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The peace camp and the challenge of international order
Jack Strocchi poses the challenge:
Now it is time for the peace bloggers to start doing their sums. If the US caves in, I issue this challenge to the most competent advocate in the peace camp: what will the long term consequence for international order be when the US is forced to backdown and relinquish global threat neutralisation responsibilty to the impotent and inept UN and the unwilling EU?
Given that Jack has adversely characterized the EU and UN, let me observe that the US is thoroughly ill-suited to the role of hegemon in which he wants to cast it. The US record in the Middle East proves this. The problem states in the region, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran (as well as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and OBL himself) are current or former US clients, and the problems we have now can be traced directly to past US policy. In addition, the US has excluded all other powers from intervening in the Israel-Palestine dispute, and the disastrous failure to achieve peace must be laid at the door of the successive US administrations who have asserted ownership of the problem.
The defects of past policy are entirely evident today. The first is a black-and-white notion of good and evil, which, when combined with realist power politics produces disastrous outcomes. One regime is demonised as uniquelyevil, with the result that all its enemies are regarded as good. In the 1980s, Khomeini’s Iran was the villain and Saddam was “a thug, but our thug”, using weapons of mass destruction with the tacit approval of the US. Today, Saddam is the villain and the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments are good guys.
The other, even more noteworthy defect is a short attention span. In five years time, Iraq will still be a mess but the Americans will have forgotten about it and moved on to some other concern. If anyone picks up the pieces it will be the EU and UN that Jack derides.
The alternative to US hegemony is a series of messy compromises, formulated on a case-by-case basis. I’ll post more on what this means in the case of Iraq soon.
It’s getting harder to read the tealeaves as the UNMOVIC report (Jan 27) and Bush’s State of the Union speech (Jan 28) draw closer, but the latest reports saying that the U.S. May Not Press U.N. for a Decision on Iraq Next Week seem to support the messy compromise scenario.
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In the five years since the General Assembly approved Rhode Island's medical marijuana law, licensed smokers have operated in a sort of smoke-filled netherworld.
Without a legal place to buy pot, they've been forced to purchase it on the street, grow it themselves, or find friends or strangers willing to grow for them — "caregivers" under state statute.
This underground economy has been occasionally scary (think cancer patients skulking around darkened street corners for weed), sometimes less than law-abiding (more than a few sanctioned patients and caregivers have ventured into the, um, unsanctioned), and often unreliable.
But it has also spawned a culture of committed, DIY growers who have taught patients the arts of cultivation and provided ounce upon ounce of free or low-cost bud to those in need.
The medical Mary Jane movement has been a messy, grassroots, colorful affair. And for better or for worse, it's about to change. In a big way.
The Rhode Island Department of Health is weighing 18 applications for non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries — sizable salaries allowed, but corporate profits barred. And it is expected to approve up to three of the "compassion centers" early next month.
If the applications for the new facilities are any guide, the medical marijuana movement will soon enter a whole new phase: think cooking lessons (mmm . . . brownies), yoga classes, and state-of-the-art security systems.
Medical pot, long a furtive exercise, is going mainstream.
Patients and advocates welcome the shift, by and large. But there is a touch of ambivalence:
Will compassion-center weed be too expensive? Amid talk of tens of millions in revenue, will the movement go corporate? And whither the mom-and-pop growers — and the culture they have cultivated?
The medical marijuana movement is in flux. And the transition story is, perhaps, best told through the tales of those on the front line.
Here are a few:
MARIJUANA MINISTRY Pastor Erik outside his church.
Just after 6 am on September 14, the West Warwick police burst into an old church on Providence Street and rousted Erik Johansson and his girlfriend Lydia Brindamour from bed.
Found on the premises: 183 marijuana plants, several bags of soil and fertilizer, a metal tub with a motorized system for trimming leaves, an extensive overhead lighting network, a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, and $565 in cash.
For the cops — and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which later filed federal charges against the couple for conspiring to manufacture over 100 marijuana plants and manufacturing over 100 marijuana plants — this was evidence of a criminal enterprise.
For Johansson, Rhode Island's self-styled marijuana minister, it was the raw material of a "true community" — something "beautiful" and "awesome." And for the rest of us, Pastor Erik's demise is a lesson in the promise and perils of medical marijuana's underground period.
Johansson's story is a little difficult to piece together. The preacher is tight-lipped about some of the inner workings of his ministry. And the authorities, with the case pending, are similarly reticent.
But Johansson, 47, says it all started about four years ago when he got a call from a Good Samaritan type in Florida saying that his father was sick, talking suicide, and — generally speaking — a mess.
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See how students and staff in the Fort Zumwalt School District are giving back this 2012 holiday season.
- The school sponsored a giving tree with gifts to be shared with a local charity for distribution to families in need this holiday season.
- They also sponsored a care package drive for the troops in Afghanistan. Students are filling a large box with personal care items, snacks and small gifts.
- Students helped with O'Fallon's Cornucopia of Care Food Drive and helped Dec. “ring the bell” for the Salvation Army.
- Make-A-Wish: his school year, we have adopted a 3-year-old-boy, Andrew, from the Make-a-Wish Foundation. By the end of November, Westhoff raised $2,773.65 to grant his wish to go on a Disney Cruise.
- The Pajama Program: The Pajama Program is a nonprofit organization that provides books and pajamas to children in need. Students are encouraged to bring in a pair of new or gently used pajamas to school December 10-14. All of the pajamas we collect will be given to local children in need. And, for every pair of pajamas donated, Scholastic will also donate a book!
- Meals on Wheels: Students colored pictures during the school day during the week of December 10-14. All of the pictures will be given to local elderly people who receive the Meals on Wheels program during upcoming months.
- Ostman held its annual canned food drive in November. The canned goods were donated to H.O.P.E. Ministries Food Pantry. Ostman Student.
- Ostman PTO hosted “Cookies with Santa” and families were asked to bring a canned good for admission to the event. These cans are also donated to HOPE Ministries.
- The students also collected toys for their annual Salvation Army Toy Drive. Toys were presented to the Salvation Army Representative at the character education assembly on Tuesday, Dec. 4.
- Fifth grade students will continue with their Bell Ringing and they are also collecting change to donate to the Salvation Army Toy Drive.
Rock Creek Elementary
- After viewing and hearing about the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy, Rock Creek Elementary sought out a school to adopt in that area. The New York City Department of Education matched the school with P.S. 254 in Brooklyn, NY. For the school adoption, students have collected school supplies and backpacks. this school is one of the many that are welcoming students who have been displaced or lost their homes due to the storm.
Fort Zumwalt North Middle
- Zumwalt North Middle has a holiday giving program again this year.
- They hosted a canned food drive prior to Thanksgiving.
- The school's Christmas Giving Tree will support needy families from the O’Fallon area by providing gifts for their children. A school-wide competition will raise money for gift cards. In the end, food, gifts for children, and gift cards will be provided to the families.
Fort Zumwalt North High School
- Zumwalt North High School staff adopted a number of their own families from North High to make their holidays a little brighter
- Students participated in "10 Days of Giving."
- Student Council hosted a “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” fundraiser. During this, students wore their favorite holiday sweaters and STUCO soldhot chocolate and cookies. All money collected goes to the newly established Panther Pantry Fund, to help students right here at North.
- Pep Club sold $1 tickets for “Holiday Video Classics Night” in the auditorium, with all proceeds going towards The Salvation Army.
- DECA students hosted a “Pictures with Santa” activity, with all proceeds going to the Hope Food Pantry.
- The National Honor Society (NHS) hosted the annual “Twelve Days of Giving” holiday campaign. Students and staff are encouraged to make donations over a twelve day period, with each day focusing on a specific type of donation. All donations are collected and distributed to those in need not only in our own East High community but through the greater St. Peters community as well.
- The Empowering Young Men and Empowering Young Women clubs at Fort Zumwalt South High School participated in St. Charles County’s No Hunger Holiday. The week before Thanksgiving, a turkey drive was held; students and staff members donated 113 turkeys along with cash donations to purchase an additional 60 turkeys, for a grand total of 173 turkeys! These turkeys were used to fill food baskets to help those in need over the Thanksgiving holiday.
- DECA collected almost 60 coats from students and staff at South High to be donated to the Kingdom House. Kingdom House offers a variety of services; childcare, food and clothing assistance, job training, youth and teen programs and Senior Companions. The goal of Kingdom House is to help others achieve self-sufficiency and gain economic independence. Since 1902, Kingdom House has transformed the lives of thousands of individuals in St. Louis.
- South High also hosted its annual Student Council sponsored 12 Days of Giving fundraiser. For twelve days, students and staff donate food, toiletries, laundry needs, baby essentials, paper products and clothing items that will be given to area organizations such as the Crisis Nursery, Salvation Army, Hope Ministries, Our Little Haven, Women’s Center, etc. to aid in their efforts for the less fortunate. In addition to these material donations, monetary donations are collected and given to up to fifteen South High families in need of assistance during the holiday season. This is a time-honored tradition that students and staff of South High School have participated in for over 20 years.
Information provided by Fort Zumwalt principals. Thanks for sharing!
Have information or another event your student/school is participating in? Let us know about it! Send us an email at [email protected]. Tell us in the comments.
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(CNN) - President Barack Obama's endorsement Wednesday of same-sex marriage didn't please Bristol Palin. The daughter of former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin took to her blog Thursday to slam the president for taking political cues from his two daughters, who she suggested were watching too much television.
In an ABC News interview, Obama explained how his family helped influence his "evolution" on the issue of marriage, saying his daughters Malia and Sasha have "friends whose parents are same-sex couples."
– Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
"It wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently," Obama said. "And frankly that's the kind of thing that prompts a change of perspective - not wanting to somehow explain to your child why somebody should be treated differently when it comes to the eyes of the law."
Palin, in her blog post, expressed a different view.
"While it's great to listen to your kids' ideas, there's also a time when dads simply need to be dads," wrote Palin.
She continued, "In this case, it would've been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that's not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage. Or that – as great as her friends may be – we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids' worldview."
Palin bemoaned the fact that Republican women running for office are sometimes quizzed on the role their families will play in their governing, but that Obama isn't pressed on acknowledging the impact his children make in his decision-making.
"So let me get this straight – it's a problem if my mom listened too much to my dad, but it's a heroic act if the President made a massive change in a policy position that could affect the entire nation after consulting with his teenage daughters?" Palin wondered.
The decision to back same-sex marriage was a missed opportunity for Obama, Palin wrote.
"In this case, it would've been nice if the President would've been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee," Palin wrote, referencing the popular television show about high schoolers.
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Hiring the right people with the professional, technical, and interpersonal skills needed to be successful is critical to the success of any organization. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, says it is the difference between a good organization and a great one.
Any search firm can find people with the technical capability to do the job. However, management and leadership research shows that the fit between an organization and a candidate determines not just the success of the individual but ultimately the effectiveness of the organization. We understand how important the fit is to the success of any organization. As a result,
- We work with our clients to discover their core values and purpose.
- We take the time to understand how they work—their culture.
- We listen to their aspirations—what they hope to achieve.
The correct match, after all, is the difference between good and great.
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Good news about the job market is rare these days, but here comes something to savor: The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased by a slim margin in September. This was, listen up, the first increase in the index since January 2008, or very nearly the start of the recession. The index serves as a leading indicator for the labor market.
[See the secret to finding a job.]
The index is made up of eight economic indicators, and September's increase was driven by improvement in four: initial claims for unemployment insurance; industrial production; real manufacturing and trade sales; and—from the National Federation of Independent Business—the percentage of firms with positions they're not able to fill right now.
While the Labor Department's September jobs report was worse than expected, this increase in the index indicates that the trend of declining job losses will continue, says Gad Levanon, senior economist at the Conference Board.
That's no doubt welcome news to job seekers discouraged by Friday's report that employers had cut another 263,000 jobs from payrolls in September, adding to the volume of unemployed, now reaching 15.1 million.
U.S. Treasury Chief Economist Alan Krueger had much the same message as Levanon. "We do see clear signs the labor market conditions are not deteriorating as rapidly as they were in the first half of the year, despite the disappointing news for the month of September," Krueger said on Friday, according to Reuters.
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Interactive Drum Workshops and Festivals
The best way to get practical drumming experience is to play! So here's
your guide to drum and percussion workshops and festivals that all have
one thing in common: They welcome your participation. So come on out,
sit-in, and play!
All American Music Festival
Choral Groups, Concert Bands, Marching Bands, Jazz Bands, Orchestras, Color Guard, Drill Teams & Dance Groups are welcome to perform as part of Walt Disney World Resort's Millennium Celebration. Performance opportunities are available year round for all types of performance groups. Check it out.
This summer program was founded in 1984 for kids age 9-15 who are interested in playing rock 'n' roll. Students can learn guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals and (yuck!) DJ. There are currently nine camp locations throughout the United States. During a week-long program, kids join a band, pick their band name, compose an original tune, and more. Friday evening the camp concludes with a concert held for family and friends. Check 'em out.
Held each July, the Vermont Jazz Camp is aimed at intermediate to advanced players. There are four bands and each band will have only one drummer. Activities for non-players as well, so friends and spouses are welcome. This year's special guest musicians are Jerry Bergonzi, Tony Lada and Mark Van Cleave.
Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
It started as a party in 1976, 25 years later it's still going strong: "The week where we revel in all things female, where we are wild and strong and sexual, where womyn are sacred and girls are safe. We invite you to come and join us as we celebrate the existence and persistence of this planet called Michigan." Check them out at the link above.
Northwest Percussion Festival
The annual Northwest Percussion Festival is held each April at the University of Oregon School of Music in Eugene. Percussion ensembles from universities and colleges from 12 northwest states and provinces in the US and Canada participate in the event, which has been held the for the last 16 years. Check out their latest schedule.
SIUC Summer Music Festival
Check out their Percussion camp (for all ages), it focuses on mostly on concert percussion but Jazz, Latin, and Marching will also be discussed. They hold a Jazz Improvisation Camp every year also, and it's open to high school musicians only. Check the site for the latest dates.
The annual World of Music Arts and Dance festival features more than 40 artists from all over the globe appearing on five stages, plus lots of workshops you can join. And all this spread out over 15 acres of Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington in July. WOMAD also offers other festivals around the world. Check the above site for a list of upcoming events.
World of Pageantry's Hawaii Invitational Intl. Music Fest
Bring Your Band, Drill Team, Orchestra, Flags or Pep squad to the World Famous Hawaii Invitational. An annual event for more than 20 years.
World Percussion Festival
Berkelee College of Music's annual World Percussion Festival is held for a week each June. If you're going to be 15 years old by June 25th, you can join. Check out their latest summer workshop schedules.
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(page 2 of 3)
Special Promotional Section
Sitting on a picnic table in the backyard of Barbara Pope’s home in Maunawili, one has a near-perfect view of Olomana edging up toward the sky, standing above the faint outlines of former rice fields and farms. It’s easy to imagine Barbara, the owner and principal of Barbara Pope Book Design, and her siblings, Deborah, Gaye and Jeff, spending their “wild” childhood days scampering up Olomana in rubber slippers.
It’s also easy to imagine how this place became the focal point of their lives. “I call it orbiting around Olomana,” says Deborah, the executive director of Shangri La. “It’s like the bellybutton is the grandparents’ place over there, the beach down there, the mountains up there and the homestead over here and life just seems to orbit around Olomana.”
The maternal side of the family hails from Portugal, and came to the Big Island and Kauai between 1878 and 1883. They were plantation laborers for nearly two decades before they moved to Honolulu, living and working in the city until the 1930s, when Barbara and Deborah’s grandfather, Frank Rodrigues, was offered a job at the Kawailoa Training School for Girls in Maunawili, where the family lived in a cottage on school property.
Barbara and Deborah’s parents, Gladys Rodrigues and Bill Pope, met when they were both working at The Honolulu Advertiser. A teenage runaway from rural North Carolina, Bill had traveled to Hawaii from San Francisco in the 1930s aboard a Matson liner and never left. The newly married couple lived with her parents in Maunawili then bought their first home in Lanikai, where they resided until 1951, when they moved to a 5-acre leasehold property in Maunawili. “My parents were both very glamorous,” says Deborah. “My father was a handsome, dapper, well-dressed, redheaded guy with a red mustache. My mother was a beautiful Portuguese woman with dark hair, very well dressed. They were an elegant couple.”
The couple wasted no time in setting up their dream life, adding their son, Jeff, to their brood of three girls, as well as a menagerie of guinea fowl, horses, chickens, rabbits, cats, dogs and a cow.
“My parents were like settlers,” says Deborah. “They had very different aspirations from my grandparents. Moving up here and buying the five-acre lot was a big deal and, in a lot of ways, it was a dream of theirs.” The Pope kids lived outdoors, spending their days riding horses, climbing giant guava and mango trees, swimming and fishing at a nearby swimming hole with neighborhood kids and hiking the valley barefoot.
“Because we were pretty isolated, we didn’t go into Kailua proper unless we were driven by our parents,” says Deborah. “We weren’t allowed to ride our bikes there.” Attending St. Anthony School in Kailua gave them their first glimpses of town life. “Going to school, which meant leaving Maunawili, and having a whole new circle of friends, sleeping over at friends’ houses and realizing that they could walk to the stores and each other’s houses was really a big revelation,” laughs Deborah. “You know hanging out in Kailua town, smoking cigarettes behind Kailua Theater was really big and fast. It was way too fast for me.”
Their parents later divorced, and their mother sold off the horse pasture and, in the 1970s, subdivided and sold off additional property to purchase the fee-simple interest from Kaneohe Ranch, leaving the family with a little over an acre and a half.
Today, the property consists of the Pope’s original house, which is rented out to a family friend, a smaller cottage next door in which their 94-year-old aunt resides, and Barbara’s house in the former horse pasture, which she bought back in the ’90s. Deborah and Barbara spent several years on the Mainland for college, but both felt compelled to return and start families. Deborah now lives down the road in Kalaheo Hillside and has two sons, John and William Foster. According to Deborah, both boys are total water people who love to fish and surf and continue to live and work in Kailua, one in the Legislature and the other as a boat mechanic at Kaneohe Marine Base.
“They both went away to college,” says Deborah. “They referred to going to college on the Mainland as ‘doing time.’ They moved right back as soon as it was over.” Barbara left New York City, returned to Kailua with her husband, architect Fabrizio Medosi, and had a daughter, Marie, a dressage rider based in Southern California who frequently calls home to say that she’s homesick. They suspect that she, too, will one day move back home.
Because the Popes’ mother had the foresight to put the family property into a trust, it’s almost certain that several generations from now a Pope will still be living there. “Even though we’re scattered, [the Maunawili house] is still sort of the navel of the family,” says Deborah. “I got married in the living room here. We had my mom’s memorial service here, and her ashes are interred here. My husband died this summer and we had the memorial service right here. It was the perfect place.”
Have something to say? Love us? Hate us? Send us your feedback via email or our social networks.
HONOLULU Magazine readers provide feedback for the February 2013 issue.
...on First Friday in Chinatown and the Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall.
...on the ethics of meat-eating, and driving cars.
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If you want to assume a high official position you have to be able to
answer these ten questions according to the official line, just in case
a reporter should ask you. That is, you have to be able to lie through yout
it illegal for Sumate to receive $30,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy
but not for Chavez’s presidential campaign to receive US$ 1.5 million from
Spanish Bank BBVA?
they charged a couple of hundred people for rebellion for going to the
Presidential Palace on April 12th. 2002 and not charged General
Lucas Rincon for announcing to the country that the President had resigned?
poverty up in Venezuela
since Chavez took power seven years ago?
children malnutrition up since Chavez took over seven years ago?
production is at normal levels, how come oil GDP is going down despite higher prices?
anyone in jail for corruption since Chavez took over seven years ago?
are the US$ 3 billion missing from the Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund?
this Government been unable to build as many houses in any of the past six years, as the previous Governments
were able to in any given year?
attempts have there been on Chavez’ life?
Danilo Anderson assassinated?
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Farming Magazine - January, 2012
Opinion: Vandals in the Veggies, Pirates in the Poultry
An agricultural forum for the progressive farmers of the Northeast.
A strong case can be made that the best pieces of basic wisdom come from rural or small-town America; you certainly wouldn't expect a quote like "The more I see of people, the better I like cows" to have been offered by an urbanite - penthouse or lower - apartment dweller. Years ago, the quote was considered to be of northern New England (dairy country) origins, but recent research has it coming from ex-Hannibal, Mo., (pre-Civil War population 2,000) native and author Mark Twain, who referred not to plural cows in general, but to his own "my dog" in particular. We don't yet know the provenance of "If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch," but it's fair to guess that the unknown author owned both large-paw dogs and ornate exterior woodwork, while the urbanite, then and now, probably owned neither. Recent unpleasant events in two sectors of modern ag - grow-your-own and contract production - prove both nuggets of wisdom to be on target.
The first isn't new, but each additional report confirms the strength of the Jeffersonian comments on the nastiness of urbanites - "mobs" he called them - as shown by one continuing behavior pattern: vandalizing the nearby gardens of fellow urbanites. In recent history, the benchmark example was the 2009 large-scale attack on the downtown private gardens in smart-growth Portland, Ore., a self-described socially advanced, environmentally sensitive urban center probably second only to Hyannis Port, Mass., as a place where such ungentrified behavior wouldn't be expected. "Vandals Destroy Portland Community Gardens," reads the header on the website www.OregonLive.com. The report describes in depressing detail the destruction of the entire (some two dozen plots) Earl Boyles Community Garden: not theft, but destruction, and by neighbor Portlandites. The behavior isn't new: back in the urban-renewal years, we planned for some of the newly cleared lots to be gardened (imported topsoil was in the budget) either temporarily, until reconstruction took place, or permanently, as part of the long-range development plan, and we swiftly learned - assurances from highly skilled urban sociologists notwithstanding - that such gardens were always vulnerable. A quote from Portland said: "They targeted the ones that were the most cared for." Lest you conclude that only the larger cities (Portland's population is 584,000) are home to both gardeners and vandals, this summer's parallel experience in Johnson City, Tenn., with a tenth the population, proves otherwise: its Carver Community Gardens were similarly trashed (and by non-hungry predators, as the several arrangements of vandalized produce left proudly displayed on-site showed) by night visitors for reasons that urban sociologists always excuse but never explain, whether it's attacks on gardens, public housing, schools or even parks, for no apparent purpose other than leaving behind the evidence of their ability to destroy. One expert sociologist recommendation: change the name to Carver Peace Gardens. Right. And a quick Web glance at the first half-dozen of 97,000 Web hits for "vandalized community gardens" brings up Flint, Mich., South Bend, Ind., Alexandria Va. (a first-grade school garden targeted there) and Republic Mo., where the vandals destroyed a grow-your-own operation on private property, not a community garden on public land. Without getting into the "gated-community" argument, the evidence seems clear that gated (and fenced, and video monitored and whatever else) defenses are as essential as seeds and soil for the small-scale operations, urban and suburban, that make up a growing (no pun intended) sector of the table crops market. It's not a welcome subject in urban-consumer circles, which explains why a recent Scripps-Howard wire service piece on the joys of urban food production gave not a word to the joys of urban food destruction. Where and why such defenses against vandals in the veggies are essential is beyond the scope of this column, but the ''why" is instantly obvious when you look at pirates in the poultry.
Contract growing, wherein the corporation owns the birds and furnishes all the inputs (feed, etc.,) and the grower owns the building, furnishes the utilities and the labor and is paid for weight gain at delivery, has been around in its present form since the post-World War II decades, and has contributed its share (and then some) to the weight of agricultural law ever since. The benchmark lawsuit - Baldree v. Cargill - was filed 20 years ago, and not much has changed since. As of this writing, the Federal court system has just found Pilgrim's Pride (the nation's largest chicken "producer" corporation) guilty of all the usual crimes against the actual grower/producer farmers these corporations typically contract with, and has "ordered the company to pay $26 million to dozens of contract growers in Arkansas." You can read a more detailed account in the October 4, 2011 Wall Street Journal, where reporter Marshall Eckblad wrote that Pilgrim's Pride closed its nearby processing facility and refused grown birds from its contractors in order to reduce wholesale poultry prices at the national level by reducing its own demand for grown birds. Why? Well, economics 101 teaches that gross profit is the difference between costs and sales. Whether piracy for gain is more, less or equally as reprehensible as vandalism for fun is best left to the reader to decide. Suffice it to observe that contract growing isn't limited to birds, and that, as the "localvore" concept gains moral authority to the point where supermarket chains are now contracting with nearby growers for a range of crops, from the usual table items to fish and, yes, even eggs, beef, mutton, pork, bison (!) and poultry, all the usual problems for small-scale operators, "getting off the porch and running with the big dogs" will be unavoidable. Stories from the automotive and retail past - small inventors and producers thinking they could do a handshake contract with General Motors or Sears, Roebuck and Co., for example, and painfully finding to the contrary, should serve as warning to those who would now purvey green beans to buyers ranging from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart. A 1992 article by Randi Roth in Farmers' Legal Action Report furnishes a concise (only six pages) analysis offering the 10 major reasons for the problem.
Her list ranges from the size of the grower's mandatory investment in physical plant, often needing a score of years of production to pay off, versus the short-term nature of the corporate contracts, putting the grower at the mercy of the buyer; to such surpassingly crude tactics as under-weighing deliveries, underpricing them by finding aesthetic fault, and even demanding a lower price on delivery using the time-tested "sell-it-or-smell-it" threat. What they all have in common is the small-scale, debt-burdened producer, engaged in an expensive and unequal legal contest with a large-scale, deep-pockets buyer not averse to such tactics.
Lest this column convey too much gloom - for smaller-scale producers urbanite vandalism, and for larger-scale producers corporate piracy - it would be well to include a couple of mid-scale examples of farmers defending their own interests quite well, thank you, in both cases by taking control of their own crop storage. One is almost 30 years old and involves a soybean grower who reclaimed his own crop from the bankrupt elevator that was holding it for him, as elevators typically do, as a "bailment," which means that the grower legally owns the crop being stored for him and can reclaim it at any time until he authorizes sale by the elevator on his behalf. His name was Wayne Cryts, and he did just that; a May 1982 story in TIME magazine describes the details. In the late '70s, with grain prices fluctuating wildly (a federal export embargo will cause that) there was a mini boom in on-farm storage, part of the reason for elevator bankruptcies, including the one in southeastern Missouri from which American Agriculture Movement President Wayne Cryts, with a small army of neighbor-farmer help, removed his own crop before the bankruptcy trustee could sell it on primary behalf of the elevator's nonfarmer creditors. Readers with memories of those years will recall the official put-downs of the on-farm storage trend, even arguing, after the usual quality concerns, that producers shouldn't be thus entitled to control the movement of their crops into commercial channels. Now, for the same reason - wild fluctuations in grain prices - growers are again investing in on-farm storage, a sort of part two of the Wayne Cryts story.
It's that customer demand that has encouraged tractor and combine manufacturer AgCo to acquire grain storage bin manufacturer GSI Holdings, as the Wall Street Journal (don't look for this sort of economic information in your mainstream media "news" outlets) reported recently. The headline tells the tale from the industrial viewpoint - "AgCo Buys Maker of Grain Bins in Big Deal" - but not from the grower viewpoint, which is that on-farm storage frees growers from such occasional elevator abuses as mis-grading, unauthorized sales, questionable pricing and so on, meaning that just a bit more of the wealth created when farmers grow crops with solar energy - a little physiocratic lingo, there - gets back to the actual producer and not to the multiple brokers and speculators, handlers and processors, and eventually distributors and retailers, each taking their cut between producer and consumer. A once-popular bumper sticker states the case well: Farmers Own the Food First; and that includes physical custody.
Which, of course, is one of the major strengths of the grow-your-own movement. These anecdotes show that at every size of agricultural enterprise producers need to defend themselves, not just from vandals and pirates, but from the nontypical but not-rare-either practices of the beyond-the-farmgate food industry.
The author is an architect and former farmer.
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Young Taylor spread his own renown as a singer, doo-wopping in the projects (occasionally with Marvin Gaye), in Brooklyn with the future groups of Frankie Lymon and Little Anthony, on TV's Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour with Gladys Knight, and elsewhere with Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, and others.
He set his future at Motown in motion when he moved westward. He earned a degree at California's San Jose State University in 1960, but his group would first assemble in Canada. Little Daddy and the Bachelors had one notable single in Vancouver, "Too Much Monkey Business."
In the mid-'60s, Taylor, guitarist-vocalist Tommy Chong (formerly of the Shades in Calgary), bassist Wes Henderson, guitarist Eddie Patterson, drummer Ted Lewis, and keyboardist Robbie King formed a promising band called Four Niggers and a Chink.
You read that right.
So...the group became Four Coloured Fellas and a Chinese Lad. Then, Four Ns and a C. All this to describe four white guys (three-and-a-half, if you consider Chong's biracial background) and two black guys (Henderson and Taylor).
Bachelors fans didn't like any of that. "Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers" was better. The group's energetic covers of Motown songs? Better still.
Speaking of Motown, when Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson heard Taylor and Chong at Vancouver-the-city's Elegant Parlour, they sent word to Berry Gordy. The Supremes' boss became Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers' boss in 1967.
Life at the Detroit company wasn't ideal. Chong the marijuana-smoker irritated at least one producer. As a whole, the Canadian Vancouvers were outsiders, and co-workers made sure they remembered that.
At least Gordy liked the group--enough to produce its debut album himself. The public was also fond of the Vancouvers' soulful "Does Your Mama Know About Me" (which rose to pop's Top 30 and R&B's Top 5), "Malinda," and "I Am Your Man." (Click here for the discography.) Soon, however, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers became separate entities. The backups stayed that way, this time for soul songstress Chris Clark. Lewis, Henderson, Patterson, and King later moved on to other bands. King died on October 17, 2003 at 57.
Although fired from his Clark stint (he left for a green card interview midway through an engagement), Tommy Chong bounced back. As half of the pro-pot Cheech and Chong comedy team, he gained far greater fame than he had as a musician.
Bobby Taylor made notable contributions to entertainment, too. Not so much with his 1969 solo album, Taylor Made Soul, or works at other labels in the '70s. More with his finds for Motown, like the Delicates, two of whom became members of the Undisputed Truth...
...and some kids called the Jackson Five.
Taylor's fellow singers at Chicago's Regal Theatre became his apartment-mates in Detroit (until white tenants' complaints led to their exile). He coached them for their Motown audition, accompanied them for their first recordings in Los Angeles, and helped shape their earliest hits.
Yet he got no credit on those songs, and Gordy deemed Taylor's own productions too old school. Around 1971, the ex-Vancouver departed from Motown.
Two bouts of throat cancer, Motorcity recordings and recruitments of other ex-Motowners, Bobby Taylor and the New Vancouvers shows, fundraisers, and youth conferences filled out the next few decades of Taylor's life.
Hmm, should I bring this biography back to race?
I'll say this: Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, together or apart, distinguished themselves with much more than that.
Even if Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers are your Motown oldies singers, perhaps you'd like to see more biographies on the homepage.
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Liberace's Candelabrum - A replica of a Louis XIV
candelabrum always graced Liberace's piano when he performed in concert and on
his musical variety program THE LIBERACE SHOW/NBC/CBS/1952 & 69.
Liberace first placed a candelabrum on the top of his piano in the 1940s to
give his act a little more class.
He once remarked during a January 1954 interview that the "audience seems to
sense my inspiration is extracted from the warm glow of those tiny flickering
In later years, Liberace used an electric candelabrum which he
brightened or dimmed by an unseen control.
When ridiculed about his flamboyant costumes and ornamental trappings,
Liberace answered his critics with his now classic comeback "I cried all the way
to the bank." See also MUSIC & MUSICIANS:
Back to Top
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Dying to be in the movies – the sad history of on-set fatalities
- by Robin Bougie
Accidents are all part of the risky nature of the film biz, and they only seem to intensify and multiply as you climb down the budgetary ladder. Time constraints and financial pressures cause the goofs in charge to cut corners and lose lives. Sure, most action scenes are pulled off without a hitch 99 times out of 100, but some poor bastard has to be #100, doesn’t he?
Movie Set Fatality Statistics
Stuntwork accounts for over half of all film-related injuries, and from 1980 to 1990 there were 37 deaths relating to accidents during stunts. The fact is, many directors aren’t going to get a nameless stuntman or three get in the way of that elusive perfect shot, which explains why men and women are routinely hired on to perform feats that, on paper, appear to be suicidal.
