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December 19, 2012
Jewish parent power tools can help kids cope with the tragedy at Sandy Hook and beyond
There’s been a lot of talk in the news about what to say to children about the massacre at Sandy Hook. A steady stream of experts attempting to provide some sort of parental protocol for addressing this unimaginable tragedy with our kids: Find out what our child knows before divulging too many details. Limit our kids’ exposure to scary news reports. Reassure them that they are safe and that the adults in their lives know how to keep them from harm’s way. But even the best advice seems to fall short in this case as it’s ultimately impossible for anyone – our children or ourselves - to make sense of that which doesn’t.
Thankfully, our rich Jewish tradition offers a unique set of resources to help us find our way over this most daunting of parental hurdles. The following Jewish Parent Power Tools – when embraced for all their worth – can help our children cope with the harsh realities of Sandy Hook while gearing them with strength, courage and compassion for the uncertain road ahead.
The Shema. "Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." The Shema is considered the most important prayer in the Jewish religion as it perfectly and succinctly reaffirms of our faith and connection with God twice a day. The news out of Newtown that our kids might have seen on the TV, Internet, and social media can make their world feel frightening and out of control. By saying the Shema, this sense of powerless is replaced by spirituality and belief in a higher power that will help guide and sustain them through good times and bad.
The Haggadah. The word haggadah means a storytelling. Sharing tales of overcoming hardship is part of our religion by design. The Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) at Emory University has shown this premise on a more scientific level. A long-term study by MARIAL’s found that children whose parents told family stories at the dinner table had significantly better coping skills than those whose parents did not. From Passover to Purim and everything in between, our Jewish narrative reassures our children of the power of perseverance and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.
Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World). Senseless acts of violence like that which occurred in Newtown confirm that our world is indeed in need of repair. Joining forces with our children to pick up litter in a park, volunteer in a soup kitchen, or doing other acts of Tikkun Olam can feel like our own little triumph over evil - a tiny step toward restoring that which was broken and tilting the balance scales toward good.
Tzedakah and Gemilut Chasadim (Acts of Loving Kindness). There’s no doubt that the school shootings in Newtown shake us to the core. But rather than focusing on the horror of what’s transpired, we should encourage our children (and ourselves) to channel our energies into feeling compassion for the families that were affected by this tragedies. Collecting Tzedakah or making cards for the students at Sandy Hook school can help facilitate this cognitive shift from fear to a much healthier compassion.
Jewish Courage. There is a beautiful Hebrew song based on the sage words of Rav Nachman of Breslov. Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar m’od v’ha-ikkar lo l’fahed klal. The world is a very narrow bridge, but the main thing is not to fear. “Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the overcoming of fear,” writes Rabbi Harold Kushner in his book Conquering Fear: Living Boldly in an Uncertain World. This is not to suggest that we encourage our kids to throw caution to the wind altogether. They should, of course, be sensible and vigilant. But then it’s time to move forward: Skipping into their classrooms, laughing with friends on the schoolyard, walking that inevitably narrow bridge with a zest for life and faith in the world’s ultimate goodness. Enjoy the journey together.
Sharon Duke Estroff is an award-winning educator and author of "Can I Have a Cell Phone for Hanukkah?" (Random House). Her parenting articles appear in over 100 publications including Parents, Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, Huffington Post and the Jerusalem Post. Her four children give her an endless supply of parenting fodder.
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In December 1963 part of the Šumava mountains (Bohemian Forest) with its interesting natural featurres and untouched surroundings was declared the Protected Landscape Area Šumava. It was one of the largest protected areas in Czechoslovakia at that time (1,630 square km). After the establishment of the National Park Šumava the area of the Protected Landscape Area Šumava was reduced to 1,003 square km.
The area of the Protected Landscape Area Šumava stretches from the town Nýrsko (on the west) to the village Frymburk (on the east).
Most of the significant and valuable nature interests of the original protected landscape area were included in the Zone I (most protected) of the new National Park Šumava. Well known and famous nature interests of the Protected Landscape Area Šumava are (e.g.) nature reserve Boubínský Prales (Boubín Forest), nature reserve Bílá Strž (White Flume) with the only waterfall in the Šumava mountains, nature reserve Černé a Čertovo Jezero (Black and Devil's Lakes), instructive trail Hamižná Hora (Greedy Hill), nature reserve Milešický Prales (Milešice Forest), etc.
The National Park Šumava was established in one of the part of the Protected Landscape Area Šumava in March 1991. It was founded for maintaining and improving the environment and for the protection and renewal of the functions of primary natural systems.
The National Park begins near the town Železná Ruda and includes Šumavské Pláně (Bohemian Forest's Plains). It then stretches along the Vltava river and Czech-Germany border to the small village Nová Pec, which lies at the beginning of the Lipno Dam. It also includes the highest peak of the Czech part of the Šumava mountains, Plechý mountain. Its area is 69,030 ha and it is the largest national park in Central Europe. The altitude of the national park is in range from 600 m (the valley of the Otava river near the small village Rejštejn) to 1,378 m a.s.l. (the top of Plechý mountain).
In Bavaria (region in Germany along the south-west German-Czech border) the National Park Bavarian Forest joins the National Park Šumava. The Protected Landscape Area Šumava, National Park Šumava and National Park Bavarian Forest comprise a consistent and in Europe unique nature unit which is protected by UNESCO (since 1990 it has been the Biospherical Reserve of UNESCO).
The park is divided into three protected zones and a few "wilderness areas".
The Zone I contains the most valuable areas - the most stable old-age forest growths and peatlands. These habitats are considered self supporting ecosystems. The tourists can go by tourist trails only, which are marked by red stripes and boards. The Zone II includes important areas of remaining woodlands and altered non-wooded areas, but human activities for keeping on of natural equanimity are permitted here. The Zone III is mainly used for tourism and recreation.
The "wilderness areas" contain valuable parts of national park comprising areas preserved from damage for benefit of protected animals or vegetation. The entrance is accessible by marked tourist trails.
A lot of small protected areas with places of the geological and geomorphological interest are in the national park (e.g.): Chalupská Slať peat-bog (Crip Fen), Buková Slať peat-bog (Beechen Fen), Modravské Slatě peat-bogs (Modrava Fens), prehistoric hillfort Obří Hrad, protected area with nature trail Povydří (Vydra Valley), Malá Niva peat-bog (Small Floodplain), Prameny Vltavy (Springs of the Vltava river), Stožec hill, nature reserve Trojmezná Hora, Tetřevská Slať (Capercaillie Fen) and many more.
The administration of the Protected Landscape Area and National Park Šumava is located in the town Vimperk. The separated stations are in the small town Kašperské Hory and in the village Horní Planá. Throughout all the national park there are a lot of information centres (with attendants or self-service with active notices).
All the park is interlaced by the web of tourist trails, bike trails and paths for cross-country skiing. They are well marked both in the country and on maps and they lead to some of the most gorgeous places of the Šumava mountains.
About 60 km long boating trails, mainly on the Otava and Vltava rivers, have good conditions for canoeing.
Visitors can use many instructional trails available throughout the Protected Landscape Area and National Park Šumava. The most well-known are Národní park (National Park), Medvědí Stezka (Bear Path), Chalupská Slať (Crip Fen), Boubínský Prales (Boubín Forest), Churáňov, Povydří (Vydra Valley), Hamižná Hora (Greedy Hill), etc.
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To close the high-tech gender gap, “encourage your daughters to play video games,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Dana Goldstein.
. . . childhood gaming and hacking experience has motivated many computer programmers to enter the field, including Sandberg’s boss, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The leap toward more advanced computing comes not only from playing games—today, 94 percent of girls are gaming, compared with 99 percent of boys—but in becoming curious about how they work and then beginning to tinker with code in order to modify game results. Boys are still much more likely than girls to explore this type of simple computer programming, and not every young girl who is curious about how computers work has an encouraging parent at home or the hardware she needs.
So it’s not just the gaming. It’s the tinkering. My nephew just got hired (first paying job out of college!!!) by a company that makes “pink market” fashion design games. Girls might learn about fashion design, but I don’t think they’ll learn programming. That’s Alan’s job. (He may know less about fashion than anyone on the planet.)
K-12 educators are trying to hook girls on the “computational thinking” that makes programming possible, writes Goldstein.
The Academy for Software Engineering, a public school whose curriculum will be built around computer programming and Web development, will open in New York City this September. Just one-quarter of the incoming freshman class is female, but the school’s founders, who are closely tied to the New York tech community, have ambitious plans for pairing female students with women mentors working in the field, in order to tamp down on attrition, direct girls into meaningful careers, and recruit more female students to the school in future classes.
In Pajaro Valley, Calif., south of Santa Cruz, researcher Jill Denner launched a program that teaches low-income Latina girls and boys, in gender-segregated classrooms, to create their own computer games.
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Nearly 400,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur annually in the United States and it’s the leading cause of death. Would you know what to do if someone suddenly went into cardiac arrest?
A local school feels it’s very important for their students to know what to do.
Regence and the American Heart Association have teamed up to teach students across the state of Idaho the essentials of CPR with these mannequins.
“We felt this was an important project for us to get involved in because we know that having more people know CPR can really save lives here in Idaho” said Scott Thompson, Media Relations Manager for Regence BlueShield of Idaho.
That’s because only 41% of people who experience cardiac arrest at home or in public, get the immediate help they need before emergency help arrives.
Regence and the American Heart Association are teaching 7th and 8th grade students how to perform CPR in hopes that they will be able to jump in and save someone’s life if needed.
“We feel that they have the physical capability and the mental capability to be able to do CPR, we don’t’ want to get kids too much younger because they wouldn’t necessarily have the physical strength to do it” continued Thompson.
Regence has even helped fund CPR kits the kids can take home and practice with.
“Yeah I’m really happy cuz then I can teach all my family members and I’m going to Denver for Thanksgiving and all my family is there so I’ll be able to teach all of them” said 8th grader Ian Whyte.
Over 375 students at eagle rock middle school have now received CPR training.
Part of the student’s homework is to go home and teach at least 5 other people how to perform CPR.
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When MIT cognitive scientist Deb Roy decided that he wanted to know how his infant son picked up language day-to-day as he developed, he went a little further than most. Rather than observe what he could, he decided that the best course of action would be to observe everything, and so he set up fish-eye cameras in every room of his house in order to document how his son dealt with and learned language.
For five years, starting from the very day the newborn baby was brought home from the hospital, the activity in each room was recorded and logged, and over 200 terabytes (200,000 gigabytes) of data subsequently parsed in order to understand how words developed from incoherent gagas and coos to concrete words like “water” and “ball”.
The talk, entitled “Birth of a Word”, is well worth watching for anybody interesting in linguistic development. Some of the technology used is unbelievably impressive.
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hannibal epic poet virgil poem latin time historic subject century
SILIUS ITALICUS, a Latin epic poet, was born in 25 and died in 101 A.D. His birthplace is unknown. From in the latter half of the 1st century. The conjecture that in inscriptions from Sicily and elsewhere. In early life Silius was a renowned forensic orator, later a safe and cautious politician, without ability or ambition enough to be legitimately obnoxious to the cruel rulers under whom he lived. But mediocrity was hardly an efficient protection against the murderous whims of Nero, and Silius was generally believed to have secured at once his own safety and his promotion to the consulship by putting his oratorical powers to discreditable use in the judicial farces which often ushered in the doom of the emperor's victims. He was consul in the year of Nero's death (69), and is mentioned by Tacitus as having been one of two witnesses who were present at the conferences between Vitellius and Flavius Sabinus, the elder brother of Vespasian, when the legions from the East were marching rapidly on the capital. The life of Silius after his consulship is well depicted by the younger Pliny: - " He conducted himself wisely and courteously as the friend of the luxurious and cruel Vitellius ; he won repute by his proconsulship of Asia, and obliterated by the praiseworthy use he made of his leisure the stain he had incurred through his active exertions in former days. In dignity and contentment, avoiding power and therefore hostility, he outlived the Flavian dynasty, keeping to a private station after his governorship of Asia." His poem contains only two passages relating to the Flavians ; in both Domitian is eulogized as a warrior ; in one he figures as a singer whose lyre is sweeter than that of Orpheus himelf. Silius had evidently little 'taste for bowing down in the house of Rimmon, and refrained from using the many opportunities which his epic afforded for humouring the vanity of the imperial house. He was a great student and patron of literature and art, and a passionate collector. Two great Romans of the past, Cicero and Virgil, were by him idealized and veritably worshipped; and he was the happy possessor of their estates at Tuscultun and Naples. The later life of Silius was passed on the Campanian shore, hard by the tomb of Virgil, at which he offered the homage of a devotee. He closely emulated the lives of his two great heroes ; the one he followed in composing epic verse, the other in debating philosophic questions with his friends of like tastes. Among these was Epictetus, who judged him to be the most philosophic spirit among the Romans of his time, and Cornutus, the Stoic, rhetorician, and grammarian, who appropriately dedicated to Silius a commentary upon Virgil. Though the verse of Silius is not wrapped in Stoic gloom like that of Lucan, yet Stoicism lends in many places a not ungraceful gravity to his poem. Silius was one of the numerous Romans of the early empire who had the courage of their opinions, and carried into perfect practice the theory of suicide adopted by their school. Stricken by an incurable disease, he starved himself to death, keeping a cheerful countenance to the end.
Whether Silius committed to writing his philosophic dialogues or not, we cannot say. Chance has preserved to us his epic poem entitled Punica, in seventeen books, and comprising some fourteen thousand lines. The epics of Silius, Lucan, Statins, and Valerius ' Flaccus are but a few waifs carried down to us by the wandering stream of time from the vast mass of post-Virgilian epics. Long before Silius bethought himself of hill epic all possible historical and mythological themes had been worn to tatters by these poets. In choosing the Second Punic 1Var for his subject, Silius had, we know, many predecessors, as lie doubtless had many followers. From the time of Nmvius onwards every great military struggle in which the Romans had been engaged had found its poet over and over again, lu justice to Silius and 'mean, it should be observed that the mythologic poet had a far easier task than the historic. In a well-known passage Petronius pointedly describes the difficulties of the historic theme. A poet, he said, who should take upon him the vast subject of the civil wars would break down beneath the burden unless he were "full of learning," since he would have not merely to record facts, which the historians did much better, but must possess an unshackled genius, to which full course must be given by the use of digressions, by bringing divine beings on to the stage, and by giving generally a mythologic tinge to the subject. The Latin laws of the historic epic were fixed by Eunius, and were still binding when Claudian wrote. They were never seriously infringed, except by Lucan, who substituted for the dci ex inachina of his predecessors the vast, dim, and imposing Stoic conception of destiny. By protracted applica- tion, and being (to use the significant phrase of Petronins) " full of learning," Silius had acquired excellent recipes for every ingredient that went to the making of the conventional historic epic. Though he is not named by Quintilian, he is probably hinted at in the mention of a class of poets who, as the writer says, " write to show their learning." To seize the moments in the history, however unimportant, which were capable of picturesque treatment ; to pass over all events, however important, which could not readily be rendered into heroics ; to stuff out the somewhat modern heroes to something like Homeric proportions ; to subject all their movements to the passions and caprices of the Olympians; to ransack thepoetry of the past for incidents and similes on which a slightly new face might be put ; to foist in by well-worn artifices episodes, however strange to the subject, taken from the mythologic or historic glories of Rome and Greece, - all this Silius knew how to do, as he knew his own fingers and nails. Ile did it all with the languid grace of the inveterate connoisseur, and with a simplicity foreign to his time, which sprang in part from cultivated taste and horror of the venturesome word, and in part from the subdued tone of a life which had come unscathed through the reigns of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. The more threadbare the theme, and the more worn the machinery, the greater the need of genius. Two of the most rigid requirements of the ancient epic were abundant similes and abundant single combats. But all the obvious resemblances between the actions of heroic man and external nature had long been worked out, while for the renovation of the single combat little could be done till the hero of the Homeric type was replaced by the mediaeval knight. Silius, however, had perfect poetic appreciation, with scarce a trace of poetic creativeness. No writer has ever been more correctly and more uniformly judged by contemporaries and by posterity alike. Only the shameless flatterer, Martial, ventured to call his friend a poet as great as Virgil. But the younger Pliny gently says that he wrote poems with greater diligence than talent, and that, when, according to the fashion of the time, he recited them to his friends, "he sometimes found out what men really thought of them." It is indeed strange that the poem lived on. Sinus is never mentioned by ancient writers after Pliny except Sidonius, who, under different conditions and at a much lower level, was such another as he. Since the discovery of Silius by Poggio, no modern enthusiast has arisen to sing his praises, and in the last sixty years he has found no editor, even for his text. Eighteenth-century editors, at a time when modern Silii were numerous in the field of literature and more fashionable than they have been since, found in the Punica passages not unworthy of comparison with the Henriade, and thought that Silius did not disgrace Virgil ; but even such gentle commendation is not likely to be repeated again. Yet, by the purity of his taste and his Latin in an age when taste was fast becoming vicious and Latin corrupt, by his presentation to us of a type of a thousand vanished Latin epics, and by the historic aspects of his subject, Silius merits better treatment from scholars than he has received. The general reader lie can hardly interest again. He is indeed of imitation all compact, and usually dilutes what he borrows ; lie may add a new beauty, but new strength he never gives. Hardly a dozen lines anywhere are without an echo of Virgil, and there are frequent admixtures of Lucretius, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Homer, Hesiod, and many other poets still extant. If we could reconstitute the library of Silius we should probably find that scarcely an idea or a phrase in his entire work was wholly his own.
The raw material of the Punica was supplied in the main by the third decade of Livy, though Silius may have consulted other historians of the Hannibalic war. Such facts as are used are generally presented with their actual circumstances unchanged, and in their historic sequence. The spirit of the Punic times is but rarely misconceived, - as when to secret voting is attributed the election of men like Flaminius and Varro, and distinguished Romans are depicted as contending in a gladiatorial exhibition. Silius clearly intended the poem to consist of twenty-four books, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, but after the twelfth lie hurries in visible weariness to the end and concludes with seventeen. The general plan of the epic follows that of the Iliad and the Eneid. Its theme is conceived as a duel between two mighty nations, with parallel dissensions among the gods. Scipio and Hannibal are the two great heroes who take the place of Achilles and Hector on the one hand and of /Eneas and Turnus on the other, while the minor figures are all painted with Virgilian or Homeric pigments. In the delineation of character our poet is neither very powerful nor very consistent. His imagination was too weak to realize the actors with distinctness and individuality. His Hannibal is evidently at the outset meant for an incarnation of cruelty and treachery, the embodiment of all that the vulgar Roman attached to the name " Punic." But in the course of the poem the greatness of Hannibal is borne in upon the poet, and his feeling of it betrays itself in many touches. Thus he names Scipio "the great Hannibal of Ansonia" ; he makes Juno assure the Carthaginian leader that if fortune bad only permitted him to be born a Roman he would have been admitted to a place among the gods ; and, when the ungenerous monster of the first book accords in the fifteenth a splendid burial to Marcellus, the poet cries, " You would fancy it was a Sidonian chief who had fallen." Silius deserves little pity for the failure of his attempt to make Scipio an equipoise to Hannibal and the counterpart in personal prowess and prestige of Achilles. He becomes in the process almost as mythical a figure as the mediaeval Alexander. The best drawn of the minor characters are Fabius Cunctator, an evident copy of Lucau's Cato, and Paullus, the consul killed at Cannu, who fights, hates, and dies like a genuine man.
Clearly it was a matter of religion with Silius to repeat and adapt all the striking episodes of Homer and Virgil. Hannibal must have a shield of marvellous workmanship like Achilles and Eneas ; because Eneas descended into Hades and had a vision of the future history of Rome, so must Scipio have his revelation from heaven ; Trebia, choked with bodies, must rise in ire like Xanthus, and be put to flight by Vulcan ; for Virgil's Camilla there must be an Asbyte, heroine of Saguntum ; the beautiful speech of Euryalus when Nisus seeks to leave him is too good to be thrown away, - furbished up a little, it will serve as a parting address from Imilce to her husband Hannibal. The descriptions of the numerous battles are made up in the main, according to epic rule, of single combats - wearisome sometimes in Homer, wearisome oftener in Virgil, painfully wearisome in Silius. The different component parts of the poem are on the whole fairly well knit together, and the transitions are not often needlessly abrupt ; yet occasionally incidents and episodes are introduced with all the irrelevancy of the modern novel. A son of Regulus escapes from Thrasymene to a hut, merely to find there an old servant of his father, and to afford him the opportunity of telling over again the tale of the first war against the Carthaginians. To give scope for a eulogy of Cicero, an ancestor of his fights at Canoe, and strong devices sometimes usher in such stories as the judgment of Paris and the choice of Hercules. The interposition of the gods is, however, usually managed with dignity and appropriateness.
As to diction and detail, we miss, in general, power rather than taste. The metre rims on with correct smooth monotony, with something always of the Virgilian sweetness, though attenuated, but nothing of the Virgilian variety and strength. The dead level of literary execution is seldom broken by a rise into the region of genuine pathos and beauty, or by a descent into the ludicrous or the repellent. There are few absurdities, but the restraining force is trained perception and not a native sense of humour, which, ever present in Homer, not entirely absent in Virgil, and sometimes finding grim expression in Liman, fails Silius entirely. The address of Anna, Dido's sister, to Juno compels a smile. Though deified on her sister's death, and for a good many centuries already an inhabitant of heaven, Anna meets Juno for the first time on the outbreak of the Second Punic War, and deprecates the anger of the queen of heaven for having deserted the Carthaginians and attached herself to the Roman cause. Hannibal's parting address to his child is also comical : he recognizes in the "heavy wailing" of the year-old babe " the seeds of rages like his own." But Silius might have been forgiven for a thousand more weaknesses than lie has if in but a few things lie had shown strength. The grandest scenes in the history before him fail to lift him up ; his treatment, for example, of Hannibal's Alpine passage falls immensely below Lucan's vigorous delineation of Cato's far less stirring march across the African deserts.
But in the very weaknesses of Silius we may discern merit. He at least does not try to conceal defects of substance by contorted rhetorical conceits and feebly forcible exaggerations. In his ideal of what Latin expression should be he comes near to his contemporary Quintilian, and resolutely holds aloof from the tenor of his age. Perhaps his want of success with the men of his time was not wholly due to his faults. His self-control rarely fails him ; it stands the test of the horrors of war, and of Venus working her will on Hannibal at Capua. The reader of Statists and even Propertius will be thankful for the rarity of recondite epithets, such as " Rhcetean destiny," " Garamantian standards," "Lagean river," " Smyrnwan strings." Only a few passages here and there betray the true silver Latin extravagance, as when Hannibal is compared for speed to a tigress reft of her cubs, which darts forth and in a few hours traverses the Caucasus, and with a " winged " leap flies across the Ganges ; or when the Carthaginians after Capua launch their spears but are too enervated 0 snake them whiz ; or when the plague-stricken and faminewasted men of Syracuse hide their diminished faces far within their helmets, and carefully shade their pallor lest hope should arise for the enemy. In the avoidance of rhetorical artifice and epigrammatic antithesis Silius stands in marked contrast to Liman. Yet he can be pointed ; so of Fabius, " laudum cladumque quieta Mente capax "; and of Semvola, " Aspera semper amans et par cuicumque periclo"; and of Africa,"Altrix bellorum bellatorumque virorura Tellus, nec fidens nudo sine fraudibus ensi." Looking at Silius merely as a poet he may not deserve high praise ; but, as he is a unique specimen and probably the best of a once numerous class, the preservation of his poem among the remains of Latin literature is a fortunate accident.
The poet's full name, Ti. Catius Silius Italicus, is preserved in an inscription (C. I. L., vl. 1984). The poem was discovered in a MS., possibly at Constance, by Poggio, in 1416 or 1417 ; from this now lost MS. all existing MSS., which belong entirely to the 15th century, are derived. A valuable MS. of the 8th or 9th century, found at Cologne by L. Carrion in the latter part of the 16th century, disappeared soon after its discovery. Two editiones principes appeared at Rome In 1471 ; the principal editions since have been those of Ileinsius (1600), Drakenborch (1717), and Ernesti (Leipsie, 1791). A useful variorum edition is that of Lemaire (Paris, 1823). The recent lucubrationes on Silius are mostly small pamphlets, enumerated by Engelmann (Bibl. Script. Class., 1878). (J. S. IL)
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Question: What are the symptoms of a 'specific' phobia?
Answer: Specific phobia is characterized by avoidance and anxiety. People avoid what they're scared of or they endure it with great anxiety, and the anxiety that they experience is excessive. All of this avoidance and anxiety then interferes with their life and their normal functioning.
Typical specific phobias include the fear of heights, the fear of snakes, sometimes the fear of public speaking or fear of airplanes. But very often if people experience some anxiety, and they don't avoid it, it's normal and not considered a phobia.
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| 0.962884 | 124 | 2.90625 | 3 |
What is Shutter Speed?
Shutter Speed is essentially how quickly the shutters open and closes over the opening in your camera, and controls how long the light is allowed to hit your camera sensor. Shutter speed is usually measured in seconds or fractions of a second for example 1/50 or 1/600. The smaller the number, the longer the shutters are open for. The larger the number, the faster the shutter closes.
What does that actually do?
The main reason for changing shutter speed when getting more creative with your photos is to control how motion is captured. For example, if you wanted to freeze the motion so the subject is caught perfectly without blurring, you would use a faster shutter speed. If you want to show the motion through blurring, then use a slower shutter speed .
Shutter Speed 1/1000
What Shutter Speed should I use?
This really depends on whether you want to freeze the action or have motion blur. Most of the time when photographing children, we are looking at ways to stop motion blur by making sure we have a high enough shutter speed, so here is some examples for stopping unintentional blur.
If you child is nice and still, you can use a lower shutter speed of around 1/125
For photographing children who are playing but in one place, aim for shutter speeds of around 1/200.
For children playing running around, aim for shutter speeds of at about 1/500.
For playing sports, aim ever higher, at about 1/1000
If you do ever want to try and show motion blur, please note that it should look intentional - and there is a specific skill to this! You want the movement to be the only blurry part of the image - this generally involves using a tripod, so is not something I do much with a toddler running around! You are probably looking at shutter speeds of around 1/8 to 1/60 depending on what you are trying to capture.
Anything else I should know?
You can get motion blur just by your movement with the camera, even if you think you are perfectly still! A good rule of thumb to ensure you don't get unintentional motion blur by just holding the camera is to use a higher number than the focal length of your lens for your shutter speed. For example if you were using a 50mm lens, you need to use a shutter speed of at least 1/60. If you are using a 85mm focal length, then you need to use a shutter speed of at least 1/100. However, I normally go higher than this (I have shaky hands!)
Shutter Speed 1/250
Getting to know Shutter Speed: Your Turn!
It's not quite as easy to play around with shutter speed as it is with Aperture, as there are different techniques depending on the result you want to achieve but this post really isn't about that - more about experimenting with Shutter Speed so you can see the affect it has on your photos and on the other camera settings.
When your kids are out playing, dancing or generally causing mayhem, get out your camera and set it to Shutter Priority (Tv) and choose a high shutter speed, I'd say around 1/1250. This will pretty much freeze all motion. Keep lowering your shutter speed and firing away, and you'll see that you start to get bits of the picture of out of focus, for example a hand or foot - that's motion blur coming into play. As you get down to the lower numbers, they will pretty much be a blurry mess. When you are moving through the range of shutter speeds, keep an eye on how this affects your other settings. (If you do want to play around to try to get intentional motion blur, the trick is to keep the camera completely still, as this will ensure that the setting is sharp, but the kids are blurry. You'll definitely need a tripod for this, or at least anchor the camera in some way, like on a table or fence)
The following photos are of bubbles coming out of Callum's favorite new toy - The Bubble Gun -but taken at different shutter speeds. The first is taken at such a slow shutter speed that I've captured the path of light shining of each bubble as it goes through the air. In the second, I've used a fast shutter speed so you can see each individual bubble.
Shutter Speed 1/13
Shutter Speed 1/2000 (it really didn't need to be this high!)
I hope that helps you understand Shutter Priority mode on your camera a little better. Playing around with it might seem like a waste of time, but if you aren't yet comfortable shooting on anything but Auto, it's great practice for learning to shoot Manual (which is where this is all slowly heading!)
P.S There are so many ways to get creative with motion blur that I am actually going to direct you to another sit to see some examples. Go to Cambridge in Color where they have a great tutorial on uses of different shutter speeds and techniques if you want to take it a step further - and I will be looking at ideas for use of creative motion blur in future posts!
Other Posts You Might Like:
Getting Creative With Aperture
How to Photograph Children: Camera Settings
A Quick Tutorial on Camera Exposure
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An epicanthal fold is skin of the upper eyelid -- from the nose to the inner side of the eyebrow -- that covers the inner corner (canthus) of the eye.
The presence of an epicanthal fold is normal in people of Asiatic descent. An epicanthal fold is also common in children with Down syndrome. Epicanthal folds may also be seen in young children of any race before the bridge of the nose begins to elevate.
Epicanthal folds may be normal for people of Asiatic descent and some non-Asian infants. However, it may also be due to certain medical conditions, including:
There is usually no home care needed.
When to Contact a Medical Professional
This trait is usually found before or during the first well-baby exam. Call your health care provider if you notice epicanthal folds on your child's eyes and the reason for their presence is unknown.
What to Expect at Your Office Visit
The health care provider will obtain a medical history and will perform a physical examination.
Medical history questions documenting epicanthal folds in detail may include the following:
- Family history
- Are any family members affected with Down syndrome or other genetic disorder?
- Is there any family history of mental retardation or birth defects?
- What other symptoms or abnormalities are also present?
A child who is not Asian and is born with epicanthal folds may be examined for additional signs of Down syndrome or other genetic disorders.
Neil K. Kaneshiro, MD, MHA, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. © 1997-
A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.
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A recent report claims that highly treated sewage is just as safe as drinking water, at times even safer.
Recycling has gained momentum over the last few decades. Everything from jogging tracks to coffee warmers are being constructed from reconstituted trash. In a report released on Tuesday, the National Research Council has set its sights on a new wasted resource: sewage.
As the US population increases, water supplies are becoming scarce, especially in arid regions like the Southwest. "Wastewater is a drought-proof supply. People are always generating wastewater," Jorg Drewes, a water expert who contributed to the report, told the Los Angeles Times. "That can be a very viable option, the committee felt, compared to imported water and other options."
The use of treated wastewater has been around for a while, although local residents might not know of the practice or how it finds its way into their household taps. Just east of Las Vegas, Lake Mead is the country’s largest reservoir and provides water to a large portion of the Southwest. It’s also the home to all of Las Vegas’s treated sewage.
As unsettling as that may sound, the panel’s 346-page report increasingly leaned towards such options, contrary to a previous recommendation from the research council. In 1998, the council claimed that treated wastewater should only be incorporated into drinking supplies as “an option of last resort,” reports the Times.
"We have more operation experience on potable reuse projects in the country and we have a much better understanding of the risk," Drewes said. For the study, the panel analyzed samples of tap water and aquifers partly filled with treated sewage, testing for pathogens and 24 chemicals. It found that water with treated sewage was no more dangerous than tap water, and in terms of pathogens, could even be safer.
Although many communities implement wastewater for irrigation and industrial processes, the report states that almost half of the wastewater produced goes to waste, according to USA Today. The US generates 32 billion gallons of wastewater daily, 12 billion of which is redirected to oceans or estuaries. If processed for reuse, this discarded wastewater would account for 6% of America’s total daily usage.
"We flush it down the toilet, literally," Olga Naidenko, a researcher at the non-profit Environmental Working Group, told USA Today. “We have to do something.”
By mail.com Editor Will Cade
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The invention of the Chicken McNugget
A pile of McDonalds Chicken McNuggets.
You might not think chicken nuggets needed to be invented. Whether you buy the McNuggets from McDonald's or the freezer pack variety from the grocery store, the concept is the same. But mass producing the nuggets for storage and transport wasn't easy at first.
"You have to have all this chopped up chicken junk and be able to coat it and have it not all fall apart. And be able to freeze it and store it... That takes some complicated engineering," says Atlantic editor Jordan Weissmann, who looked into the nugget's history when former McDonald's CEO Fred Turner died last week. Turner championed the McNugget during his tenure at the company, along with drive-through windows and Egg McMuffins.
In the 1970s, McDonald's was looking for a chicken product, as consumers learned more about cholesterol and began turning away from beef. What they may have found was the research of Cornell poultry scientist, Robert Baker.
"He would find ways to make chicken hash, chicken meatloaf, just different ways to expand the market for poultry," which, Weissmann says, wasn't that large in the 1970s. "One of his innovations was this thing called the chicken stick."
The chicken stick is a likely predecesror to today's nuggets, and an unusual story in today's patent-obsessed corporate world. Baker distributed his research for free to hundreds of companies in the form of short bulletins.
"He never patented any of his work," says Weissman. "He gave it away with the idea of expanding the chicken market."
Years later, as McDonald's developed a chicken product, they were looking for something "like a French fry, in chicken form," according to Weissman. "This academic research had sort of infiltrated its way through the industry; it permeated it."
McDonald's might have arrived at a freezable fried chicken product on its own, with a push from the market. But one cannot imagine that Baker's research, if done today, would not have been patented.
"At one point research was kind of meant to feed this collective pool of knowledge, of know-how that an economy had," Weissmann says. "In a lot of instances, you don't need strong patent laws to encourage people to invent."
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441 Section 201
Sample inputs for LINGO for absorptivity example.
|Online Course Material
LINGO is a higher level language from which you can use Linear programming. The LP model is typically formulated in more general terms with access to data files containing for example, the requirements or availablities of raw materials and sets of variables etc. Examples throught the HELP function may be useful. Please note that there is some careful syntax to trip you up. Each `line' (say a constraint or the objective function) ends with a semicolon ;
and you can embed comments using !comment here between exclamation and semicolon; Also multiplication is expressely done with * key and is not implicit as in LINDO. Many other pitfalls as well. Good luck.
!a=(best guessof) concentration of adenine in sample;
!c=(best guessof) concentration of cytosine in sample;
!g=(best guessof) concentration of guanine in sample;
!t=(best guessof) concentration of thiamine in sample;
!u=(best guessof) concentration of uracil in sample;
!guess(wavelength)=absorptivity predicted by choices for a,c,g,t,u;
!error(wavelength) is greater than or equal to |guess(wavelength)-abssample(wavelength|;
!diff is greater than equal to all errors and, because we are minimizing,it will end up as;
!min |guess(wavelength)-abssample(wavelength)| over all wavelengths;
wavelength / 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330/: abssample,
absa, absc, absg, abst, absu, guess, error;
@for(wavelength(j): [guessabs] absa(j)*a+absc(j)*c+absg(j)*g
@for(wavelength(j): [onediff] -error(j)+guess(j)< abssample(j));
@for(wavelength(j): [otherdiff] error(j)+guess(j)> abssample(j));
@for(wavelength(j): [finalerror] diff-error(j)>0);
I had the excel file absorptivity.xls in the Z drive. When accessinging it in LINGO, the file must be closed. I had some challenges getting the name correct. I suspect a more generic access to the spreadsheet is possible but giving the specific locations `B2-B13' worked.
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| 0.790383 | 562 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Definition of Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP)
Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP): A life-threatening disease involving embolism and thrombosis (plugging) of the small blood vessels in the brain and kidneys and other organs. It is most commonly caused by inhibition of the enzymes ADAMTS13 which normally serves to break up a blood protein called Von Willebrand Factor into smaller pieces. TTP is characterized by platelet microthrombi (tiny traveling clots composed of platelets, the clotting cells in the blood), thrombocytopenia (lack of platelets), hemolytic anemia (from the breakup of red blood cells), fever, renal (kidney) abnormalities and neurologic changes such as neurological signs such as aphasia, blindness, and convulsions.
TTP is fortunately rare. It occurs at a rate of 3.7 cases per year per million persons. Plasma exchange (running blood through a machine to which patient is connected to remove the plasma- or fluid portion of the blood and returning it mixed with fresh plasma from donors and other fluids) has greatly reduced the death rate in this disorder. The mortality (death) rate for promptly treated cases ranges from 10 to 20 percent as compared to 90% before plasma exchange was used.
Many drugs have been associated with TTP. One is the antiplatelet drug clopidogrel (Plavix).
Last Editorial Review: 9/20/2012
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
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Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE!
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| 0.925941 | 358 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Definition of Reportable disease
Reportable disease: A disease that must be reported to federal, state, or local health officials when diagnosed.
Last Editorial Review: 3/19/2012
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
Need help identifying pills and medications?
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE!
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| 0.826446 | 74 | 2.71875 | 3 |
: the cavity beneath the junction of the arm or anterior appendage and shoulder or pectoral girdle containing the axillary artery and vein, a part of the brachial plexus of nerves, many lymph nodes, and fat and areolar tissue; especially:armpit
Next Word in the Dictionary: axillant Previous Word in the Dictionary: axil All Words Near: axilla
Seen & Heard
What made you want to look up axilla? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
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(programming) The memory storage area that holds data types, such as integers and strings, or an array of integers. The data structures associated with drivers are used as buffers for holding data being moved between user data space and the device, as flags for indicating error device status, as pointers to link buffers together, and so on.
a collection of values. Different kinds of data structures are organized and accessed in different ways. Icon structures are records, lists, sets, and tables.
an arrangement of slots which can be filled with information
a structure designed to organize data
A widget for which Sun WorkShop Visual generates a typedef for a data structure, and a creation procedure that sets up that type of structure and returns a pointer to it.
The UCC and EAN numbering structures defined in the various lengths required for the different identification purposes which all share a hierarchical composition. Their composition blends the needs of international control with the needs of the users.
a representation in computer records of facts, rules, etc. organized in a special way to allow intelligent manipulation of the data structures by computer programs to facilitate recording new facts, making inferences, arriving at conclusions, etc. about the real world.
Describes how data is arranged in the structure.
Contiguous memory used to hold an ordered collection of fields of different types. Any API usually defines several data structures. The most common data structure in the DDI/DKI is the buf_t.
The EAN.UCC System data structures defined in the various lengths required for the different identification purposes, which all share a hierarchical composition. Their composition blends the needs of international control with the needs of the user.
Data structures are the mechanism used to pass information between the Digital UNIX kernel and device driver interfaces.
From The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification ( 2002-04-16) A hierarchical description of a set of data elements. A data set can be described according to its data structure. P3P1.0 defines a set of basic datastructures that are used to describe the data sets in the P3P base data schema.
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Australians celebrate public holidays throughout the year. Some are religious holidays, some are commemorations, others are just an excuse to party and enjoy the sunshine. This article contains information about national public holidays and links to details about State-observed public holidays.
Australians and Public Holidays
Australians love public holidays. We have about 10 of them each year. Some, like Christmas and Easter, are religious. Others, like Anzac Day, commemorate our history. Others, like Australia Day, are celebrations. And if we’re honest, there are one or two we’re not even sure what they’re about any more, but there’s no way we’re going to give them up!
While some public holidays are national, others are state specific. That means just because the people of Victoria are having a day off for the Melbourne Cup, doesn’t mean the people of Brisbane or Perth are also having the day off (although the Cup is called “the race that stops the nation” and is a kind of unofficial public holiday throughout the country).
For a full and current list of holidays and when they are, check out the state-by-state list of Australian public holidays on the Australian Government website.
National Public Holidays
Australia’s national public holidays are set by the Federal Government.
Held on January 26 every year to mark the anniversary of Captain Cook’s First Fleet arrived in Australia in 1788, it is a national day of celebration.
Held on April 25 each year, Anzac Day commemorates the disastrous Gallipoli landing during World War One, which saw many Australians killed in battle. It has become a national day of remembrance for all conflicts and is very seriously observed. One of the ways this day is observed is with something called a “dawn service”, which involves commemorative services held at war memorials throughout Australian communities as the sun rises.
New Year’s Day
Obviously, this is held on January 1 each year.
A religious holiday observed nationally, despite not all Australians being of the Christian faith. Date varies in accordance with the religious calendar
Similarly, a Christian religious holiday held on the Monday following Good Friday.
Celebrated on December 25 each year, Christmas is a Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ. It’s not observed by all Australians, but everyone gets the day off.
The day after Christmas each year – December 26.
Visit our Life in Australia section for more articles related to Daily Life in Australia.
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| 0.954012 | 529 | 3.140625 | 3 |
It’s National Quiche Lorraine Day!
Quiche Lorraine has become a classic staple of French cuisine. However, its origin is known to be Germany—specifically, Lothringen—in1586. It is recorded to appear at the court of Charles the 3rd, Duke of Lorraine.
The French renamed the town Lorraine. The word quiche—as French as it may sound—is actually derived from the German word for cake, kuchen. (If you’re interested in linguistic evolution or word origins, this is from Wikipedia: “The Lorraine Franconian dialect of the German language is historically spoken in much of the region, where German Kuchen, “cake”, was first altered to “küche”. Typical Alemannic changes unrounded the ü (/y/) and shifted the fricative “ch” (/ç/) to “sh” ([ʃ]), resulting in “kische”, which in standard French orthography became spelled “quiche.” Got that?)
The original recipe consisted of eggs, cream, bacon, and bread dough for the crust. Later on, the French brought it up a notch in sophistication by exchanging the bread-dough crust for a flakier pastry crust. Cheese was also added later.
Quiche became popular in the U.S. in the 1950s with the widespread introduction of French cuisine in the home, and this was when the notion that “real men don’t eat quiche” was born. Why? Probably because quiche was, and is, often a lunch or main entree dinner option, alongside a salad or perhaps some soup. Women seem to be satisfied with this kind of meal. Men aren’t. Or weren’t. Now that men (in some places and circles) have moved away from that big meat-and-potatoes-with-lots-of-gravy-and-biscuits kind of diet, they are more open to lighter fare.
Below are a couple of recipe for a traditional Quiche Lorraine, courtesy of Emeril Lagasse, and a vegetarian version, courtesy of Jewishfood-list.com. Plus, I’m throwing in a Broccoli Quiche, just because quiche is a great thing.
Flaky Butter Crust, recipe follows
6 ounces thick cut bacon, cut into narrow strips (or “lardons”)
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/4 cups half-and-half
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup grated Gruyere or Swiss
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to an 11-inch circle. Fit into a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom and trim the edges. (Alternatively, a 9-inch pie pan can be used.) Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Line the pastry with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the crust is set, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove the paper and weights and bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.
In a medium skillet, cook the bacon until crisp and the fat is rendered, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Discard the fat or reserve for another use.
Arrange the bacon evenly over the bottom of the baked crust.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs, yolks, and half and half. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk to combine. Pour into the prepared crust and bake until the custard is golden, puffed, and set yet still slightly wiggly in the center, 30 to 35 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before serving. Serve with Simple Salad.
Flaky Butter Crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
1 to 2 tablespoons ice water, or more as needed
To make the dough in a food processor, combine the flour, salt, and butter in the processor and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, about 10 seconds. With the machine running, add the ice water through the feed tube and pulse quickly 5 or 6 times, or until the dough comes together and starts to pull away from the sides of the container. Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disk, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
To make the dough by hand, combine the flour, salt, and butter in a medium bowl, and mix with a pastry blender or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the water 1 tablespoon at a time and mix until the dough comes together and is no longer dry, being careful not to overmix. Form into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface according to the recipe, fit it into the pan, and allow to rest again in the refrigerator before baking.
Yield: one 9-inch tart or pie crust.
Quiche Lorraine, Vegetarian
Serves: 6 to 8
1 deep 9″ pie tin, lined with an unbaked pastry shell
4 large or extra large eggs, plus 1 extra egg white
1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) freshly grated Gruyere cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 pound diced soy Canadian “bacon”
2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, peeled, sliced, and separated into rings
1 3-ounce can (1/2 cup) broiled, sliced mushrooms in butter sauce, drained (obviously, you can slice and sauté fresh mushrooms instead of using canned)
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Preheat oven to 450°F. Prick bottom and sides of unbaked pastry with tines of fork. Bake 5 minutes. Slightly beat one egg white. Slightly brush over pastry. Bake 2 minutes longer. Remove pan from oven. Place on wire rack to cool.
Pour Gruyere cheese, Parmesan cheese, and flour into mixing bowl. Lightly stir with fork. Evenly sprinkle over pastry shell. Evenly sprinkle with “bacon.” Set aside.
Melt butter in skillet. Add onion rings. Sauté over low flame until golden. Turn off flame under pot. Evenly spread layer of onions over “bacon.” Evenly sprinkle with mushrooms. Set aside.
Beat eggs in mixing bowl. Add cream, salt, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Blend thoroughly. Pour into pie shell.
Place pan on center shelf of oven. Bake 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until puffed and golden, and knife inserted in center of custard comes out clean (about 10 to 15 minutes longer).
Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.
All this talk about vegetarian bacon reminds me of this wonderful quiche recipe, which was given to me by a former colleague (who was from France), and everyone has always raved about it.
Posted by Virginia Sauer (Sir Angus), Z’L
Courtesy of Easy-FrenchFood.com
Prep time: 20 min – Cook time: 40 min
1 round unsweetened pie crust
2 cups small broccoli florets
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup shredded cheese (gruyere or swiss work well)
11/2 cups crème fraîche (or whipping cream)
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper
Begin by preparing the crust for blind baking. Fit the crust to a 10 inch tart pan(insert link) and prick it through with the tines of a fork in about 20 places. Place the pan in the freezer for 20 minutes and preheat the oven to 400°F. (Placing the crust in the freezer helps to keep it from slipping and bubbling when you bake it.)
Place the chilled crust directly in the hot oven and bake for 12 minutes until just golden. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 375° F.
Steam the broccoli for about 3 minutes in the microwave. It should be just barely tender. Don’t over steam or you’ll lose the good flavor of this vegetable.
Heat the tablespoon of olive oil in a small no stick skillet on medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally just until the onion is soft (about 5 to 8 minutes).
Spread the broccoli and onions evenly on the bottom of the cooled crust. Sprinkle the cheese on top of this.
In a medium bowl whisk the eggs, crème fraiche, nutmeg and a pinch of salt and pepper together just until blended. Pour this on top of the vegetables and cheese. Place the pan.in the oven and bake just until done – about 40 minutes.
Makes 6 servings.
Mushrooms: Substitute 1 cup of sliced mushrooms for 1 cup of the broccoli. Precook the mushrooms with the onion.
Ham: Add 1 cup of diced ham for an extra punch.
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GOD/TRUTH/RELIGION > RELIGION > Religion of Mahatma Gandhi
Religion of Mahatma Gandhi
By Ranjit Chaudhari
THOUGH THE MEANING of religion in the Hindu concept of Dharma is not without complexities, Gandhi tried to make it broad enough to lend it a universal character. His idea of religion was not totally esoteric. He knew that every religion was connected with some belief system supported by rituals. He tried to get rid of the rituals as far as possible. To Gandhi religion was a human institution made by human ingenuity to solve practical affairs as well as spiritual matters.
His oft-quoted passages can be cited. He said "By religion, I do not mean formal religion, or customary religion, but that religion which underlies all religions, which brings us face to face with our Maker. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself. Again, he observed : "Religion which takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them, is no religion. He did not define religion in exact and definitive language. One of his attempts was to bring religion closer to common man. In that regard his was functional. But most of the times Gandhi felt that religion could not be understood without knowing its relation with God.
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Back | Next
VILLAGE ECONOMY > VILLAGE SWARAJ > Equality
My idea of society is that while we are born equal meaning that we have a right to equal opportunity, all have not the same capacity. It is, in the nature of things, impossible. For instance, all cannot have the same height, or colour or degree of intelligence, etc.; therefore in the nature of things, some will have ability to earn more and others less. People with talents will have more, and they will utilize their talents for this purpose. If they utilize their talents kindly, they will be performing the work of the State. Such people exist as trustees, on no other terms. I would allow a man of intellect to earn more, I would not cramp his talent. But the bulk of his greater earnings must be used for the good of the State, just as the incomes of all earning sons of the father go to the common family fund.
Y.I., 26-11-’31, p. 368
The real implication of equal distribution is that each man shall have the wherewithal to supply all his natural wants and no more. For example, if one man has a weak digestion and requires only a quarter of a pound of flour for his bread and another needs a pound, both should be in a position to satisfy their wants. To bring this ideal into being the entire social order has got to be reconstructed. A society based on non-violence cannot nurture any other ideal. We may not perhaps be able to realize the goal, but we must bear it in mind and work unceasingly to near it. To the same extent as we progress towards our goal we shall find contentment and happiness, and to that extent too, shall we have contributed towards the bringing into being of a non-violent society.
