agree that RDAs could play an extremely important part, particularly in encouraging new industries. However, in my region, the South West of England Regional Development Agency has had its budget cut this year. If ever there were an inopportune moment to cut an RDAs budget, it would seem to be now, but my RDAs budget has nevertheless been cut. As a Bristol MP, I have had a letter from the RDA saying that as a result of the cut in its capital budget it is no longer able to support some of the projects that it
had hoped to fund in my constituency, such as the regeneration of Stokes Croft, which is one of the gateways into the city centre. Of course, all RDAs are also affected by the downturn in the property market, because they depend, to some extent, on land sales to finance their capital programmes. The effects of the recession, as well as Government cuts in RDAs budgets, are having a detrimental impact on the ground.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) mentioned the important role of FE colleges. I will not dwell on that topic too long, because we have discussed it many times in Westminster Hall and on the Floor of the House. However, Barnsley college has probably been mentioned more than any other college in such debates.
The Minister is new to his post, and his predecessor did not exactly cover himself in glory when responding to the concerns expressed by hon. Members from all parties about the FE college capital programme. I am sure that the Minister will earn the respect of many colleagues if he engages positively with the unfortunate issues raised by that programme and points to a clear way forward. If he does, he will also give hope to colleges such as Barnsley, which has been largely demolished, judging by the pictures that the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis) has shown me.
Bob Spink: May I ask the hon. Gentleman to point out to the Minister that, notwithstanding its wonderful sylvan setting, South East Essex sixth-form college and colleges like it, which are there to provide young people with education and training opportunities and to skill them up for the future, have also suffered tremendously in the LSC debacle, and they should not be forgotten?
Stephen Williams: The hon. Gentleman rightly says that we have seen a debacle under the auspices of the LSC, although there has also been a lack of good oversight on the part of Ministers, who should not be let off the hook. I have met several college principals and the associations that represent them, and although the hon. Gentleman tells the story from the perspective of his constituencywe have also heard about BarnsleyI am afraid that a cry for help can be heard from many parts of the country, where colleges have been encouraged to be ambitious in their capital bids, only to see the rug pulled from under them.
Bob Spink: Is the hon. Gentleman as interested as I am to learn what the Conservative partys policy on funding all the LSCs promises to colleges around the country would be if it were to form the next Government?
Stephen Williams: I am always interested to listen to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), and we will shortly have an opportunity to hear from himprobably at lengthabout Conservative party policy on the issue.
Let me finish dealing with the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone talked about the effects that despair can have on communities. He was rightly concerned about the election of two British National party members to the European
Parliament, including, of course, one in his region of Yorkshire. I am sure that, whatever our differences on the topic, we are united in saying that we must find a way to reach out to people who felt that the only way they could express their despair through the ballot box was by voting for a fascist party. That should worry us all.
The debate is taking place against the background of a deep recession. Previous recessions, which I have already described, were characterised by sudden downturns in single industries, which affected an entire community, leading to mass unemployment in the area concerned, and often long-term unemployment as well. One of the depressing statistics from that last recession in the 1980s was that many of the men, in particular, aged over 40, who lost jobs then did not return to full productive work, in what could have been useful working lives of another 20 or more years. We must work hard in the present recession so that that stark statistic is not repeated. That is why engagement with the skills needs of older workers in the current or potential work force will be vital. The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), who I think has gone to attend a Committee, referred to age discrimination.
The Leitch report was mentioned in the debate, and I said earlier that it had some stretching targets for 2020. However, it brought out very clearly the fact that, because of the demographic change in the work force, 70 per cent. of the 2020 work force to which the targets relate have already left formal education. It will therefore be vital to work not only with people who are currently in full-time education, but with the current work force. There will be a constant need for retraining, and new opportunities need to be explored.
The present recession is different from previous ones that we have discussed. A financial heart attack has affected the entire economy. Workers in the banking and insurance industries, which are very important in my constituency, are suddenly out of work. There is retail gloom, and many retail chains that were common sights in our high streets have gone out of business; and the housing and construction bubble has, of course, burst as well. However, the restriction on credit by the banks is likely to affect the whole manufacturing and small business base. We must ensure, because of the huge injection of taxpayers money into the capital base of the banks, that they will lend to manufacturing and small business.
Bridging the skills gap that is the topic of the debate is the key to the future. I have mentioned older workers, but we should also think about gender differences: the opportunities that girls and young women feel are open to them, and those that boys feel are open to them. We should think about the differences in participationthe number of women taking partin engineering, which is a key element in many of the relevant areas. Good information, advice and guidance are crucial to ensuring that young people take up the educational programmes that could lead to those productive careers.
I want briefly to mention that we need to be worried, too, about boys attainment in the relevant areas. There is a gap in attainment between boys and girls, which is not narrowing. The biggest gap affects white working-class boys. In the areas that we have talked about, whether south Wales, Yorkshire or the north-east, it is largely
white working-class boys who feel the despair of unemployment. That is where there is the biggest attainment gap in schools.
New industries for the future, such as carbon capture and storage, the electric cars that the hon. Member for Blaydon referred to, and wind turbines, such as those that could be installed off the west coast in the area that I represent, have been said to be essential to our meeting our 2020 climate change targets. However, none of that can be achieved if we do not bridge the current yawning gap affecting good STEM skillsscience, technology, engineering and maths. That is a skills gap that the Government should address urgently.
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): I welcome the debate, and I welcome the new Minister to his post. I think that he is the fourth skills Minister I have faced. I have seen off several others, and look forward to our relationship in that spirit.
Skills matter. They matter for our economy, because they improve our productivity, and so our competitiveness, and they matter for individuals, because there is little that is more significant than the confidence that stems from the acquisition of skills through training. Most of all they matter for society, because they nourish social cohesion by feeding social mobility, and so offer the kind of social justice that is wanted by all hon. Members who have taken part in the debateand, I hope, all hon. Members in the House. At a time when unemployment has hit its highest total for 12 years and about 100,000 people are being added to the number every month, one might have thought that the skills gaps would no longer be a pressing problem. However, last week, a CBI-KPMG survey of London business revealed that even during the downturn, skills shortages remained a major concern and could hamper economic recovery. Four in 10 of the capitals businesses still say they have problems finding the right talent, despite rising unemployment, and traditional sectors such as those we have heard about today are among those reporting the biggest skills shortages, with 52 per cent. of businesses in energy, manufacturing and construction reporting a problem.
We heard about manufacturing from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) and from the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, and who made a strong and persuasive case for his constituents. He argued forcefully, with reference to the Leitch report, that unless we fill the skills gap, our economy will falter and failof course he is right. Skills shortages are still a significant problem because a mismatch remains in skills policy between provision and need. We must align skills policies much more closely with the needs of businesses and individuals. Only 28 per cent. of respondents to the survey that I mentioned found Government schemes such as Train to Gain beneficial, and 45 per cent. said that they were neither relevant nor useful. That is shocking, but it should not be a surprise, because the Opposition have been arguing for some time that the investment in skills is misplaced because it is unresponsive to need and insensitive to the wishes of business.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in the 1980s, when many of the older industries that we have talked about disappeared, little was put in their place. As a result, despite social mobility arising from
education policy, there is still a lag, dating back to that time, that affects people whose skills were not transferable. That is the group of people we must reach. That means new jobs using, for example, the regional development agencies. What is the Conservative partys policy on RDAs and on using their architecture to create jobs?
Mr. Hayes: I was barely mature in the 1980sactually, it is my birthday today. I was just a striplinga child. However, I understand that it is critical to social mobility that we enable people to gain new skills and to change skills as the economy changes. Advanced economies become ever more dynamic in their skills needs, and rather than holding an archaic view of those needs, we need an ever more responsive and sensitive demand-driven system.
I do not want to get into a debate about the RDAs, but in the brief time available I shall point outI think it will excite and reassure the hon. Gentlemanthat the Conservative Opposition are completely committed to skills. We prioritise them not just because of the difference that, as I have said, they make to the economy, but because we understand the difference that they makeespecially in areas such as the hon. Gentlemans constituency, but throughout the countryto individuals, families and communities.
A survey by the Learning and Skills Network in April 2007 found that only 4 per cent. of employers thought that Train to Gain met their needs effectively. The Select Committee on Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills concluded in its report on the 2008 departmental report by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills that Train to Gain lacked any real employer enthusiasm. A recent report by the United Kingdom Commission for Employment and Skills on future skills needs entitled Ambition 2020 contends that long-term unemployment trends will continue and that there will be a structural shift away from mass production industries to high-end manufacturing and higher level skills at level 3 and above.
The focus of current provision does not necessarily fit those projections. Government policy is to fund fully the training of apprentices under the age of 19, and to part-fund apprentices aged 19 and over. The Government ask employers to contribute about 50 per cent. of those peoples training costs, but the Minister must know that that policy acts as a disincentive for employers to take on young people aged 19 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training. It also acts as a barrier to progression, as those who complete a level 2 apprenticeship after their 19th birthday might find their employers unwilling to contribute to the training costs of an advanced apprenticeship. That is a concern, given that UKCES projections indicate that there will be significant under-achievement on the level 3 target set out in the Leitch review, as we heard from the hon. Member for Blaydon. UKCES also reports that the Government will fail to meet its level 2 target, so there will be insufficient improvement in the lower levels of qualification.
We need radical refocusing of skills funding and skills policy, and apprenticeships should be at the heart of that radical change. All apprenticeships should match the standards of the best and confer real and practical competence, which will boost employability. All should provide the opportunity to progress. We want to make it much easier for companies to be involved in apprenticeships.
|Next Section||Index||Home Page| | <urn:uuid:5108d6f4-1465-4eab-aacd-59a52abbe508> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090623/halltext/90623h0003.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978621 | 4,026 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Orloff v. Willoughby - 345 U.S. 83 (1953)
U.S. Supreme Court
Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83 (1953)
Orloff v. Willoughby
Argued January 13, 1953
Decided March 9, 1953
345 U.S. 83
Petitioner, a physician educated at government expense and beyond the usual draft age, was inducted into the Army under the Doctors' Draft Law, 50 U.S.C.App. § 454(i), which authorizes special conscription of certain "medical and allied specialist categories." Because of his refusal, on grounds of possible self-incrimination, to state in connection with his application for a commission whether he was or had been a member of the Communist Party, he was not commissioned or given the usual duties of an Army doctor, but was assigned duties as a medical laboratory technician. He applied to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus and for discharge from the Army, on the ground that he had not been assigned the specialized duties or given the commissioned rank to which he claims to be entitled by the circumstances of his induction.
1. Although not bound by it, this Court agrees with the Government's concession that the Act should be interpreted to obligate the Army to classify specially inducted professional personnel for duty within the categories which rendered them liable for induction. Pp. 345 U. S. 87-88.
2. It cannot be found that petitioner is entitled to a commission as a matter of law. Pp. 345 U. S. 88-92.
(a) Neither the Universal Military Training and Service Act nor the Army Reorganization Act requires that all personnel inducted under the Doctors' Draft Act and assigned to the Medical Corps be either commissioned or discharged. Pp. 345 U. S. 88-89.
(b) The commissioning of officers in the Army is a matter of discretion within the province of the President, as Commander in Chief, over which the courts have no control. P. 345 U. S. 90.
(c) The President is not required to appoint to a position of honor and trust any person who refuses, on grounds of self-incrimination, to say whether he is or has been a member of the Communist Party. Pp. 345 U. S. 89-92.
3. One lawfully inducted into the Army may not, through habeas corpus proceedings, obtain a judicial review of his assignments to duty. Pp. 345 U. S. 92-94.
4. Petitioner is not being held in the Army unlawfully, and the courts may not require his discharge therefrom in a habeas corpus proceeding. Pp. 345 U. S. 94-95.
195 F.2d 209 affirmed.
The District Court dismissed petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus. 104 F.Supp. 14. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 195 F.2d 209. This Court granted certiorari. 344 U.S. 873. Affirmed, p. 345 U. S. 95. | <urn:uuid:159eb56e-ff8e-4aad-9390-27d1b48e9503> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/345/83/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958589 | 659 | 1.75 | 2 |
Test preparation has long been a big business catering to students taking SATs and admissions exams for law, medical and other graduate schools. But the new clientele is quite a bit younger: 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance — costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions — will help them win coveted spots in the city’s gifted and talented public kindergarten classes.
