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NEW DELHI: Is the Archaeological Survey of India bending rules to permit a private builder to carry out construction in the banned zone within 100 metres of Humayun's Tomb?
Delhi high court has decided to examine the issue and stayed ongoing construction at a property in Nizamuddin East. On Monday, an HC bench sought a reply from the ASI even as it ruled out vacating its earlier stay order.
The court was hearing a petition filed by lawyer Vijaya Laxmi, who also operates out of the same area in Nizamuddin and moved the court alleging that the ASI had illegally granted permission to the builder, EMCA Construction Company, to carry out construction. And this despite a law banning any such activity so that the monuments in the zone can be protected.
Laxmi in her plea explained that in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games, due to the requirements of construction of the elevated road over Barapullah Nullah that abuts ASI monuments, the government had passed a special law granting ASI the power to give a one-year window to builders to finish pending construction in the area. For this purpose, the central government amended the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958 to provide for one-time relaxation on building activity within the prohibited zone.
The amendment to the Act came in response to an HC order passed in 2009 that declared an ASI committee granting relaxations as illegal. The fallout of the court order was that all permissions granted by the committee became void, prompting the government to pass the amendment.However, Laxmi alleged that though the one-year time period window had ended, the ASI had gone ahead to extend the time within which construction was to be wrapped up, even though it has no power to do so as the parent Act had no such provisions.
On its part, the EMCA company rubbished the allegations levelled against it, and argued before the court that there was no time period stipulated by the ASI when it originally granted it permission to finish its activity. The firm also pointed out that it had lost nearly six months' time due to stay orders imposed by the court. | <urn:uuid:c5055c19-5b5c-420d-84d6-85ff6387fdf8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-28/delhi/29717772_1_asi-archaeological-survey-remains-act | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976685 | 447 | 1.601563 | 2 |
GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Rape and sexual violence as weapons of war are becoming more commonplace as the Syrian conflict continues, a U.N. rights commissioner said.
Civil war in Syria moves into its third year next month. The United Nations estimates at least 70,000 people have died in the conflict.
Erika Feller, U.N. assistant high commissioner for protection, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that fighting in Syria is complicated by the "deliberate victimization" of women.
"Reports are revealing that the conflict in Syria is increasingly marked by rape and sexual violence employed as a weapon of war to intimidate parties to the conflict destroying identity, dignity and the social fabrics of families and communities," she said.
An estimated 2 million people have been displaced in Syria by the war. Another 900,000 have fled to neighboring countries.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Wednesday with officials in France in part to discuss the Syrian crisis.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said from Geneva this week that the U.N. Security Council has so far "failed with regard to Syria." Efforts to censure Syria by the Security Council have been met with opposition from Russia, which says draft resolutions lack balance.
|Additional Special Reports Stories|
SANFORD, Fla., May 24 (UPI) --Pictures and texts from Trayvon Martin's cellphone show a different side of the teenager a Florida man is accused of killing unprovoked, defense attorneys say.
LOS ANGELES, May 24 (UPI) --Joe Francis says he is sorry he told The Hollywood Reporter the jury that convicted him of false imprisonment is retarded and should be euthanized.
MANILA, May 24 (UPI) --The Philippines is determined to spend $1.8 billion on military upgrades -- mostly naval -- to protect the country against "bullies" in its territorial waters. | <urn:uuid:ca4ba4d7-89c6-4c20-9478-e40f32787d24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/02/27/Sexual-violence-on-the-rise-in-Syria/UPI-74711361978948/?pvn=1 | 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 | 0.954422 | 402 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Another case of bullying and teen angst has ended in tragedy.
Amanda Todd, a beautiful Canadian teen who documented her torment at the hands of online bullies, was found dead Wednesday and authorities suspect the death was a suicide.
Last month the 15-year-old 10th grader at Coquitlam Basic Alternative Education school posted a nine-minute YouTube video in which she, through a series of flashcards, admitted she’d previously tried to kill herself, was on anti-depressant medication, and felt deep and vivid feelings of loneliness and abandonment.
“Every day I think why am I still here?” she said on the notecards. “I have nobody. I need someone.”
After she changed schools to escape the stigma from the traumatic incident, another one occurred in which she was dating a boy who already had a girlfriend, only to be publicly beaten.
Her mother Carol told The Vancouver Sun in a Tweet: “I think the video should be shared and used as an anti-bullying tool. That is what my daughter would have wanted.”
Coquitlam principal Paul McNaughton told the Vancouver Sun Amanda’s “is a very sad case. I can tell you we feel we tried everything we could to help her when she came to us.”
The story continues to resonate in cyberspace, as a Facebook page set up as a memorial had received more than 2,500 “likes” as of Friday. | <urn:uuid:bdfce4e0-c215-4e9f-8570-d7bec12eb915> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/10/bullied-teen-youtube-found-dead-suspected-suicide-amanda-todd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981682 | 312 | 1.757813 | 2 |
But nothing was routine as New York’s Board of Health held a public hearing Tuesday on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed limit on the sale of super-sized sugary sodas.
One woman brought a fruit platter as a prop. The list of speakers was so long that it sent the hearing soaring past its scheduled two hours. Impassioned speakers invoked everything from the civil rights struggle to the sugar content of beer as they tried to sway the board either for or against the proposal.
Depending on the speaker, Bloomberg’s plan is a violation of basic human rights; a measure to protect children from lives of diabetes, heart disease and other ills; an economic catastrophe in the making; or a necessary step toward curbing New York’s obesity problem.
If the Board of Health approves the proposal in September, restaurants, cinemas, delis and other food service establishments regulated by the city will be prohibited from selling sugary sodas larger than 16 ounces.
Opponents have dubbed the rule the “soda ban.” Health Commissioner Thomas Farley, at a briefing before the public hearing, insisted it wouldn't be a ban. “This is a limitation,” Farley said, repeating Bloomberg’s contention that nobody is being barred from enjoying sodas. They’ll just have to buy several smaller-sized drinks to fulfill their super-sized cravings.
Inside the vast hearing room, about the only thing everyone agreed on was Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s statement. “Nobody wants to be obese!” he blurted out after arguing against the Bloomberg plan.
But obese they are. According to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 58% of New Yorkers are overweight or obese, and more than 20% of the city’s public school children are obese. Supporters of the soda proposal blame the fizzy drinks for much of the problem, saying Americans consume an average of 40 gallons of sugary soda per person per year.
“A Twinkie or a Cheeto has at least a little nutrition. These beverages have none,” Kelly Brownell, an expert on obesity and eating disorders at Yale University, told the hearing.
The soda plan was announced in May and immediately became fodder for late-night TV and for advocates for the beverage and restaurant industries, who oppose the proposed rule. One group even called a Million Big Gulp March this month. The protest fizzled -- far fewer than the anticipated 500 protesters showed up outside City Hall -- but polls have indicated that most New Yorkers oppose the plan.
Bloomberg’s office has fired back with an ever-growing list of health experts and other personalities, including former President Clinton, folk singer Judy Collins and filmmaker Spike Lee, offering their views on why the rule is needed.
“Look, when I was growing up in Brooklyn, we had gym, and you had to run,” Lee said in a statement distributed by the mayor’s office that lamented Americans’ lazy lifestyles. “Americans -- we’re just obese. It’s crazy.”
Tuesday’s hearing location helped illuminate the issue. The Board of Health office is adjacent to a street lined with food outlets with names like Donuts Unlimited and Lucky Pizza. Before the hearing began, the operator of a food cart selling yet more doughnuts, as well as bagels laden with calorie-heavy toppings, loaded up and move on to his next location.
If the rule passes, the food cart operator as well as the doughnut and pizza outlets nearby would be banned from selling large sodas and could face fines of $200 for each violation.
But grocery stores and corner markets would not be affected, because they're not regulated by the city.
“You have to start somewhere,” said Brownell, referring to critics’ arguments that the proposed rule is unfair and that it makes no sense to ban sodas without also banning extra-large pizzas or unlimited donuts.
Markowitz said that even with the soda ban, some people -- like him -- would never be svelte. “I was an overweight kid, and I’m an overweight adult.... Frankly, I’m overweight because I eat too much pasta,” he said, going on to add red velvet cake, pizza and too little exercise to his list of problems.
“We shouldn’t idolize being razor-thin,” Markowtiz added. “Beauty comes in every size and shape.”
For critics of Bloomberg, the hearing was a chance to attack budget-cutting measures that they say have hindered people’s ability to get exercise.
“If you look at communities like mine, you’ll see that a number of parks and playgrounds have not been renovated in some time,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James, adding that the problems are particularly acute in black and Latino neighborhoods. | <urn:uuid:a50e8cd2-3e79-45bf-a7ce-3e939a9c1e40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/stew/la-na-nn-new-york-soda-ban-20120724,0,379449.story?track=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962044 | 1,039 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Details of Secret Pact Emerge: Troops Stuck in Afghanistan Until 2024
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Maybe you thought we’d get out of Afghanistan this very year, the drawdown date President Obama set as he surged U.S. troops into the country in December 2009; or maybe you thought the Obama administration’s target for withdrawal might be the last day of 2014, that date certain of recent vintage for turning over U.S. and NATO combat duties to the Afghans; or maybe -- if you happen to be a news jockey -- you took note when Brigadier General Walter Givhan suggested that the Afghan air force he was training might finally be up and running in 2016; or when his successor Brigadier General Michael Boera suggested that the date might slip to 2018 if Congress insisted that the Pentagon buy American, not Russian, helicopters for its pilots. Or maybe you noticed when Lieutenant General William Caldwell, commander of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan, recently suggested that the Afghan military would need the support of thousands of foreign trainers until at least 2020.
Whatever you thought, it turns out that you were wrong, and it’s time to recalibrate. After all, according to Ben Farmer of the British Telegraph, the Obama administration is now negotiating a “pact” with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai that could leave American military “trainers” -- thousands of them -- as well as special operations forces, and the U.S. Air Force settled into some of the enormous Afghan bases the Pentagon has built there until… 2024.
Let’s try, as a start, to put 2024 in perspective.
It was 1979 -- and I was 35 -- when the U.S. embarked on its first Afghan war. If 2024 is truly the Afghan endpoint for Washington, I’ll be 80 when the last American soldier leaves.
Or think of it another way: this September’s kindergarteners will be high school graduates in 2024 (and so eligible to join the all-volunteer army in the utterly unlikely event that victory hasn’t been achieved by then).
Or thought of another way, Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban, born in 1959, will 65 and ready for retirement in 2024; George W. Bush, the president who launched the war against the Taliban in 2001, will be 78; Barack Obama, the president who made Bush’s Afghan war his own, will be 63; and David Petraeus, the general who ran the Iraq War, Centcom, the Afghan War, and then the CIA, will be 72. (Expect years of Afghan-war-related memoirs.) And NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, may be only a year from losing power in 2024 and perhaps less than 73,600 years from the nearest star (by which time, the U.S. will be out of Afghanistan).
But let’s not get downhearted. If Farmer’s 2024 date turns out to be accurate, based on what we’ve repeatedly seen over the last near decade, there’s plenty to look forward to in the intervening 13 years -- and here’s just a sampling:
The U.S. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (call it the IG), government task forces, and various media organizations can do periodic investigations and issue corruption reports for 13 more years, just like the one Task Force 2010, set up by General Petraeus, recently issued. It indicated that some $360 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars have “ended up in the hands of… the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both,” all thanks to “profiteering, bribery, and extortion.”
And here’s something else to look forward to: If all goes well, the U.S. and its allies can continue to offer another 13 years’ worth of military and “development” funding that, as a June report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority staff indicated, already accounts for 97 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. And as that report (and so many others before it) also made clear, that funding has a remarkable way of “developing” next to nothing. | <urn:uuid:a7f5a021-17ce-452f-b3fb-4c21e1a21df5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/story/152146/details_of_secret_pact_emerge%3A_troops_stuck_in_afghanistan_until_2024 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951808 | 893 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Still Confused About Health Care Reform? Welcome to the ClubAugust 5, 2010
By Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN. Peggy is an infusion practice manager who occasionally writes for this blog.
I admit that I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with the ongoing discussions around health care reform. It sounds like I’m not the only one. FierceHealthcare.com recently reported that the results of a Harris Poll suggest many Americans remain befuddled about the implications of the Affordable Care Act passed in March:
“Here are some areas [w]here a general cluelessness among those polled prevailed:
- 82 percent think the bill will result in rationing of healthcare or that it might (it won’t);
- 79 percent don’t know or aren’t sure if drug companies will pay an annual fee (they will);
- 73 percent don’t know the law establishes a new tax on the sale of medical devices;
- 66 percent don’t know or aren’t sure if the legislation will result in insurance exchanges where people can shop for insurance (it will); and
- 63 percent either aren’t sure or don’t know if the new law will increase the number of people elibible for Medicaid (it will).
The chairman of the Harris Poll is quoted in the article: “It seems people are still reacting to the rhetoric, not the substance of what is in the bill . . .”
Considering the results of this poll, what do you think it would take to get the public up to speed on the facts? Do Americans not care, or is it too overwhelming? As a nurse, I feel I should be more informed about the law. And I’m going to spend some more time studying up on this as it affects us—as health care providers as well as citizens. How do you feel about this and what do you think could be done to clear up the confusion?
(More details about the poll results can be found here.) | <urn:uuid:4429ba7a-8ac9-4e2c-848b-2e96ac417faf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ajnoffthecharts.com/2010/08/05/still-confused-about-health-care-reform-welcome-to-the-club/ | 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 | 0.942993 | 423 | 1.585938 | 2 |
You may or may not have heard of the country of Moldova. It’s a tiny country, only 34,000 square kilometers and with only three and a half million inhabitants, located in Eastern Europe, to the northeast of Romania.
But, that’s not the question right now. The question is – have you heard of Transnistria?
Transnistria is a Moldovan breakaway territory, located between Ukraine and the Dniester River in eastern Moldova, a territory that declared itself an independent state back in 1990, and has basically continued to operate as such despite not being recognized by any other country. The territory of Transnistria has it’s own President, it’s own Parliament and even it’s own currency, Transnistrian rubles. It has its own flag, it’s own license plates and all visitors to the region must pass through a heavily secured border, complete with an immigration and customs inspection.
And while fighting did take place between pro-Moldovan and Russian-backed pro-Transnistrian troops during the War of Transnistria in the early 1990s, things have been quite quiet ever since mid-1992. That is when a ceasefire was called which established a joint force of Russian, Moldovan and Transnistrian troops to control the region’s security, and the agreement has so far held up.
My Visit to Transnistria
Last week, while in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, I decided to visit Transnistria because, well, there is no way I would turn down an opportunity to visit a breakaway region, wherever I may be in the world. So, early one morning I walked down to the bus station with two other travelers I had met and within five minutes, we found ourselves sitting in a minibus, on our way to Tiraspol, the Transnistrian capital.
After filling out a form at the border, presenting it to the Transnistrian immigration official and then answering a few questions (how long will you stay, what’s your father’s name, why do you want to visit the region), I returned to the minibus and settled into my seat. There would be another forty-five minutes until we reached Tiraspol and I was eager to catch my first glimpse of this interesting destination that so few people visit.
And of course, as one would naturally expect from a breakaway region of Eastern Europe, my first glimpse involved a massive ferriss wheel, located behind some houses in the first community that we drove through.
During the rest of the drive to Tiraspol, I noticed massive Communist-style power plants, dilapidated, decades-old buses, a brand new football stadium (apparently the Tiraspol team is quite well known and good), a road block manned by a bored Russian soldier, the ruins of what appeared to be an old fortress, crumbling apartment buildings and homes, well-manicured gardens, well-maintained train tracks and more 1970s Ladas and Volgas (Russian cars) than I’ve ever seen before.
And it was generally the same contrast once we arrived in the capital. After being dropped off in front of the train station, the three of us proceeded to spend our time roaming around the town, without any idea of what to do or where to go. However, Tiraspol is very small (only 160,000 people) and we were able to walk up and down every major and somewhat major street in just a couple of hours.
The one thing I also noticed from the moment we crossed the border was that Transnistria is an exceptionally quiet place. I know there are only half a million or so inhabitants in the entire territory, but walking around Tiraspol felt quite eerie at times, with not so many vehicles and not so many people in the street at all.
During our wanderings, everything we came across gave us an interesting, but still very general, view of life in these parts. We passed simple shops, many parks, buildings in major need of repair and a sprinkling of brand-new modern buildings that were usually selling items such as farm machinery or furniture. We would also walk by the occasional soldier and the occasional policeman, but, contrary to what we had heard from other travelers, not one of them ever approached us asking for a bribe. In fact, even though few foreigners make it to Tiraspol, nobody in town really seemed to pay any attention to us at all, and we definitely stood out.
Lunch Time in Tiraspol
When we became hungry, we looked all over but couldn’t find a single place to eat. And so, I stopped a young guy, with long hair tied back in a ponytail, on a street corner and asked him if he spoke English. “Of course” he said and so I asked him if there was a cafe or restaurant nearby.
He told us about one restaurant a couple of blocks away and then, just as I was thanking him for his assistance, he pulled out a color brochure from the plastic bag he was carrying. Just like that he asked me if I would like to buy some art, showing me several photos of paintings from an apparently well-known Moldovan artist. Now I couldn’t tell if he was actually the artist or if he was working for the artist or what the deal was, but he insisted several times that I call the phone number on the back of the brochure in order to place my order.
I thanked him again, shook his hand, and off we went for lunch.
Lunch turned out to be excellent, although it did take the three of us about twenty minutes to place our order. The menu was only in Russian, the one waitress and the one chef only spoke Russian and we had no idea what was on the menu as a result. Eventually, after much laughter, a few slaps of the forehead and a great deal of hand gesturing, we somehow managed to understand that there was a chicken soup and a chicken and potato dish available. So we all quickly ordered these two items, unwilling to spend another twenty minutes deciphering more of the menu’s offerings.
This actually proved to be the situation most of the day as the local population consists of approximately 30% Russians, 30% Ukrainians and 30% Moldovans, so most of the people we met spoke Russian, making it very difficult to communicate. At least my limited Romanian language skills comes in handy when talking with those who speak Moldovan but with Russian, I’m lost.
Of course, language is not the only way to communicate and throughout the day there were plenty of smiles and handshakes exchanged. But I would have been very interested to dive into actual conversation with those who live in this territory in order to learn a little more about life in Transnistria, something I simply was not able to do.
Final Impressions From My Visit
Parts of the town, and its outskirts, seemed quite gloomy while other parts seemed a bit more cheerful. There was a good amount of construction and road-building taking place where it was common to find ancient trucks being used alongside sparkling, brand-new bulldozers. One moment you get the sense that Transnistria is much poorer than the rest of Moldova (which is the poorest country in Europe) and the next minute, you see all of the road construction, and the high quality of the roads being created, and you think the opposite. Similarly, one minute you think you’re in 2012 and then you turn a corner and you would swear you just went back in time 20 or 30 years.
And while the people I did interact with were polite, their faces generally remained expressionless most of the time, almost as if the entire city was a movie set and everyone on the streets was an ‘extra’ in some film.
Transnistria certainly didn’t feel dangerous, even though many travelers seem to be afraid to visit. While it might be a breakaway territory, so much time has passed since it did break away that a certain way of life has definitely been established, and people just go about their business as they do anywhere else on the planet. And with so few soldiers around, at least in Tiraspol, the chances of more fighting taking place any time soon seems quite slim.
As a result, while there really isn’t much to do in Tiraspol, I still think it’s a fascinating place to spend a day for any traveler who visits Moldova. Will such a visit give you a full understanding of the current situation in the breakaway territory? Not really, and in all honesty, I left Transnistria that evening only slightly more educated about the situation than when I had arrived.
But hey, it’s a breakaway territory nonetheless and how many times do you get an opportunity to visit such a region!
(Map of Transnistria by Serhio)
Have you been to this region? Have you heard of it? Would you travel there? | <urn:uuid:b035aca1-2f12-4ffe-a956-13a7005945a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wanderingearl.com/visiting-the-breakaway-territory-of-transnistria/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977318 | 1,894 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Many times when one finds him or herself deep in debt, with no room in the budget for anything except the essentials such as food, water, shelter, etc. (no, football tickets and manicures are NOT essentials!), one will often ask, “Can I afford to be a giver when I’m financially on the edge?” One may also ask why is this guy writing this blog entry pretentiously referring to me as ‘one’?” The answer to the latter question is “one may never know”. The answer to the former question however is “yes, one CAN afford to continue giving, or even start giving for that matter.”
“Yeah, that’s great Doc.” One might say in that redneck voice that everyone obtains when times are hard, “But I got no money and I’m drownin’ in debt, (cue the background country music) I done lost my J-O-B, they repossessed my muddin’ truck and their a comin’ fer the house next week. Does God really expect me to be a giver when I cain’t rub two lincolns together?” Yes, He does. His word doesn’t say to give out of your abundance, it doesn’t say to give if you can afford it, it just says to give.
I know it sounds counterintuitive, but keep reading.
When you read the Bible, you find that God made us in His image, and if we know anything about God, we know that He’s a giver. In His word, giving is stressed again and again in verse after verse for one reason only; He wants us to be more like Him.
Why? So He can fulfill His promises toward us, to benefit others, and ultimately benefit ourselves.
When you give, the first thing that happens is that it changes your view (assuming you gave with the right attitude) of where it all comes from in the first place. You can see this in Psalms 24:1 where it says “The earth is His and the fullness thereof.” He wants us to recognize that it’s not all about us and it’s up to us to give back just a portion (a tithe or 10%) of what He has given us for the benefit of His kingdom and the world at large.
The other thing that giving does is that it causes God to bless us in return for making that sacrifice. It shows God’s promise clearly in Malachi 3:10 where it says “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing until it overflows.” That, my friends, is a pretty sweet promise! We now have an overflow in a place that before was lacking.
I’ll admit, I have struggled with this in the past. It can be very hard to step out in faith and believe that giving a part of what you have, whether it’s a little or a lot, is going to come back to you in multiple and multiplied ways. But I can tell you that it absolutely works, because I’ve been living it for many years now and the evidence of it is all over my life.
So if you are in a not so good financial situation, continue to give, or if you haven’t been giving, start.
If you’re just not sure about the tithing thing then do this: Start giving a smaller percentage (1%, 3%, 5% whatever) and see if it doesn’t start changing some things in your life, then you can work your way up from there.
Do it with the right attitude, out of love and sacrifice, no grumbling. Remember, there is always someone worse off than you. In fact there are over 1.4 Billion people on the planet who live on $1.25 or less per day according to the World Bank.
When you are a giver, God WILL bless you. If you have gotten yourself in trouble financially, you’ll still have to work to correct that and be a better steward of what He has given you, but as long as you’re taking action you just may be surprised how He will make sure things begin falling your way.
In closing I want you to remember this short mathematical equation: B 90% > UB 100%, or to put it in English, “A blessed 90% is greater than an unblessed 100%.”
Tell me what you think.
I’d love to seeyour comments! | <urn:uuid:f9e53444-a4b2-4f3d-9e0e-0d07297bfe7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cfinancialfreedom.com/cff-math-lesson-b90-ub100/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95671 | 1,001 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Dinesh D’Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He
is the author of Illiberal Education, The End of Racism,
Letters to a Young Conservative and What’s So Great About
America. D’Souza spoke to the Review before his speech at West
Lecture Hall on Thursday.
I understand you’ve visited Oberlin before?
Yes. I started
speaking in 1991 when my first book Illiberal Education came out and I
remember coming to Oberlin shortly after that — so I think I’ve been
to Oberlin twice. I believe the last time I was here I met your Rhodes Scholar
Jesse Malkin, who at the time was dating a young Oriental girl named Michelle,
who is now the writer Michelle Malkin.
What’s your impression of our school?
My impression of Oberlin is
that it’s always been a lively, feisty place that’s left wing in its
politics in a very intelligent way. Left wing and lowbrow is always a very
toxic combination but audiences at Oberlin tend to be a mixture of conservatives
and liberals, and there’s always a good debate.
Do you think that the climate on American college campuses has changed
since you wrote Illiberal Education?
I think the general themes of the
book are still very relevant. There have been some changes in terms of political
correctness. The speech codes that were prevalent on campuses are more rare now
and are rarely enforced. On the other hand, there’s still a problem of
political balance. The older generation of professors who were providing balance
are retiring now and the ’60s generation is now in full control.
Do you think that the left wing climate on campuses is affecting the
I think that the university is now self-consciously removed
from the political mainstream, so the politics of academia has no effect on
national politics. Where I think that academia does have an impact is in molding
the minds of young people. It’s a fact that many young people come to
university as conservatives and leave as liberals.
But are these liberal college grads having any affect on the national
That’s more debatable. There is also the
“mugged by reality” syndrome, which is when people who were more
left wing become taxpayers and have families and then become more conservative.
Do you enjoy speaking to audiences who may be hostile to your point of
I like speaking before liberal audiences better because I feel more
intellectually challenged. Lots of people can give a conservative speech to
conservative audiences but talking to liberals has sort of become my specialty.
The integration of immigrants and racial minorities into society has been
a major topic of your writing. Can you comment on that theme in your
Well, France is very different than America of course. The kind of
Islamic radicalism that we are seeing in Europe has not, to date, surfaced in
America, and I think there are a few reasons for that. Despite all the battles
about multiculturalism, Americanization is actually working quite well. France
is also relentlessly anti-religious and consider their opposition to the veil to
be justified by the fact that they ban the cross as well, therefore
discriminating against all religions. It is a lot easier to practice your
religion here, which is the reason why traditionalist Muslims feel more
But couldn’t France be described as the ultimate anti-multicultural
society as well?
There’s no evidence that that’s what they want,
though. This isn’t about time off of school for holidays or funding for
festivals — they want inclusion. The deeper point is not multiculturalism
but inclusion. It is possible for an immigrant to become an American. Europe
does not give full membership to the outsider.
Do you think that George Bush is a conservative in the tradition of Ronald
Reagan, whom you’ve written a book about, or does he represent a shift in
I don’t think that there is any fundamental
shift. Reagan conservatism represented a three-pronged strategy focused on
winning the Cold War, protecting the free market and what were called
In this sense the Bush approach is very squarely in the mainstream, with
Islamic radicalism neatly replacing communism. Obviously now, socialism does not
exist anymore. Bush’s tax cuts are very much in the tradition of
Reaganism. He’s probably a much more devout Christian, but both have an
emphasis on the decent society.
What’s going to be the theme of your speech tonight [Thursday
Tonight I’m going to talk about some of the connections between
the foreign policy debate and the culture wars going on domestically and address
whether or not America is an empire and what type of empire.
The motives of radical Islam are quite different from what we think.
I’m going to try to give a unique interpretation of what this war is all
Do you think America is an empire?
It is an empire but not in the
traditional sense. America is based on certain political truths. When the
founders articulated these truths we had principles but no power. Now America is
starting to act on these principles globally. That’s something that goes | <urn:uuid:cddd20a9-bf73-4e85-a277-f9f6badcd7db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/12/09/news/article7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956158 | 1,135 | 1.5 | 2 |
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Spearmint Tea May Help Women With Hirsuitism
Posted: February 22, 2007
page 3 of 4The Turkish researchers thought that spearmint might be linked with reports of diminished libido in townsmen (presumably because of its effects on androgen levels). In one previous rat study, spearmint reduced testosterone levels.
"Previously, we investigated the effects of [peppermint] and [spearmint] herbal teas on testicular function in an experimental rat model and found that testosterone levels were decreased," Tamer said. "Because we found the anti-androgenic effects of spearmint, we decided to observe the effect of this herbal tea on the androgen levels in hirsute women."
For this study, 21 women with hirsutism drank two cups of herbal spearmint tea for five days at a certain time in their menstrual cycle.
All women showed a decrease in free testosterone (circulating hormone not bound to other molecules) and an increase in several different "female" hormones, including follicle-stimulating hormone and estrogen.
There was no significant decrease in total testosterone levels; it was unclear if there was any change in amount of excess hair growth. | <urn:uuid:921f39c2-7e7a-4c84-9d0c-ca412febe647> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skininc.com/treatments/wellness/nutrition/5990701.html?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932605 | 276 | 1.640625 | 2 |
A colleague in the elections community sent along this observation, which is pertinent to any state that requires ballots only be postmarked, but not delivered by Election Day.
They are sitting in post offices or they’re in postal bags somewhere.
What if somebody, who already knows the Murkowski/Miller race is close, wanted to try and affect the outcome of the election and decided not to deliver a batch of ballots or discarded them?
Allowing timely postmarked ballots adds a security threat to the election when there are ballots out there floating around and elections officials don’t even know where they are. It also adds an extra difficult issue of what to do when the postmark is unreadable or is totally missing.
Check your next stack of mail. There are almost always some items in there missing a postmark. | <urn:uuid:67d324a4-8f56-4e96-8179-060ce651362a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.earlyvoting.net/commentary/more-alaska-and-australia-there-security-issue-postmark-states/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956385 | 168 | 1.679688 | 2 |
We have been planning all of the lovely traditions that we would like to start as a family in the run up to Christmas. We want to celebrate Advent and really teach our children the meaning of the nativity, as well as beginning some homely, family activities that we can revisit each year.
First of all we sat and talked about Christmas and what we would all like to do. C was very keen to mention hot chocolate, sweets, cakes and presents (no surprise!). Daddy really wanted to make sure we included Christingle services, singing carols and learning Bible passages together, to keep the Biblical focus. I also wanted to include old fashioned traditions and lots of crafting and baking. Between us, we came up with lots of ideas, but 24 will do- one for each day of December!
I drew around a star shape cookie cutter onto white card and wrote out all of our ideas onto the star shapes. Then I simply laminated them, cut them out and stuck a loop of ribbon the the back of each one with sticky tape. I thought I would be able to punch holes through, but the hole-puncher wasn’t able to cope!
We painted a tree branch with a tiny bit of silver glitter paint and hung the activity stars onto it, ready to choose one for each day in December. I didn’t number them so that we can be flexible (and realistic) about what we can achieve each day. I hope this will be one of our new family rituals each year and maybe we can even recycle the same stars for next Christmas too!
Here are a few examples of the activities we hope to do:
* go to a Christingle service
* make cookies
* decorate the tree
* have a Christmas meal with friends
* go and see the lights in the city
* make a gingerbread house
* create a nativity scene
* learn a Bible passage
* have hot chocolate and marshmallows
* wear Christmas pyjamas around the fire and toast marshmallows!
* have a movie night with a Christmas film and popcorn
….and many more! | <urn:uuid:e26a8d17-2500-4d57-b951-a107c3dc5478> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theimaginationtree.com/2011/11/advent-activity-tree.html?showComment=1322556034098 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965326 | 433 | 1.78125 | 2 |
This is Christie’s 13th year with the UW Oshkosh Department of Geology. Her teaching responsibilities currently include labs and lecture for both Environmental Geology and Physical Geology.
She received an AB in Geology from Colgate University and an MS in Geology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she specialized in clay mineralogy. Her research at Illinois focused on determining the alteration history of volcanic rocks from the island of Ischia in Italy.
Christie served as a teaching assistant for a variety of geology classes while at the University of Illinois and Colgate University. Prior to coming to Oshkosh, she worked at the Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University, using radar imagery to study the structural architecture of the Transantarctic Mountains and the distribution of volcanic cones in Antarctica. | <urn:uuid:25fc48d2-2a02-4686-8ea9-c394eecfc053> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/geology/faculty/demosthenous.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937089 | 172 | 1.515625 | 2 |
By James P. Pinkerton
Remember the golden apple of discord? That fateful fruit triggered the Trojan War. At his news conference Tuesday, President Bush showed he, too, can lob a mean apple at the Democrats.
In Greek mythology, the gods were feasting when Eris, the goddess of strife, threw a golden apple on the dinner table; inscribed on it was, To the most beautiful. Naturally, all the goddesses thought the apple was meant for them. To settle the controversy, Zeus sought out a mortal, from Troy. Next thing, the Greeks were involved, too -- and the rest is history, of a kind.
OK, back to contemporary American politics. Bush has thrown the apple of discord onto the Democrats table. Yes, he and his poll ratings are down, mired in Iraq, but he figures if the Democrats are also at war -- with each other -- then the donkeys will be in no position to exploit the elephants weakness.
Bushs discordant apple is the home-front wrangle over Iraq. Many Republicans and conservatives are disillusioned over the course of the war, but even so, they dont want to see their president and their party getting hammered by Democrats and liberals. So if Bush is attacked, they must defend.
Thus Ws news conference. For years, he has mostly avoided taking questions from media veteran Helen Thomas, who stands out as the Bush-bashingest member of the White House journalistic corps. Back in 2002, Thomas revealed her approach to punditry: I wake up and ask myself, Who do I hate today? The answer, quite often, is Bush. On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, she prophesied that a victory for the radical right would mean more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Now 85, Thomas feels completely free to vent. And so when Bush changed his strategy and called on her, he knew he was going to get a blast. Thomas did not disappoint: With Bush having killed so many innocent people in Iraq, she wanted to know why he was such a warmonger.
In response, Bush acted with an above-the-fray good humor that was, well, Olympian. He prefaced his answer with in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist. . . . But, of course, even as he was being polite, he was also dishing red meat to his base -- what hard-core Republican is fond of lifelong journalists? As Thomas flailed at Bush, the presidents supporters saw her as the embodiment of all the liberals and all the Democrats who despise Bush. And so the right rallied round its president. On Tuesday, Bill OReilly and Sean Hannity of Fox News devoted segments to defending Bush and/or trashing Thomas.
Of course, Thomas vehemence gained her new fans on the left, too; that same night she was prominently featured on CNN and CBS. Having made herself part of the story with her antagonistic questioning, she found herself feeding the polarization -- and the energization -- of both sides.
