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Carol B. Sisco Appointed to Reading Is Fundamental’s Board of Directors
WASHINGTON, December 5, 2008—Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF), the nation's oldest and largest children and families’ literacy organization, appointed Dr. Carol B. Sisco to its board of directors.
Dr. Sisco is the daughter of Jean Head Sisco, one of RIF's founding members. She serves as the chairman of the board at the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA), and has worked as a clinician, consultant, educator, and researcher in the field of addiction for more than 25 years.
"Having Dr. Sisco on our board is an honor," said Carol H. Rasco, RIF president and CEO. "She brings a wealth of knowledge, especially in understanding the issues faced by children who grow up in less than ideal environments."
Dr. Sisco has published and lectured nationally in the fields of female addiction and issues facing the children of alcohol and drug-dependent parents. Her findings have been widely cited in public welfare literature and incorporated in welfare reform initiatives throughout the country. She is a licensed clinical social worker in Maryland and Washington D.C., a Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work, and a National Certified Addiction Counselor.
A magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, Sisco went on to obtain a MSW from the University of South Carolina, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. She is also a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, where she currently serves as a flotilla staff officer for membership training.
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF), founded in 1966, motivates children to read by working with them, their parents, and community members to make reading a fun and beneficial part of everyday life. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8. Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, RIF provides 4.6 million children with 15 million new, free books and literacy resources each year. For more information and to access reading resources, visit RIF’s website at www.rif.org.
Discover the Joy!
Media Relations Manager | <urn:uuid:2a9f2a6d-b954-4ba5-8b84-b03a1b7fdd5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rif.org/us/about/press/carol-b-sisco-appointed-to-reading-is-fundamentals-board-of-directors.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959261 | 468 | 1.53125 | 2 |
I have recently felt the urge to take up modelling in 1:35 scale again. It has been several years since I built anything in that huge scale, preferring HO or O scale.
One of my joys of building a model is photographing it when it is complete, sharing the photo on the web and being able to look at it whenever I want. Therefore, my first priority returning to 1:35 scale was to build a simple diorama or scenic base to serve as a place to photograph my models on.
The inspiration for the photo diorama came from Miniart’s new set, #36042, called Village Road Section. Miniart makes very nice products, but really excel in finishing their models and photographing them so well, that visiting their site always make me want to build everything there.
The new set of a cobblestone road would be great to display both road vehicles and figures on.
While playing with the cobblestone sections from the two kit I had bought, I quickly decided that the diorama should contain railroad track as well for displaying rail vehicles.
I already had a bit of standard gauge track from Trumpeter, that came with my now almost-finished model of the WR360 tractor. Inspired by the many narrow gauge railways of WWI, I decided to add some 600mm or 2′ track. This gave the diorama extra flexibility for whatever I might build in the future. The track came from the British company Peco.
After a lot of fiddling, I decided on a base measuring 53 cm x 42 cm or 21″ x 17″. A wooden base made from MDF-board was cut out and a layer of styrofoam on top gave it some additional height.
Then everything was spraypainted brown and black before being glued onto the board.
At this point I gave some thought to where the diorama would belocated and decided it was just on the outskirts of a larger village with a railroad station, servd by a single-track line. During WWI a narrow gauge track had been constructed from the station and running into fields nearby, that might have been a part of the Western Front in France, Germany or Belgium.
This meant that the main track should be well-kept, while the narrow gauge line should look abandoned and overgrown.
The 600 mm or 2′ narrow gauge track was ballasted with fine sand, bought from a pet shop as Chinchilla Sand! The sand was then carefully arranged with a brush before being glued on. More about that later.
While the glue was still wet, I added some fine green powder to the top of the ballast, simulating moss growing on the old tracks.
For the main line, I used a coarser sand and arranged it in the same way as the narrow gauge track. Then I used an old syringe filled with a mixture of brown paint, water and glue to drip the mix onto the ballast, gluing and adding colour to the whole thing at the same time.
In this article about my O scale castle diorama you can see a short video of the process.
The cobblestone received several washes and highlights before I was satisfied with the colour. Dirt was then added to the side of the road, and the diorama was now almost complete.
The last steps were to plant a lot of static grass using an electrostatic device to make the grass stand upright. I mixed three different colours of static grass in vairous quantities to give the grass a varied look. I also made sure to plant the grass in patches, so the earth showed underneath.
I completed the vegetation by added numerous little tufts with and without flowers. Later I might add some bushes, but first of all it was time to take some test shot to see how it worked.
The grass had almost completely hidden the old narrow gauge track, just as planned. When seen from thi angle, the grass cries out for more variation, so perhaps I should add more tufts in various colours?
As you can see on the main line above, I used weathering powder containing real rust for adding an extra touch to the railroad tracks.
I had prepared some photo backdrops in advance. I found some nice images on Flickr containing lots or blue sky and printed it on the largest paper my printer could fit. I then glued the prints onto large pieces of cardboard, making them stable enough to stand on their own. On the image above the setup used to shoot the first image in this post is shown.
The light comes from four 50 watts multifaceted reflector light bulbs mounted in a lamp in the ceiling, which gives a nice clear light similar to sunlight.
So far, I am pretty satisfied with the diorama. Some more variation in the vegetation might be needed and more and larger backdrops would be nice.
But the diorama can now serve its purpose, and I can begin to build new models with a place to photograph them.
Any ideas on how to improve the photos or the diorama? | <urn:uuid:831bea7f-9531-4e95-8fc0-06c5be90a6ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oscalemodel.com/military-modelling/photo-diorama-for-135-scale-models | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973866 | 1,043 | 1.515625 | 2 |
An Adventure Into the Heart of America’s Family Farms
By Richard Horan
Harper Perennial. 300 pp. Paperback, $14.99
In his new book, “Harvest,” Richard Horan travels from northern Maine to Northern California, stopping at 10 small, organic family farms along the way to be a guest worker. From July to October, he picks potatoes, peaches, raspberries, brussel sprouts and other fruits and vegetables as well as nuts and grains, and he writes about his work with humor and detail: “Let me just say at this point that the stereotype of the laconic farmer who speaks only when spoken to, in utterances no longer than a single syllable, is a complete and total myth. Farmers, or at least the ones I met, are as long-winded as the day is long.”
Enjoyable as the book is, it meanders a bit, like Horan himself. Readers learn seemingly random facts about him that have little to do with farming. The author also can be a little ungracious to his hosts, as when he writes of one farmer, “Within the first half hour, he’d so overwhelmed me with his positive energy and use of superlatives and hyperbole and nonstop chatter that I got to feeling nauseous.”
“Harvest” serves up colorful vignettes about farm life but leaves the reader wondering if the author missed some bigger story.
— Moira E. McLaughlin | <urn:uuid:0c9216c9-eb66-46cf-a04b-db940deb7413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harvest-an-adventure-into-the-heart-of-americas-family-farms-by-richard-horan/2012/12/14/c7975734-2359-11e2-ba29-238a6ac36a08_story.html?wprss=rss_books | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963912 | 321 | 1.648438 | 2 |
From community activist to alleged terror conspirator
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) – For years, James Ujaama was known as a prominent community activist in Seattle, working to help the city's poor and promoting entrepreneurship as a way up the economic ladder.
Ujaama, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen whose birth name is James Earnest Thompson, has written at least three books on how to succeed in business, including one titled, "The Young People's Guide to Starting a Business Without Selling Drugs."
In a 1991 profile, The Seattle Times newspaper called him a role model. On June 10, 1994, then-state Rep. Jesse Wineberry issued a certificate declaring James Ujaama Day in the state of Washington.
But, according to U.S. authorities, there is another side to Ujaama.
A federal indictment charges Ujaama with conspiring to aid Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network since 1999. The indictment says part of the conspiracy was to establish a training camp in Oregon for terrorists to prepare for "violent jihad."
According to the indictment, Ujaama also established one or more Web sites that advocated beliefs "concerning the need to conduct global violent jihad against the United States of America and other Western nations."
In a statement released by his attorney Wednesday, Ujaama said, "If I have broken any laws and am guilty of crimes against the American people, then I must be held accountable. The fact is that I am innocent of any wrongdoing and am fully prepared to face my accusers and defend myself in a court of law."
Ujaama's uncle told The Seattle Times that Ujaama converted to Islam in the mid-1990s.
Ujaama has attended several mosques that have been investigated to determine whether some attendees were part of an al Qaeda cell operating in the United States, according to a law enforcement source. He has lived in both Seattle and London in recent years.
Sources describe Ujaama as a "smaller fish" caught in a larger investigation of Sheikh Abu Hamza, a radical British cleric who has praised the September 11 terror attacks. Investigators believe Hamza is actually a senior al Qaeda recruiter, an allegation he denies.
While in London on one trip, Ujaama attended the Finsbury Mosque, where Hamza preaches, officials have said. Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person facing a public U.S. trial in connection with the September 11 attacks -- and Richard Reid, who is accused of trying to blow up a flight with explosives in his shoes, also have attended the mosque.
Ujaama also traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 to study Islamic code, according to family friends.
Earlier this month, his brother, Mustafa Ujaama, said his brother's travels should not raise suspicions, and that it was "completely, completely impossible" he has ties to terrorism.
"James Ujaama's biggest problem is that he's so damn inquisitive that he'll go anywhere, anyplace, anytime," Charlie James, a family friend, told the Denver Post. "I think that's what got him into trouble."
Friends and family have spoken out against Ujaama's indictment.
"This is a big shock," his mother, Peggi Thompson, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. "I thought things would be dismissed in his favor."
A family spokeswoman was critical of the handling of the case, claiming Ujaama has been held secretly and indefinitely as a material witness.
"James had been more than happy to cooperate with a grand jury," family spokeswoman Leila McDowell told CNN. "He had said he would be happy to testify and give any information that he might know that might be relevant."
LAW TOP STORIES:
Robert Blake goes to court
High court allows anti-abortion protests outside clinics
Father of terror victim seeks court ruling to help his lawsuit
Title IX minority pushes enforcement, not change
Owners of Olympic winner's training rink guilty of fraud
|Back to the top| | <urn:uuid:b1dc52a0-f1db-4d7f-992b-6c14018b5bb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/29/ujaama.background/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970159 | 837 | 1.53125 | 2 |
MADRID — The World Wildlife Fund's branch in Spain has ousted King Juan Carlos as its honorary president — a title he'd held since 1968 — after deciding his recent elephant hunting safari was incompatible with its goal of conserving endangered species.
The announcement Saturday was the latest in a string of bad news for Spain's royal family, which has been embarrassed by legal and other scandals.
The fund said in a statement that "although such hunting is legal and regulated" it had "received many expressions of distress from its members and society in general." It said members voted at a meeting Saturday in Madrid to "to get rid of the honorary President" by a substantial majority of 226 votes to 13.
The Royal Palace declined immediate comment on the announcement.
Many Spaniards were dumbfounded when news broke in April that the king had made a secret journey to hunt elephants in Botswana even though it was widely known he was president of the Spanish branch of the fund.
Such an opulent indulgence also angered Spaniards at a time when national unemployment hovers around 25 percent, the economy is contracting and there are fears the country may need an international financial bailout.
The Spanish public learned of the safari only after the king had to fly back in a private jet to receive emergency medical attention for a broken hip suffered during the trip.
In an unprecedented act of royal contrition, a sheepish Juan Carlos apologized, saying as he left the hospital: "I am very sorry. I made a mistake. It won't happen again."
It was a poignant moment because the royal family had been under intense media scrutiny for all the wrong reasons.
The king's son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, is a suspect in a corruption case, accused of having used his position to embezzle several million euros in public contracts through a supposedly not-for-profit foundation he'd set up.
Over Easter, the king's 13-year-old grandson, Felipe Juan Froilan, shot himself in the foot with a shotgun, even though Spanish law dictates you must be 14 to handle a gun.
The king on Tuesday decided to take a pay cut in solidarity with civil servants who are to lose their traditional Christmas bonuses as part of the government's most recent austerity drive.
The salaries of Juan Carlos and Crown Prince Felipe will be reduced about 7 percent — to about 272,000 euros ($334,000) and 131,000 euros ($160,000) respectively — in line with government policy, the Royal Palace said.
The king and prince acted voluntarily in cutting their salaries, the palace said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:10b9f8d3-23e8-49b3-aa8e-902b6714a00b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48271859/ns/world_news-world_environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972786 | 559 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Child's Play Wins Auction House an Art Sale
It may have been the most expensive game of rock, paper, scissors ever played.
Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, an electronics company based outside of Nagoya, Japan, could not decide whether Christie's or Sotheby's should sell the company's art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week's auctions in New York.
He did not split the collection - which includes an important CÚzanne landscape, an early Picasso street scene and a rare van Gogh view from the artist's Paris apartment - between the two houses, as sometimes happens. Nor did he decide to abandon the auction process and sell the paintings through a private dealer.
Instead, he resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock.
In Japan, resorting to such games of chance is not unusual. "I sometimes use such methods when I cannot make a decision," Mr. Hashiyama said in a telephone interview. "As both companies were equally good and I just could not choose one, I asked them to please decide between themselves and suggested to use such methods as rock, paper, scissors."
Officials from the Tokyo offices of the two auction houses were informed of Mr. Hashiyama's request on a Thursday afternoon in late January.
They were told they had until a meeting on Monday to choose a weapon. The right choice could mean several million dollars in profits from the fees the auction house charges buyers (usually 20 percent for the first $200,000 of the final price and 12 percent above that).
"The client was very serious about this," said Jonathan Rendell, a deputy chairman of Christie's in America who was involved with the transaction. "So we were very serious about it, too."
Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie's in Japan, declined to discuss her preparations for the meeting. But her colleagues in New York said she spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie's Impressionist and modern art department.
Mr. Maclean's 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, "practically every day."
"Everybody knows you always start with scissors," she added. "Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper." Flora piped in. "Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest," she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors - because, as Alice explained, "Everybody expects you to choose rock."
Sotheby's took a different tack. "There was some discussion," said Blake Koh, an expert in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's in Los Angeles who was involved in the negotiations with Maspro. "But this is a game of chance, so we didn't really give it that much thought. We had no strategy in mind."
As Ms. Ishibashi wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague in New York, to prepare herself for the meeting she prayed, sprinkled salt - a traditional Japanese ritual for good luck - and carried lucky charm beads.
Two experts from each of the rival auction houses arrived at Maspro's Tokyo offices, where they were shown to a conference room with a very long table and asked to sit facing one another, Mr. Rendell said. Each side's experts had an accountant from Maspro sitting with them.
Instead of the usual method of playing the game with the hands, the teams were given a form explaining the rules. They were then asked to write one word in Japanese - rock, paper or scissors - on the paper.
After each house had entered its decision, a Maspro manager looked at the choices. Christie's was the winner: scissors beat paper.
"We were told immediately and then asked to go downstairs to another room and wait, while the forms went off to headquarters to be approved," Mr. Rendell said. He described the atmosphere in the room as "difficult," saying both sides were forced to "make small talk."
Christie's will sell most of the major paintings in its evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on Wednesday. It hopes the star of the group, CÚzanne's "Large Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan" (1885-1887), will sell for more than $12 million.
Auction houses give each sale a code name to identify it. Christie's is sticking with "Scissors."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | <urn:uuid:e8f7ddff-f41e-494a-973f-1a71b4281ebf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/Mike.Shor/courses/game-theory/docs/lecture05/RPSArt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982169 | 1,007 | 1.828125 | 2 |
How hard is it to export your Google data? It’s not very hard, but it’s not a piece of cake either – mainly it’s just inconvenient and can be time-consuming (depending on which services you need to export). If you’re familiar with the Google Data Liberation Front, then you know that Google has worked hard to make it easier for its users to move their data in and out of Google.
Unfortunately, up until now users have had to do this individually – service by service. That is until Google recently announced their new service Takeout, on their Data Liberation Blog. Google Takeout lets users archive and download data from all of their Google data services in a single click.
Takeout currently supports the following services: Google Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile, and Stream; more services will be added in the future. Seeing how it can be kind of a pain to find exactly where the export option is on some Google services, Takeout is surprisingly easy to find and even easier to use.
What is Google Takeout?
Google does a great job of explaining just what Takeout is and how it differs from the old way of exporting data. Just watch the short, ingenious video below which uses the analogy of an actual takeout service to explain what Google Takeout can do.
Head on over to the Google Takeout page to get started. Once you sign in you’ll see the “All of your data” section.
This section shows you all of the data that Google currently has of you. Depending on the services you use, you may see something slightly different here.
You can easily start your archive by clicking on the “Create Archive” button. The time it takes to archive your data will, of course, depend on the amount of files and size of the file for each service. You can see my info below; it literally took around 30 – 45 seconds to create my backup.
Once your archive is created, you can download it in .zip format. After that, you can login any time to download your archive because it will be saved under the “Downloads” section.
It’s not clear how many downloads are saved here, but I did create 2 other archives and all 3 now appear under the “Downloads” section. So it looks like you’ll have access to quite a few previous archives.
If you don’t want to automatically archive all of your services, you can click on “Choose Services” in the top navigation to choose specific services. Just click on the services that you do want to archive and then click on the “Create Archive” button.
Here you can also see the estimated number of files you have in that account and the estimated total size of the file before creating the archive, unlike the quicker method above.
That’s really all there is to Takeout: just one click and within under a minute you can have all of your data in a single folder. Google meant for Takeout to be super quick and easy, and that it is.
I really prefer exporting all of my data in a single click and from a single location, rather than having to go to each individual service to do it; so Google Takeout is definitely a link that I’ll keep handy.
How about you? What do you think of this new service? Will you use Google Takeout? | <urn:uuid:cbae66b6-4fdc-41bf-beeb-4d94d6a3903c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.technorms.com/4262/google-takeout | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939723 | 721 | 1.601563 | 2 |
President Obama's media acolytes must really be disappointed – they're comparing his administration's unilateral behavior in the war on terror to that of George W. Bush.
The new interest was kicked off by a Justice Department document leaked on Monday that offered a legal analysis of when the president can order the targeted killing of an American citizen suspected of terrorism, without due process. Wednesday's lead New York Times article from Yemen was a rundown of the fatal drone strikes authorized by President Obama and his "kill list" coordinator John Brennan, now Obama's nominee to head the C.I.A.
The Times relegated the actual news about the leaked document to page 11, in the International section, in a "news analysis" by reporters Scott Shane and Charlie Savage that dug into the politics of the controversy under an odd, vague headline: "Report on Targeted Killing Whets Appetite for Less Secrecy ."
The article itself did touch lightly on the liberal hypocrisy angle over Obama's new-found embrace of secrecy – The text box reads: "Revelations about Obama policy and Bush policy were treated differently." The Times certainly gave wall-to-wall front-page treatment to memos on the harsh interrogation of terrorist suspects during the Bush administration.
Here's Shane and Savage writing on Wednesday:
Early in his first term, President Obama rejected the vehement protests of the Central Intelligence Agency and ordered the public disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions on interrogation and torture that had been written in the administration of George W. Bush.
In the case of his own Justice Department’s legal opinions on assassination and the “targeted killing” of terrorism suspects, however, Mr. Obama has taken a different approach. Though he entered office promising the most transparent administration in history, he has adamantly refused to make those opinions public -- notably one that justified the 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed an American, Anwar al-Awlaki. His administration has withheld them even from the Senate and House intelligence committees and has fought in court to keep them secret, making any public debate on the issue difficult.
But with the disclosure on Monday of a Justice Department document offering a detailed legal analysis of the targeted killing of Americans, the barricades of secrecy have been breached. Just as leaks of interrogation memos in 2004 under President Bush ignited a fierce public debate over torture, the report on the so-called white paper by NBC News instantly touched off a renewed, and better informed, public discussion about whether and when a president can order the execution of a citizen based on secret intelligence and without any trial.
Some human rights groups dismissed it in language reminiscent of their critiques of the Bush administration’s legal opinions on torture, taking particular aim at its flexible definition of what might constitute an “imminent” threat and the lack of any outside check on its claimed authority.
Wednesday's lead editorial, "To Kill an American ," also attacked Obama with the Bush comparison.
On one level, there were not too many surprises in the newly disclosed “white paper” offering a legal reasoning behind the claim that President Obama has the power to order the killing of American citizens who are believed to be part of Al Qaeda. We knew Mr. Obama and his lawyers believed he has that power under the Constitution and federal law. We also knew that he utterly rejects the idea that Congress or the courts have any right to review such a decision in advance, or even after the fact.
Still, it was disturbing to see the twisted logic of the administration’s lawyers laid out in black and white. It had the air of a legal justification written after the fact for a policy decision that had already been made, and it brought back unwelcome memories of memos written for President George W. Bush to justify illegal wiretapping, indefinite detention, kidnapping, abuse and torture. | <urn:uuid:6810e641-7ab1-4ac4-93ef-adfbb0c977b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrc.org/print/articles/new-york-times-gently-nails-obamas-hypocrisy-targeted-killings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959928 | 779 | 1.507813 | 2 |
by Ken Jimbo
May 8th 2012
This report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan. All of the papers and presentations given at the workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery.
Nautilus invites your contributions to this forum, including any responses to this report.
In the following report Ken Jimbo assesses the impacts of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence in Asia–especially on the Korean peninsula and in China–and how it relates to Japan’s “dynamic defense” policy adopted in the 2010 National Defense Program Guidelines. He states that “[s]ince the strategic landscape in Northeast Asia is increasingly complex in character, it is difficult to apply the concept of deterrence in a “one-size-fits-all” manner. For extended deterrence to succeed, the Japan-U.S. alliance needs continuous updates on the assessment of the distribution of powers and threats, then to apply tailored deterrence to the regional dynamic.”
Ken Jimbo is an Associate Professor at Keio University, Japan.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground.
-”Extended Deterrence in the Japan-U.S. Alliance”
During the process of drafting the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR 2010), extended deterrence was one of the most important imperatives of prescribing U.S. nuclear doctrines, force postures and readiness. In spite of its importance, there has been wide-ranging disagreement among U.S. policy makers and scholars about what constitutes effective extended deterrence and the role nuclear weapons play. In Japan silent but vigorous debate on nuclear extended deterrence has taken place since President Obama’s Prague speech and during the process of releasing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR) and NPR.
Extended deterrence, in the most simplified terms, is extending deterrence to third parties. Extended deterrence, however, is harder to achieve than central (or individual) deterrence because: 1) it needs to be a threat credible to an adversary on behalf of or in collaboration with the deterrence provider, 2) it needs to convince the elites of both the guarantor and guarantee states on a bipartisan basis that it is credible 3) it needs to assure the domestic public that such forms of extended deterrence are necessary. Essentially, extended deterrence is the sets of multi-dimensional perceptions of the credibility of U.S. security commitments to its allies.
Since the strategic landscape in Northeast Asia is increasingly complex in character, it is difficult to apply the concept of deterrence in a “one-size-fits-all” manner. For extended deterrence to succeed, the Japan-U.S. alliance needs continuous updates on the assessment of the distribution of powers and threats, then to apply tailored deterrence to the regional dynamic.
Asian Dimension of Extended Deterrence
In an Asian dimension, extended deterrence is particularly important for two reasons. First, it’s major function is to deter and dissuade any large-scale aggression on the part of North Korea.
The failure to denuclearize North Korea has left Japan facing the DPRK’s increased nuclear and missile capabilities. In 2010, North Korea increased its level of aggression by sinking the South Korean corvette Cheonan and shelling Yonpyong Island. These events draw huge lessons for the effectiveness of extended deterrence. North Korea may expand its aggression to a degree that may not invite a major retaliation from the ROK or the United States. With its increased confidence, North Korea might have calculated that the extent to which it can provoke the ROK or possibly Japan, has gone up.
We may tentatively conclude that the “stability-instability paradox” is likely to come into play here. There is a decreasing probability of a major war, but an increasing probability of low-level conflicts. North Korea assumes that South Korea and the US do not want minor conflicts to escalate into major ones, making it safe to engage in the former.
North Korea was careful enough to strike a ‘disputed’ area, one which was—at least from their point of view—not a part of the territory covered by the US umbrella. In doing so, it may have acted like Egypt and Syria did in 1973: facing a nuclear-armed adversary, they were very careful not to attack Israel on its 1948 borders. South Korea retaliated in response to the Yeonpyeong shelling by firing about 80 shells at North Korean barracks, command structures and artillery near the border, but there was no further significant military escalation from North Korea despite its verbal attacks. South Korean F-16 and F-15 jets were also rushed to the area, but they did not provoke North Korean targets. More importantly, the US did not directly take joint action during the initial counter strikes. In terms of the possible range of escalation, the offensive exchanges in the Yeonpyeong case were relatively low in intensity. We can tentatively observe that deterrence failed in the latter part of 2010, and it may fail again, but that escalation control succeeded.
The lesson we learned from 2010 was that the US and ROK have to carefully review how to respond to small-to-medium scale aggression by reconfiguring the deterrence structure vis-à-vis North Korea. In order to deal with China’s probing behavior in East China Sea, Japan adopted a concept called “Dynamic Defense” or “Dynamic Deterrence” in the National Defense Program Guideline 2010 which emphasized the operational domain of the Self Defense Force by demonstrating upgraded intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities to close the windows of opportunity for China to expand its activities surrounding Japan .
Northeast Asia is also faced with the fragile and abrupt generational transition taking place in North Korea, which has increased the uncertainty of the regime’s stability. If some internally destabilizing or hard-landing scenario should happen, certainly the U.S. forward presence will undertake a stabilization operation in the North, and during such a scenario extended deterrence plays a key role to ensure the stability during the crisis and to limit damage as a result of possible attacks from North Korea.
The second important aspect of extended deterrence in the Asian context is China. This is another complex question since China has not only modernized their nuclear arsenals, but also significantly increased the capability of their conventional forces. Growing Chinese anti-access and area-denial capabilities would impede the deployment of U.S. forces into the combat theater and limit the locations from which those forces could effectively operate. These aspects have certainly increased the cost and complexity of U.S. military responses to crises in East Asia.
When it comes to the Sino-Japanese bilateral dimensions of the regional balance of power, China already has twice the defense budget than Japan (according to SIPRI standards), and it is going to be four to six times larger in 2020, and seven to ten times larger in 2030—although these figures are based on optimistic Chinese economic projections for the next two decades. We are now seeing a dynamic wherin China increasingly has denial power against the United States, whereas Japan’s relative power decline has become more apparent. Crafting extended deterrence under this new dynamic is one of the most important challenges of managing the alliance in coming years.
In the Nuclear Posture Review, the term given to China’s position is “ensuring strategic stability”. We need to be constantly updating this concept. What if they deploy highly modernized strategic forces such as land based DF-31A, tactical DF-21 and submarine based JL-2? It is a matter of time until China becomes more confident in gaining credible second-strike capability against the United States and its allies. Then the question arises: how do we define nuclear relations between the U.S. and China?
Tailored Regional Deterrence Architecture
The QDR, NPR and BMDR emphasize the importance of crafting “Tailored Regional Deterrence Architecture”.
This unique DOD approach to the deterrence concept suggest that deterrence has to be adjusted to the uniqueness of the region, and the components of deterrence include various forms ranging from nuclear to non-nuclear striking forces, missile defense and counter-WMD capabilities. The underlying goal of these reviews is to de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. Accordingly, non-nuclear elements will have to play a vital role for enhancing extended-deterrence.
As a result, the NPR declared the retirement of the TLAM/N, nuclear tomahawk that has been in storage since the Navy completed the withdrawal in early 1990s. Indeed, there was a certain amount of concern in the Japanese policy community that the retirement symbolizes the reducing visibility of U.S. nuclear commitments in Asia. But as stated in the NPR, TLAM/N was one of a number of means to forward-deploy nuclear weapons in the crisis. The role of TLAM/N can be substituted by heavy bombers/dual-capable fighters/ICBMs and SLBMs. I think that ensuring the visibility of the U.S. nuclear commitment in Asia by flexibly forward deploying the air-component will become highly important in post-NPR extended deterrence in Asia.
Non-First Use and the “Sole-Purpose” Debate
Japan highly appreciates that the NPR did not adopt a universal policy that “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the U.S. and its allies. Given North Korea’s potential capability to attack Japan with chemical and biological weapons, it is still crucial for Japan that the U.S. reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a CBW attack. Even though there is much debate that conventional forces can replace the role of nuclear weapons both in peace-time and during crisis, I think that nuclear extended deterrence still plays a crucial role for simplifying Pyongyang’s calculations over their strategic value of possessing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
NDPG 2010 and Extended Deterrence: Towards Flexible Response
The 2010 NDPG states:
“as long as nuclear weapons exist, the extended deterrence provided by the United States, with nuclear deterrent as a vital element, will be indispensable. In order to maintain and improve the credibility of the extended deterrence, Japan will closely cooperate with the United States, and will also appropriately implement its own efforts, including ballistic missile defense and civil protection.”
It is significant that Japan recognizes the U.S. nuclear deterrent as vital and extended deterrence as indispensable. At the same time, the introduction of Japan’s “dynamic defense” concept will promote the role of JSDF to play a more active role in deterrence, especially with respect to those North Korean and Chinese activities on fait accompli and proving. U.S. extended deterrence will continue to play a significant role in peacetime deterrence and escalation management. It will be imperative for Japan and U.S. to activate the seamless deterrence capability from low-intensity to mid/high intensity response with merging “dynamic defense” and extended deterrence.
“Dynamic Defense” in the New Guidelines places importance especially the principle of the Self-Defense Forces’ “activities.” Particularly on to 1) strengthen preparation against military activities of neighboring countries through reinforcing regular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities which called as “ISR,” 2) quickly and seamlessly respond to various contingencies, and 3) multi-layered promotion of cooperative activities with foreign countries.
The Nautilus Peace and Security Network invites your responses to this report. Please send responses to: [email protected]. Responses will be considered for redistribution to the network only if they include the author’s name, affiliation, and explicit consent. | <urn:uuid:dd8519b6-aa9b-4dbb-82c8-030ba9f5fe30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/extended-deterrence-in-the-japan-u-s-alliance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943119 | 2,487 | 1.679688 | 2 |
When you work for someone else, as I did for many years before starting my own small business, there is typically some pre-defined idea of what it means to be successful. There’s one way to climb the corporate ladder. One way to get a promotion. A set number of months or years before you’re eligible for the next position. No matter the job or corporation or enterprise, there are certain markers that must be met in order to move forward.
As an entrepreneur, however, you have the luxury of thinking differently about prosperity. While there are many things about being an entrepreneur that are challenging (weathering extreme business ups and downs, spearheading projects that others doubt, figuring out how to make a sustainable revenue, to name a few), the freedom to define prosperity in your own, individualized way is really something to savor.
In this spirit, I want to share three simple ways to define, take charge of, and enjoy your own prosperity, starting today.
1. Define Prosperity Up Front
As part of your business model or plan, articulate a clear definition of what it means to you to be prosperous. Do you value making money? Having free time? The ability to travel? A flexible work schedule? I am involved in various small business communities and have seen my colleagues feel successful and fulfilled when their work allows them to spend time with friends and family, when they can work from home, and when they are making decent passive income. In my work, as someone who helps others with presentation and communication skills, prosperity is reflected in the confidence and success my clients feel after giving a speech or sharing their voice with others.
Whatever your definition, the important thing is to identify it up front so that you have clarity about what it is you are working toward. Without a clear, personalized definition of success, you risk subjecting yourself to arbitrary ideas of what it means to be prosperous—not to mention failing to recognize prosperity once you achieve it. (More on that later.)
2. Allow For Adjustments
While the step of defining prosperity upfront is imperative, there is some element of flexibility that has to accompany this. Your definition of prosperity should allow for adjustments here and there to ensure you are moving forward toward your larger visions of success and happiness at a reasonable pace.
For example, your vision of prosperity may include making the same salary you were making before you began working as an entrepreneur. While this is an excellent goal, it is likely not going to happen overnight. In the meantime, you will face challenges, a potentially significant salary decrease, budgeting restrictions, and many days where it does not feel worth it to continue. Still, you must continue. You must work hard. And you must do so even if you are not yet at the financial level you had hoped to reach. These short-term adjustments (the salary decrease or budgeting restrictions, as examples) will ensure that, in the long term, your vision of prosperity is actually feasible.
3. Honor Your Definition of Prosperity
Finally, it’s important to honor your own definition of prosperity. It’s easy to lose sight of this, particularly when you begin comparing yourself with others. If possible, avoid focusing on what everyone else is doing—I guarantee that it’s hardly relevant to your work. As a quick anecdote, on the same day I launched my business, an acquaintance launched an iPhone app that received instant recognition. I spent a lot of energy comparing and feeling envy over the success of her launch. Months later, she abandoned the project—but no matter her fate, it occurred to me that I wasted a lot of energy focusing on something that had absolutely no bearing on the success or failure of my own business. The truth is, in business, there is room at the table for everyone.
We also tend to lose sight of our own definition of prosperity as things get busy and as our businesses ramp up. It’s not uncommon to push forward without taking time to recognize our own hard work and accomplishments. What seems like a dream milestone early on is viewed as a simple fact by the time it arrives, and we’re on to the next thing, just like that. I recently heard a highly successful entrepreneur speak on this very topic: She mentioned that early on in her online business, she was delighted when one person bought one of her programs. Now, she catches herself taking for granted that hundreds of people are buying her programs daily. The more people buy, the less she celebrates.
You want to avoid this. In order to settle into your prosperity, and in order to feel great about the work you are doing, you have to be present. You have to be generous with yourself. You have to honor the definition of prosperity you’ve set forth. This is the best way to ensure a healthy relationship with your work as you move forward.
