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Class of 2014 Hall of Fame Inductees YCS announces Athletic Hall of Fame Inductees Ten former YHS AND WRHS standouts to be inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2014 Hall of Fame Inductee Announcement Janae Bridges, Class of 2002, outstanding YHS track and field, Indiana StateUniversity track and field; David Clifton, Sr., Class of 1978, Ypsilanti Community Supporter, lettered in football, basketball, and baseball at YHS, extensive youth coaching; Duane Devlin, 1953 -1991 WRCS, 38 years teacher, coach & athletic director, WR first coach, WRHS football field named after Mr. Devlin; Larry Hamilton, Class of 1975, YHS football, basketball & baseball, all-league football, and league champion baseball team; Steven Jentzen, Class of 1971, YHS football and wrestling, all conference in football and wrestling, member of US Junior World Wrestling Team, Colorado State Univ. wrestler; Chuck Koch, 1977-2001 WRCS, teacher, coach, athletic director, 1981-1987 head football coach, coached softball, volleyball, and middle school wrestling, 1989 became Athletic Director, he was the catalyst behind the creation of the WRCS Hall of Fame; Dan Phillips, Class of 1991, outstanding YHS swimming and diving, 5 time all state, held 7 YHS varsity records and one pool record, 1996 & 2000 Olympic trials finalist in 200 and 100 free, participated in Goodwill games and Pan-American games; Daphne Smith, Class of 1982, outstanding WRHS volleyball, basketball & softball, All state and All-American in basketball, played basketball at U of Illinois and U of D; John Terris, Class of 1986, YHS baseball and football, set season home run record–10, All conference 1st team, Connie Mack World Series – All tournament team, baseball scholarship to EMU, Dr. Darryl Warner, Class of 1985, WRHS track and field and football, All-conference and all-county in football, football and track and field scholarship to Hillsdale College, eleven time indoor and outdoor track conference champion the 55,300,100,200, member of Hillsdale college National Championship NAIA football team 1988

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Series Sunday: 'Hunted' Many books in my book queue are waiting to be read, and a common theme among is that they’re all part of a... Series Sunday: 'Hunted' Many books in my book queue are waiting to be read, and a common theme among is that they’re all part of a... Check out this story on ydr.com: https://www.ydr.com/story/entertainment/books/blogs/book-buzz/2012/04/15/series-sunday-hunted/31959433/ YorkDailyRecord Published 12:13 a.m. ET April 15, 2012 Many books in my book queue are waiting to be read, and a common theme among is that they’re all part of a series, trilogy or saga. Each Sunday, I’ll share a book from a series. You can read along with me, or add the books to your own reading list. This week, I’ll be reviewing “Hunted” the fifth book in the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast. I feel like the whole “House of Night” series was building up to an epic battle with Kalona, an evil, immortal fallen angel. But “Hunted” was an anticlimactic part of my week. After Kalona is reincarnated at the end of “Untamed,” Zoey and her friends flee to some underground tunnels. Kalona is afraid of being underground because that’s where he was trapped before Neferet freed him with Stevie Rae’s blood. | Unfortunately Zoey and her friends head back to school. There’s a rule in P.C. and Kristin Cast’s books where, if a vampyre fledgling is away from the House of Night for too long, they start to reject their transition into vampyre life and could eventually die. The stretch of time Zoey and her friends are back at school is also pretty dull. They conspire to escape again. Or banish Kalona. Their objectives shift from chapter to chapter, so it’s difficult to figure out what the characters actually want. One of the interesting things about the characters in the Casts’ novels is they change from good to evil from book to book. In the third book, Stevie Rae loses her humanity and has to get it back, almost turning evil. After she turns into a red vampyre, she still has a hint of evil in her. Aphrodite and Erik also turn out to be kind of shady. Aphrodite doesn’t want to be a good guy, but she’s drawn to Darius, one of the Sons of Erebus (a faction of vampyre warriors). She grows to appreciate Zoey and her friends and her personality has been gradually softening as the series progresses. There’s still some tension between Aphrodite and the rest of the characters, so as a reader, I can’t trust her. Erik, after turning into a vampyre, wants to be Zoey’s one and only boyfriend, but Heath comes back into Zoey’s life. Erik accepts it, claiming he’s in love with Zoey, but he shows flashes of jealously when Zoey does something on her own. I was rooting for Erik, but as it turns out, he’s kind of a jerk. Another character, a new student named Stark, has a bigger role as well. He’s an archer with incredible, unnatural aim. He’s in cahoots with Neferet and Kalona throughout the book, but turns good toward the end. He and Zoey have an unusual connection, which will probably be revealed in the next book. At this point in the series, P.C. and Kristin Cast’s world becomes increasingly complex. There are so many rules to being a vampyre in Oklahoma, where the story takes place. A funny way the authors explain the rules to their world, is Zoey will say something like, “Oh, I almost forgot this thing that I read in my Vampyre Sociology book, but I just remembered that...” It’s kind of a cheap way to explain something to readers, but it works. The story ends well enough, with Kalona being banished but not killed, leaving room for yet another part in the series, “Tempted,” which I’ll be reviewing next week! My movie-jeering partner-in-crime, Dan, is encouraging me to read the "Song of Fire and Ice" series next. He reviewed "A Clash of Kings" here, and another coworker, Bethany, talks about the series here. If you missed the other books in the House of Night series: Read or Share this story: https://www.ydr.com/story/entertainment/books/blogs/book-buzz/2012/04/15/series-sunday-hunted/31959433/

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https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/In-Pictures-Ukelele-players-keep-on-strumming-13708276.php In Pictures / Ukulele players keep on strumming By Jarret Liotta Updated 11:44 am EDT, Friday, March 22, 2019 Facilitator Steve Forlano talks music with Ben Wilson of Norwalk at the Ukulele Meet Up at The Westport Library on Thursday, March 21, 2019, in Westport, Conn. Photo: Jarret Liotta / For Hearst Connecticut Media WESTPORT — For four years now the monthly Ukulele Meet Up at The Westport Library has been giving people something to sing — and strum — about. “I have to say it’s been really amazing,” said Deborah White, the children’s librarian who conceived of the idea to provide a place for experienced and novice ukulele players to share the joys of music and, in the process, learn a little about the instrument. “I’ve got now a mailing list of between 100 and 150 people who over the past four years have come,” she said, with generally eight to 15 people showing up each month on third Thursday at 7 p.m. “It’s good fun,” said Ben Wilson, of Norwalk. “Playing the ukulele and singing makes people happy.” White, who even motivated the library to get a pair of ukuleles available for borrowing, encouraging everyone to come and try it, regardless of how much experience they have. “I started four years ago,” she said of the instrument, “and I’m still a beginner.”

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Virginia Governor Suspends Policy Allowing Strip Searches Of Children At Prisons By Brakkton Booker • Dec 6, 2019 Va. Gov. Ralph Northam announced on Friday that he is "deeply disturbed" by reports of a young girl being strip searched at a corrections facility last month. The Washington Post / The Washington Post via Getty Im Originally published on December 6, 2019 7:14 pm Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced on Friday that he is suspending a policy that permitted correctional staff to perform a strip search on an 8-year-old girl last month as she was trying to visit her father. The incident took place days before the Thanksgiving holiday at Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, about a 75-minute drive west of Richmond. The girl was "stripped naked and searched" by correctional staffers, according to The Virginian-Pilot, which broke the news of the strip search incident on Thursday. It said the girl, "was led to believe refusal would result in not being allowed to see her father." Northam, a Democrat, announced via Twitter Friday that he had ordered a suspension of the policy along with an "immediate investigation." I am deeply disturbed by these reports—not just as Governor, but as a pediatrician and a dad. I’ve directed @VaPSHS to suspend this policy while the Department conducts an immediate investigation and review of their procedures. https://t.co/7VwO7pApUn — Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) December 6, 2019 "I'm deeply disturbed by these reports – not just as Governor, but as a pediatrician and a dad. I've directed [Virginia Public Safety and Homeland Security] to suspend this policy while the Department conducts and immediate investigation and review of their procedures," he tweeted. The Virginian-Pilot also reports, the father's girlfriend, Diamond Peerman, who drove the girl more than two hours from the Hampton area, was the one who was initially singled out by contraband-detecting canines. "The dog singled out Peerman, requiring that she be strip searched. Peerman asked if the 8-year-old would need to be searched, too. Initially, prison guards said no, but after consulting with a captain, that decision was reversed," Peerman told the paper. In an email to NPR Friday, Lisa Kinney, the director of communications for Virginia Department of Corrections said "we sincerely apologize to this child and her family." Kinney explains that Virginia's protocol states "only a parent or legal guardian can approve a search of a minor." Peerman, who signed the consent form for the girl, was neither. "The staff member who authorized the search of the minor following a K-9 alert didn't have the authority to do so. We take this matter very seriously and ... will be taking immediate disciplinary action against the person responsible," Kinney wrote. She noted that strip searches are requested after a K-9 has "alerted on a visitor" but visitors have the option to refuse the search and leave the premises. As part of its original report, The Virginian-Pilot published a series of text messages it says are between the girl and her mother following the incident. The texts, dated Nov. 24, started with the girl saying she was angry the jail made her take off her clothes and how it made no sense to her. Her mother shot back a text saying: "What call me." In later texts, the mother asks, "Did they make you take your pants off ?" The girl responds, "Yes all of my clothes off." The paper is withholding the names of the girl, her mother and the father, but the mother told the paper that her daughter had missed school because of the ordeal. "She's a minor, she's a girl. She was traumatized," the mother said. "She gets emotional, she will break down." No child should ever be subjected to invasive, humiliating, traumatizing strip searches carried out by strangers to see their loved one in prison. Those responsible must be held accountable & VDOC policy must be changed so this never happens again. https://t.co/mwf5vb4KDs — ACLU of Virginia (@ACLUVA) December 6, 2019 The ACLU of Virginia tweeted on Thursday "those responsible must be held accountable." "No child should ever be subjected to invasive, humiliating, traumatizing strip searches carried out by strangers to see their loved on in prison," the organization said. "Those responsible must be held accountable and [Virginia Department of Corrections] policy must be changed so this never happens again," the ACLU said.

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wharfenet.org.uk Home The News Joomla! Security Strike Team Joomla! Security Strike Team Saturday, 07 July 2007 09:54 administrator The Joomla! Project has assembled a top-notch team of experts to form the new Joomla! Security Strike Team. This new team will solely focus on investigating and resolving security issues. Instead of working in relative secrecy, the JSST will have a strong public-facing presence at the Joomla! Security Center. The new JSST will call the new Joomla! Security Center their home base. The Security Center provides a public presence for security issues and a platform for the JSST to help the general public better understand security and how it relates to Joomla!. The Security Center also offers users a clearer understanding of how security issues are handled. There's also a news feed, which provides subscribers an up-to-the-minute notification of security issues as they arise. Last Updated on Saturday, 07 July 2007 09:54 Joomla! Overview Joomla! License Content Layouts Joomla! 1.5 - 'Experience the Freedom'!. It has never been easier to create your own dynamic Web site. Manage all your content from the best CMS admin interface and in virtually any language you speak. Copyright © 2020 wharfenet.org.uk. All Rights Reserved. Joomla website design by dalesweb

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Artists from the CoBrA Group You Should Know Nadia Herzog Nadia Herzog is a pen name of Nadja Bozovic, a freelance journalist whose interest goes from the questioning influence of different art movements, through the connection of arts and urban space, to the art activism for social change. She enjoys interviewing artists and reading all about art history, and she is truly passionate about visual arts, especially about photography, design, graphics, multimedia, and street art in all of its forms. It was November 8, 1948, when a group of fellow artists gathered together in Café Notre-Dame in Paris. At that exact spot in place and time, a new art group was created. Present artists signed its manifesto which was symbolically named The Case Was Settled. And that was it! The CoBrA group was settled. Their manifesto was printed in the Reflex magazine afterward, and looking from today’s point of view, this avant-garde art movement may be one of the most influential movements of the post-war Europe in arts, even though it lasted only for four years, from 1948 to 1951. Who sat together at that table in Café Notre-Dame? Well, there were mainly representatives of the North Europe art scene at the time. CoBrA actually stands for the initial letters of Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam, as those are the cities from which founder artists of the CoBrA movement came from. Okay, now we’ll get to the point. Who were those founding artists, you asked? Initially, there were Karel Appel, Constant, Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont, Corneille, and Joseph Noiret, but many important artists at that time were included in the group later on. At the moment of the group foundation, founders were all already established artists in their countries and regions, with some of them being renown even widely throughout Europe. So, what unified those artists to come together as a group? First of all, it was the fact that they all shared a unifying doctrine of complete freedom of color and form. They also shared the interest in Marxism, as well as in Modernism and Surrealism. To all of them, the process of making art was far more interesting than the final product of art. And after all, they were all rather spontaneous and curious about experimenting in art, finding a huge inspiration in the simplified forms and the children’s drawings. Being influenced by artists like Paul Klee and Joan Miró, they altogether embraced primitive, mythical, and traditional elements, usually by using strong colors and heavy handwritings in their artworks. CoBrA group changed ist name in November 1949 to Internationale des Artistes Expérimentaux, but that name never really appealed to anyone. They remained CoBrA for all of their followers, both in Europe and the United States, and for art historians as well. After having two successful major group exhibitions, one at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in November 1949 entitled International Experimental Art, and the other one in Liège, Belgium, in 1951, the group dissolved. The movement was officially broken in 1951 due to some contrarieties among members. However, many of the artists from the group continued to collaborate even when there were no CoBrA anymore, and some of them remained close friends until their very end. Whether they were performing solo or in a mutual collaboration after the group’s transformation, some of the artists from the CoBrA art movement carried their careers further on paving impressive artistic paths. Following is the list of most influential CoBrA artists, whose art was the most significant for the art movement itself, but whose work also went on being truly important for the world of art beyond the group’s 4-year long existence. Editors’ Tip: The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy If you missed the chance to visit the unique exhibition of artists from the CoBrA art movement organized simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles, or if you did see the show and want to dive deeper into the legacy of this post-war avant-garde artistic collective and its impact on contemporary art and the European Abstract Expressionism, do not miss the opportunity to read this book. Be among first who will get the privilege to hold it and own it, as it is going to be available from September 15, 2016. This book is chronologically exploring the years before the formation of the CoBrA group, its existence and, finally, its influence on shaping the contemporary art scene. It features a lot of original artworks from the CoBra artists, full-page images, essays, critics, and detailed biographies of artists that made CoBrA what it was. Featured image: Karel Appel – Wild Horse Rider (detail) – Image via Wikiart.org Slider images: Asger Jorn – The Wind Leads us Away, 1970 – Copyright Donation Jorn Silkeborg – Image via Muesumjorn.dk; Christian Dotremont – Logogram 2, 1978 – Image via Rudedo.be; Constant – L’Animal Sorcier (detail), 1949; Karel Appel – Signed and dated artwork from 1960 – Image via Pinterest.com Karel Appel: Starting Again Like a Child Christiaan Karel Appel (1921-2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the early 1940s. There he had met young painters Corneille and Constant, who’d he became really close friends and together they founded the CoBrA. His parents constantly opposing his choice to become an artist, led him to leave home, and had his first show in Groningen in 1946. He was highly influenced by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Jean Dubuffet. A year later he started sculpting with all kinds of used materials and painted them in bright colors. ‘To paint is to destroy what preceded. I never try to make a painting, but a chunk of life’, described Appel his artistic approach. When forming the CoBrA group, his words easily defined their fascination with children’s drawings. ‘We wanted to start again like children’, Karel Appel stated. Typical childish picture language was commonly used among the CoBrA artists. Appel especially used it very often. But that resulted in a controversy over his Questioning Children fresco in Amsterdam City Hall from 1949, which stayed covered up for ten years. It led to Appel moving to Paris in 1950 and developing his international reputation by traveling to Mexico, United States, Yugoslavia, and Brazil. He also lived in New York and Florence. It was only after 1990 that he became more popular in the Netherlands. Be sure to check out works by Karen Appel on our marketplace! Featured image: Left: Karel Appel’s artwork – Image via Pinterest.com / Right: Karel Appel – Frog with Umbrella, 2001 – Sculpture at the Spui in Hague, Netherlands – Image via Wikipedia.org Corneille: Developing Poetic Art of Painting The Dutch painter Corneille (1922-2010), born Guillaume Cornelis Beverloo, was a co-founder of the avant-garde CoBrA movement, and one of its driving forces. ‘Corneille is considered to be one of the most important modern graphic artists of the previous century. As one of the pioneers of CoBrA, he developed an entirely new poetic art of painting’, the Dutch Cobra museum from Amsterdam stated in the announcement after the artist’s death in 2010. Corneille was a close friend of Karel Appel, and much like Appel, Corneille was also very interested in children’s art and artistic experiments. His work was merging the art on the one side, and the life itself on the other, in order to make a unifying fusion of form and expression. Featured image: Corneille with some of his works in June 2007 at the CoBrA Museum – Image via Artdaily.org Constant: Experiment is a Mirror Image of Changes ‘Experimentation was the symbol of an unfettered freedom, which, according to Constant, was ultimately embodied by children and the expressions of children’, said Constant, a co-founder of the CoBrA movement, arguably one of the last avant-garde movements of the 20th century. Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005), better known as Constant, was a Dutch painter, sculptor, graphic artist, author, and a musician. His younger brother Jan Nieuwenhuys was also an artist and was also a member of the CoBrA group. But, before CoBrA, Constant was living in Bergen for a short period of time, where he was introduced to the work of Paul Cézanne, which had an enormous impact on Constant’s artistic work. Afterwards, he met the young Danish painter Asger Jorn during one of his travel trips to Paris. It was their friendship that formed the firm basis of the CoBrA later on. In the meantime, Constant also met Corneille and Karel Appel, two other Dutch painters. In July 1948 Constant, his brother Jan, Karel Appel, and Corneille had founded what was known as the Reflex Experimentele Groep in Holland. Only a few months later, CoBrA was founded. The first edition of the Reflex magazine was published with a CoBrA manifesto inside, written by Constant. When it comes to Constant’s artistic approach, he was always on the quest for innovation and experimentation. ‘The work of experimental artists is a mirror image of changes in the general perception of beauty’, stated Constant in the manifesto. White Bird (1948), Ladder (1949) and Scorched Earth I (1951) are some of his noted works from the CoBrA period. ‘A painting is not a structure of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of these together’, Constant described his art vision in the manifesto. After the CoBrA, Constant’s work became more abstract, as he developed the interest in spatial architecture and three-dimensional works. Featured image: Left: Constant – De menigte (The Crowd) 1994 – Photo by Tom Haartsen for the Fondation Constant / Right: Constant – Visage I 1994 – Photo by Tom Haartsen for the Fondation Constant – Images via Stihtungconstant.nl Asger Jorn: Author of The CoBrA Library Asger Oluf Jorn (1914-1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and an author, and also a founding member of the avant-garde movement CoBrA. During 1947 and 1948 he was a part of the Surréalisme-révolutionaire group in Paris and Brussels. During that time, he met Belgian poet Christian Dotremont. Together they had left that group, and became fellow founders of the CoBrA movement. Asger Jorn was one of the leaders of the group, and he actively contributed to the Reflex magazine. He also published The CoBrA Library in 15 booklets. After the group was dissolved, Jorn remained in Silkeborg Sanatorium for some time, where he completed two book manuscripts, for the Luck and Chance and Pages from the Book of Art. He also painted several pictures over there and worked on two large series of pictures – The Seasons and From The Silent Myth. Afterwards, he had left Denmark and lived in Switzerland and Italy, where he emerged himself into the thrift-store paintings, ceramics, textiles, and the use of unconventional materials in art. The largest collection of Asger Jorn’s work can now be seen in the Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, Denmark. Featured image: Asger Jorn pictured in 1961 while painting – Photo credit Bartoli – Image via Museumjorn.dk Slider image: Asger Jorn – La barbe verte (The Green Beard) – Image via Museumjorn.dk Christian Dotremont: Creator of the Group's Name Christian Dotremont (1922-1979), was a Belgian painter and a poet. Being born into a family connected with the publishing of art journals, he had found out the deep passion for words, images, and art as a young boy. So, he carried that passion through his entire career. Dotremont was a founding member of the Revolutionary Surrealist Group in 1946, and the CoBrA movement in 1948. It was Dotremont who came up with an idea to call the group by the initial letters of the artists’ home cities, which they all agreed on. After CoBrA dissolved, Christian Dotremont became well known for his painted poems, which he called logograms. He was truly immersed in creating artworks by using words. Eventually, it becomes the defining style of his artistic language. Featured image: Christian Dotremont – Poetry must be seen and not only read, 1972 – Image via Galleriebirch.dk Joseph Noiret: Illustrated Poetry Joseph Noiret (1927-2012) was a Belgian painter, writer and poet, and also one of the founders of the CoBrA group. In his 20s, as a communist militant, he joined the Surrealism Revolutionary movement, where he met Christian Dotremont. Not only that he became one of the leading artists of the avant-garde CoBrA, but he continued to hold one of the leading roles in the field of art and culture of Belgium. During the CoBrA period, he wrote many poems and articles for reviews of the movement. After 1951 he proceeded with his own way of shaping something like new CoBrA, with the literature in the leading position, but without losing connection with art. He illustrated his poetry collections by himself, but there were also works of other artists like Mogens Balle or Sergio Dangelo. In 1953, Noiret established the cult magazine Phantomas, and later on, he became the director of the long school La Cambre in Brussels. Although he emerged deeply in the literature, he never gave up on painting. Featured image: Joseph Noiret’s artwork – Image via Fine-arts-museum.be Follow These Artists {"type_id":"6","user_id":null,"following_id":"","status_text":{"follow":"follow","unfollow":"unfollow"},"heart":"1","icon_class":{"follow":"follow_new_heart_icon","unfollow":"unfollow_new_heart_icon"},"class":{"follow":"","unfollow":"unfollow"},"input_class":{"follow":"follow_new","unfollow":"unfollow_new"},"is_following":0} Asger Jorn Christian Dotremont Follow These Galleries Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris ARTEDIO {"type_id":"6","user_id":null,"following_id":"460630","status_text":{"follow":"follow","unfollow":"unfollow"},"heart":"1","icon_class":{"follow":"follow_new_heart_icon","unfollow":"unfollow_new_heart_icon"},"class":{"follow":"","unfollow":"unfollow"},"input_class":{"follow":"follow_new","unfollow":"unfollow_new"},"is_following":0} Never miss a story again Read Other Interesting Stories Where is Representational Painting and Drawing Today? At Hashimoto Contemporary Art Exhibitions Elena Martinique Catch the Last Part of the New Start Show at Happy Gallery What You See is What You Get! Representational Art For Your Collection Collectors Tip, Top Lists Elena Martinique

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The Hunter Legend While searching for the lost bloodcrests, the legend surrounding the infamous Widowmaker founders was also discovered. One of which details how the Hunter bloodname was added to the list of 40 warriors. Read up on this tale to learn about our murky past and one of its founding members. The Hunter family had a long history of being loyal and worthwhile soldiers to the SLDF, so it is of no surprise that when Kerensky put out his call for an Exodus that the Hunters followed. Unfortunately, Captain John W. Hunter died trying to keep the peace in a riot on Eden, leaving his young son, Alex, to carry on the Hunter name. When Nicholas Kerensky formed the Clans, Alex, being of a young age, was too inexperienced to join the ranks of the 800 warriors and was relegated to the Technician Caste of Clan Widowmaker. Surviving the Clan's turbulent early years, he ended up on the exodus from Clan Space after the Trial of Annihilation. Without a significant number of surviving warriors, the clan had to reform itself. The main concern was not who only would lead the survivors, but how to cope with their hardships. The man that would take charge in the debates would be none other than Alex (Hunter), who wanted to continue the clan tradition. After days of debate, it was decided that Widowmaker would continue down the Clan path and that Alex (Hunter) would lead it. His surname was added to Widowmaker bloodnames in honor of his Khanship, and his legacy has continued to be a valuable asset to the Clan. While not as fearful as the Karrige bloodhouse on the battlefield, these warriors make up for it with their wisdom and ability to remain calm and collected. Those of the Hunter lineage often end up in positions of command for this exact reason. The Hunter bloodname has gained an extensive amount of respect since our rebirth, exceeding that of even the Karrige bloodname.

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Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica For Russell's 1910 book on mathematical logic, see Principia Mathematica. Title page of Principia, first edition (1687) New Latin 1687 (1st ed.) LC Class QA803 .A53 Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy),[1] often referred to as simply the Principia (/prɪnˈsɪpiə, prɪnˈkɪpiə/), is a work in three books by Isaac Newton, in Latin, first published 5 July 1687.[2][3] After annotating and correcting his personal copy of the first edition,[4] Newton published two further editions, in 1713 and 1726.[5] The Principia states Newton's laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics; Newton's law of universal gravitation; and a derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first obtained empirically). The Principia is considered one of the most important works in the history of science.[6] The French mathematical physicist Alexis Clairaut assessed it in 1747: "The famous book of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy marked the epoch of a great revolution in physics. The method followed by its illustrious author Sir Newton ... spread the light of mathematics on a science which up to then had remained in the darkness of conjectures and hypotheses."[7] A more recent assessment has been that while acceptance of Newton's theories was not immediate, by the end of the century after publication in 1687, "no one could deny that" (out of the Principia) "a science had emerged that, at least in certain respects, so far exceeded anything that had ever gone before that it stood alone as the ultimate exemplar of science generally".[8] In formulating his physical theories, Newton developed and used mathematical methods now included in the field of calculus. But the language of calculus as we know it was largely absent from the Principia; Newton gave many of his proofs in a geometric form of infinitesimal calculus, based on limits of ratios of vanishing small geometric quantities.[9] In a revised conclusion to the Principia (see General Scholium), Newton used his expression that became famous, Hypotheses non fingo ("I feign no hypotheses").[10] 1 Contents 1.1 Expressed aim and topics covered 1.2 Book 1, De motu corporum 1.3 Book 2, part 2 of De motu corporum 1.4 Book 3, De mundi systemate 1.5 Commentary on the Principia 1.6 Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy 1.7 General Scholium 2 Writing and publication 2.1 Halley and Newton's initial stimulus 2.2 Preliminary version 2.3 Halley's role as publisher 3 Historical context 3.1 Beginnings of the Scientific Revolution 3.2 Newton's role 3.3 Newton's early work on motion 3.4 Controversy with Hooke 4 Location of early edition copies 5 Later editions 5.1 Second edition, 1713 5.2 Third edition, 1726 5.3 Annotated and other editions 5.4 English translations 5.5 Homages 9.1 Latin versions 9.3 Other links Contents[edit] Expressed aim and topics covered[edit] Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) author of the Principia In the preface of the Principia, Newton wrote:[11] ... Rational Mechanics will be the sciences of motion resulting from any forces whatsoever, and of the forces required to produce any motion, accurately proposed and demonstrated ... And therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of his philosophy. For all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this—from the phenomenas of motions to investigate the forces of Nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena ... The Principia deals primarily with massive bodies in motion, initially under a variety of conditions and hypothetical laws of force in both non-resisting and resisting media, thus offering criteria to decide, by observations, which laws of force are operating in phenomena that may be observed. It attempts to cover hypothetical or possible motions both of celestial bodies and of terrestrial projectiles. It explores difficult problems of motions perturbed by multiple attractive forces. Its third and final book deals with the interpretation of observations about the movements of planets and their satellites. It shows: how astronomical observations prove the inverse square law of gravitation (to an accuracy that was high by the standards of Newton's time); offers estimates of relative masses for the known giant planets and for the Earth and the Sun; defines the very slow motion of the Sun relative to the solar-system barycenter; shows how the theory of gravity can account for irregularities in the motion of the Moon; identifies the oblateness of the figure of the Earth; accounts approximately for marine tides including phenomena of spring and neap tides by the perturbing (and varying) gravitational attractions of the Sun and Moon on the Earth's waters; explains the precession of the equinoxes as an effect of the gravitational attraction of the Moon on the Earth's equatorial bulge; and gives theoretical basis for numerous phenomena about comets and their elongated, near-parabolic orbits. The opening sections of the Principia contain, in revised and extended form, nearly[12] all of the content of Newton's 1684 tract De motu corporum in gyrum. The Principia begin with "Definitions"[13] and "Axioms or Laws of Motion",[14] and continues in three books: Book 1, De motu corporum[edit] Book 1, subtitled De motu corporum (On the motion of bodies) concerns motion in the absence of any resisting medium. It opens with a mathematical exposition of "the method of first and last ratios",[15] a geometrical form of infinitesimal calculus.[9] Newton's proof of Kepler's second law, as described in the book. If a continuous centripetal force (red arrow) is considered on the planet during its orbit, the area of the triangles defined by the path of the planet will be the same. This is true for any fixed time interval. When the interval tends to zero, the force can be considered instantaneous. (Click image for a detailed description). The second section establishes relationships between centripetal forces and the law of areas now known as Kepler's second law (Propositions 1–3),[16] and relates circular velocity and radius of path-curvature to radial force[17] (Proposition 4), and relationships between centripetal forces varying as the inverse-square of the distance to the center and orbits of conic-section form (Propositions 5–10). Propositions 11–31[18] establish properties of motion in paths of eccentric conic-section form including ellipses, and their relation with inverse-square central forces directed to a focus, and include Newton's theorem about ovals (lemma 28). Propositions 43–45[19] are demonstration that in an eccentric orbit under centripetal force where the apse may move, a steady non-moving orientation of the line of apses is an indicator of an inverse-square law of force. Book 1 contains some proofs with little connection to real-world dynamics. But there are also sections with far-reaching application to the solar system and universe: Propositions 57–69[20] deal with the "motion of bodies drawn to one another by centripetal forces". This section is of primary interest for its application to the Solar System, and includes Proposition 66[21] along with its 22 corollaries:[22] here Newton took the first steps in the definition and study of the problem of the movements of three massive bodies subject to their mutually perturbing gravitational attractions, a problem which later gained name and fame (among other reasons, for its great difficulty) as the three-body problem. Propositions 70–84[23] deal with the attractive forces of spherical bodies. The section contains Newton's proof that a massive spherically symmetrical body attracts other bodies outside itself as if all its mass were concentrated at its centre. This fundamental result, called the Shell theorem, enables the inverse square law of gravitation to be applied to the real solar system to a very close degree of approximation. Book 2, part 2 of De motu corporum[edit] Part of the contents originally planned for the first book was divided out into a second book, which largely concerns motion through resisting mediums. Just as Newton examined consequences of different conceivable laws of attraction in Book 1, here he examines different conceivable laws of resistance; thus Section 1 discusses resistance in direct proportion to velocity, and Section 2 goes on to examine the implications of resistance in proportion to the square of velocity. Book 2 also discusses (in Section 5) hydrostatics and the properties of compressible fluids; Newton also derives Boyle's law.[24] The effects of air resistance on pendulums are studied in Section 6, along with Newton's account of experiments that he carried out, to try to find out some characteristics of air resistance in reality by observing the motions of pendulums under different conditions. Newton compares the resistance offered by a medium against motions of globes with different properties (material, weight, size). In Section 8, he derives rules to determine the speed of waves in fluids and relates them to the density and condensation (Proposition 48;[25] this would become very important in acoustics). He assumes that these rules apply equally to light and sound and estimates that the speed of sound is around 1088 feet per second and can increase depending on the amount of water in air.[26] Less of Book 2 has stood the test of time than of Books 1 and 3, and it has been said that Book 2 was largely written on purpose to refute a theory of Descartes which had some wide acceptance before Newton's work (and for some time after). According to this Cartesian theory of vortices, planetary motions were produced by the whirling of fluid vortices that filled interplanetary space and carried the planets along with them.[27] Newton wrote at the end of Book 2[28] his conclusion that the hypothesis of vortices was completely at odds with the astronomical phenomena, and served not so much to explain as to confuse them. Book 3, De mundi systemate[edit] Book 3, subtitled De mundi systemate (On the system of the world), is an exposition of many consequences of universal gravitation, especially its consequences for astronomy. It builds upon the propositions of the previous books, and applies them with further specificity than in Book 1 to the motions observed in the Solar System. Here (introduced by Proposition 22,[29] and continuing in Propositions 25–35[30]) are developed several of the features and irregularities of the orbital motion of the Moon, especially the variation. Newton lists the astronomical observations on which he relies,[31] and establishes in a stepwise manner that the inverse square law of mutual gravitation applies to Solar System bodies, starting with the satellites of Jupiter[32] and going on by stages to show that the law is of universal application.[33] He also gives starting at Lemma 4[34] and Proposition 40[35] the theory of the motions of comets, for which much data came from John Flamsteed and Edmond Halley, and accounts for the tides,[36] attempting quantitative estimates of the contributions of the Sun[37] and Moon[38] to the tidal motions; and offers the first theory of the precession of the equinoxes.[39] Book 3 also considers the harmonic oscillator in three dimensions, and motion in arbitrary force laws. In Book 3 Newton also made clear his heliocentric view of the Solar System, modified in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognised the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the Solar System.[40] For Newton, "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World",[41] and that this centre "either is at rest, or moves uniformly forward in a right line".[42] Newton rejected the second alternative after adopting the position that "the centre of the system of the world is immoveable", which "is acknowledg'd by all, while some contend that the Earth, others, that the Sun is fix'd in that centre".[42] Newton estimated the mass ratios Sun:Jupiter and Sun:Saturn,[43] and pointed out that these put the centre of the Sun usually a little way off the common center of gravity, but only a little, the distance at most "would scarcely amount to one diameter of the Sun".[44] Commentary on the Principia[edit] Find sources: "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The sequence of definitions used in setting up dynamics in the Principia is recognisable in many textbooks today. Newton first set out the definition of mass The quantity of matter is that which arises conjointly from its density and magnitude. A body twice as dense in double the space is quadruple in quantity. This quantity I designate by the name of body or of mass. This was then used to define the "quantity of motion" (today called momentum), and the principle of inertia in which mass replaces the previous Cartesian notion of intrinsic force. This then set the stage for the introduction of forces through the change in momentum of a body. Curiously, for today's readers, the exposition looks dimensionally incorrect, since Newton does not introduce the dimension of time in rates of changes of quantities. He defined space and time "not as they are well known to all". Instead, he defined "true" time and space as "absolute"[45] and explained: Only I must observe, that the vulgar conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to perceptible objects. And it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common. ... instead of absolute places and motions, we use relative ones; and that without any inconvenience in common affairs; but in philosophical discussions, we ought to step back from our senses, and consider things themselves, distinct from what are only perceptible measures of them. To some modern readers it can appear that some dynamical quantities recognised today were used in the Principia but not named. The mathematical aspects of the first two books were so clearly consistent that they were easily accepted; for example, Locke asked Huygens whether he could trust the mathematical proofs, and was assured about their correctness. However, the concept of an attractive force acting at a distance received a cooler response. In his notes, Newton wrote that the inverse square law arose naturally due to the structure of matter. However, he retracted this sentence in the published version, where he stated that the motion of planets is consistent with an inverse square law, but refused to speculate on the origin of the law. Huygens and Leibniz noted that the law was incompatible with the notion of the aether. From a Cartesian point of view, therefore, this was a faulty theory. Newton's defence has been adopted since by many famous physicists—he pointed out that the mathematical form of the theory had to be correct since it explained the data, and he refused to speculate further on the basic nature of gravity. The sheer number of phenomena that could be organised by the theory was so impressive that younger "philosophers" soon adopted the methods and language of the Principia. Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy[edit] Perhaps to reduce the risk of public misunderstanding, Newton included at the beginning of Book 3 (in the second (1713) and third (1726) editions) a section titled "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy". In the four rules, as they came finally to stand in the 1726 edition, Newton effectively offers a methodology for handling unknown phenomena in nature and reaching towards explanations for them. The four Rules of the 1726 edition run as follows (omitting some explanatory comments that follow each): Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes. Rule 3: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever. Rule 4: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions. This section of Rules for philosophy is followed by a listing of "Phenomena", in which are listed a number of mainly astronomical observations, that Newton used as the basis for inferences later on, as if adopting a consensus set of facts from the astronomers of his time. Both the "Rules" and the "Phenomena" evolved from one edition of the Principia to the next. Rule 4 made its appearance in the third (1726) edition; Rules 1–3 were present as "Rules" in the second (1713) edition, and predecessors of them were also present in the first edition of 1687, but there they had a different heading: they were not given as "Rules", but rather in the first (1687) edition the predecessors of the three later "Rules", and of most of the later "Phenomena", were all lumped together under a single heading "Hypotheses" (in which the third item was the predecessor of a heavy revision that gave the later Rule 3). From this textual evolution, it appears that Newton wanted by the later headings "Rules" and "Phenomena" to clarify for his readers his view of the roles to be played by these various statements. In the third (1726) edition of the Principia, Newton explains each rule in an alternative way and/or gives an example to back up what the rule is claiming. The first rule is explained as a philosophers' principle of economy. The second rule states that if one cause is assigned to a natural effect, then the same cause so far as possible must be assigned to natural effects of the same kind: for example respiration in humans and in animals, fires in the home and in the Sun, or the reflection of light whether it occurs terrestrially or from the planets. An extensive explanation is given of the third rule, concerning the qualities of bodies, and Newton discusses here the generalisation of observational results, with a caution against making up fancies contrary to experiments, and use of the rules to illustrate the observation of gravity and space. Isaac Newton's statement of the four rules revolutionised the investigation of phenomena. With these rules, Newton could in principle begin to address all of the world's present unsolved mysteries. He was able to use his new analytical method to replace that of Aristotle, and he was able to use his method to tweak and update Galileo's experimental method. The re-creation of Galileo's method has never been significantly changed and in its substance, scientists use it today.[citation needed] General Scholium[edit] Main article: General Scholium The General Scholium is a concluding essay added to the second edition, 1713 (and amended in the third edition, 1726).[46] It is not to be confused with the General Scholium at the end of Book 2, Section 6, which discusses his pendulum experiments and resistance due to air, water, and other fluids. Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo, "I formulate no hypotheses",[10] in response to criticisms of the first edition of the Principia. ("Fingo" is sometimes nowadays translated "feign" rather than the traditional "frame"). Newton's gravitational attraction, an invisible force able to act over vast distances, had led to criticism that he had introduced "occult agencies" into science.[47] Newton firmly rejected such criticisms and wrote that it was enough that the phenomena implied gravitational attraction, as they did; but the phenomena did not so far indicate the cause of this gravity, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things not implied by the phenomena: such hypotheses "have no place in experimental philosophy", in contrast to the proper way in which "particular propositions are inferr'd from the phenomena and afterwards rendered general by induction".[48] Newton also underlined his criticism of the vortex theory of planetary motions, of Descartes, pointing to its incompatibility with the highly eccentric orbits of comets, which carry them "through all parts of the heavens indifferently". Newton also gave theological argument. From the system of the world, he inferred the existence of a Lord God, along lines similar to what is sometimes called the argument from intelligent or purposive design. It has been suggested that Newton gave "an oblique argument for a unitarian conception of God and an implicit attack on the doctrine of the Trinity",[49][50] but the General Scholium appears to say nothing specifically about these matters. Writing and publication[edit] Halley and Newton's initial stimulus[edit] In January 1684, Edmond Halley, Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke had a conversation in which Hooke claimed to not only have derived the inverse-square law, but also all the laws of planetary motion. Wren was unconvinced, Hooke did not produce the claimed derivation although the others gave him time to do it, and Halley, who could derive the inverse-square law for the restricted circular case (by substituting Kepler's relation into Huygens' formula for the centrifugal force) but failed to derive the relation generally, resolved to ask Newton.[51] Halley's visits to Newton in 1684 thus resulted from Halley's debates about planetary motion with Wren and Hooke, and they seem to have provided Newton with the incentive and spur to develop and write what became Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Halley was at that time a Fellow and Council member of the Royal Society in London (positions that in 1686 he resigned to become the Society's paid Clerk).[52] Halley's visit to Newton in Cambridge in 1684 probably occurred in August.[53] When Halley asked Newton's opinion on the problem of planetary motions discussed earlier that year between Halley, Hooke and Wren,[54] Newton surprised Halley by saying that he had already made the derivations some time ago; but that he could not find the papers. (Matching accounts of this meeting come from Halley and Abraham De Moivre to whom Newton confided.) Halley then had to wait for Newton to "find" the results, but in November 1684 Newton sent Halley an amplified version of whatever previous work Newton had done on the subject. This took the form of a 9-page manuscript, De motu corporum in gyrum (Of the motion of bodies in an orbit): the title is shown on some surviving copies, although the (lost) original may have been without title. Newton's tract De motu corporum in gyrum, which he sent to Halley in late 1684, derived what are now known as the three laws of Kepler, assuming an inverse square law of force, and generalised the result to conic sections. It also extended the methodology by adding the solution of a problem on the motion of a body through a resisting medium. The contents of De motu so excited Halley by their mathematical and physical originality and far-reaching implications for astronomical theory, that he immediately went to visit Newton again, in November 1684, to ask Newton to let the Royal Society have more of such work.[55] The results of their meetings clearly helped to stimulate Newton with the enthusiasm needed to take his investigations of mathematical problems much further in this area of physical science, and he did so in a period of highly concentrated work that lasted at least until mid-1686.[56] Newton's single-minded attention to his work generally, and to his project during this time, is shown by later reminiscences from his secretary and copyist of the period, Humphrey Newton. His account tells of Isaac Newton's absorption in his studies, how he sometimes forgot his food, or his sleep, or the state of his clothes, and how when he took a walk in his garden he would sometimes rush back to his room with some new thought, not even waiting to sit before beginning to write it down.[57] Other evidence also shows Newton's absorption in the Principia: Newton for years kept up a regular programme of chemical or alchemical experiments, and he normally kept dated notes of them, but for a period from May 1684 to April 1686, Newton's chemical notebooks have no entries at all.[58] So it seems that Newton abandoned pursuits to which he was normally dedicated, and did very little else for well over a year and a half, but concentrated on developing and writing what became his great work. The first of the three constituent books was sent to Halley for the printer in spring 1686, and the other two books somewhat later. The complete work, published by Halley at his own financial risk,[59] appeared in July 1687. Newton had also communicated De motu to Flamsteed, and during the period of composition he exchanged a few letters with Flamsteed about observational data on the planets, eventually acknowledging Flamsteed's contributions in the published version of the Principia of 1687. Preliminary version[edit] Newton's own first edition copy of his Principia, with handwritten corrections for the second edition. The process of writing that first edition of the Principia went through several stages and drafts: some parts of the preliminary materials still survive, while others are lost except for fragments and cross-references in other documents.[60] Surviving materials show that Newton (up to some time in 1685) conceived his book as a two-volume work. The first volume was to be titled De motu corporum, Liber primus, with contents that later appeared in extended form as Book 1 of the Principia.[citation needed] A fair-copy draft of Newton's planned second volume De motu corporum, Liber secundus survives, its completion dated to about the summer of 1685. It covers the application of the results of Liber primus to the Earth, the Moon, the tides, the Solar System, and the universe; in this respect it has much the same purpose as the final Book 3 of the Principia, but it is written much less formally and is more easily read.[citation needed] Titlepage and frontispiece of the third edition, London, 1726 (John Rylands Library) It is not known just why Newton changed his mind so radically about the final form of what had been a readable narrative in De motu corporum, Liber secundus of 1685, but he largely started afresh in a new, tighter, and less accessible mathematical style, eventually to produce Book 3 of the Principia as we know it. Newton frankly admitted that this change of style was deliberate when he wrote that he had (first) composed this book "in a popular method, that it might be read by many", but to "prevent the disputes" by readers who could not "lay aside the[ir] prejudices", he had "reduced" it "into the form of propositions (in the mathematical way) which should be read by those only, who had first made themselves masters of the principles established in the preceding books".[61] The final Book 3 also contained in addition some further important quantitative results arrived at by Newton in the meantime, especially about the theory of the motions of comets, and some of the perturbations of the motions of the Moon. The result was numbered Book 3 of the Principia rather than Book 2, because in the meantime, drafts of Liber primus had expanded and Newton had divided it into two books. The new and final Book 2 was concerned largely with the motions of bodies through resisting mediums.[citation needed] But the Liber secundus of 1685 can still be read today. Even after it was superseded by Book 3 of the Principia, it survived complete, in more than one manuscript. After Newton's death in 1727, the relatively accessible character of its writing encouraged the publication of an English translation in 1728 (by persons still unknown, not authorised by Newton's heirs). It appeared under the English title A Treatise of the System of the World.[62] This had some amendments relative to Newton's manuscript of 1685, mostly to remove cross-references that used obsolete numbering to cite the propositions of an early draft of Book 1 of the Principia. Newton's heirs shortly afterwards published the Latin version in their possession, also in 1728, under the (new) title De Mundi Systemate, amended to update cross-references, citations and diagrams to those of the later editions of the Principia, making it look superficially as if it had been written by Newton after the Principia, rather than before.[63] The System of the World was sufficiently popular to stimulate two revisions (with similar changes as in the Latin printing), a second edition (1731), and a "corrected" reprint[64] of the second edition (1740). Halley's role as publisher[edit] The text of the first of the three books of the Principia was presented to the Royal Society at the close of April 1686. Hooke made some priority claims (but failed to substantiate them), causing some delay. When Hooke's claim was made known to Newton, who hated disputes, Newton threatened to withdraw and suppress Book 3 altogether, but Halley, showing considerable diplomatic skills, tactfully persuaded Newton to withdraw his threat and let it go forward to publication. Samuel Pepys, as President, gave his imprimatur on 30 June 1686, licensing the book for publication. The Society had just spent its book budget on a History of Fishes,[65] and the cost of publication was borne by Edmund Halley (who was also then acting as publisher of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society)[66]: the book appeared in summer 1687.[67] After Halley had personally financed the publication of Principia, he was informed that the society could no longer afford to provide him the promised annual salary of £50. Instead, Halley was paid with left-over copies of De Historia Piscium.[68] Historical context[edit] Beginnings of the Scientific Revolution[edit] Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) formulated a heliocentric (or Sun-centered) model of the universe Nicolaus Copernicus had moved the Earth away from the center of the universe with the heliocentric theory for which he presented evidence in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres) published in 1543. Johannes Kepler wrote the book Astronomia nova (A new astronomy) in 1609, setting out the evidence that planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus, and that planets do not move with constant speed along this orbit. Rather, their speed varies so that the line joining the centres of the sun and a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. To these two laws he added a third a decade later, in his book Harmonices Mundi (Harmonies of the world). This law sets out a proportionality between the third power of the characteristic distance of a planet from the Sun and the square of the length of its year. Italian physicist Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), a champion of the Copernican model of the universe and a figure in the history of kinematics and classical mechanics The foundation of modern dynamics was set out in Galileo's book Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue on the two main world systems) where the notion of inertia was implicit and used. In addition, Galileo's experiments with inclined planes had yielded precise mathematical relations between elapsed time and acceleration, velocity or distance for uniform and uniformly accelerated motion of bodies. Descartes' book of 1644 Principia philosophiae (Principles of philosophy) stated that bodies can act on each other only through contact: a principle that induced people, among them himself, to hypothesize a universal medium as the carrier of interactions such as light and gravity—the aether. Newton was criticized for apparently introducing forces that acted at distance without any medium.[47] Not until the development of particle theory was Descartes' notion vindicated when it was possible to describe all interactions, like the strong, weak, and electromagnetic fundamental interactions, using mediating gauge bosons[69] and gravity through hypothesized gravitons.[70] Although he was mistaken in his treatment of circular motion, this effort was more fruitful in the short term when it led others to identify circular motion as a problem raised by the principle of inertia. Christiaan Huygens solved this problem in the 1650s and published it much later in 1673 in his book Horologium oscillatorium sive de motu pendulorum. Newton's role[edit] Newton had studied these books, or, in some cases, secondary sources based on them, and taken notes entitled Quaestiones quaedam philosophicae (Questions about philosophy) during his days as an undergraduate. During this period (1664–1666) he created the basis of calculus, and performed the first experiments in the optics of colour. At this time, his proof that white light was a combination of primary colours (found via prismatics) replaced the prevailing theory of colours and received an overwhelmingly favourable response, and occasioned bitter disputes with Robert Hooke and others, which forced him to sharpen his ideas to the point where he already composed sections of his later book Opticks by the 1670s in response. Work on calculus is shown in various papers and letters, including two to Leibniz. He became a fellow of the Royal Society and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (succeeding Isaac Barrow) at Trinity College, Cambridge. Newton's early work on motion[edit] In the 1660s Newton studied the motion of colliding bodies, and deduced that the centre of mass of two colliding bodies remains in uniform motion. Surviving manuscripts of the 1660s also show Newton's interest in planetary motion and that by 1669 he had shown, for a circular case of planetary motion, that the force he called "endeavour to recede" (now called centrifugal force) had an inverse-square relation with distance from the center.[71] After his 1679–1680 correspondence with Hooke, described below, Newton adopted the language of inward or centripetal force. According to Newton scholar J. Bruce Brackenridge, although much has been made of the change in language and difference of point of view, as between centrifugal or centripetal forces, the actual computations and proofs remained the same either way. They also involved the combination of tangential and radial displacements, which Newton was making in the 1660s. The difference between the centrifugal and centripetal points of view, though a significant change of perspective, did not change the analysis.[72] Newton also clearly expressed the concept of linear inertia in the 1660s: for this Newton was indebted to Descartes' work published 1644.[73] Controversy with Hooke[edit] Artist's impression of English polymath Robert Hooke (1635–1703). Hooke published his ideas about gravitation in the 1660s and again in 1674. He argued for an attracting principle of gravitation in Micrographia of 1665, in a 1666 Royal Society lecture On gravity, and again in 1674, when he published his ideas about the System of the World in somewhat developed form, as an addition to An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations.[74] Hooke clearly postulated mutual attractions between the Sun and planets, in a way that increased with nearness to the attracting body, along with a principle of linear inertia. Hooke's statements up to 1674 made no mention, however, that an inverse square law applies or might apply to these attractions. Hooke's gravitation was also not yet universal, though it approached universality more closely than previous hypotheses.[75] Hooke also did not provide accompanying evidence or mathematical demonstration. On these two aspects, Hooke stated in 1674: "Now what these several degrees [of gravitational attraction] are I have not yet experimentally verified" (indicating that he did not yet know what law the gravitation might follow); and as to his whole proposal: "This I only hint at present", "having my self many other things in hand which I would first compleat, and therefore cannot so well attend it" (i.e., "prosecuting this Inquiry").[74] In November 1679, Hooke began an exchange of letters with Newton, of which the full text is now published.[76] Hooke told Newton that Hooke had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence,[77] and wished to hear from members about their researches, or their views about the researches of others; and as if to whet Newton's interest, he asked what Newton thought about various matters, giving a whole list, mentioning "compounding the celestial motions of the planets of a direct motion by the tangent and an attractive motion towards the central body", and "my hypothesis of the lawes or causes of springinesse", and then a new hypothesis from Paris about planetary motions (which Hooke described at length), and then efforts to carry out or improve national surveys, the difference of latitude between London and Cambridge, and other items. Newton's reply offered "a fansy of my own" about a terrestrial experiment (not a proposal about celestial motions) which might detect the Earth's motion, by the use of a body first suspended in air and then dropped to let it fall. The main point was to indicate how Newton thought the falling body could experimentally reveal the Earth's motion by its direction of deviation from the vertical, but he went on hypothetically to consider how its motion could continue if the solid Earth had not been in the way (on a spiral path to the centre). Hooke disagreed with Newton's idea of how the body would continue to move.[78] A short further correspondence developed, and towards the end of it Hooke, writing on 6 January 1680 to Newton, communicated his "supposition ... that the Attraction always is in a duplicate proportion to the Distance from the Center Reciprocall, and Consequently that the Velocity will be in a subduplicate proportion to the Attraction and Consequently as Kepler Supposes Reciprocall to the Distance."[79] (Hooke's inference about the velocity was actually incorrect.[80]) In 1686, when the first book of Newton's Principia was presented to the Royal Society, Hooke claimed that Newton had obtained from him the "notion" of "the rule of the decrease of Gravity, being reciprocally as the squares of the distances from the Center". At the same time (according to Edmond Halley's contemporary report) Hooke agreed that "the Demonstration of the Curves generated therby" was wholly Newton's.[76] A recent assessment about the early history of the inverse square law is that "by the late 1660s", the assumption of an "inverse proportion between gravity and the square of distance was rather common and had been advanced by a number of different people for different reasons".[81] Newton himself had shown in the 1660s that for planetary motion under a circular assumption, force in the radial direction had an inverse-square relation with distance from the center.[71] Newton, faced in May 1686 with Hooke's claim on the inverse square law, denied that Hooke was to be credited as author of the idea, giving reasons including the citation of prior work by others before Hooke.[76] Newton also firmly claimed that even if it had happened that he had first heard of the inverse square proportion from Hooke, which it had not, he would still have some rights to it in view of his mathematical developments and demonstrations, which enabled observations to be relied on as evidence of its accuracy, while Hooke, without mathematical demonstrations and evidence in favour of the supposition, could only guess (according to Newton) that it was approximately valid "at great distances from the center".[76] The background described above shows there was basis for Newton to deny deriving the inverse square law from Hooke. On the other hand, Newton did accept and acknowledge, in all editions of the Principia, that Hooke (but not exclusively Hooke) had separately appreciated the inverse square law in the Solar System. Newton acknowledged Wren, Hooke and Halley in this connection in the Scholium to Proposition 4 in Book 1.[82] Newton also acknowledged to Halley that his correspondence with Hooke in 1679–80 had reawakened his dormant interest in astronomical matters, but that did not mean, according to Newton, that Hooke had told Newton anything new or original: "yet am I not beholden to him for any light into that business but only for the diversion he gave me from my other studies to think on these things & for his dogmaticalness in writing as if he had found the motion in the Ellipsis, which inclined me to try it ...".[76]) Newton's reawakening interest in astronomy received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed.[83] In 1759, decades after the deaths of both Newton and Hooke, Alexis Clairaut, mathematical astronomer eminent in his own right in the field of gravitational studies, made his assessment after reviewing what Hooke had published on gravitation. "One must not think that this idea ... of Hooke diminishes Newton's glory", Clairaut wrote; "The example of Hooke" serves "to show what a distance there is between a truth that is glimpsed and a truth that is demonstrated".[84][85] Location of early edition copies[edit] A page from the Principia It has been estimated that between 250 and 400 copies of the first edition were printed by the Royal Society, and "it is quite remarkable that so many copies of this small first edition are still in existence ... but it may be because the original Latin text was more revered than read".[86] A survey published in 1953 located 189 surviving copies.[87] Cambridge University Library has Newton's own copy of the first edition, with handwritten notes for the second edition.[88] The Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William & Mary has a first edition copy of the Principia.[89] In it are notes in Latin throughout by a not yet identified hand. The Frederick E. Brasch Collection of Newton and Newtoniana in Stanford University also has a first edition of the Principia.[90] A first edition forms part of the Crawford Collection, housed at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.[91] The Uppsala University Library owns a first edition copy, which was stolen in the 1960s and returned to the library in 2009.[92] The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. owns a first edition, as well as a 1713 second edition. The Huntington Library in San Marino, California owns Isaac Newton's personal copy, with annotations in Newton's own hand.[93] The Martin Bodmer Library keeps a copy of the original edition that was owned by Leibniz. In it, we can see handwritten notes by Leibniz, in particular concerning the controversy of who first formulated calculus (although he published it later, Newton argued that he developed it earlier).[94] The University of St Andrews Library holds both variants of the first edition, as well as copies of the 1713 and 1726 editions.[95] Fisher Library in the University of Sydney has a first-edition copy, annotated by a mathematician of uncertain identity and corresponding notes from Newton himself.[96] The Linda Hall Library holds the first edition, as well as a copy of the 1713 and 1726 editions. The Teleki-Bolyai Library of Târgu-Mureș holds a 2-line imprint first edition. One book is also located at Vasaskolan, Gävle, in Sweden.[citation needed] In 2016, a first edition sold for $3.7 million.[97] A facsimile edition (based on the 3rd edition of 1726 but with variant readings from earlier editions and important annotations) was published in 1972 by Alexandre Koyré and I. Bernard Cohen.[5] Later editions[edit] Newton's personal copy of the first edition of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, annotated by him for the second edition. Displayed at Cambridge University Library. Two later editions were published by Newton: Second edition, 1713[edit] Second edition opened to title page Newton had been urged to make a new edition of the Principia since the early 1690s, partly because copies of the first edition had already become very rare and expensive within a few years after 1687.[98] Newton referred to his plans for a second edition in correspondence with Flamsteed in November 1694:[99] Newton also maintained annotated copies of the first edition specially bound up with interleaves on which he could note his revisions; two of these copies still survive:[100] but he had not completed the revisions by 1708, and of two would-be editors, Newton had almost severed connections with one, Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, and the other, David Gregory seems not to have met with Newton's approval and was also terminally ill, dying later in 1708. Nevertheless, reasons were accumulating not to put off the new edition any longer.[101] Richard Bentley, master of Trinity College, persuaded Newton to allow him to undertake a second edition, and in June 1708 Bentley wrote to Newton with a specimen print of the first sheet, at the same time expressing the (unfulfilled) hope that Newton had made progress towards finishing the revisions.[102] It seems that Bentley then realised that the editorship was technically too difficult for him, and with Newton's consent he appointed Roger Cotes, Plumian professor of astronomy at Trinity, to undertake the editorship for him as a kind of deputy (but Bentley still made the publishing arrangements and had the financial responsibility and profit). The correspondence of 1709–1713 shows Cotes reporting to two masters, Bentley and Newton, and managing (and often correcting) a large and important set of revisions to which Newton sometimes could not give his full attention.[103] Under the weight of Cotes' efforts, but impeded by priority disputes between Newton and Leibniz,[104] and by troubles at the Mint,[105] Cotes was able to announce publication to Newton on 30 June 1713.[106] Bentley sent Newton only six presentation copies; Cotes was unpaid; Newton omitted any acknowledgement to Cotes. Among those who gave Newton corrections for the Second Edition were: Firmin Abauzit, Roger Cotes and David Gregory. However, Newton omitted acknowledgements to some because of the priority disputes. John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, suffered this especially. The Second Edition was the basis of the first edition to be printed abroad, which appeared in Amsterdam in 1714. Third edition, 1726[edit] The third edition was published 25 March 1726, under the stewardship of Henry Pemberton, M.D., a man of the greatest skill in these matters...; Pemberton later said that this recognition was worth more to him than the two hundred guinea award from Newton.[107] Annotated and other editions[edit] In 1739–42, two French priests, Pères Thomas LeSeur and François Jacquier (of the Minim order, but sometimes erroneously identified as Jesuits), produced with the assistance of J.-L. Calandrini an extensively annotated version of the Principia in the 3rd edition of 1726. Sometimes this is referred to as the Jesuit edition: it was much used, and reprinted more than once in Scotland during the 19th century.[108] Émilie du Châtelet also made a translation of Newton's Principia into French. Unlike LeSeur and Jacquier's edition, hers was a complete translation of Newton's three books and their prefaces. She also included a Commentary section where she fused the three books into a much clearer and easier to understand summary. She included an analytical section where she applied the new mathematics of calculus to Newton's most controversial theories. Previously, geometry was the standard mathematics used to analyse theories. Du Châtelet's translation is the only complete one to have been done in French and hers remains the standard French translation to this day.[109] English translations[edit] Two full English translations of Newton's Principia have appeared, both based on Newton's 3rd edition of 1726. The first, from 1729, by Andrew Motte,[3] was described by Newton scholar I. Bernard Cohen (in 1968) as "still of enormous value in conveying to us the sense of Newton's words in their own time, and it is generally faithful to the original: clear, and well written".[110] The 1729 version was the basis for several republications, often incorporating revisions, among them a widely used modernised English version of 1934, which appeared under the editorial name of Florian Cajori (though completed and published only some years after his death). Cohen pointed out ways in which the 18th-century terminology and punctuation of the 1729 translation might be confusing to modern readers, but he also made severe criticisms of the 1934 modernised English version, and showed that the revisions had been made without regard to the original, also demonstrating gross errors "that provided the final impetus to our decision to produce a wholly new translation".[111] The second full English translation, into modern English, is the work that resulted from this decision by collaborating translators I. Bernard Cohen, Anne Whitman, and Julia Budenz; it was published in 1999 with a guide by way of introduction.[112] William H. Donahue has published a translation of the work's central argument, published in 1996, along with expansion of included proofs and ample commentary.[113] The book was developed as a textbook for classes at St. John's College and the aim of this translation is to be faithful to the Latin text.[114] Homages[edit] In 2014, British astronaut Tim Peake named his upcoming mission to the International Space Station Principia after the book, in "honour of Britain's greatest scientist".[115] Tim Peake's Principia launched on December 15, 2015 aboard Soyuz TMA-19M.[116] Elements of the Philosophy of Newton Isaac Newton's occult studies ^ "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", Encyclopædia Britannica, London ^ Among versions of the Principia online: [1]. ^ a b Volume 1 of the 1729 English translation is available as an online scan; limited parts of the 1729 translation (misidentified as based on the 1687 edition) have also been transcribed online. ^ Newton, Isaac. "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Newton's personally annotated 1st edition)". ^ a b [In Latin] Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica: the Third edition (1726) with variant readings, assembled and ed. by Alexandre Koyré and I Bernard Cohen with the assistance of Anne Whitman (Cambridge, MA, 1972, Harvard UP). ^ J. M. Steele, University of Toronto, (review online from Canadian Association of Physicists) Archived 1 April 2010 at the Wayback Machine of N. Guicciardini's "Reading the Principia: The Debate on Newton's Mathematical Methods for Natural Philosophy from 1687 to 1736" (Cambridge UP, 1999), a book which also states (summary before title page) that the "Principia" "is considered one of the masterpieces in the history of science". ^ (in French) Alexis Clairaut, "Du systeme du monde, dans les principes de la gravitation universelle", in "Histoires (& Memoires) de l'Academie Royale des Sciences" for 1745 (published 1749), at p. 329 (according to a note on p. 329, Clairaut's paper was read at a session of November 1747). ^ G. E. Smith, "Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition), E. N. Zalta (ed.). ^ a b The content of infinitesimal calculus in the "Principia" was recognized both in Newton's lifetime and later, among others by the Marquis de l'Hospital, whose 1696 book "Analyse des infiniment petits" (Infinitesimal analysis) stated in its preface, about the "Principia", that "nearly all of it is of this calculus" ("lequel est presque tout de ce calcul"). See also D. T. Whiteside (1970), "The mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica", Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 1 (1970), 116–138, especially at p. 120. ^ a b Or "frame" no hypotheses (as traditionally translated at vol. 2, p. 392, in the 1729 English version). ^ From Motte's translation of 1729 (at 3rd page of Author's Preface); and see also J. W. Herivel, The background to Newton's "Principia", Oxford University Press, 1965. ^ The De motu corporum in gyrum article indicates the topics that reappear in the Principia. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Definitions". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 1. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Axioms or Laws of Motion". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 19. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Section I". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 41. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Section II". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 57. ^ This relationship between circular curvature, speed and radial force, now often known as Huygens' formula, was independently found by Newton (in the 1660s) and by Huygens in the 1650s: the conclusion was published (without proof) by Huygens in 1673.This was given by Isaac Newton through his Inverse Square Law. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac; Machin, John (1729). The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. pp. 79–153. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Section IX". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 177. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Section XI". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 218. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Section XI, Proposition LXVI". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 234. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac; Machin, John (1729). The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. pp. 239–256. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Section XII". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume I. B. Motte. p. 263. ^ Gillispie, Charles Coulston (1960). The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas. Princeton University Press. p. 254. ISBN 0-691-02350-6. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Proposition 48". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 176. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Scholium to proposition 50". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 181. ^ Eric J Aiton, The Cartesian vortex theory, chapter 11 in Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics, Part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton, eds. R Taton & C Wilson, Cambridge (Cambridge University press) 1989; at pp. 207–221. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 252. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "The Phaenomena". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 206. ^ See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233–274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Proposition 12, Corollary". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 233. ^ a b Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Proposition 11 & preceding Hypothesis". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 232. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Proposition 8, Corollary 2". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 228. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Proposition 12". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. pp. 232–233. Newton's position is seen to go beyond literal Copernican heliocentrism practically to the modern position in regard to the Solar System barycenter (see Barycenter -- Inside or outside the Sun?). ^ Knudsen, Jens M.; Hjorth, Poul (2012). Elements of Newtonian Mechanics (illustrated ed.). Springer Science & Business Media. p. 30. ISBN 978-3-642-97599-8. Extract of page 30 ^ See online Principia (1729 translation) vol.2, Books 2 & 3, starting at page 387 of volume 2 (1729). ^ a b Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0-940262-45-2, p. 54. ^ See online Principia (1729 translation) vol.2, Books 2 & 3, at page 392 of volume 2 (1729). ^ Snobelen, Stephen. "The General Scholium to Isaac Newton's Principia mathematica". Archived from the original on 8 June 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2008. ^ Ducheyne, Steffen. "The General Scholium: Some notes on Newton's published and unpublished endeavours" (PDF). Lias: Sources and Documents Relating to the Early Modern History of Ideas. 33 (2): 223–274. Retrieved 19 November 2008. ^ Paraphrase of 1686 report by Halley, in H. W. Turnbull (ed.), "Correspondence of Isaac Newton", Vol. 2, cited above, pp. 431–448. ^ 'Cook, 1998': A. Cook, Edmond Halley, Charting the Heavens and the Seas, Oxford University Press 1998, at pp. 147 and 152. ^ As dated e.g. by D. T. Whiteside, in The Prehistory of the Principia from 1664 to 1686, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 45 (1991) 11–61. ^ Cook, 1998; at p. 147. ^ Westfall, 1980: R. S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, Cambridge University Press 1980, at p. 404. ^ Westfall, 1980; at p. 406, also pp. 191–192. ^ Westfall, 1980; at p. 406, n. 15. ^ Westfall, 1980; at pp. 153–156. ^ The fundamental study of Newton's progress in writing the Principia is in I. Bernard Cohen's Introduction to Newton's 'Principia', (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971), at part 2: "The writing and first publication of the 'Principia'", pp. 47–142. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1729). "Introduction to Book 3". The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Volume II. Benjamin Motte. p. 200. ^ Newton, Isaac (1728). A Treatise of the System of the World. ^ I. Bernard Cohen, Introduction to Newton's A Treatise of the System of the World (facsimile of second English edition of 1731), London (Dawsons of Pall Mall) 1969. ^ Newton, Sir Isaac (1740). The System of the World: Demonstrated in an Easy and Popular Manner. Being a Proper Introduction to the Most Sublime Philosophy. By the Illustrious Sir Isaac Newton. Translated into English. A "corrected" reprint of the second edition. ^ Richard Westfall (1980), Never at Rest, p. 453, ISBN 0-521-27435-4. ^ Clerk, Halley's (29 October 2013). "Halley and the Principia". Halley's Log. Retrieved 7 December 2019. ^ "Museum of London exhibit including facsimile of title page from John Flamsteed's copy of 1687 edition of Newton's ''Principia''". Museumoflondon.org.uk. Archived from the original on 31 March 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2012. ^ Bill Bryson (2004). A Short History of Nearly Everything. Random House, Inc. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-385-66004-4. ^ The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics. "Particle Physics and Astrophysics Research". Missing or empty |url= (help) ^ Rovelli, Carlo (2000). "Notes for a brief history of quantum gravity". arXiv:gr-qc/0006061. ^ a b D. T. Whiteside, "The pre-history of the 'Principia' from 1664 to 1686", Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 45 (1991), pages 11–61; especially at 13–20. [2]. ^ See J. Bruce Brackenridge, "The key to Newton's dynamics: the Kepler problem and the Principia", (University of California Press, 1995), especially at pages 20–21. ^ See page 10 in D. T. Whiteside, "Before the Principia: the maturing of Newton's thoughts on dynamical astronomy, 1664–1684", Journal for the History of Astronomy, i (1970), pages 5–19. ^ a b Hooke's 1674 statement in "An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations", is available in online facsimile here. ^ See page 239 in Curtis Wilson (1989), "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", ch. 13 (pages 233–274) in "Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics: 2A: Tycho Brahe to Newton", CUP 1989. ^ a b c d e H. W. Turnbull (ed.), Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Vol. 2 (1676–1687), (Cambridge University Press, 1960), giving the Hooke-Newton correspondence (of November 1679 to January 1679/80) at pp. 297–314, and the 1686 correspondence over Hooke's priority claim at pp. 431–448. ^ "Correspondence", vol. 2 already cited, at p. 297. ^ Several commentators have followed Hooke in calling Newton's spiral path mistaken, or even a "blunder", but there are also the following facts: (a) that Hooke left out of account Newton's specific statement that the motion resulted from dropping "a heavy body suspended in the Air" (i.e. a resisting medium), see Newton to Hooke, 28 November 1679, document #236 at page 301, "Correspondence", vol. 2 cited above, and compare Hooke's report to the Royal Society on 11 December 1679, where Hooke reported the matter "supposing no resistance", see D Gjertsen, "Newton Handbook" (1986), at page 259); and (b) that Hooke's reply of 9 December 1679 to Newton considered the cases of motion both with and without air resistance: The resistance-free path was what Hooke called an 'elliptueid'; but a line in Hooke's diagram showing the path for his case of air resistance was, though elongated, also another inward-spiralling path ending at the Earth's centre: Hooke wrote "where the Medium ... has a power of impeding and destroying its motion the curve in wch it would move would be some what like the Line AIKLMNOP &c and ... would terminate in the center C". Hooke's path including air resistance was therefore to this extent like Newton's (see "Correspondence", vol. 2, cited above, at pages 304–306, document #237, with accompanying figure). The diagrams are also available online: see Curtis Wilson, chapter 13 in "Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics, Part A, Tycho Brahe to Newton", (Cambridge UP 1989), at page 241 showing Newton's 1679 diagram with spiral, and extract of his letter; also at page 242 showing Hooke's 1679 diagram including two paths, closed curve and spiral. Newton pointed out in his later correspondence over the priority claim that the descent in a spiral "is true in a resisting medium such as our air is", see "Correspondence", vol. 2 cited above, at page 433, document #286. ^ See page 309 in "Correspondence of Isaac Newton", Vol. 2 cited above, at document #239. ^ See Curtis Wilson (1989) at page 244. ^ See "Meanest foundations and nobler superstructures: Hooke, Newton and the 'Compounding of the Celestiall Motions of the Planetts'", Ofer Gal, 2003 at page 9. ^ See for example the 1729 English translation of the 'Principia', at page 66. ^ R. S. Westfall, "Never at Rest", 1980, at pages 391–292. ^ The second extract is quoted and translated in W. W. Rouse Ball, "An Essay on Newton's 'Principia'" (London and New York: Macmillan, 1893), at page 69. ^ The original statements by Clairaut (in French) are found (with orthography here as in the original) in "Explication abregée du systême du monde, et explication des principaux phénomenes astronomiques tirée des Principes de M. Newton" (1759), at Introduction (section IX), page 6: "Il ne faut pas croire que cette idée ... de Hook diminue la gloire de M. Newton", [and] "L'exemple de Hook" [serves] "à faire voir quelle distance il y a entre une vérité entrevue & une vérité démontrée". ^ Henry P. Macomber, "Census of Owners of 1687 First, and 1726 Presentation Edition of Newton's 'Principia'", The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, volume 47 (1953), pages 269–300, at page 269. ^ Macomber, op. cit., page 270. ^ Newton, Isaac. "Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica". Cambridge Digital Library. Retrieved 3 July 2013. ^ Newton, Isaac (1687). "Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica" (in Latin). Swem Library: Jussu Societatis Regiae ac Typis Josephi Streater. Archived from the original on 15 December 2012. ^ "Special Collections & University Archives". stanford.edu. ^ "The Crawford collection at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh". The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. Retrieved 3 July 2013. ^ "Newton's book back in Uppsala University Library". Uppsala University. Retrieved 10 May 2014. ^ "Beautiful Science: Ideas that Changed the World – Astronomy". Retrieved 2 January 2016. ^ "A scientific gem: Isaac Newton (1643-1727)". Retrieved 5 July 2016. ^ "Echoes from the Vault". Echoes from the Vault. Retrieved 6 November 2017. ^ "Annotated first edition copy of Newton's Principia". University of Sydney Library. University of Sydney. Retrieved 17 April 2019. ^ Rawlinson, Kevin (15 December 2016). "Isaac Newton masterwork becomes most expensive science book sold". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 December 2016. ^ The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.4, Cambridge University Press 1967, at pp.519, n.2. ^ The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.4, Cambridge University press 1967, at p.42. ^ I Bernard Cohen, Introduction to the Principia, Cambridge 1971. ^ Richard S. Westfall. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge U. Press. 1980 ISBN 0-521-23143-4, at p. 699. ^ The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 4, Cambridge University press 1967, at pp. 518–520. ^ The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 5, Cambridge University press 1975. Bentley's letter to Newton of October 1709 (at pp. 7–8) describes Cotes' perhaps unenviable position in relation to his master Bentley: "You need not be so shy of giving Mr. Cotes too much trouble: he has more esteem for you, and obligations to you, than to think that trouble too grievous: but however he does it at my Orders, to whom he owes more than that." ^ Westfall, pp. 712–716. ^ Westfall, p. 750. ^ [In Latin] Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica volume 1 of a facsimile of a reprint (1833) of the 3rd (1726) edition, as annotated in 1740–42 by Thomas LeSeur & François Jacquier, with the assistance of J-L Calandrini. ^ See "Translating Newton's 'Principia': The Marquise du Châtelet's Revisions and Additions for a French Audience". Author: Judith P. Zinsser. Source: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 55, No. 2 (May 2001), pp. 227–245. ^ I Bernard Cohen (1968), "Introduction" (at page i) to (facsimile) reprint of 1729 English translation of Newton's "Principia" (London (1968), Dawsons of Pall Mall). ^ See pages 29–37 in I. Bernard Cohen (1999), "A Guide to Newton's Principia", published as an introduction to Isaac Newton: The Principia, Mathematical principles of natural philosophy, a new translation by I Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, University of California Press, 1999. ^ Isaac Newton: The Principia, Mathematical principles of natural philosophy, a new translation by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, preceded by "A Guide to Newton's Principia" by I. Bernard Cohen, University of California Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-520-08816-0, ISBN 978-0-520-08817-7. ^ Dana Densmore and William H. Donahue, Newton's Principia: The Central Argument: Translation, Notes, and Expanded Proofs (Green Lion Press; 3rd edition, 2003) ISBN 978-1-888009-23-1, ISBN 978-1-888009-23-1 ^ Densmore and Donahue, pp. xv–xvi. ^ "Tim Peake mission name pays tribute to Isaac Newton". BBC News. ^ "Roscosmos Announces New Soyuz/Progress Launch Dates". NASA. 9 June 2015. Alexandre Koyré, Newtonian studies (London: Chapman and Hall, 1965). I. Bernard Cohen, Introduction to Newton's Principia (Harvard University Press, 1971). Richard S. Westfall, Force in Newton's physics; the science of dynamics in the seventeenth century (New York: American Elsevier, 1971). S. Chandrasekhar, Newton's Principia for the common reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Guicciardini, N., 2005, "Philosophia Naturalis..." in Grattan-Guinness, I., ed., Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics. Elsevier: 59–87. Andrew Janiak, Newton as Philosopher (Cambridge University Press, 2008). François De Gandt, Force and geometry in Newton's Principia trans. Curtis Wilson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, c1995). Steffen Ducheyne, The main Business of Natural Philosophy: Isaac Newton's Natural-Philosophical Methodology (Dordrecht e.a.: Springer, 2012). John Herivel, The background to Newton's Principia; a study of Newton's dynamical researches in the years 1664–84 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965). Brian Ellis, "The Origin and Nature of Newton's Laws of Motion" in Beyond the Edge of Certainty, ed. R. G. Colodny. (Pittsburgh: University Pittsburgh Press, 1965), 29–68. E.A. Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1954). Colin Pask, Magnificent Principia: Exploring Isaac Newton's Masterpiece (New York: Prometheus Books, 2013). Wikimedia Commons has media related to Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Latin versions[edit] Wikisource has original text related to this article: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica First edition (1687) Trinity College Library, Cambridge High resolution digitised version of Newton's own copy of the first edition, with annotations. Cambridge University, Cambridge Digital Library High resolution digitised version of Newton's own copy of the first edition, interleaved with blank pages for his annotations and corrections. 1687: Newton's Principia, first edition (1687, in Latin). High-resolution presentation of the Gunnerus Library's copy. 1687: Newton's Principia, first edition (1687, in Latin). Project Gutenberg. ETH-Bibliothek Zürich. From the library of Gabriel Cramer. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica From the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the Library of Congress Second edition (1713) ETH-Bibliothek Zürich. ETH-Bibliothek Zürich (pirated Amsterdam reprint of 1723). Third edition (1726) Later Latin editions Principia (in Latin, annotated). 1833 Glasgow reprint (volume 1) with Books 1 and 2 of the Latin edition annotated by Leseur, Jacquier and Calandrini 1739–42 (described above). Archive.org (1871 reprint of the 1726 edition) The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (American edition, 1846) Andrew Motte, 1729, first English translation of third edition (1726) WikiSource, Partial Google books, vol. 1 with Book 1. Internet Archive, vol. 2 with Books 2 and 3. (Book 3 starts at p.200.) (Google's metadata wrongly labels this vol. 1). Partial HTML Robert Thorpe 1802 translation N. W. Chittenden, ed., 1846 "American Edition" a partly modernised English version, largely the Motte translation of 1729. Archive.org #1 Percival Frost 1863 translation with interpolations Archive.org Florian Cajori 1934 modernisation of 1729 Motte and 1802 Thorpe translations Ian Bruce has made a complete translation of the third edition, with notes, on his website. Other links[edit] David R. Wilkins of the School of Mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin has transcribed a few sections into TeX and METAPOST and made the source, as well as a formatted PDF available at Extracts from the Works of Isaac Newton. Fluxions (1671) De Motu (1684) Principia (1687; writing) Opticks (1704) Queries (1704) Arithmetica (1707) De Analysi (1711) Quaestiones (1661–65) "standing on the shoulders of giants" (1675) Notes on the Jewish Temple (c. 1680) "General Scholium" (1713; "hypotheses non fingo" ) Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) Corruptions of Scripture (1754) Impact depth Newton disc Newton polygon Newton–Okounkov body Newton's reflector Newtonian telescope Newton scale Newton's metal Structural coloration Newtonianism Bucket argument Newton's inequalities Newton's law of cooling Newton's law of universal gravitation post-Newtonian expansion parameterized gravitational constant Newton–Cartan theory Schrödinger–Newton equation Newton's laws of motion Newtonian dynamics Newton's method in optimization Apollonius's problem truncated Newton method Gauss–Newton algorithm Newton's rings Newton's theorem about ovals Newton–Pepys problem Newtonian potential Newtonian fluid Corpuscular theory of light Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy Newton's notation Rotating spheres Newton's cannonball Newton–Cotes formulas Newton's method generalized Gauss–Newton method Newton fractal Newton's identities Newton polynomial Newton's theorem of revolving orbits Newton–Euler equations Newton number kissing number problem Newton's quotient Parallelogram of force Newton–Puiseux theorem Absolute space and time Luminiferous aether Newtonian series Woolsthorpe Manor (birthplace) Cranbury Park (home) Occult studies Copernican Revolution Catherine Barton (niece) John Conduitt (nephew-in-law) Isaac Barrow (professor) William Clarke (mentor) Benjamin Pulleyn (tutor) John Keill (disciple) William Stukeley (friend) William Jones (friend) Abraham de Moivre (friend) Depictions Newton by Blake (monotype) Newton by Paolozzi (sculpture) Isaac Newton Institute Isaac Newton Medal Isaac Newton Telescope Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes ► Isaac Newton

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INSPIRATION #1 - LIVING THE DREAM for three months GENERAL INFO: Couple, 64 & 65 years old TRAVEL PROFILE: After long careers, making their dreams come true of sailing to New York on a cargo ship, driving down the famous Route 66, crossing the equator on a cruise ship from Hawaii to Tahiti and taking the Trans-Siberian Railway Element 1 (16 days: Transatlantic travel) Days 1-16: Travel via cargo ship from Germany to New York. Element 2 (13 days: East Coast, USA) Days 17-29: A rental car allows easy and convenient traveling around and along the East Coast of the U.S. starting with 8 days in New York including a day trip to Boston. Slowly head south with stops in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Gettysburg and Washington, D.C. Element 3 (22 days: Route 66 and the western U.S.) Days 29-51: Head west on Route 66 from Chicago, stopping in St. Louis, Amarillo and St. Rosa - embrace the wide open spaces and the feeling of freedom! Continue on to see the breathtaking landscapes and the West Coast city highlights including Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks all the way to San Francisco. Element 4 (20 days: Hawaii and Tahiti) Days 51-71: Hawaii to Tahiti. After a lot of moving around, it's time to relax on the island of Oahu and parts of Honolulu with a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii to explore these volcanic worlds. Take a cruise ship across the equator from Hawaii to Tahiti and enjoy a three day island stop to see where French painter Paul Gauguin lived and found much of his inspiration. Element 5 (10 days: Japan) Days 71-81: From Tokyo to Hiroshima on the Shinkansen (bullet train). Day trip to Nikko National Park. Head through Hakone to Kyoto with a breathtaking view of Mt. Fuji. Continue on from Osaka to Hiroshima, stopping at Peace Park and the idyllic island of Miyajima. Element 6 (16 days: Russia) Days 81-97: Take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Vladivostok to Moscow. Travel first class in a private compartment along this one of a kind historical train routes. Stops in Khabarovsk, Irkutsk and Lake Baikal are planned to take the opportunity to become more acquainted with Russia's fascinating landscape and culture. The itinerary above included economy class tickets, an ocean view room on the cruise, Trans-Siberian Railway tickets, compact rental car, and mid-range hotels. Contact WELTREISE-TRAUM for a quote about investing in your DREAM VACATION.