The problem for Democrats is that Thomasism, defined as extreme hatred of Bush, plays poorly with Americans as a whole. After all, this is a moderate-to-conservative country; the Democrats can regain power only if they look moderate, too. But dont bother explaining that to the fringe activists who want to censure Bush or even impeach him. In their blogged-up anti-Bush frenzy, they dont care if their extremism dashes Democratic chances in November.
If the Iraq war continues, and if Bush keeps answering Thomas-type questions, the Democrats dilemma is likely to worsen. If party professionals cant restrain them, Thomasite activists will want to nominate one of their own in 2008, someone almost certainly unelectable, such as would-be censurer-in-chief Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.
So yeah, Bush has big problems. But as long as he can throw nasty apples down on the Democrats -- causing discord among them -- he can give them bigger problems.
Special to Newsday | <urn:uuid:346f486a-e5e0-4174-8a55-a7c2b35d49ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.state-journal.com/opinion/2006/03/27/bush-haters-hurt-themselves | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966917 | 839 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Yesterday, something remarkable happened.
Over five hundred faithful attended a unique event to Delaware culture that could also create a sea change within Delaware politics. The culmination of months and test of faith turned out to be very encouraging for those who every election cycle sees the glimmer of hope fade away.
The Delaware political scene has seen tea party groups and Occupy Wall Street, but the event held yesterday at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware was unique. In its inaugural event and first event to the mass public the Delaware Faith & Freedom Coalition held a Prayers for America event. The event pulled pastors and priests from all walks of life and from all across the state and the nation to pray for our nation.
From the moment the shofar was blown calling the faithful to prayer to the conclusion, attendees were drawn to their feet in praise and grounded in their seats in prayer for a nation torn by the secular movement attempting to dismantle a society through a rabid progressive agenda. But these faithful would not hear any of that.
Through the uniqueness of the faith leader's words a line in the sand was drawn:
No longer are we going to stand for secularization from every facet of society, from our schools to our government to our media. No longer are we as a society going to stand for elected leaders who allow for the genocide of the unborn. No longer are we as a society going to stand for the rampant destruction of the basic economic unit - the family. No longer are we as a society going to stand for election and re-election of political leaders who want to label and divide our communities, and instill a progressive, secular agenda that punishes prosperity and success and promotes dependency on the government to live. No longer will we be silent, and today and everyday forthcoming we will fight until our last breath to stand up for preservation of a moral and just society.
While it is truly magical that our republic still endures over 236 years after its independence and
225 after the ratifying our nation's Constitution, our nation has see an
erosion in moral and political discourse that must be reversed if the
republic is to survive. As each pastor spoke on various topics relevant to our society, it became more relevant that every vote that is cast matters and every election matters. It became visibly clear that if united, a sea change could emerge in our communities, our cities, our counties, our state and our nation. A sea change that could restore the order of every layer of government to the moral foundation created by our Founding Fathers.
But no longer will we be silent.
With the upcoming election in the fall from President to every other office down to city or county council, the faithful must vote their conscience and not through the prism of a corrupt media whose sole intention is to distort the truth. For the truth is the path forward to restore order in this chaotic world. This sea change cannot be done without you and the hard work and dedication of the grass roots groups that want a sea change.
Surely, Faith & Freedom and its Delaware chapter will be part of this sea change, but it cannot be alone. In the prism of faith, it would remiss that without the wisdom and education done by the Delaware Family Policy Council that the knowledge instilled by this group, the sea change would be difficult. What the Delaware Family Policy Council does through education, policy and legislative work; the Delaware Faith & Freedom team will do through grassroots political engagement and activism to mobilize the faithful to elect leaders who have a Biblical world view and value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The resources of these two powerful organizations should make the secular left very nervous.
United on faith and with knowledge and perseverance, the Delaware Way will soon be a thing of the past. God willing a restored and renewed Delaware and nation will emerge based on the Judea-Christian values our Founding Fathers envisioned for this great nation.
Are you ready for this call for action? | <urn:uuid:8054b60a-3610-423a-9cc8-219a613dbadd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bluehenconservative.blogspot.com/2012/04/line-in-sand.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954579 | 798 | 1.554688 | 2 |
By AMIR EFRATI
The result is that people who create an account to use Gmail, YouTube and other Google services—including the Zagat restaurant-review website—are also being set up with public Google+ pages that can be viewed by anyone online. Google+ is a Facebook rival and one of the company's most important recent initiatives as it tries to snag more online advertising dollars.
The impetus comes from the top. Google Chief Executive Larry Page has sought more aggressive measures to get people to use Google+, two people familiar with the matter say. Google created Google+ in large part to prevent Facebook from dominating the social-networking business.
Both Facebook and Google make the vast bulk of their revenue from selling ads. But Facebook has something Google wants: Facebook can tie people's online activities to their real names, and it also knows who those people's friends are. Marketers say Google has told them that closer integration of Google+ across its many properties will allow Google to obtain this kind of information and target people with more relevant (and therefore, more profitable) ads.
Some users of Google's services are startled to learn how far the integration can reach. Sam Ford, a 26-year-old Navy petty officer, says he signed up for Google+ on his smartphone because it would let him automatically upload new photos to a Google+ folder—one that he kept private. Later, he says, he was surprised to see that his Google+ profile page—which includes his name—was tied to a software review that he wrote recently on the Google Play online store.
Google is "trying too hard to compete with Facebook, and if people aren't going to share willingly, they'll make them share unwillingly," he says.
A Google spokeswoman says the company began requiring use of Google+ profiles to write reviews to improve the quality of the critiques, which was lower when people were able to leave reviews anonymously. The change also allows people to see reviews by their friends, she says.
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment.
Google executives say more integration is coming. "Google+ is Google," says Vice President Bradley Horowitz. "The entry points to Google+ are many, and the integrations are more every day."
The initiative has been controversial within Google. Some employees viewed it as a desperate attempt to catch up to Facebook while others believe it is the company's best path to being relevant in the age of social media, said people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Page, the CEO, about a year ago pushed the idea of requiring Google users to sign on to their Google+ accounts simply to view reviews of businesses, the people say. Google executives persuaded him not to pursue that strategy, fearing it would irritate Google search users, the people say. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter.
In recent months, Google has pressed ahead with other forms of integration. This past fall, for instance, Google began requiring people who want to post their reviews of restaurants or other businesses to use their Google+ profiles to do so. The same rule applies for reviews of smartphone software "apps," as well as physical goods, obtained through Google.
Links to Google+ also appear in Google search-engine results involving people and brands that have set up a Google+ account.
Vic Gundotra, who is in charge of Google+, says he sees little in-house controversy today. "There was more resistance two years ago," when the project wasn't well understood internally, he says.
The integration has helped increase Google+ usage. Google last month said 235 million people used Google+ features—such as clicking on a "+1" button, similar to Facebook's "Like" button—across Google's sites, up from 150 million in late June.
By using its top websites to help Google+, the company has shown how far it is willing to go to battle Facebook to become a gateway for Internet users to communicate with each other and businesses.
Because using Google+ requires people to sign in to their Google accounts, Google will be able to blend mounds of data about individual users' search habits and the websites they visit with their activities on Google+. That is a potential boon to Google's ad business, from which the company derives about 95% of its more than $40 billion in annual revenue, excluding its new Motorola phone-making unit.
Google is "sitting on a mountain of data," says Alan Osetek, president of Resolution Media, which helps marketers buy ads on Google. He says "click-through rates"—the rates at which Google search users click on ads—have increased for his clients' ads when they include information from Google+, such as the number of people who have recommended a brand by clicking the +1 button on the brand's Google+ page. "In the majority of cases, lift in click-through rates ranged from 2% to 15%," he says.
Users' Google+ profile pages typically include their real names, and they can add other details such as their hometowns. By default, the page is public and will turn up in a Google search. It is possible, however, to change a setting so that the page doesn't show up in search results. There is also a way for people to disable or delete their Google+ accounts.
Although Google doesn't reveal a user's name to advertisers, Google uses information about the person's Web visits and interests to help marketers target ads more accurately, Google says. Mr. Gundotra, the Google+ chief, says the company won't share data about individual users with advertisers and that it is important for the company to maintain users' trust.
Google encourages account holders to use Google+ to share photos and thoughts with friends or other Google+ users who share their interests. Integrating Google+ with the rest of the company's properties helps users glean more information about apps, businesses, websites, products and—most important for Google's business—ads for those products. That is because Google+ users can be notified if their Google+ friends or other contacts recommend the items.
"You'll go to search for a camp stove on Google, and you'll find that your friend just bought one, and you'll be able to ask him about it," says Dylan Casey, a former Google+ product manager who now works at Path Inc., a smartphone-based social network.
Since Google+ made its debut in mid-2011, the Mountain View, Calif., company has had limited success getting people to spend time directly on the Google+ site. Research firm comScore Inc. a year ago estimated that Google+ users spent an average of three minutes on the site each month, versus more than 400 minutes for the average Facebook user. In the U.S., Google+ had nearly 28.7 million unique visitors through PCs in October—well below Facebook's 149 million, comScore says. Those numbers don't include mobile-device users.—Evelyn M. Rusli
contributed to this article.
Write to Amir Efrati at [email protected]
A version of this article appeared January 3, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: There's No Avoiding Google+. | <urn:uuid:0382b359-497c-4d56-a0c6-c93c583873fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578193781852024980.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967094 | 1,488 | 1.671875 | 2 |
It's the dream of many a technology-wielding science fiction fan: glasses that let you see your computer, while still going about your daily business unhindered. Transparent display technology is finally making it possible. Epson's got a pair, Sony was working on a pair, and we hear Google's sticking a finger in the pie. Now, Vuzix, a firm that actually produces video eyewear on a regular basis, is building some transparent glasses, too. Following an intellectual property licensing agreement with Nokia, the company claims it's developed "a 1.4 mm thick plastic waveguide lens with input and output hologram structures on the surface which squeezes the light down the waveguide and then two dimensionally expands the image back into the user's eye, creating an image that is then mixed into the real world," and says it'll be building the technology into glasses for commercial and industrial use by summer of this year. The company's promising a demo at CES this year, and you can bet we'll be there. | <urn:uuid:5a86cbf4-a86f-476c-a922-af21162362c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/6/2686410/vuzix-nokia-smart-glasses-transparent-display-hud | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945387 | 211 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Excerpt of Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O'Brien
(Page 6 of 8)
Printer Friendly Excerpt
"Eunice -- "
"Fiddlesticks." Eunice's voice is matter-of-fact. "Henry has no
time to die. He'll be rushing through the door any minute, tugging at his
collar, saying he's hungry, imploring me to sit and listen to his latest
brilliant sermon, as if I didn't have anything better to do. And then he'll be
gone, hardly having seen me, hugging the maids and patting the shoulders of
neighbors on the street and never once touching me." She gestures toward the
window. "And then I'll stand here and watch him as he strides across the street
to where he really lives. His church."
Harriet breathes deeply, trying to shape a response. All these
years of puzzling over this difficult sister-in-law. What came first, her dour
approach to life or Henry's desire to flee? It is far too tender a question to
speak about openly in the family, but there have been whispers about her
refusing Henry his marital rights. What are her secrets? Once Henry told Harriet
that Eunice's father threw a tureen of hot soup on his daughter when, as a young
girl, she wore a slightly low-cut dress to dinner. Harriet tries to imagine not
only the shock of such a physical scalding but the shame and humiliation the
poor woman must have felt. It makes a charitable response easier.
"This is his home, Eunice. With you," she says.
Eunice makes no reply.
The nurse suddenly appears at the door. "Where have you been?"
"Taking my breakfast, ma'am."
Harriet sees the dislike in the nurse's eyes as she glances at
Eunice and then approaches the bed. She has seen the same expression on the
faces of several servants in the short time she has been here. There is more
than one reason why this house is so cold.
Her gaze travels to her brother. He hasn't spoken a word since
his stroke two days ago. Is she imagining it, or is his breathing more shallow
than last night? The doctors know nothing. They stand around the bed and clear
their throats and say he is a very sick man, and the outcome is doubtful,
although, well, he might regain consciousness.
He "might"? How could that be, when only a few weeks ago, on her
last visit, he had entered the parlor in his great melton coat, the cape thrown
over one shoulder, a slouch hat covering his long, flowing hair, laughing and
having his usual convivial exchanges with friends while she and Eunice provided
refreshments? How could someone larger than life be brought down so fast?
"Is there no improvement?"
"No, Mrs. Stowe, I don't see any, but you never know. I've had
patients who came back -- sometimes only for an hour or so, but they talked away
and sometimes they recovered."
Harriet bends to stroke her brother's forehead and senses Eunice
stiffening. She steps back, quick to cede position. Eunice lifts her husband's
head and begins briskly plumping up his pillows.
"Don't shake him, Mrs. Beecher," warns the nurse. "It's not
"I'm not shaking him."
Harriet hears the chanting outside first. Moving swiftly to the
window, she opens it before Eunice can object.
Beecher, Beecher is my name -- Beecher till I die!
I never kissed Mis' Tilton -- I never told a lie!
Eunice turns from the bed and put her hands to her ears. "Close
that window," she demands and whirls on the nurse. "Call the police, do you
hear? I want that scum outside removed! Now, do you hear? Now!"
The nurse pales, and Harriet can see the indignation -- and then
the uncertainty -- in her eyes as she hurries from the room, eager to be gone as
fast as possible. Eunice rushes out after her, running downstairs, her hands
still over her ears. Harriet sees her pause only briefly at the polished
hardwood telephone box that hangs in the hall. She can imagine the berating the
nurse will get on the ground floor for not having used Mr. Bell's telephone to
call the police, but Eunice, clearly, is not interested in making the call
herself. Harriet's pity for her sister-in-law is dissipating rapidly.
Copyright © 2008 by Patricia O'Brien. | <urn:uuid:622c719a-023c-4839-8a2d-90212f7e1a13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/2080/page_number/6/harriet-and-isabella | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9701 | 1,023 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Maximize your company's visibility in the AASL community by taking advantage of a variety of advertising opportunities.*
Published five times a year AASL's print journal, Knowledge Quest, is devoted to offering substantive information to assist building-level school librarians, supervisors, library educators and other decision makers concerned with the development of school library programs and services. Articles address the integration of theory and practice in school librarianship and new developments in education, learning theory and relevant disciplines.
School librarians in elementary and secondary schools read Knowledge Quest. These professionals are responsible for the selection, acquisition, cataloging, maintenance and circulation of books, periodicals, audiovisual materials and computer software and accompanying hardware. The readers of Knowledge Quest also provide reference service, reading guidance, instruction in information retrieval skills and access to the Internet and other electronic resources. They collaboratively plan instructional units with teachers in elementary and secondary public and nonpublic schools.
Jordan Gareth, Inc.
AASL Hotlinks is the monthly e-mail newsletter of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). This newsletter is sent to AASL members with valid e-mail addresses on file in the ALA member database (currently over 75% of our members). Additional "pass along" distribution occurs through our members, who are encouraged to share each issue with colleagues and administrators in their school and district, and AASL's state and regional affiliate organizations, which can redistribute the newsletter to their own members.
AASL Hotlinks is composed of brief summaries with links to more in-depth content, and includes previews of upcoming association activities and continuing education programs, news from AASL, valuable Web resources, highlights of new products and services, summaries of new articles from AASL's print and online journals and more.
Ads can be images or text. Each issue of AASL Hotlinks may include five or more separate ads. Please see AASL Hotlinks Media Kit for prices and guidelines. Please contact Doug Lewis 770-333-1281 for more information about advertising in AASL Hotlinks.
AASL and CustomNEWS once again collaborated to publish the AASL Advocate, the official daily newspaper of the AASL National Conference & Exhibition. Three issues of the AASL Advocate were produced and made available on-site during the AASL 15th National Conference & Exhibition, October 27-30, 2011 in Minneapolis, Minn., as well as a preview issue that was distributed to over 9,000 school library professionals in July of 2011.
Here's a look at the AASL Advocate from Minneapolis:
Enhance your presence at the conference by advertising in the AASL Advocate. Each issue will be available to attendees at the beginning of the day, giving readers timely information on important conference, exhibit and local events and attractions. It's a great way to increase booth traffic, promote new products and services and inform attendees about events and demonstrations your company plans to host.
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Reserve advertising space in the official program book of the AASL 16th National Conference in Hartford, CT. The program book is the one item you can be sure attendees will carry with them each day. The program book is posted to the conference website and all attendees with full conference and one day registration receive a printed copy of the program book onsite.
- View the official program book from AASL’s 15th National Conference in Minneapolis.
- Complete the program book advertising form to reserve your space.
*Please note: Advertising in AASL publications does not count toward AASL Alliance special recognition levels. | <urn:uuid:d1fd5aaf-b02d-49b7-a27c-530a49f5ea0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ala.org/aasl/publications-journals/advertising | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943314 | 754 | 1.671875 | 2 |
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With IMF Money, the War Supplemental Could Fail in the House
Submitted by Robert Naiman on 4 June 2009 - 12:16pm
Last month, 60 Members of the House of Representatives, including 51 Democrats, voted against the war supplemental for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. But this week, when the House is expected to consider the agreement of a House-Senate conference on the war funding, the supplemental could well be defeated on the floor of the House - if most of the 51 anti-war Democrats stick to their no vote - which they might, if they hear from their constituents.
The key thing that's changed is the Treasury Department's insistence that the war supplemental include a $100 billion bailout for the International Monetary Fund - a bailout for European banks facing big losses in Eastern Europe, the international version of the Wall Street bailout.
House Republicans, including Minority Leader John Boehner, have threatened to vote no on the war funding if the IMF money is attached. If Boehner could bring all the Republicans with him, and if all the Democrats who voted no last month voted no again, the war supplemental would fail on the floor of the House, 200-228.
But not every Democrat who voted no before will vote no now, and therein lies the drama. The House leadership didn't need those anti-war Democrats before, so in a way it was a "free vote" - 51 Democrats could vote on behalf of their anti-war constituents without running afoul of the leadership. But if Treasury insists on the IMF money, and Republicans vote no, the leadership will need 18 of those Democrats now.
Under pressure from the leadership, some of those Democrats - like the usually progressive Barney Frank, who unfortunately in this case is protecting the status quo at the IMF - will try to argue that this vote doesn't matter. But the opposite is true - this is the vote that matters, because it might actually make a difference to the outcome. If the war supplemental fails on the floor of the House, that news is going to rocket around the world. The story that will be told around the world is that there is unrest in Congress and America about the never-ending wars, and that will bring closer the day that these wars end, just as unrest in Congress helped bring about the US-Iraq agreement for a withdrawal timetable, just as the House vote against the U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia helped bring that bombing to an end. Every Democrat who votes yes now in effect cancels their previous no vote - they're essentially saying, I was willing to vote no on the wars when it didn't matter, but now that it does matter, I'm voting yes.
Of course, to this should be added the question of why Democrats would vote to give $100 billion in U.S. tax dollars to the International Monetary Fund with no effective strings attached. A coalition of anti-poverty organizations - including the AFL-CIO, the anti-poverty advocacy group RESULTS, the AIDS treatment advocacy group Health GAP, and the poor country debt cancellation advocacy group Jubilee USA Network - have demanded that Congress attach conditions to the IMF funding requiring U.S. Treasury to oppose policies at the IMF that fundamentally contradict the stated purpose of the money. While Treasury is telling Democrats in Congress to vote yes because the IMF needs money to boost the global economy, actual IMF policies - in Latvia and Pakistan, most recently - are doing the opposite, forcing draconian budget cuts and high interest rates that are strangling economic activity. But in response to the demands for reform, Treasury is insisting - as usual - that Congress can have no effective role in oversight of Treasury's policies at the IMF, that any language on IMF reform attached to the funding has to be meaningless.
Treasury wants to sneak the IMF money through the war supplemental so Treasury can postpone its day of reckoning with this anti-poverty coalition. Why should Democrats in Congress take Treasury's side in this dispute?
The outcome of this drama will likely come down to a handful of votes. Folks who call Congress should call their Representative now and urge them to vote no - in opposition to the wars, in opposition to the IMF money, or both. Folks who generally don't call Congress should consider this: this is one of those rare moments of Washington chaos where your Representative who never seems to listen to you might listen to you, where your call is most likely to make a difference, because the usual party lines are confused: more Democrats than usual will be voting yes on the war funding, and far more Republicans than usual will be voting no. Republicans especially need to hear from their constituents that they oppose a $100 billion U.S. taxpayer bailout for European banks. Democrats need to hear from their constituents that they oppose the bailout, and the never-ending wars. Anti-war Democrats should be reminded that the House leadership refuses to allow Representative McGovern's amendment - requiring that the Pentagon report to Congress on an exit strategy from Afghanistan - to be considered on the supplemental. | <urn:uuid:34a9f6f6-863c-4642-b13c-31047b131413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/224 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957325 | 1,020 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The Sweet Inspirations were backup singers to a long list of major acts, most famously Elvis Presley, and including Wilson Pickett, Jimi Hendrix, Solomon Burke and Aretha Franklin. They can be heard on the Dusty Springfield classic album Dusty in Memphis, as well Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl".
The Sweet Inspirations also had a few hits of their own in the late-60's. My favorite is "Sweet Inspiration" from 1968, written by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham:
At this point the group consisted of Cissy (Drinkard) Houston, Estelle Brown, Myrna Smith and Sylvia Shernwell. Various other members came and went though the Sweet Inspirations long career, which started in the late 1950's. They continued recording through 2005, and have performed even more recently.
But the composition, musicianship and and most of all vocals on "Sweet Inspiration" are just perfect, a powerful love song. | <urn:uuid:dd522ab7-c7bf-4322-93b3-0562c9c0a50a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whenyoumotoraway.blogspot.com/2012/03/soul-corner-sweet-inspiration.html?m=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970137 | 203 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Election 2008: Politics
Q&A: John McCain
Q&A: Barack Obama
1. How do you intend to put the United States again at the forefront of efforts to understand and address the world’s most serious environmental threat, global warming?
I will start by implementing a cap-and-trade system in the United States to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The legislation that I push will require a 100 percent auction of carbon allowances to ensure that all polluters pay for their emissions.
In terms of restoring American international leadership on global climate change, I was the first presidential candidate to call for creating a standing Global Energy Forum—a body which will include the world’s top emitters from the developed and developing world. I will also re-engage the U.S. with the post-Kyoto international climate negotiations.
2. How do you plan to ensure that biofuel production really provides substantial carbon benefits without adversely affecting water supplies, wildlife, and food prices?
I strongly support efforts to commercialize next-generation advanced biofuels that do not put pressure on our food prices and consume fewer resources during their production cycle. I am the only candidate to have a goal of phasing in 2 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2013. I also introduced legislation to create a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard. This proposal includes an environmental sustainability study to ensure that our ramped-up fuel production does not adversely affect other environmental priorities.
3. What will you do to restore the independence and integrity of government science offices?
I will appoint officials that are qualified to do their jobs and aren’t going to represent big industry rather than the American people while serving in my administration. I am committed to ensuring that my cabinet and all of my appointees honor the primacy of sound science in regulatory and policy decision making. I will keep political ideology out of scientific decisions in the executive branch, and I will make clear to all of my agencies that I am committed to that principle. If my appointees do not abide by these guidelines, they will be removed from their positions.
4. Do you support the strongest possible protection for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
Yes. I am a proud cosponsor of the Arctic Wilderness Act.
5. How would you balance energy development and recreational uses, such as off-road vehicles, with the management needs of wildlife that depend on Bureau of Land Management habitat?
I will restore scientific integrity and the public interest to the management of federal lands. Unfortunately, after seven years that balance has been shifted to favor the special interests and not preserving the federal government’s historic legacy of protecting and strengthening our natural resources. As president, I will take steps to engage the American people into this important decision-making process so that we can establish the best long-term goals for our national conservation strategy.
6. The Bush administration authorized oil drilling in prime polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaska coast. Given that the polar bear is increasingly imperiled by global warming and the melting of sea ice, would you allow drilling in its habitat?
No. I support the efforts of Senator John Kerry and my other colleagues in the Senate to prohibit drilling in the Chukchi Sea.
7. While the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) may provide important oil and gas resources, there are also special areas, such as Teshekpuk Lake, that have been designated in recognition of nationally significant wildlife values. What steps would your administration take to protect these special areas within the NPRA?
I do not support drilling in Teshekpuk Lake. I will seek national monument designation for Teshekpuk Lake.
8. The Department of Homeland Security is building a 700-mile border fence along the U.S.–Mexico border while routinely ignoring applicable environmental and public health laws. What is your position on the border fence?
I will support additional fence building where it can discourage illegal entry and when it is constructed in coordination and cooperation with local communities and respecting environmental laws. I also support using more patrols and better technology to deter illegal entry.
9. Eagles are rebounding from the brink of extinction, but many other birds continue to experience serious declines. Audubon data shows even bird species we consider common today are losing ground, falling as much as 68 percent in the past 40 years. How would you use laws like the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and Clean Water Act to reverse this trend?
I support strengthening the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and other environmental laws that have been weakened by the Bush administration. My EPA will ensure that rule-making upholds scientific principles and the law, not corporate and ideological interests. I will also work with Congress and scientists to determine other legislative or regulatory steps that may be needed to protect our wildlife.
10. Besides global warming, what would you like your greatest contribution to the environment to be?
I believe that our top environmental priority, after addressing climate change, is restoring the strength of the EPA to adequately enforce our clean air, clean water, and other environmental protection laws. After over seven years of ruling by ideology rather than science and adherence to the law, we need to dramatically reinvigorate the EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and strengthen environmental laws, so the poor record of the past six years won’t be repeated. As president, I will take immediate steps to ensure that science, not political ideology, governs our environmental policy decisions.
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Read related story: "Face-Off" | <urn:uuid:aaed502d-0dbf-48ab-aec3-9ddbe13e0a7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.audubonmagazine.org/features0809/q&a-obama.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93826 | 1,156 | 1.515625 | 2 |
But the explanation did give us a good destination for our final stop on our Blues Trail tour. Helena has played a huge role in the history of The Blues, as a town where many of the musicians came to play, but mostly as the place where Blues found a home on the radio. (click here to see our full story on the Mississippi Blues Trail!)
Back in 1941, on KFFA, King Biscuit Time, named for the sponsor King Biscuit Flour, began its run and has since become the radio show with the largest number of broadcasts ever. Everyday at 12:15, to coincide with worker's lunch breaks, The Blues is still sent out across The Delta.
At first this was the only station anywhere playing live Blues, with Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood, Jr. performing in the studio, and what was known at the time as race records, but the show's popularity inspired other stations to follow.
These days the show is broadcast from a studio in The Delta Cultural Center, so that the public can come in and watch. We made sure to be there a few minutes early and when we arrived "Sunshine" Sonny Payne was already behind the mic getting ready, just as he has done for over sixty years.
He was more than cordial and happy to greet us and answered questions from all of the visitors. Then with the signature phrase "pass the biscuits, 'cause its King Biscuit Time!" the 16,405th show was underway.
Figuring there was no way we were going to top that as a finale to our Blues Trail tour, we knew it was time to head even farther down south to dodge the cold up north.
Bonus Time: The markers for Helena, Rosedale and Lula!
David & Veronica, GypsyNester.com | <urn:uuid:f7bfee2c-b8f2-46f1-a388-78235bcbe687> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gypsynester.com/bluestrailkingbiscuit.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979738 | 372 | 1.75 | 2 |
How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.
How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.
Bank of America has once more found itself on the defensive over small-business lending, in the wake of a Los Angeles Times report that said the bank is demanding some borrowers to “pay off their credit-line balances all at once instead of making monthly payments.” According to the report, customers who can’t pay in full “are being offered new repayment plans for as long as five years, but with far higher interest rates than their original credit lines had.”
The claim that Bank of America is casting off its small-business customers — “systematically,” as The Times put it — probably would not surprise many observers. Back in the fall of 2008, the bank’s then-chairman and chief executive, Kenneth Lewis, called its small-business loan portfolio a “damn disaster.” Since then, that portfolio, as reported to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has shrunk by nearly a third, though the decline has occurred principally in small commercial real estate loans. (Small commercial and industrial loans have actually increased slightly, according to F.D.I.C. data.)
More recently, The Agenda has reported that from 2006 to 2010, Bank of America’s Small Business Administration general business lending fell by 89 percent. Rohit Arora, chief executive of Biz2Credit, which helps small businesses find new loans, said many of his prospective clients are current Bank of America customers. “We are finding pretty consistently that bank of America is almost at the top of the list of banks whose existing customers are shopping around for other avenues right now,” he said.
But Bank of America argues that the concern in this most recent instance is overblown.
It is true that Bank of America notified thousands of borrowers with revolving credit lines that their loans would come due in full. But Jefferson George, a spokesman for the bank, said that the intention was not to force immediate repayment or higher interest rates. Nor did the notices take aim at poorly performing businesses, or businesses in industries or parts of the country where the bank felt overexposed. Instead, he said, it was to rewrite the agreements for a small portion of its line-of-credit loans, giving the bank more control over the terms.
In a revolving line of credit, a company can borrow up to a set credit limit, and as it pays off existing debt, the amount of credit available for borrowing increases. (A credit card is a common kind of revolving credit.) Typically, revolving credit lines last for a year, whereupon they are automatically renewed. But loan officers at Bank of America, and at some of the banks it acquired, opened some credit lines without maturities or formal renewal processes. It was these loans, said Mr. George, that the bank was trying to rein in. “We had a small percentage of clients who had a product that wasn’t in line with our current credit products,” he said. “And all we did was added a maturity date and a renewal process.
“I don’t want to minimize this,” Mr. George continued. “It is a change for customers, and that’s why we gave them a year’s notice.”
In one version of the letter Bank of America sent to clients, dated November 2010 and provided by Mr. George, the bank did indeed set an expiration date for the line of credit, in January 2012, and added terms to the loan agreement that required the borrower to “repay in full any principal, interest or other charges outstanding” by the new expiration date. However, it also said that the credit line could be extended with a separate written renewal notice from the bank — albeit potentially with new terms.
Mr. George would not say on the record how many small-business borrowers became subject to maturity dates and renewals. But he said that the group amounted to “a very small percentage of our roughly 1.5 million small-business credit customers.” Of these, he said, “the majority of customers — more than 90 percent — qualified for renewal at the same rate. The others had the option to pay in full or restructure their agreement with different terms.” Mr. George added that he was unaware of any instance where a customer was not offered an extension one way or the other.
In all, Mr. George said, “98 percent of customers in this small, specific group” have renewed their loans on basically the same terms (but with a maturity date and renewal) or on new terms, which probably included a higher interest rate, a reduced credit line, or both. In some cases, lines of credit became term loans. The number of borrowers with whom Bank of America has not reached any agreement, Mr. George said, amounted to one-tenth of 1 percent of those small-business credit customers. One-tenth of one percent of 1.5 million would be 1,500 customers — not exactly a sweeping retrenchment from the small-business credit market.
Bob Coleman, who publishes a newsletter for the S.B.A. lending industry, said Bank of America is acting prudently by changing the terms of its lines of credit. The borrowers who’ve been left behind, at least as described in The Los Angeles Times article, appear to have been abusing the system. “A line of credit is you borrow the money from the bank, you pay your vendors, and a few months later, you pay back the bank, and you do it again next year,” said Mr. Coleman. But some borrowers, he said, turn what is meant to be a seasonal tool into an evergreen, and effectively never pay down the principal on their lines of credit.
That’s always been a problem for banks, Mr. Coleman said, but it is becoming more untenable today. “The regulators will not allow you to have an evergreen loan,” said Mr. Coleman. “If you have a $100,000 line of credit, and all you’re doing is making interest payments, regulators are going to say that’s not a line of credit, that’s a loan.”
Still, The Los Angeles Times also reported that Bank of America took the opportunity while restructuring these credit lines to add a fee. (So-called commitment fees are typical in revolving lines of credit.) Mr. George acknowledged that the renewal terms call for an annual fee of 1 percent of the commitment, up to $500. But, he added, “in many cases, the fees are reduced, or even waived, based on our relationship with the client.” | <urn:uuid:01307079-5db2-4268-817f-86137a2fbcbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/is-bank-of-america-trying-to-shed-small-business-customers/?ref=bankofamericacorporation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975876 | 1,409 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Authors: Joshua Cohan
(LONDON) -- Authorities are investigating how a solo 11-year-old boy boarded a plane from Manchester, U.K., and arrived in Rome, Italy, with no money or documentation.
The Jet2.com flight departed the Manchester airport Tuesday with the boy onboard. He went through five security checkpoints undetected, an airport spokeswoman confirmed to ABC News. Despite having no boarding pass at security, no boarding pass at the gate, no passport and no boarding pass stub once on the plane, airport workers failed to notice the boy was on his own. Even a headcount onboard the flight failed to detect the child.
Jet2.com is a low-cost U.K. airline that flies to 53 destinations in Eastern and Western Europe.
Staffers have been suspended, pending an investigation.
The Guardian newspaper reports the boy ran away from his mother on Tuesday while she was shopping close to the airport. He apparently made his way to the airport on foot. Once there, he followed another family through the checkpoints and onto the plane.
On the way to Italy, passengers alerted airline crew to the boy. The captain then notified police at Manchester airport, who alerted the boy's mother that he had been found. The boy's mother had reported him missing.
The boy stayed onboard the aircraft once it landed in Rome, according to the newspaper. The other passengers deplaned while the boy was questioned. He remained on the flight, which returned to Manchester, where he was reunited with his mother.
John Greenway, a spokesman for Manchester airport, told the newspaper: "We know that people are not very happy about it. The investigation will look at how this has happened. Jet2 will be looking at how this boy got on that aircraft."