H., 25-8-’40, p. 260
Equality of Income
Put your talents in the service of the country instead of converting them into s. d. If you are a medical man, there is disease enough in India to need all your medical skill. If you are a lawyer, there are differences and quarrels enough in India. Instead of fomenting more trouble, patch up those quarrels and stop litigation. If you are an engineer, build model houses suited to the means and needs of our people and yet full of health and fresh air. There is nothing that you have learnt which cannot be turned to account. (The friend who asked the question was a Chartered Accountant and Gandhiji then said to him:) There is a dire need everywhere for accountants to audit the accounts of Congress and its adjunct associations. Come to India—I will give you enough work and also your hire—4 annas per day which is surely much more than millions in India get.
Y.I., 5-11-’31, p.384
Practice of law ought not to mean taking more daily than, say, a village carpenter's wage.
H., 13-7-’40, p.205
If India was to live an exemplary life of independence which would be the envy of the world, all the bhangis, doctors, lawyers, teachers, merchants and others would get the same wages for an honest day's work. Indian society may never reach the goal but it was the duty of every Indian to set his sail towards that goal and no other if India was to be a happy land.
H., 16-3-’47, p.67
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b Lucca, December 22, 1858; d Brussels, November 29, 1924
Giacomo Puccini was born into a family of court composers and organists in the historic city of Lucca, Italy. With a strong feeling of tradition in the Puccini family, it was expected that Giacomo would assume his deceased father's position as Maestro di Cappella when he came of age. By 14 he already was playing organ in a number of the town's churches.
Albina Magi, the composer's mother, also came from a family of musicians. Her brother, Fortunato, became her son's first music teacher. His uncle was a strict instructor and was known to kick Puccini when he made mistakes. For his part, Puccini was unruly, easily bored and preferred to hunt for bird's nests rather than study. Seeing little progress, Albina decided a new teacher was in order and sent the boy to Carlo Angeloni, a former pupil of her husband. Giacomo's attitude and study habits quickly changed.
Money was scarce for the family, and to supplement his church earnings Puccini would play piano at the local bars and at houses of "ill repute." He withheld a small percentage of his earnings for cigarettes and began the bad habit of smoking (which ultimately caused his death). As a young man, Puccini was determined to be rich and independent. His teacher introduced him to opera through the study of Verdi's piano scores. Then in 1879, Puccini attended his first opera performance, Aida, and was deeply moved – his destiny was to be a composer for the theater.
He knew it was necessary to study in the Italian operatic capital, Milan. After completing studies at the Pacini Institute of Music in Lucca, Puccini enrolled at the Milan Conservatory in 1880 under the auspices of a royal scholarship. His living expenses were provided by a loan from an uncle but money was always tight. Puccini lived the bohemian life of a poor student and became acquainted with many important musical and literary figures. For a short while, he shared a room with the composer Pietro Mascagni, who became famous for his one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana. To save money, the two of them would cook meals in their room, and as this was strictly forbidden, one would play the piano loudly to drown out the noise of pots and pans. One can see how the composer drew from his own life experiences in the writing of his opera, La bohème.
In 1883 at the age of 25, Puccini graduated with a diploma in composition from the Milan Conservatory. His thesis composition, Capriccio sinfonico, was played by the student orchestra and received high praise from influential critics. This was the start of a celebrated career.
Puccini was not a prolific composer. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he produced his operas at long intervals, partly because of his fastidiousness in choosing subjects, several of which he took up only to abandon after several months, and partly because of his constant demands for modifications of the texts. Much of his time, too, was spent in hunting in the marshes around his home and in trips abroad to supervise revivals of his works.
The composer's first work for the stage, Le villi, was originally submitted to a contest sponsored by the wealthy music publisher, Edoardo Sonzogno. The one-act opera received not even honorable mention, but Puccini was certain of its merit. He and librettist Ferdinando Fontana began to canvass the opera to the broader circle of the Italian intelligentsia. One of these individuals was the highly influential librettist and composer, Arrigo Boito, who was instrumental in getting Le villi staged.
The reception to the new work was mixed, but the revised two-act version was staged in a number of cities outside of Italy (a remarkable feat for such a young composer). Puccini's next opera, Edgar, however, was a resounding critical failure, yet the astute publisher, Giulio Ricordi, found fault in the libretto only and promise in the music. He pitted himself against the shareholders of his publishing house who demanded that Puccini be released from retainer. Ricordi's confidence was rewarded with Manon Lescaut, Puccini's first true success.
In 1884, Puccini became acquainted with Elvira Gemignani who was encouraged by her husband, a pharmacist and former classmate of Puccini's, to take voice lessons with the composer. Shortly after his mother's death, he was joined by Elvira and her daughter, Fosca, in Milan. She left her son, Renato, with her husband. Two years later she gave birth to their only child, Antonio, which caused a great scandal in Puccini's birthplace of Lucca – his family, very conventional and religious, was outraged. He seldom visited that city again in his lifetime.
With the popularity of Manon Lescaut, Puccini was now generally considered by the Italian art circle to be Verdi's successor (even by the great composer himself). As the royalties began rolling in, Puccini began to show a predilection for machines and gadgets, in particular fast automobiles and motor boats. His solitary nature drew him to a purchase a villa near the sea, surrounded by the mountains at Torre del Lago. Through the years, this villa became a home base where he could enjoy his passion for hunting and fishing, along with the nature and silence of the surroundings.
During the 1890s, Puccini began working with Luigi Illica, who worked out the scheme and drafted the dialogue, and the poet and playwright Giuseppe Giacosa, who put the lines into verse. Although they had participated on Manon Lescaut (in a string of several librettists) their first true collaboration was La bohème in 1896, followed four years later by Tosca and then Madame Butterfly four years after that. Giacosa died in 1906, putting an end to the successful team that produced three of Puccini's most enduring works.
In 1904, Giacomo and Elvira were finally married legally, following her first husband's death. Their relationship, however, was a constant storm. She was insanely jealous, and a letter, written prior to their union, stated her decision to leave him. Many of her accusations about him were not unfounded. The composer had quite a weakness for women and carried on many extramarital affairs throughout his life.
While Puccini was recuperating from an automobile accident, a young girl named Doria Manfredi was hired as a nurse and maid. She remained in the household as the Puccinis' maid. Elvira saw the makings of an affair and immediately discharged her. But that was not enough. She continued her slanderous accusations through the small village, and the townspeople, aware of her husband's past philandering, quite naturally believed her. The innocent girl, totally humiliated, took poison and died after five days of unbearable suffering. Giacomo took refuge in Rome and Elvira fled to Milan. Doria's family sued Elvira following an autopsy that proved Doria's virginity.
Puccini and his wife lived apart for four months while Elvira persisted in defending her legal position. The case was tried and she was sentenced to five months' imprisonment – but Puccini made a large financial settlement with the Manfredi family and the lawsuit was dropped. In September of 1909, Giacomo, Elvira and Antonio were reunited at Torre. A month later he wrote, "In my home I have peace – Elvira is good – and the three of us live happily together."
Puccini's later operas were quite varied in their styles and subjects. La fanciulla del West, set in the American West, is notable for its advanced impressionistic orchestration and composition. La rondine was designed to be a musical comedy in the Viennese style but seemed more related to La traviata than to Die Fledermaus. Il trittico was an evening of one-act operas that are quite a mixed bag: Il tabarro was Puccini's bow toward the verismo style; Suor Angelica is a gripping emotional drama set in a nunnery; Gianni Schicchi is a comic masterpiece that features Puccini at his most exuberant. There is a thought that Puccini was mocking his own success with this piece.
At the age of 60, the composer set out to write an opera that was atypical of his past style. He studied the developments in contemporary music and based the new work on Count Carlo Gozzi's fable about the cruel Chinese princess Turandot. The completion of the work was cut short due to his ill-health.
Puccini had been dealing with a persistent cough for months. He began complaining of stinging sore throats and his diagnosis revealed cancer of the throat. He traveled to Brussels to receive radium therapy, accompanied by his son and stepdaughter – Elvira had bronchitis and remained in Milan. Radioactive needles were inserted into the tumor. Initially, the doctor was optimistic, but four days later, the composer suffered a heart attack. Puccini died on November 29, 1924 and his remains are now entombed in the chapel of his villa at Torre.
Although Turandot was left unfinished, the conductor Arturo Toscanini entrusted its completion to another Ricordi composer, Franco Alfano. In 1926, the opera premiered under the baton of Toscanini. Out of respect for the composer, the maestro stopped where Puccini had written his last notes. He turned to the audience and emotionally said, "At this point the master laid down his pen."
Puccini has been much maligned for his flirtation with popular music, but he had an uncanny feel for a good story and talent for enthralling yet economical music. His experiments with tonality and form, while constant, were always subtle, and unlike his contemporary Stravinsky, he did not seem to need to be controversial. His melodies are mostly simple stepwise vocal lines, yet with them he managed to create arias of astonishing beauty. The use of orchestra is economical and to the point – few operas of his have overtures and Puccini often captures the right dramatic moments with just a splash of colorful chords. Though his personal life was plagued with self-doubt and laborious perfectionism, Puccini profoundly influenced the world of opera with a deep understanding of music, drama and humanity.
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Reading is great, but knowing what you just read is even better!
Parents beam with pride and accomplishment as their children begin to read. Those early explorations into books are precious, but just because your child can sound out the words does not mean he knows what it all means.
This happens to all of us, reading along then realizing we have no idea what that last paragraph meant. Adults know to go back and reread more carefully. This skill is called reading comprehension and just like letter recognition it needs to be learned.
Below are simple strategies to help young readers improve their reading comprehension.
It takes time to learn to read
As excited as we all are for our children to read it can be arduous to sit and listen to them slowly sound out each word. When you sit down with your child make sure you are not in a rush, and focus your whole attention on your child and the book.
Help them with difficult sounds so they don't get frustrated ,and pour on the praise. Simply practicing every day for at least 15 minutes is one of the best time proven ways to help your child's reading comprehension skills improve.
Ask questions about what your child is reading
To check that your child understands how the words that they read connect to form a story pause at intervals in the story to talk about the story. Ask your child what just happened. If they can't tell you, go back and help them reread to get the basic thread of the story.
Another good technique is to ask them to predict what they think will happen next. This not only checks understanding of what they have just read, but keeps them excited to read more.
A picture is worth 1000 words of comprehension and meaning
Children's books are full of fun and imaginative pictures; this is not just for decoration or filler. Use these pictures to help your child connect the dots between the words they are reading and the concepts the story it talking about. Read the words, then look at the pictures and talk about what is happening on in the story on that page.
Another way to bring art to the rescue is to read a story to your child then ask them to draw or paint their own original creation to illustrate what the story means. This is a fun activity that can be done together and will improve reading comprehension. Art is especially useful with frustrated readers, because in their minds its finger painting not reading.
Improving reading comprehension is a process, and it is magical to watch the joy of books open to a new generation. Be patient with the process; your child is putting all their effort into recognizing the letter, remembering its sound then stringing sounds together to form words. It is little wonder there is no brain power left to understand what it all means!
With practice, repetition and loving help from you (like guided reading), your little reader will be diving into books on their own in no time.
Easy 30 Minute Meals
Not just entrees, these are complete meals that take 30 minutes from the kitchen to the table ... without sacrificing great taste!
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For release: 11/19/02
Release #: 02-293
Chandra makes first positive I.D. of active binary black hole
An image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed not one, but two active giant black holes in the nucleus of an extraordinarily bright galaxy. This discovery shows that massive black holes can grow through mergers in the centers of galaxies, and that these events may be detectable with future space-borne gravitational wave observatories. The Marshall Center manages the Chandra program.
Photo: Chandra image shows two giant black holes in one galaxy. (NASA/CXC/MPE/S.Komossa et al.)
For the first time, scientists have proof two supermassive black holes exist together in the same galaxy, thanks to data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These black holes are orbiting each other and will merge several hundred million years from now, to create an even larger black hole resulting in a catastrophic event that will unleash intense radiation and gravitational waves.
The Chandra image reveals that the nucleus of an extraordinarily bright galaxy, known as NGC 6240, contains not one, but two giant black holes, actively accreting material from their surroundings. This discovery shows that massive black holes can grow through mergers in the centers of galaxies, and that these enigmatic events will be detectable with future space-borne gravitational wave observatories.
"The breakthrough came with Chandra's ability to clearly distinguish the two nuclei, and measure the details of the X-radiation from each nucleus," said Guenther Hasinger, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, a coauthor of an upcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters paper describing the research. "These cosmic fingerprints revealed features characteristic of supermassive black holes a black hole, and X-rays from fluorescing iron atoms in gas near black holes," he said.
"The breakthrough came with Chandra's ability to clearly distinguish the two nuclei, and measure the details of the X-radiation from each nucleus," said Guenther Hasinger, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, a coauthor of an upcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters paper describing the research. "These cosmic fingerprints revealed features characteristic of supermassive black holes an excess of high-energy photons from gas swirling around a black hole, and X-rays from fluorescing iron atoms in gas near black holes," he said.
Previous X-ray observatories had shown that the central region produces X-rays, while radio, infrared and optical observations had detected two bright nuclei, but the nature of this region remained a mystery. Astronomers did not know the location of the X-ray source, or the nature of the bright nuclei.
“With Chandra, we hoped to determine which one, if either, of the nuclei was an active supermassive black hole,” said Stefanie Komossa, also of the Max-Planck, and lead author of the paper on NGC 6240. “Much to our surprise, we found that both were active black holes!”
At a distance of about 400 million light years, NGC 6240 is a prime example of a massive galaxy in which stars are forming at an exceptionally rapid rate due to a recent collision and subsequent merger of two smaller galaxies. Because of the large amount of dust and gas in such galaxies, it is difficult to peer deep into their central regions with optical telescopes. However, X-rays emanating from a galactic nucleus can penetrate the veil of gas and dust.
“The detection of a binary black hole supports the idea that black holes grow to enormous masses in the centers of galaxies by merging with other black holes, “ said Komossa. “This is important for understanding how galaxies form and evolve.”
Over the course of the next few hundred million years, the two black holes in NGC 6240, which are about 3000 light years apart, will drift toward one another and merge to form an even larger supermassive black hole. Toward the end of this process an enormous burst of gravitational waves will be produced.
These gravitational waves will spread through the universe and produce ripples in the fabric of space. These ripples would appear as minute changes in the distance between any two points and could be detected by NASA’s planned space-based detector, LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). The coalescence of massive black holes is estimated to occur several times each year in the observable universe.
“This is the first time that we see a binary black hole in action, the smoking gun evidence for something which will become a major gravitational wave burst in the future,” said Hasinger.
Chandra observed NGC 6240 for 10.3 hours with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). Other members of the team are Vadim Burwitz and Peter Predehl of Max Planck, Jelle Kaastra of Space Research Organization Netherlands and Y. Ikebe of the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program, and TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, Calif., is the prime contractor for the spacecraft. The Smithsonian's Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.
Images and additional information about this result are available at:
For more information:
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Derived from the aerial parts, except berries, of the plant, mistletoe preparations are used by patients for a variety of conditions including cancer, HIV, hepatitis, and degenerative joint disease. Polypeptides, including lectins and viscotoxins, are thought responsible for in vitro immune stimulant and tumor inhibition activities (1). Although orally administered products are available, all research reported in the literature has evaluated parenteral formulations of mistletoe, which are not approved for use in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration.
Mistletoe extracts have anticancer effects in vitro (21). But well-designed randomized trials are lacking. A meta-analysis analyzed 11 of these clinical trials conducted before 1994 and showed no benefit from mistletoe (1), but recent systematic reviews point to the accumulating evidence in support of mistletoe while emphasizing the need for well-designed clinical trials (17) (18). Epidemiologic data also suggest survival advantage following treatment with mistletoe (2) (3). When used in conjuction with chemotherapy, a mistletoe extract improved quality of life in a study of breast cancer patients (22). However, mistletoe was not active in metastatic colorectal cancer resistant to 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin (20).
An injectable form of mistletoe lectins was found to reduce the frequency and intensity of clinical signs and symptoms in patients with hepatitis C (4). Confirmed efficacy for other proposed claims is lacking (5) (6).
Possible adverse effects from treatment include injection site reactions (7), chills, fever, headache, leukocytosis, chest pain, orthostatic hypotension, bradycardia, diarrhea, and vomiting (8) (9). In addition, long-term use of mistletoe extracts may reduce T cell function in cancer patients (10). Toxic doses of mistletoe can produce coma, seizures, and death (11). Possible drug interactions include additive hypotensive effect from antihypertensives and antagonism of cardiac glycosides or antiarrhythmics.
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JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - Teachers from across the state are discovering new ways to teach the nation's history. It's part of a series of workshops at Jackson State University's E-Center.
Monday's class showed educators that the underground railroad doesn't have to be limited to history class. It can also be taught using math, science, or art.
"The fact that it's going to touch on different standards the state has set up for teachers to meet in science and math, that's one of the differences. Because they can use this to teach history and make sure those standards are met," said Dr. Barbara Anthony, class presenter and a retired professor at Alabama A&M University.
The free, one-day classes are being held throughout the summer on a variety of different topics. And they're all made possible by a partnership between JSU and NASA.
Educators receive continuing education credit for participating in the five hour classes.
©2010 WLBT. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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17 July 2009
The risk of developing a venous thromboembolism (a blood clot that forms in the veins of the leg, which can travel to another part of the body, usually the lungs) rises by 18 per cent for each 2-hour increase in the duration of travel, including being seated in road and air transport vehicles.
The largest meta-analysis study (a statistical technique that summarises the results of several other studies) to date on the link between travel and venous thromboembolism (VTE), including 14 studies and more than 4000 cases of VTE, showed there was a 3 times greater risk associated with any travel. For air travel specifically, risk increased by 26 per cent for every 2 hours in a plane (Ann Intern Med 2009, in press).
They said low-cost, low-risk interventions, including getting up and walking, and increased hydration, should be emphasised.
Last Reviewed: 17 July 2009
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The nerds have the last laugh -- that's what we're told to believe -- but it's not true according to one study.
A group of researchers found the more friends you have in high school could lead to more money down the road.
The nerds make the world go round -- people like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. They're successful and rich.
Sure, they weren't the most popular in high school, but everyone wants to be their friend now.
Turns out, these high profile nerds are exceptions, according to this study.
Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research found the people who had more friends in high school made more money decades later than their less popular classmates. The study says the popular kids are richer later on in life.
Theresa Maher, vice president of creative services for Jobing.com, says she wasn't popular. Still, she considers herself a successful person. She doesn't buy the study.
"I don't know if there's truth in saying this person in high school will make this much more," she says.
She does explain why social people are being hired.
"More outgoing, they have more connections. They are going to land certain types of jobs."
Taylor Verva thinks the study makes some sense.
"An additional amount of social skills will help you in life, get a little bit further as far as networking. Could be associated with being popular in school," says Verva.
And what do the future members of the work force think, like high school senior Taylor Schmidt?
"I wouldn't consider myself popular… Popular kids I wouldn't consider as cool. All they are worried about is social values, compared to being in school and being smart," says Schmidt.
It's those "social values" and skills that researchers say enables the popular kids to be more successful financially.
It has little to do with a student's background.
Let's put this all in perspective. The study profiled high school students from 1957. If you researched the popular kids now, maybe the results would be different?
Maher points out other positions, like IT jobs, are filled by people with maybe fewer social skills or different personalities and they can make some money too.
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Designed for prospective teachers without extensive music backgrounds, this market-leading text provides both a thorough overview of the basic elements of music and a clear sequence of instructional steps that allows readers to participate in the same learning process they will later use as teachers.
Hallmark features of the text include: the nine National Standards cued to each teaching strategy, information on the most current thinking in music education, a balanced representation of songs, and Specialized Areas addressed with clarity and comprehensiveness. Packaged with an audio CD for use with the lessons, the text continues to be written in such a way that, once students leave the college classroom, they can easily use the text package as a resource handbook with their own students, without continued music specialist assistance and.
Table of Contents
Section I: Teaching the Elements of Music to Children
Chapter 1: Music and the Child
Chapter 2: Teaching Rhythm to Children
Chapter 3: Teaching Melody to Children
Chapter 4: Teaching Timbre to Children
Chapter 5: Teaching Expressive Elements to Children
Chapter 6: Teaching Form to Children
Chapter 7: Teaching Texture to Children
Chapter 8: Teaching Harmony to Children
Section II: Developing Musical Skills
Chapter 9: The Singing Voice
Chapter 10: Playing Musical Instruments
Chapter 11: Listening Activities and Materials
Chapter 12: Movement and Children
Section III: Organizing Musical Experiences
Chapter 13: Lesson Planning
Chapter 14: Integrating Music with Other Subjects
Listing of Recorded Selections
1. A Ram Sam Sam (1:36). 1995 Silver Burdett Ginn.
2. Arirang (1:17)
3. Achshav (Awake! Awake!) (1:27). 1995 Silver Burdett Ginn.
4. Awake! Awake! (Achshav) (1:27). 1995 Silver Burdett Ginn.
5. America, the Beautiful (2:05). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
6. Clementine (:36)
7. Sakura (Cherry Bloom) (:45)
8. Dona nobis pacem (Grant Us Peace) (3:04). 2005 Pearson Education, Inc.
9. Down by the Station (:24)
10. El florón (The Flower) (1:16). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
11. The Flower (1:17). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
12. Follow the Drinking Gourd (:56)
13. Free at Last (2:17). 1995 Silver Burdett Ginn.
14. Hawaiian Rainbows (:38)
15. I Love the Mountains (1:25). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
16. Ida Red (:30)
17. Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho (:52)
18. Juanito (Little Johnny) (2:20). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
19. Little Johnny (2:20). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
20. Lift Every Voice and Sing (3:43). 1995 Silver Burdett Ginn.
21. Mary Ann (1:48). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
22. Mi cuerpo hace música (There’s Music in Me) (1:05). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
23. There’s Music in Me (1:05). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
24. Music Alone Shall Live (2:55)
25. Nighttime (:34)
26. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (1:26)
27. O Hanukkah (:43)
28. Pat Works on the Railway (:27)
29. Pin Pon (Spanish) (1:16). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
30. Pin Pon (English) (1:15). 2002 Pearson Education, Inc.
31. Simple Gifts (:52)
32. Star-Spangled Banner (1:19)
33. This Train, Oh When the Saints, Swing Low (1:52)
34. Yankee Doodle (1:16). 1988 Silver Burdett Ginn.
35. “Little Train of the Caipira” from Bachianas Brasileiras (4:53). Courtesy of Everest Records.
36. “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks” from Pictures at an Exhibition, Mussorgsky (1:16). Courtesy of SPG Music, Inc.
37. “Habanera” from Carmen, Bizet (1:37). Courtesy of Qualiton Imports, Ltd.
38. “Flight of the Bumblebee” from The Legend of Tsar Sultan, Rimsky-Korsakov (transcribed by J. Heifetz) (1:19). Courtesy of Denon Records/Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.
39. Trombone excerpt from Stars and Stripes Forever, Sousa (1:12)
40. Bassoon excerpt, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Grieg (:57). Courtesy of SPG Music, Inc.
41. Castanets excerpt from Capriccio Espagnol, Rimsky-Korsakov (1:49). Courtesy of SPG Music, Inc.
42. Gregorian Chant, Alleluia (2:00). Courtesy of the Haydn Society.
43. Little Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578, Bach (3:27). Courtesy of Hyperion Records, Ltd.
44. Also Sprach Zarathustra excerpt, Strauss (1:44). Courtesy of SPG Music, Inc.
45. “Ecce gratum” from Carmina Burana, Orff (2:48). Courtesy of Arts Music GmbH.
46. “Frightening” from Scenes of Childhood, Op.15, Schumann (1:44). Courtesy of SPG Music, Inc.
This compilation copyright © 2012 by Pearson.
With CourseSmart eTextbooks and eResources, you save up to 60% off the price of new print textbooks, and can switch between studying online or offline to suit your needs.
Once you have purchased your eTextbooks and added them to your CourseSmart bookshelf, you can access them anytime, anywhere.
$64.99 | ISBN-13: 978-0-13-256399-4
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Oconaluftee Indian Village
On 16 Aug. 1950 the board of trustees of the Cherokee Historical Association in Cherokee-sponsor of the popular outdoor drama Unto These Hills-approved the idea of constructing a replica of an eighteenth-century Cherokee village. The research necessary for creating an accurate replica was to be performed by the Tsali Institute for Cherokee Research, established by the board in May 1951. Noted archaeologists and anthropologists working on the village project and serving as members of the Tsali Institute included Joffre Coe (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), A. R. Kelly and W. H. Sears (University of Georgia), T. M. N. Lewis and Madeline Kneberg (University of Tennessee), and John Whittoft (Pennsylvania State Museum). P. A. Willett supervised construction of what became Oconaluftee Indian Village on a wooded, 40-acre tract in Cherokee near the Mountainside Theater, where Unto These Hills is performed each summer. The village opened to the public in August 1952, with Walter Jackson serving as the first manager.
Oconaluftee Indian Village was designed to depict life in an eighteenth-century Cherokee community. Cherokee men and women, in traditional attire, perform ancient rites and provide traditional craft demonstrations. The village also features replicas of a seven-sided council house and homes and other structures from the 1700s. Guides in native attire interpret for visitors the social structure of Cherokee society. A botanical garden and nature trail became a part of the village in 1954. Total paid attendance at the village had topped 6 million by 2000.
William P. Connor Jr., History of Cherokee Historical Association, 1946-1982 (1982).
Cherokee Historical: http://www.cherokeehistorical.org/UntoTheseHills.html
1 January 2006 | Holland, Ron
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|Home - General Resources|
The previously discussed rectangular distribution is a reasonable default model in the absence of any other information. But, if it is known that value of the quantity in question is more likely near the mean of the interval and less likely near the limits, a triangular distribution is a better model. A triangular probability density function is often used when making measurements using analog devices.
Consider the measurement of the rectangular block using a steel rule as shown in the image. A general rule when making measurements with an analog device is to read to the nearest division mark. If more precision is needed, a device with finer divisions should be used. However, different organizations have different rules when it comes to estimating between division marks. In fact, when measuring with a metric rule marked in millimeters it is usually acceptable to estimate to the nearest 0.5mm without magnification and to the nearest 0.1mm with magnification. (For more information see Note 1 at bottom of page.) It appears that the best approximation of the length is 1.60cm. However, it may be a little more or a little less.
To estimate the uncertainty of the measurement, the interval of possible values must be determined. To accomplish this, it is usually easiest to identify the values above and below the best approximation where there is likely zero probability that the true value of the measurand exist. For example, for this test piece, the upper and lower limits of the probability density function could be estimated to be 1.55cm and 1.65cm. Since we know that the probability of the true value is highest at the center and tapers down to zero at the limits, the probability density function would look like the one shown below. The total probability is represented by the area under the graph and this must equal 1 or 100%.
From the table on the previous page (see portion of table copied below), it is given that the standard uncertainty (u) for a uniform probability density function, is represented by the following equation where (a) is the width of the interval of possible values.
After doing the math, it is determined that the standard uncertainty for this measurement is ± 0.0204cm, which was rounded to ± 0.02cm. The results of the measurement would then be reported as 1.60 ± 0.02cm with a confidence level of 65% using a triangular pdf. The confidence level of the measurand falling within the uncertainty range can be increased to 95% by multiplying 0.00204 by 1.81 to arrive at 0.037. Therefore, it would be correct to express the measurement as 1.60 ± 0.004cm with 95% confidence using a triangular pdf.Note on Significant Digits and Precision: The uncertainty should generally be quoted giving two significant figures. The best approximation of the measurand should then be rounded to the same decimal place as the second digit of the uncertainty. However, if using two significant digits causes the uncertain to exceed the precision of the best approximation value by more than one decimal place, then the uncertainty should be rounded up (like in the example above). It should also be noted that when rounding, the uncertainty is always rounded up to produce a conservatively larger interval.
Using the Triangular pdf When Both End Measurements Are Uncertain
When using a metric rule as shown in the image to the right, there is uncertainty in reading the rule on both ends. In this situation, it can be said with certainty that the left end of the test piece is between 0.95cm and 1.05cm and the right end of the test piece is between 1.55 and 1.65cm. The uncertainty would be calculated in the same manner as above for the readings at both ends of the rule. This will result in twice the uncertainty when the two uncertainty values are combined.
Procedure for Using a Triangular pdf
More About the Triangular Probability Density Function
The standard uncertainty equation and the confidence levels used with the uniform distribution, are fairly easy to determine. The equation is based on a mathematical moment. A moment is a quantitative measure of the shape of a set of points and the "second moment” characterizes a particular aspect of the width of a set of points in one dimension. Other moments describe other aspects of a distribution such as how the distribution is skewed from its mean, or peaked. The calculation of uncertainty is based on the second moment. When the second moment for a triangular distribution is calculated, it is found to have the value a2/24, where a is the overall width of the distribution. The square root of this quantity is taken to find the standard uncertainty which results in the value a /√24 or equivalently a /2 √6. This value is approximately 0.204 of the width of the interval a.
The figure below shows a triangular pdf. By definition the width of the pdf is indicative of the interval of possible values. Since it is known that the true value of the measurand fall somewhere between the limits of the interval, the area under the pdf represents a probability of 100%. The area of the region shaded light blue indicates the probability that the true values fall within + or - one standard deviation. The area of the light blue shaded region, which can be is 2((0.204a)(1.184/a)+1/2(0.204a)(0.816/a)) = 0.58. Hence, for the rectangular distribution the probability that the measurand lies within plus or minus one standard uncertainty of the best approximation is 65%.
Note 1: We recommend estimating to 0.5mm when using a metric rule marked in millimeters because a study found that it is difficult to accurately determine measurements closer than 1/64th of an inch. This converts to approximately 0.4mm. With magnification, it may be possible to estimate to 0.1mm. Ref: Kennedy, Clifford; Hoffman, Edward; and Bond, Steven; Inspection and Gaging: Sixth Edition; Industrial Press, Inc.; New York, NY; 1987; pp. 167-168.
Last updated on November 24, 2010
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Photograph taken by Bostock Portrait Studio
The Bostock Studio
Who, What, Where, When?
A collection of photographs taken in the Palisade, Nebraska, area in the first part of the twentieth century has been the focus of a traveling exhibit entitled Who, What, Where, When.
In the fall of 2001, a Palisade family donated more than two thousand glass plate negatives taken by William L. Bostock of Palisade to the Nebraska State Historical Society through the Foundation. The images depict life in southwest Nebraska between 1900 and 1930. This collection is of particular interest because it tells the story of life in southwestern Nebraska during the early decades of the twentieth century. This area of the state was not well represented in the Society collections prior to this generous donation.
Frank and Betty Potthoff of Palisade had cared for the glass plate negatives for more than thirty years when they agreed to donate them to the Nebraska State Historical Society through the Foundation. Their gift was important to help complete the historical record from the area, but it's also the gift that keeps on giving. Because of its digital imaging capabilities, the State Historical Society can make these images accessible to Nebraskans and people around the world. Thanks to private support secured by the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, the Society has the equipment needed to scan the images and share them on the NSHS website. Digital scans also allow printing of multiple copies of the photographs without stress to the original negatives.
But the photographs will mean more if the Society knows more about them. Dr. William Karrer, a Palisade native now residing in Omaha and a member of the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation board of directors, is chairing the traveling exhibit with two goals in mind, "To share the Palisade Photo Collection with the widest audience possible, and to ask that audience to help us identify subjects and locations within the photographs. We know who took the photos, but there were no labels with the negatives and to be of the best use to describe the area and record its history, we would like to know more about the who, what, where, and when of the photos."
The exhibit was unveiled during Palisade Pioneer Days, June 13-15, and has traveled to several areas in southwest Nebraska in the hopes that people from the area might be able to identify people, places, or events in the photographs. "We are encouraging those viewing the exhibit to help us identify the locations and persons in the photographs, adding even more depth to the images' contribution documenting the settlement of the area," said Karrer.
The exhibit features images that are a spectacular documentary of settlement and growth of communities in the southwest area of Nebraska. The collection is a fascinating mix of portraiture, history, and art. A copy of the complete collection is housed at the Hitchcock County Historical Society.
The exhibit has also been mounted on the Society's website, where you can view the photos and e-mail the Society with any information you might have. Go to the Nebraska State Historical Society website at www.nebraskahistory.org and click on the "what's new" button and look for the Who, What, Where, When exhibit.
The traveling exhibit was funded through the generous support of donors to the NSHS Foundation.
For more information about the exhibit and its tour sites, or to request time on the exhibit's tour, please contact the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, 888-515-3535.
Lincoln's History Mystery:
The Foundation's First Ever Special Event is
UNCOVERED as Big Success
For years Andy Strotman of Lincoln had been saying his colleagues didn't have a clue, and here, at last, was an opportunity for them to get one! Thanks to the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, Andy's colleagues at Cline-Williams, a Lincoln law firm, had the chance to get a clue--actually, numerous clues--and to use them to solve Lincoln's first "History Mystery."
The Cline-Williams team and twenty-six other formerly clueless cliques spent a lovely May 9 evening using historic hints to track down notable, and even notorious, downtown Lincoln landmarks. Starting at the Nebraska State Historical Society's Museum of Nebraska History at Fifteenth and P, over 130 culture sleuths sprang on the streets of Lincoln ferreting out the solutions to such riddles as: "With that feller John D's generosity, came a home for good drama and pure comedy. An Omaha paper did throw such a fit, that first off campus this building did sit. Its neighbor is 'scrappy' and there's new stars a' dawning, so what is the name that appears on the awning?" (The answer is Temple Theatre.) All the clues led to places within a sixteen-block area in downtown Lincoln.
The 2003 winning team: The Slimy Ones
After an hour and a half of investigating, the gumshoes converged on the Museum of Nebraska History again to submit their findings to a panel of judges and to enjoy a cold cocktail and snacks. The jury returned with a three-way tie. After a sudden death lightning round of Nebraska trivia, a team made up entirely of lawyers named The Slimy Ones took top honors. Team spokesperson Neal Stenberg attributed their victory to strategy. "At the beginning we first sat down and examined the questions," Stenberg said, "then with a plan in hand we hit the streets."
That strategy proved important. You didn't dare get stalled in one of downtown Lincoln's many night spots and expect to solve all the clues, though a goodly number of the participants did indulge in a dust cutter before getting back on trail.
The sleuthing begins!
The rules were simple. You had to do your digging on foot. Your team had to stay together. And most important, you had to have fun. Everyone lived up to that rule. According to Deb Yeutter with Tricky Dick and the History Chicks, "I had a great time. We had a fun night wandering around downtown trying to figure out the clues, and the party afterward was great. We would love to do this again."
When the dust settled, winners and losers alike went home exhausted but ready to go again. Gene Crump, NSHS Foundation trustee and member of the event committee, said, "We couldn't be happier. This event was a great way to put history and fun together in the same sentence and re-introduce people to the museum. The support from the Lincoln business community and the enthusiastic turnout was just great. People really had fun, we already have teams saying 'next year . . . ' and we're looking forward to it again next year."
Ultimately, though, Lincoln's History Mystery was not about winning and losing. Proceeds from the event will support an important exhibition that the Nebraska State Historical Society will mount in September as part of its 125th anniversary celebration. Recovered Views: African American Portraits, 1912-1925, will be the first public showing of a collection of amazing photographs taken by an African American photographer in Lincoln during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
The Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation supports the projects and programs of the Nebraska State Historical Society designed to increase the understanding, appreciation, and accessibility of Nebraska's history. Printing, publicity, and refreshments for the event were donated by more than a dozen generous Lincoln businesses.
It was appropriate that the first History Mystery support this project, because mystery surrounds the photographs. Who was the photographer? What are the stories behind the beautiful pictures? What was Lincoln like at that time? Lincoln's city historian, Ed Zimmer, has been digging into those questions for some time and is busy with his own sleuthing.
Beginning in February of 2004 this exhibition will leave Lincoln to begin a four-year national tour. Supported with funds raised by History Mystery team entry fees, the exhibition will focus a national spotlight on Nebraska's capital city. That's a pretty good return on a night's sleuthing.
The event's committee considered the evening a successful pilot event and plans to roll out History Mystery events in other communities across the state. If you are interested in discovering how a History Mystery might work in your community, contact Jac Spahn at the NSHS Foundation office, 888-515-3535.
2003-04 Foundation Board of Directors
Allison D. Petersen, Walton, President
Steven E. Guenzel, Lincoln, Executive Vice President
Jack D. Campbell, Lincoln, Vice President
C. John Guenzel, Lincoln, Treasurer
Joanne F. Shephard, Valentine, Secretary
Martha Greer, Lincoln
Dr. James W. Hewitt, Lincoln
Dr. William F. Karrer, Omaha
Dr. Frederick C. Luebke, Lincoln
Carol Maddux, Wauneta
Dr. Martin A. Massengale, Lincoln
John D. Massey, Scottsbluff
George H. Moyer, Jr., Madison
James F. Nissen, Lincoln
Robert D. Northrop, Lincoln
Cynthia Olson, Lisco
Amy Scott-Willer, Omaha
John W. Webster, Omaha
S. N. "Bud" Wolbach, Grand Island
Dr. John Wunder, Lincoln
Lawrence J. Sommer, Lincoln, NSHS Director, Ex-officio
Jack Preston, Lyman, NSHS President, Ex-officio
Patricia Phillips, Omaha, NSHS Treasurer, Ex-officio
Jackie Spahn, Executive Director
Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation
215 Centennial Mall South, #408
Lincoln, NE 68508-1813
Toll Free: 888-515-3535
May/June 2003 Issue
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What happens with the drought situation in the U.S. this spring is expected to impact what happens with the weather in Western Canada during the early part of summer in 2013.
Drew Lerner, weather specialist with World Weather Inc. in Kansas, said if the dry weather in the western U.S. Corn Belt and Plains continues, the southern part of Western Canada could experience a drier, warmer bias this summer.
"If the dryness lasts long enough to the south, a ridge of high pressure that would, under normal circumstances, be weak and not likely reach up into Canada would have the potential of reaching into Canada," said Lerner. "And that's the reason why the southern areas would tend to be drier and the northern areas might turn to be wetter, somewhat similar to last summer."
But, if those areas in the U.S. see some relief from snowfall or rain ahead of spring, weather in Western Canada will most likely be "normal."
"Without any trouble down in the U.S. Plains, Canada will see a relatively normal summer pattern with temperatures probably normal to slightly cooler," said Lerner.
The possibility of a hot and dry weather pattern in Alberta could also impact weather in Western Canada this summer.
"The dry and warm bias that's going to be present in Alberta during most of the spring could evolve into some kind of a cut-off high pressure system that would set over there for a while during the summer," Lerner said.
"If that were to occur, it would diminish rains for Alberta and create a warmer temperature bias and there would be some potential to also block precipitation from western Saskatchewan." Lerner said there is only about a 30 per cent chance that the latter will occur in Alberta, but it is still something to look out for.
No matter what ends up impacting weather patterns in Western Canada this summer, Manitoba farmers should experience better growing conditions than producers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, he said.
"If we get a blocking pattern to occur in Alberta, that would be mostly impacting Alberta and western Saskatchewan, and by the time weather systems come over the top of the block, they would come down into Manitoba and provide some timely rainfall," said Lerner.
Manitoba farmers would also fare better than those in Saskatchewan and Alberta if dryness persists in the U.S., because the ridge won't likely extend far enough north to impact growing regions in the province, he said.
-- Terryn Shiells writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
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Social media is growing in the United States and around the world, prompting Internet users to share an ever-growing amount of personal information. Social media platforms are, of course, in the business of making it fun and easy to share more, and do more, with more people. But where does the information go? Who sees it? Who owns it? And how is it used? These questions become increasingly important as social media expand and sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are driven to better leverage (and monetize) our information and social connections.
Trust is Social Currency, the final report in the Netpop | Connect series, examines how users of Facebook, Twitter and other major social sites feel about the privacy of their personal information. It also examines the impact of privacy concerns and distrust on perceptions of social brands. Findings reveal that the vast majority (80 percent) are uncertain or uneasy about the social sites they use. This is particularly true of Facebook: 85 percent of Facebook users are either uncertain or explicitly concerned. Findings also show that privacy concerns and distrust bear a negative impact on social brands: Users have a significantly lower perception of social brands if they are concerned about privacy or distrust the site to use their information appropriately.
- 8 in 10 social media users feel "uneasy" or "ambivalent" about sharing personal information on social media sites
- 42% of social media users are “Uneasies” (concerned about privacy)
- 38% … are “Ambivalents” (uncertain about privacy)
- 20% … are “Laissez-Faires” (not concerned about privacy)
- Users with privacy concerns rate social sites significantly lower
- Facebook's score drops over 100 points among those who distrust that site to use their information appropriately
A Powerpoint (.ppt) version can also be provided upon request for those who purchase the report. Please contact [email protected] for more information.
Number of Tables and Figures: 24
Number of Pages: 19
This report must be purchased separately.
The price of this report is $295.00.
In order to purchase a report, you must register
or log in.
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Researchers at the University of Newcastle have found that human faecal contamination from septic tanks in the Tilligerry Creek area is now low.
Part of Tilligerry Creek was closed in 2005 to oyster harvesting due to the discovery of human viruses in oyster meat, and failing septic systems in areas around Salt Ash and Bob's Farm were identified as contributing to the faecal pollution of the estuary.
The University's researchers have conducted two studies over the past 12 months, one to determine if septic systems in an unsewered catchment were still contributing to contamination, and the other into water quality in general and the likely sources of contamination reaching the estuary.
"In the first study, we monitored ground and surface waters in the unsewered Michael Drive subdivision adjacent to Tilligerry Creek for six months and our samples showed no human faecal contamination," lead researcher, Dr Phillip Geary, said.
"We found that the majority of faecal contamination was coming from other sources such as agricultural activites and some from domestic pets.
"Groundwater was not found to be a likely transport pathway for contaminants although surface waters which quickly enter the estuary through a network of open drains do carry faecal contamination.
"In the second study, we sampled 21 sites after heavy rainfall to determine the water quality in affected reaches of Tilligerry Creek.
"Of the 21 sites in the catchment, only six had indicators of human waste present but the levels were extremely low, relative to agricultural sources, particularly herbivores."
Dr Geary said the University research projects had been able to determine that on-site wastewater systems in this part of the catchment were not contributing contaminants to the estuary. Recent testing of the oysters also confirmed the improvements to estuary water quality as human viruses had not been detected in oyster meat.
The research was conducted by members of the School of Environmental and Life Sciences and the Tom Farrell Institute for the Environment, at the University of Newcastle.
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THE first evidence that early Americans lived along the now-submerged coast of British Columbia has been found. The modern shoreline is forbiddingly rugged. But at the end of the ice age the sea level was lower. The coastal zone was then a flood plain. It had "lots of food sources for caribou, bear and the like," says Heiner Josenhans of the Geological Survey of Canada in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
One sample that he scooped from 53 metres under the water surface contained a 10-centimetre long stone knife, which had lain there for 10 000 years. It is the first ancient human tool found in the submerged zone (
The discovery supports the theory that early humans moved along the coast. "We've always expected that there are occupations out on the submerged coastline," says Dan Sandweiss of the University of Maine at Orono.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.
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Embargo expired: 4/3/2006 4:00 PM EDT
Source Newsroom: University of Michigan Health System
Newswise — Television entertains and even educates the youngest of children, and often gives parents a much-needed break. But allowing preschool-age children to watch too much TV " even educational shows like Sesame Street or Disney DVDs " could be putting them at risk for being overweight.
In a study exploring the relationship between excessive TV exposure and overweight risk for preschool-age children, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System found that 3-year-old children exposed to two or more hours of TV a day were nearly three times more likely to be overweight than children who either watched or were in a room with a TV on for fewer than two hours a day, regardless of the child's environment at home.
These findings, published in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, also reveal than one in four 3-year-old children are exposed to five or more hours of TV a day, far surpassing the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation that TV and other media exposure for children ages 2 and older be limited to less than two hours a day.
In a typical American home, the TV is on more than seven hours a day, with most children spending more time watching TV than in school " and that balance could be to blame for children's expanding waistlines, says study lead author Julie C. Lumeng, M.D., assistant research scientist at the U-M Center for Human Growth and Development.
"Television viewing for preschool-age children appears to be a powerful predictor of overweight risk," says Lumeng, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the U-M Medical School. "Even if a child comes from a two-parent, upper-class home and the TV being watched is considered educational, that child is still at a higher risk for being overweight than a child who watches fewer than two hours of TV a day."
In a previous study, Lumeng had found that children with more behavior problems are more likely to become overweight. Likewise, research also has shown that children who watch excessive amounts of TV have more behavioral problems.
From her clinical practice, too, Lumeng knew that children from low-income backgrounds or those who have a lot of stress at home watch more TV and are more likely to be overweight.
Based on these findings, Lumeng felt there could be a connection between excessive TV exposure and a preschool-age child's likelihood for being overweight.
For the study, Lumeng and her colleagues looked at 1,016 children at ages 3 and 4 1â„2.
These children, along with their parents, were enrolled in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a longitudinal child care study designed to determine how variations in child care are related to children's development. The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development provided a sample for the U-M study that was representative of both urban and rural areas in the United States.
The children in the study were classed as overweight if their body mass index (BMI) was at or above the 95th percentile. TV exposure " defined as being awake in a room when the TV is on whether or not the child was actively watching, and included broadcast and cable TV as well as videos " was determined based on a questionnaire completed by the children's mothers.
The researchers were able to see the clear links between the amount of hours a child was exposed to TV and their potential to be overweight.
At 3 years old, children were three times more likely to be overweight if they were exposed to two or more hours of TV a day, and 25 percent watched more than five hours of TV daily.
By age 4 1â„2, children with excessive exposure to TV were nearly three times more likely to be overweight than those with less TV exposure. While programming " whether it was an educational show or not " did not impact a child's overweight risk, Lumeng says excessive exposure to advertising on TV for unhealthy foods and the likelihood that a child may snack while watching TV may be contributing factors to weight gain.
Additionally, children who watched two or more hours of TV a day had more behavior problems. They also were more likely to have mothers with more depressive symptoms and a less stimulating home environment. Regardless of the child's overall quality of their home environment, Lumeng says TV exposure should be considered an independent risk factor for overweight risk in preschool-age children.
"Parents should consider how much time the TV is simply on, not just the time the child actually spends watching it. Our findings suggest the exposing children to TV even as background noise may increase their overweight risk," notes Lumeng. "Simply put, families should try to reduce the amount of time the TV is on in their homes. Reduced TV time is beneficial for everyone."
Along with Lumeng, co-authors are Sahand Rahnama, BS, and Niko Kaciroti, Ph.D., of the U-M Center for Human Growth and Development; Danielle Appugliese, MPH, Boston University; and Robert H. Bradley, Ph.D., University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
The study was funded by the American Heart Association in Dallas, through its Fellow-to-Faculty Transition Award and the Midwest Affiliate Grant-in-Aid.
Reference: Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, April 2006, Vol 160.
Written by Krista Hopson
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A cowboy is an animal herder, usually in charge of the horses and/or cattle, on cattle ranches, especially in the western United States and Canada. The cowboy tradition began in Spain and was subsequently transported into North and South America, where it developed its unique and enduring character. Cowboys were an essential part of the nineteenth century American West, hired to keep a watchful eye over the large roving herds of cattle on the open range.
Today, in addition to ranch work, some cowboys work in and participate in rodeos, while some work exclusively in the rodeo. Cowboys also spawned a rich cultural tradition, made famous throughout the world through Western novels, songs, movies, and serial programs on radio and television.
The word "cowboy" first appeared in the English language about 1715–25 C.E. It appears to be a direct English translation of vaquero, the Spanish term for an individual who managed cattle while mounted on horseback, derived from vaca, meaning "cow." Another English word for a cowboy, buckaroo, is an Anglicization of vaquero.
A main difference between "vaquero" and "cowboy" is that the Spanish term lacks an implication of youth. Because of the time and physical ability needed to develop necessary skills, the American cow "boy" often began his career as an adolescent, earning wages as soon as he had enough skill to be hired, often as young as 12 or 13. In the United States, a few women also took on the tasks of ranching and learned the necessary skills, though the "cowgirl" did not become widely recognized or acknowledged until the close of the nineteenth century.