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Taxes and The “ABLE Act”: Legislative Action And Inaction….. The closing days of 2012 and opening days of 2013 were eventful days in our nation’s capital. Most of us have heard in one form or another about the impending drop off the “fiscal cliff” and the Congressional action that broke the fall, at least for now. While there was an enormous amount of national attention given to the Congressional impasse for the latter half of 2012, little if any, mainstream attention was given to a proposal that had bi-partisan support but was a casualty of the fiscal cliff. The Achieving a Better Life Experience Act (ABLE) purports to create a new savings vehicle for individuals with disabilities, and the proposal is expected to be revived and reintroduced in the new legislative session. The first half of this edition of the Special Needs Estate Planner summarizes the provisions of the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 we felt would be of the most interest to our readers. The second half provides a brief summary of the ABLE Act proposal we expect you will hear more about in the coming months. The American Tax Relief Act Of 2012 (Atra) On January 2, 2013 the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, became the law. In many respects the Act serves to permanently extend the Bush era income tax rates for the large majority of Americans. While the Act is quite broad in its scope, the following highlights provisions of the new law we believed to be of most interest. Federal Estate and Gift Tax After 4 years of uncertainty, ATRA has brought welcome permanency to the federal estate and gift tax structure. The amount a taxpayer may transfer without incurring estate, gift or generation skipping transfer taxes is $5,000,000, adjusted for inflation after 2011. With the inflation adjustment the 2013 estate and gift tax exemption is $5,250,000. Amounts in excess of the gift and estate tax exemption will be subject to graduated tax rates topping out at a 40% maximum tax rate. What this means for many of our readers is that the federal estate tax is no longer a credible threat to the amount of assets that they will be able to set aside for future generations. In addition to the increased federal estate and gift tax exemption, if a spouse dies after 2011 without exhausting his or her estate and lifetime gift tax exclusion amount, the unused estate and gift tax exemption can be transferred to and used by the surviving spouse. This is concept is widely known as “portability”. While this portability is now permanent at the federal level, it is not recognized for New York State estate tax purposes. Finally, the 2013 annual gift tax exclusion was increased to $14,000. Charitable IRA Distributions Taxpayers age 70 ½ and older are able to exclude up to $100,000 of income from distributions from individual retirement accounts when those distributions are made to qualified charities through December 31, 2013. This provision is an extension of provisions that were in place in 2010 and 2011. Since the extension passed after the end of the 2012 calendar year, taxpayers making such distributions after December 31, 2012 and before February 1, 2013 will be allowed to treat it as having happened on December 31, 2012. The top personal income tax bracket is increased to 39.6%, and applies to income in excess of $400,000 for individuals, and $450,000 for married couples. These thresholds are indexed for inflation. It is worth noting that the tax brackets are based upon taxable income (i.e. income after all deductions) and not Adjusted Gross Income (income before most meaningful deductions). The remaining tax brackets are extended at their current levels. The Act makes permanent the current capital gains and qualified dividends rates of 0% for taxpayers in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets, and 15% for taxpayers in the 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% income tax brackets. For taxpayers in the new 39.6% tax bracket, qualified dividend and capital gains taxes will be raised to 20%. Itemized Deductions & Personal Exemptions The phaseout of itemized deductions and personal exemptions is again applicable for 2013 and subsequent years. The phaseout for itemized deductions (also known as the “Pease limitation”) reduces total itemized deductions by 3% of excess income over an Adjusted Gross Income of $300,000 for married couples, and $250,000 for individuals. The personal exemptions phaseout (also known as the PEP), reduces personal exemptions by 2% of the total exemptions for each $2,500 of excess income over an Adjusted Gross Income of $300,000 for married couples, and $250,000 for individuals. The income thresholds are indexed for inflation in years after 2013. Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act: Good Intentions/Questionable Results For the last four (4) years the ABLE act has been gaining widespread national support among legislators and disability organizations. For the second consecutive legislative session, the ABLE Act died in committee. The supporters of the ABLE Act, which grew in droves in 2012, describe it as a low-cost tool for families to save for future disability related expenses in a similar manner to College Savings Plans known widely as “529” plans. As you will see below, we believe the concept is good, but the execution falls far short of what is necessary to make this a credible planning tool for most of our clients. Planning for clients who have children and other family members with special needs can be challenging. With the special needs family, the focus is often on issues such as guardianship, maintaining public benefits, and future access to community based support services, issues with which most tax and estate planning professionals have limited experience. Should the ABLE Act eventually become law, it will add another option for planners and family members to consider. The ABLE Act would add a new provision to Section 529 whereby state “ABLE programs” and “ABLE accounts” would be treated in the same manner as qualified tuition programs. Qualified Disability Expenses Much like the Section 529 definition of qualified higher education expenses, the ABLE Act defines “qualified disability expenses” as “any expenses which are made for the benefit of the individual with the disability who is a designated beneficiary”. The proposed legislation goes on to itemize specific categories of expenses, namely, education, housing, transportation, employment support, health prevention and wellness, financial and legal expenses and assistive technology expenses. Who is eligible for an ABLE Act Account? Under the proposal, ABLE accounts can only be established and maintained for someone who is determined to be an “Individual with a Disability,” a determination which must be made and/or certified on an annual basis. While many individuals with disabilities receive Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability income benefits and would thus easily qualify for participation in an ABLE account, there has been concern that the ABLE Act definition will exclude many individuals whose disabilities are more difficult to identify and define. For example, recently a fairly significant change was made to the manner in which autism spectrum disorders are diagnosed and categorized. Many advocates believe that this redefinition will make it harder for individuals on the spectrum to meet the definition of “disabled” for the purposes of the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability programs, notwithstanding the fact that their disability leaves them unable to work. The same concern exists for many individuals with mental illness, acquired head injuries, learning disabilities or other “high functioning” individuals with disabilities. When combined with the risk of being caught by the “Payback Provision” (explained below), we think the potential benefits of the ABLE provisions are significantly outweighed by the costs. The Payback Provision What is most frustrating about the commentary and dialogue surrounding the ABLE proposal is the fact that its proponents seem to leave out what is perhaps the most costly and potentially damaging result of using the ABLE account as an alternative to the traditional Third Party Supplemental Needs Trust; namely the payback provision. When a beneficiary of an ABLE account dies, the Medicaid program must be repaid from funds in the account for all Medicaid benefits paid out on that beneficiary’s behalf during his or her life. This is in stark contrast to what happens upon the beneficiary’s death when a traditional Third Party Supplemental Needs Trust is used to hold family assets for a family member with a disability. With the Third Party Supplemental Needs Trust, funds remaining after the beneficiary’s death will go wherever the parents (or other person establishing the trust) chooses – to other family members, to charity, etc.. By choosing an ABLE account over a traditional Third Party Supplemental Needs Trust, families are subjecting their assets to a voluntary repayment to the State, a payment that would not otherwise have to be made. Explanation of this Payback Provision is suspiciously absent from much of the promotional materials circulated by various national disability organizations supporting the ABLE legislation. Whatever the motive for failing to publicize this confiscatory feature of the ABLE Act legislation, we believe that the omission represents a disservice to the disability community and presents a substantial financial risk of which families should be aware should the ABLE Act become law. Should the ABLE Act be reintroduced (for the third time) during the 2013 legislative session, we expect it will be in substantially similar form to that introduced in 2011. The 2011 proposal garnered significant bi-partisan support from members and Congress and from disability organizations around the country. For now we are keeping our eyes on it and (should it pass) we expect to provide our readers with a comprehensive summary of the features of the Act, so that advocates and professionals can help educate families about both the benefits and the risks of using these accounts. FIRM NOTES AND NEWS We are pleased to announce that our firm continues to expand. In August, Maureen T. Provost, a seasoned Trust and Estate Administration paralegal with over 30 years of experience joined our practice. We knew Maureen well from our predecessor law practice, and are so very pleased that she is working with our practice again. In December, Patricia (“Pat”) Decker, a seasoned office administrator and legal assistant joined our practice. Pat is serving both to support our existing practice and our case management and advocacy division, a rapidly growing component of the firm. Attorney Tara Anne Pleat was recently appointed an Adjunct Professor of Law at Albany Law School where she is teaching “Financial Planning for the Elderly,” a course taught in the spring semester which is a comprehensive long term care and special needs estate planning course. Attorney Ed Wilcenski was recently appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Shenendehowa Adult Community Center in Clifton Park, New York. The “ACC” provides recreational and educational opportunities to seniors and their families in the Southern Saratoga region. This newsletter is not intended as a substitute for legal counsel. While every precaution has been taken to make this newsletter accurate, we assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information in this newsletter. If you would like to be removed from our distribution list, please email us or call us at (518) 881-1621

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MIDDELHARNIS PROTESTANT CEMETERY Middelharnis is in the northern part of the island of Oberflakkee, and is about 42 kilometres south-west of Rotterdam and 59 kilometres west-north-west of Breda. The cemetery is on the north-western outskirts of the town, on the southern side of the road to Sommelsdijk in the road called Hobbemastraat. The war graves are located in the north-western corner of the cemetery. History Information There are 7, 1939-1945 war casualties commemorated in this site. ​Burial Details R/151425 Flight Sergeant David Bernard, Air Gunner in 166 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, died 20th December 1943. 1563332 Sergeant Leslie Allan Henson, Air Gunner in 166 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, died 20th December 1943, aged 21. Son of Amos F. and Julia Henson, of Broughty Ferry, Angus. 410689 Flight Sergeant John Francis Moore, Royal Australian Air Force, died 20th December 1943, aged 20. Son of Robert William and Margaret Mary Moore, of Fairfield, New South Wales, Australia. 1387475 Flight Sergeant Kenneth Bert Renelt, Pilot in 166 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, died 20th December 1943, aged 21. Son of Bert and Ethel Renelt, of Thornton Heath, Surrey. 416210 Flight Sergeant Alexander Bernard Sheddan, Air Bomber in 166 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, died 20th December 1943, aged 27. Son of Angus James Sheddan and of Margaret Sheddan (nee McKee), of Waimate, Canterbury, New Zealand. 1365303 Flight Sergeant James William Thompson, Navigator in 166 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, died 20th December 1943. 1396656 Sergeant Ernest Charles Toms, Flight Engineer in 166 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, died 20th December 1943. Son of Ernest and Gladys Toms; husband of D. N. Toms, of Woodford Bridge, Essex.

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Eddie Guerrero honored in El Paso Even months after Eddie Guerrero's untimely passing, the former WWE Champion is still touching the lives of his friends, family and fans everywhere. Eddie's mantra of "lie, cheat and steal" endeared him to millions of fans, but even before that he was already El Paso's own Champion. Eddie posthumously received the Star of the Mountain Award in recognition of the pride he brought to his hometown. His wife Vickie and their three daughters also all received keys to the city of El Paso, the same city in which they grew up. "It was an honor to see how much El Paso loved Eddie Guerrero. It was a great honor to have Eddie recognized. To hear the mayor and everyone say how much Eddie and his work was appreciated meant a lot," she said. Vickie said that she knew that Eddie was a popular wrestler, but she is still surprised by how much media attention her husband's death has brought. "I really didn't expect it. We liked to lead a simple life. We never looked for publicity, so it was amazing to see the impact that Eddie's passing has had on people. It has really touched my heart." WATCH this video from the ceremony

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Educators & Counselors Employers & Chambers Fisk University Works to Provide Enhanced Career Guidance for Students New partnership with YouScience helps connect students with in-demand job opportunities. NASHVILLE, TN – Fisk University today announced a new effort to help students better understand how their natural abilities align with today’s workforce and plan proactive education pathways to pursue in-demand jobs. The institution has partnered with Nashville-based edtech company YouScience to provide a cutting-edge aptitude assessment tool to students as part of their first-year seminar course. Beginning in the 2019-2020 academic year, all freshmen students will be required to utilize the YouScience program, which uses a series of scientifically-proven “brain games” to identify students’ unique aptitudes and showcase how these innate talents “fit” with modern career pathways. “Fisk is committed to preparing students for leadership roles and executive positions across the country, but there is a vast exposure gap when it comes to understanding all the available opportunities,” said Fisk University President Dr. Kevin D. Rome. “Through Youscience, young adults can gain new understanding of their abilities, talents, and gifts while also learning about careers that they may not previously have thought about. We’re excited to provide YouScience to all first-year students as part of our commitment to maximizing the success of our graduates.” Unlike traditional interest-based career tools, YouScience is the only system that captures real measures of students’ aptitudes and provides students with a highly-personalized overview of their best-fit careers, along with detailed information on average salary, regional and national job demand, and education requirements. Learn more about YouScience. YouScience CEO Philip Hardin said, “We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with Fisk University. It’s so important college students have the information and resources necessary to make the right choices about their educational pathways. By providing YouScience to all incoming students, Fisk is helping more young adults better understand their best-fit careers, proactively plan their college learning experience, and lay the foundation for greater success after graduation.” “Our partnership with YouScience reinforces everything we have been doing here at Fisk for the past few years to help our students excel both academically and in life,” Dr.Rome added.“This platform will not only allow students to identify their full range of talents, but also to appreciate all the possibilities for a fulfilling career.” About Fisk University Founded in 1866, Fisk University is a private, liberal arts university located in Nashville, Tennessee. Consistently recognized for its brand of academic excellence, Fisk is ranked No. 6 on the Top 10 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the 2019 U.S. News & World Report. Fisk ranked No. 1 in the nation among HBCUs for social mobility and No. 3 in the nation in research among top liberal arts colleges in research expenditures in the 2018 rankings of National Liberal Arts Institutions by The Washington Monthly. Fisk university’s focus (mission) has been student outcomes and their success. Fisk’s excels at preparing our highly motivated student body for a prosperous professional career. From the classroom to the boardroom, a Fisk education gives students the tools to turn their passions into careers and prepare them to make a difference in their own lives, communities, and around the world. To learn more about Fisk University, please visit www.fisk.edu. About YouScience Unlike traditional interest-based career aptitude programs, YouScience is the only system that combines a students’ interests, abilities and personality traits with real-world career data. Through a series of fun and engaging “brain games,” YouScience’s innovative technology collects real measures of students’ aptitudes and interests. YouScience then employs decades of rigorous scientific research, cutting-edge matching algorithms and the most reliable and comprehensive career data to identify the intersection of each students’ talents, passions and opportunities. Learn more about YouScience at www.youscience.com. Colleges & Majors YouScience Culture Copyright © 2020. YouScience

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Αρχική » Συνεντεύξεις » Global » Wild Honey by Apostolou (28/07/2017) Guillermo Farre Wild Honey is the music project of the Spanish charismatic singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist Guillermo Farre. Starting his very interesting and innovative career back in the late 00's, Guillermo has given us three LPs up to now, the debut Epic Handshakes and a Bear Hug (2009), his great sophomore effort Big Flash (2013) and his recent and astonishing Torres Blancas, which was released last April (2017). The new album is a real beauty, written in Madrid and in Spanish lyrics for the first time, and is inspired by Farre's love and admiration of Stereolab. While in the case of Big Flash, the Spanish musician had collaborated with Stereolab's Tim Gane, this time he worked alongside another Stereolab band mate, Sean O'Hagan, whose orchestral arrangements added further layers to Wild Honey's cake-like compositions. The final outcome is a shiny pop gem, that awaits for you to hear and explore. That's all from us, here's the very interesting interview of Wild Honey to the Basement... Torres Blancas - Wild Honey (2017) <a data-cke-saved-href="http://wildhoney.bandcamp.com/album/torres-blancas" href="http://wildhoney.bandcamp.com/album/torres-blancas">Torres Blancas by Wild Honey</a> The Basement: Hello Guillermo, so happy to have you here for an interview. Congrats for your wonderful new LP ! Let's suppose that we just met. Please, introduce yourselve to us. I’m Guillermo, a musician from Madrid, Spain. I’ve been doing music for quite some time now, always interested in 60 psychedelic music, great pop music from all decades and everything around the production of a record (effects, different kind of instruments, etc.). I’ve just released my third record, called “Torres Blancas”. The Basement: You are coming from Spain. How did you start playing and composing music at first place ? I started playing music in my early teens. Thanks to the The 90s punk explosion (bands like Green Day or labels like Lookout records made me discover all the punk rock band from the late 70s) made my friends and me start playing in bands, write fanzines and all that. I’ve been doing music since then. The Basement: When did you start the band and what is the meaning for "Wild Honey" ? Playing with other people in bands is an amazing experience as you get to build something with different points of view, learn from each other and, above all, spend time with your friends. But I decided to start writing and record songs on my own as I wanted to experiment with my home studio and make decisions faster. What started as home demos that I didn’t know if anyone was going to listen to, suddenly turned into my main project, Wild Honey, and I’ve released three records and a bunch of singles and EP during the last 7 years. The Basement: Your album was recorded with Sean O'Hagan, from The High Llamas and Stereolab, and with Frank Maston. How did you met those two musicians ? When you write and record music on your own it’s very easy to lose perspective. And I get bored with things pretty fast. That’s why I always enjoy working with other musicians that can bring their own ideas to the songs, other kind of arrangements, etc. I contacted both Sean and Frank by email, and the main reason of why I decided to write them is because I love the music they make very much. The emails I wrote them could be easily considered fan mail, with the twist that at the end I talked about my project and about a possible collaboration. Both experiences turned out great and I think that they really had an impact on how the record sounds in the end. The Basement: Let us know more about the process of making the album. Production and all the arrangements... Usually all songs start with a possible song title. Then I need a good idea of what the songs is going to be about and after that it’s a process where the lyrics, the melody and the arrangements start coming up in no precise order. One interesting arrangement can influence some of the lyrics or the other way around. In the end, when I have a quite solid idea I like doing several versions of the songs with different rhythms and feel. At some point there’s one of those versions that ends up working much better than the others and becomes the song. The Basement: Was there a central idea behind the record before making it ? If yes, what was that ? While making the record I wasn’t aware that I had a central idea. But once I had most of the lyrics I realized that most of them revolved around how the speed and the amount of the changes of my life changed dramatically. When you’re in your 20s, almost every week or every month something new happens in your life. Suddenly, In my thirties, in what felt like the blink of an eye, I’d spent more than ten years working in the same place and living in the same city with my couple. I had an urge to change things but through this record I can see how I had also decided to enjoy this new speed of life and everything that surrended me. Torres Blancas is the name of a building in Madrid, it’s a weird and unique building that belongs to the brutalism architectural movement, that defines very well that state of mind: it has always been there, I never paid much attention to it, but it’s something great an amazing in the city that I live in and that it’s worth celebrating. The Basement: What are your influences ? What have you been listening to a teenager ? I think many people would be surprised by the scope of the music that I usually listen to. Wild Honey, as a project, has a clear identification with psychedelic pop and especially with the music recorded in the US West Cost during the late 60s. Wild Honey is the name of a Beach Boys album, so as a statement of what I intended to do at the beginning with this project it’s quite clear. On the other hand, I’ve tried not to sound as a revivalistand I have an obsession with sounding contemporary. I really like certain aesthetics or music eras, but I’d love if people in 20 years listen to Torres Blancasand in a way to them it sounds like a record that came out in 2017. The Basement: In "Torres Blancas", we can hear synthesizers, drum mixes with drum machines, harpsichords, pianos, acoustic guitars... Can you specify the kind of music you write ? As a musician I think that I don’t master very well any instrument but I can manage with most of them. I write song on the guitar or on a piano and most of the instruments in the record were played by me. I also played with friends of mine that are amazing musicians, like Javier Lorente who played bass and Jose María Rubio who played drums and did an incredible job. The Basement: Mission accomplished in some way for you with this LP ? Are you satisfied with the final outcome ? It’s almost a cliché to say that your last record is the one you like the most, but in this case it’s exactly what I feel. Writing and recording music is always a bittersweet experience to me. I enjoy the process, but in the end there’s always a feeling of disappointment with the result, and I hate listening to music that I recorded some years ago. With Torres Blancas it’s the first time that I finish a record and I can listen to it and feel proud of the result, maybe writing in my mother tongue has something to do with it. The Basement: Do you have more tricks for us in the near future ? I mean, this is a truly interesting LP, what do you have in mind for your future sound ? I haven’t thought about that yet. Usually when I start writing new music I always have in mind to be more synthetic and experimental but I end up going for more traditional structures. I’d like to have some time to play with textures and rhythms and forget about lyrics and ideas. The Basement: How’s your life in Madrid ? Do you have any other jobs except from being musicians ? How do you spend your free time ? Wild Honey is a hobby. A hobby where I put all my passion on and that is really important in my life, but I don’t make a living with it. I work on the television industry , acquiring and programming movies and series for several tv channels. It’s a job that has nothing to do with my music, but in some ways it’s creative and I’m in contact with all that’s been created in cinema and television and it’s always something exciting. Besides writing, recording and playing music, what I enjoy the most is watching movies. If I could, I’d spent eight hours a day in a cinema theatre just watching movies. The Basement: Do you listen to new music ? Propose us any hot artists you think we must know about. All the time. I think I’m addicted to the feeling of discovering new songs and musicians. Some of the songs that I’ve loved the most recently are: Fazerdaze’s“Lucky Girl”, Toro y Moi new single “Girl like you” or Maze’s “Missing numbers”. The Basement: Are you going to play in any gigs in your country or abroad ? Yes. I’m now putting the live band together and starting the rehearsals. We’ll play around Spain right after the summer. We don’t have any plans yet to play abroad with this record but we’d love to! The Basement: Any long term plans ? What are your ambitions for Wild Honey ? I think that my ambition has always been to write and record music that I could be proud of. I’d love to record a new album this year with a Spanish musician friend of mine called Remate. I met him when I was looking for a piano teacher and he’s such an accomplished pianist and musician. We’re very different but we get along very well. We recorded a song together last year and I’m really looking forward to start working on a whole record with him: Thank you Guillermo !!! Leo Non Mueran Humanos Still Corners

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US, Sweden and Britain dismiss UN finding that they tortured Assange By Oscar Grenfell UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer last weekend publicly released detailed letters he sent to the governments of the United States, Britain, Sweden and Ecuador in May, documenting their responsibility for the “psychological torture” inflicted upon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a result of a decade-long political persecution. Melzer also posted the replies he received from the US and Swedish governments, bluntly dismissing his findings. His letters to Britain and Ecuador went unanswered. The official responses are the latest demonstration of the illegal character of the campaign against Assange. Fundamental precepts of international law are being trampled on in the attempt to extradite him from Britain to the US, where he faces the prospect of life imprisonment, or even execution, for exposing US war crimes, mass surveillance and diplomatic conspiracies. Melzer’s letters were sent in late May, following his visits with Assange at Britain’s Belmarsh Prison on May 9 and 10. They were dispatched shortly before the public release of a summary of his findings that Assange had been subjected to unprecedented “public mobbing” and vilification, along with a denial of his fundamental legal and human rights. Professor Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, speaks at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York [Credit: United Nations] In his letters, Melzer noted that he was accompanied to Belmarsh by Professor Duarte Nuno Vieira, an expert in medical forensics, and Dr. Pau Pérez-Sales, a well-known psychiatrist. Both specialise in identifying and documenting the medical effects of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. Melzer pointed to the legal travesties that have been perpetrated against Assange since he was snatched from Ecuador’s London embassy by British police on April 11. The WikiLeaks founder was immediately convicted of a bail violation and sentenced to 50 weeks in a maximum-security prison, despite the minor character of the offense. The sentence, along with the summary character of the proceedings, Melzer indicated, violated Assange’s legal rights. The UN official also expressed concern that, in prison, the “security regime applied to Mr. Assange, including the limited frequency and duration of lawyers’ visits and the lack of access to a computer (even without internet), severely hampers his ability to adequately prepare for the multiple and complex legal proceedings that are pending against him.” Melzer referred to a series of physical issues suffered by Assange as a result of his eight-year confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy without access to sunlight. “From a psychological perspective, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged and sustained exposure to severe psychological stress, anxiety and related mental and emotional suffering in an environment highly conducive to major depressive and post-traumatic stress disorders,” he said. The letters stated that Assange’s rapid weight loss during his incarceration, and his transfer to the prison’s medical wing shortly after Melzer’s visit, confirmed the WikiLeaks founder’s “continued exposure to progressively severe psychological suffering and the ongoing exacerbation of his pre-existing trauma.” Melzer identified a direct causal relationship between Assange’s psychological afflictions and the political persecution to which he has been subjected. He particularly highlighted the impact of the WikiLeaks founder’s “prolonged arbitrary confinement by the United Kingdom and Sweden.” Melzer noted that Assange had fully cooperated with the Swedish investigation into supposed allegations of sexual misconduct in 2010. The UN official stated that there was “compelling evidence” that British and Swedish prosecutors had worked together to render Assange “unable to travel to Sweden for additional questioning, and to comply with British bail conditions,” by not ruling out extradition to the US. Under a second subheading, titled “Public shaming and judicial harassment by Sweden,” Melzer wrote: “For almost nine years, the Swedish authorities have consistently maintained, revived and fueled the ‘rape’-suspect narrative against Mr. Assange, despite the legal requirement of anonymity, despite the mandatory presumption of innocence, despite the objectively unrealistic prospect of a conviction, and despite contradicting evidence suggesting that, in reality, the complainants never intended to report a sexual offence…” He cited the text messages of one of the “victims,” which stated she had been “railroaded” into making criminal allegations against Assange by the police. Melzer also reviewed the role of the Ecuadorian government of Lenín Moreno, which, beginning in 2017, had subjected Assange to “excessive regulation, restriction and surveillance,” along with harassment, and the “public dissemination” of “half-truths, defamations and deliberately debasing statements.” He condemned the termination of Assange’s political asylum, which was carried out “without any form of due process.” The UN official finally outlined a campaign of “sustained and unrestrained public mobbing, intimidation and defamation” against Assange. Melzer said the authorities “in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador” had “either acquiesced in, consented to, instigated, or even initiated” a torrent of public abuse targeting Assange. Those denigrating, ridiculing and even inciting violence against the WikiLeaks founder included, not only prominent “private individuals” and the corporate media, but also “current or former political figures and senior officials of various branches of government, including judicial magistrates personally involved in proceedings against Mr. Assange.” Melzer concluded each of the letters with a warning that if extradited to the US, Assange would face the prospect of “torture,” “psychological ill-treatment,” a denial of his right to due process and other forms of “cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.” The UN rapporteur also noted that “the broad description of facts in the US extradition request might subsequently be used as a basis for adding even more serious charges, as appears to be permissible under the current UK/US extradition treaty, potentially carrying the death penalty or a life sentence without parole, both of which would constitute absolute barriers to refoulement under human rights law.” Melzer issued recommendations in each of the letters, including that Assange is in “urgent need of treatment by a psychiatrist of his own choice and confidence, whom he does not associate with the detaining authorities.” The distinguished law professor’s recommendations were either dismissed or ignored. The US response brazenly declared that Assange had never been “arbitrarily detained,” but had instead “voluntarily stayed in the Embassy.” This was a flagrant rejection of repeated findings by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which upheld Assange’s status as a political refugee. The US government also rejected Melzer’s definition of “public mobbing” as a form of “psychological torture,” instead presenting it as a form of “free speech.” In reality, senior officials from the Obama and Trump administrations have publicly denounced Assange as a “high-tech terrorist,” and have called for him to be denied fundamental rights enshrined in the US Constitution. Democratic and Republican politicians have advocated the WikiLeaks founder’s assassination, in violation of domestic and international law. In its response to Melzer, the Swedish government absurdly presented itself as a neutral bystander that did not interfere in the activities of the public prosecutors. In fact, Assange’s case has been political from the outset, involving interventions by senior Swedish politicians and correspondence between Swedish authorities and their counterparts in Britain and the US, much of which remains classified. Commenting on their refusal to provide a guarantee against Assange’s onward extradition to the US if he were sent to Sweden, the government stated that it “finds it important to emphasise that, to date, no request for extradition regarding Mr. Assange has been directed to Sweden.” Significantly, the Swedish reply effectively signalled that it would consider such a request if it were forthcoming, further confirming Assange’s warnings that attempts to extradite him to Sweden were aimed at establishing an alternative route for his dispatch to the US, while serving to blacken his name. The contemptuous rejection of Melzer’s findings by all the states involved in the persecution of Assange is of a piece with a broader turn to authoritarianism, as well as imperialist wars and interventions carried out without any regard for international law. The responses further demonstrate that Assange’s freedom will not be secured by issuing appeals to the governments that are seeking to silence him. As the WSWS and the International Committee of the Fourth International have explained, what is required is the mobilisation of the immense social and political power of the international working class, to prevent Assange’s extradition and secure his liberty. All defenders of democratic rights should join the Global Defence Committee, established by the WSWS and the ICFI, to take this crucial struggle forward. The author also recommends: Melzer’s letter to UK government Free Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange! Rallies in Australia and NZ to demand freedom for Assange and Manning. No to US extradition! Socialist Equality Party Public Meeting in London: Free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning! No US extradition! Democratic Rights in Europe German government bans neo-Nazi group “Combat 18 Deutschland” Murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak reveals close ties between political establishment, corporate elite and criminal underworld Despite #MeToo protest, Berlin audience applauds opera singer Placido Domingo Democratic Rights in the US Democrats embrace war hawk Bolton in Trump impeachment trial US Supreme Court considers ending ban on public funding for religious schools As extradition hearing dates are set, US Department of Justice argues Assange has no First Amendment rights Consortium News sues for libel over claims it aided “Russian disinformation” campaign against Canada The prosecution of Glenn Greenwald and the global war on free speech Democratic Rights in Britain French “yellow vests” protest for Assange outside Belmarsh prison in London Witnesses testify that CIA spied on Assange and his lawyers Royal Family deal over Harry and Meghan only exacerbates crisis of rule Sweden drops investigation into bogus sexual misconduct allegations against Julian Assange In legal victory for Assange, Swedish court rules against extradition Swedish hearing to extradite Julian Assange delayed until June 3 The Persecution of WikiLeaks UN rapporteur Nils Melzer condemns Britain’s criminal role in the torture of Julian Assange

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Lauren Steinfeld Lecturer in Law https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/laurenst/ Lauren B. Steinfeld serves as Chief Privacy Officer for Penn Medicine and Senior Advisor for Privacy for the University of Pennsylvania. In this position, Ms. Steinfeld leads and oversees the HIPAA compliance program and other privacy initiatives for Penn’s six hospitals, over 250 physician practices, and the School of Medicine research program. She works on institution-wide training, policy development, and systems monitoring initiatives as well as evaluating individual strategic partnerships with data sharing elements. Ms. Steinfeld previously served as Senior Advisor for Privacy and Compliance and as Chief Privacy Officer focusing on University-specific issues. In those positions, she created, for the first time in higher education, an infrastructure for an institution-wide privacy program. Ms. Steinfeld developed and implemented policies, procedures, risk assessment models, risk mitigation strategies and other initiatives to protect the privacy and security of personal information. She addressed issues in cloud computing, social media, electronic information, courseware, location data, internal information systems risk assessments, FERPA compliance, HIPAA compliance, and incident response. Ms. Steinfeld also helped create Penn’s infrastructure for its institutional compliance program, with components including a telephone and web-based hotline, non-retaliation, policy coordination and awareness, self-assessments in functional compliance areas, and reporting to senior leadership on priority compliance activities. Ms. Steinfeld is now teaching a Privacy Law course, with Professor Anita Allen at Penn Law. She will teach again this Spring with Professor Christopher Yoo. Prior to her work at Penn, Ms. Steinfeld worked at the Office of Management and Budget as the Associate Chief Counselor for Privacy. At OMB, Ms. Steinfeld helped the Clinton Administration develop the HIPAA medical privacy regulations. She was also responsible for a wide range of other privacy issues, including financial and online privacy, identity theft, genetic information, cybersecurity, government information systems, and tax data confidentiality.. Before arriving at OMB, Ms. Steinfeld served as Attorney Advisor to Federal Trade Commissioner Mozelle Thompson. As an advisor, she was involved in the legal and policy aspects of some of the first Internet- and privacy-related cases brought by the FTC. Ms. Steinfeld received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. She received her J.D. in 1992 from New York University School of Law. Effective Compliance Programs Privacy Law and Data Protection Privacy Law and HIPAA

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Filed under: article, business, links, news — Leave a comment In selling directing through distributors and collaborate with installers and contributors for project service distribution, putting a system engagement employee it’s a solution that allows you to access information and make it available to your organisation. An article from Harvart Business Reviews with the headline “The Digital Transformation of Business”, where they surveyed 537 of their customers that were asked about the most important place where they can begin in making investment, and there answer is in customer facing technology. Although the four “megatrends” of cloud, big data, mobile and social technologies are clearly having a positive impact, industry watchers who believe that only a few early adopters have been able to transform their organizations with these technologies are mistaken. Digital transformation is occurring rapidly at a majority of public and private sector organizations. Business leaders are not simply deploying the four technologies to boost efficiency or otherwise cut costs. Instead, research shows that firms are embracing the megatrends to craft new business models, develop new revenue streams, or drive other material changes that lead to an increase in the top or bottom lines. “It’s a full-fledged mobile sales terminal for the whole customer experience,” says Greenbaum. Eventually, the mobile devices—together with a growing number of in-seat flat screen TVs—will enable Delta to sell higher-value seats, book new flights, reserve hotel rooms, or rent cars while in flight, delivering new services and new sources of revenue. In addition, the airline says it will eventually provide flight attendants with customer-specific information from Delta’s customer relationship management (CRM) system on their mobile devices to enable more personalized service. “That’s pretty transformational,” says Greenbaum. The widespread use of mobile technologies is also having an impact on the public sector. For example, the Metropolitan Police in the United Kingdom wanted to dramatically improve the way suspects brought into the police station were processed. Aside from the fact that the suspects weren’t always cooperative, the technology used to capture photos of the suspects was aging, and image capture had to be performed in a fixed manner by trained specialists in a specified location. At the end of the day “it was a cumbersome and difficult process,” says Richard Thwaite, chief information officer of the Metropolitan Police. MOBILE CONNECTS EMPLOYEES TO THEIR WORK AND EACH OTHER Benefits of using mobile devices and applications To improve its booking process, the agency deployed tablets with specialized mobile applications to police officers so they themselves could capture multiple images and video clips of the suspects, including tattoos or clothing, in a less confrontational manner, and enter it into their systems quickly. Other innovations the Metropolitan Police is pursuing include cameras on officers and a text messaging service to reduce emergency calls. “We are going to use technology to stop crime, arrest offenders, or help victims. We need to keep police officers out of police stations and reduce bureaucracy,” says Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. “Digital policing will help us to do this.” Similarly, the growing ubiquity of mobile technologies is having a transformative impact by helping to deliver healthcare services to underserved populations. None quarter of all stillborn births happen in India—600,000 a year in that country alone—largely because so many expectant mothers live too far away from sources of good maternal and obstetric care. Wipro, a system integration services company, looked at the inefficiencies in delivery of medical care to these women in India and decided that there were several areas where technology could dramatically improve the process. Last year, Wipro unveiled a system that enabled healthcare providers to deliver remote prenatal and cardiac care using mobile technologies. The AssureHealth platform combines a mobile application, integrated medical devices, analytics, and cloud services. A wireless monitor records heart rates or uterine activity and delivers the information via Bluetooth to the mobile device. The device sends the data to the cloud, where it is analyzed, and a doctor hundreds of miles away can download the results and provide an assessment in real time. In areas of India where health services aren’t readily available, explains T.K. Padmanabha, CTO of Wipro, “what is available is the phone.” With regard to the risks involved in deploying mobile technologies, the survey found that data security far outpaces other concerns. Survey respondents who said mobile technologies are a critical part of their infrastructure are also likely to name data security as their number one worry. “Employees have access to your data on a device they can—and will—lose,”says David Chappell, principal with technology consultancy Chappell & Associates. The portability of data and apps, plus the use of personal devices, raises red flags. SECURITY RISKS ARE RELATIVE Data security ranks as an important risk, especially for mobile and cloud Security is an important concern with all four of the megatrends. When it comes to the public cloud, for example, security is “a trust issue,” says Chappell. “And it takes time to build that trust.” Greenbaum notes that executives are more aware of security issues these days because of recent events, including revelations about the U.S. government’s National Security Agency (NSA) snooping, massive data breaches at Target and other retailers, and the Heartbleed bug that exposed vulnerabilities in a widely used web security protocol. Leading companies are dealing with the security risks associated with the widespread adoption of mobile technologies by developing sound BYOD strategies. They are adopting device encryption and two-factor authentication, as well as using Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions to wipe out corporate data on devices if they are lost or stolen. CLOUD COMPUTING DRIVES BUSINESS AGILITY According to the study, 53 percent of respondents said that the cloud’s ability to deliver flexible capacity as needed is the technology’s leading benefit, followed by 50 percent of respondents who said that increased business agility was its main benefit. Forty-three percent pointed to lower fixed costs from using cloud-based solutions as its key benefit. Going forward, cloud computing is primed to have a powerful impact on businesses in 2015. More than three-fifths (62 percent) of respondents say cloud will transform their businesses in the next 12 months, up from 47 percent who say it’s doing so today. It will also change the way people work, according to 56 percent of those surveyed. While cloud technologies have clearly had an impact on IT departments, companies are doing more with them than revamping IT operations. “We’re beyond the first generation of cloud transformation, which was just facilitating the move from capital to operating expense. Now we’re looking at ways in which we can more easily enable collaboration and deploy services in elastic fashion,” offers Greenbaum. CLOUD MAKES BUSINESS FLEXIBLE AND COST EFFECTIVE Benefits of cloud computing Companies need to be agile, flexible, and fast to meet customer expectations. Cloud computing can be key to that responsiveness.“We have customers who give us 90 days to get something up and running,” observes Padmanabha of Wipro. “There’s no way I can do that in my traditional data center.” The public cloud delivers a time-to-market advantage that’s hard for enterprises to beat. “We see a lot of traction with customers who have projects that have a short window of time to deliver results,” Padmanabha says. Wu Feng, a professor of computer science, electrical & computer engineering, and health sciences at Virginia Tech, concurs that the flexible capacity of cloud-based solutions can enable dramatic increases in performance that weren’t available previously. Next-generation sequencers are capable of doubling the amount of data that they generate every eight or nine months. “We’re generating data faster than we can analyze it,” Feng says. A cloud solution, which optimizes data management and data transfer, delivers better performance and access to DNA sequencing tools and resources, leading to faster advancements in medical research. As with mobile, security issues and privacy concerns are the main barriers that inhibit cloud adoption. “I’m in a highly regulated business. Beyond that, I’m in a consumer-facing business where I’m accountable for the stewardship of personally identifiable customer data,” says Ray Voelker, CIO of Progressive Insurance. Because encrypting data in the cloud would slow down the speed of analytics, Voelker says he’s evaluating hybrid cloud solutions. “Most companies look at a hybrid environment,” says Greenbaum. “They don’t do everything in the cloud. But as new services and capabilities and opportunities come up, they look to do that via cloud services.” Despite some hesitation, the study identified strong support for cloud-based solutions as more than just a way to reduce IT infrastructure and personnel spending. The study found that leading companies are using the rise of public and private cloud computing to create new business models and services in addition to taking advantage of the greater cost efficiencies and scalability features that the cloud provides. BIG DATA HELPS COMPANIES INNOVATE The advent of new data analysis solutions such as in-memory computing, along with the ability to host many of these solutions in the cloud, is enabling enterprises to overcome the traditional barriers to big data analysis. Organizations today have the ability to process and analyze large quantities of structured and unstructured data to generate business insight in real time. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT)—including wearable computing, connected cars, and smart cities—the amount of data organizations have available to analyze is set to increase exponentially. Even now, just over half (54 percent) of respondents say that big data has transformed their organizations; 70 percent expect it to do so going forward. For those who master big data, the biggest payoffs are allowing the integration of more data into decision making processes (according to 62 percent) and enabling faster generation of insights (cited by 52 percent). Progressive has collected more than 178 terabytes of data via Snapshot—11 times the amount of all data stored by the Library of Congress. It provides for a much more accurate pricing method for Progressive than estimating a customer’s potential for loss based on information like age, gender, and type of car, says Voelker. What’s more, it has enabled an entirely new and successful product category—usage-based auto insurance. “It’s revolutionary to us,” says Voelker. “Every time we find a more powerful segmentation variable, it drives more growth.” Another example of a leading organization using big data to innovate comes from Auckland Transport, New Zealand’s public transport agency. The agency analyzes four terabytes of operational data, including bus ridership, to discover the most popular routes, identify routes to expand, and improve the customer experience. “It’s a substantial undertaking,” says Roger Jones, Auckland Transport’s manager of IT and business systems. “We have to figure out how to transform that data to information and then make that information relevant to the customer.” In the future, Auckland Transport plans to analyze images from around the city to understand where traffic congestion occurs or to assist with public safety. Ultimately, the agency will deliver personalized alerts to citizens letting them know their bus is running late or that there’s increased traffic on their usual route to work. Despite the promise of big data, however, it remains hard to manage, hard to interpret, and hard to integrate into day-to-day business operations and decision making. Further, success doesn’t happen overnight. “The companies that are good at [big data] have been working on it for quite a while,” says Thomas H. Davenport, professor of IT and Management at Babson College and author of Big Data @ Work. Davenport points out that one of the earliest users of business analytics—UPS—has been working on telematics to track its packages and delivery trucks for 25 years but only recently announced plans for analytics-based dynamic routing (itself a project 10 years in development). Further, skilled data analysts and scientists, who understand both the statistical modeling and the business applications of big data, are hard to find. Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) say that a lack of data analysis skills is the biggest barrier to big data. Even those who regard big data as a critical part of their operations find it difficult to hire the necessary talent. Leading companies are addressing this talent shortage by hiring skilled contractors or working with consulting firms that have big data practices. Some are getting more creative. Jones, at Auckland Transport, is addressing the talent shortage by working with data scientists at local universities. “There’s a wealth of opportunity for PhDs who might unearth something interesting mixing our data sets with other data sets,” he explains.The department is also sponsoring a hackathon. “It’s about exposing some of our data feeds so others can analyze it in ways we might not be able to internally.” Further, the study results highlight that successful organizations are those that adopt a big data mind-set. Business leaders must create a culture that embraces the intelligence big data delivers, agrees Donald A. Marchand, professor of strategy execution and information management at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD). “ You have to treat bad news as good news and be willing to act on it,” he says. “You need the ability to see that the way you thought about things in the past may not be productive in the future.” And this point of view has to be pervasive—from the C-suite to sales and product development to the front lines. SOCIAL TRANSFORMS CORE BUSINESS PROCESSES According to the survey, the consulting and business services sector is the most transformed by social media—more than half of that sector’s respondents indicated that they had already experienced a transformational effect from social. Early business successes with social networking are most visible in outbound marketing activities: 51 percent of respondents say that social media has increased their company’s ability to effectively communicate with its customers. THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF BUSINESS Industry experts observe that social media is becoming a core aspect of modern digital marketing strategies, and they see potential for it to radically transform the marketing function. But forward-thinking organizations are not using social networks only to listen to and better understand customer sentiment about products, brands, and companies as a whole. They are also using social technologies for recruiting and HR management, and for collaboration and communication with employees, partners and suppliers. The survey findings indicate that social technology is positioned to have a broad impact. Survey respondents who deem social technology to be critical to their infrastructure (22 percent) are significantly more likely than their peers to say they benefit from an increased ability to innovate. Even businesses that haven’t yet embraced social media anticipate its potential. More than half of all respondents say that social technology will transform their organizations (57 percent) and the way they work (58 percent) in the next few years. Four years ago, Ask.com, a leading online brand for questions and answers, hired Eric McKirdy to improve the customer support experience and improve the support team’s internal operations. By deploying a CRM application that integrates mobile social media listening capabilities, the company has transformed both. One key change in how Ask.com’s customer support team works is that they can now manage support tickets, including those generated through social media, entirely by smartphone, without being tethered to a laptop or an office. Similarly, Auckland Transport is evaluating social tools to listen and respond quickly to citizen comments and even prevent security dangers. The agency plans to mine that unstructured data, analyze it, and feed it to the operations team to respond to—and someday prevent— transportation problems. Like Ask.com, Auckland Transport eventually plans to create service requests from complaints posted on social networks, feed them into a CRM system, and manage them proactively. Business leaders note, however, that it isn’t always clear how best to incorporate social media into core business operations. Social technologies are often not integrated with core operational systems, and the data they generate is unstructured. “As far as enabling line of business transactions and being used beyond boosting marketing and the employment brand,” says Progressive Insurance’s Voelker, “it’s less mature as a business tool.” The main concerns survey respondents have about social technology include the time spent by employees using it (cited by 45 percent) and employee information overload (cited by 40 percent). But leading companies are using social in their core lines of business, turning to social tools that provide a greater level of integration with their mission critical business systems. For example, McKirdy of Ask.com said the company once used a variety of social media monitoring and communication tools to identify and respond to issues. But now that Ask.com uses one social module in a cloud-based CRM system, “We monitor all major social media channels and can respond with the click of a mouse,” says McKirdy. HOW DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION HAPPENS While it is clear that each of the four technology megatrends has had a tremendous impact independently, the study finds that deploying integrated solutions is where the greatest impact is achieved. “The most important trends, the most interesting things, are happening at the intersections of these four different technologies,” asserts Babson College’s Davenport. Similarly, Horrom, of the Detroit Lions, says, “There’s less value to the Lions in having big data coming in if we don’t have a method of compute in the cloud or on premises to interact in real time with our fans via a mobile platform.” The survey found the likelihood that organizations are being transformed to be significantly greater among those that deem multiple technologies to be critical. Among “multi-adopters”— organizations that view at least three of the megatrends as playing a critical role in operations— more than two-thirds (67 percent) report they have transformed, compared to as few as onethird (34 percent) of single adopters. Even dual-adopters (using two technologies in critical areas) are better poised to reap the benefits that sit at the nexus of these technology trends. Most importantly, the innovation and improved agility described in the examples above are not simply a result of spending more on IT. At this point in cloud, mobile, social media, and analytics development, C-level and senior line of business executives should be assessing the various business capabilities of their organizations and developing a strategy and a road map to improve and differentiate their core capabilities with these digital technologies. The firms that take advantage of the new capabilities can not only transform themselves but also achieve success in the 21st century. “None of the changes enabled by these technologies comes without accompanying organizational changes—management mind-sets, organizational behavior, operating cultures,” says Marchand of IMD. Deep change over time coupled with these technologies is where transformation happens.” The latest news contemporary developments in Business Strategy Tags: article, business, news Filed under: article, business, news — 1 Comment Even though there is widespead acceptance, entrepreneurs often ask how to value the sweat equity invested in their startup. A quick and easy response: It’s worth whatever your investors tell you it’s worth. But over the years, come to realize that sweat equity isn’t the same thing as market value for your startup. Investors have no idea how to value sweat equity, and I now believe it’s a bad idea to let them tell you how to do it. At a minimum, they could use this as a negotiating tool to undervalue your startup. When you’re getting started, sweat equity is often a critical component of your negotiating leverage with co-founders, early stage employees and others who aren’t paid market wages to help you grow your business. As the business owner, you should be the expert on valuing sweat equity, not your investors, accountants or lawyers. Here are some tools for tackling the challenge. When determining the value of the sweat equity provided by an employee or potential co-founder, first assess these three characteristics of the person in question: Commitment:Is he or she committed to being a founding partner for the long haul? Unique contribution:Does he or she bring specialized knowledge, skills, leadership ability or experiences that you don’t have? Hopes and dreams:Are his or her hopes and dreams for personal wealth, business success and autonomy the same as yours? If not, are the differences substantial enough that they’ll pull the company apart? Then, start thinking about the numbers. 1. Market value doesn’t equal the sum of sweat equity invested by you and your partners. If you have invested $100,000 worth of your time in writing a business plan, and your partner, a young engineering student, has invested $25,000 worth of her time in building a prototype, it doesn’t mean the market value of your startup is $125,000. In fact, it could be worth much more. Sweat equity is just one component of early-stage valuation. In a previous column, I discussed how valuing a startup is more driven by market conditions, comparable companies, exit potential, future capital needs and many other factors. 2. Foregone wages for an engineer aren’t the same as foregone wages for a prototype designer. In the example described above, the $25,000 estimated by your business partner is likely to be based on wages that she could have earned in a full-time job. This is the typical way that a founder determines sweat equity: foregone wages. However, your partner could just as easily have argued that her sweat equity is worth $250,000 since that’s what a prototype would have cost you to make had you hired a prototype development firm. Or she could argue that the prototype is so critical to the business that she should get 50 percent of the company’s stock. In my experience, this is the basis for much of the negotiation that CEOs will have with their early-stage employees and co-founder. You need to determine the principle applied for valuing services invested in a nascent business. Foregone wages tends to be the anchor that keeps valuation negotiations from sailing into oblivion. Don’t be tempted to dole out equity to everyone who helps you found the company–even it makes you feel good to have co-founders. (Being an entrepreneur is lonely, but there are better ways to make friends or build a community of credible supporters than by giving early-stage equity to people who make small contributions to your business.) One simple solution is to “pay” a slight premium for sweat equity to early-stage employees. For example, when valuing the sweat equity invested by your prototype designer, use $30,000 rather than $25,000 as a valuation figure and explain that you’re paying a 20 percent premium because of the risks associated with being paid in equity rather than cash. 3. Employees and founders are motivated by different things. How should you decide if your prototype designer should be a co-founder who deserves 50 percent of your company or deserves $30,000 in sweat equity for her work as an employee or consultant? Too often, I see entrepreneurs make this critical decision by trusting the opinion of their investors–or potential investors-rather than determining what their business will actually need. First-time entrepreneurs often think, “If I approach a VC with a chief technology officer or chief prototype designer in place, then I’m more likely to get funded.” So they end up getting a co-founder and parting with 50 percent of their company, even if their CTO is really a young prototype designer who will get discouraged or fired a few months later. Using a restricted stock agreement, you can mitigate risk, building in a buy-back right for the partner’s equity grant. Ultimately, it’s up to you. You get to decide what you need to give up to keep or get an invaluable partner on board. Tags: article, business, news, work Filed under: article, business, links — Leave a comment “Businesses existed before there were computers, fax machines, telephones and copiers, but few entrepreneurs these days would want to try to grow a company without the advantages modern information technology can bring.“ Merely having access to the internet- with its myriad opportunities for finding customers, building brands, researching suppliers and communicating with employees and others – can easily justify updating the technology in your office. For many companies, having the appropriate office technology can mean the difference between a successful expansion and one that falls flat on its face. Managing technology and taking advantage of the opportunities it provides can prove daunting-particularly for small-business owners who lack an extensive budget and a dedicated IT department. After all, achieving success in this technology-dominant era is far more complicated than putting a personal computer and a printer on a desk. You now have to understand how to take advantage of an IT infrastructure, including a robust network, to compete more effectively. Ultimately, it’s as much about vision-and developing a viable strategy-as it is about actual computing. Too often, companies jump from one system or application to another but never realize the full benefit of their technology. Without a defined strategy, they make poor buying decisions, adopt ineffective tools, and often experience a high level of frustration. Businesses that excel typically establish technology strategies that help them gain a competitive advantage through cost savings, process improvements, faster time to market, and improved quality and service levels. These firms often exceed the expectations of customers, business partners and employees. Developing a Tech Strategy The smartest companies embrace a process for evaluating their technology goals and requirements before implementation. Your first step is to conduct an IT/network audit to document the technologies you already have in place and how they match your goals. You’ll want to determine the strengths and shortcomings of your current systems and their relative importance to your business objectives. The audit should cover the following areas: Your company’s business requirements paired with the corresponding technology hardware/software/services solutions that address them. A timeline for investment and deployment, showing how the timeline tracks to the priorities in the overall company business plan. A design for a robust network architecture, which should include a network map of where your company is today technically–and how you plan to build your network in an evolutionary way. Metrics and ways to measure the success of the IT investments. Technology is vital to your business, but that doesn’t mean you always have to have the latest, greatest piece of equipment or software. Here’s how to evaluate your current technology to see whether it’s time to upgrade: Computers are most likely to need upgrading as a result of a software update. If you’ve recently begun using a new version of an important software package and your computers’ performance seems unsatisfactorily slow, it may be time to buy new hardware. Otherwise, you can-and probably should-make do with what you have. Don’t delay buying new computers just because the ones you have are only a few years old, though. During that span of time, performance of the models on the market typically doubles. Forcing customers and employees to wait on slow computers can cost you far more than a new system would. Telephone systems should be upgraded quickly if a problem develops because they’re your lifeline to customers and suppliers. If customers complain about being kept on hold, about phones not ringing or calls not being answered, you may need to add lines, improve your answering system, or perhaps hire more telephone operators. If you expect your call volume to surge sharply-perhaps because of an upcoming new product launch or seasonal buying-you may want to upgrade your phone system before trouble starts, making sure you have enough time to implement a new system, train employees and work out all the bugs. High-end copiers can cost more than a whole office full of computers. Today’s models are increasingly interchangeable with printers, thanks to the new generation of digital, network-ready copiers. Some late-model digital copiers will also scan documents and send faxes. But fancy features don’t mean you need one of these costly machines. Upgrade your copiers when you experience or foresee a significant increase in the volume of copies you produce. Adding extras such as automatic document feeders and staplers are nice but probably don’t justify an upgrade. The great thing about the march of technology is not so much that the equipment keeps getting cheaper, it’s that it keeps getting better. And while you don’t want to be on the bleeding edge of technology adoption, one exception is when you absolutely need a specific technology that has been introduced very recently. Most new gadgets go through a steep price decline after an initial phase of high pricing. If you need something that’s currently the latest thing but you can live without it for a while, you can save significant amounts of money by waiting to purchase until several months after it debuts. What About Upgrading? Even when you can’t justify purchasing new equipment, that doesn’t mean your old tech has to languish. You can always improve your office computers by making upgrades–adding memory or purchasing external storage devices or faster processors. Many people would rather prolong the lives of their computers than get rid of them, and upgrading piece by piece can also eliminate the learning curve needed to adjust to a new machine. You’ll need to be somewhat tech-savvy to take care of these upgrades yourself–or have access to a tech savvy employee or friend. Here are some of the most effective and least expensive items you may want to buy to bring your older computers back up to speed: Hard Drives. One of the most important features of any computer is its ability to store large amounts of data. Many systems today come standard with 20 to 40 gigabytes (GB) of storage, but with the growing interest in digital music and digital video, even 40GB may not be enough. Whether you need desktop drives to back up your primary hard drives or store your digital video files, or a portable large-capacity drive to carry a hefty business presentation, there are several solutions that may help meet your needs. Consumer hard drives, such as FireWire and FireWire/USB combo hard drives, offer anywhere from an extra 20GB to upwards of more than 300GB of storage capacity. Such external drives allow for quick transfer rates between systems and other drives. Most come with accessories and are easy to install, making the upgrade process quick and painless. And when you’re ready to invest in new computers for the office, you’ll always have the extra digital storage space on hand should you need it. CD-ROM/R/RW and DVD-ROM/R/RW Drives. If you regularly use your computer’s original CD drive to install or run software, listen to music and so on, you’ve probably noticed that it isn’t as fast as it used to be. You’ll find that CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW drives are a good option because they allow you to burn large amounts of data, making them an ideal storage solution. Processor Upgrades and Accelerators.Perhaps you’re simply looking for a little more “zoom.” Processor upgrades and accelerators allow you to increase the overall performance of a computer by allowing it to process information faster. Accelerators do this by shifting operational functionality and providing additional cache memory, thereby freeing up the computer’s main processor so it can do its real job–running software applications. And with recently released processor upgrades available at great values that enable older computers to perform at faster clock speeds, anyone planning to replace office computers simply because “new ones are faster” should seriously reconsider. Memory. While everything that’s already been mentioned can help increase the usability of your current computers, one of the most tried-and-true ways to improve performance is to simply install more random access memory (RAM). If your office is running applications that require large portions of system resources, upgrading the amount and/or type of memory can speed up those applications and allow you to run more programs with less strain on your hardware. And with memory prices currently near bargain-basement levels, upgrading a computer’s RAM is one of the most affordable options you have to prolong its life. The bottom line is that even with computer prices dropping, the more you can do to upgrade your existing machines, the more money you’re going to save until you’re ready to purchase the new machines. In the long run, upgrading one piece at a time allows you to further extend the effective lives of your computers without cutting out chunks of your bottom line. Purchasing New Technology If you’ve absolutely decided that you need to do more than upgrade your current equipment and software, however, it’s important to answer a few questions when considering making a new technology purchase: Can my business achieve an immediate gain from the technology? What benefits are possible and how long will it take us to achieve success? What resources are required to implement and manage the technology? Does the hardware or application support a foundation for future growth? Once you know what you really need, you can start shopping around. One of the most common tech products entrepreneurs consider purchasing is new software. But before you rush off to buy any new programs, keep in mind that you have several factors to consider other than just the capabilities and costs of the software. Your selections should be based on your company’s size, industry, internal organization, computing environment, technical expertise and, of course, the ever-important user interface. Even a great product can end up being a nuisance if it’s not intuitive to you as a user. Before you go shopping, be sure to evaluate your company’s staple software. For each program, draw up a wish list of features or enhancements that would make using the package easier. Often, the solution may be as simple as an upgrade to the latest version available. Consider hiring an IT professional to examine your system and business needs and tell you whether you even need to upgrade. Getting an expert opinion can be a money-saving move for small-business owners who would prefer to spend time keeping up on the latest developments in their industries than on the latest in software. Once you decide you need something new, try it before you buy it: Check out software company websites for downloadable demos that can help you better gauge how easy their products are to use. If a demo version isn’t available, there’s usually a detailed online tour that gives you a lot more information than a paper brochure. And before you buy the package outright, check with the software company to see if it’s bundled with other software or equipment that you might be in the market to buy anyway. If you’re shopping for a new accounting package or other critical software, consider doing a “scripted demo,” where you enter your data and run through test scenarios specific to your business’s transactions. It may be time-consuming, but if you buy the wrong software, it will be more costly later.Take a good look at your business and pinpoint those activities that take more time than you’d like-the ones that make you mutter to yourself. “There must be something out there that can do this quicker than I can.” No doubt, there probably is. For that matter, think about those activities you never seem to have time to do. From tools for creating websites to time-billing software, new products could provide brilliant solutions to problems you haven’t yet resolved. Make sure, though, that the solutions are worth the money and time you’ll have to spend to implement them successfully. A customer relationship management (CRM) solution can help you streamline customer service, simplify sales and marketing efforts, find new customers and generate more revenue from existing customers. You can record customer interactions with sales and customer service personnel and keep a centralized database with current customer information that everyone in your company can access. This will allow your entire organization to understand what each customer wants and needs and give you a 360-degree view of your business 24/7, which will help you keep customers happy and boost your bottom line. Improving Your Network While setting up a traditional wired network for your computers and peripherals is still a viable option, wireless networks are becoming faster, more affordable and easier to adopt than ever. Growing small businesses that have adopted a wireless solution are already reporting immediate paybacks in higher productivity, flexible application mobility and greater worker satisfaction. A wireless infrastructure can make it easier to reconfigure your office space as your company grows and changes. Also, the total cost of a wireless local area network (LAN) is relatively inexpensive–it’s become very affordable in the past few years and prices are continuing to drop. And a wireless network can help you improve your productivity: Multiple computers can share printers and a single broadband internet connection without the hassle of running cables through walls. You can access your customer database whether you’re in your office or meeting clients in a conference room. Employees in the stockroom can update your inventory database in real-time using wireless PDAs. When you take into account productivity gains, both inside the office and at public “hot spots,” going wireless is an obvious choice, especially when compared to the cost of running a Cat 5 network LAN cable throughout a building. However, since wireless networks transmit data over radio waves, which can potentially be intercepted, it’s important to have a security strategy for your wireless network. An unprotected wireless network is like an unlocked door–and too many small businesses are leaving their doors wide open. Below are some steps small businesses can take to make their wireless connection more secure: Change your device’s default password. Wireless access points/routers come with default passwords set by the factory. Once entered, the password gives you access to change the device’s settings. Hackers know these default passwords and can use them to access your wireless access point/router and change its settings, for instance, turning off security features. To prevent unauthorized access to your wireless network equipment, change the device’s password to something difficult to guess. This password should preferably be an alphanumeric combination longer than 10 characters. Change the default SSID A service set identifier (SSID) is the name used to identify your wireless network. Your wireless access point/router came with a default, preset SSID. Hackers often look specifically for these preset SSIDs when scanning for networks, because they’re considered easy targets. As soon as possible, change the default SSID to something unique and, for extra security, change it regularly. Don’t broadcast the SSIDBy default, wireless access points/routers broadcast SSIDs, making it easy for legitimate users–as well as hackers–to find and join a wireless network. However, you can choose not to broadcast your network’s SSID. Devices such as wireless computers and PDAs that require access to the network can be configured to automatically connect to your network’s SSID, so they don’t need the SSID to be broadcast to hook up. Keep your wireless hardware’s firmware updatedThe software that enables access points/routers to operate properly, called firmware, is frequently updated by the device manufacturer. Often, updates include enhanced security. Updated firmware is available for free downloading online. Check your device manufacturer’s website support area regularly to ensure you have the most current firmware version installed. Enable MAC address filteringA media access control (MAC) address is a unique series of numbers and letters assigned to every network device. You can configure your wireless access point/router to only allow access to specified MAC addresses (such as the addresses of each wireless computer on your network). MAC address filtering makes it much more difficult for hackers to access your network. The downside: It’s also more difficult to give wireless network access to clients, partners or others visiting your offices or locations. But protecting your system may be worth it. Set a wireless policyCreate a clear but simple wireless network usage policy for all your employees to follow. The policy should include guidelines on the use of passwords, personal devices, such as wireless PDAs, and public Wi-Fi hot spots. Disposing of Old Tech Old PCs don’t die, and they don’t fade away, either. The average PC will run almost forever, and the harmful chemicals inside it will survive in your local landfill for even longer. How many long-lived-but-obsolete computers is your company moving around among staffers? There’s definitely a point of diminishing returns in holding on to PCs past their prime, as well as hidden costs in just about any disposal method you choose. Recycling, selling them to employees or giving them to charity are all viable options, but they all have costs attached–many of which may surprise you. It’s a good idea to have an exit strategy for your old hardware–and it should be in place long before the intrinsic value of your PCs hits zero. Complete depreciation is often here before you know it, but there’s good news in that respect: The average middle-of-the-road PC now has a useful life of about three years; a high-end desktop, about four years. But be careful: Nurse an old PC along for too long, and productivity suffers–for low-level staffers as well as managers. Worker efficiency declines along with equipment efficiency, so when software takes longer to load, screens take longer to redraw and incompatibilities start to occur, memory upgrades need to be deployed. Most old PCs have years of utility left in them–just not for you. There are tons of schools, community groups, senior homes and other needy institutions that would be happy to take them off your hands. Unfortunately, donation is another of the more costly disposal options. By the time you get done with moving, temporarily storing, shipping, tax record-keeping, making contractual arrangements with the beneficiary, possible testing and repair, and, of course, facing the ever-present legal exposure, IDC figures it will cost you $344 for each PC donated. And the legal exposure is real. You could get sued for donating a defective or virus-infected computer, or you may be asked to defend the tax deduction. On the upside, the infrastructure for charitable donations is well-advanced, making this option less time-consuming. One popular option for PC disposal is selling them. IDC says your net out-of-pocket per PC is $272 if you can sell it to an employee for $100, and $119 if you sell it to a third-party broker for $200. (Remember, costs vary among disposal options and you’ll still need to scrub the machines of company information.) The good news is, the PC is gone. But in both cases, you have to sell the PC before its value reaches zero. And those three years for a mid-range PC and four years for a high-end box go by quickly. Of course, brands vary. You can look up the residual value of your PC in the Orion Computer Blue Book. You can purchase the latest version of the Blue Book with the most recent prices from the Orion Research website. You also can look up prices for individual PCs online at $3.99 per shot. In general, a lot of PC disposal costs are realized in soft dollars, and a certain amount of those are fixed. IDC says it will cost companies at least $150 for every PC taken out of service. First, there’s the labor involved in physically removing a system and its network components, disconnecting peripherals and scrubbing the hard drive of software, passwords and sensitive company files. Then there’s the downtime for employees during the move. After that, your costs will vary depending on how you choose to dispose of the old PC and may include payment for things like testing and repair or, in many cases, contractual or other legal costs. And don’t even think about tossing them in the trash. Old PCs have chlorinated and brominated substances, Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC), heavy metals, gases, acids and plastic additives–and that’s just for starters. All those chemicals have incredibly long half-lives. You want your new house sitting on top of this stuff? Not to mention, the EPA will be all over you if you’re discovered throwing PCs in the trash. Buying new technology is usually just the beginning. If employees aren’t trained on how to use the new equipment, your business won’t get the full benefit of your investment. You can get employees trained in almost any technology, at any level and any subject. Even highly experienced users may need training to use the latest programming and networking tools. Start your search for training by quizzing the company that sold you the technology. Many vendors have on-staff professional trainers who can come to your site to train employees on using new technologies. If not, they can probably refer you to a local firm that offers appropriate training. You can also look in the business Yellow Pages under “Training Programs” and “Training Consultants.” You can choose from various types of training: Classroom training with a live instructor can be done at your business or off-site, in the form of a short tutorial or continuing series of classroom lessons. Having an instructor on hand helps learners get questions answered. If you can do without a live teacher, check out video-based training. Class starts when you insert a pre-recorded tape or DVD into a VCR or DVD player. Students take notes and follow along in workbooks, just like with live teachers. Video courses can be repeated any time and are low in cost. Computerized training can be delivered in a classroom with PCs, or via the web. Internet classes let students choose the time, place and pace of learning. Some are taught by an instructor who communicates over the internet. Students can mix, mingle and discuss lessons in online chat rooms. Managing Your Technology Costs Many business owners today tend to set their tech budgets without having done adequate research–and therefore have unrealistic expectations about how much technology really costs. In fact, many businesses don’t have a good understanding of the total cost of ownership of their technology. When making decisions about technology budgets, businesses should focus less on the technology itself and make decisions about how technology complements other areas of the business. Figure out what you need to do to run your business better, and then go find the tools to support it. Steps you can take to lower technology cost include timely purchases, clever negotiation and internal controls can help businesses save megabucks. You can renegotiate existing contracts for services such as network support and consulting. Telecom is especially ripe for bargains. You can start by setting bench marks for rates and auditing bills to ensure you’re not overpaying. And instead of buying all long-distance, local phone and other telecom services from one vendor, dual-source it. You should also make sure you need whatever new technology you do buy. Inventory all PCs, printers and software. Look for opportunities to consolidate purchases, standardize configurations and root out duplication. Set up a system to keep doing it. Pick a team of people from IT and other departments, and meet with them regularly to discuss what they need and how to save on it. Another way to save money on tech purchases is buying refurbished hardware. Many online manufacturers and retailers have sections of their websites devoted to clearance outlets. You may have to poke around the site to find them, but it’s worth checking into when you’re on a tight budget. Refurbished items are usually returns that have been looked over and checked for functionality. As with auctions, check to see if all documentation and software is included. Compare prices to what is normally charged to see if the savings is worthwhile. Often warranties are shortened. What might have originally come with a one-year warranty may only include a 90-day warranty when it’s sold as refurbished. If you’re comfortable with that, go ahead and save some money. Looking online for deals is also a great way to save money on your tech budget. And bargain hunting over the Internet doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Web sites such as PriceGrabber.com, PriceSCAN.com and MySimon.comare hubs for price comparisons. They’re especially handy if you already know what you want and are just looking for the lowest price. Don’t be blinded by what seem to be incredible bargains. Always check into an online retailer’s reputation if you’re not already familiar with it. You probably know this already, but always use a credit card for your purchases in case you have to dispute charges later. Another great resource for hardware is eBay. You can pick up a wide array of products-from extra cell phone batteries to monitors and ink cartridges-at prices that would make some retailers blush. But eBay is no utopia. You still have to check into the seller’s reputation. Also check to see if the product you’re buying is refurbished, if it comes with an original warranty or tech support, and if all documentation and pieces are included. Some entrepreneurs may decide that the savings are worth living without some or all of those things. It’s not good or bad, it’s just a matter of deciding what you feel comfortable with. If you’re the type of person who likes to “handle the merchandise” before you buy, find a local retailer you can visit in person. Prices may be a little higher when you just walk into a store, but you also have the security of having a physical location to return the product to in case of a problem. The Sunday ads are a good place to compare prices, and you should keep an eye out for specials and rebates at your local stores. Buy or Lease? As quickly as technology becomes obsolete, it sometimes makes sense to rent instead of buy your next round of upgrades. You can rent or lease most kinds of office technology, including computers, printers, copiers and phone systems. Here’s how your options stack up: If you’re like many small businesses, you’re willing to lease costly technology that’s likely to become quickly outdated. Leasing lets you get higher-end, more costly gear while reducing upfront outlays. Monthly payments will also usually be lower than those for credit-purchased equipment. Maybe most important, however, you’re transferring the risk of obsolescence to somebody else. If that high-end PC is a clunker by lease’s end, just hand it back to the owner and get a new model. Check the terms of your lease carefully. Scrutinize your options for the end of the lease. You may be able to buy the equipment for a small additional fee if you want to. The ability to have the latest equipment is leasing’s number-one perceived benefit and you’ll have predictable monthly expenses. With a lease, you have a pre-determined monthly line item, which can help you budget more effectively. Many small businesses struggle with cash flow and must keep their coffers as full as possible, and leasing means you won’t have to invest cash up front. Because leases rarely require a down payment, you can acquire new equipment without tapping much-needed funds. The downside of leasing is that you’ll pay more in the long run. Ultimately, leasing is almost always more expensive than purchasing. For example, a $4,000 computer would cost a total of $5,760 if leased for three years at $160 per month, but only $4,000 (plus sales tax) if purchased outright. And you’re obligated to keep paying even if you stop using the equipment. Depending on the lease terms, you may have to make payments for the entire lease period, even if you no longer need the equipment, which can happen if your business changes. Buying your equipment costs more upfront. If you’re buying on an installment plan rather than paying cash, monthly payments are usually higher. It may be comforting to know you own your equipment rather than rent it, but you may find yourself with an out-of-date machine right as you put the last check in the mail. One of the benefits of buying is that it’s easier than leasing. Buying equipment is easy–you decide what you need, then go out and buy it. Taking out a lease, however, involves at least some paperwork, as leasing companies often ask for detailed, updated financial information. They may also ask how and where the leased equipment will be used. Also, lease terms can be complicated to negotiate. And if you don’t negotiate properly, you could end up paying more than you should or receive unfavorable terms. When you purchase equipment, you call the shots regarding maintenance. Equipment leases often require you to maintain equipment according to the leasing company’s specifications, and that can get expensive. When you buy the equipment outright, you determine the maintenance schedule yourself. Buying equipment is also tax deductible. Section 179 of the IRS code lets you deduct the full cost of newly purchased assets, such as computer equipment, in the first year. With most leases favored by small businesses–called operating leases–you can only deduct the monthly payment. The disadvantages of buying equipment is that the initial outlay may be too much. Your business may have to tie up lines of credit or cough up a hefty sum to acquire the equipment it needs. Those lines of credit and funds could be used elsewhere for marketing, advertising or other functions that can help grow your business. And eventually, you’re stuck with outdated equipment. As mentioned earlier, computer technology becomes outdated quickly. A growing small business may need to refresh its technology in some areas every 18 months. That means you’re eventually stuck with outdated equipment that you must donate, sell or recycle. You never know how much you depend on technology until you don’t have access to it anymore. If a disaster strikes, you may not only suffer direct losses of data and hardware, but indirect losses due to downtime. But with some foresight and planning, you can avoid sustained downtime–and lost profits. First, create a broad, holistic plan to ensure business continuity, not just disaster recovery. This plan should involve every part of your business, such as processes, operations, assets, employees and so on. Your overall goal: to prevent business disruption–then minimize it if it does occur. To this end, you should: Conduct an impact analysis. How much downtime, loss of productivity, loss of data, loss of revenues and so on can your company sustain? For how long? Develop a plan for dealing with mission-critical (revenue-impacting, customer-facing) functions and business-critical (back office, supply chain, e-mail) functions under various disruptive scenarios. Determine which business technologies to employ. Educate your workers about the plan before a crisis occurs. From time to time, revisit the plan to make sure it remains practicable and viable. Latest News Section Involving Key Financial and Monetary Statistics Tags: business, markets, news, Science Filed under: article, business, finance, learning, links, news, Science, work — 1 Comment All sorts of organisations use the vocabulary of strategy. Compare these extracts from the statements of communications giants Nokia and Kingston University, a public institution based in London with 200.000 students. “Nokia’s vision and mission believes in communicating, sharing, and in the awesome potential in connecting the 2 billion who do with 4 bilion who don’t. Connecting is about helping people to feel close to what matters.” If we focus on people, and use technology to help people, than growth will follow. In a world where everyone can be connected, Nokia takes a human approach to technology. Nokia’s priority is to be the most proffered partner to operators , retailers and enterprises. A strategy where customers remain our top priority. In line with this priorities, Nokia ‘s business portfolio strategy focusses on five areas, with each have long-term objectives: create winning devices; embrace customer Internet services; deliver enterprise solutions; build scale in networks, expand professional services. There are three strategic assets that Nokia will invest in and prioritize: 1. Brand and design 2. Costumer engagement and fulfilment 3. Technology and architecture. “Kingston University’s mission is to promote participation in higher education, which it regards as a democratic entitlement; to strive for excellence in learning,teaching and research, to realise the creative potential and fire the imagination of all its members.” The vision is to be comprehensive and to create by present possibilities, with a grander and more aspirational vision of the future. The University’s goals are to provide all students equal opportunities to: 🔹Realise their learning ambitions; 🔹Create authority in research and professional practice for the benefit of individuals, society and economy 🔹Develop collaborative links with providers and stakeholders within the region, nationally and internationally; 🔹Manage and develop its human, physical and financial resource to achieve the best possible academic value and value for money. “Strategy is part of every day language of work.” Strategy vocabulary therefore is used in many different contexts for many different purposes. Latest News for Strategy Business Developments Tags: article, bestbusinessadvice, culture, delivery, diversity, globalgoals, lifestyle, markets, news, people, Science, sharedvalue, society, work Filed under: article, business, news, work — 9 Comments A new branding around the initiative is to make it more visible to the organisations. To succeed with SEO you need trust.Trust is the core component of Google’s relevancy-oriented search. Without trust, you’re simply not relevant. Yet, building trust is a double-edged sword and somewhat of a catch-22. For newcomers, especially, gaining visibility without trust has become incredibly difficult. However, without visibility, how are people supposed to garner those all-important shares and links to your content? If someone can’t discover your products, how are they supposed to engage with it and like it enough to send it to their friends or share it on social media? Clearly, in the beginning, the odds are stacked up against us. But there is a way forward. Trust is most certainly the pathway to Google’s heart, if there ever was such a thing. And by leveraging this understanding of trust, we can succeed with SEO to make money online, build passive income streams and build a successful business in the long term – as long as we play by Google’s many rules. At the core of Google’s relevancy equation, trust itself is created through three fundamental pillars. Within those three pillars, there are more than 200 different factors that help to comprise the search giant’s core algorithms. Once you understand these fundamental pillars, you can work on building up your trust across each of these areas. But before I launch into a discussion about that – and convey some of the strategies that will allow you to explode your presence by using the inherent power of search engine optimization -let me give you a bit of history. You see, the reason why it’s so difficult to dominate Google’s search results is because the search engine has been scorned once too often. As Google’s search grew over the years and turned into the dominant player that it is today, people realized the importance of ranking high organically. Clearly, the near-limitless amount of free traffic can send any business into the stratosphere. Everyone knows that, and because of it, everyone is drawn to it.Yet, over time, as people understood how the system worked, they began to take advantage of certain less-than-scrupulous strategies that allowed them to rank their content quickly at the top of Google’s search. These weren’t the most relevant search results, which enraged Google. Because of that, Google knew things had to change. As an upshot, SEO has seen some dramatic upheavals in recent years at the behest of Google and its core mission to cultivate an internet to wield more inherent value for the global populous. And while things have calmed down recently, the last five years has seen a massive overhaul in the way Google determines what the most relevant search result is. SEO algorithm updates Before you can really understand what it takes to rocket up Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), you have to digest what’s changed. The reason? The changes are integral to the bigger picture and just what Google’s intentions are with the web. Google’s main aim is to deliver the most relevant search result in the quickest manner possible. Clearly, it’s perfected that. So much so that it digitally obliterated its competition, vastly skewing the major market share towards its powerful search, while making the company a household name in the process. The algorithm updates that have been put in play have gone by names like Panda, Penguin, and more recently, Hummingbird, amongst droves of others. These algorithm updates have been intended to improve the user experience, eliminate spam and scams, and to increase the overall relevancy of search. By understanding what’s changed, you can gain perspective into Google’s intentions on what it’s attempting to achieve. It desires content that helps to improve the lives of others, delivers value and that users want to engage with. Those are the most relevant search results. That’s what Google is after. But for years, it got quite the opposite. It dealt with unscrupulous individuals attempting to “game” the system. How to dominate SEO In a book entitled SEO, Master Search Engine Optimization, I lay the groundwork for Google’s trust, which is represented by three fundamental pillars. These pillars are integral to Google’s relevancy equation, and if you fail to address each of these pillars of trust, you’ll find yourself floundering in a sea of competition, unable to gain the precious visibility that you’re after. Age is more than a number. Google relies on its relationship with you over time to judge just how much it can trust you. The longer it’s known about you and the more often it sees you creating high-quality content that delivers tremendous amounts of value, the more it’s going to trust you. Age also doesn’t rely on the date you first purchased your domain. Age refers to the indexed age, meaning when Google actually discovered your domain. If you buy a domain and leave it dormant for years, that won’t help you. You have to actually do something with it. 2. Authority The second pillar of trust is authority. Google relies on other sites that it already trusts to determine what newcomers should be trusted. If you have a site with great content, and other websites that Google already trusts are linking to you organically, your trust will naturally increase over time. However, building authority is incredibly difficult at the outset. When you’re new, and you’re unable to get discovered at the top of Google’s SERPs, how are people supposed to find you and subsequently link to you? Unless you quite literally go viral, you have a steep uphill battle ahead of you, but authority is also incredibly important to your overall ability to rank. The third underlying component of trust is content. Your content plays a large role in your visibility on Google’s SERPs. Simply put, you can’t push out subpar content and expect to gain traction. Your content has to deliver enormous amounts of value if you’re serious about attaining the search giant’s attention. But it’s not just about one-off content. You need to regularly deliver great content on your site, the kind that people want to share and engage with. Without great content, you have nothing, and no matter what SEO strategy you employ, it will fail. No one will link to a site with poor content. Don’t waste your time by trying to cut corners or take shorcuts. Content is most certainly still king. Five SEO strategies to help you rank Beyond these three pillars of trust, there are more than 200 ranking factors that are involved in Google’s search. These ranking factors run the gamut from obvious to obscure. For example, one such ranking factor is just how long remains before your domain name expires. The rationale is that domains that are registered for a short period – such as a year – are more likely fly-by-night sites. The longer the domain is registered for, the more likely it’s going to be to stick around. While this is a small relevancy signal, it just goes to show you some of the obscurity involved in ranking factors of Google’s algorithms. Strategy 1 – Market your content One of the most important SEO strategies to use in 2017 is content marketing. At the heart of this strategy is high-quality content that delivers a tremendous amount of value. This so-called “anchor content” is located on your website. However, it doesn’t end there. You need to market that content on authority sites such as Quora, Reddit, WiseLike, LinkedIn and other highly-trafficked destinations on the web. Engaging in content marketing is not easy by any measure, but this single SEO strategy will help you rocket just about any of your listings to the top of Google’s SERPs over time, as long as it’s done the right way. To do this, there’s a very specific method. You have to ensure that you build similar and relevant content that’s keyword specific on authority sites such as Medium.com, LinkedIn.com and Quora.com, and that the content has a single link from the authority site back to the main anchor content on your primary domain. Strategy 2 – Improve page speed The page speed of your site has a big influence on the user’s experience. Slow-loading pages take away from the user experience, while fast-loading pages help to add to it. Google is acutely concerned with the user’s overall experience, and improving the page speed is one such way you can drastically improve that experience. Use tools such as Google’s Page Speed, GTMetrix or Varvy’s Page Speed Tool to run insights and gain suggestions on how to improve your site’s page speed. If you’re not technically savvy, you might need to enlist the help of a web developer to optimize your site’s page speed. Strategy 3 – Focus on mobile and AMP Google has made a concerted push to mobile. Considering that mobile searches are now far surpassing desktop searches, it’s no wonder the search giant is so focused on mobile. However, most people are still behind the curve when it comes to mobile. Their sites load properly on desktop browsers, but not on mobile devices or even tablets. Leverage a responsive design for your site, if you presently don’t have one right now, to ensure that your site is optimized for mobile devices. Google has also recently launched its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, which further increases mobile load times. You can learn more about the AMP specification here. Strategy 4 – Leverage the power of videos Whether, for that matter, every SEO strategy needs the power of video marketing. Videos take your content into the stratosphere due to the popularity of video platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. Creating useful tutorials and other informative videos are also a great way to deliver real value to people in a multimedia format that’s easily accessible to anyone with a smartphone camera. Build relevant videos to further deliver the point made in a particular article on your site, and ensure that the description is keyword rich – but not keyword stuffed. Leverage elements such as the title and tags to fuse the keyword-centric nature of your video content. Strategy 5 – Be social and engage with others Authority is built up over time, but it also can’t be built up unless you’re social and you engage with others. In the beginning, they won’t come to you. In fact, what you’ve likely noticed is that it’s incredibly hard to rank any content at the outset. That’s because most newcomers have very little age and very little authority. So you have to get out there and build it. This isn’t just about sharing your content repeatedly with others. You can’t simply cheerlead your own cause and expect to get ahead. You need to be social, add value to conversations, follow others and take an interest in what those people are doing if you want them to take an interest in you. Latest News Section Sources Including Companies and Bank Reviews Tags: article, business, lifestyle, links, Science Filed under: articles, business, finance, news, work — 4 Comments In the financial markets, the term financial is applied to situations in which financial institutions or assets suddenly gain a significant portion of their value. The current global credit markets and banking systems is represented by an arise of companies who invested in the global financial system and regulatory framework. Real estate boom period before the crisis was fueled by standards increasingly lighter approving mortgage loans, a significant increase in loan incentives such as the original terms advantageous, a long-term trend of increasing house prices. As a result people do not hesitate to resort to cumbersome mortgages, hoping to refinance their ongoing and more advantageous rates. Following the financial institutions, provide a few recent competitiveness on the price of basic goods, food prices and oil prices. The research of economic, financial, political and social in 57 countries and in all four hierarchies believes that the stock market could stabilize after a waiting period from investors. Narrowing your focus in success assume risks for developing a new business within an old framework, says Lenann Gardner, an internationally known sales consultant and author of the new book, Got Sales? The Complete Guide to Today’s Proven Methods for Selling Services. “You have to get people to change their behavior to support this new corporate strategy, and that’s a difficult thing to do. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things to do, to change human behavior,” says Gardner. Narrowing your business’s focus is one way to attract customers to your new take on an old concept. “Nobody wants to do business with a business that tries to be something for everybody,” asserts Gardner. Granted, tell Wal-Mart that, but she’s right. Stores known for having a little bit of everything thrive because the stakes aren’t too high for customers shopping for soap, cat food or a lawn chair. But as a general rule, the more someone is spending on an item, the more likely they are to seek out a specialized business. Take buying a house, for example. Garry Aloia is an owner and managing partner of My First Home, a business that caters specifically to first-time homebuyers. Aloia, who also co-owns parent company New State Mortgage, came up with the idea when he realized that because agents are driven by commissions. “Human nature takes over. If there’s a bigger commission involved, that customer gets more attention!” he says. First-time home buyers-who make up about 40 percent of the home buying market-are often purchasing smaller residences and are likely getting less attention, reasons Aloia. To remedy the situation, Aloia’s My First Home, based in Merrilville, Indiana, near Indianapolis, employs real estate agents who are paid higher salaries-25 percent more than the average agent- but who don’t receive commissions. Aloia doesn’t see his business as a traditional real estate office, but rather as a home-buying educational and assistance center. The office is even set up to look like a home, complete with a fireplace and coffee. The company offers seminars to first-home buyers, as well as advice and tools to help them figure out what their monthly budget should be after they move in. What Aloia’s business is doing is what all entrepreneurs, whether veteran or novice, ultimately should be doing. “I try to put my feet in the shoes of the customer,” says Aloia. “I ask myself, ‘How can I make their life better and simpler?“ Every business faces an identity crisis during its evolution. For instance, when it was set out to build Urban Compass, it was aimed to innovate on three fronts: While most real estate firms tackle a very thin sliver of the real estate experience, they wanted to build a product for the holistic experience – search, schedule, visit, purchase, move, and connect to new neighborhoods. They have bringed data and technology to a space in which no one had founded a way to harness these elements in a valuable way. They’ve callenged the assumption that agents should be paid on commission and piloted a salaried real estate agent model, in which agents received bonuses for delivering good customer service. While it was gained a tremendous traction because of the innovation on scope and technology, it was found that the initial innovation on compensation was actually detracting value: it had prevented from hiring top performing agents who wanted to benefit from the upside of commission, and misaligned incentives for the current agent base, who were being paid to be nice, not to help their clients close deals. From since it was turned that stone back over, and it was a match to the industry standard on paying out commissions. This was an important lesson: “Be exhaustive in questioning industry assumptions and be selective in challenging.” Latest Financial Topics for Strategy & Business Developments “Ecommerce is an area being watched closely by entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs alike. New business models are constantly emerging, making this a competitive and constantly evolving field. The apparel category is particularly exciting: The recently launched Amazon Prime Wardrobe, for instance, allows consumers to have clothing delivered to their door, after which they can try it out for seven days before deciding whether to keep it. They can send items back whenever they decide; they don’t even need to be home to have return packages picked up. Taking inspiration from Amazon and other businesses, many apparel and accessory ecommerce companies are similarly trying their hand at “something new and different.” These innovative companies are taking ecommerce to the next level. Crisp Clothing The perfect shirt is hard to come by. But what if perfect fit could be achieved with the help of two simple metrics? That’s what Crisp Clothing does. By using your height and weight and what it calls “3D Measuring,” Crisp Clothing can tailor the perfect shirt for you. Founded by Swapnil and Prakash Kamble — a father-and-son team — Crisp Clothing uses 100 percent Egyptian Giza cotton to fashion its handmade tailored shirts, which are currently available in black, white, blue and pink. The company recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding for the project. Not surprisingly, the cost of a single shirt isn’t cheap, but pledging to the Crisp Clothing campaign at the $78 level will get you one custom, hand-crafted shirt. What’s clearly innovative about Crisp Clothing is the approach it takes to crafting the perfect shirt. Technology is the difference. It gives Crisp Clothing a more scientific way to tailor shirts that look and feel great. The Nordstrom-owned Trunk Club may be a familiar name to some. Its business model is a lot like that of Amazon Prime Wardrobe, except Trunk Club has been around a lot longer. This is its process: First, the customer is prompted to answer a few questions about the style of clothing he (or she) is interested in, how the clothing should fit and what budget range is desired. Then, he can chat with a stylist who’ll offer help on exactly what he’s looking for (though this step is not mandatory). The trunk is delivered free of charge once the customer approves it, and he or she has five days to decide what clothing to keep and what to send back. Then, the customer can either reorder on his or her own schedule or set up a regular delivery schedule, to keep the wardrobe fresh. What Trunk Club did right was make it easier for the consumer to get items that are truly desired. Time can be a commodity in today’s busy world, and with the rise of online shopping, consumers don’t necessarily go to malls or stores to shop anymore. Trunk Club is an easy, fast and convenient way for today’s buyer to meet his or her clothing needs. Bonobos was launched because its founders recognized how difficult it is for consumers to find pants that fit perfectly. To solve this problem, Bonobos developed a signature curved waistband that fits more naturally around your waist. The company offers free shipping as well as painless returns and exchanges. Bonobos also has something called a Guideshop. Customers can schedule a one-hour appointment at a Guideshop, try on anything in the store and find the perfect clothing with the help of a Guide. Customers don’t have to take any bags home, as the Guide will place the order and have it shipped to the customer’s home or office. Bonobos is doing a couple of noteworthy things for its customers. First, it came up with a solution where none previously existed, thereby creating more comfortable pants. Second, it created a unique in-store experience that allows customers to find what they’re looking for on their own time — a personalized experience they’re sure to remember. Accessorizing is a term near and dear to many women. Jenn Low, founder of Wanderlust + Co, creates custom jewelry and accessories that many models and celebrities don at notable events. Her work is inspired by what she calls the #WCOgirlgang, which includes celebrities, fashion bloggers, editors, stylists and content creators. What’s innovative about Wunderlust + Co is Low’s willingness to cater to a specific audience. She doesn’t create products consumers dn’t want. She built her own tribe, #WCOgirlgang, and stays in regular contact with them to come up with new product ideas her audience will love. Entrepreneurs sometimes take the opposite approach, creating a product first and then finding an audience for it. Sometimes that can work, but there are no guarantees. A more reliable approach, especially today, is what Low does: She’s built a brand around a target audience, offering products they want and have even asked for. Complete transparency is hard to find but has become somewhat trendier, thanks to online entrepreneurs like Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas. That’s where Everlane stands out. These founders aim to be as up-front as possible about the cost of their goods. They even offer a detailed breakdown on materials, hardware, labor, duties and transport. They also reveal what the true cost of the product is, in addition to what they’re selling it for. If you’ve ever wondered where your money is going when you purchase a product, you won’t have to, with Everlane. You’ll get total transparency, and that builds trust. Though full transparency may not be the right approach for every business, it’s something to consider: Maybe no one in your industry is embracing it, making it worth considering as a strategy. If you’re an ecommerce business owner, what could you be doing to separate yourself from the pack? If you have a different business model, what can you learn from the above and implement in your business? As ecommerce becomes increasingly competitive, it will be more and more necessary for more business owners to embrace innovation and find their unique approach. The ecommerce landscape will continue to be an interesting one to watch, especially as Amazon continues to launch new and noteworthy services. Tags: business, news, people, work Filed under: articles, business, news — 2 Comments An overview on one aspect that captures almost all the economic activities include a representation to a change. This clue distinctions of when and where supports all those interested wantings for the future development and innovation, in the activity of the products and the services desired for the necesary market. “ You never know where you are going to find a good idea.“ That may sound like a saying from a fortune cookie. But for Normal CEO, and founder, Nikki Kaufman, it’s a management style. It’s also why the headquarters of her 3-D printed custom earphone company are open and transparent across departments. It’s a guiding principle on how to run a team. “I encourage new ideas all the time here at Normal. That’s one of the things that I really like about having everyone in one office.” She included this advices from the floor of her New York City retail location, which also serves as the company’s factory and corporate office along with an incredible pursuatiation for advocating content into the shared markets . “An idea can come from anywhere.” Tags: blog, economics, finance, Growth, ideas, links, management, markets, news, people, work Filed under: article, business, finance, links, news — 1 Comment In the fast-moving world of online marketing Change is the only constant, emerging technologies, tough competition and increased consumer expectations have created plenty of uncertainty. Many digital agencies are confused about how to deliver relevant ad experiences moving forward. However, in that uncertainty there are also tremendous opportunities to leverage data and deliver the personalized ad experiences consumers prefer. Advertisers can make the most of this and position themselves for long-term success – if they’re willing to question some longstanding assumptions. Executing ad campaigns today takes a different set of skills Real-time bidding (a strategy search marketers have used for years) is now feasible for display, social, mobile, video, text, radio advertising and even TV. Executing search and display campaigns, for instance, used to require completely different skill sets. Now programmatic technologys merging them. Search and display are uniting under a common theme: leveraging data to target consumers with the right message, in the right place, at the right time. This creates huge opportunities (IDC estimates real-time advertising is growing 59 percent per year) only if agencies and marketers are willing to develop new skills and reassess how they’re delivering ad experiences. The media buyer and agencies that win today -and tomorrow – have started to look a lot different than successful media buyers from the past. An understanding (and ability) to buy in real time Traditionally, display media buyers negotiated with sellers to run ads for a fixed number of impressions or amount of time. All the terms were worked out beforehand in a conversational, delayed executed setting. Programmatic technologies allow advertisers to be more nimble. Instead of committing a significant chunk of their ad spend before seeing any results, advertisers can make small-scale buys, generate feedback and make adjustments in real time. Buying becomes an ongoing process. Kellogg’s used real-time targeting to increase its ROI between five and six times. This creates enormous opportunities to maximize the ROI on every campaign. Buyers can use feedback to optimize campaigns on the fly – scaling successful ad buys and ceasing unsuccessful ones. Analytical skills and a strong technical knowledge base Analytical skills are becoming increasingly important in executing successful ad campaigns. Seventy-five percent of CMOs are already using customer analytics to mine data. Acquiring these skills might seem intimidating for some media experts, but it offers huge advantages as advertising technology evolves. Going forward, successful media buyers will behave more like stock traders. They’ll analyze large sets of data, cross-reference them and run regression models. But they won’t stop there. It’ll be up to them to “translate” those numbers into actionable insights to best optimize ad campaigns. Tags: business, economy, news Filed under: article, business — 2 Comments Every industry is changing “There are no original ideas left. Sure, it’s kind of a cynical thought, but try and brainstorm a completely new concept, whether for a business, an advertising campaign or even a limerick, and you’ll start to think it’s true. It can sometimes be a stretch to come up with anything that hasn’t already been thought of.“ It’s the reason someone once famously said there are only three original jokes and all the others have been derived from them. It’s why Hollywood remakes old movies. And the dearth of original ideas is why businesspeople sometimes pay other businesspeople to come up with a new concept for their own products or services. Fortunately, if you’re an entrepreneur trying to come up with a new business model, you don’t have to be completely unique. For instance, you probably wouldn’t attempt to sell fingernail clippings in a bag, no matter how groundbreaking and unique the idea is. In fact, if you’re starting a business, you probably shouldn’t do something that’s never been done -after all, think of the learning curve your target market will have to tackle. But you would be well advised to take an old idea and make it new. That’s exactly what David Friedberg did. It was around 2001, Friedberg figures, when he was 20 years old and living across the road from a bicycle rental shop. Every day that it rained, the bike shop was closed. “It became pretty noticeable,” recalls Friedberg, now 26 and already an ex-Google executive and the CEO of his own company, WeatherBill, in San Francisco. After watching the bicycle rental store owner get rained out day after day, Friedberg started noticing how many other companies- think golf courses and car washes- were taking a financial bath whenever it was wet outside. “You don’t really think about it, but 70 percent of businesses are affected by the weather every year, across regions and industries,” says Friedman. “The weather affects so many different types of businesses, whether in negative or in positive ways, like taxi cabs in New York, which are often full in the cold.” Friedman was a business product manager at Google when he had his “a-ha moment.” It occurred to him that he should start an insurance company- a very old idea- but gear it specifically toward companies that want to protect themselves from losing money on a rainy day -a new idea. It may not sound new. After all, insurance companies generally protect you if you’re hammered by a hurricane, slaughtered by a sandstorm or frozen under the tundra. But we’re talking about the car wash that doesn’t want to lose an entire day of income when there are five inches of rain. That’s why Friedberg developed, with his “computer science friends,” an elaborate website where anyone can log on and buy a contract to protect themselves from unseasonable weather. The site is completely customizable and automated. A farmer, for instance, could receive money every time the temperature dips below 67 degrees in a particular month. Or if a ski resort has a week and a half of beautiful, balmy weather in January, the owner could automatically receive a check without having to report the weather. “There is no claims process,” Friedberg says proudly. Instead his company uses a third-party weather station, EarthStat, that independently confirms data and sends daily reports to WeatherBill, which then processes the checks and sends them out. Modernizing the Wheel Some business models only need to be slightly tweaked to appeal to the modern consumer. Want to update the traditional dentist office? Put it on wheels. While cleaning teeth is an industry almost as old as, well, teeth, putting an office in a van that can travel anywhere from giant corporate campuses to nursing homes is a much more recent concept. The rise of mobile dentist offices in the last few years shows that catering to people’s busy and complicated lives is a nearly surefire way to improve upon an old concept. Then there’s the Pearson Ford Fuel Depot in San Diego, which has received a lot of attention for its one-of-a-kind gas station that offers a full range of clean-burning alternative fuels from ethanol to BioWillie, a type of biodiesel made from soybeans and promoted by singer Willie Nelson. Gas stations may be becoming synonymous with global warming, but by offering an alternative, this fueling station has managed to drum up publicity while serving an emerging niche market. Capitalizing on consumers’ nostalgia is yet another potential approach. In true throwback fashion, State Street Barbers, located in Chicago and Boston, gives modern hair cuts to men in an environment decked out to look like a ritzy salon in the 1920s. Patrons are given a cold beverage when they walk in and can get a hot lather shave with a classic straight razor and hot towels. In the end, it’s easier to be original and unique in an established industry like home selling or insurance when you have plenty of capital funding behind you; it’s another story if you’re running a fledgling startup in your parents’ basement, and you feel you have to take any client with a pulse and a wallet. But whether you’re a big fish in the ocean or a small one in the pond, the principles are always the same. If you’re going to tweak a formula, “throw out the way things have been done before,” advises Friedberg. Manufacturers wants more to connect with their suppliers, their distributors, and ultimate their customers. In a consumer world there is an app for that, in the government world there is form for that and that is the technology that needs to be closed. Banks knows a lot about the customers and that information is spread to the full wings. The reason why most of the companies are not embracing the future faster, is because they continue to throw their capital to what they worked in the past and that’s what is keeping manufacturers up at night, is how to innovate quickly with agility, and deepen their relationships with their retailers, suppliers and consumers. Figure out your end goal, and then forget about what all of the other people have done, and come up with a new way. The Latest News & Developments in Business Strategy Practise Tags: article, business, corporateleadership, economics, entrepreneurship, goodcorporatedecision, links, markets, people, profit, sharedvalue Filed under: article, business, Decoding, economy, finance, news, work — 7 Comments Emphasis the human element of strategy to identify the direction and scope which achieve an advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences, has the aim to fulfill stakeholders expectations “The competitive analysis is a statement of the business strategy and how it relates to the competition.” The purpose of the competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors within your market, strategies that will provide you with a distinct advantage, the barriers that can be developed in order to prevent competition from entering your market, and any weaknesses that can be exploited within the product development cycle. The first step in a competitor analysis is to identify the current and potential competition. As mentioned in the “Market Strategies” chapter, there are essentially two ways you can identify competitors. The first is to look at the market from the customer’s viewpoint and group all your competitors by the degree to which they contend for the buyer’s dollar. The second method is to group competitors according to their various competitive strategies so you understand what motivates them. Once you have grouped your competitors, you can start to analyze their strategies and identify the areas where they are most vulnerable. This can be done through an examination of your competitors’ weaknesses and strengths. A competitor’s strengths and weaknesses are usually based on the presence and absence of key assets and skills needed to compete in the market. To determine just what constitutes a key asset or skill within an industry, David A. Aaker in his book, Developing Business Strategies suggests concentrating your efforts in four areas: 1. The reasons behind successful as well as unsuccessful firms 2. Prime customer motivators 3. Major component costs 4. Industry mobility barriers According to theory, the performance of a company within a market is directly related to the possession of key assets and skills. Therefore, an analysis of strong performers should reveal the causes behind such a successful track record. This analysis, in conjunction with an examination of unsuccessful companies and the reasons behind their failure, should provide a good idea of just what key assets and skills are needed to be successful within a given industry and market segment. For instance, in the personal-computer operating-system software market, Microsoft reigns supreme with DOS and Windows. It has been able to establish its dominance in this industry because of superior marketing and research as well strategic partnerships with a large majority of the hardware vendors that produce personal computers. This has allowed DOS and Windows to become the operating environment, maybe not of choice, but of necessity for the majority of personal computers on the market. Microsoft’s primary competitors, Apple and IBM, both have competing operating systems with a great deal of marketing to accompany them; however, both suffer from weaknesses that Microsoft has been able to exploit. Apple’s operating system for its Macintosh line of computers, while superior in many ways to DOS and Windows, is limited to the Macintosh personal computers; therefore, it doesn’t run many of the popular business applications that are readily available to DOS and Windows. To an extent, IBM’s OS/2 operating system suffers from the same problem. While it will run on all of the personal computers DOS and Windows can run on and even handle Windows applications, the number of programs produced for OS/2 in its native environment is very small. This is the type of detailed analysis you need in analyzing an industry. Through your competitor analysis you will also have to create a marketing strategy that will generate an asset or skill competitors do not have, which will provide you with a distinct and enduring competitive advantage. Since competitive advantages are developed from key assets and skills, you should sit down and put together a competitive strength grid. This is a scale that lists all your major competitors or strategic groups based upon their applicable assets and skills and how your own company fits on this scale., strategic management has three major elements: strategic position, strategic choices for the future and strategic in action. To put together a competitive strength grid, list all the key assets and skills down the left margin of a piece of paper. Along the top, write down two column headers: “weakness” and “strength.” In each asset or skill category, place all the competitors that have weaknesses in that particular category under the weakness column, and all those that have strengths in that specific category in the strength column. After you’ve finished, you’ll be able to determine just where you stand in relation to the other firms competing in your industry. Once you’ve established the key assets and skills necessary to succeed in this business and have defined your distinct competitive advantage, you need to communicate them in a strategic form that will attract market share as well as defend it. Competitive strategies usually fall into these five areas: 2.Distribution 3.Pricing 4.Promotion 5.Advertising Many of the factors leading to the formation of a strategy should already have been highlighted in previous sections, specifically in marketing strategies. “Strategies primarily revolve around establishing the point of entry in the product life cycle and an endurable competitive advantage. As we’ve already discussed, this involves defining the elements that will set your product or service apart from your competitors or strategic groups. You need to establish this competitive advantage clearly so the reader understands not only how you will accomplish your goals, but why your strategy will work. Tags: news, work Filed under: article, business, finance, links, news, work — 5 Comments The efficient market hypothesis suggests that future share prices cannot be predicted by studying past prices and as we have seen, there is extensive evidence to support this view and the right information in collaborating with your partners. Despite the evidence, investment strategies based on the study of past share prices, or on the analysis of published information such as annual accounts, are common, and the view held by many financial analysts seems to be therefore that capital markets are inefficient. Technical analysis involves the use of charts (Chartism) and other methods to predict future shares prices and share price trends, clearly implying that a relationship exists between past and future prices. For technical analysis to lead to abnormal returns on a regular basis, capital markets cannot even be weak form efficient. Fundamental analysis are public information to calculate a fundamental value for a share and then offer investment advice by comparing the fundamental value with the current market price. It is not possible to make abnomal gains from fundamental analysis if capital markets are semi-strong form efficient, since all publicly available information will already be reflected in share prices. Both technical and fundamental analysis, by seeking abnormal returns, increase the speed with which share prices absorb new information and reach equilibrium, thereby preventing abnomal returns from being achieved. Filed under: article, business, finance, news — 2 Comments If the mark of an entrepreneur is seeing opportunity where others don’t, then Jan Nytzen and Bjorn Lowenhielm, founders of Universal Cart Systems Inc. in New York City, are entrepreneurs for excellence. In the seemingly mundane world of food cart manufacturing, the pair developed techniques that dramatically rearranged the economics of the product and provided entree to a multimillion-dollar opportunity. Rather than welded steel, Universal’s carts, which can be used for food service as well as merchandising, rely on modular components made from aluminum extrusions. “What was made by five workers in five days could now be done by one worker in a few hours,” says Lowenhielm. “[We realized] this was clearly something that had significant potential.” The funds spent on research and development got Universal into initial production. With several units occupying New Jersey’s Giant Stadium and with what Lowenhielm calls rave reviews from food-service contractor Aramark in Philadelphia, the company is now ready to launch a full-scale rollout of the product. To do it right, Nytzen and Lowenhielm figure they’ll need an additional $500,000 and eventually as much as $1 million. But with $1 million already invested, the co-founders are looking for “angel” investors with the kind of equity capital that will drive Universal to its next growth level. While they know the money exists, there is less certainty regarding the kind of angel investor they need. David R. Evanson, a writer and consultant, is a principal of Financial Communications Associates in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Art Beroff, a principal of Beroff Associates in Howard Beach, New York, helps companies raise capital and go public. Good Chemistry The importance of the chemistry between entrepreneur and investor cannot be underestimated. Consider that while a banker may completely trust and like an entrepreneur, he or she will not change the lending criteria a single iota because of these feelings. But with angel investors, the situation is quite different: If he or she develops a bond with an entrepreneur, an angel will agree to almost any deal. Because of this phenomenon, angel investor Rich Bendis, who is also president of Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. in Topeka, Kansas, says entrepreneurs must understand the basic investor personality types to help them forge the bond so vital to closing the deal. While private investors come in many different shapes, they can be categorized into five types: corporate angels, entrepreneurial angels, enthusiast angels, micromanagement angels and professional angels. 1. Corporate angels Typically, corporate angels are former senior managers of Fortune 1000 corporations who have been outplaced or have taken early retirement. Corporate angels may say they’re looking for investment opportunities, but in reality, they’re looking for a job. This doesn’t mean they won’t invest. Bendis says they typically have about $1 million in cash and may invest as much as $200,000 in a deal, but some kind of position, usually unpaid at first, is part of the deal. Nytzen and Lowenhielm, who had lengthy careers at Volvo and Electrolux, respectively, before striking out on their own, think a corporate angel might work out. “I understand their thinking because we came out of that mold,” says Nytzen. “My one reservation would be that in start-ups, you have to wear a lot of hats, and people from large corporations with highly specialized skills can’t always do that.” Lowenhielm concurs. If forced to choose a corporate angel who also wanted a position with the company, he says, “I would choose someone who left a large corporation to pursue other interests, as opposed to a senior person who got downsized out of his or her job.” Corporate angels typically make just one investment, unless their last one didn’t work out, says Bendis. And with respect to that one investment, they tend to invest everything at once and may get nervous when the hat gets passed their way again. 2. Entrepreneurial angels These are the most prevalent type of angel investors, according to Bendis. Most of them own and operate highly successful businesses. Because these investors have another source of income, and perhaps significant wealth from an initial public offering or partial buyout, they will take bigger risks and invest more capital than other types of angels. Whereas the corporate angel is looking for a job, entrepreneurial angels are looking for synergy with their current business, a way to diversify their portfolios or, in rarer instances, a way to prepare for life after their current business no longer requires their full attention. As a result, these investors seldom look at businesses outside their area of expertise and will participate in no more than a handful of investments at any one time.”We are talking right now to an investor who owns a fabrication business,” says Lowenhielm. “Obviously, there are some strong synergies. I like the idea that there is an incentive for each business to strengthen the other.” According to Bendis, entrepreneurial angels almost always require a seat on the board of directors but hardly ever want any kind of management duties. They typically make fair-sized investments-$200,000 to $500,000–and invest more as the company progresses. However, because of their agenda, when the synergy or the potential they initially perceived disappears, oftentimes so do they. 3. Enthusiast angels While entrepreneurial angels tend to be somewhat calculating, enthusiasts simply like to be involved in deals. Bendis says most enthusiast angels are 65 or older, independently wealthy from success in a business they started, and have abbreviated work schedules. For them, investing is a hobby. They typically want no role in management and rarely seek board representation. Because enthusiasts spread themselves across many companies, the size of their investments tends to be small–from as little as $10,000 to perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars. “On the plus side,” says Bendis, “enthusiasts tend to have a difficult time saying no and often bring their friends into a deal.” Nytzen feels that enthusiast angels, affiliated with the company but free from the burden of board representation, would provide an invaluable resource for Universal. “When we created international advisory boards for Volvo, we were able to attract top people because there were no official responsibilities,” Nytzen says. “We received tremendous support and counsel from them. I see enthusiasts as a very interesting source of capital.” 4. Micromanagement angels “Micromanagers are serious investors,” says Bendis. “Some of them are born wealthy, but the vast majority attained wealth through their own efforts.” Unfortunately, this heritage makes them dangerous. Because they have successfully built a company, micromanagers attempt to impose the same tactics they used with their own companies on the companies they’re investing in. Though they do not seek an active management role, micromanagers usually demand a board seat. If the business is not doing well, they will try to bring in new managers.”The idea of control has a little bit of a bad taste [for us],” says Lowenhielm. “The investor who wants to know how much we spend on paper clips would be a hindrance. The way I see it, investors who want to control want to restrain.” “This would be a tough fit for us,” agrees Nytzen. “Right now as a start-up, we [have identified and are confident of] our market and our products. It would be difficult to put someone else in the driver’s seat.” Bendis says it’s possible to exploit the behavior patterns of micromanagers–but at a cost. “They enjoy having as much control as possible,” Bendis says. “Many will gladly pay for it by putting more capital in the business.” Micromanagers typically invest between $100,000 and $1 million. 5. Professional angels The term “professional” in this context refers to the investor’s occupation, such as doctor, lawyer and, in some rare instances, accountant. Bendis says professional angels like to invest in companies that offer a product or service with which they have some experience: A doctor will look at medical instrumentation companies, a franchise attorney will look at franchise deals, and so on. These investors don’t typically need to know what’s going on in the business on a daily basis, and they do not micromanage their portfolio companies. In fact, professionals rarely seek board representation. However, Bendis says, they can be unpleasant to deal with and impatient when the going gets tough, and may think a company is in trouble before it actually is. Bendis says professional angels invest in several companies at one time, and their capital contributions range from $25,000 to $200,000. “They are good for initial investments but are less likely to make follow-up investments,” he says. Perhaps more than any other investor, professionals operate within loosely defined but clear networks, and they tend to be more comfortable investing alongside their peers. Thus, the first professional investor you find will likely open a pathway to others. Professionals can also offer value when they have-and provide-legal, accounting or financial expertise for which the company would otherwise have to pay hefty fees. Be wary, however, because some professionals want to be hired after they invest. Pairing Up Of all the different personality types, Nytzen and Lowenhielm agree the best investor for Universal Cart Systems would be an entrepreneurial angel. “The fact that he or she is already in business and wants to remain there and be a resource for our business seems to create the best atmosphere for success,” says Nytzen. But the partners are not ruling out the other types of investors. “This is business,” says Lowenhielm. “If someone brings something valuable to the table that can help us reach our goals faster, then I would consider them a good investor for our business.” Winning business team session engagements Filed under: article, business, Science, work — 3 Comments Internal experts and external brought in sessions, that articulate the organisation vision and added insights to new opportunities. “Is your team fully engaged to give their best, day in and day out? In a recent study by TowersWatson, an international HR consulting firm, fewer than 21 percent of employees surveyed described themselves as “highly engaged,” down from 31 percent. 8 percent admitted to being fully disengaged.“ Having only one-fifth of your employees highly engaged is not the hallmark of a “Winning Business.” Other studies show that employee engagement derives from three important factors: Alignment of the employee with the goals and vision of the company. Faith of the employee in the competence of management and their commitment to realize the goals and vision. Trust in their direct supervisor that he or she will support his or her people and help them to succeed. It has often been said that employees rarely quit companies. Instead, employees quit their managers or supervisors by leaving the company. Mark Herbert, a consultant focused on engagement, says: “Engagement lives and dies on the front line of your business.” Increasing positive managerial behavior and reducing negative managerial behavior will go a long way towards improving employee engagement. When your talented employees are engaged, they are able to perform spectacularly and build and improve your winning business. Here are some ways to get managers and supervisors started in focusing on ways to improve engagement (and to be better managers). 1. DON’T get angry “Getting angry is easy. Anyone can do that. But getting angry in the right way in the right amount at the right time, now that is hard.” Anger does not belong in your managerial kit bag. 2. DON’T be cold, distant, rude or unfriendly Especially in difficult times, employees take cues from their immediate supervisors and need to hear from them. As such, your team will judge you by your action, moods, and behaviors, not by your intent. 3. DON’T send mixed messages to your employees so that they never know where you stand Keep your message simple, focused and prioritized. Too many messages and initiatives just confuse and alienate people. 4. DON’T BS your team This includes saying things that you don’t believe in. This includes hiding information and just plain lying. By the time each of us is in our early 20′s, we have all developed very well-tuned BS detectors. 5. DON’T act more concerned about your own welfare than anything else Your success will come through the success of your team. “Self-serving detectors” are also very well-tuned in most employees. 6. DON’T avoid taking responsibility for your actions You are the boss. As such, you are accountable and the buck stops with you. You are trying to develop accountability throughout your company. So, lead by example. 7. DON’T jump to conclusions without checking your facts first A few years ago, I watched in horror as a colleague of mine started screaming at an employee of his who had missed an important meeting that morning. After several minutes, the employee responded: “I apologize and should have contacted you. But, I just got back from the hospital as a relative has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.” Now here are the dos, which are even more important than the don’ts… 8. DO what you say you are going to do when you are going to do it There is no better way to communicate the message that you are accountable for your promises and that everyone in your company should be accountable as well. 9. DO be responsive (return phone calls, emails) As a manager, your team can be considered to be your customer. You want your sales team to punctually respond back to customer requests, so you should do the same. 10. DO publicly support your people Your disagreements and disappointment with your employees can be communicated later and in private. Nothing appears so hollow as your attempt to blame your team for failures. 11. DO admit your mistakes … …and take the blame for failures. 12. DO recognize your team “You can never underestimate the power of simple recognition for a job well done.” 13. DO ask and listen “The manager of the future will know how to ask rather than how to tell.” Some of the most dangerous words for a manager to ever say include: “But, you just don’t understand…” “Because I said so…“ 14. DO smile and laugh Have some fun. But, be genuine; programmed fun and faked laughter is worse than doing nothing. When appropriate, laugh at yourself; it will humanize you. Tags: business, links, news, Science, work Corporate trajectory The business landscape will look dramatically different in coming decades A culture change dialogs across geography, across business units and also across functions. By embracing people’s differences, we can spark innovation, better understand and serve our customers and gain competitive advantage. Driving a successful diversity strategy begins with the senior leaders, but to be fully sustainable it needs to be lived by every one of us. If that seems challenging, think about this: many leading researchers and social scientists have proven a link between diversity and productivity. In the United States, management researchers found that when people work directly with someone with at least one diverse trait, it challenges them to prepare more and work harder. By embracing diversity in your business today, you can adopt an intrapreneurial mindset and sustainable skills that will help you succeed. Here’s how you can start: Learn to think like an intrapreneur Intrapreneurship, or disrupting internal processes or cultural norms, is at its heart about innovation. One group of innovators in particular figured out how to advance their industry through the way they approach challenges – these are open-source software engineers, and they use design thinking. It’s a good example of what intrepreneurship can be: pick a diverse team with a range of experiences and perspectives; make your mistakes early and be open about them. Without the diverse and constant input, these engineers would be less successful in the way they solve challenges. When faced with a difficult task or situation, seek out advice from new and diverse sources, most likely you will find an improved approach. Discover new places to network As collaboration with diverse individuals provides new points of view, networking accomplishes this on a larger scale. By going to events for closely related professions, or simply connecting through social media channels such as Twitter or LinkedIn where you can virtually engage in conversations with anyone, you put yourself in a position for growth. Inside your organization you can join or organize a powerful employee network with a diverse set of peers. While interacting with your network, look for, accept and appreciate differences. Friction leads to heat, and our heat makes the atoms move faster! Focus on the strengths everybody brings to the table We are brought up in the Western World to focus on what doesn’t work or what is different. Challenge yourself to appreciate the differences of others and see them as potential drivers of change. The more opinions, the more variety, and the more diversity we bring to the table the more we can unchain our creativity, which is hidden in every one of us. People with different communication abilities, for instance, can be diverse. Autistic people are known for thriving in repetitive tasks, which is an especially valuable skill set in today’s data-driven work environments. These skills help uncover insights into customer behavior and business trends, and can lead to discoveries that alter how a company operates. In the future of work, diversity will not be an option, but an imperative to sustain in our global, fast paced economy, where never just one person owns and knows the truth. Stand up to discrimination Stand up if you see or experience discrimination.Raise your voice for the unheard opinion. Help others appreciate how every person has a different strength and realize that in that strength there is opportunity to grow and be more productive. For instance, if a colleague comments that a women aren’t as capable of understanding technology, remind them that CEOs Meg Whitman at HP and Marisa Mayer at Yahoo! have both outlasted their male predecessors. By being critical of someone’s weakness you miss the chance to appreciate and benefit from their strengths. The need for new perspectives becomes especially important when we examine the future workplace. As our world gets smaller, diversity doesn’t only mean differences in gender and race, but age and geography as well. Our world has become ultra-connected – successful companies find that to harmonize these connections relates directly to how fast they innovate. The implications are key for our global workforce because innovation thrives when we are faced with the unfamiliar. Diversity is what makes business more sustainable. The Latest Publication On Data Surveys Tags: article, business, diversity, entrepreneurship, finance, globalgoals, management, people, strategyperformance