"He's evaded checks. He did go through the metal detector and didn't sound any alarms. He wasn't a danger to any of the passengers," he continued.
The breech shines a light on potential cracks in security as the 2012 Olympics in London kicks off later this week. Earlier this month, Britain's The Observer published a report quoting border officials as saying known terror suspects had slipped through airport security at London's Heathrow international airport.
Government officials told ABC News that report was not accurate, but said an independent auditor had claimed there are many new, hastily trained guards at the airport who sometimes do not question travelers as diligently as they should.
On Tuesday, British officials called up an additional 1,200 soldiers today to try and fix what they called a security "fiasco" with G4S, the private security firm tasked to secure the 2012 Olympic Games, but British security officials tell ABC News even though they are finally getting the number of guards they need, they are still not confident in the training that G4S guards received or the security they can provide.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio | <urn:uuid:0842744d-46af-4fcc-bacc-479a0166e360> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://akronnewsnow.com/news/world/item/45338-boy-11-flies-to-rome-with-no-ticket-or-family | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981209 | 590 | 1.609375 | 2 |
24 Hour Line (630) 858-5060
Report absences before 10:30 a.m. on or before the day of the absence.
State the student's name, ID number, relation to the student, and reason for absence.
Failure to call by 10:30 a.m. will result in an unauthorized absence.
Glenbard Township High School District 87
Attendance Philosophy: Our attendance policy is based upon the following assumptions:
1.  In accordance with the requirements of the School Code of Illinois and in recognition of the responsibilities imposed upon parents, it is the policy of District 87 that students shall attend school on a
regular basis. Student attendance in class is not optional; it is a requirement of every class. We believe that regular class attendance increases the student's probability for successful performance and fosters the development of self discipline and responsibility.The Board of Education further believes that the school administration and staff have a duty to rigorously and consistently enforce school regulations dealing with class attendance.
2.  While the major responsibility for attendance rests with the student, the school and the parents share responsibility. Students are expected to attend every meeting of every class and study hall; the
school has an obligation to inform both students and parents of the student's progress and attendance in all classes;and parents are obligated to inform the school when their student is absent and to give the reason for the absence.
Excessive absences from school limit the ability of a student to achieve.  For this reason, attending school on a regular basis is a requirement for all students.  The entire Glenbard staf fhas a responsibility to hold students accountable in this area. For this reason, we maintain the following intervention strategies related to attendance:
Our student data management system, Powerschool will provide daily attendance information for teachers, parents and administrators to view electronically.
Attendance staff will screen truancies daily and call home for any student who is three or more periods truant within any given day. 
Whenever a student is truant from a class, the Dean’s Office will contact the student the following day to confirm the truancy.  Truancies will be documented in Powerschool and a letter to the student’s parent will be generated on the next school day.  
- For every truancy (unexcused absence) there will be a contact with the student, an attempt to call the student’s parent, a letter sent to the parent and a consequence or intervention with the student. 
- After five truancies and five interventions for an individual course, a student may be denied credit for the course.  Those who are denied credit will be referred to their guidance counselor to explore credit options. 
- Excessive excused absences interfere with student achievement.  A student who has excessive absences may be required to provide medical documentation in order to excuse absences.  During any given semester, when a student reaches over nine absences from a class there will be an attendance conference with his/her Dean and parent contact will be made.  Should the student reach over twelve absences an additional conference will be held with the Dean along with parent contact.  After fifteen absences, a student may lose credit for the individual class.  Those who are denied credit will be referred to their guidance counselor to explore credit options.
Any student who has chronic attendance issues will be referred to the truancy agency, Project Visa. 
Parents are responsible for the daily attendance of their children. However, Illinois School Code does not grant parents the authority to excuse their children from attending classes.
1.  Parents must call the Attendance Office before 10:30 a.m. on each day of absence to give the reason for their student's absence. Failure to do this will result in an unauthorized
2.  In order to more conveniently report your student's absence, calls can be made at any time to an answering machine at: 
- Glenbard East (630) 627-2595
- Glenbard North (630) 653-9092
- Glenbard South (630) 942-6684
- Glenbard West  (630) 858-5060
3. Glenbard District 87 recognizes two categories of absences:  excused absences, and unauthorized absences/truancies.
The Dean's Office will recognize as an excused absence (1) student's personal illness, (2)serious illness and/or death in the immediate family, and (3) family emergency situation. Only these excused absences merit the opportunity for make-up work.  Students with excessive excused absences within a semester may be requested to supply a medical certificate to the Dean's Office.
Absences for reasons other than those indicated above must be pre-arranged through the Attendance Office.  Requests from parents must be presented in writing at least three school days prior to the absence. Your student's Dean will inform teachers of the absence and of the student's privilege to "make-up" work. The student is responsible for making the necessary arrangements for the completion of the"make-up" work with teachers prior to the absence. No credit will be given unless the specific requirements, as set by the teacher, are met. It is recognized that when a student misses class meetings, individual instruction, tests, etc., learning will be adversely affected even though requested, advance assignments are completed. The teacher's signature on the prearranged absence form indicates only that the teacher has been notified of
the absence. Teachers will note the dates of the pre-arranged absences in their grade book but will not lower their academic expectations for a student taking a pre-arranged absence.
Reasons for pre-arranged absences include the following:
1.  Class field trips and athletic contests absences from classes for participation in school sponsored and approved activities such as field trips and athletic contests are pre-arranged absences and must
be treated as such. In addition, students may pre-arrange an absence to see a Glenbard team participate in State Tournament competition.
2. An absence for reasons such as medical and dental appointments will be excused if it has been cleared prior to the absence. A doctor's note will be required when the student returns to campus.
3. An absence for a court date will be excused if it has been cleared prior to the absence. Documentation from the court will be required when the student returns to campus.
4. A college visitation day if it has been cleared one day prior to the absence.
5. Family vacation - Family vacations should not be taken when school is in session.  However, if it becomes absolutely necessary to arrange a vacation during school time, a student must present a note from a parent a minimum of three days prior to the absence.
6. An absence for religious reasons will be excused if it has been cleared with the Dean prior to the absence.
All absences not included in section A will be considered unauthorized absences/truancies.  Unauthorized absences/truancies include, but are not limited to babysitting for a younger sibling, missing the
bus, oversleeping, and staying home to complete assignments.  Unauthorized absences also include truancies. Unauthorized absences/truancies do not merit "make-up" privileges.  If a test or assignment is missed due to an
unauthorized absence/truancy, a grade of "0" will be recorded.
Students may leave campus during their lunch period if they are authorized to do so.  At no other time may students leave campus without permission. Students who become ill while at school must see the
Nurse to be excused. Students leaving campus for partial day prearranged absences must first report to the Attendance Office. Upon returning to school, students must submit doctor's/court notes to the Attendance Office. If a student leaves
school without pre-arranged status and the parent notifies the school after the fact, the absence will be considered unauthorized.  Students who are excused from school (or suspended) may not come on campus to work in the library media department or computer labs.
C. Drop from Class Due to Unauthorized Absences/Truancies
Absences from class reduce the ability of a student to achieve. Excessive absences can have a negative impact on the entire classroom climate. Students who have excessive unauthorized absences/truancies will
be dropped from their class and placed in a study hall as described below. Generally, each step would correspond to one unauthorized absence.
STEP 1 Teacher notifies parent of the truancy ‚Äď a truancy letter is sent home.
STEP 2 Staff member notifies parent of the truancy. Dean consequence with a truancy letter sent home.
STEP 3 Dean notifies parent and issues the student an after school consequence (Detention/ExtendedDay Detention).
STEP 4 Dean notifies parent and issues the student an after school consequence (In School Suspension/I.S.S.).
STEP 5 Dean notifies parent and student is denied credit for class and placed in studyhall.  Additional opportunities provided to recover credit
D.Additional Attendance Information
Students who are consecutively absent from a class will advance through STEP process and the Dean will notify parent(s). If additional consecutive absences occur, the studentwill move to Step 5 of the policy. Students who are absent without authorization from class from multiple periods or the entire day will be assigned after school consequences (Detention/Extended Day Detention).
1.  When a student's total absences interfere with the educational success in a class, a behavior report may be initiated by the teacher requesting a drop of the student from that class. The Dean will then
consider the request.
2.  Students at Glenbard are expected to come to class on time. Glenbard District 87 has a tardy policy in place to help students avoid missing class time. The procedure is as follows:  1st - 3rd tardy - Teacher policy is implemented. 4th - 6th tardy - Detentions issued by teacher.  7th tardy and more- Further discipline which may include dismissal from the class.
3.  Students more than 25 minutes late for a class will be marked unauthorized for the period. Students who have unauthorized absences/truancies from study hall will be issued after school consequences
ranging from detention to an Extended Day Detention.   Students who have excessive unauthorized absences/truancies will be suspended from school.
4.  Students participating in school sanctioned field trips must complete parent permission slips at least one week prior to the scheduled trip.
5.  Students chronically truant will be referred to the DuPage County Truancy Office. | <urn:uuid:ec4df042-455b-40d2-ac66-16d540c65215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glenbardwesths.org/sitepages/FOV1-0007ACF7/S01F46861?Close=-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931468 | 2,339 | 1.625 | 2 |
B-Bender and The Byrds
Clarence White, Gene Parsons, Gib Guilbeau, and Wayne Moore, were the house band at the Nashville West in El Monte in 1966. Before Gene gave Clarence his Bender equipped Telecaster he had the foresight to record their show one night. The out-of-print Nashville West CD is now considered by Guitar Player Magazine, "One of the top 20 essential country albums of all time." It is a great documentary of Clarence White's innovative guitar artistry.
Clarence and Gene joined The Byrds in 1968. With help from Eddie Tickner who was managing the Byrds, they obtained a patent on their string-bending mechanism. They brought the design to Leo Fender who arranged for Fender/CBS to license the right to manufacture the design. After the new management at Fender let the patent license expire without ever getting the B-Bender into production, Leo left Fender. Clarence White was killed by a drunk driver in 1973. His Telecaster, with the prototype Bender, now belongs to Marty Stuart.
A lot of players were inspired by Clarence's B-Bender licks but, except for a few instruments made by Dave Evans, there weren't many B-Benders to be had. The first top ten hit using Bender licks was the Eagles 'Peaceful Easy Feeling' played by Bernie Leadon using an Evans guitar with a Bender.
Parsons Machine Shop
B-Benders first became readily available around 1973 when Gene started making and installing them in customers' guitars in his shop in Caspar, California. In the beginning the device was called the Parsons/White Pull-String. After a number of local folks called Gene to say, "I hear you do upholstering. Will you re-cover my couch?" Gene decided to call his invention StringBender.
Although Gene has upgraded the design for ease of manufacturing and installation the basic geometry has stayed the same. Gene says, "I experimented with smaller, less complicated mechanisms that would entail less routing. I found that in order for the StringBender to work smoothly, evenly, stay in tune, and have an extremely musical action, a large bearing surface and return spring were required."
The first 112 Benders had serial numbers. The customer list of the first 112 B-Bender owners includes some of the finest players of all time. The first B-Bender guitars from a major manufacturer were from Tokai Gakki. Tokai made a couple hundred guitars incorporating B-Benders that Gene made in his shop. Later, under different management, Tokai tried marketing, without success, a device of their own design that bent three strings at once and was available in a paisley Tele-style.
: "For almost twenty years I made StringBenders by hand in my shop, installing them for guitarists who learned about them by word of mouth. In 1989 it came time to quit or get serious. I tried quitting. But news got out that I wasn't going to make StringBenders any more (Frets magazine mentioned the end of B-Benders in their Notes section) and every guitarist who had ever intended to get a StringBender 'someday' called to ask me to make one more. Suddenly I had more orders than I could make or install myself."
"StringBenders came full circle when the Fender Custom Shop began offering B-Benders as an option. Fred Stuart, a Master Builder at Fender Custom Shop who has "Telecaster" tattooed on his arm, came up with the notion of a Clarence White Signature Telecaster incorporating a Classic B-Bender. The enthusiastic response from Telecaster players exceeded Fender and StringBenders wildest expectations. Leo Fender's original vision, to have B-Benders available on Fender Telecasters, came to pass in 1996 with the introduction of the Parsons/Green Fender B-Bender." | <urn:uuid:5596fdb3-cae6-499c-bbdf-0d667492a014> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stringbender.com/bender/history.php | 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 | 0.969878 | 812 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to call elections in mid-February 2013, more than six months early, Israeli media and ministers said on Wednesday.
In recent weeks, speculation has been rife that Netanyahu, who continues to ride high in the polls, might bring forward elections scheduled for next October, rather than try to pass a controversial new budget before the vote.
Media reports pointed out that the premier himself, during a closed meeting on Tuesday, said he would not hesitate to call early elections if it looked impossible to pass the budget beforehand.
Multiple media reports cited February 12 as the likeliest date.
Netanyahu is trying to pass an austerity budget -- prepared by Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz -- that commentators say has virtually no chance of being adopted by the end of this year.
"The prime minister is still trying to present a responsible budget, but if it isn't possible there will be elections in mid-February," Transportation Minister Israel Katz, a Netanyahu confidant, told Israeli public radio.
He said parliament could be dissolved just a few days after it begins its winter session on October 15.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told military radio that early elections "are a fait accompli given that discussions on the budget haven't even started yet."
Other signs pointing to early elections include unprecedented criticism by Netanyahu of Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who left the Labour party to form his own faction and enter the government.
For nearly four years, the two politicians have presented a united front, but in recent days Netanyahu has reportedly accused Barak of "maneouvering behind his back" with the United States in a bid to present himself as a "moderate" compared to Netanyahu's "extremist" positions, local media said.
And Israel's Channel 10 reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu had rejected a request by Barak that be guaranteed the defence portfolio in the country's next government.
Katz offered his own criticism of Barak on Wednesday, saying the defence minister "plotted against the prime minister in recent discussions with the United States, where he wanted to present himself as a better partner," he said. | <urn:uuid:b1c4c93d-cdbc-4024-a9b8-741b5664b9c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/news/early-elections-likely-says-israeli-media-and-ministers_9953 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976293 | 446 | 1.5 | 2 |
Speaking to Fighters Only earlier, Dr. Chris Lam (pictured) explained that the three drugs - Hydrocodone, Oxymorphone, and Hydromorphone - are all opiates, which are “probably the most powerful pain killer which are routinely used in medicine, normally being reserved for severe pain such as cancer pain”.
“In the UK at least, it would be very unusual for a doctor to prescribe opiates of the sort found in his test for muscular injuries such as hamstring injuries,” he said, referring to Parisyan’s claim that he took the drugs because of hamstring pain.
“It is also unusual to be given a cocktail of opiates as was found in his urine sample.”
“One of the main concerns with prescribing opiates is that they potentially can be addictive and habit forming especially if prescribed inappropriately,” he said.
Dr Lam is a British physician who is used by both the British Board of Boxing Control and the UFC as a ringside doctor for events in the UK and Ireland, where he has tended to the likes of Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filopovic, Mark Coleman and Matt Hughes.
There are three issues to unpack here. First, while not out of the question that one person could be prescribed all three of those painkillers simultaneously (or be allowed to take all three simultaneously), how likely is it that Karo actually has all three prescribed to him by medical professionals who understand precisely what Karo was ingesting? One can only hope there's no doctor shopping going on here.
Second, are the injuries Karo has so severe that he needs one - much less three - prescribed painkillers to cope with the pain?
Third, even if Karo has been prescribed these drugs by licensed medical doctors who are aware of everything he was ingesting, what athletic commission would approve such a fighter to be competing in high-level professional MMA bouts given those conditions? Karo may claim he has prescriptions for all three drugs and perhaps he does, but that in no way absolves him of the fact that taking those drugs only masks serious underlying health issues the commission would be forced to look into.
I'm sure there is a diversity of opinion on this matter, but the more I learn about the situation and the more Karo tries to explain himself, the more concerned I become. | <urn:uuid:65ab09f8-a9d7-42f8-84bd-4673d3250af0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/2/11/756112/karo-parisyan-s-opiate-coc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98435 | 487 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Transportation authorities in China have pitched general aviation in that country as "the next driving force after the car industry" and the Chinese government will be providing targeted funding to jumpstart GA there. Ma Xin, deputy director of the National Air Traffic Management Committee Office in China, delivered the quote at the Zhuhai Air Show last month. And the Civil Aviation Administration and Ministry of Finance has now reportedly announced temporary measures to regulate the specific fund for China's general aviation development. According to ChinaDaily.com, the "long-awaited subsidy measure" will be applied to support general aviation operations, pilot training and infrastructure development.
According to Ma Xin, general aviation is recognized for its importance as an economic growth engine. It creates "a long industrial chain that can drive the development of various sectors from raw materials in the upstream," said Xin, and has "a much bigger role to play in China's economy." Changes to management of low-altitude airspace are currently being tested in designated areas and are expected to spread through the rest of the country as aviation reforms move ahead. China's cabinet listed general aviation as a strategic industry back in 2010, when it was included in a five-year development plan intended to cover the years 2011-2015. In July, China's State Council estimated that general aviation would increase by roughly 19 percent each year through 2020. The allotment of subsidized funding adds to the country's stated commitment to development of the sector. | <urn:uuid:232955cb-ab07-433c-afa7-c831d9c28bcd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/china_ga_subsidies_government_general_aviation_funds_development_207943-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963092 | 290 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I used servos on my mill/drill (RF31) and the last set is rated at 48V 1000 rpm and the first set was 110V 6500 rpm. I changed so I could have
1) MORE power
2) utilize the power of the motors within their voltage rating (geckos are limited to an actual about 70V power supply)
Now having said that, I like the servos as they are smoothm but it took some doing to get there. You will need encoders (steppers don't) and of course this entails more wiring.
Plan your system out. Get your servos first (and make sure the drivers you select will handle the required voltage) See item 2 above
Figure out what resolution encoders you will need if they don't come with the motor and how you will mount them! (Mine are mounted on the ball screws which would allow me to change the pulley sizes on the reduction unit without changing my setup parameters)
THEN after you have your servos and drives, worry about the power supply!
As to the source, I scrounged all the "surplus" sites I could find on the internet and that is where I found mine. The last ones are about 4" dia 6" long and weigh about 11@ ea!
If you want some additional info, let me know. | <urn:uuid:6532a8ba-fd4e-48f4-bd86-394de642de69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnczone.com/forums/vertical_mill_lathe_project_log/11785-mill_drill_conversion_project.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956354 | 285 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Sense & Sensibility
Elinor's curiosity to see Mrs. Ferrars was satisfied. She had found in her everything that could tend to make a farther connection between the families undesirable. She had seen enough of her pride, her meanness, and her determined prejudice against herself, to comprehend all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement, and retarded the marriage of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise free; -- and she had seen almost enough to be thankful for her own sake, that one greater obstacle preserved her from suffering under any other of Mrs. Ferrars's creation, preserved her from all dependence upon her caprice, or any solicitude for her good opinion. Or at least, if she did not bring herself quite to rejoice in Edward's being fettered to Lucy, she determined, that had Lucy been more amiable, she ought to have rejoiced.
She wondered that Lucy's spirits could be so very much elevated by the civility of Mrs. Ferrars; that her interest and her vanity should so very much blind her, as to make the attention which seemed only paid her because she was not Elinor , appear a compliment to herself -- or to allow her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because her real situation was unknown. But that it was so, had not only been declared by Lucy's eyes at the time, but was declared over again the next morning more openly; for at her particular desire, Lady Middleton set her down in Berkeley Street on the chance of seeing Elinor alone, to tell her how happy she was.
The chance proved a lucky one, for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon after she arrived, carried Mrs. Jennings away.
"My dear friend," cried Lucy as soon as they were by themselves, "I come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering as Mrs. Ferrars's way of treating me yesterday? So exceeding affable as she was! You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her; but the very moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her behaviour as really should seem to say, she had quite took a fancy to me. Now was not it so? You saw it all; and was not you quite struck with it?"
"She was certainly very civil to you."
"Civil! -- Did you see nothing but only civility? I saw a vast deal more -- such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me! No pride, no hauteur, and your sister just the same -- all sweetness and affability!"
Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to own that she had reason for her happiness, and Elinor was obliged to go on.
"Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement," said she, "nothing could be more flattering than their treatment of you; but as that was not the case -- "
"I guessed you would say so," replied Lucy quickly; "but there was no reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did not -- and her liking me is everything. You shan't talk me out of my satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no difficulties at all, to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming woman, and so is your sister. They are both delightful women indeed! -- I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was!"
To this, Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any.
"Are you ill, Miss Dashwood? -- you seem low -- you don't speak; -- sure you an't well."
"I never was in better health."
"I am glad of it with all my heart, but really you did not look it. I should be so sorry to have you ill, -- you, that have been the greatest comfort to me in the world! -- Heaven knows what I should have done without your friendship."
Elinor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success. But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied:
"Indeed I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and next to Edward's love, it is the greatest comfort I have. Poor Edward! But now, there is one good thing -- we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty often, for Lady Middleton's delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall be a good deal in Harley Street, I dare say, and Edward spends half his time with his sister -- besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferrars will visit now; -- and Mrs. Ferrars and your sister were both so good to say more than once, they should always be glad to see me. -- They are such charming women! -- I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of her, you cannot speak too high."
But Elinor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she should tell her sister. Lucy continued:
"I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferrars had took a dislike to me. If she had only made me a formal curtsey, for instance, without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of me, and never looked at me in a pleasant way -- you know what I mean, -- if I had been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have gave it all up in despair. I could not have stood it. For where she does dislike, I know it is most violent."
Elinor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph, by the door's being thrown open, the servant's announcing Mr. Ferrars, and Edward's immediately walking in.
It was a very awkward moment; and the countenance of each shewed that it was so. They all looked exceedingly foolish; and Edward seemed to have as great an inclination to walk out of the room again, as to advance farther into it. The very circumstance, in its unpleasantest form, which they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen on them -- They were not only all three together, but were together without the relief of any other person. The ladies recovered themselves first. It was not Lucy's business to put herself forward, and the appearance of secrecy must still be kept up. She could therefore only look her tenderness, and after slightly addressing him, said no more.
But Elinor had more to do; and so anxious was she, for his sake and her own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment's recollection, to welcome him, with a look and manner that were almost easy and almost open; and another struggle, another effort still improved them. She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the consciousness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from saying that she was happy to see him, and that she had very much regretted being from home, when he called before in Berkeley Street. She would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which, as a friend and almost a relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of Lucy, though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her.
Her manners gave some reassurance to Edward, and he had courage enough to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in a proportion which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor could his conscience have quite the ease of Elinor's.
Sense & Sensibility
Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word; and almost everything that was said, proceeded from Elinor, who was obliged to volunteer all the information about her mothers health, their coming to town, etc., which Edward ought to have inquired about, but never did.
Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon afterwards felt herself so heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching Marianne, to leave the others by themselves: and she really did it, and that in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes on the landing place, with the most high-minded fortitude, before she went to her sister. When that was once done, however, it was time for the raptures of Edward to cease; for Marianne's joy hurried her into the drawing-room immediately. Her pleasure in seeing him was like every other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken. She met him with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the affection of a sister.
"Dear Edward!" she cried, "this is a moment of great happiness! -- This would almost make amends for everything!"
Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such witnesses he dared not say half what he really felt. Again they all sat down, and for a moment or two all were silent; while Marianne was looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward and sometimes at Elinor, regretting only that their delight in each other should be checked by Lucy's unwelcome presence. Edward was the first to speak, and it was to notice Marianne's altered looks, and express his fear of her not finding London agree with her.
"Oh! don't think of me!" she replied, with spirited earnestness, though her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke, "don't think of my health. Elinor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both."
This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no very benignant expression.
"Do you like London?" said Edward, willing to say anything that might introduce another subject.
"Not at all. I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none. The sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded; and, thank Heaven! you are what you always were!"
She paused -- no one spoke.
"I think, Elinor," she presently added, "we must employ Edward to take care of us in our return to Barton. In a week or two, I suppose, we shall be going; and, I trust, Edward will not be very unwilling to accept the charge."
Poor Edward muttered something; but what it was, nobody knew, not even himself. But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could easily trace it to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied, and soon talked of something else.
"We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday! So dull, so wretchedly dull! But I have much to say to you on that head, which cannot be said now."
And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of her finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of her being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in private.
"But why were you not there, Edward? -- Why did you not come?
"I was engaged elsewhere."
"Engaged! But what was that, when such friends were to be met?"
"Perhaps, Miss Marianne," cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on her, "you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no mind to keep them, little as well as great."
Elinor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the sting; for she calmly replied,
"Not so, indeed; for, seriously speaking, I am very sure that conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street. And I really believe he has the most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous in performing every engagement however minute, and however it may make against his interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving pain, of wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish of anybody I ever saw. Edward, it is so, and I will say it. What! are you never to hear yourself praised? Then, you must be no friend of mine; for those who will accept of my love and esteem, must submit to my open commendation."
The nature of her commendation, in the present case, however, happened to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two-thirds of her auditors, and was so very unexhilarating to Edward, that he very soon got up to go away.
"Going so soon!" said Marianne; "my dear Edward, this must not be."
And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that Lucy could not stay much longer. But even this encouragement failed, for he would go; and Lucy, who would have outstaid him had his visit lasted two hours, soon afterwards went away.
"What can bring her here so often!" said Marianne, on her leaving them. "Could she not see that we wanted her gone! How teasing to Edward!"
"Why so? -- we were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known to him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as well as ourselves."
Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, "You know, Elinor, that this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances that are not really wanted."
She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more, for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give no information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was obliged to submit to it. All that she could hope, was that Edward would not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing Marianne's mistaken warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of the pain that had attended their recent meeting -- and this she had every reason to expect. | <urn:uuid:c5e59b35-60a4-480e-bdad-b200d9055d62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.janeausten.org/sense-and-sensibility/chapter-35.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990531 | 2,968 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Basic health concerns in Italy, from drinking the water to visiting hospitals, carrying prescription meds and dealing with diarrhea, what to do about health insurance and what over-the-counter drugs to pack in your first aid kit
ReidsItaly.com Italy Map
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Yes, you can drink the water (except on trains, and if it's marked "acqua non potabile;" ).
No, you probably won't catch anything more exotic than a head cold or a case of the tourist runs.
The pharmacies in Italy are astoundingly helpful (they can often hand out what it takes a prescription to get Stateside), and the hospitals are marvels of socialized medicine, where for minor complaints or ailments you can often get taken care of lickety-split with no time spent in the waiting room, no forms to fill out, and no insurance co-pay.
That's the upshot. Here are the details for keeping healthy whilst on your Italian vacation.
General health tips
I ain’t gonna lie to you. Travel—especially the high-stress, never-stop, whirlwind variety—puts a strain on your system, and exotic bugs just love a stained system. It’s so much easier to set up housekeeping in you that way.
But I’m mostly talking about colds or maybe the flu here. There really are no exotic diseases to worry about in Italy (or anywhere in Europe) that we don’t already have in the U.S., though occasionally there may be a different flu strain going around that you might pick up more easily than a local would.
That said, you probably won't get much sicker there than you would at home. Note, however, that some cities’ high pollution levels (Rome especially, but any big city, really) can leave your throat a little raw and chest wheezy after a day or two. This usually goes away—but contact-wearers beware; the grit of the pollution can get between the lenses and your eyeball and irritate you no end. I bet you look dashing in those glasses anyway, so bring ‘em just in case.
Aside from a few public fountains, trains are really the only places in Europe where the old "don't drink the water" rule applies. Take it from me, though: you will get thirsty, so plan ahead and bring a bottle of water on board with you (or, on most trains, there is a bar car). Yes, the water in Italy is almost always safe to drink, except on trains (bring bottled water on board, both to drink—trains can be dry—and on overnight runs for tooth brushing, etc). If a water source ever isn't safe, there will be a fairly obvious sign that says acqua non potabile and/or a pictogram of a glass with a slash or X across it.
Occasionally, the differing bacteria in Italian water fouls up American digestive systems (which are used to their own bacteria), and you'll end up with a mild case of la turista. It shouldn't be too bad, and you won't be sick for long.
At any rate, you'll be that much safer if you stick mainly to bottled water (fizzy mineral waters—think San Pellgrino or Ferrarelle—are one of Italy's everyday pleasures).
The change in diet—no to mention suddenly eating so many rich foods in such great quantifies on a daily basis—usually sidelines one person in five with diarrhea for a day or two—or at the very least, indigestion. This can last up to a week if you're particularly prone. It's just one of the many little joys of being a world traveler.
One of travel’s little ironies
Pepto, that wonderful hot pink form of bismuth salicilicyte that goes the extra mile to cure la turista, is actually manufactured in Mexico—the very country that gives most U.S. traveler’s their first taste of Montezuma’s Revenge.
Here's something else funny, I happen to be writing this page from a boat on the Nile, where a few of my fellow travelers thus afflicted have renamed this condition "the Curse of the Pharaohs."
The Pepto-Bismol people were thrilled a few years ago when university researchers discovered that, in addition to calming sour stomachs, settling indigestion, and helping with that hangover, the pink stuff also cures diarrhea (not just treats the symptoms, but actually kills the bacteria).
Carry the tablet or chewable kind (mmm! Pink chalk discs!), because the liquid form presents spillage problems.
Take it easy for a day, eat bland foods such as toast, bananas, rice, and tea for two days, and ride it out.
Medications and prescriptions
Take enough of any prescription medication you’re on to last your trip plus one week (just in case). Keep all pills in their original vials—that and an innocent smile will help prove to customs officials that they're prescription drugs, not narcotics. Bring along extra written prescriptions in each drug's generic, chemical name, not a brand name. This type of prescription will help customs officials approve it, and foreign druggists fill it.
From the over-the-counter department, the only necessities are: aspirin (or whichever painkiller works best for you), Dramamine (trust me; Italian roads and bus drivers can test the most iron of stomachs), Pepto-Bismol tablets or chewables (for indigestion and diarrhea), and decongestant (hint: take it before your flight to cut down on ear-popping).
Don't bother carrying tons of the stuff. Everything they have here they have in Italy as well, easily obtainable from any corner farmacia (pharmacy).
I also throw into my mini first aid kit a couple of gelcap doses of whatever multi-symptom cold and flu meds I happen to have in the bathroom cabinet, just in case I come down with something and can’t find an open pharmacy right away.
Useful travel health links
Medic Alert (www.medicalert.org) - Discuss any chronic condition with your doctor before leaving. If you have epilepsy, diabetes, or a heart condition and don't already have a Medic Alert Identification tag or bracelet—recognized by docs the world over and giving them instant, 24-hour access to your personal health records—do yourself a favor and get one. Membership costs $35 the first year, and $20 annually after that. They also offer a $100 travel insurance policy you might want to look into.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov) - Our government's CDC will caution you about health threats and which vaccines to stick yourself with (for Europe, none you don't routinely get in childhood are required, and very few others are even remotely recommended).
World Health Organization (www.who.int) - The United Nations' WHO does an excellent job of pouncing on any health threat to the public, no matter how minor, and smothering it with travel warnings and provisos. Overly-cautious alerts notwithstanding—reading just CDC reports, you'd think breathing the air in Iowa was the world's leading cause of death—this remains the single best repository of the official word on all health related issues around the world.
IAMAT (www.iamat.org) - The International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers is chock full of advice on travel health, and serves as a sort of free health insurance. You can become a member at no charge (they do appreciate donations), and you get a directory of doctors around the world who will be happy to treat you (the docs may charge you, they may not; still, the free list of English-speaking doctors is a boon).
Medical evacuation and assistance - There are several outfits providing these services. They are really intended more for travel to the developing world, not a place like Italy with a first-rate medical system, but who am I to judge your level of comfort with foreign medical establishments? Peruse them all: iamat.org, Medjetassist.com, Medexassist.com.
International Society for Travel Medicine (www.istm.org) - This is actually an industry organization, one to which doctors who specialize in travel medicine can belong, but it also has some nifty recourses for the public, including a list of travel health clinics.
- Hospitals in Italy
- Pharmacies in Italy
- Health insurance in Italy
- General health concerns in Italy
- Safety concerns in Italy
- The Ultimate Packing List (includes a travel first aid kit)
This material was last updated January 2010. All information was accurate at the time.
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Copyright © 2008–2012 by Reid Bramblett. Author: Reid Bramblett | <urn:uuid:d6eb1484-1f9c-4345-9b2c-091acbc7afe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reidsitaly.com/planning/safety/health_concerns.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944926 | 1,900 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Students at an Illinois high school wore "Straight Pride" shirts to school Monday, with a Bible quote that recommended punishing homosexuality with death. The kids weren't disciplined — because the school says it was a "teachable moment."
According to KDSK, the three St. Charles North High School students who chose to display their "Straight Pride" on Monday were neither punished nor asked to change, though near the end of the school day, they were asked to cover up the quote on the back: "If a man lay with a male as those who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and shall surely be put to DEATH." Two kids showed up wearing the same shirt the next day, and administrators asked them to cover up with sweatshirts, which they did. But even this was too much for senior Jake Pezzuto, who said, "I don't understand how some students are able to wear 'Gay Pride' shirts while we can't wear shirts that just say 'Straight Pride.'"
One unnamed official's words explained that the students weren't punished because the incident was a way to show kids that "while there are two sides to an issue, you can hold onto your side of the issue and advocate it, but you also have to be respectful of people who hold the opposite opinion." It's not clear how wearing a shirt that says gay people should die is "respectful" — but then, the official's words are vague enough that you can't quite tell who he's even talking about. Way to sidestep the issue of how your school totally looked the other way in the face of blatant homophobia, guy. | <urn:uuid:72fd4937-ee78-4a97-8b58-682ee9c99e2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jezebel.com/5688745/school-lets-kids-wear-straight-pride-shirts?tag=illinois | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986642 | 340 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Nitrate decomposition, as seen in Bill Morrison’s beautiful THE MESMERIST, which is composed of clips, in various stages of decay, from THE BELLS, starring Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff.