The Spanish cowboy tradition developed with the hacienda system of medieval Spain. This style of cattle ranching spread throughout much of the Iberian peninsula and was later exported to the Americas. Both regions possessed a dry climate with sparse grass, and thus large herds of cattle required vast amounts of land in order to obtain sufficient forage. The need to cover distances greater than a person on foot could manage gave rise to the development of the horseback-mounted vaquero.
During the sixteenth century, Spanish settlers brought their cattle-raising traditions as well as their horses and cattle to the Americas, starting with their arrival in what today is Mexico and Florida. The traditions of Spain were transformed by the geographic, environmental and cultural circumstances of New Spain, which later became Mexico and the southwestern United States.
The tradition evolved further, particularly in the central states of Mexico—Jalisco and Michoacán—where the Mexican cowboy would eventually be known as a "charro," as well as areas to the north that later became the Southwestern United States. Most of these vaqueros were men of mestizo and Native American origin, while most of the hacendados (owners) were ethnically Spanish.
As English-speaking traders and settlers moved into the Western United States, English and Spanish traditions and culture merged to some degree, with the vaquero tradition providing the foundation of the American cowboy. Before the Mexican American War in 1848, New England merchants who traveled by ship to California encountered both hacendados and vaqueros, trading manufactured goods for the hides and tallow produced from vast cattle ranches. American traders along with what later became known as the Santa Fe Trail had similar contacts with vaquero life. Starting with these early encounters, the lifestyle and language of the vaquero began a transformation which merged with English cultural traditions and produced what became known in American culture as the "cowboy."
By the 1890s, railroads had expanded to cover most of the nation, making long cattle drives from Texas to the railheads in Kansas unnecessary. The invention of barbed wire allowed cattle to be confined to designated acreage to prevent overgrazing of the range, which had resulted in widespread starvation, particularly during the harsh winter of 1886-1887. Hence, the age of the open range was gone and large cattle drives were over. Smaller cattle drives continued at least into the 1940s, as ranchers, prior to the development of the modern cattle truck, still needed to herd cattle to local railheads for transport to stockyards and packing plants.
Ethnicity of the traditional cowboy
Cowboys ranked low in the social structure of the period, and there are no firm figures as to their ethnicity. Anglos, Mexicans, Native Americans, freed Negro slaves, and men of mixed blood were certainly among them.
Texas produced the greatest number of white cowboys, probably accounting for the plurality. It is estimated that about 15 percent of cowboys were of African-American ancestry. Similarly, U.S. cowboys of Mexican descent also averaged about 15 percent, but were more common in Texas and the southwest. (In Mexico, the vaqueros developed a distinct tradition and became known as charros.) Many early vaqueros were Native American people trained to work for the Spanish missions in caring for the mission herds. Later, particularly after 1890, when American policy promoted "assimilation" of Indians, some Indian boarding schools also taught ranching skills to native youth. Today, some Native Americans in the western United States own cattle and small ranches, and many are still employed as cowboys, especially on ranches located near Indian Reservations. The "Indian Cowboy" also became a commonplace sight on the rodeo circuit.
U.S cowboy traditions
Geographic and cultural factors caused differences to develop in cattle-handling methods and equipment from one part of the United States to another. In the modern world, remnants of two major and distinct cowboy traditions remain, known today as the "Texas" tradition and the "California" tradition, which is more closely related to its Spanish roots. Less well-known but equally distinct traditions developed in Hawaii and Florida.
In the early 1800s, the Spanish Crown, and later, independent Mexico, offered empresario grants in what would become Texas to non-citizens, such as settlers from the United States. In 1821, Stephen F. Austin and his East Coast comrades became the first Anglo-Saxon community speaking Spanish. Following Texas independence in 1836, even more Americans immigrated into the empresario ranching areas of Texas. Here the settlers were strongly influenced by the Mexican vaquero culture, borrowing vocabulary and attire from their counterparts, but also retaining some of the livestock-handling traditions and culture of the Eastern United States and Great Britain. The Texas cowboy was typically a bachelor who hired on with different outfits from season to season.
Following the American Civil War, vaquero culture diffused eastward and northward, combining with the cow herding traditions of the eastern United States that evolved as settlers moved west. Other influences developed out of Texas as cattle trails were created to meet up with the railroad lines of Kansas and Nebraska, in addition to expanding ranching opportunities in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Front, east of the Continental Divide.
The Texas cowboy tradition therefore arose from a combination of cultural influences and the need to conduct long cattle drives to get animals to market under often treacherous environmental conditions.
The vaquero, the Spanish or Mexican cowboy who worked with young, untrained horses, had flourished in California and bordering territories during the Spanish Colonial period. Settlers from the United States did not enter California until after the Mexican War, and most early settlers were miners rather than livestock ranchers, leaving livestock-raising largely to the Spanish and Mexican people who chose to remain in California. The California vaquero, or buckaroo, unlike the Texas cowboy, was considered a highly-skilled worker, who usually stayed on the same ranch where he was born or had grown up and raised his own family there.
The Florida "cowhunter" or "cracker cowboy" of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was distinct from the Texas and California traditions. Florida cowboys did not use lassos to herd or capture cattle. Their primary tools were bullwhips and dogs. Florida cattle and horses were small. The "cracker cow"—also known as the "native cow" or "scrub cow"—averaged about 600 pounds and had large horns and feet. Since the Florida cowhunter did not need a saddle horn for anchoring a lariat, many did not use Western saddles. They usually wore inexpensive wool or straw hats, and used ponchos for protection from rain.
The Hawaiian cowboy, the paniolo, is also a direct descendant of the vaquero of California and Mexico. By the early 1800s, cattle given by Captain George Vancouver to King Pai`ea Kamehameha of Hawaii had multiplied astonishingly and were wreaking havoc throughout the countryside. About 1812, John Parker, a sailor who had jumped ship and settled in the islands, received permission from Kamehameha to capture the wild cattle and develop a beef industry. This, began the tradition of the "Paniolos," a word thought to derive from a Hawaiianized pronunciation of the word, Español. Many Hawaiian ranching families today still carry the names of the vaqueros who married Hawaiian women and made Hawaii their home.
In addition to the Mexican vaqueros, the Mexican charro, the North American cowboy, and the Hawaiian paniolo, the Spanish also exported their horsemanship and knowledge of cattle ranching to the gaucho of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil, the llanero of Venezuela, the huaso of Chile, and, indirectly (through the U.S.) to Australia. In Australia, which has a large ranch (station) culture, cowboys are known as stockmen and drovers, with trainee stockmen referred to as jackaroos and jillaroos.
The use of horseback riders to guard herds of cattle, sheep or horses is common wherever wide, open land for grazing exists. In the French Camargue, riders called "gardians" herd cattle. In Hungary, the csikós guard horses. The herders in the region of Maremma in Tuscany, Italy are called butteros.
In Canada, the ranching and cowboy tradition centers around the province of Alberta. The city of Calgary remains the center of the Canadian cattle industry and is called "Cowtown." The Calgary Stampede which began in 1912 is the world’s richest cash rodeo. Each year, Calgary’s northern rival Edmonton, Alberta stages the Canadian Finals Rodeo, and dozens of regional rodeos are held throughout the province.
There are few records mentioning girls or women driving cattle up the cattle trails of the Old West, even though women undoubtedly helped on the ranches, and in some cases ran them, especially when the men went to war. There is little doubt that women, particularly the wives and daughters of men who owned small ranches and could not afford to hire large numbers of outside laborers, worked side by side with men and thus needed to ride horses and be able to perform ranch work.
It was not until the advent of the Wild West shows that cowgirls came into their own. Their riding, expert marksmanship, and trick roping entertained audiences around the world. Women such as Annie Oakley became household names. By 1900, skirts split for riding astride, allowed women to compete with the men without scandalizing Victorian Era audiences.
The growth of the rodeo brought about another type of cowgirl—the rodeo cowgirl. In the early Wild West shows and rodeos, women competed in all events, sometimes against other women, sometimes with the men. Performers such as Fannie Sperry Steele rode the same "rough stock" and took the same risks as the men (and all while wearing a heavy split skirt that was still more encumbering than men's trousers) and gave show-stopping performances at major rodeos such as the Calgary Stampede and Cheyenne Frontier Days.
Development of the modern cowboy
Over time, the cowboys of the American West developed a personal culture of their own, a blend of frontier and Victorian values that even retained vestiges of chivalry. Such hazardous work in isolated conditions also bred a tradition of self-dependence and individualism, with great value put on personal honesty, exemplified in their songs and poetry.
Today, the Texas and California traditions have merged to some extent, though a few regional differences in equipment and riding style still remain, and some individuals choose to deliberately preserve the more time-consuming but highly skilled techniques of the pure vaquero tradition. The popular "horse whisperer" style of natural horsemanship was originally developed by practitioners who were predominantly from California and the Northwestern states, clearly combining the attitudes and philosophy of the California vaquero with the equipment and outward look of the Texas cowboy.
On the ranch, the cowboy is responsible for feeding the livestock, branding and earmarking cattle, plus tending to animal injuries and other needs. The working cowboy usually is in charge of a small group or "string" of horses and is required to routinely patrol the rangeland in all weather conditions checking for damaged fences, evidence of predation, water problems, and any other issues of concern.
Cowboys also move the livestock to different pasture locations and herd them into corrals or onto trucks for transport. In addition, cowboys may do many other jobs, depending on the size of the "outfit" or ranch, the terrain, and the number of livestock. On a large ranch with many employees, cowboys are able to specialize in tasks solely related to cattle and horses. Cowboys who train horses often specialize in this task only, and some may "break" or train young horses for more than one ranch.
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics collects no figures for cowboys. Their work is included in the 2003 category, Support activities for animal production, which totaled 9,730 workers with an average salary of $19,340 per year. In addition to cowboys working on ranches, in stockyards, and as staff or competitors at rodeos, the category includes farmhands working with other types of livestock (sheep, goats, hogs, chickens, etc.). Of those 9,730 workers, 3,290 are listed in the subcategory of Spectator sports, which includes rodeos, circuses, and theaters needing livestock handlers.
Most cowboy attire, sometimes termed Western wear, grew out of practical need and the environment in which the cowboy worked and were adapted from the Mexican vaqueros. It includes:
- Cowboy hat—with a wide brim to protect from sun, rain, overhanging brush, and the elements
- Cowboy boots—with a high top to protect the lower legs, pointed toes to help guide the foot into the stirrup, and high heels to keep the foot from slipping through the stirrup; with or without detachable spurs.
- Chaps—(pronounced "shaps") to protect the rider's legs while on horseback, especially riding through heavy brush or during rough work with livestock.
- Jeans—or other sturdy, close-fitting trousers made of canvas or denim, designed to protect the legs and prevent the trouser legs from snagging on brush, equipment or other hazards.
- Gloves—often of deerskin or other leather that is soft and flexible for working purposes, yet provides protection when handling barbed wire, assorted tools or clearing native brush and vegetation.
Parameters such as hat brim width, or chap length and material often vary to accommodate the various environmental conditions encountered by working cowboys.
- Lariat—from the Spanish "la riata," meaning "the rope," a tightly twisted stiff rope with a loop at one end enabling it to be thrown to catch animals (sometimes called a lasso or simply, a "rope").
- Spurs—metal devices attached to the heel of the boot, featuring a small metal shank, usually with a small serrated wheel attached, used to allow the rider to provide a stronger (or sometimes, more precise) leg cue to the horse.
- Rifle—a firearm used to protect the livestock from predation by wild animals. A pistol might also be carried.
- Knife—traditionally a pocket knife, specifically the folding cattle knife which evolved into the stock knife still popular today.
The traditional means of transport for the cowboy, even in the modern era, is on horseback. Horses can traverse terrain vehicles cannot. Along with mules and burros, they also serve as pack animals. The most important horse on the ranch is the everyday working ranch horse. Specialized horses trained with skills such as roping or cutting are very rarely used on ranches.
A good stock horse is on the small side, generally under 15.2 hands (62 inches) tall at the withers and under 1000 pounds, with a short back, sturdy legs and strong muscling, particularly in the hindquarters. The horse has to be intelligent, calm under pressure and have a certain degree of "cow sense"—the ability to anticipate the movement and behavior of cattle.
As the frontier ended, the cowboy life came to be highly romanticized. Exhibitions such as those of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show helped to popularize the image of the cowboy as an idealized representative of the tradition of chivalry.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Western movies popularized the cowboy lifestyle but also formed persistent stereotypes. In pop culture, the cowboy and the gunslinger are often associated with one another. In reality, working ranch hands had very little time for anything other than the constant, hard work involved in maintaining a ranch. Likewise, cowboys are often shown fighting with American Indians. However, the reality was that, while cowboys were armed against both predators and human thieves, and often used their guns to run off people of any race who attempted to steal, or rustle cattle, nearly all actual armed conflicts with Native Americans were waged by cavalry units of the U.S. Army.
In today's society, there is little understanding of the daily realities of actual agricultural life. Cowboys are more often associated with (mostly fictitious) Indian-fighting than with their actual life of ranch work and cattle-tending. Actors such as Gary Cooper and John Wayne are thought of as exemplifying a cowboy ideal, even though western movies seldom bear much resemblance to real cowboy life. Arguably, the modern rodeo competitor is much closer to being an actual cowboy, as many were actually raised on ranches and around livestock, and the rest have needed to learn livestock-handling skills on the job.
- ↑ Definition of "cowboy" dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved November 10, 2007.
- ↑ Georgia Tasker, 2007. "Rancher preserves Florida's Cracker history." Miami Herald. February 06, 2007. origin.miami.com. Retrieved February 21, 2007.
- ↑ Jim Bob Tinsley. Florida Cow Hunter. (University of Central Florida Press, 1990. ISBN 0813009855), 42-43.
- ↑ Lenore McKelvey Puhek, "Fannie Sperry Made the Ride of Her Life" www.historynet.com. Retrieved November 10, 2007.
- Beck, Warren A. and Ynez D. Haase. Historical Atlas of the American West. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma, 1989. ISBN 978-0806121932
- Jordan, Teresa. Cowgirls: Women of the American West. Bison Books, 1992. ISBN 978-0803275751
- Lamar, Howard R. (Editor) The New Encyclopedia of the American West. Yale University Press; Subsequent edition, 1998. ISBN 978-0300070880
- Nicholson, Jon. Cowboys: A Vanishing World. St. Martin's Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0312286774
- Roach, Joyce Gibson. The Cowgirls. University of North Texas Press, 1990. ISBN 978-0929398150
- Slatta, Richard W. The Cowboy Encyclopedia. W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. ISBN 978-0393314731
- Tinsley, Jim Bob. Florida Cow Hunter. University of Central Florida Press, 1990. ISBN 0813009855
- Ward, Fay E. The Cowboy at Work: All About His Job and How He Does It. University of Oklahoma Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0806120515
All Retrieved November 3, 2007.
- American Cowboy Information – History, facts, and current trends. www.truecowboy.com.
- Na Paniola Pipi – The Hawaiian Cowboy. www.kaahelehawaii.com.
- Wyoming The Cowboy State. wyoming.gov.
- The Cowboys of Borneo. www.mysabah.com.
- National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. www.nationalcowboymuseum.org.
- Cowgirl Hall of Fame Website. www.cowgirl.net.
- Working Ranch Cowboys Association. www.wrca.org.
- Vaqueros: The First Cowboys of the Open Range National Geographic News article on the origins of the American cowboy. news.nationalgeographic.com.
- Black American West Museum Denver, Colorado. www.blackamericanwestmuseum.com.
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On June 24, 1965, a question that baffled millions of Americans was formally put to this country's auto makers in a letter from Representative Jonathan Bingham, of New York: What was the reason for "the failure of U.S. car manufacturers to meet the domestic market for small automobiles"?
In response, two of the auto makers reported that they had introduced compact cars in 1959, and then, for various reasons, had decided to go no further in manufacturing still smaller vehicles. James Roche, president of General Motors, said that in consequence of his company's action "the challenge of foreign imports . . . reached its peak in 1959." Chrysler, according to Harry Chesebrough, the vice-president for product planning and development, had had a certain success with its compact, the Plymouth Valiant, beginning in 1959, but had then chosen not to push development in the subcompact market. As a reason, Chesebrough alluded to possible competition from G.M. and Ford. "It seems certain that if one American manufacturer should successfully penetrate that portion of the market, the others would soon follow suit," he said. "In this event no one American company could hope to gain the necessary volume to justify the substantial investment required to enter the market." President Arjay Miller, of Ford—which had also introduced a compact car in 1959—said that his company had "decided in 1962 that market conditions were not ripe" for smaller cars. Mr. Miller explained, "American car buyers have clearly expressed their preference for less austere transportation." President Roy Abernethy, of American Motors, cited his company's original Rambler, a compact marketed since 1950, as evidence that his company had been "more deeply involved in the matter of car size than any U.S. company." He said that American had tried a subcompact car, the Metropolitan, in 1954, but that "the market was just not great enough to keep this small-car program going."
On October 15, 1973, the Arab states belonging to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or opec, instituted limits on oil shipments to the United States, which lasted until May 18, 1974. Gasoline shortages had developed by Thanksgiving, and gas lines started to form. The problems attending the purchase of gasoline, and doubts about its future availability, soon affected the automobile market. Sales of imports from foreign-owned manufacturers, led by small cars featuring fuel economy, jumped by more than ten per cent, to almost fifteen per cent of the total American market. American Motors, with its compact, increased its sales by fifty per cent, to almost five per cent of the market. Chrysler and Ford, which had by this time marketed several smaller vehicles (among them the Dodge Dart and the Ford Pinto), held their shares of the market—roughly fifteen and twenty-five per cent, respectively, including cars manufactured abroad by them. But G.M., which had shown minimal interest in compacts after the early nineteen-sixties and still emphasized its line of gas guzzlers, weighing two tons or more and powered by huge eight-cylinder engines, suffered badly. Between the 1973 model year and the first quarter of 1974, its share of the domestic market dropped by almost fourteen per cent, at one point dipping below forty per cent of the total. "We were flat on our behinds," Richard C. Gerstenberg, who was the chairman of the company at the time, said in a recent interview. "People were wondering, Is the company going to make it?" But, as it happened, the market for big cars picked up in 1975, and G.M. enjoyed record earnings.
On January 16, 1979, the Shah of Iran was deposed. From April through September, gasoline was again in short supply, and gas lines formed anew. Once more, the structure of the car market was shaken. Imported cars, with small Japanese models leading the way, spurted to twenty per cent of United States sales in the first half of 1979, and to over twenty-five per cent in February of this year. But this time Chrysler (down below ten per cent of the market), Ford (at around seventeen per cent of the market), and American Motors (at only one and six-tenths per cent of the market) all lost ground. Added to the competition from below by the imports was a squeeze from the top. G.M. had, starting in 1974, put on the market smaller versions of every make in its line, from the Cadillac to the Chevrolet.
Then, in April, 1979, G.M. introduced a compact four-cylinder, front-wheel-drive vehicle, produced as the X-Car and marketed as the Chevrolet Citation, the Pontiac Phoenix, the Oldsmobile Omega, and the Buick Skylark. Thanks to the comprehensive reduction in size, G.M. more than held its own at the time of the second round of gas lines. Its share of the market for American-built cars soared to over sixty per cent—and set new monthly records, which, among other factors, put Ford in trouble and sent Chrysler running to the government for help. Even though hard hit by the recent slump, with first-quarter profits down eighty-eight per cent from a year ago, G.M. is the only major American car manufacturer in the black. In April, it has accounted for sixty-five per cent of sales of American-built cars. Robert Stempel, the general manager at Pontiac, told me, "These days, it's exciting to be at G.M."
I had visited Stempel in the course of an inquiry into how General Motors made what it calls the "decision to downsize." The quest led me, in late 1979 and early this year, to Detroit and to the executives of all the leading auto companies; to New York and to people in related businesses, especially finance; and to government officials in Washington and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the Department of Transportation maintains research facilities. Virtually everybody agreed that the downsizing decision was freighted with significance for G.M., and for the auto industry in this country and in the world at large. Joseph Downer, an executive vice-president of Atlantic Richfield, called it "a major event in industrial history." But nobody seemed altogether sure how it came about.
By way of introduction to the subject, I called on several executives of Detroit companies that service and supply the car manufacturers. From their comments, I gleaned the following picture of the auto industry:
To understand the industry, it is first necessary to understand Detroit. It is bounded by Canada and Lake St. Clair, so it did not have as much space for growth as was available to many other cities, and the suburbs had to stretch way out. Detroit is also unlike other cities—unlike New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, or even Cleveland or Pittsburgh—in that it doesn't provide a full range of services. It doesn't have a large independent legal or banking establishment. Auto manufacturing is practically everything in Detroit, and the auto executives, who for the most part live far out in the suburbs, tend to be concerned almost exclusively with cars.
Until the race riots of 1967, the industry was totally divorced from downtown. Since then, largely thanks to Henry Ford II, there has been a start at rebuilding the downtown—a big hotel-and-office complex called Renaissance Center, along the Detroit River. But, between Renaissance Center and the suburbs, there are large tracts of wasteland. The auto industry is not in close touch with the city or with the people who live there. It is not in touch with the people who live in other cities. The industry talks to the industry.
Relative youth also distinguishes the industry. It is less than a hundred years old. The founders were strong men. They left their imprint on the companies they started. Each company is different from the rest, and there's not a lot of rapport among them. Each is a universe unto itself.
At Ford, the family interest is still dominant. When Henry Ford II took over from his grandfather, just after the Second World War, he was in his twenties. He had to hire management, and he hired good management. He brought in Ernest Breech, from Bendix, and hired men known as the whiz kids—Charles Thornton, Robert McNamara, Arjay Miller, and J. Edward Lundy. For years and years, Ford ran the company through business-school types, such as McNamara, who was president from 1960 to 1961, and Arjay Miller, who was followed in 1968 by Semon (Bunkie) Knudsen, who came from G.M. But Henry Ford kept the ultimate power in his own hands. He played off the money men against the engineers, first favoring one group and then the other. That is how Lee Iacocca, who became president in 1970, came to the top. He was an engineer whose great triumph was the Ford Mustang, a sporty compact car. Then, in 1976, Ford had a heart ailment. In the hospital, he must have thought long and hard about the future of the company. After he came out, he decided he had to groom another business-school type—Philip Caldwell—for the top job. Iacocca protested, believing that he had earned the right to be heir apparent. Ford fired him. For most of the past five years, the company has been in turmoil at the top. It had always been strong in small cars, from the Model T onward, and it should have moved quickly into downsizing after the oil embargo, but it missed the boat. In 1974, it guessed wrong and decided not to downsize. Now Ford is paying the price.
Walter Chrysler and K. T. Keller, both brilliant engineers, were the men who made Chrysler. The company was always strong on advanced design. It led the way in hydraulic brakes, electronic ignition, and that kind of thing. In 1950, for reasons nobody seems to know—maybe just because he liked him—Keller decided to turn the company over to a production man, Lester L. (Tex) Colbert. Colbert had expansive ideas, and he began moving Chrysler into real estate and overseas purchases. To make those arrangements, he had to look to a firm of accountants, now known as Touche Ross. Colbert left, and Lynn Townsend, originally from Touche Ross, took over. He was eventually succeeded by a protégé, John Riccardo, also originally from Touche Ross. They did a lot of borrowing, and they saw the need to go to small cars. The company brought over some Ford people, including, finally, Iacocca, as president. But they didn't have the finances to swing a fast move to small cars. That, my informants said, was why the company is in trouble today.
One Detroit executive gave me a concise lecture on General Motors: "General Motors is the kind of institution whose like doesn't exist elsewhere in Western civilization. It is America's Japan. It is a marvellous structure of committees, put together by Alfred P. Sloan, who was chairman of the company from 1937 to 1956. At the top, there's the board of directors, headed by the chairman, Thomas A. Murphy. Directly under the chairman, there's the finance committee. That's the guardian of G.M.'s profits—the real powerhouse in the company. Then, there's also an executive committee, which reports to the president of the company, Elliott Estes, who reports to Murphy. The executive committee is responsible for operating policies—including changes in the company's products—and capital expenditures. It carries out those functions through a bunch of other committees, or policy groups—for administration, sales, engineering, merchandising, styling, and everything else. The committees are the company, and one of the ways you rise in the company is by being a committee man—preferably secretary of one of the committees. The people who succeed at G.M. generally come into the company very early, at low-level jobs. They don't have big ideas about rising to the top. They stick with the company, and eventually a few make it. To the outsider, they're not very impressive. They're not very interesting as people. They tend to talk in platitudes. All they know is the automobile industry. They mainly live in Bloomfield Hills, and they mainly play golf at the Bloomfield Hills Country Club. They even tend to look alike. But on the inside it's very different. They're smart. They work hard.
"The decision to downsize is a prime example," he went on. "It may look obvious to outsiders, but it wasn't obvious to the auto industry—especially not to G.M. To begin with, the auto companies aren't innovators. Maybe there were some big changes in car manufacture in the early years—moving up from bicycles to open cars with metal bodies built over wooden frames on steel chassis, and then to hardtops with metal frames. But it isn't like space or computers, or even the telephone business. The premium hasn't been on technological change. After about 1920, the premium was on mass production—on doing the same thing over and over again, always at a little less cost if possible. The penny-pinchers rose in the auto industry—especially at G.M. Even when there were changes, they tended not to be changes in the basic product. They were changes in style and appearance, changes in fashion.
"Prices and profits were built around mass production of the basic unit, with changes in the trimmings. The difference in the cost of the materials and labor that go into producing the basic Chevy and the basic Cadillac is not all that great. But G.M. puts all kinds of special luxury features on the Cadillac. It makes money on each one of the features. So the company makes much more on a Cadillac than on a Chevy. Shrinking the size of cars came hard, because it implied cutting back on the most profitable models."
For General Motors, he concluded, it was particularly tough: "G.M. has models in every price range. If it changed Pontiac, that might hurt Chevy. If it changed the Olds, that might damage the Buick. So it had to change the whole line, and it had to change against the direction of everything it had been telling itself and telling the customer. The old message was more for more. Bigger is better. It had to change to smaller is better. Less for more. That was risky."
Nonetheless, it appeared that when the G.M. managers decided to change they went all the way. They invested twenty billion dollars in downsizing between 1974 and 1980. They moved fast, and with a singleness of purpose that astonished all the outside executives I consulted. Not one professed to know how G.M. had done it.
Henry Ford II, whom I saw at the company headquarters in Dearborn just before he stepped down as chief executive, in October of 1979, tended to confirm that analysis. He obviously belongs to a breed apart from the ordinary auto executive. Instead of the uniform white broadcloth shirt, he was wearing a blue button-down oxford, and his suit had the unpadded shoulders and narrow lapels that are said to distinguish Ivy Leaguers. Far more than any other auto executive, he was plainspoken—direct to the point of being blunt. He said that the President and Congress and the country were "confused" in thinking that only the Europeans and the Japanese knew how to make small cars well. He said that Ford had been selling cars around the world since 1904. In Europe, he said, Ford was (after Volkswagen and Fiat) the third-biggest seller of cars. The company was also doing very well in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina. The Ford Fiesta was as good as any small car built. He pointed out that while Ford was losing money in the United States, it was making profits from overseas operations. "The profits from abroad supply us with funds we need for investment here," he said.
There was need for investment on a colossal scale in this country, Ford asserted, because the market had been transformed. "We'd like to be able to sell some middle-range cars," he said. "We still hope there will be room for buyers to make some choices. But there's no chance the market will bounce back. It's a matter of fuel supply. The future belongs to more fuel-efficient cars—smaller and less powerful."
He acknowledged that Ford was behind G.M. in downsizing. It would not catch up with the X-Cars until later this year, and it would draw abreast of the Cadillac Seville only in 1981. He said that Ford had been moving toward smaller cars in this country, but in a gradual way. The slow approach had paid off in 1976, 1977, and 1978, when Americans still wanted big, roomy cars. "Iran made things fall apart," he said. Then he asked ruefully, as if he weren't altogether sure that the question was rhetorical, "But who could have predicted Iran?"
At Chrysler headquarters, in Highland Park, north of Detroit, the atmosphere called to mind a man looking for a minute in which to have a nervous breakdown. Appointments were made and unmade. Executives buzzed off to Washington for meetings with government officials, to New York to see the bankers, or sometimes to Europe for huddles with foreign auto manufacturers. In mid-September of last year, at a press briefing on the 1980 models, Chrysler previewed a television commercial that featured a well-known actor. Later, Lee Iacocca was asked about the commercial, and he indicated that it might eventually emerge in somewhat different form. It did—with Iacocca himself replacing the actor.
The new boss at Chrysler is a big, attractive man, who wears mod suits and speaks in a husky voice. His tone is slightly tough, and when he speaks of "the Feds" his manner summons to mind a picture of a G-man in the nineteen-thirties as played by, say, James Cagney, rather than the Secretary of the Treasury as played by G. William Miller. Iacocca led off with me by talking of the past. "When the 1973 oil boycott came, we considered it a blip," he said. "We figured the market would come back in six months, and it did. I've spent all my life making small cars and styling small cars. We could've put front-wheel drive in the Mustang and taken off five hundred pounds. The public didn't want it. But the second energy crisis didn't just tilt the market. It toppled it. We have to keelhaul the whole industry. If anybody tells you he can plan ahead for the next two years, he's nuts."
Iacocca pointed out that, contrary to widespread popular belief, Chrysler was, by this time, ahead of G.M. and Ford when it came to selling small cars. He cited the Omni and the Horizon—two front-wheel-drive, four-cylinder subcompacts that, since their introduction, in January, 1978, Chrysler had been selling as fast as they came off the assembly lines. He claimed that if the gas pinch had held off until 1981 Chrysler would have had a dominant position in the small-car market. As it was, G.M. still sold "seventy per cent of the gas guzzlers, Ford fifty per cent, and Chrysler thirty per cent."
To stay alive, Chrysler had had to go full speed with a program to downsize cars and modernize plants. The cost of these changes, Iacocca said, "came to a hundred million dollars a month." That's why Chrysler went to the federal government to tide the company over the present period. Without such help, Iacocca claimed, the burden of reëquipping the industry would break Chrysler, and maybe it would turn out to break Ford. He said he could envisage a period of chaos in the domestic market, which "in a few short years" would leave General Motors as the sole survivor.
Nothing about G.M. belies that prediction. It is, after Exxon, which took the lead away from it last year, the nation's second-largest industrial corporation, with eight hundred and fifty thousand employees in thirty-five countries; one million two hundred and thirty-seven thousand stockholders; sixty-six billion dollars in sales and nearly three billion dollars in profits in 1979; and thirty-two billion dollars in assets. Its headquarters are a fifteen-story, block-size limestone pile, designed by Albert Kahn, in 1919, on West Grand Boulevard, a few miles north of the general downtown district of Detroit. The fourteenth floor, where the top executives have their offices and hold many of their conferences and eat most of their meals, smacks of sturdier days—a time when business was business and businessmen were businessmen. The offices are relatively small, the furnishings utilitarian rather than rich, the secretaries notable for looking efficient rather than beautiful. A single corridor connects all the executive offices, and the view tends to be inward rather than outward. A glass door, worked by remote control from a reception desk, separates the executive corridor from the rest of the floor. The atmosphere inside that door is dignified and still—like that of a church. The impression is of a stability that outlasts time.
My first call at G.M. was on Elliott Estes, the president of the company. Pete Estes, as everybody calls him, is the very model of a G.M. engineer. He was born in Michigan and educated at the General Motors Institute, a management-cum-vocational school that the company maintains in Flint. He rose through the ranks, first at Pontiac and then at Chevrolet, before moving over to the fourteenth floor, in 1969, and he became president in 1974. He wears a mustache that makes him look slightly like Mandrake the Magician, but otherwise comes on as a straightforward fellow with an open, ebullient manner. "NOTHING GREAT WAS EVER ACHIEVED WITHOUT ENTHUSIASM," says a sign on his otherwise uncluttered desk.
I had interviewed Estes for television during the recession of 1974-75, when there was a big question as to whether G.M. would join Ford and Chrysler in giving rebates to move cars out of inventory. During the interview, which took place in the morning for broadcast that evening, Estes repeatedly evaded questions about rebates. Around midday, he called to say he'd like to do the interview over again. We did, and it developed that in the course of the day G.M. had announced a decision to accord the rebates. Estes knew that the decision was going to be made, but he wouldn't say so, even for later broadcast, until the decision had actually been announced. Still, he began the more recent interview at G.M. by reminding me in a breezy fashion of the rebates episode. Without any prompting, he then began to talk openly about his approach to the building of smaller cars. He said that he had begun his career at G.M. working for Charles Kettering, the famous inventor, who developed the self-starter. "Back in 1934, Kettering kept telling us that the world would soon run out of oil," Estes said. "I waited ten years, and the world didn't run out of oil. I waited twenty-five years, and the world didn't run out of oil. In fact, there was more oil than ever before, and a big thing in my career was developing a high-compression engine. So I guess I kind of stopped waiting."
Estes continued, "The consumer is the gut issue. We first try to take care of the customer for G.M. cars. We try to hold him. We try to make G.M. immune to losing customers. Now, you have to remember that the automobile is the most postponable consumer purchase there is. Our customer doesn't have to buy a car tomorrow, or next week, or even in the next four years. With a paint job, a new battery, and a little fixing, his car can last six or seven years. So our business stops as soon as the customer loses confidence—whether it's because of a recession, or the illness of the President, or a product he doesn't like. For us, the confidence of the consumer is the whole ballgame. Over the years, we made several passes at going to smaller cars. We tried it with our compacts in 1959. We thought the Corvair, the smallest of the lot, was timely and appealing, but it was a victim of bad publicity. We also brought out some more conventional smaller cars—the Pontiac Tempest, the Buick Special, and the Olds F-85. Those cars were too high and too narrow. The customers didn't like them. It was a disastrous experiment. By 1965, we had to sell the engine plant we were using for those cars. In the next few years, we discovered that the wide-track V-8 Pontiac was our best seller. We learned that the more power we put in a car the more cars we sold. History taught us that big was better."
In 1972, Estes recalled, various studies of the coming energy shortage had caused G.M. to begin planning for a reduction in car size. "We started to do it slowly and systematically—first, by taking four hundred pounds out of each car," he said. "Then, in December, 1973, during the oil embargo, we upped that to a thousand pounds per car. That was the heart of what we call the downsizing decision."
In looking over the past, Estes felt that what had been done so far was relatively easy. He said that the downsizing up to then had been mainly a matter of reducing weight with lighter materials and smaller frames. The hard things were coming up: front-wheel drives, aluminum engines, new kinds of power systems—maybe diesel cars, maybe battery cars. "The next five years are going to be the most innovative in our history," he said.
I asked him how he judged G.M.'s downsizing performance as a whole. Estes said, "I think of the energy shortages as hiccups. The first hiccup caught us by surprise, and you can’t expect us to respond to every hiccup. The response to the second hiccup was better. Maybe there will have to be a third hiccup."
After seeing Estes, I moved down the corridor to the corner office assigned to the chairman of the board of G.M., Thomas Murphy. Like most of his predecessors as chairman, including Alfred Sloan, Murphy rose through the finance side of the company, becoming vice-chairman in 1972 and chairman in 1974. Until recently, he described himself in Who's Who as a "financial executive," and, indeed, he looks like a bookkeeper—tall, thin, with an austere face, in which severe eyes peer unblinkingly from behind thick glasses. Even by G.M. standards, his appetite for work is huge. "He's the only one I know who reads all the paper the company generates,” a colleague confided. "Seven days a week, eighteen hours a day, he reads those reports." Murphy's desk testifies to his diligence. Not only is it piled high with letters, reports, and bound folders but various signs advertise the condition. "BLESS THIS MESS," one reads. Another says, "A CLUTTERED DESK . . . THE MARK OF GENIUS."
I had interviewed Murphy early last year, in the course of a general reconnaissance of the auto industry. At that time, he had talked about relation between government and business. He had warned against any bail-out of Chrysler by the government, on the ground that it would compromise the principle of free competition. As he talked, he had become more and more intense, pounding his palm with his fist, and walking up and down his office. He seemed to me a little like Uncle Sam in the posters for enlistment in the armed forces, and I came away feeling that in the matter of free enterprise I was something of a slacker.
To avoid another lecture, I asked Murphy to tell me as briefly and directly as possible about G.M.'s decision to downsize. He plunged into the subject immediately. But as he spoke there was curious backing and filling. At times, he was peppy. At other times, he checked his enthusiasm, as if he were afraid it would bring down on his head the wrath of some corporate god. He began with a reference to the American love for big cars in the nineteen-sixties. He said that G.M. had launched several small cars but that customer demand had caused each model to get bigger year by year. "When the oil embargo began in 1973, we had a heavy preponderance of cars in the upper echelons," he said. "Our fleet average was twelve miles per gallon, as against fourteen m.p.g. for the competition. We realized that the availability of gas would become a problem for us. We still expected a big demand for the big cars. But we also felt there would be a strong demand for the small cars. We said to ourselves, 'We've got a job to do.' Late in the year, we took two basic decisions. First, we decided to produce the Chevette in the U.S. That was a small car designed in Germany by our subsidiary there, Adam Opel A.G., which we had been producing in Brazil to beat the Volkswagen there. Our decision was to bring it out in the United States as a small Chevy within eighteen months. Then we decided to produce the small Cadillac—the Seville. In other words, we moved in both ends of the market, where the imports were strongest. We moved against the Mercedes at the top and against the Volkswagen and the Honda at the bottom."
I asked Murphy exactly when that decision had been made and in what circumstances. He said that making the decision had been "relatively easy—a matter of general consensus." To answer the question about timing, he rose from his desk and circled back of me to a bookcase full of documents. He plucked one out, came back to his desk, and began leafing through it. Then, pointing to the sheets he held in his hand, he said, "This is an official schedule of major actions by G.M. It says here that the executive committee approved the K-Car decision (that's the Seville) on January 23, 1974, and the T-Car (that's the Chevette) on the same day. But I know that's wrong. We didn't make the decision in the executive committee. We made it in the engineering-policy group. It was on December 23rd."
A copy of the chronology that Murphy had consulted was later made available to me by Philip Workman, of the G.M. public-relations staff, who accompanied me to almost all my interviews with company executives. As Murphy had indicated, the official chronology recorded that the decisions on the Cadillac Seville and the Chevette were made by the executive committee on January 23, 1974. The sheet made no reference to the meeting at which, Murphy said, the decision had actually been made—a meeting of the engineering-policy group on December 23, 1973. It turned out, moreover, that December 23, 1973, was the Sunday before Christmas. Even G.M. executives don't have major policy huddles on the Sunday before Christmas. There had, in fact, been no high-level meetings at G.M. on the date described by the chairman of the board as D-Day. The public-relations staff was baffled. But I was assured that everything would be set straight when I saw the man who had been chairman at the time, Richard Gerstenberg.
Gerstenberg, the chairman of G.M. from 1972 through 1974, when he retired, is a square-faced man of immaculate neatness in tailoring, bearing, and speech, who looks surprisingly young for his age, which is three score and ten. He made an appointment with me for 9 a.m. on a Monday in a public-relations office of the G.M. Building, and arrived with notes based on talks with Murphy and others about my previous interviews. Before going into the particulars of the move to smaller cars, he discussed in detail the recent history of G.M. "To the extent that I had anything to do with the decisions," he said, "it was the result of a lot of input and pressure that I had from several sources that were maybe outsiders more than insiders with respect to the corporation." He said that until the nineteen-sixties G.M. had a board of directors composed "largely of insiders." Thereafter, the company came under pressure from Ralph Nader and other critics for not being alert to broad public interests. Frederic Donner, who was chairman at the time, opened the board to people from outside G.M. By the time Donner quit as chairman, in 1967, "half were outsiders," Gerstenberg said. "That was a dramatic change for General Motors."
The outsiders on the board pushed G.M. to create a wide range of new activities. A public-policy committee was established, and a science-advisory committee, and a corporate-directions group, for long-term planning. In one way or another, each of these raised the subject of energy. "All through this," Gerstenberg recalled, "those public-policy guys were giving me a hard time: 'What are you doing about more competition for the Mercedes?' ” Minutes of the corporate-directions group showed that at the first meeting the first item on the agenda was a discussion of small cars. The science-advisory committee led Gerstenberg into meetings with academic figures and oil-company executives on energy problems. In July of 1972, G.M. set up an energy task force, under the company treasurer, David Collier. That same month, the company decided to build a sporty subcompact Chevy, the Monza (not to be confused with an earlier Corvair Monza). In April of 1973, it adopted a slow and modest program for reducing the bulk of its full-sized Chevies, Buicks, Pontiacs, and Oldsmobiles. Around the same time, the energy task force began reporting to various G.M. committees that there was a serious possibility of a gas shortage. "When the embargo came," Gerstenberg said, "I was aware that we had to do something drastic, and that we had to do it right away."
At that point, Gerstenberg turned to the decisions taken in December of 1973. His notes showed that there had been two meetings—not one, as Murphy had remembered it. He said that the meetings involved a score of men in the engineering-policy group. They were held at the design studio in the G.M. Technical Center, in suburban Warren, just north of Detroit, and the object was to survey models for future years. Decisions had to be made at that time because financing for the new models was to be approved at a board meeting in January of 1974, which would take place against the background of a deepening recession. The basic decisions made were to produce a small Chevrolet (the Chevette) and a reduced-size Cadillac (the Seville), and to introduce into the Buick, Olds, and Pontiac lines smaller models based on the Chevrolet Monza.
Downsizing in general was one subject at issue. "There were some who weren't all that certain that an embargo was going to last, and if it blew over, hell, we might have spent a pile of money and not been able to sell the cars," Gerstenberg said. "There were others who said, 'Get those small cars. We need them and our competition's got them.' ” Gerstenberg himself came down on the side of the smaller cars. "I don't want to make this sound boastful, I hope you'll understand," he told me, with a diffidence characteristic of G.M. executives when they tall about themselves as distinct from their organization. "But I said, 'The need right now is for more small cars.' And I said we had to do something of a short-term nature and then we had to do something of a long-term nature. And for the short term we had to find some way to get a smaller car for every one of our car divisions in the shortest possible time."
About the subcompact Chevrolet, there was little argument. It was agreed that the Chevette, designed in Germany and produced in Brazil, would be brought to the United States and "put into production as fast as we could." There was more argument about reducing the size of the Buick Oldsmobiles, and Pontiacs by fitting some of them into the mold of the Chevrolet Monza. According to Gerstenberg, some people said, "Hell, they're medium-sized cars. Why give the Monza to them? It ought to be retained for Chevrolet." He explained me, "That was Chevrolet's market. The low end."
Cadillac provided the occasion for the key fight. According to Gerstenberg, the Cadillac engineers had served up a project for a brand-new compact model: "a hell of an automobile, front-wheel drive—geez, it was something." The design staff had come up with an intermediate version of the Cadillac with a conventional drive. Gerstenberg took soundings on how long it would take to get a front-wheel-drive Cadillac into production. He decided to take the compact design submitted by the Cadillac people, but with the conventional drive proposed by the design people. "I said, 'Well, hell, based on your time element to get a front drive, there's only one way to go, and that's to get the smallest one as quickly as we can get it.' So that's about what we decided right there—the Chevette, the Monza for Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac, and the smaller Cadillac for Cadillac."
Gerstenberg’s account, I learned from a subsequent check with other G.M. officials present at the meetings—including one who had taken notes—was just as flawed as that given by Murphy. For one thing, Gerstenberg was wrong about the committee that made things happen. The action began on the morning of December 19, 1973, with a meeting of the engineering-policy group, including some thirty executives and staff people, in the library conference room of the design-staff building in the technical center. That meeting ended in midmorning. Afterward, the six top executives who made up the G.M. executive committee met informally in the same room to consider the Cadillac problem. The executive-committee members subsequently moved over to an auditorium adjacent to the design-staff building, where they reviewed various models. They lunched together. They also met two days later—on December 21, 1973—at 8 a.m., in a small conference room off the design center. Those meetings were attended by the full executive committee: Edward Cole, president of the corporation and chairman of the executive committee; Gerstenberg, then chairman of the corporation; Murphy, then vice-chairman of the corporation; and three executive vice-presidents—Estes for operations, Oscar Lundin for finance, and Richard Terrell for the car, truck, body, and assembly divisions.
That committee meeting made the basic downsizing decisions. Unanimously. For Gerstenberg's story was wrong in another respect. Consensus didn't just happen. On the morning of December 19th, after the session of the engineering-policy group, the executive committee met with two top Cadillac executives—General Manager Robert Lund and Chief Engineer Robert Templin. Lund and Templin were vigorously opposed to the proposal of the design staff that the new Cadillac be an intermediate-sized vehicle with rear-wheel drive. They insisted on the smaller car with front-wheel drive, because they felt that front-wheel drive was the future, and that Cadillac, as G.M.'s quality car, ought to show the way. Gerstenberg, while opposed to the design-staff model, was concerned that producing a front-wheel-drive car would take too long. But he did not want to simply overrule the Cadillac executives. So, after the meeting on the morning of the nineteenth, Gerstenberg and Cole spent the afternoon with Lund. In the course of their discussions, the Cadillac executive agreed to postpone the demand for the front-wheel drive. On December 21st, when the executive committee made the final decision, the Cadillac men were for the smaller car with the rear-wheel drive. Everybody who counted was on board for the Seville. Consensus had been negotiated—and the latest model of the Seville has a front-wheel drive.
"That doesn't sound like industry. It sounds like government," an official in Washington said to me when he heard my account. He heard it because the repeated failure of G.M. to get its own story straight drove me back to officials in the transport field, both in Washington and in Cambridge, and to financial analysts in New York for some outside explanation. Forgetfulness, all agreed, was undoubtedly a factor. It probably accounted for not knowing exact dates and exact names of committees and the exact decision as to which car was built by which division. Tactics also seemed to be involved. Murphy and Estes are active executives, with full schedules and an ongoing round of decisions. They saved time for themselves, and avoided controversy, and they made it seem that Gerstenberg had been the driving force. In addition, however, both the government officials and the financial experts I talked to insisted that G.M. was so huge that it was difficult for any individual boss to have a fully detailed view of company decisions, and that it was so self-absorbed as to be blind to the role of government.
An official of the Department of Transportation said, "Nobody at G.M. could tell you exactly how the downsizing decision was made because nobody knows. The fact is that G.M. didn’t make the decision by itself. The government helped the company. The government forced G.M. to take a critical look at its cars—first by setting standards for safety, then by setting standards for cleaner air, and, finally, by setting miles-per-gallon standards for fuel efficiency. Without the miles-per-gallon standards, G.M. would never have downsized the way it did. But the G.M. executives fought the standards every step of the way. Even now, they're so tied up in their ideology that they can't admit what the government did for them."
That view was endorsed by a Washington lawyer who works for the auto industry. After hearing my account, he wrote me:
The Arab oil embargo did indeed cause a "hiccup" on the demand graph; consumer interest in small cars jumped but then slid back. But only when the fuel economy standards were enacted in 1975 did a comprehensive approach to downsizing begin. In the post-embargo period, the car companies were convinced (probably rightly so) that consumers were still primarily interested in large cars. Nevertheless, they were confronted with the government standards. Downsizing was the way out; accommodate consumer demand for large cars and meet the early government standards that weren't all that tough. The tougher phase of standards (beginning next year) calls not just for downsizing but for new cars. In 1978, the industry was really thinking of whether there was a chance to change the standards, because consumer demand wouldn't allow them to meet the standards. It wasn't only [Jimmy Carter's] chestnuts that the Ayatollah pulled. By mid-'79, six months after he took over, the market was way ahead of the standards.
Partial support for that contention emerged from a review of my notes. Gerstenberg, for example, had mentioned fuel-efficiency standards in a way that suggested they were acceptable because they supplemented what G.M. had decided to do in response to the market. Indeed, he moved almost imperceptibly from an allusion to the government miles-per-gallon standards to a sales pitch for one of the downsized cars. He said, "The standards have forced us to do something we're doing much better than we thought we ever could. And the best illustration I can think of—have you ever driven one of those X-Cars?"