Even more expendable than stuntmen are extras, who really are the most lowly creatures on any film set. Even a pathetic whipping boy like a production assistant gets to boss these pieces of shit around. Extras will fight and claw and do whatever it takes to be immortalized on a few frames of film, and barely make any money for their trouble. They’ll stand in the pouring rain for eight straight hours, take the abuse of whoever cares to heap some upon them, and will even put themselves in the proverbial line of fire when asked. Countless pawn-like extras have been injured and killed on Hollywood chess boards, and will continue to be mowed down, blown up, drowned, burnt and crushed.
Notable On-Set Deaths
The Skywayman (1920) – It was the last evening of filming, with only one scene left to get in the can. But it was here during a night-time plane stunt that pilot Ormer Locklear and Milton “Skeets” Elliott were killed. The fatal crash was included in the released film, but today the picture is officially noted as “lost”, as no copy of it seems to exist.
The Warrens of Virginia (1924) – Promising 24-year-old beauty Martha Mansfield was signed by Fox Studios and took on this role a few months later. Nearing the completion of the film, Martha had just finished a scene and stepped away from in front of the camera when her dress caught fire from a carelessly tossed match by a crew member. Seeing his co-star engulfed in flames, actor Wilfred Lytell threw his coat around her to try and extinguish the fire, but it was too late for Martha.
Ben-Hur (1925) – The spectacular chariot race brought about the end of one unlucky stunt man, whose death was carefully edited out of the final product. Animal lovers beware, however: many horses can be seen being murdered for the sake of the movie.
Noah’s Ark (1928) - Three people drowned, one man lost a leg, and a great number were seriously injured in a scene where several hundred extras were caught in the Great Flood. The flagrant murdering of extras in this elaborate and difficult scene netted no recriminations against the filmmakers, although the introduction of film safety regulations for the industry came in the following year as a pathetic form of apology to the widows and children of the dead.
Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) – During the filming of the charge sequence, a stuntman was killed when he fell off his horse and landed on a broken sword that was lying on the field – unfortunately wedged in such a position that its blade was sticking straight up. Not only that, but thanks to the use of tripwires, three dozen horses had their legs broken and had to be shot during filming, resulting in the US Congress passing laws to protect animals used in motion pictures.
They Died With Their Boots On (1941) – Three horseman perished during the cavalry charge, one of whom was extra Jack Budlong, whose horse tripped as he rode alongside Errol Flynn. As he fell forward, he had the foresight to toss his sword ahead of him. Unfortunately, it landed handle down and stuck in place. Sound familiar, Charge Of the Light Brigade Fans? Jack was impaled on his own sword, and died in a L.A. hospital a few hours later.
Mein Leben Fur Irland (1941) – An anti-British propaganda film made by the Germans. During the epic final battle scene, several extras were killed when one of them stepped on a live land mine. The footage is said to have been included in the release prints, although I have not been able to find proof of this aside from rumour.
The Alamo (1959) - At the start of production John Wayne had a clergyman say a prayer for the movie in front of the assembled cast and crew, asking God to bless their work. A few days later between takes in Brackettsville, Texas, 27-year-old extra Lajean Etheridge and her boyfriend (also an extra) got in an argument. Unwilling to let her get the last word, he stabbed her to death in front of other horrified extras while waiting to be called to set.
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) – Stunt pilot Paul Mantz was killed, and another stuntman seriously injured when a rickety makeshift plane failed to clear a sand dune and violently crashed into it. A posthumous biography about his life called Hollywood Pilot was published two years later.
Shark (1969) - Stuntman Jose Marco was attacked and killed on camera while working with what was supposed to be a sedated shark. When the production company ghoulishly used the death to help promote the film, director Samuel Fuller disowned the movie. Even though Fuller demanded that his name be taken off the credits, the producers refused.
The Bell From Hell (1973) – On the final day of shooting of this Spanish/French horror film, talented director Claudio Guerrin Hill fell from the creepy bell tower he named his film for. Depending on who you care to believe, he either jumped or fell accidentally. Either way, Juan Antonio Bardem came in to take care of the post production duties after Hill’s regrettable end.
Comes A Horseman (1978) – Forty-year-old Jim Sheppard was dragged to his death while doing a horse stunt for this Oscar-nominated western starring James Caan and Jane Fonda.
Steel (1979) – A.J. Bakunas died doubling for George Kennedy in a fall from the Kincaid Towers in Lexington, Kentucky. When he learned that Dar Robinson had done a publicity stunt at the CN Tower in Toronto and broken his record high fall, Bakunas performed his own fall from the top of the 300-foot structure. The stunt double performed the fall perfectly and the onlooking cast and crew cheered loudly for him, not realising that A.J. had actually travelled right through the airbag and had slammed into the ground below it.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) – On Feb. 17th, 1981, while filming a high-speed bobsled chase for this James Bond flick, the sleigh shot off the track and smashed into a tree. One of its four occupants, a 23-year-old stuntman named Paolo Rigon, was tragically killed.
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1982) – During the filming of a segment directed by John Landis on July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow and child actors My-Ca Dinh Le (aged 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (aged 6) died in an accident involving a helicopter hovering above them. Without warning, the copter spun out of control and crashed, decapitating Morrow and one of the children with its blades. The remaining child was crushed to death. Landis, Steven Spielberg, and several other crew members were brought up on manslaughter charges, and were clearly in violation of several child labour laws. Chen’s parents also brought them up on a $200m damage suit without realising that rich famous people have awesome lawyers. Despite a long court battle, everyone charged walked away scot-free.
World War III (1983) – During filming for this made-for-TV movie, director Boris Sagal rather carelessly walked headlong into the tail rotor blade of a helicopter and was hacked apart. He is survived by his daughter Katey Sagal, who started in TV’s Married… with Children and Futurama.
Rambo: First Bood 2 (1985) – FX man Cliff Wenger Jr. was blown sky high during filming in Mexico when one of his movie explosions proved to be a lot more authentic than he’d hoped for.
Top Gun (1986) – Renowned aerobatic pilot Art Scholl died when his plane never recovered from a flat spin and plunged into the Pacific Ocean.
The Squeeze (1987) – Veteran stuntman (and close personal friend of Martin Scorsese) Victor Magnotta drowned while performing a car stunt in which he drove the vehicle off a Hoboken pier and plunged into the Hudson River. Victor was pinned in the car, and could not escape before drowning.
Million Dollar Mystery (1987) – Veteran stunt king Dar Robinson was impaled on a tree branch and killed after his motorcycle shot over an embankment during the filming of a high-speed chase.
Braddock: Missing In Action 3 (1989) – On location in the Philippines, a helicopter hired by the Cannon Film Group crashed into Manila Bay, killing four Filipino soldiers (who were working as extras) and wounding five other people on the ground. Strangely, this helicopter accident occurred the same day the “not guilty” Twilight Zone verdict was handed down in a Los Angeles Superior Court.
The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1989) – The largest number of on-set deaths in film history took place during the filming of this Indian made-for-TV movie. Brutally, 62 extras and crew members met their demise when a fire broke out, and they were trapped inside the burning film studio. Director and star Sanjay Khan suffered major burns and had to spend 13 months in hospital – undergoing 72 surgeries in that time.
Gone In 60 Seconds 2 (1989, unfinished) – The man behind the first Gone In 60 Seconds, H.B Halicki, was killed in Buffalo New york when a water tower he was planning to topple for the sequel fell prematurely, hitting a telephone pole that then struck him in the head. The sideburn-flaunting car guru was 48 at the time of his death. The film was scrapped.
Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990) – Five were killed in a helicopter crash during the shooting of this Delta Force sequel, and the footage they died shooting was actually used in the movie! The fatalities here were: Jojo Imperiale (pilot), Geoff Brewer (Actor), Gadi Danzig (cameraman), Mike Graham (key grip) and Don Marshall (gaffer).
Bikini Island (1991) – Stuntman Jay C. Currin was killed the first day of filming when a stunt-fall off a 55-foot cliff went wrong and he landed on some rocks instead of the airbag that had been placed to break his fall.
The Crow (1994) – Star Brandon Lee was killed eight days before the completion of The Crow. Prop masters working under time constraints had failed to notice that the previous firing of a cartridge had caused a bullet to lodge in one of their revolvers. When the first unit used this gun to shoot Lee’s death scene, the chamber was loaded with blanks which propelled the previous bullet into Brandon’s torso. The footage of his death was destroyed without being developed.
A Vampire In Brooklyn (1995) – Sonja Davis, a relative newcomer to the stunt industry, played a stunt double for Angela Basset. During a highly publicized four-story high fall for this unimpressive Wes Craven movie, she bounced off the airbag, and cracked her skull open. Her mother, sister and brother were all there to witness the fatal accident, and filed a lawsuit for $10m when it was discovered that the producers hadn’t bothered to have trained medical staff or an ambulance on set during the dangerous fall. An unspecified amount was settled upon.
Gone Fishin’ (1997) – During filming of this shitty Danny Glover/Joe Pesci comedy, 29-year-old stuntwoman Janet Wilder was killed, and her husband and father-in-law were seriously injured when a speedboat missed a ramp and landed in a crowd of extras.
XXX (2002) – Stuntman Harry L. O’Connor was killed in an accident when he failed to rappel fast enough down a parasailing line to land on a submarine. He hit a bridge at high speed and was killed instantly. Director Rob Cohen decided to include the footage with the final fatal moments omitted.
Troy (2004) – Bodybuilder George Camilleri (who won the title of Mr Malta in 1989) severely broke his leg during an action sequence in this Brad Pitt period piece. He was operated on the following day but suffered a heart attack thanks to a blood clot, and died soon after.
The Final Season (2007) – A Bell 206 helicopter used to film a parade scene crashed during production of this cliché baseball drama. Roland Scholtzhauer was known for his ability to get good footage while in helicopters, and was doing just that when they hit power lines and violently smashed into the ground, seriously injuring the pilot and a producer. Roland died instantly.
The Dark Knight (2008) – FX technician and father-of-two, Conway Wickliffe, 41, was on a camera truck filming an unmanned special effects car when the truck smashed into a tree, killing him instantly.
For more of Mr. Bougie’s writing, visit his site.
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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice. — The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
I was stranded in voice-mail hell the other day, navigating the ninth circle of my telephone company’s special torture they reserve only for their best paying customers. “Choose one to be further irritated. Press two if you enjoy having your time wasted. Press three if your want to enter your account information for the fourth time.”
Many voice-mail systems have an escape, including personal systems. Many companies, especially the large ones, have discovered that customers don’t like talking to machines and have disabled this feature. So banging on the zero key multiple times isn’t guaranteed to get you a live person anymore, but it’s still often worth the effort.
Some voice carriers who especially love their customers and the people trying to call them will then add more gibberish to the end of your personal voice-mail greeting, giving you further instructions on how to leave a message. This is usually unnecessary, redundant, and irritating. Most people who know how to use a phone know what voice mail is. I remember when it was a big deal back in the 70′s when our house got its first answering machine. It had little cassette tapes an everything. It was very cool and mechanical. Just like my dad’s teletype machine. Yes, we had a teletype in our house. It was an interesting childhood.
You can short-cut greetings by pressing a certain key to take you straight to the beep. What that key is will depend on your carrier. You’re going to have to do some research on your own to figure out what the magic button is for you. For Rogers in Canada, it’s “*” or star. The “#” (called hash or pound) will get you into your voice mail. If you’re not with Rogers in Canada, use Google to search for “skip [carrier name] voicemail greeting” and you you’ll find yours.
Tell your callers up front what it in your own voice-mail greeting, like this: “Hi, you’ve reached Bernie’s voice-mail. Please press star to skip over this greeting. [pause] I can’t answer the phone right now, etc.”
Easy, right? I’ll appreciate you even more the next time I get your voice-mail and you tell me how to get to the beep.
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The 2010 Jolly Holiday Guide: Top 10 Gifts for Good KidsThursday, December 02, 2010
Holiday shopping is kind of like washing down a handful of Pop Rocks with a pop. By the end of it, someone's head is going to explode, and it's probably mine.
But, since we all have kids that have done their best to get on Santa's "good kid" list, Cosmotot rounded up the coolest click-and-pick presents to put under the tree with prices that will keep you in one, non-stressed piece.
Called the Kindle for kids, VTech's V.Reader pairs touch-screen function with classic academic skills, creating the ultimate in kids "edutainment." Mimicking touch-activated capabilities moms and dads enjoy, V.Reader gives little ones their own age-appropriate, touch-powered controls, interactive animation, and a wide range e-books featuring famliar characters including Dora the Explorer, Shrek 3, Toy Story 3, Ben 10, Disney Pixar Cars and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to name a few.
Award-winning Hearts for Hearts Girls from Playmates teach children that they can make a difference. The newly launched collection of six dolls represents an international community - Mexico, Belarus, India, Ethiopia, Laos and the U.S. - where everyone belongs and each girl is working to change her community in unique ways to her home country. A portion of sales from each doll sold goes directly to help children from that doll's country, and each girl includes a friendship bracelet and story booklet explaining how the girls live and contribute to their families, communities, countries and the world.
Disney's Tangled takes kids 6-11 on a hair-raising adventure designed for the Wii gaming system. In this story-based journey inspired by the movie, kids will venture into a kingdom filled with colorful 3D environments, creative play, fun quests and competitive challenges. By mastering unique abilities, players can swing into action as Rapunzel using her golden tresses, pull objects and climb, grow flowers in "charm mode" and collect a variety of colors to draw and paint the Tower wall or collect sun drops to earn points. As Flynn, players can climb walls, clear obstacles, engage in sword play, and discover hidden treasures using his "Flynntuition". And, for those who like a little waddle in their Wii, Club Penguin Game Day lets little gamers create their own penguin avatar, then compete in a series of team-based competitions, including "Sumo Smash," "Java Sack," and "Fast Freeze."
Let little ones discover their wild side with the 3-in-1 Learning Zebra Scooter from VTech Toys. It converts easily from a push walker to a ride-on scooter, allowing babies and toddlers to explore new territory with a walkie-talkie, compass and flashlight. The zebra's mane features five light-up buttons that teach colors, animals and destinations, and its fun horn button keeps parents in mind with a handy volume control switch.
A passion for Thomas & Friends starts young in pint-sizers, and Learning Curve makes it easy for toddlers to get on the right track. Their Early Engineers line is as captivating as its classic, big kid counterparts, and each wooden set offers little hands chunky vehicles, sturdy tracktiles and simple destinations. And, since Early Engineers is compatible with any Thomas Wooden Railway set, the journey continues as your toddler grows.
Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is charming little literati all over again with its new Zoobie form. The three-in-one plush friend, cozy pillow and blanket combination turns the caterpillar, along with other faves like Paddington, Olivia, Peter Rabbit, Spot and Little Miss Sunshine, into playroom staples since they not only give kids someone cute to cuddle, but also a soft place to cozy up and take a nap.
For little ones with a lovey fetish, Kaloo has an easy-to-grasp, ultrasoft Plume Rabbit Doudou. The handy cotton blankie with attached microfiber bunny provides soft comfort while at home or on the go, while the ears and paws give little gums something to chew.
Have plans to pack up the kids and travel to far-flung places (or the grandparents' house one town over) for the holidays? Bring along the creative comforts of home with TravelKiddy. Their travel activity kits, refill packs and add-on options not only cram creative, brain-building fun (think Melissa & Doug art pads, coloring books, stacking toys, craft pieces, puzzles, baby board books, stickers and more) into an age-appropriate pack (versions for toddlers, big kids, twees and adults are available), but also include basics like travel tissues and band-aids to cover little mishaps while going nomad.
Help toddlers tackle their "I do it" ideal with soft seating from Pottery Barn Kids. Lightweight and cozy, their bestselling kid-sized Anywhere Chairs are more eco-friendly than ever, with recyclable foam inserts that contain up to 30% soy-based materials. Each chair features a handle that makes it easy to tote from room to room, and classic slipcover colors mean kids can choose a chair that's unmistakably theirs.
Join in a timeless Christmas tradition with Elf Magic elves that visit kiddos during the holiday season and report back to Santa with a naughty/nice verdict. While their primary mission is to spread love, joy and kindness, the elves are also known for helpful and sometimes silly "elfcapades" during the night. Each Elf Magic elf, whether pocket-sized or giant, comes in a velvety Elf-Size Santa Sack along with a name tag, magical North Pole snowflakes, an elf poem and more.
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About 30 residents of the Phillips Hill Road neighborhood in New City joined Clarkstown and Orangetown and state officials to criticize Orange & Rockland’s response to the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Sandy. Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack, Orangetown Supervisor Andy Stewart, State Senator David Carlucci, Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski and Clarkstown Highway Superintendent Wayne Ballard told the residents on Friday that O&R has not provided information about their crews or timetable for restoration of power.
“This is not their first emergency,” said Gromack. “They have not learned from these unprecedented storms. They have not learned. They have not gotten better.”
Gromack said unfortunately town officials are not getting any more information than residents.
“The elected officials have been on them every day,” he said.
Stewart said his major concern was getting enough diesel to keep Orangetown’s sewage treatment plant running. He said getting power returned to the plant was the biggest priority for Orangetown. An expected diesel fuel delivery of 1,000 gallons will keep the plant running normally through the weekend. Otherwise the plant would send nine million gallons of untreated sewage into the Hudson River.
The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) agreed to the officials’ request made Friday to send a PSC executive on Saturday to oversee Orange & Rockland. They also asked the Governor’s office to appoint a permanent Public Utility Monitor for the duration of the storm recovery.
At the location where officials spoke, O&R workers have been stationed around the clock to make sure no one goes near the transformer and live wires lying in the middle of Phillips Hill Road. Resident Beth Hecht said it was frustrating for people in the neighborhood to see the workers standing around instead of clearing the area to restore power.
Gromack said O&R workers could be better utilized if they were partnered with some of the county’s 500 town highway department employees to assess where there are live wires. Then the highway crews could begin clearing downed trees and branches and opening up roads.
Zebrowski said O&R management told them days ago that area wide restoration information would be available in two days and that did not happen. He said they could not tell officials how many crews were available in Rockland and where they were. Zebrowski said they asked for 10 O&R employees to be assigned to work with town highway workers to assess lines and that has not been fulfilled.
“It’s just irresponsible and outrageous,” said Zebrowski.
Carlucci emphasized as the power outage drags on more and more people were going without water, creating a dangerous situation.
“Safety is in jeopardy when people don’t have answers,” said Carlucci. “It’s really a failure of planning and management of O&R.”
Carlucci summed up the situation and said, “O&R is “MIA. They are put on notice for the crisis we are in.”
Eight state troopers have been assigned to Clarkstown to direct traffic at intersections without working signals. Police have been reassigned to patrol areas without power and are deployed at gas stations to maintain calm.
600 National Guard members are supposed to be arriving on Friday evening to help out in Rockland and Westchester. They will be under the direction of O&R.
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Blue Star Museums now number 1,500 nationwide
Sheridan County Museum is the latest museum to offer free admission to active duty military families this summer
For immediate release
Washington, DC - On Friday, the director of Sheridan County Museum in Sheridan, Wyoming received a surprise call from NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman, who called to say his museum was the 1,500th institution to join the Blue Star Museums program. Blue Star Museums is a national partnership among Blue Star Families, the National Endowment for the Arts, and now 1,500 museums across the country to offer free admission to active duty military and their families between Memorial Day and Labor Day 2011. Since the launch of Blue Star Museums in May, the number of participating museums has grown from 1,300 to 1,500.
"When we first found out about Blue Star Museums, we wanted to participate, and the fact that we are number 1,500 is great," said Nathan Doerr, Sheridan County Museum Director and Curator of Museum Education. "My goal is to make each of our exhibits family friendly, and share a local perspective on the history of the West."
The Sheridan County Museum’s collection reveals the varied prehistoric, social, and cultural history of this region, from its role as a key hunting ground of the Plains Indians to its tumultuous place in the western expansion in the 1800s. Programs like "Tidbit Tuesdays," archaeological digs, and the Junior Curator program offer hands-on activities to experience life on the Plains.
Another new Blue Star Museum is The Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in upstate New York. Founded in 2000, the Tang Museum was developed to promote active use of the museum by the Skidmore College community, foster dialogue between academic disciplines, and encourage exchange between the campus and the communities of upstate New York. The current exhibition Environment and Object • Recent African Art examines the impact of the environment on contemporary African life. Other newcomers are The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, California, and the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Visit the NEA website for the entire list of Blue Star Museums.
About the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the NEA at arts.gov.
National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
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Discovering the Beauty of Teenagers
The first line of the chorus from the song “Teenagers” by the band My Chemical Romance is, “Teenagers scare the living sh*t out of me.”
For most of my adult life, this could have been my mantra. Quite frankly, I found teenage coolness intimidating and always dreaded or avoided interacting with them. I’m also of an age where I can barely remember the details of my own adolescence.
Today, I actually really want to be around young people. That’s been a big change for me. I’ve learned I can connect with a teenager. I never thought that would be possible until I discovered Nunavut.
I first visited the region in 2006 in search of something good. Ever since Nunavut became a part of Canada just under a decade ago, there were reports only of its socioeconomic failures. Generally, when I only see bad, I know there is something good just around the corner. It didn’t take me long to find it.
Upon arrival, I met Lori Idlout. She introduced me to a stunning culture—one of gentleness, kindness and generosity. What I saw did not wholly reflect what the media portrayed.
Lori is the executive director of the Embrace Life Council (ELC), an organization dedicated to working with Nunavut youth. Young people in this region have a distinctly elevated suicidal and high school dropout rate. The ELC’s mandate is to empower these youth to act and think positively and to celebrate their life, culture, language, and history.
Despite my lack of experience with youth, I felt compelled to help establish the Innusivut Project after learning about all of this. The project focuses on coordinating multimedia and leadership workshops for Inuit youth throughout the region.
It was especially challenging for me to take this initiative because there were many barriers that had to be broken down before I felt I could connect with Nunavut teenagers. I had to earn their trust not only as an adult but also as a stranger in their community.
At the inaugural workshop last year, one girl who had been particularly shy earlier that week was sitting next to me on the komatiq (sled) as we headed out to the camp. She had barely looked me in the eye during the past two days. Personally, I was going through a pretty rough patch and was deep in thought, my head tucked inside the hood of my parka. Suddenly, this girl turned to me, touched me lightly on my arm, asked if I was OK and smiled.
In that precise moment, I felt I had finally connected with a teenager for the first time in my adult life. To this day, I’m sure she has no idea the effect her smile had on me.
There is a process to connecting with people of different generations, and I have learned to respect that process. It takes time and patience. I have realized, and this is probably obvious to most parents, that through all the coolness and indifference typical of adolescence, there is a heart that is as open as a small child’s. If this is true, then adolescence is a significant time in a person’s life to influence how they feel and think about some of the cruel harshness in the world before they get stuck with a certain mindset.
I believe art is part of an Inuk kid’s DNA. The level of artistic ability in the students during the classes was nothing short of astonishing, and when we show them what they’re capable of, it has a very positive effect on their well-being and mental health. Getting them involved in documenting their community encourages active participation, but it also turns the focus from death to life. Through this kind of communication process and participation, we hope that the youth will not get sucked into the funk that creates a cycle of failure which, in the worst of cases, leads to substance abuse and all too often, suicide.
At the end of one workshop, students were asked to invite their friends and family to a public showing of their work. I was asked to say a few words. I told everyone I had started the week teaching basic photography and ended the week trying to replicate some of the photographs taken by the students.
I also wanted to say that nowadays, the only thing that scares the living sh*t out of me about teenagers is their immense creative potential and raw intelligence. But I didn’t think that would translate well into Inuktitut.
John Hasyn is a Toronto-based freelance photographer. He began documenting the life of the Canadian Inuit in 2006 and hopes to publish a book one day. Over the next two to three years, it is estimated that 30 communities in Arctic Canada will be exposed to the workshops mentioned above which will help Inuit youth throughout the region find their voice in the world. See more essays on Inuit Youth and John's recent photos at www.johnhasyn.com. This story was first published in October 2008.
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WHITE PLAINS, NY, Jan. 24, 2013 -- Xylem Inc. (NYSE: XYL), a leading global water technology company focused on addressing the world’s most challenging water issues, has today signed a $158 million (€120 million) financing agreement with the European Investment Bank to fund innovative and aspirational research and development (R&D) projects across Europe. The deal underscores the EIB’s involvement in the water sector and is part of the The Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF) initiative run by the EIB and the European Commission to promote R&D in the European Union. Representatives of Xylem and the EIB convened today in Luxembourg to commemorate the formal signing of the agreement.
The funds will be available from 2013 to 2014 as loans to finance the research and development of solutions to a range of complex challenges facing the water industry, including developing new innovative and sustainable products and services for biological water treatment, desalination, filtration and disinfection as well as improving the control of such processes. The research projects will take place at Xylem’s facilities in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Norway and Hungary.
“We are proud to be partners with the European Investment Bank on this exciting initiative,” said Gretchen McClain, Xylem’s president and CEO. “Innovative and pioneering research is at the very heart of what Xylem does. As global leaders in water, our mission is to play a leading role in solving the multifaceted issues we all face in securing a sustainable water supply. This partnership with the EIB will enable us to invest considerably in market-leading research over the next two years.”
“With the financing that is now in place, Xylem will be able to enhance their knowledge and expertise in the field of water and wastewater handling technologies,” said EIB Vice President Jonathan Taylor. “This is of particular importance, as one of the EIB’s goals is to increase the potential of the European knowledge economy.”
Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology provider, enabling customers to transport, treat, test and efficiently use water in public utility, residential and commercial building services, industrial and agricultural settings. The company does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands, and its people bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on finding local solutions to the world’s most challenging water and wastewater problems. Xylem is headquartered in White Plains, N.Y., with 2011 revenues of $3.8 billion and 12,500 employees worldwide. In 2012, Xylem was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for advancing sustainable business practices and solutions worldwide.
The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all -- that which occurs in nature. For more information, please visit us at www.xyleminc.com.
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Microsoft this week revealed a new proof-of-concept project that attempts to use the living room space around your television as part of your video game experiences.
IllumiRoom utilizes the Kinect for Windows camera, coupled with a projector, to change the appearance of the room around your TV, potentially extending your field of view in the game and inducing an added feeling of motion.
Kinect captures the geometry of your room and then proceeds to project visuals in real-time onto your surroundings. Microsoft says that this augmentation can work to enhance the traditional living room video game and entertainment experience.
The company plans to reveal more about the project in April at the upcoming CHI Conference in Paris.
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"My friend Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer once found himself walking through the streets of Kolkata, India, so enraged by the poverty that he wanted to scream at God, 'How can you allow such suffering?' Then he came to a powerful realization: 'In the suffering of the poor God was screaming at me, in fact at all of us and at our institutions and social systems that cause and perpetuate hunger, poverty, and inequality.' That divine cry rings in our ears, exhorting us to engage these mighty powers in the strength of the Holy Spirit, that human life might become more fully human."
This quote made me stop and think. There are at least three questions, if not more, that I asked myself as a result of this quote: (1) Am I enraged at poverty and suffering in this world? (2) Am I open to hear God's voice directing me to join him in redeeming the world through Christ? (3) Am I engaging the world?
There are people all over the world crying out for justice, for help, for something greater than what they currently know. The question is do I hear their cries? Do you? Do we? God certainly hears the cry of the voiceless. For example, Psalm 69:33 says, "The LORD hears the cry of the needy and does not despise his captive people." And David declares in 2 Samuel 22:7, "In my distress I called to the LORD; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears."
Lord God Almighty, you who hear the cries of your people. We ask that you would give your people open hears to hear. May we hear the cries of those in need. May we hear the cries of those suffering. May we hear the cries of those in this world who still have no voice. May we look upon the world as Jesus looked upon Jerusalem and longed to gather the people under the shelter of his wing as a mother hen gathers her chicks. In Jesus' powerful name, Amen!
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Son of Sikh leader to spread father's ashes in India
MADISON - The son of a slain Sikh (seek) leader in Wisconsin has taken his father's ashes to India, where they will be sprinkled into a holy river as part of the grieving process.
Amardeep Kaleka spoke with Wisconsin Public Radio from the Indian state of Punjab on Wednesday morning. He said he had with him the ashes of his father, Satwant Singh Kaleka.
He says the ashes will be poured into a river that flows toward the Ganges River. Hindus and Sikhs believe the river is holy, and that pouring a loved one's ashes into it brings the loved one closer to heaven.
The elder Kaleka was one of six Sikhs killed when a white supremacist opened fire at their temple in August.
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Treasurer Cowell urges changes in tax code to steady state revenues and ease deficits
Speaking to the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, North Carolina Treasurer Janet Cowell urged tax reform, saying to the group, “The deficit we’re facing this year is directly related to our failure to modernize our tax system.”
Cowell envisions a revamp of the tax code that would entail broadening the tax base and possibly taxing services. In turn, the goal would be to reduce the sales and personal income tax rates by one percent. Reducing the number of exemptions for individuals and corporations is also part of the plan.
A more reliable tax structure would not only stabilize state finances, it would also make North Carolina more competitive, Cowell also said in the speech.
These reforms would attempt to get away from the up and downs North Carolina has seen in tax revenue over the past two decades. The basic framework for the state tax code was set in the 1930s, and the state’s economy has long since moved away from tobacco and textiles as drivers of the economy.
Cowell said, “I commit to being a leader on tax reform,” but she also mentioned the numerous attempts to make significant changes over the year have gone nowhere. “It’s a strange spring ritual we seem to do every year,” she said.
The NC Justice Center, a liberal advocacy group, has suggested fixes to the budget similar to Cowell’s plan. In a report on their website they list recommendations for tax changes:
* Maintain primary reliance on progressive income tax
* Have a minimum of five income brackets and index them for inflation
* Broaden the base of income to which the rates are applied
* Lower all rates, but substantially lower the bottom rates
* Enhance refundability of credits for low-income taxpayers
* Expand to cover more personal services
* Eliminate ineffective caps and exemptions
* Lower the rate
Corporate Income Tax
* Eliminate ineffective exemptions and credits
Adopt combined reporting strategy for eliminating loopholes
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Chicago’s crime rate is down, but it might not feel like it. This week brought the killing of yet another Chicago Police Officer--the fourth this year. Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis is up against a cash-strapped budget, so he’s reconsidering how the department uses the resources it already has. In this case, “resources” means “officers.”
Jody Weis (Flickr/Kate Gardiner)
According to a recent Chicago Sun-Times analysis, here’s how it would work. The department would
use the volume of 911 and backup police calls to determine how officers are deployed. The analysis found that this would entail reallocating officers from the North side to the South and West sides of town, where more calls are received.
Although the Chicago has long toyed with changing how it allocates officers, Weis says the CPD is using the same system it had three decades ago. Meanwhile, other cities like New York and Los Angeles have picked up on modeling systems designed to help allocate officers to areas with higher crime. That’s in large part thanks to a guy named William Bratton.
Before his current job as chairman of the security consulting company Kroll, Bratton headed up some of the country’s largest police departments. In New York City and Los Angeles, he used computer modeling to guide officer deployment. That made effectively covering more ground easier, as he explained to Eight Forty-Eight’s Alison Cuddy earlier this week:
“In both New York and Los Angeles, I had total flexibility to move my resources. In Los Angeles, I had a much smaller police force than you have now—I had 9,000 officers in a city of 4 million people. You have 11,000 officers in a city of 2.5 million people; That’s 200 square miles. The city of Los Angeles is 480 square miles.”
Crime dropped under Bratton’s reign in both cities. He says reacting nimbly to crime is key, but as he expressed on Eight Forty-Eight, it’s also important that officers develop relationships with the community:
“One of the things to understand is that like a doctor dealing with a patient, he not only deals with the primary illness, he deals with a lot of the other minor illnesses that might be contributing to the overall health of the patient.”
But working on community relations takes time and energy, which can be a challenge. Weis says reallocating police would help level the workload between officers and create a more even playing field. He’s expected to release a reallocation plan before the end of the year.
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1949 – He was born on the 12th day of August this year in Glasglow, Scotland. He is best-known as the lead guitarist and vocalist for the band Dire Straits, but has also made albums as a solo performer and played in other groups (such as The Notting Hillbillies).
1965 – He made a local TV appearance as half of a harmony duo along with school-friend Sue Hercombe. Like many other schoolboys of the 1960s, he served an early apprenticeship by forming and joining anonymous schoolboy bands and listening to guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, Jimi Hendrix, Django Reinhardt and James Burton.
