text stringlengths 199 648k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 419 | file_path stringlengths 139 140 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | token_count int64 50 235k | score float64 2.52 5.34 | int_score int64 3 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Keith Wipke of NREL discusses NREL’s new hydrogen station and the HyStEP device being used to test it with David Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the DOE. | Photo courtesy of NREL
When one thinks of clean energy, they often think of California, who is commmitting up to $100M over five years to build 100 hydrogen stations across the state, as the biggest mover and shaker. But Colorado is quickly gaining ground when it comes to hydrogen and fuel cells.
Backed by a substantial support system of energy research companies, organizations, and universities that provide research, testing, and employment, hydrogen and fuel cell activities in Colorado have been steadily increasing. Generous tax credits for zero-emission vehicles and funding for clean-tech companies through accelerator programs are also factors in Colorado’s rising position.
Colorado is home to the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development in the United States. NREL operates the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), which includes a state-of-the-art Fuel Cell Development and Test Laboratory. The facility’s hydrogen and fuel cell research focuses on developing, integrating, and demonstrating hydrogen production and delivery, hydrogen storage, and fuel cell technologies for transportation, stationary, and portable applications. Major automakers such as Toyota, Daimler, GM, Hyundai, Nissan, and Honda have utilized NREL’s testing capabilities when developing their FCEVs.
In celebration of National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day on Oct. 8, NREL dedicated its hydrogen fueling station, the first of its kind in Colorado. The fueling station is part of NREL's new hydrogen infrastructure testing and research facility, where scientists will be able to produce hydrogen through electrolysis, test fuel cell vehicle and infrastructure components and systems, and improve renewable hydrogen production methods. The facility will support research and development projects funded by the Energy Department's Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) as well as industry, government, and university partners.
NREL is using the facility to test the hydrogen station equipment performance (HyStEP) device for EERE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office. The HyStEP device is intended to accelerate commercial hydrogen station acceptance by validating that the station can follow standard protocols for safe hydrogen fueling. The data generated by the device will be shared with all car manufacturers, instead of each company having to separately validate a station's performance.
Fuel cells are a player in the forklift space in Colorado, as well. The Kroger facility in Stapleton operates over 200 fuel cell forklifts and installed state-of-the-art infrastructure with liquid storage and multiple dispensers.
The Colorado Hydrogen Coalition (CHC) was formed in 2014 to accelerate the development of the hydrogen and fuel cell technologies market in Colorado, and to promote collaborative stakeholder engagement across sectors. CHC brings together interests from the Energy Department, NREL, automakers, Clean Cities, Colorado fuel cells component manufacturers, local governments, and professional service providers. Currently, the CHC’s work is focused in helping develop Colorado’s regulations, codes and standards to support broader commercialization of fuel cells. The Coalition is also working with automakers to get commercially available fuel cell vehicles in limited numbers into the state through fleet leases, in addition to the first publically available fueling station. | <urn:uuid:67e05db6-10c8-4b76-b398-5edfaeb1aa58> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://energy.gov/eere/articles/colorado-joins-hydrogen-and-fuel-cells-race | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939744 | 715 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Seismology Teacher Resources
Find Seismology educational ideas and activities
Showing 1 - 20 of 83 resources
Shake it up with Seismographs!
Shake things up in your STEM or earth science classroom when you have small groups construct their own seismographs. A reading assignment on the history of seismographs, the Richter scale, and current technology sets the stage for the...
3rd - 12th Science CCSS: Adaptable
Why Do Buildings Fall in Earthquakes?
There are few natural phenomena as startling as an earthquake, and depending on the building you're in, these experiences can be downright terrifying. Follow along as this video explores the factors that determine how a building reacts...
5 mins 4th - 12th Science CCSS: Adaptable
Earthquakes: A Whole Lot of Quakin' Goin" On
High schoolers develop Modified Mercalli Intensity values for a written description of an earthquake. They map MMi values and defend their decisions where to place them on a large-scale zip code map. They define how measures of magnitude...
9th - 12th Science
Shake It Up with Seismographs!
Learning about the earth should be a moving experience, and what better way to record that movement than with a seismograph? Each team will work together to design and build a seismometer, then compete against the other teams to see...
4th - 12th Science CCSS: Adaptable
Plate Tectonics: Sixth Grade Lesson Plans and Activities
New ReviewHere is a set of pre-lab, lab, and post-lab lesson plans on plate tectonics. After completing the previous labs on volcanoes and earthquakes, sixth graders use the gained knowledge to explore plate boundaries and the movement of Earth's...
Compound Words and Earthquakes
Challenge your class members to create new compound words. After examining compound words associated with earthquakes, groups select a topic that has some local connection, brainstorm a list of associated words, and invent new compound...
8th English Language Arts CCSS: Adaptable | <urn:uuid:2df57a94-a86c-48b9-b27e-2606d2ff3c4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lessonplanet.com/lesson-plans/seismology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00103-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910867 | 427 | 4 | 4 |
The cortex of the ovary contains numerous follicles embedded in a thick stroma. Most of the follicles are resting primordial follicles. Follicles which have been stimulated to develop progress through primary and secondary stages to become mature tertiary or Graafian follicles.
Comments and questions: firstname.lastname@example.org
SIUC / School
of Medicine / Anatomy / David
Last updated: 20 March 2002 / dgk | <urn:uuid:41a2fbda-a722-49bd-bf2f-964206d75e78> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.siumed.edu/~dking2/erg/RE002b.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.80065 | 93 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Michael R. Genesereth
Much of one’s knowledge of a task domain is in the form of simple facts and procedures. While these facts and procedures may vary from domain to domain, there is often substantial similarity in the "abstract structure" of the knowledge. For example, the notion of a hierarchy is found in biological taxonomy, the geological classification of time, and the organization chart of a corporation. One advantage of recognizing such abstractions is that they can be used in selecting metaphors and models that are computationally very powerful and efficient. This power and efficiency can be used in evaluating plausible hypotheses about new domains and can thereby motivate the induction of abstractions even in the face of partial or inconsistent data. Furthermore, there is a seductive argument for how such information processing criteria can be used in characterizing "intuitive" thought and in explaining the cogency of causal arguments. The idea of large-scale, unified knowledge structures like abstractions is not a new one. The gestalt psychologists (e.g. [Kohler]) had the intuition decades ago, and recently Kuhn [Kuhn], Minsky [Minsky], and Schank [Schank & Abelson] have embodied similar intuitions in their notions of paradigms, frames, and scripts. (See also [Bobrow & Norman] and [Moore & Newell] for related ideas.) The novelty here lies in the use of such structures to select good metaphors and models and in the effects of the resulting power and efficiency on cognitive behavior. This paper describes a particular formalization of abstractions -in a knowledge representation system called ANALOG and shows how abstractions can be used in model building, understanding and generating analogies, and theory formation. The presentation here is necessarily brief and mentions only the highlights. The next section defines the notions of abstraction and simulation structure. Section 3 describes the use of abstractions in building computational models, and section 4 shows how abstractions can bc used to gain power as well as efficiency. | <urn:uuid:81fe45f7-8a4c-424e-9fc9-73ea788a188d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://aaai.org/Library/AAAI/1980/aaai80-058.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916244 | 409 | 2.859375 | 3 |
+ add to my flashcards
cite this term
Countertransference is a situation in which a therapist, during the course of therapy, develops positive or negative feelings toward the patient. These feelings may be the therapist's unconscious feelings that are stirred up during therapy which the therapist directs toward the patient. A therapist might start feeling uneasy about therapy or the patient, unhappy with the way therapy is going, or unhappy with themselves. Just like transference, this is not an uncommon situation in the therapeutic situation. Of course, therapists must not act on any feelings they have
Interested in a Graduate Psychology Degree?
You can get free information about Adler University's graduate psychology programs just by answering a few short questions.
It only takes a minute. What are you waiting for? Get Free Info | <urn:uuid:e5a742fd-7644-458f-b4ce-80480c29b7fa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Countertransference | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90382 | 160 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Linea nigra, a dark vertical line that appears in the middle of the belly is one of many pregnancy-related skin changes you may experience during your pregnancy. It is completely harmless and does not signal any problems with your health nor your pregnancy and there is no need to be concerned about it because your baby is doing just fine. Nevertheless, it cannot hurt to know what that dark line in the middle of you belly means, what causes it and what can you do about it.
Although linea nigra is associated with pregnancy-related skin changes, a pale line running from your belly button to the pubic area is there all the time but most women do not even notice it before they are pregnant. Its Latin name (i.e. black line) suggests that it is black but the line is usually light to dark brown and about a half inch wide. This line tends to be more noticeable in women with a darker skin tone and typically appears in the second trimester of pregnancy. It is believed to be caused by pregnancy hormones which increase the production of melanin, a substance that determines the color of your skin. Next to this dark line on your belly, you may also notice darkening of your skin elsewhere including your nipples and genital area.
Why some women develop a dark line in the middle of their belly and the others do not is not completely understood but health experts agree that it is not a cause of concern. There are some studies, however, which claim that the line in the middle of your belly could signal deficiency of folic acid which is associated with increased risk of neural tube defect. However, if you eat a healthy and nutritionally balanced diet, and take your prenatal vitamins there is no need to be concerned about folic acid deficiency. In addition, the line is also developed by women who are getting the recommended daily amounts of folic acid.
There are no sure ways to prevent linea nigra nor to make it less noticeable while pregnant. It usually fades after delivery but in some women it never completely goes away. If you develop this dark line in the middle of your belly, continue with healthy pregnancy diet and make sure that you take your prenatal vitamins to prevent folic acid deficiency. Avoid exposing your belly to the sun because it will make the line even more noticeable. Also, avoid direct sunlight exposure between 10 am and 4 pm when UV radiation is most intense and always use a sunscreen of at least SPF 15 or cover your belly when exposed to direct sunlight.
You may come across a tale that connects the line in the middle of your belly with your baby’s gender. The tale goes that the line that runs to the belly button indicates that you are carrying a girl and that the line extending above your belly button is a sign that you are carrying a boy. However, this method of gender prediction is just as unreliable as other so-called foolproof methods. If you would like to know what gender your baby will be, ask your doctor when he or she will be performing an ultrasound. | <urn:uuid:b0cbeb32-bb67-45dd-9b22-a2c080c21635> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.babylifetime.com/pregnancy/linea-nigra/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965638 | 614 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- Coverage Dates: Current edition
- Update Frequency: Ongoing
The Encyclopædia Britannica database includes thousands of articles from the printed Encyclopædia Britannica, including thousands more that are not found in the print set. The resource also includes year-in-review articles from recent yearbooks, The Britannica Student Encyclopedia, and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus. Most articles are brief or of moderate length and discuss people, places, institutions, things, or concepts. Longer articles are divided into separate sections for easier access and more accurate searching.
The database also includes an extensive World Atlas linking users to maps, flags, statistics, and more for many countries. The Web Sites section in each article includes links to related Web sites, selected for content by Britannica editors.
- Database Provider: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
- Database Tutorial: Britannica Training Materials
- Database Tutorial: Britannica Guided Tours
Express Link (bookmark): http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zebo | <urn:uuid:16f9ddea-6e1c-41a1-adb4-cca89bfc869e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.galileo.usg.edu/scholar/databases/zebo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.793996 | 239 | 2.625 | 3 |
History of politically correct terms for Black Americans
In chronological order:
- Colored (see NAACP)
- Person of Color
Even though all of these terms mean the same thing, some are now deemed offensive. Over time, especially in conservative circles, Americans have been moving to a color-blind society, where achievement matters and race is irrelevant. Moving against this trend is the rise in affirmative action. | <urn:uuid:15782713-09a6-47d9-a05f-4cc6c3c33647> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.conservapedia.com/History_of_politically_correct_terms_for_Black_Americans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908666 | 82 | 3.421875 | 3 |
This tool version is unpublished and cannot be run. If you would like to have this version staged, you can put a request through HUB Support.
an accurate and precise method for measuring the Young’s modulus of MEMS with comb drives by electronic probing of capacitance. The electronic measurement can be performed off-chip for quality control or on-chip after packaging for self-calibration. Young’s modulus is an important material property that affects the static or dynamic performance of MEMS. Electrically-probed measurements of Young’s modulus may also be useful for industrial scale automation. Conventional methods for measuring Young’s modulus include analyzing stress-strain curves, which is typically destructive, or include analyzing a large array of test structures of varying dimensions, which requires a large amount of chip real estate. Our method measures Young’s modulus by uniquely eliminating unknowns and extracting the fabricated geometry, displacement, comb drive force, and stiffness. Since Young’s modulus is related to geometry and stiffness that we find using electronic measurands, we are able to express Young’s modulus as a function of electronic measurands. We verify our method by using it to predict the Young’s modulus of a computer model. We treat the computer model as we would a true experiment by depending only on its electronic measurands. We find good agreement in predicting the exactly known Young’s modulus in a computer model within 0.1%. | <urn:uuid:92843fe4-14f0-41f1-9728-c8f5659b8b2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nanohub.org/resources/youngsmoduluse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939682 | 312 | 3 | 3 |
Documenting the location and number of rare animals isn’t an easy task - by definition there just aren’t that many of them around. That’s why researchers at Auburn University, Alabama, have turned to man’s best friend to lend a helping hand – or more accurately, a helping nose. The school’s EcoDogs project trains detection dogs to find endangered animal species, or rather their sign (read excrement), in the field to aid researchers in their goals of ecological research, management, and conservation.
The dogs are trained to find the excrement (or scat, poop, do-do or whatever you want to call it) of endangered species because the critters themselves can be too elusive. Few people have even seen many of the animals being “hunted” and very little is known about them – including the habitats in which they live.
The dogs’ incredible sense of smell and their ability to discern individual scents, even when they are masked by other odors, are why Todd Steury, assistant professor of wildlife ecology in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, enlisted the canines for the EcoDogs program to study "greatest conservation need" species.
"Each animal's scat contains DNA specific to that animal," he said. "By collecting scat samples, we can get a population count for a certain location. This will allow us to formulate an estimate for a much larger area."
EcoDogs, which began at Auburn University one year ago, is the only program of its kind in the Southeast and is one of four such efforts in the United States. Two are located in Washington state and one in Montana.
"Alabama is home to 117 endangered species, which is third in the United States behind Hawaii and California, and numerous other species are at risk," Steury said. The goal, he says, is to find populations large enough to study with additional techniques such as trapping and attaching radio transmitter collars.
"We want to find out what is reducing the populations," he said. "Is it disease? Is it predators? We need to know the reproduction rates. We then can address issues that cause animals to become endangered."
In the fieldThe college has handlers who train the dogs and accompany Steury and his graduate students to the research sites. The dogs can work up to four hours a day covering 12 miles in a zigzag pattern around the edges of a triangular area. Dogs usually detect the scat within 15 meters, sometimes up to 100 meters, and will sit down when they find the appropriate scent. A GPS collar allows trainers to keep up with the dog’s location and it records the dog's path, which can be viewed later on a computer.
"If we see sudden or irregular paths on the GPS, this can indicate where the dog detected the scent of the scat," Steury said.
TrainingSophie, a 15-month-old black Labrador retriever, is trained to find scat from eastern spotted skunks, while Bishop, a 3-year-old black Labrador retriever, is trained to find scat from striped skunks. Both can also detect scat from black bears. The program recently added five new dogs as well.
Using samples of scat collected from zoos and other wildlife organizations training time takes three to six weeks for the first scent and then a few days for additional scents.
"We try to obtain scat from 10 to 20 individual animals of the species we want to study," he said. "The dogs are exposed to those samples and rewarded for finding them. We also expose them to scat from other animals, such as deer, but we don't reward them for finding those droppings. This teaches the dogs to ignore those scents."
Debunking mountain lion mythsAside from sniffing out the location of known endangered species, the EcoDogs program could also help prove or disprove stories about possible mountain lion sightings in Alabama.
"We would like to train a dog to find mountain lion scat," he said. "We hear stories that mountain lions have been seen here, but Alabama is not in their range. Most likely people have seen large bobcats or even coyotes. I would be very surprised if mountain lions are found here."
EcoDogs is a collaborative project between Auburn University's School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Animal Health Performance Program, which includes the Canine Detection and Research Institute and the Sports Medicine Program.Currently the program boasts three handlers and six dogs (all Labradors), with more being trained. | <urn:uuid:3a4310ba-1924-4dc3-8969-6f01a7060313> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gizmag.com/ecodogs-track-endangered-species/15469/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965207 | 956 | 3.796875 | 4 |
The original Admiralty was one of the first structures to be built in St Petersburg. It was designed to be a dockyard, where some of the first ships of Russia's Baltic fleet were built (some with the participation of Tsar Peter himself who, was an expert in shipbuilding). The Admiralty was also fortified to be an extra defense for the newly acquired territory of the Neva delta.
The Admiralty building we see today was built between 1806 and 1823 by the architect Adrian Zakharov. He maintained the original plan of the building, but turned it into a marvelous example of the Russian Empire style, with rows of white columns, wonderful relief detail and numerous statues. The gilded spire of the Admiralty (and particularly its weather-vane korablik - "the little ship") is another of St. Petersburg's famous landmarks. The Admiralty tower, topped with its golden spire, is the focal point of three of the city's main streets; Nevsky Propect, Gorokhovaia Street and Voznesensky Prospekt, and can be seen along the entire length of each one.
The Admiralty was Russia's Naval Headquarters until 1917, and now serves as a naval college. The gardens in front of the Admiralty are particularly beautiful in summer, and you might choose to walk through them on your way from the Hermitage to the "Bronze Horseman" and St Isaac's. | <urn:uuid:cf3d0a18-43a4-40a6-b1b7-d68c79b73a5d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.saint-petersburg.com/virtual-tour/admiralty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972117 | 297 | 2.6875 | 3 |
New map highlights food access issues
Published: Monday, March 25, 2013 at 7:13 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, March 25, 2013 at 7:13 a.m.
Many residents in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes live in communities that don't have readily access to nutritious food, a new interactive map developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows.
The map examines which areas in Terrebonne and Lafourche are “food deserts” — places with many residents without access to a vehicle and who do not live within a mile of a grocery store.
Some of the largest numbers of residents with food access issues live in Thibodaux and Houma. In parts of west Houma between La. 24 and La. 311, 22 percent of households, or about 480 of 2,147 households, lacked access to nutritious foods. In parts of Thibodaux and Chackbay west of Canal Boulevard and south of La. 308, about 17 percent of residents, or 397 out of 2,278 households lacked food access.
While both of these communities have multiple grocery stores, these residents lacked transportation and didn't live within walking distance of a grocery store.
Ensuring all residents have access to nutritious foods is a growing concern for nutritionists and health experts, said LSU AgCenter nutritionist Debbie Melvin. When health experts talk about food access, they're mainly referring to whether people can conveniently and affordably buy fresh foods, including fruits and vegetables, instead of the processed foods available at most convenience stores and or dollar stores.
“Fruits and vegetables are a key part of healthy diet, but Americans on average do not eat enough of them,” said Diego Rose, professor and head of the nutrition section at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “Households with difficult access to grocery stores tend to eat even fewer healthy foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables. This is because it costs more for these households to go shopping, both in time and in out-of-pocket transportation costs.”
Fresh fruits and vegetables don't last as long as canned and processed foods and need to be replenished more frequently, Rose added. If you live far away from a store, you're less likely to resupply these foods, so you eat less of them.
In addition, stores like convenience stores or dollar stores are less likely to stock perishable foods because they will spoil if they're not purchased.
Rose said the issue is of particular concern for low-income households that spend a larger share of their money on food and are particularly affected by high prices.
While there may be more stores in cities, people often lack access to a car. If they're on the other side of town, it becomes more difficult and more costly to go food shopping. Even where there is public transportation, there are only so many groceries a person can carry if walking or taking the bus.
That means people shop less frequently, so they consume less fresh fruits and vegetables.