General Motors executives who were more closely connected with production were much more explicit, and even enthusiastic, about working with government. Robert Stempel, of Pontiac, a big, beaming forty-six-year-old engineer, presents a case in point. Stempel had served as special assistant to Edward Cole from June, 1973, to September, 1974. I lunched with Stempel in his office at the Pontiac plant at the urging of the G.M. public-relations staff. Cole had retired in 1974, grumbling. He said, "The fun is gone. . . . I wouldn't go into the automobile business again." It developed that Stempel knew little about the downsizing decision, and it occurred to me that my meeting with him had been arranged in order to prove that Cole's protégés nursed no bitter feelings. Whatever the reason for the meeting, Stempel was full of interesting lore about the catalytic converter that G.M. had developed to clean up auto emissions. He said that Cole had personally worked on the gadget. He not only acknowledged that the catalytic converter had been developed under government pressure, he also pointed to the clear blue skies outside the window and said it didn't use to be that way, because the Pontiac foundry had spewed out heavy smoke until pollution-control equipment was installed. At one point, he said, "We're proud at General Motors to be serving not only the company but the country. We like better products, and a healthy atmosphere—for ourselves and for our children. It's an especially good feeling for a lot of the younger engineers who have been pressing for these things for years."
The present top brass at G.M., while not nearly so enthusiastic, is not blind to the increased role of government. Chairman Murphy may be a hard-line exponent of free enterprise in his preaching. Not in his practice. Since June of 1978, he has been chairman of the Business Roundtable, the major organ for coöperation between the government and the business community. Along with Reginald Jones, of General Electric, and Irving Shapiro, of du Pont, a co-chairman and past chairman, respectively, of the Roundtable, Murphy has been a leading supporter of the Carter Administration's effort to restrain wages and prices. The Murphy era at G.M., moreover, has featured a reshaping of practices and structures in ways that make the corporation more responsive to the government and its concerns. In a follow-up interview that I had with Murphy in Washington after making the rounds of government officials, I asked him directly how he would summarize the changes that marked his stewardship of G.M.
He said, "I really don't think we've changed. I think the scene in which we are a part has been shifting. And you have to, you might say, move with the times and move with the scene. At the time I came with the corporation, it was a different environment as far as business was concerned. I think businessmen perceived themselves as being part of the business scene but not part of the broader industry and government total-society scene. I think there has been a draw and a pull to which business people have to respond. And I'd say we are more outward-looking, and I hope more in relation to the society at large today, than we've been in the past."
In that respect, probably the most important new departure at G.M. has been the institution of the project center. In the past, when G.M. followed the market, and only the market, it used to make decisions slowly, almost inch by inch. Innovations—power steering, for example, or power brakes—were introduced over a long period of time, with each car division moving at its own pace. But government-mandated actions don't allow for decisions on a slow curve, with Pontiac leading in one feature, and then Buick taking over, and then Cadillac and Oldsmobile. When Congress enacts a law, the new standards apply to all models, and they must be put into effect by a certain date. Decisions, instead of being made along a graded curve, have to follow a stair-step pattern.
G.M. made its first accommodation to that change in developing the catalytic converter. The company did not let each automotive division go its own way. Instead, it established a special unit, named after a similar organ developed by government in the space program—the project center. The project center drew talent from all the automotive units, but a single engineer, who reported directly to the fourteenth floor, kept track of progress. The catalytic converter, which the first project center developed, was made available to all G.M. cars, from the Chevrolet to the Cadillac. Thereafter, separate project centers were established to downsize big cars, intermediate cars, and sports cars. The X-Car was also developed in a project center. Now G.M. is using the project-center approach to develop a battery-driven car.
The structure of management on the fourteenth floor has also been transformed to meet the need for adjustment to more rapid change, across a wider band of concern. Under Murphy and Estes, there are four executive vice-presidents, in charge of different groups of G.M. activities. Two are traditional: the executive vice-president for finance, Roger Smith, who will, if the usual bias toward the financial side holds good, succeed Murphy at the end of this year; and the executive vice-president for North American car and truck operations, F. James McDonald, who has a good chance to succeed Estes. But two are new. There is an executive vice-president, Reuben Jensen, in charge of the steadily expanding amount of business that G.M. does in producing common components (engines, brakes, batteries, etc.) for its cars, and an executive vice-president for overseas operations, Howard Kehrl.
The overseas emphasis points toward what is probably the most portentous of all the changes flowing from the downsizing decision. For a long time, it has been apparent that the greatest potential market for car sales is outside the United States. In this country, the ratio of people to cars is roughly two to one—around two hundred and twenty million people to about a hundred and ten million cars. In Western Europe, the figure is four persons per car; in Japan, six persons per car; in Latin America, eighteen persons per car; in Asia and Africa, ninety persons per car. So, while the American market is close to the saturation point, the pickings abroad are rich.
In the past, G.M. paid little attention to those possibilities—it behaved like an American company with foreign subsidiaries, not a multinational corporation based in the United States. While it did twice as much American business as Ford in 1978, for example, it sold less than Ford did outside North America. But downsizing gave G.M. much more access to the foreign markets. Gerstenberg said, "Until the time we built small cars here, our cars in this country were generally much bigger than the cars built abroad. We were almost forced to have smaller cars abroad. While we exported some of our cars, we never did export them in great volume, because we just didn't make that kind of a car. Today, we've got cars that are competitive with the cars they make. Also, cost has come to be a much bigger factor. It just costs you so goddam much more to make a car that you can save money by having one design for the whole world."
These opportunities were not lost on Murphy and Estes. Both had responsibilities for international business before coming to the top—Murphy as vice-chairman, Estes as executive vice-president for operations. "Frankly," Estes once said, "I hadn't liked the idea of G.M. being just another of the competitors in the pack overseas." So, not long after he and Murphy took over, the overseas operation was given increased status, under a group vice-president. The overseas staff was moved from New York, where it had been on its own, to Detroit, where it was merged with the central staff. Separate divisions, each headed by a vice-president, were created for Latin America, Asia, Germany, the rest of Europe, and Britain (where G.M. manufactures and sells as Vauxhall). During 1979, G.M. announced expansion of its existing plants or construction of new ones in Mexico, Brazil, and Europe. As for the future, the company's top project is the "world car"—a four- or five-passenger compact that can be assembled in several countries from components made in many countries, and can be sold anywhere in the world.
G.M.'s new quest for international markets carries heavy implications for the structure of the domestic automobile industry. In the past, G.M. used to consider Ford and Chrysler its principal competitors. In those conditions, the No. 1 United States auto manufacturer had anti-trust reasons for keeping the second and third companies alive and at least fairly well; in fact, G.M. never pushed its share of the United States market much above fifty per cent. Now G.M. worries more about the Japanese and European auto makers than about Ford or Chrysler. G.M.'s share of the domestic market has been over sixty per cent for more than a year. It has grown throughout the recent slump in car sales. Because of the anti-trust implications, G.M. officials are not exactly forthcoming on the subject, but the vehemence of their refusal to talk has declined in a way that suggests that the need to compete against European and Japanese manufacturers has reduced G.M.'s inhibitions about crushing Ford and Chrysler. Gerstenberg, for example, rejected outright a suggestion of mine that in the past G.M. had deliberately held back in competing with Ford and Chrysler in order to avoid anti-trust troubles. "Anybody who said that didn't know what he was talking about," he told me. Murphy seems much less worried about the matter. His view is that "if we're obeying the law, doing the best job of serving the customer, and discharging all the other responsibilities we have as a good employer and responsible citizen, then we've earned whatever we get." Among younger executives, there is not even Murphy's elaborate caveat about responsible citizenship. David Collier—the executive who chaired G.M.'s energy task force back in 1972, and who now, at the age of fifty, serves as vice-president of the financial group, directly under Roger Smith—does not even tend to view G.M. in relation to Ford and Chrysler. "There's no such thing as a domestic industry," he told me. "There's no such thing as a domestic market. There's an international market and an international set of manufacturers. I think the media should quit talking about the Big Three and start talking about the Big Eight—Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Renault, and Fiat as well as G.M., Ford, and Chrysler."
The full sweep of the downsizing decision finds expression in that context. The Europeans and the Japanese are coming here not only with imports but with manufacturing plants—Volkswagen and Honda, to name two. G.M. is now going abroad in force. What is shaping up is a worldwide competition among major manufacturers. Out of that rivalry there will probably emerge half a dozen dominant firms. G.M. will almost certainly be among them. Ford probably will be, too. Others, perhaps including Chrysler, are likely to assume positions as secondary manufacturers of specialty products. A new burst of innovation—particularly in fuel economy—seems sure. Thus, there is at least a chance that the bitter competition and the turbulent markets of the past few years will have a benign outcome.
It can even be said that, with a strong prod from government, the American auto industry has turned a corner—moved from a domestic into an international market, and developed, through the experience, a new and more socially conscious management. Still, the cost of the change has been enormous. The dramatic ups downs of the auto industry has, as usual, plagued the whole American economy. Cities like Detroit have been blighted, firms sent to the wall, dealers and other associated enterprises forced out of business. Moreover, though one corner may have been turned, there is no telling when another major adjustment will come due, or how accommodation can be achieved without horrendous strain. Certainly G.M. does not know, and it knows it doesn’t know. Among the souvenirs in Murphy's office is a "Peanuts" cartoon strip, autographed by Charles Schultz. The first panel shows Snoopy standing in the outfield, snoozing, with an alarm clock on the grass beside him. The second panel shows the clock ringing. The third shows Snoopy catching a fly ball in his mouth. The fourth shows Charlie Brown on the mound asking, "How do you set the alarm for a fly ball?" ♦
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ALWAYS IN SEASON: Collared doves conquer the continentProbably no species has conquered North America more quickly than the Eurasian collared dove.
By: Mike Jacobs, Grand Forks Herald
Probably no species has conquered North America more quickly than the Eurasian collared dove.
It took humans several millennia to overrun the continent. Rats, which came with European colonists, did it in five centuries or so. House sparrows and Starlings appeared a century and a quarter ago, in the 1880s. Leafy spurge showed up in the 1890s.
Eurasian collared doves arrived in 1975.
By 2000, they had reached Alaska. That’s the year the doves were first seen in the Red River Valley, as well, at Crystal, N.D., where a pigeon fancier saw and identified them.
Last week, the doves turned up on Nancy Michalski’s deck in Oslo, Minn. There were five of them.
Michalski’s was one of several reports of collared doves last week. This is not too surprising. Many species of birds become more obvious at this time of year, partly because natural cover has decreased as the leaves fell and partly because the birds are bolder, coming to feeders instead of foraging on the country.
As the name implies, the Eurasian collared dove is an Old World native – though it might more accurately be called the Asian collared dove. In historic times, its range was centered on the Indian subcontinent. From there, it spread to Asia Minor and southeastern Europe. Earlier this century, the population exploded across Europe – not unlike what’s happened in North America in this century.
The initial American collared doves were seen in the Bahamas. These may have escaped from captivity. The population quickly skipped to Florida and then began expanding to the north and west.
They moved diagonally across the continent, soon reaching Alaska. From this line, they moved both west and east until they’ve pretty much filled up all but the northeastern most parts of the North American land mass.
Collared doves are plain birds, but they are easily recognized. Here are the key points:
In size, the collared dove is intermediate between the mourning dove, which appears dainty, and the common pigeon, which seems bulky.
Collared doves are paler than either mourning doves or pigeons. In color, they are light gray or brown overall.
Pigeons, of course, come in many colors. Mourning doves are a warm brown with iridescent highlights.
Mourning doves have distinctly pointed tails, and perching birds look triangular. Pigeons are blocky, appearing to occupy the better part of a square. Collared doves are rectangular, though they seem a little heavier in the front.
All three species have small heads in proportion to their bodies, but this is especially so in the collared dove.
All of these are good field marks – better than the bird’s namesake, the collar, which is a partial ring of black around the back of the neck.
Several other species have this mark, and that leads to some confusion. Several callers last week wondered whether these birds could be turtle doves or one of several species called ringed doves.
Turtle doves do occur in North America, but almost always as escapees. They are not hardy.
By contrast, Eurasian collared doves seem capable of surviving almost any conditions. They are quite comfortable in the harsh weather of Red River Valley winters. They don’t mind the summers either.
Mourning doves occasionally attempt to spend the winter here, but they are rarely successful. Their feet are tender. Their feet freeze. The birds perish.
Consequently, the mourning dove population is almost entirely migratory.
Eurasian collared doves apparently do flock together during the winter, but they don’t move any great distance. Instead, they gang up wherever food is available. Often this means small town grain elevators. Sometimes, it means an active feeder operation in cities. Both Devils Lake and Grand Forks appear to have established populations of collared doves,
Michalski’s observation last week means we can add Oslo to the lengthening list of home towns for the collared dove.
In general, the doves are welcome. They’re add variety and interest to the bird world in winter.. Their three-note cooing call is appealing.
All in all, they’re pleasant company.
Collared doves appear to feel pretty much the same way about people. They’ve now occupied much of the same habitat that our species has claimed.
In fact, the collared dove is a pretty good example of commensalism, where one species benefits without affecting the other.
Jacobs is publisher of the Herald. Reach him at (701) 780-1103, or by email at [email protected].
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(If your federal agency is interested in becoming a signatory member of the Federal Native Plant Conservation Committee, please contact us.)
FEDERAL NATIVE PLANT CONSERVATION
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING RECLAMATION AND ENFORCEMENT
USDA AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE
USDA FOREST SERVICE
USDA NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE
U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
This Memorandum of Understanding is made and entered into by and between the Bureau of Land Management, Department of Defense, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service, USDA Forest Service, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hereinafter referred to as the Committee or as Members.
The purpose of this MOU is to establish and describe a Federal Native Plant Conservation Committee. The Committee will identify and recommend, as appropriate, priority conservation needs for native plants and their habitats and coordinate implementation of programs for addressing those needs. A native plant species is one that occurs naturally in a particular habitat, ecosystem, or region of the United States and its Territories or Possessions, without direct or indirect human actions. Recognizing that native plant species are of aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people, the Committee's priorities will be driven by the following vision:
"For the enduring benefit of the Nation, its ecosystems, and its people; to conserve and protect our native plant heritage by ensuring that, to the greatest extent feasible, native plant species and communities are maintained, enhanced, restored, or established on public lands, and that such activities are promoted on private lands."
II. STATEMENT OF MUTUAL BENEFITS AND INTERESTS
Native plants are a key component of national and global biodiversity conservation efforts. Native plants and their communities support ecosystem functions vital to a healthy, productive, and beautiful environment. Native plants also provide innumerable direct and indirect benefits to the Nation's wildlife, its people, and its economy.
The native flora of the United States includes about 15,300 species of flowering plants, or about 7 percent of the world's total, the world=s oldest and largest conifers, and a wealth of other vascular and non-vascular plants. All these groups face challenges in the form of habitat loss and alteration, competition and predation by invasive species, and in some cases overexploitation for human use.
Opportunities exist for native plant preservation and conservation at Federal, State, Tribal, and local government levels, among public and private land managers, conservation organizations, and the interests of individual citizens. Protection and conservation of areas of highly diverse or rare native plants is key to conserving the Nation=s biodiversity and may convey additional benefits to species of both plants and animals that otherwise could become imperiled.
Numerous opportunities exist to employ native plants in a variety of federally implemented, funded, authorized, or permitted activities. For example, native plants can be used to revegetate road and other construction sites, or to assist the stabilization and recovery of wildfire burn sites. Native plants are an essential element of habitat restoration efforts at scales ranging from isolated wetlands to large regional efforts such as the BayScapes program which encompasses the entire 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Plants represent over half of all species federally listed as endangered and threatened species in the United States. As of July 2003, 1,262 native plant and animal species were federally listed as endangered or threatened in the United States. Of these, 517 were animals, and 745, or 59 percent, were plants. Federal lands provide habitat for more than 200 listed plant species and one fourth of the known occurrences of listed plants. Careful management of these lands can help maintain our nation's plant heritage. Federal agencies also have the expertise to assist non Federal land managers in plant conservation and protection efforts. Innovative partnerships are needed among public and private sectors, nationally and internationally, to conserve native plants and their habitats before they become critically endangered.
This Memorandum of Understanding is made and entered into pursuant to the provisions of the following statutes:
1. Bureau of Land Management: Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, 43 U.S.C. 1737(b), section 307(b) (1988) as amended by P.L. 98 540 (98 Stat. 2718) Oct. 24, 1984.
2. National Biological Survey: Secretarial Order 3173, September 29, 1993.
3. National Park Service: National Park Service Organic Act of 1916, 16 U.S.C. 1 (1988); Economy Act of 1932, 31 U.S.C. 1535 (1988); Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, 72 Stat. 563, 16 U.S.C. 661 (1988).
4. USDA Forest Service: Economy Act of 1932, 31 U.S.C. 1535 (1988); Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960, 16 U.S.C. 528 531.
5. USDA Soil Conservation Service: Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of1935, P.L. 74 46 (49 Stat. 163, 16 U.S.C. 590a f).
6. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. 1531 1548 (1988); Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980, 16 U.S.C. 2912 (1988); Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956, 16 U.S.C. 742f (1988); Fish and Wildlife Coordination. Act, 16 U.S.C. 661 (1988).
7. Federal Highway Administration: Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987, Section 130, Wildflowers, 23 U.S.C. 319(B) (P.L. 100 17).
IV. COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP, STRUCTURE, AND OPERATIONS
The Committee members mutually agree that:
1. Membership on the Committee is open at any time to any Federal body interested in taking an active role in a native plant conservation program. Membership becomes official at such time as the Memorandum of Understanding is signed by the head of the Federal body or a designee thereof.
2. A member agency may designate one official (with one alternate) to serve as its representative to the Committee, who will attend scheduled meetings at his or her agency's expense. Each member agency will inform the Committee, in writing, of the name and position of its representative and alternate, or of any changes in same.
3. The Committee shall establish its own working rules, including a procedure for designating the Chair. The position of Committee Chair shall rotate every two years to a different member agency.
4. The Committee shall meet a minimum of once per year. Additional meetings may be scheduled as agreed to by the Committee, and may include meetings at field locations.
V. COMMITTEE RESPONSIBILITIES
The Committee members mutually agree that the Committee will:
1. Develop and serve as a forum for coordination and implementation of a national native plant conservation program, consisting of public education and outreach, research, conservation actions, native plant materials development coordination, databases and information exchange, and international programs. The Committee shall continue to further its goals and objectives for a national native plant conservation program.
2. Encourage Committee members to take appropriate action within the limits of their respective authorities, policies, and budgets.
3. Encourage Committee members to coordinate program implementation with State natural resource agencies and natural heritage programs where appropriate, and promote cooperative efforts with States, tribal land managers, and local, national, and international conservation organizations through existing agreements or through establishment of new agreements.
4. Evaluate implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on a regular basis to determine how effectively objectives are being met.
VI. WORKING GROUPS
1. Working Groups may be formed or disbanded as needed, at the discretion of the Committee, consistent with the applicable requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Membership will consist of experts from both public and private sectors.
2. Working Groups will be formed to determine needs for public education/outreach, research, conservation actions, databases/information exchange, international programs, and to address other issues as agreed to by the Committee.
3. Working Groups will report regularly to the Committee on their deliberations including planning, coordination, facilitation, and implementation of actions recommended or developed by the Working Groups or by the Committee.
4. Working Groups representing geographic regions will be established to identify regional management needs for native plants and activities of Federal, State, and private interests within the regions. The geographic regions will be determined by the Committee.
1. Any Federal body not desiring formal representation on the Committee, and any State agency, private organization or individual, or foreign government agency interested in native plant conservation, may become a Cooperator upon acceptance of a written request to the Committee Chair. Cooperators may attend meetings of the Committee as observers, participate in informal open forums with the Committee, and participate in Working Groups. Cooperator agencies and organizations may designate one individual as a contact person, informing the Committee Chair in writing of the selection and of any changes in same. A Cooperator may withdraw upon 30 days' written notice.
2. As of July 2003, 188 governmental and non governmental organizations have Cooperator status. The complete list is available as Attachment 1.
VIII. IT IS MUTUALLY AGREED AND UNDERSTOOD BY AND BETWEEN THE SAID PARTIES THAT:
1. This Memorandum of Understanding in no way restricts participants from involvement in similar activities with other public and private agencies, organizations, and individuals.
2. Nothing in this Memorandum of Understanding shall be construed as obligating Committee members or Cooperators to expend funds or to provide resources or be involved in any obligation for future payment of money or provision of resources.
3. Modifications within the scope of this Memorandum of Understanding shall be made by formal consent of the parties, by the issuance of a written modification, signed and dated by the parties, prior to any changes becoming effective.
4. Any Committee member may terminate or withdraw membership in whole or in part at any time before the date of expiration, by providing 30 days' written notice to the Committee Chair.
5. This Memorandum of Understanding is neither a fiscal nor a funds obligation document. Any endeavor involving reimbursement or contribution of funds between the parties to this instrument will be handled in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and procedures including those for Government procurement and printing. Such endeavors will be outlined in separate agreements that shall be made in writing by representatives of the parties and shall be independently authorized by appropriate statutory authority. This instrument does not provide such authority. Specifically, this instrument does not establish authority for noncompetitive award to any Committee member of any contract or other agreement. Any contract or agreement for training or other services must fully comply with all applicable requirements for competition.
6. This instrument expires no later than September 30, 2008, at which time it is subject to renewal through review and amendment, by extension, or by reauthorization by the participating Federal Agencies (Committee).
IX. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
1. The program or activities conducted under this Memorandum of Understanding will be in compliance with the nondiscrimination provisions contained in Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended; the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (P.L. 100 259); and other nondiscrimination statutes: namely, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975.
2. No member of, or Delegate to, Congress shall be admitted to any share or part of this instrument, or any benefits that may arise therefrom.
X. EFFECTIVE DATE
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have entered into this reauthorization of the Federal Native Plant Conservation Memorandum of Understanding originally signed May 25, 1994, as evidenced by their signatures below. The Federal Native Plant Conservation Conservation Memorandum of Understanding remains viable as long as at least two Federal bodies remain Committee members. The renewal of the Federal Native Plant Conservation Memorandum of Understanding is effective upon the date of the second Agency signature and will remain in effect until September 30, 2008, or until such time prior to this date that it is subject to review and amendment.
Steve Williams 9/29/03
Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Dale Bosworth 12/28/03
Chief, USDA Forest Service
FS Number: 04-SU-11132424-005
Fran P. Mainella
National Park Service Director
Mary E. Peters 8/19/04
Administrator, Federal Highway Administration
Kathleen Clarke 11/2/04
Director, Bureau of Land Management
Edward B. Knipling 12/2/04
Administrator, Agricultural Research Service
Bruce Knight 6/1/05
Chief, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Acting Director P. Patrick Leahy
U.S. Geological Survey
Alex A. Beehler
Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense
The MOU is effective because at least two Federal agencies have signed; other agencies are in the process of signing the MOU. The names of signatory agencies will be added on an ongoing basis.
Please note that an MOU Extension is no longer necessary because a new MOU is in the process of being signed. If your federal agency is interested in becoming a signatory member of the Federal Native Plant Conservation Committee, please contact us.
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(April 19, 2013) Earth Day was started in the United States in 1970 by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson to create awareness for the Earth’s environment and to encourage conservation efforts. It is observed on April 22.
In 1990, Earth Day expanded internationally and today more than 500 million people in 175 countries observe Earth Day.
National Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday of April. In 2013, Arbor Day in the United States is Friday, April 26. The purpose of National Arbor Day is to plant and take care of trees and to raise awareness of the importance of trees and forests. Arbor Day was …
Worcester Green Awards
The WorcesterGreen celebrates the excellence in environmentally friendly practices, strategies and products!
WorcesterGreen Awards will be given to businesses located in Worcester County that demonstrate extraordinary performance related to sustainable environmental practices such as water conservation, waste water management, the promotion of alternative transportation and transit, recycling, energy conservation,…
A highlight on many of our Ayers Creek paddles is a close up view of the Bald Eagles. We are fortunate to have a healthy population of Eagles here on the creek and enjoy watching them progress from noisy hatchlings to fully mature majestic birds. The mature Bald Eagle is easy to spot with their full white heads and tails, dark brown bodies and wings, and bright yellow legs and bills. Immature birds have mostly dark heads and tails with mottled brown and white wings and bodies. Young birds attain adult plumage in about five years. Bald Eagles live a long time, with recorded…
Going Green Ocean City, MD
Ocean City, Maryland holds an essential position as a city among ecosystems. As Maryland’s only town on the Atlantic, Ocean City is working to reduce how people humans have an effect on the marsh, bay, and sea regions. While Ocean City sets an example as an eco-friendly resort, the town would also like to encourage its citizens to participate in the ‘going green’ movement. For a more detailed description of all the programs and awards that the town of Ocean City has, please visit http://goinggreenondelmarva.com/ and remember to please erase your…
Ways You Can Help Ocean City, MD
We love Ocean City and we know that you do too! So please try to pick up after yourself and dispose your trash into the many trashcans conveniently located throughout the boardwalk, beach, and roads. To donate money to the town of Ocean City (which helps us maintain such a clean and eco friendly beach town), please visit their official website www.oceancity.org.
Looking to surf in Ocean City during the day? Look no further! Thanks to oceancitymd.gov, there is a full schedule of dates and locations where eager and enthusiastic surfers can ride the waves during the day!
Friday July 20, 2012 64th Street 144th Street OPEN
Saturday July 21, 2012 62nd Street 142nd Street CLOSED
Sunday July 22, 2012 60th Street 140th Street CLOSED
Monday July 23, 2012 58th Street 138th Street OPEN
Tuesday July 24, 2012 56th Street 136th Street OPEN
Wednesday July 25, …
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Oilseed rape pollen
Oilseed rape pollen grains are roughly spherical with a geometric diameter of about 25μm.
Oilseed rape is an entomophilous (insect pollinated) crop and as such airborne pollen dispersal is considerably less than wind pollinated plants like grass. However, a percentage of pollen will indeed become wind-borne and will therefore both contribute to crop pollination and be dispersed down-wind of the rape fields.
Whilst it is true that wind-borne oilseed rape pollen doesn’t really travel too far from the field due to its size (PM25) and sticky external coating. It is equally true to say that wind-borne oilseed rape pollen can and does disperse fairly widely into the environment.
Rape pollen has been recorded in a pollen trap some 15km from the nearest field (Caulton E. The Scottish Centre for Pollen Studies, private communication to McGorum & Dixon). Parratt also confirmed in a private communication to McGorum & Dixon that his researchers had confirmed using pollen traps, that oilseed rape pollen had travelled 1.7km from the field. In a separate report published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy, Hemmer advises; in the centre of Vienna, several kilometres away from rape fields, the daily maxima was measured and recorded as around 30 grains/m3 24h.
Timmons et al. (1996) reported that in their study characteristic pollen dispersal lay between 128 and 172 metres from the edge of the field, with 95% confidence. The authors suggested that the dispersal distance could be explained, at least in part, by the use of commercial sized fields, 24-hour monitoring and widely spaced sampling sites. They concluded from their results demonstrated that quantities of rape pollen will travel over large distances.
In contrast (McCartney & Lacey, 1990), using a mathematical model based upon pollen trap data, predicted that more than 60% of pollen lost from an oilseed rape crop would still be airborne 100m downwind of the crop. The concentration at the ground at this distance, however, would only be 2 to 10% of the value at the edge of the crop. The conclusion from this work was that, although large amounts of pollen are released into the air from flowering oilseed rape crops, it seems unlikely that windborne pollen could play a significant role in cross-pollination at distances greater than a few tens of metres from that crop.
In terms of trying to establish a fair and reasonable assessment of oilseed rape pollen dispersal (in the absence of agreement within the scientific community) in respect of risks to public health from oilseed crops planted in close proximity to residential areas. The author believes it is reasonable to assume that windborne oilseed rape pollen will be dispersed within a 1km zone emanating from the edge (nearest to residential area) of the respective rape field.
It is also fair to say that the pollen concentration will reduce substantially over distance. Those living closest to the rape fields being exposed to the higher concentration of airborne oilseed rape pollen.
Author - Armitage; copyright 2007
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office are working together to inform states, public health partners, and the general public about a new report released today, December 9, 2010. This Surgeon General’s report contains important new information on how tobacco smoke causes disease and explains why it is crucial to stop smoking and avoid secondhand smoke.
The full report and supporting materials are described below. This e-mail also contains helpful information on how to obtain copies.
• Full report
How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General
A 700+ page scientific report that reviews the evidence on the mechanisms by which smoking causes disease.
• Executive summary
How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General—Executive Summary
A 20-page document that summarizes the evidence in the full report and provides the six major conclusions as well as each of the chapter conclusions from the full report.
• Consumer summary
A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: What It Means to You
An easy-to-read, 20-page booklet that summarizes the full report and provides practical information about the dangers of tobacco use and what people can do to quit tobacco use and protect themselves and their families from exposure to tobacco smoke.
• Clinician’s piece
What to Tell Your Patients About Smoking
A one-page fact sheet that lists findings from the full report and features smoking-attributable chronic disease information as well as “how to quit” information from the Clinical Practice Guidelines (published by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). The fact sheet provides simple talking points and key information to help medical providers talk to their patients about quitting tobacco use.
• Electronic copies
To download an electronic copy of the full report, executive summary, consumer summary, or clinician’s piece, visit www.cdc.gov/tobacco and click on “Surgeon General’s Reports.”
• Print copies
To order print copies of the full report, executive summary, consumer summary, or clinician’s piece, visit www.cdc.gov/tobacco and click on “Publications Catalog” or call toll free 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636). Allow 5 to 7 weeks for domestic delivery and 8 to 10 weeks for international delivery.
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At its heart responsible tourism ‘creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit’ and the 2002 Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations defines Responsible Tourism as follows:
“Responsible Tourism is tourism which:
a. minimises negative economic, environmental and social impacts
b. generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well being of host communities
c. improves working conditions and access to the industry
d. involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances
e. makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage embracing diversity
f. provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
g. provides access for physically challenged people
h. is culturally sensitive, encourages respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence”
Modern travel, particularly to Africa, demands at least a veneer of responsibility. Safari outfitters make much of their responsible credentials in marketing material, donations are made, communities developed and photographs taken illustrating a commitment to some sort of responsibility.
At its heart tourism is good for Africa and particular, African wildlife. Land will always be utilised by people and with increasing populations the demand for land to have economic value has never been high. Tourism gives land a tangible value that prevents it being used for ranching to the detriment of wildlife and land.
There is very little freehold land in Botswana, what there is, is generally used for commercial agriculture. This ensures that wildlife areas are owned by the government and people of Botswana. This has a variable manifestation at the local level with different types of leases the end result. Safari camps leases are either held through local land boards or communities with the Botswana Tourism Organisation overseeing the process. Sites are tendered for with submissions evaluated on the basis of the financial offer, generally lease fee and resource royalty paid annually, and the technical proposal. Tourism properties within wildlife areas need to demonstrate that they have a negligible impact on the environment and indeed in National Parks and Game Reserves must be temporary structures able to be demolished at the end of the lease.
Ownership of safari companies is just as broad. These range from single man operators to multinational listed companies. All have a part to play in the development of the safari industry. The listed companies, Chobe Holdings and Wilderness Holdings, provided a mechanism for the broad community of the nation to own a stake in the tourism industry. Professionally run they provide returns to the individual investors and funds that have invested in them and allow capital to be accumulated for investment in new enterprises in untried safari destinations such as the Kalahari whilst reducing the overall risk. These companies are also able to accumulate human capital and develop experience in the industry.
Companies of all sizes engage with Community Based Organisations and tribal authorities. These partnerships allow for the development of tourism resources and their wider marketing and operation. Local communities benefit throughout with extensive consultation and involvement in the management of the properties. They gain exposure to the professional skills of the companies and their ability to project the product through effective marketing.
Most safari companies are able to illustrate the very real benefits that they have brought to local communities. Community engagement is fundamental to the development of a successful tourism product and allows establishment of a holistic product.
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ARAKAN 阿羅漢 | RAKAN 羅漢 (Japanese)
ARHAT | ARHAN | ARAHAT | ARIHAT | ARIHAN (Sanskrit)
ari = enemy | han = kill or slay
Also Ōgu (J) 應供, "Worthy of Obeisance and Respect"
Ōgu is also one of the Ten Epithets 十號 (Jūgō) of the Buddha
Also Setsuzoku (J) 殺賊, "Foe Destroyer," or "Enemy Slayer"
Also Mugaku (J) 無学, "Nothing Else to Learn"
Origin = India
Artwork, however, came to prominence in China
First Followers / Perfected Saints / Disciples of Historical Buddha
Arhatship = Ultimate goal of those practicing Theravada Buddhism
Arhat is juxtaposed to Mahayana concept of Bosatsu (Bodhisattva)
The highest goal of those practicing Theravada Buddhism. Those who attain Arhatship have "slain" their greed, anger and delusions, and "destroyed" their karmic residue from previous lives. They have learned the teachings of Shaka (Historical Buddha), earned the title of Mugaku ("nothing else to learn") and achieved the highest state attainable by Shaka's disciples. Thus, they are no longer reborn into the world of suffering, no longer trapped in the cycle of samsara (the cycle of rebirth and redeath, the six states of existence). To followers of Mahayana Buddhism, however, the Therevadan Arhat ranks below the Mahayanan Bodhisattva on the chain of enlightenment.
The majority of Buddhist sculpture and art in Japan belongs to the Mahayana tradition. Although sculpture and art belonging to the Theravada and Vajrayana (Esoteric, Tantric) traditions is less prominent, it is nonetheless plentiful. Sects from all three schools are still active in Japan today. For more on these three main schools of Buddhism, click here. The below page discusses the origins of the RAKAN tradition, which is intimately associated with the Theravada School of Buddhism. With only a few exceptions, statues and artwork of the Arhat in Japan are not typically worshipped as the central objects of devotion.
THE EARLY YEARS
The early Buddhists split into a number of factions following the death of the Historical Buddha (he died around 483 BC), each faction holding firm to its own interpretations. Roughly 500 years later, two main schools emerged -- the Theravada and Mahayana schools. Theravada sought to preserve the original and orthodox teachings of Gautama Buddha (the Historical Buddha). The Mahayana tradition was more flexible and innovative. At the time, the distinction between Theravada and Mahayana was politicized into arguments over "benefitting self" and "benefitting others." Mahayana adherents insisted that only by benefitting others could one hope to benefit oneself. To Mahayana followers, the Theravada philosophy is false, for Theravada stresses "self benefit" -- practicing the monastic life for oneself, by oneself, strictly for one's own emancipation. Indeed, the term "Hinayana," meaning Lesser Vehicle, was attached to the Theravada school by Mahayana adherents, who hoped to portray the Theravada teachings as inferior. Thus, the term Hinayana is derogatory and used to denigrate Theravada traditions. It is a term that should be (and is) avoided by most modern scholars. Main Schools for more on this early schism.
THE FIRST DISCIPLES
The Theravadins clearly differentiate between monks and laity. Only those who practice the meditative monastic life (i.e. the monks) can attain spiritual perfection. Enlightenment is not thought possible for those living the secular life. Theravadins revere the Historical Buddha, but they do not pay homage to the numerous Buddha and Bodhisattva worshiped by Mahayana followers. The highest goal of a Theravadin is to become an Arhat (Sanskrit), or perfected saint. Other Arhat terms are:
- Pali: Arahant
- Chinese: Luohan | Lohan
- Japan: Arakan | Rakan
- Tibet: Gnas-brtam ??
- Tibet: Dgra Bcom Pa ??
Teacher and Disciples
Legend contends that the Lord Buddha (or Sakyamuni in Sanskrit; he is no longer called Siddhartha after reaching Buddhahood) decided to keep his achievement and teachings to himself, for others would not believe or comprehend. But his mind was changed by the appearance before him of Brahman (the chief Hindu god of that age; Jp. = Bonten), who urged him to preach what he had learned and help others along the same path. From that point on, until his death at age 80, the Buddha preached without interval. The Chinese transliterated Sakyamuni as Shakamuni, but this was later shortened to Shaka in both China and Japan. "Shaka" is another word for the Historical Buddha, for as a human, he was born into the Sakya (Shaka) clan, a tribe that ruled a small state that today is located in Tarai (Nepal) near the border with India.
His companion ascetics were the first to become his disciples, and soon afterwards they too attained enlightenment -- in Sanskrit they are known as the Arhan (Jp. = Arakan 阿羅漢), an Indian word meaning "one who is worthy of receiving obeisance" or "slayer of enemies." Arhatship is the main goal of all who practice Theravada Buddhism.
The most famous of the early disciples are called the Ten Great Disciples (Jūdai Deshi 十大弟子), and they played a major role in Buddhism's early development and transmission within India.
The Ten Great Disciples (Jūdai Deshi 十大弟子)
Above: 734 AD, Kofukuji Temple, Japan
(L) Ragora (M) Subodai (R) Furuna
Below: 734 AD, Kofukuji Temple, Japan
(L) Kasen-en (M) Mokukenren (R) Sharihotsu
FOUR ARHATS. In the earliest Indian sutras, however, the Historical Buddha is said to have asked only four arhats to remain in the world to propagate Buddhist law (dharma). Each of the four was associated with one of the four compass directions.
- Bindora Baradaja (J) 賓度羅跋羅惰闍. Also called Binzuru (J). Pindola Bharadraja (Skt). Associated with compass direction = West; resides with 1,000 disciples in Saikudani-shi (Skt. Aparagodani); the most widely revered of the Arhats in Japan; all the others are less known to Japanese lay worshippers, and they rarely serve as the central objects of devotion. Pindola, however, according to the Flammarion Iconographic Guide on Buddhism, is the Arhat par excellence in Japan, and is mainly worshipped by lay people. Quote: "In Japan, Pindola is represented as an old man seated on a high-backed chair, with white hair and bushy eyebrows. Statues of him, in painted wood or stone, are usually well worn, since the faithful follow the custom of rubbing a part of the effigy corresponding to the sick parts of their bodies, as he is reputed to have the gift of healing. [Schumacher here. Statues that are rubbed in Japan are called nadebotoke 撫で仏 , literally "rubbing Buddha statues;" natabotoke are not limited to Binzura, but include other deities like Jizō, Kannon, Daikokuten, and Fudō.] He is also very frequently offered red and white bibs and children's caps to watch over the health of babies, so that his statue is often decked in rags. He is represented in painting as an old man seated on a rock, holding in his hand a sort of sceptre (Japanese shaku), or a sutra box and a feather fan. All the other Arahants are usually worshipped in Japan in his person. In some cases, his efficgy is placed in monastery refectories, as at the Jikido (Shakudo) in Todai-ji Temple (Nara), and in Hieizan." <end quote> In Japan, a special Binzuru ceremony known as Binzuru Mawashi 賓頭盧廻 is held on the sixth of January at Zenkō-ji 善光寺 in Nagano. For details, see Gabi Greve's Ceremony for Binzuru.
Binzuru (Pindola Bharadvaja), Wood, Edo Era, 18th Century. At Todaiji Temple in Nara. Pindola was one of the sixteen arahats, who were disciples of Shaka Nyorai. Pindola is said to have excelled in the mastery of occult powers. It is commonoly believed in Japan that when a person rubs a part of the image of Binzuru, and then rubs the corresponding part of his/her body, the ailment there will disappear. <Text from Todaiji Temple>
- Kanakabassa (J) 迦諾迦伐蹉; Kanakavatsa (Skt.)
North; resides with 500 disciples in Kashmir (Hokukuru-shu; J)
- Hantaka (J) 半託迦; Panthaka (Skt.)
East; resides with 1,300 disciples in the Heaven of 33 Gods, or Toshoshin-shu (J).
- Nakora (J) 諾距羅; Nakula (Skt.)
South; resides with 800 disciples in Nansenbu-shu (J)
Above listings also from M.V. de Visser, "The Arhats in China and Japan," Published 1919, page 62.
Binzuru (Pindola Bharadvaja) at Todaiji Temple in Nara
Photo at left by Carl & Ann Purcell
Same seated statue as shown above.
Wood, Edo Era, 18th Century
16 ARHATS, 18 ARHATS, 500 ARHATS
<Abridged from Flammarion Iconographic Guide>
In later centuries, the number increases from four to 16, then later on to 18. The grouping of 16, together with their names, was not widely known until around 654 AD, but thereafter rises to prominence in China with the Chinese translation of the Fa Zhuji Sutra (法住記) from India. For much more on the 16, plus their Japanese and Sanskrit names, please click here. Tradition also asserts that 500 disciples were present when Shaka Nyorai (the Historical Buddha) expounded the Flower Sutra on Vultures Peak (Rajagrha). Not all agree on the origins of this grouping of 500 Arhats, although in Japanese artwork they appear rather frequently in the 12th and 13th century, especially the 100 kakemono paintings reportedly brought to Japan from China by the Japanese monk Eisai in the 12th century (now located at Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto). Many point to the Mahaparinirvana Sutru and Saddharmapundarika Sutra as the origin, for these texts refer to 500 beggars who were formerly rich merchants, but after meeting the Historical Buddha, they learned and accepted his teachings. Most were not originally given names, but documents at the Kenmyou-in Temple dating from the Nanboku Period (1127 to 1279 AD) contain a list of names for all 500. For details on the 500 Arhats, click here. <end abridged text>
Death of the Teacher
By tradition, the date of the Historical Buddha's death is February 15. In Japan, a Buddhist service called Nehan'e is performed each year on this day. According to legend, the Buddha's death was attended by gods, celestial maidens, arhats, people, and animals -- even the plants gave homage. The story of the Buddha's last moments are recorded in great detail in the sutra known as The Sutra of the Great Extinction (Pali language), in which the Buddha declares that he has taught all, withholding nothing, for he has no intention to exercise control by means of secret doctrines. Near his death he said: "Make the self your light, make the law your light."
Death of Buddha, Painting dated to 1086 AD, Byōdōin Temple 平等院
Arhats in attendance at death of Historical Buddha.
Click here from many more wonderful photos.
Arakan | Rakan In Japan
at Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple, Arashiyama, Kyoto
Below Photos by Ed Jacob
Who Made the Statues at
Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple, Arashiyama, Kyoto
(see above photos)
Nishimura Kōchō (1915-1989) 西村公朝 was a famous modern carver of Buddha statues and restored many old statues at various temples. He wrote many books about Buddhist statuary and appeared often on Japanese national TV programs to talk on the subject of appreciating Buddhist statues. Born on June 4 (1915) in Osaka, he later studied art at the Tokyo University of Arts. For a time, during WW2, he was in China. Once he returned to Japan, he began his lifework of restoring the many statues of Kannon and other deities located at the famous Kyoto temple named Sanjusan Gendo 三十三間堂. When he was 37, he became a fully ordained priest of the Tendai sect but continued to pursue his restoration work and his own carvings. In 1955 he was appointed head priest at Otagi Nenbutsu Ji Temple 愛宕念仏寺 in Kyoto, a rather worn-down place when he took over. During his tenure at the temple, he invite lay people and showed them how to carve simple stone statues. These statues (the so-called "1200 Arhats") now adorn the temple grounds. A temple visit is highly recommended for anyone visiting Kyoto. Nishimura taught at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and the Hieizan University of the Tendai Sect. In 1986, he received the honorable title Tendai Daibusshi Hōin 天台大仏師法印 (lit. Great Sculptor of Buddha Statues), the highest rank given to statuary artists but one not bestowed for many years prior to Nishimura. He died on December 2, 2003, at the age of 89 years. <Above text by Gabi Greve. See her page on Daibusshi Nishimura>
Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple in Arashiyama, Kyoto
Below text (& above photos) courtesy Ed Jacob
See Ed's original page at: Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple
Arashiyama is one of Kyoto's most beautiful neighbourhoods, and hundreds of thousands of tourists visit there every year, but unfortunately, almost no one ever makes it to the area's most interesting temple. It's called Otagi Nenbutsu-ji, and it has some of the funniest, most fascinating and beautiful Buddhist sculptures in the entire country.
Originally founded by Emperor Shotoku in the middle of the eighth century, this temple has had some seriously bad luck. It was first built in the Higashidera area of Kyoto, but was destroyed by a flood of the Kamo River, and was rebuilt as a branch of Enryaku-ji, the famous Tendai sect temple on Mt. Hiei. Its main hall was burned to the during a civil war in the thirteenth century, and after moving to its present location in 1922, it suffered severe damage in a typhoon.
From the road, Otagi Nenbustu-ji looks like a very ordinary temple, but after passing through the gate, with its two typically terrifying Nio statues (the fierce looking guardians one often finds at the entrance to temples), you will notice two more Nio, and these definitely tend toward the cute, rather than the ferocious end of the spectrum.
These kawaii guardians are just the beginning though, and there are more than 1200 statues on the temple's grounds. Walking up the path to the main hall, there are dozen or so strange little faces peering down at you, most of them half-hidden in the tall grass. Although they will give you some hint of the strangeness you are about to encounter, most visitors are still shocked when they see the hundreds of bizarre figures carved in grey stone by the main hall of the temple.
These statues are called rakan, and they represent the 500 disciples of Buddha. Although many Buddhist sculptures are carved to represent exquisite beauty or terrifying ferociousness, rakan almost always seem to be carved in the spirit of humour and good fun. There are also Rakan-ji temples in Otaru (Hokkaido) and Oita (Kyushu) with carvings every bit as bizarre as those at Otagi Nenbutsu-ji, but the statues here are special because most of them were made by amateur carvers.
In 1981, when the 1950 typhoon damage was finally repaired, worshippers at the temple decided to donate rakan sculptures to the temple in honour of its refurbishing. A famous sculptor, Kocho Nishimura taught hundreds of sculptors, amateur and professional alike how to carve statues from stone, and the result is a delightful mix of serene and scary, somber and silly.
Spend a few hours there and see if you can find the surfing Buddha, the two tipplers, the saxophone player, the photographer and the disciple doing a handstand. Since the installation of the Rakan, a custom has evolved among visitors to the temple of trying to find a statue that resembles your own face. It can be fun, but you may be in for a shock if you go with someone else and are suddenly told that the buck-toothed, bowl cut-sporting statue with a nose the size of a potato looks a lot like you.
The temple must be one of the mossiest, most eroded places in Kansai, and walking its grounds, one has the distinct impression that man is fighting a losing battle with nature here. All in all it's a very mysterious place, always a little dark and always the moss on the statues and the way they are being eroded just adds to the atmosphere.
From Kyoto station, take bus 72 to Otagidera Mae . From Hankyu Arashiyama station, take bus 62 or 72 to Otagidera Mae. If you know Arashiyama, go to Kitano Nenbutsu-ji and follow the walking path north. You'll come to Otagi in about 10 minutes.
<end text by Ed Jacob; Visit Ed Jacob's Site>
Thank you for your story and your wonderful photos.
BELOW TEXT COURTESY OF JAANUS
Japanese Architecture & Art Net Users System
Excellent Dictionary of Buddhist Concepts.
Used Here with Permission of JAANUS.
16 ARHATS, Juuroku Rakan, 十六羅漢
Juuroku Rakan literally means "Sixteen Arhats." The saintly ascetics who gathered at the death and nirvana (nehan 涅槃) of the Buddha Sakyamuni (Shaka 釈迦) and were ordered by him to remain in this world as witnesses to the truth of the Law or Buddhist teachings. Typical depictions in painting or sculpture show them with aged faces, emaciated bodies and the frugal clothing of Indian ascetics or wise men.