As an entrepreneur, there is a lot of value in having that driven, motivated, unstopping personality. Still, it is incredibly important to acknowledge what prosperity really means to you. This way, not only will you have achieved what you set out for yourself and for your business, but you’ll have the pleasure of savoring it, as well. | <urn:uuid:28930e3d-d082-44ec-be20-f1a42ee10132> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailymuse.com/entrepreneurship/how-to-define-prosperity-as-an-entrepreneur/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96966 | 1,070 | 1.804688 | 2 |
A lot of people have lists of questions they want asked at tonight’s (or any) Presidential debate.
Most center on the current economic crisis.
I’d like to add five questions that I’m not sure are in many people’s list…
- Many economists say that the root cause of the current economic crisis was the extension of lending into sub-prime markets driven by Congresses’ insistence that loans be expanded under the CRA. To use plain words, to have averted this crisis someone would have to have said “Don’t lend to poor people”. Are you as President willing to make that kind of a call?
- Currently one in three Americans are employed in some way by or for a governmental entity. Do you find that comforting or disturbing and as President would you seek to increase or reduce the government payroll?
- Education, primarily at the secondary school level is at the root of the economy’s future productivity. Given the rift in our nation’s culture, arguments over evolution vs creationism, and the requirements for diversity and sex education occurring in our schools today do you see any way for the Federal Government to improve the declining and unequal quality of our High Schools, or do you believe that their management should be left at the local level?
- Do you believe that immigration is an overall benefit or detriment to our economy and based on your position, would you seek to expand or contract it under your administration?
- We hold that the truths of our Constitution are self evident and universal to all mankind. Do you see any time in your administration where a 51st state would or should be added to our country?
That should get them going…
More from Dougist.com on the Financial Crisis | <urn:uuid:a4243e5f-c859-4803-b7fd-aa8f4476edbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dougist.com/2008/10/a-few-provocative-questions-for-the-presidential-debate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960806 | 363 | 1.695313 | 2 |
WORCESTER, Mass. — The Worcester Division of Public Health and UMass Injury Prevention Center are urging parents and caregivers to have their children's car seats checked on National Seat Check on Saturday.
As part of Child Passenger Safety Week from Sept. 17 to 22, certified child passenger safety technicians from the UMASS Injury Prevention Team will be available to inspect car seats and provide free hands-on advice from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Worcester Division of Public Health, 25 Meade St., Worcester. The event is open to the public.
"Car seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71 percent for children younger than 1 and by 54 percent for children 1 to 4 in passenger cars," said Dr. Michael P. Hirsh, acting commissioner of the Worcester Division of Public Health. "Child Passenger Safety Week is the perfect time to remind all parents and caregivers to have their car seats checked by a certified technician."
For maximum child-passenger safety, parents and caregivers should visit a local inspection station to ensure their children's car seats are used properly and to review the following regulations:
Birth – 12 months
For the best possible protection, your child under age 1 should always ride in a rear-facing car seat. There are different types of rear-facing car seats: infant-only seats can only be used rear-facing. Convertible and 3-in-1 car seats typically have higher height and weight limits for the rear-facing position, allowing you to keep your child rear-facing for a longer period of time.
1 – 3 years
Your child should remain in a rear-facing car seat until he or she reaches the top height or weight limit allowed by your car seat's manufacturer. This may result in many children riding rear-facing to age 2 or older. Once your child outgrows the rear-facing car seat, your child is ready to travel in a forward-facing car seat with a harness.
4 – 7 years
Keep your child in a forward-facing car seat with a harness until he or she reaches the top height or weight limit allowed by your car seat's manufacturer. Once your child outgrows the forward-facing car seat with a harness, it's time to travel in a booster seat, but still in the back seat.
8 – 12 years
Keep your child in a booster seat until he or she is big enough to fit in a seat belt properly. For a seat belt to fit properly the lap belt must lie snugly across the upper thighs, not the stomach. The shoulder belt should lie snugly across the shoulder and chest and not cross the neck or face.
Keep your child in the back seat at least through age 12. Select a car seat based on your child's age and size, and choose a seat that fits in your vehicle and use it every time. Always refer to your specific car seat manufacturer's instructions; read the vehicle owner's manual on how to install the car seat using the seat belt or LATCH system; and check height and weight limits. To maximize safety, keep your child in the car seat for as long as possible, as long as the child fits within the manufacturer's height and weight requirements.
For more information on Child Passenger Safety Week, visit www.nhtsa.gov or contact the UMass Injury Prevention Center at 774-443-8627. | <urn:uuid:897941fe-a966-4a12-b5d2-9a5c67b3af34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://holden.dailyvoice.com/news/car-seat-inspection-checkpoint-set-saturday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95452 | 692 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Optometric Management Tip # 544 - Wednesday, August 08, 2012
How Does Your Staff Handle These Challenging Situations?
I thought I would present some examples of real world issues that face many eye care practices every day. Some of these cases present ethical dilemmas or other sticky situations. Consider using these vignettes at a staff meeting to get feedback on how your staff handles them. Provide some guidance on ways to improve patient communication and prevent unpleasant confrontations. I'll share my thoughts briefly on each issue, but just use that as a starting point for your preferred management.
You answer the phone and the caller asks "How much is an eye exam?"
The key is to train your staff to ask a question back to the caller. We want to have a conversation so the caller sees how friendly and caring you are. Ask about insurance plans first, which speaks to the real issue of the cost of an exam. It may be free or just a co-pay! I recommend that you actually quote the fee eventually because we don't want to dodge a direct question, but also comment on how thorough the exam is and what kind of tests are performed. Next, ask if the caller is having any problems with his vision. Listen, show concern and comment about how good the doctor is. It is important to have enough staff so these calls are not rushed.
A patient is checking out at the front desk and questions the contact lens evaluation fee; he does not want to pay for it.
I believe in being proactive and telling patients about these services and fees over the phone when they schedule the appointment – even if they don't ask! I find that patients don't really mind the contact lens evaluation fee, but they hate to be surprised by it. Train staff to look up the established patient's record while talking to them and see if he wears contacts without asking. You will have to ask new patients. Explain that contact lens patients require additional testing that other patients do not need. Most staff members don't mind this procedure once they get used to it because it prevents complaints at the front desk. For general questions about contact lens fees just say that a new fitting and lenses start at $XXX, but the fee varies based on the type of lens and complexity of the fitting.
A patient has both a vision plan and medical insurance and your office accepts both. The doctor found a medical problem and bills the medical plan, but the patient wants to bill the vision plan.
Don't lose the patient and family over billing aggressively to medical. The patient does have a financial stake in this decision. Most doctors see patients for the first exam under the vision plan and bill medical for subsequent visits and tests. Don't schedule subsequent visits if they are not really needed. One new strategy I've heard is to bill the medical insurance if you have a medical diagnosis but waive any co-pay or deductible and waive the refraction fee unless it is covered. In other words, remove any cost to the patient so they don't care which plan you bill. Of course, you only do this if the medical insurance payment is higher than the vision plan and it may not always be! Also, be aware that your contract may not allow you to waive patient fees, this is especially true with Medicare.
A patient calls to check on a contact lens order from two weeks ago and you look it up and find it was never ordered. What should you tell the patient?
We never lie to a patient, but we don't have to tell them everything. The first thing to do is apologize for the delay and then give a firm statement about when the lenses will be in. For example: "I'm so sorry but your contacts are not in yet. I spoke to the lab and they said they will be shipped tomorrow and I'm having them sent overnight express at no charge to you."
The office manager notices a staff member made an error earlier in the day on the fee calculation for a vision plan patient or realizes the patient was not eligible for a particular benefit, i.e. frames, exam.
The technician who made the error calls the patient right away and sincerely apologizes, but explains that an error was made in the calculation and the correct amount is ____ and the balance will be___. Apologize again and thank the patient for understanding. Turn the call over to the office manager if the patient does not agree. At that point, is a judgment call on how to handle it, but if materials have not been made yet, you should be able to collect the correct fees. Mistakes happen. The patient can check with the vision plan support line if necessary.
A patient wants to buy more contact lenses but the Rx has recently expired.
Be helpful and give a grace period. Optometrists can sometimes be extremely tough on these situations without good reason. An important factor is that the patient must actually schedule the needed re-exam on the spot. If he does that, we will sell him one box for each eye or give him a trial pair to hold over.
A patient supposedly does not know a basic office policy, like he is picking up new glasses and he says he did not know he had to pay the balance due.
I like for my office to take the blame in a situation like this, even though we know we communicated the policy very well. It saves embarrassment for the patient. I would actually want our optician to apologize for our office not making the policy clearer. Then we would say that we will be happy to hold the glasses until the patient can return with the payment. We will not release the glasses, but we are very nice about it! I've seen many patients in this situation produce a credit card and pay the balance.
Notice that some of these tough situations are made easier by the staff member saying I'm sorry. Yet, in my experience, it is extremely rare for eye care staff or doctors to ever speak those words. When something goes wrong, an is apology really what any of us want to hear and when we get that response, everything is much better.
Best wishes for continued success,
Neil B. Gailmard, OD, MBA, FAAO
Chief Optometric Editor, Optometric Management | <urn:uuid:680c2099-0314-4817-ae67-017671ae3d2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.optometricmanagement.com/mtotw/printtip.asp?tip=544 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961873 | 1,271 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Why did I receive a reduced Homestead Property Tax Credit or a notice that my credit was denied due to residing in Service Fee/Pilot Housing (payment in lieu of taxes). The notice informed me that I was supposed to use between 1 and 10% to calculate my credit. Please explain why this happened?
Review of your Homestead Property Tax Credit determined that you resided in Service Fee/Pilot (payment in lieu of taxes) Housing and used more than 10% of your total rent for the year to calculate your property tax credit.
Service Fee/Pilot Housing is a program where there is an agreement between a municipality and a rental property owner (private or public) to pay a service fee instead of property taxes.
If your rental property is considered Service Fee/Pilot Housing you may not use 20% of your rent when calculating the Homestead Property Tax Credit. You may only use 10% of your rent when calculating the credit. | <urn:uuid:332ce9ae-321f-4bec-b7fd-d81ec0b0cf91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michigan.gov/taxes/0,4676,7-238-49112-184966--F,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940363 | 192 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Reflecting on some of the phone interviews, talks with headhunters and constantly searching for jobs and contracts - for the longest period of no work I have had (oh look! A resume!), I've seen all manner of software development jobs float by in the ether. Some I shoot flares at, some I don't, but I see almost all of them through a combination of RSS feeds, email updates and a helpful network of friends. And, as one does after looking without finding, one starts reflecting.
Then I ran across this quote on Facebook:
"While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong." - Chapter 6, My Inventions, Nikola Tesla (1919)
There's no way Tesla could have predicted the modern Internet, but he had this crazy idea that the world would be a better place if only we could communicate across large distances. Almost 100 years later, it's an odd naiveté (or romantic idealism) that some of us cling to. Of course, technology has promised many things across the decades.
The Old World
Back in the 1980s, when I first started my intimate relationship with feral computers, technology was promising simplicity. At some point in the last few decades that changed somewhere, probably when I was compiling some code or debugging some source code. The big thing in the 1980s was the paperless office which, as much as I could over the years, I have attempted to have. Signed contracts still necessitate a printer and scanner.
Visicalc came along. Accountants everywhere were very pleased.
Sneaker nets, where we ran around with magnetic media (we did use cassettes and reel-to-reel devices for a while), were slowly morphed into networks. Computers began sharing information across networks. Thanks in part to the Carterfone, where some guy sold his ranch to beat AT&T's monopoly of connecting devices to the phone system, networks grew even further as modems became more and more popular. For debugging purposes the modems had speakers where you could hear the handshake (play this in the office and see what happens!). Again, the promise of paperless offices. Again, there was a promise that we would spend less time being more productive.
The Internet was a natural evolution of networks - a really big network where we could communicate and, yes, share code - though sharing code became more and more of an issue of copyright - and where The Bulletin Board Systems of yesteryear became even more viable for so many. Web browsers, email, the web browser wars - which have managed to screw up web development to this day - and websites, where you could show off your HTML skills. Awesome stuff. In seemingly unrelated news, the Berlin Wall came down - changing economies even more. The Internet became the beast of burden for the Dot Com blowout. Not only could you spend less time doing more, you could become more visible and even useful with websites. Everyone who could afford Internet access could get their 15 megabytes of fame.
Microsoft Frontpage came out and even people who didn't know HTML could create websites. This Dark Age of the Internet was quickly remedied with weblog software that quickly morphed into blog software, then Content Management Systems. Free Software and Open Source leveled the playing field as only Free Software and Open Source could. They diverged. Linux made servers more cost effective, and LAMP servers, to this day, are as common to the Internet as salt and pepper are in kitchens - not always used but always available.
Mobile technologies, wireless, 3G, 4G (coming soon, nG!). Programmers and technologists everywhere have been working on what we create now - and a few of us got to see it from the angle I just wrote about. In doing so, when I look on social networks about how our communication has improved, I'm not sure that Tesla took into account the human condition. We gravitate to those like us and on the Internet, through social media and social networks, we do exactly that. Twitter hashtags and who our 'friends' are determine what we read and, since we read what we like to read, we reinforce our opinions on just about everything.
We're still not paperless and I'm not sure that we could claim that we're more productive. Technology still hasn't really met many of the dreams of the 1980s - or at least made them commonplace - and it seems, overall, we have more and more things to spend time on. But word processors do the same things, though they are formatted more nicely. We can process more data - if we have access to it and can trust it. Computer programming has gone from coding from basics to integrating libraries of code which has created more flavors and also more obsolete software as it becomes harder and harder to find developers that can support them.
I write all of this because those dreams of the 1980s shouldn't be nostalgic. By now they should be real. Some people would say that our technology has outstripped our humanity - I used to - but I'm not sure that this is true. We haven't really harnessed it yet. I
And that leads to the question: What are the modern promises of technology? Where are we going?
Tesla had that crazy idea about 100 years ago... | <urn:uuid:9e311580-735f-4a7c-956c-61f9009677ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knowprose.com/taxonomy/term/338 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973486 | 1,247 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The Will to Succeed
Fresh from his triumphant and extraordinary achievement at the Olympic Games in Beijing, Michael Phelps—up from working-class, born-in-the-USAroots—shows us the secrets to his remarkable success—from training to execution.
For years the world has followed Michael Phelps’s progress from teen sensation in Sydney to bona fide phenom in Athens. Now he’s a living Olympic legend in Beijing with a peerless record of gold medals. In No Limits, Michael Phelps—the greatest competitor since Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods—will share the secrets to his remarkable success. Behind his tally of Olympic gold medals lies a consistent approach to competition, a determination to win, mental preparation, and a straightforward passion for his sport. One of his mottos is "Performance is Reality," and it typifies his attitude about swimming.
No Limits goes behind the scenes to explore the hard work, sacrifice, and dedication that catapulted Phelps into the international spotlight. Phelps shares remarkable anecdotes about family, his coach, his passion for the sport, and the wisdom that he has gained from unexpected challenges and obstacles. Highlighting memorable races and valuable lessons from throughout his career, Phelps offers candid insight into the mind and experiences of a world champion. Phelps’s success is imbued with the perspective of overcoming obstacles and doing whatever it takes to realize a dream. As his coach, Bob Bowman, says, Phelps has made a habit out of things other people aren’t willing to do. No Limits will show readers just how he does that, and will inspire anyone to follow their passion straight to the finish line.
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Shocking work death toll revealed in report
The number of people harmed at work each year in New Zealand would fill Eden Park four times, a national discussion paper to be released today will reveal.
It is roughly twice as dangerous to work in New Zealand as in Australia and almost four times as dangerous as working in Britain, and that is not counting people injured while driving in connection with work.
The cost to the nation of the workplace carnage is $3.5 billion a year.
The report is from the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety, which has been tasked with cutting the injury and death toll by 25 per cent by 2020 - the equivalent of one Eden Park's worth of casualties.
Taskforce chairman Rob Jager, the chairman of Shell in New Zealand, says that is possible, but he won't be clapping himself on the back for a job well done if a 25 per cent reduction is all that is achieved.
“A 25 per cent reduction in 100 deaths is only 25. It still means we are killing 75 people in our workplaces and it still means we are worse than Australia and substantially worse than the UK," Jager said.
"Twenty-five per cent is a realistic target, but I am substantially more ambitious than that."
Exactly why New Zealand's health and safety record is so bad is a question the taskforce is hoping to answer with the help of business and the public, who are invited to make submissions on how the country can reduce workplace injuries.
The taskforce is charged with developing a policy package by April next year, after which the Government will decide what to do and how much to spend on it.
The only thing the taskforce is not allowed to consider is the future of ACC, though the cost of running the giant no-fault accident insurer would plummet if the taskforce is effective.
On the task ahead, Jager cautions against self-reproach and negativity.
“This is a fantastic opportunity," he said. "We certainly have a performance which is unsustainable and unacceptable but there are a lot of people, a lot of companies, already doing great things here."
The report will describe the current system and indicate areas that may be contributing to our poor record.
The breakdown of our industries compared with places such as Australia and Britain doesn't explain much of the differing health and safety records, and the report will suggest that aspects of our culture, including our oft-cited “She'll be right” mentality, may play a big part.
Jager said the report is careful not to draw any conclusions because, at this stage, the taskforce is seeking the views from all of New Zealand. Readers will, however, find there are some pretty heavy hints at where change might be targeted.
Company directors are not compelled strongly enough, or frequently trained in more than a cursory manner, to focus on health and safety, Jager believes.
That could mean new duties need to be written into companies law and some failures to keep workers safe could be criminalised.
The words “corporate manslaughter” will even appear in the document, as will mention of reversing the onus of proof when certain health and safety charges are laid.
Such moves would create a high level of incentive for companies and organisations to get health and safety right.
“There is no doubt that directors are currently compelled to take a strong interest in companies' financial matters,” says Jager. “It is very clear that that same drive is not on other matters, particularly health and safety.”
Strong leadership is key to effecting change, says Jager, and he should know. Some years ago, Shell decided its global death toll was unacceptable, and took action. Deaths have fallen by more than three-quarters.
What made the most difference in Shell was leadership, says Jager.
New Zealand needs a culture to foster leadership in health and safety, but the leadership doesn't mean top down, he says. Everyone must play a part, directors, management, workers, and customers.
Workers taking a lead is essential, though a casualised workforce with lower union membership may be a growing barrier to workers' ability to raise safety alerts. Experience shows legal rights enabling staff to refuse to do unsafe work are rarely used.
Jager recognises that it was not easy to speak up, and a shift in the perceived acceptability of that is needed.
“It's tough. Absolutely it is tough, but what is even worse is going to talk to the person's loved one and thinking, ‘If only I had spoken up'.”
Another focus of the report will be on possible regulatory failure, including the very low use of some enforcement mechanisms - the “infringement notices” introduced in 2003, for example, are rarely used.
With fewer than 150 health and safety inspectors, the chances of a company or director ever encountering one is pretty low.
Data on workplace safety is also patchy, and reporting mechanisms appear not to function perfectly, Jager says.
He believes New Zealand needs the kind of revolution we have had in attitudes to smoking and drink-driving, societal changes that show how national behaviour can be fundamentally and lastingly changed.
When the country does decide to compete on something with other countries, it has shown itself capable of beating them, says Jager, so getting ahead of Australia should be possible.
“It ought to be a natural and normal part of the way we do business,” he says.
Jager says one thing that has surprised him is how little the country's poor record is understood by New Zealanders.
“The thing that has struck me in being part of this taskforce is the lack of awareness. I think, when confronted with it, people will come to realise it is unacceptable and unsustainable.”
The taskforce is being careful not to prejudge the issues or solutions, he says. Developing better workplace safety is a task that will never be fully completed.
“It is a journey without end," Jager says.
As well as reducing the national bill for death and accidents in the workplace, there would be another likely social dividend with behavioural changes also lowering the number of accidents outside the workplace.
- © Fairfax NZ News | <urn:uuid:b146a11a-471a-4cd0-b80f-8f2befd551b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7686055/Shocking-work-death-toll-revealed-in-report | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973301 | 1,298 | 1.789063 | 2 |
[Photo: View of the Li River from my conference hotel in Yangshuo, China]
I think I just experienced one of the longest travel-related liminal experiences ever (at least for me).
Liminal experiences are those that are characterized by transitions from one state of being to another. Tourists experience liminality when they transition from a home-based state of being to a travel-based state. Liminality also occurs during rights of passage, such as graduating from school, becoming married, becoming a parent, or becoming a new employee of a company. The liminal experience is one of becoming something different, and is potentially transformative, with a shedding of the old and a creation of something new, but also a period of vulnerability and weakness in the face of an uncertain future.
The transformative potential of travel is one of the major reasons that many people want to travel. Even when a trip is fully planned and fully chartered and catered, there is still the possibility, if not probability, of meeting new people, seeing the unexpected, and doing something that is totally unconnected to one's home. The period of liminality, the transition between being a resident-in-place and being a tourist-on-the-road, normally occurs when the tourist is in transit between their home and their destination. For most people it is a period of expectation, anticipation and hope – the emotions are generally positive, though there could be some strain related to the exertion of travel.
However, there is a second liminal experience that is a bit different. This experience occurs at the end of the trip, when the tourist is returning home and transitioning from being a traveling-guest to a resident-host. In this case, the emotions may be either positive or negative. Negative emotions may be related to reverse culture shock, which arises when a tourist "goes native" in an exotic destination and must readjust to "going native" in their home place. Going native during a trip actually refers to developing a sense of attachment to a place. This attachment may be to the physical place, a culture in that place, or an individual(s) that was met during the trip. In each of these instances, the return home is accompanied by a sense of separation and loss. That loss may be addressed by an attempt to develop or maintain a longer-term relationship with the travel destination through repeated visits or other commitments and activities.
For example, I experienced a deeply moving trip to the Shan State of Myanmar in 2005. I blogged about that trip – basically keeping an online trip diary (http://golden-triangle.blogspot.com). After the trip, I continued for a year to post and discuss news items about Myanmar. Eventually, however, my attachment to the people and culture of Myanmar waned and I stopped blogging about the country, though I still hold it in a special place in my memory. Tourists also develop an attachment to each other, mostly when traveling as a group of some kind. The sociologist Ning Wang has referred to this social bonding as "touristic communitas," and it too can result in a sense of loss when the trip comes to an end. Close friendships can form that continue via long distance, and which may remain strong, though they are more likely to fade with time.
In both of the post-trip instances cited above, intentional efforts can be made to continue attachments to place and attachments to people beyond the trip. This effort is part of the remaking of self that is one of the goals of travel and tourism. (I believe this is the major reason why people travel.) The effort varies considerably from one person to the next. For some, the attachment is a mild one where the destination simply occupies a check mark on the list of places that have been visited – a kind of trophy or bragging right. For others it is more meaningful, either in terms of personal relationships or professional relationships. The permanence of these relationships will also vary considerably, though maintaining strong ties over a distance can challenge any relationship. We might think of the liminality of the return trip as never really ending so long as an intentional effort to maintain a place, culture or person relationship continues.
That being said, there is another way that the liminal experience of a return trip can seemingly last forever. That is when the tourist is ready to return home before the trip has ended. And that is what I just experienced. I just got back from a trip to China to attend a tourism conference in Yangshuo (near Guilin). Prior to the conference, I traveled with a colleague in the Business School at Northern Arizona University who had a conference to attend in Chengdu (Sichuan Province). So I spent about five days touring the Chengdu area prior to the tourism conference, which lasted for an additional four nights. I also spent layover nights in Shanghai on my way to Chengdu and again on my way home from Guilin. Altogether, I was gone for 15 days. However, after touring Chengdu and then attending my tourism conference, with a very full day of outdoor activities in Yangshuo (which was very, very hot and humid), I was pretty burned out and was ready to go home.
However, I did want to see the larger city of Guilin (where the airport is located). I had been to Guilin four times (first time in 1988) in the past and wanted to see how it might have changed since my last visit in 2001. Also, my colleague had never been to Guilin and also wanted to see the city. Finally, he also arranged for us to get free accommodations in exchange for guest lectures at Guangxi Normal University. But just like in nearby Yangshuo, Guilin was very, very hot and humid, and the hotel we stayed in was the lowest quality of the entire journey (no internet, cockroaches, and in need of new carpets -- though it was free!). On top of this, I was coming off of an emotional high from the great meeting we had in Yangshuo, and feeling the loss of separation (as described above) that often accompanies the end of these meetings (which I help to organize every two years in China). So, as much as I wanted to see Guilin, I really wanted to just go home. I was done with my trip in Yangshuo and I had entered a liminal state of mind, which made me feel somewhat weak and emotionally vulnerable (not feelings that I get very often).
The Shanghai Airport Hotel (aka the 168 Hotel) was a very pleasant surprise, with weak but workable internet access, at Y398/night (about US$58/night),. This gave me a good rest for my cross-Pacific flight the next day. I dislike LAX (really bad internet options), but was lucky to be able to change a seven hour layover there into a one hour layover, getting me home sooner than expected. So I have almost completed my liminal transition, I almost over my liminal anxieties, I am reconnecting with conference colleagues to build on the new relationships made there, and I am glad I went to Guilin, despite all the challenges. Now, we'll see how long it takes to get over the jet lag, which is always worse for me when upon returning to Arizona from Asia...
[Photo: sign inside my hotel room at the old Chinese hotel I stayed at in Guilin, China.] | <urn:uuid:c7c6db3d-1f83-4c64-b3da-4d038b689efc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tourismplace.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-hate-being-liminal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974321 | 1,537 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Ken Williams (game developer)
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Ken Williams (right) and Jim Henson, circa 1982
|Born||October 30, 1954|
Ken Williams (born October 1954) is an American game programmer originally from Simi Valley, California, who co-founded On-Line Systems, which later became Sierra On-Line, together with his wife Roberta Williams. Roberta and Ken married at the age of 19 and have two children. The couple were leading figures in the development of graphical adventure games. Sierra was a leader in adventure games, employing nearly 1,000 persons prior to their acquisition in 1996.
Ken and Roberta's early contributions to the computer game industry were partially chronicled in the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. In the early days of computing, Ken authored the textbook Apple II Computer Graphics. Sierra's notable online service, the ImagiNation Network, was purchased by AT&T in 1994. Ken was the president of Sierra until the company was sold to CUC in July 1996, but he remained with the company leading its strategic direction until November 1997. Vivendi (now Activision Blizzard after the Vivendi Games and Activision merger) currently holds the Sierra name.
In his role as Sierra's CEO, Ken was always seeking to lead innovations in the computer game industry. In a 1999 interview with Adventure Classic Gaming, Ken speaks about product development in the computer game industry and his role as a CEO: "I'm not sure how typical I am of other CEOs...most of my time is spent looking at product ... To me, everything is about being able to build awesome product ... Any game which does not push the state of the art leaves an opportunity for a competitor's game to look better."
In Sierra's later years, the company's focus had shifted to publishing many titles from other studios, including Valve's Half-Life. In their Half-Life feature, GameSpot refers to Ken as an "industry legend." Commenting on first person shooters, Ken recalls, "By the time I decided we wanted into the genre, we were too far behind. With 20/20 hindsight, I blew it when I had the chance to buy id and didn't ... Valve was the first group I had spoken with that could put Sierra in front of id."
In a 2006 interview with Adventure Classic Gaming, Ken mentions two individuals who most influenced Sierra's business model: "There were two people that had a heavy influence on Sierra: Bill Gates and Walt Disney. These two companies were our role models. I read every book written on both companies. I did everything to try to understand how they thought, and how they did business."
As of 2012[update], Ken is enjoying retirement with his wife Roberta. He is no longer active in the computer-gaming industry; his current projects are limited to writing and managing a website construction tool called TalkSpot, where his goal is to redefine how small business communicates with their customers on the Internet. He has published three books on boating talking about his worldwide cruising along with his wife Roberta on their 68-foot trawler. In addition, he publishes a blog about cruising, KENSBLOG.
Ken's trademarks have been his mustache and hair. His appearance has inspired Sierra's designers for some sprites, honoring Ken with cameo appearances in some games. One of these "incarnations" is the chief Keneewauwau of the Nontoonyt natives and Ken, the annoying joke teller (both appearing in Leisure Suit Larry games), as well as a whipper of "scumsoft" in Space Quest III.
- ^ Amazon. "Apple II Computer Graphics: Ken Williams". Retrieved September 18, 2012.
- ^ Associated Press (1994). "AT&T Buys On-line Service, Opens New Communications Unit". Retrieved September 18, 2012.
- ^ IGN Staff (2008). "Vivendi and Activision Complete Transaction to Create Activision Blizzard". Retrieved July 10, 2008.
- ^ Jess Morrissette (1999). "Ken Williams (1999 ACG Interview)". Retrieved September 18, 2012.
- ^ Geoffrey Keighley (1999). "GameSpot's The Final Hours of Half-Life". Retrieved September 18, 2012.
- ^ Philip Jong (2006). "Ken Williams (2006 ACG Interview)". Retrieved March 29, 2006.
- Ken and Roberta Williams page
- Ken and Roberta Williams personal blog
- Ken's latest company, Do it yourself websites and blogs (primarily targeting small business)
- Interview with Ken Williams at Adventure Classic Gaming (1996)
- 17 Oct 2005 interview with Ken Williams
- Entry at The Dot Eaters featuring Williams and an early history of Sierra
- Ken Williams at MobyGames
- Ken Williams at the Internet Movie Database | <urn:uuid:9afebc70-0b18-4e69-8944-5e616c00969b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Williams_(gaming) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966294 | 1,004 | 1.632813 | 2 |
“This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement.”— Glenn BeckI'm not going to beat around the bush: we Brits can't help but feel a little excluded by your July 4th celebrations. There it is. There's not really much for an Englishman to do, except creep around the place looking as inoffensive as possible. It's not like we even count as a minority; we're the original oppressors, the guys you all came here to get away from, the gatecrashers of the American republic — the psycho ex-girlfriends, the bunny-boilers, the Klingons, the one who didn't get the memo. Don't think it hasn't hurt. Don't think we haven't occasionally wondered if maybe the tiniest bit of gratitude might be in order. Oppression is a two-way street, you know! You couldn't have done it without us! And then the other day I happened to be watching the cherubic Glenn Beck on telly — we do so approve of the way that man loves his tea parties — and wouldn't you know it we had a brain-wave. Are you ready? Here goes. We think it's high time the British reclaimed the American Revolution. It's a corker, no? Oh but I know what you're thinking. "But you can't do that!" comes the cry. "The American revolution threw off the irksome yoke of tyranny put in place by you bloodless bastards!" To which I say: Don't be so oppositional in your thinking. Nobody likes a sourpuss. And: mind your language. All we're saying is that the declaration of independence cuts both ways. You think we weren't willing you people towards standing on your own two feet you lazy little blighters? That we weren't tired of collecting all those taxes? (Frankly we were a little amazed it took you so long to figure it out. Taxation without representation? Our way of gently reminding you peeps that maybe, just maybe, the time had come to come to stand on your own two feet, toddle off and find your own system of taxation!) You've read Co-Dependent No More, Melody Beattie's shining beacon of a book which has shown millions of readers, through personal examples and exercises, how controlling others forces them to lose sight of their own needs and happiness? You haven't? Well you should. A marvellous book — if only Melody had published it a few centuries earlier, we'd all have been spared a lot of blood, sweat, tears and lost tea. But it's okay. Let's not go there. The fact is, we were as delighted as any parent when you finally got the picture and shoved off, you little bleeders! It's been great watching you little darlings with your fireworks and your flags and your barbeques every year. So sweet. Hard to stop a tiny tremble in the old stiff upper. But enough's enough. As wonderful as it is to see you finally kick off the training wheels and ride on your little lonesome, the time has come to let old Auntie Britain back into your life! You know you want us, dahlinks! Don't you shake your head like that! Oh you are a one. Let me be clear what we're not asking. We're not asking for control of your ports. We're not asking that you hand over your hard-earned tax dollars (the amount you skinflints pay? It wouldn't keep the Queen in dog food for a week!). No. We'd just like to organise a march or two down the middle of your state capital on July 4th every year. Just a few million Brits, plus our man-servants, all waving flags and banners celebrating George Washington and his secret BFF King George III, the new figurehead of all things revolutionary. We'd sing God Save the King — you can join in the chorus, if you can still remember it — and serve bangers and mash and drink tea. It'll all be so jolly. Just like old times. Except reversed. Now we'd be your guests! Don't bother to let us know what you think, we're already on our way! Here's to the Jolly Old American Revolution, what-what! Long live the King! Toodle-oo! Pip Pip!
“I hope that Dr. King would be so proud of us, as his niece Dr. Alveda King is very proud as a participant in this rally. This is sacred ground where we feel his spirit and can appreciate all of his efforts. He who so believed in equality and may we live up to his challenge.” — Sarah Palin | <urn:uuid:781d4648-a972-4f43-a00b-e5fb8378f813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tomshone.blogspot.com/2010/08/time-for-britain-to-reclaim-american.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97723 | 983 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The California Legislative Analyst's Office on Tuesday recommended that the state's proposed high-speed rail system start in Los Angeles or the Bay Area not in the Central Valley.
The recommendation was part of a blistering report that found a host of faults with the project, in which California officials envision an 800-mile rail system connecting San Diego and Los Angeles to Sacramento and San Francisco through Fresno.
Among them, the report said, are unrealistic funding assumptions, an overreliance on consultants, a poor business plan, and outdated and understated cost estimates.
But central San Joaquin Valley officials smelled politics in the report, and said if the recommendations were followed, it would mark the end of a true statewide high-speed rail network.
Eric Thronson, the Legislative Analyst's Office staff member who wrote the report, disputed the claim it had a political agenda.
He said it wasn't requested by a legislator. Instead, he said, his office "felt like it was an important discussion to have."
In his report, Thronson said that because of "a significant risk" that the high-speed rail project will never be completed, state officials should rethink current plans, starting with a line now slated to run from just north of Bakersfield to a point near Chowchilla.
The report said other segments "could provide greater benefit to the state's overall transportation system" if the rail project isn't completed.