“In a way, it's basic demand theory,” he said. “If the price is too high for something, people will buy less of it. Difficult access to food stores tacks on extra dollars to the grocery bill, so overall purchases are reduced.”
Many residents of rural bayou communities said they lack access to grocery stores. As residents have migrated north to escape flooding and high insurance premiums, many businesses in those communities have pulled up roots, and residents now have to take long drives into larger cities such as Houma to shop.
Layla O'Brien, 33, a Bayou Black resident, said her area only has a few convenience stores that sell food.
“Jean's Country Store closed years ago,” she said. “There isn't even a dollar store or Family Dollar.”
She added that while Houma has a variety of grocery stores, it needs something like the health chain Whole Foods, which carries a variety of organic food brands. Local stores carry some organic foods, but they are pricey, she said.
Dulac resident Barbara Blankenship said there are no grocery stores in her community that carry fresh fruits, vegetables and meat.
“At least Family Dollar has milk and bread and a few other necessary items that you do not have to go into Houma for,” she said.
When people consume more processed foods, Melvin said, they're often filling up on things that are less nutritious and filling. “Junk carbs” don't fill them up and leave them consuming more.
“It doesn't provide the feeling of fullness, and it snowballs from there,” she said. “That's where we get the paradox of obesity in some of these low-income communities. It's where there are many cheap, low-nutrition foods being consumed.”
Melvin said the solutions to food access issues are complicated because grocery stores are businesses.
But it can be helped by something as simple as promoting home or community gardening, teaching people to grow their own vegetables and fruits, she said.
Experts also recommend looking at transportation infrastructure, promoting supermarket development and encouraging existing stores to carry more diverse and healthy food options.
Staff Writer Nikki Buskey can be reached at 857-2205 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:89acf5e0-af17-400e-b6a9-9edd1bcf2444> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20130325/ARTICLES/130329786/1320 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964976 | 1,153 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The French armed forces numbered approximately 250,000 troops regular armed forces in June 2010. This made it the largest military force in Europe and the 14th largest in the world by number of troops. The Commander-in-Chief is the President of the Republic. On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered a wide-ranging review of French defence which lead to a new White Paper in May 2008, proposing to create a smaller and more mobile army, with a strong emphasis on intelligence.
As of April 2012, French forces invovled in diffrent operations in the world were composed of 7000 soldiers. Click here for an interactive deployment map.
As of May 2012 France contributed 1,398 personnel to the following UN peace operations:
Source: UN Peacekeeping, Monthly Summary of Contributors of Military and Civilian Personnel
- UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO)
- UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
- UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO)
- UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO)
- UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)
- UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI)
- UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
ISAF: The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has been created in accordance with the Bonn Conference in December 2001. NATO assumes leadership of ISAF operations under a Security Council mandate since 11 August 2003. ISAF aims at assisting the Afghan Government in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country. France contributed 3,308 soldiers as of May 2012.
- KFOR: The NATO-led Kosovo Force has been leading a peace support operation in Kosovo since UN Security Council Resolution 1244 was adopted on 10 June 1999. Following the declaration of independence on 17 February 2008, the Alliance reaffirmed that KFOR shall remain in Kosovo, unless the United Nations Security Council decides otherwise. KFOR cooperates with and assists the UN, the EU, and other international actors, to support the development of a stable, democratic, multi-ethnic and peaceful Kosovo. As of May 2012 France contributed 307 soldiers .
Ongoing military operations:
- EUFOR - Operation ALTHEA: On 2 December 2004 the European Union launched Operation ALTHEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina following the decision by NATO to conclude its Stabilisation Force Mission (SFOR). According to Security Council resolution 1575 (2004), the role of the European mission is to provide a military presence in order to contribute to the safe and secure environment, deny conditions for a resumption of violence and manage any residual aspect of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in accordance with the Paris-Dayton agreements. The role of the Althea operation is to stabilise peace in Bosnia, in accordance with the Paris-Dayton agreements, through the establishment of a multinational stabilisation force (EUFOR). EUFOR is the legal successor to SFOR, the previous stabilisation force of NATO in Bosnia.
- EU NAVFOR Somalia - Operation Atalanta: On 10 November 2008, the EU Council adopted a joint action establishing a military operation consisting in the deployment of a naval force off the coast of Somalia in support of United Nations Security Council Resolutions pertaining to the fight against piracy in Somalia (resolutions 1814, 1816, 1838, 1846 and 1851). Operation EUNAVFOR reached its Initial Operational Capability on 13 December 2008 and Full Operational Capability in February 2009. This operation, which is the first EU maritime operation, is conducted in the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).On 14 June 2010, the Council of the EU decided to extend the Operation's mandate for another two years until 12 December 2012.
Ongoing civilian operations:
- EULEX Kosovo: The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo works under the general framework of United Nations Security Resolution 1244. It replaced the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in December 2008. It aims at assistsing and supporting the Kosovo authorities in the rule of law area, specifically in the police, judiciary and customs areas.
: The EU Police Mission was launched on 1 January 2003 to replace the UN’s International Police Task Force (IPTF) in Bosnia and Herzegovina for an initial period of three years. EUPM was the first CSDP mission launched by the EU. In line with the general objectives of the Paris-Dayton Agreement, the goal of the mission is to inspect and monitor police operations, provide support to the police reform process and consolidate local capacity and regional cooperation in the fight against organised crime. On 8 December 2009, the Council of the EU has decided to extend the operation until 31 December 2011.
- EUSEC DR Congo : The European Union mission to provide advice and assistance for security sector reform in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was launched on 8 April 2005. Its mandate has been extended several times and runs until 30 September 2010. It aims at providing practical support to the Congolese Government for the integration of the Congolese army and good governance in the field of security.
- OSCEBIH: The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina began its work in December 1995. It strengthens security and stability in the region through completion of peace-building activities such as promoting the development of democratic political institutions, democratization, education, human rights and security co-operation.
- EUFOR-RD CONGO: 1,000 troops were sent to the DRC between July and November 2006 within the EU mission EUFOR-RD CONGO, the objectives of which were to support the MONUC, protect the civilian population and secure elections. Operation EUFOR RD Congo was successfully concluded on 30 November 2006.
- EUFOR Tchad/CAR: According to Security Council Resolution 1778 (2008) the deployment of a multidimensional UN presence was authorised in eastern Chad and north-eastern Central African Republic. France was particularly involved in this operation and provided 50% of its military personnel. The mandate of this European force ended in March 2009 with the transfer of authority to MINURCAT.
Sources: Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in New York, Peace Keeping Operations; Council of the European Union, European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP)
France is engaged in 10 bilateral military cooperation. The biggest missions are as follows:
- Forces Françaises à Djibouti: In accordance with the 1977 Defence Agreement 2,800 French troops stay in Djibouti, France's largest overseas military base. They are pre-positioned and ensure the security of French nationals, cooperate with regional organisations to maintain stability in the region and provide Djiboutian armed forces with logistical, medical and intelligence support.
- Forces Françaises du Cap-Vert (FFCV): In accordance with the 1974 Defence Agreement, Senegal provides a base for 1200 French forces pre-positioned in Dakar. The French troops defend Senegal's integrity, develop military cooperation with Senegalese armed forces and support the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS).
- Implantation militaire française aux Emirats arabes unis (IMFEAU): The IMFEAU has been inaugurated in Abu Dhabi on 26 May 2009. Starting from September 2009, 250 French troops are pre-positioned in the United Arab Emirates, ready to support other French forces deployed in the Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Armed forces of both countries aim at developing bilateral military cooperation as well as training.
- Troupes Françaises au Gabon: In accordance with the Defence and Military Cooperation Agreements of 1960 2,800 French troops stay in Libreville, deployed as standing "mission de présence". They ensure the security of French nationals, and cooperate with Gabonese armed forces.
For more information on other bilateral missions, please click each mission.
- Boali Operation: 420 French troops are located in Central African Republic within the framework of the Boali Operation. The objective of this operation is to support the military forces of the Central African Republic as well as the international force of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa.
- Epervier Operation: France maintains a presence in Chad with the Epervier mission established in February 1986 in order to restore peace and preserve the territorial integrity of Chad in accordance with a bilateral cooperation agreement. In 2008, France was able to help with the stationing of the European force (EUROFOR Chad) and the transfer to MINURCAT in 2009. The Epervier Operation numbers 1,200 troops.
- Licorne Operation: France is present in Côte d'Ivoire since the Licorne Operation was launched in 2002. Today the objective of the operation is to support the UN Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) to promoting a safe environment. It also aims at ensuring the security of French and foreign nationals. As of mid-2009, the force numbers 900 soldiers (down from 1,800 at the beginning of 2009).
For a list of operations click here.
For analysis of French military policy in Africa, see, for example, S. Gregory, "The French Military in Africa: Past and Present", African Affairs (2000), 99, pp. 435-448.
Last updated: May 2012 | <urn:uuid:0a1523d1-8c8c-4b68-bdc6-fc3e26b290d5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.geneva-academy.ch/RULAC/peace_operations.php?id_state=67 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927972 | 1,941 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The day after the people of Virginia ratified the ordinance of secession, Lee received the long-expected news: the Federals that morning, in great strength, had occupied Alexandria and the Virginia side of the Potomac and had captured a small troop of Virginia horse serving as a rearguard there.1 Lee promptly forwarded to Manassas three regiments of reinforcements and some cavalry2 and gave orders for dispositions in case the Federals continued their advance.3 The danger to Manassas Junction was manifestly so acute that he determined to go there and see the situation for himself as soon as he could arrange to leave Richmond.
The occupation of the Virginia side of the Potomac had, of course, a personal aspect that Lee could not wholly overlook, even in the excited hour of the first movements to present an opposing front to the Federals. It meant that the pleasant hill of Arlington was in the hands of those former friends who now were enemies. Lee had anticipated this and was reconciled to it. His concern was for his invalid wife, not for himself. Mrs. Lee had been very loath to leave Arlington, despite the urging of her husband and the imminence of a Federal advance. She had long been unable to decide where to go, and not until about May 14 did she betake herself temporarily to nearby Ravensworth. Even then she left many of the family's possessions and some of the Washington relics within easy reach of marauders. Lee knew that Mrs. Lee could not remain for any length of time at Ravensworth without causing embarrassment to Mrs. Fitzhugh for housing the wife of a "rebel general," but he was unwilling to have her come to Richmond, inasmuch as he expected to take the p511 field speedily.4 The daughters went to visit friends in Fauquier County, Virginia. Lee had left his sons free to make their own choice and had most carefully urged Custis not to be influenced by his own example. But all of them sided with the South. Custis resigned, came to Richmond, and soon was working as an officer of engineers; Rooney promptly enlisted and was made a captain of cavalry; Robert was ere long to be chosen to like rank in one of the student companies at the University of Virginia, though, because of his youth, his father was as yet unwilling for him to enter the service.5 Smith Lee returned his Federal commission and became a captain in the Virginia navy.6 Lee took all these changes calmly. "When I reflect," said he, "upon the calamity impending over the country, my own sorrows sink into insignificance."7
The impending calamity was brought nearer, three days after the occupation of Alexandria and Arlington, by a report that Federal transports had appeared in Hampton Roads and were unloading troops in large numbers at Newport News, close to Fort Monroe, at the tip of "the Peninsula," as that part of Virginia between the York and the James River is styled.8 The second of the four probable Federal offensives was taking form. Lee was not unprepared for it. Although the informal truce had continued around Fort Monroe,9 Lee consolidated the command on the lower Peninsula under Magruder on May 21,10 and had been strengthening him as steadily as the numerous calls from other quarters had permitted. Embarrassed by lack of cavalry and of wagons, Magruder was making progress on the line intended to link up Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown.11
Lee reasoned that the troops being collected at Newport News might be planning either to turn the position at Yorktown and thus open the York River, or else to cross Hampton Roads, p512 ascend the Nansemond River, cut the railroad from Norfolk to Petersburg, and mask Norfolk. Both possibilities will be apparent from this sketch:
Lee accordingly put both Magruder and Huger on notice.12 He hastened to send more troops to the Norfolk district and some artillery to defend the approaches to Suffolk.13 Magruder received a few heavy guns to protect his line from being turned by way of the James, and continued to improve his position.14
Before the object of the landing at Newport News had become apparent, Lee felt it necessary to make his proposed visit to Manassas Junction. Leaving Richmond on May 28 he made a hurried inspection of the junction that afternoon, and the next morning p513 went on to Fairfax Courthouse.15 The troops, he found, were increasing rapidly in number, but were in every conceivable state of efficiency and the lack of it. Some were ready for action; some of those who had retreated from Alexandria did not even have arms.16 The officers ranged from wholly inexperienced civilian volunteers to men with West Point training and a solid background of service in the regular army. Lee promptly made now dispositions to cover the flanks and to place a detachment for observation at Fairfax Courthouse. He concluded that the size of the force to be collected at Manassas would make the Federals cautious in any advance against Harpers Ferry along the south bank of the Potomac, and that there consequently would be time for joint operations between the troops at Harpers Ferry and those around Manassas.17 This was the germ of the strategy subsequently employed in the campaign of First Manassas.
The selection of the best available commander for the force mustering at Manassas Junction had been giving Lee much concern. General Cocke had worked zealously, in the face of many obstacles, but the Virginia convention had concluded that the state had too many general officers and had reduced their number. Letcher had accordingly renominated Cocke, along with others, for rank in the volunteer forces one grade lower than they had previously held. Under another ordinance, officers of the provisional army outranked officers of similar rank among the volunteers. This had virtually displaced Cocke, who a time had not even had a regiment. Cocke had naturally protested, and Lee had been at pains to explain how the change had come about, but there was no alternative to the selection of an officer of commanding rank to take charge of the Manassas line.18 Brigadier General M. L. Bonham of South Carolina, the fourth officer to be assigned that rank in the provisional army of the Confederacy,19 had reported in Richmond with a brigade of South Carolina volunteers,20 and as these troops were most needed at Manassas, p514 Bonham was sent there. Being the senior officer he was given command on May 21, with very detailed instructions to hold to the defensive.21 Lee now concluded that a more experienced soldier than Bonham was needed for Manassas and he began to search about to find him.
On his way back to Richmond from Manassas a crowd surrounded Lee's train at Orange Courthouse, and, after the fashion of the day, demanded a speech. Lee demurred, for he had neither taste nor time for haranguing an idle crowd. The Orangemen persisted until he felt it would seem snobbishness or discourtesy to refuse. He stepped out and told his auditors that he had much more important matters on this mind than speech-making. All those who were in the service should be drilling, and those who for good reason had not joined the army would do well to attend to their own affairs and to avoid the excitement and rumors of crowds. That was all. It was not the utterance of a man currying favor with the multitude, but it made an impression.22
When Lee reached the city he found that during his absence President Jefferson Davis had arrived from Montgomery, Ala., to make Richmond the capital of the Confederacy, in accordance with the invitation of the Virginia convention. This invitation had been extended on April 2723 and had been accepted on May 21,24 probably because some of President Davis's friends in Virginia had insisted that his presence in Richmond was necessary to a vigorous prosecution of the war.25 Strategically it was a serious mistake, for it placed almost on the frontier of the Confederacy, in a state whose rivers were open to the warships of the enemy, the capital that was so soon and so surely to become the emblem of the Southern cause that its retention took on a moral significance out of all proportion to the industrial importance of the city, great though that was to the agricultural South.
The preliminaries of this unwise removal of the capital to Richmond had not been wholly cordial, and the separate efforts of the state government and of the Confederacy in Virginia had not been without friction. Governor Letcher had been in no hurry to effect the transfer of the Virginia forces to the Confederacy. p515 An inquiry from Secretary Walker concerning the strength and position of the troops of the Old Dominion had gone unanswered, and when, on May 1, this inquiry had been repeated, Letcher's answer had been a simple statement of Virginia's military resources and plans for mobilization.26 Later, when Walker had asked whether Virginia desired the Confederate Government to take charge of operations, the governor had contented himself with saying that he would act until the Confederacy assumed the direction of affairs.27 The Montgomery government had not pursued the subject further, but had gradually asserted its authority thereafter, and on occasion had ignored both Letcher and Lee, though, on May 10, Lee had been given command of all the forces in Virginia. General Joseph E. Johnston had been ordered on May 15 by the War Department to take charge at Harpers Ferry, without reference to Lee, and had been directed to forward from Lynchburg to Harpers Ferry certain Confederate troops that Lee had previously earmarked for Richmond.28 Subsequently, while Lee had been ordering Confederate forces already in Virginia to points where they were needed,29 the War Department had dispatched other Southern regiments to Virginia — some to report to Lee and some to move to assigned posts, apparently without regard to Lee's control.30 Lee had recommended at the very beginning that Johnston be given rank equal his own, and had assigned him to temporary duty around Richmond as a major general on April 26, but in the rebellion of the convention at too many exalted military titles, Johnston had been made brigadier general in the provisional army of Virginia, a position next to that of Lee. Johnston, however, had preferred to accept a commission as brigadier general in the Confederate army, and it was in this capacity that he had been assigned to Harpers Ferry.31 On his way to that post Johnston had written Lee and had announced to him, "The President intends to p516 assemble an army near Harpers Ferry."32 On Johnston's arrival there Jackson had refused to recognize the new officer's seniority until he had seen documentary evidence of it,33 but he had then supported him cordially. Johnston had found all the approaches well-guarded and more than 8000 troops at Harpers Ferry, 7000 of them armed. Raw though they were, "a fierce spirit" animated these "rough-looking men," in the words of the inspector, and their only serious deficiency had been in horses for the artillery.34 The Maryland Heights had been held, plans had been made to block the railroad at Point of Rocks, and conditions generally had been favorable, even if it had been rumored that the Federals had increased to 15,000 the men supposed to be at Chambersburg and Carlisle, Pa.35 Johnston, however, had been apprehensive from the first, was doubtful of his ability to hold Harpers Ferry, and, though he recognized Lee's authority and even went so far in one letter as to style him "commander in chief," he was only too plainly out of sympathy with Lee's plan to retain Harpers Ferry as long as practicable.36
Johnston's attitude, the conflict of authority, the arrival of Davis, and the near approach of the day when the Virginia forces would be taken over by the Confederacy added to the difficulties of Lee's position. There was a feeling of uneasiness and perhaps of jealousy toward the Confederacy on the part of some Virginia officers. They had doubts concerning their future status, despite the purpose of the advisory council to provide for all those capable officers who had resigned from the United States army.37 However, in this muddle, with a President and a governor, a Confederacy and a state alike to be served, Lee had one asset in his steadfast refusal to be incensed by slights or provoked by the clash of authority. Another asset was the esteem of the President.