Here, it looks like the intertitle has been printed on a microscope slide, as if the text were a paramecium’s speech bubble.
Nitrate decomposition is much on my mind, as we’re attempting to simulate it in my documentary, partly as a transitional device — we can have one shot melt into another — partly to blend together different kinds of footage (35mm from the teens, twenties, thirties and forties, digital video from the twenty-first century) — partly, if necessary, to censor some footage — so we have to look closely at what the footage is made of, in order to reconstruct it.
This particular film uses big white Rorschachian bubble-clusters quite a lot. When frozen, they sometimes have a crustacean shape to them, and their whiteness is that of the white whale, the colour of nature when everything else is stripped away.
Then there’s also the Jack Kirby anti-matter black frogspawn, which is pretty rare but always scary and exciting when it comes crawling into the frame, clustering on the actor’s faces as if to consume them like the neg-scratch monsters in THE FLESH EATERS. Some of this is a product of the decalcomania effect, Max Ernst’s name for what you get when you apply thick paint to a surface, squash it under another surface, then peel the two apart. The same thing happens to celluloid when the film loses its stability and the image turns to jam, squished together in a reel of film. Unreel the film and all these abstract patterns are created as the film peels away from itself.
The buckling and warping of the print causes mobile blurring of focus, since the film will wibble-wobble on its way through the projector, the distance between lamp and image changing irregularly. And then there’s the squash and stretch on the image itself, as it gets distorted, fun-house mirror fashion, by the shrinking and expansion of the film strip.
We’re less interested in fake scratches, which you see all the time in phony reconstructions, but we may deploy some awkward hot-splice jump cuts, with accompanying (but just out-of-synch) soundtrack glitches.
Nothing so beautiful happens when digital information decays, and in fact you very quickly get something that can’t be viewed at all. So it’s arguable that film is superior to digital, even when it goes wrong. | <urn:uuid:674e9afc-7031-42f0-a4e2-cd2e9147640a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dcairns.wordpress.com/tag/boris-karloff/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944045 | 575 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Today, Sunday, February 27th, we went to the Natural History Museum and to the Sciences Museum.
In the first one, there are four parts but we especially studied the zone where there are dinosaurs. Mrs Teixeira had prepared a quiz about dinosaurs. In the other zones, we could see the Earth's history, lots of animals and Darwin's center. We liked the fact that there are many interactive games, especially the one where we could compare our weight with animal's one.
In the second museum, we did some games about mirrors and lenses, chimical reactions... It was so pleasant. Moreover, we had to make another quiz on climate made by Mrs Teixeira. But it was very difficult to find the climate room. Consequently, it was hard to go out and the lifts didn't help us.
In the afternoon, we had a free time in Camden Market. We liked to negotiate with the sellers. However, the weather was bad, it was raining ; and we saw so many odd people.
This evening (the last) we will go to the cinema. We are very sad that the end of the travel already arrives.
PS: Mrs Teixeira almost died laughing.
Lea, Remi and Maud | <urn:uuid:e68f85df-bb3c-41c8-834f-c9d0dcc8fd6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jacobhistgeo.over-blog.com/article-part-4-68255526.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988968 | 258 | 1.695313 | 2 |
JKISSI : The classic black and white was ideally the original picture of the worlds eye. Black and white photography has always been intriguing to me. In general colored photographs may catch ones eye in terms of highlighting the design, but black and white requires so much more. The saying that every pictures tells a story is true, but when accompanied by black and white photography it gives that particular story some dramatic backdrop. This application on pictures can be misinterpreted, there are very important elements you see reoccur in the best monochromatic photographs. I have to be in the mood to photograph black and white images, it takes much more thinking as I look through the lens at my surroundings. It does not help that my favorite colors are black,white and gray by telling from our website layout it could take you far.
This was ideally suppose to be our new About Us portrait, but we chose not use it.
Here are some images that explain my B/W affection.
Sammy Davis Jr. reading up on photography
Muhammad Ali picture courtesey of Peter Angelo Simmons | <urn:uuid:ee9e9f9c-d683-4209-b5a1-9973948f59ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://streetetiquette.com/2009/06/10/black-white/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954443 | 221 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Do you care enough to help?
Via Hot Air
There can be little doubt that one of the greatest political and economic problems in the US is the way that our Congress “earmarks” billions of dollars for special projects that benefit lawmakers in their bid for personal security and re-election.
Many people that I know go out and vote to elect Congress members, U.S. senators, and all sorts of local officials. But I don’t know of that many people who are able or willing to go out and see what their elected officials are actually doing.
I’ve noted before the ballooning and bipartisan feeding at the public trough conducted by this Congress, for projects of dubious value.
Brian Riedl reports on NRO today that there is at last some good news. Some of the pork from the latest spending bill has been plucked, credit due not least to a strong veto threat from the president. One might speculate that Republicans are rediscovering the benefits of spending restraint just in time to impress voters in November—but that doesn’t explain how President Bush suddenly found the gumption to do something he should have done many times before.
You may have heard about the debate in Washington that erupted late last week, as Senate Democrats and Republicans sought ways to respond to rising gas prices. According to Marketplace’s Hillary Wikai, the majority Republicans settled on “a $100 gas-tax rebate to be paid for by drilling in Alaska’s Wildlife Refuge.” | <urn:uuid:240f42b4-dae5-47b1-a01b-41daf9251af1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.acton.org/archives/tag/congress/page/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963838 | 311 | 1.5 | 2 |
Posted by: Tom Nolle
FCC, net neutrality, pay-for-priority, regulation, Title II
I had a chance to review the full text of the FCC’s Net Neutrality Order (number 10-201 if you’re into the FCC’s numbering system). And while there were no real surprises in the material versus the commentary that was provided in the public meeting, I’m still concerned that the FCC hasn’t created a solid legal foundation for the order, which means that it would be at risk in an appeal.
There are plenty of people on both sides of the issue who say they might appeal the matter, but in truth, it takes some financial resources to fund an appeal process if you’re earnest about getting results. The FCC, as I’ve noted in the past, is holding open the docket on reclassifying broadband under Title II, perhaps to threaten the ISPs (with pockets deep enough to appeal).
Another tactic that the text might reveal is the Commission’s statement that a lot of the key issues like what constitutes traffic management are to be addressed on a case-by-case basis rather than through meticulous details in the order. That means that anyone who wants to dispute something will either have to file for a declaratory ruling or wait to get zapped by the FCC and then make their case—either to the FCC or on appeal.
One thing that seems clear from the order is the policy of the FCC on pay-for-priority systems. What I gather is that such systems would be fine with the FCC if they were initiated by the consumer, but not if they were sold to content providers like Google. What seems to be shaping up here is that if the consumer has a choice to pay for priority handling and that choice is explicit, then it’s probably OK for the content provider to collect the money and pay on the user’s behalf.
If the content provider pays for priority, the issue is a bit murkier. As I noted above, the provider could probably act as a payment agent or intermediary. The FCC also stopped short of saying that there were no conditions under which a provider could pay. That suggests to me that it might allow the content provider to “pay” for premium handling in a bundled content service. The key point here seems to be that if the consumer isn’t paying anything for content (i.e. free Hulu vs. paid Hulu or Netflix), then the prioritization would clearly be paid by the content provider and would clearly be linked with “Internet content” as opposed to being a “specialized service”.
This is the area where appeals to the net neutrality order seem the most likely. An ISP that has no specific content strategy could well offer streaming video players an opportunity to obtain special handling for premium service, as well as offering the consumer subscription premium options. If competitors with their own channelized TV offerings didn’t like this (which they likely would not) then they might appeal to the FCC. Or the ISP that wanted to do the prioritizing might apply for a declaratory ruling. In either case, if the FCC doesn’t go along with the operator on the issue, there’s always the Court of Appeals — and there the uncertainties begin. | <urn:uuid:0491a9db-b9c6-4d92-9d08-1cee731bd536> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/telecom/fccs-net-neutrality-order-and-murky-pay-for-priority-issues/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970677 | 687 | 1.664063 | 2 |
SJU Joins Regional Effort to Promote Emergency Preparedness
Associate Provost to Co-Chair University Consortium on Emergency Preparedness
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
PHILADELPHIA (October 23, 2007)— Taking into account the impact that disasters have on communities, and using events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina as examples, the City of Philadelphia's Emergency Preparedness Review Committee (EPRC) released an evaluation of the city's preparedness and detailed more than 200 recommendations. Among them was the formation of the Greater Philadelphia University Consortium for Emergency Preparedness, recognizing that the city's colleges and universities play an important role in the nation's prosperity and security.
Saint Joseph's University's Associate Provost and Interim Dean of Graduate and Continuing Studies Paul DeVito, Ph.D., was named as a co-chair of the Consortium along with the city's Deputy Managing Director MaryAnn Marrocolo, and Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response Harvey Rubin, M.D., Ph.D. A psychologist, DeVito is also founding executive director of SJU's Early Responders Distance Learning Center (ERDLC), a federally funded institute with the mission of providing state-of-the-art and accredited training for emergency responders to WMD/terrorist incidents.
"The formation of this Consortium sends an vital message regarding the importance and effectiveness of university-based collaboration on a regional level," said DeVito. "This partnership will not only aid Philadelphia and its surrounding areas, but it will hopefully be a national model. I am honored to work with my colleagues from our partner institutions on matters of such great consequence."
In addition to Saint Joseph's and the University of Pennsylvania, Bucks County Community College, Drexel University, Temple University, LaSalle University, Villanova University, and the University of Delaware have joined the effort.
The Consortium, established to support the region's emergency preparedness, has been charged with several objectives. Providing a means of collaboration between the academic community and the government on projects of mutual interest and benefit are chief among them, as is integrating the academic community into regional and city emergency planning and training programs.
To start, the Consortium is working to identify each university's resources, and then build a website cataloguing research activities, faculty interests and areas of expertise. Ultimately, the Consortium will plan and host symposia to highlight scholarship in the realm of emergency preparedness followed by a series of joint preparedness and response exercises amongst the institutions. | <urn:uuid:ba7e7b36-8a51-4a54-a8b3-ef53f77a0392> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sju.edu/news-events/news/sju-joins-regional-effort-promote-emergency-preparedness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946969 | 524 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Compared to Nikon D5000 & Sony A55
The EOS 600D uses the same 18-megapixel sensor already seen in the EOS 550D. This sensor has a higher definition than that of its competitors, and largely dominates the D5000 (only 12 megapixels). Back in the days when the D5000 was launched, this was a good standard. But more pixels does not mean better metrics, and indeed, the DxOMark Scores for the EOS 600D place it behind both the D5000 and Alpha 55, handicapped by a lower Landscape and low light performance scores. The D5000 and the Alpha 55 have comparable DXOMark Scores.
The Canon is deeply penalized by persistent noise noticeable in the dark areas at low ISO settings. The dynamic range graph and the EOS 600D curve directly points to this phenomenon. From ISO 100 to ISO 400, the EOS 600D’s curve is horizontal, with both the D5000 and the Alpha 55 scoring 1EV above it.
Once again, as noticed with the EOS 1100D, analyzing the full SNR graph for the D600 confirms the problem. The curves representing ISO 100 and ISO 200 overlap on their left sides (the dark zones, with the curve for ISO 400 very close as well, which should not be the case.
Let’s look at the SNR 18% metrics, which simply confirm all of this: the D5000 produces less noise than the EOS 600D, no matter the ISO speed. The difference is as high as 3 dB between ISO 100 and ISO 400, and slowly decreases afterwards.
The same kind of performance can be noticed for color sensitivity. The EOS 600D is outperformed by the D5000, and here again the difference can be quite significant, reaching almost 3 bits at ISO 400. | <urn:uuid:07af6052-bcc1-4596-947c-7dbe24305a65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/en%C3%83%C6%92%C3%8B%E2%80%A0/Publications/DxOMark-Reviews/Canon-EOS-600D-in-depth-review/Compared-to-Nikon-D5000-Sony-A55 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935661 | 374 | 1.710938 | 2 |
"Financing Local Development:
Understanding the Role of Mutual Credit and Co-Operative Banks"
Jointly organised the OECD LEED Programme, in partnership with the Inter-ministerial Delegation for Innovation, Social Experimentation and Social Economy, the National Co-operation Group and with the co-operation of the Eurogroup Institute
Paris 23 November 2007
Background | Agenda | Presentations | Report
Financing local development is not simply a question of finding the public money required to invest in a local productive base, or wider economic development opportunities. How local development is financed plays a key part in defining what the goals of local development may be, and the extent to which the outcomes will be sustainable in both financial and economic terms. Financing local development involves both public and private finance, including philanthropic financing, and the mix of these varies very broadly throughout OECD Member Countries.
It also concerns multiple actors and the banking sector is one of these. The mutual benefit and credit co-operative sector represents an important part of the banking sector but its contribution to the funding of local development has not yet been studied sufficiently. If, as a general rule, an area’s economic development is influenced by the actions and strategies of the banks operating there, certain of them, such as the mutual benefit and co-operative banks, have a specific vocation to support local development as this corresponds to their statutory mission.
The conference aimed to highlight the co-operative sector contribution to economic development by means of analysing its identifying characteristics, its territorial service mission, the differences between this sector and that of commercial credit, its relationship between alternative and philanthropic funding (finances solidaires). It also strived to pose questions on the validity of the co-operative credit model compared with other existing models in the banking sector, as well as on the challenges which the sector must face to find a balance between economic efficiency and its social mission, and between its dimension of proximity and its position on the international markets.
Click here to download the draft conference agenda
Garry Cronan, Director of Communication, International Co-operative Alliance, Switzerland
Funding local development: an evolving landscape
Greg Clark, Advisor, City and Regional Development,
Department of Communities and Local Government, United Kingdom, and
Chair of the LEED Forum on Development Agencies and Investment Strategies
Co-operative banks and their capacity for territorial innovation
Nadine Richez Battesti, Senior Lecturer, Université de la Mediterranée, Aix-Marseille II, France
Download the summary report on "Financing Local Development: Understanding the Role of Mutual Credit and Co-operative Banks" | <urn:uuid:1550ad86-5a63-4091-87d7-91eb3f4e4a02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oecd.org/france/conferenceonfinancinglocaldevelopmentunderstandingtheroleofmutualcreditandco-operativebanksparisfrance23november2007.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935907 | 545 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Hundreds detained in Tibet
Hundreds of Tibetans in Lhasa have been detained by Chinese security officers after two self-immolation protests against Chinese rule over Tibet, a US-broadcaster said, stoking concerns of spreading unrest among Tibetans in China.
On Sunday, two Tibetan men set themselves on fire in Lhasa, state news agency Xinhua said, the first time in four years of a major Tibetan protest against Chinese rule. One of the men died.
China has branded the self-immolators "terrorists" and criminals and has blamed exiled Tibetans and the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for inciting them.
At least 35 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011 in protest against China's six-decade rule over Tibet, according to Tibetan rights groups. At least 27 have died.
Late yesterday, Radio Free Asia cited a source as estimating that about 600 Tibetans had been detained since the Sunday's protests in Lhasa. The number could not be independently confirmed because foreign journalists are barred from entering Tibet.
The detentions come amid news that a Tibetan woman had set herself ablaze yesterday afternoon in Aba prefecture in southwestern Sichuan province, according to Tibetan advocacy group Free Tibet and Radio Free Asia.
Experts say Beijing may introduce tighter restrictions to halt the growing unrest in China's ethnic Tibetan areas.
Beijing considers the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, a separatist.
The Dalai Lama says he merely seeks greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland. | <urn:uuid:a31ea54f-1856-47a4-85c5-cb5eed52962e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irishtimes.com/news/hundreds-detained-in-tibet-1.717740?via=rel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944857 | 325 | 1.71875 | 2 |
facebook has announced that 83 million–or nearly 9%–of its account holders are “illegitimate”. this figure includes duplicate profiles, profiles that are of pets or businesses, fakes and spambots. facebook’s only asset is information about its users which it can sell to advertisers. this admission of a ten percent “spoilage” is particularly bad at a time when facebook is shaping up to be the single worst i.p.o. of all time. on the first day of public trading, prices in facebook shares were set at $38 and now are under $20. in the next few weeks, insiders at facebook are allowed to sell some of their shares and, if they do, the share price will fall even further. and who’s hurting? the state of california had been planning on tax revenues of $1.4 to $1.9 billion dollars based on a $35 dollar per share average.
when i made a resolution to visit, spend time with, get to know “face to face” my facebook friends, i discovered i had quite a few of these sorts of friends. for instance, the explorer william clark, born in 1770 and deceased since 1838, is the 59th friend i visited last year. okay, i am not really friends with him–i’m friends with lanny jones, who wrote his biography “william clark and the shaping of the west”. i’m also friends with a cat, several dogs, and several “people” whose only interest in our relationship is that they have received free hewlett packard printers or androids and russian mail order brides and i can too!
when i went to new york last year, i was hoping to meet inda loop, a rap musician with whom i was facebook friends. i didn’t know how i knew her except that our mutual facebook friend was richard “mop” furniss. i asked him – | <urn:uuid:95e994a9-3a19-4eda-a285-3e3d7ed0b262> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arlynnpresser.com/tag/businesses/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980328 | 424 | 1.5 | 2 |
By MIKE GLENN, Chronicle
Houston police arrested about a dozen protesters Thursday during a march that ended at a downtown bridge.
About 200-300 people affiliated with the Occupy Houston movement and other advocacy groups met at Market Square Park about 4 p.m. then moved out to their destination at the Travis Street bridge near Commerce.
When they arrived, 12 members suddenly linked arms and sat in the intersection, blocking afternoon commuters from leaving.
“A non-violent movement’s best weapon is disruption,” said Carl Gibson with Occupy Houston.
“We’re going to peacefully disrupt society and let people know that are voices are going to be heard,” Gibson said.
HPD officials said they asked the protesters to leave the intersection and took them into custody only when they chose not to.
“The vast majority of these protesters exercised their First Amendment rights peacefully. We appreciate that,” said HPD spokesman Kese Smith.
Police also arrested a woman who was not one of the dozen protesters squatting in the intersection.
“She indicated that she was going to go and join the protesters so she could be arrested,” Smith said. “An officer said, ‘No. You need to get back onto the sidewalk.’ She refused to do so.”
It wasn’t much of a secret that there would be arrests at the end of the protest march. Houston police and journalists covering the rally had already been told that was among their objectives.
“The whole world is watching,” Gibson said.
Waving signs with slogans like “Fund the Future” and “I Want to Work,” the protesters called on government officials to create jobs, end cuts to social welfare programs and hold Wall Street bankers more accountable for their actions.
“We’re just standing up for what we believe in,” said Charlene Ram with Good Jobs Great Houston, one of the protest groups at the march.
The dozen protesters arrested in the intersection will be charged with obstructing a public roadway. The woman who tried to join their ranks will be charged with interfering with the duties of a public servant.
Both are Class B misdemeanors.
One the arrests had been made, the remaining protesters moved back to Market Square Park.
There were no reports of any injuries, officials said. | <urn:uuid:f76569b4-b20f-4d85-82ed-d66ae1252600> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2011/11/police-arrest-dozen-protesters-near-downtown-bridge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970654 | 494 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Class Of 2012: Europe’s Young Pursue Dreams AbroadAugust 1st, 2012 11:58 am Associated Press
MADRID (AP) — Santiago Oviedo, a lanky 24-year-old from Madrid, is on track to get his master’s in physics in October — a crucial milestone in his dream of becoming a researcher probing the origins of the universe.
Spain won’t benefit from his big brain.
Because of education spending cuts and Spain’s downward economic spiral, Oviedo is planning to emigrate to Britain, France, the Netherlands or Germany to get his Ph.D. or work at a company that lets him do research. He’s afraid he may never work or raise a family in his country.
If he had graduated two years ago, Oviedo would have stood a good chance of landing a government-funded scholarship and grant for four years of doctoral study and research. That has evaporated in an austerity drive that has brought slashed budgets for scientific research and waves of layoffs at companies large and small.
With Spain’s unemployment rate for people under 25 at an astonishing 53 percent, young Spaniards are leaving the country in droves to carve out a brighter future. Most seek jobs, but some, like Oviedo, are leaving because the government is struggling to afford to develop their minds.
Since 2009, when Europe’s financial crisis hit full-bore, the number of Spaniards in their late teens, 20s and early 30s leaving the country has increased 52 percent — from about 12,500 to nearly 20,000 according to the government statistics agency. Young and talented Europeans from other hurting eurozone nations — Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal — are also abandoning home not only for stronger European countries but surging former European colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Editors: This is the latest installment in Class of 2012, an exploration of Europe’s financial crisis through the eyes of young people emerging from the cocoon of student life into the worst downturn the continent has seen since the end of World War II.
Oviedo is set to join a growing number of young Spaniards giving up on Spain, a nation that had visions of grandeur during a decade-long property boom but which is now teetering on the edge of financial collapse.
“I don’t want to go away forever, but looking at the situation how it is now, maybe that will happen,” said Oviedo, who heads to every Madrid anti-austerity protest he can fit in with his studies. He blames politicians for immersing Spain in its misery.
In addition to education spending cuts, Spain last December eliminated its Ministry of Science and Innovation to save money, making it a division of the Economy Ministry. In May, the country saw a tide of protests against the education squeeze by university students and teachers, some of whom clashed with police.
“Science isn’t a priority now in Spain,” Oviedo said. “The economy is terrible. A couple years ago we had a really good public health and education system, but now they are destroying it all. When I have children, I don’t want them to live here if they don’t have the things I have enjoyed.”
Oviedo’s fears mirror those of Spanish architecture student Rafael Gonzalez del Castillo, one of the five European students whose lives The Associated Press is tracking in the Class of 2012 project.
“I see myself working abroad,” said Gonzalez del Castillo, as do many of his 25 architecture classmates at his elite Madrid university. “I don’t know where. It doesn’t matter where.”
The long-term toll could be sinking competitiveness as crisis-hit countries lose many of their best and brightest amid already falling birth-rates — a potential formula for a vicious circle of economic agony. But countries like Spain could benefit if young emigres return because they would bring back better work and language skills that would help fix low productivity, said Gayle Allard, an economist with Madrid’s IE Business School.
“If they come back it will be for the good of the country,” said Allard. “If they don’t come back, this is a tragedy,”
Across the border from Spain, the number of Portuguese heading to former colonies Brazil and Angola for work has increased sharply since 2008. The trend has accelerated since last year when Portugal got a bailout of its public finances, according to statistics based on consulate and embassy registrations. Portugal’s prime minister suggested last year that unemployed teachers should consider heading to former colonies for work. The country doesn’t track youth emigration, but researchers say it is rising.
One of Gonzalez del Castillo’s friends is a 26-year-old Spanish civil engineer who graduated last October, and moved to Brazil last month after a six-month job hunt in Spain that netted not a single job interview. She represents a sharp reversal for countries like Spain and Portugal, which for decades were on the receiving end of migrants from Latin America.
She has already had better luck in the booming business hub of Sao Paulo, getting an interview within two weeks of arriving. The woman did not want her name revealed because she entered Brazil on a tourist visa and fears she could be deported if caught seeking work.
In bailed-out Ireland, emigration has become a defining national characteristic. More than 76,000 people left last year, representing 1.7 percent of the population. They joined 200,000 who have departed since 2008 at the end of a property boom-gone-bust similar to Spain’s. Their top destinations are Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States. Official statistics show that the vast majority of those leaving are in their 20s and 30s.
Orla Kelleher, executive director of the Aisling Irish Community Center in Yonkers, New York, said the volume of newly arrived Irish jobseekers had multiplied six times “if not more” since 2009, following the implosion of the Celtic Tiger economy.
Brian Whelan, 28, moved to London from Dublin two years ago after being recruited to work on the Irish pages of the Yahoo news site. Many of his Dublin friends are living outside the country, many in Canada.
“If I hadn’t landed a job in advance I’d have been heading to London anyway,” said Whelan, who now works as a freelance journalist. “Irish people are not having any difficulty landing jobs abroad. It’s often the best and the brightest who are going abroad. Some of the best trained and most able young people are leaving because Ireland can’t afford to keep them.”
Italy, whose decaying economy may soon need a bailout, has long been bleeding much of its finest talent as rigid labor laws and chronic cronyism force highly skilled young people abroad. Italy doesn’t track how many citizens leave, but the country’s statistics agency said the number of Italians with college degrees living abroad rose from 8.3 percent in 2001 to 15.9 percent in 2010.
Maria Adele Carrai, 26, got her bachelor’s degree in Chinese language and culture in Rome, graduating at the top of her class, and went on to complete a master’s in Venice focusing on Asian languages, economics and legal institutions. When she finished, she could find only low-paying work as an Italian-Chinese translator for a court that always paid her late — or not at all. She did freelance translation on the side, making €5 ($6) an hour.
Carrai would rather be home but left Italy for Hong Kong, where she’s doing her Ph.D.
“That’s the only way to become economically independent,” she said. “Italy is an unthinkable destination right now.”
Oviedo, the physics master’s candidate, thinks he would probably be able to land a well-paid job in Madrid, where large banks pay good money for math whizzes like him to be analysts, known as “quants,” and design complex trading formulas.
Oviedo says he would hate himself if he used his math skills to help big banks profit off the financial crisis.
“I don’t want to do that job. It would be like helping the enemy,” he said. “They have destroyed the world. I see the results every day in Spain.”
Associated Press writers Paola Barisani in Rome, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin and Daniel Woolls in Madrid contributed to this report.
Follow The Class of 2012 on the AP Big Story page:
Follow The Class of 2012 on Twitter: | <urn:uuid:0fd822b4-6563-415e-9147-4d3e686b2e0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalmemo.com/class-of-2012-europes-young-pursue-dreams-abroad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962759 | 1,857 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Stroke: Jordie Krimstein's Story
Painting a Portrait of Stroke Recovery
Jordan “Jordie” Krimstein couldn’t figure out how to put on his favorite white sweatshirt. He had done it hundreds of times before, but on this May morning in 2005 the recently retired 73-year-old creative advertising director was at a complete loss.
Concerned, Krimstein and his wife visited a doctor who sent them immediately to a hospital near their north suburban Chicago home for a CAT scan of his brain. As Krimstein walked out of the dressing room after putting his clothes back on, he fell unconscious and collapsed into the arms of his wife and daughter.
When he awoke the next morning, Krimstein learned he had suffered a stroke that resulted in weakness and partial paralysis on the left side of his body.
Although Krimstein was retired, he led an active lifestyle centered around his primary passion —painting water colors. Being left-handed, facing the prospect of not being able to do what he loved was frightening. Krimstein had been trained as a painter at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and still served on its board of governors. During retirement he revisited his passion for painting and hoped to begin showing his work at art gallery exhibitions.
Krimstein’s active lifestyle made him a perfect candidate the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago’s (RIC) Prime of Life Stroke Rehabilitation Program, which is designed for people with full lives and offers an aggressive course of specialized therapies built around a patient’s specific interests or goals.
In Krimstein’s case, that meant painting. With his room at RIC directly overlooking Lake Michigan it didn’t take long for him to ask his wife to bring him his watercolor paints. “The sunrises were beautiful,” he says.
One day, Krimstein’s doctor, Ross Bogey, M.D., noticed he was painting using his right hand instead of his dominant left hand. Later that day, when Krimstein returned to his room from a therapy session, he was puzzled to see what looked like a large white boxing glove lying on the middle of his bed.
“You’re supposed to wear this on your right hand every day for at least five hours,” read a note from Dr. Bogey attached to the glove “You’re on the honor system.”
Krimstein soon learned that what he thought was an oversized boxing glove was actually a piece of restraint equipment that was intended to prevent him from using his right hand, forcing him to develop function in his weaker left hand. This innovative technique, known as Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy, forces a patient to use the arm and hand that has been affected by stroke with the hope of stimulating new areas of the brain to learn new functions.
Marked Improvement Comes With Dedication
As instructed, Krimstein wore the glove and before long, noticed an improvement in his left hand's mobility. “It made me start to learn to use my left hand again,” says Krimstein, “and before you know it, I was getting stronger and more controlled in my motions.”
“That looks good,” Dr. Bogey would comment on his painting when he dropped by Krimstein’s room and looked over his shoulder.
In addition to restraint therapy, Krimstein also worked with speech language pathologists to fine tune his cognitive and communication skills and received physical therapy, which included walking, stair climbing and stretching to improve his endurance and balance.
"Jordie worked his butt off when he was here, and his response to the Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy was dramatic and even better than I expected,” said Dr. Bogey. “He really zoomed. I was giddy about it. How do you put into words how you feel when a patient has that kind of recovery and it's because you contributed some way to it? It's exactly why you go into medicine."
Graduation from Rehabilitation
As Krimstein prepared to leave RIC’s Prime of Life Program after six weeks, he handed Dr. Bogey a gift –five portraits he had completed of other patients and one of the doctor himself. “Thanks to you, this experience was wonderful,” he told him, “and I look forward to getting back to painting, which is what I love most and what you have helped me to be able to continue doing.”
"It was really touching. The one he did of me is hanging on my office wall next to my desk,” said Bogey.
After “graduating” from RIC as an inpatient, as Krimstein puts it, he continued his therapy as an outpatient at RIC’s Northshore satellite office, not far from his home. Four days a week, an RIC van picked him up at home in the morning and took him back around lunch after he was finished. Krimstein continued to work with therapists on regaining his strength, stamina and balance and developed his fine motor skills by repeatedly buttoning shirts and folding articles of clothing.
Krimstein stopped his outpatient therapy after three months and is now actively painting with his left hand as precisely as he did before his injury. He has resumed his full schedule of activities and is preparing for an exhibition of his watercolors at a downtown Chicago art gallery this fall.
Krimstein said he will never forget RIC’s staff, especially Dr. Bogey and his big white boxing glove. Because of their compassion, he describes the therapists in the Northshore satellite office as “angels” and said, “It just blew me away the way they handled their patients.”
“RIC made my whole experience seem like a piece of cake,” he added. “The people there made it warm and friendly. There is a feeling of pride you sense throughout the staff. There is no question the people make the place.” | <urn:uuid:bcf7cc9a-b32d-47f2-abc6-e3e2f3bd0ca4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ric.org/about/stories/stroke-jordie-krimstein-story/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988811 | 1,276 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Tue July 3, 2012
Power's Still Out For Nearly 2 Million, And Intense Heat Continues
Originally published on Tue July 3, 2012 2:42 pm
As the day gets started, about 1.8 million homes and businesses in states stretching from Indiana east through the mid-Atlantic are still without power because of the enormous damage caused by Friday's derecho. That's the huge wall of severe storms that swept across towns and cities from Indiana east to the Atlantic coast.
What's worse, the intense heat that has blanketed much of the nation continues, with temperatures in the 90s and humidity that makes things feel even hotter.
The National Weather Service has issued heat warnings or advisories for parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. But even where there aren't warnings — in cities such as Richmond, Va., Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md., it's going to be hot and many folks still don't have power.
As The Washington Post says, the nation's capital "approached an unhappy Fourth of July as frustration grew Monday over the pace of power restoration, the forecast warned of more high temperatures and storms, and thousands spent a third miserable day without air conditioning."
More ominously, The Associated Press says that "officials feared the death toll, already at 22, could climb because of the heat and widespread use of generators, which emit fumes that can be dangerous in enclosed spaces."
Reports from places still suffering are consistent in their misery:
-- "Excessive heat warning remains in effect. ... Some people in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio remain without power due to recent severe thunderstorms." (Indiana's FortWayne.com)
-- "For 140,000 without power, it's Day 5 and waiting." (Ohio's The Columbus Dispatch)
-- In West Virginia, "Gov. Tomblin declares state of emergency." (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
-- "Crews battle heat while restoring power." (The Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va.)
-- For Dominion Power in Virginia, Repairs are 'hand-to-hand combat.' (WAMU)
-- "A summer heat wave expected to last through the weekend is now blamed for seven deaths across Maryland." (The Baltimore Sun)
Update at 3:40 p.m. ET. Why Don't We Put More Lines Underground?
NPR's Martin Kaste reminds us that back in February he reported for All Thing Considered about the issue of whether more power lines should be buried to prevent the kinds of storm-related damage that occurred this past week. But as he concluded:
"The bottom line is — nobody knows the bottom line. Nobody's gone past the cost side of the cost-benefit analysis. Even if cities like Seattle had the money for undergrounding, there's no way to know if it's a good investment, and they have little incentive to change how things are done."
This week, The Washington Post looked at whether utilities around the nation's capital could bury more or all of their lines and wrote that:
"Changing the game, experts agree, would be somewhere between moderately and astoundingly expensive and might create nearly as many reliability issues as it solves." | <urn:uuid:ead6915a-1a99-4efd-84a6-16c156b5f065> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kccu.org/post/powers-still-out-nearly-2-million-and-intense-heat-continues | 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 | 0.949648 | 656 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Losing your job can be a devastating blow. Not only does it mean losing your income, but can mean missing friends and colleagues, a regular activity and structure to your life, prestige, identify, a place in the community and much more.
You may feel anger, bitterness, frustration, disbelief, jealousy, distrust and denial. You may be angry at yourself, your boss, or your former colleagues.
How you respond can affect yourself, your family and your future job prospects.
Beating yourself up will not help.
Accept all the help your employer provides to get a new job, including references, training, leads, outplacement, etc.