Among them are the Los Angeles-Anaheim segment, another between San Jose and San Francisco and between Merced and San Jose.
Because federal money for the project requires the line to start in the Central Valley, the report recommends the High-Speed Rail Authority seek flexibility from the federal government. The Legislature should proceed, the report said, "only if this flexibility is obtained."
To read the complete article, visit www.fresnobee.com. | <urn:uuid:f5ee6d13-ecc2-4da1-966d-1999a9a60473> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/11/114012/analysts-report-slams-californias.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951692 | 385 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Charles Bukowski became what Time magazine termed the “laureate of American low life” with his literary portrayals of women, booze, shitty jobs and the city of angels. “I’m all for alcohol: I’ll tell you. It’s the thing,” he once said, recalling the time he was introduced to drinking in his early teens. "This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time," he later wrote, describing the genesis of his chronic alcoholism; or, as he saw it, the start of a method he could use to come to terms with the pointless daily pain of life. His alcoholism took him traveling across America as a wandering bum, into the hospital, through several unhappy marriages, through 12 boring years in the post office, and provided him with numerous adventures for Henry Chinaski, his alter-ago in many of his works. Bukowski died—not of alcoholism but of leukemia, on March 9th, 1994, in Los Angeles.
As eloquent expounding on alcoholism as he is writing about psychotic teen girls with telekinetic powers, horror writer and literary powerhouse Stephen King surprised everyone when he “came out” in his memoir On Writing and revealed much of the 80s had been spent in a haze of booze and drugs. In the memoir, King relates how shortly after the publication of The Tommyknockers, his family staged an intervention, and dumped the detritus of his addiction in front of him: beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, Nyquil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana. King subsequently joined a 12-step program, got sober and has proven to be a profound and interesting writer on the subject, weighing in on the whole James Frey debacle with an insightful article in EW which delved deep into the addicts’ psychology of lying: “Yeah, stewbums and stoners lie about the big stuff, like how much and how often, but they also lie about the small things. Mostly just to stay in practice. Ask an active alcoholic what time it is, and 9 times out of 10 he’ll lie to you. And if his girlfriend killed herself by slashing her wrists (always assuming there was a girlfriend), he may say she hung herself, instead. Why? Basically, to stay in training. It’s the Liar’s Disease.”
There has perhaps been no writer as unapologetic and brazen about his lifelong abuse of alcohol and narcotics than the indomitable Hunter S. Thompson. Known for coining the term “gonzo journalism” to describe his style of reporting—where the writer becomes so deeply entwined in the story he’s investigating, he becomes the central protagonist—Thompson became a legendary literary figure, immortalized in his own work. “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone,” he once said, “but they've always worked for me.” It’s in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, perhaps, that Thompson’s love of hallucinogenics, cocaine, alcohol and whatever hell else he could get his hands on was most glorified. Despite his fierce defense of his lifestyle, Thompson’s death by suicide at the age of 67 hinted that all was not quite as well as he liked to make it seem.
Few choose their addict lifestyle intentionally, but William S. Burroughs breaks that mold. A graduate of Harvard, Burroughs was a beat drifter with little idea of what to do with his life so his parents supported him while he tried out various lifestyles—including that of heroin addict. In the process, he became part of a crowd of nonconformists that included leaders of the Beat generation like fellow addict Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg. After a tragic accident in which Burroughs tried to do a “William Tell” act and shoot a glass on top of his wife’s head but killed her with a single shot instead, he ran away to Tangiers, and started writing. Ginsberg and Kerouac helped type up a mass of his autobiographical stories, and suggested that he publish them under the name “Naked Lunch.” He died in 1997 after complications from a heart attack.
“Write drunk: edit sober,” said Ernest Hemingway, and it seemed to work for him. A short story writer, journalist and novelist, his books are considered among America’s great classics and his terse, spare prose is legendary. However, Hemingway’s heavy drinking—which found its way into the lives of his fiercest literary creations—eventually descended into alcoholism. In 1961, Hemingway was admitted to a mental hospital for severe depression. Upon his release, he committed suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho with a shotgun.
Best known for her “misery memoir” about depression, Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel penned a less publicized follow-up, More, Now, Again, about her struggles with heroin, cocaine, and Ritalin, about which she wrote, “I crush up my pills and snort them like dust. They are my sugar. They are the sweetness in the days that have none. They drip through me like tupelo honey. Then they are gone. Then I need more. I always need more. For all of my life I have needed more." Wurtzel is now a practicing lawyer in New York City, and regularly contributes to The Wall Street Journal.
The massively prolific author and screenwriter quit the sauce in 1977. Even then, he says in a UK Guardian interview, he was mostly a pretty sociable drunk. “I always had a good time. I'd drunk from high school with fake IDs. And in the navy in the war I drank. My mother said my father used to drink but I don't ever recall seeing him drunk once.” However, he admits that “it was possibly always more of a problem than I thought...I was drinking a lot in the morning. A friend had been at AA a while and he took me along. My first wife and I were arguing a lot, and we were with a group who drank, and finally we separated and we were divorced. It was my second wife who really helped me through the most difficult time. I didn't go to a clinic. I just quit cold turkey.” Leonard says that he never relied on alcohol for the writing, and that since quitting, “The writing definitely improved: you know, I was waking up in the morning for the first time with a clear head, wanting breakfast.”
Few exemplify the tragedy behind comedy as perfectly as Dorothy Parker. As well known for her drinking and suicide attempts as she was for her scathing sarcasm and sparkling wit, DP was a brilliant prose, verse and screenwriter, earning two Oscar nominations before being thrown onto the Hollywood Blacklist for championing left leaning causes like civil rights and civil liberties. Parker’s alcoholism increased dramatically in later years and she was eventually admitted to a sanatorium. (The story goes that she told the doctor she would have to go out every hour or so for a drink; he warned her that she must stop drinking or she’d be dead within a month. "Promises, promises," she said with a sigh.) Despite Parker's irreverent and seeming lust for life and fun, a growing sense of desperation haunted her, as her short poem "The Flaw in Paganism" indicates: "Drink and dance and laugh and lie, / Love, the reeling midnight through, / For tomorrow we shall die! / (But, alas, we never do.)" Dorothy Parker eventually died of a heart attack at the age of 73, having survived several suicide attempts in her earlier life.
While he never explicitly stated that he was an addict or alcoholic, David Foster Wallace clearly identified with, and was fascinated by, the world of recovery, particularly in his most famous novel, Infinite Jest, which was half-set in a halfway home for addicts and alcoholics. After his suicide in 2008, DFW’s list of self-help and recovery materials were discovered and it was concluded that he did identify as an addict in recovery, and had spent time at Boston’s Granada House while recovering from drug addiction in the 80’s. Sadly, he felt that he’d never really achieved his literary goal: “Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being,” he once said. Good writing, he thought, should help readers to “become less alone inside.” Despite his success, DFW thought, like many alcoholics, that he’d fallen short of his own impossibly high goals.
Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and the Oscar-winning writer of The Social Network, said in a revealing interview in W magazine that “the hardest thing I do every day is not take cocaine.” He talks candidly about his struggles with crack and cocaine abuse, and says that “You don’t get cured of addiction—you’re just in remission.” That attitude probably stems from a highly publicized 2001 arrest. “I had a window where I could fly to Vegas on a Friday, get high all night and then return to L.A. the next day," Sorkin explains. "I'd do this three times a year." Eventually one of these trips led to trouble when security guards at Burbank airport noticed a crack pipe in Sorkin’s luggage. They searched the bag, finding ‘shrooms and crack. After his arrest, Sorkin and his wife separated. “My daughter, Roxy, was only a few months old," he said in the same W interview. "She's now nine. I'm dreading the moment she goes online and reads about my arrest. But at least I'll have credibility with her when it comes to drugs. I won't be some old guy who doesn't know how to have fun."
It has long been reported that Tennessee Williams choked to death on a bottle cap in 1983, but, as it turns out, this was a “compassionate cover-up”: The famed playwright actually died as a result of his lifelong struggle with alcoholism and prescription drug addiction. Williams’ now-iconic plays featured sulking, dipsomaniacially inclined men and glamorously distraught women enmeshed in torturous love affairs, but despite the beautiful young male playthings who surrounded him in his later years, he was never really willing to lean on anyone. “I was still always falling down during this time,” he wrote in his recently published memoirs. “And I would always say, before falling, ‘I’m about to fall down,’ and almost nobody, nobody ever caught me.”
Master of misanthropy and courter of controversy, Christopher Hitchens called Johnnie Walker Black Label the “breakfast of champions,” and has said that he drinks “because it makes other people less boring.” He is more famous for his radical political stance than for his unapologetic zeal for liquor and cigarettes (although he gave up the latter in 2008), but his drinking is indeed legendary. When politician George Galloway called Hitchens a “drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay,” Hitchens replied, “He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a 'popinjay' (true enough, since the word's original Webster’s definition is a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest).” A cancer diagnosis in 2010 might have slowed Hitchens down just a little bit; he now says that he drinks “relatively carefully.”
Norman Mailer wrote, “Paul Bowles opened the world of Hip. He let in the murder, the drugs, the incest, the death of the Square, the call of the orgy, the end of civilization.” A writer whose work challenged social mores during a particularly conservative chapter of American history, Paul Bowles gained notoriety as a polished, educated member of the literati who used kif and hashish alongside Beat writers like Ginsberg and Burroughs; he also took a public stand against criminalization of cannabis in Morocco, where he spent most of his life. In 1961, he wrote to Allen Ginsberg: “Kif—weeks fly by, seasons change, the sun shines, one works and writes letters, people come and go, and one remains in just the same position that one was in a good while ago.” Most stoners know this phenomenon all too well.
For someone who never went to AA, Truman Capote certainly had a knack for shameful self-admissions; he is quoted as saying, “I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict. I’m homosexual. I’m a genius.” Flamboyant and overflowing with quotable bon mots, Capote juggled literary credibility, mainstream success, and a social life like no other: His legendary masked ball, the Black and White Ball, was considered “the party of the century.” In and out of rehab during his golden years, Capote first underwent plastic surgery and weight loss in a bid for reinvention, but eventually became reclusive. He died at the age of 59 from “liver disease, phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.”
For a writer who was known to introduce himself as “F. Scott Fitzgerald, the well-known alcoholic,” Fitzgerald had a prolific—if brief—career. He and his wife Zelda lived nomadically, pulling geographics from one wealthy community to another, where Fitzgerald often finished off a quart of gin in a day. Though his writing, like the seminal novel The Great Gatsby and his giddily neurotic The Crack-Up were underappreciated in their time, he and his work have since been thoroughly canonized. It’s a shame Fitzgerald never lived to see it: He died of a massive heart attack at the age of 42.
This SoCal rehab fosters a regimented but respectful recovery environment, where teens learn how to live sober through plenty of 12-step meetings and life-skills classes—not to mention "equine-assisted psychotherapy" and mixed martial arts. | <urn:uuid:cefe0799-4023-41bc-b018-f6eea8909117> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefix.com/content/photo-slideshow-literatures-best-and-booziest-writers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985169 | 3,061 | 1.515625 | 2 |
- Category: Uncategorised
The IIRE sees it as an obligation to conduct research which can be used by progressive forces around the globe - to change or affect the social reality, that they face. This research takes different forms, but are generally carried out in close collaboration with movements 'on the ground' on the one hand and skilled scholars on the other. We hope that by bringing together these two different groups in concrete projects helps to open up new ways of perceiving the challenge that faces social activists today.
Our network of Fellows is paramount to the conducting of our actual research.
During our lifetime, we have been fortunate enough to establish regular contacts with several researchers, some of whom have chosen to become fellows of the institute, supporting it morally and scientifically.
A list of our fellows can be found here | <urn:uuid:3af51a1a-88c6-462c-889c-4348a4f4aad8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iire.org/en/research-and-fellows-mainmenu-48.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951283 | 165 | 1.640625 | 2 |
One of my biggest questions about cultural progressives is why they make so many other whites feel as if they’re tremendously racist. (Yet cultural pro’s are the first to accuse Christian conservatives of being judgmental.) The book mentions that a significant number of cultural pro respondents thought of the Christian right as racist.
Racism is part of all cultures. Many other people groups haven’t fully admitted that they’ve wronged others–for example, the Japanese haven’t taken much responsibility for the Nanking Massacre. So, in absolute terms we all fail, but relative to other people groups whites do fairly well.
So why the white bashing (especially since if cultural pros really cared about race relationships they would realize that such bashing might lead to bitterness and hence a MORE racialized society)?
Okay, here’s the dynamic I came up with:
Cultural pros are irreligious and hence must put a very high value on rationality. Hence, they funnel their energy and time into what they value–rational pursuits (doctoral studies, etc.). Hence, they’re overrepresented at the top. (I should note that, ironically, focusing only on rationality doesn’t get one where one wants–since emotion has so much to do with where we end up with our reason.)
Now: the more layers of government you have the more likely it is that those with credentials will float to positions of power. A referendum on gay marriage–the people say no. Give it to the Supreme Court–it will probably find in favor of it.
So a united world government would mean a top-most layer–the layer they would dominate. BUT such a government wouldn’t work if cultures didn’t get along because of significant differences (that can’t entirely be blamed on the “dominant” culture). So, a precondition for big government is easy governance of all peoples. Which means atomistic individualism and hence no resource struggles among people groups which aren’t easily resolvable by referencing some simple algorithm (such as: those who have more have so because of racism and consequently resource distribution is appropriate).
No culture is more productive than another. No religious culture is more peaceful than another. (I say this in contradistinction to “religion” since I leave interpretation of religion to the eye of the beholder.)
If one race is doing better socioeconomically, it must be because that race has oppressed the other–which can be corrected by command from the top (–as opposed to allowing matters to correct themselves from the bottom–which is not a process that can be counted on to work in a timely fashion). So no complicated justice problems and, ultimately, no envy among people groups.
Necessarily, those who want small government and independence and believe in human nature which is sinful and very imperfect (often white Christian conservatives) are racist. We stand in the way of cultural progressives’ success on a grand scale–their grand vision–themselves at the top. A utopia, as it were.
One of my problems with sociologists: They’re often cultural pro’s, themselves (which the book in review here even points out). And so they engage in A LOT of leftist racial idiocy and then strut around with their noses in the air. To the authors of this blog: Tell me that ain’t you, will ya?
[Addendum: One other reason cultural pros tend to be so accusatory and judgmental particularly on racial issues involves their political utopianism brought about by their general lack of belief in God. In essence, they've dropped the God of Christianity but, in desperation, had to pick up another: Cause-tianity. Then they run their "rationality" up the flagpole, forgetting all about the crucible of powerful existential forces pushing, shaping, and molding the emotional matrix on which they start their reasoning. Those who aren't utopians such as myself have fewer problems acknowledging that different cultures aren't equally productive and that this arrangement can certainly lead to problems. [Allow me to add at a later date that I do think this should be treated in a sensitive manner; perhaps, the less specific talk the better. No one wants another to say something critical of his or her own culture. And all should try to respect that sentiment. What sometimes makes it impossible, though, is when the left forces the issue when it attributes a difference in outcome to white racism when such a difference doesn't stem from that factor. --Not that differences due to white racism don't exist. But the left over-attributes white racism as the reason.] At best, in my world, we’ll be able to just muddle through. Forget entirely about utopia–let’s just try not blowing ourselves up. –And in some ways, I’m pessimistic about even this.
–Second addendum: George Yancey, the sociologist responding to me in this post (and the writer of a book on cultural progressives), in a response to another person commenting on the Patheos blogsite, brilliantly noted that because rationality is a core value for cultural progressives, they tend to have a difficult time acknowledging that they might not always be thinking rationally. He analogized the situation to Christians and faith–since faith is a core value for Christians, some Christians have a difficult time admitting that they have struggles with faith and may be responding to certain situations in a “faith-less” manner. I think that Yancey’s spot-on. But, also, perhaps the larger problem for cultural progressives is that not only do they tend to view themselves as rational because rationality is a core value but they tend to view the world as rational–in other words, they tend to view the world as constructed and “designed” in such a way (even though many don’t believe in God’s design) so that their rational thought can impact the world and eventually perfect it. After all, what’s the point of believing oneself to be rational if one doesn’t believe the world, also, is amenable to rationality? If one divorced one’s rationality from the world’s, one would be in the difficult situation of owning up to the self-hazardous fact that one could see many of the problems of the world–yet wouldn’t be able to do anything about them. Imagine the horror: It’s one thing to run a business into bankruptcy but not know it until the end; it’s another thing to run a business and all along know that one is headed for bankruptcy. –That’s emotionally quite difficult to take. And hence for the cultural progressive there’s an emotional pull to view the world as amenable to rational “instruction,” as it were. Which necessarily means coming up with simple “justice” algorithms to solve seemingly intractable disputes between people groups. Hence the villification of white people, even though many cultural progressives are white. No, it’s not about love. And it’s not about justice. It’s about following through on a rigid ideology. It’s about their religion–that thing that allows them to wake up in the morning, put one foot in front of the other, and tell themselves that it’s all worthwhile.]
Funny that the issue of race is what caught your attention. For the record, I do not automatically link racism to a predominately white environment. I believe that some cultural progressives are mistaken by making that conncetion. The reason why I think they are so white is that African and Hispanic-Americans tend to have higher religiosity than European-Americans. So even progressive Blacks and Hispanics do not tend to accept the seperation of church and state argument of white progressives. So the venues by which they protest conservatives tend to be different than through these types of social movements. They will work with cultural progressives a lot but in their own organizations. As to the motivation of cultural progressives I will do a little more on my next blog on that. But given what we know about social movements we know that these movements will meet the needs of those in it. Your explanation does that although it is not the only way to make that explanation. Sorry about you experiences with sociologists. Most are progressives. I will not speak for any but myself. I am a political independent. I have taught race and ethncity for a long time. I do not agree with the most radical theories surrounding racial issues but I am not a supporter of a color-blind philosophy either.Hi says:
By the way, I didn’t realize that the author of the book was the one writing the article, as I found the link to this article on Google and then just skimmed the article.
Just wanted to add that I downloaded your book and read it on Kindle yesterday and the day before and really liked it. I had my idea on why cultural pros throw around accusations of racism so much prior to reading your book, but as I was reading your book I kept thinking about my idea–since both your book and my idea revolved around cultural progressives.
I’ll admit I harbor some anger toward cultural pro’s. In college my freshman year as an 18 year old I went from feeling like a fine, upstanding member of the world to being made to feel like a racist “white guy” simply because I was pro-life and voted Republican. Cultural pro’s had a lot to do with me being made to feel this way, I believe. And I was stumped: If a black professor was saying this stuff I could attribute it at least in part to anger over past injustices, group identity, etc. (I wouldn’t necessarily agree with a black prof who tried to make me feel like a racist white guy for being a Republican, but, actually, I do have an understanding of why African Americans might be upset with whites–given the hell of slavery, etc. So there’s an understandability about that action, even if I don’t agree with his conclusions.) But, as you indicate, most of the cultural pros are white. And this left me puzzled: I couldn’t attribute their reaction to bias in favor of their own group (–they were, after all, from the majority). And, typically, we tend to look highly on people who, if anything, are a little bit more biased toward the Other than toward themselves: think of the little league coach who refrains from starting his son off as pitcher–even though he might be able to justify such an action–instead he gives the other guy’s son the first crack.
So it’s been a longstanding question of mine to try to explain cultural pro’s behavior–at least explain it in a way that wasn’t to their liking (since their explanation would be that they behave the way they do–including their frequently accusing others of being racist–because their more moral and more rational than everyone else).
I should also add that I’m not completely against redistribution. I do believe in a progressive income tax. Also, I do think that racism–particularly past racism–is partly responsible for differences in socioeconomic levels. But where I differ from them is that I don’t assume the worst–racism–when cultures are at different socioeconomic levels. For example, I don’t assume that Germans have oppressed the Greeks simply because Germans have a higher standard of living than the Greeks. And I don’t assume that Germans are “naturally” smarter than the Greeks. (And isn’t what’s going on overseas right now going to be a tough nut to crack–how to structure the Euro? What’s good for the Greeks isn’t good for the Germans, and vice-versa. Definitely NOT soluble via some simple algorithm.)
But cultural pro’s are absolutely ruthless in enforcing the notion that differences MUST be because of racism.
As I tried to indicate, ironically this very attitude stirs up a lot of racism. It has the effect of racializing society: If whites feel they’ll only be judges as non-racists IF they conform to the far-left version of who’s non-racist, then a certain percentage of whites will decide that they can’t win and that that shows that this is a tribal world, after all–so why not “tribe up” themselves.
Lastly, I feel sorry about the last paragraph–the one in which I write, “One of my problems with sociologists: They’re often cultural pros, themselves. . . . And so they engage in A LOT of leftist racial idiocy and then strut around with their noses in the air. To that authors of this blog: Tell me that ain’t you, will ya?” As I indicated, I didn’t realize you were the author of the book and this article. I assumed the author of this article was some random sociologist reviewing the book. (And as you mention in your book, many sociologists are cultural pros themselves.)
After reading your book, I got the feeling that you weren’t the type of sociologist to tow the cultural pro party line. Thanks for that.George Yancey says:
There may be a good book, or at least research article in how cultral progressives deal with raical issues. I no longer do research in the race/ethnicity area so I guess I will have to find a grad student to write it. lol. By the way I do not consider myself a cultural progressive nor a member of the Christian right. I think both groups have some things right and some things wrong. But there is no one I agree with 100 percent. I am too much of an independent thinker to agree with anyone all the time. As the character Monk use to say “It is a blessing and a curse.” | <urn:uuid:ffafa2ab-2a45-47a5-a50b-1a868e9c71ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cognitiveparfait.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/comment-on-what-motivates-cultural-progressives/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963938 | 2,924 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The guesses I received included: fisher, pine marten, bobcat, coyote, and skunk. Of these guesses, I think the first two best fit the clues I left (1. This animal is a mammal, 2. This animal has 5 toes on the front and back feet, 3. This animal is considered a “fur-bearing” species, 4. This animal is very difficult to observe in the wild, 5. This animal is sometimes called a confusing name, which can allude that it’s related to a very common household pet.), but the one BEST fits is the fisher (Martes pennanti)!
I have a long blog entry to write about fishers, but I haven’t had the time to put it all together, but since I had so much postitive response from readers, I thought I’d give a sneak peak.
In total, while the camera was deployed for a month, I capture 12 pictures of fisher(s).
Back in November, I wrote an entry Finicky fisher, in which I voiced my frustrations that classmates of mine were getting pictures of fisher in MY backyard, and I wasn’t! The fisher seemed to be skirting my camera. That’s all ok now, I think I have better pictures than they do!
Classes at SUNY Cobleskill resume tomorrow, and I begin the spring of my Junior year. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now! I love learning and being in the classroom, but I am beginning to think of all the neat things I can do in the future and get PAID to do!
Stayed tuned for other neat pictures I was able to capture during the holiday season!
So, yes…this mystery animal was a fisher! Thanks for playing along. | <urn:uuid:ff1c6a04-68fe-4d3c-9126-afb06398260a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.timesunion.com/nywildlife/mystery-critter-revealed/820/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971663 | 374 | 1.5625 | 2 |
TRS submitted a notice with signatures of 25 legislators to speaker N. Manohar while YSR Congress gave another notice with 18 signatures. Legislators of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), two communist parties and an independent member signed the TRS notice.
Both the parties accused the Congress government of all-round failure and contended that it has no right to continue in power. They said the people were reeling under unprecedented electricity shortage but the government was continuing to impose more burden on consumers by imposing Fuel Surcharge Adjustment (FSA).
TRS also charged the government with betraying the people of Telangana on the issue of separate statehood to the region.
Though the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had ruled out supporting the no-confidence motions sought to be moved by both the parties, TRS leader Etela Rajender hoped TDP will come forward to extend its support.
YSR Congress leader Shobha Nagi Reddy reminded TDP that her party had backed its no-confidence motion in December 2011 and expected its support this time. She, however, said that if TDP moved a no-confidence motion on its own, YSR Congress would support it.
In the 295-member assembly, the Congress has 147 members, one less than the simple majority. TDP has 85 members, TRS 18 (including an independent) and YSR Congress 17.
Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and YSR Congress party Thursday gave separate notices for moving no-confidence motions in the assembly against the state Congress government.
First Published: Thursday, March 14, 2013, 12:43 | <urn:uuid:5e85c0d4-f9f9-4a42-9c66-a5042ca247f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zeenews.india.com/news/andhra-pradesh/trs-to-move-no-confidence-motion-against-ap-govt_835274.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963188 | 347 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Author Daniel Pink has been writing about the "free agent nation" for over a decade, but a new breed of so-called "supertemps" is on the rise. These independent contractors are highly educated, experienced professionals who opt to string together project-based work instead of working for one company full-time. Supertemps typically enjoy higher incomes and more flexibility as independent workers while still doing mission-critical work that leverages their expertise.
What's driving this shift in high-end work? Harvard Business Review cites several factors:
The forces driving this convergence are as impersonal as the Great Recession and as individual as a dream. For the talent, project-based work has simply become more attractive than the alternative. Today technology makes it easy to plug in, the corporate social contract guaranteeing job security and plush benefits is dead or dying, and 80-hour weeks are all too common in high-powered full-time jobs. The surprise may be not that top talent is looking for "permanent temp work" but that anyone who has a choice would want a traditional job.
In response, companies are finding ways to work with professionals who would rather stay out of a traditional work environment. In 2011, McKinsey ran a survey and discovered that 58 percent of American businesses plan to use "temporary arrangements" at all employee ranks. For context, that's almost three times the percentage of companies that are planning to outsource jobs overseas.
Are you a supertemp? If so, we'd love to hear about your experience in the comments.
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(Photo credit: Victor1558 | <urn:uuid:065f2a9d-30e5-4cd8-b6b2-629cdd7ce82f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2012/05/supertemps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953641 | 366 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Six Weeks To Sustained Self-Promotion
Want more money? Then memorize this phrase: "Writers promote."
Think you don't have time to organize a marketing plan for yourself, your books, your website? Try this six-week plan to a sustained program of self-promotion and you, too, will find new friends who will help you, editors who approach you, and readers who will follow you throughout your writing career.
Week One: Focus on online message boards and lists. Yahoo, MSN, Topica and Smartgroups all have online discussion lists that you can search by topic. Sign up, read past messages, then decide whether you'll stay with the list or move on. Some lists have nothing but spam messages; others are packed with information. Register with message boards that focus on writing. Do the same with these as you did the lists. Choose at least five to participate in. Choose two days a week, at a minimum, on which you will send messages to the lists. Be aware than many of the same writers will be on more than one list so don't just write a canned message and send it to all. Show that you've read previous messages - answer a question, ask a question, share a valuable link. Once in a while you can mention a favorable review or a "Hurray, I got the assignment" message.
Week Two: Keep up your week one efforts. Study local newspapers, both daily and weekly. Investigate any magazines published for local readers. Keep a running list of local media contacts. Some of the things you should note: who is writing about food, what type of stories are turned into juicy features, what kinds of announcements run in the business section, how many food articles are syndicated from another source? This list of media contacts will save you time when you have an article you want to write or you are seeking an article to be written about you, your business or your book.
Week Three: Weeks one and two plus a trip to an office supply store. Buy some great paper - matte, two-sided coated paper, color or white. Write a brochure for yourself. Don't feel it's appropriate for what you are writing about? Then design a business card and print it up. Or ask a graphic designer to create a unique look for your business card. I was at a business fair, manning the table for my employer at the time (a college), and I realized that I could have networked my own writing business if I'd only had a business card to hand over to the advertising and web design businesses. Get some business cards.
Week Four: This is the week when you take your writing business on the road. Go to the local Chamber of Commerce's Business After Hours event. Chat with people, and hand over a brochure or business card when you meet someone who can hire you, or who can connect you with a publisher or editor. Keep posting on those message boards and lists; have fun with them.
Week Five: Write a press release about your recent success. Did you publish an article, finish a workshop, win an award, or open for business? Write your press release in third person as if you are writing an article. Send it to someone - your discussion list buddies for a critique, a local weekly that runs news releases unedited to fill in the news holes, post it on your website (don't have a website ? that's what you can do on week seven). Need help? Visit prwire.com for advice on writing press releases.
Week Six: Two tasks this week: This is the week you make contact with three new editors. Call the local food editor or features editor and take him or her out to lunch. Email a magazine editor with an article pitch. Contact an online newsletter editor and see if you can trade ad space for an article you'd love to write for him. Your second task is to subscribe to online newsletters for writers - www.writesuccess.com, and www.fundsforwriters.com are only two that consistently provide essential information for writers.
Throughout these weeks, you should also be writing, researching markets for publication, and submitting your work. Keep up with the list discussions. A great one for information and markets is [email protected] .
Keep up the good work - network with writers online and potential clients and editors in person to sell yourself and your writing.
About the Author: Pamela White is publisher of Food Writing, an online ezine for writers and food lovers. Visit her at http://www.food-writing.com . Her popular 6-week class is now a self-study ebook "Make Money as a Food Writer." She also teaches a new, expanded 8-week online food writing class. | <urn:uuid:1a49e10c-f7f8-4914-83ee-400f057ae856> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roseindia.net/articles/six-weeks-sustained.page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951614 | 985 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Bach a minor P&F: Great!I like you detached playing in the prelude and fugue very much. The needed articulation work for organ playing counts out for those piano pieces too, doesn't it? It is a pleasure to listen to the fugue, how you lead the theme through the voices throughout the fugue! That's the best WTC recording of the site here, in my opinion.
Bach E major P&F: The Prelude is pretty slowly played, but why not in this legato piece. However, the prelude invites for a more lyrical playing in my opinion, with at least a bit of melody phrasing, for both hands (not that I did it better in my older take, by the way). In bar 12 first note right hand you played a b instead a c# in the melody line, according to my Urtext and the sheetmusicarchive score. The fugue you played in opposite to the prelude much more lively, and it sounds really good to me, maybe some weakness in bar 8/9. However, good phrasing otherwise!
g sharp minor P&F: both, prelude and fugue come calm and slowly,and rightly so. Most play the fugue theme at the end staccato. You played the theme in the beginning almost legato, however in the following theme parts with a decent articulation at the end (what sounds well too, must not be that usual staccato).
C major P&F WTC2: Very well too, also the ornaments!
Overall very good, and the a minor P&F is on top of all! One year later, and you have recorded all of WTC1 and WTC2?
Makes it sound crisp/smooth and perky/soothing at the same time (that probably doesn't make sense).
Whether it makes sense or not, I take it as a compliment. Only Bach can be all these things at the same time, and if it sounds a bit like that, I didn't do too badly.
I think Pianolady referred to the influence of the reverb to the right hand parts. That means, CoolEdit can join the compliment club too | <urn:uuid:8f570944-cf51-4848-8b14-49e77e9ec083> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pianosociety.com/new/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=650&view=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963876 | 457 | 1.710938 | 2 |
It’s that time again. You need to interview for an open position on your team, a position that you need filled yesterday! Giving advance consideration to the questions you will ask your candidates will go a long way in terms of making the process as smooth and streamlined as possible.
While it’s appropriate to tailor some of your inquiries to each candidate, it will be easier to compare apples to apples if you develop a core set of questions that all interviewees are required to answer. Create at least two questions for each of the criteria identified in your job description. Each question should also have a rating scale attached to it. For example, you might determine that an answer will be rated from 1-5 (with 1 being poor, and 5 being superior), providing a description of what encompasses a “superior” response and a “poor” response.
What are the best types of questions to ask? Several full-length books have been devoted to this subject, but I’ll share some guidelines from Martin Yate, author of Hiring the Best:
Adaptability and Suitability Questions
These show the candidate’s skill set and test his understanding of the problems that must be solved, the problems he is there to avoid, and what he’s there to produce. Examples: What would you say were the most important responsibilities in your previous job? What was the most difficult project you tackled in your previous job? With all of your responsibilities, how have you planned and organized your workload?
These demonstrate whether the candidate will be someone who comes to work with the intention of making a contribution and wants to spend the day engaged in focused activity. Examples: What personal qualities do you think are necessary to make a success of this job? What have you done that you are proud of? Think of a crisis situation in which things got out of control. Why did it happen, and what was your role in the events, and their resolution?
Teamwork and Manageability Questions
These showcase whether the candidate will be a cohesive influence, and whether her work style will mesh with your management style. Examples: Describe the best manager you ever had. In what areas could your last boss have done a better job? Tell me about an occasion when there were objections to your ideas. What did you do to convince others of your point of view?
These illustrate that the candidate will be successful at hiring and training, as well as getting work done through others. Examples: How do you quantify your results as a manager? Tell me about an occasion when, in difficult circumstances, you pulled the team together. What are the common reasons for resignations in your area of responsibility?
These test a candidate’s potential ability to do the job when she has little or no prior work experience. Examples: How did you spend your vacations while at school? What have you done that shows initiative and willingness to work? What job in the company do you want to work toward?
The Passion Variable
Richard Chang, CEO of performance improvement consulting firm Richard Chang Associates, also recommends that you ask questions that get to the heart of an individual’s passion. Look for people who have demonstrated that they have pursued experiences they were passionate about as they have matured – particularly with their own professional development.
Involve Existing Team Members
It’s a good idea for multiple people on your team to evaluate each candidate. Organizational psychologist Ben Dattner suggests that you look for interviewers with the following attributes:
- Knowledgeable about the role, the team, and the organization
- Representative of diverse groups within the organization
- Reluctant to jump to conclusions
- Open-minded and able to revise opinions
- Self-aware and able to account for their own biases
- Accurate in their predictions of candidate success over time
Your team should be coordinated on the roles that each interviewer should play. If a candidate is interviewing with four people, each person should be designated specific questions so that all four people aren’t asking the same things. | <urn:uuid:0767c461-3c60-42b8-a7c5-2d19c19fa8d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/2011/03/16/how-to-prepare-as-the-interviewer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9618 | 831 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Continued from Part 1
Q: What about the teams that don't have a big car manufacturer as a partner, how do they fit into the picture?
