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Research in Music
Research in Music at Otago is an exciting array, representing the strengths and diversity of our staff and students, who come from all over New Zealand and the world.
In New Zealand universities the results of research in music are shared in different ways: through books and articles, and also through compositions and musical performances and recordings.
Our staff are involved across the range of research activity, from community music to music technology, from classical music and contemporary music performance to conducting.
We also house the New Zealand Music Industry Research Centre (NZMiC).
Research in Music at Otago takes a number of forms:
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http://www.otago.ac.nz/music/research/
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| 0.949212 | 127 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Objects and structures can make a garden feel inviting and personal. A weathered birdbath (B on Site plan) passed on from the author's grandmother enhances a hosta bed.
Every time I walk past the 75-year-old birdbath in our garden here in southern Vermont, I recall when I first saw that cast-stone ornament as a boy in my late grandmother's garden near Oyster Bay, Long Island. It sat in the center of a boxwood-edged rose garden that was crisscrossed with crushed-oyster-shell paths. While visitors to our garden don't know what associations I hold with that birdbath, they can tell that it's old, that it anchors the broad curve of a hosta bed, and that birds do surely visit it. Objects such as this, rife with history and meaning, make our garden feel personal, anchored, and peaceful.
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| 0.964647 | 182 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The cashier kind of looks at the woman, but says, “Well since they’re open I don’t think we can take them back.”
“Well we had to open them so we could try to play them, but one look at the rules and these are too hard. We’ll never figure them out. They’re not games. I don’t know what they are, but games are supposed to be fun and these aren’t.” …
So they go back and forth a few times and finally the woman starts piling them back into the bag. “I’ll just keep them, then. Maybe my kids have some #$%@’ing genius friends I can give them to. You really need to stop selling these in the toy department, though. These are not toys. They’re brain cell killers! Your marketing is misleading.”
Meanwhile, I’m standing there with my popcorn popper trying not to laugh and thinking, “Well, at least I’ll never be competing for a job with this woman’s kids. If this stuff is too hard for them, they’re never going to make it through high school.”
I guess this is what happens when you unleash uncommon games into a mass market department store environment.
And thus, the inspiration for a new gamer term, brain cell killer.
Read the whole story and the resulting thread here.
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http://www.gamerjargon.net/2013/01/19/these-are-not-toys-theyre-brain-cell-killers/
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| 0.959704 | 312 | 1.539063 | 2 |
These pages and runes in general are a not psychic readings. They do not give answers. They can be fun. They are similar in usage to the Book of Changes (also known as the I Ching), and Tarot cards. Runes, like all divination tools, are just applications of interpretation, randomness and application of selective observation.
The runes are at best a reflection of the person using them. The belief system of the early users of the runes held that everything in the world was alive, and that it must be treated with respect. The runes were a way of “speaking” with this world. Runes were also considered a tool for personal growth and personal understanding.
The Rune spreads and Rune descriptions provided on this site are provided to demonstrate how chance, cherry-picking and interpretation have been used to promote various divination tools. The meaning is almost never obvious, almost always useless, always subjective, and never something upon which you should base real decisions. With that in mind have fun exploring the definitions Runes and their spreads.
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| 0.973995 | 211 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Each winter, I suffer from a cold or two, and just occasionally this results in me losing my voice for a week or so. It’s that time again, and here I am struck mute. I am still able to, but really should not, whisper, so I limit my verbal communication to a minimum. And even though I am used to this situation by now (having experienced it several times during the last 15 or so years), I still feel weird.
On the positive side, it is amazing how much you can convey without actually speaking. Mouthing the words and smiling will do for saying hello and for most shopping. Using your hands and fingers will help, too.
And I have taken to whistling, which is not rude if you do with family members who know why you do it, and it definitely beats climbing two sets of stairs whenever you want to catch someone’s attention. (For when you are annoyed, there are several loud and rude noises you can create just with your lips and tongue. I do that while watching soccer matches. Takes me back to being a five-year-old.)
I also carry a little notepad with me if I want to say something more complicated, but it can be frustrating to scribble like mad and listen to the conversation passing on to the next topic simultaneously.
Now you might think this would be a perfect time to catch up with writing all those emails … think again! I crave spoken communication. I want to listen to real people talking. The emails will have to wait another week, I’m afraid.
To ease the silence, I have started to listen to music much more than I usually do. That’s definitely a positive side effect!
At least losing my voice means I can recover and rest, as I can’t work without it, and am on sick leave. (Now desk work at home, I can do that, and do it, but it’s definitely less strenous than actual teaching.)
Have you ever lost your voice, and how was the experience for you?
- Rike Horstmann
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http://www.likesbooks.com/aarafterhours/?p=6424&cpage=1
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| 0.968827 | 434 | 1.65625 | 2 |
In trying to verify the birthdate and find the birthplace of George Angus Barclay I tracked him back in the U.S. Federal Census to 1850 in Connecticut. All evidence for census and other documents were pointing to Connecticut as his birthplace not Scotland or New Jersey. A census search of 1850 does not reveal a George Barclay of this age born in New Jersey.
The census does reveal a George Barclay living in Enfield, Hartford Co., Connecticut at the age of six years old. He is living with an entirely different family and not with his parents.
It looks like George is part of two households. The family he is living with starts with a notation on line 15 and begins with a Lucy William age 65 with $4000 real estate value. Under her is Lucy M. William age 27. Then we start another family on line 17 with an Edwin D. William listed as age 26. Under him is Margret P. William age 26, born in NJ. We follow with George Barclay 6 years old born. He attended school within the year. All the people listed have been born in Connecticut except Margret.
Running a census search for members of this Williams family in 1860 reveals no Lucy, Edwin or Margret living in the Enfield area or in Hartford County.
So who are these people?
I am suspicious about Margret. The name is the same as the one given for George’s mother. It might be coincidence. The fact that she is born in New Jersey is interesting. It has been suggested by Aunt Miriam that George was born in New Jersey. It is possible that the parents divorced? Her age is maybe a little to young for being a mother of 7 children. Is she John Barclay’s sister. If John was born in 1801 as indicated on documents I have collected, he would be 49 years old. So he is probably a little too old to be a brother. Things are not looking good for this Margret William as a candidate for George’s mother, but we will remain open to all possibilities at this time.
Nearby in East Windsor, Hartford County, Connecticut which is southeast of Enfield we find Alexander Barclay. He is living with yet another family and is about the right age for George’s brother.
The family we are interested in starts on line 20 with an [Alonso] Barber age 30 who is a farmer with $2500. Next comes a Nancy Barber age 25. We then have Alfred at 3 years of age, next is [Frederic] at 1 year of age. [Lorain] Peas follows at age 17. Last we find Alex Barclay at age 9 years. All are born in Connecticut. Alex has attended school in the last year.
In running a census search for this Barber family in 1860, you can find them still living in Enfield. They do not have any children listed in their family group with a different family name. These two families the Barbers and Williams have means and money.
Where are John Barclay and Margaret? I have been unable to find any reference to John or Margaret in the U.S. census for 1850 or in 1840 that fits. All my Aunt Miriam knew about Margaret was that “she died before the Civil War.”
With this information, I decided to write the Enfield City Hall to see if I could find a birth record for George. They wrote back that they were unable to locate a birth record for a George A. Barclay.
The Logsleds to Snowmobile book (history of Pine River, Minnesota) makes this statement on pg. 105.
“Sometime before the Civil War his mother died. George and his brother Alexander were placed in different foster homes…”
In the next post we will dig further into the Connecticut census and discover the possibility of other Barclay children nearby and living with other families in Hartford Co., Connecticut.
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en
| 0.975097 | 806 | 1.59375 | 2 |
What do sea creatures think about all day? Life on land, of course. And what does a male sea creature like Grue think about all day sitting at the bottom of the sea? How to flirt with human females on land, of course.
Grue's problem is that he’s bored. Well, bored and horny, probably in equal parts of both. Grue’s problem with women is that he’s not quite a regular man and females on land want nothing to do with him despite his grand, romantic gestures and love for Shakespeare.
Why Shakespeare? Well, ever since he started finding corked bottles filled with pages of his work floating in the ocean, Grue became his biggest fan. When Grue devises a plan to explore the surface world, he stumbles upon a lonely woman being held captive in the belly of a ship. Like Romeo and Juliet, these lovebirds come from different worlds and so action, danger, violence, and hilarity will ensue.
With expressive art and clever writing in Dear Creature, Jonathan Case creates a unique and entertaining story of a man from the deep who just wanted to find a companion in life.
~ Jay Spence
See Previews page #318
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http://www.previewsworld.com/Home/1/1/71/941?articleID=109720
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en
| 0.94913 | 253 | 1.625 | 2 |
"If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable"
Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 4BC - 65AD
A business plan will show you the way to greater market share and profits. It's your business, and it has to be your plan.
Planning is the key to getting things done and making things happen. A business plan is essential if you are serious about a successful business.
A planning session facilitated by Ideology Consulting provides you with an opportunity to look critically at your business and decide what needs to be done to improve it and when.
The plan can reflect your ambitions and dreams for the future and guide you through implementation process.
Ideology provides a business planning service to help you achieve your objectives. Using information gathered before and during a planning session our advisors will write your plan for you, then present the completed plan and provide support for you and your staff to make it reality.
Our comprehensive plans include:
- Detailed discussions about your personal plans and ambitions for your business
- Analysis of your current strategy and operations
- SWOT and PEST assessment
- "In-house" facilitated planning session (with your staff if preferred)
- Functional and easy to read plan layout tailored to your needs
- Specific actions and activities allocated in achievable time frames.
- Explanations for each action and results oriented instructions
- Tailored post-planning assistance or support if required.
- Ideology Consulting has an extensive collection of resources, templates and marketing materials that can assist in making your plan into reality.
- Improvement opportunity evaluation and reporting
- Inventory assessment and plans
Of course you can ring Ideology for assistance and advice at any time, day or night, if you are unsure or things change.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.ideologyconsulting.com.au/Business%20Planning.htm
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en
| 0.931546 | 365 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Don't miss Harlaxton Professor Caroline Magennis on April 16!
This course is an opportunity for students of all majors to read and discuss some of England’s most admired writers while resident in the British Midlands at Harlaxton Manor, a 100-room nineteenth-century manor house owned and operated by the University of Evansville as its British campus. Regular class meetings will be devoted to close reading of the assigned material and placement of it in socio-historical context. Supplementary weekly visits to literary sites will give students the opportunity to experience firsthand the landscapes that the assigned writers have made famous. Writers include Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Bronte, Thomas Hardy, and Virginia Woolf. Students will see a Shakespeare play at London’s new Globe Theatre, as well as visit sites of cultural importance, such as the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate Gallery, Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s. Students will also have ample opportunity to travel on weekends to sites of their own choice.
This is a GATEWAY to all of Europe! You can get almost anywhere very quickly and relatively inexpensively. After coming back, I feel confident that I can travel by myself anywhere in the world. --Rachel Raper, Summer 2011 participant
A great mesh of formal education through texts and interaction with the environment in which they had been written. -Eric Bachelder, Summer 2010 participant
While traveling through England, we saw the countryside and landscape described in many novels, including the ones we were assigned and ones I've read before. It helped me to understand the literature and the feelings of the characters in the novels. –Stephanie Drozd, past participant
Activities / Itinerary (from Summer 2012)
Make course/substitution selections on your EIU Program Application. The credit hours associated with your selections may not exceed the credit hours allocated for this program: 6
Below are the choices available for this program:
Course Number: ENG 3010G (CourseID: 361)
Harlaxton College and its staff provide room & board for the entire stay in England, and the staff arranges accommodations for all class trips and travel.
At least two pre-departure orientations will be provided and are required for all participants.
Your faculty leader will hold one of these orientations, where he/she will cover information on safety, health, legal, environmental, political, cultural, and religious conditions in the host country(ies), as well as planning logistics.
The Office of Study Abroad (OSA) will hold the other orientation. They will cover general information about traveling abroad to different areas of the world and facilitate a panel discussion composed of students who have already participated in faculty-led study abroad programs.
Harlaxton College is wonderfully equipped for the foreign student—especially those new to travel abroad—to keep students informed about health and safety risks involved in foreign travel. Travel warnings by the US and British governments are routinely published at Harlaxton and related to students there. Harlaxton’s orientation sessions for new students are well-crafted to help students minimize risks. Orientation sessions will occur on campus prior to students leaving, and once there, students will take a mandatory orientation session provided by Harlaxton.
You are strongly encouraged to read the U.S. State Department's Consular Information Sheet on your host countries. It will provide you with a great deal of information to help you prepare for your trip.
**Please be aware that you are responsible for obtaining the most up-to-date information on entry requirements. The Office of Study Abroad only provides general information, as visa regulations and procedures are constantly changing. Please consult the Consulate for more information. **
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| 0.942184 | 780 | 1.726563 | 2 |
First and most importantly, the providers at Johns Hopkins are dedicated to providing the very best care possible to all patients — regardless of their interest in participating in clinical research. There is absolutely no requirement to participate in research. We feel strongly that research is our best hope for advancing treatment, and eventually finding a cure for brain tumors. We are therefore committed to performing high quality, comprehensive clinical research.
You are likely to be offered research opportunities at some point during your care at Johns Hopkins. In fact, patients frequently come to us expressly to be involved in our research efforts. Many patients tell us they greatly enjoy their involvement in clinical trials. Often, patients feel they get even more attention and oversight of their care while they are in a clinical trial since there are frequent designated evaluation points over and above standard clinical assessments. Moreover, there are entire staffs appointed to work with patients in clinical trials in addition to the clinical staff coordinating the overall care for the patient. Finally, the diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor is often emotionally devastating and patients may feel that they are being proactive and contributing to a greater good when they participate in a clinical trial.
As mentioned, there are several clinical studies that are observational. In these studies the commitment on the part of the patient is generally minimal. Patients can frequently participate in many of these studies simultaneously. The benefit of participating in these studies is that you are able to add to our knowledge about a rare disease with relatively little inconvenience to you. While these types of studies are unlikely to offer direct benefit to your disease at the time of your involvement, the information gained may be used to develop new therapies to improve survival or quality of life for you or other patients like you in the future.
Involvement in clinical trials generally requires more patient commitment and has more associated risks. Hence, we tend to offer clinical trials to patients who have had recurrence of a tumor that we know to be aggressive and generally incurable with current therapies. It is worth mentioning that some patients wish to start their therapy with experimental agents since there are currently no widely curative treatments for tumors such as glioblastoma multiforme and we offer trials to support this interest.
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http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/specialty_areas/brain_tumor/research/clinical_trials/benefits-of-participation.html
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| 0.968241 | 439 | 1.65625 | 2 |
As the record-setting, nine-time host city of the event, New Orleans is fast approaching the status of being synonymous with the game. Tourists, media, NFL brass and football fans have flocked here for four decades now to enjoy our food, fun and facilities.
But 2002 was different. In post-9/11 America, it had to be. The date was pushed back a week when the NFL opted to take a week off its schedule in the wake of the terrorist attacks. The event's logo was changed, from one celebrating New Orleans culture to an American patriotic emblem. The host city almost changed, too. New Orleans kept the game by agreeing to move the National Auto Dealers Association's conference that would have conflicted with the rescheduled Super Bowl here. That, after the NFL considered a symbolic switch to New York City.
New Orleans remained the Super Bowl host, retaining the benefits of 125,000 visitors and an estimated economic impact of $390 million. As soon as New England's Adam Vinatieri kicked the last-second field goal that propelled his Patriots to a stunning 20-17 upset victory, the game -- the event -- was lauded as "the greatest Super Bowl ever."
Countless individuals and groups deserve recognition for their selfless efforts. They enabled the game -- with its increased security and scrutiny -- to kick off without a hitch. Here are a few:
· The New Orleans Police Department. Because of heightened awareness of vulnerability to a terrorist attack, the game was made a National Special Security Event, only the 12th time in our nation's history such a designation has been made, and a first for the Super Bowl. This brought the National Guard to Poydras Street, the FBI to the French Quarter, hazardous-materials experts to the Superdome and an F-15 fighter-jet escort to a pilot who departed the Northshore in violation of the area's no-fly zone. The Secret Service was ultimately responsible for security, but NOPD had the burden as principal coordinator of the 48 law-enforcement agencies involved.
They handled it well. There were 436 arrests downtown over the four-day period, most of them for revelers mixing the excesses of Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.
"The department was very proud it worked out so well," says Lt. Sidney Bournes, NOPD's commander of public affairs. "The fact that we had so much planning and security in place was largely responsible for the success. The majority of the people appreciated the efforts, saying they felt it was the safest place they'd ever been."
· Super Bowl XXXVI Host Committee. Staffed by members of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation (GNOSF), the Super Bowl XXXVI Host Committee worked tirelessly to prove their slogan that "N.O. City Does It Better." The group was involved in nearly all aspects of planning and preparation, including the recruiting of 7,800 volunteers who served their city and its visitors during the week.
"I don't know how the NFL or the city could top what happened," says GNOSF president and CEO Jay Cicero. "Everything about it was the best ever. Given everything that we had to go through -- September 11, the change of date, the moving of Mardi Gras, switching the auto dealers' conference -- to come out with that type of event was amazing. The success of this Super Bowl should give us a boost of confidence that we, as a city, can accomplish anything."
· Louisiana Superdome. The Superdome was visually stunning for this Super Bowl. The red, white and blue lights illuminating the monolith the week before the game punctuated months of work to prepare the facility for the game. Spectacor Management Group (SMG), the state's manager of the Superdome, spent $7 million on renovations. These improvements included a new roof, renovations to the Stadium Club, refurbished seats, and paint work. The NFL came in during the final weeks to provide exterior lighting, theme-treatment such as banners and interior lighting, and freshly painted turf.
"This was the most difficult event we've ever been a part of," says Doug Thornton, general manager of the Superdome. "I don't mind saying I was anxious about it, because what we were doing was unprecedented. But it was flawless. We were prepared for the worst and hoping for the best. As it turns out, the best happened."
· The People of New Orleans. Thirteen Mardi Gras krewes rescheduled or relocated their parades. The Greater New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau worked tirelessly to make the "handoffs" between the rescheduled Super Bowl, the auto dealers convention and Carnival krewes happen seamlessly. Motorists tolerated traffic jams. Thousands happily participated in pre-game events. Citizens responded with proper outrage when Boston-based ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons' column "Queasy in the Big Easy" took unfounded cheap shots at us.
And, lest we forget, we also held a mayor's race.
Ex-Saints head coach Mike Ditka once famously quipped that they should "play the Super Bowl in New Orleans every year." On this point, we couldn't agree more.
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en
| 0.97489 | 1,077 | 1.609375 | 2 |
At less than 200 sq miles (2008), Waterton Lakes National Park is the smallest national park in the Canadian Rockies and does not lend itself to much alpine or technical rock climbing during the summer months. However, the ice climbing routes that form in the winter will compare to that of any of the other Canadian Rockies Provincial or National Parks. Waterton Lakes National Park contains the deepest lake in all of the Canadian Rockies (Upper Waterton Lake), so one can just imagine the precipitation in this park is prime to produce a few spectacular waterfall ice climbs. The park receives 1072mm of rain annually making it the wettest location in Alberta, not to mention also windiest with 100km/hr winter gusts common. With the help of the common Chinooks in the park, waterfall ice reins supreme during the winter producing over 40 published routes with grades up to and including WI 6.
The Park is open year around, but most facilities are closed in the winter. Cameron Lake Road and/or Red Rock Parkway can be closed as well, so it is always good to check in advance regarding weather and road conditions. Three to four motels do stay open in the winter, but the hostel does not (2008). I recommend the Crandell Mountain Lodge. In 2008 this was run by a young couple doing a super job and were giving ice climbers a fair rate. I believe only one of the motels (Kilmorey Lodge) serve food in the winter. Bottom line is that it is best to go into Waterton with supplies if you are going to spend several days climbing in the area. It basically resembles a ghost town during the winter months.
Listing routes with no first hand experience available is not what this page is about. Rather the listing involves first hand accounts only of waterfall ice routes within Kananaskis Provincial Park. The routes will be listed and maintained in ascending order of East to West. I can assure you that this listing only scratches the surface of what is available come January through April up and down the central Canadian Rockies. I personally attempt to climb 30 WI routes per winter and still have plenty more to experience.
Quick and Dirty, II, WI 4 "This route is well worth the drive into Waterton. The short approach and the climb's proximity to French Kiss, Le Pilier des Putains and Pearl Necklace make this area a great place to spend a day for climbers of all abilities. The southern exposure can make the climbing pleasureable but the Chinooks can eat this climb up very quickly. The climbing on pitch one is sustained 80-90 degree ice for 30 metres. It can be wet and the fluctuations with the temperature and sun exposure can lead to dinner plating atop the bulges."
Le Pilier des Putains, II, WI 6 "Le Pilier is about 50m long, so you will have to either bring up the 2nd or pull the rope for two leads. Keep in mind the right side of this wall, Quick and Dirty, requires two pitches of climbing. The left side of this wall is shorter in height. Joe describes the base of Le Pilier des Putains as “a hideously small and technically rotten free standing column.” I think we found it in better shape than that, thus the lower rating in our opinion. We rapped from a large tree as I recall, but you can walk off supposedly."
French Kiss, II, WI 3 "This is a nice 40 metres of grade 3 ice that is nicely combined with Quick and Dirty about 10 metres to the right. This can make for a nice day of ice climbing in a easily accessible area. It can also be used as a warm up for the more challenging Le Pilier des Putains and Pearl Necklace to the immediate right."
Experts Choice, III, WI 6 “If this climb was farther north and closer to a higher population of climbers, it would be a world famous ice route…”, Joe Josephson. "The 125m, WI 4, “Left Side” forms consistently every year and is by far the easiest of the three lines. The 130m, WI 5, “Right Side” is the least likely one of the three to be touching down and in fact was not “in” as of January, 2008. The 130m, WI 6, “Middle Route” is no doubt the jewel of this wall and represents a considerable piece of ice."
Getting ThereAlberta Highway 6 takes you to Waterton from Pincher, AB. It becomes US Hwy 17 as you cross the border into Montana. Keep in mind this small border crossing keeps banking hours. Drive into Waterton Lakes National Park, from Highway 6, through the park kiosks and proceed towards the town of Waterton.
Red TapeAlthough you are required to purchase a national park pass to enter Waterton Lakes National Park, the only entrance or exit which is on the east side, is closed in the winter and the gate left open. This pass is good for all four national parks. If you plan many visits to Canadian National Parks within one year, you should purchase an annual pass. There are no permit requirements to climb in Waterton Lakes National Park, but all camping is regulated. There is also a backcountry permit required if you plan on spending a night in the backcountry versus the town campsite(s). This can be obtained via the parks website which is included in the camping section below. Waterton Lakes National Park headquarters are located on the right side of the road across from the Prince of Wales hotel, which is an historic landmark built in 1927.
I advise checking with Parks Canada for any area and/or trail closures.
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|The Demise of A Small Town|
|Tuesday, November 24, 2009|
There is no greater place to live in America than in a small town. But the ravages of time and the fickleness of humanity have worked changes in small towns which have left many of them struggling for survival. In fact, some towns are in the intensive unit, just waiting for the final deathblow. Others are already dead, having died from multiple causes.
An uncaring citizenry has brought about the demise of many a small town. A small town is not the result of evolution, but the ingenuity and sweat of caring men and women who have gone before us. When the citizens of a small town no longer appreciates their heritage, and doesn’t care about their town’s future, then deterioration will soon be inscribed upon everything in town, fro the town’s economy to its morals. All it takes to kill a town is apathy, whether it is Red Boiling Springs, Lafayette, Westmoreland, or Tompkinsville, KY. When people care, good things happen. Those who care make a difference.
An incompetent leadership has also contributed to the demise of many small towns. I’ve never understood why so many of us have had a hand in placing unscrupulous, and unlearned men and women, possessed of little talent, in places responsibility. Furthermore, what is even more difficult to comprehend is why we continue to give the position back to them, even though their tenure of office has not produced any evidence that their community is better off as a result. In some small towns, a house cleaning would be in order.
Brain-gain has hurt many small towns. Some of our most intelligent young people go off to college, but following graduation; they choose not to return to their small towns. Consequently, we lose the benefit of the highly intelligent young. What is even more revolting is that the city and county “fathers” don’t want them back for fear that they will be competition for them or their grandchildren. The smart young aren’t going to stay in a place where this type of mentality exists. They leave, and it is difficult to blame them. When a town is being run by a group of Homo sapiens who are only a notch or two above a sophisticated chimpanzee, then it won’t be long until a death notice will appear and we will see it.
Then there are those heartless politicians who, by means of their legislation, have practiced enthusiasm on countless small towns-sending jobs to Mexico and China. There was once over a thousand garment jobs in the Red Boiling Springs area-jobs that paid decent wages, but they are gone and those who lost them are still struggling for survival. When small towns lose jobs, they die economically.
Towns die when the citizens don’t care, when the leaders are incompetent, when the best young minds go elsewhere to work and to live, and when heartless politicians (Democrats and Republicans alike) pay other companies in America to go to Mexico and China, and then reward illegal immigrants with jobs and fringe benefits while the people in small towns pay $3.00 a gallon for gas so they can drive to work fifty or seventy miles away.
We know the causes for the demise of small towns. But what are we going to do about it? People, we can’t change things for the good by keeping quiet.
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UPS deliveries are expected to be up nearly 10% this holiday season compared to a year ago.
The company says the jump in shipments is partly due to an increase in online shopping. UPS is the primary delivery company for many online retailers, most notably Amazon.com (Fortune 500). ,
Research firm eMarketer is forecasting a 16.8% increase in online shopping this holiday season. UPS rival FedEx (Fortune 500) last week projected that it will handle 13% more shipments this holiday season. ,
By comparison, the National Retail Federation is expecting only a 4.1% increase in holiday shopping this year, while Wells Fargo said Monday that it is expecting only a 3.8% rise.
UPS said it will hire 55,000 seasonal workers in the United States to handle the increased shipments, about the same number it hired last year. It has about 324,000 permanent U.S. employees as of September.
It expects its peak shipping day will be Thursday, Dec. 20, when it plans to handle 28 million packages, nearly twice its normal daily volume.
|Men's Wearhouse fires the 'I guarantee it' guy|
|Men are disappearing from the workforce|
|I will graduate with $100,000 in loans|
|U.S. oil boom helps thwart OPEC|
|Stocks slide after Fed stands pat|
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| 0.95113 | 282 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Amanda Schafer was playing the piano: Chopin, she thinks.
Melissa Najera was knocking around the house. It was too muggy to work out in the yard.
Eleanor Palgi wasn't home at all. She was on the way to a relaxing evening at the beach.
Audaz Lugo was sitting with her toddler grandson, listening to the wind.
It was just before 4 p.m. Saturday, April 16, 2011. Hell was already on the ground, bearing down on Cottonade's Jamestown Avenue.
Within minutes, the pleasant street of towering pines and well-kept brick ranch houses joined other neighborhoods chewed up and spit out by the estimated 140 mph winds of an EF-3 tornado.
Jamestown Avenue wasn't unique in the devastation.
In those few moments, the storm destroyed 144 homes in Fayetteville and damaged 1,336 more. Twenty-six Fayetteville businesses were taken out, and 62 were damaged. One person died in Cumberland County, seven more in the Cape Fear region.
The frustrations and loss felt along this street were echoed throughout the Cape Fear region that spring and summer - and, in some cases, linger a year later. But, as with much of the devastated area, Jamestown Avenue endured.
Here is the story of one street, one horrific event and one year of recovery:
Anyone who says there was no warning before the tornado hit wasn't paying attention.
Forecasters first mentioned the possibility of severe weather over Fayetteville and the region four days beforehand as weather models predicted a potentially disastrous stew of conditions.
The day before, an approaching storm system spawned brutal tornadoes across Mississippi and Alabama and showed no signs of weakening. By Saturday morning, the region was under a tornado watch. At lunchtime, for only the third time in history, the National Weather Service placed the Sandhills under a "high probability for tornadoes," followed by the first-ever "tornado emergency" warning.
At 3:40 p.m., the tornado first touched down near Wayside in Hoke County, causing sporadic damage as it crossed into Cumberland County.
The tornado strengthened to an EF-2 storm as it crossed the LaGrange and Summerhill subdivisions, blasting across Yadkin Road and into Cottonade. By the time it sliced across Jamestown, the twister had been on the ground for about 20 minutes and had blossomed into an EF-3 storm with top winds of 140 mph.
"I saw it coming," said Robert Schafer, a 41-year-old instructor at Fort Bragg. "Well, there was this big, muddy brown thing coming.
"It didn't look like what you see on TV."
The lights went out. Then, the windows blew out, up and down the street, bathing families in a howling mixture of sound and debris.
Every home on the east end of Jamestown suffered some sort of damage. Some fared better than others.
Melissa Najera's ranch-style home was largely spared, even if her next-door neighbor's home was not.
Joyce Curtis' home was heavily damaged, as was the home of her next-door neighbor, Eleanor Palgi. Palgi's near-mint Honda, parked in the garage, was flattened. So were Palgi's beach plans.
"We turned around as soon as we heard," she said. "I never did get to the beach."
Next door to them, Robert and Amanda Schafer carefully poked out of their home, now a pincushion for pine trees. Trees also skewered Robert's black sports car.
The Schafers had moved next door to Palgi a few years ago. They planned to live there long enough to fix the place up, build some equity, then move on.
"We like it here, but figured by the summer, we'd put the house on the market," Robert Schafer said. "But we had a lot of work to do on it first."
After the storm passed, neighbors carefully crawled out of their homes into the light rain to check on one another. It took emergency crews hours to reach the street.
"We didn't know it at the time, but there was so much debris on the roads coming in," said Amanda Schafer, 33. "It was impossible to get around."
The same scene was being played out in several subdivisions as rescue crews carefully crept through wrecked structures as evening fell, looking for anyone injured or dead. After each inspection, they would spray paint the results on any standing wall.
Over the next two days, utility repair crews entered to survey the damage. The power remained off until crews completed their survey.
First, said PWC spokeswoman Carolyn Justice-Hinson, power had to be rerouted around damaged transmission lines.
After the inspections, homes could be reconnected, but only if the home's meter base was repaired.
Sewer connections were disrupted for a time. Some parts of the nearby LaGrange and Summerhill subdivisions lost sewer service for weeks as falling trees damaged critical pump equipment.
The next couple of weeks along Jamestown were a dizzying blur of curfews, cleanup crews, church volunteers and the curious.
Nearly all of the residents were gone at that point, housed in hotels or with friends. Without power, and with many homes condemned as unsafe, they had little choice. They carried out what they could, covered the rest with tarps and began dealing with seemingly endless meetings with insurance adjusters. It was a process made more difficult for some as crucial paperwork was sucked from homes and scattered for miles.
"There were places that seemed to be 'must-see' spots on the tour," Robert Schafer said. His sports car, which sat in the driveway spiked by several pine trees, drew particular attention for weeks. Everyone from emergency crews to neighbors pushing their baby carriages wanted to have their picture taken with it.
"Honestly, it got pretty old after a while. We shooed most people away ... except the emergency service people," he said. "They worked their butts off in here, and we're grateful for everything they did."
By the third day, as roads were cleared, a common sight was clusters of co-workers, church members or soldiers from Fort Bragg descending on a house. Volunteers from the Red Cross and church groups trickled in, brandishing chain saws, hot meals and hope.
Construction crews began showing up a couple of weeks after the storm, though volunteers did much of the initial work.
A few fly-by-night operators arrived early, but the city quickly discouraged them. Scavengers and burglars were a problem for a time, as well, creeping in after dark and walking off with anything they could carry.
"You couldn't sit on your doorstep nonstop with a .357," Robert Schafer said. "So you got everything you could out."
Palgi was saddened by the theft.
"It's sad to think people would do that, really sad," she said. "For all the wonderful people who helped, there were some who couldn't wait to take."
Daily life on Jamestown assumed a new pattern. As most of the families on the street relocated, neighbors saw less of one another and more of construction crews. Amanda Schafer, a piano instructor, had to move her lessons because the room that held her piano had tarps hiding jagged holes in the roof.
A sense of "new normal" was settling in by late spring. During the day, Jamestown Avenue was buzzing with repairs or demolition. At night, it was strangely quiet.
By early summer, it was becoming evident which homes could be salvaged and which would have to go.
Josue Lugo said Jamestown Avenue echoed with the sound of homes being razed.
Lugo, who lives with his parents, said the tornado did minimal damage to their house. Neighbors weren't so lucky, however.
The house across the street had to be razed, as did the one to Lugo's left. A house two doors down from him, at the corner of Whitehall Drive, is now an empty lot.
Another neighbor across the street attempted repairs, Lugo said, but ended up having the home demolished.
Yet another remains half-ruined with long-faded tarps that flap in a stiff afternoon breeze.
During the summer, dump trucks would growl up the street, toting loads of debris that were once someone's home.
At the time, Lugo said, he was concerned that the ripping and tearing and demolishing would take forever.
Then, he decided to relax and accept the situation.
"I thought, 'Whatever happens, happens,' " he said.
By late summer, the noise of demolition gave way to a more promising sound. Homes were being repaired, or rebuilt.
It was a sound longtime residents such as Eleanor Palgi hadn't heard along the street in decades - when Jamestown Avenue and much of Cottonade were carved from rolling farmland.
Palgi knew Jamestown Avenue well - possibly better than anyone. Her home was one of the first built in the new subdivision of Cottonade in 1959.
"My husband had been assigned to Fort Bragg that spring," she said. "We couldn't find a home to live in. One day, we were driving up Yadkin Road, and through the fields, we heard all this hammering."
That hammering came from the first homes of Cottonade. Hundreds of acres of the old Sutherland family farm had been purchased, and several streets were laid out with fanciful English names such as Whitehall, York and Northhampton.