Work with your family to deal with the financial implications. Apply for unemployment compensation, create an expenses budget and stick to it. Talk with your creditors if you will have trouble meeting your obligations. They are more likely to work with you if you are honest with them rather than just avoiding making your payments.
If you have children, they will sense that something is wrong, so be up front with them.
Put together a plan for how you are going to get another job, and spend time on it as if it is your full time job.
Remember also to have fun with your family and friends. There are plenty of things you can do together that don't cost money.
For more information, see: | <urn:uuid:cafbf155-4514-4c6e-b4f4-fb9e8dd2d2eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grieflink.net/Loss-of-Job | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960147 | 279 | 1.84375 | 2 |
BAC exhibit puts artwork, nature on display
July 23, 2010 · 11:08 AM
By JENNEKE OOSTMAN
For the Review
For the first time on the island, the nonprofit Bainbridge Arts and Crafts is collaborating with another nonprofit, Bainbridge Island Land Trust, to coordinate this year’s exhibition of local art.
The exhibit, Art on the Trail, will occur from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday (or Sunday if it rains) at Blakely Harbor Park.
From carving to weaving, painting, photography, and print-making, a variety of techniques will be exhibited using nature as a center point.
The artists, David Franklin, Gregory Glynn, Diana Liljelund, Kathleen McKeehen, Elizabeth Moga, Sue Skelly, Kristin Tollefson, Kay Walsh, Melinda West and Ellen Wixted will create art based upon inspiration found within their natural surroundings. Weaving with branches and printmaking from leaves collected from the park’s ground are just two of the anticipated 10 exhibits.
Demonstrations, as well as lectures about specific techniques, will be given by the artists, who will further engage the public by allowing and encouraging them to participate in creating their own artwork.
The artists were chosen by the BAC via invitation. The organization, founded in 1948, is dedicated to exhibiting and selling the art of local artists and craftsmen. The artists were selected based on their talent, media, and ability to merge art with nature. All of the artists are residents of Kitsap County, with the majority living on Bainbridge Island or in Indianola or Poulsbo.
“The opportunity – the collaboration between the Bainbridge Island Land Trust and BAC – is absolutely wonderful,” said Bainbridge artist Diana Liljelund. “It’s a great way to get people outdoors, enjoying nature and the environment.”
Liljelund, who holds a degree in architecture from the University of Waterloo in Canada, will be using the wood from an old cherry tree to find inspiration for her artwork trilogy: “Passages.”
In exchange for their time, enthusiasm and completed artwork, the artists will each be given an honorarium of $1,250. Their art will be exhibited, and hopefully sold, in October at the BAC’s gallery. The proceeds will be donated to the Land Trust, which is dedicated to preserving the island’s natural environment.
The goal of the exhibit is to increase awareness of nature by showing its importance to humanity in terms of a form of art, according to Victoria Josslin, publicist and education director for BAC.
“My intention is to explore our relationship with nature,” Liljelund said. “My hope is that it [the artwork] will enable people to see something in nature that they haven’t seen before.”
“Nature is important to us in many different ways. Nature is a treasure,” Josslin said. The exhibit will allow the public to “spend time enjoying, thinking and experiencing nature.”
The event is free and open to all ages. Food will be provided by Real Foods. | <urn:uuid:cacbc7c0-6145-4f2e-907d-f2603f07161d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bainbridgereview.com/entertainment/99120604.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954044 | 673 | 1.546875 | 2 |
What makes a New Yorker a New Yorker? There are many answers, but one at the top of the list is this: the native knows there's no such thing as Grand Central Station. It's Grand Central Terminal, and on February 2 it celebrates its centennary
There is no more beloved building in this city, and none more deserving of adulation, or offering more lessons about what makes architecture special. GCT has shaped the growth of Manhattan and it has served as the city's ennobling gateway. In the 1960s, the fight to save it from development inspired the preservation movement. (We should be on guard for current plans that might harm it, but this is not the place for that.) It looks great on film, and it's the subject of endless legend, from its reversed ceiling mural to the accoustical tricks of its vaulting to its various mysterious spaces known only to the chosen few
We are of an age that is obsessed with the superficial, but GCT resists those who would judge it from the outside. It's hard to get a good picture of the building's exterior, which is belted by an elevated roadway that keeps you from an easy frontal view; the rear is blocked out by its neighbors. The money shot
of GCT is taken inside, of busy commuters hurrying in all directions across its main concourse in a kind of urban poetry.
What makes the building so dynamic is how it works in section and plan
, forming an almost absurd number of interlocking levels and spaces. They are a joy to explore, and for the most part are a wonder of circulatory function. And of course they are beautiful.
There's no better way to celebrate GCT than with a visit, and while you're there you might want to stop in at Posman's
and pick up Sam Roberts's new history
of the place. All aboard. | <urn:uuid:5a313852-645d-4ba9-9966-391fbcccae9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://observatory.designobserver.com/marklamster/feature/grand-central-turns-100/37658/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973554 | 385 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A nonfiction topic that I like is animals. I like penguins and monkeys because they are my favorite animals. I know that penguins live in the South Pole and eat fish thier preditors are usually seal. I know that monkeys usually live in jungles and eat bananas. I also would like to learn about the coral reefs beacause I like the beach and I think sea animals are really cool. I know that most of the animals that live in the coral reefs have gills because they live under water but, the animals who breath in water usually stay close to surface to they can get air. Those are the nonfiction topics I like. | <urn:uuid:df010700-f451-4d5a-99b1-817110bfaf52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blog_id=1434330&mode=comment&blogger_id=350041 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973729 | 132 | 1.609375 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States has been this route before with Egypt. The US is praising Egypt's leader for championing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts but is also expressing concern over his commitment to democracy at home.
With options limited, the Obama administration is keeping its faith in President Mohammed Morsi.
Within a week, Morsi has both emerged as a key U.S. partner in fostering Mideast peace and has used his new political capital to assume more power.
His actions are the latest reminder that Washington can't be sure where its relationship will stand with the Arab world's most populous country as it transitions from decades of secular autocracy. Morsi's rapid rise is forcing the U.S. to grapple with difficult questions posed by the Arab Spring. | <urn:uuid:3f7c98f4-000e-4979-b5e1-c0db53b841bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.daily-jeff.com/ap%20washington/2012/11/27/with-egypt-s-morsi-us-faces-a-familiar-dilemma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971367 | 154 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The bus from Banbury drops my husband, Jack, and me at Chipping Warden, where greens, market cross and church of orange stone mark the start of our 120-mile walk, through the Cotswolds and towards the homeward train at Castle Cary in Somerset. On the first afternoon, sun shimmers on cobwebs spun across fields, and over the next 10 days we pass stately homes and picturesque villages of renovated houses and converted barns – many shut up, secured inside electronic gates. Churches are decorated for harvest festival, and house names of former tradesmen hint at earlier self-sufficiency of these settlements, which relied on wool for their wealth.
Between overnight stays, few people are seen out in the country. Horses at livery await their riders and, beside the Westonbirt Arboretum, a string of unbridled thoroughbreds appears, like a painting by Stubbs. The narrowboat Ariadne is manoeuvred through Claydon lock on the Oxford canal; towards the Rollright Stones, a farmer trims his hedges while he awaits drier conditions for autumn cultivation; three men with a van round up sheep in parkland at Adlestrop; a stone-waller lies down for a rest in a gateway; and, on the Stowell estate, a gamekeeper chops off sunflower heads beside a planting of cornfield flowers. Springs and streams run high, rushing towards the Thames or Avon.
Rooks swirl above stubble that is too wet for ploughing, and tilled fields are rutted and muddy. A few ridge-and-furrow pastures survive, and old ways are edged in haws, ivy flowers, blackberries and scarlet hips woven with traveller's joy. Few acorns or sloes have formed, but woodland paths are strewn with crab apples. Wild carrot and chicory skirt large arable fields and provide cover for pheasants and partridge. We hear skylarks, see four kites at Hampnet and come across hares, muntjac and roe deer. After the first frost, and south of the M4, the end is in sight. Beyond a distant and sideways glimpse of the white horse at Westbury is silhouetted Alfred's Tower, on forested hills above Bruton – three days away. | <urn:uuid:b78e235a-4df3-434e-a63f-35046eea9959> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/macmillan-way-cotswolds-10-day-walk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936554 | 481 | 1.570313 | 2 |
NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C.—A man who pleaded guilty to the slaughter of dozens of sled dogs will not spend time in prison, a judge has ruled, concluding the man had the “best interests” of the dogs at heart when he culled the pack near Whistler after a slump in business following the 2010 Olympics.
But while Judge Steve Merrick said he agreed with a psychiatrist’s assessment that Robert Fawcett’s actions were the result of mental instability, he noted: “[You] ought to have anticipated the possibility of the horrific circumstances that could result.”
The devastating aftermath from the April, 2010 killing was laid bare in provincial court for the first time yesterday by Fawcett’s lawyer, who described how hard it was for his client to even listen to details of killing his beloved animals again.
“I will never stop feeling guilty for the suffering that the dogs endured that day,” said defence lawyer Greg Diamond, quoting his client.
“I feel like part of me died with those dogs.”
Fawcett admitted in August to killing the dogs in a gruesome tableau over two days following a post-Olympic slump in sales.
Court heard he felt forced into the decision when the owners of Howling Dog Tours put an “absolute freeze” on spending, except for food and the bare minimum of labour.
At that point, Fawcett was working 150 hours over two weeks to care for the animals and watching their conditions deteriorate to the point where they were fighting and killing each other in their kennel.
“In part, he accepted the burden because he felt he could do it compassionately and he did not want that burden placed on anyone else,” Diamond noted.
“He gained the fortitude to do it based largely on the vision the remaining dogs could have a happy life and it was for the greater good.”
Diamond argued the sentence should be more related to rehabilitation, noting his client has suffered permanent mental damage and has become an “international pariah,” partly due to intense media scrutiny.
He said his client has attempted suicide, has tattooed a ring of dogs around his arm to remember their lives, and still shudders when he hears a dog bark. | <urn:uuid:476a3ec9-b1f8-4bc2-8e9a-c9c0aed19e7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fftimes.com/comment/reply/256049 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980291 | 484 | 1.5625 | 2 |
We’re increasingly used, in times of increasing unemployment, to hearing that worklessness creates moral as well as economic problems. Yet in such times is there enough work to go around? And should we reassess what the purpose of work in our lives is?
At the next Cardiff Philosophy Cafe on 19 June 2012, Mike Harris from the New Economics Foundation (Nef) offers some thoughts on how we might respond, as a society, to a post-austerity world in which the goal of full employment is no longer viable. He will introduce the idea of a ‘Great Transition’ to a genuinely sustainable economy, society and environment, and will address, in particular how this will force us to rethink how we work, and what we work for. Nef argues for a gradual move towards a much shorter paid working week. This offers a new route out of the multiple crises we face today: over-work for some; unemployment for many; over-consumption; high carbon emissions; low well-being; widening social inequalities; and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other and to enjoy life. In looking at these issues, we’ll examine the value work contributes to our lives, and ask when work improves well-being and when it impairs it.
As usual, the location will be the Cafe Bar at The Gate, with a start time of 8.00pm.
In advance of the session, you can take a quick employment-related survey by clicking on the link below – please add any additional comments you may have below this blog post. Survey results will be presented at the Cafe on the 19th. | <urn:uuid:19f3d5ad-036d-436b-8ebc-7ef62cb023f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smokewriting.co.uk/philcafeblog/?p=1064 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941828 | 339 | 1.625 | 2 |
National Teacher’s Day extra special for member
Published June 2011 Voice
It was quite a National Teacher’s Day for Sharon Baillie last month.
Baillie, a teacher in the Burgettstown Area School District in Washington County, celebrated the annual event by being named the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences’ 2011 National Teacher of the Year.
The award honors exemplary teachers who use cutting-edge methods, techniques, and activities that help give visibility to family and consumer sciences education at the secondary and elementary levels.
In 2007, Baillie started a Healthy Living program that brings nutrition knowledge and applications to K-12 students. It meets the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and all 28 Pennsylvania Department of Education standards for student nutrition.
So popular is the program that Foods and Nutrition classes at Burgettstown middle and high schools are at maximum enrollment.
And that is even after the two additional sections were added during the current school year to meet increased demand.
“I am truly honored,’’ said Baillie. “This has been a team effort with my students, administration, colleagues, parents, and the community.’’
Ironically, it is exactly these kinds of classes that are at risk in some school districts across Pennsylvania as they face difficult decisions stemming from Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed $1.2 billion cuts in state K-12 funding.
Consumer sciences, arts, and music programs are among the most vulnerable, even though many educational professors note these classes provide life skills and also can be correlated to reinforce lessons in math, science, and English, for example.
Baillie will be officially honored on June 23 during the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences’ Annual Conference & Expo in Phoenix, Ariz. She will receive a plaque, $2,500, and $1,000 toward one-year membership and participation in the organization. | <urn:uuid:3d424f8f-138b-40dc-939a-3ca30e7cdd56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psea.org/general.aspx?id=8315 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952173 | 399 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A decision on whether to allow the restart of a shuttered reactor at the San Onofre nuclear plant could come in March, federal regulators said Monday after a visit to the plant.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission administrator, part of a group that included NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane, said he and other officials are awaiting responses from plant operator Southern California Edison to questions as they consider Edison's restart proposal.
Allison Macfarlane, chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, spoke to reporters about her recent tour of the San Onofre nuclear power plant at a meeting in San Juan Capistrano. Southern California Edison filed plans to restart Unit 2 and run the reactor at 70 percent of its full power, but will need approval from the NRC to move forward.
MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
"We're trying to render a decision in the March time-frame," said Arthur Howell, an NRC deputy regional administrator and manager of the San Onofre special project team.
Once they receive the responses, however, further work might be needed, including onsite inspections.
Both of San Onofre's reactors have been shut down for nearly a year because of problems with the steam generators. The Unit 2 reactor had been shut down for routine maintenance early last January, but on Jan. 31, a small leak of radioactive gas prompted the shutdown of Unit 3.
Edison has proposed restarting its Unit 2 reactor at 70 percent power, which is expected to eliminate vibrations that caused wear among thousands of tubes inside the plant's four steam generators.
Macfarlane and her team visited the nuclear plant and, in Orange County, held separate meetings with the press, environmental activists and community leaders.
"I just want to try to understand the issue better," said Macfarlane, who became chairwoman of the agency in July. "And I think you do that better when you actually visit a place and see the equipment and facilities firsthand."
The meetings, which included labor unions, were held in San Juan Capistrano.
"We need to hear everybody's concerns and make sure that we take account of them," she said.
Macfarlane and her team declined to comment on the push from some activists for a license amendment hearing on San Onofre.
On Wednesday, one group, the Friends of the Earth, will present its case to NRC officials in Maryland that Edison should have obtained a license amendment before installing the four steam generators in a massive, $671 million operation between 2009 and early 2011.
Separately, the same group also has requested a hearing on the proposed startup of Unit 2.
Edison officials said Monday that the next public meeting on San Onofre will take place Feb. 12 in Orange County. The location has not yet been announced.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:41239314-113c-4b12-8c50-1afd2d3fdee1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocregister.com/articles/san-383441-onofre-edison.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961313 | 601 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Promoting wellness and healthy habits early.
Teaching children about health and wellness at an early age plays a critical role in laying a foundation for future habits and behaviors. And as a way to build their knowledge on this important matter, Erie offers those enrolled in child care - as well as their parents - the opportunity to improve their overall nutrition, increase movement and boost self-esteem through the Super H-itos program.
Participants must be enrolled in Early Childhood
Director of Health Programs | <urn:uuid:09c295bc-deed-4336-a522-2cbd24b5af61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eriehouse.org/page/see-what-we-do/programs/families/health/super-h-itos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958475 | 99 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Strong offshore winds, warm temperatures and low humidity levels forecast for the region prompted the National Weather Service to issue a “red flag” wildfire warning Wednesday.
The dry, blustery spell is expected to produce favorable fire conditions in the valleys and mountains Thursday through early Saturday, according to the NWS.
Sustained easterly winds up to 30 mph and gusts reaching 55 mph also may make driving dangerous in some locales, especially for motorists in high-profile vehicles, according to the federal agency.
The conditions—caused by a high-pressure zone over the Great Basin—will include daytime relative humidities as low as 5 percent at times, meteorologists said.
The National Weather Service forecast for Poway:
Wednesday night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. Northwest wind 5 to 15 mph becoming east in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph.
Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 80. East wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph.
Thursday night: Mostly clear, with a low around 59. Breezy, with an east wind 10 to 15 mph becoming east 20 to 25 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 89. Breezy, with an east wind around 25 mph, with gusts as high as 45 mph.
Friday night: Clear, with a low around 54. East wind 10 to 15 mph decreasing to 5 to 10 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph. | <urn:uuid:ea6b7cac-159b-4b30-b0eb-a3c37c3222d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://poway.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/windy-forecast-brings-red-flag-warning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965117 | 328 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|ROI Women TD’s|
|Written by Administrator|
The 2011 general election yielded a record number of women TDs, albeit seeing a very modest increase. 23 TDs out of 166 (13.8%) that sat in the 30th Dáil were women, the highest number in the history of the state. This placed Ireland in a global position of 84th in terms of female parliamentary representation. 25 women have been elected for the 31st Dáil, meaning that the next parliament will be 15.1% female. This will marginally push us up the world rankings to 79th place (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2011).
How did women fare in this election when the results are explored in detail? The average success rate for both male and female candidates was very similar, standing at 29.4% and 29.1%, respectively.
Fine Gael saw 11 women elected, representing 14.5% of total deputies. This is an increase of 6 on the number of women they had elected in 2007 and represents a percentage increase of 4.7%.
Labour had 8 women elected in this election, making up 21.6% of their incoming deputies.
This is a numerical increase of 1 on their figure for the last Dáil, although it actually represents a percentage decrease of 13.4%.With the election of Mary-Lou McDonald in Dublin Central and Sandra McLellan in Cork East, Sinn Féin was successful is going from having no women deputies to having two, representing 14.3% of their TDs.
-Source from Claire McGing, NUI Maynooth.
|Last Updated on Thursday, 23 June 2011 14:35| | <urn:uuid:088be198-3933-4e91-8693-d57539d97052> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womenintopolitics.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=73 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969449 | 344 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The San Francisco Mission District
The Mission in San Francisco, CA was originally a booming Hispanic neighborhood bustling with taquerias, salsa clubs, lively murals and Spanish spoken everywhere. Now the Mission District has transformed into a culturally diverse community with edgy and unique businesses, high tech coffee shops and high caliber multi-ethnic restaurants.
Our San Francisco bed and breakfast inn provides guests with a neighborhood map with over 80 current restaurants, featuring Zagat ratings, food specialties and location near the Inn. Visit the nearby historic Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco, erected in 1791 to replace the original 1775 Mission destroyed by fire. The adjoining cemetery is the only graveyard in the city and contains many of the original founders of San Francisco. Mission Dolores also contains a wonderful museum.
The Mission in San Francisco, CA neighborhood also is home to more than 600 murals and street art with more being added weekly. From a copy of an original Indian mural that still exists hidden behind the alter of Mission Dolores on Bartlett Street near 22nd Street to alleyways celebrating The Day of the Dead at the beginning of November. Colorful, provocative, unique, these wonderful expressions of neighborhood art bring the streets alive. | <urn:uuid:10a433a9-6749-48d3-97f7-8cb7bfaef9fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.innsf.com/san-francisco-activities/neighborhoods/the-mission.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934784 | 248 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Long Term Care Calculator
Long term care is needed by those who can't perform the basic tasks required to take care of themselves. This can include people suffering from a debilitating illness or chronic injury. The need for long term care can arise unexpectedly, often creating a large financial burden. This calculator can help you determine if you are financially prepared for this impending expense.
- Estimated daily cost
- This is your current estimated cost of long term care. According to the Genworth Financial 2011 Cost of Care Survey, the estimated average cost for a nursing home stay was $70,445 per year for a semi-private room. This is about $193 per day. The cost for a private room was $77,745 or $213 per day. Assisted living at home can cost more than $38,220 per year or $19.00 per hour for a home healthcare aid. All of these long-term care costs can be considerably higher in larger metropolitan areas.
- Years of care
- The number of years you expect to require long term care. The average stay in a nursing home is about 2.5 years, but can vary considerably.
- Inflation rate
- What you expect for the average long-term inflation rate. A common measure of inflation in the U.S. is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). From 1925 through 2011 the CPI has a long-term average of 3.0% annually. Over the last 31 years highest CPI recorded was 13.5% in 1980. We will increase the cost of your long term care by this rate each year.
- Funds currently available
- The total amount that you have saved or invested that would be available to pay for long term care expenses. | <urn:uuid:6cba447b-660e-461e-aad5-730f30413827> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.360financialliteracy.org/Topics/Family-Financial-Planning/Caring-for-Aging-Parents/Long-Term-Care-Calculator | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958979 | 351 | 1.695313 | 2 |
If your looking for some prepared text, most likely you won't find it. A medicine wheel, as you know, is a native American construct. Some of them date back 4,500 years. Stuff isn't written down unless some white man made an attempt to do so (and possibly embellish) and then that would have only happened in recent years.
As it has been explained to me, the wheel is symbolic of mother earth womb.
It's open to the west to allow entrance and exit (like the birth canal) (west is the direction of where the spirits reside)
When we wish to connect with mother earth and to share knowledge, we return to the womb where we can grow spiritually. When we exit the wheel with new knowledge, we are reborn to the world of the people.
It's absolutely appropriate to open the wheel with a prayer. You might ask for guidance, wisdom and understanding.
When leaving, it's appropriate to give thanks.
Also appropriate to use sweet grass as a smudge, cleansing self and site, and filling yourself with the spirit with whom you wish to connect.
With that in mind and your intentions going in, speak your heart when opening and closing. I'm sure that is more than sufficiant. | <urn:uuid:5af59b0d-2d62-4e66-9d06-36fc991846a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wicca.com/forums/index.php?topic=7250.msg159257 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969183 | 257 | 1.8125 | 2 |
- Jeanne Lenzer, medical investigative journalist, New York, [email protected],
- Shannon Brownlee, senior fellow, New America Foundation, [email protected]
A US psychiatrist has vowed to go on a “march of shame” for payments he received from a drug company in return for medical education talks he gave to other doctors. He now promises to give free “undrug” talks to reverse the effects of the “inappropriate prescribing” he may have caused.
Writing in the New York Times (www.nytimes.com, 25 Nov 2007, “Dr Drug Rep”), Daniel Carlat, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts School of Medicine in Boston, has given a candid account of his role promoting the antidepressant venlafaxine (marketed as Effexor XR in the United States by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals). Carlat was flattered when a Wyeth drug representative asked him in 2001 to give talks to doctors about the drug for the treatment of depression. It didn’t hurt that he would be paid $500 (£250; €350) for a one hour talk over a free lunch—and $750 if he had to drive for an hour.
Carlat, who specialises in psychopharmacology, says he didn’t believe at first that he was doing anything wrong when he agreed to give the talks. He was familiar with studies showing that venlafaxine, a dual reuptake inhibitor that increases concentrations of serotonin and noradrenaline (norepinephrine), might be more effective than the selective serotonin reuptake … | <urn:uuid:9a9df6be-b3b4-4a90-8cae-623e2e2ee583> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7634/20.extract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95511 | 348 | 1.5 | 2 |
Car Subwoofer Enclosures
Get the most out of your subwoofer with a sealed, ported, or bandpass box/enclosure.
Car Subwoofer Enclosures Information
Car Subwoofer Enclosure Information:
It is often overlooked, but every great car audio system features a subwoofer enclosure purposely selected to maximize subwoofer performance. It may surprise you to learn that a sub box can make or break the perfect setup. We have a wide variety of professionally constructed sub boxes, built for your convenience and designed to perfectly complement your personalized system. We advise you to choose a sealed, ported or bandpass box based on your car subwoofer specifications and available vehicle space.
Sealed enclosures are smaller than most other types of sub boxes. They do not allow air to escape from the box, thus making it harder for the sub to move in and out. This increases the transient response, meaning tighter bass and greater sound accuracy. These boxes also have good power handling, as it is harder for the sub to bottom outĚ (excursion beyond peak excursion), which makes it less risky to push the subs to thump to the beat. However, since the airwaves cannot escape from the box, the sub is less efficient, meaning less sound reproduction. Their tightly sealed design also doesn't allow the speaker's motor structure to cool down as well as it does in other boxes or free air setups.
Ported boxes, also known as vented boxes, are enclosures that are designed with a port tuned to a specific frequency. They are more efficient than sealed enclosures because the back waves are channeled into the listening environment along with the front waves, which gives you more sound output than sealed enclosures produce. The ports in these enclosures help produce deeper bass up to the tuned frequency. However, power handling is poor below the tuned frequency and as such, woofer damage can occur. Further, there is no internal pressure working against the speaker, giving it worse transient response and speaker damping than a sealed enclosure. Finally, prefabricated boxes are not built with ports tuned to manufacturer's recommendations. This may make reproduction sound muddy or sloppy. Also, the air exiting the ports will at times produce a medium to loud noise, called port noise. To summarize, ported boxes give you a higher sound output and will generally have a better low frequency extension than sealed boxes. On the downside, they are larger and have poor power handling below their tuned frequency. They also have a reduced transient response and may generate port noise.
A bandpass enclosure is basically a combination between a sealed and vented enclosure. With one sealed and one ported chamber, bandpass boxes produce great power handling as well as a good low frequency response. However, you should note that a bandpass box should be specifically designed for your subwoofer(s). Furthermore, they are not as efficient as ported boxes, and since the ports in bandpass boxes are not tuned to speaker requirements, most speakers will have a better all around sound in ported or sealed enclosures.
When trunk space is at a minimum, you might consider using free-air subwoofers. Free-air subwoofers are specially designed to perform without an enclosure. It is usually the easiest and least expensive way to add a subwoofer to most sedans. No enclosure is required, you just use a board mounted on the rear deck or in the trunk along with the subwoofer. The downside is that you will experience a worse low-frequency response, or simply put, less power handling and less bass. You also get the least amount of transient response. You must also be sure that the baffle board is properly sealed and that the trunk or surrounding areas are properly dampened, otherwise bass cancellation will occur (loss of bass). This is why, space allowing, we recommend that you invest in an enclosure to ensure optimal performance.
Another small investment for better subwoofer performance is our polyester fiber fill, which slows down back waves inside of the box, making the subwoofer perform as though it were in a bigger enclosure. We recommend that you use approximately 1 pound of fill per cubic foot of box volume. In enclosures where the fiber fill may blow out of a port, a light multipurpose adhesive should be used to secure the fill to the wall linings.
If you need help selecting the proper box for your subs, give us a call at 1-877-289-7664. Our staff will help you in selecting the right setup so that you can start building your dream car audio system today! | <urn:uuid:01e5a191-7d79-4803-812f-055afaa20574> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sonicelectronix.com/cat_i1_car-subwoofer-enclosures.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944949 | 942 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Though yoga has been one of the most ancient forms of exercise, it has become quite popular in the present times. People are now joining yoga classes and are opting for your yoga retreats that can help them enjoy a healthy body. If you have also been impressed by yoga but don’t have time to join any Yoga Classes then you can watch Yoga Videos and invest in Yoga DVD.
Many people are now relying upon yoga videos for learning yoga and find it to be very useful. It has helped many of the beginners to start with the health program and enjoy its benefits. Yoga DVD is also popular with yoga enthusiasts who are shy and are not comfortable in exercising in a group. Investing in the DVD is way cheaper than hiring a professional trainer or joining a yoga retreat.
Choosing the right yoga video is very important. If you are a beginner to the yoga program then it is important that you choose a video which is designed for them. In such videos, they inform the learners about the importance of breathing, about the basic asanas and the breather technique related to it. They also inform you about the benefits of the different asana so that you may know which asana is good for you.
You can also get basic yoga videos and watch them online through yoga sites. The sites have animated videos for different asana and also have live videos so that you can see them and practice the asana by yourself as well. It is one of the cheapest and most time saving ways to perform yoga and get familiar to it. However, choosing the right yoga DVD is highly important as it helps you to get the asanas correct.
The yoga videos and DVD are available online also and you can search for them and buy them online. There are different levels available in the DVD. So if you are new to the program, you can buy the one that is meant for the beginners. Once you have mastered the basic asana, you can buy higher levels and practice those asanas as well. Alternatively, you can also hire a professional trainer who can help you learn your asanas well and do better. He may be able to guide you better. Once you have learnt the postures, you can get the videos and continue your classes by watching them. | <urn:uuid:0eed341e-3f2d-459a-b20d-e1ecc22eb40f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ppnow.com/health-medical/yoga-videos-%e2%80%93-helping-beginners-to-learn-yoga/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978626 | 456 | 1.703125 | 2 |
From a windowless room in a Bangkok suburb, computer technicians scour thousands of Web sites, Facebook pages and tweets night and day. Their mission: to suppress what is regarded as one of Thailand’s most heinous crimes — insulting the monarchy.
The government calls this its “war room,” part of a zero-tolerance campaign that uses the world’s most draconian lese-majeste laws to stamp out even the faintest criticism of 84-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest-reigning monarch.
Critics call it a “witch hunt” and few are spared if they fall foul of the process.
Sixty-one-year-old cancer sufferer Amphon Tangnoppaku, dubbed “Uncle SMS,” was jailed for 20 years last month for sending text messages deemed to have disparaged Queen Sirikit. The ruling prompted outrage. Last Saturday, Human Rights Watch criticized the “shocking” severity of recent penalties for lese-majeste and urged Thailand to amend the law.
The offense is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, possibly more if there is violation of the 2007 Computer Crimes Act, which has been used to block more than 70,000 Web sites, many for lese-majeste, others for pornography or cyberfraud.
Washington-based pro-democracy group Freedom House says the two laws give Thai authorities “carte blanche to clamp down on any form of expression.”
Some had hoped Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose party members are among those accused of lese-majeste, would reform the law, but she is treading carefully, aware her opponents in the military and in the royalist establishment could seize on any hint of disloyalty to the monarchy to bring her down.
Independent analysts say the use of lese-majeste could undermine those it was designed to protect if the backlash against the law grows, but the tough-sounding Cybersecurity Operation Center remains focused.
“We don’t have any impressive equipment to track suspicious Internet activity,” said Nut Payongsri, an official in the vast government complex. “In most cases, we hear about misuse via calls to our hotline. We check each case and report them to the police.”
The king is in poor health and has spent the past two years in hospital. He made a rare public appearance in a wheelchair on Monday at celebrations to mark his birthday.
His health and the succession are sensitive topics. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn has yet to command the same respect as his father, who is seen as almost divine.
Lese-majeste shields the king, queen, crown prince or regent from criticism. In the latest case, the exact content of the messages Amphon was accused of sending is unclear — disclosing it could also mean prison. He denied the charges and wept in court.
Undeterred by the outcry, Thai Minister of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Anudit Nakorntab warned people they could face similar punishment if they clicked “like” or “share” next to Facebook postings about the case that were considered offensive to the throne.
An ICT ministry official said that Thais who received anti-monarchy messages by e-mail or on their personal Facebook walls and failed to delete them were also in violation.
“We would take them to court and prosecute them,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “It is against the law to do such a thing and as a result, they will be fined and jailed.” | <urn:uuid:e67b18cb-c5cc-47c1-933a-a5c7e3a72a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2011/12/10/2003520370 | 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 | 0.965437 | 784 | 1.703125 | 2 |
10 award-winning open source apps to try today
The world of open source software offers free alternatives to just about any expensive commercial package you might care to name, but there's no denying that some of them are better than others.
Firefox, LibreOffice, and GIMP are a few of the better-known examples with a reputation for quality and stability, but there are plenty of other worthy contenders out there as well.
Comparable in many ways to Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor designed to make it easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps, and more. The software can also export to formats including PostScript, PNG, and SVG. | <urn:uuid:252d1a48-9f1d-448a-84f9-2533cf90b4fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/58529 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947621 | 146 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Hosni Mubarak watched uprising on TV: commission
- From: AAP
- January 03, 2013
EGYPT'S Hosni Mubarak watched the uprising against him unfold through a live TV feed to his palace, despite his denial he knew the extent of the protests and crackdown against them, a member of a fact-finding mission says.
The finding could lead to the retrial of the 84-old ousted leader, who's already serving a life sentence.
In questioning for his trial for the deaths of some 900 protesters during the uprising, Mubarak said he was kept in the dark by top aides as to the gravity of the situation during the uprising, and fended off charges he ordered or knew of the deadly force used against the protesters.
Ahmed Ragheb, a human rights lawyer and a member of the commission, said state TV had designated a coded satellite TV station that fed live material from cameras installed in Tahrir and surrounding areas directly to Mubarak's Palace throughout the 18 days of the uprising.
"Mubarak knew of all the crimes that took place directly. The images were carried to him live, and he didn't even need security reports," Mr Ragheb told The Associated Press. "This entails a legal responsibility" in the violence against the protesters, including the infamous camel battle, where men on horses and camel and other Mubarak supporters stormed the square trying to drive protesters out.
At least 11 people are said to be killed in that attack.
The finding came in a 700-page report on protester deaths the past two years, submitted on Wednesday to President Mohamed Morsi.
Mr Morsi had formed this commission soon after he came to office in June, having promised during his election campaign he will order new retrials for former regime officials if new evidence were revealed.
The commission also found security forces and the military used live ammunition in crackdowns on protesters during the 18-day uprising against Mubarak and during the 17 months of rule by the military that followed his February 11, 2011 fall, Mr Ragheb said.