Burkhard Göschel: They are mostly a group with engines coming from a big car manufacturer, or drivetrains, and in future they might take other technologies such as the engine recovery items. We are selling engines for example to other teams. This will continue, especially if technology is going in different areas. As a manufacturer we want to have a field where not only manufacturers are racing against each other. We want to have the smaller teams on the grid. That is our target also.
Max Mosley: It's also true to say that there is a complete understanding from the manufacturers that we need to keep the independent teams going. For example, in 2009 anyone who wants can fit the device which recovers the energy from braking and uses it again for acceleration. But an independent team, or indeed a manufacturer, does not have to develop that technology. There will be a set price for which those who have developed the technology are obliged to sell it to another team. So manufacturer 'A' might decide not to spend the money on developing the device. But they will have to buy it from Manufacturer 'B'. That happens in the real world between manufacturers anyway. But if I've got an independent team, I can go along to whichever manufacturer has developed the most successful system and buy it ready made. The manufacturer is actually pleased to sell it because it shows his technology is the best.
So it is a win-win situation in contrast to where we were previously where there was this great race to get more and more power out of the engines, which was so hideously expensive, hundreds of millions of Euros, that manufacturers couldn't afford to sell engines very cheaply to the teams.
Q: Could that principle extend to other areas of the car?
Max Mosley: I'd like it to but it has to be business-like. For example, if the 2009 device is very small, very light, very efficient, it will revolutionise the way hybrid cars are made. That's very interesting for the manufacturer who develops it. But also it has to be a device that the manufacturer can put on a road car. So it can't be a multi-million dollar device, it's got to be cost efficient.
Burkhard Göschel: This business of selling components is usual within the car industry and you will see this in F1. There will be different solutions for different manufacturers.
Q: Mr Mosley, you have always said you can't trust the manufacturers in F1, they come and go as they like...
Max Mosley: That was certainly not meant in the sense that they are not honest but rather recognising that when it suits a manufacturer to come into F1 they will come in and when it suits them to leave they will leave. This is absolutely true but the whole purpose of this agreement is not to put them in a position where it suits them to leave. That means that the value they get from F1 is not just marketing but marketing and technology. That will make it much less likely for a manufacturer to want to leave. In fact, if we do a good enough job, if there is enough technology, if it is relevant enough, and the rate of research is quick enough, and the training of the young engineers is good enough it will be extremely difficult for a manufacturer to leave.
Q: The more F1 copes with future technologies in the car industry, the more F1 is the perfect marketing tool for the manufacturers. So this new philosophy, this new deal, is a good gift for the manufacturers...
Burkhard Göschel: Yes. But we should not forget that we have a common interest to keep F1 alive. Going down this route is where the manufacturers want to be in the future and we are spending money to stabilise F1 in the future. The manufacturers are a major part of F1 and we want to make it much more stable in the future.
Max Mosley: There's an element here where the tide of world opinion has just turned, and you'll see this particularly with regard to global warming. There is a distinct movement of public opinion everywhere. I think with the changes we're making we've just caught that tide. But if we hadn't done it now we'd have missed the tide, F1 would have been left behind and eventually it would die because it would become less and less relevant.
By embracing these technologies and making these changes with the manufacturers I think we catch the tide and we can swim with it. It is absolutely fundamental because there is a huge change of opinion now. That's why when Burkhard says the key issue for the industry is CO2 you see this in every area. Now suddenly F1 can help make a contribution.
Q: Bearing that in mind, is the 'fuel-burning' stage of F1 qualifying something we are likely to look at in future?
Max Mosley: Absolutely. I think together with the teams -- if we want to change that for 2007 we need unanimity -- one of the suggestions is that we take 5 minutes off and allow an extra set of tyres. Then you are going to see non-stop action. Then whether you run with fuel or without fuel is a discussion again. But I think everyone is conscious of that.
Q: What do you both feel will be a competitive budget for a team in F1 under the new regulations?
Max Mosley: What we feel would be reasonable would be an F1 team with not more than 200 employees and able to run at the front for a budget in the order of Euros 100m. That is the objective. Now I'm not saying we have yet done the things that allow that objective to be achieved but that is the objective.
Burkhard Göschel: I agree. Our numbers are a little bit higher but we have to reduce costs to avoid a 2005 situation and in my opinion it is possible to do that. We have to find regulations which restrict areas that are not so interesting for the future of the car industry. For every car manufacturer reducing costs in F1 is an issue. Even with the biggest car manufacturer in F1 they are discussing reducing costs. Because you can make a lot of cars with that money. It has to be of equivalent value with your marketing experience and spending you have.
Q: Tomorrow morning we will read about CO2 emissions, energy reduction, and maybe some headlines will be that F1 is going to be part of a new 'eco-system', is this the message you want to give us?
Burkhard Göschel: It should be but you don't want to forget the emotions. You have to have a very exciting show and you also have to follow the idea of reducing fuel consumption. But the excitement should stay with F1. This excitement level in my opinion could be improved.
Q: Is it an important sign for society that you as a car manufacturer feel a certain responsibility for the environment?
Burkhard Göschel: We as a manufacturer are very conscious about the subject and I can tell you so is the FIA. The biggest spending we have in the car industry at the moment is on reducing CO2. Combining it in F1 is new. But we both feel that is the right way to step forward. It's the modern way of F1. There might be some traditionalists that are a little bit surprised, but changes are positive.
Max Mosley: If you think about it in a very simple way, whether you have a three litre engine, for example, that just burns the fuel and does the best it can and gives you, say, 800 horsepower or whether you have a 2 litre engine that gives you 650hp but the other 150 horsepower comes because you've found a clever way of re-using the heat from the engines and turning it into propulsive energy and if that technology is also CO2 saving and of direct relevance to the car industry then you have really achieved something. You have the best of both worlds. You've got exactly the same excitement, sound and feel of F1 but a proportion of the energy is generated with some very clever cutting edge technology.
Burkhard Göschel: To give you an idea, if you are braking in an F1 car from 320kph to 80kph this creates around 2500 kilowatts. 3000 horsepower, in just a few seconds.
Q: OK, I'm convinced this type of car you are talking about is the type I might want to buy for my family, but is it the car I want to see racing?
Max Mosley: If you sit in the grandstand watching a 2010 F1 car, you will not be able to tell the difference between that car and today's car. But you will know if you are someone who follows the technology that it has technology which makes that car extremely efficient. When you go into the showroom to buy your BMW, you'll be amazed to hear that this car has the same or similar technology and has the same or better performance than the car of 5 years ago but only uses 60 per cent of the fuel.
Q. Isn't it a contradiction on the one hand to speak about developing cutting edge technology and on the other to talk about cost-cutting?
Max Mosley: The first cost-cutting is to eliminate the hunt for more expenditure, which was the hunt for more revs from the engine, costing millions of Euros. Collectively the car manufacturers were spending more than a billion Euros a year on that. Research on the energy recovery and regenerative braking is already happening in the car industry. So there will only be a marginal difference between that and what will be needed in F1. Plus those components are inherently less expensive than engines, which have around 2000 components. All in all you don't have to make enormous changes, there will be less expenditure and it will be industry relevant.
Burkhard Göschel: The main point is that this kind of development is not a waste. It is in our main research budget anyway. It translates into the normal car business much easier than the technology we are using in F1 today.
Q: One of the sticky areas has been the FIA's manner of regulating the sport, the way the rules are created and applied. You've always given the impression that you don't think the teams are the right people to come up with the rules and to have any major say. Has the attitude now shifted?
Max Mosley: In a sense yes because the big change is we now have a mechanism for sitting down with the manufacturers at board level to agree on objectives. Once you have agreed on the objectives then doing the rules becomes a relatively straightforward task. Not straightforward technically because there are a lot of aspects but politically it becomes easier.
Burkhard Göschel: That is the most important point, that discussion takes place at board level and not at team level.
Q: So just to be clear on that, the Ron Dennis's of this world would be completely bypassed and it would be people at the board level of Mercedes that would be talking about rules, is that right?
Max Mosley: I do not think this means we bypass Ron Dennis. It would be a three-stage process. One, you would get a decision at board level on what we are trying to do, for example, are we going to have a completely new engine in 2011 and if so what will that engine be? Then you have the technical experts from the major manufacturers who will flesh that policy out. Then you would have input from the technical experts at the teams on the details of the rules. They would work out how to achieve the predefined objectives.
That's a completely different process from what we've had. The row used to be between the teams about what the objective was and it would be complicated by the fact that everyone in the room would have a vested interest in some particular technology or device. On top of which they are all enormously conservative.
Q: Are the likes of Ron Dennis and Jean Todt going to accept that?
Burkhard Göschel: I think so. The main technology has to be defined at board level. Then it is fixed and realised at team level. If this means we bypass Ron Dennis then so be it.
Q: How will this be structured? Will you have regular meetings?
Burkhard Göschel: We will have regular meetings because we need to be thinking about the next steps. So we decided this morning that we would have a meeting to define the next areas we should look to introduce into F1 which are relevant to the car industry. Some new areas will have something to do with software technology and also chassis development. But it has to be driven from manufacturer level alongside the FIA, not from the teams. It will be a common working group made up of GPMA and FIA members.
Max Mosley: We are completely dependent on the manufacturers because they know what will come in four, five or ten years time. So it is a case of sitting down with them and discussing which of these developments can we use in F1. Obviously there are whole areas of technology which you can't use in F1 for one reason or another. But there are areas you can. So we have to decide which technologies to bring in, when to bring them in and how. You may find, for instance, we free up a lot of areas to do with the chassis and chassis dynamics, allow more electronics. On the other hand, in the short term we will be putting a stop to massive research into F1 aerodynamics because that is something that is manifestly irrelevant to road cars. It is a complete waste. At the moment every team has at least one windtunnel, some have two, they are running 24 hour shifts and this is research into something which outside F1 is completely irrelevant. Yet hundreds of very clever people are employed doing it.
That's an area that in a rational world you would slowly reduce and then shut down. Whereas things to do with chassis dynamics, a lot of that is the future, the interactions between the different systems on the car and the most efficient way of running the drivetrain, all of these are relevant to the car industry.
Continued in Part 3 | <urn:uuid:9494c82b-493e-4824-97bc-75f90a75aa56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fia-interview-with-mosley-and-goschel-part-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973923 | 2,955 | 1.835938 | 2 |
WASHINGTON, D.C. – New federal resources will allow Sinclair Community College to expand its jobs training programs for unemployed workers. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced that U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) funding will provide Sinclair with $6.7 million for unemployed workers to earn certificates and degrees in Information Technology (IT). The resources will help serve workers who lost their jobs due to unfair foreign trade—and qualify for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—and veterans.
“Ohioans who work hard and play by the rules should not be left to struggle when they lose their job through no fault of their own,” Brown said. “This new funding will help Sinclair develop curriculum and hands-on training programs that prepare veterans and jobless workers for careers in the rapidly-growing IT field.”
Sinclair Community College led a consortium application for Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) funding with Austin Community College in Austin, TX and Broward College in Fort Lauderdale. The total grant awarded is $11,996,548 with Sinclair receiveing more than half of that. The TAACCCT program is aimed at helping adults acquire the skills, degrees, and credentials needed for high-wage, high-skill employment while also meeting the needs of employers for skilled workers. The Department is implementing the TAACCCT program in partnership with the Department of Education.
Last month, Brown visited Sinclair to outline his plan to bolster emerging, regional industries—like UAS—by ensuring that Ohioans have the necessary skills and training to attract and fill high-tech jobs. Brown discussed his Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success (SECTORS) Act, which would help ensure that Ohioans have the skills to qualify for new, good-paying positions and that businesses can hire from a local, skilled workforce.
The SECTORS Act tailors workforce development to the needs of regional industry, allowing more workers to receive placements and attracting more businesses to a given region. The bill would organize stakeholders connected to a regional industry—businesses, unions, education and training providers, and local workforce and education system administrators—to develop plans for growing that industry. A range of groups are supporting the SECTORS Act, including the National Association of Manufacturers, which asked Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee leadership to include Brown’s legislation in larger job training legislation. The SECTORS Act was also included in the Building a Stronger America Act, a bipartisan bill introduced this month that is aimed at strengthening American manufacturing, exports, and competitiveness.
Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) is a federal program that provides aid to workers who lose their jobs or whose work hours and wages are reduced as a result of increased imports. The program extends benefits including training for employment in another job or career, income support, job search allowances, and relocation allowances. Qualified workers may quickly return to employment through a combination of these services.
Brown has been a leader in Senate efforts to protect the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. Last May, Brown led forty-one U.S. Senators in urging President Barack Obama not to submit any free trade agreements to Congress—including pending agreements for Colombia, Panama, and South Korea—until Congress agrees to extend a long-term extension of TAA, including 2009 bipartisan reforms that allowed additional trade-affected workers to qualify for assistance. Thanks to Brown’s efforts, an extension of TAA was passed in September 2011 and extends the program until 2013. | <urn:uuid:3c9651f2-1257-498d-927d-85f94e8c85b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-announces-nearly-67-million-for-sinclair-community-college-to-expand-career-training-program-for-jobless-workers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959961 | 740 | 1.515625 | 2 |
PITTSFIELD -- The images are equally disturbing -- that of a soldier fighting, risking his or her life for the country, and seeing that same soldier among the living, but living on the streets.
On Wednesday, during the annual Veterans’ Service Officers Luncheon at the Statehouse, Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray said new federal data shows veteran homelessness has dropped 26 percent in Massachusetts between January 2010 and January 2012. That statistic exceeds the 17 percent national rate of decline over the same two-year period.
Local veterans services agents say the decline is also reflected in Berkshire County, but the risk of homelessness for vets persists. While programs to help veterans are working now, officials say the military’s troop drawdown could eventually overwhelm the system.
"The numbers the lieutenant governor is talking about are relatively true: There has been a decrease in the number of vets on the street," said John "Jack" Downing, the president and CEO of Soldier On. The organization provides three veterans housing sites -- two in Pittsfield and one at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds.
Downing said about 90 percent of veterans in Soldier On housing are individuals versus veterans with families.
The data cited by Murray, who chairs both the Governor’s Advisory Council on Veterans’ Services and the Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness, is based on a count
The decline is attributed to new programming, increased collaboration among networks of providers, and availability of comprehensive veterans’ benefits.
Both Downing and Pittsfield Veterans’ Services Officer and Director Rosanne Frieri specifically credited a four-year-old federal program known as HUD-VASH -- the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program. The program provides rental assistance, case management and clinical services.
"With VASH, veterans are getting into apartments a lot easier with less money," said Frieri.
The program has also led to more employment for veterans.
"We’ve been able to see guys who have been chronically homeless become established," said Downing.
Citing the current government drawdown of tens of thousands of troops, Downing cited a "hardcore reality."
[Those soldiers are going to be] returning to us, on top of the normal attrition of military personnel finishing their tours," he said. "Most of us doing the work with veterans have realized those numbers could start to rise again, and we’re not ready with all the programs and services needed to assist them."
Frieri said the Pittsfield veterans affairs office has "never been busier," with more than 130 people claiming a portion of the city’s $85,000 veterans benefits monthly payroll.
Downing said that the Western Massachusetts region may be less affected by the military drawdown because there have been fewer reservists called to service from the region versus other parts of the country.
"We’re still not good at preventing people from going homeless but we’re better at it, and hopefully we won’t have that kind of spike," Downing said.
The local agents lauded the state government for its attention to veterans’ issues, as well as local collaborations on the matter.
Murray said he intends to release a statewide plan later this winter to further address homelessness among the veteran population.
Last January, the department launched a pilot program in collaboration with VA known as the Statewide Housing Advocacy for Reintegration and Prevention (SHARP) program. It aims to accelerate the housing process and offers veteran-to-veteran peer support, mental health services, psychiatric evaluation and linkages to emergency shelter for chronically homeless veterans.
Back in October, the state government announced that it had received new federal funding to expand peer-supported "housing first" opportunities in the state. This new funding will hire nine new peer support specialists, 12 new case managers, and is accompanied by 320 new HUD-VASH vouchers.
Downing said Soldier On has also applied for local grants through the federal Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, which will be announced in July. | <urn:uuid:513cce9d-6b81-490d-a9da-0501376a4b56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetranscript.com/ci_22344254 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958688 | 840 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Landscaping, Athletic Fields
Clays have many uses in landscaping and gardening. Clays can be classified into dozens of major categories, obviously some are going to be more suitable for your landscaping use than others. We have a wide ranges of natural colors (reds, brows, greys), textures (sandy, silty, smooth) and water permeabilities. One of our red clays is so red that it was used to create the terrain in the movie "Mission to Mars".
Our clays are used for building and repairing high stress areas on baseball infields. As noted, there are many kinds of clays, pick the wrong one and you could have a real mess on your baseball field. We can assist you to select the one best suited to your needs. | <urn:uuid:317f8442-89e2-44b4-95da-6e73c6d59136> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.plainsmanclays.com/index.php?menupath=15 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961271 | 162 | 1.59375 | 2 |
DailyDirt: Big Bugs And Old Dogs
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
People sometimes have a strange fascination with huge bugs -- whether it's for "biggest cockroach" contests or giant (mechanical) spiders (see also: Jon Peters). There are also a whole lot of dog lovers... so we've put these two tastes together with a couple random links about both. Maybe it's not quite as good together as peanut butter and chocolate, but there's no accounting for taste. Enjoy!
A really long, millipede-like invertebrate could hold the record for largest land-dwelling bug of all time. A complete fossil of the Arthropleura hasn't been found yet, but its species could have been over 6 feet long and 1.5 feet wide. Yeeee! [url] A giant crayfish from Tennessee was recently spotted. It looks like a lobster and is about twice the size of a normal crayfish -- and it might be tasty with a bit of butter. [url] The remains of a 14,000-year-old dog might be one of man's oldest best friends. There could be an older domesticated dog from about 30,000 years ago, but that pet's teeth look a little too much like a wolf's. [url] Based on an orange-colored bone, a Texan man might have eaten his dog about 9,000 years ago. The orange color wasn't BBQ sauce -- but evidence that it had passed through a human digestive tract.... [url] | <urn:uuid:144be3d3-25d3-4588-a213-9efc814dec6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110119/13213612732/dailydirt-big-bugs-old-dogs.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961815 | 322 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The nuclear standoff between Iran and the West continues to drag on. The Baghdad summit last week failed to resolve the key differences between the two sides, and now all eyes turn to the next round of talks, in Moscow next month.
“There is no reason for us to back down on 20 per cent-level enrichment, because we produce only as much 20 per cent material as we need,” Fereidoun Abbasi was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying.
There are in fact many reasons for Iran to scale back its enrichment efforts. Forget for a moment Tehran is in repeated violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The fact that world powers now appear willing to allow low-levels of enrichment on Iranian soil for peaceful energy purposes gives Tehran a face-saving out. And if Iran abandoned higher levels it would clear the way for the removal of sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy and energy sectors for years.
Crucially, enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent, which the West objects to, opens the door to higher levels of enrichment, and possibly, weapons development. As the Institute for Science and International Security reported this week, Iran has ramped up output of low-enriched uranium which, if further refined, could be enough to arm over five nuclear weapons.
The deal offered in Baghdad is admittedly less than the complete rollback of sanctions Iran had demanded. But Tehran’s belligerence and smug dismissal threatens to undo what little progress both sides appeared to be making. Tehran must now accept the deal currently on the table, which allows it to enrich up to 4 or 5 per cent. It is likely the best deal Iranian negotiators could possibly hope for. What’s more, this level of enrichment is more than adequate to allow Iran to carry on with a programme it has steadfastly maintained is for peaceful purposes only.
As Iran stalls it’s only a matter of time before questions about a secret weapons programme resurface. And if those questions grow louder, the return of calls for a military solution may soon follow.
–The National Editorial | <urn:uuid:20a76acc-3928-4e2e-915b-e0888f73d88c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/29-May-2012/nuclear-deal-is-iran-s-best-path-out-of-stalemate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949528 | 425 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Merkin was a American painter and illustrator who taught his craft for over 40 years at the Rhode Island School of Design. His own works reside in the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian Institution. He also wrote for Vanity Fair and illustrated the book "Leagues Apart: The Men and Times of the Negro Leagues." BTW, pop culture enthusiast might find it interesting to know that Merkin appeared on the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album (back row, right of center).
Anyway, he clearly was fascinated with the Negro League Baseball and when matched with his penchant for collecting vintage photography went on to build one of the more impressive collections ever assembled. Check out just few available in this auction that stuck out to me.
Although slightly faded the below photo doesn't disappoint. It is from 1937 and features five ballplayers from the Cuidad Trujillo ballclub in the Dominican Baseball League. If memory serves correctly, this was a team that was put together by then dictator Rafael Trujillo who wanted to make sure his team won. So, he raided the Negro Leagues and signed a whole bunch of their stars. Of course, since he stacked his team they did win. Various stories exist about this time period with most Negro League players indicating that they were glad to leave the country. Imagine the pressure for a player when you have a guy who might kill you and the entire team if you didn't win. Anyway, featured below are Hall of Famers Cool Papa Bell (on the far left) and Josh Gibson (second on the right).
Here is a 1934 team photo of the Concordia Eagles of Venezuela. It features Hall of Famers Martin Dihigo (back row, third from left) and Josh Gibson (back row, far right). Furthermore, Luis Apricio Sr. (father of the Hall of Famer) is also there. Additionally, this is thought to be the only photo with both Gibson and Dihigo together.
Below is a 1934 team photo of the Bismark Churchills, and if features the great Satchel Paige (top row, at center). This was a semi-pro team that was not a member of any organized league due to its roster of mixed race players. Nevertheless, they won the National Semi-Pro Baseball Tournament in Wichita, Kansas in 1935 with "Satch" on the mound. In fact, Paige thought very highly of this team.
"That Was The Best Team I Ever Saw; The Best Players I Ever Played With. But Who Ever Heard Of Them."BTW, this team was owned by Neal Churchill who was a local Chrysler car dealer in North Dakota.
This is a team photo of the 1930 Homestead Grays. It has four future Hall of Famers in it: Judy Johnson (top, second from right), Oscar Charleston (bottom row far right), Smokey Joe Williams (top, fourth from right), and Cumberland Posey (top row far right). This club won the Eastern Championship that season. | <urn:uuid:2cce8494-c08b-4cfc-bc1a-5ccdb4a136da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dodgersblueheaven.com/2012/03/hakes-some-negro-league-rarities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972516 | 614 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Aid for International Students
International students are considered for some scholarship assistance through the admission process. In addition some students seek assistance from their home country. Finally, students may be eligible for a private loan such as those listed below.
Other Resources for International and Undocumented Students
Studying in the USA - http://www.edupass.org/finaid/
International Education Financial Aid - http://www.iefa.org/ | <urn:uuid:4d9d027b-0c8b-4b51-bdec-aa5bb70cbcbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://law.msu.edu/admissions/finaid/intl_students.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93237 | 90 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 American animated feature film produced by Walt Disney and released on June 22, 1955 by Buena Vista Distribution. The fifteenth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, it was the first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen film process. The story centers on a female American Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a refined, upper middle-class family, and a male stray mutt called the Tramp, who fall in love.
Lady and the Tramp was parodied in "Brian: Portrait of a Dog", "I Take Thee Quagmire", where Glenn and Joan Quagmire had the spaghetti dinner, and "Stew-Roids". In the latter, Michael Vick was their co-star, interrupting their spaghetti dinner and drowning them. | <urn:uuid:93d84ac7-852e-481c-8b85-9575bafa635d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Lady_and_the_Tramp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973557 | 168 | 1.5 | 2 |
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Return to Cambridge
The River Cam, looking from Trinity towards Clare
At the start of January Wittgenstein was again in Cambridge. He decided, as he wrote to Schlick on 18 February, to remain here in Cambridge for a few terms and work on visual space and other things. With Ramsey’s assistance he concerned himself anew with the completion of his studies. The English translation of the Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus published eight years earlier, was eventually accepted as his doctoral work. The viva voce examination was held at the start of June, with Moore and Russell as examiners. On 18 June Wittgenstein was awarded his doctoral degree from the University of Cambridge.
On 2 February he had begun work on a series of 18 manuscript volumes on which he was to work until 1940. They are large-format, hard-bound account ledgers each of about 300 pages. The first four volumes from the years 1929/30, manuscripts 105 to 108, I. Band Philosophische Bemerkungen, II. Band , III. Band Philosophische Betrachtungen and IV. Philosophische Bemerkungen constitute the contents of the first two volumes of the Wiener Ausgabe of Wittgenstein’s writings.
On 19 June Wittgenstein received a grant from Trinity College, arranged by Moore, Russell and Ramsey. This one-off payment was to allow him to continue his research work in Cambridge. On 13 July he gave a lecture in Nottingham to the Joint Session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society, the annual meeting of British philosophers. He spoke on Generality and Infinity in Mathematics. The original written contribution which he had submitted Some Remarks on Logical Form was published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for the year 1929, pages 162-171. In his view, the
Wittgenstein became friendly with the Italian economist Piero Sraffa, whom Keynes brought to King’s College after Sraffa had attracted Mussolini’s anger by an article in the Manchester Guardian and had had to leave Italy. Sraffa, a friend and comrade-in-arms of Gramsci, later made a Fellow of Trinity College, henceforth figures importantly in Wittgenstein’s conversations. Among other things, Sraffa regularly gave accounts of current affairs to Wittgenstein, who despite his interest refused to read a newspaper or listen to the radio. Wittgenstein later said of his discussions with Sraffa that he felt like a tree robbed of its branches; and it is surely in this sense that Wittgenstein had Sraffa to thank for a spur to his growth. As he wrote in his preface to the Philosophical Investigations: The tree, freed of its old wood, could sprout powerfully from the new.
The summer holidays, like almost all his long holidays, Wittgenstein spent in Austria. In October he started Volume III, in December Volume IV, MS 107, III. Band Philosophische Betrachtungen; MS 108, IV. Philosophische Bemerkungen.
On 17 November Wittgenstein lectured on Ethics to the Heretics, a loose association of free-thinkers, whose president from 1911 to 1924 was C. K. Ogden: TS 207 (MS 139), Lecture on Ethics, in Philosophical Review, 74, (1965) pp. 3-12.
Wittgenstein was in Vienna over Christmas and met Schlick and Waismann for the first time after a long while to report on the progress of his work so far. The records of these and their following discussions prepared by Waismann were published in Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, Oxford 1979.
Piero Sraffa. 1929
On 18 January Frank Ramsey died at the early age of 29. Wittgenstein’s friends arranged for him to begin teaching. His first teaching engagement was a 2-hour seminar on 20. January, the first of his Monday afternoon classes. There was also a discussion class on Thursdays at 5 on Problems of Language, Logic and Mathematics. Wittgenstein taught on the same theme, announced as Philosophy in Cambridge University Reporter, the official lecture handbook, for the rest of the academic year 1929/30, in the Lent and Easter terms, and in the following academic year 1930/31 in the Michaelmas, Lent and Easter Terms. He again regularly attended sessions of the Moral Science Club, whose chairman was still G. E. Moore. He gave a short paper there on Evidence for the Existence of Other Minds.
Wittgenstein’s Pocket Diary
In March and April, Wittgenstein worked in Vienna on a synopsis of his manuscripts to date, typescript 208. In mid-March he discussed the text with Russell, visiting him for the purpose at Beacon Hill School, which Russell and Dora Black had founded at Telegraph House near Harting in West Sussex. After preparing a revision of typescript 208, the Philosophische Bemerkungen, TS 209, he again spent a day and a half with Russell at the end of April, this time in Russell’s house in Penzance in Cornwall, where the Russells were spending their Easter holidays. On the basis of this work, Wittgenstein applied for a Fellowship at Trinity College. Typescript 208 and the revision of it, TS 209, published posthumously as Philosophical Remarks, Oxford 1964, and the synopsis of the first part of volume IV, TS 210, were all produced in the course of the spring and summer holidays.
The college gave the task of evaluating Wittgenstein’s work to Bertrand Russell and the mathematicians J. E. Littlewood and G. H. Hardy. Russell’s opinion, presented to the responsible College committee, was reproduced in Russell’s autobiography:
G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood in Trinity College
On 19 June, during his summer holidays in Vienna, Wittgenstein dictated his views on a series of mathematical topics, on which Waismann then gave a lecture entitled The Nature of Mathematics: Wittgenstein’s View in Königsberg at the 2nd Conference on the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences. However, the presentation of Gödel’s now-famous theorem turned out to be the salient event at the conference, and Wittgenstein’s ideas made no impact. On 11 August he began the fifth volume: MS 109, Bemerkungen V. and on 10 December the sixth: MS 110, VI. Philosophische Bemerkungen.
He spent the Christmas holidays as always with the family in the Alleegasse in Vienna.
As in previous years, Wittgenstein taught in Clare College, now as a Research Fellow, in rooms placed at his disposal by the Explorer Raymond E. Priestley. On Mondays he had the 2-hour seminar, on Fridays the discussion class.
On 7 June he began Volume VII, on 5 October Volume VIII, and on 28 November Volume IX: MS 111, VII. Bemerkungen zur Philosophie, MS 112, VIII. Bemerkungen zur Philosophischen Grammatik, MS 113, IX. Philosophische Grammatik.
Wittgenstein’s preliminary work for these and the following volumes have also been preserved in small pocket notebooks (MSS 153a, 153b, 154 and 155). Wittgenstein constantly destroyed most of his sketches and preliminary work, including for example the notebooks belonging to the manuscript volumes I to V.
During the summer holidays in Austria, mostly at the Hochreith, he worked on revising his manuscripts and began on a summary of volumes V to X, a typescript of 771 pages (TS 211) which he completed in the summer of 1932. Pages 1 to 12 in Remarks on Frazers Golden Bough, edited by Rush Rhees and published by Brynmill Press, Retford in 1979, came from this typescript and were Wittgenstein’s re-workings of corresponding passages from manuscript volume VIII.
In the autumn he took a holiday in Norway with his friends Gilbert Pattison and Marguerite Respinger. It is at this time that he presumably began working on the volume Philosophische Bemerkungen XII, MS 116, on which he continued writing until well after May 1945. He had bought the large writing book, with 576 pages, in Bergen in Norway. The only date it contains, May 1945, is around the middle of the volume, on page 316.
Wittgenstein rowing from Skjolden to his house
Wittgenstein asked Moore for leave from his official teaching engagements for the coming academic year (1931/32), in order to be able to concentrate completely on his own work. He was prepared, however, to hold private unpaid discussion classes for interested students in his rooms in Whewells Court, always on Fridays from 5 to 7 pm.
Tensions arose in the Moral Science Club. Wittgenstein was accused of monopolizing discussions, and he withdrew from active participation for the next four years.
From 27 May until 5 June Wittgenstein was writing Part I of Volume X: MS 114 (I), X. Philosophische Grammatik. In the summer holidays he finished work on typescript 211 and immediately began to revise it, along with typescripts 208 and 210. He cut the typescripts up and arranged selected extracts with additions and alterations into a collection of paper cuttings: TS 212.
In the same year he began the notebooks MSS 156a and 156b, which he wrote in until 1934. In October, at the start of the Michaelmas term of the academic year 1932/33, he resumed regular teaching, with lectures on Language, Logic and Mathematics, announced as always as Philosophy in the Cambridge University Reporter.
On 27 May Wittgenstein defended himself in an open letter in the journal Mind, edited at that time by G. E. Moore, against the inaccurate and ill-informed dissemination of his ideas. In the following academic year, 1933/34, he dictated his lectures to his friend and pupil Francis Skinner and to other close friends among his students. The typescript was duplicated, and Wittgenstein distributed the few copies, known today by the title Blue Book, among friends and students (TS 307, The Blue Book, Oxford 1958)
Ludwig Wittgenstein with Francis Skinner in Cambridge.
During the summer holidays Wittgenstein traveled with Moritz Schlick to Italy. At the Hochreith he dictated the so-called Big Typescript TS 213, based on the collection of cuttings TS 212, as well as on TSS 214-218.
Wittgenstein was occupied with a complicated reworking and revision of the first part of this big typescript (TS 213) until 1934: this involved work on the typescript itself, notebooks 156a and 156b, exercise books C 1, C 2 and C 3: MSS 145, 146 and 147, Part II of Volume X and Part I of Volume XI: MS 114 (II), Umarbeitung./ Zweite Umarbeitung im großem Format, and MS 115 (I), Philosophische Bemerkungen XI. Fortsetzung von Band X., and MS 140, the so-called Große Format.
This complex revision, which does not exist as a separate manuscript in its own right but only as a sort of virtual manuscript in the form of references linking the manuscripts named above, was published as Part 1 of Die Philosophische Grammatik, Oxford 1969. The Appendix and the second part of the Philosophische Grammatik, Oxford 1969, derive from the second part of the so-called “Big Typescript", which Wittgenstein did not revise.
During the Easter holidays in Vienna Wittgenstein decided to undertake collaborative work with Waismann. A division of labour was agreed, and during their conversation Wittgenstein sketched the opening of the book. As early as the next meeting difficulties become apparent, which Waismann described thus:
The project was soon abandoned by Wittgenstein, and the Master-apprentice relationship with Waismann was also to end two years later with the death of Schlick.
On 4 June Wittgenstein started notebook MS 157a. In September he visited his friend and pupil, the psychiatrist Maurice Drury, in Ireland.
During the academic year 1934/35 he gave only one course and instead dictated the so-called Brown Book in English for two hours four days a week to his student Alice Ambrose and his friend and student Francis Skinner (TS 308, The Brown Book, Oxford 1958).
