Psychiatric Disorders: Targeting the Microbiome
Student Scholarship Honorable Mention
Alexandra Francis, ND, MS, CNS
Marie Winters, ND, FABNO
All disease begins in the gut. ~ (Hippocrates)
“When in doubt, treat the gut” is an excellent naturopathic rule of thumb that naturopathic doctors have relied on for decades. We have always understood that symptoms and chronic diseases often improve when we focus on treating the gut, but only recently there has been exploration into why this is so. We’ve been told that we have more microorganisms in our gut (meaning our whole digestive system, but primarily the small and large intestines) than we have cells comprising our bodies. “The human gut microbiota consists of a complex community exceeding 100 trillion microorganisms whose collective genome – the microbiome – encodes 100 times more genes than the human genome. It is now widely considered that the gut microbiota should be considered an ‘exteriorized’ organ placed within the body, which provides important physiological functions and is indispensable for human life.”1 These microorganisms are responsible for metabolizing dietary nutrients, xenobiotics, and drugs, as well as maintaining the integrity of the gut mucosal barrier, immunomodulation, and protection against pathogens.2
Our knowledge of the functions and roles the gut microbiome plays in our health and physiology has been expanding. The gut microbiome is a relatively new exploration in the field of medicine, and recent research has shed light on promising new clinical applications of focusing treatment efforts on the gut microbiome. Some of the conditions shown to benefit from optimizing the gut microbiome include several digestive disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), as well as systemic conditions such as diabetes mellitus, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.
About half of US adults will experience a mood or mental disorder consistent with the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV at some point during their lives.3 The onset of these disorders is usually during childhood or adolescence, which suggests that treatment methods should be directed to the younger population and emphasize prevention.3 Use of conventional drug therapies for psychiatric disorders has been on the rise over the last few decades. Given the increasing rates of mood disorders and drug dependence trends, conventional drug therapy appears to have had relatively low efficacy in psychiatric patients, especially those with depression.4,5 Possibly in response to this, there has been increasing research into the composition of the gut microbiome in individuals with mood disorders. Many people with psychiatric illnesses have been found to have an altered gut microbiome composition and compromised integrity of the gut lining, and these patterns are theorized to be affecting the functioning of the nervous system.6
Ever since the 1950s, the only therapy widely used to treat mood disorders are pharmaceutical agents that target the monoamine neurotransmitters in the central nervous system (CNS) – serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.7 Recent research has established a strong connection between physiological health and mental health, including the extensive therapeutic potential of manipulating the gut microbiome in individuals with mood disorders.
The way that the gut communicates with the brain is likely the underlying factor in this relationship. Extensive research has been conducted on mice that has included manipulating their gut microbiota and observing their consequent behavioral changes (eg, increased or decreased depression and anxiety).8 Findings from this research strongly support the theory that these behavioral/mood changes result from aberrant neurochemical transmission from the gut microbiome.8 When mice are treated with oral neomycin (antibiotic), bacitracin (antibiotic), and primaricin (antifungal), their anxiety is reduced.9 It has also been demonstrated that germ-free mice (mice devoid of gut microorganisms) have higher concentrations of the serotonin precursor, tryptophan, compared to control mice.8 This could be due to the elimination of pathogenic or inflammation-inducing bacterial and/or fungal species in the gut. When in excess, some of these pathogenic enteric microbes can trigger inflammatory processes in the CNS. Acutely depressed patients have been shown to have higher gut levels of Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria, as well as lower levels of Firmicutes, compared to patients with milder depression.7 Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to have less gut microbial diversity and lower levels of Prevotella, Coprococcus, and Veillonellaceae compared to controls.9 Spore-forming anaerobic bacteria and microaerophilic bacteria have also been found in gastric and duodenal samples from children with ASD, whereas control children showed no presence of these microbes.9
Probiotics & Prebiotics
The main immunomodulatory actions of probiotics and prebiotics include modulating the immune responses from the gut mucosa, enhancing the integrity of the epithelial barrier in the gut, and priming adaptive responses via antigen-presenting cells.10
Immunomodulation is primarily carried out through regulation of T-cell maturation, which is highly implicated in inflammation and autoimmune disease.10 The 2 dominant genera of gut bacteria that are considered beneficial probiotics are Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria.11 Research has demonstrated that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species modulate the production and secretion of various cytokines by acting on monocytes, macrophages, epithelial cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and dendritic cells.10 The eradication of “bad” species of gut bacteria and the addition of beneficial probiotic species may provide novel avenues for treatment of mood disorders.“ Live bacteria that have a positive mental health benefit have been defined as psychobiotics.”7
Disorders characterized by a deviation from normal gut bacteria include small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), dysbiosis, IBS, and more. It should come as no surprise that there is a high prevalence of psychiatric illness among patients with IBS, including panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and major depression.12 Probiotics can competitively inhibit disease- and inflammation-causing pathogenic bacteria by blocking attachment sites on epithelial cells. Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus rhamnosus upregulate the production of intestinal mucins, which greatly reduces the adherence of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and its damaging effects.13 It has been demonstrated in humans that administering a combination of the probiotics Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longum has an anxiolytic effect and reduces serum cortisol.14 Lactobacillus reuteri is another highly effective probiotic that modulates immune system functioning, reduces stress-induced increases in corticosterone, and reduces anxiety by altering the mRNA expression of GABAA and GABAB receptors in the CNS.14 Bifidobacterium infantis has been found to have antidepressant effects, via suppression of stimulation-induced elevations in proinflammatory cytokines as well as increasing tryptophan levels.14
The Gut-Brain Connection
There have been rapidly coalescing clusters of evidence related to the gut-brain connection, with special focus on potential etiologies of anxiety, depression, behavior, and other mental or emotional disorders. “…[I]llnesses such as major depressive disorder are disproportionately prevalent in patients with gastrointestinal illnesses such as inflammatory bowel disease, which pathologically has been strongly linked to microbiome function.”15
Intestinal hyperpermeability is a very important pathophysiologic mechanism implicated in dysbiosis and mood disorders. The hyperpermeability is characterized by weakened tight junctions between the enterocytes of mainly the small intestine. This creates “gaps” in the epithelial lining of the small intestine that allow for translocation of partially digested food products and bacterial toxins into the bloodstream, often triggering a low-grade immune response through the interaction of T-cells and compromised epithelium. It has been shown that intestinal hyperpermeability often coexists with altered gut microbiome composition and activity.1
Immune system hypersensitivity should also be explored as a possible contributing factor in the gut-brain connection. While the immune system is not usually occupied with reacting to non-harmful antigens, it can start to overreact to a normally harmless antigen; this is referred to as an immune hypersensitivity reaction. There are several types of hypersensitivity reactions, and they all promote inflammation that may affect mood and behavior. It has been found that germ-free mice have an increased stress response, higher cortisol levels, and lower levels of cortical and hippocampal brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) compared to control mice; furthermore, these effects are no longer present when the mice are recolonized with Bifidobacteria species.14 Lactobacillus strains have also been shown to trigger increased levels of 2 key anti-inflammatory/suppressive cytokines – transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-ß) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) via interaction with dendritic cells.10 This produces a tolerogenic state such that immune cells do not hyper-react to non-harmful antigens (ie, they tolerate them), thereby keeping inflammation low.10 TGF-ß has major regulatory activity, induces peripheral antigenic/immune tolerance, and suppresses cells of the innate immune system.16 Because of its broad anti-inflammatory effects, TGF-ß has been considered a possible therapeutic for inflammatory diseases, autoimmune disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease; it might also be considered in the treatment of severe mood disorders.16
Nutritional Impacts on the Gut
The first time nutrition is thought to impact the gut microbiome is shortly after birth. Early life (the weeks and months following birth) serves as a critical window of opportunity for the development of the core microbiome from diet.10 Human breast milk has profound beneficial effects on the gut microbiome and is considered the optimal source of nutrition for newborns. Breast milk contains several components that are essential for a maturing immune system, including colostrum, immunoglobulins, lysozyme, lactoferrin, Lactobacillus acidophilus and L gasseri, Bifidobacterium bifidium and B breve, and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs).10
Some of the general dietary changes that have occurred in the United States over the past 3 decades include higher caloric intake, higher proportion of calories derived from refined grains/carbohydrates, and increased intake of corn-derived sweeteners (ie, corn syrup).17 These poor dietary patterns are likely a major culprit in the development of psychiatric disorders, mood disorders, and developmental disorders. A significant amount of evidence exists that shows how dietary interventions (especially gluten-free and casein-free diets) that help optimize the gut microbiome and reduce levels of inflammation also effectively improve behavioral and digestive symptoms in autistic children.18 Foods shown to foster gut bacterial imbalances include sugar, eggs, soy, gluten, and dairy.19 These foods trigger some of the most common food sensitivities in individuals with intestinal hyperpermeability (“leaky gut”). Food sensitivities can be the root cause of many common inflammatory manifestations, including mood disorders.
Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), such as butyrate, acetate, and propionate, have been shown to positively impact the gut microbiota and exert modulatory effects on the immune system.17 Increased fiber intake can enhance SCFA status, since SCFAs are products of anaerobic microbial fermentation of non-digestible macronutrients (mostly plant polysaccharides and resistant starches).17 SCFAs promote colonic water resabsorption and decrease fecal pH, which both beneficially affect bacterial growth in the colon.9 Levels of SCFAs (butyrate, acetate, propionate), along with levels of different phylogenic microbial strains, can be measured via a comprehensive stool analysis.
Anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and autism spectrum disorders have been rapidly increasing in prevalence over the past few decades, especially in the United States. Causes of this increase are still largely unknown, but etiologic factors are beginning to be considered at a deeper level. This fact highlights the need for more effective intervention strategies, which can be accomplished through research studies and clinical trials. Most studies of the gut microbiome to date have been conducted on mice, which only minimally translate to human health.
Today, there is a clear need for alternative treatment strategies for several common psychiatric conditions including anxiety and depressive disorders. Pharmaceutical therapy has demonstrated limited efficacy in the general population of psychiatric patients. Many patients with psychiatric illness are prescribed indicated medications and become reliant on them for a significant portion of their lives, despite their often-minimal efficacy and the fact that they are often intended to be used only for a short period of time. As an alternative to pharmaceutical therapy, treatment designed to reduce CNS inflammation and optimize the gut microbiome may be a novel and highly effective form of therapy. Many of the psychiatric and developmental disorders that are increasingly affecting young children are postulated to result from nutrition and diet during infancy and childhood – factors that significantly affect the composition of the gut microbiome.
Strong but complex connections exist between the gut microbiome, the immune system, CNS activity, mood, and behavior. Research is just beginning to reveal how these systems interact with each other. Although clinical applications are not yet well supported, it is likely that the growing interest in the gut microbiome will propel further investigation into more specific medical treatments that optimize the microbiome. Probiotics are already a useful clinical tool in the treatment of a wide variety of health problems, including psychiatric disorders. Diet therapy, functional foods, nutritional supplements, antimicrobial agents, and probiotic therapy are all avenues of treatment that have been shown to be highly effective in healing the gut, including balancing enteric bacteria, improving the integrity of the epithelial lining, and modulating the activity of gastrointestinal immunity. We now know that all of these factors are central to the functioning of the CNS and the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders.
Nutritional therapy is one of the most powerful tools for altering the gut microbiome. It has been shown that even short-term dietary changes significantly affect (positively or negatively) the populations of microorganisms in the GI tract. In general, a high fiber, plant-based diet, in conjunction with fermented foods containing probiotics, is highly recommended for increasing the concentrations of beneficial gut microbes. The current average American diet is pro-inflammatory by promoting overgrowth of pathogenic microorganisms, both bacterial and fungal. Enhancing patients’ dietary patterns can serve to balance their gut microbiome, decrease inflammation, optimize nutrient absorption and utilization, and modulate their immune system. All of these effects should significantly decrease their symptoms of anxiety and depression, and help to stabilize their mood.
- Leclercq S, Matamoros S, Cani PD, et al. Intestinal permeability, gut-bacterial dysbiosis, and behavioral markers of alcohol-dependence severity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014;111(42):E4485-E4493.
- Jandhyala SM, Talukdar R, Subramanyam C, et al. Role of the normal gut microbiota. World J Gastroenterol. 2015;21(29):8787-8803.
- Kessler RC, Berglund P, Demler O, et al. Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the national comorbidity survey replication. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2005;62(6):593-602.
- Whitaker R. Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Ethical Hum Psychol Psychiatry. 2005;7(1):23-35. Available at: http://freedom-center.org/pdf/anatomy_of_epidemic_whitaker_psych_drugs.pdf. Accessed December 5, 2017.
- Vietta L, Bambling M, Alford H. The gastrointestinal tract microbiome, probiotics, and mood. Inflammopharmacology. 2014;22(6):333-339.
- Forsythe P, Sudo N, Dinan T, et al. Mood and gut feelings. Brain Behav Immun. 2010;24(1):9-16.
- Dinan TG, Cryan JF. Mood and microbiome: towards clinical translation. Genome Med. 2016;8(1):36.
- Clarke G, Grenham S, Scully P, et al. The microbiome-gut-brain axis during early life regulates the hippocampal serotonergic system in a sex-dependent manner. Mol Psychiatry. 2013;18(6):666-673.
- Zhang YJ, Li S, Gan RY, et al. Impacts of gut bacteria on human health and diseases. Int J Mol Sci. 2015;16(4):7493-7519.
- Hardy H, Harris J, Lyon E, et al. Probiotics, prebiotics and immunomodulation of gut mucosal defences: homeostasis and immunopathology. Nutrients. 2013;5(6):1869-1912.
- Tuohy KM, Probert HM, Smejkal CW, et al. Using probiotics and prebiotics to improve gut health. Drug Discov Today. 2003;8(15):692-700.
- Lydiard RB. Irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and depression: what are the links? J Clin Psychiatry. 2001;62 Suppl 8:38-45.
- Sherman PM, Johnson-Henry KC, Yeung HP, et al. Probiotics reduce enterhemorrhagic eschericia coli 157:H7- and enteropathogenic e. coli O127:H6-induced changes in polarized T84 epithelial cell monolayers by reducing bacterial adhesion and cytoskeletal rearrangements. Infect Immun. 2005;73(8):5183-5188.
- Cryan JF, O’Mahony SM. The microbiome-gut-brain axis: from bowel to behavior. Neurogastroenterol Motil. 2011;23(3):187-192.
- Flowers SA, Ellingrod VL. The Microbiome in Mental Health: Potential Contribution of Gut Microbiota in Disease and Pharmacotherapy Management. Pharmacotherapy. 2015;35(10):910-916.
- Sanjabi S, Zenewicz LA, Kamanaka M, Flavell RA. Anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory roles of TGF-beta, IL-10, and IL-22 in immunity and autoimmunity. Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2009;9(4):447-453.
- Kau AL, Ahern PP, Griffin NW, et al. Human nutrition, the gut microbiome and the immune system. Nature. 2011;474(7351):327-336.
- Reichelt KL, Knivsberg AM. The possibility and probability of a gut-to-brain connection in autism. Ann Clin Psychiatry. 2009;21(4):205-211.
- Kellman R. The Microbiome Diet: The Scientifically Proven Way to Restore Your Gut Health and Achieve Permanent Weight Loss. Boston, MA: Da Capo Lifelong Books; 2014.
Alexandra Francis, ND, MS, CNS, was a 4th-year naturopathic medical student at the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine when she wrote this article; she graduated in May 2018. She is also pursuing a master’s degree in Human Nutrition at the University of Bridgeport Nutrition Institute. Alexandra has given several lectures on subjects including naturopathic medicine, nutrition, therapeutic diets, lifestyle, and wellness. Alexandra plans to start consulting on nutrition, diet, and lifestyle, to complement her clients’ medical treatment in Long Island, NY.
Marie Winters, ND, FABNO, received her ND degree from Bastyr University in 2006. Dr Winters is the former director of the Naturopathic Medicine Department at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia. She is also a Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology, sits on the Board of Medical Examiners for the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology, and is currently President of the PA Association of Naturopathic Physicians. She is an adjunct professor at Bridgeport University’s College of Naturopathic Medicine and maintains a private practice in Philadelphia. Dr Winters has spoken at several medical conferences across the country.