Ascetics Near Starvation
Horyuji Temple, 711 AD
North Side, Tohonshimengu
As listed in the FAZHUJI 法住記 (Jp: HOUJUUKI) translated into Chinese by Xuanzang 玄奘 (Jp: Genjou 602-64), the sixteen are:
- Bindorabaradaja 賓度羅跋羅惰闍 (Sk: Pindolabharadraja)
- Kanakabassa 迦諾迦伐蹉 (Sk:Kanakavatsa)
- Kanakabaridaja 迦諾迦跋釐堕闍 (Sk: Kanakabharadraja)
- Subinda 蘇頻陀 (Sk: Subinda)
- Nakora 諾距羅 (Sk:Nakula)
- Badara 跋陀羅 (Sk: Bhadra)
- Karika 迦哩迦 (Sk:Kalika)
- Bajaraputara 伐闍羅弗多羅 (Sk: Vajrap utra)
- Jubaka 戌博迦 (Sk:Jivaka)
- Hantaka 半託迦 (Sk:Panthaka)
- Ragora 羅怙羅 (Sk:Rahula)
- Nagasena 那伽犀那 (Sk:Nagasena)
- Ingada 因掲陀 (Sk:Angaja)
- Banabasu 伐那波斯 (Sk:Vanavasin)
- Ajita 阿氏多 (Sk:Ajita)
- Chudahantaka 注荼半託迦 (Sk:Chudapanthaka)
A largely different group of sixteen rakan is mentioned in the sutra, AMIDAKYOU 阿弥陀経, with only Bindorabaradaja and Chudahantaka being the same. Traditions also exist of groups of Eighteen (juuhachi rakan 十八羅漢) and Five Hundred arhats (Gohyaku rakan 五百羅漢; see below entry). Paintings of the Sixteen arhats are known to date from the Tang dynasty and were produced frequently in China through the Song period (12c), typically as wall paintings or sets of hanging scrolls. In general, Chinese rakan painting can be divided into two stylistic types which influenced the development of two painting traditions in Japan. The orthodox style, featuring careful attention to detail, rich color, and gold, is associated with the Northern Song painter Li Longmin 李竜眠 (Jp: Ri Ryuumin, also known as Ch: Li Gonglin, Jp: Ri Kourin 李公麟, 1049?-1106). These works are known as riryuuminyou rakan 李竜眠様羅漢. In contrast, the Five Dynasties priest Guanxiu 貫休 (Jp: Kankyuu 832-912) created a distinctive ink monochrome style of rendering the Sixteen arhats, known as zengetsuyou rakan 禅月様羅漢. In Japan the subject is said to have been introduced from China in 982 by the priest Chounen 奝然 (?-1016). Several sets of Chinese paintings extant in Japanese collections testify to the early popularity of the subject in Japanese temples. Japanese versions, like their Chinese prototypes, typically were done as a set of sixteen hanging scrolls or with the rakan grouped in one or two hanging scrolls. In both countries, because of the relative humanity of the subjects and their "foreign-ness" paintings of the Sixteen rakan became "exercises in grotesquerie or realism," the very frequency of commissions offering artists chances to explore distortion of form or to display their virtuosic control of the brush. The theme was particularly popular at Zen 禅 temples, where polychrome wood sculptures of the Sixteen rakan were often placed in the second floor chamber of the gates (*sanmon 三門) of Zen temples (for example Toufukuji 東福寺, and Nanzenji 南禅寺, Myoushinji 妙心寺). In the Edo period the juuroku rakan images continued to be produced, but by artists not associated with temples, and the paintings were used in secular contexts. The juuroku rakan were even parodied by ukiyo-e 浮世絵 artists. Edo-period gardens sometimes feature 16 stones arranged in reference to the juuroku rakan.
Rakan 羅漢 (Courtesy JAANUS)
Chinese = Lohan, Sanskrit = Arhat. The Japanese term "Rakan" is an abbreviation of the Japanese term "Arakan (阿羅漢)," itself a translation of the Sanskrit term "Arhan." Also called "Ougu (應供)." The highest diciples of Shaka 釈迦. In Theravada Buddhism, rakan are revered as having completed their training and ranked as mugaku 無学, "nothing else to learn," which indicates that they achieved the highest point that a disciple of Shaka could reach. However, in Mahayana Buddhism, rakan who aim at their own salvation are ranked below the Boddhisattva (Bosatsu 菩薩). It is said that when Shaka entered nirvana (涅槃), rakan were ordered to live in this world and protect the True Law (shouhou 正法). Therefore, rakan are depicted in the guise of priests, with buddhist monks' robes (kesa 袈裟) and bald heads (teihatsu 剃髪). Rakan were depicted in painting in the Six Dynasties (c222-589), but after Xuanzhuang 玄奘 (Jp: Genjou: 600-664) translated HOUJUUKI 法住記 containing the biographies of the sixteen rakan (see above entry), the cult of rakan became popular . Since the 9c numerous paintings and sculptures of rakan were produced in both China and Japan. Typically, they are depicted in a group of 16 or 18 (juuhachi rakan 十八羅漢), and this may be expanded to 500 (gohyaku rakan 五百羅漢; see below entry). Rakan paintings are often stylistically classified into two groups: the Riryuumin-you 李龍眠様, the moderate style with thin, even lines which is associated with the 11c painter Li Gonglin 李公麟 (also called Li Longmean [Jp: Ri Ryuumin]), and the Zengetsu-you 禅月様, a bolder style with exaggerated lines that is associated with the 9c painter Guanxiu 貫休 (also called Chanyue [Jp: Zengetsu]). However, there are quite a few examples which are not included in either of these two styles.
16 Arhats, Heian Era, 11th Century
Formerly owned by Shojuraigoji Temple, Shiga
Photo courtesy Tokyo National Museum
95.9-97.2x57.8-52.2., National Treasure
Click here (outside link) for more arhat images
500 RAKAN (Courtesy JAANUS)
Gohyaku Rakan 五百羅漢
Chinese = Wubai Luohan. Five hundred arhats (rakan 羅漢), a Buddhist art subject developed in China featuring large numbers of Indian wise men usually accompanied by servants. There is no agreement among scholars as to the origin of this grouping, (see below note), although several Chinese texts mention rakan as protective saints, who guard the Buddhist law until the coming of Miroku (弥勒, Skt: Maitreya), the Buddha of the Future. The Chinese belief that the Five Hundred Luohan inhabited a peak beyond the Stone Bridge (Shakkyou 石橋) on Mt. Tiantai (Jp: Tendaisan 天台山) is probably an adaptation into popular Buddhism of Taoist legends about the locale as the home of immortals. Tang-period Chinese were also familiar with Indian legends of five hundred arhats believed to live on Mt. Buddhavanagiri near Rajagrha. It is not clear whether the number "500" refers to 500 specific individuals or simply indicates a large number. Beginning in the 5c large groups of rakan were depicted as seated, a pose that was also used for portrayal of independant rakan images. By the 10c and 11c, rakan depictions were elaborated with landscape or domestic interior settings as the rakan cult became wide spread. The best-known painting of five hundred rakan is the set of 100 hanging scrolls (divided among Daitokuji 大徳寺, Kyoto, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and other collections) by Lin Tinggui 林庭珪 (Jp: Rin Teikei, act.1174-89) and Zhou Jichang 周季常 (Jp: Shuu Kijou late 12c).
The inscription of 1178 also states that the set was originally commissioned by a merchant family as a gift to a temple, and this type of popular patronage probably lies behind many of rakan paintings. The complete set of scrolls by Lin and Zhou was in Japan by the late 14c as copies were made by the Japanese painter-priest Minchou 明兆 (1351-1431) for Toufukuji 東福寺 in 1386 and for Engakuji 円覚寺, Kamakura. Although all 500 of the rakan were occasionally painted on a single scroll, more frequently depictions were done on a series of scrolls or large wall surfaces. The subject was revived in Ming China (14-17c) and similarly found renewed interest in Edo period Japan. Ike Taiga's 池大雅 (1723-76) screen, *fusuma 襖 painting of five hundred rakan at Mampukuji 万福寺 is a well-known but unorthodox example. More typical are the 100 scrolls by Kanou Kazunobu 狩野一信(1815-63) at Zoujouji 増上寺, Tokyo. Rock sculptures of the five hundred rakan were created at temples all over Japan, including Kitain 喜多院 in Saitama Preference, Rakanji 羅漢寺 in Ooita Preference, and Sekihouji 石峰寺 in Kyoto.
<end text from JAANUS>
NOTE ON ORIGINS OF 500 ARHATS
Many point to the Mahaparinirvana Sutru and Saddharmapundarika Sutra as the origin, for these texts refer to 500 beggars who were formerly rich merchants, but after meeting the Historical Buddha, they learned and accepted his teachings.
500 Rakan in Chiba
The Big Buddha at Nihon-ji Temple in Chiba Prefecture is a representation of Yakushi Nyorai (the Medicine Buddha). Carved out of stone, and standing 31.05 meters in height, this Daibutsu, plus 1,500 smaller statues, were carved by master artisan Jingoro Eirei Ono and his 27 apprentices in the 1780s and 1790s. Click here for more on Japan's Big Buddha statues. At the same location, one can find carvings of 500 Arhats (Gohyaku Rakan), and a gigantic stone carving of the Kannon (Hyaku Shaku Kannon). The Rakan images (538 bodies standing close to each other on a slanting surface) took 20 years to carve. The project, attributed to the 15th chief priest of Nihon-ji, also occurred during the latter half of the Edo Period.
500 Rakan at Houjyu-in 宝樹院
Chiba Prefecutre, Sakura City 佐倉市上座
500 stone statues of the Rakan were created in 2003 (Heisei 15) in honor of the temple's 650th anniversary. To see dozens of photos of these statues, please visit the below Japanese language site:
Kunisaki Peninsula, Oita Pref.
Located at Toko-ji temple, Kunisaki, Oita Prefecture, Japan. Home to 538 stone-carved Rakans, reportedly carved during the late Heian or early Kamakura periods. Just one of many sites on the Kunisaki Peninsula in southern Japan (Kyushu), which is home to many stone carvings of the Buddha and Bosatsu and also home to numerous Sacred Sites and Holy Mountains. See Pilgrimage Guide for more details on Japan's holy places.
ZENTSUJI TEMPLE (善通寺)
#75 on the Shikoku Pilgrimage
Zentsuji, the birthplace of Kobo Daishi, is so named after the temple he built in 813. The temple's main hall enshrines Yakushi Nyorai. It also houses 108 statues of the Rakan. The first statue of Yakushi Nyorai, reportedly carved by Kobo Daishi himself, was reduced to ashes in 1558. So were many of the 500 Rakan statues. The present Yakushi image carved by Uncho reportedly contains the remains of the first image inside it.
Photo at right courtesy of Bob March. Says Bob-san: "Outside of Takamatsu, Shikoku, is a temple called Zentsuji. There are many older wooden rakan inside the hondo (main hall) -- these statues perhaps date from the 16th or 17th century. Outside, around the perimeter of the temple grounds, are contemporary stone carvings of (at present) about 300 Rakan, which a nun told me were commissioned and donated by a Chinese shinja. They are the best rakan -- most individual, most full of humanity and humor -- I have seen (I'm comparing them to those at Rakan-ji in Meguro and at Eihei-ji in Fukui).
On the pilgrimage route from temple #66 to #67 (Daikoji Temple), one passes between a 20-meter stretch lined with 100 stone Rakan statues.
500 Rakan at Gokurakuji Temple (Mihara, Japan)
photo by Dr. Gabi Greve
Sutras & Sacred Texts
Photo Galleries & Temple Listings -- Arhat Art
Last Update June 2008
See Otagi Nenbutsu Temple
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What is spay/neuter
and why is it important?
There are millions of pet lovers in the United States, yet shelters across the country are forced to euthanize millions of dogs and cats each year because of pet overpopulation. Of the estimated ten million animals brought to shelters each year, approximately half will not find new homes and families. The uncontrolled breeding of dogs and cats has produced more animals than there are loving homes.
Consider these facts:
- In just six years one female dog and her offspring can be the source of 67,000 puppies.
- In seven years one cat and her young can produce 420,000 kittens.
- For every human born in the United States, 15 dogs and 45 cats are born.
You can help end this tragedy with one small, but significant action - prevent a litter by having your companion animal sterilized. The surgery is routine, has health benefits for the animal, and should be done regardless of the sex of the animal. Often referred to as having a pet "fixed," neutering is a simple surgery performed by a veterinarian to remove an animal's reproductive organs. The neutering of a female is often referred to as spaying.
Spaying and Neutering is Beneficial for Your Animal.
Sterilized pets generally lead longer and healthier lives. Spaying female animals greatly reduces the incident of breast cancer and eliminates the possibility of uterine and ovarian cancer. Spaying a female before her first heat and not after one litter further reduces these health risks. Neutering a male animal eliminates the possibility of testicular cancer and reduces the risk of prostate enlargement and prostate cancer. Neutering also will make your pet more affectionate and less likely to roam, get in fights, or become lost.
What Spaying and Neutering Will NOT Do.
Contrary to popular belief, pets do not become fat and lazy as a result of being spayed or neutered. Any animal who is given too much food and gets too little exercise, regardless if they are sterilized, may become overweight. Neutering your male animal will not make him less of a male or change his basic personality. Your pet's personality is formed more by genetics and environment than by sex hormones. Spaying or neutering will not affect a dog's natural instinct to protect his/her family and home.
Spaying and Neutering Makes Better Companions.
While sterilization does not cure all aggression problems, it greatly reduces the chance that your pet will fight for dominance and may make them less likely to bite. According to Randall Lockwood of the Humane Society of the United States, "Of the nearly twenty fatalities caused by dog attacks investigated between 1992 and 1994, we have found that none were caused by a spayed or neutered dog." Unsterilized animals often exhibit more behavior and temperament problems than animals who are spayed or neutered. Neutering makes pets less likely to roam the neighborhood, run away, or get lost. In addition, spaying and neutering can reduce or eliminate unpleasant behaviors such as spraying, wailing, messy heat cycles, and humping. Spayed and neutered pets are more relaxed, affectionate companions and often are easier to train.
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> Partnership Evolution
> Sustaining Involvement
To manage the political waters of your community and interact with key stakeholders, complete this six-step process of strategic thinking for each stakeholder. See Put in Place Strategies for Involving Stakeholders or Preventing Them from Blocking Your Efforts for more details.
1.a. What are our partnership’s desired impact and major outcomes?
1.b. What tangible results/successes have we demonstrated up to this point?
2.a. Which stakeholder are we approaching and what is his/her organization or constituency?
2.b. Why is this stakeholder key to our success?
2.c. Before we contact this stakeholder, what do we know about her/him, including community interests and organizational needs?
3.a. When we first contact a stakeholder, what can we learn about his/her opinion of our partnership and his/her thoughts about our desired impact, major outcomes and successes to date?
3.b. What is important to this stakeholder and what is he/she dealing with that could impact our partnership?
4.a. In continuing our contact with this stakeholder, what are we learning about her/his values, self-interests and perspective that will help us align interests or recognize an impasse?
4.b. What are we learning about what motivates this person?
5.a What is the heart of our desired impact and major outcomes that we will not change? What is non-negotiable even with an important stakeholder?
5.b. How can we rephrase our desired impact to incorporate this stakeholder’s opinions and self-interests, while demonstrating that this is a win-win proposition?
6.a. Where does this stakeholder fall on our rating of importance? From what we’ve learned, do we need to change our rating category for this person?
6.b. Who are we choosing to approach the stakeholder, and why?
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Real estate licensees in Arizona are required to take a minimum of 24 hours of real estate education every two years.
Many take additional education and earn designations such as GRI (Graduate of the Real Estate Institute), CRS (Certified Residential Specialist), and CRB (Certified Residential Broker), to mention a few of the many designations available.
Realtors need to be aware of changes in law and trends. April is designated as Fair Housing Month.
Test your knowledge of the fair housing laws by taking this quiz.
Thanks to the National Association of Realtors and HUD for supplying the basis for these questions.
1. Under the fair housing laws, it is legal to prohibit which of the following in a housing unit?
c. A live-in caregiver for a resident with a disability
d. Both a and b
2. If a seller has listed his property through a real estate agent and refuses to accept an offer for purchase because of the buyer’s national origin, who may file a federal legal action against the seller?
a. The prospective buyer
b. The real estate agent
c. The United States government
d. All of the above
3. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 provided which of the following?
a. Allows exemptions for homes sold without the help of a real estate agent
b. Effectively prohibits all discrimination based on race in a real estate transaction
c. Grants all citizens the same rights to own, purchase, lease, transfer or use real property
d. Both b and c
4. Under the federal housing laws there are seven protected classes. They are:
a. Race, color, income source, national origin, handicap, marital status, religion
b. Race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin
c. Race, sexual orientation, sex, familial status, handicap, age, national origin
d. None of the above
5. True or False:
a. Federal law prohibits apartment landlords from assigning families with children to one particular building.
b. An apartment building owner may reject a potential tenant with a history of mental illness even though they are not a danger to others.
c. An apartment building has the right to reject a prospective tenant because of poor housekeeping habits.
d. Sexual harassment of prospective or existing tenants is a violation of the fair housing laws.
e. The fair housing act protects people with physical disabilities but not mental disabilities.
f. The fair housing act does not apply to commercial properties.
Here are the answers —
1d, 2d, 3d, 4b, 5: aT, bF, cT, dT, eF, fF
Ray Pugel is a designated broker for Coldwell Banker Bishop Realty. Contact him at (928) 474-2216.
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n the frigid depths far beneath the ocean surface, at the ridges where new crust is born, lies a landscape more alien than earthly. Here, strange long-necked barnacles, giant clams, and bizarre worms, their blood-red gills fanned out of bodies like bone-white tubes, clump beside towering spires of mineral. Nearby, sooty black clouds billow out from fissures in the seafloor, and organisms swim by, glowing with their own, otherworldly light.
The setting for this surreal scene is the submarine hydrothermal vents of Earth's mid-ocean spreading ridges. At the mid-ocean ridges, molten rock bubbles up from the mantle to the sea floor and cools to form new oceanic crust. Cold sea water percolates down through the fissures in these ridges, and many types of minerals -- like sulfur, copper, zinc, gold, and iron -- are transferred from the hot, new crust into the water.
Such hydrothermal vents were predicted long before they were first discovered by the submersible Alvin in 1977, as it surveyed the Galapagos Rift, along the eastern Pacific Ocean basin and over a mile and a half below the surface. (Other active systems being studied include the Juan de Fuca Ridge, off the coast of Washington and Oregon, and the Southern East Pacific Rise, in the middle of the southern Pacific Ocean.)
Because so much metal is spewed out, hydrothermal vents have been responsible for many of the world's richest ore deposits, like the copper ores mined on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, many economic geologists have suggested that active vents -- not just the sites of former ones -- be mined for their massive metallic deposits, although their remote locations might make that difficult.
The vents are also remarkable for their unusual, diverse life forms, like the tube worms, giant clams, and long-necked barnacles. Life is possible at the hydrothermal vent systems because of a unique type of bacteria that forms the basis of the food chain there. The bacteria harness energy not from the rays of the sun -- no sunlight reaches these great depths -- but by metabolizing the large amounts of sulfur in the hot springs.
Some researchers believe that life on Earth began in extreme environments such as these submarine hydrothermal vents. If hydrothermal vents are now (or once were) present on other worlds -- Europa, Jupiter's ice-covered moon, is one possibility, as is Mars, where minerals that on Earth are commonly formed at hydrothermal vents were just discovered -- life might very well have arisen there too.
-- By Kathy Svitil
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Fort Anne National Historic Site of Canada
Charles de Menou d'Aulnay
Interpreter as Charles de Menou d'Aulnay © Parks Canada/F. Gaudet
After Port-Royal officially returned to France in 1632, the new French governor for Acadia/Nova Scotia, Isaac de Razilly, arrived to begin a new settlement. One of his key collaborators was his cousin and lieutenant, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay. In the beginning, d’Aulnay transported furs, fish and lumber to France and brought back supplies and skilled labourers to construct a fort at LaHave.
When Razilly died suddenly in 1636, his brother, Claude de Razilly, became responsible for the Acadian colony. Obligated by business dealings to remain in France, Razilly authorized d’Aulnay to lead the colony in Acadia. One of d’Aulnay’s first decisions was to relocate the settlement Isaac de Razilly had establish in LaHave to Port-Royal. The site had been operating as a satellite post to LaHave since the Scots’ departure. Unlike LaHave, Port-Royal offered fertile lands and the potential for agricultural development. With the arrival of more French settlers including salt-marsh workers, the construction of the dykes began.
While the colony began to evolve as a farming community, its main focus remained the fur trade. For years, D’Aulnay’s battles with his adversary and the former governor, Charles de Saint-Etienne de La Tour, over control of the trade in Acadia consumed much of his energy and finances. La Tour had survived the destruction of the Port-Royal Habitation as a boy and grew to develop a robust trading base at Cape Sable and later at the mouth of the Saint John River. D’Aulnay, as a newcomer with ties to the aristocracy and as Razilly’s second-in-command, clearly threatened La Tour’s power base. An awkward bipartite administrative system only aggravated the situation by giving each of them one-half the profits from the fur trade and the right to inspect the other’s territory. This dynamic led to a clash of interests and personalities that continued to escalate. Eventually, the acrimony that developed between the two Frenchmen spiraled into a progression of raids, reprisals, ambushes, blockades, pursuits, escapes, imprisonment and desperate appeals from both sides to the powers in France for help.
A pivotal shift came in 1643 when La Tour attacked Port-Royal. The raid was incited by a rash of events the past year starting with d’Aulnay returning from France with four ships loaded with supplies, a five-month blockade of the La Tour fort on the Saint John River, Fort-Sainte Marie, and La Tour, who managed to escape, returning from Massachusetts with reinforcements. D’Aulnay, in turn, fled to Port-Royal with La Tour in pursuit. When d’Aulnay refused to meet with his enemy, La Tour attacked, burning a mill, killing livestock and seizing a ship loaded with furs and supplies.
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(1949). Psychiatry. XI, 1948: Anti-Nazis: Criteria of Differentiation. David M. Levy. Pp. 125–167.. Psychoanal Q., 18:265-..
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Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing: Psychiatry. XI, 1948: Anti-Nazis: Criteria of Differentiation. David M. Levy. Pp. 125–167.
To determine what personal and social influences tend to produce an anti-Nazi mentality, Levy selected for study twenty-one German men from among the candidates for positions with the American Military Goverment who were undergoing a period of training at the Bad Orb School. Examination of the case records plus psychiatric interviews and psychological testing provided the data for the study. A summary of each case study is presented in this paper. Six factors were found to be significant as criteria of differentiation. 'They represent differences in the particular cases from the assumed typical German life history of the comparable cultural group.' Those factors are the following: 1, absence of strict paternal discipline, as through death of the father in childhood, avoidance of corporal punishment as a means of discipline, or the presence of an easy and free relationship between father and son; 2, demonstrative maternal affection (which is not typically displayed by the German mother beyond early childhood); 3, position of 'only' or 'favorite' child in the family, which favors the development of more individuality; 4, 'crossing' of religious or national boundaries, through either the individual himself or his parents having married persons of different faiths or nationalities, or through membership in a dissident church; 5, strong influence against Nazism either in childhood or later in jobs; 6, the influence of reading and travel in those cases in which it definitely affected the point of view in an anti-Nazi direction. Three or more of those factors were found in all but three of the twenty-one cases studied, and in those three the anti-Nazi bias was questionable. A score of three or higher is therefore considered to be an indication of anti-Nazi attitude.
The study shows that the deviation factors are selective of certain types resistant to 'Nazi-mindedness'. 'As a group, the anti-Nazis, in comparison with typical Germans, have escaped the conventional and rigid family structure. They have been brought up with more affection and less restraint. Their
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world is a broader one, less limited in terms of religious, social and intellectual boundaries.' Further work to check the validity of these criteria both in known Nazis and in other anti-Nazis is in progress. Sufficient data, Levy states, has already accumulated to support the validity of the criteria.
WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the PEPWeb subscriber and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally appeared. It is illegal to copy, distribute or circulate it in any form. - 266 -
WARNING! This text is printed for the personal use of the subscriber to PEP Web and is copyright to the Journal in which it originally appeared. It is illegal to copy, distribute or circulate it in any form whatsoever.
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it may be added that in 1822 Medford
had 1,474 inhabitants; in 57 years it had failed to double its population.
As the ratio of whites to blacks in the colony at large was 45:1, it is seen that Medford
had an unusually large negro population.
So far as I have found records, a strong, able-bodied negro was worth, in 1700, about £ 18. In the inventory of Maj. Jonathan Wade
's property appears the following asset:
and elsewhere in his papers is the record: ‘2 negroes that died appraised @ £ 35.’
Still, it is impossible to generalize from such insufficient data.
After the beginning of hostilities in 1775 Colonel Royall
departed for Nova Scotia
, and Dr. Tufts
for a while managed his property.
Under date of March 12, 1776, Royal writes: ‘Please to sell the following negroes; Stephen and George; they each cost £ 60 sterling; and I would take £ 50, or even £ 15, apiece for them.1 Hagar
cost £ 35 sterling, but I will take £ 30 for her. I gave for Mira
£ 35, but will take £ 25. If Mr. Benjamin Hall
will give the £ 100 for her which he offered, he may have her, it being a good place.
As to Betsey and her daughter Nancy, the former may tarry, or take her freedom, as she may choose; and Nancy you may put out to some good family by the year.’
The range of prices is here much higher, averaging about £ 40.
References to slavery in the Town
-meeting Records are very few. The first is in the meeting of Aug. 18, 1718, when it was ‘Put to Vote whether every inhabitant of this Town Shall when they buy any Servant Male or Female Be obliged to acquaint and inform the Selectmen
of Sd. Town for their approbation;’ the motion was carried.
Inasmuch as a rather close
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The poet frequently speaks of places in succession as they are situated;
At other times he does not observe any order;
“ they who inhabited Hyria, and Aulis;1”
and they who occupied Argos, and Tiryns,
Hermione, and Asine,
Trœzen, and Eiones.Il. ii. 559.
He also mentions together places on the continent and islands;
“ Schœnus, and Scolus,”
Thespeia, and Græa.2Il. ii. 497.
for Crocyleia is in Acarnania. Thus he here joins with Ægina Mases, which belongs to the continent of Argolis. Homer does not mention Thyreæ, but other writers speak of it as well known. It was the occasion of a contest between the three hundred Argives against the same number of Lacedæmonians; the latter were conquerors by means of a stratagem of Othryadas. Thucydides places Thyreæ in Cynuria, on the confines of Argia and Laconia.4 Hysiæ also is a celebrated place in Argolica; and Cenchreæ, which lies on the road from Tegea to Argos, over the mountain Parthenius, and the Creopolus.5 But Homer was not acquainted with either of these places, [nor with the Lyrceium, nor Orneæ, and yet they are villages in the Argian territory; the former of the same name as the mountain there; the latter of the same name as the Orneæ, situated between Corinth and Sicyon].6 18. Among the cities of the Peloponnesus, the most celebrated were, and are at this time, Argos and Sparta, and as their renown is spread everywhere, it is not necessary to describe them at length, for if we did so, we should seem to repeat what is said by all writers. Anciently, Argos was the most celebrated, but afterwards the Lacedæmonians obtained the superiority, and continued to maintain their independence, except during some short interval, when they experienced a reverse of fortune. The Argives did not admit Pyrrhus within the city. He fell before the walls, an old woman having let a tile drop from a house upon his head. They were, however, under the sway of other kings. When they belonged to the Achæan league they were subjected, together with the other members of that confederacy, to the power of the Romans. The city subsists at present, and is second in rank to Sparta.
“ they who held Ithaca,”
and inhabited Crocyleia,3Il. ii. 632.
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Photon Exchange in Atoms
|Feb12-13, 09:36 AM||#1|
Photon Exchange in Atoms
Sorry if this post seems short, I had to write it in a hurry.
I'm currently reading Leonard Susskind's 'The Cosmic Landscape'. In it, he describes how electrons and protons both emit photons, which is what gives them their charge. The explanation is really awesome, but I have one thing I can't figure out. Electrons have negative charge and protons have positive, but their photons are the same type, right? So wouldn't they repel even though they are opposite charges? What property of the photon makes positive and negative things attract instead of repel, and why don't they electrons spiral into the nucleus if the protons attract the electrons?
|Feb12-13, 12:15 PM||#2|
I wish my answers were as good as your questions!
is any fundamental 'intuitive logic' beyond the mathematical description which has been found to work. But maybe someone can astound us!!
For example, in classical electromagnetism the Coulomb force between particles is simply assigned a plus or minus depending on charge type...If the two charges have the same sign, the electrostatic force between them is repulsive; if they have different sign, attractive....Not especially intuitive...and the electromagnetic field is the same in either case.
Again, I think the best 'final' explanation within QM will be mathematical along the lines of charge being associated with conserved quantum numbers and the electric charge being the generator of the U(1) symmetry of electromagnetism....
Who ordered THAT?? well, it works in QED. That is; it very accurately describes what we observe.
which result in bound particles exhibiting quantized behavior: Electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state, so electrons have to "stack" within an atom, that is, have different quantum numbers [mathematical characteristics]. A related viewpoint is that all bound particles become quantized, and this is described via standing waves...like resonant vibrations of a violin string....or confining a particle in a potential 'box'. String theory ascribes such behavior based on tension and energy of the vibrating modes of the string....
yeah, a bit 'hand-wavy' I guess.
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Asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of December 2012, in color, excepting Vesta
Filed under best of, pretty pictures, many worlds, amateur image processing, scale comparisons, presentation slides, asteroids, comets, near-Earth asteroids, asteroid 21 Lutetia, asteroid 243 Ida and Dactyl, asteroid 25143 Itokawa, asteroid 253 Mathilde, asteroid 2867 Steins, asteroid 433 Eros, asteroid 951 Gaspra, comet Borrelly, comet Halley, comet Hartley 2, comet Tempel 1, comet Wild 2, Chang'E program, Galileo, comet Halley armada, Deep Space 1, NEAR, Deep Impact, Stardust, Hayabusa (MUSES-C), Rosetta and Philae
The "click to enlarge" version has a resolution of 100 meters per pixel. Here is a version at 20 meters per pixel.
Below is another version of the same montage, except that the albedo is linearly scaled, meaning that Borrelly (with an albedo of 0.03) really is ten dimes darker than Steins (albedo 0.34). (Also available at 20 m/pixel)
Color images were not actually available for all bodies. There have been color images of Lutetia, Ida, Dactyl, Itokawa, Steins, Toutatis, Gaspra, Eros, Mathilde, Tempel 1, and Hartley 2. The others, including Braille, Annefrank, Halley, Borrelly, and Wild 2, were given a brown color to match the others.
Albedoes used for the composite:
Tempel 1: 0.04
Wild 2: 0.03
Hartley 2: 0.028
Copyright holder: Daniel Macháček
Copyright holder: Ted Stryk
Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla
Copyright holder: Gordan Ugarkovic
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about December 13, 2012
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San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), California, United States of America
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a 2,200MW, twin nuclear reactor power station. It is located approximately 6.5km south-east of San Clemente in Orange County, in the state of California. The plant, operational since 1968, is one of the largest nuclear generating stations in the US and the largest in southern California.
As of July 2012, the plant was out of service. Unit 2 was shutdown in January 2012 for planned maintenance and upgrades, while unit 3 was taken out of service in the same month after a leak was discovered in a steam generator tube. Unit 1 was permanently shutdown in 1992.
The plant is expected to resume operations only after receiving permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency of the US Government.
Southern California Edison (SCE), a subsidiary of Edison International, is the licensee and is responsible for the management and operations of the plant. SCE has 78.21% working interest in the project.
San Diego Gas & Electric, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, and the city of Riverside have an ownership of 20% and 1.79% respectively in the plant.
History of California's SONGS
Consent for the installation of unit 1, a three-loop pressurised water reactor from Westinghouse, for the SONGS project was given in 1963. Construction commenced in 1964 and unit 1 was put into commercial operation in January 1968. It was permanently taken out of service in November 1992.
Decommissioning of unit 1 was started in 1999 and most of its structures and facilities were removed from the site by 2008. The decommissioning required an investment of $460m.
Permit for the installation of units 2 and 3 was granted in October 1973. Construction commenced in 1974 and was accomplished in 1981.
Unit 2 was brought online in August 1983, while unit 3 started generating electricity in April 1984. The units required an investment of $4.5bn.
San Onofre nuclear power plant unit details
Located in San Jose, the 602MW Metcalf Energy Center is now delivering power to northern California.
San Onofre nuclear power plant is built on an 84-acre site leased from the US Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton. The plant's existing units, 2 and 3, are two-loop pressurised water reactors.
Each unit can generate up to 1,100MW of power, enough to meet the needs of 700,000 average homes.
The plant's four steam generators, two each for unit 2 and unit 3, were replaced in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The original steam turbine generators were manufactured by English Electric, a British industrial manufacturer which became defunct in 1968.
All four steam turbines were replaced after the end of their service period by new steam turbines manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Each of the replaced steam turbines is 19.8m tall, 6.7m in diameter and weighs 640t.
A once-through condenser cooling method is used to cool the steam condensers of each reactor. Cooling water for each unit is sourced from the Pacific Ocean via an intake pipe measuring 1,036m in length and 5.4m in diameter.
Used water is discharged back into the sea through two separate discharge pipelines. The discharge pipe meant for the second reactor terminates 2,591m offshore. The third unit discharge pipe terminates 1,874m offshore.
Nuclear generating station contractors
All three units of the San Onofre nuclear power plant were built by Bechtel, currently the largest engineering, construction and project management company in the US. The company also acted as the architect for the plant.
The nuclear reactor for unit 1 was supplied by Westinghouse, while the reactors for units 2 and 3 were supplied by Combustion Engineering.
Strategic location between LA and San Diego
The nuclear plant is situated in a very strategic location with respect to the power grid. It is situated in between Los Angeles and San Diego, the two largest cities of California by population. While the latter is served by San Diego Gas & Electric, the former is served by SCE.
About 50% of the electrical transmission facilities and equipment are owned and operated by these two major utilities.
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Close to three decades ago, policemen were hired purely on the basis of personal relations with influential personalities and government officials. City and municipal policemen were after being hired, sworn in, and issued weapons. Despite their lack of knowledge on the police system, they were given the responsibility of safeguarding and protecting the community.
The police organization then had no code of conduct. The police service then required neither entry standards nor appropriate training, and had no consistent promotional polices. However, substantial improvements were achieved with the passage of Republic Act 4864 on September 6, 1966, known as the Police Act of 1966. That law provided for the establishment of the Police Commission and was renamed National Police Commission under the Office of the President of the Philippines.
Among the powers, duties and responsibilities of the National Police Commission were to advise the President on all matters involving local police administration, examine and audit the performance, activities and facilities of all local police agencies throughout the country, promulgate a police manual prescribing rules and regulations for the efficient organization, administration, and operation of the local police, including their recruitment, selection and promotion, organize and develop police training programs and operate police training centers, and establish a system of Uniform Crime Reporting.
Upon approval of this Police Act, appointment to a local police agency was made by the mayor from the list of eligibles certified by the Civil Service Commission, provided that all appointments were on probationary basis for a period of six months. After that an evaluation and recommendation report for retention or termination by the Chief of Police was required prior to the expiration of the probationary period.
The set up was not without its concomitant pitfalls. Training was limited to police service personnel only. Moreover, the system itself lent to locally based, individualized and separate local police units that led to the marked preponderance of political influence and interference over the police forces. Mainly for these reasons, the government opted to integrate all city and municipal police, fire and jail services into a unified organization.
A series of police integration laws culminated on August 8, 1975 in the promulgation of Presidential Decree (PD) 765 constituting the Integrated National Police or INP. It provided for the integration of all city and municipal police and fire departments and jails into the Integrated National Police (INP). These integrated forces were placed under the operational control of the Philippine Constabulary.
The Integrated National Police was therefore established and made responsible for public safety, protection of lives and properties, enforcement of laws and maintenance of peace and order within the territorial limits of the Philippines. It had the power to prevent crimes, effect and arrest of criminal offenders and provide for their detention and rehabilitation. It took necessary measures to prevent and control fires, investigate the commission of all crimes and offenses and bring the offenders to justice, all the while to take every necessary step to insure public safety.
The Philippine Constabulary, as a major service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines with law enforcement functions, served as nucleus of the Integrated National Police.
The power of the administrative supervision and control by the city and municipal governments over their respective local police, jail and fire department was transferred to the Chief of Constabulary as Director-General of the Integrated National Police.
The powers and functions of the National Police Commission in the training of policemen was the establishment of the integrated police communication system, the grant of police salary subsidy, and the adjudication and grant of compensation for temporary disability benefits, were transferred to the Integrated National Police, including all appropriate personnel and staff, records and equipment and other resources appertaining thereto, except for the powers and functions vested in and exercised by the National Police Commission.
The National Police Commission's power and functions were the attestation of appointments, examination, investigation, adjudication and review of police administrative disciplinary cases, adjudication and grant of compensation for permanent disability and death benefits, staff inspection and audit, extended to the police fire, and jail components of the Integrated National Police.
Thus, the police, fire and jail services were unified into a single organization and the responsibility of training INP personnel was transferred from the National Police Commission on July 1, 1976 to the Integrated National Police Training Command including the 13 regional training centers throughout the country as mandated by Presidential decree (PD) 765.
Presidential Decree (PD) 765 was only a beginning. On August 26, 1977, PD 1184 otherwise known as the "INP Personnel Professionalization Law of 1977", proposed for the creation of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA). Immediately after the promulgation of PD 1184, the then chief of Constabulary and concurrently Director General of the Integrated National Police, Major General Fidel V. Ramos created a study committee to prepare the corresponding feasibility study and all other prerequisites for the activation of the envisioned PNPA based on PD 1184.
Section 19 of said decree provided that "there shall be established in the Integrated National Police a premiere police service training institution to be known as the Philippine National Police Academy for the education and training of the members of the INP."
In February 1978, General Ramos recommended to Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, then Minister of National Defense, the activation of the Philippine National Police Academy. As a result of the recommendation, Ministry of National Defense (MND) Order No. 83 was issued on May 25, 1978 activating the Philippine National Police Academy effective June 12, 1978 in line with the national objective to upgrade the law enforcement service in the country.
Pursuant to said Ministry of National Defense (MND) Order, General Orders No. 23-P Headquarters Philippine Constabulary / Integrated National Police dated 23 June 1978 formally announced the activation of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA). The speed that characterized the creation and establishment of Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) was a clear indication of the important role of the institution in the professional development of police officers in the country. In fact, its actual operations began even before its formal inauguration. It conducted entrance examinations fro cadetship on May 28 and June 4, 1978 to select the best applicants for its first batch of cadets.
When the formal inauguration took place in June 30, 2978, the cadets had to share quarters with the INP Training Command at Fort Bonifacio for more than two months before it moved to Camp Vicente Lim in Calamba, Laguna as its training venue on August 19, 1978. The apparent infancy of the Academy presented such as lack of formal organization, staffing and a training site. This was, however, resolved by having the Integrated National Police Training Command Headquarters at Fort Bonifacio serve as surrogate organization of the Academy.
Simultaneously with the formal establishment of the Academy, the first batch of police cadets was chosen after a rigorous and painstaking selection process - including thorough medical and psychiatric examinations that took place on June 30, 1978. Formal academic instructions started in July 17, 1978 with 50 cadets, in formal ceremonies at Fort Bonifacio in the present Philippine Public Safety College grounds. Two years later, 45 of them finally graduated to compose the first Bachelor of Science in Public Safety (BSPS) graduates - the Maharlika Class of 1980.
During its initial years of existence, the Academy limited the admission of its student-cadets to the two-year Bachelor of Science in Public Safety (BSPS) for qualified members of the Integrated National Police (INP) only. This meant that applicants outside the Integrated National Police (INP) services were not accepted in the cadetship program.
When the Philippine National Police Academy was about to complete its third year of existence, the Academy modified its admission requirements to include civilian applicants.
On January 15, 1981, less than three years after its establishment, the Academy was granted its Academic Charter through the promulgation of Presidential Decree 1780, otherwise known as the "The Philippine National Police Academy Charter of 1981. "This decree elevated the Academy to the status as the premiere educational and training institution of the country's national police force.
Thus, the Philippine National Police Academy was specifically tasked "to develop and conduct comprehensive education and training programs with the view of Professionalizing the personnel in every level of command of the Integrated National Police."
The 1978 Bachelor of Science in Public Safety (BSPS) curriculum underwent curriculum and training revisions and modifications which brought about the transition from two years to a three-year curriculum, giving emphasis on the separate specialized areas for cadets who would opt for either the police, fire and jail bureaus. Finally, on April 13, 1995, Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) found its new and permanent home when it moved to Camp General Mariano N Castañeda at Silang, Cavite.
With the passage of Republic Act 6975, otherwise known as the "Department of the Interior and Local Government Act of 1990", the Philippine National Police, the Fire and Jail Bureaus and the Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) were created. The Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) became a primary component of the Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC), the institution which was mandated as the premier institution for the training, human resource development and continuing education of all police, fire and jail personnel.
It was in January 1997, under the leadership of Police Chief Superintendent Rufino G. Ibay, Jr. that the proposal to revise the Bachelor of Science in Public Safety (BSPS) course into a four-year program was favorably endorsed by then Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) President Guillermo P. Enriquez, Jr. that led to its eventual approval by the Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) Board of Trustees which is composed of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary as Chairman, the head of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) as members, and the Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) President as ex-officio member."
Since the Academy moved to Camp General Mariano N Castañeda, Silang, Cavite in 1994 as its new and permanent home, its facilities have been continuously upgraded to make the Academy conducive for learning.
Today, the Academy stands at the apex of transformation for the human development of the country's public safety officers as it goes beyond the realm of its vision and mission. The Academy continuously takes the lead in transforming the Cadet Corps towards its pledge. "TO LEARN TODAY, TO LEAD TOMORROW" and to live by the Cadet virtuo's of HONOR, DISCIPLINE and EXCELLENCE.
Click PNPA to visit the Philippine National Police Academy Website
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When sugar damages kidneys
New hope for diabetes patients with kidney disease. By researchers from BIOSS and the University Medical Center Freiburg
Caption and Source on Text
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common secondary diseases in modern society. And because it is on the rise, it is also one of the greatest challenges facing medicine today. Diabetes patients do not die as a direct result of the increase in blood sugar, but from the long-term complications of their disease, in which the increase in blood sugar causes damage to blood vessels and organs. Kidneys are particularly susceptible to damage, and this can lead to a loss in kidney function and the need to begin a dialysis treatment.
Prof. Dr. Tobias Huber is a kidney expert in the Nephrology Division of the University Medical Center Freiburg. With the support of the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS – Centre for Biological Signalling Studies, Dr. Huber and his team were able to identify a signalling path that affects the progression of kidney disease in diabetes patients: mTOR is an important metabolic enzyme that controls similar functions in simple organisms, such as yeast and roundworms, as in humans; for example, it controls the growth and reproduction of cells. Diabetes causes the mTOR signalling path to become overactive, which can cause damage in highly specialized kidney cells.
The researchers in Freiburg were able to demonstrate that, although the basal activation of this enzyme may be important for the regular function of renal corpuscles during embryonic development, an overactive mTOR can result in a serious disruption of the kidney filter in diabetes patients and can lead to a total loss of function. In tests on animals, the deliberate genetic interception of this signalling path was able to halt the progression of kidney disease.This spectacular result of medical research was published as the title story in the latest edition (in June 2011) of the prestigious scientific journal, Journal of Clinical Investigation. It also gives us hope that it will be possible to prevent kidney disease in diabetes patients in the future.
Dr. Huber was also honoured last year with the highest scientific award in Germany for kidney research, the Franz Volhard Award, for his achievements in the field of kidney filtration.
Role of mTOR in podocyte function and diabetic nephropathy in humans and mice: J Clin Invest. 2011 Jun 1;121(6): 2197-209.
doi: 10. 1172/JCI44774. Epub 2011 May 23.
The complex structure of the kidney filter (magnified here 4000 times)
is especially susceptible to secondary complications of diabetes.
Björn Hartleben and Martin Helmstädter
Prof. Dr. Tobias B. Huber
Medicine IV, Nephrology
University Medical Center Freiburg
and BIOSS –Centre for Signalling Biological Studies
University of Freiburg
Tel.: +49 (0)761/270-35590 oder +49 (0)761/270 63460203
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Measuring performance is a fundamental part of every organization, whether it is run by a private sector or a government sector.
Performance measures are used to evaluate organizational as well as managerial performance.
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a quantitative value that can be scaled and used for performance evaluation.
Organizations should use both financial and nonfinancial KPIs when measuring employee as well as firm performance.
KPIs should be aligned with business strategy, work environment, and employee incentives.
Too many KPIs should be avoided, to maximize their usage by employees in their day-to-day operations.
“It is much more difficult to measure nonperformance than performance.”
Measuring performance is a fundamental part of every organization, whether it is run by a private sector or a government sector. A performance measurement system (PMS) highlights whether the organization is on track to achieve its desired goals. Performance measures are primarily used to evaluate organizational, as well as employee performance. A PMS develops key performance indicators (KPIs), or metrics, depending on the nature and activities of the organization. KPIs can serve as the cornerstone of an organization’s employee incentive schemes. KPIs are used as guidelines and incentives to facilitate the coordination of managers and business unit goals, with those of the overall corporation goals, that is, they encourage goal congruency. Through these metrics, the organization communicates how it wishes the employees to behave, and how this behavior will be judged and evaluated. Effective organizational managers rely on KPIs to set direction, make strategic decisions, and achieved desired goals.1
It has been suggested that, in today’s competitive and global financial crisis environments, organizations need to be masters at anticipating customers’ needs, devising radical new product and service offerings, and rapidly deploying new production technologies into operating and service delivery processes.2 For several decades, performance measurement has been used as an internal informational tool to evaluate business units’ operations, and make program and budgetary decisions.
PMS and KPIs: Definitions
A PMS typically comprises systematic methods of setting business goals, together with periodic feedback reports that indicate progress against those goals.3 Within a PMS, an organization develops some key performance metrics or indicators. A KPI can be defined as “a quantitative value that can be scaled and used for purposes of comparison.”4 There is also the view that KPIs are quantifiable performance measurements used to define success factors, and measure progress toward the achievement of business goals.”5 The PMS literature classifies performance measures into two major groups: financial and non-financial. Financial measures may include return on investment (ROI), earnings per share (EPS), revenue (sales) growth, profit margin, etc. Non-financial measures may include customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, production efficiency, quality, customer services, etc.
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- Next section Balanced Scorecard Measures
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SYDNEY – Scientists in Australia say they are encouraged by initial results of a revolutionary “thinking cap” that aims to promote creativity by passing low levels of electricity through the brain.
The device, which consists of two conductors fastened to the head by a rubber strap, significantly boosted results in a simple arithmetic test, they said.
Three times as many people who wore the “thinking cap” were able to complete the test, compared to those who did not use the equipment. Sixty people took part in total.
Allan Snyder, director of the University of Sydney’s Centre for the Mind, said the device worked by suppressing the left side of the brain, associated with knowledge, and stimulating the right side, linked to creativity.
“You wouldn’t use this to study or to help your memory,” Snyder told AFP. “You would use this if you wanted to look at a problem anew.
“If you wanted to look at the world, just briefly, with a child’s view, if you wanted to look outside the box.”
He said goal was to suppress mental templates gathered through life experiences to help users see problems and situations as they really appear, rather than through the prism of earlier knowledge.
Snyder added that the work was inspired by accident victims who experienced a sudden surge in creativity after damaging the left side of their brains.
“We know that from certain types of brain damage and abnormalities or injuries, people who suddenly have damage to the left temporal lobe will burst out in the arts or other types of creative activities,” he said.
Snyder said the device had been in use by scientists for a decade, but this was the first study into how current passing through the brain could amplify insight.
He said the “thinking cap” had potential applications in the arts and problem-solving, although the science remained in its infancy.
“The dream is that one day we may be able to stimulate the brain in a particular way to give you, just momentarily, an unfiltered view of the world,” Snyder said.
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It is customary to bemoan the intractability of global poverty and the lack of progress against the Millennium Development Goals. But the stunning fact is that, gone unnoticed, the goal to halve global poverty was probably reached three years ago.
We are in the midst of the fastest period of poverty reduction the world has ever seen. The global poverty rate, which stood at 25 percent in 2005, is ticking downwards at one to two percentage points a year, lifting around 70 million people - the population of Turkey or Thailand - out of destitution annually. Advances in human progress on such a scale are unprecedented, yet remain almost universally unacknowledged.
Official estimates of global poverty are compiled by the World Bank and stretch back 30 years. For most of that period, the trend has been one of slow, gradual reduction. By 2005, the year of the most recent official global poverty estimate, the number of people living under the international poverty line of $1.25 a day stood at 1.37 billion - an improvement of half a billion compared to the early 1980s, but a long way from the dream of a world free of poverty.