Jefferson Davis was then close to his fifty-third birthday, a year and a half younger than Lee. Although his father had been a man of scant schooling, his blood was good, and his instincts, his bearing, and his manners were those of an aristocrat. His well-chiselled p517 features and his fine head bespoke high intelligence; his thin, erect form was commanding and gracious. In his dealings with the public he had dignity without austerity, and his speeches were usually impressive. His experience had been long and varied, as planter, as volunteer in the Mexican War, as senator, and as Secretary of War in the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce. Although not a profound strategist, his understanding of military matters was sound and his viewpoint in war essentially that of the professional soldier. Brief as his service had been in the regular army, he never forgot West Point, or the relations between commanding officer and subordinate. Had he been in the field, as a minor officer, neither Lee nor Jackson would have been more mindful of discipline than he. In his capacity as commander in chief he expected to be obeyed as he would have obeyed. In administration, he was of average capacity or better, occasionally disposed to delay decisions but usually reaching them promptly and reasonably, without permitting himself to be engulfed in detail. He had in him, in fact, some of the qualities essential to the success of a revolution, but these were coupled with serious weaknesses, only a few of which had become apparent in the summer of 1861. His nature was exceedingly sensitive, perhaps because he had received more than his share of applause and had seldom had the tonic of personal criticism. His health, moreover, was uncertain. At intervals — and most inconveniently when he was under the strain of anxious vigils and difficult decisions — he suffered from the inflammation of a facial nerve that caused him agony and prostrating illness. He endured this with fortitude and often discharged his duties when he was almost blinded by suffering and was subjected every few minutes to sharp spasms of the affected nerve, but on occasion his long combat with physical pain made him irritable. His political life had been an endless struggle for a strict and rigid interpretation of legal right, and he was to prove himself too much of constitutionalist to be a daring revolutionary. He hesitated to exceed the admitted limits of his authority as President, and when he did so he was an unconvincing as he was irritating; but he was instant to claim his full constitutional prerogatives, and in doing so he was often abrupt and sometimes unreasonable. Two things were certain to make p518 him hostile: one was to accuse him of unfairness; the other was to impinge upon his authority as President. In his dealings with men he applied to the fullest the political maxim of loyalty to friends and of hostility to foes. His judgment of men was not exceptional, for he relied too much upon the impressions formed in youth; and impressions once formed he was slow to change. If he named one of his supporters to office, criticism of his appointee he would almost invariably regard as criticism of himself. With a political antagonist he would dispute to the last line of a long correspondence, in as high regard for logical victories in the theoretical points at issue as if he were speaking for The Congressional Globe. In the end, if he could not convince he would not attempt to conciliate, but would accept a man as a permanent enemy and would sever relations with him. He had energy, he had a measure of vision, he had patience, patience with everything but contradiction. His stubborn loyalty to friends of mediocre mind was to cost the Confederacy dearly, but in the case of Lee his loyalty was to be, perhaps, his largest service to the South. Davis had not forgotten Lee's superintendency at West Point and his reputation in the old army. At this time, and always, as he subsequently testified, Lee had his "unqualified confidence, both as a man and a patriot, and had the special knowledge of conditions in Virginia that was most useful."38 From the time of his arrival in Richmond, Davis kept Lee near him and consulted often with him.39 Together, on Lee's return from Manassas Junction, they conferred on the choice of a commander for that exposed line. The President decided to entrust the post to Lee's friend of earlier days, the "Hero of Charleston," General P. G. T. Beauregard, who was then in Richmond. Beauregard was called in, was given a review of the situation, and was directed to leave the next day for Manassas. His orders, which Lee prepared, were for close vigilance and a strict defensive, a course that Beauregard complained, years afterwards, left him no discretion and no initiative.40 Had he complained at the time it probably would have made no difference, for Lee had not modified in the slightest his view that Virginia's p519 safety demanded that she avoid aggression until she was prepared to meet it.
The dispatch of Beauregard to Manassas put three of the four exposed posts in Virginia under the charge of professional soldiers of experience: Huger and Magruder were on opposite sides of Hampton Roads, Johnston was at Harpers Ferry, Beauregard faced the enemy below Washington. Conditions in each of these threatened areas were improving hourly. Very different was the situation in the fourth zone of probable Federal advance, western Virginia. For two weeks the news from that quarter had been bad. Optimistic reports had given place to gloomy intelligence of disaffection, opposition, and open hostility. By May 21 Lee had realized that volunteers would not be raised in adequate numbers in the northwestern counties, and he had adopted the alternative, which he had been maturing, of sending into that section troops from nearby counties in the hope that they would gather strength as they advanced. Commanding officers were enjoined anew to prevent the use of the Baltimore and Ohio by the enemy, though Lee had rejected the proposal of Colonel Jackson that a strong force should be thrown into northwest Virginia as soon as the vote on secession was announced. Lee did not have the men to spare and he could not afford to risk Harpers Ferry or the troops that were garrisoning it.41
On June 1 a messenger arrived from General Johnston with dispatches. One of them contained a rumor which had reached Harpers Ferry to the effect that Colonel Porterfield had evacuated Grafton, and that the Federals had occupied it.42 Lee was loath to believe that this had happened,43 and still less prepared to learn a few days later that Porterfield had been surprised, at Philippi, •fifteen miles south of Grafton, and had lost most of his equipment.44 This was a serious matter, for Philippi was closer by •forty miles to Staunton than to Harpers Ferry. If the enemy were permitted to advance unhindered through the mountains to Staunton, a distance of •about 120 miles by road, the whole of western Virginia might be cut off.
p520 A third Federal offensive of unknown strength was thus developing more rapidly and in some respects more ominously than either the threat against Manassas Junction or the concentration in Hampton Roads. Both the state and the Confederate authorities moved quickly to redeem the situation. Porterfield was relieved and brought before a court of inquiry.45 The militia in seven counties were ordered out.46 A special expedition was planned to burn the Cheat River bridge on the Baltimore and Ohio.47 Colonel R. S. Garnett, Lee's adjutant general, was commissioned brigadier general and was hurriedly sent to the Allegheny Mountains. Plans were laid road reinforce him rapidly by way of Staunton.48
As soon as these necessary measures of relief had been initiated, Lee paid a visit on June 6‑8 to the York and James Rivers,49 for the Confederate authorities were about to take over the Virginia forces,50 and Lee wished to satisfy himself that the batteries had been properly placed and armed. He found the work almost completed by the naval officers and by the engineers entrusted with it. Three batteries had been constructed on the York, and nineteen of their thirty heavy guns were already in position. In the two batteries on the lower James, twenty of the thirty-two guns were ready for service. Like progress had been made on the other tidal rivers that time did not permit Lee to visit. Five batteries had been thrown up along the estuaries of the Potomac, one had been dug on the Rappahannock, three were being erected on the Nansemond, though they were not yet armed, and several had risen around Hampton Roads. On the Elizabeth River and in the immediate vicinity of Norfolk there were six batteries, mounting eighty-five guns, most of them already prepared for action. Field works of an elaborate nature had also been constructed p521 around Norfolk, and the Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown line was taking form.51
On his way back to Richmond, Lee was able to stop for a few hours at the •White House, though in circumstances far different from those that had formerly attended his visits to that old plantation. His daughter Annie and his daughter-in‑law Charlotte were there, together with his little grandson and namesake. Rooney was away, and did not arrive until the coming of the train that carried Lee back to the capital city.52
The ceremony of transferring the Virginia forces to the Confederacy was now to be completed. The Confederate Government during the preceding fortnight had been assuming additional parts of the sombre work of defense;53 the council had tendered all Virginia resources on June 1, reserving only the machinery seized at Harpers Ferry;54 and on June 5 the Confederate War Department somewhat ostentatiously had called on Virginia to surrender the control of military operations.55 On Lee's arrival from York River, on June 8, the governor formally issued his proclamation, which Lee incorporated in a general order.56
In one sense Lee's immediate task was finished. The rivers were defended by the batteries he had just inspected. The navy yard was operating again, and the frigate Merrimac, raised from the bottom, was in dry dock. The old United States had been fitted with guns. Arrangements had been made to salvage the sunken Plymouth and Germantown. As far as practicable, Norfolk had been secured from direct attack and from a turning movement by way of Suffolk. Seven thousand troops, Virginia and Confederate, were on duty there. Magruder had somewhat more than 5100 men on the lower Peninsula. A slightly larger force, approximately 5500, was in Richmond and in Ashland as a reserve. On the Manassas line, 7000 men or more had been assembled, with 2700 around Fredericksburg and on the lower Potomac. At Harpers Ferry the Virginia units mustered 7000 of p522 a force that exceeded 8000. All told, approximately 40,000 troops had been enlisted and armed from Virginia and had been supplied with field officers, staff, and partial equipment.57 Nearly all these soldiers had some lead and powder. A million percussion caps, with 114,400 rounds of infantry ammunition, were to be available in the Virginia laboratory, when delivered to the Confederacy on June 14.58 One hundred and fifteen field guns had been issued, including twenty batteries of four guns each, harness and caissons complete.59 The whole mobilization had cost Virginia $3,779,000, including unpaid accounts and claims,60 and it had been effected in slightly less than eight weeks, during seven of which Lee had been responsible. Thanks largely to Lee's insistence upon a defensive policy, the work had been done without a single major engagement, and with only three brushes, involving some fifty casualties, of whom seven, or thereabouts, had been killed.61
The record speaks for itself. "When it is remembered," Lee reported to the governor, "that this body of men were called from a state of profound peace to one of unexpected war, you will have reason to commend the alacrity with which they left their homes and families and prepared themselves for the defense of the State."62 As an achievement in mobilization it would seem to be without serious error. As a feat in the preparation of a force for service under the conditions of combat prevailing in 1861, it was deficient only in the failure to provide adequate field transportation and in the inability of the state properly to equip the cavalry.
In the larger view of strategy, the disposition of the forces, as p523 mobilized, was sound otherwise than as respected western Virginia. Lee doubtless was deceived by the first reassuring reports from that area of disaffection. He probably acted with wisdom in refusing to weaken Harpers Ferry in order to send troops westward along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio, for he might have lost both the column he sent out and Harpers Ferry itself. Limited as his forces were, he had to take chances somewhere. But with the fullest allowance for all these conditions, and with the rough character of the country and the hostility of a large element of the people taken into account, one turns the pages of the correspondence regarding western Virginia with the feeling that the import of the loss of that section was not foreseen, or else that Lee yielded more readily than was his habit to obstacles which were bad enough yet scarcely more serious than others his energy and strategic sense elsewhere overcame.
In effecting the mobilization of Virginia, Lee had hearty encouragement from first to last. Except for the criticisms of Secretary Walker's agent, D. C. Duncan,63 the records yield no evidence of hostility to Lee or of any lack of co-operation with him. The Richmond press was sympathetic and admiring, or, at worst, refrained at this time from criticism of him. The powerful Enquirer and the chatty Dispatch were warmly his supporters.64 "When General Lee assumed the command of affairs here," The Dispatch stated editorially, two days before the Virginia forces were transferred to the Confederacy, "everyone knows that our military preparations were in a condition which it makes us shudder to look back upon. But he gave himself, head, heart, and soul, to the great work, and so wisely, skillfully and energetically has he used all the resources at his command, that the insolent enemy, notwithstanding his boasted numbers and important possession of the powerful fortress of Old Point, has been held at bay, and compelled to postpone his march of invasion till now we can set him at defiance. We do not pretend that everything has been done which could be done if Gen. Lee had possessed at the start an army of a hundred thousand, or even fifty thousand men; but, bearing in mind the feebleness of our resources, at the beginning, p524 in men, arms and munitions of war; remembering that the organization of a large military force is a work of such time and labor that, up to this hour, the Federal government, with all its immense resources of men, means and machinery, has not been able to put itself in position for attack, we may point with honest pride to the position Virginia is now in for defense, and claim that even Gen. Scott with all his boasted military genius and experience, and all the vast resources of his section, has not proved himself as great and efficient a leader as the son of Light Horse Harry, the sagacious, intrepid and high-souled chieftain of Virginia."65 This was the prevailing opinion and it was expressed formally to the Virginia convention by Governor Letcher in his report on the mobilization. He said: "It is due to truth and justice that I should here record . . . my high appreciation of the industry, judgment and professional skill which has marked the conduct of the distinguished officer who had been called by me, with the unanimous approval of the convention, to conduct the military and naval operations of Virginia."66 Jubal A. Early, a member of the military committee of the convention, subsequently attested the "active energy and utter abnegation of all personal consideration with which [Lee] devoted himself to the work of organizing and equipping the Virginia troops for the field."67
Heavy as were the calls on Lee's energy and patience, during these difficult seven weeks, his strength of body and of character was equal to them. There is a post-bellum tradition that he was something of a "bear" at this time,68 and it is possible that he did not then have all the imperturbable self-mastery that later elicited the wondering admiration of his subordinates, but there is not an echo in contemporary records of any violent outburst. He arrived early and punctually at his office every morning and methodically transacted business, with a close eye to detail, "but not," Walter Taylor observed, "as is sometimes the concomitant, if not the result of this trait, neglectful of the more important matters dependent upon his decision." He seemed, Colonel Taylor further recorded, "to address himself to the accomplishment of every task that devolved upon him in a conscientious and deliberate p525 way, as if he himself was directly accountable to some higher power for the manner in which he performed his duties."69 Anxious as he was to take the field, and convinced that his stay in Richmond would not be permanent,70 he met patiently the vexations of office work. Only in his handling of his heavy correspondence was the worry and annoyance of his post manifest to his little staff of aides and clerks. "He did not enjoy writing; indeed, he wrote with labor, and nothing seemed to tax his amiability as much as the necessity for writing a lengthy communication; but he was not satisfied unless at the close of his office hours every matter requiring prompt attention had been disposed of."71 When the last letter was signed and the last order given in the afternoon, he would take one or two of his official family with him, and would ride out to some camp or fort around Richmond, combining necessary exercise with an inspection. And when he returned it was often to seek out some group of children and to talk with them.72 No homesickness was discernible in his letters, and there must have been distinct relief for him to know that Mrs. Lee, having left Ravensworth, was at Chantilly, cheerful and reconciled to indefinite absence from Arlington.73
He had committed his loved ones, along with his own destiny, his strategy, and his preparations for Virginia's defense, into the hands of a God who was never more personal or more real to him than in those days of a divided nation's insanity. The religious note that had become the strongest of his life in the hour when he had cast in his fortune with Virginia and it so remained to his last day. "In God alone must be our trust," he wrote Cassius Lee in a frank avowal that mediation was impossible.74 Domestic letters contained prayers and self-reproach for ingratitude to God for past mercies.75 "God's will be done," he said. "We must be resigned."76 And again: "Be content and resigned to God's will."77
p526 "Are you sanguine of results?" a minister asked him in the midst of the intense strain of the first ordeal.
"At present," he answered calmly and with a sincerity that saved his words from any suggestion of cant, "I am not concerned with results. God's will ought to be our aim, and I am quite contented that his designs should be accomplished and not mine."78
4 For Lee's letters, urging her to leave, see R. E. Lee, Jr., 28‑32. For correspondence between her and General Irvin McDowell, who promised to protect Arlington, see Jones, L. and L., 143. For the offer of a home by William C. Rives, see Jones, L. and L., 141. For letter from Mrs. Lee to General Scott, enclosing an account of Lee's reception in Richmond, and echoing the old friendship, see Fitz Lee, 93.
5 R. E. Lee, Jr., 32; for Custis, see 11 Calendar Virginia State Papers, 133; for Robert, see Jones, L. and L., 143.
6 Lee to Mrs. Lee, May 16, 1861; R. E. Lee, Jr., 31.
7 Lee to Mrs. Lee, May 8, 1861; R. E. Lee, Jr., 30.
18 Cocke's protest, MS., is among the Virginia Executive Papers, May 12, 1861; Lee to Cocke, May 13, 1861; O. R., 2, 836‑837, O. R., 51, part 2, p109; F. H. Smith to Cocke, May 14, 1861; D. H. Ruggles to Cocke, May 8, 1861; F. G. Skinner to Cocke, May 15, 1861; Cocke MSS.
19 Wright: General Officers of the Confederate Army, 49.
22 Richmond Whig, June 7, 1861; p2, cols. 3‑4.
27 O. R., 2, 805; O. R., 51, part 2, p74. Relations between Governor Letcher and the Confederate executive were far less cordial than those between Letcher and the governors of the Southern states to whom Virginia supplied arms or from whom she received help. Cf. O. R., 2, 793; MS. N. C., 153, Confederate Museum.
38 1 Davis, 340.
39 R. E. Lee, Jr., 35.
52 Lee to Mrs. Lee, June 9, 1861; R. E. Lee, Jr., 35.
57 Lee's report, June 15, 1861; O. R., 2, 927‑29, and his partial return of troops, May 30, 1861; O. R., 2, 895. To the totals given by Lee in this latter document have been added the troops known to have been dispatched between May 30 and June 8.
60 11 Calendar Virginia State Papers, 173; IV O. R., 1, 391‑92. Lee's own pay probably was among the unsettled items, for on June 27, 1861, he received a check for $132.33. This paper is now in the possession of C. S. Hutter of Lynchburg, Va., who gave a photostat of it to Wylie R. Cooke. He in turn presented it to H. R. McIlwaine, former State Librarian of Virginia.
61 In the evacuation of Alexandria on May 24 (see supra, p510), at Fairfax Courthouse on June 1 (O. R., 2, 60), and at Philippi on June 3, 1861 (see supra, p519. The casualties cannot be stated with precision, as the number of prisoners taken in Alexandria and at Philippi is nowhere given in exact figures.
64 Cf. Richmond Dispatch, April 30, 1861, p2, col. 3, quoting The Richmond Enquirer. Cf. also, Dispatch, May 21, 1861, p2, col. 1.
65 Richmond Dispatch, June 6, 1861, p2, col. 1.
66 11 Calendar Virginia State Papers, 162.
67 Jones, 2.
68 Gordon in Riley, 79.
69 Taylor's General Lee, 24‑25.
70 Lee to Mrs. Lee, May 25, May 28, 1861; R. E. Lee, Jr., 33, 34.
71 Taylor's General Lee, 25.
72 Taylor's General Lee, 25.
73 Mrs. Judith McGuire: Diary of a Southern Refugee (cited hereafter as Mrs. McGuire), 26.
74 April 25, 1861; E. J. Lee, 420.
75 R. E. Lee, Jr., 29‑33, notably 32.
76 Lee to Mrs. Lee, May 11, 1861; R. E. Lee, Jr., 30.
77 Lee to Mrs. Lee, May 8, 1861; R. E. Lee, Jr., 30.
78 Jones, 143. For his attendance on the opening services of the Episcopal convention, and for his conversation with Bishop Meade, see R. E. Lee, Jr., 31, and Jones, L. and L., 142.
Images with borders lead to more information.
The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
Robert E. Lee
(US Park Service)
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY
if its URL has a total of one *asterisk.
If the URL has two **asterisks,
the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use.
If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer.
See my copyright page for details and contact information.
Page updated: 26 Jan 15 | <urn:uuid:27ebe60b-811f-44f3-b2f3-c1a1c46ae530> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/1/30*.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988647 | 7,646 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Religious Studies 263
March 27, 1995
Women and Mormonism
Many religions have recently begun changing in an attempt to equalize the roles and responsibilities of men and women. Mormonism is one of the exceptions. The Mormon position on women has changed little since the early 1800's, when the official view was that "woman's primary place is in the home, where she is to rear children and abide by the righteous counsel of her husband" (McConkie 844). This attitude, coupled with the doctrine of polygamy and the absolute power claimed by the men of the church, created a legacy of profound sexism which modern Mormonism has been unable to escape.
Mormonism has created an ingenious system of oppression, in which opposition towards men is tantamount to arguing with God. The Mormon religion makes no distinction between clergy and laity, at least with regard to men (Laake 9). All Mormon men are ordained as members of the "priesthood," with the absolute authority to preach the gospel, bestow blessings, prophecy, perform healings and baptisms, and generally speak for God. "Their priesthood gives them the right to advise and instruct the Saints (i.e., Mormons), and their jurisdiction extends over all things spiritual and temporal" (Snowden 134).
At age twelve, boys become members of the Aaronic, or lesser priesthood, and at nineteen become eligible for the Melchezedek, or higher priesthood. Members of either priesthood are higher authorities on everything than are non-members. Women are, of course, excluded from the priesthood. This practice in effect says that a woman's prepubescent son is more qualified to advise her than she is to advise him. The official explanation is that women are kept from having the priesthood because women are more spiritual than men, therefore, men need to have the priesthood to teach them how to be better people (Johnson 86). Women are also told that, because they have the all- important ability to bear children, men need the power of the priesthood merely to remain equal with them.
The most notorious example of Mormon treatment of women is, of course, the practice of polygamy. In early 1843, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, announced to the press that, despite rumors to the contrary, the Latter-Day Saints did not practice polygamy and believed it was an abomination (Wallace 53). He spoke the truth as far as the vast majority of Mormons was concerned, for polygamy is expressly forbidden in the Book of Mormon. However, Joseph himself had been married to at least eleven women besides his legal wife by 1843. (Wallace 52). The first of these, in 1835, was a seventeen year old orphan who had been taken in by his wife, Emma Smith. Joseph apparently married all of these women without the knowledge of either his wife or his fellow Mormons (Wallace 52).