It’s amazing what an extra letter can do to a word. Take today’s Which Word Wednesday entries, lose and loose. The extra O changes the word from something lost to something that’s not tight.
That extra letter can be tricky. It causes us to loose what is lost or lose something that’s tight. Oh boy. Let’s look at the definitions from The Oxford American Dictionary:
adjective :: not firmly or tightly fixed in place; detached or able to be detached
verb :: let go
lose :: verb
be deprived of or cease to have or retain
That’s nice and all, those cute little definitions. But the trouble is keeping the right word matched to its proper definition and pronunciation. We need answers! We need words that aren’t confusing! We need help!
I’ve heard your cries. And here are some memory hooks that are sure to rock the grammar world:
Loose is pronounced like goose. As in, when your goose is loose, you need to catch it (before you lose it for good).
Lose is pronounced like ooze. As in, when you lose your ooze, you are probably glad.
See? That’s not so bad, is it! We can’t let one extra letter intimidate us. It just takes some creativity.
What’s my WWW verdict? You can lose a loose goose but you can’t goose a loose lose, because that doesn’t make any sense.
What’s your verdict? Do extra letters cause you to get the language sweats? Do loose and lose trip you up? Have you ever chased a loose goose? Do share in the comments.
Check out previous Which Word Wednesday verdicts here.


What better to do on the 100th day than challenge your students to practice measurement! This one is sure to get them thinking! This includes a sheet of challenges in cm and the same challenges in inches.
If you like this- check out some of my other products!
States of Matter Bundle: Teach, Observe & Review- Experiments, Cut & Paste
Cut and Paste Science- A great way to review, re-teach and assess!
Transparent, Translucent, Opaque Light Experiment, Definitions w/ Cut & Paste
Landforms Cut and Paste Definitions, flash cards- 20 words, 4 lesson options
Food Chain, Food Web, Energy Pyramid Cut and Paste
Potential and Kinetic Energy Matching Cut and Paste
Forms of Energy Matching Cut and Paste- Definitions and Examples
Energy Changes Transfer Introduction, Definition, Examples & Cut & Paste


Wild 2 reveals its hot origins
Inner-solar system material found in comet Wild 2 samples challenges scientists' view of comet formation.
March 15, 2006
Comet Wild 2 dust samples, returned to Earth in January as part of NASA's Stardust mission, yielded a surprising finding: materials formed near the Sun or other stars somehow found their way into Wild 2 at the solar system's cold fringes. This suggests solar material ejected from the Sun early in its history traveled to the outer solar system.
Crystals of olivine a mineral compound made mostly of magnesium and iron found in Wild 2 samples have astronomers stumped. Olivine is thought to form from glass and heat from nearby stars, not in the outer solar system, where comets form. While scientists don't know the process by which olivine came to reside within Wild 2, astronomer Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington and principal investigator for NASA's Stardust mission, says, "It's certain such materials never formed inside this icy, cold body."
The debate surrounding comet formation grows. "It seems that comets are not composed entirely of volatile-rich materials, but rather are a mixture of materials formed at all temperature ranges, at places very near the early Sun and at places very remote from it," says Michael Zolensky, Stardust curator and coinvestigator at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Scientists may have to rethink how comets form, what they're made of, and how those materials got there. The comet's long-standing dirty-snowball image may be replaced by the geologically active comet that contains, among other things, materials formed near the Sun.
Brownlee and colleagues presented their findings this week at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in League City, Texas.