The Palgis bought a home on Jamestown.
"There wasn't much out here for a while," Eleanor Palgi said. "The truck from Sears got lost in the country trying to deliver our kitchen appliances."
The neighborhood has changed dramatically since its development by Dohn and Waverly Broadwell. Jamestown Avenue was paved in the early '60s, and soon, the subdivision began to fill up. The location, next to Fort Bragg, proved to be a major draw, and, over the years, military families came and went.
Fifty years later, the location attracted a new generation of home builders.
After the tornado, Juanita Richard, owner of Richard Family Builders, said she took an interest in the neighborhood.
The location was close to the Yadkin Road entrance of Fort Bragg, and the community was a popular, convenient location for many military families.
Richard, like other builders, saw opportunity in the rubble. So far, she has built and rebuilt several homes in the Cottonade neighborhood. The new homes are mostly two-story structures with three bedrooms and two baths.
The new construction is more modern looking than the '70s- and '80s-style ranch homes that make up most of the neighborhood.
And that's a good thing, Richard said.
Property values could increase, because some of the newer homes are expected to be valued at $220,000, Richard said.
The neighbors love it, she said.
"I mean, you take a bad situation and you make a good thing out of it," she said.
Kenny Strickland, president of Highland Construction, agreed.
Strickland said his company has rebuilt about 80 homes that were damaged by the storm.
"I tell customers, 'We can't change what's happened, but it's going to be better than it was the day before (the tornado),' " he said.
Some of the repairs only took a month, he said. But others are still dragging out.
"The biggest obstacle is funding," he said. "The first step is to get the insurance company to agree to the repairs."
The next step can be even more difficult, he said.
Because so many people have mortgages, mortgage companies often control the money for repairs by delaying payments to homeowners and contractors.
Those companies are usually out of state, he said, and don't see the need.
"Some claims are still being settled," he said.
But Strickland said he has high hopes for Cottonade and the other tornado-damaged areas.
"The landscape's changed," he said. "But it's a good, solid neighborhood."
Not all neighbors agree. Palgi opted to rebuild her home a block back, on York, rather than deal with the street's changes.
"The homes they are putting in are just too big for the neighborhood," she said. "I don't know how they can be built, given the restrictions in the neighborhood.
"The tornado did a lot of damage to this neighborhood, and I don't just mean the buildings," Palgi said. "We're not a little tree-lined street anymore."
The Schafers were able to move back in in September. Though they were considering a move, they now expect to call Jamestown Avenue home for the near future.
"I tell people I don't recommend this as a way to get your home fixed up," Robert Schafer said. "But considering what we had happen, it's nice to be home."
Lugo can sit on his porch and watch builders construct a new house up the street. The noise of saws, hammers and trucks backing up is a pleasant change to the sounds of demolition.
"It's nice to hear something going on next door," Lugo said.
The homes could raise property values, he said. But the best part is that it cuts off the view of Yadkin Road that was once shielded by trees and flowers and bushes.
"We felt exposed," he said. "It was like being naked."
The trees will take decades to come back. That saddens Najera, who misses them. They made the neighborhood look prettier, she said.
"If you just came from last time to this time, you wouldn't recognize this place," Najera said. "It's not the same neighborhood."
Of the trees that are still standing, some are broken and jagged about 40 feet up.
"Look at these trees," she said. "It just looks decrepit. They tell the story."
Even as Jamestown Avenue is rebuilt, some residents admit their world may never be the same - especially when the wind picks up and the thunder rolls.
That's normal, said Karen Lively, a field agent with North Carolina Road to Resilience. The group helps people having long-term difficulty adjusting to what Lively called "the new normal" for neighborhoods and life after a tornado.
"They may have trouble with things like tax filing or getting help with loans," she said. "But we also want to let people know about help for any emotional difficulty they might be having.
"We want people to know it's OK to be scared. This is something that nobody here has gone through before and hopefully never will again. But the uncertainty fuels a great deal of anxiety."
She said the "suck it up" mentality often found in Army communities may mask deeper fears.
"Everyone went through a horrible day around you," she said. "You're not weird for that to bother you."
Along Jamestown, that "new normal" will include fewer trees, a scattering of new houses and a heightened sense that things can change in a matter of seconds.
As Najera looks up her street, she says one thing won't change.
Like many who stuck out the year of the tornado, she's not going anywhere.
"We're not going to leave this place," Najera said. "It's not the same, but it'll recover."
Staff writer Chick Jacobs can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3515. Staff writer Jennifer Calhoun can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3595.
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| 0.985351 | 3,340 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The North Carolina Equal Employment Practices Act prohibits employment practices that discriminate on the basis of sex, which includes discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. As a general rule, female employees affected by one of these must be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of benefits under employee benefit programs, as employees with other types of temporary disabilities. The Act covers all employers with 15 or more employees (NC Gen. Stat. Art. 49 Sec. 143-416.1 et seq.).
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For over 30 years Sohm has been taking pictures of America, everything from farms to football games to the statue of liberty. Pictures that capture and release the feelings of democracy. My heart filled with esteem for my fellow compatriots and the contribution they make to our country as I perused and read this work of art.
Let me share a couple of quotes from the dedication which is to all Americans and all people seeking democracy.
The photography in this book was taken with the goal of celebrating the American experience in all its diversity.
One of my goals has been to illustrate how all nationalities live in relative peace in America. In my pictures and words, I've tried to include everyone - and that's a tall order. I have also been aware of how inadequate the scope of a book is as a vehicle for recognizing all the contributions to our nation of all the peoples who comprise it. My intent is to honor all, through images and words, and I hope I have done so.
I think Visions of America succeeds in celebrating the American experience and in honoring all. My husband, daughters, mother and I have all been thrilled as we thumbed through the pages. I came in the door the other day and my husband explained, "Awesome!" My mother said, "This is just wonderful." I can't wait to hear my brother, Steve's reaction - he'll probably try to take it home with him.
When I first lifted this book into my lap I leafed through looking at the pictures. At some point I found myself stymied as to the logic behind the grouping of pictures into chapters. Why a picture of the Jefferson Memorial alongside a picture of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Kenya? I quit looking at the pictures and turned to the table of contents where I discovered the section I had just been looking at was about blacks in America: Red White BLACK ~ From Africa to America. A really fun chapter is States of the Union where there are pictures of every state's capitol building, flag, and "Welcome to" signs. Sohm had set a goal to visit every state and get pictures of these items along with customized license plates. I was tickled to read that because we always stop and get a picture of us by state signs. We're only missing 4 states. It took Sohm over 15 years to collect all his pictures which explains why the Utah welcome sign says, "Utah: It's still the place to be." I think those have all been replaced with something about the 2002 Olympics. I think those are pretty cool, too.
Another favorite chapter - what am I saying? They are all favorites. Okay, the Avenue of the Americas chapter shows cityscapes of many of the larger cities in America along with some interesting and/or tall buildings, bridges, streets and other icons. There's an absolutely beautiful picture of Chicago.
Red White BLUES reminds us that there is much to be done in America as far as taking care of those less fortunate than ourselves. Pictures of run-down buildings in St. Louis and gang warfare in LA bring tears to my heart. What can be done? It's a haunting chapter in the book and a tragic chapter in America. This type of tragedy or ones similar happen in every city and by way in America.
There are thirteen chapters in this beautiful book, each offering a slice of America. I'm thrilled to death to own this book and have it on a table in my living room where I and others can pick it up and look through and read it. I keep thinking what a lovely present it would make.All the pictures I've shared in this post can be found in the book. For further information check out Sohm's web page, Visions of America. There are several beautiful, touching videos. I enjoyed learning more about the author.
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This presentation is a decent condensed version of the first half of the story, but the 2nd half is missing entirely. The compressed nature of this film leaves out a lot of information, but if you have seen the Peter Jackson films, or read the books, it shouldn’t be too hard to follow; however, as an introduction to the Lord of the Rings, the movie will be very confusing. The nature of the compression is odd too as the early parts are done well, but as the film moves on the holes in the story are bigger and more frequent, making it seem that the film makers ran out of time, or film before the movie could be finished.
Some of the details of this version are also a bit strange. Sauroman is called Auroman, but only sometimes (if this was done to prevent confusion with Sauron, then why only sometimes?). And though he is Sauroman (Auroman) the White, he is inexplicably wearing red. Also strange is that the Gondorians, including Boromir, are presented as Vikings complete with horned helmets. While these artistic choices stand out like sore thumbs, the film does strive to be true to the source material and much of the dialog is pulled straight from the text.
As is true with many of Ralph Bakshi’s film’s rotoscoping in heavily employed, though this is an example of rotoscoping gone wrong. Many of the characters appear much like the characters in Tron, with animated hair over a sepia toned, live-action face. And during battles, its not easy to tell who is who.
In spite of its shortcomings, Lord of the Rings performed well at the box office. In 1978, this film which cost $4 million, earned back $30 million. Comparing this to the masterful trilogy made by Peter Jackson makes this film seem like an utter failure, but this version preceded Jackson’s by over 20 years, and even had some influence on artistic choices made by Jackson. So, over all, it’s not a complete waste (or at least it wasn’t when it came out) and at least it is not an insult to Tolkein’s works. Still it is hard to overlook the fact that half the story is left untold, and no sequel ever came. Maybe I would feel different if the film was called Lord of the Rings - Part 1 (To be fair, Return of the King was released as a TV semi-follow up to this film, though its presentation was in style of The Hobbit, complete with songs, and much more family friendly). Lord of the Rings fans, or fantasy fans in general should check this out, but its not really worth repeat viewings, and Bakshi fans would be better off sticking with Fire & Ice. As for Rings, it earns a C.
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Afghan girls fall ill in suspected gas attack
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan |
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Scores of Afghan schoolgirls were knocked unconscious or made ill over the weekend by suspected poison gas attacks on their schools and authorities are blaming insurgents who oppose educating girls.
Provincial police chief Abdul Razzaq Yaqubi said about 48 girls and several teachers had become ill suddenly and many collapsed after smelling poison gas at a school in the northern city of Kunduz on Saturday.
Humayum Khamosh, a doctor at a Kunduz hospital, said another 13 girls fell ill after an attack at another school on Sunday.
"I was in class when a smell like a flower reached my nose," said Sumaila, 12, one of the girls hospitalized after the attack. "I saw my classmates and my teacher collapse and when I opened my eyes I was in hospital."
President Hamid Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said insurgents intent on spreading fear were to blame for the incidents.
"Whoever prevents children from going to school is an enemy of Afghanistan and its prosperity," he said.
A Taliban spokesman denied the group was responsible, but said other anti-government groups could be to blame.
"We strongly condemn such an act that targeted innocent school girls by poisonous gas," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
HOPE TO RETURN TO SCHOOL
Azizullah Safar, head of the main hospital in Kunduz, said many of the girls were still suffering from pain, dizziness and vomiting. The city has seen a surge in violence over the past year as militants stage a fierce campaign to reclaim a former stronghold.
The Taliban banned all education for girls when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, and schooling for females remains a controversial issue in much of Afghanistan.
Similar attacks have been carried out in other parts of Afghanistan over the past few years, including areas where there is little Taliban presence.
Yaqubi said 20 girls had fallen ill in a suspected poison attack on another Kunduz school last week, although it was not until the weekend attacks that the issue caused national alarm.
In the south and east, where the Taliban control towns and villages, schools for girls remain shut, teachers have been threatened and some girls have been attacked with acid.
Despite the attacks, Sumaila said she hoped to return to school, if her father allows her.
"I am very scared. My parents were very worried. My father told me that I have learnt a lot. I don't know whether they will still let me go to school after this," she said.
(Additional reporting by Peter Graff and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Writing by Peter Graff; editing by Noah Barkin)
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Barrow-in-Furness is a town in western England. The North Western Railway has had running powers into Barrow Central station since an agreement with the LMS Railway in 1925. For "through" trains, NWR engines are detached and BR, "Other Railway", engines take over. Since 1925, the North Western Railway has also had a shed, turntable and servicing facility here. There is also a joint goods yard for exchange traffic.
In real life, Barrow Central is the local station though now just called Barrow. However, it does not have a line running to the Isle of Walney, which was "replaced" on the maps by the Island of Sodor.
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Senate spending bill includes funding for Franken's service dog legislationby Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, Minn. — The first piece of legislation authored by Sen. Al Franken - a provision to expand a service dog program for disabled veterans -- received funding from the Senate on Sunday as part of the $1.1 trillion federal spending bill.
The legislation expands the Veterans Affairs service dog program to provide trained dogs for veterans with psychiatric disabilities, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Lawmakers approved $2 million for the nationwide program, along with an unspecified amount of money for research and coordination with the VA.
"We can never do too much for the men and women who risk everything to fight for their country," Franken said in statement released Monday. "I feel a real obligation to them for the courage they show and the sacrifices they make."
About one in five military service members who return from Iraq and Afghanistan report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, according to a 2008 study by the RAND Corporation.
The Service Dogs for Veterans Act passed the Senate unanimously two weeks after Franken was sworn in as Minnesota's junior senator. President Obama signed the legislation into law last month.
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SISTERS, Ore. – Fire investigators in Deschutes County said lighting caused a wildfire that burned over 40 square miles of the Deschutes National Forest in September.
The Pole Creek Fire started on Sept. 8 and ultimately grew to 26,795 acres.
The fire started during a small thunderstorm near the Pole Creek Trailhead, investigators said. They came to that conclusion based on interviews with witnesses and lightning occurrence records.
Investigators said the location where the fire started was very remote, which reduced the likelihood that someone intentionally started the fire.
The fire forced evacuations of camp sites and hiking trails. No injuries were reported.
The investigation team was made up of Oregon and Washington Fire Service Special Agents, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Oregon State Police fire investigator and other authorities.
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|The Lamb's Bride Symposium
|The Lamb's Bride Project|
P.O. Box 8240, Colorado Springs, CO 80933
Copyright ©1998 Dick Wulf. Permission is granted to copy and distribute.
"... but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."
Isaiah 40:31 is far more precious and useful than as a Scripture to adorn pictures of an eagle flying in the sky. The very imagery is even wrong. Every time you see a poster or greeting card with Isaiah 40:31 and a picture of one eagle, you can consider how very poorly we have understood this passage. The plural words are quite visible: "they, their, eagles." Somehow we just have not seen the words accurately. Our image of this passage is of the solitary believer kneeling before God, waiting for Him to answer or act. As the wait goes on, the believer gains strength and becomes a majestic, tireless eagle flying above life's mundane troubles.
That isn't at all the picture being painted here. Anyone who has had a loved one wheeled into surgery knows the value of having family and friends nearby in the waiting room. Whether the results of the surgery are likely to be good or bad, having a group gathered for mutual support makes the waiting easier to bear.
In difficult situations we find out just how fragile and powerless we are. Yes, we ought to turn to God. We also should turn to our brothers and sisters in the Lord. The Lord gave them to us for a reason. How cruel we have been to teach that waiting for God to answer or act is the responsibility of the individual believer in isolation. When we go through a time of waiting or testing, we should expect the support of other believers. When others are going through their times of trouble or testing, we should support them. How little of that we see in the Church today! We have taught people it is their duty to wait and suffer in silence.
Just a few years ago, husbands were sent to waiting rooms while their wives had the baby in the delivery room. The husband drove the wife to the hospital. She disappeared for a few tense hours. Then, the husband was told by a nurse if the child was a boy or girl. Childbirth was sanitized for the husband. He never understood what his wife had been through. On the other hand, the wife was deprived of the person who could give her the most support. She was left in the hands of the professionals.
That system has now totally changed. Today, the husband is typically the wife's "coach" during childbirth. The husband has the opportunity to help and support his wife during the birth. He also gets to see the reality of childbirth. He sees what his wife and child go through. The wife now can rely on the emotional support of her husband as she goes through a very difficult process. We now recognize the value of the husband participating in the birth process.
Life, like childbirth, can be a messy and exhausting business. We need all the help we can get. Yet the Church handles problems and times of trial like we used to handle childbirth. We put the problems behind closed doors. We are cut off from those who could help us most. When the problem is too big, we call in the professionals. The analogy breaks down at the level of the waiting room. No one is there, even to wait. They've all gone home. "See you next Sunday."
We have failed to understand passages that teach us to practice mutual support. We twist such passages as Isaiah 40:31 to fit into our individualistic perspective. As a result, we have heaped unimaginable burdens on the Christian individual. Feeling the requirement to wait on God alone is only one small example.
Isaiah 40:31 was written to the nation of Israel. How dare we apply it to the individual! How can we illustrate this verse with just one eagle in the sky? (95% of pictures illustrating Isaiah 40:31 show just one eagle!) There is something much more thrilling than being one lone eagle in the sky. It is flying with other eagles. And there is something more thrilling than waiting on God alone. It is far more exciting to wait in anticipation with other believers.
However, what if "thrilling" and "exciting" are not the true motivating factors? What if this strength when tired, worn out, beaten down or sick is not merely more fun to acquire together? What if it is basically not accessible unless acquired together? What if being together is the way that God makes the new strength available?
It is almost certain that waiting hopefully together is the process God uses to rejuvenate us. When we wait upon God expectantly together, we add our anticipations together for a much larger sum. Then, when one of us for the time being is discouraged with the waiting or lagging in hope, the expectancy and anticipation of the others carries that person until patience and hope return.
We built the game DragonRaid to teach truths like this. Maybe an example will more clearly communicate this principle that some situations require more hope (more waiting) than one individual is capable of accomplishing.
DragonRaid is simulated learning on a make-believe world with a biblical worldview. One person runs the game for three to six players who form a "raid team" and go out to destroy the evil the dragons have created. For the purpose of this illustration, let us say that our raid team of LightRaiders (as they are called) is on its way to destroy "the Relativity Potion" that influences "dragon slaves" (non-Christians) to see truth as relative, that it is not objective but subjective and only a matter of personal preference and taste.
On the way to the castle where the potion is given its power (a secular institution of "higher" education), their way is blocked by a huge chasm caused by a recent flood. The Adventure Master (the one running the game) tells the players that to go on requires a Hope of 23. Since each of the LightRaiders has a Hope rating of 1-10 derived from a formula using the Fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22,23), no one person alone has enough Hope to continue. (We are trying in the game to teach what the church is and how she operates.) The players know by this time in the adventure (say, 15 hours into it usually played in three-hour segments, once a week) that to add their Hope ratings to one anotherıs Hope rating requires each to make a statement of hope based on Scripture. When four LightRaiders, with Hopes of 7, 4, 6 and 8 respectively reassure the raid team with truths about hope from the Bible, the Raid Team has its required level of Hope to go on in their quest to challenge relativism.
So much for your introduction to "adventure learning" invented by myself and a few friends back in 1983 and 1984.
Isaiah 40:31 gives us a promise we all want. But it has requirements for the Body of Christ. It is a promise with the assumption that we would be waiting and hoping TOGETHER. Obviously, in context, the nation Israel was so waiting and hoping.
What are some of the applications of this "plural promise"?
In the larger congregational expression of the church (larger than a small group), mission statements are adopted and visions from the Lord embraced. To be effective, the mission statement and vision are larger in scope than can be easily accomplished. In short, they require much hoping and much waiting. The church is to do this together. I have seen and experienced churches who adopt mission statements and visions, but other than some official place on the church bulletin, you never hear of them. That is not waiting (or hoping) on the Lord together! It is too passive. Waiting and hoping that brings strength and vitality is active in prayer, expectation and anticipation.
In small group Christian community, waiting and hoping might be required when a member is seriously ill, when someone is unemployed and looking for work, when a married couple in the group is finally facing the tremendous dyfunctionality of their marriage, when a member's grown child has strayed from the Lord, etc. In such cases, the small group would hope and wait together, not by praying once, but by praying regularly and asking how things are going, and by seeking together what the group or any of its members might do to help.
How does your favorite athletic team wait and hope for next week's game? Well, maybe not with prayer, as critical as that is to the equation the church must use. But certainly that football team or soccer team (or whatever you have chosen) fills the week with expectation and anticipation. And what happens when a team has dread instead of expectation and a sense of defeat instead of anticipation? Right! It loses strength.
Isaiah 40:31 also teaches us that when we have waited and hoped together, we will be given strength together. We soar together like a bunch of eagles in the sky. We run the race of faith together without weariness. And we walk steadily toward the goal in Christ Jesus together without fainting.
We start the process together and we finish it together. We do not seek strength by waiting and hoping together for the end result that individuals have the strength to soar, run and walk. We do not wait and hope individually so that individually or corporately we eventually soar, run and walk. The first is the equation is, for example in a small group of six people, 1+1+1+1+1+1=1. The second is 1=1 or (how can it be?) 1=6. Of course, it must be 1+1+1+1+1+1=6. We do this together. Such is the only consistent application of Isaiah 40:31.
There are other passages that show the importance of this initial waiting and hoping TOGETHER. Consider 2 Chronicles 7:14: "... if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." This requires much hoping and waiting together, as does the humbling, praying, seeking, and turning required by 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Another passage that comes to mind is Ephesians 6:10-11: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Yes, this also is in the Greek plural. The church puts on the armor together. (Ephesians 6 will eventually be the topic of additional reports from The Lambıs Bride Symposium.) To be strong in the Lord requires the corporate method of Isaiah 40:31. Then the church in congregation or small group form will have to put on the armor together so that the church can defeat the devil.
Hoping in the Lord (NIV) and waiting upon the Lord (KJV) are active and intentional behaviors of the church to usher in the Lordıs strength. It is how God wants to do it. Why? Because He wants a people who love him enough to do it his way. And that way is obviously consistent with his design of the human race too weak individually, only strong together. (Remember the Garden of Eden!)
Click here to go to the list of available reports.
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12-01-2009 05:11 PM
Compress the data before storing it and uncompress when retrieving it? Store temporary files (with FileConnection) for persistence instead of using NVRAM?
12-01-2009 05:41 PM
I would like it if you could format the internal memory so one partition is for data and the other partition is for apps, or to have the OS, Core Applications, System Software, and persistent store had there own memory.
This way the 128mb of app memory was actually 128mb of app memory instead of 30-40mb of app memory after the system software, OS, etc. is installed.
That is just my opinion but it would definitely remove one of the biggest negatives many reviewers talk about. The disappearing memory because of persistant store use (have seen many times where someone says they started the BlackBerry with 30mb of memory and suddenly they only have 2mb) is my biggest issue right now.
12-01-2009 05:54 PM
rcmaniac25 wrote:The disappearing memory because of persistant store use (have seen many times where someone says they started the BlackBerry with 30mb of memory and suddenly they only have 2mb) is my biggest issue right now.
Who says that declining memory use is due to persistent storage? Declining memory use is due to regular memory usage as well -- and you can't exactly eliminate that.
I'm sure the partitioning of memory like is used on the Blackberry is for sandboxing purposes and for bolstering security (the relevance of this can be questioned, I suppose).
12-01-2009 08:07 PM
I've heard that removing and restoring the battery can improve memory usage.
However, you are pretty much stuck with what you got. I don't know about Storm 2 but what I've said about storm 1 is as is.
You can copy any memory you want to SD Flash.
12-01-2009 09:24 PM
I should have said "I assume" because if you don't install anything and use only one app at a time then how does the amount a available memory change? Does the memory not get freed? The only way it wouldn't get freed is if it was persistent.
Also what about the RuntimeStore? I don't think that counts as persistent memory but what if you are using a bunch of applications that use the RuntimeStore. Would the phone eventually run out of RAM? Would it cause the phone to do a garbage collection? A nagging voice in the back of my head is saying I know the answer already but I already wrote this and would like to see what others think/know and to create a concrete answer if something like this comes up again.
12-01-2009 09:53 PM
I did explain it somewhere. There are memory issues in that when you allocate memory and release it, some other app may want to allocate memory. What happens is memory fragmentation so there are gaps too small to be allocated in between other allocations so it looks like more memory is being used. You need an app like a disk fragmentation app to fix this and I don't think you can do that as I'm unsure as to how the memory internals work as it's a speecial type of flash.
12-01-2009 10:23 PM
Thank you, I am primarily a .NET programmer and know how that memory manager works so I find that it can't defragment the memory as odd but understandable.
12-01-2009 11:51 PM - edited 12-01-2009 11:54 PM
No, if an application does not clean up properly after itself then it will leak memory and not get freed, even when it is closed, and that will cause application memory to drop. (There are no fragmentation issues here as far as I know)
Persistent storage (ie., PersistentStore) is only a part of the equation -- you can't blame it all on one thing or the other.
As to RuntimeStore memory -- persistence is not guaranteed, and thus it shouldn't need to be put in NVRAM, so it shouldn't play a part here.
12-02-2009 02:42 AM
There is RAM there and that shouldn't be an issue, but I assure you there are memory fragmentation issues with Flash memory. Let me explain. When you write a variable that's stored in flash, it's stored in some place where it is allocated. Then, when you write it again, it isn't written in the same place. The location is changed, the old location is marked as free and a new spot in flash is written. This is because you write flash until a block is full and then you erase the entire block before it can be rewritten. Flash also has a limited number of write cycles, so you do a thing called wear levelling where you move the memory being used continuously around the flash until you've used every spot on the flash before you start writing back at the start again. This requires a special flash driver that is quite complex to manage all this. It's very similar in some ways to a disk managing driver. There are standards for flash management and some companies choose to use their own. We are not privy to the underlying management in the blackberry. However, consider it a little like a disk drive and thus it will have similar fragmentation issues as a disk drive would. Blocks are usually erased in the background during idle time as it takes time and often access to the flash part may be limited during the erase cycle.
I hope that helps. Incidentally, if you want to see what the internals of the storm look like, just search for sites that take it apart. There are one or two out there and that was where I got my best info at the time. They actually took it physically apart and you can see the part numbers. The flash type used in the storm was a Samsung type that uses a combination of NOR and NAND flash with some RAM buffers. The result is somewhere between the speed of nand and nor flash and it can execute in place (which you can't do with pure nand flash).
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WASHINGTON - There's not much question that hybrid vehicles get better mileage, but when do these more expensive cars offset the cost of rising gas prices?
The Los Angeles Times has done the math.
Some of the newer hybrids boast up to an efficient 47 mpg. But, according to the Times, the cars will have to be driven for five years before their costs are recouped.
Where the cars are being driven also is a factor. Hybrids are most efficient in a city's stop-and-go traffic, and less so on the highway.
Also worth considering: the higher-priced hybrid will take longer to pay for itself. Some brands, such as the Buick LaCrosse, don't charge extra for the hybrid version.
The savings add up for hybrid drivers the longer they own their cars and as gas prices rise. Hybrids also have higher resale values.
WTOP's Del Walters contributed to this report. Follow WTOP on Twitter.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
WTOP takes an all-electric motorcycle for a test drive. (Video)
This fox plays like a cat when he gets his paws on a golf ball. (Video)
A new reality show brings cameras into the workplace.
Robin Roberts will write a memoir about her struggle with illness.
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The NY Times has finally gotten around to reporting on the latest British Memo that the Guardian UK and Channel4.com reported on in early February. My original post on the story is here. The NY Times reports:
In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush’s public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair’s top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
“Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning,” David Manning, Mr. Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
“The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,” Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. “This was when the bombing would begin.”
The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.
Although the United States and Britain aggressively sought a second United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to obtain — the president said repeatedly that he did not believe he needed it for an invasion.
The January ’03 memo is the latest secret memos exposed by top aides to Mr. Blair that “summarize private discussions between the president and the prime minister.” Before this memo there was the Downing Street Memo which was written in July 2002 and showed “that some senior British officials had been concerned that the United States was determined to invade Iraq, and that the “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” by the Bush administration to fit its desire to go to war.” On June 22, 2005 John Kerry sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requesting an investigation of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures (and the Downing Street Memo). The letter was co-signed by Sens. Tim Johnson, Jon Corzine, Jack Reed, Frank Lautenberg, Barbara Boxer, Edward Kennedy, Thomas Harkin, Jeff Bingaman, Richard Durbin. To date there has been no investigation.
The latest memo is striking in its characterization of frank, almost casual, conversation by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about the most serious subjects. At one point, the leaders swapped ideas for a postwar Iraqi government. “As for the future government of Iraq, people would find it very odd if we handed it over to another dictator,” the prime minister is quoted as saying.
“Bush agreed,” Mr. Manning wrote. This exchange, like most of the quotations in this article, have not been previously reported.
The NY Times concludes that “Despite intense lobbying by the United States and Britain, a second United Nations resolution was not obtained. The American-led military coalition invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, nine days after the target date set by the president on that late January day at the White House.”
So there you have it… the MSM has now collaborated what the British press told us weeks ago. The question that remains is when will the Senate Intell Committee get off their tails and investigate these memos that show that Bush was willing to provoke Saddam into war?
Note to John Kerry: Can we get a follow up on the request for an investigation of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures (and the Downing Street Memo)?
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Post in 'The Wood Shed' started by corey21, Jan 12, 2012.
Is it any count never heard much about it. just finished busting some this week for next winter.
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i css some for my brother to burn. found it tougher than elm to split. brother says it gives medium to low heat and lots of ash. if you are talking about black gum, scientific name nyssa silvatica, no more for us.
Is this what you have?
I've never messed with it. It grows in the bottom lands around here. A pretty tree in the fall.
That looks similar.
You sure its not sweet gum? Very common in our area (freaking every where)
From what I understand its junk wood that will rot just as soon as it seasons..... hoping Im wrong for your sake though
If he was able to "bust" it (which I think of as splitting with a maul) it wasn't sweet gum. That stuff is darn near impossible with hydraulics. I've never split black gum.
I busted it with my axe my maul is loaned out to someone at the time.
Digging up this thread.
The stuff burn hot but fast like pine Just about went though all of it i have and as tough as it was to bust i think i will stay away from it after seeing how fast it burns.
Nyssa sylvatica means water nymph of the forest.
And it has interlocking grain. Like elm.
I'm in the middle of burning through about a cord of gum that I split up after some storm damage. If it wasn't for the hydraulic splitter I would of never got it split. Supposedly it seasons fast and rots fast so I stacked mine under cover. It starts fast and burns pretty fast and it does leave a lot of ash. It also stinks like hell and would make an awful bonfire wood. If it wasn't for the fact that I had to clean up the storm damage and had no wood at all to my name I probably would of passed it over. But I really don't regret taking the time to split it up and stack it. At the end of the day it is heating my house just fine.
picked up a p/u truck load last week---leftovers from a powerline sandy cleanup. it looked like red oak (bark) from a distance, so i took the saw. as soon as i saw the soft white chips flying, i knew what mistake i had made. so i said screw it and cut it up and took it home. it splits tough---nowhere near as bad as sweetgum or elm (ughh) to me. got thru most of the pieces easy with a handful of them getting ignorant with the splitter. for me, it meant about a half cord of free wood and about two hr.s labor to cut, load, unload, and split---not bad to me, but if you have enough wood to be choosy, let it lie wherever you see it. now that i have a solid 3 yr. supply, i would drive right bye.
Yep i forgot to mention the smell. I would split wood that tough again but as fast it burns i would rather take pine over black gum.
Black wood gum is my favourite wood to collect. It's obviously nothing like the stuff you get over the water. This is one of the easiest woods to split and has a higher btu than oak or even hickory it also has a low moisture content ~ 25% and dries in 6 months (1 Aussie summer.) You don't get much as people like to use this for furniture etc.... i got about a 1/3 cord last week and didn't realise until i split it what it was - went back for more and it was gone... if i find more i will be a happy chappy.
That is some nice looking wood there. Guessing we don't have it in the US. Really amazing how dark the heart is.
Separate names with a comma.
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To Do Or To Delegate?
“You don’t need to do everything yourself” may sound liberating and puzzling all at once. You might be asking yourself, “If I don’t do it, who will?” Admittedly, delegating is a challenge, but it’s also a very learnable skill with a sweet payoff.
Does My Baby Really Care Who Buys His Diapers?
How can you determine if you’re not trying to do everything yourself when you shouldn’t be? Sarah’s ah-ha moment came the day she brought her first child, William, home from hospital on a warm Sunday morning in the summer of 2006. She and her husband Gardiner had done what they thought was a thorough job of setting up the nursery. They had a crib, changing table, diapers, clothes, soaps, lotions, a thermometer, toys, blankets – the works. But they were in for a rude awakening.
Because their son Will was on the small side, they found that the diapers they purchased came up to his chin. Then they realized they had no diaper ointment. Then they realized they had no diaper pail, no soft little cotton pads to wipe his little bottom, and no plastic bowl to put warm water in for wetting the soft little cotton pads that they didn’t have. Then they realized that not only didn’t they have enough bottles, but the ones they did have didn’t have the right nipples. Will got too much milk too fast. Then they realized they didn’t have a pacifier. The list of forgotten or never considered items went on and on! Sarah felt like a complete failure (already!) as a mom, for missing such obvious things. Sarah also realized that she and Gar were failing as a team, because they weren’t getting the important things done.
Sarah felt she had to compensate for her perceived failure by going out and getting all the supplies herself. She refused to let her husband go to the store with a list to get what they needed for a properly-stocked nursery. She piled everyone into the car and sped to the nearest CVS and then on to the grocery store. Sarah felt resentment towards Gar because she was doing more, even though she insisted on going to the store herself. After two hours of shopping, Sarah was exhausted, the baby was crying for his next feeding and her usually gentle husband Gar was growling at her because she was acting like such a neurotic control freak. It wasn’t until they were waiting for the light to change at a stoplight that she took a moment to breathe and realized that she was acting like a crazy woman.
Post Partum brain, guilt, control freak – no matter what was driving Sarah to over-correct her mistake and take charge, we’ve probably all been there. We’ve all felt that if we do it ourselves it will get done better or faster or more perfectly. Letting go of the “if you want it done right do it yourself” dictum can not only open you up, you can get more done.