On July 12, 1843, Joseph Smith declared that God had given him a new revelation concerning marriage and he revealed it to his brother and other high-ranking male church members. This revelation from God, at one point, specifically instructed "mine handmaid Emma Smith, Joseph's wife" to accept this doctrine and allow Joseph to have as many wives as he liked, as long as they were all "virtuous and pure" (Snowden 191). Emma Smith was a very strong-willed woman, and Joseph was so frightened of her wrath that he sent his brother Hyrum to inform her of God's plan. Emma was understandably scornful, and threw Hyrum out of her house (Wallace 55). Later, she managed to obtain a written copy of the revelation, and while in Joseph's presence, tossed it directly into the fireplace. However, the damage had already been done. Joseph is said to have been married to twenty-seven wives at the time of his death (Snowden 282). Emma left the church after his death and later denied that her husband had ever practiced polygamy (Wallace 65).
There were many reasons given for the practice of polygamy. The one most popular during the time was, of course, that God had commanded it, through Joseph Smith. The Mormon belief is that polygamy is holy and was practiced commonly in ancient times until people began spreading false religions. Adam, in his previous, spiritual existence, had many wives, of whom Eve was just one (Wallace 291). Jesus was also a polygamist "who was married whereby He could see His seed before He was crucified" (Hoekema 56), and his wives were Mary, Martha, and Mary Magdalene. Mormon Doctrine states that the president of the church had to suspend the practice of polygamy in 1890 because of the conditions at the time, but "obviously the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming..." (578).
There were other justifications for polygamy. Mormons were often fond of stating that they were better than "Gentiles," as non-Mormons are called, because their system of polygamy kept them from committing the sin of adultery. Polygamous marriage was supposed to "make possible the procreation of enough bodies for thousands of spirits which have long awaited incarnation" (Snowden 141). Some Mormons today explain that many men died from war and disease, and all of the extra women needed husbands to support them. A less sympathetic view of polygamy was voiced by Sir Richard Burton on a visit to Utah. He said, "The..motive for polygamy in Utah is economy. Servants are rare and costly; it is cheaper and more comfortable to marry them" (Wallace 94).
Polygamous marriage is basically essential to Mormon theology. Mormon Doctrine states that God was once a human man, and "He is now a glorified, resurrected Personage having a tangible body of flesh and bones" (250). As a matter of fact, "all gods first existed as spirits, came to an earth to receive bodies, and then, after having passed through a period of probation on the aforesaid earth, were advanced to the exalted position they now enjoy" (Hoekema 38). After death, a good Mormon man who has followed a few certain rules is catapulted to this same status and receives his own planet to populate and rule over (Fife 103). To receive this honor, a man must be "married for eternity" in the Mormon temple. This special marriage is binding after death as well as until it.
"Celestial" marriage, as this eternal marriage is often called, is essential for Mormon women. Without being celestially married to a holder of the priesthood, a woman cannot be "saved" (Green 154). Mary Ettie Smith, a Mormon woman who left the church and Utah in 1856, said that "women do not amount to much in themselves," and that women in those times were often celestially married to men they had no intention of ever living with, so that they could have a man who would be able to get them into heaven (Green 154).
In the temple marriage ceremony, women are given secret names known only to their husbands, for identification purposes, so their husbands can pull them through to "the other side" after death (Laake 118). During the marriage ceremony, until 1990, men made their temple covenants directly to God, while the women had to make their temple covenants to their husbands (Laake 328). This means that while male temple workers representing God lead the men through the cloth representing the veil between worlds, husbands, symbolically, lead their wives through. Women also promise to obey their husbands in everything as long as their husbands obey God (Laake 108). As part of the ceremony, women also receive their endowments. These are sacred ordinances and promises which make a person eligible to enter the highest level of heaven, and Mormons receive them on their first visit to the temple (Laake 93). Men usually receive their endowments when they enter the temple to become a priesthood holder or go on a mission, but women enter the temple for the first time to be married.
After death, while their husbands are creating and ruling over planets, the women have the questionable honor of bearing his "spirit children" for eternity. These spirit children descend to their Father's planet to inhabit bodies as mortals, who are then ruled over by him. Mormon Doctrine states that these celestially married men and women "will live eternally in the family unit and have spirit children, thus becoming Eternal Fathers and Eternal Mothers" (516). A man who has multiple wives can beget many more spirit children, making him much more powerful. Birth control is, of course, very strongly discouraged. Ambitious Mormon men must beget many children with as many wives as possible, for "their glory (in heaven) is in proportion to the number of their wives and children" (Snowden 141).
Mormons believe that all humans are literally the spirit children of God who are momentarily inhabiting fleshly bodies. This creates a philosophical problem for them, for how could their spirits have been begotten by a Father without a wife? Therefore, in addition to the Father in Heaven, there is "a Woman of like glory, perfection, and holiness" who is "associated with him as a Mother" (McConkie 516). This seems quite unusual for such a patriarchal religion, and indeed, there is almost nothing written about Her. There is also no explanation for God's disregard for his own commandments on polygamy.
It is hard to deny the effect of polygamy on the thousands of women who lived with it. Anne Eliza Webb, one of Brigham Young's wives, wrote of her mother, "Polygamy...was the most hateful thing in the world to her, and she dreaded and abhorred it, but she was afraid to oppose it, lest she be found fighting against the Lord" (Wallace 62). This was the main reason so many women grudgingly accepted polygamy. The elders of the church assured these women that those who refused to practice polygamy would be damned, and since the men spoke for God, the believers had to comply (Wallace 74).
Polygamy effectively reduced women to mere commodities. Heber C. Kimball said, "I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow" (Wallace 101). Missionaries, who were almost always men, made a special effort to convert women, and these newly converted women were encouraged to come to Utah. After leaving their families and homes, and depleting their savings to come to "paradise," they discovered the doctrine of polygamy.
If a man felt his wife was not behaving properly, he could always find a more compliant one. Because all women must be married to go to heaven, the pressure to conform to the expectations of men was incredible. If a man was not content with his wife, Brigham Young "recommended...that he take a plural wife or two -- since this was a sure cure for a shrewish and recalcitrant female" (Fife 101). The system did not even provide the camaraderie one might expect from a household full of women, for wives were often in competition for attention. Technically, the first wife had to approve subsequent wives (Wallace 82), but few women chose to risk the wrath of their husbands and the church elders by refusing someone.
Polygamy was officially suspended by the President of the church in 1890, twenty-eight years after polygamy was declared illegal by the U.S. government, and thirteen years after a U.S. court had ruled that polygamous marriages were not valid (Wallace 368). Ann Eliza Webb had filed for divorce from Brigham Young in 1873, forcing the government to take a stand on the continuing practice of polygamy. The court ruled that she could not receive a divorce, since she was never legally married (Snowden 287).
The church has since become militant about preventing polygamy; anyone found practicing it is immediately excommunicated, and those who preach it are ostracized (Johnson 76). However, polygamy is still in practice in the church, just in a less obvious form. If a woman's husband dies, she may, after a suitable mourning period, marry another man as long as she marries him "for time", or only until death. After death, she will be brought into heaven to be with her first and true husband for eternity. However, if a man's wife dies, he may marry again celestially, thus providing for himself a polygamous family in heaven. The government may be able to thwart the holy practice of polygamy on earth, but they can do nothing about it in heaven.
Because of the doctrine of celestial marriage, it is very difficult for Mormon women to obtain divorces in the church. Women are told that "divorce is usually the result of one or both not living the gospel", and that a woman who wants a divorce is "untrue to the covenants she has made in the house of the Lord" (Laake 176). Legal divorces are no problem to obtain, but they create many problems in the religious life of a Mormon; a church divorce is almost impossible. After a civil divorce, a woman's temple recommend is rescinded (Laake 193). In other words, she is considered unworthy to enter the temple, until she can prove to the heads of the church that the divorce was not caused by adultery. This is done by describing one's sexual activities very exactly in a series of letters to the male church authorities (Laake 194). Believers must submit to this humiliating rule in order to avoid spending eternity with their ex- husbands, because they must be able to enter the temple to obtain a "cancellation of sealing" (Laake 210). This cancellation is required if a woman wishes to remarry in the temple, for women can be celestially married to only one man at a time. Men are not required to undergo any of this to get their temple recommends back, and they, of course, have no need to cancel the celestial marriage to one woman in order to marry a second (Laake 223).
Many Mormon men in their late teens choose to go on a mission for the church, to preach the gospel in a foreign land. This practice, in addition to increasing the church's membership, serves an additional purpose by increasing the devotion of these men to Mormonism. Once a man has spent two years of his life in a foreign country for his faith, deprived of any contact with television, music, and women (for this is required), he will almost certainly never leave the church. He has sacrificed too much, and he cannot afford to disbelieve in the religion that caused it. This system also works in the same way with regard to women, for they are the ones left behind. While a woman's boyfriend or fiancÚ is off preaching for two years, she spends those years waiting for him. Not only will she believe more strongly in the religion which he left her for, but she will feel more devotion for the man. He must be the right man for her, because she has waited so long for him.
Mormon women today are still brought up to believe that the most important thing they can do is "to marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority" (McConkie 118). Deborah Laake, who was excommunicated in 1993 for writing Secret Ceremonies, states that "it had been repeatedly impressed on me that if I failed to marry a faithful Mormon man...in a Mormon temple, I would be denied access to the highest level of Mormon heaven" (Laake 4). The temple marriage is so important "that a longing for romance on earth should not be allowed to interfere with it" (Laake 77). Twenty-one year old Mormon men returning from missions are told they should be married within six months (Laake 51).
Girls and boys are also told that a good and proper Mormon home is a patriarchal one. A handbook written for fourteen year old boys states that, "The patriarchal order is of divine origin and will continue throughout time and eternity" (Laake 39). Husbands conduct family prayers, bless their wives and children, and generally control the household. They also are in charge of "family home evening", one night per week set aside for family prayer and togetherness. The Mormon belief is that Eve's roles in life, those of help-meet and child-bearer, set the pattern for all of her daughters (McConkie 844). Girls are told that God wants them at home (Laake 153), and boys are never taught to clean up after themselves, since when their mothers stop doing it for them, their wives will take over the job. These ideas, at least, have not changed at all since the nineteenth century.
Mormons, and particularly Mormon girls, are commanded to remain completely chaste until marriage. Girls grow up believing that their virginity is what makes them worth marrying (Laake 195), and they are told that "If you sully your body by allowing boys to touch it in forbidden ways...no good man will ever want to marry you" (Johnson 74). According to Mormon Doctrine, "Loss of virtue is too great a price to pay even for the preservation of one's life--better dead clean, than alive unclean" (McConkie 124). In order to enter the temple for the all-important marriage ceremony, Mormons must undergo a rigorous interview by their bishops about the intimate details of their sexual history to ensure their purity (Laake 86). Mormon colleges today have dress codes for women which forbid shorts, short skirts, and other articles of clothing that could possibly incite a young man's lust.
Mormons, like most religions, believe that the woman in a relationship bears the guilt for any sexual wrongdoing. Girls are told that if they "let" a man touch them, he will not respect them, even though he is the one doing the touching. One Mormon woman's date, at the front door of her house at the end of a perfectly sinless night, ordered her to enter her house, fall on her knees, and pray for forgiveness for the sins that she had made him want to commit (Johnson 79).
The strict chastity demanded by the church often clashes with the fact that girls are taught please their husbands and the other men in their lives. This lesson makes it very difficult to maintain the strict chastity required of women. What does a girl do when the man she is dating, whom she is supposed to obey because he is inspired by God, wants to do more than kiss her? In Mormon-dominated Utah, in 1978, seventy percent of the teenage brides were pregnant at their weddings (Johnson 39).
However, the Mormon church is more tolerant of unwed mothers or pregnant brides than it is of divorced women (Laake 217). No matter how sinful the circumstances, a pregnant woman is fulfilling God's plan and her purpose in life, by providing a body for one of the many spirits waiting to be born. Bearing children is the main purpose of a woman in this life; Sonia Johnson stated that, "I'd been conditioned to believe that if I didn't have babies, I wasn't worth much. Having children was what women were made for" (Johnson 42).
The Mormon church of today is still clinging to the beliefs of the nineteenth century; ideas which are becoming more outmoded every day. A few women in the Mormon church are trying to make a difference, but they are usually swiftly excommunicated (Laake 342; Johnson 351). In Mormon magazines, which are full of advice for women from the heads of the church, the message has changed in response to the feminist movement. In 1964, advice on marriage and divorce was fairly dispassionate; by 1972, these topics were addressed with increasing panic and harshness (Laake 175). Feminists are described as "the Pied Pipers of sin who have led women away from the divine role of womanhood down the pathway of error" (Laake 176). Obviously, the Mormon church is not going to alter its views on women in the immediate future. It is questionable whether it is even possible for Mormonism to equalize the roles of men and women, because the oppression of women is so integral to the religion. Men and women cannot truly become equal in the church, for the basic tenets of Mormonism are so fraught with sexism that equality would change the religion beyond recognition.
The Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1981. First English edition, 1830.
Fife, Austin and Fife, Alta Saints of Sage and Saddle. Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1980.
Green, N. W. Mormonism: Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition, Embracing the Narrative of Mrs. Mary Ettie Smith. Hartford, Belknap & Bliss, 1870.
Hoekema, Anthony A. The Four Major Cults. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963.
Johnson, Sonia From Housewife to Heretic. Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1981.
Laake, Deborah Secret Ceremonies, a Mormon Woman's Intimate Diary or Marriage and Beyond. New York, Dell Publishing, 1993.
McConkie, Bruce R. Mormon Doctrine. Salt Lake City, Bookcraft Inc., 1966.
Smith, Joseph The Prophet Joseph Smith's Testimony. Salt Lake City, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Snowden, James H. The Truth About Mormonism. New York, George H. Doran Co., 1926.
Wallace, Irving The Twenty-seventh Wife. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1961. | <urn:uuid:cbf41bf9-d5c7-4eb0-a8c5-e18c63b8f940> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.exmormon.org/mormwomn.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979893 | 4,470 | 3.4375 | 3 |
FMA Pucara (A-522)
NAHR category - Noteworthy
In 1966 the design team at Fabrica Militair de Aviones (FMA) began development of an airframe designed for Counter insurgency (COIN) operations to quell rebel operations in various areas of Argentina. The aircraft was designed to sustain damage from small arms fire with the cockpit floor being covered in a layer of armour resistant material, a bullet proof windscreen, the ability to fly on one engine and flight controls in both cockpits incase of pilot incapacitation.
The first prototype aircraft was actually a glider, but on 20th August 1969 a prototype with American Garrett engines flew for the first time. Because of shortage of money and facilities the first production aircraft did not reach the Argentinean Air Force until 1976. These production aircraft were fitted with French Turbomeca Astazou engines, American avionics, French or Belgian weaponry and a British Martin-Baker ejection seat. The aircraft was named Pucara after the ancient hilltop forts impregnable to direct assault. During 1976 a number of the aircraft were detached to the military aviation school at Cordoba, from here missions were mounted against rebel positions some 300 miles away near Tucaman. The aircraft acquitted itself very well in the environment however, it had never been intended that the aircraft would be pitted against the type of firepower it would find directed against it in the Falklands. It was therefore no great surprise that the aircraft suffered badly with many aircraft being destroyed on the ground or becoming grounded through component failure in the damp environment. The Pucara also serves with the Columbian, Sri Lanka and Uruguay Air Forces.
One of thirty five Pucara's on strength with the Argentinean Air Force Grupo 3 de Ataque, prior to the Falklands conflict, the aircraft had amassed some 761 hours. Pucara A-522 was one of twelve Pucara's positioned out to the islands around 15th May 1982 to replace aircraft lost earlier in the conflict. Based at Port Stanley airfield for the remainder of the war, the aircrafts operations are unknown due to the frequent un-serviceability and cannibalisation of airframes, with no more than two or three aircraft being airworthy at one time. After the surrender, the aircraft was found at Port Stanley airport in a relatively undamaged state. On 6th September 1982 the aircraft was airlifted by Chinook onto the 'Contender Bezant' in Port William and that day the ship sailed for the UK arriving at Southampton Docks on the 23rd of that month. A-522 was offloaded and moved by road to RAF Abingdon where it was allocated the maintenance serial 8768M in anticipation of it joining the RAF Museum store at St.Athan. Although the aircraft was moved by road to St.Athan on 25th October the maintenance serial was never applied and on 7th December the aircraft moved to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton. Later some spares were removed from the aircraft to service another captured Pucara which was being flown by the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE). Due to rationalisation of certain displays at the FAA Museum during 1994, the aircraft became available for loan and it was moved to NEAM during the summer of that year.
Pucara A-522 arriving at NEAM in 1994. | <urn:uuid:3229157c-88b3-47c9-84b6-3d2a7f6940ab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nelsam.org.uk/NEAM/Exhibits/History/A522.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978752 | 698 | 2.640625 | 3 |
This brings us to the close of the fourteenth century, and shows us how long the outward worship of the generative powers, represented by their organs, continued to exist in Western Europe to such a point as to engage the attention of ecclesiastical synods. During the previous century facts occurred in our own island illustrating still more curiously the continuous existence of the worship of Priapus, and that under circumstances which remind us altogether of the details of the phallic worship under the Romans. It will be remembered that one great object of this worship was to obtain fertility either in animals or in the ground, for Priapus was the god of the horticulturist and the agriculturist. St. Augustine, declaiming against the open obscenities of the Roman festival of the Liberalia, informs us that an enormous phallus was carried in a magnificent chariot into the middle of the public place of the town with great ceremony, where the most respectable matron advanced
and placed a garland of flowers "on this obscene figure;" and this, he says: was done to appease the god, and "to obtain an abundant harvest, and remove enchantments from the land." 20 We learn from the Chronicle of Lanercost that, in the year 1268, a pestilence prevailed in the Scottish district of Lothian, which was very fatal to the cattle, to counteract which some of the clergy--bestiales, habitu claustrales, non animo--taught the peasantry to make a fire by the rubbing together of wood (this was the need-fire), and to raise up the image of Priapus, as a means of saving their cattle. "When a lay member of the Cistercian order at Fenton had done this before the door of the hall, and had sprinkled the cattle with a dog's testicles dipped in holy water, and complaint had been made of this crime of idolatry against the lord of the manor, the latter pleaded in his defence that all this was done without his knowledge and in his absence, but added, 'while until the present month of June other people's cattle fell ill and died, mine were always found, but now every day two or three of mine die, so that I have few left for the labours of the field.'" Fourteen years after this, in 1282, an event of the same kind occurred at Inverkeithing, in the present county of Fife in Scotland.
[paragraph continues] The cause of the following proceedings is not stated, but it was probably the same as that for which the cistercian of Lothian had recourse to the worship of Priapus. In the Easter week of the year just stated (March 29-April 5), a parish priest of Inverkeithing, named John, performed the rites of Priapus, by collecting the young girls of the town, and making them dance round the figure of this god; without any regard for the sex of these worshippers, he carried a wooden image of the male members of generation before them in the dance, and himself dancing with them, he accompanied their songs with movements in accordance, and urged them to licentious actions by his no less licentious language. The more modest part of those who were present felt scandalized with the priest, but he treated their words with contempt, and only gave utterance to coarser obscenities. He was cited before his bishop, defended himself upon the common usage of the country, and was allowed to retain his benefice; but he must have been rather a worldly priest, after the style of the middle ages, for a year afterwards he was killed in a vulgar brawl.