Listed in: Geology, as GEOL-41
Peter D. Crowley (Section 01)
Only the surface of the earth is accessible for direct study but, as a two-dimensional surface, it represents a very incomplete picture of the geologic character of the earth. The most fundamental realms of the earth-the core and mantle-cannot themselves be observed. Even the uppermost part of the crust, where the lithosphere and hydrosphere interact to determine the quality of the environment in which we live, is hidden. Indirect signals, observed at the surface, can give us a more comprehensive understanding of earth structure-from environmental problems that lie just below the surface to the dynamics of the core/mantle boundary. We can “see” these subsurface realms using seismology, gravity, magnetism and heat flow observations. This course will bring findings from geophysics to bear on developing a picture of the earth in three dimensions. Three hours of class and three hours of laboratory each week. Requisite: Geology 11 or 12. Spring semester. Professor Crowley.


Ping command is one of the most widely used utilities that used in networking. Ping command is a simple tool is used to troubleshoot networking issue such as test network connectivity. We can test connected to a local area network or even it is connected to internet and also we can check test network interface card working correctly or not also used DNS issues test DNS name resolution issues.
Let’s ping IP address of a host. This host could be any network device such as computer, server, router or local area network or over the internet. Here we are going to ping server in our local area network open command prompt type ping along with IP address of the server then press enter. Ping utility will send four data packets to the IP address of the server. Our computer will wait for response then the server will send the data packets back as a reply.
This reply is called echo reply request. This reply informs you what’s happening server with we ping. We received a reply that is a good sign that is network connectivity between the computer and server is good that server is local area network or over the internet. The four packets were sent and four packets received.
If we ping the same server this time we didn’t get reply that means server didn’t reply back there is no network connectivity between our computer and server. This could be severed for different reason.
That means server is powered down or also server is running but its firewall is blocking or ping request for this reason turn off the firewall.
What happen when you trying to ping a host and not all data packets are reply back to you?
Ping a host our computer sends a four data packets but sometimes you may receive only 1, 2 or 3 packets back instead of four packets. This is called packet lost.
This packet loss can be done for several reasons.
Network congestion due to lot of traffic data packets will get dropped
Faulty hardware’s – such as bad cables, bad wires, bad network card, bad network connections or bad modem
In other types we want to ping remote server on the internet if we got a message destination host unreachable.
That means the router destination cannot be found. That mean router doesn’t have any information how to route data to destination or also remote server down or disconnected on network or our computer is not connected to network.
Let’s see ping command in typical scenario suppose there is no interconnect connection because they access because they can access any web page within their computer which is very common issue. First thing is to check using ping utility to see the connection of internet or not. Even before checking the modem or router or any cable connection check ping test.
Open command prompt ping website as yahoo.com. Notice in this method ping the domain name yahoo.com not an IP address because by doing this way testing name, resolution issue related to DNS issues. We are hot having yahoo IP address by ping yahoo.com ping is successful we know it is connected to internet. We got successful reply from yahoo.com.
All of our hardware, cable, network card, router, all are working correctly including our internet service provider. The reason for bringing web pages related to software issue not hardware. The problem is mostly in the internet browser or a firewall issue. By using ping test it saves the time by checking the hardware’s.
Suppose the ping is not successful even before started to check hardware we can used ping command by other test. Such as testing the network interface card is working correctly. This is called loop back test.
The loop back test is sending out signals back to your computer testing purpose. Open command prompt type ping space loop back IP address 127.0.0.1 type ping local host. The ping is successful the network card is working properly. The loop back test is failed the problem with your network interface card.
PING command also can be to test DNS name resolution issues. DNS resolves domain names to IP addresses. Suppose while checking ping yahoo.com please check the name and try again. This could be a DNS issue. Our computer could not resolve the domain name to an IP address. Next try to ping the IP address instead you know already. Most of us don’t know IP address we can type DNS IP address as 188.8.131.52.if the ping was successful it confirms DNS issue in computer can ping IP address but can’t ping domain name.
To solve this problem let’s try with some other methods. Flush DNS type IP configuration/flush DNS in command prompt or check DNS settings network card configuration.


The following essay will examine the most important facts about noun that every student should know. Let us first of all give a definition of this part of speech. A noun is a part of speech that is used to name a person, thing, place or idea. It is suggested that whatever exists in this world can be named, and the purpose of a noun is to give that name. There are two types of nouns, namely proper nouns and common nouns. Let us identify the difference between these nouns.
According to the experts in English grammar, a proper noun is used to name specific place, person or thing. For instance, such words as Queen Elizabeth, Great Britain, Japanese and other similar notions belong to the category of proper nouns. Such words are practically always capitalized. The subcategory of a proper noun is a noun of address, which means addressing a person’s name. If to characterize common nouns, it should be mentioned that they are used to identify everything else, and are usually not capitalized.
It should further be noted that several related words may perform the role of a unified noun-like group within one sentence. This is known as a noun clause that contains a verb and a subject and can perform any role that a noun usually performs. This rule is vividly illustrated in the following example:
There is also a notion of a noun phrase that generally represents a noun added with modifiers. This is also a group of words having similar meaning and performing the role of a noun. For example:
Students often misunderstand the role of various types of nouns. In this regard, it should be noted that there is one more type of a noun, which is known as compound noun. This kind of nouns is often hard to remember for international students. Still, they represent an important part of English grammar and every student should know how to form such nouns. Let us give several examples for you to understand what a compound noun means:
In the following section, we will discuss various categories of nouns, which will further clarify the role of this part of speech and its types. Nouns are generally classified as count nouns, mass nouns (also known as non-count nouns) and collective nouns. Count nouns are the ones that can be counted, like two countries, a dozen girls, etc. Mass nouns are the ones that cannot be counted, like water, blood or fire. As for collective nouns, they are the ones that have a singular form, but can represent two or more persons or things. For example, team, committee, class, etc. It should be further noted that some English words can belong to either count or non-count categories of nouns. Everything depends on what role they perform in the sentence. Here are some examples:
The issue of whether such nouns can be counted generally determines whether these words can be added with articles or not. For example, you cannot write “He is faced with the troubles”. In this case, the article should be omitted.
There is also a category of abstract nouns, which generally mean that a word is non-tangible. Such words as justice, happiness, coldness and others belong to this category. Many international students who do not speak English as a native language find it hard to understand whether this or that abstract noun needs to be added with an article. In this case, everything depends on the context. For example, it is not correct to write “America gained the independence on the 4th of July”. A definite article here should be omitted. Every student should thoroughly research the topic of plural and singular forms of nouns in order to understand when countable and non-countable nouns should be used. It will also help to clarify when the determiners or articles should be added and when not.
Furthermore, another fact about noun that every student should remember is related to various forms of nouns. In this regard, it should be emphasized that nouns can take the form of the subjective, objective and possessive cases. In the last section of our essay, we will examine what this means. First of all, the notion “case” stands for the function of a noun in the sentence. In order to understand what role a noun plays in the sentence, you need to answer the question of whether it is an object, a subject or a word that shows possession. For example:
The forms of the subject and the object in the sentence are identical, while nouns in the possessive case have a different form. There is a simple rule of possessive case formation. You need to add an apostrophe and then add the letter “s”. However, if it is a plural form of a noun, the “s” letter goes first and is then followed by the apostrophe. Keep in mind that it is not always easy to form the plural noun. Therefore, you need to research additional information on this matter.
If you want to find out whether this or that noun is countable or not, there is a simple exercise of naming this part of speech. This exercise will help you to answer any of the questions that might arise while researching the topic of nouns. The groups of count and non-count nouns might be rather confusing to students, especially if English is your second language. We suggest you to do a lot of exercises and pay much attention to the use of determiners, articles and quantifiers with different types of nouns. This will help you to understand how and in what forms nouns should be used in the text you are writing or the speech you are going to present.
Try our service for FREE!Click here


Comparison between Chopin and Gilman using The Storm and The Yellow Wallpaper.
By Lee A. Zito
Gilman's perception of her "reality" and Chopin's Calixta in "The Storm," are women who just might have been suffering the same feeling's of depression and routine. The only difference might be how they dealt with this depression. Gilman suffered from depression after the birth of her child, using this depression to write "The Yellow Wall-Paper." Chopin seemed to be just bored in general with same old routines. Both were women who felt suppressed by the male gender. They successfully overcame this suppression through their writing.
"The Storm" and "The Yel…
- Comparison between Chopin and Gilman using The Storm and The Yellow Wallpaper.
- Comparison between Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville. They Focused their writings on how man was affected by nature. They translated their philosophies though both the portrayal of their protago
- Comparison Between The Metamorphosis, by Kafka, and metamorphosis, by Salvatore Dali
E-pasta adrese, uz kuru nosūtīt darba saiti:
Saite uz darbu:


While many people are comfortable with the traditional fairy tales that exist, some wonder what would happen if the rules were changed up. Twists were taken just when the story got good, took a turn for the worst, or a new element of surprise was thrown in. For those people interested in telling their own stories and boosting their creativity, there is a wonderful card game in the world called Once Upon A Time. Once Upon A Time is an ever-changing storytelling card game made for 2-6 players. Originally produced in 1993 by Atlas Games, the game has since undergone a few rule re-writes and a few editions. Today, we are looking at the third edition, published in 2012 with new art and a simplified rule sheet.
Out of the Box
The game’s contents are very simple and straightforward. A small rule sheet, and 3 types of story cards are contained in the box. The first card type is a Story card. The second is an Interrupt Story card, and the final is an Ending card. Both the Story and Interrupt Story cards are divided into categories by the symbols located on the upper left corners of the cards. The five elements are Character, Thing, Place, Aspect, and Event. The Ending cards are each individual player’s goal, as they try to steer the story being told to conclusively lead to their Ending card. The artwork on these cards is done by Omar Rayyan and is beautifully detailed to fit any fairy tale.
Playing The Game
The game begins with dealing cards to the players. Shuffle the Interrupt Story and Story cards together to make one large deck, and then shuffle the Ending cards together in a separate pile. Each player takes one Ending card and keeps it secret. Then, each player is dealt Story cards equal to 11 minus the number of players, so the minimum number of cards would be 5 in a 6 player game. To determine who goes first, draw a card from the Story deck and determine which player most looks like or resembles the card’s subject, and that player goes first.
The first player will begin the story with “Once upon a time…” and begin a story based on the cards in their hand. When you mention an element on a card in your hand, the story-teller will place that card on the table. This will continue as long as the player can keep the story going, or until someone plays a successful interrupt.
For example, Nathan begins the game : “Once upon a time, there lived an old woman who lived in a cottage. This cottage was nestled deep in the woods along a river-” At this point, he has likely placed a Woman card and a Cottage card on the table, keeping his story going. At this point, Lauren calls out an Interrupt! She drops a card that reads River. Because this element was mentioned, it is a successful interrupt, and Nathan’s turn ends, and he draws a Story card. She continues the story : “This river, however has run dry, because it has been cursed. This curse was placed on this river years ago when she read out of an old book-” She has placed a Cursed card and an Old card. However, Allie sees a chance and she interrupts the story. Because the Old card shares an element with a card in her hand that says Interrupt!, she may now take over the story. She continues “This book wasn’t old, it was enchanted to look as such…”, playing the Enchanted interrupt card, and continues the tale.
Players may also choose to pass the story if they have become stuck due to the cards in their hands. When a player passes the story, they may discard a story card. If a player attempts an interrupt and is deemed unsuccessful by other players, she discards that card and draws two Story cards. If at any time a player plays all the cards out of her hand and plays her ending card, but the players decide it does not make sense or follow with the story, that player must discard their ending and draw a new one.
The story-teller must always be on their feet, however, because other players have opportunities to force that player to pass the turn by challenging the teller. If the story-teller gets stuck (a 5-10 second pause with no continuation or cards played), contradicts previous events in the story, rambles aimlessly, takes the game to a level of silliness that doesn’t even make sense in a fairy tale, or lists unimportant elements just to play cards from her hand. All players must agree on the outcome of a challenge to force that player’s turn to end.
If at anytime two players interrupt at the same time, the first one to put the card on the table is the new story-teller. Now, while an unsuccessful interrupt will cause that player to discard a card and draw two, there is no penalty for the 2nd place interrupting player in this case. It is important to know that Ending cards cannot be interrupted. The first player to play all the Story cards from their hand and conclusively lead up to their Ending card is the winner!
As with any game, the rulebook encourages players to be lenient in regards to younger players and to not use interrupts as an aggressive thing, or use challenges as a tactical way to win. The game is meant to move at a fast pace, but is adaptable for any gaming group, regardless of age or experience.
I had been looking at this game for a long time before I picked it up, and I am so glad that I did. Our games took turns from serious story-telling to silly connections, and depending on your gaming group can be a great combination of both. I look forward to playing this game with my son once he is old enough to participate, but will have great fun with it in the meantime. Once Upon A Time is a great game for children and adults alike, and will bring you hours of entertainment. Some may feel that even $19.99 is high considering that the box only contains cards and a rulebook, but I strongly feel that the endless playtime that you will get from this box makes it worth every penny. I believe that the creativity this game brings to the table is great for any gamer, regardless of experience level.


I use standardized test scores from roughly forty-five million students to describe the temporal structure of educational opportunity in more than eleven thousand school districts in the United States. Variation among school districts is considerable in both average third-grade scores and test score growth rates. The two measures are uncorrelated, indicating that the characteristics of communities that provide high levels of early childhood educational opportunity are not the same as those that provide high opportunities for growth from third to eighth grade. This suggests that the role of schools in shaping educational opportunity varies across school districts. Variation among districts in the two temporal opportunity dimensions implies that strategies to improve educational opportunity may need to target different age groups in different places.
Are public schools in the United States engines of mobility or agents of inequality? Can schools in low-income communities provide a pathway out of poverty, or are the constraints of poverty too great for schools to overcome? Such questions are at the heart of debates about the role of education in social mobility in the United States. Despite decades of research, however, we still lack clear answers.
In this article, I provide new evidence to inform these debates. It suggests that the lack of a clear answer to the question is explained in part by the substantial variation in the role of schooling in shaping educational opportunity across places. Early childhood conditions are more important in some places, educational opportunities during the elementary and middle school years more important in others.


Suicide & Crisis Hotline
Need Help? We Care!
A live counselor is available 24-hours a day.
Suicide is a preventable death.
Every year thousands of people from every walk of life find themselves without hope and without a way to stop the pain. If their cry for help isn’t heard or recognized, these brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, seniors, adults, adolescents and youth, from all walks of life, of every color, creed, income level, gender, nationality and social status will be lost to us. No number of deaths by suicide can ever be considered an “acceptable level”.
- Santa Clara 2007 with Statewide and Notes
- Santa Clara County Statistics 2006 - 2008
- National and State Data on Suicide
Each year more than 30,000 people take their own lives.
SUICIDE is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States as per 2007 official statistics.
Homicide is the 15th leading cause of death - more people kill themselves than are killed by others.
Federal, State and County Statistical analysis of data on suicide deaths are generally delayed by two to three years depending on the source. Therefore, for calendar year 2010, 2007 is the most recent data available.