By contrast with the Blue Book, there were originally only three typed copies of the Brown Book, and their illegal dissemination occurred totally against Wittgenstein’s wishes. His intention was rather to revise this material for separate publication. In the first drafts for the Brown Book, in the manuscript volume C 4 , MS 148, written like almost all Wittgenstein’s manuscripts in German, is to be found the beginnings of the corpus of the Philosophische Untersuchungen. About a year after dictating the Brown Book, Wittgenstein started to set down in Part 2 of Volume XI, MS 115 (II) Philosophische Untersuchungen. Versuch einer Umarbeitung, a German version of the Brown Book, published as Eine Philosophische Betrachtung, in Schriften 5, 117-237, Frankfurt 1970.
During the summer holidays Wittgenstein dictated to Friedrich Waismann for Moritz Schlick the summary of his re-working of the first part of the so-called Big Typescript. These re-workings exist in a series of manuscripts connected by various cross-references as a kind of latent manuscript (see the stemma in IV.2).
Except for the academic year 1934/35, G. E. Moore regularly attended Wittgenstein’s teaching sessions, later publishing his lecture notes in Mind as Wittgenstein’s lectures in 1930-33 (Parts 1 and 2 in Mind 63, pp. 1-15 and 289-315; Part 3 in Mind 64, pp. 1-27 and 264). Wittgenstein had dictated the Blue Book to his students Alice Ambrose, H. M. S. Coxeter, R. Goodstein, Helen Knight, Margaret Masterman and Francis Skinner. Besides Moore’s, there are lecture notes by Maurice O’Connor Drury and Francis Skinner from this period.
Friedrich Waismann, Moritz Schlick’s Assistant | <urn:uuid:26137cf4-d100-4ac5-87a5-fd681523d40d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wittgen-cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/text/biogre8.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953396 | 3,111 | 1.703125 | 2 |
When in doubt, bow. On Aug. 9, the Japanese women’s squad succumbed to the Americans in the Olympic soccer finals 2-1. But on the victory podium, as they collected their silver medals, the Japanese grinned, waved and bobbed their heads respectfully to the near-capacity crowd assembled at London’s hallowed Wembley Stadium. Then they raised their arms in unison and danced an impromptu jig. What else was there to do? Another bow, of course.
Despite a stream of tears in the minutes after the match ended, the Japanese team soon acted as if they had won silver, not lost the gold. Certainly, second place tops Japan’s performance four years ago in Beijing, when they came in fourth. But the Japanese are also the reigning World Cup champions, having prevailed over the Americans in a penalty-kick shootout last year. That nail-biter Japanese victory came as the country was still reeling from the physical, emotional and nuclear fallout of the March 11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear meltdown. Two members of the World Cup (and London Olympic) squad, defender Aya Sameshima and substitute Karina Maruyama, had even worked for Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the Japanese utility firm that ran the fated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (TEPCO owned a nonprofessional women’s football team, and some of its players earned their keep working at the plant, playing soccer during their off-hours.)
For a country that desperately needed a lift, the World Cup performance of the women’s team, which has lived in the shadow of the male squad for so long, was massive. Even Japan’s then Prime Minister Naoto Kan was moved. “Japan’s play made me think I should not give up, but must hold out as long as there are things that need to be done,” said Kan.
That indomitable Japanese spirit shone at Wembley on Thursday night. The U.S.’s Carli Lloyd scored early on, heading the ball home in the eighth minute. She doubled her team’s lead in the 54th minute with a glorious distance shot. The Japanese had never been behind the entire tournament, and they had tended to allow their opponents to hog the ball. Not this time. The Japanese controlled the ball with precision and panache for nearly 60% of the match. But the barrage of Japanese attacks bounced off the woodwork. Finally, in the 63rd minute, Yuki Ogimi, who had scored three of Japan’s four previous goals in London, tapped the ball into the goal after the American defense was left scrambling in the penalty area. “Soccer is the kind of game when you never know what will happen until the very end,” said Japan’s captain Aya Miyama, after the match. “So we never gave up and always tried to go for the shot.” But the equalizer never materialized, and the Americans were crowned Olympic champions for the third time in a row.
Both Japan and the U.S. enjoyed raucous support from the crowd, stars and stripes sharing space with the rising sun, as 80,203 football fans electrified the Wembley stands. It was the largest crowd to ever gather for an Olympic women’s soccer match. There was little of the kind of acrimony that had marred the U.S.-Canada semifinal. After the match, I went to talk to Japanese fans, expecting to hear expressions of disappointment or even frustration over a seeming hand ball by Tobin Heath that was not called. But I couldn’t find anyone who professed regret at the outcome. “It’s so nice to be here,” said Mirai Kudo, a Japanese fan from Aomori prefecture, who had a rising sun painted on each cheek. “There are so many Japanese here cheering, and I am really enjoying the team spirit.” The loudspeaker burst out with Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” and Kudo bounced right along.
In the postmatch press conference, Japan’s coach Norio Sasaki was asked about that hand-ball incident. It was the perfect opportunity to snipe, but he declined. “Maybe at that moment, I thought, hey, I wonder if that’s something,” he said. “But the moment passed, and I respected the judgment of the referee.”
As of the evening of Aug. 9, Japan had won just five gold medals at the London Games. Since Athens, when they scored 16 gold medals, the Japanese have been sliding down an Olympic slope. Beijing elicited nine gold medals, seven fewer than the previous Games. In London, swimming, a traditional strong suit, was a bust for the Japanese. Judo, the only Japanese-invented sport at the Games, only brought one gold medal. There are few other golden opportunities left for the Japanese in London, so it’s possible that five is as good as they’re going to get.
Of those five gold medals, four have been courtesy of women. Earlier in the day that the Japanese female footballers won silver, Japan claimed its third women’s wrestling gold of the Olympics, when Saori Yoshida captured the 55-kg title. It was the nine-time world champion’s third-straight Olympic gold, a hat trick also accomplished a day earlier by fellow Japanese Kaori Icho in the 63-kg weight category. Given that Olympic women’s wrestling only debuted in 2004, the Japanese pair has been utterly dominant.
For a nation that perennially undervalues women in the workplace, it’s worth noting how essential Japan’s women have been in bringing gold medals home. The country has lost two decades to economic stagnation and political atrophy. Imagine if women were more involved in shaping the country’s future.
And in case you were wondering, how did the Japanese men’s soccer team do at the Games? Well, they were knocked out in the semifinals by Mexico. There’s no question that Japan’s women came into the Olympics a more successful squad. So why did the women’s team travel to London by economy class, while the men’s team flew business on the same flight? “Our women are very strong,” said a male Japanese journalist, as we waited to get postmatch impressions from the women’s soccer squad. “Sometimes we only realize it at the Olympics.”
For Sasaki, who has helmed the women’s team for four years, his squad’s strength is a given. Japan’s female footballers are known as the Nadeshiko, after a frilly but hardy alpine flower. What was the legacy of his team, the coach was asked after its silver-medal performance? “It’s teamwork,” he replied. “We have played with a bright and open attitude, with justice, with a sense of fair play, with a respect for our opponents. Even though it’s a team of small girls, they are very strong. That shows the beauty of Japanese women.” | <urn:uuid:445686aa-c275-485a-8b25-fc7d2a20e26b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://olympics.time.com/2012/08/09/gracious-losers-japans-women-celebrate-silver-in-a-soccer-re-match-with-the-u-s/?iid=us-article-mostpop2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976135 | 1,519 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Just last year the Dutch government raised the consumption tax on visual art from 6 to 19 percent. I really don’t demand a special status, but raising it just this year again to 21 is gonna be tough. Clients barely had the time to get used to the higher prices… apparently galleries had a drop of sales by 25 percent. One can only guess what the aggregate of 15 percent higher prices will do. Never mind that they hack at all other pillars of support at the same time.
The extra funny part: Any art that is on a stage (called “podiums art”, so theater and singing) will go back to 6 percent. Now should give the lawmakers credit for following a divide and conquer strategy … or do they simply don’t spend any time thinking laws through? Hmmmm.
Even though nearly no one foresaw the implosion of the housing market, it now seems obvious that it was a bubble. After all a house fulfills a real-world need, you can calculate and compare what it physically gives you. Art doesn’t have those real tangible values – it is all in the eye of the beholder. I think that why, despite the insane amounts of money changing hands for art, it is still hard to say what is really going on.
Here are two documentaries (found in the German Digitalart forum) about what is going on. The first is called “The Mona Lisa Curse” by critic Robert Hughes. It’s a witty look at how the what is happening to art in the billion dollar market.
I think he addresses a bit the direction I’ve been wondering about – how this affects the artist. Specifically of course I only care about my own problems: how it will affect me, as outsider of the huuuuge-sum market.
This system puts certain needs on the art. For example it has to be produced in mass. Speculation won’t work with only a handful of works, because the market would be empty too quickly (one painting per year wouldn’t do). So some art, even if good, will not be adopted.
These properties that fulfill the market-needs will become more important than the artistic qualities. And selection upon these will lead to a fall in quality of the whole market. They just don’t matter as much. It goes so far that many speculators store the art it in their basement still packed – never to be looked at.
And the public adopts the standards of the market. So if Warhol sells well, his art becomes a trendsetter. Even art outside the market will be judged by it. And since galleries aim to become part of the big game, they choose artists according to the trend. Museums will go with it too. If the open market is impoverished of artistic qualities, so is the public.
But I don’t want to paint a too easy picture here. “Artistic quality” is an evasive property… even if Robert Hughes pretends that as famous critic he can decide what is art and what is not, truth is, he knows no more than the speculators. That is the problem, and after all, the beauty of art.
This second documentary called “Great Contemporary Art Bubble” by Ben Lewis goes a bit into how this is not just a problem among the billionaires – since museums and the tax office help to finance this bubble. And he tries to show how the extreme prices may be more foul than it seems: influenced by price driving, manipulation and backdoor deals.
Following is the trailer – the full program I could unfortunately only find in German. Here the link to Ben Lewis: “Die Millionenblase” | <urn:uuid:8a68972a-8699-4629-a03b-ee56ad7dc956> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oxpal.com/tag/art-market | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957697 | 772 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Fair is fair… or is it?
Corpus Juris talks Fair Use with Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights in the US. It’s not about convenience, but content, and she believes that groups like the EFF are “poisoning the well” when it comes to copyright and the DMCA.
The Sony Betamax Supreme Court decision was one of the most important “fair use” decisions of the last 25 years, but it’s been a constant source of frustration for Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights in the US since 1994. As head of the Copyright Office, Peters is in charge of the triennial DMCA anticircumvention review process. And every three years, her office sees the Sony case used as the basis for the most popular requested exemption: DVD ripping.
Each time the Copyright Office deals with the issue, consumer groups contend that fair use rights to use the material on DVDs are being violated by access controls, and they want an exemption in order to back up discs or to use video clips in noninfringing ways. After all, didn’t the Sony case put an official blessing on all recording equipment that had substantial noninfringing uses? Doesn’t this mean that consumers have a right to use DVD rippers and that an anticircumvention exception should therefore be made for all DVDs? The EFF certainly thought so, arguing as much at the first triennial rulemaking back in 2000.
But when I spoke with Peters about fair use, she pointed out that the Sony decision is in fact a narrow one and that fair use itself is often ambiguous unless defined by a judge. The Court’s ruling in the Sony case was limited to “free, over-the-air television for time-shifting,” she tells me. “It is not space-shifting; it’s not anything beyond that. It’s not off cable, it’s not off video-on-demand, and yet if you talk to most consumers, they think that anything they do in the home that comes through their television set is fair use.”
“That becomes a consumer expectation that you hear about that they want enabled,” she continues, “and I don’t disagree with that; that’s what the market is demanding, and that’s what the market should provide, but don’t call it fair use.”
“I don’t want to say it’s a crapshoot”
Her comment points out that fair use in the US can be a vague concept. Section 107 of the Copyright Act allows for the fair use of material “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research” but speaks in broad terms rather than specific instances. Fair use can extend beyond these listed purposes (note the “such as” statement in the law), but to qualify as “fair,” a use has to pass the famous four-part test, which considers the following factors:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
What this means in practice is that people cannotknow if something is fair use without testing their theory in front of a judge. This has happened on plenty of occasions—like the Sony/Universal case that opened the door to legal VHS recordings from TV broadcasts—but these rulings are generally quite narrow, applying only to the specific circumstances of the case. “Once a court has actually handed down a decision with regard to specific facts,” Peters says, “if you fall within those facts, you’re safe, but once you start wandering away from those facts then—I don’t want to say it’s a crapshoot—but it’s not clear.”
In the minds of many Americans, though, “fair use” means a whole host of things that are not contained in the Copyright Act or outlined in a judicial decision. As Peters puts it, “‘fair use’ has become a shortcut for what ‘I think the balance should be as I look at the copyright law.’”
Take DVD ripping as an example. As noted above, it’s an issue that Peters hears about without fail every three years as users seek a DMCA exemption to the anticircumvention protections that extend to DVDs. Why has the Copyright Office rejected the proposed exemption at each triennial rulemaking to date? In her words, it’s because the widely-hacked CSS encryption on DVDs does not actually prevent fair use at all, and those who think otherwise don’t understand exactly what rights fair use grants them.
I want my fully-backed-up, playable-on-Linux DVDs!
According to Peters, the exemptions only exist to give users access to material that is lawful for them to use and that they cannot get in any other way. While the first part of that test does apply to backing up DVDs or watching them under Linux, the second part generally does not. People don’t really just want fair use, Peters says, they want to “crack a code in order to make fair use of content, but the content, for the most part, they can get in an unencrypted format. But they don’t really want that.”
Much of the material on DVDs can be obtained from other sources—VHS tapes, for instance. Sure, the quality isn’t as good, and sure, it’s inconvenient, but Peters doesn’t see that these are legitimate arguments in favor of crafting a new exemption. “There’s a Second Circuit Court decision that says that convenience is not a reason to do it,” she points out. “Nothing says that fair use says you get to do it in the most convenient form, and the one that is preferable to you. Fair use is really about content, and you shouldn’t be hacking through things to get the most convenient format.”
She also rejected arguments to the contrary put forth by the EFF during the triennial rulemakings in 2000 and 2003 and said that the EFF’s assumptions in those documents were wrongheaded. “Any copyright owner should have their hair standing on end,” she said during a recent conference on DRM, adding that the EFF was “poisoning the well” with some of its arguments by seeking to restrict the applicability of copyright and the DMCA.
The EFF’s senior staff attorney, Fred von Lohmann, not surprisingly takes issue with this characterization. “I think these copyright owners have far more to fear from the Copyright Office than from EFF,” he tells me, pointing out that anyone who composes machinima or creates YouTube videos is also a copyright holder.
“Moreover, copyright law is not concerned solely with enriching copyright owners but rather is enacted for the benefit of the public, which is to say, the fans,” he adds. “Far from ‘poisoning the well’ for fans, [the] EFF is virtually the only voice speaking up on their behalf in copyright debates. The Copyright Office, disappointingly, often views itself [as] an advocate for copyright owners rather than for the public at large.”
After coming to this conclusion in 2005, the EFF declared the triennial rulemaking (PDF) “fundamentally unable to protect the interests of today’s digital media consumers” and has stopped participating in the process.
Ambiguity: it’s a good thing
von Lohmann agrees with Peters about fair use: it’s ambiguous and defined only in retrospect by the courts. He characterizes this as a great strength of the fair use law since fair use becomes flexible enough to encompass all sorts of new uses and technologies. A more rigid law would have been clearer but of much less utility.
This ambiguity is “not a bug, it’s a feature,” he says. “Marybeth Peters is correct that the Sony Betamax case does not clearly establish that space-shifting is a fair use. Neither does it say that it’snot a fair use. That’s a question for a court to answer when the case comes up.”
Peters, despite heading the Copyright Office, does not define fair use. As both she and von Lohmann pointed out, her opinions on the matter are those of an expert, but they don’t carry the force of law. “It’s not Marybeth Peters’ job to tell us what is a fair use, any more than it is mine,” says von Lohmann. “The law leaves that decision to the courts.”
It seems quite likely, based on past court decisions, that DVD ripping would have been found legal in a court, apart from the pesky issue of DRM. Once the DMCA entered the picture and CSS found a place in the DVD spec, the DVD licensing consortium gained a way to prevent all sorts of uses that might otherwise have been decreed as “fair.” And so long as it’s possible to get access to the material in other ways, Peters and others in the Copyright Office have no plans to carve out an exemption. (The recent Kaleidescape caseallowed for some DVD ripping but only covered a commercial media server that retained the CSS encryption and had a license from the DVD CCA.)
Fortunately for consumers (otherwise known as “everyone not in the movie business”), Peters and the studios both know that a backlash has been building on this issue. Regardless of the technicalities of fair use and the DMCA, people have their own sense of what is fair and reasonable and get frustrated when technology imposes additional limits. Peters says that she “believes in DRM” because it keeps the US away from a levy system but says that the market should really work these issues out. And Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA, said in a recent speech that the studios soon hope to bring users a way tolegally rip DVDs, though he was maddeningly short on details (and appeared to endorse a DRM-based solution of some sort).
Unless DMCA reform is passed in Congress, studios and others will continue to use DRM as a way to circumvent the fair use issue, replacing the freedom that the ambiguous law provides with something much more controlled: technology that allows users to do only what rights-holders allow them to do. This undermines a basic point of fair use, which is that permission is not required. The argument that convenience doesn’t matter here may well be true from a legal perspective, but it matters on a daily basis to those who want to do something that would otherwise be legal but don’t have the time, energy, and tools to track down and digitize lower-quality VHS recordings, for instance.
While fair use remains ambiguous and the four-part test can seem esoteric, it has served the US well for decades. Unfortunately, technology now provides a way to enforce limitations that no judge ever would. But the use of such technology is not inevitable; as Peters says, hopefully the market will sort it all out. Until then, try not to scratch those DVDs. | <urn:uuid:4b8a87f2-0c97-4f24-92ed-b77717f334cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecorpusjuris.com/news/item/what-the-us-copyright-office-thinks-about-fair-use.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958796 | 2,444 | 1.84375 | 2 |
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Everything is going digital nowadays and everyone is trying to get rid of paper trails and filing cabinets. The thing is though that word of mouth is still the best form of promotion for any business. It’s true. Where do you hear about new restaurants? From your friends or colleagues I assume? Now why would….. | <urn:uuid:e5af178d-71f6-449b-b8ae-9797b334aae1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://creativeoverflow.net/category/articles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960418 | 671 | 1.78125 | 2 |
by ENDA BROPHY
Is the university worth saving? The question arose insistently at The University is Ours! Conference, organized by the transnational edu-factory collective along with local Canadian allies and held last weekend in Toronto (April 27-29). In its current form, wracked by crisis, the academy produces precious little that can extend our collective capacities and much that diminishes them: hierarchy, exploitation, debt, precarity, cynicism, greed… The restructuring of university systems has brought corporatized administrations, rising tuition, departmental closures, expanded class sizes, noxious corporate food, anti-strike legislation enacted against academic workers… In a world where knowledge, culture and communication have been commodified as never before, capital has turned its attention to the academy and is completely dedicated to its wholesale transformation. This university is most certainly not ours.
And yet, as participants at the edu-factory conference made absolutely clear, within, against and beyond the neoliberal academy lies our own university. The austerity-stricken university is combustible, and knowledge is incandescent. Across today’s campuses struggles proliferate, from Rome to London, from Santiago to Berkeley, from Cairo to Dublin. Students, academic workers and their allies have flooded the streets, and universities have been one of the key sites of resistance to the market over the past five years. At the Toronto conference, participants gathered in an atmosphere marked by joyous affect, mutual respect, and non-sectarian engagement. On Friday a busload of students arrived from a Quebec rocked by protest, where red felt has run out as the carrè rouges, or little red squares multiply across the jackets of hundreds of thousands of students, faculty and supporters who have faced off against the police and brought the post-secondary system in the province to halt against proposed tuition hikes. It is not about high tuition, or even less tuition anymore, says CLASSE, the student organization that is leading the struggles, but rather about no tuition. The carrè rouge symbol itself traces the recent circulation of university labour, student, and broader social struggles in central Canada: originally used during anti-poverty actions in Quebec, then becoming the icon of the 2004 student strike, reappearing during and after the York University strike of 2008-2009 (the longest in Canadian history), the little red squares are now teeming in the streets of Montreal every night in spontaneous demonstrations which have brought hundreds of thousands out against the tuition hikes. In Toronto Quebec activists met and shared counter-knowledges with trade unionists, campus activists, and radical professors from Italy, the United States, Mexico, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom. The struggle for free education and dignified working conditions is global, one in which anti-racist activism entwines with queer pedagogies in a knowledge produced from below, aimed squarely against those transforming our universities from above.
In Toronto the struggles of students against tuition hikes linked up with and learned from those involved in union drives for teaching assistants, research assistants, and postdocs on campuses across North America. Labour activists doing solidarity work with gendered and racialized cleaning staff, admin assistants, and food workers reminded us that students and precariously employed professors are not the privileged subjects of transformation. Analyses of the ways hierarchy pervades and segments the neoliberal campus encountered the Occupy movement’s offshoot (Occupy Student Debt) responding to the shameful debt burden imposed on those who want nothing more than an education and a decent shot in the labour market. The University of Toronto General Assembly shows us that a parallel governance structure can be created within and against a university addicted to shady corporate donations. How do we create a political language of broad appeal across these groups? How do we create new practices of critical solidarity that engage not only those who produce knowledge on campus, but also those who toil on it doing the cleaning work, the service work, and communities whose lives are affected by university development more broadly? In our university we ask ourselves these questions and craft answers we will bring back to our communities.
The Toronto conference had other, vital horizons however. The weekend also heard from autonomous education initiatives existing beyond the university, experiments brought together in networks of inspiration, reflection, and critique. From these multiple sites, concepts wrapped in action: exodus, the common, occupation, decolonization, self-organization, autonomy – expressed and rearticulated through projects such as the Mess Hall, Social Science Centre, Lincoln, Convivial Research and Insurgent Learning, The Toronto School of Creativity and Inquiry, Purple Thistle, Uninomade, Occupy… At several Toronto locations across three days, these experiences intersected, recognized, learned from each other. What it is that sustains our experiments, and what makes them die out? How is it that we can build alternative spaces for a knowledge production that are other than, oppositional and constituent? These institutions of the common, in which ideas circulate but money does not, point the way toward an independent relationship toward knowledge, outside of the confines of the neoliberal university. Struggles within the academy will need to link up with these experiments occurring beyond them.
And this conference, organized across the boundaries of time, institutions, hierarchy, and national borders, points to the direction to be taken as we occupy, appropriate, and construct our university. On the last day of the meeting we discovered that a comrade from Mexico had been kicked out of her downtown hotel, her belongings tossed into the hall in an ugly racist incident. The last act of the conference saw it march as a whole to the hotel, with over a hundred participants gathering outside to make it clear such behavior will be fought and exposed. In Toronto at the end of April 2012 we were our university prefigured in the present, a university that acts as an institution of the common, where knowledge breaks its bonds. | <urn:uuid:dbcc88e6-3633-46e4-8c71-d7b8460b212c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/fr/story/our-university-edufactory/10786 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947411 | 1,198 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Chairlift & Trail Safety
Be aware that most trails are crossed by, and shared by, maintenance vehicles. Hike or bike only on designated trails. Let your experience and ability determine your choice of route and travel time. This is a partial list. There are inherent risks in any on-mountain activity. Be safety conscious.
• Canyons Resort's Sit on the Spot program.
• Loading and unloading on a chairlift is different in the summer than in the winter. When unloading, please exit quickly and in the direction that is indicated on the ramp. If you need more time to exit, please inform the lift operator.
• Bikers must yield to hikers; both must yield to horseback riders.
• Be aware that your safety is directly affected by your judgement. Know your limits, and stay within them. When in doubt, slow down or turn back.
• Always wear a bike helmet; they are mandatory in Canyons Bike Park.
• The fire danger is extreme! Smoking is prohibited in all areas.
• Sheep grazing occurs on these mountains. Keep pets leashed at all times and avoid herd dogs as they may become aggressive. | <urn:uuid:1eb3c0a5-6436-40ba-a954-deffa377e9f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canyonsresort.com/trail_safety_s.html?summer=yes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941726 | 241 | 1.671875 | 2 |
CHICAGO - FEBRUARY 25: Cardinal Francis George, Chicago's eighth archbishop, celebrates Ash Wednesday Mass in the cafeteria of Holy Name Cathedral February 25, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. Catholics celebrate Ash Wednesday as the beginning of Lent which is considered a period of penance, reflection, and fasting leading up to Easter. The mass was celebrated in the cafeteria because the cathedral was damaged by a recent fire. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Francis George
Chicago Cardinal Francis George told a meeting Monday of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore that they were right in their moral judgment that President Barack Obama's heath care reform plan would allow federal funding of abortion.
"Developments since the passage of the legislation" [have confirmed that] "our analysis of what the law itself says was correct and our moral judgments are secure," he said, according to the Catholic News Service.
The law walled off federal funds from being used for abortion, and an executive order signed by Obama just before it passed
reaffirmed existing prohibitions on government-financed abortion.
Still, anti-abortion activists argue that neither would actually prevent tax money from being used.
The cardinal said the bishops don't speak for all Roman Catholics but do speak for the church on moral issues.
"We speak for the apostolic faith, and those who hold it gather round. The bishops in apostolic communion and in union with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, speak for the Church in matters of faith and in moral issues and the laws surrounding them. All the rest is opinion," he said, according to the National Catholic Register.
The outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops used his final speech to defend the bishops' opposition to health care reform. | <urn:uuid:0020c4d9-dea1-46b0-ac7d-3b33ba47427c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/cardinal-george-health-care-obama-108251244.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970647 | 373 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Coast Guard hearings underway to investigate sinking of HMS Bounty
Portsmouth, Va. – Coast Guard hearings are underway in Portsmouth to investigate the sinking of the HMS Bounty. That ship sank off the coast of Hatteras, North Carolina during Hurricane Sandy.
NewsChannel 3 investigator Mike Mather is inside the hearing and reports the Bounty first mate said the Bounty’s captain thought staying to the east of Sandy – and heading for Hatteras – was the safest way to weather the hurricane.
Crew members also report the Bounty’s captain fell in rough seas, and hurt his back, limiting his mobility.
The hearing is expected to last two days.
NewsChannel 3′s Mike Mather is reporting live, view his Tweets below:
- FBI agent kills alleged friend of Boston bombers in Orlando
- Woman and roommate accused of trying to cause miscarriage
- Gay Florida teenager faces charges over her underage girlfriend
- Man shot and killed after pinning James City County police officer between cars
- Suffolk mother sentenced after mooning bus full of kids | <urn:uuid:18a1c474-ee23-4e0d-8952-2530a1a1b05d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtkr.com/2013/02/12/hms-bounty-hearings-to-begin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950764 | 217 | 1.539063 | 2 |
5 minutes with
In 1993, three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated in the woods of West Memphis, Arkansas. Within weeks, police arrested teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. Basing its case on a coerced "confession" from Misskelley, who is mentally handicapped, the prosecution used the teenagers' interest in Metallica and black clothing to argue that the victims were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Despite the lack of physical evidence or connection to the victims, they were convicted of murder. Echols is on death row, and Baldwin and Misskelley are serving life sentences without parole. The case of the West Memphis Three, the subject of the Paradise Lost documentaries, has inspired nationwide activism. In Devil's Knot, award-winning journalist Mara Leveritt—who speaks Friday 5—outlines their story.
What's the status of the case?
All screwed up. There have been so many bad calls, mistakes and manipulations in the legal process. I named the book Devil's Knot because of the knots used to bind the victims, and the legal knot I saw binding the [convicted] teenagers. I see those legal knots getting more complex.
What's Damien, Jason and Jessie's reaction to the public support?
[It] has made a pretty unendurable situation endurable. It has let them know they are not forgotten, that there are people who feel outrage and have a commitment to effecting change. They have a connection that most inmates do not have.
Will this activism help?
Yes. The outside attention has raised awareness in Arkansas. People have come into this new, without the preconceptions [held] at the time of the events. They become more attuned to what goes on in the legal system... The expectation that [the system] will operate without flaw is going out the window—and cases like this accelerate it.—Annie Tomlin
Mara Leveritt discusses Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three at Barnes & Noble Friday 5. | <urn:uuid:edd041be-1fa2-47dc-8d37-f37c210d43f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timeoutchicago.com/things-to-do/35866/5-minutes-with?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945196 | 422 | 1.65625 | 2 |
UNC researchers reveal how a protein called Tet1 helps stem cells keep their “stemness” in a paper published in Nature.
UNC's Goldberg a Key Contributor
This news story was originally published on June 17, 2010 by Campbell University. Reprinted with permission
Evans is director of clinical cancer genetics at UNC Lineberger. Article originally published in the June 27, 2010 issue of Newsday. | <urn:uuid:fd79d7ca-5192-4872-b383-0e434f054b60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unclineberger.org/news?b_start:int=680 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977773 | 86 | 1.515625 | 2 |
As Ohio investigates claims that officials at least three school districts altered attendance records to boost scores on state report cards, state Superintendent of Schools Stan Heffner said this week that there's too much emphasis on those measures.
He recently told The Columbus Dispatch he felt "the report card over time has just taken on way too much importance."
Some local education officials agreed, saying that while the accountability measures are useful, the final numbers and overall ratings only tell part of the story.
"There is a lot of pressure" to do well on the report cards, said Jason Smith, director of teaching and learning for Marietta City Schools. "I think in the public's eyes we're judged by what's on that report card."
The Auditor of State's office announced this week it was expanding an investigation that started with allegations at schools in Columbus, Toledo and suburban Cincinnati retroactively changed data to improve their test scores. Now all schools and the Department of Education will be scrutinized after Auditor Dave Yost said in a letter to the state Board of Education president that the problem could be systemic.
On Wednesday, the Education Department announced the Lockland school district in suburban Cincinnati had filed false attendance data. The allegation is that 36 students were falsely reported as having left the district and added back to the rolls later. That break in enrollment resulted in their test scores not being counted toward the district's overall performance ranking.
Tentative release date for state report cards:
When Lockland's report card was amended, its overall rating dropped from "effective" to "continuous improvement," the next rating down.
Smith said he was at a conference where a consultant recommended districts un-enroll students who are suspended then re-enroll them, which would eliminate their effect on the test scores. While the individual said the practice was legal, Smith said Marietta did not adopt it.
"Number one, it's not the ethical thing to do," Smith said.
It's also hard to tell how that would affect test data since a suspension doesn't automatically mean the student would have poor scores.
Frontier Local Superintendent Bruce Kidder said picking and choosing which children are counted on the tests is "just terrible."
"If the student is yours, the student is yours," he said.
Kidder and Smith said there can be an over-emphasis on state report cards, especially when they're viewed out of context. For example, when the scores are announced and reported in the newspaper, all the schools in Washington County are lumped together in many people's eyes, which Kidder said is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
"We all start at different places, and we all have different resources," he said.
Smith noted the grades are determined by complex formulas that some people don't take the time to try and understand.
"It's not something that I think the average person might want to do," he said.
Based on preliminary data for the upcoming state report cards, Smith said Marietta saw scores rise in 11 of 19 categories. Yet the district did not meet the standards for "adequate yearly progress," which measures whether students are improving at the required rate.
"The average Joe Public just sees 'didn't make it'" and may not look at areas where improvements were made, Smith said.
Kidder said he's more concerned with the district's value-added score, which measures whether students learned a year's worth of material in a year's time.
"I worry about ... if we're going in the right direction," he said.
Warren Local Board of Education President Bob Allen said he's proud of the district's students, teachers and administrators for the "excellent" rating earned on last year's state report card. But he also believes there can be too much focus on the report cards.
"I think that we're putting our teachers as well as our administrators in very difficult positions," he said.
Allen said the ratings system creates a push to teach to the test, forcing teachers to move on to cover all the necessary material, even if some students may not be ready.
"Our teachers put in extra time and do extra assistance (for students) but they still have to move on," he said.
"I think we need to have a balance between the testing and the local teachers and the school district deciding what needs to be emphasized in the classroom," Allen said.
Kidder said the testing data can be valuable, as educators glean much more information from it than a glance at the report card can provide. They can identify specific areas, like nonfiction literature in English, where students may have struggled.
"We'll tear the data apart ... and see what areas we didn't do well in," he said.
While Kidder said he doesn't hear much from parents about the report card data, he invited any with questions about it to contact him.
Some parents do watch for the report card information.
"I used to pay attention to that," said Marietta resident Helen Hirschi, 53. "And I used to be emotional about that."
While she couldn't immediately recall the precise issue, Hirschi said concerns on a past state report card for Marietta High School led her and her husband to enroll their son in the Post-Secondary Enrollment Option classes at Washington State Community College. She said he's doing well in that environment and they plan to have their daughter go the same route. | <urn:uuid:62c2f145-86ce-4146-86ba-68a411c25e07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/545657/School-officials-critical--of-district-grading.html?nav=5002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98093 | 1,122 | 1.5 | 2 |
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — When the Bounty set sail last week, the captain running the ship made famous in Hollywood adventure films believed he could navigate around Hurricane Sandy and weather the storm. After two days in rough seas, he realized his journey would be far more difficult.
"I think we are going to be into this for several days," Robin Walbridge said in a message posted Sunday on the vessel's Facebook site, which reads like a ship's log of her activities. "We are just going to keep trying to go fast."
By Monday morning, the vessel had started taking on water, its engines failed and the crew of the stately craft had to abandon ship as it went down in the immense waves. One crew member died and Walbridge was still missing.
Most of the sailors were plucked from life rafts shortly after the ship went down, but Claudene Christian was found hours later, unresponsive and floating in the water. She was pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital, Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class David Weydert said.
The rest of the crew was in good condition.
By the time the first rescue helicopter arrived, all that was visible of the replica 18th-century sailing vessel was a strobe light atop the mighty ship's submerged masts. The roiling Atlantic Ocean had claimed the rest.
The final hours of the HMS Bounty, as it was officially named, were as dramatic as the movies she starred in.
"When a crew decides it's safer in an inflatable than it is on deck, then you know she's in peril," said Bill Foster, mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., a frequent winter port for the ship and where it had been expected to arrive in November.
The ship was originally built for the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring Marlon Brando, and it was featured in several other films over the years, including one of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.
Rochelle Smith, 44, met Christian this summer when they sailed the HMS Bounty in Nova Scotia.
"She loved the Bounty. She absolutely loved it. She was so happy to be on it and doing something that she found that she loved to do," said Smith, a medical transcriptionist who lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
The vessel left Connecticut on Thursday with a crew of 11 men and five women, ranging in age from 20 to 66. Everyone aboard knew the journey could be treacherous.
"This will be a tough voyage for Bounty," read a posting on the ship's Facebook page that showed a map of its coordinates and satellite images of the storm. Photos showed the majestic vessel plying deep blue waters and the crew working in the rigging or keeping watch on the wood-planked deck.
As Sandy's massive size became more apparent, a post on Saturday tried to soothe any worried supporters: "Rest assured that the Bounty is safe and in very capable hands. Bounty's current voyage is a calculated decision ... NOT AT ALL ... irresponsible or with a lack of foresight as some have suggested. The fact of the matter is ... A SHIP IS SAFER AT SEA THAN IN PORT!"
But as the storm gathered strength, the Facebook posts grew grimmer. By mid-morning Monday, the last update was short and ominous: "Please bear with us ... There are so many conflicting stories going on now. We are waiting for some confirmation."
Tracie Simonin, director of the HMS Bounty Organization, said the ship tried to stay clear of Sandy's power.
"It was something that we and the captain of the ship were aware of," Simonin said.
Coast Guard video of the rescue showed crew members being loaded one by one into a basket before the basket was hoisted into the helicopter.
When they returned to the mainland, some were wrapped in blankets, still wearing the blazing red survival suits they put on to stay warm in the chilly waters.
"It's one of the biggest seas I've ever been in. It was huge out there," said Coast Guard rescue swimmer Randy Haba, who helped pluck four crew members off one of the canopied life rafts and a fifth who was bobbing alone in the waves.
A helicopter pilot said the waves appeared to be 30 feet high during the rescue. The Coast Guard said in a news release that waves in many places topped out around 18 feet.
The survivors received medical attention and were to be interviewed for a Coast Guard investigation. The Coast Guard did not make them available to reporters.
Gary Farber was watching crewman Doug Faunt's house while his friend sailed. He hasn't heard from Faunt directly, but made sure he relayed Faunt's Facebook postings he made as the ship went down, including "The ship sank beneath us, but we swam free and mostly got into two rafts."
"Doug is a jack-of-all-trades, but I am surprised he was able to get his cellphone and send messages as the ship went down," Farber said by telephone of his friend.
The mother of another crew member, 20-year-old Anna Sprague, said her daughter had been aboard the Bounty since May.
Mary Ellen Sprague, of Savannah, Ga., said she had spoken with her daughter twice but didn't know many details because her daughter, normally talkative and outgoing, was being uncharacteristically quiet.
"She's very upset," Sprague said by telephone.
The crew was eager to return to St. Petersburg — and to calmer waters.
"I know they were very much looking forward to being here," said Carol Everson, general manager of the pier where the vessel docks. "They were very excited about coming down."
The Bounty's captain was from St. Petersburg, she said.
Wallbridge learned to sail at age 10, according to his biography on the Bounty's website. Prior to the Bounty, he served as first mate on the H.M.S. Rose — the Bounty's sister ship.
"The ship was almost like his home," said Smith, who met Walbridge in 2010 when she sailed the Bounty. "That's where he spent most of his time was aboard the ship. He was so full of history and so interesting to talk to. And he knew his sailing stuff."
A man who answered the door at a home listed as being owned by the captain and his wife said: "Not a good time," and closed the door. | <urn:uuid:973e59b3-e823-490b-acbc-1c26fa898066> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2012-10-30/1-dead-captain-missing-after-sandy-claims-ship | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990515 | 1,344 | 1.71875 | 2 |
There are no broke windows when playing Wiffle Ball, and every back yard can become Fenway Park. Uploaded by pitchyourtalent.wordpress.com.
It’s the only game where Justin Verlander can try to strike out Babe Ruth, and Albert Pujols can take Sandy Koufax deep. Take a simple plastic ball with eight holes in it, and a plastic bat, and you can have Fenway Park in your back yard.
Uploaded by media.nj.com.
The official Wiffle Ball was created back in 1953 by a man named David Mullany in Connecticut. His ball is easy to curve, and harder to hit. One that stays in the back yard. And one that doesn’t break windows.
My boys played their version of Wiffle Ball (it’s actually trademarked) in our back yard for hours on end. The ball is easily cracked, unfortunately, so they’d wrap it with duct tape and keep on playing. We had a couple of trips to the emergency room along the way (partly a factor of the six years difference in their ages), but they loved playing – just as untold thousands of kids across America have for almost 60 years.
It’s amazing what some people can do with this ball:
It's easy to share with friends. | <urn:uuid:dede9bc4-b6a0-4bd3-8a00-ae56fdeabb62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greatamericanthings.net/americana/wiffle-ball/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96775 | 279 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Persistent clouds and showers that largely tapered off after the morning have kept us quite cool this afternoon. Today’s highs mainly in the upper 60s and low 70s are right on target -- for late April. In fact, Dulles may end up breaking a record for the lowest high temperature on this date (previously 71). But, fear not... it’s about to turn toasty!
Through Tonight: I would not expect much more rain, but with additional showers and t’showers still to our west, it’s certainly possible we get a little more. The risk should dwindle after midnight though. While it might have been cool today, dew points are on the rise, and that means lows probably don’t dip much further than the mid-60s.
Tomorrow (Tuesday): Clouds should break, though we’ll still run into some of ‘em here and there. Let’s call it partly cloudy. Otherwise, the idea that warmer days are right ahead should start to be known as highs head for the mid-80s to near 90.
Where have the tornadoes gone? May was quiet when it comes to tornadoes. Very quiet. Preliminary numbers put it as one of the calmest on record, and there are no signs of any real resurgence heading through what usually marks the end of the main season.
Pollen update: Prior to today’s rain: Tree pollen was LOW; Grass pollen was LOW/MODERATE; Weed pollen was LOW/MODERATE; and mold spores were LOW. | <urn:uuid:fb2e838e-716d-42b8-8b47-7c84f34aae82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/pm-update-small-rain-risk-into-the-night-then-turning-warmer-tomorrow/2012/06/18/gJQAf9B2lV_blog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968257 | 328 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Requiring DNA test for dogs living in condo complexes is now officially a trend, with yet another condo association demanding that canine-owning residents provide samples of their furry friends’ DNA so they can identify those pooches that poop in public.
The complex in Hollywood, FL., along with two other nearby complexes operated by the same management company, join the ranks of these Northern Virginia condominiums and these apartments in Lebanon, NH, that have turned to dog DNA testing to curb the poo problem.
At Hollywood Station Condominium on Hollywood Blvd. and Dixie Hwy, residents will soon have to subject their dogs to DNA tests so their association can track down who’s not picking up after their pets.
“We give notices, we’ve been giving notices,” the manager of the Florida complex tells CBS Miami. “I’ve been here 3 years and really the behavior hasn’t changed.”
Thus, residents with dogs will now need to have their pets’ cheeks swabbed and sent to a lab. And whenever poop is found on complex grounds, someone will have the enviable job of not only picking it up, but sending off a sample for testing. If the doodie DNA matches any of the doggie DNA on file, the owner will be slapped with a fine.
“$150 and then after that I think it goes up a little bit more,” says one tenant. “150 bucks for some poop is a pretty big deal.”
The manager says she she doesn’t want to resort to fines and hopes that owners knowing they will be caught will put an end to the pooping.
“If nothing else, it’s going to change behavior,” she says.
Unlike the Virginia condo, where residents were up in arms about not only having to submit to the testing, but about having to fork over money for the tests, the cost of the DNA tests at the Florida condos will be covered by the $350 deposit pet owners have already put down. | <urn:uuid:dbf50361-14fa-45f2-a2b7-d9a8085f708a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://consumerist.com/2012/08/20/yet-another-condo-complex-requires-tenants-to-provide-doggie-dna/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958772 | 429 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Local Technical Assistance
IMPORTANT NOTE: There is a newer home page for the LTA program, where you can find all the latest information.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) has begun partnering with the first wave of local communities identified for planning assistance through the agency's new initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of the federal interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. CMAP is working with 64 local governments, nonprofits, and intergovernmental organizations to address local issues at the intersection of transportation, land use, and housing, including the natural environment, economic growth, and community development. Work has begun on several projects, including:
- Neighborhood planning for the Greater Englewood, Washington Park, and Woodlawn community areas in Chicago
- Interjurisdictional housing planning involving south and west Cook County municipalities
- A comprehensive plan for the City of Blue Island, in southwest Cook County
- A land use and infrastructure plan for the Fairmont area, a community in unincorporated Will County
- Integrated water management analysis (stormwater, wastewater, and supply) in Lake Zurich, a municipality in Lake County
Even as these first projects begin, CMAP is working to prioritize others that are next in line among over 220 proposals the agency received from more than 130 municipalities, counties, interjurisdictional groups, and nongovernmental organizations that responded to a call for projects in early 2011.
These local planning assistance activities are made possible through a three-year $4.25 million HUD award. In today's challenging economic and fiscal times, many communities have difficulty allocating enough resources to plan for their futures as proactively as they would like to. At the same time, proactive planning is necessary for our region's continued economic prosperity.
The HUD-funded effort is helping fill this gap by making staff resources and grants available to assist with local planning projects that help to implement GO TO 2040, the regional comprehensive plan. Recognizing the central role that communities have in shaping the future of our region, the plan calls for CMAP and other groups to support local planning projects. This will give communities the opportunity to request CMAP's assistance on important local planning projects of many types. Most assistance will be in the form of staff time, though small supporting grants to accompany staff assistance are also available.
The LTA home page has details of activities sponsored by the HUD Sustainable Communities grant to CMAP for support of community projects that advance the principles of GO TO 2040. Planning assistance and grants for local projects across metropolitan Chicago are now available through the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Community Planning Program and CMAP Local Technical Assistance Program at www.rtachicago.com/applications.
An interactive map of local case studies describes projects and people that exemplify the goals and objectives of GO TO 2040.
CMAP's Local Ordinances and Toolkits program provides resources to municipalities interested in pursuing policies that are aligned with GO TO 2040 recommendations. | <urn:uuid:fcc213c8-1117-438e-805e-903e62b5f6cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/moving-forward-in-detail/-/asset_publisher/Q4En/content/local-technical-assistance?isMovingForward=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937048 | 618 | 1.640625 | 2 |
I’m redoing our kitchen and constantly quarrelling with my wife over the layout, something of little interest to me. It’s quite clear that the source of her frustration is that she knows what she doesn’t like but has no idea of what she really wants in terms definite enough to proceed with construction. Asking me just to build her a kitchen that she’ll love doesn’t work well for me. In the meantime, there’s not much cooking.
The Idle No More movement seems to have a familiar ring to it. We hear a lot of protesting about what First Nations don’t like and very little of what exactly it is that they do want. Terms such as recognition, consultation and respect are somewhat nebulous; the kitchen will never get built without concrete, well-defined specifications.
With most other groups that try to hold the public to ransom, the demands are usually finite and well spelled-out: a sovereign nation, freedom of prisoners, lump-sum payments, with Islamic terrorists perhaps being an exception.
So let us hear in very clear language what exactly it is that each First Nation wants. How much money, which lands and what rights they want, over and above what the rest of us have. Perhaps when we all have a very clear idea of what it is they want in this new kitchen, we can determine whether we can afford it.
Let’s quit idling and get this kitchen finished so I can get back to work.
© Copyright 2013 | <urn:uuid:27eeffa5-b142-4302-af81-2793c1e27ba7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/letters/idle-no-more-needs-concrete-specifications-1.67580 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96893 | 315 | 1.75 | 2 |
Now GOP officials have begun a campaign to suppress segments of the Democratic vote that elected President Obama in 2008. Newly elected GOP governors and state legislators have passed a series of measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities and the elderly from voting.
"I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. Republican leverage in the elections goes up as the voting populace goes down." Well, the GOP is at it again, and it's criminal. There should, and will be lawsuits to try to stop this chicanery.
To be fair, Democrats in the past have used this tactic also. When they were partially the party of the "rednecks," in the 1960s, the "Dixiecrats" (very conservative and in some cases racist Democrats) used poll taxes and literacy tests to stop African-American Southerners from voting, and that too was criminal.
A campaign orchestrated by Weyrich, the American Legislative Exchange Coun-cil (ALEC) and largely funded by the Koch Bros. is underway. Thirty-eight states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters that would probably vote for Democrats. And you wonder why Democrats and Independents are angry with the GOP?
According to investigative reporter Matt Taibi,
Five states - Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia - cut short their early voting periods. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures - Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin - will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots." The problem is, more than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such ID, especially among African-Americans and the young.
President Clinton says, "One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."
Rachel Maddow reports that in Pueblo County, Colorado, the County Clerk and Recorder Gilberto Ortiz says he was instructed by his GOP boss not to send ballots to troops overseas.
The Republicans response is they are concerned about voter fraud. This is a canard and a bad joke. Voter fraud using one of their scenarios is almost non-existent. If you recall, in 2006, the Bush Justice Department fired two U.S. attorneys who refused to pursue trumped-up cases of voter fraud in New Mexico and Washington. Fox News was relentless in their claim that community organizers like ACORN were recruiting fake voters to cast ballots for Democrats, but they had no evidence.
A Justice Department investigation from 2002 to 2007 failed to prosecute one person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for fraud - and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility.
Young people gave Presi-dent Obama a victory in 2008 with a 22 percent margin and supported Congressional Democrats in 2010 by 17 percent. They want investments in innovation, education, infrastructure, and renewable energy. They support a health care overhaul and union workers' rights. These are anathema to Republicans.
Therefore the Tea Party, other right-wing Republicans and their corporate shills are resorting to cheating, rather than exercising fair debate on the issues.
Voting is the most basic right of every American citizen. As a person in the Occupy movement said, "The corporate types have taken our jobs, they've taken our houses, they've taken our health care, and now they're trying to take our vote." And incredibly, the Super Committee's failure was primarily because the GOP nixed the Democrats' deal to cut entitlements, as the GOP refused to raise taxes on millionaires. Even committee member GOP Senator Rob Portman said as much.
Just released from prison, GOP super lobbyist Jack Abramoff told NBC's David Gregory that presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House, "Newt Gingrich is one of those people who come to use their public service and access to make money.
Newt's engaged in the exact kind of corruption that America disdains. It's the very thing that angers both the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement." | <urn:uuid:9cd07a90-2b74-468f-ae63-c443184619b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.paradisepost.com/opinion/ci_19430432 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967671 | 916 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Friday, January 29, 2010
Coaches vs. Cancer® Suits and Sneakers awareness weekend, a collaborative initiative of the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), is slated for the weekend of Jan. 29-31, 2010. Participating NABC member coaches will wear sneakers instead of dress shoes with their suits during weekend games to demonstrate their support for the American Cancer Society and its vision of a world with less cancer and more birthdays. Basketball fans are also encouraged to wear sneakers to games that weekend to show their support.
The Lipscomb basketball coaches will don sneakers Saturday when the Bisons face off against ETSU.
This year will mark the inaugural Suits and Sneakers Challenge and Wear Your Sneakers to Work Day as employees of local companies are encouraged to give a $5 or more donation in order to wear their sneakers to work. This effort will raise funds and awareness to save lives from cancer. Companies may also choose to match their employees’ donations to double their impact of raising funds. Visit coachesvscancer.org to learn more.
By lacing up sneakers with their suits, college and high school basketball coaches nationwide will spotlight the fact that while cancer remains a major health concern, everyone can take daily steps to reduce their risk of the disease. For those who do not smoke, weight control, exercise and a healthy diet are the best ways to improve health and reduce cancer risk. Obesity has been shown to increase the risk for many forms of cancer, including breast, prostate, and colon cancers and may account for 20 percent of cancer deaths in women and 14 percent in men.
However, according to a 2006 survey, only eight percent of people understand that excess weight is so strongly linked to cancer risk, while more than 80 percent know of the link between overweight and heart disease. Overweight and obesity are of particular concern in minority populations, with higher rates of both reported for Hispanic men and women and for African American women, than for non-Hispanic white adults.
“The personal involvement of these coaches in the Coaches vs. Cancer program creates an invaluable opportunity to reach so many people about how to reduce their risk of cancer, and, particularly, about the important roles that regular exercise and a healthy diet play,” said George W.P. Atkins, 2009-10 national volunteer chair, American Cancer Society Board of Directors. “Coaches vs. Cancer continues to be an integral part of the Society’s commitment to save lives by helping people stay well, by helping them get well, by finding cures and by fighting back against the disease.”
"I am honored to again serve as chair of the Coaches vs. Cancer Coaches Council and to stand alongside my fellow coaches across the country in doing all we can to help the American Cancer Society fight for every birthday threatened by this disease,” said Gary Williams, University of Maryland head coach. “Suits and Sneakers awareness weekend is a great way to remind basketball coaches and fans alike about taking an active role in reducing our own risk of cancer and in fighting back on behalf of those who face a cancer diagnosis.”
In addition to Williams, other active Coaches vs. Cancer Coaches Council members are: Jim Boeheim (Syracuse); Mike Brey (Notre Dame); Jim Calhoun (Connecticut); Bobby Cremins (College of Charleston); Ed DeChellis (Penn State); Fran Dunphy (Temple); Mark Few (Gonzaga); Jeff Gamber (York College); Lon Kruger (UNLV); Mike Krzyzewski (Duke); Phil Martelli (Saint Joseph’s); Oliver Purnell (Clemson); Orlando “Tubby” Smith (Minnesota); Bruce Weber (Illinois); and Roy Williams (North Carolina).
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of college and high school coaches and fans across the country, Coaches vs. Cancer participants have raised more than $55 million since 1993 to help the Society fund groundbreaking cancer research, provide up-to-date cancer information and education, advocate for public health policies that benefit communities, and deliver services that improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Additional information is available at coachesvscancer.org
Several events throughout 2010 will continue to highlight the productive work of Coaches vs. Cancer, including Fight Cancer In Style – an event for coaches’ wives during NCAA Final Four weekend, April 3-5 in Indianapolis; the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Golf Invitational, June 13-14 at the Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y.; and the annual 2K Sports Classic benefitting Coaches vs. Cancer (12-team nationwide basketball tournament) in November.
The American Cancer Society combines an unyielding passion with nearly a century of experience to save lives and end suffering from cancer. As a global grassroots force of more than three million volunteers, we fight for every birthday threatened by every cancer in every community. We save lives by helping people stay well by preventing cancer or detecting it early; by helping people get well by being there for them during and after a cancer diagnosis; by finding cures through investment in groundbreaking discovery; and by fighting back by rallying lawmakers to pass laws to defeat cancer and by rallying communities worldwide to join the fight. As the nation’s largest non-governmental investor in cancer research, contributing about $3.4 billion, we turn what we know about cancer into what we do. As a result, more than 11 million people in America who have had cancer and countless more who have avoided it will be celebrating birthdays this year. To learn more about us or to get help, call us anytime, day or night, at 1-800-227-2345 or visit cancer.org.
|Copyright ©2013 Lipscomb University Athletics. All Rights Reserved.||www.LipscombSports.com| | <urn:uuid:f8b0bf36-44f8-4972-8160-cd2ff78107dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lipscombsports.com/news/archives-print/2009-10/5267/basketball-coaches-to-wear-sneakers-against-etsu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951988 | 1,210 | 1.617188 | 2 |
"The West LRT line is a shining example of our government's commitment to connecting residents with the people and services important to them and to supporting municipalities as they plan for the future," said Premier Alison Redford. "Together, we are building better communities."
"This is a great day for all Calgarians, especially those in west Calgary," said Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi. "A healthy public transit system is a critical part of a working, sustainable city. This major improvement to Calgary's transit system will greatly improve transportation in the west by providing a fast and efficient way to downtown and around the city for 105,000 residents currently living there."
The CA$1.4-billion (US$1.418-billion) project is one of the largest infrastructure endeavors ever undertaken by The city of Calgary. It is expected to carry 25,000 passengers along 8.2 kilometers (six miles) between downtown and 69 Street S.W. in just 12 minutes. Ridership is projected to grow to more than 40,000 passengers per day over the next few years.
The West LRT project includes six new stations, major roadway upgrades, construction of a new interchange and a new high school.
The LRT line will provide higher quality public transit service than the current bus-only service. The LRT will give users a direct, traffic-free way to get to downtown and various facilities around the city.
The project was funded by the city of Calgary and the government of Alberta. Alberta's CA$1.3-billion (US$1.316 billion) investment was comprised of CA$934 million (US$946 million) from the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI), CA$332 million (US 336 million) from the Green Transit Initiatives Program (GreenTRIP) and CA$50 million (US$50.6 million) from other provincial funding sources.
In addition to the CA$332 million (US$336 million) for the West LRT line, Calgary will receive CA$133 million (US$135 million) for the purchase of at least 50 new LRT cars and CA$8 million (US$ 8. Million) for the pre-design of the Southeast Transitway (SETWAY) project from GreenTRIP. The city is sharing the cost of these initiatives with the province.
Also in Calgary, the Downtown West-Kerby Station opened for service on Dec. 10, 2012, which marks the completion of the 7 Avenue Light-Rail-Transit Corridor Refurbishment Project.
Construction began in 2007 on 10 new stations to replace aging CTrain stations and sidewalks in the downtown area in order to improve customer service and accommodate four-car trains. In addition to constructing new stations, with sidewalks integrated directly from adjacent buildings onto each platform, corridor upgrades created a more pedestrian-friendly environment with wider sidewalks, improved lighting and enhanced streetscapes between stations.
The opening of the Downtown West-Kerby Station ties the downtown corridor into the West LRT line.
The total cost of the 7 Avenue Corridor Refurbishment Project totaled CA$183.3 million (US$185.6 million). The federal government provided CA$79.8 million (US$80.8 million), the government of Alberta provided CA$89.9 million (US$91 million) and the city of Calgary contributed CA$13.6 million (US$13.7 million). | <urn:uuid:19d59296-3fb5-4059-8469-597a10079f1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rtands.com/index.php/passenger/rapid-transit-light-rail/calgarys-open-west-lrt-completes-7-avenue-project.html?channel= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935559 | 706 | 1.820313 | 2 |
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
W. H. Auden
According to Auden's Law, most of the plays of Thornton Wilder are a poor source for operatic material: deliberately unsensational, they often deal with lives that are determinedly sensible. But last week audiences in Mannheim, Germany, saw Wilder's one-act play, The Long Christmas Dinner, successfully transformed into opera by that master craftsman of contemporary musicComposer Paul Hindemith.
Composer and playwright met more than a decade ago when Hindemith was teaching at Yale. They discussed the possibility of setting one of Wilder's plays to music,... | <urn:uuid:6ceb0d66-7699-4553-a8db-d61e99a678d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827206,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955821 | 148 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Traveling – to go from one place to another, as by car, train, plane, or ship; take a trip; journey: to travel for pleasure.
Traveling, it’s a word that is exciting for most; traveling to see friends, family or to take that much deserved vacation. For those with Celiac Disease, Gluten Sensitivities or those with life threatening allergies traveling has a completely different meaning, and for many that is FEAR!
This Autumn we are planning our first family vacation which requires flying to our destination. The thought of sitting on a plane for more than 4 hours with my son who is environmentally sensitive to gluten is not pleasant. The thought of arriving at our destination with a little boy who will be sick for 3 to 4 days and covered in a rash is even less appealing. I can’t ask the airline to scrub down the plane nor can I request that all passengers refrain from eating grain containing products prior to, or during the flight. I can however take precautions, and plan ahead for emergencies.
This past April I took a business trip and it was a total disaster. Without going into details I learned a very valuable lesson. Even though I had followed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Guidelines and Procedures there is still much confusion amongst those working for the TSA. I can not afford to have another incident like I had in April while traveling with my son, so I have not only contacted the TSA, but several airlines to obtain information regarding their policies and procedures. This is what I have found.
The TSA has a Customer Service Center (1-866-289-9673), so if you need clarification, or cannot find information on their website http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/index.shtm
this is the place to start. I have also found that each airport has a TSA Customer Service Supervisor. Since we will be traveling through 3 airports I was given the name and number of each supervisor and contacted them directly. All of the supervisors were very understanding of the situation, answered my questions, and gave me instructions to call them directly, a few days before our flights. They will note our flight information and brief the TSA Agents on Duty to be expecting us. Mind you it’s going to be hard to miss the D-Man with his Rock and Roll hair and a surgical type face mask covering his mouth.
I also explained that if a TSA agent needed to touch our belongings he or she would need to put on a fresh pair of gloves, this was acceptable to each Supervisor I spoke with. I confirmed with both the TSA and the Airlines that I would be permitted to travel with a small cooler, one that would fit under the seat or into an overhead bin. This is necessary because several of the D-Man’s medications need to be refrigerated. I would recommend contacting the airline directly as each seems to have different policies on cooling methods. The TSA allows Dry Ice, and Ice Gel Packs, but Continental prefers that no dry ice be on board their planes. I also confirmed with the airlines that I will be permitted early boarding to disinfect the area where we will be sitting, and I will be allowed to cover the D-Man’s seat with a throw/blanket.
I know all of this may sound like overkill, but I have found it’s best to err on the side of caution. The other item of note is while many items we will need for our trip will be packed in our checked luggage, other items will be mailed to the hotel. The manager I spoke with had no problem accepting a package for us, and will have the box in our room when we arrive. This will not only save time and money but ensure that we will have many of the “safe” items we need to make our trip stress free.
Planning for this vacation is far from over. I’m still in the process of contacting hotels for the second leg of our journey, rental car companies, grocery stores and restaurants, but progress is being made. I will keep you updated, and hopefully what I learn will make your next travel experience a little easier. If you have suggestions to make traveling easier, I would love to hear from you! | <urn:uuid:4aea0251-7277-45ca-8211-618de0ca1e26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livingglutenandgrainfree.com/2011/06/21/traveling-with-celiac-disease-or-severe-allergies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970363 | 870 | 1.570313 | 2 |
“People who ran wars needed maps” –Christopher Priest, The Islanders
A few days ago I learned that Christopher Priest had a new novel, which turned out to be The Islanders (All men are islands it adds on the cover but not the copyright page). Actually I heard about it in reference to his remarks about the Arthur C. Clarke not having any worthy finalists this year and speculation that he made the comments because this book was not shortlisted. (Later it was announced that it had won the BSFA Award.)
I obtained the book and have now read it. It’s set in Priest’s Dream Archipelago and is his first “novel” for nine years. It’s written as an apparent gazetteer of the islands in alphabetical order of the official island names, from Aay to Yannet. The islands also have patois names such as “Descent,” “Bearer of Messages” and “Path Followed” which are what is used in the listing at the front, making it hard to look up an island if you need to check something (as you will).
The book is written in a terse, attractive style that I found readable and unusually compelling. If you’ve read Priest’s previous novels, particularly of course the Dream Archipelago collection or The Affirmation, this style will be very familiar to you. Priest’s work deals with the reality of the porousness of the boundary between reality and imagination. That is, like most novels, it is liminal: you are half in and half out of the imaged world. (This itself is a form of twinning; of saying that our knowledge and experience of reality is not independent from the way we imagine it to be, a motif going back to Kant.) This creates new geographical landscapes. I met Priest once at a signing ceremony at a Worldcon (’79?) and garnered a personally dedicated autograph in my hardback copy of Inverted World. The book had a lot of influence on my understanding of space, and along with Philip K. Dick helped provide a mental guide to my studies in cognitive mapping over the next decade, first as an undergraduate at Liverpool, then in the US at Penn State.
The Islanders‘ gazetteer structure, although maintained throughout the book, quickly becomes a number of other things which can be thought of as either short stories or facets of other things. One entry for example, is the story of a young man getting a job as a stage assistant on a distant island, and his run-in with the popular mime performer known as Commis. There’s a death onstage involving a large sheet of glass (there are some parallels here to the Last Transported Man trick in Priest’s The Prestige, although without the “prestige materials” of that book). The nature of these entries varies. The first one we encounter, for the uninhabited island Aubrac Grande or Aubrac Chain (it has no patois name) contains long excerpts from the journal of the scientist after whom it is named, Jaem Aubrac, an entomologist from Tumo University. While on these islands his research team encountered a strange and deadly insect, the Thryme. These can grow to 15-20 cm in length, and roll themselves into a protective ball when approached. They are very deadly, their hairs can penetrate thick gloves, and they have large pincers. If one of these touches or bites you, death is inevitable, although not right away as they appear to lay embryos in you along with a deadly poison.
One review online complained that there is no “big reveal” to the book (I’m trying not to call it a novel). But you should be careful what you wish for! Priest as you may know, has a fascination with magic, doubling and twins, which comes to the fore in his book The Prestige. So any “reveal” will almost certainly be misleading. (Funnily enough there’s a website for a magician by the name of Chris Priest! I’ve not yet ruled out that this is a dummy website put up by the author.)
This fascination comes in part from the fact that Priest himself is the father of twins but I suspect there’s more to it than that. Twins evokes the notion of the double, but in Priest’s work there is is also the sense that the other is folded into the other. That is, to investigate one character is to find the other embedded, and so on (like the yin-yang symbol). This causes multiple identity problems as you can imagine. These are not just of one character to another, but can sometimes “escape” the fiction. As we read The Islanders for example, we learn about Moylita Kaine, who writes to the famous novelist Chaster Kammerston (who provides the Preface for this book). As Kaine matures (nice homage to Michael Caine here, who played a character in the movie version of The Prestige) she soon becomes a published novelist herself. Her first book is The Affirmation, which she dedicates to Kammerston. At this point, I had to retrieve my copy of the Affirmation from the bookshelf (I think this was my first ever hardback purchase, of the British first edition, and I see I’ve inscribed it “15 ii 1982 Liverpool” which means I bought it as an undergraduate, for the then costly sum of £6.25). It does contain a dedication (“To M.L. and L.M.”) as does the Islanders (“To Esla”) which happens to be the name of the writer and social reformer Esla Caurer, who is a central figure in the book.
An important theme of the Islanders is that the Dream Archipelago is not truly knowable as a coherent whole. Only local parts of it can be known and mapped. (There is a parallel here to the history of cartography itself, from large-scale or local mappings into coherent national atlases. Or indeed with other kinds of knowledges that dream of becoming universal, such as Pliny’s 36-volume Natural History, or Herodotus’ The Histories.) Part of the given reason for this in the book are the temporal and visual distortions that occur, particularly near those islands on the Equator. This concept was introduced in The Affirmation, and it means for example that it is not possible to photograph the islands and map them, although partial local maps can be made.
In The Affirmation the protagonist Peter Sinclair holes up in a friend’s country cottage to try and recover from the effects of a damaging love affair with his girlfriend, Gracia. He does the cottage up, painting it a nice clean white, and produces a long autobiographical manuscript. As he writes however, he finds it easier to write metaphorically about a world with a large chain of islands: the Dream Archipelago. London becomes “Jethra.” Soon, he enters the archipelago, where he meets Seri, with whom he begins an affair. One of the features of the Dream Archipelago is that there is a treatment that can make you immortal, a so-called “Athanasian” (from the Greek a-thanatos, not-dying). There is a side effect of this treatment however, which is that you lose all memory of your past life. (This procedure is briefly mentioned in The Islanders.) If you accept the treatment (and only a very few have that opportunity) you have to rebuild your life. In Peter’s case he uses a manuscript he wrote about two years previously. But again, it is written metaphorically, where Jethra becomes “London”…
The impossibility of total mapping in The Islanders immediately casts the idea of a gazetteer in doubt, and indeed Kammeston in the Preface offers the opinion that the “foreknowledge these gazetteers are so keen to impart will always be irrelevant.” Even here however, there is doubt. From internal evidence it appears that parts of the gazetteer were written by Kammeston himself, while other parts are written by his identical twin brother, Wolter. Yet later in the book we attend the death and funeral of Chaster. If he died, how did he write the Preface to this book, which contains his death? Did he write the whole book as a complete fiction (ie., is he Christopher Priest?)
As someone with cartographic interests I very much appreciated the way it is not possible to “map” the islands. There’s even a Meequa Cartographic Institute (MCI) in the entry for the twin islands of Meequa / Tremm, which are known in patois as Bearer of Messages / Fast Wanderer. The Institute uses a large fleet or swarm of drones which it releases several times a day. These drones which are solar-powered, can fly for days on end, and they have proximity sensors that allow them to fly together without crashing. As they fly around the islands, they can therefore collect imagery which can be composited together into a map (This is real, see Vijay Kumar’s GRASP lab and swarm drone demos.) Since the drones are autonomous, and fly independently, Priest introduces the charming idea that they can become “captured” by a particular set of terrain or islands, flying around repeatedly (like an asteroid being captured by the sun’s gravitational field). Some 30 islands are said to have attendant captured drones in this manner.
The possibility of only local maps itself mirrors the book’s overall theme, and one might say of much of Priest’s work in general. There can be no overall summary or apprehension of its content. It is only possible to know things in one local area, but it is also not possible to just add these local areas up into a larger map. There are practical obstacles (most of the drone imagery is of ocean surface or does not match up to other imagery). But more importantly there are philosophical obstacles. Knowledge is ultimately subjective, which does not make it less, but rather more real. Everything is connected, but that doesn’t mean it can be known as a whole. (A Google Earth of the Archipelago would be impossible.) Everything is ultimately in doubt, although for most of the time this doesn’t bother people too much.
A number of links to earlier books are evident for those keen to spot them, such as names of places and islands like Ia, which is mentioned in The Affirmation. However, the main city of that book, Jethra (/London) while mentioned here is not featured in the gazetteer, since in fact it is not in the islands but in Faiand, the main country to the north. But the book can be read on its own if you haven’t read the earlier books.
Priest apparently has apparently already got a new novel in preparation and has done a stageplay of his book The Prestige. | <urn:uuid:66e381f5-f143-4fc9-93d6-724ed4659e8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opengeography.wordpress.com/tag/islands/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965235 | 2,333 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Fiscal crises don't stop the legislative process.
Here is a sample of bills introduced at the City Council lately, some of which are destined to drift about in legislative purgatory. The council is ready to consider bills that include requiring food inspector grades be posted on street carts to mandating a super majority for tax hikes.
Watching Stimulus Funds
The city is eligible to receive millions -- if not billions -- of dollars in stimulus funding from the federal government as part of the stimulus package approved earlier this year. Already, the city has received $271 million in funding for transportation projects.
To keep track of it all, Councilmember Bill de Blasio, who is a candidate for public advocate, introduced legislation (Intro 957) that would create a Web site detailing all of the stimulus funds awarded to the city. Recipients of funds, according to the bill, would have to give monthly progress reports and detail how the project would increase economic activity in the city.
The site would be called SunlightNYC.
“Without accountability, we risk another AIG," said de Blasio in a prepared statement. "SunlightNYC will require all stimulus spending to be tracked and transparent. The public deserves to know how their money is being spent, down to the last dollar."
City agencies would also have to detail what projects did not receive federal funding that they applied for.
The Bloomberg administration has launched a stimulus tracker detailing the types of funding the city can receive, and the projects that have been awarded federal money.
Posting Food Grades
The city already grades schools, why not pass or fail city food vendors? That is the question Councilmember Daniel Garodnick is asking.
Under legislation (Intro 958) introduced by Garodnick, the city would be required to give laminated grade placards to vendors 72 hours after inspections. Vendors would have to then post visibly on their carts at all times.
Noticing Foreclosed Properties
Under legislation (Intro 959) also introduced by Garodnick, any bank or individual issuing a foreclosure on a property with more than six units would have to notify all of the tenants of the building.
A similar bill introduced by Councilmember Thomas White (Intro 956) would require an entity notify tenants in buildings with between one and five units.
They would have to notify the tenants within ten days of the action, if not, the entity could be subject to a $1,000 fine per day.
In 2008, according to the council, bank robberies increased by 50 percent.
In hopes of curbing that trend, Councilmember Oliver Koppell introduced legislation (Intro 960) that would require all banks install bulletproof glass at teller windows. The legislation would not apply to atm machines.
If banks fail to comply, they could be fined up to $1,500 under the bill.
Super Majority for Taxes
The council's Republican trio wants to curb taxes. Despite Democrats more than super majority over the governing body, members Jimmy Oddo, Vincent Ignizio and newcomer Eric Ulrich want to require an official super-majority for any approval of a tax hike.
The bill (Intro 961 ) would require any fee, tax increase or decrease be approved by two-thirds of the City Council instead of a simple majority. That means 34 votes in the affirmative instead of 26.
Council Member Salaries
Councilmember Tony Avella, a mayoral candidate, introduced legislation (Intro 946) that would ban any City Council member salary increase within 30 days of a general, primary or special election. Any increase the council approves would not take effect until after the next general election, according to the bill.
Avella voted against the council's pay increase in 2006, which upped salaries from $90,000 to $112,500.
“The purpose of this legislation is to prevent the travesty that occurred in 2006 when the City Council voted itself a 25 percent pay increase," Avella said in a prepared statement. "It is sheer self interest when a legislative body votes to increase the salaries of its current members and only serves to further erode the public’s trust of the body as a whole and of each individual member."
After a drunken driver stole an idling car and killed two pedestrians in Middle Village, Queens in February, Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley set out to prevent it from happening again.
Crowley introduced legislation (Intro 947) that would increase the fine for leaving a vehicle unattended and idling from $5 to $250.
Though the city has had idling legislation in place since the 1970s, it has been sporadically enforced. Earlier this year, the council passed legislation to step up that enforcement by allowing sanitation and parks officials to issue tickets for idling. The council also recently passed legislation implementing stricter idling guidelines in school zones.
Fire Commissioner Power
The city's fire commissioner has a lot of discretion. He or she can close firehouses -- if fiscal times require -- as he or she sees fit, but needs to notify the council.
Now, Councilmember de Blasio would also like to have the commissioner notify the council when ambulance routes are terminated permanently -- or for more than six months. The legislation ( Intro 949) would require the department notify the City Council 45 days before a route was eliminated. Ambulance services are within the fire department's budget.
The administration is proposing to do away with 30 EMS routes this budget cycle, which many council members were caught by surprise by.
Retirement Age for NYPD
Legislation ( Intro 953) introduced by Councilmember Peter Vallone would increase the city Police Department's mandatory retirement age from 63 to 65.
Last Updated (Jun 06, 2012) | <urn:uuid:177a2ad3-cea8-4d38-af93-2e95e5324873> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/state/185-new-bills-tracking-stimulus-and-unattended-idlers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95894 | 1,186 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Where Do You Turn For Research Guidance?
First Line of Help
When I am trying to understand a new location I typically turn to Ancestry's Red Book: American State , County & Town Sources (Ancestry, 2004) . Red Book is organized geographically by state with further information about counties and towns. Within each state is an overview of all the major record groups and where to find them. While I tend to reach for my book which sits next to my desk, Red Book is also available online for free on the Ancestry.com Wiki.
Another resource I am starting to turn to more frequently is the FamilySearch Wiki. Not so long ago FamilySearch used to offer research guidance on numerous locations in the form of printed guides or online pdfs. Those have been replaced with a sleek new wiki which allows users to find everything online. The FamilySearch Wiki is volunteer driven, though, so you might not find complete information on every location you are researching. The advantage to this compared to Red Book is that it is international. For more information, read a guest post about FamilySearch Wiki which I wrote for Legacy.
Some of you may still be holding on to a copy of Everton's Handy Book. I don't believe it is being published anymore but you can still find copies around. It is very similar to Ancestry's Red Book in that it provides information about American genealogical records in a geographic based format.
Where Do You Turn for Information?
What I want to know, and the real reason I wrote this post, is where do you get your information when first encountering an unfamiliar geographic area? Do you use sources that I haven't listed here? I'm am wondering if I have overlooked some good reference books or sites.
Also, I really want to know about Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Do they have anything comparable to Ancestry's Red Book? Where do genealogists outside the United States turn for information? I look forward to hearing your responses.
Photo Credit: Photo by CCAC North Library in Pittsburgh, PA and is used on the creative commons license.
Posted by Marian Pierre-Louis at 9:08 AM | <urn:uuid:476fb400-110a-4e8b-864a-21d53537102e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rootsandrambles.blogspot.com/2012/01/where-do-you-turn-for-research-guidance.html?showComment=1327504844262 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943647 | 452 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Former President Ronald Reagan's son Ron Reagan has made claims that his father may have suffered from Alzheimer's while in office.
In November 1994, the late president wrote a letter to the people of the United States; he'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
His son, however, has made new claims, which have fueled old claims, saying his father may have suffered during his presidency.
After the diagnosis was made, people had immediately wondered if he indeed did suffer in office. The four main White House doctors during his presidency have all vouched for Reagan's soundness of mind during his tenure in office. All of the allegations back then (and by his son) are due to Reagan's known forgetfulness. In a debate during the 1984 campaign, he became confused, repeating his words and even forgetting his role in the Iran-contra affair.
Ron Reagan said this on page 205 of his book, My Father at 100: A Memoir:
"Watching the first of his two debates with 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true. At 73, Ronald Reagan would be the oldest president ever reelected. Some voters were beginning to imagine grandpa—who can never find his reading glasses—in charge of a bristling nuclear arsenal, and it was making them nervous. Worse, my father now seemed to be giving them legitimate reason for concern. My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered."
Reagan, along with every other Alzheimer's sufferer, went through the horrors of watching his mind go fuzzy. Unlike others with Alzheimer's, he may have been the President of the United States with it. | <urn:uuid:9996b98d-8b11-4dfd-b20f-e5480e0a6f18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitaljournal.com/article/302556 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992863 | 365 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Week 4! This is all about ‘Tempos‘ in music. The tempo is designated by Beats Per Minute (BPM). We learned Chords a few weeks ago, as well as the notes on guitar, and now we’re tackling Tempo. In music you have Accelerando, Ritardando. Its also important that you purchase a metronome, so that you can keep track of your progress. You can also watch all my other Revision 3 tutorials too.
Join our community at our Ustream.TV Music Channel and join in on the shout outs.
This is my new show hosted on Revision3 Beta. Big ups to all the peeps who submitted the show to Digg. I now have the YOU Section all set up. So all the pictures, videos, and poems you send me I post there.
Thanks guys for everything… week 4 is gonna RAWK! | <urn:uuid:ad9c878f-7fd7-42d9-9097-95b9bb391ffc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://waltribeiro.com/2008/10/17/your-weekly-music-lesson-4-tempo-on-revision3-beta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947751 | 186 | 1.640625 | 2 |
.- Auxiliary Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo of Jerusalem told L’Osservatore Romano this week that there has been a marked increase in the number of pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, thus allowing for the Church in Israel and peace in the Middle East to be promoted.
Father Gianfranco Pinto Ostuni, director of the Office of Pilgrimages of the Delegations from Rome to the Holy Land, told the Vatican daily that from June 2008 to January 2009, there are 27 pilgrimages scheduled. “We have doubled the trips since 2007. It’s enough just point out that last Easter 45,000 Italian pilgrims visited Jerusalem.”
In 2006, 58,000 Italian pilgrims visited the Holy Land and in 2007, 82,000. According to tourism promoter Maurizio Baiocchi, “at least 100,000” are expected to visit in 2009.
The custodian of the Holy Land, Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said he expected some one million Russian pilgrims to visit the region in 2009, thanks to eased restrictions on visas for visiting Russians. He said large numbers of Muslim pilgrims are also expected next year as many come to visit the Omar and Al Aqsa Mosques, as well as the Holy Sepulcher, “in homage to Jesus, who they consider a prophet of Islam.”
Another Franciscan custodian of the Holy Land and professor at the “Biblicum” of Jerusalem, Father Frederic Mannes, said, “Many Christians here are in the religious tourism business. Seeing so many pilgrims from all over the world helps diminish the sense of abandonment that they often experience. Christians here, who are in contact with Jews and with globalization, tend to forget their religious identity,” he continued. “The presence of pilgrims can inspire in them as well a rediscovery of their faith.” | <urn:uuid:d2c52c6a-fdc8-4cef-98c4-547670744879> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/marked_increase_in_number_of_pilgrims_visiting_holy_land/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952779 | 403 | 1.8125 | 2 |
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North Yorkshire airbase and theatre trip boost spirits of children from Chernobyl
Visiting children from Chernobyl meet the cast of Rupunzel at York Theatre Royal, back from left, Max Gallagher, Gayle Newbout and Selina Zaza
A GROUP of children from Chernobyl have returned to North Yorkshire two years after their first visit to the region.
The children, who are all aged between nine and ten, are brought to the UK for a month by Easingwold Friends of Chernobyl Children.
The trip is designed to improve their health, both physically and mentally, which is still affected by the 1986 nuclear plant disaster in Ukraine.
This year saw the children again welcomed by staff at RAF Linton-on-Ouse.
Flight Leutenant Dave Williams said: “This will be the third time we have hosted the children and it’s great to see them growing up and doing so well.
“It’s been proven that one month away from the radiation affected area, breathing clean air and eating uncontaminated food, every year before their teens will dramatically improve their health chances in adult life.”
The children were shown around the air traffic control tower, the fire section and were allowed to sit in the cockpit of a Hawk jet aircraft and have their photos taken.
Maxine Forster, one of the host mums, said: “I am sure they will remember forever dressing up as firemen and drenching their teacher with the fire hose.
“They chattered about it all over lunch and I am sure we have a few potential pilots in the group. Many thanks to RAF Linton-on-Ouse and to everyone involved in taking time to create such a memorable morning for the children. They are looking forward to next year already.”
As well as the trip to the air base, the children enjoyed a performance of Rupunzel at York Theatre Royal before meeting the cast of the show afterwards.
Vicky Abbiss, who also hosted some of the visiting children, said they were all a little bit taller than when they visited last time and were “in good spirits and doing well.”
She said: “As ever, the trip has been funded and supported by the enormous generosity of many people and businesses in the Easingwold community, the host families and a fantastic lump sum donations from groups like the Lions and The Forest of Galtres Lodge.”
• The Chernobyl disaster is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, The official Soviet casualty count of 31 deaths has been disputed, and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for. | <urn:uuid:7f65de80-c370-416c-b8dd-e857d421f84f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9971418.Airbase_and_theatre_trip_boost_spirits_of_children_from_Chernobyl/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968046 | 586 | 1.507813 | 2 |
John Reibetanz is good on grief: "You, mother,/ dying, left what was hard first:/ bones weeping into/ / your veins like flutes, teeth/ vanished on some hospital/ lunch tray" This conjunction of a profound sense of loss with the clearest-eyed observation and acceptance of the entropy of the mundane is characteristic. His poetry has a cultural breadth seldom seen in Canadian writing. He sees the pageantry of the Bayeux tapestry with the eyes of a rural quilter, whose son died beneath a tractor, who would focus on "the spear - strayed from the main design -/ / that takes a wide-mouthed Tabourer aback,/ and recognize the pain/ of someone caught in the wreck/ of a vast, wayward machine."
His lucidity and eloquence have earned the praise of such celebrated poets as Richard Howard and Richard Wilbur. But it is always the heart's music which most informs his poetic craft: and that is what keeps it true.close this panel | <urn:uuid:667c3fc1-b068-4d54-89c3-ed61f0874cc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://49thshelf.com/Books/M/Mining-For-Sun | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96048 | 213 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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Isabel Hardwich Medal
The Hardwich Medal is presented to WES members who have made an outstanding contribution above the call of duty to the Society over a sustained period. Not awarded every year, in 2012 Council is delighted to recognise the services of Jan Peters. The Medal was last presented in 2010 to both Betty McCarthy and Pam Wain.
Gillian Skinner Award
The Gillian Skinner Award is made to recognise a significant contribution to the Society and does not have to be to a member. Often the award is made for 'back office' services that often go unseen by members. Council is delighted to make the award to Dawn Bonfield for her significant contribution in the WES office over the last year.
The new WES 2013 membership application leaflet is available. Please request copies to circulate to your friends and colleagues to encourage them to connect and join the campaign to inspire more women as engineers, scientists and technical leaders. mailto:[email protected]
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust The Trust offers an opportunity to increase your knowledge and experience through overseas travel in order to benefit others within your community. Applications are invited from a wide spectrum of interests, such as Science, Engineering & Enterprise.
Our members are people who work in the field of engineering and technology at all levels (and with any type of qualifications), students on engineering and related courses, companies and others who share our aims.
- Cluster leaders or any member can organise a local or regional event. WES office can help locate speakers and promote it for you!
- Members can use Member facilities at the IET and also access meeting rooms at reduced rates at the IET. Contact [email protected]
- Connect with other members online through our FaceBook and LinkedIn groups
- Use the newsletter to share your successes
WES needs your help! See the long list of volunteering projects here.
Inspire and be inspired - connect with the next generation!
Fancy sharing your excitement for engineering, science and technology with schools?
Schools are always looking for speakers to share their excitement. Register with Growing Ambitions - the database school teachers use to find volunteers. | <urn:uuid:30209c31-320a-4e17-9def-15f36f734e10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wes.org.uk/node/23 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942001 | 517 | 1.5 | 2 |
Paramedic graduates a part of integrated Crisis Response Service in the East Midlands
Published Monday 14th November 2011
Anyone who has suffered a fall at home will know how upsetting and frightening it can be, particularly if it is impossible to move without assistance from the emergency ambulance service.
Having a fall is the top reason why people make a 999 call to the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS). For some this may result in a hospital admission, but for many it is unnecessary and they can be safely cared for in their own home.
Working in partnership - Northamptonshire County Council, EMAS and the Community Elderly Care Service have developed a new service designed to prevent unnecessary admission to hospital and to provide support and reassurance to people immediately after a fall, with support from The University of Northampton's School of Health and the expertise of its graduates from FdSc Paramedic Science.
The service is funded through monies from the Department of Health designed to stimulate social care services which deliver health outcomes. This is one of a range of projects designed to deliver care to people in familiar surroundings.
The new Crisis Response Service will see local people being attended by a specialist falls ambulance and crew. As well as providing a more appropriate service this will free up vital ambulance resources to respond to calls from people with life-threatening conditions.
The benefits from the service which goes live on Monday 14 November include:
- A specialist ambulance crew including a paramedic responding to people who have called 999 after suffering a fall
- A response in a specialist vehicle which contains a wide range of lifting equipment and is capable of transporting bariatric patients
- A faster response so the person spends less time in the position in which they fell
- People will then have access to a range of community support teams offering support immediately after the fall and advice into the future as to how to avoid recurrent falls.
- Where someone is unsafe to leave at home but do not require admission to hospital the team will have access to specialist care centres.
- As well as reducing the trauma for the individual the new service will provide value for money
EMAS Clinical Quality Manager and Paramedic, Mark Gregory, said:
This new service is a team set up to respond purely to people who have fallen at home in Northamptonshire, to provide dignity and appropriate care to the patients.
After calling 999 and being identified as a faller without a life-threatening illness or injury, they will receive a response from our Crisis Response team in their falls vehicle which has a wide range of specialist lifting equipment.
The crews have attended the University of Northampton and developed skills in the assessment and management of falls, allowing them to provide optimal care for older patients. One of the team members is a qualified paramedic and so if the patient's condition does worsen they are able to receive further treatment on scene.
Calls for life-threatening emergencies always take priority for an emergency ambulance response, and so the introduction of the Crisis Response Service means that a faller will receive a faster response and spend less time in the position where they fell, avoiding injuries or distress caused as a result of being left for a prolonged period.
Ashley Knights, Senior Lecturer in Paramedic Science, School of Health, The University of Northampton, added:
Four out of five staff working on this service are Paramedic graduates of The University of Northampton, and all of the team have undergone a specialist module called 'Crisis Response Training for Falls in Older People' at the School of Health. The University of Northampton will be working with EMAS further to develop a 'Falls Positive Training Package'.
Northamptonshire County Council is leading the development of this service, and is providing care workers who will be delivering practical support immediately after a fall and a technician to allow the council to install Telecare equipment within 24 hours for people who would benefit from it. This element of the service will operate 365 days a year.
Two specialist vehicles have been purchased by Northamptonshire County Council to transport the crew and equipment at a cost of £195k and £1.1million funds the care support workers.
The Crisis Response Service will complement the Community Elderly Care Service launched earlier this year and is part of the county's overall drive to deliver more care to older people in their own homes or in as non-clinical a setting as possible.
Cabinet member for health and adult social services Councillor Robin Brown from Northamptonshire County Council said:
The Crisis Response Service is a great example of health and social care working in partnership to make a positive difference to local people.
As well as providing a faster response and specialist care we will be giving older people who have had a fall an opportunity to remain independent and safe in their own homes rather than having the trauma of going to hospital unnecessarily.
Using past 999 call data, EMAS was able to identify peak times when emergency calls are received from people who have had a fall. This allowed EMAS with Northamptonshire County Council to design and provide the service to meet the needs of some of the older citizens in Northamptonshire.
This service is one of a range of initiatives in the last year designed to prevent unnecessary admission to hospital and ensure more choice and control for vulnerable older people and their carers. | <urn:uuid:17e42b07-7642-429f-8a93-92bdd2a65d02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/article/235/paramedic-graduates-a-part-of-integrated-crisis-response-service-in-the-east-midlands/200238 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958577 | 1,097 | 1.835938 | 2 |
On the very day of the entry into force of Protocol 14, 1 June 2010, the Court immediately seized the opportunity to start using a new key admissibility criterion introduced by that Protocol, as a press release of the Court highlights this week. In the case of Adrian Mihai Ionescu v. Romania, the Court used the criterion that the applicant had not suffered a "significant disadvantage". The applicant's claim concerned a claim of 90 euros against a bus company with which he had travelled between Bucharest and Madrid, for not providing the promised services. In national court proceedings, his case was assessed his case and his complaints were rejected. The national Court did not rule on his request that the defendant company produce certain items of evidence. Higher courts dismissed his appeals.
The Court used the case to flesh out the three main elemenets of the admissibility criterion found in Article 35, parageraph 3: the Court can declare applications inadmissible if 1) "the applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage", (2) unless respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto requires an examination of the application on the merits" and (3) "provided that no case may be rejected on this ground which has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal."
As to the first and most crucial element the Court considered both the amount of the alleged loss itself (90 euros) and its relation to the applicants own (financial) circumstances. Neither of these indicated that the applicant was at a significant disadvantage. Thus the test under this first aspect is a double one: first a relatively external assessment of extent of the disadvantage in itself (which in case of financial loss is admittedly more easy to qualify) and second the relation of that loss to the particular situation of the allged victim. For a very poor person, a loss of 90 euros might of course be significant.
Secondly, the Court looked at whether the two "exceptions to the exception" led to a different conclusion. As to the respect for human rights, the Court concluded that the relevant legal provisions in Romania had been repealed and the case was in that sense of historical interest only. As to the question of whether the case had been duly considered by a domestic court, the Court answered this positively. Thus, it rejected the complaint.
In making its arguments under the three tests, the Court not only used the explanatory report to Protocol 14, but also its own earlier case law. In the case of the 'significant disadvantage' this noticeably included a range of dissenting opinions in earlier cases!
It may be noted that the Court assessed the case in detail and declared part of the complaint ill-founded - the admissibility of evidence issue was declared manifestly ill-founded, whereas the complaint about the proceedings in the higher courts were deemed not to be manifestly ill-founded or an abuse of the right to petition, but rather inadmissible under the new admissibility criterion. This seems to send out the signal that the Court will not too easily apply this criterion to do away with an entire application, but will use it with a caution that respects the various aspects of a complaint. This may assuage the concerns and fears of many, but on the other hand may diminish the efficiency gains of the new criterion. Let's hope the press department of the Court will keep highlighting new developments in these normally difficult to trace non-admissibility decisions.
The case itself is available only in French thus far, but a press release in English can be found here. For a short fact sheet on the reforms of Protocol 14, click here. | <urn:uuid:ed920a35-99dc-4826-8151-e16c7e98741a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://echrblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/first-decision-on-lack-of-significant.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962909 | 731 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The residential district of South Los Angeles known as Watts is marred by nihilism, apathy and poverty. It comprises predominantly Latino and African-American residents.
Though besieged by the maladies that impair other urban areas such as crime, poverty and underperforming schools, it also has an oasis of hope and possibility.
Verbum Dei High School is an all-male Catholic, Jesuit, college and career preparatory complemented by a corporate internship program. It serves young men of Watts and the surrounding communities who are economically and academically underserved.
Between 2007 and 2012, 100 percent of Verbum students gained college acceptance, including to schools such as Stanford, Georgetown, Yale, UCLA, UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California.
The Corporate Work Study Program (CWSP) is an innovative partnership between business, education and the students of Verbum Dei.
Participating organizations provide Verbum Dei one "full-time equivalent" student internship for a fee of $28,000. The highly motivated young men who fill the positions are from low-income families. Each student works five full days a month on a rotating basis, and they attend classes and participate in extracurricular activities the remaining days.
CWSP is usually a four-year commitment between the school, corporate partner and student. There is a wide range of corporate participation that includes, but is not limited to, banking,
Gene Blackard, managing partner of Archer Norris PLC -- a Bay Area law firm with offices in Walnut Creek, Los Angeles, and Sacramento -- has enthusiastically supported CWSP for several years.
"It has given us a completely different perspective as to what happens in the community itself. When they initially arrive, probably the only thing we have in common is they need work-study and we are participants in the program. But when they come through the door, we get to know them; they get to know us, and it's eye-opening," Blackard said.
One of the subtle benefits of CWSP is its reciprocal value -- a prerequisite for any authentic relationship. Corporation and student become mutual beneficiaries in an experience that is otherwise unlikely without the link offered by CWSP.
Before the internship, students must go through a summer intensive that explains what corporations expect, what Verbum Dei expects and, most important, what they should expect of themselves.
"The most important thing the Corporate Work Study Program did for me was to expose me to the corporate world and empower me to be part of it," said Kevin Mendoza, now a senior at the UC Berkeley.
For four years corporate participants offer an example of what is possible beyond the potentially suffocating conditions of the underachieving status quo.
Verbum Dei does possess certain advantages not generally available to public schools. It's small (less than 300 enrollment), it selects students for admission and it can provide a different culture.
Through the lens of privilege, it is easy to assume that appearance, behavior in the workplace, punctuality and honesty are universal standards.
But the dominant culture of underachieving schools eschews high achievement, critical thinking and opportunities for higher education. If that culture is not altered, there can be no significant change in results.
The CWSP is successful because everyone involved has skin in the game, and they desire the same outcome.
From the corporate participants' perspective, the real magnitude of their involvement becomes clear at the annual year-end event when the young men tell where they served their internship, what they've learned and how they plan to use their experience going forward.
As Blackard shared with me, "There is not a dry eye in the place."
Contact Byron Williams at 510-208-6417 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:ad812caa-b6cd-4ebf-bd1d-b2da508dd369> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_22791526/byron-williams-intense-internship-opens-world-possibility-disadvantaged | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955517 | 772 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Temperatures were above normal for the month of June at the Dodge City Regional Airport. The average temperature was 77.9 degrees, which was 3.6 degrees above normal. The average high was 90.8 degrees and the average low was 65.0. The highest temperature was 101 degrees on the 26th, and the lowest was 55 degrees on the 3rd. No records were set during the month.
The total precipitation for the month was 4.44 inches, which was 1.29 inches above normal. There were three days during the month when there was at least an inch of rain. The highest 24 hour total was 3.30 inches from the late afternoon on the 12th to the mid morning hours on the 13th. The total precipitation from January 1st 2010 to June 30th 2010 was 12.04 inches, which was 0.52 inches above normal.
The average wind speed was 13.4 mph. The highest wind gust was 60 mph from the south on the 22nd. The wind gust that night was from dissipating showers that produced a warm downburst in Ford County. The temperature at the airport warmed about 5 degrees. | <urn:uuid:ed9d4689-1ffa-4dfa-ba34-bbc58ad9d3b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=ddc&storyid=54419&source=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990459 | 234 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The shame of the catholic church.
"According to the John Jay report commissioned by the U.S. bishops, allegations of sexual abuse were made in 1950-2002 against 4,392 priests. The number is generally believed to underestimate the problem. A few bishops have released the names of accused priests, but no official list exists of U.S. priests who have abused children and vulnerable adults. Below we present the most complete list currently available, culled from media reports and legal documents – with many photos, assignment records, and source articles." | <urn:uuid:f8b7d556-b2fc-4b1b-a80c-3bf63270162b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://talk.baltimoresun.com/showthread.php?325990-Accused-Priests-in-the-United-States&s=b3303d750a59e3b853ff8bad4598a4fa&p=8240101 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962088 | 111 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Linux.com is reporting that the End Software Patents project is launching several new initiatives to help drive support for their cause. Among the new methods are a web site, a report on the state of patents in the US, and a scholarship contest promising to award $10,000 "for the best paper on the effects of the patentability of software and business methods under US law." "The project is being launched with initial funding of a quarter million dollars, supplied primarily by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Under the directorship of Ben Klemens, a long-time advocate of software patent abolition best-known for the book Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software, the project is being supported by the FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). One of ESP's goals is to enlist support from academics, software developers, legal experts, and business executives. Its initial supporters show that the project is already well on its way to building such a coalition." | <urn:uuid:00c0edb0-9e1c-4b4d-a657-d4b27af6d34c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/03/01/2141203/end-software-patents-project-comes-out-swinging?sdsrc=nextbtmprev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9379 | 209 | 1.703125 | 2 |
144th Ohio Infantry
compiled by Larry Stevens
References for this Unit
- see also Bibliography of State-Wide References
- Ohio In The War-Volume II. Whitelaw Reid. Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. Cincinnati 1868
- Unit Bibliography. U.S. Army Military History Institute. Carlisle Barracks. PA. 1995
- Samuel McClain Papers 1864. Samuel McClain Co. I 144th OVI. Correspondence of Samuel McClain and his wife, Lucinda, as he served with the 144th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. A Diary includes entries made while a prisoner of war at Salisbury Prison Camp in North Carolina. McClain, a drummer, died at Salisbury Prison Camp. 19 folders. Call# Archives MS640. Center for Archival Collections. Bowling Green State University. Bowling Green. Ohio
- 144th OVI Page. by Dan Masters. 2001
- No Greater Glory. The 144th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. By Daniel Masters. 196 pgs. Paperback. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Raleigh. N.C. 2010
HistoryMustered in at Camp Chase, May 11th, 1864, as a Ohio National Guard unit with 834 men, Colonel Samuel H. Hunt, reported at Baltimore and assigned to guarding fortifications in Maryland and Delaware; May 18th moved to meet Early's invasion - Companies B, G, and I in Monocacy Junction battle, losing fifty killed, wounded and captured; July 13th returned to Washington, then into Virginia; attacked while guarding a train near Berryville, by Moseby's command, loss five killed, six wounded, sixty captured; mustered out at Camp Chase, August 31st, about 700 men, Colonel Hunt commanding; of its captured many starved to death in Andersonville and other prisons.
From: The Military History of Ohio. by H.H. Hardesty
From Dyer's Compendium144th Regiment Infantry. Organized at Camp Chase, Ohio, and mustered in May 11, 1864. Left State for Baltimore, Md., May 11. Companies assigned to duty as follows: "G" and "K" in the Defences of Baltimore; "B" at Camp Parole, Annapolis, Md.; "E" at Wilmington, Del.; "I" at Fort Dix, Relay House. Balance of Regiment at Fort McHenry. Attached to 1st Separate Brigade, 8th Army Corps, Middle Department. Regiment relieved from duty at Baltimore and moved to Relay House. Battle of Monocacy Junction, Md., July 9. Moved to Washington, D.C., July 13. Advance to Winchester and Snicker's Gap July 14-20. Attached to Kenley's Independent Brigade, 8th Army Corps. Operations in Shenandoah Valley July 20 to August 13. Repulse of attack by Moseby at Berryville August 13. Guard duty near Berryville till August 20. Ordered home and mustered out August 31, 1864. Regiment lost during service 10 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 53 Enlisted men by disease. Total 63.
More about the Civil War in Ohio.
Copyright © 1995 Larry Stevens
Last updated September 4 2010 | <urn:uuid:ae468348-0957-491b-8601-158e4c940261> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohiocivilwar.com/cw144.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940562 | 673 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The fifth generation of Pokemon games will continue with two sequels, aptly titled Pokemon Black 2 and Pokemon White 2. There are no new Pokemon but the Unova local Pokedex is expanded to include earlier generations, with a total of 300 Pokemon.
|Japan||23rd June 2012|
|America||7th October 2012|
|Europe||12th October 2012|
Pokemon Black 2 & Pokemon White 2 are sequels to the first pair of Generation V games, and are set 2 years after the events of Pokemon Black & White. This is different to the usual procedure of releasing a single
They are for the Nintendo DS console. This is likely so that games can use the same maps and graphics, and to appeal to a wider audience. Of course, they work on Nintendo's newer 3DS console as well. There are some special features that will only work on the DSi and 3DS.
You start in
Aspertia City which is the largest hometown to date. The city is in the southwest of the Unova region, separated from the rest of Unova that was in Black/White 1. A large amount of the region has been updated in the
2 years since the previous game.
As usual, Team Plasma are causing trouble in the region and you thwart their efforts as you progress through the usual 8 gyms and Elite 4. The previous Unova Champion, Alder, appears early on in the game and reveals there is a new Champion who you discover later on.
Pokemon Black/White 2 introduces a couple of new features. There is a medals system, which is essentially the same as the achievements feature in many other games nowadays. You receive medals for completing various tasks such as capturing 20 or 50 Pokemon. See the Medals list for more details.
In many routes you will also find certain trees between which there is a small gap you can enter. Inside there is a small clearing called a Hidden Hollow, where Pokemon with their hidden abilities can be found! Items may also be found here.
Legendary Pokemon Kyurem receives two new forms called
Black Kyurem and
White Kyurem, as seen in the image below. The forms come about from a melding of Kyurem with each of Zekrom and Reshiram, and are based on Electricity and Fire, although both keep Kyurem's type of Dragon/Ice.
The Kami trio of Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus will also receive new
Incarnate forms, only obtainable from a separate application for the Nintendo 3DS console, Pokemon AR Searcher. Tornadus' new form focuses on Defense, Special Defense and Speed. Thundurus' new form focuses on Special Attack. Landorus' new form focuses on Attack. We'll post more details as we get them.
Keldeo was also
officially revealed recently and appears in a new Pokemon movie with Kyurem and its new forms. It will be available through an event and it has a new form called
Type a Pokemon name, type, move or ability to see instant results. | <urn:uuid:05e1b648-1578-4722-9c32-cbaa088c1f76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pokemondb.net/black-white-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957677 | 633 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Posted by Guest on Thu 16 Aug 2012 08:40:13 AM EDT
There sure are a lot of Virginatus tryhardii in this thread.
Posted by Guest on Wed 15 Aug 2012 07:15:01 PM EDT
ITT; People who claim to know what this dinosaur is when in all likely hood it is based on several different types of raptors.
And remember, it is just a costume.