The practice of placing the figure of a phallus on the walls of buildings, derived, as we have seen, from the Romans, prevailed also in the middle ages, and the buildings especially placed under the influence of this symbol were churches. It was believed to be
Click to view
a protection against enchantments of all kinds, of which the people of those times lived in constant terror, and this protection extended over the place and over those who frequented it, provided they cast a confiding look upon the image. Such images were seen, usually upon the portals, on the cathedral church of Toulouse, on more than one church in Bourdeaux, and on various other churches in France, but, at the time of the revolution, they were often destroyed as marks only of the depravity of the clergy. Dulaure tells us that an artist, whom he knew, but whose name he has not given, had made drawings of a number of these figures which he had met with in such situations. A Christian saint exercised some of the qualities thus deputed to Priapus; the image of St. Nicholas was usually painted in a conspicuous position in the church, for it was believed that whoever had looked upon it was protected against enchantments, and especially against that great object of popular terror, the evil eye, during the rest of the day.
31:20 S. Augustini De Civit. Dei, lib. vii, c. 21. | <urn:uuid:77ff488a-2ffa-4e9b-9281-210721d9497f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/wgp/wgp02.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982317 | 1,061 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Centrality of Shabbat
Several years ago, a distinguished theologian was honored by a prominent organization for his crusading efforts on behalf of civil rights. However, when he got up to speak, the message he delivered was not one the audience was expecting. Much to their surprise, he admonished the Jewish group for their abandonment of mitzvah observance. He spoke about how the Jewish concern with social justice had its ultimate roots in the Bible. And he expressed fear that, having already abandoned many of the mitzvot, it was just a matter of time before many Jews (or certainly their offspring) would abandon the cause of civil rights as well.
This observation is a powerful one. If a people's ideals are derived from a particular source, how long can those ideals will be retained if they are distanced from that source?
Centrality of Shabbat
This question is appropriate for this week's Torah reading. Much of the parsha describes the building of the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that accompanied the Israelites while traveling through the desert.
The Torah emphasizes how Moses gathering together the Israelites to exhort them to observe the Shabbat. The verse even goes out of its way to say how all groups within the Jewish nation were present for Moses' explanation.
The Shevet Meshor, a contemporary commentary, notes that this is the only time in the Torah where we find the Jewish people "gathered together" ("vayakel") in such a way. This is because the Torah wishes to emphasize the centrality of Shabbat to the Jewish collective identity. Shabbat is at the core of Jewish life ― and without its celebration, it is but a matter of time before Jewish identity is lost. Ahad HaAm, some 100 years ago, commented that, "More than the Jews have kept the Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews."
Time Over Space
Moreover, the very essence of the Jewish people is tied to this weekly holiday. Other nations' identities are rooted in a particular plot of land. But for the Jewish people, it was always Shabbat ― the island in time ― that sustained them. It isn't surprising that for the eternal people, the dimension of time, not space, is at the center of Jewish existence.
This ascendancy of "time over space" is emphasized in this week's parsha. Though the Israelites were engaged in building the tabernacle, they had to stop their efforts when the Shabbat arrived. As Rashi explains, this is why the commandment to keep Shabbat precedes the construction of the Mishkan in the Biblical narrative.
Harmony of Self and Society
The Torah states: "You may work during the six weekdays, but the seventh day shall be holy for you, a complete day of rest for God" (Exodus 35:2). Jews are exhorted to maintain an absolutely complete rest on the Sabbath. The commentaries explain that on Shabbat, people should strive to free their minds of worries of the mundane week, and to focus on the truly important issues of life. Worry about business is to be replaced by involvement with one's family, the acquisition of knowledge, and helping of others. The need to establish a harmonious society ― to "gather the people together" ― is central to the whole concept of Shabbat.
Shabbat has always served to remind Jews of (among other things) essential humanitarian values like social justice and the well-being of others. Abandonment of Shabbat observance can have great impact, both on one's Jewish identity and on more universalistic concerns as well. | <urn:uuid:889198b5-8b50-4210-a836-3b9b7120da1f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aish.com/tp/b/app/48968706.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969245 | 756 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Also Known as: Scare Tactics, Appeal to Force, Ad Baculum
An Appeal to Force happens when someone resorts to force (or the threat of force) to try and push others to accept a conclusion. This fallacy is often used by politicians, and can be summarized as "might makes right." The threat doesn't have to come directly from the person arguing. The audience is told that unpleasant consequences will follow if they do not agree with the author.
The Appeal to Fear is a fallacy with the following pattern:
Y is presented (a claim that is intended to produce fear).
This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because creating fear in people does not constitute evidence for a claim.
It is important to distinguish between a rational reason to believe (RRB)
(evidence) and a prudential reason to believe (PRB) (motivation). A RRB is
evidence that objectively and logically supports the claim. A PRB is a reason to
accept the belief because of some external factor (such as fear, a threat, or a
benefit or harm that may stem from the belief) that is relevant to what a person
values but is not relevant to the truth or falsity of the claim. For example, it
might be prudent to not fail the son of your department chairperson because you
fear he will make life tough for you. However, this does not provide evidence
for the claim that the son deserves to pass the class.
You had better agree that the new company policy is the best bet if you
expect to keep your job.
... Thus there is ample proof of the truth of the Bible. All those who refuse to accept that truth will burn in Hell.
... In any case, I know your phone number and I know where you live. Have I mentioned I am licensed to carry concealed weapons?
You know, Professor Smith, I really need to get an A in this class. I'd like to stop by during your office hours later to discuss my grade. I'll be in your building anyways, visiting my father. He's your dean, by the way. I'll see you later.
I don't think a Red Ryder BB rifle would make a good present for you. They are very dangerous and you'll put your eye out. Now, don't you agree that you should think of another gift idea?
You must believe that God exists. After all, if you do not accept the existence of God, then you will face the horrors of hell.
You shouldn't say such things against multiculturalism! If the chair heard what you were saying, you would never receive tenure. So, you had just better learn to accept that it is simply wrong to speak out against it.
Identify the threat and
the proposition and argue that the threat is unrelated to the truth or
falsity of the proposition. | <urn:uuid:7146c517-7447-4fa5-bd9a-3e3ead6fef8b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Debating/Logic/appeal-to-fear.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971594 | 592 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Fire fighters are spreading their message about fire safety in an effort to help save more lives. This week has been designated as "Fire Safety Week." Each year, thousands of people die in fires and thousands more are injured. Fire officials say over half of the fires they battle are started by children playing with matches, lighters and even candles. Fire safety week is also a good time for everyone to make sure the fire detector in their home is working. | <urn:uuid:3c8a3bd1-18e1-4493-b2ac-872f3bbb4a9e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/1906867.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00162-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986221 | 90 | 2.65625 | 3 |
From Ohio History Central
With changes in Ohio's landscape, the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) expanded its range into Ohio. It is considered a symbol of the coming of spring. However, they can be seen in Ohio year-round, roosting in the state during winter, especially in southern parts of the state. As the weather warms and daylight increases, they are one of the first birds to begin singing their whistled phrase, "cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up" in the morning.
Their nesting period ranges from March through June, producing 2-3 broods per year with 3-4 young per clutch. The monogamous pair shares responsibility in providing food for the altricial young. A typical diet for robins includes insects, worms, berries and fruit. The young will stay in the nest for approximately thirteen days before leaving as fledglings. The young will eventually reach an adult body length of 9-11 inches, weighing 2.7 ounces.
Because of Ohio's thick forests, American robins were not common during early settlement. They were seen in areas where settlers had cleared the land of trees and either left it open or planted orchards. One of the earliest records of the American Robin in Ohio is Moravian missionary David Zeisberger's journal entry in 1779-1780, "the black-bird [robin] has a reddish breast and its wings and back are ash-colored. Its song may be heard in wild regions and deserts."
As forests were cleared to make room for farms, robin populations jumped. By the mid-1800s, robins were common summer residents of the state.
Robin populations changed yearly, often because of harsh winters. The extensive use of pesticides in the 1950s and 60s caused numbers to fall dramatically. After the use of these pesticides was banned, their numbers began to increase.
Today robins can be found throughout Ohio in grassy habitats with shade trees, especially lawns in cities, towns, and farmlands.
- Hulbert, Archer B., and Schwarze, William N., eds. David Zeisberger's History of the North American Indians. Columbus, OH: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1910.
- Peterjohn, John. The Birds of Ohio; Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN; 1989. | <urn:uuid:199e9299-5456-4f7d-81f6-48488e7c4ca6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/American_Robin?rec=568 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956975 | 492 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Last month, India recorded a milestone in its effort to eradicate polio when it marked one year without any new infections. During the same year, Pakistan recorded 180 new polio cases, the most of any country. Pakistani authorities say national pride is now at stake for polio eradication and they are hoping to overcome years of setbacks from natural disasters, misinformation and war.
A polio vaccination team in Islamabad is visiting every house in a poor neighborhood of Afghan refugees to immunize every child against polio. They are part of a nationwide effort to administer the polio vaccine to more than 23 million children in a three-day period.
Children are given the vaccine orally, just a couple drops of sour tasting medicine. Those that have been vaccinated already during the three-day campaign receive a small ink stain on the finger. Pakistan holds polio eradication campaigns either at the national or regional level eight times a year. Their goal is to administer six vaccine dosages at sustained intervals to every child under five years old to ensure lifelong immunity.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali, the prime minister's administrator for polio eradication efforts, says it is important to make sure that children, especially in poor areas of Pakistan, receive several doses of the vaccine.
“Here of course because of factors such as malnutrition, poor health of children, diarrhea diseases, because as you know the virus is in the intestine, it's in the gut and you have to kill the virus with the vaccine, so you have to give repeated doses,” she said.
After the vaccination team visits a family, they mark the outside of the house with chalk, noting the number of children vaccinated. Lists of families in the neighborhood are checked and re-checked.
Dr. Hassan Urooj, the director of health services in Islamabad, says even under stable conditions a polio vaccination campaign can be a challenging logistical operation. He says the influx of refugees from areas like the Swat valley and the federally administered tribal areas or FATA, where there is ongoing fighting between Taliban insurgents and the Pakistan military, makes it almost impossible to make sure every child is vaccinated.
“If there is a security situation, insurgency in Swat or FATA, millions of internally displaced people leave their home town and their first place to stay is in Islamabad," he said. "So they are not in the demographic statistics. They are not on the data. But we have to cover them.”
There is no cure for polio and it can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection.
Effects of floods
The virus thrives in unsanitary conditions and Pakistan has suffered a number major natural disasters that has facilitated the spread of the disease. There was a sharp rise polio cases in Pakistan after the 2011 monsoon floods forced more than five million people into overpopulated, temporary shelters with inadequate clean water and sanitation facilities.
Ongoing fighting along the Afghanistan border and in Baluchistan has also made it unsafe for vaccination teams to carry out immunizations campaigns.
In some Muslim majority countries, officials also have to work to overcome mistrust from segments of the population that see Western countries as anti-Islamic, and are skeptical about the intentions behind the international vaccination effort.
Ali says this year they face increased resistance in Pakistan after reports last year that the American military in Abbottabad used a local doctor posing as a polio worker to try to confirm Osama Bin Laden's identity.
“We think it is indeed a highly unfortunate and inadvisable situation that occurred when the United States government, through apparently its CIA operation, wanted to collect intelligence and they used health and the immunization campaign as a cover,” said Ali.
Still, she says Pakistan is determined to overcome these obstacles and is putting added resources into the polio eradication effort, particularly after hearing of rival India's claim it is now polio free.
“It is a matter of national pride that we ensure that the maximum effort is made because failure is not an option,” continued Ali.
She says the spirit of competition with India has played a role in uniting Pakistan's political opponents and every level of government to focus on polio eradication as a national emergency. | <urn:uuid:9e80fcd4-eae3-4c7b-8f79-e11642a7288c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.voanews.com/content/indias-success-fighting-polio-motives-rival-pakistan--143461176/180111.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961074 | 847 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The lists below can be used to explore some of the data that the USGS offers. Not all data listed below may pertain specifically to Nevada.
- National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII)
- NBII is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools (more ).
- Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) Large River Monitoring Network
- BEST Large River Monitoring Network has examined fish health in multiple river basins. This searchable dataset currently contains the following information: Contaminant concentrations, fish health indicators, and reproductive biomarkers.
- Invasive Species Databases
- USGS invasive species research encompasses all significant groups of invasive organisms in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in all regions of the United States. Working collaboratively with partner agencies and organizations, USGS provides the tools, technology, and information that support efforts to prevent, contain, control, and manage invasive species nationwide (more ).
- Wild Horse Identification Management System (WHIMS)
- As part of a cooperative effort between USGS and the BLM, the Wild Horse Identification Management System (WHIMS) was developed to catalogue photographs and information on individual animals within wildhorse herds and then have this information easily retrieved and manipulated (more ).
- Query and order satellite images, aerial photographs, and cartographic products.
- GeoMac—Wildland Fire Support
- The Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group or GeoMAC, is an internet-based mapping application designed for fire managers and the public to access online maps of current fire locations and perimeters in the conterminous 48 States and Alaska. (more )
- Center for LIDAR Information Coordination and Knowledge (CLICK)
- The goal of CLICK is to facilitate data access, user coordination and education of lidar remote sensing for scientific needs.
- Death Valley Regional Flow System (DVRFS) map viewer
- A gateway to geospatial information and data pertaining to the DVRFS.
- Lake Tahoe Data Clearinghouse
- The site is designed to ensure that all interested parties -- scientists, engineers, resource managers, developers, and the public -- have quick and easy access to Lake Tahoe data and information (more ).
- Natural Hazards Support System (NHSS)
- NHSS enables users to monitor and analyze natural hazards events as they are occurring anywhere on the Earth in an integrated geospatial view that combines the dynamic natural hazards events with a rich set of reference data including shaded relief, transportation, and hydrography. (more ).
- National Oil and Gas Assessment
- The USGS Central Energy Team provides periodic assessments of the oil and natural gas endowment of the United States.
- Geology of the National Parks
- Take a virtual tour of one of the parks: climb the peaks of the North Cascades, use Lake Mead's history to learn about geologic time, or dig deeper into the geologic story of Death Valley. We even have some special 3D tours (more )
- National Water Information System: Web Interface (NWISweb)
- NWISweb provides access to water-resources data collected at approximately 1.5 million sites in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Online access is available for real-time, surface-water, ground-water, and water-quality data as well as site information.
- National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Data Warehouse
- The NAWQA program began systematically collecting chemical, biological, and physical water quality data from 42 study units (basins) across the nation in 1991. The data warehouse allows users access to most of the data collected through the NAWQA program from one central location.
- Water Use in the United States
- The USGS National Water-Use Information Program is responsible for compiling and disseminating the nation's water-use data. Every five years, data at the state level are compiled into a national water-use data system and are published in a national circular. | <urn:uuid:008d6174-c182-4d34-920d-e58a4080364f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nevada.usgs.gov/data.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.869043 | 862 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Timothy Tompkin's Lunch
CONCEPT: Eating with PKU
Read a poem about Timothy's strange food choices for breakfast. Discuss and build confidence in PKU food choices.
After completing this activity, children will be able to:
- suggest ways to prepare new food items
- list foods they could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Read the following poem to the children.
Timothy Tompkins had turnips and tea.
The turnips were tiny.
He ate at least three.
And then, for dessert,
he had onions and ice.
He liked that so much
that he ordered it twice.
He had two cups of ketchup,
a prune, and a pickle.
"Delicious," said Timothy.
"Well worth a nickel."
He folded his napkin
and hastened to add,
"It's one of the loveliest breakfasts I've had!"
From Dogs and Dragons, Trees and Dreams, by Karla Kuskin, Sesame Street, Sept 1984.
Lead a discussion about the poem, with questions such as:
How would you like to eat this for breakfast?
Do you think these are strange things to eat for breakfast?
Emphasize that we don't have to eat standard foods for breakfast. It's okay to eat different foods for breakfast.
Ask the children if they eat any different things for breakfast.
Distribute the worksheet to the children. Allow them time to work through it, assisting as needed. Review their answers together.
- Work together with your child to plan a week's menus of sack lunches that will fit into his/her daily phe prescription.
- Together with your child, create a food list similar to "Joe's List for Lunches" in the activity above. Then, when it is time to pack a lunch it is easy to look at the list for ideas.
- Encourage your child to learn to pack his/her own lunch. A good division of responsibility includes the parent making sure there are low phe food choices appropriate for sack lunches available in the kitchen, and the child then choosing from what is available and making the lunch. | <urn:uuid:e3fcf14f-9259-466d-83b5-0cd4ed289bed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://depts.washington.edu/pku/management/curriculum/schoolage/timothytompkin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953567 | 458 | 3.78125 | 4 |
The sun is hot. Extremely hot. Hot things can burn. I don't believe you need to make the explanation any more complex than this, or attempt to explain it scientifically.
The answer you've given the child would likely confuse him more.
The analogy to a car accident I believe is not at all appropriate. The child presumably has no experience of car accidents, so would have no way to understand what a car accident would feel like. Speaking from experience, a car accident feels very different to looking at the sun.
If you're going to try to explain the concept of 'hurt'. It would be best to use something the child may have had experience with, grazed knees, ear infections, getting new teeth etc. The child would very likely understand that these are unpleasant sensations, so would want to avoid anything that may be equally unpleasant.
You could therefore say something like "if you look at the sun, your eyes may hurt, like your knee hurts when you fall down."
Also if you want the child to not look at the sun, avoid personalizing it. i.e. stop referring to it as "Mr Sun". The child might be trying to see Mr Sun's smiling face. | <urn:uuid:f8a46af5-ad0d-416e-b969-220e95d44f25> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/23929/how-can-i-explain-to-my-son-why-sunlight-will-hurt-his-eyes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977248 | 248 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Dogs To the Rescue (For Conservation)
Across the world, conservationists rely on dogs’ keen sense of smell to help with various projects.
A great slideshow by treehugger first brought the noble work of these canine conservationists to our attention. It highlighted dogs that track wildlife poachers, help marine biologists find orca scat in the ocean, preserve penguins and more.
With a little more research, we found Working Dogs for Conservation and Conservation Canines—organizations that share more examples of impressive work, such as dogs’ assistance with protecting the world’s rarest great ape or finding invasive beetle species in Minnesota.
In fact, the list of species dogs have been trained to find is huge. It includes giant anteaters, jaguars, kiwi birds, fire ants, brown tree snakes and gypsy moths.
But not every dog has what it takes to work in conservation. According to Working Dogs for Conservation, just 1 in 1,000 canines has the intense drive and high energy required for the job. | <urn:uuid:d97603e7-3485-4a99-bc21-9bcdad6b8450> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theactivetimes.com/dogs-help-save-species-ecosystems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925066 | 219 | 3.140625 | 3 |
This book will attempt to bring out and expose the causes of refractive and muscular eye troubles, pains, strains, and headaches, in cases of children and young people, and why glasses and contact lenses are not scientifically correct for them. If this can be done, then it will prove that all schools of eyework, all eyemen, including myself, and millions of eyeglass wearers have been wrong in what they have been doing and have believed in for many years. I was guilty for ten years.
Human eyes are doing so badly with glasses that they could not do worse without them. It may seem that it is just the other way, but nothing in the healing art could appear so right and be so wrong as glasses, as the supposed remedy for refractive eye troubles.
Let us forget about glasses and contact lenses long enough to consider what I have to say. We will start all over, right from the cradle. I will try to write this in plain language that the average person. can understand.
I will be mentioning circular ciliary muscles, accommodation, and dynamic skiametry. For those who may not know what they are, the circular ciliary muscles are the muscles of accommodation of the human eye; accommodation is the focusing of human eyes at all distances from far to near; dynamic skiametry is the use of what is known as the retinoscope to look into the eyes at a distance of thirteen inches, the patient looking at the examiner's nose, then his forehead, then his left ear, then his chin, and back to the nose, to determine the refractive status of the transparent media of the patient's eyes. There is another version of skiametry known as static skiametry. It is done at a distance of twenty-six inches, while the patient looks at what would be twenty feet. It does not uncover that which dynamic skiametry uncovers. Therefore, I use dynamic skiametry exclusively to determine the refractive status of the transparent media of human eyes, which cannot be determined by static skiametry.