"McNary-Haugen Veto Message, May 23, 1928"
By: Calvin Coolidge
Date: May 23, 1928
Source: Coolidge, Calvin. "McNary-Haugen Veto Message, May 23, 1928." Congressional Record, 70th Congress, First session, 1928, vol. 69, 9524–9526. Reprinted in Romero, Francine Sanders, ed. Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt through Coolidge: Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000, 221–223.
About the Author: Born in Vermont to a farming family, Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) nonetheless spent most of his life in politics. A conservative Republican, he rose through the ranks from city councilor to Massachusetts governor in the span of two decades. Coolidge gained national recognition during his intervention in a Boston police strike in 1919. The following year he was nominated by his party to run as vice president on Warren Harding's ticket. When Harding died in 1923, Coolidge became the nation's thirtieth president. Easily reelected in 1924, Coolidge presided over an era of economic prosperity assisted by pro-business policies.
"Reflections on Farm Relief,
By: Rexford G. Tugwell
Source: Tugwell, Rexford G. "Reflections on Farm Relief, December 1928." Political Science Quarterly 43, 1929, 481–97. Reprinted in Romero, Francine Sanders, ed. Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt through Coolidge: Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000, 224–225.
About the Author: Rexford Guy Tugwell (1891–1979) was born in upstate New York. After receiving his doctorate from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, he taught economics at several institutions, serving on the faculty of Columbia University during the 1920s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt pulled Tugwell into his "Brain Trust" in 1933. An advocate of national economic planning, he worked on relief measures in the Agriculture Department and the Resettlement Administration until his resignation in 1937. Tugwell served in a variety of other governmental and corporate roles until 1946, when he returned full time to teaching, research, and writing.
The 1920s were a prosperous times for many Americans, but the farming community did not share in the nation's abundance. American farmers had enjoyed a golden age of agriculture in the years before and during World War I (1914–1918), when prices were high and markets ample. But by the 1920s, they faced the problem of chronic overproduction. Farmers had consistently relied on European markets to soak up surplus production, but after the war, new competitors in Europe, Africa, and Asia cut deeply into American foreign trade. American domestic consumption also declined during these years as immigration restrictions and tendencies toward smaller families slowed population increase. These trends were compounded by higher agricultural productivity due to the increased use of tractors and the consolidation of smaller farms—;which further enlarged the nation's agricultural surplus.
As a result, farm prices dropped precipitously during the economic depression of 1920–1921, and farm relief became an increasingly significant political issue over the course of the decade. Even though urban dwellers outnumbered rural folk by 1920, farmers carried more political heft than their numbers would indicate. Farmers were a key constituent of the dominant Republican party, and they drew on a longstanding tradition of American agrarianism. Their pleas for assistance were difficult to ignore, and by 1924 Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover organized an agricultural conference to establish farm policy for the Coolidge administration. A longtime proponent of associative governance, Hoover supported loans to farming cooperatives and encouraged agricultural diversification. But this thinking ignored the fact that voluntary farming programs had typically been dismal failures, incapable of overcoming economic individualism.
George N. Peek, an official at Moline Plow Company, made his living selling agricultural implements to farmers. Since Peek could not sell to farmers without cash, he took it on himself to devise a plan that would offer them a decent return on their labor. Peek envisioned a system in which farm prices would be pegged to prewar levels, and then kept in "parity" by adjusting farm prices to the general price index. In order to support these inflated prices, Peek proposed that a government corporation purchase surplus produce and sell it at lower world prices in foreign markets. The loss could then be charged to farmers in the form of an equalizing fee, but farmers would still receive higher returns than if they had sold all of their produce at world prices.
Peek won converts in Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace and in Congress, where Oregon Senator Charles McNary and Iowa Representative Gilbert Haugen introduced a bill that followed Peek's plan. Peek was evangelical in his campaign for the bill, and he soon rallied American farmers to his cause. Drawing on a general sense of agrarian discontent with a government that appeared to be in the service of industrialists, agriculturalists were ripe to support any plan that might improve their relative economic position. Progressive economists such as Rexford Tugwell also endorsed the plan, which offered an escape from chronic agricultural depression.
Despite the growth of a farming bloc in support of McNary-Haugenism, its proponents had great difficulty securing its passage. Businessmen decried it as inimical to the American spirit of free enterprise, and laborers worried about the effect on their grocery bills. When cotton prices plummeted in 1925, bringing Southern cotton growers into the McNary-Haugen fold, internal divisions within the agricultural community led to further disagreements, this time about the details of the price support program and its administration.
Under these conditions, the bill failed in 1924, and again, in a modified version, in 1925. New bills were introduced in 1927 and 1928, but they were vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge in increasingly caustic language that reflected the growing conservatism of the time.
The broad array of opposition (which Coolidge helped cultivate) made the veto politically palatable. Moreover, Coolidge had deep reservations about the logic of the system. He agreed with economists who argued that inflated prices would likely prompt farmers to rotate marginal acreage into production and further increase surpluses. He believed that agricultural diversity would make the program an administrative impossibility. And he thought that artificially high farm prices would increase the cost of living while subsidizing foreign consumers who could purchase produce below cost.
The Hoover administration eventually passed the Agricultural Marketing Act in 1929. It provided government money to support prices and encourage farming cooperatives, but carried no provision for exporting surpluses overseas. When the Great Depression drove farm prices down even further, this program lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Not until economist Rexford Tugwell and Secretary Wallace drafted the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which paid farmers to reduce their acreage, did farm policy begin to directly address the problem of overproduction.
Primary Source: "McNary-Haugen Veto Message, May 23, 1928" [excerpt]
SYNOPSIS: In this excerpt, President Calvin Coolidge explains why the McNary-Haugen measure fails to address the problem of overproduction and serves only to increase government bureaucracy.
The recurring problem of surpluses in farm products has long been a subject of deep concern to the entire nation, and any economically sound, workable solution of it would command not only the approval but the profound gratitude of our people. The present measure, however, falls far short of that most desirable objective; indeed, although it purports to provide farm relief by lessening the cares of our greatest industry, it not only fails to accomplish that purpose but actually heaps even higher its burdens of political control, of distribution costs, and of foreign competition.
It embodies a formidable array of perils for agriculture which are all the more menacing because of their being obscured in a maze of ponderously futile bureaucratic paraphernalia.…
A detailed analysis of all of the objections to the measure would involve a document of truly formidable proportions. However, its major weaknesses and perils may be summarized under six headings:
1. Price fixing. This measure is as cruelly deceptive in its disguise as governmental price-fixing legislation and involves quite as unmistakably the impossible scheme of attempted governmental control of buying and selling of agricultural products through political agencies as any of the other so-called surplus control bills. In fact, in certain respects, it is much broader and more flagrant in its scope.
These provisions would disappoint the farmer by naïvely implying that the law of supply and demand can thus be legislatively distorted in his favor. Economic history is filled with the evidences of the ghastly futility of such attempts. Fiat prices match the folly of fiat money.…
2. The equalization fee, which is the kernel of this legislation, is a sales tax upon the entire community. It is in no sense a mere contribution to be made by the producers themselves, as has been represented by supporters of the measure. It can be assessed upon the commodities in transit to the consumer and its burdens can often unmistakably be passed on to him.
Incidentally, this taxation or fee would not be for purposes of revenue in the accepted sense but would simply yield a subsidy for the special benefit of particular groups of processors and exporters. It would be a consumption or sales tax on the vital necessities of life, regulated not by the ability of the people to pay but only by the requirements and export losses of various trading intermediaries. It would be difficult indeed to conceive of a more flagrant case of the employment of all of the coercive powers of the government for the profit of a small number of specially privileged groups.…
3. Widespread bureaucracy. A bureaucratic tyranny of unprecedented proportions would be let down upon the backs of the farm industry and its distributors throughout the nation in connection with the enforcement of this measure. Thousands of contracts involving scores of different grades, quantities, and varieties of products would have to be signed by the board with the 4,400 millers, the 1,200 meat-packing plants, the 3,000 or more cotton and woolen mills, and the 2,700 canners. If this bill had been in operation in 1925, it would have involved collections upon an aggregate of over 16 billion units of wheat, corn, and cotton.
4. Encouragement to profiteering and wasteful distribution by middlemen. As was pointed out in the veto last year, it seems almost incredible that the farmers of this country are being offered this scheme of legislative relief in which the only persons who are guaranteed to benefit are the exporters, packers, millers, canners, spinners, and other processors. Their profits are definitely assured. They have, in other words, no particular incentive toward careful operation, since each of them holding a contract, no matter how unscrupulous, wasteful, or inefficient his operations may have been, would be fully reimbursed for all of his losses.
5. Stimulation of overproduction. The bill runs counter to an economic law as well settled as thelaw of gravitation. Increased prices decrease consumption; they also increase production. These two conditions are the very ones that spell disaster to the whole program.…
6. Aid to our foreign agricultural competitors. This measure continues, as did its predecessor, to give substantial aid to the foreign competitors of American agriculture and industry. It continues the amazing proposal to supply foreign workers with cheaper food than those of the United States, and this at the expense of the American farm industry, thereby encouraging both the foreign peasant, whose produce is not burdened with the costs of any equalization fees, and also affording through reduced food prices the means of cutting the wage rates paid by foreign manufacturers.…
This is indeed an extraordinary process of economic reasoning, if such it could be called. Certainly it is a flagrant case of direct, insidious attack upon our whole agricultural and industrial strength.
By the inevitable stimulation of production the bill can only mean an increase of exportable surplus to be dumped in the world market. This in turn will bring about a constantly decreasing world price, which will soon reach so low a figure that a wholesale curtailment of production in this country with its attendant demoralization and heavy losses would be certain. Where is the advantage of dragging our farmers into such folly?
Furthermore, as the board undertakes to dump the steadily mounting surplus into foreign countries at the low-cost figures, it will come into direct conflict with the dumping and similar trade laws of many foreign lands which are interested in the maintenance of their own agricultural industries. We might, therefore, expect immediately a series of drastic, retaliatory discriminations on the part of these consumer countries. This will drive our surplus into narrower market channels and force even further price reductions, with consequent increases in the burdens of the equalization tax.
Primary Source: "Reflections on Farm Relief, December 1928" [excerpt]
SYNOPSIS: In this excerpt from an article in the Political Science Quarterly, economist Rexford Guy Tugwell reviews the problems of American farming and praises the McNary-Haugen bill as a fine piece of social legislation.
Eight years of gradually liquidating depression have incalculably injured the nation's agricultural plant. Fertility has been depleted, equipment has run down, man-power has deteriorated. Not only farmers themselves, but all thoughtful social observers are seriously concerned that some ingenuity and some public action should be enlisted and at once. At best farming suffers needless handicaps. Back to 1913 is not good enough. For, strictly speaking, what happened between 1920 and 1928 is nothing new in our history. Indeed a more or less organized agrarian revolt is nothing new. If we were to look backward we should see that each of those phenomena we call the business cycle and which, in Europe, they call the economic rhythm, has had similar consequences for rural folks.…
… The disadvantage of farmers is measured roughly by the fact that they lose more in depression than they gain in prosperity, and that this continues to be true, with a periodical exploitation of those engaged in this activity for the benefit of those engaged in other pursuits.
The McNary-Haugen idea was that this price disparity, recurrently so disastrous, might be traced to the economic rule that small surpluses have disproportionate effects on prices and that this situation might be relieved by the segregation of this small percentage which has such great consequences. It might then be disposed of safely in either of two ways: storage or export. Coöperative storage, assisted by government financing, might enable farmers to wait for favorable markets. At least marketing could be spread throughout the year. Dumping abroad, with proper management of import duties, could be done at any price, provided the elimination of the surplus was complete; for then domestic prices could be kept at a level which would yield a profit on the whole of any crop. This device, it was argued, would at least admit farmers to the American protective system on an equality with other industries.
All this was objected to by Mr. Coolidge as unconstitutional and as administratively impossible. There is doubt as to constitutionality, but it is only doubt; and that decision belongs to the courts. As to the complexity of administration, this is a charge which might be brought against almost any governmental device. Simplicity is desirable, but lack of it ought not to prevent the adoption of a desirable policy. Besides, the scheme, if complex, was necessarily so. It may be better to do something difficult than to do nothing at all. His real objection was a stubborn determination to do nothing. New England minds revolt against any economic proposal which is more socially oriented than Vermont shopkeeping. But the veto stood.
The scheme seemed workable enough, and administratively possible, provided only that foreign governments made no retaliatory moves to protect their own farmers, and that the surpluses in question did not grow so big, with profit insurance, as to prove unwieldy. But obviously it applied mostly to exportable (or easily stored) products; and, quite as obviously it depended upon a huge coöperative organization among farmers of which only the barest beginnings were to be discerned.
Mr. Coolidge inherited the puzzle of farmers penalized for productivity. But puzzles do not worry him. Besides he held it certain that prosperity would recur in his time to justify inaction. The obstinate persistence of the farm leaders in pointing out the remarkable duration of the depression and the certainty of its recurrence has annoyed him, but not unbearably. His last McNary-Haugen veto lacked something of aplomb; it was even sharp. But it may be doubted whether it satisfied everyone that the economics of New England shop-keeping is adequate to the solution of the difficulty.
… Indeed the more I study the Bill of 1928 the deeper my admiration becomes. As a piece of social legislation it surpasses anything an American Congress ever framed. The remaining troublesome consideration is its dependence on a non-existent coöperative structure. Perhaps, however, ways around this difficulty may be found.
Ferrell, Robert H. The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Lawrence, Kans.: University of Kansas Press, 1998.
Fite, Gilbert C. George N. Peek and the Fight for Farm Parity. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954.
Kirschner, Don S. City and Country: Rural Responses to Urbanization in the 1920s. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970.
Saloutos, Theodore, and John D. Hicks. Agricultural Discontent in the Middle West: 1900–1939. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1951.
Sternsher, Bernard. Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1964.
Hoffman, Elizabeth, and Gary D. Libecap. "Institutional Choice and the Development of U.S. Agricultural Policies in the 1920s." Journal of Economic History 51, June 1991, 397–411.
"Calvin Coolidge Papers. McNary-Haugen Bill, 1923–28." In Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921–1929. American Memory digital primary source collection, Library of Congress. Available online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html; website home page: http://memory.loc.gov (accessed May 12, 2003).