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Excess packaging around Easter eggs leaves bitter taste in the mouth Yesterday Liberal Democrats' deputy leader Jo Swinson released an exclusive report into the use of excess packaging in the presentation of Easter eggs. Swinson’s report, which outlines the use of plastics by all major Easter egg manufacturers, highlights the need for companies to cut down the use of plastics to protect our oceans and reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic waste ending up in landfills. Key findings of the report: According to recent figures, 147.7 million hollow Easter eggs are sold each year. An average Easter egg box as found in this report contains 22 grams of plastic packaging, so this could mean over 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year from hollow Easter eggs alone. Around one quarter of the weight of the average Easter egg comes from packaging. This has not improved since Jo’s previous report in 2012. 5 of the 9 brands investigated used a substantial amount of plastic (>30g) in packaging their eggs. Many local authorities do not offer kerbside collections, meaning that significant amounts of plastic from Easter egg packaging could end up in landfill or the ocean. The worst chocolate to packaging weight ratio was Lindt (chocolate to packaging ratio of almost 2:1), and the best was Green & Black’s (chocolate to packaging ratio of almost 5:1). Lindt was the worst offender this year in terms of excess packaging on Easter eggs; with the egg itself taking up less than one sixth of the total size of the box, and the packaging accounting for over 36% of the total weight. This year’s winner was Green & Black’s. Packaging accounted for 18% of the total weight, and the size of packaging was relatively small compared to the size of the egg (which took up more than 41% of space in the box). Commenting on the results, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Jo Swinson said: “Millions of us watched Blue Planet last year and witnessed the shocking levels of plastic waste in our oceans. None of us want the packaging from our tasty Easter treats to contribute to ocean pollution. “It is disappointing that Easter egg manufacturers have not been more proactive in reducing levels of plastic in their packaging, so I am calling on them to pledge to eliminate plastic in next year’s Easter eggs. If manufacturers truly want to cut the use of plastics they must sacrifice the presentation of their eggs for the presentation of their values. “The plastic waste associated with Easter eggs is symptomatic of a much wider problem across consumer industries, where companies could and should be doing more to combat plastic waste. Our oceans are precious - we all need to do our bit to help preserve them.” Posted by Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats at 8:14 am No comments: Gambling industry must sit up and take notice Responding to the news that SkyBet has been fined £1 million for failing to protect vulnerable gamblers, Tim Clement-Jones, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson the Creative Industries, said: “This fine should make the rest of the industry sit up and take notice that they must take their responsibilities towards customers seriously. "If people have been allowed to place bets having self referred for exclusion due to addictive tendencies then that is a serious failure of the system with vulnerable people being failed by those in positions of power. They have a duty to protect those at risk, and that should always take priority over profits.” The British people must not be cheated Commenting on allegations made on Channel 4 News, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Tom Brake, said: "These allegations are stunning and touch directly on one of Theresa May's closest advisors. "The British people expect fair play and campaigns to abide by the rules – they must not be cheated. These allegations must be examined by the police. If they represent what happened it is outrageous and shameful. "The referendum had a very narrow outcome. One of the biggest exercises in democracy must not turn out to be one of Britain's biggest electoral frauds." Diesel scrappage: embarrassing U-turn is typical of Tory management Responding to reports that Gove will end the diesel scrappage scheme, Tim Farron said: “This is typical of Tory management. The environment has never been a priority, and promises of environmental protection and regulations have been abandoned behind closed doors. "It is bad for the environment and for the consumer, who bought diesel cars in good faith, and simply want to switch vehicles fairly. “Gove must think again, or at least explain to parliament why he has chosen this embarrassing U–turn.“ NHS pay cap lifted in England; why not Wales? Responding to yesterday’s reports that the government will announce a 6.5% pay rise for NHS workers in England over 3 years, Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, Judith Jolly, commented: "This is a victory for the determined NHS staff members, who have fought tooth and nail and refused to accept the Tories’ mean-spirited attempt to force them to sacrifice a day’s holiday. "Changes like these will go some of the way to addressing the worryingly low morale and poor retention rates within our national health service. However, significant additional measures must still be taken and, fundamentally, we must deliver long-term job security for workers, establishing sustainable funding by putting a penny on the pound. "Notably absent from Jeremy Hunt’s announcement is any mention of the fate of care workers, who have worked for years tirelessly without a pay rise. Care workers are undervalued and underpaid: this must change." Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats ask: when will first minister Carwyn Jones and health Vaughan Gething follow this long-overdue lead and lift the cap on Welsh nurses, already the worst-paid in Britain? EU stands up to big tech firms with turnover tax The European Commission has announced it intends to put an interim 3% levy on digital sales revenue of the biggest technology firms, such as Apple, Facebook and Google. Many large digital businesses have been accused of avoiding tax by shifting profits through complex structures, including via tax havens where they have little or no physical presence. EU officials reportedly think they will raise £4.3bn a year for member states from around 150 firms. Responding, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: "This is the right move. A turnover tax has its problems, but as an interim measure it is necessary. Until a proper international system is agreed it is the best idea going. "This is also another example of why staying in the EU is desirable. To stand up to the big tech companies we need a collective, co-ordinated approach." Universal Credit could lead to up to 1.3 million evictions New data released yesterday by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reveals that only 6% of Universal Credit claimants in the private rented sector have their rent paid directly to their landlords, compared to 35% in the socially rented sector. This is despite calls by Liberal Democrat DWP spokesperson Stephen Lloyd to make payments to landlords the default. Lloyd has argued that maintaining the status quo will lead to many of the 1.3 million benefit claimants in the private rented sector being evicted and potentially made homeless. According to the Residential Landlords Association, 73% of landlords still lack confidence in renting to tenants on Universal Credit due to uncertainty that they will be able to recover rent arrears, while 38% have already experienced UC tenants going into arrears. Stephen Lloyd, Liberal Democrat DWP Spokesperson said: “Back in January I led a Parliamentary debate calling on the government to make direct payments to private landlords the default option for Universal Credit. Consequently I am deeply disappointed these are still far lower in the private sector than the socially rented sector. If this doesn’t change, we should expect a spike in evictions by private landlords who are already wary of renting to people on benefits, and a rise in homelessness that local authorities will have to deal with. People on Universal Credit often live in difficult circumstances which can prevent them from paying their rent on time, as soaring rent arrears under UC testify to. “And the government cannot argue that this is technically unfeasible, because their DUP friends in Northern Ireland have already figured out how to make payments to landlords the default option. If the Universal Credit ‘computer’ allows that to happen over there, then why not here?” Social responsibility should come before profit Responding to yesterday's announcement by the Gambling Commission that they have recommended a £30 or lower stake for Fixed-Odds-Betting-Terminals, Liberal Democrat Culture Spokesperson in the House of Commons, Christine Jardine said: “The Gambling Commission’s recommendation is simply not enough and we will be continuing to push the Government for a £2 limit to help protect people from damaging and costly addictions to these machines. “Social responsibility should come before profit making from gambling and a limit of £30 will still leave people vulnerable to losing huge amounts of money that they cant afford. “Even with the addition measures recommended the £30 limit would still leave these people vulnerable to losing huge amounts at such addictive machines. “Additional measures, such as slower SPI, fewer machines and powers to local authorities to tackle ‘clustering’ of betting shops on our high streets will still, Liberal Democrats believe, be needed regardless of the minimum stake.” Vince Cable: Council tax is no longer fit for purpose Commenting on calls from the Resolution Foundation to radically reform the Council Tax system, leader of the Liberal Democrats Leader Vince Cable, said: “It has long been clear that council tax is no longer fit for purpose. What was meant to be a temporary replacement for the disastrous poll tax has itself become so deeply unpopular and seen to be unfair, that it can no longer be used for increasing the revenue base of local government. “Not only is council tax regressive in relation to income, but it is also based on property values almost three decades out of date. It is time for reform. “The Liberal Democrats take the view that rebanding is necessary with higher bands paying relatively more and lower bands relatively less to provide some offset to the massive increase in property wealth for those especially in high value property.” Frank Little, secretary of the local Liberal Democrat party, commented: "Re-banding would be only a temporary and partial fix. I regret that Vince has not taken on the traditional Liberal Democrat policy of a local income tax (LIT). I have campaigned for LIT to be adopted in Wales at least ever since I became active in politics." Allegations against Cambridge Analytica must be investigated Responding to allegations in the New York Times that Cambridge Analytica 'harvested' 50 million Facebook profiles in a potentially huge data breach, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said: "If these allegations against Cambridge Analytica are correct then it is a shocking betrayal of people's personal data." "If this data was then actively exploited for political gain it is both underhand and immoral. This whistleblower has made serious allegations of what would be dodgy practices. They must now be investigated." "My fear is this could be the tip of the iceberg and all campaign work linked to Cambridge Analytica must now be scrutinised, including any links to elections in the UK." Lift pay cap on brave armed forces Liberal Democrat Armed Forces Spokesperson, Jamie Stone said: “Men and women who serve in our Armed Forces deserve the utmost support for their sacrifice, but time and again they have been let down by this government. Too little has been done to address the chronic low morale amongst those currently serving, and the country is being put at risk by a failure to recruit new people with the skills needed for 21st century warfare. “Williamson should have used his first major speech as Defence Secretary to show soldiers, sailors and airmen that he is listening to their needs by lifting the 1% pay cap, giving our Armed Forces the pay rise they deserve. “Russia’s actions in the last few weeks show why we cannot afford to sit back and as our forces are hollowed out. We should not for one single second imagine that Vladimir Putin will be short-changing his own troops - he’s not that daft.” Lib Dems secure major victory in ban on cold-calling When the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill returned to the House of Commons, the Liberal Democrats secured a significant victory following the government’s acceptance of crucial amendments tabled by Liberal Democrats peers in the House of Lords. Led by Lord Sharkey, the Liberal Democrats campaigned in the House of Lords to end the scourge of cold-calling in relation to pensions, claims management and other financial services. The Government have now committed to a total ban on pensions cold-calling, as well as prohibitions on other forms of cold-calling if these are shown to be detrimental. The Lib Dems also secured a provision requiring people accessing their pensions to be referred to guidance, unless they explicitly opt out. Stephen Lloyd, Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions Spokesman said: “I am delighted that the government has seen reason and moved to clamp down on the scourge of cold-calling. Every year millions of people are harassed and deceived by cold-callers, and in some cases the financial consequences can be severe. These measures will greatly improve the situation, and I will be watching the government closely to ensure they do not backtrack. "None of this would have been possible without the valiant efforts of Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords, led by John Sharkey. Not only did the Lib Dems table and win the amendments that led to yesterday’s ban on cold-calling, they also secured provisions requiring people accessing their pensions to be referred to guidance. This will ensure that people truly make the best of their hard-earned savings.” Aberavon Lib Dem activist Tehani Taylor, one of the Welsh party's diversity champions, has an article on Liberal Democrat Voice. She writes: The Welsh Liberal Democrats have recently approved a Diversity Workplan that is at the heart of our plans to move our party forward. As one of the Welsh Lib Dem Diversity Champions and being visually impaired, I want us to be the party that is all talk and all action! In an effort to help the Welsh Libdems I sit on the National Executive which enables me to work alongside the people who are working on our future development plans. Liberal Democrats vote for councils to be given the power to increase tax on second homes At Liberal Democrat spring conference in Southport today, members passed a motion which calls for Local Authorities to be given the power to increase council tax on second homes by up to 500%. Data from the Rural Services Network has estimated that across mainly rural areas, an average of 2.5% of properties are second homes. This figure substantially rises in some areas: in the Isles of Scilly over 15% of properties are second homes, with nearly 9% in South Hams, and 10% in some parts of Norfolk. To deal with the huge pressures this can put on local communities and services, Liberal Democrats have today voted enable local authorities to increase the council tax on second properties by up to 500%, and to give local authorities the power to increase the stamp duty surcharge on additional properties to 5%. This cash would all go directly to local authorities, so they can invest in much needed affordable housing and local services. It would be for local authorities to determine whether they used one or both of these measures. Commenting, Liberal Democrat DEFRA spokesperson Tim Farron said: “High levels of second home ownership can have a hugely detrimental impact on local communities across the country, like in my own constituency in the South Lakes where almost 7.5% of all properties are second homes. This too often leads to the unacceptable decline and closure of key local services like schools, bus services, shops and Post Offices. “If we are going to protect our communities from dying out then we need to take some action. “Allowing councils to significantly increase council tax on second homes, by up to 500% if they wish, is not about penalising second home owners, but about asking them to pay a fair contribution towards those vital local services which are at risk. This would provide councils in areas with high second-home ownership with a fair and effective way of raising funds which could be ring-fenced to fund key local services and deliver affordable homes for lower income families. “It's absolutely vital that we have in place the measures which will keep our communities thriving and ensure that places from Cumbria to Cornwall remain amazing places to live for everyone” Liberal Democrats are the party of policing Ed Davey will outline bold new ideas to pitch the Liberal Democrats as the party of policing. Speaking at the Party’s Spring Conference in Southport, Ed Davey will argue the police are critical to protecting freedom and promoting social justice. He will call for an additional £300 million investment in the police - especially community policing. Ed Davey will attack the Conservatives for "betraying" the police - with new cuts of over 4,000 officers since 2015 and Theresa May's police bashing and assault on police pay and conditions. Ahead of the speech Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Ed Davey said: “Effective, well-resourced policing is fundamental to protecting our freedoms and helping the most vulnerable in society. “Liberal Democrats' commitment to civil liberties and social justice means we are natural champions for Britain's police. “With the Conservatives and Theresa May in particular leading an anti-police charge of cuts in officer numbers, reductions in conditions and unacceptable police bashing, Liberal Democrats must show how we are the true champions of Britain's blue front-line - with our values and our spending priorities." Theresa May was wrong to bin Leveson Commenting on reports from the BBC that a former private investigator who worked for the Sunday Times used illegal practices to target cabinet ministers Liberal Democrat Spokesperson, Christine Jardine, said: “This story, and these acts, would rightly cause outrage at any time, but just five days after the government announced their plans to abandon part two of the Leveson Inquiry, it couldn’t be more damning. "Theresa May is doing nothing to improve the culture of ethics in public life and the failure to implement the Leveson proposals deters individuals from seeking justice. "Rifling through peoples bins, their personal data, reeks of dishonesty and sleaze, and the government should be ashamed that they have allowed this distinctly unbalanced playing-field to tip in favour of those on the wrong side of the law.” ESA appeals figures "absolutely appalling" New data out today from the DWP shows that the majority of ESA fit for work decisions that are appealed are overturned. 38% of fit for work decisions are upheld, and 62% overturned. Commenting, Stephen Lloyd, Liberal Democrat Work & Pensions Spokesperson, said: “These figures are absolutely appalling, but of little surprise to me. With the many constituents who come through my office and those of other MPs’ across the country, we see with our own eyes some shocking decisions by Work Capability tribunals. "It is time that we stop faceless corporations making money off the backs of disabled people, while providing poor quality service. "The Liberal Democrats are campaigning to bring welfare assessments in-house as a public service to our disabled neighbours. This would be fairer, improve quality and remove the profit motive from what has become a broken and soul-destroying process.” International Women’s Day: Lib Dems call for government action on “upskirting” Today, International Women’s Day, Liberal Democrat MP, Wera Hobhouse MP is calling on the government to make upskirting a criminal offence. The bill will make upskirting, the practice of taking photos of a woman from beneath her skirt, a specific criminal offence. Wera Hobhouse presented the bill to Parliament on Tuesday this week, asking the government to classify upskirting under the voyeurism section of the Sexual Offences Act. Only a very small number of people have been prosecuted for upskirting and in many cases the police have said that it is very difficult for them to prosecute. Dame Vera Baird QC from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said legislation as it currently stands “is far from clear as there is no specific offence”. Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, said: “The fact that this is not a sexual offence in England baffles me, as much as it horrifies me. In Scotland upskirting was made an offence back in 2009. There is simply no excuse for ignoring this issue any longer.” “Relying on outraging public decency is absurd. It should not matter how public it was or who else saw it. The law should focus on the individual victims and the crime committed against them. It is their body that is being taken advantage of without their consent. “As a female member of parliament, I feel it is part of my duty to try and achieve this protection for women across the country.” TUC General Secretary to meet with cross-party leaders to set out Brexit concerns The TUC’s General Secretary has accepted an invitation to speak to a group of cross-party opposition leaders about the TUC’s position on Brexit. Frances O’Grady will meet with the Westminster leaders of the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party to discuss the need for a Brexit that protects workers’ rights, jobs and livelihoods of millions of people across the UK. The General Secretary will also set out why the TUC believes that single market membership and customs union should be on the table for the next phase of Brexit negotiations. The meeting is set to take place in Westminster on Tuesday morning. The Westminster opposition leaders have welcomed the meeting with the TUC, which has been at the forefront in campaigning against the dangers of a hard Brexit, protecting workers’ rights and guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens working in the UK. The TUC has launched a campaign putting pressure on Theresa May to protect the Working Time Directive – which safeguards the rights of more than 7 million workers to paid holidays, breaks and working hours. Opposition parties have repeatedly raised concerns of the dangers of a hard Brexit and stated that securing continued single market and customs union access must be a priority for the UK government in order to protect the UK’s economy, labour market and businesses. The UK government’s leaked economic analysis revealed that under the three likely scenarios of the Brexit negotiations, remaining in the single market and customs union is the least damaging option. At the TUC’s annual congress in September last year, Frances O’Grady said that the best current option for working people in the face of Brexit is “staying in the single market and customs union”. Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable MP, said: “The TUC has been an effective and welcome voice in challenging the Conservatives’ attempts to leave the Single Market and the Customs Union. I look forward to seeing Frances this week. “There is a growing strength in the movement to avert the worst possible form of Brexit. Membership of the Single Market and the Customs Union is vital to protect jobs, the Good Friday Agreement and Britain’s future prosperity.” SNP Westminster Leader, Ian Blackford MP, said: “I am delighted that the TUC’s General Secretary, Frances O’Grady, has agreed to meet with cross-party opposition leaders to discuss the serious concerns that Brexit will have on workers’ and citizens’ rights, jobs and livelihoods of millions of people. “Time is running out for Theresa May to heed her government’s own economic analysis warning of the economic dangers of Brexit, opposition party’s consistent calls to remain in the single market and customs union, and organisations – like the TUC – concerns on safeguarding the rights of millions of workers.” Plaid Cymru’s leader in Westminster, Liz Saville Roberts MP, said: "Tearing apart our economic links with the continent after Brexit will cause severe damage to our economy, our businesses and our citizens. “We must make every case for staying in both the single market and the customs union and the TUC’s input on their importance to jobs, wages and workers’ rights will be invaluable.” Green Party Co-Leader, Caroline Lucas MP, said: "The TUC recognise the perils of an extreme Brexit - and it's quite right that we'll be discussing together how to best protect workers in this country. "There is a growing political alliance around staying in the customs union and single market to avoid the worst effects of Brexit, and it's imperative that the voice of millions of workers should be heard in these negotiations. For workers to really have control of the Brexit process, they should also be given a final say on the terms of any deal through a referendum.” Lib Dems call on Labour to join the fight against Home Office’s ‘sinister’ proposal on data rules The Liberal Democrats and the3million are calling on Labour to protect people’s basic fundamental rights where data is being processed for immigration purposes. Next Monday Diane Abbott and Liam Byrne have the chance to join with the Liberal Democrats to oppose the government from using the cover of GDPR implementation to sneak in a sinister proposal that would deny people the right to access data held about them as part of their wider hostile environment agenda targeted at immigrants in the UK. These provisions will likely impact EU citizens living in the UK post-Brexit. The Liberal Democrats put forward an amendment to the Bill in the Lords to delete these provisions, but were not supported by Labour in the lobby when pushed to a vote. The Liberal Democrats have written an open letter to Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and shadow Secretary for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, Liam Byrne calling on them to support the Liberal Democrats’ fight to remove this alarming provision. Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, Ed Davey said: “Diane Abbott’s warm words are not enough. We gave the Labour party a chance to kill this sinister provision and they sat on their hands in the Lords. “It is no use tinkering at the edges with this exemption it needs to be deleted. “The Government’s hostile environment agenda has gone too far and they are now infringing on people’s fundamental right to access their own data and have mistakes corrected. This is appalling from a so-called democratic government and has no place in Britain.” Co-founder of the3million Nicolas Hatton said: "The Data Protection Bill is supposed to be about giving people greater control over their data, but it contains an exemption for immigration cases that does exactly the opposite - by denying people access to their data when they need it most. "Victims of administrative errors may have no way to stop a typo from turning their lives upside down. Everyone should be entitled to know how the Home Office and other government agencies are using their records, and that is why the3million support removing this exemption." Excess packaging around Easter eggs leaves bitter ... Diesel scrappage: embarrassing U-turn is typical o... Universal Credit could lead to up to 1.3 million e... Vince Cable: Council tax is no longer fit for purp... Allegations against Cambridge Analytica must be in... Lib Dems secure major victory in ban on cold-calli... Liberal Democrats vote for councils to be given th... International Women’s Day: Lib Dems call for gover... TUC General Secretary to meet with cross-party lea... Lib Dems call on Labour to join the fight against ...

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« Liste ermordeter irakischer Wissenschaftler Gegen Interventionismus » Protests in Iraq Statement by Women Solidarity for an Independent Unified Iraq London, 22/2/2011 Iraq has been witnessing protests and demonstrations up and down the country for several weeks now, including towns and cities where no protests has taken place in the past . We got news of mass protests from Baghdad, Basra, Kut, Samawah, Diwaniyah, Fallujah, Kirkuk to Sulaymaniyah. Against the suppression of freedoms, arrests, torture, corruption, disillusionment and unfulfilled election promises not least the disastrous lack of basic services such as electricity, water and health services and the inefficient and corrupt way the ration system is being handled. They also protest the lack of employment opportunities. They protest the lack of social support, in particular, for widows and orphans and pensioners in order to enable them to live in the dignity they deserve, instead of destitution and humniliation. What unites the protesters, too is their determination to keep the demonstrations peaceful, despite the savage reaction by the security men and police, as in the shooting and the arrest of peaceful demonstrators and wounding and killing several of them in Kut, Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad. The unified voice of the all the protesters, call for peaceful demonstrations and for the slogans to represent the national concerns. This is the voice people who are fed up with the promises made without any real achievement. They are fed up with patronizing bombastic speeches made by one government official after another to no avail. The voice of the protesters is the voice of the freedom and dignity of the Iraqi people. It is the voice of the valiant Iraqi woman, as she struggles to restore her historic achievements and her leading role in the Iraqi people’s struggle for freedom, equality and self determination. It is the voice of people who know all too well, that super human patience is of no use and the current crucial historical moment has to be seized. It must not be wasted, it is time to go down the road of restoring the dignity of all Iraqis and a better future for our children. We in Women Solidarity for an Independent United Iraq, support all forms and levels of resistance stemming from the heart of our country. These protests are a manifestation and popular expressions of the unity of our people. In organising such protests and attending them our people are exercising their rights as guaranteed by international law and basic human rights. We support the protests and urge our people to come out in their support. Women Solidarity for Unified and Independent Iraq is an umbrella organization, encompasses many organisations and individuals working in various fields ranging from raising awareness on the deteriorating situation in occupied Iraq and actively supporting Iraqi women and children to the support of Iraqi people in their struggle to end the occupation. This entry was posted on Sonntag, Februar 27th, 2011 at 14:07 and is filed under Irak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Drum Major Sets Pace Both On, Off Field By Bonnijean Cooney Adams Senior drum major Olivia Bakaturski looks over Tiger Band members in the stands at the Franklin Regional away game on Oct. 18. (Bonnijean Cooney Adams photo, special to Tube City Almanac) McKeesport Area High School Tiger Band senior Olivia Bakaturski has come a long way musically since she first considered learning to play clarinet back in in fifth grade. “I originally wanted to do percussion,” she said with a little laugh following a recent halftime show she directed as drum major. Bakaturski and her band mates found success this season with the group’s industrial-themed “A Day in the Mill,” performed at football games and competitions. The Tiger Band was named Tournament of Bands Chapter 8, Group 2-0 Champions on Oct. 25. McKeesport Area High School Marching Band was honored during a medal ceremony prior to the Oct. 25 football game on Senior Recognition Night. During the Tournament of Bands Chapter 8 Championships, the band finished first in Class 2-0 on Oct. 19, with a score of 84.6. (Photo courtesy MAHS Tiger Band, via Facebook.) Olivia said she first considered trying out for drum major at the end of her freshman year, when she saw how many talented seniors were leaving and that the band would need new leadership. But the whole selection process is quite challenging, and she said she wondered if she would be qualified when the time came. As a junior, Olivia was clarinet section leader and had a solo in last year’s show, band director Drew DeCarlo said. He explained there is a rigorous process that culminates in the selection of a senior drum major and junior assistant drum major. “I put up a signup sheet in May,” he said. “There’s a big, long application, including an essay.” Three or four people from outside the district come in each year to judge the applicants. “I don’t even see the final list,” DeCarlo said. “That’s what we’ve always done. Applicants have to answer interview questions from the judges, then demonstrate commands.” Olivia’s mother, Melissa Cooper, said she is especially proud of her daughter’s accomplishments because she is on the autism spectrum, sees things differently, and has to focus and work harder to reach her goals. “Any challenges that have come to her, she has met them and overcome them,” Cooper said. “We’ve had the most amazing support system with Olivia’s teachers throughout the years. We never allow her to think of failure. “The teachers she has had have gone above and beyond. Their teamwork and foundation they built for her have been amazing,” she said. DeCarlo said he’s known Olivia since she was in fourth grade. “She’s having a great senior year,” he said. “She’s standing taller, calling commands with more authority, building her self-confidence.” “The process was challenging, and I know not everyone agrees with the selection,” Olivia said. “It’s a big, big responsibility every week during the season.” Olivia’s talents extend to performances in her high school musicals, community theater, and Civil War re-enactments. She is a member of the National Honor Society and National Technological Honor Society at the high school. Olivia explained National Technological Honor Society is for those who study culinary arts, cosmetology and other offerings outside pure academics in programs offered through McKeesport Area School District. She said she hopes to attend culinary arts school, but still is considering her options, after high school, probably focusing on baking. “I would always cook with my mom, aunt, and grandmother, but I especially liked baking,” Olivia said. “I started to look at colleges my sophomore year, but don’t want to be swimming in debt. I’m trying to see what is the best fit for me.” Bonnijean Cooney Adams is a contributing writer. She can be reached at adamsclick@aol.com. "Cornel West: Not Opti…" || "Scary Forecast Prompt…"

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Paula Deen feels like 'that black,' gay football player She describes how she's now trying to get her career and her name back Breeanna Hare | 3/4/2014, 6 a.m. Celebrity Chef Paula Deen CNN CNN — Paula Deen has been down for the past several months, but she won't be counted out. The 67-year-old celebrity chef is slowly rebuilding her career in food after it imploded last year when she admitted to previously using a racial slur. And she says she is finding inspiration in what might seem an unusual place given her past troubles. "I feel like 'embattled' or 'disgraced' will always follow my name," she tells People magazine, in a recent cover article. "It's like that black football player who recently came out," she said, referring to NFL prospect and former University of Missouri football standout, Michael Sam. "He (Sam) said, 'I just want to be known as a football player. I don't want to be known as a gay football player.' I know exactly what he's saying." The former doyenne of Southern also tells People about her life since last June when she acknowledged in a deposition that she'd used the "N" word in the past. The deposition was part of a lawsuit filed against Deen by a former employee who alleged she witnessed the Southern star commit numerous acts of violence, discrimination and racism. (The lawsuit was later dismissed.) It's the support from her fans, Deen tells People, that's enabled her to get back up after last summer's controversy stripped her of sponsors and her gig as a Food Network personality. "If it wasn't for my fans' love, I'd be home breathing into a paper bag," Deen says. "When I woke up each morning, it was like my world was crashing down again. ... I'm fighting to get my name back." It looks like Deen's efforts may be paying off. Within the past month, Deen has made a warmly welcomed appearance at the recent South Beach Wine and Food festival), has announced a new company, Paula Deen Ventures, and confirmed she's planning to open a new restaurant in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Official: Food Network will not renew Paula Deen's contract Celeb chef Paula Deen admits using 'N' word Paula Deen's extortionist signs plea agreement Paula Deen and Southern food: Critics say credit is past due NFL draft: Reactions heat up after Michael Sam kisses boyfriend on TV

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Angel L. Rios Preservation Of Historic Cemetery Collection Accessioning Historical Research & Writing Details In the Deeds The Bureaucracy Of Insanity Crooked Agent February 24, 2017 October 25, 2016 by Angel Click here to read the final draft of this article. Since its advent, the term “Indian Agent” has been synonymous with corruption, and Albert M. Anderson fit the bill. In those days, the spoil system was in full effect. The only requirement for landing the job was to be from the same political party as those elected to office. The Burial of Indian Affairs tolerated agents use of his position to supplement his salary. In 1889 Hal J. Cole was the Burial of Indian Affairs Agent assigned as the Colville Indian Agent, and Anderson was his clerk. Anderson quickly learned the dishonest bookkeeping methods that were the agent’s standard operating procedures. By 1897 Anderson took over as the Colville Agent. “Irregular” bookkeeping wasn’t enough for Anderson. In 1903 during a routine internal review Anderson’s misdeeds shocked even the most seasoned agents. Anderson had gone too far. His crimes included claiming to be the guardian of the reservation’s orphaned children, leasing the children’s land and pocketing the money. Additionally, Anderson was receiving kickbacks from mining companies prospecting on the Colville reservation. President Roosevelt had no choose, in spite of Anderson’s party loyalty, in 1904 the President ordered Anderson’s removal from office. Anderson proclaimed his innocence. Four years later, in April of 1908, Anderson had his day in court. His case went before a Federal Grand Jury. In spite of the District Attorney’s confidence in his criminal case against Anderson, the jury did not render an indictment. But that wasn’t the end of Anderson’s legal woes. In September he faced charges of perjury related to the mining claims. It wasn’t until the end of October 1909 that the case was dropped. As a result of Anderson not being indicted the court records, in both cases, remain sealed to this day. http://angellrios.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1902-Report.mp3 Anderson, Albert, M. “Annual Report, 1902.” University Libraries, Washington University, Report of Colville Agency. http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/lctext/id/1295/rec/5 House, Ken to Angel L. Rios. E-mail. October 26, 2016. “Removed Indian Agent.” San Juan Islander. Friday Harbor Washington. April 30, 1904. Rooney, Daniel J. “Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Colville Indian Agency, including the Spokane Subagency, 1865-1964.” 1973. Record Group 75. National Archives at Seattle. Ruby, Robert H., and John A. Brown. “The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun.” Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006. Utley, Robert M. “The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890.” Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Photos from Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area Flickr Categories Uncategorized Leave a comment Post navigation Exploring Digital Libraries Risky Fun Tell me what you think. Cancel reply https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7XSUPV98CE&t=1s AngellRios@gmail.com © 2020 Angel L. Rios • Powered by GeneratePress

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Ministry of culture and UEGA presents Bienal de Curitiba 3|10|2015 - 14|2|2016 Trilogy of Light Exhibition artists Circuits Artists Crystal Moselle is a New York-based director working with short form storytelling for the past decade. Her series Something Big, Something Small, featuring Pharrel Williams, Aurel Schmidt and Shepard… He was born in 1975 in Vaslui, Romania. He is a writer and director, known for 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), Police, Adjective (2009) and When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (2013). Member… Wong Kar Wai was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong with his parents, when he was only five years old. He entered the film industry as a screenwriter and, in 1998, began to direct his own screenplays.… Ole Giæver / Marte Vold Ole Giæver studied film at the Nordland Art and Film College from 1999 to 2001 before moving on to the Konstfack Art Academy in Stockholm, where he graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in 2005. In 2007,… Deniz Gamze Ergüven Born in Ankara, Deniz Gamze Ergüven studied filmmaking at la Fémis after a MA in History in Johannesburg. Her graduation film Bir Damla Su was selected in many festivals (Cinéfondation, awarded at Locarno).… Dominga Sotomayor Dominga Sotomayor was born in Chile in 1985. After graduating from the Universidad Católica de Chile in 2007 with a degree on Audiovisual Direction, she got her master’s degree in Film Direction from… Alonso Ruiz Palacios Born in Mexico City in 1978, he studied Direction in his home town and subsequently trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. A writer and director for the stage, cinema and… Manuel Cañibe Born in the seventies, in the city of Morelia Michoacán, Manuel Cañibe graduated with both a degree in Graphic Design from Universidad Iberoamericana and in Film Direction from CCC. In 1995 he founded… Salete Machado Co director and co-adaptation of the theatrical text to long film The Shy Candlelight 'Latest Expectations (2012), S16mm, Jackson Antunes' direction. Film acquired by AMC Networks to be displayed in more… (Português do Brasil) Bienal de Curitiba oferece visitas guiadas no Museu Oscar Niemeyer Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.Até… UOL highlighted Biennial as a reason to visit Curitiba UOL's journalist, Denise de Almeida, visited Curitiba recently, and, with all the atractions of the city, highlighted the Biennial as a reason to meet the capital. "We visited the expo on MON: is like… (Português do Brasil) Bienal de Curitiba é destaque na ArtNexus Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.A… Curitiba Biennial records blockbuster and has extended programming Curitiba, December 2015 - For long lines on weekends since October it was possible to see that the Oscar Niemeyer Museum kept something big. Over the past two months, the Curitiba International Biennial… BIENNIAL CATALOGUE DOWNLOAD Copyright © 2015 bienal de curitiba. terms of use - Privacy policy

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Doctor Who Reactions: "The Mind Robber" (SPOILERS) Posted by The Baron on May 2, 2012 at 3:37pm in Movies and TV 1)This story was originally meant to be a four-parter, but when the preceding story, "The Dominators" was cut down to five episodes, an extra episode had to be added to this story. Thus, while episodes 2-5 were written by Peter Ling, Episode 1 was actually written by script editor Derrick Sherwin, who encouraged Ling to do something outisde of the usual "sci-fi monster-fighting" stuff. 2)Fraser Hines came down with chicken pox about an episode into this, which is why they came up with the business of having Hamish Wilson play him for a bit. Lucky for them it was the kind of story that lent itself to that sort of weirdness. 3)Much has been made of Zoe's catsuit, and the loving look that the camera takes at Wendy Padbury's bottom in Episode 1. The Baron is willing to go on the record as having no objection to either the catsuit or Wendy Padbury's bottom. 4)The White Robots were apparently left over form another show called Out of the Unknown. 5)Gulliver was played by Bernard Horsfall, who would later return to the series in "The War Games", "Planet of the Daleks" and "The Deadly Assassin". 6)Weird hearing a baddie in this called "The Master" several years early. 7)The Karkus was played by Christopher Robbie, who would later play the Cyberleader in "Revenge of the Cybermen". Wonder if Rob Liefeld was ever a Doctor Who fan... I gather Ling threw in the fight scene between the Karkus and Zoe to give the little kids watchign the fun of seeing someone not much bigger than they were beating up a super-hero. 8)Some fun quotes: "It's a forest of words." "Well, he can only speak the words that Dean Swift gave him to say." "We would've become fiction." Funny seeing fictional characters worrying about being turned into fictional characters. "Did you ever hear of the adventures of Captain Jack Harkaway?" I'm surprised our Russell never threw in aline saying that this character was based on Jack Harkness. "You can't blow up a ficitonal character, Zoe!" 9)Cliffhangers: Episode 1: The TARDIS console vanishes into the mist! Episode 2: The unicorn charges at Team TARDIS! Episode 3: Zoe finds it hard to resist looking at the Medusa! Episode 4: Jamie and Zoe are trapped in a giant book! Episode 5: The TARDIS re-assembles! This was an OK story - I wouldn't want a steady diet of this sort of thing, but it was an acceptable change of pace. Permalink Reply by Henry R. Kujawa on May 2, 2012 at 4:24pm "Much has been made of Zoe's catsuit, and the loving look that the camera takes at Wendy Padbury's bottom in Episode 1. The Baron is willing to go on the record as having no objection to either the catsuit or Wendy Padbury's bottom." I think it's a toss-up for me, between Wendy Padbury & Katy Manning for "cutest WHO girl ever". "Gulliver was played by Bernard Horsfall, who would later return to the series in "The War Games", "Planet of the Daleks" and "The Deadly Assassin"." A lot of people (myself included) seem happy to think he played the SAME character in both "THE WAR GAMES" and "THE DEADLY ASSASSIN". (Which would make sense, he would then have been at both of The Doctor's trials, and know full well in advance about The Doctor's conviction and sentence.) "Weird hearing a baddie in this called "The Master" several years early." What gets even weirder is when you get to "THE WAR GAMES", and you have "The War Chief" who seems like he could actually have been an earlier incarnation of The Master (and at the same time, Philip Madoc as "The War Lord", who also seems like he would have been a good choice to play that role). "The TARDIS console vanishes into the mist! The TARDIS re-assembles!" The first time I saw this, I immediately figured the blank white landscape served as the inspiration for the one in "WARRIOR'S GATE". Later, I came to think the TARDIS breaking up and coming back together inspired a similar plot development in "FRONTIOS".

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Marc Almon Cineplex Entertainment Film Program (Producers' Lab), Short Dramatic Film Program SOAK Studios Declared one of the Next Gen: Twenty Young Stars on the Rise in Canada by the Hollywood Reporter, Marc Almon is an award-winning film, television and commercial producer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. A dedicated raconteur himself, Marc's modus operandi is to champion the work of exceptional storytellers. Marc is lead producer of the feature film BLACKBIRD (dir. Jason Buxton), which premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and won the Best Canadian First Feature Award. BLACKBIRD has appeared at dozens of festivals since and won awards around the world, including the Grand Prix at Cannes Junior 2013. The film has sold to several international territories via Films Boutique. Marc has produced, directed and/or written numerous award-winning short films, including THE WAKE OF CALUM MACLEOD and D'UNE RIVE A L'AUTRE (dir. Maxime Desmons). The films have travelled to over 40 international film festivals and have aired on CBC, Global, BBC, Bravo! and the Sundance Channel. An experienced project manager, Marc was Production Supervisor on the feature 3 NEEDLES (dir. Thom Fitzgerald), and Production Manager of numerous commercials and corporate videos at Journeyman Film Company. He is currently Executive Producer at SOAK Studios, an idea-driven creative production company founded by award-winning director / DP Jamie Tiernay. Marc's accolades include a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film, the National Screen Institute Drama Prize, and TIFF Pitch This! competition finalist. He has attended the prestigious Rotterdam Lab, Festival de Cannes L'Atelier, Trans Atlantic Partners co-production program, and Berlinale Talents. A graduate of the University of King’s College and the Canadian Film Centre, Marc is developing several projects with the support of major funds and broadcasters, while collaborating on a number of co-productions internationally.

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TimeformUS Weekend Stakes Analysis 27 June, 2014 10:32 AM The Grade 1 Mother Goose by TimeformUS Analyst Mike Beer Belmont Park/June 28/Race 4/2:53 EDT: The Grade 1 Mother Goose has long been a fixture on the NYRA calendar, and pulling a list of previous winners of this historic race, one finds a veritable who's who of racing's most celebrated 3yo fillies. In all, nineteen fillies who would later be named 3yo filly champion have won this race. Cicada and Shuvee are on the list, as are Ruffian and Davona Dale; Go for Wand won it in 1990, and Sky Beauty and Serena's Song followed later that decade. More recently, Rachel Alexandra competed in the last Mother Goose to be contested at 1 1/8 miles and scorched the distance in a stakes record 1:46.33. Free TimeformUS PPs for the Mother Goose Last year's winner, Close Hatches, has since won three more Grade 1 races and is currently the top older female in training. It is against that backdrop that the 2014 running of the race is best viewed, not because the heavy favorite on the morning line, Untapable (#2, 1-5), can be considered among those great names (at least not yet), but because her presence in the race makes it more spectacle than wagering opportunity. Untapable has been installed as the 1/5 ML favorite, and it would be no surprise to see her go postward at odds even shorter than that. She has been the dominant force in the three-year-old filly division all year, beginning with her comprehensive victory in the Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra at Fair Grounds, a race in which she completed the 1 1/16 miles in a time faster than colts required in the Risen Star stakes later that afternoon. She won the Fair Grounds Oaks in equally impressive fashion, but she saved her best for the most important early season race on the calendar for her division. Despite drawing post 12 in the Kentucky Oaks, there was never an anxious moment for Untapable as she dominated the best of her generation with a minimum of fuss while posting a 114 TimeformUS Speed Figure. If you're looking for chinks in her armor, she is returning from a short break following the Oaks, she will have a new rider on Saturday after Rosie Napravnik's unfortunate injury, and her trainer, Steve Asmussen, has been on a long cold streak in NY, where he is 1 for his last 43 dating back to last November 29. All these things are worth considering when you're talking about the heaviest of favorites. But they are nowhere near sufficient to tempt us to reach into our pockets. The only other stakes winner in the field is Todd Pletcher's Stopchargingmaria (#6, 8-1), a multiple graded stakes-winning 2yo who got back on the beam last time when taking the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan in a low-rated performance. She is not fully committed to running against Untapable on Saturday and is unlikely to beat her if she does run. There are sure to be tougher tests for Untapable down the line--at least we hope there are. But this year's running of the Mother Goose is hers to lose. The Grade 2 New York Stakes The Grade 2 New York features an enticing match-up between two runners who figure to be major players in the top races for longer-distance turf females throughout the year: Tannery (#1, 9-5) and Riposte (#2, 2-1). Tannery managed to win only two of her first ten starts after arriving here from her native Ireland back in 2012. But she ran much better than the bare results would indicate. One of those losses came in this race last year, when she was unable to work out a clear run after saving ground all the way. She acquitted herself quite well vs. males in both the Sword Dancer and the Red Smith, and she became a Grade 1 winner when taking a strong edition of the E. P. Taylor last fall. Her first start back as a 5yo resulted in a workmanlike victory at Monmouth over a distance shorter than her best. She figures to benefit greatly from having that run and from this stretch-out in distance. TimeformUS PPs for the New York Stakes Her main rival is Riposte, a Juddmonte Farms import who exits a clear-cut victory in last month’s Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay. Riposte, like Tannery, had trouble finding the winner’s circle after arriving stateside, but she emerged from each of her defeats with viable excuses (caught behind exceedingly slow paces in Florida – note the fractions below shaded in blue – she then endured a brutal wide trip at Keeneland) and finally broke through once given more ground with which to work. While she likely benefited from getting stretched back out in distance last time (she was a Group 2 winner over 1 1/2 miles in England), she also was given a heads-up ride by Joel Rosario, who went straight to the lead and controlled the race from start to finish. There is truly little to separate these two talented runners. Their top TimeformUS Speed Figures fall closely in line, and, since they figure to be similar prices come post time, there is no real advantage to be found from a straight-up wagering perspective. The runner with the best chance to upset those two figures to be Inimitable Romanee (#3, 4-1), who, after burning much money at the start of her career, has turned things around with added distance, posting a trio of upsets in graded-stakes company from her last four starts. She is facing much tougher competition today in the form of Tannery and Riposte, but she has the ability to pull any kind of trip in a race. She should not be completely dismissed.

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The Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation. A donation to our foundations is fully tax deductible on your federal income taxes. A donation receipt will be provided for tax purposes. To make a donation please click on the orange donate button above. The button will provide you with information about how to make a donation and direct you to a SECURE page for credit card donations. We would like to print your name on our Donor Recognition page - but only with your permission. The Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation does not sell or share donor information with any other sources. We would also like to provide you with quarterly updates on the research the Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation supports and the progress those researchers are making. Thank you so much for your donation. We are making wonderful progress towards a CURE!! There is HOPE in your HELP! Click here to read a message of thanks from the CTSF Board of Directors Largest Tay-Sachs Grant in History!!! On August 20, 2009 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the Tay-Sachs Gene Therapy (TSGT) Consortium a four year $3.5 million grant!!! Your support played a huge part in moving the research forward and positioning the TSGT to get the grant - Thank You so very much!!! Adopt a Jacobs Sheep In 2009 a most remarkable discover was made after 10 years of searching - a very rare breed of horned sheep, Jacob's Sheep were discovered to suffer from Tay-Sachs disease. These very rare sheep are now front and center in our fight to cure this horrible disease. Our researcher have a real large animal model on which to work!! If they can save a sheep - it will give them great insight into saving a child!! With a $100 donation you will become a Jacob Sheep parent. As a Jacob Sheep parent you will be listed on the Donor Recognition page as a "Mouse Parent," you will receive a stress reliever sheep named after a Tay-Sachs child, and you will recieve two t-shirts to show your CTSF support!! Click here to learn more about Adopting a Sheep! The Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation t-shirts are in stock and available for delivery immediately. The cost is $20 per shirt with 100% of the proceeds going to the foundations. The shirts are available in both Youth and Adult sizes ranging from XS to XXXL. Show your friend the good you are doing!! Buy a Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation t-shirt and proudly annouce that "I am helping cure Tay-Sachs Disease. You can too!"

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On Stress and our Fear of Change The Phony "Economic Recovery," Stress and "Losing ... Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 4: "C... Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 3: We... Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 2: La... Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 1: Ou... How Housing Affordability Can Falter Even as House... About That $20 Trillion in Public Debt.... The One Chart That Says It All The Predatory State of California, Part 2 Welcome to the Predatory State of California--Even... How To Cripple the Real Estate Market in Five Easy... In Praise of Hedging In Praise of Horrendously Costly Lessons We Have No Other Choice Money from Nothing: A Primer on Fake Wealth Creati... Four Charts of Interest on Fed-Speak Day Our "Let's Pretend" Economy: Let's Pretend "Job Gr... Our "Let's Pretend" Economy: Let's Pretend Financi... Our "Let's Pretend" Economy: Let's Pretend Student... Welcome to Year Five in the Crazy House The One Chart That Shows Where AAPL and the Market... Has Housing (Finally) Become an Attractive Investm... If This Is Such a Strong Economy, Why Does This Ch... If The Market Rolls Over Here.... Welcome to the Predatory State of California--Even If You Don't Live There Theft has been "legalized" for governments and banks in America. Every once in a while an event crystallizes the stark reality behind the lacy curtain of propaganda and artifice. Here is one such event. Correspondent R.T. is a retired accountant who has resided in Arizona since 2001. Prior to 2001, he resided in California. On March 14, he received a letter from the California Franchise Tax Board (the agency that collects income taxes) claiming that he owed $1,343 for the tax year 2006. This was the first notification he'd ever received of this claim. This was an interesting claim given that R.T.: -- Did not reside in California in 2006 -- Did not file a State income tax return in California in 2006 -- Did not have any outstanding tax issues with California in 2006 -- Did no business in California in 2006 -- Owned no property in California in 2006 The number $1,343 is also interesting, as R.T.'s total Federal tax liability in 2006 was $650. Since the top income tax rate in California is about 9%, and that only kicks in at relatively high income levels above $100,000 annually, then it's difficult to see how anyone could owe double their Federal tax in California state tax. But the truly interesting part of the story is that the state took $1,343 out of R.T.'s Wells Fargo bank account on March 2, prior to notifying him of the claim. Wells Fargo charged R.T. $100 for handling the removal of his $1,343. As R.T. observed: "If I had filed a 2006 California tax return the statute of limitations would have run out, but since I did not file a 2006 tax return there is no statute of limitations. This is the classic catch 22." I do not have copies of the correspondence so I cannot verify this sequence of events, but I have corresponded with R.T. for many years and have found him to be a credible witness to national events. While some might claim he invented this story of state theft out of whole cloth, there is no basis in our years of correspondence to support that claim. What is entirely believable is that the state of California, desperate for revenue, is churning out dubious income tax claims stretching back years and collecting the money without due process. This is theft, pure and simple, and charging the account owner $100 for transacting the theft is also theft. Welcome to the predatory State of California--even if you don't live there. If any mainstream media journalist wants to pursue this story, email me and I will put you in touch with R.T. Somehow I doubt this is a unique story. R.T. said he immediately tried to call the California Franchise Tax Board and was on hold for some time before his call was dropped. As of yesterday his attempts to contact the agency via phone were unsuccessful. Why are we not surprised by any of this? Perhaps it's because government/bank thievery and Catch-22 incompetence is now the backdrop of our culture. Thank you, Raymond R. ($25), for your most-excellently generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership. Thank you, Richard N. ($60), for your gloriously generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

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CIBL, Inc. Announces Intent To Merge with LICT Corporation’s Operations in New Hampshire CIBL, Inc. Announces Intent to Merge with LICT Corporation’s Operations in New Hampshire RENO, Nevada/RYE, New York, July 1, 2019 – CIBL, Inc. (“CIBL”; OTC Pink®: CIBY) and LICT Corporation (“LICT”; OTC Pink®: LICT) are announcing an agreement in principle whereby CIBL will issue shares of its stock to LICT in exchange for its New Hampshire operations. After the closing of the transaction, LICT will hold approximately 6% of CIBL’s outstanding common stock. The transaction is subject to the execution of definitive documents and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that a binding agreement will be entered into, that the proposed transaction will be consummated or the timing thereof. LICT’s New Hampshire operations consist of two subsidiaries, Bretton Woods Telephone Company, Inc. and World Surfer, Inc. These companies are leading providers of broadband and communications services to an approximately 35 -square-mile area in northern New Hampshire, including the Omni Mount Washington Hotel and Resort, The Mount Washington Cog Railway and the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire’s highest mountain top. Art Nicholson, Vice President of Bretton Woods Telephone Company said “We are excited about joining forces with CIBL to further enable our growth initiatives in our current service area and beyond. We also look forward to supporting CIBL’s strategic acquisition program”. This release contains certain forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. It should be recognized that such information may be based upon assumptions, projections and forecasts, and must be read considering the cautionary statements set forth in documents filed by CIBL and LICT on their websites. As a result, there can be no assurance that any possible transactions will be accomplished or be successful or that the financial targets will be met, and such information is subject to uncertainties, risks and inaccuracies, which could be material. CIBL is a holding company that is actively seeking acquisitions within its existing business areas. CIBL is listed on OTC Pink® under the symbol CIBY and information can be obtained on our website: http://www.ciblinc.com. LICT Corporation is a holding company with subsidiaries in broadband and other telecommunications services that is seeking acquisition within its existing business areas. LICT Corporation is listed on the OTC Pink® under the symbol LICT. For further information visit our website at http://www.lictcorp.com. CIBL Contact: Stephen J. Moore Release 19-2 LICT Contact: Mario J. Gabelli Chairman and Chief Executive Officer PDF Version – Press Release 6-28-2019 July 1, 2019 LICT

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page_01 (1343) page_09 (681) rollins college (winter park, fla.) -- newspapers. (3723) student newspapers and periodicals -- florida -- winter park -- newspapers. (3722) rollins college (winter park, fla.) -- catalogs. (381) slavia (fla.) -- history (245) br&gt (122) &lt (115) advertising -- florida -- orlando. (61) black-and-white photography -- florida -- photographs. (54) Sandspur, Vol 114, No 09, November 19, 2007 Sandspur, Vol 117, No 07, October 08, 2010 Church exterior, c. 1940 Image of west side (main entrance) to brick church soon after it was erected in 1939. Likely the photo was taken c.1940 because some landscaping is already in place. The image shows a full vertical view of the steeple. Snapshot (courtesy: Judy... Sandspur, Vol 117, No 19, February 24, 2011 Lukas Family fields, c. 1921, with Paul, Jr. holding celery bouquet Young Paul Lukas, Jr. holds a celery bouquet in the fields of his family's farm in Slavia, c.1921. Standing in the rear are his father, Paul Lukas, Sr. and mother, Maria. This image was used, in part, for a watercolor collage by Dr. James Koevenig.... Articles of Incorporation, Slavia Colony Company, 1911 Image of The Articles of Incorporation for the Slavia Colony Company, filed on August 31, 1911 in Cleveland, Ohio. The stated purpose for forming the company is for: 'acquiring, purchasing, selling and trading in and for lands and real property in... St. Luke's congregation, c. 1927 Image of the small congregation gathered outside the original, wooden building used as St. Luke's first church, c. 1927. Among those present in the photo are George Mertan and the families of George Jakubcin, Sr., Andrew Duda, Sr., Martin Stanko,... Altar of the 1957 church, communion setting. Black and white image of the altar in the 1957 brick church, prepared for communion. Calla lilies (very possibly those originally planted decades earlier by Andrew Duda, Sr. on a swampy section of the Duda acreage on Mikler Road) adorn the altar.... St. Luke's original "turpentine shack church:" Then and Now A 2015 digital image shows the original "turpentine shack" church (restored to its original size and moved back to the cemetery property in the 1990s). This structure is now used for small funerals in the cemetery and is a treasured memento of the... St. Luke's Cemetery: Then and Now A historic 1939 photo, with flowers heaped on the new grave site of Michael Mikler, shows a small corner of St. Luke's cemetery, with only two other tombstones standing at that time. These were the graves of 12 year old Johnny Mikler and of... St. Luke's new school under construction. 2001 In one image, St. Luke's Lutheran School's principal, Susan Duda Hanas (far right, in black dress), leads several members (unidentified) of the school faculty on a tour of a portion of the new school, under construction. Another image shows... Corporate Headquarters, A. Duda & Sons, Inc.: Then and Now In the early 1940s, A Duda & Sons shipped produce directly from its farms in Slavia via railroad. A spur line led from the main tracks adjacent to SR426 to DUDA's packing house, as is depicted in this historic image. A digital image taken in 2015... Greeter: A guide: where to go, what to see. Orlando Chamber of Commerce -- Travel -- Guidebooks.; Travel writing -- Guidebooks.; Advertising -- Florida -- Orlando.; Orlando (Fla.) -- Maps. Travel guide for Orlando put out by the Orlando Chamber of Commerce detailing: theatres, sports-recreation, fishing, churches, beauty shops, jewelers, hardware stores, drug stores, book stores, men's stores, veterinarians, civic clubs, ladies's... Sandspur, Vol. 65 No. 17, March 06, 1959 Sandspur, Vol. 70 No. 10, April 07, 1964 Sandspur, Vol. 74 No. 08, November 11, 1967 Sandspur, Vol. 74 No. 13, February 09, 1968 Sandspur, Vol 107 No 24, April 27, 2001 Sandspur, Vol 117, No 20, March 03, 2011

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Brexit Institute News The Brexit Deal Would Resolve the Irish Border Issue – But No Deal is Still a Possibility! Upcoming Event, 13 December: Brexit, the Backstop and the Island of Ireland John Doyle (Dublin City University) Eileen Connolly (Dublin City University) The draft withdrawal agreement finalised between the European Union and the United Kingdom offers a roadmap for a UK withdrawal from the EU. Up to the final stage of the negotiations that such a deal could be achieved had remained doubtful, and whether or not it can be ratified is still uncertain. Prime Minster May faces a significant challenge to get the agreement through the UK parliament, given the opposition from pro-Brexit MPs in the Conservative Party, the opposition of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Labour Party’s decision to vote against the agreement. The draft agreement covers a wide range of issues, from Britain’s financial obligations, the treatment of EU citizens working in the UK and UK citizens working in the EU27, to the British bases in Cyprus. From an Irish perspective it provides for the possibility to continue the Common Travel Area arrangements between Ireland and the UK, and it preserves the Single Electricity Market on the island of Ireland. But most importantly for Ireland, it ensures that there will be no hard border between North and South. The controversy around the Irish border has been the biggest obstacle to finalising a draft agreement and its resolution is the focus of pro-Brexit anger. This aspect of the agreement is strongly opposed by Northern Ireland’s DUP, whose MPs’ votes are necessary to give the British Conservative Government a working majority in parliament. The hard-line, pro-Brexit MPs in the Conservative Party have made the special arrangements for NI and the continued application of EU regulations throughout the UK a focus of their attacks on the Prime Minister’s negotiating position and on the draft agreement. For the Irish Government and the EU, ensuring an open Irish border was not negotiable, given the centrality of its importance to the Irish government and the need to maintain EU solidarity. The Draft Withdrawal Agreement sets out a framework to avoid any checks on the Irish land border, involving initially a transition period to the end of 2020, during which all EU single market and customs rules will continue to apply to the UK as a whole. The transition period can be extended, once for a time-limited period, and a decision to extend will have to be made by July 2020. During the transition period both sides will “use their best endeavours” to negotiate a new trade relationship between the EU and the UK, which among other things will seek to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. If no long-term trade deal has been agreed by the end of 2020 (or by the end of the agreed extension period), then a backstop consisting of “a single customs territory between the (European) Union and the United Kingdom” will be triggered. In this case Northern Ireland will remain aligned with the rules and regulations of the EU single market in order to avoid regulatory checks on the Irish border, even if the regulatory framework in place in the UK deviates from that of the EU. In these circumstances some checks on Irish Sea crossings may be required in addition to those already in place regarding animal and plant health and safety. But this is not the desired outcome as under the agreement the UK will be required to meet “level playing field conditions”, to ensure it cannot gain a competitive advantage by increasing state aid to industry or by dropping environmental standards or social protections, and those level playing field conditions will continue as new regulations are passed. Either side can request a review of the backstop, but it requires a joint decision of both the UK and the EU to end it. While this gives an assurance to the Irish government, it is a source of contention for the pro-Brexit lobby, who argue that it ties the UK indefinitely into a customs union with the EU. In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the agreement, although the challenge to the British Prime Minister has not received enough support to trigger a contest for the party leadership, there is no obvious majority for the draft agreement in the UK parliament. The state of play of the political parties means that there is a possibility that all potential resolutions on Brexit – on the negotiated agreement, on a “no deal” withdrawal, and on a second referendum – could all be defeated. The DUP have not made it clear if they will vote against the deal or simply abstain. If they abstain and if the number of hard line pro-Brexit Conservative MPs is kept to a minimum, then there is a slight possibility that May could secure enough Labour support to avoid defeat. At present however this prospect seems remote. It also seems unlikely that a proposal for a second referendum on EU withdrawal would secure a majority in parliament, under current conditions. Things will have to get even worse for a second referendum to be accepted as compromise in a divided parliament where a decision to ‘let the people decide’ is the only way out of the impasse, apart from a general election. Without strong and decisive leadership from Theresa May, a “No Deal” withdrawal may be the de facto outcome, in the absence of a positive majority for anything else. In that scenario all of the negative impacts for the island of Ireland will be live issues once again. Professor John Doyle is Director of the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction and Executive Dean of DCU Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The Faculty hosts approximately 25% of DCU students, and a range of internationally linked research projects within its seven academic schools and five research centres. John was previously, Head of the School of Law and Government and before that founding co-Director of the Centre for International Studies in Dublin City University. His research interests include comparative nationalist and ethnic conflict; Northern Ireland, conflict in South Asia and Irish foreign policy. He is Editor of Irish Studies in International Affairs. Professor Eileen Connolly is Director of the Ireland India Institute in DCU and a member of the School of Law and Government. Her research interests include gender and politics, women’s and political representation and post conflict reconstruction. Prof. Connolly leads the Gender and Political Transition research cluster within DCU’s Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction – which includes a team of PhD students working in different regions, including Georgia, Moldova, Central Asia and the Caspian region, sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. Prof. Connolly has led a number of research projects for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, official development agency – Irish Aid, including a major study of local civil society organisations in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Central America. Prof. Connolly was previously Director of DCU’s Centre for International Studies and she was a member of Executive Committee of the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research).

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X-Men: First Class DVD Review One of my oldest son's favorite movies to watch this summer was the X-Men trilogy. Fortunately, the whole family enjoys the movies, too. We really wanted to see X-MEN: FIRST CLASS in the theaters, but we didn't get a chance. We were very excited when we received a copy of X-MEN: FIRST CLASS in the mail Friday, which was the same day as the DVD release. Here is the synopsis: Before they were superheroes, the fate of humanity depended on an extraordinary group of youngsters who went on to become X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. Based on the international bestselling Marvel Comics franchise, this box office hit burst onto Blu-ray and DVD Friday, September 9 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. For the first time ever, "X-Men" fans will have the power to choose a side between Professor X and Magneto with two versions of premium collectible Blu-ray packaging. Also exclusively on Blu-ray, fans receive access to over two hours of special interactive features PLUS ten Marvel "X-Men" Digital Comics including a never-before-seen "X-Men: First Class" backstory-redeemable through each Blu-ray's unique packaging code. Director Matthew Vaughn tells the true origins of the multi-billion dollar film franchise, guiding exceptional performances by Golden Globe® - nominee James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Golden Globe® - winner Kevin Bacon. A "rare movie event that balances an intelligent story with solid performances, first-rate action and top-of-the-line special effects" (Ben Lyons, E!), X-MEN: FIRST CLASS has drawn an impressive $150 million at the domestic box office and nearly $350 million worldwide. Before Charles Xavier (McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Fassbender) took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time, working together to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. The film features a star-studded supporting cast including Academy Award® - nominee Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone), January Jones ("Mad Men"), Rose Byrne (28 Weeks Later), Zoe Kravitz ("Californication"), Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man), Lucas Till (Walk the Line), and Emmy Award® - nominee Oliver Platt ("The West Wing"). My thoughts: I have really enjoyed watching the first three X-Men, and this newest release is no exception. This movie helped me understand the history of both Professor X and Magneto, and how their characters began. It also gives us insight on their friendship, as well as how they parted ways. We learn about how Magneto's childhood affected his life, and how Professor X was paralyzed. We are thrown into the history of the timeline that starts at the Holocaust and ends with the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you loved watching the other three movies, I would definitely recommend watching X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. Disclosure: I received a copy of the DVD to review. No other compensation was received. All opinions are my own and are my honest opinion of the product. Yours Truely, LeeAnn September 11, 2011 at 6:46 PM I am new to this I am following you would you please follow me back thanks. gman September 13, 2011 at 1:26 PM I think it’s pretty obvious that Sebastian didn’t trust Emma from the beginning because he didn’t have time to have the Russians make a helmet for him when Eric came on the scene which he made his authority known right away. They’re an equal match for each other’s powers. Blockbuster was my first choice in the past but since Netflix started I used them for many years until they raised my price but now that my free mail membership has come into my life I’m all for Blockbuster. I got it free with my new DISH Network employee account but it’s free for anyone. http://bit.ly/jYtohY

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Common Standards English-Language Learners Law and Courts State News by State Technology Counts Special Reporting Series State Highlights Reports EdCounts Database Education Week Research Center ERS Practical Tools for District Transformation Education Week's blogs > Learning the Language See our English-Language Learners coverage Education Week reporters cover English-language learners, bilingual education, and civil rights issues and explore the educational, policy, and social issues surrounding ELLs in U.S. schools. Utah Asks Feds to Pay For Educating Undocumented Children By Mary Ann Zehr July 23, 2007 at 1:16 PM First, Utah lawmakers conducted an audit of how much it costs the state to educate undocumented children in K-12 public schools. Now they're using that audit to ask the federal government to cover the cost, which was between $54.9 million and $85.4 million in 2006, as reported by an Associated Press reporter and published in the Salt Lake Tribune and other newspapers last week. Last year, New Mexico Voices for Children estimated in a report that state and local governments in New Mexico spent between $49 million and $67 million in educating undocumented children each year. While the ... Research on ELLs Brought to You By Taxpayers' Dollars By Mary Ann Zehr July 18, 2007 at 10:46 AM I inquired about current research on English-language learners funded by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, and the staff sent me a list of 32 projects that are in the works. Some focus on ELLs exclusively, and others include large samples of such students. I had no idea that the institute was paying for so many studies about these students and I wonder if at some point in my reporting about ELLs, I'll no longer read that high-quality research about instruction for them is scant. Here's the list of projects that the staff compiled. (The... New York Offers Curriculum Advice By Mary Ann Zehr July 18, 2007 at 9:18 AM New York was not one of the states I contacted when reporting for an article recently about how not many states are offering detailed guidance or workshops for school districts on how to write a curriculum for English-language learners. "States Lag in ELL Curriculum Guidance" was published July 5 on edweek.org. A reader of the article thus sent me an e-mail to let me know that New York--like Florida and Massachusetts--provides advice on how to create curricula for ELLs. Terri Brady-Méndez, a specialist in programs for ELLs for the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services in Bellport, N.Y.,... Arizona Spells Out "Research-Based" Models for English Immersion Arizona policymakers are using a buzz phrase popular in education circles in saying the models for structured English immersion that school districts must implement this fall are "research-based." But a document released by the Arizona Department of Education citing research to back those models shows that, for some aspects of the models, the research base is scant. The document acknowledges that high-quality research in general about instruction for English-language learners is limited. The state is calling for English-language learners, in their first year in U.S. schools, to receive four hours of instruction each day in a separate block of ... School Districts That Offer Dual-Language Classes Through High School The Omaha, Neb., school district is reportedly about to join eight other public school districts in offering dual-language classes in Spanish and English for students from kindergarten through high school. In dual-language programs, children who are dominant in English and children who are dominant in Spanish--or another language other than English--take classes together in both languages. A July 9 article in the Houston Chronicle tells how the Texas legislature approved a bill to create a six-year pilot project for dual-language programs in 10 Texas school districts. Because I so frequently read news articles about schools starting up these kinds of ... Researcher Proposes a 'Weighted Index' for ELLs under NCLB David J. Francis, a psychology professor at the University of Houston and the director of the National Research and Development Center for English Language Learners, has an interesting proposal for how accountability provisions for English-language learners could be improved in reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. I hear through my sources that congressional aides have invited at least one expert on assessment of ELLs into their offices this summer to hear advice on how to reauthorize the act--but I haven't heard if they've contacted Mr. Francis about his views. Mr. Francis proposes that the accountability system for ELLs ... Life as an ESL Teacher A column that ran in the New York Times last week tells how Allison Rabenau, an English-as-a-second-language teacher in New York City, struggled over three school years to reduce the amount of time she spent both at the beginning and end of each school year "to prepare, administer, then score a standardized test for English fluency." One school year, she spent 12 weeks on testing matters. Samuel G. Freedman, a journalism professor at Columbia University and the writer of the column, notes that Ms. Rabenau resigned this past school year from New York City's schools and expects to soon move ... Education Department's 'Practice Guide' Urges Data-Driven Instruction for ELLs By Mary Ann Zehr July 9, 2007 at 4:21 PM Educators should be very deliberate in teaching English-language learners how to read, and one effective way to do that is to test their reading progress frequently--and use the data to tailor instruction to them. That conclusion is contained in a research-based "practice guide" on ELLs published by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education last week. The authors of the guide, "Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades," say research evidence for data-driven instruction for English-language learners is "strong." Teachers need to be poised to provide intensive reading interventions ... ESL Teacher Writes Novel for ELLs I've gotten to the part where several students are trapped in an elevator that is taking them down into the magma chamber of a volcano with inventions they prepared for a school science class. The students--who include Tron, from Vietnam, and Amira, from Morocco--are characters in a novel, The Eight Ball Club: Ocean of Fire. M.C. Pugin-Rodas, who has a master's degree in English as a second language and taught ESL in Virginia's public schools, published it this summer for secondary English-language learners and developing readers. There's a bit too much classroom banter in the first two chapters for ... Tips for Teaching English to Asian Students By Mary Ann Zehr July 3, 2007 at 11:13 AM If you have a large number of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or Vietnamese students in your English-as-a-second-language classes, you might want to purchase the summer copy of MultiCultural Review (a single copy is $25) or find one in a library. The issue, which isn't free online, contains an article, "Asian ESL Students and Literacy Development," that tells about the learning styles of Asian students and summarizes some differences between several Asian languages and English. It's written by Peter Edwards, a professor of education at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., and Hui-Chin Yang, a professor of education at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, ... << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 >> Teaching, Technology, and English-Learners: 5 Things to Know Spanish Dominates Dual-Language Programs, But Schools Offer Diverse Options How Many English-Learners Do Districts Serve? Data Are Inconsistent U.S. Schools See Surge in Number of Arabic- and Chinese-Speaking English-Learners On Bilingualism, Bias, and Immigration: Our Top English-Learner Stories of 2019 Most Viewed on Education Week --- Select a Category --- Accountability (25) Adult Education (7) Assessment (46) Bilingual Education (277) Charter Schools (19) Civil Rights (79) College Access (13) College Preparation (8) Common Core State Standards (64) Court Cases (21) Curriculum (52) DACA (12) Demographics (75) Districtwide Issues (20) Dual language (71) Election (11) ELLs in Secondary Schools (132) ELLs With Disabilities (35) Federal Policy (242) Good Read (11) Graduation Rates (33) Heritage Languages (129) Immigration (316) Innovations (23) Instruction (22) Job Changes (2) Native American Students (48) NCLB Waivers (4) Next generation science standards (2) Parent Engagement (30) Preschool (23) Reclassification Rates (45) Refugees (50) Research (117) Resources (51) Special education (24) Standards (20) State policy (124) Stimulus Funds (1) Students With Interrupted Formal Schooling (26) Teacher Training (55) Technology (6) Testing (92) Translation/Interpretation (44) Trend Watch (46) Select a Month... 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Eleanor & Park: Love Will Tear Us Apart December 6, 2013 by Joy Piedmont 40 Comments Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell St. Martin’s Press, February 2013 Reviewed from Final Copy [Hey, listen. We do spoilers here, okay? Major spoilers, all the time. You’ve been warned.] Just as I opened my laptop to write this review, it dawned on me that I first read Eleanor & Park over a year ago. Holding back tears that eventually spill into sobs is not a thing you forget easily. Especially when the thing that reduces you to a puddle of goo is, “Just three words long.” I fell hard for this book. It felt like Rainbow Rowell had used my consciousness to write a novel I didn’t even know I had inside me; that’s how personal the experience was for me. Before we delve into Rowell’s novel, let’s get back to the future for a moment. Since I read it as a digital galley last year, E & P has blown up. It’s a New York Times bestseller, has five starred reviews, and John Green has given the book a glowing recommendation in the New York Times Book Review. And if that isn’t impressive enough for you, Rowell’s other YA novel published this year, Fangirl, is also a critical success with five stars of its own. Most notable is that her novels appear together on SLJ‘s and the New York Times‘ best lists. (Eleanor & Park is also on the Horn Book’s Fanfare, Publishers Weekly’s Best Books, and Kirkus’ Best Teen Books.) Where there is high praise though, backlash will follow. With E & P in particular it’s been difficult to avoid all critical commentary, but my completely non-empirical understanding is that race, historical context and accuracy have been among the issues raised. And then there are those who say that it’s just not that good. For the record, I still love this book. That won’t go away, at least not any time soon. That doesn’t mean though that I can’t think critically about the work; time and revisiting the text—a re-read of the final copy and a listen of the audiobook—have certainly sharpened my reading and there is a lot to discuss. Over multiple readings, Rainbow Rowell’s voice holds up incredibly well. The novel is written in third person limited from both Eleanor and Park’s perspectives in alternating sections. The authorial voice is witty and quick. Her sentences have a simple cadence, a kind of spare yet punchy musicality. What makes Rowell’s voice really special is that she speaks the language of pop culture. The text is littered with references to movies, television shows, comics, novels, bands, people, places and things. E & P may as well be I Love the ’80s: 1986 (and I mean this in a really good way). This isn’t Rowell showing off with obscure knowledge or name-dropping just for the sake of adding “local color.” Eleanor and Park bond while trading pop culture likes and dislikes. Song lyrics and comic book quotes are significant to the narrative. Movies show up as metaphor and character development: “I love you,” he said. She looked up at him, her eyes shiny and black, then looked away. “I know,” she said … “You know?” he repeated. She smiled, so he kissed her. “You’re not the Han Solo in this relationship, you know.” “I’m totally Han Solo,” she whispered. … “Well, I’m not Princess Leia,” he said. “Don’t get so hung up on gender roles,” Eleanor said. … “You can be Han Solo,” he said, kissing her throat. “And I’ll be Boba Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.” They are different in so many ways but the thing that this couple of misfits share is pop culture. It’s how they communicate and understand each other, and it’s part of why the fall in love. So when Park says “I love you” while they are spending a blissful afternoon alone in Park’s house, it makes sense that they compare their relationship to Star Wars (and how could they not? Especially when Eleanor’s response is “I know.” As the third person limited narrator, Rowell also uses pop culture metaphor as a kind of shorthand. After Eleanor goes to Park’s house and meets his mom, she thinks about the household perfection she observes in terms of the television families she knows, the Cleavers and the Waltons, and despairs that she will never fit in. What Rowell does really well here is demonstrate that the characters aren’t only using pop culture to communicate, it’s how they make sense of their lives. This kind of pop culture infused speech can seem artificial. We see characters talk like this on tv, in shows like Dawson’s Creek (natch), and in movies like 500 Days of Summer and Juno, but do people really talk and think like this? Of course they do. This is the way I talk with my friends; it’s how I hear my students talk to each other. Maybe we’re not always as quick and witty as Joey Potter, Juno, or Eleanor, but the voice in E & P rings true because it’s an idealized reflection of something authentic. It’s important to note the distinction between Rowell’s voice as author, and her characters’ dialogue. Although both share a lot of qualities, the teens in E & P have their own cadences and vocabulary. They use profanity, they say “you know” and “like,” and they stumble. As readers, it is easy to believe in Eleanor and Park as real people because they are created with and use a consistent, authentic voice. Early in their relationship, Park tells Eleanor that she always seems mad at him, and it’s easy to understand where he’s coming from. Her sarcasm and pessimism deflect and defend her from true intimacy with Park. She finally breaks down and tells him how much she needs him, that she feels like she isn’t living when he’s not around. So much character development is coming out in the sharing between these two, and it’s all supported in the text. “She couldn’t repay him. She couldn’t even appropriately thank him. How can you thank someone for the Cure? Or the X-Men? Sometimes it felt like she’d always be in his debt. And then she realized that Park didn’t know about the Beatles.” Of course, Rowell’s not just talking about the bands and comics. Park’s easy ability to share his passions with Eleanor actually feeds into her insecurity, but a little bit slips away when she realizes that she does have a passion to give to him. Sharing music they love is just the opening act to their eventual emotional and physical intimacy. The desire to give something of yourself to someone, to influence them, to change their life in the way they’ve changed yours: this is one of the most important ideas in the novel. Because yes, first love almost never lasts, but when two people affect each other the way that Eleanor and Park do, there is nothing that lasts longer. I could go on–because the more I write about this book, the more I am convinced of its literary merit–but now that we’ve tackled voice, style, characters, and theme, something should be said about race in the novel. Although its not part of the Printz criteria, the depiction of race can make or break a novel’s accuracy. I’m not gonna lie, the initial reason I wanted to read this novel was because of the gorgeous cover and seeing the name “Park” in the title. I’m a Korean-American adoptee, and I was thrilled to see a Korean name in the title of a book whose cover did not telegraph “Asian-ness” (i.e.: no Asian-ish font or design). The jacket copy doesn’t mention that Park is half-Korean but Rowell doesn’t ignore Park’s identity; it’s a huge part of his narrative struggle. Throughout the novel he must deal with the ignorant assumptions of his classmates and his own hangups about his appearance, which he is hyper-aware of. Making matters more complicated is that in his mind, his Asian identity is wrapped up with femininity because he looks more like his mother, while his younger brother looks like his big, Irish-American father. He isn’t sure what it means to be Korean, because his mother has done her best to assimilate and rarely talks about her heritage. Park’s individual story is handled sensitively and ties-in nicely with the other major themes at work in the novel. If I’m going to point out any failing with race in the novel, I have to mention DeNice and Beebi, the two black girls who befriend Eleanor after she is bullied. Park’s friend Cal and classmates Steve and Tina are similarly flat and broadly written, but with two girls of color, this seemed problematic and uncomfortable, especially when their dialogue is in a stylized dialect. On a first read, they don’t necessarily stand out, because they are inconsequential to the story we really care about; it was only on my listen of the audiobook that I became aware that the dialect might be a tad overdone. As I always say though, this is where assessing accuracy in fiction can become tricky because one reader’s “overdone” is another reader’s just “right.” When a novel leaps into your heart and makes you weep, it can be really hard to parse through what is squee-good and what is literary-good. Writing this post has made me realize that although I thought E & P was just squee-good, I haven’t even scratched the surface of everything I’d like to discuss with this book. I still have some 2013 titles to read, but I wouldn’t be surprised if E & P earns at least a silver next month. I’ll see you in the comments to talk about Eleanor’s horrible stepdad and her vanilla-wearing mother, Park’s parents, the pacing and timeline of the novel, Omaha and 1986, and anything else you think I left out. What’s your take on the book’s literary merit? Is it more than just the zeitgeisty book that made everyone cry this year? Tell us what you think! Filed Under: Books to look for, Contenders, Fiction Tagged With: Eleanor & Park, February 2013 pubs, five star books, Rainbow Rowell, St. Martin's Press About Joy Piedmont Joy Piedmont is a librarian and technology integrator at LREI - Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School. Prior to becoming a librarian, Joy reviewed and reported for Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch. She reviews for SLJ and is the President of the Hudson Valley Library Association. When she’s not reading or writing about YA literature, she’s compulsively consuming culture of all kinds, learning to fly (on a trapeze), and taking naps with her cat, Oliver. Find her on Twitter @InquiringJoy, email her at joy dot piedmont at gmail dot com, or follow her on Tumblr. Her opinions do not reflect the attitudes or opinions of SLJ, LREI, HVLA or any other initialisms with which she is affiliated. Elizabeth Burns says: While I liked E&P, I didn’t love it with the passion that I’ve seen other readers embrace it. For me, it’s mainly that (if on real committee) I would have to be convinced. I found it a nice story, I loved the look at young love, and the writing brought me right into that wonderful feeling of “oh, when fingers brush each other….” While I found Eleanor’s mother to be believable within the book, I personally despised her. I don’t think this colored my reading that much, except to reinforce how few options Eleanor had in terms of her home life. Still, I had no sympathy for the woman whatsoever — as contrasted to, say, the mother in SCOWLER who I felt some sympathy for. (I know, not comparing.) I liked this one a lot when I read it, but I’m less enamored now. One immediate criticism I had was that it touched on so many Issues that it felt a bit overdone/deliberate, and I read that as intrusive author presence. Another thing that I’ve realized in the time since I’ve read it is that, despite the pop culture references, this book doesn’t feel like it took place 25 years ago. To me, it feels – in both issues addressed and in tone – like a contemporary story about two teens obsessed with pop culture from before they were born. The emotion is timeless, though, and it feels very real. I think that’s the novel’s strongest point. It has endlessly fascinated me that so much of the discussion about this book — not just here, but all around the book-internet — leads off pointing out that John Green wrote a glowing review for it in the NYT. That’s not a criticism of this review, nor does it indicate anything about the book itself. It’s just interesting that THAT is something people continue to point out. As a Printz contender, there’s definitely merit when it comes to voice and authenticity. But one of the things about this book for me is something Liz brought up: I really liked it — I’d go as far as to say I LOVED it — when I first read it. But the further I’ve gotten from this book, the less I remember about it except that it was set in the 1980s and it was a romance that was sweet. It was a great read when I read it but the staying power of it was minimal. Which, of course, not necessarily a Printz criteria, though perhaps it is worth questioning whether this is a novel that endures beyond how it made a reader feel. I think your point about “squee-good” vs “literary good” is going to be the biggest talking point for this particular book. I don’t remember the literary aspects much. Perhaps this is a positive thing — they didn’t “get in the way” of my reading experience. But perhaps it’s also not a positive thing — they didn’t stand out or stick with me. I didn’t think there was anything memorable or noteworthy that lingered in the year since I read it. Joy Piedmont says: As for John Green, he has the attention of non-YA, pop savvy folks because he’s the author of wildly successful books for teens that aren’t about vampires, wizards, or savior teens in dystopias. This alone would get him mainstream media attention, but his loyal fan following has given him power and cache (he sold out Carnegie Hall!) that is unusual for any author. His status in the mainstream media right now means that it is really important that he wrote a positive review of E&P. He’s a very public face of YA lit, so when he endorses another YA novel by an author who is just starting to come up in a widely read, national paper, it’s a clear indication that this author is getting big attention beyond the norm. He’s got brand power–kind of like a YA Oprah–so I don’t read more into it than that. (We can talk endlessly though about why John Green is the non-genre face of YA, but that’s another post). Switching gears… it seems that a lot of people have found that they love this book as they’re reading it but that it doesn’t stay with them. Personally, I thought about this book for months after I first read it. I couldn’t stop talking about it and made it my pick for my school’s faculty recommendation list for summer reading. I found then, and now, that the emotional impact lingered but so did other aspects of the novel: the use of space and setting, the subtle class and racial divide in the school, how the sense of time is affected by the book’s structure and pacing. All of these things lingered at the back of my mind. Over the summer, just before I listened to the audiobook, I began to doubt if the book was really as good as I remembered it–memory is never a reliable tool for criticism. As I listened many of the problems I have with the novel came to the fore, such as the weak tertiary characters, but it also reminded me of the book’s strengths. My second reading of the text (for this review) is when I dug in to pinpoint the “literariness.” Whether it has what it takes for top honors this year remains up to the Real Committee. I’m not even sure that I could say that its literary merits top those of other novels this year. But I will definitely argue that those literary merits are there. I was a little late to the party on this book, but I did enjoy it. I didn’t LOVE it the way many did, but I enjoyed it a lot. I found the treatment of Eleanor’s family dynamic and her problems with Richie pretty realistic. Echoing the comments above, I found the book to be less about living in 1986 and reflective of modern kids obsessed with past pop culture. I also found the stylized dialect of the African-American characters problematic myself, though the portrayal of Park and his relationship to being Korean was done well. I found the authorial voice intrusive at times, which was distracting, and occasionally I had trouble distinguishing between Eleanor’s and Park’s narratives. This book felt like an “in the moment” read to me as well. I liked it while reading it, but I don’t reflect upon it, and I didn’t contemplate it when I wasn’t reading it at work or elsewhere. The writing and turn of events, particularly toward the end, felt very symptomatic of a TV show to me. I don’t care for that. The style of it was a little too witty and snappy, and things occurred in ways that seemed just a little on the side of convenient or outlandish at times. While I found all of these things to be slight wrinkles, I wouldn’t consider them huge deficiencies. These issues just cause me to say that I wouldn’t give this top honors myself. I would recommend readily to anyone though. It was a good story with a lot to say. I’m just not sure it merits real excellence. I’m really fascinated by the idea that Eleanor and Park felt like contemporary teens who are obsessed with older pop culture. Could you address how it seemed more 2013 than 1986? I didn’t get that from the text, but I’m curious to hear what you found. I can’t get assess 1986 authenticity because I wasn’t a teen then, but I can’t say that Eleanor and Park, or the other teens, struck me as 2013. I’m not that much older than Eleanor & Park — I guess I wonder, how different are teens from 1986 supposed to sound compared to 2013? I think the problem may be that teens aren’t that different, except for surface things, so change the surface (what teens are obsessed with, how they interact with their tech) yet the teens remain the same. Perhaps with distance a different assessment of teens today may be made. I think a stronger argument could be made for different eras (teens in pre-birth control era, for example, versus those after) than the ones at issue here. The pop culture did a good job of establishing a place and a time, and a real connection with readers. The decision of when or when not to use “real” pop culture or cultural icons is a tough one; does an author invent, which allows for more timelessness and less margin for error? But then, that distances the reader from the pop culture. You raise an interesting point regarding the references. Something I had in my original draft, but ended up deleting, was a comparison to Jane Austen’s novels and her use of cultural references. A reader doesn’t need to have read Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho to understand the various ways that novel, and her other reading, influences Catherine Morland’s life. Udolpho would have been about twenty years old by the time Northanger was published. Most readers would get the reference, but it’s not a given that all would. This is similar to how Rowell uses her references in the novel. They aren’t used superficially; they are important to understanding a situation or character, but a reader’s experience is not diminished if they don’t. At the end of the novel, when Park wonders if Eleanor had read the last issue of Watchmen, he specifically thinks of the quote, “nothing ever ends.” The quote speaks for itself; readers unfamiliar with Watchmen will still be right there with Park, wondering if Eleanor thinks their relationship is truly over. However, if you have read Watchmen (and I have), that quote resonates beyond the words themselves. At the end of Watchmen (spoilers, natch) Ozymandias believes he has sacrificed the lives of many to save the entire world. He asks Dr. Manhattan (an all-knowing, god-like being) if he, “did the right thing … It all worked out in the end.” This is when Dr. Manhattan says, “Nothing ever ends.” The reader, as well as Ozymandias, are left to wonder if he did indeed make a sacrifice or if he is just a mass murderer. When Rowell uses this quote in the penultimate chapter of the book, it’s especially poignant because of course Park is hoping that even though they made a decision that has devastated them both, they can’t judge if they were right or wrong. Park’s probably hoping that Eleanor is taking that wider, omniscient view of the world, that we can’t qualify our actions in the moment because things just keep going, that they will keep going. In fact (!), I’ve just had an epiphany as to what I think the three words are in the postcard! I REALLY want it to be that Eleanor wrote to Park, “nothing ever ends.” Okay, that is officially my head canon. I’m off the rails, but short answer: authors should always use real-world references when it comes to culture. If done well, it will always allow for a deep intertextual reading. I can only speak for myself, but I read the pop culture references as a direct outgrowth of a lot of cultural commentary found in so many places on the internet today. It felt nostalgic instead of specifically of its time, as if it were very conscious of its historical status. I want E&P to be a top 10 for BFYA. I really liked it, I cried, I enjoyed the references that were so much a part of my own childhood and adolescence. But it felt a little thin to me too, when it comes to literary merit. Maybe it’s just that we don’t think pop-culture infused narratives can be award-worthy? Or first love? Or maybe it’s that it’s sweet but not as substantial as I at least want in an award winner? I also thought Fangirl was much better, and yes, no comparing, but it made E&P pale in comparison. Really I just don’t see this going the distance but that Libra on my shoulders is wondering if that’s me being a snob because it has mass appeal and huge sales and the John Green seal of approval? I feel precisely the opposite: Fangirl was a much, much weaker novel comparatively. I think there were too many plot threads too thinly developed, and some of the writing itself made me cringe because it wasn’t quite polished and felt a little too try-hard on the humor/lightness. I can’t say I felt that way reading Eleanor & Park, which felt much more tightly edited and constructed, with the plot lines more focused. There’s no doubt in my mind both the Rowell books this year are BFYA titles, and I think I agree with you, Karyn, that E&P should be a top 10 BFYA. But Printz….I think it was just too much of a commercial novel, vs. a literary novel. And yes, commercial novels have been Printz silver and gold earners before (looking at you, Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging), but I can’t help thinking about what makes E&P’s story more of a Printz-potential title than, say, Sarah Dessen’s excellent The Moon and More this year. I can’t help wonder if a lot of the buzz is because of promotion and marketing and the reach it had. It’s not a detriment to the appeal and strength of the book itself, but what makes it more literary and more of a contender than Dessen’s? Her book also showcased great voice, a tight plot, authenticity, and everything else pointed out as weighing favorable for E&P? I do think that when it comes to awards we, as a society, privilege a certain kind of art. We reward serious over light, ambitious over simple. Love and relationships are complex; they’re messy and complicated; they’re life changing, and with rare exceptions, they are universal. Love is something we all understand and have some experience with. Maybe that’s why it’s easy to dismiss it as an easy subject? There aren’t easy answers here and it’s all speculation anyway. Personally, I think first love is a really ambitious topic. To capture how every look and touch and moment feels so important? What Rainbow Rowell does is extraordinary. And she convinces us of the growing attraction between these characters in third person. She doesn’t have the cushion of first person (which certainly helps authors connect with the reader) and she still manages to make Eleanor and Park’s feelings immediate and intimate. The alternating perspectives also allows her to pick up or slow the pace depending on the situation. Some sections are only a sentence or two long, mimicking that feeling of needing to catch your breath when you’re so caught up in an intense moment with someone. The morning after their first kiss, we get Eleanor and Park’s perspectives in rapid succession which has the effect of putting us in a kind of hazy dream-like state, and it also emphasizes how all that’s important to them in that moment is each other. this may be the most convincing argument I’ve seen yet for why E&P should be pushed towards the front of contenders! Everyone always cites Angus as the commercial novel that could, but think about the language in that book — Georgia has practically made up her own language! I always thought that while the plot was light and fluffy, the language and the use of humor and the really thoughtful examination of girlness were the things that made it stand out and have Printz qualities. And it was the first thing like it — there was a ton that came after, and there was Bridget Jones and her clones in the adult field, but no one had done it for YA before. I can’t make any claims like that for E&P; we’ve seen most of this before, and it’s not doing anything really novel, the way Angus did with language. Kelly, what I liked in Fangirl was partially that I loved it as a romance (ie, totally subjective, just worked for me), but where I think it stands out is in its exploration of independence. However, maybe a twin trying to find her own way and write her own stories after years of writing somebody else’s (ish) is too obvious. I actually wouldn’t put Fangirl forth as a top 5 for Printz-worthiness, I just thought it dug deeper than E&P* and avoided the over-reliance on pop culture as stand-in for character development; instead, Cath’s relationship to her fandom is indicative of deeper feelings of alienation and fear. (*I agree with Joy’s point that culture lets them make sense of their lives, but I disagree with how well it works in the novel; I think it’s just cheap shorthand; he wears black and listens to Joy Division and frankly, now I know exactly who he is because he’s a _type_,** even if he also happens to be Korean-American and grappling with race.) **rich text options for comments would be great; I feel like I’m back in the 90s, trying to indicate emphasis with characters instead of formatting. I don’t disagree with your comments about Angus in the least. It’s marvelous in what it does on the language level, and frankly, the ability to sustain the level of humor it does and do so consistently while allowing us to get to KNOW Georgia Nicholson is definitely noteworthy. It’s just an easy one to point out as more commercial than, say, Where Things Come Back or In Darkness. I’m not arguing it as not a worthy Printz book, but rather, wondering why there aren’t more books with that level of commercial appeal seeing the light of Printz attention (again, when will Sarah Dessen’s books be looked at with this kind of critical eye — I think she’s overlooked frequently as too romance driven, too commercial, etc, when really, she does so many things on the Literary Level that other novels which are seen as Literary do too and could be read through the same lens that E&P is here). The romance in Fangirl I can’t argue with, and I agree, too, there is a lack of pop culture stand-in for character development there than in E&P. There’s less a type and more a full character with her own personal quirks and anxieties. But, there was far too much going ON in the book. It needed to remove a plot thread or two in order to feel as authentic or fully fleshed in terms of plot that E&P did. It just needed a tighter edit — one more round on that one could have made it much, much stronger. I’m with you on the use of pop culture in E&P completely. It felt like short hand, but I didn’t necessarily think that the story suffered for it in the way that I felt the characters in Fangirl lost out because of a bit too much in the plot. The weaknesses of the books were inverse of one another. I adore ANGUS and am still so pleased it got recognition. I think the Angus problem arises from a few things: that it turned into a series, and a non-overarcing-plot series, at that (tho, for a book about a young woman’s coming of age, what such plot could one have, once a book is realistic, not spy or fantasy?); that it was oft imitated, thus making the originality of it seem less with distance; a silly title; and, well, that its a female writing about the teen woman’s experience with humor, and while if it had been about George Nicholson it would be seen as a universal experience with humor, with reader appeal for all, as Georgia, it’s “only” about girls. ANGUS is what tells us that a book can be many things; one doesn’t exclude another; and that “simple” does not mean not complex, if that makes sense. Ed Spicer says: If it comes to language and our choices are Angus or Eleanor, I vote for Eleanor without a second thought. Inventing dumb things to say does nothing for me. I don’t remember a better example of the gradual nature of falling in love that we see in Eleanor (and we are not even factoring in the nuanced racial differences-male Asians versus female Asians nor the socio economic factors that confront Eleanor and serve as a barrier). Eleanor deserves Printz recognition and if Fangirl also is honored, I will not be surprised but I think Eleanor is easily the better book. On a critical level though, the language in Angus is inventive and creative, rather than “dumb.” I feel like that book takes so much slack for being a Printz honoree, and does so because of personal, rather than critical, reasons. Agree! It’s inventive and purposeful; teen slang is part of independence and how they assert separation from other generations. Rennison’s genius is taking all these small, generally mundane details (slang, crushes, younger siblings) and exaggerating them just right to achieve comedic gold. Language is the most notable, but I still — what, 15 years later? — remember Libby and Angus. My reasons for not liking Angus are, indeed, personal–can’t help it (I am not arguing against its inclusion on the Printz, just recognizing that I would have to be convinced to include a book that is so NOT funny to me). Like Karyn, I still remember Angus; unlike Karyn, that is NOT a good thing (but it may be key to why it did indeed win a Printz honor)! What I think is missing in this conversation is akin to something Joy spoke of earlier. There is no place in the novel that a reader can point to and say, “This is the unique moment in which they fall in love.” It is seamless from beginning to end. Generally books that accomplish this feat make lists, get starred reviews, and win awards. AND there is more going on in this book than mere dialogue or simple love story–things that make this book unique and award worthy (ditto for Fangirl). Rowell has come out the gate fast! Something I am wondering — and go with me knowing what I’ve said before and knowing that I think Joy did a solid job presenting an argument for this book — can readers separate the feelings they have for this book and those moments in this book from the book itself as a work of literature? A LOT of the praise for this book has come that it’s such a universal story. It has earned plenty of “best of” list places (the most, actually, of any book so far this year and yes, I have the stats on that). But is it possible to look at this book and remove the sentimentality and the nostalgia that it gives to readers, particularly ADULT readers who read this and understand and recognize those feelings as a special thing? I certainly am not arguing teens wouldn’t read this and have that moment, but with our adult eyes, it is a different recognition. It is flavored with nostalgia, with the “remember those days,” even without the pop culture and setting in the 1980s (which was completely irrelevant to me, having been born a couple years prior to when the book was set — all of that was lost on me). I’m still not convinced. It’s a GREAT book. It deserves the recognition it has earned. But I have a hard time finding what it is on the literary level that makes it Printz-worthy. Especially when I compare this book to other books that DIDN’T benefit from the marketing that this one did which do similar things. Again, Dessen is a VERY easy go to for me because I thought The Moon and More was excellent. But what makes Rowell’s novel more literary, more enduring, more “Printz” worthy than Dessen’s? I can’t help think so much is wrapped in the adult feelings and the lack of praise, NYT love, massive marketing push that Rowell got for her book. I can’t remember another book in recent times where the marketing so heavily revolved around the fact that another major YA author “loved this book.” (Joy, your response above plays and played right into my bigger point here). It was used smartly, and I think it leaves an impact in how we read the book, intentionally or not. I think you’re right, and a big chunk of this is marketing. Then again, I agree with you that it’s not such a worthy novel. There’s a possibility that it stands out more because this is a weak year, in my opinion. (To me, this novel in no way measures up to past Printz greats like Jellicoe Road and CNV.) Dessen might get overlooked because she’s developed a reputation for formula; I know I haven’t picked up any of her recent novels because I’d heard they were essentially repeats. But I have heard other good things about The Moon and More; I really need to pick it up now! You are so right, Kelly. By it’s very nature, all literary criticism is subjective. It’s one person’s reading (I’m a firm believer in reader response over authorial intent). And hey, we’re all human so of course our readings are colored by our emotional response, our memory, and taste. No one can separate themselves from those things fully. I don’t think it’s possible. With a book like E&P which has inspired really strong emotional reactions from readers–myself included–AND a strong media campaign I think it’s really hard to critique the book away from all of the voices and noise. That’s what makes the committee process so great; discussion and debate are at the heart of the process which really allows a case to made for the lesser-known titles. @Beth (for some reason I can’t reply to you in the thread): I think you’re right too on this being a weaker year. So it stands out because of great marketing, being a good book (though again, not sold it’s Printz good), and because it stood out in a weak year. What’s wrong with formula, though, if it’s done well? If Printz is a measure of a novel on the basis of that novel’s merits, then formula shouldn’t matter since the book aren’t being compared against one another from year to year. Dessen may have a big of a formula, but she’s damn good at writing it. I will say that The Moon and More swings away from that norm, though, into something different. Personally, I find it hard to be objective about a book if it strikes me as a retread of the book that came before it – but I also don’t find it to be particularly noteworthy on a literary level, either. Re: Dessen, the themes that I felt were integrated flawlessly in The Truth About Forever felt sloppy and simply swapped out for other catchphrases in later books, where they felt like clever gimmicks rather than seamlessly integrated themes born of a unique story. (I haven’t read a Dessen novel in a while, but I have a distinct memory of reading Lock and Key and being disappointed.) But is that a problem of the book as it stands alone or a problem of bias having read other books? In other words, had you never read Dessen before, could you objectively make that call? I’m not disagreeing because I, too, have had the same experience, but that’s because I’ve read so many of her books. If I were a new reader, I don’t know coming to one of her books would have me thinking formula. I don’t even think I’d feel that way after reading two. There were definitely moments that felt gimmicky that I think I’d have disliked regardless of knowledge of previous books, and some of those moments related to both the theme and the plot because Dessen ties them all together. I think one reason TTAF works is because it’s so unforced, so easy. Every element has a clear place in the narrative. I didn’t get that feeling from later books. I can’t speak to formula in Dessen’s novels, but I think it’s only a negative if the formula is boring, cliche, or conforms to problematic stereotypes. A non-literary example, how many times are they going to make the movie about the optimistic white teacher going to the inner-city to change the lives of the poor students of color? Formula can work though when the author is writing as though their doing variations on a theme. E&P sticks to a formula: boy and girl “meet cute” (okay, being stuck together on the bus isn’t really that “cute” but go with me here), boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl against the world, boy and girl against each other, boy and girl reconcile, boy and girl part. I’m pretty sure some iteration of this formula has played out in many, many books, movies, plays, and tv shows. What happens around that formula is what can make a book special. How much of formula for long-writing authors is actually voice, too? My major problem with this book is that I found Eleanor and Park to be completely indistinguishable. I often had to flip back to chapter headings to remind myself whose perspective I was supposed to be reading; to me, their voices sounded identical. As a potential contender, this is a huge stumbling block for me. Hmm. I’m with Ed on this one. Although I agree that the voice used in their individual sections is similar, I saw that as a consistently executed authorial voice. The individual character voices were not difficult for me to distinguish because whenever I was in a particular section, I was seeing the world through Eleanor or Park’s eyes and they each have very different views and issues. Eleanor is essentially a pessimist while Park is an optimist. Before they get together, Eleanor is concerned with easing back into her home while Park struggles with his identity and familial relationships. Yeah, in dialogue they have similar cadences and word choice, but I always knew who was who because the characterization is so solid. Just want to pop in to say how refreshing Rowell’s use of third person is in a sea of mediocre first person. Hope she starts a revolution with that. Distinguishing voices was NOT a problem I had. Can’t help but compare. If the committee couldn’t find it within themselves to give at least an honor to TFIOS, will they also overlook E&P I think it’s important to remember that Printz is a literary award. While there may be a “best” YA book written in a year, it may not be the fit the criteria for literary excellence. In my opinion, E&P still has a chance as an honor book based on Printz criteria. Anabelle says: The story highlights flaws, with Eleanor being FAT (wow SO FAT) and Park being… Asian. Personally, I feel that attention surrounding Park’s character is… offending. Fanart doesn’t help it either, drawing him with stereotypical slanted eyes. Eleanor’s compliments to him sound a little questionable too… Hi Anabelle, thanks for commenting. There’s been a lot of online discussion about the depiction of race and body image in this book. We haven’t really gone into that territory here, as we’ve focused more on the literary elements of the writing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I really hope she reads this: Please make a second book! I dont care if there now 20, 30, or 1001 Just please make a next book. I loved this book and I couldnt stop reading. the ending was prctically a cliff hanger. This b yfar my favourite book a sequal and i’ll be satisfied. (if anyone has an contact to rainbow rowell please copy this,if youcan and send this to her) * pleasse!!!) Eleanor & Park – Printz Blog Review – InquiringJoy says: […] Today on the Printz Blog I check my feels at the door to talk rainbowrowell’s Eleanor & Park. […] Leave a Reply to Eleanor & Park – Printz Blog Review – InquiringJoy Cancel reply

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BRANDT'S RANDOM GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASES A PUBLICATION OF RANDOM U.S.GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASES AND ARTICLES White House.gov Press Office Feed THE WASPS AND THE BRAINS FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION Tiny brains, but shared smarts Unlike humans and other vertebrates, the brains of wasps shrink when they're socialized--but they might 'share' brainpower A solitary wasp--the kind that lives and forages for food alone--has a fairly small brain. Type out a lowercase letter in 10-point text and you'll get an idea of its size. But tiny as that brain is, its social cousins, living together in honeycombed nests, have even smaller ones. And that size difference might provide some key information about the difference between insect societies and vertebrate societies. Biologists have studied the societies of vertebrates--from flocks of birds, to schools of fish, to communities of humans--enough to come up with something called the "social brain hypothesis." Generally, it goes something like this: Social interaction presents challenges that require a lot of brain power, as that interaction requires organisms to navigate complicated territory, including avoiding conflict and building alliances. Therefore, vertebrates that live in societies have bigger brains. The more complex the organism's society, the bigger its brain regions for processing complex information will be. Scientists believe the complexity of human societies may be one of the reasons we have such large, developed brains. Sean O'Donnell, a biology professor at Drexel, has spent almost the entirety of his more than 20-year career studying wasps. He says these picnic terrors--actually critical members of the insect world that prey on pest species--represent ideal candidates for seeing whether that hypothesis applies to insects, because they have so much variation. Some wasps are solitary. Some live in small, primitive groups. Others live in larger, more complex societies. "There are lots of intermediate stages," O'Donnell said. When O'Donnell, with support from the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Biological Sciences, looked at the brains in 29 related species of wasps spanning the social spectrum, he found that living in a society did indeed affect the size of their brains. It just made them smaller, instead of bigger. His findings are described in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "If our data is verified, it suggests that there's something really different about how insect societies formed," he said. O'Donnell's work focused on the "mushroom bodies" of the wasps' brains, structures that are superficially similar to the regions of vertebrate brains that deal with higher cognitive functions. His research uncovered another interesting difference from vertebrates: the complexity of the wasps' societies seemed to have no significant effect on the size of their brains. The big dropoff in size occurred between solitary and social wasps. In contrast, the brains of wasps in simple societies showed no significant size differences between those in complex societies. "That suggests to me that going from solitary to a small society is the significant transition," O'Donnell said. 'Sharing' brainpower Part of what makes vertebrate societies so brain-intensive is that they usually involve groups of organisms with different agendas that aren't related to one another--most of the people you know aren't members of your family. Insect societies, however, are made up of groups of cooperating close relatives with shared objectives. Wasps might not need the type of brainpower required for social interaction because there's much less of it in their nests and colonies. The insects cooperate and rely on each other without the type of negotiation that can be required in vertebrate societies. But what advantage could a smaller, less complex brain offer a species? As O'Donnell puts it, "Brains are expensive." Neural tissues require more energy to develop and maintain than almost any other kind, and biologists have found that natural selection will find the optimal balance between the metabolic costs of developing particular areas of the brain and the benefits yielded. In some ways, the social wasps may "share" brainpower. Individually, their brains might not stack up to their solitary relatives, but the colony as a whole is "smart." O'Donnell says the next steps for his work will replicate the wasp research with termites and bees, which also offer a variety of social complexity. "We would expect to see similar patterns," he said. Learn more in this Drexel University video on Sean O'Donnell's work. -- Rob Margetta Sean O'Donnell Related Institutions/Organizations Posted by Leigh Collin Brandt at 12:00 AM Labels: BIOLOGY, BRAINS, INSECT BRAINS, INSECT SOCIETIES, PSYCHOLOGY, RESEARCH, SCIENCE, SOCIAL BRAIN HYPOTHESIS, WASPS U.S. State Department Daily Press Briefings Links Open Congress : Latest Videos Public Corruption Links Weekly Address: The Affordable Care Act is Here to... NASA | Turning Black Holes into Dark Matter Labs U.S. GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS ANNOUNCE PHASE II OF A... The President Hosts a Reception in Honor of LGBT P... READOUT: CALL BETWEEN PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRESIDE... VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN'S STATEMENT ON SAME-SEX MARRI... 6/25/15: White House Press Briefing TWO MASTERPIECES SMUGGLED INTO U.S. ARE RETURNED T... PRESIDENT OBAMA'S STATEMENT ON TRADE CDC REPORTS ON DIAGNOSED, UNDIAGNOSED HIV INFECTIO... LARGEST DIALYSIS SERVICE PROVIDER TO PAY $450 MILL... 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BRIEFING: COUNTRY REPORTS ON TERRORISM IN 2014 MAN SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR 15 YEARS FOR ATTACKIN... DOD ANNOUNCES MORE AIRSTRIKES IN SYRIA AND IRAQ DOD AIRSTRIKE REPORT ON SYRIA, IRAQ ON JUNE 20, 20... NASA Video: Mission to Europa Gets Green Light on... RESEARCH TO SAVE HONEYBEES IN THE U.S. MAN ARRESTED IN OHIO ON CHARGES OF ATTEMPTING TO P... AMBASSADOR SEPULVEDA'S REMARKS ON THE GLOBAL INTER... ► Feb 3 - Feb 10 (115) ► Jan 27 - Feb 3 (101) ► Jan 20 - Jan 27 (104) ► Jan 6 - Jan 13 (111) ► Dec 16 - Dec 23 (104) ► Dec 9 - Dec 16 (125) ► Dec 2 - Dec 9 (131) ► Nov 25 - Dec 2 (128) ► Nov 18 - Nov 25 (115) ► Nov 4 - Nov 11 (118) ► Oct 28 - Nov 4 (112) ► Oct 21 - Oct 28 (108) ► Sep 23 - Sep 30 (103) ► Sep 2 - Sep 9 (113) ► Aug 26 - Sep 2 (109) ► Aug 19 - Aug 26 (120) ► Aug 5 - Aug 12 (113) ► Jul 29 - Aug 5 (118) ► Jul 1 - Jul 8 (110) ► Jun 24 - Jul 1 (122) ► Jun 17 - Jun 24 (117) ► Jun 3 - Jun 10 (112) ► Apr 29 - May 6 (119) ► Apr 22 - Apr 29 (145) ► Apr 8 - Apr 15 (151) ► Apr 1 - Apr 8 (116) NORTH SEA WITH BLOOMING PHYTOPLANKTON Despite its cold waters and harsh winds, the North Sea is a fertile basin for phytoplankton blooms. The drifting, plantlike organisms tend to be most abundant in late spring and early summer due to high levels of nutrients in the water and increasing sunlight. The intense winds blowing over the relatively shallow North Sea causes a lot of vertical and horizontal mixing that brings nutrients to the surface, as does runoff from European rivers. This image, acquired on June 11, 2015, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows a mass of phytoplankton blooming between Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Germany. As compared to a June 6 image showing a different stage of the bloom cycle, areas of concentrated phytoplankton are smaller and most have the milky color characteristic of coccolithophores; there are few to no green areas. The change could be due to the short life span of phytoplankton—two to six days—and differences between the species. Some outlast others because of their ability to survive at lower nutrient levels. Some researchers have found that numbers of plankton can actually begin to increase in the middle of winter, when growth conditions would seem to be at their worst. Studies suggest that winter storms churn the ocean and cause deep water mixing. This water mixing allows for phytoplankton to grow and live at depth without being spotted by their predators. When spring arrives, phytoplankton can fully bloom because not only are the nutrients available, but there is a longer period of sunlight. Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, using data from the Level 1 and Atmospheres Active Distribution System (LAADS). Caption: Rachel Carlowicz with Mike Carlowicz LIMERICKS AND STUFF By Leigh Collin Brandt GROWING GOLD ON DIRTY DISHES (GSI) GHOST SCENE INVESTAGATORS VAMPIRES: A HUMOR NEWS NUTS INVESTIGATION 10-31 FULL MOON HOW TO SAVE A FORTUNE By Leigh Collin Brandt MAKE UP KID’S GAME ON THE CHEAP STOP CRIME: GETTING IT DONE CALL CENTER SCAM RANDOM GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASES AND NEWS Let The River Run - Carly Simon SPACE: WHERE ARE WE GOING? NOAA's Premier Weather Forecast Model Goes 4-D | Department of Commerce HUMOR NEWS OUTER SPACE NUTS INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION DECLARES INDEPENDENCE FROM EARTH PRESIDENT OBAMA'S STATEMENT ON HEAD START 50TH ANNIVERSARY CORPORATIONS ACCUSED WATCHING YOUNG STARS SPARKLE While fireworks only last a short time here on Earth, a bundle of cosmic sparklers in a nearby cluster of stars will be going off for a very long time. NGC 1333 is a star cluster populated with many young stars that are less than 2 million years old, a blink of an eye in astronomical terms for stars like the Sun expected to burn for billions of years. To make a detailed study of the X-ray properties of young stars, a team of astronomers, led by Elaine Winston from the University of Exeter, analyzed both the Chandra X-ray data of NGC 1333, located about 780 light years from Earth, and of the Serpens cloud, a similar cluster of young stars about 1100 light years away. They then compared the two datasets with observations of the young stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster, perhaps the most-studied young star cluster in the Galaxy.The researchers found that the X-ray brightness of the stars in NGC 1333 and the Serpens cloud depends on the total brightness of the stars across the electromagnetic spectrum, as found in previous studies of other clusters. They also found that the X-ray brightness mainly depends on the size of the star. In other words, the bigger the stellar sparkler, the brighter it will glow in X-rays. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Wolk et al; Optical: DSS & NOAO/AURA/NSF; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech. ARTIST GRAPHIC OF PLUTO'S OCCULATION The Stratosphere Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that makes celestial observations with its German-built 100-inch telescope. The telescope is enhanced to collect infrared radiation, and is able to detect energy at a wider range of wavelengths than any other ground-based or space telescope. SOFIA can fly anywhere in the world, and operates at altitudes up to 45,000 feet, putting the observatory above more than 99 percent of Earth's atmospheric water vapor that blocks infrared radiation from celestial objects. SOFIA is flying out of Christchurch, New Zealand, where its telescope can study celestial objects more easily observed from the Southern Hemisphere. Starting June 28 through the 29th, instruments on the plane will observe Pluto as it passes in front of a background star. Data returned from the observations will be provided to the New Horizon team who is preparing for Pluto's occultation, July 13 through the 15th. Image is an artist's conception of the Pluto occultation seen close-up, not a photo. Credits: NASA Graphic. SHOOTING STARS IN SPACE Caption Credit: NASA. Astronaut Ron Garan, Expedition 28 flight engineer, tweeted this image from the International Space Station in August, 2011 with the following caption: “What a `Shooting Star’ looks like from space, taken yesterday during Perseid Meteor Shower.” A special camera to record meteor showers will launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft, currently scheduled to launch on June 28, 2015, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The Meteor investigation should be installed in the station’s Window Observational Research Facility by the end of July, enabling scientists to learn more about the composition and behavior of asteroids and comets that cross paths with Earth. The investigation's camera is programmed to record known major meteor showers during its two-year orbit and could spot unpredicted showers as well. Image Credit: NASA. SUNSET ON MARS Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to record the sunset during an evening of skywatching on April 15, 2015. The imaging was done between dust storms, but some dust remained suspended high in the atmosphere. The sunset observations help researchers assess the vertical distribution of dust in the atmosphere. "The colors come from the fact that the very fine dust is the right size so that blue light penetrates the atmosphere slightly more efficiently," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, the Curiosity science-team member who planned the observations. "When the blue light scatters off the dust, it stays closer to the direction of the sun than light of other colors does. The rest of the sky is yellow to orange, as yellow and red light scatter all over the sky instead of being absorbed or staying close to the sun." Just as colors are made more dramatic in sunsets on Earth, Martian sunsets make the blue near the sun's part of the sky much more prominent, while normal daylight makes the rusty color of the dust more prominent. Photo/Caption Credit: NASA. THE U.S. FLAG ON MARS Caption Credit: NASA. This view of the American flag medallion on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 44th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Sept. 19, 2012). The flag is one of four "mobility logos" placed on the rover's mobility rocker arms. Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-MSSS. AN IMPACT LEFT ON MARS The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars on March 30, 2015. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta. The steep inner slopes are carved by gullies and include possible recurring slope lineae on the equator-facing slopes. Fresh craters often have steep, active slopes, so the HiRISE team is monitoring this crater for changes over time. The bedrock lithology is also diverse. The crater is a little more than 1-kilometer wide. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. Caption: Alfred McEwen. AN AURORA OF DANCING LIGHTS NASA Caption. NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photo of an aurora from the International Space Station on June 23, 2015. The dancing lights of the aurora provide spectacular views on the ground, but also capture the imagination of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the sun. A NEW VIEW OF EARTH AURORAS FROM ASTRONAUT SCOTT KELLY NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured photographs and video of auroras from the International Space Station on June 22, 2015. Kelly wrote, "Yesterday's aurora was an impressive show from 250 miles up. Good morning from the International Space Station! ‪‎ Image Credit: NASA. A LOOK AT GALAXY NSG 6503 Caption Credit: NASA.Most galaxies are clumped together in groups or clusters. A neighboring galaxy is never far away. But this galaxy, known as NGC 6503, has found itself in a lonely position, at the edge of a strangely empty patch of space called the Local Void. The Local Void is a huge stretch of space that is at least 150 million light-years across. It seems completely empty of stars or galaxies. The galaxy’s odd location on the edge of this never-land led stargazer Stephen James O’Meara to dub it the “Lost-In-Space galaxy” in his 2007 book, Hidden Treasures. NGC 6503 is 18 million light-years away from us in the northern circumpolar constellation of Draco. NGC 6503 spans some 30,000 light-years, about a third of the size of the Milky Way. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 6503 in striking detail and with a rich set of colors. Bright red patches of gas can be seen scattered through its swirling spiral arms, mixed with bright blue regions that contain newly forming stars. Dark brown dust lanes snake across the galaxy’s bright arms and center, giving it a mottled appearance. The Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys data for NGC 6503 were taken in April 2003, and the Wide Field Camera 3 data were taken in August 2013. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C. Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts), H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University), and the Hubble Heritage Team. FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN FLIES INTO SPACE ON SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7 from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The STS-7 crew consisted of astronauts Robert Crippen, commander, the first two-time space shuttle astronaut; Frederick H. Hauck, pilot; and three mission specialists -- Ride, John M. Fabian and Norman E. Thagard. This high-angle view of the shuttle liftoff, showing a lengthy stretch of Florida Atlantic coastline and a number of large cumulus clouds, was photographed with a handheld 70mm camera by astronaut John W. Young, who piloted the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) for weather monitoring at launch and landing sites for STS missions. One of Sally Ride's jobs was to call out "Roll program" seven seconds after launch. "I'll guarantee that those were the hardest words I ever had to get out of my mouth," she said later. Image Credit: NASA. BLUE ANGELS PERFORMING AT OCEAN CITY AIR SHOW 150614-N-WJ386-079 OCEAN CITY, Md. (June 14, 2015) The U.S. Navy flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, perform the Diamond 360 maneuver at the Ocean City Air Show. The Blue Angels are scheduled to perform 68 demonstrations at 35 locations across the U.S. in 2015. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Andrea Perez/Released) IMAGE FROM BALTIC OPERATIONS 2015 DOD Caption. Four F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 480th Fighter Squadron conduct a refueling mission during Baltic Operations 2015 over the Baltic Sea, June 15, 2015. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Michael Battles. TROPICAL STORM BILL NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, currently on a one-year mission to the International Space Station, took this photograph of Tropical Storm Bill in the Gulf of Mexico as it approached the coast of Texas, on June 15, 2015. Kelly wrote, "Concerned for all in its path including family, friends & colleagues." ON EDGE SPIRAL GALAXY NGC 5023 Caption Credit: NASA. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows an edge-on view of the spiral galaxy NGC 5023. Due to its orientation we cannot appreciate its spiral arms, but we can admire the elegant profile of its disk. The galaxy lies over 30 million light-years away from us. NGC 5023 is part of the M51 group of galaxies. The brightest galaxy in this group is Messier 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, which has been captured by Hubble many times. NGC 5023 is less fond of the limelight and seems rather unsociable in comparison — it is relatively isolated from the other galaxies in the group. Astronomers are particularly interested in the vertical structure of disks like these. By analyzing the structure above and below the central plane of the galaxy they can make progress in understanding galaxy evolution. Astronomers are able to analyze the distribution of different types of stars within the galaxy and their properties, in particular how well evolved they are on the Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram — a scatter graph of stars that shows their evolution. NGC 5023 is one of six edge-on spiral galaxies observed as part of a study using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. They study this vertical distribution and find a trend which suggests that heating of the disc plays an important role in producing the stars seen away from the plane of the galaxy. In fact, NGC 5023 is pretty popular when it comes to astronomers, despite its unsociable behavior. The galaxy is also one of 14 disk galaxies that are part of the GHOSTS survey — a survey which uses Hubble data to study galaxy halos, outer disks and star clusters. It is the largest study to date of star populations in the outskirts of disk galaxies. The incredible sharp sight of Hubble has allowed scientist to count more than 30,000 individual bright stars in this image. This is only a small fraction of the several billion stars that this galaxy contains, but the others are too faint to detect individually even with Hubble. European Space Agency Credit-ESA-NASA THE THUNDERBIRDS FLY OVER CENTRAL PARTK Members of the Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds, fly in formation during a photo-chase mission over Central Park in New York City, May 22, 2015. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jason Couillard. U.S. SAILORS RECOVER NASA TEST VEHICLE Caption Credit: DOD. Sailors recover the test vehicle for NASA's low-density supersonic decelerator off the coast of the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii, June 8, 2015. The vehicle is part of a project to investigate and test technologies to land future robotics and humans on Mars, and safely return large payloads to Earth. The sailors are assigned to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer John M. Hageman. A CROWDED NEIGHBORHOOD OF STARS This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way. It is located about 25,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), close to the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is, like its neighbor the Quintuplet Cluster, a fairly young astronomical object at between two and four million years old. The Arches cluster is so dense that in a region with a radius equal to the distance between the sun and its nearest star there would be over 100,000 stars! At least 150 stars within the cluster are among the brightest ever discovered in the Milky Way. These stars are so bright and massive that they will burn their fuel within a short time (on a cosmological scale that means just a few million years). Then they will die in spectacular supernova explosions. Due to the short lifetime of the stars in the cluster the gas between the stars contains an unusually high amount of heavier elements, which were produced by earlier generations of stars. Despite its brightness the Arches Cluster cannot be seen with the naked eye. The visible light from the cluster is completely obscured by gigantic clouds of dust in this region. To make the cluster visible astronomers have to use detectors which can collect light from the X-ray, infrared, and radio bands, as these wavelengths can pass through the dust clouds. This observation shows the Arches Cluster in the infrared and demonstrates the leap in Hubble’s performance since its 1999 image of same object. Image credit: NASA/ESA. Text credit: European Space Agency REOMOTELY PILOTED AIRCRAFT DISPLADED AT DOD LAB DAY A marine walks past a remotely piloted aircraft outside the Pentagon during the Department of Defense Lab Day, May 14, 2015. The aircraft is being developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. DoD photo by EJ Hersom. SECOND TEST OF NASA'S LDSD The second flight test of NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will be attempted on Tuesday, June 2 at no earlier than 1:30 p.m. EDT (7:30 a.m. HST), launching a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The LDSD project, led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington, is conducting this full-scale flight test of two breakthrough technologies: a supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator, or SIAD, and an innovative new parachute. These devices potentially will help us deliver double the current amount of payload — 1.5 metric tons — to the surface of Mars. They also will greatly increase the accessible surface area we can explore, and will improve landing accuracy from a margin of approximately 6.5 miles to a little more than 1 mile. All these factors will dramatically increase the success of future missions on Mars. The LDSD project's successful first flight test was launched on June 28, 2014. In this photograph, a full mission dress rehearsal is held for the LDSD project, Friday, May 29, 2015, at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Kauai, HI. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls SPINSAT INVESTIGATION RETURNS Equipment and data from the SpinSat investigation returns to Earth today, May 21, 2015, with splashdown of the sixth SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. This Nov. 28, 2014 photograph by NASA astronaut Terry Virts captures the predeploy of SpinSat, which was launched into orbit from the station. 50 YEARS OF GOING FOR A WALK IN SPACE In this Feb. 7, 1984 photograph taken by his fellow crewmembers aboard the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger on the STS-41B mission, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II approaches his maximum distance from the vehicle. McCandless became the first astronaut to maneuver about in space untethered, during this first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled, hand-controlled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). Image Credit: NASA. NASA SUPPORTS F-15 PROGRAM NASA pilot Jim Less and photographer Jim Ross pull their F-15D #897 aircraft away from a KC-135 refueling tanker. NASA is supporting the Edwards Air Force Base F-15 program with safety and photo chase expertise. NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center currently flies an F-15D Eagle aircraft for research support and pilot proficiency. NASA research support aircraft are commonly called chase planes and fill the role of escort aircraft during research missions. Chase pilots are in constant radio contact with research pilots and serve as an "extra set of eyes" to help maintain total flight safety during specific tests and maneuvers. They monitor certain events for the research pilot and are an important safety feature on all research missions. Chase aircraft also are used as camera platforms for research missions that must be photographed or videotaped. Aeronautical engineers use this pictorial coverage (photos, motion pictures, and videotape) extensively to monitor and verify various aspects of research projects. The F-15D is also used by Armstrong research pilots for routine flight training required by all NASA pilots. Image Credit: NASA/Jim Ross. SDO IMAGES OF THE SOLAR ATMOSPHEREE Caption Credit: NASA. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) images the solar atmosphere in multiple wavelengths to link changes in the surface to interior changes. Its data includes images of the sun in 10 wavelengths every 10 seconds. When AIA images are sharpened a bit, such as this AIA 171Å channel image, the magnetic field can be readily visualized through the bright, thin strands that are called "coronal loops". Loops are shown here in a blended overlay with the magnetic field as measured with SDO's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager underneath. Blue and yellow represent the opposite polarities of the magnetic field. The combined images were taken on Oct. 24, 2014, at 23:50:37 UT. Image Credit: NASA SDO. NOAA'S GOES-EAST SATELLITE'S IMAGE OF NOR'EASTER NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured the center of the developing Nor'easter located off North Carolina's Outer Banks on Jan. 26 in the image from 16:30 UTC (12:30 p.m. EST). Image Credit: NASA/NOAA Goes Project DEPRESSION ON SURFACE OF MARS Caption Credit: NASA. This image of a circular depression on the surface of Mars was acquired on Jan. 5, 2015 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since March 2006 and completed its 40,000th orbit around Mars on Feb. 7, 2015. The target of this observation is a circular depression in a dark-toned unit associated with a field of cones to the northeast. At the scale of an image taken by MRO's Context Camera, which provides wide area views to provide context for high-resolution analysis, the depression appears to expose layers especially on the sides or walls, which are overlain by dark sands presumably associated with the dark-toned unit. The HiRISE camera's resolution, which is far higher than that of the Context Camera and its larger footprint, can help identify possible layers. HiRISE is one of six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-University of Arizona. MILITARY ROBOT DISPLAYED AT DOD LAB DAY Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Perara guides a robot during the Department of Defense Lab Day at the Pentagon, May 14, 2015. Perara is assigned to the Marine Warfighting Laboratory. DoD photo by EJ Hersom. FLEET WEEK NEW YORK 2015 Caption Credit: U.S. Navy. 150520-N-PJ969-213 NEW YORK (May 20, 2015) The amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17) enters New York harbor during the Parade of Ships to start Fleet Week New York 2015. Fleet Week New York, now in its 27th year, is the city's time-honored celebration of the sea services. It is an unparalleled opportunity for the citizens of New York and the surrounding tri-state area to meet Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, as well as witness firsthand the latest capabilities of today's maritime services. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Abe McNatt/Released) 22,000 LIGHT YEARS TO EARTH: NGC 6535 This image captures the stunning NGC 6535, a globular cluster 22,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent) that measures one light-year across. Globular clusters are tightly bound groups of stars which orbit galaxies. The large mass in the rich stellar centre of the globular cluster pulls the stars inward to form a ball of stars. The word globulus, from which these clusters take their name, is Latin for small sphere. Globular clusters are generally very ancient objects formed around the same time as their host galaxy. To date, no new star formation has been observed within a globular cluster, which explains the abundance of aging yellow stars in this image, most of them containing very few heavy elements. NGC 6535 was first discovered in 1852 by English astronomer John Russell Hind. The cluster would have appeared to Hind as a small, faint smudge through his telescope. Now, over 160 years later, instruments like the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the NASA/ European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope allow us to marvel at the cluster and its contents in greater detail. European Space Agency Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine. INTELSAT VI SATELLITE MOVES INTO ENDEAVOUR'S CARGO BAY Caption Credit: NASA. On May 13, 1992, following the successful capture of the Intelsat VI satellite, three astronauts continue moving the 4.5 ton communications satellite into the space shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay. The sections of Earth which form the backdrop for the scene are blanketed with thousands of square miles of clouds. NASA Photo. THE DRYDEN AEROSPIKE ROCKET TEST Caption Credit: NASA. EC04-0113-171 The Dryden Aerospike Rocket Test provided the first known data from a solid-fueled aerospike rocket in flight. The test took place March 30 and 31, 2004, at the King Ranch launch site at the Pecos County Aerospace Development Corporation Flight Test Range in Fort Stockton, Texas. March 30, 2004 NASA Photo / Steve Thomas. Aerospike Rocket Project. Last Updated: May 9, 2015. Editor: NASA Administrator. HEAVY RAINFALL FALLS ON AUSTRALIAN COASTS Caption Credit: NASA. The rainfall accumulation analysis above was computed from data generated by the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) during the period from April 28 to May 3, 2015. During this period IMERG algorithms continuously merged and interpolated satellite passive microwave precipitation estimates and microwave-calibrated infrared (IR) satellite estimates over the entire globe. Rainfall from cyclone Quang fell over the west coast and a non-tropical system pounded the east coast of Australia simultaneously during the past weekend. Cyclone Quang formed in the South Indian Ocean northwest of Australia on April 28, 2015. Quang's peak intensity of 115kts (133 mph) occurred while it was well off western Australia's coast. The heaviest rainfall with cyclone Quang also occurred during this period when the tropical cyclone was far out in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia's coast. Total rainfall there was measured at over 454 mm (17.9 inches). Heavy rainfall of over 448 mm (17.7 inches) was also found by this analysis in the Coral Sea off Australia's southeast coast. Rainfall totals of above 356 mm (14.0 inches) were analyzed with the passage of the low pressure center over southeastern Australia. Flooding in this area caused the reported deaths of at least four Australians. Credits-SSAI-NASA, Hal Pierce. SOMEWHERE OVER THE GRAND CANYON From the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Terry Virts took this photograph of an early morning sunrise over the Grand Canyon and posted it to social media on May 10, 2015. Because the station completes each trip around the globe in about 92 minutes, the crew experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. The space station and its crew orbit Earth from an altitude of 220 miles, traveling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Because the station completes each trip around the globe in about 92 minutes, the crew experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. Image Credit: NASA. Last Updated: May 13, 2015. Editor: Sarah Loff THE ISS SOALR ARRAY Caption Credit: NASA. Expedition 43 Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed the giant solar arrays on the International Space Station on Feb. 12, 2015. The space station's solar arrays contain a total of 262,400 solar cells and cover an area of about 27,000 square feet (2,500 square meters) -- more than half the area of a football field. A solar array's wingspan of 240 feet (73 meters) is longer than a Boeing 777's wingspan, which is 212 feet (65 meters). Altogether, the four sets of arrays can generate 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to provide power to more than 40 homes. The solar arrays produce more power than the station needs at one time for station systems and experiments. When the station is in sunlight, about 60 percent of the electricity that the solar arrays generate is used to charge the station's batteries. At times, some or all of the solar arrays are in the shadow of Earth or the shadow of part of the station. This means that those arrays are not collecting sunlight. The batteries power the station when it is not in the sun. Image Credit: ESA/NASA THE ATMOSPHERE ON MERCURY Caption Credit: NASA. The Mercury Atmosphere and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) instrument aboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft was designed to study both the exosphere and surface of the planet Mercury. To learn more about the minerals and surface processes on Mercury, the Visual and Infrared Spectrometer (VIRS) portion of MASCS has been diligently collecting single tracks of spectral surface measurements since MESSENGER entered Mercury orbit on March 17, 2011. The track coverage is now extensive enough that the spectral properties of both broad terrains and small, distinct features such as pyroclastic vents and fresh craters can be studied. To accentuate the geological context of the spectral measurements, the MASCS data have been overlain on the monochrome mosiac from the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), an instrument with wide- and narrow-angle cameras to map the rugged landforms and spectral variations on Mercury’s surface. Click on the image to explore the colorful diversity of surface materials in more detail! The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the solar system's innermost planet. In the mission's more than four years of orbital operations, MESSENGER has acquired over 250,000 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER's highly successful orbital mission is about to come to an end, as the spacecraft runs out of propellant and the force of solar gravity causes it to impact the surface of Mercury near the end of April 2015. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington GUARD HELICOPTERS BATTLE WILDFIRES IN NORTH DAKOTA A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the 1-112th Aviation Company, fights a wildfire south of Bismarck, North Dakota, on April 13, 2015. Smoke obscures the aircraft as it flies its bucket to drop water on the blaze. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Brett Miller.) NASA'S GREASED LIGHTNING BATTERY PLANE Caption Credit: NASA. A team at NASA's Langley Research Center is developing a concept of a battery-powered plane that has 10 engines and can take off like a helicopter and fly efficiently like an aircraft. The prototype, called Greased Lightning or GL-10, is currently in the design and testing phase. The initial thought was to develop a 20-foot wingspan (6.1 meters) aircraft powered by hybrid diesel/electric engines, but the team started with smaller versions for testing, built by rapid prototyping. During a recent spring day the engineers took the GL-10 to test its wings at a military base about two hours away from NASA Langley. The remotely piloted plane has a 10-foot wingspan (3.05 meters), eight electric motors on the wings, two electric motors on the tail and weighs a maximum of 62 pounds (28.1 kilograms) at take off. This photograph captures the GL-10 prototype taking off in hover mode like a helicopter. Image Credit: NASA Langley/David C. Bowman 3-D PRINTER AND MANUFACTURING IN SPACE Caption Credit: NASA. The International Space Station’s 3-D printer has manufactured the first 3-D printed object in space, paving the way to future long-term space expeditions. The object, a printhead faceplate, is engraved with names of the organizations that collaborated on this space station technology demonstration: NASA and Made In Space, Inc., the space manufacturing company that worked with NASA to design, build and test the 3-D printer. This image of the printer, with the Microgravity Science Glovebox Engineering Unit in the background, was taken in April 2014 during flight certification and acceptance testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, prior to its launch to the station aboard a SpaceX commercial resupply mission. The first objects built in space will be returned to Earth in 2015 for detailed analysis and comparison to the identical ground control samples made on the flight printer prior to launch. The goal of this analysis is to verify that the 3-D printing process works the same in microgravity as it does on Earth. The printer works by extruding heated plastic, which then builds layer upon layer to create three-dimensional objects. Testing this on the station is the first step toward creating a working "machine shop" in space. This capability may decrease cost and risk on the station, which will be critical when space explorers venture far from Earth and will create an on-demand supply chain for needed tools and parts. Long-term missions would benefit greatly from onboard manufacturing capabilities. Data and experience gathered in this demonstration will improve future 3-D manufacturing technology and equipment for the space program, allowing a greater degree of autonomy and flexibility for astronauts. Image Credit-NASA-Emmett Given. AEGIS BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM COMPLETES SIMULATED ENGAGEMENTS Caption Credit: U.S. DOD. February 24, 2015 Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System Completes Successful Tracking and Simulated Engagements of Three Short-Range Ballistic Missiles. This test was designated Flight Test Other (FTX)-19. This was the first flight test to assess the ability of the Aegis BMD 4.0 weapon system to simulate engagements of a raid consisting of three short-range, separating ballistic missile targets. This was also the first time Aegis BMD 4.0 ships used the DWES capability with live targets. The MDA will use test results to improve and enhance the Ballistic Missile Defense System and support the advancement of Phase 2 of the Phased Adaptive Approach for missile defense in Europe to provide protection of U.S. deployed forces and our European allies and partners. FROSTY MARS Caption: Livio Tornabene, Ryan Hopkins, Kayle Hansen and Eric Pilles. This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. At this time of year, only south-facing slopes retain the frost, while the north-facing slopes have melted. Gullies are not the only active geologic process going on here. A small crater is visible at the bottom of the slope. The image was acquired on Nov. 30, 2014, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona. ARMY DELIVERS NEW TECH TO GLOBAL RESPONSE FORCE Caption Credit: Amy Walker, staff writer for PEO C3T. The Army is delivering new technologies to the Global Response Force that will help transform the concept of a command post from a stationary, tented shelter to a mobile enabler for expeditionary mission command - including during operations in flight and early entry into developing situations. UNMANNED AIRCRAFT REFUELS IN FLIGHT 50422-N-CE233-377 PATUXENT RIVER, Md. (April 22, 2015) The Navy's unmanned X-47B receives fuel from an Omega K-707 tanker while operating in the Atlantic Test Ranges over the Chesapeake Bay. This test marked the first time an unmanned aircraft refueled in flight. (U.S. Navy photo/Released). USS THEODORE ROSEVELT SUPPORTING OPERATIONS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ 150416-N-GR120-123 U.S. 5TH FLEET AREA OF OPERATIONS (April 16, 2015) - The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) are underway in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, strike operations in Iraq and Syria as directed, maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Anna Van Nuys/Released) U.S. NAVY DISPLAYS 28,000 POUNDS OF COCAINE Caption Credit: U.S. DOD. 150416-N-UL721-037 SAN DIEGO (April 16, 2015) More than 28,000 pounds of cocaine, worth over $424 million, seized in 19 separate interdictions awaits its offload aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell (WHEC 719) at Naval Base San Diego. U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy ships have seized more cocaine in the last six months than in all of fiscal year 2014. Joint, interagency, and international relationships strengthen U.S. 3rd Fleet's ability to respond to crises and protect the collective maritime interests of the U.S. and its allies and partners. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Corey T. Jones/Released) SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET CARRYING SUPPLIES FOR ISS Caption Credit: NASA. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the Dragon resupply spacecraft on the sixth commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 4:10 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, April 14. Research that will help prepare NASA astronauts and robotic explorers for future missions to Mars is among the two tons of cargo on its way to the International Space Station aboard Dragon. The mission is the company's sixth cargo delivery flight to the station through NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. Dragon's cargo will support approximately 40 of the more than 250 science and research investigations that will be performed during Expeditions 43 and 44, including numerous human research investigations for NASA astronaut Scott Kelly's one-year mission in space. Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett DOD'S LARGES SOLAR ARRAY, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the newest Air Force solar array, 19-megawat farm Nellis II, March 24, 2105, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. This is the second industrial-scale array at the base, and, once complete, the arrays will be the largest photovoltaic system in the Department of Defense. (U.S. Air Force photo) SEA ICE OFF COAST OF EAST ANTARCTICA On April 5, 2015, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of sea ice off the coast of East Antarctica’s Princess Astrid Coast. White areas close to the continent are sea ice, while white areas in the northeast corner of the image are clouds. One way to better distinguish ice from clouds is with false-color imagery. In the false-color view of the scene here, ice is blue and clouds are white. The image was acquired after Antarctic sea ice had passed its annual minimum extent (reached on Feb. 20, 2015), and had resumed expansion toward its maximum extent (usually reached in September). More information: NASA's Earth Observatory Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption: Kathryn Hansen. WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE? Caption Credit: NASA. As NASA missions explore our solar system and search for new worlds, they are finding water in surprising places. Water is but one piece of our search for habitable planets and life beyond Earth, yet it links many seemingly unrelated worlds in surprising ways. Perhaps the most surprising water worlds are the five icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn that show strong evidence of oceans beneath their surfaces: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto at Jupiter, and Enceladus and Titan at Saturn. Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope recently provided powerful evidence that Ganymede has a saltwater, sub-surface ocean, likely sandwiched between two layers of ice. In this artist’s concept, the moon Ganymede orbits the giant planet Jupiter. The Hubble Space Telescope observed aurorae on the moon generated by Ganymede’s magnetic fields. A saline ocean under the moon’s icy crust best explains shifting in the auroral belts measured by Hubble. More: The Solar System and Beyond is Awash in Water Image Credit: NASA/ESA. HEIST TESTED AT ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH CENTER Caption Credit: NASA. Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology (LEAPTech) project researchers at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center are performing ground testing of a 31-foot-span, carbon composite wing section with 18 electric motors. The LEAPTech project will test the premise that tighter propulsion-airframe integration, made possible with electric power, will deliver improved efficiency and safety, as well as environmental and economic benefits. The experimental wing, called the Hybrid-Electric Integrated Systems Testbed (HEIST), is mounted on a specially modified truck. Testing on the mobile ground rig assembly will provide valuable data and risk reduction applicable to future flight research. Instead of being installed in a wind tunnel, the HEIST wing section will remain attached to load cells on a supporting truss while the vehicle is driven at speeds up to 70 miles per hour across a dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base. LEAPTech to Demonstrate Electric Propulsion Technologies Image Credit: Joby Aviation. MINERAL VEINS ON MOUNT SHARP, MARS Caption Credit: NASA. This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp. The veins combine light and dark material. The veins at this site jut to heights of up to about 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) above the surrounding rock, and their widths range up to about 1.5 inches (4 centimeters). Figure 1 includes a 30-centimeter scale bar (about 12 inches). Mineral veins such as these form where fluids move through fractured rocks, depositing minerals in the fractures and affecting chemistry of the surrounding rock. In this case, the veins have been more resistant to erosion than the surrounding host rock. This scene is a mosaic combining 28 images taken with Mastcam's right-eye camera, which has a telephoto lens with a focal length of 100 millimeters. The component images were taken on March 18, 2015, during the 929th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. The color has been approximately white-balanced to resemble how the scene would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover. Feature: Curiosity Eyes Prominent Mineral Veins on Mars. Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-MSSS. A LOOK AT SUPER TYPHOON MAYSAK FROM ISS Caption Credit: NASA. Typhoon Maysak strengthened into a super typhoon on March 31, reaching Category 5 hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. ESA Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti captured this image while flying over the weather system on board the International Space Station. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellites, both co-managed by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, captured rainfall and cloud data that revealed heavy rainfall and high thunderstorms in the strengthening storm. The TRMM satellite has been collecting valuable scientific data since November 1997. Early on March 30, the satellite collected rainfall data as it flew directly above Maysak at 04:14 UTC (12:14 a.m. EDT) when maximum sustained winds were near 85 knots (98 mph). Rainfall data was collected by TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments and showed heaviest rainfall southwest of the center, and in fragmented bands of thunderstorms northeast of the center. In both of those places rainfall was in excess of 50 mm/2 inches per hour. More information. Image Credit-ESA-NASA-Samantha Cristoforetti. U.S. AIR FORCE THUNDERBIRDS PERFORM DEMONSTRATION AT NELLIS AFB Caption Credit: U.S. Air Force. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform their demonstration March 2, 2015, in preparation for the commander of Air Combat Command at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. The Thunderbirds perform their show several times a year at multiple locations across the U.S. The solo pilots integrate their own routines, exhibiting some of the maximum capabilities of the Air Force’s premier multi-role fighter jet. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Thomas Spangler) WAITING FOR TAKEOFF ABOARD USS BOHNOMME RICHARD Caption Credit: U.S. Navy. EAST CHINA SEA (March 24, 2015) A Naval Aircrewman awaits takeoff on an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 25 aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6). Bonhomme Richard is the lead ship of the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and, along with the embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (31st MEU), is underway in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kevin V. Cunningham (Released) 150324-N-UF697-009. SOYUZ TMA-16M SPACECRAFT ROLLS OUT The Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft is seen after having rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in the Soyuz at 3:42 p.m. EDT, Friday, March 27 (March 28, Kazakh time). As the one-year crew, Kelly and Kornienko will return to Earth on the Soyuz TMA-18M in March 2016. Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months. By doubling the length of this mission, researchers hope to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. This knowledge is critical as NASA looks toward human journeys deeper into the solar system, including to and from Mars, which could last 500 days or longer. More: A Year in Space Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. CYCLONE EDILSON THREATENS RODRIGUES ISLAND AND MAURITIUS Right: NASA's Aqua satellite captured this infrared image of Tropical Cyclone Edilson on Feb. 5 at 09:47 UTC showing strong thunderst... CONTINENTAL CARBON COMPANY AGREES TO INSTALL POLLUTION CONTROL TECHNOLOGY FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT Monday, March 23, 2015 Settlement with Continental Carbon Company to Reduce Air Pollution at Manufacturing ... FDIC CITES RURAL DEPOPULATION IMPLICATIONS ON RURAL COMMUNITY BANKS FROM: FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today published an article in its FDIC Quar... AMERICAN POWER GANG LEADERS CONVICTED IN RACKETEERING CONSPIRACY FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT Thursday, April 17, 2014 Armenian Power Gang Leaders Convicted for Their Role in Racketeering Conspiracy... FTC SAYS CONSUMERS LOST MILLIONS FROM HOME BUSINESS SCAM FROM: FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION FTC Halts Multi-Million Dollar Work-From-Home Business Coaching Scheme Consumers Lost Thousands of Dolla... U.S. SAILORS RESCUE FIVE STRANDED FILIPINO NATIONALS Caption Credit: U.S. Navy. 150325-N-SX614-109 PHILIPPINE SEA (March 25, 2015) Sailors attached to the U.S. 7th Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) rescue five stranded Filipino nationals. Blue Ridge is currently on patrol strengthening and fostering relationships within the Indo-Asian Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Cody R. Babin/Released) TRAINING CONTINUES FOR IRAQI TROOPS Iraqi army soldiers across a street while scanning for threats during close-quarters battle training on Camp Taji, Iraq, March 12, 2015. Iraqi soldiers are training with U.S. soldiers for deployment to northern Iraq. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman James Richardson OPPORTUNITY'S VIEW OF MARATHON VALLEY This view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows part of "Marathon Valley," a destination on the western rim of Endeavour Crater, as seen from an overlook north of the valley. The scene spans from east, at left, to southeast. It combines four pointings of the rover's panoramic camera (Pancam) on March 13, 2015, during the 3,958th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars. The rover team selected Marathon Valley as a science destination because observations of this location using the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter yielded evidence of clay minerals, a clue to ancient wet environments. By the time Opportunity explores Marathon Valley, the rover will have exceeded a total driving distance equivalent to an Olympic marathon. Opportunity has been exploring the Meridiani Planum region of Mars since January 2004. This version of the image is presented in approximate true color by combining exposures taken through three of the Pancam's color filters at each of the four camera pointings, using filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ. MAGNETOSPHERIC MULTISCALE SPACECRAFT LAUNCH Caption Credit: NASA. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft onboard launches from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41, Thursday, March 12, 2015, Florida. NASA’s MMS mission studies the mystery of how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect, explosively releasing energy via a process known as magnetic reconnection. MMS consists of four identical spacecraft that work together to provide the first three-dimensional view of this fundamental process, which occurs throughout the universe. Photo Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani. RETURN OF SOYUZ TMA-14M SPACECRAFT The Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft is seen as it lands with International Space Station Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore of NASA, Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova of Roscosmos near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. The landing took place on the evening of Wednesday, March 11 in the U.S, and early in the morning on Thursday, March 12, in Kazakhstan. The three crew members returned to Earth after a 167-day mission on the orbital outpost that included hundreds of scientific experiments and several spacewalks to prepare the orbiting laboratory for future arrivals by U.S. commercial crew spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. GIVING ORION A LIFT Caption Credit: NASA. Engineers across the country have been busy taking a closer look at NASA's Orion spacecraft and the data it produced during its successful flight test in December 2014. Inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Orion was lifted using a special crane for removal of its heat shield on Feb. 13, 2015. In the background, technicians move the heat shield on a work stand. The spacecraft’s heat shield protected Orion as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere at searing temperatures. Removing the back shell allows the team to get a closer look at Orion’s systems to see how they fared during the trip to space. The heat shield was removed in preparation for shipment to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where special equipment will be used to remove its ablative material. From there, the heat shield will be shipped to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where it will be outfitted on a test article for water impact testing. Meanwhile, NASA and Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for Orion, continue to take a look at the data the flight test produced to validate pre-flight models and improve the spacecraft’s design. Analysis of data obtained during its two-orbit, four-and-a-half hour mission Dec. 5 will provide engineers detailed information on how the spacecraft fared. Photo Credit-NASA-Jim Grossmann. U.S. AIR FORCE THUNDERBIRD'S DEMONSTRATE FLYING SKILLS U.S. DOD Caption: U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds air demonstration jets pass during a practice show on Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nov. 7, 2014. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez DAWN ARIVES TO DWARF PLANET CERES Caption Credit: NASA. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has become the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet. The spacecraft was approximately 38,000 miles (61,000) kilometers from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet’s gravity at about 4:39 a.m. PST (7:39 a.m. EST) Friday, March 6. This image of Ceres was taken by the Dawn spacecraft on March 1, just a few days before the mission achieved orbit around the previously unexplored world. The image shows Ceres as a crescent, mostly in shadow because the spacecraft's trajectory put it on a side of Ceres that faces away from the sun until mid-April. When Dawn emerges from Ceres' dark side, it will deliver ever-sharper images as it spirals to lower orbits around the planet. The image was obtained at a distance of about 30,000 miles (about 48,000 kilometers) at a sun-Ceres-spacecraft angle, or phase angle, of 123 degrees. Image scale on Ceres is 1.9 miles (2.9 kilometers) per pixel. Ceres has an average diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers). Dawn's mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, 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. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA THUNDERBIRDS PERFORM FLYOVER AT SUPERBOWL XLIX Caption Credit: U.S. Defense department. Thunderbirds pilots approach the University of Phoenix Stadium to perform a flyover during opening ceremonies of the Super Bowl XLIX game in Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez. COMET C/2014 Q2 KNOWN AS LOVEJOY Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) is one of more than 32 comets imaged by NASA's NEOWISE mission from December 2013 to December 2014. This image of comet Lovejoy combines a series of observations made in November 2013, when comet Lovejoy was 1.7 astronomical units from the sun. (An astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun.) The image spans half of one degree. It shows the comet moving in a mostly west and slightly south direction. (North is 26 degrees to the right of up in the image, and west is 26 degrees downward from directly right.) The red color is caused by the strong signal in the NEOWISE 4.6-micron wavelength detector, owing to a combination of gas and dust in the comet's coma. Comet Lovejoy is the brightest comet in Earth's sky in early 2015. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. USS CARL VINSON SUPPORTS STRIKES IN IRAQ, SYRIA Caption Credit: U.S. NAVY. 150304-N-FT110-061 ARABIAN GULF (March 4, 2015) Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) prepare for flight operations. Carl Vinson is deployed to the area supporting maritime security operations, strike operations in Iraq and Syria as directed, and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman D'Andre L. Roden/Released). ISS VIEW OF THE ISLAND OF HAWAII Caption Credit: NASA. From the International Space Station, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) took this photograph of the island of Hawaii and posted it to social media on Feb. 28, 2015. Cristoforetti wrote, "And suddenly as we flew over the Pacific... the island of #Hawaii with its volcanoes! #HelloEarth".Crewmembers on the space station photograph the Earth from their unique point of view located 200 miles above the surface as part of the Crew Earth Observations program. Photographs record how the planet is changing over time, from human-caused changes like urban growth and reservoir construction, to natural dynamic events such as hurricanes, floods and volcanic eruptions. Astronauts have used hand-held cameras to photograph the Earth for more than 40 years, beginning with the Mercury missions in the early 1960s. The ISS maintains an altitude between 220 - 286 miles (354 - 460 km) above the Earth, and an orbital inclination of 51.6˚, providing an excellent stage for observing most populated areas of the world. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Samantha Cristoforetti. GETTING READY FOR VISITORS IN SPACE Caption Credit: NASA. NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore works outside the International Space Station on the first of three spacewalks preparing the station for future arrivals by U.S. commercial crew spacecraft, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015. Fellow spacewalker Terry Virts, seen reflected in the visor, shared this photograph on social media. The spacewalks are designed to lay cables along the forward end of the U.S. segment to bring power and communication to two International Docking Adapters slated to arrive later this year. The new docking ports will welcome U.S. commercial spacecraft launching from Florida beginning in 2017, permitting the standard station crew size to grow from six to seven and potentially double the amount of crew time devoted to research. The second and third spacewalks are planned for Wednesday, Feb. 25 and Sunday, March 1, with Wilmore and Virts participating in all three. Image Credit: NASA. "LIVE LONG AND PROSPER" Caption Credit: NASAInternational Space Station astronaut Terry Virts (@AstroTerry) tweeted this image of a Vulcan hand salute from orbit as a tribute to actor Leonard Nimoy, who died on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015. Nimoy played science officer Mr. Spock in the Star Trek series that served as an inspiration to generations of scientists, engineers and sci-fi fans around the world. Cape Cod and Boston, Massachusetts, Nimoy's home town, are visible through the station window. SMAP LAUNCHES INTO SPACE Caption Credit: NASA. A United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket with the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory onboard is seen in this long exposure photograph as it launches from Space Launch Complex 2, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. SMAP is NASA’s first Earth-observing satellite designed to collect global observations of surface soil moisture and its freeze/thaw state. SMAP will provide high resolution global measurements of soil moisture from space. The data will be used to enhance scientists' understanding of the processes that link Earth's water, energy, and carbon cycles. )Photo Credit-NASA-Bill Ingalls. 2015: THE YEAR OF LIGHT The year of 2015 has been declared the International Year of Light (IYL) by the United Nations. Organizations, institutions, and individuals involved in the science and applications of light will be joining together for this yearlong celebration to help spread the word about the wonders of light. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory explores the universe in X-rays, a high-energy form of light. By studying X-ray data and comparing them with observations in other types of light, scientists can develop a better understanding of objects likes stars and galaxies that generate temperatures of millions of degrees and produce X-rays. To recognize the start of IYL, the Chandra X-ray Center is releasing a set of images that combine data from telescopes tuned to different wavelengths of light. From a distant galaxy to the relatively nearby debris field of an exploded star, these images demonstrate the myriad ways that information about the universe is communicated to us through light. In this image, an expanding shell of debris called SNR 0519-69.0 is left behind after a massive star exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. Multimillion degree gas is seen in X-rays from Chandra, in blue. The outer edge of the explosion (red) and stars in the field of view are seen in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope. Chandra Celebrates the International Year of Light. Image Credit: NASA-CXC-SAO. NASA SENDS SOUNDING ROCKETS INTO AUROAS The interaction of solar winds and Earth’s atmosphere produces northern lights, or auroras, that dance across the night sky and mesmerize the casual observer. However, to scientists this interaction is more than a light display. It produces many questions about the role it plays in Earth’s meteorological processes and the impact on the planet’s atmosphere. To help answer some of these questions, NASA suborbital sounding rockets carrying university-developed experiments -- the Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiment (M-TeX) and Mesospheric Inversion-layer Stratified Turbulence (MIST) -- were launched into auroras from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. The experiments explore the Earth’s atmosphere’s response to auroral, radiation belt and solar energetic particles and associated effects on nitric oxide and ozone. This composite shot of all four sounding rockets for the M-TeX and MIST experiments is made up of 30 second exposures. The rocket salvo began at 4:13 a.m. EST, Jan. 26, 2015. A fifth rocket carrying the Auroral Spatial Structures Probe remains ready on the launch pad. The launch window for this experiment runs through Jan. 27. Image Credit: NASA-Jamie Adkin. THE FIRST BIG SOLAR FLARE OF 2015 The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 11:24 p.m. EST on Jan. 12, 2015. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. Image Credit-NASA-SDO. AIR FORCE BUILDS AN ICE BRIDGE IN ALASKA Caption Credit: U.S. DOD. Senior Airman Jerry Mitchell uses a water pump Nov. 20, 2014, while constructing an ice bridge in Fairbanks, Alaska. The bridge must be constructed every other year to provide access to the $20 million range complex used to train pilots from around the world during Red Flag-Alaska exercises. Mitchell is a heavy equipment operator with the 354th Civil Engineer Squadron on Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. (U.S. Air Force photo-Staff Sgt. Shawn Nickel) VETERAN'S PERSONAL STORY OF POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER $60 MILLION AVAILABLE IN 2012 PROMISE NEIGHBORHOODS COMPETION JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRESIDENT HOLLANDE OF FRANCE CFTC CHARGES TWO COMPANIES WITH MANIPULATION OF WHEAT FUTURES AND CASH WHEAT PRICES COURT ENTERS PERMANENT INJUNCTION AGAINST DAIRY FIRMS, INDIVIDUALS TO PREVENT DISTRIBUTION OF FOODS THAT CONTAIN EXCESSIVE DRUG RESIDUE EPA BANNING POPULAR RODENT CONTROL PRODUCTS REMARKS: SECRETARY KERRY AND PRESIDENT ABDEL AZIZ OF MAURITANIA POSSIBILITIES: U.S.-AUSTRALIA CONFERENCE K2: PROFILE OF A PLANET HUNTER Caption Credit: NASA. The artistic impression shows NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2. In May the spacecraft began its new mission observing in the ecliptic plane, the orbital path of Earth around the sun, depicted by the grey-blue line marked by opaque cross-like shapes. Each shape represents the field-of-view of an observing campaign. The K2 mission observes a specific portion of the distant sky for approximately 80 days, until it is necessary to rotate the spacecraft to prevent sunlight from entering the telescope. The spacecraft orbits the sun every 372 days as it trails Earth, allowing for four full campaigns per orbit or year. The arching band of stars is the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. Using publicly available data collected by the spacecraft in February 2014 during the performance concept test to prove K2 would work, astronomers have confirmed the first exoplanet detected by the K2 mission. The newly confirmed planet, HIP 116454b, is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth, and closely orbits a star smaller and cooler than our sun once every nine days, making the planet too hot for life as we know it. The star and planet are 180 light-years from Earth toward the constellation Pisces. In May 2013, data collection for Kepler's extended prime mission came to an end when the second of four reaction wheels used to stabilize the spacecraft failed. Without at least three functioning reaction wheels, Kepler couldn’t be pointed at the original field with sufficient stability to precisely measure the dimming of starlight caused by a planet when it passes or transits in front of a distant star. Rather than giving up on the stalwart spacecraft, a team of scientists and engineers crafted a resourceful strategy to use pressure from sunlight as a virtual reaction wheel to help control the spacecraft while observing the sky in the ecliptic plane. The resulting K2 mission promises to not only continue Kepler’s planet hunt, but to expand that search to bright nearby stars which harbor planets that allow scientists to study them in detail to better understand their composition. K2 will also introduce new opportunities to observe star clusters, active galaxies, and supernovae. Link to full NASA press release: NASA’s Kepler Reborn, Makes First Exoplanet Find of New Mission Credit: NASA Ames-JPL-Caltech-T Pyle. MARS ROVER VISITS THE LAKE Caption Credit: NASA. This evenly layered rock photographed by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows a pattern typical of a lake-floor sedimentary deposit not far from where flowing water entered a lake. The scene combines multiple frames taken with Mastcam's right-eye camera on Aug. 7, 2014, during the 712th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. It shows an outcrop at the edge of "Hidden Valley," seen from the valley floor. This view spans about 5 feet (1.5 meters) across in the foreground. The color has been approximately white-balanced to resemble how the scene would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. Figure A is a version with a superimposed scale bar of 50 centimeters (about 20 inches). This is an example of a thick-laminated, evenly-stratified rock type that forms stratigraphically beneath cross-bedded sandstones regarded as ancient river deposits. These rocks are interpreted to record sedimentation in a lake, as part of or in front of a delta, where plumes of river sediment settled out of the water column and onto the lake floor. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's Mastcam. Related: NASA’s Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS THE END OF THE MISSION IN AFGHAISTAN Caption Credit: U.S. DOD. A U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter lands while coalition troops prepare for the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command and U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps end-of-mission ceremony on North Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan, Dec. 8, 2014. The command's five-year mission was to neutralize the insurgency in specified areas and support improved governance and development, in order to protect the Afghan people and provide a secure environment for sustainable peace. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Perry Aston NASA DEVELOPING TECH TO IMPROVE FUEL EFFICIENCY, NOISE POLUTION Caption Credit: NASA. NASA's green aviation project is one step closer to developing technology that could make future airliners quieter and more fuel-efficient with the successful flight test of a wing surface that can change shape in flight. This past summer, researchers replaced an airplane’s conventional aluminum flaps with advanced, shape-changing assemblies that form seamless bendable and twistable surfaces. Flight testing will determine whether flexible trailing-edge wing flaps are a viable approach to improve aerodynamic efficiency and reduce noise generated during takeoffs and landings. For the initial Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) flight, shown in this image, the experimental control surfaces were locked at a specified setting. Varied flap settings on subsequent tests will demonstrate the capability of the flexible surfaces under actual flight conditions. ACTE technology is expected to have far-reaching effects on future aviation. Advanced lightweight materials will reduce wing structural weight and give engineers the ability to aerodynamically tailor the wings to promote improved fuel economy and more efficient operations, while reducing environmental impacts. NASA Tests Revolutionary Shape Changing Aircraft Flap for the First Time Image Credit: NASA/Ken Ulbrich. ORION PASSES SPACEPORT VEHICLE ASSEMBLY BUILDING Caption Credit: NASA. At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency's Orion spacecraft passes the spaceport's iconic Vehicle Assembly Building as it is transported to Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014. After arrival at the launch pad, United Launch Alliance engineers and technicians will lift Orion and mount it atop its Delta IV Heavy rocket. Orion began its journey to the launch pad at at the Launch Abort System Facility, where a 52-foot-tall protective fairing and the launch abort system were attached to the 10-foot, 11-inch-tall crew module. Resting atop a specialized Kamag transporter, Orion was moved to Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The move began at 8:54 p.m. EST and concluded at 3:07 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 12. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion is scheduled to launch Dec. 4, 2014 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket in its first unpiloted flight test, and in 2018 on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett. U.S. AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND WILL ADD 1,000 NEW PEOPLE U.S. AND VIETNAMESE COOPERATE TO RESTORE CLINIC VICTIMS OF TERRORISM AND THE GLOBAL COUNTER-TERRORISM FORUM SEC. OF STATE CLINTON'S REMARKS AT APEC WOMEN AND ECONOMY FORUM NASA'S FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM SELECTS 24 SPACE TECHNOLOGY PAYLOADS FOR FLIGHTS US Navy Videos SECNAV Discusses Great Green Fleet A-10 FIRST PLANE THAT FLIES USING ALCOHOL BASED FUEL NuSTAR FINDS ENERGETIC PULSAR Image and caption credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAO. The blue dot in this image marks the spot of an energetic pulsar -- the magnetic, spinning core of star that blew up in a supernova explosion. NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, discovered the pulsar by identifying its telltale pulse -- a rotating beam of X-rays, that like a cosmic lighthouse, intersects Earth every 0.2 seconds. The pulsar, called PSR J1640-4631, lies in our inner Milky Way galaxy about 42,000 light-years away. It was originally identified by as an intense source of gamma rays by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in Namibia. NuSTAR helped pin down the source of the gamma rays to a pulsar. The other pink dots in this picture show low-energy X-rays detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. In this image, NuSTAR data is blue and shows high-energy X-rays with 3 to 79 kiloelectron volts; Chandra data is pink and shows X-rays with 0.5 to 10 kiloeletron volts. The background image shows infrared light and was captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. ULTRA VIOLET EXTREME NASA Caption: The sun emitted a significant solar flare on Oct. 19, 2014, peaking at 1:01 a.m. EDT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is always observing the sun, captured this image of the event in extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 131 Angstroms – a wavelength that can see the intense heat of a flare and that is typically colorized in teal. This flare is classified as an X1.1-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 flare is twice as intense as an X1, and an X3 is three times as intense. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. > More: NASA's SDO Observes an X-class Solar Flare. Image Credit-NASA-Solar Dynamics Observatory. GLACIERS AND MOUNTAINS OF WEST ANTARTICA Caption Credit: NASA. Glaciers and mountains in the evening sun are seen on an Operation IceBridge research flight, returning from West Antarctica on Oct. 29, 2014. NASA is carrying out its sixth consecutive year of Operation IceBridge research flights over Antarctica to study changes in the continent’s ice sheet, glaciers and sea ice. This year’s airborne campaign revisits a section of the Antarctic ice sheet that recently was found to be in irreversible decline. IceBridge uses a suite of instruments that includes a laser altimeter, radar instruments, cameras, and a gravimeter, which is an instrument that detects small changes in gravity. These small changes reveal how much mass these glaciers have lost. Researchers plan to measure previously unsurveyed regions of Antarctica, such as the upper portions of Smith Glacier in West Antarctica, which is thinning faster than any other glaciers in the region. The mission also plans to collect data in portions of the Antarctic Peninsula, such as the Larsen C, George VI and Wilkins ice shelves and the glaciers that drain into them. The Antarctic Peninsula has been warming faster than the rest of the continent. In addition to extending the data record of NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which stopped collecting data in 2009, IceBridge will also help set the stage for ICESat-2 by measuring ice the satellite will fly over. > Operation IceBridge Antarctic 2014 Campaign Image Credit: NASA/Michael Studinger. ANTARES ROCKET EXPLODES DURING LAUNCH Attention: Antares rocket explodes on liftoff Monday, Oct. 27. NASA Caption: Orbital Antares Rocket at the Launch Pad: The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, is seen on launch Pad-0A, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Antares will launch with the Cygnus spacecraft filled with over 5,000 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station, including science experiments, experiment hardware, spare parts, and crew provisions. The Orbital-3 mission is Orbital Sciences' third contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Launch is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 27 at 6:45 p.m. EDT. Image Credit-NASA-Joel Kowsky. THE ULTIMATE IN SUNBLOCK A partial solar eclipse was visible from much of North America before sundown on Thursday, Oct.23. A partial eclipse occurs when the moon blocks a portion of the Sun from view. The Hinode spacecraft captured images of yesterday’s eclipse as it passed over North America using its X-ray Telescope. During the eclipse, the new moon eased across the Sun from right to left with the Sun shining brilliantly in the background. And as a stroke of good luck, this solar cycle’s largest active region, which has been the source of several large flares over the past week, was centered on the Sun’s disk as the moon transitted! Hinode is in the eighth year of its mission to observe the Sun. Previously, Hinode has observed numerous eclipses due to its high-altitude, sun-synchronous orbit. As viewed from Hinode’s vantage point in space, this eclipse was annular instead of partial, which means that the entire moon moved in front of the Sun but did not cover it completely. In this situation, a ring of the Sun encircles the dark disk of the moon. Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Hinode mission is a collaboration between the space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. NASA helped in the development, funding and assembly of the spacecraft's three science instruments. Hinode is part of the Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program within the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Hinode science operations. The Lockheed Martin Corp. in Palo Alto, Calif., is the lead U.S. investigator for the Solar Optical Telescope. Image Credit: NASA F-22 RAPTOR REFUELS BEFORE STRIKE OPERATIONS IN SYRIA Caption Credit: U.S. Defense Department. An U.S Air Force KC-10 Extender refuels an F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft before strike operations in Syria, Sept. 26, 2014. These aircraft were part of a strike package engaging targets against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Russ Scalf. A STAR-SPANGLED BANNER BIRTHDAY BASH DOD caption: Crew members from Coast Guard Station Curtis Bay, Md., provide security during the Star-Spangled Spectacular fireworks display in Baltimore, Sept. 13, 2014. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew S. Masaschi. SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION IN X-RAY LIGHT Caption Credit: NASA. The destructive results of a powerful supernova explosion reveal themselves in a delicate tapestry of X-ray light, as seen in this image from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton. The image shows the remains of a supernova that would have been witnessed on Earth about 3,700 years ago. The remnant is called Puppis A, and is around 7,000 light years away and about 10 light years across. This image provides the most complete and detailed X-ray view of Puppis A ever obtained, made by combining a mosaic of different Chandra and XMM-Newton observations. Low-energy X-rays are shown in red, medium-energy X-rays are in green and high energy X-rays are colored blue. These observations act as a probe of the gas surrounding Puppis A, known as the interstellar medium. The complex appearance of the remnant shows that Puppis A is expanding into an interstellar medium that probably has a knotty structure. Supernova explosions forge the heavy elements that can provide the raw material from which future generations of stars and planets will form. Studying how supernova remnants expand into the galaxy and interact with other material provides critical clues into our own origins. A paper describing these results was published in the July 2013 issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online. The first author is Gloria Dubner from the Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio in Buenos Aires in Argentina. Image credit: NASA/CXC/IAFE/G.Dubner et al & ESA/XMM-Newton. ORBITING CARBON OBSERVATORY-2 IS ABOARD DELTA II ROCKET Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) Aboard Delta II Rocket. The launch gantry is rolled back to reveal the United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite onboard, at the Space Launch Complex 2, Monday, June 30, 2014, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. OCO-2 will measure the global distribution of carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth’s climate. Launch of OCO-2 is now scheduled for Wednesday, July 2 at 5:56 a.m. EDT (2:56 a.m. Pacific) at the opening of a 30-second window. Image Credit-NASA-Bill Ingalls. Caption Credit-NASA. TROPICAL STORM KARINA FOLLOWED BY TROPICAL DEPRESSION Caption Credit: NASA. On August 18, NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an image of tiny Tropical Storm Karina followed to the east by the massive Tropical Depression12-E. Image Credit: On August 18, NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an image of tiny Tropical Storm Karina followed to the east by the massive Tropical Depression12-E. TEST VERSION OF ORION SPACECRAFT FLOATS Caption Credit: NASA. A test version of NASA's Orion spacecraft floats inside the well deck of the U.S.S. Anchorage on Aug. 2, 2014, during recovery tests off the coast of California. A combined NASA and U.S. Navy team practiced recovery techniques over the weekend, in preparation for Orion's first trip to (and return from) space in Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) in December. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. After traveling 3,600 miles into space on the uncrewed EFT-1, Orion will return to Earth at a speed of 20,000 miles per hour and endure temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit before landing in the Pacific Ocean. > NASA Prepares for Second Orion Underway Recovery Test Image Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Gary Keen MAN'S FIRST MOON LANDING CAPTION AND IMAGE CREDIT: NASA. The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle, in a landing configuration was photographed in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Module Columbia. Inside the module were Commander Neil A. Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin. The long rod-like protrusions under the landing pods are lunar surface sensing probes. Upon contact with the lunar surface, the probes sent a signal to the crew to shut down the descent engine. PROTOTYPE ROBOT WITH SMARTPHONE TO TEST3-D MAPPING, NAVIGATION Image and Story Credit: NASA/Ames. Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus spacecraft will carry 3,293 pounds (1,493.8 kg) of cargo on its upcoming commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station, including crew supplies, nanosatellites, student research and this prototype free-flying space robot equipped with a smartphone, known as Smart SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites). NASA has been testing SPHERES on the space station since 2011. This summer, astronauts will upgrade these existing space robots to use Google’s "Project Tango" smartphone, which features a custom 3-D sensor and multiple cameras. NASA will then use the Smart SPHERES to test free-flying 3-D mapping and navigation inside the space station. NASA is developing the Smart SPHERES to perform work on the space station that requires mobile sensing, such as environmental surveys to monitor levels of radiation, lighting and air quality. They also will be used to monitor inventory and conduct experiments. The development and testing of Smart SPHERES is funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA'S NEW POWERFUL ROCKET NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, will be the most powerful rocket in history. The flexible, evolvable design of this advanced, heavy-lift launch vehicle will meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs. In addition to carrying the Orion spacecraft, SLS will transfer important cargo, equipment and science experiments to deep space, providing the nation with a safe, affordable and sustainable means to expand our reach in the solar system. It will allow astronauts aboard Orion to explore multiple deep-space destinations including an asteroid and ultimately Mars. The first configuration of the SLS launch vehicle will have a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit to test the performance of the integrated system. As the SLS is evolved, it will be the most powerful rocket ever built and provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons) to enable missions even farther into our solar system. Image Credit: NASA. THE MAIDEN FLIGHT OF THE UNMANNED BAT Caption Credit: U.S. Navy. 40606-N-IQ177-002 STRAITS OF FLORIDA (June 06, 2014) During an experimentation conducted by U.S. Fourth Fleet and Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), the BAT Unmanned Aircraft System flies over the Joint High Speed Vessel USNS Spearhead (JHSV 1) during its maiden flight off of a U.S. Navy vessel. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jessica Crownover/Released). FIRES BURN AT MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON U.S. Marines Corps helicopter crews help fight the Tomahawk wildfires burning across Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., May 16, 2014. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Keonaona C. Paulo. THE GRANDEST CANYON IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars: Explanation: The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep. By comparison, the Earth's Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA is 800 kilometers long, 30 kilometers across, and 1.8 kilometers deep. The origin of the Valles Marineris remains unknown, although a leading hypothesis holds that it started as a crack billions of years ago as the planet cooled. Several geologic processes have been identified in the canyon. The above mosaic was created from over 100 images of Mars taken by Viking Orbiters in the 1970s. Image and story credit: Viking Project, USGS, NASA. A LOOK AT THE DUNES OF MARS Nili Patera is one of the most active dune fields on Mars. As such, it is continuously monitored with the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, a science instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with a new image acquired about every six weeks. By monitoring the sand dune changes, we can determine how winds vary seasonally and year-to-year. This observation is one of the more recent Nili images, acquired on March 1, 2014. Compared to an image acquired on Nov. 22, 2012, changes are obvious. The ripples on the dunes have moved, as well some of the dune boundaries, such as the one at upper left. New landslides on the central dune's lee face are apparent. Such changes, in just 16 months (and finer scale changes have been seen in just a couple of weeks), demonstrate the effectiveness of wind in modifying the Martian landscape. HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. > More information and image products Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-Univ. of Arizona Caption: Nathan Bridges. ROBONAUT 2 GETS HIS SPACE LEGS NASA has built and is sending a set of high-tech legs up to the International Space Station for Robonaut 2 (R2), the station's robotic crewmember. The new legs are scheduled to launch on the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo flight to the International Space Station, scheduled launch Monday, April 14 at 4:58 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. These new legs, funded by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations and Space Technology mission directorates, will provide R2 the mobility it needs to help with regular and repetitive tasks inside and outside the space station. The goal is to free up the crew for more critical work, including scientific research. Once the legs are attached to the R2 torso, the robot will have a fully extended leg span of nine feet, giving it great flexibility for movement around the space station. Each leg has seven joints and a device on what would be the foot, called an "end effector," which allows the robot to take advantage of handrails and sockets inside and outside the station. A vision system for the end effectors also will be used to verify and eventually automate each limb's approach and grasp. Image Credit: NASA. THE BLUE ANGELS 2014 AIR SHOW SEASON BEGINS MARCH 15 EL CENTRO, Calif. (March 6, 2014) U.S. Navy flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, diamond pilots practice the Diamond 360 maneuver during a practice demonstration at Naval Air Facility (NAF) El Centro, Calif. The Blue Angels are conducting winter training where the pilots must complete 120 practice flights before kicking off the 2014 air show season at NAF El Centro, March 15. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Eric J. Rowley/Released). 140306-N-LD780-109. BIG FLARE BUT NO REAL SCARE On Feb. 24, 2014, the sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 7:49 p.m. EST. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which keeps a constant watch on the sun, captured images of the event. These SDO images from 7:25 p.m. EST on Feb. 24 show the first moments of this X-class flare in different wavelengths of light -- seen as the bright spot that appears on the left limb of the sun. Hot solar material can be seen hovering above the active region in the sun's atmosphere, the corona. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, appearing as giant flashes of light in the SDO images. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. Image Credit: NASA/SDO. GALAXY SHOCK FROM NASA: Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in this newly released image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. In this case, the speedster star is known as Kappa Cassiopeiae, or HD 2905 to astronomers. It is a massive, hot supergiant moving at around 2.5 million mph relative to its neighbors (1,100 kilometers per second). But what really makes the star stand out in this image is the surrounding, streaky red glow of material in its path. Such structures are called bow shocks, and they can often be seen in front of the fastest, most massive stars in the galaxy. Bow shocks form where the magnetic fields and wind of particles flowing off a star collide with the diffuse, and usually invisible, gas and dust that fill the space between stars. How these shocks light up tells astronomers about the conditions around the star and in space. Slow-moving stars like our sun have bow shocks that are nearly invisible at all wavelengths of light, but fast stars like Kappa Cassiopeiae create shocks that can be seen by Spitzer’s infrared detectors. Image Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech THE FIRST FLAG ON THE MOON Photo taken by Neil Arstrong of Buzz Aldrin with U.S. flag on the Moon. (mission time: 110:10:33) Buzz salutes the U.S. Flag. His fingertips are visible on the far side of his faceplate. Note the well-defined footprints in the foreground. Buzz is facing up-Sun. There is a reflection of the Sun in his visor. At the bottom of Buzz's faceplate, note the white 'rim' which is slightly separated from his neckring. This 'rim' is the bottom of his gold visor, which he has pulled down. We can see the LEC straps hanging down inside of the ladder strut. In the foreground, we can see the foot-grabbing loops in the TV cable. The double crater under Neil's Lm window is beyond Buzz and the LM shadow JAPANESE H-IIA ROCKET LAUNCHES FROM TANEGASHIMA SPACE CENTER A Japanese H-IIA rocket with the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard, is seen launching from the Tanegashima Space Center on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014 (Japan Time), in Tanegashima, Japan. The GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours. Image Credit-NASA-Bill Ingalls. U.S. COAST GUARD BREAKING THE ICE An aerial view shows the Coast Guard Cutter Sturgeon Bay breaking ice on the Hudson River, N.Y., Jan. 16, 2014. The Coast Guard conducts flights over the Hudson River to provide daily updates of ice conditions on waterways, including areas known as choke points where ice gathers, making river travel difficult for ships delivering petroleum products such as home heating oil. U.S. Goard Guard photo. A LOOK AT THE CRAB NEBULA This image shows a composite view of the Crab nebula, an iconic supernova remnant in our Milky Way galaxy, as viewed by the Herschel Space Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with important NASA contributions, and Hubble is a NASA mission with important ESA contributions. A wispy and filamentary cloud of gas and dust, the Crab nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion that was observed by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. The image combines Hubble's view of the nebula at visible wavelengths, obtained using three different filters sensitive to the emission from oxygen and sulphur ions and is shown here in blue. Herschel's far-infrared image reveals the emission from dust in the nebula and is shown here in red. While studying the dust content of the Crab nebula with Herschel, a team of astronomers have detected emission lines from argon hydride, a molecular ion containing the noble gas argon. This is the first detection of a noble-gas based compound in space. The Herschel image is based on data taken with the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) instrument at a wavelength of 70 microns; the Hubble image is based on archival data from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Image credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/MESS Key Programme Supernova Remnant Team; NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University). BLUE ANGELS PUT ON A SHOW OF SKILL 120519-N-MG658-330 JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (May 19, 2012) The U.S. Navy fight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, demonstrate choreographed flight skills during the annual Joint Service Open House. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Todd Frantom/Released NAVY'S FIRST RAY GUN The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) in San Diego, Calif., is a technology demonstrator built by the Naval Sea Systems Command from commercial fiber solid state lasers, utilizing combination methods developed at the Naval Research Laboratory, July 30, 2012. DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPON New Way To Control Hostile Crowds. March 14, 2012 Article. AFPS WHERE STARS COME FROM Illuminated by the light of nearby stars, the nebula M-78 exhibits a ghostly appearance in this 10-minute exposure taken with a 6" refractor at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. Located in the constellation of Orion -- some1,600 light years from Earth -- this reflection nebula is known to contain more than 40 very young stars still in the process of formation. Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/MEO/Bill Cooke FUTURE FLIGHT Aeronautics: New Ideas for Greener Aircraft We are accelerating the nation’s transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and making commercial aviation safer, more fuel efficient, quieter, and more environmentally friendly through investments in revolutionary concepts for air vehicles and air traffic management. Three industry teams spent 2011 studying how to meet NASA's goals for making future aircraft burn 50 percent less fuel than aircraft that entered service in 1998, emit 75 percent fewer harmful emissions; and shrink the size of geographic areas affected by objectionable airport noise by 83 percent. Image Credit: NASA SOME OTHER POPULAR COLLINBRANDT PUBLICATIONS WALL STREET FRAUDSTERS B2 SPIRIT AND TWO B117A NIGHTHAWKS B-2 Spirit and two B-117A Nighthawks. Air Force photo. AIR FORCE SPACE BASED INFRARED SYSTEM PAYLOAD IS LAUNCHED An Air Force Space Based Infrared Systems GEO-1 payload is launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket May 7, 2011, from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. SBIRS is designed to provide global, overhead, persistent, infrared surveillance capability to meet 21st century demands in mission areas including missile warning, missile defense, technical intelligence and battlespace awareness. (Courtesy photo/Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance) What Is Wrong With The Sun? Something unexpected is happening on the Sun. 2013 was supposed to be the year of "solar maximum", the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent. The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years. Image Credit: NASA/SDO USS CONSTITUTION COMMERATES THE WAR OF 1812 "OLD IRONSIDES" IS STILL A COMMISSIONED WARSHIP SPACEX DRAGON LAUNCHES The Launch of SpaceX Dragon KSC-2012-2913 (22 May 2012) --- On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Space Launch Complex-40 is ablaze as the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off at 3:44 a.m. (EDT) May 22, 2012. The launch is the company's second demonstration test flight for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program. During the flight, the Dragon capsule will conduct a series of check-out procedures to test and prove its systems, including rendezvous and berthing with the International Space Station. If the capsule performs as planned, the cargo and experiments it is carrying will be transferred to the station. The cargo includes food, water and provisions for the station's Expedition crews, such as clothing, batteries and computer equipment. Under COTS, NASA has partnered with two aerospace companies to deliver cargo to the station. Photo credit: NASA USS ENTERPRISE IN 2001 011105-N-6259P-001 At sea aboard USS Enterprise (CVN 65) Nov. 5, 2001 -- Sailors aboard USS Enterprise spell out "E = MC2x40" on the carrier's flight deck to mark forty years of U.S. Naval nuclear power as ship and crew return home from a deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Douglass M. Pearlman. (RELEASED) USS ARIZONA The opening of hostilities in Europe in September 1939 spurred the rebuilding of the Navy’s battleship forces. Two years later, on Dec. 7, 1941, eight of the Navy’s battleships were sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor. Six of these were subsequently repaired and returned to service. Credit: U.S. Navy THE LAST BATTLESHIP The last battleship on active duty was USS Missouri(BB 63) decommissioned Mar. 31, 1992. In the 21st century, there are no battleships in the United States Navy. Credit: U.S. Navy This blog is dedicated to Junior Lee and Dorothy Jean (Short) Brandt APOLLO 13 CREW AND PRESIDENT NIXON Credit: NASA HOME WORLD EARTH "A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin. Suomi NPP is NASA's next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS. UNMANNED PREDATOR AIRCRAFT An MQ-1 Predator unmanned aircraft prepares for takeoff in support of operations in Southwest Asia. Air Force officials announced Eglin Air Force Base complex in Florida as a candidate for an Air Force Reserve Command MQ-1 Remote Split-Operations squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Julianne Showalter) SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY LIFTS OFF INTO A DARK SKY The Discovery space shuttle lifting off on the STS-119 mission from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The STS-119 mission is the 28th to the International Space Station and the 125th space shuttle flight. Discovery will deliver the final pair of power-generating solar array wings and the S6 truss segment SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY SITS ON LAUNCH PAD Image: Space Shuttle Discovery rests on Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center after completing the 4.2-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building. SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY LIFTS OFF Kennedy Space Centre, Florida - Space Shuttle Discovery launches at the beginning of STS-60, the first mission in the Shuttle-Mir programme, carrying the first Russian cosmonaut ever to fly aboard the US Shuttle. Credit: Brandt Leigh Collin Brandt

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Turkey Dubs EU ‘Incomplete’ without It, Hopes for Better Ties with US Live News - Middle East - News - Turkey Turkey on Monday urged the European Union to revive stalled negotiations on Ankara joining the bloc, saying without it Europe was “incomplete”. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at the opening of an ambassadors meeting, said he wanted more chapters in the accession talks to be opened “by lifting artificial obstacles to our EU membership”. A “chapter” is a specific area of negotiation, ranging on issues from human rights to economic cooperation. Cavusoglu did not specify which chapters he meant. He also said Turkey expects “visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens to be provided immediately”, a reference to EU commitments on visa-free travel for nearly 80 million Turkish citizens made in March under an EU-Ankara deal to curb migrants entering Europe. Progress on visa-free travel has been held up by EU demands — rejected outright — that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan amend Turkey’s draconian anti-terror laws to ensure they do not breach human rights. Erdogan threatened in December to cancel the migrant deal, which has dramatically reduced the numbers crossing into Europe via Greece. The accession talks stalled after a failed coup in July by a rogue Turkish military faction was followed with a crackdown that saw mass arrests of not only officers but also journalists, activists, academics and others. US-Turkey relations were strained in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, with Ankara accusing the preacher Fethullah Gulen of being the mastermind behind the putsch. But Cavusoglu said he thought relations would improve under incoming US president Donald Trump, repeating a demand for the United States to extradite Gulen and his top followers to Turkey — request that has been made repeatedly since the thwarted July 15 coup. He also called on the US to halt support for the Syrian Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey see as linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Washington considers the YPG as an ally in the fight against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group operating in Syria. “Turkey and the US have the potential to create positive effects in a wide geographical region,” Cavusoglu said. European Union Turkey United States US, Turkish Presidents Discuss Latest Developments in Syria, Libya NATO Chief Says Still at Odds with Turkey over Russia Arms Deal

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Programme and University Requirements Programme FAQ ENV Modules Scholarship & Bursary Medals and Prizes BES Student Committee BES Alumni BES Alumni committee BES Drongos University Scholars Programme (USP) You are here: Home / Alumni Stories James Chang Wen Jie, Sustainability Management Associate The environmental issues of today are complex, and advancing sustainability will require drawing on various spheres like policy, science and the humanities. As a developing sustainability professional in the natural resource sector, the complexity of environmental issues and the need to pull on various disciplines to balance various interests has become very real to me. There is definitely much to learn, but the four years in BES has equipped me well to start my journey. Notably, BES allowed me to have both breadth and depth of learning. Our core modules touched on how the environment relates various disciplines, including public health, law and communications. Specializing in Biology, I was also able to study field ecology in depth. This interdisciplinary programme structure allowed me to understand environmental issues in multiples scopes. Some projects required us to explore landscape-level issues incorporating both social and environmental considerations; my honours thesis, on the other hand, had me conduct in-depth research on a specific non-native aquatic species in our reservoirs. In this way, the interdisciplinary nature of the programme truly reflects ‘sustainability’ in the real world, where practitioners are required to understand the big picture while having the technical competencies to drive practical change. BES was great for the people-side of things as well. The small class size meant that I was able to forge many precious friendships and allowed our lecturers to interact with us on a more personal level. I will never forget our BES field studies module in Ranong, Thailand, where we spent two weeks honing our field research skills in coastal mangroves by day, then spent evenings playing on the beach. If you have a wide range of interests, or are looking for a course that can equip you to understand the broad nature of sustainability, BES is the right place for you! Tan Wen Ting, Environmental Consulting The BES programme has been truly multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary, exposing me to environmental issues from various standpoints and challenging me to join the dots and think of solutions that take into consideration all stakeholders. It has sharpened my ability to be versatile and adapt quickly to situations. These skills have been immensely useful at work. For example, during my time in NUS and BES, I was exposed to various kinds of field studies from the modules taken as well as from my Final Year Project. They ranged from the terrestrial environments to aquatic and intertidal environments. These experiences prepared me to be ready and open to the field work with the environmental consultancy firm I am in now, from the construction sites to muddy fields. I knew that I had the skills and experiences, and that I was ready for the work that was presented to me. Jessica Tay, Studying Masters overseas What I enjoyed most about the BES programme was the various field trips, especially the one to Bohol, Philippines. Being the pioneer batch, many said that we were like guinea pigs, but it was precisely for this reason that we had many opportunities to have an amazing variety of experiences in our four-year programme. When the BES programme was recruiting its first batch of students (that is, us), the office touted it as a multidisciplinary course with two main tracks: geography and biology. This was one of the biggest advantages of our programme, as I got the unique chance to meet classmates with different aspirations, goals and ideals for the environment. Under the Biology track, I developed an interest to become a field ecologist. In my final year, I knew that I was not done with being a student. There was still so much to learn! I wanted to go overseas to meet other like-minded people and to pursue my graduate studies in ecology. That is why I decided to go overseas to pursue a Master’s in Applied Ecology, as part of an ERASMUS programme. It was also my education from BES that I learnt to appreciate being around people from different academic backgrounds and interests that ultimately led me to choose to enrol in the Masters programme. Ezra Ho, Research assistant at NTU Being exposed to multiple disciplines and perspectives at BES has helped to broaden and deepen my understanding of the world. While it is unlikely an undergraduate programme can help you master multiple disciplines, it surely helps to develop interests and knowledge in fields of studies beyond that which you are comfortable in. This helps to cultivate an agile mind that is able to easily move between bodies of knowledge to gain richer perspectives. At the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), I provide research support to the Aftermath of Aid project, which investigates the long-term contribution of humanitarian aid to the reconstruction and recovery of the tsunami-affected Indonesian province of Aceh. On hindsight, my BES experience has given me a unique foundation to start from, where during my course work and thesis research, I worked with geographical, sociological, anthropological and policy literatures. This has enabled me to ease into and engage both academic and policy discussions around humanitarian interventions. Moreover, because EOS primarily conducts fundamental research on volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunami, being exposed to some biology and physical geography in the BES programme also helps me to better understand the geological mechanics of natural hazards. More importantly, my BES experience has taught me to appreciate how disparate elements of society and nature relate and interact. In short, anyone interested in working at the intersections of nature and society needs to seriously consider signing up for the BES programme. Melissa Pang, Studying Masters overseas The four years I spent in the BES programme was very interesting, to say the least. It gave me the opportunity to meet interesting and inspiring individuals, and work on a highly fulfilling thesis in my final year. It also exposed me to different facets of the environment and its issues, and widened my perspective in many ways. From a global perspective, I think it provided a great foundation in environmental studies, and a good starting point for further specialization at the postgraduate level. The BES programme provided me with a broad-based, interdisciplinary foundation in environmental studies. I, however, found it necessary to pick up and develop some hard (technical) skills. These are very useful—some might even say essential—for a career in environmental science research or environmental consultancy. That is why I enrolled in the MSc. in Environmental Engineering and Science with École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. I am currently specialising in environmental monitoring and modeling, which involves the use of geomatic/informatic tools to study the environment and tackle environmental issues. It is a sweet blend of environmental science, engineering, and computer science. Sarah Koh, NGO BES has taught me to think critically about problems in the world, why they exist, and the different scales from which to consider problems, causes, and solutions. Before BES, I have to admit how naïve I was to think that problems were just always there, and they had to be solved. It did not occur to me then to even ask the questions “Why does it even exist?” or “What is the history that led to the current situation?”. Our overseas field course in Bohol, Philippines gave my group the privilege of interviewing locals on their response to a disastrous earthquake that happened just prior to our trip. Interacting with my interviewees made me realise that the poor have a unique perspective, and I cannot consider them as passive subjects in need of help. They exercise power and demonstrate resilience in their own ways. Learning concepts of political ecology and vulnerability analysis opened my eyes to see that the poor in rural communities in Majority World (or more frequently but non-descriptively called ‘Third World’) Countries suffer disproportionately from environmental degradation because unlike the rich, they do not have the resources to shield themselves from its consequences. My cumulative experience and learning from BES was what led to my decision to spend my first year after graduation interning with an international NGO, working in the Philippines with an indigenous group that live in the hills. It has allowed me an inside look into the poor and marginalised to understand their life, and to experience their challenges and think of possible solutions from their point of view. The NEW Scholarship The Enpee Group Scholarship Bachelor of Environmental Studies Symposium on Futures Sustainability 2018 April 25, 2018 5th Asia Environment Lecture November 14, 2017 Global Link Singapore 2017 August 30, 2017 Contact ENV help BES Programme Office Block S3, Level 5 16 Science Drive 4 Copyright - envstudies

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157.129(1) (1) Allows a cemetery consisting of less than the minimum acreage specified in s. 157.128 (1) to be dedicated, as defined in s. 157.061 (4), in that city, village or town. 157.129(2) (2) Allows a person to establish and use a public mausoleum in a cemetery consisting of less than the minimum acreage specified in s. 157.12 (2) (c). 157.129 History History: 1991 a. 269; 1999 a. 150 s. 157; Stats. s. 157.129. 157.19 157.19 Deposit and investment of care funds and preneed trust funds. 157.19(1)(1) In this section, “financial institution" has the meaning given in s. 705.01 (3), but, except with respect to the deposit of preneed trust funds, also includes a broker-dealer registered under s. 551.401 (1) or exempt from registration under s. 551.401 (2). 157.19(2) (2) 157.19(2)(a)(a) Except as provided in sub. (5) and the rules promulgated under sub. (4), the cemetery authority may deposit care funds under s. 157.11 (9g), and shall deposit care funds under s. 157.12 (3) and preneed trust funds under s. 440.92, with a financial institution located in this state. The financial institution shall be the trustee of the care funds and preneed trust funds. A bank need not comply with s. 221.0316 (1) or (2) or ch. 223 to accept or disburse deposits under this section. The trustee shall invest the care funds and preneed trust funds as provided under s. 881.01, except as provided in sub. (5) and the rules promulgated under sub. (4). 157.19(2)(b) (b) The cemetery authority may not change the trustee of a care fund under s. 157.11 (9g) that is deposited under this section or of a care fund under s. 157.12 (3), and the financial institution may not release any portion of the principal amount of the care fund, without the cemetery board's written approval. 157.19(2)(c) (c) Upon request of the financial institution, the preneed seller, as defined in s. 440.90 (8), shall furnish the financial institution with a copy of the preneed sales contract. Except as provided in s. 440.92 (2) (c), (f) and (j) and (5), preneed trust funds, and any interest or dividends that have accumulated on the preneed trust funds, may not be withdrawn until all obligations under the preneed sales contract have been fulfilled. The financial institution is not responsible for the fulfillment of any part of the preneed sales contract, except that the financial institution shall release the preneed trust funds, and any interest or dividends that have accumulated on the preneed trust funds, as provided by the terms of the preneed sales contract. The trustee of a preneed trust fund may not be changed without the cemetery board's written approval. If the trustee or account number of a preneed trust fund is changed, the cemetery authority shall notify the cemetery board in writing within 30 days after the change. 157.19(2)(d) (d) The cemetery board shall promulgate rules establishing reasonable requirements and standards for the approval of changes under pars. (b) and (c). For approval of changes under par. (b), the rules shall require the cemetery authority to submit evidence that the rights and interests of the beneficiary of the care fund will be adequately protected if the change is approved. For approval of changes under par. (c), the rules shall require the trustee to submit evidence that the rights and interests of the purchaser under the preneed sales contract will be adequately protected if the change is approved. 157.19(4) (4) The cemetery board may promulgate rules allowing funds invested under this section to be deposited with a financial institution located outside this state. 157.19(5)(a)(a) This section does not apply to care funds of a cemetery for which a certification under s. 157.63 is effective, to preneed trust funds of a cemetery for which a certification under s. 440.92 (9) is effective, or to care funds or preneed trust funds of a cemetery authority that is not required to be licensed under s. 440.91 (1) or registered under s. 440.91 (1m). 157.19(5)(b) (b) If the cemetery board determines that care funds under s. 157.11 (9g) are not being properly segregated from other moneys held by the cemetery authority or that those care funds are not being properly invested as required in s. 157.11 (9g) (a), the cemetery board may require the cemetery authority to deposit those care funds with a financial institution for investment under this section. 157.19(6) (6) Nothing in this section prevents a cemetery authority from combining its care funds and preneed trust funds for investment under this section if the cemetery authority maintains separate accountings for each fund. 157.19(7) (7) Except as provided in sub. (5) (a), this section applies to every care fund and every preneed trust fund of a cemetery authority, regardless of when the care fund or preneed trust fund was established. 157.19 History History: 1989 a. 307; 1991 a. 74, 269; 1995 a. 336; 2005 a. 25; 2007 a. 174; 2015 a. 110, 237. 157.19 Cross-reference Cross-reference: See also ch. CB 4, Wis. adm. code. 157.50 157.50 Municipal cemeteries. 157.50(1)(1) Municipalities may acquire by gift, purchase or condemnation land for cemeteries within or without their boundaries. In the case of towns acquisition and price must be authorized by the town meeting. 157.50(2) (2) The governing body of every municipality acquiring a cemetery shall by ordinance determine the system of management and operation. Any municipality may proceed under s. 157.07, 157.08 or 157.11 (7), or otherwise as provided by ordinance. 157.50(3) (3) Upon organization of a cemetery association to take over a municipal cemetery, the municipality may convey real property and all funds and other personal property to the association. In towns the conveyance must be authorized by the town meeting. 157.50(4) (4) When a town cemetery becomes embraced within a city or village, it shall be managed as though acquired thereby. 157.50(5) (5) The town meeting may authorize the town board to appropriate up to $500 in any year for the improvement of the town cemetery, under supervision of the town board. 157.50(6) (6) Any municipality that creates a care fund shall invest the money received for care as provided by ch. 881. The municipality may terminate the care fund, transferring the money to its general fund, if the municipality owns the cemetery and provides all maintenance expenses in perpetuity for those graves in the cemetery at the time of termination. 157.50 History History: 1971 c. 41 s. 12; 1979 c. 254; 1983 a. 532; 1989 a. 307. 157.60 157.60 Public easement in cemetery. Any person who opens or makes any highway, town way, or private way or constructs any railroad, turnpike, or canal or anything in the nature of a public easement over, through, in, or upon such part of any enclosure, being the property of any municipality, religious association, or private proprietor, as may be used for burial, unless an authority for that purpose is specially granted by law or unless the consent of such municipality, religious association, or private proprietor is first obtained by the person, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year and by fine not exceeding $3,000. 157.60 History History: 2015 a. 237. 157.62 157.62 Reporting; record keeping; audits. 157.62(1)(1) Cemetery associations. 157.62(1)(a) (a) Except as provided in par. (b) and s. 157.625, every cemetery association shall file an annual report with the cemetery board. The report shall be made on a calendar-year basis unless the cemetery board, by rule, provides for other reporting periods. The report is due on the 60th day after the last day of the reporting period. The annual report shall include all of the following: 157.62(1)(a)1. 1. The name of the cemetery association and the address of its principal office. 157.62(1)(a)2. 2. The name, residence address and business address of each officer, director and trustee of the cemetery association. 157.62(1)(a)3. 3. The name, residence address and business address of each shareholder who beneficially owns, holds or has the power to vote 5 percent or more of any class of securities issued by the cemetery association. 157.62(1)(a)4. 4. The dates and places of all meetings and elections. 157.62(1)(a)5. 5. A statement of whether the cemetery association engaged in the operation of a cemetery during the previous calendar year. 157.62(1)(b) (b) Paragraph (a) does not apply to any person required to file a report under s. 180.1622 or 181.1622. 157.62(1)(c) (c) The cemetery board may prescribe and furnish forms for reports required under this subsection. If the cemetery board prescribes forms under this paragraph, the cemetery board shall mail the forms to cemetery associations required to file under par. (a) no later than 60 days before the reports are due. 157.62(2) (2) Cemetery authorities. 157.62(2)(a)(a) Except as provided in ss. 157.625 and 157.63 (1), every cemetery authority shall file an annual report with the cemetery board. The report shall be made on a form prescribed and furnished by the cemetery board. The report shall be made on a calendar-year basis unless the cemetery board, by rule, provides for other reporting periods. The report is due on the 60th day after the last day of the reporting period. 157.62(2)(b) (b) The cemetery authority shall include all of the following in the annual report required under par. (a): 157.62(2)(b)1. 1. A copy of any report required under sub. (1) (a) or s. 180.1622 or 181.1622. 157.62(2)(b)2. 2. If the cemetery authority is required to file a report under s. 180.1622 or 181.1622, the information specified in sub. (1) (a) 3. 157.62(2)(b)3. 3. An accounting of amounts deposited in, amounts withdrawn from, income accruing to and the balance at the close of the reporting period of any preneed trust funds of the cemetery. 157.62(2)(b)4. 4. An accounting of amounts deposited in, amounts withdrawn from, other income accruing to and the balance at the end of the reporting period of care funds of the cemetery, including the funds in ss. 157.11 (9g) (a), 157.12 (3) and 157.125. 157.62(2)(b)5. 5. An accounting of all gifts received, income from gifts deposited in accounts not accounted for under subd. 4., amounts expended from those accounts and the balance of those accounts at the end of the reporting period. 157.62(2)(b)6. 6. The name and address of each trustee for the funds under subds. 3. to 5. and of the financial institution holding those accounts at the close of the reporting period. 157.62(2)(b)6m. 6m. The names of the officers of the cemetery authority. 157.62(2)(b)7. 7. The information specified in sub. (1) (a), to the extent applicable, if the cemetery is not required to file a report under sub. (1) (a) or s. 180.1622 or 181.1622. 157.62(2)(c) (c) All records relating to accountings of trust funds described under par. (b) 3. to 7. and maintained by the department and by the cemetery board are confidential and are not available for inspection or copying under s. 19.35 (1). 157.62(2)(d) (d) The board shall review each report filed under par. (a) to determine whether the cemetery authority is complying with this subchapter. 157.62(3) (3) Records; inspection. 157.62(3)(a)(a) Every cemetery authority shall keep a copy of the report required under sub. (2) (a) at its principal place of business and, except for those records relating to accountings of trust funds described under sub. (2) (b) 3. to 7., shall make the report available for inspection, upon reasonable notice, by any person with an interest in a cemetery lot or a mausoleum space in a cemetery owned or operated by the cemetery authority. 157.62(3)(b) (b) Every cemetery authority shall maintain all of the following: 157.62(3)(b)1. 1. The records needed to prepare the reports required under sub. (2) (a). 157.62(3)(b)2g. 2g. All records supporting the accounting under sub. (2) (b) 3., including records that show, for each deposit, the name of the purchaser or beneficiary of the contract relating to the deposit and the item purchased. 157.62(3)(b)2r. 2r. All records supporting the accounting under sub. (2) (b) 4., including records that show, for each deposit, the name of the purchaser or beneficiary of the contract relating to the deposit and the item purchased. 157.62(3)(b)3. 3. A copy of each contract for the sale of a cemetery lot, mausoleum space or cemetery merchandise. 157.62(4) (4) Records maintenance. The records under sub. (3) (b) 1. shall be permanently maintained by the cemetery authority or licensee. Each record under sub. (3) (b) 2g. shall be maintained for not less than 15 years after the date of the deposit. Each record under sub. (3) (b) 2r. shall be permanently maintained by the cemetery authority or licensee. Each copy of a contract under sub. (3) (b) 3. shall be maintained for not less than 3 years after all of the obligations of the contract have been fulfilled. The cemetery board may promulgate rules to establish longer time periods for maintaining records under sub. (3) (b) 2g. and 3. 157.62(5) (5) Rules; records. The cemetery board shall promulgate rules requiring cemetery authorities and licensees to maintain other records and establishing minimum time periods for the maintenance of those records. The records shall include detailed information for each deceased person buried in a cemetery, including all of the following: 157.62(5)(a) (a) The name of the deceased. 157.62(5)(b) (b) The last-known address of the deceased. 157.62(5)(c) (c) The date of birth of the deceased. 157.62(5)(d) (d) The date of death. 157.62(5)(e) (e) The date of burial. 157.62(5)(f) (f) The exact location in the cemetery where the deceased is buried. 157.62(5)(g) (g) The name of the person authorizing the burial and his or her relationship to the deceased. 157.62(5)(h) (h) The name of the funeral establishment, as defined in s. 445.01 (6). 157.62(5)(i) (i) The type of burial vault used, if any. 157.62(5)(j) (j) The type and style of the grave marker, monument, or other memorial used. 157.62(6) (6) Audit. Except as provided in ss. 157.625, 157.63 (5), and 440.92 (9) (e), the cemetery board may audit, at reasonable times and frequency, the records, trust funds, and accounts of any cemetery authority, including records, trust funds, and accounts pertaining to services provided by a cemetery authority that are not otherwise subject to the requirements under this chapter. The cemetery board may conduct audits under this subsection on a random basis, and shall conduct all audits under this subsection without providing prior notice to the cemetery authority. 157.62(7) (7) Rules; filing fee. The cemetery board may promulgate rules establishing a filing fee to accompany the report required under sub. (2) (a). The filing fee shall be based on the approximate cost of regulating cemetery authorities. 157.62 History History: 1989 a. 307; 1991 a. 16, 32, 269; 1995 a. 27; 1997 a. 79; 2007 a. 174; 2015 a. 237. 157.625 157.625 Reporting exemption for certain cemeteries. 157.625(1)(1) A cemetery authority that is not required under this chapter or under s. 440.92 to maintain any care funds or preneed trust funds is not required to file an annual report under s. 157.62 (2). 157.625(3) (3) Section 157.62 does not apply to a cemetery authority that is not required to be licensed under s. 440.91 (1) or registered under s. 440.91 (1m). 157.625 History History: 1991 a. 269; 2005 a. 25; 2007 a. 174; 2015 a. 237. 157.63 157.63 Reporting and auditing exemptions; certification of compliance of cemetery organized and operated by, or affiliated with, a religious association. 157.63(1)(1) In lieu of filing an annual report under s. 157.62 (2), a religious association or a cemetery authority of a cemetery that is affiliated with a religious association, or that religious association, may file an annual certification with the cemetery board as provided in this section. 157.63(2) (2) A certification under this section shall be made on a form prescribed and furnished by the cemetery board and include all of the following: 157.63(2)(a) (a) The name and address of each cemetery to which the certification applies. 157.63(2)(b) (b) A statement of a person who is legally authorized to act on behalf of the religious association under this section that, during the reporting period under s. 157.62, each cemetery and the cemetery authority of each cemetery specified under par. (a) have either fully complied or have substantially complied with ss. 157.11 (9g) (c) and 157.12 (3). 157.63(3) (3) If the statement under sub. (2) (b) includes a statement of substantial compliance, the statement under sub. (2) (b) must also specify those instances when the cemetery or cemetery authority did not fully comply with s. 157.11 (9g) or 157.12 (3). 157.63(4) (4) A certification under this section is effective for the 12-month period immediately following the reporting period under s. 157.62 (2) for which the cemetery authority is certified under this section to have fully or substantially complied with ss. 157.11 (9g) and 157.12 (3). 157.63(5) (5) During the effective period specified under sub. (4), the cemetery board may not audit the care funds or any records or accounts relating to the care funds of a cemetery to which a certification under this section applies. 157.63(6) (6) The religious society that is affiliated with a cemetery to which a certification under this section applies is liable for the damages of any person that result from the failure of the cemetery or cemetery authority to fully comply with s. 157.11 (9g) or 157.12 (3) during the reporting period under s. 157.62 (2) for which such compliance has been certified under this section. 157.63 History History: 1989 a. 307; 1991 a. 269; 2015 a. 237; 2017 a. 329. /statutes/statutes/157 true statutes /statutes/statutes/157/II/62/1 Chs. 145-160, Public Health statutes/157.62(1) statutes/157.62(1) section true

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Design Field Notes: Tim Evatt Seminar | November 27 | 4-5 p.m. | 220 Jacobs Hall Sponsor: Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation About Design Field Notes: Each informal talk in this pop-up series brings a design practitioner to a Jacobs Hall teaching studio to share ideas, projects, and practices. About this talk: Ever since he could pick up a pencil, Tim Evatt has been creating art. He grew up in Redlands, CA, and was/is inspired by films, television, and comic books. He has a singular love of art and always wanted to be a professional artist. In 2000 he graduated Redlands High School and headed to SF to attend The Academy of Art University. For the next 5 years he studied Fine Art and Illustration. Following that, he worked in the games industry for a short three years, until being hired by Pixar in 2008. He has been there nearly 10 years working as a sets designer and, occasionally, a character designer. He has been credited on Toy Story 3, Cars 2, The Good Dinosaur, Finding Dory, Coco, Incredibles 2, and various shorts. Occasionally he teaches at the Academy, doing some lecture classes, but preferring to work one-on-one with students mentoring and helping them craft portfolios that will hopefully land them jobs. NOTE: This talk had originally been scheduled for 9/11; the date shown here is the rescheduled date. We hope to see you on 11/27! Event contact: jacobsinstitute@berkeley.edu, 510-664-7567 Design Field Notes: Tim Evatt2383

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Tag Archives: Super Tazon Ecuador’s Halftime Super Bowl Ad Ecuador saw a 14% increase in international tourism between the years 2013 and 2014 and are hedging their bets that an expensive ad during the Super Bowl on February 1 will have big payoffs for even greater numbers of visitors in 2015. Ecuador is the first foreign country to buy an advertising spot during the Super Bowl to promote tourism. According to Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism, the 30 second Super Bowl ad that boasts, “All You Need is Ecuador,” cost $3.8 million (earlier news stories reporting lower amounts did not include taxes). Ecuador’s ambitious Super Bowl halftime commercial boasts that “All You Need is Ecuador” The Super Bowl advertisement will be featured during half time and will be aired in 13 major markets, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, L.A., San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Atlanta and Miami. There will be an additional 8 commercials that will run during NBC’s “Today Show” leading up to the Super Bowl. The focus of this bold campaign is to highlight Ecuador’s four unique tourist destinations: Galapagos, Coast, Andes and Amazon. Truly, this small country has a lot to be proud of! The “All You Need is Ecuador” commercial is to be aired during the Super Bowl and highlights Ecuador’s four distinct regions Inspired by The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” tune, the first phase of the “All You Need is Ecuador” campaign was launched in April 2014 and was featured in 19 major cities throughout the world including NYC, Paris, Madrid, London, Berlin, and Amsterdam to name a few. The $19 million campaign lasted 10 days and consisted of displaying one giant letter in a major plaza of each participating city. Together the letters formed the words “All You Need is Ecuador.” Each letter was covered with iconic images that show off Ecuador’s tremendous beauty and diversity, including giant tortoises, rare birds and orchids, colonial buildings and cathedrals, and spectacular natural landscapes. The Ministry of Tourism’s unique campaign of placing giant letters from their slogan in key cities around the world. In conjunction with the theme of “All You Need is Ecuador,” the government of Ecuador has adopted the slogan of “Ecuador: Ama la Vida“ which can now be seen on buses, sides of government buildings, and even Ecuadorian product packaging. This upbeat reference to savoring life is reminiscent to me of Costa Rica’s famous “Pura Vida!” Ecuador’s new upbeat slogan While the first phase of the “All You Need” campaign focused on highlighting the richness and diversity that Ecuador has to offer, the airing of Ecuador’s Super Bowl commercial presents the second phase which aims to emphasize how all of these incredible experiences are concentrated into one tiny country. “One Country. Like Nowhere Else, All in One Place, So Close” is the motto. Merely the size of the U.S. state of Nevada, Ecuador is a rich play land ready for exploration. A 30-minute domestic flight west from the snow capped Andean volcanoes transports you to the beautiful, warm Pacific coast. Thirty minutes to the east and you’ve arrived to one of the most biodiverse rainforests on the globe. Where else in the world is that possible? Ecuador’s government increasingly recognizes the economic potential of tourism saying that it is the future of Ecuador. Last year, approximately $600 million dollars was generated by the tourist sector. The goal of Ecuador’s Super Bowl ad is to make the estimated 120 million spectators fall in love with this little known place and come visit. Of the 1.5+ million tourists to Ecuador in 2014, twenty-one percent visited from the U.S. Officials say that a 1% increase in U.S. visitors to Ecuador in 2015 will cover the money invested on the Super Bowl ad. To wrap up this post, below is a playlist of eight promotional videos from the Ministry of Tourism that are definitely worth the watch. It is no doubt an exciting time to be here in Ecuador watching a myriad of transformations taking place. When we bought a house on the coast in 2006 we never could have imagined how quickly Ecuador would become a global destination for both tourists and expats alike. **UPDATE (Feb 5): Here is the final advertisement that was run at halftime. Posted in Culture, Ecuador overview, Flora and Fauna, Tom Saunders, Travel in Ecuador | Tagged advertisement, All You Need is Ecuador, Ama la Vida, Amazon, Andes, commercial, ecuador, galapagos, Halftime, Lynn Saunders, Ministry of Tourism, NBC Today Show, Pacific Coast, Super Bowl, Super Tazon, Superbowl, Tom Saunders Ecuador’s New Immigration Law: Snowbirding Just Got Easier New Ecuador “Capital Gains Tax” Explained Following Election – Interest in Moving/Investing in Ecuador Peaks Renting a Car in Ecuador: What You Should Know Perks for Being 65 and Over in Ecuador Tom Shares Our Story and Some Insider Tips: An Interview with Expat Kingdom Wherever You Go…There You Are Bringing in Goods through Ecuador’s Airports Tax Free Monday photo: San Clemente Beach on a Sunday Afternoon Landscaping Your New Home in Ecuador Categories Select Category Arts and Crafts (3) beachfront property (7) Culture (5) ecuador beachfront condos (9) ecuador information sharing (11) Ecuador Investment (1) ecuador legal information (5) Ecuador overview (5) Ecuador Resident Visa Information (2) Family Life (4) Flora and Fauna (4) Food (4) for how much? (6) getting to know ecuador (25) Health (1) Living in Ecuador (37) Politics (2) real estate (8) Relocating to Ecuador (15) Retire in Ecuador (8) Safety (1) Shopping (2) the good life (5) Tom Saunders (16) Transportation (4) Travel in Ecuador (7) Uncategorized (64) what to do in Ecuador (9) where to stay (2) Bahia de Caraquez ceibo tree Chirije condo price Crucita ecuador beach real estate Ecuador condo ecuador investment ecuador land ecuador retirement get to know ecuador Lynn Saunders Manabi oceanview real estate Portoviejo Quito attractions retire in ecuador Sosote Tom Saunders travel logistics

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..touts their particular national health care scheme, just remember what a success it's been in places that already have it. England, for example. Morale 'terrible' among UK doctors - Survey The survey blames most of the morale problems on "cost-cutting" measures by the British government. Translated, that means that doctors in the U.K. are paid far less than their American counterparts, and the government limits the number of procedures that physicians can perform. A first-hand account of the British health care system can be found in David Asman's article that appeared almost two years ago at Opinion Journal and in the pages of The American Spectator. While visiting London, Mr. Asman's wife suffered a serious stroke, and spent more than a month in British public health system. He found caring, competent professionals manning a system that is crumbling at the edges, without the incentives for efficiency and state-of-the art treatments that come with competition. The Democratic presidential candidates are right about one thing: with enough tax increases, the U.S. can afford a national health care system, although the costs would be exorbidant, and the resulting "product" would be somewhere on the scale of a poor VA hospital, or what the Asmans encountered in London. And believe me, that's something you don't want. shoprat said... I guess they want every hospital in America to be run like Walter Reid. The people need to understand that this is what will happen to their local hospital if the gov't takes over.

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Richard Swann - welcome! Last, but definitely not least in our line-up of new artists, is Richard Swann. Richard originally trained and qualified at Leeds. He is now based in Hastings, East Sussex where he takes inspiration from daily life and "whatever happens to cross (my) path". This usually takes the form of "the daily parade of bohemian eccentricity, the sometimes wild weather, the abundance of fishing boats, and the odd black cat". Richard has a background in illustration and has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and many times at the Mall Galleries in London. When not working in his Hastings studio, he can often be found working 'en plein air' around the south coast of England and beyond. He says he is most at home drawing with a pencil whilst relaxing in a pub or café. In recent years, he has taken the spontaneity of mark-making from quick sketches into paintings using oil as his preferred medium. Richard is one of several artists whose work is featured in our current exhibition, "And Then Came Spring", which ends on Monday 27th May. The artistic textures of Diana McKinnon Diana's love of fabric and thread started in early childhood. Whilst she initially worked in oils and ceramics, she more recently came back to using fabric, thread and mixed media to create her pictures. As an experienced traveller, Diana is inspired by the natural beauty in the landscapes and surfaces that she sees and which lend themselves well to the media that she works in. During her travels to Australia and New Zealand, Diana was struck by the effect of colour and light on the landscapes and sea. "This led me to experiment with layering lurex and chiffon to reflect the vibrancy of the colours of the scenery," she says. Diana's work was originally historically based, covering art from Crete and ancient Greece, but many different influences can now be seen: the natural environment and the architecture of Venice as well as artists such as Mackintosh, Monet and Klimt. The materials and techniques used in Diana's work are varied. The former include chiffon, silk, metallic thread, sea shell fragments, paper, metal, ceramics and handmade textiles such as silk paper and the latter range from stitching and free machine embroidery to melting, creating burned edges and distressing fabric. "A key feature in my work is the layering of different fabrics which achieves two kinds of effect: creating depth of colour and vision as well as removing sections of material to reveal the colours below," says Diana. "The work is then embellished with metal, beads, silk paper and free machine embroidery." Diana's work is featured in our exhibition "And Then Came Spring", which runs until Monday 27th May. And here's Georgina Moir... From her studio in Lindfield, Georgina creates bold striking contemporary watercolours of birds, landscapes and animals that attract the viewer’s attention. She deliberately leaves areas of her paintings unfinished, allowing the viewer to complete the picture. "I strive not to replicate an exact copy of my chosen subject, but rather to give my impression of it," she says. Her aim is to create a painting that portrays the subject's character. "The eyes in my paintings are the most important part," says Georgina. "Once I’ve captured them, the rest falls into place." As a trained illustrator and graphic designer, Georgina relishes the freedom of watercolours. "I love the way that working with watercolour, wet on wet, allows me to “let go” and enjoy the fantastic mistakes that happen along the way to create the finished piece." Georgina's work is part of our exhibition "And Then Came Spring", which runs until Monday 27th May. Introducing...Shelley Morrow Shelley is the next of our 'new' artists: she is predominantly a figurative artist but often explores both rural and urban landscapes. Her main medium is watercolour which she uses as a fluid form, capturing the atmosphere of a place or the gesture of a person rather than a precise representation. Her work often spills over into textiles such as embroidered drawings or simple craft items. She has an MA in Fine Art and an appreciation of both conceptual art and craft so her work often blurs the boundaries between the two. Shelley's work is part of our current exhibition "And Then Came Spring", which runs until Monday 27th May. And Welcome to Suzanne Hennegrave! Suzanne Hennegrave (flanked by her husband and Jill from the Gallery) is a semi-abstract, contemporary landscape painter and art educator and exhibiting with us for the first time. She is inspired by the land, sea and big skies. She paints in oils and mixed-media, from memory and experience, and her work is developed using artistic intuition. Her greatest loves are atmospheric weather and fleeting light and this she tries to capture in her work, through her own emotional response. "Much of my inspiration comes from the beauty of my surroundings," says Suzanne, who lives in the South Downs National Park. Suzanne is one of many artists whose work is featured in "And Then Came Spring", which runs until Monday 27th May.

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I read another review of Summer of Sam and the reviewer said that this was a horrible Spike Lee movie but that a horrible Spike Lee movie was better than most other movies. I agree. This movie gives a nice feeling of life in New York city in the summer of 1977 and everyone in it is good. However, the story is presented through the eyes of characters who are a group of stereotyped white New Yorkers. They aren't very interesting. I was more interested in Son of Sam and how he got caught which is a minor subplot of the movie. Michael Badalucco, best known as the mild mannered Jimmy Berluti on the the TV show, The Practice, is shockingly good as Son of Sam. The other cast members, notably Mira Sorvino, are good but you feel like you've seen them playing these parts before as Italian blue collar denizens of the Bronx. Mira Sorvino is pretty much wasted in a small part as the long suffering wife of one of the guys. There was a nice soundtrack which made me feel sentimental. They are now making historical movies set when I am an adult. I feel old.

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HomeProfilingCities & CommunitiesMeet new IEDPU National President, Alhaji Uthman Abdulkareem: Celebrating an enigma at 66 (Birthday tribute to my boss) /IEDPU By Abubakar Imam Last Thursday (December 26,2019) the 54th annual delegates National Conference of the apex socio-cultural organisation of the very good people of Ilorin Emirate,the Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union(IEDPU), which was attended by more than 100 branches from within and outside Nigeria,elected a retired top-ranking security personnel, Alhaji Otta Aliyu Uthman,simply known among his friends,contemporaries and compatriots as O.A.U., as the new National President.He is the 20th individual to occupy the exalted but thankless office. Ever since his election and subsequent inauguration,along with other members of the new National Executive Council who will run the affairs of the Union for the next two years (2019-2021), there have been calls from both functional/regular members and other relevant stakeholders of the Union for all and sundry to know who “the new man” is. The new IEDPU National President, a trained teacher, Historian, Public Administrator,Islamic Scholar and versatile security expert, was born a little over 61 years ago.To be specific, on December 31st,1958.His father was the very popular businessman and reputable block-maker,Alhaji Usman Baba Otta(d.1996) of Kejebu Compound in the Agbaji Quarters of Ilorin while his mother is the 98 years old Alhaja Ummuani Baba Otta, a daughter to the Magaji Ala’ase family of Idi-Ape Area of Ilorin. As a D.S.S official, he worked in 18 different states of the federation confederating with others at preventing the escalation of internal wrangllings and nipping potential crises and conflicts, amongst different interest groups at different places, which may aid external aggression,in the bud. The new President attended the famous Ansarul Islam Primary School, Okemale, Ilorin, between 1963 and 1969. He was also educated at the Ilorin Grammar School,Ilorin,from 1970 to 1975 where he obtained his West African School Certificate,making him the first product of the school established by the IEDPU to serve the Union at the top-most level. Alhaji Uthman was subsequently trained as a teacher at Lokoja Teachers’College, Lokoja, the capital of the present-day Kogi State,between 1975 and 1977 at the end of which he received the Teacher Grade II Certificate in flying colours. As someone who was determined not to limit his knowledge, the new President proceeded to the Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin, where he pursued and earned his Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) with specialisation in Islamic Studies and English Language. He also trained at the better by far University of Ilorin where he obtained his Bachelor’s of Arts degree in History in 2003. He, again,returned to the same institution for his Master of Public Administration(MPA) degree,which he successfully earned in 2008. Alhaji Uthman started his exciting working career in 1981 as an N.Y.S.C member of staff of the famous School of Arabic Studies, Kano, where he taught between August,1981 and August,1982. He, thereafter, joined the public service of the Federal Government of Nigeria as a Member of Staff of the Secret Service apparatus formerly called National Security Organisation (N.S.O) in 1983.The organisation,which the Yorubas called “ote le muye”was later, in 1986,ten years after its establishment under the Directorship of a distinguished Ilorite, Major-General Abdullahi Mohammed(Adangba),CFR, GCON, compartmentalised into two different organizations i.e the National Intelligence Agency and the Department of State Services. He was at the latter,which is tasked with the internal security of the country from 1986 to 2018. As a D.S.S official, he worked in 18 different states of the federation confederating with others at preventing the escalation of internal wrangllings and nipping potential crises and conflicts, amongst different interest groups at different places, which may aid external aggression,in the bud. He was at Borgu LGA of old Kwara State from 1983 to 1989.He also worked in different Local Government Areas of Katsina State from 1989 to 2000 as the Officer in-charge of Dutsinma, Zango, Baure, Kongolam, Mai-Adua and Funtua LGAs of the northern-most state at various times. Alhaji Uthman was at the North-Eastern geo-political Zone of Nigeria.He worked at the Metropolitan (Damaturu) LGA of Yobe State from 2000 to 2001 before he was redeployed to the neighboring Gombe State where he worked from 2004 to 2006. As a top management staff of the Secret Service,Alhaji Uthman was the Assistant Director(Operations & Intelligence)in the Sokoto State Command in 2006.He held the same strategic position at the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) Command of the D.S.S. from 2006 to 2010. He was the holder of the same position in the Kano State Command of the Service between 2010 and 2012. Alhaji Uthman was the Directing Staff (Research Assistant) at the Institute For Security Studies (ISS), Abuja, from 2012 and 2015 during which he helped in generating more manpower for the protection of the life and property of Nigerians. He was,again,redeployed to Delta State where he served as the Assistant Director (Operations & Intelligence) from 2015 to 2017. He finally served as the State Director of Security (SDS) in-charge of Adamawa State between 2017 and 2018, a position from which he glowingly bowed-out after thirty-five years of meritorious services to his fatherland. As a well-trained and sophisticated security guru, Alhaji Uthman,a distinguished Fellow of the Security Institute, had the privilege of functional participation in no fewer than 11 high-grade courses on various aspects of his profession, which is concerned with the protection of life and property,all of which variously and collectively contributed in sharpening his intellectual, professional and managerial capacities. From his composure, interactions and dispositions so far, Alhaji Uthman has left no one in doubt that he is in office as the Number One Member of the Union to work for the progress and greatness of the Union and the Ilorin Emirate Community at large. His words and actions have proven to be those emanating from someone who is prepared and equipped to pilot the affairs of the Union beyond the next level. One can only wish him and his team consisting of his Deputy, Alhaji Abdulmumini Yusuf, a son to the Ogele community in the Asa Local Government Area and Dr.Oba Yusuf Abdulhamid, a distinguished Lawyer and son to the famous Alfa Ajongolo family of Popo-Giwa, the very best as they lead other elected officials in the acceleration and accentuation of the desires of the good people of Ilorin Emirate,both at home and in diaspora, to have an umbrella socio-cultural organisation not in name but a body that will cater for the general interests of the people of Asa,Ilorin East,Ilorin South, Ilorin West and Moro Local Government Areas of Kwara State no matter whose ox is gored. Alhaji Uthman is, no doubt,versed in administration and is also at home with the Holy Quran and Hadith as a scholar of Islamic studies.He enjoys watching football,travelling and listening to news and watching wild life as his hobbies. The new President,who speaks English,Yoruba and Hausa Languages fluently, is married and blessed with children. Imam is the IEDPU National Publicity Secretary Tags:IEDPU Gov AbdulRasaq vs Saraki’s: Between vendetta and necessity Welcoming birth of Ilorin Emirate intelligentsia

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The Dawn of Refrigeration Date(s): November 1928 Location(s): FAIRFIELD, Connecticut Tag(s): refrigeration, refrigerator, general electric Course: “Historical Perspectives on Technology,” Widener University In the late 1920s and early 1930s, household refrigeration was seeing improvements that would encourage more and more Americans to add this piece of technology to their kitchens. In this particular advertisement, published by General Electrics in the late 1920s, they were trying to sell their all-steel refrigerators. General Electric used the idea of food safety and reliability to push the importance of their product. In one respect, GE pulled at the heartstrings by discussing the safety of refrigerated food for a family, yet they also were business savvy and discussed that repairs were virtually unnecessary. A GE model of refrigerator was an obvious choice for any reasonable family. A huge concern at the time was potential illness in the family due to food spoilage. The GE advertisement actually mentions that, “Physicians agree that 50 degrees is the danger point. Above that temperature, bacteria multiply alarmingly.” This advertisement was making sure that families, particularly housewifes, were concerned with keeping their food at a safe temperature. In his book, Refrigeration Nation, Jonathan Rees also discusses how important food safety was to the refrigerator consumer. Refrigerators were not completely trusted at this time. People were used to costly repairs, so GE was trying to prove that their new model was efficient and worth the cost. As Rees pointed out, “Much of the advertising centered on the inadequacy of the refrigeration technology that came before electric refrigerators, namely, the ice industry.” This reassurance was seen in the advertisement when it mentioned that, “There are more than 350,000 General Electric Refrigerators in use and no owner has ever spent a single dollar for repairs or service.” This increase in efficiency was caused by new technology. There were compressors and seals that were developed at this time that ensured the new refrigerators would be superior to their predecessors. There were advances in ammonia compressors and the way they were able to work made them much more reliable and easy to use in the everyday home. This improvement in technology was intended for the purchaser of the refrigerator, generally the man of the house. While the advertisement showed a woman and her child, GE knew that the person making the final decision was the man who purchased the refrigerator, and so needed him to be convinced of its’ worth. During this time refrigeration was being converted into the now standard household refrigerator, but many people still used an ice box with daily ice deliveries to maintain their food from spoiling. General Electric and other companies had to be aggressive with their advertisements to convince families that they needed this new technology to improve their quality of life. GE knew that they needed to not only discuss the benefits of keeping the food safe, but also the ease of use. People no longer had the constant expense of paying the iceman, but they had to stress that there would not be excessive repairs that would in turn make the refrigerator more costly. Refrigeration was not a new technology, but a compact household self-sufficient refrigerator certainly was a new concept in this technology. With these advertisements, refrigerators became the norm in many American households. People were impressed with advertisements and wanted to try this technology for themselves. This exciting new technology and promising advertisements coupled with the new lower prices of refrigerators made the industry boom. By 1928, the number of refrigerators sold grew exponentially for a total around 468,000; another attestment to how important refrigerators were becoming. It's Always Summertime in your Kitchen' (Advertisement, General Electric). Jonathan Rees, Refrigeration Nation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2014), 147-155. George C. Bailey, "A History of Refrigeration," American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers n/a (November 2004): S32.

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January 1, 1927 to December 31, 1929 Comforting a Nation Date(s): May 7, 1933 Location: Dist Columbia, District of Columbia Tag(s): Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat Franklin D. Roosevelt had a great challenge ahead of him as our nation’s 32nd President. The United States was in a period of unemployment and extreme poverty. The people were losing faith and it was F. D. R.’s responsibility to fix the problem. On May 7, 1933, F.D.R. entered American homes through their radios. Hoping to restore hope to the public, Roosevelt assured them that Congress... Information Passed On: A German Attempt to Curb anti-Nazi sentiment Date(s): August 8, 1933 Location: New York, New York Tag(s): War, Foreign Politics, League of Nations Over seventy-seven years ago, on the eighth of August, 1933, Dr. Daniel Mulvihill (a New Yorker) was assaulted by a German citizen while he was visiting Berlin, apparently because he had failed to “salute a Nazi detachment.” A few weeks later, on the twenty-fourth of that month, Dr. Mulvihill’s assailant was taken into custody by Nazi authorities, and was then deposited into a concentration... Remember, Remember: A Look into How Media Can Shape the Events of a Nation. Date(s): October 16, 1933 to October 18, 1933 Location: Somerset, Maryland Tag(s): Lynching, Crime/Violence, Race Relations, Media “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The body of a lynched man, George Armwood of Princess Anne, MD, hung limp and tortured late on October 17th, 1933. An African American man, Armwood, had had some encounter with an elderly, white woman the previous day. Mary Denston had been walking down the road from the post office. She claimed to have been attacked.... The Lynching of George Armwood Date(s): October 18, 1933 to October 30, 1933 Location: Baltimore City, Maryland, Somerset, Maryland Tag(s): George Armwood, Gov. Albert Ritchie, Crime/Violence, Progressivism, Civil Rights Movement, Lynching, African-Americans On October 18th, 1933, George Armwood was arrested and later lynched for the alleged attack of an old married white woman named Mary Denston. Lynching, commonly practiced throughout the United States from the 19th century until the 1960s, was a method of murder used to control African American behavior. The victims were typically accused of inappropriate behavior towards white... The Failed Leagl Proceedings of Maryland's Last Lynching Date(s): October 18, 1933 to January 24, 1934 Location: Somerset, Maryland Tag(s): Lynching, racial violence, african americans The last lynching in Maryland state history took place on the night of October 18, 1933, when George Armwood was kidnapped from jail and lynched by a mob of white protestors in Princess Anne County. Armwood had been accused of assaulting an elderly white woman. Enraged, a mob refused to wait for Armwood to be tried. His murder was just one in a long list of lynchings perpetrated by whites against... The Desegregation of Maryland's Law School Date(s): December 1933 to January 1936 Location: Baltimore, Maryland Tag(s): Civil Rights, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Desegregation In December 1933, Thurgood Marshall began preparing for his first major civil-rights case. Marshall, having recently graduated from Howard Law School, returned to his native Baltimore to practice law and became legal advisor to the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Marshall was set on fighting to desegregate the University of Maryland Law School... Penders Advertisment Date(s): December 20, 1933 Location: Wake, North Carolina Tag(s): African American Women, employment, African-Americans The Pender’s grocery advertisement from the Raleigh Observer depicted a wealthy and very happy white family enjoying a lovely Christmas dinner. The family is being served dinner by a maid, that also appeared to be in a good mood in the advertisement. This advertisement was an illustration of the menial work black women had to do in the 1930s. Domestic jobs were usually the most common... The Folklore and Dance behind Zora Hurston Date(s): January 1934 to 1934 Location: Orange, Florida Tag(s): Zora Neale Hurston, African-Americans, African American Folklore, Dance “Anyone wishing to get a real glimpse into negro life in Florida should not miss the performance to be given in Recreation Hall.” 1 This praise, given to the anthropologist, writer, poet, dancer and singer Zora Neale Hurston, came from R. W. France about her 1934 production of All De Live Long Day. Zora lived her life in an attempt to revitalize and find the truth... An English Woman Writes About American Prisons Date(s): 1934 Location: Hartford, Connecticut, Cayuga, New York Tag(s): prison, prison reform Should prison be a place of punishment or reform? American society was debating this question when Harriet Martineau, a famous writer from England, visited in 1934. Martineau later wrote about her two year trip to America in a book called “Retrospect of Western Travels”, Volumes 1 and 2, which was published in 1938. In a chapter titled “"Prison", Martineau describes her visit to Auburn... “Fight to Win!” Communists Fight for Workers Date(s): 1934 Location: Jefferson, Alabama Tag(s): Race Relations, Government “Fight To Win!”The Communist Party in Birmingham, Alabama spread many fliers with this message throughout the 1930s. Communists urged miners and steel workers to fight for higher wages. The communists proclaimed to be “giving leadership to the workers and raising real demands for them.” They urged white and black workers to band together and claimed that the unity of the two races on this... « Prev | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Next »

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The Maratha Military Genius: The Battle of Palkhed History written by these eminent historians abounds with such instances – these are but two, and that on a battle as important as Palkhed. Among the notable battles fought in India, the Battle of Palkhed, between Peswha Baji Rao I and the Nizam-ul-Mulk, would not readily spring to mind for many. Which is a pity, for several reasons. While the three battles of Panipat – in 1526, 1556, and 1761, the battles of Talikota in 1565, Plassey in 1757, and Buxar in 1764, are rightly remembered for their pivotal impact on India’s history, the battle of Palkhed does not readily spring to mind. It should, for it is not only one of the notable battles in history, it also holds lessons that perhaps deserve a closer look. The battle of Palkhed was fought in 1728, between the armies of Baji Rao, the second Peshwa of Maharaj Shahu, and the Nizam. A brief look at the three principal players who were involved directly or indirectly reveals a fascinating if not turgid brew of politics and intrigue that had by then become the staple of the putrefying Mughal empire in Delhi. The Maratha empire, in disarray in the years following Shivaji’s death – with the torture and murder of Sambhaji and the capture of Sambhaji’s infant son, Shahu – had started to rebuild itself after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707. Shahu’s escape shortly after Aurangzeb’s death – after eighteen years in custody – gave the people hope and provided a rallying point for Shivaji loyalists like Senapati Dhanaji Jadhav, Khando Ballal, Diwan Balaji Vishwanath (and later the first Peshwa under Raja Shahu) and others. While Shahu battled his aunt, Tara Bai – and her “specious arguments” – for the right to be considered as Shivaji’s true successor, the Marathas had also demanded from the Mughal king the rights to levy Chauth (an annual tax amounting to 25 per cent of revenue or produce – hence the name “chauth”) and Sardeshmukhi (a surcharge collected as tribute to the king) on the Deccan. In this endeavour they were hampered by some accidentally wise political manoeuvring by the Mughal sovereign. The Last Days of Aurangzeb Aurangzeb, in his last days, had come to the realization that a military victory over the Marathas was not possible, and had been exploring on what terms to “purchase peace.” His successors, for various reasons, had been unable to close the matter either. Bahadur Shah had been clever – or indecisive – enough to throw the ball back into the Maratha court, when, in 1709, he asked Raja Shahu and Tara Bai to first resolve among themselves the issue as to who the Mughal sovereign would grant these demands. His refusal had the perhaps intended effect of reviving the civil war among the Marathas – especially between Shahu and Tara Bai, which had been slowly “flickering out.” The Nizam would try identical tactics almost two decades later. The second main actor in this saga was the Nizam. The Nizam-ul-Mulk, or Mir Qamar-ud-din as he was originally known, was born in 1671. Iranis, Turanis, Afghans, Indian Muslims, and Hindus – primarily Rajputs for long – among others formed the nobility in the Mughal court, with the Iranis and Turanis constituting two-thirds or more, and the Hindus less than ten percent. In 1699 he was given a high rank as Chin Qilich Khan, and later the even more grandiose title of Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahadur Fateh Jang, and appointed Viceroy of the six subahs of the Deccan. He had risen to power after attracting Aurangzeb’s attention for his role in the capture of Wakinkhera in 1706. He had a fondness for heavy artillery, and in Aurangzeb’s words – “He has all the things that he should have, or rather that he should not have” – after the Mughal emperor had confiscated much of it after an inspection in 1707. Despite offers of prime ministership, governorship of Khandesh, and the title of Khan-i-Dauran at Delhi at different times, the Nizam nurtured ambitions of carving out an independent sphere of influence for himself in the Deccan, independent of the Mughal emperor at Delhi, having seen and anticipated the coming decline of the Mughal empire. The continuing claim of the Marathas of chauth and sardeshmukhi over these six provinces threatened to reduce his rule to being a mere titular head. This was not what his ambitions would permit. His ambitions however were tempered by a smart realization that he could not hope to succeed against the Marathas where Aurangzeb had failed. He bided his time. He had stayed neutral in the succession wars between Aurangzeb’s sons, and had been suitably rewarded for that. While he spent some years in Delhi, “lured by the prime ministership of the empire”, he decided returned to the Deccan in 1724. However, even as he was en-route, he was stripped of his governorship of the Deccan, declared a rebel by the Mughal emperor, who ordered “officers and feudatories of the Deccan to treat the Nizam as a rebel.” It was in such circumstances that he had sought the help of the Marathas to defeat his rival, Mubariz Khan, at the battle at Shakarkharda on 1 October 1724. The Nizam would also play an important role during the invasion of Nadir Shah, albeit in an indirect manner. It was his elevation to the title and post of “Mir Bakshi” by the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah that would lead to a jealous Sa’adat Khan to instigate Nadir Shah into escalating his demands, and to finally march into Delhi, with Muhammad Shah as his escort and prisoner! After Nadir Shah marched into Delhi in March 1739, he “publicly abused Nizam-ul-Mulk and Sa’adat Khan”, and asked for the twenty crore rupees he had demanded after the battle of Karnal. To save either their honour or themselves from the corporal punishment that Nadir Shah promised to unleash on both of them, the two – Nizam-ul-Mulk and Sa’adat Khan – allegedly entered into a suicide pact. “The Nizam did not abide by it, whereas Sa’adat Khan like a ‘true soldier drank a cup of poison and departed to the next world.’” The state of the Mughal empire in the years following Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 had not been a happy one. The regular internecine and fratricidal bouts of succession between the Timurid scions were punctuated only by a steady and irreversible decline in the prestige and power of the dynasty. A sad succession of weak rulers and powerful puppeteers followed at the throne of Delhi, each titular with diminishing real authority over an empire whose effective boundaries continued to shrink, and where real authority was exercised more by the plotters and conspirers at the Delhi Durbar than the sovereign. One such plotter had been Zu’lfiqar Khan, who had conspired to elevate Bahadur Shah’s eldest son, Jahandar Shah, to the throne. Soon thereafter, Zu’lfiqar Khan would meet his end when Jahandar Shah was deposed by his nephew, Farrukh-siyar (the son of Azim-ush-Shan, who was the younger brother of Jahandar Shah – who were the sons of Bahadur Shah), who would in turn take the help of two masters of intrigue – the Sayyid brothers; one a governor of Patna, and the other the governor of Allahabad. Relations between Farrukh-siyar and the Sayyid brothers were, however, never cordial, and each continued to plot against the other. It was this plotting and counter-plotting that led Sayyid Hussain Ali to open negotiations with Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath Bhat. This may help explain why the Peshwa made very expansive demands, and why the Sayyid brother agreed. What remained now was the ratification of the agreement by Farrukh-siyar. Meanwhile, the Nizam had arrived in Delhi from the Deccan – summoned by a panicky Farrukh-siyar who saw every last vestige of support he enjoyed at the court dissipate – thanks to the machinations of the Sayyid brothers. The Nizam, upon seeing the “precarious” position of the Mughal sovereign, decided to refrain from taking sides, yet again. It would be worth re-emphasizing here that the Maratha terms to which Sayyid Hussain Ali had agreed were very, very generous indeed. Among many other things, the Marathas were granted the authority to collect Chauth from the six provinces of the Deccan – “Aurangabad, Berar, Khandesh, Golconda, and Bijapur (which included the whole of Karnataka, including the tributary states of Mysore, Trichinopoly and Tanjore)” – a massive area by any stretch. The Sayyid brothers and the Nizam had not been on the same page when it came to dealing with the Marathas – since the Sayyid brothers “favoured conciliation of the Hindus, whereas the Turani leaders like the Nizam-ul-Mulk pressed for the revival of Aurangzeb’s methods of coercion and suppression of non-Muslim elements.” Also, “restrictions on the Hindus using palkis and Arabi and Iraqi horses imposed by Aurangzeb and continued by Bahadur Shah, were eased, and abolished altogether a few years later.” [Satish Sharma] The Sayyid brothers saw in the agreement one stone to kill three birds – to win the military support of the Marathas if required in the future, to cut down to size the Nizam and his ambitions in the Deccan, and to ensure that the Mughal emperor stayed a mere titular with real power concentrated with the brothers. For the time being however, the Nizam could do little but watch the Sayyid brothers’ machinations. The Mughal emperor, Farrukh-siyar, flatly refused to recognize this agreement with the “vile Marathas” that was sent to him for ratification. Sayyid Hussain Ali marched into Delhi in February 1719, the Maratha army in tow. Farrukh-siyar was deposed and thrown into jail, where all manners of experiments of torture and murder were tried on him – from feeding him “bitter and over-salted dishes” to “slow poisoning”. He survived all these for some time, and finally met his end when executioners were sent who “strangled him to death in April 1719.” A quick succession of puppets followed the same year – Rafi’ud-Darajat, Shah Jahan II, and then Prince Roshan Akhtar (who would assume the name of Muhammad Shah). Muhammad Shah “Rangila” would enjoy a comparatively long reign of twenty-nine years, till his death in 1748. This then was the backdrop against which the treaty between the Peshwa and the Mughal empire had been concluded in March 1719. Rafi’ud-Darajat had granted Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath the three farmans the Marathas had demanded, and who had returned to a hero’s welcome back home. Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath died a little over a year later, and his son, Baji Rao I, became the Peshwa, at the young age of twenty years, on 17 April, 1720. The Canvas of Palkhed This then was the canvas on which we now place the engagement of Palkhed. As soon as the Nizam had gotten rid of the Mughal menace (Mubariz Khan) with the help of Raja Shahu, he “began his effort to free himself from the shackles of Maratha demand.” Twice the Maratha forces “under the Pratinidhi and Peshwa marched into Karnatak (1725-26, 1726-27) only to be met by opposition from the Nizam’s officers.” He also responded enthusiastically to overtures from Shahu’s rival – Shambhuji – through the “renegade” Chandrasen Jadhav (the son of the legendary general), and the “joint force began to move ominously towards Maratha country.” The final straw came when the Nizam disavowed the treaty between Raja Shahu and the Mughal emperor, “dismissed Shahu’s officers and asked him to submit his claims to his arbitration.” The Nizam also dropped hints to Shahu that he dismiss his Peshwa, Baji Rao. The stage was set for a confrontation. Shahu “hastily recalled his army from the south.” Peshwa Baji Rao arrived in May 1727, and on 1 August 1727, “orders for a general mobilisation were given.” As soon as the monsoon was over, the Maratha army marched towards Aurangabad. There was a skirmish near Jalna, but the Peshwa avoided a full-blown battle and pushed northwards towards Burhanpur. He then took a westerly route towards Khandesh and then into Gujarat. All this while the Nizam – with his army, heavy artillery, food-grains to last the duration of the campaign, and zenana – kept in slow pursuit, unable to keep up with the much nimbler army of the Peshwa. The frustrated Nizam abandoned his pursuit of Baji Rao, and instead turned his attention on Poona, with an aim of drawing out Baji Rao. “Quite a few outposts like Udapur, Avasari, Pabal, Khed, and Narayangarh surrendered.” Shahu had to escape and take refuge in another fort. Baji Rao resisted “urgent calls” to rush back to defend Poona. Instead, the Nizam, while at Baramati, learned to his horror, that the “Peshwa had burst eastward through the Kasarbari Pass and was marching towards Aurangabad, the heart of the [Nizam’s] kingdom.” The Nizam started in pursuit, but found his army cut off from all supplies to water near Palkhed on 25 February 1728. “Starved of food and water”, the Nizam’s army would not fight, though his heavy artillery was able to keep the Peshwa’s army at arm’s length. Through the intercession of Iwaz Khan, the “Nizam sent the Peshwa a word of his miserable plight and his willingness to come to terms.” The Nizam’s army was only then allowed to move near the river. A treaty – generous to the Marathas – was entered into between the Peshwa and the Nizam at Mungi-Paithan on 6 March 1728. The Nizam agreed to every single term set by the Marathas, save one – the handover of Sambhaji (of Kolhapur). A famous battle was thus concluded where there was no mass slaughter of soldiers on either side – that would take place 34 years later on the plains of Panipat, where arguably the largest number of deaths in a single day on a battlefield in history would be recorded. This battle is remembered for it being a “masterpiece of strategic mobility”. It is useful to read what Field Marshall Montgomery had to write about this battle in his book: Baji Rao’s army was a purely mounted force, armed only with sabre, lance and a bow in some units, and a round shield. There was a spare horse for every two men. The Marathas moved unencumbered by artillery, baggage, or even handguns and defensive armour. The lightly equipped Marathas moved with great rapidity, avoiding the main towns and fortresses, living off the country, burning and plundering. … The Nizam for a time pursued them but was bewildered by the swift and unpredictable movements of the enemy, and his men became exhausted. While the battle of Palkhed is fascinating in its own right as an example of the military brilliance of Baji Rao, I am drawn to at least three other facets of this engagement. First, it’s been an oft-repeated charge against medieval Indian kingdoms that they stuck for too long to using slow-moving, lumbering elephants in their armies, which were woefully ill-prepared for battles fought with guns and modern weaponry. While that may well be true as a broad generalization, the battle of Palkhed serves as a striking counter-example to this dogma. Baji Rao’s army travelled fast, and they travelled light. If anyone was slow-moving and lumbering, it was the Nizam’s army. Second, the guerrilla tactics so famously perfected by Shivaji had neither been forgotten nor allowed to rust. Institutional memory was intact. Baji Rao made up for travelling light by “living off the country.” A war had to be fought to be won, and not by constraining yourself with contrived and utopian rules of chivalry. Where compromises needed to be made, they were made. Baji Rao understood that. Self-made rules of war in India have often dictated that the desired end of victory be sacrificed at the altar of rather juvenile infatuation with proving one’s worth by engaging in mortal combat. Baji Rao did not engage the Nizam’s army; even when it made way for and started plundering the areas around Poona – utopian notions of chivalry would have demanded that Baji Rao stride into Poona, into the well-laid trap set by the Nizam, and perish in a blaze of glory. He instead counter-attacked at Aurangabad – going after the Nizam’s vulnerability, and even then shrewdly blockaded the Nizam’s army, starving it into surrendering. Glory was attained in getting the Nizam to the negotiating table, and getting every single concession they wanted. Glory did not lie in body counts. Yet, lessons from these successes stayed isolated, could not be replicated, nor adapted elsewhere by Indian kingdoms, not even by the Marathas themselves. Worse, not even by Baji Rao, for the recidivist Nizam would try again to crush the Marathas a few years later, and meet yet again a similar fate! The Marathas however lost out, steadily, to the English, and by 1818 had ceased to exist as an imperial power. While an investigation into the causes of the decline of Indian kingdoms and their capitulation to the English has been well-examined by historians for well over a century, I would submit that while the English brought a clear-headed ends-justify-the-means attitude to domination, their cause was undeniably helped by that one ace that the English were undeniably superior to everyone else in the world – bureaucracy. Bureaucracy – the most efficient form of organization that allowed for as efficient a transmission of institutional knowledge as possible. There is much that can be written here, but for the time being I want to leave this particular topic as-is, with the promise of delving and digging into it in some depth in a future piece. In conclusion, let’s see how this battle has been described elsewhere – elsewhere as in other than in Volume 8 of the “History and Culture of the Indian People” series. Battle of Palkhed in Textbooks I present two examples. This is the entire description of the battle, its background, relevance, and importance, from a history textbook prescribed for class IX students under the ICSE curriculum: Baji Rao I could not tolerate the activities of the Nizam. He, therefore, besieged Nizam and his army at Palkhed in 1728 A.D. The Nizam was reduced to a dire state and besought Baji Rao I for a treaty of peace.[pgs 278-79, “Indian History and Culture”, Kaley, Bhandari, and Sushila; Inter University Press, 1986] The second example is from “Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals – Part Two”, written by Satish Chandra, and published by Har-Anand Publications: Baji Rao decided on immediate war, rejecting the peace overtures made by Nizam-ul-Mulk who had no real desire for war. After a brief but brilliant campaign, Baji Rao brought Nizam-ul-Mulk to bay at Palkhed. Satish Chandra, along with S Gopal, Romila Thapar, and Bipan Chandra helped guide, in 1970, the launch of the Centre for Historical Studies at the School of Social Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The perversion of Indian history by those claiming to be its historians has been done not by outright falsification or omission of facts – because those would be easy to catch – but by a more devastating combination of distortions and trivializations. I have adapted this account from “Volume VIII – The Maratha Supremacy” of the magnum opus – “The History and Culture of the Indian People”, General Editor R.C. Majumdar, published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Second Edition, 1991. Islamic State is a Country not a Terrorist Group Congress, A Cult Without A Moral Compass

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Structural, thermal, mechanical and rheological properties of polylactic acid/epoxidized soybean oil/organoclay blends Ali, Fathilah and Anuar, Hazleen and Jamaluddin, Jamarosliza (2018) Structural, thermal, mechanical and rheological properties of polylactic acid/epoxidized soybean oil/organoclay blends. In: Reference module in materials science and materials engineering. Elsevier, pp. 1-8. ISBN 978-0-12-803581-8 (In Press) Plastics are manufactured from non-degradable polymers such as polystyrene, polyethylene and many more, in which their light weight and long-lasting property are causing terrible environmental pollution. To overcome the problem, researchers are exploring on biodegradable materials that can substitute conventional polymers. Among the biodegradable polymers, polylactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable aliphatic polyester derived from lactic acid, which can be obtained from the fermentation of starchy materials (Mehta et al., 2006). In spite of many attractive properties of PLA, such as biodegradability, high strength and modulus, PLA shows lower flexibility and higher cost, thus limiting the applications of PLA (Rasal et al., 2010). Epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) is an epoxidized derivative of a mixture of esters of glycerol with various saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. In previous study, ESO has been used as a plasticizer in PLA with 38% increase in elongation at break with 20 parts per hundred (phr) ESO loading (Ali et al., 2009). However, the tensile strength, yield stress and modulus of PLA decreased with addition of plasticizer. It has been reported that addition of plasticizer generally increases the elongation at break but decreases the strength and modulus. Thus, one method that can be used to improve the properties of polymer matrix is by incorporating fillers such as clay (Pluta et al., 2006a; Najafi et al., 2013). Incorporation of clay into PLA exhibited improvement in water vapor barrier and antimicrobial properties (Rhim et al., 2009; Castro-Aguirre et al., 2018). There are two methods that can be used to disperse the clay in polymer matrices: solution blend and meld blend. In the solution blend method, solvent is used in large amount to dissolve the polymers thus, improving the intercalation of polymer chains and clay platelets (Ozdemir et al., 2016). Whereas, for melt blend method, the layered silicate is mixed with the polymer matrix at the melting temperature of the polymer. This method is mostly used as it is more environmental friendly and polymers can be melt processed. It has been reported that the PLA/​clay nanocomposites were prepared by melt blending of PLA with sepiolite and halloysite clays (Russo et al., 2014). The addition of oligo(є-caprolactone) as compatibilizer has improved the dispersion of silicate layers in nanocomposites (Ray et al., 2002). Enhancement of properties such as crystallization rate (Pluta et al., 2006b), tensile, impact strength, modulus (Najafi et al., 2015), gas permeability, water barrier property (Şengül et al., 2017) and biodegradability (Castro-Aguirre et al., 2018) were observed in PLA/​clay nanocomposites. Dispersion of clay is very crucial in obtaining homogeneously dispersed filler in polymer matrix, in which, dispersion of clay in PLA matrix using electric effect was reported by Geun et al. (2016). Thus, this study aimed to prepare PLA blend using ESO as a plasticizer and Cloisite 30B as an organoclay. The PLA/​ESO/​organoclay nanocomposites were melt mixed with different ratios of organoclay and then investigated the structural, thermal, mechanical and rheological properties of the nanocomposites. Biodegradable polymerEnvironmental friendlyEpoxidized soybean oilFillerNanocompositeOrganoclayPlasticizerPolylactic acid T Technology > TP Chemical technology > TP1080 Polymers, plastics and their manufacture Dr Fathilah Ali

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HomePage > Adaptation > National Adaptation Strategies Due to its geographical location and geological properties, the island of Taiwan regularly encounters natural disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons, mudslides and flash floods, all of which will be exacerbated by climate change. In recognition of this growing threat, the Executive Yuan has been rapidly expanding the function of its National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD) since 2009. This includes the creation of the NCSD's working group, the Energy Conservation, Carbon Reduction and Climate Change Working Group, which now serves as a platform for promoting mitigation and adaptation policies. The Working Group is jointly led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD). For the purpose of enhancing our nation's adaptive capacity, minimizing the society's vulnerability, integrating regional resources to establish a centralized network, and setting up an implementation basis for policy structure and plan promotion, CEPD entrusted Vice President Liu Chao-Han from Academia Sinica to form a multidisciplinary consultation team, and CEPD further established a Task Force for Formulating and Promoting the Climate Change Adaptation Policy Framework and Action Plan on January 29, 2010. This Task Force is composed of high-level officials of related agencies, experts, scholars, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGO) and industries. This Task Force will keep on monitoring and coordinating the progress of the Adaptation Policy Framework and Action Plan. After taking into consideration Taiwan's unique environmental characteristics and experience, CEPD has defined eight sectors under the Task Force. More than one of the ministries and councils work together cooperatively in order to implement each sector's adaptation policies. A specific ministry or council is assigned to be the lead agency of each sector as listed below. Each ministry and council may establish its own working group when needed.

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Log in to jultrason The primary role of radiological imaging in the diagnosis of rare musculoskeletal diseases. Emphasis on ultrasound Federica Rossi1, Carlo Martinoli1,2, Giovanni Murialdo3, Angelo Schenone4, Marina Grandis4, Diego Ferone5, Alberto Stefano Tagliafico1,2 1 Department of Health Sciences (DISSAL), University of Genova, Genoa, Italy 2 Department of Radiology, IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy 3 Department of Internal Medicine, Policlinico San Martino University Hospital, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy 4 Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, and Maternal and Child Health, University of Genova, Genoa, Italy 5 Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Specialties (DIMI), University of Genoa, Genua, Włochy Correspondence: Alberto Tagliafico, MD, Department of Health Sciences, DISSAL, University of Genova, Via Pastore, 1, 16138 Genoa, Italy; tel.: +390105555248, fax: +390105556620, e-mail: albertotagliafico@gmail.com J Ultrason 2019; 19: 187–192 DOI: 10.15557/JoU.2019.0028 Objective: In July 2017 a multidisciplinary clinical Center specialized in rare diseases was activated. A rare disease can involve the musculoskeletal system. A multimodality musculoskeletal imaging approach allows for a rapid diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to assess when musculoskeletal radiology, ultrasound in particular, plays a primary role in the diagnostic path of a rare disease. Methods and materials: The Center included a list of 621 main rare diseases. Pathologies in which radiology has a primary diagnostic role were extracted from the list. From September 2017 to January 2018 all conditions involving the musculoskeletal system, including the peripheral nervous system, were systematically evaluated by one radiologist. The second radiologist, an official consultant of the Center, verified the list for consistency. Descriptive analysis was performed. Results: A total of 101/621 (16%) rare diseases can be diagnosed for the first time in the diagnostic path of the patient with medical imaging. A total of 36/101 (36%) rare diseases involve the musculoskeletal system. A total of 14/36 (39%) are pediatric diseases, 10/36 (28%) are adult age diseases, while 12/36 (33%) diseases affect all ages. A total of 23/36 (64%) of the selected rare diseases could be diagnosed with MRI, 19/36 (53%) with CT, 23/36 (64%) with X-ray, 9/36 (25%) with an US, and 1/36 (3%) with PET. Conclusions: Musculoskeletal imaging could be important for a noninvasive diagnosis in up to 36/101 (36%) rare diseases, as well as for outcome prediction, especially in pediatrics. Musculoskeletal imaging plays a crucial role in the diagnosis of rare diseases and could strongly influence the clinical pathway. Ultrasound Key words: ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, radiology, rare diseases

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Archive | communication By Jonathan Becher on December 22, 2019 in blogging, communication, Leadership, predictions It’s the time of year when New Year’s resolutions are ubiquitous. In a quick search, I found more than 100 articles published in the last week alone. Apparently, we’ve all resolved to write about resolutions. While they are common, New Year’s resolutions are notoriously difficult to keep – only 1/3 of people who make resolutions keep them… By Jonathan Becher on October 6, 2019 in Behavior, communication, Marketing, psychology, storytelling If you were to ask people in the technology industry to name the best commercial ever made, the majority would likely cite “1984” from Apple. That commercial, which aired during the 1984 Super Bowl, introduced the Macintosh personal computer. In fact, Advertising Age ranked “1984” as first on its list of the 50 greatest commercials…. By Jonathan Becher on September 29, 2019 in Behavior, communication, language On a recent trip to Ireland, a local told me that Ireland had lots of unusually named towns. His favorite was Bastardtown in Wexford County but a close runner up is the difficult-to-pronounce and spell Muckanaghederdauhaulia. Seriously? After I returned home, a close friend reminded me that unusual names for towns wasn’t just an Irish… By Jonathan Becher on August 25, 2019 in Behavior, books, communication, language, writing As my mantra is “Words Matter,” I’m fascinated by the etymology of words, how different cultures use language, and when people accidentally/purposefully misuse English. I’ve covered spelling bees, written about mondegreens and eggcorns, and advocated for the banishing of overused words. So, it’s probably not surprising that a friend caught my attention when he recently… Defending Learning Latin, almost ad nauseum By Jonathan Becher on June 2, 2019 in Behavior, communication, storytelling, Uncategorized, writing As an eighth-grader, I decided to take Latin as an elective. Openly, it was more of an impulse choice than a carefully-constructed decision. Not surprisingly, my friends questioned my decision and I found myself defending learning Latin. In fact, the class was much more interesting than I expected it to be. At the bottom of… Explaining The Dunning-Kruger Effect By Jonathan Becher on May 27, 2019 in Behavior, communication, psychology Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? The term derives from a 1999 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which showed that low performers tend to overestimate their abilities. It’s not that low performers think they are better performers than higher-skilled people (that’s the illusory superiority effect); it’s just people think they’re… By Jonathan Becher on April 21, 2019 in Behavior, communication, Leadership, psychology, Uncategorized The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones. —Dwight Eisenhower In light of our always-on world, it’s natural we focus on time-sensitive tasks; the seemingly non-ending list of things that have to be done. At work, these tasks include responding to emails or voice mails, generating a report due later in the day,… By Jonathan Becher on January 13, 2019 in Behavior, communication, failure, Marketing, planning, psychology You likely know about reverse psychology, but have you ever heard of inversion thinking? Reverse psychology is when you get someone to do something you want them to do by suggesting they do the opposite of it. One form of reverse psychology is to forbid someone to do something that you actually want them to… The Streisand Effect Explains Why Nothing Stays Hidden By Jonathan Becher on November 4, 2018 in Behavior, communication, culture, failure, psychology A few weeks ago, I wrote about an example of unintended consequences called the cobra effect in which an attempt to reduce the snake population actually increased it. A reader emailed me asking me if I had heard of a similar phenomenon called the Streisand effect. Since I hadn’t, I thought I would share the… The Power Play of Sports Jargon By Jonathan Becher on October 7, 2018 in Behavior, books, communication, culture, sports Ever since I became an executive in sports & entertainment, people started sending me examples of over-the-top uses of sports jargon. From every unnecessary quip like “Please quarterback this project for me”, there’s also the poetic usage such as “The candidate won by a nose.” My slam-dunk favorite sports jargon gone too far came from…

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finding inspiration and acknowledgements An introduction to lipreading Finding Inspiration & Acknowledgements "The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind. " Marlee Matlin - Actress www.quotessays.com Latest Acknowledgements "I would like to thank Hearing Help Uttlesford for their generous donation of £1510 which has helped to fund the second phase of Lipreading practice." Finding Inspiration and other Acknowledgements When I first lost my hearing I was very depressed and worried about how I was going to cope. Then I heard Jack Ashley speak. I was so impressed by his positive attitude and his tireless work on behalf of people with disabilities of all kinds. He became totally deaf during a routine operation. He continued as an MP but had to lipread in the House of Commons. He was well respected on both sides of the House and was helped not only by his wife but by other MP’s who would slip him notes or gesture to let him know how his speech delivery was coming across. In an interview he described how difficult it was, because lipreading is so imprecise. For those of us with some hearing we are better able to make it work for us but there are still difficulties. He was behind most of the campaigns for legislation that has helped those with disabilities access all areas of life. I greatly admired him and felt that here was someone who really overcame his difficulty and worked for others. My one regret is that even when I was a British Tinnitus Association Trustee's Board member,I didn’t meet him. Sadly he is dead now but I still think of him when I have moments of doubt. I was so lucky to meet Ivy Court and Margaret Pickerill, who were working in rehabilitation in the Addenbrookes’ Audiology Department that I attended. They helped me to try to recognise the sounds that I was now hearing. It was a revelation. I was used to teaching the sounds to children, and to find that I could no longer recognise them accurately was, to say the least, difficult to accept. With their help I began to build my confidence and believe that I could continue with my job (By now I was a Junior School Headteacher). Another inspirational person in my life was my lipreading teacher Judy Knox. She made the classes so interesting and such fun that it was a joy to be a member of the group. I learned so much from her and was inspired to eventually take over some of her classes when she retired. Her positive attitude and brilliant teaching inspired me to want to help others as she had helped me! I’m happy to say that I am still in contact with her to this day. I would like to thank Adult Community Learning Essex and Suffolk Deaf Association for giving me the opportunity to teach lipreading in their areas thus meeting some amazing people, many of whom have become personal friends. In particular, I would like to thank Nola Marshall, ACL Curriculum Manager in Essex, who has always given me such positive feedback, encouragement and support. Thanks too, to two of my friends, Tim Viaene and Geoffrey Hodge who encouraged and gave me technical advice when I was trying to create this programme on my own. Also to the filming team led by Andy Taplin (Peninsula Films) and to the design team, Andy Squires and Steve Morphey at The Design Business, who created this web site and who gave encouragement and advice on the presentation of the work. Finally thanks to my family for their constant encouragement and belief in me. Thanks to Simon Wyatt, Robert Lewis and Robert McGregor for their support in helping to produce this website. Especially thanks to John, my husband, who has supported me in every aspect of my work, especially in creating this website. He has driven this project so that we can now present a lipreading practice programme.

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Pavla Horáková Quite a mixed bag of stories on today's front pages. MLADA FRONTA DNES leads with a planned campaign against aggressive drivers. The Transport Ministry is drafting an amendment to the traffic law which - it's hoped - will reduce the horrendous road death statistics in this country. If the bill becomes law, each driver who is caught breeching traffic rules will get a certain number of points depending on the gravity of the offence. Confronting the problems of getting around in Czech towns and cities Dita Asiedu This week is European Mobility Week, and several towns and cities in the Czech Republic have agreed to take the initiative to look into the different aspects of urban mobility, through discussion programmes, lectures, and special events. Last year 320 cities from 21 European countries participated in the campaign and the Czech Environment Ministry, together with the Foreign Ministry, supported it for the first time. Eva Veverkova is the campaign's chief co-ordinator in the Czech Republic: Another bus crash, this time in Italy Rob Cameron There has been another accident involving a Czech bus, this time in Italy. The bus carrying 22 students and their two professors was involved in a multiple collision on the motorway linking Brescia and Milan on Monday morning. A Czech lorry was also involved. None of the bus passengers was seriously hurt. On Saturday a bus driver was killed and 12 passengers seriously injured after their vehicle hit a railway viaduct in East Bohemia. On the same day a bus driver drowned when his empty bus veered off the road and plunged into the River Elbe. At least twenty people died in road accidents over the weekend, one of the blackest on Czech roads in recent months. Bus driver killed, 12 passengers seriously injured in crash A bus driver has been killed and 12 people seriously injured in a crash near the town of Svitavy. The accident happened at around 11.30 on Saturday night after a bus carrying 45 passengers collided with a railway viaduct. The driver was killed instantly, 24 passengers were taken to hospital, 12 of them with serious injuries. The remaining passengers - believed to be pensioners returning from a day trip - escaped with minor cuts and bruises. Police have launched an investigation to establish the cause of the crash. There have been a number of serious road accidents involving buses in recent years, the worst of which left seventeen passengers dead. Police launch road safety campaign as accident statistics reach new heights Police across the Czech Republic began a nationwide campaign recently aimed at reducing the number of deaths and injuries on the roads. The country has one of the worst accident records in the world, with experts saying poor legislation - as well as poor driving - are to blame. Come to the Czech Republic. But don't try crossing the road. Every morning, on my brief walk to work, I risk death or terrible injury performing what should be a relatively safe task: crossing the road. So far I've emerged unscathed: but each year, thousands of people end up in hospital and hundreds end up dead. Today's papers make rather depressing reading - with little else happening, the grim road death statistics get front page coverage in Mlada Fronta Dnes. Lidove Noviny meanwhile leads with news that the investigation into the "robbery of the century" has collapsed through lack of forensic evidence, while Pravo claims that the Russian mafia is slowly but surely infiltrating the Czech authorities. All of Wednesday's Czech dailies lead with different stories, with Mlada Fronta Dnes, for instance, reporting that rents are falling in Prague and remaining static in other parts of the country. The news is especially good for those renting larger, more up-market flats, says the daily. The reason for the decline in rents in the capital is that so many new flats - around 2,000 - are being built every year. Added to that, it's now easier to get a mortgage at rates which compare favourably with monthly rent. Police officers kill two pedestrians last week Alena Škodová Two pedestrians - one of them a 4-year-old boy - were knocked down and killed last weekend. The shocking thing is that in both cases the drivers were police officers. What's more, the number of road accidents involving police officers is on the rise.

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Clinic specializing in traditional Chinese medicine to open in Hradec Králove A clinic specializing in traditional Chinese medicine will open to patients in September within the Hradec Králove Teaching Hospital complex. The clinic will be staffed by Chinese doctors who helped set up the Czech-Chinese Centre for Research into Traditional Chinese Medicine at the hospital in June of this year. They are currently studying the effects of traditional Chinese medicine on oncological patients and patients with multiple sclerosis. The centre is a pilot project and the first of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. Expert: China “very disappointed” following Zeman U-turn in support Previously a strong advocate of cultivating ties with Beijing, the Czech president has signalled a major U-turn. Miloš Zeman now says… Czech foreign minister on relations with China: we need to carefully balance our values and business interests A reset in Czech-Chinese relations in 2014, that included a commitment to the “One China policy” promised to bring huge economic benefits,… Home Credit’s alleged promotion of Communist China may lead to commission on foreign influence The consumer loans provider Home Credit, which is owned by Czech billionaire Petr Kellner, is facing scrutiny after reports it could…

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November 30, 2017 Show SHOW SOLD OUT! Last year the Society of American Magicians produced a show for their annual convention titled The Jersey Boys Of Magic that featured six of the best magicians in New Jersey. The show ended up winning a Producer’s Award (the first time that award was ever presented). Since then there have been several attempts to reunite the group for a fringe festival or some trade shows but scheduling conflicts made it impossible… until now. Four of the original members, David Corsaro, Will Fern, Rocco Silano, and Meir Yedid will be appearing in this Jersey Boys of Magic Reunion Show as part of the Magic After Dark series at the Turning Point. David Corsaro David Corsaro is a consummate professional who is equipped to entertain audiences as small as one to a theater of thousands. He is a regular MC and performer at New York City’s longest running Off-Broadway magic show and has performed his amazing feats of magic for Fortune 500 companies (Wrigley’s, Panasonic, Nestle, and Viacom) as well as top music acts (Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire and The Milwaukees). David also donates his talent for a variety of charitable organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Hurricane Sandy Relief and Lions International. David’s personal brand of magic can be described as an enthusiastic blend of magic and comedy that will have you laughing while riveted to his every move. He is also the producer of the annual Martinis and Magic benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the host of the web show for magicians, Time To Be Awesome. Will Fern Will Fern has been a busy performer in and around the NYC area for more than twenty years. From corporate events to cruise ships and all manner of private affairs, Will has a trademark style combining good clean fun and amazing magic. He spent several years honing his craft in Barbados, is a regular at the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, and is best known among his peers for his strolling magic at all manner of affairs, in which he was crowned “International Champion” in 2011. His numerous awards include: Magician of The Year by SAMPA, he was the first person to ever win the Society of American Magicians Close-Up Magic Championship more than once, he was the Guest of Honor at the prestigious Obie’s 4F Convention and most recently received a Christopher Foundation award for his contributions to magic. His television appearances include: Comedy Tonight (FOX), The Paul Daniels Show (BBC), Knoff Hoff Show (ZDFTV), Mind Over Matter (ACTV), Best Trick Ever (ABC2 [2 episodes]) and dozens of others that include some of the highest rated television shows in Japan, Germany, Australia and England. Thursday November 30, 2017 at 8pm (doors open at 7pm)

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Bob Findlay – Trust Member / Trust Chair / Member of Resources Committee / Member of Standards Committee Bob Findlay was born in Canada but has lived in the UK since 1965. He joined Morgan-Grampian in 1969 and later became Managing Director of its main operating subsidiary and a Director of the public holding company. In 1974, he left Morgan-Grampian to start Findlay Publications. A strong desire to help address manufacturing’s greatest constraint – its skills shortage – through persuading young people to pursue careers in engineering, led him in 1989 to donate £400,000 and lead a £1.6million project developing new curriculum programmes for the fledgling City Technology Colleges Trust. Concurrently he helped found and build the Kent TEC into a £30 million success delivering government training programmes. In 2006, he became Chair of Governors at The Leigh City Technology College in Dartford. In 2008, that became Leigh Academies Trust Cllr Jeremy Kite – Trust Director Jeremy Kite has been Leader of Dartford Borough Council since 2006 and a Member of Kent County Council since June 2009, where he is a Deputy Cabinet Member. Jeremy is a Director of Dartford Football Club and is involved with several local charities and groups. He has a particular interest in civic design and has worked with designer Wayne Hemingway on a housing development at The Bridge, as well as architect Ken Shuttleworth on the creation of the Dartford Dojo, and his Council was responsible for commissioning the ecological award-winning football stadium at Princes Park. In 2015 he was appointed to the Board of Ebbsfleet Development Corporation by the Secretary of He was awarded an MBE in 2013. Professor Martin Snowden – Trust Member / Trust Director / Member of Standards Committee Professor Martin Snowden has a background as a physical chemist with an international research profile in the area of colloid and polymer science as it relates to pre-formulation and formulation science. He has published over 120 original works, including a number of invited papers and reviews, and has a h-index of 38. Professor Snowden is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Professor Snowden also has very strong links with companies including Pfizer, Glaxo Smith Kline and BP, which have led to research sponsorship of in excess of £4 million supporting 25 post-doctoral researchers and 15 PhDs during his time at the University of Greenwich. Professor Snowden has served two terms as an editorial board member of the ACS journal, Langmuir, and is a past member of the EPSRC peer-review college. After gaining his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Salford, he became a BP post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Bristol. Here he undertook a project with Professor Vincent on the preparation and properties of colloidal microgels, successfully translating technology from the university into BP Sunbury which, in turn, led to the filing of several patents and a number of publications in the area of tertiary oil recovery. In 1993 Professor Snowden joined the University of Greenwich as a lecturer in physical chemistry, progressing to senior lecturer, Head of Department, appointed reader, and appointed professor in colloid and polymer science by 2003. He took up the post of Dean of the School of Science in September 2008 after a three-year position as director of research and enterprise and became Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Engineering and Science in 2012. Professor Snowden took on the additional responsibility of PVC International as a cross-University role in 2014. Professor Snowden was the chair of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Science of the United Kingdom (2010-2012) and is a past member of the board of governors of the University of Greenwich. Professional development: Professor Snowden has attended the Leadership Foundation Programmes in Preparing for Senior Strategic Leadership and Senior Strategic Leadership as well as attending a Leadership Foundation Programme for members of University Court. Paul Carter – Trust Member Paul has been an elected County Councillor for Kent County Council for 20 years, representing the Maidstone Rural North ward. He was first elected in 1997 and appointed Leader of the Council in 2005. Paul also represents the County Council Network (CCN) for England as their Chairman. Prior to his election as Leader of KCC, Paul held the education portfolio and oversaw a massive school building modernisation programme as well as delivering substantial improvement in school standards. It is enormously pleasing now to see school attainment at all key stages above national averages in Kent. Currently, as Leader of KCC, Paul has overseen massive change and transformation in the delivery of front-line services to residents of all ages and stages in Kent – having successfully delivered to the government’s austerity programme some £400,000,000 of efficiency savings within KCC’s budget. Currently Paul is spending a considerable amount of time in his busy schedule working on health and social-care integration and transformation; hoping to see the development of dramatically-expanding primary and community health and social services that support patients 24/7 and help reduce avoidable admittance into hospital, particularly among the elderly – “the team around the surgery supporting their patient in the community”. Outside of his political career Paul has been a successful entrepreneur, with a business career spanning over 35 years, having established and run a number of highly-profitable businesses, primarily in construction, property and retail in Central London. Paul is married with three grown-up sons. His hobbies include competing in various aspects of motorsport. Frank Green – Trust Director / Chair of Standards Committee / Chair of The Halley Academy Board Frank has a considerable reputation as one of the country’s leading educational thinkers, innovators and successful leaders. Most recently he was National Schools Commissioner, 2013-2016, with oversight of all Academies and Free Schools. He established the Regional School Commissioners structure as part of the mechanism to co-ordinate and oversee the development of the academies programme. Prior to that he had been Chief Executive of Leigh Academies Trust from 2008, one of the first MATs, having created it from the original Leigh City Technology College, of which he was Principal from 1997. From 1992 to 1997 he was the founding Head of The Lincoln School of Science and Technology, which was the very first specialist school and the model for that programme. In 2013 he was appointed Commander of the British Empire for his services to education. He is chairman of Challenger Multi Academy Trust (from 1 June), and also Vice chairman of Leigh Academies Trust, Chairman of King Richard School, Director of Shoreline Enterprises, and a Director of Challenger Trust. Helen Warren – Parent Governor on Milestone Academy Board Helen joined the Milestone Academy Board as a parent governor in March 2018, after her son started at the academy in September 2016. Before having children, she worked for eleven years in central government on a number of national education policies including the National Curriculum, school improvement and children’s rights. She has previously served as a governor of a large mainstream primary school for twelve years, the last four of which were as the chair of governors. Alongside family life, she also volunteers regularly for a small local charity that provides Makaton sign language support to families. She is delighted to be a member of the Milestone Academy Board. Keith Ellis – Trust Director / Member of Audit Committee / Chair of The Leigh UTC Board Keith is the co-owner and Managing Director of the Kenard Group, a thriving and diverse organisation that specialises in subcontract precision engineering and manufacturing software technology. He is incredibly proud of the Group’s success as a privately-owned business, supplying some of the world’s largest companies in aerospace, defence, and oil and gas, in what is a highly competitive market. Kenard continues to be actively involved with providing young engineers with the opportunity to gain the skills, qualifications and experience that they need to start their careers. The Group has been running apprenticeship programmes since the early 1980s and continues to support individuals through their studies, from NVQ, HNC and on to university. Theresa Davies – Trust Director / Chair of Resources Committee / Chair of Audit Committee / Chair of Milestone Academy Board / Chair of Tree Tops Primary Academy Development Group / Governor on Maidstone Academies Board As Theresa’s own children entered the world of education she became a governor of a local primary school, and subsequently Milestone Academy, over 25 years ago. As a result of her involvement with the two schools, she developed a passion for education and retrained as a School Business Manager, gaining employment in a local secondary school. The role immersed her in all aspects of school life, from new student applications and student welfare, through finance and HR, to managing significant building projects. Having now retired, Theresa is able to support LAT in the drive to achieve its aims and objectives in a broader capacity that she finds both challenging and rewarding. Gina Groom – Parent Governor on Milestone Academy Board I became a parent Governor in 2015 because I was really keen to learn how a school is run from behind the scenes. I also have a child with special needs who attends the school which made me even more curious to learn more. Having a child with special needs means you automatically become their voice so I am therefore very passionate in ensuring the school maintains its high standards. Marion Charlton – Governor on Milestone Academy Board I am a semi-retired qualified accountant with a background in business and finance within the pharmaceutical industry. I have held a variety of operational and leadership roles across the business over many years. I have expertise in leading and managing cross functional teams and projects and in implementing business wide Risk Management and Governance processes. I have experience in Business Continuity Planning, Cultural Change and Lean Sigma. I have been involved with Leigh Academies Trust, in various capacities, for 9 years and have been a governor at Milestone Academy for 4 years. Lisa Tritton – Governor on Milestone Academy Board I became a governor a year ago as I am committed to ensuring that children of every ability get the right support and care in school. I am currently a Registered Nurse (Adult) and have been qualified for 25 years; currently working as a Practice Placement Facilitator / Clinical Skills coach in a Clinical Education Team within an Acute Trust. Although I predominantly work with nursing students I am also involved with other students who have placements within the Trust offering support during their time within the organisation. My experience in nursing has been varied both in the NHS and the private sector; in the UK and abroad. My specialism in Nursing is neurology and I have undertaken a variety of roles including management, specialist nursing and educational in both hospital and community settings. I have a BA and MSc in non-nursing subjects; archaeology and osteoarchaeology and have completed my PG Cert in Education and NMC Teacher award. At home I am married and we have one son who is 7; who we adopted at age 3, and I have 3 step children all of whom keep us very busy.

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Language unleashed Richard Hollis Robert Massin A. M. Cassandre Massin’s pioneering book designs of the 1960s used graphic devices to make the spoken word visible and enhance the text’s meaning Design history celebrates key works. Some have an immediate influence, marking a leap in the profession and identifying a period. Others, remarkable for their innovation and brilliance, have no immediate successors. Such is the case with the book La Cantatrice chauve (The Bald Prima Donna). Designed by Massin (who stopped using his first name, Robert, in the 1950s), this visual record of a theatrical production of Eugène Ionesco’s play published in Paris in 1964 is acknowledged in every account of the period’s design and typography. Created in the later stages of pre-digital graphics, La Cantatrice chauve is conspicuous for its sustained integration of image and word as an expression of the text. Only today, with the designer’s freedom to manipulate text and image on the screen, can we begin to understand its long-dormant legacy. Beginning work as a designer soon after the Second World War, Massin belongs to that generation whose output has spanned two technological revolutions: in typesetting, from hot-metal, through photosetting to digitisation; in printing, from letterpress to lithography. Following a period of involvement with the book clubs’ productions of the 1950s – one of France’s distinct contributions to graphic design – Massin was for over 20 years art director of Gallimard, the publishers responsible for La Cantatrice chauve. But Massin is not only a designer and art director. He is author of historical studies, novels and autobiographical writings (published under a pseudonym); he has written an account of Zola as a photographer and a documentary biography of Dostoyevsky. Much-thumbed copies of his compendium Letter and Image (La Lettre et l’image) can be found on the shelves of many design studios. Here, Massin shares with the reader his enthusiasm for the diversity of letterforms: in monastery manuscripts, press advertisements, Cubist collages, Arabic calligraphy, Dadaist typography, all kinds of book covers – indeed, wherever the author looked and pointed his camera. Gallimard has produced several new editions since the book first appeared in 1970. At a time when Helvetica and Univers were the norm, it raised questions about the expressive power of letterforms, a subject considered academic and amateur by many designers. But at the height of structuralist concern with the text, semiologists took note, and the book prompted Roland Barthes to write an essay of admiring bewilderment. The letter was a ‘contradictory signifier’ – on the one hand it was precise, so that we talk about the ‘letter of the law;’ on the other it released an endless flow of symbol and metaphor. The letter seemed to have its own meaning, independent of the text. Massin was born in a country village to the southwest of Paris in 1925. His father, a monumental mason, allowed him to cut his name and address in stone at the age of four and a half. In his book L’ABC du métier, a visual autobiography of his graphic world, his 1930s childhood is recalled by the classic commercial images and trademarks of the day: Michelin’s Bibendum man; Kub, the red and yellow bouillon stock cube; the St Raphaël waiters. As the Second World War ended, his formal education over, Massin made unsuccessful attempts to become a theatre reviewer. Disheartened, he travelled abroad, doing odd jobs and trying his hand at freelance journalism. After his return to Paris in 1948 he found a job as editor of a book club’s monthly newsletter. Because he had to do a paste-up of these pages, Massin became a designer. Knowing nothing about typesetting, he went to one of the firm’s printers, where he was placed in front of the cases of metal type, a composing stick put in his hand and he started to set his own name in type: the way a generation of typographers and designers began to learn their trade. Le Club du Meilleur Livre, where Massin worked from 1952, was one of several book clubs which helped to meet the demand for books after the years of Nazi occupation and a decade before television. Club members were offered a choice of one of four books each month – classics, translations and out-of-print works that reflected the enthusiasms of the publishers. The books did not have to compete for attention on bookshop shelves so there was no need for eye-catching jackets. Each volume could be a coherent, totally designed object, its designer responsible for every aspect of its production, not just typeface and layout. As published by the clubs, the book became a ‘livre-objet,’ described by Massin as ‘akin to an art work, a sculpture, a vase, a piece of furniture, and with a life independent of its textual content.’ The book was ‘no longer this rectangular parallelepiped as thick and inert as a brick, but something living; while printing was usually thought of as existing on the flat surface, we made a point of the book’s being three-dimensional.’ This object was not just to be seen, but handled. The binding material, protected by a loose sleeve of transparent plastic, could be anything that related to the content – velvet, sacking, wallpaper, wood veneer and butchers’ wrapping paper were all used. As well as the sense of touch, time was introduced with the idea of déroulement, the unfolding of an idea over several pages, particularly in the prelims. Massin acknowledges the influence of pioneering book club designer Pierre Faucheux. In 1952, for a special “Graphics and Art” issue of the monthly Art d’aujourd’hui, Faucheux wrote what amounted to a manifesto. Each new book, he sad, would be ‘a new OBJECT… whose character would be determined by the choice of type, the proportion of the text area within the selected format, and their déroulement in time and space.’ New typefaces were of no interest to Massin and his collegues. They wanted to ‘faire du neuf avec de l’ancien,’ to make something new with the old. Nevertheless, this did not prevent Massin making old with the old when trying to match typographic and literary expression in the club’s series of French classical literature, ‘Le Nombre d’or,’ designed as skilled pastiches of period typography. In 1958 Massin joined the mainstream of commercial publishing at the long-established Gallimard. The company’s output was huge, with 10000 titles in its catalogue. Massin became art director in 1960 – directing, at first, only himself. He summed up his task in three words: retain, restore, renew. The logotype ‘nrf’ (Nouvelle revue française) was retained and redrawn. The white covers of Gallimard novels – the author’s name in black, the title in red, all centered in Didot capitals and typeset at Deberny & Peignot – were retained and fine-tuned. As for renewal, Massin became immersed in the commercial world. The competition in Europe for the expanding paperback markets led publishers to give their titles a house style, most easily achieved by standardising cover formats, layouts and typefaces. The outcome of this rationalisation includes some of the most typical design of the period, notably Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag (dtv) in Germany and Penguin in the UK. Gallimard’s Folio series, devised by Massin and numbering 2000 titles by 1972, fitted this pattern: white covers with the type in Fry’s Baskerville. This standardisation effectively divided text from image. Massin described each cover as beginning ‘with a white rectangle – like the writer’s blank sheet – in which the title, author’s name and sometimes an image have to be positioned.’ This rectangle, ‘the size of a postage stamp (because at this small size you can see better what is going to stay readable) is really a poster. There is no real difference between a poster and a book cover: they both have to be seen as you move past them, and they have to impress you quickly and convincingly.’ The paperback cover became an illustrated label rather than an integrated graphic design. Massin’s covers for the Folio series lack the diverse, inventive graphics that his earlier jacket designs share with New Directions and Grove Press paperback covers in the US (by Paul Rand, Roy Kuhlman, Ivan Chermayeff and Rudolph de Harak, for instance). Yet some of the book club outlook remained. Massin saw the book as a piece of industrial design, like ‘a locomotive, a sewing machine or a coffee mill, the aim is the same: to give a pleasing form to an essential object.’ He said he wanted to make these books so that they would be both ‘read and kept… to look as though they had a noble pedigree.’ Popularity was not to be confused with vulgarity. Massin worked intermittently on less commercial projects. His first important single piece of design at Gallimard was an edition of Raymond Queneau’s Exercices de style. Queneau’s book examines narrative styles by repeating the same very short story in 100 different ways. In attempting ‘a literal expression of the text (mainly limited to the titles),’ Massin displayed his skill with eccentric type forms, supplying each variation of the tale with a heading which suggests the narrative form that follows. Derived from the content, the type style becomes part of the expression of the text’s meaning. The letters are not decoration, but unified text and illustration. Massin’s Exercices de style was a further demonstration of Faucheux’s idea of ‘making connections between the text and its graphic expression.’ Since Faucheux had himself produced a book club version of Exercises de style in 1956, there was, for Massin, an element of rivalry as well as homage in the project. Two years after Exercises de style came Massin’s graphic production of Ionesco’s play La Cantatrice chauve, a project initiated as much by Massin’s passion for the theatre as by his compulsion to experiment with the expression of a text. Avant-garde in 1950, La Cantatrice chauve is now considered a classic of French literature and has been on the Paris stage continuously for the past 35 years. Offering a French view of petit-bourgeois life, represented by the comings and goings on stage of two English couples, it belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd, mocking traditional theatre. A play without a plot, its dramatic effect depends on the language and on a relentless accumulation of banality which descends into hysterical realism and tragic farce. Massin saw the production on stage 20 times and recorded it on audiotape. He wanted the book to be an exact record. Ionesco’s characters, intentionally commonplace, speak in clichés; as their typographic equivalents, in a clear use of the ‘personality’ of typefaces, Massin chose conventional types in everyday use. Mr Smith talks in Plantin roman, his wife in italic; Mr and Mrs Martin speak in Grotesque 215 and Gill Italic; a fireman in a semi-bold Egyptian; Marie, the maid, in Cheltenham Bold. Massin introduces the actors in a cast list with their black and white photographic image, their name in the typeface in which they speak throughout the text. Ionesco allowed Massin to minimise the stage directions and eliminate punctuation, except for question and exclamation marks. In order to reproduce the effect of some parts of the play as perfrmed on stage, Massin exaggerates the characters’ expressions, as though they were overacting. As he tells us in L’ABC du metier, in using changes of scale and zoom effects, long shot and close-up, he was adopting techniques from the cinema and the comic strip. Massin goes to extreme lengths to carry out Ionesco’s dramatic intentions: in one case a scene lasting two minutes on stage extends over 48 pages, a quarter of the book. The play moves towards a climax in which the players shout over one another, coming to blows. ‘At the end of the piece, the rhythm speeds up, images and words jostle and shove one another in a sort of verbal frenzy which finishes in language being demolished: as if it were returning to its roots, reduced to onomatopoeia or single consonants and vowels. On the stage, the characters speak one on top of the other, at the same time coming to blows: the words deliver the punch (and then, at the end of the day, after they’ve been helped by the images, the words win, and that’s the end of the images).’ The graphics of Massin’s brilliant finale express the violence of the action yet retain the readability of the text. Following the position of the actors on the stage was Massin’s greatest problem: ‘Sometimes I cursed them for wanting to be always on the move and forcing me to shrink the text. It also made it difficult to keep the replies in the correct order, obliging me to intertwine and overlap the speech balloons. There was no way I could deny the 2000-year-old tradition, in the west, of reading left to right and top to bottom. But the major problem, which I think I did solve, was to put the stage space into the two dimensions of the book page. What I really wanted was, from beginning to end, to keep the viewer aware of time passing [durée] and space.’ Today, Massin recalls all the details of the graphic technique. The photographs of the actors were taken against a white wall in Gallimard’s offices by Henry Cohen. Even Massin himself is amazed at the hours spent on the design work, mostly at night. Using photostats of the photographs and projecting proofs of the type, all set in one text size, through an epidiascope, Massin drew same-size layouts for each double-page spread on tracing paper. ‘Posterised,’ black and white, halftone-free like the text, the images were combined with the type, giving a consistent graphic unity and more importantly helping to integrate the representation of what spectators saw and heard at a performance. It was at this time, in the 1960s, that designers first gained control over print production (a process completed with the Macintosh). By cutting and pasting the image together with the proofs or photoprints of the type as it would finally appear, the design became a stage for improvisation and adjustment. The laborious making of layouts, with instructions for both the photo-engraving of the halftone and the position of the type, was redundant. At this stage of typesetting development, with an extremely restricted range of typefaces, designers often did their own ‘typesetting’ by pasting up individual letters from photoprints. In this painstaking fashion, with alphabets from his own darkroom, Massin produced the words for several experiments. Type could also be reshaped photographically. After La Cantatrice chauve Massin produced a ‘vocal callligram’ of Edith Piaf’s song ‘La Foule’ (‘the crowd’), aiming ’to offer a reconstruction both of the sound curve and of the volume, range and timbre of the voice.’ Here the distorted lettering was ‘obtained by using sheets of latex printed in advance in Cheltenham Bold.’ The introduction of rub-down lettering such as Letraset brought Massin a further means of making text under his own control. In 1966, for his second Ionesco work, Délire à deux (‘two’s madness’) the text was made in transfer lettering from two alphabet designs by Massin himself. In a foreword, the designer describes the ‘action’: ‘Shut up in a room, a man and woman are arguing while around them a riot is building up. Their words, their insults, their shouts are punctuated by explosions: shots, grenades going off, explosions, and finally, the fireworks celebrating victory.’ The male voice is Garamond; the female Garamond italic, drawn at five angles including one sloping backwards, a ‘reverse italic.’ Here, using what he called ‘aural calligraphy,’ Massin translated the human voice with different weights of type, and by using ink blots and various graphic accidents. In the same year he designed the typographic orchestration of Jean Tardieu’s vocal sextet Conversation-Sinfonietta, assigning one-sixth of the page horizontally to each voice at a height that corresponded with its register. Massin remembers being typeset at Studio Hollenstein in Paris by photographing lines composed of individual letters on miniature tiles of card, line by line. What of Masin the designer now? Accompanied by his bulldog (a reminder of the Anglo-Saxon ironies of La Cantatrice chauve?), he freelances from a room in his flat in Montparnasse. In the final words of L’ABC du metier in September 1988 Massin set himself a challenge: ‘From tomorrow, I’m going to start layout on screen.’ The result is that he has reversed his earlier dictum, ‘to do something new with the old,’ and using the Macintosh has done something old with the new. The machine has allowed him to complete a longstanding project, a version of Cocteau’s Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (‘the wedding on the Eiffel Tower’), a musical satire of bourgeois attitudes first produced in 1921. In 1966 he began extending the 20-page text as a homage to Cocteau, who had died three years earlier. These initial pages, created by pasting up lines of type letter by letter, were scanned into the Macintosh. Now, almost 30 years later, the work is printed – in black on 16-page sections of coloured paper. Les Mariés is an indulgence belonging to the period of Massin’s earlier interest in letterforms. What began as a labour of love, a technical tour de force, has become a nostalgic series of exercises in style. Yet it would be wrong to suggest that Massin has not exploited the Macintosh, which he regards simply as a new tool. ‘The Mac isn’t talented,’ he says – like any tool. He enjoys its speed, and the opportunities it provides for modification of a form and refinement of a typographic idea. Manipulating text (standardised in Helvetica) and image, with little or no preliminary drawing, he has supplied artwork on disk at two-day deadlines for more than 50 posters for the FNAC chain of bookshops. Massin has also been at work recently on an identity for the National Theatre in Strasbourg. In drawing the letters TNS for the logo, he realised that he was merely making a poor rendering of the elements of Cassandre’s Bifur typeface. (The more usual form of the type had already been used by Antoine Vitez for the Chaillot National Theatre.) So Massin adopted the barest form of Bifur, the version used as an illustration in Faucheux’s 1952 article, ‘the only truly new form since the sixteenth century.’ Seen from one point of view, Bifur embodies the purist machine aesthetic of Ozenfant and Le Corbusier; from the other, it is the most debased example of style, its form bearing no relation to the function of readability. Massin’s designs and writings concern themselves chiefly with the tensions between the inherent expressive quality of a typeface and the words – the writer’s or client’s information. Contexts change criteria: with the title on a poster or paperback cover (or a logo), it is visibility; with a book’s text, it is readability. Massin’s considerations have always been directed at the total graphic expression: readability and style are part of the same task of finding a means to convey the author’s text. This is the first lesson we can learn from Massin: that the reader ‘reads’ something in the image of the words. If it is the word which carries meaning, then the writer is the designer of the message. Designers, in the end, only arrange how the message is delivered, which (not only in a book) can take place through a déroulement in time. Designers are susceptible to changes in style, and because it impinges on the content of the message, style should be derived from its content and determined by its context. ‘Making the new with the new’ has always created style, as we can see today with the Macintosh. But Massin’s warning is about fashion, and he cites Cocteau’s definition: ‘Fashion is what goes out of fashion.’ Richard Hollis, graphic designer and author of Graphic Design: A Concise Hisotry, London First published in Eye no. 16 vol. 4, 1995 Popular Feature Articles First Things First Manifesto 2000 Cult of the ugly Reputations: Josef Müller-Brockmann Reputations: Paula Scher 8vo: type and structure Feature Categories Awards madness Type Tuesday Design for eating Wordless picturebooks

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Browse through our Interesting Nodes on Greek Foreign Affairs Athens News Agency: News in English, 11-04-15 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article [01] Ambitious econ reforms for 2012-2011 unveiled [02] Papanikolis debut at Salamina naval station [03] Greek, Russian FMs meet  (ANA-MPA) -- A closely watched Medium-term Fiscal Strategy Framework, presented by Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, envisages measures worth 3.0 billion euros this year and a total 26 billion euros by 2015. Presenting the plan, Papaconstantinou said the 3.0 billion euros in interventions envisaged for this year would cover all risks and divergence existing in a fiscal consolidation program, while the remaining 23 billion euros (9.0 billion from higher revenues and 14 billion euros from spending cuts) will help in cutting the country's fiscal deficit by 14.5 billion euros since 8.5 billion euros is needed on interest spending. (ANA-MPA) The finance minister said the state expects revenues worth 15 billion euros from privatizations and exploiting the state's real estate property in the period 2011-2013, and a total of 50 billion euros by 2015. This revenue will be used to cut the public debt by an additional 20 percent of GDP by 2015. (ANA-MPA) The Medium-term framework is expected to be approved in Parliament in May and the new legislation will envisage budget projections, fiscal interventions to achieving goals, annual spending ceilings for each government ministry and targets, long-term projection of public debt, intervention plans in public sector enterprises, abolition-merger of state agencies, combatting tax evasion, civil administration and a new payroll, social spending, public spending and defense spending. (ANA-MPA) More details on the subscriber's page of ANA-MPA | Subscription request form (ANA-MPA) -- The wait for its arrival lasted more than four years, while it became a "target" long before its first submersion. The waiting is now over, as the 214-type "Papanikolis" (S120) class submarine, the new acquisition of the Hellenic Navy, arrived four months ago at the Salamina Naval Station near Piraeus. Another three submarines under the names "Pipinos", "Matrozos" and "Katsonis" will be delivered by next year. The new Papanikolis-class submarine was built by German's HDW and was commissioned for active duty in the Hellenic Navy during a ceremony held in Kiel, Germany on Oct. 27, 2010. The "Papanikolis" (S120) is the third submarine in the history of the modern Greek navy named after a legendary WWII submarine. Being the first submarine of its kind that was designed worldwide, it was scheduled to be the first to be delivered in 2005, instead it became part of the Greek naval force with a delay of four-and-a-half years due to high-profile technical problems that were subsequently resolved. Three submarines of this type already serve in the navy of Korea and one in Portugal, while six have been ordered by the Turkish navy. Caption: A view of the new submarine docked off the island of Salamina on Friday, April 15, 2011. ANA-MPA / STR [03] Greek, Russian FMs meet BERLIN (ANA-MPA / G. Pappas) -- The excellent level of bilateral relations between Greece and Russia was confirmed by foreign ministers Dimitris Droutsas and Sergey Lavrov who met here on Friday. The brief meeting was held on the sidelines of the NATO-Russia Council in Berlin during which the two ministers expressed their common will to boost bilateral cooperation. They also agreed to continue consultations in the imminent visit of the Greek FM to Moscow. ana2html v2.01 run on Friday, 15 April 2011 - 20:30:26 UTC

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info@n-big.org Bush Encroachment Bush encroachment in Namibia is one of the largest and most widespread economic, social and technical challenges facing the country in recent history. While in contrast, the Namibian biomass sector is largely unrecognised and underdeveloped. In reality, bush encroachment and the budding biomass sector go hand-in-hand, yeilding a huge new oportunity. With an estimated 45 million hectares of bush encroached land, the Namibian economy could stand to benefit some USD 3 billion over a 20 year period if a large portion of that land were to be harvested. Harvesting leads to productivity increases with regards to improved stocking rates and also contributes to better ground water recharge among other benefits. Additionally, once opportunity costs are factored for, the real economic benefits realised from bush harvesting can be multiplied even further. The solution doesn’t stop at harvesting, but it must continue on to create value from the resultant biomass. There is considerable market demand for woody biomass in existing and future market segments both locally and internationally. However, a robust biomass supply chain is required in order to meet the requirements of large-scale users, both currently and in the future. Large biomass off takers require uninterrupted and reliable supply of biomass. Additionally, not only large players can benefit from the commoditisation of biomass, but Small to Medium sized Enterprises as well, as they would gain access to a new, locally sourced raw material, with unlimited potential. The land owners will also greatly benefit, as affordable contract harvesting would become more and more accessible, providing many advantages over other bush control techniques. Therefore, under the auspices of a development cooperation between the Government of Namibia (via MAWF) and the Federal Republic of Germany (via GIZ), the Namibia Biomass Industry Group (N-BiG) was formed and incorporated in December 2015. N-BiG is a non-profit organisation, incorporated under Section 21 (Reg. No.: 21/2015/0482). N-BiG was founded through the support of its founding members and its funders and strives to grow its membership base and facilitate bush utilisation and value addition. N-BiG, clearing the path to prosperity. Animal Feed from Namibia Encroacher Bush National Integrated Resource Plan – 2016 An assessment of the micro- and macroeconomic benefits of an Encroacher Bush Biomass Power Plant near Tsumeb in Namibia Renewable Energy Policy for Namibia - final draft Independent Power Producers Policy draft- October 2017 https://t.co/fr42LZuTS9 7 DAYS ago Cargo City , 5 Von Braun Street About N-BiG The Namibia Biomass industry Group (N-BiG) is a newly established industry organisation to serve and grow the Namibian biomass industry. N-BiG was founded through the support of the GIZ Support to De-bushing Programme, and its founding members. N-BiG is currently still establishing itself, and has only had a full-time team committed to it since May 2016. Copyright © 2016 N-BiG All rights reserved. Terms of Use |Website developed by Byte Able

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PH still second least peaceful in Asia-Pacific: global index Posted at Jun 07 2018 09:35 AM | Updated as of Jun 07 2018 10:02 AM FILE PHOTO: A soldier walks through a destroyed community in Banggolo Distric, Marawi City, May 21, 2018. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News MANILA - The Philippines has kept its place as the second least peaceful country in the Asia-Pacific region in 2017 due to the government's relentless anti-narcotics drive and the siege of Marawi, an international index showed on Wednesday. Manila's score declined by 0.012 points at 2.512, which was second only to North Korea, the region's least peaceful state, with a score of 2.95, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). The Philippine score "suffered badly" as President Rodrigo Duterte continued his assault on alleged drug dealers and from the 5-month battle between government forces and Islamic militants who took over Marawi, the Australia-based IEP said in its Global Peace Index report. War on Drugs, The Unheard Voices Battle for Marawi: Stories from under the rubble The Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan,Papua New Guinea and Thailand also "recorded increased weapons imports in the last year" as China exerted itself militarily and politically in the region, the report said. Overall, the Philippines is the 137th most peaceful country out of 163 states analyzed by the report. Manila's ranking is a spot below its 2017 standing. Europe was ranked as the most peaceful region in the world, while the Middle East and north Africa were the least peaceful. Iceland, New Zealand and Austria were hailed as the most peaceful countries while Syria, South Sudan and Iraq were deemed as the least peaceful. By analyzing data from think tanks, research institutes, government and universities, the IEP also estimated that in 2017 violence cost the economy $14.8 trillion - nearly $2,000 a person. View the full 2017 Global Peace Index report here. With a report from Reuters RELATED STORY: World less peaceful than a decade ago, global index shows peace, global peace index, Marawi, war on drugs, violence Read More: peace global peace index Marawi war on drugs violence

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Austra Zalcmane Austra Zalcmane was born in 1935, the daughter of a local historic leader of the Aizsargi, a paramilitary organisation formed during the Latvian war of independence that back the authoritarian regime of Kārlis Ulmanis (1934-1940). The hierarchy of the organisation was soon targeted by Soviet repression and Austra’s family were evicted from their home. On 14 June 1941, the family was arrested and separated. Her father was sentenced to forced labour and did not survive. Lilija, her mother, brother and sisters were deported to the Krasnoyarsk region. Her little brother died there, her mother and the three girls suffered hunger and illness. In 1946, Austra and her sisters were allowed to return to Latvia, as part of a measure concerning Latvian and Estonian orphans and half-orphans in the special settlements, and were fostered by their aunt. She went to school and became a primary schoolteacher. Her mother returned in 1957 under the amnesty for all the special settlers. Austra is the sister of Lilija Kaijone. Interview extracts in original language Personal documents Austra and Lilija’s family The “Russian Hell” Boat journey Choosing workers Austra learns Russian Changes in deportee housing Learning Latvian again Discrimination against former deportees

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Gabrielle | Under My Skin JaSupreme August 11, 2018 International, R&B Music, Soul Music, Video Pop/Soul Stylist Gabrielle Celebrates 25 Years in Making Music with a Brand New CD, Under My Skin by Peggy Oliver Sometimes it is good for the artistry soul to take recording hiatuses in reflecting their career direction or rediscovering their groove. Even the hard working, constantly charting artists such as Gabrielle take advantage to regroup, in this case eleven years since her last release, Always. From a singer who has earned a strong fan base since her extraordinary hit, “Dreams,” achieved multi-platinum status, Gabrielle is now celebrating 25 years in the music industry. For her debut CD in 1993, Find Your Way, Gabrielle won the Female Breakthrough Artist at the Brit Awards. That breakthrough was not just a flash in the pan as all five of her CD’s charted in the U.K. top 10, along with international success in several countries and an ultimate concert highlight performing for Nelson Mandela. Gabrielle’s tender soulful voice also scored a soundtrack mega-hit “Out of Reach” from Bridget Jones’s Diary. Though Gabrielle’s voice does not usually overpower the listener, her easy-going, yet confident vocal approach carries plenty of weight on its own. Her latest release, Under My Skin is no exception, as Gabrielle shares songs from a deep personal place, decorated by much of the same Brit pop/soul textures that drove her entire body of work. The bouncy title track speaks of finding the right relationship chemistry. With a Motown-shaded backdrop, “Thank You” confirms gratitude for simply being in love while the debut single, “Show Me,” elevates the relationship one step further by testing the trust factor. There is a slight issue with the empowering “Stronger,” which runs a bit aground in the chorus due to the orchestrations and backing voices drowning out Gabrielle’s lead. However, these oversights are very few and far between. In fact, Under My Skin pulls off a risk or two that shifts from Gabrielle’s trademark nineties’ vibe. “Put Up A Fight,” about persevering through the tough times, is anchored by acoustic guitar and a nice catchy atmospheric arrangement. Another welcome change of pace comes from the vibrant “Shine,” sprinkling rock and gospel elements. As for engaging storylines, “Signs” explores one who is trying to figure what is on their mind, delicately layered with electric and acoustic guitars, keys and squishy drums. Despite touring all these years in between recording projects, the hiatus certainly helped Gabrielle in delivering fresh goods for Under My Skin without much compromising her unique artistry. Four and a half out of five stars. Peggy Oliver The Urban Music Scene MORE Music Reviews on T.U.M.S.!: Poncho Sanchez | Trane's Delight Legends The Mighty O'Jays Bow Out with Soulful Sense of Purpose Shanice: The 'S' is for Steamy on No Sleep new single "He Won't" Dominican-based Singer Anthony Jefferson Swings On a Star in Sophomore CD All I Am London Jones | For You

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Home World News Errant Syrian Missile Crashes Onto Cyprus Following Massive Israeli Bombing Errant Syrian Missile Crashes Onto Cyprus Following Massive Israeli Bombing In one of its largest aerial operations over Syria in months, Israel launched strikes on a number of targets in that country. As usual, Syrian air defenses attempted to target the Israeli aircraft and standoff weapons without success. One of the surface-to-air missiles fired, which was most likely a Cold War-era S-200 (SA-5 Gammon), appears to have careened over Lebanon and across the stretch of the Mediterranean Sea that separates the partitioned island of Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean coast. It then slammed into a mountainside near a small village in the Turkish controlled portion of the island. The missile crashed roughly a dozen miles northeast of the Cypriot capital of Nicosia. According to reports, it exploded just before striking the ground, setting off a brush fire. Photos from the scene appear to show the burnt-out rear section of the large missile. Syria is roughly 150 miles away from the impact area at its closest point, but the coastal areas near Tartus and Latakia, where Russia has a large presence, are not usually targeted by the Israeli Air Force. Southwestern Syria that borders with Lebanon, near the capital of Damascus, is. The closest point from Syrian territory in that area to the crash site is roughly 200 miles. This puts the S-200 at the very edge of its envelope, but what likely happened is Syrian air defense operators launched the missile ballistically—without acquiring a target—as part of a largely futile, but often practiced defensive tactic. Israel actually intercepted another Syrian S-200 SAM fired in a similar manner in 2017 with the Israeli Defense Force’s newly operational Arrow 2 ballistic missile defense system. That system was activated by Israel’s missile defense surveillance radars due to the weapon’s parabolic trajectory. Regardless, firing off an S-200 without guidance could have sent it a very long distance as it wouldn’t have burnt off any energy to engage a target. Luckily, nobody was injured by the errant S-200. Apparently, Israel hit targets near Damascus and near Homs during last night’s operation, with Syrian state media reporting that four were killed and 21 were injured in the strikes. Syria also says the strikes came from the Lebanese border, which is among the Israeli Air Force’s most common vectors of attack on Syrian targets. A video shot from the Lebanese coastline shows what appear to be the bright exhaust plumes of some sort of aerial vehicles roaring east towards Syria. Some have posited that these are cruise missiles launched from the sea. That is highly improbable. What is most likely being seen in the video are Israel F-16s popping-up from very low over the ocean to make a high-speed dash towards the Syrian border, with the fighters releasing their weapons just before crossing into Syrian airspace. The high-speed release gives the standoff weapons longer range and the pop-up flight profile offers Syrian air defenders little time to respond to the sudden attack. Lobbing some S-200s at the jets as they momentarily appear on radar operators’ scopes could very well have resulted in the incident on Cyprus. Isreal has stated that it has zero intention of stopping its air operations in Syria that primarily target weapons transfers from Iran to its Hezbollah proxies as well as other Iranian capabilities in the country. Previous articleBilderberg 2019 Meeting Details Revealed Next articleMystery deepens over top-secret Russian submarine disaster

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There's an AIFA? A few months ago, Number Two and I discovered there was going to be a local arena football team. Two, actually, a men's team and a women's team. But then the economy crashed and I heard the Arena Football League was canceling the 2009 season. This weekend, I found out the local teams are still playing because the American Indoor Football Association is charging on. Who knew the U.S. could sustain two arena football leagues? Anyway, we went to the first ever Harrisburg Stampede game last night, an exhibition game against the AIFL All-Stars. Turns out the Stampede has only had one full-speed practice. It didn't take a genius to figure that out. For a while, I was thinking we were wasting our Saturday night. (Metaphorically speaking--it's not like our Saturday nights are rip-roaring or anything.) Getting into the Farm Show Complex was a huge joke. You go up the stairs in a mass of people and then find that somehow, you have to maneuver to two cashiers. One was labeled "Credit Only" and the other "Cash Only," but since you couldn't see the signs until you got right up to the tables, well, you can understand what a cluster-you-know-what it was. Plus, even though all the tickets for this game were the same price, we got stuck way up in the rafters, with two sections below us completely empty. WTH? Oh, well, one plus is that there really isn't a bad seat in the house. This is where they usually do ox pulls, so it's not exactly huge. As for the rest of it, sheer amateur hour. No, that's not nice. I'll call it "Start-Up Syndrome." Instead of benches, the teams had to sit on those molded plastic chairs you find in school cafeterias. The cheerleaders were wearing black and white even though the team colors are blue and that neon gold the color of dog puke. And they mostly step-touched for three hours, with a little pom-pom shaking to mix it up. The strips of turf kept wrinkling and lifting off the field, and at one point, the chains got caught on the turf and they had to maneuver them out. I've never watched arena football, so it was kind of weird to see so many non-players and non-refs on the field, inside the walls. Coaches joined the huddle and ran around the field between plays, trying to get the crowd to cheer. Four guys crouched on the sideline, ready to move the chains and the down marker. On the other hand, the atmosphere was fun. They played awesome music, and the players danced around between plays. I could have done without the mascot race and the hula hoop contest during the one-minute warnings, and the sound system makes most of the announcements unintelligible. Then there was the game itself. Harrisburg kicked off. The All-Star returner fumbled the ball. He picked it up, ran two yards, slipped, and fell. And that set the tone for the next three hours. At first, the All-Stars dominated. But the Stampede came out a brand new team in the second half, recovering fumbles (of which there were approximately 83--I didn't realize a Nerf ball was so easy to fumble!) and intercepting passes and stopping the All-Stars on fourth down. Final score was 46-26, Stampede. Some laugh-worthy highlights: 1. There were two penalties for hitting the hockey scoreboard during the kickoff. How did the AIFL come to build that into the rules? 2. Even though the goalposts at one end of the field, suspended by wires from the ceiling, were bowed inward and half as wide as they should be, one Harrisburg kickoff went the full 55 yards and split the uprights, giving the Stampede one point. 3. Number Two and her father went to the restroom in the third quarter. When they came back they asked what happened. I said, "There was a play, with a penalty, then a play, with a penalty, and then another play, with a penalty." I swear, they went back and forth between the 20-yard lines six times before they managed to complete a pass--penalty free--and go for a touchdown. 4. We left at the final one-minute warning because the game was out of hand. As we walked the concourse and looked through a gap onto the field, number 1 (the player, not my kid) was perfectly framed in the center, wiggling his butt. You won't see that in the NFL. Despite my sarcasm, we had a good time at the game, and plan to attend more during the season. I'm really happy these guys get the opportunity to play, and I'm even more excited to attend a Central PA Vipers (women's) game. Labels: Entertainment, Family, Football That game was not indicative of the talent at this level. It was indeed an exhibition game and it showed. The caliber of play is typically much better than what was on display that night. A lot of the turnovers were a result of the ball. The balls used were from last season. That stock had next to no grip, making it very difficult for players to get a firm hold on it. The player who is dancing is Archie Smith. He will become a fan favorite due to his charismatic nature. Kids and adults love the guy. The Stampede's running back is Eugene Goodman. And even though indoor/arena football is a passing oriented game, look for a heavy dose of Eugene Goodman to mix it up. He is dangerous, and very difficult to tackle. It is a great family atmosphere and worth the cost of admission. You can take an entire family to an AIFA game for the cost of 1 ticket to an NFL game. Thanks for coming by, Anonymous! I appreciate the additional information. I'm kind of sad about the ball, though. The number of fumbles made the game more interesting. :) Archie Smith already cemented himself as a fan favorite, for sure. His energy and enthusiasm, as well as that of a lot of his teammates, made the event. I'll be watching Eugene Goodman! Now, come on, 'fess up. Are you with the organization? :) I am with a rivalry team in the same league. The Baltimore Mariners, also of the AIFA. But I was a fan of the game and league first. I was fortunate enough to get to know Stampede co-owner and AFIA co-owner John Morris at the beginning of last season. I write press releases and news articles on the Baltimore Mariners. I maintain the team website as well. Archie Smith and Eugene Goodman were on the Baltimore Mariners roster last year, but migrated to Harrisburg to be a part of that team. During the 2008 season, the Baltimore Mariners were league owned and operated, so John Morris was the Baltimore Mariners owner. The Stampede have a great owner in John. It should also be mentioned that the Harrisburg Stampede is also co-owned by NFL star wide receiver Marques Colston of the New Orleans Saints and a Harrisburg native as well. Very cool! Thanks for the background and info. I'm looking forward to becoming a better fan! Totally Bogus New Books, and Bloody Valentines Bloggin' Around Town Stoopid Cats Is Dean Evil? Wicked Cold Supernatural Change Today's Insanity and Other Stuff I Love My Boots Wrapping Up 2008 Thank Goodness, Right?

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Resume Reading — The Rhythm of the Tide Biology Evolution The Rhythm of the Tide When I heard data from an island had proven humans are still evolving, I had to visit. Scott Solomon By Scott Solomon Illustration by Gracia Lam October 29, 2015 Standing deep inside the archives of the Roman Catholic Church’s Canadian headquarters, it suddenly struck me that this was an odd…By Scott Solomon Standing deep inside the archives of the Roman Catholic Church’s Canadian headquarters, it suddenly struck me that this was an odd place to find evidence that people are still evolving. That human evolution has continued into modern times was, until recently, a mostly theoretical idea debated among experts because there simply was no data. But as an evolutionary biologist, I had my own perspective. My research has mostly been on ants, which are common and diverse, making them ideal subjects for understanding evolutionary processes. In some ways ants and humans have a lot in common. Leafcutter ants create enormous underground nests that house millions of individuals, each with specialized tasks—not unlike our cities. They grow their own food in the form of a fungus that they domesticated from wild ancestors, much like human farmers. Ants even use antibiotics to treat diseases. I knew that these characteristics had not buffered them from natural selection, so why should we humans be any different? Then in 2011, I read a study suggesting that small evolutionary changes had taken place among people living as recently as the 19th and 20th centuries.1 I decided that I had to go see the evidence for myself, so I arranged to visit the tiny Quebec island of Ile aux Coudres in the St. Lawrence River. Here was a chance to glimpse firsthand how our very recent evolutionary past meets our present. The study leader, Emmanuel Milot, met me in the arrival area of Montreal’s Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport wearing a black T-shirt with a white Jesus fish emblazoned with the word “DARWIN,” leaving little doubt that he was a fellow evolutionary biologist. After a short driving tour of downtown Montreal, we ducked into a microbrewery in the historical district to escape a sudden downpour that made the cobblestone streets glow yellow with light reflected from the streetlamps. Also in Evolution The Rise and Fall of the Living Fossil By Ferris Jabr In May 1997, the same month that The Lost World: Jurassic Park debuted in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service released 15 gorgeous stamps depicting various dinosaurs and extinct reptiles. The stamps caused a sensation among dino enthusiasts and...READ MORE Milot told me how he had started out working as a field research assistant surveying birds in remote parts of Quebec, before pursuing doctoral work on the wandering albatross in the Kerguelen Islands, a rugged French outpost in the southern Indian Ocean near Antarctica. The wandering albatross is an iconic species for bird enthusiasts, and Milot described his project as a sort of ornithological holy grail. He spent months at a time on French research vessels traveling to distant parts of the archipelago taking blood samples and other measurements. He once caught an albatross with a band around its leg indicating that it had been alive and breeding before Milot was even born. Working with such a long-lived species got him thinking about issues that don’t affect animals with shorter lives, like how long it takes for a young bird to reach maturity and begin to reproduce, and how the body begins to break down with old age. It wasn’t long before Milot would make the connection between his birds and another long-lived species—humans. In this he was helped by his colleague and former supervisor Francine Mayer, whom we visited the next morning. In the flower-filled garden behind her house, Mayer explained how, as a graduate student, she became interested in the demographic and genetic structure of human populations and how they change through time. In the 1960s, she was part of a research group that started to search for isolated communities where records were available on a fairly small population over multiple generations. Arriving at Ile aux Coudres: Thanks to regular ferry service, Ile aux Coudres, once an isolated community, is now a popular tourist destination.Courtesy of Scott Solomon As an island, Ile aux Coudres was ideal. Although it is only a mile and a half from the north shore of the Saint Lawrence, dangerous currents and icy conditions during part of the year kept its inhabitants from being as closely connected to nearby villages as were other communities. What’s more, another researcher, Pierre Philippe, had visited the island in 1967 and obtained permission from the community and from the local priest to transcribe parish birth, death, and marriage records for demographic research. Together with her graduate student Mireille Boisvert, Mayer worked for three years to construct a genealogy describing the marriages of 572 women and their 4,002 children, spanning from 1800 through the 1960s. Milot joined the research team as a postdoc in 2009 and discovered a surprising trend in the birth data. Over just a few generations, the average age at which a woman became a mother dropped from 26 to 22. It seemed that those women on Ile aux Coudres who started having children at younger ages also had larger families. Intriguingly, their daughters tended to do the same. Milot knew from his studies of birds that the timing of reproduction is a trait that often responds to natural selection. A handful of other studies on historical human populations hinted that natural selection might also affect birth timing in humans, but no definitive test had proven it.2 To do so, he would need to show that there was a genetic basis for the decrease in age at first reproduction and that factors other than natural selection (like improving nutrition and healthcare) did not fully explain the changes. Using a mathematical model borrowed from the study of animal breeding, he was able to tease apart these factors. The model predicted how similar any two individuals should be based on how closely related they are, taking into account their similar environment. This allowed Milot to calculate the “predicted breeding value” of age at first reproduction, which is an estimate of the extent to which the value of that trait is explained by a person’s genes, and how it compares to the population average. If, for example, a particular woman had her first child at age 23, and the average age at first reproduction in the population were 25, her breeding value would estimate how much of that two-year difference was inherited from her parents. Over eight generations, the average predicted breeding value dropped significantly, suggesting an evolutionary response. Milot and his colleagues also found no evidence that the population’s health was changing in a meaningful way over this period, by using infant and juvenile survival rates as a proxy for overall health. The team also excluded the possibility that random genetic fluctuations could account for changes in age at first reproduction by determining that the more closely related any two women were, the more likely they were to have given birth to their first child around the same age. The best remaining explanation for the observed decrease in the age at first reproduction was evolution by natural selection. Darwin had his Galapagos finches; Milot had his Quebecois islanders. The next day Milot and I began our journey toward Ile aux Coudres. As we approached Quebec City, we passed the spot where the British secretly climbed a cliff and surprised the French army, beginning the 1759 battle that would end France’s control of Quebec. The Quebecois were descendants of French settlers who, beginning in 1608, founded a series of settlements along the Saint Lawrence known as Nouvelle France. French immigration effectively ended following their defeat by the British, and French Canadians became isolated not only from their French ancestors but also from their neighbors, due to linguistic and religious differences. The pattern of settlement and migration by the French Canadians was, in a way, a microcosm of the history of the human species. The first Homo sapiens began migrating out of northeast Africa around 50,000 years ago, establishing small populations in the Middle East. As the population grew, waves of settlers expanded west into Europe and east into Asia. Some particularly adventurous pioneers made their way across stretches of open ocean to colonize the islands of Indonesia and the South Pacific, as well as Australia, while a different wave of nomads crossed the Bering Strait and became the first people to settle the Americas. Here was information that Milot and I could never hope to obtain for any other species than humans. French Canadian migration followed a similar pattern: As the population of Quebec City grew, a few pioneers would set up farms on the frontier, and their descendants would grow in numbers and then migrate to new territories, repeating the cycle. The first settlers to reach Ile aux Coudres were 30 families that arrived between 1720 and 1773. At the time, the island was at the edge of settled territory in Nouvelle France. All land on the island was divided up among the families in long, thin strips that allowed access to the sea as well as space for planting crops. The population more than doubled between 1765 and 1790, and families were forced to divide their strips of land among their children. By the beginning of the 20th century the population exceeded 1,000, reaching 1,585 inhabitants by 1950. Women on Ile aux Coudres averaged between six and 10 surviving children. In their research article, Milot and his colleagues emphasized that the island inhabitants experienced “natural fertility,” meaning that no effective forms of birth control or family planning were available. Industrialization tends to reduce both birth rates and death rates, a phenomenon known as the “demographic transition.” Remarkably, as of the 1960s when Pierre Philippe assembled his dataset from church records, Ile aux Coudres had not yet gone through this transition. Copies of the records from parishes throughout Quebec, including those from Ile aux Coudres, are kept in the archives of the Quebec Seminary. I wanted to see the raw data for myself, so Milot and I drove through the cobblestone streets of historic lower Quebec City and up a steep hill to the massive complex of five-story stone buildings that comprise the Archdiocese of Quebec, the central administrative branch of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada. There we met Diocesan Archivist Pierre Lafontaine, a casually dressed middle-aged man who spoke quietly, apologizing for his English, which he rarely had occasion to use. Lafontaine led us into a large room with three tables forming a crescent, where he had set out several books in anticipation of our visit. One of the oldest looking books had a faded red cover with gold text and elaborate patterns on the spine. Lafontaine explained that it contained the decrees issued by the Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th century. One decree specified that all Catholic parishes must keep detailed records of the major life events of its members. On the same table sat a scruffy-looking book with a hand-written label on the cover that read “De 1859 – 1866.” It contained records of the baptisms, weddings, and funerals from those years—the raw data Milot and Mayer had used. Lafontaine then led us into a long, narrow room that resembled the stacks of a modern library, containing row after row of cataloged volumes of parish records like those we had just examined. Here was information that Milot and I could never hope to obtain for any other species than humans, the sort of data that evolutionary biologists dream of. We are accustomed to conducting expeditions to remote parts of the world to collect data on wild species in their native environments. The idea that some of the best evolutionary data could come from church archives was both astonishing and exciting. The Raw Data: Detailed records of births, deaths, and marriages recorded by parish priests and kept at the Quebec Seminary.Courtesy of Scott Solomon The next morning Milot and I continued driving northeast along the edge of the Saint Lawrence. The drive became increasingly scenic as the river widened and highway 138 veered inland through rolling green hills. Milot pointed out a young bald eagle as it flew above the road, heading away from the river and into the forest. To our left was a ridge where he had once worked as a field research assistant, conducting surveys of birds in sections of forest that had recently burned. Following the signs toward Ile aux Coudres, the road veered to the right and then dropped abruptly toward the shore. The long, flat island could be easily seen across the narrow channel beneath us. There below us lived Milot’s new research subjects. After an hour waiting in line, we drove aboard the Joseph-Savard, one of two ferries in operation on the busy Saturday morning and named for one of the original settlers on the island. Despite the river’s apparent tranquility, it was low tide, and a few rocks could be seen poking out above the surface. Swirls and ripples hinted at the strong currents that made this section of the Saint Lawrence a treacherous place to cross in smaller vessels, contributing to the historical isolation of the island’s inhabitants. It was especially dangerous in winter, when much of the river was frozen, though that was difficult to imagine on a warm summer day. Twenty minutes later, we drove off the ferry, past a sign welcoming visitors that translates as, “Ile aux Coudres, with the rhythm of the tide.” The main road on the island is a two-lane affair that winds around the periphery of the island, variously perched atop a cliff with views that stretch across the Saint Lawrence to the hills of Charlevoix, or right up along the coast where the rising tide laps against a rocky beach. As we reached the southern end of the island, the road turned abruptly by a field of wildflowers that cascaded down the cliff to the shore below. We stopped at a small boulangerie where a pleasant-looking patio overlooks the river. Inside was a long line of people waiting to purchase bread and pastries, including a sweet Quebec specialty whose name, pets de soeurs, translates as “nun’s farts.” How will this tug of war between evolution and culture be resolved? The short answer is that we simply do not know. As Milot and I entered, a smiling woman approached us and introduced herself as Noëlle-Ange Harvey, the owner of the bakery. She explained in rapid French that her family has always lived on the island, and then pointed excitedly to a nearby wall with a framed black and white photo of a small girl blowing white fluffy seeds from a dandelion. The photo, she explained, was a screenshot from the first of a series of famous documentaries by Pierre Perrault about the island—and she was the little girl. She had purchased the bakery nine years ago from the family who first opened it in 1945 but, with an eye toward history, kept the original name—Boulangerie Bouchard. The bakery was certainly doing good business with the weekend tourists, who had become a major source of income for islanders.3 Tourism to the region began back in the second half of the 19th century, as wealthy Americans looking to escape uncomfortable summers in the crowded cities of the northeast United States began visiting the Charlevoix region around Ile aux Coudres. This new source of income meant that islanders were no longer dependent on farming and fishing to make a living. The Pednault family planted an apple orchard on the island in 1918, and later opened a cider business that catered to tourists and would became one of Ile aux Coudres’ best-known products. Hotels were built, and the old mill, which used to grind the wheat into flour for islanders, became a tourist attraction. Tourism is just one aspect of how the island has changed. By the 1960s, when the Perrault documentaries were filmed, many of the seafaring traditions of generations past had nearly been forgotten. The first film follows the reenactment of an old island tradition in which a row of wooden poles creates a fence that traps beluga whales when the tide goes out—hunting with the rhythm of the tide.4 Only a few of the old-timers remembered the details, but they decided to try it themselves for the sake of passing on the tradition. In the end, they captured a lone beluga and donated it to an aquarium in New York City. Leaving the bakery, Milot and I headed south toward the village of Saint Louis at the southern end of the island. We passed a cemetery with tombstones that repeated a surprisingly short list of names—Harvey, Tremblay, Boudreault, Dufour, Pednault, Mailloux, Desgagnés—a reminder of how small this community has been. But while the entire village and its church looked much the way they did in historical photos from the early 1900s, it was clear from our brief visit that the 21st century had arrived. An old, silver-haired man sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch near the church waved to us and offered a friendly “bonjour” just as I imagine his grandfather would have 100 years ago, only now he did so after first removing his iPod headphones. Modernization meant that the conclusions made by Milot, Mayer, and their colleagues about natural selection in humans could not be so easily extended to the people living here today. Medicine, technology, education, and other benefits of industrialized life mean that the age at which a woman has her first child today is affected by a great many factors, making it a less heritable trait than it used to be. Around the world, the average age at which women become mothers has been increasing in developed nations, rising in the U.S. from 21.4 in 1970 to 25 in 2006.5 The precise reasons for this rise have been debated, but at least one factor is education—when women spend more time in school, they delay starting a family.6 Other factors include access to birth control and better career opportunities. It seems societal pressure is encouraging women to begin having children later in life, while natural selection favors starting young. How will this tug of war between evolution and culture be resolved? The short answer from evolutionary biologists is that we simply do not know. The incredible control we now have over our own survival and reproduction means that the interactions between our genes and our culture is more important than ever before in our species’ history. Milot and I had to leave Ile aux Coudres the next afternoon. Before boarding the ferry, we drove back through Saint Louis, past the old stone church where Sunday mass was in progress. Just up the road, the same silver-haired man was still seated on his front porch, rocking slowly in his chair to the music from his headphones. The boulangerie was bustling with tourists, and the picnic tables overlooking the river were full. Nearby, a softball game was underway, and judging by the number of cars in the parking lot it seemed to attract a much larger crowd than the church. Crossing the olive waters of the Saint Lawrence, Milot and I looked back at the island—different than it used to be, not as isolated, busy combining tradition and modernity in its own ways. From our perch on the ferry, navigating the once treacherous channel between the island and the mainland, what struck me most was the idea that natural selection would never stop—for people here or anywhere. Just as the tide will keep rising and falling, future generations will be born and have their own children, passing on both their genes and their culture. Our descendants will be different from us in some ways that are predictable and others that are not. After all, we are—like ants, albatrosses, and every other species on earth—a work in progress. Scott Solomon teaches ecology, evolutionary biology, and scientific communication at Rice University. His first book, Future Humans: The Ongoing Evolution of Homo sapiens, will be published by Yale University Press in 2016. 1. Milot, E., et al. Evidence for evolution in response to natural selection in a contemporary human population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, 17040-17045 (2011). 2. Stearns, S.C., Byars, S.G., Govindaraju, D.R., & Ewbank, D. Measuring selection in contemporary human populations. Nature Reviews Genetics 11, 611- 622 (2010). 3. Ile aux Coudres tourism website: tourismeisleauxcoudres.com 4. Pour La Suite du Monde Dir. Brault, M. & Perrault, P. National Film Board of Canada, film (1962). 5. Matthews, T.J., & Hamilton, B.E. Delayed childbearing: more women are having their first child later in life. NCHS data brief 21, 1-8 (2009). 6. Rindfuss, R.R., Morgan, S.P., & Offutt, K. Education and the changing age pattern of American fertility: 1963–1989. Demography 33, 277-290 (1996). This article was originally published online in our “Illusions” issue in November, 2014. Size of Life Education Why Virtual Classes Can Be Better Than Real Ones Environment The Hidden Power Laws of Ecosystems Evolution The Rhythm of the Tide Physics Will Quantum Mechanics Swallow Relativity? Will Quantum Mechanics Swallow Relativity? By Corey S. Powell How Your Brain Decides Without You By Tom Vanderbilt The Illusion Machine That Teaches Us How We See By Erica Klarreich Your Brain Can’t Handle the Moon By Brian Gallagher

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The dangerous myth propping up Trump’s wall tags: racism, immigration, womens history, Trump, wall, border history by Melissa J. Gismondi Melissa J. Gismondi is a historian and journalist. She holds a Ph.D. in North American history from the University of Virginia. On Saturday the partial government shutdown became the longest in U.S. history, surpassing a 21-day impasse between then-President Bill Clinton and Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995 and 1996. From a historian’s vantage point, the length of the shutdown is unique, but the contentious issue at its heart — Donald Trump’s pursuit of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border — is far from surprising. That’s because the obsession Trump (and many of his supporters) have with the wall speaks to a paranoia about borders, outsiders and threats of “the other” that runs deep in American history and culture. It’s as old as the frontier mythology that defined America from its start, and although Trump has seized on it, it’s likely to continue long after this particular stalemate. That obsession with the violent fortification of borders is what the renowned scholar Richard Slotkin talked about in his landmark trilogy on the mythology of the frontier. In “Regeneration through Violence,” “The Fatal Environment” and “Gunfighter Nation,” Slotkin charted the social and cultural anxiety Americans have had about claiming, defending and taming lands that were never their own. This anxiety, Slotkin argued, manifested itself in cherished myths about the significance of violence in fortifying borders and excluding the people who live beyond them. History is always a push and pull between continuity and change. And you’ll find a lot of differences between how 17th century Puritans, for example, imagined the frontier and how Trump talks about the issue. But there are important similarities, too. Read entire article at Washington Post

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Category archive for: Party Politics Entirely as expected? What the voting data tells us about Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election Written by Peter Dorey and Andrew Denham. In Labour’s 2015 leadership contest, a major question had been how a rank outsider and perceived political maverick, like Jeremy Corbyn, could possibly be elected leader of a Party in which he enjoyed very little support among its MPs, and in which he had never held even the most junior Ministerial office. In the 2016 leadership contest, the main question was no longer whether or how Corbyn could win, but by what margin. Continue reading Entirely as expected? What the voting data tells us about Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election Tony Blair, Corbynism and the ‘sociological imagination’ Published by Editor on September 5, 2016 Written by Glen O’Hara. Since we’ve all recently been challenged to take our sociological imaginations on a journey around Corbynism, and because it’s always important to analyse what’s going on rather than just shout about what we might think of it or believe about it ourselves, the new blogging season kicks off this week with a (we hope) honest look at the belief structures behind Jeremy Corbyn supporters’ support for ‘their’ man. Since he seems almost certain to be re-elected leader of the Labour Party later in the month, this seems all the more important. Mr Corbyn, someone like him, or someone who shares most of his views and outlook, seems likely to lead Labour for a long time to come. So what do Corbynites believe, and why? Continue reading Tony Blair, Corbynism and the ‘sociological imagination’ Keeping it real? Corbyn, Trump, Sanders and the politics of authenticity Published by Editor on February 17, 2016 Written by Mathew Humphrey and Maiken Umbach. His words have not been scripted or prepared for the press; he speaks from the heart. It’s now clear to every voter that [he] is nothing but himself. No Bullshit. Unvarnished opinion and beliefs. One of these statements recently was made about Donald Trump, the man causing upset in the race to become the Republican presidential candidate. Another was made in reference to Bernie Sanders, the candidate causing similar upset among the Democrats. Another referred to Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour party. But which statement refers to which politician? It is, of course, impossible to tell. Despite the radically different stances of these candidates on all kinds of issues, the statements about them are entirely interchangeable. They all refer to a single quality, taken by many to be a great asset in political life. All of these candidates are considered “authentic”. Continue reading Keeping it real? Corbyn, Trump, Sanders and the politics of authenticity 2015 Portuguese Legislative Elections: between Stability and Disaffection Published by Editor on October 19, 2015 Written by Luís de Sousa and Fernando Casal Bértoa. On the morning of the 5th of October 2015, the 115th birthday of the implantation of the Portuguese Republic (5th October 1910), one of the bank holidays that have been eliminated by the centre-right government during the troikian period, the Portuguese woke-up with an expected autumn rainy day and a taste of sweet and sour in their mouth. Portugal re-elected the centre-right Portugal Ahead coalition formed by the ruling Social Democrats (PSD) and Christian-Democrats (CDS/PP) responsible for negotiating and implementing the bailout. The question in everybody’s mind is why Portuguese voters have not sanctioned at the ballot box the executors of the austerity measures responsible for their hardship in the last four years? Moreover, why in clear contrast to other countries (e.g. Italy, Greece, Spain) where austerity policies have favoured the formation and electoral success of totally new parties (e.g. Five-Stars Movement, ANEL, Podemos), no new party (e.g. Democratic Republican Party, Free/Time to move Forward) managed to enter parliament? Continue reading 2015 Portuguese Legislative Elections: between Stability and Disaffection Tim Farron wins Liberal Democrat leadership contest Published by Editor on July 17, 2015 By Andrew Denham and Matthew Francis How do you rebuild a political party after an electoral calamity? That was the question facing the Liberal Democrats when deciding who should replace Nick Clegg as their leader. Now the party has chosen Tim Farron to replace Clegg – a decision that could help bring back a spirit of optimism in a party battered by five years of government with the Conservatives. After being reduced from 57 MPs in 2010 to just eight in 2015 – numbers reminiscent of the Liberal Party of the 1950s – the Lib Dems now face a difficult path back to political significance, let alone power. Continue reading Tim Farron wins Liberal Democrat leadership contest Why the established parties are in trouble on immigration By Matthew Goodwin Which political party do voters back on immigration? It is a question that has been asked during many election campaigns in the past and one that has influenced the strategies of the main parties. Ever since the 1960s, the most popular answer given by voters was the Conservative Party. Historically, the centre right has held a strong advantage on this issue, being seen as the party that is most likely to deliver on what consistently around seven in ten voters want to see; a reduction in the level of immigration into the country. Despite concerns among some Tory ‘modernisers’ about possible reputational damage, the simple reality is that the Conservative Party has traditionally remained closest to public opinion on this issue and has been rewarded accordingly. Continue reading Why the established parties are in trouble on immigration An election that UKIP should have won? The Labour Party has won the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) election. Ukip finished in second place. The victory was sealed when Labour won Rotherham by 800 votes, avoiding a second round of voting by 0.02%. It will be a relief for Labour, especially given other news about the party’s support in Scotland and against the backdrop of the Heywood and Middleton parliamentary by-election, where Ukip pushed the party to within a few hundred votes of defeat. And it is a bad result for Ukip. The insurgent party has once again emerged as the second force in Labour territory and seen a sharp rise in its support. But there are four reasons why Ukip should have won this election. Continue reading An election that UKIP should have won? Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: A wonderful book of political well-I-nevers is launched today By Philip Cowley and Rob Ford Today sees the launch of a Specialist Group project that’s been over a year in the making. The plan, hatched by the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties specialist group, was to get elections and electoral behaviour researchers to each write a short, punchy essay on their area of expertise. The result is Sex, Lies, and the Ballot Box, which we have edited, which is launched tonight and published tomorrow. It is not – absolutely, categorically not – an introductory textbook. There are plenty of such books on the market; indeed, several of our contributors have written such books. It isn’t a compendium or an atlas, but a series of thumbnail sketches, each introducing an aspect of elections and electoral behaviour. Continue reading Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: A wonderful book of political well-I-nevers is launched today Social media: a political tool or apathy’s partner in crime? With the disappointing turnout for the recent European elections, is social media the way to encourage increased political engagement ahead of the 2015 general election? Is it being used this way at the moment? If so, by whom and in what ways? Social media is unique in that it offers a wealth of information that is constantly updated and appeals predominantly to those in the 18 – 24 age bracket who are so often criticised for their low voter turnout. After conducting some research into this area it was clear that much previous analysis on political socialisation has been on older people. Our research, therefore, focused on the political behaviour of the elusive 18 – 24 age group, whether they are using social media and, if so, whether it is for political purposes. Continue reading Social media: a political tool or apathy’s partner in crime? Social media can increase youth’s political interest The rapid growth of social media in recent years means people are exposed to an abundance of information every day, but there is little research on the effects such exposure has on political interest and engagement. The two most popular social media outlets, Facebook and Twitter, provide vast amounts of political information, from news on politics to political campaigns, and young people, as heavy social media users, are the most exposed to this information. Continue reading Social media can increase youth’s political interest

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You are here: Home Executive Committee Members Area Representatives Al Rieck Al Rieck - Area 5 Leader Area Leader Al Rieck is a life long resident of the North Penn Area and has resided in Lansdale since 1954. He is married and has two grown children. Al is a graduate of North Penn High School, earned a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Temple University and spent 38 years working as an Industrial Research Chemist, mostly for the Rohm & Haas Co. He retired in 2011. Al has been Area Leader since 2014 and previously served as Area 1st Vice Chair (2002-2014; 1994-1998). He has been a Democratic Committee Person for Lansdale Election District 3-3 since 1987 and has served as Municipal Chair for Lansdale (15 years), Treasurer of the Area Committee (6 years), 2nd Vice Chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee (4 years), Area Representative to the County Executive Committee (4 years) and on the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee (2 years). Al was elected to two, 4 year terms on Lansdale Borough Council (1987, 1991) and has run an additional two times for that position. He has also twice been a candidate for State Representative. Al has served on numerous Democratic Campaign Committees over the years including as County Co-coordinator for the Clinton for President campaign in 1992. He also has a long record of service with community youth organizations and with organizations within his Church Community. In 2012 Al was awarded the North Penn Area Democratic Committee’s Molly Kavash Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Russian MPs endorse tougher punishment for document forgery 14:28 18/07/2019 The lower house of Russian parliament adopted a bill toughening sanctions for forging documents in a final third reading on Thursday. State Duma passes spying devices bill 13:56 18/07/2019 The State Duma has adopted in the third and final reading a government-sponsored bill aimed at a more precise definition of special technical means designed for covert collection of information. Putin improves access to Russian citizenship for Ukrainian nationals 10:49 18/07/2019 President of Russia Vladimir Putin has signed a decree providing for possible obtaining Russian citizenship not only by residents of Donetsk and Lugansk People Republics but for all people who had earlier lived in these Ukrainian regions. Bill authorizing police to hand down cautions passes first reading in State Duma 17:17 17/07/2019 A bill authorizing police to hand down official warnings has passed its first reading in the lower house of Russian parliament. Russia's lower house of parliament ratifies SCO counter-extremism convention 16:04 17/07/2019 The State Duma ratified the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Convention for Countering Extremism during its plenary session on Wednesday. State Duma passes Supreme Court’s sponsored bill on mediation procedures 15:02 17/07/2019 The State Duma has adopted in the third and final reading a bill prepared by the Russian Supreme Court which is aimed at improvement of mediation procedures. Persons hindering ambulances may be held criminally liable – Russia’s State Duma 16:00 16/07/2019 The State Duma has passed in the third and final reading amendments to the Code on Administrative Offences and the Criminal Code of Russia, which are to introduce criminal responsibility for hindering the work of medical officers and not yielding right of way to ambulances. State Duma adopts bill extending powers of Russian Investigative Committee 13:01 16/07/2019 The lower house of Russian parliament adopted in a final third reading on Tuesday a bill giving the Investigative Committee powers on organizing and conducting forensic examinations. Bill on protection of valuable books submitted to lower house of Russian parliament 14:31 12/07/2019 A group of Russian lawmakers introduced a bill on protection of valuable books to the State Duma. Russian MPs adopt bill on fines for illegal Euro 2020 ticket sales 15:11 11/07/2019 The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, adopted a draft law on penalties for illicit sale or falsification of the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship tickets in the third and final reading on Thursday. May 2019 June 2019 July 2019 August 2019 September 2019

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Rainforest Information Centre The Rainforest Information Centre is an environmental NGO supporting grassroots efforts and campaigning to conserve nature worldwide in partnership with local communities Ruth Rosenhek, Director www.rainforestinfo.org.au The Australian Orangutan Project The Australian Orangutan Project is a non-profit organisation that aims to ensure the survival of both Sumatran and Bornean orangutans in their natural habitat. The Project is non-partisan and promotes the welfare of all orangutans. www.orangutan.org.au Friends of the Earth (FoE) Australia is a federation of independent local groups working for a socially equitable and environmentally sustainable future. FoE uses an environmental justice perspective that acknowledges that pursuing environmental protection is inseparable from broader social concerns. Ph +61 (03) 9419 8700 Fax +61 (03) 9416 2081 www.foe.org.au Borneo Orangutan Survival (Australia) Borneo Orangutan Survival (Australia), is the Australian arm of BOS Foundation, an Indonesian non-profit organisation whose mission is to contribute to the conservation of the orangutan and their habitats. Borneo Orangutan Survival Australia www.orangutans.com.au

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Archives index. Why America’s Gift? When blues stars were pop stars. by Paul Merry | Jan 12, 2019 | blogs, stories | 0 comments And why we prefer blues to pop music. Because the title of this blog is Paul Merry Blues, it’s easy to assume blues is the only music I’m interested in. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have referred to me as Mr Bluesman, something I’m definitely not, though I did buy my first Albert King LP aged 14; so, I’ve been listening to blues for 55 years, dare I say, and playing amateur blues guitar for about 30 years. I even remember when Taj Mahal, aged just 15, was being promoted on BBC radio as the last of the bluesmen. That’s how far we go back. But, never have I listened solely to blues. Just observing … Before continuing, let me observe that in America, it seems people mostly refer to blues as ‘the blues’. In Britain, I’m sure we just call it ‘blues’. Both ways are right by me; and so is much of the pop music on the radio. I just wish they wouldn’t rotate the same songs so much. Pop music is cool because it evolved directly from blues. Indeed, all types of popular music, as I say in my book, evolved from blues. It was, of course, exploring and researching the source of rock and blues music that got me into writing about blues history in the first place, and back writing about music after a 50 year hiatus. But let’s go even further back. Here’s Buddy Holly from 1958 with his pop classic, ‘Raining In My Heart’? The difference between pop and blues, you’ll agree, is most pop tracks we hear are singles that charted. So, we’re getting the absolute cream of millions of songs released over the last 60 or 70 years. (According to the Penguin Encyclopaedia, pop music came about in the 1950s, inaugurated by rock ‘n’ roll.) Even so, if a pop track comes on the radio, don’t we we either (a) enjoy it, (b) put up with it or (c) hate it and change channel? The difference is: when a blues track comes on, us blues lovers will generally enjoy it, regardless of artist, style or era. Since rock ‘n’ roll is, arguably, supercharged blues, I’ve included five rock ‘n’ rollers in my ten most influential 50s pop stars. Rock ‘n’ rollers and rocking blues singers, as mentioned, were not only pop stars back then, they were our first pop stars. The genres were interchangeable, too, just as ragtime, blues and jazz were up to the early 1920s. Just to add a bit of variation, let’s split my most influential 1950s pop artists into rock ‘n’ roll – and pure, unadulterated pop. 1950s rock ‘n’ roll pop influences. The world had heard nothing like it before. Pockets of black America may have witnesses such rocking blues music, but few people anywhere else. To me, the artists below simply built the bridge from blues to pop. So, here are my five rock ‘n’ roll game changers in no particular order. Of course, there were many more, but how long have you got? Chuck Berry. One of the finest pop lyricists yet. Even so, Chuck’s fabulous rocking guitar style had been heard before Chuck ever recorded – on ‘Rock Awhile’ by Houston’s Goree Carter in 1949. Elvis Presley. Elvis was the biggest pop craze of the 50s. His raw rock ’n’ roll vocals, recorded at Sun Records before being conscripted in 1958, set a benchmark never bettered. But as John Lennon said, “Elvis died when he went into the army”. Lonnie Donegan. In 1955, Lonnie hit No. 8 on U.S. and U.K. pop charts with his up-tempo skiffle-blues version of ‘Rock Island Line’, a 1929 song later made famous by Lead Belly. Lonnie’s brand of skiffle-style rock ’n’ roll influenced countless UK bands, from the Beatles and Stones to Led Zeppelin and Queen. The following comments, from Wikipedia, may explain to Americans what Lonnie’s doing in this section. Donegan, incidentally, borrowed his Christian name from blues great, Lonnie Johnson, after watching Johnson perform in London. • “He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts, and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man.” – Paul McCartney • “He really was at the very cornerstone of English blues and rock.” – Brian May.[2] • “I wanted to be Elvis Presley when I grew up, I knew that. But the man who really made me feel like I could actually go out and do it was a chap by the name of Lonnie Donegan.” – Roger Daltrey • “Remember, Lonnie Donegan started it for you.” – Jack White’s acceptance speech at the Brit Awards.[10] The Crickets. This was a rock band led by Buddy Holly, a musical colossus who bridged the pop divide between innovative rock ’n’ roll and gorgeous pop ballads. The first to play lead on the iconic solid-body Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, it was Buddy and his Strat (both with the Crickets, and solo) that first inspired Eric Clapton. Buddy Holly, in turn, was inspired to perform after watching Elvis live. It all connects, doesn’t it? Unlike Elvis, Buddy wrote all his own hits, releasing his ballads under his own name, and his more rock ’n’ roll numbers with the Crickets. I’ve put Buddy Holly in my pop section too. In my mind, he was that influential You might be surprised to know the band was never billed as Buddy Holly and the Crickets until after Buddy’s premature death in 1959 at just 23. At the time, they were simply the Crickets. Bo Diddley. I chose Bo Diddley over Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis simply because I’m more into electric guitar rock ‘n’ roll, blues (and pop) than piano rock ‘n’ roll, blues (and pop). Bo’s classic pop hits include such rock classics as ‘Mona’, ‘Who Do You Love’, ‘Before You Accuse Me’ and ‘Hey, Bo Diddley’, said to be the first song to introduce African rhythms to the pop charts. Bo’s famous guitar riff surfaced again in 1964, when the late Buddy Holly’s 1956 ‘Hey, Bo Diddley’ cover spent 12 weeks in the UK charts, peaking at number four. Check out Bo playing his legendary riff in the clip below. He’s backed by his excellent band including guitarist, Norma-Jean Wofford, known as The Duchess. 1950s pure pop influences. Buddy Holly. Buddy wrote and sang sophisticated songs way ahead of their time and was so talented I’ve put him in twice. Buddy was equally as influential than Elvis, I’d claim, even though his short three year career was just a fraction of the King’s. Unlike Elvis, Buddy wrote all his own hits, releasing his ballads under his own name, and his more rock ’n’ roll numbers with the Crickets. Connie Francis. New Jersey’s Connie Francis had more number one hits in Britain than in the USA, but was a major 50s icon and influence in the USA none-the-less. Her classic ‘Lipstick On Your Collar’ featured the unsung, but brilliant, electric blues pioneer, George Barnes on lead guitar. Connie spent six weeks atop the UK pop charts in 1958, and reached number three on the America charts, with ‘Who’s Sorry Now’, a song written in 1923, proveing a good pop song is a good pop song no matter how old it is. Connie’s Who’s Sorry Now also spent 22 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Sam Cooke. Sam Cooke had 30 major pop hits in America alone between 1957 and 1964, when he was shot dead aged 33. According to AllMusic, Sam Cooke invented soul music and is rated by AllMusic as the most important soul singer in history. You can’t get higher praise than that. And you don’t get much better pop than what’s below. Ray Charles. If Sam Cooke was soul’s most important pop star, Ray Charles was soul’s most important pop pioneer. From 1952 right through the 50s, it was Ray’s soulful mix of blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues and country that labelled him a genius. Ray’s best known tune, however, is his 1962 cover of Don Gibson’s 1958 country hit, ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’. Ray Charles may have spent five weeks on top of the Billboard pop chart in 1962, but it was his 1950s pop career that made his name. Fats Domino. Another pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll who’s in my pop basket simply because, to me, his laid-back style was simply irresistible pop music. While Fats had 37 American Top 40 hits, none made it to number one. Ain’t that a shame? Next time, my ten biggest blues rock and rock pop influences of the 1960s. Exploring US music’s missing history I sat and watched as years went by. Hear the first blues vocal ever recorded. A Kinky Sunny Afternoon. There are many ways of telling the untold history of the blues. This is mine. First lady of bass Three blues guitar greats born 12 miles apart. Has Carlos Wilde gone punk? PAINTING THE BLUES. Rock ’n’ roll colossus signs off, aged a Hot 100. Rock ‘n’ roll, from 1925. Tweets by @paulgmerry THE BLOODY NERVE © Paul Merry Blues

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Byrne Riding with Extra Motivation in 2018 By: Justin Felisko Wednesday, January 10, 2018 @ 11:54 AM Tanner Byrne is trying to regain a full-time spot on the PBR 25th: Unleash the Beast Series. Photo: Andy Watson/BullStockMedia.com. PUEBLO, Colo. – Tanner Byrne sat inside the locker room inside AT&T Stadium last February and looked down at his bull rope and began to unpack the rest of his gear. There was a look of uncertainty as he prepared to make his 2017 debut on the PBR’s premier series after missing the first month and a half of the season because of a broken collarbone he sustained in the practice pen a week before the season opener. However, there was much more going on in Byrne’s personal life – as it was for many of the bull riders that knew and loved Ty Pozzobon. Pozzobon passed away a year ago yesterday in Merritt, British Columbia. He was 25 years old. Standing in Pozzobon’s riding boots almost a year later, Byrne said in New York this past weekend that he struggled with whether or not he still wanted to ride bulls for a living in 2017. “It was a tough year all around losing Ty Pozzobon,” Byrne said. “That had a lot to do with my year last year. My mind wasn’t in the game. I wasn’t right. I wasn’t ready to be riding bulls and competing, especially at this level.” Byrne’s 2017 season was marred with injury after injury as he tried to fight his way back to the PBR’s top level of competition. Byrne sustained a torn groin later in the year and had a nagging wrist injury, as well as a broken ankle, that resulted in a 101st finish in the world standings. None of that stacked up with the struggles Byrne was dealing with internally. There was self-guilt and a hope that maybe he could have done something to help Pozzobon, who committed suicide. “After it happened, you know the dangers of the sport,” Byrne said. “100 percent. I have known it since I was a kid. It really came to the forefront with me when I carried my friend down the aisle in a casket. It was like, ‘Is this worth it?’ I have a wife and a kid, and it really makes you take a deep look into what you are doing. At that time, I didn’t feel right about it. I didn’t feel good about it.” Thanks to the support of his wife, Meghan, and his family and friends, Byrne decided he still wants to pursue a career. Byrne thought a lot about what his buddy would have wanted him to do. “I have a huge support of my family, and that is really what got me through all the tragedy and all the injuries and just their belief in me and their wanting me to keep going,” Byrne said. “I fed off that and got my stuff back together. I got my mind back right and just trying to let it all go and take it one at a time and enjoy these moments. “I am still battling to get back there, but I honestly do feel good and I know what he would want me to do. That is, ‘Do what makes you happy. Enjoy your life.’ “This is what I enjoy doing. This is what I love. It is dangerous and scary, but we always say you could get hit by a car walking across the street and the same thing can happen to you. It is the choice we choose. I love this sport and I love now where it is going.” Byrne has moved on from the grieving process and is more so onto the remembrance stage. In honor of Pozzobon, Byrne is hoping to help continue to raise mental health awareness, especially when it comes to concussions, for bull riders and rodeo athletes throughout Canada and the United States with the Ty Pozzobon Foundation, the PBR’s Western Sports Foundation and its sports medicine team. “We are the toughest athletes in the world, but we want to make it to it being tougher to take care of yourself,” Byrne said in regards to the Ty Pozzobon Foundation. “We are bull riders. We are not rational thinkers. We get on bulls for a living. Sometimes we need to be protected from ourselves.” Prior to travelling to the Real Time Pain Relief Velocity Tour Denver PBR Chute Out at the National Western Stock Show Byrne made some time to reflect on Pozzobon. “It is going to hit me hard, and obviously I will take some time during the day to reflect and remember,” Byrne said while in New York City. “It is not going to be different than any other day. He is always on my mind. He is always there. It is a constant battle for sure.” When he steps onto the back of the bucking chutes, his longtime friend will be a part of his body as well. Byrne has a “Live Like Ty” decal on his riding vest. The “Live Like Ty” slogan was first created by Pozzobon’s good friend, Randy Quartieri, and it has since stayed true for Byrne. “It kind of means different things for everybody,” Byrne said. “For me, it means live like the way Ty treated other people. How nice he was to people. It didn’t matter if he knew you for 10 years or if they knew you for a day. He was going to be your friend and sit and talk to you for 10 minutes. He made everyone around him feel good and he made the world a better place by doing that. “For me, ‘Live Like Ty’ means being a better person overall, being good to your fellow man and making the world a better place and being better to mankind.” Be sure to stay tuned to PBRCanada.com and follow the tour on Facebook (PBR Canada), Twitter (@PBRCanada), and Instagram (@PBRCanada) for the latest results.

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PETER GRANDICH COMPANY TO HOST HOCKEY AND FOOTBALL NIGHTS AT MEADOWLANDS RACETRACK Peter Grandich and Company announced today that it will be providing several of its team members, each of whom are beloved former professional athletes in the Tri-State Area, over the course of two nights at Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment in East Rutherford, New Jersey. In addition to the athlete appearances, Peter Grandich and Company will also provide numerous sports memorabilia items for drawing on those two evenings. “As a fan of harness racing for almost 50 years and involved with professional athletes for two decades, co-hosting an event with the good people at the Meadowlands Racetrack was a natural for me,” said Peter Grandich, Managing Member of Peter Grandich and Company. “I am most grateful that members of my Advisory Board are making themselves available for these two great events.” The first date is set for Saturday, November 9, when three former National Hockey League (NHL) standouts will be signing autographs and taking photos from 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM as part of a special Hockey Night. The three players will be New York Rangers great Nick Fotiu, New Jersey Devils Stanley Cup champion Bruce Driver and Philadelphia Flyers Hall of Famer Brian Propp. In addition to the meet-and-greet, the three athletes will also take part in a race presentation later that evening. Peter Grandich and Company will then return to Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment for Football Night on Saturday, December 7. All-time New York Jets great Joe Klecko, along with his son and three-time Super Bowl champion Dan Klecko, will be signing autographs and taking photos with fans from 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM. Later in the evening, the Kleckos will head to the winner’s circle for a special race presentation. “We value our partnership with Peter Grandich and Company and would like to thank the members of his board that are attending these two great events, said Jason Settlemoir, GM and COO of Meadowlands Racing Entertainment. “We are excited to host these two nights and encourage all of our racing and sports fans to come out and meet these accomplished athletes.” To learn more about Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment, and to view their upcoming schedule, make sure to visit their official website: PlayMeadowlands.com

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PMC 'PMC Goes To The Oscars To Ensure Superlative Sound' was successfully added to your cart PMC Goes To The Oscars To Ensure Superlative Sound As the world tuned in to Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday night for the 89th annual Academy Awards - otherwise known as the Oscars® - the show’s musicians were warming up in the orchestra pit ready to perform a selection of themes from the winning films. Orchestral rehearsals and the pre-recording of musical cues had already taken place at the world-famous Capitol Studios, just a few blocks from the Dolby Theatre. On the night, award-winning mix engineer Tommy Vicari and Capitol’s own chief engineer Steve Genewick were responsible for mixing the sound that, along with the orchestral performances, also featured live performances from artists such as Sting, John Legend, Justin Timberlake and Lin Manual Miranda with Auli'i Cravalho. Vicari and his team mixed the sound using Capitol Studio’s own PMC QB1-A and twotwo8 speakers, while PMC AML2 speakers – chosen for their ability to replicate the dispersion, balance and resolution of the big monitor system but in a more compact package – were used as reference monitors on board a broadcast OB truck, which was parked outside the Dolby Theatre. Renowned for his film mixing work on a huge range of Hollywood movies - from The Help and Wall-E to Finding Nemo and Iron Man 2 – and the winner of numerous Primetime Emmy and Grammy awards, Vicari has been taking care of sound for the Oscars for nearly two decades. He has also been using PMC speakers for many years and happily acknowledges how much he loves them. “My movie mixing set-up is an array of PMC MB2 XBDs with Active amps,” he says. “With PMC, there are no surprises - whatever I mix on them always comes out ready for the soundstage.” This year, PMC was also the monitoring system of choice for two other Oscar participants – composers Nicholas Brittel and Thomas Newman who were both nominated for Best Score (eventually won by Justin Hurwitz for La La Land). Brittel used a PMC twotwo.6 set up with a Sub2 on his score for Moonlight, while Newman used IB2 monitors on his score for Passengers. Both films were also mixed on PMC by Tommy Vicari. “I adore my PMCs – I use them for everything,” says Nick Brittel. “The music for Moonlight was mixed entirely on those beautiful PMCs.” For the Academy Awards ceremony, the musical cues are always pre-recorded as a safety measure in case anything goes wrong technically during the show. This year, the music was flawless and caused no problems for the sound team or the show organisers. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the winner’s envelopes – but that’s another story!

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Miami Office Space for Rent by GHG-AM, a Property Management Company in Miami PR Agency - Tuesday, November 22, 2016. Submitted by prc_pressagency. A Miami Property Management Company, GHG-AM (Global Horizons Group - Asset Management) is now offering new prime Miami office space, available for immediate occupancy. The recently acquired property known as Kennedy Plaza is a four-story, 40,000 ± SF Class "B" office building located on the northwest corner of the Golden Glades Interchange at 160 NW 176th Street, Miami Gardens, Florida, 33161. Kennedy Plaza has been recently renovated to meet the demands of affordable premium office space in Miami. Those familiar with the area will know the building well. Anyone who has considered this property in the past, it is time to take second look after the newly completed renovations. The renovations include new elevators, newly painted walls and trim, new tile floors, and doors. There are several office spaces and suites available ranging from 225 to over 3000 square feet. Kennedy Plaza was built in 1986, and the property has a substantial parking ratio of 6.77/1000. Just like in residential real estate, commercial properties are judged by their location, and as far as locations go, Kennedy Plaza is considered prime Miami office space. It is centrally located, directly across from a Super Wal-Mart, and is within easy access to I-95, SR-826, and US-441, as well as public transportation. Office Suites at Kennedy Plaza is ideal for Medical offices, attorneys, or accountants and just about any professional service provider who wants to make themselves accessible to those living in Miami, North Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, Aventura and all of South Broward. The owner of the Kennedy Plaza is very happy with the level of interest shown in the property since the new renovations and acquiring a new property management company, GHG-AM. As with all properties managed by GHG-AM, tenants can expect Kennedy Plaza to be well maintained. Business owners should take this opportunity to schedule an appointment to view all the updates as suites are expected to be occupied quickly. Based on the calls received since listing the suites, the owner is motivated to lease the entire building by the end of the year. One should take advantage of the introductory renovation offer, which includes one-year leases while availability last. For more information on this listing contact Ynelis Luna at GHG-AM (Global Horizons Group – Asset Management). About PR Agency Press Release Agency More about PR Agency N/A http:// Follow PR Agency

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Stone Mountain man arrested in Fort Valley armed robbery Submitted by Ashley.Trawick on Thursday, February 25th, 2:39 pm A Stone Mountain man was arrested Tuesday for an armed robbery that happened at a gas station in Fort Valley. According to the Fort Valley Department of Public Safety, 25-year-old Larry Little, Jr. was arrested at a home on State University Drive without incident. It happened at Flash Foods Five Points on Blue Bird Boulevard around 11:15 p.m. in January. The store clerk told deputies two men came into the store and demanded money at gunpoint. After getting an undisclosed amount of money and cigarettes, the two men fled on foot. The Middle Georgia Fugitive Task Force, the Peach County Drugs Enforcement Unit and the Fort Valley State Campus Police Department all assisted in the arrest. The second suspect has not been identified. UPDATE: 68-year-old charged in Crawford County dog stabbing Submitted by Ashley.Trawick on Wednesday, February 3rd, 1:54 pm A dog was stabbed at a home on Sandy Point Road in Crawford County last Monday around 3 p.m. The owner of the dog said she was injured with what appeared to be stab wounds. Sixty-eight-year-old Marvin Bryson, of Lizella, was arrested last Friday at 4:20 p.m. and charged with two counts of aggravated cruelty to animals. As of Tuesday, he was additionally charged with one count of theft by taking. Bryson's bond is set at $10,000. He also has a special conditions bond order that he cannot stay or be in Bibb, Peach or Crawford counties. He is only to to make court appearances in Crawford. He's still being held in the Crawford County jail. Crawford-Roberta consolidation a possibility Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016, 7:37pm Folks in Crawford County and the city of Roberta might get to vote on consolidation this year. It would mean unifying the city and county into one government, as Macon-Bibb did in 2013. Claire Davis met with the county manager and people in town to learn more. 2nd Congressional District to hold delegate training Submitted by Ashley.Trawick on Thursday, January 28th, 3:41 pm A delegate training will be held for the 2nd Congressional district in February. According to a news release, it will be held February 6, 2016 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Hunt Educational and Cultural Recreation Center, located at 600 Spruce Street, in Fort Valley. The training, the release states, is the first step in the delegate selection process. The Democratic National Convention will be in July in Philadelphia. For more information, please call Kattie Kendrick at 478-825-2985 or email kjvrainier1@gmail.com. Skeletal remains found in Crawford County woods Tuesday, January 26th, 2016, 3:15pm A GBI crime-scene unit and Crawford County deputies are investigating skeletal remains found in woods off Old Knoxville Road. J.T. Ricketson, special agent in charge of the GBI's Perry office, says a property owner found the bones on Sunday. Warrant issued for Fort Valley armed robbery suspect Submitted by Ashley.Trawick on Thursday, January 21st, 6:21 pm A warrant has been issued for a suspect allegedly involved in an armed robbery that happened at a Fort Valley gas station last week. According to a Facebook post from the Fort Valley Department of Public Safety, 25-year-old Larry Little, Jr., of Stone Mountain, Ga., is being sought by police for armed robbery. Detectives are still working to identify the second suspect. The robbery happened last Wednesday at Flash Foods, located at 401 Blue Bird Blvd. The store clerk told deputies two men came into the store and demanded money at gunpoint. After receiving an undisclosed amount of money and cigarettes, the two men fled the store on foot. Anyone with any information on the suspects' whereabouts or the robbery can call the police department at 478-825-3383. Fort Valley police seeking armed robbery suspects The Fort Valley Police Department is searching for two men involved in an armed robbery that happened at a gas station on Blue Bird Boulevard Wednesday around 11:15 p.m. According to a Facebook post from the department, it happened at Flash Foods Five Points. The store clerk told deputies two men came into the store and demanded money at gunpoint. After receiving an undisclosed amount of money and cigarettes, the two men fled the store on foot. Anyone with any information on the suspects' identities or the robbery can call the police department at 478-825-3383.

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Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Merrimack Announces Major Corporate Restructuring Merrimack Announces Major Corporate Restructuring 25.6 KB CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACK) today announced a major corporate restructuring with the objective of prioritizing its research and development on a focused set of systems biology-derived oncology products and strengthening its financial runway. As part of this move, Merrimack is immediately implementing a 22% reduction in headcount and eliminating more than $200 million in expected costs over the next two years. In line with this restructuring, the Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of President and CEO Robert Mulroy, effective immediately. In order to accelerate this change, the Board of Directors has appointed Chairman of the Board Gary Crocker as interim President and CEO. "The Board is committed to focusing our resources. This major restructuring will allow us to strategically align our pipeline with our core capabilities and prioritize ongoing clinical development efforts while improving our financial flexibility," stated Mr. Crocker. "We believe this sharper focus will drive efficiency and innovation and promote the interests of not only our shareholders and employees, but also of cancer patients worldwide. The realization of shareholder value will become as intense a focus for Merrimack as our strength in innovation and development. The Board is convinced that there is tremendous inherent value within Merrimack that can be unlocked." In line with delivering the new goals of innovation and efficiency, John Dineen, Chairman of the Organization and Compensation Committee and former CEO of GE Healthcare, will lead the CEO search process. "We are grateful to Bob and acknowledge his leadership of Merrimack over the years," said Mr. Dineen. The reduction in personnel will not impact the commercial team or the execution of ONIVYDE's commercial launch and label expansion. "This strategic shift is designed to align our resources with the programs that have the greatest potential for disruptive change in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as to significantly increase our financial flexibility," said Dr. Yasir Al-Wakeel, CFO and Head of Corporate Development. He adds, "With the elimination of more than $200 million in expected expenses through research and development efficiencies, prioritization and cost containment over the next two years, today's announcement places Merrimack in a much stronger financial position." As a result, Merrimack now anticipates aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses in 2017 of approximately $190 million when calculated in accordance with GAAP, resulting in a cash runway that is expected to fund operations for at least the next 12 months based on cash on hand, anticipated near term milestones and reimbursements and ONIVYDE profits. This corresponds to a non-GAAP financial measure of $165 million of aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses in 2017 when excluding $25 million of anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine, which are fully offset by corresponding milestone achievement obligations from Shire. A table reconciling guidance for aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses, excluding anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine, a non-GAAP financial measure, to aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses calculated in accordance with GAAP is included at the end of this press release. The reduction in force was substantially completed on October 3rd and is expected to be fully completed by December 3rd. More information on the restructuring will be available in the Form 8-K to be filed by Merrimack today. Merrimack plans to provide more financial and strategic details regarding the conclusion of this product prioritization process by the end of the fourth quarter. To the extent that statements contained in this press release are not descriptions of historical facts, they are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements include any statements about Merrimack's strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenues and future expectations and plans and prospects for Merrimack, and any other statements containing the words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "predict," "project," "target," "potential," "will," "would," "could," "should," "continue," and similar expressions. In this press release, Merrimack's forward-looking statements include, among others, statements about expectations regarding the elimination of future expenses, the potential impact of the change in strategic focus, anticipated operating expenses and cash runway. Such forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause Merrimack's clinical development programs, future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainties inherent in the initiation of future clinical trials, availability of data from ongoing clinical trials, expectations for regulatory approvals and other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of Merrimack's products, product candidates or companion diagnostics. Merrimack undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Merrimack's views as of any date subsequent to the date hereof. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to Merrimack's business in general, see the "Risk Factors" section of Merrimack's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 4, 2016 and other reports Merrimack files with the SEC. Non-GAAP Financial Information This press release presents guidance regarding aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses, excluding anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine, which is a financial measure not calculated in accordance with GAAP. Merrimack is providing non-GAAP information that excludes one-time anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine because of the nature of these items and the impact they have on the analysis of underlying business performance and trends, including the fact that these anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine are entirely offset by anticipated milestone obligations to Merrimack from Shire. Management believes that providing information regarding adjusted aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses enhances investors' understanding of Merrimack's performance and of trends that facilitate comparisons between periods. This information should be considered in addition to, but not in lieu of, information prepared in accordance with GAAP. Management also uses aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses, excluding anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine, to establish budgets and operational goals and to manage Merrimack's business. The following is a reconciliation of GAAP guidance to non-GAAP guidance: Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Reconciliation to Aggregate Research and Development and Selling, General and Administrative Expenses, Excluding Anticipated Milestone Obligations to PharmaEngine (unaudited) Year Ending December 31, 2017 Anticipated aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses (GAAP measure) Less: expenses related to one-time anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine Anticipated aggregate research and development and selling, general and administrative expenses, excluding anticipated milestone obligations to PharmaEngine (non-GAAP measure) Geoffrey Grande, CFA ggrande@merrimack.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/merrimack-announces-major-corporate-restructuring-300337780.html SOURCE Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. One Broadway, 14th floor info@merrimack.com © 2020 Merrimack Pharmaceuticals.

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ICRtoP Publication: Domesticating the Responsibility to Protect and the Prevention of Atrocities Find out how your organization can engage with national actors working to prevent mass atrocities Since the unanimous agreement of the Responsibility to Protect at the 2005 World Summit, more and more governments have worked to integrate the pledge to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing into domestic policies and programs. A range of initiatives including, inter alia, the appointment of national Focal Points, the creation of parliamentary bodies, and the establishment of national institutions, all serve to advance States' commitment to the prevention of mass atrocity crimes. The ICRtoP is pleased to introduce our latest document: “Domesticating RtoP and the Prevention of Atrocities: How Can Civil Society Engage with Existing National Initiatives?” which outlines five government mechanisms that seek to put atrocity prevention into practice, and the ways that civil society can monitor, support, and otherwise engage with such actors and institutions. The ICRtoP hopes civil society worldwide will use this document to inform and guide their cooperation with these national initiatives. Special thanks to the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, George Mason University's Genocide Prevention Program, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, the Prevention and Protection Working Group, the UN Joint Office of the Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and RtoP, and UNA-UK for their input into this document.

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Home Volume 43 [2008–09] Volume 43 Number 34 Crash landings Crash landings news@sfbg.com As the U.S. military wrestles with President Barack Obama’s plan to expand the war in Afghanistan while reducing its presence in Iraq, there’s a mounting cost on the home front for the 1.9 million soldiers who have been deployed to those conflicts and are now beginning the often difficult transition back to civilian life. Inadequate stateside mental health and other veterans’ services has been serious problem for years (see "Soldier’s heart, 12/22/04). A report in January 2008 by the RAND Corp. titled "Invisible Wounds of War" found that nearly 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans report symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression, and that an additional 19 percent experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed. But only slightly more than half of these returning veterans seek treatment that RAND called "minimally adequate." The report estimated that PTSD and depression will cost the nation $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment, but also estimated that investing in more high-quality treatment — and thus lowering the rates of suicide and lost productivity among veterans — could reduce those costs by $2 billion within two years. Modern life-saving and protective technologies and repeated deployments appear to be making the problem worse now than in previous wars. "Early evidence suggests the psychological toll of the deployments may be disproportionately high compared with physical injuries," the report stated, concluding that a national effort is needed to expand and improve the capacity of the health care system and to encourage veterans to seek this care. That national picture is reflected in San Francisco. Judi Cheary of San Francisco’s Department of Veteran Affairs medical clinic said that 25 percent of the service members they see returning from Afghanistan and Iraq receive a mental health diagnosis. Keith Armstrong, the clinic’s PTSD counselor and a professor of psychiatry at University of California-San Francisco, noted that veterans often have a diagnosis that includes depression and PTSD, or substance abuse and PTSD. "So they may be struggling with many problems," said Armstrong, who wrote Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families (Ulysses Press, 2005). "Others simply have adjustment challenges from being in combat." For instance, traffic can be difficult for returning service members who drove in combat conditions, where explosives were a constant concern. "They are scanning the environment because that’s what kept them safe in combat, or pushing the steering wheel when a friend is driving, trying to move from one lane to another," he explained. According to V.A. data, California has the third-highest number of veterans in the nation. In Northern California, most live in the Central Valley, leaving some San Francisco vets feeling isolated. "There’s a lot of talk about supporting the troops, which is nice, but it’s intellectual," Armstrong said. "Here people may not disclose that a family member is in war, not because they’re afraid people will spit on him, but because they are afraid that people will say dumb things." His clinic has seen an increase in these veterans in the past year. Armstrong typically sees three clusters of PTSD symptoms: intrusive symptoms (vets can’t get particular images and experiences out of their head); avoidance symptoms (vets believe they don’t have a great future ahead; they feel numb, it’s hard to get close to them); and arousal symptoms (vets are often irritable and angry). Anger often causes the most problems. "We see more self-destructive and reckless behavior in younger folks," he added. "They have anger, revenge-based fantasies. They know what it’s like to blow someone’s head off or to see it being blown off, so when they get angry, that crosses their mind." But he said that couples and families often talk more about "the numbing" and "the inability to connect." Armstrong also pointed out that many vets worry about the effect on their career of getting help, and how it looks to others if they do. "That’s due to both their training and age group," he said, noting that 50 percent of soldiers are 17-to-24-year-olds, and 89 percent are male. "So it’s not just about war, but about the developmental stage of the troops," he said. "It’s an appropriate age to be independent and not get any help. But that, combined with the stigma of asking for help — and if they have PTSD avoidance symptoms — can keep them from going in." As a result of recent studies showing that PTSD can develop up to five years after discharge, the V.A. extended what was previously a two-year limit in which veterans could get help to a five-year window. They also now have a suicide prevention hotline number for vets: 1-800-273-8255. "The V.A. overall has made some mistakes, but it has really taken suicide prevention seriously," Armstrong said. There are nonprofit options as well. Founded in 1974, Swords to Plowshares provides counseling and case management, employment, training, housing, and legal assistance to homeless and low-income veterans. Equally important, it’s staffed by veterans like Walter Williams, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has combat-related PTSD, and Tia Christopher, a survivor of military sexual trauma. "The experience of being in a war zone as well, or being sexually assaulted by some one in your own unit, that’s profound," Armstrong said. As Christopher explained, she and Williams have similar symptoms and attend weekly V.A. appointments to deal with their own mental health issues, between providing services to other veterans at the group’s Howard Street office. "Pretty much everyone coming back has combat stress and everyone I know has been buying rifles," Christopher said, noting that cleaning guns can be a meditative therapeutic activity for veterans. "Combat stress becomes clinical PTSD when those symptoms don’t go away." Christopher said women who were in combat and survived military sexual trauma face "a double whammy." Out of the military for more than seven years, Christopher observed that "things get better, but the memories don’t go away." In 2007 there were more than 2,000 reported military sexual assaults, but only 181 were court-martialed, she said. "So basically survivors are dealing with injustice of nothing happening. "I used to wish that PTSD gave you purple spots," she added. "That way people would know you had it. Instead, you are left dealing with getting panic attacks all of a sudden and being on edge." "I call it a flare-up," Williams said. "It’s different each time. Sometimes, when I have to focus and get my mind around something, I’m blank. I feel like I want to cry, but I can’t." Unlike past generations who openly identified as vets, "this new wave of vets is "more intent on blending in," Williams said. "They’re trying to suppress their symptoms. They don’t want to be seen as weirdos." Deployed to Iraq and then Afghanistan as a communications specialist in 2004, Williams recalled having to give up his weapon twice and being put on suicide watch. "For a week, they watched me, then they gave me my weapon back." He’s convinced that the best solutions to the challenges facing this latest wave of PTSD-afflicted vets lie in "listening to stories from the mouths of people with it," he said. Bobbi Rosenthal, regional coordinator for V.A.’s homeless program, said that an estimated 20 percent of the 6,514 people recorded in San Francisco’s 2009 homeless count are veterans. Anita Yoskowitz, administrative site manager for the V.A.’s homeless services center on Third Street, said 90 percent of the vets who use the clinic’ showers, laundry facilities, and computer lab have PTSD. And while many of the center’s clients are still from the Vietnam and Desert Storm era, the average age is starting to come down, she said, as veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan begin to trickle in. Veterans can come to the clinic every day, but those who are not clean and sober are limited to three times a week. When folks come for medical care, Yoskowitz said, "the clinic is on the look out for mental health problems." Jacob Hoff, who volunteers at the center’s computer lab, said that from conversations he overhears, it’s clear that coming back is hard. "There’s a lot of survivor’s guilt. I can really tell the young kids who are coming in and learning how to be homeless. The older guys tell them where to go for food." Donald Fontenot, who enlisted in 1980, was on the computer looking for housing when he shared his story. He enlisted when he was 18 and then messed up his knees jumping out of a C-141 jet, so he understands the stress of no longer being able to perform. "You are young and strong and then all of a sudden, you can’t do these things," said Fontenot, who was living in his car behind the clinic until it got towed by the police. "So I wound up more homeless." Currently staying with a friend, Fontenot recalled meeting a Vietnam vet who likes to walk around Golden Gate Park at night with a pistol. "It gives him the feeling of walking around in the jungle," said Fontenot, who is searching for suitable Section 8 housing — another unique challenge for PTSD-afflicted veterans in San Francisco. For some, the road to recovery leads them from the streets of San Francisco back into the arms of their family. One such local family shared their story with the Guardian and we decided to shield their identities for privacy. Mike recalled the dramatic change he saw in his brother, Joe, who joined the Marines directly after 9/11, after he tore up his shoulder in Iraq. "His whole mentality, even if he didn’t support the war in Iraq, was of a to-die-for-it Marine," said Mike, recalling the hurt and disappointment in Joe’s voice after he had two surgeries, and couldn’t return with his unit to combat. Mike said his brother’s state of mind worsen after he had been out of active duty for three years, and that the first signs that his brother might have PTSD were night sweats and an inability to pay attention. "But how can you expect soldiers to pay attention to isolated thoughts, words, and action, when they are or have been immersed in culture that teaches you to ‘walk, talk, shoot, shit’?" Mike asked. Joe was homeless in San Francisco for stints in 2007, but never longer than a week. Mike recalled how things came to a head when the two brothers got into a fight one night after Mike closed the bar where he worked. "Here we are, I’m 30 and he is 28, in a fist fight, and I told [Joe], ‘I think you’re losing your mind.’ And he said, ‘then save me,’ lying on my kitchen floor at four in the morning. But then that was it, no more conversation." Joe soon checked himself into a couple of private facilities where he berated psychiatrists for not knowing about military combat zones and could always check himself out. "Then he went over to the East Bay, went into a 24-hour Fitness Center to use the shower, got into it with a security guard for trespassing and disorderly conduct, got arrested, and was brought to the V.A.’s PTSD center in Palo Alto," Mike said. It was at this state-of-the art facility that Joe began to get help, and this year he returned to Chicago, where he is living with family until he returns to school to pursue his master’s degree. Joe’s mother, Betty, said dealing with all this has been minor compared to the prospect of losing her middle son permanently. But she resisted labeling behavior she believes was connected to his imploding marriage and financial problems when he moved to California, as well as to fallout from his injuries in Iraq. She recalls getting an e-mail from their now former daughter-in law saying, "Joe has been living in the park, camping." Betty said the first year after Joe came back was pretty tough. "We knew the marriage was over. And a couple of times I called two of his real close friends who are Marines, to tough-talk to him. For a period of time, he was acting out, a different person. You could tell something wasn’t right, and yeah, some blamed it on the service." Asked what she thought of giving vets with PTSD a Purple Heart, an idea the military floated earlier this year, Betty said, "I don’t know. They all have to go through it in some respects. My feelings about why he ended up totally collapsing is that he was trying to do too much on too little. They are over there, building cities and lives for people. Then they get back and find they can’t support their families or themselves. But at least it’s not like when folks came back from Vietnam and were labeled as bums." Guardian staff writer Sarah Phelan’s son deployed to Iraq in 2007 and returned in April 2008. Pub date May 19, 2009 WriterSarah Phelan SectionNews & Opinion

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By Peter Galvin, MD Previous Aritcle Lipid Levels Next Aritcle The Nitty-Gritty Leptospirosis, an infection caused by bacteria called Leptospira, is an infectious disease spread by contaminated water and soil. It is a zoonotic infection, which means it spreads from animals to people. Many mammals may carry it however the most common source of human infection is rats. Leptospirosis causes disease in humans around the world, especially in warmer climates and developing countries with poor housing and sanitation. It is also seen in developed countries in outdoor athletes (like triathletes) and enthusiasts, after severe floods, and in certain occupations like farmers, including dairy farmers, sewer workers, slaughterhouse workers, fish workers (freshwater fish only), veterinarians and animal caretakers, and the military. Recently, rising rates of infections have been seen in inner-city children. children. Person-to-person transmission is rare. Leptospirosis is one of many diseases that can be caused by contaminated fresh water (Leptospira cannot survive in saltwater) and contaminated soil. The bacteria are found in animal urine and other body fluids except saliva. It may survive for months in soil. Humans are infected by contact with contaminated soil or water, including drinking contaminated water. It enters humans via mucous membranes (nose, mouth, and eyes) and open cuts or sores. The incubation period, or time between contact and symptoms, may be two days to four weeks. Symptoms in the primary stage of the disease are flu-like and include high fever, headache, muscle aches, chills, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, rash, red eyes, and jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes). The first phase may last a few days to weeks, and if untreated, a few months. After recovery from the initial stage, about 10 percent of people develop a second stage which may cause severe disease including kidney failure, respiratory failure, meningitis, liver failure, and death. The death rate for severe disease is five to 15 percent. The most severe form of leptospirosis is called Weil's disease. The disease may be diagnosed by a blood test to detect antibodies in the blood. It may be treated with antibiotics like penicillins, tetracyclines, or azithromycin. Mild cases often do not require treatment. Severe cases often require hospitalization and support in the intensive care unit. Those at the highest risk to develop Leptospirosis include people who live in poor housing with poor sanitation, people who wade through floodwaters (not Sandy, freshwater only), people who swim in lakes and rivers, kayakers, whitewater rafters, adventure racers, triathletes, hikers and campers, people in occupations such as veterinarian medicine, agriculture, mining, plumbing, and garbage collection, and international travelers. Tips to prevent infection include avoid water or mud that may be contaminated with animal urine, look for posted signs when participating in freshwater sports, avoid swallowing lake or river water, cover cuts or scrapes before submerging in outdoor freshwater, avoid wading in freshwater floods, wash cuts and scrapes, and shower after possible exposure, and wear protective shoes and clothing. There is no vaccine for Leptospirosis. For more information, go to: www.cdc.gov/leptospirosis/index.html Questions and comments may be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. A Complex Market About Antibiotics Advertising Alert AF Part 2 Affordable Health Care - What's Next?

