Datasets:

gair-prox

/

RedPajama-pro

like 4

Follow

GAIR-ProX 18

Conversation with Ana Nogales by Marianne Schnall Ana Nogales, PhD, is one of the most accomplished Latinas in the United States. Her reputation comes from her commitment to and the orientation of her practice: Los Latinos, their relationships, their problems, and their needs within this great web of cultures that is the United States of America. Dr. Nogales immigrated to the United States from Argentina in 1979. After completing her doctorate degree in psychology, she opened her private practice in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, supervising a clinical program for fifteen professionals in mental health since 1982. As a clinical psychologist and founder of Nogales Psychological Counseling, Inc., she has dedicated herself to helping members of the Latino community improve their mental and emotional health. She is also the founder and Clinical Director of the nonprofit organization, Casa de la Familia, established for victims of crime, such as rape, sexual assault, child sexual and physical abuse, and domestic violence. She is also the President of ALMA, Association for Latino Mental Health Awareness in Orange County, dedicated to erradicating the stigma of mental illness. Currently, Dr. Nogales sits on the board of the California Women's Commision on Addictions as the President, and at Las Comadres para las Americas. I also remember at the time the military reigned in Argentina, a president (he did not last in his position for too long), who ruled that women were not allowed to wear pants in public! I was 18 years old at the time… and while I thought it was crazy at a time when jeans were becoming popular, I received the clear message that women had one position in society that should not be altered. “Feminism was not for me”. I wanted to fit in. my friends were not feminist either. It was something that we talked about but not us. It belong to a movement in the US were women had a different life. We even criticized women who were not homey, as being not very affectionate, or superficial… therefore, they could be talking about feminism, but not us! We did not see feminism as a privilege, we were critical of changing the status quo as we understood it at the time… we wanted to be treated like ladies, and we wanted to take care of our families… and we still do. however, now I understand that they are not exclusive. For me, ethnic and class issues were predominant, as it was a very rigid society and it was difficult to find your own place: most of your life was “pre-determined”, or at least that was my perception. I wanted differently. While these concepts have changed in Latinas in the US, I find that in some parts of Latin America world they remain similar, still not the same. Is feminism, as a movement, relevant for women of color today? For poor and abused women? As a psychologist, working with poor and abused women, they still are bound to an image of being dependent and not self reliable, and basically not having a voice to stop the abuse or to ask for what they want or need. Once they learn that they can create themselves the life they want without relying on somebody else, then life changes and they are not intimidated by others anymore. In your practice and your advocacy today, do you see young women identifying themselves as feminists? Why or why not? They still do not use the word feminist, or very rarely. They might use powerful woman and lately "Wise Latina," as portrayed by Judge Sotomayor. It is a linguistic issue that was tinted by negative connotations in the past as: “women that do not want to be women”. I know that the organizers at Omega set out very thoughtfully in terms of making sure the faculty at the conference was diverse. One of the criticisms many people feel about the term “feminist” and the “women’s movement” is that it has not been inclusive enough in terms of race and class. Do you agree this is a problem, and how can how can this best be addressed? I somewhat agree as I have not seen many Latinas in the Women Conference. I am delighted to have presented Rigoberta Menchu, and that Isabel Allende will be there this year. I also appreciate that I was invited and I am honored. However, there are many extraordinary Latinas that could bring much more into the conference, not only within the US but in the world. Also, please consider that in the Latino community, words such as comadres, sisters, or any other that creates familism has been predominant and more accepted than feminist. In what ways do you think generational issues cut across race and class differently? North American/white/privileged women mothers and grandmothers have different stories. Latinas have deep roots into their own different cultures, many expressed through music, poems and story telling. Searching for women’s family and cultural stories create a new dimension of understanding own identity, that cannot be transferred from other races. Do you feel a sense of gratitude to your “foremothers” in the feminist movement? Do you pick up a sense of gratitude toward you from young women today? Definitely, but I had to do my own search to come to the realization of what implies to be a woman in this world. And I learn more about myself each year I attend the Women Institute. September became the month that I dedicate to myself in search of a meaning of my own. I could not be what I am today if it would not be for the women in the movement. What are some of the most important issues facing Latina women and the Latina community today? In the instance of Sotomayor, her racial background, heritage and gender have taken center stage in the confirmation hearings. This has called the eyes of the Latina community, as we can all see ourselves in this picture. For the less privileged Latinas, they are still facing gender issues related to machismo, domestic violence, high incidence of teenage pregnancy, highest incidence of depression and suicide attempts, 10.5% grade average education, increased risk of gang involvement and violence,… and all of this more so since the financial crisis. The Latina community, as women in general, still make less than our male counterparts, 53% of a salary compared to men. And Latina women lag behind White and African American women in earnings. The Latina community has been largely invisible. The issues are still seen largely though Black/White lenses. What type of wisdom do you think older women have to offer younger generations? Let them know their struggles and how they were able to overcome and become.

Time Out -- Out of Time: Flashover and Residential Sprinklers By Glenn A. Gaines Deputy U.S. Fire Administrator Recently there has been much discussion in regard to response times of fire and EMS field assets, and rightly so. Rapid intervention is something fire and EMS do that is unique in government service. As a response enterprise we look to professional standards, Federal Regulations and current and planned growth patterns to determine what type of response resources are needed and how they will be deployed. Up to this point in time, when calculating a acceptable response time for EMS intervention we have used the period of time when the lack of oxygen can lead to brain damage (six minutes) and the time to flashover and its relationship with the temperature curve (five minutes to flashover). But time out. Do these assumptions still hold true? My sources tell me that when humans are deprived of oxygen for six minutes or more we can expect brain damage to occur. This standard and condition remains valid. However, science and actual field experience clearly demonstrate that the five minute to flashover in residential buildings, where nearly eighty-five (85) percent of Americans die from fires, is no longer valid. In fact, if we are asleep upstairs in our bedroom and have working smoke alarms on all levels of our home (and that clearly is not the case in all residences), when a fire starts on the main level of the residence we have about three minutes to escape if we are to have a chance of survival. Folks, this was just not the case ten years ago. But most of the legacy furnishings are long gone and have been replaced by synthetic laden materials that are tantamount to solidified gasoline. You can see this for yourself by viewing the videos available on line at the following URLs: The increased combustibility of home furnishings and decorative finishes create a situation where the likelihood that firefighters will be able to rescue you is remote if you are asleep at the time of the fire. We are routinely seeing flashover in as little as three and one-half minutes creating a condition where we know humans cannot survive. We have neither the financial or human resources to strategically place fire stations within three and one half minutes of every citizen. I am not proposing to throw out the standard five minute response time. The fact is that in order to contain today's fires to the unit, townhouse, or single-family detached structure, the five-minute response time is still valid. But if we are to provide firefighters or EMS responders with an opportunity to save the lives of critically injured or ill patients, then the five minute response time goal may not be enough. Look, we have 78 million baby boomers each with a life expectancy of somewhere around 85 years of age. They are getting more frail, less nimble and increasingly at risk, especially when we are seeing these extraordinary fire growth patterns. I believe these are ominous conditions that demand our immediate action. So what should we be talking about? What is the answer? I believe we already know the answer. Residential sprinklers. Residential sprinklers save lives and stop fire spread before it reaches killer magnitude. There is ample empirical evidence that they protect lives and property. We have seen it in Scottsdale, AZ and in Prince Georges County, MD., where, contrary to opponents, residential sprinkler ordinances have not driven up building costs or deterred housing development. Why have we not been able to convince political leaders to adopt the requirement for residential sprinklers? If we take an objective view at the reasons for this lack of movement toward a safe and effective solution, it cannot be anything other than the almighty dollar and political influence. It is and has been the position of builders and developers that they will experience a loss of profit if residential sprinklers are required. But that hasn't been the case in jurisdictions where sprinkler legislation is in place. It is suggested that residential sprinklers will leak. They do not. They leak no more often than any other piece of pipe in your home. Another argument is that sprinklers are a huge draw on the water system. They are not. They use about nine and a half gallons per minute per sprinkler head. Over ninety percent of residential fires are extinguished with two or fewer sprinklers heads. The United States Fire Administration (USFA), the fire organizations, and every one of the more than 1.3 million firefighters, must continue the relentless battle to present the facts and continue the fight for residential sprinkler requirements. The other part of this conundrum is how do we find a way to reduce the combustibility of interior furnishings? They have been successful in Great Britain; we can be successful here. We have done it with mattresses with huge success. The USFA, the National Institute of Standards and Testing, the home furnishing industry and others committed to fire safety have begun to look for low cost, high return solutions for tackling this problem. Let's hope that firefighter engagement, political courage and technical scientific solutions bear fruit and forestall what I see as a true potential national disaster on the horizon. For now, the message for citizens who live in residences without residential sprinklers is to install and maintain working smoke alarms; prepare and practice a fire escape plan; and, if awakened by a smoke alarm, get out, get out fast and do not reenter. Folks you have about three (3) minutes. Related Articles

Mrs. Fields Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips Candies (12 oz) Soy Lecithin is exempt from being labeled as a soy allergen according to U.S. labeling laws. There are only slight traces of the soy protein present to trigger a reaction, however people who are allergic to soy should use caution and check with their allergist before consuming this product. Nutrition Facts Sugars 8.0 g Protein 1.0 g Iron 2.0% We get our energy from the nutrients in food. The main sources of energy are carbohydrates (starches and sugars), fats and proteins. The body can be compared to an engine that converts the energy in food into the energy we need to live. Sugars and starches are forms of carbohydrate. Nutritionists recommend that about half of our energy should be supplied by carbohydrates. The majority of this should be from starchy foods like cereals, rice, potatoes, pasta or bread, with the remainder coming from sugars. During digestion (the process by which we break down food substances ready for absorption and use by the body) complex starchy foods are broken down into sugars.Ingredient InformationChocolate UnsweetenedChocolate raw and processed foods that originate from the bean of the tropical cacao tree. It is a common ingredient in many kinds of sweets such as chocolate candy, ice creams, cookies, cakes, pies, chocolate mousse, and other desserts. It is one of the more popular flavours in the world. Chocolate was created by the Mesoamerican civilization, from cacao beans, and cultivated by pre-Columbian civilizations such as the Maya and Aztec, who used it as a basic component in a variety of sauces and beverages. The cocoa beans were ground and mixed with water to produce a bitter beverage which was reserved only to the highest noblemen and clerics of the Mesoamerican world. The word "chocolate" comes from the Nahuatl words Xocol meaning "bitter" and Atl meaning "water". Chocolate is made from the fermented, roasted, and ground beans taken from the pod of the tropical cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, which was native to Central America and Mexico, but is now cultivated throughout the tropics. The beans have an intensely flavored bitter taste. The resulting products are known as "chocolate" or, in some parts of the world, cocoa.[1] It is the solid and fat combination, sweetened with sugar and other ingredients, that is made into chocolate bars and which is commonly referred to as chocolate by the public. It can also be made into beverages (called cocoa and hot chocolate). The first chocolate beverages were made by the Aztecs and the Mayas and later the Europeans. Chocolate is often produced as small molded forms in the shape of animals, people, or inanimate objects to celebrate festivals worldwide. For example, there are moulds of rabbits or eggs for Easter, coins for Hanukkah, Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) for Christmas, and hearts for Valentine's Day. Chocolate is any product based 99% on cocoa solid and/or cocoa fat. Because it is used in a vast number of other foods, any change in the cost of making it has a huge impact on the industry. Adding ingredients is an aspect of the taste. On the other hand, reducing cocoa solid content, or substituting cocoa fat with a non-cocoa one, reduces the cost of making it. There has been disagreement in the EU about the definition of chocolate. Raw milk" Cow's milk in as milked state "Normal liquid milk" Cow's milk sold for the purpose of direct intake "Certified milk" Normal liquid milk sold as certified milk "Partly skimmed milk" Food obtained by removal of a part of milkfat from raw milk, normal liquid milk or certified milk, other than skimmed milk "Skimmed milk" Food obtained by removal of almost all the milkfat from raw milk, normal liquid milk or certified milk, other than skimmed milk "Processed milk" Food obtained by processing raw milk, normal liquid milk or certified milk, or foods manufactured using these milks as ingredients, which are sold for the purpose of direct intake (excludes partly skimmed milk, skimmed milk, fermented milk and lactic acid bacteria drinks) "Cream (milk product)" Product obtained by removal of all constituents other than milkfat from raw milk, normal liquid milk or certified milk "Butter" Product made by churning and working fat globules obtained from raw milk, normal liquid milk or certified milk "Butter oil" Product obtained by removal of almost all constituents other than milkfat from butter or cream Ingredient InformationSoy LecithinAn EmulsifierBurgundy (French: Bourgogne) is the name given to certain wines made in the Burgundy region of France. Red Burgundy wines are usually made with the Pinot Noir grape, and white Burgundy wines are usually made with Chardonnay grapes, as dictated by the AOC. Burgundy is in some ways the most terroir-oriented region in France; immense attention is paid to the area of origin, and in which of the region's 400 types of soil a wine's grapes are grown. As opposed to Bordeaux, where classifications are producer-driven and awarded to individual chateaux, Burgundy classifications are geographically-focused. A specific vineyard or region will bear a given classification, regardless of the wine's producer. This focus is reflected on the wine's labels where appellations are most prominent and producer's names often appear at the bottom in much smaller text. Burgundy classifications, in descending order of quality, are: grand crus, premier crus, Commune or village, and finally generic Bourgogne. The Grand Cru refers to the best wine produced at the best vineyard sites. Grand Cru wines make up 2% of the production at 35 hectoliters/hectare. These wines need to be aged a minimum of 5-7 years, however, can be good when aged up to 15 years. Very few chardonnays in the world can be aged as well as these wines. Grand Cru wines will only list the vineyard on the wine labelIngredient InformationChocolate SemisweetA A A U.S. standards require that unsweetened chocolate contain between 50 and 58 percent cocoa butter. The addition of sugar, lecithin and vanilla (or vanillin) creates, depending on the amount of sugar added, bittersweet, semisweet or sweet chocolate. Bittersweet chocolate must contain at least 35 percent chocolate liquor; semisweet and sweet can contain from 15 to 35 percent.Ingredient InformationVanillaA A A Dictionaries describe the term "plain-vanilla" as something "simple, plain or ordinary." Few statements could be further from the truth-for there is definitely nothing ordinary about the seductively aromatic vanilla bean. This long, thin pod is the fruit of a luminous celadon-colored orchid (vanilla planifolia), which, of over 20,000 orchid varieties, is the only one that bears anything edible. Native to tropical America, the vanilla bean was cultivated and processed by the Aztecs, who used it to flavor a cocoa-based drink.

Brand: Tastykake Manufactured by: Tasty Baking Company Allergens: Water, Flour Unbleached and Bleached Enriched with: Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron Reduced, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid (Vitamin aB)) , Vegetable(s) Shortening Partially Hydrogenated (Canola, Soybean(s) and/or Cottonseed Oil) , Sugar, Pineapple, Egg(s), Graham Flour, Milk Skim, Food Starch Modified, Corn Starch, Molasses, Salt, Butter, Flavor(s) Natural & Artificial, Corn Syrup High Fructose, Caramel Color, Cellulose Gum, Sorbic Acid (To Preserve Freshness) , Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Potassium Sorbate (To Preserve Freshness) , Baking Soda, Sodium Citrate, Gellan Gum Ingredient Color Key: Serving Size: 113 g Calories 350.0Calories from Fat 190.0 Total Fat 21.0 g 32%65 g Cholesterol 65.0 mg22%300 mg Weight Watchers Winning Points® Value* = 9 Weight Watchers PointsPlus® Value* = 10 Bottled Water: Some types of bottled water are not subject to the same regulations as tap water. These are regulated as food products, and their regulations are largely related to sanitary food handling and processing practices. Bottled water manufacturers will provide a detailed report on the quality of their product to consumers who call to request it.Ingredient InformationWheat Flour Wheat flour is an excellent source of complex carbohydrates. Other than gluten flour, all types of wheat flour derive at least 80 percent of their calories from carbohydrates. Depending on the flour type, the percent of calories from protein ranges from 9 to 15 percent, except from gluten, which has a 45 percent protein content. Calories from fat are never more than 5 percent. In addition, wheat flour provides from 3 g (cake flour) to 15 g (whole-wheat flour) of dietary fiber per 1-cup serving. Wheat flour contains B vitamins, calcium, folacin, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium zinc and other trace elements, and minimal amounts of sodium. Required for red blood cell formation, antibody production, cell respiration and growth. Important for good muscle tone. Involved in metabolism of protein, protein fats, and carbohydrates. Necessary for good vision, skin, hair and nails. Ingredient InformationFolic Acid (Vitamin aB) Folic acid is the synthetic form of the B vitamin folate. Folic acid is necessary for the synthesis of nucleic acids and the formation of red blood cells. Folic-acid deficiency most commonly causes folic-acid-deficiency anemia. Symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, such as sore tongue, cracks at the corners of the mouth, diarrhea, and ulceration of the stomach and intestines. Large doses of folic acid can cause convulsions and other nervous-system problems. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations require enriched grain products to contain this essential vitamin. Current studies have discovered a link between folic acid and brain function in older people. The study divided 818 people ages 50 to 75 to take either a vitamin containing 800 micrograms of folic acid a day, or a dummy pill, for three years. On memory tests, the supplement users had scores comparable to people 5.5 years younger, Durga said. On tests of cognitive speed, the folic acid helped users perform as well as people 1.9 years younger. Ingredient InformationFlour Unbleached and Bleached Enriched with: FlourA A A Flour is a powder made of cereal grains or roots. It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many civilizations, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history. Wheat flour is one of the most important foods in European and North American culture, and is the defining ingredient in most European styles of breads and pastries. Maize flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times, and remains a staple in much of Latin American cuisine. Flour contains a high proportion of starches, which are complex carbohydrates also known as polysaccharides. Leavening agents are used with some flours, especially those with significant gluten content, to produce lighter and softer baked products by embedding small gas bubbles. The production of flour has also historically driven technological development, as attempts to make gristmills more productive and less labor-intensive led to the watermill and windmill, terms now applied more broadly to uses of water and wind power for purposes other than milling. Ingredient InformationCanolaCanola is, in fact, Canada's most widely used oil. It's commonly referred to there as lear oil, for "low erucic acid rapeseed" oil. The popularity of canola oil is rising fast in the United States, probably because it's been discovered to be lower in saturated fat (about 6 percent) than any other oil. This compares to the saturated fat content of peanut oil (about 18 percent) and palm oil (at an incredibly high 79 percent). Another canola oil selling point is that it contains more cholesterol-balancing monounsaturated fat than any oil except olive oil. It also has the distinction of containing Omega-3 fatty acids, the wonder polyunsaturated fat reputed to not only lower both cholesterol and triglycerides, but to contribute to brain growth and development as well. The bland-tasting canola oil is suitable both for cooking and for salad dressings.Ingredient InformationSoybean(s)and/orCottonseed OilA viscous oil obtained from the seed of the cotton plant. Most of the cottonseed oil produced is used in combination with other oils to create vegetable oil products. It's used in some margarines and salad dressings, and for many commercially fried products.Ingredient InformationVegetable(s) Shortening Partially HydrogenatedA A A Vegetable(s) Shortening Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable shortening is typically composed of a blend of soybean and cottonseed oil. Shortening is a neutral flavored solid fat at room temperature. Partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening is commonly used in frying, baking, or in some cases coffee whitening. Partial hydrogenation of the vegetable oil allows the oil to take on a stiffer texture because of the hydrogen gas being pumped into the oil to weaken the hydrogen bonds in the structure. Partially hydrogenation of the oil is therefore unhealthier to the consumer because of its unnatural use of hydrogenation which forms trans-fats that the body cannot breakdown. Trans-fats are solid fats produced from oil by unnatural methods and interfere with metabolic processes such as increasing LDL or “bad cholesterol.” Partially hydrogenated oils and shortenings have a tendency to be used by food companies because of its cheapness, stability, improved texture, and ability to oxidize to provide a longer shelf life. Partial hydrogenation increases bad trans and saturated fats and lowers the amount of good fats. Many of the essential fatty acids, antioxidants, and other positive components of the oil are lost through this process. Starch and modified starches sometimes replace large percentages of more nutritious ingredients, such as fruit. Choose baby foods without added starches (starch-thickened baby foods have contained as little as 25 percent as much of the fruit ingredients as 100-percent-fruit baby foods). One small study suggested that modified starches can promote diarrhea in infants.Ingredient InformationCorn StarchA A A Cornstarch, or cornflour, is the starch of the maize grain, commonly known as corn. It is also ground from the endosperm, or white heart, of the corn kernel. It has a distinctive appearance and feel when mixed raw with water or milk, giving easily to gentle pressure but resisting sudden pressure. It is usually included as an anti-caking agent in powdered sugar (10X or confectioner's sugar). For this reason, recipes calling for powdered sugar often call for at least light cooking to remove the raw cornstarch taste. Cornstarch is often used as a binder in puddings and similar foods. Most of the packaged pudding mixes available in grocery stores include cornstarch. Cornstarch puddings may be easily made at home, benefiting from the use of a double boiler. The most basic such pudding may be made only from milk, sugar, cornstarch and a flavoring agent. It is also used as a thickener in many recipes. Cornstarch is best dissolved in cold water, as it forms obstinate lumps when mixed with warm or hot water. Cornstarch also has many uses in the manufacturing of environmentally-friendly products. For example, in 2004, the Japanese company Pioneer announced a biodegradable Blu-Ray disc made out of cornstarch. Cornstarch has been used as a replacement for talcum powder by some. Corn syrup is glucose produced from corn starch in a process called wet milling. Wet milling isolates the components of the corn through chemical or biochemical separation. The sugars are further separated by the use of enzymes. Since fructose is sweeter but not naturally found in corn, scientists have ways to convert the glucose into fructose. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS), also known as corn sugar, is a combination of glucose and fructose. Depending on the level of sweetness, the glucose to fructose ratio is adjusted. For example HFCS 55 is 55% fructose and is usually used in soft drinks. HFCS 42 is 42% fructose and used in foods that require only a little sweetening. The chemical composition of high fructose corn syrup is similar to that of sucrose, or table sugar. Still, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared that under the formal definition of “natural,” HFCS does not meet the requirements. The enzymes that are used to separate the sugars are synthetic, deeming HFCS unnatural. Also, there has been controversial evidence showing that the consumption of HFCS is associated with obesity. Cellulose is an excellent source of insoluble fiber. Unlike soluble fiber, insoluble fiber does not feed bacteria well and is not readily fermented into short chain fatty acids.Ingredient InformationTo Preserve FreshnessIngredient InformationSorbic AcidA A A Sorbic acid occurs naturally in many plants. These additives are safe.Ingredient InformationSodium Stearoyl LactylateA A A These additives strengthen bread dough so it can be used in bread-making machinery and help produce a more uniform grain and greater volume. They act as whipping agents in dried, liquid, or frozen egg whites and artificial whipped cream. SODIUM STEAROYL FUMARATE serves the same function Ref: Center for science in the public intrestIngredient InformationTo Preserve FreshnessIngredient InformationPotassium SorbateA A A Potassium sorbate is the potassium salt of sorbic acid, and is much more soluble in water than the acid. Potassium sorbate will produce sorbic acid once it is dissolved in water and is the most widely used food preservative in the world. It is effective up to pH 6.5 but effectiveness increases as the pH decreases.Ingredient InformationBaking SodaA A A Also known as bicarbonate of soda, baking soda is used as a LEAVENER in baked goods. When combined with an acid ingredient such as buttermilk, yogurt or molasses, baking soda produces carbon dioxide gas bubbles, thereby causing a dough or batter to rise. Because it reacts immediately when moistened, it should always be mixed with the other dry ingredients before adding any liquid; the resulting batter should be placed in the oven immediately. At one time, baking soda was used in the cooking water of green vegetables to preserve their color. That practice was discontinued, however, when it was discovered that baking soda destroys the vitamin C content of vegetables. Baking Soda, a sodium bicarbonate, is a naturally occurring substance that is present in all living things--it helps living things maintain the pH balance necessary for life. Baking Soda is made from soda ash, also known as sodium carbonate. The soda ash is obtained in one of two ways: it can be manufactured by passing carbon dioxide and ammonia through a concentrated solution of sodium chloride (table salt). Whether the soda ash is mined or processed, it is dissolved into a solution through which carbon dioxide is bubbled, and sodium bicarbonate precipitates out, forming Baking SodaIngredient InformationSodium CitrateA A A Citric acid (Sodium Citrate) is versatile, widely used, cheap, and safe. It is an important metabolite in virtually all living organisms and is especially abundant naturally in citrus fruits and berries. It is used as a strong acid, a tart flavoring, and an antioxidant. Sodium citrate, also safe, is a buffer that controls the acidity of gelatin desserts, jam, ice cream, candy, and other foods.Ingredient InformationGellan GumA A A Used as a thinkener. Gellan gum is reliably produced by Sphingomonas paucimobilis in growth media containing lactose, a significant component of cheese whey, as a carbon source.

Trumansburg students learn healthy habitsby making their own dishes Ithaca Journal: April 11, 2013 TRUMANSBURG — Food literacy educator Antonia Demas wants to bring home economics back into the classroom. Her program, "Food Is Elementary," is already integrated at Trumansburg Elementary School, where students in kindergarten through fourth grade learn about the math, science, and literacy of food and cooking, not to mention healthy food choices...Read more His principal scientific interests, which began with his graduate training in the late 1950's, has been on the effects of nutritional status on long term health, particularly on the causation of cancer. He has conducted original research both in laboratory experiments and in large-scale human studies; has received over 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding (mostly NIH), has served on several grant review panels of multiple funding agencies, has lectured extensively, and has authored over 300 research papers. Also, he a) coordinated a USAID-supported technical assistance program for a nationwide nutrition program for malnourished pre-school age children in the Philippines (1966-74), b) organized and directed a multi-national project responsible for nationwide surveys of diet, lifestyle and mortality in the People's Republic of China (1983-present), c) was a co-author and member of National Academy of Science's expert panels on saccharin carcinogenicity (1978); food safety policy (1978-79); diet, nutrition and cancer (1981-82); research recommendations on diet, nutrition and cancer (1982-83); and food labeling policy (1989-1990), d) was the organizer and Co-Chair (but listed as Senior Science Advisor) of the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research report on international diet and cancer recommendations (1993-1997), e) was the principal witness for the National Academy of Sciences in two Federal Trade Commission hearings on issues concerning product-specific health claims (1984-1986), f) was Visiting Scholar at the Radcliffe Infirmary, University of Oxford/England (1985-1986), g) was the Senior Science Advisor for the American Institute for Cancer Research/World Cancer Research Fund (1983-1987, 1992-1997), h) presently holds an Honorary Professorship at the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and i) is on the Board of Directors of the Chinese Institute of Nutritional Sciences, the government's leading institution responsible for nutrition research and policy in China. He is the recipient of several awards, both in research and citizenship. In summary, he has conducted original research investigation both in experimental animal and human studies, and has actively participated in the development of national and international nutrition policy. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., Preventive Medicine Consultant, Director Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Reversal Program, Wellness Institute Cleveland Clinic Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., was born in New York City. At the age of 7 his father moved his medical practice to Upstate New York and he grew up on an Aberdeen Angus cattle farm. He received his AB degree from Yale University, his MD degree from Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1956, in Melbourne, Australia, pulling the No. 6 oar as a member of the victorious United States 8-oared rowing team, he was awarded a gold medal at the Olympic games. He was trained as a surgeon at The Cleveland Clinic and St. George's Hospital, London, England. As an army surgeon in Viet Nam in 1968 he was awarded the Bronze Star. At the Cleveland Clinic he has been President of the Staff and a member of its Board of Governors. He is the immediate past-Chairman of the Cleveland Clinic's Breast Cancer Task Force, and formerly Head of the Section of Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery. In 1985, frustrated with the absence of aggressive preventive medicine, he initiated his studies on ART (Arrest and Reversal Treatment) therapy in coronary artery disease. In 1991 he was President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. As Director and Program Chairman, he organized the 1st National Conference on the Elimination of Coronary Artery Disease held in Tucson, Arizona, October, 1991. A public television special seen in the United States and England in 1992 reported his research effort at arresting coronary artery disease. His scientific publications number over 150. "The Best Doctors in America", 1994-1995, published by Woodward and White cites Dr. Esselstyn's surgical expertise in the categories of endocrine and breast disease. In 1995 his bench mark long-term nutritional research arresting and reversing coronary artery disease progression in patients severely ill with coronary artery disease was published. That same study is now updated at beyond twenty years, making it one of the longest longitudinal studies of its type. It is most compelling as no compliant patients have sustained disease progression. In 1997, as Chairman and Program Director of the 2nd National Conference on Lipids in the Elimination and Prevention of Coronary Artery Disease, he presided at a gathering of over 500 physicians and health care workers. This national and international conference was the "Summit on Cholesterol & Coronary Disease" and in 1998 Dr. Esselstyn edited the Proceedings of that conference as a supplement to the American Journal of Cardiology. His research in progress indicates the reperfusion of blood and oxygen depleted heart muscle may occur as early as 3-6 weeks in patient achieving prompt profound cholesterol reduction, lessening the likelihood of angioplasty, stenting, or bypass surgery. For more information visit: Managing Director of Philippus Miller III & Associates LLC, a full service executive search firm serving hospitality entities worldwide with researching and identifying, negotiating with and assisting clients in retaining highly qualified managers and executives. Based in Ithaca, New York, Miller's firm also offers placement services for highly qualified Cornell (and other hotel school) graduates seeking high level employment opportunities in the hospitality industry. Miller's 20-plus years of international hospitality industry experience give him a comprehensive understanding of, and unparalleled connections within, the industry. He served as Director of Alumni Affairs for Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and Secretary of its alumni association, the Cornell Hotel Society, from 1993 to 2004. In this capacity he directed all operations of the most active alumni association in the world, with particular expertise in public relations, communications (both Web and print), loyalty programs, association management, executive search and networking; assisted the School's 10,000 plus students and alumni in all aspects of their careers and lifelong interaction with Cornell; served as Executive Editor of the alumni magazine, the Cornell Hotel Society Bulletin, and Managing Editor of the Cornell Hotel School magazine; supervised the operations of 60 alumni chapters worldwide, which called for frequent international travel; directed the efforts of more than 130 volunteers; and managed the transition from a largely print-based to a largely on-line information system. A 1983 graduate of the Cornell Hotel School, Miller spent 10 years following his graduation in various executive capacities in the hospitality industry. His first position was as a Corporate Management Trainee with Hyatt Hotels Corporation, based in Arizona. He was placed in Hyatt hotels in San Francisco and Washington DC, among others, and worked in every department, with a concentration in sales and marketing. Dr. Zarren is the Founder and Physician Director of The Healing Connection, a hospital based program at the Union Hospital, North Shore Medical Center, in Lynn, Massachusetts. The Healing Connection is a working practice that places people and the value of human interaction back into the center of the healing process. Dr. Zarren is also the Founder and Medical Director of the Healing Your Heart Program at the Union Hospital. Healing Your Heart is a low cost program for the treatment and reversal of heart disease. Since 1982, Dr. Zarren has been an Assistant Clinical Professor in Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Zarren is on the Boards of The Association of Healing Health Care Projects, the Integrated Medicine Alliance and The Food Studies Institute. He is a Patron of New Approaches to Cancer based in Surrey, England. He is currently President of the New England Society of Clinical Hypnosis. A physician trained in conventional Cardiology, Dr. Zarren's practice and approach to healing has included a focus on nutrition as a cornerstone of cardiac wellness and has emphasized hope, personal responsibility fostered by education, and the value of human relationships in the prevention and treatment of heart disease. In his professional efforts, Dr. Zarren is focused on the prevention and aggressive treatment of atherosclerosis (the number one cause of death in the United States). Dr. Zarren is also interested and involved in changing school nutrition as a way to implement disease prevention and as a way to improve student behavior in school. Dr. Zarren speaks and presents workshops around the United States and internationally.

Why Now Is the Time to Get Into 3-D Printing It's always interesting to see how much markets react whenever earnings reports or outlooks are issued by firms. Take for instance, the pessimistic outlooks issued by Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS ) and ExOne (NASDAQ: XONE ) . In more detail, Stratasys predicted that profit would only grow 22%, a figure that disappointed investors. On the other hand, ExOne decreased its 2013 revenue expectation to between $40 million and $42 million, below its initial estimate of $48 million. This news was not taken lightly by the market, with Stratasys falling by 8% and ExOne falling sharply as well. Long-term growthWhat's interesting is that minor events and corrections such as these shouldn't have a large impact on a long-term investing thesis, especially in an industry with plenty of untapped growth potential like 3-D printing. In my view, investors in 3-D printing should first be looking at strategic decisions and acquisitions made by these companies. Second, they could also examine moves by relevant manufacturing and software companies that could either provide increased demand for 3-D printing or complementary technologies that expand what is possible through 3-D printing. In an industry like this, short-term fluctuations in earnings should have very little influence on the value of these companies. So what does the long-term look like? One important consideration is that 3-D printer manufacturing has high barriers to entry, which means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for new entrants to come in and dominate established companies. That means that the rapidly growing demand for 3-D printers by manufacturing, medical, and other companies will be shared between a few dominant players that likely already exist. Furthermore, demand for 3-D printing is already forecasted to grow by 21% per year, eventually reaching $5 billion in 2017. And even if that figure conveniently does come from the Association of 3D Printing, the bottom line is that the industry is poised for significant future growth. Hence, in such a promising industry, the only risk to investors is investing in fundamentally uncompetitive companies that will eventually lose out to existing competitors. Basically, what we want to avoid is betting on the duds of 3-D printing. With this in mind let's look at some of the major players. The major playersStratasys and 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD ) are the two largest players in 3-D printer manufacturing. Indeed, both have made a number of significant acquisitions to become the leaders in this industry. Most notably, Stratasys in September 2013 bought out MakerBot for $403 million. What MakerBot does is manufacture more affordable 3-D printers, whose price point is more suitable for hobbyists. Thus, this acquisition gives Stratasys, a company traditionally focused on professional-grade 3-D printers for industrial customers, a very strong foothold in the consumer market. On the other hand, 3D Systems just completed its acquisition of Gentle Giant Studios, a leader in providing 3-D modelling for the entertainment and toy industries. Again, this should help the company reach a wider market and presents a positive outlook for future growth. Between 3D Systems and Stratasys, the former has been much more active on acquisitions. But although that may make it a larger player, not all of these have been entirely successful. For instance, a report by Citron Research notes that 3D Systems's Cube printers are significantly less well received by the public than MakerBot's. Furthermore, even though Stratasys's profit growth doesn't amaze investors, its revenue is forecast to grow at 40%, beating analyst expectations. This indicates that Stratasys is looking to invest a lot of money back into the company and its future. Indeed, at this point, Stratasys' growth prospects definitely seem more promising. Looking at another major competitor in the 3-D printing industry, ExOne, while not as high profile as the previous two, also has better future prospects than its current stock performance suggests. The main reason that ExOne decreased its revenue forecast was the delays in some of their overseas deals. To me, this shows that ExOne is managing to capture market demand from abroad, and will have added sales in the next period. In fact, in October 2013, the company began its construction of a new $20 million facility in Germany (forecast to be completed in late 2014) that will contain space for production, service, warehousing, and R&D. Of the three companies discussed, I believe ExOne is the most interesting, with its one-year sales growth figure of 122.9% (compared to 113.4% for Stratasys and 42.9% for 3D Systems). Given that ExOne is much smaller than the other two, it will likely find it easier to achieve high growth rates and could be an interesting target for more risk-tolerant investors. Foolish final thoughtsThus, it seems like 3-D printing companies were unfairly punished by the market as of late. Given the amount of activity we see being undertaken by each company, and the growth potential for 3-D printing, they are all likely solid bets for the future. Their current drops in share price, cause by exaggerated market reactions, present a great opportunity to purchase shares at a discount to their true value. 3-D printing is still relatively new and more and more applications of this technology have yet to be discovered. Once these are found, the value of these companies is likely to rise, thereby justifying current market prices. 3-D printing is probably best thought of as a long-term hold so purchasing small amounts over a period of time could be a good purchasing strategy to minimize risk. Additionally, it may be of interest to invest in all three of these companies since the massive potential upsides mean that growth in one may be enough to offset possible losses in others. That being said, Stratasys looks to be the most promising among the three given its current size and its decision to acquire top performers such as MakerBot. The end of the made-in-China era?For the first time since the early days of this country, we’re in a position to dominate the global manufacturing landscape thanks to a single, revolutionary technology: 3-D printing. Although this sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, the success of 3-D printing is already a foregone conclusion to many manufacturers around the world. The trick now is to identify the companies -- and thereby the stocks -- that will prevail in the battle for market share. To see the three companies that are currently positioned to do so, simply download our invaluable free report on the topic by clicking here now.

The Biggest Economic Opportunity of This Century Jack Uldrich | Venture capitalists are people, just like you and me. They put their pants on one leg at a time and they're prone to making investing mistakes just like the rest of us. That said, it's hard to deny that some VCs are clearly better than others. John Doerr is one of Silicon Valley's more successful and higher-profile VCs, with big wins including early investments in Symantec, Amazon.com, and more recently, Google. This success, I believe, gives his words some weight. So when he says that global warming is real and "cleantech" is "the biggest economic opportunity of this century," my ears -- and yours -- should perk up. The future for cleantech It's not that the idea of cleantech as a big investment opportunity is new. The Motley Fool, myself, and others have been writing about it for some time. Instead, it was Doerr's explanation of how cleantech can help address global warming that I found so interesting. He laid out four steps for solving global warming that, when viewed in aggregate, can provide investors with a useful framework for thinking about how to invest in cleantech. First, Doerr said the U.S. government should adopt a mandatory goal of reducing greenhouse gas 25% by 2010. This is an ambitious goal and, in an election year, I don't think it's likely. Nevertheless, I do believe some controls are coming, and investors can profit by understanding which companies are getting ahead of the curve and positioning themselves to benefit from government mandates. For instance, I have written before about Duke Energy's willingness to embrace mandates and explained how this progressive position -- when backed with strategic investments in cleaner coal-burning technologies and large-scale carbon sequestration and alternative fuel energy projects -- could position it ahead of its peers if and when government mandates on carbon emissions are imposed. Other large companies, including Alcoa (NYSE: AA ) and PG&E (NYSE: PCG ) , have joined in the calling for greater governmental involvement on the regulatory front. Second, Doerr called for the adoption of renewable sources such as solar, wind power, and fuel cell technology. The first two are hardly bold calls, but investors should give serious consideration to investments such as Motley Fool Rule Breakers recommendation Suntech Power. Another company with growing solar resources worth considering is Ascent Solar (Nasdaq: ASTI ) , which just announced its plans to increase production capacity to 100MW by 2011. In the wind field, Zoltek offers a unique way to profit from the growth of the sector; while in the long-beleaguered fuel cell sector, Ballard (Nasdaq: BLDP ) announced plans yesterday to provide fuel cell modules to a line of New Flyer Industries shuttle buses. Third, Doerr said the United States needs to reinvigorate its biofuels industry. To a degree, this is already happening. Archer Daniels Midland now has a 50-million-gallon facility in production and, last year, Imperial Renewables raised a substantial amount of venture capital to build a 100-million-gallon biodiesel facility. With the advent of tougher EPA regulations requiring cleaner-burning diesel -- which biodiesel meets -- the demand for biofuels could grow stronger in the near future. And both companies, by positioning themselves at the forefront of this biofuels "reinvigoration," could profit nicely from its expansion. This is also likely the reason that Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) is now working with Solazyme to produce biodiesel from algae. Another opportunity worth keeping an eye on is the area of hybrid technology. Companies such as A123 Systems, EEStor, and Altair are all continuing to make great strides in improving battery technology. On the automotive side, Daimler (NYSE: DAI ) is aggressively moving to produce plug-in hybrids by the end of the decade. Finally, Doerr said there needs to be more investment in technologies that can remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One interesting start-up to keep an eye on in this area is Global Research Technologies, but I would encourage investors to keep an eye on big boys such as Siemens (NYSE: SI ) . Cleaning up vast amounts of carbon dioxide is a big problem, and it could well take a large company to deliver the resources necessary to make a dent. Invest intelligently Investors looking for a more diversified approach to investing in renewable energy might want to consider the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy (PBW) exchange-traded fund. Alternatively, investors with a more conservative approach might want to look at a company like General Electric. While GE isn't a pure cleantech play, it recently announced a plan to increase by 50% -- to $6 billion -- the amount it invests annually in clean technologies. As a result, in the years ahead, investors can expect it to generate an increasing percentage of its revenue from alternative energies. The bottom line is that, like Doerr, our Motley Fool Rule Breakers team believes cleantech will be big. And while there will be many technologies and companies taking part in the solution, Fools should be strategic about how they want to approach the opportunity. After all, just because the opportunity is large doesn't mean everyone's profits will be, too. Fool contributor Jack Uldrich still puts his pants on one leg at a time, but they're nanomaterial pants that easily repel liquids and prevent staining. He owns shares of GE and Suntech Power. Symantec is an Inside Value recommendation. Duke Energy is an Income Investor choice. Amazon is a Stock Advisor selection. Suntech Power and PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy are Rule Breakers selections. The Fool has a strict disclosure policy.

I write about the changing food system. Thinking Outside The GMO Box Genetically Modified Organisms. Some argue they are the way to “feed the world” and that an exploding population will require them. Others see GMO technology as part of a corporate plot to take over fields and drive farmers into debt, while everything from pesticide use to allergies are on the rise because of them. And while that discussion is one we must have, the GMO debate is also distracting us from less sexy interventions which have worked to dramatically reduce hunger and malnutrition over the last fifty years, and are today in desperate need of our continued support. These successful programs had a remarkable impact on the number in need today because they made small scale farmers more profitable and families more self reliant, diets more diverse and children and adults better educated. “Success [is] not simply about increasing the physical supply of food,” states “Millions Fed,” a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute. “Rather, [successes] are about reductions in hunger that result…from a change in an individual’s ability to secure quality food.” “Nutrition is multifaceted – it involves access to food, water and sanitation, hygiene, disease and infection, poverty,” says Nancy Haselow, Vice President of the Helen Keller International (HKI), and Regional Director for Asia Pacific. “There is no single solution to solve malnutrition, so we need to provide multiple and synergistic interventions, a combination of approaches is best. Sustainable solutions that can be left in the community, are owned by the community, and put tools and knowledge and skills in the hands of mothers and fathers are important to addressing the problem.” A myriad of initiatives, non-reliant on GMO technology, have already proven successful in reducing hunger. For example, Helen Keller International has successfully impacted more than five million people with long lasting nutritional, economic and educational changes through their Homestead Food Program. Another example is BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee) which now has 97,000 women “shasthya shebika” (health workers) in Bangladesh alone, working to bring micronutrient powders and basic health care services (including education on critical topics like breastfeeding) to extremely rural communities. And by using already-available, proven, and cost effective storage methods, African small-scale farmers are able to safely store food, like cowpeas – a staple food high in iron and protein – and to therefore benefit from their consumption and sale. Likewise in India and Tanzania, farmers are now using Zero Energy Cool Chamber technology to ensure valuable food is not wasted. Perhaps most importantly, holistic, community based solutions like home gardens, diet diversification and better food storage (which means less waste of precious resources) are critical elements in creating a better future in a climate-changing world. A new report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) found that “international policy discussions remain heavily focused on increasing industrial agricultural production, mostly under the slogan “growing more food at less cost to the environment.” But, the study found, hunger is not caused by a lack of food but by “a lack of purchasing power and/or the inability of the rural poor to be self-sufficient.” “The world needs a paradigm shift in agricultural development from a “green revolution” to an “ecological intensification” approach. This implies a rapid and significant shift from conventional, monoculture-based and input-dependent industrial production towards…sustainable, regenerative production systems.” Yet unlike “GMOs” – which do continue to promote conventional, monoculture-based, input dependent agriculture – most of us have never heard of “dietary diversification” projects. We know nothing of the shasthya shebika health workers or of a system of crop intensification that increases rice, wheat and other crop yields while using less water and seed. And that lack of discussion and knowledge is exemplified in a lack of support for these critical programs. “It has been excruciatingly difficult to get funding for the Homestead Food Program.” says Nancy Haselow of HKI. “For me, it’s a no brainer – you see a family growing vegetables, their kids looking chubby and healthy, and they have a sense of doing it themselves. But over the past 10-15 years, we have raised only about $25-28 million for all our Homestead Food Production Programs in Asia Pacific.” Instead, donors have been seduced by talk of “easy,” high tech solutions and despite the proven successes of these alternative programs, the drive to increase production via improved seeds and fertilizer, charges on. You can follow Beth Hoffman @BethFoodAg ‘non-GMO approaches to food and nutrition security which are already successfully proven and being utilized throughout the world.’ Really, then why this?? ….from the UN Standing Committee: Vitamin A deficiency affects some 160 million preschool children in low-income countries, with prevalence estimated at about 30%. This prevalence – measured as low serum retinol – is improving at somewhat less than 0.5 percentage points per year. At that rate, it will take low-income countries more than 50 years to get to levels typical of industrialized countries.’ and…. ‘less sexy interventions which have worked to dramatically reduce hunger and malnutrition over the last fifty years, and are today in desperate need of our continued support.’ In India alone, in 2008 there were 60 MILLION kids under the age of 5 who were malnourished. Sounds like you’re blaming the Green Revolution for this situation. But then again without this productive ‘evil monocropping’ that malnourishment might just morph into outright famine, as it did BRFORE Dr. Borlaug got involved. Beth, you’re building a bit of a strawman again by suggesting that proponents of the use of GM crops see them as the (only) solution to world hunger. That’s not the case. Most expert I know and papers I read simply say that genetic engineering is a useful tool – NOT a silver bullet – that should not be discarded (or outright banned because of what is nothing more than ideological reasons). While there may be individuals who exaggerate, you can find those on all sides… Of course nutrition is multifaceted and requires a host of tools – but why then arbitrarily exclude one? Another point is one of cost-effectiveness: In a world of limited resources it’s not enough that something “works”, it has to work and be cheaper in achieving a desired outcome than the next best alternative. And that’s where hard data on home gardens is scarce. I do not doubt that they work, but the money spent on such projects could be better spent on other interventions that may not have the appeal of gardening but that have a bigger impact on nutrition and public health (because the same amount of money can fund more and larger projects). That’s already what I commented on your previous article here: - and that’s also what a new review of home gardens found: “whether or not food production in gardens contributes to better nutritional outcomes, in particular in children and women, remains an issue of debate in the absence of statistically sound methods for its determination… home and community gardens are one, but not the only means, of achieving more sustainable development with a nutrition and health focus.” And of course food security is not only achieved through producing more, of course distribution also matters – and inequality certainly is too high (whether at the global or national level). However, it’s again not a question of one or the other, black or white: Distribution matters, but in a world with a still growing population, where dietary change drives up demand (because of more resource-intensive meat consumption), where the production of renewable resources competes with food production for land use, etc., better distribution only gets us that far. Since the days of Malthus what has kept his predictions from coming true was technological change: population grew exponentially in his days and food availability with business-as-usual was on a linear trend – but new technologies helped keep food availability more or less in line with the increasing demand. And as you suggest plastic bags for cost-effective and better storage, obviously you are not against the use of new approaches or even the use of something as “unnatural” as plastic bags. So why oppose GM crops where they can have a role to play and where studies show that they are more cost-effective than alternatives? Regarding “the drive to increase production via improved seeds and fertilizer, charges on”. Indeed, synthetic fertilisers are necessary because organic approaches that produce acceptable yields only work because they “free-ride” on the manure they get from conventional agriculture. If no synthetic fertilisers were used not enough food could be produced: And as you refer to HKI, also for home gardens improved seeds (which you seem to reject) are important! “Low quality of inputs is a serious constraint for vegetable production. An important input in vegetable cultivation is seeds. The use of good-quality seeds is an essential prerequisite for optimal production. The majority of farmers in Cambodia use vegetable seeds which they produce themselves. However, the variety is very limited and of poor quality.” http://www.hki.org/research/Home%20_Gardening_Cambodia.pdf The right mix – no single solutions – of interventions to reduce hunger and micronutrient malnutrition should not depend on one’s gut feeling or ideology but on an objective assessment of the impacts, the potential for scaling-up, the time frames, costs, benefits, funding constraints, etc. Simply discarding one or pushing another interventions does not help those whom you say you want to be helped. (And if in such an analysis is turns out that in one case home gardens are best and in another the development or distribution of GM seeds – or both, as they are not mutually exclusive – then that’s fine with me.) Well put, Alexander. Back in the stone age when I was learning transformation on vegetable crops, the company I worked for was dominated (and still is) by classical plant breeders. We were talking about biotech one day and he said to me, and I’ll never forget it, “One gene will never turn a crappy line into a good one.” And indeed, there is “Less discussion because non-GMO approaches aren’t attacked, seen as non-controversial. Pretty obvious.” Those who see benefits in the use of modern biotechnology also in agriculture (or who see benefits in the use of quality seeds or of synthetic fertilisers for that matter) generally do not oppose or reject home gardens per se. Unfortunately this is not the case with the use of GMOs in agriculture, which certain people oppose without reserve — thereby not hesitating to sacrifice a technology that already brings benefits also for the poor and malnourished [1-3]. [1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220380903002954 “Bt cotton adoption increases returns to labour, especially for hired female workers. Likewise, aggregate household incomes rise, including for poor and vulnerable farmers. Hence, Bt cotton contributes to poverty reduction and rural development.” [2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203647109 “Bt cotton adoption has raised consumption expenditures, a common measure of household living standard, by 18% during the 2006–2008 period… Bt cotton has created large and sustainable benefits, which contribute to positive economic and social development in India.” [3] “The adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.” (For more studies, especially reviews, see e.g. http://ajstein.tumblr.com/post/40504136918#_Toc345861811) Hi again Alexander, No, no strawmen here. I am not claiming that people see genetic engineering as the only solution. But clearly the excitement over these articles and your lengthy responses every time you see someone disagreeing with the gospel of GMO efficiency, confirm my premise that you, and many others, are obsessed with the technology and its promise. Why not put a tenth of this energy you have into studying and improving other projects, which despite your claims, are actually also cost effectively helping to solve world hunger today? Why not do what you wrote about in your own article and create a way to measure what you claim to know: “Evaluation methods need to be developed… that allow the… measurement of the effects of gardening on human health and nutrition, as well as environmental sustainability and economic outcomes.” In other words, there is little data that actually exists on the topic, and yet you firmly state again and again that gardens and similar programs are not cost effective. Additionally, your data regarding cost efficiency is simply incorrect – HKI as stated in the article above has spent $28 million over 10-15 years, and impacted more than 5 million individuals. You calculations as to the cost effectiveness of gardens and other programs have HKI and others spending far more than they actually have. Additionally, the numbers you cite for the cost of Golden Rice include a single Gates Foundation grant, not the years of R&D expense by both foundations and private companies like Syngenta. You have also compared apples and twinkies in your calculations – you cannot compare a comprehensive program like gardening which addresses a multitude of issues (Vitamin A, Iron and other malnutrition deficiencies, nutrition education, gender equality, etc) to an intervention which targets a single problem. Even supplements are not a good comparison since each time they are administered, many other health care issues are addressed, as is the case I cited above with BRAC’s workers (who are also, by the way, also then making a living providing health care). And your assertion that “the money spent on such projects could be better spent on other interventions” is appalling. Even if the Homestead Food Program and others like it were prohibitively expensive (which they are not), are you really arguing that a project which gives people the knowledge and means to help themselves should be disregarded for one that instead “gives a man a fish”? The issue with gardening, post-harvest waste and other programs is that they take time and commitment, of which there is a limited amount while donors and foundations instead fixate on faster, more “cost effective” solutions. Yes, perhaps there is a place for Golden Rice in the mix, but my point here is that if brilliant people like you insist on talking only about genetic engineering and no other viable, proven, cost effective programs, we will have missed an opportunity for real systemic change (and education from the ground up). Thanks for reading. Beth Beth, you yourself fan the flames, so to say, by pitching your articles through references to GMOs (or by talking them down to talk your preferred approaches up). It is as Dan Fagin has pointed out: About other approaches there is “Less discussion because non-GMO approaches aren’t attacked, seen as non-controversial. Pretty obvious.” () This is exactly where the “excitement” comes from. Of course it is good if people can tend a kitchen garden and of course it is best if people can manage to eat a diverse diet. How should there be a discussion? Nobody denies it. But explicitly or only insinuated, you and others suggest that there are problems with GMOs, that they should not be used, that Golden Rice is a bad idea, etc. So of course there are objections and people try to offer context and to provide clarifications: It is simply not true that GMOs are bad or would not contribute to improve food security; there is clear evidence that GM crops already bring benefits also for the poor and malnourished. To quote but a few recent studies: “Bt cotton adoption increases returns to labour, especially for hired female workers. Likewise, aggregate household incomes rise, including for poor and vulnerable farmers. Hence, Bt cotton contributes to poverty reduction and rural development.” http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220380903002954 “Bt cotton adoption has raised consumption expenditures, a common measure of household living standard, by 18% during the 2006–2008 period… Bt cotton has created large and sustainable benefits, which contribute to positive economic and social development in India.” http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203647109 “The adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.” (For more studies, especially reviews, see e.g. http://ajstein.tumblr.com/post/40504136918#_Toc345861811) Usually I keep out of the entire GMO discussion, but in the case of Golden Rice I just happen to have a certain degree of knowledge, at least when it comes to its potential impact and cost-effectiveness, because I did my PhD on this topic. It is not a particular obsession; it’s just that that’s where my expertise lies. This does not mean that I do not put my energy into other things, too. It is exactly for this reason that I keep out of the wider GMO discussion: There is indeed more to do. Also in this particular case I didn’t volunteer my comments, I simply responded to your message on Twitter (http://twitter.com/BethFoodAg/status/390854361204928512). Hence it is a bit disingenuous to start the fire yourself, to kindle the flames, to invite others to add more fuel, and to then criticise that there is a lot of fire (i.e. excitement)… Another source for the “excitement” comes from the unsupported claims you make, also in your current response. For instance, you write that “other projects… are actually also cost effectively helping to solve world hunger today” or “other viable, proven, cost effective programs”. Yet you fail to provide proper studies that show this cost-effectiveness. You simply repeat the claim over and again, but this does not substitute real evidence. In itself, this doesn’t mean that home gardens cannot be cost-effective, but suggesting they are – without evidence – while at the same time harping on about the costs (but not the benefits) of Golden Rice, of course invites a response that balances your claims. You yourself admit that “there is little data that actually exists on the topic” (of home gardens), whereas there are various studies on biofortification (Golden Rice but also other crops) that all indicate that this is indeed a promising and cost-effective solution. So the reason I respond is simply to set that record straight. I think I repeated often enough that I do not reject home garden, dietary diversity or nutrition education projects as such. Certainly not. Especially in the long run dietary diversity is the most desirable solutions. But on the other hand there is good evidence for the potential of Golden Rice – evidence that you ignore or discard and instead suggest that the focus should be put on your subjectively preferred interventions. I don’t suggest Golden Rice is the only solution, and I always say that a mix of interventions is needed, i.e. I do not promote Golden Rice at the cost of other interventions, whereas I have the impression that that’s exactly what you do: You criticise one valid intervention to elevate others. If you do as you did at the end of your response, i.e. acknowledge that there can be a place for Golden Rice in the mix of interventions, then people like me will feel less the need to jump in to set the record straight and provide missing information. I certainly do not object to other nutrition programmes, including home gardens. In the case of the latter I simply would like to see more evidence on their impact and cost-effectiveness. And I would certainly welcome if a brilliant person does their PhD on that… This does not mean that work on them should be stopped, but knowing how much impact can be had with the money that is put into such projects would help to determine the right mix of interventions. And here your example of the “give a man a fish” comes in handy as a hopefully useful illustration. As I see it, the question is not if we should give a man a fish or teach him to fish. The question we are facing is perhaps more akin to having funds to teach 3 villages per year how to fish or to give fish to 1500 hungry villages. The ideal solution is to teach people to fish, but this leaves 1497 villages hungry. On the other hand, not teaching anybody to fish is not sustainable in the long run. But what about splitting the funds to teach 1 village per year how to fish and using the rest of the funds to give fish to 1000 villages? Or rather, we do not exactly know how many villages we can teach to fish with the funds we have, so making a decision on how to split the funds is even more difficult. My concern is simply that by focusing (only) on teaching to fish, a few will be helped with an ideal solution, but all the hundreds of others (or millions in the real world) will remain hungry. If a less than perfect but more affordable solution can help those millions, why discard it? So, indeed, and if a sensible mix of interventions is out of the question, to some extent I prefer to help more (albeit with a less than perfect solution) than to help only a selected few (with a perfect solution). Perhaps this is the same reason why “donors and foundations instead fixate on faster, more ‘cost effective’ solutions.” You may be content to help a few with a perfectionist approach and suppress the fate of the many by telling yourself that at least you did the “right” thing, but taking the position that one should also care about the many is at least as valid. Regarding your numbers, you say the last decade or so HKI spent $28 million on home gardens and “impacted” more than 5 million people. (But HKI has an annual budget of more than $200 million, so why do they decide to spend only a fraction of it on home gardens?) On the other hand, in our assessment of Golden Rice (http://www.ajstein.de/cv/golden_rice.htm#golden), I estimated that $28 million have to be spent on Golden Rice to cut the burden of vitamin A deficiency by more than half, and with this intervention not only 5 million can be reached but many, many millions more. (India is a country of 1,200 million people, more than half of whom eat rice – even if not all of them are at risk of VAD, and not all of them will be targeted with Golden Rice.) But back to your numbers, what does it mean to “impact” people? How much is this impact, how much good does it do? How comparable is a household that gets two daily portions of greens from their home garden compared to a household that gets one portion per fortnight? What if the household sells the veggies on the market to spend the money on other (important) stuff? In our assessment we looked at actual consumption data and we quantified the “impact” using a clear and widely used and acknowledge health metric (disability-adjusted life years). Your claim that Golden Rice and other interventions cannot be compared is a disingenuous excuse to be able to disregard a result that you apparently don’t like. Of course they can be compared. If gardening (incl. nutrition education) helps address various micronutrient deficiencies, then the impact on all of them can be quantified (I did analyses not only of Golden Rice but e.g. also of iron-rich and zinc-rich rice). If you claim that gardening has an impact on gender equality, then this impact must be apparent one way or the other, i.e. it must be possible to assess the magnitude of the impact. (Otherwise, how do you know if/that there is an impact?) If gardening provides additional income to some members of the household, then this is a clear (and easily quantified) benefit – even if it would mean there is less of a nutrition impact. If gardening impacts other gender dimensions, these can be captured at least qualitatively (see. e.g. IFPRI’s Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index) and reported along with the qualitative results for the impact of gardening, etc. … The full/remaining comments is posted here, as the wordcount in this comment section is limited: http://ajstein.tumblr.com/post/64361733855/ I hope there is an innocuous reason that my previous post has not been published? Here it goes again: Beth, you yourself fan the flames, so to say, by pitching your articles through references to GMOs (or by talking them down to talk your preferred approaches up). It is as Dan Fagin has pointed out: About other approaches there is “Less discussion because non-GMO approaches aren’t attacked, seen as non-controversial. Pretty obvious.” This is exactly where the “excitement” comes from. Of course it is good if people can tend a kitchen garden and of course it is best if people can manage to eat a diverse diet. How should there be a discussion? Nobody denies it. But explicitly or only insinuated, you and others suggest that there are problems with GMOs, that they should not be used, that Golden Rice is a bad idea, etc. So of course there are objections and people try to offer context and to provide clarifications: It is simply not true that GMOs are bad or would not contribute to improve food security; there is clear evidence that GM crops already bring benefits also for the poor and malnourished. To quote but a few recent studies: “Bt cotton adoption increases returns to labour, especially for hired female workers. Likewise, aggregate household incomes rise, including for poor and vulnerable farmers. Hence, Bt cotton contributes to poverty reduction and rural development.” “Bt cotton adoption has raised consumption expenditures, a common measure of household living standard, by 18% during the 2006–2008 period… Bt cotton has created large and sustainable benefits, which contribute to positive economic and social development in India.” “The adoption of GM cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality, resulting from increased family incomes. This technology has reduced food insecurity by 15–20% among cotton-producing households. GM crops alone will not solve the hunger problem, but they can be an important component in a broader food security strategy.” (And there are many more studies and reviews thereof.) Usually I keep out of the entire GMO discussion, but in the case of Golden Rice I just happen to have a certain degree of knowledge, at least when it comes to its potential impact and cost-effectiveness, because I did my PhD on this topic. It is not a particular obsession; it’s just that that’s where my expertise lies. This does not mean that I do not put my energy into other things, too. It is exactly for this reason that I keep out of the wider GMO discussion: There is indeed more to do. Also, in this case I didn’t volunteer my comments, I simply responded to your message on Twitter. Hence it is a bit disingenuous to start the fire yourself, to kindle the flames, to invite others to add more fuel, and to then criticise that there is a lot of fire (i.e. excitement)… Another source for the “excitement” comes from the unsupported claims you make, also in your current response. For instance, you write that “other projects… are actually also cost effectively helping to solve world hunger today” or “other viable, proven, cost effective programs”. Yet you fail to provide proper studies that show this cost-effectiveness. You simply repeat the claim over and again, but this does not substitute real evidence. In itself, this doesn’t mean that home gardens cannot be cost-effective, but suggesting they are – without evidence – while at the same time harping on about the costs (but not the benefits) of Golden Rice, of course invites a response that balances your claims. You yourself admit that “there is little data that actually exists on the topic” (of home gardens), whereas there are various studies on biofortification (Golden Rice but also other crops) that all indicate that this is indeed a promising and cost-effective solution. So the reason I respond is simply to set that record straight. I think I repeated often enough that I do not reject home garden, dietary diversity or nutrition education projects as such. Certainly not. Especially in the long run dietary diversity is the most desirable solutions. But on the other hand there is good evidence for the potential of Golden Rice – evidence that you ignore or discard and instead suggest that the focus should be put on your subjectively preferred interventions. I don’t suggest Golden Rice is the only solution, and I always say that a mix of interventions is needed, i.e. I do not promote Golden Rice at the cost of other interventions, whereas I have the impression that that’s exactly what you do: You criticise one valid intervention to elevate others. If you do as you did at the end of your response, i.e. acknowledge that there can be a place for Golden Rice in the mix of interventions, then people like me will feel less the need to jump in to set the record straight and provide missing information. I certainly do not object to other nutrition programmes, including home gardens. In the case of the latter I simply would like to see more evidence on their impact and cost-effectiveness. And I would certainly welcome if a brilliant person does their PhD on that… This does not mean that work on them should be stopped, but knowing how much impact can be had with the money that is put into such projects would help to determine the right mix of interventions. And here your example of the “give a man a fish” comes in handy as a hopefully useful illustration. As I see it, the question is not if we should give a man a fish or teach him to fish. The question we are facing is perhaps more akin to having funds to teach 3 villages per year how to fish or to give fish to 1500 hungry villages. The ideal solution is to teach people to fish, but this leaves 1497 villages hungry. On the other hand, not teaching anybody to fish is not sustainable in the long run. But what about splitting the funds to teach 1 village per year how to fish and using the rest of the funds to give fish to 1000 villages? Or rather, we do not exactly know how many villages we can teach to fish with the funds we have, so making a decision on how to split the funds is even more difficult. My concern is simply that by focusing (only) on teaching to fish, a few will be helped with an ideal solution, but all the hundreds of others (or millions in the real world) will remain hungry. If a less than perfect but more affordable solution can help those millions, why discard it? So, indeed, and if a sensible mix of interventions is out of the question, to some extent I prefer to help more (albeit with a less than perfect solution) than to help only a selected few (with a perfect solution). Perhaps this is the same reason why “donors and foundations instead fixate on faster, more ‘cost effective’ solutions.” You may be content to help a few with a perfectionist approach and suppress the fate of the many by telling yourself that at least you did the “right” thing, but taking the position that one should also care about the many is at least as valid. Regarding your numbers, you say the last decade or so HKI spent $28 million on home gardens and “impacted” more than 5 million people. (But HKI has an annual budget of more than $200 million, so why do they decide to spend only a fraction of it on home gardens?) On the other hand, in our assessment of Golden Rice, I estimated that $28 million have to be spent on Golden Rice to cut the burden of vitamin A deficiency by more than half, and with this intervention not only 5 million can be reached but many, many millions more. (India is a country of 1,200 million people, more than half of whom eat rice – even if not all of them are at risk of VAD, and not all of them will be targeted with Golden Rice.) But back to your numbers, what does it mean to “impact” people? How much is this impact, how much good does it do? How comparable is a household that gets two daily portions of greens from their home garden compared to a household that gets one portion per fortnight? What if the household sells the veggies on the market to spend the money on other (important) stuff? In our assessment we looked at actual consumption data and we quantified the “impact” using a clear and widely used and acknowledge health metric (disability-adjusted life years). Your claim that Golden Rice and other interventions cannot be compared is a disingenuous excuse to be able to disregard a result that you apparently don’t like. Of course they can be compared. If gardening (incl. nutrition education) helps address various micronutrient deficiencies, then the impact on all of them can be quantified (I did analyses not only of Golden Rice but e.g. also of iron-rich and zinc-rich rice). If you claim that gardening has an impact on gender equality, then this impact must be apparent one way or the other, i.e. it must be possible to assess the magnitude of the impact. (Otherwise, how do you know if/that there is an impact?) If gardening provides additional income to some members of the household, then this is a clear (and easily quantified) benefit – even if it would mean there is less of a nutrition impact. If gardening impacts other gender dimensions, these can be captured at least qualitatively (see. e.g. IFPRI’s Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index) and reported along with the qualitative results for the impact of gardening, etc. … Due to the limited wordcount I could not post the entire response, which can be found here, incl. various supporting links: http://ajstein.tumblr.com/post/64361733855/ Alexander, That is a lucid, interesting, and well-supported response. To parrot your first point, I also find it disingenuous of Beth to claim that commenters twist the discussion to GMOs. It is in the title (click bait… you got me). It is the first three words. It is five times in the short essay. It is in scare quotes half way through the essay. I believe an instructor in journalism would be perfectly well aware of the tone and intent. I also find Beth’s dismissal of the need for improved cultivars and fertilizer puzzling (last sentence of the essay). I could only imagine that statement from someone uneducated in plant physiology, agriculture, and genetics. I will take her at her word and hope that she meant to say that ‘along with the programs I mentioned we should continue to develop and freely distribute the best cultivars available’. That is certainly my belief. death to corporate industrial agriculture! bring on the sustainable revolution! respect for the dignity of the small farmer! this initiative is strong in latin america and is awakening in the US, for example with the 522 ballot measure in washington. Thank you Forbes for this excellent article, you are known for writing honest, critical articles despite being a stalwart for capitalism. let’s not let the baby-boomer swine who staff these corporate jobs have their way, as they high-five each other for their achievements in deregulation, buying out politicians, polluting our lands, destroying small farmers and threatening the world’s flora and fauna.