Behind these aggregate figures lies a sombre reality. In assessing the fortunes of the developing world during the late 20th century, countries can be roughly divided into two categories: China and the rest. China's stunning economic reversal - 30 years ago, only 16 percent of its population lived above the poverty line, but by 2005, only 16 percent stood below it - masks others' failings. Excluding China, the 500 million decrease in global poverty becomes an increase of 100 million. In the world's poorest region, sub-Saharan Africa, the poverty rate remained above 50 percent throughout the period, which, given the region's rapid population growth, translated into a near doubling in the number of its poor. Similarly in South Asia, Latin America and Europe-Central Asia there were more poor people in 2005 than there were a quarter of a century earlier.
This depressing track record shapes perspectives on poverty that abound today. Global poverty has come to be seen as a constant, with the poor cut off from the prosperity enjoyed elsewhere. Only a radical change to the current global order - an alternative system to globalisation or a massive exercise in redistribution - could possibly alter this destiny.
In a new study of global poverty, we upend this narrative. By combining the most recent country survey data of household consumption with the latest figures on private consumption growth, we generated global poverty estimates from 2005 up to the present day. Poverty reduction accelerated in the early 2000s at a rate that has been sustained throughout the decade, even during the dark recesses of the financial crisis. Today, we estimate that there are approximately 820 million people living on less than $1.25 a day. This means that the prime target of the Millennium Development Goals - to halve the rate of global poverty by 2015 from its 1990 level - was probably achieved around three years ago. Whereas it took 25 years to reduce poverty by half a billion people up to 2005, the same feat was likely achieved in the six years between then and now. Never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time.
Not only is poverty falling rapidly, it's falling across all regions and most countries. Unsurprisingly, the greatest reduction has occurred in Asia. But it's not just the dynamic economies of East Asia, such as China, recording great feats in poverty reduction; South Asian giants including India and Bangladesh, and Central Asian economies such as Uzbekistan also make great strides. Even Sub-Saharan Africa is sharing in this progress. The region finally broke through the symbolic threshold of a 50 percent poverty rate in 2008 and its number of poor people has begun falling for the first time on record.
This stunning progress is driven by rapid economic growth across the developing world. During the 1980s and 1990s, per capita growth in developing countries averaged just 1 to 2 percent a year, not nearly fast enough to make a serious dent in poverty levels. Since around 2003, however, growth in the developing world has taken off, averaging 5 percent per capita a year.
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Paul Krugman refutes the myth that US prosperity after WWII resulted from the destruction of our competitors by drawing on the BEA database that generated the following chart. The chart depicts data that also contradict two other myths that pollute conventional wisdom about foreign trade. First the chart and then the myths.
Myth #1: The US economy boomed after WWII because the rest of the world was in ruins.
To the contrary, the chart shows that, except for the war and Marshall Plan years, there was no US export boom until about 1973. Krugman points out that our competitor nations were also our customer nations, and when they couldn’t produce after WWII they couldn’t buy from us either.
Myth #2: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act caused the Great Depression, or at least made it much longer and deeper.
This act, signed into law June 17, 1930, was intended to protect American jobs and farmers from import competition by increasing tariffs from historic lows of about 5% to an average of about 25%, levels more characteristic of the 19th Century. Other nations retaliated by raising their tariff rates. Imports and exports both declined, but how much of those declines were caused by the tariff war, and were they a major factor contributing to the Great Depression?
In recessions, imports and exports decline even without changes in tariff rates, an effect that is obvious in the chart for the 1982 and 1991 recessions and the current Great Recession. The chart and database show that exports declined 39% from 5.7% of GDP in 1929 to 3.5% in 1933, the worst year of the Great Depression, while imports declined 37% from 5.4% to 3.4%. However, foreign trade was the smallest part of the US economy in those days, and the largest domestic sectors and the economy as a whole declined even more. Total GDP declined 46% from 1929 to 1933, and the two largest components of GDP, personal consumption and domestic private investment, declined by 41% and 90%, respectively. (The fourth component of GDP, government spending, fortunately declined only 10%.)
If raising tariffs caused immediate foreign trade decreases, then reversing the tariff changes should quickly increase foreign trade by about the same amount, right? Roosevelt promptly began making bi-lateral tariff reduction deals under authority of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 and average rates were reduced to pre-Smoot-Hawley levels by 1947 when GATT was adopted. See graph here. Can we see the effects on foreign trade? Nope. In contrast to these dramatic tariff changes, the chart shows that imports grew very modestly from 3.4% of GDP in 1933 to just 4.3% in 1951. After that the value of imports as a portion of GDP was stable through 1965 before rising to 6.0% in 1972 (just before the Arab Oil Embargo).
One could reasonably say, as many did at the time, that raising tariffs in 1930 was wrong-headed because it was unlikely to ameliorate the Great Depression (and apparently did not ameliorate it). But there’s nothing in the data to suggest the tariff increases made things a great deal worse either, is there? I submit that the only significant ill effect of Smoot-Hawley was to dissipate the political energy that might otherwise have been directed at doing something useful for the economy in 1930, instead of waiting three more years for Roosevelt and Keynes.
Myth #3: If the US government just stays out of the way, foreign trade will balance itself out and share the benefits among all nations.
According to the chart, the last year the US did not have a trade deficit was 1975, and the average deficit in the 34 years since has been 2.36% of GDP. In the last ten years, the average deficit has been 4.25%. This is important because net exports add to our GDP, and net imports subtract from GDP—that’s not theory or conjecture but in fact how GDP is defined. When we run a chronic trade deficit, we are restricting the growth of our domestic economy—and restricting the growth of wages and salaries that would be earned by Americans if they were producing the goods and services here instead of importing them. The benefits of having an export-based economy are going to other nations, many of whom pursue aggressive mercantilist policies intended to shift into their domestic economies growth and employment that would otherwise occur in the US and other nations.
In 2009, ten nations accounted for 89.6% of the US trade deficit. They were China (45.3%), Mexico (9.5%), Japan (8.9%), Germany (5.6%), Ireland (4.1%), Canada (4%), Venezuela (3.7%), Nigeria (3.1%), Italy (2.8%), Malaysia (2.6%). (Source.) Of these, at least China and Japan overtly engage in currency manipulation and buy-local policies to maintain their advantages. They are, in effect, imposing economic sanctions on us and their other trading partners. This also serves the bottom lines of some powerful US-based interests; for them, a trade deficit is a feature, not a bug. The long-term persistence of our chronic trade deficit shows that it is not a random and transient departure from equilibrium, and it won’t change without policy changes in our federal government.
Economist Douglas A. Irwin of Dartmouth is the author of two books due out next year, Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression and Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s. He previews some of the ideas here.
In his famous 1993 debate with Ross Perot over the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), Vice President Al Gore claimed that Smoot-Hawley "was one of the principal causes, many economists say the principal cause, of the Great Depression in this country and around the world."
In fact, economists across the political spectrum reject this view. Previous tariff hikes, some even larger than Smoot-Hawley, had reduced trade and efficiency, but they didn't produce a macroeconomic catastrophe. When asked if Smoot-Hawley caused the Great Depression, the University of Chicago economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman replied: "No. I think the Smoot-Hawley tariff was a bad law. I think it did harm. But the Smoot-Hawley tariff by itself would not have made one-quarter of the labor force unemployed." As Mr. Friedman's own work showed, the money supply and domestic prices had fallen by a third during the Depression, largely because of a malfunctioning gold standard and inept monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve. These were the fundamental causes of the economic disaster.
The Smoot-Hawley tariff did not have a huge macroeconomic impact because at the time it was enacted, unlike today, the U.S. was not very open to international trade. Total imports were just a small fraction of gross domestic product, and two-thirds of those imports were consumer goods (coffee, tea) and industrial raw materials (silk, tin) that were exempt from the tariff. In 1929, dutiable imports amounted to just 1.4% of GDP. Smoot-Hawley increased the average tax on them from 38% to 45%. A tax increase of this size on 1.4% of GDP is not enough, by itself, to generate an enormous economic contraction.
Irwin goes on to propose monetary policy remedies for our current problems, remedies that Paul Krugman and others may see as unworkable because we are already at the "zero lower bound" of interest rates, i.e., the Fed can lower interest rates to zero--and it has--but it's not possible for the Fed to push interest rates into negative territory. Hat tip to Mark Thoma for the link.
David Warsh reports that it was WSJ editorial writer Jude Wanniski who in 1978 originated the myth that Smoot-Hawley caused the Great Depression--and not only the Great Depression but the stock market crash that started nine months before Smoot-Hawley was enacted. Warsh also quotes from a Michelle Bachman speech on the House floor perpetuating the myth, and he discusses Douglas Irwin's book which "refudiates" it. [UPDATE 2/21/11: Paul Krugman weighs in on Warsh's piece and even includes a photo of Senator Hoot Smalley, as Bachman called him.]
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Abraham (Ashkenazi Avrohom or Avruhom ; ابراهيم, Ibrāhīm ; Ge'ez: አብርሃም, ʾAbrəham) is a man featured in the Book of Genesis, as well as in parts of the Qur'an and Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions regard him as the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples. He is widely regarded as the patriarch of Judaism and Monotheism.
Abraham was the son of Terah and the grandson of Nahor. Abraham's brothers were named Nahor and Haran. According to Genesis, Abraham was brought by God from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. There Abraham entered into a covenant: in exchange for sole recognition of YHWH as supreme universal deity and authority, Abraham will be blessed with innumerable progeny. According to Jewish tradition (based on the Anno Mundi era), Abraham lived AM 1948–2123 (1812 BCE to 1637 BCE). Christian traditional dates are about 2000 BCE to 1825 BCE.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions", because of the progenitor role Abraham plays in their holy books. In the Jewish tradition, he is called Avraham Avinu or "Abraham, our Father". God promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the world will come to be blessed interpreted in Christian tradition as a reference particularly to Christ. Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider him father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac (cf. , ). For Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael - born to him by his wife's servant, Hagar. Abraham is also a progenitor of the Semitic tribes of the Negev who trace their descent from their common ancestor Sheba ().
'brm (no. 72) represents 'abram, with which Spiegelberg (Aegypt. Randglossen zum Altes Testament, 14) proposes to connect the preceding name (so that the whole would read "the field of Abram."). Outside of Palestine this name (Abiramu) has come to light in Babylonia (e.g. in a contract of the reign of Apil-Sin, second predecessor of Hammurabi; also for the aunt (!) of Esarhaddon 680-669 BCE). Ungnad has recently found it, among documents from Dilbat dating from the Hammurabi dynasty, in the forms A-ba-am-ra-ma, A-ba-am-ra-am, as well as A-ba-ra-ma.
Until this latest discovery of the apparently full, historical form of the Babylonian equivalent, the best that could be done with the etymology was to make the first constituent "father of" (construct -i rather than suffix -i), and the second constituent "Ram," a proper name or an abbreviation of a name. (Yet observe above its use in Assyria for a woman; compare ABISHAG; ABIGAIL). Some were inclined rather to concede that the second element was a mystery, like the second element in the majority of names beginning with 'abh and 'ach, "father" and "brother." But the full cuneiform writing of the name, with the case-ending am, indicates that the noun "father" is in the accusative, governed by the verb which furnishes the second component, and that this verb therefore is prove him (though hitherto childless) a great nation. Trusting this promise, Abram journeyed down to Shechem, and at the sacred tree (compare , , ) received a new promise that the land would be given unto his seed (descendant or descendants). Having built an altar to commemorate the theophany, he removed to a spot between Bethel and Ai, where he built another altar and then called upon (i.e. invoked) the name of God (.
Josephus, Islamic tradition, and Jewish authorities like Maimonides all concur that Ur of the Chaldees was in Northern Mesopotamia — now southeastern Turkey (identified with Urartu, or claiming Abraham was born in Urfa), or the nearby Urkesh, which others identify with “Ur of the Chaldee."
Abram migrated to Haran, apparently the classical Carrhae, which lay on the Balikh river, a branch of the Euphrates. Thence, after a short stay, he, his wife Sarai, Lot (the son of Abram's brother Haran), and all their followers, departed for Canaan. Moreover, the names of Abram's forefathers Peleg, Serug, Nahor, and Terah, all appear as names of cities in the region of Haran suggesting that these are eponymous ancestors of these communities. God called Abram to go to "the land I will show you", and promised to bless him and mankind. In the Old Testament, when applied to the patriarch, the name appears as "Abram", up to Genesis 17:5; thereafter, always as "Abraham". Two other persons are named "Abhiram". The identity of this name with "Abhram" cannot be doubted in view of the variation between "Abhiner" and "Abhner", "Abhishalom" and "Abhshalom", etc. "Abraham" also appears in the list at Karnak of places conquered by Sheshonk I.
One interpretation of the original Hebrew account includes Abram's explanation that Sarai was literally his sister since she was his father's daughter, but not his mother's, i.e., a half-sister. However, the kinship pattern of the Semitic chiefs listed in Genesis followed an established protocol that involved betrothal to half-sisters, so Abram may not have lied when he said that Sarai was his sister. On the other hand, there have been ancient tablets recently recovered from the ancient city of Mari that may suggest otherwise. These ancient Semite legal records show that when a woman is married to a man, she is then formally adopted by his father as a full daughter as well. Like Abram, many ancient Semites were Nomads and it was customary for the daughter-in-law to be officially adopted as a full daughter in case her husband is to die while she is traveling with his family. According to , Sarai left her family to set out for the land of Canaan, which puts her in this same position as suggested in the ancient tablets of Mari (an ancient Semite city of Abram's time). It is possible that Sarai may not have been Abram's half-sister, but adopted sister by law. However, marriage to half sisters was common throughout the ancient middle east and inheritance in the nomadic Semitic tribes was matrilineal. This gave a powerful incentive to marry a half sister and thus retain property within the family.
In any case, this did not save her from the Pharaoh, who took her into the royal harem and enriched Abram with herds and servants. But when Yahweh "plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues" Abram and Sarai left Egypt. There are two other parallel tales in Genesis of a wife confused for a sister (and 27), describing a similar event at Gerar with the Philistine king Abimelech, though the latter is attributing it to Isaac not Abram.
When Abram, along with Sarai and his nephew Lot left Egypt, they returned to Ai. Here he dwelt for some time, until strife arose between his herdsmen and those of his nephew, Lot. Abram thereupon proposed to Lot that they should separate, and allowed Lot the first choice. Lot preferred the fertile land lying east of the Jordan River, while Abram moved down to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron. After receiving reaffirmation and clarification of the promise from Yahweh, he built an altar there.
At his return, while passing near Salem (supposed to be the city afterwards called Jerusalem), Melchizedek, king of that city, and priest of the Most High God, came out and blessed him, and presented him with bread and wine for his own refreshment and that of his army; or as some have thought, offered blessed bread and wine to him, as part of a sacrament of thanksgiving on Abram's behalf.
After this, the Lord renewed his promises to Abram, with fresh assurances that his descendants would possess the land of Canaan and that his posterity should be as numerous as the stars of heaven.
As Sarai continued to be infertile, God's promise that Abram's seed would inherit the land seemed incapable of fulfillment. His sole heir was his servant, a certain Eliezer of Damascus (). Abram, however, was promised one of his own flesh as heir.
The passage recording the ratification of the promise is remarkably solemn (see ).
Sarai, in accordance with custom, gave to Abram her Egyptian handmaid Hagar as his wife (). But, Sarai seeing Hagar with child, was unable to endure the reproach of barrenness (cf. the story of Hannah, 1 Samuel 1:6), and dealt harshly with her and forced her to flee (). God heard Hagar's sorrow and promised her that her descendants will be too numerous to count, and she returned.
Her son, Ishmael, Abram's firstborn, was born when Abram was 86 years of age (). Hagar and Ishmael were eventually driven permanently away from Abram by Sarai ().
The Lord said to Abraham “ go from the country and your kindred and your fathers house to the land that I will show you.” And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. At this time Abraham was promised not only many descendants, but descendants through Sarah specifically, as well as the land where he was living, which was to belong to his descendants. The covenant was to be fulfilled through Isaac, though God promised that Ishmael would become a great nation as well. The covenant of circumcision (unlike the earlier promise) was two-sided and conditional: if Abraham and his descendants fulfilled their part of the covenant, Yahweh would be their God, give them the land, and make a great nation and kings out of Abraham's line.
The promise of a son to Abraham made Sarah "laugh," which became the name of the son of promise, Isaac. Sarah herself "laughs" at the idea because of her age, when God appears to Abraham at Mamre and, when the child is born, cries "God has made me into laughter; every one that hears will laugh at me" ().
Due to the enormous sins of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the neighboring cities, being now filled up, two angels were sent to inflict upon them the divine vengeance. After visiting Abraham, they were ready to depart and Abraham accompanied them towards Sodom, whither two of them (who proved to be divine messengers) continued their journey. The third remained with Abraham, and informed him of the approaching destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham interceded, praying that if fifty righteous persons were found therein, the city should be spared; he reduced the numbers gradually to ten; but this number could not be found (or God, in answer to his prayers, would have averted his design). Lot, his wife, and their 2 daughters were preserved from the disaster, either because they were the only righteous, or because of Abraham's intercession on their behalf. His wife was turned to salt on their escape from the destruction when she disobeyed God's command not to look back at the destruction.
After? or before Sarah conceived, according to the divine promise, she and Abraham left the plain of Mamre and went south, to Gerar, where Abimelech reigned. Fearing that Sarah might be forced from him, and himself put to death, Abraham again called Sarah 'sister,' just as he had done in Egypt. Abimelech took her to his house, with intentions to marry her. According to scripture, God informed Abimelech, through a dream, that Sarah was Abraham's wife. Abimelech returned Sarah to Abraham with great presents.
About the same time, Abimelech came with Phicol, his general, to conclude an alliance with Abraham, who made that prince a present of seven ewe-lambs out of his flock, in consideration that a well that he had opened should be his own property; and they called the place Beer-sheba or "the well of swearing". Here Abraham resided some time.
The near sacrifice of Isaac is one of the most challenging, and perhaps ethically troublesome, parts of the Bible. According to Josephus, Isaac was 25 years old at the time of the sacrifice or Akedah, while the Talmudic sages teach that Isaac was 37. In either case, Isaac was a fully grown man, old enough to prevent the elderly Abraham (who was 125 or 137 years old) from tying him up had he wanted to resist. The narrative now turns to Isaac. To his "only son" (22:2, 12) Abraham gave all he had, and dismissed his other sons, as Abraham himself had been dismissed by Terah after Terah had given his territory to Nahor.
In Christian theology this event is sometimes interpreted as a foreshadowing of the crucifixion of Jesus, where Abraham is represented as God, and Isaac as Jesus Christ. Key elements from the stories given as symbols of this foreshadowing include: Both of their births were believed to be miraculous (Isaac to a woman who was far too old to have children, Jesus to a virgin). According to scripture Abraham was told by God that he would be the father of many nations, and in the Christian faith God is the seen as the father of all people. In both stories Jesus and Isaac had the wood laid upon their backs and were forced to carry it up to the hills where they were to be sacrificed. Although according to scripture Abraham had fathered a son previously, namely Ishmael with Hagar, Isaac was the only son of Abraham through Sarah, as Jesus was the "only begotten son" of God (see John 3:16)(Isaac is also referred to as "his [Abraham's] only begotten son" in Hebrews 11:17). They both made their way up hills to be sacrificed (Isaac up Moriah, and Jesus to Golgotha, which may be located on the same hill, but with Golgotha on the North end). The exact location referred to is currently a matter of some debate. They both were laid on the wood alive, and it was allegedly voluntary on both their parts (this theory would explain why Isaac, possibly a full grown man at the time would not have resisted when his father tied him down). The difference in the stories comes when Abraham was stopped from sacrificing his son, and God provided an alternative to Isaac. For Jesus, there was no "ram caught in the thicket" (Gen. 22:13) and the "sacrifice" was carried out to completion.
He was buried by his sons Isaac (aged about 76 years) and Ishmael (aged about 89 years), in the Cave of the Patriarchs, where he had deposited the remains of his beloved Sarah.
As the father of Isaac , Abraham is ultimately the common ancestor of the Israelites. As the father of Ishmael, whose twelve sons became desert princes (most prominently, Nebaioth and Kedar), along with Midian, Sheba and other Arabian tribes (25:1-4), the Book of Genesis gives a portrait of Isaac's descendants as being surrounded by kindred peoples, who are also more often enemies. This is because the clans practiced intermarriage. are in the descending scale, perhaps of purity of blood, or as of purity of relationship, or of connectedness to Sarah: Sarah, her servant, her husband's other wife. The Bible says of the Hebrew people: "Your father was a wandering Syrian". Yet to Abraham's face the Hittites said, "You are a great chief among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs." (Genesis 23:4 and 5)
As stated above, Abraham came from Ur in Chaldea to Haran and thence to Canaan. Late tradition supposed that this was to escape Babylonian idolatry (Judith 5, Jubilees 12; cf. Joshua 24:2), and knew of Abraham's miraculous escape from death (an obscure reference to some act of deliverance in Isaiah 29:22). The route along the banks of the Euphrates from south to north was so frequently taken by migrating tribes that the tradition has nothing improbable in itself. It was thence that Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, came, and the route to Shechem and Bethel is precisely the same in both.
Further, there is yet another parallel in the story of the conquest by Joshua, partly implied and partly actually detailed (cf. also Joshua 8:9 with Gen. 12:8, 13:3), whence it would appear that too much importance must not be laid upon any ethnological interpretation which fails to account for the three versions. That similar traditional elements have influenced them is not unlikely; but to recover the true historical foundation is difficult. The invasion or immigration of certain tribes from the east of the Jordan; the presence of Aramean blood among the Israelites; the origin of the sanctity of venerable sites — these and other considerations may readily be found to account for the traditions.
Noteworthy coincidences in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, such as the strong parallels between two tales of a wife confused for a sister, point to the fluctuating state of traditions in the oral stage, or suggest that Abraham's life has been built up by borrowing from the common stock of popular lore. More original is the parting of Lot and Abraham at Bethel. The district was the scene of contests between Moab and the Hebrews (cf. perhaps Judges 3), and if this explains part of the story, the physical configuration of the Dead Sea may have led to the legend of the destruction of inhospitable and vicious cities.
In the New Testament Abraham is mentioned prominently as a man of faith (see e.g., Hebrews 11), and the apostle Paul uses him as an example of salvation by faith, as the progenitor of the Christ (or Messiah) (see Galatians ).
Authors of the New Testament report that Jesus cited Abraham to support belief in the resurrection of the dead. "But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?" He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken" (Mark ). The New Testament also sees Abraham as an obedient man of God, and Abraham's interrupted attempt to offer up Isaac is seen as the supreme act of perfect faith in God. "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, 'In Isaac your seed shall be called,' concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense" (). The imagery of a father sacrificing his son is seen as a type of God the Father offering his Son on Calvary.
The traditional view in Christianity is that the chief promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 is that through Abraham's seed, all the people of earth would be blessed. Notwithstanding this, John the Baptist specifically taught that merely being of Abraham's seed was no guarantee of salvation. The promise in Genesis is considered to have been fulfilled through Abraham's seed, Jesus. It is also a consequence of this promise that Christianity is open to people of all races and not limited to Jews.
The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him as the "Righteous Forefather Abraham", with two feast days in its liturgical calendar. The first time is on October 9 (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, October 9 falls on October 22 of the modern Gregorian Calendar), where he is commemorated together with his nephew "Righteous Lot". The other on the "Sunday of the Forefathers" (two Sundays before Christmas), where he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. Abraham is also mentioned in the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, just before the Anaphora. Abraham and Sarah are invoked in the prayers said by the priest over a newly married couple at the Sacred Mystery of Crowning (i.e., the Sacrament of Marriage).
Abraham, known as Ibrahim in Arabic, is very important in Islam, both in his own right as a prophet as well as being the father of Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael, his firstborn son, is considered the Father of the Arabised Arabs, and Isaac is considered the Father of the Hebrews. Islam teaches that Ishmael was the son Abraham nearly sacrificed on Moriah. To support this view Muslims use various proofs, including the belief that at the time Ishmael was his only son. Abraham is revered by Muslims as one of the Prophets in Islam, and is commonly termed Khalil Ullah, "Friend of God". Abraham is considered a Hanif, that is, a discoverer of monotheism.
Abraham is mentioned in many passages in 25 Qur'anic suras (chapters). The number of repetitions of his name in the Qur'an is second only to Moses.
Abraham's footprint is displayed outside the Kaaba, which is on a stone, protected and guarded by Mutawa (Religious Police). The annual Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, follows Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael's journey to the sacred place of the Kaaba. Islamic tradition narrates that Abraham's subsequent visits to the Northern Arabian region, after leaving Ishmael and Hagar (in the area that would later become the Islamic holy city of Mecca), were not only to visit Ishmael but also to construct the first house of worship for God (that is, the monotheistic concept and model of God), the Kaaba -as per God's command. The Eid ul-Adha ceremony is focused on Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his promised son on God's command. In turn, God spared his son's life and instead substituted a sheep. This was Abraham's test of faith. On Eid ul-Adha, Muslims sacrifice a domestic animal — a sheep, goat, cow, buffalo or camel — as a symbol of Abraham's sacrifice, and divide the meat among the family members, friends, relatives, and most importantly, the poor.
Classical Arab historians traced the true Arabs (i.e., the original Arabs from Yemen) to Qahtan and the Arabicised Arabs (people from the region of Mecca, who assimilated into the Arabs) to Adnan, said to be an ancestor of Muhammad, and have further equated Ishmael with A'raq Al-Thara, said to be ancestor of Adnan. Umm Salama, one of Muhammad's wives, wrote that this was done using the following hermeneutical reasoning: Thara means moist earth, Abraham was not consumed by hell-fire, fire does not consume moist earth, thus A'raq al-Thara must be Ishmael son of Abraham.
The interesting discovery of the name Abi-ramu on Babylonian contracts of about 2000 BCE does not prove the Abraham of the Old Testament to be an historical person, even as the fact that there were Amorites in Babylonia at the same period does not make it certain that the 'patriarch' was one of their number. A fairly lucid treatment of the subject is given by Michael Astour in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (s.v. "Amraphel", "Arioch" and "Chedorlaomer"), who explains the story of Genesis 14 as a product of anti-Babylonian propaganda during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews:
"After Böhl's widely accepted, but wrong, identification of mTu-ud-hul-a with one of the Hittite kings named Tudhaliyas, Tadmor found the correct solution by equating him with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (see Tidal). Astour (1966) identified the remaining two kings of the Chedorlaomer texts with Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (see Arioch) and with the Chaldean Merodach-baladan (see Amraphel). The common denominator between these four rulers is that each of them, independently, occupied Babylon, oppressed it to a greater or lesser degree, and took away its sacred divine images, including the statue of its chief god Marduk; furthermore, all of them came to a tragic end.
3. Relationship to Genesis 14. All attempts to reconstruct the link between the Chedorlaomer texts and Genesis 14 remain speculative. However, the available evidence seems consistent with the following hypothesis: A Jew in Babylon, versed in Akkadian language and cuneiform script, found in an early version of the Chedorlaomer texts certain things consistent with his anti-Babylonian feelings." (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Chedorlaomer")
Another scholar, criticizing Kitchen's maximalist viewpoint, considers a relationship between the tablet and Gen. speculative, also identifies but identifies Tudhula as a veiled reference to Sennacherib of Assyria, and Chedorlaomer, i.e. Kudur-Nahhunte, as "a recollection of a 12th century BCE king of Elam who briefly ruled Babylon." ("Finding Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives" by Ronald Hindel, BAR, Jul/Aug 1995)
The Anchor Bible Dictionary suggests that the biblical account was in all probability derived from a text very closely related to the Chedorlaomer Tablets, and this in a publication which can be said to do at least a reasonably good job of getting good scholarship. The Chedorlaomer Tablets are thought to be from the 6th or 7th century BCE, well after the time of Hammurabi, at roughly the time when Gen. through Deu. are thought to have come into their present form (e.g. see the Documentary Hypothesis). While Astour's identifications of the figures these tablets refer to is certainly open to question, he does cautiously support a link between them and Gen. 14:1. Hammurabi is never known to have campaigned near the Dead Sea at all, although his son had. Writes Astour, "This identification, once widely accepted, was later virtually abandoned, mainly because Hammurabi was never active in the West." The Chedorlaomer Tablets, then, appear to still be the closest archaeological parallel to the kings of the Eastern coalition mentioned in Gen. 14:1. The only problem is, that in all probability, they refer to kings that were from widely separated times, having conquered Babylon in different eras. Linguistically, it seems, there is little reason to reject the identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel, but the narrative does not make sense in light of modern archeology when it is made. A number of scholars also say that the connection does not make sense on chronological grounds, since it would place Abram later than the traditional date, but on this, see the section on chronology below.
If Gen. ch. 14 is a historical romance (cf., e.g., the Book of Judith), it is possible that a writer who lived in an exilic or post-exilic age (i.e. during or after the Babylonian Captivity), and who was acquainted with Babylonian history, decided to enhance the greatness of Abraham by claiming his military success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates, the high esteem he enjoyed in Canaan, and the practical character displayed in his brief exchange with Melchizedek. The historical section of the article Tithe deals more extensively with the historicity of the meeting with Melchizedek.
Many scholars claim, on the basis of archaeological and philological evidence, that many stories in the Pentateuch, including the accounts about Abraham and Moses, were written under King Josiah (7th century BCE) or King Hezekiah (8th century BCE) in order to provide a historical framework for the monotheistic belief in Yahweh. Some scholars point out that the archives of neighboring countries with written records that survive, such as Egypt, Assyria, etc., show no trace of the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BCE. Such claims are detailed in "Who Were the Early Israelites?" by William G. Dever (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). Another similar book by Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein is "The Bible Unearthed" (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001). Even so, the Moabite Stele mentions king Omri of Israel, and many scholars draw parallels between the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I and the Shishaq of the Bible (1 Ki. 11:40; 14:25; and 2 Chr. 12:2-9), and between the king David of the Bible and a stone inscription from 835 BCE that appears to refer to "house of David"--although some would dispute the last two correspondences.
Other interpretations of Biblical chronology place Abraham's birth at 2008 AM (Anno Mundi). In Genesis 11:32 : Abraham was the youngest son of Terah who died in Haran aged 205, in year 2083 AM. In Gen.12:4 we learn that at that time Abraham was 75 years old. In other words Abraham was born when his father Terah was 130 years old. (205-75 = 130). Therefore Abraham was born in year 2008 AM.
In 1887, Schrader then was the first to propose that Amraphel could be an alternate spelling for Hammurabi (cf. the ISBE of 1915, s.v. "Hammurabi").
Vincent Scheil subsequently found a tablet in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Istanbul from Hammurabi to a king of the very same name, i.e. Kuder-Lagomer, as in Pinches' tablet. Thus are achieved the following correspondences:
|Name from Gen. 14:1||Name from Archaeology|
|Amraphel king of Shinar||Hammurabi (="Ammurapi") king of Babylonia|
|Arioch king of Ellasar||Eri-aku king of Larsa (i.e. Assyria)|
|Chedorlaomer king of Elam (= Chodollogomor in the LXX)||Kudur-Lagamar king of Elam|
|Tidal, king of nations (i.e. goyim, lit. 'nations')||Tudhulu, son of Gazza|
By 1915, many scholars had become largely convinced that the kings of Gen. 14:1 had been identified (cf. again the ISBE of 1915, s.v. Hammurabi, which mentions the identification as doubtful, and also The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917, s.v. "Amraphel", and Donald A. MacKenzie's 1915 Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, who has (p. 247) "The identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now generally accepted"). The terminal -bi on the end of Hammurabi's name was seen to parallel Amraphel since the cuneiform symbol for -bi can also be pronounced -pi. Tablets were known in which the initial symbol for Hammurabi, pronounced as kh to yield Khammurabi, had been dropped, such that Ammurapi was a viable pronunciation. Supposing him to have been deified in his lifetime or afterwards yielded Ammurabi-il, which was suitable close to the Bible's Amraphel.
Albright was instrumental in synchronizing Hammurabi with Assyrian and Egyptian contemporaries, such that Hammurabi is now thought to have lived in the late 18th century, not in the 19th as assumed by the long chronology. Since many ecumenical theologians may not hold that the dates of the Bible could be in error, they began synchronizing Abram with the empire of Sargon I (23rd century in the short chronology), and the work of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil fell out of favor with them.
The objection resurfaced that Amraphel could not be derived from Khammurabi, in spite of the Ammurabi/Ammurapi spelling for Hammurabi that had already been found. More substantial objections were later made, including the finding that the days of the Kuder-Lagomer of Hammurabi's letter preceded the writing of the letter early in Hammurabi's reign led some to speculate that the Kuder-Lagomer of Gen. 14:1 should be associated with later Hittite or Akkadian kings with similar names. These scholars thus generally considered the passage anachronistic - the product of a much later period, such as during or after the Babylonian Captivity. Others pointed out that the Lagomer of Kuder-Lagomer was an Elamite deity's name, instead of the king's actual name, which some believe referred to a king that must have preceded Hammurabi. Other misreadings of the Chedorlaomer Text were pointed out, causing them to be associated with entirely different personages known from archaeology. It seemed that the theory of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil had fallen utterly apart.
Mainstream scholarship in the course of the 20th century has given up attempts to identify Abraham and his contemporaries in Genesis with historical figures. While it is widely admitted that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham, apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that speculations on the patriarch's historicity and on the period that would best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles. "The Herald of Christ's Kingdom" in Abraham - Father of the Faithful (2001) implies a historical Abraham by stating "At one time it was popular to connect Amraphel, king of Shinar, with Hammurabi, king of Babylon, but now it is generally conceded that Hammurabi was much later than Abraham."
A traditional chronology can be constructed from the MT as follows: If Solomon's temple was begun when most scholars put it, ca. 960-970 BCE, using e.g. 966, we get 1446 for the Exodus (I Ki. 6:1). There were 400 years reportedly spent in Egypt (Ex. 12:40), and then we only need add years from Jacob's going into Egypt to Abraham. So, we can add that Jacob was supposedly 130 when he came to Egypt (Gen. 47:9), Isaac was 60 years old when he had Jacob (Gen. 25:26) and Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and we get 1446 + 400 + 130 + 60 + 100 = 2136 BCE for Abram's birth.
A considerable variety of scriptural chronologies is possible. For example, unlike most modern translations, according to all the oldest Bible versions not dependent on the mediaeval rabbis -- the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls -- the 430 years of the sojourn is the period "in Canaan and Egypt" (probable text of Exodus 12: 42), thus reckoning from the time of Abraham. Cf Paul's belief in Gal 3:17. Therefore the figure is more than two hundred years less (1446 + 430 = 1876 BCE).
Thus, if one adheres to an Early Exodus theory, then Abram is usually synchronized with Sargon I, or sometimes other figures in the Sumerian Empire. If one favors a Late Exodus theory, and then Abraham's life could overlap that of Hammurabi's empire.
Gen. 10:10 has it that Babel was the beginning of Nimrod's empire. Before the location of Sargon's capital city, Agade, was identified, it was sometimes supposed that Nimrod was Sargon I, and that Agade was Babel. But even so, there are reasons to prefer the equation of Hammurabi with Amraphel. The Nimrod of Gen. ch. 10 precedes the Amraphel of ch. 14, and Nimrod's kingdom began with "Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, in Shinar" (Gen. 10:10). Mentions of Nimrod both precede and follow those of Abram. Furthermore, Nimrod is associated with the Tower of Babel, not the Tower of Agade, in the Bible.
Rabbinic materials are full of an accounts of Abram being thrown into the furnace used for making bricks for the Tower of Babel by Nimrod, but Abram was miraculously unharmed, while the furnace spread to the rest of the city, causing the "Fire of the Chasdim". The conclusion then, based on these assertions, would be that Nimrod and Abram were more or less contemporaries. But only during the time of Hammurabi did Babylon become the beginning of an Empire in its own right.
If one insists that Gen. Ch. 14 reads as a testament of historical authenticity, then the Old Babylonian Empire, like Nimrod's, extended into the Trans-Jordan, but only during the reign of Hammurabi's son; whereas the Sumerian Empire by contrast did not. The city of Babel was not only the beginning of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was its capitol. After the end of the Old Babylonian Empire with the defeat of Hammurabi's son by the Elamites, there was not another empire ruled from the city of Babel until the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was much too late to be synchronized with Abraham.
There are no archaeological correlates for the life of Abram, whereas the Exodus can be correlated with traces of a Semitic presence in Egypt, as per Bietak, as well as numerous transitions in Israel from Egypto-Canaanite material culture to proto-Israelite. An Early Exodus would preclude synchronizing Abram with Hammurabi's empire, pushing him back to Sumerian times.
The Book of Abraham is a scriptural text for some denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement (also know as Mormons). The LDS version of the Abrahamic story includes material not present in Genesis. For example; Abraham is described as seeking the "blessings of the fathers" (priesthood), using the Urim and Thummim to receive a vision of the history of the universe and humanity's relationship to God, being saved by an angel from being sacrificed on an altar by Pharaoh's priests, and teaching Pharaoh's court about astronomy. Chapters 1 and 2 include details about Abraham’s early life and his fight against the idolatry of Egypt (under rule of Pharaoh) and within his own family. Chapter 2 includes information about God’s covenant with Abraham and how it would be fulfilled.
Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-Day Saint movement, claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham from papyri scrolls which came into the church's possession in 1835. While the scrolls were reported to be longer than the Bible, only a portion was initially published in 1842, in the Latter-Day Saint newspaper The Times and Seasons. The Book of Abraham was incorporated into the canon of LDS scripture in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price.
In addition to the text, there are three facsimiles of vignettes from the papyrus included in the Book of Abraham. The first and most disputed facsimile supposedly depicts Abraham about to be sacrificed by a priest; the second is in the form of a hypocephalus, which Smith said contained important insights about the organization of the heavens (Cosmos) and material associated with LDS Temple ordinances. Smith described the third vignette as showing Abraham teaching in Pharaoh’s court.
The LDS Bible Dictionary states:
"Abraham is always regarded in the [Old Testament] as founder of the covenant race, which is personified in the house of Israel. He is the “father of the faithful.” John the Baptist and Paul rebuked those holding the erroneous idea that natural descent from Abraham was by itself sufficient to secure God’s favor (Matt. 3: 9; Rom. 9: 7). [...] Latter-day revelation has clarified the significance of the Abrahamic covenant and other aspects of Abraham’s life and ministry. We learn that he was greatly blessed with divine revelation concerning the planetary system, the creation of the earth, and the premortal activities of the spirits of mankind. One of the most valiant spirits in the premortal life, he was chosen to be a leader in the kingdom of God before he was born into this world (Abr. 1 - 5). We also learn from latter-day revelation that because of Abraham’s faithfulness he is now exalted and sits upon a throne in eternity (D&C 132: 29, 37)."
This name Bram, Abram, was famous in India and Persia: some learned men even allege that he was the same legislator as the one the Greeks called Zoroaster. Others say that he was the Brahma of the Indians.
Such arguments were taken up by later religious synchretists such as Godfrey Higgins, who argued in 1834 that "The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person. The Persians generally called Abraham Ibrahim Zeradust. Cyrus considered the religion of the Jews the same as his own. The Hindus must have come from Abraham, or the Israelites from Brahma…
One may also consider noteworthy the similarity of the names of Brahma's wife Sarasvati compared to Abraham's wife Sarah.
The argument has been used by Muslim missionaries to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham. They also have claimed that other characters in Hindu scripture are actually people mentioned in the Quran. A. D. Pusalker, whose essay "Traditional History From the Earliest Times" appeared in The Vedic Age, claims a historical Rama dated to 1950 BCE. So hence this cannot be true, since the historical dating of these scriptures were long before the biblical age.
Researchers Submit Patent Application, "Hinge Apparatus for Cover of Image Forming Apparatus", for Approval
Mar 07, 2013; By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Politics & Government Week -- From Washington, D.C., VerticalNews journalists report that...
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While art with a cause is hardly new, a movement is emerging that seeks to not only raise awareness but engage communities by creating art that contributes directly to the solution, writes Anne Fullerton.
Lynne Hull doesn’t mind that her sculpture is covered in bird poo, but then Lynne Hull is not your average artist. She’s one of a growing number of conservationists who are using art to counteract the destructive impact of humans on the environment. Her work, Lightening Raptor Roost, atoned for the loss of the Ferruginous Hawk’s nesting ground to utility poles by providing the birds with a safe place to build homes and raise their young.
Sam Bower, Executive Director of online art gallery, Green Museum, says this kind of environmental art is becoming more visible and mainstream.
“These past five years have been extraordinary in terms of the growth and interest in this type of work. More and more artists doing it, more and more galleries (exhibiting it)… everyone seems to be interested in this type of thing now. It’s very exciting and it’s happening internationally,” he says.
Bower began the Green Museum in 1992, after finding through his own work that the traditional arts infrastructure wasn’t equipped to accommodate the varied experience of environmental artists.
“I was involved with a project out on an island – a wildlife reserve off the coast of San Francisco. We worked with scientists there to create a sculpture that would create habitat for endangered seabirds, and also allow scientists for the first time to study the nesting behaviour of the seabirds from inside their burrows. We were working on something that would be pretty much impossible for the general public to visit so we wanted to create an online museum to address that.”
Green Museum now showcases the work of over 130 artists whose work is often large scale, site-specific or ephemeral. One of these is Lynne Hull, who also creates what she terms “Trans-species art,” art which addresses the aesthetic concerns of humans while providing practical assistance to wildlife. In addition to the eagle nesting sculpture, she has also carved rock formations in the desert to act as water catchments for animals, and is currently working on “Migration Mileposts,” a project linking communities that share migratory bird passages.
The practical nature of such works means eco-art continues to make a difference long after an exhibition has closed or the issue has dropped from the headlines. Lightening Raptor Roost was home to hawks for three consecutive summers, while Bower says that the first year the sea bird nesting habitat was erected, 20 of the 32 boxes were occupied.
“The second year it was full up and then they found birds living in places that we hadn’t designed as access points. So the thing has been quite successful,” he says.
Many of these projects are long term, large-scale constructions that involve different parts of the community – wildlife authorities, local councils, scientists, artists, architects, volunteers and school groups. Bower believes this is one of the advantages of environmental art over other types of one-off events and campaigning.
“One of the things about environmental art and why it’s so powerful and effective is that it can address the needs of communities and ecosystems in a way that is fun and engaging and that invites people to participate. There are people who do things that are functional and useful but don’t engage the public in inspiring ways,” he says.
While few would argue that raising community awareness and attempting to limit ecological damage are worthwhile causes, some might wonder what makes an igloo-shaped birdhouse a piece of artwork, rather than just a birdhouse. While most eco-art goes beyond pure functionality to incorporate elements of design and aesthetics, these can often be secondary concerns. For Bower the answer lies in the underlying conceptual framework and the ever-mutating definition of what constitutes art.
“In the art world there are so many things that can be and are considered art now,” says Bower. “There are people doing all types of different things and I really see art as an invitation to think a certain way. For us the bird habitat sculpture first and foremost had to work as effective bird habitat and it had to work for the scientists, so that is a type of aesthetic choice.”
The green philosophy is translated into material practice, and work either benefits or has a minimal impact upon the environment in which it’s placed. Hull often uses materials that she finds in the natural world in her sculptures, while Bower’s birdhouse was constructed from the concrete rubble of abandoned buildings. Even the decision to create an online gallery addressed some of the environmental issues associated with transporting and lighting art in a traditional gallery or museum, as well as increasing accessibility to the public.
Hull and Bower are working beyond the confines of a gallery setting to create work that is almost organic in appearance. While many draw on the beauty of the natural world, Byron Bay-based artist John Dahlsen does just the opposite, using a palette of rubbish and waste. Though he started out making driftwood furniture and sculptures, he began using human debris after finding it far outweighed his organic material supply.
“As I walked along collecting bits of driftwood I just started pulling out a plastic bag and filling them with ropes, Styrofoam, plastic bottles and buoys and plastic bits and pieces,” he says. “At the beginning I was just going to take it to the local recycling centre at the tip. Then after I’d collected maybe five, ten of these jumbo bags I realized I can imagine using this stuff in some way.”
He has created a number of public sculptures, including “Guardian,” a large public sculpture commissioned by Brisbane City Council and made from abandoned roadwork signs and a series of landscape “paintings” constructed entirely of plastic bags. He also speaks about his work at universities and is involved in public art collaborations as part of raising awareness of environmental issues.
Though he is making something beautiful from human wastefulness, for him there is a message inherent in the use of recycled materials.
“There’s the obviousness of the fact that I can be collecting that amount of rubbish off beaches. There’s just so much of it!”
In an age of organic clothing lines, celebrity-endorsed hybrids and concerts for climate change, artists have a cynical audience to contend with.
“Even in the art world I find these areas are viewed almost with a bit of disdain,” says Dahlsen. “Why don’t you become a politician?’ or ‘why don’t you become an environmentalist?’ That’s a question that’s been asked of me any many times.”
Bower says he’s seen artists have a lasting effect on both the environment and also on human consciousness over the last two decades. “One artwork made in 1979 helped save Mono Lake,” he says referring to artwork by Deborah Small which was part of the campaign to stop Mono Lake being pumped dry by Los Angeles City. Small sent a decorated, porcelain brick to California state officials responsible for water policy, wildlife, parks and forests. They read, “one brick in every Los Angeles toilet could save Mono Lake.” The work gained media coverage and launched a public hearing.
“The victory provided a foundation for a very important public trust law case that protects wild lands throughout the United States. So this is one artwork that influenced legislation directly,” says Bower.
For environmental artists the physical product is just one element of the artwork. The process, which encompasses community involvement, education and participation, is just as important.
“People tend to think that art is really about a thing, about a decorative commodity,” says Bower. “What’s happening now with environmental art is that we’re starting to see art as service. To see art as a better way to do the things that are good for us by also making them beautiful.”
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|A vision for returning democracy to the people, because peace on Earth requires peace with Earth.
Key Values of respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice, democracy, nonviolence, and peace.
1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives and not be subject to the will of another.
2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.
3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature.
4. NON-VIOLENCE It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society's current patterns of violence.
5. DECENTRALIZATION Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization.
6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living for all people while maintaining a healthy ecological balance.
7. GENDER EQUITY We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender.
8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines.
9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony.
10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival.
Questions or comments about these Web pages? Send e-mail to
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Place: Americas X
Period: 1000 - 1999 X
Key Topics: revolution X
The non-interventionist movement in the United States serves as a foundation for dissent in America where ...
Frances Fox Piven is recognized as one of several leading social and political scientists. She is best ...
Founded in December 1982, the Revolutionary Bolivarian Army 200 (EBR–200), later renamed Revolutionary ...
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Misdiagnosis of Delirium
Misdiagnosis of Delirium
Delirium is not difficult to diagnose but its underlying cause may be refractory to diagnosis....more about Delirium »
Alternative diagnoses list for Delirium:
For a diagnosis of Delirium,
the following list of conditions
have been mentioned in sources
as possible alternative diagnoses
to consider during the diagnostic process for Delirium:
Diseases for which Delirium may be an alternative diagnosis
The other diseases for which Delirium
is listed as a possible alternative
diagnosis in their lists include:
Delirium: Hidden Causes Misdiagnosed?
Causes of Delirium may include these medical conditions:
Delirium: Undiagnosed Conditions
Commonly undiagnosed conditions in related areas may include:
Common Misdiagnoses and Delirium
Underactive thryoid may be misdiagnosed as depression: Hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid, is an endocrine gland disorder that
is more common in women.
It can mimic many diseases, including depression.
The patient often has depressive type symptoms, and may also have other
symptoms of hypothyroidism such as tingling fingers (peripheral neuropathy), hearing loss,
headaches, cold insensitivity, and many other symptms.
Common misdiagnoses of hypothyroidism include depression, dementia, schizophrenia,
or bipolar disorder (esp. rapid-cycling bipolar disorder).
Undiagnosed stroke leads to misdiagnosed aphasia: BBC News UK reported on a man who
had been institutionalized and treated for mental illness
because he suffered from sudden inability to speak.
This was initially misdiagnosed as a "nervous breakdown" and other mental conditions.
He was later diagnosed as having had a stroke, and suffering from aphasia (inability to speak),
a well-known complication of stroke (or other brain conditions).
Dementia may be a drug interaction: A common scenario in aged care is for
a patient to show mental decline to dementia.
Whereas this can, of course, occur due to various medical conditions,
such as a stroke or Alzheimer's disease,
it can also occur from a side effect or interaction between multiple drugs
that the elderly patient may be taking.
There are also various other possible causes of dementia.