The military repeatedly denied it used live ammunition against protesters, despite several deaths caused by bullets and pellets. | <urn:uuid:f5108ab9-bcd3-49b6-b49f-c6a13eedf2f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.com.au/world-news/mubarak-watched-uprising-on-tv-commission/story-fndir2ev-1226546856621 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986976 | 436 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Roger Waters, one of the founders of legendary English rock band Pink Floyd, criticized the policies of U.S. president George W. Bush and said he is an admirer of Peru’s culture, especially of Machu Picchu.
Waters, who arrived in Lima on Saturday for his Monday night concert at the “El Monumental” football stadium, signed autographs for his fans and met with Peruvian foreign trade and tourism minister, Mercedes Aráoz who gave him a t-shirt with the image of Machu Picchu, a typical Peruvian “chullo” cap and two photo books: Peruvian landscapes and Peruvian cuisine.
“I love Machu Picchu”, he told journalists and revealed that he actually tried to book a short trip to the ancient Incan citadel but unfortunately a discrepancy between tour schedule and flight times didn’t allow it. “But I love to cook, too”, he added and slipped the t-shirt over his head.
The musician also advanced that he does not agree with “the policies” of U.S. president Bush and said he supports Mexican protests against a wall on the border between both countries. “They are doing the right thing when they protest. I’m on Mexico’s side”, he said.
Waters’ show tonight will include songs from his latest “Ca Ira” CD, excerpts from “The Wall”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Animals”, and the complete “Dark Side of the Moon”. During his interpretation of “Another brick in the wall”, the band will be accompanied by a choir of twenty 10-16 year old kids from the Cambridge school in Lima. Cambridge, England, is the home town of Roger Waters and the other founding members of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett and David Gilmour.
Article by Wolfy Becker | <urn:uuid:4a5f7f4d-0763-4775-95d2-37cb03b0aff3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://journalperu.com/pink-floyd%E2%80%99s-roger-waters-criticizes-bush-loves-peruvian-culture/ | 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 | 0.9589 | 412 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Programs :: JA Job Shadow
Junior Achievement gratefully acknowledges the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice for its support of the program.
Would you rather tell students about the workplace or show them? We introduce students to careers through one-day, on-site orientations or through more extensive internships. Either way, it's an authentic work-world experience for the students … enhanced with classroom preparatory and follow-up activities.
JA Job Shadow takes students into the workplace to learn about careers.
See the Scope and Sequence for a complete listing of program concepts and skills.
Be sure to visit the Resource Room for helpful links.
Want to learn more about the exciting things our student shadows get to do? Read on!
To learn more about receiving this program in your area, contact your local JA office. | <urn:uuid:6580480a-0cd1-4253-8531-4723da6644bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ja.org/programs/programs_job_shadow.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933655 | 184 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The City Council approved legislation Thursday that would fine businesses for leaving their doors open while they have their air conditioning blasting. The bill, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to sign, would exempt stores smaller than 4,000 square feet.
In addition to the air conditioning legislation, the City Council also approved a bill that would exempt the commissioner for the Department of Buildings from being a registered architect or a licensed engineer.
A Ban on Cool Sidewalks
According to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a business with a typical doorway in New York City (or 6 to 7 feet across) can waste up to $1,000 and a ton of carbon dioxide if it leaves its door open in the summer.
That same practice can increase energy consumption by 20 to 25 percent, according to a report by the Long Island Power Authority.
That's why Councilmember Gale Brewer set out to ban the practice. Her bill (Intro 264 ) was approved by a vote of 41 to 8.
Any business that keeps its door open to lure in customers will first receive a warning, followed by a fine of $200 for each open door. Another violation would increase the fine to $400 per door.
The bill would not apply to emergency situations nor to instances where doors have been propped open for deliveries or by customers carrying out merchandise.
"There are not going to be Department of Consumer Affairs cops lurking in every corner looking for someone who propped the door open for five minutes," said Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
Brewer said the measure is meant to raise awareness, not revenue.
Some retailers and businesses associations opposed the legislation because they were afraid closed doorways would deter spontaneous purchases from passersby. Some council members who opposed the legislation said, in this case, the council was stepping too far into a business's affairs.
"We're going a bit far," said Councilmember Charles Barron, who opposed the bill. "Now we're going into our communities and closing the doors of businesses."
Though some retailers were concerned over the bill's affect on their business, the city's utility company, Con Edison, came out in support of the measure. "Critics who oppose the bill because they interpret it as a manner of individual elective choice miss the point," read a Con Ed statement. "It's not just the offending business that's paying the electric bill for the waste of energy. Everyone pays."
More Construction Legislation
In another round of legislation aimed at increasing safety and decreasing mismanagement at the Department of Buildings, the City Council approved three bills -- one of which brought an unusual amount of opposition from council members.
The council approved legislation, which would no longer require the commissioner of the Department of Buildings have a license in engineering or be a registered architect. The bill (Intro 755) was approved by 36 to 12, and it has seen considerable opposition amongst industry professionals.
One day following the council's approval, Bloomberg announced his intention of appointing Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri as buildings commissioner. LiMandri has an engineering degree, but not a license.
Some members objected to the bill, seeing a need for a licensed professional to oversee the whole department – in part because the department has been mired in controversy and mismanagement. So far this year, there have been 16 fatalities as a result of construction site accidents.
“We’re hiding behind this,” said Councilmember Diana Reyna, who voted against the legislation. “We must not lose site of the fact that we’re losing lives, putting New Yorkers at risk.”
The bill requires either the commissioner or the first deputy commissioner have an engineering license or be a registered architect. Supporters say it will provide the administration greater flexibility when choosing a department head.
In addition to changing the requirements for the commissioner, the council also approved legislation (Intro 783) that requires a site safety manager be hired for construction jobs that require pouring concrete. The accident in January at Trump Soho, which caused one fatality, occurred during concrete operations, said Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
Concrete safety managers will be required at major work sites -- those involving structures taller than approximately 10 stories, said Quinn -- that pour more than 2,000 cubic yards of concrete.
The bill was approved by a vote of 49 to 0.
Also, by a vote of 49 to 0, the council approved legislation ( Intro 790) requiring all workers at construction sites take a 10-hour course from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration every five years. A site safety plan must include a statement verifying that all workers have completed the course.
The council unanimously approved a finance resolution (Reso. 1585) outlining what groups received $32 million in funding that was first earmarked when the council approved the city’s budget in June.
The council appropriated the funding to 158 organizations. Quinn said all the organizations were selected by the chair of the relevant committee, the initiative’s sponsor, or by the speaker’s office with advice from relevant parties. They were also approved by the council’s budget negotiating team.
Quinn said all of the groups had been vetted properly. Â | <urn:uuid:aae19464-ad48-47db-809f-584a83d6d531> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/topics/development/4055-stated-meeting-cooling-city-streets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968758 | 1,066 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Bob Steele, well-known
barber in Atlanta was born in Milledgeville in 1843.
He was the son of Carrie
Steele Logan (1829-1900) founder of the Carrie Steele Orphans Home
August 31, 1899
BOB STEELE IS DEAD
Well-Known Negro Barber Died of Consumption
at His Home Last Night
Bob Steele, on the the best know
negroes in the city, died at his home, 175 North Butler street, last night
at 11:30 o'clock from consumption of the throat, after an illness of about
Bob Steele was one of the best
known members of his race in Atlanta and had many friends among both the
whites and negroes, who will learn of his death with much regret. He had
lived in the city for about thirty-five years, all of which time he has
worked as a barber.
He was fifty-six years
of age, and leaves a wife and five children, all boys, of whom two are
living in Atlanta, two in Chicago and one in New York. He was born in Milledgeville,
but came to this city thirty five years ago. His mother was the founder
of the famous Carrie Steel Orphans' home, and one of the best-known colored
Christian workers in the state.
Bob Steele was a great admirer
and friend of the late Henry Grady, and was carried by him on many of his
long trips. he was with Mr. Grady on the trip to Boston, when he contracted
the cold that resulted in his death. He was also with him on many other
trips, and was a frequent visitor to his office while living.
His shop at 13 Marietta street was
for years patronized by the best citizens of Atlanta, and he was able to
amass quite a good sized sum of money, most of which he invested in real
estate. He owned at the time of his death several pieces of property, including
The funeral arrangements have not
been arranged, but it will be conducted from his home tomorrow.
September 1st, 1899
FUNERAL OF BOB STEELE
Services of Well-Known Negro Will Be Conducted
from Big Bethel
The funeral of Bob Steele, the
well-known negro barber, who died at his home Wednesday night, will be
conducted from Bethel Methodist church this afternoon at 3 o'clock.
The services will be conducted by
Dr. Alexander, Rev. Carter and Father Greene.
The pallbearers will be Rufus Cooper,
Samuel Ware, Henry White, Albert Nash(?), M. Rowell and
Eileen Babb McAdams copyright 2004 | <urn:uuid:6183ae9e-6088-42c6-9ed9-2816ff566b0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gabaldw2/bobsteel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979779 | 572 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Report: No ‘overt’ faith bias at academy, but insensitivities abound
"Failure to accommodate all members' needs"
Jul 12, 2005
A military panel that examined the religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy has found no “overt religious discrimination” but did see “a failure to fully accommodate all members’ needs.”
While the report issued June 22 did not find institutional abuse, it criticized some officials at the academy for insensitivity, citing “a lack of awareness over where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible expression of beliefs.”
The air force convened a 16-member panel in May to study the religious environment at the academy after numerous reports alleged that students and staff had inappropriately promoted evangelical Christianity at the school. | <urn:uuid:1104851e-83f5-44ee-9092-30fa1880dac9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-07/report-no-overt-faith-bias-academy-insensitivities-abound | 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 | 0.964226 | 167 | 1.539063 | 2 |
By Heather Turner
BENTON COUNTY, Ore. — Benton County natural areas and parks managers warn boaters: watch out for damaged ramps along the Alsea River.
They say the recent storms caused water levels to hit well past the flood stage along the Alsea River corridor, but when the waters receded, they left behind an accumulation of debris and silt buildup, in some areas around four to five inches, on the ramps.
Workers say the Mill Creek, Campbell, and Salmonberry boat ramps along the Alsea River were all overtaken and slightly damaged by the heavy silt and debris deposits, creating hazardous conditions.
Benton County leaders say this week they’ll be cleaning up the mess. Until then, they warn boaters to be careful when using the ramps.
“There’s so much silt right now, in particular at Mill Creek, that it’s not practical, it’s not safe, I think boaters are going to get stuck if they try to back a trailer and a boat down that ramp,” said Benton County Natural Areas & Parks Director Jeff Powers.
Benton County managers say even after the ramps are clear, boaters need to be careful at end of the ramps where there might be unknown hazards like rocks and trees.
Damage and cleanup costs along the Alsea corridor are estimated to be around $10,000-$12,000.
Crews say they expect all three of the boat ramps to be cleared and ready for use within the next week. | <urn:uuid:e519316d-5062-46bf-a3b0-51f8ed2c60c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kezi.com/alsea-river-corridor-boat-ramps-damaged-by-flooding/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935349 | 318 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Behind every great pop music genre, there's a record label that launched its stars. Blue Note pushed Theolonious Monk and Art Blakey into the mainstream. Sun Records brought us Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Motown had its glittering roster of the Supremes, Stevie Wonder and more.
For hip-hop music in the early 1980s, that label was Def Jam. A new book attempts to capture that history in photos, interviews and essays. It's called Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label.
LL Cool J was just 17 when he became one of the first artists signed to the company. The men who founded the Def Jam label in 1984 weren't much older. There was Rick Rubin, a 21-year-old NYU art school student from Long Island making music in his dorm room; and Russell Simmons, a 27-year-old from Queens, who was already making a name for himself in the downtown scene with his brother's rap group Run DMC.
Weekend Edition Sunday host Audie Cornish spoke with both founders separately about the early days of the label.
On The Partnership Between Simmons and Rubin
Simmons: I met him and he had a drum machine full of hot joints. I mean his whole DMX machine was full of hit records, from what I could hear. He was a smart kid. And he was part of a band called the Beastie Boys, who I met later. They were phenomenal, and he was a great producer. He had produced that record "It's Yours" by T La Rock and after he produced that record he started receiving tapes, and one of the tapes was LL Cool J's "I Need A Beat." He remixed it, or redid it, and it became our first release for Def Jam records.
The more I got to know Rick, the more I felt that my efforts should go into the partnership and not into a separate company. Because I already had Run DMC and Whodini and Jimmy Spice and Kurtis Blow and the Fearless Four. I was managing a lot of acts and I was ready then — and I had produced a few acts that were successful, including Run DMC. But then I saw Rick wanted to start a record company as an independent company, as opposed to some distribution deal, and it made sense. I put the money in with him — it was only a few dollars — and the first record, "I Need A Beat" sold so well. And it was not the sales of the records; it was the sound of the records that inspired me to be his partner. He's a great producer and I thought, "We can do a lot together."
Rubin: Russell and I met at a party for a TV show called "Graffiti Rock." It was a pilot episode and Run DMC appeared on it and the Treacherous 3 appeared on it and it was in a loft somewhere on the West Side in the teens. But I remember being really excited when I met him because, as a fan of hip-hop, he had already — you know his name on a lot of the rap records that already came out — Kurtis Blow, Run DMC — so I was excited to meet him. And when I met Russell he, it turns out that "It's Yours" was his favorite record, which was a surprise to me. And he was really surprised when he met me because it was, because he didn't picture me as I was, based on what the record sounded like.
[Russell] was five years older than me, and he was already established in the music business. And I had no experience whatsoever. So even then he was the face of hip hop, even before Def Jam he was the face of hip hop. It's true! If you had a club and you wanted to hire a hip hop artist, you called Russell and he would get you a hip hop artist. Or if you were a record company and there was a hip hop artist you were interested in signing, you'd call Russell, because he was the center of hip hop from before me, before we ever met.
On Aiming For The Mainstream
Simmons: The radio was listening to, or playing records like Patrick Juvet's "I Love America" or "YMCA" by the Village People, and that's what black radio in New York sounded like. It was disco. And there was a rebellion in the streets, and kids played funky records, whether it was a jazz, or a blues, or a rock and roll, or a funky R&B band like James Brown, they would play those backing tracks and they would rap over them and create their own music, something that was a better soundtrack for what they were living. And that was the creation of hip hop as an expression for people who felt locked out of the mainstream."
I also had a complete disdain for what was the mainstream. It was like as a kid I was just rebelling. I didn't want to hear anything, any instrumentation that sounded like it was already on the radio. I wanted to do something new. And all the records I produced, we made sure that none of the instrumentation that sounded commercial, or were part of the mainstream, were in it. It was kind of like, the producers would come, and musicians would come and we'd just ask them, "let's create new sounds" or "let's not use anything but drums.
Rick and I had that together, yeah. I did that and I met Rick and he felt the same way. In fact he was even — not so much as a rebellion from the R&B things that really offended him, as a kid offended me or made me feel locked out, I felt different from the traditional black record execs — but Rick was from a different background anyway. So when he heard "Rock Box," or he heard some of the records we created, they inspired him because they were closer to his sensitivity.
Rubin: I was a fan of rap music since I was in high school, and there was a radio show called "Mr. Magic's Rap Attack on WHBI", and I would listen to that every week and it was on for an hour — and during that hour that was the only place you could hear hip hop on the radio - and I'd listen to it and would record it every week on a cassette recorder — and then listen back to it all week. I liked punk rock, and it seemed like a new breed of punk rock to me.
Well I listened to mostly rock music, and I felt like hip hop was like an extension of rock music when it was done well. So energetically, again I felt like it was in line with punk rock and maybe hard rock, more than it was in line with R&B, which I never really liked. I liked certain artists; I liked James Brown, for example, but wouldn't say I listened to the R&B that was on the radio either."
So up until the time of Def Jam, pretty much most of the rap records at the time were R&B records with people rapping on them. And then I think one of the things that separated our records from the ones that came prior was that they had more to do with what the actual hip hop culture was like, and that was only because we came as fans from this culture and, in making the records and producing the records, the goal was to capture the energy that you felt at a hip hop club — and they weren't really clubs then, they were more like a hip hop "night" at another club. So if you went out and you saw DJs and MCs and the energy that would happen on that one night, that's was really what we tried to get into the records.
On The Beastie Boys
Simmons: They came and they wanted to be rappers, so they wore red shiny sweatsuits — red Pumas and red sweatsuits — and I thought it was better when I saw them in their punk band — they had a punk band — and the way they dressed, in those outfits.
Since they had such an original sound and original ideas, they should dress from their heart. And I think they did eventually and — I think it's important that they did, and in every case, for all the artists, that kept it real. There was a costume in the street for Run DMC — the costume was a leather suit and a velour hat — but you could wear that to a party and nobody would point you out except to say you look good. But it wouldn't be — it was a uniform for the street, more than it was a costume, you know?"
Rubin: Yeah. We definitely had track suits. It was fun and funny and it was really because we liked the whole culture and wanted to be part of it."
Russell was, I think, instrumental in getting them to look more like themselves. And musically we just tried to make our favorite hip hop album, and I was probably very vocal about the idea of it being a true hip hop album and not being an album that the band played on but more of a classic hip hop album. But a ridiculous hip hop album, you know. Talking about things most hip hop artists wouldn't talk about, because, again, we were coming from outside of this community, watching the community, and being excited by the community, and um, so there was more of a fantasy element. But there, honestly, in a lot of hip hop, like if you listen to Kurtis Blow records a lot of it he's talking about fantasy situations, or if you listen to Africa Bambataa, you know he's talking about what feels like space-age ideas, and it didn't relate at all to their lives in real life. So a lot of what the Beastie Boys talked about were things we thought were funny and entertaining and in the zeitgeist at the time.
Simmons: Yeah, it was a big deal. It made it just feel — authenticity sold Def Jam, and honesty. And I think that's what made rap such a stable footprint in culture, that it's so honest. I mean people are sexist and racist and homophobic and violent. But I don't think of the rappers as being any more sexist or racist or homophobic than their parents. Certainly less, in all those cases, less homophobic or racist or sexist, and then less gangster than our government. It's stuff that people normally don't speak on, subjects they don't speak on, and ideas they kind of keep to themselves."
We did the opposite — we took whatever charm they had that was produced and created and we let them do what was more honest and obvious. "Artist Development" meant looking inside, as opposed to trying to make them fit in. So it was the opposite strategy in some ways, because we would look to produce their inner ideas, as opposed to what the world was looking for. And the more we went inside — the expression came, "keeping it real," that was always the artist development strategy for Def Jam. 'Keep it real.'"
Rubin: I can remember when we made the video for "Going Back to Cali" — LL Cool J video — and I had a strong feeling of how LL should look in the video. This was at a time when rappers all wore a lot of gold jewelry. And I was very insistent that LL not wear any jewelry. And it was a really contentious issue. And I remember him calling Russell and saying, "Russell! Rick doesn't want me to wear jewelry in the video!" and "I can't do this!" and Russell, to his credit, said "No, listen to Rick, do what he says." And it ended up being a really special video, and I tried to explain to him at the time, like "the reason you don't want to wear jewelry is because everyone's wearing jewelry. And it's much more interesting when everybody's wearing jewelry for you not to." And he was like, "How are people going to know I'm successful if I'm not wearing jewelry?" And I said, "Because you're so successful, you don't need jewelry!" Eventually he made the video and since then we talked about it — he's happy he's not wearing jewelry in it. So it all has a happy ending.
On The Music Business
Simmons: Well I don't think we had any good experiences. They just didn't really get what we did. I can tell you a funny story [about] when we tried to sell "I Need a Beat." We were sitting with a lot of senior executives at Warner — the chairman of the company brought me in, Mo Austin, and he played "I Need a Beat." And "I Need a Beat" was an emotional record. And they bowed their heads and listened intently — it was a weird scene for us because imagine all these guys in these suits and ties and they're bending their heads down and listening to "I Need a Beat" by LL Cool J? They're not bobbing their heads either, they're just listening, like it was a beautiful ballad!
And I got up and I knew I didn't belong in that room, and we left and no one ever called us again. Eventually I went back to Mo Austin and he funded — helped to fund — the movie "Krush Groove," and took the soundtrack. Warner Brothers made the movie, and it was No. 1 in the country.
Rubin: I don't remember at all what people said at the time. I remember we were surprised that people liked it, or that it got as successful as it did because in making it we were really trying to make something just for ourselves, you know something we would love. At that time there weren't really a lot of big rap albums, so the idea of anybody else liking just seemed — it didn't seem realistic. It was a real surprise that it ended up sort of breaking out and affecting people all over the place. Strange.
My parents always wanted me to go to law school, but at the same time were supportive of the things that I liked. I looked at it as a hobby, I never looked at it as a job, and then the hobby sort of took on a life of its own and ended up becoming a job, but I never knew that it could be, I didn't even know that it was possible to be. | <urn:uuid:216ca49c-9a2f-4f95-b216-43a48166eb43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wamu.org/programs/weekend_edition_sunday/11/10/09/rick_rubin_russell_simmons_def_jams_first_25_years | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993462 | 2,989 | 1.648438 | 2 |
We have been happily married for fifteen years and believe we have handled most of our parenting well, but now our fourteen year old daughter’s drive for independence often causes us to argue. When she wants to go to a party or to the mall with her friends, my husband and I react differently, in ways that surprise both of us.
Usually, she goes to my husband first for permission, because he is more likely to let her go and not ask for details. When I find out, I end up being the bad guy because I insist on knowing who she is meeting or calling the parents who are hosting the party. If I say she can’t go, she throws a fit, and sometimes my husband overrules me, right there in front of her, saying we need to trust her. I think he doesn’t want to see her disappointed, but then I am angry at him and worried all evening. I’m afraid my husband and I are hurting our relationship, not to mention setting a bad example for our daughter. What can we do to keep our marriage together when our daughter stresses us out?
All parents face the tough job of striking a balance between balancing privileges and safety. When one parent is more protective than the other, tends to think more vividly about the dangers that are out there, or is more prone to worry in general, a teen is likely to notice the cracks in the parental unit and drift toward the parent most likely to allow freedoms. To minimize the strong emotions and conflicts that tend to happen in the throes of decision-making, consider the steps below.
- Set aside time to talk to your spouse about your mutual commitment to your marriage and to the job of parenting. Name the thoughts you have when your daughter makes requests (e.g., “I just want her to have fun,” “She’ll hate me if I say no” or “I just know there will be alcohol at that party”), and talk about ways to relieve that concern. Remind yourselves that your daughter and your relationship will benefit if you can present a united front about your household rules.
- Consider your teen’s developmental level. Early adolescence is a period of insecurity for many teens. They want to be part of the group that seems to have it together and also feel fairly invincible as far as the dangers that are out there. Take time to ask what your teen is thinking, hoping and dreaming. Ask how she can participate at some level without endangering herself or causing you excessive worry (Face it: you’re always going to worry a little).
- Decide ahead of time the basic permissions you are both comfortable with in a given scenario and promise each other that you will present decisions as a team. Let your daughter know the basic rules about parties or going out. When she surprises you with a new request, tell her, “I’ll talk with your mother/father about this and we’ll get back to you with our answer.” Then hold a private discussion with each other.
- Work out ways to back each other up. One way to show your support for each other is to have the stricter parent go first – the one who is more likely to say “no” to a situation – and plan that the other parent will agree saying, “Your mother (or father) said, ‘no,’ and I agree.” If your daughter poses a reasonable argument, tell her you will take her statements back to the other parent for consideration. Again have a private parental discussion. If the information prompts a change of heart, allow the stricter parent to be the one to give the good news, to help balance the permission granting. Finally, agree that you will both watch for disrespectful behavior from the daughter and back each other up about that, too, e.g., “It’s not okay to talk to your father/mother that way, and here is the consequence…” Talk about hypothetical situations. This may reassure you that your teen can make good decisions in difficult situations. For example, during dinner, casually bring up scenarios you have read about in the news or heard about from friends – don’t mention names. Ask your daughter what she might do if faced such a situation. If she gives a reasonable answer, let her know you are pleased with her thinking and add any suggestions you might have. If she gives a less than satisfactory response, suggest a few things that could happen as a result and ask what she might do instead. It also can be interesting to ask your daughter what she thinks about the complete lack of rules some parents seem to have. Often, teens will admit they view overly permissive parents as not really caring about their children.
- Building trust and character take time. Let your teen know that the more she shows herself to be trustworthy, the more trust you will give. Yes, you want her to have fun, but you also love her and thus, her safety is your top concern. Parents sometimes have tough decisions to make, but sticking by your rules, even in the face of a child’s unhappiness, is showing your love. Not bending to pressure from others when things don’t seem safe is a skill you hope she also will exercise as she ventures out in the world on her own.
Finally, if necessary, don’t be afraid to seek professional help. It is a sign of love, not weakness to seek help from a therapist or counselor who can help all family members voice their concerns, reframe the conflict as one borne in love and possibly fear, and move toward solutions that will work for everyone.
Dr. Madison is a clinical psychologist, author and director of FOCCUS, Inc. USA. She speaks internationally on topics related to children, marriage and families. | <urn:uuid:04767ca8-2bcf-4768-99f1-538de6ce077e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foryourmarriage.org/when-teens-know-one-parent-will-say-yes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969739 | 1,202 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Three visitors are presumed dead after plunging over Vernal Fall in Yosemite National Park Tuesday afternoon at approximately 1:30 p.m, bringing the total of water-related deaths to six this year.
Hormiz David, a 22-year-old-male from Manteca, Ninos Yacoub, a 27-year-old-male from Turlock and Ramina Badal, a 21-year-old-female from Modesto, came to the park for a day trip with a group of family and friends.
Park spokesman Scott Gediman told the MT Thursday that it was his understanding that Badel bypassed the metal guardrail near the edge of the falls, went into the water, and was swept rapidly toward the falls by the strong current. One of the men noted above then went in after her to try to save her and the second man also attempted a rescue. All three were swept over the falls almost immediately. Their bodies have not yet been recovered.
The group was witnessed entering the water above Vernal Fall, approximately 25 feet from the precipice. Witnesses reported to park officials that several people urged the group members to step back from the river, since it was flowing swiftly and extremely cold. The area is signed as a dangerous area, and the group had crossed a metal guardrail placed there to keep visitors away from the dangerous fast moving water.
“It was like a chain reaction,” Gediman said. “Once they went in, there was nothing that could be done. The current is just too strong.”
He said that the deaths of the three young people bring the total number of water-related deaths in the park to six since the beginning of the year; many of them due at least in part to the extremely high water levels and strong currents produced by such high water. Two hikers drowned in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on June 29 as they attempted to cross a wooden bridge that was covered by water and a hiker slipped and fell into the Merced River on the Mist Trail on May 13.
Another man disappeared from the trail above Upper Yosemite Falls on June 10 and is still missing, but Gediman said the man is not included in the number of water-related deaths, since it is not yet known what happened to him.
“I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous the water is right now,” he said. “The water is very swift and it is very cold. When things happen, they happen very fast. And it’s not over yet. We still have another month or more before it calms down, due to the big snowpack still in the backcountry.”
He said witnesses who saw the accident on Tuesday reported other visitors also bypassing the guardrail, including, to the horror of the watching visitors, a man holding his young daughter by the hand and dangling her on the other side of the guardrail above the water while asking his 14-year-old son to take photos of her.
The park is still seeing the effects of a huge winter snowpack — more than 300 percent of normal — and a cool spring and summer. The Merced River, which feeds the 317-foot high Vernal Fall that the three individuals plunged over Tuesday, is still running at spring conditions resulting in a swift, dangerous current. The hike up the Mist Trail to Vernal Fall is one of the most popular hikes in the park, with upwards of 1,500 people per day ascending the trail to the top of Vernal Fall.
Over the years, there have been several cases of visitors going over Vernal Fall, as well as other waterfalls, such as Upper Yosemite Falls, Gediman said. Signs and guardrails are located at some of the most popular sites, like Vernal Fall, but they can easily be bypassed if the visitor is determined to do so. | <urn:uuid:0ab965ce-07c6-4c76-af7f-4d529bfd4901> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mammothtimes.com/print/1775 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983481 | 799 | 1.710938 | 2 |
True confession: I was terrified on 9/11—for all the right reasons.
I wasn’t afraid of the terrorists. There are plenty of countries where people have lived for decades under the constant threat of unholy acts of terror—and yet people still get on buses and subways and airplanes, and life goes on. I’d like to think that Americans are at least as courageous as Israelis or Indonesians. Our “land of the free and home of the brave” mythos insists we should be. So I was damned if I was going to respond to the crisis by giving into irrational fears and thereby, as we used to say, “let the terrorists win.”
The Ten Myths
- “Islamofascism” is our biggest national security threat.
- We’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here.
- Military solutions are the only effective national security solutions.
- What we’re doing is working; we haven’t had another 9/11.
- “Law enforcement” approaches to terrorism don’t work.
- We don’t need allies; we can do this on our own.
- You don’t negotiate with dictators.
- National security spending is different from pork-barrel spending on other programs.
- Airport security is critical to our anti-terrorism effort.
- It’s always necessary to give up our civil liberties in a time of war.
No, what I was really afraid of was that too many of my fellow Americans would forget the lessons of their own history—that they’d lose track of who we are and where we’ve been and what we’re made of. I knew there was a real possibility that this time, we’d fail to live up to our reputation for cool, calm clarity in the face of crisis, and instead be goaded into taking counsel of our fears. I feared the bad choices that would inevitably follow if we stampeded down that road. And I dreaded that it would be the soul death of the country I loved.
I hate having been right about this, though I can hardly blame average citizens for succumbing to the sirens of chaos. Americans trying to make correct sense of the new reality found their efforts stymied everywhere they turned. With the White House distorting intelligence to sell a war, corporate opportunists fanning the coals of panic to heat up vast new business opportunities, media editors milking the drama to keep their ratings high, and terrified hordes quick to shout “treason” whenever anyone dared to question the path we were taking, it was hard for even thoughtful Americans to locate the truth of the matter. And as long as confusion reigned, the terrorists really did keep winning.
Seven years later, as the miasma dissipates, more and more of us are able to calm down, take a step back, draw a big, cleansing breath and start to sort things out more rationally. Unfortunately, though, a few of the myths promulgated in those first few years have hardened firmly into a new conventional wisdom—some so stubbornly that you often won’t even find progressives questioning them any more. The time has come to call out a few of these persistent myths that are still being taken as fact and start firing back on them.
1. “Islamofascism” is America’s biggest national security threat.
Not hardly. This is the hot new idea among far-right demagogues who literally can’t define who they are without a devil to contrast themselves against, and military hawks looking for an excuse to keep the military-industrial complex’s big all-night party rolling in the bleary morning-after of a post-Cold War world. But, as the Center for American Progress notes in
2. We’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here.
False. The image here is that Iraq is some kind of roach hotel for global terrorism. The truth is, it’s become the international finishing school where a new generation of terrorists is getting a front-line, real-time education against the American war machine—and perfecting low-tech ways to close the gap against a high-tech army.
The U.S. official National Intelligence Estimate concludes that the war in Iraq has made new Islamic radicals where none existed before, greatly increasing the terror threat around the world. The number of significant terrorist incidents worldwide has risen every year of the war. In a bipartisan survey of national security experts last year, the consensus found that that the war in Iraq is making the world more dangerous for Americans. (To be fair, this same panel is a bit more upbeat this year, but still thinks the war is a grave mistake.) In the meantime, al-Qaida has regrouped in Pakistan, and is back at full strength—while we’ve suffered more than 35,000 casualties and spent more than $550 billion, while alienating friends around the world.
“Fighting them there” hasn’t been nearly the solution we were promised it would be. But too many of us were eager to buy into that promise, because we’d already been sold on another persistent myth:
3. Military solutions are the only effective national security solutions.
Wrong. So wrong that Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (who is nobody’s liberal) has written an entire book on America’s dangerously naïve faith in the military as the only viable solution to everything that ails us.
Which is ridiculous, when you consider all the things military force can’t do. Smart bombs won’t stop global warming. Battlefield nukes won’t cure pandemics. Air strikes won’t reduce our reliance on foreign energy sources. Sending in the Marines is no way to reduce the national debt. As we saw above in No. 1, terrorism is just one of a number of real national security threats we’re facing—and as we’ll see, it’s not even clear that that the military is the right answer there, either.
On the other hand, there’s a surprising level of consensus among security experts on both the left and right on what real, effective national security would look like:
- We need to beef up our intelligence agencies—in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution—so they can monitor terrorist groups and keep dangerous technologies out of their hands.
- We need to provide consistent and effective domestic security around ports, chemical plants, and other high-risk targets—something that should have been done immediately after 9/11, but is still largely neglected.
- We need to revisit our national infrastructure for disaster preparedness and response. Whether it’s floods or fires, evacuation or epidemic, insurgents or industrial accidents, we will be more secure if we have a well-planned, coordinated response, and trained people prepared and in place to handle it.
- We need our friends. Diplomacy, alliances, international cooperation, intelligence sharing and police work are the essential tools for pre-empting real threats to our security.
- We need to become more self-sufficient. Asked by the Foreign Policy Index to rate strategies for strengthening the nation’s security, 55% of Americans listed “Becoming less dependent on other countries for our supply of energy. Only 17% said “Attacking countries that develop weapons of mass destruction” would enhance our security.
America has very few problems that can best be solved by military means—and a great many problems that require us to look for other strategies.
4. But—what we’re doing is working! After all, we haven’t had another 9/11…
True, we haven’t—but not for the reasons you think. Which leads us to another myth….
5. Everybody knows that “law enforcement” approaches to terrorism don’t work.
False. They do work. In fact, they’re about the only thing that really does work. Every single terrorist plot that’s been prevented since 9/11—both the serious ones, and the ones that were “more aspirational than operational”—were prevented through good old-fashioned police and intelligence work.