Study Suggests Benefit For Beta Blockers During Noncardiac Surgery The use of perioperative beta-blockade for noncardiac surgery has been declining as a result of the controversial POISE study, which turned up evidence for harm associated with extended-release metoprolol in this setting. Now a large new observational study published in JAMA offers a contrary perspective by suggesting that perioperative beta-blockade may be beneficial in low- to intermediate-risk patients. But without better evidence the debate about this topic is unlikely to be resolved. Martin London and colleagues performed a retrospective analysis of 136,745 patients who underwent noncardiac surgery at VA hospitals, 40% of whom received beta-blockade. Beta-blockers were used more frequently in vascular surgery patients and in patients who were at higher cardiovascular risk, as indicated by a greater number of Revised Cardiac Risk Index factors. Over the course of the study period, from January 2005 through August 2010, the rate of beta-blockade declined from 43.5% to 36.2%, a finding likely related to the publication of the POISE study in 2008. Overall, the mortality rate was 1.1% and the cardiac morbidity rate was 0.9%. After propensity matching, beta-blockade was associated with lower mortality (RR 0.73, CI 0.65-0.83, p P < .001) and cardiac complications (RR 0.67, CI 0.57 – 0.79, p<.001). The difference was significant only in patients with 2 or more Revised Cardiac Risk Index factors and only in the group of nonvascular surgery patients. The authors speculated that the lack of effect in the nonvascular surgery patients may have been due to the smaller sample size and that some beta-blocker usage in this group may not have been captured in the database. The risk of stroke– which was elevated in the beta-blocker group in POISE– was not significantly different between the groups in the VA analysis. The authors concluded that their results “ighlight a need for a randomized multicenter trial of perioperative beta-blockade in low- to intermediate-risk patients scheduled for noncardiac surgery.”

I write about time management and productivity. Five Ways of Bringing Any Human Organization to Its Knees Most of us have at least one war story to tell about how we put a great deal of personal effort into a group project, only to see the group fall flat on its face, and the objectives left by the wayside. The good news is, leaders who understand a few common reasons groups lose their way can usually take steps to keep the team together – and better still, keep the group performing at optimal levels. Most of the time organizations fall apart, no matter how big the group is, it’s for one of five reasons. A good leader will keep his or her eye on all five of these potential show stoppers and make sure none occur – or if they do occur, that they are quickly remedied: 1: Misunderstood mission: Each of the individuals who make up an organization has to know the mission of the organization. When people know the values and principals of the team they can make decisions on their own by simply comparing the options against the organization’s mission. It’s up to the leaders to make sure everybody knows what the group stands for. Does the organization exist to make profit for shareholders, while at the same time providing environmentally-friendly products? Does the organization exist to save the lives of children in Africa by making medicine available at reduced cost in remote areas? Does the organization exist to protect civil liberties by making sure the government doesn’t infringe on the rights of individuals? The clearest missions can be expressed in one sentence that should be repeated over and over again, so everybody knows why the group exists and what values hold it together. 2: Lack of consensus on the situation and the nature of problems facing the team: Members of a team need to understand how the team fits within its environment; and they need to have a common view of the problems the group has to solve. Is the team getting an unclear definition of requirements from clients? Is the team getting handed unreasonable deadlines? Is the team viewed as worst in class by other teams within the company? Leaders have to make sure the group has a common view of where the group sits, and what the group is up against. After all, individuals can’t work together to find solutions until they first agree on the nature of the problems. 3: Misunderstood strategy and approach: Team members need to know what the strategy is and what approach will be used to implement that strategy. Is the team going to fulfill its mission by building products faster than anybody else? Is the team going to overcome a sales shortfall by picking up market share in a specific segment? Is the team going to provide vaccinations in Africa by pressuring large pharmaceutical companies to lower prices. If the strategy is to build products faster than anybody else, how will that strategy be implemented? Will the team invest more money in tools? Or will the team train people to work better and faster? Leaders have to make sure all individuals understand the strategy and approach they have selected to meet group objectives. 4: Lack of team cohesion: People need a sense of identity and of belonging; and above all, people need to be able to trust their leaders and other team members. All human structures exist because the majority of the individuals in the group believe the structure will continue to exist. Furthermore, group members need to believe other group members will do what they say they’ll do, and group members have to believe in team rules and procedures. Leaders have to promote trust within the group; and they have to ensure that each individual feels part of the group. 5: Lack of resources: Organizations need resources in a timely manner. If the team can’t get the tools and materials it needs to get the job done, it won’t get the job done – and morale will suffer as a result of the frustration felt by each individual. Does the group have enough laptops to support the sales staff? Does the group have the right software to support its business processes? Does the group have enough money to send individuals to where they need to be to get the job done? Leaders need to go outside the group to make sure the group gets everything it needs to do its work. I am the author of the book Master The Moment: fifty CEOs teach you the secrets of time management, affiliated professor at Grenoble Graduate School of Business (GGSB) and Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM), I make companies more productive by training executives on time management and personal effectiveness using a unique methodology, which is based on exclusive tips from the world’s busiest CEOs, and grounded in psychology research. Before embarking on this mission, I had the great fortune of working in high-tech for twenty two years. Having began my career at several startups around Washington D.C., I then moved to Europe where I held senior positions with three large organizations (Computer Sciences Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, and Sybase). Most of my corporate experience focused on applying technology to enhance workforce effectiveness. Now from my home in the French Alps, I’m doing my best to take productivity to another level by unveiling the secrets of high achievers. On a more personal note, one might say I’ve come full circle with French culture. Born and raised in New Orleans, it was in the smoky bars of southern Louisiana, early in my adult life, that I concluded I could never make a decent living playing blues guitar or imitating Jimmy Page on my ’69 Stratocaster. Once I got over this harsh reality, I went on to earn a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science from Loyola University New Orleans and Johns Hopkins University, respectively.

Nerd Camp! A Solution to the Dwindling Cybersecurity Workforce? By Zoe Grotophorst Image via NinaMalyna/Shutterstock.com Growing up, I spent two summers learning physics and archaeology in Southwest Virginia at “enrichment camp.” What is "enrichment camp," you might ask? A playful euphemism employed by my parents to hide where I really was those two summers: nerd camp. Yes, nerd camp. And nerd camp might just be the solution to one of the nation's most pressing job shortages--the increasing demand for well-trained cybersecurity professionals. Today, the US cannot produce enough computer scientists to fill current job openings. Speaking Thursday morning on a panel hosted by Women in International Security (WIIS), Cynthia Dion-Schwarz of the National Science Foundation (NSF) said this gap between supply and demand is troubling during a time when attacks on the nation’s critical infrastructure are escalating. The U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC), a nationwide talent search and skills development program, seeks to close this gap by getting young people excited about cybersecurity. USCC hosts a number of online competitions that offer a way for high school, college, and post-graduate students to compete in cyber-related challenges. Government has been embracing all kinds of challenges and incentives in efforts to cut costs and improve efficiency (see Challenge.gov), but USCC presents a unique public-private partnership that could improve recruitment within the federal workforce. Contestants, which can range from high school, college, up to post-graduate students—compete in an online competition for a trip to “cyber camp,” a weeklong training experience that includes workshops with university faculty and cybersecurity experts and concludes in the ever-popular “virtual capture the flag” event. The winners of capture the flag receive a signed certificate from the President’s Cybersecurity Coordinator. Another part of the camp experience includes a job fair, where participants can connect with potential employers. USCC National Director Karen Evans said there is a disconnect on how we’re classifying jobs. Many are hard to find, even if you are looking specifically for cybersecurity jobs. “When you go onto USAJobs.com and type in cyber security, you get 2 or 3 jobs,” she said. Through cyber summer camps, USCC hopes to expose America’s young people to the opportunities available in the field of cybersecurity. According to Evans, it’s working. “USCC builds on the competitive spirit,” she said. “In the high school competitions we have 20 states participating.” One capture the flag winner attached her certificate signed by former Obama Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt to her college applications. The student was accepted on a full-ride to Carnegie Mellon and credits her success to the USCC program. Though USCC is working to raise awareness and build skills necessary for the cybersecurity workforce, other professions may be facing similar problems. Is your organization concerned about finding enough skilled workers to fill critical positions? What are you doing to improve recruitment and retention?

Rare Fossil Points to Toxic Oceans in Devonian Period A study, published in the journal Geology, shows that hydrogen sulphide dependant organisms � known as Chlorobi � and sulphate-reducing bacteria had preserved the shell and the muscles of the crab-like creature.�The research presents organic geochemistry as a new tool for paleontologists, enabling them to identify invertebrate fossils and reconstruct their environments from a molecular point of view,� explained lead author Ines Melendez, a PhD student at the Curtin University.

Matthew 4:18-22 July 09, 1978 Matthew Chapter 4, one of the most wonderful texts in all the word of God because that great statement of our Lord is here, "Follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men." Some years ago I was reading the Presbyterian Journal and I read this parable and I thought it was a fitting way to introduce our thoughts from Matthew 4 tonight. This is what it said: "On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and with no thought for them selves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful lifesaving station so it became famous. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and their money and their effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new lifesaving crews were trained and the little lifesaving station grew. "Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots and beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it as sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club's decorations and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club held its initiations. "About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the hired crews brought in loads of cold, wet, half drowned people. They were dirty and sick and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was considerably messed up so the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out they were still called a lifesaving station, but they were finally voted down and told if they wanted to save the lives of various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast a little ways, which they did. "As the years went by the new station experienced the same changes that occurred in the old one. It evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself and if you visit that coast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters but most of the people drown." What a simple and striking illustration of the history of the church. But the work of lifesaving and the work of evangelism is nonetheless the purist and the truest and the noblest and the most essential work the church will ever do. The work of evangelism, the work of fishing men, as it were, out of the sea of sin, the work of rescuing people from the breakers of hell is the greatest work the church will ever do. It is God's great concern. I John 4 tells us, "We only love Him because He first loved us." And John 3:16 tells us, "That God so loved the world that He gave." The greatest work in the heart of God, the greatest concern in the mind of God is evangelism. Winning the lost is God's great concern. It is also Christ's great concern. Luke 19:10 says, "For the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." The work of winning the lost is God's concern and Christ's concern, and also the greatest concern of the Holy Spirit, for it is the Holy Spirit who comes, according to John 16, to convict men of sin and righteousness and of judgment. It is the Holy Spirit who comes upon the church and after we have received the Holy Spirit, "We are made witnesses," Jesus said, "Unto Me, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth." The great concern of God is evangelism. The great concern of Christ is evangelism. The great concern of the Spirit is evangelism, saving the lost. When you come into the New Testament you find it is also the apostles greatest concern. Certainly it was true of Paul. In Romans Chapter 1, Paul echoed what is a divine sentiment, "I am debtor to the Greeks and the Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, so as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Later on in that same wonderful epistle of Romans Paul shared his heart in the 9thChapter by saying this: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." It was his great concern. In Chapter 10:1 he says, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." In I Corinthians 9:20-22 he says, "I will become all things to all men that by some means I might win them to Christ." Listen, God's greatest concern is to win people to himself. Christ's greatest concern, the Spirit's greatest concern, the greatest concern of the apostles and it was the greatest concern of the early church. When they were scattered in Acts Chapter 8 they went everywhere preaching Jesus Christ endeavoring to win people to Him. Even in the Old Testament it was no different. In the Old Testament God's great heart was a concerned heart and it was concerned for those that were lost. In fact, in Proverbs 11:30, we have this great statement: "He that winneth souls is what, is wise." And if you know anything about the term wise in the book of Proverbs, you know that the term wise is a synonym really for righteous living. The truly righteous person, the person who really lives with understanding, the person who doesn't just know but lives it out is the one who wins souls. He is truly wise. At the end of the book of Daniel in the 12thChapter and the fourth verse it says, or rather the third verse, "And they that be wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." People who turn others to righteousness are wise and they will shine like the stars forever and ever. I think that's the source of the name Starlighter, one of our classes in our church. The word of God is clear. Our text echoes the same sentiment. Look at it: Matthew Chapter 4, the great word of our Lord Jesus Christ in verse 19, "And He saith unto them, 'Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.'" What a promise! He doesn't just say I want you to do it. He says I'll make you into those who can. This is our task. Did you know that the term evangelize, the Greek term is used no less than 53 times in the New Testament, and it is all summarized, as it were, in the great commission in Matthew 28 when the Lord said, "Go into all the world winning people to Christ and baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Someone said, "Evangelism is the sob of God." Evangelism is the anguished cry of Jesus as He weeps over a doomed city. Evangelism is the cry of Paul when he says, "I wish myself were accursed from Christ for my brother and my kinsman according to the flesh." Evangelism is the heart-winning plea of Moses who said, "Oh these people have sinned, yet now if Thou wilt forgive their sin, if not block me, I pray Thee, out of the book, which Thou has written." Evangelism is the cry of John Knox, who said, "Give me Scotland or I die." It is the cry of Wesley who said, "The world is my parish." Evangelism is the sob of parents in the night weeping over a lost son. This is the greatest task and we must be about this task. At the same time evangelism is a great paradox. Winning people to Jesus Christ is paradoxical in this sense: Jesus said, "Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake the same shall save it." In other words in saving others we lose ourselves, or in losing ourselves in the task we will win others. In fact, we might put it this way: the one who would win the world must be rejected by the world. You can't have both. In John Chapter 15 Jesus said this: verse 25, "This cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated Me without a cause, but when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me and ye also shall bear witness." In other words Jesus says you're going to be My witnesses. You're going to go into the world and bear witness. What's going to happen? Verse 2 of Chapter 16, "They shall put you out of the synagogues. Yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." He who would win the world, he who would reach the world must be rejected by the world. He who would save his life must lose it, he who loses his life will find it used to save others. This is Jesus' way. Our Lord who saves us from death by conquering death had to yield to death. And so evangelism, in a sense, is the sacrifice of the greater for the lesser. It is the worthy for the unworthy. It is the strong dying that the weak may live. It is not the loveless theory of the survival of the fittest, but is the sacrifice of the fittest that the feeblest may walk. The Bible is clear that we must be committed to this, that we must be committed to face the world of people without Jesus Christ and lose ourselves that we may win them. I was rummaging through an old book this week, and I like to do that, because I find that all of the things that we think are so new and so wonderful and just discovered by this generation of alert Christians are always buried in some treasure of the past. And God's Holy Spirit has always disclosed these great truths to all His people through all the years. And I was rummaging through an old book written in 1877 and I found this little note here and I thought it was interesting. The writer was trying to incite to evangelize. This old man of God, whoever he was, and it was anonymous, no doubt some preacher, was trying in an impassioned plea to get people to go out and win others to Christ. He was probably saying to the church, "Be a lifesaving crew not a club." And these were his words and I thought they were so interesting. "If we were supposed the present population of our globe to be sixteen hundred million, which would be 1.6 billion, in 1877, which is probably an overestimate, and that in all that vast number there was but one true Christian and that he should be instrumental in the hands of the Blessed Spirit during the coming year of the conversion of only two others to Christ, and that each of those two new converts should be instrumentally used to lead two others to Christ during their first year of spiritual life and that the work should thus continue each new convert leading two others to Christ within a year of his conversion how long would it take at this rate starting from one Christian to bring the whole sixteen hundred million to Christ? The answer will doubtless startle many of our readers, but if we may rely on figures the whole world would be converted in a little less than 30 ½ years, within less than a single generation. Is such a work too mighty for God's Spirit to accomplish or for the church to strive to achieve? But let us bury somewhat the conditions. Instead of supposing as above that there was but one true Christian in all the world let us with a nearer approximation to the truth suppose the number to be at least 20 million. This is probably much below the truth. If each one of these 20 million Christians should bring to Christ one single soul within the coming year the whole number would be double before the end of this year 1877. If similar blessed results should follow prayer and effort in 1878 and be continued year after year each true Christian becoming instrumental by prayer and personal effort in the salvation of only one soul a year long before 1883 would have come to a close the grand chorus would be heard in heaven the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." Want to know something? They didn't do it. Did you know that? That's right. They didn't do it. You want hear something interesting? If one person at Grace Community Church trained two other people how to present Jesus Christ and they each led one person to Christ and this process continued every six months, in six and a half years the entire San Fernando Valley would be converted to Christ and the rest of Los Angeles in the last six months. Now the reason why I say that is not to get into an argument about whether God wants the whole city of Los Angeles saved or not, but simply to show you that it is not an impossibility. The commission hasn't changed. It's got to start somewhere, people. It can start with us. And you know it's got to start right where you are, not up here. You know a stationary foghorn has its value, but nobody ever got rescued out of the sea by a stationary foghorn. I can come in here Sunday after Sunday and honk and blow the whistle, but it's going to take well-trained lifesaving crews who are out there picking the souls out of the sea. You see? We're being fishers of men. Henry Ward Beecher, great preacher, said this: "The longer I live the more confidence I have in those sermons preached in which one man is the minister and one man is the congregation, where there is no question as to whom is meant when the preacher says, 'Thou art the man.'" Evangelism is the realization in time of God's eternal redemptive purpose. Personal evangelists winning people to Jesus Christ, and beloved, it all began in Matthew 4:18-22. Let's look at it. "And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the se, for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you fisher of men.' And they straightway left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them. And they immediately left the boat and their father and followed him." This was the first lifesaving crew ever gathered in the New Testament, the first band to be trained for evangelism to start the process to fulfill the Great Commission. It all began here. Now let's look at the context again. Matthew is introducing us to the king, King Jesus. That's his theme all through 28 chapters of his gospel. And everywhere in this gospel we're going to meet the royalty of Jesus Christ. We're going to see him as king. And I've been telling you that in Matthew 4:12-25, this whole big section here is really one unit, in Matthew 4:12-25, he concentrates on the official ministry of the king. This is where Christ's official kingly ministry begins and we called it The Light Dawns. Finally the king arrives. After all the years of preparation, after the ministry of John the Baptist, after the baptism, after the temptation, finally Jesus embarks on his official ministry, the light dawns in Galilee. Everything is in perfect order. Every thing is ready. And as Jesus' ministry begins you'll remember our outline, it's in the bulletin if you need to refresh your mind, He begins His ministry right here in verse 12 to 25 and we've given you several points to consider. First of all in verse 12 we saw He began His ministry at the right point, at the right point. Secondly in verses 13 to 16 in the right place in Galilee. Thirdly by the right proclamation, you remember that in verse 17, "From that time Jesus began to preach and say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Listen, Jesus was on a divine clock, a divine calendar, functioning in response to God's plan. He began His ministry at the right point when John was cast into prison, in the right place in Galilee of the Gentiles where He would have the greatest hearing, where there was the most openness, the most potential, and the greatest need and by the right proclamation. There was a kingdom coming, but somebody had to be converted to participate in it. God had a kingdom, Jesus said, and if you want to be a part you've got to repent and be converted. So He began at the right point, in the right place, by the right proclamation, and now we come to verse 18 with the right partners, with the right partners. Jesus never intended to do it alone. He never did. Oh He could have, sure He could. He had the power. He had the right, but it wasn't the plan. He never intended to do it alone. Mark this one. He also never intended to do it just with preaching. There was to be fishing for men. Dr. Duryea said many years ago, "The sixth soul needs more than a lecture on medicine. He needs a personal prescription." And Jesus needed some people to go beyond the lecture on medicine that He would give and take the personal prescription to the souls of the people they would meet. We don't know how all twelve disciples were called to start that first lifesaving crew, but we do know that they were all called personally by Jesus Christ. We know the circumstances around seven of them. The other five we don't know the specifics, but we know that Jesus called them himself. He picked out His crew. He picked out the individuals that he wanted to go out to be a part of this marvelous opportunity of fishing for men. Listen God always chooses His partners carefully. You can look all the way back in the Old Testament and you can read with great wonder how God chose Israel to be his partners in evangelizing the world. They were to be the ones who were to be His mouthpiece. In Isaiah 49, he says, "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." He chose the Jewish people to be His partners in the Old Testament. Then He chose from among them some special people like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and many many more. And when we come to the New Testament Jesus chose His partners just as carefully. In John 15:16, Jesus looked those twelve in the face and He said, "You have not chosen me," but what, "I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go forth and bear fruit." You didn't choose me I chose you. Jesus chose His partners very carefully. In John 6:70, "Have not I chosen you twelve," he said. John 13:18, "I know whom I have chosen." Luke 6:13, same truth. "And when it was day He called unto Him His disciples and of them He chose twelve." When Jesus chooses His partners He chooses very carefully. You say, "Boy, do you think He's chosen me to be a fisher of men?" Oh yes. Everybody in Christ has that commission. We're all to be witnesses. We're all to preach Christ. We're all to speak of Christ. We're all to labor in the fields that are white unto harvest, all of us. You see it in the book of Acts as it unfolds all the way through as the church expands and grows and everybody becomes a part of the lifesaving crew. So to the prophets of the Old Testament to the apostles and disciples of the New is added everybody whoever came to Jesus Christ. It's all our task. In Luke 24:46, "He said unto them, 'Thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,'" now watch, "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem and ye are witnesses of these things." Do you notice that repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name among all nations and it was only the beginning at Jerusalem? It's to go way beyond that. We're all a part of that continuity. That's why in Acts 1:8, it went a step further. "After the Holy Spirit's come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, in Judea and in Samaria." And that's why in II Corinthians 5:20, Paul says, "And we are to be ambassadors for God beseeching men to come to Christ." Peter echoed the same refrain in I Peter 2:9, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His name, that you should show forth His praises." It started with the twelve, extended to the early church in Jerusalem and then to Judea, then to Samaria, then to the world and to us. This is our work. We too are to follow Jesus and be fishers of men. You know I think it's a strong word for us here at Grace because I think this is a time in the life of Grace Church when we really need to emphasize this. Somebody said to me the other day, "Why does it seem that you're emphasizing evangelism right now and you're emphasizing kind of a new depth and dimension in the spiritual life?" And I said, "Well you know, really it's for me I'm caught up in the flow of what Christ is doing here." I don't calculate all these things. I don't sit down and say, well now let's see I ought to do this and do this. I ought to emphasize this and this. To a degree I have to do that, but I find that this is Christ's church. He's building it and I'm caught in the flow of it and sometimes I don't even know what's going on until somebody evaluates it for me. And they'll say, "Did you notice that you're talking a lot about evangelism lately?" Oh? I guess I am. That's the adventure of being a part of what the Spirit of God is doing. It isn't me that's driving it in a direction. I'm just moving with it trusting that God is leading. And I think this is the time for Grace Church to look at the subject of evangelism. We've had the great fellowship. We've learned the great truths. We could become so absorbed in our wonderful riches that we forget all about the lost people. You know we could be so busy singing our own music that we forget that they need to hear the song too. We could like it so much here that we forget about out there. Once there was a man named Luigi Toreszio. Luigi Toreszio was found dead one morning in his house without scarcely a comfort in the entire place, but stashed away in Luigi's house, get this, were 246 exquisite violins, which he had been collecting all his life and crammed into his attic, the best of which were in the bottom drawer of a rickety old bureau. Luigi, in his great devotion to the violin had robbed the world of all of its music. All the time he treasured the violins the world never heard their song. Others before him had done the same. Do you know that the greatest Stradivarius violin ever made was first played when it was 147 years old because somebody stashed it away? I wonder how many Christians are like old Luigi Toreszio? In your very love for the church, in your very love for the treasures of the word of God you get absorbed and the world never hears their music. Tragic! Somebody told me a statistic that I don't want to believe. 95% of all Christians have never led anybody to Jesus Christ. 95% of all the world's great spiritual violins have never played. You can hold on to the things you love in the church, but you've got to reach out too. I love the story Moody used to tell. He said he was visiting a Chicago art gallery and he stood before a painting entitled what Ruth played for us, Rock of Ages. The picture showed a person with both hands clinging to a cross that was embedded in a rock while a stormy sea smashed against the rock he hung to the cross. Moody said, "I thought it was the most beautiful picture that I had ever seen." "Years later," he said, "I saw a similar picture. This one showed a person in a storm holding a cross but with one hand while he was reaching to a drowning man with the other." Moody said, "That was lovelier yet." We're rich at Grace Church. I hope we're not forgetful of those that desperately need what we possess. In one of his books, S. D. Gordon pictures Gabriel as engaged in a dialogue with Christ shortly after the ascension and the angel is asking Christ about the plans for evangelism. And Jesus said, "Well I asked Peter and James and John and Andrew and a few others to make it the business of their lives to tell people and then those others would tell others and finally the whole world would hear the story and feel the power of it," and in the legend Gabriel said, "But suppose they don't tell others what then?" And Jesus answered quietly, "Oh I have no other plans. I'm counting on them. I have no other plans." What does it mean to be a fisher of men? Let's find out. Verse 18, "And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers," walking by the sea of Galilee. Gary mentioned something of the precarious that it is. I've eaten what they call now Saint Peter's fish. It's the fish that's indigenous only to the Sea of Galilee. It looks bad, tastes great. Some of you've been there and you know about that. That beautiful area, just one of the most beautiful areas in all the earth. A little lake, at it's widest point, the sea of Galilee, and by the way Luke who was a world traveler never called it a sea. He always called it a lake from his perspective. The widest point is 7½ miles. At the longest point it's 13½ miles. So at best 7½ miles by 13½ miles, not very big. It's oval, wider at the top than it is at the bottom. About 618 feet below sea level and it's at the higher part of that whole valley that goes all the way to the Dead Sea, which is over 2,000 feet, or nearly 2,000 feet below. It is one of the most fertile productive areas in the world. In Jesus' time you might be interested to know, the time in which this text was taking place, there were nine populous cities on its shore. By 1930 there was one little tiny village, Tiberius, and today there's just one town left, Tiberius. It was literally thick with fishing boats in Jesus' day. In fact Josephus writes of one fishing fleet that numbered 240 boats. That's a lot of boats on one like 7½ by 13½ mile little lake. It was there that Jesus walked and found two brothers. Who were they? It tells us Simon, later called Peter and Andrew his brother. Now this is their call. But I want you to notice something. This is phase two of their call. I'm going to give you a little technical thing that will help you in your study of the gospels. We have several different calls of the disciples in the gospel. Each gospel writer, for his own purposes, chooses one or the other. There was a sequence of things. In other words there are at least five different times when Jesus sort of called them, each one taking them to a different level. Kind of like you, once you were called to salvation, right? And then maybe there was a time in your life when you were called to a new level of commitment. And then maybe there was a time in your life like in my life when you were called to serve Jesus Christ in a specific way. And then maybe there was a time in your life when you were called to a specific place, to Grace Church or some other specific ministry. In other words the way God directs us may have phases and that is true in the case of the disciples. The first call is in John Chapter 1, and you can study it on your own. We're not going to take the time. This was their call to salvation. Andrew, John, Simon, Phillip, Nathaniel and James called to salvation. This was the initial call. And you remember it was when John the Baptist said, "Don't follow me any more, follow Him," and they took off after Jesus Christ and it was the call to salvation. Now this is phase two in Matthew 4:18. This is the call to be fishers of men. They're now going to follow Jesus, but you know it was only a kind of momentary thing here. It isn't the full final departing from everything. For now they followed Him. For this moment, for this day, for this time, they were called to win souls. They were called to fish for men. They were called to come after Him. There's a third call. Luke records it in Chapter 5. This comes after the one in Matthew. It's different. There are some similarities, but there are some distinct differences. As you look at Luke Chapter 5 for a moment you'll see them, and I'll show you the level of call here. In Luke 5 comes along and the situation is a little different. They're still fishing, which indicated that the second phase they did not leave their profession permanently. They simply followed Him for that moment. And now it's going to be a little more firm. He's not going to say I want you to just be fishers of men generally; he's going to say I want you to be fishers of men only. This is the next step and this time he stood by the Lake of Chinnereth, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee, and of course Luke calls it a lake, as I said, 'cause he's been around. He's seen some big stuff and that doesn't rank with it. He saw two boats standing by the lake, fishermen were gone out of them, and so forth. He entered into one of the boats, Simon's, and now there's a difference here. All of a sudden we're in a boat, different than the situation in Matthew. He says, "Launch out, let down your nets, and there's a whole fishing miracle that occurs here. This is a completely different account. And what it is is a time for them to come to grips with a real commitment. And Jesus reiterates it in verse 10. There were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, partners with Simon, Jesus said to Simon, "Fear not from henceforth," doesn't matter you can't catch fish anymore, you remember the story? They couldn't catch fish on their own, not without the Lord. He was going to control the fish. He said, "You want fish? Put it down where I say and you'll get fish." Without me you won't get anything. Don't worry about whether you're going to be able to catch 'em without me. "From now on you shall," what, "catch men. And when they had brought their boats to land they forsook," what "all and followed Him." You see this is another level of commitment. I guess, you know, this is a part of our life, isn't it? At some point in time you come to Christ and it isn't long after that somebody says to you, "You're to fish for men." But maybe it's a long time after that and maybe it's never for a lot of folks that you forsake all to catch men. In Mark 3, there was another call. They were not just going to catch men; they were going to be official apostles. In verse 14, "He appointed twelve," Mark 3:14, "That they should be with him that he might send them forth to preach, and to cast out demons." Boy, now they've got miraculous power, and they were given the power also to heal diseases. So they went from salvation to a general call, to a specific total commitment, and now to a miraculous power. And then finally a fifth phase is recorded in the 10thChapter of Matthew, in the first verse. "And when He had called to Him those twelve He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all manner of sickness and diseases. He said go," in verse 7, and He told them all how to go and He sent them out. Verse 16, "As sheep in the midst of wolves," and they went to preach. Now do you see the progression here? Beloved, it is to be so with us. It all begins at some point in time when we meet Jesus Christ and we accept Him as Savior, and then a little later the prodding of the Spirit of God fish for men, and hopefully later you forsake all and your life is geared for that, and then the time comes when in the midst of that you sense the power of God and you move out, an official sent one to do His work. Well this is just phase two, but it's a beginning and He met these two, Simon and Andrew. What were they doing? It says, "They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers." Now there were three methods of fishing in those days: the first one was by line, you know rod and reel type, only they use a stick with a string on it. They could fish by line. Second is what is called the drag net. Now a drag net was used from a boat, or better two boats. It was cast into the sea with ropes at each of the four corners and it had weight at the foot of it so that it would sink right down into the water. And, of course, when the boat rowed it would just scoop up the fish, they would pull the ropes tight at the top and the net would be full of fish. The Bible talks about a drag net in Matthew Chapter 13. And so as the boats were rowed it became a great cone, as it were, in the sea, weighted at the very end it would fall into a cone shape and it would just scoop up the fish. They would tie the ropes tight at the end and they would be caught. And then there was what was called the casting net and that's what they were using here. They were casting a net, not saganae, which is the drag net. They were casting it. This is a circular net about nine feet in diameter and they were really skillful at it. They knew how to cast it from the shore. From the edge of the lake it could be knee deep in water and it had pellets all around the edge kind of weighted down with little stones or whatever they would use and it would sink and surround the fish and they would pull the rope and pull it in. That's what they were doing. You say, "Why are you telling me all that for?" I think it's interesting. The word, incidentally is amphiblestron, from which we get amphibious, having to do with standing on the shore and throwing something into the water, sort of a two ways. But what interests me is this: Jesus said, "You're going to catch men." And He played on that metaphor and the way they did it was they threw out a big net and caught a whole bunch of fish and I like that thought. I'm glad they weren't fishing just for one. I like the fact that Jesus said there's going to be a lot of 'em. The Lord, when He thought about evangelism, He had a lot of folks in mind. So He called these Simon and Andrew, but also look at verse 21. "And going from there He saw two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them." Now He's got four here and He has a plan for them. They're rough jewels, these guys, I want you to know that, they are rough jewels. They are tough, crusty, outdoorsmen. No doubt a certain crudeness, we know that in the case of Peter, and no doubt true of the others to some extent. They had a lot of problems. They had a lack of spiritual perception. It didn't matter what Jesus said for the first few months of His ministry. They never did figure it out. He would speak to them what the Hebrews called the Massahala veiled saying, and they'd scratch their head, "What are you talking about? We don't understand that." They had very limited perception of the spiritual dimension. The parables of Matthew 13 just went right on by them. They didn't get the message. Jesus continued to talk to them in terms that they couldn't understand. They were scratching around for a long time trying to figure them out. Jesus had to unravel everything. They had a lot of learning to do. They had a terrible lack of sympathy. They were really an unsympathic bunch. If you read, I think it's Matthew 14:15, "And when it was evening, his disciples came to Him saying, this is a desert place, and the time is now late. Send the multitude away that they may go to the villages and buy food." Get rid of this crowd or they're going to get hungry. We're going to have to feed 'em. Well that's not exactly hospitality at its best. They were unsympathic. They had a terrible lack of humility. They were just a lot of proud guys and I imagine hanging around Jesus they sort of felt better than anybody else. A little child came along in Matthew 18, and they said, "Kick that kid away. We can't be bothered with children." They weren't even very forgiving guys. Peter said, "Lord if a guy offends me I mean how many times should I forgive him?" The Lord said, "490 times." Gulp! They were terrible at prayer meeting. They kept falling asleep. They didn't have a whole lot of courage. When the shepherd was smitten the sheep were scattered, right? Great bunch! No spiritual perception, no sympathy, no humility, no sense of forgiveness, not able to persevere in prayer, and a bunch of cowards. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. That'll tell you what the Lord can do with you and me. He's terrific with raw material that shows little or no potential. It's a good lesson too. I know something, though, Jesus saw something there didn't He? He saw something in them. He knew what He was doing. He picked out a potential. He saw it there. I thought to myself as I was going through this the fact that He picked fishermen is sort of a rebuke to the whole Jewish system, isn't it? I mean why didn't He pick Rabbi's to be His team? Great, brilliant, astute, knowledgeable Rabbi's or great leaders of Israel! Fishermen, what do they know, never been to school. Maybe they can't even read. He relied on something better, didn't He, than worldly wisdom, something better than human influence, something better than formal religion something better than education, something better than ritual. "Not many noble, not many mighty," said Paul. He's chosen the foolish things of the world, the base things of the world. Matthew Broadis, the great commentator, who's written the wonderful work on Matthew says, "They were perhaps less prepossed by the follies of Pharisaic tradition and thus better prepared for receiving and transmitting new doctrine, and they were imminently men of the people. It is probable that all of the twelve were men comparatively humble life without the learning of the rabbinical schools. And in Acts 4:13, the people said, "Who are these people and what do they know?" Galileans! Look at verse 19, "But it was to them that He said, 'Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.'" Beloved, look, we Christians miss the point. So many times you say, "Oh if so and so famous person could just become a Christian, think of how many they'd win." You know the Lord never picked those people from the start. If such and such, if he ever became converted what an influence he'd have. He never picked them. He didn't come in and pick the Olympic team. There's nothing wrong with them. He didn't come in and pick the great geniuses. He just picked the humble fishermen. They were people of the people, and God is always identified with the people, with the poor, as well as the poor in spirit. Now notice verse 19, I love it. "He said unto them, 'Follow Me and I'll make you fishers of men." Isn't that a great promise? I'll make you fishers of men. I'm not asking for something I'm not willing to commit myself to do. They were already believers as we found in John 1, and this is now their second phase. I have a task; you're to be fishers for men. Boy they got the message. That's such a vivid picture to them. They knew exactly what He was talking about. Did you ever think how you could apply fishing, I don't know anything about fishing, especially fishing with a net. But did you ever think about how you could apply fishing skill to fishing for men? Good fishermen have certain qualities. Number one: patience. When anyone says to me, "I cannot stand fishing," I know there's an impatient person, right off the bat. Fishermen learn to wait, so if we're good at fishing for men got to be patient. Secondly: fishermen have a quality of perseverance. It's amazing. They do it over and over and over and over and they go and they'll come back, "Well we didn't catch anything, but we'll go again." Over and over, perseverance. The third thing that fishermen have is courage. My boat is so small and the sea is so large, the prose line goes. They'll face the sea for the cause of the fish. Fishermen also seem to have an eye for the right moment. If you just talk to a fisherman who knows his stuff he'll tell you when and where. So the good soul winner chooses his moment his location carefully. And have you ever noticed that good fishermen will always tell you to stay out of sight? I remember when I was a little kid and I went fishing with my Uncle Charlie, back east, I'd hang out of the boat and he'd say, "Don't hang out of the boat." He was worried that the fish, well he probably worried they'd see me and be scared or something, but don't hang out of the boat. You're not supposed to be seen. If you're going to catch fish you have to stay so they can't see you. I guess, I don't know if it's true or not, but it's a good analogy. A good soul winner keeps himself out of the picture. He hides his own presence, even his own shadow, and makes sure that the gaze is fixed on Jesus Christ. So he said, "You men know about patience, you men know about perseverance, you know about courage, you have an eye for the right moment, and you know how to hide yourselves to accomplish your end. I choose you to fish for men." And then he said, "I'll make you fishers of men." You know that was a commitment on the part of Jesus to train 'em, to teach 'em. You know there's only one way to teach somebody to win people and that's to take them out and do it. That's why I think our ministry here thought our Evangelism Explosion ministry is so great because it's people making people into fishers of men. You can't just get up and say, "All right everybody run out and be fishers of men." You've got to teach them. You got to teach them. Some of them don't know how to bait the hook. Some of them don't know how to reel it in. Some of them don't know how to throw the net. Jesus said, "I'll make you fishers of men." I'll teach you how and He did. You know how long it took Him to train these guys? How long? Three years! Three years, isn't that amazing? First what He did is this: He spent a little while with them, get them kind of shipshape, and then He let them go out two by two, Matthew 10. Just kind of go out and then they come back, and they'd go out and they'd come back, always having to come and report. Two-by-two they'd go out and they'd come back. Finally in Matthew 28 he said, "I'm leaving, you're on your own." You've graduated. Jesus training method: call them to Himself, let them know the commission, train them, out and back to give a report, and they'd come back and say, this happened and this happened, and you know what happened here, you know what happened there, send them out again, they'd come back again. Finally they were trained and He left. How did He do it? Have you ever analyzed how Jesus trained soul winners? Let me just give you some brief insights. Our time is nearly gone. First, listen to this: as you look at the New Testament this is what you find. How did Jesus win people? They watched Him. He didn't give them 45 lectures. He just did it and they watched and they learned. First of all here are the methods Jesus used in brief: Number one he was available. As I study the life of Christ I notice that He was always in the throngs. Ever notice that? He was always where the crowd was. He was always where the sinners were. In fact they said about him, "You're always hanging around sinners." He was there. And they got the message that's where they needed to be. Secondly, he had no favorites. He didn't run around with the fancy folks. He didn't run around with the rich. He didn't run around with the famous. He didn't run around with the religious. It didn't matter what their social standing was, oh He would reach a wealthy Jarius, but He'd also spend time with a harlot. He knew no favorites. He was available and He had no favorites. Third thing I see about Jesus in his approach to winning people was He was totally sensitive. Boy He could spot an open heart just that fast. Can you? Have you learned how to see an open heart? Remember Jesus in Mark 5 in the crown and everybody was shoving Him and He said He could hardly move because of the press? They were just, not the press like we know the press, but the press of the crowd. He could hardly move. He was just crushed in and then the Bible says, "He turned around and said, 'Who touched Me?'" And you say, "Are you kidding? Who touched You?" "Yes, who touched Me?" And there was a woman with an issue of blood who had reached out for one of the four tassels that always hung from the robe of a rabbi and grabbed it and He knew there was a sensitive heart and He called that woman out of the crowd and He healed that woman's issue of blood and He elicited out of her heart a confession of faith in Him. He was sensitive. He could spot that one in the mob with the open heart. Sensitive to the Spirit. You know, you can do that. If you're walking in the Spirit, I believe the Spirit of God will lead you to that person. He was available, he had no favorites, he was sensitive and fourthly, and I already hinted at it, He secured a public confession. He didn't let people just run away. I remember that woman in Mark 5, He made her call out her confession. She couldn't get away. She touched the hem of His garment, she was healed, but that wasn't enough. By the way Mark says she had really been through it. She had suffered many things at the hands of many physicians. Mark says that Luke doesn't record that part for obvious reasons. The disciples said to Him, "What do you mean who touched You? Can't you see the crowd?" But Jesus drew that woman out of the crowd, He said, "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace and behold of they plague." He drew out of her the confession of faith. We need to do that, you know. To be effective with people you need to cause them to come to the place where they will publicly with their mouth confess Him as Lord. Another thing about Jesus, he used love and tenderness. I think about it in so many ways. Look what He did in John Chapter 8 with that scarlet woman, that woman who had been abused by all kinds of men, who was a harlot of the worse category. What about Mary Magdalene? What about all these times in Matthew, for example in Matthew 8, do you know that in Matthew 8 Jesus reached out and touched a leper? He had tenderness toward the sinner. And then one other thing, He always took time. He always took time. Boy the Lord speaks to me about this. I'm always in a hurry, always got to go, always got a big project, always got a meeting got to get to. Got so much time for the ministry, got no time for the people. He took time in the midst of the mass of people in Mark 5, Jairus comes and He takes time and Jairus tells Him a long story about his daughter. Many people, but He took time. You know for three years Jesus trained His men how to be available, how to have no favorites, how to be sensitive, how to secure a public confession, how to use love and tenderness and how to take time and to apply everything they ever knew as fishermen, patience, perseverance, courage, and eye for the right moment and hide themselves in the midst of all of it. And I think whoever said it is right when he said, "Evangelism is not taught as much as it's caught," like everything else I the Christian life. And so they learned. He trained them. And that's our desire, people. You know several years ago we brought, I guess all of your know Jim George on our staff. We could have hired a man to do visitation, to go out and evangelize. You know what we did? We decided to support a man who would train others to evangelize. If we had just hired a man to evangelize you know what we'd have now five years later? We'd have a man evangelizing. But instead we've got between two and three hundred people trained to catch men. That's what Jesus did. But what was their response? And this is the conclusion. "They straightway left their nets and followed Him." And verse 22 says of the others, James and John, "and they immediately left the boat and their father and followed Him." I love that. Instant obedience. Boy, as Jerry said, "That speaks of authority." When you walk along the shore and you say to these guys, "Follow Me," and they do, that says something about You doesn't it? And whenever I see a picture of Jesus as some emaciated, puny, shriveled up, little character who looks like he couldn't scare a flea, that is not the Christ here. You walk along with these burly guys and say, "Follow Me," and they drop everything, walk away from their father, and follow You, you've got something going. And they did. Obedience. You say, "Well did they have a great passion for souls?" I doubt it; seriously doubt it. I'm quite confident they didn't have a passion for anything. So what they'd do it for? Listen, you want to know something? You want to know how to get a passion for souls? Try obeying to start with. That's where it all begins. Just be obedient. And I put it this way: obedience is the spark that lights the fire of passion. The way to gain a passion for souls, the way to have your heart burn for the lost is to obey God and move out and watch God take the pilot light of obedience and fan it into a forest fire. David Brainerd, that great missionary to the Indians who died so young in his twenties, said, "Oh if I were a flame of fire in my Master's cause." Henry Martine said, "Now let me burn out for God." Alexander McClaren, that great preacher said, "Tell me depths of a Christian's compassion and I'll tell you the measure of his usefulness." Where does it all start? Where do you get such a passion? Where do you get such a desire to burn for God? Where does it come from? It comes right out of the pilot light of obedience. Dr. Courtland Meyers in his book, How Do We Know? Writes of Robert Murray McShane, one of Scotland's greatest preachers who died at the age of 29. This is what Meyers says: "Everywhere he stepped Scotland shook. Whenever he opened his mouth a spiritual force swept in every direction. Thousands followed him to the feet of Christ. A traveler eager to see where McShane had preached went to the Scottish town and found the old church. An old gray haired janitor agreed to take him through the church. He led the way into McShane's study. "Sit in that chair, the janitor ordered." The traveler hesitated a moment and then sat in the chair. On the table before him was an open Bible. "Drop your head in that book and weep, that's what our minister did before he preached," said the old man. He then led the visitor in the pulpit before the open Bible. "Stand there," he said, "and drop your head into your head into your hands and let the tears flow. That's the way our minister always did before he began to preach." And so Courtland Meyers said, "With such a passion for souls lost and needy is it any wonder that the Holy Spirit gave McShane a magnetic personality, which drew so many to the Savior?" Well where does it begin? You say that seems so far from me. Where does it begin? It begins in the pilot of obedience. That's the spark that starts the fire. So the Lord listened. He needs special people to help Him. He needs a well-trained lifesaving crew at Grace Community Church. He does not need a comfortable club. He doesn't need that. The church has had enough of that stuff. He needs well-trained lifesaving crews. He needs fishers of men. Say, "Can I do that?" Yeah. Say, "How?" Listen, number one: be a believer. You can't be on the team unless you are. Number two: be available. Learn how to win people to Christ. If that means getting involved in an evangelism ministry then get involved. If that means reading the New Testament and underlining everything about evangelism and cataloging it and learning it, do it. Be a believer and be available. Three: be concerned, be concerned. Maybe that means reading some books. Surely that means meeting some unsaved people and it all starts with obedience, so be obedient. Go out and do it even if the passion isn't there, do it. Reach out to that neighbor. Speak the words you've always wanted to speak and never have. And then realize Jesus is your pattern. Study how He did it. And then find somebody else you can follow and let them be your model. Be a believer, be available, be concerned, be obedient, be following Jesus, and be taught by an example. I'll close with this: when I was in college Dave Hawking and I and Bruce Peterson, whose a deacon in our church, Dave Hawking is the pastor of Grace Brethren Church in Long Beach, Ed Burn, associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Los Gatos, Lenny Sidell, you remember now ministering in the east, we all started a quartet. And we had a theme song and that theme song, the title of it, some of you probably have heard, Let the Lower Lights be Burning, remember that? We used to sing that all the time. In fact, I know the baritone part so well I don't think I know the melody. That was our theme. You know I didn't really know what that meant. We used to sing let the lower lights be burning somebody came up to afterward and say, "What are the lower lights?" And we'd kind of grin, "It's a nice melody." What are the lower lights? You know that whole hymn came from a story that D. L. Moody told? This is it. Moody said a vessel was coming in to Cleveland harbor on a stormy stormy night. And in order for the vessel to know where it was there were two sets of lights in the harbor. One set on the bluff, very high, and one set right on the coastline so there was always a perspective in the blackness and they could see by the upper and lower lights where they were. But this night the pilot saw the upper lights on the bluff burning but not the lower. And so the pilot asked the captain if he'd better put back out into the lake again lest they go in to far and hit the rocks. But the captain was so afraid of the storm on the lake he thought they'd better try to make the harbor. Moody said they made it but they were wrecked and many drown all because the lower lights had been put out by the storm. And then Moody said, listen, "The upper lights in heaven are burning as brightly as ever they've burned. What about the lower lights?"