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Posted: October 18, 2012 in Information
The new name for the program “providing short-term shelter, health and social support to persons experiencing homelessness who are ill or injured” is Recuperative Care. It is being developed and managed by a new not-for-profit called GUIDEPOST r. Please visit the website at http://GUIDEPOSTr.org for information.
If you would like more information, please email [email protected]. Thank you.
Posted: December 31, 2011 in Information
On December 27, 2011 Boulder’s Daily Camera ran a story about Medical Respite Boulder and the need for the program to become sustainable. You can read the story here: Medical Respite Boulder on hiatus as officials seek operating funds.
KGNU radio also featured Medical Respite Boulder on Morning Magazine on January 2, 2012. You can hear that show by clicking to this link.
Posted: November 15, 2011 in Information
During the pilot from late March until early October 2011, Medical Respite Boulder offered “home care to those with no homes” to 13 individuals with a variety of acute and chronic health conditions across 15 episodes of respite care in our motel-based program. (Two people were enrolled in respite twice.) These clients were supported with visits by home care professions, meals, and a variety of personal interactions, including daily visits from a volunteer. The program provided a total of 91 nights (average of 6 per client) for less than $100 a night. Clients reported a 43% improvement in the condition that brought them to respite and 37% improvement in their overall health status from the first to the last day of respite care. We are collecting now the positive impact on health care costs by having the respite care program available as well as summarizing a plethora of descriptive data.
Hopefully, given the extremely positive outcomes of the pilot, Medical Respite Boulder will become fully operational with a sustainable plan for providing a place to recuperate to our homeless who are sick or injured. Have this program is undeniable beneficial to the recipients of the service, the agencies and organizations that participate in the delivery of services, to the individuals who volunteer, and to the broader community. Assisting those who are most vulnerable–homeless and unwell–is good for everyone.
The program continues as a “catalyst for collaboration” among a wide variety of organizations, agencies, businesses, and individuals in Boulder, including Clinica Family Health Services, Boulder Community Hospital, Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, Bridge House (formerly Carriage House), Meals on Wheels, Community Food Share, Special Transit, Project Revive, and more.
Posted: November 3, 2011 in Information
When a doctor or other health care provider tells a patient to “go home, rest, take your medicine, and follow-up with me in a week,” most folks retreat to their bed or couch to recover. Often a family member or friend helps them with activities of daily living, like food preparation, laundry, going to the pharmacy. Imagine being given those instructions and having to say, “But, doc, I don’t have a home.” What happens then?
Medical Respite Boulder serves those folks. It closes a gap for persons who need a place to go and heal but who have no home. And it connects them to the health care system in a way that can help them get the ongoing medical care that they need.
Medical Respite Boulder conducted a pilot program from late March to early October, 2011. It is currently on hiatus as it seeks sustainable funding.
Posted: March 11, 2011 in Information
This video from the Barbara McInnis House, a premier respite center in Boston, tells the story of medical respite–why we need it, how it helps, and what it can do to benefit those who need it.
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Capital Goods: November 2012
Catching grief in troubled waters
A few years back, a couple of commercial fishermen would regularly call me to lodge complaints about my take on their ongoing feud with recreational anglers. I would listen patiently to their gripes before replying, “You know far more about the fishery than I ever will, but I may know a little more about political power. You better wake up to the reality that Marc Basnight won’t always be in power.”
That day has dawned. Basnight, the political powerhouse from coastal Dare County and state Senate leader for longer than two decades, finally quit the legislature in 2010 after his Democrats lost their majority. Even before then, commercial-fishing interests in the state had become disaffected with their longtime champion. Maybe it was because he couldn’t protect them from every crashing wave of regulatory discomfort. Or perhaps they were unhappy that he hadn’t been able to gut and fillet the creation of a saltwater recreational fishing license.
Commercial fishing in North Carolina faces a lot of uncertainty these days, and it does so without a dedicated champion in the legislature, at least not one with the power Basnight used to wield. Commercial fishermen are coping with declining fish populations, increased regulation and overseas competition. As some fish populations have declined, the tussle between the industry and recreational groups has intensified, with more and better organized advocates pushing for carve-outs for the hook-and-line fishermen. The commercial-fishing industry isn’t big, and it isn’t getting any bigger.
Just in the past few years, commercial fishermen have seen new limits on wreck fish — the groupers and snappers that congregate around offshore wrecks — including entire sections closed. When federal regulators took a look at gill nets in the Pamlico Sound, they discovered more turtle deaths than were being reported. A lawsuit followed, then came new restrictions on gill nets. Fisheries officials have also been scrutinizing shrimp trawling in the state’s massive sounds and estuaries because of “bycatch,” juvenile finfish killed in nets.
Recreational-fishing advocates such as the Houston-based Coastal Conservation Association and the Coastal Fisheries Reform Group in this state have started beating the drum for further restrictions. Two years ago, they persuaded a House committee to hear a proposal that would set aside popular inshore species of fish — spotted sea trout and red drum — for recreational fishing only. Recently, they sent letters to state legislators urging that the most common form of shrimp trawling be banned in inshore waters.
In Basnight’s old chamber, new defenders such as Don East have taken up the industry’s cause. But the Pilot Mountain Republican isn’t going to go to the mat for issues outside his district. With each redistricting cycle, smaller rural populations mean fewer rural legislators, those more likely to back the industry. In coastal areas with large populations, commercial fishermen don’t enjoy clout because of their small numbers. In New Hanover County, for example, they make up less than 1% of the employed.
Political power also will do as it always has and follow the money. That may be the biggest problem facing the industry. In 2004, a study commissioned by the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries found that commercial fishing paid better than most jobs in coastal counties, but that their number is declining. Even in the counties where it’s most significant, Dare and Carteret, fishermen make up less than 5% of the workforce. In 2000, the state sold 9,711 commercial licenses with 5,892 used. In 2009, the numbers had dropped to 9,108 sold but 3,929 used.
The value of the catch has dropped, too. Commercial fish landings in North Carolina in 2011 were valued at $71 million, roughly $16 million less than a decade earlier. By comparison, North Carolina recreational fishermen spend better than $300 million a year on equipment. Total spending — including gas, food, lodging, guides, pier fees and bait — on fresh and saltwater recreational fishing is estimated at $1.9 billion annually. Commercial fishermen ignore these numbers at their own risk. Political reality in Raleigh has a way of catching up to dollars and cents.
Scott Mooneyham is editor of The Insider, www.ncinsider.com. Email him at [email protected].
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Warm weather means outside activity. Whether you stretch in the garden, walk the dog, run, bike, swim, or stroll around the neighborhood, this month Harvest Market supports your fitness goals by looking at the foods and supplements you need for best performance. Each individual has the power within themselves to create optimal health, and everybody can exercise. By working within your current limits and gently stretching your comfort zone, your body can support and co-create your state of wellness long into the future.
Eating and supplementing for optimal metabolism and maximum fitness can be very simple: adequate protein, healthy fats, plenty of vegetables grown in mineral-rich, organic soil, great digestion, and the right amount of complex carbs help your organs run efficiently, as they are designed to do. Over time, a diet mostly free of processed foods creates a healthy feedback loop between organs and hormones responsible for metabolism and muscle/fat ratios. Quick-fix weight-loss supplements can jumpstart or encourage this process, but only food can create lasting metabolic stability. Some supplements are even potentially harmful, and dubious claims abound. Manipulating hormones to fake healthier states for bodybuilding or weight loss purposes (such as with HCG, which Harvest Market will never carry, or the popular Raspberry Ketones) perpetuates a state of distress and dis-ease.
So, how can you build metabolic health with so much pseudo-science and hype clamoring for your attention and money? By knowing what nutrients your diet really does provide, and supplementing only with what you truly need to achieve a desired result. Many fitness folks are familiar with the carbs-before, protein-after mantra. Carbs are appropriate for intense workouts in which fat burning is not the goal, such as with marathon runners. For example, Clif gel blocks provide carbs to keep the body from entering a ketosis state during prolonged exercise. Most of us, however, live in a carb-heavy, protein-deficient state, and unfortunately, we’re not getting those fueling carbs from vegetables. Determining the carb/protein balance that best suits your body is an individual path. Our bookshelf is a suitable place to start. Remember, the process of lasting change happens one meal or snack at a time.
Join us Monday, June 18 through Saturday, June 23 to sample protein shakes and electrolyte boosters that work naturally to aid your body’s recovery and rehydration process. Saturday, June 23, we welcome the Vega line of top-notch, purely plant-based nutrition and performance supplements to our store, with samples 11am – 2pm. On Monday, June 25, from 7-9 pm, Rick and Bob will host a free discussion on Responsible Supplementation. Our goal is to empower you to know your own supplement needs, determine the appropriate form of supplemental nutrients, distinguish acute and long-term uses, and discover what “whole ingredients” in supplements really offer. As always, we love to hear and share what foods and supplements work hardest for you. See you this week.
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When it comes to the Pentagon’s acquisition process, the devil is in the details. Some details, however, can have deadly consequences for men and women in uniform. Loren Thompson offers a sobering analysis of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s (JSF) costs over its 50-year operational lifetime and how the Pentagon itself distorted the picture by making the F-35 seem more expensive than it actually is.
The JSF is designed to replace the aging fleet at a time when more than half of the Navy’s deployed aircraft are not fit for combat. The Pentagon is struggling to maintain a brisk operational tempo, and there are significant problems with most of the aging platforms. This tempo will be unsustainable, especially if the debt ceiling defense cuts happen.
It seems counterintuitive that the Pentagon would present its own numbers in a way that harms the JSF program. Yet, as Thompson writes, that is precisely what happened. For example, the F-35’s estimated sustainment costs are 20 percent lower than those of the existing fleet of tactical aircraft ($12 billion versus $10.6 billion annually); however, this is usually omitted in the reporting for Congress. In addition, the cost of sustainment was not reported in today’s dollars (about $500 billion over 50 years) but was magically estimated at $1.069 trillion. This, of course, further raised congressional concerns about affordability.
The pace of U.S. military operations in the last decade has been unrelenting. The U.S. Air Force has been flying combat operations for the past 20 years, and it has seen aircraft fall from the sky—likely due to wear and tear. Russia and China are developing their own versions of the fifth-generation fighter. It is crucial that the U.S. keep its fleet updated. American air power and superiority provide largely unhindered support for combat troops and unmatched ease of transporting military hardware and personnel around the globe. Air power is a decisive force multiplier in both peacetime and war.
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After almost two years of deliberation, the Federal Communications Commission has granted Hollywood and cable companies permission to shut down analog streams to HDTV equipped home theaters. The geek term for this is "selectable output control" (SOC)—until now forbidden by the FCC. The Motion Picture Association of America requested a waiver on the SOC ban in May of 2008, arguing that without it, Hollywood studios could not securely offer consumers pre-DVD released movies on television.
"We conclude that the service that MPAA proposes would serve the public interest and that providers of first-run theatrical content are unlikely to offer the service absent the ability to activate SOC," the agency's Order, released on Friday, explains. "While a waiver of the SOC prohibition will prevent consumers who rely on unprotected audiovisual outputs from accessing this service, we are convinced that in the absence of a waiver the service will not be offered at all."
That "unprotected audiovisual outputs" bit means that it's tough input jacks for consumers who bought early HDTV systems that didn't include digital connections like HDMI. The studios want to limit output to digital because the scrambleable streams are less easy to illegally copy. So analog only HDTV systems won't be able to get in on this early run movie action.
But the FCC did add some conditions to this waiver on the SOC ban.
First, these waiver windows will only last for 90 days after the first activation of the analog stream block, or until the retail release of the movie on some form of prerecorded media (such as DVD or Blu-Ray)—whichever cut-off date comes first. The MPAA actually asked that the deadline "not include media formats comparable to the new Services, such as prerecorded media with restrictions on output to protected digital interfaces." The FCC saw this for what it was—in effect a request for a limitless waiver as new video viewing systems (such as Blu-Ray) replace DVDs.
"As DVDs are phased out and retired as a source of prerecorded media, this could lead to the unintended consequence of allowing an SOC waiver to continue in perpetuity," the agency noted.
Second, the SOC waiver will only apply to CableLabs approved digital outputs for cable, direct broadcast satellite, and IP video systems. "We must ensure that MVPDs [multi-video programming distributors] do not develop a preference for an output that would discriminate against retail devices in favor of proprietary devices," the agency's Order warned. "No commenter has suggested that protected outputs like HDMI provide inadequate protection for high-value content"—HDMI being the popular digital connector for HDTVs, DVDs, DVRs and other devices.
"This output certification process must be based on objective criteria that the Commission can consider on appeal, if necessary," the Commission adds. And non-MPAA member studios can also take advantage of the waiver.
Third, the studios and their cable partners must offer instructions on how people with hearing disabilities can access closed captioning while watching these early run movies.
Finally, the FCC reserves the right to review the impact of the waiver, requiring MPAA members to submit a report every two years advising whether SOC "has been an effective tool in combating illegal copying of these films during the early release window."
So there you have it: 90 days, HDMI, a two year review, and some help for people with disabilities. None of that's making the reform group Public Knowledge a happy camper. Strongly opposed to the MPAA's request, PK and the Consumer Electronics Association both argued that an SOC waiver would effectively disable millions of home theaters. PK even managed to convince the previous FCC Chair, Kevin Martin, not to support a waiver on the SOC ban.
Looks like that influence didn't extend to this regime.
"We are disappointed that the [FCC's] Media Bureau has succumbed to the special-interest pleadings of the big media companies and ignored the thousands of letters from consumers," Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn told us. The order "will allow the big firms for the first time to take control of a consumer's TV set or set-top box, blocking viewing of a TV program or motion picture."
"At no point in this proceeding did any of the content companies make the case that any ‘piracy' was occurring because material was sneaking out of the back of a TV set onto the Internet," PK added.
The FCC's Media Bureau clearly didn't see it this way:
"We disagree with Public Knowledge’s (PK) assertion that MPAA has failed to provide specific evidence of illegal copying through unprotected outputs. While it would be impossible to demonstrate specific evidence of illegal copying for a service that does not yet exist, MPAA has provided specific evidence that illegal copying exists, and that unprotected outputs on the set-top box have led to unauthorized rebroadcast of content. For example, MPAA points out that unauthorized copies of television shows are online so quickly that copies that air on the East Coast are available before they air on the West Coast. Furthermore, a pay-per-view boxing event was broadcast online without authorization simultaneously with its airing on pay-per-view. MPAA argues that if the Video-on-Demand ('VoD') release window is moved earlier, illegal copiers will focus on the earlier VoD release."
We've been pretty skeptical about an SOC waiver ourselves, contending that consumers who spent big chunks of money on early HDTV systems have the right to access major new services—especially this one, which will immediately become the most valuable offering on pay TV.
We're also wondering how quickly sports and dramatic series programmers are going to ask to get in on this, and how the FCC is going to explain that a waiver on the SOC ban is good enough for Hollywood, but not good enough for them.
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KCRW Broadcast 16
When Jeffrey Lee Pierce died in 1996, he disappeared back into the mists from which he came. Jeffrey is the first and only American mythological figure I have ever met. It really doesn’t matter where he was born—he wasn’t from there. Jeffrey was from the badlands, the bayous, the swamps, steaming jungles and endless deserts of his imagination. He cloaked himself in Blues imagery and lived his life as a tragic hero on a death trip, a visionary who knew that his time would soon be up. I know this sounds to be an exercise in hyperbole but Jeffrey was that far out there.
That Jeffrey would not make it to old age was a given. It was apparent to me every time I hung out with him. It wasn’t that he was a downer to be around, quite often he was very buoyant, friendly and upbeat. It was also easy to see that his skies were clouded and that he saw that his end date was near. I know this sounds very romantic and from the outside, perhaps it is but up close, it was not. It was sad. Whenever I saw Jeffrey, I always wondered if it was going to be the last time.
One time, he came by my office and sat next to me, where I am sitting now, writing this, and showed me pictures of Vietnam. The pictures looked like they were taken decades ago. Farmers, rice paddies, oxen, jungle. I asked him where he had gotten them and he told that he had taken the photos, that he had been living there. I immediately thought to myself that I was sitting next to Col. Kurtz or Arthur Rimbaud. Jeffrey’s life outside of America, a place that never appreciated him enough for my liking, will always be shrouded in partial truth and shadow. For years he lived in Europe, only periodically coming back to America, only to face the homogenized apathy that stifled and simultaneously fueled so many artists. This years spent away from his bad America only expanded the pool of darkness around him.
In true Blues fashion, Jeffrey wrestled his demons constantly. He sought solace in drugs and alcohol, to the point to where it threatened to dull his very immense talent. For years, Gun Club shows I witnessed were erratic because of whatever Jeffrey had ingested before walking onstage. At one point, soon after the release of the Mother Juno album, a beautiful piece of work, he asked me for advice. I gave Jeffrey pep talks about taking better care of himself. I listed all the things he had going for him. His new album was great, his band was powerful, attendance was up, it was everything a musician could want, why threaten something that he had worked so hard for? I knew he heard me but I also knew that whatever destructive forces dominated his life were ultimately the spoke to him most clearly.
One night I’ll never forget. He and the band hit stage at the Lingerie Club in Los Angeles and basically played the Pastoral Hide & Seek album in its entirety to a less than full audience. I was at the front of the stage and when they finished the song Flowing, I was barely able to clap I was so awed by what I had just heard. It was a moment I can’t forget because I remember realizing that somehow this thing that he had would slip away, underappreciated and that eventually, it would turn into that which would do him harm.
Jeffrey’s talent was so real and so rare, I get very angry that it wasn’t acknowledged by more than the few who were sharp enough to pick up on his work. All the Gun Club records are good, great even, and deserve repeated listening. They are however, heavy listening and not always the right soundtrack for more than a solitary evening in a room or a long drive. He had a gift that he very obviously knew he possessed but was also a curse, a hellhound on his trail. Eventually it got him and swallowed him up. It was only a matter of time.
Thankfully, the music lives on and it’s there, re-issued and maintained by those who know that we’re all better off with Jeffrey’s very great songs in easy reach. The final blow, or irony if you will, is that the one person who never got the benefit of Jeffrey’s genius was Jeffrey. I can’t explain to you how much I miss him. –Henry Rollins
E-Mail address for Henry: [email protected]
01. LL Cool J - Going Back To Cali / Less Than Zero Soundtrack
02. The Misfits - Static Age / Static Age
03. Sly & Robbie – Jailbreak / A Dub Experience
04. Thin Lizzy - Jail Break / Jail Break
05. We Should Be Dead - Zero Point Five / Forget Romance, Let's Dance!
06. Manifesto - E Dub / Manifesto
07. The Clash - Remote Control / The Clash
08. The Rolling Stones - Hang Fire / Tattoo You
09. Prince Zulamkah – Ligiligi / Living Is Hard
10. Sam Cooke - Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen / Sam Cooke's Night Beat
11. Wire - Map Ref. 41°n 93°w /154
12. Television - Marquee Moon / Marquee Moon
13. The Fall - Free Range / Complete Peel Sessions (Disc 4)
14. Dinosaur Jr. - There's No Here / Farm
15. Stan Getz & João Gilberto - Corcovado / Getz-Gilberto
16. Miles Davis & Gil Evans – Corcovado / Quiet Nights
17. Iggy & The Stooges - I'm Sick Of You / single
18. Dan Deacon - Red F / Bromst
19. Thee Oh Sees – Rainbow / Help
20. Black Dice - Ten Inches / Repo
21. Sun Ra - The Antique Blacks / The Antique Blacks
22. Thomas Mapfumo – Murandu / Hokoyo!
23. The Tuff Monks - After The Fireworks / single
24. Gun Club - Bad America / The Las Vegas Story
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Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is the car industry outsider and the “superhero” who, against all expectations, pulled the Italian automotive group back from the brink collapse since taking over in 2004, and now it is also him in whose hands—according to the chairman of Fiat, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo—are the partnership negotiations between the Turin automaker and Chrysler.
The two carmakers are both racing against the clock to strike a deal by May 1, the deadline President Barack Obama set to receive federal bail-out funds which are essential for Chrysler to avoid bankruptcy. “The only thing I have to say […] is that we should leave it up to Sergio Marchionne and his staff to see whether a solution can be found by the end of the month,” Montezemolo said.
Montezemolo also said that Fiat isn’t looking at Opel, the German unit of General Motors, and this in response to an earlier press report saying Fiat may be looking at the German carmaker.
President Barack Obama, as it is well-known, is keen on the Fiat solution for Chrysler: after all, “the technological transfer Fiat is proposing would enable Chrysler to develop the small eco-friendly cars the American president is pushing for.” But the deal seems to make sense for both companies. In fact, not only would it give Fiat an initial 20% stake in Chrysler in exchange for its cutting-edge green and small-car technology, the Turin automaker would also have access to Chrysler’s plants and dealerships in order to allow it to return to the American market, initially with Alfa Romeo and the trendy Fiat 500 city car.
But there are still obstacles to overcome:
The deal in part hinges on unions and lenders accepting stock in Chrysler in exchange for the debt owed to them.
An accord draft leaked to the press on Thursday indicated that unions would take a 20% stake in Chrysler, the same as Fiat's initial stake, as payment for half their pension fund.
Marchionne is also asking that unions except wage cuts to bring labor costs in line with those in other plants in the US producing foreign cars, in states where the union have less power.
He added that Fiat was ready to ''walk away'' if the concessions were not made, while Montezemolo has said that a 'Plan B' existed should the accord fall through. The leaked draft also indicated that Marchionne would serve as CEO for both Fiat and Chrysler, while the US automaker would have an American chairman of the board.
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Star Wars, an idea that is now thirty years old, gives brands much to learn in how they consider their future in a digital, conversation driven world.
Star Wars is a platform. A story told over 25 years, six movies, a cartoon series, innumerable video games, plastic toys, and a sea of licensed novels.
The genius of George Lucas is the way in which this platform he established allows others to imagine and build upon his original ideas. Everyone knows that the force exists--and roughly what it can do. Everyone knows that faster than light travel is possible. Everyone knows there is the "Empire" and the "Rebel Alliance," and everyone knows that Leia is Luke's sister. In a Star Wars Universe, the force would never disappear in the same way that Luke would never sleep with Leia.
This platform establishes the basis of canon. A set of rules and principles that guide what happens in the Star Wars universe, and which innumerable authors, fans and others have built on over time. When an action is felt to stray from canon, it sparks furious online debate in the search for an answer.
Most brands could only wish to have a platform this powerful, but it is exactly what they should be striving for.
As consumers increasingly take your brand message and shape it in the way they wish-- through blogs, YouTube videos, Facebook fan pages, and more, your challenge is not to seek to control these interactions, but to create the kind of platform that allows you to influence them.
Like George Lucas, you need to consider the universe of your brand--its physics, its planets, its characters and the stories that have already been told. With this in hand, you then need to consider the telling of new stories which are consistent.
For two examples--one of success, the other of failure--take BMW and Buick. Here are two storied car brands. Buick over 100 years old, BMW over 90.
Over that time, BMW has built a powerful shared storytelling platform as the "ultimate driving machine". Creating stories of performance and success that not only run through the entire BMW universe of cars, dealers, customer service and marketing, but which powerfully act as a jumping off point for all consumers to imagine themselves in. For BMW, Leia is most definitely Luke's sister.
Buick, by contrast have created no clear platform, no clear canon. Where BMW represents a symbol of success, Buick has defaulted to being a car for the old (average purchaser age 62). The problem is that in the Buick universe, nobody knows what Luke's relationship is to Leia, or whether the force exists, or even where they put the lightsabers.
The point in this is simple--if you don't create a platform of canon from which your brand tells stories, don't be surprised when your consumers do the unexpected. They're simply doing what you've already done--breaking the rules, because there don't appear to be any.
So remember, for your brand to succeed, you should always consider Luke and Leia.
Read more of Paul Worthington's blog
Paul Worthington is head of Strategy for the New York office of Wolff Olins, a global brand and innovation consultancy. You can find both Paul (@pworthington) and Wolff Olins (@wolffolins) on Twitter.
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Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a federal agency whose mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans through research. Information from AHRQ's research helps people make more informed decisions and improve the quality of health care services. AHRQ was formerly known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.
AHRQ Health IT Grants - funding opportunities, and toolkits are available for physicians using Health IT in their practices.
American Health Quality Association (AHQA) represents Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) and professionals working to improve the quality of health care in communities across America. QIOs share information about best practices with physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes. Working together with health care providers, QIOs identify opportunities and provide assistance for improvement. QIOs are the successors of PROs and PSROs.
Bridges to Excellence (BTE) is a pay-for-performance incentive program created to reward physicians who are recognized by NCQA as meeting quality standards. Several large employers, including General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, Verizon, UPS and Ford participate in this program. Initial testing of this program is in the Cincinnati and Louisville areas.
eHealth Initiative (eHI) mission is to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology. It is a membership organization comprising hospitals, healthcare organizations, physician groups, employers and purchasers, health plans, healthcare information technology organizations, manufacturers, public health agencies, academic and research institutions, and public sector stakeholders--to define and then implement specific actions that will address the quality, safety and efficiency challenges of our healthcare system through the use of interoperable information technology. The AOA is a member of this organization.
Healthcare 411 is a news series produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. AHRQ’s mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. Using the latest podcasting technology, these weekly audio and video programs feature AHRQ’s latest research findings as news and informational stories on current health care topics.
Health Grades, Inc. is a for-profit healthcare quality ratings and services company. Health Grades collects and sells information on physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes. The company also produces an annual report on hospital quality.
Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) – A set of standardized measures designed to ensure purchasers of health care and consumers have the information they need to reliably compare the performance of managed health care plans. Performance measures are related to many significant health issues, such as cancer, heart disease, smoking, asthma and diabetes. HEDIS also includes a survey of consumer’s experiences that evaluate plan’s performance. HEDIS was developed by the NCQA.
Leapfrog Group is a coalition of more than 160 companies and organizations that buy health care. Leapfrog and its members work together to improve the quality and affordability of health care, reward physicians and hospitals for improving quality and encourage public reporting of health care quality.
National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) is an organization for healthcare quality professionals. Its goal is to promote the continuous improvement of quality in healthcare by providing educational and developmental opportunities for professionals at all management levels and within all healthcare settings.
National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is an organization that measures the quality of the nation’s managed care plans. The organization has also begun evaluating physicians in the areas of diabetes, heart and stroke care. The NCQA has developed HEDIS, Bridges to Excellence, and accreditation and certification programs.
National Health Council (NHC) and its member organizations share a common objective: improving the health of all people, particularly those with chronic diseases and/or disabilities. Through communication, collaboration and consensus, the Council's member organizations — representing all segments of the health care community — work to achieve this important objective.
National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) Act of 2003 authorizes a National Health Information Officer (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology) (ONCHIT), working under the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to work with public and private health care entities to (1) coordinate public and private infrastructure initiatives, (2) accelerate the adoption of voluntary national communications and data standards, and (3) implement a national health information infrastructure.
National Quality Forum (NQF) is a not-for-profit membership organization created to develop and implement a national strategy for health care quality measurement and reporting. A shared sense of urgency about the impact of health care quality on patient outcomes, workforce productivity, and health care costs prompted leaders in the public and private sectors to create the NQF as a mechanism to bring about national change.
Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement is a group of medical associations with the mission to improve patient health and safety by developing evidence-based clinical performance measures that enhance quality, to promote the implementation of the performance measures, and to advance the science of clinical performance measurement. Membership in the Consortium is comprised of clinical experts from a large number of medical associations, including the American Osteopathic Association.
Physicians' Electronic Health Record Coalition (PEHRC) - In July 2004, 14 preeminent medical organizations, representing more than 500,000 U.S. physicians, announced the creation of the Physicians' Electronic Health Record Coalition (PEHRC). This groundbreaking health care coalition will assist physicians, particularly those in small- and medium-sized ambulatory care medical practice, to acquire and use affordable, standards-based electronic health records and other health information technology to improve quality, enhance patient safety, and increase efficiency. The coalition is committed to taking practical steps to educate physicians about the value and best use of electronic health records (EHR), and to assist them in selection of systems, as well as to help focus the market on high-quality and affordable products.
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Greece could exit eurozone soon: Sweden
- From: AAP
- September 09, 2012
THE eurozone crisis will get worse before it gets better and Greece could exit the single currency bloc within a year, Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg said in an interview.
"I don't think we've seen the worst yet in countries like Spain and Greece. They have such serious problems that Europe is going to be in a very difficult position during the next six to 12 months," Borg told public broadcaster Swedish Radio.
The Swedish finance minister, whose country is not a member of the eurozone, said he would not be surprised if Athens had to leave the 17-member euro bloc in the foreseeable future.
He stressed that while there was "much support" for the country in Europe, "we can't rule out the possibility that Greece will end up in a situation where it in practice leaves the euro in six, nine or 12 months."
Borg said he wasn't "sure how much we should dramatise" such a scenario.
"Banks in Europe are prepared for problems with Greece," he said, while acknowledging that "it could get a lot messier in Europe."
Borg said Athens had to ensure that its reforms were implemented and noted that political will was not the problem. Instead, reforms passed by parliament were not trickling down to authorities and being implemented as they should.
Borg was also of the opinion that Spain may need a bailout, saying there was "great uncertainty about how its regions are managing their public finances."
"I don't think you can rule out that ways will have to be found to help Spain," he said of the eurozone's fourth largest economy.
POLICE will launch an unprecedented national crackdown on illegal firearms and their suppliers in the first Australia-wide assault on gun violence.
THE SUCCESS of the new Holden Commodore rests on the shoulders of mums and dads across Australia.
HAWTHORN star Lance "Buddy" Franklin has apologised to a woman who accused him of drunken, rude behaviour on Saturday night.
A VICTORIAN firm selling eggs under the name Barossa Ridge Farms is being investigated by the consumer watchdog for potentially breaching labelling laws.
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Validity of RR Lyrae epochs
Dear Forum Members,
I have another question concerning my Master's thesis project at Lund Observatory. It's about evaluating the how useful some old RR Lyrae epochs are. I hope the photometry forum is suitable for such a question.
I have spectra of two RR Lyrae stars in M 22, and I need to calculate their phases at the time when my spectra of them were obtained. The epochs I have are from Wehlau & Hogg 1978 (AJ vol. 83 no. 8), and they are from mid-1975. I know that the evolutionary changes of the period of a RR Lyrae star is quite slow (even on a scale of 10^6 years), but could something else make epochs invalid as time passes? Can the O-C diagram be used to estimate such things?
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Death Comes for the Archbishop
Cather teased me with the stuff that I wanted to know much more about -- the relocation and slaughter of the Navajos and th...more
If books were buildings, this would be a cathedral
I first encountered Willa Cather back in college with her most anthologized short story, Paul’s Case. It’s about a young man’s frustration for people’s failure to understand him. Aside from that, I don’t remember much of the story, but I do recall how beautiful and dainty the writing is.
So when I read this novel, I was not tremendously shocked with its delicate beauty. I already have good expectations so there’s...more
Death Comes For The Archbishop is a book I chose because it is a classic. Willa Catha's name was mentioned somewhere, and I gritted my te...more
How does one write a western about missionaries in New Mexico? I think it's foolish to assume that the conventions of the western narrative would be applied in such a story. But if you were to mix some of the familiar tropes of the western (The purifier comes to settle the land and the wild lawless society, a narrative much like Shane... or High Planes Drifter) with a biblical theme, in this case the problem presented at the Pentecost...more
This is my first Willa Cather and I have high praise for her story-telling ability. This novel was odd - I did not have a strong liking for the characters but I was compelled to keep reading. This compulsion did not come from any great suspensful plot, instead the plot (if you could even call it that) was nothing more than the string of completely unrelated events that happen to a person during...more
"Death Comes for the Archbishop" takes place in the mid-19th Century, but hundreds of years'-worth of prior events are brought to life in the famed scribe's limped prose.
The short novel recounts the life of Father Jean Marie LaTour, a fictional (?) French Jesuit, woven into the fabric of New Mexican lore as he rubs soldiers with scout and Indian killer Kit Carson, jousts with the Cathol...more
The novel addresses the lives of two French missionary priests in the American southwest. They travel, establish churches, get a little older, part, meet, part again, and talk through the nuances of their faith and expanding roles in the Catholic church among Mexicans and Native Americans with wildly different perspectives of faith but respect for good men. I like how Cather avoids what can...more
November's Book Club Read
"Where there is great love there are always miracles. One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a mom...more
The book is more a compilation of short stories than...more
I often compare _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ to a very "Eastern" novel like _The Great Gatsby_, which occurs within a short span of time and among people whose major characteristic is their complete lack of adult values. It's amazingly rare to write concretely about a lifetime of patient striving towards some accretive goal -- where the greatest "incidents" might be moments of inner doubt, minor misunderstandings within long enduring relat...more
Being from there, I craved reading about the beautiful places as I remember them from pre-casino days. Cather captures the land and people unspoiled by the church and other greedy white guys.
It's written in shortish episodes, which are of cours...more
The good part of this book is the language. Willa Cather is a masterful writer. I lived in Arizona for seven years and she describes the landscape so accurately. I could feel the sights and smells. It was also refreshing to have a genuinely loving and humble priest character for once. The only other one I can think of is Father McCallahan from MASH.
The bad par...more
Death Comes for the Archbishop sprang from Willa Cather’s love for the land and cultures of the American Southwest. Published in 1927 to both praise and perplexity, it has since claimed for itself a major place in twentieth-century literature.
When Cather first visited the American Southwest in 1912, she found a new world to imagine and soon came to feel that "the story of the Catholic Church in [the Southwest] was the most interesting of all its stories." The narrative follows Bishop Jean Lato
December 8, 2012
What a simply delightful book. So easy to read and understand, yet so packed full of passion, flavor and intense character development. I had no idea what this book was about and while the subject of missionaries in the southwest could have been a snoozer, Cather turns it into pure magic. The descriptions of landscape make you feel not only like you are there, but leave a residual aching beauty in your mind. For instance:
On 12/6/12, I posted the following at my GR book group:
Nina wrote: "Speaking of reading older books; I am re-reading, "Death Comes to the Archbishop," for the third or fourth time. I have lost count but it's been a while now since I've once again delved into one of my all time favorite books. Joy, have you read it?"
Nina, I don't remember reading Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather, but I think I remember reading some of Cather's book...more
It doesn't require an interest in religion to appreciate;
It isn't necessary to want to explore the early Southwest through the author's eyes;
It is enough to simply read and let Cather's simple, beautiful prose wash over you and transport you---wherever it takes you, personally.
I really do believe this book has something in it that can appeal to any reader who seeks something in a book other than diversion. It is hard...more
This is not a novel of plot - which one finds out along the dusty way - it's more a chronicle of various events of two french catholic missionaries - which Willa Cather have based on two real life characters.
The story covers several decades beginning in 1851 when Father Latour reaches Santa Fe to become Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico. The task is daunting - trying to recover and rebuild their french version of the...more
The story deals with two French Catholic missionary priests sent to an unknown diocese spreading out around Santa Fe, and with the Mexicans and Native Americans among whom they work. But interestingly, the m...more
“It was both intense and soft, with a ruddiness as of much-multiplied candlelight, an aura of red in its flames. It bored into the ilex trees, illuminating their mahogany trunks and blurring their dark foliage; it warmed the bright green of the orange trees and the rose of the oleander bloom to gold; sent congested spiral patterns quivering ov...more
The episodes tell of their hardships and joys, of the people they meet, such as Kit Carson and Manue...more
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Matsui will always be considered a Yankee
Believe it or not, there was a baseball life for Hideki Matsui before the New York Yankees, but you'd never know it.
Blame it on the Reggie Jackson thing.
Quick. When you think of Mr. October wearing a baseball uniform, what do you see, and how striking are the pinstripes?
Just so you know, Jackson played 21 seasons in the Major Leagues, and he spent most of that time with the Oakland A's, his team for the first 10 years of his career. In addition, there was his season with the Baltimore Orioles, and he also was with the California (now the Los Angeles) Angels for five seasons, which is interesting.
That was the same amount time Jackson was with the Yankees.
Even so, you say "Reggie" to those ranging from casual to ardent baseball fans, and they see Yankees visions. Three home runs on three pitches at old Yankee Stadium during the 1977 World Series. Nose-to-nose (ahem) chats with Billy Martin. The Boss.
They also see drama -- a bunch of Yankees drama, involving the self-proclaimed straw that stirs the drink.
Jackson is the poster child for the following: Once you do something huge as part of the Yankees, anything you did before the Yankees or after the Yankees becomes nearly irrelevant.
Take Graig Nettles, for instance. He played half of his 22 Major League seasons for the Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves and Montreal Expos.
Folks only remember Nettles' half with the Yankees.
David Wells was around for 21 Major League seasons, but he primarily was known for his four years in the Bronx, where his hero was Babe Ruth. The left-handed pitcher even wore an authentic cap of Babe Ruth's during parts of a Yankees home game. He also threw a perfect game for the Yankees, but to the chagrin of management, he wrote in his autobiography that he did so with a hangover.
What about Roger Clemens?
Was he more of a Red Sox guy or a Yankee?
It's a close call.
Yes, Clemens managed the first three of his seven Cy Young Awards with the Red Sox, and he captured a couple with the Toronto Blue Jays. But he did grab one with the Yankees, and he won his 300th game and recorded his 4,000th career strikeout in pinstripes.
Bigger than that, Clemens' Yankees made three trips to the World Series, and they won two of them.
Then there is Alex Rodriguez, with all of his great moments with the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers. He'll be remembered the most for his great and not-so-great moments with a Yankees franchise that has featured just nine of his 19 years in the Major Leagues.
Which brings us to Matsui, who announced this week that he is retiring at 38 after 20 years in pro baseball as a prolific slugger.
Matusui was such a star for a decade with the Yomiuri Giants in the Japanese Central League that he was known as Godzilla. He won three of the league's Most Valuable Player awards. He made nine straight trips to the All-Star Game, and he won three home run titles and three RBI titles. He also led the Giants into that league's equivalent to the World Series four times, and he helped them win three of them.
Little of that matters when it comes to Matsui's baseball legacy. All you need to know is that he spent October 2009 becoming as grand as Lou Gehrig and Ruth. He joined that duo back then as the only players to hit over .500 with three homers during the World Series.
It made Matsui the MVP of that Fall Classic, and it secured his image as more of a Yankee than anything else.
That's right. Even though Matsui was efficient overall during his seven seasons with the Yankees (.292 batting average, 140 homers), it only took a single moment -- that 2009 World Series -- to evolve into an unofficial lifetime Yankee.
See Aaron Boone.
He was with the Yankees one year. He spent his other 11 seasons in the Major Leagues with other teams.
Still, after Boone ripped his walk-off homer in the bottom of the 11th in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox, he became just a Yankee.
In other words, CC Sabathia shouldn't even think about wearing a Cleveland Indians cap if he reaches Cooperstown.
While Boone and others had their Yankees "moment," Sabathia is among those with Yankees "moments."
First, let's return to Sabathia's pre-Bronx days, when he was splendid enough during his first eight seasons in the Major Leagues with the Indians to reach three All-Star Games and to win an AL Cy Young Award. He also helped the Brewers make their first playoff trip in 26 years after he pitched brilliantly after he was traded from Cleveland to Milwaukee in the middle of the 2008 season.
Then came the Yankees. During Sabathia's first year with the team in 2009, he did much along the Yankees' journey to a world championship by winning ALCS MVP honors. Plus, he has led the Major Leagues in victories during two of his four seasons with the Yankees.
Anything else of significance that happens for Sabathia with the Yankees will be overkill.
He's already a Yankee forever.
Just like others.
Terence Moore is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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Calculate Payment Schedule [Homework]
While I was away, Hui did a splendid job of starting a new series called Formula Forensics. The idea is to break down formulas for difficult real-world problems so that we can understand them better.
In that spirit, I am giving you an interesting and tough formula homework.
Imagine you work for Large Fries Inc. as a sales person. You sell fries, chips, curls and other coronary clog causing consumables. It is not a pleasant job, but you do it nevertheless. The economy is not good and you don’t want the paycheck to vanish!
The Large Fries Inc., much like any company large, has some crazy policies. One such thing is their payment policy for sales persons. It has 2 important rules.
- You must earn at least $200 before they pay you.
- There should be a gap of at least 7 days between successive payments.
Shown below is your sales data since October 1st. First column is date, second is your commission earned.
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is not really dangerous or explosive. Nevertheless, it is fun and challenging.
Write a formula in third column such that it show the amount of commission to be paid subject to the 2 conditions above. You can use a helper column if you want.
The downloadable file contains correct answers for you to verify your solution.
Download Workbook with Data
Click here to download the homework problem workbook. You can see the correct answers too (no formulas, just answer).
Go ahead and Solve
Go ahead and solve this and post your answers. I am really curious to know how you would solve this. Please share your explanations in the comments.
Some help & more
- Understanding Relative & Absolute References in Excel
- Using Circular References in Formulas
- Introduction to IF then Else Formula in Excel
Leave a Reply
|Excel for Project Managers is coming up next Monday (14th), Details Inside…||Excel for Project Managers program is open, Please join today|
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After the inauguration, some forecasts for the next four years
Crowds filled the National Mall during Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony on January 21. (FCW photo by Michael Hardy)
While in town for this week’s presidential inauguration, I took the opportunity to ask friends I met (all Democrats) a question about the next four years. The question was this: “What’s the optimistic scenario for the next four years that you think has at least a 25 percent chance of happening? And what’s the pessimistic scenario that has at least a 25 percent chance of happening?”
Though not all responses were the same, there were interesting patterns. Basically, the optimistic scenarios involved the economy and the pessimistic ones involved the international scene. One person, for example, felt there was a 25 percent chance that four years from now the Democrats would be able to point to a “Morning in America” moment such as that used by Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential campaign – that most of the nation would feel confident that the economy had really come back strongly from the economic crisis.
The worries were international. They worried that Afghanistan and/or Pakistan might collapse in a way that creates real problems for the United States; that terrorism might resurge; that Europe’s economy could collapse; or that there might be trouble in the Middle East such as escalation of hostilities between Israel and Palestine or a revolution in Saudi Arabia).
Interestingly, nobody I asked mentioned improvements in the ability to compromise politically; nor did anyone predict progress or calamity regarding the country’s fiscal problems. I asked about whether an optimistic economic scenario would have any impact on political dysfunction, and the best response I got was one suggestion that economic growth would reduce the urgency of the budget deficit problem.
By the way, a Chinese friend sent me a screen shot of a page on Youku – China’s home-grown equivalent to YouTube – of scenes from the Obama inauguration. One picture showed the President and Michelle Obama dancing, another the inaugural address. Still others showed Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keyes, and Kelly Clarkson singing. To be sure, these pics were hardly burning up the Chinese Internet. Twelve hours after being posted, they had only been watched 8,000 times. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting sign of the attractiveness of American society and culture in China, and elsewhere outside the United States. (I blogged a few months ago about Chinese kids wearing t-shirts with US flags or military insignia.)
Posted on Jan 22, 2013 at 2:19 PM
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A meditation on immigration policy:
CESAR CHAVEZ’S IMMIGRATION LEGACY:
Start with this recognition when it comes to the current immigration debate: it’s Cesar Chavez’s world, and we’re just living in it. The labor movement he apotheosized is the primary reason our immigration system is wrecked today – a direct descendant of Chavez’s 1969 march with Ralph Abernathy and Walter Mondale along the Mexican border to protest against growers hiring illegal immigrants, or the riots that followed over the next decade where Chavez and his organization would routinely report immigrant workers with questionable histories to the INS. http://vlt.tc/oiw Organized labor has been for decades the chief obstacle to broad-based common sense reform. http://vlt.tc/no4 There is an assumption that this time, because a Democrat is in the White House and not a Republican, labor will come along for the ride. But that’s still an open question, and the White House does not appear to be an active conduit: “Neither Mr. Obama nor his White House have reached out to Mr. Rubio.” http://vlt.tc/oiv Obama’s slated to roll out his reportedly more liberal approach today. http://vlt.tc/ojc
The irony is that this broken regime, which Chavez helped create when he destroyed the Bracero Program in a rampant anti-immigrant power-grab, is ripe for libertarian pro-market criticism. The immigration policy reality we have today is the sort of market-warping governmentally driven system which Republicans criticize in nearly every other arena, yet it has been embraced by the GOP as a worthy “law and order” practice which must be defended as a matter of principle. The labor-left alliance handed an unenforceable and wrong-headed bureaucratic regime to the right, and said “you make it work” – and the right has gamely obliged, to the point of criticism of this regime becoming a litmus test in Republican primaries. Simpson-Mazzoli didn’t do anything to solve this, and it appears unlikely the current steps under discussion will take a different path.
What is particularly problematic is that, with the Chavez view of the world enshrined into law, the focus of reformers is typically focused on less significant parts of the problem – such as the idea, espoused by just about everybody, that the high-skilled immigration system needs fixing (a topic everyone who doesn’t understand the real immigration problem brings up without fail – high skilled immigration impacts relatively few people, is driven by the interests of corporations, and you could solve it without even touching the real issues; it also makes real immigration and security policy experts laugh, since it’s similar to suggesting you can solve school violence issues by making everyone wear uniforms). The McCain-Graham+Rubio/Flake reworked proposal released yesterday is another example of wrongheadedness: http://vlt.tc/oix The senators would increase the scope of government instead of liberty, make normalization contingent upon border security (which just sets up another fight between interest groups on the border – Republican says it’s not secure, Democrat says it is, etc.), and create employer provisions which 1) forces employers to prove a negative and 2) turns them into criminals if they can’t. Oh, I’m sure that won’t result in any profiling at all.
The Obama administration has, to this point, done nothing to improve current immigration realities in a permanent sense. Instead, it’s been a servant of organized labor in an economy with stagnant job opportunities. Deportations are at record highs; ICE audits of employers are at record highs; and the border is more militarized than it’s been in almost a century. These steps all serve to incentivize behavior which keeps unskilled migrant labor in the shadows. It is far easier to cross the border, hop a train near El Paso, be in the Midwest within two days, and send money back home as an individual male than it is as a family – so the current approach makes that the most appealing and least dangerous path.
The truth is that government policy forces the demand for unskilled migrant labor to fill its needs through a black market. With the political forces arrayed as they currently are, nothing will likely come out of the current debate which addresses the real need for labor market reform. It’s high time we focused on the real cause of the vast majority of illegal immigration and allow for a regular legal pathway for unskilled migrant labor. Until we do, Chavez’s policy inheritance will persist, and it will continue to incentivize law-breaking by employers and workers alike.
RELATED: Could Obama be an obstacle to a deal? http://vlt.tc/oj5 Obamacare and immigration: How much will this cost? http://vlt.tc/ogs Six simple questions on immigration. http://vlt.tc/ogv Immigration and Republican self-interest. http://vlt.tc/oi3 Meet the new amnesty, same as the old amnesty.http://vlt.tc/ohv Bush’s plan made worse? http://vlt.tc/ohx Texas delegation reax. http://vlt.tc/ojf Obama’s unconstitutional executive power grab.http://vlt.tc/oh5 The Rubio con. http://vlt.tc/ogy Rush: “Republicans have not said one thing to make anybody think they want Hispanics deported.”http://vlt.tc/oi8 Why immigration reform alone won’t help Republicans.http://vlt.tc/oih Diversity belongs to the left, but it shouldn’t.http://vlt.tc/oiu Reihan Salam reacts to the framework. http://vlt.tc/ojj
Marvelous, Ben. The rest of you: subscribe here.
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The Wired Road is building a regional high speed communications network that will help bring jobs and businesses to the Twin Counties area (Carroll and Grayson counties and the City of Galax). Phase One of the project is designed to provide wireless access in all three localities, and some limited fiber services in Galax. Services will be provided by private sector companies, including many if not most of the firms currently offering Internet access in the area. Therefore, we are seeking service providers to offer and to sell a variety of services on the network.
If your firm is interested in offering services on The Wired Road system, please let us know.
The Wired Road is looking for service providers who are interested in offering some or all of the following services:
- “Lifeline” Internet access (e.g. 128 kbit service)
- Residential Internet access packages (e.g. 1 megabit, 5 megabit, 10 megabit)
- Business/commercial Internet access (e.g. 2 megabit, 5 megabit, 10 megabit, 25 megabit, 50 megabit, 100 megabit, Gigabit)
- Television programming packages (i.e. equivalent to typical cable and satellite offerings)
- Computer/data backup services for residential and business customers
- IP-based security monitoring services
- Gaming packages (high performance Internet access)
- Voice over IP telephone services for residential and business customers
- Telemedicine and telehealth services
- Other kinds of new and advanced IP-based services
The Wired Road is a state of the art Layer 3 IP network with end to end automated service provisioning on fiber connections. Fiber-connected customers will be able to order services using a Web portal to access your service offerings, and in most cases, the service will be available to the customer seconds after the order form is completed. Service providers will bill customers directly, and monthly usage reports on a per customer basis can be provided by The Wired Road if needed.
You may attach to the network by colocating equipment locally in the downtown Galax colocation facility, or you may deliver your services from some remote locations as long as you have a network connection to The Wired Road.
Cost of using the network
The primary method of cost recovery will be revenue sharing, which keeps your start up costs low. The percentage of revenue share is negotiated in advance so you know exactly what your transport costs are prior to offering the service. The exact percentage of revenue share is based on your specifications, according to factors like time of day, QoS required, and bandwidth needs.
Phase One Opportunities
In Phase One, The Wired Road will be able to provide wireless connections in parts of Carroll and Grayson counties and Galax. Some businesses in downtown Galax will be connected with fiber.
Long Term Potential
The long term goal of the project is to take fiber to about 80% of homes and businesses in the region, and to provide widespread wireless access. We estimate that more than 16,000 homes and businesses will eventually have service.
Is the Wired Road going to compete with me?
All voice, video, Internet access, and other services for businesses and residents will be provided by private sector firms. The local governments will NOT be selling any services to businesses and residents.
How do I get connected to the network to offer services?
Your firm will have to have access to a port on the network, and purchase a transport service package, which is based on the amount of bandwidth you think you will need to deliver your service to customers.
Do I have to put equipment in the Galax colo facility?
The Wired Road has a public colo facility in downtown Galax, and we will have a dedicated switch (a Cisco 3750) that will be used to provide ports for service providers. The Wired Road may be able to allow service injection at other 3750 locations on a case by case basis.
Will I connect to the network with a copper (10/100 RJ45 port) connection or a fiber (GigE) connection?
We recommend the copper RJ45 connection, but the network plans to offer fiber GigE ports in the near future.
How much will it cost to use the network?
Fees to use the network will be based on several factors, including bandwidth required to deliver the service, the QoS level requested, and time of day. The fee will be based on a percentage of revenue; for example, if you offer a two megabit package of Internet access for $30/month, and the pre-negotiated revenue share is 25%, you would be billed monthly for $7.50 for each customer using the service. You will be able to negotiate and confirm the revenue share percentage before you advertise and offer your service.
Who can sell services on the network?
Any company that meets minimal technical and financial qualifications may offer and sell services on The Wired Road.
How will customers order services?
The Wired Road will have an easy to use Web-based services portal where potential customers will be presented all of the service offerings. If they click on the icon of a service from your company, they will be directed to a Web form that to collect the information you require. Once the form is completed the information will be sent to your firm.
Who will bill customers?
You will bill your own customers, using your own billing system. You will receive monthly reports from The Wired Road with customer and service information.
How will my customers get connected?
The Wired Road offers both wireless and fiber access, with fiber services available in downtown Galax and soon to be available in Grant, VA. Fiber connections may become available in other areas later in the year. Wireless connections will be available in all three localities as part of a phased build out, with the first access points in Carroll County, and access points in Galax and Grayson soon after.
For more information, Scarlett McGrady at [email protected].
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The Taiwanese film director , 40-something Wei Te-sheng, is producing a film about baseball, and it will focus on a time in Taiwan and Japan history, in 1931, when Taiwan was an economic and military colony of Imperial Japan, which ruled the island south of Okinawa from 1895-1945 and helped introduce baseball to young talents islandwide. The director is Umin Boya, an Aboriginal actor and TV star.
Wei's plan for the baseball movie -- set in 1931 in Taiwan and Japan -- CUE THE MUSIC, CUE THE COSTUMES -- is to tell the story of a young but mighty baseball team
from Japan Imperial Brainwashed Colony Taiwan that was invited to play in the annual summer baseball tournament for high school kids in KOSHIEN in Imperial war-hungry imperialistic Japan.
And since Taiwan was then a part of Imperial Japan, with people forced to take Japanese names and speak Japanese in school, and bow to the Emperor in Japan and all that imperial brainwashing bullshit, the Chiayi Norin Gakko team consisting of Japanese boys, Han Chinese boys (Formosans) and Aboriginal boys, took a boat to Japan -- there were no 747s in those days -- and played in the popular Koshien baseball tournament.
And miraculously, the teenage ''rednecks'' from Taiwan fooled all the experts and came second in the final tally. Second! This was so magical and amazing for the people in Taiwan that the game became a part of island lore.
So Wei, after making "Cape No. 7" and "Seediq Bale" -- both top-grossing films with Asia-wide audiences in love with his work -- is developing his baseball movie idea into a full-fledged production, with local actors from Taiwan and Japan starring in it. The release date? It's in God's hands. Nobody knows for sure when the movie will finsh shooting and editing, but expect to appear in theaters in 2013 Decemeber
in time for Taiwan's New Years/Christmas vacation movie box office rush!
Since 1931, Chiayi City -- where this blogger just happens to live! -- has long been a stronghold of Taiwan baseball since the Japanese-rule period of 1895-1945. Chiayi's ''Kano'' baseball team
''miraculously'' won second place at the Japan national high school
tournament in 1931 in the legendary Koshien Stadium in Kobe where more
than 600 high schools ''around Japan'' competed. And since Taiwan was
then part of Japan, the Chiayi multi-ethnic team of Taiwanese, Japanese and Aborigne teenagers competed and came in second place.
Kano is the nickname of "Kagi Norin Gakko" == KANO == in Japanese, using the first two letters of KAGI and the first two letters of NORIN, and in Japanese the school name means Chiayi Agricultural School, or the Chiayi Aggies. KANO was the shorthand in nihongo in those days. Today the school is now National Chiayi University is a full-fledged university with schools of business, liberal arts, animal science, agriculture and music.
So, FIELD OF DREAMS, MOVE OVER, HERE COMES TAIWAN'S
BASEBALL MOVIE OF MAGIC AND DREAMS
So expect a powerful and moving baseball drama, pitting the Taiwanese and Aborigine and Japanese island
boys agauinst the mainland Japanese boys, playing ball on a hot summer day in Kobe,
Japan, and mix in a drama involving the coaches, the teachers, the fans, and
probably a girlfriend or two! This could be Wei's and Boya's ''next big thing'' -- get ready!
Producer Wei and Director Umin Boya like challenges and they loves history and they loves Taiwan, so get
ready for the baseball movie of your life, if you like baseball. Even if you don't care
for the game, the backstory of the movie will knock your baseball socks off!
Dear Mr Blogger,
Generally, the new film is about Koshien Japan National High School Baseball Championship ( kōkō yakyū). Before World War II, Taiwan and Korea were all part of the Japanese Empire at the time. National Chiayi University, formerly named Chiayi Agriculture and Forestry School (CAFS, a alumni baseball OB team of 42 to Japan. )which in representative of Taiwan won the first mastery prize at the annual final game in 1931.
if you need more information about Umin or Mr. Wei,
please let us know(via Umin's FB).Thanks a lot.
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If you've never read the herpes handbook at www.westoverheights.com
- I recommend taking the time to do so. It will give you terrific info for how to treat your herpes as well as how to reduce a partner's risk.
Unfortunately condoms do not protect 100% against the transmission of genital herpes. Your past partner should still get tested for herpes to know his full status because he very well could've contracted the virus while he was with you and he just doesn't know it. Sure he's far more likely not to have contracted it than he is to have contracted it but it's best to err on the side of caution and get tested before he enters into any future relationships. Trust me when I say it's far better to find out you have it from a blood test then from when you've transmitted it to a new partner
Even though your lesions typically appear outside of the actual genitals - you are still most likely shedding the virus from the entire anogenital area with ob's and in between ob's. Your nerve ganglia for that entire area is infected with the virus - not just the area in which up until now you typically have noticed ob's in. So yes all the info you've read before does pertain to you too.
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The Lure of the Basilisk [The Lords of Dus, Vol. 1]
Click on image to enlarge.
by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Description: The overman named Garth sought immortal fame. The oracle told him to serve the Forgotten King to get that fame. But this King sent Garth after a basilisk whose gaze could turn men to stone. What sane use could anyone have for a monster like that?
eBook Publisher: Wildside Press, 2003 USA
eBookwise Release Date: October 2005
36 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [291 KB]
Reading time: 188-263 min.
"I am weary of all this death and dying."
The speaker was a huge armor-clad figure almost seven feet in height, standing at the narrow mouth of a small cave near the top of a snowy and rubble-strewn hillside; even from a distance an observer would have seen the fading light of the setting sun glinting a baleful red from his eyes, marking him as something other than human. He was speaking to a bent, crouching creature clad in tatters who stood inside the cave's mouth, at the edge of the impenetrable gloom of the interior, her face and form only faintly visible in the dim twilight; she was hunched and humpbacked, shriveled and bent with age. Her face was twisted and broken, her teeth gone, one of her golden eyes squinting horribly, yet she was plainly of the same race as the tall warrior.
"Death is everywhere;" the decrepit creature replied.
"I know that, Ao; I would it were not so." The hag addressed as Ao merely shrugged, and the warrior continued, "It makes life pointless to know that I and all I know will die and pass away, as if I had never been." He paused briefly, then went on, "I wish that it were possible for me to perform some feat of cosmic significance, to change the nature of things, so that all would look back millennia from now and say, 'Garth did this.' I wish that I could alter the uncaring universe so that even the stars would respond to my passing, so that my life would not be insignificant."
Ao moved uncomfortably. "You are a lord and a warrior, whose deeds will be recalled for a generation."
"I am known to a tiny corner of a single continent; and even there, as you yourself say, I will be remembered only for a century or two, an instant in the life of the world."
"What would you have of us, my sister and myself?"
"Is it possible for a mortal being to alter the way things are?"
"That, it is said, is the province of the gods; if the gods are the baseless myth some believe them, then it is the role of Fate and Chance."
Garth had apparently expected this reply; there was only the slightest pause before he said, "I would have it, then, that if I cannot change the world, at the least the world shall remember me. I would have it that my name shall be known as long as anything shall live, to the end of time. Can this be?" He stared at the misshapen hag, his usually expressionless face intent.
She gazed back impassively and answered slowly, "It is your desire that you be known throughout history, from now until the end of the world?"
"This can be done." Her tone seemed curiously reluctant.
"Go to the village called Skelleth, and seek there the Forgotten King; submit yourself to him, obey him without fail, and what you have wished will be."
"How am I to find this king?"
"He is to be found in the King's Inn, clad in yellow rags."
"How long must I serve him?"
Ao drew a deep breath, paused, and said, "You weary us with your questions; we will answer no more." She turned and hobbled out of sight in the darkness of the cave, the darkness that concealed her sister Ta and their humble living facilities.
The warrior stood respectfully motionless as the oracle withdrew, then turned east, toward where the last rays of sunlight lit the iced-in port of Ordunin and the cold sea beyond, and started thoughtfully down the hillside. * * * * Chapter One
The village of Skelleth was the northernmost limit of human civilization, a perpetually starving huddle of farmers and ice-cutters; it shrank with each succeeding ten-month winter. Its existence depended equally on the goats and hay of the farmers and on the declining trade in ice to cool the drinks of wealthy nobles to the south. This trade brought to the decaying community those many necessities they could not obtain from their own land, but was less each year as fewer of the ice-caravans survived the ravages of brigands and bankruptcy.
Although Skelleth was universally acknowledged as the limit of human civilization, both humans and civilization could be found further north. The humans, however, were either the goat-herding nomads of the plains and foothills or the barbaric hunters and trappers of the snow-covered mountains, who were all too fond of banditry and murder and could hardly be called civilization; while the civilization was that of the overmen of the Northern Waste, driven there by the Racial Wars of three centuries before, and they were most assuredly not human.
It was because of these last that the Baron of Skelleth had seen fit to make the North Gate the only portion of the crumbling city wall to be guarded, although none of Skelleth's meager trade passed through the North Gate, even the wild trappers preferring to use the more accessible gates to east and west on their rare trading expeditions. At any hour, night or day, one of Skelleth's three dozen men-at-arms could be found huddled over a watch-fire in the shelter of the one remaining wall of the fallen gatehouse--assuming that the man assigned had not deserted his post. This cold and unrewarding duty made a convenient punishment for any guard who chanced to run afoul of the moody Baron's whims, and so was usually the lot of the younger and more cheerful among the company, as the Baron was prone to consider it a mortal offense should anyone be happy when he himself was sunk in one of his frequent and incapacitating fits of black depression.
Thus it was that Arner, youngest and most daring of the guard, was ordered to stand twenty-four hours of guard duty without relief at this unattractive spot; and it was scarcely surprising that the youth should abandon his post and be asleep in his sweetheart's arms when, for the first time in memory, someone did approach Skelleth down the ancient Wasteland Road.
Thus it was that Garth rode into Skelleth unannounced and unopposed astride his great black warbeast, past the wide ring of abandoned, ruined homes and streets into the inhabited portion, his steel helmet glinting in the morning sunlight, his crimson cloak draped loosely across his shoulders. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, ignoring the ragged handful of villagers who first stared and then ran at his appearance in their midst.
Although Garth's noseless, leathery-brown face and glaring red eyes were enough to evoke horror among humans, it was quite possible that some of the villagers did not even notice him at first but ran from his mount, thinking it some unnatural monster of the waste; it stood five feet high at the shoulder and measured eighteen feet from nose to tail, its sleek-furred feline form so superbly muscled that the weight of its armored rider was as nothing to it. Its wide padded paws made no more sound than any lesser cat's and its slender tail curled behind it like a panther's. Like its master, the warbeast did not spare so much as a glance from its golden slit-eyes or a twitch of its stubby whiskers for the terror-stricken townspeople, but strode smoothly on, unaffected, with the superb grace of its catlike kind, triangular ears flattened against its head. Its normal walk was as fast as a man's trot, and the relentless onward flow of that great black body moving in utter silence through the icy mud of the streets was as terrifying in itself as the three-inch fangs that gleamed from its jaw.
As the screams and shouts of the fleeting villagers increased, a faint frown touched Garth's thin-lipped mouth, though his gaze never wavered; this noisy reception was not what he wanted. He slid back his cloak, revealing the steely grey breastplate and black mail beneath, and slid his double-edged battle-axe from its place on the saddle, carrying it loosely in his left hand. His right hand still held the guide-handle of the beast's halter, a guide that was more a formality than a necessity for a well-trained warbeast. Garth knew that his mount was the finest product of Kirpa's breeding farms, the end result of a thousand years of magically assisted crossbreeding and careful selection. Still, he kept the handle in hand, preferring to trust no creature save himself.
As Garth approached the market-square at the center of town, he found himself the object of a hundred curious stares. His lack of offensive action thus far had allowed the villagers to gather their nerve, and they now lined the street to watch him pass, their earlier shouting giving way to an awed silence; he was by far the most impressive sight Skelleth had seen in centuries. They gawked at the size of his mount, at his own seven-foot stature, at the gleaming axe in his hand, at the dull armor that protected him and, incidentally, hid the black fur that was one of the major differences between his race and humanity. He could not hide his lack of facial hair, his lack of a nose, nor the hollow cheeks and narrow lips which all combined to give his visage, to human eyes, much the appearance of a red-eyed skull.
Garth was not impressed with Skelleth. It certainly failed to live up to the ancestral tales of a mighty fortress standing eternally vigilant, barring his race from the warm, lush south. Although the outer wall had plainly once been a serious fortification, he had seen several gaps in it as he approached, crumbled sections wide enough for a dozen soldiers to walk through abreast if they were willing to clamber over loose stone. He could see why the wall went unrepaired; the village guarded by this quondam barrier was scarcely worth the trouble of taking that walk. Quite aside from the foolishness of the crowd, even in the parts not utterly ruinous, the half-timbered buildings that sagged with long years of harsh weather and ill care were no better than the poorest sections of his native Ordunin--rather worse, in truth, and the people, dirty, ragged, and flea-bitten, were worse still. But then, they were merely humans.
There was a murmur among the villagers as half a dozen men-at-arms belatedly appeared, their short swords drawn. Garth looked at them in mild amusement, dropping his gaze at last, and halted his mount with a soft word.
To the northerner, this pitiful sextet appeared as harmless as many geese; he had feared he would be confronted by cavalry in plate armor, or at the very least a few pikemen, not a handful of farmers in rusty mail shirts carrying poorly-forged swords half the length of the broad blade that hung at his side. Surely his ancestors had fought mightier foes than these? It was clearly not just the wall that had decayed over the years since the overmen had withdrawn into the Northern Waste. Still, these were plainly the town authorities or their representatives, and it was necessary to treat them diplomatically if he were to go on about his business unhindered. It being the guest's duty to speak before the host, he said, "Greetings, men of Skelleth."
With some hesitation, the squad's captain--at least, Garth assumed he was captain, since his helmet was steel rather than leather--replied, "Greetings, overman."
"I am Garth of Ordunin. I come in peace."
"Then why is your axe unsheathed?"
"I was unsure of my reception."
Hesitating once more, the captain said, "We have no quarrel with you."
Garth slid the axe back into its boot. "Then could you direct me to the King's Inn?"
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The price of gasoline continues to fall in Colorado, even though nationally it hasn't budged much over the past month.
A gallon in Denver cost an average of $2.75 on Sunday compared with $3.26 nationally, a 51-cent difference, according to ColoradoGas Prices.com.
Though prices in Colorado have generally tracked lower than the national average this year, the gap has widened markedly since about mid-December, when they were about a dime apart.
"Motorists in the Rocky Mountain region are enjoying considerably lower gas prices than the rest of the U.S. It's due to healthy gasoline inventories, the availability of cheap Canadian crude and refineries that operate exceptionally well," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, which operates ColoradoGasPrices and other state-specific sites.
"The Rockies region is doing very well as it is insulated from the higher price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil and can capitalize on the less expensive crude from Canada," DeHaan said.
Five pipelines funnel "finished product" into multiple Front Range terminals, and there is "an abundant supply that lands here, said Stan Dempsey Jr., president of the Colorado Petroleum Association.
"Some could say it is a dumping ground for product," Dempsey said. "It arrives here and is sold throughout Colorado. We are not beholden to one supplier."
Mark Larson, executive director of the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said that while 17 to 18 percent of the oil coming into the region is from Canada, most of it comes from oil production in Colorado, Wyoming and the rest of the Rocky Mountain area.
"It is all about supply and demand," said Larson. "If they're not moving product, and we have demand down...the street sets the price."
The Rockies are unique "in that right now the area has access to low-priced wholesale gas, both from its proximity to oil fields and shale basins in the area but by also having access to low-priced product coming from the Midwest and from landlocked product that is selling at a substantial discount," said Lenard.
Lenard added that the region has comparatively low taxes on a gallon of gasoline, which also helps.
Across the country, the average tax, federal and state combined, is 48.8 cents a gallon, he said.
In Denver, the combined tax is 40.4 cents a gallon, and in Wyoming it is 32.4 cents, he said.
Lenard said that right now there is simply "a glut" of oil in the region.