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Thru You In 1998, I bought my first sampler: an MPC 2000. I still have it and use frequently. It has a particular sound and vibe that I love, and it's a workhorse. Recently, DK brought to my attention a guy from Israel that cuts and pastes youtube videos just like someone would do with audio on an MPC. He's done an amazing job editing these together. Check it out! Short Fiction & the Oscars I won't pick apart the Oscars as I did the Grammy's, but I do have a few quick thoughts: 1. I'm very pleased for the recognition received by Slumdog Millionaire. Bollywood + Hollywood = HollyHollyBollyHollyBollyBolly 2. Ben Stiller is genius. 3. I love Beyonce. 4. I had no idea Hugh Jackman had it in him!? 5. When Philippe Petit balanced the award on his chin, it made me want to go see "Man on Wire" and gave me hopes for my short stories to be made into short films. 6. Heath Ledger: Rest In Peace. The following below is an excerpt from "Flurry" by Marilyn Urena, which has recently been posted in its entirety on my latino fiction blog. I've been getting some great submissions to this latino fiction blog lately, and I hope it will continue to grow to be a place where people can share their creative works. Marilyn Urena was born and raised in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City. She is currently a Bilingual second grade teacher in the Bronx. She published has published "Guiding Light" with LatinGirl Magazine, “Estrella” in Electric Fire as part of the National Book Foundation, “135th Street” in Voices of the Brotherhood Sister Sol, “The First Quarter” and “We Live in a Beautiful World” in The Tablet at Columbia University, and “Trans-Forming America” in Altar Magazine. She participated in the National Book Foundation’s Summer Writing Camp. Marilyn now lives in the South Bronx, and enjoys writing, reading, and dancing. She is currently working on her first novel. "Flurry" by Marilyn Urena “Your skirt is bunching up,” she said as she quickly pulled her daughter’s skirt down. “You were showing everyone your behind!” she exclaimed. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to call her daughter a whore, especially the meddlesome, elder women that lived around the corner. She saw them at every 7am Sunday mass, with their colossal golden and lavender sun-hats and their sanctified rosaries. These widowed women seemed innocuous. Their spirit and minds were on the Lord, but she knew the truth. She knew that when Señor Luis lined up for holy communion, for that perfectly circular bread and tasty wine, the elderly ladies sneered and rolled their eyes. Señor Luis had been caught going down on the nanny just a few days ago. When Doña Ana dipped her small, stiff, wrinkled index finger in the holy water at the entrance of the church and made the sign of the cross, the ladies giggled. Doña Ana almost certainly also made the sign of the cross as she left the local supermarket from where she stole. When Maria’s daughter, Sofia, shook others’ hands and said “Peace be with you,” the ladies bowed and shook their heads. They knew—thanks to that loyal, juicy grapevine—that she was in anger management classes and on house arrest for violating her probation. . . . . read the rest here. Posted by Roy Mitchell-Cardenas at 11:17 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: Personal, Short Fiction New MuteMath EP Out Today! There's a new MuteMath EP out today, available through iTunes, Amazon, and/or the new MM website: http://www3.mutemath.com/. The limited edition vinyl is only available through the new MM site store, which is actually the best deal because you get the digital stuff, too. I hope you guys enjoy this precursor to our long overdue, upcoming album. Grammy Thoughts Quick thoughts on performances in order of appearance: 1. U2 "Get On Your Boots": boring. Man, I really hate this song. It all seems so rehashed. Sorry, but what's happen to this incredible band? 2. Al Green with Justin Timberlake "Let's Stay Together": Decent. Obviously, put together in the last minute to make up for Chris Brown & Rihanna bail outs. 3. Coldplay with Jay-Z "Lost & Viva la Vida": I actually enjoyed the broken down part with Jay-Z because Chris Martin was singing well since he was not constantly jumping around like a wind-up toy. The second half was not as interesting; they're already accused of ripping off an artist for their song of the year, then why would they blatantly wear Sgt. Pepper jackets to this event? At least, they apologized to Sir Paul McCartney. 4. Carrie Underwood "Last Name": Nashsnooooozzzzze. Wait. Who's that guitar player?! She's awesome. 5. Kid Rock: The only redeeming factor for me is his drummer. I'm glad that he's stuck with her so long; she's great. 6. Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift "Fifteen": I must admit I like Taylor Swift, not her music per se, but the whole Taylor Swift genre. Needless to say, I got up and went to the bathroom during this. 7. Jennifer Hudson "You Pulled Me Through": Stellar. I loved her at the Superbowl, too. My condolences to Jennifer and her family for their losses. 8. The Jonas Brothers with Stevie Wonder "Superstition": Stevie is pure genius, and he has to have the biggest heart in the universe. 9. Katy Perry "I Kissed a Girl": Earthsuit toured with Katy back in her days as Katy Hudson, and not much has changed; she was crazy then, and she's crazy now. My friend Josh plays bass for her now, and he tore it up! Good job, Josh! 10. Estelle with Kayne West "American Boy": first performance of the night I got excited about. First of all, I love this song. Estelle was right on point, and both Kayne and her looked amazing. I thought I was watching a performance straight up out 1985! 11. Kenny Chesney "Better as a Memory": Nashboring. How is this so big?! 12. M.I.A. with Kayne West, Lil Wayne, T.I. & Jay-Z: I love M.I.A. and much respect to her performing preggo. Her part on this song was hype! Everyone else was stellar, too. 13. Paul McCartney with Dave Grohl "I Saw Her Standing There": Great match-up. I wouldn't be surprised if they did a tour together. One of the better performances of the night even though this is not one of my favorite Beatles' tunes. 14. Sugarland "Stay": Even though they might be trying to hard sometimes, this performance was good. I think she sang the hell out of it. 15. Adele "Chasing Pavements": Decent even though I was expecting more. I thought the mix was a bit off, but it came together towards the end. Sugarland cameo at the end was interesting. 16. Radiohead "15 Steps": Brillant! I wish, however, the mix was a bit better. Nevertheless, most innovative & interesting performance of the night. 17. T.I. & Justin Timberlake "Dead and Gone": Okay. Not too into this song. 18. Smokey Robinson, "Duke" Fakir, Ne-Yo & Jamie Foxx "I'll Be There" and "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)": Well done. 19. Neil Diamond "Sweet Caroline": I got up to get something to drink after the first 30 seconds. 20. Tribute to Bo Diddley featuring John Mayer, B.B. King, Buddy Guy & Keith Urban: Cool. 21. Lil Wayne & Robin Thicke "Tie My Hands": I'm happy that NOLA is still getting some attention. The city is still in vital need of recovery. 22. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss "Rich Woman" and "Gone, Gone, Gone": I'm not a fan at all. Why did this win album of the year? 23. Stevie Wonder "All About Love": Since when did Stevie Wonder become exit music? It was sad to see him playing up there all alone as if the service was over and everyone was going to go stuff their faces. But was it more sad than the Jonas Brothers stepping all over him in the previous performance? No. 5 Reasons Why You Should Drop Out of Law School 1. Launch Your Political Career. Would Lyndon Johnson, William McKinley, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Woodrow Wilson ever have gotten to the White House if they hadn't dropped out of law school? Probably not. All these men had passions (e.g., Theodore-family life, Woodrow-women's voting rights, etc.), but not a passion for the law. In the fall of 1934, President Lyndon Johnson briefly attended Georgetown University Law School, but met soon-to-be-wife Claudia Alta Taylor on a trip home Texas; in two months, they were married in San Antonio, and about a year later, he was appointed to the head of Texas National Youth Administration, creating education and jobs for youth; two years later, Johnson ran for Congress. In the early 1970s, Al Gore dropped out of Vanderbilt Law School to launch his political career by running for Congress in Tennessee; almost-President Gore, along with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. U.S. Presidents who dropped out of law school (6) outnumbers those who graduated (5). But forget the White House, how about starting a nation? David Ben Gurion, a law school dropout, was one of the founding fathers of Israel and its first prime minister. 2. Write a Novel. Harper Lee completed To Kill a Mockingbird in the summer of 1959, about 9 years after she dropped out of University of Alabama law school. In 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was a bestseller, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 in literature. It's sold more than 30 million copies. In 1996, Richard Ford won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for Independence Day. He attended law school, but quit to write fiction. 3. Become a Comedian. Demetri Martin attended New York University School of Law on a full scholarship, but he dropped out a year before graduation to pursue a career in comedy. "It’s weird to make a decision where everyone in your life disapproves, pretty vocally and directly. They said, 'You've got one year left. Just do it.' I had a full scholarship so I didn’t have to pay for it. They asked, 'Why don’t you just get the degree so you can have it?' And I said, 'You don’t understand. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do and now I know. I have the answer and it’s dumb to waste any more time,'" Demetri Martin has stated regarding his decision. 4. Start a Revolutionary Philosophy. At the age of 17, Karl Marx attended law school the University of Bonn, but later decided it wasn't for him, moving on to the University of Berlin, where he entered into journalism and became editor of a deeply criticized newspaper. Marx's works were viewed by several governments as dangerously revolutionary, which led to his banishment from Paris. Although largely ignored by his contemporary scholars during his lifetime, Marx's "big break" came after his death when workers' movements looked to his writings for guidance as with Marxist Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution. Marx is considered by some the father of communism. 5. Join a Rock Band. Apparently, I'm not the only musician who has taken this option, although I am still working on number two. Ray Manzarek from the Doors, Paul Simon, Cole Porter, Cab Calloway, and Max Weinberg from Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band/Conan O'Brien are all law school dropouts. Manzarek once said, "I went to De Paul University, and got a bachelor's degree in economics at De Paul University, and graduated from there and went to UCLA to law-school at UCLA, where I stayed in law-school for about two weeks, and dropped out of law-school realizing that that was totally insane for me to be in law-school." Like Ray, this fifth option was never really an option if I think about it; at some point or another, I would have gone insane with law and floated back to a music career; even when I was finishing my undergraduate degree, I played several nights a week. My whole life has been a battle of balancing my passions of music/writing against that which is logically and socially acceptable. But what is life if you cannot pursue what you love? Leaving law school was probably one of the hardest decision I ever had to make; sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice, but I always make my peace by reminding myself that I'm truly pursuing what I love. Posted by Roy Mitchell-Cardenas at 12:06 AM 5 comments: Links to this post

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FranceUnited StatesBelgiumNamibiaChina Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Population: 101,844 Resistance by native Caribs prevented colonization on Saint Vincent until 1719. Disputed between France and the UK for most of the 18th century, the island was ceded to the latter in 1783. The British prized Saint Vincent due to its fertile soil, which allowed for thriving slave-run plantations of sugar, coffee, indigo, tobacco, cotton, and cocoa. In 1834, the British abolished slavery. Immigration of indentured servants eased the ensuing labor shortage, as did subsequent Portuguese immigrants from Madeira and East Indian laborers. Conditions remained harsh for both former slaves and immigrant agricultural workers, however, as depressed world sugar prices kept the economy stagnant until the early 1900s. The economy then went into a period of decline with many landowners abandoning their estates and leaving the land to be cultivated by liberated slaves. Between 1960 and 1962, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was a separate administrative unit of the Federation of the West Indies. Autonomy was granted in 1969 and independence in 1979. The administration of the islands of the Grenadines group is divided between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is comprised of 32 islands and cays Location: Caribbean, islands between the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean, north of Trinidad and Tobago Geographic coordinates: 13 15 N, 61 12 W Area: total: 389 sq km (Saint Vincent 344 sq km) land: 389 sq km Size comparison: twice the size of Washington, DC Land Boundaries: 0 km Coastline: 84 km exclusive economic zone: 200 nm continental shelf: 200 nm Climate: tropical; little seasonal temperature variation; rainy season (May to November) Terrain: volcanic, mountainous Natural resources: hydropower, arable land Land use: agricultural land: 25.6% (2011 est.) arable land: 12.8% (2011 est.) permanent crops: 7.7% (2011 est.) permanent pasture: 5.1% (2011 est.) forest: 68.7% (2011 est.) other: 5.7% (2011 est.) Irrigated land: 10 sq km (2012) Natural hazards: hurricanes; La Soufriere volcano on the island of Saint Vincent is a constant threat volcanism: La Soufriere (1,234 m) on the island of Saint Vincent last erupted in 1979; the island of Saint Vincent is part of the volcanic island arc of the Lesser Antilles that extends from Saba in the north to Grenada in the south Current Environment Issues: pollution of coastal waters and shorelines from discharges by pleasure yachts and other effluents; in some areas, pollution is severe enough to make swimming prohibitive; poor land use planning; deforestation; watershed management and squatter settlement control International Environment Agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Whaling Nationality: noun: Saint Vincentian(s) or Vincentian(s) adjective: Saint Vincentian or Vincentian Ethnic groups: African descent 71.2%, mixed 23%, indigenous 3%, East Indian/Indian 1.1%, European 1.5%, other .2% (2012 est.) Languages: English, Vincentian Creole English, French patois Religions: Protestant 75% (Pentecostal 27.6%, Anglican 13.9%, Seventh Day Adventist 11.6%, Baptist 8.9%, Methodist 8.7%, Evangelical 3.8%, Salvation Army .3%, Presbyterian/Congregational .3%), Roman Catholic 6.3%, Rastafarian 1.1%, Jehovah's Witness 0.8%, other 4.7%, none 7.5%, unspecified 4.7% (2012 est.) Population: 101,844 (July 2018 est.) Age structure: 0-14 years: 20.87% (male 10,725 /female 10,534) 15-24 years: 15.58% (male 8,003 /female 7,865) 25-54 years: 42.7% (male 22,567 /female 20,924) 65 years and over: 9.82% (male 4,715 /female 5,282) (2018 est.) youth dependency ratio: 36 (2015 est.) elderly dependency ratio: 10.8 (2015 est.) potential support ratio: 9.3 (2015 est.) female: 34 years (2018 est.) Population growth rate: -0.23% (2018 est.) Birth rate: 13 births/1,000 population (2018 est.) Net migration rate: -8 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2018 est.) Major urban areas - population: 27,000 KINGSTOWN (capital) (2018) total population: 1.04 male(s)/female (2018 est.) Infant mortality rate: total: 11.7 deaths/1,000 live births male: 12.7 deaths/1,000 live births urban: 95.1% of population rural: 95.1% of population total: 95.1% of population urban: 4.9% of population rural: 4.9% of population total: 4.9% of population (2015 est.) urban: 76.1% of population (2007 est.) rural: 76.1% of population (2007 est.) total: 76.1% of population (2007 est.) HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: n/a HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: n/a HIV/AIDS - deaths: n/a Education expenditures: 5.8% of GDP (2017) Unemployment, youth ages 15-24: Country name: conventional long form: none conventional short form: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines etymology: Saint Vincent was named by explorer Christopher COLUMBUS after Saint VINCENT of Saragossa because the 22 January 1498 day of discovery was the saint's feast day Government type: parliamentary democracy (House of Assembly) under a constitutional monarchy; a Commonwealth realm Capital: name: Kingstown time difference: UTC-4 (1 hour ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time) Administrative divisions: 6 parishes; Charlotte, Grenadines, Saint Andrew, Saint David, Saint George, Saint Patrick Independence: 27 October 1979 (from the UK) National holiday: Independence Day, 27 October (1979) Constitution: history: previous 1969, 1975; latest drafted 26 July 1979, effective 27 October 1979 (The Saint Vincent Constitution Order 1979) amendments: proposed by the House of Assembly; passage requires at least two-thirds majority vote of the Assembly membership and assent to by the governor general; passage of amendments to constitutional sections on fundamental rights and freedoms, citizen protections, various government functions and authorities, and constitutional amendment procedures requires approval by the Assembly membership, approval in a referendum of at least two-thirds of the votes cast, and assent to by the governor general (2018) Legal system: English common law Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal Executive branch: chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952); represented by Governor General Susan DOUGAN (since 1 August 2019) head of government: Prime Minister Ralph E. GONSALVES (since 29 March 2001) cabinet: Cabinet appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister elections/appointments: the monarchy is hereditary; governor general appointed by the monarch; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party usually appointed prime minister by the governor general; deputy prime minister appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister Legislative branch: description: unicameral House of Assembly (23 seats; 15 representatives directly elected in single-seat constituencies by simple majority vote, 6 senators appointed by the governor general, and 2 ex officio members - the speaker of the house and the attorney general; members serve 5-year terms) elections: last held on 9 December 2015 (next to be held in 2020) election results: percent of vote by party - ULP 52.3%, NDP 47.4%, other 0.3%; seats by party - ULP 8, NDP 7; composition - men 20, women 3, percent of women 13% Judicial branch: highest courts: the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) is the superior court of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States; the ECSC - headquartered on St. Lucia - consists of the Court of Appeal - headed by the chief justice and 4 judges - and the High Court with 18 judges; the Court of Appeal is itinerant, travelling to member states on a schedule to hear appeals from the High Court and subordinate courts; High Court judges reside in the member states, with 2 assigned to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; note - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is also a member of the Caribbean Court of Justice judge selection and term of office: chief justice of Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court appointed by Her Majesty, Queen ELIZABETH II; other justices and judges appointed by the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, an independent body of judicial officials; Court of Appeal justices appointed for life with mandatory retirement at age 65; High Court judges appointed for life with mandatory retirement at age 62 subordinate courts: magistrates' courts Political parties and leaders: Democratic Republican Party or DRP [Anesia BAPTISTE] New Democratic Party or NDP [Godwin L. FRIDAY] Unity Labor Party or ULP [Dr. Ralph GONSALVES] (formed in 1994 by the coalition of Saint Vincent Labor Party or SVLP and the Movement for National Unity or MNU) SVG Green Party or SVGP [Ivan O'NEAL] International organization participation: ACP, AOSIS, C, Caricom, CDB, CELAC, FAO, G-77, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO (subscriber), ITU, MIGA, NAM, OAS, OECS, OPANAL, OPCW, Petrocaribe, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WFTU (NGOs), WHO, WIPO, WTO National symbol(s): Saint Vincent parrot; national colors: blue, gold, green National anthem: name: St. Vincent! Land So Beautiful! lyrics/music: Phyllis Joyce MCCLEAN PUNNETT/Joel Bertram MIGUEL note: adopted 1967 Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Lou-Anne Gaylene GILCHRIST (since 18 January 2017) chancery: 1627 K Street, NW, Suite 1202, Washington, DC 20006 consulate(s) general: New York Diplomatic representation from the US: the US does not have an embassy in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; the US Ambassador to Barbados is accredited to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Success of the economy hinges upon seasonal variations in agriculture, tourism, and construction activity, as well as remittances. Much of the workforce is employed in banana production and tourism. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is home to a small offshore banking sector and continues to fully adopt international regulatory standards. This lower-middle-income country remains vulnerable to natural and external shocks. The economy has shown some signs of recovery due to increased tourist arrivals, falling oil prices and renewed growth in the construction sector. The much anticipated international airport opened in early 2017 with hopes for increased airlift and tourism activity. The government's ability to invest in social programs and respond to external shocks is constrained by its high public debt burden, which was 67% of GDP at the end of 2013. GDP (purchasing power parity): $1.265 billion (2017 est.) $1.256 billion (2016 est.) $1.246 billion (2015 est.) GDP (official exchange rate): $785 million (2017 est.) GDP - real growth rate: 0.7% (2017 est.) 0.8% (2016 est.) 0.8% (2015 est.) Gross national saving: 12.1% of GDP (2017 est.) 10.3% of GDP (2016 est.) 10.4% of GDP (2015 est.) GDP - composition, by end use: household consumption: 87.3% (2017 est.) government consumption: 16.6% (2017 est.) investment in fixed capital: 10.8% (2017 est.) investment in inventories: -0.2% (2017 est.) exports of goods and services: 37.1% (2017 est.) imports of goods and services: -51.7% (2017 est.) GDP - composition, by sector of origin: agriculture: 7.1% (2017 est.) industry: 17.4% (2017 est.) services: 75.5% (2017 est.) Agriculture - products: bananas, coconuts, sweet potatoes, spices; small numbers of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats; fish Industries: tourism; food processing, cement, furniture, clothing, starch Industrial production growth rate: 2.5% (2017 est.) Labor force: 57,520 (2007 est.) Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 26% industry: 17% services: 57% (1980 est.) Unemployment rate: 18.8% (2008 est.) Budget: revenues: 225.2 million (2017 est.) expenditures: 230 million (2017 est.) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.2% (2017 est.) -0.2% (2016 est.) Current account balance: -$116 million (2017 est.) -$122 million (2016 est.) Exports: $48.6 million (2017 est.) $47.3 million (2016 est.) Exports - commodities: bananas, eddoes and dasheen (taro), arrowroot starch; tennis racquets Exports - partners: Jordan 40.7%, France 12.5%, Barbados 7%, St. Lucia 6.8%, Antigua and Barbuda 5.7%, US 5.5%, Trinidad and Tobago 4.7% (2017) Imports: $295.9 million (2017 est.) $294.6 million (2016 est.) Imports - commodities: foodstuffs, machinery and equipment, chemicals and fertilizers, minerals and fuels Imports - partners: US 36.8%, Trinidad and Tobago 19.1%, UK 7%, China 5.8% (2017) Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $182.1 million (31 December 2017 est.) $192.3 million (31 December 2016 est.) Debt - external: $362.2 million (31 December 2017 est.) $330.8 million (31 December 2016 est.) Stock of direct foreign investment - at home: (31 December 2009 est.) Exchange rates: East Caribbean dollars (XCD) per US dollar - 2.7 (2017 est.) 2.7 (2016 est.) 2.7 (2015 est.) 2.7 (2014 est.) 2.7 (2013 est.) Electricity - production: 157 million kWh (2016 est.) Electricity - consumption: 146 million kWh (2016 est.) Electricity - installed generating capacity: 54,000 kW (2016 est.) Electricity - from fossil fuels: 85% of total installed capacity (2016 est.) Electricity - from hydroelectric plants: 13% of total installed capacity (2017 est.) Crude oil - production: 0 bbl/day (2017 est.) Crude oil - exports: 0 bbl/day (2015 est.) Crude oil - proved reserves: 0 bbl (1 January 2018 est.) Refined petroleum products - production: 0 bbl/day (2015 est.) Refined petroleum products - consumption: 1,620 bbl/day (2016 est.) Refined petroleum products - exports: 0 bbl/day (2015 est.) Refined petroleum products - imports: 1,621 bbl/day (2015 est.) Natural gas - production: 0 cu m (2017 est.) Natural gas - consumption: 0 cu m (2017 est.) Natural gas - proved reserves: 0 cu m (1 January 2014 est.) Carbon dioxide emissions from consumption of energy: 226,800 Mt (2017 est.) Cellular Phones in use: total subscriptions: 116,161 Telephone system: general assessment: adequate islandwide, fully automatic telephone system; broadband access; expand FttP (Fiber to the Home) markets; LTE launches; regulatory development (2018) domestic: fixed-line teledensity exceeds 20 per 100 persons and mobile-cellular teledensity is about 114 per 100 persons (2018) international: country code - 1-784; the East Caribbean Fiber System and Southern Caribbean Fiber submarine cables carry international calls; connectivity also provided by VHF/UHF radiotelephone from Saint Vincent to Barbados; SHF radiotelephone to Grenada and Saint Lucia; access to Intelsat earth station in Martinique through Saint Lucia (2016) Broadcast media: St. Vincent and the Grenadines Broadcasting Corporation operates 1 TV station and 5 repeater stations that provide near total coverage to the multi-island state; multi-channel cable TV service available; a partially government-funded national radio service broadcasts on 1 station and has 2 repeater stations; about a dozen privately owned radio stations and repeater stations Internet country code: .vc Internet users: total: 53,000 Airports: 6 (2013) Airports (paved runways): total 5 Airports (unpaved runways): total 1 Roadways: by type: bulk carrier 22, container ship 14, general cargo 184, oil tanker 17, other 652 (2018) Ports and terminals: major seaport(s): Kingstown Military branches: no regular military forces; Royal Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVPF) (2013) Disputes - International: joins other Caribbean states to counter Venezuela's claim that Aves Island sustains human habitation, a criterion under UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which permits Venezuela to extend its EEZ/continental shelf over a large portion of the eastern Caribbean Sea Illicit drugs: transshipment point for South American drugs destined for the US and Europe; small-scale cannabis cultivation

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American Landscapes: Southwest Parks Desert views, ancient ruins and sand dunes in the Southwest. Airstream - Live Riveted Created by Airstream - May 12th 2016 The Southwest is one of America's most famous landscapes. Contrary to popular opinion, though, it's more than just dust and cacti. The remains of ancient settlements, glittering gemstone logs, massive sandstone arches, imposing dunes, and, yes, more than a few saguaro cacti, make up the southwestern part of the country that's appeared in so many iconic pictures, paintings, and films. It's almost become synonymous with America itself. Mesa Verde National Park is a truly special place. On the mesa's cliffs, visitors will find the preserved dwellings of a civilization that is long gone. Pueblo Indians built the complexes in the thirteenth century, and the structures are still in a stable enough condition that you can tour them today! There are several groups of buildings to explore; some you can visit on your own, while others require a ranger-led tour. Stop by the visitor centers to see artifacts discovered at these sites and learn what historians have discovered about the people who once called this place home. USA RV Park The reason Route 66 became so popular was because it crosses some of America's most unique landscapes. The USA RV Park, just off the historic road, is a great place to soak up some of those old-school road-trip vibes. A nightly BBQ, a multitude of activities, and well-kept facilities are a great reminder of why road trips are so much fun. Another interesting Southwestern landscape is Petrified Forest National Park. You don't often find forests in the middle of the desert, but this isn't your average forest. The trees here are petrified, which means that they've been fossilized; a rare set of conditions has allowed hard, sparkly minerals to preserve the logs. Plus, the whole park is set in the stunning Painted Desert of Arizona, and Historic Route 66 runs right through it! Stop off at the Rainbow Forest to check out some petrified wood and desert views. Lost Dutchman State Park got its unusual name from the mythical Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, which, according to legend, is hidden in the Superstition Mountains somewhere near the park. There isn't even solid evidence of the mine's existence, but that doesn't stop thousands of tourists from flocking to the mountains in Arizona each year, hoping to find the mythical mine and to strike it rich. The legend varies wildly-- sometimes two German immigrants (hence the name "Dutchman") are involved, sometimes there's only one, usually named Jacob Waltz. There's even a version in which U.S. Army veterans stumble across the treasure. Sometimes the mine is found randomly, other times the location is revealed by Apaches. The treasure is either a vein of pure gold, or the abandoned mine of the Peralta family, or a cache of goods stolen from Mexican miners. The only thing that seems to remain consistent is the location: the Superstition Mountains. Saguaros, a rare type of cactus that can only survive in the harsh desert climates of Mexico, Arizona, and parts of California, have become a symbol of the Southwest. They can live up to 100 years and reach heights of 20 feet or more. You can see them at their most beautiful at Saguaro National Park. There are actually two separate units that make up Saguaro National Park, the Rincon Mountain District in the East and the Tucson Mountain District district in the West. The two are separated by the city of Tucson, so visiting the park is also a great excuse to explore the city. But back to the park! The Rincon Mountain District boasts tons of untouched wilderness, exotic wildlife, and plenty of hiking, while the Tucson Mountain District features ancient petroglyphs, an awesome interpretive center, and more saguaros than you can shake a stick at! Red Rock State Park Red Rock State Park highlights another desert landscape: the red sandstone canyons of Sedona. Oak Creek runs through the area, creating a rare riparian terrain that allows plant and animal life to flourish. Plus, many believe that the Sedona area is home to several healing vortexes, so take your time here, and soak in the good vibes. The Grand Canyon National Park Perhaps the most famous National Park in America, the Grand Canyon National Park is every bit as epic as you've heard. Whether you plan to explore the North Rim, the South Rim, or both, make sure to check out several observation points, take a hike, and make the most of your visit. It really is one of those places that you can't fully appreciate until you've seen it in person! Navajo National Monument Like Mesa Verde, Navajo National Monument protects ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings from around 1200 AD. There are three main dwellings, several trails, scenic overlooks, and a visitor center that provides tons of background info about the ancient people who lived here. If you can, check out the Keet Seel dwelling; archaeologists consider it to be one of the best-preserved larger ruins in the Southwest. Monument Valley is easily one of America's most iconic settings. Featured in countless movies, from westerns to "Forrest Gump", the vast sandstone buttes and "mittens" rise up from the ground, with few signs of civilization around to mar the view. Hop on U.S. Highway 163, and cruise through the valley. It's only about five square miles, but the impression it leaves on visitors is huge. Duke's Slickrock Grill, Campground and RV Park It doesn't get any more Western than a campground with a steakhouse on site. Duke's offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and serve up huge burgers, baby-back ribs, chicken-fried steak, ribeye, brisket, and more. You can sleep off your food coma at your campsite right next door. Torrey, UT What's not to love about Capitol Reef National Park? It's got awesome hikes, stunning scenic drives, breathtaking landmarks, a fascinating history... and it's one of the lesser-visited parks in Utah. Learn about the park's outlaw history (these are the old stomping grounds of Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch), see the massive rock formations on a hike through Cathedral Valley, and keep an eye out for the white sandstone domes that earned the park its name; some think they look like the dome of the U.S. Capitol building! Escalante National Monument The Escalante National Monument is, in a word, incredible. It's utterly massive, at 1.9 million acres, and it's also pretty remote. But, that means that Escalante is the best place to enjoy the desert as it was meant to be seen: untouched and totally wild. If you're a little worried about hiking into the desert wilderness, then explore the area from the comfort of your vehicle on a scenic route, such as the Burr Trail. Great Basin National Park is another underrated stop in the Southwest. This hidden gem in Nevada features glacier-capped mountains, grizzled bristlecone pine trees, mysterious caves, peaceful lakes, and tons more. It's not exactly the most obvious picture of the Southwest, but part of the appeal of the region is just how varied it is! Arches National Park is incredibly popular, and it's not hard to see why. There are more than 2,000 sandstone formations here that are begging to be explored! Double Arch and Delicate Arch are two of the more popular arches, and both are easily reached via short hikes. If it's too hot for much outdoor activity, there's a scenic drive that loops through the park, offering equally epic views. Slightly more remote and less developed than nearby Arches, Canyonlands National Park provides a slightly different look at the Utah scenery. The park is made up of several different units, and they're all fairly separate from each other, so decide which you want to see before you visit. The Needles District is popular for its many trails, scenic overlooks, and multicolored sandstone spires! Covering nearly 3,000 square miles of wilderness, the San Juan National Forest offers mountains to climb, scenic byways to drive, ghost towns to explore, and loads more. A quick trip from quaint towns such as Ouray and Durango, the forest provides striking beauty from nearly every angle. Wolf Creek Pass (US HWY 160) Wolf Creek Pass is a highway that traverses the beauty of the San Juan Mountains. In addition to marveling at breathtaking views, you'll pass by Treasure Falls, great ski resorts, and relaxing hot springs. The pass a popular route for tourists, as it offers mountain scenery as well as an easier drive to navigate than other roads in the area, especially during the snowy winter months. Riverbend Resort Whether you're looking for a cozy cabin or a simple campsite, you'll find it at the scenic Riverbend Resort. The convenient location, added amenities such as a hot tub, game room, and laundry facilities, and the gorgeous setting make this a great place to relax for a night or two while exploring Colorado. Mosca, CO Great Sand Dunes National Park is dedicated to protecting and preserving the 750-foot-tall piles of sand within Colorado's San Luis Valley-- and to helping people explore and enjoy the dunes! The wind and sand do make hiking a bit of a challenge at times, but it's well worth it to climb to the top of the dunes. The views of the sand and the mountains are unlike anything else you'll ever see! From red sandstone arches to scrubby deserts to forested mountains, the American Southwest is an enchanting and distinctive place where petrified forests are made of glittering gemstone minerals, healing vortexes abound, and buried treasure isn't so far-fetched an idea! Airstream is on the road! Join us and explore of our community's favorite road trips and amazing places below. See More From Airstream The Greatest American National Park Road Trip South Carolina, US Tennessee, US Kentucky, US Nevada, US Arkansas, US South Dakota, US Boundless Blue Ridge beauty on Mount Mitchell Scenic Drive North Carolina, US Best State Parks in America

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Retiring Verzosa mimics Aquino in taking crisis rap By Mario J. Mallari and Marie A. Surbano 09/06/2010 Retiring Verzosa mimics Aquino in taking crisis rap By Mario J. Mallari and Marie A. Surbano Taking cue from his commander in chief, President Aquino who earlier had said he is assuming responsibility on the botched rescue operation during the Aug. 23 hostage-taking of more than 20 Hong Kongers at the Quirino Grandstand, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Jesus Verzosa, who is scheduled for retirement, also said he is taking responsibility for the tragic incident. Verzosa, however, said his decision to retire ahead of schedule has nothing to do with the bungled police assault on Hong Thai bus, which was held by former Manila Police District (MPD) member Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza, that ended in the killing of eight Hong Kong tourists and the hostage-taker. “My decision to render an early retirement has been announced more than a month ago. More than ever, it is imperative to take responsibility especially with regards to what has transpired in the past week,” Verzosa said. It was gathered that Verzosa has already informed his superiors as early as July about his plan to retire on Sept. 14, or three months earlier than his scheduled retirement on Dec. 25 this year upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 56.... MORE

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YOU ARE HERE:Home » Health Care » Dr. Na’eem Sadiq’s stem cell success Dr. Na’eem Sadiq’s stem cell success Tracy Venkatesh — February 27, 2015 Dr. Na'eem Sadiq In what could be a harbinger of hope for those suffering neurodegenerative diseases, Dr. Na’eem Sadiq, a neurologist and Director of the Plexus Neuro and Stem Cell Research Centre (PNSRC) in Bangalore, has successfully treated Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Sadiq has been administering stem cell treatments to Ashok Kumar, a patient who had been rendered completely disabled by Parkinson’s disease. The treatments have finally yielded astounding results. Mr. Kumar, who is 59 years old, could not sit, walk, speak or eat due to the tremors and rigidity associated with the degenerative disease. Today he is indulging in all of these activities independently, a development that has left his family awestruck. Only two doses of stem cell transplant over a period of four months has helped Ashok to recover and return to a normal life. Elaborating on his recovery, Mr. Kumar said, “I used to consume almost thirty pills for managing my condition. But those medications were not helping me much. Moreover, they also had side-effects. I could feel my body stiffening. For the last two years I was confined to bed and had lost all hope of recovery.” While the standard cocktail of pharmaceuticals failed to help Mr. Kumar, and even caused more problems in the form of unhealthy side effects, this unconventional stem cell therapy has proved to be nothing short of a miracle for him. His balance, posture and speech, along with his ability to write, have shown significant improvement after only two sessions of stem cell transplantation, and he no longer takes medication. In a brief explanation about the stem cell therapy, Dr. Sadiq said, “In Mr. Kumar’s case, stem cells were collected from his own bone marrow and were isolated under cGMP conditions. After quality analysis in the laboratory, the isolated mother cells were transplanted into the damaged central nervous system. The stem cells migrated to the affected area of the brain, and transformed themselves into healthy tissue, thereby replacing the damaged cells. Previously, medications and certain surgical procedures were the only treatments available for Parkison’s disease. While medications in the long-term lack effectiveness and may cause side-effects, surgery is not always feasible. Lately, stem cell therapy has turned out to be a boon for patients with PD.” Once a stem cell transplant procedure is finished, the patient is allowed to go home the next day. The patient must continue to undergo regularly scheduled medical examinations and may require subsequent stem cell transplants, depending on disease progression. The dosage and manner in which the stem cells are administered will vary among patients, and the improvement pattern may be different for ever patient, as these factors are determined by the patient’s overall condition along with the progression of their illness. Tags:Ashok Kumar,Bangalore,disabled,Dr Naeem Sadiq,India,neurodegenerative,neurologist,Parkinson's disease,patient,pharmaceutical,Plexus Neuro and Stem Cell Research Centre,procedure,stem cells,Techspirit,transplant,transplantation MoD selects BEL-Rolta consortium for Battlefield Management System Project Ola acquires TaxiForSure for $200 Million Tracy Venkatesh Tracy Venkatesh has spent twenty years working and interacting with a socioeconomically diverse population in both the private and public sectors, and has held positions in multiple verticals including content development, healthcare, customer relations management, defense and law enforcement. Etihad Airways partners with Adobe Ola partners with Cleartrip to provide micro-light flight

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Malaysia investigates marriage of man to 11-year-old girl Malaysia's deputy prime minister says authorities are investigating the marriage between an 11-year-old Thai girl and a 41-year-old Malaysian Muslim, including elements of possible "sexual grooming" in the case KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities are investigating the marriage between an 11-year-old Thai girl and a 41-year-old Malaysian Muslim, including elements of possible "sexual grooming" in the case, the deputy prime minister said Monday. The case has sparked public outrage and widespread calls for child brides to be banned in the predominantly Muslim country. Rubber scrap dealer Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid was believed to have secretly married the girl — a Thai citizen who lives with her parents in Malaysia — as his third wife in Thailand, and the union became public after one of his wives lodged a complaint with police. Muslim girls under the minimum legal marriage age of 16 can wed with the consent of the Shariah court and their parents in Malaysia. Muslim men in Malaysia can marry four wives. Thai law sets the minimum legal age for marriage at 17, though courts may allow marriage for younger individuals if there is an appropriate reason. The reasons, however, are not defined in the law. Although the marriage has caused outrage on social media among Thais, Thai government spokesmen said they were unaware of the case. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said there was no record of the marriage in Malaysia and no evidence yet that it had taken place. She said any such marriage would be invalid because consent hadn't been sought nor given by Malaysia's Shariah court. "My officers are working with other local enforcement agencies to look further into this case. This includes whether there are elements of sexual grooming between the man and this girl before the supposed marriage. This is an offense" criminalized last year, Wan Azizah told a news conference. Photos on social media showed the groom holding the girl's hand after the marriage ceremony. Malaysian media said Che Abdul Karim, who is also an imam in a rural village in northeast Kelantan state, already has two wives and six children aged 5 to 18. Che Abdul Karim told Malaysia's Bernama news agency on Sunday that his marriage was lawful and had been approved by the girl's parents, who are Thai citizens who live and work in Kelantan as rubber tappers. He has said he will only formalize the marriage in Malaysia when the girl turns 16 and that she will stay with her parents until then. The girl was also quoted by local media as saying that she loves Che Abdul Karim because he is a kind man. Wan Azizah, however, said, "Consent of a child under 12 years old is not consent" under the law. The deputy prime minister said an initial investigation showed that the girl, who doesn't attend school, was wooed twice, and that her mother had told the man the girl was too young and asked for the marriage to be consummated only when she turns 16. She said the man promised to help the family financially. The government will send in doctors to examine the girl and provide her counseling to help her cope, Wan Azizah said. The government is "committed to ending child marriage" and is looking into raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18, including ensuring there are strict conditions before Shariah courts can give consent for minors to wed, she added. Paveena Hongsakul, a Thai women and children's rights activist, said she believed that cases where parents give away their children in exchange for something could be considered human trafficking. Paveena, founder and chairwoman of her own foundation, said that any young child asked by her parents to get married would agree out of filial devotion. She said her foundation has dealt with kids who have entered into prostitution because their parents told them to do so. The U.N. children agency called the latest case of child marriage "shocking and unacceptable." The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia expressed concern that allowing child marriage in the name of religion might "provide cover for pedophiles and child sexual predators." The National Human Rights Society said government data showed there were as many as 15,000 Malaysian child brides in 2010 and called for laws to criminalize child marriage to protect minors. Associated Press writer Kaweewit Kaewjinda in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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Tag: fast and furious Appeals Court Upholds Murder Convictions in Death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry Slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Two men convicted in the 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry lost their appeal in which they claimed they were illegally extradited. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the murder convictions of Ivan Soto-Barraza and Jesus Lionel Sanchez-Meza, who are serving life sentences, saying their extraditions were lawful, The Associated Press reports. Terry was fatally shot during a firefight with a seven-men “rip crew” that robbed smugglers crossing the Arizona-Mexico border. Terry’s death revealed the botched “Fast and Furious” operation in which federal agents permitted criminals to buy firearms so they could be tracked to criminal organizations. Five other men have been indicted in connection with Terry’s murder. Posted: January 21st, 2020 under News Story. Tags: 9th Circuit Court, appeals, Border Patrol, brian terry, court, fast and furious, Murder Man Sentenced to Life for 2010 Murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry A sixth man convicted for his role in the 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison. Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, a Mexican gang member, was convicted by a jury in February of nine criminal counts, including first- and second-degree murder. The case led to the discovery of the Fast and Furious scandal. “A life sentence for Agent Terry’s murder cannot eliminate his family’s suffering. But it is our hope that this sentence brings some degree of comfort to Agent Terry’s family in knowing that the individuals responsible for his murder will be held accountable,” said Robert Brewer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, according to AZCentral.com. Roy Villareal, the chief patrol officer for Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, applauded the sentencing. “Today brings us one step closer to justice for Agent Brian Terry’s murder,” Villareal said. “The sentencing brings a painful time closer to an end and serves as a reminder of the grave dangers our agents face in their selfless commitment to the safety of their communities and country.” Posted: January 9th, 2020 under News Story. Tags: Border Patrol Agent, drug smugglers, fast and furious, gang, Guns, Mexico, Murder Mexican National Accused of Murdering Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 Finally in Court Brian Terry It has been eight years since the murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Finally, the Mexican gang member accused of killing Terry, which lead to the discovery of the Fast and Furious Scandal, appeared in federal court for the first time Wednesday after he was extradited from Mexico on Monday, the Washington Examiner reports. Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and eight other charges at a court in Tucson., Ariz. Osorio-Arellanes was lodged in jail pending a Sept. 11 trial. The Mexican national was captured by Mexican authorities in April 2017 and held for18 months until he was extradited to the United States. “The Department of Justice is pleased that the suspected killer of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has been successfully extradited to the United States and will now face justice for this terrible crime,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan applauded the extradition. “We never cease in our efforts to bring those involved in Agent Terry’s murder to the U.S. to face charges for their heinous actions,” McAleenan said in a statement. “I am grateful to our partners in the law enforcement community, both here and in Mexico, who joined us in bringing this criminal to face charges in a U.S. court.” The Examiner wrote: Terry was fatally shot on Dec. 14, 2010, during an encounter with a “rip crew” — a gang that steals from drug and human traffickers — near Nogales, Ariz. Terry and several members of the Border Patrol had approached the group to make arrests, but they fled. One agent fired nonlethal bean bags at the gang. The crew fired at the agents with their AK-47-type assault rifles, killing Terry. The death of a Border Patrol agent in the line of duty is rare. Since 1924, a total of 124 agents have died while on the job. The events surrounding Terry’s death led to the public learning the guns the gang members had acquired and used in the shooting had originally been purchased from the U.S. government. Fast and Furious, the name of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives operation, was rolled out in hopes the Obama administration could track who purchased guns and how they were distributed. Posted: August 2nd, 2018 under News Story. Tags: Border Patrol, brian terry, extradition, fast and furious, Mexico Appellate Court Dismisses Lawsuit Filed by Parents of Slain Border Patrol Agent Slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry An appellate court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the parents of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed at a gun battle worth of the Arizona-Mexico border in December 2010. The lawsuit alleges the federal government endangered law enforcement officers during the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-smuggling investigation, the Associated Press reports. Two guns found at the scene were bought by a drug-smuggling ring monitored through the “Fast and Furious” investigation. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower-court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit because of congressionally-mandated remedies in place for survivors of agents who die in the line of duty. Other Stories of Interest FBI Search in Madison County Connected to 1981 Disappearance Local Police in Indiana, FBI Partner to Fight Terrorism Supreme Court Ruling May Spare Mayor from Prosecution Justice Department Mandates Training for Implicit Racial Bias Union Officials: Tucson Border Patrol Polygraph Use Flawed Posted: June 28th, 2016 under News Story. Tags: Border Patrol, court, fast and furious, investigation, judge Justice Department: Rifle Recovered from ‘El Chapo’ Hideout Tied to Fast & Furious The failed gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious has been linked to a .50-caliber rifle found at the hideout of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. The Justice Department shared the information in a letter to Congress, the Associated Press reports. The gun was among 19 firearms that Mexican authorities found at the hideout. The botched sting operation allowed gun-runners to purchase weapons so that authorities could track them to drug smuggling rings. The Justice Department said the gun was purchased in July 2010. Nearly 900 firearms bought during the operation have been recovered. “ATF and the department deeply regret that firearms associated with Operation Fast and Furious have been used by criminals in the commission of violent crimes, particularly crimes resulting in the deaths of civilians and law enforcement officials,” Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, head of the Justice Department’s legislative affairs office, wrote in a March 15 letter. Posted: March 17th, 2016 under News Story. Tags: ATF, El Chapo, fast and furious, Guns, Justice Department, Mexico Mexican Man Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison for His Role in Border Patrol Agent Terry’s Death A Mexican man was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his part in killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010, Reuters reports. Rosario Burboa-Alvarez, who pleaded guilty in August to first-degree murder, hired six men to rob marijuana smugglers and retrieve a cache of weapons near the border. The men ended up in a gun battle that claimed the life of Terry. “Agent Terry’s murder was a tragically foreseeable consequence of Defendant’s recruitment of a ‘rip crew’ to engage in armed robberies,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. Some of the weapons left behind were traced to the U.S. government’s flawed “Fast and Furious” gun-running probe. Posted: October 21st, 2015 under News Story. Tags: Border, Border Patrol, brian terry, fast and furious, Mexico, Murder Fresh DOJ loss in ‘Fast and Furious’ Docs Fight Atty. Gen. Eric Holder/doj photo By JOSH GERSTEIN WASHINGTON — A federal judge has rejected Attorney General Eric Holder’s attempt to keep the courts from wading into the “Fast and Furious” documents dispute that led to him being held in contempt by the House last year. In a ruling Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned down the Justice Department’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege to prevent some records about the administration’s response to the “Operation Fast and Furious” gunrunning scandal from being turned over to Congress. Posted: September 22nd, 2014 under News Story. Tags: Eric Holder, fast and furious, Justice Department Federal Government Allows ATF Official to Collect Two Salaries While on Leave Steve Neavling A key figure in the Fast & Furious gun-running operation was permitted to collect two salaries while on leave from his federal government job, the Washington Times reports. The Justice Department’s inspector general created the report after finding that three of William McMahon’s superiors with the ATF “exercised poor judgment” by allowing McMahon to collect his salary while also working for JP Morgan when he was on leave. The two jobs also created a conflict of interest, the inspector general found. New Test for Secret Service Director: How to Handle Reforms? CIA Misled Judge Department, Congress About Detainee Interogations Homeland Security Launches Program to Protect Against Sex Predators Rep. Grimm, of New York, Has Tough Reelection Battle Amid FBI Probe Detroit Man Found Guilty of Assaulting FBI Agent While Under Surveillance Posted: April 1st, 2014 under News Story. Tags: ATF, DOJ, fast and furious, gun-running, Inspector General, Justice Department, operation fast and furious

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The only man convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 returned home to Libya after his release from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds. Pan Am Flight 103 Former Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who took the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising picture during World War II, died at age 94. Tiger Woods won the PGA Championship becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. Retaliating for deadly embassy bombings in East Africa, the United States launched cruise missile strikes against al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and what was described as a chemical plant in Sudan. Operation Infinite Reach Oslo accords negotiations conclude. he negotiations for the Oslo Accords were concluded at the Fafo Institute in Oslo. The agreement was between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The accords, that were eventually signed in Washington D.C. set up the Palestinian Authority and gave it governing powers over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Oslo Accords The Republican National Convention in Houston nominated President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle for a second term. 1992 Republican National Convention The Iran-Iraq War comes to an end after 7 years. The deadly conventional war between the two Middle Eastern countries began when Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. Iran–Iraq War Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest and without oxygen. The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature. Viking 1 is launched by NASA using a Titan launch vehicle. It became the first space probe to successfully land on Mars. During the night 200,00 Warsaw Pact Soviet led troops begin to invade Czechoslovakia in response to the Prague Spring. Hungarian Revolution of 1956 As part of his Great Society policies, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act which, among other things, established the Head Start program. Job Corps Senegal withdraws from the Mali Federation. Senegal withdrew from the Mali Federation, a year after its establishment. Léopold Senghor became the first president of Senegal a month later. Mali Federation Hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria. Sétif and Guelma massacre The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb. Leon Trotsky is attacked in Mexico. Russian revolutionary and founder of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky was attacked in his home by an undercover agent of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs or N.K.V.D. He died a day later due to the injuries sustained during the attack. Britain opened an offensive on the Western front during World War I. Western Front (World War I) German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I. German occupation of Belgium during World War I Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture' opens in Moscow. 1812 Overture President Andrew Johnson formally declares US Civil War over. Conclusion of the American Civil War Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio. Alaska first sighted by Danish explorer Vitus Bering at head of Russian expedition. Vitus Bering 1st known African Americans in English North America (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia then sold or traded into servitude. 1st Dutch East India Company ships return from the Far East. First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia

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February 26th in African American History – Antoine Dominique “Fats” Domino By Chimsima Zuhri on February 26, 2012 in African American History, February, Music Tags: Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, National Endowment for the Arts, pianist, R&B, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, singer, songwriter February 26, 1928 Antoine Dominique “Fats” Domino, pianist, singer, and songwriter, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Domino first attracted national attention with the 1949 release of “Fat Man” which is widely regarded to be the first rock and roll record to sell more than a million copies. Over his career, Domino recorded 37 top 40 singles, including “Ain’t That a Shame” (1955), “Blue Monday” (1956), and “Blueberry Hill” (1956), his biggest hit which was number 1 on the R&B charts for 11 weeks and sold more than 5 million copies. In 2001, “Blueberry Hill” was voted the 18th most popular song of the 20th century in a National Endowment for the Arts poll. Domino was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, received the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1995, and was presented with the National Medal for the Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an individual artist by the United States, by President William Clinton in 1998. After Hurricane Katrina, it was incorrectly reported that Domino had died when in fact he was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. In 2006, Domino released an album, “Alive and Kickin’,” to support New Orleans’ musicians. Domino has sold more than 110 million records in his career. His biography, “Blue Monday-Fats Domino and the Last Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” was published in 2006. February 16th in African American History – Otis Blackwell February 16, 1932 Otis Blackwell, singer, pianist, and songwriter, was... September 26th in African American History – Bessie Smith September 26, 1937 Bessie Smith, blues singer, died. Smith was... December 10th in African American History – Otis Ray Redding, Jr. December 10, 1967 Otis Ray Redding, Jr., singer and songwriter,... May 6th in African American History – Otis Blackwell May 6, 2002 Otis Blackwell, singer, pianist, and songwriter, died.... October 18th in African American History – Charles Edward “Chuck” Berry October 18, 1926 Charles Edward “Chuck” Berry, guitarist, singer and... Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, National Endowment for the Arts, pianist, R&B, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, singer, songwriter ← February 26th in African American History – Jimmie Lee Jackson February 27th in African American History – James Ager Worthy → November 9th in African American History – The Little Rock Nine Elizabeth Louise “Betty” Allen – June 22nd in African American History August 15th in African American History – The Republic of the Congo Max Robinson – December 20th in African American History November 11th in African American History – Rodney Milburn, Jr.

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HomeArts & Events‘Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes’ Reviewed Keara Wood February 13, 2019 no commentreviewshowted bundy Ted Bundy in court in 1979 — Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Ted Bundy — we all know him as the infamous serial killer and the first result when you Google “University of Puget Sound notable alumni.” Recently portrayed by Zac Efron in the semi-biographical crime thriller “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile,” Ted Bundy was a prominent serial killer active in the 1970s who is estimated to have killed upwards of 30 women according to news headlines shown in the first episode of the show. According to “Cannes: Zac Efron to Play Ted Bundy in ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile,’” an article from the Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming film featuring Efron will narrate the story from the perspective of one of Bundy’s long-term girlfriends, Elizabeth Kloepfer. But “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” takes a very different approach. The docuseries, created by Joe Berlinger and now available for viewing on Netflix, consists of four episodes that last roughly 50 minutes to an hour each. The show tells the story of the infamous serial killer from start to finish, beginning with his childhood and following him all the way to the electric chair in a Florida prison. The show is narrated mostly by then-reporters Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. Michaud, in an attempt to finally crack into the mind of the infamous killer, conducted an extensive set of taped interviews with Bundy while he awaited his death in Florida’s death row. These taped interviews also serve as a sort of post-mortem narration by Bundy himself. Prior to watching the series, I had, of course, heard of what Bundy had done and that he had gone to the University of Puget Sound’s law school, now the Seattle University School of Law. One thing revealed in the series is that because he attended the University of Puget Sound’s old law school, he never actually lived in any of the dorms here in Tacoma (although he was indeed mostly raised here). Hopefully that will help some of you sleep a little better at night. The first thing that really struck me about the miniseries was how normal Bundy appeared. In both the Netflix series and “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile,” also directed by Berlinger, the fact that Bundy seemed no different than the average person is a recurring theme. “What I thought the audio tapes allowed me to do was to really — instead of just talking about it — to really experience the charm and smarts and cleverness of this guy so you could understand how somebody so charming and attractive and smart eluded capture for so long and eluded detection by those closest to him,” Berlinger said in an interview with Thrillist.com. The second episode of the show is even titled “One of Us,” and, throughout each episode, it is repeated by multiple people who were close to him, such as his mother and former girlfriends, that nobody thought he was anything other than a charming, intelligent, handsome young man. The second thing that struck me about the show was the aggressive zeal with which Floridians openly called for and embraced Bundy’s eventual execution. The last episode, “Burn Bundy Burn,” lays out the days leading up to Bundy’s execution and explains the multiple appeals that he and his lawyers made to have his sentence switched to life imprisonment. The last 20 minutes of the episode showcases footage of the hordes of people who descended upon the prison where Bundy was executed. They are shown touting signs inscribed with slogans such as the namesake of the episode, “Burn Bundy Burn.” One man was even shown selling t-shirts with “Tuesday is FryDay” written on them, referencing the fact that Bundy was to be executed by electrocution. “I was interested that there were a lot of drunken college kids there,” Michaud remarks upon the crowd of people awaiting the completion of the execution. As an adamant opponent of the death penalty, the crowd of rowdy onlookers excitedly anticipating the death of this individual unnerved me. These people, who were so ready to condemn this killer, were now, in a quintessential example of hypocrisy, avidly condemning him to death and fervently awaiting confirmation of it. Overall, the mini series started a bit slow, but picked up in the second episode as Bundy’s killing spree kicked off in earnest. It positions the viewer to imagine life in the ’70s and ’80s as these events unfolded on the news and serves as somewhat of a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of the boy next door. Tags :reviewshowted bundy Why we need art and science to combat climate change

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Surrealist Collage Eileen Agar (1899-1991), Max Bucaille (1906-), Claude Cahun (1894-1954), Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Enrico Donati (1909-), Max Ernst (1891-1976), Otto Hofmann (1907-1994), Georges Hugnet (1906-1974), Nicolás de Lekuona (1913-1937), Herbert List (1903-1975), Marcel Marien (1920-1999), André Masson (1896-1987), Valentine Penrose (1898-1978), and Franz Roh (1860-1965) Selected Artworks · Press Release Valentine Penrose From the book Dons de Feminines, 1951 8-3/4 x 11-7/8 inches From January 8 to February 23, 2002, Zabriskie Gallery exhibits Surrealist collages by Eileen Agar (1899-1991), Max Bucaille (1906-), Claude Cahun (1894-1954), Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Enrico Donati (1909-), Max Ernst (1891-1976), Otto Hofmann (1907-1994), Georges Hugnet (1906-1974), Nicolás de Lekuona (1913-1937), Herbert List (1903-1975), Marcel Marien (1920-1999), André Masson (1896-1987), Valentine Penrose (1898-1978), and Franz Roh (1860-1965). In the same way that automatic writing, concrete poetry, and cadavres exquis function, Surrealist collage was a creative strategy that emphasized free association processes. Collage was a conscious attempt to deviate from rational modes of constructing meaning, and building imagery around disparate chance through random or meticulous cut-and-paste. The results were often unusual and fantastical, producing narrative detours and scenarios of disjointedness that also suggested roots in Freudian fragmentation and the dream, where if things made sense or not, they nonetheless made their presence felt. There were many instances of the nonsensical, like Hugnet's Septième face du dé collages, where appropriated texts from magazine and newspaper articles mingled with naughty fragments of nudes, creating a new dialogue of aesthetics even as they negated meaning. Others like Bucaille, Ernst, and Penrose, emphasized a more subtle form of displacement in their collage work. Espousing a more assimilative style of visual interruption, they took their references from old Victorian fashion magazines, scientific periodicals, and architectural journals. Images taken from one source would overlay others that were sometimes similar in size, form, and style, thereby further confusing the string of events. The latter two's collages illustrate the surrealist tradition of collage "novels," as initiated by Ernst with his Dream of a Young Girl Who Wished to Enter a Convent, The Hundred Headless Woman, and A Week of Kindness. Like Hugnet, the scenes implied a new narrative through dislocation of objects in time, place, and scale. In other instances, the story was wholly absent and abstract, as in Agar's Ma Muse or Cornell's collection of geometric shapes and astronomical charts. Collage, as the Surrealists implemented it, above all emphasized the notion and preference of simultaneity. Things that are usually exclusive of each other exist all at once, like night and day, word and image, silence and scream, birth and death, and calm and confusion. Paradox, as we know it through its ubiquity in contemporary art, has many precursoral sources. In this exhibition of mostly works completed before 1950, Surrealist collage stakes its claim as well to this tradition of contradiction. Zabriskie Gallery currently represents the estates of André Masson and Georges Hugnet, and in the past has shown numerous exhibitions related to Surrealism, including: Surrealism 1936 - Objects, Photographs, Collages, and Documents (1986); Sculpture from Surrealism (1987); The Surreal Image (1989); André Masson in America (1996); Georges Hugnet: Collages (1999).

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anna's archive anna's archive anna's archive Joseph and Travis Dasilva are two US tourists in their thirties who face charges in Thailand for dropping their trousers in front of a Buddhist temple for a photo. The image they captured at Bangkok's Wat Arun netted them each an arrest at the airport and a fine worth about 150 euros for public indecency. District police chief Jaruphat Thongkomol said: 'The two American citizens have admitted taking the picture', which featured on their Instagram page titled 'traveling_butts'. The page disappeared from view shortly after Thai authorities reported a fine being due in connection with a bared-buttocks picture at another Bangkok temple. A home-care nurse who worked in Kokkola, Finland, has been charged with stealing drugs and using them herself. Tasked with providing in-home care for a three-year-old child, she stole the morphine that was part of the child's end-of-life care on at least 10 occasions over the space of two months, replacing the drug with water. She has also admitted to pilfering the child's sleeping pills. The crimes came to light after the child began suffering withdrawal symptoms. In addition, the nurse was caught driving while under the influence of the stolen drugs. Facing charges of incest for marrying her daughter, Oklahoma's Patricia Spann, 44, claimed that she'd thought the marriage legal because she isn't listed on 26-year-old daughter Misty's birth certificate and lost custody of her two years ago, before the wedding. The marriage was recently annulled at Misty's request for reason of fraud and illegality. Prosecutors point to a pattern here, referring to the elder Spann's earlier marriage to one of her sons. That union was dissolved in 2010. The Vancouver police pulled over a motorist who was behind the wheel with both a tablet computer and an iPhone. These devices were attached to his steering wheel with string, allowing the driver to operate the car's manual transmission more easily. The man, who was using headphones for one of the devices when pulled over, was not given a ticket for distracted driving, but he does face a fine for not being able to produce a driving licence. Not all of the Vancouver police let multitasking drivers off so lightly: in the same week, a man was fined hundreds of dollars after pulling alongside two police officers while playing Pokémon Go. When 35-year-old homeless man Justin Rey rang the front desk of the Kansas City, Missouri, hotel where he had been staying with his wife and two-year-old child, he disguised his voice as a woman's. This is because his wife, Jessica Monteiro Rey, was no longer alive. It soon emerged that Rey had flushed parts of her body down hotel toilets, and surveillance video showed him lugging a bin liner and cooler from the hotel. The police caught up with him at a local storage unit, where they confirmed that these contained body parts. Rey explained that his wife had killed herself once she'd given birth at the hotel. To have some family photos after this, he took pictures of the newborn and toddler with the body, then dismembered it in the room. He is being charged with abandonment of a corpse and, partly because the children seemed inadequately clothed, child endangerment. Le Thi Xoan, a 14-year-old girl in Vietnam's Ha Tinh region, was sleeping with her iPhone charging by her side. The next morning, her parents found her unresponsive, with scorch marks on the mattress beneath her. According to VietBao, it is believed that she was electrocuted when rolling onto the phone along with its frayed cable. Her parents confirmed that the device's broken-open charging brick was fried. Hospital workers confirmed the same for the teenager, whom they were unable to revive. Members of a Bible study group gathered at their Tellico Plains, Tennessee, church for a pre-Thanksgiving lunch, where conversation turned to gun violence and the recent massacre at a Texas church. When a parishioner posed the question of whether people who carry handguns should bring them to church, 81-year-old Wayne Reid volunteered that he carries his pistol everywhere. He removed the magazine, let the others inspect it, put the magazine back, and returned the pistol to his pocket. When another member of the group later asked to see the weapon, Reid produced it again. According to the police, this time Reid accidentally shot himself in the hand, with the bullet hitting his 80-year-old wife, Catherine, in the abdomen and exiting through her forearm. It ricocheted off the wall and landed next to her wheelchair. A witness said that there was 'a big explosion. Wasn't sure what it was, and Miss Nicole looked at Miss Catherine, and Miss Catherine looked at her and she said "I've been shot".' She was taken for surgery, and the gun-owner may have lost his thumb and his interest in carrying a weapon. Amid reports of an 'active shooter situation' at the church, local schools were placed on lockdown. After police officers descended on the location, police chief Russ Parks was relieved to report that 'it just slipped [Mr Reid's] mind that he recharged the weapon'. Parks said that no charges will be filed. In Massachusetts, officers with the Hopkinton Police Department noticed a Buick Century on the road with a rather odd-looking licence plate. They pulled over the driver and determined that the motorist had fashioned a fake number plate from pizza-box cardboard, using magic marker. Ill intent too was soon established: the plate ID, 2JY728, already belonged to another vehicle. The police department reported that charges include operating an uninsured and unregistered vehicle and attaching 'fake home made' plates. Berliner Morgenpost has reported on an incident witnessed by a child-minder who'd taken a young boy out for an afternoon visit to the children's zoo at Gürlitzer Park: a young man had begun sexually assaulting a pony. Realising that his photo had been taken, the assailant dismounted the animal and ran off. Police officers were summoned, and park runners in the meantime used the child-minder's photo to find the perpetrator. The police confirmed that this 23-year-old man faces charges of violating animal-welfare laws and 'causing a public nuisance through sexual acts'. Also, he has been banned from the petting-zoo area. A 28-year-old man in Lianyungang, China, was frustrated with long delays during his commute within the province of Jiangsu and decided to streamline the daily bus journey - by redirecting other traffic. Surveillance camera footage shows the man, surnamed Cai, using a tin of white paint to add new arrows to the road. When confronted by traffic police who deemed his behaviour 'very dangerous', Cai explained: 'I saw that the straight lane was always packed with cars, while the lane that turns left has a lot of space.' Workers have repainted the road, and Cai has been fined. Also in China, we have a 31-year-old man, unnamed by local media, who decided to insert a tiny padlock into his urethra and push it further into his penis while 'playing' for sexual pleasure. Things went wrong, and he ended up telling his family, who took him to a medical clinic for help. Soon, Fuzhou hospital staff were trying to figure out how best to remove a padlock from a bladder. After various tests, they cut a hole in his bladder to extricate the lock. They warned that the man may not recover full functioning of his internal plumbing. Our next story too is about someone who noticed issues with use of the roads. In Clermont, Florida, 61-year-old Bruce John Homer decided to highlight law enforcement officers' lackadaisical attitude to people ignoring a stop sign at a local junction. He forced the issue by intentionally causing a car crash there. A motorist later told the police that Homer had pulled out in front of his SUV as he was passing through the junction. According to the SUV-driver, Homer approached him after the accident and stated that authorities won't do anything [about people running the stop sign] until someone dies'. Homer has been charged with aggravated battery and reckless driving. Anthony Valle rang the police to report that he had shot a burglar dead in his Harris County, Texas, home. There, officers found the body of 14-year-old Layla Ann Ramos. Investigators on the scene 'identified numerous inconsistencies in Valle's statement', according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office, and, sure enough, they also had records of Ramos's mother warning them that the family have 'had trouble with him before'. They uncovered an 'inappropriate relationship' between the 43-year-old Valle and Ramos, which included drug use, and learned that Ramos had threatened to report Valle to the authorities for sexual misconduct. Valle is now being held on a murder charge. Florida's Donna Byrne was arrested for driving while intoxicated after several drivers on a busy motorway rang the police to report dangerous driving by a woman on horseback. The 53-year-old Polk City woman had ridden down more than 25 kilometres of road before officers forced her to dismount. When she got off the horse, she staggered from side to side, and her blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit of .08%. Byrne, whose criminal record includes felonies and misdemeanours that range from cruelty to animals to possession of drugs, has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and with animal neglect for endangering and failing to properly protect the horse. The DUI charge may not stick, however. While sheriff's office spokesman Brian Bruchey pointed out that 'the woman put a saddle and bridle on this horse and was riding it to get from point A to point B', Tampa-based DUI attorney Thomas Grajek pointed out that state law treats people riding animals on roadways or shoulders more as pedestrians than as akin to automobile drivers. Canadian model Catt Gallinger's boyfriend is a tattoo artist who decided to give her a gift: a purple eyeball tattoo that she described as an expression of her personality and a way to 'feel more at home in my body'. Gallinger, 24, was soon expressing what looked like purple tears also. Residue was escaping from the sclera tattoo, and she was booked for surgery. After three hospital visits, she faces a lengthy recovery and the risk of corneal rupture. She has said that the end result of the 10-minute tattoo procedure, which involved undiluted ink, over-injection, and poor choice of injection sites, is a desire to have the eye permanently removed if that would put an end to the pain and blurred vision. Officials at Philadelphia's Kintock Group halfway house for prisoners report on a man who escaped from their facility by hiding in a rubbish bin in the yard. He left the premises in a garbage truck but was still not a free man - he ended up desperate to be freed from the vehicle's compactor section. It took roughly two hours for firefighters to remove the bags of rubbish and place the man on a stretcher. He was taken to hospital in an unknown condition. Follow the link for earlier clippings. Want later clippings? Take a look at the December pile. Go to the Clippings index page Go to Anna's main index page © 2017 Anna Shefl

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Tom Hanks: When I Said Mormons Were ‘Un-American’ What I Meant to Say Was They are the ‘Most American’ In an apology put out today by Tom Hank’s public relations firm he took back all the mean things he ever said about anybody. Ok, well, not exactly. He actually took back his recent comments that Mormons in California were Un-American because they supported proposition 8 which banned gay marriage. But it had about as much meaning as it would have if he’d just said nothing at all. I mean the apology simply reaks of a forced hand. I bet he didn’t even bother to write it himself. And I think its darn clear that he didn’t mean it. Sure, its a well crafted statement but it only concedes one point. The point that people who supported prop 8 aren’t un-American but really it seems he believes that’s only true because nobody should be labeled un-American not because he feels differently about them. Also the complete 180 from calling their actions and beliefs “Un-American” to calling them the “most American” shows the disingenuous nature of his “how do I get away from this backlash” apology. I mean who is gonna go from hating someones ideas and actions to absolutely loving or respecting them in the span of a couple of days? Give us a break Tom Hanks. Nobody believes you’re sorry. UPDATE: Hot Air gives a possible reason for the remorse Obama Aide: Don’t ask Don’t Tell Must Wait So much for that campaign promise: In an overlooked YouTube video posted on Friday, a spokesman for Barack Obama said the president-elect is committed to ending the policy that bars openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces. Gibbs on Wednesday expanded on his answer, saying, “There are many challenges facing our nation now and the president-elect is focused first and foremost on jump-starting this economy. “So not everything will get done in the beginning but he’s committed to following through” with ending the policy against being openly gay in the military. In other words, I promised to do this so you would elect me but in reality I’m not going to do anything to actually see don’t ask don’t tell overturned. However, with the dems in control of congress I don’t think it’ll take any push from Obama for the policy to be overturned which is to bad because it’s a policy which has worked well since its inception. UPDATE: Welcome to everybody from Ace where the expiration on all of Obama’s promises was pointed. I guess you could call him a flipflopper but I prefer to call him Bobblehead Barack. And they wonder why they can’t win people over… Seems the “NO ON PROP 8” supporters have been protesting and even fighting with police out in California. The protesters where disruptive enough that the Los Angeles Police Department had to declare a tactical alert which requires all available officers, including some from other precincts, to respond. Fox News even labeled it “rioting“, though that seems a bit excessive considering only a couple people were arrested and there doesn’t seem to be any property damage or injuries at this point… Here’s a link to the video, judge for yourself. Either way this is pathetic on the part of the gay marriage proponents. I mean, when you throw tantrums and threaten people after you’ve lost an argument do you really think its going to change their mind? P.s. Here’s a final thought… Now that we know what the gay marriage supporters will do after losing a ballot proposition, what do you think an Obama loss would have been like? UPDATE: Malkin eventually picked up this story and has more details on the mayhem UPDATE: Now they’re getting people fired simply for supporting Prop 8. YET ANOTHER UPDATE: More details on the economic and personal aftermath associated with simply supporting Prop 8

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By Coleen Burnett Eatontown — In Eatontown, officials say the “new transparency” starts now. On December 27, the three Republican candidates for the vacant seat left by the resignation of Councilman Edwin Palenzuela met at Borough Hall for an informal “Meet and Greet” with the public. Council will select one of them to fill the one-year term. Palenzuela resigned earlier this year after he took a position in the office of a Hudson County judge. He did not wish to create an image of impropriety, hence the resignation. Hope Corcoran, Tim Corcoran, and William Diedrichsen were participating in an unprecedented event. Although vying for one available spot, Hope and Tim are husband and wife. In the past, after the party nominees were chosen, the interviews took place behind closed doors. In response to criticism of doing things under the cover of secrecy, the borough arranged for the public to come in and ask questions for themselves. Hope Corcoran is a 20-year resident of the borough, with an extensive background as a business analyst. Corcoran also sits on the Board of Directors of Monmouth Park Charities, giving out millions of dollars to nonprofit organizations throughout Monmouth County. While never having held public office or served on a borough committee, she feels that her business background will stand her in good stead as she works to revitalize the borough and bring in new commerce. “I hope to accomplish the goals of moving Eatontown forward,” she said, “I want hometown values. “I bring a perfect set of business skills to compliment [council].” On the controversial issue of development at Monmouth Mall, she supports what’s happening. Corcoran lives on Windsor Drive and sees the Monmouth Mall every day. “I’m for the Mall,” she said, “I’m for moving it forward… when I look at the Mall, I see a lot of weeds growing up. I am for progress.” “I think there needs to be a balance between the business and the residential community.” She also had a positive opinion on the failed disc golf course (“It gets back to financial responsibility. We spent a lot of money for that… it’s a lot of money to just give {the equipment} away,” but a not-so-positive approach to medical marijuana. (“It’s from seed to sale. You need to have it governed. I see a lot of pitfalls with that.”) Tim Corcoran is a borough resident since 1990, and is employed by New Jersey Natural Gas in their Department of Regulatory Affairs. Corcoran has served on the borough’s Zoning Board, and says his priority will be whatever the council is concerned with at the moment. And he wants a return to sanity in the borough. “This past year has been crazy here,” he said. “It’s been an embarrassment.” “The town needs fiscal responsibility,” he continued. “They need to find a balance within the business and residential community.” He’d like to see Eatontown become more business-friendly. “There’s a lot of things that could be done in partnership to bring businesses into town. The taxes that would be generated would benefit the residents,” said Corcoran. The biggest problem, as he sees it, is the Monmouth Mall. “We have a developed piece of property that is becoming a rat trap,” he told the panel. Corcoran said his nieces and nephews are millennials. “None of them want to own properties…they don’t want to take care of a lawn like we did. They want access to trains, highways, and businesses. They want to walk to restaurants. The Mall could be similar to that.” Regarding the development of Fort Monmouth, Corcoran said it seemed to him that the Eatontown lagged behind Oceanport and Tinton Falls when it comes to tangible projects being built in the wake of the makeover. “I wish something would happen,” he said. “I’d like to see a comprehensive plan instead of a mish-mosh.” He is all for medicinal marijuana in the borough, but said it was only a matter of time to have it nationwide. “My personal view is that it is going to be legal in all 50 states,” he said. William Diedrichsen, an Eatontown resident since 1965, is an electrical engineer by trade. He has served on the Woodmere PTA and is currently on the Planning Board. His wife Donna has previously served on council. He told the panel he wants to make sound decisions that will send the borough in a good direction. Dierichsen felt the BRAC closure of Fort Monmouth had a huge impact on the town. “It wasn’t just the people at the Fort, it was the contractors — and the people supporting the contractors relied a lot on that… the change in retail hasn’t helped because the focus of how things get done gets changed…Eatontown has resisted development a little bit and the situation just got worse.” “We have to attract developers who want to come in and invest. That can be hard. Also, developers have to figure what’s going to happen in the future.” He said Eatontown’s location between Highways 35 and 36 puts it in what he calls an “oddball” place. “They don’t always stop in Eatontown. We need to get people in town to spend money and invest in local businesses. Finding that right mix is difficult.” Diedrichsen is for the “walkable streets” concept, as well as the idea of having medical marijuana available in the borough (he does not like the idea of recreational marijuana being sold). He also likes the latest changes in the Monmouth Mall — while noting that plans probably will change yet again. “The way retail is heading, the Mall’s got to change and progress,” he said. He’s “flexible” to revisiting the idea of having a disc golf course, too. “I’m a good problem solver, and I look at things a little differently. Sometimes there’s more than two sides to an argument. I like to be very thorough, so I think that can help.” Councilman-elect Kevin Gonzalez said the screening committee is looking for that certain someone who will not necessarily run in lockstep with the rest of the board. “What we are hoping for is finding someone who will be researching items, do their homework and vote their conscience,” he said. Mayor Anthony Talerico — who does not actually vote unless there is a tie on council — had but one comment. “My hope is that next year’s council provides stability that our employees and residents have lacked for almost an entire year,” he remarked. The council will vote on January 1 as to who gets the vacant seat. William Diedrichsen Tim Corcoran Hope Corcoran Back to News>

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Some heavy lifting and arm twisting was done by President Obama and former Vice President Gore to get this passed in the House. Reflecting the tenseness of the legislative debate, the White House and Democratic leadership have ratcheted up their efforts to ensure party unity. Among those making calls to lawmakers on the fence include Al Gore and President Barack Obama. According to a senior Hill aide, who asked to remain anonymous, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis -- both recent recruits from the House -- have been calling former colleagues as well. The key argument being conveyed is that this bill is the last big bite at the environmental policy apple. "If it goes down, climate change is stymied," said one Democratic aide. Well, it was not stymied and the bill is now on its way to the senate. In a triumph for President Barack Obama on Friday, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed sweeping legislation calling for the nation's first-ever limits on pollution linked to global warming. The bill also aims to usher in a new era of cleaner, yet more costly energy. The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, saying it would cost jobs in the midst of a recession. Republicans had sought to delay the inevitable. Moments before the final vote, House Republican John Boehner of Ohio plunged into a lengthy speech, methodically raising questions about numerous changes that he said Democrats had made public after 3 a.m. Friday. He called the bill "the most profound piece of legislation to come to this floor in 100 years," but one that would create "a bureaucratic nightmare" without solving the nation's energy problems. read more here.... Labels: al gore, barack obama, climate change, congress, energy al gore|barack obama|climate change|congress|energy|

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CHALMERS "CHUCK" LAWSON (36) The following biography was written at the time of Mr. Lawson's induction. Chuck Lawson was born September 25, 1913 on the Pool Ranch on the San Pedro River. He was raised on the old Muleshoe Ranch at Hot Springs 30 miles west of Willcox, where he moved when he was very young. When he was fourteen he left the Muleshoe Ranch. After school he worked on the Gunterman Ranch, west of Willcox and also at Magdalena, New Mexico. During World War II he served in the 158th Infantry (Bush masters) for four and one-half years, serving three years overseas. After Pearl Harbor he went to Panama and then to Australia. Soon after reaching Australia he went to New Guinea where he spent about two years, including a number of islands near New Guinea. He then served in Luzon in the Philippine Islands from where he returned home in 1945. He received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. In 1946 he purchased a small ranch just east of Willcox, worked on ranches near by and helped on round-ups on quite a number of ranches. He has worked for the Soil Conservation Service as a Technician doing survey work on ranches and farms in parts of various counties. He is still running his own cattle. He is married and has six surviving children.

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SB 542: NM UNIT FUND & STREAM COMMISSION ACTIONS An Act Relating To Water; Specifying The Process For Approving Encumbrances And Expenditures From The New Mexico Unit Fund; Conditioning Actions Of The Interstate Stream Commission When Acting As The State Of New Mexico. HIGH SB 542 NM UNIT FUND & STREAM COMMISSION ACTIONS [5] SCONC/SJC/SFC-SCONC [5] SCONC/SJC/SFC-SCONC [25] (Succeeding entries: S 455). Hearing: Tuesday, March 3, 2015 - 2:00 p.m. or 1/2 hr. after session - Room 311 Companion Bills NEW MEXICO UNIT REPORTS TO LEGISLATURE Sander Rue SENATE CONSERVATION COMMITTEE 8:30am This bill requires that the New Mexico CAP Entity must not enter into a contract or other agreement with the Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior to construct or develop a New Mexico Unit of the Central Arizona Project on the Gila River until the Interstate Stream Commission has presented a written report signed by the State Engineer to the Legislative Finance Committee and the committee has notified the New Mexico CAP Entity that the committee finds that the report adequately addresses the bill’s requirements. The report must be submitted to the LFC by November 1, 2015 and must contain comprehensive and detailed information about the New Mexico Unit including: the need for and purpose of the New Mexico Unit; the proposed scope of design, locations and estimated costs of the New Mexico Unit; a calculation using of the average annual safe yield of water produced by the New Mexico Unit; the identity of proposed end-users, the amount of water they will receive and the amount end-user will be required to pay; the identity and composition of the proposed New Mexico CAP Entity; its duties, legal responsibilities and liabilities and a demonstration of its capacity to execute them; the entity’s plan for securing the necessary financing, identifying all funding sources; a demonstration of the affordability of the water supplied by the New Mexico Unit to end water users; a statement of the role of the Interstate Stream Commission in the design, construction, operation, financing and environmental analysis activities and oversight of the New Mexico Unit; and a demonstration of adequate public participation in the federal Arizona Water Settlements Act planning process, including New Mexico Unit engineering design, National-Environmental-Protection-Act-related studies and decisions relevant to signing the New Mexico Unit Agreement. The “New Mexico CAP Entity” is defined as the entity or entities to be formed or designated by New Mexico to enter into the New Mexico Unit Agreement for the design, construction or development, operation and maintenance of the New Mexico Unit. The “New Mexico Unit” means the facilities constructed or developed to consumptively use water from the Gila river or San Francisco river and that are identified as a unit of the Central Arizona Project authorized by Sections 301(a)(4) and 304 of the federal Colorado River Basin Project Act. A possible benefit of this bill might be a thorough study and careful consideration of the practicality and advisability of entering into the New Mexico Unit Agreement before the agreement is executed. Another possible benefit might be that oversight by the LFC may help to ensure that the agreement is not driven by politics and special interests. The Senate Conservation Committee Substitute for Senate Bills 455 & 542 requires that the Interstate Stream Commission (ISC): (1) recognize the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission as the successor organization to the Southwest New Mexico Water Study Group; and (2) conduct annual consultations with the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission addressing each proposed expenditure of the New Mexico Unit Fund exceeding $50,000, with advance notice, audio and video public Internet streaming, opportunity for public comment, and written minutes. The ISC is required to report by November 15 of each year to the appropriate legislative interim committee and to the LFC the purposes and amounts of expenditures from the New Mexico Unit Fund for the prior fiscal year; the purpose and amounts of each planned expenditure or encumbrance exceeding $50,000 in the current or next fiscal year; and the subjects, conclusions and decisions of the Commission’s annual consultation with the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission. Before the ISC may consider any encumbrance or expenditure of $100,000 or more from the New Mexico Unit for planning, design or legal services, the Secretary of the ISC must present to the Commission the Secretary’s recommendation for approval describing the specific deliverable product resulting from the expenditure; the Commission’s plan to measure contract compliance and work quality; and the Secretary’s determination that the expenditure of money will yield results that are achievable, relevant and timely, and will meet a specified water supply demand. The bill also sets conditions for the Interstate Stream Commission acting as the State to implement the Arizona Water Settlements Act of 2004, including: The Interstate Stream Commission must designate the Gila-San Francisco Water Commission as the New Mexico CAP Entity for the purpose of signing the New Mexico Unit Agreement. The ISC must provide an initial grant of at least $100,000 from the New Mexico Unit Fund to the New Mexico CAP Entity to develop the CAP Entity’s capability and capacity to fulfill its responsibilities. And, by August 15, 2015 the ISC and the New Mexico CAP Entity must release a draft report containing: a definition of all major components of the New Mexico Unit; the expected schedule for design and construction of each phase of implementation; the ISC’s findings that the New Mexico Unit is technically and financially feasible, including the estimate of total and unit costs and the amount and reliability of the water supply to be produced; the plan for transparency and public involvement; the conceptual plan to finance each phase of the New Mexico Unit; the specific uses identified for the water supply resulting from each phase; the affordability to end users of water produced by each phase with estimated implementation costs exceeding $100,000,000; and the summary of the ISC’s calculations prepared using the best available engineering, hydrologic and geologic information of the average annual safe yield of usable water, the cost per acre-foot and the reliability of the usable water supply produced by each phase with estimated implementation costs exceeding $100,000,000. The ISC and the New Mexico CAP Entity must report to the LFC and to any other interim legislative committee that studies water and natural resources; consider the legislative committee discussions and any recommendations of the legislative committees; and make any changes to the report based on those recommendations, the New Mexico CAP Entity may sign the New Mexico Unit Agreement if it finds the agreement is in the best interest of the State.

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95 Cononchet Avenue Warwick is the second largest city in Rhode Island. It was the site of what is regarded as one of the seminal actions leading to the Revolutionary War, the burning of the HMS Gaspee. Today Warwick is enjoyed for its 39 miles of beautiful coastline with several fresh and saltwater beaches alongside marinas, waterfront restaurants and historic lighthouses. Impressions/Character Warwick offers many educational, recreational and cultural opportunities. The Warwick Neck area offers all of the amenities of top-notch Rhode Island life, including a marina, a country club, and the picturesque Narragansett Bay. Unique to the village of Potowomut is Goddard Memorial State Park which attracts thousands of visitors each year. With facilities that include a 9-hole golf course, a horse barn where the public can rent and ride horses, a beach with bathhouse, open fields, and a carousel building for functions, this spot is a local favorite. Cowesett is practically the picture postcard of an idyllic, suburban lifestyle, with proximity to the attractive scenery of Greenwich Bay. Pawtuxet Villiage is the hub between Cranston, Providence, and Warwick; the village remains a charming community of Colonial and Victorian homes gathered together by the waterfront. Convenience and accessibility are trademarks of the Warwick area, being situated at the center of the state’s super-highway system. Recently added for the ease of travel is an MBTA Train stop at Warwick’s T.F. Green Airport, providing a direct route to Boston. Additionally, Warwick boasts some of the top private schools in the state, including Bishop Hendricken. Housing varies by area and offers options for every lifestyle. Villages/Neighborhoods Warwick is made up of many villages including: Apponaug, Arnold’s Neck, Buttonwoods, Cedar Tree Point, Chepiwanoxet, Coles, Conimicut, Cowesett, Gaspee Point, Goddard Park, Greenwood, Hillsgrove, Hoxsie, Knight, Lakewood, Lincoln Park, Longmeadow, Meadow View, Nausauket, Norwood, Oakland Beach, Old Warwick, Pawtuxet (also in Cranston), Pontiac, Potowomut, Pilgrim, River View, Rocky Point, Sandy Point, Shawomet, Spring Green, Warwick Downs, Warwick Neck, and Wildes Corner. Residential Properties Ltd Rachael DotsonProvidence Office

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U.S. Senate continues to retaliate against Turkey with fake 'Armenian genocide' The U.S. Senate continued the anti-Turkish campaign launched by the House of Representatives, by unanimously passing a resolution that recognizes the 1915 events in Turkey as the so-called Armenian genocide. The resolution was pushed by one of the key lobbies of the Armenian diaspora in the U.S., New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. This autumn, after U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to recognize it, Menendez already asked for consent to pass the resolution, but back then it was blocked by U.S. Democratic Senator Lindsey Graham. Well-known researcher of the history of the Caucasus and the Middle East Philip Ekozyants, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the myth of the 'Armenian genocide' in the Ottoman Empire is an American invention. "The American press was most involved in promoting this idea in the mid-1910s. The focus was on the Armenian population, although it is important to note that the concept of 'genocide' was created much later," he said in the first place. "Reality did not correspond to American publications. There were many deaths on both sides, innocent Turks died just like innocent Armenians did. The local population equally suffered from war and internal strife, as well as looters and robbers who appear in times of any war. That is, the resolution of the House of Representatives is a continuation of pressure on Turkey. Look, the Americans can not just press, but also to use these pressure mechanisms. A hundred years ago they called the Armenian issue the main one, and the Armenians - main victims, but the resolution on the recognition of "genocide" was backed only a hundred years later. They were first to scream about it, but waited for the right moment to come," Ekozyants stressed. "Thank God that Turkey is moving away from American influence. I believe that the adoption of the resolution is connected with this: it’s an act of despair. If the U.S. had to resort to this, they’re doing very bad. Today, the "Armenian genocide" idea is trying to survive: access to information has changed so much over the past two decades, it has become so open that it’s very difficult to maintain people's conviction that the "genocide" took place. I can’t say that this idea is moving forward, only part of Armenians supports it. Those forces that invented the "genocide" are trying to save it in the minds of an ignorant public, I think this sad story is coming to an end," the historian said. "I hope for the enlightenment of our people, the Armenians, because they need to free themselves from terrible dependence. The 'Armenian Genocide' is, in fact, a leash that was thrown at the Armenian people. Before this concept appeared, the Armenians were the scattered people like others, tied to a specific land, to their neighbors from other nations, and not to some historical state. When this choker was placed, it became much easier to manage people who consider themselves to be Armenians. The concept of 'Armenian genocide' is great evil for Armenian people," Philip Ekozyants concluded. U.S. House retaliates against Turkey with "Armenian genocide" Resolution recognizing 'Armenian genocide' blocked at U.S. Senate Turkey and the US Philip Ekozyants Ankara lashes at U.S. resolution on 'Armenian genocide' Erdogan condemns U.S. resolution on 'Armenia genocide' U.S. tests missile not allowed under INF treaty

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7 Books That Will Transport You To The Breathtaking Pacific Northwest Brittany McSorley December 6, 2016 Book Lists, Book Lovers, Literary Fiction, Travel No Comments The Pacific Northwest is one of the most beautiful regions of the United States. Full of cool cities and beautiful landscapes, it has much more to offer than just rainy days and the Seattle skyline. Countless writers have tried to do the PNW justice in their work. If your knowledge of the Pacific Northwest is limited to Grey’s Anatomy and 50 Shades of Grey and you’d like to build on that, here are a few books that will introduce you to this fascinating region: 1. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson One of the most famous books that takes place in the Pacific Northwest, Snow Falling on Cedars is part-murder mystery, part-courtoom drama set on fictional San Piedro Island in the Puget Sound area of Washington. In 1954, as a local Japanese man is tried for the murder of a well-liked white fisherman, anti-Japanese sentiments confuse the ideas of guilt and innocence, and a powerful snowstorm makes an unforgiving, isolated location even more so. Reading this book will make you feel like you’re trapped by the snow and waves, far from the Washington coast, along with the rest of the uneasy islanders. Source: Amazon 2. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki A Tale for the Time Being takes place alternately in Tokyo, where a sixteen-year-old girl named Nao is contemplating suicide, and on a remote island off the coast of Washington State, where a woman named Ruth reads Nao’s diary after it washes up onshore. The two women’s lives become increasingly connected as Ruth becomes more fascinated by Nao’s life, and Ruth’s emotional isolation is brought to life on the dark, rainy, lonely island where she walks the deserted beaches. 3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie The Pacific Northwest is rich in Native American history, and this book tells the story of a teen named Junior living on an Indian reservation in Spokane, Washington. He decides to leave his high school on the reservation and attend a school in a neighboring town, where he’s the only Indian student. The book is based heavily on Alexie’s own past, and it offers a look at the difficulties faced by Native American adolescents in the Northwest. 4. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford Jamie Ford’s debut novel tells a love story set in Seattle during World War II. A Chinese boy, Henry, and a Japanese girl, Keiko, form a bond that transcends the tension of their environment, the expectations of their parents, and the ongoing global conflict that informs their lives. This book will introduce you to a dark and largely unknown part of Seattle’s past, before it was the modern Emerald City. 5. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed Cheryl Strayed hiked more than 1000 miles by herself on the Pacific Crest Trail, traveling through California, Oregon, and Washington in the process. In Wild, she tells the story of her journey, which was inspired by emotional trauma, and how it helped to heal her. She offers an up-close-and-personal look at one of the most beautiful hiking trails in the country, and the landscape provides an incredible backdrop for her transformation. 6. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer This books tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a man who died on Alaska’s Stampede Trail while he was hiking there and attempting to live off the land. McCandless had been hitchhiking and traveling around the country before heading to Alaska and essentially disappearing. Jon Krakauer attempts to find out exactly what led to McCandless’ death in the wilderness, and in the process, explores the natural Alaskan landscape and what draws people to it. Into the Wild offers a closer look at the more rugged and dangerous side of the natural Pacific Northwest. 7. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer I know, I know—the Twilight books are questionable in many ways, and they’ve been shown their fair share of criticism. But vampire romance aside, Stephenie Meyer deserves credit for describing the natural elements around Forks, Washington with great accuracy—especially considering the fact that she lives in sunny, dry Arizona. If you’ve never visited the La Push beaches or the Hoh Rainforest, reading Twilight can almost make you feel like you’re there. Hopefully these titles will inspire you to start planning a visit to the Pacific Northwest—or maybe to move back there, if you were foolish enough to have left. YouTube Channel: Timmy Ham Featured image via PNS 10 Favorite Authors Brought To The Big Screen Our Top 5 Picks On Poetry! ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ Movie Sets The Tone For True Film Diversity Brittany McSorley Brittany is a writer, theatre geek, binge-watcher and sandwich enthusiast from New England. If you have a dog, she unconditionally loves you.

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