Well, let’s open our Bibles to Mark chapter 4...Mark chapter 4 and this morning we’re going to take a prolonged portion of Scripture. We’re going to cover verses 21 to 34. And we could spend more time on these but as you remember, I’m trying to keep us moving through the gospel of Mark and I think it’s appropriate for us this morning to take this as one unit so you’re going to have to stick with me as we fly a little bit through this section...Mark chapter 4, verses 21 to 34. Now just prior to this passage, our Lord had given the parable of the soils. Remember that? And He had distinguished two kinds of soils, basically, the kind of soil that produces nothing, that was the first three, hard soil, rocky soil, thorny or weedy soil produces nothing. That is they don’t hear the truth of the gospel and respond. And then He talked about three kinds of good soil that produce 30 fold, 60 fold and a hundred fold in terms of fruitfulness. And then He went on to say the difference between the soils that produce nothing and the soils that are productive is hearing the truth...hearing it, hearing it in the sense that you embrace it and you believe it, and that, of course, is what sets believers apart from non-believers. Non-believers cannot understand the things of God, they do not hear the gospel with believing submissive ears, those who are Christ’s do. So we could sum it up by saying this, the greatest grace gift given to us, of course, is salvation. But we would know nothing about that salvation were it not for Scripture. So in reality, the greatest grace gift is divine revelation. The greatest grace gift is divine revelation. Nothing is ore important than divine truth. You have to have the truth in order to be saved and sanctified and t o have the hope of glory and to be instructed in righteousness. So the greatest thing we have is the Word of God. This is the divine revelation. Alongside that, the distinguishing characteristic of true Christians is that they listen to the Word of God. They hear it. They believe it. They love it. They obey it. That’s what distinguishes a Christian. Not some past act, not some prayer, not some attendance at church. What distinguishes a true believer is responsiveness to divine truth. It finds a place in their hearts. They get it. They understand it. Paul says, “The natural man understands not the things of God, they are foolishness to him, but on the other hand, we who are spiritual have the mind of Christ. We embrace divine truth. We understand it. We love it. We absorb it. We believe it. We proclaim it. So the distinguishing mark of true Christians is that they hear and believe the truth. And our Lord makes this abundantly clear in a lot of places, but let me just give you one illustration of this from John chapter 10. In that great tenth chapter of John, our Lord is calling Himself the Good Shepherd and identifying His relationship to His sheep. And what is the distinguishing mark that defines that relationship? John 10. It says this, “The sheep...verse 3...hear His voice.” The sheep hear His voice. Verse 4, the end of the verse. “The sheep follow Him because they know His voice.” A stranger they simply will not follow but will flee from Him because they do not know the voice of strangers. True believers are never led away by false teachers. They know the sound of their own master very well. Down in verse 16 He says, “I have other sheep, meaning Gentiles, “along with the Jews, not of this fold, I must bring them also, they will hear My voice.” Down in verse 26 He says, “You do not believe because you’re not of My sheep, My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me.” The distinguishing quality of a true believer is receptivity to the voice of God which is conveyed to us through the pages of Scripture. This is where He speaks. This is really the theme of the parable of the soils. There are three kinds of soil that don’t hear. They don’t hear in the believing sense. Superficially, you remember, the rocky soil has an emotional response and the weedy soil has an initial response. But eventually both of them prove to be superficial and shallow and non-fruitful. But then there is the good soil and the distinguishing of those good kinds of soil is that they hear the Word and they embrace the Word. They become fruitful, 30 fold, 60 fold, a hundred fold. And by the way, that’s talking about fruitfulness in an evangelistic sense. It’s not talking about the fruit of the Spirit, although that’s also true. They are part and parcel of the expansion of the Kingdom. All of us who are believers, basically, according to Ephesians 2:10, have been ordained unto good works. And at the top of the parade, if you will, of those good works is having an impact on people’s lives for the gospel. Some sow, some water, we all have a part to play and we play it collectively and not just individually, even though there are times when God uses someone in a kind of solo effort to bring someone to Christ that’s usually the result of many people giving a testimony over a period of time, or living a godly life that makes the gospel acceptable to them. So we all participate. But the distinguishing mark of fruitful believers who are used to bring others to Christ is that they hear the Word of God. So you find that as the unifying theme, the sun in which the solar system of this particular section moves around. Go to verse 23...verse 23, we’ll start there. “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” Now He said that back in verse 9. That’s a distinguishing element, not everybody has ears to hear, not everybody understands divine truth, not everybody gets it, not everybody believes it, embraces it, loves it, obeys it, of course. True believers do. So it’s as if He’s saying, “All right, I’m now going to talk to true believers. And what distinguishes you? You have ears to hear. What happened at your salvation was the Lord opened your spiritual ears, right? And all of a sudden the Word of God took on a new meaning and you began to hunger for it and long for it like a baby desires milk, as Peter puts it. You hear, you get it, you understand it. So, if you’re among those who can hear, our Lord says, “Then listen.” Then comes this very important statement in verse 24, “And He was saying to them,” to them meaning the disciples and the Apostles who are distinguished from the crowd. If you go back to verse 13, “He said to them.” If you go back to verse 11, “He said...was saying to them.” And you ask, “Who is them?” Go back to verse 10, “As soon as He was alone, His followers are identified.” So we are the ones who have the ears to hear. And these things are being explained to us. And here’s the key statement in verse 24, “Take care...says the NAS...take care what you listen to. You are the ones who have ears to hear, be careful how you hear.” That is a very, very important statement. Let me tell you what it is in the Greek, it’s a real simple phrase. In fact, this is a little bit misleading in this English translation. The actual Greek is blepeta tee akouata (???), two verbs and a simple particle on between...blepeta means to see, first of all in the normal sense of physical sight, secondarily in the sense of perception. In fact, it is used to refer to mental function, to understanding, to consideration. So what blepeta tee akouata really says is be understanding what...tee can be who or what...be understanding what you hear. In other words, listen carefully to the Word of God. Get it...that’s the idea. Be seeing what you are hearing, that’s the literal Greek, be seeing what you are hearing, perceive the Word of God thoughtfully, carefully. It’s a simple phrase. And what it calls for is mental perception of what the Lord is saying to us. Now that’s kind of the heart and soul of this passage, so around that He has some things to say and He wants us to understand them. We’re about to be instructed as to exactly we are to listen. Be seeing with your mind clearly what you are hearing from Him. Get it. Understand it in its fullness, its richness and its depth. You have been privileged to receive the revelation of God, you have been privileged to receive divine truth. To you has been given the mysteries of the Kingdom of God and what is hidden from the world, what they will never understand you fully understand. This is an immense privilege and you are to listen with real understanding. Now how can we be good listeners? How should we listen to the Word of God, particularly the Word of God in this context which is instruction on our evangelism, on our lives in terms of being witnesses for that’s the primary objective as to why we’re left in the world, right? We understand that, okay? So how should we be listening to the Lord to make the most out of our evangelistic calling and commission? Here’s four characteristics of a good spiritual listener...four characteristics of a good spiritual listener. Number one, we listen obediently. Number two, we listen appreciatively. Number three, we listen dependently. And number four, we listen confidently. Those words lay out how we are to listen. Now in Luke 8:18 you have the parallel passage to this and there it is translated “Take care how you listen.” So that’s what our Lord is saying. You need to be a good spiritual listener. How do you listen to the Lord? How do you listen to His Word and His commission and His calling? First of all, we are to listen obediently...we are to listen obediently. And this because it is an innate obligation bound up with the reception of the truth that we are to apply it. In other words, it is innate to the truth that we are to respond obediently to it, and He makes this clear with a couple of very brief parables in verse 21 and 22. “And He was saying to them, ‘A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it? Or under a bed, is it not brought to be put on the lampstand? For nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nor has anything been secret but that it would come to light.’” These are just simple, basic truisms, reasonable things. In other words, what our Lord is saying is if you’ve been given the light, you’re supposed to let it shine, right? Or if you want to go back to the earlier metaphor, if you’ve been given the seed, you’re supposed to sow it. This is innate, this is integral to the very giving of the light. And so, in talking to His disciples, in talking to His Apostles, He is still talking to them. And by the way, there are many commentators who think verses 21 to 34 is just a random assortment of disconnected parables and ideas that came from Jesus that Mark just sort of threw together to kind of getting them all in, they don’t hang together. I find that impossible to believe anywhere, frankly, in the gospels. I think they’re...the Holy Spirit led the writer to a clear, crystal-clear intention and nothing is random whatsoever, and certainly not this. We are to listen obediently, that is with the coming of the light and the coming of the truth, we have the responsibility inherent in that of shining it back out to the world. A lamp, this is a word referring to a terra-cotta lamp, a little clay lamp they used in those days, it could be a saucer with a handle on it, it could be like a little pitcher with a handle on it, put oil in it, put a floating wick in it, light the wick and that’s how you light the house. And you would put that on a lampstand, either a lampstand sitting on the floor or a lampstand which was a shelf that protruded from the wall where those lamps were placed. That was the only means of light. And you had light in order to give light. Nobody would take a lamp and put it under a basket. That’s the Greek word modion which means a peck measure which is a little less than nine liters. That was the measure basket that was kept in the kitchen part of the house to contain the grain. You don’t dump the grain out and put it over the lamp, that would not make a whole lot of sense, that would distinguish the lamp or start a fire and it would certainly eliminate the light. You don’t put it under a bed. Now the typical Jewish bed would have been a pallet rolled up and stuck in a corner, so that might not be what’s in view. But they were also familiar with the Roman style bed which was elevated off the floor. You don’t put a light under the bed, you don’t put a light under a basket, that is obviously ridiculous. Here’s an absurd idea. If you have the light, the light is then supposed to shine and so the implication is that if you’ve been given the light, you need to let the light shine, you need to put it on the lampstand. They would know, the disciples and Apostles, that the lamp and the light is a metaphor in the Old Testament for the truth of God. Psalm 119:105, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, light unto my path.” And there were other references to that in the Old Testament as well. So inherent in receiving the light is letting it shine inherent in being given the true seed planted in your own life is to take that seed and as it grows, harvest seed and scatter it far and wide. In other words, you have an obligation to let the light of the gospel shine brightly. We can think of many New Testament indications of this as well, particularly 2 Corinthians where Paul says, “The light of the glory of the gospel has come to shine on us and through us even though we’re earthen vessels.” So inherent in the receiving of divine truth is the reflecting of that divine truth. This is kind of a pre-Great Commission commission. The Great Commission hasn’t come yet, it won’t come till after the resurrection. Luke 24 has perhaps the second most familiar one in Matthew 28 has the most familiar record of the Great Commission. But the Great Commission in its fullness comes then and then is repeated in Acts 1 where He tells them they’re going to receive power from the Holy Spirit and go in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, proclaim the gospel. And that’s going to come. But this is a kind of a pre-Great Commission commission and it’s very important that Jesus is telling them this...very, very important. You remember in the Sermon on the Mount He indicated that this is the way it should go. He said there, “Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven and don’t put your light under something, don’t hide your light, let it shine.” So it’s been something that He said all along, that you’re going to receive the light so that the light can shine from you to others. But something had kind of intruded into that. They may have assumed that. And after all, at the beginning of His ministry in Galilee, Jesus went everywhere and preached the gospel and they were going along with Him and they heard it and they believed it and they came to follow Jesus, these true disciples and the Apostles. So there was a time when Jesus was proclaiming the truth and they had heard and believed the truth. But there’s been a very interesting turn in the tide of things. If you’ve been with us through the recent sections of Mark, you know that that’s no longer Jesus’ plan. In fact, if you go back to verse 11, Jesus says to the disciples and the Apostles, “It’s been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing they may see and not perceive, while hearing they may hear and not understand otherwise they might return and be forgiven.” They’re past grace. They’re past forgiveness. They’re past believing. What’s happened is in all these months of ministry in Galilee day after day after day after day, the final verdict of many of the people and the leaders in Galilee is they reject Jesus Christ. Not only do they reject Him, but according to chapter 3 verse 22, they say He’s possessed by Beelzebul and cast out demons by the ruler of the demons. And that’s when it says He began speaking to them in parables. They made their final verdict and they rejected Jesus. And now in an act of divine judgment, He cuts them off from any further truth. And so, in regard to the disciples, He speaks to them explaining the parables. When the crowd gathers, He speaks to the crowd in parables without explanation. From now on in His ministry in Galilee, He doesn’t explain anything, because they have made their final decision. Our Lord’s judgment then is to withhold the light from that generation of Jews in Galilee who had finally rejected Him and were beyond hope. Now the disciples and the Apostles might say, “Well wait a minute, is that the new plan? Is the final plan that You’re just going to give the truth to us and it’s just going to be this little tiny group and this is as far as the Kingdom of God is going to go? And should we, you know, should we...should we just go around pronouncing judgment on them?” And this may be the reason why, you remember, James and John came to a village the village rejected Jesus and James and John said to Jesus, “Shall we just call fire down from heaven and burn them to a crisp?” Jesus said, “No, no, no, no...no, no, no.” So that’s what’s in their minds. They...they have seen Jesus go from preaching the gospel which they heard from Him and believed and entered into the Kingdom, to now not saying anything that they can understand and they want to know what’s their responsibility. Are they supposed to carry on the judgment and hide everything? Or are they supposed to preach it? And our Lord is beginning to give them their commission. No, the light is intended to shine. The light is intended to shine, not to be put under a basket, not to be under a bed. They were not really ready yet for this because they weren’t trained yet. Jesus put restraints on the preaching of the gospel. You remember, told the demons not to do it. And you remember in chapter 1 verses 40 to 45 He healed a man, He told the man, “Please don’t spread this around. Don’t spread it around who I am and what I’ve done.” And the man did it any way, disobeyed Him and it made it impossible for Him to minister in any city and He had to go out in the country. So there were reasons in the early months that Jesus put restraint on the proclamation. In the case of the Apostles and the disciples, they weren’t yet ready to preach. And it was not time to preach. At least not then in Galilee. It didn’t take long, if you go to chapter 6, however, and verse 7, “He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out.” There were people now who hadn’t made their final decision against Him. So He sent out the Twelve in pairs, gave them authority over the unclean spirits. It tells us what they did, verse 12, “They went out and preached.” They preached, preached the Kingdom, preached that men should repent, and to demonstrate that their message was divine, they showed the power of God in casting out demons and healing sick people. So in chapter 6 they get their first missionary enterprise. It’s what we would call short-term missions. They just go out and they come back. It’s not their final commission. Their final commission doesn’t come till after the Cross and the Resurrection because that’s when they get the full message, right? They can go and preach repentance to enter the Kingdom. They can preach Christ as the Messiah. But they can’t yet preach the Cross and Resurrection. They’re not quite ready. But He gives them the opportunity to go and to get used to the kind of reception they’re going to have. So the point is this, the plan is the light will shine, the seed will be sown. For the moment, a judgment has been rendered on those people in Galilee who made their final decision. But just a few chapters later there are other folks in other places, even in Galilee as well as later on in Judea to whom they are to go. But the assumption when He sends them out in chapter 6 verses 7 to 13 is that they’re going to be rejected. He tells them if they...if they reject you, just shake the dust off your feet and get out of there. But that was a kind of a training mission for what would finally be their full commission. Now this is in accord with the divine intention. If you go to verse 22 you see that in the next little parable, “Nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nor has anything been secret but that it would come to light.” This is a simple, simple little concept. People hide things because there’s a certain time that they need to be revealed. You’re in the business of doing that if you have kids right now. You know, you’ve been Christmas shopping and you’ve got all kinds of stuff and you’re sticking it somewhere where they can’t find it, right? Because there’s an appropriate time to reveal it, this is not the appropriate time. And depending upon how clever your kids are, and how aggressive your kids are, you’re creative about that because you know there’s an appropriate for that. You also understand what He says in the second part of verse 22 that things are kept secret because there’s a time when they can be brought to light and a time when they ought not to be brought to light. We understand. These are axiomatic principles. But the assumption is, if you have something of value, if you have a truth that needs to be known, there’s a time and a place for the disclosure of those things, and that’s what our Lord is saying. Sure, it’s being hid now but there’s going to be a time when it needs to be revealed. Sure, it’s being kept secret now but there’s going to be a time to open the thing up and disclose the secret to everybody, and that time is going to come in its fullness after His death and resurrection in the Great Commission. Temporarily hidden to be permanently revealed...temporarily kept secret to be permanently uncovered and disclosed, that’s the whole point. By the way, that same statement is made in Matthew 10:26, the purpose in keeping certain things hidden is because there’s a perfect time to make them known. The reason for not telling something is that there is a perfect time and an appropriate time to disclose it. Another way of saying the day of worldwide evangelism is coming, we’re going to get a little test as to what you can expect coming up. In a couple of months you’re going to be sent out. And He did that and then began to expand that operation a little bit, the chapter 6 sending out is not even sort of their full commissioning and sending out which is indicated to us in Matthew 10 and Luke 9. But in those cases even before the cross, there were only sort of short-term operations that there is coming a day of worldwide evangelization and Mark by writing this gospel is contributing to our ability to tell this story. The day is going to come when they shout the glory of Christ from the housetops. So we listen to the Word of God as they did with a built-in inherent responsibility to take the message to the world. So I say we listen obediently. It is assumed that if you have the seed you throw it, if you have the light, you shine it, right? That’s inherent in the very nature of seed and inherent in the nature of light. Light is to be shining, not hidden. Seed is to be sown, not stored. So we listen obediently. Secondly, we listen appreciatively. We listen obediently because it’s innate, it’s an innate obligation in having the seed and having the light. We listen appreciatively because of the individual opportunity that is involved. Look at verses 24 and 25, we’ve already looked at 23, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” A phrase repeated eight times in the New Testament. And then we’ve looked at, “Take care how you listen,” but let’s go to the back half of verse 24 and learn about listening appreciatively. “By your standard of measure it will be measured to you, and more will be given you besides.” He’s still in this agricultural mode, isn’t He? He...this is all part of understanding the work of the Kingdom and much of it has to do with an agricultural perspective. Remember what it said, I commented on it back in verse 13, “Do you not understand this parable?”...the parable of the soils. And they didn’t. And then He said, “Do you not understand this parable? How will you understand all the parables?” On the other hand, once He explained that first parable, then all the rest became clear. And once He gave them the paradigm in the parable of the soils, all the other parables become clear. That’s why He doesn’t explain the parable in verse 21, the simple one. He doesn’t explain the one in verse 22. Doesn’t explain the parable in verses 26 to 29, or the parable in verses 30 to 32, because they don’t need an explanation. Once you get the picture in the soils parable, everything else just falls into place. But notice in this one, again with this kind of sowing and reaping imagery, “By your standard of measure it will be measured to you.” That is to say, God will give you back a return on what you sow, right? That’s the point. Galatians 6:7, “Whatever a man sows, he...he reaps.” “Sow sparingly reap sparingly, so bountifully reap bountifully,” that’s the basic principle. This is another truism that everybody would understand. The promise is the Lord will bless the seed you sow. The Lord will return to you blessing. It doesn’t mean that all the seed you sow will bring about salvation, but what it does mean is that as you’re faithful to sow the seed, God will be faithful to give you in return. And not just equally, because at the end of verse 24 it says, “And more will be given to you besides,” and at the beginning of verse 25, “For whoever has to him, more shall be given.” If you’re one of those who has, that is you have eternal life, you have the truth, you have the seed, you will receive not only in measure what you’ve done, but far more. This is Luke 6:38, Jesus said, “Give and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together and running over.” And it will come from men in this life and from God in spiritual blessing, and in the future, eternal blessing. So, I say we listen obediently and appreciatively because of the promise of reward the Lord has given to us as faithful listeners who let what we hear be known to others. Whoever has, verse 25, to him more shall be given. It’s repeated twice, once at the end of 24, and once at the beginning of 25. Matthew 13 gives a parallel account and in verse 12 it says, “And he will have an abundance...he will have an abundance.” Of what? Divine blessing. As you give out the truth, you will be given more understanding, more truth, more grace, more power, more joy, more satisfaction, more fulfillment, more abundant life and more eternal reward. You can’t out give God. “I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” It’s an unqualified, unlimited promise. And then the contrast, which really sets it off, end of verse 25, And whoever doesn’t have, those are the people who hang around but aren’t real believers, even what he has, or if I can borrow the language from the parallel verse in Luke 8 verse 18, what he thinks he has. That’s even a better way to understand it. Whoever doesn’t have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him. False disciples deceived people who associate with believers. Maybe the unconverted husband who is, as 1 Corinthians 7 says, sanctified in some ways by the believing wife. The splash effect hits him. God pours out blessing on a believing wife and it splatters on her husband temporarily. Or the splatter of blessing that came, for example, to the non-believing Jews who were associated with the believing Jews in the church to whom Hebrews was written, he says, “You know, you’ve tasted the heavenly gift, you’ve tasted the powers of the age to come, you’ve become enlightened about all these things, but it’s all short of salvation.” These are the folks who would be described in Matthew 7:21, “Lord, Lord, we did this, we did that. And He says, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you.’” The people who think they have it but don’t have it will find out that what they think they have, they will lose. For the true followers of Christ, however, on the other hand, there will be blessing and blessing and blessing and more blessing and more blessing poured out to them, measured out by how much they invest in the work of evangelism and even much, much more. So we throw the seed and shine the light obediently because of the innate obligation and appreciatively because of the individual opportunity. Each one of us will receive personally a blessing of God on our faithfulness and much, much, much more than we deserve. Thirdly, we listen obediently, we listen appreciatively, and we listen dependently...dependently. In this great enterprise of evangelism as we hear the Word of God, take it in and proclaim it, we have to understand our limitations. Now we come to the last two parables in this section and for the first time they don’t say, “And He said to them.” Verse 26, “And He was saying,” you notice “to them” isn’t there. Verse 30, “And He said...” So these parables likely were spoken to the crowd. They weren’t explained to the crowd, they might have been explained to the disciples, the explanation isn’t given because it really isn’t necessary. They now understand the big picture. They got the paradigm in mind and it becomes obvious what these parables mean. And so He is saying, verse 26, “The Kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the earth, or the soil. He goes to bed at night and gets up by day and the seed sprouts and grows. How he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself. First the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.” By the way, there’s nothing eschatological about that. It’s not talking about Jesus coming in eschatological judgment. I’ll tell you why. Because that wouldn’t work in this parable because the farmer has been sleeping up until that point, and I promise you, when Jesus comes in judgment, He won’t be waking up from along sleep. That is not what this story is about. It’s simple, simple parable, nobody would miss the meaning. The farmer plants and then he goes to bed and given the conditions of the soil and the preparation of water, etc., etc., he really can’t do anything but wait till harvest. He plays no role in the growth of the crop, that’s the point. The sphere of salvation, the reign of God over the hearts of those who believe and our role in that is like a farmer who plants the seed and then goes home and goes to bed. I like that...I really like that. You don’t need to live your life in a panic. You don’t need to stay awake 24 hours a day. Go to bed. Plant the seed, shine the light and go to bed. You’re not responsible for what happens. That’s the wonder of it all. It’s so paradoxical. A seed goes into the ground and dies and as it dies, out of it comes life. How does that happen? Nobody knows that. The farmer doesn’t know that. The farmer can’t make that happen. Nobody can make that happen. The best horticulturist in the world don’t know how that happens. They know it happens but they can’t define how it happens or why it happens. Out of this dying seed comes life, a huge crop...that’s the wonder of the gospel hidden in those simple gospel truths is the power of life and it breaks out while we sleep. Look, all I can do is tell the truth. All I can do is speak the truth. I can’t take care of the results. I can’t give life. It’s mysterious, just like to the farmer to us. The only human act is to plant the seed and wait...and wait, go to sleep, it’s all God’s work. First Corinthians 3 says, “God gives the increase.” Life and growth is a divine operation. You must be born from above, John 3. Not of the will of a man...of men, not of the will of flesh, John 1:12, but of God. Listen to it this way, no human being contributes to the regeneration, conversion, justification, salvation process. All we can do is tell the truth. The seed is potent, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, Romans 1, the soil when prepared by God will receive it and once God makes it grow, I love this part of the little parable, when it begins to grow, it does not stop until it is harvested...first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head and then the harvest. What God begins He completes, right? Philippians 1:6, “Whoever begins a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ.” This is a critical lesson, by the way, to all evangelical manipulators and clever marketers who think they can make people believe. No human being no matter how persuasive, no matter how clever, makes a contribution to regeneration, conversion or justification. All we can do is give the truth. We can’t change hearts and we can’t produce life from dead people. That’s something the Lord alone does. “No man comes to me except the Father draws him.” And once He begins to draw him, then it’s the blade, then it’s the ear, then it’s the full grain. It needs to be drummed into the heads and hearts of all Christians who have been seduced by the contemporary lies, that if we just get better at marketing the gospel, we can be more convincing and we can convince people to be saved. Just tell the truth. I hate to tell you this, music doesn’t have anything to do with it in terms of style. The content of what is said and sung in music may bring the gospel, convey the gospel. But it’s not about mood, it’s not about music, it’s not about invitations, it’s not about any human effort. We don’t do God’s work with human means. I love this, verse 28, “The soil produces crops by itself.” It’s the Greek word automate from which we get the English word automatically. It’s divinely automatic. How encouraging is that? Regeneration, transformation, spiritual transition conversion, new birth can’t be produced by anyone, or any human means, the whole process is divinely automatic. You can’t start it and you can’t stop it. And once it starts, it goes to the full. All you can do is be there to enjoy the harvest, like in 2 Timothy 2:6, the hard working farmer does what he does so that he can enjoy the harvest. We have no role in the actual work of salvation. But we get in on the harvest. What do you mean the harvest? Well one way we enjoy the harvest is fellowship, don’t we? This is fellowship. Another way in eternity in the future, friends for eternity that we don’t even know now that we’ll meet then. So forever and ever, we will enjoy the harvest. We’ll taste the harvest. The success then of the gospel does not depend on our power to change the heart, or our power to make the gospel more acceptable, or our power to manipulate the will or manipulate emotions. We talked about that. The work of salvation is divinely automatic. So we listen dependently, right? Dependently. Or maybe you like the word humbly better. Well finally, there’s one more last parable, we listen confidently..confidently. And, you know, these disciples, were they thinking to themselves, “Okay, we’re with You to this point, we’ll be obedient, we’ll be appreciative and we’ll be dependent and humble, but what’s the end going to be? Where is this thing going, it looks so small, so fragile, so frail. Where is it going?” Well He reminds us to listen confidently because of the inevitable outcome, because of the inevitable outcome. Verse 30, He said, “How shall we picture the Kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?” Now looking at the end of it, what’s it going to be like? How do we describe the final outcome? What should these disciples and Apostles there in Galilee struggling with the issues that were...they were facing, how should they understand? How should they look into the future and get a picture of what may happen? It all seems so frail, so small. And He gives a simple illustration. “Well, it’s like a mustard seed which when sown on the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.” Everybody would understand that. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that turns into a mustard tree. Now mustard seed was the smallest seed that they used in their farming. It wasn’t the actual smallest seed on the planet but it was proverbial for something small to them because it was the one they were familiar with. Matthew 17:20 Jesus said, “If you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed...” so forth, so that was their proverbial expression for something very small and it was the size of a grain of sand. But proportionately, there was nothing that they planted that started that small and became so large. A mustard bush would be up to 15 feet high and six feet in diameter, a massive thing to come out of a seed the size of a grain of sand. And what our Lord is saying to them is obvious, there’s no explanation here. The small beginnings, guys, do not give you any indication of where this is going. How many...how many multiples of the size of the seed, the grain of sand, would be contained in the fifteen feet and the six feet and the circumference even vast? How many little grains of sand? There would be millions and millions of them and so the proportions are stunning and staggering and so we listen to the Word of God obediently, we listen appreciatively, we listen humbly, folks, we listen confidently. They didn’t see what we’ve seen. We’ve seen the Kingdom expand, haven’t we? We’ve seen it go to the ends of the earth. This is marvelous. The whole thing to them seems so tiny, so microscopic. Where was it ever going to go? And they knew that the leaders of Israel and the people, for the most part, had rejected Jesus, it just wasn’t really very hopeful. They might have been much more comfortable if Jesus had said to them, “Just go everywhere and pronounce damnation on everybody.” But You’re just telling us we don’t do that and You’re telling us that we’re going to have to let the light shine and sow the seed and this thing is going to go and this is going to be our calling and our commission. Just exactly what are the results going to be? And He said, “This is going to massive, massively out of proportion to the size of its beginnings. This is a prophecy of the triumphant growth, growth as the gospel and the church has grown through the history of the world and will ultimately culminate in the Millennial Kingdom where Christ will rule the whole world. Notice the reference to the birds nesting in its shade. This is taken out of Ezekiel chapter 17 and in Ezekiel 17 you have a messianic prophecy that says, “Under the rule of Messiah, nations will come to salvation,” and the nations are pictured as birds coming to lodge in the tree of blessing. So that’s borrowed right out of that imagery. And so the birds are representative of the nations. In other words, this is going to expand and not only Israel will be a part of this coming Kingdom, but the nations of the world will be a part of it as well. You have a very similar use of birds in Daniel 4 verses 10 and 21, Nebuchadnezzar views his kingdom and the birds that are in his tree, as it were, represent peoples and nations under his rule. That’s pretty staggering stuff. These few guys are being told that the nations of the world are going to be brought into this. And if you go to the book of Revelation, you’re going to find that gathered around the throne of God in heaven are people from every tongue and tribe and nation and people, right? It’s stunning and staggering. So we are listeners. We hear with understanding. We are the privileged. He ends it in verses 33 and 34 with a reminder. With many such parables He was speaking the Word to them, more of the parables that He gave on those occasions in Galilee are located in Matthew chapter 13, if you want to read them. But with many such parables, He was speaking the Word to them so far as they were able to hear it...that’s to the crowd...He didn’t speak to them without a parable but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples. And there we are back where we started, right? What’s the greatest privilege of a Christian? To know the truth, right? What is the distinguishing mark of a Christian? To know the truth, obey the truth, love the truth, to be listeners. And how do we listen? Obediently and appreciatively, and dependently, and humbly and confidently. What amazing privilege has been granted to us, hasn’t it? Think of it this way. If you’re a believer, you speak God’s language. When He speaks, you perfectly understand it. It’s a foreign language to everybody else.

Half Life Source Should One Start A Business Blog? January 20th, 2014 by admin Among various marketing tools, blogging is the most powerful one, but only for those who know how to create the best content. Those who are wondering how to start a blog should answer many questions before making any further decisions. The first thing one should think about is if he needs a blog. This requires some sort of commitment, and it is not enough to create a blog and leave it that way. Those who do not enjoy writing will never succeed, but there is also an alternative; creating an audio or video blog. The next thing to consider is the audience one wants to attract. The target audience should use the Internet, read blogs, use search engines and social media, and if they do not belong in those groups, the blog will be a waste of time. Not every blog has the same purpose, so one needs to figure out if he wants to increase the search engine ratings or reach new customers, for instance. Even when the blog is finished, it should be promoted and one should know how to determine the blog success. Everyone can find out how to start a blog, but still, this is not for everyone, and only the passionate ones can expect some results. How To Earn Money With Right Blog Posts? Generally, blogs can be divided into two major groups – those that make money and those that do not. Some people are just passionate about particular topics, and they want to tell everyone about that. On the other hand, some use blogs as marketing strategies, and they want to learn how to start a blog in order to promote the product or service. In addition, there are different types of money-making posts, and here are the most profitable ones. Product reviews may be the best idea, because if the person reads it, that means he already wants to buy a product, and he just needs to be convinced. People usually say that these reviews are the most secure way find out if a product is worth the money or not, so they trust them. How-to articles are another good idea because beginners in different areas usually need step-by-step instructions towards making or fixing something, just like someone needs to know how to start a blog. Even by following trending topics, one can find a perfect way to hit something that many people are interested for, and many social networks can help one find out what is actually “in” lately. The sales pages can work if one figures out the right word that can make a customer buy a products. Check out more tips on blog writing here. IRS Tax Help For Resolving Tax Disputes January 8th, 2014 by admin IRS tax help exists in order to assist the public in their tax returns or penalty issues. Filing a tax return is very essential to every individual who is earning from their employment or business. Though some people voluntarily file their taxes, it is no excuse for every citizen not to contribute or pay their taxes rightly. That is why the Internal Revenue System is giving penalties to those people with tax issues. If you are among those citizens who want to resolve their tax penalties, you may want to get IRS tax help from trusted professionals. Tax help from the IRS is easy to obtain but you have to be careful on scams. If you cannot find all the answers to your questions on the IRS website, you can call their telephone hotline or visit for a personal assistance. Just make sure to take note on the important details so that you will be able to avoid tax disputes. The more you prolong the tax issues, the greater the consequences for it. Hence, always consider in finding solutions to your tax issues as soon as possible, in order to avoid potential problems. IRS tax help can be beneficial so take advantage on it. What Employee Expenses Can Be Deductible? Employees today may be in the best situation for the past couple of decades and mostly because their expenses may be deductible. However, many of them do not know how this all works, and that they can file for IRS tax reliefs with special benefits. The deduction of costs may be the best one of them, and here are some facts that can help in the entire process. Those who use their own car for business purposes should pay attention to miles they cross, because this can end up in tax saving that are welcome anytime. Even expenses for business travels are deductible, so everyone should keep the receipt. Parking may be am everyday thing, but one can earn thanks to it, and for employees these expenses are deductible, as long as it is not about daily tools. Uniforms are something that every job requires, and if they are used for that purpose only and not as everyday wear, they can be deductible. Many employees do not pay attention to association tools, meals or entertainment, but they all can be a part of a deduction. Even though employees have to take care of some expenses from their own pocket, they may get that back. Even when filing for IRS tax relief they are most likely to be saved in the future. Although paying taxes is a must, many people struggle with it, and they end up in enormous debts they cannot get rid of. That is why many try to find the most convenient way to lower taxes, and may them payable. It is still a better idea then immediately looking for an IRS tax relief, so here is how one can modify loans and get benefits from it. In the past, the homeowners were in bad situation because they needed to pay high loans and taxes, so that was very hard to achieve. Nonetheless, times have changed and tax burden is not as serious as before, but only for those who understand how system works. Although those changes usually affect federal taxes, one thing to pay attention to is the timing of the mortgage changes, especially because they usually need months to be approved. There are some things people usually want to know, and that refers to cancellation of the debt. There are even some non-taxable cancellations, and that is a case with bankruptcy, insolvency and non-recourse loans. Although the IRS tax relief may offer some simpler solutions, many tend to agree to loan modification, and in this case, it is important to understand the terms before signing any documents. Vitalsleep – The Mouthpiece Designed To Help You Stop Snoring December 26th, 2013 by admin Snoring is more than just an uncomfortable sound, and many people take it for granted. This condition can be caused by various health changes, but it can also lead to many problems in the future. One of the best solutions for this problem may be Vitalsleep, the mouthpiece designed to stop snoring by managing the air passages. In order to understand the seriousness of this problem, it is vital to know how it can affect everyday activities. Just one look into a snoring problem can show how snoring and stress are related and how they can lead to one other. Snoring is a condition that does not let the person have a normal sleep, and the lack of sleep usually leads to nervousness, anxiety and inability to function normally. On the other hand, different people have different ways of handling the stressful situations. In many cases, people tend to eat too much, which leads to weight gain, or they drink and smoke too much, which results in snoring. Therefore, it is important to clear the mind before going to bed, and to realize how important the healthy sleep is. In addition, it is always recommended to use the vitalsleep, and the good night sleep will be inevitable. If you want to know more about Vitalsleep device, you should visit this informative review website. How Dangerous Is Lack Of Sleep To Your Health? In today’s fast world, many people do not have time for quality sleep but it can leave serious consequences on them. On the other hand, some have snoring problems that cannot be solved with simple stop snoring mouthpiece, so they just keep living unhealthy life for years. Many studies have shown that if the body does not get enough rest, there is a higher risk for a person to end up dead, since they can develop the cardiovascular diseases. In addition, the lack of sleep can lead to depression; it can disturb the learning process, and prevent the person to react normally in some situations. Many people are not aware that if they do not sleep enough, their skin can lose elasticity, they can get puffy eyes, and dark circles under the eyes. Regular and schedules lifestyle can be more than important, because people who suffer from insomnia or do not have time to sleep also do not have a schedule when it comes to eating, so they tend to gain weight easily. Moreover, this problem leads to lower libido, and people are losing the interest in sex. Those who suffer from any kind of sleeping disorder should consult the doctor and see if the special pillow, stop snoring mouthpiece or medication can help. Video Game History: Lookin’ Good, Despite The Graphics August 5th, 2013 by admin Once upon a time, disco ruled the airwaves, Rocky packed unmatched movie theater punch, and the Atari Corporation dominated the family room. The year was 1976 and Atari had just released the Atari 2600 home video game console, a four-bit system that promised to bring the arcade experience to the home. Riding the strength of hit titles such as Asteroids and Space Invaders, Atari dominated the video game market, moving millions of 2600 units in its heady heyday. In 1996, one finds a vastly different video game console landscape. Atari is gone, having merged with disk drive manufacturer JTS Corporation in July 1996, and today’s video game console manufacturers enjoy technological advances that far surpass the Atari machines of the 1970s and including, with some exceptions, the use of CD-ROM as a game publishing medium. Moreover, many of todays companies are beginning to move beyond the standalone console to surf the wave of the World Wide Web. Today, video game consoles manufactured by Nintendo Company Ltd., Sega Enterprises Ltd., and Sony Corporation dominate an interactive entertainment market that is valued at more than $12 billion worldwide. According to the Interactive Digital Software Association, the interactive entertainment/edutainment software industry alone will generate approximately $7.7 billion in sales in 1996, including an estimated $4.4 billion in retail sales and $3.3 billion in indirect sales. Moreover, this interactive entertainment industry of today employs more than 90,000 people, with a growth rate of 26 percent annually. THE BIG THREE: CONSOLE GAMING AND BEYOND There’s never a shortage of hype about the “next generation” in video game systems. Every manufacturer who enters the video game marketplace promises game systems that are faster, better, and cheaper than today’s consoles — offering dramatic special effects and greater realism and interactivity. It’s a constant, cut-throat format war. But where does the hype leave off and reality begin? The reality is that the video game console market has matured to the point where three companies — Nintendo, Sega, and Sony — vie for market share in the under-$200 console business and all with their sights set on cyberspace. On September 29, 1996, Nintendo Corporation of America Inc. made its leap from 16-bit technology to 64-bit technology, with the U.S. launch of the Nintendo 64 home video game system. Within three days after the U.S. launch, Nintendo reported its entire 350,000-unit shipment of players sold out at retail stores. Nintendo A represents a dramatic improvement over the 16-bit Super NES both in graphic resolution and processing power: the Nintendo 64 system features a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISCI) CPU with a clock speed of 93.75MHz; 32-bit RGBA pixel color frame buffer support; 21-bit color video output; and a co-processor that includes a sound and graphics processor and a pixel drawing processor. In terms of broadening its efforts beyond the console, Nintendo is rarely the first to do anything. The company’s philosophy is to let others blaze the trail. “We’ll come down and pave it later,” says Nintendo software engineering manager Jim Merrick. However, while Nintendo has done some development work in the area of online applications, its core business is gaming. We don’t want to do a Web browser unless it improves the gaming experience. We want to stick to what we know,” Merrick says. Of the three dominant console manufacturers, Sega has expanded the furthest beyond its core video game market. In addition to releasing its next-generation, CD-ROM-based Saturn console, the company also has released a Saturn-based Internet browser package called NetLink. Further, the company continues to support the Sega Channel and is making plans to develop interactive entertainment theme parks. On the console side, the 32-bit Saturn features two SH2 32-bit RISC processors which provide the main processing engine for the Saturn; two graphics processors derived from Sega’s advanced arcade systems – VDP1 and VDP2 (Video Digital Processor); and the Sega Custom Sound Processor (SCSP) from Yamaha, which includes a 128-step digital signal processor (DSP) and provides up to 32 voices and CD-quality audio. While Sega has thrown most of its support behind its Sega Saturn console, the company still remains committed to the more than 18 million owners of the Genesis cartridge-based system in the United States, having released more than 12 new titles for the system in 1996. However, the majority of games being developed by Sega and its third-party developers will also be published for the Sega Saturn. Sega reports that as of September 1996, the installed base of Saturn units is around 900,000. The company projects this figure to rise to around 1.5 million by the end of 1996. As for moving beyond the console, for Sega, it all begins with the arcade experience. The company’s base business is to create compelling content for the arcade, then move this content onto the console and subsequently into other entertainment channels. For example, the company recently entered into a strategic partnership with Dreamworks SKG to form a location-based entertainment company called Gameworks. In December 1994, Sega, in a joint venture with Time Warner and TCI, launched the Sega Channel, a nationwide subscription-based cable network which offers Sega Genesis owners access to video games for play and preview. Sega Channel subscribers use a special cartridge adapter that fits into the Genesis machine to download video games directly onto CD-ROM. The game remains active on the machine until it is shut off. Introduced on October 31, 1996 with a $199 list price, the NetLink is a 28.8 modem that fits into the cartridge slot of the Saturn. Included with the modem is CD-based HTML 2.0-compatible Web browser software developed specifically for the NTSC TV display standard. With the Saturn game controller and an on-screen keyboard, the user can browse the Web, receive email, and, eventually, participate in multiplayer, online gaming. The onscreen keyboard also incorporates predetermined grouped letters, such as “http://” and “.com, that can be accessed and activated using the Sega Saturn control pad a mouse, or a keyboard. Concentric Network Corporation will serve as Internet access provider for NetLink, offering one month of free service for new users; subsequent standard monthly charges will start at $19.95 for basic service. Sega plans to implement online gaming during the first quarter of 1997. Sony PlayStation is CD Sony Interactive Entertainment entered the video game console market in 1995 as a low-cost hardware manufacturer. In September 1995, the company launched its PlayStation video game console, the first 32-bit CD-ROM-based system to hit the streets. As of October 1996, the company reports that, in just one year in the video game hardware business, worldwide shipments of the PlayStation game console have topped 7.2 million units (3.5 million, Japan; 2.1 million, North America; and 1.6 million, Europe). Sony also reports that more than 15 of its first- and third-party titles have sold in excess of a quarter of a million units in North America. On the Internet front, while Sony acknowledges that online gaming is an important area that the company eventuauy plans to explore, sources within SCEA say that the company is happy with the way the PlayStation console is positioned and has no immediate plans to release any type of modem add-on device to the public. The same sources at Sony add that while the company may develop “some sort of online device” for the PlayStation down the road, these plans remain in research and development. THE CARTRIDGE/CD DEBATE: SPEED VS. STORAGE AND BEYOND The decision for a video game console manufacturer to commit to a CD-based game console instead of staying with a cartridge-based system goes beyond the economics of the media. While cartridges traditionally are more expensive to manufacture than CDs, market strategy and style of game play also factor into the cartridge/CD decision. While its competitors Sega and Sony have introduced CD-ROM-based game consoles, according to Nintendo’s Merrick, Nintendo has remained cartridge-based for two main reasons: economics and performance. Merrick says, “We’re very sensitive to the cost of the console. We could get an eight-speed CD-ROM mechanism in the unit, but in the under-$200 console market, it would be hard to pull that off.” Merrick also maintains that because the Nintendo 64 system handles so much graphical data at a high data transfer rate (such as 3D geometry and texture information), the company wanted to have the faster access afforded by the cartridge. “That’s not to say we don’t want more storage at a lower cost,” he adds, while quickly pointing out that many of the CD-based console games don’t really use all 650MB of the CD-ROM. The bottom line for Nintendo, according to Merrick, is to appeal to its hard-core game playing market. “Full-motion video demos really well on a CD-ROM, but once you get into the software, as a gamer, you’re thinking `let’s get on with the game,’” says Merrick. He stresses that one of the upsides of the cartridge is the absence of any load time. “Once you pop the cartridge into the machine, you’re into the game.” Presently, Nintendo is developing a new disk drive system that was first previewed in November 1996 in Japan. According to Merrick, “We are looking for a drive that features a much higher data transfer rate than CD mechanisms can offer at their current pricing.” As a result, Nintendo is exploring a disk drive mechanism similar to the high-density floppy drive found in a Syquest or Iomega zip drive. This type of drive would give the company a high transfer rate of about 980KB and a sub-150ms access time. If and when released, the new drive will fit into an expansion slot located underneath the Nintendo 64 player. Sega’s heritage as an arcade business that ports its top arcade titles to the home console is the main reason that the company upgraded its cartridge-based Genesis machine to the CD-ROM-based Saturn. In order to transfer faithfully the size and scope of arcade games such as Virtua Fighter and Daytona, we really needed the storage capacity of the CD-ROM,” says Ted Hoff, vice president of sales and marketing at Sega. The company also wanted to provide Red Book audio and cinematic film-quality graphics. Hoff believes that the only thing sacrificed with a CD-ROM is the “minimal” load factor, which, the company argues, is something that can be overcome through effective design. “We are finding more and more ways to mask the load factor,” Hoff says. Sega currently is exploring such techniques as running an animated “featurette” or playing an audio track during the loading process. As Hoff points out, “We are working out ways to overlay or leapfrog the loading time.” Unlike Sega, Sony has no heritage in the video game console or arcade business. For Sony, the choice between introducing a cartridge or CD-based machine came down to graphics quality and cost. Spokespeople at Sony maintain that in order to arrive at a more “true” 3D environment, the enhanced memory storage afforded by a CD-based system is critical. Further, by going the CD route, Sony, like Sega, believes it has a video game console on the market that is more attractive to publishers. “They can manufacture the appropriate amount of software without taking a tremendous inventory risk associated with the cartridge business,” says Andrew House, vice president of marketing at SCEA. For small numbers of triangles, the performance is dominated by system copy calls. They occur most often in the case of the software 3D system (which composes the picture in system memory). The 3D VGC with setup shows lower frame rates due to a double-buffer approach synchronized to the monitor frequency. Above a rate of 500 triangles/s, the rapid falloff in performance of the 3D VGC demonstrates the need for hardware assist. At 10,000 triangles/frame, the 3D hardware is almost irrelevant, and the system is limited by the CPU’s geometry and lighting performance. What does this all mean in practice? Most 3D games available today use about 1000 to 2000 rendered triangles/frame, from a total of about 5000, corresponding in a depth complexity of about three. Both software 3D and 3D-VGC systems struggle to reach 20 frames/s in this scenario, though having hardware setup helps a lot ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED], again). Even with rich texturing, 1000 to 2000 triangles for the scene or subject doesn’t allow for a very realistic game. The next generation of 1-million-triangles/s games will require scene complexities of 10,000 triangles and beyond. In a typical scene breakdown, the larger triangles represent the greatest area. With rich texture mapping, the larger triangles are essential to the gaming experience. However, the small triangles are essential for realistic details. Current software and 3D-VGC systems will be completely CPU bound at a few frames per second for this scene complexity, well below the level of 30 frames/s required for interactivity. Using a faster CPU, such as a 200 MHz Pentium II, will raise the performance level by a factor of about three, but the 8 frame/s performance is still too low. Handling Textures Sooner or later, all textures have to travel from system memory to the VGC. Today, those bandwidths are typically in the tens of megabytes, and are predicted to double each year. The Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) increases available bandwidths from 266 Mbyte/s for 1X mode (twice the rate of the PCI bus), to 1 Gbyte/s for 4X mode. But increased bus bandwidth is not enough. As required screen resolutions increase above 800 by 600 pixels and realism demands more sophisticated techniques such as trilinear texture filtering and antialiasing, it will be easy to exceed even the 4X AGP bus bandwidth if full texture mip-maps are stored in system memory. Fortunately, it’s not necessary to store and transmit full-texture mip-maps. Compression factors of 10:1 or better are achievable with minimal texture degradation [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]. Compressed textures are stored in system memory transparent to the application, and are transmitted compressed to the VGC which decompresses them on the fly as needed. Scatter-gather PCI/AGP bus mastering is the next essential feature. It has the potential to double system performance. The VGC’s own Memory Management Unit (MMU) can autonomously fetch texture maps from the system memory without interrupting the CPU to provide scattered addresses of data blocks. Advanced systems achieve a further reduction in band width by building a texture cache into the VGC, and by deferring texturing until clipping and visability are performed. Other key features to look for are perspective-correct texture mapping and the ability to handle generated and video textures. Although texture compression allows next-generation games to run without saturating PCI-bus bandwidths, there’s still a need for enhancements suchy as geometry- and lighting-acceleration hardware. Microprocessor performance is not increasing fast enough and, until 1999, the best we can expect is a 2X improvement in the CPU’s floating-point performance. It’s reasonable to assume that this improvement will be absorbed by the requirements of 3D applications. Hardware geometry and lighting also helps minimize the bus-bandwidth requirement. In the meantime, overall system performance can be improved by implementing some hardware-based software techniques. 2D Can’t Cut It In a sense, the fastest way to render an object is not to have to render it. To squeeze the maximum performance from a limited 2D system, independent software vendors (ISVs) have long exploited techniques like sprites, level-of-detail (LOD), 3D layering, and affine transforms. Sprites allow relatively complex, active objects to be stored as bitmaps and superimposed on a scene. However, as we become accustomed to more sophisticated games, conventional 2D sprites often look disconnected and unrealistic. With LOD filtering, ISVs don’t bother to render more distant objects. It’s a sensible compromise because the number of objects within the field of view increases rapidly with distance. However, it often leads to the disturbing effect of trees, buildings, and other objects suddenly popping up out of nowhere. Use of 3D layering allows for a more efficient exploitation of system resources. Objects are grouped according to their distance from the viewer. Background objects like mountains and clouds change very slowly and require infrequent updating. Alternatively, foreground objects need frequent rendering. Combined with an affine warping capability (which can be described as transformations like stretching and skewing), 3D scene updates can be even less frequent. For example, an approaching midground group of buildings, can be slowly zoomed without rendering, and only needs rerendering when the perspective changes by more than a certain amount and/or new surfaces become visible. Because sprites, 3D layering, and affine warping are all well suited to being handled in hardware, these features will soon appear in the next generation of advanced 3D VGCs. The Talisman initiative from Microsoft represents a multimedia reference platform that incorporates other advanced architectural concepts. These include chunking to avoid frame-buffer memory and minimize bus bandwidth, as well as a range of other multimedia functions such as DVD and video-conferencing. The other main function of the 3D VGC is the bus-mastered handling of video I/O. During the last few years, video has become an increasingly important feature in the mainstream PC market. Desktop video-editing has been a niche application for years. On business platforms, the long-predicted “killer-application” is video-conferencing. In an intriguing example where games and video merge, a captured video of the game player is inserted into the game in which he or she becomes, quite literally, a leading character in the game. The underlying problem behind most PC-based video capabilities relates to the differing environments of the PC and the television. For historic reasons, PAL/NTSC TVs use an interlaced scanning system at 50 or 60 half-fields/s with 480 or 512 lines/field. PC monitors typically operate in excess of 75 noninterlaced fields/s with 600 or more lines/field. When analog video is imported into the PC, a number of artifacts must be corrected. Similarly, a PC monitor outputting a PAL/NTSC signal runs into the same problem but in reverse. Video Deinterlacing When importing DVD or video data, the simplest method to produce a full picture is to merge or weave two successive odd and even half fields. This technique maintains the picture’s maximum detail provided there’s no motion. But even the slightest object movement causes a disturbing feathering artifact [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED]. The conventional line-doubling solution discards the even fields and repeats each line in the odd field. This way solves the feathering effect, but at the cost of lower vertical resolution. Interpolation helps, but the missing clarity is especially noticeable with (near) static pictures. The best approach, found on some VGCs, is to combine both solutions so that resolution is only lost when needed to correct for motion artifacts. Many users will use a large-screen TV as a PC display for cost reasons, more exciting gaming experiences, or for presentation purposes. Making video information that was specifically generated for the PC look good on a TV presents new challenges to both PC and application designers. A three-line flicker filter is the VGC’s most essential TV-out feature. To maintain the proper standards, we must correct for the 25 or 30 Hz flickering of (near) horizontal edges. Good horizontal and vertical upscaling (with interpolative filtering) of video data is mandatory. It’s also important to correct for the TV’s over-scanning, which may be suitable for a movie, but disastrous when the lost information is a menu item or scroll bar. The ability to compose the TV picture independent of the PC monitor can be equally important in making sure the right information is sent to the TV. For example, in a home-movie editing application, the TV output might only be a window on the PC monitor, while on a VCR it will appear as a full-screen image. Critical performance Issues The consumer PC must be equipped for the next generation of 3D games, which will soon be rendering scenes at rates of 1 million triangles/s. The CPU and VGC need to offer a much better balanced system for handling the critical performance demands of the 3D pipeline. In the near term, VGCs offering features like scatter-gather bus mastering, texture compression and caching, 3D layering, and off-line warping off-load the CPU and dramatically enhance system performance. Most designers agree that full-triangle setup belongs in the VGC, although there’s some division of opinion on whether geometry and lighting processing belongs in the CPU or the VGC. Hardware accelerations for geometry and lighting aim to enhance the performance of today’s CPU-bound systems. Designers need to trade off the silicon investment in the CPU against that in the multimedia/VGC subsystem on the basis of the relative importance of the various applications. “The Little Wizard” uses advanced technologies like random embedded animation, and lip-synched character voices to totally immerse the child in the adventure stories. Interactive music and 3D characters add to this experience. And, with the ability to depict simultaneous multiple events, “The Little Wizard’s” cast of characters are able to react not only to the child, but to the surroundings as well. “The Little Wizard” CD-ROM/DVD can be utilized in an assortment of different ways. Children can, for example, either have the story read to them, read it on their own, or have it read to them scene by scene. In these ways, they can interact with each scene. They also have the ability to review any one of 22 scenes, or fast-forward to any one of the scenes by using a special Pick-A-Scene option. A special start/stop narration feature allows the child to interrupt the story or click on text so that sequences of words can be read back. In addition, children have access to special tools to create and listen to music as they interact with the CD-ROM. While this is certainly not the first interactive animated story on the market for children, it is unique in that it offers a true hands-on multidimensional learning capability that evolves with the child. This is possible thanks to a built-in update feature that uses the World Wide Web to access and load the latest story updates. Such updated information might include the introduction of new characters, more music, and the addition of greater complexities to the games. As a result, once the child masters certain skills, he or she can be immediately introduced to new situation and more difficult game levels that will again challenge them to learn something new. And, for the parents reading along with their children this means no more getting bored seeing the same thing repeated over and over again. The “Breakfast and Blue Jeans–better together” promo shows the wide accessibility of Old Navy’s offbeat lifestyle position. The retailer’s name will be on the front of 3 million cereal boxes, and the entire back panel will advertise the promo, which offers consumers $5 off Old Navy purchases of $25 or more. In true Old Navy ad style, the panel contains the coupon and a shot of its jeans, with campy graphic bursts highlighting product features through nutritional-type boasts, such as “fortified with six sturdy rivets” and “good for you.” The Old Navy logo and slogan, “Shopping is fun again,” runs below. A side panel announces a sweepstakes. For the grand prize, an Old Navy truck will bring jeans, sweatshirts, caps and cereal to up to 2,000 students at the winner’s school. TV spots by General Mills agency Campbell Mithun Esty, Minneapolis, will carry “Breakfast and Blue Jeans” tags. Cinnamon Grahams, an extension of Golden Grahams, is budgeted for a $16-20 million launch. In turn, Cinnamon Grahams gets a presence in Old Navy stores. All locations–237 in total–will feature posters, samples and cereal boxes. Key stores, like the New York flagship, could get rotating oversized cereal boxes and window displays. One showing a mannequin family at the breakfast table is being considered. Richard Crisman, Old Navy’s vp-marketing, said General Mills liked Old Navy’s broad target; the store’s hyper-friendly environment and low prices attract a wide range of shoppers. “They wanted to launch it in a place other than traditional supermarkets,” Crisman said, “and Old Navy keeps coming up as one of the most popular brands with kids.” As for Old Navy, “[The alliance] is very appropriate because we have a lot of flexibility,” Crisman said. “Whether that be a cereal box or an Indy race car,” which the brand sponsors. “Getting on supermarket shelves is an apparel marketer’s dream,” said Alan Millstein, editor of the Fashion Network Report. “It’s even better than Calvin Klein putting ads on popcorn bags at movie theaters. Somebody had their thinking cap on. They’ll get great exposure.” A separate Mills promo, starting this week and running through December, puts a self-liquidating offer for Giga Pets on 15 million boxes of Frosted Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Chex, Golden Grahams and Reese’s Puff Clusters. More than $2 million in TV media will support. It comes on the heels of KFC and Nabisco links with the pocket virtual pets. Who were the first Frisbee throwers? The ninja, of course. (Though if you tried to catch one of their “Frisbees” you might end up, Road Warrior–style, picking your fingertips off the ground.) Students at Ron Blackwood’s dojo in Orange, California, still train with shuriken, or throwing stars, even though, as Blackwood says, “they’re illegal as all get-out here in California.” The point is, once you’ve mastered the art of throwing the bladed shuriken, almost anything can become a weapon. “I’m sitting here looking at a coaster,” Blackwood says “That could he a shuriken A tin-can lid, a saucer, a CD–those could be shurikerz.” A Frisbee-that could be a shuriker. To strengthen and enhance the flexibility of their wrists–the better to throw at you with, my dear–Blackwood’s students do sets of pushups on their fists or their fingertips. The throw itself marshals the principles of taijuisu, which literally means “body art” and practically means that every ounce of your weight and strength will be put into every punch, every throw. If throwing with your right hand, stand with your rightfoot pointed directly at your target, your knees bent, and your leftfoot behind you, pointed backward at a 45-degree angle. Start with your weight on you rear foot, your hand holding the Frisbee up near your left armpit. Then shift your weight to your right foot, moving your entire body forward and swiftly uncoiling your arm. “Imagine snapping a towel,” Blackwood says. “Imagine you’re taking your towel and throwing it out, but instead of pulling back at the end to the snap, just stop and release. Your index finger should be pointing at the precise point you want the shurike, to stick.” Blackwood’s students practice throwing at a 24-inch-diameter slab of tree trunk nailed to the wall. Typically, half of them miss until Blackwood puts a small sticker in the center of the target. Then almost all of them sink their shuriken into the wood somewhere. “You need a focus,” he says. “Look at the bottom of the guy’s shirt and throw at that. So what if you’re 2 inches off!” Clean Your Gutters A good friend of ours suffered a fractured ankle when he fell off a ladder while cleaning his gutters. If only he,d known about the one-leg stance. It’s a tee kwon do technique designed to help black-belt students learn balance. Here’s how it works: Stand on one leg, with your foot pointed straight ahead. Lift the other leg and bend it so the bottom of the foot is positioned directly in front of one other kneecap, without touching it. Black belts can hold this position indefinitely, while executing complex forms and elbow strikes. All you’ve got to do is hold the one-leg stance in front of the mirror while you brush your teeth. “It doesn’t have any extra time OUt of your day,” Moody says. “But doing it just that much will improve your balance tremendously” Melt Your Love Handles The classic recipe for trimming your abdominal beanbag is simple: Eat better, lose weight and strengthen your stomach muscles. If that fails, there’s liposuction or, if you’re too poor, loose-fitting sweatpants. But this tee kwon do exercise will help you by training the obliques, the muscles that run along the sides of your abdomen. Translation: No more love handles! * Adopt a wide stance, feet double shoulder-width apart, with your knees bent. Envision an opponent lying on the ground under you and, using arch arm in succession, punch down and across your body toward your opposite foot. Your hips should rotate as you punch. * When you punch, your first two knuckles should be leading the punch, so your arm twists inward as it descends. As you extend the punching arm forward, pull the opposite arm back for maximum hip rotation. Do three sets of 25 repetitions. End-Back Pain Lower-back pain is often caused by being weak in the midsection, not just in the back but in the front as well. Crunches work both sides of the midsection, strengthening the abdominals and safely stretching the lower-back muscles. At Moody’s gym, students do crunches with a tee kwon do twist: They punch the air at the top of each repetition. Start with three sets of 10 crunches, and when you can handle that easily, add a few more punches at the top of each crunch. Ultimately, you should work toward completing l0 punches on each crunch, and 25 to 30 crunches per set. To work the obliques more, punch across your body. Sneak Up on a Trout Stream Five hundred dollars in fly-fishing gear and you still haven’t landed your first brookie? Maybe it’s not your presentation but your approach that needs work. Those native trout are easily spooked, especially by a clumsy galoot crashing through the brush. To sneak up on that running rivulet of mountain water, a man needs stealth. Moody has a drill he puts his students through that might, admittedly, make you look a bit silly. What you do is balance a shoe on your head, and then you simply walk around the house. “This exercise forces you to be very careful about how you make each movement,” says Moody, a third-degree black belt. “It teaches you complete control over your body” Just the kind of stealth training that will allow even the clumsiest of fishermen to get an extra step on his prey. If it seems too easy to you lengthen your stride. “The deeper your stance, the harder it is to keep your balance with a shoe on your head,” Moody says. And once that’s a breeze, start turning corners. A few more pointers: Keep your body relaxed, particularly your upper body, and concentrate on using only the exact muscles needed to complete each step. “Once you can turn corners and he smooth about it, you should be able to precisely control how you move from step to step,” Moody says. Oh, and before you start, we recommend checking the bottom of the shoe. It’s embarrassing enough walking around with a shoe on your head. It’s worse getting dog-do out of your hair. Heighten Sexual Arousal We’re not going to tell you that breaking cinder blocks with your head is going to turn your mate into a trembling sexual machine (although we’re sure there are some women out there who might like that). Instead, consider mastering the art of shiatsu massage, which has the magical quality of heightening arousal while nullifying anxiety Shiatsu, like acupuncture and acupressure, focuses attention on “meridians,” the vectors that carry chi, or life energy, through the body. While acupressure stimulates specific points on those meridians, shiatsu works by massaging along the length of a meridian, heightening the energy coursing through your body. Although Holder teaches shiatsu for nonsexual situations to make people comfortable with their bodies, it can be a terrific slow Launch in sexual situations as well, the ultimate foreplay. “It creates a longer arousal period,” Holder says. “The idea is to really stimulate the body and prolong the event.” You can pick up an acupressure chart–basically a map of the body’s meridians–in a bookstore to familiarize yourself wit best areas for massage. But a basic shiatsu massage would focus on the chest and the lower abdomen, the upper thigh and the area at the base of the buttocks, the soles of the feet and the spaces between the toes, and the five meridians that run down the back on each side of the spine. “Take your hands and place an index finger on each side of the spine,” says Holder. “Relax your hands and place your fingers down naturally–probably about an inch apart–and massage up and down from there. You’ll pick up the meridians.” The main thing is not to think. “We’re just trying to create stimulation in the body. If you’re thinking about it too much, your focus isn’t going to be on the other person’s body. Don’t make sex a job, make it fun.” Psych Out the IRS Man You’ve heard of hand-to-hand combat? In Karl Scott’s beginning karate classes at the Asian Martial Arts Shreio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, students learn eye-to-eye combat. “It’s called Tiger Eyes,” Scott says. “The whole idea is to unbalance your opponent psychologically.” The goal is to overcome the social stigma against sustained, intense, unblinking eye contact, and thus disturb the person you’re staring at. Let’s say, for example, that the tax auditor is questioning whether the 17 cases of K-Y Jelly you boughs last year we really for business purposes. “What you do is Focus your eye contact like the eyes of a tiger into your opponent’s eyes,” says Scott. “If you’ve ever looked at a tiger–the way it focuses its eyes, especially when it’s about to go after prey–it’s pretty self-explanatory.” But since few of us have ever looked into the eyes of a coiled tiger, we’ll have to settle for what we’ve got. Your girlfriend’s cat, for example. Next time the mangy thing comes around whining for you to fill the food bowl, engage it in a duel-to-the-death stare-down. “It takes incredible concentration to be able to hold that focused intensity for any length of time,” Scott says, “particularly once you graduate to the human level.” Once you’ve mastered the Tiger Eye, it’s not something to use casually “It’s not really a socially acceptable way of interacting with people, because the whole idea is to destabilize and scare your opponent,” Scott says. “In a social situation or a business situation, where you’re negotiating things, you don’t necessarily want to do that, because people will say you’re weird.” But if you’re dealing with the IRS, let’s Face it: Better weird than wiped out.

Catherine Oglevee '15 and Laura Rivera '16 Students Examine Luminescence of Rare Earth Sol-gel Metals Laura Rivera ’16 and Catherine Oglevee ’15 Working With Prof. Karen Brewer By Colin Jacob '14 | Contact Holly Foster 315-859-4068 Posted June 17, 2013 Karen Brewer The world of technology is changing at a rapid pace and new materials need to be utilized to make further advancements. Rare earth metals are in a strong position to be more widely used for various applications, ranging from small electronic devices to large television screens. Laura Rivera ’16 and Catherine Oglevee ’15 are working with terbium and europium, two rare earth metals, this summer to understand their fluorescent properties. The group is working with Professor of Chemistry Karen Brewer who has performed this research for years. The rare earth metals will be placed into Sol-gel glasses, which are formed from introducing silica to extremely high temperatures. The metals will be placed in a silica network that is roughly 1-centimeter in diameter and 1-inch long. The Sol-gels are sensitive to their inputs and need a precise amount of product in order to function properly. The group is searching for new ligands to connect with the metals and create the clear window. Every student in the group will be working with a different chelate, which is a compound that functions as a ligand, or molecule that binds metal atoms. For example, Oglevee will be working with salicylic acid, an organic compound that can aid in the binding of the metal ions in rare earth metals. Once the chelates and earth metals have been secured in Sol-gel and dried for roughly two weeks, they characterize the products using spectrometers. UV spectrometers emit light onto glass samples and read the wavelengths of light that leave the product. UV light maintains a higher energy level than anything in the visible light spectrum. When the UV light is passed through the glass, the molecules lose energy. The spectrometer can observe this loss of energy and measure the wavelengths of the visible light coming through their Sol-gel samples. The group will shine the same UV light onto each sample containing different rare earth metals, but the final wavelength readings will vary. The researchers are hoping to find which chelate maximizes the fluorescence and to see which chelate maximizes energy output while maintaining a minimal amount of energy input. They hope to contribute to the small, but growing, library of knowledge on the subject and help other researchers in their studies. Sol-gels have a vast array of scientific and practical applications. The rare earth metals they are using are categorized as phosphors, or fluorescent substances. These phosphors can be used in tools for laser eye surgery or (O)LED panels on phone screens and television displays. Some of the gels being manipulated in the lab are strong insulators. They can only be made in small fragments now, but the group hopes that larger panels will be used in windows to drastically reduce energy waste in households.