All are born with more or less weak, undeveloped circular ciliary muscles of human eyes. Optically speaking this weakness is known as plus 2.00 to plus 8.00 diopters in dynamic skiametry findings, commonly known as farsightedness. Some are born cross-eyed, caused by the same findings, in one eye or both, but mostly in both.
As the child develops, the plus dynamic skiametry findings will develop toward normal, or less plus, by the natural use of the eyes. This means that the circular ciliary muscles of the eyes will develop toward normal as they grow older, which is natural and expected, if left alone.
By the time the child is five years old, his eyes will have about half as much dynamic skiametry findings as he had when born. By the time the child is ten years old, his eyes will have about half as much plus dynamic skiametry findings as he had at age five years, and so on as he goes through life. If left alone up to the time when his circular ciliary muscles and dynamic skiametry findings are normal, or near normal, many cross-eyes would be straightened. For the few that may not develop fast and far enough, or may over-develop, and the cross-eyes that may not straighten quickly enough, there are corrective measures. These can only be determined after an examination under the proper theory and method.
Most eyes can go through life, or at least up to age forty, without glasses, providing they were used right from the cradle. If some do not, these used their eyes wrong, and glasses are not the remedy, regardless of what type of refractive or muscular eye trouble they might have, caused by what they did wrong.
Before going into real refractive eye troubles, let us take up astigmatism and muscular imbalances, so that the finger can then be put on the cause of real refractive eye troubles.
Let us ignore and make little of astigmatism, instead of making a big case of it. Astigmatism will also tend to grow normal, if let alone, as one grows older. Making a big thing of astigmatism is making little of the real refractive eye trouble. Everyone can get along and see in their way through astigmatism over a period of time, as their circular ciliary muscles develop by the natural use of their eyes. As they grow older, if left alone, the eyes will round out, and the astigmatism will disappear.
Those who talk the most about their astigmatism, usually have only a slight case or none at all. They were horrified when they were told they had it. It sounded like they had some kind of a twist in the eyes, or a disease. They take the glasses and wear them faithfully from then on, telling everyone they meet that they have astigmatism, as if glasses improved or cured it. They don't know what it is, but they have it because the eyemen said so. Many eyemen know that when they tell a patient that he has astigmatism there will be no questions asked, and that the patient will take the glasses without argument.
Astigmatism is no more than a slight off-shape of the eyeball, due to lack of internal tone and pressure, allowing the eyeball to sag out of round in its socket. It amounts to little or nothing, and should be ignored in most cases. However, there is one type of astigmatism that might be classified as real. These cases are few and far between, compared to ordinary astigmatism. It is called structural astigmatism, of a more or less high degree, up to five diopters, rarely more. It could be due partly to sectional accommodation of the circular ciliary muscles. However, if left alone it, too, will tend toward normalcy over a period of time. If glasses are prescribed and worn, it will become permanent.
There are five kinds of astigmatism: plain farsighted, compound farsighted, mixed, plain nearsighted and compound nearsighted. The last three were formerly the first two. They changed from the first two, just the same as plus (farsightedness) changes into minus (nearsightedness); this will be explained under the heading of the cause of farsightedness and nearsightedness.
Like astigmatism, let us test for, record, and then ignore any and all muscular imbalances. They are the result of and caused by the off-normal circular ciliary muscles. As the circular ciliary muscles improve over a period of time, by the natural use of the eyes as they grow older, the muscular imbalances will improve and tend toward normal if left alone.
The circular ciliary muscles are the opposing muscles of the four extrinsic muscles. When the circular ciliary muscles are weak and undeveloped, the nerve force they do not get goes into one of the extrinsic muscles, causing it to over-contract, which in turn causes the muscular imbalance. As the circular ciliary muscles develop, taking up more and more nerve force, the nerve force is taken away from the over-contracted extrinsic muscle which is getting too much, allowing the muscular imbalance to improve or disappear. A one-eyed person has no extrinsic muscular problem. He can have only a circular ciliary muscle problem.
So let us ignore astigmatism and muscular imbalance, and blame all refractive eye troubles on the circular ciliary muscles.
If the circular ciliary muscles and the subjective tests are normal, there is no eye problem. If there is an eye problem, it has to be the fault of the circular ciliary muscles. It is nothing else. It could not be any other part of the human eye. The circular ciliary muscles are the key to any and all refractive eye troubles. To know the circular ciliary muscles is to know the cause of eye problems. The only exception might be amblyopia, which is the fault of the retina, optic nerve, or visual centers of the brain. Amblyopia means a dullness of vision that no lens will improve. It is not the fault of the ciliary muscles; therefore it is useless to try to fit a lens to an amblyopic eye. However, my corrective measures might improve amblyopia better than any other way.
To cite one case of amblyopia, or sub-normal vision, in both eyes: (Usually amblyopia is found only in one eye.) This case was a Miss W., age eleven; visual acuity was 20/70 poor in each eye. Dynamic skiametry was plus 4.00. She read only #6 type poorly at close range. In the Subjective (chart) test, no lenses would improve visual acuity. Esophoria, which was difficult to get, was 4 degrees at 13 inches, and 8 degrees at 20 feet. This case had been examined by several other eyemen, who could do nothing for her eyes. According to my theory and method, I ignored the esophoria, and no glasses were prescribed for wear. I gave corrective measures for the dynamic skiametry findings alone; nothing else. Checkups were made every two weeks for some time, showing no improvement in visual acuity. She seemed to have little trouble in school. However, we persevered, having the full cooperation from the patient and parents. We continued the corrective measures for the dynamic skiametry findings, when suddenly her visual acuity improved to 20/40, and two weeks later, to 20/20. Her dynamic skiametry findings improved from plus 4.00, to much less plus. I did not bother to take the muscular test.
This case had another affliction, that of sloughing or peeling of the skin of both hands and both feet. She had been to dermatology clinics for this, and her case was shown at medical meetings and conventions. I did not know whether or not there was any connection between this condition and her amblyopia. It seemed that dermatologists could do nothing for her. However, her amblyopia did finally respond to my corrective measures, but it took perseverance and full cooperation.
Dynamic skiametry is the key test of the circular ciliary muscles, along with the subjective (chart) test being the key test of the visual acuity. These two tests are the keys to all eye problems. Of the two key tests, the dynamic skiametry test is the most important to know, as it can be used even on an infant, or an illiterate who cannot have a subjective test or a muscular balance test. Without the dynamic skiametry key test, one could not know the eye problem. Static skiametry will not reveal the latent circular ciliary condition. Unless one is expert in determining dynamic skiametry tests, he cannot know the deep-seated fault of the circular ciliary muscles.
Dynamic skiametry tests should be done at thirteen inches from the patient, with the patient (if old enough) first looking at the examiner's nose, then his forehead, then his left ear, then his chin, and back to his nose. In this way, the examiner can test at several angles, through the transparent media of the eyes, to ascertain the dynamic skiametry findings, neutralizing them by turning lenses in the phoropter to measure the latent error. If the child patient is not old enough, the examiner can proceed as above, as the child's eyes wander around, watching the examiner, and the examiner can estimate the plus dynamic skiametry findings.
Since children who are too young, or illiterates cannot undergo a subjective test, they should be left alone rather than fitted or misfitted with wrong glasses. Skiametry findings alone are not enough to prescribe glasses for them. It's the poorest kind of guesswork. However, children will wear whatever is prescribed for them, whether the glasses are right or wrong. They love the novelty of the glasses; they even want to sleep with them on. Because of this, it looks like the glasses are a perfect fit, that the eyeman did a good job, and all seems well. The eyes conform to the wrong lenses, becoming what the glasses make them, and that is anything but good. They would all be better off if left alone while their eyes are in the process of developing toward normalcy. Usually the lenses are more or less high plus, which retards or stops natural development. It would be worse than the plus lenses if the examiner were foolish enough to guess at and prescribe minus (nearsighted) lenses, for a patient at such a young age. We all know what we have been doing for them; I say it is wrong, and I would like to put a stop to it.
Along with the dynamic skiametry findings, and, if possible, the subjective test, we should know the symptoms - whether they say they can't see, they see double, print runs together, they have pains, strains, or headaches, etc., or they feigning eye trouble just to get a pair of glasses, or malingering, or not doing well in school. Heretofore all such symptoms ended up with a pair of glasses as a supposed panacea for eyes, which they are not.
Let us analyze the symptoms, expose the cause, and then analyze why glasses are not scientifically correct for them. Regardless of the refractive eye condition, the dynamic skiametry findings, or the subjective test, they brought on their own symptoms by misuse and abuse of their eyes in any and all close work, such as reading too much, often with head in hands, on their elbows, on the stomach, on the floor, or reading prayer books the way they do in church; by writing, drawing, sketching, coloring, comics, girls crocheting, knitting, sewing, cutting out paper dolls, boys making model airplanes, cars, boats, keeping stamps and coins, picking at their fingers, etc. All of these were done the wrong way, the hard way-too hard, too close, too long, without looking up and away. In short, they caused their symptoms themselves. If they had not done any of the things mentioned above, there would be no eye troubles and therefore no glasses. If there are eye troubles, they did too much of what I just outlined.
Some go nearsighted just from having tried on someone else's glasses foolishly, to see if he could see with them. Depending on the strength of someone else's lenses, and how long he left them on, it could happen that quickly. No one should ever try on someone else's glasses for any reason. After even the slightest nearsightedness is once acquired, such cases should never look through binoculars, opera glasses, field glasses, or telescopes. They are worse than glasses. But it seems that these cases will do too much of the very things they should not do, and then wonder why their nearsightedness gets so bad, so quickly.
Because of what they did, they will have to pay for it by getting worse with glasses, or getting better quickly or slowly without glasses. They need discipline in the use of their eyes, in any and all close work, and corrective measures are necessary for those who might need help. Many will improve by themselves, if they will stop that which caused the eye trouble. Over a period of time they could become normal. Again I would say that they caused their own symptoms by the misuse and abuse of their eyes, in any and all close work, and that glasses are not their remedy. There are no exceptional cases where glasses might seem to be the remedy.
Cross-eyes, called esotropia, should be classified in a category of their own. They do not necessarily cause it themselves. They are afflicted with it, in most cases. Practically all cases I have had had a high diopter plus 4.00 to plus 8.00 dynamic skiametry findings, meaning weakness of the circular ciliary muscles, making for an over-contracted internal extrinsic muscle. In other words, what nerve force the circular ciliary muscles did not get got "off the track" into the internal extrinsic muscles, over-contracting them and causing the eyes to cross. Some cases-not all-have been made to look straight with high plus glasses for wear, which I say was a poor straightening. The high plus lenses not only prevented circular ciliary muscle development that would have taken place in time, if left alone, but paralyzed the action of the circular ciliary muscles. I did that myself for ten years, until I discovered it was wrong and unscientific. Just how it made some eyes look straight with glasses on I'll never know, and I don't think anyone else knows. However, during forty years of my theory and method for cross-eyes I used an entirely different procedure, without using glasses, developing the circular ciliary muscles toward normal and straightening the eyes, at the same time, in a number of cases. Some straightened at once and others took a little longer. However, all had to continue my corrective measures for some time thereafter, in order to continue the further development of the circular ciliary muscles that caused the cross-eyes in the first place. I have straightened some cases even after one, two, or three operations had failed. In an operation (tenotomy) for cross-eyes, there is a high percentage of risk and failure. In fact, they have to wear high plus glasses thereafter to try to hold the eyes straight. We can do better than that. I found out that practically all cross-eyed cases are the same, and practically all call for and respond to the same procedure, under my theory and method. Cross-eyed cases can be left alone, to watch and wait for improvement, or if eyemen think they must prescribe some kind of glasses, he could prescribe weak mild plus one lenses for wear, not high plus, as they would have ordinarily done before.
The "patch over one eye" system, used in some cross-eye cases and also in amblyopia, is a feeble effort that can do little if any good, especially in cases of cross-eyes. It stands to reason, that the minute a patch is put on the good eye of a cross-eyed case, there is no incentive for the eyes to straighten. In fact, it retards straightening. I discarded the use of a patch forty years ago as not being a true scientific effort. Even under the old theory of cross-eyes, or amblyopia, a powerful plus lens over the good eye would do better than a patch. The patch is used for want and need of a better procedure. The same goes for prescribing of more or less strong plus lenses for wear in cases of cross-eyes. The straightening of cross-eyes, with more or less strong plus lenses for wear, if they do make the eyes look straight with glasses on, is a poor straightening, and accomplished at the expense of stopping the development of the circular ciliary muscles. Any other method would be better than that or the patch over one eye.
Following are eight outstanding cases of cross-eyes, picked at random, ones that I remember well; ages are from seven to seventeen years. All are 100 per cent improvement cases, where the eyes not only were straightened, but the high plus refraction was made normal without glasses. All wore high plus glasses for some time before coming to me, and the eyes were crossed, with and without their glasses. All were cured under my theory and method of corrective measures. As said before, while some cases straightened in the first visit, and others in a short time, all had to continue the corrective measures long enough to improve or cure the plus refraction which caused the eyes to cross in the first place.
For the record, the names were John D. (age 16); Mary D. (age 17); Georgette L. (age 17); Cynthia B. (age 7); Beachy M. (age 16); Tom J. Jr. (age 14); John G. (age 15); and Richard O. (age 7). I have many other cases to my credit. They were all the same type of case. But if I did no more than what I did for the above eight cases, it was positive proof to me that my theory and method was correct, and that glasses were wrong for them. There's a long story attached to each one of them - too long to go into here.
In my forty years of practice, under my own theory and method, I have had only one or two cases of cross-eyes that were not like all the rest. Most cases showed high plus dynamic skiametry and subjective findings, along with the cross-eyes. The results I have had without glasses and with my corrective measures-borders on accomplishing the impossible.
The first case of cross-eyes I tackled with my own theory and method of corrective measures, was John D., age 16. His eyes straightened in the first visit, after being crossed for some sixteen years. It proved to me that my theory and method was right. Subsequent cases further proved to me that it takes more than glasses can ever do for any case of cross-eyes, to accomplish what can and, should be done. (Be it understood that I had already handled other types of cases successfully.)
If I told here and now what I do in corrective measures under my theory and method for cross-eyes and other types of cases, too many eyemen would laugh in my face and ridicule me to save their face, and not be proven wrong for what they have been doing all these years. They would declare that they knew it all the time, when their records will show otherwise, and that they did not know it all the time. That is why I say that corrective measures can be determined only after an examination under the proper theory and method. I feel that I am sticking my neck out far enough by making known my feelings against glasses for children and young people, without disclosing what I do or use in corrective measures, other than glasses for wear, for them. I am exposing my hand this much. If the masses of children and young people will take the first step and do what I have said, all will begin to improve or cure, even without corrective measures. This means that the children and young people will have to do the best they can by stopping their bad eye habits in any and all close work, by never resorting to glasses in the first place, and discarding the glasses already worn. If they will not do that much, corrective measures will be useless.
(Schools of eyework and eyemen can draw their own conclusions of what my corrective measures might be from what I have had to say, or they can contact me for the information. However, if they choose to contact me for the information they will have to admit, in their request for it and over their signature, that they agree with what I have had to say. If too few apply for the information, this offer will be withdrawn.)
It may seem that glasses can do only good and not harm, but the fact is that glasses can do only harm and not good for them, all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. If all glasses were kept off or taken away from all children and young people who wear them, all would begin to improve. Not one would be hurt, go blind, or even half-blind, and all would be better off in the long run. There is no halfway measure. It must be all the way-glasses off. If one wears glasses part-time, he must grow worse. If one does not want to grow worse, he must give up glasses for all time.
Through a twist or blur in the vision, or any symptoms of pains, strains, or headaches which they caused themselves, they will become glasses conscious and resort to glasses. Then they will keep up their bad eye habits, in any and all close work, with the use of glasses. Soon-in a year or so-the same symptoms appear, this time with the glasses on, and they will be told they need a change of lenses. This goes on and on thereafter, as the eyes grow worse. If they had been disciplined in the use of their eyes and no glasses prescribed in the first place, this would not have happened.
Those who wear glasses for pains, strains, or headaches, soon have them again with the glasses, and they are the biggest users of headache powders. Headaches come from many things, such as exposure to fumes of fresh paint, varnish oils or gases, indigestion, gastritis, etc. Certainly glasses are not the remedy for these causes of headaches, but too many put on their first glasses because of such headaches. Whole families have put on glasses because of paint and varnish fumes while redecorating inside the home, wearing the glasses forever after. The eyeman should have traced the cause of the headaches to the fumes, and not to the supposed need of glasses. Headaches caused by fumes can last for some time, even after the fumes are cleared. But after getting unnecessary glasses and the fumes clear, the headaches are no more, and credit is given to the glasses. They continue to wear the glasses for fear of the return of the headaches.
All glasses are fitted, by all eyemen, in all cases, at twenty feet or its equivalent. Twenty feet is only one point where eyes look, from near to far, in all directions. Particularly in myopia, there is no lens that can be made to scientifically fit the eyes to all other distances. No one uses his eyes at a distance of exactly twenty feet all the time.
Glasses fitted at twenty feet are harmful and habit-forming at twenty feet and beyond. Few, if any, use their eyes beyond twenty feet as much as they do inside of twenty feet. inside of twenty feet the glasses are many times worse. Glasses are wrong at every foot inside of twenty feet. At ten feet the glasses are twice wrong; at five feet they are four times wrong; at one foot, they are twenty times wrong. This is arrived at by dividing the distance eyes look into twenty feet, to determine how many times the glasses are wrong. This is the reason why glasses are not scientifically correct, and this reason alone should turn the masses against glasses. (This does not apply to cases after cataract removal.)
There are those who would try to discredit me, to save face and not to be proven wrong for what they have been doing all these years, loudly proclaiming that eyes will compensate through glasses made for twenty feet to see at all other distances. That is true as long as they are young enough to do it. I always knew that. But I must warn you, eyes cannot compensate through glasses made for twenty feet for all other distances, WITHOUT BEING HURT. This is why and where glasses fall down. This is what brings on the progressiveness of myopia, which could have been prevented if the glasses had never been prescribed or worn.
There are those who know that the above is true, who will prescribe bifocals, which is a feeble effort which can do little or no good. They know that myopic lenses, fitted for twenty feet, are too strong for close work. What they do not seem to realize is that there are nineteen other feet, inside of the twenty feet, where the myopic lenses are too strong. Besides, children and young people do not like bifocals, and will not bother to look through the bifocal part for close work, looking over the bifocals most of the time. Myopic cases continue to progress, in spite of the bifocals.
There have been many articles in our eye journals expressing concern about the cause of myopia (nearsightedness) of children and young people, and what to do about it. It is something to be concerned about; it has gone too far and gotten out of control, using the old tradition of glasses as a remedy. Old-timers in the optical supply business remember, and agree, that up to twenty-five years ago their stock of already ground but uncut lenses was mostly farsighted lenses. Today, most of their stock is nearsighted lenses. Today, most of the prescriptions for glasses for children and young people, whether ready-made, or specially ground, are of the nearsighted variety. Today, making children and young people see with nearsighted glasses is considered to be not only a skill but an art, when, in fact it is placing too much confidence in glasses on the part of the one who does the examining and prescribing, and the gullibility of those concerned, the ones for whom the glasses were prescribed.
While the articles in our eye journals are more or less alike, one recent article concerns itself in great detail as to whether nearsightedness grows progressively worse faster or slower with single vision or bifocal nearsighted lenses. Nearsightedness grows progressively worse with either or both. The writers seem to think that they must allow the patients to see clearly, with nearsighted glasses, while at the same time trying to prevent progression. This cannot be done. But such articles do show that some eyemen are concerned about the progression of myopia in cases of children and young people. None of them advocate, as I do, deliberately removing glasses for everything and anything, and disciplining them in the use of their eyes in any and all close work, which was and always will be the cause of their nearsightedness.