Posted by Guest on Tue 14 Aug 2012 05:20:26 PM EDT
Goddammit, mom and dad paid for your freshman year at college, but you aren't impressing anyone with your dinosaur knowledge. That costume is cooler than anything you'll ever do with your shitty education.
Posted by Guest on Tue 14 Aug 2012 11:28:17 AM EDT
kill it with asteroid
Posted by Guest on Tue 14 Aug 2012 05:05:59 AM EDT
it has no feathers!
Posted by Guest on Tue 14 Aug 2012 01:47:53 AM EDT
Not A Velociraptor
Velociraptors were the size of a turkey. That's more of the size of a Utah Raptor, but the arms are too short. I'd say that was more likely a Nanotyranus, which has been shown to not be an actual species but really just a juvenile T-Rex.
Posted by Anonymouse (guest) on Mon 13 Aug 2012 03:33:21 PM EDT
That's not Velociraptor mongoliensis, too big. They were the size of turkeys. That looks more like a Deinonychus antirrhopus.
Posted by Guest on Mon 13 Aug 2012 01:55:33 PM EDT
i really hope that there was someone else with them playing the Jurassic Park theme on a stereo or something.
Posted by Guest on Mon 13 Aug 2012 11:32:11 AM EDT | <urn:uuid:0bb066b9-287e-442d-9bd6-510a5322a267> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forgifs.com/gallery/c/view/204015.html?g2_return=%2Fgallery%2Fmain.php%3Fg2_view%3Ddynamicalbum.UpdatesAlbum%26g2_albumId%3D7%26g2_itemId%3D204015%26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968615 | 394 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Google seems to be launching a new startup in a different industry by the day. Just two days ago, we told you about the company’s plans for a new cloud music store, and today, we learn that Google’s omnipresence extends into the field of personalized medicine.
Google Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Google Inc., has invested in Foundation Medicine, a gene-sequencing company that develops sophisticated diagnostics for cancer treatment. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Foundation has extended a Series A round after raising it to $33.5 million last year with the help of Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. This will mark the third investment in gene-sequencing companies that aim to further the field of medicine for Google Ventures. The firm also joined in a second round of funding for DNAnexus, Inc., a platform technology for storing and analyzing genetic data that is aimed at researchers.
“Google Ventures–which has referred to genetic sequencing as a “foundational technology” with massive potential to disrupt diagnostics and treatment of various diseases–now has investments in gene-sequencing tools aimed at research institutions, practicing doctors and curious consumers,” reports WSJ. The company believes that as gene sequencing becomes faster and more affordable, it will graduate from research centers to actual hospitals, starting with cancer care.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – no billion-dollar company is perfect, but Google proves once again that they’re sticking to their “Do No Evil” motto. Whether it’s a billion-dollar company or a small business, giving back to your community is important. Blue Interactive Agency has participated in numerous local charity events, and makes continued efforts to support area nonprofits. If you are interested in interactive marketing services, contact Blue today. From Facebook marketing and Twitter marketing, to search engine optimization and SEO copywriting, Blue can transform your online marketing campaign to help drive ROI. Call 954-779-2801 today for more information. | <urn:uuid:2aa857d3-e544-445e-882b-17668e76a857> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blueinteractiveagency.com/seo-blog/google-ventures-invests-in-personalized-medicine.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934169 | 424 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Implementation Dates and Deadlines
January 1, 2010
The bill became law and the Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) had the responsibility for developing the Rules and Regulations to implement the bill and to gear up to accept LPCC applications.
Application forms for grandparenting, intern registration, out-of-state applicants and traditional licensure became available from the BBS.
December 31, 2011
Applications for grandparenting must have been received by the BBS. Applicants will have 12 months from the date of their letter of deficiencies from the BBS to complete deficiencies in coursework, years of experience, supervised hours and examinations. At the end of that 12-month period, the application is closed, if it is not complete.
The first LPCC licenses were awarded.
There are no deadlines for out-of-state applications, intern registration or traditional licensure applications, although once an application is submitted the BBS will inform the applicant of deadlines for that specific application. | <urn:uuid:7ae13de7-31fe-4d0a-955e-62c448308a3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.calpcc.org/implementation-dates | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953069 | 202 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Online Editor, Lodging
The hotel industry is a bustling business, and the people involved have plenty of reasons to cel...
Hampton Hotels Refurbishes Landmarks in Every U.S. State
Almost all hotels have some sort of program in place to help local communities and provide a service for residents and guests at their properties. And for over a decade, Hampton Hotels has made it a goal to aid in the refurbishment of a landmark in every single U.S. state. The brand reached that goal last week by donating $25,000 toward the restoration of the Kīlauea Lighthouse in Hawai‘i in honor of National Public Lands Day.
“We are thrilled to be able to help aid the preservation of the Kīlauea Lighthouse as it prepares for its centennial celebration in 2013,” said Judy Christa-Cathey, vice president of global brand marketing, Hampton Hotels. “This donation to one of Hawai‘i’s most iconic landmarks signifies the realization of our goal to help at least one landmark in each U.S. state. It’s a momentous milestone in our brand’s history – one we’ve worked toward for nearly 12 years.”
To date, Hampton has preserved 60 historic sites in 50 states and three countries and has donated more than $2.5 million and more than 8,000 volunteer hours towards the research and refurbishment of roadside landmarks.
Hampton Hotels presented the donation to Kīlauea Point Natural History Association (KPNHA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during a local celebration of National Public Lands Day. On site to accept the donation on behalf of the Kīlauea Lighthouse was Sue Boynton, KPNHA Board President; Gary Smith, KPNHA Capital Campaign Chair; and Shannon Smith, Refuge Manager for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Kaua‘i National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
With the milestone achieved with its Save-a-Landmark program, Hampton also announced a new volunteerism program called Hampton Helps. Hampton Hotels’ team members worldwide will launch the program and give back to causes they are passionate about by activating Hampton Helps events during Hilton Worldwide’s Global Week of Service, Nov. 11 – 18.
Saturday, March 02, 2013 by buy viagra online
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It's easier to blame the teachers, their union and other school employees. Remember once, we determine that their salaries are too high, when do we take a look at your salary? Where does it stop?
It stops when the remaining wealth is distributed. And wealth in this country, regardless of what talking heads on TV and the radio tell you, is distributed. And it doesn't go to those less fortunate. It goes directly to the top.
Historically, it's always been easier if working people fought each other, instead of turning their ire on employers and Wall Street. If they're fighting each other they can't fight management.
The robber baron Jay Gould once said that he could hire half the working class to kill the other half.
Truer words were never spoken. | <urn:uuid:4345de28-2072-46b0-b8da-969c17f2b632> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://connect.nj.com/user/wjw3/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965257 | 177 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council provides a wide range of services which are responsive and well co-ordinated in protecting and supporting the population as a whole and vulnerable people in particular.
The Council is committed to helping people with physical or learning disabilities to live as independent a life as possible. To do this, it is vital that people receive the support services they really need.
This section of the website contains information for people who use services and
also their carers, to enable them to access support services which help to prevent loss of independence, isolation and maintain quality of life. | <urn:uuid:d7ff1581-d1a9-4146-859c-6e925cfa7973> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.merthyr.gov.uk/English/HealthAndSocialCare/Disabilities/Pages/default.aspx?Text=Large.css | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973519 | 120 | 1.8125 | 2 |
hard for the boatmen and their families. First go inside his floating home and
be astonished at the cramped conditions in which generations of canal families
lived until around 1960. Sit at their dining table and listen to the family
having supper and discussing their lives. An entertaining radio play style
sound track, portrait performed by Keeper's Lock Theatre Company, portrays
the tough conditions and social customs of the canal people and brings their
meagre existence to life.
Then look at the boatman and his family in traditional costume along with a "best dress" from the Victorian era in our costume display. Try your hand at tying knots to secure the boat!
Click for sound clip if not automatically played. If you are unable to listen to sounds there is a transcript of the sound clip. | <urn:uuid:38158f13-2335-481a-8b92-cb4ab0aeda5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/visit/virtualtour3.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951337 | 161 | 1.609375 | 2 |
“This is a country that began with the most enormous trauma, and things like that stick around. History matters. For the people who settled there, it really was like being sent to Mars. They were an outcast lot — not just the prisoners, but the soldiers who guarded them. You were not a very successful soldier if you got sent there.
"So you grew up with the notion of the convict stain — people really talked about that. And that’s the power of the story of Ned Kelly: it’s really about the possibility of a people who seem to have no possibility.
“A trauma like that leaves enormous amounts of self-hatred, and we carry that degree of damage. It’s not inconceivable that a country like this would be a little unsure of itself culturally. You wouldn’t be nuts to feel insecure.” | <urn:uuid:cce1cebd-799a-4338-8953-d33cfab32b86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theorstrahyun.blogspot.com/2010/04/australian-born-novelist-peter-carey.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98598 | 182 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Even though you're only shooting with the crappy camera built into your smartphone, Photoshop CS6's new Blur Gallery will easily make it look like your shots came from an expensive DSLR.
Properly faking a shallow depth of field usually involves creating and strategically masking multiple layers with various levels of blur on each of them. But in Photoshop CS6 you just specify what in your image you want kept in focus, and adjust the shape and size of the area around it that's not blurred. That's it. Just a few clicks takes you from an amateur photog to a fake Ansel Adams. [YouTube via PetaPixel] | <urn:uuid:0056f4a7-dade-4638-88fc-58714766a7e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gizmodo.com/5889469/photoshop-cs6-will-easily-and-skillfully-fake-a-shallow-depth-of-field?tag=photoshop-cs6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954493 | 131 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Mockingbird: Book summary and reviews of Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
In Caitlins world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. Thats the stuff Caitlins older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devons dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Aspergers, she doesnt know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and whitethe world is full of colorsmessy and beautiful.
"Starred Review. Erskine draws directly and indirectly on To Kill a Mockingbird and riffs on its central theme. Ages 8-12." - Kirkus Reviews
The information about Mockingbird shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.
Mockingbird Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
Kathryn Erskine Author Biography
Kathryn Erskine spent many years as a lawyer before realizing that shed rather write things that people might actually enjoy reading. She grew up mostly overseas and attended eight different schools, her favorite being the Hogwarts-type castle in Scotland. The faculty, of course, did not consist of wizards, although . . . how did the headmistress know that it was the wee redhead who led the campaign to free the mice from the biology lab? Erskine draws on her childhoodand her second childhood through her childrenfor her stories. She still loves to travel but nowadays most trips tend to be local, such as tennis courts, fencing tournaments, occasional emergency room visits, and the natural food store for very healthy organic chocolate with life...
Recently Published Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Alternate History | <urn:uuid:52537aa7-ca27-48b7-bf25-fd161f7b657c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/4925/mockingbird | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958453 | 487 | 1.59375 | 2 |
A new integrated amplifier called the Lars Type 1, which made its debut at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, has given my notion of a dichotomy between mainstream audio and alternative audio a severe beating. In that sense, the Lars Type 1 has been a life-changing product, although the change took longer than expected for me to digest.
It ain't the stuff you don't know that trips you up, it's the stuff you know that ain't so. When, at the 2007 CEDIA Expo, I encountered Klipsch's startlingly new Palladium P-39F loudspeaker ($20,000/pair), I was impressed by its looks. Tall (56"), as beautifully contoured as the prow of a canoe, and clad in striking zebra-stripe plywood, the P-39F is possibly the best-looking speaker Klipsch has ever made.
The whole idea that different CD transports have different sonic characteristics when driving the same digital-to-analog converter is a vexing problem. It is easy to prove that even the cheapest CD players recover the data stored on most CDs with bit-for-bit accuracy, thus disproving the widespread and erroneous belief that errors in the digital code are commonplace and affect presentation aspects such as imaging, soundstage depth, textural liquidity, etc (footnote 1). If the datastream driving the digital converter is comprised of the same sequence of ones and zeros, regardless of the transport, what other factors could account for the sonic differences between CD drives reported by many listeners?
The Type A has served as Snell Acoustics' flagship loudspeaker since 1974. The Type A Reference System reviewed here is the sixth update of the late Peter Snell's original three-way floorstanding design, and is the most radical departure from Snell's original. Gone is the pair of "upright bricks of polished wood and stretched cloth" (footnote 1) that delighted decorators because they functioned best against a wall. Today's Type A Reference $18,999 price tag (footnote 2) purchases two tall midrange-tweeter towers, two huge subwoofers, two short but heavy enclosures housing the outboard passive crossover networks, and a small electronic crossover.
Much has happened in the analog world since I reviewed SME's flagship Model 30/2 turntable for the March 2003 Stereophile (footnote 1). Back then, spending $25,000 on a turntable (without tonearm) was an odd extravagance intended only for those seriously committed to the format, and who already owned large LP collections. Although new LPs were being pressed in growing numbers, the resurgence of vinyl was still spotty, and the long-term prognosis for the old medium remained in question.
I've been listening with great pleasure to Verity Audio's Parsifal Ovation loudspeakers the past few years, so I was intrigued to hear the company's step-up model, the Sarastro II. At 150 lbs each and $39,995/pair, the Sarastro II weighs and costs nearly twice as much as the Ovation. Would it sound twice as good?
It's been a while since I auditioned a Meridian CD player in my system. I had enthusiastically reviewed the English company's groundbreaking Pro-MCD player in early 1986, and over the years had kept up with the progress they were making in digital playback, either through my own reviews or by performing the measurements to accompany reviews by other Stereophile writers. The 508-24 player, reviewed by Wes Phillips in May 1998, was one of the finest digital products of the 1990s, I thought. But when Meridian began promoting surround sound and DVD-Audio at the turn of the century, their goals became somewhat incompatible with my own. Yes, I can appreciate what surround playback can do, but my own musical life is still solidly rooted in Two-Channel Land.
You've seen the ads from YG Acoustics: "The best loudspeaker on Earth. Period." It sounds arrogant. But come onhigh-end audio has never been a field of shrinking violets. When Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn announced that the turntable, not the cartridge or loudspeakers, dictated the sound quality of an audio system, that was a man convinced that he was right and taking on the world. And was Krell's Dan D'Agostino any less arrogant when, in 1980, he introduced the KSA-100 power amplifier? In a world where small size and high wattage were the norms, didn't it take a pair of big brass 'uns to bring out a honkin' huge slab of metal that put out only 100Wpc?
"How do you make an object common as a box iconic?" asked Bob Graffy, Snell's vice president/brand manager. He and Joseph D'Appolito, Snell's chief design engineer, were sitting in my listening room, discussing cabinet designs. Graffy noted that KEF had sought the same in their distinctive, silvery, cylindrical Muon loudspeaker ($150,000/pair). For the flagship model in their Illusion series, Snell commissioned Gerd Schmieta, former designer for Ideo, to integrate D'Appolito's wish list for an ideal enclosure: a narrow, rounded upper baffle for the midrange and tweeter, wider at the base for the woofers, holding a constant cross-sectional area while maximizing cabinet volume, and compliance with a 15° tip test.
I can't think of a product that was as eagerly anticipated as was Ayre's KX-R preamplifier ($18,500). Following in the footsteps of Ayre's MX-R monoblock amplifier, a Stereophile2007 Product of the Year, and milled, like the MX-R, from a 75-lb billet of aluminum, the KX-R also shares with its monoblock stablemate the Ayre ethos of zero feedback and fully balanced operation. But what really caused the buzz was the declaration by Ayre founder and chief designer Charles Hansen that the KX-R, with its use of a technology he calls Variable Gain Transconductance (VGT) to control the volume, would set new standards for signal/noise ratio.
Based in the Czech Republic, KR Enterprise is headed by an occasionally gruff Dr. Riccardo Kron and his American-born wife, Eunice, who operate the company out of a partially abandoned factory that was once part of the state-owned Tesla High Vacuum Technology facility in Prague. The Swiss-funded company is unique in that it manufactures both amplifiers and the tubes that power them. KR's tubes have found favor with other amplifier makers as wellespecially the 300BXS, electrically identical to a standard 300B but rated at 25W in class-A.
Don't be confused by the MBL 6010 D's oddly baroque, even retro looks. Behind all the glitzthe oversize, perfectly finished, black-lacquered faáade; the two big, solid brass knobs plated with 24-karat gold; the ornate lettering; and the incongruous digital volume displayresides a thoroughly modern, remote-controlled, unusually versatile, and well-thought-out solid-state preamplifier. Not that the 6010 is a new design. It's been around for a long time, and the current "D" iteration is at least five years old.
In an unfortunate coincidence, a few nights before the Cabasse team arrived to install the company's unusual-looking La Sphère powered speaker system, VOOM HD Networks, Monster HD channel, which is exclusively devoted to B horror movies, broadcast The Crawling Eye (aka The Trollenberg Terror), a 1958 black-and-white howler starring Forrest Tucker. I watched.
When it comes to loudspeaker drivers, Dynaudio has earned an enviable reputation for quality and reliability. To use an automotive analogy, they are the Mercedes Benz of the driver universe. If you're a speaker builder, the odds are that you have already experimented with these drivers. And even if you're not a speaker builder, it's quite possible that your speakers use Dynaudio drivers. After all, some of the finest speaker systems in the world do. A case in point is the Duntech Sovereign, which single-handedly embodies almost the entire Dynaudio catalog. | <urn:uuid:71fcc773-63da-4150-ad14-d154b4413668> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stereophile.com/category/audacious-audio?page=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957789 | 1,754 | 1.625 | 2 |
Photo: Red Hill.
Seagate Barracuda ATA
This excellent drive marked Seagate's long overdue return to the high-speed IDE market. Seagate had pioneered that market, and then suddenly abandoned it, dropping the Medalist 7200 with neither warning nor replacement.
The Barracuda ATA was a formidable performer; for quite some time it was comfortably the fastest IDE drive available, and in typical Seagate style it could be very reasonably priced. Initially it was said that the Barracuda ATA would sell for the same price as most 5400 RPM drives. That was never on the cards — although years before Seagate had achieved something rather like it with the wonderful old Decathlon 850 — but the big fish was certainly very reasonable.
We expected that by winter 2000, most of our systems would ship with 7200 RPM drives. In fact, this did not occur, primarily because of the consistent out-of-stocks experienced by all the drive makers, Seagate included. There was never any doubt that the 7200 RPM IDE market would keep on growing as the years rolled past, and no major manufacturer could afford to ignore it, but they all really needed to pay more attention to balancing supply and demand. (In fairness, this must be a terribly difficult task: it takes a very long time and costs an enormous amount to tool up a new production line for a high-tech product like a hard disc drive.)
|Data rate||323 Mbit/sec||Spin rate||7200 RPM|
|ST-320430A||20.2GB||6 GMR heads||**|
|ST-328040A||28.0GB||8 GMR heads||*| | <urn:uuid:77cf4d77-269f-4949-957a-a014cb787298> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redhill.net.au/d/94.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962084 | 353 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Quoting Doctor McCoy's intercom conversation with Spock, mid-episode:
The disease is not transmitted by the men, Mister Spock. The cause is the area of space we're in. It's affecting the whole crew. The molecular structure of the brain tissues in the central nervous system are distorting. And the madness that affected the Defiant's crew will soon happen to the Enterprise. Now you've got to get this ship out of here.
I'm a little confused here...
Is McCoy offering Spock an official diagnosis and prognosis for the crews of the Enterprise and Defiant? Is he saying that the Defiant's crew died of brain tissue disease caused by the unusual spacial distortion taking place in this particular region? If so, does this mean that if the Enterprise hangs around long enough, everyone will die regardless due to the deleterious affects this distortion has on brain tissue?
The Theragen-derived antidote
McCoy unveils later would seem to indicate that a chemical solution can be used to keep this brain tissue malady in check.
It seems a little contradictory. Did the Defiant's crew all go crazy on each other, and that was the cause of death? It looked like someone let the air out of the ship's interior, and Kirk's boarding party needed space suits with gravity boots to explore the derelict Defiant, suggesting there was no longer any life support available. Or did something else happen? | <urn:uuid:66869dd1-b428-450e-8b28-994940b5078c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7635688&postcount=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952479 | 292 | 1.671875 | 2 |
- Life Style
The United States on Thursday called an Egyptian statement about religious tolerance "a good first step" but said Egypt must do more after vitriolic comments about Zionists made by President Mohamed Morsy in 2010 surfaced.
The comments, made by Morsy when he was a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood opposition movement, sparked strong condemnation by the US State Department and an explicit demand that he "repudiate" them.
Morsy's comments were reported this week by The New York Times, which said it had obtained video of a 2010 speech in which he urged Egyptians to "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred" for Jews and Zionists.
In a TV interview that the paper said he made months later and that Reuters viewed on YouTube, Morsy described Zionists as "these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs."
Egyptian authorities subsequently issued two statements, the first of which said the comments were taken out of context, but stressed Morsy's commitment to full respect for religions and freedom of belief and worship.
The second statement said the Egyptian government rejects "all forms of discrimination and incitement to violence or hostility on the basis of religion."
The second statement appeared to have gone some way toward mollifying the United States but there were lingering concerns.
"That statement was an important first step to make clear that the type of offensive rhetoric that we saw in 2010 is not acceptable, not productive, and shouldn't be part of a democratic Egypt," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters.
"That said, we look to President Morsy and Egyptian leaders to demonstrate in both word and in deed their commitment to religious tolerance and to upholding all of Egypt's international obligations," she added.
"We consider this a good first step," she said. "They need to keep moving."
In mentioning its international obligations, Nuland appeared to be referring to Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979, which made it the first Arab state to make peace with Israel and leading to what is now US$1.3 billion in annual US military aid.
Morsy's comments appeared at odds with the diplomatic, moderate image the Islamist leader has sought to convey since taking office last year and may stir unease among Egypt's Western allies, whose aid he needs to weather a financial crisis.
The United States, which was a staunch ally of Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak until he was overthrown in 2011, is now trying to build a dependable relationship with Morsy.
Earlier this week, the State Department said it had told Egyptian authorities that his comments were sure to be of concern in the US Congress, which the Obama administration is trying to persuade to give economic support to Egypt. | <urn:uuid:898988bc-8010-4c19-9421-93223b0cbe54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/us-says-egypt-needs-do-more-religious-tolerance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978595 | 575 | 1.546875 | 2 |
As Shakespeare said: "...out damned spot..." (I know its taken out of context).
What an intriguing question. It's difficult to answer, but I'll give it a whirl.
Activation of the Cowper's gland (or bulbourethral gland) is part of a dynamic feedback loop involved in sexual stimulation and fulfillment. It can be stimulated by visual cues and also by physical feedback such as stimulation of the penis. In other words, it has nerve connections to the central nervous system which are supposed to be involved in activating it. Yet, it is supposed to be quiescent when we are not aroused, but ready to become active when the feedback loop is activated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbourethral_gland
First it must be asked: Are you absolutely sure that the Cowper's is the one that is misbehaving? I don't mean to embarrass you, but is it possible that damage to your urinary system during severe abuse has led to leakage of the urinary system? In other words, is it the slimy Cowper's secretion or is it urine that's leaking out? Or is there an infection involved here? What is the color of the leaking solution? Is it pus?
OK, if the answer to the above questions is that it is definitely Cowper's gland secretion, then why would it not assume its quiescent phase as it's supposed to? Assuming you are not partaking any of the drugs used in male stimulation now available on the market (viagra, etc.), then there is something going on with the feedback loop. So what would be activating the nervous system feedback loop? Is it DID? Is there a part of the nervous system which has been partitioned off and which is apparently not part of the usual system of activation? We know that DID has the power to act in this way. But is that what it is? Another question might be raised as to whether you sustained physical damage to that apparatus during the severe abuse you experienced. For instance, is there scar tissue exerting pressure on the nerve which is supposed to activate the system? And the last question is whether it's a body memory which is acting independently of the usual activating systems.
To get a better grasp of what's going on, try making mental notes as to whether the flow is always the same level or if it subsides at some times. This will give the best hint as to which if any of the 3 mechanisms I propose is being activated. | <urn:uuid:73ad328f-4dfc-42ab-8332-1c2046954c0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.malesurvivor.org/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=344062 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970711 | 512 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York (a k a MoCCA) closed its doors to the public on Monday “while it plans its future,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The museum, which was founded in the summer of 2001, had many noteworthy exhibitions during its 11-year history, like “Bat-Manga: The Secret History of Batman in Japan,” “Will Eisner’s New York: From the Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel,” and “Decades of Donnelly: The Art of New Yorker Cartoonist Liza Donnelly.” While it will be leaving its physical location in Soho by the end of July, like any comic book hero worth his cape, MoCCA is planning a return.
From the story:
Museum chair and president Ellen Abramowitz promised that the museum will continue to exist. She said the 10-year-old museum will announce its plans in the near future.
She said it has been difficult to find individual donors. The museum’s largest fundraiser is its annual festival.
Follow Rozalia Jovanovic via RSS. | <urn:uuid:af52e17b-5f73-4ce5-87c7-92bf1f5d712b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://galleristny.com/2012/07/museum-of-comic-and-cartoon-art-suddenly-closes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974481 | 238 | 1.6875 | 2 |
QUEEN’S PARK – The New Democrats are firing back at the Liberals, and Thunder Bay Atitkokan MPP Bill Mauro. New Democrat Consumer Affairs Critic Jagmeet Singh said “It’s sad to see Liberals defending an auto insurance industry that charges the highest rates in Canada”.
“Life is expensive enough without sky-high insurance bills making life even more expensive,” said Singh. “The same-old tired ideas put forward by the McGuinty Liberals just aren’t working for drivers. If Dalton McGuinty and the insurance industry want to have a debate then I urge them to support our efforts to do exactly that.”
Singh has proposed a private member’s bill that would ban insurer’s practice of discriminating by neighbourhood. It would mean premiums would be set by a person’s driving record, not the neighbourhood they live in.
Experts disagree with statements made by MADD Canada on Bill 45. Asked about the remarks in a Legislative committee last week, Brian Patterson, President of the Ontario Safety League, said: “I’m not sure on what basis he drew those conclusions. Those would not be consistent with the conclusions we’ve drawn… I don’t see the risks.” (Hansard, Auto Insurance Industry Review, May 30, 2012).
In fact, under Singh’s bill, bad drivers that put families in danger would pay more, not less.
“Bad drivers that put families at risk should pay more, not less,” said Singh. “Bill 45 brings more fairness for good drivers. Bad and dangerous drivers, like those with driving convictions, won’t get any breaks.”
Experts also disagree with Liberal claims that the bill will drive up rates in the North. Independent insurance expert and University of Waterloo CIBC Professor of Financial Risk Management Dr. Mary Hardy issued a letter stating “there is no reason why the premiums outside the major [urban areas] should change. The major impact would be on premiums charged in and around Toronto.”
Ontario has the highest auto insurance rates in the country. According to a recent report from the Auditor General, Ontario premiums – which average just over $1,400 per vehicle – are as much as 75% higher than other provinces. This is why New Democrats have arranged open hearings on auto insurance: to push for solutions. | <urn:uuid:d69e7a2a-d939-465f-b87a-4505cd6b6d72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netnewsledger.com/2012/06/07/new-democrats-fire-back-at-liberals-over-auto-insurance-bill/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957004 | 504 | 1.507813 | 2 |
SOUTHFIELD — On June 14, a panel of automotive industry, economic and university experts will discuss what’s being referred to as “the new auto,” and how the talent pipeline and cutting-edge innovation happening at our top research institutions can move our state’s economy and the industry forward.
“The New Auto — and Michigan’s Place in the 21st Century Auto Industry” will be held at the Michigan State University Management Education Center, 811 W. Square Lake Road in Troy. The event begins with registration and networking at 7:30 a.m., opening remarks at 8:45 a.m. and the panel discussion from 9 to 10:15 a.m.
Then, from 10:20 to 11 a.m., stay for a special presentation from motivation expert Chester Elton.
Michigan is the birthplace of the modern automotive industry, where the automobile was catapulted from a novel product to an everyday necessity. From the beginning, intense competition, increasing consumer demands, governmental safety and environmental regulations constantly posed new challenges. The way that automakers respond to these challenges is through innovation — improving their designs, manufacturing processes, logistics, or other business practices.
Michigan has been home for much of this innovation, primarily due to the clustering of OEMs and suppliers in the region, but also because of the presence of world-class research universities that has created and sustained a pool of talent and know-how that has attracted both domestic and international companies to locate their research and development centers in the state.
Panelists include Christopher Borroni-Bird of General Motors, Amy Cell of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Garth Motschenbacher of Michigan State University.
Following the panel discussion, hear from motivation expert Chester Elton, co-author of several successful leadership books and in-demand speaker the world over. Elton’s books have been translated into over 20 languages and have sold more than a million copies worldwide. Chester has been featured in The Financial Times,Washington Post, Fast Company and the New York Times. He has been featured on 60 Minutes, CNN, ABC’s Money Matters, MSNBC and National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:4dd29f0d-6ebe-4d75-94fb-b5944a631638> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/05/23/wwj-business-tech-breakfast-on-new-auto-technologies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941355 | 450 | 1.71875 | 2 |
And it was a completely unforced error...
Monetary policy: For a one-handed Fed: PAUL KRUGMAN'S latest column on the inactivity of the Fed in the face of persistent high unemployment touched off another round of hand-wringing over why the Fed is standing pat, particularly since Ben Bernanke is a noted scholar of the Great Depression who has written extensively on the ways monetary authorities can fight recessions. What gives? Some imagine that Mr Bernanke has changed his mind on the economics while others believe that as a Republican he's happy to provide help to the opposition ahead of November elections. The simpler and more likely explanation, in my view, is that the FOMC consists of more people than Mr Bernanke, and it is difficult to build a consensus within that group.... I also agree with Felix Salmon:
Bernanke is a consensus builder, as Krugman knows, having been part of the Princeton economics department during Bernanke’s tenure as its head. And it may or may not make sense for the Fed to ease much more aggressively. But so long as that remains outside the general consensus, Bernanke’s not going to do it.
The spate of competing conflicts in recent weeks indicates that there is a bit of an intellectual battle taking place within the Fed as a result of the second quarter's disappointing economic numbers. This suggests to me that the situation remains fluid and there is some set of events that could build a consensus around additional easing. It's just too bad that the current, languishing, disinflationary state of the economy isn't enough to get the Fed to act.
I think that the general rule in the future should be that nobody who has not served a full term as a state governor or managed a similarly large organization should be supported in any presidential run. FDR and DDE are certainly the class acts of the twentieth century. | <urn:uuid:83031ab9-9024-4bc5-9123-dcbac96f8f19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/07/obamas-failure-to-make-his-federal-reserve-appointments-in-a-timely-fashion-looks-to-have-been-his-biggest-blunder.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974687 | 385 | 1.570313 | 2 |
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. ~Hebrews 11:3
When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. ‘Oh, my lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked. ‘Don't be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. ~2 Kings 6:15-17
“The Bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person….We apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for that purpose, and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit’s urge and begin to use them. God and the spiritual world are real. We can reckon upon them with as much assurance as we reckon upon the familiar world around us. Spiritual things are there (or rather we should say here) inviting our attention and challenging our trust.” ~A.W. Tozer
Here is one such example…
Excerpted from On Call, a missionary autobiography by Dr. David Thompson. It takes place in Cambodia in the early 1950s during the French-Indochina War.
We had been in Kratie for perhaps a year. French troops were garrisoned in the city because it was a provincial capital. One day the French commander received secret information that a large force of rebels was going to attack the French rubber plantations outside of the town of Snoul, 80 kilometers away. Confident that his information was correct, the commander loaded his troops on trucks and raced to Snoul, hoping to surprise the rebels. The purported attack never materialized. It was a rebel trick.
The actual plan was for a rebel force of about 2000 to attack Kratie where we lived. As dusk fell…Father and Mother prayed. God had not brought them to Kratie to be destroyed before they had done the work they were sent to do.
I remember having to stay under the bed with my sister while Dad and Mom knelt and prayed. As Dad told it, around 2 a.m. a white flare lit up the square. The attack started soon after.
Bullets flew everywhere. Suddenly, a red flare shot up and burned briefly in the night sky. The shooting tapered off. In the morning there was no sign of the rebels and nobody understood why the rebels had abandoned the attack. The French commander returned later that day from Snoul and was surprised to find the city intact.
In 1955 the French granted independence to Cambodia, returning power to the king of Cambodia. The king promised amnesty to all the rebels who would turn in their weapons and pledge allegiance to him-some of the rebels were communists. On the announced day, the provincial rebels came by the thousands to the town square and stacked their weapons in a great pile. There were speeches and ceremonies all day. Towards the middle of the day the retiring French commander asked Dad to translate for him while he spoke to the rebel commander. After introductions, the commander asked the rebel leader, “Why did you not take the city the night we were diverted to Snoul, leaving Kratie defenseless?”
The rebel commander seemed surprised by the question. He remembered the night very well, he said, and suggested that the French commander was mistaken, for when the rebels attacked Kratie they were confronted by thousands of French soldiers. There were troops everywhere-more than he had seen at any other time during the war! Since the rebel force numbered only 2000 men, they had decided to flee!
With Dad interpreting, the French commander and the rebel leader argued about the events of that night. Only Dad understood what had happened: the army of the Lord had saved us. God’s angels had appeared as French soldiers in such great number that the rebels withdrew. (pp 17-19)
Believe in God; believe also in me [Jesus]. ~John 14:1 | <urn:uuid:b81bbdc1-261a-4e17-95c6-f246f346e327> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fieldsgold.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984961 | 925 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The top 32 soccer teams from around the globe compete in the most competitive and most watched sporting event the world has ever known, the FIFA World Cup. South Africa hosts the World Cup and becomes the first African nation to do so. The Cup kicks off on June 11th and continues until July 11th. Team USA takes on Slovenia, the smallest country at the World Cup, on Friday June 18th. Check out some of the new World Cup Soccer materials here at the library. | <urn:uuid:1e55f16e-1d8c-4929-95ad-c0554d783157> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cantonpl.org/tags/futbol | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967482 | 96 | 1.648438 | 2 |
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