Motivated by a recession putting private schools out of reach and concern about the state of regular public education, parents — some wealthy, some not — are signing up at companies like Bright Kids NYC. Bright Kids, which opened this spring in the financial district, has some 200 students receiving tutoring, most of them for the gifted exams, for up to $145 a session and 80 children on a waiting list for a weekend “boot camp” program.
How incompetent as a parent do you have to be to not have prepared your 4 year old for kindergarten such that, you must hire a tutor so your dumb kid can fake the aptitude required to earn a coveted spot at the right school. IT'S KINDERGARTEN, IDIOTS!
This is what kindergarten is for, not solving simultaneous linear equations. | <urn:uuid:e1a90602-15e9-4858-a04b-199f0150871a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://therightrant.blogspot.com/2009/11/helicopter-parents-are-idiots.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956453 | 252 | 1.8125 | 2 |
January 18, 2012
The BP Wayback Machine
The Arbitration Process
While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.
The arbitration process can be confusing, but you can make sense of it with the aid of Thomas Gorman's primer, which originally ran on January 21, 2005. As Thomas wrote in a comment below, please note that an earlier CBA was in effect when this article was written, so some details have changed.
With all of the player movement and flying paychecks, the offseason can sometimes be as exciting as the regular season. As we enter the final phase of the offseason of 2004-2005, salary arbitration hearings, it seems timely to examine what for many is the most confounding part of any baseball winter.
Salary arbitration had humble beginnings. The owners were exhausted by holdouts who refused to show up for spring training. The players were sick of having that refusal to play as their sole leverage in contract negotiations. With Flood v. Baseball failing to force a change in the reserve clause, arbitration seemed a reasonable solution.
Ed Fitzgerald, the Milwaukee Brewers Chairman and head of the owners' Player Relations Committee (PRC) in the early 1970s, embraced the idea as a way to neutralize the MLBPA's push for free agency. The Association's arguments against the owners would be weakened if the Lords showed a willingness to submit to binding and independent salary arbitration. Other owners, in particular the A's Charlie Finley and the Cardinals' Dick Meyer (who had experience with binding arbitration when he was labor chief of Anheuser-Busch), were suspicious, claiming that arbitration would drive salaries up. Which it would, compared to the status quo.
Thirty years on, the process endures. The onset of full free agency, in 1976, for veteran players would create three classes: those with no leverage, those with some leverage, and those with full leverage. Arbitration exists today largely to handle the second class.
How does salary arbitration work?
This is the critical element of baseball arbitration: it is designed to produce a settlement, not a verdict.
Are free agents eligible for salary arbitration?
Baseball's calendar can sometimes push free agents and their clubs into arbitration hearings that neither side really wants. Consider the '04-'05 offseason. As soon as the World Series concluded, each club had an exclusive negotiating window with its free agents. Following this was a short period in which players could negotiate with other teams as well. On December 7, clubs had to decide whether to offer salary arbitration to their free agents. If a club did not offer salary arbitration by this date it was forbidden from signing a contract with that player until May 1. Since this date is well after the season has started, the decision to not offer salary arbitration essentially ends the possibility of the player rejoining the club.
Clubs make arbitration offers for two main reasons. Sometimes the team genuinely wants to continue negotiating with the player on a contract. One recent trend is that teams make arbitration offers to their free agents for the purposes of extending negotiations, with an understanding that the player will not accept this offer. The negotiation window is extended, but there is no risk to the club that the player will win a large arbitration award.
Other times the club is betting that the player will sign a deal with another team, and they will be awarded compensatory picks in the June amateur draft. You must offer arbitration to be eligible for compensation if the free agent signs elsewhere. Sometimes this calculation by the club is made incorrectly. The Braves offered
It is extraordinarily rare for a team to actually plan on going to arbitration with one of its free agents, as the risk involved there for a team is tremendous. Teams don't want to go to arbitration with free agents because the arbitration hearing tends to award higher salaries than the free market for players who were looking at pay cuts in the market. This has been the case since 2002, as players who signed contracts under the old Collective Bargaining Agreement had those contracts expire and reached the market under the new one. As a practical matter, pay cuts are virtually unheard of in arbitration, so a player's expectation could actually be higher in an arbitration case.
Nevertheless, free agents usually don't want to go to arbitration because the one-year deal they receive offers far less security and total money than a negotiated multi-year deal. Sometimes the calculated strategies of the two sides don't pan out though, and the player returns via arbitration.
Free agents have to make their decision on whether or not to accept the arbitration offer in late December.
What about non-free agents?
What the heck is a "Super Two?"
There are 172 days in a championship season (service time is accumulated according to how many days a player is on the active roster, not according to games played), and from 1990-2003 the cutoff for Super Two players has been somewhere between two years, 128 days and two years, 153 days. In eight of those 14 years the cutoff was somewhere between 2.130 and 2.140. Careful management of young players so as to prevent them from being in a future Super Two class is an important tactic for front office personnel as that extra year of arbitration can make millions of dollars of difference to a payroll.
No matter how the player gets to salary arbitration (Super Two, 3+, 4+, 5+, or free agent) the process is the same.
Who are the arbitrators?
The arbitrators are lawyers and judges with extensive arbitration experience and arbitration certification from a professional guild like the AAA. Essentially they serve as judges in a quasi-judicial hearing.
The hearings take place during the first three weeks of February. Once the 16 arbitrators have been selected, the next important task is for the Players Association and the Labor Relations Department of MLB, Inc. to schedule arbitrators for specific hearings on specific days. Ninety percent of this scheduling is done according to logistical concerns, but occasionally there is a bit of gamesmanship involved. Neither the Players Association nor the Labor Relations Department want market-setting cases to be scheduled early in the three-week hearing period. For example, if a young pitcher receives a huge victory early in February, the award could impact the hearings of other young pitchers later in the month. For this reason, MLB and the Players Association are careful to plan out the hearing schedule so that the other side has no potential advantage. Often this means that very similar players have their hearings scheduled for the same day.
How does the hearing proceed?
Hearings are arranged in neutral cities by mutual assent (the CBA directs Los Angeles, Phoenix and Tampa/Orlando to be preferred sites). Typically the hearing takes place in a hotel conference room.
The technical procedure is simple. The player and club supply the arbitrator with a Uniform Player Contract (in duplicate) that has been properly completed except for the salary figure. Each side gets one hour to present its case. There is a short recess and then each side gets 30 minutes to rebut the other side's case and 30 minutes to present their summation. By tradition, the order of presentations is Player-Club-Player-Club-Player-Club, which gives the club the last word in each phase. Occasionally the player's representative will successfully move to have the order reversed. Some agents feel that even if this motion is unsuccessful it may stand as a helpful symbol to the arbitrators that the club has a unfair advantage in the hearing.
Within 24 hours of the end of the hearing the panel chief informs the Players Association and the Labor Relations Department of MLB of the final decision, providing additional time for a settlement. The panel does not submit an opinion explaining their decision; it does not explain why they chose one salary figure over the other. The panel chair is also directed not to inform either party of the actual vote of panel members (3-0, 2-1, who voted for whom?). That information is communicated to the Players Association and the Labor Relations Department on March 15th following the hearings and is used by the two sides to help them craft arbitrator slates for the next year. Baseball arbitration is considered a pretty good gig for professional arbitrators. Some observers cynically note that to keep the job you can't side consistently with one side or the other, lest the other group nix you from the job in future seasons.
Who argues the cases?
Soon enough the teams caught on and began employing their own specialists and hiring their own lawyers. Currently the cases are almost always argued by professional labor lawyers (guys like Mark Rosenthal andEric Joss) and neither side presently has a talent advantage. The teams that do still use their front-office personnel for presentation always use individuals who are noted for their arbitration abilities (Paul DePodesta was Oakland's representative for
Cases are prepared rigorously by personnel on both sides. Agents are known to hire full-time arbitration staff, and also to bring on short-term consultants and advisors during the off-season. Teams often do the same, bringing on interns or advisors and often designating senior Baseball Operations personnel to organize case preparation throughout the off-season.
What criteria are admissible? What is inadmissible?
The following evidence is admissable:
The following evidence is inadmissible:
What's this about "comparative baseball salaries?"
The result was devastating for management. Each bad contract sent ripples through the market and forced salaries up for everyone, all the way down to two-year veterans in their first salary arbitration hearing. As John Helyar writes in The Lords of the Realm, "They couldn't be free agents, but they could compare themselves to free agents. The rising tide of salaries in the open market would lift all boats."
In the 1985 labor agreement, the owners were able to address that in part. The current CBA contains this clause: "The arbitration panel shall, except for a Player with five or more years of Major League service, give particular attention, for comparative salary purposes, to the contracts of Players with Major League service not exceeding one annual service group above the Player's annual service group."
In other words, Super Twos can be compared to Super Twos and three-year players, but not four-year players. Threes can be compared to other threes and fours, but not fives. The exception is that fives can compare themselves to anyone, just like free agents.
The Players Association did secure a loophole, though. "This shall not limit the ability of a Player or his representative, because of special accomplishment to argue the equal relevance of salaries of Players without regard to service, and the arbitration panel shall give whatever weight to such argument as is deemed appropriate" (emphasis added). Essentially the player's representative can argue that the player's accomplishments are so unique as to demand comparison to players outside the designated group of comparable players.
How special do you have to be to call your accomplishments "special?" It is unclear. Each panel is directed to give as much weight to the argument as they choose to. If the argument is strong, maybe they'll go for it. If not, the case is probably lost right there, since any representative arguing "special accomplishment" is also probably arguing for a salary totally out of line with comparable salaries in the player's true service-time class.
What about salary cuts? Isn't there a rule about this?
The CBA is incredibly unclear on this point, but it seems that for the purposes of this rule the term "salary" is a combination of guaranteed money and earned performance bonuses. This is critically different from the rule regarding maximum salary reduction for players who have not yet reached salary arbitration eligibility. For pre-arbitration players the term "salary" is a combination of guaranteed money, earned performance bonuses andunearned performance bonuses. In any case, it is incredibly rare for this rule to come into play. The nature of the arbitration system almost never propogates salary reductions.
The maximum-cut rule does not apply for free agents in arbitration. The Collective Bargaining Agreement specifically states that the maximum salary reduction rule is inapplicable in free-agent arbitration cases. To clarify, when Joe Sheehan wrote that that Toronto wouldn't risk going to arbitration with
The last case where someone walked out of an arbitration hearing with less money than they made the previous year was
How do the arbitrators decide which figure to choose? Is there a rule on that?
For example, Clemens submits at $22 million, The team submits at $13.5 million. The midpoint is $17.75 million, so the arbitrator would theoretically have to ask whether Clemens should be paid more or less than that mid-point figure. If he finds the correct price to be higher than the mid-point, he must pick the $22 million. If he finds the correct salary to be lower, he goes with the club's offer.
To be clear, though, this is how "Final Offer Arbitration" typically proceeds in a labor salary setting. There is no directive in the rules of baseball's salary arbitration that force the arbitrators to use this type of logic in reaching their decision. There is some suspicion that even if mid-point analysis should lead the arbitrators to go with the player's figure, the panel might be hesitant to "set a record" with their award.
Why are the owners always trying to take salary arbitration away in labor negotiations?
Various changes have been proposed to the system over the years, most notably first-refusal free agency for players in the arbitration class, or a rigid salary structure based on performance and service time for this class. These would be better for management than arbitration, but have little chance of being negotiated into a CBA, because the MLBPA correctly sees them as tools for lowering salaries.
Arbitration is an effective compromise that eliminates holdouts and forces the two sides to come forward with reasonable figures that, more often than not, lead to a negotiated solution. | <urn:uuid:abefbe3e-e06f-4087-b55c-8a8081e55087> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15864 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96949 | 2,971 | 1.75 | 2 |
Post by April Fulton and Maria Godoy, The Salt at NPR Food
Listen to the story from NPR’s All Things Considered (1/8/13):
Elvis Presley was better known for his music than his gourmet tastes. But he did have a famous affinity for the fried goodness of the American South — and he had the waistline to prove it.
In honor of what would have been the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s 78th birthday, let’s take a look at some of his legendary eating habits.