1967 – Having displayed a flair for English at school, he studied journalism for a year at Harlow Technical College. At the end of the course he secured a job in Leeds as a junior reporter on the Yorkshire Evening Post.
1969 – This year, he decided to further his studies and commenced a degree in English at Leeds University.
1978 – While he was with the band Dire Straits, they recorded and released their first album, the self-titled Dire Straits in this year to little fanfare, but five months later a single release, "Sultans of Swing" became a chart hit and album sales took off.
1982 Dire Straits released their fourth album, Love Over Gold. Love over Gold showcased the epic soundscape "Telegraph Road", the humorous "Industrial Disease", and the #2 hit "Private Investigations", which became a popular live song.
1983 – The film “Hero” was released this year, Around this time Mark Knopfler was also involved in writing the music score for this film.
1985 – The band made over 230 shows in their successful world tour.
1988 - Dire Straits was regrouped in this year for the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at Wembley Stadium, in which they were the headline act and were accompanied by Eric Clapton.
1991 – The final original studcio album of Dire Straits “On Every Street” was recorded and which was released in this year.
1993 - He was made an honorary Doctor of Music at Newcastle University.
1995 - Mark Knopfler launched his solo career and quietly disbanded Dire Straits in this year. However, the band's keyboardist Guy Fletcher has been associated with almost every piece of Knopfler's solo material following Dire Straits' dissolution.
1996 - The year after Dire Straits officially disbanded, Knopfler released his first solo album, Golden Heart. Formed during the Golden Heart sessions, the main line-up of his solo band, also known as "The 96'ers", has lasted much longer than any Dire Straits line-up. In August the same year, Brothers in Arms was certified nine times platinum.
1997 – He recorded the soundtrack for the movie Wag the Dog. In October a hits collection of Dire Straits was released: Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits. It would, however, be three years before he was to release his next album, Sailing to Philadelphia.
2002 - Mark Knopfler did four charity concerts with Dire Straits members John Illsley, Chris White, Danny Cummings and Guy Fletcher playing some old Dire Straits songs. The session also included The Notting Hillbillies. He also released his third solo album, The Ragpicker's Dream.
2004 – He was involved in a motorbike crash in Grosevnor Rd., Belgravia. He was severely injured. The accident was caused by a South American woman who was in England illegally and was subsequently deported. The planned Ragpicker's Dream tour was subsequently cancelled, but he recovered and was able to return to the stage in this year for his fourth album, Shangri-La.
This page is copyright © s9.com
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Church of England vote to allow women bishops could be derailed
A vote to allow women bishops in the Church of England looks set to be derailed by its own supporters, who say a last-minute concession to conservative opponents is a step too far.
Pro-women bishop campaigners want a final vote at the church’s General Synod, or parliament, on Monday to be delayed so the amendment can be sent back to the House of Bishops for reconsideration.
Before the amendment, future women bishops would have been obliged under a code of practice yet to be written to find a “suitable” alternative male bishop for dissenting parishes.
The amendment would go further, requiring them to find one who “shares the same theological convictions” as the dissenting parish.
Critics of the amendment say the change suggests a future woman bishop could not be trusted to appoint a suitable alternative male bishop for those parishes who request one.
Rachel Weir, chairwoman of WATCH, a group that campaigns for women bishops, said: “There is something deeply offensive about needing to put in something saying ‘well, we don’t trust you to do this so we’re going to make sure you do’ in the legislation. What that says is quite shocking really.”
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In 1979 and 1980, Barry Treash -- then a vice-president at Beneficial Standard Life Insurance Company -- was involved in a kickback scheme that essentially defrauded his employer out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 1984, Treash was convicted of mail fraud and income tax evasion stemming from this scheme.
Would you do business today with someone who had been convicted of fraud twenty years before? I might; twenty years is a long time. But I’d be extra cautious, and I’d consider it valuable to know about the man’s past history.
In any case, Barry Treash is indeed in business now; he runs Readylink Healthcare, “a staffing company linking nurses to hospitals.” Treash got into a tiff with lawyer David Lynch (details here), and Lynch put up a note on his Web site soliciting clients who might be interested in suing Readylink. After further legal skirmishing, Lynch added extra pages that revealed Treash’s history.
So Treash turns around and sues Lynch for, among other things, invasion of privacy, specifically the disclosure of privacy facts. Lynch, the legal theory goes, is legally barred from publishing even truthful accounts of Treash’s past criminal convictions.
That, I think, would make for a very bad legal rule. Some people may take a forgive-and-forget attitude towards past crimes. But others may not. We should be entitled to decide for ourselves how much weight to give to such information, without the legal system forbidding others from speaking to us about these matters.
Unfortunately, for several decades, California courts did indeed take the view that accurately discussing people's crimes from a decade or more ago could lead to legal liability. Such speech, a discussion in a 1971 California Supreme Court said, serves no "public purpose" and is not "of legitimate public interest"; there is no "reason whatsoever" for it, when (in the court's view) the plaintiff has been "rehabilitated" and has "paid his debt to society."
"[W]e, as right-thinking members of society" -- yes, the court did say "right-thinking," and not, I think, ironically -- "should permit him to continue in the path of rectitude rather than throw him back into a life of shame or crime" by revealing his past. "Ideally, [the convicted criminal's] neighbors should recognize his present worth and forget his past life of shame. But men are not so divine as to forgive the past trespasses of others, and plaintiff therefore endeavored to reveal as little as possible of his past life." And to assist plaintiffs in what the court apparently thought was a worthy effort at concealment, the law may bar people from saying things that would interfere with the convicted criminals' plans -- even when the speakers and the listeners take a somewhat different view of what's "right-thinking" than the court does.
Fortunately, in 2004, the California Supreme Court realized that under modern First Amendment law, this view is unsound, and “a media defendant may [not] be held liable” for publishing “facts obtained from public official court records.” And, the court held, this was true regardless of whether a judge or jury decided that the facts were “newsworthy” (an unpredictable and subjective standard).
But, back to unfortunately, this still leaves open the question that the Treash v. Lynch litigation -- now called Readylink Healthcare v. Lynch -- raises: Is this right to speak applicable to all speakers, or does it indeed distinguish “media defendant[s]” from nonmedia speakers who are “motivated by malice or intent to gain commercial advantage”? The federal court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit just certified this question as a matter of state law to the California Supreme Court; if the California court concludes that California law categorically protects such nonmedia speakers, the matter will be settled; if the court concludes that such speakers may indeed be held liable for such true speech, then the Ninth Circuit will have to decide whether the First Amendment allows such liability.
I expect that the courts will ultimately rule in favor of the speakers -- and I think that’s exactly right. First Amendment principles should apply to all speakers, whether or not they are parts of the institutional media; and this is of course even more clear now that the media / nonmedia line is blurrier than ever. Newspapers can clearly write about Treash’s past. Presumably I can do the same, since it’s hard to see why I should have fewer First Amendment rights than a small-town newspaper that may have no more readers than this blog does. I take it that Lynch could do the same on a blog that Lynch runs. How can the law sensibly distinguish Lynch’s site from his blog, Lynch’s blog from my blog, or my blog from the Siskiyou Daily News (circulation 6000)?
Nor should it matter that Lynch is "motivated by malice or intent to gain commercial advantage." Newspapers and other media outlets are of course often motivated by an intent to gain commercial advantage. (Our economy generally and copyright law in particular rests on the notion that a desire to gain commercial advantage is generally good, and the law should harness it as a means of producing valuable goods and important speech, rather than condemning it.) And investigative newspaper reporters are often motivated at least in part by hostility to the bad guys they’re covering. Larry Flynt, who published the scurrilous (but constitutionally protected) attack on Jerry Falwell in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, was likely largely motivated by malice against Falwell. Free speech protection that can be lost simply because a jury finds that you spoke out of “malice” is not much of a protection.
Should this disclosure-of-private-facts tort exist? I think the answer should generally be “no,” for reasons I’ve discussed at much greater length here. Perhaps there ought to be a narrow and well-defined exception for speech that reveals private facts and yet genuinely has virtually no plausible value other than tittilation -- I have in mind, for instance, a tort that would be limited to the unauthorized publication of nude photographs or sex videos (a matter that has been in the news in recent years). I’m not enthusiastic about even such a clear and narrow exception, because of the risk that the narrow exception would be used as a justification for much broader ones; but at least if the exception is kept clear and narrow, relatively little of value would be lost.
But whatever you think about the disclosure tort in other contexts, here we’re dealing with our ability to speak about public events -- a trial and a conviction -- which may still be quite relevant to people’s behavior today. Our freedom to speak about such matters shouldn’t hinge on ad hoc decisions by judges and juries about what’s “newsworthy,” or for that matter who’s a member of the “media” and who isn’t.
[TECHNICAL NOTE FOR LAW GEEKS: Howard Bashman (How Appealing) asks a good question about the terms of the Ninth Circuit's certification to the California Supreme Court; I'd guess that the Ninth Circuit meant to ask the California Supreme Court about the nature of the California disclosure tort, which the California Supreme Court has been developing (albeit in light of the First Amendment), but I agree that literally the questions also ask the California Supreme Court's view on a purely federal constitutional issue, which is an odd thing for a federal court to do; see also this follow-up from a How Appealing reader.]
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Datamosh? (The “forbidden” but harmlessly meaningless word?) Video squishification? Mushy data?
Call it what you will, but applying real-time distortion and displacement to video so that video textures become flowing layers of pixels looks absolutely beautiful. Andrew Benson of Cycling ‘74 has only just begun playing with this in Jitter using GLSL shaders, and already the results are really compelling. (For a simpler example that looks more like the compression artifact technique we’ve seen recently, have a look at the second video – though, personally, I like the more sophisticated, layered approach of the video at top. This is going some very cool places.)
This is a Jitter patch, but would be simple enough to port to code for Processing, FreeFrameGL (which implements shader code), or other tools, too, in case you can’t bear being away from your moshness.
I recently posted a couple of Jitter patches and shaders that implement a really basic optical-flow based distortion effect (think realtime datamosh, among others) on the Jitter forums:
New Distortions [message #169387]
Super fun to play with. Another excuse to dance in front of your computer, or a way to convince others to do so. PUSHING PIXELS.
The idea came out of some R&D that I was doing for a current collaborative live video thing I’m working on, and the implementation from some random notes on websites scattered around the internets. It all kinda happened by accident while I was distracted… Hope you enjoy.
I’m actually quite interested to see a performance comparison with OpenCV tools for the same technique – and, likewise, how computer vision routines in general can be warped to these sorts of aesthetic purposes. Thanks for this, Andrew, and if this inspires other folks to develop this more, I’d love to see the results / patches / code!
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September 14, 2009
Graves defaced in Argentina include terror victims
Graves belonging to AMIA Jewish Center attack victims were among those vandalized in an Argentine Jewish cemetery.
Fifty-eight headstones at the La Tablada Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires province were defaced between Sept. 11 and 12. Eight belonged to victims of the 1994 center bombing, which killed 85.
“All the investment in security made in the cemetery was not enough?” asked Olga Degtiar, mother of Cristian Degtiar, who was killed in the AMIA bombing.
The president of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Maria Jose Lubertino, said the attack was an “evident anti-Semitic aggression.” Jewish leaders denounced the vandalism.
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A common question is how to compare Fedora and Debian in terms of recent updates and support. I think that Fedora Rawhide and Debian/Unstable are fairly equivalent in this regard, new upstream releases get packaged quickly, and support is minimal. They are both aimed at developers only, but it seems that a reasonable number of people are running servers on Debian/Unstable.
Fedora releases (previously known as “Fedora Core” and now merely as “Fedora”) can be compared to Debian/Testing. The aim is that Fedora releases every 6 months and each release is supported until a release two versions greater is about to be released (which means that it’s about a year of support). The support however often involves replacing the upstream version of the program used to make a package (EG Fedora Core 5 went from kernel 2.6.15 to kernel 2.6.20). I believe that the delays involved in migrating a package from Debian/Unstable to Debian/Testing as well as the dependency requirements mean that you can get a similar experience running Debian/Testing as you might get from Fedora.
Stable releases of Debian are rare and the updates are few in number and small in scope (generally back-porting fixes not packaging new upstream versions). This can be compared to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or CentOS (a free re-compile of RHEL with minor changes).
Regarding stability and support (in terms of package updates) I think that Debian/Stable, RHEL, and CentOS are at about the same level. RHEL has some significant benefits in terms of phone support (which is of very high quality). But if you don’t want to pay for phone support then CentOS and Debian/Stable are both good choices. Recently I’ve been rolling out a bunch of CentOS 5 machines for clients who don’t want to pay for RHEL and don’t want to pay for extensive customisation of the installation (a quick kickstart install is what they want). The benefit of Fedora and Debian/Testing over RHEL, CentOS, and Debian/Stable is that they get newer packages sooner. This is significant when using programs such as OpenOffice which have a steady development upstream that provides features that users demand.
If you want to try new features then Fedora and Debian/Testing are both options that will work. One reason I had been avoiding serious use of Debian/Testing is that it had no strategy for dealing with security fixes, but it seems that there are now security updates for Testing (I had not realised this until today).
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Imagine being the daughter of America’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton. The innate writing talent, the lesson skills taught, (see Passing It Along), and the absolute love of words shared. Now, on the other hand, consider growing up as Linda Gray Sexton (Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton, Other works in Bibliography) and being raised by this publicly revered mother who suffered from severe depression, alcoholism, and suicide attempts that required stays in mental institutions. These far too many absences that forced being shifted to live with grandmothers and other relatives, while causing you to wonder — on your mother’s return home — whether she would keep her promise and not leave again.
When Linda Gray Sexton was barely twenty-one, her mother successfully committed suicide and was — at least — physically gone forever. However, in her just released memoir Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide, the author takes readers on her own brutal journey of depression, pain, and overwhelming sense of loss that led her to three suicide attempts. Like her mother, Linda promised her children she would never leave them yet the bond to be with her mother again always proved (not quite) stronger.
From the book’s inside jacket flap:
After the agony of witnessing her mother’s multiple—and ultimately successful—suicide attempts, Linda Gray Sexton, daughter of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton, struggles with an engulfing undertow of depression. Here, with powerful, unsparing prose, Sexton conveys her urgent need to escape the legacy of suicide that consumed her family—a topic rarely explored, even today, in such poignant depth.
Linda Gray Sexton tried multiple times to kill herself—even though as a daughter, sister, wife, and most importantly, a mother, she knew the pain her act would cause. But unlike her mother’s story, Linda’s is ultimately one of triumph. Through the help of family, therapy, and medicine, she confronts deep-seated issues and curbs the haunting cycle of suicide she once seemed destined to inherit.
Also you may read an Excerpt of Half in Love.
According to the author, the title “Half in Love” is taken from the Keat’s epigraph for the memoir which reads: “I have been half in love with easeful death, called him soft names in many a mused rhyme…” And, in relating this to her own experiences, Linda says “…it refers to being half in love with death, and then coming to be fully in love with life.”
In fact as she answered the question, The best age for you? in an interview from The Great Women Series, Linda said: “My fifties. I have come into my own and defeated my depression. I am writing again, conversing with other writers again. I have reclaimed my life.”
Now living with joy rather than pain, wouldn’t one wonder why the author chose to write about her past? Well, in the blog post — Why Write Memoir? — she addresses just that:
“It’s a difficult question. How do you protect the ones you love and still write about a topic you believe needs to be made public and to be discussed?
“In the United States today, someone kills him or herself every seventeen minutes, a million commit suicide worldwide annually, and suicide outranks homicide two to one. You could say that if you are depressed, your own hand is more dangerous than a gun.”
Startling and horrifying statistics, aren’t they? And yet they create the reason to read this book.
As Erica Jong praised: “A vivid and daring exploration of survival from the author of Searching for Mercy Street, Linda Sexton’s beautiful book is a cry for health and sanity.”
Although the subject matter of Linda’s writing is not an easy read, it is fascinating as well as more important than ever. Early in the memoir she notes that during the 50’s, 60’s, and beginning of the 70’s — when her mother struggled with mental illness and lost the battle — it was a disease difficult to diagnose, treat, and medicate properly. Support groups were non-existent and families either tried to ignore or hide a loved one’s severe psychological problem.
However that was then and this is now so The Divining Wand asked why she thought modern medical and therapy strides aren’t making a difference in saving someone from committing suicide every seventeen minutes?
Linda Gray Sexton said: “I think there is still a stigma about mental illness and suicide that makes people reluctant to talk about it. I am getting scads of mail since the book was published from those who feel that someone has at last spoken up for them. I do think that there are strides being made medically in terms of psychoactive drugs, but it takes a long time for these things to penetrate the general population. Who knows what the statistics were a decade ago? And those statistics were undoubtedly colored by the fact that people were reluctant to let others know that their loved ones had died by their own hand. Even today, how many times do you read an obituary that seems extremely vague about the cause of death? We just have to keep plugging away at it, talking about it openly and continuing to support those who live with us, or to whom we are connected, to take their meds and see their psychiatrists. Don’t let depressed people fade out of your life.”
Hopefully the author’s brave and intensely compelling telling of Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide will offer hope and help to others facing a similar situation. For those fortunate enough not having to deal firsthand with mental illness, may it give a better understanding and willingness for support. And to those readers who simply desire a truly brilliant book written — without pity — by a gifted author whose mind conquered all, this memoir is for you!
[On a personal note, I encourage you to take time to visit Linda Gray Sexton's website. It's enchanting, even if you only stop to look inside the writing cottage you'll learn where and how this writer writes.]
Book Giveaway: The Divining Wand is giving away one copy of Linda Gray Sexton’s Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide in a random drawing of comments left only on this specific post. Comments left on other posts during the week will not be eligible. The deadline is Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. EST with the winners to be announced here in Thursday’s post. If you enter, please return Thursday to see if you’re a winner.
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A year ago at this time, when the NBA was still in the midst of a lockout, owners and players haggled over splitting basketball-related income in a way that would allow franchises to turn a profit. Despite not opening up its books or proving losses in any other way, the league eventually got enough of what it wanted that owners could anticipate a much healthier financial future. Never mind that all owners involved were probably going to turn a sizable profit anyway whenever they decided to sell their franchises for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nevertheless, the lockout ended up being a net positive for the owners. However, they're not done, and will likely try to extract more concessions from the players' union the next time they renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement. If you don't believe that, just listen to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who came up with a helpful analogy to demonstrate the problem. From a radio interview with Mark Cuban on "The Ben and Skin Show" in Dallas (as transcribed by Sports Radio Interviews, via PBT):
Did you and some of the other big-name owners fail with the new CBA?:
"We certainly didn't achieve all we needed to achieve. I've said it multiple times that in the old CBA, financially, teams were drowning in 10 feet of water, now we're drowning in two feet of water. It'll be interesting. Obviously the Nets just went out and spent a boatload of money. It'll be interesting to see if that works for them or against them."
I understand the basic idea of this analogy — the situation was really bad, and now it's better, but it's still dangerous. However, Cuban unwittingly made owners out to look a little silly, because only very small children could drown in two feet of water. At that depth, most able-bodied adults would just put their feet on the bottom and stand, due to the fact that the water wouldn't even come up to their waists.
Of course, the trouble with this analogy helps expose a problem with this line of thinking: At what point, exactly, will owners be safe? If two feet of water is dangerous, then couldn't six inches also cause drowning? And once the water is completely gone, will the owners be in danger of drought? Will water then be useful? And once that water is introduced, will it become a major danger again? What exactly does the water stand for here? Does Mark Cuban hate baths?
These are all relevant questions, given the parameters of the analogy. Unfortunately, I'm not sure Cuban has a simple answer for them. As we learned just one day ago — via the same radio interview, in fact — Cuban can sometimes let his emotions get the better of him. In this case, his bank account seems to be affecting his logic.
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What Is A Muse?
For an artist, the muse is one of the most important relationships he can have. A muse provides a focus that he can create images and dreams around, someone who can be the subject of the romantic ideals of what made him an artist in the first place. The artist can then take those images and feelings and feed them to his guitar and voice (or paint, etc.) to see what comes out. As a songwriter, I take it for granted that people who don’t really have a need to be inspired by a muse to create art know what that relationship is like.
A muse might be a lover, a friendly infatuation, or maybe even a stranger the artist never even speaks to. It’s usually assumed that the muse is a lover, but it’s obviously not as clear-cut as that, and in fact some of the best muses never end up as a lover or romantic relationship at all. But the muse is much more important than the random girlfriend or infatuation. For people who traditionally see relationships as friend, girlfriend, wife, etc, they might not see that a muse can tap into many of the same feelings as those relationships can, both good and bad, but perhaps from a safer distance. For someone like me who is always writing, the creative fuel a muse creates makes it a necessary relationship.
Just like most other more common types of relationships, the relationship with a muse can last for years, fade quickly, fall prey to misunderstandings and gossip, make babies, make enemies, make pizzas, etc. The relationship with a muse is just like other relationships, but designed specifically by nature to make artists appear even more insane than they do already.
I’ve had a few muses in my life, and each one is so ingrained into my art that sometimes I feel they’re more responsible for it than I am. This is one of my most popular songs that I wrote for a particular muse:
There are more songs inspired by my muses in the music player on the right of the page, let me know what you think.
For more: http://www.facebook.com/saintjohnandtherevelations
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This week's book giveaway is in the General Computing forum. We're giving away four copies of Arduino in Action and have Martin Evans, Joshua Noble, and Jordan Hochenbaum on-line! See this thread for details.
I have to discuss with a few people if the next project should be done in java or python, I know a few things about the project: it's going to be web, it will be small at first but is fairly likely to grow into an average size, it is mostly CRUDE with only one database, in the future it will access one or two web services for data, and only 3 people are going to be developing this project.
I already googled a about java vs python and so far I haven't found a lot of pros for java, also I am studding python a bit so I can have a more elaborated opinion and so far this is what I got:
* You need to type less to make the same program in python
* Java is way easier to refactor your application
* Java performance is better
* Python won't make you spend a lot of time configuring you libraries
* I believe maintenance in python is harder, but I don't know it for sure (Python/Django seems a lot like java servlet..)
I really what to keep programming in java but this "you program in python faster" seems to be the main topic right now... is it true? do anyone here have experience in both language who could share some thoughts?
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Sierra Club Applauds Passage of Clean Cars Bill
Demonstrating great leadership and vision, the Washington State Senate passed the Clean Car Bill ESHB 1397 yesterday by a 29 to 19 vote.
"Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown showed extraordinary leadership in passing this legislation," noted Holly Forrest, chair of the Sierra Club Cascade Chapter Legislative Committee. "Senators Erik Poulsen and Phil Rockefeller deserve tremendous credit as well for masterfully steering the bill through the Senate. And in the end, it was a bipartisan bill. Republican Senators Luke Esser, Bill Finkbeiner, and Dave Schmidt really delivered."
Forrest continued, "Because lawmakers adopted clean emission standards in Washington, families in our state can look forward to breathing cleaner air and saving on the cost of gas by driving cleaner vehicles." The Sierra Club wants to recognize the work of these legislators and thank them for their support, as well as acknowledge the efforts of many citizens.
"The Clean Cars bill was a top priority for the Sierra Club. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of our members communicated with their legislators to advocate for the bill," said Craig Engelking, Sierra Club Legislative Director. "We worked in coalition with members of the environmental community and the Clean Car campaign. The campaign is supported by labor, faith, conservation, and business groups and reflects the depth and breadth of public support for this issue. This is a historic victory that has great significance for Washington and for our nation as a whole."
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PLATTSBURGH - Considered to be one of New York State's best well-kept secrets, the state Department of Labor is encouraging more businesses to take part in the Shared Work Program during these difficult economic times.
The Shared Work Program helps employers survive "temporary business downturns" by reducing the number of hours worked by all employees or just a select group, instead of cutting the staff altogether.
Clifford R. Donaldson, North Country regional director for the Department of Labor, explained an increase in unemployment rates in New York State has led to the labor department making the push for employers to take part in the Shared Work Program. Donaldson spoke at length about details of the unique program, during a press conference Feb. 12 at Bombardier Transportation, a local business participating in the SWP.
"If you are an employer ... facing a temporary decline in business, Shared Work provides an alternative to lay-offs," explained Donaldson. "Rather than laying off a percentage of workers to cut costs, an employer can reduce the hours and wages of all or a particular group of employees."
The importance of keeping staff on partial unemployment instead of doing lay-offs can be beneficial to the employer in various ways, Donaldson said. It lowers the cost of having to advertise for new employees when they are needed, reduces time spent for orienting a new employee and current employees who already know the job will still be available to work when needed.
In turn, employees may also receive partial unemployment insurance to supplement their lost wages.
"New York State's unemployment rate increased from six percent in November 2008 to seven percent just one month later in December," said Donaldson. "That is the highest level of unemployment in New York State since June of 1994."
Donaldson said the increase is the largest jump in unemployment rates since the department began calculating these figures.
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[…] The suit doesn’t surprise Kembrew McLeod, associate professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa, and co-author, with economist and researcher Peter DiCola, of the book “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling.” “‘Paul’s Boutique’ and other albums of that era are like ticking legal time bombs,” says McLeod, who also co-produced the acclaimed documentary “Copyright Criminals.” “For instance, in 2005, Run DMC was sued by the Knack for using ‘My Sharona’ for its song ‘It’s Tricky.’ And they were sued 20 years after the fact.” read more
Future of Music Coalition respects intellectual property and copyright. We believe that musicians and songwriters must have the ability to be compensated for their work, regardless of where or how that work is used or accessed.
We also recognize that creators are not a monolithic group, and may have a variety of perspectives on issues at the intersection of copyright and technology. That’s why we think it is so important that the artist perspective is represented in debates about intellectual property in the information age. read more
[…] McLeod and DiCola believe that people, not corporate entities define society and that even wonderfully radical art or technology is still beholden to that society. They supplement this sentiment with a proposal to reform sample clearance laws, under which artists are free to sample within reason, and rights holders can pay a fee to a third, possibly governmental, party to stop the sampling artist. It’s an interesting idea that requires all parties to create a shared perspective on the new digital reality. But given the political dimension of our society’s inability to be proactive about anything, their proposal is largely an academic exercise. read more
In the last thirty years, technology has transformed the conversation between past and present musicians: it is now possible to quote a previous work not only note for note, but byte for byte. The turntable and the sampler are the hip-hop artist’s quintessential instruments. The culture of hip-hop bricolage, coupled with intense commercial pressures in the recording industry and an inevitable proliferation of rip-off artists, has created difficult challenges for copyright law and for the concept of licensing. Several cultures must adapt to each other, and often they are doing so in the courtroom. read more
New York has made the cover of plenty of albums, from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (161 W. Fourth St.) to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti (96 St. Mark’s Place) to the first New York Dolls album (131 Second Ave.). The corner of Rivington and Ludlow is home to another: Paul’s Boutique, the landmark 1989 album by the Beastie Boys.
“Creative License” is recommended not just for music geeks or music business geeks, but for anyone interested in law, the arts or both. Well written and treated with care, McLeod and DiCola’s work should be read on college campuses around the country.
The April release of Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling marked the collaborative effort between the book’s authors and the team at Future of Music Coalition. Co-authored by Kembrew McLeod and FMC board member Peter DiCola, with contributions from Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson of FMC, Creative License is a significant contribution to the debate surrounding the law of digital sampling. read more
At first glance, you might think that Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling is only for certain types of musicians, or for attorneys specializing in copyright and intellectual property law. You might also think, based on the title and the fact that digital sampling has been a part of popular music for several decades now, that the book is a little late to the game. Fortunately, neither of these impressions is accurate. read more
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If you were to poll people living in the eastern areas of Collier County, and especially in eastern Golden Gate Estates, on whether or not they would like to see an additional Interstate 75 interchange further east than the current Collier Boulevard Interchange, you would most likely receive a positive response.
An interchange further east would provide a host of benefits in time, fuel and emergency response to our more distant rural areas. From an overall public health, safety and welfare benefit, it is a no-brainer.
As with most issues that will impact many people, this one has special concerns to not only those people who might benefit, but also to both those who will be seeing their neighborhoods change as a result of a massive influx of asphalt and traffic and taxpayers county-wide who will be footing much of the cost.
The primary issue will not be whether or not such an interchange is needed, but exactly where should it be located in order to provide the most benefit with the least possible negative impact.
Everglades Boulevard has been the anticipated location of a new interchange for quite some time. The introduction of the town of Big Cypress changed all that when a new concept was introduced that could move the interchange just to the east of the Estates. Doing so would avoid huge impacts on residents along Everglades Boulevard, where the four and eventually six-laned thoroughfare was originally considered.
Big Cypress would benefit from the direct access south of their proposed town as well as from the increased traffic that would move through their community within their well-planned and anticipated traffic corridors. Big Cypress was also prepared to contribute to the efforts of making this location just east of the Estates became a reality but are now in a holding pattern due to the impact of the current economy on their project. If anything is inevitable, it is change.
With Big Cypress temporarily out of the picture, attention is now focused back on Everglades Boulevard as the preferred location for a new interchange. Significant changes have taken place since this location was originally considered; such as the establishment of the Rural Lands Stewardship Area (RLSA). The prioritization of the Everglades Boulevard location was previously subject to the expected growth rate established long before the impacts of the RLSA become visible.
The RLSA is an area of about 195,000 acres, a huge portion of which is being considered for development that could produce up to 180,000 homes, millions upon millions of square feet in commercial, retail, and industrial usage all in addition to special district uses such as universities or bio-medical hubs. The proposed town of Big Cypress, the existing town of Ave Marina and the proposed Jackson Labs project would all be within this RLSA area. Eventually the population of the RLSA could easily exceed that of the coastal areas of our county and will certainly generate several hundred thousand more people in Collier County.
Interchanges are not easy to come by. They are very expensive; they have huge impacts on surrounding areas and produce significant incentives for more intensive growth. Wherever an interchange is placed in our eastern area, it would be a good bet that we will not get another one for a very, very long time.
There are currently a lot of people who would use such an interchange. There are going to be hundreds of thousands more. If located on Everglades Boulevard, that roadway will become one of the most significant north-south corridors in all of Collier County and one of the most expensive, in both dollars and hardship, due to the impact such a roadway would have on hundreds of home sites.
This interchange should be looked at as more than a political accomplishment. It needs to be carefully thought out for the maximum benefit possible. Careful consideration needs to be given to the land owners directly impacted, the significant changes that the local community will have to adapt to, the real population which this interchange will accommodate, any other viable options and taxpayers county-wide who will be contributing to this costly effort. We need nothing less than a comprehensive plan that provides the best bang for the buck and considers all the bases before we lock ourselves in for an eternity.
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More sector information will be added to this area of our site soon.
Behaviours & Communications
Most organisations appreciate the importance of engaging with their stakeholders. And most organisations set objectives around their environmental impacts and health and safety standards. But when everybody is really busy, and you aren't actually certain that everyone is engaged, how do you report effectively and drive behavioural change?
It's a challenge that our global team of corporate strategy experts are well placed to help you with. We understand the dynamics of environmental management programmes, sustainability and climate change. And, we are also very experienced at turning that understanding into effective and highly engaging communication programmes.
In our opinion there are two fundamentals. Positive urgency in internal communication programmes, and visible leadership from senior management. Not rocket science, and admittedly not a silver bullet either. However, we advocate a sense of urgency in putting together a well-defined communications programme to drive through behavioural change. And successful behavioural change is always more likely to succeed when championed from the top of an organisation.
From the team at WSP you can expect assistance with:
- Stakeholder facilitation - an engagement process that ensures you are meeting stakeholders expectations and delivering to your sustainability objectives.
- Corporate reporting - we'll help you report in a way that is relevant and material to your intended audience, delivering clear information on performance, practices and commitments.
- Training and capacity building - we'll help you build knowledge and awareness across your teams on the implications of sustainability, climate change, health and safety issues etc. which will drive behavioural change.
- Behavioural change and communication programmes - critical to achieving understanding and buy-in to your vision and goals, and effecting positive change; we'll help you shape your internal communication agenda and manage behavioural change.
Strategy is nothing without action. Action is nothing unless planned, directed and implemented. You'll find our methodologies are very thorough. We pride ourselves on delivering effective programmes of engagement and communication that drive behavioural change.
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RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinian activists have erected tents at a disputed site between Jerusalem and the West Bank where Israel said it would build Jewish houses.
The activists said in a statement Friday they wanted to build a village in the area known as E-1 in order to "establish facts on the ground."