Majorities of Americans Support Legalizing Medical Marijuana In Their State No consensus on legalizing marijuana for recreational use NEW YORK, N.Y. - March 31, 2011 - Debate around the legalization of marijuana has been hot. Several states have legalized it for medical purposes and some have considered legalizing it more broadly. When asked if Americans would support legalizing marijuana in their state, three quarters of Americans say they support legalization of marijuana for medical treatment (74%) with almost half saying they strongly support it (48%). Significantly fewer Americans say they oppose the legalization of medical marijuana in their state (18%), and even less are not sure (7%) or decline to answer (1%). These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 3,171 adults surveyed online between February 14 and 21, 2011 by Harris Interactive. Americans are much less supportive of legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Two in five support legalizing marijuana for recreational use in their state (42%) and half oppose it (49%) - 7% say they are unsure and 2% decline to answer. Differences by Region Adults in the East are most supportive of legalizing marijuana for both medical use (80%) and recreational use (50%). The West is the next most supportive region-76% support legalizing medical marijuana and 50% say so for recreational marijuana. While three quarters of Midwesterners support medical marijuana legalization (74%), less than two in five say so for recreational use (39%) and Southerners are least supportive of both medical marijuana legalization (69%) and marijuana legalized for recreational use (34%). Who Should Make the Decision While most Americans support legalizing medical marijuana, there is no consensus about legalizing marijuana for recreational use and who should decide whether or not to legalize it. A plurality of 44% of adults say it should be a state decision, 40% say it should be a federal decision, and 14% are not at all sure. There again are some regional differences-over half of Westerners (52%) think marijuana legalization should be a state decision compared to fewer in the South (44%), Midwest (42%) and East (38%) who say the same. Easterners are most likely to say it should be a federal decision (47%). What Would the Result Be If marijuana was legalized generally, majorities think it would cause an increase in both the number of people who use marijuana (68%) and the amount of marijuana used (68%). However, majorities also think it would increase tax revenue (75%), with 51% saying it would cause a large increase in tax revenue, as well as an increase in the consistency and standardization of marijuana used (59%). Substantial pluralities say that legalizing marijuana generally would cause a decrease in the crime rate (41%) and the amount of money spent on prisons/prisoners (44%). Marijuana has been legalized for certain medical uses in 15 states, possession of the drug has been decriminalized in various places, and California recently voted on whether or not to legalize it completely (they voted not to do so). Americans may favor legalizing the drug for medical purposes, but many questions remain unanswered such as: what medical issues warrant the use of marijuana? Where should it be dispensed? Who should regulate production and distribution? Furthermore, some experts believe much more work is needed to ascertain the risks and benefits of marijuana use. Small increase Decrease (NET) Small decrease Large decrease The crime rate The number of people who use marijuana The amount of money spent on prisons/prisoners Consistency and standardization of the marijuana used The amount of marijuana used This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between February 14 to 21, 2011 among 3,171 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online. All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal. Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

The Muslims Of Kashmir Are Waiting For Help Like many other Muslim peoples on the continent of Asia, the people of Kashmir spent the second half of the twentieth century in a state of war and conflict. The main reason why there has been no peace or stability in Kashmir for some 50 years is the oppression of the occupying Indian administration. Kashmir is an economically important area of the world, with its gold, emerald and ruby mines. Since this region under Indian occupation lies high up in the mountains, it is a strategic locale that can be used to dominate the whole surrounding area. That is why Kashmir, with its strategic importance and underground wealth, has attracted the attention of many nations throughout history. However, the most important reason why countries in the region are so interested in Kashmir is its being a Muslim country. It seems that neither India, known with its prejudiced attitude against Islam, nor Russia and China have any intention of allowing Kashmir to achieve its objective of becoming an independent Islamic state, or else to unite with Muslim Pakistan. The fact that the Kashmiri people are Muslim is the fundamental reason for the economic embargo, acts of violence, unjustified detentions and torture that they are subjected to. In this way, the powers in question aim to prevent Muslims from gaining power, both economically and politically. In the same way, they also want embargoes and international pressure to prevent the Muslim Pakistan government from supporting the people of Kashmir. Maneuvering Over Kashmir There is a terrible human tragedy being played out in the refugee camps of Kashmir. Up to 10 people are squeezed into single-room, one-bed tents. The Muslim people of Kashmir are battling famine, drought and contagious disease, and all they can find to eat are a few dry branches thrown into a well. The Indian sub-continent remained under British hegemony until the end of World War II. When the British departed, Indian Muslims wished to have their own state and so established Pakistan. There was an exchange of populations between ia and Pakistan. Many Muslims living in India migrated to Pakistan. Jammu/Kashmir, however, with its overwhelmingly majority Muslim population, remained under Indian control, by means of that country's intrigues and support from the British. Kashmir has been living under Indian oppression ever since. The Kashmiri Muslims wished to resist the oppressive Indian rule and to gain their independence. Indian forces carried out three major massacres in the country, in 1947, 1965 and 1971. Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims were killed. More than 4,000 women were tortured and raped. Schools providing religious education were shut down in order to prevent any Islamic awareness.18 The killing and assimilation movement took on its most ruthless form after 1990. People were detained for no reason and tortured to death. Homes were looted, defenseless people subjected to all kinds of persecution, and newspapers and schools shut down. Nor was the Indian government content with restricting itself to armed violence. Dams supposedly needed for agricultural purposes were also employed to oppress Muslims. They were filled up to the brim and then suddenly opened when the monsoon rains came. The lower-lying areas, Kashmir and Pakistan, were thus flooded. Thousands of people lost their lives as a result, and the affected areas suffered great damage. In October, 1993, there was a major attack on the Hazratbal Mosque in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar. The Indian authorities surrounded the mosque, which they said was being supposedly used as a military base of operations by Muslims, for about a month. More than 100 people were killed during that time. A further 300 innocent people were detained. Electricity and water supplies to the city were cut off. THE ANTI-ISLAMIC ALLIANCE OF HINDUS AND JEWS An article entitled "Anti-Muslim Groups Unite Through Internet" published in the New York Times on June 2, 2001, revealed the relationship between Hindu and Jewish groups. A website run by militant Hindus in the United States was closed down following complaints that it fostered hatred of Muslims and supported violence. A few days later, however, the site was opened again by fanatical Jews living in the country. The newspaper described the basis of the relationship in these terms: "The unusual alliance brings together two extreme religious philosophies from different parts of the world that, at first glance, have little in common. But living elbow-to-elbow in the ethnic mix of New York, the small groups of Hindus and Jews have discovered that sharing a distant enemy is sufficient basis for friendship. So tight is their anti-Muslim bond... 'We are fighting the same war,' said Rohit Vyasmaan, who helps run the Hindu Web site, HinduUnity.org, from his home in Flushing, Queens." The Ambor refugee camp was set up in 1990 for Kashmiris fleeing Jammu Kashmir. Living standards are far below the norm. People are crammed into tiny mud houses. In the one-room house we entered, there was a single bed. When I asked how many people lived there, I was told, "Nine." The camp consists of 214 families, or 1,110 individuals. It is enough to enter one of the mud huts they live in to see how low their standard of living really is. The huts generally consist of two rooms. There are a few unusable pots and pans. Also one or two beds, if they can properly be called that. A mother sits in the corner with a baby on her lap. A pan boils over an earth fire, where a few branches that someone has managed to scrounge up are burning. There's absolutely nothing to eat anywhere! I was too embarrassed to look under the lids off any of the pans. In none of the tents was there anything to eat or to sleep on! A very old piece of cloth was spread out in the middle of the floor in one of the tents. Maybe that was used as a bed. When I asked how many people lived in that tent, I was told 11. Outside, a single pot was boiling…19 The above example is just one of the refugee dramas experienced all over the world. The living conditions of the millions of refugees in Palestine, the sufferings of the nearly one million Muslim refugees during the Kosovo War, and the hundreds of thousands of Chechen refugees are even worse. In all these situations there lies wisdom that all people of conscience need to grasp. There is wisdom in all things that happen in the world, as they are intended to be a test. The lesson that believers must learn from the experiences we have been considering is the clear importance of explaining the existence of Allah and the rewarding morality of the Qur'an to the whole world. What they need to do in the face of that truth is to fulfill their duty of waging a war of ideas against all tendencies that deny Allah, and to lead men from doing wrong and command them to do what is right. In this way, people with strong consciences, who fear Allah will emerge, and all cruelty will disappear. Those who oppress others will pay the price for their deeds, both in this world and the next. Allah reveals this truth in the following verses: Those who oppose Allah and His Messenger will be subdued and overcome as those before them were also subdued and overcome. We have sent down Clear Signs. The disbelievers will have a humiliating punishment. On the Day Allah raises up all of them together, He will inform them of what they did. Allah has recorded it while they have forgotten it. Allah is a Witness of all things. (Surat al-Mujadala: 5-6) The basis of this struggle is a contest of ideas to be waged against all kinds of cruelty, conflict, and the atheist philosophies that provide the foundation for disorder. In this struggle, the basis of all peace, harmony and love, namely people's consciences, will be stirred into action and innocent people delivered from suffering. Allah has revealed the glad tidings of the outcome of this struggle: Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray! (Surat al-Anbiya': 18) After the 1980s in particular, anti-Islamic Hindu forces in India grew in strength and carried out major attacks on the Muslim population. These groups want to erase all trace of Islam in India and are carrying out policies of forced assimilation as well as killings. Despite this, and the fact that Islamic education, reading the Qur'an and praying in prisons are all forbidden, and that the names of Muslim villages have been changed into Hindu ones, the Muslim people's religious feelings are increasing every day. The burning of the Qur'an seen in the picture is an example of Indian troops' hostility towards Islam. KMS, January 1, 2003 Fully 90 percent of the population of Kashmir are Muslim. A total of 700,000 Indian troops are ranged against the population of 4 million. In 1990-99 alone, the number of women, children and soldiers killed as a result of Indian attacks reached more than 65,000. An average of 20 Muslims are killed every day, women are subjected to gang rapes, mosques and hospitals are bombed and schools set on fire. The fact that India could carry out such a heinous policy of oppression in Kashmir for over 50 years is the result of overt and covert support it has received from some circles in the West. Muslims in Kashmir were abandoned to the oppressive regime of the Hindus as a result of U.N. decisions, which were mostly not even put into practice. The population of Kashmir is overwhelmingly Muslim. Its fight for freedom and the rightful support lent by Pakistan were undermined by the unjust policies of some Western circles. Indian pressure in the region and moves towards assimilation have grown worse in recent years. There exist "fanatical Hindu groups" that the government says it is unable to control, although everyone knows that the conflict between them is a sham. These organizations aim at eliminating the Kashmiri Muslims altogether, as in the Babur Shah Mosque massacre. How can we account for this situation? Why do some circles insist on leaving the people of Kashmir to face Indian oppression and also support terrorism from that country? The answer to that question is the intense activities of the anti-Islamic lobbies. These may sometimes be extremely influential over the administrative mechanisms of the West, which casts a shadow over the West's pro-democratic and pro-human rights stance. In conclusion, the Muslims of Kashmir have not only had to defend themselves against India, or rather radical Hindu organizations, but have also had to wage an ideological war against these lobbies that support such groups behind the scenes. Anti-Islamic lobbies appear behind what is happening on the propaganda level in particular. The violence faced by Kashmiri Muslims is truly terrible. Just as has happened throughout history, however, the people of Kashmir are portrayed by propaganda in a very different light. The cruelty and torture inflicted on innocent people is covered up, so the world remains silent in the face of what is going on. People behave as if bitter reports from human rights organizations don't even exist. The people of Kashmir, who oppose Indian oppression and are fighting to live in peace in their own land, are portrayed to the world as "radical groups." Whereas the only desire of the Kashmiri people, who have been subjected to Indian control for over half a century, is to be able to live by their religion, not to be oppressed simply because they are Muslims, and to own a land where they can raise their children in peace and safety. The fact that the Kashmiri Muslims are unable to enjoy that most natural right and are subjected to a host of tortures underlines once again how urgent and vital is the need for Islamic morality to be strengthened against atheism and for people of conscience to become aware of what is going on. Clearly, people of good conscience cannot simply shut their eyes and ears to all this. Putting this enormous injustice in the public spotlight and explaining that living in peace and justice is possible only through following the morality of the Qur'an is one of the most important responsibilities of our times. It is also a duty of all Muslims to tell believers of the good news of Allah's help and also to warn the wrongdoers of the fate that awaits them if they do not desist. In the verses below Allah describes the vastly different rewards that await both the wrongdoers and those who believe: We will certainly help Our Messengers and those who believe both in the life of this world and on the Day the witnesses appear, the Day when the excuses of the wrongdoers will not help them. The curse will be on them and they will have the most evil Home. (Surah Gafir: 51-52)

When an orchestra, band or music class is learning a new piece, music boards can make the whole process more efficient. Lines are permanently fused onto the whiteboard which makes writing notes, scales and chords quick and simple. Rather than having to draw new lines each time, instructors will appreciate having everything set up from the beginning.Music whiteboards come in many sizes and styles. Hertz Furniture offers a great selection of wall-mounted and double-sided units so you can choose the arrangement that best suits your band room. This convenient piece of music room furniture will make an excellent addition to any practice or instructional space. Although a regular dry erase board can be used for music instruction, rewriting the music lines every time a new scale or chord is being discussed can be quite tedious. Even for an instructor who can draw straight lines, the process will take away valuable time from lessons. Additionally, while the teacher is spending extra time rewriting, students may become restless and lose their focus, which will use up even more time. Music boards eliminate the time and hassle it takes to write music lines over and over again. With lines that are permanently fused onto the surface, there is no danger of accidentally erasing them and there is no need to use extra time rewriting. With guaranteed straight lines every time, lessons will be clearer to students. As soon as the conductor or teacher walks into the room, the lesson can begin, and focusing on a new piece or new section is simply a matter of swiftly wiping away the old notes and replacing them with the new ones.With a choice of wall-mounted and mobile music whiteboards, you can get both portable and permanent solutions. Wall-mounted boards are ideal for a room that is always used for musical purposes such as a band room or practice room. When the board is permanently attached to the wall, you can be sure that it will always be there when you need it. There is no need to worry about someone taking the board to another room and having to search all over the school to find it. Additionally, with the music board mounted in a clear space at the front of the room, you can ensure that all students have a clear view of what you are writing.For orchestras, bands or small groups that practice in a number of different spaces, we also have portable music staff whiteboards. There are a few different board options for these double-sided models. For a common practice space that is used for a number of purposes, there is an option with a music board on one side and a bulletin board on the other. With this arrangement you get a great space to write notes and chords as well as a place to hang up flyers about upcoming concerts, practice schedules and other events.Although a wall-mounted board does have its advantages, there are some extra features that make a portable model worth considering. Even if you are always practicing in the same space, having the ability to move the board into different positions around the room while working with smaller groups can be quite helpful. Double-sided music boards also offer the added bonus of twice as much writing space. With this arrangement, an instructor can go back to something that was discussed earlier in the lesson without having to redraw it. Additionally, there is no need to waste time erasing because you can simply turn the board over to get a clear surface.Another great option is having a music board on one side with a regular dry erase board on the other. This can be useful for a classroom that is used for instruction in music as well as other disciplines. Even in a music room that is used exclusively for instrumental instruction, teachers might appreciate having an open space without lines where they can write general notes and important information that is related to the pieces being studied. At Hertz Furniture, we know how important it is to have music in the educational environment. Our music boards are designed to make instruction easier for teachers and clearer to students. With the right music furniture, you can encourage students to try their best, progress and develop their skills and talents.

... PULSE: Memorial Day's meaning more complex with each war On the last Monday of May each year, the country honors those who served in the military to protect America — men and women who returned and those who did not. And while most understand that is the true meaning of Memorial Day and not just an excuse to barbecue on a day off, it is becoming clear after battles in Afghani...

Research Article Type and Toxicity of Pesticides Sold for Community Vector Control Use in the Gambia M. W. Murphy,1 W. T. Sanderson,2 M. E. Birch,3 F. Liang,3 E. Sanyang,4 M. Canteh,5 T. M. Cook,1 and S. C. Murphy1 1Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA2Department of Epidemiology, The University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40508, USA3Division of Applied Research and Technology, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cincinnati, OH 45226, USA4University of The Gambia, Serrekunda, Gambia5The Gambia National Environmental Agency, Banjul, Gambia C. Guinovart, M. M. Navia, M. Tanner, and P. L. Alonso, “Malaria: burden of disease,” Current Molecular Medicine, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 137–140, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at ScopusD. J. Gubler, “Resurgent vector-borne diseases as a global health problem,” Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 442–450, 1998. View at ScopusJ. Jeyarathnam, “Acute pesticide poisoning: a major global health problem,” World Health Statistics Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 139–144, 1990. View at ScopusJ. E. García, “Acute pesticide poisoning: human and economic costs,” Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica/Pan American Journal of Public Health, vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 383–387, 1998. View at ScopusL. S. Azaroff and L. M. Neas, “Acute health effects associated with nonoccupational pesticide exposure in rural El Salvador,” Environmental Research, vol. 80, no. 2 I, pp. 158–164, 1999. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at ScopusM. M. M. Beshwari, A. Bener, A. Ameen, A. M. Al-Mehdi, H. Z. Ouda, and M. A. H. Pasha, “Pesticide-related health problems and diseases among farmers in the United Arab Emirates,” International Journal of Environmental Health Research, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 213–221, 1999. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at ScopusM. Maroni, A. Fait, and C. Colosio, “Risk assessment and management of occupational exposure to pesticides,” Toxicology Letters, vol. 107, no. 1–3, pp. 145–153, 1999. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus World Health Organization, Public Health Impact of Pesticides Used in Agriculture, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland, 1990. J. M. Bertolote, A. Fleischmann, M. Eddleston, and D. Gunnell, “Deaths from pesticide poisoning: a global response,” British Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 189, pp. 201–203, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at ScopusD. J. Ecobichon, “Pesticide use in developing countries,” Toxicology, vol. 160, no. 1-3, pp. 27–33, 2001. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at ScopusF. Konradsen, W. Van Der Hoek, D. C. Cole et al., “Reducing acute poisoning in developing countries—options for restricting the availability of pesticides,” Toxicology, vol. 192, no. 2-3, pp. 249–261, 2003. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at ScopusM. B. S. Canteh, Registar, Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides, NEA, Banjul, The Gambia. Pesticide Africa Network (PAN), “Toxicity, ecological toxicity, and regulatory information,” 2007, . Pesticide Action Network in North America (PANNA), “Chloropyrifos Facts,” 2007, http://www.panna.org/resources/documents/factsheetChlorpyrifos.

Morning Minutes: Feb. 1 Word of the Day, Website of the Day, Number to Know, This Day in History, Today's Featured Birthday and Daily Quote. Word of the day Amphiboly am-FIB-uh-lee (noun) Ambiguity of speech, especially from the uncertainty of grammatical construction rather than the meaning of the words -dictionary.com Website of the Day 10 Operas You Need to Know NPR's World of Opera compiled a list of ten operas you should listen to. With the music included on the list, it's a quick and easy way to broaden your musical horizons. Number to Know 36: Number of instruments needed to perform "La boheme" as scored by Puccini. This Day in History Feb. 1, 1896: Giacomo Puccini's "La boheme," the world's second most performed opera, premieres in Turin, Italy. Today's Featured Birthday Actor Michael C. Hall (42) Daily Quote "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." - Buddha

USDA announces Regional Food Hub Resource Guide The U. S. Department of Agriculture unveiled the first Regional Food Hub Resource Guide, bolstering its commitment to expand market opportunities for small and mid-sized producers. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan introduced the new resource guide at the National Good Food Network Food Hub Collaboration conference. "The Regional Food Hub Resource Guide is an important tool to help promote local and regional efforts to support small and medium-sized producers," said Merrigan. "Food hubs play a critical role in developing stronger supply chains and addressing the infrastructure challenges while supporting food access, regional economic development and job creation." Food hubs are businesses or organizations that connect producers with buyers by offering a suite of production, distribution, and marketing services. It's an innovative business model that allows farmers of all sizes to meet the growing consumer demand for fresh, local food by gaining entry into commercial and larger volume markets such as grocery stores, hospitals and schools. The guide is an extensive collection of information and resources, providing background on everything needed to develop or participate in a regional food hub. The guide highlights the economic contributions food hubs make to local communities and the role they play in expanding regional food systems. It also outlines funding opportunities, support resources, best practices, strategies to address challenges and more. In 2011, USDA identified more than 170 food hubs operating around the country. "The new guide is the most comprehensive handbook on food hubs ever available," said Merrigan. "Now anyone interested in creating a food hub in their community can tap into a single resource to find the information that they need." USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service developed the Regional Food Hub Resource Guide in partnership with the Wallace Center at Winrock International, the National Good Food Network, the National Association of Produce Market Managers and the Project for Public Spaces, as part of the National Food Hub Collaboration. AMS works to support this collaboration through its research and outreach efforts. A large selection of USDA-supported programs and projects is also visible on the KYF Map, which can be displayed by theme, program, or recipient type. Both the KYF Compass and map will be regularly refreshed with new data and case studies.

Bomber Command Memorial Opened By Queen In Emotional Ceremony The Queen opened a £7m memorial to the members of Bomber Command who served and died during the Second World War on Thursday. The Bomber Command Memorial in London's Green Park remembers the sacrifice and bravery of the 55,573 RAF crew who lost their lives in the conflict, more than the total RAF today. Bomber Command flew more than 300,000 sorties over the course of the Second World War. Before veterans and families of those who served in Bomber Command, the Queen officially opened the stone memorial designed by architect Liam O'Connor and unveiled its 9ft bronze sculpture depicting a seven-man bomber crew returning from a mission crafted by sculptor Philip Jackson. The Queen unveils the £7m memorial in Green Park The design of the roof is inspired by a Vickers Wellington aircraft and incorporates sections of aluminium recovered from a Handley Page Halifax III bomber shot down over Belgium on May 12 1944, killing eight crew. Hymns were sung and passages read during a service at the memorial, which was opened by Air Commodore Malcolm White, the Bomber Command Association's chairman. Following the ceremony, five RAF Typhoons staged a flypast, as the RAF's last functioning Lancaster dropped over 80,000 poppies onto Green Park. The Queen attends the opening ceremony, alongside her husband, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall The Queen was joined by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, as well as the Prince of Wales and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. The Duke of York, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent also attended the ceremony.

We All Need Help Finding Good Care , Andrea Sutcliffe , Care , Care And Support , Care System , Find Me Good Care , Getting Older You would have thought that I would know exactly what to do when thinking about social care for my parents. OK, they live in Yorkshire and I live in London, but after all, I'm the Chief Executive of the body that unearths good practice in social care, and then tells everyone about it. Easy? Not so fast; even for me the system can appear mystifying. Today we launch Find Me Good Care. It is time for people who use services, and their carers, to have their own site where they can access good, reliable and comprehensive information about care and support. I say "and support" because it is not just about older people in care homes, important though that group is. It could be that someone needs just a little help in their home to cope with everyday tasks. The new service is a website which will mean that you can put your postcode in and find out what is going on in your area. And with a growing number of providers of services signing up, you can leave comments about your experience. We have heard, again and again, from all sorts of people who say that they find the social care system "mystifying". People like Vanessa, who wanted to provide dignity and independence for her mother, but who was worried, so she rang to buy in some "emergency care"; only to discover that such a thing does not exist. She was told she needed an assessment, and that was a challenge because it was a Saturday night! So, the site will help people to understand the diverse and complex care and support system, the options available and the issues they should consider when choosing care and support for themselves or others. So, is it a Trip Advisor for social care? To some extent, but it is so much more. The starting point will be information to help you take those first steps in navigating a complex and sometimes bewildering system. Perhaps you are suddenly plunged into a crisis and need care in a hurry? Or maybe, like me, you are thinking of planning for the future for your parents? Or even changing care like those families whose child may have a learning disability and who is transferring to services for adults? Yes, you will be able to leave comments; but those comments will be moderated and providers given a chance to respond. We want to support improvement in care and support services and make sure the information will be relevant to those who are searching for good care and support. I am confident that Find Me Good Care will also be helpful for people who provide services, because they will have feedback from their customers. That feedback will help Find Me Good Care to play its part in improving care and support services. Try it out. It is free to use. If you have a nagging doubt that you would not know what to do when the time comes, I invite you to give our service a try. I know I will, because my parents deserve the best.

In May, Debra Messing went to Zambia on a trip with PSI and Alere, the largest manufacturer of HIV testing technology. While there, she met with families, communities, health ministers, and doctors to learn about what HIV interventions are producing results on the ground -- and what gaps need to be filled. This week, Debra is in Washington, D.C. to participate in the 2012 International AIDS Conference. Below is the third in a series of three personal journal entries that she wrote while in Zambia. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Wednesday, May 23: Counseling and testing center in Kanyama I went through the counseling and testing process this week because I figured I needed to walk the walk if I was going to tell others, particularly couples, how important and easy it is to get tested. I think getting tested is one of the most sincere acts of love a couple can show for one another. The testing center was at the local YWCA in Lusaka. I decided to get tested with Marshall, my friend and colleague from PSI, to send a message about the importance of couples getting tested. The clinic was clean, bright, and friendly. The counselor who tested us was incredibly thorough and professional and really helped me relax. We had our results in 20 minutes -- so quick! I was surprised by how easy and painless the whole process was -- and it was completely confidential. And for couples, it provides an open and honest environment to talk about risk, to disclose your status, and to chart your path together. If either one of us had tested positive, the counselor would have walked us through exactly what we needed to know to stay healthy and live positively. It really was a fantastic experience. But as uplifting as the experience was, I kept thinking about Connie and the children she lost, and about Irene and how sick she became before she knew her status and could access medication. We need more people to get tested. By the time I met with Connie's HIV support group on late Wednesday, I had a fuller understanding of just how difficult living positively can be. But this particular group was not looking for pity. Many of them had been through hell and back -- literally. The road to Kanyama, the town where the support group met, took us through some of the worst slums I've ever seen. There were piles of trash burning on the side of the road, and chickens, pigs, and goats roaming freely in the streets, picking at the garbage strewn on the ground. As we pulled up to the clinic, I immediately noted the contrast to the YWCA clinic where I'd been tested: This one was much humbler and, given the condition of the buildings, a reflection of the poverty surrounding the clinic. I walked into a small room next to a sunny courtyard and met Connie. She greeted me with a hug and a big smile and introduced me to the support group. She led the introductions with the precision of a military officer. There's no messing with Connie. As part of the Make (+) More Positive campaign, the people in the support group designed their own "plus" symbols, using artwork to tell their personal stories. The idea was to take the fear out of a positive diagnosis and turn it into something more hopeful. One by one, the members shared their stories and their artwork. Between the stories, they sang. The group has formed a choir that uses song to educate the community about HIV. The lead singer, Nghimunya, has a powerful, beautiful voice, and an even more powerful story. Connie explained that Nghimunya escaped from her grandfather's house with her 3-year-old child and took a bus to Lusaka, where her sister lived. The bus was stopped twice along the way by police, who asked the driver why he was carrying a dead corpse. By the grace of God, the bus driver took pity on Nghimunya and paid the police so he could pass the roadblock and take her to Lusaka. She was so weak that she couldn't even cry when she heard the police speaking with the bus driver about her in that way, but she said she remembers wanting to. The driver took her to her sister's house in the city and explained the situation. Her sister took her in and went with her to get an HIV test right away. She was diagnosed positive and had a CD4 count of just 40. She also had tuberculosis. She started on treatment for both immediately. Her 3-year-old daughter cared for her bedridden mother during the day, bringing her water and sitting with her. If only she'd been tested sooner, and if stigma and discrimination didn't exist as a result of ignorance, Nghimunya could have been spared so much suffering. But today Nghimunya is strong and healthy. She is the lead singer in her support group's choir, and she is an inspiration to the community she serves, and to me. She reminded me why we continue to invest in programs that are working to create an AIDS-free generation. She reminded me why we can't turn our backs and give up. She reminded me that hope really does exist, and how powerful it can be.

Dante Gabriel RossettiBiography Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti was born in London on 12 May, 1828, son of the Italian-born poet Gabriele Rossetti. He was educated there at King's College and the Royal Academy. At the academy he met the painters Sir John Everett Millais and Holman Hunt, with whom he founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Rosetti was strongly attracted to the dramatic and the supernatural. Among his earliest paintings was a scene of the annunciation, Ecce Ancilla Domini. His art subsequently developed through other phases, in which the sense of human beauty, intensity of abstract expression, and richness of colour were leading elements. Rossetti began writing poetry about the same time that he took definitely to the study of painting. Two of his best known poems, The Portrait and The Blessed Damozel, were written in 1842. He made a number of translations from Dante and other Italian writers, published in 1861 as The Early Italian Poets. Rossetti's later years were marred by sorrow and mental depression, relieved only by the creative play of his mind. In 1860 he had married a milliner, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, whose beauty he immortalised in many of his best-known paintings, such as Mary Magdalene at the House of Simon the Pharisee. Within two years the invalid Elizabeth died, and Rossetti was grief stricken by the tragedy. In addition he was troubled by a bitter attack that had been made on the morality of his poems in an article entitled "The Fleshy School of Poetry", published in The Contemporary Review in October 1871. Rossetti's rebuttal was published as "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in the Athenaeum in December 1871. Rossetti continued almost to the last to produce paintings and poems. In 1881 he published Ballads and Sonnets, which contained some of his finest work, Rose Mary, The White Ship, The King's Tragedy, and the sonnet sequence The House of Life. Of his later paintings, which are murky and dreamlike, two of the best are Dante's Dream and Proserpina. He died in Berchington on 10 April, 1882. contributed by Gifford, Katya

Phantasy Quintet Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Vaughan Williams: Chamber Music The Nash Ensemble Movement 1: Prelude: Lento ma non troppo Movement 2: Scherzo: Prestissimo Movement 3: Alla Sarabanda: Lento Movement 4: Burlesca: Allegro moderato The Phantasy Quintet, composed in 1912, arose under the auspices of Walter Wilson Cobbett (1847–1937), a businessman and amateur musician whose dual passion was chamber music and music of the Elizabethan period. He was particularly interested in the instrumental ‘fantasy’ form (or, in his preferred spelling, ‘phantasy’) where several unrelated but varied sections formed the basis for an extended work. In 1905 he established a prize for chamber works in one movement which resulted in many compositions adopting this form by composers such as Bridge, Ireland and Howells. He also commissioned works in his favoured form, among them Vaughan Williams’s Phantasy Quintet where the composer added a second viola to the standard string quartet. The London String Quartet, led by Albert Sammons with James Lockyer as the extra violist, gave the premiere on 23 March 1914 and shared the dedication with Cobbett. It is a work of the composer’s early maturity demonstrating his indebtedness to English music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and once again to English folksong. Its four movements are played attacca and share a thematic idea introduced by the first viola in its arching pentatonic solo that begins the first section, Prelude. The viola’s rich but haunting sound appealed to the composer (he played the instrument himself) and it plays a prominent role both here in the quintet and in the Second String Quartet. In the Scherzo the music sweeps along in 7/4 time over a bubbling Holstian ostinato, and is marked by a rhythmic freedom associated with English madrigals. A subtle change of textures is apparent in the third section, ‘Alla Sarabanda’, with the cello absent from the texture and the other instruments muted. The finale, ‘Burlesca’, further reflects the ‘phantasy’ form by being cast in several sections within itself, starting with the reappearance of the cello in a wryly humorous solo whose quirky character is taken up by the other instruments. It develops into a rollicking dance which is interrupted by a return of the Prelude music: the dance starts up again to be stilled only right at the very end as the music finally comes full circle.from notes by Andrew Burn � 2002

Japan holds public stocks and places a minimum stockholding obligation on industry. Japan's emergency reserves comprise both public stocks (managed by JOGMEC) and obligatory industry-held stocks. Public stocks have been built gradually and are held separately from commercial stocks. Private stocks are mandatory for the industry, with an obligation to maintain at least 70 days of stockholding proportional to the volume of imports, production and sales for each company.Strategic reserves held by the Japanese government are all in crude oil form. This reflects the facts that Japan has considerable refining capacity and that holding refined oil products is less cost-effective. As part of a new national energy strategy (launched in May 2006), Japan is now considering ways to reinforce the role of its public stock by also holding emergency refined oil product stocks.Japan's stockholding law stipulates that all government/compulsory stocks must be held domestically. Japan and New Zealand signed a bilateral stockholding agreement at the end of 2007, which allows New Zealand to have bilateral stockholdings in Japan.

About World Situation Solution Senator Jay Rockefeller: Internet Is The ‘No.1 National Hazard’ ‘Anonymous’: A Personal Message Regarding The Validity Of Operation Invade Wall Street TEPCO Uses Low-Level Radioactive Water To Spray Fukushima Nuclear Compound - TEPCO uses low-level radioactive water to spray Fukushima nuclear compound (Mainichi Japan, Oct. 8, 2011): Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has begun processing low-level radioactive water and spraying it over the compound of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant to prevent fires and the scattering of radioactive dust, the utility announced on Oct. 7. The water comes from the plant’s No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, which remain in a state of a cold shutdown, and is being used after the removal of radioactive materials and salt content. The move is aimed at preventing trees felled on the plant compound from catching fire and dust containing radioactive materials from scattering, the utility said. A daily amount of 100 cubic meters of water will be sprayed over the ground. Since the March 11 quake and tsunami, seawater from the tsunami and rainwater have been accumulating in the basement of the reactor buildings and turbine buildings of the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors. Makeshift tanks and an artificial floating island, or “megafloat,” have so far accommodated 17,000 cubic meters of this water but they are close to overflowing. TEPCO aims to utilize the remaining water, after it has been purified, to spray the compound. The measure has been approved by the Fukushima Prefectural Government and municipalities in Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures, according to TEPCO.

Why Take EHR Data Out Of Structured Format?HL7's conversion tool may seem counterproductive, but it's meant to encourage patients to use Blue Button. 7 Big Data Solutions Try To Reshape Healthcare (click image for larger view and for slideshow) Even as the forthcoming Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use electronic health records (EHR) incentive program is supposed to encourage healthcare providers to put patient data in structured format, an important standards development organization has developed a tool to convert some structured data to plain text. But the move may not be as unusual as it seems at first glance. Health IT standards organization Health Level Seven International (HL7) released a tool to convert patient-specific data in the HL7-sanctioned, XML-based Continuity of Care Document (CCD) format to unstructured text, as specified by the Blue Button initiative. Created at the U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs in 2010, Blue Button is meant to simplify patients' access to their own medical records, allowing them to download their information to personal health records (PHRs) or print a copy simply by clicking on a blue button displayed prominently on an EHR portal page. Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last year embarked on a campaign to make Blue Button a de facto standard for patient engagement in the private sector, even though it does call for unstructured data. [ Can patient engagement help transform medical care? See 5 Healthcare Tools To Boost Patient Involvement. ] "The VA's environment is mostly MUMPS," noted HL7 CTO John Quinn, referring to a programming language that dates to the late 1960s. "When this initiative was originally started, you had to sign a license with the VA," added CCD Blue Button tool project manager Lenel James, whose full-time job is senior project manager of the Information Standards and eHealth team at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. "You had to have an ASCII, human-readable version [as a minimum.]" In December 2011, the U.S. government's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asked health plans participating in the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program to add Blue Button capabilities to their member portals. To do so, payers must offer downloads in both machine-readable and human-readable formats. HHS hasn't provided a lot of detail on what 'human-readable' means, according to James. "This HL7 tool provides a format that is clear and unambiguous," he told InformationWeek Healthcare. The conversion tool may be a temporary measure, James suggested, or it may be permanent if it works. He said HL7 is developing an implementation guide to help make CDA data human-readable. James said Kaiser Permanente and the HL7 PHR workgroup were drivers of the effort to create the tool, and Kaiser has agreed to use the data converter as it strives to meet Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements starting in 2014. Stage 2 will require providers to offer portal access to health records for at least half of their patients, and 5% of patients actually have to use the portals. Other early adopters include Centerstone, a major provider of community-based behavioral healthcare services, and ambulatory EHR vendor Hello Health, according to HL7. The CCD-to-Blue Button conversion tool is free to HL7 members. Non-members may purchase the software widget for $425.

Coursera Adds 29 University Partners From 13 CountriesNearly doubling its number of participating universities, Coursera adds major universities, goes international and adds lectures in French, Spanish, Chinese and Italian. 20 Top Masters Degrees For Big Data Analytics Professionals (click image for larger view and for slideshow)Coursera is adding 29 new university partners, including Penn State, Case Western Reserve, Rutgers and institutions in 13 countries. Added to the 33 universities already on board, this expansion nearly doubles the reach of Coursera. "We're already the largest MOOC [Massive Open Online Courses] platform in the world by almost any metric you could choose," said CEO and co-founder Andrew Ng said. "I see this as a sign that universities all around the world are signing on to this mission of offering the best education to everyone, for free." In reality, the pattern may be more to offer a taste of the best education for free. At Penn State and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), one motive for participating is that Coursera could serve as a recruiting tool, although representatives from both universities promised not to make it a hard sell. "It's more like, this is who we are, these are kind of things we do, and here's a taste of it. And we'd love to know if you want more," said CalArts provost Jeannene Przyblyski. Also, working with Coursera is bound to be exciting, she said. "It's hard to avoid the MOOCs being in the news. It is sort of a great experiment in education, and as an art school, we are dedicated to experimentation. That's more interesting to us than putting classes online, which isn't rocket science on some level." [ Is the future of education online? Read Higher Education Tech Forecast Sees MOOC, Tablet Momentum. ] Penn State has more of a century of experience in distance education, starting with correspondence courses, which it considers part of its mission as a land grant university to educate the whole community. Its World Campus has been offering online courses for credit (tuition charged) since 1998. Still, Penn State recognized that Coursera's success represented something new and that the university might be "at a long-term disadvantage by not participating in that space," said Cole Camplese, director of education technology services at Penn State. "What's new is that these courses often have 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 students, these ridiculous numbers -- a year ago, you wouldn't have dreamed that would take place," Camplese said. "Many of our faculty have expressed such deep interest in this. A decade ago, it was hard to get faculty to rally around online delivery of material, but that has tipped. Now, faculty has embraced technology, by and large, and they've come out in droves to embrace this. They'd like to be part of a revolution that opens up access to 40,000 people -- which is more than they might teach and touch in their entire careers at a university." "I've not seen excitement like this among the staff, all the way up through top faculty, in my 15 years at this university," he added. Working with Coursera should not undermine the Penn State World Campus because the two models are very different, Camplese said. "We have this really powerful online campus we do charge tuition for; [it's] very high quality. Sections are small, and it's a real classroom experience." Coursera's MOOCs give up the intimacy of small classes, instead creating learning communities more reliant on peer-to-peer discussion where students answer each other's questions and evaluate each other's work, with the professor stepping in occasionally as questions bubble up from the group. Penn State's initial offerings will also be relatively short courses of 6 to 12 weeks, "so it's not a full three-credit experience like you'd get in a classroom," Camplese explained. However, some of these courses might entice students into pursuing a more complete course of study. For example, one of the MOOC offerings will be an introduction to geospatial analysis, using geographic information system software from ESRI, which could lead directly into a World Campus or on-campus program on the same material. Also on Thursday, the MOOC edX announced the doubling of its program from 6 to 12 universities and the addition of its first international partners. Launched by Harvard and MIT, edX is a non-profit. Coursera is organized as a for-profit company, currently following the Web startup pattern of building its audience and infrastructure for scale, with a business model to be nailed down later. For all its success, Coursera's momentum faltered recently with the train wreck of a course on "Fundamentals of Online Education" that had to be suspended after the third day because of confusion over the professor's plan to organize online projects among the students. "That's part of the price you pay when you try experiments, try to prove things," Ng said. "The instructor, to her credit, was being very innovative and trying some new ideas, but some of the specific ideas didn't work out." Ng acknowledges Coursera is a long way from offering a complete university education for free. "We're not a university, and we will not become one," he said. However, Coursera has recently made progress establishing a path to obtaining college credit for students who do well in these online courses. That makes the service an important resource for working adults who may not have the time or the budget to pursue their education any other way, he said. The MOOC courses can also be a resource for on-campus students, enabling a "flipped classroom" model where lectures are delivered online and classroom time is used for discussions or exercises best conducted in person. "For most classes, substantially the same material can be used for both audiences," he said. As a Stanford professor whose course in artificial intelligence is one of Coursera's most popular offerings, Ng uses the material in just that way. However, the two classes are different, he said. The on-campus students at Stanford work with him on projects that he evaluates -- providing the kind of personal attention he can't deliver to a class of 100,000. Ng is also excited about Coursera's international expansion and the availability of courses to students who don't speak English. New courses are coming in French, Spanish, Chinese, and Italian.

Learn about Current Surface Analysis The Current Surface Analysis map shows current weather conditions, including frontal and high/low pressure positions, satellite infrared (IR) cloud cover, and areas of precipitation. A surface weather analysis is a special type of weather map that provides a view of weather elements over a geographical area at a specified time based on information from ground-based weather stations. Weather maps are created by plotting or tracing the values of relevant quantities such as sea level pressure, temperature, and cloud cover onto a geographical map to help find synoptic scale features such as weather fronts. The first weather maps in the 19th century were drawn well after the fact to help devise a theory on storm systems. After the advent of the telegraph, simultaneous surface weather observations became possible for the first time, and beginning in the late 1840s, the Smithsonian Institution became the first organization to draw real-time surface analyses. Use of surface analyses began first in the United States, spreading worldwide during the 1870s. Use of the Norwegian cyclone model for frontal analysis began in the late 1910s across Europe, with its use finally spreading to the United States during World War II. Surface weather analyses have special symbols which show frontal systems, cloud cover, precipitation, or other important information. For example, an H may represent high pressure, implying good and fair weather. An L on the other hand may represent low pressure, which frequently accompanies precipitation. Various symbols are used not just for frontal zones and other surface boundaries on weather maps, but also to depict the present weather at various locations on the weather map. Areas of precipitation help determine the frontal type and location.

Saving the Sumatran Rhino With the number of Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) estimated to be less than 200 and declining rapidly, urgent action is needed to save this species from extinction. Listed as Critically Endangered on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Sumatran rhino is the smallest and last form of the Two-horned hairy rhinos that have lived on the planet for 20 million years. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SCC) is convening the Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit (SRCS) from 31 March to 4 April, 2013 in Singapore to review the Sumatran rhino situation and existing conservation strategies; identify key issues that require action; and rally all stakeholders behind a new global conservation plan that is expected to layout clear and immediate actions needed to prevent the species from becoming extinct. There will be a particular focus on the last wild populations of Sumatran rhinos in Sumatra in Indonesia and in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, where the population is on the verge of extinction. It is expected that this meeting which includes stakeholders and participants beyond rhino experts and conservationists, will be successful in engaging global attention and will provide a fresh impetus to the objective of raising the 30 million Euros that is estimated as the minimum cost over the next five years to save this species. The meeting will also help shift the conversation discussions for this species from specialist rhino events to a broad, global platform. “Serious concern over the plight of this species has been raised worldwide and leading experts agree that it is just a matter of time before the Sumatran Rhinoceros goes extinct if no new and concerted action is taken,” said Simon N. Stuart, Chair of the IUCN SSC. “We believe it is vital that governments of Indonesia and Malaysia are actively engaged in the SRCS discussions, conclusions and recommendations. A collaborative effort involving governments, NGOs and other relevant specialists is necessary to avert the extinction of this magnificent species.” In addition to governmental and NGO representatives from Indonesia and Malaysia and individuals with experience in rhino protection, reproduction and veterinary care, representatives from zoos and other institutions with expertise in Sumatran rhinos as well as people from the Americas, Africa, Europe and Australia with experience in saving previously critically endangered species are attending the summit. Groups that have played an active role since last year in planning the event in collaboration with IUCN SSC include Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA, Malaysia), Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP, Malaysia), Fauna and Flora International (FFI Indonesia), Rhino Foundation of Indonesia (YABI), Indonesian Zoo and Aquarium Association (PKBSI), International Rhino Foundation (IRF), Leuser International Foundation (LIF, Indonesia), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS Indonesia), Taman Safari Indonesia (TSI), WWF and SOS Rhino US. The event is hosted by Wildlife Reserves Singapore at Jurong Bird Park, while Sime Darby Foundation, WWF, IUCN, IRF and TSI are providing funds and resources. Over five decades ago, pioneering conservationists were already concerned over the species’ rarity, and in 1984, the IUCN SCC Captive Breeding Specialist Group, on behalf of the IUCN, convened a three-day meeting in Singapore to formulate an acceptable plan for a captive propagation project as part of the overall strategy to conserve the species. Twenty participants representing governments of Sumatran rhino regions, zoos and other stakeholders agreed to a plan to prioritise conservation of wild populations and to form a loosely-coordinated global captive population drawn from rhinos outside protected areas. Subsequently, eight natural forest habitats containing Sumatran rhinos were protected in the main regions but surveys indicate wild populations in these areas have mostly stagnated, declined or gone extinct. Reasons include inadequate protection and monitoring of wild populations and additionally rhino population densities were probably already too low for them to recover without intensive management intervention. Between 1985 and 1994, a total of 40 rhinos were captured for captive breeding including the seven and three sent to the United States and United Kingdom, respectively, from areas converted to plantations. The captive propagation plan largely failed through a fatal combination of factors including dealing with a solitary species which is inherently difficult to breed, inadequate knowledge of rhino breeding biology and dietary requirements, cautious decision making, weak collaboration and emphasis on capture of “doomed” rhinos rather than fertile ones. Yet, three calves were produced in the United States, and one was born in Indonesia in 2012.

BERDICHEV BERDICHEV, town in the historic region of Volhynia, now in Zhitomir district, Ukraine. Apart from two single references to individual Jews from Berdichev in 1593 and 1602, there is no evidence that a Jewish community existed in Berdichev before 1721. In 1732, the owner of the town granted a charter to the Jewish guild of tailors freeing them from interference by the communal authorities (kahal). The Jewish population gradually increased with Berdichev's development as a fair town from 1765. According to the census of 1765, the Jews in Berdichev numbered 1,220 (out of a total population of 1,541) including Jews living in the vicinity; they numbered 1,951 in 1789 (out of 2,460). In 1794, Prince Radziwill, the owner of the town, deprived the rabbis of their right of civil jurisdiction, which was transferred to a court to be elected by majority Jewish vote. Berdichev had become an important center of Volhynian *Ḥasidism in the last quarter of the 18th century, and the Ḥasidim were thus able to secure the election of dayyanim so as to free themselves from the jurisdiction of the kahal and its Mitnaggedim rabbis. As the town grew, a number of noted scholars served as rabbis of Berdichev, including Lieber "the Great," Joseph "the Ḥarif," and, from the end of the 18th century until his death in 1809, *Levi Isaac of Berdichev. In 1797, Prince Radziwill granted seven Jewish cloth merchants the monopoly of the cloth trade in Berdichev, and in the first half of the 19th century the town's commerce was concentrated in Jewish hands. Jews founded scores of trading companies and banking establishments there, with agencies in the Russian interior and even abroad. Jews also served as agents of the neighboring estates of the nobility, whose agricultural produce was sold at the Berdichev fairs. The expatriation of Polish nobles and decline of the Polish nobility after the uprising of 1863 dealt a blow to Jewish commerce in Berdichev. The economic position of most of Berdichev's Jews was further impaired by the restrictions imposed on Jewish settlement in the villages by the "Temporary Regulations" (*May Laws) of 1882 and other restrictive government measures. The main increase in the Jewish population of Berdichev occurred in the first half of the 19th century. There were 23,160 Jews living in Berdichev in 1847, and 46,683 in 1861. It was then the second-largest Jewish community in Russia. Shortly afterward the numbers began to decline, and in 1897 Berdichev had 41,617 Jewish residents (80% of the total population). The 1926 census shows 30,812 Jewish residents (55.6% of the total); about the same number were probably living there in 1939. Until World War I, emigration was balanced by the natural increase in the Jewish population; after the 1917 Revolution the proportion of Jewish residents steadily decreased through emigration. At the end of the 19th century, about half of the Jewish wage earners were employed in manual trades, mostly in tailoring, shoemaking, carpentry, metalwork, etc. About 2,000 were hired workers, while the remainder gained their livelihood from trade. Berdichev became one of the foremost centers of the *Bund. After the 1917 Revolution, the proportion of hired workers increased, while a considerable number of Jews were absorbed by the state administration. The ideas of the Enlightenment (*Haskalah) began to spread in Berdichev early in the 19th century, especially among wealthier families. The Galician Haskalah pioneer and Hebrew author Tobias *Feder Gutmann settled in Berdichev toward the end of his life. Influenced by Isaac Baer *Levinsohn, a group of maskilim was formed there in the 1820s, in which the physician Israel Rothenberg was particularly active. Among the opponents of the maskilim was the banker Jacob Joseph Halpern, who had great influence in ḥasidic circles and close ties to the government. The first public school in Berdichev giving instruction in Russian was opened in 1850. With the economic decline of Berdichev, the wealthier maskilim left for the larger cities. Because of the poverty of the majority of the Jewish population, a large number of children were even unable to attend ḥeder. According to the 1897 census, only 58% of Jewish males and 32% of Jewish females were able to read or write any language. In Russian and Jewish literature and folklore, Berdichev epitomizes the typical Jewish town. It had some 80 synagogues and battei midrash and its cantors were celebrated throughout the Ukraine. It served as the model for the town depicted in the writings of *Mendele Mokher Seforim and *Shalom Aleichem (Gants Berdichev), as well as in *Der Nister (Mishpokhe Mashber). During the 1917 Revolution and the civil war of 1917–19, the head of the community and mayor of the town was the Bundist leader D. Lipets. In early 1919, the Jews in Berdichev became victims of a pogrom perpetrated by the Ukrainian army. Under the Soviet government, most of the synagogues were closed. Yiddish continued to receive official acknowledgment and Yiddish schools were opened in Berdichev. In 1924, a government court of law was established there, the first in Ukraine to conduct its affairs in Yiddish. According to the 1926 census, of the 30,812 Jews in Berdichev 28,584 declared Yiddish as their mother-tongue. However, by the early 1930s, complaints were heard about curtailment of the use of Yiddish in government offices in Berdichev. A Yiddish periodical Der Arbeter appeared in Berdichev about twice weekly until the middle of the 1930s. The number of Yiddish schools dropped in the 1930s. By 1939, the number of Jews had fallen to 23,266 (37.5% of the total). All Jewish cultural activities there were suspended before World War II. The Germans captured Berdichev on July 7, 1941; 1,000 Jews succeeded in fleeing from the city. In July around 1,300 were murdered. Thousands more were crowded in a closed ghetto. In late August 2,000 Jews were executed, and on September 5, 1941, another 4,300. In October the 15,000 remaining ghetto inhabitants were murdered near the village of Radianskoye. The few remaining artisans were killed by mid-1942. About 6,500 Jews lived in Berdichev in the late 1950s. Although maẓẓah baking was prohibited in the early 1960s, it resumed after a few years. In 1970, there were an estimated 15,000 Jews in Berdichev with a synagogue, a cantor, and a ritual poultry slaughterer. The cemetery was reported to be neglected, but the Jews had erected a fence around the grave of Levi Isaac of Berdichev. Most of Berdichev's Jews left for Israel and the West in the 1990s.

At 10:00 AM, a car leaves a house at a rate of 60 mi/h.At the same time, another car leaves the smae house at a rate of 50 mi/h in the opposite direction. At what time will the cars be 330 miles apart? I tried to make a equation, 50h+60h=330. I divided 330 by 110. so, I got h=3. Is this right? math - James, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 8:35pm The cars will be 330 miles apart in 3 hours. You got that part right. So the final answer is 1:00 pm since the question asks for what time. If you ever need any help with homework. math - RjiVebedfjEAIzFY, Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 5:21pm The praagon of understanding these issues is right here!

Homework Help: Pre-Calculus Posted by Pablo on Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 8:59pm. I want to learn how to find the domain, holes, x-intercepts, y- intercepts, vertical asymptotes, and horizontal asymptotes of a rational function. I know it is against the rules in jiskha to do the homework for the students but if I have been looking over my notes and I just don't get this. example of a rational function from my problems f(x)=-8x-16/x^2-x-12 Please someone help I have like 40 of these and I really want to learn. A link would help as well. First you have to make sure you post algebraic expressions correctly. Recall that multiplication and division have priority over addition and subtraction, so you expression would be interpreted as: f(x)=(-8x) -(16/x^2) -x -12 which I do not believe is the intention. An easy rule to remember is whenever you are transcribing an expression involving division or fractions, add parentheses around the numerator and the denominator if there is more than one term in each. So you rational expression would read: f(x)=(-8x-16) / (x^2-x-12) and it would be mathematically correct. Do you have a textbook? If you don't, and if you are serious about learning calculus, borrow one from the library, or buy a used book for 1/4 of the price at this time of the year (even that is quite expensive, unfortunately). Do a search on Google about functions, and read up about domain and range, the definition of a functions, the fundamental concepts required later on in Calculus. A link could be: Assuming now that you know what a function is, f(x) is the notation, and x is the variable which has to lie within limits of values. These values together make the domain. A rational function typically (but nt always) contains vertical asymptotes. This occurs when the value of x is such that the denominator becomes zero. So they are easy to spot. In the given function, there are two such points, x=x1, and x=x2. Can you spot them? There is no horizontal asymptote in the given function f(x) because the degree of the numerator is less than that of the denominator. If they are of the same degree, there would be a horizontal asymptote. Try to sketch the expressions of the numerator, the denominator, and the function itself on the same graph and you will soon recognize their relationships. Keep up the good work. Pre-Calculus - Pablo, Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 9:50pm Pre-Calculus-correction - MathMate, Friday, December 3, 2010 at 6:58am You're welcome! Wait a minute... I goofed about the horizontal asymptote. When the degree of the numerator is lower than that of the denominator (in the case of f(x) above), there is a horizontal asymptote at y=0. It is important to take the limit of f(x) as x->±∞ and find out if the function approaches the asymptote from the side of +y or -y. If the degrees are equal, then the horizontal asymptote is at y=Lim x->∞ of f(x), which is simply the quotient of the leading coefficients.

This composite image of asteroid 2007 PA8 was obtained using data taken by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. The composite incorporates images generated from data collected at Goldstone on Oct. 28, 29, and 30, 2012, when the asteroid's distance from Earth shrank from 6.5 million miles (10 million kilometers) to 5.6 million miles (9 million kilometers). The perspective is analogous to seeing the asteroid from above its north pole. Each of the three images in the composite is shown at the same scale.The radar images of asteroid 2007 PA8 indicate that it is an elongated, irregularly-shaped object approximately one mile (1.6 kilometers) wide, with facets and perhaps concavities. The data also indicate that 2007 PA8 rotates very slowly, roughly once every three to four days.JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: . More information about asteroid radar research is at: http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/. More information about the Deep Space Network is at: .

Asteroid Vesta in a 'Rainbow-Colored Palette' This image using color data obtained by the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows Vesta's southern hemisphere in color, centered on the Rheasilvia formation. Rheasilvia is an impact basin measured at about 290 miles (467 kilometers) in diameter with a central mound reaching about 14 miles (23 kilometers) high. The black hole in the middle is data that have been omitted due to the angle between the sun, Vesta and the spacecraft. Scientists assigned different colors for the ratios of two wavelengths of radiation detected by the framing camera to indicate areas that are relatively redder or bluer. The red indicates wavelengths at 750 nanometers divided by 440 nanometers. Blue indicates areas at 440 nanometers divided by 750 nanometers. Scientists are still studying why certain areas look redder or bluer. Green indicates areas at 750 nanometers divided by 920 nanometers, suggesting the presence of the iron-rich mineral pyroxene or large-sized particles. This mosaic was assembled using images obtained during Dawn's approach to Vesta, at a resolution of 480 meters per pixel.Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.For more information about the Dawn mission, visit: and .

This census was taken in order to determine eligible voters for elections to be held as proclaimed by Governor Andrew Reeder on November 10, 1854. The categories for information in the census were name, occupation, age, gender, emigrated from, native of United States, naturalized citizen, declarant (intention to become a citizen), Negro, slave, and voter. Only white males over twenty-one were eligible to vote. The districts used for the census were the same as the election districts. A statistical summary of the census followed the enumeration pages. For District 16, the place of election was the house of Keller & Kyle, in Leavenworth City. The boundaries of each district were described in Governor Reeder's proclamation, and it is difficult to determine what counties were in each district. The description of the District 16 follows: "Commencing at the mouth of Salt Creek; thence up said creek to the Military road; thence along the middle of said road to the lower crossing of Stranger Creek; thence up said creek to the line of the late Kickapoo reservation; and thence along the said line to the Thirteenth District; and thence by the same along a line corresponding to the course

Korean modern arts and culture rediscovered A series of exhibitions shedding light on the arts and culture of Korea’s modern era kicked off late May at two of Seoul’s most-frequented museums, revealing how Korean artists have shaped their own expertise and identity over historical adversities in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Modern art rediscovered at the National Museum of Art, Deoksugung The Deoksugung Palace Annex of the National Museum of Contemporary Art reopened its doors on May 26, following months of renovation. The building has undergone a process of architectural restoration and refurbishment based on historic research to better accommodate its new role as a representative art institution specializing in Korean modern art. For its reopening, the museum brought in two special exhibitions: a large-scale retrospective of the late Lee In-sung -- marking the centennial celebration of the artist’s birth -- and “Poetry and Dreams,” which features a selection of modern masterpieces from the museum collection. Lee In-sung (1912-1950) is a critically acclaimed artist from the early 20th century, who in his time had been dubbed a genius by the Japanese press. Perhaps Lee may not be a name that would ring in the minds of contemporaries, as most of his artwork was long kept in the hands of private collectors. Lee has however been at the center of attention among art historians for creating a remarkable artistic legacy and establishing a profound engagement in visual realization and exploration of the native hue. On an Autumn Day, 1953, Oil on canvas, 96x161.4 cm (courtesy of NMOCA) The current exhibition is an extensive survey of the oeuvre of Lee In-sung, encompassing different stages of his career, from pastoral scenery to portraits. The retrospective also presents a vast collection of archives and historic records that will allow viewers to browse the annals of history in association with shifts in artistic trends and experiments under various artistic movements. The artist, who studied western art in Japan during the colonial era, has sought to express elements and perspectives of Korean art, fused with his sentiment about the hometown. The current exhibition features hidden masterpieces including some unveiled for the first time in a public institution. (left) Self-Portrait, 1950, Oil on wood panel, 26.5X21.8cm; (right) Sweet Brier Flowers, 1944, Oil on canvas, 228.5x146 cm (courtesy of NMOCA)“We are delighted to present an exhibition shedding light on artist Lee In-sung as the first in a series of special exhibitions dedicated to showcasing modern masterpieces since the reopening of the Deoksugung Palace Annex,” said NMOCA Director Chung Hyung-min. “The exhibition is of much significance, especially to art historians and field experts but also to general audiences as Lee’s works -- which are rarely displayed in public spaces -- may be easily understood by anyone, arousing heartfelt passion and emotions. An exhibition not to miss as it offers a rare occasion to appreciate the extraordinary vision of this great artist, who extended the definition of “Korean-ness” during the colonial period. From September to December, the centennial celebration will travel to the Daegu Art Museum in in Daegu, the birthplace and artistic hometown of the painter. Exhibition view of "Modern Masterpieces from the Museum Collection: Poetry and Dreams"Also taking place in the museum’s second-floor galleries is “Poetry and Dreams,” a showcase of the highlights of the museum’s collection covering the beginning of the 20th century until the 1950s, a period of Korean history marked by turbulence and hardship. Works by great masters including Lee Jung-sup, Park Soo-keun and Kim Whan-ki are on display alongside poetry that reveals the essence of the times and the dire circumstances. Along with the reopening, the Deoksugung branch has transformed into a place where you can be sure of indulging in masterpieces from the modern era at all times. The museum also no longer charges admission fees, so more people may enjoy Korean modern art. For more information, please visit the official website."The Empire of Korea and the Modern Era" on display at the National Museum of Korea On May 25, the National Museum of Korea also reopened the Joseon Dynasty V Gallery after undergoing a partial renewal of its permanent galleries dedicated to representing the final part of the museum’s Korean history series. “The Empire of Korea and the Modern Era” showcases the modernization of Korea, as well as artwork and relics from the end of the Joseon Dynasty, the Empire of Korea, and the colonization period. The exhibition begins with a description of the advent of the Empire of Korea during which modern ideas and concepts were introduced to Korea together with a variety of western goods. On display at the exhibition rooms are the seal and medals of the Empire of Korea, a locomotive, phonographs, cameras, and telephones, all of which attest to the dramatic changes in people’s quotidian lives. A number of texts, visual records, and images of the era published by western visitors to Korea at the time illustrates of the country from a different, genuine perspective. Baegakchunhyo (Registered Cultural Heritage No. 485) by An Jung-sik; (right) Portrait of Lee Gyu-sang by an unknown artist (donated by Lee Sang-eok) (courtesy of the National Museum of Korea)The exhibition introduces Korean paintings of the era and how they were affected by western drawing techniques while preserving their own identity. A landscape painting by An Jung-sik (1861–1919) Baegakchunhyo is a good exemplar showing the western impact on Korean art during the period. The Portrait of Lee Gyu-sang drawn by an unknown artist invites visitors to observe the changes in artistic styles after the introduction of photography in Korea. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to showcasing the social and cultural changes that occurred in Korean society during the era, including the advocacy of ”free love.” For more information, please visit the official website.By Hwang DanaKorea.net Staff Writer

What is Heart Failure What are the Causes of Heart Failure Depression and Heart Failure How to Manage Heart Failure Resource Information on Heart Failure Even though it may sound like it, heart failure does not necessarily mean that the heart has failed. It is not a heart attack. Heart failure is a serious condition in which the heart is not pumping as well as it should. Chronic heart failure (CHF; also called congestive heart failure, cardiac and heart failure) is an illness in which the heart loses its ability to pump blood well throughout the body. It is usually considered a long-term disease that can be controlled. The main symptom is extreme tiredness. Not enough blood is pumped from the heart to the muscles. The body diverts blood away from less vital organs and muscles to focus on supplying the heart and brain. Heart failure may affect the left, right or both sides of the heart.If the left half of the heart is weak, fluid will build up in the lungs due to congestion of the lungs' veins. If the right half of the heart is weak, general body and vein pressure will increase, and fluid will accumulate in the body, especially tissues in the leg and stomach areas. The oxygen and nutrients in the blood provide the body with the energy it needs to operate efficiently. Chronic heart failure causes breathlessness and fatigue because of the heart cannot function as it should.