First and foremost, know it’s not your fault. People often want to blame themselves or believe they did something to cause the problem. Bullying tends to say more about the person doing the bullying than it does the victim. Sometimes people fight but if someone is being repeatedly mean to you and encouraging others to be mean to you then they are the bully and you don’t deserve that treatment.
Talk to a trusted adult about the situation. It doesn’t have to be one of your parents but find someone you trust whether it’s a parent, grandparent, teacher or coach. Find someone to confide in. Don’t try to go it alone.
Do not respond or retaliateas often times a reaction is what the bully is looking for. Like we said before bullying is often not about you but about the bully looking to gain power over you. Never empower a bully. Do your best to remove yourself from the situation whether it’s at school, in the community or online.
Tell the individual to stopif removing yourself from the situation is not possible. You need to feel confident in doing this and then you need to make yourself very clear that you will not allow the bully to treat you the way they are.
If the person will not stop, save all evidence of the harassment. Do not delete the communications. Keep your electronic copies and print out hard copies in case things have to be escalated. Should the person continue the harassment you can contact their Internet Service Provider and file a complaint.
Block the harasserafter you have made copies of the communication. There is no reason to continue to engage with the bully or pay attention to them. Use the tools found in your social media tools to eliminate the communication. You can also report the person on most platforms and should even though it may not end the harassment. Blocking them will limit your exposure and temptation to engage with the bullies.
Protect your accounts and don’t share passwords. You should never share that information with anyone even friends. Sometimes things change, and those people could then use that information to impersonate you online or in texts. Also password protect your phone to protect yourself and your accounts.
If you ever get any sort of threat of physical harm you should talk to a parent or guardian and call the local police. You can also report the threats to school authorities as well.


With the globalization of the world economy, there has been a concomitant rise in the number of companies that operate globally. Though international business as a concept has been around since the time of the East India Company and continued into the early decades of the 20th century, there was a lull in the international expansion of companies because of the Two World Wars. After that, there was a hesitant move towards internationalizing the operations of multinational companies.
What really provided a fillip to the global expansion of companies was the Chicago School of Economic Thought propelled by the legendary economist, Milton Friedman, which championed neoliberal globalization. This ideology, which started in the early 1970s gradually, became a major force to reckon with in the 1980s and became the norm in the 1990s. The result of all this was the frenzied expansion of global companies across the world.
Thus, international businesses grew in scope and size to the point where at the moment; the global economy is dominated by multinationals from all countries in the world. What was primarily a phenomenon of western corporations has now expanded to include companies from the East (from countries like India and China). This module examines the phenomenon of international businesses from different aspects like the characteristics of international business, their effect on the local, target economies, and the ways and means with which they would have to operate and succeed in the global competition for ideas and profits.
Above all, international businesses have to ensure that they blend the global outlook and the local adaptation resulting in a Glocal phenomenon wherein they would have to think global and act local. Further, international businesses need to ensure that they do not fall afoul of local laws and at the same time repatriate profits back to their home countries. Apart from this, the questions of employability and employment conditions that dictate the operations of global businesses have to be taken into consideration as well.
Considering the fact that many third world countries are liberalizing and opening up their economies, there can be no better time than now for international businesses. This is balanced by the countervailing force of the ongoing economic crisis that has dealt a severe blow to the global economy. The third force that determines international businesses are that not only is the third world countries eager to welcome foreign investment, they seek to emulate the international businesses and become like them. Hence, these aspects would be discussed in detail in the subsequent articles.
Finally, international businesses have to ensure that they have a set of operating procedures and norms that are sensitive to the local culture and customs and at the same time, they stick to their brand that has been developed for global markets. This is the challenge that we discussed earlier as Glocal orientation.
In conclusion, international businesses are facing the best of times and the worst of times at the same time and hence, the savvy and astute among them would succeed in this Shift Age.
Management Study Guide (MSG) is an educational portal launched with the vision of providing students and corporate workforces worldwide with access to rich, easy to understand, frequently updated instruction on many management related topics.
MSG team comprises experienced faculty and professionals who develop the content for the portal. We collectively refer to our team as - MSG Experts. To Know more, click on About Us.
A Smarter Way to Study....short presentations, real results


So what are the issues with first-past-the-post?
Canada is a great country to live in. Our political system has served us well. But as our country changes with more diversity and more political parties the system put in place in 1867 is showing serious problems with fairness.
Winning an election without popular support.
FPTP works great when there are only two political parties. The candidate with the most votes will always have the support of more than 50% of the voters. This was the case in Canada from 1872 to 1921.
Since then there have always been at least three parties in Canada and usually many more. With three evenly split parties an election can be won with just 34% of the popular vote. That means 66% of the voters did not prefer the winner! Something close to this happens regularly in Canada.
Strategic Voting as a demoralizer.
Strategic voting is when you vote for someone not because you prefer them but because you're afraid that someone whom you like even less will win the election.
This gives the voter a mental conflict: You want to vote, but you don't like who you will vote for, so why bother voting at all?
Forcing citizens to vote for someone they don't like is even a common tactic in totalitarian systems. It is used as a means to demoralize and control the citizens, detect dissent, and discredit democracy.
Election results don't match the popular vote.
In our most recent 2015 election the Liberal party won 54.4% of the seats, an absolute majority in the House of Commons, but only received 39.5% of the vote. And that 39.5% includes strategic voters who would have voted differently if they had a better voting system.
In the reverse problem, the Green party elected just 0.3% of the MPs but had 3.5% of the vote, gaining much less power than implied by their voting strength.
Having a better balance of voting results and political power will make our electoral system fairer.
We don't even know what the popular vote is.
Because of strategic voting some parties get more votes than they otherwise would, and some get less. The end result is that we don't really know how Canadians wanted to vote, we only know how they actually voted. This makes it impossible to use the vote totals in a Canadian election to determine the real popular vote.
Power gets excessively concentrated.
With FPTP, the governing party often has more MPs in the Commons than is warranted by their popular vote. This often results in a majority government that is able to pass any desired legislation even though much less than 50% of the citizens voted for the governing party.