Progression of myopia cannot be stopped as long as the patients are allowed to wear nearsighted glasses (single vision or bifocals), at any time. It can be stopped, and the myopia can be improved or cured, by not allowing that just mentioned, and by disciplining them in the use of their eyes in any and all close work. Let those concerned think about that for a while. Parents can do that much themselves, without even consulting an eyeman. The parents should watch and wait for the nearsightedness to improve or cure itself over a period of time.
There is another scientific reason why nearsighted glasses, in particular, are unscientific and wrong for children and young people. We all know, or should know, that normal eyes accommodate three diopters of power to read at thirteen inches, relaxing to a state of rest when looking up and away; not so with nearsighted eyes and glasses. Nearsighted eyes have to over-accommodate through nearsighted glasses to read at thirteen inches, as compared to normal eyes. Their over-accommodation adds up to the nearsighted lens power they wear for distance, say for example minus three diopters, plus the same three diopters that normal eyes use to see at thirteen inches, which makes six diopters of accommodation used by such nearsighted eyes through nearsighted glasses. In cases where the eyes are six diopters nearsighted, they use nine diopters to read, and so on, whereas normal eyes only use three diopters to read. Such reasoning applies to all other distances inside of twenty feet.
Just as misuse and abuse of the eyes, or over-accommodation, in any and all close work, causes the nearsightedness in the first place, such terrific over-accommodation through nearsighted glasses, causes the increased progressive nearsightedness in the second place. Part or all of such over-accommodating locks the refractive media of the eyes into more and more nearsightedness, or over-convexity of the eyeballs. Children and young people can see through nearsighted glasses, at all distances, as long as they are young enough to do it, but the nearsighted lenses will prevent improvement of the nearsightedness. In other words, nearsighted glasses and also farsighted glasses will create more of the same problem for which the lenses were prescribed and worn. If left alone, without glasses, and the bad eye habits in all close work were stopped, the eyes would return towards normal.
Under the old tradition of prescribing glasses for the eyes, the same eyeman who will harness up the accommodation with the strongest plus lenses the eye will take in hyperopic or farsighted cases, will prescribe minus lenses that will force the eyes into over-accommodation in nearsighted eyes. This does not make scientific sense. If accommodating is supposed to be bad for farsighted eyes, it is worse for nearsighted eyes. We should allow farsighted eyes to accommodate to see and overcome their own weakness, developing toward normal over a period of time, and we should prevent nearsighted eyes from over-accommodating, relaxing the circular ciliary muscles toward normalcy over a period of time, both without glasses Therefore, prescribing plus or minus lenses in cases of children and young people is doing worse than doing nothing for them, regardless of the type of case, or whether or not there is a better method for them. | <urn:uuid:2bb4a19d-9772-4edc-9848-88e141be888a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.i-see.org/eyeglasses_harmful/chap1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968227 | 6,865 | 2.671875 | 3 |
One of my early Earth & Mind posts
explored how Clark & Wiebe's (2000)
idea of "concept-driven visualizations" and "data-driven visualizations" would play out in geosciences. A concept-driven visualization is generated from a concept or theory in the mind of a scientist or scientific illustrator. Although the concept was originally constructed from observations of the earth, the visualization itself is not directly tied to a specific empirical data set. In contrast, a data-driven visualization uses empirical data to formulate the visualization. There is a direct digital chain of custody from the data set to the visualization.
I now realize that a similar distinction can be drawn among scientific animations. We can think of "concept-driven animations," and "data-driven animations."
Click here for runnable version
Far and away the majority of animations of earth processes are concept-driven. For example, transform fault motion is illustrated conceptually by an animation on the IRIS website.
Like static concept-driven visualizations, this concept-driven animation makes it [relatively] easy to see phenomena that are important in the curriculum, for example the relationship between offset direction and slip direction.
Click here for runnable version
But real-world transform faults are much messier. Bill Ryan
has created a series of animations of the Pitman Fracture Zone,
a long-lived, long-offset transform fault on the Pacific Antarctic plate boundary. Bill and colleagues began by collecting a high resolution data set of bathymetry and magnetic anomalies on both sides of the transform fault and fracture zone extensions. They then back-tracked the seafloor-spreading in steps determined by the magnetic anomalies, digitally sliding the seafloor back along flowlines and correcting the water depth for subsidence with age. Then they combined reconstructed seafloor shapes of different ages into an animation. The animation shows 10 million years of seafloor spreading in 50,000 year steps.
As was the case for data-driven and concept-driven static visualizations, I think the two types of animations both have value.
Concept-driven animations, like concept-driven static visualizations, are relatively easy for students to understand. They foreground processes and relationships that are pedagogically important. In the case of the example shown above, that would be the divergent motion of the crust on the two sides of the spreading center, and the fact that transform motion on a ridge-transform-ridge plate boundary is opposite to the direction of offset. The relatively simple shapes and motions may be easier to incorporate into a mental model than the more complex shapes and motions of a data-driven animation.
Data-driven animations, on the other hand, present richer, more detailed and arguably more accurate representations of motions that actually happened (or are believed to have happened) at specific times and places on earth. They are harder for students to get their minds around–but on the other hand, they show the true complexity of the real Earth and real Earth processes. This includes structure and processes that are not typically included in the Geo 101 worldview, for example the transform-parallel bathymetric ridges in the Pitman FZ animation.
The vast majority of animations available for earth science instruction, especially those that accompany textbooks, seem to be concept-driven animations. I think an ideal education would have a balance of both. But I think more work is needed to develop good pedagogical frameworks and lesson plans to help students benefit from, rather than be overwhelmed by, the complexity of data-driven animations.
Here are two additional sources of data-driven animations:
I'd be interested to hear about other data-driven animations in geosciences or other sciences, and also about lesson plans for activities that use data-driven animations.
Sources & Notes:
- Clark, A. C., & Wiebe, E. N. (2000). Scientific visualization for secondary and post-secondary schools. Journal of Technology Studies, 26(1).
- The idea in this post was triggered by a workshop on Teaching Geology with Animations at Mt. Holyoke College on May 16, 2011, hosted by Darby Dyar and Laura Wenk.
- Bill Ryan, Bill Menke and I used to teach a lab on "Manifestations of Plate Boundaries" that made use of the Pitman Transform Fault data-driven animation. Here is a link to the old lab write-up.
- The fracture zone in the data-driven animation was named after Walter Pitman, a marine geophysicist who assembled some of the first evidence of seafloor spreading based on the symmetrical pattern of magnetic anomalies.
- Atwater, T., 1970, Implications of plate tectonics for the Cenozoic tectonic evolution of Western North America: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 81, no. 12, p. 3513-3536.
- Atwater, T, and Stock, J. M., 1998, Pacific-North America plate tectonics of the Neogene southwestern United States - an update: International Geological Review, v. 40, p. 375-402.
The lack of middle ground has always annoyed me: animations based on simplified real data, smoothed out to take away many of the real-world quirks & exceptions while still more conceptually complex than "A slides past B."
I moved from physics to geophysics after I already knew how to learn, was perpetually frustrated at the plethora of resources were written for novices still sorting themselves out or for expert-specialists with a shared educational background, but very little for high-level experts transferring sideways from a related field. Now I've realized just how common the physics-geophysics shift is, I'm even more puzzled that hybrids between novice-concept-level animations and specialist-data-animations are so rare.
edittextuser=5299 post_id=14640 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=4245
The differentiation between concept-driven and data-driven models (animations or other graphics) could not be more starkly defined than when I worked a project where we were required to take our conceptual models and create finite element models to address specific engineering concerns. Something that started off as a napkin sketch had to be retrofitted to match the real-world data set, as close as possible. The effort to cross that boundary was challenging, but the results and findings were well worth it and led to insights that were beneficial to the project.
On a slightly different topic, I've seen a number of conceptual animations regarding salt tectonics. Facilities like the JIP-funded Applied Geodynamics Laboratory at the University of Texas work on projects where scaled models are built and a plethora of data is gathered to try and better understand the drivers and responses for mobilization of that crazy stuff called salt. I suspect the salt tectonics realm would yield many examples for both data and concept-driven models.
edittextuser=5304 post_id=14647 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=4245 | <urn:uuid:68dce487-0bee-4585-967a-76261106265a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://serc.carleton.edu/earthandmind/posts/datadrivenanima.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00160-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929338 | 1,471 | 3.3125 | 3 |
An economic downturn may be better for your health than you realize.
The 2008 financial crisis in Iceland improved the health of the country’s population, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Iceland, the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center and Rider University. In the aftermath of the crisis, Icelandians cut back on behaviors that put their health at risk and even boosted some behaviors that promote good health.
Between 2007 and 2009, Iceland's residents reduced their smoking, heavy drinking, indoor tanning and consumption of unhealthy foods like sugary drinks, sweets and fast food, the study found. Though Icelandians cut back on healthy behaviors like eating fruits and vegetables in the aftermath of the recession, they consumed more fish oil and were more likely to get the recommended amounts of sleep.
Iceland’s banking sector came crashing down in the span of a week amid the global financial crisis of 2008. The banks collapsed under pressure from large debts they built up attempting to expand overseas in the lead up to the crisis.
Though the findings of the Iceland study may seem counterintuitive, recessions have been shown to improve health elsewhere in the world. Economic downturns during the 20th century have been associated with a drop in mortality rates, according to Slate.
"There is a pretty broad literature on this," MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber wrote in an e-mail to Slate’s Timothy Noah. "[A]nd the consensus seems to be that recessions are good for health."
Still, there may be evidence to challenge the trend. In poorer countries, a boost in economic growth leads to a drop in mortality rates. And in the United Kingdom, the recession put managers at risk of poor health as their workloads increased, according to a recent study from Chartered Management Institute. In addition, the recession has put pressure on British bosses to come to work sick.
Stateside, the economic downturn may be hurting Americans health as patients are forced to cut back amid rising unemployment and health care costs. Nearly 60 percent of Americans put off or went without health care they needed in the previous 12 months, according to a June report from the Kaiser Foundation. Let's also not discount the toll unemployment can take on a person. | <urn:uuid:a5e89db9-490b-4687-8fae-0b6592bcdb5b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/iceland-recession-health_n_1695729.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960575 | 451 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Palisades students learn a variety of lessons on Earth Day
Despite the unseasonably chilly weather last week about 180 fewer car trips were made to Palisades Elementary School as 211 of the school's 317 students biked, bused or walked to school in observance of Earth Day. Their efforts were recognized in assemblies Monday morning, where it was announced that their efforts reduced the carbon footprint of the school by 142 kg of carbon dioxide, or 313 pounds.
On that upbeat note, Earth PALS organizers Doug Rich, Rosemary Dicandilo and Christina Hardy turned the students' attention to another issue: sustainable food. Guest speakers Laura Masterson, farm manager at Luscher Farm Community Supported Agriculture and Lake Oswego Review food journalist/culinary instructor Barb Randall planted the seeds of thought and action on the subject at the most opportune time: right before lunch.
Masterson explained that sustainable practices are those that are able to maintain without exploiting or destroying the natural resources. She explained that she utilizes many organic and sustainable methods of farming at Luscher Farm, including using an electric tractor and horses to till the fields.
'Electric tractors, like electric cars, are healthy for the planet,' she explained to the audience. 'And plowing with horses is even better. They don't need any gas - they just need grass!'
Other organic and sustainable practices in use at the farm are hand weeding, bringing in good bugs, such as ladybugs, to control bugs that could damage crops building habitats for birds, frogs and bumblebees to flourish to help keep bad bugs in check and crop rotation.
She encouraged students to eat with the seasons to enjoy a wide range of vegetables and fruits. Masterson related how CSA subscribers can enjoy fresh produce year round.
'Food just tastes better when it's freshly picked,' she said.
Randall also talked about the benefit of eating with the seasons and eating locally.
'There are many ways you can preserve the foods while they are at their peak,' she said. 'You can can foods, freeze them, pickle them or dry them. A little amount of effort in the summer time can fill your pantry and freezer with the tastes of summer all winter.'
Randall's samples of farm fresh carrots, grilled sprouted purple broccoli, smoothies made from blueberries frozen last summer, and apple butter and raspberry jam made last season were enthusiastically received by student tasters.
To encourage students to start a home garden, organizers had procured packets of vegetable seeds, tree seedlings and coupons for vegetable plants for them to take home. | <urn:uuid:4329b9fb-925f-4a9e-8e84-4c09b86506d9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://portlandtribune.com/component/content/article?id=66330 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96277 | 534 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Calculating the finished goods inventory for a manufacturing company requires the use of a simple mathematical formula that depends on a few of the company’s inventory and production records to complete. The formula for use is, “Finished Goods Inventory=Beginning Finished Goods Inventory+Cost of Goods Manufactured-Cost of Goods Sold.” In other words, your finished goods is the amount of goods you have at the beginning of the period, plus any added manufactured goods throughout the period, minus the manufacturing costs of any goods sold in that period.
Check the company’s inventory records for the finished goods inventory for the preceding period. Use this amount as your goods inventory for the beginning of the current period for the calculations. For example, if the last year ended with $100,000 in finished goods, then use this amount as your starting point.
Add to your goods inventory the cost of goods manufactured during your calculation period. Make sure that you include the entire costs, from direct labor to overhead in the amount. This will give you your total inventory value during the period. If you began with $100,000 in inventory, added $500,000 in new goods, then your total inventory for the period is $600,000.
Subtract the cost of goods sold during that period from your total inventory to calculate the finished goods inventory for the new period. Of that $600,000 worth of inventory, if you sold goods that cost you $550,000 to manufacture from the inventory during the period, then your finished goods inventory for the period is $50,000.
- Company inventory and sales records
- Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:68d0de1a-a684-465f-91dc-dc1e813515bc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://smallbusiness.chron.com/calculate-finished-goods-inventory-manufacturing-company-21777.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940993 | 341 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Sumerian Main Page
The History of Ancient Sumeria (Sumer) including its cities, kings, religions culture and contributions or civilization
Abraham and Shinar
Culture and Contributions
Dictionary of Words
Ensi - Lugal
First Historical Personalities
Flood Legends in History
Sargon The Great
The City of Ebla
The City of Larsa
The City of Ur
Advice about Farming
Epic of Gilgamesh
Enki, The God
Hymn to Ishtar
Lament for Ur
Poem Of The Sufferer
Prayer to Shamash
Prayer to Every God
Reforms of Urukagina
Sumerian King List
The Art of Sumeria
"Harpist from Ur"
by: Liliana Osses Adams
Other Mesopotamian Peoples
Please Help Keep Us On the Web.
We are a Non-Profit Organization and the cost of continuing is becoming more than we can handle. Therefore, we are asking you to please donate anything you can to help keep us on the web
Please Help Click Here
Care to express an opinion on a current or past historical event?
Need to ask a question from our many visitors?
Just visit our Message Board and leave your message.
Sumerian Flood Story
In the beginning, all roads lead to Sumer; until recently, it was
the earliest recorded civilization (currently, the oldest extant documents
are from Egypt). The Sumerians were a non-Semitic people. The remains show
them to be generally short and stocky, with high, straight noses and
downward sloping eyes. Many wore beards, but some were clean-shaven. Most,
though, looked like Francis Shaeffer, with a clean-shaven upper lip, but a
beard around the chin.
They wore fleece and finally woven wool. The women draped the
garment from the left shoulder, while the men bound it at their waists and
left the upper half of their body bare.
Styles changed gradually over time, and later on, the male
clothing moved up toward the neck, at least among the upper class. Slaves,
from beginning to end, both male and female, went about naked from the
waist up, however.
On their heads, the Sumerians wore a cap; on their feet, they wore
sandals; wealthy women sometimes wore shoes of soft leather, lacking
heels, that they laced up.
Bracelets, necklaces, anklets, finger rings and ear rings made the
women of Sumer into show windows of their husband's prosperity.
When the civilization of Sumer was already a thousand years old,
around 2300 BC, we find written accounts of creation, a primitive
paradise, and a flood that destroyed the world:
After Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag
had fashioned the black-headed people,
Vegetation sprang from the earth,
Animals, four-legged creatures of the plain,
Were brought artfully into existence
[37 lines are unreadable]
After the....of kingship had been lowered from heaven
After the exalted crown and the throne of kingship
Had been lowered from heaven,
He perfected the rites and exalted the divine ordinances...
He founded the five cities in pure places,...
Then did Nintu weep like a....
The pure Inanna set up a lament for its people,
Enki took council with himself,
Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag....
The gods of heaven and earth uttered the name of Anu and Enlil
Then did Ziusudra, the king, the priest of...,
Build a giant...;
Humbly obedient, reverently he...
Attending daily, constantly he...,
Bringing forth all kinds of dreams, he...,
Uttering the name of heaven and earth, he...[...]
the gods a wall...,
Ziusudra, standing at its side, listened.
"Stand by the wall at my left side...,
By the wall I will say a word to you,
Take my word,
Give ear to my instructions:
By our...a flood will sweep over the cult-centers;
To destroy the seed of mankind...,
Is the decision, the word of the assembly of the gods.
By the word commanded by Anu and Enlil...,
Its kingship, its rule will be put to an end.
[about 40 lines missing]
All the windstorms, exceedingly powerful,
Attacked as one,
At the same time, the flood sweeps over the cult-centers.
After, for seven days,
the flood sweeps over the cult centers.
After, for seven days and seven nights,
The flood had swept over the land,
And the huge boat had been tossed
About by the windstorms on the great waters,
Utu came forth, who sheds light on heaven and earth,
Ziusudra opened a window of the huge boat,
The hero Utu brought his rays into the giant boat.
Ziusudra, the king,
Prostrated himself before Utu.
Utu is the Sun god, equivalent to Akkadian Shamash. The
translation above is based on the translation by Poebel in ANET. The text
was found in Nippur.
The Sumerians formulated lists of their ancient kings, and gave
them extremely long reigns. The time before the flood was said to be a
period of 432,000 years. Two kings from after the flood that are listed
were Gilgamesh and Tammuz. Legends told about these two kings were so
impressive that Tammuz entered the pantheon of Babylon and later became
known as Adonis to the Greeks.
Gilgamesh became the hero of the Babylonian epic poem which bears
his name, and which also contains an account of the flood. Until recently,
these king lists and the names in them were thought to be purely fanciful.
But in the 1930's, Sir Leonard Woolley, while excavating a building at Ur
on the Ubaid level, found an inscription indicating that the structure had
been erected by the son of the founder of the First Dynasty of Ur, a
person up till that time regarded as fiction.
Gilgamesh, too, has been found to be a real person, with
inscriptions telling of the buildings he built.
The earliest written documents were found in Uruk and are dated to
3100 BC. These texts are not deciphered and perhaps are not decipherable.
Fifty to seventy percent of the signs cannot be recognized at all, and so
Those few signs that are recognizable appear to be logographic. There are
none that represent syllables. There are no grammatical markers. There are
no mood markers. Those handful that can be puzzled out take the form:
5 sheep PN receive.
Therefore, the best guess is that these earliest documents are
mostly administrative and economic in nature.
When the signs are examined, they are clearly mostly abstract:
that is, they have lost their supposed original pictographic form. This
implies that these earliest of known tablets do not represent the first
attempts at writing; the nature of the writing on them indicates
considerable previous evolution in the writing system. These tablets are
simply the earliest that have so far been discovered, nothing more.
History of the Sumerian Language
Archaic Sumerian (c. 3000-2600 BC)
The first Sumerian literary texts are dated to 2600 BC,
including a number of hymns and even some proverbs. Remember, this does
not mean that they were not writing literary texts before 2600 BC, it is
only that none have been discovered earlier than this, yet. At the end of
each of these literary tablets we find a statement as follows:
"PN wrote this tablet."
What is particularly significant about this is that although
the inscriptions are written in Sumerian, the names of the scribes are
already SEMITIC. Already, at the earliest examples of Sumerian texts that
have survived, we are at the place where we are witnessing the beginning
of the end of Sumerian power and influence.