Taking the wide view, the fateful choice to send in soldiers rather than international cops turned out to be a major win for the terrorists. Conservative blogger Steve Chapman 6. We don’t need allies: we can do this on our own. Besides, moral authority doesn’t matter when you have superior firepower.
More fatal hubris. One of the more noxious side effects of American exceptionalism is that we cling stubbornly to the idea that we’re the only country on earth that matters and owe nothing to anyone else.
That wasn’t even true back in 1776, when Thomas Jefferson duly noted the new nation’s obligation to have “a decent respect” for “the opinions of mankind” in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. It’s considerably less true now that we are so dependent on so many for so much. Insisting that we can go it alone in this deeply interconnected world—where our oil comes from the Saudis, our cars come from the Japanese, and our money and everything else comes from China—is very much like a headstrong 14-year-old who insists that they don’t need Mom and Dad for anything—except maybe housing and food and an allowance and a ride to the mall.
And that’s about how Americans look to the rest of the world whenever we strike this “I’ll do it myself, so there” posture: immature, petulant, spoiled and ignorant of all the ways we depend on the family of nations for our continued well-being. Yes, we’re big and strong and capable of doing tremendous damage if we get angry. But we can only throw that weight around for so long—by and by, the other nations will band together to find alternatives to dealing with us, and may even start actively looking for ways to knock us down to size. In some places, this is already happening, and it’s not in our long-term interest for it to continue.
It’s time for us to remember our grown-up manners and return to our seat at the global family table.
Catastrophically dumb. Conservatives condemn the idea of presidents talking to their counterparts from “enemy” countries, but 67 percent of Americans disagree, according to 8. Government spending on national security is different than pork-barrel spending on other programs.
Another myth busted. Recall that when the Republicans controlled Congress, they devised a formula that diverted security money from high-risk (and mostly liberal) states like New York and California to lower-risk (and mostly conservative) places like Wyoming and Nebraska. This made no logical sense from a security standpoint—the only explanation was that the Republican Congress was using 9/11 as an excuse to dole out pork.
Homeland security has grown up to become one of the biggest pork barrels in American politics. Security professionals are quick to point out that too many of these efforts aren’t designed to provide objectively effective security—in fact, as we’ll see below, many of them are based on flawed assumptions about how effective security works. Instead, the contracts are written in such a way that the only way to fulfill them is to funnel our tax dollars into the pockets of well-connected conservative cronies. The upshot is that we spend more than we should, and get less real protection than we deserve.
And perhaps worst of all: Seven years of this unregulated, unfocused spending has created a booming new industry that can only survive as long as it keeps selling us on new threats to fear—which has long-term implications for our entire national culture.
9. Airport security is a critical part of our anti-terrorism effort.
True, but not as true as it should be. Security experts are still deeply concerned about at least two big holes in the system that make the high drama of the passenger screening area into nothing much more than a farce.
The first one is that we’re still not adequately inspecting air cargo. Any competent engineering student can make and ship a timed bomb, which is why the 9/11 Commission Report insisted on aggressive inspection of all air cargo. At this point, most airports are doing random profiling and screening of parcels; but it’s a far cry from the careful one-by-one inspection being given to people and luggage traveling on the same plane. In 2007, the Transportation Security Administration spent $5 billion inspecting passengers and luggage, and just $55 million on cargo going on the same planes. Cargo inspectors comprise less than 1 percent of the TSA workforce. Feeling safer yet?
The other security hole big enough to fly another 9/11 through comprises the various programs that allow crew members, frequent fliers, people with security clearances, and other “trusted travelers” to bypass inspection. As Bruce Schneier points out, these programs are based on the dangerous myth that terrorists match a particular profile, and that we can somehow pick terrorists out of a crowd if we only can identify everyone and get them all on watch lists.
Schneier, who has consulted with the TSA, is emphatic that dividing the world into “trusted travelers” and people on watch lists creates more security problems than it solves. “Most of the 9/11 terrorists were unknown and not on any watch list. Timothy McVeigh was an upstanding U.S. citizen before he blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel are normal, nondescript people. Intelligence reports indicate that al-Qaida is recruiting non-Arab terrorists for U.S. operations.” Furthermore, if you create a low-inspection loophole in the system, would-be terrorists will aim for that loophole—and are more likely to get through it. The only way to prevent this is to throw out the watch lists and inspect everyone—no exceptions.
Schneier and other airline security experts will tell you that most of the safety gains since 9/11 come about through just two developments: hardening cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. “Everything else—Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included—is security theater,” writes Schneier. “We would all be a lot safer if, instead, we implemented enhanced baggage security—both ensuring that a passenger’s bags don’t fly unless he does, and explosives screening for all baggage—as well as background checks and increased screening for airport employees.”
Wrong. So horribly wrong, in fact, that my very conservative eighth-grade civics teacher wouldn’t have graduated a kid who failed this part of the exam. She put the fear of the Founders in us, along with a clear sense of our obligations and rights as citizens. There hasn’t been a day since 9/11 that I haven’t mourned the fact that America has not produced nearly enough Mrs. Hermans.
Last night, I was watching NBC’s presentation of “9/11: As It Happened,” a two-hour summary of its coverage that awful morning seven years ago. At one point, late in the broadcast, Tom Brokaw made a comment: “We are a country at war now….we’re going to have to reconsider some of the freedoms we now enjoy.” The smoke of the towers was still rolling up the streets of Manhattan, and NBC’s senior anchor was already declaring a new era in which patriotic Americans must be willing to surrender their liberty for security. I was left wondering how someone who wouldn’t have made it out of eighth grade at Home Street School ended up in a national anchor spot—and remembering all over again just what it was on that day that made me so deeply, truly afraid for my country.
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War, and FDR claimed extraordinary powers for himself during World War II—but neither of them ever tried to argue that being at war was a natural excuse for suspending the entire Bill of Rights. In fact (as we have seen) the more dangerous the times, the more important those liberties become. In times of huge social transformation or economic upheaval, when everything else is up for grabs, our worldview and our values—the internal qualities that define who we are, the things nobody can ever take away from us—move to the front and center. Everything else can go up in smoke; but as long as we hold onto those core beliefs, we will be able to survive the worst, and find everything we need within us to rebuild the world anew.
The Declaration and the Constitution are the defining documents of our country, expressing the central ideals that determine who we are. If we abandon those ideals, we will simply cease to be American—and, perhaps, lose the chance of ever restoring America again. If we are truly concerned about national security, this is, beyond a doubt, the worst thing we could ever allow to happen. | <urn:uuid:48c7c1d2-f47f-4e89-a47a-b1fa632fde12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.ourfuture.org/20080912/debunked-ten-conservative-myths-about-national-security?q=blog-entry/2008093712/firing-back-ten-myths-about-national-security | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95274 | 3,609 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Fort Wayne, Ind. — The Life Science Education and Research Consortium of Northeast Indiana
is forging ahead, with two of the five partner schools already moving forward this school year.
The consortium, which was announced in September 2011, would utilize existing space on Parkview Hospital’s Randallia campus, near downtown Fort Wayne, and serve as a regional initiative to align and leverage education, applied research, business incubation and economic development resources focusing on life sciences and health care. The consortium is committed to generating a world-class center with a focus on rehabilitation, senior care and behavioral health.
While other schools are anticipating a 2013 launch, Huntington University and Trine University will begin their first programs in the 2012-13 school year.
“We are pleased to see the aggressive manner with which Huntington and Trine are moving forward with this initiative,” said Steven Brody, project coordinator for the consortium. “We know that residents of northeast Indiana will benefit exponentially from their quality programming, innovative approaches and history of excellence.”
Huntington will start its Master of Arts in counseling
and its adult bachelor’s degree programs in human resource management
, not-for-profit leadership
and RN to BSN degree
program. A TESOL/ESL certificate
program will launch later this year. By the fall of 2013, the university also hopes to open a master’s and doctoral-level program in occupational therapy
“Huntington University is proud to be a part of this joint venture. We firmly believe that by collaborating together our institutions will be stronger, our students’ learning experiences and opportunities will be richer, and our neighborhood, city and region will be more vibrant,” said G. Blair Dowden, Ph.D., president of Huntington University.
Trine will offer new programming that affords students opportunities to pursue bachelor’s degrees in healthcare management, emergency management, biomedical engineering and engineering technology and master’s degrees in leadership in biomedical regulatory affairs, leadership in non-profit management and leadership in healthcare systems studies. The university also plans to launch a doctoral program in physical therapy, its first doctorate program, and a biomechanics and movement sciences research center.
“We are excited, not only to be a part of the consortium, but to give people opportunities to earn meaningful degrees that will enhance their futures and the economic vitality of the community,” said Trine president Earl D. Brooks II, Ph.D. “Universities play a vital role in training quality professionals who will take leadership roles in the healthcare, biomedical and engineering industries. Their leadership will lead to greater regional industrial diversity, job growth and socioeconomic improvements in the area.”
Fort Wayne Community Schools, Ivy Tech Community College-Northeast and the University of Saint Francis are also partners in initiative. The schools signed a memorandum of understanding and Parkview has been working with individual institutions. Huntington and Trine will locate their programs in the main hospital building. | <urn:uuid:cb55f634-6f9a-4500-90fd-e9a43337f5dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huntington.edu/News-Releases/Academics/EXCEL/HU-to-launch-Fort-Wayne-programs-during-2012-13-school-year/?__taxonomyid=1944 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944054 | 616 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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Anthony Esolen on Sending Our Children into Eternity (A Graduation Address)
Parents, was it so long ago that you could rock your child here to sleep in the crook of your arm? Can you remember when they had small voices, and could run about all day with a smudge on the nose and never notice?
In my office at school there’s a framed picture of which I am most fond. In my entirely impartial judgment, it is the loveliest baby picture that has ever been taken. It’s of Jessica at a few months, quite bald; but no doubt if she could have spoken then, she might have justly said, with the Bride in the Song of Songs, “I am bald, but I am beautiful!” She has a look in that picture—I am sure you have seen that look from your own children—a look as if she had recently arrived here from another world, and was not entirely sure of the goings on in this one.
I don’t have that picture here to show you, but I can show you this: It’s a sneaker belonging to my son, Davey. His feet are bigger now, but I keep this shoe on the dashboard of my truck, as I keep that picture in my office, to remind me of the helpless and incomparably precious beings that they were, and as any parent would say, that they always will be.
The Parents’ Time
It is a sweet and sometimes sad thing to live as we do, with the bodies we have, subject to change and time. We parents sometimes want to hurry that time along, to get past whatever difficult year we are in. And when our heads clear, we may want to stop time dead in its tracks, because it seems as if we had dozed in the afternoon and awoke, to find that our son was a man, and our daughter a woman.
But God lends time to us; he does not give it outright. We pray for the good sense to use it well, to love the time we are given, and to help our families love it too. You parents have not yielded to others the responsibility to redeem the time: your homes were no flophouses where strangers spent the night, no factories where the workers punched a clock and toiled year after year to produce what?—a scholarship, prestige, status, vanity.
Your homes were homes; and there, as untold generations of mothers and fathers had done before you, you did more than impart to your children the alphabet or the rules of arithmetic; you brought them up in wisdom and understanding. You brought them up in the Lord, and now, as the time nears when they will leave your home, you are rewarded by seeing a little, but only a little, of the fruit that your labor will have borne.
It is sometimes said that children have no sense of time. I have never believed it, and I certainly do not believe it about the young men and the young women seated before us now. For if we do our work right, my fellow parents, our children will notice. They will see that in our care for them we all but repeat the wistful yet generous words of John the Baptist. When John’s disciples reported to him the preaching of Jesus and the miracles he had performed, John said, simply, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”
There is a part of all good mothers and fathers that would like to keep their children small; but another part, a better part, that knows that our children are given to us as children only for a time; and that part says, “They must increase, and I must decrease.” Nor are the children themselves unaware of it.
I remember that when I was about the age of these fine young people here, I used to like challenging my father to ping-pong matches. We had some roaring duels.
But I was young, and I got better, and he was older, and he did not. And then there came a day when I knew that he would never beat me again. I saw in his smiling eyes that he knew it too.
No doubt some of you here have had a similar experience. I did not rejoice on that day. My father might have, because he knew better. “He must increase, and I must decrease.”
An Unending Story
And yet, for all that we feel the joy and the wistfulness of a night like tonight, when we honor these youngsters who have so suddenly grown tall and wise, if we were all we should be, if we were sinless, we should feel that joy and wistfulness all the more. That leads my mind to consider what must have been the peace and the privacy of a home that is a deep mystery to us.
We who are sinners feel that clutch in the throat when we see our parent who was once so trim and strong, now stooped a little under a load of firewood, let us say, that had never been a trouble before. If our hearts go out to those who raised us, what must the heart of our Savior have felt, as he laid his foster-father Joseph to rest, or saw the first inevitable wrinkles round the eyes of his mother?
Parents who now see the time coming when your children will leave to study at college or learn a trade, eventually to marry and have children of their own—what must it have been like all those quiet years, to be his mother, and know that the time was coming when he must leave, and the sword so long ago predicted, when he was so small, would pierce her heart?
But we know the story does not end there. If we were pagans, we would not know that. If we were pagans, I might tell you, with a note of urgency and some considerable dishonesty, that you should go forth and make something of yourselves and change the world. Well, if you are going to change the world, you had better do it quick, because the time is short, and all flesh is grass. Time devours his children.
Ever in the ancient Greek mythology time and change are felt as unseen threats, impersonal and deaf to all appeal. The story goes that the wise Athenian, Solon, after he had reformed the laws of Athens, went on a tour of the known world, to see the habits of men and their fate. On that tour he met the richest man alive, Croesus the Emperor of Lydia.
Croesus asked Solon whether he had ever seen a happier man than he. To which Solon replied that he had: a certain Athenian citizen, not terribly important, who fought well for his country when he was young, led a comfortable life, raised upstanding children, and then died—died before he could see how time and change would destroy it all. “Count no man happy until his end,” said Solon. Croesus laughed.
He, the happiest man in the world, wanted to make something of himself, wanted to change that world—that is, he wanted more land. So he asked the Oracle at Delphi what would happen if he attacked Persia, and received the reply, “If Croesus attacks Persia, a great empire will be destroyed.” So he attacked Persia, and a great empire was destroyed—his own.
When Cyrus of Persia—that same Cyrus in the Bible who sent the Jews back home to Palestine—ordered his men to place his royal prisoner upon a pyre, the bystanders heard a voice crying over and over, “Solon, you were right, Solon, you were right!”
But Solon wasn’t exactly right. The pagans did not know, but we Christians know, that time is going somewhere. How could it not be going somewhere, when all the creatures in this wondrous world, including even our bodies and the time they dwell in, were fashioned by God, who is the Lord of time?
We may then, with the hope that the wisest of the Greeks could not have, send forth our children into time, because that Lord of time himself came down, was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and grew in wisdom and understanding, and in the fullness of time made his glory known, not by means of a college degree, as worthy a thing as that may be, but by suffering the end of time that awaits us all, even upon a Cross. But as we know, that was not the end, either.
So how can I tell you to go forth and change the world? It has been changed, changed forever. Go forth and conform yourselves to him who changed it. Whatever your walk of life, whatever you do and wherever you go, go into time with him, for whom a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.
Other graduates at other ceremonies may be told that they are going places. They may, and you may, and some of those places may be good, and meant for you. Then go there. But there is only one place where I and your parents really want you to go. That place is where time is going, for time is the moving image of eternity.
In that place, all this time that we have been given will be returned and redeemed—this very moment of joy and solemnity now, this brief time in a little old schoolhouse in a town with the funny name of Scituate, Rhode Island—and all the things we loved, even that little foot of a child whom you could rock in the crook of your arms, will be restored and made whole.
For the time is coming, and is near, when there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor tears, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things shall have passed away. And he who sits upon the throne shall say, “Behold, I make all things new.”
Anthony Esolen is Professor of English at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, and the author of The Ironies of Faith (ISI Books), The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Regnery), and Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI Books). He has also translated Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata (Johns Hopkins Press) and Dante's The Divine Comedy (Random House). He is a senior editor of Touchstone. | <urn:uuid:b0bd9353-ed62-420d-bd3b-bff7d2dcb7c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/print.php?id=20-08-013-v | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983103 | 2,194 | 1.539063 | 2 |
EU commissioner denies having apologized for Roma remarks (1st Lead)
Sep 21, 2010, 16:32 GMT
Strasbourg, France - The European Union official at the centre of a furious row with France on Tuesday denied having apologised for drawing parallels between the country's expulsion of Roma and World War II deportations of Jews and Gypsies.
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said last week she was 'appalled' by France's policy and she thought it amounted to a 'situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War.'
The comparison with Nazi persecutions of Jews and Gypsies, which France's wartime Vichy regime contributed to by deporting people to concentration camps, drew howls of protest from French President Nicolas Sarkozy at an EU summit on Thursday.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the row erupted, Reding said her remarks had been 'distorted.'
'I regret very much that my sentences were distorted in such a way ... to make some people feel offended, and probably in order not to concentrate on the basic problem but to discuss about subsidiary questions which have nothing to do with the problem itself,' Reding told journalists in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
Asked specifically whether that amounted to an apology, she answered: 'No, why?'
Reding told EU lawmakers at a closed-door meeting earlier Tuesday that the commission would consider starting legal proceedings against France on September 29, an official who was present told the German Press Agency dpa.
But the commissioner did not commit to the date with reporters, indicating only that an expert report on the legality of the French measures would be 'ready in a few days' and would be 'discussed very soon' by the commission. | <urn:uuid:3f3c7c6b-cef4-48e1-a377-d8763351d230> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1586062.php/EU-commissioner-denies-having-apologized-for-Roma-remarks-1st-Lead | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972939 | 363 | 1.703125 | 2 |
How to find affordable insurance
After the contract to buy or rent your home, the contract to buy your car is probably the next biggest purchase you will make. When you first start thinking about it, you probably do some basic research into the prices for the makes and models you like best. Once you have an idea of the listed retail prices, you set off to talk with the sales staff at the showrooms or car lots. This is where your basic research pays off because you are able to negotiate down to the best prices. When you have all the different prices from the showrooms you have visited, you can make the best decision on which car is the best buy. Except, you remembered to research how much all your favorite makes and models cost to insure. That way, you would not be taken by surprise when you asked how much it would cost to actually drive your favorite make and model, e.g. sporty vehicles or fancy SUVs cost the most. So, just as you take the time to shop around to find the best price for the car, you should also do the work to find the best price for insurance.
Second, remember cheap car insurance is cheap for a reason — usually that the cover on offer is limited and you will have more success in getting blood out of a stone when it comes to making a claim. It's usually safer to pay a little more to buy a policy with a company that has a good reputation when it comes to handling claims and has written a car insurance policy offering reasonable coverage against everyday risks on the road.
Third, there are a range of factors you cannot change, e.g. your age, gender, where you live, and the quality of your driving record to date. Women who live in rural states, drive very little and have never been in an accident, pay the least. Young men who live in a dense urban environment pay the most. So work hard at the factors you can control. Have a good grade point average at school to show yourself responsible. Reinforce that image with a good credit score, and pay to go through a driving course approved by potential insurers. Then drive defensively and avoid accidents (or do not make a claim). Now you can find affordable car insurance. | <urn:uuid:ecd1baa4-234e-4d1d-ae70-1e46dcfd5e9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allcarinsur.com/car-insurance-quide.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974483 | 454 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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Online. Anywhere. Anytime. Complement your College Degree with Sports Broadcasting School Online and save!
Sports Broadcasting Course
The Sports Broadcasting course is an eight week online course to promote your sports broadcasting career. This course is for individuals interested in gaining sports broadcasting experience and the skills, strategies, and valuable network, designed to launch a sports broadcasting career. Whether you dream of being a play-by-play sports announcer, a sports talk show host, a sports commentator, a sports news anaylst, or a behind the scenes sports producer, this eight week online training with personalized mentoring from current sports broadcasters will catapult your career to the next level. May qualify for university internship requirements.
Sports Broadcasting Careers including:
- Sports Announcing jobs
- Sports Talk Show Host
- Sports Commentator
- Sports Analyst
- Play by play jobs
- Press Box
- Sportscaster and Sports Anchor
- Sports Producer
- Sports Information Director
- Telecast operations
- Sports Radio Voice
- Sideline Sports Reporter
- Sports Anchor
- Sports Broadcasting Internships
Students will learn the art of the play by play, how to host weekly coaching shows, how to create a sports personality, and even how to create their own sports talk shows. Sports broadcasting technology has changed and with it the growth of sports business and sports broadcasting. Sports radio and sports talk shows are available in every part of the world and talented and trained sports broadcasters are in high demand. This Sports Broadcasting course will train you with the skill set and experience network affiliates and professional sports are requiring.
Every student will participate in a project giving them job experience including creating an audio resume which we will post on the web. Where would you like to work? ESPN? TSN? BBC? FoxSports? NFL Network? SPEED station? Willow Cricket? NHL Network? Tennis Channel? NBA TV? MLB Network? Or would you prefer to be the play by play announcer for your favorite team?
You do not need to relocate, this course can be taken from anywhere in the world.
Individuals will learn:
- How to host a live Sports Broadcasts
- Basics of Sports Broadcasting
- How to start a Sports Broadcasting program
- Calling play by play
- How to cover player stats
- Sports Broadcasting Interview strategies
- How to host Weekly Coaching Shows
- Create your own Sports Talk Show
- The keys to sports writing
- How to create a personal style over the air
- Building an audience
- Learn how to build relationships in a sports community
- How the internet is influencing the sports world
- Selling Advertising and Sponsorships for Sports Shows
- Sports Broadcasting industry jargon
- Fund Raising techniques with Sports Broadcasting
- Sports Broadcasting Career strategies
Whether you want to work in TV or Radio, this course will add the job experience and sports broadcasting education that puts your resume on the top of the pile...the first to be called for an interview.
Students will also learn how to implement webcasting, live on demand audio through the internet, at any sports venue. This new inexpensive way to broadcast will become an asset to any community or school district by allowing parents, grandparents, players, college recruiters, and college coaches, to hear games from any internet access.
Weekly Live Interactive Audio Chats
You will enjoy getting to know Instructor Dr. Lynn Lashbrook and Mentors NBA Play by Play announcer Brian Wheeler and the Integrity Sports Network Staff.
Brian Wheeler enters his 12th season as an NBA radio play-by-play announcer. Wheeler's exciting style and trademark "BOOM-CHAKA-LAKA" dunk calls have endeared him to basketball fans throughout the Pacific Northwest.
In addition to anchoring the NBA Portland Trail Blazers' radio coverage, "Wheels" also writes a monthly feature for Rip City Magazine and is a regular contributor to the Blazers.com website. He is also a featured speaker and emcee for numerous team functions.
Wheeler is entering his 26th year of broadcasting. Prior to joining the staff at the Portland Trail Blazers, he spent three years as a member of the Kings' broadcast team in Sacramento, serving as the team's pre and post-game show host as well as handling the play-by-play for a select number of games each season. He also hosted a popular and highly rated nightly talk show, "Wheels After Work" on the team's flagship radio station. He was also the original play-by-play voice on radio and television of the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs.
Before his stint in Sacramento, Wheeler spent two seasons working in Seattle as part of the Sonics' broadcast group and also hosted a daily talk show on their flagship radio station. He also has NBA ties to Chicago, where he worked on the Bulls' radio broadcasts in their first championship season.
"Wheels" got his start in broadcasting in Chicago, earning a broadcasting/communications degree from Loyola University. He then spent nine seasons as the basketball play-by-play announcer on both radio and TV for his alma mater. His extensive experience in the Windy City also included broadcast stints for the Chicago White Sox, Northwestern University, and SportsChannel. You’ll love being mentored in the Sports Broadcasting business by “Wheels”. Brian has taught many Sports Broadcasting students and with his guidance, expertise and professional experience you will launch a successful sports broadcasting career.
Listen to a sample of Brian Wheeler's Play by Play of the Portland Trail Blazers vs. Dallas Mavericks in a play off game.
Follow Brian Wheeler's Blog.
Steve Nash with Integrity Sports Broadcasting Network, enters his 6th year as a sports talk show host. He has been the host of a weekly ISBN program "Anatomy of Sports", which delves into various aspects of sports with a focus on strategies, tactics and team dynamics. Along with anchoring this program, Steve co-hosts the Missouri Mavericks pregame show, "FaceOff" and has hosted or co-hosted a variety of talk shows including "Football Forum", "Arena Football Unleashed", "Forward Progress", "Royals Progress Report", "Wise Guys", "High School Football Roundup" and contributed to other ISBN programs. He also covers the game day play of the Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Royals and provides the color commentary for minor league and local area high school football and basketball.
Steve's hands on experience includes coverage of the NFL, MLB, CHL, AFL, AF2, minor league baseball, semi-pro football, high school football, and interviews with many interesting personalities within the world of sports. Steve has helped launch numerous SMWW students with their successful sports broadcasting careers and is a lifelong resource.
SMWW Instructor Steve Nash and SMWW student Dan Torre doing a live show from Hooters.
Missouri Mavericks Pregame Show
Steve will assist you in advancing your sports broadcasting career whether you are just getting started or working full time and ready to advance to the next level.
Instructor Dr. Lynn Lashbrook, with over 30 years in Sports Management, has created and developed many college sports broadcasting programs and sponsorships. While Assistant Athletic Director at University of Missouri, Dr. Lashbrook was involved with Learfield Sports when University of Missouri was the first college to commission Learfield to do their entire statewide radio network. Learfield Sports now handles multimedia and marketing for many of the top colleges and universities in the country. Dr. Lashbrook’s passionate teaching style will motivate you to make Sports Broadcasting work for you and your individual situation. He and Brian Wheeler will unite students in the course with live weekly audio chats so that they can share their "play by play" successes and blunders, learn from experts in the field and empower students in their Sports Broadcasting careers.
The Sports Broadcasting course will provide an introduction into methods and skills necessary to produce and anchor in the highly competitive industry of radio. The course involves live interactive audio with classmates around the globe, and may be taken online from anywhere in the world. At the conclusion of the course, students will have the tools to start their own sports broadcast via the Internet, for any sport venue. They will have a well-rounded understanding of the methods used by professional analysts and broadcasters who have successfully created their own style.
- LIVE "ON AIR" SPORTS RADIO EXPERIENCE
A rare feature of this course is that instructors will assist students in producing and participating in a segment of their very own live sports radio show via the Integrity Sports Network. This live airtime experience will familiarize students in all aspects of sports broadcasting. This segment will be the student’s choice of either a sports personality interview, a pre or post game show, or short sports production that is coordinated with Integrity Sports Network. Due to advances in technology, this live air show segment can be performed from anywhere in the world.
- PLAY BY PLAY & PRESS BOX EXPERIENCE:
Students will be encouraged to participate in the press box on a prearranged game day. Course work will include a required job shadow with the play by play announcer at a local venue. This may include minor league or collegiate sports.
- AUDIO RESUMES:
Students will be creating sports broadcasting audio resumes and samples for evaluation and greater learning. This is done via the internet and will give fellow students and faculty the opportunity to critique and assist the student in improving their voice quality and on air personality. Techniques to practice and improve will be shared.
- SPORTS RADIO SPONSORSHIP PACKAGES:
Students will be introduced to a variety of radio sponsorship packages. This includes packages ranging from national ad campaigns, to small sports venue packages.
- SPORTS BROADCASTING WEEKLY AUDIO CHATS:
A unique aspect of each 8 week course is the opportunity for students to participate weekly in interactive audio chats with fellow students, Brian Wheeler, Steve Nash, Dr. Lynn Lashbrook and renowned guest speakers. This is a tremendous opportunity to network within the professional sports broadcasting industry and get to know your instructors and fellow students personally via the internet. This is available via any online computer with a microphone. This one on one mentori
- ONE ONE ONE MENTORING:
The live audio chats connect you with fellow sports broadcasters and allows you to get weekly advice in a private setting to practice your skills that a traditional classroom can't provide. Whether you want to work in TV or Radio these skills and strategies will last you a lifetime.
- SMWW NETWORK:
Participating in any of the SMWW Programs gives you access to a huge network of sports executives. SMWW Alumni and Faculty are all over the world, in major and minor leagues, domestic and national, in all sports, on every continent on the globe. Tapping into this strong network is a huge benefit to your sports career.
Online Education - This innovative academic course is facilitated through a web-based educational delivery system. You will enjoy the online discussion boards, weekly readings, weekly quizzes, course projects, and interaction amongst fellow sports business-minded students and faculty. All course materials and textbooks are included in the course.
Global Participation - SMWW students participate from over 125 countries. Courses have a international influence and instructors will cater assignments to specific countries or leagues. Countries with economic challenges are eligible for economic dicounts.
Earn College Credit: Most participants are not college students. Most participants are working full time in a variety of careers including many in sports from all over the world. (Many wish they had taken this course in college!) For those of you who are in college and would like transferable credits (graduate or undergraduate) to your school, two-three hours of college credit is available. Click here for more information.
Military Discount - For those individuals who represent their country in military service we offer a discount. Please contact [email protected] if you are active, reserve, or a retired member of your countries military system. Thank you for serving your country! (Please include what country and specific part of the military.)
Tax Write Off - (For USA Citizens) SMWW course tuition, books and supplies can be used for education tax credits. Save your receipts and consult with your tax advisor on how this applies to you.
Sports Career Conferences - throughout the year, Sports Management Worldwide hosts Sports Career Conferences at a variety of sporting events. These are fabulous networking events that put SMWW Alumni in the heart of the action. Opportunities to meet Head Coaches, GM's, Chief Executives, Player Personnel, Scouts, Sports Broadcasters, and fellow Sports Agents are facilitated. Visit SMWW Sports Career Conferences to learn more.
|The ideal course for the following individuals:
· Students who dream of doing play by play for a professional or collegiate team
· Anyone who's passionate about a career in Sports Broadcasting
· Anyone who wants to learn about the sports industry, while keeping current employment
· Those with other commitments for whom on-line education fits their schedule
· Die hard sports fan who want to increase their skills
· College students who want to gain insight not offered on college campuses
· College students who need to obtain college credit
Course Certificate & Resume Reference:
Successful graduates of the Sports Management Worldwide courses will be sent a SMWW Certificate of Accomplishment. This certificate represents not only your achievements in the course but also demonstrates your personal commitment to self-improvement and ability to "self train" yourself for higher positions within the sports business industry.
In addition to your certificate, you will be given the stamp of approval by SMWW. This approval includes a personal reference you may add to your resume with contact information for Dr. Lynn Lashbrook and a reference to the mentors of this course.
Integrity Sports Broadcasting Network
Sports Broadcasting Career Starter Program
You’ve tackled the SMWW Broadcasting Course, but how can you measure your sports broadcasting skills and get starting working in broadcasting?
The Sports Broadcasting Career Starter Program provides you with an opportunity to step immediately into an interactive sports broadcasting experience. ISBN’s program makes the most of a “one-on-one” approach in assisting you in the production of your own Internet Radio sports talk show or play-by-play broadcast and development of your distinctive broadcast personality.
This six-week program provides a forum for you to employee the knowledge acquired from the SMWW Sports Broadcasting Course and will put you in motion to obtain the experience and skills needed to pursue a career as a sports talk show host, play-by-play announcer, analyst, commentator, or game day correspondent. Program participants will be actively involved in the following:
Production of an Internet radio sports-talk program or play-by-play broadcast
- Production meetings and broadcast reviews
- Correspondent reporting
- Development of a sponsorship plan
- Construction of an Audio Resume
- Weekly audio meetings
Those who successfully complete the Sports Broadcasting program will be invited to join this exciting opportunity. If you are self-motivated, able to meet deadlines, willing to take on challenges, and have a serious desire to move forward in the sports broadcasting business, this is a great opportunity for you to launch your career. The program can be adjusted to fit your schedule; however, there will be specific timelines and deadlines involved. | <urn:uuid:ec462f70-d790-4ed1-abf3-954dda3e9a35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportsmanagementworldwide.com/courses/sports-broadcasting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94223 | 3,313 | 1.78125 | 2 |
It's reported that Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber are over but she still has a big love in her life: animals! We’ve told you before about Selena helping animals by adopting, and now she’s passionately asking her fans to help stray and abandoned dogs find homes.
Her longer than average Tweet continues on Facebook, “...help the dogs of Puerto Rico. They found this little guy this morning sleeping in the middle of the road, hopefully they have already found him a good home. Please remember no donation is too small visit www.islanddog.org to help the dogs of Puerto Rico.”
She also includes a pic of an incredibly cute white puppy who just makes your heart go out.
The website for Island Dog explains that there are approximately 200,000 dogs in Puerto Rico who need homes. The island is the size of Connecticut and has 72 cities but only 5 small, underfunded shelters. Along with helping to get these pups homes, Island Dog offers medical treatment, spay/neuter services, and education on how to treat animals well.
Besides giving donations, you can also adopt a dog. You don’t have to be in Puerto Rico, either, so check it out. Another way you can help is shopping at their online store, and be rest assured that 100% of the money goes to the charity.
Want more cool info on this great org? It may be called Island Dog, but that doesn’t mean this org isn’t going to help every animal it can! It also has created two cat colonies for homeless cats. No wonder Selena is so enamored with this organization! Think you might be able to help a little and make some dog's day, or even life? | <urn:uuid:b52875f2-f5a5-4194-9ddb-081018142bea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://act.mtv.com/posts/sweet-tweet-selena-gomez-island-dogs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957558 | 363 | 1.632813 | 2 |
|This article is in need of content, please consider adding to it.|
The Druid is a monster that appears only in certain dungeons in the west, and does not appear in most scenarios. He has exactly one layer of death protection. This can make it somewhat difficult to kill them with first strikes (particularly for high-damage hitters like the Rogue) but is not going to make them the same kind of daunting foe as the Animated Armor. For the most part, the druid is a relatively weak monster and can be easily killed by a variety of approaches and will only present serious resistance to glass-cannon melee fighters.