"Those mountain area refineries are simply able to get more affordable product," Lenard said.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, [email protected] or twitter.com/howardpankratz
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What is the Application Process for Social Security Disability and SSI?
How do you Win Benefits under Social Security Disability or SSI?
If I am determined disabled, how far back will Social Security pay benefits?
How do you prove your disability case if you have a mental condition?
What Can I Do to Improve My Chances of Winning Disability Benefits
Common Mistakes after Receiving a Denial of Social Security Disability or SSI Benefits
How to File for Disability - Tips for Filing
If You Get Approved For SSDI Will You Also Get Medicare?
How much does a Social Security disability attorney get paid?
Social Security Disability SSI Criteria and the Evaluation Process
How long does it take to be approved for SSI or Social Security disability?
What do you Need to Prove to Qualify for Disability Benefits?
Social Security Disability SSI and Fibromyalgia
Social Security Disability SSI and Degenerative Disc Disease
Can I Qualify For Disability and Receive Benefits based on Depression?
Answers to questions about SSD and SSI disability
What Disabilities Qualify for SSI and Social Security Disability Benefits?
Social Security Disability Status
Social Security Disability Tips — how a claim gets worked on
Social Security Disability, SSI Disability - Terms, Definitions, Concepts
When should you File for Disability benefits with the social security administration?
How to prove you are disabled
and win disability benefits
Should you file for disability? When should you do it? These are two very important questions for individuals who have significant and limiting impairments (mental or physical).
Answer: You should consider filing for disability if your medical condition interferes with your ability to perform work activity. This includes the jobs you have done in the past and, potentially, other forms of work for which your job skills, training, and education may suit you.
How Social Security decides claims
Social Security will base its decision to award medical disability benefits on an individual’s ability to engage in past work or "other" work activity. This decision is made by reviewing both a claimant's work history and a claimant's medical history--which is done by gathering a claimant's medical records.
Note: Past work may potentially include any job done by the claimant in the fifteen year period prior to becoming disabled, as long as the job was performed long enough for the person to actually learn the duties of the job. "Other work" is potentially any type of job that a claimant may be thought capable of doing based on their education and job skills, and mediated by their current limitations.
As an example, an individual with a work history as a machinist who is unable to go back to their old job due to their functional limitations...may be considered capable by the social security administration of doing a similar job (in the same industry or a related industry) if:
A) That job makes use of the individual's education and training and
B) The job does not require, mentally or physically, more than the individual is capable of doing (because, obviously, you cannot be expected to switch to some new type of employment that your training qualifies you for if your physical or mental limitations would stand in the way of you actually doing the job).
When does Social Security consider a condition disabling?
Basically, a person should file for Social Security disability or SSI if their physical or mental conditions have prevented them from working and earning a substantial and gainful income (this is known as SGA) for twelve months, or if they expect to be out of work for twelve months due to the severity of their impairments.
As the Social Security Administration views things, the standard for being considered disabled is that the condition must last (or be projected to eventually last) for one full year, minimum. Conditions that are severe enough to prevent work activity but which do not last a year or longer will not be considered as a disability. Also, conditions that are severe, last a full year, but are not yet severe enough to prevent a person from working up to the level of being able to earn a substantial and gainful income will, likewise, not be considered to be disabling.
To put it another way and to reiterate: to be considered disabled by the social security administration, a person's condition must be severe enough that it lasts for at least 12 months and prevents the performance of work activity that earns at least a substantial and gainful income, a.k.a. SGA.
How does Social Security measure "severity", i.e. how severe a condition is? By evaluating a person's medical records and then determining what types of physical or mental limitations they have as a result. This is known as a residual functional capacity rating (RFC) and it is compared to the jobs that a person has held to see if they can return to any of those jobs, or do some type of work that their skills will transfer to.
That said, even if a person is found to have limitations that are so severe that Social Security considers them unable to work, but that same person is found to be working and earning what is considered to be a substantial and gainful income, then they will be denied benefits, if they are in the process of filing, or be taken off benefits if they are currently receiving benefits.
More on what happens if you are working when you put in your disability claim
There are individuals who file for disability when they are working, and, likewise, there are individuals who become approved for disability benefits and then later become involved in work activity. Working is not a bar to receiving disability benefits. However, the amount a person earns can rule out receiving benefits, and that amount, as we've already mentioned several times, is the SGA income limit.
If you are working and earning under the SGA limit when you file, your claim will be processed with no interruption. If you are earning more than the SGA limit, however, you will receive what is known as a technical denial. This type of denial occurs almost immediately, meaning that the claimant's case is not actually given a medical evaluation (i.e. the case is not assigned to a disability examiner, and, thus, the claimant's medical records are not gathered).
If a person begins working at the SGA-earnings level when they are already receiving disability benefits, their case will undergo what is known as a work CDR (continuing disability review) to determine if they still meet the requirements of the social security disability or SSI disability program.
Social Security Disability and SSI are not temporary or partial disability programs
Keep in mind that Social Security disability and SSI disability benefits are total disability programs and neither is a partial or short-term disability program. In other words, the system does not operate on the basis of being 20 percent disabled or 50 percent disabled. To receive disability benefits from social security, a person must be considered completely disabled and unable to work ("unable to work", of course, means being unable to work and earn more than the SGA limit referenced above).
However, it should be said that strong consideration is given based on a person's age, education, and the types of jobs they have performed in the past. In other words, information about a person's job history and work skills, and certainly their age, can help influence a decision on a claim. Built into the system is the concept that people may often have difficulty switching to new forms of employment, as well as the fact that job skills learned many years in the past may not necessarily transfer to other jobs.
Return to: SSDRC, or the Questions, Answers, Tips, and Advice page
Individual Questions and Answers
SSD and SSI are Federal Programs
The title II Social Security Disability and title 16 SSI Disability programs operate under federal guidelines and, therefore, the program requirements--medical and non-medical--apply to all states:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Recent approval and denial statistics for various states can be viewed here:
Social Security Disability, SSI Approval and Denial Statistics by state
Special Section: Disability Lawyers and unnecessary claim denials
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Information contained on this page is provided by companies via press release distributed through PR Newswire, an independent third-party content provider. PR Newswire, WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
Dear iMediaEthics, I can't get a job because people are reading a news story about me that's all wrong. How do I get it removed from online?
NEW YORK, Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An artist and art teacher came to iMediaEthics seeking help. He was desperate to get an article taken off HighBeam, a news article archive site. iMediaEthics looked into his case and the article was removed.
These are the types of media ethics questions iMediaEthics receives with some frequency from readers across the globe. In the nine years iMediaEthics (originally known as StinkyJournalism.org) has existed as a media ethics news site, we often hear from readers seeking help in getting these types of problems resolved.
So, to help others in similar situations as our readers, iMediaEthics is pleased to announce the launch of its newest column, Ask iMediaEthics, which will respond to readers' concerns and questions about ethics in journalism and media.
In its first column, published Feb. 25, 2013, an artist and art teacher came to iMediaEthics seeking help getting an article taken off of a news article archive site. The practice of deleting articles-- or unpublishing as it's known in the media world – is typically frowned upon. In this case, only a portion of the article was published. That excerpt misrepresented an account of the teacher's nude photograph for an art exhibition.
iMediaEthics plans to address plagiarism in op-eds in the next Ask iMediaEthics column.
iMediaEthics is published by Art Science Research Laboratory, a not-for-profit co-founded by its director, Rhonda Roland Shearer, an adjunct lecturer at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, and her late husband, Harvard professor and scientist, Stephen Jay Gould. iMediaEthics, formerly known as StinkyJournalism.org, has a non-partisan journalism ethics program in which students and young journalists work with professional researchers to promote the media's use of scientific methods and experts before publication.
©2012 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved.
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CVS Caremark Has Healthy Lead Over Competitors With Retail Clinics
Through MinuteClinics at its pharmacy locations, CVS Caremark has significantly outpaced its competitors Walgreen(WAG) and Wal-Mart Stores(WMT) in the race to provide basic health care through retail-based walk-in medical clinics. (View our detailed analysis for CVS Caremark.)
Staffed primarily by nurse practitioners and physician's assistants, retail health clinics treat common ailments and offer routine vaccinations. They are cheaper than a typical visit to the doctor's office or emergency room and do not require an appointment.
This helps increase accessibility to primary health care at lower cost. Demand for primary health care is expected to sharply increase when 32 million more Americans will obtain health insurance from 2014 through health-care reforms.
In 2007, Wal-Mart announced plans to open thousands of health-care clinics across the U.S. but has fallen quite short of its targets and just operates 150 clinics today. In fact, it ended up shutting down 33 clinics this year and is rethinking its strategy to allow hospitals/doctors to operate from its stores.
At the same time, Walgreen, which acquired Take Care Health Systems in 2007, expanded its retail clinic presence from 110 stores in 2007 to more than 350 today, but still lags behind CVS Caremark.
Retail Sales and Adding Value
CVS Caremark plans to further expand its MinuteClinic footprint from present 650 to 1,000 by 2016. MinuteClinics increased revenue by 22% last quarter and achieved break-even profitability in 2011.
Apart from offering a convenient way for people to get common vaccinations, CVS's MinuteClinic also focuses on preventive care, diagnostic tests and monitoring of chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.
MinuteClinics also help drive up prescription filling rates at CVS pharmacies and increase the ability to cross-sell other front-end products to customers who come in for prescriptions as they wait to be seen.
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NEW YORK (REUTERS).- A collection of more than 100 previously unpublished photos of Marilyn Monroe can be seen for the first time in a new book "Marilyn: August 1953."
The book, published this week by Calla Editions, features digitally restored black and white images taken during the summer of 1953 of a then 27-year-old Monroe.
The photos were shot by John Vachon, on assignment for LOOK magazine in Alberta, Canada, where Monroe was filming "River of No Return" with Robert Mitchum.
An injured ankle prevented Monroe from filming, allowing Vachon to have several days to shoot the Hollywood icon. Only three of photos from the sessions were published in an October 1953 LOOK story.
The book will feature photos of Monroe and then fiance, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio snuggling. Vachon is thought to be the only photographer the pair formally posed for.
In another of the pictures, a comically frightened-looking Monroe is in the clutches of a taxidermy bear.
Vachon's images of Monroe were included in the five million photograph archive donated to the Library of Congress after LOOK folded in 1971.
(Reporting by Sabrina Ford, editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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Confronted with her line, I say: A slogan about a slogan is too slogan-y. And don't think that by making a slogan about a slogan that you can distract us from seeing that you think failure is an option.
The audio at the link will not be available until 10 ET, and I recommend listening. Clinton talks of going to Iraq and meeting Prime Minister al-Maliki. She says outright that, based on this meeting, she did not believe that al-Maliki intends to do what he has promised to do. She's running for President (presumably). She makes a trip to Iraq and meets with its leader. And then she flatly says she doesn't believe him. Is that presidential? Meet with leaders, then call them liars.
UPDATE: Here is the NPR coverage. And this is the exact quote that I was referring to in the last paragraph of the original post:
"I was listening for a level of commitment to securing Iraq by the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army and police force that has been missing, and I didn't hear that."
This is phrased more diplomatically than I had thought, so "she flatly says she doesn't believe him" is put too strongly. It actually was rather clever to use the phrase "level of commitment," and to stress her own "listening" and "hearing."
Here's the NYT coverage of Clinton's media blitz this morning:
... Mrs. Clinton called for capping the number of American forces in Iraq to the total number there on Jan. 1 — before Mr. Bush proposed adding forces. That total is roughly 140,000. She also proposed making a new threat to Iraqi government leaders to force their cooperation: the loss of American funds to train and equip Iraqi forces, rebuild the economy, and, to make the pressure more acute, to provide security for the leaders themselves.The expression "lip service" is much closer to insulting Maliki than what she said on NPR. I'm not saying she's not justified in mistrusting Maliki, only that she needs to demonstrate that she can do diplomacy well enough.
Mrs. Clinton did not outline benchmarks for that progress, but she indicated that the Shiite-led government would be expected to crack down on sectarian militias in Baghdad and elsewhere and to find new ways to work with Sunni political groups.
She also called for sending more troops to support the American military mission in Afghanistan, which she referred to as “quite a success story.” And she opposed any shift of forces out of Afghanistan as part of the troop expansion in Iraq.
Yet when it came to a threshold political issue for many Democrats — the end of the American military effort in Iraq — Senator Clinton did not embrace an instant withdrawal or a specific timetable for doing so.
“I’m for redeploying our troops out of Baghdad and eventually out of Iraq so we can make sure that they’re not in the midst of a civil war,” she said on CBS’s “Early Show.”...
Mrs. Clinton, who met with American commanders and Iraqi officials during her visit to Baghdad, said she received “lip service” during her meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal Al-Maliki.
“This is clearly an abdication of responsibility by this government — we need some leverage on them,” Senator Clinton said on CBS.
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TUESDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- One in 50 Americans, or 5.6 million people, live with some form of paralysis, a new survey shows.
There have been no solid estimates until now, said Joseph Canose, vice president of quality of life for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which released the survey Tuesday. The foundation was created by the late actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995, and his late wife, Dana.
"Around 4 million was guesstimated," Canose said, noting the new survey suggests that number is much larger. "Nearly 6 million people are living with paralysis, substantially higher than previous estimates."
Researchers surveyed more than 33,000 U.S. households, using input from more than 30 experts in paralysis and statistics to develop the study and survey. It was led by Anthony Cahill, a University of New Mexico disability researcher.
The major findings of the report, titled One Degree of Separation: Paralysis and Spinal Cord Injury in the United States:
Next, the foundation will lobby in Washington, D.C., Canose said, using the new survey numbers to help remove barriers that can frustrate those with paralysis from getting and keeping jobs and completing tasks of daily living.
Among improvements the foundation will seek, he said, are better adherence to the Americans With Disabilities Act, more support for the family caregivers of those who are paralyzed, and more and better-trained home health attendants.
The foundation, in the report and in other publications, tries to put a human face on the problem of paralysis. For instance, one person featured in the report, Joel Heifitz, defies the stereotype. He became a quadriplegic in a swimming accident while on vacation in Mexico in 2003.
After intense rehabilitation, Heifitz, now 50, continues in his job as CEO of Concept Laboratories in Chicago, which makes health and beauty products.
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A poll by TechRadar has shown that Facebook is far less trusted than the likes of Microsoft and Google – earning a massive 50 per cent of the vote.
More than a 1,000 readers responded on who they trusted least out of Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft – four companies that have found themselves under the spotlight for the way in which they handle our personal information.
Interestingly, Microsoft's recent efforts to maintain your privacy appears to have boosted the company in consumer's eyes – picking up 14 per cent of the vote to be the most trusted of the quartet.
Google and Apple level pegging
Google has had high profile failings with the likes of the Street View WiFi data collection and the Buzz launch, and yet it polled 17 per cent.
That was exactly the same total as Apple, whose iPhone and iPad have boosted the number of people who trust the US company to see their details.
Which left a whopping half of those who voted suggesting that it was Facebook that they trusted least with their personal data.
Facebook, of course, needs our data to exist, with the drip feed of friend information helping put it neck and neck with Google as one of the most popular sites on the internet.
But the litany of failures from Mark Zuckerberg's site has not convinced any of us that Facebook deserves to be the company with our personal info – although that doesn't appear to have stopped us handing it over en masse.
Question: Who do you trust least with your data? Votes cast: 1,187
1. Facebook 50%
2. Apple 17%
2. Google 17%
4. Microsoft 14%
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Standard & Poor's downgraded the ratings of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Monday, citing their reliance on U.S. government.
Both Fannie and Freddie were lowered to AA+ from triple-A. The Federal Home Loan Banks were also cut to AA-plus.
Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans worth more than $5 trillion. As part of a nationalized system, they account for nearly all new mortgage loans. Their downgrade might force anyone looking to buy a home to pay higher mortgage rates.
The downgrade came amid a number of other ratings actions that are rippling from S&P's decision late Friday to cut the credit rating of the United States one notch from triple-A to AA+.
S&P also cut ratings for several of the main arteries of the US financial system—the Depository Trust Co., National Securities Clearing Corp., Fixed Income Clearing Corp. and the Options Clearing Corp.—were cut one notch to AA-plus.
These institutions, previously rated AAA by S&P, clear and process trades and are crucial to the daily workings of the U.S. financial markets. (more)
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|(L-R) Jess Varnish and Victoria Pendleton break the world record to win team sprint gold at Olympic Velodrome [GETTY]
In May 2011, I wrote an article about the demise of women’s sport in the UK.
To be more accurate it was about the media’s attitude towards women’s sport. Women were still playing sport in their numbers but the public heard very little about it.
As sports coverage on every platform increased, pieces about women’s sports decreased. Men dominated the sports pages to such an extent that only 5% of media coverage was devoted to women’s sport in the UK.
This male proliferation of the British sports media was difficult to excuse.
At a time when many sections of society worked hard to treat women and men equally, a completely different set of rules were being followed by TV execs and newspaper editors.
Yes, more men play sport and read the back pages - but a 95% domination? Surely that was a figure worth getting angry about.
The Times changing?
However, after observing sport's coverage over the last few months, I believe this 95% figure needs revising.
Flicking through papers such as the UK’s Evening Standard and The Times, I have noticed more and more features dedicated to female athletes springing up. On February 18th, The Daily Telegraph ran a piece about the women’s Great British cycling team on its front page.
The Telegraph’s coverage not only highlighted how the GB team broke two world records in the space of 20 minutes but symbolised a crucial shift in sports reporting.
So what has accounted for this change? One needs to look to the future for the chief reason but also to the past for a likely stimulus.
In November 2011, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was left with egg on its face after it emerged not one woman had made the shortlist for their 2011 Sports Personality of the Year award. Despite memorable years for swimmers Rebecca Adlington and Keri-Anne Payne, women had been marginalised in the selection process.
As the BBC came under fire for its shortlist, women’s sports figures used the opportunity to show a general disapproval of how the media treats women. Inspirational figures such as Hope Powell, Dame Kelly Holmes and Baroness Grey-Thompson spoke out about the plight of women’s sport and how hard it was to drum up support and funding without the media’s backing.
The SPOTY debate gave the media reason to question its male-dominated coverage, but it is one upcoming event in particular that has pushed women back into the limelight.
With only months to go until the 2012 London Olympic Games, the media simply cannot ignore women’s contributions to sport any longer. Thankfully, the Olympics have galloped into town just in time to save the day and joust for coverage with a sport commonly known as football.
The Olympics give media outlets the opportunity to represent women more fairly while covering an event the British public want to hear more about.
Racism is the main issue journalists do not want to be tarnished with but charges of sexism during an Olympic year is hardly the most professional of appendage either. News outlets will be working hard not to be labelled chauvinistic during this global and inclusive celebration of sport.
On a global level the Olympics play a crucial part in challenging inequalities. Qatar have already announced they will be sending women for the first time to the Olympics and the event has put pressure on Saudi Arabia by the Human Rights Watch to lift its ban on women playing competitive sports.
"Sadly a women’s talent does not always take precedence over her sexuality. This proves there’s still a lot work to be done to challenge perceptions about female sports stars"
However, the UK is not above gender discrimination. Many features on women’s sporting accolades are hidden in mysterious and secret parts of newspapers, or hidden completely.
How many people know the England women’s cricket team are world champions or that the England women’s rugby team are currently defending their Six Nations crown? Did anyone hear that five female Great British football players were left without a club following the cancellation of the WPS in the United States?
Even pieces about Olympic hopefuls Keri-Anne Payne and Jennifer Ennis often start with a paragraph about boyfriends, weddings, fashion and nail acrylics.
Sadly a women’s talent does not always take precedence over her sexuality. This proves there’s still a lot work to be done to challenge perceptions about female sports stars.
Even if things seem to be improving, journalists must continue to focus on female athletes so that the public (men and women) can interact with this marginalised world. It is important to learn more about female sports representatives so that when the Games begin we are familiar with the characters and care about what happens to them.
Who knows - if we are lucky - this interest will carry on past the Olympics. Through a positive and inclusive attitude to female sports figures more girls will be encouraged into sport – which is the whole point of making such a song and dance about this issue in the first place.
Sadly in the four years that have separated the last two Olympic Games women have gradually been pushed from the sports agenda. Due to this it will take some time and effort by the media and the public to get used to their reappearance.
But we must! Because it is unfair to ignore thousands of women who entertain us while competing in sports they love.
And the host nation should set an Olympic standard of sports reporting it can be proud of.
Joanna Tilley is a freelance journalist working with Al Jazeera on the Sport website. She has worked at Sky News, Sky Sports News and LBC Radio.
Follow her on Twitter (@joannatilley) or her website, http://mythoughtonsport.blogspot.com/
Al Jazeera is not responsible for the content of external websites
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Maritime Field School
Assistant Professor, Archaeology Institute, University of West Florida.
Education: M.S. Northwest Missouri State University, Ph.D. Texas A&M University.
Area: Maritime Archaeology.
Professional Interests: Artifact conservation and Preservation, Maritime Archaeology.
Research Associate, Archaeology Institute, University of West Florida.
Education: M.A., Texas A&M University, A.B.D. Syracuse University.
Area: Nautical Archaeology, Historical Archaeology.
Professional Interests: Shipwreck Archaeology, Atlantic Trade, Culture Contact.
Wayne Abrahamson graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from San Diego State University upon his retirement from the U.S. Navy after 24 years of service. While in the navy he was qualified as a PADI Dive-master, NAUI Master Diver, and received his Private Pilot's License. He is currently writing his thesis on a 19th-Century steamship in Seminole, Alabama. This summer, Wayne will be the Graduate Field Director for all diving and archaeology operations at Seminole.
Field Directors in Training
Kendra Kennedy graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology, French and Computer Applications from the University of Notre Dame. Kendra, whose thesis focuses on the maritime cultural landscape of the Pensacola waterfront, will assist the maritime field school as a Field Director in Training this summer. Her main focus will be survey and testing of the Pensacola waterfront and remote sensing survey of specific areas of Pensacola Bay. Kendra will also assist with test excavations of the Brick Wreck and Emanuel Point II.
Christine Mavrick received her B.S. in Anthropology from Illinois State University in December of 2000. Before coming to Pensacola in 2005, she spent three years teaching in Taiwan and Mexico. She participated in the excavation of a 14th-century southwestern pueblo in New Mexico and has dedicated much of her time at UWF to working on the Emanuel Point II project. She currently supervises the Archaeology Conservation Lab under Dr. John Bratten. Her thesis will concentrate on the conservation of wooden ecofacts recovered from Little Salt Spring in Sarasota County, Florida.
Dean Nones received his B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg. He has worked on a Monongahela Indian Village site in Indiana, Pennsylvania as well as other prehistoric sites in Southwestern Pennsylvania. His interests are in the maritime aspects of the Spanish Colonial Period as well as Pensacola’s lumber industry. Dean will supervise dive operations on the Brick Wreck this summer, which is also the subject of his Master's thesis.
Irina Franklin received her B.S. in Anthropology from Florida State University in 2006. She has field experience in terrestrial, underwater, and public archaeology. Irina worked for the State of Florida's Bureau of Archaeological Research as the Underwater Program Coordinator. During the summers of 2006 & 2007 she worked as a field supervisor for Fernbank Museum of Natural History's Public Archaeology Program. Currently, Irina is working towards her Master’s degree and interning with the Florida Public Archaeology Network as a Public Archaeology Assistant. She looks forward to gaining maritime supervisory experience this summer.
Tiffany Goldhamer graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a B.S. in Anthropology and a double minor in Archaeology and Textiles. She has worked at various sites from an early Mississippian site to slave cabins at The Hermitage and the Sam Davis Home. Her interests include historical and riverine archaeology of the Southeastern United States. She is also interested in artifact preservation and currently works at the conservation lab on campus. She is proud to be a part of the excavations of the second Emanuel Point shipwreck.
Field School Students
Aleks Adams grew up in Connecticut but eventually came to live in his longtime vacation spot of Florida. Initially majoring in Marine Biology, Aleks later changed his major when he began to study Archaeology. In 2007 he attended his first UWF field school and enjoyed it so much he is back this summer to continue working on the Emanuel Point II site.
Shawn Arnold is presently completing his B.A. in Maritime Studies at the University of West Florida. He has worked with UWF during the 2006 and 2007 field schools. He attended the Slobodna field school held by the PAST Foundation in Key Largo, FL and has also worked on terrestrial projects in Glacier National Park and downtown Pensacola. He looks forward to starting Graduate school at UWF in the fall studying Historic Archaeology.
Chris Barron is a junior Maritime Studies major at the University of West Florida. He grew up in Southeast Louisiana and lived for two years outside of Washington D.C. where he graduated from high school. He came to UWF in the Fall of 2005 as a Freshman to get back to the south, sun, and water. He has been a boater all of his life.
Courtney Boren is currently a senior studying Anthropology at UWF. After graduating in May of 09’ she plans to continue her education with a focus on archaeology.
Brian Durnan is a senior majoring in Maritime Studies at the University of West Florida. He is attending this field school to gain experience in diving on archaeological sites and for credit requirements for his major.
Lynne Fobian is a senior majoring in Maritime Studies and History at the University of West Florida. She is attending the maritime field school as part of a dream come true. Her future goal: Famous Maritime Archaeologist.
Ashley Marquardt attends the University of Wisconsin La Crosse. She is a senior majoring in Archaeology. She chose UWF’s field school because she wants underwater to be her specialty and also for the experience.
Colleen Reese is a graduate Anthropology student at the University of West Florida. She received her B.A. in Anthropology and Journalism from Pennsylvania State University. She is interested in cultural plant remains from underwater and water-logged sites.
Bryce Rodgers is a senior in the Maritime Studies program at the University of West Florida. Originally from St. Petersburg, FL, she is attending UWF’s field school because it sounded like an excellent opportunity to do something not so common.
Jenn Scharler is from Southern California and attends the University of California at Berkeley (Go Bears!) where she is a senior studying Anthropology. She followed her gut’s instinct and is participating in the UWF Maritime Field School. She is excited about all of the experience she will gain this summer.
Hans Schmid III attends the University of West Florida. He is a senior in the Maritime Studies Program.
Jake Shidner is a graduate Anthropology student at the University of West Florida. He graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in Anthropology. He worked on a field school at Hontoon Island, an island with a large St. Johns period shell mound system in Florida, as well as in the collections department of the Florida Museum of Natural History. After graduating, he worked for Southeastern Archaeological Research (SEARCH), where he conducted fieldwork throughout Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Williamsburg, VA. His interests are ship construction, maritime history, naval warfare and the use of weapons at sea.
Scott Sorset is a graduate student in Historical Archaeology at UWF. He graduated from Florida State University with a B.S. in Anthropology and a minor in Classics. He has worked on archaeological sites across the Florida panhandle and as far afield as Italy. Upon completing his Bachelor’s degree, Scott worked for the State of Florida’s Division of Historical Resources. He reviewed archaeological and historical surveys conducted within the state for compliance with local, state, and federal statutes. During this time, Scott also completed his divemaster training. His interests include the Spanish colonial period, maritime history, diving, travel, and tennis.
Eric Swanson is a senior majoring in Anthropology at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. He hopes to continue on to graduate school. Eric came to Pensacola for UWF’s Field School because he loves to dive and loves archaeology. He knows that this field school is a great opportunity to pursue his future career.
Amanda Wohlberg is from the State University of New York: College at Potsdam. She is a junior majoring in Archaeology and Geology. She is attending this field school to collect data for her GeoArchaeologocial research project on the Emanuel Point II ballast.
Return to Project Journal home page.
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Everyone Loved Toots
During Prohibition Toots Shor was the only Jew in New York’s Irish mob. And when he became a big time player in his own right, he never discriminated. Shor was a Damon Runyon picture of the big-hearted lug. Everybody loved him. The swinging nightclub that bore his name was the toast of the town during the swanky 1940s and ‘50s. On any given night the bar was crowded with judges and gangsters, professional athletes and movie stars, bookies and reporters. Shor affectionately called Frank Sinatra “the dago” and Joe DiMaggio “the other dago.”
During the ‘60s the sweet life turned sour and by his death in 1975, Short had lost it all.
Toots, a documentary by Shor’s granddaughter Kristi Jacobson, is more than the story of one saloonkeeper from long ago. With its cogent mix of contemporary and vintage interviews, archival footage and gorgeous black and white stills of nocturnal rain swept Manhattan, Toots evokes New York when the city was the global capital and mecca for creative minds of all sorts. Shor reigned in the era when the business of America was conducted over two-martini lunches and four-martini dinners—and conducted with better sense than the Starbucks crowd of our own time, the caffeinated high rollers who gambled away the world’s economy. The mob ran entire sectors of American life in those years; they were Shor’s friends and he refused to betray them in exchange for a break from the IRS.
Shor was generous to a fault and never held onto a dollar. But he was unable to adapt to the changing world of the ‘60s, especially the rise of global narcotics trafficking and the crasser breed of criminals it empowered. New York was broke by the time of his death. The city he loved was crime ridden. People who once might have patronized the edgy glamour and easy bonhomie of his club had retreated to the sterility of suburbia.
In the years since a peculiar brand of politically correct, neo-Puritanism has gripped American life. Shor would not have felt at home in the land of his birth.
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REPORT TO SPANISH MEDICAL AID COMMITTEE
by Miss Rosita Davson
Wednesday 15th February 1939
Ten days before the actual beginning of the Fascist offensive in Cataluna, the Sanidad sent up every surgical equipe which could be spared to the fronts. Margaret Powell was with the XI Sanidad Army Corps at Prats to Anoya, Lilian Urmston with the XV Sanidad Army Corps near Valls, Mavis King, Ann Organ, and Jim Smyth at Sabinosa with the two autochirs. Ann Murray was on call in Barcelona to leave with the Hospital Train when considered necessary.
At first it seemed as if the front lines would be able to resist the Fascist attack, but ten days later it was evident that the amount of war material at the disposal of the Fascists far outnumbered our own and step by step the Republican troops were pushed back.
Shortly after the New Year, the Sanidad began the evacuation of the hospitals in Reus, Valls, Tarragona and Sabinosa to Vilafranca and Vilaneuva. All this was done in excellent order - no wounded being left behind and no materials lost. The evacuation of hospital went on steadily for three weeks - everyone hoping that a stand would be made soon and the danger of Barcelona falling averted.
On Sunday, January 22nd, Puche gave the order for the evacuation of the hospitals in Barcelona and the general evacuation of Sanidad materiel and personnel to Gerona.
The evacuation of hospitals, which had hitherto been carried out in excellent order, now broke down. The last three weeks had paid heavy toll on the transport, large numbers of ambulances and trucks had been wrecked by bombings and machine gunning. Sanidad drivers were desperate for lack of sleep and were driving their vehicles into trees. Although all reserves of vehicles were called upon for the Barcelona evacuation - the number was insufficient. Vallcara was one of the few hospitals which was evacuated in time.
Dr. Poveda, Parque Central de Sanidad, arranged to transfer my Office with the rest of the Parque. Unfortunately the last vehicles leaving the Parque with the office material did not leave till Wednesday evening, and these did not succeed in getting out of Barcelona.
I left Barcelona with the Blood Transfusion Service base (Amer) my centre because of the transport. The Parque base ( Cassa de la Selva ), Dr. Poveda informed me, would have no fixed transport, and he could not say for certain if any vehicle could be put at my disposition. As I had arranged to be at the frontier on Friday the 27th to meet Roy Poole with the convoy, it was essential for me to be with some group of the Sanidad with transport facilities.
Before leaving Barcelona I saw the office material being loaded on trucks and those were due to leave that afternoon. These trucks however, never got through - an order was issued preventing any further vehicles from leaving Barcelona.
Between Monday and Wednesday before the evacuation of Barcelona I went to Rubi, then the centre of the XV Sanidad Army Corps, and told Lilian where I would be. From Rubi I tried to get across to Tarassa to see the Autochir group but the roads were so badly bombed that it became impossible. The same thing happened when I tried to got up to Solsona to see Margaret Powell.
On Thursday, after my arrival in Amer, I went with Dr. Duran to visit the Jefatura in Gerona. Here, there was a terrible muddle and all the department heads were running round in circles. The streets in Gerona were so full with vehicles that it took an hour to
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- Shifting Balance Sheets: Women's Stories of Naturalized Citizenship & Cultural Attachment
- Seeking “Red Thread Families” for Adoption Research Study
- Growth Charts for Chinese Children (Updated)
- Pieces of Me: Who do I Want to Be
- Why Your Foreign-Born Adopted Child Should Have Proof of U.S. Citizenship, How to Get This Proof and Related Issues
|Why Your Foreign-Born Adopted Child Should Have Proof of U.S. Citizenship, How to Get This Proof and Related Issues|
|Written by C.J. Lyford, Esq.|
|Friday, 01 October 2010 00:00|
As a result of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA), many foreign born children by adoption who reside in the U.S. have or will become U.S. citizens under the CCA either when they enter the U.S. or when they are readopted or their adoption finalized in the U.S.1, 1b
1. WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR CITIZENSHIP UNDER THE CCA?
The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA) provides for the "automatic" acquisition, that is acquisition as a matter of law, of U.S. citizenship to many foreign born children (adopted and not adopted) of U.S. citizens, provided that the following qualifications are met: 1) at least one parent of the child is a U.S. Citizen (USC), 2) the child is under the age of eighteen years when he or she enters the U.S.; or was under the age of 18 at the time of the effective date of the CCA (that is, February 27, 2001)2, 3) the child is residing in the U.S. in the legal and physical custody of the USC parent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence1a, and; 4) if adopted, the adoption must be "final", under the laws of the foreign country and U.S. immigration.
2. WHAT DO THE VISA CLASSIFICATIONS IR3 AND IR4 MEAN?2a
Basically, if the adoption abroad was final under the laws of the foreign country and U.S. immigration, your child will be issued an "IR3" classified immigration visa ("Immediate Relative -- Orphan Adopted Abroad by USC.") to immigrate to the U.S.
However, if the adoption was not completed abroad or considered "final", either by the country abroad, or by U.S. immigration (because the child was not visited by the sole or both parents before or during the adoption abroad), the child will enter the U.S. on an "IR4" classified visa.2b ("Immediate Relative – Orphan to be Adopted in the U.S. by a USC."). If so, additional action will have to be taken for the child to become a USC.
If they otherwise qualify under the CCA, most children who immigrate on an "IR3" visa automatically become USC's when they enter the U.S. (but see notes 1a and 2). If they immigrated or will immigrate on an "IR4" visa, they will not become U.S. citizens until the adoption is finalized or readopted, as applicable, in a U.S. State court.
3. WHAT IF YOUR CHILD IS ADOPTED UNDER THE HAGUE CONVENTION ON INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTIONS (HAGUE CONVENTION)?
As of April 1, 2008, the U.S. Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA) and regulations issued as a result of the Hague Convention govern adoptions between the U.S. and other "Convention Countries" such as China, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Philippines and Thailand.3, 3a Amongst many things, adoptions under the Hague Convention will involve additional U.S. visa classifications, the "IH3", for adoptions that are final abroad and "IH4" for adoptions that will be completed in the U.S. Those that enter on an "IH4" visa, will not be USC's until the adoption is finalized in the U.S.
Of special note is that the requirement that the sole or both parents visit the child before or during the adoption abroad has been eliminated under the Hague Convention. Therefore, as long as the adoption is final abroad, an "IH3" visa should be issued.
4. Will your child automatically receive any official documentation of his or HER U.S. citizenship?
It depends. Basically, since January 2004, children who enter the United States on an "IR3", or now on an "IH3" visa as a result of the Hague Convention, and who otherwise qualify under the CCA, will receive a Certificate of Citizenship (COC) from the CIS in the mail.3e However if your child entered the United States before January 2004, or entered or will enter on an "IR4" or an "IH4" visa, he or she will not receive a COC and will have to apply for one from the USCIS when the qualifications are met.
5. Do you have to obtain A COC or Usp TO PROVE U.S. citizenship for your child?
No. You are not required to get an official document that proves your child's citizenship. Once the qualifications are met, your child becomes a USC without any further action on your part, and is entitled to all the benefits of being a USC whether or not you ever obtain a document that proves U.S. citizenship.
6. SHOULD YOU obtain documentary proof of your child's U.S. citizenship?
Yes and I strongly recommend it. Here are some reasons why you should do this.
7. Why can't YOU use your child's U.S. State-issued birth certificate To prove u.s. citizenship?
Your child was not born in the U.S. Only the birth certificate of an individual born in the U.S. or in certain territories can serve as proof of U.S. citizenship for that individual.
8. How do you get proof that your child is a citizen?
You have two choices:
9. Which type of proof of citizenship should you obtain?
Under U.S. law, U.S. citizenship can be proven through a COC or a USP.4a However, I recommend that you get both. The COC is advantageous because it is universally recognized, only one-page long, indicates the date of citizenship and does not need to be renewed. It is very similar to the one page Certificate of Naturalization that is used by a naturalized USC to prove U.S. citizenship. Unfortunately the USCIS response time for issuing a COC after the application has been submitted has been very slow. The Passport can usually be obtained fairly quickly and will be necessary if you travel outside of the United States with your child. (See comment below.) If at all possible, start the process for both. You can then wait for the CIS to provide the COC.
10. How do you obtain a COC?
You can obtain the COC by submitting the Form N-600 Application to the USCIS District Office with jurisdiction over your residence in the U.S. Information and the form can be obtained through the USCIS website.
11. What is the cost for a COC?
The fee for the N-600 (and the N-600K) Application on behalf of an adopted child is $420. ($460 is the fee for a foreign born biological child.) However, note that on November 23, 2010, the fee will increase to $520. ($600 for a biological child.)
12. What documents do you have to submit with the N-600 Application?
13. What is needed to obtain a U.S. Passport?
14. Is a COC required before you can obtain a USP for your child?
You should not have to obtain a COC before you can obtain a USP and the current information sheet from the Department of State website regarding the CCA is in accord. However the Department of State website regarding what documents are required to obtain a USP indicates otherwise. Because of this conflict, some offices are requiring a COC before they accept the USP application. If unsuccessful, you should try another designated office that accepts Passport applications. Some are more knowledgeable than others.
15. does your child need a USP to travel outside of the United States ONCE HE OR SHE BECOMES A usC?
Yes. Once your child becomes a USC he or she should enter and leave the U.S. on a USP.
16. WHAT IF YOUR CHILD MET THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CCA BUT NEVER GOT THE COC? CAN HE OR SHE STILL GET A COC AFTER HE OR SHE BECOMES AN ADULT?
Yes. Once your child becomes a USC under the CCA, your child remains a USC after becoming an adult. There is no time limit on when he or she can apply for the COC and the N-400 naturalization process is not applicable. (See note 2).
17. FINALLY, Make sure that your child understands that he or she is a USC and what this means.
You should tell your child that while he or she was born outside of the U.S., he or she is a USC under U.S. law. Explain what it means to be a citizen. I am surprised at the number of teenage adoptees who either do not know or understand this. You should also mention that sometimes U.S. citizenship may be questioned. Show the COC and/or USP to your child so that he or she knows that you have proof of citizenship should the need arise. Do not forget to tell your child or a responsible adult where the documents are kept.
Please note that these are general comments and are not intended to be comprehensive. They are not legal advice nor should they be relied upon as legal advice. They are based on various publications and information that were found on the USCIS and DOS websites and related sources, and my experience.
If you have any questions about the CCA, other issues involving adoption, or general immigration questions, feel free to contact me. I am an attorney with a private practice in the areas of immigration/citizenship law and adoption of foreign-born children adopted abroad or domestically, as well as the mother of a 16 year-old child adopted from China in 1994. I provide legal services and consultations to parents and agencies throughout the United States and abroad to address U.S. immigration problems (NOID's, I-600 denials, etc.), as well as handle general immigration matters. I also handle domestic adoptions in Pennsylvania including independent, relative, stepparent and second parent adoptions, adoption finalizations and readoptions.
By C.J. Lyford, Esq.*
Attorney At Law
632 Germantown Ave.
Lafayette Hill, PA 19444
Practicing in the areas of Immigration/Citizenship/Visa Law
*Member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 100110 cjl
This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit C.J. Lyford. Thank you.
1 Public Law No. 106-395. See also Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") sections 320, 322 and 341.
1b The CCA will also apply to give automatic citizenship to children who are adopted in the U.S. and adjust status to lawful permanent resident, after two years of legal custody and residency, assuming the other qualifications are met (under 18 when the I-485 is approved.) See Comment number 1.
2 Unfortunately, the CCA does not apply if the child was 18 or older on February 21, 2001 or if the child entered or will enter the U.S. after turning 18 years of age. In this situation, the child will have to acquire U.S. citizenship through the N-400 naturalization process. Until your child becomes a USC, he or she may be subject to adverse CIS action if involved in criminal or certain other activities. An immigration attorney should also be contacted before the application for naturalization is filed to evaluate any potential risks from this action.
1a If you and your child are not permanently residing in the U.S., your child is still entitled to become a USC however you will need to apply for citizenship, using the Form N-600K. See also INA section 322. Citizenship will not be acquired until the date that the COC application is granted.
2a You can determine what classification of visa your child was issued by looking at the I-551 visa stamp in your child's foreign country passport.
2b The first IR4 situation arises because there has been no adoption proceeding abroad, when the adoption is not completed abroad and/or the adoption is not considered final by the foreign country. This is often seen in adoptions of children from India or Korea in which only a guardianship or custodial relationship is established between the child and parent(s) or the child and the agency. Adoptions from Thailand are also not usually final in Thailand. In this situation, an adoption must take place in the U.S. according to the law of the applicable U.S. state court where the parents, or sole parent, as applicable, reside, or where the court otherwise has jurisdiction. This is frequently referred to as an adoption "finalization". Once the adoption is "finalized", the child automatically becomes a USC as of that date.
The second IR4 situation is when both parents, or the sole parent, as applicable, did not see the child before or during the adoption abroad, even if the foreign adoption was considered final under the law of the foreign country where the adoption took place. This is sometimes referred to as a proxy adoption In order for the adoption to be final for purposes of citizenship, the CIS has generally required a readoption of the child in a U.S. state court. The readoption requirement may be waived if evidence is provided to the USCIS that the applicable state "recognizes" the foreign adoption as full and final under that state's adoption laws. Most professionals still recommend a readoption in this IR4 situation rather than risk uncertainty regarding a child's citizenship, and I agree. However, should you decide not to readopt because your state recognizes foreign adoptions as valid under its law, do not assume that your child is a citizen. Make sure that you take the next step and obtain a COC to confirm that the USCIS has accepted the proof of state recognition that you have submitted and has waived the readoption requirement. Otherwise, and not until then, will you be certain that your child has acquired U.S. citizenship.
3 The Hague convention will cover adoptions after April 1, 2008, unless it falls within the transition guidelines, for example, the I-600A was filed before April 1, 2008.
Please refer to the CIS and Department of State websites re the Hague Convention. (See, for example, the CIS website at: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=beb46faedb8f8110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=f3beaca797e63110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD; and DOS website at: http://adoption.state.gov/about/how/hague.html, http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1312.html
3a Examples of countries that are not Hague Countries are Ethiopia, Haiti, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Russia, Taiwan and Ukraine. See the above Department of State website for a complete list.
3e The COC will be issued in the name on your child's visa. If your child's name is changed through readoption, etc., a replacement COC can be obtained through the N-565 form at the CIS website. The cost is $360.
4 After you get the COC or USP go back to the Social Security Office with the proof of citizenship to be sure that the Social Security records accurately reflect that your child is a USC.
4a 22 U.S.C.A. sec. 2705. However, even if under U.S. law, both documents are proof of U.S. citizenship, this does not mean that either has to or will be accepted as such, particularly abroad. For example, I have received occasional reports from families that a U.S. Passport was not accepted abroad by foreign country consulates in various situations because of the potential of document fraud. While this should not occur, it further supports the recommendation that both documents be obtained and carried abroad.
|Last Updated on Monday, 18 October 2010 06:40|
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Well, here’s an odd story out of Africa.
WARNING: If you are too conservative to discuss “sperm”, then you may want to bypass this blog post today!
Three women in Zimbabwe were charged with 17 counts of aggravated indecent assault, possibly providing answers to a string of unsolved sex attacks on male hitchhikers spanning over the last two years.
Prosecutor Michael Reza told a court in Harare that the counts were for each of the 17 men who had positively identified the women as having sexually assaulted them in 2010 or 2011, according to CNN.
The prosecution identified the suspects as Rosemary Chakwizira, 24, Sophie Nhokwara, 26, and her sister, Netsai Nhokwara, 24.
The women, all of them in their mid-20s, were arrested when their car was involved in an accident on Sunday in Gweru, about 186 miles south of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city.
Reportedly, the police found the condoms upon inspection of the women's car.
While some of the men claimed they were raped after being offered drinks laced with a tranquilizer of some sort, other said they were forced at gunpoint. The women are suspected of using the sperm for ritual purposes or to eliminate bad luck.
A Zimbabwean sociology professor interviewed by CNN reportedly told the media outlet that sperm is used for ritual purposes because of the mindset that it can be used for regeneration of life since biologically they are source of life.
I'm not sure what, if anything, could be said about this story, but if you want to comment, feel free.
P.S. I hate to throw this query in with this blog, but I'm looking for bands or individuals in The Crossroads who play Zydeco music. I'm looking to do a story on this genre of cultural music. If this is you or someone you know, please contact me ASAP ! I can be reached via email at [email protected] or via phone at 361-580-6521. Thanks.
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Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine medical and pharmacy students marked their transition from classroom study to clinical education at Erie’s Bayfront Convention Center on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010, as students received their white coats – symbols of trust between doctor and patient, of compassion, and of the purity of a medical professional’s purpose.
Approximately 130 students in the School of Pharmacy class of 2012 and approximately 270 students from the College of Osteopathic Medicine class of 2013 pledged to uphold professionalism and competence in the presence of their families, professors and peers.
|Michael Mashyna, PharmD, a 2006 graduate of the LECOM School of Pharmacy, was the keynote speaker for the School of Pharmacy Class of 2012 white coat ceremony.|
The White Coat Ceremony initiates aspiring health care professionals into a commitment to the highest principles related to the practice of medicine and pharmacy. The White Coat Ceremony marks not only the entrance into medical and pharmacy school, but also matriculation into the health care professions with all of its traditions, accomplishments, rights and profound responsibilities to humankind. The students are now ready to embark on the highest quality in medical education as they start work with physicians and pharmacists in clinical courses and practices where they will learn more about how they can partner with their patients on a pathway to better health for their lifetimes.
Michael Mashyna, PharmD, a 2006 graduate of the LECOM School of Pharmacy, was the keynote speaker for the pharmacy student ceremony. Dr. Mashyna earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Penn State University and attended the LECOM School of Pharmacy after 27 years as a small-business owner. While at LECOM, Dr. Mashyna was the President of the LECOM chapter of the American Pharmacists Association and was honored with the LECOM Mortar & Pestle Professionalism Award. Upon graduation, Dr. Mashyna joined Hamot Medical Center in Erie as a staff pharmacist. He is a member of APhA and the Pennsylvania Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Hershey Bell, MD, MS, Dean of the LECOM School of Pharmacy, led the class of 2012 in the Pledge of Professionalism.
Danielle Hansen, DO, a 2005 LECOM graduate, was the keynote speaker for the osteopathic medical student ceremony. Dr. Hansen is an Internal Medicine Specialist with Medical Associates of Erie, Vice President of Acute Care Services at Millcreek Community Hospital (MCH) and Clinical Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at LECOM. She completed her internship and residency at MCH. She is the 2008 recipient of the American College of Osteopathic Internists Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award, and past recipient of the Alice J. Coppola Internal Medicine Award. In addition, Dr. Hansen has served as representative for the Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association’s Young Physicians Committee.
|Danielle Hansen, DO, MS, a 2005 graduate of the College of Medicine and 2007 graduate of the Master of Science in Medical Education program at LECOM, was the keynote speaker for the College of Medicine class of 2013 white coat ceremony.|
Silvia M. Ferretti, DO, Provost, Senior Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs, led the osteopathic medical students in the Osteopathic Oath of Commitment. Special guests for the ceremony included Carlo DiMarco, DO, immediate past president of the American Osteopathic Association, and Frank Tursi, DO, Vice President of the Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association (POMA). POMA provides the white coats and the stethoscopes to all the osteopathic medical students.
The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and LECOM School of Pharmacy offer innovative and affordable education in osteopathic medicine and pharmacy. From campuses in Erie, Pennsylvania, Greensburg, Pennsylvania and Bradenton, Florida, LECOM provides student-centered pathways to prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals. Prepare yourself for medicine as your life’s profession.
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One of the biggest questions surrounding China’s new crop of leaders, set to be unveiled later this week, is whether they will be committed to economic reform. They certainly won’t lack advice on what to do.
Before the release last year of the 12th Five-Year Plan, which envisions broad changes in China’s economy, Chinese policy makers quietly gathered an all-star cast of foreign economists for advice. Under the auspices of Beijing’s Cairncross Economic Research Foundation, which says it has received funding from large Chinese financial companies and Bank of America, more than two dozen influential academics produced a book called, “Medium and Long Term Development and Transformation Of the Chinese Economy—an International Perspective.”
One of China’s most influential behind-the-scenes policy makers, Liu He, who is a senior adviser to China’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, asked for the report. He was so impressed with the effort that he wrote a forward proposing that “China should establish a special award for those international experts who have made important contributions to China’s reform and openness.”
Nobel Prize laureate Michael Spence of New York University, one of the economists who worked on the report, said they never did get an award. But many of the report’s recommendations — including speeding up urbanization, relying more on domestic consumption, investing more in education — made it in to the five-year plan in March 2011. About a year later, another blue-ribbon panel, this one written by the World Bank and China’s Development Research Center, an influential government think tank, released another reform plan, called “China 2030,” which included a call for remaking state-owned companies so they operated more commercially.
Academic bigwigs are often ignored in China, as they are in many other countries. But experts can also play a major role in reform by giving a government intellectual firepower to argue for change despite resistance from vested interests. China especially has made use of foreign experts for that purpose, as the country developed into the world’s second-largest economy.
Now Mr. Spence and company are back at it again, preparing a report for China’s new leaders. The effort is being coordinated by Edwin Lim, the World Bank’s first representative in China, who is retired and living in London, but who is an important and trusted link between the Chinese leadership and outside development experts.
Neither Mr. Spence nor Mr. Lim would say when the report will be finished; Mr. Spence reports that is “in process.” But their efforts are bound to play an important role as China’s new leaders ponder what policies to tackle to keep China moving ahead economically.
– Bob Davis
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Mon July 23, 2012
Kentucky Health Insurance Exchange Will be Online
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear recently signed an executive order to create an insurance exchange for Kentucky. Under the Affordable Care Act, states must create marketplaces in which residents can purchase insurance, or else the federal government will do so for them.
“It’s a lot easier to adapt your policies and regulations to personalize it to your population, so we think Kentucky is in a better position to respond to the needs of Kentuckians,” says Kentucky Voices for Health Executive Director Jodi Mitchell, who believes state-run exchanges are the way to go.
But how will the exchange work? We called the Kaiser Family Foundation to get the details.
The concept of the exchange is to create a place, a website in most cases, where people without insurance can go to compare plans and sign up for the coverage they want.
But it can't just be a website. There must be a call center and an opportunity for residents to fill out paper applications. The exchanges must be either state-run or administered by a nonprofit, and while Kentucky is seeking an outside vendor, the exchange will be overseen by an executive branch office.
Insurance for Individuals
Let's say you're 30. You don't have insurance, and you need it. Well, if you have Internet access, you'll be able to go to the exchange and choose a plan that fits your budget. If you think you qualify for federal subsidies to purchase a plan, the Kaiser Family Foundation says you will be able to apply online.
If you qualify for subsidies to purchase insurance, you can apply on the exchange website. If you qualify for Medicaid, you can either apply the same way you do now or you will likely be able to apply through the exchange. Since Kentucky has Medicaid Managed Care, Medicaid patients will be able to sign up with one of the Managed Care Organizations in the exchange.
Small businesses—those with fewer than 100 employees—will be able to visit insurance exchanges, too. Like individuals, small businesses will be able to gauge different plans and purchase one that's right for their workforce.
The Kaiser Foundation people say there are two options many businesses will likely have. First, they can choose a plan, either modest or generous, and offer it to all employees. Or, the business can choose a level of a plan (the Kaiser people compared them to “bronze, silver or gold”) and allow individuals to choose their insurer from within a specific range of options.
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Ms Homans covers a great deal of ground, although I feel the lady is writing primarily from a north American perspective and there are definitely some factual inaccuracies when she writes about ballet in Europe. For example when she touches on the situation in Russia I feel she isn't fully enough aware of the current socio/economic set up in that country to have a good grasp of the dance scene there which remains highly conservative despite those ballet masters that look westwards for repertoire rather than encouraging home grown choreographers.
However I totally agree with the main thrust of her argument, this in particular:
Contemporary choreography veers aimlessly from unimaginative imitation to strident innovation usually in the form of gymnastic or melodramatic excess, accentuated by overzealous lightening and special effects. This taste for unthinking athleticism and dense thickets of steps, for spectacle and sentiment, is not the final cry of a dying artistic era; it represents a collapse of confidence and a generation ill at ease with itself and uncertain of its relationship to the past.
The great choreographers are now gone with very few of today's generation capable of creating adequately using the classical vocabulary and I believe that it is this lack of inspiration that in the past came from working with dance-makers and being part of the creative process that has resulted in the distorted technique that is becoming the norm. The shortage of creative talent has nothing to do with money by the way; Diaghilev was perpetually broke but still managed to launch the most concentrated array of choreographers in the 20th century.
Technically conservative, their dancing is opaque and flat, emotionally dimmed. And although many can perform astonishing stunts, the overall level of technique has fallen. Today’s dancers are more brittle and unsubtle, with fewer half-tones than their predecessors.
Ms Homan's observations are inarguably true alas, but the names selected as exceptions to the rule are not the ones I would choose as the brightest beacons of artistic excellence.
Classical ballet has always been an art of belief. It does not fate well in cynical times. It is an art of high ideals and self-control in which proportion and grace stand for an inner truth and elevated state of being. Ballet, moreover, is an etiquette as much as an art, layered with centuries of courtly conventions and codes of civility and politeness. This does not mean, however, that it is static. To the contrary, we have seen that when societies that nourished ballet changed or collapsed—as they did in the years around the French and Russian Revolutions—marks of the struggle were registered in the art.
Indeed. Society is currently in a state of flux with huge societal changes in the offing, the impact that will have in the arts in general, not just ballet, remain to be seen but even if revolution isn’t in the air, civil unrest most definitely is. It will be interesting to see how the arts world responds to the events that inevitably lie ahead.
Today we no longer believe in ballet’s ideals. We are skeptical of elitism and skill, which seem to us exclusionary and divisive. Those privileged enough to obtain specialized training, so this thinking goes, should not be elevated above those with limited access to knowledge or art. We want to expand and include: we are all dancers now. Ballet’s fine manners and implicitly aristocratic airs, its white swans, regal splendor, and beautiful women on pointe (pedestals), seem woefully outmoded, the province of dead white men and society ladies in long-ago places…………………………
……………..The fragmentation and compartmentalization of culture do not help. We have grown accustomed to living in multiple private dimensions, virtual worlds sealed in ether: myspace, mymusic, mylife. These worlds may be global and simultaneous, but they are by nature disembodied and detached. They are also fractured, niche environments and virtual “communities” based on narrow personal affinities rather than broad common values. Nothing could be further from the public, physically concrete, and sensual world of dance.
The dumbing down phenomenon once again. Personally I’m sick to the back teeth with ballet and all other art forms that require technique and expertise being described as elitist, just as I’m infuriated by turning to the arts pages of credible newspapers only to be confronted with reams of purple prose about rock groups and the like. Popular culture not only reigns supreme, it also tramples over established art forms and screams its propaganda in favour of the lowest common denominator. In such an environment it’s difficult for the arts to survive at all.
For classical ballet to recover its standing as a major art would thus require more than resources and talent (the “next genius”). Honor and decorum, civility and taste would have to make a comeback. We would have to admire ballet again, not only as an impressive athletic display but as a set up ethical principles. Our contemporary infatuation with instability and fragmentation, with false pomp and sentiment, would have to give way to more confident beliefs. If that sounds conservative, perhaps it is; ballet has always been an art of order, hierarchy and tradition. But rigor and discipline are the basis for all truly radical art, and the rules, limits, and rituals of ballet have been the point of departure for its most liberating and iconoclastic achievements.
Beautifully put, if I have quibbles with parts of this (and wish the article had better editing) I cannot disagree with anything she says in that paragraph. Even allowing for the errors it is an honest analysis of the state of the art of ballet in the twenty first century.
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The ACLU sued Morgan Stanley Monday, charging it engaged in racial discrimination by funding subprime mortgages.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, is the first lending discrimination case to go after the investment banks that funded the subprime mortgages. Previous suits of this kind targeted the lenders that made the loans.
Wall Street funded the subprime lending boom by bundling the risky loans into mortgage-backed securities. Those securities were then sold to institutional investors and pension funds.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Detroit residents, and asks the court to certify the case as a class action.
"With this lawsuit, real victims of the subprime lending scandal are stepping forward to hold investment banks like Morgan Stanley accountable for the devastation the banks wrought in their lives and in our economy," said Anthony Romero, ACLU executive director, in a statement.
Morgan Stanley (Fortune 500) denied the allegations. ,
"We believe these allegations are completely without merit and plan to defend ourselves vigorously," said the firm in a statement.
Romero said Morgan Stanley is not the only Wall Street firm that participated in funding improper subprime mortgages and that similar suits against other firms could be forthcoming.
Subprime mortgages are higher-interest loans made to homeowners or buyers with low credit ratings. The higher rates made subprime mortgages lucrative for lenders to make and Wall Street firms to fund during the housing boom.
The ACLU's suit charges that during the housing bubble years -- between 2004 and 2007 -- Morgan Stanley ramped up its funding of subprime and other high-risk mortgages, becoming the principal financing source for New Century Mortgage Co., one of the most active subprime lenders at that time. New Century filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and has since gone out of business.
The ACLU claims that Morgan Stanley pushed New Century to issue certain types of loans with no concern about risk, because it made its profit at the outset, when the mortgage-backed securities were created and sold.
"The targeting of communities of color for loans that unfairly raises the risk of default and foreclosure is the quintessential 'reverse-redlining' outlawed by the Federal Fair Housing Act," said Elizabeth Cabraser, one of the lawyers bringing the suit.
State and federal authorities have brought their own cases charging that banks discriminated against minority borrowers through their subprime lending practices.
Among the major cases was a $175 million lending discrimination settlement with Wells Fargo (Fortune 500) in July 2012 and a $335 million settlement with , Bank of America (Fortune 500) in December 2011 over discriminatory lending practice at , Countrywide Financial, a subprime lender that the bank purchased.
Romero said the ACLU was pleased with some of the actions taken by state and federal authorities, but felt more needed to be done.
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While New Jersey peaches were subjected to weather-related challenges early in the season, the crop has come on strong.
"It has been a rocky road this spring with the very early bloom and the temperatures near freezing, but we have come through with a very good crop," Santo John Maccherone, chair of the New Jersey Peach Promotion Council, said in a press release. "I had white-fleshed nectarines blooming in early March, but surprisingly I looked at those blocks when we started thinning and they were heavy with fruit."
Mr. Maccherone, who owns Circle M Farms with his son, John, in Mullica Hill and Salem, NJ, has a full crop on his white- and yellow-fleshed peaches, nectarines and oriental plums. "We braved some nights near or just below freezing when our trees were in bloom and various stages of early growth,” he said.
"I have been working with peach growers for over 30 years in southern New Jersey and have never seen peaches bloom this early,” Jerry Frecon, agricultural agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Gloucester County, said in the press release. “We were in full bloom on March 23, 2012. Our crop looks pretty good, and except for a few low orchard spots most growers are thinning to reduce crop load and increase fruit size."
Mr. Frecon emphasized that while acreage has declined slightly in New Jersey to about 5,500 acres, production should be between 60 million pounds and 70 million pounds. "We lost some trees due to the wet weather we had late last summer — root rot, wind and water saturated soils,” he said. "So [we] have some nice new plantings to replace this acreage, most in Salem and Cumberland Counties. While there are over 100 peach growers across the state, there are only about 20 that grow and pack peaches for the wholesale market. We expect a near-full crop from most of these wholesale growers.”
Ed Gaventa, a grower in Logan Township, NJ, completed thinning his peach and nectarine acreage. "We are picking peaches in mid-June," he said. "Everything has been early this year." Mr. Gaventa owns A.L. Gaventa & Sons with his cousin Roy. The Gaventas been picking strawberries for a month and sweet corn harvest should start in mid-June, many crops earlier than normal. Mr. Gaventa is also treasurer of the New Jersey Peach Promotion Council, an organization of growers and allied industries dedicated to the orderly marketing and promotion of New Jersey peaches.
For further information, contact the New Jersey Peach Promotion Council information office, 856-307-6450 ext.1; [email protected]; or visit its website, www.jerseypeaches.com, and find New Jersey peaches on facebook.
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NCNA above the law of Hong KongLast week the Secretary for Justice of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (SAR) Government, Miss Elsie Leung, decided against prosecuting the New China News Agency (NCNA) Hong Kong Branch for violating the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. The disturbing move has aroused concern that the NCNA, which is the embodiment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong, is above the law.
Last month the Privacy Commissioner, Mr Stephen Lau, referred eight cases to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution. Two cases, including one complaint from me, were related to the NCNA.
In December 1996 when the Personal Data Ordinance was enacted, local people have the right to write to organisations asking to see files on them in order to correct mistakes about their personal particulars. Since the NCNA was well known for collecting intelligence and information about local activists, it was widely believed that they held files on members of the pro-democracy movement.
Immediately after the ordinance came into force, I wrote to the then NCNA director Mr Zhou Nan asking to see their file on me. Under the ordinance, NCNA must reply within 40 days. The agency took 10 months before they told me they had no file on me.
The Privacy Commissioner, who is responsible for enforcing the ordinance, said he respected the Secretary for Justice's decision but maintained NCNA had broken the law. The episode has again focused attention on the role of the NCNA and on whether the rule of law applies to everyone in Hong Kong except NCNA.
Under British colonial rule, NCNA was the de facto Chinese embassy, masquerading as a news agency. Under the Chinese Government's concept of "One country, two systems" Hong Kong enjoys "high degree of autonomy" and is governed according to the Basic Law. However there is no mention of the CCP is outside the reach of Hong Kong laws.
The director of NCNA is the general secretary of the Hong Kong Macau Work Committee, which is the name of the CCP Hong Kong branch. One of the main functions of the Work Committee is to provide party leadership for members and mainland-based organisations.
Even though Hong Kong is part of China, the role of the CCP is still a highly sensitive topic. Many local people want to know more but the mass media have been reluctant to report on the taboo subject. This is because many local people still have dark memories of the atrocities perpetrated by the CCP and thus harbour deep repugnance and mistrust.
The Chinese Government is aware of such sentiments and does not want to provoke them. The mass media understand Beijing's concerns and have for years deliberately played down coverage of the CCP. Many journalists have never even heard of the Work Committee.
The Secretary for Justice's decision not to prosecute NCNA was completely ignored by the television stations and most Chinese language daily newspapers. It would appear the CCP is still a no go area for many news organisations.
Last year when I met with the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Anson Chan, I raised the role and functions of the NCNA in the SAR. With hundreds of staff, what exactly do they do?
Apart from the headquarters in Happy Valley which is immediately opposite to the Hong Kong Jockey Club, NCNA also has three sub-offices in Hong Kong island, Kowloon and the New Territories. These were set up in the 1980s to counter the British colonial administration and should have been disbanded after the Chinese takeover on 1 July 1997.
Last December, NCNA director Mr Jiang Enzhu was chosen as one of 36 Hong Kong delegates to the National People's Congress (NPC). He is also tipped to become the leader of the Hong Kong NPC delegation.
Such a prominent role for Mr Jiang does not sit well with the concept of "Hong Kong people running Hong Kong." Preferential treatment for the NCNA will only heighten the people's feeling of hostility and unease.
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An amendment that would have allowed gun owners to carry their weapons across state lines fell just short of passage Wednesday in a vote that revealed deep divisions among the Senate's Democrats.
Supporters included all but two Republicans and 20 Democrats, but the vote of 58 to 39 in favor fell two short of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster.
Despite its defeat, the amendment, sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), demonstrated the continuing power of the National Rifle Association and the gun rights issue in Congress. Rather than a setback, those backing the effort consider the vote a sign of strength for the Second Amendment and are planning more gun-related amendments to other legislation throughout the year. Afterward, Thune said he hopes the Senate will "reconsider this important issue" later this year.
It split not only Democrats, many of whom got to the Senate by supporting gun rights, but also the caucus's leadership: Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), campaigning for reelection in 2010, voted yes, while his top lieutenants, Sens. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), led the push by liberal Democrats against the measure.
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Home Asia Pacific North Asia China
China decides against inviting Dalai Lama
Zee News, April 13, 2006
Beijing, China -- China has decided not to invite Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama to the first world Buddhist forum to be held from today in the country's east, saying his presence would have posed a "disharmonious" element to the meeting.
"In my opinion, if he appears at the forum, he will surely pose a really disharmonious note to the general harmonious tone of the forum," vice president of the China religious culture communication association Qi Xiaofei said yesterday, when asked why Dalai Lama was not invited for the April 13-16 event in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province.
The main purpose of the forum was to provide an equal, diversified and open platform for dialogue between all those who love all living creatures, protect and care for the Buddhism, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
"We welcome any form of exchanges, but we won't give Dalai Lama any chance to disharmonise the forum," he said.
"What we need here and now is dialogue rather than confrontation," he said, claiming that judging from Dailai Lama's past activities, he might bring about harm to the "harmony" theme of the forum.
Qi alleged that Dalai Lama was not only a religious figure but also a long-time "secessionist".
His comments comes days after a senior Chinese official said Beijing can consider a visit by the Dalai Lama.
"It is not impossible for us to consider his visit" provided the Dalai Lama completely abandons Tibetan independence, Ye Xiaowen, who heads state administration for religious affairs, had said.
Ye said the Dalai Lama "has failed to deliver a clear message on his stance," but added, "we can discuss it (the trip by Dalai Lama)."
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Rather than sleeping in Saturday morning, a group of students from eight area schools converged on the Andy Griffith Playhouse to the annual Quiz Bowl.
This year, following what moderator Brack Llewelyn called the “Battle of Dobson,” Surry Central High School beat Surry Early College 155 — 75 to take home top honors.
This year the eight teams competing include East Surry High School, North Surry High School, Surry Central High School, Surry Early College, Elkin High School, Stokes Early College, South Stokes High School and Yadkin Early College.
According to Quiz Bowl spokeswoman Joan Sherif, the academic competition started in the area in 1980 and has continued for nearly three decades. It is a single-elimination competition between high school teams who compete in subjects including language, social studies, arts, science and current events.
Each match pits two high school teams against each other to earn the most correct answers and points. Sherif said Quiz Bowl is sponsored by the 13 libraries of the Northwestern Regional Library in Alleghany, Stokes, Surry and Yadkin counties as well as the Elkin Friends of the Library and Mount Airy Friends of the Library.
The annual academic competition between high school teams consists of three rounds. Questions in the first round are 10 points, questions count 20 points each in the second round and 30 points in the third. Participants can consult among themselves for answers in the second and third rounds.
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Top Ten Japan Classic Adventures
Tramp the famous temple circuit of Kyoto, then head to the hills for a lesson in kanji—or Japanese characters—unlike any other. A stone torii (Shinto gate) behind the famed Ginkakuji Temple marks the trail that leads a spot to which all eyes in the city go when people want to get their bearings—to a giant Japanese kanji etched into the mountainside. Meaning "great," the character is pronounced "die" and shares its name with the mountain, Daimonji-yama. Follow the trail as it winds through the woods above the temple onto a steep dirt path that takes you along switchbacks and over steps to a bare spot over the kanji. Pick a clear day to fully enjoy the amazing views of the city and sunset or continue along the ridgeline, which eventually leads back down into the city. If you are lucky enough to be there on August 16, you'll catch one of the brightest festivals of Kyoto, when the character is piled with wood and set ablaze.
Details mentioned in this article were accurate at the time of publication
Best Hotels in Kyoto
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Well, to begin with, some web presence is better than none.
Chances are that other things you've done on the Internet will show up if someone searches for you. Ideally, there would be a way to have people remove old, irrelevant references. But in the decentralized world of the Web, there's no single repository where you can update your information. Part of the reason for the advice to establish a web site and blog and tweet and friend and circle is that new web activity will push old web activity down in the search results.
So why do we have to worry about being authentic?
Well, in simple terms, no one likes a salesman--or, more accurately, someone who appears to be nothing more than a salesman.
But there's something more going on with the Internet than a simple test of your ability to go for more than five minutes without shouting, "Buy my book! Buy my book! Buy my Book!"
The Internet is a slow, not entirely perfect, truth filter. Over time everything on the net is exposed for what it really is. Flash and SEO (search engine optimization) techniques may work for a while, but substance will win out in the long run.
So how do you do authentic?
Bob Mayer said,
"The first author we brought on board besides my books was Kristen Lamb with We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media. ... And we incorporated the things she espouses in the book; the primary one is have your content first, before you start blasting things out on social media."
Authentic is about substance over form.
Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, it's actually not that hard to get someone's attention. What's far more difficult, and hence much more significant, is keeping someone's attention. If there's an author whose books you buy whenever a new one comes out, it is because of the author's antics or because they've consistently given you a good reading experience?
Content is how you do authentic.
Image: Photography by BJWOK / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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1. West Side Story: "I think it all goes back to high school, when I was in love with a girl named Maria from Nicaragua," he says with a laugh.
2. A Chorus Line: "It's the ultimate showbiz musical. Everyone in the theater identifies with those dancers ‘on the line,' begging for a job, but also begging for affirmation and approval. We've all been there."
3. Sweeney Todd: "I love the operatic proportions, the absolute brilliance of Steven Sondheim and its left-of-center subject matter."
4. Fiddler on the Roof: "It's an example of magnificent music and book writing."
5. Gypsy: "I think it is one of the greatest musicals of our time, not just for the brilliant creation of Mama Rose, but for the musicalization of history, as we watch the transition from vaudeville to burlesque." — ECB
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Nowadays, there are two topics that I'm very passionate about. The first, the fact that spring is finally here and it's time to dust off my clubs to take in my few first few rounds of golf. The second topic that I’m currently passionate about is the research I've been doing around the connection between big data and big process.
While most enterprise architects are familiar with promise – and unfortunately the hype – of big data, very few are familiar with the newer concept of “big process.” Forrester first coined this term back in August of 2011 to describe the shift we see in organizations moving from siloed approaches to BPM and process improvement to more holistic approaches that stitch all the pieces together to drive business transformation.
Our working definition for big process is:
“Methods and techniques that provide a more holistic approach to process improvement and process transformation initiatives.”
As we pushed deeper into our big process research, we found that the relationship between big data and big process is crucial to driving real business value and improved business outcomes. Specifically we found that the connection between big data and big process revolved around the "Four C’s” of:
1.Customers. You would have to be hiding under a rock not to see that improving customer experience is a top priority for business and IT executives. However, in order to improve customer experience, business and IT leaders must first mine oceans of operational data to pinpoint exactly what must be done to improve the customer experience and underlying business processes.
2.Chaos. Enterprise architects and business process professionals need to come to terms with the fact that today’s business processes are not as neat, tidy, and structured as we’ve been led to believe during 20th Century. Today’s business processes are chaotic and require an understanding of the relationships between process and data in order to drive better business outcomes.
3.Context. This term is quickly becoming the most overused buzzword within IT and business circles. However overused or misused, enterprise architects and business process professionals must begin to build business and technology architectures that glean and intuit deeper meaning across the relationship of business events, operational data, and operational performance.4.Cloud. In our research we found many companies looking to push core business processes into hybrid on-premise/off-premise configurations. This means some parts of a particular value stream might live in the cloud, while other parts of the value stream might live on internal infrastructure. While this is not a new concept, we found that most companies exploring these hybrid configurations overlooked the need to maintain data relationships across a fragmented and splintered value stream.
Read the article here
Article from Information Management
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WASHINGTON — When President Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the biggest question he’ll face will be how to get an ambitious second-term agenda through a divided Congress.
The answer: Go around it.
On climate change, gun control, gay rights, and even immigration, the White House has signaled a willingness to circumvent lawmakers through the use of presidential power. Already, plans are being laid to unleash new executive orders, regulations, signing statements and memorandums designed to push Obama’s programs forward and cement his legacy, according to administration aides and allies.
“The big things that we need to get done, we can’t wait on,” said White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer. “If we can take action, we will take action.”
The tactic carries political risk, beyond the backlash it will spark from congressional Republicans. Advisers say the president, who already faces charges from Republicans that he is concentrating too much power in the White House, remains cautious about getting too far ahead of public opinion. And executive orders can be overturned by a future president much easier than legislation can.
What’s more, Obama will still need to work through Congress to deal with some of the nation’s biggest concerns, including tax and spending issues as well as any comprehensive changes in the immigration system.
Still, the use of executive power isn’t new: Historically, second-term presidents, freed from fears of a political payback at the polls, have been more willing to flex their authority.
The shift to a more assertive use of such power marks an evolution for Obama, who as a U.S. senator from Illinois accused President George W. Bush of flouting Congress. After spending his first two years in office deep in negotiations with a Democratic-controlled Congress, and the last two years battling with much of the Republican-controlled House, he enters his second term prepared to move forward alone.
“He made a true sea change on thinking about the executive orders,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential scholar at Rice University in Houston who is part of a group of historians who periodically meet with the president. “Now, it seems to me that he’s going to be viewed as an executive power president.”
Obama’s increasing use of executive action began in the fall of 2011, when the president, frustrated with Republican opposition, urged his team to seek actions the White House could take unilaterally, according to Pfeiffer.
Branding their independent efforts “We Can’t Wait,” the White House rolled out dozens of policies that included raising fuel-economy standards, granting legal status to young immigrants, reducing student loan payments, preventing prescription drug shortages and getting jobs for veterans.
In his second term, aides say Obama will escalate his use of executive power. He’s expected to focus on job creation and economic growth, calling for new federal spending on infrastructure, clean energy and education in his State of the Union speech at 9 p.m., Washington time, tomorrow, according to a senior official briefed on the speech.
He’ll also push lawmakers for action on immigration, gun control and climate change.
Last month, he initiated 23 executive actions on gun control, as part of a legislative package proposed after the Dec. 14 killings at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. They include several designed to maximize prosecution of gun crimes and improve access to government data for background checks.
After efforts to pass climate legislation to curb greenhouse gases failed in the first term, administration officials have indicated that they aim to use the Environmental Protection Agency to limit emissions from new power plants and tackle existing plants in the second, according to an environmental activist and a congressional aide.
“The opportunity is in what the president can do under the laws Congress has already passed,” said David Doniger, policy director of the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental group. “It’s the tools the president already has laying around at home he can use now.”
The Pentagon is poised to extend some military benefits to the same-sex partners of service members, according to a U.S. official, including access to day-care facilities and visiting privileges at military hospitals. Topping the wish lists of gay- rights advocates in the second term is an executive order that would bar workplace discrimination by federal contractors based on sexual orientation.
And even as the president pushes for legislation revising immigration laws, his aides and advocates have a menu of actions that can be taken unilaterally by the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Pentagon to benefit undocumented immigrants and their families, according to congressional staff members and immigration activists.
“If things really do truly stall and we can’t get the bipartisan agreement to fix a really broken system, these may be the kinds of tools to look for,” said Bob Deasy, a director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Rules also need to be written to carry out much of the president’s signature first-term domestic policy initiatives — the expansion of health-care coverage to tens of millions of Americans, and the Dodd-Frank law, the most sweeping new regulations of the financial industry since the Great Depression.
Even in areas where the president is trying to work with lawmakers, he has emphasized his efforts to get tough with Congress. When he announced details of his immigration plan in Las Vegas last month, he said: “If Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.”
The White House assertiveness has sparked complaints from Republicans. Obama’s gun proposals, released on Jan. 16, drew a sharp response from one lawmaker mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential contender.
“President Obama is again abusing his power by imposing his policies via executive fiat instead of allowing them to be debated in Congress,” said Florida Senator Marco Rubio, in a statement released after Obama’s announcement. “President Obama’s frustration with our republic and the way it works doesn’t give him license to ignore the Constitution.”
It’s not just Republicans who have objected to Obama’s efforts to wield executive power. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled on Jan. 25 that the president violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate last year to appoint three members to the National Labor Relations Board.
To be sure, Obama says he still prefers legislation when possible, recognizing that it gives his agenda deeper legal roots.
“Whenever we can codify something through legislation, it is on firmer ground,” he told the New Republic magazine in an interview last month. “It is something that will be long lasting and sturdier and more stable.”
Yet he’s in good company in using presidential authority: Scholars consider Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt to be among the presidents who relied most heavily on executive power, contrasting their records with that of Lyndon Johnson, a former Senate majority leader known for his ability to push legislation through Congress.
“The president recognized that he might not be able to be the Lyndon Johnson president with legislative achievements, that he might have to become an executive-power president,” said Brinkley.
Pending regulations in the White House pipeline position Obama to outpace Bush with second-term rulemaking. In his second term, when Democrats won control of Congress after two years, Bush’s new regulations cost the U.S. economy at least $30 billion, according to Office of Management and Budget data. Estimates for rules headed for completion in a second Obama administration already approach that figure, according to a review of regulatory filings by Bloomberg Government.
Obama delayed until after the election decisions on regulating ozone levels and requiring rearview cameras for cars, which could cost between $22 billion and $93 billion in 2020, according to the White House.
Rules approved during the first 32 months of his presidency will cost an estimated $19.9 billion and yield net benefits of more than $91 billion in monetary savings and deaths and injuries avoided, according to OMB figures.
That record aside, the president has been frank about the limitations of his new strategy.
On budget issues, a series of fiscal deadlines will force him to work with lawmakers. Only Congress can pass legislation halting automatic reductions in domestic and defense spending, known as the sequester, scheduled to go into effect next month. A continuing resolution funding the government expires in late March, meaning the government will shut down if Congress doesn’t act. There is another deadline to raise the U.S. debt ceiling two months later.
“I’m not a king,” Obama said in a Jan. 30 interview with Telemundo, a broadcasting network, when asked why he couldn’t unilaterally legalize undocumented immigrants. “We can’t simply ignore the law.”
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Punk rock bands like Blink-182 and Rancid are no strangers to obscenity — it's an integral part of their anti-establishment vernacular. But as the figureheads of raucous teenage rebellion age, they've had to encounter a different kind of "F-word"-- fatherhood. A new documentary film explores this paradox, as serious punk-rock performers make the transition from rebels to responsible family men.
The film's director and writer, Andrea Blaugrund Nevins, sat down with NPR's Robert Siegel to talk about what inspired her to explore the tension behind aging punk rockers-cum-devoted dads — and the surprising lessons she learned from these unlikely philosophers.
Nevins came across the idea when a friend — Cristan Reilly, eventually the film's producer — passed along a book written by Reilly's high-school friend Jim Lindberg, also the lead singer of skate-punk band Pennywise. The book was called Punk Rock Dad, and it explored Lindberg's experience fronting a band whose most popular anthem is "F - - - Authority," at the same time as he was raising three little girls.
"It seemed like a really fun oxymoron to jump into, and we did," says Nevins. With Reilly onboard, "we went down the punk-rock rabbit hole and made this movie," she says.
The transition from punk rebel to mature dad was a sharp turn for most of the musicians. Although Nevins originally conceived of the project as a comedy, she quickly came to realize the real struggle and pain behind these men's experiences with fatherhood.
"I discovered that a lot of these guys were really devastated by their own fathers," she says. "When handed a child, suddenly that all came rushing to the forefront, and they felt like they had to truly be there in a way that their parents weren't."
It was their own childhood experiences, coupled with a profound sensitivity, that led these musicians to their early rebellions, says Nevins.
"They were also very sensitive kids, [...] so they felt they needed to express the outrage that they were experiencing in a poetic way — but not [with] your regular sonnet."
As they now make the transition into aging fathers, the artists Nevins profiles are dealing with more than just the tension between being a working musician and a family man. They also have to reconcile their changing images with their fans' expectations.
"With most musical genres, the audience ages with the artist. But in this case, this is really an art form that speaks almost exclusively to rebellious, angry teenagers," says Nevins.
As these men age, but continue to play to teenage fans, they struggle with questions of authenticity.
"Honesty and authenticity are sort of the watchwords of the punk-rock movement," says Nevins. But if punk rock is still putting food on the table, then it's difficult to decide when to quit, she says.
It's a challenge made even more difficult by the demands — and the decline — of the music business. Not many punk bands are big enough to sustain themselves off only a few shows a year. As CD sales decline, supporting a family requires regular touring, which means being away from their children.
"They used to be able to put out a record and at least be able to feed the kids off of that," Nevins explains. "But now [...] they have to get ticket sales to get paid."
Her work on the film helped Nevins deal with her own questions about the push and pull of work and family.
"It was something that I was wrestling with for a good long time, this decision about how much do you work, and how much do you try and spend time with your kids," she says. "I learned that I have to be there as much as I possibly can," she says.
While the parenting struggles of aging punk rockers might be an extreme example, many parents have to reconcile the choices of their past as they raise their children.
"All of us go through a period where we have to re-evaluate who we are in the world," says Nevins. "We're no longer the person who's rebelling against our parents, and that's hard for everybody on different levels."
For punk rockers, their entire identities are tied to ideas of rebellion and nihilism — making it all the more difficult to assume the role of mature parent.
"Their whole brand, their whole identity is involved in being the rebel. Then how do you come home and send your kids to school and make sure they get their homework done?" asks Nevins.
At least when it comes to sharing their art with their children, punk rockers can always play the clean versions.
The Republican ticket for November's election includes Ken Cuccinelli for governor, E.W. Jackson for lieutenant governor, and Mark Obenshain for attorney general.
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EAGLE, Colorado - An alternative to jailing drug and alcohol offenders is so successful that it has been doubled.
Judge Katharine Sullivan's Adult Intensive Supervision Probation program one of Colorado's most successful "problem solving" courts.
Colorado's Fifth Judicial District received a federal grant that made it possible to split the program into two segments and hire Karen Hoeger as full-time problem solving court coordinator.
One segment is for repeat DUI offenders. They're trying to avoid a year in jail. The other segment is felons with addictions that have them looking at state prison.
A probation officer is assigned to each segment.
Before this, Sullivan's courtroom was packed with people most Wednesday afternoons, when they all get together with Sullivan.
"We're busy," said Bryan Lynch, who is the supervisor for the probation office and helps run Sullivan's program.
Better than busy
Busy is good; good results are better.
Across the country, problem-solving courts see about half their graduates relapse. In Judge Sullivan's program less than 30 percent do, Lynch said.
They run criminal histories on everyone who graduates for three years. People who graduate one of Sullivan's problem-solving courts stay clear of trouble 87 percent of the time. People who spend a stretch in jail and prison tend to land back behind bars between 60 and 80 percent of the time, Lynch said.
It costs $35,000 a year to imprison someone in Colorado, Lynch said. Probation and these problem-solving courts cost about $1,500 a year per person.
"Not only is Judge Sullivan doing the community a great service, she's saving the taxpayers a ton of money," Lynch said.
These were the justice system's frequent flyers, in and out of jail. Alcohol and drugs had them serving their life sentences a few weeks or months at a time.
"Some programs try to get clients to think their way to a better way of living. This one helps them live their way to a better of thinking," says Kenny Hamberg with Alpine Counseling, who helps run the program.
You can ask to be part of this program, or one of the judges can ask for you if they think it'll help. You'll do something recovery related seven days a week for at least a year, working through the program in phases. Each phase gives you a little more freedom.
It takes at least a year to finish the program. If it takes longer than two years, you'll find yourself somewhere not nearly as pleasant as Sullivan's courtroom.
When they're done they have a graduation with cake and friends and family.
Their graduation speech consists of Sullivan proclaiming this welcome phrase: "You are officially off paper!" And with the stroke of her pen she liberates them from the justice system, signing an Order for Termination of Probation.
Your day in court
Before she was a judge, Sullivan ran drug and alcohol interventions all over the country. "High dollar rehab," she calls them. On drug court day, her team spends all day preparing for the afternoon session.
Each client gets a few minutes of face time with Sullivan as she asks them to tell her something good in their lives from that week.
Most have something. Some don't. Cody was in the system for attempting to distribute a controlled substance. He relapsed, and that violates the integrity contract he signed. He'll have a few days in the Eagle County Crossbar Hotel to consider his future.
Terry has been without a drink for nine months. He's never gone a month before.
A few wear Transdermal Alcohol Detection bracelets that can indicate alcohol or drugs in their systems. It can get to be a crutch. Sullivan and her AISP team don't like crutches.
Still, some need a little help avoiding trouble.
Jack asked the judge for permission to travel to the Caribbean for a vacation. Sullivan and her team decided that a trip built around excessive drinking might not be his best environment.
Life still happens to them.
Chris got sober then lost his job and his home, but says he managed to put all that back together because he wasn't drunk and/or hung over.
"You don't get a new car and a condo just because you're sober," Sullivan said.
When this latest class is "off paper," Sullivan looks around at her graduates and extracts vows that they'll keep in touch, as long as it's not through her courtroom door for official reasons.
"I want to see you, but I never want you to be in court again."
Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or [email protected].
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Essroc, which is headquartered in Upper Nazareth Township, is the eighth… (Morning Call file photo )
Essroc Cement Corp. has agreed to spend $33 million to correct violations of the U.S. Clean Air Act at five of its plants, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.
Essroc will clean up its cement-making plants in the Nazareth area; Logansport, Ind.; Speed, Ind.; Martinsburg, W.Va., and San Juan, Puerto Rico, the EPA said.
The idle Essroc plant in Bessemer, Allegheny County, will be closed permanently. Two years ago, the EPA complained that Essroc modified the plant without using the most advanced pollution controls.
Essroc's new measures will reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by 7,000 tons a year, the EPA said. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide have been linked to acid rain, smog and childhood asthma.
"EPA is committed to cutting illegal air pollution from the largest sources of emissions," said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator in the EPA's office of enforcement. "The pollution controls required by today's settlement will reduce harmful air pollutants, protecting communities across the nation."
Essroc also has promised to pay a $1.7 million fine under the agreement, which would settle a pollution investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The settlement, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, awaits a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.
The states of Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia, and Puerto Rico joined Essroc, the EPA and the Justice Department in signing the settlement.
"This will bring Essroc into compliance with the nation's Clean Air Act and marks significant progress in addressing the nation's largest sources of air pollution, and protecting the most vulnerable among us, especially children and the elderly, from respiratory and other health problems," said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant U.S. attorney general for the environment.
Among other measures, Essroc has agreed to replace the engines on several of its off-road vehicles to cut their nitrogen oxide emissions 50 to 80 percent, at a cost of $745,000.
As Essroc installs the latest pollution-control technology at all five of its plants, it also will test a selective catalytic reduction system, an SCRS, in two kilns at the Logansport plant.
"If successful, this will be the first SCRS used on long wet kilns anywhere in the world," the EPA said.
Essroc, headquartered in Upper Nazareth Township, is in the eighth largest cement producer in the nation.
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SEISMOGRAPH RECORDS TREMOR
Heavy Shock Comes Probably Distance of 2778 Miles
An unusually heavy earthquake shock was recorded yesterday morning by the Seismograph Station at the University. The vibrations began shortly after 8.24, and at about 8.40 became so violent that the needles which record them went off the drum on which the record them is made and put the seismograph temporarily out of commission. A rough computation by Professor J. B. Woodworth '94 makes the distance of the earthquakes about 4470 kilometres from Cambridge, or about 2778 miles.
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The Argos Town Council was informed of the condition of the Argos EMS Building during last Wednesday’s Council meeting. Last spring Michiana Restoration & Construction was awarded the contract to remove the mold that was growing in the building that houses the Police, Fire and EMS Departments. They were also to eliminate the cause of the mold and repair any damaged areas. A new heating and cooling system was designed and installed.
There was a definite smell in the building when the work was completed in July. It has been determined that the building did not have the proper fresh air exchange. When the humidity was high in August it pulled out the smell from the paint and new construction. Mold grows when the humidity levels are over 60%. Also, the bricks used in the original exterior design for the building, did not have a vapor barrier to the inside walls. These bricks would wick moister during the humid summer months and this could have been another source of the mold growth.
Michiana Restoration’s heating and cooling designer used the plans of the building to design the system. It was never indicated to him that the building was a simple pole building with exposed bricks. “The building is just too tight. A lot of things are going on with the building,” said Doug Middleton, the Council’s liaison with Michiana Restoration. Doug also said that the other two companies that bid for the project last spring did not catch the exposed brick problem.
It was recommended to install a dehumidifier system at a cost of $4,500. The Council voted to install the dehumidifier. They will not know if this is the solution to the problem till the high humid days of next summer. Derek Jones, town attorney, is reviewing the contract with Michiana Restoration to see if they would have to cover the cost of the dehumidifier.
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In 1952, Our Miss Brooks moved to CBS Television, becoming one of television’s first hit television shows. Except for Jeff Chandler, all for the remaining cast made the move from radio to TV. Many of the scripts for the TV show were adapted from the radio scripts.
The premise for the show didn’t change. It still revolved around Miss Brook’s daily life at Madison High School, relationships with the students, Mr. Conklin’s scheming, and Miss Brook’s mooning over Mr. Boynton.
In 1955, Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, and most of the remaining cast moved to a private school when Madison High was torn down to make way for progress, a highway. There was only one change, Miss Brooks was pursued by the gym teacher, Gene Talbot played by Gene Barry. Robert Rockwell was brought back as Mr. Boynton mid-season to help boost falling ratings. It didn’t help. The show was cancelled in 1956.
Fans did finally get their payoff. In 1955, Our Miss Brooks was made into a movie released in theaters . Mr. Boynton finally proposed and the couple married.
|Click here to hear over 190 episodes of classic OUR MISS BROOKS old time radio shows on MP3 CD!|
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Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp. are preparing to keep their U.S. plants running in a walkout, using managers and other non-union employees to keep sites operating
Posts from ‘January, 2009’
Shell hopes there might be new opportunities in countries such as Iran because US president Barack Obamas election is pursuing a less hard line with the country than George Bush. Iran has some of the largest reserves of gas in the world, said van der Veer.
SHELL E&P Ireland has initiated a new 5 million investment fund over three years in north Mayo as part of its commitment to the Corrib gas project. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Belmullet GAA are to be recipients of the first tranche of funding of 400,000 in total.
IRELAND: SITTING ON A FORTUNE; EXCLUSIVE EUR5trillion Oil Field Could Defeat Recession but Gloom Grows
Further north lies Corrib, Co Mayo, which has an estimated value of anywhere between EUR6billion to EUR50billion. The field – which has been the scene of much controversy – is being developed by Shell, Marathon and Statoil.
On 19 January disturbing rumours over the Motiva Plant expansion in Port Arthur Texas were brought to our attention. Motiva Enterprises LLC is jointly owned by Saudi Refining and Shell.
Brinded said Shell had a “dreadful start” to this year after 10 contractors and one third party were killed in three incidents…
Exxon Mobil’s strong financial position has fueled speculation that it might bid to acquire another sizable company. “They don’t need a line of credit,” Gheit said. “Exxon can theoretically acquire any of its rivals with 35 percent premium, and they can boost earnings per share, cash flow per share and stock valuation because of their ability to squeeze out costs.”
Oil industry officials and air safety experts said Shell’s decision is one of the rare instances when a major user or operator has temporarily halted flights of such a large number of the popular, 12-person choppers. The Sikorsky spokesman said Shell continues to use the models in other parts of the world.
Shell’s decision to double its capex in recent years was largely forced on it to counter falling production and reserves which were the result of earlier underinvestment.
Shell gets tough on costs as oil prices bite Tom Bergin Royal Dutch Shell has intensified its cost-cutting efforts in response to the collapse in oil prices and also plans to step up efforts to improve what it said was a “mixed” safety record. Shell’s head of Exploration and Production Malcolm Brinded told employees in an email seen [...]
Fri Jan 30, 2009 7:36pm GMT By Tom Bergin LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) has intensified its cost-cutting efforts in response to the collapse in oil prices and also plans to step up efforts to improve what it said was a “mixed” safety record. Shell’s head of Exploration and Production Malcolm Brinded told [...]
The following leaked Shell internal emails contain candid admissions from Shell senior management not provided to shareholders in the Q4 financial results published on the same day. I have highlighted in bold examples of the candid admissions meant for Shell employees only. I supplied the leaked emails to Reuters who published an article after confirming the authenticity of both emails with Shell.
Credit Suisse analyst James Neale, in a note to investors, voiced concern that the companys return to growth will be short-lived in view of efforts by the company to slow final investment decisions on future growth projects due to current economic weakness, and in order to await lower future service costs.
Although Shell said it would spend more this year than last, it has also postponed some decisions on major investments in the hope that costs may come down. These include Carmon Creek in Canada; Mars B, an oil project in the Gulf of Mexico; and the Pierce field in the U.K. Last year, it also announced it was putting off a decision to expand its Athabasca oil-sands development in northern Canada.
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After criticism from pro-family groups, the popular video site YouTube announced plans in December 2008 to become more 'family friendly.' Six months later, that site remains a haven for soft-core pornography, obscenity and links to outside porn sites. Despite claims by parent company Google that it would improve, a child surfing the site today could find a universe of objectionable content with little difficulty.
The Media Research Center's Culture and Media Institute studied YouTube to determine the prevalence of pornography, obscenity and other content inappropriate for children. CMI looked at the most popular search results for the word 'porn' - 157 videos that each had more than 1 million views. The analysis showed that while actual nudity has been blocked by YouTube, the site is filled with videos, images and spoken and written language that children should not be exposed to and many adults would find objectionable. Those range from clips of the Disney movie 'Aladdin ' - dubbed with four-letter words and a porn movie theme - to scenes from actual porn films.
Major Findings Include:
- YouTube is for Porn: YouTube's own guidelines state that it is 'not for pornography or sexually explicit content.' But there's sexual material - including soft-core porn - all over the site. (A search of the word 'porn' returned more than 330,000 results.) While there is little actual nudity, most of these videos are highly sexually suggestive and include explicit language and themes from lesbianism to 'gangbangs.'
- Top 'Porn' Videos Watched 438 Million Times: Out of the 157 'porn' videos that received more than 1 million views, almost two-thirds (101 of 157) advertised themselves to be actual pornography. Those 101 videos had 438,318,147 combined views - or 1.38 views for every man, woman and child in the United States.
- YouTube is a Marketing Vehicle for Porn Merchants: Pornographers of all kinds used YouTube to drive traffic to their sites and products. Twelve percent (12 of the 101) of videos mentioned porn stars by name or were obvious clips from porn movies. Others were interviews with porn stars and reports from porn industry conventions. In addition, there were thousands of videos and repeated comments that served only as advertisements for hardcore porn sites, 'dating' and escort services, and phone sex lines. Among the comments on these videos were numerous offers to 'text me and let's talk dirty.' All of those were available to anyone viewing the site.
- Obscenity Commonplace: If your children can read, YouTube could teach them a whole new vocabulary. Profanity and every imaginable obscenity, including graphic sexual language, were rampant on the site. The 'F***' word alone appeared in the titles of some 169,000 individual videos.
- GayTube: Gay content, including gay propaganda, gay pornography and ads for gay escort services are easily found. There are 11,900 gay channels on YouTube, including 459 'gay porn' channels. A search of 'gay porn' returns 52,700 individual videos.
The Culture and Media Institute recommended ways for both YouTube and parents to better cope with offensive online video.
What Parents Can Do:
- Adults should never let children search or surf YouTube without constant supervision.
- Parents should remember that even seemingly harmless videos and search terms can have disturbing results for children - including obscenity and links to outside porn sites.
- Parents must be aware that YouTube is more than just videos; children can be exposed to objectionable content in comments and ads that appear on the site.
- Parents with YouTube accounts should not divulge their username/password to their children, and must be careful to log out of the account when they're done using it.
- Parents must find out what access restrictions and safety precautions their children's schools have in place, and let teachers and staff know of their concerns.
What YouTube Can Do:
- The company must further tighten its obscenity/sexually suggestive content standards and cooperate with pro-family groups to accomplish this.
- The company should take the advice The Parents Television Council gave it in December 2008, recommending 'formulating and adopting a thorough, accurate and transparent content rating system which would allow a parent to block a child from viewing age-inappropriate material.'
- YouTube must remove obscene user comments from its videos, and bar repeat offenders from posting comments.
- The company must construct a far more formidable barrier than its current 18 category, and then make sure all objectionable content is behind it.
- YouTube must get out front and be more willing to talk to critics in the media and in family organizations to address concerns.
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Domestic Violence Unit
The Domestic Violence Unit prosecutes city ordinance violations in Seattle Municipal Court, involving crimes of misdemeanor intimate partner domestic violence, elder abuse, and child abuse/neglect cases.
Domestic violence transcends gender, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation. The Seattle City Attorney's Domestic Violence Unit provides support and resources for all domestic violence victims: women, men, children and the elderly.
The Unit's mission is "to deter the serious crime of domestic violence in Seattle. We will achieve our mission through aggressive prosecution, increased domestic violence offender accountability, advocacy for victims, and education to the community."
The Domestic Violence Unit is composed of experienced prosecutors and victim advocates, as well as dedicated support staff. The Unit is proud of its staff diversity and is represented by people of various cultures and ethnic/racial backgrounds. This also includes staff who speak Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese dialects) and Tagalog.
Domestic Violence victim advocates work with victims of domestic violence and elder abuse. Additionally, there are advocates who work with victims of child abuse/neglect. All of the advocates work on teams with prosecutors to give victims the best possible assistance and representation in both arrest and non-arrest incidents of domestic violence and child abuse/neglect.
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An online journal about visual art, the urban landscape and design. Mary Louise Schumacher, the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic, leads the discussion and a community of writers contribute to the dialogue.
Art on the fridge
It's perhaps the most common showplace for artwork we know -- the refrigerator. Either as a kid or a parent, you've probably hung art proudly yourself, right? No PhD in curatorial studies required.
And consider this: The familiar ice box is not so different, really, from the cool white cubes we typically call galleries and museums, though we sure regard them differently. Artist Paul Drueke's project, which goes on view tonight at the Green Gallery takes these "galleries of the masses" out of their domestic settings into a gallery space, elevating the former and bringing the latter a bit more down to earth.
The "Cool White Cube" show documents the refridgerators found in the homes of suburban families, gallery owners, film directors, chiropractors and waiters, to name a few.
The opening for this show is tonight at the Green Gallery, 631 E. Center St., 3rd floor, from 7 to 11 p.m. This should be a good one.
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A week after Black Friday, retailers in Southern California and beyond are primed for the holidays, their shelves still stocked with electronics, clothing, toys -- anything one could want to find under the tree on Christmas morning.
Yet food pantries and other charities that support families in need are struggling -- cash and in-kind donations to nonprofits are expected to remain flat this year while the demand for services has increased.
According to Feed America, a leading food-aid nonprofit in the United States, some 50 million Americans will struggle to feed their families this holiday.
Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation reported that more than 247 million shoppers hit the stores Black Friday weekend, which ended Sunday. Black Friday sales topped $59 billion, with some 129 million online shoppers expected to spend an average of $194 on one-day deals this past Cyber Monday.
There are those whose best shot at some of life's luxuries was an hours-long wait outside their favorite retailer or a visit to the company's website. We hope their bargain-hunting was a success.
To be sure, the health of the local and national economy relies on holiday shopping. But consider the impact those millions of shoppers might have on local charities if they had diverted a mere fraction of their holiday
This year, a New York-based nonprofit launched "Giving Tuesday," its answer to the consumer-focused Black Friday and Cyber Monday events.
The idea was to get folks as excited about giving back as they were about scoring bargains -- and it seems to have worked.
The United Nations Foundation reported $10 million in donations Tuesday to nonprofits who participated in the event -- a 53 percent increase over the amount donated the same day a year ago.
Monetary contributions are important to charities, of course, but Giving Tuesday organizers hope donors and others might also begin to think about other ways to make a difference.
At City of Hope in Duarte, one of the Southern California nonprofits that participated in Giving Tuesday, something as simple as embracing a cancer survivor counts as giving back.
This season we can expect to hear from analysts who will diagnose the nation's health by the amount of money we spend over the next few weeks.
Wouldn't it be great if the health of our nation was measured not just by how many folks bought a flat-screen TV, but also by how many families have enough food and other support services they may need?
That would be something for which we could all truly give thanks this holiday season.
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Romney says his faith would help possible candidacy
"Americans want people of faith to lead their country," Mitt Romney said at a luncheon in Washington. (Boston Globe Photo / Leslie E. Kossoff)
WASHINGTON _ Confronting head-on one of the biggest question marks around his possible presidential candidacy, Governor Mitt Romney declared yesterday that his Mormon faith would help him among evangelical Christians if he chooses to run for president in 2008.
Romney told a group of Washington-based newspaper and magazine reporters that while a ''small slice" of voters will probably never vote for a Mormon, Republicans in deeply religious states have shown a willingness to accept people of faith from all religions.
''Americans want people of faith to lead their country," Romney said at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. ''There are advantages and disadvantages that everybody brings. The advantage that my faith brings is that in some states, it will be of help.
Romney's remarks were his most extensive public comments on the political impact of his religion and seemed designed to knock down speculation among political commentators and some religious leaders that his religion is a hurdle to his success. The comments were made at a lunch with about 50 reporters, including representatives of the
At the lunch, Romney quickly corrected reporters' suggestions that he was already a candidate for president, but he left little doubt that he is actively considering a national campaign. He offered expansive answers to questions about his political views and current events. He ignored his own meal and was careful to address each reporter who asked a question by his or her first name, and he made a few stabs at humor, reprising one of his oft-told jokes.
''I told Ann that I was coming here to talk to you today, and I said, 'Sweetheart, in your wildest dreams, did you ever see me coming here and speaking to this group?' And she said, 'Mitt, you aren't in my wildest dreams,' " Romney said.
After the lunch, he touted his plan to vastly expand health coverage in Massachusetts in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative advocacy group. He drew a distinction between his plan to cut the rolls of the uninsured through the private sector and what he called ''Hillarycare," President Bill Clinton's failed plan for universal health coverage that included new mandates for employers.
Though he voiced general support for President Bush, referring to him as ''a great president," Romney also offered an uncharacteristically blunt assessment of some of the president's policies.
Romney said Bush erred in not having more troops in place to deal with the insurgency that developed after Saddam Hussein was toppled. The president also should have made a broader case for ousting Hussein, instead of focusing on weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist, Romney said.
''There are plenty of places where I would separate from the administration, if that's what you mean, where I would have chosen a different course," Romney said when asked about his differences with Bush.
''Going in, we wouldn't have rested our entire case on weapons of mass destruction, had we known that when we got there, we wouldn't be able to find them," Romney said of the US invasion of Iraq. ''We probably would have explained to the American people in great depth -- and the world community -- the broader set of reasons for the president's decision to enter Iraq."
The governor also broke with Bush over one of the president's most cherished domestic-policy accomplishments: the Medicare prescription drug benefit that was launched this month. He said it was ''really troubling" that Bush created a giant new federal program without finding a way to pay for it.
''It's a new entitlement program, and I would have wanted to finance that entitlement with reforms and changes and adjustments in the overall program," Romney said. ''I don't want to add entitlements. I want to find ways to reform our entitlement programs."
On abortion, Romney repeated his explanation that he's in a ''different place" on the issue than he was during his 1994 Senate campaign, where he resisted being labeled either ''prolife" or ''prochoice." Now, he said, he is ''firmly prolife," but he said he did not know when the soul is first present in a fetus.
''Life, from a scientific standpoint, begins at conception," the governor said. ''I don't know when the soul, if you're religious, when the soul enters the body. My church doesn't teach that by the way -- doesn't have an opinion on it."
The only other time Romney spoke at one of the regular newsmaker events organized by the Christian Science Monitor was during his 1994 Senate campaign, and that time his father, George Romney, was at his side. In talking about religion yesterday, he quickly mentioned his late father's run for president.
Romney cited his father's early lead in polls during the 1968 presidential campaign and said that the ''great majority" of Republicans don't care what a candidate's religion is, as long as he or she is religious. He pointed out that Nevada and Oregon currently have US senators who are Mormons and that Mormons are loyal Republican voters.
Mitt Romney has long been active in the Mormon faith. He was bishop of his church in Belmont for four years, oversaw all Mormon congregations in Greater Boston for nine years, and has traveled to temples around the world to perform sacraments.
The influential conservative group Focus on the Family has said that the Christian concept of God is not compatible with the Mormon's concept of God, and the Southern Baptist Convention has labeled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a ''cult" that is ''radically" different from biblical Christianity.
Romney also said he believes that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York will beat Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts for the Democratic nomination in 2008.
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I'm new here, but this is a better introduction than I could ever post in the "introduce yourself" topic. :b
And hey, if you hate Dimps, I take a pot shot at them quite a ways down. I'm a fan of Dimps, though, so I try not to dwell on that for too long.
The basis of this theory is that there are two fundamental types of zones in Sonic 1: fast zones and slow zones. Scrap Brain Zone, as I'll cover later, is a mix of the two.
Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are the two slowest zones in Sonic the Hedgehog; Sonic can rarely reach his top speed in these zones. On the other hand, Green Hill Zone, Spring Yard Zone, and Star Light Zone are fast zones where Sonic can move faster.
Look at it this way:
Green Hill Zone (fast)
Marble Zone (slow)
Spring Yard Zone (fast)
Labyrinth Zone (slow)
Star Light Zone (fast)
This is pretty neat, isn't it? It goes back and forth—fast, slow, fast, slow, fast. Think about it, then... the player is constantly going back and forth between styles.
What does this mean for gameplay? Well, it means that Sonic 1's gameplay is developed through the tension between fast and slow gameplay. Sonic goes back and forth, from fast to slow to fast; this allows the two gameplay styles to develop alongside each other. Marble (slow) benefits from the developments of Green Hill (fast), and Spring Yard benefits from the developments of both Green Hill (fast) and Marble (slow); so on and so forth.
Green Hill Zone is the simplest zone, so it comes first, before any slow elements have been introduced.
The Spring Yard Zone is the slowest of the fast zones, often requiring Sonic to navigate bumpers or wait for moving platforms. This is because it comes between the two slow zones; the player has just left Marble and is just about to enter Labyrinth.
The notion of context is very important here. You understand something based on what comes before and what comes after. Spring Yard is in the context of two slow zones, one before and one after.
The Star Light Zone is the most dangerous of the fast zones, so it comes fifth. Sonic has finally left the game's slowest zone, the Labyrinth Zone, and as a result is rarely held back in his speed—he's broken free and now nothing can hold him back. However, danger is unrelenting as Sonic approaches Robotnik's lair, meaning this zone is equal parts speed and difficulty.
The Labyrinth Zone is the climax of this five zone sequence. (It's no coincidence that the final act of the game is styled after Labyrinth Zone.) Underwater, Sonic is slower than at any other point in the game. Danger is also prominent, since spikes are frequent, enemies are dangerous, and Sonic is in constant risk of drowning. After this, Sonic is free to move as fast as he likes in the falling action of the Star Light Zone. When in the Star Light Zone, I like to picture Sonic running down the right side of Freytag's pyramid.
One thing to note here is that all the outside zones are fast and all the inside zones are slow. Heck, the outside portions of Marble are fast, and the inside portions of Spring Yard are slow.
Think about Scrap Brain in that light. Sonic is outside in act 1, inside in act 2, and in Scrap Brain's depths in act 3. This matches what we experience, right? The zone starts out with fast gameplay, but as Sonic moves farther inside, he is slowed further and further. Unless you take the godsend of a shortcut, act 3 is perhaps the most sluggish act of the game.
That's, like, the tip of the iceberg.
As it is, fast and slow zones have arbitrary definitions. Sure, a zone may feel fast for you, but it may feel slow to others. Can we have an objective definition so as to clear up any confusion?
The answer, I believe, can be found in alternate paths.
In Sonic 1, fast zones have many paths—often three or more. Slow zones have almost no alternate paths.
However, Marble Zone act 3 contains an alternate path right at the beginning. Why wouldn't that be considered a fast zone?
Okay, fine, then; the answer lies with how paths are used.
Here's an example from Green Hill Zone act 3:
Boxed in red is an easygoing middle path. You'll notice it has no enemies, no spikes, no gaps to jump—just a flat plain ripe for running.
Boxed in yellow is a difficult high path. There are many gaps in the floating platforms here. However, should the player fall, there is a middle path below to catch them—there's a challenge, but there are no negative repercussions.
Boxed in blue is a difficult low path. There are spikes and enemies all over, and even a bottomless pit. This is a challenging platform segment, just like the high path. However, if the player falls from this path, it means certain death.
Fast zones are fast, then, because there is a constant tension toward a safe middle path. A high path provides challenge and is likely to drop a player off on the middle path. And a low path threatens the player with death, so the player wants to go back to the middle path ASAP.
Middle paths are safe and flat, allowing the player to speed through. And high paths have low risk, so the player can take them casually. If the player runs off a cliff on a high path, it's no big deal; they'll just fall on the middle path. Things only get slow when on a bottom path, and it's at those times that the player aches to reach the middle path again.
So, not only do fast zones have multiple paths, but also, those paths interact in a meaningful way. The middle path serves a purpose to both the high path and low path. When fast zones have more or less than three paths, interactions get more complex and interesting.
Note that this is in clear contrast with the Dimps school of design. People often complain that bottomless pits come out of nowhere in Dimps games. Well, Sonic 1 always makes players highly aware that they're on the bottom path and that they are at risk of death. The player knows to take platforming slowly and seriously on Sonic 1's bottom paths. At the same time, the player can feel safe on high and middle paths; there's no immediate risk of death. A player may fall from the middle path to the low path, but rarely from the middle path to immediate death.
From this, there are two important differences to note in slow zones.
Slow zones have no bottomless pits. Note also that Spring Yard Zone only has one bottomless pit—at the end of act 3. I'd still call it a fast zone, but it sure shares a lot in common with slow zones.
Slow zones may have multiple paths, but they don't interact.
Take a look at the two paths at the beginning of Marble Zone act 3. They meet at two locations: when they start, and when they end. There's no meeting point between. However, in the image of Green Hill act 3 above, the player could fall from the high path to the middle path at any time.
This makes sense, right? Slow zones tend to have small, tight corridors for Sonic to move through. Fast zones are characterized by obstacles Sonic can jump over or through; slow zones are characterized by obstacles Sonic must wait behind. For example, in Labyrinth, he is always forced to wait for a bubble to spawn from an air pocket. There's tons of other examples, too. Just off the top of my head, in Marble Zone, there's the chained platforms that fall from the ceiling. He's got to wait for them to drop before he can move on.
So, in that light, it makes sense that alternate paths in slow zones wouldn't meet at any points between the start and end. Movement is constricted in these zones, and freedom of movement is at a minimum.
That's all I've got for now, though. Is what I'm saying old news? Does it make any sense? I'd love to hear any feedback youse guys have. The fewer insults, the better.
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Invisible officer wrote:The mostly read manual of the ECW was John Cruso's Militarie Instructions for the Cavall`rie (His spelling, not mine )
On page 30 he started Chapter XXIIII about Harquebusier and Carabine. The difference between the two is that the H. has back and breast. So some of the miniatures are no H. but C. But I'm sure few ECW commanders cared for names. So we can call them all Harquebusiers.
He has two other troop types, the Cuirassier and the Dragon.
So for most ECW commanders any back and breast horse would have been Harquebusiers. Cruso wanted two pistols in addition to the Harquebuse. I see them on the pictures so.......
Following Cruso the H. had a larger calibre than the carbine of the carabine. His Dragon was to carry a musket or pike.
I think you can use the miniatures for many ECW units. They make excelent skirmishers .
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...it has its own Linux based...
...Anyway, I read that ext3 is only an overlay to the LVM structure...
LVM is the linux logical volume manager. Physical volumes are added to a volume group, and then logical volumes are created from the volume group. Thus it aggregates multiple physical devices (disks or arrays, or any combination thereof), and allows that space to then be divvied up however you want into logical volumes. Those logical volumes are "virtual" but they are still treated as block level devices. That is you specify a size for them, and you can format them NTFS, JHFS+ or in this case one of the linux native filesystems, ext3.
Another feature of LVM is the snapshot, which allows you to create another instance of a volume. The original instance can remain mounted read-write, and continue to be used/modified. The 2nd instance, the snapshot, will be frozen in time and will not be modified at all.
So LVM is a volume manager. And Ext3 is the file system, analogous to NTFS or JHFS+. However, Ext3 is not a file system that I'd expect any Windows or Mac OS based file undelete or recovery program to have any idea what to do with. And in fact it's rather tedious and complicated
to do file recovery on ext3 even within linux natively.
specially since this OS server is shared access, I can't do much as to accessing mounted drives.
Well, there are many ways to go about this: telnet or ssh is included on even 1MB firmware for wireless routers I use, so I'd think your RAID box likely has one or both. But getting ext3grep installed is non-trivial, but possible. That's the best bet. It is possible to take the drives out, installed in a PC, boot the PC from a linux Live CD, manually assemble the RAID, and then use the Live CD's package manager to install the latest and greatest ext3grep (even though it is a LiveCD it uses memory as a virtual disk so you can install software packages booted from a LiveCD, they of course vanish upon reboot or shutdown).
If I can't have a way of undeleting that file, I will be dumping everything off the 4TB and then installing WinHomeServer which I have a copy of..(I was considering FreeNAS).
Then move the content all back on.
I don't understand what this means. Installing these things on what? This Intel box? Do you realize the stock box has 512MB of RAM and no video port? I don't understand what this is about.
Just to be clear, the array is perfectly fine. As I said, I simply deleted a file I want to retrieve. Nothing failed, nothing stopped working.
Yeah I understand. But you seem to think that deleting a file is a simple event, as is undeleting it. File systems are not at all designed with this in mind. Any possible recovery is purely incidental to what they were designed to do, which is actually to reuse freed up disk sectors relatively quickly. It is much more difficult recovery deleted directories than it is recovering deleted files.
There is one other possibility here, which is maybe the logical volume can be exported read-only via iSCSI. And then with the SmallTree free iSCSI initiator (think it's still free), you can then point a conventional file recovery program to that disk and have it start scanning sector by sector for familiar patterns, i.e. images and documents. It will not understand the file system, but such utilities can frequently find files based on their content's pattern. The caveat is files often aren't in one continuous set of sectors, they can strewn all over the disk (fragmentation), so the files may be useless or difficult to get the various pieces located and then concatenate them together.
I hope some details above can help someone see a option.
Do a google search for ext3grep and see if this is way outside your realm of interest level. If it is, you will either need professional data recovery service, or abandon this data.
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Government of Lao PDR and UNICEF reaffirm their commitment to children
Vientiane, September 23, 2009 - The needs and rights of children will remain a key priority as Lao PDR moves towards its broader development goals, say senior government officials and the United Nations Children’s Agency, UNICEF.
The affirmation came at a review meeting – attended by government ministers and international and national partners – which assessed progress at the half-way point in the 2007 to 2011 programme of cooperation between the Government and UNICEF.
Chaired by Standing Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Somsavath Lengsavad, and UNICEF Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific, Ms Anupama Rao Singh, the meeting examined the achievements registered by UNICEF-supported programmes for health, education, water and sanitation, child protection, HIV/AIDS, and advocacy and communication. It also assessed the outstanding challenges facing a programme whose budget – set initially at US$ 39 million – is now set at US$ 53 million over its five year term.
In his opening remarks, Mr Somsavath said real progress had been made across the full range of activities targeting children. Among the most notable achievements, he said, were the 2007 national measles campaign, which succeeded in immunizing 95 per cent of children in the target age group, the improvement in primary school enrolment and in ensuring access to quality learning, and the enactment of a new children’s law.
“On behalf of the government, I would like to express profound gratitude and appreciation to UNICEF and other international organizations for their active support and contribution to the government’s efforts to advance children’s rights,” said Mr Somsavath.
For her part, Ms Rao Singh hailed the role played by the Commissions for Mothers and Children – at national, provincial and district levels – in ensuring that children remained at the centre of the government’s decision-making, planning and budgeting.
At the same time, UNICEF’s regional director urged the government to increase its budget allocations for children and women, and to invest in strong social protection mechanisms that would shield the poorest communities against external shocks such as the current global financial crisis.
“In terms of maternal and neonatal health, we have important unfinished business,” said Ms Rao Singh. “Too many mothers die in child-birth and too many young children do not thrive – or even survive – as they should.”
The mid-term review process was begun in June, and entailed evaluations and studies, as well as sectoral meetings involving UNICEF, the government and other partners, and children themselves. A number of recommendations emerged, designed to ensure that targets set at the beginning of the Country Programme are met. Among the recommendations:
- The need for greater geographic convergence of different programmes, thereby ensuring maximum impact on the lives of children;
The Acting UN Resident Coordinator, Mr Leik Boonwaat, said UNICEF was a key partner in supporting the Government’s efforts to reduce infant and under-five mortality rates, and to achieve other targets set by the Millennium Development Goals. It was a role, he said, which underlined the United Nations’ continued support to Lao PDR.
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Date Photo Taken: June 8, 2011
Posted By: jan-L
This plant with Blue flowers appeared in my nieces yard…and she has asked me if I know what it is. The flower looks like a larkspur, but the leaves do not !! And could it have started by birds leaving seeds ??
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Gen. Lew Wallace, circa 1861. Courtesy of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection/Library of Congress
*A local farmer sells produce, in Santiago de Cuba (top);filling out a state store ration card (bottom) ore than a million Canadians will travel to Cub
LENGTH: 30 minutes (7587 words)
In January, the actor Peter Dinklage surprised himself during his own Golden Globe acceptance speech. Dinklage had won the award for best supporting actor in a TV series for his portrayal of…
Without Spotify, labels know only when an album is sold. If a CD is ripped for a friend or borrowed for a party, they know nothing. Spotify gives them a record, by location, age, and gender, of every single time a track is played. Jay-Z used to think he was big in London, based on U.K. album sales; it turns out he’s big in Manchester. Spotify has discovered that radio plays—on real, terrestrial, electromagnetic spectrum—still drive interest in artists, as do Sweden’s summer talk shows. Sundin has a Spotify chart tracking Rihanna and Lady Gaga over seven weeks. Both show a bump on Friday and a spike on Saturday. They are weekend artists. Spotify knows when your party plays Gaga.
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Lately it seems like there have been a bunch of studies that are making both recent graduates and parents of recent graduates regret the last four years of their college lives unless they were business majors (and white men according to one study). However, we at The Grindstone wanted to point out some other studies and personal stories that show contrasting data.
As a former Brain & Cognitive Science major who became a journalist that has never even come close to writing about Amaurosis Fugax, which is the temporary loss of vision in one eye due to impairment of blood supply through the internal carotid artery, can attest to this much to the disappointment of my Neuro-Ophthalmologist father. Despite what my mother says about some of my apparel choices I am not destitute and have not had to turn to prostituting myself on the streets because I don’t use my knowledge from Genetics 203 (though it did help me a little when I watched X-Men: First Class).
According to Katherine Brooks, director of Liberal Arts Career Services at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “You Majored in What?”, assuming a job has to be tied directly to your major is a very old-fashioned way of thinking. Employers think differently now. Brooks said “knowledge, adaptability, practical work experience and the ability to analyze from a well-rounded perspective” are more important to employers than what you majored in and even which school you attended. Take that study on Harvard, Yale and Princeton giving you a better chance at a job on Wall Street.
And with some majors you may not even realize how much they can help you. Last month Google consumer products VP Marissa Mayer said the company was on a recruitment spree and was especially looking for humanities and liberal arts majors. Developing user interfaces is also as much humanities based as it is technologically, according to Mayer.
A psychology major who now works in advertising said “pscyhology helps a lot because I am involved in consumer strategy and also a lot of research/data analytics. I think a major could matter more or less depending on the industry.” When she is looking at resumes of potential hires she said “I am not looking for one major specifically, just if it’s in line with something to do with advertising. If someone was a biology major I would only wonder if they are genuinely interested in the advertising/marketing industry.”
Of course, some of those business-oriented practical majors can come in handy but maybe not for jobs you think they would. So this is for people whero picked the reliable, practical major but then went into a creative industry. One man who now works in digital content for MTV Networks said “I’m not sure if seeing “Economics” on my resume made MTV like me as a candidate more but Econ is the language of the business world so having a deeper understanding of how business works was definitely key to getting my job and doing well.”
University of Texas at Austin professor, Daniel Hamermesh, researched career earnings data sorted by choice of major and said “Perceptions of the variations in economic success among graduates in different majors are exaggerated. Our results imply that given a student’s ability, achievement and effort, his or her earnings do not vary all that greatly with the choice of undergraduate major.”
According to The New York Times, here are four reasons why your life will not suck if you decide to be a Classics major:
- Most people will graduate with a higher GPA if they actually like what they are studying
- There is a disconnect between what students think employers want and what employers actually want
- Transferability of Skills – if you’re good at art, you may be a really good architect
- You should study what you want to study because this is the only time in your life you get to do this
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Illinois Cares Rx can trace its history to one of the nation’s first pharmaceutical-assistance programs.
When the program ended July 1, it was one of the last terminated.
“To some extent, Illinois was a pioneer,” said Dave Vinkler, associate director of AARP Illinois. “Sometimes we do something really well, but we never take credit for it.”
The predecessor of Illinois Cares Rx was SeniorCare, which began during former Gov. George Ryan’s administration in 2002, though Illinois has offered various forms of pharmaceutical assistance since the mid-1980s.
During the early 2000s, high prescription-drug costs were driving senior citizens onto Medicaid rolls. By subsidizing drug costs alone, the state kept overall Medicaid costs down.
Between 2000 and 2006, at least 26 states started some type of pharmaceutical-assistance program, or SPAP as they’re known. The number rose to 42 by 2009, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislators.
By 2011, however, only 28 states operated SPAPs.
State programs varied, so it’s difficult to make comparisons.
When Medicare Part D coverage went into effect nationally in 2006, many states, including Illinois, offered better prescription-drug programs than the federal government. Many states simply wrapped their programs around Medicare Part D, enhancing drug coverage for their residents.
“Part D saved those states a ton of money,” said John Coburn of Chicago-based Health & Disability Advocates.
The steady decline of SPAP programs that began when Medicare Part D started has accelerated with back-to-back recessions.
Many states experienced the economic effects of the recession earlier than Illinois and took action a year or two sooner, according to Vern Smith of Health Management Associates, which researches and analyzes health-care policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Illinois has had to face fiscal reality over the last year or so,” Smith said. “It’s really required some policy changes to bring costs under control.”
Smith calls Illinois’ overall approach to overhauling Medicaid “enlightened.”
The focus has been on restructuring delivery systems in ways that have been proven effective in controlling costs and improving health outcomes.
“All of this may be a bitter pill to swallow in the short term, but there is a prospect of a better system in the near future,” he said.
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First expositions of the important thought of Three Represents
Comrade Jiang Zemin first propounded the important thought of Three Represents during his inspection tour of Guangdong Province in February 2000. He emphatically pointed out, "An important conclusion can be reached from reviewing our Party's history over the past 70-odd years; that is, the reason our Party enjoys the people's support is that throughout the historical periods of revolution, construction and reform, it has always represented the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. With the formulation of the correct line, principles and policies, the Party has untiringly worked for the fundamental interests of the country and the people. Under the new conditions of historic significance, how our Party can better translate the Three Represents into action constitutes a major issue that all Party members, especially senior officials, must ponder deeply ."
During his inspection tour of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces and Shanghai in May 2000, Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized again that the steadfast implementation of the Three Represents constitutes the foundation of our Party, the cornerstone for its governance and the source of its strength.
At the Fifth Plenary Session of the Fifteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2000, General Secretary Jiang Zemin noted, "In all the work we do, we must fulfill the requirements of the Three Represents. We need to ensure that all our measures and work accord with these requirements. If they do, we shall unswervingly stay on our course; if they don't, we shall be realistic and boldly correct them."
At the meeting celebrating the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CPC on July 1, 2001, General Secretary Jiang Zemin, proceeding from the perspective of the law of historical development and the need to advance with the times, comprehensively and incisively elaborated the scientific meaning of the important thought of Three Represents. He stated, "Saying our Party always represents the development trend of China's advanced productive forces means that the Party's theory, line, program, principles, policies and all its work must be in line with the laws governing the development of productive forces; embody the requisites for constantly furthering the release and development of productive forces, especially advanced productive forces; and steadily raise the people's standard of living by developing the productive forces." He continued, "Saying our Party always represents the orientation of China's advanced culture means that its theory, line, program, principles, policies and all its work must embody the requisites for guiding the development of a national, scientific, and popular socialist culture geared to the needs of modernization, the world and the future in order to improve the ideological and ethical standards and scientific and cultural levels of the whole nation and to provide motivation and intellectual support for China's economic development and social progress." He added, "Saying our Party always represents the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people means that in its theory, line, program, principles, policies and all its work, it must persevere in taking the fundamental interests of the people as its starting point and objective, give full expression to the people's enthusiasm, initiative and creativity, and enable the people to constantly obtain tangible economic, political and cultural benefits on the basis of social development and progress."
Following this speech on July 1, 2001, Comrade Jiang Zemin gave another important speech on May 31, 2002, at the graduation ceremony for provincial and ministerial officials who had taken a class at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC. He said, "The Three Represents is imbued with the same spirit as Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, and it reflects new demands on the work of the Party and the state arising from developments and changes presently occurring in China and the world over. The Three Represents is a powerful theoretical tool for strengthening and improving Party building and promoting the self-improvement and development of China's socialist system." The basic requisites for implementing the Three Represents are, "in essence, to advance with the times, maintain the Party's advanced nature and administer the country in the interests of the people." Specifically, the Party must adhere to the precept of the four musts: "The whole Party must always maintain the spirit of advancing with the times and constantly extend Marxist theory into new realms; it must give top priority to development in governing and invigorating the country and constantly break new ground and open up a new prospect in the modernization drive; it must fully mobilize all positive factors and constantly generate new strength for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation; and it must improve its Party building in a spirit of reform and constantly inject new vitality into itself."
In the political report he delivered at the Sixteenth National Congress of the CPC in 2002, Comrade Jiang Zemin again made it clear that in order to enter a new phase in building socialism with Chinese characteristics, the CPC must hold high the great banner of Deng Xiaoping Theory and adhere to the important thought of Three Represents. This thought is a continuation and development of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, and it reflects new demands on the work of the Party and the state arising from developments and changes presently occurring in China and the world over. This thought is a powerful theoretical tool for strengthening and improving Party building and promoting the self-improvement and development of socialism in China. It is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the entire Party and a guiding principle the Party must follow for many years to come. This thought was propounded on the basis of the scientific assessment of the Party's historical position. It is a strategic conception made at the historic beginning of the new century by the Chinese Communists who scientifically analyzed and understood the domestic and international situation, the tasks the Party shoulders, and the realities of Party building from the viewpoint of the destiny of the Party and the country in the future. It is a scientific judgment made by the Party based on the stand, viewpoint and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, a review of the experience of the world socialist movement since the Manifesto of the Communist Party was published more than 150 years ago, and an assimilation of the experience the Party has gained over the past 80 years since its founding.
The meaning of the important thought of Three Represents
-Representing the development trend of China's advanced productive forces.
The Party's basic nature determines that it must represent the development trend of China's advanced productive forces. Productive forces are the most revolutionary and dynamic factors in social mode of production, and they are the forces that ultimately determine how human society develops. The competition among all the forces in the world today is, in the final analysis, a competition in overall national power, including economic, scientific and technological strength and national cohesiveness. China's productive forces have grown fairly rapidly over the 50 plus years since the People's Republic was founded in 1949, especially over the 20 plus years since the policies of reform and opening up were introduced in the late 1970s. However, their overall level is still much lower than in the developed countries in the West. China must vigorously develop its productive forces and improve its economy so that it can gain greater initiative and a more favorable position in future competition in science and technology and solve its present economic and social problems. All the Party's battles during the 80 plus years since its founding have been waged to emancipate and develop the productive forces. The Party must ground itself on China's realities, conform to the trend of the times, stay focused on economic development, and make developing the productive forces its basic task.
-Representing the orientation of China's advanced culture.
Socialist society means a society that develops and progresses comprehensively. A society is truly socialist only when its economic, political and cultural development is balanced and a good job is done in both material and spiritual civilization. Only by always representing the orientation of China's advanced culture and working hard to develop a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics can the CPC achieve this goal. In present-day China, developing advanced culture means developing a national, scientific, and popular culture that is geared to the needs of modernization, the world and the future. The fundamental task of socialist culture is to educate citizens to have lofty ideals, moral integrity, good education and a strong sense of discipline. We must always take Marxism as our guide, clearly discern the orientation of advanced culture, and resolutely oppose wrong, anti-Marxist ideas. At the same time, we must clearly understand that Marxism is a developing science. It cannot be regarded as a rigid dogma; new experience and understanding gained from practice must be constantly assimilated and used to enrich and develop Marxism.
-Representing the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.
Ever since our Party was founded, its primary aim has been to serve the people wholeheartedly. Over the past 80 plus years, all our successes in both revolution and development have been attributable mainly to the fact that we represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people and are able to unite with them in their struggles for their own interests. In the circumstances of carrying out the reform and opening up and expanding the socialist market economy, our Party must emphasize working for the interests of the people more than ever before. The Party's greatest political strength is that we have maintained close ties with the masses, and the greatest danger since assuming political power has lain in the possibility of being estranged from them. Whether the line, principles and policies the Party formulates conform to the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people must be taken as the highest criterion for judging them, and whether the people are satisfied with and agree with them must be taken as their basis and goal. Our cadres must maintain the work style and the way of thinking of "from the masses, to the masses". They must be concerned about the people's hardships, listen to their opinions and protect their interests. Party officials, especially leaders at all levels, must be incorruptible and self-disciplined and share weal and woe with the masses. At all times and under any circumstances, Party officials must follow the Party's mass line, adhere to the objective of serving the people wholeheartedly, and take benefiting the people as the starting and end points of all their work. They must carefully study the new character of mass work in the new situation and integrate strengthening and improving mass work into all their work relating to Party building and consolidating political power.
The Three Represents are mutually related, complement each other and constitute a unified whole.
The unity of the Three Represents is a unity not only in theoretical logic but also in practice. Developing advanced productive forces is a fundamental condition for developing advanced culture and materializing the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. At the same time, the development of advanced productive forces is inseparable from cultural issues such as ideology, ethics, education and science because the general ideological and cultural levels of a given society directly affect the quality of the work force. The same is true of the relationship between the people and the development of advanced productive forces and advanced culture. The people are the main creators of advanced productive forces and advanced culture as well as the basic force to achieve their own interests. At the same time, the basic reason to develop advanced productive forces and advanced culture is to satisfy the ever-growing needs of the people's material and cultural lives and to continually ensure that their fundamental interests are fulfilled. Just as Jiang Zemin pointed out, "All Party members must continue to integrate the fulfillment of the requirements of the Three Represents with all aspects of Party building and with the Party's leadership of the people in the whole process of carrying out the reform, opening up and the socialist modernization drive."
In short, the important thought of Three Represents is developing and advancing. The whole Party must continuously emancipate their minds, make theoretical progress and break new ground in practice. They must infuse the important thought of Three Represents into all areas of the socialist modernization drive and into all aspects of Party building so that our Party always advances with the times and shares weal and woe with the people.
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Well, it looks like I did it all wrong. I told Mason she was sleeping. I told him to say good bye to her before he went to bed and that she wouldn't be here in the morning. He looked in the cage and said, "Bye Bye, Nugget" and that was that. He went to bed and my husband buried Nugget the next day. Well, Mason has only asked for her twice since he said good-bye and I am not even sure that he realizes the cage is gone.
Luckily, I feel like Mason will not suffer all ill effects from my feeble attempt at parenting on the issue of death. I guess I should have read the articles sooner on how to handle death with a toddler to prevent any damage and misunderstanding.
The best sites I have come across with dealing with the loss of a pet (or loved one) include:
Tip 1: How we handle this event can have a far-reaching impact on our children's understanding of death and dying. At all ages, honesty is the best policy. That means using the words death and dying, and explaining the permanence of death. You do it gently but without confusing what dying actually means.
Tip 2: A child's ability to understand what death means depends on his/her emotional and cognitive development. Here's a breakdown:
Under 2: A child can feel and respond to a pet's death, based on the reaction of those around him or her. A child picks up the stress felt by family members, no matter what the cause.
2 to 5: The child will miss the animal as a playmate, but not necessarily as a love object. They will see death as a temporary state – something like the way leaves fall off a tree in fall but grow back in the spring. As they perceive the trauma around them, however, they may regress in their behavior (e.g., thumb sucking).
5 to 9: Children begin to perceive death as permanent, but they may indulge in "magical thinking," believing that death can be defied or bargained with. This is also the period when children recognize a correlation between what they think and what happens. For instance, a child may resent taking care of the pet and wish – however briefly – that the pet would die. If the pet then dies, the child is often consumed with guilt. Parents need to reassure children that they did not cause the pet's death.
10 and up: Children generally understand that all living things will eventually die, and that death is total. Understanding and accepting are two different things, however. They may go through the normal stages of grief that grownups do: denial, bargaining, anger, guilt, depression and acceptance.
Tip #3: Depending on the age, the child may regress (sucking their thumb or temper tantrums that they had outgrown).
Tip 4: The worst course of action is to lie (to say the animal went away) or to use confusing euphemisms, such as the phrase "put to sleep." Children will eventually learn the truth, and lying can breed resentment and destroy trust between parent and child. It probably won't alleviate the sadness about losing the pet either. Likewise, euphemisms can cause anxiety or confusion because children take what you say literally. "If you say a pet is put to sleep, the child may suffer sleep anxiety.
Tip 5: Be available to let your child discuss his/her feelings about what happened. Children often become intensely curious about death and what happens to the body. They may ask for details that you may find uncomfortable to explain. These are questions you should answer in a straightforward, gentle and careful manner.
Tip 6: Show your own feelings. This tells the child that the pet was special and that they are not grieving alone. You can also encourage your child to open up, which can help the healing process. Grieving is an important part of healing, for both children and adults. Don't frighten your child with excessive grief, but don't make the subject off-limits, either.
We all know our children best. Use these tips along with what works for your family in helping to deal with loss.
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