His famously beloved fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches — or “peanut butter and ‘nanner sandwiches,” according to Are You Hungry Tonight, a cookbook of his favorite recipes — were basically peanut butter and sliced banana between two pieces of white bread, fried in butter.
Butter seems to have been a frequent part of Presley’s diet, contributing to his weight gain before his untimely demise at age 42 in 1977. By that time, “Elvis had long been gobbling drugs and fatty foods,” Graeme Wood writes over at the now-defunct The Daily. “But his romance with saturated fat reached a sort of point-of-no-return 18 months before the end, on a chilly night that started at Graceland, his estate in Memphis, Tenn.”
Wood recounts the story of Presley’s famous flight to Denver one night to get a sandwich that topped even his old familiar favorite. One night in 1976, the King started reminiscing about Fool’s Gold Loaf, a sandwich he’d once eaten at the Colorado Mine Company in Denver. It cost $49.95 at the time — $189 in today’s dollars, Wood says.
Apparently, Presley’s craving was so intense that he and his entourage jumped on his private plane and jetted off for the two-hour ride to Denver — a midnight junk food run that totaled $16,000, says Wood.
As for the calorie count involved, estimates vary: Wood says 8,000 but some estimates have run as high as 42,000! Here’s the recipe:
“Take a whole loaf of Italian bread and slice it lengthwise. Hollow it out and slather it with margarine. Then add a whole jar of jelly and a whole jar of creamy peanut butter, creating two large boats of PB&J. Finally, add a whole pound of fried bacon. Before adding the bacon, dab away the grease on paper towels (presumably to avoid adding unnecessary fat and rendering the sandwich disgusting). Then reunite the sandwich halves, deep-fry, and serve.”
Far be it from us to advocate anyone eat like Presley (as we’ve told you before, all that bacon could be the death of you). Still, those curious about the King’s other culinary ways can dive into these recipes from the authorized cookbook, Graceland’s Table: Recipes Fit for the King of Rock and Roll.
Or you could try a modern interpretation of Elvis’ immortal beloved snack — The Elvis Presley Milkshake, from Charleston, S.C.-based chef Sean Brock.
Every January 8th, Brock works peanut butter and banana into the menu at his restaurants. One year, as he was serving cheeseburgers to his staff, the idea of a milkshake hit him. “[I]t was kind of weird, especially with the bacon in the milkshake, but it turned out to be delicious,” Brock says. Listen to All Things Considered‘s story later for more details, but here’s the recipe if you just can’t wait.
Sean Brock’s Elvis Presley Milkshake
From Come In, We’re Closed: An Invitation to Staff Meals at the World’s Best Restaurants
Serves 4 to 6
5 thick-cut strips of smoked bacon
2 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup Buffalo Trace bourbon
3 cups vanilla ice cream, softened slightly
3 tablespoons of bacon fat, cooled
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, fry the bacon until very crispy, about 6 to 8 minutes. Drain the bacon on paper towels. Reserve the rendered bacon fat separately, allowing it to cool slightly.
Place the bananas, peanut butter and bourbon in a blender. Add the cooked bacon and 3 tablespoons of the reserved bacon fat and blend until smooth, about 45 seconds, scraping down the sides if necessary. Add the ice cream and pulse to incorporate into a smooth shake, about 30 seconds. If you’d like, you can also incorporate the ice cream by hand by mixing it in with a whisk or an immersion blender; this will help keep the shake in a more frozen state. Serve immediately. Transfer any extra shake to a lidded container and reserve in the freezer. Because the alcohol prevents it from completely freezing, it turns into a scoopable ice cream.
P.S.: It’s also the birthday of another famous rocker — David Bowie. It’s highly unlikely that the now 66-year-old Thin White Duke ever ingested 100,000 calories a day, as some sources have suggested Presley did toward the end. Of course, Bowie’s still kicking — and rocking. As our friends at All Songs Considered note, the singer is celebrating the day by releasing a new song. | <urn:uuid:b059989d-68db-4c74-91a3-95386c92fa2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/01/08/elvis-left-the-building-long-ago-but-his-food-and-music-lives-on/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951119 | 1,151 | 1.84375 | 2 |
You could find the list of all those arms in this link.
As you will notice, these are arms granted from January 15, 2007 through February 15, 2008
As you will see there, the province of Alberta was granted new arms on January 15, 2008. The image is that above and the blazon of the arms is: Azure in front of snowy mountains a range of grassy hills proper, in base a wheat-field Or surmounted by a prairie proper, on a chief Argent a cross Gules.
However, my favorite are the arms above granted (with differences) to Christopher William Cook, Michelle Evelyn Cook and Nicole Carlita Cook. The blazon is very simple: Or two square flaunches Purpure.
I especially like the dragonfly supporters. I can honestly say that this is a first for me.
I strongly suggest going through the whole list to see some of the excellent work done by the CHA. | <urn:uuid:fd2c7752-795f-47ea-8e63-791cd988b3dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.idtg.org/archive/tag/royal-heraldry-society-of-canada/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960933 | 194 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Incredible bulk: a journey from fit to fanatical
As young men clamour to follow their bodybuilding heroes to potential stardom, not all can maintain a healthy life balance. Photo: Leanne Pickett
Bodybuilding is all about sacrifice and size, but where do you draw the line in a world where body image is becoming ever more important?
This is the tragic reality for an increasing number of young, vulnerable men whose response to societal pressure is to develop a dangerous condition called muscle dysmorphia – which drives them to bulk up to breaking point.
Sometimes called "Manorexia", the condition is an "extreme form of wanting to be really, really big", said Stuart Murray, a psychologist who recently completed a PHD on muscle dysmorphia and male body image.
Aziz "Zyzz" Sergeyevich Shavershia, an amatuer bodybuilder who died of an undiagnosed heart condition last year.
Dr Murray said the rates of body dissatisfaction among men had tripled in the past 30 years.
"Men with muscle dysmorphia experience guilt and shame because they believe that they're not big enough and it's usually unrelated to how big they actually are."
He said muscle dysmorphia was so destructive that victims had a high risk of suicide – "even more than guys with depression. So there are lots of problems that aren't known about with these people."
A media saturated with male bodies creates an unrealistic perception of what is normal, said Dr Murray. "A lot of the images we see in the media are not attainable unless you want to take steroids or live a life characterised by big sacrifices."
Amateur body builder Jacob Martinez, 22, understands what it means to sacrifice in order to achieve his ideal body.
He began weight-lifting as an 18-year-old to get in shape for university games. The transformation he saw in his body and the attention he received was addictive. Soon he was entering amateur body building competitions and in October he competed in the Australian Natural Bodybuilding (ANB) Championships.
For 12 months, in preparation, he worked out up to three times a day and removed all salt, sugar, dairy, fruit and flour from his diet.
"Nothing tastes as good as looking good feels," Martinez said. "When you're on stage you've got abs, legs, lines, [it's worth it]. I see food I really want to eat but, I see the people eating it and go 'oh, I don't wanna eat it'."
The challenge to achieve his body has been more than just physical. "It'll be a while before I compete again," he said. "It's stressful physically, emotionally and in relationships. I didn't realise how much it mentally affected you. I've been moody and grumpy – it affects the people around you and you can't have much of a life coming into it."
But, he believes the pain has been worthwhile. "It sort of pays out in the end and everything," he said. "Not a lot of people get to look like what we look like."
Andre Davids, a professional fitness model and bodybuilder, has won multiple bodybuilding competitions and has been in the industry for more than 20 years. But he does not believe that you need to sacrifice your life to get results.
"Most people think that to achieve the ultimate physique they have to sacrifice all else," he said. "If that was the case, I wouldn't do it. For me, it's just part of who I am and what I do. Don't get me wrong. I do want to have the best physique that I can have. But, I also want to have a life and be able to enjoy things. So, I use a fortnightly cycle of five days on, four days off and never work out for longer than one hour."
But as young men clamour to follow their bodybuilding heroes to potential stardom, not all are able to maintain a healthy life balance.
The amateur bodybuilder-turned-internet-sensation, Azyz 'Zyzz' Sergeyevich Shavershian was a case in point. He transformed himself from "skinny kid" into amateur bodybuilder and attracted a massive Facebook following, but died of an undiagnosed heart condition in Thailand in August last year.
"The number of people weight-training is increasing dramatically and I think the pursuit is not necessarily . . . to become the massive freaks," said Davids.
"I think that is perhaps why Zyzz was popular. Nearly everything is about having a more aesthetic physique and I guess for the younger guys it's about appealing to the girls and I think that is more now about having a six pack."
But Martinez and Davids argue that there's more to it than just looking good and picking up.
"My time management skills are insane," Martinez said. "I've noticed how I'm always on time, I'm organised and I'm more driven now – if you drive for something for 12 months you can transfer that to other factors of your life as well."
Davids agrees that the goal should be to cultivate a healthy lifestyle.
"For me it's not just about how I look, but how I feel. It's about energy to a large degree and I'm also a big advocate for good nutrition."
But there are plenty prepared to pursue less healthy methods to achieve the aesthetic, and Customs records show a 155 per cent increase on seizures of steroids and growth hormones in the year to July 2010.
Dr Murray attributes this rise to the increasing number of men whose self-esteem is directly linked to their body.
"When we're dissatisfied with something we often want the quick fix," he said. "Many men come to define themselves through their bodies. Particularly now, in an era where there's greater parity between the sexes. I think a lot of men feel threatened in their masculinity which they emphasise by this aim to have a super muscular body, which makes them feel more like a man."
Davids admits that the distinction between a high-achieving athlete and someone driven by body image issues can be blurry: "As much as I try to maintain a perspective, I still want more. Is that viewed as body dysmorphia or someone who has a never-ending desire to improve?"
Dr Murray said the line between a desire to improve and an unhealthy problem could be gauged by the motivating factors along with the impact on quality of life. "It's a million-dollar question. Elite sportspeople do need to make immense sacrifices," he said.
"In terms of separating that from a psychological illness such as muscle dysmorphia, these guys will look in the mirror and say I'm not big enough and usually it's not oriented around performance. This is all aesthetic.
"So they won't often say I can't bench press enough, they'll say my chest isn't big enough. I think the other thing to note is the level of impairment it causes in your life.
"If you're a dedicated sportsperson that's great, but if you're a dedicated sportsperson and you're losing all your relationships because you can't do anything but lift weights that might be crossing the line towards a problem."
Anyone suffering from this condition is advised to obtain a GP referral to a psychologist specialising in muscle dysmorphia or eating disorders.
*Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE (7263) or visit www.beyondblue.org.au. | <urn:uuid:2a92e975-8027-42de-8ddf-725fc840fdbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/fitness/incredible-bulk-a-journey-from-fit-to-fanatical-20111220-1p3ir.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979304 | 1,576 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Encouraging telework is a family-friendly, business-friendly public policy that promotes workplace efficiency and reduces strain on transportation infrastructure. It is incumbent on state government to support public and private sector efforts to promote widespread adoption of telework efforts.
A key success factor for the adoption of telework is the availability of affordable broadband level telecommunication services. Because of the critical role broadband plays in the deployment of advanced applications such as telework, widespread access to broadband services is critical to the economic well-being of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Access to broadband provides communities with the foundation necessary for economic growth and a sustainable quality of life. At present, too many communities both urban and rural are not afforded access to broadband telecommunications and hence deprived of their ability to participate in enhanced social, education, occupation, healthcare, and economic development opportunities. It is critical that all Virginia communities have equal and affordable access to broadband telecommunications. Also, ubiquitous broadband will enable the Commonwealth to lead the nation in the deployment of high technology services and applications.
By virtue of the power vested in me by Article V of the Constitution of Virginia and Title 2.2 of the Code of Virginia, I hereby establish the Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance within the Office of the Secretary of Technology. The Office will consist of a director appointed by the Secretary of Technology and additional professionals as the Secretary shall determine.
The director shall have the following duties:
This office shall not have the power to consolidate or otherwise have authority over advanced communications projects being conducted by public or private bodies outside of the executive branch of government. Staff support to the effort shall be provided by the offices of the participating cabinet secretaries, and the Governor shall designate additional agencies to provide staff support as necessary.