Mild traumatic brain injury often remains undiagnosed: Although the symptoms
of severe brain injury are hard to miss,
it is less clear for milder injuries, or even those causing a mild concussion diagnosis.
The condition goes by the name of "mild traumatic brain injury" (MTBI).
MTBI symptoms can be mild, and can continue for days or weeks after the injury.
See the symptoms of MTBI or misdiagnosis of MTBI.
MTBI misdiagnosed as balance problem: When a person has symptoms
such as vertigo or dizziness, a diagnosis of brain injury may go overlooked.
This is particularly true of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), for which the
symptoms are typically mild. The symptoms has also relate to a relatively
mild brain injury (e.g. fall), that could have occurred days or even weeks ago.
Vestibular dysfunction, causing vertigo-like symptoms, is a common complication
of mild brain injury.
See causes of dizziness, causes of vertigo, or misdiagnosis of MTBI.
Brain pressure condition often misdiagnosed as dementia: A condition
that results from an excessive pressure of CSF within the brain is often misdiagnosed.
It may be misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease or dementia (such as Alzheimer's disease).
The condition is called "Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus" (NPH) and is caused by having
too much CSF, i.e. too much "fluid on the brain".
One study suggested that 1 in 20 diagnoses of dementia or Parkinson's disease were actually NPH.
See misdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or misdiagnosis of Parkinson's disease.
Post-concussive brain injury often misdiagnosed: A study found that soldiers who had
suffered a concussive injury in battle often were misdiagnosed on their return.
A variety of symptoms can occur in post-concussion syndrome and these were not being correctly
attributed to their concussion injury.
See introduction to concussion.
Children with migraine often misdiagnosed: A migraine often fails to be
correctly diagnosed in pediatric patients.
These patients are not the typical migraine sufferers, but migraines can also occur in children.
See misdiagnosis of migraine or introduction to migraine.
Vitamin B12 deficiency under-diagnosed: The condition of Vitamin B12 deficiency
is a possible misdiagnosis of various conditions, such as multiple sclerosis (see symptoms of multiple sclerosis).
See symptoms of Vitamin B12 deficiency or misdiagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
Delirium: Rare Types
Rare types of medical disorders and diseases in related medical areas:
Medical news summaries about misdiagnosis of Delirium:
The following medical news items
are relevant to misdiagnosis of Delirium:
General Misdiagnosis Articles
Read these general articles with an overview of misdiagnosis issues.
When checking for a misdiagnosis of Delirium
or confirming a diagnosis of Delirium,
it is useful to consider what other
medical conditions might be possible misdiagnoses or other alternative
conditions relevant to diagnosis.
These alternate diagnoses of Delirium may already have
been considered by your doctor or may need to be considered as possible
alternative diagnoses or candidates for misdiagnosis of Delirium.
For a general overview of misdiagnosis issues for all diseases,
see Overview of Misdiagnosis.
» Next page: Undiagnosed Delirium
Medical Tools & Articles:
Tools & Services:
Forums & Message Boards
- Ask or answer a question at the Boards:
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The financial crisis threatens to cut education levels worldwide, a UNESCO report says. As impoverished nations try to balance budgets in the face of sagging economies, any hope of reaching the Millennium Development Goals for education could be dashed.
by Jan Huisman
The fundamental goal is to get all the world’s children into primary education by 2015, says Kevin Watkins, Director of the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report released on Tuesday. Real progress was made during the first decade of the 2000s and this was the only Millennium goal with even a chance of being realised. But the aftershocks of the West’s financial crisis rippling through developing nations are now threatening that progress.
Some 71 million children around the world are not in school today, according to the report. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, this presents a significant handicap for future job opportunities. And as governments in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, come to terms with declining revenues because of the economic downturn, Mr Watkins says spending per primary school pupil could fall by 10 percent.
“Now when you bear in mind you’re talking about a context in which many kids are sitting in classrooms with no books, no blackboard, no pencils, no chairs, no tables: that has really serious consequences. And the point that we make in the report is that these kids did not create that crisis, and they shouldn’t have to pay for it with their one-off chance for an education.”
Not rocket science
Mr Watkins points to the progress made in a country such as Tanzania which has sent an extra three million children to school since 2001. Bangladesh eliminated gender disparity in education, he says, while India brought down the number of children not in school by 15 million in just two years earlier this decade. These successes all demonstrate that it’s not a lack of effective policy limiting the advancement of education – but a lack of finances.
“What the government of India has shown is that if you scale up investments in the areas where it’s most needed – you build the schools, you train the teachers, you equip the schools – you can actually achieve breakthroughs pretty quickly. None of this is rocket science, but unfortunately it’s a systematic neglect of policies that we know can work, that has left us where we are today.”
Paradox in Latin America
“Extraordinary progress” was also made in recent years in Latin America, Mr Watkins said, citing Mexico, Brazil and Bolivia as examples where cash incentives have led many poor families to keep their children in school. But Latin America is a paradox, he added, as education levels also reflect an enormous regional and social inequality.
“If you look at a country like Mexico, there’s a very big gap between the best-performing parts of the country in the North and in Mexico city – where on average young kids can expect around 8 or 9 years in education – and the southern poverty belt states like Oaxaca and Chiapas, where over 40 percent of indigenous girls from the poorest rural households are getting less than 4 years in school.”
Latin American nations must specifically target impoverished areas far more quickly than is happening today, Mr Watkins said.
While some Western nations have increased aid commitments despite the downturn, others are cutting back on donations. But even if overall aid rose, it still wouldn’t cover the effects of the downturn for poor governments, Mr Watkins says.
“We’re calling on rich countries and international financial institutions to increase the scale of concessional aid financing, in order that governments in sub-Saharan Africa don’t have to make choices between financial stability on the one side, and the education of children on the other.”
The UN estimates losses for sub-Saharan Africa will exceed 40 billion dollars in the coming fiscal year. And at current rates, 50 million children will still be out of school in five years from now, a scenario Mr Watkins calls “a full-scale human development crisis.”
Photo: School in India - UNESCO/GMR Akash
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Robotics and the Green Trend: A Q&A
by Bennett Brumson
, Contributing Editor
Robotic Industries Association Posted 05/04/2009
Concerns about the natural state of our planet have never been higher. Manufacturers are putting a considerable amount of thought into how to lower their impact on the natural environment while still supplying the goods that people and industry require. Investing in robotics is among one of several strategies that business are using in their efforts to “go green.”
Going green, diminishing the repercussions of the production process on the Earth, has inexorably become a trend. “Many manufacturers have not yet recognized the role that robotics can play in conservation,” says, John Burg, President of Ellison Technologies Automation (Council Bluffs, Iowa). Smart players in industry will adapt to this new reality sooner rather than later.
Companies that are going green will have a chance to discuss environmentally friendly manufacturing, among other topics, at the 2009 International Robot, Vision & Motion Control Show and Conference to be held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont (Chicago), Illinois, June 9-11, 2009.
What green technology trends do you see now and in the near future?
“When robots make the manufacturing process more efficient, robots make it greener,” asserts Roberta Zald, Market Planning and Communications Director at KMT Robotic Solutions Inc. (Auburn Hills, Michigan). “The push to make cars and planes lighter and more fuel efficient is a green trend. This push is driving aerospace and automotive companies to use more composite materials and carbon fiber to reduce weight.” Opportunities for robotics will come in handling and trimming these new materials, Zald believes.
“Robotics help reduce scrap during a trimming work cell’s initial set-up. With computer numerical controlled machines (CNC), multiple parts are often needed to set up the machine to come up with the first good part. Using robotics leads to faster and more efficient changeovers to new part runs,” she adds.
Zald points out another facet of robotic applications that can be considered green: Removing operators from dangerous environments that could impact their health. Robots in applications such as trimming, sanding and painting help keep operators safe while controlling waste so they do not negatively impact the operator’s health or the environment.
Sharing the belief that robotics can play a role in greening up of automotive production is Greg Hollows, Director of Machine Vision Products with Edmund Optics Inc. (Barrington, New Jersey). “The automotive industry is trying to be more green by producing more fuel efficient vehicles. Vision-guided robotics can help.” Hollows’ caveat is the automotive sector is not spending cash at the moment, but he expects investment in green technology to increase in the coming years.
The trend toward thinking green is more of a philosophy than a standard in manufacturing, posits
David Arceneaux, Operations Assistant Division Manager at Stäubli Corp. (Duncan, South Carolina) “Companies are developing manufacturing systems utilizing robotics which helps promote green design and sustainable production strategies. Companies are recycling, using alternative power, and utilizing robotics where they have not before,” says Arceneaux.
Arceneaux’s colleague at Stäubli, Chad Henry, concurs. Henry, Stäubli’s Applications Engineering Manager, contends, “Robotics can be part of an overall green strategy through redeploying equipment or developing new processes. For example, robotics can be part of a ‘lights out’ process.” The “lights out” concept that Henry refers to is the idea that robots do not need much artificial light to function if a work cell operates without humans. Lights-out production translates into less energy use, the epitome of the current green trend.
To go lights-out, integrators must incorporate the correct vision equipment for the application, maintains Henry. “Vision systems do not need much ambient light to function. While vision-enabled robotics cannot operate in complete darkness, they use much less light than if people were working in that environment,” Henry says. “A vision system only uses the amount of light it needs to accomplish the task.”
If a work cell is not using vision, the robot does not need electric light but is using sensors and other inputs to manage its processes and how to react to specific situations, says Henry.
Andrew Lovell, Applications Engineer with PIAB Vacuum Products (Hingham, Massachusetts) also sees reduced energy requirements through robotic-based manufacturing. “The movement of a robot can be very precisely controlled to eliminate wasted movement, when compared to manual assembly. The operator might leave the vacuum pump on when it is not needed.” Lovell agrees with Stäubli’s Chad Henry in his belief that robotics facilitate “lights-out” production. “In many applications, robots can operate in the dark. Robots do not require the same environment as a human does to function in.”
How is the trend toward green manufacturing impacting your company and the way you do business?
“The design of robotic work cells and their components are an important part of the trends toward green production,” says John Mazurkiewicz, Product Marketing Manager Servos and Motion Control at Baldor Electric Co. (Fort Smith, Arkansas). “Engineers designing work cells with absolute feedback devices such as servo motors is a green trend. When used with robotics, servo motors allow for tasks to be done faster with less energy.”
Mazurkiewicz proclaims that absolute feedback devices save time, energy, materials and money. To illustrate, Mazurkiewicz says, “If a work cell looses power with traditional feedback devices like an incremental motor, operators have to go back to the work cell’s point of reference and begin the task over again. If an absolute feedback device looses power then regains power, operators only need to read it to know exactly where the robot is in its process.”
Mazurkiewicz goes on to say that the trend toward absolute devices will decrease machine downtime and improve productivity. “Most green trends typically take place first in Europe, where they are willing to try new technologies. In North America, we are more concerned with cost-savings.” Eventually, design engineers in North America look at green trends while reducing costs.
“Few companies are interested in conservation for conservation’s sake, but they are interested in going green if it offers a return on investment. New work cells that are more environmentally friendly and conserve energy would also save a lot of money,” observes Ellison’s John Burg.
Burg turns his attention to the use of coolants in robotic material and machining applications. “Coolants have been used for over a century to help increase tool life or reduce tool wear. The impact of coolants is not environmentally friendly, but producers of coolants are doing a lot of work to reduce that impact.” Burg adds, “Many material removal end-users are looking at how to dramatically reduce coolant use in their machining process. Reducing coolant use translates into not having to reclaim, reuse or dispose it.” Reducing, reusing and recycling are at the heart of going green.
What are the benefits of going green for your company and the environment?
“Going green helps FANUC re-imagine and reinvent our products and helps us stay nimble with the solutions we provide to support emerging green markets,” contends Christopher Blanchette, National Distribution Sales Account Manager with FANUC Robotics America Inc. (Rochester Hills, Michigan) “Going green provides a cleaner and more healthy environment for a sustainable future, which is a social aspect.“
Blanchette says that until recently, “The trend toward green manufacturing has been slow due to insufficient social pressure put on businesses to really push cost-competitive, environmentally friendly technologies.”
Taking a different tack, Greg Hollows says, “The benefits of going green for Edmund include the variety of opportunities to make a difference in the world and to provide for our employees. Making a dedicated effort to meet the need for green technologies allows Edmund to keep people employed in these uncertain economic times.”
Hollows continues, “Corporations need to be more responsible for what we have been given in the world. Edmund Optics believes we have a corporate responsibility to focus on green technologies and do what we can to help them in the marketplace.”
Likewise, Dan Shumaker, Market Research Manager at Motoman Inc. (West Carrollton, Ohio) sees the benefits of going green in manufacturing. “Going green presents potential new opportunities for growth for Motoman, both in terms of new products and marketing programs.” Shumaker proposes that, “Many green technologies will continue to experience strong growth, including wind power, solar power, fuel cells, and other technologies that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Companies will continue to investigate methods for increasing productivity to accelerate cost parity with conventional sources of electricity in order to drive alternative energy adoption.”
“Robotic automation can be utilized at many steps in the manufacturing process, particularly in welding and material handling, as many of Motoman’s current customers in the renewable energy field have already discovered. We expect this trend to continue as Motoman serves the needs of solar, wind and other green industries,” Shumaker adds.
The 2009 International Robot, Vision & Motion Control Show and Conference affords attendees an opportunity to look and learn about green technologies and other advances in manufacturing.
One session, “Robots and Vision in a Green Manufacturing World,” looks at how robotics can help fabricate green technologies, particularly alternative energy sources such as wind turbines, solar panels and fuel cells. This session is scheduled for Tuesday, June 9, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
PIAB will be among the businesses that will have a demonstration at the show. Andrew Lovell gives a brief description of what his company will have in store for visitors. “PIAB’s demonstrations will highlight the benefits of optimized robotic system design, and the effects on energy and performance. PIAB also will be spotlighting a new friction suction cup design, which has greater holding power with oily sheet metal.” Lovell says these new suction cups reduce the energy needed to handle oil-coated sheet metal in a manufacturing environment. “PIAB’s new suction cups perform at a high level for longer periods of time, keeping replacement costs to a minimum and reducing the waste associated with discarding old cups.”
The benefits of attending the Robot, Vision & Motion Control Show are numerous. Greg Hollows of Edmund Optics says, “We attend the show because it is an educational experience, and attending allows us to help people who want to use machine vision. Many potential end-users of machine vision do not understand its nuances and capabilities or how to mix and match products correctly to meet their needs.” Hollows says that users of machine vision need to understand how it functions to be confident that it will work.
Hollows cites another reason to attend the show saying, “Due to instability in the automotive sector, we want a chance to get feedback and find out what is happening on the ground level. Because economic events are happening so fast, we sometimes find difficulty getting enough detailed information of what is happening in the automotive sector.”
Hollows concludes stressing, “Edmund Optics has a feel for what is happening in the automotive industry, but talking directly to people is better. We want to understand what is gong on so that we can develop new products or go in a different direction to effectively meet our customer’s needs.”
Baldor’s John Mazurkiewicz states his company will debut some new products at the show. “Baldor recently introduced smaller motors, motors with stainless steel gear-heads, and a line of stainless steel servo motors. Because only a handful of companies offer stainless steel servo motors, we have found a market for such products in robotic food handling applications.” Baldor will demonstrate their stainless steel servos, which can withstand wash-down pressures of 1,500 pounds per square inch. Mazurkiewicz says the characteristics of stainless steel are different from an iron or steel housing surrounding the motor, both magnetically and thermally.
Go Green, Stay Green
The direction toward green manufacturing will prove to be a long-term trend. “Because the trend toward green manufacturing is emerging so rapidly, flexible robots are an excellent tool for manufacturing. Having robots as part of the production process, even in the early stages of development or refinement, helps reduce the time to market of green products,” says Christopher Blanchette of FANUC.
For additional details on the 2009 International Robot, Vision & Motion Control Show and Conference in Rosemont (Chicago), Illinois, USA, June 9-11, 2009, including show hours, conference agenda and registration, click: More.
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Brahmanism or Hinduism, as in its later development the former has been called, is not merely a religion. It is a Socio-Economic System, the foundation of which is the Law of Caste and Stages of life. That System has its culture of which several forms of Religion, resting on a certain common basis, are but a part. Dealing, however, with Brahmanism in its religious aspect, we may say that it, together with Jainism and Buddhism, are the three chief religions of India, as opposed to those of the Semitic origin. All three religious systems share in common certain fundamental concepts which are denoted by the Sanskrit terms Karma, Samsara and Moksha. These concepts constitute a common denominator of Indian belief as next stated.
The Universe is in constant activity. Nothing which is Psycho-physical is at rest. Karma is Action. The Psychophysical as such is determined by Karma or action, and, therefore, man's present condition is determined by past Karma, either his own, or that of collectivities of men of which he is a member, or with which he is in relation, as also by the action of natural causes. In the same way, present Karma determines the future Karma. The doctrine of Karma is thus the affirmance of the Law of causality operating not only in this but in an infinity of Universes. As you sow so shall you reap. The present Universe is not the first and last only. It is true that this particular Universe has a beginning and an end called dissolution, for nothing composite is eternal; but it is only one of a series which has neither beginning nor end. There has been, is now, and ever will be an Universe.
Mental action as desire for worldly enjoyment, even though such enjoyment be lawful, keeps man in the Worlds of repeated Birth and Death, or (to use the English term) of Reincarnation. These worlds the Greeks called the Cycle of Becoming, and Hindus the Samsara, a term which literally means the unending 'moving on' or wandering, that is, being born and dying repeatedly. These worlds comprise not only Earth but Heaven and Hell, in which are reaped the fruits of man's actions on Earth. Heaven and Hell, are states of enjoyment and suffering which exist here on earth as well as in the after-death state as the result of man's good and bad actions returning. When man dies there is no resurrection of the gross body. That is resolved into its subtle elements, and the specific relation between man and a particular gross body comes to an end. But there is always some body until bodiless liberation is achieved. On death man in his subtle body enjoys the state called Heaven or suffers in that called Hell. Neither is eternal, but each a part of the Cycle of the Becoming. When, then, man has had Heavenly enjoyment or suffered the pains of Hell in his subtle body, in the afterdeath state, according to his merits or demerits, he is 'reincarnated' in a gross body on Earth. He continues thus to be 'reincarnated' until he has found and desires the way out from the Cycle, that, is, until he ceases to desire world-existence. His desire is then not only for release from the sufferings and limited happiness of the Cycle but also (according to Vedanta) for the attainment of the Supreme Worth which is Supreme Bliss. There is, in short, a change of values and states. Man, as Nietzsche said, is something to be transcended. He cannot transcend his present state so long as he is attached to and desires to remain in it. This liberation from the Cycle is called Moksha or Mukti. For all Three Systems are at one in holding that, notwithstanding the Law of Causality, man is free to liberate himself from the Cycle. Causality governs the Psychophysical. Spirit as such is Freedom from the Psycho-physical. All three Systems assume a State of Liberation.
Whether the Universe as a play of force is the work of a Personal God is a question which philosophers have disputed both in the East and the West. One set of Buddhists professed belief in Deity as the Lord. Another affirmed Svabhava which means the proper vigor of Nature and what is called creation is truly spontaneity resulting from powers inherent in the Psycho-physical substance eternally.
Mayavada Vedanta reconciles to a great extent these two views by its doctrine that the personal Brahman or the Lord is the self-less absolute Brahman as conceived by the Psycho-physical experiencer, though the latter as the Absolute exclusive of all relations is not the former. In Shakta doctrine Brahman is the Lord or Creator and Director of the Universe but in its own nature is more than that.
Whether there is or is not a Personal God or Lord (as held by some systems), belief in such a Lord is no essential portion of the Common Doctrine Both Jainism and Buddhism are atheistic in the sense of being Lordless, though the latter system, in some forms of the later Northern schools, takes on a theistic color. In fact the notion of a Personal God is no essential part even of Brahmanism itself. For putting aside downright atheists in the Western sense, such as the Indian Carvakas and Lokayatas who denied God, Soul, immortality and future life, it is to be observed that some schools posit no such Lord whilst others do.
Two other concepts of first rate importance are Dharma and its correlative adharma. These two terms, in the Brahmanic sense, mean right activity and its opposite. They are therefore connected with Karma of which they are two species. The term Dharma comes from the root Dhri which means to uphold and maintain, for right activity does that. All three systems posit right and wrong activity and their results as well-being and suffering respectively. Dharma is thus the Law of Being as Form. Morality is part of man's nature. It may therefore be said that the substance of the Brahmanic concept is held by all. Dharma as a technical term is not here included amongst the common concepts, because, its sense varies in Buddhism in which it has its own peculiar meaning, whilst in Jainism the word means something wholly different from what it does in any other system.
Each of the common concepts must be interpreted in the case of any particular Indian faith in terms of its own peculiar tenets as regards these concepts and other matters such as the Reality and Dissolution of the Universe, Karma and Liberation. Thus, the latter is defined differently in Buddhism, Jainism and in the various Brahmanical schools. According to all systems, Liberation is described as the release from the bondage of Birth and Death, Limitation and Suffering. In some systems it is not positively said to be Joy, but is described as pure painless state of That which, in association with mind and matter, manifests as the empirical self. The Jainas regard it as a state of happiness. Some Buddhist descriptions are to the same effect, but in general Buddhism deprecates the discussion of so inconceivable a state. The Vedanta, on the other hand, positively describes it to be unalloyed and unending joy so that the nature of such Joy, whether as arising through the identification of the individual self with the Supreme Self or in association therewith, is variously affirmed by the non-dualist, qualified non-dualist and dualist Brahmanic Schools.
Brahmanism adds to these concepts of the Cycle (Samsara) right and wrong action (Dharma, Adharma), Causality (Karma), and Liberation (Moksha), that of the Atman.
All recognized Brahmanic systems affirm the Atman, though they differ on the question of its nature as also whether it is one or many. It is on this question whether there is or is not an Atman that the Brahmanic and Buddhistic Schools are in dispute. The point at issue as formulated from the standpoint of Vedanta may be shortly stated to be as follows:
Everyone admits the existence of a psycho-physical Flux either as the Individual or the Universe of his experience. Indeed, one of the Sanskrit names of the world is Jagat, which means "the moving thing". For the Universe is in constant activity. At every moment there is molar or molecular change. As an object of sensible perception the Universe is transitory, though some things endure longer or shorter than others. The question is, then, whether, besides psycho-physical transience, there is a spiritual enduring Essence of the Universe and of man, which manifests in the latter as the empirical self whereby it knows itself as permanent amidst all its changeful experiences. The Buddhists are reputed to have held that there is nothing but the flow. Man is only a continually changing psychophysical complex without a static center, a series of momentary mental and bodily states, necessarily generated one from the other in continuous transformation. In this Flux there is no principle of permanence on which "as on a thread" the worlds as beads are strung. Man may have the notion that he is a Self, but this does not, it is said, prove that there is an Atman as 'substratum' of such empirical self. To this Vedanta asks -- If so, who is it that is born and re-incarnates? It then answers its question by saying that the embodied self is born and dies, but that the Atman as such is not a self and is neither born nor does it die. Birth and Death are attributed to it when it appears in connection with psycho-physical bodies. It is the embodied Atman which is born and dies. The Atman as it is in its own bodiless nature is unborn and eternal.
Change and changelessness are terms of logical, that is dualistic thinking, and have no meaning except in relation to one another. All activity implies a static condition relative to which it is active. There can be no Universe except by the combination of the active and non-active. Without activity the Universe does not become. Without some principle of stability it cannot exist even for a moment as an object of the senses. The alogical Atman as such eternally endures. The Universe as the Psycho-physical is the product of the Atman as Power. As such product, it is transient. It presents, however, the appearance of relative or limited stability because of the immanence of the Atman. The Atman manifests as the relatively stable and empirical self, and That which manifests as such self is also the Brahman as essence of the Universe which is the object of such self. For Atman and Brahman are one and the same.
According to the second standard, Atman is the seat of consciousness. In the Vedanta, however, Atman is consciousness itself. Whatever may have been its origin, as to which nothing is of a certainty known (Mother Goddess Worship is as old as the World), Shakta doctrine is now a form of Vedanta which may be called Shakti-vada or Shakta Vedanta.
Kularnava Tantra speaks of that "Monism of which Shiva speaks" (Advaitantu Shivenoktam, 1, 108). See also Mahanirvana Tantra, Chapter II, 33-34, III, 33-35, 50-64; Prapañcasara Tantra, II, XIX, XXIX; Advaitabhavopanisad. For the identity of Jivatma and Paramatma in liberation (Mukti),which the Vedantasara defines to be Jivabrahmanohaikyam, see Mahanirvana Tantra, VIII, 264, 265; V, 105. See also Prapañcasara Tantra, II, where Hrim is identified with Kundali and Hamsah, and then with "So'ham". See also ib., Chapter XXIV: "That, which. is subtle I am" (Yah Suksmah So'ham); and Jñanarnava Tantra; XXI, 10.
As to Brahmasmi, see Kularnava Tantra, IX, 32, and ib., 41: So'ham bhavena pujayet. The Shakta disciple (Sadhaka) should not be a dualist (Maharudrayamala, I Khanda,, Chapter 15, II Khanda, Chapter 2). Similarly, the Gandharva Tantra Chapter 2, says that he must be devoid of dualism (Dvaitahina) (see Pranatoshini, 108) In fact, that particular from of worship which has earned the Kaula Tantras, their ill name is practical application of Advaitavada. Kaulacara is said to properly follow a full knowledge of Vedantik doctrine. As the Satcakranirupana (see The Serpent Power) says, the Jivatma or embodied spirit is the same, as the Paramatma or Supreme Spirit, and knowledge of this is the root of all wisdom (Mulavidya).
Shakta Vedanta teaches its doctrine from the practical standpoint which Mayavada calls Vyavaharika. It lays stress on the concept of Power. Atman is not mere Being only. Even in the dissolution of the world Being is Power, though Power or Shakti is then consciousness as such (Cidrupini). Atman manifests as the universe by and out of its power. Atman and Power are never separated, and so it is said, that" there is no Shiva without Shakti or Shakti without Shiva." Shiva without power is but a "corpse." Both Shiva and Shakti are of the same nature since they are both Being-Consciousness- Bliss. But Power manifests as the Becoming or Psycho-physical universe. Power is both Power to be, to self -conserve, and resist change, as well as Power to Become the universe and as material cause of the universe itself. Power to be is the static aspect of Shiva-Shakti. Power to become is the changeful aspect of Shiva-Shakti.
In Mayavada the world is said to be produced by the Power of the Lord -- or Ishvara. But whilst Ishvara is Brahman or Godhead as conceived by the Psycho-physical experiencer, Brahman on the other hand is not Ishvara. The former is beyond (in the sense of exclusive of ) all relations with the universe, and so, though wrongly, some people call Ishvara 'Unreal' and the universe created by Him an 'illusion'. According to Shaktivada, not only is Ishvara Brahman, but Brahman is Ishvara, and no question of the reality of either Ishvara or the world arises. We may, however, say at once that Godhead is real, God is real and the universe is real. The use of the term 'illusion' only tends to mislead even in Mayavada. According to the concise definition of Kamala-kanta, a celebrated Sadhaka, Maya is the 'Form of the Form-less' (Shunyasya akara iti Maya). The World is the Divine Mother in form. As She is in Herself, She is formless.
Discussion on the subject of the reality of the World is often vain and tedious, because the word 'Real' has several meanings, and that in which it is used is not stated. The terms "Absolute" and "Transcendental" should also be clearly defined. The distinction between Maya-vada and Shakti-vada hinges on these definitions.
Both "Absolute" and "Transcendental" mean "beyond relation." But the term beyond" may be used in two senses: (a) exceeding or wider than relation; (b) having no relation at all. The first does not deny or exclude relation but says that the Absolute, though involving all relations within itself, is not their sum total; is not exhausted by them; has Being transcending them. The latter denies every trace of relation to the Absolute; and says that the Absolute must have no intrinsic or extrinsic relation; that relation, therefore, has no place in the Being of the Absolute.
Shakti-vada adopts the first view, Maya-vada the second. From the first point of view, the Absolute is relationless Being as well as Manifestation as an infinity of relations. This is the true and complete Alogical-Whole. Inasmuch as the Absolute exceeds all relation and thought, we cannot say that it is the Cause; that it is the Root of Creation; and so forth; but in as much also as it does involve relation and thought, we can say that It is the First Cause; that there has been a real creation, and so forth.
The Maya-vada view by negating all relation from the reality of Brahman negates from its transcendent standpoint the reality of causation, creation and so forth.
"Beyond" may, therefore, mean (1) "exceeding" "fuller than ", "not exhausted by", or (2) excluding, negating, expunging.
In Shakti-vada, the Supreme Reality is fuller than any definition (limitation) which may be proposed. It is even beyond duality and non - duality. It is thus the Experience-Whole, the Alogical. The Maya-vada Pure Brahman is an aspect of It: but it is not the Whole (Purna).
The expression "wider than relation" may be thus illustrated: I am related in one way to my wife; in another way to my children; in yet another way to my brothers, friends and so on. I am not fully expressed by any one of these relations, nor even by their aggregate; for, as a member of an infinite Stress-system, I bear an infinity of relations. Pragmatically, most of these are ignored, and it is thought that I am expressed, by a certain set of relations which distinguish me from another person who has his own "set". But Brahman as Absolute can have no such "Set". It is expressed, but not fully expressed, even by the infinite set of relations which the cosmos is, because relations, finite or infinite, imply a logical, and therefore segmenting and defining thought; but Brahman as Absolute = Experience-Whole = the Alogical.
Since Brahman = Experience-Whole = Cit as Power to-Be-and-Become, it is nothing like the unknown and unknowable Being ("Thing-in itself") of Western Skeptics and Agnostics.
In all Indian Systems, the world is real, in the sense that it has objective existence for, and is not a projection of, the individual mind . In all such systems, Mind and Matter co-exist, and this is so even in that form of Ekajiva-vada which holds that Brahman by its own veiling and limiting Power makes one Primary Self of itself, and that all other selves are but reflexes of the Primary self, having as reflexes no existence apart from that of the Primary one. The world of matter is not a projection of an individual mind, but its reality is coordinate with that of the individual mind, both being derived from the Self-veiling and Self-limiting operation of Brahman appearing as the One Jiva or Primary Self. Brahman, in appearing as Primary Self, also appears as its (logical) Correlate or Pole -- the Not-Self; and this Not-Self is the Root-Matter on which the primary Self is reflected as multiple selves and their varied relations. Matter, in this fundamental sense is not therefore the product of the first or primary individual (Self); it is with Self the co-effect (logically speaking) of a common fundamental activity which is the veiling and limiting action of the Supreme Being.
The version commonly given of Ekajiva-vada -- namely that the one Primary Self is Me, and that You, He and the rest, and the world of objects are the projection of Me -- is loose and unpsychological. In the first place, Me cannot be there (logically conceiving) without its Correlate or Pole -- the Not-Me; so that, by the very act by which Me is evolved from Brahman, its Correlate is also evolved, and this Correlate is Root-Matter. In the second place, projection, reflection and so forth presuppose not only the projecting or reflecting Being (that which projects or reflects), but also something on which the projection or reflection is cast. Projection out of nothing and projection into nothing will give us only nothing.
Where then there is Matter there is Mind. Where there is no Matter there is no Mind. One is meaningless without the other. Each is every whit as real as the other. But there is no Indian system which is Realist in the sense, that it holds that Matter exists when there is no Mind to perceive it. Such a state is inconceivable. He who alleges it, himself supplies the perceiving Mind. In the First standard, Mind and the so-called "atoms" of Matter are separate, distinct and independent Reals. Matter does not derive from Mind nor the latter from the former. In the Second Standard, both Matter and Mind are equally real, but derive from a common source the Psycho-physical Potential which as such is neither. 'Psychic' here means Mind as distinct from Consciousness in the sense of Cit. This Psycho-physical Potential is a Real, independent of Consciousness which is the other Real. In the Third Standard as non-dual Vedanta the position is the same, except that the Psychophysical Potential is not an independent Real but is the power of the One Supreme Real as God. The world is then Real in the sense that it has true objective Reality for the individual Experiencers for the duration of their experience of it. No one denies this.
The next question is the problem of Monism. If ultimate Reality be One, how can it be the cause of and become the Universe. It is said, that Reality is of dual aspect, namely, as it is in relation to the World as Ishvara, the Lord or God, and as it is in itself beyond such relation which we may call Brahman. According to Mayavada, Ishvara is Brahman, for Ishvara is Brahman as seen through the Veil of Maya, that is, by the Psycho-physical Experiencer. But Brahman is not Ishvara because Brahman is the absolute alogical Real, that is, Reality not as conceived by Mind but as it is in itself beyond all relation. The notion of God as the Supreme Self is the highest concept imposed on the alogical which, as it is in itself, is not a Self either supreme or limited. The Absolute as such is not a cause. There is, transcendentally speaking, no creation, no Universe. The Absolute is and nothing happens. It is only pragmatically a Cause. There is from this aspect no nexus between Brahman and the World. In the logical order there is. What then is the Universe? It is in this connection that it is said by some to be an "illusion," which is an inapt term. For to whom is it an "illusion"? Not to the Psycho-physical Experiencer to whom it is admittedly real. Nor is it illusion for the Experience-Whole. It is only by the importation of the logical notion of a self to whom an object is real or unreal that we can speak of illusion. But there is in this state of Liberation no Self. More correctly we say that the World is Maya. But what is Maya in Mayavada? It is not real, for it is neither Brahman nor an independent Real. Nor is it unreal for in the logical order it is real. It is neither Brahman nor different from it as an independent reality. It is unexplainable. For this reason one of the scholastics of this System calls it the doctrine of the Inscrutable.
In the doctrine of Power (Shaktivada),Maya is the Divine Mother Power or Mahamaya. The two aspects of Reality as Brahman and Ishvara are accepted. The Lord is real, but that which we call 'Lord' is more than Lord, for the Real is not adequately defined in terms only of its relations to the Universe. In this sense it is alogical, that is, "beyond Mind and speech". As the one ultimate Reality is both Ishvara and Brahman, in one aspect it is the Cause, and in the other it is not. But it is one and the same Reality which is both as Shiva - Shakti. As these are real so are their appearance, the Universe. For the Universe is Shiva-Shakti. It is their appearance. When we say it is their appearance we imply that there has been a real becoming issuing from them as Power. Reality has two aspects. First as it is in itself, and secondly as it exists as Universe. At base the Samsara or worlds of Birth and Death and Moksha or Liberation are One. For Shiva-Shakti are both the Experience-Whole and the Part which exists therein as the Universe. Reality is a concrete unity in duality and duality in unity. In practice the One is realized in and as the Many and the Many as the One. So in the Shakta Wine ritual, the worshipper conceives himself to be Shiva Shakti as the Divine Mother. It is She who as and in the person of the worshipper, Her manifestation, consumes the wine which is again Herself, the Savioress in liquid form. It is not only he, who as a separate Self does so. This principle is applied to all man's functionings and is of cardinal importance from a Monistic standpoint notwithstanding its well-known abuse in fact.
Real is again used in the sense of eminence. The Real is that which is for itself and has a reason for its being in itself. The Real as God is the perfect and changeless and the "Good." The Universe is dependent on the Ens Realissimum, for it proceeds from it and is imperfect as limited and changeful and in a sense it is that which does not endure and in this sense is called 'unreal.' Though, however, the Universe comes and goes it does so eternally. The Supreme Cause is eternally creative. The Real is then both infinite Changeless Being as also unbeginning and unending process as the Becoming. In this system the Real both is and becomes. It yet becomes without derogation from its own changelessness, as it were a Fountain of Life which pours itself forth incessantly from infinite and inexhaustible source. Both the infinite and the finite are real.
Real is again used in the sense of interest and value and of the worth while". In this sense, the worshiper prays to be led from Unreality to Reality, but this does not mean that the world is unreal, but that it is not the supreme worth for him.
In whatever sense, then, the term Real is used the Universe is that. All is real for as the Upanishad says, "All this Universe is verily Brahman". The Scriptural Text says "All". It does not say "This " but not "That". The whole is an alogical concrete Reality which is Unity in Duality and Duality in Unity. The doctrine does not lose hold of either the One or the Many, and for this reason the Lord Shiva says in the Kularnava Tantra, "There are some who seek dualism and some non-dualism, but my doctrine is beyond both." That is, it takes account of and reconciles both Dualism and Non-Dualism.
Reality is no mere abstraction of the intellect making jettison of all that is concrete and varied. It is the Experience Whole whose object is Itself as such Whole. It is also Partial Experience within that whole. This union of whole and Part is alogical, not unknowable, for their unity is a fact of actual experience just as we have the unity of Power to Be and Power to Become, of the Conscious and Unconscious, of Mind and Body, of freedom and determination, and other dualities of Man's experiencing.
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Smartphones have taken on such an important role in our everyday life that it is hard to imagine a life without them. But, cell phones as well as other mobile electronic devices are only as good as they are charged and powerless when they are, well, without power.Just think how easier your life would be if there was a way to charge your devices anytime anywhere, without having to scavenge around for an electrical outlet at a crowded coffee shop. Today, we’d like to share with you some of the interesting scientific breakthroughs we’ve read about recently that may allow you to do just that!
Scientists have found a way to use a cheap T-shirt to store electrical power, paving the way for clothes that are able to charge phones and other devices, according to a recent BBC report.
Xiaodong Li, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of South Carolina, and post-doctorate researcher Lihong Bao soaked a T-shirt in a solution of fluoride, dried it and then baked it in an oxygen-free environment at high temperature.
The fibers in the fabric converted from cellulose to activated carbon during the process, but the material remained flexible. And by using small parts of the fabric as an electrode, the researchers showed that the material could be made to act as a capacitor that stores an electrical charge.
The findings, which were published in the Advanced Materials journal, mean cotton T-shirts we wear every day could become “flexible energy storage devices” that could also be crucial components for future gadgets such as roll-up cell phones.
Researchers at Rice University have developed a technology that allows virtually any surface to become a battery: paintable or spray-on lithium-ion batteries.
According to a recent post on TreeHugger, the Rice University team formulated, mixed and tested various paints to make up the five layered components of a lithium-ion battery.
The researchers, then, sprayed them onto different surfaces including ceramic tiles, glass, stainless steel, flexible polymers and even a beer stein to test how they would bond to the surfaces.
In the first experiment using nine bathroom tiles, one was topped with a solar cell that converted power from a white laboratory light. When fully charged, the sprayed on batteries alone powered a set of LEDs that spelled out “RICE” for six hours, and with a consistent capacity, too.
Lead author Neelam Singh says her team is actively looking for ways to make it easier to create painted batteries in the open air.
A team of Japanese university students have recently displayed a method that could significantly make the lives of electric vehicle drivers easier by relieving them of the burden of having to pull off the road to recharge the battery.
At the Wireless Technology Park 2012, the team at Toyohashi University of Technology showed their prototype of the Electric Vehicle on Electrified Roadway (EVER) system, which could eventually lead to a technology enabling vehicles to recharge while on the move, according to CleanTechnica.
In their demonstration, four-inch blocks of concrete – representing the road surface – were placed under standard size car tires, with metal plates in-between. And they successfully transmitted 50 to 60 watts of electricity to the tires. The development suggests we may be able to see the day when we can electrify the roads to perpetually charge our electric vehicle and give it an indefinite range.
(Photos from the above mentioned sites)
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- Grades: 6–8, 9–12
A Democratic party organization in New York City, Tammany Hall frequently dominated city and even state politics in 19th- and 20th-century New York. Founded in 1789, the Society of St. Tammany or Columbian Order, named after a legendary Delaware chief, was an anti-aristocratic fraternal order. Increasingly a partisan club from the 1790s onward, Tammany supported Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party in the early 1800s. With the establishment of universal white manhood suffrage in the 1820s and increased Irish immigration after 1830, Tammany's strength grew. It won support by helping immigrants find jobs and become citizens and by assisting the poor.
By mid-century, Tammany often controlled city and county politics in New York, organizing voters and electing its candidates with such efficiency that its methods were called machine politics. From the 1860s, Tammany was led by powerful political bossesWilliam M. Tweed in the 1860s and early 1870s, "Honest" John Kelly in the 1880s, Richard Croker in the 1890s, and Charles ("Silent Charlie") Murphy in the early 1900s. Machine politics was frequently associated with corruption, and Tweed in particular became notorious for looting the city treasury. Murphy, on the other hand, sought respectability by endorsing working-class reform legislation and sponsoring outstanding young politicians, notably Robert F. Wagner, Sr., and Alfred E. Smith.
In the 1930s, Tammany was weakened by the election of antimachine candidate Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and by the New Deal social-welfare programs that reduced the dependence of the poor on Tammany's services. Revived in the 1950s under Carmine G. De Sapio, the Tammany organization subsequently disappeared.
Gerald W. McFarland
Bibliography: Connable, Alfred, and Silberfarb, Edward, Tigers of Tammany (1967); Mandelbaum, Seymour, Boss Tweed's New York (1965; repr. 1982); Mushkat, Jerome, Tammany: The Evolution of a Political Machine, 17891865 (1971); Myers, Gustavus, The History of Tammany Hall, 2d rev. ed. (1917; repr. 1973); Werner, Morris R., Tammany Hall (1932; repr. 1970).
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George Washington: Father of Our Country
- Grades: 3–5
About this book
by David A. Adler (Holiday House, 1988)
This book is among a series of "first biographies" by the author. It recounts the life of George Washington from his boyhood through his presidency. The book portrays Washington as a man who fought for freedom while rejecting both power and wealth.
Exploring the Theme of Leadership
George Washington spent most of his life leading others. Ask: What does it mean to be a leader? Do leaders always need followers? Why or why not? (Have children offer examples from their own lives when they've been called on to lead others — perhaps they've been expected to show a good example for siblings.) What are the best parts about being a leader? What are some difficult parts? Have children explain why Washington was different from the leaders (i.e. royalty) he was used to following.
If I Ran for the Presidency
George Washington was elected our first president because people believed he was a good problem solver. Have children imagine they want to be elected President of the United States. What would their responsibilities and powers be as president? Have the class brainstorm problems to be addressed in the country, record responses on the board, and then have each child copy the list according to his or her personal priorities. Then, have students write campaign speeches designed to win voter support based on their proposed solutions to the problems.
Follow the Leaders
Discuss with the class why good leaders are important. Help them to understand that "following a leader" can mean many things from following specific advice to trying to copy a role model. Provide each student with a copy of the reproducible page. Have children think of leaders they know in their own lives. The list should include famous figures as well as leaders from their personal lives. Remind children that their lists will vary because we each have special people we choose to follow. Then have students brainstorm the qualities a good leader needs, such as intelligence, fairness, gentility, dependability, likability, strength, sensitivity, etc. You may need to label the qualities children describe. (When thinking of qualities, it may help students to think of special talents and traits their own leaders have in common.)
Have each child choose one leader from the list and describe why that person is particularly important or influential in his or her life. Finally, invite children to tell of a time when they led others. How did it feel to be a leader? Encourage students to explain why they think it's more fun to be a leader or a follower.
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As parents, we want to convey the right messages about mobile safety so our kids understand the importance of behaving responsibly when using smartphones.
But these conversations can be tough. Did you know two out of five kids say their parents haven’t talked to them about mobile safety?
Sometimes kids don’t want “a lecture,’’ and sometimes parents feel they aren’t being heard. One option is to have a conversation with your child using the Family Guide to Mobile Safety, a free downloadable guide SchoolFamily.com developed in partnership with AT&T.
One strategy: Pick a quiet time over the weekend when no one feels rushed, sit down with your child, and use the information in the guide as key talking points.
Also, parents can check out the new Mobile Families resources on our site, where there is a collection of related articles about such important issues as screen time and how to best select and use technology and apps.
You can download the entire eight page Family Guide or download individual printables. The individual printables include:
- The Family Mobile Safety Agreement. Parents and kids can discuss appropriate mobile phone behavior, agree to follow the rules, and sign the document together.
- Is your child ready for a cell phone? A guide to help determine better when it makes sense to make this important purchase.
- How to behave online. This document gives parents talking points on what it means to be a good digital citizen.
- What’s with all the texting? This guide gives information about what kids should or should never text.
- Establishing ground rules. This document has pointers for parents on how to set rules for phone use.
- Apps: Where to start. This guide give suggestions so parents can make better app purchasing decisions.
- Cell phone checklist: Gives a list of steps on how to navigate the first mobile phone purchase.
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A medication called cinacalcet—an important part of treatment to control high levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH) in patients receiving dialysis for end-stage renal disease (ESRD)—works by resetting the balance between calcium and PTH levels, according to a study in the November Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).
Cinacalcet is one of a family of drugs called calcimimetics. "In hemodialysis patients, the use of calcimimetics decreases the set point of the PTH-calcium curve, which means that PTH secretion by cells is suppressed at low or normal calcium levels," comments Mariano Rodriguez, MD, PhD, of Nephrology Service, Hospital Universitario Reina Sofia in Cordoba, Spain.
Dr. Rodriguez and colleagues studied responses to cinacalcet treatment in nine patients with ESRD receiving long-term hemodialysis to replace lost kidney function. All patients had high levels of PTH, or secondary hyperparathyroidism—a frequent complication of kidney disease that is mainly caused by low calcium levels. Hyperparathyroidism can lead to weakening of the bones and other problems, including cardiovascular disease.
The researchers assessed the "PTH-calcium curve," which reflects the way PTH levels respond to calcium levels, by comparing blood samples obtained during dialysis performed at low and high calcium levels. The study took advantage of a new test that provides more complete information on the dynamics of PTH secretion.
Treatment with cinacalcet led to significant reductions in the patients' blood phosphorus levels. Their levels of PTH before dialysis were also decreased.
Cinacalcet also led to a reduction in the set point of the PTH-calcium curve. This occurred because cinacalcet made parathyroid cells more sensitive to calcium.
The study provides important new information on how cinacalcet and other calcimimetic drugs work to reduce PTH levels. Normally, low calcium levels cause cells to increase secretion of PTH. After cinacalcet treatment, PTH secretion doesn't increase even when calcium levels are low. Cinacalcet doesn't just lower calcium and PTH levels in the short term, the new results suggest—it changes the interaction between calcium and PTH levels in the long term.
Secondary hyperparathyroidism is a common and potentially serious problem in patients with kidney disease. Calcimimetic drugs like cinacalcet provide a valuable new treatment option. "Nowadays the calcimimetics are an essential tool in the treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism," says Dr. Rodriguez. "With these drugs, the need for surgery to remove the parathyroid gland (parathyroidectomy) is markedly decreased."
The results provide nephrologists with new insights into the way cinacalcet works to control PTH levels in ESRD patients with hyperparathyroidism. "High PTH levels and the excess of calcium in blood are easy to control with calcimimetics," Dr. Rodriguez adds.
The study was limited by the lack of data on the effects of cinacalcet in patients on peritoneal dialysis, although there are no reasons to believe that results would have been different in peritoneal dialyisis patients. In addition, the patients in the study were not taking vitamin D, another effective treatment for hyperparathyroidism. "It would have been interesting to evaluate the combined effect of calcimimetics and vitamin D on the set point of the PTH-calcium curve," says Dr. Rodriguez.
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Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization, located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, present-day Mexico. From roughly 600 CE in the middle of the Maya Classic period, it was a major city, achieving its greatest growth and power after the Maya sites of the central lowlands to the south had already collapsed.
The Postclassic occupation at the site saw extensive additions of structures and motifs in a style more reminiscent of Central Mexican "Toltec" cultures.
This was once thought to have been representative of direct migration or even conquest from central Mexico, but most contemporary interpretations view the presence of these "non-Maya" styles more as the result of cultural diffusion.
Revolt and civil war among the Maya in 1221 CE, evidenced by archeological findings of burned buildings, led to Chichen Itza's decline and rulership over Yucatán shifted to Mayapan.
For more information about the topic Chichen Itza, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
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July 22, 1997 Houston--(July 18, 1997)--Scientists at The University of Texas-Houston Medical School and the University of Alberta in Canada have determined the three-dimensional structure of cardiac troponin C (cardiac TnC), a protein responsible for regulating muscle contraction in the heart. Described in the July 18 edition of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, the work lays the foundation for the development of new drugs which can modify the properties of this critical molecular 'switch' and aid in the treatment of congestive heart failure.
Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and recombinant DNA techniques to model its three-dimensional solution structure, John Putkey, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of biochemistry & molecular biology at UT-Houston, in collaboration with Brian D. Sykes, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, revealed elements of cardiac TnC which may help explain functional differences between cardiac and skeletal muscle contraction. Found only in heart muscle, cardiac TnC closely resembles skeletal TnC, one of a family of calcium-binding proteins which change shape as they relay biochemical signals which lead to muscle contraction. Now that the structure of cardiac TnC is known, researchers' ability to design clinically effective drugs will be significantly improved.
Dr. Putkey said: "A fundamental feature of the molecular mechanism of muscle regulation is a cyclic change in the three-dimensional conformation of the protein TnC as it binds and releases calcium. Troponin C can be conceptualized as a molecular switch: when calcium is bound, the muscle contracts--when calcium is released, the muscle relaxes. To fix or modify any machine one must know how it works. If that machine is a protein, then you need to know its three-dimensional structure. The structures of the cardiac and skeletal forms of TnC reveal profound and largely unexpected differences. These three-dimensional views provide valuable clues about how cardiac TnC works and how we may selectively modify its function."
Numerous studies have been conducted to identify drugs which increase cardiac TnC's affinity for calcium, thereby 'boosting' the action of heart muscle. These were based on the assumption that the drug-binding potential of cardiac TnC was similar to the skeletal form. The work of Putkey and Sykes will aid efforts to produce new therapies for heart attack patients who develop congestive heart failure -- the condition in which insufficient blood is pumped throughout the body. Treatment with appropriate calcium sensitizing drugs may help counter the heart muscle impairment found in these patients.
The NMR spectroscopy was conducted in Dr. Sykes' Edmonton laboratory where much of the earlier work on skeletal muscle troponin C took place. Commenting on his association with the UT-Houston team, Dr. Sykes said: "This has been an excellent collaboration bringing together the different expertise of the Houston and Edmonton research teams. The structure of cardiac TnC has revealed some quite unexpected features, and will go a long way towards explaining both the differences between cardiac and skeletal muscle contraction and also, on a very molecular level, how calcium binding to regulatory proteins such as TnC is linked to their triggering function in many biological systems."
Note to editors: The authors of 'NMR Structure of Cardiac Troponin C Reveals an Unexpected Closed Regulatory Domain' are Samuel K. Sia, Monica X. Li, Leo Spyracopoulos, Stephanie M. Gagne, Wen Liu, John A. Putkey and Brian D. Sykes*. * Corresponding Author.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University Of Texas-Houston Health Science Center.
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Aug. 13, 2008 Men with early prostate cancer who undergo radical prostatectomy have a lower rate of death due to prostate cancer than men who are followed without treatment, known as watchful waiting, according to a randomized controlled trial.
The benefit from the surgery, with respect to prostate cancer death rates, remained constant beyond 10 years, but the overall death rates in the two groups were not statistically different. The applicability of the results to the current generation of prostate cancer patients is unclear, however, because few of the cancers treated in the trial were discovered by PSA (prostate-specific antigen) screening, a practice that is now widespread.
The Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group launched the current trial in 1989 to examine the impact of radical prostatectomy on cancer-specific mortality relative to watchful waiting. In 2005, with a median follow-up 8.2 years, the researchers reported that men in the prostatectomy arm had lower rates of disease-specific mortality than those in the watchful waiting arm. The investigators were interested to know if the prostate cancer mortality difference would continue to increase with longer follow-up. Thus far, this is the only completed randomized trial comparing the two treatment options.
Lars Holmberg, M.D., of the Kings College Medical School in London and colleagues from Finland and Sweden continued to follow the men for an additional three years.
With a median follow-up of 10.8 years, the cumulative incidence rate for prostate cancer death was 13.5 percent in the surgery arm and 19.5 percent in the watchful waiting arm, for an absolute reduction of 6 percent. The benefit, in terms of absolute risk reduction, did not increase after the first 10 years following treatment. For those patients followed at least 12 years, 12.5 percent of the men in the surgery group died due to prostate cancer compared with 17.9 percent of the men in the watchful waiting group, for an absolute reduction of 5.4 percent. Overall mortality at 12 years, however, was not statistically significantly different in the two arms at 32.7 percent and 38.5 percent, respectively.
"Contrary to our predictions based on shorter follow-up, the absolute difference in cumulative incidence of distant metastasis and prostate cancer death did not further increase after 7 years of follow-up," the authors write.
The authors note that it is not clear whether their data are applicable to men whose cancer is detected in the era of PSA screening because most of the men in their trial had palpable tumors at diagnosis. "In settings with a large proportion of PSA-detected tumors, the relative reduction in risk of death following radical prostatectomy might be somewhat larger or similar to that in our study, but the absolute reduction would be smaller," they write.
In an accompanying editorial, Timothy Wilt, M.D., of the Minneapolis VA Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research also raises that issue but concludes that the results are applicable to a subset of current prostate cancer patients. "These results demonstrate that among men younger than 65 years whose prostate cancer is detected by methods other than PSA testing (eg, due to a digital rectal examination to evaluate uri¬nary or other symptoms), cure with radical prostatectomy is possi¬ble, may be necessary, and should generally be recommended," he writes.
He notes that the current trial is only the first in a series that are evaluating treatments for men with localized prostate cancer, and that at least one included patients whose tumors were discovered through PSA testing. These trials and trials testing options between these two extremes will be important in guiding prostate cancer care in the future.
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- Bill-Axelson et al. Radical Prostatectomy Versus Watchful Waiting in Localized Prostate Cancer: the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group-4 Randomized Trial. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2008; DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djn255
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Sep. 27, 2011 Over half of the residents of battered women's shelters in the United States are children (National Network to End Domestic Violence, 2010). Now, a new, innovative online training program aims to elevate children's voices, so that service providers may better hear, understand, and respond to the children and families they serve.
The project, called Honor Our Voices (www.honorourvoices.org), was created by the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse and the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare at the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota, with support from the Avon Foundation for Women.
Honor Our Voices presents information on child exposure to domestic violence by engaging participants with the voices and stories of children who have experienced domestic violence firsthand. The stories are composites of real life experiences and are told through a combination of diary entries, pictures, and audio clips. Alongside each diary entry, the current research and effective practices related to the content of the diary are laid out with headings that detail an area of effective practice.
"This learning experience is informed by some of the best practitioners and researchers in the field," says Jeffrey Edleson, professor of social work at the University of Minnesota and one of the world's leading authorities on children exposed to domestic violence. "It provides a unique focus on the needs of children from the children's perspectives.
"With information gained from this site, professionals will be able to better respond to the needs of these children," he continues. "And it is freely available for those professionals working on the front lines to complete at their own pace while sitting at their desk or at home."
Carol Kurzig, president of the Avon Foundation for Women, said of the project, "Honor Our Voices will enable children's voices to be heard when they speak out about the domestic violence they have experienced, which is the goal of the Avon Foundation's Speak Out Against Domestic Violence program. We are so pleased that our funding has enabled MINCAVA to create such an innovative and essential tool."
The launch of the Honor Our Voices site will be the first week of October, which coincides with October's designation as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
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Create a Wildlife Habitat in Your Landscape - It's Easy!
Provide the 4 basiscs: fresh water, food, shelter and a safe place to raise offspring.
- Use native plants. Wildlife recognize them as food sources.
- Various plants offering flowers, berries or seeds during all seasons will provide a regular food supply.
- Shearing plants reduces food and shelter.
- Eliminate pesticides. Insects are an essential part of the food chain. In time, nature will strike its own balance, as birds and lizards control insect populations for you.
Plant trees, shrubs, perennials and groundcovers of varying heights to provide shelter for a wider range of creatures.
Provide perches, such as agave flower stalks and ocotillo branches for birds to survey their territory.
Allow flowers to go to seed.
Shallow depressions in rocks hold water for birds and lizards.
Return to Scottsdale Xeriscape Garden Topics
Return to Scottsdale Xeriscape Garden home page
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Routers and History
In the Views and Events chapter, we built a rudimentary quiz application that displayed a sequence of exercises, with a Next button for navigation. When we left off, the quiz was usable, but lacked a number of features that would be appreciated by the user.
For example, imagine that you wanted to bookmark an exercise in order to return directly to it later.In a native application, this would require a custom control. With Backbone, however, we can leverage capabilities already present in the browser. As I'm sure you know, browsers navigate to stateful resources using URLs, and offer sophisticated navigation controls, including bookmarking.
Wouldn't it be great if we could use the browser to bookmark and then return to specific Exercises within our quiz application? Well with just a little work, we can. The creators of Backbone already thought of this, and included the Router and History components to help us do it.
Thus, in this chapter we shall continue our work on our small quiz application, with a special focus on coordinating application state with browser's URL.
Once again, our first example will be simple, so that you understand the fundamentals. I also hope that these initial examples, which always end with should assertions, provide an inkling of how to unit test your own Backbone code. I will write about unit testing with CoffeeScript in an upcoming book, but please don't wait for it. If you have never tried unit testing with CoffeeScript and would like to, visit the home pages for Mocha and Chai, download or clone those projects from GitHub, and create a basic test suite using some of the simple examples that begin each chapter in this book.
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Old Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Home
1893 - 1938
Confederate Plot Section Six in Old City Cemetery is the final resting place for the Confederate Veterans who resided at the Old Soldiers and Sailors Home, a refuge for aged and disabled Veterans. The Florida Soldiers Home Association was formed in 1888 with Major Albert Russell (C.S.A.) serving as the organization’s president. Four years later, the Soldiers Home Association purchased ten acres of the Whitney Homestead in which to care for aging Confederate Veterans.
Florida’s Old Confederate Soldiers Home was dedicated on April 6, 1893, consisting of an Italian-styled villa of nine large rooms and a house of two rooms, located at 2336 Talleyrand Avenue. Official regulations required residents to have evidence of their Confederate military service and honorable discharge or parole. The Home was first financed and maintained by the United Confederate Veterans, Sons of Confederate Veterans and Martha Reid Chapter No. 19 United Daughters of the Confederacy. Throughout the years, Florida U.D.C. Chapters gave generously of their time and resources to meet the needs and provide luxuries to the beloved veterans. Confederate organizations of years past acknowledged that the aged soldiers were “a living monument to the War Between the States” and should be cared for, protected and honored. In the years between 1893 and 1938 the number of veterans in the Home ranged from as few as three to as many as forty-seven. For forty years the Home operated and survived on State appropriations and donations from veteran organizations and the U.D.C. Florida’s Confederate home remained in operation until 1938, when the last veteran died. When the property was sold, the State Commander of the United Confederate Veterans transferred funds to the State of Florida for the establishment of an endowment fund to be used for scholarships at the Florida State College for Women (FSU) and the University of Florida.
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July 4, 2013
Did you know …
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America ...” New Americans say these words for the first time at naturalization ceremonies around the country. On July 4th at Seattle Center, more than 500 candidates originating from Angola to Zambia will recite them together in the largest daytime Independence Day observance in the Northwest.
Try to correctly answer these three sample U.S. citizenship test questions:
1. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
2. In what document is the Freedom of Speech found?
3. What do the stars on the U.S. flag represent?
Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Discover more …
Celebrate our nation’s independence while congratulating new U.S. citizens at the Naturalization Ceremony, the largest daytime Independence Day observance in the Northwest. Enjoy music and honor a naturalized citizen, who has made outstanding contributions to their adopted country - the United States, while maintaining his or her ethnic heritage.
But most of all, join the Ethnic Heritage Council and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, plus other elected officials and share an experience of a lifetime welcoming these new citizens. Produced by the Ethnic Heritage Council, Seattle Center and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
On July 4, the 29th Annual Naturalization Ceremony will be held at Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion. The public is encouraged to attend and admission is free.
Answer 1: July 4, 1776
Answer 2: The Bill of Rights
Answer 3: One star for each state
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Before we start, it is important for parents to know that we are not likely to provide "the answers" to parents' sleep concerns. Instead, we'll bring you up to speed with the latest information from the ever growing body of research related to infant sleep. We're taking a developmental approach as we did with the series on the development of language. We'll start with the prenatal period through the first 6 weeks.
How Do Babies Sleep Before They Are Born?
Since ultrasound technologies have become so advanced, researchers know far more than ever before about babies' prenatal behaviors. Distinct sleep states are likely to appear during the last trimester of pregnancy with "active sleep" (lighter sleep with rapid eye movements) being dominant. As any mother knows, fetal sleep cycles do not necessarily to coincide with their moms' sleep cycles. Many moms nearing delivery will tell you that their babies' movements wake them up at night.
What Controls Newborn Sleep Patterns?
In older children and adults, sleep cycles are controlled by specific areas in our brains based on circadian rhythms sensitive to light/dark cycles and by other mechanisms that increase the need for sleep after longer periods of being awake. These controls make us more likely to sleep during the night but also allow us to sleep during the day if we've gone too long without sleep. Another control system influences how long we remain in different types of sleep. Newborns, who are just as happy to sleep during the day as at night, do not seem to develop effective circadian rhythms until they are around 6 weeks old or later. They also are unable to stay awake for long periods of time. Parents of newborns think that their babies wake and sleep randomly, and for the most part, that's true.
Light Sleep, Dreaming, and Brain Development
Newborns sleep very differently from adults. They fall asleep dreaming and may keep dreaming for 20 or 30 minutes. We fall asleep into a "quiet" state of sleep and dream more later in the night and close to morning. Because dreaming happens in a lighter state of sleep, newborns are much more likely to wake up in response to noises, changes in temperature, and movement. When they are dreaming, newborns can make quite a few little noises and their eyes, facial muscles, arms, and legs will move a lot. Some babies may wake themselves up by their own movements. That's why swaddling, which restricts babies' movements, can help newborns sleep a little better. As babies get older, they don't move around quite as much when they sleep and swaddling is no longer necessary.
The brain activity related to dreaming is important for babies' development. Babies brains develop in part because of brain activity in response to stimulation. While babies are awake, they get stimulation from what they see, hear, feel, and taste. While they are asleep and dreaming, babies' brains are active, allowing for brain development to continue even when babies can't stay awake for very long. As babies get older and are able to stay awake for longer periods of time, they spend less time dreaming. During quiet sleep, babies move very little and they are harder to wake.
How Can Parents Help Their Newborns Sleep Longer?
Newborns spend a great deal of time in a lighter state of sleep, waking relatively easily. This is important for babies development and makes the baby likely to wake to feed, to stay warm, and to move as needed. Newborns are not much influenced by light and dark cycles and need to feed frequently. All this means that newborns are going to wake up...a lot...and there isn't much that parents can do about it. But, there are a few things that can make this exhausting time just a bit easier.
- Swaddling can help newborns sleep a little longer because they are less likely to wake themselves up
- Breastfeeding mothers should avoid caffeine because newborns take much longer to process caffeine than adults do
- Holding newborns who have fallen asleep until after their bodies and eyes stop moving will help babies stay asleep when they are put down. Babies in quiet sleep are much less likely to wake easily
- Parents should pay attention to their newborns' noises to learn when they are still asleep and just making noises versus when they are waking up for feeding or other care
Even using all of these tips, parents of newborns will find that their babies will wake frequently. The very best preparation is to arrange to get some help from family and friends to get you through this tough time. Fortunately, things change quickly and more sleep is just around the corner.
Next Time: Big Changes in Sleep Patterns (6 to 16 weeks)
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As tiny products become a big industry, a panel of experts will meet at Stanford tonight to discuss how to regulate nanotechnology to ensure safety without stifling innovation.
Part of the problem, for regulators and the public, is that nanotechnology involves making and manipulating objects so small they defy imagination. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. A recent National Geographic article tried to put that relationship into perspective by comparing a marble to the Earth.
"When you make things small, new things can happen," said Anthony Waitz, a nanotech consultant in Menlo Park who offered this rhetorical for instance: "Will the particle go right through your skin into your bloodstream?"
Waitz, who will moderate the free discussion that starts at 7 p.m. at the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center, keeps a mailing list with about 4,000 Bay Area people interested in nanotechnology. He said the new field must avoid the safety and environmental backlash that has impeded biotech foods, often called GMOs, short for genetically-modified organisms.
"One of the big concerns in the whole world of nano is that it will go the way of GMOs," he said.
That concern was echoed by panelist David Rejeski, executive director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies with the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. Rejeski said it isn't clear what rules pertain to the more than 200 nanotech products that his nonpartisan group has identified as being on the market.
These include sunscreens whose active ingredients -- titanium dioxide and zinc oxide -- have been ground down to the nano-scale, creating lotions that still block ultraviolet rays but rub on clear rather than white because the chemicals are invisible to the naked eye.
Several environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth and the International Center for Technology Assessment, recently demanded that the Food and Drug Administration institute safety testing and labeling of such cosmetic products that contain nanoparticles. The FDA, which said at the time it has no evidence of any danger, will hold an informational hearing in October to get up to speed on the safety of nano ingredients.
Rejeski said questions about nanotech safety will become more common unless proponents assure the public that the field has sufficient oversight. The time to act is now, he said, while people are still forming their impressions.
"Eighty to 90 percent of the public has never heard the word nanotechnology," he said, adding, "The social compact between government, industry and the public will be formed within the next year and a half."
Against this backdrop, the chemical and semiconductor industries -- both conversant with nanotech and accustomed to regulation -- have been working with the Environmental Protection Agency on what amounts to a voluntary, nanotech upgrade to the Toxic Substances Control Act, the 1976 law that governs about 75,000 industrial chemicals.
"EPA is taking a harder look at whether these (regulations) are sufficient, as many believe, or need some tweaks," said Washington attorney Lynn Bergeson, another expert on the Stanford panel. Bergeson has been representing industry in helping EPA create what it calls its Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program.
"A voluntary program can proceed more quickly," said Environmental Defense attorney Karen Florini in explaining why her group is also working on this effort. But Florini, who will not be on the panel, recently sent the EPA a six-page letter, the gist of which is that more than tweaks will be needed to bring 30-year-old chemical rules into the nano age.
Holding the panel in Silicon Valley is an effort to reach startups and investors who rarely get involved in regulatory negotiations. "Traditionally, it's easier to get larger companies involved," Rejeski said. "But a lot of the innovation is being driven by small companies."
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The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor
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Table of Contents
AP English Language
AP English Literature
SAT Test Prep
ACT Exam Prep
The Merry Wives of Windsor Analysis
Literary Devices in The Merry Wives of Windsor
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
If you've been paying attention then you already know that this play is set in Windsor, England—a rural town southwest of London. It turns out this is a pretty big deal because The Merry Wives of...
Look. We're not going to argue with you if you want to say that The Merry Wives of Windsor is just like your favorite TV sitcom or a classic "farce." We won't even argue with you if you say it's li...
Shakespeare didn't name his play "The Bitter Wives of Windsor" or "The Vengeful Wives of Windsor." And there's a good reason for that. Even though Shakespeare explores some potentially weighty them...
Usually, Shakespeare gives his plays a healthy dose of verse (mostly iambic pentameter). But, The Merry Wives of Windsor is different because it has more prose than any other Shakespeare play. (Pro...
What's Up With the Title?
If you want to see two ladies running around some royal court or an expensive foreign city, go read Twelfth Night. The Merry Wives of Windsor is more Gilmore Girls than Gossip Girl: our wives are d...
What's Up With the Ending?
If this comedy were a ride at the county fair, it would totally be a Tilt-a-Whirl. Shakespeare loves to turn the world on its head and revel in the chaos. And we're not going to lie to you. We love...
Listen, Shmooperinos. Merry Wives is a crowd favorite for a reason. It's fun, light-hearted, and pretty easy to follow… once you get used to the fact that Shakespeare's got a thing for multiple p...
Hey LadiesSure, Falstaff's a knight but the guy doesn't have any money—a major problem, since Falstaff's love of food, booze, and women requires lots of cash. He sends identical love letters to t...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Falstaff Thinks He's a Player and Master Ford Is Certain His Wife's a CheaterAccording to Booker, "in the first stage we see a little world in which people have passed under a shadow of confusion,...
Three-Act Plot Analysis
Falstaff is low on cash, so he hatches a plot to seduce the wives of two rich citizens in Windsor, England. After all, says Falstaff, both women have been giving him "good eyes" and checking out hi...
Shakespeare + Cows = More Milk. Seriously. A group of English farmers say their dairy cows produced 4% more milk after listening to actors perform scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor. (source)...
Like just about every other Shakespeare play, The Merry Wives of Windsor is chock-full of dirty jokes and sexual innuendo. But, unless you're the kind of person who would enjoy watching this guy tr...
Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, Il Pecorone (1378). In the second story of Il Pecorone, a young student asks his professor for advice about how to seduce a lady he's fallen in love with. Turns out that la...
© 2013 Shmoop University, Inc. All rights reserved. We love your brain and respect your privacy. |
© 2013 Shmoop University, Inc. All rights reserved. We love your brain and respect your privacy.
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<urn:uuid:52e00b75-5784-4b45-84f7-745ad3dffc64>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.shmoop.com/merry-wives-of-windsor/literary-devices.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.898681 | 785 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Set in the turbulent 1960's, 1963 and the day of Dr. Martin Luther
King's march on Washington to be exact, Ralph Pape’s play “Beyond Your
Command” is billed as a Comedy/Drama but achieves little of either.
The play is set in a low-income black neighborhood.
A white door to door salesman, Nick, is trying to sell vacuum cleaners
to Frances, a kind black woman. He has hired his friend’s son, Danny,
as an assistant and they have worked out an elaborate ploy to be
invited into homes. Danny, however, does not feel as comfortable as
Nick does in exploiting hard-working people. As Nick tries to work his
magic on Frances, who is already on bad terms with her husband for
spending too much money, Danny begins to antagonize him more and more.
The conflict erupts as Frances’ husband arrives
home, after she has already purchased a vacuum. Danny sides with the
angered father and after the husband tears up the purchase receipt,
Nick attacks Danny.
Thematically the play mainly concerns itself with
the three young adults in the play: Danny, Frances' daughter and son,
who is not in the action. Their main purpose is to show that the
prejudices and racism of the older generations is beginning to fade,
that the young people of the 1960's were perhaps more "enlightened"
than their parents.
While in itself it is not a bad play, neither is it
exactly what one would call a good play. The writing is for the most
part solid, the characters heightened yet grounded in reality. But as a
whole, it leaves just a little more to be desired. Instead of the
statement the play sets out to make, the reader is left instead
slightly indifferent, if not annoyed, by the heavy-handed moralism
conducted by Pape.
The title itself is taken from the Bob Dylan song
"Blowin' In The Wind". The playwright was unable to obtain permission
to have a stanza of the song on the first page, and perhaps it was for
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<urn:uuid:721f017c-0d06-4eaa-8e03-443da96e8443>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.shvoong.com/humanities/film-and-theater-studies/2207-command/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.976629 | 454 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Scepticism, as a general attitude with which to approach the world, is often understood to oppose the various forms of dogmatism adopted by fanatics and fundamentalists. Whereas the history and tradition of the philosophical movement underpinning contemporary Scepticism is steeped in logical arguments and nuanced with certain degrees of variety, a uniting thread current throughout its history could (when simplified) be seen as the rejection of any claims to absolute truth or unassailable knowledge. Instead, a sceptic will only admit to the subjective appearance of a truth or of knowledge without believing that the subjective appearance of something is enough to warrant the negation of epistemological doubt.
A sceptic, therefore, is in a state of doubt with regards to claims of knowledge: s/he questions at a fundamental level whether or not they know anything, and whether or not any real, absolute knowledge is even possible. This doubt is primarily based on the premise that subjectivity yields different interpretations of the world, and that if all experience of the world is modulated by subjectivity, then any truly objective knowledge is improbable, if not actually impossible.
This might seem like an extreme position given the huge advances made by the natural sciences, especially since the Industrial Revolution: the sceptical argument that would be employed in its defence against this charge is simply that whereas science allows us to manipulate the material world, its continual revolution indicates that progress and utility are not substitutes for a transcendent, objectively indubitable knowledge.
Indeed, many scientists themselves would rush to point this out to any fundamentalist who adhered, with a religious intensity, to the belief that science presents us only with truth. Science, however, is not as much a victim of dogmatic thought as religion, nationalism, racial relations, politics, etc., has been. One could perhaps think of a sceptic as someone who resists the temptation to take things at face value: by analogy, a sceptic will not buy property based on a real estate agent’s assertion that it is a good investment.
The common denominator amongst the latter group is that these fields of experience are highly biased by subjectivity and self-interest, if not by peer pressure and cultural heritage. Whereas science can claim to rely methodically on observable data that goes to either prove or disprove the possible validity of a theory, politics and religion often rely, for their veracity, on unobservable beliefs and facts not in evidence.
It is primarily against ultimate truth claims that cannot produce observable empirical evidence for their claims (such as those that are often offered by religious institutions and political ideologies) that scepticism aims its “barbs”. It is important to point out, however, that strenuous disagreement remains at the level of intellectual engagement and not that of intimidation, physical or otherwise. Any type of intimidation pertaining to a particular worldview would naturally counter Scepticism’s spirit of employing a critical and logically rigorous method in evaluating culturally embedded and habitually entrenched truth beliefs.
Scepticism, ultimately, aims to encourage critical thought on all levels of experience, from the personal and exceedingly subjective, to communal belief and even large scale societal perception. It is probable that the more critical reasoning is employed, the greater interpersonal and intercultural understanding (and therefore harmony) there will be.
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<urn:uuid:055f21fe-e85f-4a19-80ed-370d14946a67>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.skeptic.co.za/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94667 | 669 | 2.890625 | 3 |
It would be hard to miss the fact that a lot of doomsday believers thought 2012 was going to be the end of the world because of ancient Mayan texts. A newly discovered Mayan text puts a bit of clarity and might ease the concerns of people who believe in that sort of thing. The new text shows that 2012 was the “end date” for the Maya calendar.
That is different from the end of the world according to the researchers. The new text indicates that 2012 would have been celebrated by the ancient Mayan people, but has no doomsday prophecies regarding the date. The Mayan calendar is divided into something called bak’tuns each having 144,000 days beginning from the Maya creation date. The winter solstice of 2012 would be the last day of the 13th bak’tun.
Scientists and researchers say this would’ve been seen as a full cycle of creation. The new text was discovered among the Maya ruins of La Corona in Guatemala. Archaeologists discovered one block on a stairway featuring carved hieroglyphs to celebrate the visit of an ancient and powerful Mayan ruler. The archaeologists believe that this ancient king, known as Jaguar Paw, used a larger cycle of time to promote continuity of his people that happened to end in 2012.
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<urn:uuid:b3d6629b-da40-4b00-94e6-d646b6a2f859>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.slashgear.com/newly-discovered-mayan-text-says-2012-is-the-end-of-the-calendar-not-the-world-29236443/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+slashgear+%28SlashGear%29
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9656 | 264 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Researchers from Yale, Texas A&M and Boston University say, in a new study, that urban areas will expand by 463,000 square miles if current population density trends remain constant. As cities spend trillions of dollars over the next two decades building new roads, buildings, and other infrastructure, the equivalent of 20,000 American football fields will be converted to urban land every day.
While living in urban areas can be a more efficient way to live, the researchers say that global urban development will have to get smarter in order to reap those benefits. If not, it could mean a major blow to biodiversity and carbon emissions.
“Urbanization is often considered a local issue, however our analysis shows that the direct impacts of future urban expansion on global biodiversity hotspots and carbon pools are significant,” said Karen Seto, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at Yale. “The world will experience an unprecedented era of urban expansion and city-building over the next few decades. The associated environmental and social challenges will be enormous, but so are the opportunities.”
The study suggests that cities building new infrastructure should consider infrastructure projects that “avoid infrastructure ‘lock-in,’ be adaptable to unforeseen demands, and have low embodied and operating energy needs.”
If not, the largest urban land expansion in “all of history” will negatively impact the habitat for hundreds of animal species already on critically endangered or endangered lists and increase carbon emissions through deforestation.
Most of the growth, about half, is expected to happen in Asia, mostly from China and India. Africa will see the fastest urban growth with a 590 percent increase from its urban land mass in 2000. In North America urban land area will double.
Read the study here.
Photo: Flickr/Image Zen
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<urn:uuid:7423d25f-0eb5-4439-ba7c-676d941e11e2>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/explosive-urban-growth-expected-in-coming-decades/526
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.911584 | 371 | 3.59375 | 4 |
See DipNote Blog
Thank you for coming out on this beautiful spring day to participate in this first-ever 6 k Walk for Water in celebration of Earth Day.
I see that many of you have bottles of water with you in case you get thirsty. That’s important on a warm spring day like today and I’d ask that you all please remember to recycle your bottles.
Clean, fresh water is the world’s most essential commodity, and yet we take it for granted. I doubt many of us had to walk vey far to fill up our water bottles. Nor did we stare at our kitchen faucet in awe and gratitude this morning as we were making tea or coffee. And yet, the resource that runs freely for us kills some 5,000 children every day—due to dirty water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene.
While nearly a billion people worldwide live without access to clean water, the crisis disproportionately affects women and girls. On average, women in developing countries walk 6 kilometers a day to collect water.
The effects of this crisis reach far beyond the physical hardship of collecting water. It keeps girls out of school and women from other, more productive economic activities.
But there is hope. Women are not just victims—they are change agents and their own best advocates. When women and girls are involved in decisions about the use of water resources, they find innovative ways to create economic opportunities that can dramatically improve their health, access to education, personal empowerment, and living conditions for their families.
The United States is working to make solutions like this possible around the world and is among the world’s leading bilateral donors in the water sector. We know, however, that we cannot do this alone.
That is why on World Water Day last month, Secretary Clinton signed a Memorandum of Understanding among the State Department, the World Bank, USAID, and more than a dozen other agencies declaring a mutual commitment to collectively address the growing water crisis and find long-term sustainable solutions to this daunting challenge.
But our partnerships extend beyond the U.S. government and the World Bank. The non-profit community is a key player in solving water issues and I’d like to take a moment to recognize them. I’d particularly like to recognize WASH Advocacy, based here in Washington, who helped in the organization and promotion of this event. WASH and the many other NGOs represented here are our critical collaborators and partners in solving the water problems around the world.
So today, we come together – U.S. government employees and their family members, NGO representatives, students, media, diplomatic community, and interested citizens – to walk in the footsteps of the millions of women developing world who collect water each day.
We walk so that children no longer die from preventable water related diseases, girls no longer fear going to school for the lack of a toilet and no woman has to spend most of their day collecting water for her family. We walk towards a future in which women will no longer have to walk six kilometers every day to find the water that fuels their survival and growth. Thank you for walking with me!
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<urn:uuid:0c4ffa31-9fcc-4a12-8522-ae28f93e88ad>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.state.gov/j/161883.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.952596 | 643 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Shark brains could hold key to repelling attacks: Study
SYDNEY (AFP) - Shark brains have been found to share several features with those of humans, a discovery which Australian researchers believe could be crucial to developing "repellents" for the killer great white species.
Great white sharks, otherwise known as white pointers and made famous by the horror movie "Jaws", have killed an unprecedented number of surfers and swimmers off Australia's west coast in the past year.
The government last month announced a new catch-and-kill policy for sharks that stray too close to beaches after five fatalities in 10 months. But it is also funding research into other measures, including technology to repel them.
University of Western Australia shark researcher Kara Yopak, who has dissected the brains of more than 150 species, said new studies of the great white shark's brain had revealed important similarities to human brains.
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<urn:uuid:152e4f2d-e0d9-4dfa-a829-c040f36f7576>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.straitstimes.com/st/print/568101
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962382 | 187 | 2.796875 | 3 |
That was the opening stanza of a hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson about the first skirmish of what became the American War For Independence (also popularly – but incorrectly – known as, “The Revolutionary War”).
On 19 April 1775 in the small towns of Lexington and Concord Massachusetts, “Minutemen” from the local militias intercepted columns of British Army Infantry that were marching to Concord and destroy and/or confiscate firearms, gunpowder and ammunition belonging to the Massachusetts militia.
On 20 April 2013, AK-specialist gunsmith extraordinaire Snake Hound Machine will be hosting their “Shoot Heard ‘Round The World” to commemorate the historic Battles of Lexington and Concord. However, as the modern-day Commonwealth of Massachusetts has apparently forgotten its legacy as the birthplace of Colonial resistance to repression and is one of only 7 US states with an “Assault Weapons Ban”, and since Snake Hound Machine is based in New Hampshire, the shoot will be held in New Hampshire.
Workshops are free to attend with registration.
click on the picture above to jump to video
For full details, visit the Snake Hound Machine website page here.
We'll be there, will you?
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<urn:uuid:aca6ee1e-fee9-446c-b115-dc254bc9c1df>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.strikehold.net/2013/02/27/the-shot-heard-round-the-world/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.949513 | 253 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Grace Notes fall into the category of ‘ornamentation’ as they are embellishments which help to give life and energy to a phrase. They are not unique to strings and may have originated in the late baroque period when used as a keyboard ornament and can be performed on almost every orchestral instrument.
A Grace Note is written in notation smaller than the standard size of a note on the stave and often has a diagonal line struck through it. It is a brief note which has no measured time allotted to it and is basically played as rapidly as possible before the main note itself. In folk music, this note is often referred to as a flick and it helps to give a note or phrase a sprightly, dancing quality. Often a string arranger may add grace notes if a phrase is repeated in an identical fashion, so by adding these notes (also known as appoggiaturas) it helps to give colour and variety to a phrase that would otherwise be a bland repetition. There is nothing worse than a ‘cut and paste’ approach to arranging where phrases are repeated without any variety giving the impression of an unvarying theme.
Interestingly, the term ‘acciaccatura’ is often wrongly applied to grace notes. This term actually means a ‘crushed’ note where two notes are played simultaneously and the dissonant note released immediately rather than being an independent note performed before the main note – again this happens a lot in folk and traditional music. So when a string arranger is writing string parts for a folk track, this could also be a technique to be made good use of.
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<urn:uuid:15271c75-131a-4d8c-84bc-48facb2e1e5d>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.stringsection.co.uk/blog/tag/strings-for-a-folk-track/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.972911 | 337 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Is it cheaper to eat fast food than to cook a meal from scratch? Answering such a question is difficult, given that costs will vary greatly from country to country. Why? Well, raw commodity prices are very volatile due to varying government subsidies, differences in climate, extreme climatic events, supply chains, &c.
The supermarket industry in the US is extremely competitive. SuperValu, for example, is a giant corporation that owns many supermarket chains. They are lucky to eek away a 1.5% profit margin. (In other words, at most 1.5% of their gross income is a profit.) That means they could lower their prices at most ~1.5% without taking a loss. Bulk sellers like Costco and even the giant Wal-Mart are lucky to reach 3%. Successful fast food restaurants like McDonalds, on the other hand, easily reach a profit margin of 20%. That means, in effect, McDonalds could reduce their prices by ~20% and still stay afloat.
Why is this? One major reason is that companies like McDonalds can and do have complete vertical integration of their supply chains: McDonalds raises their own cattle, grows their own potatoes, transports their own raw ingredients, and largely owns the real estate of their restaurants. In fact, McDonalds even makes a profit off of leasing their real estate to McDonalds franchises. That flexibility is partially one reason why a Big Mac will be worth the equivalent of US\$10 in Brazil while the same Big Mac will be worth US\$1.50 in Croatia. Supermarkets don't really have much opportunity for vertical integration unless they actually buy and operate their farms and suppliers.
So, is eating fast food really cheaper? As I mentioned in my previous blog entry about food deserts, in the US there is a definitive link between poverty, obesity, and lack of proximity to a supermarket. There was also a study in the UK that discovered a correlation between the density of fast food restaurants and poverty:
Statistically significant positive associations were found between neighborhood deprivation [i.e., poverty] and the mean number of McDonald’s outlets per 1000 people for Scotland (p<0.001), England (p<0.001), and both countries combined (p<0.001). These associations were broadly linear with greater mean numbers of outlets per 1000 people occurring as deprivation levels increased.
Let's have some fun now and look at the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which estimates average expenditures for various goods over a month. The current CPI in the US for food and beverages is \$227.5 (meaning that the average consumer spends \$227.5 per month on food and beverages). Now let's assume that the cost of non-fast-food is cheaper than eating fast food and proceed with a proof by contradiction. Under this assumption, the CPI of \$227.5 is obviously a lower bound on the amount one would spend if one only ate fast food (since the CPI includes all types of food-related expenditures). This equates to about \$8 per day. In 2008, the average price of a Big Mac in the US was \$3.57, and it is certainly possible for one to subsist off of two Big Macs per day. That's especially true since a Big Mac is one of the more expensive items on the McDonalds menu. A McDouble, for example, costs only \$1. This is a contradiction, i.e., we have shown that it is in fact possible to live off of less than \$8 a day of fast food, thus breaking the lower bound and invalidating our assumption that eating non-fast-food is cheaper than eating fast food.∎
This suggests that it is at least plausible that eating fast food could be cheaper than grocery shopping in the US.
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<urn:uuid:080691f1-1192-4a41-abe8-1c4678c3a1da>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.sultanik.com/blog/economics-eating-poorly
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.966446 | 785 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Living with Crohn's disease can be a constant gamble, hoping this won't be the day when your disease flares up.
Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease. It's caused by a malfunction in the body's immune system. Normally, the immune system protects against bacteria and other foreign invaders. But in people with Crohn's disease, it mistakenly attacks the intestines, causing them to swell up and thicken.
As a result, people with Crohn's disease have bouts of severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, and pain with bowel movements. They can lose their appetite, feel tired, and lose weight without meaning to. Some have severe mouth sores.
If you've been experiencing any of these symptoms, your doctor can test for Crohn's with a colonoscopy using a scope to look at your colon from the inside. A wireless video capsule may be swallowed to look at the small intestine. Blood tests or other imaging studies may be needed as well.
If you're concerned about Crohn's, stop smoking. Smoking can increase your chance of getting Crohn's disease and once you have it smoking can make the condition worse.
Medicines can help with the symptoms of Crohn's disease. There are medicines to control diarrhea, and pain relievers to help with abdominal cramps. There are also medicines that quiet the overactive immune response that causes Crohn's.
Changing your diet may make a big difference in preventing or reducing symptoms. But as diet that works well for you may be different than the one that works for others. Eating several small meals a day instead of three big ones prevents your intestines from having to process large amounts of food at once. Your doctor may also recommend that you drink lots of water, and avoid high-fiber and high-fatty foods, as well as any foods that you know make you gassy, perhaps beans or broccoli. You may also need to take iron, B12, and other vitamin and mineral supplements if your Crohn's is preventing you from getting enough nutrients through your diet.
If medicines and diet changes aren't enough to reduce your symptoms, and you develop bleeding or an infection in your intestines, you may need a procedure called a bowel resection to remove the diseased part of your intestines. This procedure won't cure Crohn's, but it can help control the complications of the disease.
If you're experiencing Crohn's symptoms, like stomach pain, severe diarrhea, or unplanned weight loss, call your doctor. Although there's no cure for Crohn's, treatments can relieve some of the uncomfortable symptoms, prevent complications, helping improve your quality of life.
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<urn:uuid:e05a5b8b-f5bd-43ca-9cfa-4303d9e90cdc>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.svh-mt.org/body_iframe.cfm?id=213&action=detail&AEArticleID=000163&AEProductID=Adam2004_5117&AEProjectTypeIDURL=APT_57
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.957699 | 544 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Swimming is one of the very few, if not the only, cradle to grave sports. It is a sport you can introduce your child to at a very early age, and they can continue to swim through all stages of their life.
Swimming is also a sport that can be picked up at any age or at any stage in a person’s life.
Remember parents, swimming takes place in a very different medium to other sports – water. Because of this, we recommend that you introduce your child to the environment as early as possible. The easiest, cheapest place to do this is your own bath at home. Allow children get used to the feel of the water on their skin, particularly on their face.
Once a child has received their vaccinations they can be brought to your local swimming pool. Again, the earlier this is done, the better it is for a child. It is also important that going swimming is a regular occurrence as it allows your child to get used to the different smells and noises that can be found at the pool.
Once your child reaches the age of approximately 12 months, and wants to explore moving in the water on their own we recommend the use of a floatation device. Of course, it is vital that parents stay close to their child at all times while the child is in the pool. The important thing at this age is allowing them to get comfortable in the water.
We do not recommend formal classes for children until they reach school going age, but there are a number of classes out there should you wish to avail of them. These consist of Swim-A-Song; a Swim Ireland programme for children from 3-36 months encouraging them to explore movement in the water through the use of nursery rhymes or Waterbabies; a programme for children from 6 weeks – 12months teaching parents how to teach their children to swim.
Once a child reaches school going age (or an age at which they can understand instruction) we recommend they join a Learn to Swim programme. Click here to find a pool close to you where you may find a programme.
As your child progresses through the Learn to Swim programme you will see huge improvements in their confidence and their abilities in the water. As your child moves up through the levels, they may decide they would like to join a swimming club. Discuss this option with the swimming teacher and contact your local club (details can be found by clicking here) to find out about how to join.
Should your child not want to swim, but would like to take part in some form of activity in the pool, you can also find details for your local water polo or diving clubs by clicking on the above link.
If you would like further information on Child Learn to Swim or swimming clubs etc, please read our FAQs which can be found here:Child and Adult Learn to Swim FAQ
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<urn:uuid:1a22d6fd-ca9c-45d1-b352-d75f22ad998f>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.swimireland.ie/get-swimming/learn-to-swim/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.974647 | 580 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Every Mac stores a hosts file in the hidden /etc folder, which is used by the operating system and your web browser to map particular hostnames to certain IP addresses. When you enter a website URL address into the Address Bar of Safari, for example, OS X will first check for a corresponding mapping in the hosts file, before moving on to the DNS server to find the required IP address.
For the vast majority of Mac OS X users, the hosts file is something they will never be required to touch. However, for more advanced users, the hosts file can have two particular uses.
Firstly, if you are involved in web programming, using the hosts file can allow you to redirect a domain to a local address on your Mac, where you can test out code “offline” before applying it to the actual website.
The second instance where you may want to edit the hosts file is because it is a highly effective means of blocking known suspicious sites that may attempt to deliver unwanted advertising to disrupt your surfing experience, or even download viruses or other malware to your computer.
Editing your hosts file incorrectly can have adverse effects on your Mac. You should only attempt to edit the hosts file if you have a clear purpose for doing so and are confident in your understanding of Terminal commands.
Editing the Hosts File in Mac OS X
1.) To begin editing the hosts file, you will need to use a Terminal window. Open one either by clicking on Applications, then Utilities and then Terminal, or by pressing Cmd-Spacebar to open Spotlight, typing Terminal and pressing Return. The Terminal window should look like this:
2.) We now need to open the hosts file for editing in the Terminal. We do this be entering the following command (or Copy and Paste from below) at the Terminal prompt:
sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
Press Return. Terminal will ask you to enter your Administrator Password:
Do so and again press Return.
3.) The hosts file will open in the Terminal window for editing:
To navigate the hosts file, use your arrow keys to move up and down. The lines beginning with the hash (#) symbol are comments and should not be edited. There will also be some default mappings, such as the entry 127.0.0.1 for localhost.
4.) Use the ↓ Arrow Key to move the cursor to a blank space at the bottom of the hosts file, and enter your new mapping here. In the following example, we are adding an entry to prevent the Doubleclick Advertising server from sending files to our web browser:
5.) To save the hosts file after editing, press Ctrl-o. This will bring up a prompt for the file name to write to:
Press Return to save the hosts file. You can then exit editing the hosts file by pressing Ctrl-x. This will return you to the Terminal prompt:
6.) For the changes to your hosts file to take effect, you must first flush your DNS cache. To do so, enter the following command (or Copy and Paste from here) at the Terminal prompt:
Press Return. You can now exit the Terminal and your new host mappings will be in effect.
For more information on using the hosts file to prevent adware, spyware and other malicious software, we recommend visiting Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File. The site tracks all reported problematic host names, and prepares a list of problem sites that is updated every few weeks.
The site is primarily Windows-focused, but the problem sites listed in their hosts .txt file can be used in the OS X hosts file by replacing each instance of “127.0.0.1″ with “0.0.0.0″. Please note this does not include the “127.0.0.1 local host” entry mentioned above, which should never be altered.
For advanced users, editing the hosts file can be very useful in certain situations. However, we once again emphasize that you should not attempt to do so unless you are confident in using the Terminal and have a clear reason to edit the OS X hosts file.
|
<urn:uuid:16546897-4178-4175-b064-6d57eb8a79a5>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.switchingtomac.com/tutorials/how-to-edit-the-hosts-file-in-os-x/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.904133 | 856 | 2.828125 | 3 |
We spend on average a third of our lives asleep. Sleep is often seen as a time where the body is inactive. Sleep is an active period in which we rest and our body is able to renew the energy used during the day. Just as many people need different size shoes, they may need different amounts of sleep.
Just like the characteristics you are born with, the amount of sleep you need to function best may be different for you than for someone who is of the same age and gender. It is important to pay attention to your own individual needs by thinking about how you feel on different amounts of sleep.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Are you experiencing sleep problems?
- Are you productive, healthy and happy on the amount of sleep you get?
- Do you depend on caffeine or sugary drinks to get through the day?
- Do you have health issues?
What you can do
Begin by assessing your own needs and habits.
Make sleep a priority - you must schedule sleep just like any other daily activity.
Listen to your body - you may need anything between 2 and 12 hours sleep. If you sleep that little (or much!) and feel fine, then that's the right amount for you. There is no evidence for the recommended 8 hours a night.
Establish consistent sleep and wake schedules - getting little sleep during the week and making up for it at the weekend can cause you to feel even more tired. Try to establish a regular sleep and wake time, even on weekends so your body has the opportunity to get into a routine.
Create a relaxing routine - try to listen to music or take a bath an hour before bed.
Finish eating 2 - 3 hours before bed - if you are still hungry try something light like a slice of toast.
Avoid Stimulants - caffeine increases your heart rate and will make you feel more awake.
Try to give up smoking - nicotine stimulates the mind and the body by inducing a release of adrenaline which will leave you feeling alert.
Avoid Alcohol - although alcohol can make you feel sleepy it has been to shown to result in poorer quality of sleep and awakening during the night.
Exercise regularly - exercise early in the day is better for people who want to improve sleep. It also improves your mood and removes feelings of anxiety.
Create a sleep friendly environment - the bedroom should be somewhere that we associate with sleep, you should be able to sleep without any distractions.
Use your bedroom for sleep and sex only - try not to watch tv, read or use a computer in bed.
Temperature - being too hot or too cold during the night will stimulate the brain, so try to regulate body temperature for a peaceful night's sleep.
Light - our bodies are programmed to awaken during the hours of natural light so to ensure a good nights sleep make sure your bedroom is dark. You may find that black out curtains or an eye mask can help to achieve this.
Learn to relax - relaxation techniques can help you to unwind and release tension. Mindfulness (a type of meditation) can be done both on your own or through an audio guide. Check the Library section for free audio downloads.
Don't stress yourself out thinking about sleep too much or trying to force yourself to sleep, it will only keep you awake.
If you're not tired, get up have a warm milky drink (no sugar or caffeine) and go back to bed when you feel a little sleepier.
5 Top tips for a good night's sleep
- Try not to nap
- If you're not tired, get up
- Review your lifestyle
- Don't worry about it
- Keep a sleep diary (see library for downloads)
|
<urn:uuid:7bf749fc-c1ee-4f11-9261-cdbd82250a3d>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.talkingchange.org.uk/wellbeing/sleep.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.944408 | 754 | 3.1875 | 3 |
I had to modify some of the activities and language about the five senses for my pre-k students. I included more oral language.
Students will discover the connection between the five senses and the body parts used for each sense.
Students will develop oral language through repetition (especially for children with limited language skills).
Students will use Kidpix to publish drawing pieces about the five senses.
Students will create a Big Book on the five senses.
Students will use Kidpix to create pictures about the five senses. Teacher will type their oral stories about the five senses onto their pictures.
Teacher will listen to student responses to questions about the five senses and assess their pictures to see if concepts were understood.
Introduce all five senses as a whole and connect them with their body parts. As the children get more comfortable with the language, individual senses can be added on with hands-on activities. I love to include songs in my units and I found some very useful ones in the following sites about the five senses:
|
<urn:uuid:a0ccea04-d0ca-42c3-99c6-d2bb0082ced1>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/adaptors/moy/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708143620/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124223-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94921 | 208 | 4.15625 | 4 |
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