Accessing Materials Described Here TABLE OF CONTENTSDescriptive Summary Administrative Information Description of Series Professional: Personal: A Guide to the Robert E. Greenwood Papers, Greenwood, R. Robert E. Greenwood (1911-1993) was a mathematics instructor at the University of Texas at Austin for 43 years and worked in the areas of combinatorial analysis, numerical analysis, probability, and computation. Correspondence, notes, and committee records along with subject and research files make up the bulk of this collection. Extent: 28 ft., 2 in. Language: Material is written in Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Robert E. Greenwood (1911-1993) was a mathematics instructor at the University of Texas at Austin for 43 years and worked in the areas of combinatorial analysis, numerical analysis, probability, and computation. Greenwood was born in Navasota, TX and graduated as valedictorian of his high school class. He earned his B.A. in physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1933 and both his M.A. (1938) and Ph.D. (1939) from Princeton University. After completing his degrees, Greenwood returned to Austin and began a 55-year involvement with the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas. Greenwood also served in the Navy for six years during World War II and maintained status as a reserve for many years. Greenwood was a member of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), American Mathematical Society (AMS), the Canadian Mathematical Congress, and other professional organizations. Greenwood also held memberships in two honorary societies: Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. He had biographical listings in the American Men of Science and Who's Who in America. In 1981, Greenwood was awarded a Certificate for Meritorious Service to the Mathematical Association of America for his years of leadership and service to the mathematical community. He served on numerous committees for the MAA, AMS, and University of Texas at Austin including the William Lowell Putnam Competition Committee, the Graduate Studies Committee, the Archives Committee, the Committee on Computing Center Development and many more. Greenwood received many teaching awards and honors throughout his years at the University of Texas, including the CACTUS Teaching Award (1971), Honorable Mention AMOCO Teaching Award (1975) and the President’s Teaching Excellence Award (1980). Dr. Greenwood’s hobbies and leisurely pursuits were diverse. He was interested in magic and was well known in the Austin area for his Math-a-Magic shows. Greenwood was also known for his interest in coin collecting and was appointed by President Johnson in 1968 as a member of the Annual Assay Committee of the U. S. Mint. Greenwood’s other interests included genealogy, mystery writing, his cap collection, illusions and much more. Greenwood was active in the University United Methodist Church Dr. Greenwood's Memorial Resolution can be found online at . materials and photographs (3 in.). Of particular note are the autobiographical sketches written about his height and his cap collection, his Rhodes Scholarship application and his UT school record. Also included in the series are materials of the Austin League of Women Voters (5 in.), compiled by Mrs. Select materials have been restricted due to the inclusion of social security information. Function of a Graph for the Mathematical Intelligencer, 1964, 1981 Some early papers, which did not attract much attention, 1937-1971 Articles, 1937-1966 Reprints, 1949-1969 Assorted papers, 1959-1970 Unpublished work: “Factorial Moment Generating Function for Number of Cycles Associated with Elements of the Permutation Group on

Service student earns new award No comments The bikers traveled from coast to coast across the US, constructing homes and braving the elements. Occasionally facing extreme elements, the bikers spent nine weeks raising money for the Bike and Build organization. Photo courtesy of Lindsey Thomas Beginning this month, Linfield’s new Changemaker of the Month program acknowledged the community service accomplishments of Linfield students. The first winner of the award is junior Mary Stevens for her work this summer with the Bike & Build program, with which she built homes for the poor. The program’s founder is junior Lindsey Thomas, a community service assistant, said that she noticed during the last two years that many Linfield students achieve tremendous deeds and never received any recognition. Thomas said she and her friend, sophomore Rachel Coffey, decided to pioneer a program that allowed the Community Service Office to recognize people monthly for good deeds done outside of the college. The result is the Changemaker of the Month program, which is overseen by Community Service Coordinator Jessica Wade. Thomas, Coffey and Wade chose this month’s winner. Future winners will be chosen through student nominations. The winners receive a certificate. Thomas said that since the purpose of the program is to recognize students, a certificate is appropriate. Thomas heard of Steven’s story through connections on the cross-country team and realized it was an amazing accomplishment. Stevens spent nine weeks this past summer biking across the entire country, from Providence, R.I., to Seattle, Wash., with a team of others. Every few days, the team stopped at designated areas and built homes with organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, and raised money for the main organization: Bike and Build. Junior Mary Stevens rode her bike from state to state this summer to build houses for low-income Americans with a program called Bike and Build. The program worked with other community service organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. Photo courtesy of Lindsey Thomas They brought with them only what they could carry on their backs in duffle bags or backpacks and did laundry every four days. At night, they slept on the floors of churches, barns, schools and wherever else they could find charity. Rain, hail and intense heat proved to be problems at some times. “There was this one day when it was so hot [that] everyone ran out of water by second lunch … and stopped and drank from people’s hoses,” Stevens said. In the end, the group raised about $160,000 for Bike and Build. Five other groups of people were riding across the country as well; they raised a similar amount of money, bringing the total to almost $1,000,000. Thomas said she knew that this story needed to be told. “I never could have imagined people doing some of these things, like riding across the country,” she said. Stevens has had her name and story mentioned in the Linfield Newsletter, but true to the nature of the Changemaker program, she isn’t looking for recognition. She said she wants people to get involved with Bike and Build. She said she hopes more students will undertake the journey in the future and participate in what she calls “the greatest experience of my life.” The nomination forms will be located in Renshaw Hall. Students will be able to turn the forms in at the Office of Community Service, located in Walker Hall.

Royal Adelaide Golf Club Blessed with wild dunes, dramatic pines and a 1926 Alister MacKenzie redesign, Royal Adelaide is one of Australia’s oldest and most treasured golf venues By: Jeff Wallach If banishment to Australia were still the common punishment for British felons, golfers in England would be embarked upon a continuous crime spree. The island continent is home to a collection of the world’s best links courses, including Royal Adelaide Golf Club, located 20 miles outside the small city of Adelaide and just over a mile from the coast. The history of this great South Australia track is as colorful as the course is sublime. The natural linksland here rolls through dune grasses and low marshes, between pines and swamp oaks, and across gently sculpted but strategically brutal mounding, all buffeted by freshening winds. The first Adelaide Golf Club was founded in 1870 but survived only a few years. As one old-timer reported, “the fact that nearly everyone who had land abutting the parklands owned a cow added to the problems facing Adelaide’s golfing pioneers.” And, according to lore, when the local governor—who’d introduced golf to the populace—left Australia, he took the region’s supply of golf balls with him, thus bringing to a temporary close all golfing activity. The club re-formed in 1892 and began looking for land and a greenkeeper who could repair clubs. The first 18-hole competition, held in 1893, saw only two players scoring under 140. Early members included Prof. W.H. Bragg, who became secretary and treasurer in 1894 and reduced his handicap from 13 to 1 because he lived across the street from the course and was able to practice in the evenings. In his spare time, he also went on to win the Nobel Prize in physics. In 1895, Adelaide golfers moved to Glenelg and three years later joined the fine company of golfers from Melbourne and Sydney as members of the Australian Golf Union. Just after the turn of the century the club rejected a prospective member “because he had no experience as a golfer and the links were already congested on account of inexperienced players.” Membership two years later reached 51, plus 29 more “associate members” (i.e., women). Even while Royal Adelaide hosted national championships in 1901 and 1903, the golf course was clearly not up to snuff. In 1904, the club moved to its current location at Seaton. Harry Swift and H.L. Rymill designed the new course, which stretched to 6,256 yards. Three holes played over the nearby railway line and three others crossed district roads. A clubhouse was built for 350 pounds and members were called upon to donate furniture. The first Australian Open to be played at Seaton, in 1910, was won with a record-low score of 306. But even as the Swift/Rymill course hosted six Australian Opens, it too was eventually deemed unworthy. In 1926 (three years after Adelaide received its “Royal” designation) Alister MacKenzie visited to advise members about a redesign. “One finds a most delightful combination of sand dunes and fir trees, a most unusual combination even at the best seaside courses,” MacKenzie gushed. “No seaside courses that I have seen possess such magnificent sand craters as those at Royal Adelaide.” It was his intent to incorporate these dunes into a new design. MacKenzie’s recommendations (some of which were adopted while others were overruled) stressed greater accuracy with fewer forced carries, and utilized three additional sand craters along the routing. Many of the original sand bunkers were converted to grassy hollows. MacKenzie was of the opinion that, as it stood, Royal Adelaide was too difficult for weaker players, yet not tough enough for skilled golfers. Even given his reputation as one of the greatest golf architects of the era, MacKenzie’s recommendations stirred controversy. The author of an article in Golf In Australia wrote that MacKenzie “made two or three hasty examinations of parts of the course and surrounding country and made his report and recommendation, which included some very drastic alterations, unnecessarily costly, and many of doubtful structural benefit.” Despite meeting with this and other cranky responses, MacKenzie’s vision greatly improved the course, meanwhile re-routing it to prevent holes from being played across the railroad tracks. He left 12 holes on one side of the tracks and six others—plus the practice area and stately clubhouse—on the other side. Gene Sarazen visited the redesigned Royal Adelaide long enough to set the course record of 68 and make a few architectural suggestions of his own, which were summarily ignored. Following Gary Player’s victory in the Australian Open at Adelaide in 1962, fourth-place finisher and budding course designer Peter Thomson began working on Royal Adelaide with his partner, Michael Wolveridge. In ensuing years, the pair gently contoured and bunkered many open spaces throughout the course, adding both physical and strategic challenge while retaining the spirit of MacKenzie’s subtle architecture. Today, Royal Adelaide is characterized by wild, beautiful sandhills speckled with pines and pocked with pot bunkers among epic mounding and grassy swales. The natural humps and bumps lend a degree of unpredictability. Long marram grasses, sandy waste areas and other natural features add to the mood and challenge. The third hole may be one of Royal Adelaide’s best-known. This 292-yard par-4 requires a blind tee shot hit confidently over a grassy rise. Soft sand, rushes and trees line both sides of the hole, which remains exactly as MacKenzie designed it. The mutton-leg-shaped green is protected by a ridge to the left and a knoll to the right. In 1989, Colin Montgomerie took an 8 on this frequently eagled hole. Daunting length makes its first appearance on No. 4, which marches 450 yards and requires a blind tee shot (a common demand here) over a dune to cut the dogleg left. Pot bunkers on the right add to the potential chaos, catching drives that fail to draw. In fact, bunkers 250 to 300 yards from the tees characterize many of the holes here, as do tongues of rough licking into the fairways. Mounding throughout the course often conceals bunkers and other trouble, and angles of play over bunkers and around corners create hard choices. The back nine is longer, tougher and more memorable. The 388-yard 11th is Royal Adelaide’s famous crater hole: A good drive reaches the second of two rises that cross the fairway and provide views of the green, which is set in a wide crater at the base of a huge dune. Severe rough and bunkers adorn and protect both sides of the putting surface. A too-weak approach here will land among reeds and sand. Fourteen has been described as one of MacKenzie’s best holes anywhere. It’s a par-4, 482-yard dogleg-right with a small plateau landing area guarded by three bunkers to the right. The second shot is played through a gap in the pines to an elevated green protected by three more bunkers and a pair of swales. No. 15, a double dogleg, also excels. The tee shot must bore down a chute between trees. The left side is heavily bunkered, while the right side offers both bunkers and mounding. Punishing rough awaits short of a green lightly trapped with shallow bunkers. Nine Australian Opens and a long list of amateur events have been played at Royal Adelaide. After holing out at Royal Adelaide to win the 1938 Australian Open, Jim Ferrier noted, “There is always that pleasure at Seaton of pitting one’s ability against the course, as well as the surroundings which have the real golfing atmosphere.”

Guides through decision on when to start having mammograms. Discusses the benefits and risks of having a mammogram and the risk for getting breast cancer. Includes interactive tool to help you make your decision. Start mammograms at age 40 (or anytime in your 40s). Start mammograms at age 50. This information is for women who are at average risk for breast cancer. If you don't know how high your risk is, talk to your doctor. He or she can help you find out. Sometimes women think that their risk is higher than it really is. If you are at high risk for breast cancer, you may need to start mammograms at an earlier age. Key points to remember Experts don't agree on when to start having mammograms. Some suggest a woman should start getting them at age 40, while others advise that she start at age 50. But they do agree that all women should start having mammograms by age 50. Mammograms aren't perfect. They may miss some cancers, show something that looks like a tumor when it's not one, or find cancers that will never cause a problem. When to start having mammograms is a personal choice. How often you decide to get a mammogram may depend on your age, risk for breast cancer, and overall health. Studies show that mammograms can help reduce the number of breast cancer deaths in women ages 40 to 74.1 In general, women younger than 50 are at a lower risk for breast cancer. The risk for breast cancer goes up as you get older. If you're at increased risk for breast cancer, such as having a personal or family history of the disease, you may need to begin mammograms at a earlier age and have them more often. What is a mammogram? A mammogram is an X-ray of the breast that is used to screen for breast cancer. Screening tests help your doctor look for a certain disease or condition before any symptoms appear. This can increase your chance of finding the problem at a more treatable stage. Often a mammogram can find tumors that are too small for you or your doctor to feel. Experts have made great progress in treating breast cancer. If it is found early, breast cancer can often be cured, and it is not always necessary to remove the breast. What are the benefits of mammograms? A mammogram is one of the most effective screening tools for breast cancer. Breast cancer deaths with and without mammograms2 Without mammograms With mammograms 3.5 out of 1,000 women die of breast cancer 3 out of 1,000 women die of breast cancer What are the risks of a mammogram? Like other screening tests, mammograms aren't perfect. They have some limitations. For example, they may miss some cancers. This can delay treatment. And there are some risks. Each time you have a mammogram, there is a risk that the test: May show something that looks like a tumor when it's not one (called a false-positive). This can lead to anxiety and unnecessary tests, such as a breast biopsy. Can find cancers that will never cause a problem. For example, some breast cancers may grow so slowly that even without treatment these cancers may never affect a woman's health.2 Since there is no way to know which breast cancers will cause harm, they are usually treated. A study suggests that about 330 out of 1,000 breast cancers found during a screening mammogram may lead to unnecessary cancer treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.3 The more often you have mammograms, the more often you run the risk that the test will show something that looks like a tumor when it's not one or find cancers that will never cause a problem. And the chance of having false-positive results is higher when you start having mammograms earlier. A study shows that the number of false-positives is almost twice as high for women who start having mammograms at age 40 as it is for those women who start at age 50.4 Mammograms may not work as well in women before menopause, because breast tissue in younger women is denser than in older women. The more dense the breast tissue, the harder it is to find a tumor. You are briefly exposed to small amounts of radiation each time you have a mammogram. This exposure can add up over time. But the risk of damage to cells or tissue from being exposed to the level of radiation used for this test is low. When do experts advise starting mammograms? For women who are at average risk for breast cancer, there are no easy answers for when to start having mammograms. Even the experts don't agree on when is the best time to start. The American Cancer Society recommends that most women begin screening at age 40, and then have a mammogram every year. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that most women begin screening at age 50, and then have a mammogram every 2 years. But experts do agree that all women should start having mammograms by age 50. Risk of breast cancer by age5 Estimated risk over 10 years 14 out of 1,000 women will get breast cancer If you have certain risk factors that put you at increased risk for breast cancer, your doctor may suggest that you have a mammogram at a younger age. Women who have a personal or family history of breast cancer or who have inherited a BRCA1 or BRCA2 (say "BRAH-kuh") gene change are much more likely to get breast cancer. What else should you think about? When to start having mammograms is up to you. As you make your decision, here are some other things to think about: How do you feel about breast cancer screening? What is your risk for breast cancer? Sometimes women think that their risk is higher than it really is. If you don't know how high your risk is, talk to your doctor. He or she can help you find out. Do you feel that finding a cancer early is worth the risk of having a false-positive test result, which can cause anxiety and lead to unnecessary tests? How helpful do you think it would be to find any cancer, whether or not it might ever cause a problem for you? Are you worried that you might get breast cancer at an early age? Talk with your doctor about any questions or concerns you have about when to start screening. He or she can help you decide when to have your first mammogram and how often to have one.

Appleby named a "Real McCoy' educator LaVetta Appleby (in white lab coat) was joined at the Aug. 24 DAPCEP award ceremony by (L-R) George McDay and LTU colleagues Valentina Tobos, Tony Sky, Glen Bauer, and Howard Davis. Senior Lecturer LaVetta Appleby of Lawrence Technological University has been named one of the first five “Real McCoy” educators by the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program (DAPCEP). DAPCEP presented the inaugural Real McCoy awards for education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the medical field on Aug. 24 at the headquarters of DTE Energy in Detroit. DAPCEP is a Detroit-based non-profit that provides STEM programming to underrepresented metropolitan Detroit youth in kindergarten through 12th grade. Along with its corporate and eight university partners, DAPCEP serves more than 4,000 students each year at no cost to its students. “As Michigan is advancing in STEM and medicine fields, we feel it is appropriate for our organization to recognize current leaders who are innovatively advancing STEM and medicine endeavors,” said Jason Lee, DAPCEP executive director. “They are living examples to our students.” Appleby was recognized in the science category. She teaches chemistry and is associate director of the Master of Science Education program at LTU. “DAPCEP has given me an avenue to share my love of science with mid-school and high school students to help them reach their goals,” Appleby said in accepting the award. “It is important that we continue to support this program, so that students will pursue STEM education, in hopes that it will open up a whole new world for them.”Lawrence Tech has partnered with DAPCEP on science education for students in grades 6-12 for more than 20 years, and Appleby has been teaching in the program for more than 10 years. One of the courses she has taught to DAPCEP students is Forensic Physics. Appleby realizes how important it is to get students interested in the subject matter. Many high school students, especially girls, often wonder why it is important to learn physics, so Appleby has made physics part of a crime scene investigation (CSI) class. “The students are excited about forensics, and the physics they’re learning is disguised,” Appleby said. “All they want to do is solve the case, and they get really excited.” The DAPCEP Real McCoy Awards, which were presented by DTE Energy, are named after Detroiter Elijah McCoy (1844-1925), a mechanical engineer who invented an automatic lubricator for steam engines. The labor-saving and time-saving device was so reliable that it was referred to as “the real McCoy.” He was an entrepreneur responsible for 57 patents.

Fire Commission Promotes Fire Prevention Week Fire Commission Promotes Fire Prevention Week Oct 09, 2013 - | 01:20 PM - National Fire Prevention Week is October 7-13. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s (KCTCS) Kentucky Fire Commission encourages everyone to identify fire risks and to be prepared. This year’s theme is Prevent Kitchen Fires. According to the National Fire Protection Association, U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated annual average of 156,600 cooking-related fires between 2007-2011, resulting in 400 civilian deaths, 5,080 civilian injuries and $853 million in direct damage. Stats also show two of every five home fires start in the kitchen. “It is so important to maintain your home smoke detectors,” said Kentucky Fire Commission Executive Director Ronnie Day. “Whether it begins in the kitchen or elsewhere, having a working smoke detector in your home can save your life.” Fire Prevention Week was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire. The fire began on October 8, but continued into and did most of its damage on October 9, 1871. In 1920, President Woodrow Wilson issued the first National Fire Prevention Day proclamation, and since 1922, Fire Prevention Week has been observed on the Sunday through Saturday period in which October 9 falls. According to the National Archives and Records Administration's Library Information Center, Fire Prevention Week is the longest running public health and safety observance on record. Fire Prevention Tips * Have properly working smoke alarms. * Test smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors monthly and change the batteries at least once a year. * Place smoke alarms on each floor of your home and in each bedroom. * Plan a family escape route and practice it once a month.

Muscle twitching Related Adam Multimedia Encyclopedia Records - 17-hydroxycorticosteroids - 17-ketosteroids - 17-OH progesterone - 24-hour urinary aldosterone excretion rate - 24-hour urine copper test - 24-hour urine protein - 25-hydroxy vitamin D test - 26 to 28-week fetus - 30 to 32 week fetus - 30 week ultrasound Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine; Luc Jasmin, MD, PhD, Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, and Department of Anatomy at UCSF, San Francisco, CA. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc. A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org). URAC's accreditation program is an independent audit to verify that A.D.A.M. follows rigorous standards of quality and accountability. A.D.A.M. is among the first to achieve this important distinction for online health information and services. Learn more about A.D.A.M.'s editorial policy, editorial process and privacy policy. A.D.A.M. is also a founding member of Hi-Ethics and subscribes to the principles of the Health on the Net Foundation (www.hon.ch).

“Attack on New Ulm,” painted by Anton Gag in 1904, depicts the Battles of New Ulm, which included two battles on the frontier town. Minnesota Historical Society Little Crow’s wife and children at Fort Snelling in 1863. Minnesota Historical Society To understand U.S.-Dakota conflict, historians resort to 'truth recovery' By Tim Krohn Sat Mar 31, 2012, 07:00 PM CDT — Recent articles and letters to the editor in The Free Press demonstrate the raw emotions and conflict that surround the U.S.-Dakota War 150 years ago. Controversy over a poem on a proposed marker in Mankato, disputes over what artifacts to put on public display, and letters pointing out atrocities leading up to and during the war show the variety of views. So when the Minnesota Historical Society curators set out two years ago to begin planning their exhibits and activities surrounding the anniversary this summer, they used a ‘truth recovery’ process to sift through the facts and emotions in an attempt to portray events from all angles. It’s a process that’s taken hold among American historical societies but is still relatively new here, said Pat Gaarder, deputy director for programs at the state Historical Society. “There is a longer-standing tradition of truth recovery in Europe and in working on issues like the Holocaust,” she said. “It’s used to look at the histories of conflicts in particular to tell the story from a variety of perspectives. What is truth, how do we get to the facts. Bringing people together to talk about what happened can be as important as specifying the facts.” While healing some of the injuries people still feel is part of the goal, Gaarder said the process isn’t aimed at sanitizing brutalities on either side of the 1862 conflict. Society staff have been meeting with descendants of the Dakota and settlers in shaping the exhibits. Gaarder said the topic has been the most sensitive ever taken on by the Historical Society. “It’s been a big challenge to gain the trust of people on both sides to have them feel comfortable talking to us about the living aspects of history in their lives, particularly with the Dakota to make them feel they are being asked in to the process in a genuine way.” She said one of the discoveries in talking with the Dakota “is the sense that people are more interested in being recognized in today’s life, having respect accorded to them, than seeing an exhibit built. “So it’s very difficult to just talk about doing an exhibit when the issues are so alive today. The past is very present in the daily lives of many of the Dakota and that is somewhat different than the descendant of the settlers.” Society Director Stephen Elliott calls the period the foremost in state history. “No series of events in Minnesota history is as important as the chain of events that led to the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 and its terrible aftermath. “They produced historical traumas that still echo in those living today.” Gaarder said the war and its aftermath, including the hanging of 38 Dakota in Mankato, quickly and dramatically changed the face of Minnesota. “What we’re trying to help people understand is that beyond what happened in the war is how profoundly it affected the state. It opens the South and the West for settlement, and we have this tremendous influx of immigrants in the 1860s, ’70s and ’80s and so many of us trace our history to those immigrants. “The understanding of events hasn’t been as great as an event of this magnitude merits.” Central to this year’s events will be the new exhibit at the History Center in St. Paul containing documents, images and artifacts relating to the war. “Minnesota Tragedy: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 Exhibit” will open June 30. Gaarder said the goal of the exhibit is to incorporate multiple points of view on the war, its causes and its aftermath. Visitors will be encouraged to look closely at the primary sources in the exhibit and draw their own conclusions about what happened and why. Visitors also will have opportunities to add their own comments and reactions to create an ongoing interpretation of events. The society also has developed a website (usdakotawar.org) that provides a central clearinghouse for a variety of other projects and information relating to the war. This website is now online but will be updated greatly in the coming months to offer more stories of the war and its aftermath through oral histories, photos, journals, letters, newspapers, government documents and other resources. Teachers also will be able to find resources for classroom use. Update: Miller struggles with fundraising for 1st District race Walz raised $210,473 for the quarter Fire destroys rural Nicollet County house No one injured in fire at rental property on Robert and Claire Gieseke farm Storify: Social media reacts to Hoffner decision Check out how social media is reacting to the Todd Hoffner decision. Click here for Storify Temporary skate park to open Saturday Former fire station serves as new site until a permanent one can be built.

The Division of Library Development and Services began in 1946 as the Division of Library Extension. In 1968, it was reorganized under its present name. As the state library agency, the Division administers state and federal programs to improve libraries throughout Maryland. Under the Division are two branches: Public Libraries and State Networking and the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. The Maryland Advisory Council on Libraries advises the Division. The Division of Library Development and Services guides and develops statewide Maryland public library network services through leadership and consultation in technology, training, marketing, funding, resource sharing, research and planning, so that Maryland libraries can fulfill their missions now and in the future to the people of Maryland. SNAPSHOT DAY One Day in the Life of Maryland Libraries Public Libraries and State Networking BranchOrigins of the Public Libraries and State Networking Branch trace to 1902 when the State Library Commission was created. Commission responsibilities for public library development were assigned to the Office of Public Libraries under the State Board of Education in 1935, and to the Division of Library Extension from 1947 to 1971. Within the Division of Library Development and Services, the Public Libraries Branch was formed in 1971 and renamed the Public Libraries and State Networking Branch in 1988. The Branch provides leadership and technical assistance to improve library service. Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped415 Park Ave.Baltimore, MD 21201 The Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped opened in 1968. The Library serves eligible blind and physically handicapped residents of Maryland. It is the Maryland regional library under the National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress. The State Library Network The Branch also oversees the State Library Network through which Maryland residents obtain library materials and gain access to information not available in their local library. The Network provides interlibrary loan, direct lending of materials, technical assistance to libraries, and staff training. More than 400 Maryland libraries participate in the State Library Network. These include public, university, college and community college libraries. The Network is centered at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. The Network is aided by several regional resource centers: the State Library Resource Center (Baltimore City) the Eastern Shore Regional Library, Inc. (Salisbury)the Southern Maryland Regional Library Association (Charlotte Hall), andthe Western Maryland Regional Library (Hagerstown).State Library Resource CenterEnoch Pratt Free Library400 Cathedral St.Baltimore, MD 21201 In 1971, the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library System was designated as the State Library Resource Center. The Center lends books and other materials to libraries in the State Library Network from sources within Maryland and out of State via the Maryland Interlibrary Loan Organization. It also provides information to State government through the Government Reference Service.The Center administers Sailor, Maryland's online electronic information network. Overseen by the Division of Library Development and Services in conjunction with the Center, Sailor connects Marylanders to information resources within the State and worldwide. It also provides access to Internet resources. Sailor allows users to identify and locate books; articles in magazines, newspapers, and journals; answers to specific questions; or information on a particular topic. It gives information about services of public and private agencies; and government information, such as proposed legislation, job listings, and census data. Sailor is available without charge through all public library systems and by dial access on modem-equipped computers.

No Four Squares In Arithmetic Progression To prove that four consecutive terms in an arithmetic sequence cannot all be squares, suppose there exist four squares A2, B2, C2, D2 in increasing arithmetic progression, i.e., we have B2-A2 = C2-B2 = D2-C2. We can assume the squares are mutually co-prime, and the parity of the equation shows that each square must be odd. Hence we have co-prime integers u,v such that A = u-v, C = u+v, u2+v2 = B2, and the common difference of the progression is (C2-A2)/2 = 2uv. We also have D2 - B2 = 4uv, which factors as [(D+B)/2][(D-B)/2] = uv. The two factors on the left are co-prime, as are u and v, so there exist four mutually co-prime integers a,b,c,d (exactly one even) such that u = ab, v = cd, D+B = 2ac, and D-B = 2bd. This implies B = ac-bd, so we can substitute into the equation u2+v2 = B2� to give (ab)2+(cd)2 = (ac-bd)2. This quadratic is symmetrical in the four variables, so we can assume c is even and a, b, d are odd. From this quadratic equation we find that c is a rational function of the square root of� a4-a2d2+d4, which implies there is an odd integer m such that� a4-a2d2+d4 = m2. Since a and d are odd there exist co-prime integers x and y such that a2 = k(x+y) and d2 = k(x-y), where k = �1. Substituting into the above quartic gives x2+3y2 = m2, from which it's clear that y must be even and x odd. Changing the sign of x if necessary to make m+x divisible by 3, we have 3(y/2)2 = [(m+x)/2][(m-x)/2], which implies that (m+x)/2 is three times a square, and (m-x)/2 is a square. Thus we have co-prime integers r and s (one odd and one even) such that (m+x)/2 = 3r2, (m-x)/2 = s2, m = 3r2+s2, x = 3r2-s2, and y = �2rs. Substituting for x and y back into the expressions for a2 and d2 (and transposing if necessary) gives a2 = k(s+r)(s-3r) and d2 = k(s-r)(s+3r). Since the right hand factors are co-prime, it follows that the four quantities (s-3r), (s-r), (s+r), (s+3r) must each have square absolute values, with a common difference of 2r. These quantities must all have the same sign, because otherwise the sum of two odd squares would equal the difference of two odd squares, i.e., 1+1 = 1-1 (mod 4), which is false. Therefore, we must have |3r| < s, so from m = 3r2 + s2 we have 12r2 < m. Also the quartic equation implies m < a2 + d2, so we have the inequality |2r| < |SQRT(2/3)max(a,d)|. Thus we have four squares in arithmetic progression with the common difference |2r| < |2abcd|, the latter being the common difference of the original four squares. This contradicts the fact that there must be a smallest absolute common difference for four squares in arithmetic progression, so the proof is complete.□ Incidentally, Fermat proposed this problem in a letter to Frenicle in 1640, and later claimed to have a proof, although as usual he never shared it with anyone. Weil says that Euler published (posthumously) a proof in 1780, but �it is somewhat confusedly written, obviously by his assistants, at a time when he was totally blind�. Weil then says a better proof was given by J. Itard in 1973, but provides no description. Dickson's "History of the Theory of Numbers" describes a alleged proof (attributed to Bronwin and Furnass) of this proposition, but the �proof� is incomplete at best. The equality of the differences y2-x2,� z2-y2 , and� w2-z2� is said to imply the existence of four integers a,b,c,d such that but no justification for this assertion is given. It is certaintly true that, if w,x,y,z are all odd, then there exist eight integers a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h such that but Dickson offers no justification for how the eight integers can be reduced to just four, so the proof given there can�t be considered complete. The inadequacy of that proof was mentioned on an internet newsgroup in 1994, and no one knew of any elementary published alternative, so this led me to devise and post the proof given above. (As an aside, in 2007 a noted mathematician realized there was no published elementary proof of this proposition. He then found the above proof on my web site, and wrote a paper in which he essentially just copied it, with some insignificant modifications, and claimed it as his own � omitting any mention of the actual source.) The �no arithmetic progression of four squares� theorem can be used to answer other questions as well. For example, are there rational numbers p, q other than unity such that (p2, q2) is a point on the hyperbola given by (2-x)(2-y) = 1? To see why the answer is no, suppose p = a/b and q = c/d (both fractions reduced to least terms). Then if (p2,q2) is on the hyperbola we have Since b2 is coprime to 2b2-a2 and c2 is coprime to 2d2-c2 it follows that� b2 = 2d2-c2 �and� d2 = 2b2-a2. Rearranging terms we get b2-d2 = d2-c2 and d2-b2 = b2-a2. Together these equations imply that a2, b2, d2 and c2 are in airthmetic progression, which is impossible. Another interesting question is whether four of five consecutive terms in arithmetic progression can be squares. The three possible cases to consider are depicted below. We can easily show that Case 2 has no solutions. The conditions for that case are and these conditions imply From the theory of quadratic forms we know the primitive solutions of these two individual equations are of the form respectively for some integers p, q, P, Q. If either p or P are even, then all of the variables are even, so the solution is not primitive and we can divide each variable by 2 until p and P are both odd. It follows that these two equations have no simultaneous solution, because the variable a is one less than a multiple of 4 in the left-hand solution, whereas it is one greater than a multiple of four in the right-hand solution. Hence the only possibilities are Cases 1 and 3. It so happens that each of these has a solution. For Case 1 we have the solution a=23, b=17, c=13, d=7. This was found by Cunningham in 1906. (Dickson notes that this leads to an infinite set of solutions, and that Cunningham computed two much larger solutions, but doesn�t give them.) We also have the solution For Case 3 we have the solution a=4183, b=3637, c=2993, d=647. The two minimal solutions of the respective conditions are related to each other in a subtle way, as discussed in another note. The simplest way to approach this problem (i.e., Cases 1 and 3), is to begin with three squares in arithmetic progression, which can be written as (a-b)2, c2, and (a+b)2, with the condition that a2+b2 = c2. Using the primitive form of the Pythagorean solution a = a2-b2, ,b = 2ab, c = a2+b2, we get the three squares in arithmetic progression with the common difference 4ab(a-b)(a+b). Subtracting twice this value from the left-hand square gives the lowest value for a solution of Case 3, whereas adding to the right-hand term gives the highest value for a solution of Case 1. We must make this term equal to a square, so we require Thus Cases 1 and 3 are governed by the same Diophantine equation, the only difference being that in one case a,b have the same sign and in the other case they have opposite signs. One simple way of finding a solution is to write the equation as Hence we have a solution if we choose a,b to make the second two terms vanish, i.e., so we have the solution a = -2, b = 3. It�s clear by inspection that transposing a,b and negating one of their signs leaves the polynomial unchanged, so we also have the equivalent solution a = 3, b = 2. We can generate infinitely many more solutions using a method described by Euler. Divide through the original polynomial by b4, and let x denote the ratio a/b, so we seek a rational value of x that makes so the right hand side is an arbitrary rational square. We already know that x = 3/2 is a solution. Now suppose we have another solution q, and let us make the substitution x = y + q, which gives where r2 is the rational square given by the solution q. Repeating the previous method, we can write this in the form Choosing y so that the sum of the two right-hand terms vanishes, we get The corresponding value of x is given by adding q, so we have another solution x = q0, and hence we can write It follows that Squaring both sides and substituting for r2 the quantity q4+12q3+2q2�12q+1, we get the If q0 equals 3/2 or -2/3 this degenerates and the only non-zero root is q = 39/46 or -46/39 respectively. Thus from the smallest solution we get the next (known) larger one. For all other values of q0 we can solve the preceding quadratic for q to give which yields two non-zero rational values of q such that is also rational. One of these solutions is the �previous� ratio in the sequence (i.e., the ratio in smaller terms), and the other is the �next� ratio in the sequence (a ratio in larger terms). Hence given q0 and r0, we can compute q and r, and then repeat the process using these as the new values of q0 and r0. Beginning with q0 = 3/2 and r0 = 23/4 we get the sequence of q values and so on. Letting a and b denote respectively the numerator and denominator of q, the corresponding solution (progression of squares) is with the double interval between the third and fourth values, and this is either an increasing or decreasing sequence (corresponding to Case 1 or 3) depending on the sign of the quarter difference ab(a-b)(a+b). The sequence of q values beginning with 3/2 all lie on branches A, B, or C of the curve defined by equation (1) as plotted below. (The blue portion represents the imaginary part.) Alternatively, if we begin with the initial value -2/3, the sequence of values all lie on the closed locus D. In both cases, every point on the real locus is arbitrarily close to one of the iterates. An expanded plot of locus D, along with the first several iterates, is shown in the figure below. The point denoted by 0 is at the origin of the coordinates (i.e., q = q0 = 0), and from there we can proceed horizontally to the point 0�, then we can proceed perpendicularly to the q = q0 line to the point 1, then horizontally to the point 1�, and so on. In this way we pass through each of the infinitely-many rational points on the curve that are related to the �0� point by equation (1). This sequence of quadratic equations is perhaps the clearest method of generating solutions, but the problem can also be expressed in terms of elliptic curves. First, for convenience, we re-write equation (1) using the variables x and y in place of q0 and q. Any rational point on this curve represents a solution of the original problem (four of five terms in arithmetic progression are squares), because if x is a rational number the value of y is rational if and only if the discriminant x4+12x3+2x2-12x+1 is a rational square, which is the necessary and sufficient condition for a solution of the original problem. Also, in that case, y too makes that polynomial a rational square. So we seek rational points on the above curve. If we define the variables we can make the rational substitutions into the preceding equation to give the elliptic curve A plot of this locus is shown below. Given any two rational points on this curve, the line through those two points generally intersects the curve at a third point that must also be rational. This curve has the trivial rational points P0 = (0,�1), P1 = (1/2,0), P2 = (1/3,0), and P3 = (1/4,0). To find a new rational point, consider the line through P0 and P3, which has the equation v = 1�2u. Substituting this for v in equation (3) and simplifying, we get Thus the point P5 has the rational coordinates u = 5/12, v = 1/6, which corresponds to the values x = -1/5, y = -1, meaning that these values satisfy (2), and therefore both of them make the function x4+12x3+2x2-12x+1 a rational square. If we put x = a/b for co-prime integers a,b, then the rational value x = -1/5 corresponds to a = -1, b = 5, which gives the four values whose squares lie in five consecutive terms of an arithmetic progression This is twice the smallest non-trivial solution of Case 1, i.e., the numbers 7, 13, 17, 23. The rational points P6 = (3/8,-1/8) and P4 = (1/6,1/3) also map to this same solution. Now consider a line through points P4 and P5, having the equation Substituting for v in equation (3) and simplifying, we get Thus the line through P4 and P5 strikes the curve again at u = 13/27, v = 10/81, which maps to the values x = -2/3, y = -46/39. The four squares corresponding to this x value are again just the smallest solution, but the squares corresponding to this y value, for which a = -46 and b = 39, are This is the smallest solution of Case 3. Continuing to consider the lines through other pairs of rational points, we can generate all the same solutions that were given by the previous �quadratic tree�

Diseases and ConditionsFoot drop Foot drop, sometimes called drop foot, is a general term for difficulty lifting the front part of the foot. If you have foot drop, you may drag the front of your foot on the ground when you walk. Foot drop isn't a disease. Rather, foot drop is a sign of an underlying neurological, muscular or anatomical problem. Sometimes foot drop is temporary. In other cases, foot drop is permanent. If you have foot drop, you may need to wear a brace on your ankle and foot to hold your foot in a normal position. Foot drop makes it difficult to lift the front part of your foot, so it might drag on the floor when you walk. To counter this, you might raise your thigh when you walk, as if you were climbing stairs (steppage gait), to help your foot clear the floor. This odd gait might cause you to slap your foot down onto the floor with each step you take. In some cases, the skin on the top of your foot and toes may feel numb. Foot drop typically affects only one foot. Depending on the underlying cause, however, it's possible for both feet to be affected. When to see a doctor If your toes drag the floor when you walk, consult your doctor. Foot drop is caused by weakness or paralysis of the muscles involved in lifting the front part of the foot. The underlying causes of foot drop are varied and may include: Nerve injury. The most common cause of foot drop is compression of the nerve that controls the muscles involved in lifting the foot. This can happen at the knee or in the lower spine. The nerve can also be injured during hip or knee replacement surgery. Long-term nerve damage associated with diabetes can also cause foot drop. Muscle or nerve disorders. Various forms of muscular dystrophy, an inherited disease that causes progressive muscle weakness, may contribute to foot drop. Other disorders, such as polio or Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, also can cause foot drop. Brain and spinal cord disorders. Disorders that affect the spinal cord or brain — such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis or stroke — may cause foot drop. The peroneal nerve controls the muscles that lift your foot. This nerve runs near the surface of your skin on the side of your knee closest to your hand. Activities that compress this nerve can increase your risk of foot drop. Examples include: Crossing your legs. People who habitually cross their legs can compress the peroneal nerve on their uppermost leg. Prolonged kneeling. Occupations that involve prolonged squatting or kneeling — such as picking strawberries or laying floor tile — can result in foot drop. Wearing a leg cast. Plaster casts that enclose the ankle and end just below the knee can exert pressure on the peroneal nerve. You're likely to start by seeing your family doctor or regular health care provider. Depending on the suspected cause of foot drop, you may be referred to a doctor who specializes in brain and nerve disorders (neurologist). Because appointments can be brief, and because there's often a lot of ground to cover, it's a good idea to be well prepared for your appointment. Here's some information to help you. What you can do Write down any symptoms you're experiencing, including any that may seem unrelated to the reason for which you scheduled the appointment. Take note of key personal information, including any major stresses or recent life changes. Make a list of all medications, as well as any vitamins or supplements, that you're taking. Write down questions to ask your doctor. Your time with your doctor is limited, so preparing a list of questions will help you make the most of your time together. For foot drop, some basic questions to ask your doctor include: What's causing my symptoms? What kinds of tests do I need? Is my condition likely temporary or chronic? What treatment do you recommend? Do you have any brochures or other printed material that I can take home with me? In addition to the questions that you've prepared to ask your doctor, don't hesitate to ask questions anytime you don't understand something. What to expect from your doctor Your doctor is likely to ask you a number of questions, such as: When did you first notice symptoms? Are your symptoms present all the time, or do they come and go? Does anything seem to make your symptoms better? Does anything seem to make your symptoms worse? Do you notice any weakness in your legs? Does your foot slap the floor when you walk? Do you have numbness or tingling in your foot or leg? Do you have a history of diabetes? Do you have any other muscle weakness? Foot drop is usually diagnosed during a physical exam. Your doctor will want to watch you walk and may check a number of your leg muscles for weakness. He or she may also check for numbness on your shin and on the top of your foot and toes. In some cases, additional testing is recommended. Imaging tests Foot drop is sometimes caused by an overgrowth of bone in the spinal canal or by a tumor or cyst pressing on the nerve in the knee or spine. Imaging tests can help pinpoint these types of problems. X-rays. Plain X-rays use a low level of radiation to visualize a soft tissue mass or a bone lesion that may be causing your symptoms. Ultrasound. This technology uses sound waves to create images of internal structures. It may be used to check for cysts or tumors that may be pressing on the nerve. Computerized tomography (CT scan). Computerized tomography combines X-ray images taken from many different angles to form cross-sectional views of structures within the body. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This test uses radio waves and a strong magnetic field to create detailed images. MRI is particularly useful in visualizing soft tissue lesions that may be compressing a nerve. Nerve tests Electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies measure electrical activity in the muscles and nerves. These tests can be uncomfortable, but they're very useful in determining the location of the damage along the affected nerve. Treatment for foot drop depends on the underlying cause. If the underlying cause is successfully treated, foot drop may improve or even disappear. If the underlying cause can't be treated, foot drop may be permanent. Specific treatment for foot drop may include: Braces or splints. A brace on your ankle and foot or splint that fits into your shoe can help hold your foot in a normal position. Physical therapy. Exercises that strengthen your leg muscles and help you maintain the range of motion in your knee and ankle may improve gait problems associated with foot drop. Stretching exercises are particularly important to prevent the development of stiffness in the heel. Nerve stimulation. Sometimes stimulating the nerve that lifts the foot improves foot drop. Surgery. In cases where foot drop is relatively new, nerve surgery may be helpful. If foot drop is long-standing, your doctor may suggest surgery that fuses ankle or foot bones or a procedure that transfers a functioning tendon to a different position. Because foot drop can increase your risk of tripping and falling, you might want to take these precautions around your house: Keep all floors clear of clutter. Avoid the use of throw rugs. Relocate electrical cords away from walkways. Make sure rooms and stairways are well lit. Place fluorescent tape on the top and bottom steps of stairways References Stewart JD. Foot drop: Where, why and what to do? Practical Neurology. 2008;8:158. NINDS foot drop information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/foot_drop/foot_drop.htm. Accessed Sept. 6, 2011. Ropper AH, et al. Disorders of stance and gait. In: Ropper AH, et al. Adams & Victor's Principles of Neurology. 9th ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Medical; 2009. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aid=3630849. Accessed Sept. 6, 2011. Thompson PD. Gait disorders. In: Bradley WG, et al. Neurology in Clinical Practice. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Butterworth-Heinemann Elsevier; 2008. http://www.mdconsult.com/books/about.do?about=true&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-7506-7525-3..X5001-8--TOP&isbn=978-0-7506-7525-3&uniqId=230100505-57. Accessed Sept. 6, 2011. Neurological diagnostic tests and procedures. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/misc/diagnostic_tests.htm. Accessed Sept. 6, 2011. Sackley C, et al. Rehabilitation interventions for foot drop in neuromuscular disease (Review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2009:CD003908. http://www2.cochrane.org/reviews. Accessed Sept. 6, 2011. Spinner RJ (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Sept. 21, 2011. Preventing falls and related fractures. NIH Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center. http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/bone/Osteoporosis/Fracture/prevent_falls.asp. Accessed Sept. 6. 2011. Nov. 10, 2011Original article: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/foot-drop/basics/definition/con-20032918

Pet allergy is an allergic reaction to proteins found in an animal's skin cells, saliva or urine. Signs of pet allergy include those common to hay fever, such as sneezing and runny nose. Some people may also experience signs of asthma, such as wheezing and difficulty breathing. Most often, pet allergy is triggered by exposure to the dead flakes of skin (dander) a pet sheds. Any animal with fur can be a source of pet allergy, but pet allergies are most commonly associated with cats, dogs, rodents and horses. If you have a pet allergy, the best strategy is to avoid or reduce exposure to the animal as much as possible. Medications or other treatments may be necessary to relieve symptoms and manage asthma. Symptoms

Drugs and SupplementsLidocaine And Hydrocortisone (Topical Application Route, Rectal Route) DescriptionsLidocaine and hydrocortisone combination is used to relieve pain and itching caused by conditions such as hemorrhoids, sunburn, minor burns, insect bites or stings, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, minor cuts, or scratches. Lidocaine belongs to a group of medicines known as topical local anesthetics. It deadens the nerve endings in the skin. This medicine does not cause unconsciousness as general anesthetics do when used for surgery. Hydrocortisone is a corticosteroid (cortisone-like medicine) that is used to relieve the redness, itching, and swelling caused by skin conditions. This medicine is available only with your doctor's prescription. This product is available in the following dosage forms: Pediatric Appropriate studies performed to date have not demonstrated pediatric-specific problems that would limit the usefulness of lidocaine and hydrocortisone combination in children. However, because of this medicine's toxicity, it should be used with caution, after other medicines have been considered or found ineffective. Recommended doses should not be exceeded, and the patient should be carefully monitored during therapy. Geriatric No information is available on the relationship of age to the effects of lidocaine and hydrocortisone combination in geriatric patients. However, elderly patients are more likely to have age-related liver problems, which may require caution in patients receiving lidocaine and hydrocortisone combination. Drug Interactions Although certain medicines should not be used together at all, in other cases two different medicines may be used together even if an interaction might occur. In these cases, your doctor may want to change the dose, or other precautions may be necessary. Tell your healthcare professional if you are taking any other prescription or nonprescription (over-the-counter [OTC]) medicine. Chickenpox infection or Fungal infection or Herpes simplex infection or Liver disease, severe or Tuberculosis, active—Should not be used in patients with these conditions. Cushing's syndrome (adrenal gland disorder) or Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar)—Use with caution. May make these conditions worse. Infection at or near the place of application or Large sores, broken skin, or severe injury at the area of application—The chance of side effects may be increased. Proper Use Use this medicine exactly as directed by your doctor. Do not use it for any other condition without first checking with your doctor. This medicine may cause unwanted effects if it is used too much, because more of it is absorbed into the body through the skin. Wash your hands with soap and water before and after using this medicine. Unless otherwise directed by your doctor, do not apply this medicine to open wounds, burns, or broken or inflamed skin. This medicine should only be used for problems being treated by your doctor. Check with your doctor before using it for other problems, especially if you think that an infection may be present. This medicine should not be used to treat certain kinds of skin infections or serious problems, such as severe burns. Be careful not to get any of this medicine in your nose, mouth, ears, and especially in your eyes, because it can cause severe eye irritation. If any of the medicine does get in these areas, wash the area with water for at least 15 minutes and check with your doctor right away. To use the Anamantle® HC kit: Remove the cap from the tube of cream and firmly screw the applicator tip on to the end of the tube. Squeeze the tube until a small amount of cream comes out. Lubricate the end of the applicator tip with the cream. Gently insert the applicator tip with the attached tube into the anal area. Continue squeezing the tube until the cream is applied to the affected areas. Do not insert the applicator tip and tube completely into the anus or deep into the rectum. It is very important that your doctor check your progress at regular visits for any problems or unwanted effects that may be caused by this medicine. If your symptoms do not improve within a few days or if they become worse, check with your doctor. Using too much of this medicine or using it for a long time may increase your risk of having adrenal gland problems. The risk is greater for children and for patients who use large amounts for a long time. Talk to your doctor if you or your child have more than one of these symptoms while you are using this medicine: blurred vision; dizziness or fainting; fast, irregular, or pounding heartbeat; increased thirst or urination; irritability; or unusual tiredness or weakness. After applying this medicine to the skin of your child, watch the child carefully to make sure that he or she does not get any of the medicine in the eyes or mouth. This medicine can cause serious side effects, especially in children, if it gets into the mouth and is swallowed. Stop using this medicine and check with your doctor right away if you or your child have a skin rash, burning, stinging, swelling, or irritation on the skin. Do not use cosmetics or other skin care products on the treated skin areas. Side Effects Burning or stinging sensation of the skin paleness or redness of the skin swelling of the skin

Drugs and SupplementsYellow Fever Vaccine (Subcutaneous Route) Yf-Vax DescriptionsYellow fever vaccine is used to prevent infection by the yellow fever virus. This vaccine works by causing your body to produce its own protection (antibodies) against the virus. Vaccination against yellow fever is recommended for all persons 9 months of age and older who are traveling to or living in areas of Africa, South America, or other countries where there is yellow fever infection and for people who are traveling to countries that require yellow fever immunization (certificate of vaccination). It is also needed by other people who might come into contact with the yellow fever virus. Pregnant women should be vaccinated only if they must travel to areas where there is an epidemic of yellow fever and they cannot be protected from mosquito bites. The certificate of vaccination for yellow fever is valid for 10 years beginning 10 days after the first vaccination, or on the date of the second vaccination if within 10 years of the first injection. Yellow fever vaccine may not protect all persons given the vaccine. This vaccine is given only at authorized Yellow Fever Vaccination Centers. The location of these centers can be obtained from your state, province, and local health departments. This product is available in the following dosage forms:

Medication errors are preventable. Your best defense is asking questions and being informed about the medications you take. By Mayo Clinic Staff Medication errors may sound harmless, but mistakes in prescribing, dispensing and administering medications injure more than 1 million people a year in the United States. Yet most medication errors can be prevented. How can you protect yourself and your family? One of the best ways to reduce your risk of being harmed by medication errors is to take an active role in your health care. Learn about the medications you take — including possible side effects. Never hesitate to ask questions or share concerns with your doctor, pharmacist and other health care providers. Medication errors are preventable events that lead to medications being used inappropriately. Medication errors that cause harm are called adverse drug events. An example of a medication error is taking over-the-counter products that contain acetaminophen when you're already taking prescription pain medicine that contains acetaminophen, possibly exceeding the recommended dose and putting yourself at risk of liver damage. Another example of a possible error is taking sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (used to treat infection) at the same time as warfarin (a blood thinner). This combination can increase your risk of dangerous bleeding. Although medication errors can happen anywhere, including your own home, most occur in doctors' offices, hospitals and pharmacies. Knowing what you're up against can help you play it safe. The most common causes of medication errors are: Poor communication between health care providers Poor communication between providers and their patients Sound-alike medication names and medical abbreviations Illegible prescriptions or confusing directions Knowledge is your best defense. If you don't understand something your doctor says, ask for an explanation. Whenever you start a new medication, make sure you know the answers to the following: What is the brand or generic name of the medication? What is it supposed to do? How long will it be until I see results? What is the dose? How long should I take it? Are there any foods, drinks, other medications or activities I should avoid while taking this medicine? What are the possible side effects? What should I do if they occur? What should I do if I miss a dose? What should I do if I accidentally take more than the recommended dose? Will this new medication interfere with my other medication(s) and how? Asking questions is essential, but it isn't enough. You also have to share information with your doctor and pharmacist, especially if you're getting a new prescription or seeing a new doctor. Here's what you need to tell your health care providers: The names of all the medications you're taking, including over-the-counter products and supplements Any medications that you're allergic to or that have caused problems for you in the past Whether you have any chronic or serious health problems If you might be pregnant or you're trying to become pregnant The following medication errors have happened to real people. Don't make these same mistakes: Confusing eardrops and eyedrops. Always double-check the label. If a medication says "otic," it's for the ears. If it says "ophthalmic," it's for the eyes. Chewing nonchewables. Don't assume chewing a pill is as good as swallowing it. Some medications should never be chewed, cut or crushed. Doing so may change how they're absorbed by the body. Cutting up pills. Never split pills unless your doctor or pharmacist has told you it's safe to do so. Some medications shouldn't be cut because they're coated to be long acting or to protect the stomach. Using the wrong spoon. The spoons in your silverware drawer aren't measuring spoons. To get an accurate dose, use an oral syringe (available at pharmacies) or the dose cup that came with the medication. Get into the habit of playing it safe with these medication tips: Keep an up-to-date list of all your medications, including nonprescription and herbal products. Store medications in their original labeled containers. Save the information sheets that come with your medications. Use the same pharmacy, if possible, for all of your prescriptions. When you pick up a prescription, check that it's the one your doctor ordered. Don't give your prescription medication to someone else and don't take someone else's. FDA 101: Medication errors. v/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm048644.htm. Accessed July 27, 2011. Preventing medication errors: Report brief. Institute of Medicine. . Accessed July 27, 2011. Consumer medication management and error. Clinical Therapeutics. 2008;30:2156. Be an active member of your health care team. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. v/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/ucm079487.htm. Accessed July 27, 2011. Think it through: Managing the risks and benefits of medicines. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. . Accessed July 27, 2011. Your medicine: Be smart, be safe. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/safemeds/yourmeds.htm. Accessed July 27, 2011. Lessons to be learned from past errors. Institute for Safe Medication Practices. . Accessed July 27, 2011. FDA 101: How to use the consumer complaint system and MedWatch. . Accessed July 27, 2011. New steps aimed at cutting risks from acetaminophen. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. v/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm239747.htm#StepsYouCanTake. Accessed July 28, 2011. Glasheen JJ, et al. The risk of overanticoagulation with antibiotic use in outpatients on stable warfarin regimens. Journal of General Internal Medicine 2005;20:653.

Terracotta stirrup jar with octopus April 17, 2014 Искуство Древней Греции и Рима (Arts of Ancient Greece and Rome in Russian) April 17, 2014 Arts of Ancient Greece and Rome April 18, 2014 Gallery Conversation—Poetry and Ancient Sculpture April 28, 2014 Southern Europe, 2000–1000 B.C. Late Helladic IIIC ca. 1200–1100 B.C. Helladic, Mycenaean H. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm); diameter 8 7/16 in. (21.5 cm) Purchase, Louise Eldridge McBurney Gift, 1953 The shape takes its name from the configuration of the spout and the two attached handles. Such jars were commonly used to transport liquids. Mycenaean artists adopted the marine motifs from Minoan antecedents. [Until 1953, with Nicolas Koutoulakis, Geneva and Paris]; acquired in 1953, purchased from Nicolas Koutoulakis, Galerie Segredakis, Paris.

Stay Justice, Homeland Security Departments Announce Changes Policy Beat By Maia Jachimowicz, Ramah McKay Justice Department Allows Indefinite Detention of Undocumented Immigrants Attorney General John Ashcroft on April 24 announced that undocumented immigrants could be detained indefinitely, without bond, if the government provides evidence that their release might threaten national security. In a move based on the case of a detained Haitian undocumented immigrant, the Justice Department argued that although the individual in question had no links to terrorism, his release could prompt a "mass influx" of Haitian refugees. This influx, in turn, was considered an indirect threat to national security because of its potential to divert immigration and Coast Guard resources currently allocated to homeland security and the fight against terrorism. The Justice Department's ruling overturned a Board of Immigration Appeals decision to uphold an immigration judge's release of Haitian asylum seeker David Joseph on a $2,500 bond, pending his hearing. Immigration advocates and civil liberties groups have criticized the ruling, arguing that immigrants are not being given the chance to be judged on their individual circumstances or to prove that they do not pose threats to national security. They also point to the tremendous financial costs of detaining large numbers of immigrants. Homeland Security Department to Replace NSEERS Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on April 29 announced that the National Security Entry-Exit Registration Program (NSEERS) would be replaced by a new entry/exit system for foreigners entering the U.S.. The new program will be called the U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology System (USVISIT), and will aim to track all those coming to the U.S. to work, study, and visit. As a result of the implementation of USVISIT, which is scheduled to begin its first phase of operations by 2003 at international air and seaports, the NSEERS Special Registration Program will end. Special Registration currently requires registration with immigration authorities by nonimmigrant men (that is, those who are in the U.S. on temporary visas), who are aged 16 and older and come from any one of 25 countries. The designated countries are predominantly Arab and Muslim, as well as states where Al Qaeda is thought to be particularly active. This spring, lawmakers voiced concerns that Special Registration was ineffective in promoting national security, and that it was limiting the efficient provision of immigration services. For more information on NSEERS and Special Registration see the Policy Beat in the February and March issues and April's Spotlight on Special Registration. Special Registration Deadline Passes for Fourth Group of Foreign Visitors April 25 marked the final deadline for the fourth call-in group of the special registration program, a component of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration Program (NSEERS). Special Registration, which began in January, had registered a total of 74,538 men as of April 18, 2003. The program requires registration with immigration authorities by nonimmigrant men (that is, those who are in the U.S. on temporary visas), who are aged 16 and older and come from any one of 25 countries. The designated countries are predominantly Arab and Muslim, as well as states where Al Qaeda is thought to be particularly active. The fourth call-in group includes temporary foreign visitors who are male, 16 years of age or older, are nationals or citizens of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan or Kuwait, and who were present in the United States before October 1, 2002. For more information on Special Registration see the Policy Beat in the February and March issues and April's Spotlight on Special Registration. Immigrants Killed While in U.S. Military Earn Posthumous Citizenship The Senate on April 10 passed a bill awarding immediate citizenship to non-citizen soldiers killed in combat. Retroactive to September 11, 2001, the bill is dependent on the approval of the deceased's family members and was one of many legislative initiatives introduced in April related to non-citizens in the military. Some 37,000 non-citizen personnel currently serve in the U.S. military (approximately three percent of the U.S. armed forces) and there are an estimated 13,000 non-citizen reservists. Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Zell Miller (D-GA) sponsored the bill. President George W. Bush in July 2002 signed an executive order expediting citizenship proceedings for men and women on active duty in the armed forces. Prior to that, immigrants in the military were required to complete three years of service before filing an application for citizenship. Currently, all active duty non-citizens may file for citizenship immediately upon beginning their service. Spouses of military personnel who are posted overseas for a year or more also qualify for expedited citizenship proceedings. According to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, between July 2002 and February 2003, 5,441 soldiers filed applications for citizenship, continuing a trend toward a rising number of applications that began several years earlier. Lawmakers on April 9 reintroduced legislation that would allow young, undocumented immigrants who meet certain conditions to adjust to permanent resident status and obtain work authorization. To be eligible, applicants would need to show good moral character, be enrolled in 7th grade or above at the date the legislation is passed, present proof of having lived in the U.S. at least five years, and be under 21 years old. If passed, the Student Adjustment Act also would allow states to provide in-state tuition rates to eligible students regardless of immigration status. Such rates are particularly important for immigrant students, who are ineligible for Pell grants and federal student aid. According to the bill's sponsors, representatives Chris Cannon (R-UT), Howard Berman (D-CA), and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), the Student Adjustment Act would benefit an estimated 50-65,000 students, or approximately two percent of high school graduates each year. The bill is the House counterpart to the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education Relief for Alien Minors), which was introduced to the Senate in July 2002 but later withdrawn. Immigration Bureaus of DHS Receive Additional Funding The Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act 2003 was signed into law April 16 to provide additional funding to government agencies involved in the war against Iraq. Of the total $78.5 billion "emergency spending" bill, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received a total of $6.71 billion (8.5 percent) to support domestic counter-terrorism operations. A further $4.31 billion of DHS funds were allocated specifically to cover the administrative and operational costs of Operation Liberty Shield — a multi-government and multi-agency national anti-terrorism effort initiated March 17 (at the start of the war) to increase protections in the United States. Operation Liberty Shield (see April 1, 2003 Policy Beat) has faced criticism for some of its security initiatives, specifically the detention of asylum seekers from over 30 countries thought to have ties to Al Qaeda and the "voluntary" interviews of approximately 11,000 Iraqi nationals currently living in the United States. The three bureaus within DHS that deal directly with immigrants and immigration functions received varying amounts of the $4.31 billion total: the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection was allocated $333 million; the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $170 million; and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, $3 million.