One of the most interesting applications of the druid is to use them as fodder for lifesteal. Because they will not die if you attack them, you can lifesteal from a lower-level druid to heal, then allow it to regain its life so you can do so a second time. This approach works with any monster with death protection, but druids have relatively low attack damage compared to other monsters with this special and make relatively good targets. They can also be used to trigger burning effects without killing monsters or to sustain hits in order to activate a dodge using GETINDARE.
Overall, this a weak monster who you should attempt to prey on for bonus experience. If you need to kill a higher level monster, try to finish it with a fireball so you just need to ignite the burning for the kill. | <urn:uuid:7eeee306-2576-4d30-880d-ad94bca598e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php?title=Druid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943936 | 295 | 1.640625 | 2 |
New Mortgage Rules Could Hurt Homebuyers in California, New York
Still, in markets such as California, New York and Connecticut, about 20% of jumbo loans originated in recent years would be considered non-qualified mortgages, according to the report.
"The adoption of qualified mortgages in January 2014 will limit credit availability for many buyers in these three States," the analysts wrote.
More broadly, the implementation of the rules could "further delay the recovery of the luxury housing market, which generally consists of homes that cost 1 million dollars or more. The luxury-housing sector is still struggling or even deteriorating despite continuous improvement in the overall U.S. housing market," the analysts said.
-- Written by Shanthi Bharatwaj in New York. | <urn:uuid:28f65573-868e-4538-aecd-95e47cf537a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://business-news.thestreet.com/dallas-morning-news/story/new-mortgage-rules-could-hurt-homebuyers-in-california-new-york/11835564?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968632 | 155 | 1.59375 | 2 |
An anti-whaling activist who boarded a Japanese whale hunting ship in the Southern Ocean has been arrested by the Japanese coast guard in Tokyo.
Peter Bethune, a member of the US-based anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, is accused of jumping aboard the Shonan Maru 2 from a jet ski on February 15 in Antarctic seas, where the Japanese whaling fleet was conducting its annual hunt.
Bethune, 44, has been charged under Japanese law with trespass and could face three years in prison or a fine of up to 100,000 yen ($1,100) if convicted.
The New Zealander has been held in custody aboard the whaling vessel since the mid-February incident.
He was formally arrested when the Shonan Maru 2 returned to its home port in Tokyo on Friday.
Sea Shepherd has Bethune boarded the ship to make a citizen's arrest in the latest incident in the group's long-running battle against Japanese whaling.
Masahiro Ichijo, a Japanese coast guard spokesman, said Bethune will be interrogated before prosecutors decide whether to press formal charges against him to stand trial in Japan.
|Sea Shepherd says Bethune had been trying to arrest the whaling ship's captain [AFP]
He said authorities were also considering additional allegations, including assault and destruction of property.
Japanese authorities say they suspect Bethune might be linked to the injury of two whalers hit by bottles containing rancid butter, and the slashing of a protective net belonging to one of the Japanese whaling boats.
Sea Shepherd said Bethune jumped aboard to make a citizen's arrest of its captain and hand over a $3m bill for the destruction of the Ady Gil, a high-tech protest ship Bethune captained, and which sank in January after colliding with the whaling ship.
Hirotaka Akamatsu, the Japanese fisheries minister, told reporters that Japan fully intended to press ahead with prosecuting the case.
"Anyone who has done wrongdoing will have to face severe punishment in accordance with the law," he said.
The protester regularly trail the Japanese whaling fleet, trying to disrupt the hunt by dangling ropes in the water to snarl the ships' propellers and hurling packets of stinking rancid butter on the whaling ships' decks.
|Japan maintains that it has the legal right to hunt whales for scientific research [AFP]
The Japanese whalers have responded by firing water cannons and sonar devices meant to disorient the activists.
Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd, told Al Jazeera the incident was going to make Bethune a national hero in his home country and neighbouring Australia.
"The issue is going to be a hot potato that Japan would not want to hold on to," he said, speaking from aboard the vessel Steve Irwin in Hobart, Tasmania.
"It is absurd they are charging him after his ship was rammed and sunk by the Shonan Maru, and that captain doesn't even get reprimanded.
Japan's annual whale hunt is allowed by the International Whaling Commission as a scientific programme, but critics call it a cover for commercial whaling, which has been banned since 1986.
Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, the body which oversees the annual whale hunt, said the annual whale research programme in the Antarctic is "purely legal, recognised and accepted" by the world whaling body.
"[Hunting] in the whale sanctuary is not a contravention of anything in the spirit of the sanctuary or in the legality of it," he told Al Jazeera.
"That is Japan's position… that it is quite clearly allowed in there under the convention."
He said Japan had undertaken the research to compile enough data so the International Whaling Commission can implement commercial whaling again.
"The idea here is for the resumption of commercial whaling in the Antarctic," he added. | <urn:uuid:c0fac541-a4e5-430e-bdb7-01420c7a9fce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2010/03/201031263331216371.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973167 | 812 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Hundreds of French nationalists have demonstrated in Paris against Islamist extremism, chanting the French anthem and saying the religion has no place in the country.
Protester Romain Cyiril says, “France was always a welcoming country, but for the first time we have to deal with a religion which can’t and doesn’t want to integrate itself.”
Three weeks ago, dozens of far-right French activists stormed an unfinished mosque to protest immigration policies that have made France home to Western Europe’s largest population of Muslims.
An estimated 5 million or more Muslims live in this nation of 65 million, although under French law, the government does not track religion.
The French government has denounced anti-Islam extremists.
Saturday’s protest was organized by a nationalist group called the Republican Resistance. | <urn:uuid:d10be40b-f5ee-40fb-b17e-b4ebb069a8de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegram.com/article/20121111/NEWS/111119665/1052/newsrewind | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957016 | 168 | 1.664063 | 2 |
School reformer addresses teacher shortage
Posted November 13, 2000; 05:40 p.m.
Efforts to improve America's school systems are greatly hindered by the shortage of qualified teachers throughout the nation, Baltimore education reformer John P. Sarbanes suggested at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs last week.
"We have a shortage, yet the expectations of the teachers we have is greater than ever before," said Sarbanes, special assistant for the Baltimore City-State Education Reform Partnership, citing projections that the shortage of teachers will reach 2.5 million over the next 10 years.
He advocated hiring strategies that seek out teachers who bring more than factual knowledge to the classroom. "While there is certainly a crisis surrounding the shortage of educators, there is a graver crisis surrounding the supply of critical thinkers able to move forward in the service economy," said Sarbanes, a member of Princeton's class of 1984. He suggested that today's classrooms need critical thinkers who can "think outside the bounds of traditional pedagogical formats."
Sarbanes called upon Princeton and other Ivy League institutions -- and their graduates -- to do more to bring about change, saying they could play an important role in reshaping the definition of a teacher. But he acknowledged that most state governments do not currently have the funding necessary to entice such graduates with competitive compensation and support packages. (At Princeton, the Teacher Preparation Program works to prepare new graduates for public and private-school classrooms.)
Sarbanes, a partner in the Baltimore-based law firm of Venable, Baejter, Howard and Civiletti, began his efforts in education reform by offering pro bono legal services for groups in Baltimore seeking school consolidation.
The lecture was co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School and the Program in Law and Public Affairs.
Contact: Justin Harmon (609) 258-3601 | <urn:uuid:787582bf-b7d4-4793-afba-7a4ddb82a73b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/A94/77/84S20/index.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949826 | 392 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Sifting Through Prostate Cancer Treatment Choices
By Jerry Berger
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Staff
Joel Carpenter received some bad news at the worst possible time - minutes from the close of business on a Friday afternoon. The answers to his questions about his stage one prostate cancer diagnosis would have to wait. But not that long.
A post-5 p.m. call was returned at 8:05 a.m. the following Monday and the 50-year-old Carpenter sat down with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's
Prostate Care Center surgeon
Dr. Martin Sanda later that week.
"When you find out that you have a disease like this you want to get to the expert as quickly as you can because you have a thirst for knowledge," says Carpenter, who underwent a successful prostatectomy in May 2009 and was back to work three weeks later. "There's a whole bunch of things you don't know."
And filling that knowledge gap accurately is precisely one goal of the Prostate Care Center, says
Dr. Glenn Bubley, a medical oncologist and - along with Sanda and radiation oncologist
Dr. Irving Kaplan - one of the center's three co-directors.
"The Prostate Care Center is set up to help patients who are newly diagnosed get through the morass of decision-making," says Bubley. "The anxiety these patients have is palpable, because they feel 'gosh, if I make the wrong decision here I'm going to die of this disease.' That's not the way it works."
"They took me through, in a very precise and articulate and understandable way, what the options were," says Carpenter. "They gave me all the information there is to make this kind of decision … including a pretty clear discussion of what they don't know."
For many patients, the first step will often be a trip to BIDMC's state-of-the-art diagnostic tool, which combines the latest in magnetic resonance imaging technology with the latest software.
On the hardware side, the implementation of a General Electric high field strength MRI unit operating at 3T (T for Tesla, or a unit of measuring magnetic strength) and the development, by Medrad, Inc., of a specialized coil to detect the MRI signal enable imaging of the prostate gland at higher spatial resolution than previously possible.
This capacity has been combined with 3TP (for time points), a software analysis tool developed by Israel's Weizmann Institute and commercialized by 3TP Imaging Sciences, LLC. The software yields color-coded images that display benign images in green - and cancerous lesions in red.
"This technology helps find cancers that routine biopsies miss," says Sanda.
Once a diagnosis is confirmed, it's time for the patient and his family to weigh the options from the team.
"The first big branch point is whether or not they should be considered for a watch and wait protocol," says Kaplan.
Because prostate cancers grow slowly, there is a potential to defer treatment, perhaps as long as an entire lifetime, depending on the patient's age.
If watchful waiting is ruled out, a patient faces two additional choices - surgery or radiation. But within these broad categories are a number of options including brachytherapy - the implantation of radioactive "seeds," or the use or external beam radiation.
"If everything we know about the patient gives me a very firm conviction that the cancer is confined to the prostate, those are the ideal candidates for the brachytherapy," says Kaplan, describing the procedure as "a rifle shot aimed at the prostate."
"If I think it is likely there will be cancer outside the prostate, that's when we tend to recommend external beam radiation," he adds, describing this approach as "more of a shotgun. It treats the prostate with a little bit more of a margin around it, which is a good thing if I think the cancer is beginning to break outside the prostate."
BIDMC offers several options of external beam treatment, including intensity-modulated radiation therapy and image-guided radiation therapy. In the latter method, gold seeds are implanted to help direct the radiation more precisely. BIDMC also conducts clinical trials into potential new drug therapies as well as use of the
CyberKnife as a prostate cancer treatment option.
If surgery is determined to be the correct course, BIDMC offers a variety of options among nerve-sparing prostatectomies that can be done either with an open incision or with minimally invasive, robot-assisted surgery performed by Sanda or by
Dr. Andrew Wagner.
Sanda notes the lists of options are tailored to include information about the success rate of various procedures and BIDMC clinicians - as well as data on patient and family "satisfaction" with the outcomes. BIDMC has the largest number of patient participants in prostate cancer studies in New England that are funded by the
National Institutes of Health.
Carpenter says he opted for surgery after a thorough review of the choices, aided by the luxury of time because his cancer was at a very early stage.
"It was fairly simple. Watchful waiting will only postpone the inevitable. I'd be impossible to live with if I know I have cancer and don't do anything. The mortality experience [for surgery] is a little better for a guy my age with this stage of this disease."
Above content provided by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. For advice about your medical care, consult your doctor.
Posted October 2011 | <urn:uuid:c70c6453-59ab-4955-ba8b-17674d8b22a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/HealthNotes/ProstateHealth/LatestTreatments/SiftingThroughProstateCancerTreatmentChoices.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963097 | 1,144 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Want to get ride of some of those old plants and give your garden a whole new look? Then come join the Plant Swap! Dig up stuff you don't want anymore or split some of your plants and bring them down to the Farmer's Market and Trade them in for new plants. Plants of all kinds will be accepted: Vegetables and fruits, flowers, trees, & shrubs! And the best part about this is its FREE and open to the public! So join the Plant Swap with the Friends of the Hudsonville Parks at the Farmer's Market (at the Farmer's Co-Op) 3340 Prospect, Hudsonville, MI on June 27, July 25, August 22 & September 19 from 8am to 2pm! Questions? Call Amy at 669-0200 x 1424. Or check us out at www.hudsonville.org. Hope to see you there! | <urn:uuid:ff507870-cf5d-44a7-81b7-68c3bf921e25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://events.grnow.com/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=199779 | 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 | 0.944867 | 180 | 1.5 | 2 |
Note: Msgr. Mike Mannion, a priest of the Diocese of Camden, NJ, is a pioneer in the field of healing after abortion. He authored some of the first books on this topic and helped develop the Church’s understanding of the wounds abortion brings and of the path to healing. In the following article, Fr. Mike brings to our attention a new line of thought he is developing that links the path of healing with the traditional schools of spirituality in the Church.]
If St. Thomas Aquinas was correct when he stated: “Grace builds on nature,” then we can learn much about the journey of healing for those suffering from the aftermath of abortion.
When personality types are matched with Christian schools and traditions of spirituality, a “healing guide” can be developed as a significant resource in walking with one who is broken in the journey toward wholeness.
Recognizing that our goal is psycho-spiritual, we seek not just to help the post- abortive individual return to pre-abortive attitudes, behaviors, beliefs and commitments, for they might have actually predisposed and facilitated the abortion decision. Instead, we seek to help the individual integrate the wound of abortion into his or her life in a true Paschal Mystery sense, identifying with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Christ has died. My baby has died.
Christ is risen. My baby will rise.
Christ will come again. And when he does, He will carry my baby in His arms and hand
him/her to me.
The healing process is not just one of reconciliation, but reunion and healing as well.
Perhaps the post-abortive woman or man is one who especially values tradition and is inclined to “connect the dots” between past, present and future. This is a person who would seek to commemorate events in the life of Jesus and also to entrust her/his child to the Child Jesus., the Healer Jesus, the Merciful Jesus, the Consoling and Compassionate Jesus. This is one whose healing process or journey, in a sense, parallels an Ignatian spirituality, in the spirit of St. Ignatius Loyola.
St. Ignatius was the sixteenth century soldier who experienced a profound religious conversion while recuperating from a severe leg wound, and later, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, gathered together a group of “companions in Christ,” later to be known as the “Society of Jesus” - Jesuits. The seeker of healing would do well to learn more about the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola, for it would complement her/his journey to Jesus and His loving embrace.
Perhaps the post-abortive woman or man is drawn to action and opportunity – a life centered in actively seeking to do God’s will. Spontaneous prayer, informal prayer, and a special openness to the Holy Spirit, as well as acts of loving service, are all parts of this person’s “spiritual profile” and inclinations. All these characteristics are common to a Franciscan spirituality. Compassion for the “lepers” of our day and a deep appreciation for the beauty, gift and goodness of God’s creation, may lead a mournful mother or father to plant a flower or a tree in memory of their aborted child. This is a gesture, when combined with a sacramental and prayerful experience, that may contribute significantly to healing.
St. Francis of Assisi felt that one’s experience of the Eucharist was so visible and tangible that it was akin to the apostles’ experience of the Jesus who walked the earth with them. In other words, in the Eucharist, we see the Lord. Be it in the humble babe of Bethlehem, the common bread of the Eucharist, or the sacrifices Christ of the cross – in other words: from crib to cross – Jesus is real and it is His presence and purpose that will heal the mother and father of a lost child.
Augustinian spirituality may provide a comfortable context of healing for those who find themselves drawn to prayer and retreats, reflections upon what Jesus would say or do today, especially in light of their loss to abortion. This is particularly true because through the abortion they lost not only the baby but also a part of themselves. These are people of hope who, despite their pain, tend to believe that their days will get better and that the experience of God’s love will daily grow stronger as they, in turn, believe in His love. They see the words and spirit of the Scriptures as valuable and very relevant to their current struggles. St. Augustine, in his sermons, often spoke of Christ the Physician: if we are humble enough, Christ will heal us. The broken heart will find rest only if it responds to the invitation of the Divine Physician to “Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart.” A reflection on that reality could easily lead the broken to compose prayer or poem to the Divine Physician acknowledging His healing call and the fact that the more one loves others, the more one loves God. That knowledge and love together marks the path to Jesus the Healer.
St. Benedict established his monasteries in the wilderness in a world of solitude and silence. Yet, many historians recognize that fifteen centuries ago the only institution capable of maintaining any aspect of western civilization was the Church, through its monasteries and its spirituality. Benedict’s monks balanced manual labor and spiritual exercises: orare est laborare, and were known for their hospitality toward the poor, sick, and oppressed. To the Benedictine, the heart of Christianity is love, reflected in mutual respect, selflessness, patience, mutual respect and obedience. This obedience is directly related to the will of God, through several channels: scripture, tradition, Magisterium, abbot and the community.
Many who seek healing after an abortion seem to need and hunger for a specific structure as a path to healing. The call to surrender oneself to the Lord through discovering and discerning the depths of His unconditional love and healing through a strong commitment to seek God’s truth is a critical part of that healing as well. In many of our institutions today, however, though few seem willing to admit it, the search is not for truth but for power. The spirituality of St. Benedict teaches us that we can “speak the truth in love” rather than in condemnation. In fact, in the healing process, the authentic search is for the ultimate truth of God’s unconditional love, and the authority that truth conveys, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The purpose of this truthful love is not only to embrace God’s love but also to forgive one’s self. Thus, as the old adage expresses, we seek not the “love of power,” but the “power of love.”
Many schools or traditions of spirituality have emerged in the 2000 year tradition of the Catholic Church. In studying them, one can easily see a beautiful “tapestry of life and faith,” where many colors and threads intermingle with each other. The soul who hungers for healing may, in the last analysis, draw eclectically from aspects of many spiritual traditions. We have looked, briefly, at only a few in the preceding paragraphs. Though we are all certainly made in God’s image and likeness, there is a uniqueness and individuality to each of us that can help heal all of us, especially those who carry the wounds of abortion in the memories of their lives. At the center, there is always a loving Jesus, ever seeking to lead us to the Father, through the gentle power and presence of the Holy Spirit. | <urn:uuid:f83864cf-1b3a-40c8-8935-cdeb981d4546> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.priestsforlife.org/library/2780-post-abortion-healing-who-we-are-is-how-we-heal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958935 | 1,622 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska, co-hosted NBC’s “Today” show this morning, and our fellow WSJ blog Speakeasy live-blogged the proceedings.
Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are no longer running on opposing tickets, but both have something to gain by mixing it up. Thus was born an Obama campaign fund-raising video airing clips of the former Alaska governor attacking Mr. Obama. A day later came her response via Facebook.
The Obama video, posted Monday, accuses Ms. Palin of accusing Mr. Obama of wanting to discriminate–against white people. Ms. Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, replied that the ad was “heavily edited” and “quite odd.” She then took the opportunity to level a whole new set of charges against the president.
The ad, which was intended to raise money and directs viewers to an Obama fund-raising page, draws from Ms. Palin’s recent appearance on Fox News and quotes her attacking Mr. Obama. It begins with silence and words flying onto the screen, one phrase at a time: “Sarah Palin and the far right say President Obama will bring back racial discrimination … against white people.”
One part of the clip deals with race. She says: “He is bringing us back to … days before the Civil War,” she said. “What Barack Obama seems to want to do is to go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we all allowing our country to move backwards?”
The ad also shows clips of Ms. Palin leveling other charges against the president, saying he’s never been seen as a “man of valor” and that he harbors a “philosophy of radicalism.”
On her Facebook page, Ms. Palin seemed annoyed by the ad, but not too annoyed. “This latest ad is quite odd, but also quite telling. It shows that our President sure seems fearful of discussing the economy, energy prices, and all the other problems people need addressed,” she wrote. “And intended or not, now that his ad opens up the discussion of Barack Obama’s radical past associations and the radical philosophy that shaped his ideas.”
Asked about the video, an Obama campaign official said, “Extreme statements from prominent Republicans during the primary debate over the course of the last year have been a major motivating factor for our supporters.”
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s political action committee, SarahPAC, released a 2:38 minute Internet video to counter the HBO movie, “Game Change,” which follows Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, from his selection of Mrs. Palin as his running mate and to their defeat in the general election.
The Palin PAC said in a statement to supporters that its video, “Game Change We Can Believe In,” “shares the true story” of the 2008 presidential campaign. “HBO must add a disclaimer that this movie is fiction.”
“Liberals have proven once again that they do not value truth. The liberal left distorts facts to fabricate its own version of history,” the statement added. …
ABOARD THE GINGRICH PRESS BUS ON I-20, S.C. — Sarah Palin said Tuesday that if she were a South Carolinian, she would vote for Newt Gingrich in Saturday’s Republican primary — if only to continue the GOP nominating fight.
It’s an odd endorsement of sorts for the hard-to-pin-down Ms. Palin, who publicly deliberated throughout 2011 whether to make her own White House bid.
“If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep things going, I’d vote for Newt,” she told Sean Hannity on Fox News, which like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp. The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee seemed to suggest that her support, for now, was limited to the Palmetto State contest, as “each one of these primaries and caucuses are different,” she said.
“I want to see this thing continue because iron sharpens iron, steel sharpens steel,” she added.
Ms. Palin appeared to want to put the brakes on front-runner Mitt Romney‘s run to the GOP nomination. She said Republicans need more time to vet the candidates, and said she wants to see more debates.
Mr. Gingrich’s campaign was quick to tout the news and immediately placed the video clip on its website. Ms. Palin did have some kind words for the former House speaker, becoming the latest pundit to applaud him for his Monday night debate performance.
“Newt is the one who won the debate, if you will, because Newt came out, just like South Carolina’s own Smokin’ Joe Frazier, he came out there swinging,
talking about work, talking about jobs and work ethic and how government needs to get out of the way,” she said.
Republican star and Fox News political analyst Sarah Palin said criticism of Mitt Romney‘s record at Bain Capital by some Republican rivals is fair game and that voters should get “proof” of the 100,000 jobs Mr. Romney said he helped create while he headed the private equity firm.
In an interview with Fox host Sean Hannity Wednesday, Ms. Palin was asked about Texas Gov. Rick Perry‘s comments that Mr. Romney had practiced “vulture capitalism” rather than venture capitalism at Bain. Fox and The Wall Street Journal are owned by News Corp.
“I don’t agree with attacks on free-market capitalism at all but I don’t believe this is really what is at the heart of Gov. Perry’s criticism of Romney and his time at Bain,” the former Alaska governor replied. “This isn’t about a politician making huge profits in the private sector. I think what Gov. Perry is getting at is that Gov. Romney has claimed to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain and you know, now people are wanting to know is there proof of that claim.”
Early this fall, Sarah Palin helped start the original “Herman Cain Train” when she touted his conservative bona fides.
But with Mr. Cain looking less like a winning candidate, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee on Thursday offered a new name for Republicans looking for an anti-establishment candidate: Rick Santorum.
“If voters start shifting gears and deciding they want ideological consistency, then they’re going to start paying attention to say, Rick Santorum,” she said on Fox News. Ms. Palin praised the former Pennsylvania senator for his positions on Israel, abortion and income taxes…
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may still draw throngs in the Lower 48, but her popularity back home keeps heading south.
A new poll out Monday shows the number of people holding a positive view of Ms. Palin falling to 29% in September, a decline from 39% in mid-June. It had hovered in the 40% range for much of the past 18 months.
Measured another way, the number of Alaskans who hold a negative opinion of her has risen from 49% to 61% since June, according to the survey of registered 692 registered Alaska voters by Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
By contrast, Ms. Palin’s popularity in Alaska stood at a stratospheric 82%, and her negative rating was just 13%, when she first announced she was joining Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential ticket in 2008. Ms. Palin had garnered wide support at the time after taking on the Juneau political establishment on a number of fronts.
Ms. Palin had been weighing whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination next year but opted not to proceed. She was not immediately available for comment.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s announcement that she is not seeking the GOP presidential nomination raises questions about whether she will maintain her relevance in the media and among voters. Ms. Palin herself nodded to that in a Wednesday night in an interview on Fox News: “If I say no to the opportunity that’s in front of me, politically speaking, will I die?”
At Politico, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns look at Ms. Palin’s value to those running for the GOP presidential nomination.
Were Palin to throw her endorsement behind one of the Republicans, it would, of course, lead to an influx of low-dollar contributors and grass-roots support. But with so many conservatives running, it’s easy to see her admirers dividing up among candidates. Some in the South will like Perry, some women will be attracted to Bachmann’s history-making potential, those who feel most strongly about abortion could get behind Santorum, and the Palinistas who are most drawn to her status as an outsider will feel a kinship with Cain…
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday evening that she won’t seek the Republican presidential nomination, but will continue to push for changes she has championed in the past. In her statement she said she “will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President.”
Conservative radio host Mark Levin first broke the news, reading Ms. Palin’s statement and interviewing her.
Her full statement is here:
October 5, 2011
After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.
My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.
From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.
I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.
Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.
In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.
Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country!
God bless America.
– Sarah Palin
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s announcement Tuesday that he won’t enter the 2012 Republican presidential race means the Republican field is pretty much set, with the exception of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has yet to say whether she’ll run. GOP donors and activists who have been on the sidelines now take a closer look at the declared candidates.
Dan Balz at the Washington Post wonders whether Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can “expand his support within the party,” and Texas Gov. Rick Perry can “bounce back” from his campaign’s seeming implosion following back-to-back debates flop.
The comings and goings of potential candidates have obscured what has long been the reality of the Republican race: that it has been two contests in one. The first was all about Romney and whether he could persuade a reluctant party to embrace his candidacy. So far he hasn’t. That highlights the importance of the second contest, which is the campaign among the other candidates to become the principal alternative to Romney. …
Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital’s comings and goings in a series of newsy, and sometimes even gossipy, items. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is the collective product of the Journal’s Washington bureau. Write to us at [email protected].
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments. | <urn:uuid:3c7263b0-37a0-46e4-b733-2fcabcda5fab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/tag/sarah-palin/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95949 | 2,829 | 1.515625 | 2 |
MySpace.com has remained an important place for musicians. Sure there are thousands of places to discover new music but when I want to get a quick jist of what a band is like I head right to their MySpace page. The original MySpace design and platform has been around for a long time with barely any noticable changes. So what’s new?
If you ever used Facebook you understand the idea of Applications. These are small programs you can install into your own profile. They are designed by third party developers so there is a wide variety of apps available.
Games, photo slideshows, hooks into services like iLike.com, polls, anything you can imagine adding to your profile is probably available. For the most part I find 95% of these apps useless but there are a few gems. For example Happy Flickr allows you to have your latest flickr photos displayed on your profile.
The site has also been redesigned and looks cleaner. Menus have been reorganized so you can get to your profile’s option easier.
There’s a spanking-new interface, heightened security, availability on mobile and instant-messaging services — and the ability to create categories of friends at work, school and family, among dozens of other new features.
“It cleans up the user experience,” says Dave McClure, a start-up adviser and angel investor in Silicon Valley. “It is a streamlined, easier-to-use version of MySpace.” – www.usatoday.com
MySpace said it had drastically overhauled the look and feel of its searches, which it said currently ranked third in total number of searches by any site.
It said it was working with Lucene Open-Source engine and community, marking the first time MySpace has contributed to the open-source community.
MySpace, with about 110 million users worldwide, claims to be the most trafficked website in the United States, adding that about 300,000 people sign up each day. – uk.reuters.com
Are there any MySpace applications you find useful? Is there one you want that does not exist yet? | <urn:uuid:c7a956be-81bd-43dc-ac33-c7da26170dbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/06/18/myspace-20-redesign-and-applications-are-here/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951328 | 446 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Rockland Residential Solar Power
If you have been trying to think of ways to make your home greener, a Rockland, New York Residential Solar System may be the answer for you and your family. Using the sun’s energy for your electricity needs will reduce your home’s carbon footprint. At the same time you will be able to enjoy clean energy that doesn’t add to our country’s dependence on foreign oil.
A Great Source for Worry-Free Solar Panels
Our company has been installing solar power systems to residents of California for years, and we at Verengo Solar are now offering our expert services to the Rockland, New York area. Your residential solar power system will be backed up with our twenty-year production guarantee. Your solar power system is worry-free, requiring little to no maintenance and covered by our full system insurance, including inverter replacement.
Solar Panels Raise the Value of Your Home
Once we have professionally installed your solar system, you can begin enjoying a greener home. The sun supplies us with a renewable clean energy source that is reliable, even during the hottest days when brown outs are common with traditional energy sources. By converting your home to solar power you will also be increasing the value of your house by as much as 17 percent in some areas. What’s more, buyers are looking for environmentally friendly houses, and solar powered homes sell 20 percent faster!
Energy Cost Savings Means More Money for You
Once your system is installed you will notice a tremendous savings in monthly energy costs. In many situations the energy bills are reduced to a few dollars. Within seven to ten years you will have more than justified the cost of installing one of our Rockland, New York Residential Solar Systems. After that you can sit back and enjoy reliable clean energy, without worrying about rate increases. Over the course of time the electric company will need to increase its rates. Your family will be less impacted by rate increases as you’re benefitting from free solar power, while also reducing your greenhouse gases and carbon emissions.
Bring New Solar Power Jobs to New York
Our high quality solar panels are professionally installed, and they are made with the latest in technological developments in solar power. They blend in nicely with your home’s exterior, and actually help your community at the same time. For instance, there are more jobs created in the field of solar energy than in the oil or gas industries. For every one million dollars spent on solar energy system installations, there are five to fifteen jobs created.
It’s the Best Time to Switch to Solar
Residents of New York can also take advantage of the numerous solar power incentives offered by the state. The Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit, the Residential NYS Tax credit, and the New York State Research and Development Authority Rebate will also help you save additional money when installing a Rockland, New York Residential Solar System. Speak to one of our Verengo staff today about a free consultation. | <urn:uuid:4bee08d0-1115-461f-96fd-290d0b62420a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.verengosolar.com/new-york/rockland-residential-solar-power/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94154 | 613 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Princeton ethicist Peter Singer — yes the same Peter Singer who proposed that parents should be able to kill their infants — has offered his answer to the religious freedom challenges of Obamacare: Christian organizations should just close their doors, he says.
Writing about Catholic hospitals who can’t offer contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs without violating their consciences, Singer responded: “The Obama administration’s requirement...does not prevent Catholics from practicing their religion. Catholicism does not oblige its adherents to run hospitals and universities.”
As Cardinal Newman observed at LifeSiteNews, Singer’s suggestion assumes exactly what the mandate does: that freedom of religion is nothing more than freedom of worship — the right to privately practice religion.
But that definition confines the most cherished liberty of American history to churches and homes. As Chuck Colson used to point out, even Christians in communist China have this kind of “freedom.” | <urn:uuid:a4435497-d12a-4006-8531-4d22bf7f209b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.breakpoint.org/listen/entry/38/19794 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932305 | 190 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Researchers win a reprieve from Supreme Court in Boston College Irish Troubles interview case
By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff
Two researchers who were involved in interviewing former combatants in the Irish Troubles for a Boston College oral history project have won a stay of a federal appeals court order that the interviews should be turned over to the British government.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer ruled today that the order from the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston should be stayed, the researchers said, while the researchers prepare a writ of certiorari, seeking a Supreme Court hearing of their case. Breyer set a deadline for the request of Nov. 16.
The order will be stayed until then. It will also be stayed while the court considers the researchers’ request. If the court doesn’t agree to hear their case, the stay will expire. If the court agrees to hear their case, then the order will be stayed until the court issues a ruling on the case, Breyer’s order said.
Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre vowed in August that they would take their case to the Supreme Court after the Boston appeals court decided not to rehear — or have the full court hear — the case. A three-judge panel of the appeals court had previously rejected their appeal in July.
On behalf of unidentified law enforcement officials in the United Kingdom, federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas seeking information related to a 1972 slaying in which the Irish Republican Army has admitted involvement. | <urn:uuid:0ed4dd82-7cb8-4899-b592-ec775ad7bf47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/researchers-win-a-reprieve-from-supreme-court-in-boston-college-irish-troubles-interview-case/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952979 | 305 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Washington (CNN) – The National Republican Senatorial Committee updated its iPhone application to include a "Take Action" section, allowing users to capture every moment on the campaign trail and increase their chances of going viral.
During the 2006 midterm election season, then-Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen was captured on camera using the derogative term "Macaca" to describe the cameraperson. The video was placed on YouTube and quickly went viral, being viewed by millions. Allen did not win re-election and many blame that viral video.
Now the NRSC is streamlining the process so users at a campaign rally can record a video or snap a photo and send it to a variety of social media networks including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
"Information can be found and shared at warp speed and our campaigns alone cannot possibly capture or know what is happening on the trail every minute of every day," NRSC Chief Digital Strategist Katie Harbath told CNN in an e-mail. "To help with that information gathering process we built the mobile tracker feature of our app to give activists and volunteers across the country the ability to quickly and easily share what they are seeing out on the campaign trail."
The app also separates Twitter streams by various topics, locations, and individual Senate races. Users will also be able to check in to campaign events through Foursquare, the location based social network built into the app. | <urn:uuid:015007ca-fbcd-4d58-89c7-8f5284c9cb62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/23/nrsc-launches-updated-iphone-app-to-capture-the-2010-cycles-macaca-moment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963498 | 285 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits