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The "kids clinic" is to give back to the community, but it is also about valuable on the job training for future hygienists.
Katrina Porter and her daughter Key Lee took advantage of a free cleaning at the 4th annual kids clinic. It was Key Lee's first cleaning.
"We've been learning a lot about how to cope with working with children. It is more difficult with them being wiggly. But it's just been great to be able to have this opportunity to give free dental work to all the children in the community," said student Katy Clark.
"They are more focused on the patient and less on the time than most dentists offices would be, or at least that's my experience. So it takes a little bit longer, but the value for the patient is a little bit better, "said Porter.
The kids clinic is free and still taking appointments for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
For Appointments Call: 850.872.3833 | <urn:uuid:ee7dbceb-47e9-4bf0-84a6-93b84b63f77f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/Free-Kids-Dental-Care-This-Week-191744381.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984392 | 205 | 1.5625 | 2 |
By Kevin Jefferies
Commerce – Dr. Lawrence McNamee, a longtime professor at East Texas State University (now A&M-Commerce) died in his home Monday. He was 89.
McNamee was almost always seen wearing his Pittsburg Pirates cap and earned his reputation traveling the world writing about boxing. He was also a professor of English, Shakespeare, and journalism.
McNamee translated German for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and also at the Nuremberg trials after the war. He came to Commerce in 1950 and taught at the university for 37 years.
Graveside services for McNamee are scheduled for tomorrow at 10am at Rosemound cemetery in Commerce. | <urn:uuid:7518bdea-c02e-4693-a61b-9eefbdeffe8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ketr.org/post/long-time-professor-dies-89 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98699 | 145 | 1.578125 | 2 |
One of the pleasures of my time at Loyola has been getting to know some particularly thoughtful undergraduates who are living their faith with enthusiasm in a culture that is, to say the least, not always supportive. I had an interesting conversation with a few of these students two weeks ago, in which one of them expressed regret that she did not spend more time volunteering. In fact she said, “I feel guilty for not doing more.”
Now the young woman in question is a model Christian—generous, open-minded, and joyful. (She also makes excellent soup.) She does so much for others that I’m often tempted to ask her where she has managed to find days with more than 24 hours. So the word “guilt” coming from her surprised me.
The conversation got me thinking about two things—the role of guilt in Christian life and the various pressures young people feel to volunteer.
“Catholic guilt” is, of course, a familiar trope in literature and pop culture, even if, for those of my generation, the idea now seems somewhat quaint. As our sense of sin has evaporated, so too our sense of guilt—or so, at least, I thought until my conversation of a few weeks ago. Read the rest of this entry » | <urn:uuid:b7087042-1f8d-43aa-af53-9da41d82bcc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/category/guilt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978801 | 268 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Gene Levinson is a professional home tutor and cloud-based educational entrepreneur. He has worked as a biology teacher, Director of Communications, Biotechnology Researcher, and Clinical Genetics Lab Founder/Director. As a postdoctoral fellow, he did HIV-related research while tutoring Harvard undergraduates. As a graduate student, he described the mechanisms responsible for the evolution of simple repetitive DNA throughout the biosphere. He is a graduate of U.C. Irvine (PhD) and U.C. Berkeley. Prior to professional tutoring, he obtained formal teacher training at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. | <urn:uuid:87500c9e-287a-4b3b-aaa7-739344529592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elearningindustry.com/subjects/free-elearning-resources/itemlist/user/92-gene-levinson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945997 | 123 | 1.53125 | 2 |
I’m trying to drive at whether there is a way to justify Mormon knowledge claims and perhaps get at whether there are uniquely Mormon ways of knowing. It may seem like I’m taking a bit of circuitous route. I want to get at why people have worried about the things they have the past few centuries. It can often seem like epistemology is so dominated by specialists each debating such nuanced points that the big picture is lost. Last week I got at why we should even care about knowledge. I hopefully showed that there are two reasons to care. The first is to be honest about all those statements we make involving the word “knowledge.” The second is that as both individuals and a society we’re better off when we try to justify our beliefs. Or, put an other way, we’re better off eliminating as many false beliefs as is possible.
Today I want to take a short trip across some of the main issues in epistemology. Rather than focus on this the way a philosopher might I want to look at it with an eye to practicality. Why are these issues? In doing so I’ll be dealing with them on a somewhat superficial level. I more want to get at why we might want to worry about these things rather than getting into the minutiae of the arguments that are still going on over them. I think they are important but they tend to get focused on primarily as abstract intellectual puzzles rather than real human concerns. | <urn:uuid:4219b811-7e9f-4966-b821-22fc08f4e390> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithpromotingrumor/category/guests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980797 | 304 | 1.734375 | 2 |
By Selwyn Duke
When Barack Obama promised change that would transform America, most never suspected that he would make history by presiding over the nation’s first-ever credit downgrade. But, well, yes – he can.
And he did.
Of course, the blame cannot be laid entirely at Obama’s feet. Since Congress controls the purse strings, it allocates the money (the president does have a veto pen, however). And, if in light of this we can still say that a president “spends,” for two terms Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, spent like a drunken sailor.
Yet the reality is that Obama has spent like three drunken sailors and a tipsy cabin boy. And this isn’t just rhetoric. According to a Weekly Standard piece featured at the very liberal NPR’s website, deficit spending under Obama is three and one half times what it was under Bush, as he has signed budget increases amounting to a whopping one trillion a year more in deficit spending. So the reality is that, in a great measure, the president owns our economic woes.
It was symbolic.
It was symbolic of a man who has downgraded the White House, the Constitution, human life, foreign policy and race relations – and America herself.
Welcome to the reign of President Downgrade.
The U.S. is the nation that defeated Nazism, stood down communism, and helped spread democracy and freedom wherever these ethereal blessings could take root. It is the land that has provided 300 million people of all races, creeds and colors unprecedented wealth and human rights. For these reasons and others, American presidents generally exhibited a healthy patriotism.
But not President Downgrade.
Within months of taking office, he had already apologized for America on foreign soil. In 2009 he said that the U.S. “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe when he was speaking to, of all peoples, the French. And he managed to start this downgrade even before taking office. In a 2008 Berlin speech he said, “I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.”
To place this statement in perspective, let’s apply it not to a mother country, but to a mother. Imagine if a person said, “I know my mother has not perfected herself. At times, she has struggled to keep the promise of fairness for all of her children. She has made her share of mistakes, and there are times when her actions around the town have not lived up to her best intentions.” Since it’s a given that all people are imperfect, this statement would be gratuitous.
That is, unless the person believed that his mother was unusually flawed.
As President Downgrade believes about America.
He has downgraded our Constitution as well, with his effort to turn us into a top-down, command-control socialist state. He has undermined the rule of law and our system of checks and balances and has further subverted the Natural Economy; he has visited on us blatantly unconstitutional ObamaCare, which was bought but not paid for with bribery and backroom deals; he has in a sense nationalized the banks, the financial arena and automakers; and he next wants to institute a cap-and-trade scam that would give Big Brother a vice-grip around the private sector’s neck, to name just a few of President Downgrade’s constitutional trespasses. To him, our Constitution is not America’s national contract and a prescription for limited government. It is an impediment.
He has downgraded foreign policy by snubbing long-time allies such as Britain and Israel. Perhaps even worse, he has bowed to potentates in reality – and to the world metaphorically. As to the latter, his tendency to behave as if he is ashamed of his country tells other leaders he is a weak sister who can be had. Moreover, people generally are contemptuous of those who throw their own under the bus; no one respects a traitor. And what do you suppose foreign leaders think about a nation that has elected one?
President Downgrade seeks to downgrade human life with his opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, his lifting of the ban on overseas abortion funding, and ObamaCare’s taxpayer financing of abortion through insurance plans.
He has downgraded the White House by inviting thuggish rappers into its once hallowed halls and by introducing a new level of informality. And don’t be surprised. President Downgrade’s judgment and conscience are such that he even downgraded his own daughters. I refer to his 2004 admission that he allowed then three-year-old Sasha to listen to rap.
And post-racial Mr. Downgrade has downgraded race relations as well. He presides over a Department of Justice that, whistleblowers have informed, will not pursue voting-rights cases in which the victims are white and the victimizers are minorities. This explains why the DOJ wouldn’t prosecute the Philadelphia Black Panthers who were caught on videotape wielding nightsticks and trying to intimidate white voters.
And this is most amazing when you consider that doing so would have been a win-win scenario for President Downgrade. He could have made a statement – as he did when he rashly said that some white Cambridge police officers “acted stupidly” – and proclaimed that he was the president of all the people and that, regardless of race, creed or color, whenever Americans’ rights are trampled, he’ll be there by their side. He would have been hailed as a truly fair, just leader and as an authentic racial healer. Instead, he threw away this opportunity, thus casting himself as one who would even go so far as to take political flak to stick it to whites. He has made clear that his heart was downgraded, from innocent to bigoted, long ago.
Having said all this, there is something worse than having a President Downgrade: having a people downgraded to the point at which they would elect him. In 2008, Americans saw a Chicago-machine thug, an urban rube, a man who sat in the “U.S. of KKKA” church for 20 years, a radical Alinskyite who owned the Senate’s most left-wing voting record (even to the left of that body’s only avowed socialist), and what did they do? They pulled the lever for him.
Upgrading the White House is relatively easy; that takes only one usual election or one unusual impeachment proceeding. But upgrading the culture – restoring hearts and minds so they deserve freedom and not fetters – is a different matter entirely.
© 2011 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:1d2526b2-5b4f-4a92-b829-3bd2c2e4c8b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://selwynduke.typepad.com/selwyndukecom/2011/08/president-downgrade.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978967 | 1,444 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Korea toughens penalties for EEZ violation
Korea has toughened penalties for fishing boats that violate its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to better protect its maritime resources, the government said Tuesday.
The revised rules, which went into effect Monday, double the fines for illegal fishing to 200 million won (US$173,000) from 100 million won, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said.
Under the new guidelines, any boat that fails to stop when ordered to do so by South Korea's fisheries authorities or the Coast Guard can also be fined 100 million won, up from the current 50 million won, it said.
Fishing boats that enter South Korea's territorial waters to fish without proper permits or use force to resist inspection or arrest will be subject to aggravated punishment in addition to fines.
Such punishment will entail the confiscation of all fishing tools, such as nets, and any catch in the boat's hold.
"By sharply raising the maximum limit of fines and enforcing other punitive measures, Seoul hopes to discourage illegal fishing in its EEZ, which has become endemic and threatens to deplete the country's marine resources," a ministry official said.
Almost all illegal fishing within South Korea's EEZ is by Chinese fishing boats.
As fishermen will try to evade being caught for fear of paying stiffer fines, the official said, greater cooperation will take place between fisheries authorities, the Coast Guard and the Navy. (Yonhap) | <urn:uuid:eeb95051-5890-492d-a4ad-b06a7c361793> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/05/120_111000.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947122 | 300 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Some people think bacon makes everything taste better - bacon in dessert is just one example - but I am going to make a case for breadcrumbs. If your kid isn't into vegetables or won't try something new, breadcrumbs might convince him otherwise.
I especially like Panko, Japanese style breadcrumbs, because of the crispy texture. Panko absorbs less oil than traditional breadcrumbs so you may find your dishes less greasy. Coat veggies such as sweet potatoes, sweet onions, or green beans and fry them in a heavy pan. Absorb the extra oil on paper towels and serve them hot - or warm for the little ones. It's a deliciously different way to serve the same old vegetables. Fish may be the best candidate for Panko breadcrumbs. Kellan will pretty much reject any fish, but he will try it if it's breaded and crisp. I even season the breadcrumbs with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley to add flavor. You don't even have to fry foods to use breadcrumbs. Dishes like baked macaroni and cheese or steamed asparagus can be healthy and low fat.Do you have any tasty tips for cooking with breadcrumbs? | <urn:uuid:8ae824fb-1c87-4df8-8285-d54943153978> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/archive-blogs/jane-of-the-jungle-gym/2010/11/crispy-coating.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946232 | 253 | 1.726563 | 2 |
At the Garter Inn, Sir John Falstaff is confronted by Dr. Caius who complains that Falstaff’s henchmen, Bardolfo and Pistola, made him drink too much and picked his pocket. Falstaff refuses to make amends, and Bardolfo and Pistola deny everything. The furious Caius storms out. Falstaff discloses his latest money-making plot: he has written the same love letter to two different married women, Alice Ford and Meg Page, who control their rich husbands’ money. He plans to woo them get their money. Bardolfo and Pistola refuse to deliver Sir John’s letters on ground of honor. Falstaff discharges the two ruffians from his service, but not before calling them cowards and lecturing them about the uselessness of honor.
At Ford’s house, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page compare the two letters from the ridiculous fat knight and, along with Nannetta (Alice Ford’s daughter) and their gossipy neighbor, Dame Quickly, they plot a comic revenge. As they leave, Ford, Bardolfo, Pistola, Caius, and Fenton enter, burning with rage. Ford has found out about Falstaff’s plan to seduce his wife. Nannetta and Fenton meet briefly – they are in love, but unfortunately her father wants her to marry the foolish Dr. Caius. The ladies send Dame Quickly to invite Sir John to a meeting with Alice. Ford plans his own revenge: under an assumed name he will go to Sir John and set his trap for Falstaff.
Back at the Garter Inn, Bardolfo and Pistola pretend to be sorry and beg to return to work. Mistress Quickly arrives. She tells Sir John that both ladies are in love with him, she suggests that he visit Alice when Ford is away from the home – between two and three o’clock. When she leaves, Falstaff congratulates himself. Moments later “Signor Fontana” (Ford in disguise) arrives and offers to pay Falstaff to seduce Alice so he will have an easier time doing the same thing himself. Falstaff agrees happily and reveals that he already has an appointment with Alice that very afternoon. Ford is shocked; and when Falstaff leaves to change, Ford denounces all women for their unfaithfulness. Sir John returns, and they leave together.
Back at Ford’s house, Quickly hurries in to tell the ladies that Falstaff has fallen for the plot and will be there any minute. Alice calls her servants to get everything ready, including a big basket of dirty laundry that they are to empty in to the river later. After promising the tearful Nannetta that she won’t have to marry Caius, the ladies prepare for Falstaff’s visit. He arrives, but his wooing is interrupted when Quickly arrives to say that Meg is coming. Falstaff hides behind a screen. Meg, trying not to laugh, says that Ford suspects that Alice has a man hidden in the house and is coming to kill him. Quickly then rushes in to announce that Ford actually is coming to the house. Ford enters angrily and he and his men look everywhere but find nothing. They rush off to search the rest of the house while Meg and Quickly help Falstaff into the laundry basket and Fenton and Nannetta hide behind a screen. Ford returns, remembering that they have yet to check behind the screen, and discovers the two young lovers. He dashes off to renew the search for Falstaff as Alice tells her servants to take the laundry basket away. As Sir John is dumped into the river, Ford, Alice, and the others laughingly enjoy Falstaff’s humiliation.
Outside the Garter Inn, Falstaff is “delivered” from the river by local fishermen. Depressed, Falstaff orders wine to revive his dampened spirits. His disposition improves when Dame Quickly arrives to say that Mistress Ford is sorry for what happened and that she wants to meet him at midnight at Herne’s Oak in Windsor Forest. He is to come disguised as the Black Huntsman with antlers tied to his head. They leave to make plans, and Alice tells the tale of the Black Huntsman to prepare everyone for the evening’s masquerade. Ford promises Caius that he can marry Nannetta that night and urges him to wear the right disguise. Fortunately, Quickly overhears their conversation.
In Windsor Park, Fenton sings of his love. Everyone is hidden when Falstaff comes to meet Alice, but they are interrupted by Meg calling for help. Sir John is frightened when he hears strange noises. A whole troop of fairies arrives with Nannetta who is disguised as their queen. Quickly come with a group of witches and goblins. They all join in tormenting the terrified Falstaff who finally discovers the truth. Caius is tricked into “marrying” the disguised Bardolfo, and Ford must five his blessing to Nannetta and Fenton. Nearly everyone has been tricked, and they all agree that the world is a crazy place. | <urn:uuid:bf9f0bf1-0516-48c7-afa3-c95733155a76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.operasj.org/tickets/falstaff/synopsis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966804 | 1,074 | 1.75 | 2 |
What is probably meant by this, is Worker Placement game. With Caylus being a good example of such a game, with the added benefit of having very little random elements (only the initial neutral buildings, and starting turn order), and ranking high with many board game enthusiasts within their favorite games.
This geeklist is a collection of all boardgames that are considered "worker placement" games. Thanks to some insightful comments, the following attributes define this category:
- Placement of the pieces gives you something. (This eliminates games like Chess.)
- There is a limit to the number of pieces per location. (This eliminates area majority games like Leonardo Da Vinci, Louis XIV.)
- In general, all workers are removed after each turn.
- There is more than one worker per player. (This distinguishes worker placement from role selection like Puerto Rico.)
- Players are competing for the limited locations to place their workers.
As for why the Family Version of Agricola would be considered more Caylus-like, that is probably because the family version removes some of the randomness (Occupation & Minor Improvement cards). Those 7 cards that are dealt to each player are unavailable to the other players, and are hidden information, where the Major Improvements are available to everyone and open. | <urn:uuid:15dc8c74-059a-49d1-a62b-a8debf7cf2eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/8110/what-does-it-mean-for-a-game-to-be-caylus-like | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95631 | 262 | 1.570313 | 2 |
HOMILY OF HIS
HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It is my great joy to be able to break with you the bread of the word of God and of the Eucharist. I am delighted to be here in Calabria and in this city, Lamezia Terme, for the first time. I offer my cordial greeting to all of you who have come here in such great numbers and I thank you for your warm welcome! I greet in particular Bishop Luigi Antonio Cantafora, your Pastor, and thank him for the courteous words of welcome he has addressed to me on behalf of all. I also greet the archbishops and bishops present, the priests, men and women religious, representatives of the ecclesial Associations and Movements. I address a respectful thought to the Mayor, Prof. Gianni Speranza, with gratitude for his courteous greeting, to the Government Representative and the civil and military Authorities, who have wished to honour this meeting with their presence. Special thanks are due to those who have generously collaborated in the realization of my Pastoral Visit.
This Sunday’s liturgy presents a parable to us that speaks of a wedding banquet to which many were invited. The First Reading, from the Book of Isaiah, prepares the ground for this theme, for it speaks about the banquet of God. It is an image — the banquet — often used in the Scriptures to indicate the joy in communion and in the abundance of the Lord’s gifts, and it gives some idea of the celebration of God with humanity as Isaiah describes: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine... well refined” (Is 25:6). The Prophet adds that God’s intention is to put an end to sadness and shame; he wants all people to live happily in love of him and in mutual communion. Therefore his plan is to eliminate death forever, to wipe away the tears from all faces, to take away once and for all the dishonourable condition of his people, as we heard (vv. 7-8). All this awakens deep gratitude and hope: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (v. 9).
In the Gospel Jesus speaks to us of the answer that is given to the invitation of God — represented by a king — to take part in this marriage feast (cf. Mt 22:1-14). Many guests were invited but something unexpected happens: they refuse to take part in the celebration, they have other things to do; indeed, some of them show contempt for the invitation. God is generous to us, he offers us his friendship, his gifts, his joy, but often we do not welcome his words, we show greater interest in other things and put our own material concerns, our own interests, first. The king’s invitation even meets with hostile and aggressive reactions. Yet this does not impede his generosity. He is not discouraged and sends his servants out to invite many other people. The refusal of those invited first causes the invitation to be extended to everyone, even the poorest, the abandoned and disinherited. The servants gather together those they find and the wedding hall is filled: the king’s goodness knows no bounds and all are given the possibility of answering his call. However, there was one condition in order to attend this wedding feast: that the wedding garment be worn. And, on entering the hall, the king notices that someone has not wished to wear it and for this reason bars him from the banquet.
I would like to reflect for a moment on this point with a question: why did this man accept the king’s invitation, enter the banquet hall, find the door opened to him but not put on the wedding garment? What is this wedding garment? At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, in Coena Domini, this year I mentioned a beautiful commentary on this parable by St Gregory the Great. He explains that the guest had accepted God’s invitation to take part in his banquet, that in a certain way he had faith which opened the door of the banquet hall to him, but he lacked something essential: the wedding garment, which is charity or love. And St Gregory adds: “Therefore each one of you in the Church who has faith in God has already taken part in the wedding feast, but cannot claim to wear the wedding garment unless he jealously guards the grace of love” (Homily 38, 9; PL 76, 1287). And this garment is woven symbolically on two looms of wood, one above and one below: love of God and love of neighbour (cf. ibid., 10: PL 76, 1288). We are all invited to be the Lord’s guests, to enter his banquet with faith, but we must put on and take care of the wedding garment: charity, to live in the profound love of God and neighbour.
Dear brothers and sisters, I have come to share with you the joys and hopes, efforts and commitments, ideals and aspirations of this diocesan community. I know that you have prepared yourselves for this Visit with an intense spiritual journey, taking as your motto a verse from the Acts of the Apostles: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk” (3:6). I also know that in Lamezia Terme, as in all of Calabria, there is no lack of difficulties, problems and anxieties. If we look at this beautiful region, we recognize in it a land that is seismic not just geologically but also from a structural, behavioural and social point of view; a land, that is, where problems arise in acute and destabilizing forms; a land where unemployment is staggering, where all too often a high crime rate damages the social fabric; it is a land in which one has a constant feeling of being in a state of emergency.
You Calabrians have been able to respond to the emergency with surprising promptness and readiness, with an extraordinary capacity for adapting to hardship. I am sure you will be able to overcome today’s difficulties to make way for a better future. Never give in to the temptation of pessimism or of withdrawal. Summon up the resources of your faith and your human gifts; strive to grow in the ability to collaborate, to care for others and for every public good, look after the wedding garment of love; persevere in witnessing to the human and Christian values that are so deeply rooted in the faith and history of this territory and of its population.
Dear friends, my Visit comes almost at the end of the process begun by this local Church as part of a quinquennial pastoral project. Together with you I would like to thank the Lord for the fruitful journey and for the many seeds of good that promise great hope for the future. To face the new social and religious situation, diverse from that of the past, perhaps more problematic but also richer in potential, a modern and organic pastoral endeavour is necessary, one that musters all Christian forces around the Bishop: priests, religious and lay people, animated by the common commitment to evangelization. In this regard, I learned with pleasure of the effort being made to listen attentively and perseveringly to the word of God, through organized monthly meetings in various diocesan centres and the spread of the practice of lectio divina. The School of the Social Doctrine of the Church is equally timely, both because of its well articulated proposal and because of its far-reaching circulation. I warmly hope that from these initiatives will spring a new generation of men and women who can promote not so much their private interests but rather the common good. I would also like to encourage and bless the efforts of all those, priests and lay people, who are involved in the preparation of Christian couples for marriage and the family, in order to give an evangelical and competent response to the many contemporary challenges in the area of the family and of life.
Moreover, I am aware of the zeal and dedication with which you priests carry out your pastoral service, as well as the systematic and effective work of formation you address to them, and especially to the youngest. Dear priests, I urge you to root your spiritual life ever more deeply in the Gospel, cultivating your inner life, an intense relationship with God and detaching yourselves with determination from a certain consumerist and worldly mentality, which is a recurrent temptation in the situation in which we live. Learn to grow in communion among yourselves and with your bishop, among yourselves and with the lay faithful, fostering esteem and reciprocal collaboration. There is no doubt that many benefits will derive from this for parish life and for civil society itself. May you be able to encourage the groups and movements, with discernment and in accordance with the well-known ecclesial criteria: they should be well integrated in the ordinary pastoral service of the diocese and parishes, in a profound spirit of communion.
To you, lay faithful, young people and families I say: do not be afraid to live and to witness to faith in the different sectors of society, in the many contexts of human life! You have every reason to show you are strong, confident and courageous, and this is thanks to the light of faith and the power of love. And when you encounter opposition from the world, make the Apostle’s words your own: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). This is how the saints behaved that blossomed down the centuries throughout Calabria. May it be they who keep you ever united and nourish in each one the desire to proclaim, with words and with works, the presence and love of Christ. May the Mother of God, whom you so deeply venerate, help you and lead you to profound knowledge of her Son. Amen!
© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana | <urn:uuid:4edb60ff-4fe1-49f2-9638-ae730b0edf7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20111009_lamezia-terme_en.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964858 | 2,093 | 1.664063 | 2 |
GTCS Talks Balkans
Tom Hamilton, Director of Education and Professional Learning at GTC Scotland, talks from Albania about his visit to meet the Council of Europe Project Against Corruption in Albania.
So why is the GTCS wasting teachers' fees by sending you to Albania?
Tom Hamilton (TH): Well, actually, it's being paid for jointly by the European Commission and the European Union so it's not actually costing Scottish teachers anything. But you won't deny that you're sitting in the sun beside the pool while you could be in Scotland doing important things like reviewing the Standards and designing the Professional Update scheme? Well, it is sunny and there is a pool but I'm not actually sitting beside it – I'm sitting in a hotel room writing this while waiting to go to a meeting with Albanian government officials, a meeting where they'll probably not like what I'm saying. And as for the Standards and Professional Update – they're getting on fine without me for a few days.
So what is the GTCS doing in Albania anyway?
TH: Well, it's part of something called the Project Against Corruption in Albania (PACA) - we've been looking at the Albanian education system, weighing up the risks within it for corruption and giving advice on how it might be avoided.
Corruption in education? How can education be corrupt?
TH: Well, you can not bother teaching your pupils during school time and then charge them for private tutoring after school. You can turn a blind eye to cheating and perhaps accept a gift in return. You can ensure that your published text book is the one which all pupils have to buy. You can ensure that your friend/family member/political ally gets the job. You can fail an entire university class and then sell them the revision notes they need for the resit. You can set up a private university and rake in fees while providing little (no?) education and then still award 'degrees' at the end of the programme.
TH: Afraid not. The Albanian government has recently suspended the licence of one of the main private universities for 'selling' a degree to the son of an Italian politician - he had not gained an Italian school leaving certificate, didn't speak Albanian and, indeed, had never actually been to Albania.
So what advice have you been giving?
TH: Well, to improve the system you have to put professional ethics and professionalism right at its heart. You have to have teachers, local officials and central government officials for whom such practices are simply unthinkable. So we've very strongly been pushing the development of an ethical code for teachers. We've been pushing for the development of a much higher profile for professionalism in the development and ongoing life of teachers, and I mean teachers in all sectors.
So can the problems of Albania be solved?
TH: Absolutely... there is an incredibly young population, a dynamic atmosphere, a real desire to be part of Europe, and some very, very committed people who are working to improve educational practices.
So that'll be you off back beside the pool now?
TH: Well, maybe just for ten minutes until my meeting with the government... where did I put my sunglasses? | <urn:uuid:b94dd8d5-c3e5-4427-b57b-12edee9a423c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teachingscotland.org.uk/global-education/international-dimension/exclusive-gtcs-talks-balkans.aspx | 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 | 0.970371 | 654 | 1.554688 | 2 |
|DETROIT, U.S.A., January 11, 2005 – Honda Motor Co., Ltd. president and CEO Takeo Fukui, speaking at the North American International Auto Show today, announced several new safety and environmental initiatives for Honda and Acura vehicles as he reinforced the company's commitment to leadership in these critical areas of social responsibility. The new initiatives include an advanced collision avoidance system for the Acura RL, new safety and advanced powertrain features for the next generation Honda Civic, expansion of Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) to the Honda Pilot and introduction of a fuel cell vehicle to an individual customer.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. president and CEO Takeo Fukui
This fall, the 2006 Acura RL will be equipped with Collision Mitigation Brake System (CMBS) + E-Pretensioners, the world's most advanced system for accident avoidance. CMBS uses millimeter wave radar to detect a collision before it happens and alerts the driver with audible and visual signals and by pre-tensioning of the seatbelt. If an accident appears unavoidable, the system applies braking force to reduce the severity of the collision.
Based on Honda's industry leading "Safety for Everyone" initiative, the next generation 2006 Civic will set new standards for safety performance in the compact class. The new Civic, being introduced this fall, will feature anti-lock brakes, side curtain airbags, driver and passenger side airbags with Occupant Position Detection System (OPDS) technology and pedestrian safety features as standard equipment on all U.S. Civic models. In addition, the new Civic will utilize Honda's Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure for improved occupant protection and compatibility with larger vehicles in a collision, the first application of this technology in a compact-class vehicle.
In the area of environmental leadership, Mr. Fukui announced plans to further advance and expand the use of Honda fuel-efficient technologies including its hybrid technology and Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) system. VCM will be applied to the 2006 Honda Pilot sport-utility vehicle scheduled to debut this fall. VCM deactivates three of the engine's six cylinders during cruising, deceleration and other low engine load conditions to reduce fuel consumption. This technology was first introduced in the U.S. in 2004 on the all-new 2005 Odyssey minivan and 2005 Accord Hybrid.
Further, the 2006 Civic will be powered by the newest and most advanced generation of Honda's i-VTEC engine technology to achieve even higher fuel economy and lower emissions. And a new Civic Hybrid will feature enhancements to Honda's IMA hybrid technology to achieve significantly higher fuel economy and performance. The natural gas Civic GX, powered by the cleanest internal combustion engine in the world, will continue to be made in Ohio.
Honda also announced its plans to place a fuel cell vehicle with an individual customer. The company will seek out interested parties to become the first private individual to lease its FCX fuel cell vehicle for regular everyday use. The 2005 FCX is the world's most advanced fuel cell vehicle and the only FCV to earn certification from the U.S. EPA and California's Air Resources Board (CARB). It is powered by Honda's originally developed fuel cell stack (Honda FC Stack) with the breakthrough ability to start and operate in below freezing temperatures, along with significantly improved performance, efficiency and range.
Honda is one of the world's leading producers of mobility products including its diverse line-up of automobiles, motorcycles and ATVs, power products, marine engines and personal watercraft. This diverse product line-up has also made Honda the world's preeminent engine-maker, with production of more than 19 million engines globally in 2004. On a global basis, Honda has more than 120 manufacturing facilities in 31 nations.
Honda began operations in North America in 1959 with the establishment of American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Honda's first overseas subsidiary. Honda began assembling motorcycles in America in 1979, with U.S. automobile manufacturing starting in 1982. Honda now employs more than 26,000 Americans in the design, manufacture and marketing of its products in America. Honda currently builds products in 12 manufacturing plants in North America, with three major R&D centers in the U.S. | <urn:uuid:869b0c5c-31ba-409f-8054-b3b8c1e2c018> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://world.honda.com/news/2005/c050111.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930036 | 875 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Hilton Pattaya and many of the more than 3,800 hotels that are part of the Hilton Worldwide portfolio of brands are expected to take part in the event that will mobilize more than one billion people worldwide.
“We are pleased to join in this global effort that galvanizes organizations and individuals around the world to symbolically switch off their lights in support of energy conservation, “said Mr. Harald Feurstein, General Manager. “We encourage our guests and neighbors to join in on the movement,” Mr. Harald Feurstein added.
Earth Hour will be celebrated at Hilton Pattaya through a variety of activities including:
• Countdown to Earth Hour with big electricity cut-out together at Welcome Lobby
• Light candles together and transform to be 60 shape
• Guests participating in Earth Hour activities will receive a certificate of recognition
• Enjoy ‘Happy Earth Hour’ at Drift
• Candle lights experience in all restaurants
• Completely switch off all lighting on all unoccupied floors (Inclusive of hotel’s logo)
• All spotlights illuminating the hotel building will be switched off during the hour
• Dimming hotel lighting by 20 per cent
• Air conditioning adjustment to 27 Celsius degree during the day and switch off completely for one hour
Organized by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Earth Hour began in 2007 as a way for individuals to show how simple steps can make a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gases and addressing climate change. The event has turned into a movement. More than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour 2011 alone, sending a powerful message for action on climate change. It also ushered in a new era with members going “Beyond the Hour” to commit to lasting action for the planet.
Hilton Worldwide is the first major multi-brand hospitality company to make sustainability measurement a brand standard and recently earned ISO 9001 and 14001 certifications for quality and environmental management – one of the largest volume certifications awarded for commercial buildings. As part of that standard, Hilton Worldwide-branded properties commit to continuous improvements to their overall sustainability results each year. Across the portfolio, Hilton Worldwide has a made a five-year commitment, from 2009 to 2014, to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent, CO2 emissions by 20 percent, waste output by 20 percent and water consumption by 10 percent.
In 2010 alone, Hilton Worldwide saved more than $74 million in utility costs through a 6.6 percent reduction of energy use; 7.8 percent reduction of carbon output; 19 percent reduction of waste output; and 3.8 percent reduction of water use. Hilton Worldwide’s global giving is currently focused on creating vibrant and sustainable communities wherever we operate. For more information, visit www.hiltonworldwide.com/corporate-responsibility. | <urn:uuid:b153831f-ce79-48fc-9da4-30fa164094fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2012/03/23/hilton-pattaya-observes-earth-hour-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933093 | 580 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Faulty fuel injectors can have a serious effect on your car's performance and can lead to untimely car break downs and significantly expensive car engine repairs. The following article will discuss several key symptoms of faulty fuel injectors. It is always best to have your car repaired if you notice any of these symptoms.
Violent Engine Idle
One of the most common symptoms of faulty fuel injectors is a rough, choppy, or violent engine while you are sitting idle. A fuel injector's responsibility is to put fuel directly into the engine cylinder via the fuel rail before it is burned during combustion. If this process is not done properly or efficiently, a choppy engine while sitting idle will occur.
The next common symptom of faulty fuel injectors is gasoline leaks. Fuel injectors can crack and break, which in turn causes a gasoline leak. If the faulty fuel injector is causing a gasoline leak, the spilled gasoline will be both visible and will cause a smell. A cracked fuel rail could also cause a leak.
Poor Fuel Economy
Another common symptom of faulty fuel injectors is poor fuel economy. As mentioned earlier, a cracked fuel injector or fuel rail can cause a gasoline leak, which in turn will decrease fuel economy. A faulty fuel injector also may inject too much gasoline into the engine, which is wasteful, less efficient and will lower your car's fuel economy.
If you feel your engine surging, your car may be suffering from faulty fuel injectors. A surging engine is caused by too much gasoline being injected into the engine. This can cause the engine to surge too fast and then accelerate too slowly. To the driver, this condition will feel like an up and down motion.
Another symptom of faulty fuel injectors is a misfiring engine. This will occur if your fuel injector is not sending in enough gasoline into the engine. This symptom may also be caused by clogged fuel injectors. To the driver, the misfiring engine will feel like a delayed acceleration when you touch the accelerator.
In conclusion, there are various symptoms of faulty fuel injectors including violent engine idling, gasoline leaks, poor fuel economy, surging engine, or a misfiring engine. To prevent a future car break down or expensive engine repair, be sure to have your car looked at if you are experiencing any of these issues. It could be that your fuel injectors are just clogged, in which case the repair is cheap. If a fuel injector needs to replaced, the total repair bill could be around $500.
Related Questions and AnswersWhat can Cause Engine Surging in Colder Weather?
Engine surging can have three causes. The first is the electronic system, the second is the clutch, and the third is poor wiring. The computer software set up in today's cars means that your car is set to run rich in cold weather so that it will run at all. As the engine warms, the fuel/air mixture leans out and the idle settles down. In very cold weather, though, the microcomputer can be fooled into thinking the weather is cold every time your car slows and your car could surge. The second cause could simply be clutch slippage. The third reason for surging is a crossed-wire in the electronic oxygen sensor.Are there Risks to Rebuild Your Fuel Injector, If So, What are they?
There are two key risks if you want to rebuild a fuel injector: losing the O-ring or the end cap. Once you have disconnected the ground line from each injector, you must remove the injector by pulling upward. With the injector removed, you can then replace the O-ring and end cap at the base of the injector. The new O-ring fits in a groove and end cap. Either the O-ring or end cap could fall into the intake manifold, presenting you with the problem of finding the tiny devices, removing them and reinstalling them. It is important that each part be put back exactly, as today's fuel injection systems still use a common fuel line for feed, and a blockage could be very costly.What are Signs You Have Bad Fuel Injector Pumps?
Bad fuel injector pumps manifest themselves in several ways. The first is poor performance. The idle quickly becomes rough. Your vehicle can experience a quick 2 mpg or more drop in fuel economy when your injector pumps start to go bad. Another key sign is a significant loss of power on acceleration because the fuel flow is restricted. The reason the power loss is noticeable is because there has been a significant build up of deposits in the injection system, and each cylinder is not receiving its full allotment of gasoline. These buildups are the result of cold-start operation, where the vehicle never has a chance to warm to proper operating temperature, and gum and lacquer block the injector.What is a Fuel Injector Spider?
A fuel injection spider is the complete fuel injector assembly used in Chevy trucks. The fuel injection spider consists of the fuel line and filter interface, the main injector body assembly that provides gas to each cylinder, the fuel lines and the injectors. It is called a fuel injector spider because it looks like a multi-legged crawling spider. The fuel injection spider replaces the original equipment injection system in Chevy six- and eight-cylinder engines, and costs from $100 to $300, depending on the model. Installation is extra, but is usually about an hour of time. That time and amount vary with each part of the country.Does a Fuel Injector Cleaning System Take Care of any Problems with Your Fuel Injectors?
Experience has shown that a fuel injector cleaning system, such as one marketed by Chevron under the Techron brand name, brings remarkable results. Priced at less than $10, the Techron cleaning system should be used about every 3,000 miles. It will reduce pinging, run-on and dissolve deposits that are cutting your car's mileage. Experience has shown Techron will increase your mileage by 2 mpg. It was developed 30 years ago when fuel injection first made its appearance. At that time, it was throttle-body injection with a mass injector, replacing the carburetor and it has been refined since then, so that each cylinder has its own injector. | <urn:uuid:41764770-2b92-4f97-b5d1-f8d5206f2bfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carsdirect.com/car-repair/symptoms-of-faulty-fuel-injectors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951334 | 1,293 | 1.78125 | 2 |
A special town meeting was held at the Killingworth Fire Department with the Town Office Building Committee to answer questions regarding the proposed addition to the Killingworth Town Hall. The meeting openened with members of the committee providing an .
The proposed addition to the existing town hall would be an energy-efficient post-and-beam constructed building heated by geothermal energy and solar panels. It would nearly double the total square footage of the town hall, bringing it up to 14,441 square feet.
In terms of design, it dates back to the New England tradition of plots that included a big house, a little house, a back house and a barn. In this case, the existing Town Hall would be the big house. The addition would be a barn-like structure with vaulted ceilings and additional space.
After the quick overview, the floor was then turned over to the residents who raised their concerns on the project. Issues discussed included:
- the concern of residents being able to
- the cost of the proposed geo-thermal heating system
- trying to centralize local government in one location versus utilizing other vacant buldings in town
- the various costs involved in converting vacant buildings to town office space
- a request for the Town Office Building Committee to be more transparent and make public the line item project costs
- the true cost of the project
- a need for other plans besides just the one presented
- an explanation of the need for adequate space in case of natural disasters or emergencies
- why a lower cost option might end up costing more in the long run
- how the town is not fully compliant with state polling laws and how the new addition would help the town become compliant
Committee member Jim Lally was "disappointed in the hostility" and "had hoped for more constructive criticism instead." Lally said the committee was "working for the good of the town" and he encouraged people to "be part of the solution."
Donald McDougal, Director of Emergency Management, said "we need to do something now or in the future...what we don't vote for today, down the road will cost more."
First Selectwoman, Cathy Iino, feels that the Emergency Operations Center space at the town hall is "crucial" for residents and "we need to think about the inadequate space we have" if there is a major emergency.
Resident Peggie Bushey feels that the bottom line is that "the town can't afford it" and she is "pleading to keep taxes down."
Committee member George Keithan said the committee is working hard and "wants this town to have the right solution."
(See videos for additional quotes from the meeting.)
Regardless of whether residents were for or against the proposed addition to the Killingworth Town Hall, most commended the volunteer Town Office Building Committee for their hard work and dedication over the last several years.
Four of the current five-member volunteer committee were on hand to answer questions at the meeting: Lou Anino Sr., Jim Lally, David Gross and George Keithan. The committe has changed over the last several years and is currently looking for any additional volunteers who may want to participate.
Two additional public meetings are scheduled in advance of the July 24 public referendum vote on the addition. This Thursday, and next Tuesday the 17, a meeting will be held at the elementary school at 7 p.m. | <urn:uuid:118b4ad9-cae7-4647-bd43-ccc581bfa8bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thehaddams-killingworth.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/killingworth-town-hall-addition-sparks-debate-video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96698 | 695 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The fading presence of sisters in Catholic hospitals
Today’s New York Times has an article by Kevin Sack headlined “Nuns, a ‘Dying Breed,’ Fade From Leadership Roles at Catholic Hospitals.” It probably won’t tell you much you don’t already know, but it’s a good and sensitive summary of the state of Catholic health care and its relationship to women’s religious communities. We all know about the startling decline in membership in religious orders, and the move to lay leadership (or secularization) in ministries like education and health care. But Sack’s article is also a reminder of the amazing successes of those same orders a few generations back, when they built major institutions from very modest beginnings.
The article reminded me of the exhibit Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America, which I saw when it was at Ellis Island last fall (and which Cheryl Wittenauer wrote about for Commonweal). It features artifacts from the pioneer days of many religious orders whose service was focused on providing health care to the needy. I remember being moved by a page from a book of records, which is described in the NYT article as evidence of the charitable focus of the sisters’ hospital work: “The St. Louis nuns’ earliest ledgers denoted patients unable to pay as ‘Our dear Lord’s.’”
Other than crucifixes on the walls and marble Madonnas in the lobby, Catholic hospitals do not look particularly different from secular ones. But their administrators say that what makes them distinct is a values-driven approach, reflected at SSM in a mission statement that pledges to use exceptional care to “reveal the healing presence of God.”
I spent a wakeful night in a hospital recently, waiting for my son to be born, and at some point I found myself looking around the room for a crucifix. It took me a moment to recognize what I was looking for, and to remind myself that I wasn’t in a Catholic hospital. At times like that, clearly, something in me is conditioned to lean on the institutional presence of the Church. I should add that I have no complaints about the care I received (and I did have a rosary handy to satisfy my need for a prayer aid). But the experience made me appreciate the importance of health care as a ministry in the Church. If crucifixes disappeared from the hospital rooms where they’re hanging now, I’d consider it a major loss. | <urn:uuid:a9fd1524-921a-4ec1-b350-1d2e7384aaff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=14856 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965485 | 523 | 1.757813 | 2 |
In The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac (Algonquin, Mar.), Kris D’Agostino has written a dysfunctional family classic that removes the melodrama found too often in the genre. The story of the Morettis’ triumphs and tragedies has a raw, visceral style that leaves the reader shaken and changed. Seldom does a book paint such a bleak picture of modern American home life while having, at its core, a warm and caring heart and soul. Just as Calvin Moretti was changed by his family’s trials and tribulations, this Almanac will affect readers in unexpected ways. D’Agostino’s writing and the main character spoke to me on levels I have not felt in a long time, and I think both will propel this book to heights rarely seen from a first-time novelist. D’Agostino speaks with such emotion and honesty that it will be impossible for readers, especially those of the younger generation, not to see parts of themselves in Calvin and to remember our inherent ability to change ourselves, no matter how small those changes may be. | <urn:uuid:08ef6046-665f-443d-92cf-2a5d11ed2307> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/galley-talk/article/50931-galley-talk-the-sleepy-hollow-family-almanac-by-kris-d-agostino.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952426 | 227 | 1.53125 | 2 |
OCTOBER 22, 1949
NEW YORK, Friday—The dinner given to Pandit Nehru, Prime Minister of India, Wednesday evening by four Asia-minded organizations—the India League of America, the American Institute of Pacific Relations, the East and West Association and the Foreign Policy Association—at the Waldorf-Astoria, was a very impressive affair. There were tables all around the gallery and even the top gallery was filled with guests before the speaking began.
Two things in the Prime Minister's speech impressed me very deeply. The first was the explanation he gave of Mohandas K. Gandhi's strength, which came through the teaching that there was no need to fear. This lesson led to strength and Nehru added that this attitude developed confidence in every human being, no matter how lowly he might be. In learning not to fear and in gaining self-confidence, one leads others to confidence and through this chain one may well change the atmosphere of the whole world. The trouble with the world today is largely made up of the world's fears.
The second thing that impressed me was the tribute Mr. Nehru paid to the women of India and the help they have given in the struggle for the freedom of India. He said he felt that the development of India could be measured by the development of the women of India. This means, I imagine, that the women learned to accept change and not to resist it. The changes had to come and were very great. Had the women made it hard for the men, it might indeed have been a long time before the necessary changes could have come about.
* * *
After the dinner I dashed home, changed, and caught the night train to Springfield, Mass. I slept until a few minutes after seven in the morning and drove to Northampton where I had breakfast with the newly installed president of Smith College, Dr. Benjamin F. Wright, and his wife.
I had a kind message from Mrs. Calvin Coolidge and only wish that I had time to see her, but the morning went all too quickly.
First there were photographs with all the other women being honored at the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the college.
I was glad to see Senator Margaret Chase Smith and Dr. E. N. van Kleffens, Netherlands Ambassador to the U. S., who arrived by train from Washington just after I arrived. One of the honorary degrees was conferred on Princess Wilhelmina and Dr. van Kleffens accepted for her.
The most colorful and picturesque in her academic robes was a member of the French Supreme Court, Madame Charlotte Bequignon-Lagarde. She is the first woman to hold this high place in France. President Sarah Gibson Blanding of Vassar; Mary Ellen Chase, whose writings I have always admired and enjoyed; Barbara Ward, the brilliant young British woman who is foreign editor of The Economist; Mrs. Bodil Begtrup from Denmark; Margaret Clapp, president of Wellesley College, were all to be given degrees and so underwent the ordeal of being photographed.
Then the three speakers of the morning stood on the steps and did as the photographers ordered them to do! Dr. Gerty T. Cori, who with her husband won the Nobel prize in biochemistry two years ago, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting in St. Louis last year, and Miss Helen Maud Cam, the first woman to teach constitutional history at Harvard and who comes to us from England, were photographed with me. We gave our talk at the morning session which began at ten o'clock.
All precedents were broken because I had to leave, so the president conferred my degree of LL. D. upon me before the afternoon convocation when the others were honored. At 11:30 I was on my way to the airport, and before 2 o'clock I was back at Flushing being instructed on what was going to come up at the afternoon session of the General Assembly. | <urn:uuid:504add96-a8e1-4ee4-a57e-4f4fd3750026> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1949&_f=md001417 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980383 | 813 | 1.726563 | 2 |
That’s not entirely true. Earning more won’t benefit you if you blow your paycheck as soon as you get it. But you can’t save your way to riches, either.
Wealth comes from a combination of earning more AND saving more, just as losing weight comes from a combination of diet AND exercise.
That said, who wants a second shift from 6 pm to 10 pm every evening, as soon as you’re finished with your day job? Isn’t the point to increase your quality of life?
The best way to earn side income is through No-Obligation Jobs … side projects in which your responsibility (for even the most basic tasks, like showing up) is minimal-to-none.
This allows you to work only when you want to, and relax when you don’t.
Here are three ideas:
Companies are less likely to hire a full-time staff person to fulfill their needs. They’d rather take on a freelancer: someone who can do the work if it’s there, and who disappears when the project pipeline is dry.
The companies benefit because they don’t need to pay health insurance, payroll taxes, and all those other pesky little fees that come with hiring an employee — plus they have no obligation to keep the employee on salary.
You benefit because of the quid-pro-quo: you have no obligation to keep working. If they ask you to fill a freelance assignment next week, but you’ve already booked a trip to Aruba, you just smile and say “no.”
Freelancer jobs include writing, copyediting, web design, programming, data entry, web research, customer service, advertising, sales generating, and foreign-language translating.
Check out Elance for freelance opportunities — or try looking at industry-specific websites within your field, where employers usually advertise if they need freelancers.
Consulting is similar to freelancing in the sense that you drop in (like Mary Poppins) to help a company in need, then leave when you’re done.
Consultants are prized for their specific skills, long-term vision and direction. Freelancers complete specific tasks, while consultants help shape the company’s direction.
Consultants are usually in fields such as accounting, legal, finance and management, and have a solid track record.
Building a consulting business from scratch can be a demanding full-time job, but you can venture into it by:
- Talking to people in your industry about what companies might need your services. Word-of-mouth referrals is the best way to get jobs.
- Scanning industry-specific websites and publications for opportunities.
- Printing business cards that offer your services as a consultant and passing these out at conferences.
- Listing your services on websites like Elance — by using this “middle man,” you may get a larger volume of work without investing the upfront time in finding clients.
The trick to making money is to go to the spots where people who want your skill will congregate.
That’s why I’m such a big fan of Elance. It’s a website where you’ll find clients who are READY to hire and pay. They’ve got a job and they’re looking for someone to fill it. That’s where you come in.
Chances are, someone out there wants to learn what you know — whether it’s a skill within your professional field (like how to file taxes, or how to write a press release) or a hobby you’ve cultivated at home (guitar lessons, cooking, photography, knitting).
If you go this route, decide first whether you want to teach a class or teach one-on-one.
Teaching a class:
The pros to teaching a class: You prepare one lesson plan, deliver one lesson, and reach 5, 10, or even 25 paying students at the same time. This gives you a large “bang” for your hour.
The cons: Teaching an entire class can be a large undertaking. First and foremost, you’ll need to find a space to give the lessons. You could rent a space — but suddenly, your “earn money” plan now includes an element of risk. What if no one comes? What if you don’t earn back the money you shelled out on renting a space?
Think carefully about how you can create a win-win situation that will allow you a teaching space for free. Christine is a yoga instructor who was walking down a busy section of Boulder, Colo., when she noticed a coffeeshop that didn’t have many people inside during the daytime. She walked in, introduced herself to the owner — and scored a free place to give lessons, on the second floor of the coffeeshop. She was happy to have a free teaching space. The owner of the shop was happy to have yoga students who stayed after class to sip chai.
Kim had an unusual talent: hula-hooping. To her, it was a sport, and she could perform tricks and twists with a hula-hoop that few people had ever seen. Shortly after she moved to Olympia, Washington, she realized she needed some extra cash, so she approached a local fitness club and volunteered her services as a hula-hooping instructor. The fitness club was happy to be able to offer the class; Kim was happy to earn extra money on the side without having to rent a space or advertise for students.
Of course, if you’d rather start with one-on-one instruction, or if you have a skill that lends itself better to one-on-one teaching, then you won’t have to worry about organizing a space. Your main tasks are twofold: design a lesson plan and advertise for students.
These days the standard “go-to” advertising area is Craigslist (in England or Australia, use Gumtree), but this is where you’ll encounter all your competition — many of whom are willing to undercut you in price. You could always research companies such as TakeLessons reviews and work for a company that helps you find work.
You’ll tweak your approach as you progress. The most critical piece is to get started. Earning extra money is far more powerful than penny-pinching and saving. So … start earning a side income!
Enjoy this post? Please Subscribe to my RSS Feed or Email and follow me on Twitter! | <urn:uuid:c2e2d2df-c94f-471b-ac00-746bc4ed2f70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://affordanything.com/2011/03/01/3-ways-to-earn-side-income-without-getting-a-job/ | 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 | 0.950783 | 1,381 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Congressional Budget Office this week released a report analyzing various budget scenarios for carrying out the Vision for Space Exploration. This report was prepared as directed by the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 (section 410), which required the CBO to update its 2004 analysis of the projected costs of implementing the VSE.
The CBO [...]
While members of Florida’s Congressional delegation push to keep the space shuttle flying after 2010, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) remains on the side of Constellation, particularly the Ares 1. He told the Huntsville Times that NASA couldn’t afford flying the shuttle after 2010 while also supporting Ares and the ISS. “With only so much resources [...]
While the White House may not have settled on its pick to be NASA administrator, a libertarian group is prepared if, by some freakish turn of events, it came to power. The group announced today that its pick to “run” NASA would be Jim Davidson. Read on for why “run” is in quotes:
The journal Science wasn’t the only publication new presidential science advisor John Holdren talked with this week when he discussed issues like the future of the shuttle and cooperation with China. In an interview with Nature, Holdren addresses that comment by President Obama regarding the “sense of drift” at NASA:
The president said recently [...]
Yesterday the Houston Chronicle wrote the obituary for Nick Lampson’s prospects to become NASA administrator, after Lampson himself appeared to tell the paper that the White House had not offered the job to him and that he was “moving on with my life”. Wait, not so fast, says the Orlando Sentinel in a mid-day blog [...]
We don’t have a NASA administrator yet, but we do have a presidential science advisor, in the form of John Holdren, who formally started work last month after a nomination hearing in February. In an interview today with the journal Science, Holdren addressed (among many other things) space policy issues.
He started with playing down [...]
Former congressman Nick Lampson tells the Houston Chronicle in today’s edition that he is not a candidate for the NASA administrator job. Lampson said he has not undergone the background checks and other vetting that would correspond with being a candidate for the job. And about those reports he had met with White House Chief [...]
The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach, who wrote the article expressing Sen. Bill Nelson’s frustration at the lack of a NASA administrator, blogged today about another potential candidate: Congressman Bart Gordon, chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. Achenbach said he asked Gordon about the job and that Gordon “said he already has the best [...]
It’s been clear for some time that there are a few members of Congress, like Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), who would like to see the shuttle’s life extended beyond 2010 in order to minimize, or at least delay, the economic fallout that could hit the state’s Space Coast region once the shuttle program shuts down. [...] | <urn:uuid:e9c301ae-1385-42cc-9fb6-8fb9e4382fb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/04/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957597 | 635 | 1.5625 | 2 |
“Teacher finds himself in a waking nightmare: trapped in a damaged spaceship full of monsters, and unable to remember his purpose, or even his own name. Soon he joins up with other refugees, and the horror intensifies. None of them may be “real” human beings, and unless they solve the puzzle of Ship, they may be doomed to die in outer space.
The “stream of consciousness” narration adds to the immediacy of the story.
This feels like a game; in specific, “The Wreck of the B. S. M. Pandora,” a single-player board game published by SPI in the late ‘70s.
“After thoroughly enjoying The Forge of God, I picked up Hull Zero Three, written decades later. It was disappointing as a novel. It might have been better as a short story. Although the ideas were still big, I never came to care about any of the characters. The central idea was interesting and challenging.
The colonizing starship had limits, of course, so the trip had to be one way. The problem was, what to do if there was intelligent life on the planet to be colonized. If they didn't want to be colonized, genocide was the plan, using freakish killing animals grown on the ship with Earth's biological engineering skills, tailored to the new planet. There was no option but to succeed at any cost. Some crew rebelled and the ship was in chaos. Interesting, but no cigar, sorry to say.”
“This is not one of Greg Bear's best books. I liked the premise, but the writing was a bit dry and frequently boring. The premise is that a large ship left Earth hundreds or thousands of years ago with the intent of colonizing a new planet. Something went wrong and the ship's emergency procedures have kicked in. Unfortunately a war broke out between competing factions of humans and other beings created from a catalog of genes. The main character is woken up from his Dreamtime and follows a rag tag group of beings toward a cental part of the ship to try to understand what is going on. The group eventual makes it into the last healthy part of the ship and tries to complete the ship's original mission. The last half of the book was much better than the first. I did enjoy the process of the main character, who everyone called Teacher, discovering who he is and who the others are, but a lot of the writing was a bit lousy. ”Ron Arden wrote this review Monday, March 18, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A starship on its journey lasting several hundred years. One man wakes up and found out that there's something wrong with the ship and himself. Keeping himself alive is a challenge, finding out what's going on is even bigger one. Story was OK, but got too many pages to actually get interesting.”japi wrote this review Tuesday, January 22, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Great story. If you like hard science fiction this is a good one. If you've not read HSF, this is a good story to start with.”Jeff Roblyer wrote this review Monday, January 21, 2013. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“An interesting read, I wish it had actually answered more of the questions it raised. I quite liked the backstory, setting and universe and would have like to see it explored more. ”Ethan S wrote this review Monday, November 5, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This book was riveting. All the way through, I wondered if the book would end with no one surviving this "mad ship" that put monsters called "cleaners" in the way of the protagonist and the strange "people" he found or was found by along the way. I don't want to spoil it with further details, except to say it was one of the best I've read by Greg Bear - and I like all of his books!”Aunt Sue wrote this review Saturday, May 19, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I had not read any of Greg Bear's extensive oeuvre before picking up Hull Zero Three to read as part of the 2012 Sci-Fi challenge at Curiosity Killed the Bookworm ( http://curiositykilledthebookworm.blogspot.com/p/2012-sci-fi-challenge.htm ). What I discovered while reading this book was a thought-provoking and challenging novel by a multiple award-winning SF author. Although the novel employs many classic tropes – the deep space mission gone awry, consciousness spawned and run amok, humanity’s struggle with survival and destruction – conceptually, Hull Zero Three paints an ambitious picture of space exploration in the distant future. In overall form it is more a mystery than an actual hard, groundbreaking SF novel, and even if the themes and ideas are familiar the conundrums that emanate from Bear’s storytelling skill make the book a worthwhile, if en petite abstruse, read. Bear presents classic familiar questions in the science fiction realm, contrasting humanity and individuality--dream versus reality through the lens of genetic manipulation, and examines the future of a primitive and destructive humankind among the stars. In some, slight way the book reminded me of other Science Fiction that I have enjoyed like James Blish's Cities in Flight and A. E. Van Vogt's The Voyage of the Space Beagle. Bear’s novel is certainly more sophisticated than the latter and incredibly subtle with powerful concepts that provoke reflection. I enjoyed Hull Zero Three for the most part and found the conclusion especially satisfying.
There are a few aspects of the book that I found disappointing in light of the overall success. The presentation of the mystery, as narrated by Teacher, the main character in the book is slow to develop. While the reader can enjoy the discovery of clues as to the nature of the ship that is Teacher's home, the difficulty in putting the pieces together detracts from the overall presentation of the story. Hull Zero Three is written with a great expanse of detail, but in a strange way the descriptions and style are often confusing and intangible; the characters and even Ship (note the capitalization and lack of a definite article) itself are hard to visualize. For example, monkey-like creatures are described as donuts, one character can rearrange her bulk and shape by somehow shifting sinew and muscle. Teacher is prone to confused visualizations as he tries to reform his new lexicon from deep sleep. He discovers new words he didn’t know existed, unlocking memories for each item and creature he encounters the longer he is awake, and this initial use of language, the importance of books and the actual format of Hull Zero Three – itself as a written book by Teacher – is very clever and comes together nicely by the end of the book…but the overall effect is somewhat piecemeal. I grew impatient at times with the stylistic details of the novel and from the lack of actual, meaty character development – there are some scenes of self-reflection, but without any real depth or heft. Hull Zero Three is more about the mystery and solving the puzzle than it is about realization of character arcs – which isn’t to say that Teacher’s struggle isn’t a valid or engaging one! It certainly is. But Hull‘s strengths lie elsewhere – namely, in that of its overall concept and design.
That Bear is able to overcome some of these issues and bring the story together brilliantly by the end of the novel while resolving questions raised by the mysteries of Ship, the resolution felt somewhat subitaneous. To much telling in the wrapping up marred the excellent space adventure but did not keep me from considering more Greg Bear for my future and recommending this particular novel for your future.”
“A difficult read. Really refreshing writing style and definitely worth the effort. ”Elliot Livenspire wrote this review Friday, February 17, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No | <urn:uuid:113fe64d-e118-453e-a1d4-10b9e8d1e860> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shelfari.com/books/14884606/Hull-Zero-Three/reviews | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967514 | 1,708 | 1.554688 | 2 |
“Cupcakes are girly,” he said. He loved them, but did other men? Could Detroit’s shattered economy support a high-end cupcake business? Todd, formerly the COO of a shirt--manufacturing company but at that time unemployed, was dubious, so Pam shelved the idea. Then the marketing company she worked for asked her to relocate to Florida. To stave off the anxiety she felt about moving, she started baking cupcakes. Every tray she set out for her family disappeared in minutes. Soon she had a brisk side business selling to friends. After a batch found its way to a group of federal judges in Detroit—all of whom wanted to know where they could buy more—Todd reconsidered: The city was ready for cupcakes after all.
In January 2009, using their entire retirement fund of $100,000, they launched Just Baked (justbakedshop.com) out of a rented commercial kitchen, selling wholesale to gourmet shops and small markets. Todd did most of the baking so Pam could keep her job and benefits. Three weeks into their venture, after mistakenly baking 50 cupcakes too many, the couple figured they’d try to sell them to passersby. They found a dusty neon open sign and hung it over the entrance to the kitchen, and by the end of the day they’d sold every cupcake for $1.75 each. They decided to stick with the open sign. That month they broke even. The following month they grossed $16,970, and Pam quit her job.
“Owning a cupcake business elevated us to rock-star status among our kids’ friends,” says Pam. “But in the beginning, we disagreed on how to grow the business. The stress on our relationship was huge. Todd wanted to buy equipment. I wanted to add staff.” The 18-hour days didn’t help. But gradually the couple came to recognize each other’s strengths: Pam is “a brilliant marketer,” says Todd, and she’s good at managing the employees. He’s the logistics expert and took charge of their expansion. The couple now has 10 stores, including three franchises. The business grossed about $2.5 million in 2011, but what thrills them most is that they created 75 new jobs for people in the Detroit area. “We both grew up here,” says Pam. “We chose to stay. I have friends who had big jobs who aren’t working now. But I have pride in this city. We’re part of Detroit’s turnaround.”
The Driving-School Innovators
In 2008, Laura Shuler, then president of the New York City–based marketing firm Jack Morton Worldwide, came upon some statistics that appalled her: On average, one in every three teenagers will be in a car accident in the first year of driving; about 6,000 teens ages 16 to 20 die annually in car accidents.
With a stepson nearly old enough for driver’s education and vivid memories of two friends killed in car crashes when she was young, Laura had a personal interest in the subject. She also knew a good business opportunity when she saw one. She brought it up one evening with her husband, Steve Mochel, an account executive at her company. “Did you know driver’s ed hasn’t changed at all since the 1950s?” she asked him. “We should start a driving school. We could modernize driver’s ed.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Too seedy.”
Eight months later, Steve was laid off. Laura, unwilling to participate in the firing of hundreds more employees, quit the firm. Her stepson, Steve’s oldest child, had just attended his first driver’s-ed class, and after hearing his account, Steve changed his mind.
The couple created a cutting-edge curriculum that includes the use of computer simulators designed by the same company that makes training simulators for the military. With $250,000 of their savings, Laura and Steve launched Fresh Green Light (freshgreenlight.com) in November 2009. The couple now has 14 employees; offices in Rye, New York, and Greenwich, Connecticut; and a computer simulator at each location. | <urn:uuid:6b5f692d-c20c-4515-8f84-dcefb546ba0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.more.com/reinvention-money/second-acts/couples-who-reinvent?page=2&quicktabs_1=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976538 | 922 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Unrest in Pakistan: Moving Beyond U.S. National Interest
“The military is the muscle that protects the ruling elite from the wrath of the people,” says Pakistani political analyst Dr. Mubashir Hassan. “Right now, people are out on the street; blocking roads, attacking railway stations, etc. If you read the papers, it seems as though a general uprising has started all over Pakistan.”
Dr. Hassan says that sporadic outbursts of anger in Pakistan won’t coalesce into a people’s revolution anytime soon. The demonstrators are too disorganized. But, the sheer volume of daily protests shows that many sectors of Pakistani society have pressing needs and priorities that do not include enlistment as foot soldiers in a proxy force for the United States’ War on Terror.
Dr. Hassan, a co-founder of the People’s Party of Pakistan, is a respected scholar and statesman. Last year, when we met with him, he had just returned from a visit, in the U.S., with Professors Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, his contemporaries in seeking to build just and fair social structures. Last month, in Lahore, he spoke with us about U.S. interference in the region and changing dynamics in Pakistan.
A snapshot of unrest in Pakistan offers a framework for outsiders to understand why it is unfair to insist that Pakistan “do more” to fulfill the United States’ vision for fighting extremism. It may also suggest why strong anti-American sentiments prevail, in Pakistan, among the peasantry, the middle class, religious and secular groups, and the highly educated and privileged classes.
Throughout the past several months, demonstrators burned tires nearly every day in the streets of Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore and other population centers as they voiced their opposition to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its insistence on the implementation of a Value Added Tax (VAT) along with a proposed 11.3 billion dollar bailout package. In a special meeting convened by the Farmers Association of Pakistan, (FAP), participants said that the VAT would “totally kill the farmers and cause irreparable damage to the agriculture sector by making inputs more expensive. This would, in turn, increase the prices of agriculture produce, adding to the miseries of both the farmer and consumer, who are already facing extreme economic depression.”
Ashraf Javed, writing for The Nation, reported that economic experts estimated that the IMF and the Pakistani government’s original plan for the VAT would increase the prices of over 122 major categories of items, including food, by at least 15 percent.
These proposed policies led to protests by the All Pakistan Organization of Small Traders and Cottage Industries, the Pakistan Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islami, textile workers, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and even spawned a nationwide mobile phone boycott. Because of the immense pressure put on the government to reject the VAT, Pakistan decided to postpone implementation of the tax from July to October. The government, under the leadership of the People’s Party of Pakistan, has also come up with plans to incorporate many of the IMF’s demands for the VAT into the General Sales Tax (GST), which already sits at about 16 percent. In response, the IMF has threatened to freeze future disbursements coming to Pakistan if the VAT is not implemented by July 1st along with a “power tariff,” or 6 percent increase in electricity rates.
As the IMF and World Bank are insisting on a 6 percent hike in electricity rates, there has been nationwide upheaval over increased “load shedding,” the term for scheduled power outages in Pakistan, which sometimes last for 10-12 hours per day. Protests against the power cuts, often quite militant, have consistently erupted in major cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. Demonstrators in other provinces and cities including Hyderabad, Multan, Quetta, Bahawalnagar, Sukkur, Badin, Mirpur Khas, Larkana, Thatta and Ghotki, Dera Ismail Khan, Hangu, Kurk, Swat and Muzaffarabad have also registered their outrage. Textile mills, manufacturers, the agricultural sector and traders are among the hardest hit by load shedding which limits the hours of operation, disrupting production and interfering with worker schedules. Protesters have created roadblocks, burned tires, gone on strike and organized massive sit-ins.
In Punjab, Pakistan’s most densely populated province, the Tenants Association of Punjab, (AMP), demands “Ownership or Death.” Involving 1 million landless tenants, based in villages stretching over 15 districts, AMP is one of Pakistan’s largest political movements. For ten years, the AMP has struggled to secure ownership rights for poor families that have tilled their land for over four generations.
The military is one of the largest landholders in Pakistan, and military agencies such as the Remount Veterinary and Farms Corps (RVFC), Military Seed Corporation, Livestock Agricultural Department and Dairy Farm, and the Seed Research Farm have been claiming ownership and collecting revenue from tenants. The Punjab Board of Revenue has ruled that these military companies have no legal claim to the land or its revenue, but tenants have faced campaigns of intimidation, coercion, cruelty and murder by armed police and paramilitary forces.
Led by peasant women organizers, AMP scored a major victory in March, 2010, after staging a long march and sit-in. Thirty-thousand tenants, women and children shut down the Multan-Lahore expressway for over ten hours and succeeded in securing ownership rights from the Government of Punjab. The government agreed that transfer of land ownership was to start with immediate effect and that a committee for monitoring of the process for transfer of land to tenants would include representatives of the Women’s Peasant Society and AMP.
While in Islamabad, we spent time with two groups of workers involved in long demonstrations for economic rights. The first was a group of nine men who, for the past month, had been occupying a tent outside the city’s Press Center. They represent 491 former employees of the Federal Bureau of Statistics, all of whom were suddenly fired from their jobs before their contracts were finished. They suspect that their jobs are now being filled with new employees hired on the basis of patronage and not merit. The nine we met with were all college educated and probably considered middle class before they lost their jobs. However, many of them were the sole providers for households ranging from 8-10 in number. The group aims to remain in the streets, in protest, until their jobs are reinstated.
The second group of workers we interviewed was from the All Pakistan Clerks Association. The clerks were in their third month of public protest. They had moved, the previous day, to an encampment in front of the parliament where they demanded that Members of Parliament devise a budget that would give the clerks a pay raise proportionate to inflation and commensurate with salaries of the police, army and the judiciary. They explained to us that the army, police and judiciary have received consistent pay raises and healthcare benefits; meanwhile, civil society has been abandoned. One man said, “Our pay only covers utilities. We have no remaining money for health care or education. How can we care for our children?” Solidarity demonstrations with the All Clerks Association occurred across the country and picked up in number and intensity after June 3rd when the police baton charged the clerks and members of United Teachers Association in front of the parliament. The clerks intended to remain in protest until the announcement of the 2010-2011 budget on June 15th.
With the announcement by Pakistan's Finance Minister, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, that the country's defense spending will be raised to more than 5 billion beginning July 1st, a 17 percent increase from last year, it’s unlikely that the clerks will receive the raises and benefits they’ve sought.
Since Pakistan’s inception, the military has been a dominant force in running both internal politics and foreign policy. In The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defense, Ayesha Jalal notes that the Pakistani government has faced a menacing set of challenges on the domestic, regional and international fronts that have tipped the balance in favor of the military and civil bureaucracies which were not elected democratically.
Additionally, as detailed in a recent report by Amnesty International, residents in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) “continue to be governed by a colonial-era law, the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) of 1901, which denies basic constitutional rights and protections for the residents of FATA, including their rights to political representation, judicial appeal, and freedom from collective punishment.”
Pakistan faced a considerable increase in external pressure from the United States after the Iranian revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s greater significance in Western security calculations bolstered Pakistan’s strategic defenses, leading to bloated defense budgets that the country didn’t have the resources and capacity to meet. Pressure to increase military spending and expand military powers “intensified Pakistan’s internal socio-economic and political dilemmas,” Ayesha Jalal writes. “The negative impact of economic policies geared to sustain the needs of defense and requirements of international allies contributed to a wide array of social disaffections.” The pattern has really remained largely the same ever since.
During the Bush-Mush years, (President George W. Bush and General Pervez Musharraf headed the U.S. and Pakistan, respectively), the U.S. gave Pakistan 11.9 billion dollars in assistance, 8 billion of which went directly to the military. Now, the Obama Administration is insisting on more military offensives in the northwest parts of the country while Pakistan wrestles with the aftermath of a 2009 military offensive that displaced 3.5 million people, hundreds of thousands of whom still live as refugees. Following the 2009 military operations in Swat and neighboring provinces, the Pakistani armed forces began attacks against alleged militant strongholds in North and South Waziristan, creating new waves of displacement as people were forced to abandon their homes. Continued military operations will require funding, which then diverts needed resources that might otherwise be used to assist remaining refugees, alleviate poverty and reduce wealth disparities.
The military operations are taking place in an almost total media vacuum, in an area which Amnesty International has called a “human rights free zone.” Amnesty has documented that over 1,300 civilians were killed in last year’s fighting in northwest Pakistan and that the Pakistani government has indefinitely detained some 2,500 people without bringing any charges against them. Thirteen hundred people killed? That’s nearly as many lives as were lost during the 2008- 2009 Israeli massacre in Gaza, and where is the outcry? 2,500 people detained and likely tortured? Guantanamo has a long way to go to catch up to those statistics. “It's the opposite of enforcing the rule of the law,” says Saman Zia Zarifi, the director of Amnesty Asia-Pacific. “This is moving towards chaos."
The U.S. has insisted that Pakistan undertake military offensives that attack their own people. Meanwhile, U.S. drone strikes kill and maim many hundreds of Pakistanis. Exactly how many? It’s difficult to say. “Killing or violating even one person is wrong,” Dr. Hassan advised us. “The use of weapons against non-combatants is wrong.” These wrongs fuel distrust and hatred of the United States across Pakistan.
Pakistanis also suffer as a result of U.S. and NATO supply convoys that travel through Pakistan en route to Afghanistan. Just outside Islamabad, on June 8, 2010, militants attacked 50 NATO supply trucks headed for Afghanistan. Seven people were killed and 20 trucks were set ablaze. Just as there is no accountability when the CIA destroys a family home from a drone strike, it is doubtful that the United States offers any compensation to those who are injured or have lost family members as a result of an attack on a supply convoy. In fact, we met a young Afghan man who was hired by NATO as a convoy driver three years ago and who, earlier this year, while driving with a NATO convoy, drove over an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). The explosion shattered his leg. He received no compensation whatsoever from NATO forces.
Pakistanis also face increased militant and terrorist attacks in their cities as a result of U.S. policy. Continued U.S. interference serves as a recruitment tool for extremists. Militant and religious organizations train others to attack population centers and marginalized minority groups within Pakistani society. Recently, a Taliban group attacked two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, killing over 80 people. Obviously, this kind of behavior cannot be attributed solely to the United States, but the U.S. government has to face its history of fostering and arming radical Islamic movements in South Asia when it suited U.S. geo-strategic interest. And after increased U.S. operations in the country since 2004, U.S. policy seems to be intensifying rather than decreasing militancy. Since the Pakistani government’s military offensives in the spring of 2009, launched under great pressure from the United States, hundreds of Pakistani civilians have been killed by retaliatory terror attacks.
With 60 million people living in poverty and many more living just above the poverty line, the people of Pakistan have priorities that do not include acting as a proxy to fight U.S. wars against purported terrorists. For many people, including those like Muhammad Akbar, a desperate rickshaw driver who committed suicide on Wednesday due to prolonged financial hardships, these priorities may be simply to put food on the table and to provide for their families. For others, including women’s and minority groups, fighting for their own political and human rights takes precedence.
People in the United States wishing to show solidarity with Pakistanis struggling to make ends meet should try to dialogue with Pakistani led grassroots movements. These indigenous efforts hold the keys to reducing poverty, ending discrimination and countering extremism in the region. We should also simplify our lifestyles and consumption patterns to require less of a share in the world’s resources, so that corrupt institutions like the U.S. government and the IMF do not have a pretext or a supposed mandate to continue interfering in the lives of others in order to serve the so-called U.S. “national interest.”
We would do well to heed Dr. Mubashir Hassan’s words. “Please leave us to our fate and to our devices,” he requested. “We’ll mess up, but we’ll get there.” He added that in spite of anxieties that his country is unraveling, there is still something hopeful. It’s this: perhaps people will be shown the result of violence and be prepared to believe that war doesn’t solve anything.
Joshua Brollier ([email protected]) and Kathy Kelly ([email protected]) are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. www.vcnv.org | <urn:uuid:85b4749e-601f-4fe2-9984-280dc035ce1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/unrest-in-pakistan-moving-beyond-u-s-national-interest-by-josh-brollier | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9627 | 3,169 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Getting the Most From Technology
when talking of funding.. i am lucky. in indiana technology has its own budget in capital projects funds. i can count on xxx amount of money to use for the calendar year. i can adjust percentages as i see fit. if one year we need more hardware i can alter the numbers to get what we need. when thinking about the other articles i have read, we are in phase I... acquiring the equipment necessary for faculty and students.
i have recently disabled the modem bank in our data center, it is a security breach (most people won't try to hack through a dial-up... but still) i would love to implement wi-max for our community and offer internet to all corporation employees and students. portal design would follow allowing all users to see the same offerings to resources when using our system. uniformity aids in learning to use technology from many different levels.
our recent survey stated that most faculty use the classroom computers rather than the compuer labs.. too inconvenient (45% say they use the lab seldom/never)
Technology is a supplement and needs to be intertwined with curriculum. indiana doesnt have separate technology standards.. we have our tech standards interwoven with academic standards.
..."teaching is becoming progressively unneccessary." (my pastor said this on sunday and it stuck.. | <urn:uuid:a9fa06bc-d611-48e9-aba5-c2b428dc4321> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/warre187/castlesummer/2006/06/getting_the_most_from_technolo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941318 | 274 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Alpha Chi is a coeducational academic honor society. Since 1922 its purpose has been to promote academic excellence and exemplary character among college and university students and to honor those who achieve such distinction. Its name derives from the initial letter of the Greek words meaning "truth" and "character".
PQC Advisor: Dr. Ervin James
National Founding Date: February 22, 1922
Place of Origin: Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX)
Who is eligible for membership? Membership is limited to the top 10 percent of juniors and seniors.
National Website: www.alphachihonor.org
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:214b5781-ec75-4955-9701-4c42430b29ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pqc.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=329%3Aalpha-chi-honor-society-at-pqc&Itemid=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937433 | 133 | 1.53125 | 2 |
It’s shorthand for any dramatic conversion. People have often said to me that they’re Christians but they’re still waiting for their “Damascus Road Experience.”
But they will have to wait for Christ’s return for anything like what Paul experienced. You see the Damascus Road was not just the conversion of a man, it was the creation of an Apostle. And Apostles needed to have met the risen Christ – both the 11 and Paul himself acknowledge that (Acts 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11). Therefore something extraordinary was needed to turn Saul of Tarsus into Paul the Apostle. The risen Christ had to personally appear. But He didn’t have to appear to a man like Saul! This conversion would model the sheer grace of the Lord.
For a start, Saul was a Pharisee. He describes his past like this:
Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; (Philippians 3:5)
When Jesus chose the original twelve he chose a tax-collector, Matthew. He also chose a Zealot, Simon. These two were hated and feared members of the establishment and anti-establishment respectively. Nonetheless, there was place in Christ’s kingdom for all manner of publicans and sinners. Yet all the while the Pharisees remained firmly on the outside, muttering (Luke 15:1-2).
Now Christ steps in with compelling force and claims a Pharisee for His own. And not just any Pharisee – the chief persecutor of the early church. Saul oversaw the killing of Stephen in Acts 7 and was known to believers everywhere as “he that destroyed” Christians. (Acts 9:21)
So how was Saul prepared for this religious experience? Was he particularly soft-hearted and receptive to the grace of Jesus that day? No. The grace of Jesus is not attracted to soft-heartedness, the grace of Jesus creates soft-heartedness where before there was stony opposition. Here is the context of Saul’s conversion:
1And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, 2And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. 3And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: 4And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? 5And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Saul is not ready for Jesus. Saul is breathing out slaughter against Christ and His people. And notice how personally Jesus takes it. According to Jesus, Saul has been persecuting Himself. The risen Christ is not above and beyond the struggles of this world. He feels His people’s suffering keenly. He is the Head and His body is hurting – therefore Christ Himself is hurting.
Persecuted Christians need to know that. Christ feels this pain and knows how to confront the perpetrators, in His own time and in His own way. But be prepared for Christ to approach the wrong-doers with mercy. This is how He comes to Saul. He even pities his enemy: ”It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” “Pricks” are the sharp goads at the end of a shepherd’s crook. Sheep going astray harm themselves on the sharpened points and then harm themselves further by kicking against them. That has been Saul’s life. Brought up in the Scriptures, confronted by Christ on every page yet twisting and turning from Him at every opportunity. Conversion for Saul means the end of that kind of suffering. But it will mean a very different kind of suffering from now on.
You see he is blinded by his vision and healed by a Christian called Ananias. Ananias is told by the Lord:
[Paul] is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake. (Acts 9:15-16)
Saul is converted from one kind of suffering – a swimming against the stream of his existence – to another kind of suffering – a swimming against the stream of the world. We can go with the world’s flow and run up against the Lord, or we can walk with the Lord and go against the world’s flow. Paul is summoned to live for Christ’s name’s sake.
And here is the effect. Jesus says to him:
But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:15-18)
This is exactly what happens. Paul goes on to live one of the most influential lives the world has ever seen. He writes half of the New Testament and plants churches all around the eastern half of the Mediterranean. Thus the church’s greatest enemy is converted to its greatest asset. That’s what the grace of God does – turns calamity into even greater blessing. And it does so not because of any goodness in us, but despite our deepest evil. You see the witness of Paul to the grace of Jesus is not diminished by his terrible past, but magnified by it. This murderous blasphemer is able to say:
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)
The conversion of Paul is not meant to make us despair – as though we could never experience such a change. The conversion of Paul gives us hope. The grace of Jesus extends even to His greatest enemies. It most definitely extends to me. | <urn:uuid:472a25e9-28c7-4316-8424-670d4907c818> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kingsenglish.info/page/59/?wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966873 | 1,388 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This is a very interesting topic. Anything that can keep the water outside the hull is worth trying.
Recently, I was taking on a gallon or so of water in a smooth lake,
That is too much IMHO.
I tried one layer of Teflon tape in the seal groove. All the hatches stopped leaking completely. I could not find any mention of using this. Is this a bad idea?
Thickness of the tape? In
the seal grove, inside
the O-ring? Or instead
of the O-ring?
Can you please post a picture?
I have not heard of this solution either. If it works, it can't be a bad idea.
Also, why the funky O-ring cross section? Why not a simple circular cross section?
I have read something about that but I don't know where. It has something to do with the hatch being water tight and easy to close/open at the same time. To me, the whole design is too sensitiv to sand/dirt and demand a little too much maintenance, to be perfect. | <urn:uuid:33349d32-4621-4ce9-9ddd-769eaa9ae4be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=182313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961312 | 229 | 1.5625 | 2 |
“Apple Inc. may find its most valuable asset is something it can’t protect through patents or secrecy: Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs,” Connie Guglielmo reports for Bloomberg.
Guglielmo reports, “If Jobs were to leave, shares of the Cupertino, California- based company might drop 25 percent or more, analysts say. That would erase about $20 billion in Apple’s market value. ‘It would be a disaster,’ said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Cos. in Minneapolis, who’s had an ‘outperform’ rating on Apple’s shares since June 2004. ‘He would be almost impossible to replace.’”
“The computer maker’s dependence on its CEO was illustrated the last week of December, when the stock dropped as much as 5.8 percent after The Recorder, a San Francisco-based legal publication, reported Apple had faked documents to backdate stock options,” Guglielmo reports. “On Dec. 29, the company said its own investigation, led by Apple director and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, cleared Jobs of any wrongdoing. That eased concern Jobs may have to step down and sent the shares up 4.9 percent.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Gandalf" for the heads up.]
Could Apple thrive without Steve Jobs? – January 04, 2007
Analyst: U.S. Gov’t unlikely to ‘nail Apple and Steve Jobs’ – December 28, 2006
What would Apple be worth without Steve Jobs? – December 27, 2006
Piper Jaffray: Steve Jobs not at risk in stock options case – December 27, 2006
What happens when Steve Jobs dies? – August 20, 2003 | <urn:uuid:71dad099-7a5d-41a7-ae8f-ec422ce0fce1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://macdailynews.com/2007/01/17/steve_jobs_worth_20_billion_to_apple_inc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951054 | 395 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Stethoscopes, (aka guessing tubes), or just scopes. Some of us wear them in our pockets or on our hips in nifty little holster thingies that we bought at that last conference.
But most of us wear them around our necks.
Thats how I roll. Its just so…..well, medical.
But the problem is that the ear pieces are just like two hooks hanging down across your chest. They remind me of those ‘grabber claws’ in the arcade games where you try to pick up a stuffed Bart Simpson doll from a pile of tightly stuffed toys.
Only the stetho-hook is no game of chance. It will grab the most unlikely object at the most improbable time.
Here are a few examples of common stetho-hook snagups (I am sure you can add more from your own repertoire):
Scrubs centrifugal spindrift Two nurses walking past each other at high speed. Stethoscope of one nurse snags in the arm hole of the others scrubs propelling both into a 180 degree spin and sending them both back along their original trajectories.
Extra rare: Nurses continue on original trajectories. Instead, stethoscope flips across, seamlessly transferring from one nurses neck to the other.
Tearoom liftoff: You are sitting down next to your colleague for lunch. You get up to grab yourself a brew. Your scope snags the scrub top of your colleague lifting it up over their head.
Extra rare: well the tearoom liftoff is extra rare in itself.
How often do you and a colleague get to go to lunch at the same time?
Monkeys in a Barrel. when you and one of your colleagues have been leaning in close to the patient, you both go to straighten up only to find you are linked together by your stethoscopes. Just like the children’s game, monkeys in a barrel.
Extra rare: the triple link-up. Nurse-doctor-nurse
Stainless steel slingshot: You are helping the patient move up the bed. As they lean back, their oxygen mask elastic snags on your scope only to release the mask like a slingshot to the face as they reach the fully recumbent position.
Extra rare: Mask stays in place, stethoscope slingshots off you neck and into patients face.
Trepanation touchdown: Unbeknown to you, earpieces fall off stethoscope whilst you are being violently shaken by an intoxicated patient. As you finally manage to listen to his breath sounds, the uncapped ends, slice their way up your ear canals hooking against each side of your amygdala, not unlike a claw on a Bart Simpson doll.
Police Peel-off: you are pulled over for speeding on your way home (basically, because your bladder is pressing down on the accelerator).
You think you might be able to get out of a ticket when the cop sees the stethoscope you have strategically left around you neck in case of just such an event.
But the scope snagged against the car door frame as you got in, got jammed in the door, and hooked a large traffic cone as you drove out of the hospital, dragging it up the street beside you.
Extra rare: cop notes you are a nurse anyway and lets you off. | <urn:uuid:e24c9f34-11ff-4e35-9da4-ffadfc83f648> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.impactednurse.com/?p=4777 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945984 | 694 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Idaho's judiciary handled more than 436,000 filed cases and 655 appeals in 2012, Burdick said, with judges traveling more than 309,000 to get to various hearings and courthouses. Leaders in the court system have been looking at ways technology can help ease those burdens, he said.
"Our vision includes real-time data from every court in the state immediately available to every other court and to all individuals who require access to court information," Burdick said. "We also envision an expanded statewide telepresence for litigants, attorneys, judges and the public."
Efforts are also under way to recruit potential judges, he said.
"We now hold open discussion groups in those counties where district judges are being replaced concerning the benefits of starting a career in the judiciary," Burdick said.
Still, he said, Idaho has a significant problem in recruiting district judges, and those bench seats are no longer considered a highly sought-after position.
"The Judicial Council can rarely send a full slate of four names to the governor for appointment. ... The reasons are many -- the overwhelming workload that many district judges face in terms of numbers, as well as complexity; the prospect of contested election; as well as the inadequate compensation of that position," he said.
The types of attorneys who meet the experience and age requirements for a judicial seat have already built a client base and a professional network, but they have to sever those relationships to become judges, Burdick said. If the new judge then loses a contested election, they have to start over in building a business. Idaho ranks 46th in the nation for compensation rates for most judges, Burdick noted, and that makes it tough to attract qualified attorneys to the bench.
Last year the court system had four magistrate judge positions that went unfilled. Two magistrates have since been hired, Burdick said, and he hopes to fill one of the two remaining vacancies later this year and the last one in early 2014.
"Numerous court employee positions, however, remain vacant statewide and significant reductions have been made in all court operations," Burdick said.
The chief justice also reminded lawmakers that the judicial branch was asking the Legislature to repeal the sunset provision that would end an emergency surcharge placed on some criminal and traffic cases on June 30. The surcharge filled a $4 million funding gap for Idaho's court system. The state can't afford to replace that $4 million out of the general fund, Burdick said.
-- The Associated Press | <urn:uuid:d676320b-581f-465e-b430-0c3d61fb0b8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/01/qualified_judges_increasingly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97639 | 519 | 1.625 | 2 |
President Obama had little choice but to lay out his priorities in his State of the Union address and hope they wouldn’t be sidelined by an unreceptive Republican-controlled House.
If two decades of history are a guide, House Speaker John Boehner will allow votes in the next two years on only a handful of bills opposed by a majority of House Republicans. And that’s the best case. If Boehner is as stingy with such votes over the next two years as he was during the past two, Obama could be out of luck entirely.
Boehner is trying to adhere to the “Hastert Rule,” the informal practice of speakers refusing to let the House vote on bills backed by less than half of the majority party. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who was speaker from 1999 to 2007, warned against ignoring the rule last month after Boehner permitted votes on fiscal-cliff and Hurricane Sandy bills.
“When you start passing stuff that your members aren’t in line with, all of a sudden your ability to lead is in jeopardy, because somebody else is making decisions,” Hastert said on Fox News Radio. “The president is making decisions, or [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi is making decisions, or they are making the decisions in the Senate.”
Hastert had a mixed record during his own tenure as speaker, according to a chart compiled by Derek Willis, an interactive news developer at The New York Times. In each of the 107th, 108th, and 109th sessions of Congress, Hastert allowed only two bills to pass with a minority of Republicans in favor. But in the 106th Congress, he allowed six. The difference? Democrat Bill Clinton was president. The rest of the time, Republican George W. Bush was in the White House.
The Hastert rule tends to be thrown aside more often in times of divided government. It is easier to follow when the same party controls the House and the White House.
When Bush needed their support on difficult issues, such as debt-limit increases, appropriations bills, and continuing resolutions to fund the federal government, most Republicans usually came around. “You had a Republican president dictating the terms of the debate, and it was a lot easier to get Republicans to vote with their president,” said Republican strategist John Feehery, a former Hastert aide. “You just had more leverage.”
The pattern held from 1991 until 2009, regardless of who was in power: The Hastert Rule would go by the boards once or twice when the same party held the House and the White House, and would be ignored more often under divided government. When Democrats controlled the House and George H.W. Bush was president, during the 102nd Congress, four bills passed with less than half the majority in favor. Five passed in the 105th Congress and six in the 106th, when Republicans held the House and Clinton was president. Six passed in the 110th Congress, when Democrats were in the majority and George W. Bush was president.
Things changed, however, in the 112th Congress that just ended last month. Bolstered by the tea-party wave of 2010, Boehner held the line a lot more often than Hastert did when he was serving with a Democratic president. Boehner did not bring up a single bill opposed by most of his caucus until Dec. 31, 2012. That was after Obama’s reelection, after Democratic gains in the House and Senate, and after the Senate had passed the bill in question—a deal to avert the fiscal cliff—85-8.
The fiscal-cliff package passed the House with 85 GOP votes in favor and 151 opposed. Under intense pressure from Northeastern Republicans, Boehner allowed a vote on the Sandy bill two weeks later at the start of the 113th Congress. Only 49 Republicans voted in favor of that one, while 179 voted no.
So what does this portend for Obama’s priorities, which include immigration reform, new gun laws, a tax-code rewrite, new energy policies, and a grand bargain to reduce debt?
The rationale for blocking Obama at every turn is gone, since he can’t run for reelection again. There may also be a rationale for compromise, given the level of alarm within the GOP after the elections.
It may not be easy for the speaker. On some issues, such as immigration, Boehner may face a choice between the demands of House members from overwhelmingly conservative districts and the broader interests of his party, its Senate candidates, and its presidential hopefuls.
But if Boehner returns to the traditions of the past 20 years, that opens up the possibility of three to five additional votes on bills that don’t have majority GOP support. Obama and the Democrats should take care not to squander them.
This article appears in the Feb. 13, 2013, edition of National Journal Daily. | <urn:uuid:88bcaf4f-5535-4335-9051-51591ee5c3d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/what-history-tells-us-about-the-future-of-obama-s-agenda-20130213 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974026 | 1,015 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The following material was contributed by Paul Barnes, Derek Hayes,
Lindsey Hume, Courtenay Lewis, and Candace Robicheau.
For another site on biography, or for For another site on Findley's works.
- Born in Toronto in 1930
- Until recently, lived just outside of Toronto near Cannington with his companion William Whitehead. New home will be in Europe.
- An actor in Canada from 1948-1962
- He was a member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, and was in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker.
- Ruth Gordon (star of The Matchmaker) and Thornton Wilder (the playwright) helped to inspire Findley's writings.
- First novel was The Last of the Crazy People in 1967 and the second The Butterfly Plague in 1969. The Wars was published in 1977.
- The Last of The Crazy People and Butterfly Plague were rejected by Canadian Publishers and were first published in Britain.
- The Wars on the other hand changed things
a great deal when it won the Governor General's Literary Award in Canada..
- Can You See Me Yet? 1976 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa
- John A. Himself 1979 in London, Ontario
- Still Born 1993 in London, Ontario
Awards and Offices:
- Governor General's Award for The Wars
- Canadian Author's Association Award
- ACTRA Award
- Ontario Trillium Award
- Appointed an officer of the Order of Canada
-Served as the chairperson of the Writer's Union
"Inside Memory" and its relation to "the Wars"
- Early sections of "The Wars" have an atmospheric resemblance
to that of "Inside Memory". Both are dark, hopeless and lonely.
- Many scenes from "The Wars" are vividly described in "Inside Memory". The most evident being Robert Ross' homosexual experiences which seem even more terrible in this short explanation. | <urn:uuid:e26a8280-e691-4499-bd04-ec0b613b63ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/young/e1106ce/findley/biog/biog.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954143 | 396 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Burgess Meredith dies at 89
Stallone: He was 'irreplaceable legend'
September 10, 1997
Web posted at: 10:08 p.m. EDT (0208 GMT)
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Burgess Meredith, the raspy-voiced character actor best known for his portrayal of the gruff boxing manager in the "Rocky" movies, has died at his home in Malibu, California. He was 89.
Meredith, who died Tuesday, had been suffering from melanoma and Alzheimer's disease, said his son, Jonathan.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and educated at Amherst College in Massachusetts, Meredith's film and theater career spanned seven decades. His stage debut came in 1933 in New York, and his screen debut, at 26, was in the 1936 drama "Winterset," recreating a role he had played on Broadway. He would go on to appear in nearly 70 movies, mostly in supporting roles.
But it was as Rocky's boxing trainer, Mickey, for which he will probably be best remembered. He received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in 1976 for his work in the original movie, and he reprised the character in three of the four "Rocky" sequels. (448KB/19 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)
"Burgess Meredith always was ... an irreplaceable legend, a craftsman who rarely comes along, not (one) in a generation but in several generations," Sylvester Stallone said. "I thank him for his performance in 'Rocky' because I truly feel without his participation in the film, it would never have had its emotion core."
In addition to his Oscar nomination for "Rocky," Meredith was also nominated for the best supporting actor in 1975 for his work in "Day of the Locust." He didn't win either time.
In Hollywood, Meredith was known for having a tempestuous personality. In his 1994 autobiography, "So Far, So Good," he wrote that his violent mood swings were diagnosed as an illness called cyclothymia.
He was married four times, including a brief union with film star Paulette Goddard, with whom he starred in the 1940 film "Second Chorus." His other wives included Helen Derby, actress Margaret Perry and dancer Kaja Sundsten.
Meredith starred in the 1939 film version of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and as the Penguin in the 1966 "Batman" televison seires which also spawned a movie. .
"I waddled like a penguin, which seemed rather obvious to do. The touch I liked was that peculiar penguinlike quack I use in my lines," he said.
In his later years, he was often cast as an elderly curmudgeon. He played Jack Lemmon's father in the 1993 comedy "Grumpy Old Men" and its 1995 sequel, "Grumpier Old Men."
"Burgess was not only a marvelous actor, he was one of the dearest human beings I ever knew," Lemmon said. "I will miss him terribly, as will everyone who was ever fortunate enough to know him."
His quirky voice also led to voice-over work in television commercials, including pitches for Untied Air Lines and Skippy peanut butter.
Meredith's fourth wife, his son and daughter were with him when he died. Funeral services were pending, and the body was to be cremated.
Correspondent Ron Tank contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:abcff2da-7ad9-435e-bb66-f06c5d506eb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9709/10/meredith.obit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993593 | 731 | 1.632813 | 2 |
New poll shows Canadians overwhelmingly support public health care
Group says advocates of private system are out of touch with most Canadians
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 12, 2009
Michael McBane, national coordinator, Canadian Health Coalition, (613) 277-6295, www.medicare.ca
OTTAWA, Canada -- In a last-ditch effort to convince Canadians that their public health care system should be privatized, Canadian Medical Association (CMA) President Robert Ouellet has promised to "pull out all the stops" during the association's annual meeting next week. Trouble is, Ouellet's mission to lead the change to privatization is exactly the opposite of what 86 percent of Canadians want.
A new poll conducted by the Toronto-based Nanos Research points to overwhelming support -- 86.2 percent -- for strengthening public health care rather than expanding for-profit services.
"With more than 8 in 10 Canadians supporting public solutions to make public health care stronger, there is compelling evidence that Canadians across all demographics would prefer a public over a for-profit health care system," said Nik Nanos, president of Nanos Research.
Nanos Research was commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC), a nonpartisan group that supports Canada's public health system, to conduct a random telephone survey of 1,001 Canadians between April 25 and May 3. The margin of accuracy for a sample of 1,001 is ±3.1 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Canada's government just released a report titled "Healthy Canadians -- A Federal Report on Comparable Health Indicators 2008." Its findings almost identically mirror the CHC polling results. In that report, a leading indicator points to the fact that "Most Canadians (85.2 percent) aged 15 years and older reported being 'very satisfied' or 'somewhat satisfied' with the way overall health care services were provided, unchanged from 2005."
Michael McBane, national coordinator of the CHC, commented: "Throughout our campaign, Canadians have told us they want to keep our health care system public and to improve it with made-in-Canada solutions. They also have told us they flat-out reject Dr. Ouellet's proposal to provide us with American-style, two-tier medicine. This poll certainly underlines that for us. Eighty-six percent is a significant portion of the population. It is striking that Dr. Ouellet could be so out of touch with the pulse of most Canadians."
McBane warned that Ouellet's latest effort to replace public health care with a private system uses language that is misleading. "If imported into Canada, Dr. Ouellet's ideas about activity-based funding, 'competition' and more private delivery would not yield European-style care, but instead would lead us down the road to U.S.-style care."
McBane continued: "At the CMA's annual meeting later this month, you will hear Ouellet talk about 'patient centered' care, but he really means 'profit-centered' care. He will talk about transformative health care -- which really means transforming a public system to one that is private. He will also unveil results of a CMA survey that he claims shows support for his new privatization scheme. In fact, the language used in the CMA survey was so vague and misleading that its results cannot possible be interpreted as support for more for-profit medicine."
McBane said that Ouellet, who owns or manages five private, for-profit diagnostic clinics, has a history of misleading Canadians. Recently, the CMA president toured Canada touting the merits of what he called the European model of health care -- cobbling together selective pieces of information from different European systems to lull Canadians into accepting the idea of more private, for-profit service.
"Dr. Ouellet needs to stop misleading Canadians and start telling them what he's really up to -- privatizing our health care system," said McBane. "His 'transformational change' agenda is his last kick at the can before becoming the CMA's past-president. Dr. Ouellet's privatized, for-profit vision won't solve a single problem of our public health care -- and more importantly, Canadians don't want it. And they've said this loud and clear."
The Canadian Health Coalition is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting and expanding Canada's public health system for the benefit of all Canadians.
For more information, visit www.medicare.ca.
Physicians for a National Health Program, a membership organization of over 16,000 U.S. physicians, supports a single-payer national health insurance program. It has several authoritative spokespersons who can speak about the new Canadian poll and its significance for the U.S. health care reform debate. | <urn:uuid:da22edc8-1b21-40c4-97af-b8455657c9d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/august/new-poll-shows-canadians-overwhelmingly-support-public-health-care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953142 | 997 | 1.796875 | 2 |
- What is “Bliss”- how is it different from happiness?
Ananda or bliss is defined as “That” which cannot be reduced, or lost. Bliss is not just happiness. Happiness is always the result of some cause or reason, thus it is fleeting. Bliss is the permanent feeling of joy and serenity that exists for no reason, and therefore never dies.
- How is IA different from other programs that promise similar results?
IA offers much more than just the technical knowledge and techniques. Many times, we may feel the inspiration to live in a new way, but are unable to maintain the changes necessary to do so. This is why the major component of the program is the transmittance of the very experience, which can only be done by an enlightened master. When the experiential understanding is imbibed, it will never leave you.
“Once the inner lamp is lit, there can be no return to darkness”
- Is there a significance to the length of the program?
It takes us 21 days for any experience to be understood – to be practiced – to be integrated – to become part of us and part of our daily routine.
- What is 'Living Enlightenment?'
Living enlightenment gives you a new beginning, the clarity to handle life, make decisions out of intuition and live with overflowing joy and gratitude no matter what is happening around you.
“People come to me and say, ‘I have achieved all that I wanted to achieve, but what for I wanted to achieve, I have not achieved. I feel incomplete. Understand this is the call of your being that seeks no other goal except enlightenment.”
- What is an enlightened master?
An enlightened master is a person who has evolved to the highest state of consciousness, the state of enlightenment. He/She has mastered this state and in so doing, is able to share that enlightenment with others.
- Who Can Come?
The program is open to people of all backgrounds, cultures and faiths. The only requirement is the desire for a change – to be open to the possibility of having a renewed sense of self, a healthier body, and a more balanced mind.
- How do I know if this program is for me?
Individuals who attend this program span the gamut. From those who desire to live a stress free life, to those who wish to glimpse the higher conscious state of enlightenment, this program offers something for everyone.
- I feel happy with my life, why do I need this program?
Look deeply into your life. Often the sources of our happiness are external. We feel content when we are comfortable with our relationships, social status, career, or financial stability. When our happiness is contingent on external factors, we will always be carrying an underlying fear that these things will be taken away from us. As long as we live with this fear, we will never experience true freedom. | <urn:uuid:b281ebd7-cc64-4b62-9ce3-1a585ade563a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://innerawakening.org/faq-about-the-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947322 | 604 | 1.695313 | 2 |
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Is there such thing as one true love…I think there is!
A boy came home from Sunday school and His Mother said, "What did you discuss at Church?" The boy said, "Marriage"! His Mother then asked, "What did you learn about marriage?" The little boy thought for a moment and said, "Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for them know not what they do!"
Surely God has better in mind for us!
Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” John 6:67
In John 6, Jesus just fed five thousand people. People are following Jesus like a circus act saying, “Give us bread!” Jesus tells them the bread they want won’t satisfy them. He then says, “I am the bread!” and then he says “Unless you want to eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have eternal life.”
Many people were offended by what he said and many people left. Then He asks the twelve disciples, “Will you leave also?” Peter says “Where else could we go? We have left everything to follow you. You are our life.” When you give up everything for Jesus, there is nothing to go back to. Once you make a commitment, you have gone too far to go back.
Perhaps Jesus knew His hard statement would offend people. Maybe he wanted to weed out the pretenders.
Remember teeter totters? You would hit the ground hard if the other person jumped off. Some of us live on a spiritual teeter totter – in the middle. We believe in God and we like the idea of feeling better. Go to church, sing a song or two, pray, maybe shed a tear, but then we go back to what we were doing. Why is it when an altar call is given for people to commit to Christ, the most committed come and everyone else sits on their…well…
We have too many options. People who truly live for Christ don’t have any options. They have one true love. The reason we can date and even marry people who are not committed to Christ is that Jesus is just one of our options.
The reason we can stand and stare at the wall during worship is that Jesus is just one option.
One of our former students had this on her My Space: "A girl’s heart should be so wrapped up in God that a guy has to seek Him to find her". Jennifer Williams (Jeni Lamb)
Jesus is not an option like pickles and lettuce on a Subway sandwich.
He is the way, the truth, the life… or not
He is the bread of Life or not
He is the Son of God or not
He is not a maybe, or kind of, or sort of
Jesus is not a good man, the big guy upstairs, the “good lord” of NASCAR
He is My Lord and Savior or not
Many believe Jesus is just one religion, but many will work. But we should ask this question, “Does Buddha, Confucius, or Muhammad love us?” Well they don’t and they can’t because they are dead!
It is easier just to say that “I am not committed to Christ” and that lets us off the hook for having to do His will over ours. Being committed to following Christ is not about being perfect or even being good, it is about a personal choice, a decision of faith, determination, desire, and passion.
Bt the way, committment to Christ is good news. Living for God is good for me! Living God’s way and doing His will is for my good. John Piper said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
We will have a moment of truth. Every single person who has ever lived will at some point bow down and acknowledge that
- Call of the Disciples
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Join the discussion | <urn:uuid:25d8d186-636b-4e70-b6d0-000923f4f4b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/one-true-love-charles-wallis-sermon-on-call-of-the-disciples-119245.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954295 | 961 | 1.507813 | 2 |
REDWOOD CITY -- In one Bay Area city, a police officer is now just a click away.
The Redwood City Police Department is trying out a new program -- possibly the first of its kind in the nation -- that allows people to chat online with a police officer.
During business hours Monday through Thursday, residents can hit an online chat button on the police website to launch the software Live Guide. They can ask questions face-to-face over a video link with a headset-wearing officer, or via voice or text.
The program is not a 911 replacement but instead meant to provide quick answers or deal with small disputes, removing the need for officers to respond in person, police Chief JR Gamez said. It was launched June 26.
"It frees our officers up to do more police work in areas that need it," Gamez said.
For example, officers can help residents fill out police reports online. They can take information about a fence location dispute rather than going to the house in person.
The program is staffed by officers who are not in the field, usually because of injuries, Gamez said.
One of the officers who takes calls is Steve Barker, a 13-year veteran with a background in Internet technology. Barker injured his hand while making an arrest.
He said he answers many of the same questions -- as many as 20 in a day -- that he got on the street, but in less time and with more privacy for residents. | <urn:uuid:b90112df-587e-4056-9fe1-57982132d4b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21107506 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964391 | 300 | 1.554688 | 2 |
By Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill – Age of Autism
At its core, the 55-page whistleblower lawsuit unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia makes one stunning allegation – that pharmaceutical giant Merck traded children’s health to protect monopoly profits, and engaged in a systematic, elaborate, and ongoing fraud to do so.
If the charges – which Merck denies – are true, a 12-month-old child getting a recommended shot containing the mumps vaccine at their pediatrician’s office this morning would not be adequately protected from the disease, and could face serious health complications down the road as a result.
The alleged fraud: a multi-year effort to hide the fact that the mumps vaccine is no longer anywhere near as effective as Merck claims. The project was widely known and approved within the company’s vaccine division and even had a name, Protocol 007, according to the two former Merck scientists who filed the suit more than two years ago under the federal whistleblower statute. Virologists Stephen A. Krahling and Joan A. Wlochowski claim they witnessed the fraud firsthand when they worked at the Merck vaccine laboratory in West Point, Pennsylvania, between 1999 and 2002, and were pressured to participate.
They describe a supervisor manually changing test results that showed the vaccine wasn’t working; hurriedly destroying garbage-bags full of evidence to keep the fraud from being exposed; and lying to FDA regulators who came to the lab after being alerted by the whistleblowers. A top Merck vaccine official told Krahling the matter was a “business decision,” the suit says, and he was twice told the company would make sure he went to jail if he told federal regulators the truth.
The alleged fraud occurred because, in order to maintain its license for the mumps-measles-rubella vaccine, known as the MMRII, Merck needed to show that the mumps vaccine was still as potent as when originally approved in 1967 as a single vaccine, able to induce immunity in 95 percent of those vaccinated. That number, according to vaccine authorities, is crucial because it leads to “herd immunity,” protective against outbreaks even among unvaccinated people. The problem with the mumps vaccine lay in the fact that by the late 1990s, after decades of producing it with the original strain of mumps virus, the vaccine’s effectiveness had steadily declined, the suit says.
Merck is the only company licensed in the United States to produce the individual mumps vaccine, as well as the MMRII and a newer shot called the MMRV or ProQuad, which also contains the chickenpox vaccine. That gives Merck an effective monopoly on the product line, which by our estimate has brought the company as much as $10 billion in business since 2000. The complaint conservatively estimates MMRII purchases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at $750 million.
If tests showed the mumps vaccine is ineffective — or far less so than promised — the door would be opened to any number of adverse events for Merck, from federal regulators pulling the licenses for all of its mumps-vaccine-containing products, to intensified competition from other manufacturers if they became aware of the problem.
What’s more, weak efficacy could be triggering real-time, real-world health problems here and abroad, where a version of the MMRII is also used. Mumps outbreaks unexpectedly occurred in the United States in 2006 and in 2009-10, reflecting the three-year cycle in which younger children become exposed. A total of 6,500 cases were reported in a highly vaccinated population in the Midwest in 2006, according to the suit, and another 5,000 cases in 2009; in the years leading up to the first outbreak, the annual average had been 265 cases.
If that pattern holds true, another outbreak might be due as early as this summer.
Additionally, poor vaccine efficacy has the effect of pushing some cases of mumps to a later age, when mumps is a more dangerous disease that can induce sterility in males. One intriguing implication is that no vaccine at all might have been better than the one Merck currently produces.
The suit claims that as a result of the fraud, the U.S. government has been cheated out of millions of dollars paid by the CDC to buy the vaccine for its immunization program. It says the agency, and other government bodies, were wrongly deprived of the knowledge they needed to make proper use of taxpayer money and sound medical decisions. (The CDC predicted several years ago that mumps would be eradicated in the United States by 2010, an outcome predicated on the idea that the vaccine worked.)
The suit describes Merck’s allegedly no-holds-barred effort to protect its market position. “Merck set out to conduct testing of its mumps vaccine that would support its original efficacy finding. In performing this testing, Merck’s objective was to report efficacy of 95 percent or higher regardless of the vaccine’s true efficacy. The only way Merck could accomplish this was through manipulating its testing procedures and falsifying the test results. … Krahling and Wlochowski participated on the Merck team that conducted this testing and witnessed firsthand the fraud in which Merck engaged to reach its desired results. Merck internally referred to the testing as Protocol 007.”
The suit says testing began in 1999, led by Senior Investigator David Krah and his second-in-command, Mary Yagodich. Merck’s Executive Director of Vaccine Research, Alan Shaw, approved the testing methodology, the suit says. Krahling said he complained about the fraud to Emilio Emini, Vice President of Merck’s Vaccine Research Division, and brought “actual testing samples and plaque counting sheets to demonstrate to Emini the fraudulent data that Krah was directing. Emini agreed that Krah had falsified the data,” the suit said, but defended some aspects of the work.
“Emini promised to conduct an ‘internal audit’ of the mumps testing. … Emini ordered Krahling not to call the FDA. Immediately after the meeting [a Human Resources representative] approached Krahling and again threatened that he would be put in jail if he contacted the FDA.” Shortly thereafter, Krahling was transferred to another lab, and soon left the company; Wlochowski was also transferred and left the next year. (In 2005, Emini became Executive Vice President of Vaccine Research and Development at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. He is now Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Vaccine Research at Pfizer.)
The suit describes how Merck scientists allegedly engaged in a number of techniques in order to claim that the vaccine remained effective, from essentially testing the vaccine against itself – using the weakened vaccine virus rather than the more virulent “wild” type to which children are exposed in the real world — to adding animal antibodies that increased potency in lab tests; to, when all else failed, simply changing the data accurately recorded by Krahling, Wlochowski, and other virologists.
While many of the details of the alleged fraud are technical, one internal Merck document clearly describes the nature of the mission, according to the suit. It was titled: “Objective: Identify a mumps neutralization assay format [testing procedure] that permits measurement of a greater than or equal to 95% seroconversion rate in MMRII vaccines.”
Merck responded Friday that the suit is “completely without merit” and said the company will “vigorously defend” itself – presumably by quickly filing a motion to have the suit dismissed. Merck pointedly noted that, to date, the U.S. Department of Justice has not joined the suit.
Under the federal whistleblower statute, anyone can bring a whistleblower suit alleging that a business they worked for defrauded the United States government and, by extension, taxpayers. Such a suit remains sealed while the company has a chance to review it, and Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys decide whether to join as plaintiffs, throwing the government’s weight behind the whistleblower’s claim that it was defrauded.
In this case the DOJ did not reach its decision on whether to join as a plaintiff quickly or definitively. The lengthy period between the filing of the suit by Krah and Wlochowski, on April 27, 2010, and the department’s decision not to intervene for the time being, on April 27, 2012, required the DOJ to request multiple six-month extensions, according to the civil docket for the case, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In its statement declining to intervene, the department asked that if either side wants to settle or dismiss the case, “the court solicit the written consent of the United States before ruling or granting its approval.”
The mumps component of the combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has long been a source of controversy. Merck was first to market in the category introducing a vaccine named MMR in 1971, using a strain of mumps taken from the throat of a Merck scientist’s daughter named “Jeryl Lynn.” (In 1979, Merck replaced the MMR’s rubella component due to safety concerns and named the reformulated vaccine MMRII). Starting in 1986, the first serious competitors to Merck’s vaccine began to emerge based on a different mumps component: the so-called Urabe strain, which was first licensed by Japan’s Biken Institute in 1979. Urabe-based vaccines were licensed in countries all over the world, including Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, to name just a few. For many years, however, Merck was able maintained its advantage in the category by outpacing the performance of Urabe-based MMR vaccines.
Merck’s main advantage came from its superior safety reputation. One of the most troublesome adverse events for MMR vaccines, aseptic meningitis, is a serious and potentially fatal side effect of vaccination. According to a major textbook on vaccines, “the Urabe strain has been linked with aseptic meningitis wherever adverse reactions have been studied.” By contrast, according to another review cited in the complaint, “aseptic meningitis, the Achilles heel of mumps vaccines, has never been documented to be caused by Jeryl Lynn.” In country after country, introduction of Urabe-based MMR vaccines have spawned outbreaks of aseptic meningitis and prompted withdrawal of the suspect MMR vaccine. In several of these cases, Merck’s MMRII has been the primary beneficiary.
Some researchers have argued, however, that the superior safety profile of MMRII comes at the expense of reduced efficacy. According to the authors above, “a mathematical model using the Urabe or Jeryl Lynn strains, suggested that … the greater apparent safety … associated with the Jeryl Lynn strain is offset by the potentially greater effectiveness associated with the Urabe strain.”
In light of these competitive threats to its highly successful MMRII franchise, it’s not surprising that asking Merck scientists to oversee testing of the efficacy of its own mumps vaccine would create a conflict of interest, not to mention an incentive to cheat on the test, if the underlying efficacy of the vaccine was weak.
The DOJ’s decision also points to another unavoidable but potentially troubling conflict of interest – the department is part of the same Executive Branch of government as the FDA and CDC. Under the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA and CDC approve, recommend, and monitor vaccines, and they have repeatedly certified mumps-containing vaccines as effective. Allowing an alleged fraud to go on under their noses, involving a vaccine to which they are strongly committed, might not be something they would care to acknoweldge.
The fate of the lawsuit notwithstanding, serious new questions about children’s health are now in the public domain. It will be worth watching whether regulators or legislators here or abroad ask Merck for convincing, current evidence that the mumps vaccine is working as promised, and that the public’s health remains protected.
Dan Olmsted is Editor and Mark Blaxill is Editor at Large of AgeofAutism.com. They are co-authors of The Age of Autism – Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic, published in 2010 by Thomas Dunne Books. | <urn:uuid:9dc572da-7141-4fc2-886b-4c5fd466cb2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://therefusers.com/refusers-newsroom/protocol-007-merck-scientists-accuse-company-of-mumps-vaccine-fraud-that-endangers-public-health-age-of-autism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966032 | 2,602 | 1.765625 | 2 |
- Last Updated: 3:24 AM, March 20, 2013
- Posted: 1:01 AM, March 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Statue of Liberty will reopen by July Fourth, the US Interior Department announced yesterday.
Liberty Island has been closed since Hurricane Sandy struck in October, causing the loss of 400 jobs and hurting the city’s tourism trade.
“Lady Liberty was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy, but just like New York, she’ll be back stronger than ever,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, who pushed for the reopening.
The storm took out much of the infrastructure on the island. | <urn:uuid:e72b20d7-5521-45a8-beed-eebab8a15fc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/lady_liberty_th_coming_Ul55DuUzjyjPEqGJienKFI | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969761 | 133 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Pineapple and Weight Loss – A Growing Trend Among Dieters in 2013
With a growing number of people interested in losing weight, it is only natural for all possible avenues to be explored. For this reason, a growing number of people are considering a pineapple diet and all that it can do for them. This may not be the best decision for every dieter, but many are realizing that the use of this fruit can put them on the right track to success.
Although most people don’t know much about pineapple weight loss when they get started, it is something that should be a major point of interest for anybody who is hoping to shed pounds without losing momentum. This is not just another fad diet. It has been proven successful time and time again by people from all over the world.
There are many reasons why Pineapple And Weight Loss go together hand in hand. Above all else, this is one of the healthiest fruits that somebody can eat. Along with this, it is well known for its ability to aid in the digestive process by effectively breaking down proteins. With this in mind, those who turn to a pineapple diet soon find that they are well on their way to not only losing weight but to also feeling better in no time at all.
It is also important to note that adding pineapple to a daily diet is a simple process. To get started, dieters should simply begin eating pineapple anytime they have a craving for something that is not good for them, such as a candy bar. This is the perfect replacement.
There are many people who get started eating pineapple, just to find that they are beginning to lose weight before they ever thought possible.
A spokesperson for bobmillerwrites.com had this to say:
“One of the nicest things about pineapple weight loss is that you don’t have to deal with a lot of complicated details. This is not one of those diets that require the user to change their life upside down. Instead, they can simply replace bad food with a pineapple. It does not get much easier than that.”
Additionally, buying pineapple will not cause financial stress.
“There are a lot of diets that cost too much money,” said the same spokesperson for bobmillerwrites.com. “This should not be the case. Instead, people should be able to get started with their diet without having to overspend.”
There has never been a better time than now to get involved with pineapple weight loss. If nothing else, this is something that most people should try if they have yet to find success with another diet plan. This one dietary change could be the difference between success and failure, and that is what matters the most.
Anybody who is looking for a new approach to weight loss should take the time to focus heavily on the benefits and advantages of pineapple. Many are surprised to learn just how much this can do for them.
For more information and to get started, visit bobmillerwrites.com/weightlossplan.htm online today. | <urn:uuid:8926bc8e-600c-4820-9039-5cfaced3168f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pressreleaseprint.com/health/pineapple-and-weight-loss-a-growing-trend-among-dieters-in-2013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970298 | 628 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The hackers replaced the site's content with a video denouncing the government and praising the 26-year-old co-founder of Reddit, who hanged himself two weeks ago as his trial date for allegedly hacking into an MIT computer network neared. Swartz, who was accused of illegally downloading academic articles, faced up to 30 years in prison.
Swartz had long promoted open access of information on the Web.
Anonymous said it deliberately hacked the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s website to call attention to “the federal sentencing guidelines which enable prosecutors to cheat citizens of their constitutionally-guaranteed right to a fair trial.”
FOR THE RECORD:
Sentencing commission: In the Jan. 27 Section A, an article about Internet activists hacking into the U.S. Sentencing Commission's website described it as a Department of Justice site. The commission is not part of the Department of Justice; it is an independent agency in the judicial branch of government. —
The FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response Services branch put out a statement Saturday: “We were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation. We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network.”
The almost 10-minute video declared that “a line was crossed” when Swartz, facing what Anonymous called “a twisted and distorted perversion of justice,” decided to kill himself. The hackers decided they had to do something for Swartz, adding that “several more of our brethren now face similar disproportionate persecution.”
As word of the hacking jolted around the Web, some saw an opportunity for advocacy. A tweet attributed only to “Anonymous” linked to Congress’ website and encouraged people to contact their representatives and ask them to support an evolving piece of legislation already known as “Aaron’s law.”
Last week, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) put a draft of a bill that would limit the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 law that prosecutors used to help lodge their case against Swartz.
Activists and Swartz’s family have publicly blamed Swartz’s suicide on the government. Last week, Bob Swartz, Aaron’s father, said he thinks his son “was hounded to his death by a system and a set of attorneys that still don’t understand the nature of what they did.”
In another recent case, Anonymous leaked a video of people said to be from the Ohio high school where two football players face rape charges. | <urn:uuid:3e2972fb-570f-4b0e-bb51-f73285d18c8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-anonymous-hackers-swartz-20130126,0,3721767.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971859 | 547 | 1.601563 | 2 |
2_Chronicles Chapter 18 - New International Version
1. Now Jehoshaphat had great wealth and honor, and he allied himself with Ahab by marriage.
2. Some years later he went down to visit Ahab in Samaria. Ahab slaughtered many sheep and cattle for him and the people with him and urged him to attack Ramoth Gilead.
3. Ahab king of Israel asked Jehoshaphat king of Judah, "Will you go with me against Ramoth Gilead?" Jehoshaphat replied, "I am as you are, and my people as your people; we will join you in the war."
4. But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, "First seek the counsel of the LORD."
5. So the king of Israel brought together the prophets--four hundred men--and asked them, "Shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Go," they answered, "for God will give it into the king's hand."
6. But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there not a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?"
7. The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, "There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah." "The king should not say that," Jehoshaphat replied.
8. So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said, "Bring Micaiah son of Imlah at once."
9. Dressed in their royal robes, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor by the entrance to the gate of Samaria, with all the prophets prophesying before them.
10. Now Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had made iron horns, and he declared, "This is what the LORD says: `With these you will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.'"
11. All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. "Attack Ramoth Gilead and be victorious," they said, "for the LORD will give it into the king's hand."
12. The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, "Look, as one man the other prophets are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably."
13. But Micaiah said, "As surely as the LORD lives, I can tell him only what my God says."
14. When he arrived, the king asked him, "Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Attack and be victorious," he answered, "for they will be given into your hand."
15. The king said to him, "How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?"
16. Then Micaiah answered, "I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the LORD said, `These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.'"
17. The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Didn't I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?"
18. Micaiah continued, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing on his right and on his left.
19. And the LORD said, `Who will entice Ahab king of Israel into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?' "One suggested this, and another that.
20. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, `I will entice him.' "`By what means?' the LORD asked.
21. "`I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,' he said. "`You will succeed in enticing him,' said the LORD. `Go and do it.'
22. "So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you."
23. Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. "Which way did the spirit from the LORD go when he went from me to speak to you?" he asked.
24. Micaiah replied, "You will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room."
25. The king of Israel then ordered, "Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon the ruler of the city and to Joash the king's son,
26. and say, `This is what the king says: Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely.'"
27. Micaiah declared, "If you ever return safely, the LORD has not spoken through me." Then he added, "Mark my words, all you people!"
28. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead.
29. The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes." So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.
30. Now the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders, "Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel."
31. When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they thought, "This is the king of Israel." So they turned to attack him, but Jehoshaphat cried out, and the LORD helped him. God drew them away from him,
32. for when the chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel, they stopped pursuing him.
33. But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told the chariot driver, "Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I've been wounded."
34. All day long the battle raged, and the king of Israel propped himself up in his chariot facing the Arameans until evening. Then at sunset he died.[read chapter] | <urn:uuid:88999b27-e46e-4649-a442-cc615b55b9e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigchurch.com/p/bible/read.cgi?who=r,v2I1wCEPaD_aJy5eBPKVV75q_tcNTMR9LmSa0TyF8tB8yAwCbNPMn4d21SFZSty367ONnZDunaG1kcCTX00l541lhj3y/B/Ms8fGkJMmUjJRw0lBEdUagCOvPUo9xHEE&cv=18&version=niv&book=2_Chronicles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970841 | 1,355 | 1.710938 | 2 |
|Coronation Grape Foccacia|
As foodies we gather our inspiration from many different sources. Perhaps a new cookbook or magazine, a cooking show, a stunning meal at a restaurant or dinner at a friends home sends the imaginary wheels within our mind turning. Wherever our ideas come from recipes creep into our heart and soul and ultimately make it to the table for the ones we love. I often have ideas lurking in the back of my mind and sometimes a real winner surfaces.
The idea for this particular bread came from several sources. When first arriving at our earth shattering cuisine du terroir dinner on God's Mountain placed on the table were stunning savoury Coronation grape fougasse. These were a tease for what was to come as well as dispelling any hunger pangs we might be experiencing since eating at noon. Secondly I have been wanting to recreate a recipe from David Rocco called Schiacciata. It's a traditional bread seen all over Italy in September and October in celebration of the grape harvest. Tuscans make this not-too-sweet dessert or snack of bread dough and grapes, said to be of Etruscan origin sprinkled with sugar. I wanted the sweetness of the grapes but wanted to lean more heavily on the savoury side with the addition of garlic and rosemary. Therefore my Coronation Grape Foccacia was born which would keep my foot in both the sweet and the savoury camps.
The combination of fruit and herbs is one that’s been lurking at the edge of the popular food world for several years. And while professional chefs at cutting-edge restaurants may be successfully marketing basil ice cream and strawberries in fennel-seed sauce, the concept hasn’t quite caught on here at home beyond pepper and balsamic vinegar to mascerate strawberries. Most of us tend to pair sweet stuff with spices and savoury with herbs, with the occasional maverick like lavender floating somewhere in the middle.
I decided to take one of many tentative step towards culinary freedom today, when I first tasted a mild, soft focaccia with a touch of red wine studded with grapes pressed lightly into the dough, scented with rosemary and garlic and sprinked lightly with sea salt. Your guests will love the surprise of each bite.
The fall grape harvest is in the air and the wonderfully aromatic violet-blue Coronation grapes are market ready here in the Okanagan Valley. These sweet, incredibly intense grapes make this bread what it is and while it may be traditional to use wine grapes, I don't think I would appreciate that bit of roughage from the seeds here. The grapes cook on top of the bread, bursting their juices into the dough which absorbs it, some of the juices caramelize on the outer edges providing a smokey caramel flavour to the sweet collapsed grapes on top. Rosemary adds a savoury note and a generous sprinkling of salt adds to the flavour. What you end up with is a simple, puffy bread, full of the goodness of the grapes and one of those dishes that simply screams autumn harvest.
We were lucky enough to receive an abundant gift of apples, pears and coronation grapes from one of our patients at work. For those of you who don't know my 9 - 5 job is working at several doctors offices. When you have too many Coronation grapes for words freeze them!!! Freezing grapes is simple. Wash, dry and de-stem grapes. Pack in airtight containers and freeze. No sugar is required because the natural high sugar and acid level in British Columbia Coronation Grapes act as a natural preservative. Your kids and teething babies can eat them as a snack right from the freezer. Frozen grapes can replace fresh grapes in every recipe as they retain their intense colour and flavour and hold their shape when thawed.
This weekend was the beginning of the annual Okanagan Fall Wine Festival. This celebration of the harvest is a perfect marriage of wine and culinary tourism. For the next ten days in October, it offers a tantalizing experience for anyone who loves fabulous wine accompanied by fine cuisine. And what better way to announce grape growing season than to hold a Festival during harvest season! Fall is the perfect time in the Okanagan to watch the grapes ripen in the sun and indulge yourself. During the festival you can experience vineyard tours, lunches, dinners, events and the fall wine harvest at over 100 wineries in the valley. For the next 10 days guests and locals enjoy their choice of over 165 events throughout the valley which are focused on wine, food, education and the arts in one of North America's most spectacular settings.
Thanks to our emerging reputation as a destination for serious wine connoisseurs (plus the fact that we have easy access to hiking, beaches and powder skiing) Frommer's has named the Okanagan Valley a Top Travel Destination with the Okanagan Wine Festival one of the top 100 events in North America. You'll find the majority of British Columbia's wineries and vineyards nestled in the Okanagan Valley....we have at least 100 at last count. Hot, dry weather, sheltering mountains and rich soil blend to create one of North America's most productive wine regions next to the Niagara region in Ontario. The picturesque backdrop to many of these wineries is worth the visit alone with lush vineyards and soaring views. Some wineries are open year-round for tours and tastings, however, most wine-related activities occur spring through fall.
I will be cooking with wine all this week until October 10th in celebration of the harvest...even with one of my favourite comfort foods...macaroni and cheese. So stay tuned to see what I come up with.
**Coronation Grape Foccacia**
heavily adapted from a recipe by Anna Olson
2 1/2 teaspoons (1 pkg) instant dry yeast
3 tablespoons dry red wine
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup tepid water (just above body temperature)
2 ½ to 3 cups Italian "00" flour OR 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour and 1 to 1 ½ cups pastry flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup Ontario Coronation grapes, washed, stemmed ( 250 mL)
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh rosemary(30 mL)
1-2 cloves garlic, cut into slivers
Sea salt to taste
Stir together yeast, wine, honey, and warm water in a large bowl. Stir in 1 cup flour (mixture will be lumpy). Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in draft-free place about 40 minutes, until doubled in size.
Add ¼ cup olive oil, 1 ½ cups flour, and salt and stir until a sticky dough forms. Knead dough on a floured work surface; gradually adding up to 1/2 cup more flour if necessary to keep dough from sticking, until dough is smooth and elastic but still soft, 8 to 10 minutes (I prefer doing this by hand, instead of in a mixer). Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise an hour, until doubled in size.
Sprinkle a 6″ square of flour on the counter. Use a scraper to transfer the sticky dough to the bed of flour, then dust the top of the dough liberally. Pat the dough into a rectangle and rest it 5 minutes.
Coat your hands with flour and stretch the dough from each end to twice its size. Fold it into thirds, letter style, back into it’s original rectangle shape. Mist with oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Let rest 30 minutes.
Repeat the stretch and fold 2 more times, allowing the dough to rest for 30 minutes in between. After the last fold, allow the covered dough to ferment on the counter for 1 hour. It will swell, but not necessarily double in size.
Line a sheet pan with parchment or wax paper, drizzle with ¼ cup olive oil and spread it with your hands. Gently transfer the dough to the pan using your oiled hands and scraper.
Use your fingertips to dimple the dough and spread it to fill the pan. Avoid tearing or ripping the dough. If the dough becomes too springy, allow it to rest 10 minutes before continuing. Fill the pan as well as you can, keeping a uniform thickness. (If not using right away loosely cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or for up to 3 days. Remove the pan from the fridge 3 hours before baking.) Gently push the grapes down into the dough; you want them semi-buried, not just resting on top. Drizzle with oil as desired, and dimple it in. In each dimple alternate slivered garlic and small sprigs of rosemary. Cover again, and allow to proof at room temp for 3 hours or until the dough doubles in size. Sprinkle liberally with coarse salt.
Preheat the temperature to 450° F. Bake foccaccia for 10 minutes; rotate the pan 180°, then bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
Remove from the oven, and transfer the foccacia from the pan to a cooling rack. Peel the parchment from the bottom of the dough. Cool 15 minutes before serving.
You are reading this post on More Than Burnt Toast at http://morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the author/owner of More Than Burnt Toast. All rights reserved by Valerie Harrison. | <urn:uuid:16b47387-a705-4ffe-a262-1b0d841b0fb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com/2010/10/coronation-grape-foccacia-new-seasonal.html?showComment=1286145598819 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940386 | 1,994 | 1.59375 | 2 |
|by Jay Heater, Editor of the Journal Review • December 17, 2008|
It was late summer in 1997 when Gary Stull dropped off an exchange student at the Crawfordsville train station. Getting off that train, bags in hand, was another young man who was ready to walk to Wabash College.
"He needed a lift," Stull said. Little did Stull know at the time, but it was the young man who provided an amazing, inspirational lift.
Ashraf Haidari, now the political counselor for the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., had experienced the horrors of a home country in conflict. He decided not only to survive that devastation, but to rise above it.
Haidari’s dream to "make a global impact" received a huge jump-start by his acceptance as an undergraduate student to Wabash.
On Tuesday, the 33-year-old Haidari visited Stull, along with many other friends and former professors at Wabash. He was scheduled to speak to National Guard soldiers at Camp Atterbury today.
"Ash needed a ride from the train station (in 1997) and that started our relationship," said Stull, who now is retired from Kroger. "We hit it off right from the start. He was young and vulnerable, and he had some needs."
Knowing that Haidari was from Afghanistan and had no contacts here in Crawfordsville, the Stulls (wife Patricia, son Aaron, daughter Rebekah) decided to become the freshman’s "host family."
"We are now so close, I don’t feel good about saying host," Haidari said. "They are my family."
Stull felt a father’s pride as he watched Haidari climb life’s rungs to position himself as a major player on Afghanistan’s changing landscape. A huge admirer of Mohandas Gandhi, Stull said he sees Haidari influencing change in a similar way ... through his deeds, one person at a time if necessary.
At the current time, Haidari travels the United States, thanking solders for making potentially the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring peace to an area once forgotten by the world. He also explains to both soldiers and to U.S. citizens in general how their intervention has put Afghanistan on the road to recovery.
"Making the ultimate sacrifice for your own country is difficult," Haidari said. "To do it for a country overseas, thousands of miles away ...serving in the mountains and the deserts for days and months to help secure a country for a very suffering people ... is amazing.
"I tell the soldiers that we are very optimistic (in Afghanistan). We’re resilient. I emphasize that this will be a success story. I have had U.S. soldiers come to me and say, ‘My heart is with your people. I am happy to help secure Afghanistan."
Haidari urges the U.S. to double its efforts in Afghanistan in order to produce a government that ultimately will be strong enough to stand on its own for years to come.
To this point, he has not seen a strong government in his home country. Growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan’s largest city, Haidari worked as a street vendor as an early teen, selling grocery items so his family could eat. The city, meanwhile, was under siege. The Hezbe Islami shelled the city starting in 1993 for three years. Haidari’s family fled to Mazar-e Sharif.
"I realized the only way to get out was to learn English," Haidari said. "Our schools kept switching from Russian to English and back and there were few English books. I found an old Oxford Dictionary with some of the first pages missing. It was English to Dari (Persian). I started to memorize it and build my vocabulary."
Haidari would watch for U.N. workers and would chase them down on the street to ask questions in English. Eventually, as a teen-ager, he managed to land a job with the U.N. He kept working his contacts until he received the opportunity to attend college in the United States.
Those contacts put him in touch with Dr. Whitney Azoy of Lawrenceville School of New Jersey. One of Azoy’s former students was Waseel Azizi, a 1995 Wabash graduate from Afghanistan. Azoy told Haidari that Wabash would be a great fit.
The fit would only happen if Haidari could get a VISA. With no real government in place in Afghanistan, Haidari tried every avenue to earn entrance into the United States. With the help of Joan Kudlaty, the assistant director of admissions at Wabash at that time, Haidari negotiated the maze.
"I landed in New York City and I thought Crawfordsville was going to be just about the same," Haidari said. "Then I got here. It was quiet and peaceful. Of course, once I stepped on campus already behind two weeks into the semester, I found that it was quiet and peaceful outside of campus. Inside Wabash, you were always busy 24 hours a day if you truly were focused."
While at Wabash, Haidari soaked in information so that he could work to help his home country. "Wabash teaches you to serve others, to make a global impact," he said. "They teach you how to stretch your horizons and your goals. You can go as far as you want to go."
Stull watched the young man progress even in the face of some adversity. Obviously, he didn’t have the look of a local.
"I saw the face of how people do not understand," Stull said. "Sometimes I thought to myself, ‘My gosh, I can’t believe this still goes on.’ "
Stull talked about watching Haidari struggle through security while traveling. "He’s from a terrorist state, so he must be a terrorist," Stull said. "There is not a more peace loving man in this world.
"I am glad my children were exposed to him."
Haidari’s toughest time at Wabash came during his sophomore year, when his father, Shafi, and his brothers, Rafi and Muhammad, were picked out for ethnic cleansing to be killed.
"Our neighbors were being systematically shot," he said. "But my family was not Hazara and they were spared."
His family, including his mother, Najiba, and his sister, Farah, fled Afghanistan to Pakistan. For four months, Haidari had no idea whether they were alive or dead, until one day he finally received word from Pakistan.
He pressed forward at Wabash. He credits the help of professors such as David Blix and Melissa Butler with pushing him ahead.
Eventually, Haidari earned a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown along with his bachelor’s in political science from Wabash. He began working for Afghanistan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad in 2004 and became the embassy’s political counselor in 2006. He is now married to his wife, Lina, and they have a 2-year-old son, Arman.
"I am looking for a leadership role that will allow me to do more in the most effective way possible," Haidari said. "When the Taliban was brutalizing our people, most people only hoped for survival. I was one of the young Afghans who were self-teaching in the hope of making it to the U.S. Now I want to truly give back to both countries. I’ve been a refugee through internal displacement. But I’ve also been part of a country that has given me the skills, education and facilities to bring cultures together.
"We have to learn global citizenship and that we are connected in so many ways. Our world is shrinking. If we think globally, we will know that caring for others means caring for ourselves." | <urn:uuid:9c044ed6-b364-4dff-926a-151fda6ef63c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wabash.edu/news/displaystory.cfm?news_ID=6543 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985868 | 1,697 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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I have taken my first cuttings from a hardy Fuchsia which i bought last year.
The cutting had roots coming out of the bottom of the pots within 2 weeks, i potted them on and they have now flowered with 8 weeks of cutting, on a window sil.
Is this odd? when can i plant them out? they are getting quite big now.
Not now-and if they have been kept indoors they will not like the chilly conditions out doors
You will be better to keep them ticking over until next spring then plant them out -deeper than they are in the pot
Thank you very much for your reply. Will keep them in until the spring then
And...you could use it as a stock plant to take more cuttings from!...
One usually take cuttings from fuchsias in the Spring as this gives them time in the soil to build up a good root system. As these are late ones I agree with the advice to leave them in the greenhouse over Winter and plant them out next year.
I've inherited a rather grotty hanging fuchsia - a lot more woody stalk than leaves - with absolutely stunning flowers. I've never yet had a fuchsia survive the winter (it's in a pot and I don't have a greenhouse) so I'd love to take cuttings and try to have a new plant next year. However, there are very few bits of leaf growth that I could use as a cutting, and they're very short (a centimetre or so) and not even very straight.
Does anyone have any advice?
Yes Karen, as I said before, the Spring is the best time for cuttings. Even if you don't have a greenhouse, find it some shelter somewhere, a shed, garage, porch or in the spare (unheated) bedroom. Water very very sparingly during the Winter. Next Spring when it warms up, bring it out into the daylight and begin to water not too much to start with. When the shoots start to appear, take a few cuttings. These need be no longer and an inch and will root quickly. My mother used to put her cuttings into 2" cubes of Oasis and kept wet. The roots would eventually appear through the sides of the cube so then she would pot them up.
Any window sill space, conservatory or porch? Unheated/cool sapre room?
Too late to try cuttings now- November next week! It'll probably drop most of its' leaves as the light levels fall. I'd keep it on the dry side too & then restart next spring & take cuttings then as PaulN says.
If being stored in a shed/outhouse is the only option, then I'd wrap the pot to protect the roots & strip off the leaves, to prevent botrytis setting in, & cover with some fleece & keep almost dry over the winter months. J.
Well, I say the same! Fuschias do seem to be healthier than they were 2 - 3 years ago. They were always mottled with disease and did not thrive. I stopped buying them at garden centres and/or online. THIS year however I have had wonderful fuschias, especially the giant flowered variety which are currently still flowering outside. I will bring them into my porch or the potting shed, where I use low heat overnight. Winter 2011/12 was the first year I used a parrafin heater. It paid for itself keeping cuttings growing on and geraniums from `damping-off`. I take cutting all year round and have fuschia cuttings in water to encourage root growth prior to planting in potting compost. I have cuttings of Verbena B and Lollipop, also with root growth. All my fuschia, pelagoniums etc stay in pots all years being potted into ever bigger pots. I feel the plant food stays in the plant rather than draining thro the surrounding soil. I say "whatever you fancy doing, make it work". Enjoy!
Thanks for your responses and the advice on getting the plant through the winter. I know it is almost November (aargh) but the fuschia is still flowering so I figured it must be happy enough. The immediate issue is that I'd like to take some cuttings in case it *doesn't* survive the winter - but maybe I've just left it too late. I guess I'll give it a try anyway, just in case. I have my cuttings on a windowsill but it's right over a radiator and also gets pretty warm if the sun does decide to shine. I gather from another thread that the temperature mustn't be too high.
For the plant itself, I have an uninsulated garage but there's next to no light in there - would that be better than indoors? Even my spare room is not particularly cool. As for 'water sparingly' - stupid question, but what does that mean? And if it's going to lose all its leaves anyway, how do I know it's still alive? Or do I just keep watering it as an act of faith and wait until springtime to discover if it's alive?
Can you tell I'm a novice?
As regards the watering-what is meant by sparingly is virtually nothing at all- you let it dry out- but not dust dry- and then just give it a dribble -what you don't want is a plant- that is not actively growing- sitting in a load of damp cold compost-you are just trying to keep the plant ticking over in the winter.
Thanks Geoff, thats very helpful. I'll give it a whirl.
Karen - I always trim my fuchsia plants back a bit at the end of the summer and take all the foliage off,too. I am lucky that I have a greenhouse but if I didn't I would put my plant on a light windowsill for the winter and check every few days for the watering- keeping the plant just ticking over.By Spring there should be lots of new growth that would make lovely cuttings
Pam LL x
And as for no light in your garage, so what? It won't need light. The leaves and flowers will have been picked off if you've followed advice or dropped off if you haven't. The plant will go into it's dormant period, it is resting. And as for 'water sparingly', thats been answered above. It's a HARDY fuchsia which means in the ground it will stand the winter outside. In a pot, in your garage, you won't need to concern yourself with taking cuttings..
Thanks again for all inputs. Actually I've hijacked someone else's topic, and I don't know if this is a hard fuchsia or not. I decided to take the cuttings nonetheless because if the plant dies I definitely won't be able to take them in the spring! I doubt the plant or the cuttings will surviive, but I'll know more for next time.
I'm slightly confused about the differences of opinion regarding light, but if temperature is important then the garage will be a better option than anywhere in the house.
Will try to explain Karen-I don't see any differences of opinion
If you gave cuttings- therefore green growth- they need light
Paul's reference was to a plant with no foliage -so it does not necessarily need light-until you kick it back into growth.
Oh, duh! Thanks! | <urn:uuid:c59fc5d0-2460-4934-b173-b42605388673> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/plants/fuchsia-cuttings/5705.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977509 | 1,582 | 1.84375 | 2 |
PARIS — Dealt a humiliating vote of no confidence by French voters, Prime Minister Alain Juppe said Monday that he will step down from office if the country returns his beleaguered center-right coalition to power.
Juppe's desperate gesture, the first resignation tendered by a French prime minister in the thick of a political campaign, had appeared all but inevitable after the current government was swamped in the first stage of a two-round parliamentary election Sunday.
But the pledge by the former foreign minister, who is shown by polls to be the most unpopular prime minister since France's Fifth Republic was founded in 1958, may be too little, too late to save his coalition's chances.
"If the election were held today, the left would win," said Alain Duhamel, one of France's best-known political analysts, earlier Monday.
Former Socialist Culture Minister Jack Lang called Juppe's self-sacrifice "the sign of panic in the face of the massive, unprecedented rejection that the government got yesterday."
In elections Sunday, Juppe's outgoing ruling coalition won slightly less than 30% of the popular vote, the worst showing by the mainstream right in nearly four decades, according to official returns from the Ministry of the Interior issued Monday. The other 70% went to parties hostile to the government, with the biggest chunk--23.5%--grabbed by the Socialists.
After discreetly calling on President Jacques Chirac, who is empowered by the constitution to appoint the prime minister, or head of government, Juppe made his declaration to a meeting of the joint campaign committee of his neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic party and its coalition partner, the Union for French Democracy.
"Voters just sent us a serious warning," Juppe said. Defending the record of his government, appointed May 18, 1995, and reshuffled the following November, he said it was time for "a new step, animated by a new prime minister."
"As for me, as chief of your majority, I will carry on the combat until the end, that is to say, until the success that is within our reach. After that, I will reckon of course that my task has been completed," said Juppe, winded after having bounded up the stairs at campaign headquarters on Paris' Right Bank.
Juppe had become notorious for his aloof political stance in announcing austerity measures, and for his propensity to then backtrack in the face of large, paralyzing strikes and other signs of widespread discontent over his policies.
The balding native of the Landes pine forests of southwestern France rapidly came to epitomize the arrogant technocrats whom the French, beset by nagging high unemployment and a sense that their society has come unstuck, more and more resent.
Under the French system, the prime minister must be able to secure a majority in parliament, but he or she--there has been one woman, Socialist Edith Cresson, in 1991-92--customarily serves as a safety valve for the president and can be sacrificed for reasons of tactical or electoral expediency. However, Chirac and Juppe, party comrades in the neo-Gaullist movement, formed a tandem of unprecedented closeness, and Chirac seemed stubbornly wed to his loyal protege, even when opinion polls consistently showed that Juppe had become one of the most unpopular public figures in France.
Juppe's departure will allow the center-right to make a more convincing case that its policies, if it is reelected, will lead to change. "If the French think France will be governed differently, they will give wider support to our majority," former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing said Monday night.
Lang, the former Socialist minister, countered that "the French won't be the dupes of a last-minute bluff, which consists of replacing one head by another, when what has been condemned is not a man, but a policy, a method of government and a vision of society."
The extreme-right National Front, which received 14.94% of the ballots cast Sunday, was still being cagey Monday about its tactics for the upcoming second round, which will take place next Sunday. Party President Jean-Marie Le Pen said Monday evening that the Front will keep 133 candidates in the running in districts where they qualified for the runoff by winning 12.5% of the registered vote, thus further whittling down the chance for a renewed center-right majority. Duhamel called that decision "murderous" for the government's hopes for reelection.
Le Pen also made light of Juppe's fate, using a salty image from his native Brittany. It's "a practice among sailors, when the ship is leaking all over, that they try to lighten the skiff by throwing overboard people considered heavyweight," he said. Chirac had improved on that practice, Le Pen continued, by getting Juppe to jump himself. "It's a maritime version of hara-kiri," he said.
If the left wins a majority of seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, Chirac will be forced to share power with a Socialist prime minister, presumably Lionel Jospin, the party's first secretary.
The widely unexpected result of the election caused French equity markets to plunge Monday, with the CAC-40 index at the Paris bourse dropping nearly 4%. Though the market had fared well recently under Juppe and his government's policies, gaining 19.31% this year as of Friday, observers said what investors fear most is not the return to government of the French left but the climate of uncertainty that will result if no clear majority emerges after the second round. | <urn:uuid:fe0f07a3-5f4e-4588-9d30-279856f83bc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/1997-05-27/news/mn-62970_1_prime-minister | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977189 | 1,192 | 1.59375 | 2 |
When I first started SteelOrchids.com it was as a budding young jewellery designer, and the site was a platform for my handcrafted silver and beadwork designs. It only morphed into an online jewellers when I had a baby and realised that being surrounded by chemicals and the terrifying choke-hazard of tiny beads was no longer practical!
Now that my little boy is school-age I’m finding the time to start indulging in my true love of jewellery design once more. Remembering how difficult it can be to get started with jewellery making I thought I would share my knowledge – I hope you find it useful.
How to get started: Courses, Tutorials and Books
I remember when I first decided to take the step from just loving jewellery to actually making it, and it was really hard to know how to get started. A great place to start is a jewellery-making course or evening class, lots of places offer these which you can do at the same time as working.
If you don’t have the time or money to spend on a course, you can teach yourself from online tutorials (I plan to gradually add lots of jewellery tutorials on here) and there are some great books which teach jewellery-making techniques. One of my favourite reference guides is: Jewellery Making Techniques Book: Over 50 techniques for creating eyecatching comtemporary and traditional design by Elizabeth Olver. It has step-by-step instructions and great photographs to help you learn most silversmithing techniques.
Jewellery Making Tools: Where to Buy Them
You will need different tools depending on the type of jewellery you want to make. It is definitely worth investing in good quality tools to begin with, as it definitely makes your life easier, and of course good tools also last longer!
You can buy a range of basic jewellery-making tools from any hardware shop, including different kinds of pliers, a saw frame etc, but you will also need to know a good trade supplier. I bought most of my jewellery tools from Cookson Gold, who are based in Hatton Garden in London. They are very friendly and welcoming whether you are a professional jeweller or a complete beginner!
If you can’t get to their Hatton Garden sales counter, their catalogue is also available online and they generally send things out next day delivery. I know it sounds as if I’m on commission (I’m honestly not!) but I’ve just had very good service from them from the start.
Tools for Making Silver Jewellery – The Basics:
There is no definitive list of jewellery tools you will need, but there are some basics which will be used in most silversmithing projects.
Sawframes and sawblades
You can either get fixed or adjustable (like the photo below) framed jewellers saws. Adjustable saw frames allow you to re-use shorter broken blades. Blades come in lots of different sizes, probably the most useful being size 2/0 – any finer than that and you will probably find as a beginner that you break a frustratingly large number of blades!
There are lots of different types of drills suitable for the amateur jeweller. I would recommend having a small hand-drill (like the one below) plus a small electric drill such as a Dremel – which you will also be able to use for polishing by adding a different kind of attachment. This can be a fairly expensive investment but can save you a lot of time, which is great if you lack patience like I do!
Having a variety of files is always useful for filing off excess material. I would suggest a range of large files in different shapes for filing different surfaces (flat, square, round, half round, triangular), plus a range of smaller needle files for finer work.
Pliers and Tin Snips
Pliers are used for a variety of different tasks in jewellery making: holding, forming, shaping etc. I would recommend a set of flat-nosed and round-nosed pliers. Tin snips are great for cutting wire or solder wire.
There are many different kinds of hammers used in jewellery. The most useful of which is a leather, wooden or nylon mallet, which is used for bending and forming shapes without marking your metal. I’ll go into the other different kinds of hammer as I get into different jewellery-making techniques in more detail.
Tools for Making Silver Jewellery – Soldering Equipment:
Soldering torches can vary from a basic handheld butane blow torch (below) to really expensive precision soldering systems. I would recommend a simple handheld butane torch for beginners, they are easy and inexpensive to use and suitable for using on most types of metal including Silver and 9ct or 18ct Gold.
Not the kind of pickle you put in a sandwich! Silver oxidises (turns black) when it is heated and pickle is a solution you use to remove the oxides from the metal.
Pickle bath and tongs
Pickle solution is most effective when gently warmed, so a pickle bath can be helpful. This can be a ceramic or pyrex dish suspended over a tea-light, although you can get more costly electric versions with thermostatic controls for larger jobs.
Cold pickle solution does work but just takes longer. Pickle tongs, for lifting your jeweller out of the solution, can be made of plastic, wood or copper, but don’t use steel tongs as steel has an adverse reaction with the pickle. It is always advisable to wear rubber or latex gloves if coming into contact with pickle solution.
Always a good idea when you’re soldering or working with chemicals – I once spent many hours in an A&E department having my eye rinsed out with saline solution after getting a tiny bit of chemical in my eye, and I wouldn’t recommend taking any chances!
Tweezers are very useful for holding metal while heating, soldering or pickling. It is useful to have a brass or plastic pair, which be used in pickle but which are a too soft to use whilst soldering, and at least one steel pair for using for heat work.
Flux is used together with solder to prevent oxidisation (which blackens metal). A frequently used type of flux is Borax which you apply with a brush to the area you want to solder.
A steel probe which is very useful for holding work in place whilst soldering. It is also useful for guiding the molten solder along the join whilst soldering.
Soldering mats and blocks protect your work bench and support your work whilst soldering. The can be made from various materials such as charcoal or ceramic materials
Solder is what you use to ‘glue’ different pieces of metal together, and can be bought in different formats: a syringe, wire, strips or sheets depending on what you need it for. Thin strips or wire are good to start with as you can use tin snips to cut off small pieces.
Right – that’s my beginners guide to jewellery-making tools and how to get started.
I would also recommend keeping a scrapbook of ideas. Whether they are sketches, photographs printed from online jewellery stores or other designers or pictures cut out of magazines, it can be really useful to have your own source of inspiration at your fingertips for when you start creating your own jewellery!
I’ll be adding more jewelery-making tutorials so if you have any requests please let me know!
Mary runs jewellers SteelOrchids.com.
Incoming search terms:
jewelry making tools list, jewellery making, getting started silversmithing, JEWELLERY MAKING TOOLS, jewellery making tools list, jewelry making tools for beginners, basic jewelry making tools list, beginners guide to jewellery making, silversmithing tutorials, beginners guide to jewelry making | <urn:uuid:1a30e7d3-4c6d-4f2d-a342-1ac47875565d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steelorchids.com/blog/articles/2011/01/11/jewellery-makinggetting-started-and-the-basic-tools-you-will-need/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943072 | 1,658 | 1.742188 | 2 |
If You Go
The public is invited to the 2012 Refuge Appreciation Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CDT Saturday, at Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge.
Van tours of the refuge and its new 1,000 acre property
Lunch provided by Ducks Unlimited and Izaak Walton League with Kenny Dewig Meats.
Children’s crafts and fishing clinic
Awards and door prizes.
Directions: From the junction of Indiana 64 and Indiana 357 (Main Street) in Oakland City, go east one mile on Indiana 64 to County Road 1275 East. Turn left and follow the signs to the event at Maxey Marsh.
A public-private partnership is being credited with preserving a crucial piece of Southwestern Indiana wildlife habitat, something a legal block has kept the federal government from doing on its own.
The nonprofit Sycamore Land Trust has purchased 1,043 acres of former Peabody Energy mine land in Gibson and Pike counties in the land acquisition area of the Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge. In return for helping do what its legal policies prevented, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is buying a conservation easement from the trust so the government can manage the land as part of the wildlife refuge.
The former Columbia Mine property is the largest land protection project yet for the Bloomington, Ind., regional nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Southern Indiana's natural and agricultural heritage. The nearly $2 million project includes $1.6 million for the land purchase, plus additional interest and project costs, said Christian Freitag, trust executive director. The loan will be repaid with the conservation easement and grant funding from Ducks Unlimited and the Indiana Bicentennial Nature Trust, Freitag said.
Acquiring the land has been a top priority of the wildlife refuge since Peabody first offered to sell it in 2002, said Bill McCoy, refuge manager.
"It was such a critical piece of property because of its location, size and habitats," McCoy said. "We don't have to worry about all the houses being built there or the trees being sold off for timber any more."
Although Peabody Energy had stalled selling the land for 10 years while federal officials worked to find the money and way to buy it, Freitag noted that wasn't an indefinite status.
"It was going to be broken off into little pieces and sold," he said.
Federal officials had the property appraised twice and at one point purchase papers were even drawn up, McCoy said, but government policy barred it from including a clause Peabody sought that would shield the company from liability in lawsuits.
So McCoy turned to the land trust for help.
Patoka is one of three national wildlife refuges in Indiana. It is 20 miles long from east to west and includes a meandering 30-mile stretch of the Patoka River. However, instead of being the single, large pristine natural area conceived when at its 1994 creation, the refuge is a confusing patchwork of public and private land. Its growth has been hindered by a lack of federal funding for acquiring lands, McCoy said.
That is one of the reasons the Columbia Mine tract is so important, McCoy said. It connects two larger pieces of the Patoka refuge to create a 5,000 acre habitat. With the inclusion of the new conservation easement, just over 8,000 acres are now under refuge management.
"We are about 36 percent there right now," McCoy said.
However, that isn't the only reason the land is important.
"It's got such diversity of habitat," McCoy said.
Everything from marshes, wetland and upland forests, and grasslands are contained within the property. It is home to a dizzying diversity of wildlife including several endangered and threatened species, such as the Indiana bat, copperbelly watersnake, river otters, bobcats and cerulean warblers, Freitag said.
"This is an important project. When you think of Indiana, you don't think of wetland forests and grasslands and marshes. The land, I think, almost speaks for itself," Freitag said. "The land itself is truly remarkable, but the partnership that got this together also was truly remarkable. Everybody worked together to make sure the right outcome happened. We made it happen together."
Peabody had mined about 700 acres of the site, leaving the rest untouched. McCoy credited Peabody's reclamation of the land, which won national awards, for going beyond simple restoration and creating a range of habitats.
Sue Vernier, a member of the Evansville Audubon Society who frequents natural areas such as Patoka, is excited about the acquisition.
"Patoka is so fragmented. The significance of this acreage is it unites two other fairly decent-sized areas. I no longer have to worry about am I trespassing on private land or not," she said. "We have some really nice state parks and a nice national forest but overall, we don't have much public land. A lot of areas are no longer available. What it comes down to is that public land is needed for hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation."
McCoy noted the new area won't be available for general public use until sometime next year. While Patoka has the rights to manage it as a natural area, an agreement has not been worked out about public use since the property is owned by the land trust.
However, all involved agreed that the ultimate goal is to make it available to the public, Freitag said, noting that was a requirement of the Indiana Bicentennial Nature Trust grant. | <urn:uuid:dcae4325-06b0-40b0-8a78-ab099102001f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/oct/01/no-headline---patoka/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964204 | 1,162 | 1.515625 | 2 |
In its mission to combat the sale of illegal medicines, Operation Pangea was launched by Interpol and its partners, consisting of customers, health regulators, national police forces and the public sector from across the globe. Operation Pangea is being launched in phases and last week saw Operation Pangea, phase V take action. The week-long operation was focused on targeting the online sale of counterfeit drugs and further highlights the dangers that the Internet poses as a new market for those seeking to profit from the sale of illicit medicines. Operation Pangea V proved to be a huge success, with over three million illicit and counterfeit drugs being seized with an estimated value of over ten million dollars.
Laura Mole, a solicitor in the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences team at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP, comments, “The success of Operation Pangea V is a warning to those seeking to undermine the industry that people are not willing to stand by and see what are often vulnerable people hurt by the damaging and sometimes deadly effects of counterfeit drugs. As the availability of counterfeit drugs becomes easier through the widely accessible medium of the Internet, the need for initiatives such as Operation Pangea V becomes more important and helps protect those members of society that need protection the most and further helps keep the strong reputation and people’s reliance on the industry and its medicines safe.” | <urn:uuid:f1337222-4a9e-4b34-ac1e-709003fef675> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mablaw.com/2012/10/interpol-seizes-over-us10-million-of-counterfeit-and-illicit-drugs-in-operation-pangea-v/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957121 | 273 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Notes from Colossians 2:20-23We cannot reach up to God by following rules of pious self-denial, by observing rituals, or by practicing religion. Paul isn't saying all rules are bad (see the note on Galatians 2:15, 16). But keeping laws or rules will not earn salvation. The Good News is that God reaches down to human beings, and he asks for our response. Man-made religions focus on human effort; Christianity focuses on Christ's work. Believers must put aside sinful desires, but doing so is the by-product of our new life in Christ, not the reason for our new life. Our salvation does not depend on our own discipline and rule keeping but on the power of Christ's death and resurrection.
People should be able to see a difference between the way Christians and non-Christians live. Still, we should not expect instant maturity in new Christians. Christian growth is a lifelong process. Although we have a new nature, we don't automatically think all good thoughts and have all pure attitudes when we become new people in Christ. But if we keep listening to God, we will be changing all the time. As you look over the last year, what changes for the better have you seen in your thoughts and attitudes? Change may be slow, but your life will change significantly if you trust God to change you.
Notes from Colossians 2:22, 23
We can guard against man-made religions by asking these questions about any religious group: (1) Does it stress man-made rules and taboos rather than God's grace? (2) Does it foster a critical spirit toward others, or does it exercise discipline discreetly and lovingly? (3) Does it stress formulas, secret knowledge, or special visions more than the Word of God? (4) Does it elevate self-righteousness, honoring those who keep the rules, rather than elevating Christ? (5) Does it neglect Christ's universal church, claiming to be an elite group? (6) Does it teach humiliation of the body as a means to spiritual growth rather than focus on the growth of the whole person? (7) Does it disregard the family rather than hold it in high regard as the Bible does?
Notes from 2 John 1:1, 2
John wrote this second letter (which probably fit on one sheet of papyrus) to warn believers against inadvertently supporting false teachers. The number of itinerant evangelists and teachers had grown by the end of the first century; mixed in with the legitimate missionaries were others who were promoting heretical ideas about Christ and the gospel. Little has changed in two thousand years. Advocates of unorthodox beliefs still exist and still attempt to confuse and deceive the people of God. This letter, 2 John, should serve as a wake-up call to believers to be alert, to be careful, and to be solidly grounded in the faith. Are you prepared to recognize false doctrine? | <urn:uuid:36e45904-5c69-41a7-9f9a-73827e40feca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newlivingtranslation.com/01liveitnow/treasures.asp?topic=18&qID=40 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957601 | 604 | 1.585938 | 2 |
America is Great: After-Thoughts about the Election
By: Rev. Lou Shelton
This election has caused me to marvel at our Constitution and our way of government. We have just been through a revolution and yet there was no bloodshed. Some may have been mad, cried, been depressed, got drunk, etc. but no one was killed.
We were in the Ivory Coast earlier this year. They are having a revolution over who is going to be in the leadership of that country. Some were not happy with the results of a majority vote so they caused bloodshed, forced people out of their homes, in some places it is unsafe to travel, in some places thugs have taken control, the countryside savaged, people have had their businesses stolen and their money confiscated.
History is replete with examples of atrocities which occurred over the change of leadership such as following the French Revolution many people including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded and even in England these things occurred until, under the influence of the evangelist Charles Wesley, they had what was called “a bloodless revolution†because the gospel took hold causing the leadership to change peacefully.
uesday our Congressional leadership changed, but our lives and our government are still intact. | <urn:uuid:388e7c64-232c-4527-8b12-98ecddb6bf90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelandofthefree.net/conservativeopinion/2006/11/11/america-is-great-after-thoughts-about-the-election/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987726 | 257 | 1.625 | 2 |
Archives and Special Collections
The Reinhardt University Archives
Located on the second floor, the Archives is a rich repository of the official papers and Reinhardt University history. The collection includes historic letters and documents, photographs and memorabilia, as well as Reinhardt catalogs and yearbooks. The Archives is a growing collection and welcomes gifts that expand our understanding of the University’s history. View the Archives finding aid to see the list of items available in the Reinhardt University Archives.
Located nearby are two interesting furniture items—the desk that belonged to Captain Reinhardt, a co-founder of the University, is on permanent display, along with a desk belonging to Fredonia Blanton, Reinhardt’s first graduate who later became a long-time faculty member.
Over the years, the library has acquired a number of interesting early editions and small noteworthy collections. Of particular interest are the Annie Laurie Jones Cunyus Hymnal Collection, located in the Archives Room, and the Triplett Memorial Military History Collection, located on the third floor.
For more information
For more information about the Archives and Special Collections or to discuss a gift to the collection, please contact a library staff member at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:71233b96-7812-47a7-9d8a-cb495a984ba1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.reinhardt.edu/collections/archives.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930594 | 253 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Teachers, staff and students of federal and state universities demonstrated in Rio de Janeiro on June 12, 2012. Since today is Valentine's Day in Brazil, the motto of the demonstration was "Public Education and Health, flirt with this idea".
Several teachers of federal universities strikes across Brazil are asking for better salaries and work conditions, and the same occurs with teachers from the state university of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). It is a struggle against economic and educational policy of President Dilma Rousseff and his party, the PT. The Sintufr (Union of Education Workers of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) says that the government in the last two years presented no counterproposal and last month, through an interim measure, reduced the salaries of doctors in university hospitals as well as other social benefits to one half. | <urn:uuid:63d730b2-534a-4d61-aae4-196e01e68c05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.citizenside.com/en/photos/politics/2012-06-12/62045/workers-of-federal-and-state-universities-demonstrates-in-rio-de-janeiro.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 | 0.963202 | 167 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Principal Brennan Riffel is reading aloud to 5th graders at the Sterling Grade School Library. He is reading What do you do when something wants to eat you? by Steve Jenkins. The library has been promoting this and other literary nonfiction books in an effort to teach common core reading standards.
Amy Brownlee, Librarian Sterling Grade School Sterling | <urn:uuid:00ecf1ff-f8c8-43c1-a9c7-dbea704be097> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kasl.typepad.com/kasl/public-relations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965582 | 72 | 1.625 | 2 |
One of those days when things got off a bad start, and as frustration compounded over the day, it just didn’t feel safe and right. It was as if the tide has turned against you and you’re now being caught in between mighty waves. You feel vulnerable, and weak. Like how a busted attempt by a snail to escape its predator, as if there’s nothing you could do to avert the worst outcomes.
Today didn’t feel right for me, and when pessimism takes over it spells doom. Sometimes I feel the circumstances can be harsh, but often I’ve to remind myself the need to have a change of perspective. One man’s poison is another man’s meat. It’s no brainer to figure out that every problem that has solution needs no worrying. And yet I’ve spent pretty much of my time worrying things that haven’t hit the reality rather than doing things constructively.
Sometimes things happen and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you have to choose to do nothing about something. This is mostly because doing something about something is hard and you know there is a big chance that it will lead to nothing. So by doing nothing about something, something stays nothing. The irony of this is that this is also hard. Maybe even harder than doing something about something. And in these sentences I am really thinking in many ways about life but also actually just being quite literal. In case you were wondering. I know you know what I’m talking about. | <urn:uuid:bf73d653-9e47-4746-9bec-af77a01f107d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ximplixity.com/2012/05/have-a-break-have-a-kit-kat/comment-page-1/ | 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 | 0.978207 | 319 | 1.648438 | 2 |
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.
At the end of Lorraine Hansberry’s Pulitzer prize-winning drama about a black family in Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the lone white character appears. He’s Karl Linder and he visits a black family in order to convince them not to move into the house Mama Younger has put a down payment on in Clybourne Park, a white section of the city. He offers them a significant amount of money to keep his community segregated. However, Walter Lee Younger–who has lost two-thirds of the money from his late father’s life insurance legacy by foolishly trusting one of his pals–stands up to Linder, declines the offer, and restores his dignity within the family. A crucial line in the play is Walter’s remark, “That money is made out of my father’s flesh.”
You need not be familiar with Hansberry’s play in order to understand or appreciate Bruce Norris’s explosive, stand-alone drama, Clybourne Park, currently running in a brilliant production at the Woolly Mammoth theatre in Washington, D.C. (concurrent with a production that opened earlier in New York City and is still running). Hopefully, the play will be produced in many other theatres in the United States. Even without seeing the New York production, I can tell you that Howard Shalwitz’s dazzling staging at the Woolly Mammoth will be almost impossible to improve upon.
I mentioned the lone white character in A Raisin in the Sun because Clybourne Park is almost the opposite: a cast of eight characters, only two of whom are black. The play begins in September of 1959 with Russ and Bev, who are completing the packing for their move away from Clybourne Park. Boxes are all over the place, rugs are rolled up. Their dialogue about cities around the world is fairly vacuous. The only clue that something is amiss is that though it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, Russ is still partly dressed in his pajamas.
Francine, the black woman who has worked for Bev and Russ for many years, comes on stage a number of times, quietly assisting in the final steps of the packing process. But then, shortly, Bev’s minister appears, as does Karl Linder, dragging along his pregnant wife. Karl reveals something to Russ and Bev that they didn’t know: the couple that has purchased their home is black. Two hours earlier, Karl had visited them and tried to buy them off, in order to preserve “the needs of the people who live in [our] community.” What he gets from Russ in return is a total lack of concern and not much later we understand why. Russ and Bev’s son committed suicide in the house two years earlier after returning home traumatized from the Korean War and being ostracized by the community. Russ can’t wait to move away from Clybourne Park; he certainly doesn’t give a damn who occupies the house after he leaves the community that he feels has ruined his family.
Photo: Stan Barouh.
Norris’s gift is to take this fairly basic situation—a father’s grieving for his son’s death—and turn it into a powerful commentary on the falseness of community values, racism simmering just below the surface, and economic decisions that trump any potential for human decency. The tone of much of Act One, however, is carefree bantering, as Francine and her husband, Albert, are drawn into the often-contentious disputes among Russ and Bev, Jim (the minister), and Karl and his wife, Betsy. By the end of the act, just about every cliché about race has been spoken and the utter sham of homogenous communities has been exposed. Reflecting on the first half of Norris’ play, it’s easy to understand why the Civil Rights movement was about to explode during the next decade of American history.
Act Two reverses almost everything established in Act One except to underline the fact that race is still one of the most befuddling and unresolved issues in American culture. It’s fifty years later, September of 2009. This time it’s white Yuppies who are planning to move into the house in Clybourne Park as the area of Chicago begins to undergo gentrification, meaning rapidly increasing property prices, demolition and mansionization—this time to the consternation of the black community who see their heritage slowly being swept away. The same members of the cast play completely different roles, but the ratio remains six whites and two blacks. Except that the two black characters are as highly educated and affluent as their white counterparts (they all speak of their recent trips to Europe), and Lena (who was Francine in the first act) is now the one who bemoans the encroachment of—this time white–invaders: “It happens one house at a time.”
And since the years between 1959 and 2009 have strengthened capitalism’s choke on every aspect of American life, there’s much more about money in this act than in the earlier one. Lena’s husband works for Capital Equities. Steve and Lindsey, who are moving into the dilapidated property, are willing to spend a fortune renovating it. They’ve got an architect and a broker with them. A good bit of time is spent haggling about the zoning laws because the Clybourne Owners Association has final control over changes to the structure once inhabited by Lena’s aunt, Mamma Younger.
If the first half of the play is about Ross’s pain at the loss of his son, culminating in a brawl with his wife’s minister and the head of the neighborhood association Karl Linder, the second half concludes with a verbal orgy of racial stereotyping (one crude racial joke after another), suggesting, sadly, that little understanding between blacks and whites in the United States has taken place during the last half century. There’s plenty of vicious humor here reminiscent of the second half of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where the game is “get the guest.” Nor can I help saying that in both halves of Norris’s truth-or-consequences free-for-all, the white characters are little credit to their race while Francine and Albert, who morph into Lena and Kevin in the second part, are decent, rational people who are much more in control of their feelings than are the invading Yuppies.
James Kronzer’s wrap-around-set is extraordinary, especially the way it, too, changes from the first act to the second. Though every actor in the Woolly Mammoth’s exhilarating production is superb, Cody Nickell–as the twit Karl in the first half and boob Steve in the second–stands out among the men; and Dawn Ursula, as Francine, subsequently altered into Lena, is a joy to watch and listen to every time she moves or opens her mouth. Michell Hébert, as Russ at the beginning and then as Dan the handyman in part two, has the most poignant moments in the play. And finally, an eighth character—whose identity I cannot mention—ties everything together in a startling ending to this riveting play, ensemble acting at its best.
You may laugh your head off for the two hours of Clybourne Park, but later that evening you’ll begin to get disturbed as you recognize how superbly Bruce Norris has brought to the stage Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent observation that when it comes to discussions of race, we are still a “nation of cowards.”
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Through April 11th.
CHARLES R. LARSON is Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. | <urn:uuid:d5bcb042-fc1d-4e85-8f56-b299235c6e08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/03/26/it-s-still-race-stupid/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968246 | 1,669 | 1.820313 | 2 |
My dad was on the local fire department, so his job was in the thick of it, shooting off those bursts of light. As a child, the fireworks show was THE highlight. It mesmerized me.
As an adult, it does the exact same thing. It captivates me. Have you ever tried to capture the brilliance of fireworks? It's easy to try and end up with this ...
... a small blip that is not at all what you are seeing with your naked eye. With a few easy tips, though, you can end up with shots that light up the sky and provide a memory of your Independence Day Celebrations. A few helpful tips for long exposure photography ...
1. Turn off your flash.Yes, I know it's night time, but to achieve the results you want, you will need to turn it off.
2. Use a tripod.Although, it's not totally necessary, a tripod can be helpful for a crisp, clear shot. It's pretty much impossible to hold your camera still enough for the shutter speed you will need for long exposure times. However, if you like a little blur, holding your camera in hand will be absolutely fine. The bokeh effect (as in the first photo) is actually created by not focusing on the subject.
3. Set your camera to manual mode.If you've ever been scared to shoot in manual, now is the time to get over your fears. I would suggest setting your ISO to 200 (the higher the ISO, the grainier the photo) and your aperture around f/3.5.
4. Use a long shutter speed.In order to capture that brilliance, you need your shutter open for a longer period of time. Those small firework blips like the photo above come from your shutter being too fast. Slow it down. The longer it's open, the more light it will catch. I find that anywhere from 5-15 seconds or longer is a good shutter speed to catch enough light.
4. Play around with it to achieve the look you want.Many times I'll set my shutter speed, take a photo, and realize it's too much light or not enough. Play around with it until you get the look you want.
5. Have fun!Use sparklers or glow sticks and have your kids or friends spell words or create designs. You might not be able to see it until it shows up on your camera, which is half the fun. Press your shutter and tell your subject to "GO" with their design. | <urn:uuid:abd8e17d-b0c0-465e-bc88-abca6f7a0d7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jeremynjenprice.blogspot.com/2012/06/capturing-fireworks-long-exposure.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965401 | 521 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The following screen capture shows the caption, “President’s Distorted Reality? Claims there is no more terrorism” while the subject of Barack Obama’s Cairo speech was being discussed on Fox & Friends. Of course, this is hardly honest, or factual.
Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy stated, “War on terror must be over. In fact, terrorism no longer a problem because the president never, not once, mentioned war on terror.” Semantics aside, President Obama did address, at length, the topic of violent extremism in his speech at Cairo University. Just because he didn’t repeat the terror, terrorist, terrorism mantra like Bush did, ad naseum, doesn’t mean the topic wasn’t addressed, or that “there is no more terrorism. ” | <urn:uuid:07a31351-6f36-44ec-98de-9b2d2b40f404> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://foxnewsboycott.com/fox-friends/fox-news-lies-about-obamas-stance-on-terrorism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93457 | 173 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Friday, November 30, 2012
Innovators understand that their job is to fail, repeatedly, until they don't.
- Seth Godin
Actors who aren't innovating are probably (dare I say it) boring. Steve McQueen once said an actor is only as good as the extent to which they risk being bad. Being "bad" (whatever that would mean) is probably our version of "failure" as much as anything else could be (failure and success can only really be words with meaning if they are linked to specific goals; ex: speaking unclearly is a success for a character that is drunk or something like that, but a failure for one who is intended to be well spoken or understood).
It might be worth finding times/places to fail, and get better at taking the risks that can fail. I'm talking about the times between action and cut, between curtain up and curtain down. Still be on time and prepared. Class is a great place to take a risk that might not pan out. No job to lose or audience to disappoint. I started classes at the Second City Conservatory in Chicago with that plan: each week I planned to do something in class that would probably not work, try something that would fall flat. Not sure if I succeeded in sticking to this plan the whole way through, but I imagine my classmates witnessed more than a few not-ready-for-primetime moments from me ;-). It may have helped stretch me to plan to do something "bad" at least once a class.
Stretching as a performer isn't just a good way to broaden your skill-set and confidence, stretching can be its own reward just by feeling good, and getting you more in touch with your instrument, and what your comfort is in your body, mind and heart while doing different things. Mastery, and the feelings it can bring with it, can feel very good indeed.
One of the key parts of job satisfaction, often more prized than even the pay, is a feeling of overcoming challenges, surmounting an obstacle and attaining a not-easy-to-attain goal: a feeling of mastery and ability. As actors we work for ourselves, so it's up to us to provide some of that sort of challenge/satisfaction for ourselves. Sometimes that means mentioning to the stage manager, even long after a show's opening, that you're going to try something with a specific line tonight to keep it fresh and find something new-ish. Or with the director's consent, do the last take trying to mess it up, a "can we do one just so I can 'f' with it" take. Don't broadside everyone else in the project while fighting robotic consistency, but remember: actors are the squishy and intended to be risky while cameras are rolling, or the curtain is up. It has been said that good on camera work is accidental behavior captured on film. Without blowing up the character and script with metaphorical high explosives, let the character breathe.
Taking risks means you may fail. Not taking risks means you will fail. If you haven't done anything lately in your acting that didn't really work, then find a way to explore, to experiment, and fail. Then make your worst "failures" (while the cameras are rolling or the curtain is up) still pretty darn good and you'll be the actor producers and the audience know will consistently deliver without stagnation or rote boringness no matter what.
Now, the next challenge becomes getting better at knowing if what you are doing, both while acting and in life, is good or feels good, which I will write a post on soon. Until then: try failing, and break a (pretend) leg.
comments: Post a Comment | <urn:uuid:2f52cc5f-d6bb-4e72-9a1b-905c6e99731f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://laacting.davidaugust.com/2012/11/try-failing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974901 | 775 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Narrator: Allison and her mother were very pòor. They lived in a small house, in a small town.
Mother: Oh, Allison. I am so sorry, but we don`t have food.
Allison: Mother, don´t worry. I will go to the forest to look for food. Maybe I´ll find some nuts or berries for us.
Narrator: Allison went to the forest and searched for food. But she couldn´t find anything to eat. Then, she sat on a rock and began to cry.
Allison: What am I going to do? I am so hungry!
Old Woman: I can help you, pretty girl.
Allison: Who are you?
Old Woman: That is not important. Take this.
Allison: What is it?
Old Woman: It´s a magic cooking pot. Go home and put it on the stove. Then you must say the words: Magic pot, cook, cook, cook! The pot will then fill up with soup. Then you must say the words: Magic pot, stop, stop, stop! Then, and only then, will the magic cooking pot stop cooking.
Allison: Oh, I am so happy. Thank you so much!
Old Woman: Just don´t forget the magic words!
Narrator: Allison ran home and put the magic cooking pot in the stove.
Mother: Oh my dear daughter! Tell me what you found.
Allison: Watch, Mother! Magic pot, cook, cook, cook!
Mother: This is wonderful. Look at all the soup.
Narrator: Allison and her mother started to eat until they were full.
Allison: Magic pot, stop, stop, stop.
Narrator: And the magic pot stop cooking. The next day, Allison went to visit her friend Dominike. While Allison was out, her mother got hungry and decided to make the pot cook.
Mother: Magic pot, cook, cook, cook!
Narrator: And the pot started cooking. But her mother forgot how to make it stop.
Mother: Thanks pot, stop now.
Narrator: But it didn´t stop. Those were not the magic words. So the pot cook, and cook until the soup was all over the floor, out the door, and into the street.
Mother: Pot, stop!
Alan: Oh no! What this? A soup flood.
Mother: Help me! Help me! Someone, Help me! Pot, stop cooking!
Narrator: The soup reached Dominike`s house.
Dominike: Allison, it´s your mother. She`s coming this way running and shouting. I think something happened.
Mother: Allison, help! I can´t make stop the magic cooking pot.
Narrator: Everybody went to the house running through puddles of soup . The magic pot was still cooking and cooking.
Dominike: Stop, pot!
Mother: I don´t want anymore soup, pot!
Allison: Wait! Only I know what to do. Magic pot, stop, stop, stop.
Narrator: And the pot stopped cooking.
Adapted by Kidsinco
Based on a European Folktale
Go to Complete List of Playscripts Page 1
We Appreciate Your Visit! | <urn:uuid:47c56018-57e5-4df2-ad77-eaa57ea3f57d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kidsinco.com/category/foktales/central-europe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930838 | 701 | 1.8125 | 2 |
05-18-2012 08:00 PM - last edited on 05-19-2012 08:27 PM by lesleyp
By Kamini Kandica Abdool A few days ago I heard an audible conversation that was transmitted from our home’s wireless network near my bedroom window. Recently, I have been hearing these conversations and have been responding at times. Seems crazy I know but it isn’t. It’s the effects of eavesdropping by hackers of wireless networks and there conversations because of the close distance, at times can be heard. The internet is the connection to the world and wireless is the new advancement but, things are spiraling a bit too long and too far. AT times I feel like the entire world congregates at my window. Sounds like eavesdropping, doesn’t it? It is. Hackers and stragglers look for any open point with a wireless scanner to interrupt your network and eavesdrop or steal and depending on where the endpoint and entry point is, the audible sounds of interrupted conversations from eavesdroppers can be heard. How do you stop this from happening? You think I know right? Well, I know how it happens but this time I’m not sure how to stop it. I’ve been a victim of being computer hacked ever since I opened a my computer store and even after I closed it. I called my ISP, I’ve contacted the FBI, and I’ve been writing about these issues for over a year and so fa, by myself and with various networks, including Microsoft, Dell, Trend Micro, and Symantec, have been able to curb some of the eavesdropping and also some of the viruses that have been traveling but still I’m not able to fully remove the opportunity for eavesdroppers and hackers to find an entry point. Whose fault is this? The ISP, the router company? the hackers? The answer is still the hackers. The best solution is to contact your ISP and have the issue investigated. This is illegal and reporting the issues immediately is advised. You are able to do so with your ISP or at www.ic3.gov.
05-19-2012 01:57 PM - last edited on 05-19-2012 08:27 PM by lesleyp
Please leave me comments. I would love your input here, even if it's anonymous. | <urn:uuid:b3ab2577-e70b-4880-adc5-e3e892c19678> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techtalk.dice.com/t5/Security/Why-Are-They-Always-at-My-ing-Window-Time-for-Them-to-Leave/m-p/300335 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95769 | 488 | 1.609375 | 2 |
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) -- The owner of a New Mexico slaughterhouse is defending his plan to become the first plant in the nation since 2007 to handle horses after an outcry from politicians and animal activists.
In interviews with the Roswell Daily Record and the Albuquerque Journal on Friday, Valley Meat Co. owner Rick De Los Santos said he's trying to revive his failing business and that what he's proposing is legal.
The horses he plans to process are being slaughtered anyway in Mexico and his operation would be overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and meet much higher standards, he said.
The company's application for federal inspections at the plant just outside Roswell triggered an outcry when it became public Friday, with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez calling on the USDA to deny his application.
If his application to the USDA is approved, De Los Santos said horse meat will be exported to Mexico and be for Mexican consumption. He said the exportation of horse carcasses might be a better option than exporting live horses to Mexico, which involves holding the horses at the border. De Los Santos also said horse slaughter methods in Mexico may be less humane than in the U.S.
"There's no regulation as to how they (slaughter horses) in Mexico," De Los Santos told the Daily Record. "It's nowhere close to the USDA standards."
Horse slaughter has effectively been blocked since Congress withheld funds for USDA inspections of horse meat plants in 2006. But a recently passed agriculture bill provides the money.
De Los Santos said the official number for live American horses exported to other countries for slaughter is 100,000; but the figure may be closer to 130,000.
"All I'm saying is we can take some of those and slaughter them here," De Los Santos told the Journal.
The company, which has a 7,290 square-foot plant on a 10-acre site, has been slaughtering cattle for about 20 years, but has recently been unable to continue doing business because the cost of cattle has risen dramatically with the recession.
The company that once had 40 to 45 employees is currently not operating. Slaughtering horses, De Los Santos said, might be the only way to save his company. He laid off his last 10 employees three weeks ago.
"All we're doing is trying to make a living," he said. "My whole life is invested in this business." He said he was unaware until recently that, if approved, his company would be the only slaughterhouse in the U.S. to slaughter equines.
The USDA is reviewing Valley Meat's application for a grant of inspection, which would put federal inspectors in the plant to oversee the processing. The agency said Friday that it had earlier rejected three horse-processing applications because the plants would also process cattle. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service bars the processing of horses with any other animal.
If he receives USDA approval, De Los Santos told the Journal that he planned to slaughter 20 to 25 horses per day to start "which is not a whole lot, compared to what's available."
The meat from his plant would be exported by an El Paso partner, whom he declined to name, into Mexico. "Everyone who's ever eaten tacos in Mexico, I guarantee you they've eaten horse meat down there," he said. "It would never be my intention to sell it in the U.S."
Valley Meat's application to the USDA was disclosed this week by Front Range Equine Rescue, which obtained USDA documents and emails through a federal records request.
Gov. Martinez, a Republican, and Attorney General Gary King and State Land Commissioner Ray Powell, both Democrats, voiced opposition to the horse slaughtering plan Friday.
King called the prospect of a horse slaughtering operation in the Roswell area "a terrible idea" while Powell, a veterinarian, said: "New Mexico can do much better by these intelligent and gentle creatures."
Martinez's office said the governor plans to send a letter to the USDA urging the federal agency not to allow the horse slaughtering operation, and she will seek the support of New Mexico's delegation in Washington, D.C.
"A horse's companionship is a way of life for many people across New Mexico. We rely on them for work and bond with them through their loyalty," Martinez said. "Despite the federal government's decision to legalize horse slaughter for human consumption, I believe creating a horse slaughter industry in New Mexico is wrong and I am strongly opposed." | <urn:uuid:b1688d2e-6a3e-400b-b455-c059a657a4e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://akronnewsnow.com/featured/item/31551-nm-meat-plant-owner-defends-horse-slaughter-plan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974061 | 923 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Once when I was driving through my town, I discovered an old agricultural factory. This abandoned place kick-started my imagination; the massive structure on the top of the garage and the whole feeling of the place made me feel, quite simply, spellbound. I later returned to the scene and took some photographs to use as reference images, and I worked on the environment for several months in my free time.
I started the project, first of all, by collecting some information about the factory and the structural elements on top of the building. This place was actually a sawmill, and at the top of the garage is a sawdust collector. As previously mentioned, I took some photos as reference images, but I also looked for other images to inspire me and to get some interesting ideas. I searched for images and references for not only the shapes, but also for the lighting and texturing (Fig.01 and Fig.02). And, of course, I collected some blueprints for the van that I wished to incorporate into the scene.
All models were created in 3ds Max using editable poly geometry - a simple and easy way to model. I started with the sawmill collectors; they began as cylindrical objects, and I used the most standard tools to modify them, for example: extrude, chamfer, (target) weld, cut and so on. Here is some of the modelling work shown in wireframe (Fig.03 – Fig.05).
Moving onto the modelling of the van, I set up the blueprints on planes, starting from the front of the van, forming a simple plane. I extruded the edges and moved the vertices to achieve a nice overall shape (Fig.06). After I finished the model, I started to give a more worn and used look to the van; some objects got an optimise modifier, which made it easier to apply damage (Fig.07).
For the grass I used several types of grass strands, scattered with Advanced Painter action item. The plants were handmade from cylinders, scattered nails and spheres; one of the plants was from Xfrog – deformed and modified to suit my scene. To finish off the vegetation, I used an ivy generator to achieve an abandoned feeling. | <urn:uuid:6ed2ef03-9c54-4f47-8edc-118b57a43d66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.3dtotal.com/index_tutorial_detailed.php?id=133 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950803 | 458 | 1.578125 | 2 |
SEPTEMBER 8, 1953
NEW YORK, Monday—When I was in Japan I visited the International Christian University in Tokyo, which was opened on April 13, 1953. Thousands of Americans contributed over $2,500,000 to start this first graduate school under Christian auspices in Japan. The Japanese people had contributed $450,000, with the Emperor and other members of the royal family included among the donors.
Of course, it is so new that much still remains to be done, and this was quite evident when I was there. The university campus includes 365 acres, and a large university hall and several other buildings are already up. They have a 34-member faculty, and this year the freshman class numbers 150 students. I do not know how many American communities are actually working for this university, but I was interested to be told that book campaigns for its library had been started in many American communities. Rural communities were contributing cattle and farm equipment, and in other areas money was raised to build faculty houses and to pay for scholarships.
The idea for this university has the backing of our former ambassador, Joseph P. Grew, and they are very fortunate in their president, Hachiro Yuasa. He was able to assemble a truly international faculty, with 18 Japanese, two Canadians and 11 Americans. They are particularly proud of having the Swiss theologian, Dr. Emil Brunner, as professor of religion. Many religious denominations in this country and Canada are interested in the support of this university. Many of the young people there seemed among the most intelligent and alert group of students that I had met anywhere.
I don't recall whether I mentioned before that a school to train librarians has been established in Keio University in Tokyo. This is functioning very satisfactorily, and will bring a new group to work in many universities where books have often lain buried in the archives because of lack of trained librarians.
When I was in Hiroshima I was shown an appeal sent out by the university there, asking universities in this country for books to reestablish their library. I hope they will get many contributions, but I can only say that without librarians these contributions would not be of great value. | <urn:uuid:04e4a045-31bc-4eb3-a610-6df7f226b4cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1953&_f=md002641 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985204 | 449 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Despite a couple of minor tussles over baby-doll strollers, four children not used to much interaction outside of their families played, sang and colored together at a new playgroup offered by OSF Saint James-John W. Albrecht Medical Center.
The playgroup, Active Beginnings, is being held twice a month for children ages birth to 5 and Thursday was the group’s first gathering.
“I thought it went really well,” said Melissa Pina, a developmental therapist with the Medical Center’s Rehabilitation Department, which is overseeing the program. “We had a nice range of ages of children and they really did very well together,” she said.
The Rehab department is providing this program on the second and fourth Thursday of every month through a grant from the Livingston County 377 Board. There is no cost to attend the 75-minute gatherings, but parents or caregivers must attend as well.
“The focus of the playgroup is to teach children developmentally appropriate fine gross and motor skills, communication skills and socialization, while providing a support group for parents of small children,” Pina said.
“When families arrived, we let the children get to know each other while we asked the parents to fill out a survey on developmental topics they want to learn more about. Looking over the surveys, concerns expressed included ‘picky eater’ and ‘sharing.’ Once a month we will have personnel who can address those topics come in and talk to the parents. The other meeting will just focus on the children and parents interacting, mainly through play.”
Becky Dotterer, an occupational therapy assistant, is conducting the program with Pina at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 210 S. Deerfield Rd.
“The church has been so gracious to help us and this room is obviously child-friendly,” said Pina, noting the carpeting, toys and children-sized table and chairs. “It’s perfect because it’s cozy enough for interaction, yet big enough to give everyone a little space,” she said.
That was evident as Dotterer and Pina used a children’s learning CD, playing a counting song that required hand coordination before playing a “walking” song that parents participated in alongside their children.
“That was a lot of fun and the children and parents both engaged, which is the objective. And it was still play and lots of fun. Play is where children learn a lot of skills, but it’s still having fun.”
During two walking songs, parents and children, except one who was a little sleepy and was instead carried by his mom, walked forward and backward, tip-toed, hopped, ran and stomped around the room in a circle.
By the time the song ended, parents and children were smiling and ready to sit and listen to a couple of storybooks read by Pina and Dotterer.
A few minutes later, the children were grouped around a long table ready to use fine-motor skills needed for coloring.
“This is just great,” said Vanessa Sheppard of Odell, who was there with the youngest child of the group, Kamryn. “He’s an only child and he needs to learn to share and play well with others. This is really the only time he’s had with a group of kids, so I’m looking forward to these. I think it will also be a good resource for us parents,” she said.
David Naretto of Pontiac took his two sons, Jaxson, 5, and Gavin, 22 months, and said he was learning some new things as he had a chance to really sit and observe his sons.
“It’s nice to watch them, and also to join in their play,” said Naretto, adding that he and his wife, Cassandra, will be sharing playgroup attendance.
“The boys obviously have each other and they have a younger brother, Lucas, 10 months, at home. But it’s still nice for them to have other children to play with and learn from,” Naretto said.
Sarah Krueger of Pontiac brought daughter, Nevaeh, 3, to the group as a way to broaden her daughter’s social skills.
“She’s an only child and I think this will help her interact with kids more. She has Sunday school at church, but I think this is going to help even more,” Krueger said. She added that with the current economy, the free part of the program was also very appealing.
Pina stated there’s enough room for one or two more families to sign up to join this playgroup, and inquires can be made by calling 815-842-4584. | <urn:uuid:3378f47f-2b22-4a06-827e-8f2a986fd895> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pontiacdailyleader.com/article/20130126/NEWS/130129287/0/).css( | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980925 | 1,026 | 1.515625 | 2 |
In these lean times, everyone is tightening the belt. With budget cuts and funding deficits encroaching from all sides, the nonprofit sector faces sizeable hurdles. When businesses are scrambling to survive, and disposable income contracts, it seems that the arts—and their corresponding nonprofit organizations—are hit hard. Organizations around the state are scraping the same local barrel to stay afloat. And without an income stream from ticket sales and admission prices, the visual arts in particular face a predicament.
So where do the visual arts get their funding? The Utah Arts Council—itself a nonprofit—is responsible in varying degrees for re-granting funds to an average of 200 organizations every year. Despite an 8.36 percent state budget cut for the Division of Arts and Museums (the division that UAC branches from), the budget for grants that ultimately go to Utah organizations will remain the same, according to UAC Director Margaret Hunt.
The grant application process, however, will not. It’s transitioning to an online system in an attempt to streamline the process. But, this year, the bid process has hit a snag. This delay has pushed back the application deadline by more than six months, and left organizations already stressed over funding perplexed and a bit frustrated. These changes, in conjunction with the impending state cuts, made UAC grant funding seem uncertain.
“This has been a very unusual year,” says Hunt. “There was a period of time when we just didn’t know what the budget changes would be. We had nothing to tell people.”
Because of this unusual year and the application delay, UAC will determine grants based on the average amount that individual organizations received over the past five years. This, in effect, eliminates assessment and effectively pre-approves longstanding recipients.
This measure, Hunt says, was taken because of the current economic state. The UAC board will discuss this week whether or not this will be a permanent change; it’s inefficient, she adds, for them to spend large amounts of time evaluating figures that barely fluctuate.This process has raised some questions and deepened confusion as to who is eligible for UAC grants. Sego Art Center and the 337 Project, for example, are small, new organizations that have not yet established a track record with the council, and thus fall outside the framework for determining funding.
When everyone is operating in crisis mode, with unknown deadlines and vague details, it leads to heightened anxiety, says Salt Lake Art Center Director Heather Ferrell and development director John Witmer. There is also significant concern about the quality of peer review. One former employee says, “It’s UAC’s role and obligation to perform qualitative assessment and to highlight its importance.”
Of course, UAC is not the only source of arts funding. Zoo, Arts and Parks (ZAP) funds, corporations, individuals, foundations and endowments are all key contributors for nonprofits. But they too have suffered grave losses; even larger organizations have lost major donors.
But virtually every organization agrees that they have had to get creative with their fund-raising strategies and potential resources. Getting creative may be just what the economy, and the community, needs.
And the feeling from arts communities is mutual. “We have to rely on our community now, especially,” Jason Metcalf of Sego Art Center says. “That’s how we started.”
Adam Price, director of the 337 Project is in the same boat. “But in tough times like these, [at least] it’s nice to see something beautiful,” he says, “to have a release from unrelenting bad news.” There is at least some good news. In addition to the UAC grant budget remaining the same, $251,000 in federal arts stimulus money will trickle through the state and be available for organizations that had to sacrifice personnel as part of budget cuts. There is also additional NEA funding that can be obtained directly if an organization has received a grant from them in the past four years; in Utah there are 24 that qualify.
And, very significantly, smaller and newer organizations can still apply for UAC grants this year, Hunt assures, and those will still be peer-reviewed. While the application process was delayed, the dispersal of funds was not, she says. She strongly encourages folks to contact them with any questions, as it has been difficult to map out.
It may get worse before it gets better. But, Ferrell says, with relative optimism, “People will do what they can.”
UTAH ARTS COUNCIL | <urn:uuid:15fc97f7-d819-44f8-a7f7-a07f771deb50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-65-7644-taken-for-granted.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959226 | 961 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Which, if any, is the "true" Christian church?
Criteria for selecting the true church
The task of selecting the true church:
The Encyclopedia of American Religions 1 listed 1,588 religious
denominations, sects, faith groups, organizations, etc. in the U.S. The vast majority of them
consider themselves to be Christian. Some of these groups believe that they are the
only true Christian church.
How does one find out which denomination really is? Some
|Those who believe in the power of prayer might devoutly, sincerely pray
to God to assess his will. If they feel certain that they have learned his
will, the problem is solved. Unfortunately, the results of a small pilot
study seem to show that assessing the will of God
through prayer is impossible. Although this finding may be surprising to
some Christians, it can be supported by the fact of Christian diversity.
If Christians really could have assessed the will of God, the original conflicts between Jewish Christians and Pauline Christians in
the first century CE -- and the thousands of conflicts since -- would have been resolved,
and there would have been only a single Christian church throughout history.|
Without God's guidance, there are other alternatives:
|Perhaps one of the tens of thousands of existing Christian groups can be
determined to be the one true church.|
|Perhaps none of them are. All of the Christian denominations may have strayed so far
from Jesus' original intent, that all may be deeply flawed.|
|Perhaps many faith groups are different manifestations of the true church - even though
their beliefs, rituals, and practices differ.|
|Perhaps a historical faith group, now defunct, was the rightful owner of that title.
There have been a lot of religious groups wiped out by genocides down through the ages,
perpetrated by whichever religious group was in power at the time.|
|Perhaps Jesus did not intend to found a church at all; in that case, there has never
been a true church. Many theologians believe that Jesus had no intention of
creating a church.|
|Perhaps Jesus regarded his mission to Jews only. There is evidence for
this in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). In his travels through the
Galilee, he visited only Jewish towns, avoiding Greek ones. He instructed
his disciples to do the same. He at first rejected an appeal by a Gentile,
referring to her as a dog -- a despised animal in the Jewish culture. If
Jesus had no desire to spread his teachings beyond the Jews, there would
never have been a true Christian church.|
What criteria can we use identify the "true" church?
We can approach this question in many ways. There are many criteria that can be used.
Unfortunately, they lead in many different directions. For example, we can examine:
|What some very conservative denominations say: Some faith groups
already claim to be the one true church. It is possible that one of them is correct.|
|What other groups say: Some conservative, mainline and liberal
denominations believe that the true church is composed of many individual faith groups,
each representing a different version of the true church. There might not be a single
"true" church; there may be many.|
|What Yeshua of Nazareth said: Perhaps Jesus' words in the Gospels can be used to
identify the true church.|
|Jesus' behavior towards social outcasts, the sick, the poor, the
orphans, etc.: Perhaps the
"true" church deals with people in the same way that Jesus did. By studying how
Yeshua treated others, we might identify a modern-day church that interacts with people in the same
|What Jesus asked of his disciples: Perhaps the expectations of
a modern-day Christian church are similar to what Yeshua expected of his disciples.|
|The example of Jesus' disciples: At Jesus' execution, his disciples
knew more about his thoughts, goals and intentions than anyone else. Perhaps today's true
church is the one that is closest to the religious organization that they formed.|
|Which is the most successful Christian faith group?.
God might have made certain that the true church would be the largest in
- J.G. Melton, Ed., "The Encyclopedia of American Religions,"
Triumph Books, (1991). A 3 volume set.
Copyright © 1999 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Originally written: 1999-JAN-13
Latest update: 2007-JUL-27
Author: B.A. Robinson | <urn:uuid:a563d0c3-c06f-4685-8de7-275dc845ac28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://religioustolerance.org/chr_true5.htm | 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 | 0.952496 | 975 | 1.695313 | 2 |
January 15, 2013, 10:41 AM — There is a push in retail and restaurants to accomplish more through self-service automation, but that trend doesn't necessarily mean that a business should look to reduce staff by rolling out technology.
One company that's doing more with technology is OTG Management, which runs restaurants and other concessions in airports. It has deployed iPads in airport terminal areas using new table-type seating. Each seat also has a credit card reader, allowing travelers to order food with the iPad, pay the bill using the card reader or or simply surf the Web and charge their own device.
There's no obligation to buy anything, said Albert Lee, the chief technology officer at OTG. It's more important that people leave with a good experience.
"It's that trust that has helped us build out in a successful way," he said.
This technology and attitude appears to be working for OTG. The company started deploying iPads two years ago at JFK and LaGuardia airports, and now has 1,500 devices in use. By the end of this year, it hopes to have as many as 7,000 tablets deployed, including at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and at Toronto Pearson International.
The iPads and card swipes took away some of the things waiters and waitresses usually deal with, allowing them instead to focus on better customer service. They greet new customers, make sure their needs are met, deliver the food, and help with the iPads, if need be. The efficiencies gained allow the wait staff to handle more customers, said Lee.
Although one goal of automation is often staff cuts, Lee says that's just wrong.
"A lot of people, unfortunately, look at this as a staff reduction exercise and they are doing it so they don't have to answer questions with real humans, and I think that's the biggest mistake in the industry," said Lee.
"This is a tool to ensure the accuracy of an order, a tool to empower the customer," said Lee, "but the service still remains the same.
"People really need to focus on customer service and customer experience," said Lee. The iPad and self-help kiosks "are fantastic tools" but "you need a human element to make it really successful," he said.
It has also meant more IT hiring. OTG is adding four iOS developers, and an equal number of tech support staff. OTG worked with a firm, Control Group, to develop the iPad platform for the restaurant's use. | <urn:uuid:8dcacab8-1b69-4912-9f3c-6b4ccf04af3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.itworld.com/336378/restaurant-firm-turns-ipads-automation-and-more-hiring | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980588 | 516 | 1.523438 | 2 |
AfriGeneas States Research Forum
[NC] Dutch & Leni Loggins
I'm really reaching long for this one. But can someone see if a Dutch Loggins is indexed in the marriage books with his wife Leni there in North Carolina. Don't have an exact location. Says they were both born in North Carolina. And moved to Mississippi with the Henry or John Loggins families.
Am told Dutch Loggins was an indentured servant from Germany. And needing to prove this fact or not?? | <urn:uuid:a6c7d1c9-1b70-49fa-8112-ec884483d4f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-states/index.cgi/md/read/id/8421/sbj/nc-dutch-leni-loggins/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975906 | 104 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Another thing. To anyone who says that matter/energy can't exist before a singularity: The only singularities we have ever observed (black holes) have arisen SPECIFICALLY from matter/energy. We have ZERO KNOWLEDGE about singularities forming from anything BUT matter which was, previous to formation of the singularity, just ordinary matter.
So you disagree with Hawking?
No, I UNDERSTAND Hawking--and you don't. I also understand science, and what scientists mean when they write something. I also have good reading comprehension.
And I also understand the most BASIC principles of chemistry and physics, among which is that matter and energy are equivalent. In fact singularities that we KNOW about arise from the collapse of a quantity of matter that is squeezed inside its Schwarszchild radius (although they also accrete MASS AND ENERGY directly--when they happen to enter within its Schwarszchild radius). At an actual singularity, NOBODY can say WHAT it's composed of exactly, because current theory is not yet able to describe the physics of singularities. But they are DESCRIBED in terms of their APPARENT mass, charge, and angular momentum.
You CAN'T take a single sentence from someone's work and claim to understand the totality of their work. And you can't understand science from reading a popular book or two (or a hundred). When Hawking (or any other theoretical physicist) says that "all matter and energy comes from the singularity" he means all the matter/energy in THIS universe comes from the singularity. He simply DOESN'T DISCUSS any other matter or energy that might exist elsewhere (in another dimension, in another universe, etc.). I have a feeling you simply don't understand these concepts. You are definitely not in a position to discuss them.
Would you like some advice? Drop the Kalam argument. You are not in a position to deal with it. Instead, as an "apologist," you should concentrate on:
1) The apparent fine tuning of cosmological constants.
2) Ways to convince others that the jesus story is true and accurate.
THOSE are the only things that have ever brought in new believers to christianity. Even some physicists and philosophers have been turned (mostly to deists) by the fine tuning argument (although, IMO, it seems they've made a leap into fantasy).
The Kalam argument holds VERY LITTLE sway among thinking people as it is, and you lack the ability of WLC to bully his way across its huge gaps and fudges. | <urn:uuid:41f5f4fd-ce6e-44ae-9c67-9439b0d7357c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,11143.msg254548.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963138 | 540 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Here's the ending of the radio version:
Narrator: The night George saw his uncle off he walked homeward slowly through what appeared to be strange streets in a strange city, for the town was growing and changing as it had never grown and changed before. It was heaving up in the middle incredibly, and as it heaved and spread it befouled itself and darkened its sky. From day to day, from week to week, great new industries were springing up, steel and oil, and this new all-conquering thing, the automobile.
Strange people swarmed about him obliterating, destroying every trace of the magnificence that once was Amberson, destroying with it the last of the Ambersons, George Amberson Minafer. The city rolled over his heart and buried it, as the city had rolled over Ambersons and buried them to the last vestige. A thing had happened, the thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many. The hope of many good citizens had finally come to pass, but not one of them was there to see it. George Amberson Minafer got his comeuppance. He got it three-times filled and running over.
Later, as he walked down Amberson Boulevard, now known as Tenth Street and filled with second-rate shops and cheap boarding houses, and climbed the stairs of the old house for the last time, a terrible loneliness assailed him. He opened the door, softly, into Isabel's room. It was still as it had been. Tomorrow everything would be gone, and soon after that the very space which tonight was still her room would be cut into new shapes by new walls and floors and ceilings.
Yet, Isabel's room would always live, for it couldn't die out of George's memory, and whatever remained of that old high-handed arrogance was still within him, he did penance for his deepest sins that night, and it may be to this day, some impressionable, over-worked woman in a kitchenette, after turning out the light, will seem to see a young man kneeling in the darkness, clutching at the covers of a shadowy bed, and it may seem to her that she hears a faint cry, over and over...
George: Mother. Mother, forgive me. Mother? Mother. Forgive me.
Narrator: You must have guessed by now who George Amberson Minafer was. Take my word for it, please, that the George Amberson Minafer who was, is no more.
Eugene: Why Lucy! What brings you downtown this morning?
Lucy: I tried to get you at one of the factories, but no one could locate you. I wanted to talk to you, Poppa. Are you very busy?
Eugene: I'm never too busy to talk to you, Lucy. Is something wrong?
Lucy: Yes, Poppa, there is something wrong. It's George.
Eugene: George? You mean...
Lucy: Yes, Poppa, George Minafer.
Lucy: He's been hurt, badly hurt. He's in the city hospital, both his legs broken.
Eugene: That's too bad.
Lucy: He was run down by an automobile.
Eugene: An automobile? George Amberson Minafer run down by an automobile.
Lucy: Poppa, do you know what he's been doing the past two years?
Eugene: No, no, and I couldn't honestly say, Lucy, that I'm very interested.
Lucy: He's been working with explosives at the Akers Chemical Company, a dangerous job, the most dangerous job there is.
Eugene: Well, I never thought he lacked nerve, Lucy.
Lucy: You don't understand, Poppa. No one else would take the job. He needed work so badly he took it, and... and Poppa, he's made good. He's changed. He's not the old George at all, and now this has happened to him.
Lucy: I want you to go to see him.
Eugene: No, Lucy. After all, you can't expect me to have any particular affection for that young man.
Lucy: I'm sure that Isabel...
Eugene: Isabel... Isabel's been dead three years... three years... and if it hadn't been for him, she might... she might -
Lucy: It's what she would want you to do, Poppa. You know that. She'd want you to be kind. She'd want you to come with me to the hospital. He's lonely, Poppa. His heart's broken. He needs us. We can help him. You could do so much for him, and I... I could... Well, Poppa, what are you going to do?
Eugene: Isabel, my dear, up there in that small, bare hospital room this afternoon, you were by my side. Do you remember, Isabel, that last day we were together? You said that things in our lives were like smoke, and time like the sky into which the smoke vanishes, and I told you that, for us, things would not change like that, that we would always be together. You were with me when I walked into that room where your son was lying, with Lucy sitting beside him. He felt you too. He lifted his hand in a queer gesture, half forbidding, half imploring. "You've come," he said, "you must have felt my mother wanted you to come, so that I could ask you to forgive me." And as he held my hand in his... if you could have seen Lucy's face at that moment, dear Isabel, she was radiant, but for me another radiance filled the room... for then I knew that I had been true to you at last, my true love, and that through me, you had brought your boy under shelter again. | <urn:uuid:bddb8dac-9e78-431c-8a98-efd4c521f1c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=14634 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989142 | 1,257 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Dean Kleckner: A Global Farmer Leader with Vision and Resolve
Sep 27, 2012
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
"Is Dean Kleckner the most famous farmer in America?"
I thought about the question for a moment.
"No," I said. "He’s not the most famous farmer in America. He’s the most famous farmer in the world."
I know, I know: "Famous farmer" is an oxymoron. Although growing food is one of the most important jobs around, the work is done in near-anonymity.
Yet in the halls of power, Dean became known as the great champion of U.S. agriculture. Last month, he stepped down as chairman of Truth about Trade & Technology--and we all owe him a tremendous debt for having devoted his life to American farming.
Dean grew up in northern Iowa, near the town of Rudd, working in the fields alongside his father. When he started out, all farming was organic--or "primitive," as Dean likes to joke. He still remembers the first time his family used commercial fertilizer: "The corn shot up faster, the fields grew greener, and there was more of everything," he wrote in a 2008 column. "We never looked back."
That’s for sure: When it came to farming, Dean always looked forward.
He also looked outward, becoming an advocate of ordinary farmers. For a decade, he headed the Iowa Farm Bureau.
That was when I first met him. I was a state delegate to a convention. We were debating some issue, and Dean had left the room for a few minutes. While he was gone, we voted to take a certain action. When Dean came back, he heard what we had done. Then he calmly explained why we were mistaken.
We knew he was right. We reversed our decision. He had turned us around 180 degrees. He was wise and clear-thinking.
Dean went on to become president of the American Farm Bureau, winning seven consecutive two-year terms.
This was when global leaders in agriculture came to know Dean. He represented the United States in world trade talks, making sure that American farmers gained access to new markets. Yet he always remembered that trade talks are a two-way street, and he took the time to understand the agricultural interests of other countries. Dean was successful because he’s such an excellent listener--the very opposite of the "ugly American" stereotype.
Dean may have traveled the world, but he never lost sight of where he came from. He continued to grow corn and soybeans and raise hogs, back near the town of Rudd. He still cheers for the St. Louis Cardinals and loves to eat at Cracker Barrel.
After he left the AFB, Dean joined Truth about Trade & Technology, an organization that I had helped form with a few fellow farmers. We really needed his help.
We had sensed the need for a farmer-led group that would seek to improve America’s ability to sell its goods and services across borders. We also wanted farmers in the United States and around the world to enjoy access to advanced technologies, including genetically modified crops.
We had a grand vision--but knew we needed broader expertise to implement it and make a difference.
That changed when Dean joined TATT. With the most respected voice in agriculture, he jump-started the organization--and turned it into a deliberative and influential promoter of everything from free-trade agreements to consumer acceptance of biotechnology.
Now Dean has stepped down as chairman, but it would be wrong to conclude that he has retired. Just last week, he wrote a column for TATT on the importance of Trade Promotion Authority as TATT’s Chairman Emeritus. I’m sure we’ll hear from him again soon.
In 2007, the board of TATT created the Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award, honoring a global farmer who has demonstrated "strong leadership, vision, and resolve in advancing the rights of all farmers to choose the technology and tools that will improve the quality, quantity, and availability of agricultural products around the world." Next month, we’ll give it away for the sixth time.
We thought the award would be a great way to recognize a deserving recipient as well as show how much Dean has meant to farmers in the United States and abroad.
We created the Kleckner Award when Dean was out of the room. Nobody thought for a second to reverse the decision.
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa. Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology. www.truthabouttrade.org | <urn:uuid:9255bf50-655b-412f-bbd4-d3e3bde55cfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/legacyproject/blog/the_truth_about_trade/dean_kleckner__a_global_farmer_leader_with_vision_and_resolve/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983588 | 985 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I am very disappointed at the defeat of the school budget and the school district's institutional response to its implications.
The budget defeat was the result of the anger of the town residents, particularly the town's seniors towards their high taxes.
Passing a school budget has become education by managed care. Like the insurance companies who ignore the opinions of doctors regarding the nature and extent of treatment, the town's residents imposed their valuation of what education is needed based upon the amount they want to expend. The seniors voted against the budget based not upon what is necessary for the education of its residents but how their pocketbook was affected.
The anger of the town's seniors was obvious at the polls. When I voted and saw the look in their eyes and determination in their faces, I knew the budget was going down in the defeat.
In this atmosphere, even if the board proposed a budget less than the contingency budget, it may still be defeated because residents' taxes will increase.
Residents concerned about paying higher taxes are not concerned with the high cost of education, including the "No Child Left Behind" un-funded mandates; the extra attention and resources necessary to educate children who came into school whose parents are not highly educated; from a household where English is a second language; the fact that the buildings are old and there is deferred maintenance; the skyrocketing cost of fuel and health care; that the teachers' pension programs returns did poorly and the district must make contributions in the millions or that the value of their homes will increase if the passed budget leads to higher student achievement and increases demand to live within the district.
Seniors and other opponents will not vote for a tax increase. They will rationalize their decision many different ways. They will accuse the school district of wasting money and mismanagement, without proof of same.
The process should not be governed by the amount residents want to pay, but by their actual cost.
This is nonsense; the board's response to the budget defeat is the tired refrain that we have to get more input from the community and make the community a larger partner in the overall process. No matter how the district publicizes its itemized budget and conducts community meetings giving people the chance to evaluate its reasonableness, it will not overcome the residents' anger.
The district must come up with a new approach to passing the budget. There appears to be more angry people than parents with children in the school district. They need to get more people to the polls favorable to the budget as supposed to thinking they could change the minds of people who are already angry at their high taxes.
Rick J. Rutman | <urn:uuid:063756bc-f093-43fc-ac5c-a2f9f3e48bed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antonnews.com/portwashingtonnews/2005/09/30/opinion/rutman.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980272 | 532 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Congratulations! Today was the day that everything fell into place. The stars lined up for you and so you finally felt great about yourself!! You know what I am talking about. You noticed in your calendar today was the day to apply Frontline to your four legged friend, so you lured him/her over to you with a handful of treats, parted his/her fur and applied Frontline directly on their skin. Yes, you are feeling good!!! You applied the treatment just like the directions said and can’t wait to do it again next month. Plus it only took 10 minutes out of your day and now he/she is outside frolicking in the yard and playing with the kids. Thus you can move onto your next project…what a great day this is going to be.
That is, until an hour later, when your four legged friend shows up at the back door covered in mud, leaves and grass. He/she looks like a walking compost pile, you think to yourself, as you grab your camera and start taking a couple of photos to share with your friends. These are great shots!
Then it dawns on you that only an hour or so ago you put Frontline on your pet. Now apprehension is closing in as you remember something in the instructions about not washing your pooch for 48 hours? What to do, what to do, what to do? Should you bathe him/her and reapply Frontline or does your four legged friend have to spend the next 48 hours outside barking at the neighbors? Or should you buy a flea and tick shampoo and just wash the dog with that?
To answer that question, you should know a little about Frontline. The main ingredient in Frontline, fipronil, stores itself in the dog’s oil glands, reapplying itself constantly through the hair follicles. Though the manufacturer claims their product is waterproof, some dog owners have found that the treatments do seem less effective after bathing.
Notice I said less effective, not ineffective. So before you decide to use the flea and tick shampoo on your dog’s skin, keep on reading. Do you really want to add more chemicals to your dog’s skin in addition to what you just applied? How long have you been using Frontline? Does your dog currently have fleas and ticks? Is he or she going to bark all night if they are not sleeping in bed with you?
First things first. Make sure your pooch has plenty of water outside and can lay in a place with shade. Even though he/she is muddy and wet they still need water. Second, give Aussie Pet Mobile a call and we will come out to address the situation.
Usually, when a situation like this happens, we wash the dog in an Yucca Shampoo which is designed to help moisturize their skin while cleaning their coat. Then we recommend a couple of alternatives if you discover fleas such as:
- Garlic and brewer’s yeast tablets. The scent is secreted through the skin and keeps bugs away. It is not as bad as it sounds and can be used at anytime in conjunction with Frontline.
- Use essential oils. Be careful. Some oils can cause irritation when applied directly to your dog’s skin. Instead, add a few drops to your pets collar or dilute it in water and spray a few squirts on their coat. Cedar, lavender, citronella and rosemary are great for this.
Another option is a homeopathic treatment called Capstar. Capstar is a tablet you can give to your pet. This stuff works fast. Normally with in 30 minutes to an hour you can actually see fleas fall off your cat or dog. Capstar is safe for pets that are 4 weeks of age and older and over 2 pounds of body weight.
Lastly, you can use a natural Yucca based shampoo to wash your pet. It uses yucca’s super water softening ability to penetrate the shells of fleas and ticks causing their natural, instant and safe elimination.
At Aussie Pet Mobile we use Yucca shampoos or a Neem based shampoo for pets with really bad fleas. Neem based shampoos are actually recommended by the department of agriculture for the treatment of flea infested pets.
I hope you enjoyed this post and I look forward to hearing from you. If I can ever be of help to you or your pet, give us a call. Aussie Pet Mobile Alpharetta | <urn:uuid:1e01e112-3d6a-4d24-a79f-56b427f92119> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mobilepetgrooming.wordpress.com/tag/pets-atlanta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960637 | 931 | 1.53125 | 2 |
People operate with diverse systems of belief and we can live with this incoherence - Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty - Page 118 - Paul W. Kahn - 2011 - Preview - More editions In the postmodern world, the...1 month ago
Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.
In view of the fact that multiple anonymous comments in a thread make confusing reading and it becomes difficult to track who is telling what and to whom, only comments bearing some name/pseudonym/identity will appear in future. [TNM 011110 SEOF]
Tuesday 17 April 2007
By Tusar N Mohapatra 6:39 AM You maintain that "the extreme diversity of intended meanings of the term render it effectively meaningless." That means your objection is only against the term and not against the various notions people attribute to it. You perhaps say that these notions are real but perennial. And there is nothing new to them to be denoted as a separate genre under this generic term. Do I get you right? By MD 1:28 PM Hello Tusar, Thank you for this comment. To answer your question, I have degrees of objection. My highest degree objection is with, yes, the term "postmodernism". That has been my main line of argument, and thank you for characterizing it accurately. Right in line with this is my argument that if one rejects "postmodernism" as a term, one must also reject the taxonomy it participates in, namely "premodernism, modernism, postmodernism". I have lower degree objections, which have to do with a couple of the various notions, as you refer to. Derrida's deconstructionsm is the main one -- I have argued that it claims to have offered an innovation equivalent to "questioning assumptions", and that such a claim is absurd, since questioning assumptions is a) at the root of any genuine thinking, and b) see ancient Greek thought such as Plato and you'll see "questioning assumptions" in abundance. CJ Smith doesn't think "questioning assumptions" is at the heart of Derrida's deconstructionism. I think that whether or not it is the heart, the end result of deconstructionism is questioning assumptions, upon which texts rest. md By Tusar N Mohapatra 5:37 PM Here your objection is against deconstructionsm's 'sole' claims to "questioning assumptions." 'Deconstruction: A Reader' by M. Mcquillan contains essays among others by Freud, Marx, and Heidegger. F.R. Leavis, Saussure, Barthes, Paul de Man, et al are said to have done work allied to Derrida's. So, is it fair to campaign "don't bother with Foucault, Derrida, nor Lacan" and thus prejudice the students of philosophy who have not read them? | <urn:uuid:a02f5903-94ea-41d2-848c-8af3d0a7267f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seof.blogspot.com/2007/04/questioning-assumptions-is-at-root-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946489 | 608 | 1.828125 | 2 |
good enough, is good enough, when the initial conditions of a desire are satisfied, without aspiring to the absolute best solution to that desire imaginable.
So if you're shopping for an item of clothing, it's fine to have a look around but if you're trying to find something perfect you're gonna be disappointed, there are just too many options to make the 'best choice' possible, and once you've bought the item buyers remorse sets in 'could i have got the same item cheaper somewhere else', 'wish i knew if this is the latest fashion' etc. The psychological jargon is 'maximisers' and 'satisfiers' in other words those who tend to seek the maximum from an experience and those who are less aspirationally minded.
Nowadays this supermarket of choice extends from the trivial to the most important aspects of our lives-we've gone from a one size fit's all society to a bespoke society in a generation or two.
This is partly because happiness has become increasingly linked to choice- 50 or 60 years ago (in the UK, though the same can be said of much of the West) marriage was pretty much a forgone conclusion for most people and by default so was parenthood.
There was a kind of template you got married-for the main part before your 20’s and you became a parent not long after. That was the model, and even though there was choice in terms of partner, or number of children, it was a fairly circumscribed range of options-if you got a girl pregnant-you married, if you were gay-well homosexuality just wasn’t factored into the equation-you married. Divorce was possible, though rare because of the social stigma still associated with it and the financial difficulties of being a one parent family-especially for women.
Now of course social relations have become increasingly a lifestyle choice. What's interesting isn't merely that this is the case, but that we tend to think more and more choice will lead to a greater sense of fulfilment or satisfaction, but ironically that's not the case all. Whats really happened is that the existential dilemma becomes greater and greater, as our choices increasingly define us-for better and worse.
This leads me to the last part of your point about 'I don't see us advancing at all if were to think good enough is good enough'.
It's important to distinguish between futile aspirations and necessary ones.
Ending poverty or slavery are good not because they offer us infinite choice, but because they are prerequisites for the flourishing life.
So while i celebrate choice, fetishising choice would undermine it's potential to liberate us.
Well yeah, the desire for ‘perfection’ or at least ‘the best’ can be a millstone around the neck. It’s good to aspire in certain fields, but in most day to day, ordinary affairs, there simply is no ‘best’ and by assuming there
is you’re setting yourself up for a kind of psychological fall.
'good enough, is good enough' Barry Schwartz
At first site it seems quite an innocuous quote, but the beauty of it is that taken at face value it's actually a maxim for living.
You say it with such conviction, Jesse.
It's highly debatable as I see it. If I tell myself that whatever I have is good enough and rest my case there, then probably I will be able to sleep better at night but then again, I don't think it will make me happy in the long run. But most importantly, when is good enough is truly good enough? Exactly where do you draw the line?
Also, I don't see us advancing at all if were to think good enough is good enough. That’s just my stance on it. | <urn:uuid:f79ed01e-6f93-4f82-97fa-12564d4ca089> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tennis4you.com/forum/index.php?topic=8541.msg486290 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969339 | 784 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Halfway House in CT
Halfway houses are established institutions in the field of rehabilitation. They act as a median point between a treatment facility and one’s home. A halfway house is for people who are in recovery from alcohol and/or drug addiction. It provides that step between a treatment facility and returning to a home environment. In this way, it helps patients to be ready to re-enter society, by getting them used to a residential and social environment. A halfway house typically provides support for patients seeking employment, and provides patients with a social group of sober peers. As well as re-introducing patients to a social and home environment, halfway houses carry out rehabilitation programs. These most often include individual and group therapy, and support groups. In this way, the patients’ progress is monitored. The aim is that the patient keeps on track with treatment while also feeling supported in what can be a vulnerable period of the recovery process.
Most halfway houses advocate and implement long-term stay only, meaning 30 days or more. It is hoped that by the end of the process, the treatment coupled with the social atmosphere will allow patients to successfully re-enter society equipped with the tools for living a sober life. If you have recently completed treatment but feel you could benefit from a halfway house environment, please view the list of halfway houses located in Connecticut on our website.
Halfway House Facilities in CT | <urn:uuid:07482253-b858-4844-be7d-fee5694bcb1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alltreatment.com/ct/halfway-house | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963063 | 285 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Somerville Resident Helps Homeless Children Get Playtime
Amy Gardner was the Horizons for Homeless Children playspace activity leader of the year.
Three years ago, Somerville resident Amy Gardner was riding the T when she saw an advertisement. It depicted a cute kid, and it asked, to paraphrase, if such a child could sell you tires, could she also sell you on the chance to spend a few hours enriching her life?
The advertisement spoke to Gardner, and "I just decided it was time to start impacting somebody's life," she said.
Since then, Gardner has been volunteering with Horizons for Homeless Children, spending a few hours each week as a playspace activity leader, or PAL, and she recently won the organization's PAL of the Year Award for her efforts.
Gardner works at a family shelter in Somerville, where she oversees playtime for the children of five families who live there. She's one of 1500 playtime activity leaders in the state who do such work with the organization each week.
"I just let the kids run for 10 minutes" at the beginning of their playtime, she said. "It's really their only chance to do something wild."
Unlike most children, those who live in a homeless shelter don't have their own room or play area, so it's important they get the opportunity to play. Caitlin Doran, who works at Horizons for Homeless Children, said the organization has 150 playspaces in Massachusetts and works with 2400 kids every week. Volunteers commit to working at least two hours a week for six months.
Gardner said that, after letting them run around for 10 minutes, the kids in her shelter usually settle down to more productive types of play, adding, "it's so good to be able to give these kids the opportunity to play and discover."
Despite the possible challenges of working with homeless children, Gardner said, "Generally, the kids are in there for fun. Generally we don't run into a lot of issues."
Inevitably, she said, her time at the shelter is the "highlight of my week." | <urn:uuid:008b1644-d868-4c83-8f7c-ee4e4ae58f95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://somerville.patch.com/articles/somerville-resident-helps-homeless-children-get-playtime | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977128 | 433 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Pairings for May/June
To respond, click on the link below. You will come to our Feedback page. Fill in Pairings as the subject (Step 1) and your name and e-mail address (Step 2). Then type your answer in the box (Step 3). Please include your city and state with your answer. Good luck!
Got an idea for a Pairing? We’ll pay $100 for every Pairing selected. Submit your idea
First: Paul Revere’s fabled midnight ride might have easily come to a bloody end. In the wee hours of April 19, 1775, he rode straight into the clutches of British troops, who held a gun to his head and threatened to kill him. As dawn broke, the soldiers heard gunfire and let Revere go.
Second: In Boston at the turn of the 20th century, King Gillette joined M.I.T.-trained engineer William Emery Nickerson to mass-produce the world’s first disposable razor blade. Their American Safety Razor Company was soon renamed for Gillette. Men on the go have thanked him ever since.
This two-word phrase pairs the clues:
_ _ _ _ _ _ H _ _ _
One winner will be chosen at random from among all correct entries and awarded a Yankee gift subscription. Last issue’s winner was Douglas Zabawa of Bristol, Connecticut. | <urn:uuid:26a9a4b8-db68-458d-a87b-f6e59aabe371> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/10things-interact-2/pairings-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933349 | 293 | 1.546875 | 2 |
A possible MagPi Ada series?
On the 10/07/12 I emailed the editor at MagPi magazine to ask him if he would be interested in a new Ada series to introduce Ada to new Raspberry Pi owners, he seemed up for it, so I decided to give writing the first article. It took a few weeks to knock out and learn Scribus at the same time.
Ada Bare bones port
I have spent today taking my code from previous hello world kernel attempts and updating them as a port of the OSDev.org Bare bones tutorial.
Developing a content management system Part 2
In this part I shall look at the overall system structure of the CMS and what each part is supposed to do.
Developing a content management system Part 1
This site is currently implemented using MODX, and not very well on my end as I wanted something fast.
First simple app for ARM
After managing to update the build scripts for TAMP's compilers, I have managed to build and run a very simple application on an STM32F4DISCOVERY board in Ada.
Bare metal ARM GNAT compiler built
After a multitude of different builds and a few modifications to the GNAT runtime, I have finally managed to build GCC-4.6.1 C and GNAT compilers for bare metal.
The build utilises Newlib as the libc interface that GNAT's RTS builds upon, I've disabled sockets, files and a few other things
TAMP: Some success
After spending about 2 weeks basically compiling compilers pretty much constantly, I've managed to build gnat for arm-none-eabi with tools and without the runtime system, which is the most important part.
This isn't supported by AdaCore in the FSF release so I've had to hack into the makefi
I have been working on getting the basic toolchain created ready for the development of TAMP.
37 reasons to choose Ada over C
I was pointed at a link which goes through a number of reasons to choose Ada over C.
The status of wxAda
After a long break from wxAda, I'm getting back into looking at it. I've decided to start again and generate the bindings automatically using the 2.9.x interface files. Binding is a difficult proces and this could take some time to acheive. | <urn:uuid:37f08673-f6b9-46f8-a715-e3b2946171ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.archeia.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938287 | 493 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The whale chase begins. It's certainly one of the most exciting sequences in Disney films to that time and one that remains impressive today. The action is intense. Monstro is an enormous physical threat due to his size and power. The water is convincingly portrayed, making the threat of drowning real. We don't doubt for a second that Pinocchio and Geppetto are fighting for their lives.
This sequence showcases the sophisticated understanding of water that the Disney effects animators had. If you compare the portrayal of water in this film with the water in Gulliver's Travels, released just a year earlier, the difference is striking. Gulliver opens with a storm at sea, but the water simply doesn't feel as liquid as the water in Pinocchio. In some Gulliver scenes, the foam on the waves seems to be sewed on, not sliding over the surface or changing its shape enough to be convincing.
The water here works due to a combination of elements. There is the undulating surface, marked by independently moving masses which sometimes overlap. The undulation is helped by the colour-separated detail that flows over it and which constantly changes shape. There are also the foam and the splashes which break up and change shape over time. Colour, too, is critical, as the water has to reflect the environment it is in.
Art Palmer, Josh Meador and Don Tobin did fantastic work on the water here. With the exception of Meador, few Disney effects animators have any sort of reputation. Sequences like this show that they deserve to. | <urn:uuid:efcfab9d-e58b-44ab-bb66-2f7aa730e607> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mayersononanimation.blogspot.com/2007/09/pinocchio-part-29.html?showComment=1190316780000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974447 | 324 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The challenge of communicating welfare reform
From the 1st April this year, changes to welfare benefits will start to affect the incomes and lives of people all across the UK.
Polly Cziok: Reform will present a' huge challenge' to communicators
Later in the year, the introduction of Universal Credit will see the most radical upheaval of the Welfare State since its inception in the 1940s.
The Government’s welfare reform agenda will touch the lives of millions, and local councils are set to be on the frontline of that change.
Housing benefit, which has always been administered by councils, is changing hugely, and the localisation of Council Tax Benefit and crisis funds will place an even greater responsibility on local authorities.
There is an important job to do in communicating these changes to claimants and to the wider community, but equally important will be how we communicate with and support our staff, especially those working directly with the public.
Change on this scale always presents enormous challenge, and there will be many benefits claimants who become distressed or angry when dealing with that change.
Vulnerable people with literacy or mental health issues, or those who are simply confused by the potential impact on them, will attend council offices seeking help and advice.
In areas of deprivation, where digital exclusion affects as much as a third of the population, that face to face contact will be vital. And by its very nature, it will put a huge pressure on frontline staff.
The internal comms must be clear; staff must be armed with the information they need, in the right formats, and they must feel supported by their employers in coping with the impact of the changes that are coming.
Local authorities have been preparing for these changes for some time, but it seems to be only now that the wider debate around welfare reform is starting to hot up.
The watershed issue has been the so called ‘spare bedroom tax’, or as the Government would have it, ‘the under-occupation penalty’.
So far, the coalition have had a fairly easy ride on welfare reform, with most mainstream media buying quite comfortably into the ‘shirkers v workers’ rhetoric.
The bedroom tax, however, has hit a collection of political raw nerves. Suddenly it’s not just 'benefit scroungers' being affected but armed forces families, disabled children, and foster carers.
Suddenly the Sunday People is organising a national campaign, with rallies.
There seems to be a dawning realisation that welfare reform will affect what the tabloids might describe as ‘ordinary, decent people’ rather than just a demonised underclass.
The Government’s hasty u-turns on exemptions may lessen the long term damage and commentators are split on whether the spare bedroom tax will become David Cameron’s Poll Tax.
What the spare bedroom tax furore really shows is the nation and the media beginning to wake up to the sheer scale of welfare reform, something that we in local government have been grappling with for many months.
The coming months will present a huge challenge to everyone working on the frontline of local public service, and it is up to us as communicators to provide the best strategic and practical support to assist our organisations, and the residents we serve, through this intense period of change.
Polly Cziok is head of comms and consultation at the London Borough of Hackney
This article was first published on prweek.com
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All customers have the potential to become your brand advocates, driving... | <urn:uuid:60f42f33-65e8-4434-96d3-d21e2b4161da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brandrepublic.com/opinion/article/1175381/the-challenge-communicating-welfare-reform/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9317 | 1,029 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The NZ Herald has a piece about the falling number of protection orders being issued by the courts. It says;
* A court order is aimed at preventing physical, psychological or sexual abuse.
* A temporary "without notice" order can be obtained within 24 hours and comes into force without the abuser being told. They then have 30 days to file a defence. Orders can also be sought "on notice" and are made after a hearing before a judge.
* Police will generally arrest anyone who breaches a protection order, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Assuming the above is accurate, does anybody see the immediate problem here?
Open mike 24/05/2013
29 minutes ago | <urn:uuid:ca998591-1782-4723-b86b-f81e0dfc081b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/2007/08/and-its-called-justice-system.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949122 | 139 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Deanna Zandt has spent the last three years explaining to people why they should join Facebook and the last week wrestling with the urge to delete her own account.
“It’s getting harder and harder for me to say, yes it’s worth it, you giving up your privacy to get these services, and I have to put my money where my mouth is,” said Ms. Zandt, a social media consultant and author of the book “Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking,” which is being published by Berrett-Koehler next month.
Ms. Zandt is not the only person looking at the door. Others have written about their plans to leave Facebook, or called for others to do so. The trend has even seeped into the consciousness of Google’s algorithms; if you began typing “how do I” into the search engine this morning, “how do I delete my facebook account” was the fifth result, right between “how do I love thee” and “how do I look.”
Facebook has always had its detractors. But this round of complaining is notably different from the “I-don’t-care-what-you’re-eating- for-breakfast” camp, those people who wonder why anyone would share details of their lives online. Instead, the critics this time are the early adopters with developed philosophies about the online world. They see themselves as taking a principled stand on how their data is used even if it means sacrificing an easy way to see a sister’s baby photos.
That doesn’t mean they think the change will be frictionless. Social networking, after all, is about the network, and there isn’t a direct alternative to Facebook, which has become the mainstream default with its 400 million members. There is currently no threat of any significant numbers of people leaving in protest. Some of those who would leave feel stuck.
Joshua Levy, the online campaign manager at Free Press, a nonprofit organization focused on media reform, said that the constant changes to Facebook’s privacy settings have pushed him toward leaving. Similarly, he said, he recently gave up his iPhone, a protest against Apple’s closed software policies.
But Facebook is harder to give up, Mr. Levy said. Both he and Ms. Zandt cited the same reason: their families.
“Facebook is useful. It’s well designed,” said Mr. Levy, who has a young child and a social circle interested in seeing photographs. “If you want to engage with people in the way we engage in 2010, you gotta use it. It’s unfortunate but it’s true.”
Matthew Milan, a partner at Normative, a design firm based in Ontario, decided recently to delete his Facebook page.
He’s doing this over several weeks so he can tell his family members, many of whom now use the site instead of e-mail, how best to reach him. But he says he doesn’t expect quitting to be that that hard because he has always consciously spread his online presence over multiple platforms to avoid being beholden to one.
Even before the flare-ups of the last few weeks there had been talk in some circles about a vision of social networking similar to the one Mr. Milan has tried to approximate, where users would control their data rather than cede that control to a company in exchange for convenience. As Jim Dwyer wrote in his column in The New York Times today, a group of students at New York University are exploring such a solution, in a project called Diaspora*, and have been able to raise more than $23,000 since announcing their project on April 24.
Until some viable alternate reaches critical mass, though, it is hard for many people to imagine a life after Facebook.
“It would be really weird. It would be me taking off and leaving a lot of friends. It’s like moving out of town to live by yourself in some small isolated town,” said Mr. Levy. “It would not be so lonely if some of my friends came with me.”
He has started a campaign asking people to agree to delete their Facebook accounts if 10,000 people pledge to do so as well. As of this morning, 30 people had signed on. | <urn:uuid:59275f77-3d3b-4afc-b79a-74947ccc1b31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/is-there-life-after-facebook/ | 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 | 0.977522 | 923 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Welcome to the 'arranged marriage' tag page at Technorati. This page features content from the farthest reaches of the Blogosphere that authors have "tagged" with 'arranged marriage'.
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Latest blogosphere posts tagged “arranged marriage”
Let’s start off with what role does a marriage play in one’s life and what is the need to marry ! For those geeky guys out there, here goes a formal definition – Marriage is a strong relationship, between two individuals, with well-defined rights and obligations. It forms the basic building block of human ...6 days ago
Girl Rising (2013) This is a guest post written by Colleen Lutz Clemens. Girl Rising unites prominent female authors, such as Edwidge Danticat from Haiti or Aminatta Forna from Sierra Leone, with girls such as Wadley or Mariama from their respective countries. Together, Danticat and Wadley, Forna and ...2 weeks ago
The Idea-smithy — Authority: 133
“Flowers and chocolate. Jewellery is always welcome, of course. And don’t be shy of perfumes.” Sheena announced. A grunt was all she got for her airy declarations, before Ajit turned to the waiter. Sheena slumped back in her seat, downcast. Maybe talking about jewelery and perfume was a bit much. But he had to ...3 weeks ago
Author: Gavin W. Jones, NUS As countries in Asia go through difficult demographic transitions, marriage patterns have never been more important. Asia was traditionally characterised by universal marriage — defined as when fewer than 5 per cent of women have not married by the age of 50. But this is no longer ...4 weeks ago
Comments about arranged marriagePersonal attacks are NOT allowed
Please read our comment policy | <urn:uuid:fb8d2195-5f3c-4ebb-bf90-ddec0575545e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technorati.com/tag/arranged-marriage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945148 | 422 | 1.625 | 2 |
In Mexico City, five police officers have been arrested for their alleged ties to a video that appears to show abuse of a suspect in custody.
According to the AP:
Milenio Television reported last month that one of its reporters had taken the video of an officer repeatedly pushing the man's head into a bucket of water while his T-shirt was pulled up over his head and face.
This isn't the first time that Mexican security officials have been accused of crossing the line. A report by Human Rights Watch leveled charges of torture against Mexican forces, including the Marines, a US-trained force that was touted as weapon that would change the country's fortunes in its war against the cartels because of their advanced equipment and training.
In the report, the New York-based watchdog group said that Mexico's security forces had "exacerbated" the climate of lawlessness, violence and fear in many parts of the country, by regularly using torture to elicit information and confessions from suspects. It also found evidence suggesting that soldiers and police had been involved in extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
The government promised to look into the claims.
Shortly afterward, an American man was released from custody after nearly two years when the US Department of Justice said that he had been tortured by Mexican soldiers. The 29-year-old man had been detained for possession of marijuana. The man said the drugs had been planted on him. At a military base, the US said Mexican soldiers beat him with rifle butts, tortured him with electric shocks, and threatened to kill him.
A Mexican man who had accused the police of kidnapping his son was gunned down in an unsolved shooting. Police said the man had been targeted for his ties to the drug business.
So the arrests of the five suspected of mock-drowning a detainee are noteworthy, if not earth-shattering. It could suggest at least a willingness by the government to acknowledge its role in the lawless environment that persists in many areas.
Of course, this is an incredibly small sample. An estimated 40,000 people have been killed in the past five years of President Felipe Calderon's drug war, and at least some of those are believed to be victims of extrajudicial killings. This tally doesn't include the missing, by the way.
But any effort by the government to offer accountability is a step in the right direction. Fighting criminals by becoming a criminal doesn't usually work out so well. | <urn:uuid:b874db31-4583-4db7-ad52-070fd7aadf0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/que-pasa/will-mexico-finally-get-tough-vigilantes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987464 | 497 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a military unit, has threatened to crush further protests over the country's disputed June 12 presidential election.
But the warning, issued on Monday, fell on deaf ears as shortly afterwards hundreds of people gathered in central Tehran, piling fresh pressure on the country's leadership.
Witnesses described riot police taking up position as they confronted around 1,000 opposition supporters.
The protest took place despite the guards' warning, which appeared in a statement on its website.
The Revolutionary Guards is an armed force parallel to Iran's army which claims to defend the 1979 revolution against a possible coup.
The statement said the unit would not hesitate to confront "illegal" rallies organised by supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the moderate politician who is contesting the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"At the current sensitive situation ... the guards will firmly confront, in a revolutionary way, rioters and those who violate the law," the statement said.
The Iranian capital has seen unrest and street protests since results of the vote were announced on July 13.
Mousavi had renewed calls to his supporters to continue protests on Sunday.
The government is blaming the crisis on what it calls "terrorists" influenced by the West, and has said it will clamp down on any violent action.
The Revolutionary Guards has also warned Western countries against supporting the "rioters".
Over the weekend, clashes between police and anti-government protesters left at least 12 people dead and more than 100 wounded - raising the death toll to 19 since the unrest began.
Gunfire was heard in Tehran overnight, although state television reported the city calm on Monday.
Iranian state radio reported that more than 450 people had been arrested during Saturday's rallies, mostly around Tehran's Azadi square.
Forty police officers were also wounded, and 34 government buildings damaged, the Fars news agency reported.
Despite the deaths, arrests, and an earlier warning from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, the demonstrators have appeared to be undeterred.
Alireza Zaker-Esfahani, an adviser to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, criticised Mousavi for not trying to calm his supporters.
"The weakness is in Mir Hossein Mousavi's political behaviour... He is currently issuing statements inviting his supporters to take to the streets. That will not solve any problem," he told Al Jazeera on Monday.
"Rallies will ultimately contribute to abuse, setting buses on fire, bloodshed and constant insecurity for the people."
He also said that once the security situation in the country has escalated, the president and other politicians have to step back and let security forces handle the situation.
"The security forces are the ones who should lay down plans and execute them, whereas Ahmadinejad, his interior ministry and all other political forces can only enter the scene if and when the security situation becomes one of political interactions. Ahmadinejad cannot do anything now," Zaker-Esfahani said.
Iran's Guardian Council, the country's highest legislative body, meanwhile, has admitted some irregularities occurred during the election.
Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, a spokesman for the council, told state-funded broadcaster IRIB on Monday that up to three million votes were under scrutiny, after it was found that the number of votes exceeded the number of eligible voters in 50 cities.
|User-supplied images are the chief source of information from Iran for the world's media
However, he said it was a normal discrepancy because people are allowed to travel to other areas to vote, and that it was "yet to be determined whether the amount is decisive in the election results".
Ahmadinejad won the election by a wide margin, with 63 per cent of the vote, according to figures from Iran's interior ministry.
Mousavi received only 34 per cent of the vote, although he and his supporters allege voter fraud and have called for an annulment of the result.
In a statement published on the website of Mousavi's Kalameh newspaper on Sunday, the opposition leader said that Iranians had the right to protest against "lies and fraud", but also urged them to show restraint as they take to the streets.
"The revolution is your legacy. To protest against lies and fraud is your right. Be hopeful that you will get your right and do not allow others who want to provoke your anger ... to prevail," he said.
The Iranian government, meanwhile, has also cracked down on independent media reporting on the protests, and imposed severe restrictions on foreign journalists.
At least 23 journalists have so far been detained by authorities, according to the Reporters without Borders organisation, and a BBC correspondent has been expelled from the country.
Al Jazeera is not responsible for the content of external websites. | <urn:uuid:3d415d45-a037-4de4-ad8a-6cbbd5646c51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2009/06/200962211917155481.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975364 | 987 | 1.617188 | 2 |
One dominant feature of the area of Ierapetra, in front of the beautiful village and the minoan remains of Vassiliki is the Ha Gorge. It is considered one of the wildest gorges in Crete, a rare morphological phenomenon of nature, probably caused by tectonic earthquake.
It remains a virgin environment, untouched by man, who still finds its formation prohibitive for exploration or development.
Very few experienced climbers have crossed it. Any attempt without the experience or the equipment could prove fatal, as it happened in the past.
It has about 33 rappels, the largest is 35 meters high. At some points the walls come very close, just a few centimeters, which makes the gorge special. In the last third of the gorge, a waterfall of 215 meters height is poured, which increases the amount of water in the gorge. This is often the problem up to that point for canyoneers: the Ha is dry up to there, but from there it has large amounts of water. The waterfall is the largest in Crete and is located at the end of Mastoras sub-gorge.
|Thripti pine wood||2.2km||Thripti plateau||2.6km|
|Vrondas Minoan Town||3.4km||Pachia Ammos beach||3.8km|
|The olive tree of Azorias||4km||Kastro by Kavousi||4km|
|Milonas Gorge||4.6km||Azorias by Kavousi||4.6km|
|Theriospilios Cave||4.6km||Mesonas Gorge||4.9km|
|Minoan Town in Gournia||4.9km||Agriomandra beach||5.1km|
The entrance of the gorge is very narrow, about 3m and opens on the top. Its width in many parts is only 30cm and in others no more than 3m. To the left and right stand huge stone walls 200m to 400m high. Its length is about 1km. Right before the entrance there is a pont, created by a small waterfall , that comes from another lake above. This is not visible from the root of the mountain but you can marvell at it once you climb a few rocks carefully. The intense parallel colours on the rocks are impressive, too.
As you reach the inside you can see many such small ponts and waterfalls, especially in the wintertime, which is the best time to visit the gorge.
As you proceed inside you are filled with awe, as huge rocks, cut in square or rectangle blocks shadow the small valley, you just left behind. The highest waterfall in Crete, is located in Ha, having 215 m height.
Near Ha, there are some ruins of old stone watermills, monuments of a bygone era.
Flora and Fauna
A few years ago, the mountain of Thrypti was overgrown with pine trees, a true ornament to all Crete. The largest part of the forest was burned down in 1984 and 1987. However the ability of the certain species (pinus Brutia) to regenerate fast and endure drought would very quickly offer full restoration, if it wasn't for the illegal herding of sheep and goats.
Apart from pine trees, there are also many other species, trees and bushes, aromatic plants and flowers. Many rare and endangered plant species are sheltered in the gorge.
The area inside and around the gorge is a very important wildlife habitat. The small ponts draw many migrant birds, but also endemic birds and mammals, insects and serpents offering them food and shelter.
The cretan hare, the cretan weasel (kalogynaikari) and the cretan badger are quite common. A rodent of the african fauna has been observed and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe : the spiny mouse, that looks like a common mouse, with brown fur, white on the belly and with spikes on its back and sides like the hedgehog. The hedgehog is also quite common and is portected by national law. In the gorge many species of bat are also hosted.
Several predatory birds and vultures live in the area of Thrypti, as well as smaller birds, like the duckhawk, the partridge, the quail, woodcocks, red nightingales and crows.
The number of species is significant, but the numbers of the individuals are decreasing, due to the gradual domination of man on their natural habitat. Illegal hunting, passing cars and poisoning from pesticide pose a serious threat to all of them. | <urn:uuid:f7f483f9-c38b-41b6-b551-eeb417acdd08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cretanbeaches.com/Gorges/Lassithi-gorges/ha-gorge/ | 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 | 0.953116 | 975 | 1.757813 | 2 |
In addition to being a Neiman Fellow while at
and award-winning journalist
for The Boston Globe, author Larry Tye has written books on railroad Pullman
Porters, the Jewish Diaspora, electroshock therapy, and a biography of
legendary baseball pitcher Satchel Paige. Tye also loves the character Superman,
and you just can’t fault him for that, because who doesn’t really. Harvard University
His latest work, “Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero” is a biography not just of the iconic character, but also of the creators, writers, artists, publishers and others, who’ve depicted him in various media over the last seven decades. Larry Tye very effectively reveals how Superman has changed to meet the needs of his audience in ways that always kept the famous hero at the forefront of a fluidly evolving cultural environment. Hey, I thought that I knew everything that there was to know about the Man of Steel, but I discovered trivia snippets that I had never read before, and not simply as footnotes. Ingrained within the body of the 300+ page volume is an engaging and entertaining look at the popular history of the fictional Last Son of Krypton, and the real world that warmly embraced him.
I particularly appreciated how the author covered well-known aspects of how young Siegel and Shuster originally crafted their hero and the sad legacy of how they ultimately came to lose control of their creation, and the still-ongoing legal battle to reclaim him for their estate; and Tye relates this controversial information without making harsh judgment calls on the individuals involved. You also get to tag along as the legend of Superman grew from one era to another, see the impact of major historical events against which this comic book champion played against within his own four-color milieu and like Larry Tye, recapture the imagination of youth and what it meant to have a hero like Superman to aspire to.
I am grateful to Tye’s intern Nick Catoni and the fine folks at Random House for providing me with the review copy. I highly recommend this book to everyone, especially comic book fans. It is as clear and captivating a depiction of Superman as I have ever read, and it will grab you right from the start. The book was obviously a labor of love for the author, as there are over 100+ appendix, index, bibliography, and note and photo pages. Give this book a shot, folks! | <urn:uuid:a844c518-0ebd-4603-98d6-1da284763dc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://comicbookcatacombs.blogspot.jp/2012/05/superman-high-flying-history-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966695 | 519 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Cambridge Postgraduates in Entrepreneurial Challenge - (1996 competition)
A team of postgraduate researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge has won the first New Entrepreneurs Prize for their business plan for Vivo, a start-up biotech company manufacturing a new sensor for monitoring blood glucose levels. "It was hectic but definitely worthwhile" was the verdict of Julie Tucker, Managing Director of Vivo.
The scheme was devised to give postgraduate researchers an insight into the many different facets of commercialising the results of science and of establishing a science-based company. Five teams participated in the four day event, held at the University of Nottingham, in April. After a short intensive course in business plan preparation and with business, financial and commercial experts on hand to advise throughout the event, the five teams prepared and presented their plans to a panel of judges from the academic, business, finance and public sectors. Competition was intense, with some teams working through most of the last night to finalise their presentations.
The winning Cambridge team were Julie Tucker, Roger Millington, Alistair Hindle, Donna Freeman and Matthew Steinberg. Runners-up from the University of Nottingham were Zina Affas, Tamsin Ford, Deepen Shah, Adrian Taylor and Kevin Francis who chose as their product a new system for rapid detection of bacterial contamination.
The judges were impressed with the quality of the business plans, both in terms of style and substance. "I was impressed by the very high quality of the people and the presentations and their grasp of the commercial imperatives in starting new companies" said Dr Brian Richards CBE, Executive Chairman of Peptide Therapeutics, and chairman of the judging panel. He was also impressed with the variety and the originality of the bases of the proposed companies.
But there is more to the New Entrepreneurs Prize than simply winning or losing the competition. "We certainly came away knowing a lot more about the mechanisms of setting up a company" said Julie Tucker. The judges too were very positive about the scheme. "If I had had the opportunity of attending such a course before attempting to set up a new company, I would have found it invaluable" said Dr Richards.
The BBSRC gratefully acknowledges the sponsorship of prizes by Price Waterhouse and additional support from Coopers & Lybrand.
- Past Competitions - > next (1997) | <urn:uuid:31d826bd-e4fb-49b4-9b80-204e7594b710> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biotechnologyyes.co.uk/1996competition.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973241 | 491 | 1.5 | 2 |
We're still more than a month away from Barack Obama's second inauguration, but the planning is well underway—and apparently includes military personnel playing with this huge toy map of Washington, D.C. Pentagon and National Guard officials unveiled the massive 40-by-60 foot scale map of the capitol city yesterday, which they will use to plot parade routes, organize muster locations, and basically draw up their entire game plan for January 21 of next year.
About 13,500 personnel from the National Guard, Coast Guard, and other reserves will be used for crowd control and security, as well actually marching in the parade itself. They aren't expecting nearly as many visitors as the 1.8 million we saw at Obama's massive first inaugural in 2008 — it's expected to be relatively low-key, and the president is accepting corporate financing — but planners are getting ready for a big onslaught of tourists just the same. They're also good at making adorable models of national landmarks.
Check out some more photos of the map below, along with a video report from The Washington Post.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci | <urn:uuid:543ce0b0-7f4a-4a49-8064-42e17bd97d7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/inauguration-day-being-planned-crazy-giant-map-washington/59952/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961839 | 225 | 1.570313 | 2 |
From The Dragon Archive
Quote: "Initially I was hired as a consultant to write the BIOS for the Dragon. This BIOS was the abstraction layer between Microsoft's (Dragon) BASIC and the underlying hardware. I also helped out with the design of the hardware. Motorola at East Kilbride aided and abetted since the MC6809E was the Dragon's processor. I have a soft spot for the 6809 - it was nice, orthogonal, 8/16-bit architecture and the last of the Motorola processors to have a SEX instruction ;-) Since I wrote the BIOS in 6809 assembler using Motorola's development kit, I was also the person that blew the final mask ROM for the production machines. In the usual time-honoured fashion I 'signed' my work with a wee easter-egg in the ROM. Since I couldn't leave a trace in the source program I patched the final ROM by hand! To this day, all Dragon 32s have my initials in their ROM. I patched my initials into the the end-of-line initialisation sequence that got copied into the BIOS data structures in RAM at boot time. The EOL sequence according to the BIOS source is CR,LF,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL but in reality was patched to CR,LF,'D','N','S',' '. Since this sequence was copied into RAM it was possible to modify this by POKEs to configure the EOL sequence to a particular printer, say. The number of characters in the EOL sequence (initially the constant 2) was also copied to RAM so that it too could be modified. By using a POKE to alter this RAM location to the value 6 my initials printed out as part of the EOL sequence. I.e. DNS appeared at the start of every printed line ;-) " | <urn:uuid:0221892f-2cc1-4f45-b26e-16bedd4d27c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.worldofdragon.org/index.php?title=Duncan_Smeed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960981 | 376 | 1.625 | 2 |
BURNABY, British Columbia — Authorities are seeking the public's help in trying to determine the identity of a ninth foot that washed up in southwestern British Columbia.
The remains of a foot were found encased in a sock in a hiking boot that washed up in Sasamat Lake in Port Moody over the weekend. An autopsy on Monday confirmed the remains are human.
The foot is the ninth found in southwestern B.C. in the past four years. But unlike the previous eight cases, this one was found in freshwater, not saltwater, said coroner Steve Fonseca, manager of the Identification and Disaster Response Unit for the BC Coroners Service.
It is also the first to be found in a hiking boot, rather than in a running shoe. ... | <urn:uuid:164cad76-fa59-427b-8082-690485b38676> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?45748-Ninth-foot-washes-up-on-Canada-shore-%E2%80%94-with-a-twist&p=462807&viewfull=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964267 | 157 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Here is a quick tip list on letters for the HELP! desk:
Please confine yourself to only one question per letter. Both postal letters and e-mails are fine, although we prefer e-mail as the most efficient form of communication. Send your e-mail queries to [email protected] with Help in the subject header and your return e-mail address at the end of your message. Although we make every effort, we cannot promise to answer every HELP! letter.
When sending a response or suggestion that refers to a published letter please include the month and page of the original question.
All postal letters to HELP! must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope to be considered for reply. We will respond to e-mail queries with an e-mail.
Tilt And Shift For Canon
On page 191 of the May 2005 issue, James McElroy asks about tilt-and-shift effects with a 35mm camera. He also states he owns a Canon AE1. Canon manufactured a tilt-and-shift lens that fits his Canon camera. It is the Canon TS 35mm f/2.8 lens. I have seen used lenses advertised for about $600. One word of caution: Anyone buying one needs to make sure it comes with a tripod adapter. Without the adapter, when mounted on a tripod, which is how a lens of this type is usually used, the range of tilt or shift may be limited. Both tilt and shift can be used at the same time. The lens tilts in one direction and shifts at a right angle to the tilt direction. The entire lens rotates in its mount, thus, any orientation can be set. Aperture control is manual, and metering must be done stopped down, which is not a big deal. Also, you must use the entire screen for focusing and composition.
Thanks for reminding me about the Canon tilt-and-shift lens. Although I have more than a dozen different focal lengths of prime Canon FD mount lenses for the several models of older Canon SLR cameras, I had never personally used the tilt-and-shift lens. I appreciate your feedback, especially your comments about seeking one with a tripod adapter. Personal experience with any product gives a better insight into what to look for in a new or used item.
Q. My question regards locating processing and printing of images made by the three- and four-lens 3D cameras. My attempt to locate the Orasee Corporation of Duluth, Georgia, indicates the same defunctness that once plagued attempts to find 3D Image Technology of Norcross, Georgia. Weber of New York City is also non-locatable. Surely someone knows of someone who has begun photofinishing for this attractive photography diversion. Can you help me locate some such photofinisher? Prices commensurate with snapshooting would be useful.
A. The firms mentioned by this reader are the only ones I show in my reference files for 3D processing and printing. A Yahoo! web search located this website: www.orasee.com. That website provided the following contact information: Orasee Corporation, 4850 River Green Parkway, Duluth, GA 30096; (770) 497-0727. I placed a call to this telephone number only to get a message that it was disconnected. An e-mail to the firm at their website asking about their processing business has been unanswered for over a month. So it would seem they are indeed out of business. That said, if any readers know of any current labs doing this type of processing and lenticular 3D printing, we sure would appreciate it if they would drop me a line and provide the name, address, and pricing information. If any 3D labs read this we would like to hear from them, too, as this question comes up several times each year. There appear to be a number of frustrated 3D camera users out there seeking a reasonable processing and printing lab.
Q. Where do I locate a supplier to order photo mugs or neat personalized gifts? I have twin nephews and have some adorable digital shots that I would like to turn into some special gifts. Thanks for your help in this matter.
A. I know of several firms offering a wide variety of photo-based novelties such as mugs, photo boxes, wall clocks, light switches, key chains, sculptures, coasters, ties, mouse pads, etc. Some deal on a wholesale level but others deal with individual customers. They include The Denny Manufacturing Company, Inc. (PO Box 7200, Mobile, AL 36670, (800) 844-5616, www.dennymfg.com) and Neil Enterprises Inc. (450 E Bunker Ct., Vernon Hills, IL 60061, (800) 621-5584, (847) 549-7627, www.neilenterprises.com). They ordinarily work with photo dealers in offering these items, so check with your local camera store. Many of the online photofinishing businesses, like Snapfish (www.snapfish.com) and Ofoto (www.ofoto.com), also offer these items. | <urn:uuid:3374f0ea-bec2-44b9-b2fb-407e1cd7e956> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shutterbug.com/content/help-40 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937491 | 1,065 | 1.789063 | 2 |
This winter’s open source/DIY convention has added two new speakers to their list: Jasper Nance will demonstrate her high speed photography experiments as well as her DIY Scanning Electron Microscope project. bionerd23 will talk about detecting radiation.
What are the frontiers of DIY technology? The first Exceptionally Hard & Soft Meeting (EHSM) will feature presentations of the brightest DIY achievements. But we do not want to stop at DIY. In fact, we should not, because teamwork is the only way to get the big things done.
The open source ethos is about keeping the freedom and openness of DIY when many people are involved. At a time when thousands of developers from hundreds of companies contribute to Linux and the world’s largest physics laboratories share openly licensed hardware designs on OHWR, we will explore the cutting-edge open source hardware and software practices.
This premiere of the EHSM will be held in Berlin on December 28-30 2012. Everyone is welcome to attend it. Curiosity is enough to qualify, and we have kept the minimal entrance fee affordable. Please order your ticket as soon as possible, to help us make this event happen.
It’s important that you help support these talks, so if you plan on attending, reserve your ticket now! Early registration ($65) ends July 15th, and the ticket prices will go up to $110 after that.
Image by Andrew Zonenberg, CC-BY — thanks, Andrew!) | <urn:uuid:7b393748-6fbd-4b30-96a5-563e617fe5c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://makezine.com/2012/07/05/eshm-conference-adds-two-speakers/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=c1ce40f6e1 | 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 | 0.949154 | 305 | 1.671875 | 2 |
How to Choose a Quality Kitchen Knife
A knife is the most important and most often used utensil in the kitchen. The first question in choosing a knife is "Which knives should I buy?"
With the many brands and styles of knives out there, purchasing knives is not a small decision. The knives you choose should last a lifetime (and maybe even be passed on to the next generation!). Once you own a quality set of knives, the only time you will have to buy another set is to give them as a gift. Speaking of which, knives are among the most popular wedding gifts!
When you are ready to buy knives, remember that they should not be considered a disposible object. Instead, a good set of knives will easily last you a lifetime.
Open Stock or Sets?
Knives can be purchased wither individually or as a set. Purchasing knives as a set usually provides a discount from buying the individual knives. The danger of buying sets is that you may find that you have purchased knives that you would not otherwise use. We generally recommend buying sets only if the knives in the set are very close to the knives you would purchase individually as open stock knives.
Most major cutlery manufacturers, sell knives in "open stock" as well as sets, which means you can buy one knife at a time. Buying knives in "open stock" usually makes sense if:
- Sets are not available from the manufacturer you are interested in. Many of the better manufacturers do not offer knife sets.
- You want a selection of knives that more closely fits the ones you use on a regular basis.
- You want to add a knife to your collection. Two people may frequently prepare meals together and find it easier to have two paring, utility or chef's knives.
- You are replacing a lost or stolen knife.
- You want a particular knife. For example, a person with small hands may prefer a smaller chef's knife than the one provided in the set. Or, your cooking style may frequently call for a specialty knife, such as a cleaver or a fillet knife.
- You want to buy top quality knives but can't afford the full set in a single purchase.
- You want to purchase knives from several different manufacturers. Some manufacturers do some knives really well, while other knives in the line may not be as well designed. Purchasing individual knives allows you to mix and match. You also may want to purchase from different manufacturers if you want to purchase the best primary knives you can afford (chef's knife, paring knife, slicer), but wish to purchase more affordable secondary knives (boning knife, bread knife, fillet knife, etc).
Fine Edge or "Never Needs Sharpening"
Most cutlery fall into one of these two categories.
- Fine edge knives are the classics of cutlery. They are the choice of chefs and accomplished cooks because the blade is much sharper which allows for finer, more precise cuts. However, fine edge knives do require some maintenance, such as honing with a steel or ceramic honing rod. Fine edge knives will make the cleanest cuts and these cleaner cuts will actually result in better tasting food.
- "Never Needs Sharpening" knives are a poor choice (and are not offered at Epicurean Edge). The blades are not able to make as precise of a cut as fine edge knives and generally these knives rely on a serrated sawing action rather than a razor cut. Generally, "Never Needs Sharpening" knives wear out in a few years and must be replaced rather than sharpened -- in the long run this means more expense rather than a savings.
Marks of a Quality Knife
At first glance it may seem difficult to distinguish a high-quality kitchen knife from an inferior one because often the important factors show up only in daily use. You can be sure of the fact that we at Epicurean Edge have sought out some of the best knives found anywhere.
When choosing your new knives, look for:
Full Tang (Myth!)
- The Blade
- The material used in the blade is one of the most important considerations in buying a knife. Blades will generally be made from either ceramic or metal. In general, a higher quality knife should have a blade that is relatively easily sharpened and stays sharp for a very long time.
- Stainless steel knives are manufactured from a high carbon steel that resists rust, stains and corrosion. Note that even stainless knives can rust or oxidize if mistreated. High carbon stainless steel knives combine exceptional edge holding with ease of care. Our shop's favorite high performance stainless steel knives include: Blazen, RyuSen, and Sakon. A great less expensive stainless steel knife is MAC.
- Carbon steel knives are manufactured from high carbon steel that only has limited amounts of chromium. In gereral, carbon steel knives can be sharper than stainless steel knives and are easier to re-sharpen. Many professional chefs prefer carbon steel knives because of the exceptional performance. Because carbon steel knives can easily rust or oxidize they are not for everyone. Carbon steel knives must be carefully maintained. They should be rinsed and dried after use. During cooking, it is a good idea to rinse a carbon steel knife off after cutting exceptionally acidic foods such as onions, citrus, and tomatoes. We recommend using camelia oil to help protect the knife from rust. Our shop's favorite high performance carbon steel knives include: Kumagoro and Kobayashi. A great, less expensive carbon steel knife is Kobayashi's Dojo Line. These have the advantage of stainless steel sides with a carbon steel core, and so are easier to care for. Even though Sabatier's carbon steel line is no longer brought over to the US by a major importer, we import these tremendous classic carbon steel European chef's knives that have been a long time favorite.
- Ceramic knives are slightly more fragile than steel knives, but provide an exceptional, long lasting edge that does not need regular maintenance. We sell Kyocera ceramic knives, which are currently the best ceramic knives that are made. Kyocera has a complimentary sharpening service because they realize that ceramic blades are beyond the ability of most local sharpeners.
- The tang is the portion of metal that continues through the handle and to which the handle is attached. Though many people think a full tang is a sign of a quality knife, this is simply not so. There are many examples of high quality knives that have full tangs, but equally so, some of the best knives do not have a tang that is visible from the outside of the handle.
- Top quality knives feel good in the cook's hand. The appeal is somewhat subjective, with different handle styles being prefered by different cooks. Balance does not mean the blade and the handle weigh the same. It means your knife feels so comfortable that becomes an extension of your hand. Some general rules are:
- The knife should feel solid and easy to handle.
- Chef's knives should have enough clearance to allow a full rocking, chopping motion over a cutting surface without smashing your fingers between the knife handle and the cutting board.
- A knife should be light but not flimsy. Though a heavy knife can feel comfortable, heavy knives add to hand fatigue and get stuck cutting firmer foods. A thinner knife with a distal taper will be a much better performer.
Stamped or Forged
- The best chef's knives are distal tapered. This means that the knife progressively gets thinner from the center of the knife to the point. To get optimal balance, the tang (the metal part of the knife inside the handle) will also be tapered.
- Forging is the process of heating a single piece of metal and then hammering it into the shape of a blade. This usually involves high heat and tons of pressure. Stamped blades, on the other hand, are pressed out of solid sheet of metal. Though some of the best knives are forged, there are many exceptional knives that are stamped. Whether a knife is stamped or forged, a good quality knife will feel like an extension of the hand, whereas a poor quality knife will feel uncomfortable to hold.
- The parts of the knife shoudl be assembled without gaps. This is particularly important for hygienic reasons and for future sharpening. Neither the blade nor the handle should have any irregularities or burrs.
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Hamilton's recent decision to adopt a need-blind policy in admission despite a still-turbulent economic climate has earned wide praise from national and local media, alumni, parents and friends of the College. The policy means the College will make admission decisions without considering applicants' ability to pay.
The Huffington Post put it simply: Hamilton is "bucking trends." The New York Times' Jacques Steinberg noted, "At a time when some colleges are favoring applicants who do not require financial aid," Hamilton "has decided to swim against that tide." Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, wrote, "The fact that you are able to do it now — in the middle of an economic downturn when many colleges are retrenching — speaks volumes about the importance the Hamilton community attaches to enhancing educational opportunity."
The applause wasn't universal. Thomas Donlan '67, editorial page editor of Barron's National Business & Financial Weekly, argued that the College "can admit whomever it pleases, and give them financial aid as it pleases, but pretending that money doesn't matter is a psychological error and a bad lesson." Nevertheless, Sally Sands P'07 lauded the College for "taking the lead at such an important time, making a difference and doing the right thing." And Emily Stern Duwel '83 echoed the comments of many graduates in praising Hamilton "for having taken an ethical and generous stance in challenging times."
The decision, effective this fall with the arriving Class of 2014, has been on the College's agenda for a number of years — the 2009 strategic plan identified need-blind admission as a "long-term goal" — but it became a reality in December, when five members of the Board of Trustees pledged $500,000 each in "bridge funds" so that the College could accelerate its timetable. A sixth made a similar pledge in March, when the board unanimously approved the policy.
Chairman A.G. Lafley said good management practices allowed Hamilton to move ahead with the policy despite the downturn in the economy. He cited the recent decision by Moody's Investors Service to reaffirm the College's strong Aa2 rating. Moody's cited Hamilton's "continued favorable market position," "robust operating performance" and "conservative fiscal practices" in its assessment earlier this year.
"We are taking this step now to make a bold statement about what we value as a college and to position Hamilton for the long term," said Lafley, who recently retired as chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble. "Protecting our legacy as a school of opportunity is our highest priority. We are fortunate to have the resources to meet this objective, because it's the right thing to do for Hamilton." | <urn:uuid:03c9f7f5-d65b-48d1-9389-b24140c69bb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hamilton.edu/magazine/spring10/departments/need-blind-admission-speaks-volumes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952857 | 556 | 1.570313 | 2 |
European online retail sales are expected to hit €191 billion ($249 billion USD) in 2017, up from €112 billion ($146 billion USD) in 2012, according to new data published today by Forrester.
The forecast, which looks at 17 countries across Europe, estimates an 11 percent compound annual growth rate, fueled by the usual advantages of shopping online, such as saving time, money and finding products that simply aren’t available offline.
Despite their poor economic outlook at the moment, Forrester predicts that much of this growth will be attributed to Spain and Italy. Spain is expected to hit €9.1 billion in 2017, equal to 18 percent annual growth, while Italy will rise to €8.3 billion, with 16 percent growth.
The UK is on the lower end with 10 percent yearly growth, although it’s important to note that it’s starting from a base of €40.1 billion in 2012 – a total sales figure more than ten times higher than that found in Italy or Spain.
“Although far from the saturation point, the UK in particular has passed beyond the boom years and local retailers must invest in optimization and innovation to stay competitive,” a spokesperson for Forrester said.
The independent technology and market research company has also predicted that by 2017, more than half of all money spent on music and DVDs will be online. In addition, over a quarter of all book purchases will also be made over the Internet.
That’s not entirely surprising. The demise of HMV in the UK, for example, has meant that there are now few, if any high street chains selling physical records. Aside from independent record stores, almost all music purchases are being made either through online stores such as Amazon, or through digital distribution services such as iTunes.
Groceries, while not the most exciting goods, are also expected to be a huge earner for online retail stores. Forrester says that by 2017, shoppers across Europe will spend nearly €10 billion online for food and drink.
This trend is being accelerated by supermarkets such as Carrefour in France, which is integrating NFC-enabled mobile kiosks into its physical stores – thereby providing a link between its online and brick-and-mortar offerings.
A report detailing Forrester’s research also shows that by 2017, online retail will represent 15 percent of the UK’s economy, up from 13 percent in 2013. Germany, meanwhile, rises to 10 percent – up from 7 percent – and both France and the Netherlands will hit 7 percent in the next four years.
“As wallet share shifts gradually to the Web, eCommerce will naturally come to be regarded as more and more critical to national economies,” Martin Gill, Forrester Principal Analyst said.
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EXCOMMUNICATION AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, Straight Answers to Tough Questions, by Edward N. Peters (Ascension Press, W5180 Jefferson Street, Necedah, WI 54646, 2006) 100 pp., PB $7.95
Excommunication is always a hot topic. It frequently arouses considerable interest as well as emotional investment when brought up. In some circles, people lament that excommunication is not utilized frequently enough, and see in it a clear solution to the miasma of dissent that has infected a number of Catholic institutions. In other circles, excommunication is seen as a sad and embarrassing shadow of the past and has no place in the Church of Jesus Christ, who was a really, really nice guy. Seldom is excommunication approached calmly, soberly and clearly.
Dr. Edward Peters, the eminent canonist and holder of the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit offers one such clear treatment of the subject in his new book, Excommunication and the Catholic Church. In doing so, he has provided a great service to those of us who work in the canonical field and anyone else who is regularly called on to answer questions about excommunication. Dr. Peters’ book is easily approachable without being simplistic and gives solid but brief answers to many of the questions that are asked time and again, such as: “What are some of the things people can be excommunicated for?” “Isn’t excommunication a sin against charity? Doesn’t Jesus preach love and forgiveness?” “Can an excommunicated person enter a church?”
Disarming those who would maintain that excommunication is a relic of an authoritarian past that should quickly be allowed to molder, Dr. Peters points out that “grave sin still exists and some grave sins are also canonical crimes that can result in excommunication.” (p. 7) To those who argue that punishments like excommunication are too harsh and are contrary to the precept to love one another, he writes, “the Church’s primary focus is always on an individual’s welfare, on helping him to accept responsibility for his actions and repent of wrongdoing.” (p. 9)
Certain theologians and canonists would have people believe that the Church’s teaching on issues surrounding abortion, politicians and Catholic identity are murky and it’s best to avoid even bringing up the topic. Here again Dr. Peters cuts through the mire and offers a refreshing dose of clarity. He points out the difference between those who actually procure abortion and are therefore subject to the automatic excommunication of canon 1398 and those who advocate for abortion rights and are not currently subject to automatic excommunication. Still, he argues, there are legitimate reasons for invoking penal sanctions under canon 1369 on those who use their public role to advocate for anti-life measures. In addition, canon 915 can justly be invoked to deny certain individuals the right to the reception of communion. While the somewhat convoluted realm of penal law has led some to believe that the Church is powerless to deal with recalcitrant public figures, Peters demonstrates how clergy and laity can work together to hold these politicians to account, to strengthen the Church’s public stand in defense of the unborn and to urge repentance on those who have strayed in their dissent.
Ecclesiastical penal law can appear mysterious to those untrained in canon law (and even to those with a solid grasp of other portions of the Code), but in the end, is a relatively straightforward thing. It has as it’s inspiration, the Lord’s words to Ezechiel, “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live.” (Ez 33:11). The impatience that some have with the Church’s implementation of penal sanctions is warranted in certain cases where a swift judgment would have been more helpful than a slow, plodding process – or no process at all. Yet the patience of the Church is animated by the same Spirit of justice that seeks, through the application of the penal process, conversion and reconciliation before resorting to punishment. As Dr. Peters’ concludes, “Excommunication often has the effect of making people decide, in quite stark terms, which way they want to go – the Church’s way, or theirs. Finally, if the offender repents of his actions, his reconciliation is itself a powerful testimony to those who might have been misled by the earlier poor example.”
For those who wish that the Church would utilize the corrective tool of excommunication with greater liberality, Peters’ new book provides a sober analysis of the reasons for the Church’s penal law. Peters reminds those who believe excommunication to be cruel or outdated of the restorative value of just and equitable punishment. To all who find themselves intrigued by inflammatory news stories about excommunication, Peters offers a handy reference, replete with a glossary of the technical terms.
Timothy T. Ferguson, JCL
St. Clair Shores, MI | <urn:uuid:3128ed51-cafe-4a74-a121-8bbe7517e1d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hprweb.com/2009/04/you-can-go-your-own-way/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960961 | 1,059 | 1.773438 | 2 |
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