Gelatin is slowly getting popular among health enthusiasts as it was only used for making products that taste good such as fruit gelatin, gelatin ice cream, etc. Gelatin is an animal derivative extracted from leftover body parts such as skin, bones, hooves, etc. Many individuals do not know about the real source of gelatin as they think it as a vegan product. Although there is a vegan alternative to gelatin i.e. Agar-Agar, it is quite specific and expensive when compared to animal-based gelatin. However, the demand for Agar-Agar is also increasing due to awareness about its health benefits among vegan consumers. Talking about the chemical aspect of gelatin and its benefits, the most common types of gelatin are collagen peptides or hydrolyzed gelatin. Gelatin usually contains 86 percent of protein which is quite high. The rest 14 percent of gelatin contains moisture and minerals.
Gelatin is the main ingredient in many confectioneries and pharmaceutical drugs. Both the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry are its biggest end-user industries. Apart from these two industries, the other end-user industries of gelatin include cosmetics industry, personal care products industry, and chemical industry. Apart from the different types of edible jellys and drugs, gelatin is used in manufacturing shampoos, thickeners, gelling agents and make-up products. The gelatin market report suggests that the industry is expected to show a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4-5 percent till 2020. The food industry being the biggest end-user of gelatin holds approximately 66 percent market share whereas pharmaceutical industry holds approximately 34 percent market share.
Global Gelatin Market Analysis:
The global gelatin market is quite huge and it is also fragmented and spread across various global regions. Being one of the biggest consumers of gelatin, the U.S. imports large volumes of gelatin which is used as a primary or secondary ingredient in industries such as food & beverages, pharmaceuticals, paper, and more. Being a net importer of gelatin, the U.S. fulfils its capacity additions from regions such as Brazil, France, and China. However, the pharmaceutical industry is increasing its consumption of gelatin and therefore, the demand for medical-grade gelatin is rising.
Due to such trends, the gelatin market is likely to grow at a CAGR of 2-3 percent in the coming years. The growth will increase the production of gelatin on a global level. The net production of gelatin is expected to reach 420 KT by 2020. The gelatin market is an ideal example where supply and demand go hand-in-hand. The global manufacturers of gelatin comprise of Gelita AG, Rousselot, Weishardt, Nitta Gelatin, PB Gelatins, Sterling Biotech, and Narmada Gelatins. All these players are also working towards increasing their capacities for a better output. In addition, these companies also own approximately 65-70 percent market share which provides leverage to the organizations. The same is the case with global pharmaceutical companies as they buy gelatin in large quantities that also does not leave much room for negotiation.
Global Gelatin Market Opportunities:
Gelatin is a food product that is going to be in high demand in the near future. This is a great opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs willing to start a business in this industry. The choice of the business model depends entirely on the entrepreneurs as they can either opt for a supply/outsourcing model or they can choose to manufacture gelatin. Gelatin can be supplied as a raw material to the small and medium-scale organizations that usually have medium-level demand on a regular basis. This is an ideal scenario for first-time entrepreneurs as they can take their time and understand the market, and then try to cater to the needs of the organizations gradually.
On the other hand, gelatin manufacturing can be started from a small setup that may be home-based or as basement startups and entrepreneurs can choose to manufacture flavored gelatin or fruit jello. Both business models have their dynamics and like any other business, it takes time to understand those. Entrepreneurs must consider aspects such as global market outlook, capacity outlook, supply-demand outlook, and industry best practices.
Another gelatin business model is vegan gelatin which is an innovative idea where the gelatin does not involve any animal product. This is a significant change in the global gelatin market which will drive the growth further and increase the customer base. Artificial gelatin derived from microbes through fermentation is another innovation pursued by specific organizations. However, this process is quite complicated as it requires a laboratory-like controlled environment.
Being a highly fragmented market, the global gelatin market is dominated by a few key players. However, new startups and organizations are entering the market and this is causing a positive disruption where new business ideas and manufacturing methods are taking place. This may not be considered an ideal scenario for the global market but continuous innovations and new ideas will certainly evolve the market for good


Exploring Our Connections To Jewish Life - Lesson Plan for Family/Congregational Education
This lesson plan is part of a larger guide entitled “Wrestling with God and Jewish Tradition.”
- Helène Aylon’s “Self-Portrait” from “The Digital Liberation of G-d.”
- Helène Aylon’s Artist's Statement
- Helène Aylon’s Biography
Helène Aylon’s self-portrait, artist's statement, and biography can also be viewed in their original context in JWA's online exhibit “Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.”
Notes to Teacher/Facilitator
In this session, participants will consider when and where we feel most connected to Judaism. With which environments, traditions, and texts do we connect? Are there environments, traditions, or texts that we feel less comfortable with? We will look at Helène Aylon’s artwork and discuss what it reflects about her feelings of connection with or estrangement from Judaism. Using Aylon’s technique of tracing over traditional text, we’ll create our own pieces of art to convey our unique experiences of connection with Jewish text and tradition, and share these within family/congregational groups.
- Helène Aylon’s “Self Portrait” image. You may want to project it onto a screen. If you do not have two projectors/screens, you may want to make printed copies for each participant to look at or for participants to share.
- White art paper (preferably 12x18 construction or drawing paper)
- Enlarged copies of blessings and phrases in Hebrew and English that you think your group might have strong connections with, such as:
- Shehechiyanu (a blessing giving thanks for reaching a long-awaited, joyous occasion)
- Birkat Hakohanim (the priestly blessing performed by Kohanim
- candle lighting blessings
- Havdalah blessings
- Shema (the Jewish prayer about the oneness of God)
- the first line of the Amidah (a prayer said during all of the Jewish worship services)
- blessings for those who are called to the Torah to have an aliyah
- the Hashkivenu paragraph from the evening (Maariv) service
- the Mourner’s Kaddish
- Nishmat Kol-Chai from the morning (Shacharit) service
- You can also find most of these prayers in the hard-copy of a siddur (prayer book). Additionally, the Open Siddur Project has many variations and translations of these prayers (and others), while Sefaria has online text of the Torah and other texts in the Jewish canon.
- Assorted art materials including markers, crayons, glue, colored paper, tissue paper, scissors, etc.
- black pencils or pens
Tell the Story of Jacob
Begin by telling the story of Jacob to all the participants, gathered in a comfortable space:
Once there was a man named Ya’akov. Ya’akov means “heel.” Who would name a child “heel?!” His parents named him Ya’akov because he was a twin, and he came out of the womb holding onto the heel of his brother, Esav. Ya’akov and Esav did not get along. They fought as kids, and as adults they were separated for many years. During those years, Ya’akov worked hard. He worked on his relationship with God. He worked on his relationship with people. He worked for his father-in-law, Lavan. He got married to Leah and Rachel and their two maidservants, Bilhah and Zilphah (it was ok to do that back in those days). He had twelve sons and a daughter.
After many years of working for Lavan, he wanted to journey back to his homeland. But he knew he would have to cross through the land where his brother, Esav, lived. He was scared. The night before he encountered his brother, he sent his family ahead of him and he was alone. That night he wrestled with a man until the break of day. As the dawn broke, the man asked Ya’akov what his name was. Ya’akov told him, and the man said, “Your name will no longer be Ya’akov, but Yisrael. Yisrael means ‘to wrestle with God’ for you have wrestled with God and with men.” The man was actually an angel, who blessed Yisrael. Yisrael called the name of the place “Peni’el” which means “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” The next day, Yisrael met Esav, and they made peace with each other.
Discuss the Story
Ask the following questions and take answers from both youth and adults:
- Why do you think God’s angel gave Ya’akov a new name?
- We have many ancestors, including three patriarchs and four matriarchs. Why are Jews called “Bnai Yisrael,” the Children of Yisrael, specifically?
- What does it mean to wrestle with God? Do you think a lot of people wrestle with God in one way or another?
Conclude the discussion by explaining:
- Ya’akov had a strong relationship with God, but also struggled with his responsibility as a human being in relationship to God. He began a long tradition of Jews being able to question and to struggle.
- Sometimes we struggle with our responsibilities as people in relationships, to ourselves, our family members, our communities, to Judaism, to our world, and to God.
- Other times we feel just right, comfortable with being Jewish, being ourselves, being in our families and communities and in our world.
- Today we’ll look at an artist who expresses her feelings of comfort and struggle, and then we’ll consider our own times of feeling most comfortable in Judaism, and finally we’ll use some of the artist’s techniques to create our own personal art projects on these themes.
Split the group into adults and youth, and facilitate the two groups separately.
Introduce Helène Aylon’s “Self-Portrait” from “The Digital Liberation of G-d.” Show the image on a large screen (or pass around handouts) so that everyone can see.
Ask the group what they see in the image, what feelings it elicits, and how they think this image speaks to Aylon’s sense of being comfortable with or not comfortable with Jewish tradition—or both. They might notice, for example, the expression on Aylon’s face, the Hebrew words flowing over her, the traditional religious dress and hair-covering, the title of the piece, as evidence of her stance as insider or outsider.
Now give the group the information on the artwork from Aylon’s statement and biography. You can view print-friendly versions of her statement and bio as well as visit them in their original context within JWA's online exhibit “Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution.”
- Then ask: Does this information change your sense of Aylon’s relationship to Judaism?
Other questions for discussion can include:
- How is Aylon expressing the struggle she feels?
- Is she withdrawing from, confronting, or advocating for change within Judaism?
- Is this artwork a respectful way of expressing the tension she feels about Jewish tradition?
- What is the effect of projecting the Biblical text onto herself?
Next split the adults into small groups. Facilitate the discussions by asking each question out loud in appropriate 1-2 minute intervals and asking groups to share with each other:
- When do you feel most connected to Judaism? (Maybe it’s when you light candles with your family; when you’re in Israel; anytime you’re with your extended family; when you’re doing volunteer work; it’s when you take your morning walk, etc.)
- What are the elements that make you feel most connected in this environment?
- Who/what did you feel connected to when you’re in this space or time: yourself? your family/friends? everyone in the world? God? Jewish history and ritual?
- How did you express that feeling of connection? Keep it to yourself? Tell your friends/family? Decide to keep more traditions or go back to that place more often?
- Have there been times when you have struggled with your Judaism or felt less comfortable being Jewish?
- If so, where were you at these times? Who were you with?
- Who/what did you feel alienated from: yourself? your community? your family? God? the long tradition of Jewish history and ritual?
- How did you express that sense of struggle?
When the groups are done sharing, ask them to think about how they might portray their relationship with Judaism in a piece of art, as they walk back to the big-group space.
Show Helène Aylon’s “Self-Portrait” from “The Digital Liberation of G-d”on a large screen (or pass around handouts) so that everyone can see.Ask students:
- What do you see in this image?
- Do you think she feels inside or outside of Jewish tradition, or both? Why? (Notice her expression, the Hebrew words pouring over her, her traditional religious dress and hair-covering…)
- Do you think Aylon is struggling with something about her Judaism? What is it?
- Does this information change your ideas about Aylon’s relationship with Judaism?
- What did Aylon have to know and understand in order to create this artwork? (Hebrew, Torah, how it feels to be an Orthodox Jewish woman, art, feminism, etc.)
Next split the youth into groups of two or three. Facilitate the small group discussions by asking each question out loud in appropriate 1-2 minute intervals and ask groups to share with each other:
- When do you feel most connected to Judaism? (Maybe it’s when you light candles with your family; when you’re in Israel or at camp; when you come to synagogue or when you’re outside on a hike, looking at all the beautiful scenery, etc.)
- What are the things that make you feel most connected in this environment?
- Who/what did you feel connected to when you’re in this space or time: yourself? your family/friends? everyone in the world? God? the long history of Jewish history and ritual?
- Are there times that you feel less connected to Judaism? What or when are those times?
When the groups are done sharing, ask them to think about how they might portray these ideas in a piece of art, as they walk back to the big-group space.
With everyone back together, ask participants to sit with their families (or in inter-generational groups of congregants) around tables with the art materials and copies of Jewish texts (examples are listed above). Ask them to keep their recent discussions in mind:
- When or where do they feel most connected Judaism?
- Do they sometimes struggle with elements of Judaism?
- What element of Jewish tradition or community would they like, someday, to feel more comfortable with?
Demonstrate/Explain the Process for the Art Project
- Draw on the paper either a self-portrait (an image of your face) or a scene that reminds you of the time/place you feel most connected to Judaism.
- Add other elements to the picture that symbolize that connectedness with Judaism. For example, you could add a havdalah candle to remind you of doing havdalah at camp or bricks that look like the Kotel in Israel or a Torah to represent your sanctuary at synagogue.
- Think about how you will represent, if you want to, something you struggle with in Judaism. You might use images, symbols, or text to show these.
- Choose a piece of text that you want to include in your self-portrait, either as a symbol of your connection to or struggle with Judaism. Think about your relationship to the text and how you can portray it in your artwork. To add text, use the copies of blessings and other texts, and either cut them out to add to your picture or copy them onto your artwork.
When participants have finished their artwork, ask families to share with each other what they have created. You may also choose to display the work in your classroom, school, or synagogue and encourage others to come and visit.
How to cite this page
Jewish Women's Archive. "Exploring Our Connections To Jewish Life - Lesson Plan for Family/Congregational Education." (Viewed on July 28, 2017) <https://jwa.org/teach/golearn/jan06/family>.