This Executive Order shall become effective upon its signing and shall remain in full force and effect unless amended or rescinded by further executive order.
Given under my hand and under the Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia this 12th day of September 2006.
Timothy M. Kaine, Governor | <urn:uuid:e2fccf92-6814-41dc-b277-c1315cd53b94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wired.virginia.gov/About%20OTPBA.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947201 | 408 | 1.757813 | 2 |
In my previous post I mentioned that I ran my very first 5k in June. I would like to do a 10k as my next goal, though I probably won't run that race until the Spring, depending on how things go - I'm still just doing a little over three miles each time I go out.
I was surfing the 'Net one day and came across this concept of 'walk breaks' - the idea is that you run for a specificed period (suggestion was 10 minutes, then walk a minute). It seemed to be geared to folk who were trying to run longer distances - like marathons - and I wondered whether anyone here used them for shorter distances like 3 to 5 miles?
I started running with the C25K program and I know we took what would/could be considered walk breaks during that program. I am wondering if this is something that I should look into incorporating.
In case it matters, I did my 5k in 37:08, but I have recently been running between 10:30 and 11:00 per mile.
Are you interested in using walk breaks during your training or during races (or both)? Either way, it's a matter of personal preference based on how your body responds to training and your own self-imposed goals. If it's something you want to try to help you extend the length of your runs then you should go for it and see how effective it seems to be. | <urn:uuid:e1b6eb06-82fb-4743-b8a4-2f86d8419e2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://community.active.com/thread/48105 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987405 | 294 | 1.664063 | 2 |
An anonymous pundit once quipped, “Surveys prove surveys work.” But let's be honest. No one wants to fill out more paperwork. The staff is already too busy and the doctor is constantly running at full speed to try to keep up with the daily schedule. Why would we want to add another piece of paperwork to the already overflowing amount of duties the patient, doctor and staff need to perform?
The answer is simple. We need to know the patient’s medical history and how they use their eyes during various activities. We also need to have a time-effective way of gathering that information, especially with managed care relentlessly driving practice efficiency. We have two options: we can let the doctor play “20 questions” in the chair with the patient or we can ask the patient to provide the information through an easy survey prior to seeing the doctor.
The survey is not only more efficient, it is also more complete. Patients often neglect to mention health information details to their doctor. It is also easy for the patient to overlook lifestyle activities during the exam, when a doctor’s recommendation can make a big difference in their enjoyment of a hobby.
An example of a lifestyle issue/opportunity is swimming. This is an easy lifestyle question to miss without a written checklist of activities. Competitive swimmers will typically practice six days a week, twice a day. If the swimmer is nearsighted, prescription goggles will allow the swimmer to see the pace clock, see the coaches’ instructions and see the other swimmers. If we miss this question in speaking with the patient, the swimmer misses an opportunity to improve their performance and enjoyment of the sport, and the practice loses an opportunity to bring in incremental revenue.
Medical History Survey
Most practices already ask medical questions in their office paperwork. A good example of a medical history questionnaire can be found online at Transitions Optical’s online marketing web site: www.TransitionsTom.com. Using a written health history survey is important to insure you collect and discuss any pertinent information. If you have a simple “X in the box” format on the forms it is quick and easy for the patient to fill out and the doctor to review.
Lifestyle Activity Survey
The Optometric Oath states: “I will advise my patients fully and honestly of all which may serve to restore, maintain or enhance their vision and general health.” Obviously, we cannot do this if we don’t know how our patients use their eyes. Yet many practices leave these questions to the vagaries of the chairside chat.
There are several ways to integrate the survey into your practice. One of the newer ways is to include your activities survey on the practice web site, so the patient may complete it before coming in for their eye exam. Another high-tech way to survey patients is with electronic methods such as computer-driven screens.
Lifestyle surveys can also be done when the patient comes into the practice, either as a separate sheet or as a part of the current incoming patient form. This is the most frequently used method and typically adds only a minute or two to the patients’ time in reception.
There is a huge amount of value in taking the time to survey the patients’ lifestyle activities. A. Dennis Olmstead, OD of Eye Care Associates of Charlotte in Charlotte, Mich. is a believer in using the survey. “It has made us more efficient and effective in our examination of patients. It helps us direct our patient conversations and insures that we offer our patients the products and benefits they expect when they come to our practice.”
Kyle F. Hoskins, OD of InVision Eyecare Associates in South Bend, Ind. emphasizes, “The lifestyle survey helps me understand what the lifestyle vision needs of the patient are and make recommendations to solve their visual problems. It makes me more thorough and takes a little more time. The survey is a tool to develop better informed patients in the exam lane.” It also has positive results in both patient satisfaction and the financial performance of the practice. Dr. Hoskins notes his staff “feels the extra time spent by the doctor discussing lifestyle needs and recommending the appropriate solutions makes their job much easier and quicker, and makes it more likely the patient will purchase the appropriate eyewear for their needs.”
Amy M. Keller, OD of Reed City, Mich. believes lifestyle surveys perform a key role in performance as an optometrist. “The survey gives me a good starting point to discuss options with patients. They may not purchase the recommended products this
visit, but it gets them thinking for their next visit. It is important for me to not only give them a prescription, but also recommend the materials and products that are available for their particular needs. If I don’t inform them, they may choose something inferior and not even realize there are better products out there.”
What to Include in a The survey
The best places to start as we consider questions to include in our lifestyle survey are areas that we know typically produce challenges to our patients’ vision. Some common areas include computer use, glare from blinding sunlight, glare from oncoming headlights, near-point tasks, occupational strains such as bookwork or blueprint reading, mid-point tasks such as music and contrast issues such as shooting and golf. Other areas include potential hazards to vision, such as hobby woodshops and sports with impact hazards like racquetball. Other good sources of questions to include in our survey are recreational specialties with vision-specific products, such as
prescription dive masks for diving and specialty lenses for golfing.
We should also consider commonly voiced concerns of our patients. These concerns could include focusing abilities while knitting or doing needle point, needs for extremely sharp near vision for coin, card and stamp collectors, contrast sensitivity for hunters and outdoor sportsmen and color vision for photographers and artists. It is important to make our questionnaire easy to use without requiring a lot of time. Using checkboxes wherever possible make the task of completing the form a breeze for the patient and easy to review for the doctor. The medical history survey and lifestyle activities can also be combined into one form to reduce the amount of paper given to the patient.
Another Helpful Survey
An additional survey that some practices administer is the patient satisfaction survey. This survey is given at the end of the patient’s visit to inform the practice of the patient’s overall satisfaction with their visit to the office and asks specific questions about each interface within their visit. Most practices that use this survey will limit the number of patients surveyed for cost and efficiency reasons. Ideas for sample size can be as simple as every other Tuesday or the fourth week of the month or even the fifth patient every day. Patient satisfaction surveys are valuable yardsticks of the performance of the practice in the patients’ eyes. Sometimes the perceptions of the patients are much different than what the practice expects. The measurements are especially helpful for the doctors, since most of their workday is spent in the exam rooms and they are not able to observe the performance of their staff on a regular basis.
Information that may be included in the patient satisfaction survey can include available times for exams, courtesy of staff, selection of products, explanation of the patients’ vision systems, timeliness of product delivery and value received. Another topic could be satisfaction with their vision benefits, if applicable. Questions such as selection of frames covered, lens materials and treatments covered and ease of use are possible areas to explore.
Dr. Keller has used the patient satisfaction survey off and on for about five years. The staff surveys patients every Wednesday. Dr. Keller began using the satisfaction survey to make sure the practice was addressing the needs of their patients and spot trends or concerns that the patient may not raise during the examination process. Her survey covers a variety of topics, from cleanliness to ease of appointment scheduling. When the practice first began surveying the patients, they found some negative responses on the amount of time spent waiting in the reception area. Dr. Keller remarked, “We responded with extra efforts to keep on schedule and make sure we explain the reasons for any delays in seeing the patients at their appointed time. This negative soon became a positive.”
Surveys are a choice
Does the practice need to do all of these surveys? The answer to that question will depend on several factors. The experience level of doctors and staff, the amount of time available to spend with patients, the personality of the staff, and even the level of managed care will impact the choice. Doni Wolf of Bridgeport Eye Center in Bridgeport, Texas enjoys the opportunity to discuss lifestyle activities with patients rather than using a survey form. “I always ask about hobbies, computer use, driving habits, sports, etc. I can tailor my questions to the patient based on age and our past interactions with the patient.”
The best way to determine if survey forms will benefit your practice is to try using one for a few weeks. At the end of the trial, discuss the impact the survey has had with the entire staff. Remember that with any new process, you may need to tweak the format to improve it for your particular needs and try it again. At the end of your trial you should ask three main questions: 1. Did the survey make us more efficient in our delivery of care? 2. Did the survey have a positive impact financially? 3. Did the survey enable us to produce more highly satisfied patients? If the answers to these questions are yes, then a well-designed survey is a good choice for you.
Eric Rollins president of Rollins Consulting LLC, a Michigan-based firm serving independent eyecare professionals and optical retailers. | <urn:uuid:b676acd6-f88a-40bb-9e5c-9c82aebc8314> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.2020mag.com/l-and-t/8953/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954051 | 1,999 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Orlinski in Courchevel
Visual impact and Art power
Critics first discovered Orlinski with his « Crocodile », flagship work of his concept « Born Wild ». For the artist, the crocodile refers to the more archaic part of our brain, the reptilian brain, the seat of our baser instincts, our deeper impulses.
By representing animals, Orlinski expresses his existential quest: dominate savagery, at least soften it by diverting it from its primitive instincts. “When I create, I liberate my positive energy, he confesses, I would like my creations to help people channel their dark thoughts, and transform them in beauty”.
Passionately involved in our time, the artist denounces the shortcomings of our mass consumer society. Echoing to the Pop Art Movement, he finds his inspiration in our environment, wild animals, objects and accessories of everyday life, today icons, which he endeavors to sublime through the magic of Art. Essentially coming from today’s modern materials (resin and aluminum), they can also arise from the traditional nobility of marble, stone, bronze and precious metals.
All of Courchevel and some of its mountaintops will be, during the BORN AWARDS and through out the winter, inhabited by monumental sculptures surprisingly disseminated between sky and snow fields, sometimes at more than 2000 meters high. At the top of the Vizelle (2659 m), the three meters high “Loup Blanc” (The White Woolf) will thrill the skiers at the arrival of the ski lift; as well as the 4,50 meters high “Elephant”, at the top of the Chenus (2240 m). In the course of their walk in the resort, the winterers will discover other sculptures by Richard Orlinski, just as famous and spectacular, such as “Superman”, “The Panther”, “The Eagle”, “The Kong”, made of polished aluminum, “ The White Kong”, “The Dragon”…
« Orlinski in Courchevel » is an exhibition initiated by the Galeries Bartoux, in close cooperation with the Office du Tourisme of Courchevel and the “Société des 3 vallées”. | <urn:uuid:6895c689-4fbf-4d5f-bde9-9653c9bbf5fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.borncreation.com/orlinski-in-courchevel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942368 | 484 | 1.515625 | 2 |
I'm running a Windows workstation, and doing a lot of Rails (Ruby) development. Rails runs about 3x faster in Linux, so I intend to run a Linux VM on my workstation, to test the app. It's important for the testing to be as high performance as possible. I'm currently running VMWare Workstation. I have a quad core processor with 12 GB (plenty of RAM to spare).
I have three options:
- A. Run Linux in VMWare workstation
- B. Run Linux in another virtualization tool
- C. Buy a new server for Linux (no virt, or perhaps ESXi). Besides the cost, this will make it hard to copy and paste between my Windows workstation.
My questions are: What type of performance overhead will I get with each solution? I have plenty of RAM to spare, so I'm not concerned about footprint. But I want the app to start, test, and run as fast as possible. That is, I want to shave seconds off, esp. the latency.
Oh: I'll mainly be running without any GUI. But I may want to use a GUI editor on the Linux vm sometimes as well.
- What type of performance overhead do I | <urn:uuid:fa6486af-c5b8-406e-b132-fde348e374de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://serverfault.com/questions/319137/fast-virtualizing-linux-on-top-of-windows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941787 | 257 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Symmetry readers find the Higgs boson
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider weren’t the only ones to discover a Higgs-like particle. When we asked symmetry breaking readers to send us their own evidence of a Higgs boson, they sent a massive outpouring of creative candidates.
On July 4, we asked readers to show us where they’d spotted the Higgs boson. It seems the Higgs has been giving mass to particles around the universe and throughout history, judging by the flood of entries we received.
According to your votes, the top three Higgs hunters were Dennis Beunk, Jerome Sprecher and Kevin Munday. Congratulations to you three and also to those whose entries received honorable mentions. Thanks to everyone who entered and voted! | <urn:uuid:00d98f08-69a8-4c5c-b88f-7a125bbc1215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/august-2012/symmetry-readers-find-the-higgs-boson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963368 | 161 | 1.640625 | 2 |
After after a night and a day spent on the water, professional windsurfer George Shillito achieved his target of 25 hours on the waters of St Austell Bay in Cornwall to raise money for cancer research.
The attempt started when he challenged the members of the Polkerris Pirates Team 15 junior windsurfing club to windsurf for one hour last Saturday. Twenty five children rose to the occasion and their total was added together to reach 25 hours. Undaunted by such a massive total, George started at 3.25 in the afternoon and kept going all night and all day to finish at 4.25 on Sunday afternoon.
A giant pizza was delivered to him at dusk to keep him going during the night, while a dedicated group of supporters kept watch from the shore, just able to make out the glow-sticks fixed to his sail. Occasionally, the sky was lit up by electric storms to the South but it was otherwise a dark, starlit and chilly night.
With only two 5 minute breaks on shore in the entire period, George windsurfed continuously, covering an estimated total of well over 100 miles. The steady Easterly breeze overnight was helpful but dawn brought a difficult windless period with choppy seas, followed by vicious squalls with winds of up to 20 knots and a thunderstorm. George said “the part from dawn until 8am was worst. The conditions were really hard, my back was killing me and I felt more alone than I did in the night. And I still had ten hours to go.”
During Sunday afternoon, a large crowd of well-wishers turned up at Polkerris Beach to welcome George ashore and at 4.25pm he somersaulted off his board to end the challenge. George thanked everyone, saying “I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported my fund-raising efforts and donated to Windsurfing for Cancer Research, and also to the terrific support team that kept me going, especially overnight.”
Windsurfing for Cancer Research is an active and energetic charity led by members of the windsurfing community who have been affected by the scourge of cancer. You can still add to George’s total, currently standing at over £1600 at www.justgiving.com/george-surf | <urn:uuid:d690a493-8607-494e-b46d-f50b3021efe7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boards.mpora.com/news/george-shillitos-25hour-cancer-research-windsurfathon.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976184 | 469 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Coffeen elementary presented its annual elementary report to the Sheridan County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees at this week's monthly board meeting, with the goal of improving PAWS reading scores for next year.
Reading scores at Coffeen were only 53 percent proficient or advanced for last year, compared to a 66 percent state average. Coffeen Principal Nicole Trahan told the board how they have already begun putting new programs into place to improve those scores.
Students who weren't proficient on PAWS reading last year are part of Coffeen's Read 180 program. The program targets fourth and fifth grade below-level readers which monitors progress through comprehension quizzes and other assessments.
Aside from the one low-mark, District 2 Board President Scott Hininger said at the meeting that since Trahan took over as principal of Coffeen the atmosphere has changed in the school and test scores are going in a positive direction.
Goals for the school year at Coffeen include raising the number of students proficient or advanced to 95 percent in writing on PAWS in grades three through five, and increasing that number to 85 percent in reading. Trahan also noted that a goal for Coffeen is leadership, which will be shown through better test scores, fewer office referrals, and more participation in the Student Leadership Team.
Tune in Friday for our update for Woodland Park Elementary.
Third Grade Coffeen
Fourth Grade Coffeen
Fifth Grade Coffeen | <urn:uuid:9c9a6eb6-9a20-4237-9a96-c7f55018f449> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sheridanmedia.com/print/news/coffeen-implements-programs-improve-reading-scores19918 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946669 | 293 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The conversation is now clearly about the unethical practices of corporations and companies profiting from the illegal exploitation of artists work without consent or compensation. As the 13 year war against Artists Rights has waged on, more and more artists are recognizing this fundamental truth, and speaking up.
Many artists are expressing the need for an Ethical Internet that should preserve all the rights and freedoms enjoyed in the physical world. Anyone who proposes that one set of rights (privacy, labor & fair compensation) must be sacrificed to protect another set of rights (freedom of speech), should be seriously questioned. Internet and tech companies need to innovate beyond the old model of illegally exploiting artists work as the basis for their unimaginative models and work to create new fair and ethical businesses.
Bono, Elton John, Eminem, Prince and others don’t need anything that Piracy is said to offer such as promotion, which is laughable at best. The Pirate Bay has made, and continues to make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS annually from artists via advertising (from Google) while providing no compensation to the artists what-so-ever. This is truly immoral and unethical, as well as being unacceptable as a legitimate business.
We hope that more artists will continue to speak up in favor of artists rights online in the pursuit of an ethical internet. What follows is a list of previous artists comments, compiled and attributed to their respective sources on the subject.
“…somebody should fight for fellow artists, because this is madness. Music has become tap water, a utility, where for me it’s a sacred thing, so I’m a little offended. The Internet has emasculated rather than liberated artists…”
LL COOL J
“My first question is this: Do people in the entertainment industry have the same rights as other Americans to fair pay for fair work?”
PATRICK CARNEY / THE BLACK KEYS
“The guy [Sean Parker] has $2.5 billion he made from figuring out ways to steal royalties from artists, and that’s the bottom line.”
“I am of the view that the unchecked proliferation of illegal downloading (even on a “non-commercial” basis) will have a seriously detrimental effect on musicians, and particularly young musicians and those composers who are not performing artists.”
“I think that shit is fucking bullshit. Whoever put my shit on the Internet, I want to meet that motherf***er and beat the shit out of him, because I picture this scrawny little dickhead going ‘I got Eminem’s new CD! I got Eminem’s new CD! I’m going to put it on the Internet.’ I think that anybody who tries to make excuses for that shit is a fucking bitch.”
JOHN MCCREA / CAKE
“The idea of making a living from selling musical recordings is sort of a quaint idea and is no longer really feasible… But I do think that if music is going to be free, then sandwiches should also be free. There should be some consistency and we should learn to cooperate better.”
“…piracy is primarily motivated by greed – it’s a business, and apparently a very good one. There’s nothing wrong with someone making money, but if they are making money by commandeering and exploiting my work, and not even sharing any of those earnings with me to boot, then it shouldn’t be controversial to suggest their actions are less than admirable.”
“Theft of American products and ideas is no longer the hobby of teenagers with laptops; it’s big business, as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative warns in a recent report on the world’s most notorious illicit markets. And they’re not just stealing movies and music; they are stealing America’s jobs and future.”
“Nobody’s making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google…It’s like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There’s no boundaries.”
“I feel that what we artists were promised has not really panned out. Yes in many ways we have more freedom. Artistically this is certainly true. But the music business never transformed into the vibrant marketplace where small stakeholders could compete with multinational conglomerates on an even playing field.”
“Just because technology exists where you can duplicate something, that doesn’t give you the right to do it. There’s nothing wrong with giving some tracks away or bits of stuff that’s fine. But it’s not everybody’s right. Once I record something, it’s not public domain to give it away freely. And that’s not trying to be the outdated musician who is trying to ‘stop technology. I love technology.”
DAVID DRAIMAN / DISTURBED
“Make no mistake, however, that the culture that has been bred over the course of the last 10+ years of simply thinking that all music should be available for free is wrong, and immoral; plain and simple.This mentality has created an environment where it is more and more difficult for artists, particularly up-and-coming ones, to survive and sustain themselves. We, as artists, love and appreciate our fans more than you know. We know that we could not exist without you, but we don’t steal from you, not in any way, not ever. Wrong is wrong, no matter what color you paint it, or how you try to spin it.”
THE GRATEFUL DEAD
“No commercial gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means.”
“What pisses me off is having over 91 percent of my personal intellectual property stolen, often before it even has the chance to be finished and released to the world. As a professional musician, a lot of time, hard work, and money goes into making a record. As an independent musician, that money comes directly out of my own pocket. “
“Digital online piracy is making it nearly impossible for Canada’s emerging artists to make it”
“People are trapped in the culture where music needs to be free and you don’t need to pay for it… who are you to have the right to tell me that I shouldn’t demand payment or feel a certain way for seeing people put my music out there like that? If I chose to do that, that’s one thing. But I didn’t choose to do that. That music was stolen.”
“The world over, people are stealing music in its millions in the form of illegal file-sharing. It’s easy to do, and has become accepted by many, but we need people to know that it is destroying people’s livelihoods and suffocating emerging new British artists.”
“I could have been dropped from my record deal because so much was spent and so much of my album was leaked and not paid for. But luckily my label had great belief in me. File-sharing has had a very, very negative effect on my career, as it has on many others.”
In closing, perhaps this quote from Hemingway is also appropriate as food for thought:
“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.” – Death in the Afternoon
[ THE 101 ] [NEW BOSS / OLD BOSS ] [ SPOTIFY ] [GROOVESHARK ] [ LARRY LESSIG ]
[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ] | <urn:uuid:429a0d14-d384-4312-931b-a8815d0eecdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thetrichordist.com/2012/05/03/roll-call-musicians-for-an-ethical-internet/ | 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 | 0.96154 | 1,769 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Posted: Mar 18, 2013 2:33 PM
TUCSON - A new report shows more than 300 people died of drug overdoses in Pima County last year.
Chief Pima County Medical Examiner Greg Hess says the 314 overdose deaths are up from 277 such deaths in 2011 and 273 in 2010.
Hess says prescription drugs were a factor in the majority of the deaths, with oxycodone was the top source of overdoses and morphine ranked second.
The report says there were 9,742 deaths in Pima County last year overall compared to 8,383 in 2011 and 8,163 in 2010.
Cardiovascular disease was the top cause of death, followed by chronic alcohol abuse.
Hess doesn't have an explanation for the rise in deaths in the county. He says last year was busier in his office than any time in the last decade.
Check out the latest events FC Tucson has scheduled.
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Complete feeds of all KVOA.com stories | <urn:uuid:1380d647-28c4-4c08-9143-2c757d1db99c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.kvoa.com/news/314-in-pima-county-die-of-drug-overdoses-in-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948182 | 337 | 1.617188 | 2 |
>In a message dated 8/25/99 10:01:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
><< But i see it has Grape Nuts cereal in it >>
>I have yet to see a grape nuts fat free cereal,.am I missing something?
Yes, I think so. There is a certain amount of fat in all
grains, this list doesn't preclude the use of grains. I
have a box of Post Grape-Nuts, the amount of fat in a 1/2
cup serving is 1 gram. The serving has 210 calories, 10 of
which are from fat. This very small amount of fat is the
fat which naturally occurs in the grains.
The ingredients are: wheat flour, malted barley flour,
salt, and yeast.
I think we shouldn't forget that we NEED some small
quantity of fat to exist and be healthy. The "fatfree" name
of the list doesn't really mean literally fatfree, it means
"low-fat foods with no added fat." | <urn:uuid:23c7cd35-de24-4c73-8936-8d972dc356b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fatfree.com/archive/1999/aug/msg00132.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938033 | 217 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Bullying Forums Scheduled in Elkridge and Howard County Schools
Find out how your teen can participate in talks about bullying.
There will be a series of forums on bullying in March hosted by the Howard County public school system to talk about how it is affecting the overall school climate.
Each of the four forums are for high school and middle school students, and the sessions are limited to 50 students each. (Students can sign up here.)
The forums will be facilitated by student leaders and school officials will use the information to inform an anti-bullying task force.
A waiting area for parents will be available at the events; however, they are just for students, school officials said.
The forums are scheduled on the following dates and schools:
Thursday, March 7, 6:30-8 p.m. - Elkridge Landing Middle School
Thursday, March 14, 6:30-8 p.m. - Reservoir High School
Monday, March 18, 6:30-8 p.m. - Howard High School
Wednesday, March 20, 6:30-8 p.m. - Folly Quarter Middle School
See previous bullying coverage on Elkridge Patch: | <urn:uuid:60c087f9-7f4f-4e78-aff1-fee36e6cd4b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elkridge.patch.com/articles/bullying-forums-scheduled-in-elkridge-and-howard-county-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963491 | 243 | 1.703125 | 2 |
It’s back to school for some Roseville students
Teacher Eileen Gordon had to slow the children down and remind them to clean up after themselves once they were done eating their snacks.
The kids were eager to move on - to first run around the playground and then to the big event, a visit to the library at Heritage Oak Elementary School in Roseville on Friday morning.
"We're going to get books!" Yasmine Meqbel squealed, during snack time.
This would be the transitional kindergartners' first visit to the library.
"We're thinking about all the thousands of books they're going to have," Gordon said.
Campuses in the Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District began the new school year Wednesday. Some of the schools introduced transitional kindergarten classes, which serve children who aren't quite ready for kindergarten.
Transitional kindergarten emphasizes social, emotional and motor skill development, and focuses less on academics.
"Transitional kindergarten slows things down and the (kids) get to do more things appropriate for them, which is great," said Principal Amy Banks.
Under the Kindergarten Readiness Act passed in 2010, California mandates that public school districts offer transitional kindergarten beginning with the 2012-13 year.
Under the law, a child is eligible for transitional kindergarten if he turns 5 years old between Nov. 2 and Dec. 2. A child must be 5 years old by Nov. 1 to enter regular kindergarten. For 2013, that date moves up to Oct. 1. For 2014 and thereafter, the cut-off is Sept. 1.
Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District, Roseville City School District and Eureka Union School District already had transitional kindergarten classes in place, but are expanding those programs.
The new school year brought some other changes to Dry Creek campuses, including the addition of technological upgrades to about 90 classrooms funded through Measure E These classrooms now have flat-panel televisions, LCD projectors, document cameras and InterWrite pads. Heritage Oak Elementary School kindergarten teacher Elinor McCormick said staff underwent training but using the new technology is still an adjustment.
"We had to just jump in and it's really exciting," McCormick said.
The Roseville Joint Union High School District starts the new school year Monday, Eureka Union School District kids start Wednesday and Roseville City School District begins Tuesday, Aug. 21.
Sena Christian can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at SenaC_RsvPT. | <urn:uuid:bd864123-7d1e-4f16-bb48-dea5578c9949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thepresstribune.com/article/it%e2%80%99s-back-school-some-roseville-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952034 | 519 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Nikon Corp. has developed a couple of new digital still cameras with built-in wireless LAN adapters, the company said Thursday in a statement. At a basic level the Wi-Fi connection can be used in place of a USB cable to transfer images to a personal computer for storage or to a Wi-Fi printer for printing. It's also possible to set the camera to automatically transfer each picture to the PC immediately after it's taken.
In this case, the image is also stored in the camera's memory so the camera's temporary buffer memory can be cleared and shooting can continue while images are being transferred. Communication can take place two ways: in ad hoc mode a direct connection is established between the camera and a host device such as a personal computer and in infrastructure mode the connection runs through a wireless LAN base station to a device connected to the network.
News source: MacWorld | <urn:uuid:7b1c8681-11db-4533-b016-6fd20521047f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neowin.net/news/nikon-adds-wi-fi-to-coolpix-digital-cameras | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955518 | 178 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Death Guarantees Dollars for These Controversial Attractions
These attractions bring in money from tours to t-shirts and surely give tourists a uniquely morbid but educational experience they aren't soon to forget.
Implications - Although some call it "tasteless tourism," it is important to note that most of these places are now memorials of the people who have lost their lives. The featured video is all about Chernobyl and the effects and devastation that it later brought. Its main message is to bring awareness to the dangers of nuclear power. | <urn:uuid:60c08dab-ac61-4dd1-aea8-85bc3afddb2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/tasteless-tourism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945612 | 108 | 1.539063 | 2 |
HOLIDAY HOUSE NEAR AUPS EN PROVENCE
Only 10 minutes from our holiday house. Bustling work-a-day Provence at its best. Aups has the third largest black truffle market of France, known for its quality and importance. This market is held every Thursday from November to February. Aups is vaguely trendy.
Visit Aups during your holiday
The village was named Oppidum de Alpibus then Castrum de Alpibus, castrum de Almis, then Alps and now Aups. The place was colonized by the Oxybians during the Ancient Rome, near of Via Aurelia going from Fréjus (Forum Julii) to Riez (Forum Reii). Julius Caesar has visited Aups (Castrum de Alpibus) on the way of the conquest of Gaul and has said « I prefer to be the first in Aups than to be the second in Roma ».
The town has been looted by the Huguenots in 1574. They massacred 18 Aupsois. A "Maiden of the massacre" was erected on the torture place, in the Clock street. Aups was the centre of the Var Republican insurgency in 1851 against the coup d'Etat of Napoleon III. In December 10, the village was engaged in a real man hunt. Its nickname became The Red center of Var. Aups was a high place of French resistance during World War II. The city earned the Croix de guerre avec palmes. | <urn:uuid:d864def4-0041-481a-9829-62a60f401a93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lereveprovencal.com/en/le-provence/aups | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964374 | 319 | 1.804688 | 2 |
BEN LOMOND -- Kenny Hill oversees a sophisticated global operation that manufactures classical guitars on two continents, with materials from around the world, to sell to customers in several countries -- and he does it all from a converted house among the fog-shrouded redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
"World headquarters in Ben Lomond!" Hill says, marveling that his complex enterprise is centered in a place better known for logging than logistics.
Hill is the founder of Hill Guitar, an outfit that makes about 150 top-of-the-line instruments a year in a small plant with six workers just down the hill from world headquarters and an additional 50,000 a year that he has designed for more modest budgets
"Our business is as complicated as Honda or Mercedes," Hill says.
When I set out to explore manufacturing and its future in the Made in the Bay Area series, I didn't expect to be making a trip up the winding road from Silicon Valley to Ben Lomond. The series has looked at how rising costs in China, increasing automation in the United States and growing globalization have made the decision about where to produce goods more complicated. And it turns out Hill's operation is an ideal illustration of another byproduct of those trends: More than ever, companies need to look at individual products when deciding where in the world they can be most efficiently made.
Santa Clara University business professor Andy Tsay says sophisticated manufacturers no longer take a one-size-fits-all approach. When looking at locations, companies have to think about the cost of labor and transportation, proximity to designers and key customers and whether they're comfortable exporting their intellectual property -- concerns that might be more or less important depending on the specific product a company is making.
"A company is a collection of product lines," Tsay says, "so the decisions to outsource and offshore are really taking place at the individual product level."
Tsay points to NCR, which in 2009 moved the manufacturing of its high-end ATMs back to Georgia,
"GE decided to bring dishwashers and refrigerators back, but not some of the other things," says Khanna, who served in the Obama administration's Commerce Department. "They brought it back because they thought the price point worked for that."
When Hill, a musician and teacher, started building guitars in the mid-1970s, he didn't intend to become a global manufacturing guru. "I was not an industrial mogul of any sort," he says, sitting in an office that feels more like a living room with gorgeous guitars hanging on the walls. "I was just a barefoot artisan."
But the laid-back luthier grew to understand that if he wanted to scale up his business, he'd need to go to China, where he could manufacture more cheaply and on a grander scale. And he knew something else. "Everybody who goes to China wants cost and efficiency," he says. "But they've all got in the back of their mind that China is a billion and half people. It's the biggest emerging market in the history of the world and we want to be able to sell to them."
He knew expanding to Asia wouldn't be easy.
"I had pretty much everyone warning me that I was going to get screwed," Hill says. But he was also sure that if he didn't make the move, some other classical guitar-maker would, limiting his options in the process. And so, he plunged in.
"In fact, all the stuff that was predicted did happen, pretty much on schedule," Hill says of the warnings. His partners, he says, learned what they could from him about guitar design and then shut him out of the business. He had few allies and fewer connections in China to help him battle. Ultimately, his partners failed at guitar-making and Hill, much wiser, connected with new partners in China.
He says he learned that business in China is all about relationships, and that it's best to share only intellectual property that in the end you wouldn't mind losing complete control over. The new arrangement has been running more smoothly. The Guangzhou factory produces Hill's New World label, guitars that sell for $300 to $1,800, far less than his U.S.-produced instruments, which are aimed at serious musicians and sell for $5,000 to $10,000. Hill is also in a partnership with U.S. guitar maker Cordoba to produce instruments in China for that company's label, as well.
Last month he teamed up with Cordoba to launch a factory in Oxnard, where Cordoba already has a distribution warehouse. He hopes the factory will one day employ 20 workers making 1,000 guitars a year retailing in the $2,500 to $4,000 range.
He says he and Cordoba executives realized they would not be able to get the quality they wanted in China, particularly at a price they were willing to pay. And so Cordoba's Oxnard site seemed the better fit.
"It's part of a trend of finding out what the limits are of what you can do in China in terms of controlling your design," Hill says.
The manufacturing strategy has required Hill to become an expert at logistics and global supply chains. He walks me into a storage shed at the Ben Lomond factory filled with the sweet scent of hardwood. Pieces of milled wood, some nearly black, some reddish, some white, are stacked on shelves to the ceiling. Pointing from shelf to shelf, Hill explains that the wood was imported from at least seven countries. The same types of wood, harvested in Italy, India, Africa, Spain, Brazil, Turkey and Canada, are also shipped to the factory in China for the guitars made there.
I close my eyes and picture a globe with shipments of wood swirling around from continent to continent. And then the flip side strikes me: Guitars that Hill makes in China end up in the United States and guitars he makes in the United States end up in China. The necks of his U.S. guitars are produced in the Chinese factory, meaning they travel to the U.S., where they are attached to the high-end guitars, and then back to China if a guitar is sold there.
"People don't realize how complex these supply chains are," Tsay says, citing everything from guitars to electronics. "The product moves its way around the world several times, typically."
It's literally a lot of moving parts.
And it's the way of the world, a world in which Kenny Hill knows that making guitars in California and Guangzhou is a winning strategy in a time when Ben Lomond and Beijing are closer than ever before. | <urn:uuid:322bf3cf-fd06-45f8-806e-ffcd170ebb3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mercurynews.com/mike-cassidy/ci_22313552 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980857 | 1,376 | 1.5625 | 2 |
I agree in principle, but that's simply an academic argument, which doesn't apply to reality. Beliefs almost always lead to actions. Sure, not every single time, but the minority of theists who take absolutely no action to influence others or impose their beliefs on others are not the ones we're worried about. Even the simple expression of their beliefs can prove harmful, if others are led to harmful action through it.
But you want to marginalize all
theists, even those that do not cause harm to other people or themselves.
Id est: You want to discriminate against the minorities for the mistakes that the majority made.
Also, what if their beliefs hurt themselves? Do they have a right to their beliefs then? Do we have a responsibility to save people from themselves? One could argue that we don't, but consider the effect that self-destructive behaviors can have on their loved ones. Is that not also hurting other people?
I've been locked in argument with myself regarding that long before I met you.
My grandfather used to be a drunk. My mom always tried to make him quit by telling him that it was bad for him. He argued that he could do whatever he wanted to his body. Finally I suggested she tell him that his behavior was hurting her and he reduced his drinking considerably.
That's a very good argument.
Even less actually, they still had millions of members will into the 1950's. Nobody said this would happen overnight. My very first post on this forum said it begins with educating the next generation.
So, like I said, oppressed minorities will take action, at which point we have four choices:
Continue oppressing them.
Let them do what they want.
Do what they want us to do.
Get rid of them.
You've never heard pro-drug or pro-sexism beliefs before? In my school we were taught all those beliefs, then learned why they are wrong.
I've heard of them, but those are not beliefs - they're stances on certain topics. They may be based on beliefs (I'm pretty sure that the pro-sexist movement is based on a religion), but that doesn't mean that the movement itself is a belief.
Whether they are correct or not is beside the point, they are harmful and irresponsible beliefs that must be marginalized.
They are harmful to whom? The people who perform them? Do we not have the right to freedom of action?
If you murder your girlfriend while she sleeps, she can never cheat on you again is a correct belief.
Yes, it is correct. Yet I don't do it (due to lack of current girlfriends, among other things, but that's not relevant). Should that belief be marginalized? Or should the action
And by the way, drugs do not make you see God. God is imaginary. Drugs make you believe you are seeing God.
Drugs make you see some pretty weird shit, some of which you might call "God".
Next time check a dictionary. If the definition you find there doesn't make sense in the context it was used, then you may ask for clarification.
I did. Masculinity is, more or less, "the state of being masculine", which is meaningless.
Yes, obviously it was a personal attack. You just figured that out? I believe your stance regarding confrontation with theists is weak. How you deal with confrontation in other situations is off-topic.
So you're admitting that your argument is moot. Thanks for playing.
I don't know why there is so much focus on this one comment. When Jaybwell called me an asshole, nobody asked him to define the term or defend his use of it. I was kind enough to ignore his emotional breakdowns (twice in two days he dropped f-bomb laden tirades and 'stormed out'). Mine was much less insulting and my reasons for using it were clearly stated and defended, though obviously it were just my opinion. Several others have personally attacked me using much ruder terms, and with far less cause. You don't seem to object to any of those though. Seems like a double standard.
I suggest you read your topic that got closed. I told Jay not to assume that what you meant by the OP is what he thought you meant, and not to compare you to a Nazi, as that was an appeal to emotion, not an actual argument.
As for the double standard, it's not. You are saying "You are not 'masculine', therefore your argument is invalid". They were just saying "You're an idiot. Now here's why your argument is invalid".
EDIT: It's funny how you say that aggression is not a negative trait in males (therefore it's either a meaningless trait
or a positive trait
), yet when Jay and others are aggressive, you call it "emotional breakdowns" and say that they're negative things. | <urn:uuid:f32053e6-6409-4d25-88ed-8da408409e06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,20736.msg460010.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983387 | 1,016 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Have you followed the recent tussle between J. C. Penney and anti-gay groups? It’s pretty interesting. And it’s pretty suggestive of changed attitudes in this country toward gay men and lesbians.
It started earlier this year, after J. C. Penney hired Ellen DeGeneres, an outspoken advocate for gay rights and marriage equality, as its pitch woman. There was no indication then—and there is no reason to believe now—that she was chosen because she’s a lesbian. The company’s current CEO, Ron Johnson, told the Associated Press: “I think Ellen is someone we all trust. She’s loveable, likeable, honest and funny, but at her soul, we trust her.”
Nonetheless, her sexual orientation drew the ire and fire of ultra-conservative Christians, who publicly denounced the retailer and commenced a campaign to have DeGeneres replaced.
What did J. C. Penney do?
It reaffirmed its commitment to DeGeneres—and then, last month, at around the time of Mother’s Day, it doubled down and unveiled an ad with a same-sex couple: a pair of moms.
This further stoked the fury in particular of the group One Million Moms, an offshoot of the anti-gay American Family Association. One Million Moms urged a J. C. Penney boycott.
What did J. C. Penney do?
In advance of Father’s Day last weekend, it tripled down and unveiled an ad with another same-sex couple: two dads.
The so-called “religious right” bellows, and J. C. Penney shows them the back of its hand. Can you imagine such a scenario a decade ago?
I can’t, considering that J. C. Penney is not some boutique retailer whose stores are concentrated in big cities and whose clientele skews in the direction of urban sophisticates. It’s a chain based in Plano, Tex., with a largely suburban audience and plenty of stores in the heartland.
That it has made the calculation that there’s more to gain than lose by projecting an acceptance of gay and lesbian couples underscores how much this country has evolved and continues to evolve.
Polls aren’t the only, or even best, yardsticks of that. Corporate behavior says just as much, as I noted in a column last February about the way Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon all spoke up in support of same-sex marriage legislation in the state of Washington. That legislation passed the state legislature and was signed by the governor, but its implementation awaits the results of a voter referendum in the fall.
A side note on Starbucks: there’s an article on the chain’s renaissance in the current issue of Time magazine, which notes various ways in which the company is integrating social consciousness and efforts at jobs creation into its brand. At a time of broad scorn for corporations, the article is a reminder that some of them can and do take high roads and exhibit sensitivity to the communities around them, and even if these good deeds are done largely or exclusively because they’re good business, too, well, that doesn’t negate the potentially positive impact of those deeds.
Penney no doubt has motives other than principle. Could it be trying to distinguish itself from Wal-Mart, which enjoyed early success among Christian fundamentalists in the Sunbelt and is often seen in a conservative light?
Also, was Penney counting on—or grateful to realize it had succeeded in getting—a great deal of free publicity from its stance?
Is the use of same-sex couples in the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day ads just the most emphatic and efficient way the retailer could conceptualize of sending the message to consumers that Penney isn’t some musty dinosaur of a store, but a nimble enterprise of the moment? An interesting dynamic that has taken hold on several fronts is the celebration of marriage equality or other gay-rights concerns as a badge of sophistication. Last year, when I reported a column on why same-sex marriage had been legalized in a few seemingly unlikely countries like Portugal, it became clear that one reason was politicians’ and citizens’ investment in what that policy change said about their society’s modernity.
A last question: other than the journalists, like me here and now, who have written about the Penney ads, how many actual consumers really saw them and registered the content in them? These weren’t TV ads. These weren’t even print ads distributed in newspapers and magazines. These were ads in J. C. Penney catalogues. That they got Penney so much attention recalls what happens so often in politics these days: a campaign will produce an offbeat or provocative ad that it hardly even televises or just puts on the web, expecting commentary about the ad and thus attracting attention in a fashion much less expensive than the purchase of a whole bunch of TV air time.
Even so: J. C. Penney’s aggregate actions over the last several months put the retailer clearly on one side in an ongoing and often heated debate in this country. And the company’s choice of sides, as I said, is illustrative. | <urn:uuid:8d028074-d2a9-461a-ac56-27b049cc0014> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bruni.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/penneys-gay-wager/?smid=tw-share | 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 | 0.957818 | 1,105 | 1.5625 | 2 |
State House Grounds Still Closed Years After Patrick's Pledge to Open Them
The grounds were closed after Sept. 11, 2001, but Patrick has said he wants to make the State House's iconic statue of JFK available once more.
More than three years after Gov. Deval Patrick said he'd make the State House grounds open to the public, the gates remain shut.
The grounds were closed after Sept. 11, 2001, and Patrick has said he wants to make the State House's iconic statue of JFK, in particular, available once more. However, Boston Herald reporters were recently turned away from the plaza and told that it is open during the summer during official tours of the State House, the Herald reported.
The governor seemed unaware that the grounds were never reopened.
“Well, the JFK statue is accessible now, which is great,” he told Herald reporters Friday. “The rangers can take you out. You just have to ask them. It doesn’t have to be a tour, and that’s a great thing.”
Ultimately, however, Patrick put the decision of whether to open the grounds with the State House security team.
“What I feel doesn’t probably matter, what matters most is that the security experts on whom we rely feel ready and are ready because of what they view as a change of circumstances... I’ll have to ask them what they think,” he told the Herald. | <urn:uuid:fa38c613-d4df-4dd6-842b-fb2302f08ddc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beaconhill.patch.com/articles/state-house-grounds-remain-closed-years-after-patrick-s-pledge-to-reopen-them | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985668 | 300 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Sun May 13, 2012
Is the world ready for Pure Michigan?
The Obama Administration wants to step up efforts to promote the U.S. as an international tourism destination. That’s welcome news to the folks who run the “Pure Michigan” campaign.
Michigan tourism officials know people from foreign countries come here to vacation, but they don’t know how many, and that’s important to know when they’re planning how to spend the “Pure Michigan” campaign’s $25 million advertising budget.
This year, only about one percent, or about $250,000, is being spent to promote Michigan as a tourism destination in Europe, mainly in England and Germany. Nothing is being spent in Asia.
George Zimmerman oversees the “Pure Michigan” campaign for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. He says the Obama Administration’s tourism strategy includes determining where foreign visitors want to go.
“For about half the states, including Michigan, there just isn’t enough sample size to really have good data. So, that’s been a challenge for us, says Zimmerman.
Right now, the “Pure Michigan” campaign is focusing on regional promotions with some national ads, and “a modest effort” in Canada. | <urn:uuid:73047564-645f-4a8e-abf2-0cb907c378ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michiganradio.org/post/world-ready-pure-michigan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931405 | 348 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Lately, Twitter seems like an inescapable part of life. People tweet from home, tweet when they're out, they even tweet when they're at work (it's safe to say the Fast Company office is Twitter-obsessed). But results from a recent LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll show that the Twitter phenomenon might be more concentrated than we thought.
Of the over 2,000 adults surveyed, 69% said they didn't know enough about Twitter to have an opinion on it--69%?! That's a shocking number--my mother even knows what Twitter is, and I still have to place a weekly call just to remind her to check her e-mail. An additional 20% of consumers think that Twitter is either already past its prime or will continue to be used only by young people and the media. When you add up those numbers, that leaves a pretty small portion of consumers who think Twitter will continue to grow.
It's not ground-breaking news that questions are being raised about Twitter's staying power. It has a retention rate of just 40% (about half the rate of Facebook and MySpace) and most of its 7 million users simply follow friends, not companies or brands. But not knowing what Twitter is? Numbers like that don't bode well for advertisers, especially when their awareness of the micro-blogging site seems to be vastly different from consumers'.
The study also surveyed over 1,000 advertisers, of which 45% felt that Twitter will continue to grow. Only 17% said they didn't know enough about Twitter to comment (which still seems high for the ad industry, but it pales in comparison to 69%), another 17% said Twitter is already over and 21% said it will continue to be used solely by young people and the media.
So the ad industry has more confidence in Twitter than consumers do, but no one seems to be overwhelmed by its potential marketing ability. When asked about the effectiveness of tweets, only 8% of advertisers and consumers alike believe it is "very effective." (This was demonstrated last week at Comic-Con, when convention-related tweets fell way short of expectations.)
Twitter has said before that the site is not interested in pursuing advertising, but hopes to bring in cash with tools and services. But if the site continues to attract only youth and media, as some have predicted, will it be enough to sustain the Twittersphere? | <urn:uuid:74c1c668-b39e-4a74-b618-ee0d089d043d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcompany.com/1319897/what-twitter-apparently-no-one-knows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971427 | 489 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The first round of local elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was held in four phases.
• The first phase was carried out on 23/12/2004.
• The second phase was carried out on 5/5/2005.
• The third phase was carried out on 29/9/2005.
• The fourth phase was carried out on 15/12/2005.
The first and second phases of local elections were held in accordance with Elections Law No. 5 of 1996 following the simple majority system (districts). Following the completion of these phases, Local Councils’ Elections Law No. 10 of 2005 was issued. The third and fourth phases of elections were carried out according to this law and its amendments, on the basis of the proportional representation system (lists).
Under this system, nomination is conducted by closed list. Each list’s candidates are ordered based on candidate priority, but the names of the candidates do not appear on the ballot paper. The number of candidates in a list should not be less than the majority of local council seats in that list’s locality.
Each list which obtains 8% or more of the valid votes is allocated a number of seats in proportion to the number of valid votes obtained, following the Sainte-Laguë method. The seats are allocated to the candidates according to the order of their names in the list.
On 8 February 2010, the Cabinet issued a decision to hold local elections in all Palestinian localities on Saturday 17 July 2010. These elections were to be based on proportional representation, according to Local Council Elections Law No. 10 of 2005 and its amendments. The Cabinet later issued a decision to cancel these elections.
Central Elections Commission-PalestineAll rights reserved©2013 | <urn:uuid:78f55b71-1ec0-4f30-a8c5-73ecde84d6e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elections.ps/tabid/741/language/en-US/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975504 | 359 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Apache Oil (APA) maintains a careful balance of its assets, with a successful mix of revenue lines in both foreign and domestic holdings. Apache has approximately a 50-50 split in its production between gas and liquids, with oil making up over 40% of the liquid production. This adds a high-priced revenue source to its income statement, with oil currently selling at over $100 per barrel. This type of careful balance in assets and revenue lines is an excellent approach to staying solvent, and weathering changing economic conditions in the gas and oil exploration industry.
Apache operates in six countries, spreading each geographic and geopolitical risk factor among different continental zones. Currently, Apache has operations in North America (the U.S., including the Gulf of Mexico, and Canada), Europe (the North Sea off the coast of the UK), the Middle East (Egypt), South America (Argentina), and Australia. With revenues at around $17 billion, Houston-based Apache Oil is one of the larger mid-cap oil exploration companies operating in the world market.
In addition to spreading risk among its assets, Apache also maintains a very attractive debt-to-equity ratio. At 0.25, it’s lower than the 0.34 debt to equity ratio median among its peers. Apache ensures it has the cash reserves to withstand wild fluctuations in the market for the price of energy, as well as the inherent risks in oil exploration and the unsure political climate in some regions where it operates.One of the economic conditions Apache has had to withstand is the current price point for natural gas on the domestic market.To continue reading, click here. | <urn:uuid:50dae2d8-b677-4a1e-bdce-3c675d490c69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stockcroc.com/2012/05/09/buy-low-sell-high-apache-is-a-steal-at-89/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958894 | 333 | 1.5 | 2 |
Senator Owen H. Johnson was a guest of honor at a reception marking the 12th Anniversary of the SBPLI, Inc. – LI FIRST Regional Robotics Competition (School Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc. - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) on March 25, 2011 at Hofstra University. The Owen H. Johnson Leadership Award was established for the first time this year by the organization for the Senator’s leadership and commitment to the program since its inception in 1999.
The first recipient of the award is School Construction Consultants, Inc. Principal Nick Amoruso accepted the award. The guidelines for this award are at least three years of active participation in SBPLI, Inc. – LI FIRST and monetary or in-kind contribution to the Regional.
Since its inception, SBPLI has partnered over 100 schools with local businesses. More than 30,000 students have been directly influenced by internships, jobs, and other close relationships with participating companies on Long Island. Hundreds of school staff and faculty have experienced the need for new thinking about what kind of skills they should be teaching. Many courses of study have been changed or introduced as a result of school-business collaboration.
In 1999, SBPLI joined forces with the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition and introduced the FIRST Robotics Program to Long Island by initiating the Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. This highly motivational program is designed to immerse high school students in the exciting world of science and technology by building 130 pound robots. Partnering with engineers from corporations and universities, students get a hands-on, inside look at the world of work.
Each year, FIRST provides a new robot game plan, a "problem to be solved" and a kit of parts to teams of high school students who, in turn, organize marketing, public relations, fundraising, and management groups to compete in regional competitions. Schools can also compete at the international championship held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA.
At the heart of the FIRST competition is the development of students' technological literacy by providing them with an opportunity to experience the technological design cycle, working shoulder-to-shoulder with engineers and other technical personnel. Students are engaged in every aspect of their robot's design and construction, applying scientific knowledge, solving problems, making decisions, communicating ideas, managing time and resources, overcoming challenges, and celebrating success.
Photo left to right: Senator Owen H. Johnson and Joani Madarash, Secretary of the SBPLI, Inc.– LI FIRST Board of Directors, presented the Owen H. Johnson Leadership Award to proud recipient Nick Amoruso for School Construction Consultants, Inc. | <urn:uuid:4924f583-a273-4b1a-ac37-332c95f2607e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nysenate.gov/print/92381 | 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 | 0.944373 | 548 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Spring 2012 Newsletter
Complete Streets for Mercer County
Mercer County joins Monmouth and Essex counties as the first in New Jersey to adopt a “Complete Streets” policy that requires roadway projects, whether a repaving, a reconfiguration or new construction, to take all users into account, including bicyclists and pedestrians, by default rather than by exception or as an afterthought. This national movement is gaining strength as citizens everywhere push for streets that are safer, more livable, and welcoming to everyone, and a number of Mercer County communities, including West Windsor, are among the early adopters.
The inclusion of Mercer County is big news, given how many of our key roads, even just in West Windsor, are county roads. While we have had some success in making some county roads friendlier for bicyclists and pedestrians without this policy, the job will now be somewhat easier. There are exceptions to the policy, so not every stretch of roadway may get a bike lane, for example. But with consistent and persistent application, we should see results after several years, though a complete transformation may take decades.
The WWBPA was a big part of the push to get Mercer County on board, but we also had support from 24 area groups, including the Princeton Joint Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee, Sustainable Lawrence, Trenton Cycling Revolution and the Princeton Free Wheelers. You can learn more about Complete Streets at a “lunch and learn” with Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association on Friday, May 18 at the Princeton Public Library.
Celebrate National Bike Month With the WWBPA
May is National Bike Month, and the week of May 13 is Bike to Work Week. A number of events are planned in West Windsor and neighboring communities; one (or more) is sure to be right for you. We’ve also included a few for walkers. (Note that not all events listed below are organized by the WWBPA)
May 5: West Windsor Walks to the opening day of the farmers’ market. Join us at 8:50 a.m. in the parking lot at the back of Maurice Hawk Elementary school for a leisurely stroll of just over a mile. We’ll start walking at 9 a.m. and are excited that the route this year will take us along some stretches of sidewalk that weren’t there last year. Kids will be challenged by a game of “I Spy.” People in wheelchairs and kids in strollers are welcome.
May 6: Bring your child (up to age 10) and bike to a free bike skills class at Plainsboro’s Founders Day. Princeton’s police department is sponsoring a separate bike skills class that includes a bike obstacle course on May 19; call 921-2100, ext. 1848 for details.
May 11-12: Adults aren’t being left out. This skills class, offered through the West Windsor Recreation Department, is for those who want to boost their confidence when riding on the road. Cost is $50, but the WWBPA will reimburse $25 of the cost for members. Plus we’ll cover the other $25 for the first five members who write a review of the class that we can use on our website.
May 12: Buy a bike at Bike Exchange in Ewing and get a free helmet from Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association. Learn more about this and other GMTMA events during National Bike Month here.
May 14-18: National Bike to Work Week. Register for a free T-shirt and a raffle with GMTMA.
May 15: Bikers Breakfast at the Princeton Junction train station, sponsored by the WWBPA and Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association, starting at 6 a.m. Grab a drink and a snack on us. Want a bike locker? We’ll tell you how to get one.
May 16: The WWBPA is supporting one of three area Ride of Silence events to honor cyclists killed or injured on the roads. Meet at 6:45 p.m. in the Municipal Center parking lot; the silent one-hour ride will leave at 7 p.m. We will have a West Windsor police escort and a funeral hearse courtesy of Mather Hodge. We suggest you wear a black armband and turn on your front and rear lights. We will stick together for the entire 10-12 mile route. Last year, more than 12,000 cyclists took part in events around the world.
May 19: Tour historic Trenton with the Trenton Cycling Revolution. More information about this 15-mile ride and registration at www.trentoncycling.org.
May 26: BikeFest, West Windsor’s bicycling extravaganza, with rides for people of all abilities, from 1.5 miles to 40 miles. Register at www.westwindsorbikefest.com. Say “hi” to the WWBPA after your ride!
June 16: The WWBPA holds a free “learn to bike” class for kids who want to get off training wheels at the West Windsor Farmers’ Market. Watch the video of last year’s class. Note: This is a members-only event.
A Friendlier Canal Pointe?
The WWBPA would like to see Canal Pointe Boulevard go on a diet. A three-lane roadway, with a center turn lane, would slow traffic and create room for bike lanes yet have a minimal impact on the road’s capacity. Read more in the Trenton Times and contact our elected officials with your comments.
Scholarship Application Deadline Is May 6
The WWBPA awards scholarships of up to $500 per student to graduating seniors for their commitment to the community and their efforts to help make the area more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. This year’s application deadline is May 6.Applicants must be seniors and residents of West Windsor or Plainsboro and attend West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North or South, or be West Windsor residents who attend another area private school or are home-schooled, and must complete their high school education by June 2012.
Where to Find the WWBPA
Come to our monthly meetings, held on the second Thursday of every month at the West Windsor Municipal Center. Meetings start at 7 p.m. The next one is May 10. Come with your concerns and ideas.
We’ll also be at the West Windsor Farmers Market every other Saturday beginning May 5 and into October.
Our Bigger Board
We expanded the board and added several new trustees: Juan Cárdenas, Sonia Gawas and Mike Ruderman. Michael Ogg and, more recently, Mark Shallcross have stepped down. Read more about our board.
Our seven student advisors are back for another year: Brandon Ling, Greg Ling, Sanjana Saksena, Alisha Kanitkar, Elissa Lomakova, Laura Foster, and Rachel Karp.
West Windsor is New Jersey’s first (and so far only) bicycle-friendly community. The WWBPA is honored that the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia described us as “one of the most successful bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups in the country” on a per-capita basis and “a model community for the many built-out suburbs in the region.”
Want a speaker for your local organization? Email us at [email protected].
You’re missing a lot of news if you wait for the newsletter. Keep up with WWBPA activities and learn about other bicycle and pedestrian topics by subscribing to our website, wwbpa.org. It is generally updated several times a week. We’re also on Facebook. The two sites have similar — but not identical — information. Leave us a comment!
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or mail to: | <urn:uuid:c07400e1-9207-450e-bad7-5434b050a7ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wwbpa.org/spring-2012-newsletter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942056 | 1,637 | 1.523438 | 2 |
NBC wonders: Are we better off than we were four years ago?
posted at 9:46 pm on January 17, 2013 by Mary Katharine Ham
Chuck Todd did a segment on this subject this morning on “The Daily Rundown,” and I’m trying to run down video. As we prepare to start our second four years of President Barack Obama, NBC grades him by the numbers. Even NBC can only muster two paragraphs of semi-positive spin before it moves onto the bad. Here’s the good:
The Dow Jones Industrial average is up 5,550 points since then. The economy is growing (instead of contracting). Consumer confidence has nearly doubled (though it remains below where it was before the Great Recession). And a larger percentage of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction (but a majority still think it’s on the wrong track).
And, the bad:
On the other hand, there’s data indicating that the nation isn’t better off than it was four years ago – and that the Great Recession continues to take a toll on families. Median household income (adjusted for inflation) is lower than it was in 2009. And more Americans live below the poverty level than they did four years ago.
There are also far more Americans on food stamps than before.
And, the meh:
And some numbers are exactly the same. The current unemployment rate is at 7.8%, which is where it was in Jan. 2009 (though it’s down from a high of 10% in Oct. 2009). And right now, there are roughly 49 million Americans without health insurance, which is identical to where it was in 2009. (The health-insurance mandate under the health-care law doesn’t kick in until 2014.)
What NBC doesn’t connect to these mostly depressing numbers is the cost-benefit analysis. But if you delve a little into their list of numbers, you’ll find this one:
The federal public debt has increased from $10.6 trillion in Jan. 2009 to $16.4 trillion now.
So, there’s that. Six trillion dollars, and we have the exact same unemployment rate (with the bonus of a much smaller workforce), no more people with health insurance even though Obama has put the nation and the health care system through the wringer implementing his foolproof, expensive plan to get us all insured, and more people in poverty and on food stamps.
No wonder people aren’t champing at the bit to use their Inauguration tickets, and instead are selling them on eBay and Craigslist. That bit of entrepreneurialism is swiftly being stopped. But check out the sad listings for an answer to whether we’re living in the world of prosperity and hope we were promised:
“Can’t go because my crone’s [sic] disease is acting up.”
“I am poor and gotta pay the bills.”
” … my grandmothercannot stand for that long and she is flying into town so I will watch it with her seated somewhere in DC.”
“I put in a lot of volunteer hours to get these, but I would also like to continue to be able to pay rent.”
“I’m willing to trade my 2 swearing –in tickets for an Ipad 3 or 4…. I need the Ipad for school.”
“I don’t have much money because I am a college student and am trying to make it from mid-America to Washington DC as well as afford a motel.”
“Unfortunately I cannot go because I have to workso these tickets won’t be used.”
“Would love to attend, but would rather pay off student debt.”
President Barack Obama is featuring eight Americans as “citizen co-chairs” of his inauguration, a new role created to highlight his first-term accomplishments with examples of lives that have either been improved by his actions or inspired his presidency.
The honorees announced Thursday include a woman with a brain tumor who no longer is denied health care for a pre-existing condition; an autoworker who got her job back after the General Motors bailout; and a gay pilot-in-training kicked out of the Air Force before the president repealed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
There are, as yet, no reports of seven-year-old Brady Campaigners on the dais, but there’s still time.
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