Viewing Judge John Van Dyke (1805-1878). In 1868, John Van Dyke moved with his family from New Brunswick, New Jersey, to Wabasha, Minnesota, to retire and benefit from its healthful, curative climate. He brought with him a sterling reputation for being a successful lawyer, respected judge and stalwart Republican. He had been mayor of his hometown, a two term congressman, who served with the Great Triumvirate, and a justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court. On the last day of his first term in congress, he had actually voted to establish the Territory of Minnesota, and in his second term, he had voted on the individual bills that came to form the Compromise of 1850. But he did not retire from the law or politics. He was elected as a Republican to the state House of Representatives in 1871, and served one term. In February 1873, he was recalled to public service by Governor Horace Austin, who appointed him to fill the vacancy on the Third Judicial District Court caused by the death of Judge Chauncey Waterman. The heart of this article is an account---conjecture really---of why Austin made the surprise selection of Van Dyke, and its unlikely and unforeseen consequence: it opened the door to the election in November 1873 of the man who would become the state's greatest jurist. Following this are newspaper accounts of proceedings before Van Dyke in the seats of three counties that made up the Third Judicial District. His term ended in January 1874, after which he retired for good. He died on December 24, 1878, at age seventy-four. At the funeral several days later, John Murdoch, a leader of the county bar, delivered a lengthy eulogy.

Although not a common item in most kitchens today, quinoa is an amino acid-rich (protein) seed that has a fluffy, creamy, slightly crunchy texture and a somewhat nutty flavor when cooked. Most commonly considered a grain, quinoa is actually a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard. A recently rediscovered ancient "grain" native to South America, quinoa was once called "the gold of the Incas," who recognized its value in increasing the stamina of their warriors. Not only is quinoa high in protein, but the protein it supplies is complete protein, meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids. Not only is quinoa's amino acid profile well balanced, making it a good choice for vegans concerned about adequate protein intake, but quinoa is especially well-endowed with the amino acid lysine, which is essential for tissue growth and repair. In addition to protein, quinoa features a host of other health-building nutrients. Because quinoa is a very good source of manganese as well as a good source of magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus, this "grain" may be especially valuable for persons with migraine headaches, diabetes and atherosclerosis. If you are prone to migraines, try adding quinoa to your diet. Quinoa is a good source of magnesium, a mineral that helps relax blood vessels, preventing the constriction and rebound dilation characteristic of migraines. Increased intake of magnesium has been shown to be related to a reduced frequency of headache episodes reported by migraine sufferers. Quinoa is also a good source of riboflavin, which is necessary for proper energy production within cells. Riboflavin (also called vitamin B2) has been shown to help reduce the frequency of attacks in migraine sufferers, most likely by improving the energy metabolism within their brain and muscle cells. Quinoa and other whole grains are a rich source of magnesium, a mineral that acts as a co-factor for more than 300 enzymes, including enzymes involved in the body's use of glucose and insulin secretion. Compared to other grains, quinoa is higher in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, manganese, and zinc than wheat, barley, or corn. Quinoa is close to one of the most complete foods in nature because it contains amino acids, enzymes, vitamins and minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and phytonutrients. Quinoa is especially easy to cook and can be enjoyed year-round because it's versatile and light. You can use it in warming winter soups or refreshing summer salads. Make sure you rinse your quinoa and then soak for at least 8 hours to remove the phytic acid that can prevent proper digestion. Cook quinoa 15 minutes or less, and it's ready to mix with a variety of ingredients to create diverse and delicious meals. There are several reasons to enjoy Quinoa: Protein Powerhouse Proteins are essential to the building and repair of the body’s tissues and to basic functions like growth, digestion and excretion. Quinoa has a higher protein content than wheat, barley or other major grains. One cup of quinoa has 9 grams, which trumps the protein-rich egg (6 grams). Quinoa, which contains all 8 of the essential amino acids, is a complete protein. Dieter’s Dream Quinoa is a satisfying, low-cholesterol source of complex carbohydrates. Rich in fiber, it’s digested slowly and has a low glycemic index, helping you steer clear of the blood-sugar roller coaster. With its chewy texture, quinoa can be eaten at a leisurely pace. Its heart-healthy polyunsaturated fats will leave you feeling full while providing more nutritional content than breads or cereals made of refined grains. Quinoa can be eaten as a breakfast food to provide long-lasting energy and help you breeze through your morning workout. A meal of vegetables and quinoa, or quinoa and beans, is a dieter’s dream: high in vitamins, minerals and protein, while low in fat and calories. Internal Cleanser/Detoxifier As a complex carbohydrate, quinoa acts an internal cleanser, easing the progress of food through the digestive tract. Used regularly in your diet, quinoa can help keep you free of constipation and bloating. Unlike more common grains such as wheat, quinoa is gluten-free and can be enjoyed by people with digestive disorders, like celiac disease. This versatile seed can be used in breads, soups or other foods where grains are a primary ingredient, offering a steady source of colon-cleansing fiber. The vitamin B and folate in quinoa also help the liver in its role of eliminating wastes from the body, adding to quinoa’s detoxifying properties. Bone Builder For vegans, people with lactose intolerance or those who are simply looking for non-dairy sources of this vital mineral, quinoa is a flavorful source of plant-derived calcium. Calcium builds and maintains bones and teeth, helps regulate the contraction of the heart, and facilitates nerve and muscle function. One cup of cooked quinoa contains 30 milligrams of calcium. Quinoa also contains impressive quantities of potassium, magnesium and zinc, minerals that are crucial for heart, nerve and muscle function. Brain Food A cup of cooked quinoa offers 15 percent of the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of iron, which helps to deliver oxygen to the blood, boosting energy and brain power. Quinoa’s vitamin B content can help keep the mind sharp, maintain brain volume and stabilize mood. Quinoa contains an abundance of antioxidants. In addition to vitamin E, it is also high in zinc, copper and manganese. These antioxidants are highly active against microbial pathogens and can help prevent all sorts of infections and inflammations. Quinoa is also known to have anti-cancerous effects. Studies have shown that the antioxidants and phytonutrients in quinoa can help towards prevention and treatment of breast and liver cancers.

Weekly Commentary with New Orleans Magazine’s Errol Laborde Normandy and Beyond: Pictures From the Liberation Errol Laborde A trip I have always wanted to take was to go to Normandy and then follow the path of the last year of World War II into Germany. I recently took this trip, and while there I discovered that there is a revival of interest in the war, partially because next year will be the 70th anniversary of the landings and also because of books made into movies, such as Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan as well as the earlier The Longest Day. (The first two have a New Orleans influence having been based on work by UNO historian and D-Day Museum founder Stephen Ambrose.) Like a soldier returning home overloaded with souvenirs, I returned with a camera overloaded with images. Here are a few: Utah Beach What amused me about this shot was that much of the mission of soldiers on both sides was building and destroying levees, dams and bridges. Yet, here were kids innocently building their own public works projects on Utah Beach facing no greater threat than the tides. Utah Beach Sandcastle Seventy years ago “pillboxes” were built along the beach to house cannons intended to blast invaders. Now the beach is back to the serious business of housing sandcastles. I was pleased that the beaches, as somber and glorious as their past is, are now used for more passive activities. St. Mère Eglise Church Stained Glass Window This town was made famous by the scene in The Longest Day in which an American paratrooper gets snared in on the church’s towers. The town is grateful to the American 82nd Airborne Division that liberated it. Paratroopers, like descending angels, have been incorporated in the stained glass. Angoville-au-Plain Stained Glass Window This small country church in the Normandy Town of Angoville-au-Plain became the scene of much action as the paratroopers landed in the hours after D-Day. Two American military doctors set up facilities treating both Allied and German wounded. In 2004 this window was dedicated in the church. Blood Stains on the Pews Doctors used whatever space they could in the Angoville-au-Plain church to work on the wounded; blood stains are a reminder of the horror of war. Arromanches This town, located on Gold Beach, one of the landing sites, was where an artificial harbor was built to move allied equipment onto land. Today it is a festive seaside community. The juxtaposition of a cannon with a merry-go-round in the background certainly reflects the town’s past and present. Patton's Burial Site Though he survived the war, General George Patton died from complications of a vehicle accident in December 1945. The accident was in the in the German town of Heidelberg. He is buried in an American military cemetery in Luxembourg. Ordinarily, as is practice, he was to be buried among the troops regardless of rank, but so many tourists sought out his grave, that it was moved to its own position facing the troops. Pointe du Hoc This is the famous cliff, located between Omaha and Utah Beaches, that elite Army Rangers had to climb in an effort to demolish German cannons. Rangers used grappling hooks and ladders to climb the cliff. They discovered that the cannons had been removed but the Rangers later found them inland and destroyed them. Casualties were high but it was one of the war’s most heroic efforts. President Ronald Regan would later memorialize the effort with his famous “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” speech intended to swell American pride. (Note the sailboat in the background.) Adolf Hitler and many of his key Nazi leaders had homes in the picturesque Berchesgaden area of the Bavarian Alps. A retreat, dubbed by the Americans as the "Eagle’s Nest,” was also built on top of a 40-story peak. This is a view of the Eagle's Nest looking up. The Eagle's Nest Looking Down Hitler’s Bavarian home was said to be somewhere to the left of that pond. Though he seldom went to the Eagle’s Nest, he could look down at his home from the top. Campaign Poster Germans can pull pranks, too. This is a contemporary campaign poster in Munich that someone had modified to give the candidate a Hitler look. Sounds Like Home Though New Orleans was never known for its barbecue, Europeans apparently think it is special, so much so that a band, playing at a Munich hotel, had that name. In the end, jazz conquered. Posted by BoogieNOLA Did you the U.S. Navy had a Spitfire Squadron in WWII? When the U.S. Navy celebrated 100 years of aviation last year, they didn't even bother to invite the pilots, or even look for them! I heard the paratrooper that landed on the church was from Abbeville, LA. Is that true?

“…man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind. If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced.” in Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Writers -Ayn Rand, “What is Capitalism?” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal “To the extent that a man is guided by his rational judgment, he acts in accordance with the requirements of his nature and, to that extent, succeeds in achieving a human form of survival and well-being; to the extent that he acts irrationally, he acts as his own destroyer.” “Economic progress…has only one ultimate source: man’s mind—and can exist only to the extent that man is free to translate his thought into action.” “Anyone who has ever been an employer or an employee, or has observed men working, or has done an honest day’s work himself, knows the crucial role of ability, of intelligence, of a focused and competent mind—in any and all lines of work, from the lowest to the highest. He knows that ability or the lack of it (whether the lack is actual or volitional) makes a difference of life-or-death in any productive process. The evidence is so overwhelming—theoretically and practically, logically and ‘empirically,’ in the events of history and in anyone’s own daily grind—that no one can claim ignorance of it.” “Progress cannot be achieved by forced privations, by squeezing a ‘social surplus’ out of starving victims. Progress can come only out of individual surplus, i.e., from the work, the energy, the creative over-abundance of those men whose ability produces more than their personal consumption requires, those who are intellectually and financially able to seek the new, to improve on the known, to move forward.” “No one can morally claim the right to compete in a given field if he cannot match the productive efficiency of those with whom he hopes to compete. There is no reason why people should buy inferior products at higher prices in order to maintain less efficient companies in business. Under capitalism, any man or company that can surpass competitors is free to do so. It is in this manner that the free market rewards ability and works for the benefit of everyone—except those who seek the undeserved.”

Gold nanoparticles shown to enhance effectiveness of drugs The metaphorical gold standard of medical treatment might one day turn out to be a literal gold treatment. By hacking off the ends of a failed HIV drug and sticking the resulting molecules onto gold nanoparticles, scientists have stopped HIV from infecting lab-cultured white blood cells. It is the first time gold nanoparticles have shown potential in therapies for HIV. The same technique could eventually be put to use in treatments for a variety of diseases, say researchers not associated with the new study. In the early 1990's scientists tested a drug called TAK779, which successfully prevented HIV from binding to human white blood cells but caused such severe side effects that it was ruled out as a useful therapy. The problem-causing component of the drug molecule appeared to be an ammonium salt on one end. Lopping off that salt prevents the side effects, but it also renders the drug useless against HIV. The resulting molecule simply won't bind to the virus tightly enough. By attaching the drug (minus the ammonium salt) to gold nanoparticles, researchers hoped to improve the drug's binding power to HIV. Since gold is chemically inert, reacting to virtually nothing, it is ideal not only for jewelry but also for use inside the body. The idea is to use the much larger gold nanoparticles to shepherd around and concentrate the smaller, weakly binding drug molecules. "It's the same idea as Velcro," said T. Eric Ballard, a scientist at North Carolina State University and a co-author on the new study, which was recently published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society . "One interaction is weak, but if you have a lot of weak interactions together they make one strong interaction." It worked. The researchers tested several ratios of drug molecules to nanoparticles and found that when each nanoparticle was equipped, on average, with 12 drug molecules, the drug appeared to be as effective against HIV as the original version with the side effect-inducing ammonium salt. So far, the researchers have only tested the TAK779/gold nanoparticle combination in cultured cells. But without the ammonium salt, the drug could be again considered as a potential therapy, though it would require extensive testing before it could be used on patients. "We took a small molecule that isn't active on its own, conjugated it to the gold nanoparticle, and suddenly it's a very good inhibitor of HIV," said Ballard. The next step, according to David Margolis, a study co-author at the University of North Carolina , is to try and fuse other drugs onto gold nanoparticles. Their next effort will be to attach an antiviral drug and a glucose molecule to the nanoparticles and see if they can be transported across the blood-brain barrier, creating a virus-killing drug in the brain, something that hasn't been possible before. "They could potentially use this technique for any small molecule" to fight diseases, said Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli as she read the study. Hamad-Schifferli studies gold nanoparticles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but was not involved in the JACS article. "You could take a drug that is not very effective, apply the same technique, and make it much more effective, potentially minimizing its toxic side effects," she said. Sources

Nelson Mandela: Loved Universally In Death—But Not In Life When Nelson Mandela died Thursday in South Africa, the remembrances poured in from across the political spectrum here in the United States, eulogizing him for possessing a saintly character and serving as an inspiration for people worldwide. But the thing is, Mandela hadn't been universally revered throughout his life. And in fact, some of those remembrances came from the same groups and individuals who previously had harsh words for the man who had spent 27 years as a political prisoner and went on to lead post-apartheid South Africa. Mandela had been on the U.S. terrorist watch-list until 2008. In 2003, he denounced the U.S.-led Iraq war and said the U.S. had committed "unspeakable atrocities in the world." He visited Fidel Castro in Cuba shortly after he was released from prison, and embraced then-Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi. All of which meant he was not considered above reproach by all. In 2003, the Anti-Defamation League, for instance, called Mandela's remarks against the Iraq war and the U.S. "offensive, prejudicial, and simply wrong." The American Jewish Committee canceled an event honoring Mandela in 2000 after comments he made about an Iranian trial of 13 Jews. After his death, ADL put out a statement, calling Mandela a "true hero of freedom who brought historic change, and did so peacefully." AJC's statement said, "We are indelibly inspired by his example and can say of him, as we can say of few others, that he truly helped repair the world." ADL did acknowledge its past posture toward Mandela in the statement, saying that the organization had disagreed with him "from time to time. Those differences, however, did not diminish our respect and esteem for this upstanding moral leader. Mandela will be greatly missed, but his legacy lives on." Mandela had been subjected to scorn in the 1980s and 1990s. President Reagan had designated the African National Congress as a terrorist organization—Mandela had founded the armed wing of the group. Reagan then called proposed sanctions against South Africa "immoral and utterly repugnant." He vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, but Congress overrode his veto in 1986—although without the votes of the likes of then-Rep. Dick Cheney. During the Cold War, the concern among foreign policy hawks was that the Soviet-backed ANC movement would lead to a communist country. Mandela's planned visit to Miami in the early 1990s after he so fully embraced Castro caused an outcry, particularly by Cuban-American city officials who revoked a proclamation in his honor. In later years, Castro and Mandela maintained a friendship. But Mandela's posture toward Cuba didn't crop up in any statements from American lawmakers who are particularly vocal on matters related to Cuba. For instance, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Mandela's "example will live on for generations to come. Men and women striving for justice and fairness around the world have drawn inspiration from Nelson Mandela, and he showed South Africans and the entire world what the power of forgiveness truly means and can accomplish." Indeed, the outpourings came from nearly every level of officials, from city mayors to House speakers. The most enduring image of Mandela is of a man who helped heal the very painful wounds of his nation, choosing reconciliation rather than retribution. And that is what has given rise to such praiseworthy remembrances from all corners, even if he had geopolitical ties and views that were at odds with many of those same corners. It's a reflection of how we choose to think of those who have left us, by not dwelling on how sharply opposed we may have been. Especially when the one who has left us seems to be larger-than-life.

Coconut flour: A nutritious, gluten-free substitute to processed flour (NaturalNews) Coconut flour is a flour made from coconut solids that have been ground into a very fine powder. It has a mild coconut scent and flavor, which makes it suitable for flour-based recipes that don't have other strongly-flavored ingredients such as cocoa powder or spices. It is also quite light and airy, making it especially suitable for baked goods like muffins, pancakes and cakes.The reputation of coconut flour is growing in the West due to its considerable health benefits, which far exceed those of processed flours. Below is a list of reasons why health-conscious individuals are beginning to take coconut flour seriously, and why an increasing number of books specializing in coconut flour recipes are being published every year.Gluten-free Arguably coconut flour's biggest attraction is its gluten-free status, meaning it contains none of the gluten protein molecules found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley. Gluten is highly allergenic and can even be deadly for people with Celiac disease (a condition where gluten damages the lining of the small intestine and prevents it from absorbing nutrients in food). However, growing evidence - particularly that compiled by Dr. William Davis in his 2011 book, Wheat Belly - suggests that gluten is unhealthy for everyone, and is a leading cause of lethargy, bloating, brain fog and more. Fortunately, gluten-free diets are becoming much easier to adopt thanks to the growing availability of gluten-free flours like coconut flour.Rich in dietary fiber According to a study published in the December 2006 issue of Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, adding coconut flour to our diets can significantly reduce our risk of developing heart disease, lower our cholesterol levels and guard us from cancer and diabetes. The researchers, based in the Food and Nutrition Research Institute in the Philippines, claim that these benefits stem from coconut flour's unusually high levels of dietary fiber (a 100 gram serving of it contains a whopping 39 grams of fiber, almost double that of wheat bran). Dr. Bruce Fife, a naturopathic physician and the author of the book, Cooking with Coconut Flour, claims that coconut flour can help adults reach their recommended daily fiber intake of between 20-35 grams. He recommends adding 1-2 tablespoons of coconut flour to gravies, baked goods, casseroles or smoothies.High in beneficial fats Since it is derived from coconut solids, coconut flour retains a large number of those fats for which coconuts are so beloved by health enthusiasts. A 100 gram serving of coconut flour contains 8.7 grams of fat, of which 8 grams are saturated. Most of these fats are medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) - essential protective fats with noted antiviral, antimicrobial and antifungal properties. MCTs have also been shown to boost the metabolism, making coconut flour suitable for weight loss diets.Safe for diabetics Because it is high in fiber yet relatively low in digestible carbohydrates compared to processed flours, coconut flour has a gentle impact upon blood sugar levels. This makes it an excellent flour for diabetics, prediabetics and anyone else who wants to avoid blood sugar spikes.Packed with protein Though it is free from gluten proteins, coconut flour contains an impressive number of other proteins. In fact, 100 grams of coconut flour contain 19.3 grams of protein, or 38 percent of our RDI - far more protein per serving than other leading flours such as white, cornmeal or rye. Consequently, coconut flour is a valuable cooking ingredient for vegan or vegetarian bodybuilders since protein is, of course, needed for cell repair and growth.Sources for this article include:http://alldayidreamaboutfood.comAbout the author:Michael Ravensthorpe is an independent writer whose research interests include nutrition, alternative medicine, and bushcraft. He is the creator of the website, Spiritfoods, through which he promotes the world's healthiest foods.

Hand Game Updated 4/24/08 Investigating the Vagaries of Uncertainty We live in a world which has as its most dominant feature the uncertainty of future events. Uncertainty is the basis for all neurotic behavior as fear stems from the unpredictably of the future. The point of the game we're going to teach you is to learn something about how to manage yourself in the face of uncertainty. How to intuit some of the structure of uncertainty and influence your future. The notions of causality and predictability have historically been linked in the concept of cause-and-effect. However, recent advances in the physics of chaos have made it clear that certain types of events are causal AND unpredictable. Further, Chaos Theory is coming to understand that a seemingly tiny change in a chaotic system can have dramatic results in the future direction the system will take. NavaChing has discovered that certain types of 'Games of Chance' native to the Southwest embody this understanding. Gaming reached it highest development among the Indians of North America. It became transcendent and spiritual, figuring prominently in kiva shrines of the Zuni and Hopi, for example. We believe that Hand Game and games like it serve as an excellent device for learning grace in the face of uncertainty. And that success is dependent on the employment of peripheral mental abilities. Hand Games are a special branch of Indian gaming and are the most widely distributed, having been found among 81 tribes belonging to 28 different linguistic stocks. This extensive distribution may be partially accounted for by the fact that, as they are played entirely by gesture, games can be carried on between individuals who have no common language other than signing. Indian gaming differs from what we think of as traditional gambling in several respects. First and foremost Indian gaming is an exercise in ongoing perception instead of analysis. Games like chess, where moves can be analyzed and pondered, are rare among Indians. Contests are usually carried out between teams rather than individuals. Contests are much longer in duration, ranging from hours to days, as opposed to, say, Black Jack where a game may be over in seconds. Precise strictures apply as to where, when and how these contests are carried out. The Navaho Shoe Game, for instance, may be played only on a winter night and only in an enclosed space. Contests are complex rather than simple. We played Shoe Game once in a hogan in Arizona for several hours before we had any inkling of what was going on. The Navahos themselves were hard pressed to explain the rules and scoring. Before the night was over it became apparent than many of the Navahos in attendance didn't fully comprehend all of the subtleties of the game, either. Teams play against each other instead of playing against "odds" as in casino gambling which is designed to eliminate any influence a player may have over the outcome. Indian gaming is just the opposite. During computer simulations consisting of hundreds of thousands of games, we discovered a remarkable fact about Indian gambling contests. They are scored in such a way as to amplify any ability which can move the contest's outcome away from being random. To explain further: When the odds of a game are 1 to 1 (as in flipping a coin), they are said to be even; or to say it another way, the outcome will be determined randomly. If the odds are 2 to 1 you can expect to win 1/3 of the time. 4 to 1 and you'll win 20 percent of the time, and so on. In Indian gaming the odds are amplified in an amazing way. If you can shift your advantage from 1-1 to 1-1.1 you will win virtually every time. Moving the odds from 1 to 1.02 will make you a successful player. In these contests the tiniest edge translates into concrete results. These Indian games then serve as a dramatic feedback mechanism to demonstrate how small observations and actions can effect and determine the outcome in uncertain situations. At the hogan in Arizona, after a couple of hours trying to understand the game, we shifted into peripheral awareness and in short order were actively involved in the play. This is also how we realized, twenty-four hours later, that the opposing team had been cheating. Further, we were able to figure out how and when they had done it. Just after we got a good streak going, a spoon and an extr

Summertime and the Heat is On by Allen Weiss, MD, MBA, FACP, FACR President, NCH Healthcare System August 4, 2006 - August is one of our hottest months, bringing with it the potential for heat related illnesses. According to the Centers for Disease Control, from 1999 to 2002 excessive heat caused 8,966 deaths in the United States. During this period of time more people died of heat related illnesses than from lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes combined. What can we do to protect ourselves? First the obvious answers—don’t get over exposed to sun, drink plenty of fluids, and slowly adapt to the environment. Beverages should be non-alcoholic and non-caffeinated because alcohol and caffeine act as diuretics which cause more fluid loss. High risk people such as infants, senior citizens, alcoholics, beginning athletes, workers new to outdoor conditions, and people with circulatory or other medical problems need to be especially careful. Our natural “air conditioner” is our ability to perspire. When we sweat, the evaporation of water from our body cools our skin. However, when the ambient conditions are both warm and humid, evaporation is less efficient, and therefore we can’t rid ourselves of as much heat as when conditions are cool and dry. We also lose salt as we perspire causing our sweat to taste salty and burn our eyes. Salt usually does not have to be replaced unless we are doing prolonged exercise such as marathon running. Drinking fluids before we get thirsty is also key to avoiding the problems of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, muscle cramps, and passing out. People should drink about a cup of water or any non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic fluid every 15 to 30 minutes. Make this intake a habit. With all of the bottled water and sports drinks available now, this routine should not be a problem. In general, being over-hydrated is better than being dehydrated. If you do get over exposed, the best therapy is to get into a cool, air conditioned environment, rest, drink fluids and seek help if the symptoms persist. Most people will recover easily when they rest. If you remain flushed, light headed, or sick in any other way, then you may need to get medical assistance. In Collier County, we have many wonderful ways to exercise while avoiding excessive heat exposure. Both of NCH Healthcare’s Wellness Centers offer over 150 classes each week to about 7,000 members. Drinking water is always available in these two centers, and the temperature along with the humidity is well controlled to avoid heat exhaustion, muscle cramps, and other problems. Early morning walking or running is usually cooler and avoids the direct heat of the sun. All of the water sports keep you cool as you exercise. Golfers and tennis players need to hydrate and wear light colored absorbent clothing which reflect the sun and help with evaporation—both resulting in the body being cooler.

this revision saved 3 years, 4 months agosaved by Kristen on Friday, December 10, 2010 7:24:13 AM YouTube—and Educators—Win!Earlier this year, YouTube celebrated its 5th birthday, and as seemingly belated birthday “gifts,” courts in the United States and Spain ruled in favor of YouTube in two widely watched copyright infringement cases. On June 23, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in Viacom. v. YouTube that YouTube, as an online service provider, falls under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) “safe harbor” protection—and is thereby not responsible for policing copyright infringement on its site. The ruling claimed that instead it is the responsibility of the copyright owners to watch for infringed material and notify YouTube with take down notices, with which the court points out YouTube has quickly complied (Baum and Copland). Similarly, in September, a Spanish court ruled in a case brought by an Italian-based media corporation that “YouTube was not liable as long as it removed copyrighted material when notified by the rights holder” (Pfanner). In both cases, the media conglomerates quickly announced plans to appeal, but clearly it was a good season for YouTube.While neither case dealt directly with educational uses of YouTube, they impact its availability in the classroom. For those of us who teach away from the stricture of firewalls that bar YouTube from many elementary and secondary classrooms, and who choose to use YouTube in our classes, such rulings serve to protect that resource’s ongoing availability. However, some may ask, why use YouTube in its ongoing state of flux—with its potential for videos here today and gone tomorrow in response to copyright holders’ DMCA sanctioned “take down notices.” Furthermore, there are arguments to be waged against what media professor, Alexandra Juhasz, refers to as YouTube’s “interchangeable, bite-sized, formulaic videos referring to either popular culture or personal pain/pleasure” (“Teaching on YouTube”). Nevertheless, or precisely because of YouTube’s reflective and contributory relationship with popular culture, it provides a rich arcade of videos that take learning to the students and their Web 2.0 world. More than simply supplementing a class with material in a mode popular with students, integrating YouTube videos in a class can also serve to develop students’ critical visual/media literacy skills—critical both in terms of developing analytical thinking and vital in this visually-drenched culture.Such reasons are some of what prompted Pitzer College professor, Alexandra Juhasz, in Fall 2007 to teach a course solely about and on YouTube, aptly called “Learning from YouTube.” Although Juhasz notes that she “had been studiously ignoring [YouTube] . . . because every time I went there, I was seriously underwhelmed by what I saw” (“Teaching on YouTube”), she decided to create a “‘student-led’ course . . . to primarily consider how web 2.0 (in this case, specifically YouTube) is radically altering the conditions of learning (what, where, when, how we have access to information)” (“Teaching on YouTube”). Juhasz has critiqued this experience in blogs, interviews, conference presentations, and in an upcoming “video-book” to be available at no charge from MIT Press in the winter of 2010 (“On the Online Publishing”), but several of her observations in particular touch on the issue of YouTube and intellectual property.In the US case, the court ruled that YouTube was an online service provider and as such was not responsible for its content. While some legal responses bemoaned the court’s attack on the DMCA, claiming that “the DMCA was never intended to allow service providers to exploit the statue’s safe harbors by designing an entire business model based on improperly profiting from copyrighted content” (Andrews), this is seemingly good news to those of us who use YouTube videos to supplement our courses. However, for those who use YouTube to deliver course material or as a publication outlet for student work, it might not be time to celebrate. As amateur, “small-time copyright owners,” it isn’t feasible that we would be able to police the use of our videos (DeLong); however, for most of us—our students and ourselves—we are attracted to YouTube as a production and publication venue precisely because our work has the potential to reach a wide audience. In May 2010, YouTube began reporting that two billion videos are watched a day (“YouTube Fact Sheet”), up from one billion videos in October 2009 (“YouTube Beats Prime Time TV on 5th Birthday,” Network World). Of course for that potential exposure, there is a price. For example, Juhasz observed that as the work of a critiquing classroom moved to the open space of YouTube, where “anyone and everyone can see and also participate, . . . students were routinely judged by critical YouTube viewers who we would never see or know . . . [and that we] could not insure were as committed and attentive as were we” (“Teaching on YouTube”). The thoughtful critiques of the classroom (or at least the ideal classroom) are not a given on YouTube, but one might argue that there’s much to be learned about critique itself from inside the fishbowl.Despite YouTube’s recent legal victories, it is still important that we reflect on the copyright issues posed there. While we may forfeit some protections and stability there, for most of the millions of YouTube contributors, the price is worth it. And, while YouTube may not get to keep its birthday present from the U.S. District Court, given the number of copyright holders that have supported Viacom in its appeal, the news is still good for us as teachers and scholars who use YouTube in our classes to extend and to exemplify our lessons—and to bring the “real world”—our students’ world—into the classroom.Submitted by:Billie J. Jones, Assistant ProfessorDirector of First Year WritingThe School of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical CommunicationJames Madison UniversityWorks CitedAndrews, Cory. “Viacom v. YouTube: A Setback for Intellectual Property Rights.” 24 Jun. 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.Baum, Andrew and David Copland. “United States” YouTube Winds Safe Harbor in Viacom Copyright Suit.” 29 Jun. 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.DeLong, James. “YouTube Gets the Power of Eminent Domain.” 26 Jun. 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.Ionescu, Daniel. “YouTube Beats Prime Time TV on 5th Birthday.” Network World 17 May 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.]Juhasz, Alexandra. “On the Online Publishing and Re-Purposing of Learning from YouTube.” Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture 8 (2010). Web. 9 Nov. 2010.---. “Teaching on YouTube.” Open Culture 22 Apr. 2008. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.Pfanner, Eric. “YouTube Can’t Be Liable on Copyright, Spain Rules.” The New York Times 23 Sept. 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.YouTube. “YouTube Fact Sheet.” Web. 9 Nov. 2010.CCCC IP Committee WebsitePrevious ReportsYouTube—and Educators—Win!Fair Use for Researchers in Communication: A ResourcePart One: The New DMCA Exemption for College Teachers and StudentsUnderstanding Fair Use in the Classroom: A ResourceWhat? You want to copyright your comic!!?New Copyright “Combat” Regulations For Colleges and Universities Go Into Effect July 1Stake Your Claim: What’s at Stake in the Ownership of Lesson Plans?Report on the March 2010 CCCC-Intellectual Property Caucus Annual Meeting, Louisville, KentuckyThe Times, They Are Remixin’: Indaba Music, Creative Commons, and the Digital Collaboration FrontierThe Rhetoric of Intellectual Property: Copyright Law and the Regulation of Digital Culture (Routledge, 2010)Data Privacy Day 2010 Celebrated January 28Transforming Our Understanding of Copyright and Fair UseCCCC’s Intellectual Property Caucus Member, Martine Courant Rife of Lansing Community College, testifies at the DMCA hearings at the Library of CongressPlagiarism Detection Services: Unsettled QuestionsNew Edited Collection from IP Caucus member just published: Composition and CopyrightThe Google Book Settlement: Implications for Educators and LibrariansJuly IP Report: “What’s Fair is Foul?”: Understanding Fair Use in the ClassroomTop Intellectual Property Development Annual SeriesIntroducing NCTE-CCCC's Intellectual Property Committee and Intellectual Property Caucus

10 simple ways to live longer, healthier Eating right, exercising, sleeping more can lengthen your life Think of it as the healthy aging equivalent of "Let's Make a Deal."What exactly would you do to get those extra couple years of living hidden behind door No. 2?Would you be willing to sleep in more to add another two years? Maybe floss more often in exchange for another year of living? How about having sex more often to extend your life expectancy? Is that something you might be interested in?As the Baby Boom generation ages and our society in general gets older, there has been a greater focus on not only living longer lives, but also living healthier lives longer. As CNN health chief Sanjay Gupta says in his book "Chasing Life," nobody wants to die tomorrow, but nobody wants to live forever either.While improving your health may seem like a lot of work, especially if those New Year's resolutions already seem like distant memories, there are some simple ways to extend your life and make it a better one in the process. Quit Smoking: +4 to 8 YearsAccording to a Cambridge University study of more than 22,000 people, if you cut out the cigarettes, you could add four to five years to your life. But that benefit could go up depending on your age. A study in the American Journal of Public Health found that female smokers who quit by the age 35 could extend their lifespan by 6.1 to 7.7 years. However, even those who are 65 and older can add years to their life by quitting. "What's unique about this study is that it gives some hope even to 65-year-olds who smoke," said Donald Taylor Jr., PhD, at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "A man would add between 1.4 and 2 years to his life. That's a tangible benefit you can get even late in life from stopping smoking." And that doesn't count all the time you'll get back once you stop sneaking outside for those regular smoke breaks. Cut Out Fast Food: +4 YearsJust about everything that associated with fast food -- name it: the fat, the

Remarks by Conference Chairman Adam Scheinman Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Inaugural Conference, September 11-12, 2008Chairman's Summary StatementOn September 11-12, 2008, experts from eleven countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) took part in an international meeting on the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI). The participants addressed IAEA safeguards challenges and opportunities in the coming decades, including growing safeguards responsibilities, expanding interest in nuclear power, high-profile investigations, and limitations on available safeguards technology and expertise. The meeting highlighted the critical importance of promoting international cooperation to anticipate challenges and revitalize national capabilities to support the IAEA in its mission to verify peaceful uses of nuclear energy on a continuing and reliable basis.Discussions focused on four main topics: future directions for IAEA safeguards, technology, infrastructure development, and human capital. The latter three topics were addressed in breakout sessions to define issues and options for international cooperation.Future Challenges: Participants noted that IAEA safeguards remain a foundational component of the international nonproliferation regime, but are under increasing stress. The most urgent concern involves safeguards compliance in relation to North Korea, Iran, and Syria. A more general concern involves the IAEA's ability to detect undeclared nuclear activities and sound the alarm early enough to respond promptly and avert major international crises over questions of compliance. This will require ensuring that the IAEA can exercise its proper safeguards authorities and has the resources to do so. It was noted that this will also require greater effort to speed the IAEA's transition from a safeguards system focused almost exclusively on material accounting to one that evaluates all relevant nuclear activities within a state. Whether to break with the traditional balance between safeguards and technical cooperation was also noted. Success, in this regard, could be defined by renewed support for the robust exercise of the Agency's safeguards authorities, by the introduction of new measurement and analytical technologies, by bringing along a new generation of safeguards experts, and by instilling a global safeguards "culture," as addressed below.Technology: Discussions revealed general agreement that changes in the international environment, whether in the context of proliferation dynamics, the evolution of safeguards to a state-level approach, and renewed interest in nuclear power, make updates to safeguards technology imperative. The discussions identified two key challenges: applying safeguards at declared locations, especially at complex, bulk-handling facilities and for new nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies; and developing tools to verify the absence of undeclared activities and to investigate suspicious activities. Technologies identified to help meet these challenges include information collection, analysis, and integration, environmental monitoring, and sample analysis capabilities, including upgrades for the IAEA Safeguards Analytical Laboratory. Participants agreed that better understanding was needed of proliferation resistance and material attractiveness, including through risk analysis, and supported the adoption of a "Safeguards By Design" requirement, especially for new or proposed nuclear energy systems. The ability to collaborate with industry and among partner governments, including use of available facilities as a safeguards test-bed, was seen as critical.Infrastructure: Discussions focused on international cooperation to promote a global safeguards "culture." Participants noted that assistance in safeguards implementation, including through the IAEA milestones process, can help advance this culture, particularly in states that are new to nuclear power or other peaceful uses. Promoting safeguards in combination with safety and security, as set forth in the "3Ss" concept introduced by Japan and agreed by the G8, would link the international security benefits of safeguards to the protection of the state's citizenry. Participants emphasized the need for coordination among states that provide assistance and with the IAEA in order to ensure consistent messages and goals and avoid duplication of effort. Suggested actions included conducting a resource survey in coordination with the IAEA to help determine needs; developing standardized guidance, e.g., for national legislation and state systems of accounting and control; designing common training materials training to improve the effectiveness and consistency of assistance; and organizing assistance on a regional basis, using local facilities and resources.Human Capital: The discussions explored how to link IAEA safeguards as they are evolving with the expertise needed to maintain the system. Participants agreed that the varying levels of technical sophistication across states poses challenges in developing a common approach. Although the IAEA is international in scope, a relatively limited number of countries currently have the core of safeguards expertise. Training can therefore play a critical role in building safeguards expertise worldwide. Regional and international training programs, as well as exchanges of experts, practitioners, or students, can also play an important role in transferring knowledge. Regional "leaders" could serve as clearinghouses for information, training materials, and cooperation. Participants agreed that expertise needs to be developed at many levels, from a basic understanding of the structure of international safeguards to specialized expertise of the sort required by IAEA inspectors.Possible Next Steps: Participants generally agreed that further consultation and cooperation are essential to support strong and effective IAEA safeguards, and welcomed NGSI for the important role it can play in this regard. While the focus of NGSI is domestic, to improve U.S. capabilities to support international safeguards development, its objectives are international but and require support from many states and the IAEA. While definitive plans have not yet been developed, the Chairman suggested a list of illustrative future steps. These include: an annual meeting next year to gauge progress on NGSI; topical or specialized meetings or workshops, with outcomes reported to next year's NGSI meeting; a session with the IAEA among "donor" states to exchange information on programs of safeguards assistance; joint studies or papers that address IAEA safeguards authorities and practices; meetings of technology holders on advanced concepts and approaches for centrifuge enrichment safeguards; and a survey of opportunities for safeguards technology collaborations. NNSA Policies

Ely, MN (NNCNOW.com) - The North American Bear Center gained worldwide attention after researchers placed a camera in a bear's den to study its hibernation. That attention turned into dollars as many people who had become fans of the den camera bears donated money; and a lot of it. "I wondered when and if it would ever get paid off," said Bear Center Chairman, Dr. Lynn Rogers, of the debt the Center was in when it opened, "We [Rogers and his wife] mortgaged our property and made an unsecure loan to the Bear Center, which risked bankruptcy." When the Bear Center opened its doors in 2007, Rogers says it was $700,000 in debt. Then, he turned on a camera. "So I could learn about the least studied halves of bear's lives," said Rogers of the reason for starting his now famous den cameras. But by making the den camera video of the black bear available on the internet, the least studied portion of a bear's life soon became one of the most searched items on the internet. "It had become the number one search on google," said Rogers. The internet fame created fans worldwide. People who before the den cameras, might never have heard of Dr. Rogers, or the North American Bear Center, were now part of a following, which helped greatly with funding. From 2009 to 2010, which was the year the den cameras were installed, contributions to the Bear Center nearly doubled. The 990 form filed by Bear Center officials with the IRS, which is a requirment for nonprofits, shows the amount of money brought into the Center by contributions, grants and gifts in 2009 was $268,839. In the 2010 fiscal year, that number was $564,845. According to Dr. Rogers, bear fans have donated $795,373.12 since January of 2010. He says that thanks to bear fans, the Center's debt was paid off in two years. "It was just a chance to put this Bear Center on a good financial basis for a better future," said Rogers. But proof of the den cameras importance in boosting the Bear Center doesn't only lie in financial statements. St. Louis County Commissioner Mike Forsman says you don't have to look any further than the parking lot. "We literally have busloads of people come in," Forsman said, "Drive by that parking lot at any time, and I do quite often, and it's full. And those are paying customers. Those are people who come into our community." It's an attraction that Forsman and other officials say has played a big role in attracting people to Ely and may play an even bigger role now that construction on an expansion, featuring more exhibits and learning centers, is underway. It's research that has drawn attention to the Bear Center, but has also sparked controversy, as the DNR has expressed concerns about Rogers' methods of studying the bears. But for Rogers, the most important role is the one the Bear Center has played in bear education. "It's probably doing more to educate people than anywhere else in the world," he said.

http://wwAuthor(s): No creator setLicense informationRelated contentNo related items provided in this feed Dry Wood A glimpse into the life, food, and Mardi Gras celebrations of black Creoles in French Louisiana, featuring the stories and music of "Bois Sec" Ardoin and Canray Fontenot. Dry Wood is one of a number of Les Blank's critically acclaimed films on Lousiana life and culture. Hot Pepper, a film on zydeco great Clifton Chenier, is a companion to Dry Wood. Foodways, Music, African American Culture / South / 1973 37 minutesAuthor(s): No creator setLicense informationRelated contentNo related items provided in this feed South Island Wren--An Overview This short video gives excellent real life, close up footage of a South Island Wren. The South Island wren is a small but robust alpine bird with a very short tail, rounded wings, and long legs and toes. While the male’s plumage is a dull green colour above, grey-brown below and yellow on the flanks, the female is more olive-brown in colour. This charming bird has an unusual habit of vigorously bobbing up and down. This is a great resource to help build background knowledge and to helAuthor(s): No creator setLicense informationRelated contentNo related items provided in this feed Physical Bullying PSA 2012 Author(s): No creator setLicense informationRelated contentNo related items provided in this feed Big Ideas for Geograph ideas for projects involving either the Geograph Website, or the Geograph Image ArchiveAuthor(s): Barry HunterLicense informationRelated contentRights not setNo related items provided in this feed Time to move beyond a brainless physiology “Exercise is a complex behavior that is regulated by a complex system”. In this talk, Prof Noakes seeks to include the brain as a factor in exercise physiology. He starts with the classical teachings in exercise physiology and continues by looking at various models such as the A.V. Hill model and the peripheral model. According to Noakes, not enough people are looking at the bigger picture – that the body does not function in discretAuthor(s): Creator not setLicense informationRelated contentRights not setNo related items provided in this feed Series of Lectures to the UCT Rugby Team “The greatest hurdle is the mental barrier”. This trilogy of lectures was originally presented to the University of Cape Town’s Rugby Team in 2008. The lectures centre around Prof Noakes’ teachings of self belief and team unity as role players in athletic performance. In the first lecture Prof Noakes speaks of the role of self belief in athletic performance – ‘what you really believe will happen is exactly what willAuthor(s): Creator not setLicense informationRelated contentRights not setNo related items provided in this feed Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches - Full Version This is Dr. Seuss' view of prejudice: Some Sneetches have a star on their bellies, and some of them don't. The 12 minute video is an excellent story on several levels depending on the age of the students.Author(s): No creator setLicense informationRelated contentNo related items provided in this feed Feast, Famine and the Future of Food A Cooperative Extension Specialist and faculty member at the University of California at Berkley, Lemaux's outreach and educational programming increases public understanding of agricultural practices, food production and the impact of new technologies on food and agriculture. Her research focuses on the development and use of genetic engineering and genomic strategies for cereals, wheat, sorghum, barley, rice, maize and certain grass species. Author(s): No creator setLicense informationRelated contentNo related items provided in this feed Catholic Mass - 2/12/2012 (Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time) Duke Catholic Center's Celebration of the Eucharist Father Matthew Monnig, SJ, presiding Fr. Michael Martin, OFM Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Service begins @ 7:15 Homily begins @ 23:07 First Reading: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 Psalm 31: I Put My Life in Your Hands (43) Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 Gospel: Mark 1:40-45 Hymns (from the the Gather hymnal, ©1994): Processional Hymn: Lift Up Your Hearts (558)

Science Chasing The Seeds Of Life by Stuart Kauffman Mario Tama/Getty Images A digital representation of the human genome at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Mario Tama/Getty Images This past February, I took part in a meeting at CERN to discuss and debate the origin of life. Organized by Günter von Kiedrowski and Eors Szathmary, it is possible that much may come of it. But first, let's start with a little of the history that led up to this moment. Until Louis Pasteur, there was no origin of life problem: maggots just sprang spontaneously from dank wood after every rain. Pasteur showed us that life only comes from life. But where did life come from in the first place? The problem rested until the early 20th century, when the concept emerged that a "primitive soup" of organic molecules had given birth to life. The field leapt forward in the famous experiments of Stanley Miller. He showed that a retort filled with the gases presumed to have been present in the primitive Earth's atmosphere could produce amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, when stimulated by electric sparks that mimicked lightning. For some 40 years since, work along these lines has repeatedly demonstrated the prebiotic synthesis of many of life's organic molecules. Following the discovery of the famous double-helix structure of DNA, and its cousin RNA, many researchers — Leslie Orgel, among them — adopted the view that molecular reproduction must be based on what is called "template replication" of single-stranded RNA polymers (polymers are made of many linked nucleotide monomers), or its cousins. Here the "

WHAT IS RUBIK'S CUBE, HOW TO SOLVE? We all know the world famous Rubik's Cube puzzle requires patience. Most of us feel sorry for this game can not solve. Here are some work when we try to solve, but always fail and we leave. NO PROBLEM, NOW YOU HAVE A WAY YOU CAN EASILY SOLVE To understand the solution I've done a lot of research. I've reviewed dozens of domestic and foreign website. All very different and incomprehensible ways they are talking about. Confusing and very time-consuming solutions. Long-lasting weeks or even months at the end of my work I've managed to solve. So to understand and to solve it my way for everyone to do? the more simple and understandable way yet? I asked myself, and for days I have developed a method by brains. I put the name of the method as NUMBER METHOD. In this method, you will not find anywhere because it belongs to me completely as I have developed and new. Now I decided to share with you. THE ADVANTAGES OF THE NUMBER METHOD ACCORDING TO OTHER METHODS : - Solves in five stages, - Capital letters, lowercase letters, apostrophe, etc. doesn't contain the complexity, - Uses Numbers, the number is easy to keep in mind, - The solution is reached as soon as possible, - Solves all alternatives, since regardless of how no matter, - Extra training required, no, - The fastest method of teaching (I'm assertive), - Guarantee of your friend to keep you a fan ;)

Deep Frye A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance by Northrop Frye Columbia, 159 pp., $3.75 The one thing certain about modern criticism is that there is too much of it, and it is only rarely that one can say of a practitioner that he cannot safely be left unread. But one has to say it of Frye; ever since the publication, in 1957, of An Anatomy of Criticism, we have been trying to come to terms with him, and he has been writing a succession of shorter books to help us do so. Shakespeare’s final plays have always been important to his theory, and he has now devoted to them a series of lectures which should enable us to make up our minds. One striking aspect of Frye’s system is its theological rigor. He insists that his theory, however primitive in its present form, is the only true one; you must, according to him, accept or reject it in toto. This new book is lucid and self-explanatory (Frye writes excellent prose); but it implies the dogmatics of the Anatomy, and readers who cannot find the time to absorb that vast and surprising book should at least read two of the essays reprinted in the collection of 1963 entitled Fables of Identity; these give the gist of the doctrine under the rubrics “The Archetypes of Literature” and “Myth, Fiction and Displacement.” They will then notice that this new book, freshly thought out as it undoubtedly is, is an application, to works Frye regards as crucial, of the general theory. I may as well say right off that I look for a way of saving some of the special insights without accepting the doctrine; exactly what Frye regards as an impossible compromise. According to Frye, we must not confuse the experience of literature with criticism. In this book he “retreats from individual plays into a middle distance, considering the comedies as a single group unified by recurring images and structural devices.” The reader “is led from the characteristics of the individual play…to consider what kind of a form comedy is, and what is its place in literature.” This is what he calls “standing back,” the way you stand back to look at a painting. One step back gives you the view of Wilson Knight or Bradley—occult thematic or psychological patterns—and the second enables you to see the object in its genre: Hamlet as a Revenge Play, for example. One more step and you have Frye’s view: Hamlet as myth, probably multiple: the Liebestod and the leap into and out of Ophelia’s grave. From this distance you see a work of literature as frozen in space, devoid, like myth, of temporality, and fit for inclusion in an all-embracing mythical system. “It is part of the critic’s business to show how all literary genres are derived from the quest-myth…the quest-myth will constitute the first chapter of whatever future handbooks of criticism may be written that will be based on enough organized critical knowledge to…live up to their titles.” Criticism …

The Debt Addiction Felix G. Rohatyn April 13, 1989 Issue A series of congressional hearings is now looking into various aspects of the nation’s financial markets. These hearings occur at a time when confidence in the integrity of the nation’s financial system and in the ability of the economy to sustain itself in an increasingly competitive world seems steadily to be declining. Especially since the stock market crash of October 19, 1987, confidence has been eroding in some of our most important financial institutions, which many in American society now view more as parasites on the economy than as forces contributing to its growth. In particular, questions have been raised about corporate takeovers in the US: it is asked whether they help companies to become more efficient or whether they mainly add more debt to an economy already heavily burdened with it. These worries have been revived by the recent series of large leveraged buyouts (LBOs)—takeovers of companies using substantial amounts of borrowed funds, with the assets of the target company often being used as security for the loans. Such takeovers have occurred, moreover, at the very time when there have been losses of over $100 billion in the savings and loan industry, which must now be bailed out in good part by the taxpayers; charges of insider trading against Wall Street executives; and renewed questions about the soundness of the US banking system, not only because of LBOs but also because of renewed third-world debt problems and other sizable domestic credit risks. All these issues have been argued over for the past several years. What is new is the scale of recent transactions (at whose peak is the takeover of RJR Nabisco for $25 billion) and the size of the profits generated as a result. New questions are being raised about the rights of bondholders in such transactions; about whether management in these takeovers is fulfilling its fiduciary obligations to stockholders, bondholders, employees, and communities; and what the relationship should be between institutions such as pension funds, which often provide cash for takeovers and LBOs, the target companies themselves, and the investors who actually acquire the companies. These issues are at best very complicated and not easy to subject to quantitative analysis. In addition, they involve very large economic interests. But what is really involved here is the condition of American business as we approach the twenty-first century, and the level of our confidence in the quality, skills, and judgment among the business and financial institutions that are the backbone of our economy. What happens when the managers of a firm take over a large share of its ownership by piling up debt—whether in the form of junk bonds, bank loans, or other forms of borrowing? Some have argued that special benefits result. The entrepreneurial spirit of the company’s management, it is said, becomes sharper and the firm is pressed to become more efficient so that it can pay back debt. This argument is questionable. Ownership by management is desirable; so is employee ownership …

Before the Nazis: A Ukrainian City’s Contested Past Philippe Sands Milla Bankowicz and Robert Wieckiewicz in Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness (2012) Tucked away in the far western corner of present-day Ukraine, the city of Lviv defies expectations. Far smaller than Kiev, it was a closed city during the Soviet period from 1945 to 1991, and even today remains relatively little known. Yet it once was a capital of eastern Galicia and played a crucial part in the borderlands of central Europe for centuries. The current population of 750,000 is overwhelmingly Ukrainian, but in the early twentieth century, it was home to a roughly equal number of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews who lived alongside each other and to some extent intermixed even as they competed for influence. The often bitter struggles between these groups, combined with the city’s long intellectual and university traditions, meant that the city played a special and largely unrecognized part in shaping our modern international system of human rights. I have been spending time in Lviv, exploring its remarkable but largely unknown legal history. Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s film In Darkness, which was nominated for an Oscar last year, describes a short moment in this longer story. Drawn from Robert Marshall’s 1991 book The Sewers of Lvov and Krsytyna Chiger’s memoir The Girl in the Green Sweater (2007), the film is about a small group of Jewish residents who take refuge in the sewers of Nazi-occupied Lviv with the assistance of Leopold Socha, a city worker. His nemesis is the sinister Bortnik—he is given no first name—an unpleasant Ukrainian officer who has been enlisted by the Nazis to root out hidden Jews. Holland is a filmmaker of impeccable honesty and the story is simply and powerfully told. But above all it is the film’s setting, below the streets of Lviv, that gives it such force. Robert Marshall’s book was among the first of dozens I have read to understand what had happened in the city from 1914 to 1945, and in the neighboring areas (not far away is the small Renaissance town of Zolkiew, one of whose few Jewish survivors from that period tells a grimly restrained story of hidden childhood in Clara’s War (2009)) . Though Lviv is today Ukrainian, from 1918 until 1939 it was Polish Lwow, and before that, for more than a century, it was Austro-Hungarian Lemberg. (The sewers that saved Leopold Socha’s Jews originated as a feat of Austro-Hungarian engineering.) Accounts of the city range from the sublime to the ridiculous. And then there is Baedeker’s tourist guide to occupied Poland in 1943: while the good Pole Leopold Socha was providing guidance to hidden Jews below ground, Mr. Baedeker offered his services to visiting German tourists who were sojourning at the Hotel Bristol on the renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz just a few feet above them. (This is a guide of its times, and the attentive reader will also spot the passing reference to the small town of Auschwitz, for travelers on Reichstrasse No. 391 from Vienna to Cracow, as well as the occasional slip, the reference to the Jews who used to live in a particular location.) At the end of World War I, control of the city passed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a newly independent Polish state—following a three-week interlude in November 1918 during which the short-lived Western Ukrainian People’s Republic state was proclaimed, with Lviv as the capital. As the Poles wrested back control, there was a spate of killings of Jews, mostly by Polish militias. A week later a New York Times headline reported, “1,100 Jews Murdered in Lemberg Pogroms.” The figures were wildly exaggerated, but these and other killings in Poland caused President Woodrow Wilson to insist that the price of Polish independence was a formal commitment to protect minorities. In June 1919 the Versailles Treaty was adopted, including an Article 93 that committed Poland to adopt a further treaty to protect the rights of minorities. Many legal scholars now regard that treaty, drawn up by the drafters of the Versailles Treaty and signed on the same day by an unenthusiastic new Polish government, as a catalyst for modern legal protections for human rights. Around this time, other treaties formalized the transfer of Lwow into Polish hands, and in the immediate years that followed there were hopes that it would usher in a new era of social harmony. This period is idealized in Jozef Wittlin’s short elegy to the city, Mi Lviv, published in 1941 in Polish after the author had fled the city for New York and the safety of Columbia University (his daughter has recently published an elegant Spanish translation, and someone ought to publish an English version). “I won’t speak of the year 1918,” he writes, but cannot pass by in silence that moment in those fratricidal Polish-Ukrainian battles which cut not only the city into two hostile parts, when my old gymnasium friend, Zenon Rusin, at that time a Ukrainian khorunzhyi, stopped hostilities in front of the Jesuit Garden so that I could cross the front and get home. There was harmony among my friends, even though many of them belonged to various warring nations and held to different beliefs and views. National Democrats got along with Jews, socialists with conservatives, Old Ruthenians and Russophiles with Ukrainian nationalists. There were no communists at that time, but if there had been they would have certainly gotten on well even with the socialists. Let us play at this idyll. But if the city’s Jews and other minorities thought the new government would help them, or that Article 93 of the Versailles Treaty could offer real protections, they were mistaken. As early as the summer of 1919, when President Wilson’s envoy, Henry Morgenthau, traveled to Lwow to investigate the November 1918 attacks on the Jews, he found that the head of the Polish government, Marshal Pilsudski, was “most bitter” on the subject of Article 93. “Why not trust to Poland’s honor,” Morgenthau records Pilsudski as saying, “that article creates an authority … outside the laws of this country! Every faction within Poland was agreed on doing justice to the Jew, and yet the Peace Conference, at the insistence of America, insults us by telling us that we must do justice.” Pilsudski’s tirade went on for ten minutes. The treaty provided no real protections to the Jews: on paper, language, education, and other rights were fully protected, but the reality was that in the absence of proper enforcement mechanisms the treaty was largely honored in the breach. The Ukrainians, for their part, were largely excluded from public life and the numerous institutions of higher education in Lwow, despite their large numbers, a reflection of the manifest inadequacy of the new regime for the protection of minority rights in the face of overt discrimination. Polish control may have provided a degree of stability for the Jews, but it served only to inflame ethnic tensions, a pocket of urban Polish control in a largely Ukrainian land. By the mid-1930s the Polish government had renounced the Minorities Treaty and a darker story began. Long simmering resentments came to the fore as neighboring Germany embraced the Nazis, causing ever more violence. In September 1939 the Soviets took control of Lwow from Poland, an event that was not particularly welcomed by any of the communities, although the situation for Jews was significantly better than if Lwow had been a few dozen miles to the west and within Nazi control. In June 1941 the Germans launched a surprise attack, and very soon Germany took control of Galicia from the Soviets. The city and the rest of Galicia was integrated into Nazi control, under Hans Frank, the Governor General of occupied Poland. On August 1, 1942 Frank visited Lemberg and addressed a public gathering. “It is impossible to thank the Fuhrer enough for having entrusted this ancient nest of Jews, this Polish poorhouse, to strong and capable German muscle,” Frank’s son Niklas reports him as telling his audience, in In The Shadow of the Reich (1990), his excoriating account of his father’s inhumanities. Two weeks later, most of the remaining Jews were rounded-up for extermination, as Heinrich Himmler and the governor of Galicia Otto von Wachter met in Lwow. A few weeks after that Socha’s Jews took to the sewers. There is no more devastating first hand account of the period than that provided by Louis Begley in his fictionalized memoir, Wartime Lies (1991), which describes his experiences as a young boy struggling for survival in the city under Nazi control. “Jews found families to hide them so they would not have to go to the ghetto,” Begley writes of the life around him, “and after a week with their saviours they were denounced and shot.” As In Darkness’s sensitive exploration of group identity and tension suggests, there were no angels in this period, and no single group had a monopoly on terror. Leopold Socha, the man who protects the Jews in the film, was a Pole, but his actions cannot stand for the Polish population in general any more than the actions of the ruthless Nazi Hans Frank, can define every German, or those of the evil Ukrainian officer Bortzik define every Ukrainian. This is the film’s complex lesson: the good Pole saves a few Jewish victims from a bad Ukrainian who is working with ghastly Nazis. The message may or may not be accurate, or capable of being generalized, but it surely explains why the film has been well received in Poland but apparently not yet scheduled for release in Ukraine. Lviv remains a remarkable city today, although its ability to fully engage with the past is not always apparent. Many of the scholars and writers I have met while teaching at the Law Faculty of Lviv University and also at the new Ukrainian Catholic University over the past two years are eager to engage with the city’s enormously rich history. And while Lvov’s Jewish and Polish roots are now more or less completely extinguished, the signs are there if one looks closely enough, below the surfaces, behind the facades, and etched into doorways. But recovering that history is not easy. A strident nationalism has emerged across Ukraine in recent years, as the country seeks to define itself in the post-Soviet era, and in the run–up to the European Football Championship in June, which Lviv will co-host with other cities in Poland and Ukraine, the country is once again under scrutiny. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders have recently announced that they will not attend the games unless certain human rights abuses are addressed, including the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko. Lviv probably doesn’t help the situation with establishments such as The Golden Rose, a Jewish theme restaurant that seeks to recreate the life of the inter-war years in a manner that crosses that unhappy line dividing comedy and insult. It is also difficult to avoid signs in the city of continued anti-Semitism or hostility toward minorities: the not so occasional swastika or Star of David daubed on a wall or building. Yet it would be wrong to focus only on the dark side, as civic groups, universities, and NGOs—led by the city’s impressively open Mayor Andriy Sadovyy—seek to build awareness of the past. Next year, for example, Mayor Sadovyy has agreed to co-host an international conference on the city’s contribution to modern international law, and he has sought to call attention to some of the principal actors involved—Jews and Poles—by placing plaques on their former homes. The mayor is right to admonish journalists who chose only to associate the city with aspects of its past. Lviv invites repeated visits (not least for its coffee, which is as good as any in the world: I particularly recommend Svit Kavy (World of Coffee) at 6 Katedral’na Square), and because it continues to reflect the interplay of differing political perspectives. In a historical sense, homogenous it is not. The issue of group identity and how it is portrayed is always delicate, with political and commercial implications. The formulation of one of the most memorable lines of In Darkness—which comes at the end of the film, and is written not spoken – reflects choices made. Soon after the Soviets removed the Nazis, we learn of the circumstances of Leopold Socha’s accidental death. A blank screen records the following words: “At his funeral, someone said: ‘It’s God’s punishment for helping the Jews.’” Agnieska Holland takes advantage of her directorial discretion not to refer to the group to which that “someone” belonged. At least one other account, which may or may not be accurate, describes that person as a Pole.

Interoperable applications for a national wireless network: A case study of mobile video applications Guy Jouannelle Does a requirement for public safety video interoperability exist? According to first responders, the answer is 'yes.' After devoting years of work to best define use of the 700-MHz spectrum for public safety, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided that a nationwide public safety dedicated wireless broadband network will be licensed to a commercial operator. In partnership with the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, the oversight manager for the public spectrum, the network will be auctioned and operated in partnership by commercial and public safety organizations. The exact terms and conditions of this novel relationship will be detailed in an operating agreement between the parties. A congratulatory standing ovation to all those involved in this significant achievement is warranted. The deployment of this private-public broadband network will result in a huge leap in capability and funding management in the public safety communications interoperability paradigm. This new network drives its evolution from both a requirement for a next generation broadband wireless data network to provide desktop extension, multi-media (video, messaging, e-mail, Internet, LAN access) to the field and a direct effort to deploy a fully interoperable wireless network, correcting the current state of the land mobile radio environment for public safety. Besides the Wireless Accelerated Response Network (WARN) and the Regional Wireless Broadband Network (RWBN) networks deployed by the District of Columbia and the National Capital Region, the national network will be the first nationwide public safety dedicated wireless broadband network, as well as the first nationwide interoperable wireless infrastructure, accessible to local and state first responders. We would like to believe that such an interoperable wireless broadband network will enable interoperable broadband applications to traverse the network. However, it is not clear which of the currently deployed public safety wireless broadband applications are truly interoperable. As an example, one application that requires a bandwidth only a wireless broadband network can support is in-vehicle mobile video. However the network robustness and capability to support such a demanding application is not sufficient to facilitate public safety mobile video sharing in the field. The TV show COPS has familiarized the American public with the importance and content of such video solutions by demonstrating how useful recorded material could be in court, if allowable evidence. Typically these solutions include features like the authentication of the officer in charge, various commands and controls of the system such as the pan-tilt-zoom of the camera, the local recording of the video and audio and other critical "metadata," including the time, location, and speed of the vehicle (GPS-based), and various fields describing the recorded event. After capturing the event, the video can then be uploaded and achieved to an access-controlled central server. It can later be retrieved and analyzed as necessary using metadata filters. Streaming real-time video to control centers, or other mobile units, is also a critical tool to support remote suspect or vehicle identifications, and virtual back-up during chases or traffic stops. Another use is sharing situation awareness with officers en-route to the scene; this unquestionably requires access to a wireless broadband network. Proprietary solutions In recent years, improvements in digital technology have greatly enhanced mobile video solutions as they eliminate archaic, voluminous video tapes, facilitate the automation of uploading recorded files, automate the detection of events through sophisticated real-time image processing and enable real time streaming of video feeds through the use of state-of-the-art video codecs. Why should those solutions not be interoperable?

The Omaha Symphony History There were several civic orchestras in Omaha prior to the 1920s, but from its establishment in March 1921 under the leadership of Henry Cox, the Omaha Symphony had aspirations for higher levels of musical artistry and talent. The community�s acceptance was so encouraging of the �new� symphony that the famed Sandor Harmati was brought in by the women�s division of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce to conduct the 1925/26 season. The symphony continued to thrive, and in 1930 Joseph Littau took over conducting the orchestra for two years due to Harmati�s illness. The Great Depression caused a suspension of operations in 1932, but the symphony was able to play short seasons beginning with the 1936/37 season under the direction of Rudolph Ganz. The symphony was again forced to close during World War II when the conductor, Richard Duncan, and other musicians enlisted for service. However, after the war, Henry Doorly of the Omaha World-Herald, the Associated Retailers of Omaha, and the Omaha Junior League rebuilt the orchestra as a full symphony under the direction of Duncan. This new symphony performed its first concert on February 10, 1947. Duncan continued to expand the orchestra�s activities until 1958 when he passed the conductor�s baton to Joseph Levine. Levine led the Omaha Symphony�s promotion of classical music in the Midlands, which included the establishment of the Omaha Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Omaha Symphonic Chorus. Additionally, from 1966 to 1968 Levine led the implementation of a Ford Foundation grant enabling the symphony to tour outside Omaha and create a music program designed especially for children � known as the Omaha Symphony�s Concerts for Youth � which continues to be a community treasure today. The assistant conductor of Leonard Bernstein�s New York Philharmonic, Yuri Krasnapolsky, took the podium as the new music director in 1970. Krasnapolsky began the beloved SuperPops series and oversaw the establishment of in-school ensemble concerts in 1971. It was Thomas Briccetti, the nationally recognized composer and conductor appointed music director in 1975, who developed the Omaha Symphony into a true professional orchestra with a �core� of 30 full-time salaried musicians augmented with a group of part-time players. Briccetti also helped create the Nebraska Sinfonia, now known as the Omaha Symphony Chamber Orchestra. The �core� increased to 35 members when Bruce Hangen joined the Omaha Symphony in 1984 as music director. Before he left the Omaha Symphony in 1995, his interest in musical and cultural diversity was realized with the world premiere of Ceremonial Images, a nationally acclaimed composition commissioned by Hangen, featuring Native American singers and tribal drummers. In 1993, Ernest Richardson joined the symphony as assistant conductor, later rising to the role of resident conductor. In 1995, Russian-born conductor Victor Yampolsky took up the baton as music director. Under the leadership of Yampolsky, the core orchestra expanded to 39 musicians, and the Omaha Symphony recorded and produced its first compact disc, Take Flight. The 2005/06 season featured the introduction of new music director Thomas Wilkins and the orchestra�s move into its new home, the Holland Performing Arts Center. In the 2008/09 season, the Symphony Rocks series was launched. A hit with young professionals and baby boomers alike, the programming showcases the orchestra's energy and versatility. The addition of the Sights and Sounds series followed in 2009/10, combining the rich sound of the symphony with exciting visuals to create a multisensory concert experience. As the Omaha Symphony heads into its 90th anniversary season, it continues to evolve. The 2010/11 season introduces the elegant and intimate Ensemble series, a treat for both audiences and musicians, and offers expanded Symphony Rocks programming. Committed to meeting the needs of its community and its concertgoers, the Omaha Symphony looks forward to bringing the power and beauty of the live orchestral experience to the next generation of music lovers!

Collin Peterson on Principles & Values Democrat/Farmer/Labor Representative (MN-7) Religious affiliation: Lutheran. Peterson : religious affiliation: The Adherents.com website is an independent project and is not supported by or affiliated with any organization (academic, religious, or otherwise). What�s an adherent? The most common definition used in broad compilations of statistical data is somebody who claims to belong to or worship in a religion. This is the self-identification method of determining who is an adherent of what religion, and it is the method used in most national surveys and polls. Such factors as religious service attendance, belief, practice, familiarity with doctrine, belief in certain creeds, etc., may be important to sociologists, religious leaders, and others. But these are measures of religiosity and are usually not used academically to define a person�s membership in a particular religion. It is important to recognize there are various levels of adherence, or membership within religious traditions or religious bodies. There�s no single definition, and sources of adherent statistics do not always make it clear what definition they are using. Source: Adherents.com web site 00-ADH5 on Nov 7, 2000 Rated 17% by the AU, indicating opposition to church-state separation. Peterson scores 17% by the AU on church-state separation OnTheIssues.org interprets the 2006 AU scores as follows: 0%- 20%: opposition to church-state separation (approx. 232 members)21%- 79%: mixed record on church-state separation (approx. 79 members)80%-100%: support of church-state separation (approx. 153 members)About the AU (from their website, ): Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. AU is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.Americans United is a national organization with members in all 50 states. We are headquartered in Washington, D.C., and led by the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director. AU has more than 75,000 members from all over the country. They include people from all walks of life and from various faith communities, as well as those who profess no particular faith. We are funded by donations from our members and others who support church-state separation. We do not seek, nor would we accept, government funding. Source: AU website 06n-AU on Dec 31, 2006 Member of the "Blue Dog" Coalition of conservative Democrats. Peterson is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition: The 32 conservative and moderate Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition hail from every region of the country, although the group acknowledges some southern ancestry which accounts for the group�s nickname. Taken from the South�s longtime description of a party loyalist as one who would vote for a yellow dog if it were on the ballot as a Democrat, the �Blue Dog� moniker was taken by members of The Coalition because their moderate-to-conservative-views had been �choked blue� by their party in the years leading up to the 1994 election. The Coalition was formed in the 104th Congress as a common sense, bridge-building voice. Since then, the Blue Dogs have successfully injected a moderate viewpoint into the Democratic Caucus. The continuing political success of �Blue Pups� in the 1998 and 2000 elections points to the public�s approval of the centrist, fiscally responsible message represented by The Coalition. The Coalition has been particularly active on fiscal issues, relentlessly pursuing a balanced budget and then protecting that achievement from politically popular �raids� on the budget. The Coalition�s proposals on welfare reforms served as middle-ground markers which laid the foundation for the bipartisanship necessary to bring about fundamental reforms, and helped set into law policies reflecting the �common sense, conservative compassion� so often attached to the group�s efforts. In the 107th Congress, the Coalition intends to continue to make a difference in Congress by forging middle-ground, bipartisan answers to the current challenges facing the Country. A top priority will be to finish the job of truly balancing the budget without counting the Social Security trust funds. Other early efforts will include campaign finance reform, strengthening Social Security, and health care reform. The group also expects to be involved in education, regulatory reform, taxes, defense and veterans affairs. Source: Blue Dog Coalition web site 07-BDC0 on Nov 6, 2007

Trio Relationships: Desire, Identity, and Power in Beauvoir's L'Invitee and Truffaut's Jules et Jim by Gardner, Rose Esther This study focuses on the emergence of two trio relationships during and after the Second World War in France. The first work, a piece of literature written by Simone de Beauvoir in 1943 entitled LInvitée, illustrates the story of a trio relationship between two women and a man that ends in murder. The second work, a film directed by François Truffaut entitled Jules et Jim, gives the account of another fatalistic trio relationship (however, this time between two men and a woman). In both of these works, the trios become the loci of a reflection on the ways in which the chaos and confusion of war enter into the lives of the individual characters. The asymmetry present in the trio relationships perpetuates violence, and the specific kinds of struggles for power coincide in antagonistic ways as the characters strive to re-invent love. The triangular relationships are observed in relation to three main elementsdesire, identity, and power. Chapter one explores how several mechanisms of desire function in relation to crises of identity and the confusion of the individual in French society: this includes an examination of aspects such as marriage, games of seduction and rejection, and platonic conceptions of love and unity that are marked by hostility and destruction. Chapter two examines several ways in which bonding manifests itself in relation to war, male homosexuality, and male homosociality in Truffauts film. Namely, the chapter explores how two sites of powerone, the physical location of a gymnasium, and the other, the conceptual place of warillustrate a kind of violence displayed towards women and homosexuals that is made particularly visible through male bonding and several kinds of patriarchal allegiances. Chapter three focuses on the ways in which the third body itself in the trio comes to represent a kind of spectacle in Beauvoirs LInvitée. Through an analysis of scopophilia and voyeurism, the third body becomes the focal point of the characters own fantasieshowever, these fantasies carry out and engage in destructive forms of masochism and sadomasochism. The emergence of these two works in France symbolizes a kind of resistance against bourgeois values during mid-century France. Yet, although the two triangular relationships attempt to subvert normative social values that constrain the individual within societyconstraints that surround the family unit, love, sexuality, gender roles, homosexuality, and identitythe trios represent instead the symbol of different forms of loss in a war-torn France where political upheaval disturbed the nation and the individual.

A Q&A on Genetically-Modified Foods In Wednesday's Tribune, we look at genetically modified foods and those trying to get them labeled as such or pulled from stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. The subject of genetically modified crops is full of passionate voices on both sides. We covered the issue in Wednesday's story. Even so, some readers may still walk away with questions about whether to avoid them or how to do so if they wish. These extra morsels may help make this huge subject more digestible: How much do stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market vet their products for eco- and health-conscious shoppers? We had discussions with both stores for the story. Both companies are very attuned to customer concerns about GMOs, and say they are doing what they can to remove and reduce them in their stores. Representatives for the Non-GMO Project give high marks to Whole Foods Market for doing such things as getting their 365 Every Day Values store brand verified non-GMO -- and strongly encouraging suppliers of their other products to enroll in the non-GMO program. In a statement, Trader Joe's told us that "all products in Trader Joe's private label are sourced from non-genetically modified ingredients. Our efforts began in 2001, when we determined that, given a choice, our customers would prefer to eat foods and beverages made without the use of genetically engineered ingredients. Our process has been to identify any product containing ingredients that could potentially be derived from genetically engineered crops and work with our suppliers to replace offending ingredients with acceptable alternatives." >>> Read the Full Article For more information on this topic or related issues you can search the

What is Justice? Obama got me thinking... What is Justice? Logged prodromas Jurisdiction: Under the Green Pope Re: What is Justice? Is Obama the new Socrates? Logged The sins I don't commit are largely due to the weakness of my limbs.1915-1923 Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն ,never again,ܩܛܠܐ ܕܥܡܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ 1920-1914, never again, השואה 1933-1945, never again, (1914-1923) Ελληνική Γενοκτονία, never again Justice is giving that which is due. Then real question becomes what are we due? Quote from: ignatius on March 19, 2008, 05:04:30 PMObama got me thinking... What is Justice? What's the deference between Justice and revenge?Jnorm888 Quote from: jnorm888 on March 19, 2008, 09:23:39 PMWhat's the difference between Justice and revenge?Jnorm888Watch Batman Begins. Jurisdiction: Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Justice is when created beings are harmoniously acting according to their essential principles. It is equity. In human relations, it is the manifestation of virtue. Humans acting according to virtue are the scent and flavor of the unseen God in our world. So human justice, carried forward through human freedom reflects the will of the Ruler of creation, who eternally draws created beings to Him.Revenge is the act of willfully inflicting suffering in return for suffering received. While it is often associated with justice, in fact it does not bring justice, rather it only perpetuates itself without elevating the mind to the higher cause of our existence. "The Unity of the Church, as Your Holinesses well know it, is the will of God and ought to be an inspiring example to all men. It should always be a help and not a hindrance to the unity of men of different religions."-Emperor Haile Selassie To the Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches 1965 Well, my soon-to-be son-in-law, a recent Harvard Law School graduate and a convinced atheist, says that justice is something totally subjective, arbitrarily "agreed on" in the course of the chaotic, erratic human experience. For example, we consider it justice to punish those who drive with the speed of 100 mph instead of <70 mph. But we might have as well considered it justice to punish those who drive with the speed of 30 mph instead of <10 mph. In fact, if there were the consensus that 10 mph is the speed limit, there would be a whole lot less traffic-related deaths and injuries. Logged Quote from: Veniamin on March 20, 2008, 06:42:46 PMWhat he's arguing there raises the distinction in our law between those things that are malum prohibitum, wrong because we have decided that they are wrong, and those things that are malum in se, wrong in and of themselves. Some things are wrong because of our mutual agreement to put that behavior out of reach, such as speeding, while other things will always be wrong, even in the presence of laws authorizing them.But what ARE these things that are "malum per se?" Murder? Well, in ancient Sparta, a youth was REQUIRED to kill a "helot," as a rite of passage. Infanticide? In many cultures, weak infants have been and still are killed by thousands, and it is considered good. Adultery? In is rooted in the idea of monogamy, and that, again, is something not characteristic for many cultures... Logged Quote from: Heorhij on March 20, 2008, 11:00:26 AMWell, my soon-to-be son-in-law, a recent Harvard Law School graduate and a convinced atheist, says that justice is something totally subjective, arbitrarily "agreed on" in the course of the chaotic, erratic human experience. For example, we consider it justice to punish those who drive with the speed of 100 mph instead of <70 mph. But we might have as well considered it justice to punish those who drive with the speed of 30 mph instead of <10 mph. In fact, if there were the consensus that 10 mph is the speed limit, there would be a whole lot less traffic-related deaths and injuries. I would say you are confusing "law" and "justice". Nevertheless, both speed limit scenarios have the same underlying objective. Laws are written with the intent to bring a state of justice. Seeing that you self-identify as "Orthodox", what is your response to your son-in-law, and what is your definition of justice? BTW, my father was an atheist and he would agree with your future son-in-law if he were still alive. Logged Quote from: Heorhij on March 20, 2008, 11:00:26 AMWell, my soon-to-be son-in-law, a recent Harvard Law School graduate and a convinced atheist, says that justice is something totally subjective, arbitrarily "agreed on" in the course of the chaotic, erratic human experience. For example, we consider it justice to punish those who drive with the speed of 100 mph instead of <70 mph. But we might have as well considered it justice to punish those who drive with the speed of 30 mph instead of <10 mph. In fact, if there were the consensus that 10 mph is the speed limit, there would be a whole lot less traffic-related deaths and injuries. I think You're son-in-law is correct. Orthodoxy is very similar. Sin is what condemns us. At the same time sin can have a corrective action in that it destroys pride. Pride is the ultimate sin. Salvation is at the speed limit. Quote from: Eleos on March 21, 2008, 11:03:44 AMI would say you are confusing "law" and "justice". Nevertheless, both speed limit scenarios have the same underlying objective. Laws are written with the intent to bring a state of justice. Seeing that you self-identify as "Orthodox", what is your response to your son-in-law, and what is your definition of justice? BTW, my father was an atheist and he would agree with your future son-in-law if he were still alive. I honestly do not know how to reply, and I do not have any sound definition of justice. Unlike Ryan (my soon-to-be s.i.l.), I am not a relativist - I believe that there is God, Who is Absolute... but other than that, I am at the listening end right now, not feeling like I am able to contribute into this discussion in any positive way. Logged Is there Justice? If so what is it? I think I asked this question before but few seemed interested. Is there Justice? If so what is it? How does Holy Orthodoxy address the universal cry for Justice? How does God address the universal cry for Justice? Quote from: ignatius on April 15, 2008, 05:57:59 PMYes it does. I ask again 'why' does Perfect Love seek Judgment? Kalomiros merely flips it around and suggests that the state we find ourselves is in fact one of our own doing thus escaping the fact that we are judged by God. That is not an answer to the 'why' does Perfect Love seek Judgment? I think we don't find the answer in Love but in Holiness or Justice or perhaps another attribute of the Divine...The answer is found in love, and this is why I'm having a hard time knowing the difference between "Justice & Revenge".For me, both Judgement and Holiness don't really have a meaning......if they can't be derived from Love.Did your parents ever beat you when you were a kid? Mine have. I got whooped plenty of times.....yet they did it in love.There is love in being "chasticed". There is love in being "disciplined".One might call it tough love, but love is the answer.Love seeking Judgement = Love seeking JusticeI think the two can mean the samethingJNORM888 Quote from: Heorhij on April 15, 2008, 04:09:15 PMI think "justice" is an extremely vague and subjective human concept. There will be no "justice" as we know it in the Kingdom of God - there will be only love. And revenge is something opposite to love, it's essentially self-gratification. Interesting.....I'm not able to see it at this time, but interesting. I'm gonna give this some more thought.But in the meantime, what will you do with the verse that says "vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord"?Is vengeance different from revenge? Should we see God's vengeance in light of His universal Love for creation?JNORM888

Moral Stem Cells E. Christian Brugger The desire of the scientific community for embryonic stem cells is not diminishing. Indeed, it is increasing, despite promising research with adult stem cells (scientists have already developed therapies for more than fifty diseases and disorders using stem cells from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood) and despite the fact that no useful embryonic stem-cell-based therapies currently exist or are even in FDA clinical trials. Indeed, no amount of success in clinical trials using adult stem cells is likely to lessen the desire of the scientific community for embryonic stem cells--which is what has created the arguments that have dominated the medical news since 2001. For a large swath of the nation, creating human embryos (with the intent to experiment lethally upon them) is morally repugnant, but the scientific community seems unwilling to accept anything else. But what if we could produce pluripotent stem cells, functionally identical to embryonic stem cells, without ever needing to create, experiment on, and destroy human embryos? This is what a scientific procedure called "Altered Nuclear Transfer-Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming" (ANT-OAR) proposes to do. The proposal is based upon the premise that the identity and function of each cell in the human body depends, in the first place, on which subset of the approximately thirty thousand genes in the cell's nucleus is switched on or off. In other words, the gene sequence is not what is responsible for determining cellular identity, since the DNA is identical in nearly every cell in the human body. Rather it is the programming of the gene sequence that distinguishes cell types. This genetic programming is referred to as the cell's "epigenetic state." We know the key epigenetic markers of pluripotent stem cells, and we know the markers of zygotes, which are one-celled human embryos. The stem cells that scientists seek are "pluripotent" (with the capacity of a cell to develop into most all the tissue types of the human body), while zygotes are "totipotent" (with the capacity to develop all the tissues of the human body, and extra-embryonic supporting tissues like the placenta, in an organized and self-directed manner). Using a procedure called "somatic cell nuclear transfer," defenders of ANT-OAR propose extracting the nucleus of a somatic cell (an adult body cell with the highly specified "epigenetic state" of the cell type from which it was extracted, say a skin cell) and then transferring it into an ooplast (an organic sac of cytoplasm left when the nucleus has been removed from an egg cell, or oocyte). In the ANT-OAR proposal, before we transferred the somatic cell nucleus into the ooplast, we would preemptively alter its epigenetic state so that the genes expressed in the nuclear genome are consistent with pluripotent stem cells--but incompatible with totipotency and thus with the existence of a human zygote. When scientists attempt cloning, they similarly remove the nucleus from an egg cell and insert a new nucleus. And they have discovered that the biochemical constituents in oocyte cytoplasm have the remarkable capacity to reprogram the epigenetic state of a transferred nucleus back to a state of totipotency. When the nucleus is transferred, the cytoplasm goes to work on the genome, and we are back to a totipotent zygote--the one-celled embryo whose moral status has caused so much concern. For ANT-OAR, the key element in avoiding this is the altered nuclear transfer: The genetic material in the nucleus is preemptively altered to prevent its being affected by the reprogramming of the oocyte cytoplasm. The result is that the nuclear genome will never reach a state of totipotency--and thus we would create a pluripotent stem cell (from which, if all goes well, stem-cell lines can be derived) without ever creating a human embryo. ANT-OAR defenders include such eminent thinkers as Hadley Arkes, Nigel Cameron, Maureen Condic, Kevin Fitzgerald, S.J., Kevin Flannery, S.J., Robert P. George, Alphonso G�mez-Lobo, Germain Grisez, Markus Grompe, John Haas, William Hurlbut, John Kilner, Patrick Lee, William E. May, Gonzalo Miranda, L.C., Archbishop John Myers, Tad Pacholczyk, Peter Ryan, S.J., William Saunders, Monsignor Stuart Swetland, and Thomas Weinandy. Many of them propose initial research using only nonhuman animal cells. If such research establishes that ANT-OAR can reliably be used to create pluripotent stem cells, they would then support research on human cells. But there remain critics of the proposal. David Schindler, dean of the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C., has emerged as the principal Catholic critic of ANT-OAR. In the pages of Communio, several essays have appeared over the past year, with defenders of altered nuclear transfer, on one side, and with Schindler and his followers, on the other. These opponents of ANT-OAR fear the procedure will create, not a pluripotent stem cell, but merely a badly disabled human embryo. Faced with the question of how can it be an embryo when it has the biological characteristics of a pluripotent stem cell, Schindler replies that he does not dispute that the end result of the process is a pluripotent stem cell; what he fears is that the entity brought into existence at the beginning of the process is a human embryo. As it happens, the ANT-OAR proposal emerges from the same moral concerns that worry critics such as Schindler: It cannot be right to create human entities like embryos solely for the purpose of destroying them and extracting their components. So, the defenders hold, the entity brought into existence must look and act like a pluripotent stem cell in every relevant respect in order to be considered morally acceptable; if through animal trials the product exhibits embryonic characteristics, the procedure will be rejected. The problem, for the critics, is in the way pluripotent stem cells would be created in ANT-OAR. Because the procedure is a form of somatic cell nuclear transfer, its product, Schindler argues, comes into existence in a "species-specific way." The process of ANT-OAR entails the fusing of an ooplast with a diploid somatic cell nucleus. In Schindler's view, this fusion is tantamount, in its effect, to conception. In fact, he calls it a "mimicked conception." The fertilization of an egg by a sperm brings into existence a single-celled entity whose progenitor cells include an oocyte, and that possesses a complete human genome contained in a diploid nucleus. So, too, somatic cell nuclear transfer used to clone human embryos brings into existence a single-celled entity whose progenitor cells include an oocyte and that possesses a complete human genome contained in a diploid nucleus. And ANT-OAR also brings into existence a single-celled entity whose progenitor cells include an oocyte and whose diploid nucleus contains a complete human genome. Whenever we fuse an enucleated oocyte and a diploid nucleus, we "mimic conception"--bringing into existence an entity in a species-specific way and thus creating something that must be a human embryo. This seems to mean that, for Schindler, the epigenetic state--the programming of the nuclear genome--is irrelevant to the nature of the entity. How this could be so is hard to see. The entity brought into existence through ANT-OAR is not totipotent until the specialized epigenetic state of the somatic cell nucleus is reprogrammed through its interaction with the oocyte cytoplasm, and, through preemptive genetic alterations, ANT-OAR sets out to prevent a state of totipotency from ever being realized. Is it reasonable to hold, as Schindler does, that the entity brought into existence is in any case a human embryo? He claims that it is the embryo itself that directs its own epigenetic reprogramming back to a state of totipotency. ANT-OAR, he believes, can modify only the end of the process (to a state of totipotency or pluripotency, etc.), and thus the nature of the entity that originally came into existence in a species-specific way remains a human embryo. The answer to Schindler's kind of complaint seems obvious. An entity is a human embryo only if the organic material is able to be human--if, in the language of Aristotle, it is apt to receive a substantial human form. Not every collection of organic material, even material that includes an oocyte and a diploid nucleus, can be a human being. We know this because we know that teratomas (naturally occurring tumors)--together with hydatidiform moles (disorganized entities that occur in humans and other animals as a result of certain types of defects in fertilization) and even oocytes themselves--are not human embryos, yet they all have as their starting material an oocyte and a diploid nucleus. With respect to the biological conditions for the origins of a human zygote, this means the single-celled entity brought into existence must possess the inherent active biological disposition for self-directed development toward species maturity (including the capacity to develop all tissue types necessary for a differentiated human body and extra-embryonic supporting materials). In other words, the cell must be characterized by an epigenetic state of totipotency. Biologically speaking, totipotency in a cell is a necessary and sufficient condition for concluding that that cell is a human embryo. It follows that even in human cloning, a human embryo does not come into existence until--among other things--the nuclear genome, through the reprogramming that takes place as a result of its interaction with oocyte cytoplasm, has attained a state of totipotency. The entity immediately after nuclear transfer and before nuclear reprogramming is not a human embryo that begins to self-direct its own process of reprogramming. Rather, it is akin to a body cell, with the epigenetic makeup of the donor somatic cell. This suggests that the efficient cause of the reprogramming is not an embryo; the efficient cause is the complex of active constituents in the oocyte cytoplasm--the cytoplasm reprograms the nucleus. The product remains a single isolated cell until a state of totipotency is attained, at which point a human organism--a new whole, embryonic human being--comes into existence. In the case of ANT-OAR, the product never is totipotent. It is never apt to receive a substantial human form, and therefore it never becomes a human embryo. If doubt were justified, then such caution would, in fact, be required. But ANT-OAR, as its defenders propose it, warrants no such doubt. It aims to create a cell that, from its first moment, exhibits organic properties biologically incompatible with totipotency. Schindler asserts that a single-celled entity can at once be a human embryo and yet manifestly not be (or ever have been) characterized by an epigenetic state of totipotency. That requires one to believe that a cell's epigenetic identity is not a necessary condition for cellular identity--which, in turn, requires a dualistic anthropology inconsistent with the Christian understanding of humanity. It denies that the biological disposition of the organic material is a necessary condition for determining cellular identity. It implicitly holds that a cell can biologically look and behave in ways biologically indicative of a certain cell type, yet in fact be a wholly different kind of cell. The property distinguishing a liver cell from a cardiac cell, or a retinal cell from a skin cell, is the programming of the genome. Yet no one would argue that a cardiac cell is a liver cell, or that a retinal cell is a skin cell, or that any of them are human embryos. The assumption that epigenetic identity does not determine cellular identity is clearly false--and moralists concerned about human embryos should welcome and support ANT-OAR as it moves to testing with animal cells.

From Both Ends of the Speculum: Reflections on Women's Health Care in America The following speech was given by Dr. Alice Rothchild at the American Medical Women's Association National Conference in Chicago, Nov. 5-9, 1997. When I finished medical school in 1974, my fantasy of providing healthcare without society, sexism, and economics battering at the door was long gone. And while many of my male colleagues and friends were joining the medical establishment and developing a sense of loyalty and belonging, I was becoming a feminist and a permanent outsider, thanks to my medical school training. I wanted to change society rather than help women adjust to the existing oppression in their lives. Medicine, it appeared, would be my battleground. This was a time of protest on many fronts. The Vietnam War was front page, the women's movement and other self-help movements were growing, the civil rights movement was being fought in the workplace, schools, and streets. I lived in a commune and struggled with the issues of sexism, relationships, and community in many a consciousness raising group where women could learn, listen and try to imagine a different kind of future. Even the medical students in my class underwent radicalizing changes: our class proudly sent our free stethoscopes from Eli Lilly to the North Vietnamese. We refused to sign our bimonthly exams and created a defacto pass/fail system at the medical school. Meanwhile, the Playboy bunny pictures intermixed with the microbiology slides, the surgeons who discussed their cases in the (male) Doctors� Change Room and expected me to sit patiently outside, and the constant barrage of low level hostility took their toll. The first year psychiatry course was based on a textbook entitled The Person, which spent an entire chapter on the importance of work in the life of men, mentioning women in a short paragraph at the end. One psychiatrist lectured us that the women were in medical school only because of our "unresolved penis envy." Our gynecology text advised women that their role in sexual intercourse was primarily to satisfy the husband. One edition of our obstetrics text had an entry in the index listing "male chauvinism" and cited the entire book�I have always wondered what brave and subversive secretary slipped that in! Although I had wanted to be a psychiatrist since the age of six, I found my first obstetrics and gynecology course profoundly important. The esteemed department chairman gave a famous lecture entitled something like, "What is a woman?" The hand- out consisted of a useful list of answers: "a woman is a man's wife, a man's competitor, a man's mistress...." This provoked protest signs and a vigil during the lecture which ultimately brought an end to this yearly offense. Nonetheless, women were always referred to as "girls"; one frequent comment by the chairman was, "The only good uterus is a uterus on the table!"; middle-aged women were referred to as "the three F's" (forty, fat and fertile). These things, and watching inadequately supervised City Hospital residents struggle through their surgical education, practicing on the poor and powerless, left me with an intense sense of outrage and a need to respond. My exposure to obstetrics and gynecology, in particular, revealed a field so politically backward and oppressive to women that I felt that I could have my greatest impact as a physician in just this specialty. At a hospital in Brooklyn, I watched in horror while a woman strapped to her gurney screamed, smeared feces, and labored under the influence of twilight sleep. I turned to her doctor and asked, "Why do you do this?" He replied that this is what women want and that if you don't give them heavy sedation, you can't get patients. At that moment I was reborn as an avid believer in natural childbirth. I went into the field to change it�not because I identified with my mentors, or was intellectually interested in research or the technical challenges of surgery. Contrary to the usual process of identification, I joined the Fellows as a permanent and often angry outsider. I did my internship at a city hospital in New York. There, the issue of sexism paled beside the obvious impact of poverty, drug abuse, alcoholism, and homelessness. I got to live the two-class health care system in action�walking down the open wards with beds lined up in every corner, bagging (manually breathing for) comatose patients when the electricity failed, running out of essential items like IV tubing and penicillin. While there was intense community involvement in the hospital, it was clear that major changes in society were needed if the lives of these people were to improve. My ob-gyn residency, in a well-run, well-funded hospital, was a striking institutional contrast. Records arrived with the patient, women planned their surgery, and once again the impact of economics on how well health care could be provided was apparent. As I became more independent, it was also a very positive experience to support women through pregnancy and childbirth in a more empowering environment. Nonetheless, the culture of the specialty did little to change my perception that this was still a battlefield. Few women physicians had gone before me, and I always felt I had to prove myself, particularly in the OR. The attitudes of the attendings towards both their patients and the small but ever increasing number of female residents, who did unheard-of things, from changing in the "Doctors� Lounge" to getting pregnant, left much to be desired. Later I participated in establishing a nonprofit group practice in the inner city, with another woman obgyn, a midwife, and a pediatrician. Ideologically, our practice was what I wanted, but despite our immense popularity, we constantly came up against the status quo. The midwife couldn't get hospital privileges; health centers went bankrupt, leaving large debts; our former attendings were unwilling to share coverage. We were the only private physicians who accepted Medicaid, who worked with midwives, and later a nurse practitioner, and saw ourselves as having a feminist mission regarding the care of women and their families. We worked in the office, in neighborhood health centers, a woman's health center, and at the hospital where we trained. We were on the "fringe" in this mostly male and often quietly hostile environment. Our allies were the nurses, midwives, nurse-practitioners, and women patients who were both the users of health care and prime negotiators for their children and their elderly parents. For these people, being a woman doctor was finally an asset. Our practice consciously set out to do things differently. Besides the warmed speculums, potholders over the stirrups, and endless supplies of mirrors and Our Bodies, Ourselves, we emphasized education, making health care a joint venture with the woman, her family and her support system. We tried to be attuned to the fact that there is no such thing as a "routine pelvic," since approximately one in four women has experienced sexual assault. We welcomed lesbians and people with disabilities; we supported home births and alternative approaches. In short, we saw the patients no other private MD wanted, and we learned exactly what it means to be outside the "old boy network." Our hospital colleagues were friendly, but finding coverage during our maternity leaves was almost impossible. They told me, "I'm too stressed." "Your patients are too difficult." "Your patients expect too much from their doctors." The translation was that whether we took care of pushy educated feminists or poor, non-English speaking Medicaid patients, we were on our own. What kept us going was our popularity in the communities we worked, our passion about our work, and our political commitment to provide feminist health care. After eight and a half years, having had two babies each, while being on call almost every other night, with little financial success (Medicaid paid $5 per office visit) or cooperation from other hospital staff, we gave up. Since then all of my old partners and I are working in a pre-paid nonprofit HMO. The struggles are obviously different because of the massive chaos and constant restructuring of health care. I am lucky that I work in a group with many women, and men who treat me as an equal, although sometimes different, colleague. I am lucky that there are now many women in this specialty, who are beginning to be in positions of power. Much of the current challenge comes from the economics of medicine�the previously unimagined power and control of insurance companies, the squeeze on resources and staff, and intense pressure to shorten hospital stays, while learning new gynecological procedures and technologies and the desire to use them for the benefit of the patients and not only the bottom line. My challenge in this "system" is to save the ideals that have evolved in me over the last quarter century: to treat each woman with respect; to make no assumptions about sexual preference or safety; to provide surveillance, guidance, expert advice, emotional support; and to honor each woman as the ultimate judge of her own body. I try to pay attention to the whole context of a woman's life�is she 45 and pregnant, or menopausal? I see every exam as an opportunity to educate and empower a woman about her body and her healthcare, and to give her a sense of validation about her perceptions. Also, I focus on menopause, PMS, and sexual dysfunction, areas in which women have been classically dismissed. During pregnancy, despite the availability of technology and women's unquestioning belief in it, I see my role as to support and educate, to "love someone through their pregnancy." I see women increasingly tending not to trust their bodies, and my role is to remind women of their immense power and strength, and of the normalcy of childbirth. In the OR my personal struggle has been to learn to be decisive, aggressive, and calm. When the OR is no longer a man-surgeon�s fiefdom and the usual yelling and temper tantrums of the past are unacceptable, what are the rules? I am constantly learning how to deal with the enormous stress, anxiety, and insecurity (which surgeons rarely admit to), while needing to be the leader of the team and to command respect. The other struggle is the physician-wife-mother balancing act. There are days when I feel like I am the woman who has everything and I'm doing all of it badly, and on those days it is critical to redefine the meaning of a successful career in medicine. My medical training told me that a good doctor is an academic, with few limits on work hours, and a magical ability to read every pertinent journal. In 1997, a good doctor can be a clinician, can limit hours and still be a "serious player," can take off all school vacations, and be respected for her devotion to her work. The more difficult redefinition for me is the good mother. I wanted to really parent my daughters and not feel like a visiting dignitary between the yearly au pairs. I used to rush home in between office and surgery to breast feed because I had a child who would not take a bottle. I now rush from office to school, lugging canvas bags of paperwork to be done after bedtime. How many other surgeons get paged during a case because their child has a fever at school and needs to be picked up immediately, or the kid forgot her trumpet or can't find her socks? Being a good wife is also an ongoing, constantly-being-invented state of affairs. My husband is a cabinetmaker�I work more hours than he does, I have a more inflexible schedule, make more money, have more social status. These are all loaded and complicated issues. Our relationship is anchored on a respectful kind of equality of value as individuals who are sharing the tasks of life in nontraditional ways. We really have to make up the rules as we go along. In the world of work, managed care has always existed. Before, care was secretly managed by a patient's socioeconomics, power, and ability to speak English. Now the battles are clearer and more vicious and more dangerous to everyone. This is a battle we did not foresee. As a clinician, I work at the lowest level of the medical food chain. As a feminist physician, I see the future as fighting the battles on the ground while keeping a close eye on defending reproductive rights and options, working for national health insurance, respecting family diversity, defending preventive services. I worry that with all the corporate maneuvering and the complete absence of responsible national leadership and vision, that the changes that are happening will have very little to do with healthcare. I feel that like-minded people must remain agitators, both from the inside and the outside of the systems in which we work. Just the fact that there are more of us women is a reason for great expectation and possibility. Clearly the innocence of the past is lost forever.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Trailblazer · Wednesday, September 1, 2010 · 8 Comments Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick uses the occasion of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s delivering a speech to the 10th Circuit was written by her late husband before his death in June to highlight her historic role in securing women’s rights. The speech, “How the Tenth Circuit Got My Wife Her Good Job,” described the only case the Ginsburgs ever worked on together—a 1972 tax case called Moritz v. Commissioner, challenging the denial of a dependent-care deduction allowed to women, widowers, or divorced men but denied to a single man who was caring for his ailing mother. The Ginsburgs not only prevailed at the 10th Circuit but also obtained—as Justice Ginsburg has detailed elsewhere—the solicitor general’s Exhibit E, a “printout from the Department of Defense computer” that listed, title by title, every provision of the U.S. Code “containing differentiations based upon sex-related criteria.” According to the brief filed by the solicitor general urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Moritz, the 10th Circuit decision “casts a cloud of unconstitutionality upon the many federal statutes listed in Appendix E.” And as Martin Ginsburg noted in his speech, that computer printout proved “a gift beyond price” in his wife’s future litigation career. The Moritz case launched Ginsburg into her association with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, and Exhibit E offered a roadmap for litigation. She scored five victories in six Supreme Court appeals, using the 14th Amendment to slowly and systematically eradicate gender discrimination in one law after another, pushing the courts to scrutinize laws that classify on the basis of gender with a standard higher than the deferential “rational basis” standard. Palin and the Mama Grizzlies also owe a debt of thanks directly to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who almost single-handedly convinced the courts and legislatures to do away with gender classifications in matters ranging from a woman’s right to be executor of her son’s estate (Reed v. Reed, 1970), to a female Air Force lieutenant’s right to secure housing allowances and medical benefits for her husband (Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973), and the right of Oklahoma’s “thirsty boys” (her words) to buy beer at the Honk n’ Holler at the same age as young women (Craig v. Boren, 1976). It was in Craig v. Boren that Ginsburg secured the court’s agreement that—in her words—the “familiar stereotype: the active boy, aggressive and assertive; the passive girl, docile and submissive” was “not fit to be written into law.” The seed for Sarah Palin was sown. And whether Palin wants women to be allowed to buy beer at 18, or 21, or not at all, the fact that the legal system doesn’t care whether you’re a woman or a man anymore changed her life. You can draw a straight line between Ginsburg’s fight against these seemingly harmless gender classifications that were rooted in seemingly harmless gender stereotypes and the Mama Grizzlies who roam our political landscape today. Those who like to believe they have picked themselves up by the bootstraps sometimes forget that they wouldn’t even have boots were it not for the women who came before. Listening to Palin, it’s almost impossible to believe that, as recently as 50 years ago, a woman at Harvard Law School could be asked by Dean Erwin Griswold to justify taking a spot that belonged to a man. In Ginsburg’s lifetime, a woman could be denied a clerkship with Felix Frankfurter just because she was a woman. Only a few decades ago, Ginsburg had to hide her second pregnancy for fear of losing tenure. I don’t have an easy answer to the question of whether real feminists are about prominent lipsticky displays of “girl-power,” but I do know that Ginsburg’s lifetime dedication to achieving quiet, dignified equality made such displays possible. I’m just barely too young to recall the days of Jim Crow and racial segregation. I started grade school in 1972 in Houston, Texas with it never having occurred to me that black kids shouldn’t be allowed in the same classroom. But the “women’s lib” movement is mostly within my memory. It’s remarkable how fast things evolved, first legally and then culturally. If there’s an area where our attitudes and behaviors have changed more radically in my lifetime, I can’t think of it. Or, indeed, a candidate for close second. When I was in junior high in the late 1970s, almost all of the moms I knew were 1) married to their children’s father and 2) housewives. Married women who worked were either part-timers earning a little extra spending money or schoolteachers. As recently as the year I graduated high school, 1984, only 29 percent of married women held full-time jobs. That world exploded seemingly overnight. Not only were married women increasingly employed outside the home — now, more than 3/4 are — but their incomes became viewed as essential or, at very least, more than a mere supplement to what their husbands earned. This hasn’t been an unalloyed good, of course. Having both partners working full time adds all manner of stresses to life. And the implications on child rearing are still far from clear. But the expansion of economic power for more than half our population outweighs the downside that comes with it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: No Retirement Before 2012 Elections Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Roe v. Wade Went Too Far Bunning: Ginsburg Likely Dead Soon

Socialising led to bigger brains in some mammals The study found that highly social species of mammals need more brain power than solitary animals Over millions of years dogs have developed bigger brains than cats because highly social species of mammals need more brain power than solitary animals, according to a study by Oxford University.For the first time researchers have attempted to chart the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years. They have discovered that there are huge variations in how the brains of different groups of mammals have evolved over that time. They also suggest that there is a link between the sociality of mammals and the size of their brains relative to body size, according to a study published in the PNAS journal.The research team analysed available data on the brain size and body size of more than 500 species of living and fossilised mammals. It found that the brains of monkeys grew the most over time, followed by horses, dolphins, camels and dogs. The study shows that groups of mammals with relatively bigger brains tend to live in stable social groups. The brains of more solitary mammals, such as cats, deer and rhino, grew much more slowly during the same period.Previous research which has looked at why certain groups of living mammals have bigger brains has relied on studies of distantly-related living mammals. It was widely believed that the growth rate of the brain relative to body size followed a general trend across all groups of mammals. However, this study by Dr Susanne Shultz and Professor Robin Dunbar, from Oxford University’s Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA), overturns this view. They find that there is wide variation in patterns of brain growth across different groups of mammals and they have discovered that not all mammal groups have larger brains, suggesting that social animals needed to think more.Lead author Dr Susanne Shultz, a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow at ICEA, said: ‘This study overturns the long-held belief that brain size has increased across all mammals. Instead, groups of highly social species have undergone much more rapid increases than more solitary species. This suggests that the cooperation and coordination needed for group living can be challenging and over time some mammals have evolved larger brains to be able to cope with the demands of socialising.’Co-author and Director of ICEA Professor Robin Dunbar said: ‘For the first time, it has been possible to provide a genuine evolutionary time depth to the study of brain evolution. It is interesting to see that even animals that have contact with humans, like cats, have much smaller brains than dogs and horses because of their lack of sociality.’ The research team used available data of the measurements of brain size and body size of each group of living mammals and compared them with similar data for the fossilised remains of mammals of the same lineage. They examined the growth rates of the brain size relative to body size to see if there were any changes in the proportions over time. The growth rates of each mammal group were compared with other mammal groups to see what patterns emerged.

Bush Dog Whelps Now On Exhibit with Single Parent Dad The pitter patter of little paws can now be heard as two male bush dog whelps explore their new surroundings at the Palm Beach Zoo. Born on January 7, 2013, the whelps spent their first few months behind-the-scenes bonding with mom, Mediana, and dad, Oscito. Unfortunately, they will be growing-up without mom, who sadly passed away shortly after they were weaned. “Even though [Mediana] wasn’t in the best of health, she was able to give birth to and raise her young until they were able to eat solid food on their own,” said Zoological Manager Nancy Nill. “She held on as long as she was needed for the whelps. Now dad is a single parent taking great care of his young.” Before they could discover what their new exhibit had to offer, the two boys received their third set of shots which included distemper and rabies shots. They were also micro-chipped. Native to Central and South America, bush dogs live in many different habitats including lowland forests and wet savannahs. They travel in packs consisting of a single mated male and female pair and their off-spring. “Bush dogs are elusive by nature. A lot of what is known about this species comes from observations of these animals in captivity,” said Nill. “By having the birth of the whelps, staff is able to observe the dynamics of a bush dog family. Information gathered from observations like these could eventually aid in preserving them in the wild.” There are only about 25 bush dogs in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the Palm Beach Zoo now has seven of them. The new whelps are two of only three recorded whelp births this year.

Is Maternal Obesity Linked With Autism? Let’s Take A Closer Look At the Study Monday, April 9th, 2012 You may have seen or heard this morning about a new study that found links between maternal obesity and risk for autism. Here’s a breakdown on the study, the findings, and the take-home message. What Did This Study Do? The research – published in Pediatrics – explored links between maternal metabolic conditions – specifically diabetes, hypertension, and obesity – and neurodevelopmental disorders in early childhood – particularly autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental delays (DD). The sample was informative – it is a population-based sample in California that is participating in a very large investigation. That said, it’s important to keep in mind that maternal history of diabetes and hypertension during pregnancy, and obesity prior to pregnancy, were gathered retrospectively via a phone interview with the mother when kids were between 24 and 60 months of age, and also from medical records when available (which they were for over half the sample). I highlight this to emphasize that this is far from a definitive study - not that it’s a bad study, just that it is more like the first word, rather than the last word, on this topic. Do note that the available data suggested that moms could reliably report retrospectively (when they compared their responses to available medical records) – but still, this is not as informative as a prospective study. Moms were selected based on the profiles of 3 types of youth – those with ASD, those with DD, and a general population (GP) control group with neither condition. The researchers then set out to examine if there were links between the maternal metabolic conditions and these three groups of kids. So keep in mind here that this is a statistical test of association, not a more controlled experimental test that can, if you will, “prove” the associations. These kinds of studies are critical first steps to determine if future research is warranted – and not the last steps that convince the scientific community that there is a causative process at play. What Did They Find? Keeping all of the above in mind (you have to in order to make sense of the results), the study did find a statistical link between a mother’s report of having any of the metabolic conditions and the odds of having a child diagnosed with ASD and DD. It was a moderate statistical finding (meaning statistically significant but clearly not the only factor that contributes risk for ASD and DD). To give you a sense of the data, here are the percentages of mothers with a metabolic condition, broken down by youth diagnosis: ASD: 28.6% of the mothers DD: 34.9% of the mothers GP: 19.4% of the mothers So you can see how this is a moderate statistical link – for example: 1) the majority of moms of kids with ASD did not have any metabolic conditions, 2) almost 20% of the moms of kids from the general population control group did have a metabolic condition; and 3) the finding comes from the somewhat elevated rates in the ASD and DD groups compared to the GP group. More fine-grained analyses showed that obesity in particular was associated with ASD (after controlling for other factors) – but that diabetes had an effect on a number of cognitive and social outcomes. What’s The Take-Home Message? There are two messages from my point of view. First, from the perspective of science, the study authors devote most of their attention in their discussion of the results on the biological mechanisms by which maternal diabetes – not maternal obesity – may impact brain development in babies. This is an important avenue for future research and a key contribution from the study. Second, from the perspective of being a prospective parent, the real take-home is that management of maternal metabolic conditions is not only critically important for a number of health outcomes, but also for promoting brain development in the early years of life. Rather than focusing on metabolic conditions as “causes” of disorders, it’s probably better advised to consider them as modifiable influences on development. Maternal obesity is important in this sense because it is one of many factors associated with diabetes – though keep in mind that gestational diabetes can of course occur without obesity. Diabetes – whether in place prior to pregnancy or occurring during pregnancy – is important because it might have biological influences on brain development. So this study just reinforces the bigger message that I hope everyone is aware of – that pregnant women should get vigilant care for potential or existing metabolic conditions during pregnancy, especially diabetes. It’s critical for the well-being of both mom and baby.

Susan Cashion Status: Specialty: Range: Deceased Mexican, Caribbean, Latin American, modern Dr. Susan V. Cashion was born on April 20, 1943 in Pasadena, California. She was a former Stanford University dance director and a key figure in the development of the Mexican folkloric dance movement in California specializing in dances of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Dr. Cashion was the recipient of two Fulbright grants, one to Mexico and one to Chile, and an American Association of University Women Fellowship. She received recognition from the Mexican government for contributions to Mexican culture and folklore in the United States. She was a former President of the California Dance Educators Association, member of the Board of Directors for Congress on Research in Dance, and Artistic Director of the Grupo Folklorico Los Decanos. In conjunction with longtime partner Ramón Morones she founded the Los Lupeños de San José Mexican Dance Company in 1969, which in its heyday in the 1970s enjoyed a reputation as the elite folkloric dance group in California. She was the dance coordinator of the Wenatchee Mariachi Festival in 2001. She was a teacher of Dance Anthropology, Modern dance, Mexican dance, and Latin American dance forms at Stanford. She helped establish the first national organization of Mexican folkloric dance groups, the Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos, which holds annual conferences. Dr. Cashion received her Ph.D. in Education (Stanford University, 1983), MA in Anthropology (Stanford University, 1982), and MA in Dance (UCLA, 1967). In 1980, she received an award from the Mexican government "for significant contributions to the culture and teaching of Mexican folklore in the Unites States of America." Cashion and Morones planned to retire to Cashion's ranch in the Jalisco state of Mexico, but in 2011, Morones was shot and killed on the ranch, reportedly during an argument with an employee. After Morones' death Cashion returned to the San Francisco Bay area and became the co-artistic director of Los Lupe#241;os. Upon here retirement from Stanford in 2007, Cashion founded a nonprofit organization called the Cashion Cultural Legacy, dedicated to preserving and archiving Mexican dance and culture. Some of Dr. Cashion's publications are Dance ritual and cultural values in a Mexican village: festival of Santo Santiago. Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1983, 360p. "Mexican dance: early 19th century." Proceedings, 1991, 14th, p. 178. Son and Jarabe, The: Mestizo dance forms of Jalisco, Mexico. M.A. Thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1967, 121p. Susan died on August 29, 2013 after being struck by a commuter train in Palo Alto, California and is survived by a brother, Michael. By the time of her death, her name had become well known among the widespread folklórico dance groups throughout the West and Southwest.

MicrocephalyMicrocefalia What is microcephaly? Microcephaly is a condition that is present at birth in which the baby's head is much smaller than normal for an infant of that age and gender. Micro means small and cephaly refers to the head. Most children with microcephaly also have a small brain and intellectual disability. However, some children with small heads have normal intelligence. What causes microcephaly? Microcephaly is either caused by exposure to harmful substances during the fetal development, or it may be associated with genetic problems or syndromes that may have a tendency to run in families. Theories suggest that the following may predispose a fetus to problems that affect the normal development of the head during pregnancy: Exposure to hazardous chemicals or substances Methylmercury poisoning Lack of proper vitamins and nutrients in the diet Cytomegalovirus, rubella, or varicella infection Prescription or illegal drug and alcohol consumption Untreated phenylketonuria Microcephaly can occur alone or in association with other health problems, and may occur from inheritance of an autosomal recessive, or rarely, an autosomal dominant gene. Acquired microcephaly may occur after birth due to various brain injuries such as lack of oxygen or infection. Autosomal recessive and autosomal dominant are two patterns in which genes are inherited in a family. Genes determine our traits, such as eye color and blood type, and can also cause disease. Autosomal means that both males and females are equally affected. Recessive means that two copies of the gene, one inherited from each parent, are necessary to have the condition (in this case, microcephaly). After parents have had one child with autosomal recessive microcephaly, there is a 25 percent chance, or one in four chance, with each pregnancy, to have another child with microcephaly. What are the symptoms of microcephaly? The following are the most common symptoms of microcephaly. However, each child may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include: Appearance of the baby's head is very small High-pitched cry Increased movement of the arms and legs (spasticity) The symptoms of microcephaly may resemble other conditions or medical problems. Always consult your child's doctor for a diagnosis. How is microcephaly diagnosed? Microcephaly may be diagnosed before birth by prenatal ultrasound, a diagnostic imaging technique that uses high-frequency sound waves and a computer to create images of blood vessels, tissues, and organs. Ultrasounds are used to view internal organs as they function, and to assess blood flow through various vessels. In many cases, microcephaly may not be evident by ultrasound until the third trimester and, therefore, may not be seen on ultrasounds performed earlier in pregnancy. The diagnosis of microcephaly may be made at birth or later in infancy. The baby's head circumference is much smaller than normal. During the physical examination, the doctor obtains a complete prenatal and birth history of the child. In older babies and children, the doctor may also ask if there is a family history of microcephaly or other medical problems. The doctor will also ask about developmental milestones since microcephaly can be associated with other problems, such as intellectual disability. Developmental delays may require further medical follow-up for underlying problems. A measurement of the circumference of the child's head is taken and compared to a scale that can identify normal and abnormal ranges. Diagnostic tests that may be performed to confirm the diagnosis of microcephaly and identify abnormalities in the brain include: Head circumference. This measurement is compared with a scale for normal growth and size. X-ray. A diagnostic test which uses invisible electromagnetic energy beams to produce images of internal tissues, bones, and organs onto film. Computed tomography scan (also called a CT or a CAT scan). A diagnostic imaging procedure that uses a combination of X-rays and computer technology to produce horizontal, or axial, images (often called slices) of the body. A CT scan shows detailed images of any part of the body, including bones, muscles, fat, and organs. CT scans are more detailed than general X-rays. Lifelong considerations for a child with microcephaly There is no treatment for microcephaly that will return the baby's head to a normal size or shape. Since microcephaly is a lifelong condition that is not correctable, management includes focusing on preventing or minimizing deformities and maximizing the child's capabilities at home and in the community. Positive reinforcement will encourage the child to strengthen his or her self-esteem and promote as much independence as possible. The full extent of the problem is usually not completely understood immediately after birth, but may be revealed as the child grows and develops. Children born with microcephaly require frequent examinations and diagnostic testing by their doctor to monitor the development of the head as the child grows. The medical team works hard with the child's family to provide education and guidance to improve the health and well-being of the child. Genetic counseling may be recommended by the doctor to provide information on the recurrence risks for the disorder and any available testing.

: In reply to a really old thread. : : : I read somewhere that the expression "jerry-built" referred to German (Jerry) products made shortly after WW1 when they were understandably poorly made. I wondered if anyone else had come across this explanation which is evidently incorrect as the expression is known to have been used since 1869 and seems to have other more convincing origins. Comments? : I had thought it was related to Gerrymandering dating back to the 1812 Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry who crafted political districts to his suiting. So that Gerrymandering was linked to Gerry Rigging. Meaning to rig something to your liking, thought not necessarily correctly, the way the Governor did. Some more theories, also from the archives: JERRY-BUILT - "The cheap, flimsy constructs of a Mr. Jerry of the Jerry Bros. of Liverpool may have inspired the word 'jerry-built.' 'Jerry-built' could also be connected with the trembling, crumbling walls of Jerico; the prophet Jeremiah, because he foretold decay; the word 'jelly,' symbolizing the instability of such structures; or the Gypsy word 'gerry,' for 'excrement.' Still another theory suggests a corruption of 'jerry-mast,' a name sailors and shipbuilders gave to makeshift wooden masts midway through the last century. Jerry-masts or rigs derive their name from the French 'jour,' 'day,' indicating their temporary nature." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

Real analysis differentiation of a real function defined by a matrix 1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data Suppose A is a real nxn matrix and f: R^n --> R is definted by f(v)=v^tAv (where v^t denotes the transpose of v). Prove that the derivative of f satisfies (f'(v))(w) = v^t (A+A^t)w 2. Relevant equations 3. The attempt at a solution I'm kinda lost here and I really don't know where to start. I know I have to show that the derivative "is" the linear map v^t(A+A^t) but I think the transpose is confusing me. Thanks in advance! Re: Real analysis differentiation of a real function defined by a matrix The key things to remember are . The differentiation rules . Every 1x1 matrix is its own transpose I'm not sure why you didn't think of simply trying to apply the differentiation rules to vTAv. Isn't that normally the first thing you think of for a differentiation problem?

Really? So where does that money come from? They just happen to charge the students less than what it costs to educate them? You know, it's quite possible that med schools don't have much of a profit margin. That's because they need real doctors to teach. Med school professors easily make 2-3 times as much as equally qualified and experienced physics/engineering professors. They need to be paid that much because, otherwise, it would be more profitable for them to leave academia. So we're back to the original question, why is it that doctors are paid better than engineers? Cost of education is a consequence, not a cause. Despite exorbitant costs, people pile into med schools at such a rate that most of those schools have acceptance rates in single percentages (at most one in ten applicants is offered admission in most schools). It's harder to get into the med school at the University of South Alabama than it is to get into MIT. Clearly, there's a bottleneck somewhere that keeps the number of med students low, and, consequently, their potential salaries high. Imagine if there were a federal regulation that required you to have a government-issued permit in order to write code. Further, imagine that the government issued 10,000 of those every year to graduates of a small number of elite colleges and eligible immigrants. Finally, imagine that it isn't possible to outsource, and every line of code that has to be written, must be written by a licensed U.S. resident. How much would such licensed programmers make? A lot more than today, you can be sure of that. What's the nature of that bottleneck with regard to doctors? It's called "residency". In most states, all doctors have to work at least one year as hospital residents before they are permitted to practice medicine on their own. The number of available residency positions has been virtually flat, at around 24,000, for the last couple of decades. Medical schools are interested in making sure that all their graduates are employed, therefore they keep the number of students low enough for all of them to find residency spots upon graduation. DrJD Dec26-09, 03:45 PM P: 17 Just to give you an idea of the differences between an engineers training and a medical doctors. Engineer - 4 years of Undergrad (many stop here) 1 year for masters (Most stop here) So 5 years after high school you begin earning your salary of 50 thousand, and start working your way up. Medical doctor - 4 years of Undergrad 4 years of Medical school. 3 to 7 years of Residency making 42 thousand a year. So an MD doesnt start earning money until 11 to 15 years after high school. So on average an engineer has a 6 year head start. Not to mention debt load. Most people I know personally will have at least 300 thousand in students loans from medical school, that has accumulated around 75 thousand in interest during residency. So MD's start 6 to 10 years later with an extra 375 thousand in debt. So just in order to attract anyone to the field, salaries have to be high. I definitely think part of it is the importance of saving lives, but a big part is just numbers. berkeman Dec26-09, 04:05 PM Mentor I think it was alluded to earlier in the thread, but I'll just highlight that it's more likely for an engineer to be able to make a lot of money at a startup company, compared to an MD. There are certainly medical startups, so MDs can make money at them also. But there are many more startups that are staffed by engineers. Of course, the engineers that end up at startups are the cream of the crop, highly trained and motivated, and so on. But it's still a good and reasonable goal, IMO, for engineers to strive to make it to the level where they are attractive to a startup company, or able to start their own company themselves. Quote by DrJD Medical doctor - 4 years of Undergrad 4 years of Medical school. 3 to 7 years of Residency making 42 thousand a year. So an MD doesnt start earning money until 11 to 15 years after high school. So on average an engineer has a 6 year head start. Not to mention debt load. Most people I know personally will have at least 300 thousand in students loans from medical school, that has accumulated around 75 thousand in interest during residency. So MD's start 6 to 10 years later with an extra 375 thousand in debt. Virtually no one (except maybe neurosurgeons) spends 7 years in residency. Most doctors are done in 3 years. The average debt of a graduating medical student before residency is around 150k. On top of that, 30-40k in interest will accrue during residency. So just in order to attract anyone to the field, salaries have to be high. I definitely think part of it is the importance of saving lives, but a big part is just numbers. but I'll just highlight that it's more likely for an engineer to be able to make a lot of money at a startup company, compared to an MD. There are certainly medical startups, so MDs can make money at them also. But there are many more startups that are staffed by engineers. I'll take a steady $300,000/year job over the chance of winning a startup lottery any day of the week. You have to be lucky just to be in a startup that succeeds (because most of them flop). You have to be in from the beginning, otherwise you get very little equity. And even if you win, you have to pay taxes through the nose (in California, 26% AMT + 9.3% state tax). Some concrete numbers. In 2004-07, there was an average of 160 IPO's per year in the United States. There were almost no IPOs in 2001-03, and again since 2008. Let's assume that, for every IPO, there was one acquisition of a private startup. I'm going to guess that each IPO created an average of ten engineer-millionaires and ten management-type-millionaires. That's 12 thousand engineers turned millionaires in ten years, across all engineering specialties (software, hardware, telecom, ...) BLS says that there are 857,000 computer software engineers and 291,000 electrical/electronics engineers in the country. It's not luck. Good research numbers, though. And I agree 100% about the tax fairy. I think it is humerous that you chose to refute on such minor points are are wrong to boot! Most doctors are done in 3 years? The only specialty that is 3 years is Internal Medicine, of which many graduates go on to fellowship for 1 to 3 years. Family medicine, Dermatology, Ob/Gyn, etc. are 4 years. Radiology, General Surgery, ENT, Urology, etc. etc. are 5 years. Suffice it to say that most people spend 4 or more years as PGY's... You are right that the quoted average is 150k, but naive in accepting it. It includes students whose parents paid for their school. As in, when you take the average of a set of debt values and with a bunch of zeros in the mix, what will that do to the average? Oh also, that number doesn't include any debt accrued from undergraduate or from other graduate degrees. So if you'd like to naively accept that value, cool, but nobody should. Look up the cost of attendance each year at ANY private medical school in the country. You'll likely see tuition around 40 thousand, with cost of living between 12 and 20. So on the low end, you are talking about 200 thousand from just medical school. (Plus the 50 from undergrad...) And you are right about acceptance rates, thus my saying that medical school is extremely competitive to get in to. Also a faulty use of statistics though. Did you happen to look up the overall statistics for medical school admissions? Around 50% of those who apply get accepted. You know all those people who aren't in the 2.5% that are accepted to Stanford? Well they get in at one of the other medical schools in the country. So don't throw around an individual medical schools acceptance data in order to give the impression that people are swarming in droves to attend medical school. The best schools in ANY field are competitive. The point of my original post was not to put down engineers. My brother and my dad are both engineers. However, there is no arguing that in order to make up for both initial investment and time lost, physician salaries have to be higher in order to continue to attract the caliber of doctor that you want taking care of your grandmother. I agree with DrJD about the time in. Most of the radiation oncologists I know had a 5 year residency and I believe that's usually followed with a fellowship. Plus, if you account for things like maternity, time off for travel, sickness, research, etc. I don't think 7 years would be all that uncommon. I disagree that the high salaries are there necessarily to attract high caliber doctors, although, that does play a part in it. Salary is all about negotiation. Medical doctors are notoriously good collective negotiators, thanks in large part to the trump cards they hold. One of those cards is what DrJD and others have explained - that there is a tremendous time and finanacial investment required. (It's not surprising that this, on its own, doesn't fly in a forum frequented by post-docs.) But this is a valid point. Substantial investment needs to yield substantial reward. Another card is responsibility. Medical doctors traditionally assume ultimate responsibility in the health care system. They're the ones who sign the prescriptions. They're the ones who get sued when mistakes are made. They're the ones who are subject to committee investigations. In contrast, engineers most often work under the umbrella of a corporate entity. If a bridge collapses, the company that built it gets sued, rarely the individual engineers. (And really, who get's sued when Windows Vista doesn't work?) Another trump card is professionalism, which has a lot of faces. Medicine is largely a self-regulated profession. It has historically established itself at the top of the medical professions hierarchy. It has even legislated itself so many responsibilities there will always be a demand for doctors. As others have pointed out it even controls (to an extent) the supply of new doctors. Another trump card is the legal restriction of medical practices, such as the prescription of drugs, or even the ability to make a diagnosis. Paramedics and nurse practioners are perhaps infringing on this territory a little, but the fact of the matter is that just about everyone needs (arguably) a prescription for a medication at some point and medical doctors are really the only ones who can do that. If you constrast that with engineers, you can have Joe Blow off the street design, build and repair your product, and do all the heavy lifting so long as you have the work inspected and signed by certified engineers at the critical points. If I needed an engineer to inspect my car and sign off on it every time I needed to change the oil, things might be different. Most doctors are done in 3 years? The only specialty that is 3 years is Internal Medicine, of which many graduates go on to fellowship for 1 to 3 years. This link shows 3 years in family medicine and pediatrics. Internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics taken together already give you around 50% of all doctors. And you are right about acceptance rates, thus my saying that medical school is extremely competitive to get in to. Also a faulty use of statistics though. Did you happen to look up the overall statistics for medical school admissions? Around 50% of those who apply get accepted. 44% is the most recent figure. It means that we can easily increase the number of doctors by 50%, possibly by 100%, if we get rid of the residency bottleneck. Even that overall acceptance rate is almost unheard of. If you want to study engineering, there are schools that will accept you and put up only modest prerequisites (or, in case of University of Phoenix, no prerequisites at all) - as long as you pay money. If you want to study law, GPA 3.0 and a perfect LSAT score are likely to get you into a top-14 law school, such as Duke or Cornell. In medicine, GPA 3.0 and a perfect MCAT score mean 50/50 chance of not getting ANYWHERE, including Sticksville Medical College. I can't think of any field of study where the majority of applicants are unable to get into any school, even if they are willing to pay. And, of course, the acceptance rate would've been even lower if not for this massive debt load. It's all part of the AMA conspiracy to keep the number of doctors artificially low and their pay artificially high. I have some more numbers for you. I know an engineer who actually won the startup lottery. He was an employee number forty-something in a startup company. When he got the job, he was given a stock option grant with a four-year vesting period (meaning, he had to work there for four years consecutively to get all the stock). For a while it looked as if the company would fold, but they persevered and, eventually, the company went public, with the market cap in nine figures. On the day of the IPO, his initial stock grant was worth approximately 150 thousand dollars. Pre-tax. Closer to 100 post-tax. Most engineers who came after him had half or a quarter as much. Some people had more (sometimes a lot more) even though they came into the company later, but they weren't engineers - they had MBA's, law degrees, bachelors degrees in finance. I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but again you are misreading the data about residencies. Family medicine and Pediatrics are a three year residency, AFTER a 1 year internship. So in PGY (post graduate years), Internal medicine is the only one that is three years, while Family medicine and Pediatrics are both 4 years, like I originally said. Engineering, Law School, etc are good examples of getting into school easily, I agree. However, I don't agree with your point. All careers have a bottleneck, it is just where it is placed. If you don't graduate from a top 20 law school, you are going to have a hard time getting a good job. With engineering, the bottleneck is with employers who don't want to hire a university of Phoenix graduate. With medicne, the bottleneck is with medical schools, so once you are in, you are gauranteed a job. All of these are the same situation. Personally, I'd rather be bottelnecked before going 250 thousand in debt, rather than after. Also, just because all of those people apply to medical school, doesn't mean they would make good doctors. So you saying that we can increase the number of doctors simply because we have people that are willing isn't a very good idea. When my wife, or kids, get sick, I want to take them to the best doctor possible. I know you would feel the same way. Also, I think for your medical school example you meant to say 4.0 GPA and perfect MCAT. You are actually not correct there either. The average GPA and acceptance to medical school overall hovers right around 3.7 and a 30 or 31 MCAT. So statistics disagree with you. The half of people who aren't getting into medical school are those who have lower credentials. Last year, the average GPA and MCAT for those that applied but weren't accepted were right around 3.4 and 27... You are right too, there aren't any other careers that are this hard to get into for schooling. But not many other careers handle life and death decisions on a day to day basis. You are right too, there aren't any other careers that are this hard to get into for schooling. But not many other careers handle life and death decisions on a day to day basis. That all depends on what you're going for. I think it's misleading to talk about careers within a field like they are all the same. Within different fields there are a range of careers with a range of competition. There are plenty of engineering jobs that are harder to get and are higher paid than most jobs in medicine. All engineering jobs are not the same. All medical jobs are not the same. All business jobs... etc. A career as a fortune 500 CEO is harder to get and higher paying than a career in medicine. There are also more engineer CEOs than MD CEOs. Of course things aren't directly comparable, but I don't think it's helpful to classify things so broadly as engineers vs doctors. It's most certainly not the case that a 3.8 engineering student will be guaranteed a higher salary or more responsibility if they go to medical school. martharon Quote by dE_logics Problem is when it comes to saving lives or curing themselves, people don't want to compromise...they want the best they can afford; as a result you get lots of money in the medical field. very true i too feel the same no one is ready to compromise one's health rather they are ready to cut short their other expenses and other things related to it. this is the reason why medical field is having this much money Ben Espen I think kote is on to something, the range of the ability distributions of engineers and doctors are not the same. Broadly speaking, you could probably say that the distribution of ability amongst engineers is wider than for doctors. In a general way, people with greater abilities make more money and have more responsibility. If there were a scale you could use for this, then perhaps you could compare skilled engineers with equally skilled doctors, but this would be very difficult to do. In practice, it is wise to think of how skilled you are in a profession, if you could only an average doctor, but an excellent engineer, it would be better to be an engineer than a doctor. FWIW, an IPO is not the predominant way to become rich from starting your own company. Probably the more common path is a larger company buys the IP and perhaps the facilities of a successful startup. Much more common. Mar13-10, 12:26 AM P: 3 4 years of Medical school. 3 to 7 years of Residency making 42 thousand a year. So an MD doesnt start earning money until 11 to 15 years after high school. First off, for most universities, an engineering curriculum usually has 10-12 more credit hours than any other school within the university. That's almost a semester more than any other major. Also, it takes the average student 4.5 - 5 years to graduate with an engineering degree because the material they learn is complex, even compared to Med school. And since when do you get your masters in 1 year? It usually takes 2-2.5 years for the average person to get their masters. So you're looking at about 6.5 years of schooling for engineers versus 8 years of schooling for doctors. Most engineering companies require you to have internship experience. And you also make it seem like $42,000 isn't money... 3-7 years of residency/fellowship is getting paid. They just get a huge raise/promotion after their residency. First off, for most universities, an engineering curriculum usually has 10-12 more credit hours than any other school within the university. That's almost a semester more than any other major. Also, it takes the average student 4.5 - 5 years to graduate with an engineering degree because the material they learn is complex, even compared to Med school. There are so many points to address with this post so I'll do my best to take them in order. 1) You can't make the argument that it takes on average engineers 5 years to graduate. That is a general trend amongst all college majors, including the biggest feeder to medical school, Biology. So you'd have to add a year to both. 2) My brother graduated from UCLA with a bachelors in Engineering after 4 years, and then got his masters from UC Davis in one year. He then started working at over 50 thousand a year for a 40 hour work week. This is before he has taken his PE, so this would be like the"internship" you talked about. 3) In medical school education, you have 4-5 years of undergrad and then 4years of medical school no exceptions. If you want to compare you have to look at the amount of money per hour not total per year. Yes the 50 thousand for an engineer after 5 years of education seems to be close to the 42 thousand after 8 years, however, what about per hour? The engineer is making $24.03 per hours. During the 3 to 5 year medical residency they are making $10.09 per hour. That is a HUGE difference. Not to mention that many of the 80 hours worked by a residency take place in 24to 36 hour shifts. Please note I am not putting down the training an engineer receives, I have a great deal of respect for all engineers. But the education, sacrifice and training doesn't compare to that of medical education. Of course, the end salary of medical doctors tends to be a little bit higher than engineers so that helps many medical students deal with the abuse for 12 years of their adult lives. Starting salaries for engineers with bachelor's degrees at large US corporations are in a tight range around $60k now. ABET accredited engineering degrees are designed to be completed in 4 years. Taking time off to work at an internship can hardly count as time added to the major. Many (most?) master's programs are 10 courses and can be completed in 3 semesters, or one year. Some can be completed in 2 semesters. Even longer programs can typically be completed in a year. Stanford requires 15 courses, and their curriculum is designed to be completed in 3-4 quarters. Mar13-10, 03:17 PM P: 3 1) You can't make the argument that it takes on average engineers 5 years to graduate. That is a general trend amongst all college majors, including the biggest feeder to medical school, Biology. So you'd have to add a year to both. 2) My brother graduated from UCLA with a bachelors in Engineering after 4 years, and then got his masters from UC Davis in one year. He then started working at over 50 thousand a year for a 40 hour work week. This is before he has taken his PE, so this would be like the"internship" you talked about. 3) In medical school education, you have 4-5 years of undergrad and then 4years of medical school no exceptions. If you want to compare you have to look at the amount of money per hour not total per year. Yes the 50 thousand for an engineer after 5 years of education seems to be close to the 42 thousand after 8 years, however, what about per hour? The engineer is making $24.03 per hours. During the 3 to 5 year medical residency they are making $10.09 per hour. That is a HUGE difference. Not to mention that many of the 80 hours worked by a residency take place in 24to 36 hour shifts. Please note I am not putting down the training an engineer receives, I have a great deal of respect for all engineers. But the education, sacrifice and training doesn't compare to that of medical education. Of course, the end salary of medical doctors tends to be a little bit higher than engineers so that helps many medical students deal with the abuse for 12 years of their adult lives. 1) Well, like I said, engineering degrees (most of the time) requires more credit hours and it's usually from a semester to a year more worth of credits. 2) UCLA, UC Davis? Did your brother get a job in California just above $50,000? That's ridiculous, he is getting underpaid as an engineer especially with a masters degree. And no, that is not the internship I'm talking about. Internships should be taking place during your junior/senior year of your undergraduate program and into your graduate program if you choose to get your masters. 3) So in the end, using the same time period: Doctors = 5 years undergrad + 4 years med school + 3 years residency = 12 years training making roughly $150,000+ a year. Senior Engineers = 5 years undergrad (while an intern) + 2 years masters (while an intern) + 5 years experience = 12 years training making roughly $100,000+ a year.

H2O2 dip Can I dip floating plants directly into peroxide and then put them back into the tank? Trying to get rid of some string algae in one of my kids tanks. If so how long a dip and how much peroxide? The stronger the leaf the stronger H2O2 is OK, or the longer you can leave it in the dip. Finer or softer leaves will not tolerate it for so long, or at so strong a dilution. I would start with the most leathery leafed plant (for example, Anubias) and perhaps just pull off one leaf, one that has the most algae. Similarly, pull off a leaf from one of the most delicate plants, and a sprig of moss. Maybe put them in a mesh bag to keep them together. Dip these test parts in pure (3%) H2O2 for 5 minutes and then toss 'em back into the tank. See what happens over the next 24-48 hours. Even though the leaf is detached from the plant it will not deteriorate that fast. Any damage you see will be from the H2O2. If the algae is dead and the leaf is OK, then that is one end of the limit. If some of the sample parts did not stand up to that test, then retest, using 50% of the H2O2 + 50% water. Same 5 minutes. If that keeps the leaf alive, but maybe the algae did not die, maybe you need to use 50/50 for 10 minutes. Keep on juggling dilutions and durations until the leaves are OK, and the algae dies. ------------------------------------------------------ Here is another guide, then my comments added below: The fish in an aquarium are generally unharmed when the H2O2 (3%) is added at the rate of 1 ml per gallon, and some people have found that even 1.5 ml per gallon is OK. By the time the dose reaches 2 ml per gallon the fish are not happy. So... if you want to use a syringe (no needle) and squirt little bits of H2O2 into the full tank, aimed right at the algae, use no more than 1.5 ml per gallon. But if you want to drain the tank until the algae is exposed you can squirt pure (3%) H2O2 on the algae infested plants while the plants are in the air. Wait for the bubbling to cease then refill the tank. The bubbling allows the oxygen to escape to the air so when you refill most of the H2O2 is deactivated. My comment: The species of plants were not specified, but it sounds like pure H2O2 for 5 minutes is a good place to start. I am almost sure this was a treatment for BBA. I do not think the species of algae is important. If the H2O2 will kill it, that is what you will find out with a test leaf.

Quotations from The Sound of Music The Sound of Music is a biographical family musical drama film about a woman who becomes a governess for a widowed Austrian Navy Captain's seven children. The governess, Maria, takes up the job after being warned that the children have been known to be trouble makers. Previous governesses only lasted a few months, if even that long. Nonetheless, the governess is determined and brings song and laughter to the children, which eventually win them over. Needless to say, the background of the film is before WWII, during Hitler's rise to power in Europe. The film ends with the annexation of Austria. Directed by Robert Wise. Starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, and Richard Haydn. The Sound of Music had great success at the box office and has continued to be successful through television showings and DVD sales. The movie won five Oscar awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. It was nominated for five other awards, including Best Actress. However, the film does have some historical inaccuracies, but it is an entertainment musical, so what can we expect? Continue reading for some The Sound of Music quotes. Captain von Trapp: It's the dress. You'll have to put on another one before you meet the children. Maria: But I don't have another one. When we entered the abbey our worldly clothes were given to the poor. Captain von Trapp: What about this one? Maria: The poor didn't want this one. Mother Abbess: Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live. Captain von Trapp: Oh, there's nothing wrong with the children. Only the governesses. Sister Margaretta: After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm. Herr Zeller: I've not asked you where you and your family are going. Nor have you asked me why I am here. Captain von Trapp: Well, apparently, we're both suffering from a deplorable lack of curiosity. Kurt: Only grown-up men are scared of women. Captain von Trapp: You are the twelfth in a long line of governesses who have come here to look after my children since their mother died. I trust you will be an improvement on the last one. She stayed only two hours. The Baroness: You're far away. Where are you? Captain von Trapp: In a world that's disappearing, I'm afraid. Kurt: I haven't had so much fun since the day we put glue on Fräulein Josephine's toothbrush. Marta: I'm Marta, and I'm going to be seven on Tuesday, and I'd like a pink parasol. Maria: Well. pink's my favorite color, too.

“JFK’s Pacific Swim”August 1962 “Keira & The Zombies”2014 & The 1960s “Moondog Alan Freed”1951-1965 “Bednarik-Gifford Lore”Football: 1950s-1960s “Celebrity Gifford”1950s-2000s “The Saddest Song”1936-2013 “Kennedy History”Ten Stories:1954-2013 “JFK’s Early Campaign”1959 “Civil Rights Topics”14 Selected Stories “U2′s MLK Songs”1984 “1960s Girl Groups”1958-1966 “JFK’s Texas Statue”Fort Worth: 2012 “1930s Super Girl”Babe Didrikson They weren’t the only computer inventors at the time, certainly, but Jobs and Wozniak helped set off a technological transformation that would reach into all kinds of industries, setting the tone and tenor for much economic growth and popular culture to come. Business, education, entertainment – and a lot more – would never be quite the same again. Their story, and that of early Apple, Inc., is one worth revisiting, especially as the personal technology revolution continues to spawn new developments almost daily. The “early Apple” story marks one of those pivot points in history that reminds us how far our modern world has come in recent years – and how fast things have changed and continue to change. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in their garage working on their early computer technologies, 1975.“Homebrew” Days Steve Wozniak was born in 1950; Steve Jobs in 1955. They both attended Homestead High School of Los Altos, California, though at different times, and would later become fast friends. Wozniak had gone off to University of California at Berkeley but later dropped out and took a job at Hewlett-Packard as an engineer. Jobs and Wozniak first met at Hewlett-Packard in 1971 through a mutual friend when Jobs was 16 and Wozniak 21. While in high school, Jobs had also attended lectures at Hewlett-Packard and had a summer job there once as well. He and “Woz,” as Wozniak was called, built and sold a device called a “blue box” that could hack AT&T’s long-distance network so that phone calls could be made for free. After high school, Jobs went off to Oregon’s Reed College in 1972, but when his family faced financial difficulty in 1974, he quit college and took a job designing video games at Atari. He took the job at Atari primarily to save money for a trip to India where he went for spiritual enlightenment. An Apple I computer with a custom-built wood housing with keyboard. In the fall of 1974, after Jobs returned from India, Wozniak invited him to join the ‘Homebrew Computer Club’ in Palo Alto, a group of electronics-enthusiasts who met at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. This group shared knowledge and helped each other with their ongoing projects. Jobs had also returned to his previous job at Atari, where he was given the task of creating a circuit board for a new game – and challenged to do so with the least number of chips possible. Jobs was no whiz with circuit board design and decided to enlist the help of Wozniak in the task, who demonstrated his genius by reducing the number of needed chips by 50, a significant accomplishment – and a talent not lost on Jobs. It was about that time that Jobs and Wozniak agreed to begin working on a personal computer together. Jobs was no whiz with circuit board design and decided to enlist the help of Wozniak, who soon demonstrated his genius… In 1975, they began work on what would become Apple I computer – essentially a circuit board – in Jobs’ bedroom. Along the way, they made little bits of technological history. In June of that year, for example, Wozniak typed a character on a keyboard and it appeared on a TV screen – believed to be the first time this happened. They also continued to present their work and designs at the Homebrew Computer Club. During the design process Jobs made suggestions that helped shape the final product, such as the use of the newer dynamic random access memory (RAM) chips instead of older, more expensive and static versions. By 1976, chiefly by Wozniak’s hand, they had a small, easy-to-use computer – smaller than a portable typewriter. In technical terms, this was the first single-board, microprocessor-based microcomputer. It included a central processing unit (CPU), RAM, and basic textual-video chips. Wozniak’s compact little circuit board could do the feats of much larger computers and it was first shown at the Homebrew Computer Club. Jobs and Wozniak then took their new computer to the companies they were familiar with – Hewlett-Packard and Atari – but neither saw much demand for a “personal” computer. Sitting in Jobs’ bedroom in Los Altos, California, Jobs proposed that he and Wozniak start their own company to sell the devices. They agreed to go for it and set up shop in the Jobs’ family garage. Early print advertisement for an ‘Apple 1' computer – essentially a circuit board with ability to connect to keyboard and “tape interface” or TV monitor. By April 1976, Jobs and Wozniak had their first order for the “Apple I” computer – a fully assembled circuit board containing about 30 chips. This computer lacked certain basic finished features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case, but they could all be added. The core technology, however, was the important part. A local computer store, the ‘Byte Shop,’ ordered 50 of the new Apple-I creations. By then, Apple had a third partner, named Ronald Wayne. Facing a cash flow problem to pay for enough parts to build the units to meet their first order – each costing about $100 to build – Jobs arranged a 30-day credit deal with a local supplier and the three Apple partners then assembled the 50 units at night in Jobs’ garage. They filled their first order in ten days. Two weeks later, their new partner Ronald Wayne, wasn’t so sure about what he’d gotten himself into, and decided to pull out of the venture. He was given $800 for his 10 percent stake in the company. Now it was just the “two Steves” at Apple. The Apple I, meanwhile, continued to be sold through several small retailers. It included the main circuit board with a tape-interface sold separately. It could use a TV as the display system, then showing only text. Many machines at that time had no display at all. With the Apple I, text appeared on screen then a fairly slow rate — 60 characters per second – but still faster than the teletypes of that era. The Apple I could also start up faster than other machines at that time, and had a cassette interface for loading and saving programs. Although simple, the machine was a masterpiece of design, using fewer parts than anything around, earning Wozniak high praise as a designer. An early print advertisement for the Apple I sings its praises in great detail with the punch line, “Byte into an Apple…” for $666.66. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in 1970s with the mother board of their Apple II computer.Apple II In the fall of 1976, Steve Wozniak was working on a newer version of their computer, which would become the Apple II. Jobs and Woz believed they were onto something that could become a major success, but they lacked the funds to produce it in quantity. They offered it to Commodore Computer Co., a leading tech company at the time, and one which had just bought the chip technology that Jobs and Woz were using in their Apples. But Commodore turned them down. Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula with a check for Apple financing in 1977. By November 1976, the two young entrepreneurs received some help from a chip industry veteran and ex-Intel manager named Mike Markkula, who helped Jobs write a business plan. Markkula’s plan predicted sales of $500 million for the new company in ten years. In 1977, Apple was incorporated and hired its first ad agency with Rob Janov then designing a new Apple logo (as shown above). A venture capitalist named Arthur Rock was also brought in, and Mike Markkula invested $92,000 in Apple for about a third ownership in the company. A bank loan of $250,000 was also obtained. About that time, Michael Scott was hired to become Apple’s first president, bringing professional management to the new company. With the help of Mike Markkula, Apple had secured $600,000 in venture funding. Steve Wozniak of Apple Computer, Inc. in the late 1970s with an Apple II model personal computer. Meanwhile, the Apple II computer was unveiled in April 1977 and began selling to the general public in June for $1,295. The Apple II was the first pre-assembled personal computer designed for the general market. It offered an attractive plastic case and came complete with standard keyboard, power supply, and color graphics capability. The Apple II allowed a wider range of people to begin using computers, focusing more on software applications and less on development of the processor hardware. The Apple II would become the first mass-marketed personal computer, and it took Apple to a new level of success. Programmers began creating applications for the Apple II at Jobs’ urging; soon there were more than 15,000 applications available for the machine. In 1977, Apple sales surged to $2.7 million. The Apple II with monitor and floppy drive mounted on computer box. The Apple II was mostly the product of Wozniak’s technical skills. But it was Jobs who made it a marketing success. He decided to create a fully-assembled PC board and encase it in an attractive plastic housing. They also wrote clear, concise instruction manuals that made the machine easy for consumers to use. Jobs also sought public relations help, and spent money on advertising to pitch the “personal computer.” Apple, in fact, was the first computer company to advertise in consumer magazines. The company’s early ads were rich with information and instruction on how to use the new technology. Apple, in many ways, served as one the first public “computer educators,” using its ads, brochures, and manuals to demystify computers and teach people how to use them. Two-page magazine ad for the Apple II computer that ran in “Scientific American,” September 1977. The 1977 magazine ad at left, for example, first explained that the Apple II was not a “kit,” as many early computers then were, aimed at tech-savvy hobbyists. The Apple II was “ready to use,” and could be linked to existing television sets or cassette players. It also had built-in features and the BASIC computer language to make life easier for the new user. The Apple II also had built-in memory and array of video graphics. But as Apple put it: “you don’t even need to know a RAM from a ROM to use and enjoy Apple II.” The ad also explained that users of the Apple II could store and retrieve their own data, could use it as a educational device to help tutor their children, or use it to play a video game called PONG, and with time, even invent their own games. “As you experiment you’ll acquire new programming skills which will open up new ways to use your Apple II,” said the ad. “You’ll learn to ‘paint’ dazzling color displays using the unique color graphics commands in Apple BASIC, and write programs to create beautiful kaleidoscopic designs. As you master Apple BASIC, you’ll be able to organize, index, and store data on household finance, income tax, recipes, and record collections….” And for technical-minded, the ad also included a sidebar with all the Apple II’s specifications. The Apple II – or more accurately, the Apple II series of computers – would prove to be a huge success for the young company, selling nearly six million units over the next 15 years. From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, Apple II computers, with various new improvements and peripheral devices, were released nearly every year or two. But the Apple story, technically and commercially, had a couple of key developments in the late 1970s that figured prominently in the company’s success and its future. One of these came in 1979 when a company named Software Arts, Inc., released VisiCalc, the first commercial spreadsheet program for personal computers. VisiCalc made desktop calculators and manual retabulation obsolete. Whole rows and columns of data could now be recalculated with the touch of a button. VisiCalc first ran exclusively on the Apple II, helping to send Apple computer sales through the roof. Also that year came the first commercially successful word-processing program for personal computers, called Word Star. But perhaps the biggest development for Apple in the late 1970s – though not bearing commercial fruit until the mid-1980s – was the deal it struck with Xerox. Visit to Xerox In the early 1970s, Xerox engineers at the Palo Alto Research Center in California – also known as Xerox PARC – had developed a computer they called the “Alto.” This computer used a pointing device called a “mouse” and also employed icons on a screen to represent documents – a combination that became known as “graphical user interface,” or GUI. This system would dramatically change personal computing, but not immediately. In fact, at Xerox in the 1970s it had gone nowhere as a commercial product. But that would soon change thanks to Apple. Steve Jobs and software engineer Bill Atkinson visited the Xerox PARC lab in November 1979, and about that time Apple made a deal with Xerox. In return for a “look see” at Xerox’s GUI system, Apple agreed to give Xerox a $1 million slice of its company. As part of the deal, Apple engineers then spent three days at the Xerox research center in December 1979 learning about GUI – which Apple would later refine in R&D and commercialize with great success in the 1980s in its Macintosh computers. But Apple wasn’t there yet, as this was still in the late 1970s. In fact, after Apple made its deal with Xerox, there would be years of research and development ahead. Apple had already begun two major computer research projects – the Lisa and the Macintosh – projects that would exploit the GUI approach to computing and revolutionize the PC business. But this would not happen for several years – and not fully until the mid-1980s. Meanwhile, out in the business world of the late 1970s, Apple was now approaching a $200-million-a-year company. Its Apple II computers were going great guns, supplying the backbone of the new company’s success. But for Apple, there was also new competition on the horizon. Office machine giant IBM had hired a young company named Microsoft, and was hatching a plan to enter the personal computer business. In May 1980, Apple launched another new computer for sale, the Apple III. This model offered twice the memory of Apple IIs and could run more powerful version of VisiCalc. Apple had begun to court the office market by this time; the company had noticed back in 1977 and 1978 that a large number of Apple IIs were going into offices. With the office market, profit margins were fatter and “word-of-mouth” spread about the technology was also better. As Jobs would later say: “I figured that we could sell five or ten times as many computers in the office if they were easy to use.” But generally, despite what had already transpired at Apple and other computer companies, the personal computer for most Americans was still pretty much a foreign concept. In fact, one magazine advertisement in 1980 ran the bold headline, “What’s a Personal Computer?” Advert “Education” Apple computer ad in ‘Scientific American,’ May 1980, suggests that smart, inventive, curious folks like Benjamin Franklin would want their own computers. Apple, for its part, continued to use its marketing and advertising to educate the public and the business community about personal computers. The full-page magazine ad at right, for example, ran in May 1980. It was pitched in part to the business office market. It featured an inquisitive Benjamin Franklin staring into a computer screen and asked: “What kind of man owns his own computer?” Apple, answering its own question in the body of the ad, explained: “Rather revolutionary, the whole idea of owning a personal computer? Not if you’re a diplomat, printer, scientist, inventor….or a kite designer. Today, there’s Apple Computer. It’s designed to be a personal computer. To uncomplicate your life and make you more effective. It’s a Wise Man Who Owns an Apple “If your time means money, Apple can help you make more of it. In an age of specialists, the most successful specialist stay away from uncreative drudgery. That’s where Apple comes in. “Apple is a real computer, right to the core. So just like big computers, it managers data, crunches numbers, keep records, processes your information and prints reports. You concentrate on what you do best. And let Apple do the rest…. Apple, the Computer Worth Not Waiting For. “Time waiting for access to your company’s big mainframe is time wastes. What you need in your own department – on your own desk – is a computer that answers only to you… Apple Computer. It’s less expensive that timesharing. More dependable than distributed processing. Far more flexible that centralized EDP. And at less that $2,500 (as shown), downright affordable….” Steve Jobs, early 1980s.Steve & Lisa Back at Apple, meanwhile, inside the company, Steve Jobs tried to take control of the Lisa research project, but was turned down by Apple president, Michael Scott, who knew that Jobs didn’t have the technical expertise to do the job. The Apple III computer – Jobs’ last project — had fared poorly and had some major technical flaws. A number of the Apple IIIs had to be recalled and retooled. Still, inside the company at about this time there was also a forward-looking optimism about the future of the PC business, and some Apple executives insisted their company lead the way. Apple president, Michael Scott, issued a kind of “practice-what-we-preach” memo to Apple’s staff – an ultimatum of sorts to demonstrate the utility of Apple computers and the future: “Effective Immediately!! No more typewriters are to be purchased, leased, etc., etc….Apple is an innovative company. We must believe and lead in all areas. If word processing is so neat, then let’s all use it! Goal: by 1-1-81, NO typewriters at Apple!…We believe the typewriter is obsolete. Let’s prove it inside before we try to convince our customers.” Apple the corporate entity, meanwhile, was about to begin a new chapter in its business history. By late 1980, Apple Computer had been a private company for three years. Apple’s partners decided to take their company to Wall Street and put Apple on the stock market, making it a publicly-held company. At the company’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) on December 12, 1980, Apple shares were offered to the general public at a price of $14 each. At the opening bell, the stock was priced $22 and sold all 4.6 million shares within minutes. Apple’s stock offering had generated more capital than Ford Motor’s had in 1956 and instantly created about 300 millionaires – more than any company in history up to that point. In its first day of trading Apple closed at $29, giving the company a market valuation of $1.778 billion. Apple’s stock offering had generated more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Co. in 1956 and instantly created about 300 millionaires at Apple – more than any company in history at the time. Several venture capitalists who had backed Apple early on, cashed out as well, reaping tens of millions. Of Apple’s 1,000 employees then, more than 40 became millionaires because of their stock options. Steve Jobs, holding 7.5 million shares, was worth about $217 million dollars. Steve Wozniak was assigned four million shares making his worth about $116 million dollars. Mike Markkula’s seven million shares of Apple were then valued at about $203 million. And those values would continue to rise with the company’s rising stock price, at least on paper. Within a year of the public offering, Apple’s value would rise by 1,700 percent ! Jobs would later summarize his early wealth in and interview for the PBS program, Triumph of the Nerds (1996) as follows: “I was worth over a million dollars when I was twenty-three, and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five… And it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.” Bill Atkinson, right, a key member of the Macintosh research program, begun in 1979, for which Steve Jobs, left, assumed leadership in 1981. Photo, Jan 1984. Inside Apple, meanwhile, things were changing. At the company’s first shareholder’s meeting in January 1981, there was some rough going for Jobs who had been interrupted in his speech, and according to some accounts, delivered a long, emotionally charged talk about betrayal and lack of respect. In February 1981, Steve Wozniak crashed a small plane he owned while taking off in Santa Cruz, California, suffered amnesia, and did not return to Apple for a time during his recovery. Wozniak also married during this period and finished his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley. Back inside the company, Steve Jobs took over the Macintosh project, while the rest of company focused on the Lisa computer. By July 1981 a staff shakeup had occurred with 40 employees let go. Mike Markkula then became president and Steve Jobs, chairman. Apple’s marketing and advertising, meanwhile, began reaching into new territory. Apple ad of 1981 pitching computers as the way to Thomas Edison-like inventiveness. Apple continued its print advertising in 1981 along the lines of ads similar to the Ben Franklin piece shown above. The Apple ads enlisted other historic figures to tell the Apple story and highlight features of its Apple II and III computer models. Some used themes around Henry Ford and the Model T, the inventiveness of Thomas Edison (ad at right), statesman and thinker Thomas Jefferson, and first-in-flight pioneer Orville Wright. Other Apple print ads used more contem- porary themes, many quite creative. (See “Apple Advertising and Brochure Gallery” at MacMother- ship.com in “sources” below for a full selection of Apple ads). But by the early 1980s, the first wave of TV commercials for computers had also begun, and Apple was among the first to hire a famous celebrity to pitch its wares. Dick Cavett was then a hip and popular talk show host who Apple hired in July 1981 to become the company’s on-screen spokesman. Apple struck a three-year contract with Cavett whose main role was largely one of allaying public fears about computers, simply by serving as a familiar and safe spokesperson. Some of the Cavett pieces featured his distinct brand of humor as well. A few critics, however, scored Cavett as associated with elite, intellectual, upper-middle-class America who did not have mass-market appeal. Some techies viewed Apple’s choice of Cavett as a shift away from hobbyists to business professionals. Apple and Cavett, however, were not alone in TV computer advertising. Celebrity pitchmen for other PC makers were also involved — Bill Cosby for Texas Instruments, Alan Alda for Atari, William Shatner for Commodore, and others. Apple’s main competitor then was Commodore, an established computer maker whose models were then outselling Apple’s. However, the entire PC business was soon headed for major change, as the long-established maker of business mainframe computers, IBM, began its bid to enter the PC market. IBM Weighs In August 1981 full-page newspaper ad run by Apple in the Wall Street Journal welcoming IBM to the personal computer marketplace. In August 1981, IBM introduced its first personal computer to the marketplace priced at $1,565. IBM had a formidable product launch, including a sophisticated TV ad campaign that used a Charlie Chaplin-esque figure who became the mascot for IBM PCs. Apple, for its part, publicly welcomed IBM into the fray, running a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal with a headline that read, “Welcome IBM. Seriously.” The ad was a classic Apple move, tongue-in-cheek as if to say, “Well where have you been, IBM?” Still, all of the computer world was then abuzz over IBM’s big debut. Lost in the blitz, however, was the fact that Apple had a more impressive technical product. The IBM-PC was slower than the Apple II and, in effect, outdated at its introduction. But IBM’s machine would sell briskly and eventually catch and surpass Apple. Still, at year end 1981 Apple had garnered 23 percent of the $2.2 billion worldwide market in personal computers. It was then neck and neck with Tandy Corp.’s Radio Shack, a company that had the advantage of 8,400 retail outlets. Xerox also had a new PC entry that year as well. But by late 1981, Steve Jobs and Apple were getting a share of favorable national notice. By October 1981, “Inc.” magazine was pointing to Steve Jobs as the man who “has changed business forever.” In October 1981, it was Steve Jobs who made the cover of Inc. magazine, then a two-year old business publication for those who ran growing companies. Jobs was shown on the cover standing over an Apple II computer with a feature story tag line that read: “This Man Has Changed Business Forever,” meaning Apple’s move to bring personal computers to the business world. Inside the magazine, a story by Steve Ditlea was titled, “An Apple on Every Desk” – the goal Jobs had set out for his company in the office market. The 26 year-old Jobs – who then held 7.5 million shares of Apple worth about $163 million – was still the educator, explaining how personal computers in the office would increase productivity. He pointed out that in the last 15 years, there had only been a few major changes in office productivity – the IBM Selectric typewriter, the Xerox copier, and more advanced phone systems. The personal computer, by comparison he explained, offered the individual office worker a new kid of synergy and productivity – combining typing and calculating, offering data storage, phone-line date transmission, and other capabilities. Steve Jobs featured on Time magazine’s cover in mid-February 1982. By February 1982 Apple’s growing pains were easing and sales of the retooled Apple III computers were improving, along with a less expensive Apple II-Plus. The two machines were selling at a rate of about 15,000 a month. In mid-February 1982, Steve Jobs appeared on the cover of Time magazine in a story about “America’s Risk Takers.” It marked the first time the mainstream national media had told the “two-guys-in-a-garage” story about Apple – and how the company’s sales had surged from $2.7 million in 1977 to $200 million in 1980, with an expected $600 million by the end of 1982. The Time story provided a big lift to Apple, but it also offered some cautions. “Apple will have to prove that it has the management talents needed in a firm that this year will join the ranks of the Fortune 500,” wrote Time. “…Jobs, who had the vision to build one of America’s foremost companies from a hobbyist’s toy, must show that he has the foresight and ability to guide a major corporation.” By early September 1982, the development of the Lisa computer was officially completed. A launch date was set for January 1983. Jobs had been working on the Lisa project since the late 1970s, but in 1982 he was pushed off that project due to some corporate infighting. He then moved over to the Macintosh project. Inside the company there was something of battle going on – described in one account as a fight between Lisa’s “corporate shirts” and Jobs’ “pirates” – to determine which product would be first to market and establish Apple’s reputation. A company named Microsoft, meanwhile, was also developing mouse-based software applications – some for Apple’s Mac project, but also working on its own GUI system for the IBM PC, later known as Windows. By year’s end 1982, Apple Computers were still going out the door at a fairly brisk pace. For the month of December 1982, Apple IIs were moving at 45,000 a month and Apple IIIs at about 5,000 a month. However, at this point Steve Jobs and Apple needed a more orthodox chief executive to run the company – “adult supervision,” some called it. A more mainstream and respected business executive could help sell Apple to the investment community and corporate America. And Jobs had someone in mind to run Apple: John Sculley, then head of Pepsi-Cola. In December 1982, Jobs and Mike Markkula met with Sculley, discussing the possibility of him heading up Apple. Sculley said he wasn’t interested. But that would not be the end of it. Steve Jobs on the cover of Fortune magazine, February 7, 1983, near the launch of the LISA computer. In January 1983, Apple unveiled its Lisa computer, with shipments scheduled for that spring. Lisa was the first computer to use the GUI “point-and-click” system, with mouse and on-screen icons – a major stride in simplifying computers for everyday users. In early February 1983, Fortune magazine, picking up on the launch of the Lisa and the challenges ahead for Steve Jobs and his company, did a cover story headlined, “Apple’s Bid To Stay in the Big Time.” The Fortune piece explored the years of research behind the Lisa, from the days when Jobs and others saw the possibilities of graphical user interface at Xerox PARC, to the labors involved in coming up with graphical representations for items such a “trash,” “folders” and other functions – items today taken for granted, but then were totally new concepts in computing, taking numerous months of work to fashion, code, and have work smoothly. The Lisa, in fact, was the first step at internalizing a lot of computer difficulty into the computer’s memory so average users wouldn’t have to deal with it. “The Lisa is not as simple to use as a toaster or a telephone,” wrote Fortune reporter George M. Taber who tested the computer. “But for anyone who has gone through the sometimes painful process of learning how to work a personal computer, Lisa is a dream.” On word processing, however, Lisa was noted as somewhat “slow and clumsy.” But overall, Fortune gave it good grades. Steve Jobs and the Lisa computer, circa 1983. Apple had a key business goal for Lisa, which was aimed squarely at the business office market, and especially larger companies. A lot was riding on the new computer. Apple had lost ground to IBM in the PC wars when the Apple III ran into troubles, giving IBM the running room it needed to take market share away from Apple. In the fourth quarter of 1982, Apple still led IBM in PC sales, but IBM was rapidly closing the gap selling PCs at a rate of about 20,000 per month. In the end, the Lisa did not become the world beater that Apple hoped it would. Lisa’s steep price and a limited number of software titles contributed to a mediocre showing. While Lisa received much praise for its more simplified use and its graphics abilities, the computer was richly priced at nearly $10,000 each, which was then more than twice that of a normally equipped IBM PC. Back at company headquarters, Steve Jobs had succeeded in wooing former Pepsi president John Sculley to come to Apple. Jobs at one point had goaded Sculley, saying to him: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” In April 1983, Sculley became CEO of Apple. Steve Wozniak also returned to Apple in June 1983, but resumed work there in a somewhat lower profile. Double-page magazine ad for the Apple III touting something called “electronic mail” as one of the reasons folks might was to buy a new personal computer. As one measure of how much things have changed in recent years, consider the magazine ad at right. In a two-page magazine spread in late 1983, Apple used the headline, “How to send mail at 670,000,000 mph.” Here’s some of the text from that ad – with Apple continuing to play its role as “computer educator”: …[O]ne of the things that can make an Apple Personal Computer meaningful to you, personally …is called “electron- ic mail.” Which, simply stated, is a quick and easy way to send any information, anywhere, anytime… …This new technology enables your Apple to send or receive any correspondence to any compatible computer over standard phone lines. The same ones your voice has been using for years. So there’s no costly hook up expense. All you need is an Apple and a device called a modem, that translates the computer’s electronic codes into fleet phone signals. Which in turn, can actually move messages at about the speed of light. Versus the speed of the U.S. Mail. And not just letters. But memos, charts and graphs, stock reports, Visicalc reports, weather reports or whatever. To one address. Or, just as easily, to a hundred…. The ad offered three sample computer screens to show the kind of information that could be sent as electronic mail, and also explored other things the Apple Computers could do with this power to access electronic data – obtain stock quotes, make travel arrangements, scan the New York Times, or tap into an electronic encyclopedia….”. In signing off, the ad said: “But electronic mail is just one of the marvelous things you can do on an Apple. One of thousands. So let your Apple dealer tell you all about it…” Elsewhere in the computer world of 1983, Microsoft introduced its word processing software, Word. Another maker of a rival word processing program called Word Perfect, introduced Word Perfect 3. Also at that time, Radio Shack offered one of the first popular laptop computers, the TRS-80 Model 100, while the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program provided a boost to IBM PC sales. By late 1983, Apple and IBM had emerged as the personal computer industry’s strongest competitors, each selling approximately one billion dollars worth of computers that year. Apple was also continuing to accommodate new software and other options to its computers. In early December 1983, for example, Electronic Arts introduced the Julius Erving & Larry Bird Go One-On-One basketball game for the Apple II computer. Another Apple computer – the Apple III+ model at $2,995 – was released for sale in December as well. IBM, for its part, would sell one million of its PCs by the end of 1983. Apple, however, had something big in the works; a major step in its future – the launch of the Macintosh computer. In late January 1984, Apple launched its Macintosh computer with a somewhat unusual television ad that was aired on Sunday, January 22, 1984 during the third quarter of the 1984 Superbowl XVIII championship football game. The ad, known as “1984,” was cast in a Orwellian future — George Orwell being the author of 1984, the famous novel of a dystopian /totalitarian future. Apple’s ”1984″ TV ad – running 60 seconds at a cost of $1.5 million – had been produced by film director Ridley Scott. It featured a female athlete clad in track running clothes, carrying a heavy sledge hammer. She runs into room filled with seated throng of drone-like workers watching a huge television screen. On the screen is a giant face of a “Big Brother” figure who is dispensing propaganda to the workers. His words are heard in the ad, but not clearly enough to be made out by most viewers. Big Brother is actually giving a spiel from Orwell’s book:Big Brother on screen. To view Apple’s “1984" TV ad, click on the photo. “…My friends, each of you is a single cell in the great body of the State. And today, that great body has purged itself of parasites. We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts. The thugs and wreckers have been cast out. And the poisonous weeds of disinformation have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Let each and every cell rejoice! For today we celebrate the first, glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directive! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail! Big Brother’s drones “enlightened” after “Mac Runner” has thrown her liberating hammer. The running female track figure, now pursued by storm-trooper security, begins a wind-up with her hammer, and in good spinning form, lets the sledge fly, sending it dead-center TV screen. A bright, white light from the resulting explosion then washes over the audience, “symbolically freeing and enlightening them,” according to one interpretation. The commercial concludes with text which reads: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” Apple’s aim with the ad, according to various interpretations, was to free and empower people, combat conformity, and allow originality in the computer market. Big Brother in the ad symbolized rival computer manufacturer, IBM, also known by a nickname, Big Blue. The Macintosh Computer, of course, is cast as the liberator; the first computer to make personal computing accessible to average users. ….Steve reappeared on the left side of the stage as the lights dimmed again. “It is 1958,” he began, speaking slowly and dramatically. “IBM passes up a chance to buy a young fledgling company that has invented a new technology called xerography. Two years later, Xerox was born, and IBM has been kicking themselves ever since.” The crowd laughs, as Steve pauses. … “It is ten years later, the late sixties…. Digital Equipment Corporation and others invent the mini-computer. IBM dismisses the mini-computer as too small to do serious computing, and therefore unimportant to their business. DEC grows to be a multi-hundred million dollar company before IBM enters the mini-computer market.” Steve pauses again. “It is now ten years later, the late seventies. In 1977, Apple Computer, a young fledgling company, on the West Coast, introduces the Apple II, the first personal computer as we know it today. IBM dismisses the personal computer as too small to do serious computing, and therefore unimportant to their business,” Steve intoned sarcastically, as the crowd applauds. “The early 1980s. 1981. Apple II has become the world’s most popular computer, and Apple has grown to a 300 million dollar corporation, becoming the fastest growing company in American business history. With over fifty companies vying for a share, IBM enters the personal computer market in November of 1981, with the IBM PC.” Steve is speaking very quickly now, picking up momentum.“…IBM wants it all, and is aiming its guns at its last obstacle to industry con- trol, Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire indus- try? …Was George Orwell right?” - Steve Jobs, January 1984, “1983. Apple and IBM emerge as the industry’s strongest competitors, with each selling approximately one billion dollars worth of personal computers in 1983. The shakeout is in full swing. The first major personal computer firm goes bankrupt, with others teetering on the brink. Total industry losses for 1983 overshadow even the combined profits of Apple and IBM.” He slows down, speaking emphatically. “It is now 1984. It appears that IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, after initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM dominated and controlled future and are turning back to Apple as the only force who can ensure their future freedom.” Steve pauses even longer, as the crowd’s cheering swells. He has them on the edge of their seats. “IBM wants it all, and is aiming its guns at its last obstacle to industry control, Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?” The crowd is in a frenzy now, as the already famous 1984 commercial…fills the screen…. By the time the commercial is finished, everyone in the auditorium is standing and cheering. Premier issue of Apple’s “MacWorld” magazine, featuring Steve Jobs with computers, inaugurated at the Mac launch, January 1984 Jobs then did an on-stage demonstration of the Mac featuring some of the computer’s features, even having the computer “speak for itself” at one point. The reception for Jobs and the Mac in the hall was wildly enthusiastic, bordering on “pandemonium,” according to some of those attending. After the initial hype for the Mac died down a bit, there came the reviews for the computer by technology writers for the mainstream press and computer publications. Larry Magid, of the Los Angeles Times, writing in a January 29, 1984 piece, said: “I rarely get excited over a new computer. But Apple’s Macintosh, officially introduced last Tuesday, has started a fever in Silicon Valley that’s hard not to catch….By the time I got my hands on the little computer and its omni-present mouse, I was hooked. Apple has a winner….” The January 30, 1984 issue of Newsweek ran a four-page story about the Macintosh, which included photos of Macintosh team members Burrell Smith and Andy Hertzfeld, and was also generally favorable toward the new computer. Byte magazine, then influential in the personal computer industry, put the Macintosh on its February 1984 cover. Byte magazine put the Mac on its February 1984 cover. Billed as “the computer for the rest of us,” the Macintosh would become the first commercially successful small computer with “point-and-click” usability. The Mac’s system of on-screen icons responsive to the hand-guided “mouse” made it a breakthrough in personal computing, especially for non-techies. More than 100,000 Macs were sold in about six months. The first units shipped with 128K of memory and a price tag of $2,495. The Mac was regarded by many as a technological milestone; not unlike the telephone’s arrival in the era of the telegraph, or the onset of easy-to-use cameras that brought photography to the masses. For many users, the Mac would make computing truly personal, and for some, become the object of a near cult following. By the fall of 1984 Apple published an extensive advertising insert on the Macintosh in Newsweek magazine, with foldout, accounting for about 20 pages. For many consumers, this was the first “up-close” experience with a Macintosh – detailing all the various features of the new computer. But the Macintosh was not without its shortcomings, some of which would later begin to slow sales. Still, at the outset of its offering, the Mac was a genuinely new thing that would change personal computing. “Almost Cancelled” The famous Apple “1984″ TV ad almost did not become famous at all – and was almost cancelled prior to the Super Bowl. The ad, in fact, had traveled a pretty rocky road to its debut. The idea was first hatched for a print ad in late 1982, when advertising agency Chiat-Day began working on it, trying to sell a Wall Street Journal type ad around the idea “why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” They had pitched the idea initially to other computer companies as well as Apple for its Apple II computers, but had no takers. So the idea was shelved. 1984's "Mac runner" in her hammer-throw wind up, sending a message to Big Brother. However, by the spring of 1983, the ad was reconsidered at Apple for the Macintosh, which was then being scheduled for its January 1984 launch. Steve Jobs wanted something inspiring to help launch the Mac; something that was as revolutionary as the product itself. When the 1984 Orwellian storyline was presented at Apple, he loved it, and encouraged Chiat-Day to go for it. Chiat-Day then developed a story board, building a mini science fiction story set in a totalitarian, Big Brother-type world. CEO John Sculley was a bit apprehensive about the ad, noting that the Macintosh itself was hardly mentioned. Still, Sculley approved the $750,000 needed to produce the one-minute commercial. Worker-drones listening to Big Brother. Film director Ridley Scott, fresh off the success of Blade Runner (1982), was hired to film the ad, which was shot in London. Steve Jobs joined a Chiat-Day team attending the week of filming in London. A cast of almost 200 extras was used to film the ad, a number of whom were $125/day British skinheads who appeared in the baldheaded workers scene. An accomplished discus thrower named Anya Major was retained to do the key hammer-throw scene. A rough cut of the ad was shown to Apple staff a few weeks later, and in October 1983 it was shown at Apple’s annual sales conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. At this showing, Steve Jobs used the IBM historical set up described earlier, positioning Apple as the industry’s best alternative (see “Sources” below for a You Tube clip of this). The crowd loved it. Based partly on the response in Honolulu, Apple then booked two ad slots for the Super Bowl XVIII at cost of over a million dollars – one for sixty seconds and another for thirty seconds. But then came the cold water. The final on-screen message of "1984," post "white light" enlightenment. In December 1983, the finished verison of the ad was shown to Apple’s board of directors. However, unlike the younger crowd in Honolulu, Apple’s board members – especially its outside members — were not enraptured by it, and in fact, were quite negative. “Everyone thought it was the worst commercial they had ever seen,” John Sculley later recalled. Sculley then asked Chiat-Day to sell back both Super Bowl time slots. Chiat-Day, however, sold off only the thirty-second slot, telling Apple they could not renege on the longer spot at so late a date. Apple considered using a more conventional commercial in that slot, but in the end decided to take a chance on “1984.” The ad was shown in the third quarter of the Super Bowl game, which featured the Los Angeles Raiders vs. the Washington Redskins. The ad had a potential viewing audience of nearly 100 million that day. But during the broadcast it was hard to tell how the ad was received. After the successful Mac launch and rave reivews for the ’1984′ TV ad, the Apple board gave the Mac team a standing ovation. After the game, however – which the Raiders won 38 to 9 – many TV stations covered the ad as “news,” some offering repeat showings of ad in its entirety. Spill-over coverage of the ad continued in the media the following day, all of which created a “bonus effect” of free media coverage for the ad worth millions. After the ad aired, Apple, Jobs, and Chiat-Day went on to receive much praise. In fact, when the Apple Board held its January meeting following the Mac launch, the entire Macintosh executive staff was invited to attend. When this group entered the room, according to Andy Hertzfeld, “everyone on the board rose and gave them a standing ovation, acknowledging that they were wrong about the commercial and congratulating the team for pulling off a fantastic launch.” In November 1984, Business Week featured Steve Jobs and John Sculley in a cover story about taking on IBM. Apple’s Macintosh computer initially did quite well in the market, but sales dropped off pretty sharply in later 1984, especially due to some of the computer’s shortcomings. Part of the Mac’s problems were the result of a limited 128K memory, which served to hamstring software developers. This would be remedied shortly by another version of the Mac, nicknamed “Fat Mac,” which had a bigger memory at 512 kilobytes. Fat Mac was released in September 1984 at a price of $3,195. Apple II computers, meanwhile, were selling quite well. In late fall 1984, Apple sought to give the company and its computers more visibility with a $2.5 million advertising push. But amid and an industry-wide sales slump, reviving Apple’s fortunes, and the Mac’s future, would take more than that. Eventually, two other corollary technologies would help revive Macintosh sales and Apple’s fortunes – a reasonably-priced printer and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing package. In fact, all three parts together – the Mac, the printer, and Pagemaker (and particularly the Mac with its advanced graphics) – would become the powerful combination that drove the desktop publishing revolution that began in the mid-1980s. In fact, with time, the Macintosh became the favored computer by those in the arts and arts industries – film, music, photography, journalism, and other fields. But in 1984-85, Apple and the Mac would have their difficulties. In November 1984, a cover story appeared in Business Week with a happy photo of Steve Jobs and John Sculley and the headline, “Apple’s Dynamic Duo.” The story covered Apple’s “bold plan to take on IBM in the office.” But back at Apple, behind the scenes, things weren’t so happy. Macs were not selling as well as they had. Christmas sales were poor and the computers were piling up in storage. Apple had to publish its first quarterly loss in history. On top of that, about 20 percent of the staff was let go. But part of the problems at Apple had to do with its changing from a small company with decentralized divisions to more of a mainstream corporation – and Steve Jobs, John Sculley, and the Apple board of directors all became involved in that transformation. The result was not a pretty picture, as a power struggle ensued between Jobs and Sculley with the Board siding with Sculley. At first, it appeared Jobs would remain as chairman of the company, though in more of an ambassadorial role. On May 31, 1985, Jobs was stripped of his divisional and operational responsibilities when he became chairman. Fortune magazine’s August 5, 1985 issue with feature story, “The Fall of Steve Jobs.” Steve Jobs Out In early August 1985, Jobs appeared the cover of Fortune magazine in a story titled: “The Fall of Steve Jobs: Behind the Scenes at Apple Computer,”which offered a detailed blow-by-blow account of his rift with Sculley and his demise at Apple. That story appeared before the final departure of Jobs, which came somewhat later, in September 1985. Jobs was not happy at his departure. “I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out,” he wrote Apple board member and long-time business colleague, Mike Markkula. “I’m only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I’ve got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that.” Jobs left the company, along with a few other Apple employees who would later help him found another company, NEXT Computer. In the aftermath of Job’s demise at Apple, there were a number of stories in the mainstream and business press, such as the Newsweek cover story shown below that appeared on September 30, 1985 – “A Whiz Kid’s Fall: How Apple Computer Dumped It’s Chairman.” But this was not the end of Steve Jobs – or Steve Jobs at Apple – by any means. This was but one part — and an important part — of the Steve Jobs / Apple story. But there was much more to come — NEXT, Pixar, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, all still ahead. Steve Jobs and Apple were just getting started. Steve Jobs on the cover of Newsweek, in a story about his demise at Apple, Sept 30, 1985. In less than a decade, Apple had risen from the “two-guys in a garage” stage to become a Fortune 500 company and the world’s leading personal computer manufacturer. Apple had changed business and culture in dramatic ways, and had set the stage for more change to come. Steve Jobs had been at the center of that change – helped initially and significantly by Steve Wozniak’s considerable genius. And while Jobs may have lacked all the needed skills of a successful corporate manager as Apple grew to Fortune 500 stature, he was the visionary soul and power force at Apple who pushed personal computer technology into common and uncommon usage by making it easier and more attractive for masses of people to use. “Apple Advertising and Brochure Gallery,” MacMothership.com. Apple II TV Ad With Dick Cavett, “Apple II Commercial — Homemaker,” 1981, YouTube. Apple 1980 -1989 Timeline. Tim Wu, “The Apple Two; The iPad is Steve Jobs’ Final Victory Over the Company’s Co-founder, Steve Wozniak,” Slate.com, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Jack Doyle, “The iPod Silhouettes, 2000-2011,” PopHistoryDig.com, December 9, 2011. Welcome To Macintosh, An interesting 2008 documentary film on Apple and the Macintosh that has aired on CNBC. See one sample trailer on You Tube; also Welcome to Macintosh website.