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said they had been served documents saying they were trespassing but it wasn't immediately clear what action, if any, would be taken.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would build homes in E-1, situated on a key route linking Palestinian areas of Jerusalem to the West Bank, after the U.N. endorsed a de facto Palestinian state.
Actual construction on the project is years away but Israel's decision was fiercely criticized by its closest allies.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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Investors head into a shortened trading week, hoping a fresh batch of data on housing and manufacturing will provide clues on how the American economy is holding up.
U.S. markets will be closed Monday in honor of President's Day.
Several key statistics on the housing market will be released throughout the week, including the National Association of Home Builders Housing Market index, housing starts, building permits and existing home sales.
In recent months, the housing market has been propped up by record low mortgage rates, lower unemployment and a rebound in home prices. These conditions are bringing in home buyers who had been waiting for house prices to hit bottom before resuming their search. Low interest rates and depressed home prices have combined to create one of the most affordable housing markets on record.
U.S. manufacturing will also be in focus.
Over the past year, domestic manufacturing has wavered between barely expanding and contracting largely because demand has been held back by slow economic growth overseas and worries over the effects of the federal budget mess in Washington.
The slowdown has hurt manufacturing jobs, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Reports on producer and consumer prices and leading indicators are due out later this week.
Investors will also get to feel the pulse of the U.S. economy from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Index due out Thursday, and minutes from last month's Federal Reserve's policy-making meeting, which are due Wednesday.
While the Fed has held rates unchanged at record low levels and said it would continue to purchase $85 billion in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities each month to support the economy, investors will parse through the minutes for clues to how long the central bank plans to continue the policy.
In corporate news, several companies will report corporate earnings this week, including Wal-Mart, Herbalife, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.
U.S. stocks ended mixed last week, marking the first losing week for the Nasdaq this year. The S&P eked out a small gain, while the Dow closed slightly lower.
Recently stocks have been pulling back from the solid start to 2013, even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 are still within range of new record highs.
The Dow is 1.3% shy of its all-time high, hit in October 2007, and the S&P 500 is about 4% below its record high, also set in October 2007. All three indexes are up between 5% and 7% for the year.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray’s face hangs in Chappequa
Not much of an audience for accepting responsibility for McVeigh’s mass murder in Arkansas
Do my eyes and ears deceive me, but does Bill Clinton seem to be actually celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing as some sort of second President’s Day in honor of the earnestly bitten lip that calmed a nation in anarchy, thus preventing any more domestic terror during the 21-hour breaks between Rush Limbaugh programs?
In his NYT column and television appearances, the Empire State’s First (adopted) citizen never tells us exactly who said what and when to inspire and incite the OKC bombers. He conveniently omits McVeigh’s own justification of revenge for the 86 killed by the US military at Waco. More Americans were killed under Commander-in-Chief Clinton in Texas in one day than were terrorists killed at his direction in all of the other 49 states and all other nations on Earth combined during his eight years in office.
After 911, why do they hate us?
After 911, the Arkansas ex-patriot flew to Europe with bodyguards and asked why Osama bin Laden hated us, implying that America’s government had somehow brought the attack on ourselves and that if we would only change our policies, we could cause Islamists to love us.
That self-loathing was soon to be followed by a 2003 Davos, Switzerland praise for the Mullah-Terrorist-State government of Iran. You reckon when the world’s largest sponsor of terror on Earth is praised by a former President of the United States despite the terror, that said nation might be encouraged to commit more terror?
Or is it Rush Limbaugh’s demands for an aggressive US war on terror that inspires would be mass murderers?
Would Bill and Obama’s perfect world be one in which Osama sends us a list of demands we must meet for his promise not to bomb the Pentagon?
After OKC and before the next one, how dare they hate us!
After the OKC bombing, then President and former Arkansas Attorney General, Bill Clinton blamed talk radio for daring to “hate” his government and connected the dots between opposition to HillaryCare and 168 dead in Oklahoma. I guess he skipped torts, proximate cause and logic at Georgetown and Yale. Or did he just bone up more on prevarication, hubris and lip-biting?
The anti-obesity advocate feigns to be worried about the words of folks angry with Democratic Party-led government inciting others to violence against their government, yet, when he used the word “pardon” in 2008, he put convicted terrorists back on the streets.
Think maybe Bill’s use of the word “pardon” risked causing more terror attacks than Limbaugh’s use of the moniker “Der Schliekmeister” to refer to the definer of the word “is” (We have to guess at what words Bill refers to as incitement since he cites none to justify his vile charges) or the use of the word “no” by 70+% of Americans, including Tea Partiers, in response to pollsters’ question of support for ObamaCare, bailouts, and $1.3Trillion budget deficits.
President Barack Hussein Obama joined in Bill’s derision of Tea Partiers this week, but do you think granting KSM a New York show trial might encourage a would be terrorist to seek martyrdom or fame?
OBL said Clinton’s use of the word “withdraw” in Somalia after Black Hawk Down convinced him that al Qaida could defeat the “weak horse”.
Did I mention that Bill Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican terrorists to help Hillary win New York? Who knew there were so many such voters in the Empire State? But then again, Hillary did go on a “listening tour”. Guess Rick Lazio should have joined her and listened to that FALN terror constituency.
Did you know that Obama mentor, ghost writer and terrorist Bill Ayers was a guest at Bill Clinton’s White House?
But Hillary would be better than Obama, right?
Hillary joined Obama last week in the bash our greatest ally for revenge for Britain’s crimes against Kenya by publicly re-visiting the issue of the sovereignty over the UK’s Falkland Islands. No word on when Obama will re-open negotiations with the Cherokee over sovereignty in North Georgia, but Hawaii and other golf meccas seem safely ensconced in the Union.
It has become fashionable lately, given the extreme leftist regime under Obama, to imagine how wonderful would have been a President Hillary and to wax nostalgic about the Clinton years.
Hillary only looks good by comparison with what is and what people imagine she would be. She would be the same liberal she has always been that tried to socialize medicine 15 years ago, although, technically, Bill’s defenders always conveniently forget that Hillary was not President of health care, and that it was President Bill Clinton that proposed ObamaCare in 1993 and made a last ditch plea to democrats on Capitol Hill in 2010 just before the vote that made it law.
America is more than who was and is President, i.e. Congress matters
I too admit to waxing nostalgic about life before this second great depression, but I don’t wax with Alice in Wonderland where the brilliant feeler of pain single-handedly extended the Reagan Recovery for eight more years.
The 90s world I lived in was conserved by Republican opposition to Bill Clinton’s policies. If we had the greater numbers of GOP congressmen in 2010 as we had in 1993-4, ObamaCare would not be the law of the land.
Wilde Picture of Dorian Gray starts with a “D”
The unrepentant, living picture of Dorian Gray walks the Earth soulless, having sold out to the monstrosity the Democratic Party since the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Or did Bill become a buyer of souls long ago when he took a train to Moscow, having found Oxford too right wing? One wonders if Clinton-logic would convict the loather of the military for inciting violence against the government.
Prosecutors may be able to get grand juries to indict a ham sandwich, but not “climates of hate”
Soon after JFK was killed by a communist, the media told us that We the People were responsible for the “climate of hate” within which the tax-cutting anti-communist hawk was killed.
Then, we told the same thing after his brother was killed by a Palestinian terrorist.
More evidence that Bill and Hillary suck too! Not just Obama. (Hint: Its the “D” after their names)
Hillary’s suspension of disbelief and refusal to condemn Moveon.org’s General “Betrayus” ad.
Senator Hillary’s 2007-8 votes joining Senator Obama’s against funding troops during war.
Bill’s recent revelation that, despite his signing of the Defense of Marriage Act, he was always was for gay marriage.
Bill’s recent derision of Al Gore’s discredited man-made global warming religion, despite Bill’s own missionary work for the MMGW church and advocacy of draconian energy taxes based upon the pagan earth worship theology.
It’s always all about Bill and the desperate attempt to salvage a legacy
Bill won no wars and was impeached while Muhammed Atta and Co. plotted for two years to continue the terror against the Paper Tiger that began with the 1993 WTC bombing and continued at the Khobar Towers, African embassies and the USS Cole.
It seems that punching Chris Wallace in the knee as punishment for asking him a tough question about his anti-terror policies as President doesn’t earn him a spot on Mount Rushmore. There will be no V-W Day (Victory in Waco Day) in his honor.
At least he got Osama’s night watchman and an aspirin factory, but I hear that the widow and headache sufferers may be incited to violence by the words Clinton spoke afterward and that there are too many tea partiers in Little Rock for comfort.
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
Originally published at The Minority Report
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
- Sunday, May 05, 2013
- Little Rock
- Building / Point of Interest:
- Arkansas Arts Center
Through the years, the Young Arkansas Artists exhibition has grown to be one of the most beloved exhibitions held annually at the Arkansas Arts Center. This popular children’s art exhibition showcases artwork by Arkansas students, kindergarten through 12th grade.
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As social media begins to envelop every part of a corporate organization, it becomes important that every employee begins to have a certain level of literacy in using social media tools. This becomes even more important in outward-facing rules where “social business” is changing the way companies engage with present and potential customers over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs. At some point, just as companies emerged that used the Internet as their platform (Amazon, Netflix, etc.), we will see new companies arise that purely use social media as their platform. And when that happens, it is a natural that they will only be finding and recruiting people over social media, because they only want social media savvy users to work for them.
You think this is way off in the future? Think again: this is already starting. Here’s a case study to chew on for thought.
As you know I like to blog about events going on in social media in Japan. As Twitter is still relatively new there, it is fascinating to see how a different culture starts adopting new technologies in their own way. And because I speak and read Japanese fluently, I can add value in providing you with information that you may not be able to find anywhere else in English on the Internet. Enough said.
This blog post is about EC Navi, a Japanese company who’s product and platform is the Internet: They run a price comparison site with links to E-commerce sites similar to PriceGrabber.com. Think about it: their customers are solely on the Internet and using the Internet to make their purchases. If everyone on the Internet is starting to spend most of their time on social media, doesn’t it make sense that E-Commerce sites like EC Navi (and PriceGrabber.com as well) will need a social media presence and need employees who understand how to utilize sites like Twitter? Of course.
So it came as no surprise to me when EC Navi announced that they were only taking college graduate applicants who 1) applied over Twitter and 2) had at least 10 followers. Only having 10 followers shows that it is not a popularity contest, but proof that you are actually utilizing Twitter and interacting with others. And applying over Twitter was merely sending an @Reply to the CEO saying that you were interested. You were then invited to a seminar to learn more about the company, and after that process 10 applicants became future employees of EC Navi.
The CEO of EC Navi, Shinsuke Usami (follow him on Twitter: @usapon), was quoted as saying that he did this as part of an experiment but was extremely pleased by the number and high quality of the candidates. He mentioned that he thought of doing this for two reasons:
- He recently held an event for college seniors to educate them on the exciting world of the Internet and advertised it only through Twitter. He was pleased with the number and calibre of candidates who attended this seminar and immediately thought he could take it one step further.
- He thought it would be a great social media marketing experiment.
In our United States, we may have discriminatory laws that prevent employers from only accepting candidates from a specific Internet site. But the fact that social media becomes more important to companies is not going to fade away. And as we all become better and more proficient in our uses of social media, it is only a matter of time before those that use social media have an advantage over those that don’t when looking for a job.
There is also a message here to companies: experimentation is an important component of social media marketing. Obviously, you need to have some literacy as to the etiquette and best practices of each platform so that you don’t spam social media users like in my recent case study of UCC Coffee. But if you have an in-house social media strategist or engage with a social media consultant like myself, think up a way of experimenting with an idea and implementing it to see what the outcome is. You may be pleasantly surprised by the results!
Have you heard of any companies exclusively hiring people over various social media channels? Has your company attempted a social media marketing experiment that had unexpected results? Please share!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Social Media Etiquette: 6 Important Lessons Learned from One Japanese Company’s Major Twitter Mistake (windmillnetworking.com)
- Are Your Social Media Efforts Doomed to Fail? – by Jen Fong (myventurepad.com)
- Jobseekers: Start Thinking Like a Social Media Strategist (windmillnetworking.com)
- 69% of Companies Focus on Twitter; 61% Have No Clue of Its ROI (marketingpilgrim.com)
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| 0.96559 | 966 | 1.664063 | 2 |
“The people whose lives you touch may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — David B. Haight
There are a lot of yardsticks you could potentially use to measure your life. Some work better than others. If you use a “me”-centered yardstick, chances are you’ll fall short. You amplify the power of purpose when you focus on the greater good, and the role you play within that.
Passion and purpose ignite us.
Stephen Covey, Randy Pausch, and others teach us that it’s not the things we did, it’s the things we didn’t do in life that we regret. But how do we measure life along the way, and what’s our North Star?
Measure Against Your Mission
We can take a page out of the playbook of non-profits. They don’t measure their success against profit. They measure their success against their mission. This is where your purpose comes into play. Are you giving your best, where you’ve got your best to give?
Seasons of Love
If you’ve seen Rent, you know the song, “Seasons of Love.” It starts off by putting time into perspective … “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.” Those are the minutes in a year. But counting the minutes, doesn’t count the smiles, the laughter, the sunsets, or even the cups of coffeee.
But you can measure in love … the seasons of love.
The People Whose Lives You Touch
Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and author, shares his insight on how to measure a life and choose the right yardstick:
“I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research. I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted the disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant the impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess m life isn’t dollars, but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.”
That’s a pretty clear yardstick … “the people whose lives I’ve touched.”
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This is a two part series dedicated to Recontextualizing Contextual Commerce. There are three steps to changing the way you think about contextual commerce. These include the Customer, Reverse Auctions and Directories.
The more things change, the more they stay the same – Alphonse Karr
The Formula for Success
In the beginning there were stores. People came and went, they spent money, they bought products. Companies sold products and made money. Then came the web- with its e-commerce and paradigm shifting changes. Although this simple money-making formula was challenged for some time, through billion dollar brand building campaigns, at the end of it all companies have realized they still need to make money.
This time tested formula can be expressed as:
Products x Customers = Earnings ($).
A new concept has been recently introduced with one objective in mind: increase the number of purchases (or products sold). According to Business 2.0 it is “new breed of tools that enable so-called ‘contextual commerce’, a scheme that promises marketers a better kind of stickiness.” The idea is that if content sites can offer web surfers the ability to make a purchase, customers will stay around longer (and these sites can make a profit in the process).
Contextual commerce examples can be seen on multiple sites. Take a travel site as an example: You pick out your trip, you make your reservations, you push the buy now button and BOOM! Suddenly ‘Would you like a nice digital camera to record your memories?’ appears. This is contextual commerce American style: the “As long as weÕve got you in the store-Would you also be interested in some of our other lovely products?” mentality.
This philosophy is based on increasing the number of products purchased (or sold). But what happens if we look at the second variable, customers? This is step one in understanding the change that is coming: The Customer.
How can we increase the number of customers making purchases? Conventional wisdom tells us marketing is the way to increase our number of customers. More advertising equals more eyeballs, which equals more customers. What if, say, instead of a company actively recruiting new customers, they made themselves passively available to meet a customer’s needs? What’s that? Passively available? This is step 2 in understanding what is changing.
First Push, Then Shove
The “more marketing” response still depends on “push” commerce. Push, intrusion, interruption- whichever word you prefer. In any case, it isn’t asked for. But who pushes? Up until now the company pushes. I have needs, too. And I think it’s time to push back.
A customer push system is analogous to a reverse auction. A reverse auction is where a buyer puts out a request for a product or a series of products in the market and suppliers or vendors bid to meet this need.
Instead of the company emitting offers, I transmit preferences, needs or wants. Companies capable of fulfilling those needs would win the bid, and get my business. This shifts the focus form maximizing P (products) to maximizing C (customers). Customers- and that means me.
Now that we have shifted the focus from the company to the individual, we need to explore some of the nuts & bolts for this to work. That’s the focus of Part 2 in Recontextualizing Contextual Commerce. I’ll be addressing Me-commerce, Lists and the Local Store. Please join me again in 2 weeks, the same place at the same time for the continuation of this mini-series.
Until next time- Happy Pushing!
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from the good-and-getting-better dept
What an extraordinary year this has been for Net activism. After the great SOPA blackout led to SOPA and PIPA being withdrawn, and the anti-ACTA street demonstrations triggered a complete rethink by the European Parliament that may well result in a rejection of the treaty, now it seems that the Trans Pacific Partnership is falling to pieces.
Foreign Policy magazine, for example, has a feature entitled Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Foundering?, where its author explains that a number of the smaller countries participating in the negotiations are starting to ask themselves whether there are any advantages in joining at all:
Of even more concern, however , is the sudden questioning by the Chileans of the value of the deal as presently being constituted. Chile had been considered a slam dunk supporter. So its raising of questions is a red flag danger signal. Beyond that it seems that the Malaysians are also questioning whether any benefits they may be getting are worth the trouble of further liberalization of their domestic economy. And just to put the icing on the cake, it is becoming ever clearer that the Vietnamese, whose economy resembles that of China with large segments controlled by state owned companies, are going to have great difficulty in actually meeting the high standards being proposed.
As Techdirt has reported, TPP has been negotiated in the utmost secrecy, but now that word is finally leaking out about its provisions, there is resistance building in the US:
Although the deal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has received relatively little media attention in the United States, it has sparked international friction among consumer groups and environmental activists who worry that terms demanded by the Obama administration will eliminate important public protections. Domestically, however, the deal's primary source of political tension is from a portion that could ban "Buy American" provisions -- a restriction that opponents emphasize would crimp U.S. jobs.
That seems like a pretty significant issue. After all, one of the supposed aims of the trade agreement is to remove such internal barriers to trade for all signatories. But in an election year, President Obama will hardly want to be painted as someone who is sacrificing American jobs.
Even assuming this major contradiction is resolved somehow, and the other Pacific Rim countries don't decide to abandon the treaty altogether, TPP is still fundamentally flawed for the same reason that ACTA is flawed: China is not a signatory. And the idea that once TPP (or ACTA) is in place, China will suddenly rush to sign up is extremely unlikely, for reasons that Arvind Subramanian, an expert in Chinese economic policy, explains:
"China would never agree to just fall in line with rules in the negotiations of which it has not participated," he writes in a policy brief.
However you look at it, TPP seems to be in serious trouble. Coupled with the withdrawal of SOPA, and the possible rejection of ACTA, this represents a string of setbacks for copyright and patent maximalism that a year ago would have seemed impossible.
If China did agree to participate in the talks, it would have huge bargaining leverage. Better to have multilateral talks where China’s power is diluted by the addition of Brazil, Europe, India and others to the talks.
A third possibility is that China comes to view the TPP as a hostile effort to "encircle" China economically. "TPP could thus provoke China into playing the regionalism game in a way that could fundamentally fragment the trading system," he writes.
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| 0.974078 | 715 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Reviewed by: Editorial Staff
When to visit
Alaska, a place of serenity in the United States is worth exploring in the month of July. This place offers unspoiled vistas for hiking, exploring and fishing and sees tourists year round, with the summer season being the most preferable time to explore the beauty of this place. However, the best time to visit Alaska depends on what a tourist hopes to see and do, though the busiest months are June, July and August.
With longer days and warm weather offers the best landscape as everything is in full bloom. This is the paramount time to closely experience the Alaskan grizzly bears in the Katmai National Park.
Mid June through mid July are rather mild and comfortable, continuing through August and dropping moderately in September. Chances of rainfall tend to be high in August, with the winter weather can be tough unless you love skiing!
The peak tourist season is from the month of July to mid August, with packed hotels. This is the precise time of high prices, also due to many events. The reason behind is that Alaska is worldwide famous for its events like the Tesoro Iron Dog Snowmobile Race, held in mid February, other than the World Ice Championship (late February to March), the Summer Solstice (June), the Alaska State Fair (late August to early September) and many other events.
If interested in exploring the wildlife, April to November are the favorable months to visit Alaska. The month of December to March offers one with the unique northern lights show, an amazing array of yellow, orange, green and red gas molecules blowing about the night sky by the solar winds. Ideal views can be along the Gilmore Trail or outside Fairbanks, atop the Ester Dome to Chatanika.
Off season or shoulder months are preferable months of May to October, when the prices are at their lowest and tourists visit Alaska, with fewer crowds.
Skiing season from December to March offers similar cost and busy-ness to the summer months - so book accordingly and in advance!
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Take a break from Lady Gaga and stay tuned to the traffic instead
Cross with care ... pedestrians take their turn with the lights at the corner of Market and York streets yesterday. Photo: Nick Moir
ROAD safety experts say the huge number of people using headphones is partly to blame for rates of pedestrian deaths and injuries not following the downward trend of other motor vehicle accidents.
They say there is emerging evidence that the increased use of headphones with iPods and similar devices, along with texting on mobile phones, could be to blame.
''Over the last 20 odd years the number and rates of pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries have been decreasing but they've sort of plateaued over the last few years and in some cases it has increased,'' Jennie Oxley, of the Monash Injury Research Institute, said. ''Certainly in NSW in the last little while it seems to have increased again.''
This year 23 pedestrians have been killed in NSW, 10 more than at the same time last year, with the ''danger'' period yet to come. Transport for NSW says shorter winter days are when roads are most dangerous for pedestrians.
The most recent death, when mother-of-two Mijin Shin was hit by a bus at Beecroft as she carried her baby daughter, prompted police on Monday to make an impassioned plea for pedestrians and motorists to look out for each other.
But over the next 24 hours police were dumbfounded when there were five serious incidents in Sydney involving pedestrians. In four instances the person was crossing at traffic lights or a pedestrian crossing. The state's top traffic officer, Assistant Commissioner John Hartley, agreed his appeal made less than a day earlier ''fell on deaf ears''.
''If people do not start paying more attention and abiding by the road rules, then it is only a matter of time before we have another death on the roads,'' he said.
Dr Oxley said there have traditionally been three high-risk groups of pedestrians who are killed or seriously hurt: young children, drunk young adults and the elderly.
But the increased use of headphones and mobiles across all ages means people outside these groups are at risk as they are being distracted when stepping out to cross the road.
''There is some evidence that the use of iPads, iPods, all those sorts of things, headphones, are contributing,'' Dr Oxley said. ''It really is an emerging issue.''
It is an issue that has not been lost on the Pedestrian Council of Australia. It has just launched a confronting new campaign ''Don't Tune Out''.
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I just hate it when I have to take a bus to my airplane somewhere out on the airfield and then get out and walk up stairs to get on board. Hannes Seeberg has designed the SkyLift - a bus that takes you to the plane and "lifts" you aboard. This is a far better way to enter the smaller aircrafts and those parked out of reach for the traditional boarding bridges.
According to Seeberg the SkyLift is "Designed for safety, speed and capacity, two elevators and a bridge provide best possible conditions of comfort for passengers. It helps solve problems that occur within passenger staircase - such as falls, bottleneck-effect, security risks and accessibility."
Airport Transportation Made Easy
7,500 clicks in 320 w
More Stats +/-
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| 0.942405 | 160 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Believe it or not, Ford makes some pretty awesome cars outside of America, including some 60 mpg diesels. Don’t expect those to come to America though, as a Ford executive says diesels don’t make sense for America. Boo.
Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s VP of global product development, told a group of European auto journalists and Automotive News that Ford could “easily” bring diesel powertrains to America, before adding that he thinks American customers “are pragmatic.”
What does that mean? Well, after I tried (and failed) to get a Ford representative to sign my petition to bring the diesel-powered global Ranger to America, I was told it was because retooling an engine factory to build oil burners would run upwards of $400 million. That is quite an investment, which would mean that a diesel engine option would add a hefty price premium to the final cost of the car.
Add to that the higher-than-gas prices of diesel, and Kuzak says it would take around 10 years for diesel customers to see any return on their more-efficient engines. And I hate to say it (because I really, really, really want a small, efficient diesel pickup) but that argument makes a lot of sense.
Instead of premium diesel engines, Ford is focusing on fuel-efficient EcoBoost engines for American customers, which still carry a price premium, but less than diesel engines (on the F-150, the EcoBoost V6 only costs $1,500 more than the 5.0 liter V8 engine.) Ford thinks it can squeeze diesel efficiency out of gasoline engines, and that strategy could pay big dividends as Americans seem unlikely to embrace diesels any time soon. Not that I am complaining about Ford’s turbocharged future…I was just really hoping to experience European-like levels of diesel burning efficiency in an American car for once.
Source: Automotive News
Chris DeMorro is a writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs. You can read about his slow descent into madness at Sublime Burnout or follow his non-nonsensical ramblings on Twitter @harshcougar.
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Region residents with ties to Pope Benedict XVI, surprised by the Monday announcement he will resign Feb. 28, shared stories Monday of their encounters with the pontiff.
Canon law, which regulates the government of the Catholic Church, allows popes to resign. However, a pope has not resigned in nearly 600 years, Diocese of Gary Bishop Dale Melczek said.
"I think the pope surprised everybody, except maybe his most intimate adviser," he said.
Melczek said he admires the pope for acknowledging that Jesus is the universal shepherd of the church and he is just an instrument in the hands of the Lord, chosen as a successor to St. Peter. Melczek last met with the pope a year ago in the pope's study.
"The pope is certainly one of the greatest intellectuals and most renowned intellectuals of our time," Melczek said. "However, he puts you at ease by his simplicity and his humility and inner sense of joy and peace. He invites you to hold his hands, and he looks right in your eyes and he smiles, and he just wants to hear what are the struggles, what are our challenges here in Northwest Indiana," Melczek said.
In the days leading to the election of a new pope, the cardinals will discuss the needs and challenges of the church today and who can best lead it, Melczek said.
"I think one of the great needs of our time is to reach out to those that once practiced the faith but no longer do so," Melczek said. "One of the great challenges is the secularism of our time, the extreme individualism of our time. We don't have that sense for doing things that builds community."
Deacon Michael Halas, assigned to St. James the Less in Highland and works as a chaplain at St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago, sat in the fourth row at a papal audience less than a month ago. A third year graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Halas was in Rome from Jan. 11 through 28, taking a course in art, architecture and history toward a master's degree in liturgy.
"He had a twinkle in his eye when he came out and we all saw him," Halas said. "We were overly excited to see him, and you could tell he was happy to see us. It's a life-changing event to be in the presence of the Vicar of Christ."
The pope walked out, waving his hands and spoke in various languages.
"He didn't sound like there was anything wrong," he said.
Halas was startled to hear news of the pope's resignation.
"It saddens me that he's resigning," he said.
The Rev. Benjamin Ross, associate pastor at St. Thomas More in Munster, celebrated Midnight Mass with the pope during Christmas 2011. He was a deacon at the time, one of four tapped to serve alongside Pope Benedict XVI.
Ross was in a study abroad program in Rome. Msgr. Guido Marini, the papal emcee, suggested Ross serve for the pope. Ross figured he would be assigned to a less visible prayer service or Mass.
"Little did I know what God had in store for me — that I would be serving one of the biggest liturgies of the year," he said.
During the liturgy, Ross felt a spiritual energy coming from the pope.
"I could just tell how prayerful the Holy Father was in celebrating Mass," he said.
Ross also was surprised by Monday's announcement.
"It's virtually unprecedented in the church that the pope resigns," he said. "I think everyone is surprised, but there must be a serious reason."
North Hammond native and Bishop Noll alumna Heidi Agostini and her husband visited the Vatican last year, and it changed her life.
"On Wednesdays at the Vatican, the pope holds his weekly audience, so we got two tickets to that," she said. "It was the most amazing thing I've ever been through. We sat in the audience and out comes the pope in his popemobile, and the crowd roars with applause and cheers. It was louder than it was at a Chicago Bears game."
Agostini, who is stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, was sad to hear of the pope's resignation.
"Although I'm saddened, I appreciate that he is bowing down because of illness, because he wants to make sure his people are cared for properly."
Theresa Birlson, of St. John, met Pope Benedict in 2009 with her son Andrew, who was 9 at the time. Andrew suffers from a rare metabolic genetic condition and connected with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. His wish was to meet the pope. The morning of the audience with the pope, Andrew got sick. He soldiered through. The pope blessed him and kissed his forehead.
"It was maybe 15, 20 seconds we were there," she said. "He presented us both with a special rosary that has his papal crest on it."
She felt a sense of true goodness.
"I could really feel like it was a connection with heaven," she said. "It was beyond goosebumps."
Seven months later, Andrew received a liver transplant and remains in good health.
Former State Rep. Dan Dumezich experienced Midnight Mass at the Vatican with his family several years ago. They were surprised to be seated a few rows away from the side of the altar.
"It was an unbelievable experience," he said. "You actually feel you're closer to heaven. At least, I did."
News of the pope's resignation shocked many Catholics, but Dumezich remembers the pope once saying he would have an obligation to resign if his health left him incapable of leading the church.
"The very first thing I thought of (Monday) was he must have a significant ailment," Dumezich said.
Dumezich praised the pope for setting the Catholic church on a course of conservatism.
"I think that he has alienated some progressives, but he's trying to bring the church back to its roots," he said.
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TO BE DODGERS GM, YOU MUST PASS QUIZ.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI
How exactly is Frank McCourt
Francis "Frank" McCourt (born August 19, 1930) is an Irish-American teacher and author. , the new Dodgers owner, choosing his general manager? We know McCourt is holding face-to-face interviews with Dan Evans and potential replacements. Is there a 40-yard-dash contest? An ink-blot test? A quiz?
McCourt really should give the applicants a quiz to see if they know how to handle the difficult situations a Dodgers GM conceivably could face.
Make it multiple-choice.
1. At your first winter meetings on the job, a rival GM - let's call him, say, Jim Bowden James Gordon Bowden III (born in Boston, Massachusetts) is the general manager of the Washington Nationals.
Bowden was born in Boston and raised in Weston, Massachusetts. - refuses to begin a negotiating session until a better-known Dodgers exec - let's say his name is Tommy Lasorda
a. Call Lasorda to the room so the talks can go on, quietly express your disapproval to Bowden afterward, then make a pointed but dignified public comment vowing to always do business in ''a first-class manner.''
b. Call Lasorda to the room and let him negotiate the deal.
c. Challenge Bowden to a fistfight.
2. As a little-known front-office subordinate getting your first crack at a GM job, you know a lot of people wish the Dodgers hired a proven commodity. What should you do?
a. Go ahead with a major trade you believe is necessary although it will expose you to second-guessing, trading your most troublesome player even if he's your most talented - let's call him, oh, say, Gary Sheffield
Gary Antonian Sheffield (born November 18, 1968 in Tampa, Florida) is a Major League Baseball designated hitter and outfielder for the Detroit Tigers. - for a clubhouse leader and a young pitcher.
b. Play it safe in your first winter on the job rather than risk riling the doubters.
c. Challenge the doubters to a fistfight.
3. You take over a roster that's pushing the owner's payroll limit and bloated by big-money dead weight that could be called Darren Dreifort
a. Do the best you can with the little money available to you, spending less in new salaries over the next two seasons than all but six other major- league teams but spending it well enough to keep the Dodgers in playoff contention into September.
b. Make up for the lack of available free-agent cash by spending precious minor-league talent to make trades.
c. Challenge the payroll department Noun 1. payroll department - the department that determines the amounts of wage or salary due to each employee
department, section - a specialized division of a large organization; "you'll find it in the hardware department"; "she got a job in the to a fistfight.
4. You take over a Dodgers farm system that, at the time, is rated among the weakest in baseball by all the experts after a series of bad drafts in the previous decade. What should you do?
a. Make a top priority of upgrading the farm system for the long haul Long distance. Long haul implies traversing a state or a country. Contrast with short haul. .
b. Improve the farm-system ratings by over-hyping your prospects.
c. Challenge ``Baseball America'' to a fistfight.
5. Fans, talk-show hosts and columnists are leaning on you to produce a pennant winner now after 15 years without a playoff-game victory. What should you do?
a. Work around the payroll crunch by taking low-priced gambles on older players (we'll call them Fred McGriff
David Ray Roberts (born May 31, 1972 in Okinawa, Japan), is a Major League Baseball center fielder for the San Francisco Giants. ) in the hope of catching lightning.
b. Mortgage the future by trading those farm products for a hitting star.
c. Challenge Joe McDonnell Joe McDonnell (Irish name: Seosamh Mac Domhnaill; 14 September 1951 - 8 July 1981) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member (volunteer), who died in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. to a fight.
6. The franchise's outgoing chairman, with a name something like Bob Daly, usurps credit for the farm system's renewed strength, saying it was ``my adamant decision'' not to trade away prospects. What should you do?
a. Say thank you, since the comment was meant as a defense of your nonproductive non·pro·duc·tive
1. Not yielding or producing: nonproductive land.
2. Not engaged in the direct production of goods: nonproductive personnel.
b. Laugh, but only privately.
c. Challenge Carol Bayer Sager to a fistfight.
7. Prolonged financial uncertainty caused by Fox's decision to sell the team makes it difficult to transact trades and free-agent signings. What should you do?
a. Never complain, keep dialing the phone, stay optimistic in public that you'll find the players you need.
b. Delicately admit it has been a ``complicated'' offseason for ``every facet'' of the organization.
c. Challenge Hannity and Colmes to a fistfight.
8. The new owner announces he's going to interview possible replacements for you as GM but that you're a candidate to keep the job. What should you do?
a. Refuse to quit, ensuring you'll receive your half-million-dollar salary if fired, demonstrating the practical good sense the GM position demands.
b. Keep hoping the new owner will realize that while you haven't proved you're the best man for the job, you haven't proved you're not.
c. Challenge Jim Bowden to a fistfight again.
Right answers: 1. a.; 2. a.; 3. a.; 4. a.; 5. a.; 6. a. and b.; 7. a. and b.; 8. a. and b.
Wrong answers: 1. b; 2. b.; 3 b.; 4. b.; 5. b.
Kevin Malone's answers: 1. c.; 2. c.; 3. c.; 4. c.; 5. c.; 6. c.; 7.c.; 8. c.
I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed)
"Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if Dodgers GM candidates Paul DePodesta, Pat Gillick, Ned Colletti and Bowden would ace the test by identifying the most satisfactory way out of each of those difficult-to-impossible situations.
I do know Dan Evans would.
Evans already did.
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The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Rieck v. Jensen on Thursday, June 30, 2011.
The Tenth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision. Petitioner, a Utah County Deputy Sheriff, entered a closed gate on Respondent’s property without a warrant; Petitioner walked onto a portion of an unpaved driveway within a few feet of the entrance gate, but a considerable distance from Respondent’s home. Respondent brought suit against Petitioner, alleging illegal entry, illegal detention, and excessive force. The district court denied Petitioner qualified immunity for entering the property without a warrant. However, the Court disagreed. The area of Respondent’s property that Petitioner entered was found to be not within the curtilage of Respondent’s home; Petitioner could therefore enter without violating Respondent’s constitutional rights and is protected by qualified immunity.
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September 25, 2012
The EDRi (Euorpean Digital Rights) website posted a leaked document from the Clean IT project that shows the European group is veering a bit off course from its original aim of establishing voluntary self-regulatory measures to protect the Internet from terrorists. Instead of identifying specific problems to be solved, the Clean IT project has become “little more than a protection racket.”
The Clean IT project is funded by the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme of the European Commission, and supported by Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium. Believing that partnerships between public and private organizations can be more effective than government involvement, the main objective of the project is “to develop a non-legislative ‘framework’ that consists of general principles and best practices.”
EDRi states that the initial meetings of the project members were directionless and ill-informed discussions about doing “something” to solve unidentified online “terrorist” problems and that they were mainly attended by filtering companies who saw them as a business opportunity. In the end, says, EDRi, “Their work has paid off, with numerous proposals for filtering by companies and governments, proposals for liability in case sufficiently intrusive filtering is not used, and calls for increased funding by governments of new filtering technologies.”
In other words, we can’t specifically define the problem, which makes it even harder to come up with a solution. These guys over here say filters will take care of it, so let’s just filter the entire Internet and call it a day.
In an April 2012 letter from the Clean IT Project Manager to the Bits of Freedom blog, the coordinator reiterates that the goal of the project it to first identify problems and then enter into an open discussion with the private and public sectors and cooperate to come up with solutions. “This project will only present solutions when there is consensus between public and private parties about both the problem and the solution.”
The group proposes that Internet companies use stricter terms of service agreements to ban unwelcome activity, but advise that these “should not be very detailed”. They cite the Microsoft Code of Conduct as an example, which includes the line, “You will not upload, post, transmit, transfer, distribute or facilitate distribution of any content which depicts nudity of any sort including full or partial human nudity or nudity in non-human forms such as cartoons, fantasy art or manga.”
Under that agreement a picture of Donald Duck wouldn’t be allowed because the poor little guy is never wearing any pants. But who’s going to ban a picture of Donald Duck? The statement is just ambiguous enough to allow the Powers That Be the option of censoring whenever they feel like censoring.
In other words, says EDRi, “If Donald Duck is displeasing to the police, they would welcome, but don’t explicitly demand, ISPs banning his behavior in their terms of service.” And, as you’ll see below, one of the recommendations in the Clean IT initiative states, “Governments should use the helpfulness of ISPs as a criterion for awarding public contracts.”
The Clean IT Project calls for binding agreements from Internet companies to carry out surveillance, to block and to filter. It also wants to create a network of trusted online informants and they’re even calling for stricter legislation from member states, even though their original intention was to cooperate on a public and private level and keep the government out of it.
EDRi says the document was distributed to participants on a “need to know” basis and they’re sharing it because they believe citizens need to know what’s being proposed. The key measures include:
In a separate section of the Clean IT initiative, titled “Government Policies” there are several points for discussion, including:
EDRi says “Unsurprisingly, in discussions with both law enforcement agencies and industry about Clean IT, the word that appears with most frequency is ‘incompetence’,” but they don’t say what’s being referred to. The incompetency of the Clean IT Project members at identifying real problems and solutions? Or Is the Clean IT group assuming they need to step in with filters and surveillance equipment because Internet businesses are too incompetent to take care of their own security?
Donna Anderson writes for Examiner.com.
This article was posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 at 4:17 pm
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Almost weekly now, it seems there is a positive new development associated with the long-delayed project at the Peace Bridge and Customs plaza. Following up on the demolition of vacant and decrepit properties on Busti Avenue and the plan to restore much of Front Park comes a decision that will allow pre-inspection of trucks in Fort Erie, Ont.
With that development, congestion at the crossing should be significantly reduced, potentially avoiding the need to build additional inspection booths on the U.S. side of the border.
This is a huge advance, even if it is less than the full “shared border management” once envisioned. That would have allowed secondary inspections also to be handled on the Canadian side of the bridge. As it is, a new secondary inspection facility will still have to be built in Buffalo to handle the roughly 10 percent of truck traffic requiring additional attention.
The new proposal could see the construction of new inspection lanes in Fort Erie, where the Peace Bridge Authority has more elbow room on 70 acres of land. That will speed both truck traffic and cars, as well, since they could avoid intermingling. Faster inspections are expected to translate to less pollution from exhaust fumes, which is a significant problem to residents near the U.S. Customs plaza.
The agreement between the United States and Canada is being approached as an experiment. Two border crossings – first in Blaine, Wash., then here – will test the efficiency of handling inspections of U.S.-bound cargo in Canada.
The West Coast experiment is due to begin this year. Six months after that, some of the cargo that is now inspected in Buffalo will be examined by U.S. agents working in Canada. If it works well, preliminary inspections of all truck traffic could move to Fort Erie in 2015.
Some version of this concept has been discussed for years, but always fell apart over the issue of U.S. Customs inspectors carrying guns in Canada. The Canadian government previously refused to allow that to occur, but this time, it agreed to pursue legislation that would allow U.S. agents to carry their weapons. That was a breakthrough. Buffalo residents have their federal delegation and the Canadian government to thank for that.
None of this gets a new bridge built, of course, which was at one time the main point of this exercise. But it all works to Buffalo’s advantage and to that of the West Side neighbors who deal with the reality of the second-busiest border crossing on our northern frontier.
Although many remain dissatisfied, the demolition of the houses on Busti Avenue removed an eyesore and should provide a buffer, the reconfiguration of Front Park moves traffic away from residences and, finally, the movement of truck inspections to Canada should notably diminish the problems caused by exhaust. It’s been a good few weeks.
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How Badly Do You Want It?
A blueprint for training your mind for a great performance
"It is a hoary truism that with few exceptions—Babe Ruth, Jean-Claude Killy, Edwin Moses, Eric Heiden—the level of competition at the very top is dead even. The winners have little advantage in strength, technique, or training; the difference comes in psychology." —John Jerome
Over the past year I have been on a quest to figure something out. As a coach, counselor and former elite runner I know that many athletes undermine their ultimate performance potential despite expending so much time and energy on trying to improve. I have tried to get my mind around why this happens. I’ve struggled with my thoughts when I run, and I’ve talked to any runner who’ll listen to me.
On one particular run with a client, a scientist training for the Olympic Marathon Trials, I was explaining my structural theory of performance breakthroughs. I had been refining this and I wanted her take on it. Betsy is a tremendous athlete, with a scientist’s ability to cut away the fluff and get to what is real. She has run a 2:45 marathon and believes, two kids later, that she can still run sub-2:50. If anyone can do it, Betsy can.
As we ran, I explained my thoughts. I had come up with a step-by-step plan to help athletes achieve performance breakthroughs. There are two parts to this process. Part one contains six steps:
1) Make a decision. This decision can be at many different levels. The novice runner may decide to begin a structured running program. The competitive runner may choose to sacrifice some time on the job so her lifestyle will support a more ambitious training program. The elite competitor may commit to doing whatever it takes to reach a goal, such as qualifying for the Olympics.
2) Consult the experts. Once you’ve made a decision, it is important to obtain the best possible information and advice. The novice runner should read running articles (good, you’re following my advice on that score) and books and join a running club. For the competitive runner, this step probably involves getting a coach or adviser and plotting a strategy for optimum and efficient use of time and energy. For the elite competitor, concentrating more on the mental and emotional aspects of running may be the necessary step toward a breakthrough performance.
There are many resources available: coaches, sport psychologists, exercise physiologists, nutritionists, etc. You’ll find information in countless articles and books, on the Web and by talking to other runners. Read, listen and absorb as much information as you can, but remember to screen your sources wisely. There are many so-called "experts" out there. Find people whom you trust, who are willing to meet you at your level and who have time to invest with you.
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When John Kerry is confirmed to succeed Hillary Clinton President Obama’s Secretary of State, as he’s expected to be in the coming weeks, he will leave the gavel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Bob Menendez, a second-term New Jersey Democrat.
Rarely has such a transfer of power offered such a study in opposites.
Menendez, who is Cuban American, is the first Latino elected to the U.S. House and Senate from New Jersey and would become the first Latino chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. His rise to the top of a panel with broad authority to oversee U.S. foreign policy will mean new attention to relations with Central and South America, normally a diplomatic backwater. Menendez will be an Administration ally on immigration reform – he has offered reform measures year after year only to see them die in the Senate. But his new authority is likely to slow efforts to liberalize relations with Cuba; Menendez, 59, is fiercely pro-embargo.
Whereas Kerry had to wait nearly 30 years to become chairman, Menendez’s rise to the top in six is relatively meteoric. The job should fall to the next most senior Democrat, California’s Barbara Boxer, but Boxer has indicated she prefers to remain chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Menendez will have the somewhat complicated job of overseeing the work that Kerry, his predecessor on the panel, does at State. The two men have convivial relations that will surely be tested in the coming years.
As the U.S. enters a critical stage in relations with Iran, Menendez represents the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic party — thanks in part to the large Jewish population in New Jersey — that has been pushing the President to get tougher on Iran. Menendez, along with Republican Senator Mark Kirk, co-authored sweeping sanctions last year against Iran that the Administration didn’t particularly want. And he has voiced reservations about Chuck Hagel, Obama’s nominee to run the Pentagon, because of Hagel’s past statements on Iran. “He certainly has been a strong voice on Iran sanctions and has been instrumental in overcoming Administration hesitation on the most recent sanctions bill,” says Mike Singh, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Menendez also nearly brought down one of the Administration’s early jobs bills in March 2009 and placed holds on two of Obama’s nominees over an appropriations rider that would have eased travel restrictions to Cuba. Opponents of the embargo were hoping the time was right for liberalization of U.S./Cuba relations just as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican of Cuban descent, finally left the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a perch from which she blocked many an effort to open up Cuba. “He’s reflected the Cuban-American community faithfully, but that community is changing,” says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.”Younger Cubans are less likely to oppose normalization of relations. Just look at Florida and the Cuban vote there; it’s much the same thing in New Jersey and New York. The Castro brothers will pass from the scene entirely before too long, and then I’d bet matters will move more swiftly.”
Menendez got his start working for Union City Mayor William Musto in the 1970’s. Menendez turned on Musto after he was indicted on corruption charges, testifying against Musto in a bulletproof vest. He later took Musto’s job and served in the New Jersey General Assembly and Senate before being elected to Congress in 1992. Menendez’s prolific fundraising – New Jersey is, after all, home to much of the nation’s financial sector – helped get him elected in 2002 conference chairman, the No. 4 position in House leadership. He won Jon Corzine’s Senate seat in 2006, and again rose quickly through the ranks thanks to his fundraising prowess. He chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2010, outraising Republicans $130 million to $115 million in a big GOP year. Though Democrats lost six seats, Menendez was credited with saving the majority.
Menendez was investigated by then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie on allegations of corruption, though charges were never filed. In January 2012, Menendez blocked the confirmation of Patty Schwartz, Obama’s nominee to the federal bench and the long-time partner of the head of New Jersey’s public corruption unit in the federal prosecutor’s office. Though Menendez denied it at the time, the New York Times reported that lawyers and judges in New Jersey believed he “was acting out of resentment” stemming from the embarrassing corruption investigation.
During his tenure as chairman, Kerry was careful to never cross the line from friendly criticism to friendly fire on the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. An op-ed pushing for greater engagement in Libya, or some pointed comments about the lackadaisical pace of the Middle East peace process was as far as Kerry went. Menendez, by contrast, has shown much more willingness to take on his fellow Democrats up Pennsylvania Avenue and a chairman’s perch gives him a bigger megaphone. “The central question about Menendez is whether he’ll moderate any of his views to accommodate his party’s President,” Sabato says. If not, he may soon find himself taking on not only Obama, but his predecessor.
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| 0.966288 | 1,148 | 1.609375 | 2 |
~Written by Becca Andrews
With the 2012 APME conference winding down, there is one issue at the forefront of every newsroom this fall– the 2012 presidential election.
Addressing the coverage of the election were panelists Chuck Babington of The Associated Press, Sergio Bustos of The Miami Herald, Liz Sidoti of The Associated Press, and Joe Vardon of The Columbus Dispatch. Mindy Marques, executive editor of The Miami Herald, served as the moderator.
Remaining in the theme of Social Media Friday, the panelists debated the pros and cons of the use of social media by reporters, the candidates and their campaign teams.
The conversations happening on Twitter can control the narrative and define stories now, but reporters should be careful not to be manipulated by the candidates and their followers, as far as prioritizing coverage, Sidoti said.
“They’re talking to us, trying to influence what we write,” Sidoti said.
Varden said that Twitter is a “brilliant thing” because politicians tend to make highly-debated faux pas on the site that lead into stories, but he also cautioned attendees on the dangers of tweeting.
“Reporters are people too and can also say some dumb things,” Varden said.
The hyper-local focus that many newspapers try to keep up to serve their communities will not be as effective in the coming months with regards to the race.
“We’re such a national community, and the news media is national,” Babington said. “Social scientists have concluded it’s really the national story that persuades people.”
Panelists also talked about the effects of political advertising and how they see the election shaping up over the next couple months.
“If you’re wondering if this election is going to be close, the answer is ‘yes,’” Bustos said.
Political advertisements are also holding voters’ attention, and politicians are spending money to gain votes and influence opinions.
“They wouldn’t be spending the money if it wasn’t effective,” Bustos said. “When you talk to the real voters, they are echoing what they heard in an ad.”
The conversation eventually shifted to public opinion of the reliability of the media. A recent Gallup poll showed 60 percent of Americans have no trust in the media to report accurately and fairly, and only 39 percent are paying close attention to the upcoming election.
The panel agreed that the ultimate goal is to do our job and to do it well.
“Our main M.O., our main goal in restoring confidence is let’s go back to the basics,” Sidoti said. “Let’s go back to what made us credible in the voters’ eyes to begin with– precision, accuracy, swiftness.”
Bustos echoed Sidoti, and said the focus should remain on the constituents.
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If you're ever in any doubt about what the terms "old-school" or "rat rod" mean when applied to hot rods, have a look at Garth and Cam Storms' 1938 Ford truck.
The original hot rods of the '30s, '40s and '50s were pieced together out of junkyard parts by backyard mechanics. Each machine was a unique expression of the vision of its builder, or at least the closest he could come with the parts he could find and afford.
Eventually, hot rods became street rods, what the unkind call "1-800" cars -- assembled out of purpose-built, pre-engineered parts. With sparkling chrome and glistening paint, street rods tend to be a lot more show than go.
The inevitable backlash came when purists began to build what they called rat rods, vehicles that flaunt their homemade, junkyard origins. Which brings us to the Storms, father and son, and their joint project.
"My dad and I had been kind of itching to build one," Cam said. The project really got started when Cam acquired the engine out of a '67 Cadillac sedan. The 429-cubic-inch Caddy powerplant was a good first step toward authenticity, as, unlike present-day builders with their focus on the small block Chevrolet, early rodders used whatever engines they could find.
The discovery of several long-abandoned '38 Ford 3-ton flatdeck trucks set the Storms family solidly on the road to a rat rod. "We ended up with one of the cabs, the better one I think because of the patina on the doors, but the roof was all caved-in," says Cam.
Another truck cab donated its roof, which was sectioned to lower the cab height about 15 centimetres. In true rat rod style, the welds are still visible.
The patina Cam refers to is the still-visible signage of the Bishop Brothers hauling company in Three Hills, the original owners of the truck.
In the interest of safety, a new, fully-boxed frame was fabricated, still in the style, however, of a late-'30s Ford. A new floor for the cab was constructed, too, to underpin the collage of old licence plates and metal advertising signs that appears to make up the truck's interior tin.
Getting enough licence plates and old signs for the interior proved to be a bit of a challenge. "I've been kicked out of a few antique stores looking for old licence plates," Cam laughs. "Basically, it's whatever we can get our hands on. That's exactly how it would have been, post World War Two."
A 1937 Ford car provided the truck's front clip and the radiator shell is a '34 Chevrolet piece bought at a flea market in Spokane. Disc brakes were unknown to early rod builders, so the Storms' '38 has drum brakes from a '53 Ford grain truck.
The radiator shell is probably the lowest part of the car, and does suffer damage from time to time. "I banged the bottom a couple of times," Cam says. "It's kind of bent-in. Usually, I'll take a hammer to it every couple of months and straighten it up."
It wouldn't have done to leave the engine alone, of course, so an intake manifold was fabricated out of exhaust tubing for the Ford's six two-barrel carburetors. The original plan was for only the two middle carbs to be functional, but that layout tended to lean out the outside cylinders so now the Caddy drinks from the four outside pots.
With a 4.10 rear gear, the little truck runs out of breath pretty quickly at speed. "You're pushing it to go 70 (m.p.h.) on the highway," Cam says, but it has recorded a respectable run of 14.6 seconds on the quarter-mile at Race City. "It's a good, solid little unit," Garth says. "Pulls hard. Runs great."
Cam agrees, but finds one aspect of driving on the street a bit difficult. "Street lights," he says. "Good luck trying to spot them."
The truck's small window and chopped top don't allow the driver to see anything very high, he says, claiming that he has been known to bang his nose on the steering wheel trying to look up and out the windshield.
After a year and a half gathering parts, work on the truck began in earnest in August 2006. Working nights and weekends for months at a time, the Storms rat rod debuted at the 2007 World of Wheels show in Calgary last February.
"It had crowds around it," Garth recalls. "The only one with his nose out of joint was the guy with the $150,000 street rod and there were more people around our car."
The truck is a hit with the motoring public, too, according to Cam.
"We'll be on the highway somewhere and these guys will rip by. Then you'll see the brake lights and they'll come back and the next thing you know somebody's leaning halfway out with a camera phone."
"I said, 'If we're going to do this, we're going to do it as a father-son project,' " explains Garth. "It was the best thing we ever did together. It did amazing things for our relationship. We both learned a lot, not just about cars, but about each other."
Lexus has done what may seem impossible to others: it has made a hybrid that is also the top performer of its model lineup.
Never a big fan of Jaguar cars, I initially turned down the chance to drive the 2013 XF. No doubt it would offer a plush ride and some pleasant cruising...
After stumbling around in the stylistic wilderness for far too many years, the once proud British company is back to penning its stunning designs once...
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| 0.978037 | 1,235 | 1.695313 | 2 |
For the most part, windsurfing wetsuits are just like any other type of wetsuit. They are almost always made from neoprene and are designed to be both flexible and to provide insulation against the chill of cold water. They are also available in many different styles.
When searching for windsurfing wetsuits, the thickness of the construction material is an important consideration. A thicker wetsuit provides a higher degree of insulation, and is therefore better suited for colder waters. Of course, if you ride in primarily warm water, then a thinner suit is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
Windsurfing wetsuits can be expensive, depending on the specifics of their design. However, with these suits you often get what you pay for, and as such it is recommended that you but the best that you can afford. A quality suit will often last for many, many years before it has to be replaced.
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WHITEPAPER: Best Practices In Overhead Paging For Healthcare Facilities
Apr 27, 2012 12:06 PM
How a networked public address system enhances sustainability, safety, and efficiency for patient-centered care.
This paper reviews current industry trends, as well as the role that network-based public address (PA) plays in future-proofing hospital PA systems to improve overall communications and operations, as well as enhance the patient, staff and visitor experience.
Two key points will be addressed:
1. How sustainability and networked architecture go hand in hand.
2. Why the change towards safety and efficiency should include all systems.
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
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| 0.94562 | 144 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Pitch It Right
Faced with these challenges, companies must ensure that they are best equipped for continued survival and success. Winning that new business deal has become more crucial than ever before.
In order to have potential clients listen to your business ideas and buy into your proposals, you have to speak persuasively. How you say something is as important as what you say. It is about sending a persuasive message back to the person or organisation you want to do business with, so you're selling them a real need, not a perceived need.
In the past, firms may rely on one or two people to pitch for business; it is now becoming the case where nearly everyone in a company is required to participate in bringing in the business.
One of the other trends we are seeing is how Asian companies are expanding externally towards Europe and USA. These businesses have had to sharpen their skills to present convincingly and persuasively to a Western audience. This calls for a completely new approach to communication, which Asian CEOs have to learn.
Asian CEOs have to adapt their communication style from a need-to-know basis to one that is more transparent and persuasive. There is a need to give out more information, to a more discerning audience, in a controlled fashion.
The key to a persuasive business pitch is to be prepared. New business pitches generally fail because of a lack of understanding of the prospective clients' needs, irrelevant credentials and inadequate preparation.
When you are chasing any piece of business, the efforts you have to put in to win can be enormous. Being involved in a client's pitch means living and breathing the business from day one.
Everyone can be a winner provided they manage to avoid five common pitfalls in pitching.
Talking about yourself: Assuming a prospective client cares at all about the company's capabilities is a mistake. Pitchers are encouraged to place more emphasis in discussing solutions to the prospective client's problems rather than describing the company's workforce size or turnover statistics.
Pitching without owning the client: Place yourself in the client's shoes, and tailor your pitch as though you are in the client's team and share their problem. Companies that win pitches understand the client's business better than their competitors.
Lack of evidence: Evidence such as statistics, case studies, strong visual aids (charts, spreadsheets etc), demonstrations, hypothetical arguments and testimonials lend credibility to the presentation.
Relying on the tender document: Presentations should confirm the client's decision to award the business deal to you.
Answering the client rationally without addressing the emotion: People rationalise with their minds, but buy with their hearts. Address the client's emotion because at the end of the day, they have to like you or respect you.
Here are several winning techniques to help companies prepare the perfect presentation and clinch the deal.
Building a War Room: The war room is any place where the pitch team can brainstorm, research prospective clients as well as competitors, strategise, and rehearse. It is also a place for incredible creativity and focus.
Face-to-Face Interaction: A programme of client interaction is designed to help companies better understand the client's business and to ensure that they have all the right answers for all the questions the client are likely to ask.
Creating a Persuasive Presentation: Decide what tactics will help you win the business and then create the most persuasive presentation. Take time out for at least three rehearsals before the big day.
Present to win
One must remember that a pitch presentation is not a speech to a large gathering, or to a small one - it is a mixture. The distinction is worth making because many executives treat pitch presentations either too formally or informally.
As a presenter in a pitch, your objective is to persuade the listeners to make an immediate decision and/or to commit to a course of action. This decision is often of considerable magnitude. Therefore you need to organise your presentation. It needs to be a simple, but with tight organisation.
The introduction: In your introduction you present your listeners with the main theme, tone and style of your presentation. Tell them what to expect. Generally, the shorter, the simpler, the better.
Reasons for listening: Sell the subject to them - explain why they should listen. If appropriate, also tell them something about yourself in order to help set the scene and justify why you are the presenter.
Teaser: Given them the map of the journey. "First I shall talk about ... then we will look at... and finally we'll investigate..."
Content: This is the meat of your presentation. Ensure you cut into digestible mouthfuls. You have given the audience the map; stick to the route you promised. Too many facts, too many deviations, too many ideas will detract from your main message.
Conclusion: Round up the major points, highlighting your main ideas once more and reiterating your key propositions. Remind the audience why your company is the right choice. Answer at this stage any negatives that might be in the minds of your perspective clients.
What above all will they remember about your pitch?
End on a high note. Pull all the strands of your speech together in the summary. Leave them in no doubt of your conviction, your main proposition and its validity: "In five years you will wonder how you ever managed without ..."
Finally, just in case your final conclusion is not strident enough it is always a good idea to thank the perspective client for the opportunity and their attention.
Erin Atan is senior vice president Asia Pacific Lewis Global Public Relations
- Lewis PR
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Tom and Jerry is a series of theatrical animated cartoon films created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, centering on a never-ending rivalry between a cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry) whose chases and battles often involved comic violence (despite sometimes they become allies to defeat a 'greater enemy' such as Spike the dog). Hanna and Barbera ultimately wrote and directed one hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry shorts at the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood between 1940 and 1957, when the animation unit was closed. The original series is notable for having won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film seven times, tying it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the theatrical animated series with the most Oscars. A longtime television staple, Tom and Jerry has a worldwide audience that consists of children, teenagers and adults, and has also been recognized as one of the most famous and longest-lived rivalries in American cinema. In 2000, TIME named the series one of the greatest television shows of all time.
File: Tom and Jerry - 001 - Puss Gets the Boot [DVDrip][FahimAdib@Doridro].com.avi
Size: 85057536 bytes (81.12 MiB), duration: 00:08:51, avg.bitrate: 1281 kb/s
Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 32 kb/s
Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 640x480, 25.00 fps(r)
FahimAdib@Doridro Entertainment Team [DET]
Maximum speed of the download, use the latest version of IDM from here,
Decompress it without any problems, use the latest version of WinRAR from here,
Join .001 Files without any problems, use the latest version of HJSPLIT from here + Tutorial.
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Elephant unchained after one year
ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: After around a year, the only elephant of the Marghazar Zoo ‘Kawan’ on Wednesday was unchained by the Mahout (elephant trainer).
Kawan spent two hours in a pond especially built for it. Visitors took photographs and enjoyed watching the animal bathe in the pond.
As Kawan settles down into the new habitat, Capital Development Authority (CDA) is planning to request Sri Lanka to donate another female elephant to the Zoo.
The previous female elephant that died under dubious circumstances was also donated by Sri Lanka in 2012.
Thirty-two years old Kawan looked calm and seemed to enjoy bathing in the new pond.
Children and residents of the twin cities who had come for entertainment, gathered around the enclosure of the elephant and watched as it played in the water. Children fed apples and grass to the elephant and some even touched it.
A visitor, Raja Mazhar, who came with his family said: “I am surprised to see the elephant unchained because for many months I have been visiting the zoo along with my children but I always saw it chained.”
Precocious Sidra Bashir, 7, said: “Lion and other big animals are dangerous because they eat children. So I like the elephant because it loves children.”
However, Mohammad Azhar, 12, still misses the female elephant that died.
“I remember that the female elephant in the zoo was so friendly. Children used to touch it and give it money and also take pictures. It is sad that the female elephant died. The male elephant is also cute but my father does not allow me to go near it,” he said.
It is worth mentioning that the female elephant named Saheli died on May 1, 2012, after suffering severe pain in one of its legs for about two weeks.
It was only 22 years old, however, life of an average elephant is 70 years and they even live up to 100 years.
An official of CDA requesting not to be identified said that after the death of the female elephant, fingers were raised at CDA but unchaining the male elephant and bringing him back to life will restore the image of zoos of Pakistan.
“Head Mahout of the elephant Mohammad Bilal who was suspended after the death of the female elephant, was given the task to unchain the elephant and bring it to the pond by January 2013 and he did it within one and half months,” he said.
Mahout Bilal said that member environment CDA Dr Kazim Niaz had given him the task to unchain the elephant.
“It took over a month to normalise the elephant and in the end, the elephant started listening to me and now it has been following my instructions,” he said.
Member Environment CDA Dr Kazim Niaz while talking to Dawn said that that the management was facing problems but up-gradation of the zoo was underway.
“Unchaining the elephant is a great achievement. Next week we will repeat the exercise, in presence of Chairman CDA. After that CDA will write a letter to Sri Lankan authorities to donate a female elephant,” he said.
“Two new enclosures have been constructed in the zoo for Lions and Nilgai. Besides, we have two male ostriches, so we have been considering buying a female ostrich,” he said.
“Just like the animal enclosure in sector F-8, two new enclosures for animals and birds will be opened in sector I-8 and Kalaignar Valley in the Margallas respectively,” he said.
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Friday, March 30, 2012
If there is one thing that drives me crazy it is "catch phrases". oh you know the kind. The kind the media loves to use for advertising and being "hip". Seems like the latest one we have become inundated with is Bucket List.. Jot down things you fantasize about, things you'd like to see happen, with only your imagination stopping you!! We are constantly told we need to have a bucket list and then add things to it.
Well that is all fine and dandy but then what???? what's the point of a list if it just has words on it and it sits on a desk or in a drawer collecting dust. Perhaps the only time it gets utilized is when it gets moved around when you add another item to it..hmmmmmmm.
Now don't get me wrong: I am certainly a believer of goal setting, having something to work towards and getting it accomplished..Ever since I was a teenager, that is certainly has been my modus operandi. But bucket list? The emphasis seems to be adding things to this so called list. But what about doing them???? After all it is not about how many "cool" things you have done, but the process, the journey, going through the changes by research, focus, failure etc! The journey is equally if not more important than the final outcome..
But why a long list? Why not pick ONE thing and One thing at at time and GET IT DONE! I mean what's the use of a list if it is just that? Words on a paper? Why not a bucket formula? A bucket process? and then a bucket ACCOMPLISHMENT!...Let's face it ANYTHING is doable if you put your mind, heart, soul and body into it. It takes planning, it takes time, it takes work. If you want it bad enough you can do it. Then when it is done, find another.
Perhaps my outlook is too one sided. I mean I know I have many things I want to try but realistically I don't bother to focus on them until I'm done with the prioritized deed underway. I look at it as Why choose so many wishes and not actualize any or choose one and set off and conquer it! when it's done, find the next ...Who knows? By accomplishing the first one, it may snowball into a whole new set of possibilities!
I believe the real point is to appreciate life, dare to live it, not let it live you. Follow your heart, realize your dreams and find passion in your actions. As we have all experienced it is all gone in a heartbeat, so why regret not trying, not exploring, fearing the unknown???? Let's all live BUCKET LIVES!
On that note, I better scratch this one off my "mental" bucket list....Write blog post about pet peeves......
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It’s like the old-timers always said: Don’t quit before the miracle happens.
While the Arab Spring showed that people can still accomplish the impossible, Our political debate was frozen in corporate cynicism. Now everything has changed. For the United States, spring came in autumn. Who says miracles don’t happen?
Like a Prayer
A few months ago I prayed for something. Granted, it wasn’t the kind of prayer that’s sanctioned by any ecclesiastical authority. And, okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly a “prayer.” I guess the technical term for it would be “blog post.” But trust me, it was a prayer.
I’d been asked to write something for the Fourth of July, and I wrote we have to fight a new war, a “war of independence from corporate politics.” To be honest, those words felt Utopian even as I wrote them. Still, I never doubted them. The words were born out of the desperate sense that so many of us shared, a sense that our society is collapsing. And that it will keep on collapsing unless we change the way we think.
I wasn’t arguing for any particular policy or platform. “The problem isn’t just with politicians, or even the system,” I said then. “The problem is dependence itself.”
Oh, come on. How starry-eyed can you get? Stop depending on politicians? Declare psychic and political independence from celebrity-driven politics and media-made leaders? I’d always considered myself a realist, but this was almost embarrassingly idealistic.
Except for the fact that it happened.
Like so many others, I had grieved and raged over the lack of commitment displayed by good people. Cynics, robber barons, and American warlords are hard at work degrading – and downgrading – this country. In a strange set of parallels, we were reenacting the stories of the Third World countries we’d invaded. Like them, we were becoming a nation where servile or fearful politicians served a cynical oligarchy while the people’s way of life died all around them.
Some might call it karma – or simply “payback.”
But whatever you call it, the forces of hate and greed were running wild. The “two-party” system seemed to offer nothing in response except a) posturing, b) surrender, and c) a politics of compromise that seemed to amount to little more than … well, see “a)” and “b)”, above. Good people were fighting for better policies, and I tried to play my part. But too many of us focused on the prose of politics and not its poetry.
Meanwhile, too many politicians got lazy quoting Bill Clinton’s hack line: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It can be, of course. But before our eyes, the “good” became the enemy of the “perfect” and the mediocre became the enemy of the good. Then the cynical became the enemy of the mediocre, and democracy began to die.
Meanwhile the other side gained its momentum with every passing month, fueled by a pseudo-populist movement ginned up by corporate-funded political hacks. A nation that had rejected the politics of greed and oligarchy at the ballot box was even more suffocated by it than before. No wonder so many people were uninspired, discouraged, despondent. Some people quoted William Butler Yeats:
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
The good people who did burn with passionate intensity were in danger of turning the torch on themselves. ” The game is over,” wrote Chris Hedges. “We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass.”
As boom times came back to Wall Street, depression – emotional as well as economic – entombed the majority. But the suffering of the majority turned invisible inside the Beltway, as politicians debated deficits in a broken economy. It was like debating water conservation while the house burned down.
The Condition of Everything
Miles of commentary have been written about the Occupy movement. As the occupations gained steam, people criticized them for their lack of specific policy demands. But they were right not to issue specific demands. They were declaring independence from a frame of mind, a set of assumptions that led to passive acceptance of an unacceptable system.
And they had passionate intensity.
I’ve told this story before, but I’ll tell it again: When OccupyDC marched down K Street, in the early days of the movement, a young security guard asked an older one what they were protesting. “I’m not sure,” said the older man. “But I think they’re objecting to …” He circled his hands to indicate the environment around him. “…. the condition of everything.”
By objecting to the condition of everything, the Occupiers changed the political dialog in this country. By rejecting leaders and insisting on self-governance through General Assemblies, they taught us by example how to escape emotional dependence. Like William Butler Yeats, they understood that you can’t distinguish the dancer from the dance.
One of the movement’s most articulate and forceful advocates is Chris Hedges.
The Wisconsin uprising had been going on for months, even in the dark days of July. The miracle of Wisconsin is that it’s still going on. People there occupied their capitol to protest laws designed to break the middle class, laws written by corporate America’s “ALEC” division. Then they mounted recall efforts against recently elected GOP State Senators, reducing their majority and draining resources from their coffers.
Now Gov. Walker is facing a recall. The struggle in Wisconsin isn’t about “Democrats” against “Republicans.” It’s about resisting politicians that are wholly-owned subsidiaries of corporate America.
The people of Wisconsin showed the country how to resist. Now they’re showing us how to persist.
And just this month, Ohio voters rejected an ALEC-inspired initiative to strip that state’s workers of rights. Maine voters rejected a move to overturn election-day registration, another attempt to restrict the ability of lower-income citizens to vote. And Mississippi rejected a definition of prenatal rights so extreme that many anti-abortion advocates were disturbed by its implications for the rights, health, and safety of women.
Like I was saying: Miracles.
But elections aren’t the point. They can be a reflection of the change we need, but they’re not the change itself. The real changes are personal. “When I remake a song,” said Yeats, “it is myself that I remake.” The Rolling Stones said “It’s the singer, not the song.”
We misunderstood our own power. We were being distracted and manipulated by fear and anger. Our minds, our souls, were being manipulated by what the Native American poet and activist John Trudell calls “the mining of the essence.” One of the reasons we were powerless is that we believed we were powerless. That’s even true economically. “All money is a matter of belief,” said Adam Smith.
We needed to push our fear and anger away to see the obvious truths all around us: The corporations rule our political process. That our democracy is dying. That Wall Street is filled with people who broke moral (and sometimes actual) laws and forced the rest of the country to pay the price. We had to see with fresh eyes.
“All hatred driven hence,” wrote Yeats, “the soul recovers radical innocence.”
Our political process has become too cynical. Even reasonable and very moderate ideas favored by a majority of Republican voters, as well as others – a breakup of five or six too-big-to-fail banks, a public option health plan that’s only available to one American in twenty – were declared impossible.
We needed an infusion of radical innocence, the innocence of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. We sometimes think of innocence as something childlike and weak. But innocence has great power. Innocence changes the world.
We needed that radical innocence,and we got it. What we do with it now is up to us.
Can we commit ourselves to moving forward, to persevering against all odds? The future’s unwritten. But we know what’s happening right now. The political dialog has shifted in a way that seemed impossible a few months ago. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I know how I feel.
I feel thankful.
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Reduce Your Stress!
When our lives feel ‘out-of-control,’ we tend to feel the same, and look for ways to make ourselves feel better. Substance abuse is a common way to drown sorrows and stresses and even say, ‘I deserve this.’ But substances only make things worse in the long run.
It may sound cheesy, but a peaceful walk outside can do wonders. So can a martial arts or yoga class. Or eating a healthy meal, sleeping in or just plain relaxing. If the alternative to healthy activities is running ourselves down so far we feel the only option is to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, stress management must be a priority.
Effective Stress Management
Stress management, or the failure to effectively manage stress, is something often handed down from parent to child – making it even more important for people who have “learned” to be stressed to learn to effectively manage it so that the vicious cycle is not started, or continued.
We must clear our lives of clutter and simplify. Take time out to rejuvenate. Take a hot shower. Watch a funny movie. Plan ahead: save a good book for when you need to escape; keep a restaurant gift card stashed away for when you’re worried about finances; keep a friend’s phone number with you so you can call them on your commute home on rough days.
However, if the temptation to abuse drugs or alcohol is strong and frequent, professional help will be beneficial. You don’t have to be addicted. Therapy and support groups are the most ideal ways to make positive changes and receive guidance and encouragement from others who understand.
The Way Out Recovery is a tool that everyone who is looking to begin the process of recovery should use. The people who I met, and helped me and my family through the process of recovery are amazing. I cannot thank them enough. Their compassion, commitment and non-judgmental attitudes helped get my family o the right track. Thank you for all you have done.Read More & Write Your Own
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Mr. Diamond, who ran Barclays’ investment banking arm when the rigging occurred, will be cross-questioned by a panel of parliamentarians on Wednesday about what exactly happened between 2004 and 2009 when the ruse was under way.
The government has launched a cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the scandal, with Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne saying a “culture that had flourished in the age of irresponsibility” among bankers must come to an end. The opposition Labour party is calling for a wider-ranging independent investigation, much like the long-running Leveson inquiry, which is probing standards in the media following a scandal over journalists hacking into cellphone voicemails.
Whatever action the British government takes, more revelations are sure to follow. At least a dozen big banks are being investigated by global authorities – the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) and, in the US, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice - over the rigging of the market.
The scandal is the latest hit for a banking system already heavily criticized for its role in the financial crisis. Since the banking crisis of 2008 – when institutions that had issued too many risky loans had to be bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars by taxpayers - banks have been routinely charged with incompetence.
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Taxpayers foot the bill to combat Islamic extremism
If this isn’t Jizya, Cranmer is not sure what is.
Jizya is the tax under Islamic law which non-Muslims have to pay in order to live their lives with a degree of autonomy and to practise their faith free from aggression.
Birmingham City Council spent £525,000 in the last financial year under the Government’s secrecy-shrouded Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund (PVE). And now they are throwing another £2.4 million at the project, to be spread over the next three years. Since this augments the Council Tax, it is a manifest financial penalty upon each household in areas with significant Muslim populations in order to combat Islamist aggression.
While councils across the country have received PVE cash to help communities tackle extremism, there are concerns over how some local authorities are using the money. Birmingham City Council used the £525,000 to fund projects at 10 mosques in the city. Dr Mashuq Ally, the council’s ‘Head of Equality and Diversity’ (who asked taxpayers if they wanted to fund such Marxist pursuits?) said the projects ‘focused on young people, religious institutions, and women and media’. Among them was a scheme to teach imams English. Another was aimed at developing management structures in the mosques.
Surely these ‘management structures’ ought simply be educated to employ English-speaking imams in the first place. Why should the taxpayer subsidise importing Pakistani imams into UK mosques? It is not their lack of English that offends, but the particular brand of Islam that they preach. At least if they cannot speak English, the propagation of their message of hate is somewhat hindered.
Another programme involved the council funding Criminal Records Bureau checks on all teachers and staff working at the Islamic schools attached to the mosques. But since other schools are obliged to find this money themselves, this amounts to a taxpayer subsidy on unregulated madrassas. The people of Birmingham are unwittingly helping to educate the next generation of Muslims through faith schools which are not subject to Ofsted - the state’s inspection regime.
Among the mosques to receive funding is the Green Lane mosque in Small Heath, notorious for being featured on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque, the sequel of which broadcasts tomorrow. But in contravention of every guideline for the spending of taxpayers’ money, substantial funds are allocated with no accountability. While some may question how Dr Mashuq Ally, a Muslim, could lead on matters of equality and diversity, all ought to be concerned with his admission that ‘we commission work and pay for the cost for things to be delivered. We don’t go and tender out, the reason for that is that it can create divisions within communities’.
You see, this work is ‘highly specialised’ – too specialised for the kuffar to comprehend, and too specialised to merit obtaining at least two competing quotations to ensure good value for the taxpayer.
There is no doubt that some Muslims object to PVE because they think the programme stigmatises them, but there are an awful lot more non-Muslims who object to the fact that Muslim groups seem to be benefiting from the handouts while youth clubs, libraries and community centres have been closed down for lack of funds.
And when one considers the behaviour of the councillors in Tower Hamlets, one has to wonder whether local government is even capable of choosing appropriate Muslim partners for this kind of project. When the Government’s Communities and Local Government department was asked what checks, if any, are being carried out to ensure local authorities are allocating funding effectively to counter extremism, a spokeswoman said: "This funding is not being ring-fenced in this financial year, but is currently being paid through the Area Based Grant. This gives local authorities flexibility about how they used their resources.
"The Communities Secretary will be reviewing these arrangements at the end of the financial year 2008/09 and will consider at that point whether there are exceptional circumstances which would merit ring-fencing."
So the peace and safety of the realm is the hands of Hazel Blears. Isn’t that reassuring?
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Snow was in short supply across Illinois in January, but the State Water Survey says many areas got relief after a dry 2012 with soaking rain.
State Climatologist Jim Angel said Monday in a news release that statewide average precipitation was 3.9 inches last month. That's almost 2 inches more than average. Some areas in far southeastern Illinois had more than 6 inches of precipitation.
Angel says snowfall was below average across the state. It ranged from 6.5 inches in far northwest Illinois to no snow at all in the far southern tip of the state.
The statewide average temperature for January was 28.7 degrees. That's four degrees warmer than the average. The warmest January on record was in 2006 when the average temperature was just below 38 degrees.Copyright © 2013 Paddock Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Behind Jesus' miracles there's always love. His heart reaches out, touched by some sorrow of the human race, some tragedy, and he addresses it. You have only to think about the terror on the face of the men in a sinking fishing boat or the distress on the face of father who's lost his only child or the hoarse croaking of the lepers, begging for help. His love is what shines behind His every miracle.
And so when we think of the Transfiguration, this miracle of Jesus shining on the mountain top, Moses and Elijah there, and the voice of the Father testifying that Jesus is His Son, we must above all consider what experiencing this miracle meant to the three men who were there to witness it. What it means to us.
You see, this miracle didn't end simply with Jesus saying: "Don't tell anyone." He added: "Don't tell anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
Peter, James, and John saw Jesus shine on the mountain. Not for his own sake, but for theirs and ours. Get a handle on this and you will love Jesus forever for what He did for us on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory that lit up the sky that night is the glory that He came to impart to us. The glory that shone from his body is the glory he will impart to you, to your body, at the Resurrection! The glory of His body will that day be your own.
In order for that to transpire, Jesus comes down one mountain and begins to walk toward another. From Transfiguration to Calvary. From "This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-pleased" to "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Because you see, that's how Jesus would bring glory to our bodies, rescuing us from death and the steely grip of sin - by trading places with us, by taking our shame, by dying lost and alone. He dies our death to give us his life. He bears our shame to give us his glory. That's how much he loves us!
The three that witnessed the Transfiguration no doubt needed that vision just to get them through the horror of Good Friday. But can you imagine their joy on Easter? Their joy when they saw Jesus again, glorified, never to be touched by death again. When they saw Him as He was then, but that way forever, and when He said: "Because I live, you too shall live!" Woah! The glory they witnessed that night on the mountain was only a teasing taste of the glory that was to be his forever. And his death and resurrection made that glory his gift to all believers!
That changes everything, my friends. Above all, it changes how we face our own suffering and death. Look, Baptism is like our own Transfiguration. A very old custom of the church calls for the newly baptized to be clothed in garments of white as they come from the font. That's a way of confessing that Baptism is our Transfiguration. It's the moment when Jesus grabs hold of us and marks us as co-heirs with him of his glory. He says: "You're my family. You're my sister. You're my brother. You will share my glory with me forever."
But after the passing moment of Transfiguration, came the suffering, came the dying. That's true for Jesus and that's true for us. The glory that Baptism promises us is a glory that we will not have as our own in this world, in this life. No. Our bodies grow old. They creak. They begin to wear out. We face death itself; it looms before us. And when the thought of death frightens us, and we don't know if we can bear the sufferings that may well precede and go with it, the humiliation and the sorrow, then we understand why Jesus gave us the miracle of the Transfiguration. In love He shows us what we'll be in the end. In love He shows us what glory awaits us on the other side of the sufferings and death - yes, even after our bodies have fallen apart and become food for worms, yes, after they've returned to the dust. He shows us the glory that He has pledged Himself to give us on the day of His own appearing.
The vision of that glory gives us the courage to say to death, as it approaches: "You pathetic and pitiful little thing. You can growl and snarl all you want. You can tear into me and make me cry. But you can't win in the end, can you? He lives. You know who I mean. And because He lives, I too shall live again. You know it and it drives you wild with hatred, but there's no help for you. He's the victor and He's marked me as His own in Baptism and so you can't hold me. Even this bag of bones will stand before him, glorified and whole and will be singing his praises when you, death, are no more."
What better way for a Christian to face death than with that vision of Jesus, shining on the Mountain top, and knowing that we were looking at a glory that He died and rose again to give us and that most surely awaits us on the other side of the grave? God give us such courage and such faithfulness! Amen.
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Hornets' Gilmour makes most of second chance.
Kristin Gilmour overcame health concerns which initially led to her being cut from the Canadian women's under-18 team, to help the team win a gold medal at the World Women's Under-18 Hockey Championships in Finland. The Oakville Hornets defenceman had a goal and an assist in five games in her debut with the national team.
As the Canadian players gathered in the dressing room after their dramatic victory over the United States, the coaches had a simple message — you just made history. Canada’s hopes of returning from the World Women’s Under-18 Championship in Finland with a
As the Canadian players gathered in the dressing room after their dramatic victory over the United States, the coaches had a simple message — you just made history.
Canada’s hopes of returning from the World Women’s Under-18 Championship in Finland with a gold medal had looked grim until it tied the game with just 12 seconds to play and then capped the comeback with a goal in the first minute of overtime, stealing a 2-1 victory from their rivals.
It was the kind of game players dream of being a part of and perhaps nobody in that room appreciated it more than Oakville Hornets defenceman Kristin Gilmour.
The 17-year-old Waterdown high school student was a rookie in the Provincial Women’s Hockey League last year. Little did she know that Hockey Canada scouts were watching her play. Last spring, an e-mail with the invitation to a strength and conditioning camp in Toronto came out of the blue. Kristin’s mom presented it to her daughter as a gift, framed and wrapped.
“I immediately tear up and start crying,” Gilmour said. “Then I looked up and both my parents are crying. It was amazing.”
The framed invitation still sits atop her trophy shelf.
Training camp was a series of fitness tests all day, every day — bench-presses, chin-ups, “just crazy, crazy amounts of testing,” Gilmour said.
And then came the frightening setback and heartache. At the May camp, she collapsed on the ice. Unable to finish the camp, she was sent home.
Doctors thought it was overexertion, but she spent the summer in and out of hospital when the fainting spells continued.
“I had two MRIs, an EEG, all this testing to figure out what was wrong because I kept fainting,” Gilmour said. “I fainted about four times and no one knew why.”
At the end of August, she was at the Hornets’ training camp when she fainted again and went into convulsions.
In the midst of her health scare, Gilmour received another e-mail, this time official notification she had been cut from the Canadian team.
“I was devastated,” she said. “I cried all night long. It was horrible. The next day, I got on the ice, you just push yourself that much harder. I was so close; I wasn’t going to give up. I practiced harder, worked out harder.”
In her youthful exuberance, she phoned Hockey Canada officials to find out why she didn’t make the team. Was she not working hard enough she wanted to know? No, they responded, it was her health.
After weekly visits to the doctor, Gilmour finally got a diagnosis — neurocardiogenic presyncope.
“Basically, when I push myself too hard, oxygen doesn’t go to my brain and I pass out.” Gilmour said.
With a strict diet and breathing techniques, she can control what doctors have told her is not an uncommon ailment among athletes, she said.
Meanwhile, Hockey Canada continued to monitor her progress with the Hornets. After consultation with and clearance from her doctors, she was offered a spot on the Canadian team in November.
Gilmour, who will attend the University of Maine next year, was determined to make the most of her second chance, but she was in for a bit of a surprise. Facing Hungary, which was making its debut at worlds, Gilmour was not expecting such a high level of play.
“I felt like I underestimated them,” she said. “I had to get used to the speed and physicality. They were better than the best PW(HL) team.”
Gilmour would make the necessary adjustments, though. On New Year’s Day, she picked up her first point assisting on a goal in a win over Germany. In the semifinal, she took a pass from her defensive partner, Halli Krzyzaniak, and fired a wrist shot past the Swedish goalie to open the scoring in a 7-2 Canada win.
Twenty-four hours later, the Canadian squad was watching precious seconds tick away but Gilmour knew they could pull out a win.
“Honestly, you play games where you doubt you’re going to win,” she said. “But I never had a single doubt that we were going to win that game.”
Arriving home Sunday, Gilmour didn’t even have time to add her gold medal to her trophy shelf. When team’s plane touched down at 12:30 after a trans-Atlantic flight, she grabbed her hockey bag, ran through the airport and went directly to a Brampton arena. Arriving just before warm-ups, she joined the Hornets and picked up an assist in a 3-3 tie.
Reuniting with her teammates was one more opportunity she just didn’t want to miss.
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HANDLS participants are a fixed cohort of 3,720 community-dwelling African American and white adults aged 30-64. Participants were recruited from 13 pre-determined neighborhoods (groups of contiguous census tracts) comprising an area probability sample of Baltimore City. The area probability sample was designed to sample a wide range of socioeconomic and income circumstances in a 4-way factorial cross of age (seven five-year age bands between 30-64), sex, race, and socioeconomic status indexed by poverty status (below or above 125% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines). HANDLS is planned as a 20-year longitudinal study. Using our mobile research vehicles, we plan to re-visit each neighborhood for three months every three to four years.
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State hopes new prisons, early release cut crowding
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HARRISBURG -- A steady rise in the number of inmates and the political risks of paroling prisoners early are complicating the state's efforts to ease crowded conditions in its prisons.
The 27 existing lockups now hold nearly 47,000 inmates, which is up from a population of just over 36,000 in 1998. The number of inmates is now 8 percent over the current capacity of 43,300.
And the tide keeps on rising. State Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard estimates that the overall prison population could top 57,000 by the end of 2012. Legislators' desire to be "tough on crime" and the public's fear of rising drug-related crimes have led to longer and more mandatory sentences.
Correctional costs, at $1.6 billion for 2008-09, are the third biggest item in the $28 billion state budget, after education and welfare costs.
Progress to ease the crowded cells is going slowly. The Department of Corrections wants to build three new state prisons, each costing $200 million and holding 2,000 inmates. But the first of the three new prisons won't be open before mid- to late 2011.
The state Legislature has enacted a new law, one advocated by House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, R-Philadelphia. It's aimed at making more nonviolent prisoners eligible for early release. They would have to complete programs to ease their transition back into society, such as anger management and overcoming drug use, before being paroled.
By paroling more appropriate prisoners, officials believe they can moderate the rising tab for prison construction and operational costs, and thus ease the financial strain on state taxpayers.
But giving parole to the wrong inmate -- one who later commits another crime -- can spell political disaster. It happened in September, when an inmate released early from the State Correctional Institution Frackville shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer just a month after getting out of prison. The parolee had been jailed for a 1998 robbery and aggravated assault.
Gov. Ed Rendell, a former mayor of Philadelphia, found himself under pressure from police unions and citizens groups, and imposed a temporary moratorium on all parolees, nonviolent as well as violent.
The moratorium was lifted last week for nonviolent prisoners, whom Mr. Rendell defines as prisoners "with no history of a violent offense."
The corrections department and the Board of Probation and Parole will decide if an inmate qualifies as nonviolent and thus can be let out of prison early.
But deciding if an inmate is truly nonviolent can be tricky, said Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo. Sometimes an inmate is jailed for a nonviolent offense, such as drug buying or selling, burglary or other crimes against property, but more serious charges had been dismissed or plea-bargained away.
Violent crimes include things like murder, assault, robbery and rape. State parole and prisons officials will take an inmate's complete history into account before allowing him to be released on parole, Mr. Ardo said.
Mr. Rendell named a Temple University official, John S. Goldkamp, to study whether nonviolent inmates could be safely paroled. He recommended last week that parole "be restarted for nonviolent offenders [only]."
Mr. Rendell said, "The moratorium on paroles for all violent offenders remains in effect."
Prisons spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said a thorough review will be made of all inmates considered nonviolent, but she couldn't say how many of them would eventually be eligible for paroles or when the paroles would start.
As for the three new prisons, the first will go on the grounds of the existing SCI Rockview in Centre County. A construction manager and an architect will soon be chosen by of the state Department of General Services. A ground-breaking is expected in 2009 and the project would take about two years to complete.
"Rockview was selected because there is plenty of state-owned land there to build upon and the new prison can share functions, such as warehouses and a business office, with the prison that's already there," said Ms. McNaughton.
A second new prison is to be built somewhere in Fayette County, which already has one. Corrections officials are now scouting several other sites in Fayette County for the second prison, with a decision expected by next spring.
There are several counties where the third new prison could be built, including two sites in Schuylkill and one each in Northumberland, Huntingdon and Luzerne. Another possibility is on the grounds of Graterford state prison outside Philadelphia.
Mr. O'Brien this fall pushed for House Bill 4, which is designed to help nonviolent inmates turn their lives around while behind bars and qualify for early release. A judge would outline the incentive program to a convict at his post-trial sentencing.
"The incentives would encourage nonviolent inmates to follow a path that gives them a much better chance at re-entering society without committing new crimes," Mr. O'Brien said.
Such programs would include recovery from drug and alcohol abuse or addiction; literacy and high school diploma equivalency courses; job training; and anger management.
The program for inmates "will enhance public safety and provide large financial benefits to governments and taxpayers," Mr. O'Brien said.
First Published October 27, 2008 12:00 am
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Penguin Books has recently commissioned Shepard Fairey of Obey Giant fame to design new covers for two of their most famous titles, Animal Farm and Orwell’s 1984. They are both obvious choices for Fairey’s style and work perfectly with his message. I think if it gets kids to read it is a great thing. I was required to read both of these titles when I was in highschool and junior high. 1984 had a big impact on me and is and will remain a relevant work for a long time to come. Hopefully the visual cue and recognition of what is obviously Fairey’s design will prompt kids to at least want to own the books and eventually read them.
It would be nice to see more of this kind of thing as I think it would be a positive trend in utilizing recognizable artists and designers to create materials that help promote thought and encourage learning and awareness. There has always seemed to be a divide between what I refer to as the old guard and the young blood. I think it would be mutually beneficial to both if the best of each was represented in certain situations as to help inspire and activate today’s youth culture. It’s so hard to stay relevant with today’s youth that more of this really needs to start happening right away.
You can read a little more insight about the book covers here.
Link discovered via Kitsunenoir.
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Early life and education
He was born in East Sheen, Richmond-upon-Thames, and educated at St Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and he served as an officer in the Royal Navy's Special Branch during the Second World War. In May 1942 he was transferred to intelligence duties at the naval base HMS Nile in Alexandria, Egypt, and worked on breaking lower-level Italian naval codes. He was working on Italian naval codes as an Able Seaman, but in September 1942 was suddenly (and immediately) promoted to Temporary Sub-Lieutenant as the material was classed as “Officers Only”. His superior Commander Murray had exploded when told that Chadwick would need six months training in England before promotion. Chadwick deduced from some R/T traffic meant to be handled at BP that a British submarine had been sunk near Taranto.
After the end of the war in 1945, he returned to his studies at Cambridge, graduating with First Class Honours in Classics Part II, with a distinction in his special subject, linguistics.
While studying at Corpus Christi College, he attempted, with some of his fellow students, to use cryptographic methods to decipher the “Minoan Linear Script B”. They were already aware at the time of the work of Michael Ventris. They stopped working actively on the problem owing to a lack of published data from inscriptions.
In 1950 he published his first scholarly work, an edition of The Medical Works of Hippocrates, co-authored with his cousin, William Neville Mann, a distinguished physician. After finishing his degree, he joined the staff of the Oxford Latin Dictionary before beginning a Classics lectureship at Cambridge in 1952. That year he began working with Ventris on the progressive decipherment of Linear B, the two writing Documents in Mycenean Greek in 1956, following a controversial first paper three years earlier. Chadwick's philological ideas were applied to Ventris's initial theory that Linear B was an early form of Greek rather than another Mediterranean language.
After Ventris's death, Chadwick became the figurehead of the Linear B work, writing the accessible and popular book The Decipherment of Linear B in 1958 and revising Documents in Mycenean Greek in 1978.
He retired in 1984, by which time he had become the fourth (and last) Perceval Maitland Laurence Reader in Classics at Cambridge. He continued his scholarship until his death, being an active member of several international societies and writing numerous popular and academic articles. He was also a Fellow of the British Academy and of Downing College, Cambridge.
Chadwick married Joan Hill in 1947 and they had one son.
- Ventris, Michael; Chadwick, John (1953) "Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 73, (1953), pp. 84–103.
- Chadwick, John (1958). The Decipherment of Linear B. Second edition (1990). Cambridge UP. ISBN 0-521-39830-4.
- Chadwick, John (1976). The Mycenaean World. Cambridge UP. ISBN 0-521-29037-6.
- Ventris, Michael and Chadwick, John (1956). Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Second edition (1974). Cambridge UP. ISBN 0-521-08558-6.
Decorations and awards
- "John Chadwick, 1920-1998", The Guardian, 1998-12-03, page 22.
- "Life of John Chadwick : 1920 - 1998 : Classical Philologist, Lexicographer and Co-decipherer of Linear B", Faculty of Classics, Cambridge University
- John Chadwick A Biographical Fragment; 1942-5 in Action this Day edited by Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine (2001, Bantam Press, London) pp 110-126 ISBN 0593 049101
- "William Neville Mann", Munk's Roll, Royal College of Physicians
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Welcome to the 1%! Yes, you who fought hard for the rights of the 99% are actually part of the 1%… how is this possible? Did you know that to be considered in the top 1% of the world, your household family income has to be above $34, 000… As a global university, had it ever…
“if you can survive here, you can survive anyone, and those who can’t get left behind… welcome to the world. “
Your lack of skill in writing aside, I’m sorry, but stats would need to be provided. Don’t just throw out a number, you lazy fuck. Here’s something I found:
Which states that the minimum (minimum - reminder: many, if not most are above that!) income to be considered the 1% is around $344,000. I think you left some numbers off. And, by the by, I don’t know anyone at NYU who isn’t loaning money from banks in order to do it. Some people value a great education in an even more splendid location and think that it’s worth something, although perhaps not $200,000 dollars in student loans. In fact, how am I ever going to be in the 1% with loans like that goddamnit!?
Point is, some of the most detrimental causes to our economy were those pesky NINA loans which provided people with mortgages for houses they simply could not afford. Does that imply that those people were apart of the 1%, too?
So I don’t know what you’re saying, really. Should we all have just forsaken college and worked at the Acme around the corner? Or, should we use what we’ve learned to try and better ourselves, the government, the economy, and the future for our children?
Also, I’m certainly not the 1%, but I will have my Starbucks coffee (and proudly, for that matter) because I enjoy working there before class. This movement isn’t about trying to destroy corporations; it’s about trying to lessen the income gap, attempting to keep corporations honest, and forcing the government to think about the People again since democracy was a cool idea and all. And fuck me and my opinions to hell: Starbucks should still exist, but their CEO’s should probably not get paid so much for making mediocre coffee.
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After hearing about a friend who got tricked into thinking a letter in the mail was an Inauguration Day ticket, I discovered a variety of Jan. 20-related scams. First, beware of the fake tickets. The Inaugural Committee has warned consumers against buying tickets from third-party sellers. Since the tickets, which are free and handed out by members of Congress, require in-person pick-up close to the date of the Inauguration, anyone claiming to have tickets to sell is not telling the truth, the committee says. "We urge the public to view any offers of tickets for sale with great skepticism," says staff director Howard Gantman. Websites including eBay and StubHub have officially banned the sale of tickets.
While scalped tickets for ice hockey and other sports games are easy to find in Washington, they aren't a reliable option for Inauguration day, warns the Better Business Bureau. Scalpers may not be able to get enough tickets to sale, and lawmakers are also considering whether to make the act illegal.
Other scams include:
- Overpriced hotel deals. Travel guru Peter Greenberg says he's saw a $70,000 package for a room, champagne and a limo -- but no tickets to any Inauguration-related event.
- Letters that say "you've been selected." High school students were the target of fraudsters who told them they'd been selected to represent their state, if only they paid a certain amount of money. Of course, even if they paid the money, they still didn't receive any Inaugural tickets.
- Telemarketers. As far away as the Caribbean, telemarketers have been selling alleged Inaugural tickets to anyone who will pay $99 or more. Just remember: The tickets are free, given away by lawmakers. Be suspicious of anyone who tries to sell them to you.
And, of course, think twice before purchasing Obama memorabilia. The Better Business Bureau warns that the only value it holds is of the sentimental variety.
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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton added a last-minute stop in Argentina on Monday as part of her Latin American tour this week, amid complaints that she was ignoring countries critical of U.S. policies in the region.
The State Department attributed the change to the difficulty of spending the night in Chile, as originally planned, because of the extensive damage caused by Saturday’s 8.8 magnitude earthquake there. Mrs. Clinton, who is bringing satellite telephone equipment to Chile, will make a brief stop in the capital, Santiago, Tuesday morning.
However, diplomats and analysts said, the choice of Argentina was no accident — but not only because of its proximity to Uruguay, where Mrs. Clinton was earlier in the day. Her initial decision to skip Argentina, which was fiercely defended by the Obama administration’s top official for Latin America on Friday, was criticized by Argentine and other officials.
“This is about damage control,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank. “And not only in Argentina but in the entire region. People are disappointed that Obama hasn’t paid as much attention to them as he promised and has continued [George W.] Bush’s policies.”
RELATED STORY: Clinton brings phones, promises to Chile
One of the administration’s more outspoken critics has been Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, who met with Mrs. Clinton on Monday night. Last week, Mrs. Fernandez said “there were huge hopes for change in Latin America” when Mr. Obama took office, but the reality has been a “hard blow on those expectations.”
“No one expected a prince on a white horse, but there is a sense of missed opportunities,” she said in an interview with CNN.
Mrs. Fernandez also criticized Mr. Obama’s “weak” response to last year’s coup in Honduras, which ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Although the administration opposed the coup, the fact that the initial White House statement failed to condemn it was badly received in the region, Mr. Weisbrot said.
Washington also supported Honduras’ November elections, which Buenos Aires opposed, saying they were held under a dictatorship.
“We had a very frank exchange of views about our different perceptions of Honduras,” Mrs. Clinton said after meeting with Mrs. Fernandez. “I appreciated the opportunity to explain why we believe that the free and fair elections, which have elected the new president in Honduras, means its time to turn the page.”
Asked at a press conference why she changed her mind and decided to visit Argentina after all, she said only, “I’m very pleased that I had the opportunity for this meeting today.”
Mr. Bush was unpopular in most of Latin America, and many countries repeatedly complained that the United States was not treating them as equals during his presidency. As a candidate, Mr. Obama promised to change that.
“We want to have a whole new tone,” Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in December. “We want to re-engage with the hemisphere on the basis of mutual respect, of working together to solve common problems, where the United States is being a partner. We want to be able to listen.”
However, just days later, the Argentine government and media slammed Mr. Valenzuela for criticizing the country’s judicial system during a visit to Buenos Aires as not being secure enough to attract more foreign investors.
Mrs. Clinton will have to repair the damage done by those comments, Mr. Weisbrot said.
Argentine officials and media have also been critical of Washington’s refusal to back the country in its dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands in the southern Atlantic. Argentina has objected to a British company’s oil exploration in the Falklands, which was the reason for a 1982 war between the two countries won by Britain.
On Monday, Mrs. Clinton said the United States stood ready to help them resolve their dispute but will not take sides.
“We are not interested in and have no real role in determining what they decide between the two of them. But we want them talking and we want them trying to resolve the outstanding issues between them,” she said. “We recognize that there are contentious matters that have to be resolved and we hope that they will do so.”
The secretary’s trip is designed to show support for democratic rule and good governance by showcasing Latin America’s three most successful democracies — Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica — officials said. She will also visit Brazil and Guatemala.
Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that, after a strong focus on Latin America early last year, with visits by Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the administration directed its attention elsewhere, because it had “lots of fish to fry.”
The Senate’s failure to confirm Mr. Valenzuela in his post until November also gave the impression that Washington did not care much for the region, Mr. DeShazo and Mr. Weisbrot said. Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, put a hold on Mr. Valenzuela’s nomination in protest of the administration’s Honduras policy.
A third complicating factor in regional perceptions of the United States has been the Senate’s delay in approving trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, because of concerns that they would worsen the weak job market at home.
“The macro-orientation of U.S. policy toward Latin America has been remarkably consistent and bipartisan since the 1980s,” Mr. DeShazo said. “Its main pillars have been support for democracy, security issues like drugs and terrorism, and development and poverty reduction. The main difference was that, after Sept. 11, the Bush administration put a very strong focus on security.”
Mr. Weisbrot said a major development in Latin America that Washington has been slow to recognize is the increasing political independence of countries in the region. The United States still expects them “to go along with whatever it wants,” and they have come to resent that, he added.
For example, many of them insist on treating Venezuela and Bolivia as “normal countries” despite Washington’s poor relations with Presidents Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, Mr. Weisbrot said.
Last week, the countries of South and Central America and the Caribbean formed a new regional organization that specifically excluded the United States and Canada.
The region’s largest country, Brazil, also has disagreed publicly with the United States — most notably by opposing the West’s pursuit of new U.N. sanctions on Iran because of its failure to come clean on its nuclear program.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said last week that “peace in the world does not mean isolating someone.” Mr. Lula da Silva, who plans to visit Tehran in May, said he is “going to negotiate with Iran and sell things to Iran, so that Iran can also buy things from Brazil.”
Mr. Valenzuela told reporters at the State Department on Friday that Mrs. Clinton “will be telling” the Brazilians “to encourage Iran to regain the trust of the international community by fulfilling its international obligations, which we feel that they have not fulfilled.”
“If you don’t do that, then we will be disappointed,” he said. “If you do that, then I think that that will be an important step that they can take.”
Nicholas Kralev is The Washington Times’ diplomatic correspondent. His travels around the world with four secretaries of state — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright — as well as his other reporting overseas trips inspired his new weekly column, “On the Fly.” He is a former writer for the weekend edition of the Financial Times and ...
By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
News and reviews of notable museums, and exhibits, and art events.
Nobody likes to talk about dying quite as much as life insurance expert Liran Hirshkorn.
The stories of damaged Mac Books that had liquid spilled on them and how they were brought back to life by the Mac Experts at LiquidSpill.com
Viewing and reviewing the Los Angeles experimental and classic punk scene with a nod to Rodney's English Disco
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
NRA kicks off annual convention
California wildfires wreak havoc
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Social Media has taken our lives by storm, no doubt about it.
When adults began using My Space, teenagers migrated to Facebook and now that even their grandparents have Facebook accounts, many teens are finding other sites where they feel that their privacy is more protected.
And that’s fine – as long as you know about the sites and can monitor them, right?
Tumbr is an increasingly popular site among teens. Consider it sort of the Pinterest of the teen crowd. Images and videos can be searched by tags and titles.
Anything from text to links can be posted from any device, plus kids can have friend lists that show what their friends are posting.  The site claims Tumblr Lets You Effortlessly Post Anything.
By merely adding a question mark to the end of a post, your teen invites the Tumblr community to answer questions and make comments. Since kids this age thrive on attention, they can go overboard in posting increasingly edgy images and comments to get even more comments.
Be aware that some of the stuff being posted is pretty adult in nature, and if you thought some of those teen videos on Facebook were extreme you should probably head over to Tumblr to see what your kids might be looking at.
The site does have a set of rules and guidelines in place, but like any large social media spot, there is no way they can keep up with everything.
No matter where your teen is hanging out on the Internet, it’s a good idea to keep track of them. You might even want to Google their name and/or screen name regularly just to see what comes up.
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On Saturday, November 10 at 2 p.m., celebrate Veterans Day with Army Bicycles: The Ride Stuff at Schlessman. Local, Pulitzer Prize winning author Jerry Cleveland explores how the military has used the bicycle and why it attracted the attention of commanders worldwide.
Honor the memory of a veteran and join Dennis Hagen, archivist for the 10th Mountain Division Resource Center and liaison to the Veteran’s History Project, as he shares the resources capturing veterans’ experiences on Wednesday, November 17, 6 p.m. at the Ross-Cherry Creek Branch Library.
Bring your new or favorite history read to share. Some popular or recently published selections include:
On Veteran's Day, we take the time to honor those that have served our country. It is important to remember that these individuals play other valuable roles in our society as well. Among other things, some veterans have gone on to become famous musicians!
Learn about the rich military history of Denver's two oldest cemeteries, Fairmount and Riverside, going all the way back to the Civil War, including eight Medal of Honor recipients, the Spanish-American War and Nisei. Join us on Monday, November 8, 6:30 p.m. at the Schlessman Family Branch Library for this presentation by Fairmount Heritage Foundation volunteers Garry & Joan O’Hara.
Looking for a way to honor a Veteran this Veteran's day? Bring an unopened toiletry item to be donated to the Denver Veteran's Hospital for Veterans in need.
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HOUSING FLOATS: The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller report Tuesday said that home prices in its 20-city index jumped in November.
METALS RISE: That pushed up prices for metals like copper, palladium and platinum. Traders tend to push those prices higher when they think manufacturing and other industry will increase.
CROPS DRIFT: Key agricultural commodities moved only slightly, and in varying directions. Wheat was slightly down, soybeans slightly up, corn virtually flat.
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April 17, 2012
Himitsu no hanazono (My Secret Cache)
What does it take to make someone happy? Wealth? Fame? Power? For hyperactive, materialistic Sakiko, it's finding a suitcase stuffed with 500 million yen. She sets out on a manic quest to track down the case, mastering a bizarre range of activities, like rockclimbing and scuba-diving, as she goes. Her relentless pursuit, combined with her wicked sense of humor, makes for a wild satirical commentary on the human conditions of conformity, materialism and obsession.
This is a very fun, nice film. With a smart, wise mother, detached father and bratty sister watching and wondering, Sakiko loves counting money. Her whole life is about the accumulation of money. After getting a job at a bank, it is robbed and Sakiko is taken hostage because she will not let go of the suitcase full of money. All and all film offers insight to the silly side of modern life. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 50603-D 83 minutes 1996
Story of how we've changed the cow and how the cow has changed us, forever. Human history, biology, agriculture and economics have all been affected by this most influential animal. Societies which learned to domesticate the cow prospered, while those that did not were left behind.
A story of one of the greatest domesticated animals for human society. The cow is an amazing animal. It has been an integral part of human society for a very long time. After watching this documentary you will have a much more enhanced appreciation for the cow. This animal should receive much more positive consideration in western society. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 56624-D 60 minutes 2004
"Into Eternity is the first feature documentary to explore the mind-boggling scientific and philosophical questions long-term nuclear waste storage poses. Structured as a message to future generations, the film focuses on the Onkalo underground waste repository now being built in Finland, one of the first nuclear waste storage facilities. Once the repository is full in about 100 years, it will be closed and sealed 'forever'."
Into Eternity is a horrible yet beautiful poetic discourse on the thoughts concerning the storage of spent nuclear materials. These materials are being buried deep into a desolate location of Finland. The location must be forgotten but always remembered, "Into Oblivion". This will be a place where no one can go for one hundred thousand years. How can you communicate this to future generations? Can we best anticipate the societal impact of such a discovery in the future? Mankind’s curiosity could certainly kill and destroy if this place is found by a unprepared future society. Can we depend on geological stability for that length of time? These questions are considered but cannot be answered. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 56972-D 2010
Includes TV version (58 min.), theatrical version (78 min.) and trailer.
Letters from Iran
|a "While winds of freedom blow through the Arab world, the Iranian youth waits. They were the first to rise up against their leaders in 2009. The first to tweet, Facebook and post YouTube updates, filming the fallout of their failed revolution on camera phones. Now, Iran has closed itself off to the Western press, making itdifficult to get the inside story from the outside. For the past two years, Manin Loiseau has been following a group of Iranians inside Iran. Many lost loved ones or were tortured themselves in the aftermath of the elections. Piecing together interviews, footage from hidden cameras, YouTube clips and more, she paints a vivid portrait of the aftermath of the Green Revolution."
The hopeful dreams of the citizens of Iran were aggressively oppressed after the 2009 presidential elections. The Iranian population is quite used to being ignored and let down by their political leaders. Hope was short lived and many of those who had hope were arrested, tortured and in some cases disappeared. As tyranny reaches out in its last, dying, grasp during this first part of the 21st century, does this signal its end? As always it is the population who must suffer the wrath of dying political and religious power structures. The interviews are heartbreaking. The protest videos were shot mostly with cell phones. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 56609-D 79 minutes 2011
April 05, 2012
A documentary/fiction hybrid that combines archival footage with cryptic allusions to an imaginary murder plot involving Alfred Hitchcock and his double to create a portrait of American media run amok during the Cold War.
This film uses a large amount of "popular" images from the Cold War, 1950 through 1990. With new footage and voice over the film pulls the viewing into a compressed view of this period. More recent footage about the war with Iraq is added near the end. Double Take is entertaining and is a good example of the use of image and audio to convey a feeling or an idea. ~Mike
One of the special features is a nice audio interview with longtime film actress Karen Black. She talks about her experiences working with Hitchcock.
Askwith Media Library 56647-D 79 minutes 2010
Set in a Japanese diner in Finland, the story revolves around the diner and its owner, Sachie, and the friendships that Sachie develops with her customers and employees.
Also includes a 40 min. film about Helsinki where the film was shot, film trailer, and trailer for the film "Megane."
Kamome is a very sweet, quirky film. It is wonderfully shot with a great cast. The Finnish scenery is outstanding. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 56768-B Blu-ray 102 minutes 2006
April 03, 2012
Origins of human aggression (the other story)
"The Origins of Human Agression" discusses the biological environmental and psychological reasons behind human violence and provides guidelines on dealing with its prevention.
Featuring interviews with international experts from different research areas, including a Nobel prize winner, and startlingly illuminating footage of children acting out their aggressive impulses, this documentary examines the complex interactions of factors that affect the socialization of human aggressive behavior.
“Origins of Human Aggression” provides very pertinent information about the development of violence in children. Which if left unchecked could lead to violent teens and adults. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 47575-D 50 minutes 2005
The mindscape of Alan Moore
We begin with Moore's childhood background, and follow the evolution of his career as he transformed the comics medium, through to his immersion in a magical worldview where science, spirituality, and society are part of the same universe.
Bonus features: featurette, interviews with director, composer and special make-up FX artist, selected scene analysis with director's commentary, trailers (202 min.)
Extra features: "Making of" featurette -- Interviews with director, composer, and special make-up FX artist -- Selected scene analysis with director's commentary -- Trailers.
Alan Moore is well known for the graphic novel V for Vendetta, The Watchmen and others. I was not at all familiar with Mr. Moore, although I did like the movies and I am a fan of graphic novels. This interview gives us access to his insight of growing up in industrial England, his philosophy and his social/political views. He is a well spoken person. I found his views engaging and his opinions outstanding. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 52596-D 78 minutes plus special features 2008
April 02, 2012
After the death of their mother, a set of twins make a life-altering discovery. The pair travels to the Middle East on a mission to uncover the truth about the father they thought was dead who is still very much alive, and the brother they never knew existed. Along the way they will piece together the story of the woman who brought them into the world, discovering a tragic fate as well as the courage of an exceptional woman.
In the horror and confusion of war who suffers the most? The innocent does. This is a heartbreaking tale that could take place in any war at any time. Survival is important, Love is important but to what end? The film leaves the decisions to the viewing audience. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 54794-D (both Blu-ray and DVD) 130 minutes 2011
Big Trouble in Little China
Jack Burton is a big-talking, wisecracking trucker who goes beneath the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown to battle an army of spirits when his friend's fiancee is kidnapped.
This is a great film from the 80s. One of my favorite John Carpenter projects with Kurt Russell. The silly, fun, action story line may seem a little out of time today but the parody type format is used to perfection. Kurt Russell is a wonderful over the top Jack Burton, somehow like Snake Pliskins little brother. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 32931-D 99 minutes 1986
Hazel Flagg is the small-town girl who mistakenly believes she's dying of radium poisoning. Sensing a great human interest story, exploitative journalist Wally Cook brings Hazel to New York City and turns her into a media darling, but Wally's strategy takes a sudden turn when he starts having feelings for the vulnerable Hazel.
A fun and quirky comedy about greed, love and no character redemption; Hazel wants to leave her small town and being misdiagnosed by her doctor starts a series of events that take her to New York as the latest tragic public spectacle. She is not sick and it takes a team of 1930's stereotypical Germen specialists to diagnose her properly. Upon finding out this information the Newspaper, Governor and others scramble to save their jobs. Carole Lombard and Fredric March provide outstanding performances. The support case is from the A list of character actors. This is a classic “screwball comedy”. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library Blu-ray 57280-B and DVD 56651-D 73 minutes 1937
Three short films on media and physical perfection
False images(12 min.) The guarantee(11 min.) 34 x 25 x 36 (8 min.)
Wet dreams and false images: "Exposes the art of digital photo-retouching. How do images of perfect female beauty influence men's perceptions of real women? And, how we see ourselves?"
The guarantee: "Teasing, self-perception, cultural identity, and plastic surgery. How would changing our bodies to try to fit an image alter the way we see ourselves? -- Or even who we are?"
34 x 25 x 36: "A look at mannequins, religion and perfection. Enter the inner workings of the Patina V Mannequin Factory and see what goes into making 'the ideal woman of the moment' -- in plastic."
Bonus features, The barbershop three years later, Sex lies and photoshop New York Times Op-ed piece, story leads to action workshop with filmmaker.
In the barbershop, on paper and in the factory, this documentary looks at the "idealized" human shape and the manipulation of the image through various means of retouching, plastic surgery and mannequin production. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 57134-D 31 minutes 2009
"This non-partisan film includes a look at two national policies -- agriculture and energy -- shaped by a variety of interests including industry groups, political parties, lobbyists, citizen groups, candidates, and officeholders."
If any film can be a testament to campaign finance reform it is “Priceless”. The film takes a close look into the variety of ways special interest groups invest in political decision making. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 57020-D 58 minutes 2011
Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima of Lagos, Nigeria is an impresario of showbiz and an impassioned spokeswoman for the thriving and innovative African film industry. She is "Nollywood Lady," an ex-lawyer, producer, filmmaker, and the founder and CEO of the influential African Academy of Motion Pictures. And she is reshaping the way Africans see themselves--and how the world sees Africans. Sharing her vision for transforming preconceptions about Africa and African images with filmmaker Dorothee Wenner, Anyiam-Fiberesima takes viewers on an all-access tour to film locations, markets, and sit-downs with Nollywood professionals in the vibrant production hub of Lagos.
The documentary depicts Nollywood as exciting, inventive and very local. The film industry in Nigeria is slowly getting off the ground and looking ahead to international distribution. The Askwith has quite a few Nollywood films along with African films. The films are usually very good dramatically though in some cases the production value isn't on par with main stream films. The films produced in Nigeria speak to local issues and larger global issues. If you want to see modern Africa without western interpretation Nollywood is a great place to begin. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 52509-D 52 minutes 2008
The Last Days of the USSR
This documentary recounts the critical last two years of the USSR and sheds light on events that led to the sudden collapse of one of the most totalitarian empires of the 20th century.
This is one of those great historical events where you ask yourself, "What is happening?" and quickly ask "What just happened?" This documentary provides some insight into the fall of the Soviet Union. The documentary interviews the officials involved, while trying to document the series of events.
As a side note:
Our elected officials were just as unprepared as the rest of the world. However, it was George Bush's (41) greatest moment. George Bush was not able to use this as a political benefit for re-election. The world was sick and tired of the Cold War and its politics. The Cold War lasted almost 50 years and, considering the cost and toll of death, its end was less than fantastic. Without the east and west divisions and since their strategic relevance became meaningless many countries were left broke and ignored. Most countries struggled through the collapse; this left some countries unprotected both externally and internally leading to dictators, extremists and genocide. On a variety of levels the world is still dealing with the collapse today. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 57141-D 52 minutes 2011
"Truck Farm tells the story of a quirky urban farmers. Using green roof technology and heirloom seeds, filmmaker Ian Cheney plants a vegetable garden on the only land he's got: his Granddad's old pickup. Once the mobile garden begins to sprout, viewers are trucked across New York to see the city's funkiest urban farms, and to find out if ameria's largest city can learn to feed itself."
Using the bed of a pickup is a great idea. It's also a good way to try your hand at urban farming. There are some drawbacks, weight of the dirt, plants, water and water drainage can be a problem. The questions are answered here. The demonstrations offered provide information on how to set up an urban garden not only in your truck bed but also on the roof. There is a growing community of urban farmers across the United States. Some of our urban centers are not attracting new businesses. This seems to be a wonderful option for the citizens to reclaim the space for much needed fresh foods and city governments to utilize vacant property. ~Mike
Askwith Media Library 57026-D 48 minutes 2011
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By Nimue Brown
Exploring the ways in which people appeal to deity, it looks like for many, both contemporary and historical, gods are great uber-parents to be whimpered to when we want something sorting out. Some of the requests we offer up are petty, many are self serving. If we assume that life should not be crappy, should not cause us misery, should not deprive us of what we love or fail to give us what we desire, then going ‘oi, God, fix it!’ makes a degree of sense. One of the things atheists pick on theists for, is this constant running to mummy goddess and daddy god, for intervention that seldom comes, rather than facing our own challenges. Of course, not everyone relates to deity that way, but for today I want to ponder those who do.
We come into this world powerless. It is down to others to feed us and keep us warm. We cry, and help comes to us. Or doesn’t. We may be comforted, bottoms cleaned, food provided, or we may be left to howl in the darkness. In later life, we won’t remember much of this, but I would be prepared to bet that our first impressions stay with us. That lingering desire for the parent god who takes away the bad smell and brings the milk and honey, is not so unnatural. How much of our development as spiritual people might hark back to our early childhoods? Some sense of whether or not our prayers for intervention will be answered by benevolent powers might owe a lot to time in the cradle. But, what of those who are neglected? Do they hunger for the parent god who never came, and seek another one in later life?
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View, rate, and fact check the latest campaign ads.
Manchester, NH—Rep. Ron Paul, trim and dapper in a charcoal suit, sits in a classroom at the local Boys and Girls Club, surrounded by a dozen high school and college students looking to quiz him about his presidential candidacy. Questions range from the vague (Is the constitutional balance of power working?) to the specific (Should we recall our troops from Germany and Japan?). No matter: To all, the Texas congressman serves up his patented, unified philosophy of get-the-government-off-our-backs. Many of the students nod in appreciation.
Then a young man named Jonathan asks about trade with China, and things get complicated. Fast.
Paul begins in his usual crotchety-but-common-sense manner: “We don’t have authority over China, and a lot of people say, ‘Oh, those dirty Chinese, we ought to double, triple the tariffs on their goods.’” But next thing you know, he’s off on a tear about how this all boils down to an absurd and unconstitutional reliance on paper money that lends itself to currency wars, inflation, market bubbles, and global economic instability.
Most of the kids now sport blank stares, leaving it to the center’s director to observe, “You’re talking about a return to the gold standard.”
Recognizing the ticklishness of this particular economic idea, Paul begins to tap dance. Fast.
“Well, that’s what the constitution gives us,” he begins gingerly. Then he’s off again, talking in circles about the possibility of there being other commodities that people might prefer, and really you could consider any number of things, though probably you’d want to avoid taxing silver dollars, and, really, the constitution already provides for this sort of system, and, yeah, ok, maybe he is talking about reinstating the gold standard after all.
Everyone is the room looks relieved when the candidate finally falls quiet, and a young woman named Marina asks him about gay marriage.
These are dizzying days for Ron Paul. For over three decades now, the GOP gadfly has railed against government: prophesying economic doom, denouncing the military industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, advocating an end to broadly popular programs including Social Security, Medicare, and college Pell grants. While conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry want to tame or shrink government, Paul wants to chop the monster’s head off, drive a stake through its heart, and burn the corpse in a trash bin.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the congressman’s radical platform has enjoyed mostly niche appeal. During his 2008 presidential run, Paul’s anti-war libertarianism drew a core of die-hard devotees (many of them young). But despite the Paulites’ passion, their candidate never made it above 10 percent in the Iowa polls, and topped out at 14 percent in New Hampshire.
What a difference four years make. A week out from the Iowa caucuses, Paul’s message seems to be resonating with a disaffected public that feels our nation is deeply troubled and in need of the blow-it-all-up gospel Paul preaches. “As he likes to say, ‘The world has come to him,’” enthuses Phil Nazzaro, a town councilman from nearby Newmarket helping Team Paul reach out to veterans.
Paul has cracked 20 percent in Iowa, fueling much chatter among the media—and hand-wringing among the Republican establishment—that he might just win the January 3 contest, giving him a full head of steam going into New Hampshire, where he is also above 20 percent. What this could do to the already volatile Republican race has political watchers of all stripes chewing their cuticles.
But the transition from fringe curiosity to mainstream contender is a tricky one, especially for a candidate whose appeal has been based on his unconventionality. As everyone’s favorite cranky uncle, Paul has long gotten away with stuff that would have destroyed more “normal” pols—like, say, allowing racist and anti-Semitic newsletters to be sent out in his name. Now, as the full scrutiny of the political press corps bears down upon him, the congressman finds himself struggling at times to do all the things that regular candidates are expected to do.
Most benignly, the grip-and-grin retail politics called for in small states like New Hampshire don’t seem a natural fit for the good doctor. Paul doesn’t work a room so much as buzz it, grasping every hand as efficiently as possible then getting the heck out. With guidance from aides, he will freeze for the requisite photo ops. But he is not one to linger and chew the fat. During a drop-in at the Just Doo It hair salon in Exeter, Paul was stopped by one patron, a still-undecided voter named Annette, who asked if he had time for a question. “As long as it’s a quick one,” he cautioned, beginning to inch toward the exit even as he answered her.
Paul doesn’t seem actively put out by such encounters, or even awkward and out of place a la Mitt Romney. It’s more that the whole process seems to have rendered him vaguely distracted, maybe even a little dazed.
While conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry want to tame or shrink government, Paul wants to chop the monster’s head off, drive a stake through its heart, and burn the corpse in a trash bin.
Far more jarring have been Paul’s responses—or lack thereof—to the newfound interest in newsletters published under his name in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s that peddled blatantly racist sentiments. (For instance, commentary on the 1992 Los Angeles riots included this gem: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”) The first big fumble was the congressman’s televised run-in with—or more precisely his walk-out on—CNN’s Gloria Borger during a December 21 sit-down. Rather than having worked out a response aimed at defusing the controversy—which, let’s face it, was sure to erupt at some point—Paul turned snippy with Borger, scolded her for “pestering” him, and ultimately unclipped his mic and left the set mid-interview.
This, of course, only fueled the fire, leading to more coverage in both the old and new media. And still Team Paul flounders, choosing alternatingly to ignore the subject and to attack anyone who raises it. Most recently, when former Paul staffer Eric Dondero addressed the spiraling accusations this week, insisting that Paul isn’t racist or anti-Semitic but is anti-Israel and a foreign-policy loony, the campaign immediately trashed Dondero as a bitter, untrustworthy malcontent with a rusty axe to grind.
The New York Times, meanwhile, asked Paul to respond to its report that his campaign receives support from white supremacists, militia groups, and anti-Semitic organizations. While the congressman said he rejected such extremist views, he declined to reject their support.
Despite such tics and stumbles, Paul seems serious about making the transition from curiosity to contender. He’s a compelling public speaker and—his clash with Borger notwithstanding—he generally has a sense of the areas where he must tread lightly in order to counter the wild-eyed portraits being painted of him. Avoiding the words “gold standard” is only part of the picture. (Paul’s preferred term is “commodities standard.”) At two separate stops in New Hampshire last week, the candidate was asked to address criticisms of his aggressively anti-interventionist foreign policy. (His gripes about U.S. military meddling abroad and calls to cut the Pentagon’s budget are more than a little controversial among Republicans.) Both times, he went on at length about how people tar him as “an isolationist,” when, in reality, he’s the one who wants to do away with sanctions and embargos and usher in a golden era of free trade and diplomacy. “I’m the one who wants to trade with Cuba!” he exclaims in exasperation. Once again, you could see heads bobbing thoughtfully.
That evening, Paul spoke to a full house at the Exeter Town Hall. The crowd was a mix of fans, of voters still trying to make up their minds, and even of people who didn’t much care for Paul but who saw it as their duty to give every candidate a hearing. Racing enthusiast Bruce Allen counted himself in that third category. A middle-aged bear of a man wearing a large belt buckle that scrolled “Merry Christmas” in red lights across a black screen, Allen initially proclaimed Paul a “nut” and “definitely not the kind of guy you’d want as president.” He told me he’d mostly come “for the entertainment value.”
As the session wore on, however, Allen began joining in the applause as Paul explained, over and over, that the country must free itself from the toxic embrace of government. Repeal the Patriot Act! Stop policing the world! Abolish the Department of Education! End all bailouts!
Allen’s final verdict: Not all that crazy. “I only disagreed with one thing he said,” he shrugged, referring to Paul’s proposal to let young people opt out of paying Medicare taxes.
Of course, there’s a big gap between not-all-that-crazy and being a candidate who can have a lasting impact on the race. Where Paul winds up on that spectrum will depend on his ability to strike a delicate balance between cult hero and mainstream contender—fast.
Mitt Had Plan for 47 Percent Remarks
First on agenda: win first debate. More
WAR ON COAL
Energy CEO Lays Off Staff With a Prayer
Laments President Obama’s reelection.More
Gay Marriage Wins in Washington
Opponents concede Thursday.More
Stacey Dash Pens Election Rant
It’s 1,344 words.More
Mitt's Camp Publishes Victory Site
On 'The Daily Show's first post-election episode, Jon Stewart questioned the Sunshine State's relevance. Sorry, Florida, we elected a president without you.
The Daily Beast’s map of the Electoral College results—updated live as they come in.
From Obama’s win to Akin’s defeat, Sullivan’s celebration to Rove’s meltdown, watch the most memorable moments.
Losing sucks—and healing is hard. Paul Begala offers advice to hurting Republicans.
Three of the most dramatic races ended in wins for Dems Elizabeth Warren and Maggie Hassan, and a loss for the GOP’s Linda McMahon.
It’s finally over! Mark McKinnon looks back on two years of big moments that changed the 2012 race.
Obama’s reelection is a victory for intelligence, reason—and, yes, hope.
As the candidates face off in the election, the books they’ve read recently and their professed favorites also go head to head. Who wins?
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The weekend storm complicated cleanup from Sunday morning's California International Marathon, as runners donned garbage bags for rain protection, then discarded the bags as they warmed up.
Race director John Mansoor said runners normally discard outer layers of clothing, and volunteers collect the clothing for charity. But because of the rainy weather, runners opted for the cheap, disposable option of cutting arm and neck holes in plastic garbage bags.
Once they got hot, runners simply tore off the bags and dropped them on the pavement. Collection was made more challenging because the bags were scattered by the wind.
Some runners reported that the discarded bags became slick and posed a safety hazard on the course.
Mansoor said that once the California Highway Patrol reopened roads to vehicle traffic, including Folsom-Auburn and Fair Oaks boulevards and Oak Avenue, it became dangerous for volunteers to pick up the litter.
About 11,000 people ran in various events in the race, but most of those using bags as rain gear were the marathoners, Mansoor said. While he doesn't know how many participants wore the bags, he said, "we're talking quite a few garbage bags."
Volunteers wearing reflective vests drove up and down the course Sunday and Monday working to find and clear litter from roadways, but Mansoor's top priority was to collect trash safely, he said, so the job may take longer than usual.
He asked residents to call the race headquarters at (916) 983-4622 to report trash along the route.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Read more articles by Anne Gonzales
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Alliant Energy Bill Scam
Wisconsin Power and Light Company (WPL), an Alliant Energy company, is warning customers about a scam that claims President Barack Obama is providing credits or applying payments to utility bills. According to national reports, scammers have called or visited customers in person, posted fliers and used social media and text messages to publicize the scam. In Wisconsin, many of the scam artists are contacting customers via phone or customers are hearing about the claim through word-of-mouth.
Customers are being told they can make a utility payment by using a bank routing number that is supplied by the scam artist and the number appearing on the back of their Social Security cards as the bank account number. Payments made using the routing numbers identified with this scam will not be accepted by WPL, and the money will not be applied to customers' bills.
Customers should only use authorized methods and legitimate banking information to pay their bills. Credit card numbers and any personal information should not be provided to suspicious callers. Customers are advised to end the conversation and call Alliant Energy at 1-800-ALLIANT (255-4268) for assistance. Customer service associates can confirm whether the call was from Alliant Energy and can confirm a bill payment, service work or an appointment at a customer's home or business.
If a customer receives a suspicious call or other type of unusual contact, local law enforcement should be called immediately.
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Yesterday, the New Evangelical Partnership held an event at the National Press Club to unveil a statement called “A Call to Christian Common Ground on Family Planning, and Maternal, and Children’s Health.”
The statement makes three main points:
- Family planning strengthens families and creates more stable and healthy communities worldwide.
- Family planning protects the health of women and children.
- Family planning reduces abortion.
We agree wholeheartedly, of course, and are pleased to have the New Evangelical Partnership as part of the movement for family planning freedom.
You can watch the whole event on YouTube. I recommend at least watching Rev. Jennifer Crumpton’s presentation of the NEP statement, starting at about 8:15 in, Dr. Mark Hathaway’s talk at 19:00 about the medical benefits of family planning for women and children, and Katherine Marshall’s talk at 28:10 about the international context of family planning.
Speakers at the NEP event referred more than once to a study recently conducted by Washington University in St. Louis. The project provided women and teens at high risk of unintended pregnancy with the contraceptive method of their own choice at no cost. The results were dramatic. The abortion rate fell to 6 per 1,000 women, compared with a national average of 20 per 1,000 women. The teen birth rate from to 6.3 per 1,000, compared with 34.1 per 1,000 nationwide.
Imagine the impact of cutting the abortion rate in the U.S. by almost two thirds.
As the Agence France write-up of the study noted: “If the same results were replicated across the United States, free birth control could prevent 1,060,370 unplanned pregnancies and 873,250 abortions a year.”
Yes, that’s a big “if.” [Edited to add: as the researchers pointed out, the sample of women who participated in this study is not generalizable to the total population of women of reproductive age in the United States. That said, they likely bear a great deal of similarity to the population of women at the highest risk for unintended pregnancy and abortion.] And of course, there are important caveats. Women’s consent must be free and fully informed. Women must never be coerced into using long-acting contraception because other people think it would be better for them not to reproduce. It must always, always be the woman’s choice to use contraception. In addition, protection against HIV or other STDs is vital, and the forms of contraception chosen by most women in the study did not provide that protection.
But imagine it. Imagine 873,250 fewer unborn human beings destroyed every year. Imagine 873,250 fewer women going through abortions. Imagine 1,060,370 fewer women having to experience unplanned pregnancy, and instead being able to bear children at a time when their age, health, and life situation are better suited for motherhood — or being free to choose a different life path than motherhood.
Earlier this month, a Republican-appointed federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri rejected a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by an employer in a secular industry (mining, metals, & ceramics) who, due to his own religious beliefs, doesn’t want to provide his employees with insurance that covers contraception.
Judge Carol Jackson noted that employers already pay their employees a form of compensation that could be used to purchase contraception: their salaries. This is an argument I’ve made in the past. The full ruling is online here.
The burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by OIH’s plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’ religion. This Court rejects the proposition that requiring indirect financial support of a practice, from which plaintiff himself abstains according to his religious principles, constitutes a substantial burden on plaintiff’s religious exercise.
RFRA is a shield, not a sword. It protects individuals from substantial burdens on religious exercise that occur when the government coerces action one’s religion forbids, or forbids action one’s religion requires; it is not a means to force one’s religious practices upon others. RFRA does not protect against the slight burden on religious exercise that arises when one’s money circuitously flows to support the conduct of other free-exercise-wielding individuals who hold religious beliefs that differ from one’s own…
Just as in Mead, plaintiffs must contribute to a health care plan which does not align with their religious beliefs. In this case, however, the burden on plaintiffs is even more remote; the health care plan will offend plaintiffs’ religious beliefs only if an OIH employee (or covered family member) makes an independent decision to use the plan to cover counseling related to or the purchase of contraceptives. Already, OIH and Frank O’Brien pay salaries to their employees—money the employees may use to purchase contraceptives or to contribute to a religious organization. [emphasis added] By comparison,the contribution to a health care plan has no more than a de minimus impact on the plaintiff’s religious beliefs than paying salaries and other benefits to employees.
And once again, despite the claims in this and similar lawsuits that the HHS mandate forces them to cover abortifacients, the belief that emergency contraception is abortifacient has not been borne out by the evidence. I’m going to keep repeating that until new evidence comes to light or people stop making this claim, so get used to it.
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"Having performed together since childhood, [the Orfeo Duo's] sense of ensemble and communication is impeccable.... One of the selling points of this set is that these are unedited performances. The decision to forgo editing shifts the priority from creating an idealized interpretation to one of spontaneity and investigation. Indeed, the performances reveal raw, instinctive conversations. What we lose in editorial polish, we gain in emotional directness. These are singularly passionate performances, and it is their honesty that binds the set together-- an undeniable synergy that is totally in keeping with Beethoven's confidence in the creative spirit." -- Mark Zaki, Early Music America, Summer 2012
The Orfeo Duo, sister and brother Vita and Ishmael Wallace, are known for their close rapport with each other, power of communication, and creative programming. They've performed together since childhood, giving concerts and leading workshops throughout the Americas and in Europe. The duo has also made numerous recordings, including an unedited recording on original instruments of the complete sonatas of Robert Schumann, featuring the Frederick Historical Piano Collection's 1846 Streicher piano.
Since 2003 Vita and Ishmael have devoted much of their creative energy to What a Neighborhood!, which celebrates their own neighborhood of Morningside Heights and West Harlem primarily through the music of living local composers, encouraging and inspiring composers, fostering appreciation of new American music, and nurturing a vibrant community that includes all the diversity of the area.
Vita plays baroque violin in Anima, ARTEK, the Dryden Ensemble, and Foundling (a baroque orchestra) and is a frequent guest artist with other early music ensembles. Ishmael is deeply involved in collaborating with singers and has won many national competitions as a composer.
The Frederick Historical Piano Collection in Ashburnham, MA, is home to over 25 grand pianos made between 1790 and 1928 of the types known to and preferred by composers from Haydn and Beethoven through the French Impressionists. Visitors may play them or hear them played at the Study Center and in concerts each Spring and Fall at the Ashburnham Community Church.
Most of Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano were written early in his life, between 1797 and 1803, a time of great awareness of the power of the human spirit and of the artist’s role as prophet of that spirit. In France the Revolution had awakened hopes for freedom and overthrown the old order; in Germany the poet Novalis wrote, “Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.” Every listener to Beethoven’s music feels this new assertiveness. Beethoven’s power is usually described in terms of an individual’s defiance of Fate, but there are so many more dimensions to it than this alone.
There are similarities in form among the sonatas, and yet each one— indeed each movement— is unique. It is interesting to compare sonatas in the same key, or slow movements, or follow the appearances and disappearances of scherzi, the “joke” movements that Beethoven often substituted for minuets. The slow movements of Opus 23 and Opus 30 #3 are intriguing mixtures of slow movement and scherzo, slow movement and minuet.
We are happy to present the first eight sonatas in the groups in which Beethoven composed them, writing several at a time. The sketches for the three Opus 30 sonatas are also intermingled with sketches for the last movement of Opus 47, because it was originally composed for Opus 30 no. 1. The new setting for this Presto was written for George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, a brilliant young violinist of mixed parentage: Polish and West Indian of Ethiopian descent. Beethoven jokingly inscribed the hastily copied-out score: “Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer, gran pazzo e conpositore mulattico.” There actually seems to be some truth in the inscription: the piece is a “big, crazy” half-concerto, half-sonata; half-major, half-minor; half-lofty, half-virtuosic-nonsense. Unlike most chamber music of the time, written for private enjoyment, this sonata was designed for public performance, at an eight AM concert in the Augarten. (After an argument with Bridgetower, Beethoven re-dedicated the sonata to the admirable French violinist Rudolphe Kreutzer, who considered it incomprehensible and never played it.)
The last sonata, Opus 96, was actually the first we learned together. We were delighted to discover that it was especially written to suit another French violinist, Pierre Rode, who premiered it (privately) with Beethoven’s student and patron Archduke Rudolf of Austria in 1812. A few days before, Beethoven wrote to the Archduke:
"I have not hurried unduly to compose the last movement merely for the sake of being punctual, the more so as in view of Rode’s playing I have had to give more thought to the composition of this movement. In our Finales we like to have fairly noisy passages, but R. does not care for them— and so I have been rather hampered. — However, everything ought to go off well on Tuesday."
So perhaps we have Rode to thank for the Adagio that seems to drop down from heaven near the end of the piece.
For these recordings, Ishmael played the splendid Viennese Katholnig piano (c. 1805-1810) in the Frederick Historical Piano Collection. It belonged to the Esterhäzy family, and it is possible that Beethoven himself played it on a visit to the Esterhäzy palace at Eisenstadt in 1807! The Katholnig’s full and rich tone was the last kind of piano sound Beethoven was able to fully hear before becoming severely deaf.
Vita chose to play her 1706 Albani violin in a period set-up with gut strings. She used a replica of a svelte 1720’s bow for most of the sonatas: not only would such bows still have been in use in Vienna but also it is a joy to play the music with one. For Opus 30 no. 2, Opus 47, and Opus 96 she used a replica of one of the powerful Revolution-era French bows beginning to appear in Vienna at the turn of the century under the influence of violinists such as Bridgetower, Kreutzer, and Rode.
We delighted in the sounds of these instruments and the perfect balance between them. At times we felt that the music was calling on us to play very much at the edge of the instruments’ capacity, however. Early reviews of the Opus 12 sonatas remind us that even in the early sonatas Beethoven was pushing the boundaries of Classical harmony. Sometimes he leaps the boundaries of meter, using accents to leave the listener excitingly confused. Beethoven’s own playing was reported to be not only more powerful and brilliant but also much more sustained and legato than his contemporaries’. His long slurs forced us to push the boundaries of our ability to sustain on both instruments.
This recording was conceived and made possible by a long-time friend of the Frederick Piano Collection. We are deeply grateful for his support. Our anonymous benefactor suggested that we use complete, unedited takes of each movement, and we decided to take the challenge in a spirit of exploration! Live performances inevitably include both revelations and infelicities. The challenge of recording without editing shifted our priorities from technical correctness to inspiration and flow (or, as one friend put it, exuberance and reckless abandon), encouraging us to emulate Beethoven’s disdain for punctilio and his trust in the creative spirit.
-- Vita and Ishmael Wallace
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Tue April 24, 2012
Canadian Cow Is Quite The Milk Producer
A Canadian cow has made the record book for most milk produced in a lifetime. The Ottawa Citizen reports the cow has produced more than 57,000 gallons. That's more than six times the average.
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The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
One of the greatest April Fools pranks of all time was pulled in 1957 by the BBC, of all institutions. Aired as an ordinary episode of the renowned series Panorama, it purported to be a documentary about "a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry."
It sounds ridiculous now, sure, but back then many people had either never heard of spaghetti or had only ever had it from cans, and the episode was shot in a completely straightforward fashion and narrated by the respected journalist Richard Dimbleby. Hundreds of people called the BBC to ask where they could purchase spaghetti bushes for themselves!
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Understanding the requirements of a firm is very important for candidates and that will help them choose the right decision for their career. I believe your decision is an indication of your ability and a good or bad choice would reflect on you. Candidates should have the ability to define what did they learn in their previous jobs. This helps them to build a positive image and the interviewer gets the message that candidate is well prepared.
I agree that one needs a job to earn money for a living, but the more important point is one should have a clear-cut idea about how to shape up his or her career. People want to scale up in career ladder, but I have noticed that they themselves don’t know how. Once we were recruiting people for a leadership position. A candidate who came for the interview was technically strong, but he was not aware how to execute the rest of the work as a leader. One should fix a goal for them before venturing into a field.
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This past weekend, we went off to a first-ever family reunion. Before leaving, however, there was yet another family to keep united: Twain was on it's way to swarming — again! (This is a picture of Twain's Queen, Abigail, with a bad smear of white paint and her entourage taking care of her!)
Swarm swarm swarm, that's all I've been talking about lately. The frantic goings-on you have heard about here all fall under the category of "swarm control." GOOD beekeepers suffer less panic, and spend less energy on swarm prevention. The difference sounds fiddly to the uninitiated (which, I suppose, includes me, considering all the fun this year). "Swarm prevention" means keeping the girls from ever wanting to leave: give them lots of space, move the boxes around so that the box that just hatched is above the queen (she likes to work up, and likes to find empty honeycomb above her), maybe even make splits to create more colonies if the time of year is right.
But the time is year is no longer right. All beekeeping is local: one reason to learn about it from a local club is that the times when you can get away with various decisions vary based on the onset of winter, and the length of bloom. Here, the old rhyme is definitely on the money:
A swarm in May — is worth a load of hay.
A swarm in June — is worth a silver spoon.
A swarm in July — isn't worth a fly.
You might remember that the Twain colony is the one that swarmed (Bye-bye, Eleanor! Hope you are still out there!) even after it was split this Spring. That swarm basically gutted the hive, requiring me to get reinforcements. Well, reinforcements worked: when re-organizing the hive to make it easier for the girls AND for me (I'm almost 6 feet tall, but the hive rose above chest level!) I found all sorts of swarm cells! Uh oh!
Therefore, last Thursday I grabbed the Nuc box that MaryEllen and Doug gave me, and went up to the roof to seek out Queen Abigail. The idea was to shut off the swarm impulse by removing the old queen (Abby) and some brood and workers, move the latter to the monastery apiary for a brief vacation, and let the Twain bees raise up a new queen. Twain's workers won't swarm once they realize mom is gone, and we should end up with a new queen to give to another beekeeper who needs to re-queen this fall (like most people in our club do).
Did I mention that I was sorting through a 5-plus-foot rooftop hive containing 50,000 bees to look for an unmarked queen on a 95-degree-F day in mid July? And that I was supposed to be packing and paying bills and going to TWO appointments and all those things you find yourself doing to get ready to leave town for an anxiety-inducing first-ever family conclave? Did I mention that??
The first time through the boxes, I found even more queen cells, but no queen. Got stung (and deserved it) a coupla times. I began to panic. Twain was clearly going to take off while I was gone and I was running out of time and I could not find the queen. As I reassembled the brood boxes, I went much more slowly. The lowest box was only capped brood. She would not be there. The next box had some uncapped babies, but everything was several days old. I put a capped frame and a few day old frame in the nuc, and replaced those frames with some drawn comb. Put the uncapped box on the bottom and the capped on top (because they were starting to hatch and would soon offer empty comb).
And so on, until I got to the first honey super. It had just a little bit of drone comb stuck on the bottom bar (meaning that the queen HAD been laying up there, where she is NOT supposed to be), so I looked closer. Hmm. Three day old eggs but no queen. I popped that frame into the nuc. Room for two more frames, one better have a queen on it!
Every frame got a look, every one, but ... No queen in the box! No queen! I set the box aside, and quickly looked through the other honey supers. Nothing. Then something said, look one more time, on a frame near that one with babies. And there she was, covered by her daughters, on the wrong side of a honey frame with some brood comb I had not noticed. At the very last minute, in the nick of time. In she went — nuc filled and ready to go to the monastery!
I swear, my hand felt guided to that frame like it was on rails. If I had not gone back, if I had not looked PRECISELY there, it was all gonna be over. Maybe those girls are finally getting through to me.
But wait, there's MORE!
The first hour of the first morning that we got back (Tuesday), I went back to the monastery (with a metal detector, in part to look for an earring, but that's another story). All weekend, I worried that maybe I had not found the queen, that it was just a big-butted worker. Since the girls needed to be fed sugar water anyway, I decided to check.
So I go through the nuc, and DO NOT FIND THE QUEEN. There are only about 5 thousand bees in there, it should be easy! No queen. There's some annoying bee — not easy to see through a sweaty veil — checking out my foot, but they do that alot. I close up, refill the feeder, and consider what to do.
Meanwhile, that annoying foot bee is on the grass next to my foot. It is acting funny, sort of leaping up, flapping like hell, and not achieving flight. That's weird. Is she hurt? I lean down to investigate. No, she is not hurt. She is the queen!
Queens in the throes of fertility can't fly. Queens about to swarm can (their mean old daughters put them on a crash diet to ensure this). This means that Abby is back to normal, except for the fact that she is about to be squashed by a clueless beekeeper. The first few times I try to catch her, she gets away. She is terrified. Eventually, I run around to the other side of the hive (so so carefully, keeping my eye on her!) and she crawls up on my hand. I lift the hive cover, place her near the passage down, and watch to see if she is welcome. One of her daughters gives her some tongue, Abby lifts her butt and scents like crazy, and down she goes. Phew.
What seems to be happening here, over and over, is that I am building enormous bee populations faster than they are spinning honeycomb to live in. The bees are telling me something about the environment here, and I need to listen. There is lots of pollen out there, and they feel compelled to save it, using up precious comb on the bee equivalent of the junk that clogs your basement. There is enough nectar for the bees to eat, building big families, in part because I feed them. But for some reason, there never seem to be enough young bees (the ones who can best generate wax) and enough nectar (it takes 40 pounds of nectar to make one pound of beeswax) to generate comb quickly.
Also those Carniolan girls aren't the biggest construction workers, anyway. They like to build these narrow, chimney-shaped colonies inside the box, and they don't like to spread out to use the space I give them. They come from a cold place, so they probably like to keep their families in a compact area that is easier to warm.
Next year, when we restart this process with all this year's honeycomb available, maybe it will be easier to stay ahead of the girls. I hope so.
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Even before Israel existed, Zionists built pre-national networks of charity, education and even art. The Palestinians have done none of this.
Conrad Black proposes how Palestinians can have their country, and Jews can finally be secure in theirs.
The Palestinian people have failed miserably to indicate how quasi-sovereignty would benefit anyone, who has a stake in Gaza’s potential as an independent flourishing nation.
If anyone asks what the difference between a Conservative and a Liberal government is in this country, he need look no farther than the recent UN fiasco, where Canada’s Minister Of Foreign Affairs stood tall and proud
Letting a handful of Jews reclaim a strip of the patrimony of Abraham: That’s what this whole thing is really about.
Israel and its allies must be careful in the message they send as they protect Israel’s right to security.
My country, Israel, remains as committed as ever to the realization of the two-state solution.
The Palestinian attempt to gain a seat at the United Nations seems to have backfired. The United States has made it clear that it will veto the move, if necessary. But it also seems unlikely that the Palestinian Authority will gain the nine Security Council votes needed to force a U.S. veto. In fact, the […]
This week the United Nations featured Barack Obama in the role of Aladdin from the Arabian Nights. Earlier Obama had rubbed the magic lamp, and now a genie was towering over him in the General Assembly, looking anything but friendly. “Yes, master?” he asked in a hostile tone. “You rubbed my lamp, I believe. Now […]
By Jonathan Cristol The only way that Palestine will achieve a viable independent state is through direct negotiation with Israel. The pursuit of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations is a bad strategy for the Palestinians and is a testament to their continued poor leadership. Being seated in the General Assembly will not mean that […]
How little things change over time. Thirty three years ago, when a Boston PBS station broadcast a debate on proposed Palestinian statehood on a show called The Advocate, the producers called a 28-year-old future Israeli prime minister to argue against the proposal. Ben Nitay, a graduate of MIT and Harvard was working as an […]
By Anne Bayefsky and Benjamin Weinthal Two United Nations-sponsored anti-Israel events will coalesce this week, which are largely — and mistakenly — being treated as separate developments. The first is the Palestinian Authority’s move to secure recognition as a new member state of the United Nations by circumventing the peace process with Israel. The second […]
According to an Israeli news site, authorities are fearful of large-scale violence when the UN votes on recognition of a Palestinian state and are preparing security measures that include calling up extra reservists and preparing a giant flying stink bomb. They don’t actually call it a giant flying stink bomb, but that’s the effect. they […]
Statehood bid could cripple Palestinian Authority: top banker
On Sunday, Jonathan Kay sat down with Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman during his visit to Toronto. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation: Kay: If the Palestinians get what they want at the United Nations General Assembly, how will your job change? Lieberman: I don’t think that it will change my job. […]
Recep Tayyip Erdogan isn’t exactly a name to slip off the tongue, but the Turkish prime minister has been attracting more than his fair share of attention as a showdown approaches in New York over a bid by Palestinians to win a vote on its claim to statehood. Erdogan, according to Time magazine, was “received […]
The Democratic defeat in New York, where a Republican novice captured the seat abandoned by disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, can be summed up in two words: “economy” and “Israel.” The district has a large Jewish community, and Democrats purport to be baffled that anybody could take exception to the President’s Israel policies. When talking to […]
Let me belabour the obvious. When Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian Authority leaders propose a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) to the United Nations, as they’re set to do later this month, their purpose won’t be to legitimize a Palestinian state but to de-legitimize a Jewish one. A Palestinian state needs no legitimization, least of […]
In his new book on Israel’s prospects for survival five, 10 or even 20 years out, Hirsh Goodman of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies writes that the Jewish state’s best chances for longevity and prosperity lie in making peace with the Palestinians. In The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival, Goodman argues that “with […]
By Miriam Ziv The Palestinian leadership has made clear its intentions to seek recognition of an independent Palestinian State at the United Nations this coming September. Some might question why such action would be detrimental to the peace process and therefore problematic for Israel. After all, every Israeli government for nearly a decade has explicitly […]
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Syrian rebels captured the country’s largest dam on Monday after days of intense clashes, giving them control over water and electricity supplies for much of the country in a major blow to President Bashar Assad’s regime.
The rebels had already seized two other dams on the Euphrates River. But the latest conquest, the al-Furat dam in northeastern Raqqa province, was a major coup for the opposition. It handed them control over water and electricity supplies for both government-held areas and large swathes of land the opposition has captured over the past 22 months.
Two separate car bombings in northern Syria killed a total of 26 people. Both were blamed on al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jabhat al-Nusra.
The rebels have had their biggest success in the civil war across Syria’s north including Idlib, Raqqa and Aleppo provinces, all bordering Turkey.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, a Britain-based activist with the group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said rebels took control of al-Furat dam around midday. Most of the regime troops in the area had stopped fighting on Sunday following the fall of the nearby town of al-Thawra, Abdul-Rahman said.
The rebel assault on the dam was led by al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jabhat al-Nusra.
Earlier this month, the Observatory said rebels seized another smaller dam in Raqqa province, the Baath dam, named after Syria’s ruling party. In November, Syrian opposition fighters captured Tishrin hydroelectric dam near the town of Manbij in northern Aleppo province, which borders Raqqa.
Members of al-Nusra, which the U.S. has branded a terrorist organization, have been among the most effective fighters in the battle to oust Assad. The group had led battles for the other two dams, and was also a decisive force in the opposition’s successful attacks on regime army bases outside major cities, including the capital, Damascus, and Aleppo in the north.
The group was also believed to be behind two car bombings on Monday.
One exploded near a border crossing with Turkey in Idlib province, killing 12 people. Witnesses said it struck a spot where humanitarian aid is loaded onto Syrian vehicles.
The border area between the two countries has been the scene of fierce fighting in the civil war. Tensions have also flared between the Syrian regime and Turkey in the past months after shells fired from Syria landed on the Turkish side.
In the second car bombing, the Observatory said members of Jabhat al-Nusra blew themselves up in two car bombs outside an intelligence office in the northeastern province of Hasaka, killing at least 14 security agents.
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Midmarket IT managers have a lot to think about when it comes to data protection -- there are more compliance regulations to meet and more consumer devices (including smartphones and netbooks) flooding the corporate space. As the number of data breaches
Additional threats and challenges, such as a lost laptop, highlight the need for increased security; but what should an IT manager keep in mind when he's securing corporate laptops and the important data stored on them? Consider the following tips when you're tightening your laptop security strategy:
Educate all users about the importance of laptop security and enforce your policies. Identify risks and spread the word to all users about what's being done and why it's important. One policy that should be in place is guidance for users about what they should do if they lose a company laptop.
Consider full-disk laptop encryption. Midmarket organizations are looking to full-disk encryption on company laptops to ensure they are meeting compliance regulations and state data-breach laws. There are many tools designed for this type of protection that SMBs can take advantage of. Smaller organizations may be able to get by with one of the free open source options, such as TruCrypt. Microsoft BitLocker,available for some Windows Vista and Windows 7 users, offers full-volume encryption; new versions will also encrypt data on removable media, such as USB flash drives.
When you're evaluating vendors and service offerings for full-disk encryption, keep ease of deployment and central management in mind. It's important that a smaller IT shop with many users and limited resources can do the overall installation automatically and in one shot.
Tighten laptop login requirements. Stress the importance of strong passwords, and ensure that password reentry is required for the initial boot, as well as on returning from standby or sleep mode, system hibernation, and screensaver time-outs.
It's important that Windows-based laptops have a standard security configuration, and that all systems automatically download and install security updates.
Be aware of noncompliant machines. Take steps to increase MacBook security by encrypting sensitive data and using antivirus software.
How are you working to ensure laptop security?; email [email protected].
This was first published in February 2010
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Facebook and Twitter lit up with the recent news that CNN personality and journalist Anderson Cooper
would be receiving an award at this year's GLAAD Awards on March 16.
For his coverage of queer-related subjects, Cooper has already been nominated for various GLAAD awards on seven occasions, winning three times.
Most people seemed to be elated that Cooper, son of celebrated designer Gloria Vanderbilt, would be winning this coveted award. But while I've enjoyed and appreciated a good deal of Cooper's reporting, something did feel odd about this particular award. It is, after all, the Vito Russo Award, named in honour of one of GLAAD's founders, the author of the landmark book on cinema's longstanding issues with homosexuality, The Celluloid Closet.
Perhaps people have forgotten, but I haven't. I heard Russo lecture in New York City, when he talked his way through a series of clips of Hollywood films. I also interviewed him about a year before he died of AIDS, for an undergraduate course I was taking, one of the first offered in Canada about homosexuality and cinematic representation. If there was one thing Russo railed against, in no ambiguous terms, it was people who remained in the closet. He argued, passionately and repeatedly, that the people he was most angry with and disappointed in were not the straight homophobes (“I already knew we couldn't count on them,” he'd say), but rather the lesbian and gay people in positions of power who remained closeted. “They create the sense that to admit to being gay is something so terribly shameful it must remain hidden,” he said.
Memo to GLAAD: why not call the award for Anderson Cooper the Better Late Than Never Award?
Timing is everything, and by odd coincidence, this past year marked the roundabout coming out of both Cooper and Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster. Cooper came out officially through an email to his friend Andrew Sullivan, who wrote about it on the site The Daily Beast. Foster came out in a now-famous cryptic speech
she made while accepting a Golden Globe Award. The only thing stranger than her speech was her choice of dinner guest — that being Mel Gibson, who sat, looking aghast, as she talked about the news about her being a lesbian as old hat.
Which it was, in a sense. If Cooper and Foster have indicated anything, it's how much things have changed since Russo died of AIDS-related causes in 1990. In a sense, it's like coming out by osmosis. Just let the rumours fly, let various people discuss it and speculate, until it becomes an accepted truth. In 2002, I interviewed Foster and asked her if she felt any special responsibility to the gay and lesbian community. “I feel a responsibility to many different causes,” she said, after a pause. She knew what I was getting at. I wrote at the time that her being lesbian was about as well kept a secret as William Shatner's hair transplants.
Foster and Cooper have proven that there's now no need for that tell-all Advocate interview of yesteryear. Your official coming out will still create something of a media spectacle, but less than it would have back then. In fact, both were sticking to a rule that was very old school: it was WH Auden who said he “would neither proclaim nor pretend.”
This becomes a complex issue in the case of Cooper, as many of his defenders have correctly pointed out. As a journalist, he has reported from parts of the world where homosexuality is still a criminal offence — like Egypt, for example, where Cooper reported throughout the Arab Spring uprising two years ago. But Foster's rather late coming out has also been defended. It was a truth universally acknowledged in Hollywood that to be out would destroy an A-list actor's career. If indeed Foster had come out 30 years ago, there can be little doubt her film career would have been remarkably different.
But Russo had little time for such arguments. He blasted people who remained closeted. He said things would change only if people stepped out and took risks. While I understand the importance of letting people come out on their own terms — and Russo was opposed to forcibly outing public figures — I also see Russo's argument. If no one ever took a risk, and waited to protect their careers, then we wouldn't have the rights we do today. It is precisely because so many came out so brazenly, often risking their own lives (remember Harvey Milk, among others) that we live in a world that has changed so remarkably on the queer-acceptance front.
I'm not opposed to GLAAD giving Cooper an award. Or Foster, for that matter. But named after Vito Russo? That makes me just a bit queasy. Memo to GLAAD: why not call it the Better Late Than Never Award instead?
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Fordham Sets Fulbright Record Again
For the third consecutive year, Fordham University students have earned a record number of Fulbright Fellowships.
The spring crop of Fulbright Fellows currently stands at 13. What makes Fordham's showing additionally impressive is that the number of 2009-2010 applications for the prestigious award was up 15 percent nationwide, noted Regina Plunkett-Dowling, Ph.D., who directs the Office of Fulbright and Graduate Fellowships.
This year, some 7,000 students applied for the prestigious award, which is administered by the U.S. Department of State and which offers funded opportunities for yearlong research and study abroad.
"For our students to win 13 Fulbright Fellowships in the face of such competition is really a tribute to them, their incredibly hard work, and the support of the Fordham community—especially the faculty," Plunkett-Dowling said.
She noted that three of the 13 awardees were first-generation Americans. One became an American citizen just two years ago. "Results are still coming in, but this has already been a memorable year," she said.
In 2007, Fordham students earned eight Fulbrights. Last year, Fordham earned 10 Fulbrights and was named one of the top-ranked research universities earning Fulbrights by the Chronicle of Higher Education
"Success in the Fulbright competition is a reliable indicator of a university's health," Plunkett-Dowling said.
Pending successful completion of their academic work, as well as medical clearance, the Fulbright Fellows are:
• Anne Lieberman, FCLC '09, an African and African-American studies major, awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Thailand for a project titled "Women in Muay Thai Boxing."
• Veronica Mollere, FCLC '09, a social work and visual arts major, awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Thailand.
• Jennifer Chang Li, FCLC '09, an international studies major, awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Korea.
• Gary Gabor, a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Belgium for "Boethius and the Transmission of Ancient Greek Logical Tradition."
• Keeran Murphy, FCRH '09, an English major, awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Korea.
• Paloma Gutierrez, who has earned a master of arts in International Political Economy and Development from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, awarded a Fulbright Bi-National Business Grant to Mexico.
• Matt DeSoi, FCLC '09, awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Germany.
• Mark Nelson, FCLC '09, awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Vietnam.
• Madeline Felix, FCLC '08, who earned her BA in theatre, awarded the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Vietnam.
• Anthony Cotton, who has earned a master of arts in International Political Economy and Development, as well as a master of arts in economics from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to South Africa for "Assessing the World Cup's Impact on Durban's Various Socioeconomic Groups."
• Allison Waid, FCLC '09, an international studies major, awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to China for "Independent and Unabashed: Young Rural Migrant Women Living Working and Dreaming in Wuhan, China."
• Jessica Mahlbacher, FCLC '07, awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Hong Kong.
• Ali Musa, FCLC '09, a political science major, awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Jordan for a project titled "Structural Affinities Between Supranationalist Political Parties in Jordan."
Plunkett-Dowling said that 43 Fordham students applied this year for the fellowships; 22 of them made the list of finalists.
"The University’s Jesuit ideal of producing 'men and women for others' is truly fulfilled in these awards," Plunkett-Dowling added. "Our graduates will make valuable contributions across the globe, from Bangkok to Mexico City."
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 14,700 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in Westchester, and the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.
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orries about sharing valuable knowledge with partners - and concerns about the complexity and cost of protecting that knowledge - still prevent many small companies from undertaking joint research. And among those which have taken part in previous European projects, too many have only considered the security of their intellectual property after a problem has arisen.
"People tend to enter into a partnership agreement without really understanding the IPR issues, in order to get the research funding," says Mónica Miñana, one of the Helpdesk's team of legal experts. "We would like them to address these issues at the outset, so that later problems can be avoided."
Enquiries to the IPR Helpdesk, by country
Help with Proposals
The Helpdesk, operational since last September(1), aims to raise awareness about the importance of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the process of technological innovation, and to promote the use of patent searches to prevent resources being wasted on problems which have already been solved elsewhere.
But it also offers a free personal advice service. In the five months to February, the flow of enquiries was modest, but the Helpdesk's legal team anticipates a rapid increase as research consortiums start to respond to FP5's first calls for proposals.
"We aim to become a key resource for the research programmes," she says. "In the past, many IPR questions have been directed to project officers, who have no specialised training in this field."
To date, the majority of enquiries have come via e-mail - and most have received a written response within 24 hours. The team has dealt both with requests for general information on patents and other means of IPR protection, and with specific queries about contractual issues related to planned joint research projects.
"I have just dealt with one person who sent a whole list of questions relating to the protection of a gene sequence, which he hoped would form the basis for further research with other partners in a European project," she recalls.
"Should he protect his IPR before looking for partners? Should he ask potential partners to sign a confidentiality agreement? Would he need to file a patent before entering into a research contract? What rights and obligations would a contract imply? These are typical concerns - but in a difficult area, given the development of EU law on the patentability of biotechnology products."
Miñana responded with basic information about the various forms of protection available, the requirements for filing a patent, and about the way a research contract works. "We cannot file a patent for you," she explains. "But we have information about patent agents and patent offices in each Member State. In this case, I gave him contact details for an agent in his own region, as well as for the European Patent Office. But I invited him to come back to the Helpdesk again, once he had studied the information we sent."
(1) See `Stand Up for Your Rights', edition 5/98.
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