It was from Boston that the separatist congregation from Scrooby, some of whom were destined to become the Pilgrim Fathers, attempted to escape to Holland in 1607. They had embarked on a ship but were betrayed by the captain. A monument at Scotia Creek on the Haven commemorates the event. The men, including Richard Clifton, William Brewster and John Robinson were arrested, stripped of their possessions and imprisoned. They spent several weeks incarcerated in cells below the Guildhall, which now houses the Guildhall Museum in South Street. The cells where the future Pilgrims Originally can still be seen. Despite this setback, they managed to reach Holland the following year.


Unfortunately Alzheimer still makes its way into many lives and understanding its manifestations can really help us and the suffering people as well.
Old age is the most significant risk factor when it comes to Alzheimer disease. Some other factors include: the family history, especially if the disease appeared in 1st grade relatives such as mother, father, brothers and it appeared at several family members. Another factor is the presence of the E-4 gene especially in the white race or Asian people; another factor is the Down syndrome. This latter-mentioned syndrome is a genetic disease which determines the mental retardation. Another disease that may bring about Alzheimer is diabetes and the high glucose level.
There have been also some other theories regarding this disease, such as: smoking, cephalic lesions especially if they are sever; also, high levels of homocysteine in the blood very much favor Alzheimer. However, they do not know for sure the cause of the disease, but there are probably several causes for Alzheimer.
The first manifestation of Alzheimer is most often the loss of memory. Because of that, many elderly people start getting worried when they begin forgetting things. Nonetheless, it is a common thing for people aged 60-70 to have short term memory loss episodes, and only some of them may develop Alzheimer disease later on. In case of memory loss at this age, it is preferable to go to a specialist doctor.
Here are some examples of normal memory loss: forgetting some bits of the experienced life episodes; forgetting the place where the car was parked; forgetting the events of far away past; forgetting the name of a person, but which comes to mind later on; forgetting where one has put his/her things, like car keys for instance. So these may happen, and are not to worry us.
Here are some examples of Alzheimer caused memory loss: forgetting an entire episode of one’s experience; forgetting how to read the watch and how to drive a car; forgetting recent activities, such as leaving the cooker on; forgetting somebody completely. Alzheimer often comes with changes in behavior, thinking and personality. In the incipient stages of the disease, the person can act normally when being in society. It is the family members and the friends that first notice the disease symptoms. Thus, signs of dementia such as difficulties to think and concentrate, to remember certain things, persons or daily problems that need solving, should urge that person to go and see a specialist doctor. Symptoms may vary as the disease is progressing.
An Alzheimer disease association has identified ten warning signs. These include: memory loss, such as forgetting things recently learned, forgetting names or phone numbers. The second one is having difficulties in doing daily chords like cooking or even eating. There are also language difficulties such as forgetting certain unusual words. Also, another sign is the special-temporal disorientation or forgetting one’s own address. There can also be things like dressing improperly for the weather outside.
The Alzheimer struck patient can also have problems with abstract thinking, like the impossibility to interpret numbers. There can be some other warning signs like placing certain objects in unusual spots, like the toaster in the fridge, or the watch in the sugar bowl, and so on. There can also be changes in mood, from calm to crying and then to anger without any apparent reason. There can also be changes in personality, like confusion, fear of depending on someone else, suspicion, and others. There can also be a lack of initiative manifested through continuous sleepiness, watching TV all day long and refusal to do daily chords.
There are also some symptoms that can be present but not always, like firmly sustaining untrue beliefs, like the idea that somebody is stealing from another person; hallucinations; lack of interest in the surrounding activities or separation from friends and family; repeated activities without any clear purpose, such as opening and closing a bag, packing and unpacking clothes, repeating the same questions; verbal or physical aggression; the impossibility to control certain impulses, which leads to improper behavior. Alzheimer usually does not affect the fine motor capacity, for instance the ability to button or unbutton a shirt or using tools, neither does it affect the tactile sense.
Alzheimer can be prevented to a certain extent but this prevention has to start early, that is in the late twenties or early thirties when a healthy lifestyle should be adopted. Eating, moving and thinking healthy, using imagination and memory in a creative manner is a great way of improving our lives as well as preventing Alzheimer.


USS CROAKER (SS-246, later SSK-246)
Class: Gato Submarine
Length: 311 feet, 7 inches
Built as part of the effort to assemble a major submarine force just prior to and after the U.S. entry into World War II, USS Croaker was sent into the Pacific to wage a war of attrition against Japan's merchant marine and Navy. Croaker made six war patrols and attacked and sank a cruiser, four tankers, two freighters, an ammunition ship, two escort craft, and a minesweeper. Credited with eleven sinkings, with a total of 40,000 tons, Croaker's war career typifies the tremendous success of the submarine war against Japan.
At the end of the war Croaker returned to Groton, Connecticut, and participated in various submarine operations until stricken from the Navy Register in 1971. Displayed for years in Groton, Croaker was moved to Buffalo in 1988. Restored and open for tours, Croaker is part of the historic fleet at the Naval & Military Park, which includes the guided missile cruiser Little Rock and the destroyer The Sullivans.
1952 U.S. Navy Photograph
Return to the HNSA Home Page.


Financial decisions and planning can be a stressful topic for couples. A person can have deep feelings attached to money decisions. So the topic can feel very personal. The Prepare/Enrich material for couples doing premarital or marital education has a section on finances and focuses on financial goal setting. Separate worksheets are provided for the couple to complete and then share and discuss their goals. This can be informative but may not help a couple understand their different approaches or what may seem like opposing attitudes toward money. Evans and Kelsey in their book Strengths Based Marriage (2016) note research on “The Four Money Languages.”
Drivers — Drivers express love through the use of money in their lives. This can create an over dependence on money.
Analytics — Analytics use money to avoid problems. They are likely to be good financial planners. There can be a danger of becoming more focused on money than others.
Amiables — Amiables use their money to focus on relationships and people. They can lack discipline.
Expressives — Expressives use money to gain acceptance and admiration. This may be done to hide pain or insecurity.
A section on managing finances in the book Empowering Couples by Olson and Olson (2000) describe “Four Orientations Toward Money.”
Money as Status — view money as power
Money as Security — focuses on saving money
Money as Enjoyment — satisfaction is gained through spending
Money as Control — money is a way of keeping control over one’s life and independence from others
Understanding how money is viewed and what it means to your spouse can make a big difference in working together to plan the ways money is spent and saved in a household. Learning the personal story behind how your spouse views money can be revealing and help a couple to better work together. It is important to value and show respect to each person’s view of money and look for ways to live these values out in the relationship in some form. Money is a resource God has provided and learning to be a good steward of that resource can be a significant challenge.