The language of Akkadian (better known to non-specialists by its
two dialects, Assyrian and Babylonian) is already becoming increasingly
Classical (Old) Sumerian (c. 2600-2300 BC)
Most texts of this period were uncovered at Lagash. They fall
into several different types or genres, among which are:
1. Administrative texts
Neo-Sumerian (c. 2300-2000 BC)
Beginning about 2334 BC (and lasting till 2154 BC), Sargon
established his dynasty of Akkad. This is the beginning of the submergence
of Sumerian. It is hard to say precisely when the Sumerian language died
out as a spoken tongue, but this certainly must be when the decline began.
It was, most likely, a dead language by 2000 BC.
There was a brief revival of the Sumerian language which lasted
between 2112 and 2004 BC, the period of time referred to as the Ur III or
Third Dynasty of Ur. Most of the Sumerian tablets that scholars have to
read originated during this period.
Post-Sumerian (c. 2000 BC to 50 AD)
During this final period in the history of the Sumerian
language, it was used only in literature; the native language of those
writing these texts was usually Akkadian. Many apparent grammatical errors
can be noted in these late texts.
The Nature of the Sumerian Language
Sumerian apparently was divided into two dialects known as
Emegir and Emesal; the language as a whole, they referred to as Emeku,
meaning, "the people's language".
Emesal was "the women's language" while Emegir was "the men's
language". We think men and women have trouble communicating now! How
about if we spoke mutually intelligible dialects?
Sumerian is not alone among languages in dividing the language
used by men and women or between upper and lower classes. For instance, in
modern Japanese, there is a whole class of pronouns which are reserved for
use by the emperor.
What are the differences between Emegir and Emesal?
1. Phonological: Emesal is more conservative, perhaps representing an
earlier stage of the language. For example:
En - lord (Emegir)
Umun - lord (Emesal)
En is possibly derived from Umun, as follows (in the
development of the language over a long period): Umun > Emen
> En. There is not always this sort of relationship between the two
Dug - good (Emegir)
Zeb - good (Emesal)
Nin - queen (Emegir)
Gashan - queen (Emesal)
Written Sumerian was not an attempt to reproduce speech. It was
not originally designed to render the spoken language in permanent form.
Instead, it was intended as a mnemonic device -- a method for jogging the
So, for instance, if the scribe wanted to remember to say "He
built the temple." he would merely write "Build Temple".
As a result, it makes it very difficult to understand Sumerian,
particularly the oldest texts. The later texts, written as Sumerian became
a dead language are much easier to read because the language was written
less as a mnemonic device and more as a reproduction of speech.
Another problem with the early texts is that the signs were not
always written in the proper, but rather in whatever order was prettiest
or best fit the space available. Once again this practice changed as the
Sumerian is an ergative, agglutinative language. English, by way
of contrast, is a nominative-accusative language. That is, English uses a
nominative case for the subject of a transitive verb or intransitive verb
and an accusative case for the direct object.
Sumerian is an ergative language. That is,
1. The subject of a transitive verb is put in the ergative case.
2. The subject of an intransitive verb and the direct object of a
transitive verb both get put into the absolute case.
Lugal.e e.0 munandu
The king a house he builds
The king does good
Each morpheme is expressed by a separate word.
Verbs contain within themselves number, gender, and person.
Example: Hebrew, Akkadian, Latin
eqtol - "I will kill"
yiqtol - "he will kill"
tiqtol - "you (m.s.) will kill"
Examples: Sumerian, Turkish
Separate morphemes are combined in one word.
namtilanishe -- "For his long life"
Sumer in Sumerian is called Kienger. In Akkadian, it was
called Shumeru. This is where the English designation originates.
From about 3000 BC on the clay tablet records found in the ruins
of Ur present an account of the accessions and coronations, uninterrupted
victories and sublime deaths of petty kings who ruled the city states of
Ur, Lagash, Uruk and the rest; the writing of history is a very ancient
One king, Urukagina of Lagash, was a royal reformer, an
enlightened despot who issued decrees aimed at correcting the exploitation
of the poor by the rich, and of everybody by the priests.
The high priest, according to one of his edicts, must refrain from
"coming into the garden of a poor mother and taking the wood from it, or
gathering tax in fruit from it."
Burial fees were to be cut to one fifth of what they had been; and
the clergy and high officials were forbidden to share among themselves the
revenues and cattle offered to the gods.
It was the king's boast that he "gave liberty to his people" and
the tablets that come down to us from this man reveal the oldest known
code of laws in history.
The reign of Urukagina of Lagash ended in the normal manner:
another king, named Lugal-Zaggisi invaded Lagash, overthrew Urukagina, and
sacked the city.
The temples were destroyed, the citizens were massacred in the
streets, and the statues of the gods were taken away into bondage.
One of the world's earliest known poems, 3800 years old, describes
the destruction of Lagash:
My soul sighs in anguish for the city and its precious things;
My soul sighs in anguish for Lagash and its precious things.
The children are in distress in holy Lagash
Because the invader has pressed into the splendid shrine
And stolen away the Exalted Queen from her temple!
O Lady of my desolated city, when will you return?
After Lugal-Zaggisi comes Lugal-Shagengur, Lugal-Kigubnindudi,
Ninigi-dubti, Lugal-Andanukhunga...but we will pass over most of these
Meanwhile, another group of people, Semitic by background -- had
built the kingdom of Akkad under the leadership of Sargon I, who
established his capital at Agade, 200 miles northwest of the Sumerian city
A monolith found at Susa portrays Sargon with a long beard,
dressed in royal authority. His origin, despite his end, was not royal. In
fact, no father is listed for him, and his mother, from all indications,
was a temple prostitute. Of course, you know what that makes Sargon.
His origins are described this way in a relatively late text:
My humble mother conceived me; in secret she brought me forth. She
placed me in a basket boat of rushes; with pitch she closed my door.
The text goes on to say that, rescued by workmen, he became a
cupbearer to the king, grew in favor and influence, and, as so often
happens in these situations, he rebelled and killed his master, thereby
becoming the ruler of Agade.
Sargon I called himself "King of the Universe", but he actually,
at that time, ruled only a tiny corner of Mesopotamia. Historians refer to
Sargon I as Sargon the Great, because in the course of his career he
invaded many cities, captured much booth, and left behind many, many
widows and orphans.
Among his victims was Lugal Zaggisi, the king who had overthrown
Urukagina and sacked Lagash. Sargon defeated him and took him away in
chains to Nippur.
Sargon marched north, south, east and west, conquering Elam (and
washing his weapons in symbolic triumph in the Persian Gulf, crossing
western Asia, reaching the Mediterranean, establishing the first great
empire in recorded history.
He ruled for a total of fifty-five years.
In the end, his empire was in revolt.
Three sons succeeded him in turn; the third, Naram-sin, was a
great builder, but the only things left of his building projects are a few
scattered bricks with his inscription on them, reminding one of the poem
By the twenty-sixth century BC, Lagash was once again flourishing
under an enlightened monarch named Gudea. He was a short, plump, right
jolly old elf...He was not known as a great warrior. Instead, he was noted
for his literature and his piety; that is, he built a lot of temples.
In one of his inscriptions he writes:
During seven years the maidservant was the equal of her
mistress, the slave walked beside his master, and in my town the weak
rested by the side of the strong.
The sentiment expressed is good, but chances are the reality, just
as it is in the mouths of our current crop of politicians, is probably
Meanwhile, Ur was experiencing one of its most prosperous epochs.
Its greatest king, Ur-Engur, brought all of western Asia under his control
and he promulgated for all Sumer the second oldest code of laws in history
(that we know of).
"By the laws of righteousness of Shamash forever I establish
He beautified Ur with new temples and built lavishly in the
subject cities of Larsa, Uruk and Nippur.
His son, Dungi, continued his work through a reign of fifty-eight years.
He ruled so wisely, at least in retrospect, it is claimed that his people
ultimately deified him as the god who had restored their ancient paradise.
But soon the Elamites from the east and the Amorites from the east
and the Amorites from the west swept down upon Ur, captured its king, and
plundered the city.
For two hundred years Elam and Amor ruled Sumer. When speaking of
something lasting 200 years 4000 years ago, it seems like a short time,
particularly since we don't have detailed records. But try to put it into
our present context: this is a period equal to the age of the United
States, a period in which many lifetimes passed.
After two hundred years, in 2123-2075, 1728-1686, or 1792-1750,
Hamurrapi, king of Babylon, came from the north. He retook from the
Elamites the cities of Uruk and Isin; he bided his time for twenty-three
years, then invaded Elam itself; he captured its king, established his
sway over Amor and distant Assyria, and built an empire of unprecedented
power, and disciplined it with a universal law.
From this time till the rise of Persia, the Semites would rule the
land between the two rivers (i.e. Mesopotamia). Of the Sumerians, nothing
more is heard. Their little chapter in the book of history is finally
complete. But Sumerian civilization remained. The culture of the southern
cities passed north along the Euphrates and Tigris to Babylonia and
Assyria as the initial heritage of Mesopotamian civilization.
ECONOMIC LIFE OF SUMER
The basis of Sumerian culture: soil made fertile by the annual
overflow of the rivers swollen with the winter rains. The overflow was
perilous as well as useful. The Sumerians learned to channel it safely
through irrigation canals that crisscrossed their land.
This irrigating system, dating from 4000 BC, was one of the great
achievements of Sumerian civilization and certainly its foundation.
Out of these carefully watered fields came great crops of wheat,
barley, dates and many vegetables.
The plow appeared early, drawn by oxen.
The Sumerians made some use of copper and tin, and occasionally
mixed them to produce bronze. Now and then -- very rarely -- they made
implements of iron. Still, metal of any kind was something of a luxury and
a rarity. Theirs was basically a stone-age civilization.
Most Sumerian tools were made of flint. Some, like the sickles for
cutting the barley were made of clay. Certain finer articles, such as
needles and awls were made of ivory or bone.
Weaving was done on a large scale under the supervision of
overseers appointed by the king. Socialism is not a recent development.
Houses were made of reeds, usually plastered with an adobe mixture
of clay and straw moistened with water and then baked by the sun. These
huts had wooden doors, revolving on sockets made of stone. The floors were
Cows, sheep, goats, and pigs roamed about the dwellings, living with the
Goods were carried chiefly by water upon the canals. Land
transportation was gradually developing, however. Here and there in the
ruins are business seals bearing indications of traffic with Egypt and
There was no coinage yet. Trade was normally conducted by
bartering, though gold and silver were already in use as standards of
value and were often accepted in exchange for goods -- sometimes in the
form of ingots and rings of definite worth, more generally in quantities
measured by weight in each transaction.
Look at Genesis 23:14-16:
Ephron answered Abraham, "Listen to me, my lord; the land is
worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between me and
you? Bury your dead."
Abraham agreed to Ephron's terms and weighed out for him the
price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels
of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants.
A system of credit existed by which goods, gold or silver,
might be borrowed, interest to be paid in the same material as the loan,
and at rates ranging as high as 33% per year. And you thought high credit
card rates were a recent innovation!
Rich and poor were stratified into many classes and gradations;
slavery was highly developed, and property rights were sacred.
Between the rich and the poor, a middle class took form, composed
of small-business men, scholars, physicians, and priests.
Medicine flourished and claimed a specific treatment for each and
A calendar of uncertain age and origin divided the year into
twelve lunar months, adding an extra month every three or four years to
reconcile the calendar with the seasons (just like the Hebrew calendar of
the Old Testament and of modern Judaism).
Each city gave its own names to the months.
And indeed, each city, as long as it could, maintained a jealous
independence and indulged itself a private king, called an Ensi.
However, by 2800 BC, the growth of trade made such municipal
separation impossible, and generated "empires" in which some dominating
personality subjected the cities and their Ensis to his power.
The despot lived in an atmosphere of violence and fear. At any
moment he might be dispatched by the same method he had used to get the
throne in the first place.
The despot lived in an inaccessible palace, whose two entrances
were so narrow that only one person could enter at a time.
To the right and left were recesses in which guards could examine
every visitor, or else pounce on him with daggers if he were unacceptable.
In ancient times, wars were waged honestly and frankly for the
purpose of obtaining commercial routes and goods. There were no euphemisms
about making the world "safe for democracy" or any similar claptrap.
In the empires that came and went social order was maintained
through a feudal system. After a successful war the ruler gave tracts of
land to his valiant chieftains, and exempted such estates from taxation.
These men kept order in their territories and provided soldier and
supplies for the never ending exploits of the king.
Finances of the government were obtained by taxes in kind, stored
in royal warehouses, and distributed as pay to officials and employees of
RELIGION AND MORALITY
King Ur-engur proclaimed his code of laws in the name of the
great god Shamash; government had, at the very start of human
civilization, recognized the political expediency of gaining heaven's
blessing for its actions.
Since they came in handy, gods became innumerable. Every city and
state, every human activity had some inspiring and disciplinary divinity
to help legitimize the human government.
Sun worship expressed itself in the cult of Shamash, the "light of
the gods", who passed the nights in the depth of the north, until Dawn
opened its gates for him; then he mounted the sky like a flame, driving
his chariot over the steeps of the firmament; the sun was merely the wheel
of his fiery chariot.
Nippur built great temples to the god Enlil and his consort Ninlil.
Uruk worshipped especially the virgin earth goddess Innanna (later
known to the Semites of Akkad as Ishtar -- from which is derived the name
Esther and the English word "star"); she was the goddess of love, or more
Kish and Lagash worshipped Ninkarsag, a powerful mother goddess who
grieved with the unhappiness of men and interceded for them with sterner
Ningirsu was the god of irrigation, the "Lord of Floods."
Abu or Tammuz was the god of vegetation.
Sin -- the god of the moon.
The air was full of spirits -- beneficent angels, one each as
protector to every Sumerian, and demons or devils who sought to expel the
protective deity and take possession of body and soul. These were concepts
that would find their way ultimately into Persion theology, and then even
into popular Christian theology.
Most of the gods lived in the temples, where they were provided
with revenue, food, and wives.
Life after death was conceived of as a dark abode of miserable
shadows, to which all the dead descended indiscriminately.
Women were attached to every temple, some as domestics, some as
concubines for the gods or their duly constituted representatives on
Marriage was a complex institution regulated by many laws. The
bride kept control of the dowry given her by her father in marriage, and
though she held it jointly with her husband, she alone determined its
She exercised equal rights with her husband over their children.
In the absence of the husband or a grown son, she could administer
the estate, including her home.
She could engage in business independently of her husband, and
could keep or dispose of her own slaves.
But in all crises, the man was lord and master. Under certain
circumstances he could sell his wife, or hand her over as a slave to pay
The double standard was already in force, as a corollary of
property and inheritance. Adultery in the man was a forgivable whim; in
the woman, it was punished with death.
She was expected to give many children to her husband and the
state. If she was barren, then she could be divorced for that reason
alone; if she claimed she didn't want to have any more children, the
husband could have her executed by drowning.
Children had no legal rights; their parents, simply by the
publicly disowning them, could have them banished from the community.
World History Center | <urn:uuid:6a260906-dd07-4ecb-9c8c-b8c6154df2e4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://history-world.org/sumerian_floor_story.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963681 | 6,226 | 3.125 | 3 |
Bus Stop: How many different ways can four people stand in line?
Coloured Sheep: What is the probability of picking a red sheep from the sheep in the field?
Ice Cream: How many different ice cream cones can be made by choosing two scoops from six flavours?
Pick From The Pot: The pot contains 10 counters which are being randomly removed and replaced. How many of each colour do you think are in the pot?
Tran's Hats: In how many different ways might Tran decide to wear his hats in one week?
Comment recorded on the 10 April 'Starter of the Day' page by Mike Sendrove, Salt Grammar School, UK.:
"A really useful set of resources - thanks. Is the collection available on CD? Are solutions available?"
Comment recorded on the 5 April 'Starter of the Day' page by Mr Stoner, St George's College of Technology:
"This resource has made a great deal of difference to the standard of starters for all of our lessons. Thank you for being so creative and imaginative."
Comment recorded on the 28 May 'Starter of the Day' page by L Smith, Colwyn Bay:
"An absolutely brilliant resource. Only recently been discovered but is used daily with all my classes. It is particularly useful when things can be saved for further use. Thank you!"
Comment recorded on the i asp?ID_Top 'Starter of the Day' page by Jan, South Canterbury:
"Thank you for sharing such a great resource. I was about to try and get together a bank of starters but time is always required elsewhere, so thank you."
Comment recorded on the 8 May 'Starter of the Day' page by Mr Smith, West Sussex, UK:
"I am an NQT and have only just discovered this website. I nearly wet my pants with joy.
Comment recorded on the 12 July 'Starter of the Day' page by Miss J Key, Farlingaye High School, Suffolk:
"Thanks very much for this one. We developed it into a whole lesson and I borrowed some hats from the drama department to add to the fun!"
Comment recorded on the 9 October 'Starter of the Day' page by Mr Jones, Wales:
"I think that having a starter of the day helps improve maths in general. My pupils say they love them!!!"
Comment recorded on the 6 May 'Starter of the Day' page by Natalie, London:
"I am thankful for providing such wonderful starters. They are of immence help and the students enjoy them very much. These starters have saved my time and have made my lessons enjoyable."
Comment recorded on the 28 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Malcolm P, Dorset:
"A set of real life savers!!
Comment recorded on the 1 May 'Starter of the Day' page by Phil Anthony, Head of Maths, Stourport High School:
"What a brilliant website. We have just started to use the 'starter-of-the-day' in our yr9 lessons to try them out before we change from a high school to a secondary school in September. This is one of the best resources on-line we have found. The kids and staff love it. Well done an thank you very much for making my maths lessons more interesting and fun."
Comment recorded on the 2 May 'Starter of the Day' page by Angela Lowry, :
"I think these are great! So useful and handy, the children love them.
Comment recorded on the 19 November 'Starter of the Day' page by Lesley Sewell, Ysgol Aberconwy, Wales:
"A Maths colleague introduced me to your web site and I love to use it. The questions are so varied I can use them with all of my classes, I even let year 13 have a go at some of them. I like being able to access the whole month so I can use favourites with classes I see at different times of the week. Thanks."
Comment recorded on the 7 December 'Starter of the Day' page by Cathryn Aldridge, Pells Primary:
"I use Starter of the Day as a registration and warm-up activity for my Year 6 class. The range of questioning provided is excellent as are some of the images.
Comment recorded on the 10 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Carol, Sheffield PArk Academy:
"3 NQTs in the department, I'm new subject leader in this new academy - Starters R Great!! Lovely resource for stimulating learning and getting eveyone off to a good start. Thank you!!"
Comment recorded on the 16 March 'Starter of the Day' page by Mrs A Milton, Ysgol Ardudwy:
"I have used your starters for 3 years now and would not have a lesson without one! Fantastic way to engage the pupils at the start of a lesson."
Comment recorded on the 3 October 'Starter of the Day' page by S Mirza, Park High School, Colne:
"Very good starters, help pupils settle very well in maths classroom."
Comment recorded on the 17 June 'Starter of the Day' page by Mr Hall, Light Hall School, Solihull:
Comment recorded on the 11 January 'Starter of the Day' page by S Johnson, The King John School:
"We recently had an afternoon on accelerated learning.This linked really well and prompted a discussion about learning styles and short term memory."
Comment recorded on the 3 October 'Starter of the Day' page by Mrs Johnstone, 7Je:
"I think this is a brilliant website as all the students enjoy doing the puzzles and it is a brilliant way to start a lesson."
Comment recorded on the 25 June 'Starter of the Day' page by Inger.kisby@herts and essex.herts.sch.uk, :
"We all love your starters. It is so good to have such a collection. We use them for all age groups and abilities. Have particularly enjoyed KIM's game, as we have not used that for Mathematics before. Keep up the good work and thank you very much
Comment recorded on the 14 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Trish Bailey, Kingstone School:
"This is a great memory aid which could be used for formulae or key facts etc - in any subject area. The PICTURE is such an aid to remembering where each number or group of numbers is - my pupils love it!
Comment recorded on the 26 March 'Starter of the Day' page by Julie Reakes, The English College, Dubai:
"It's great to have a starter that's timed and focuses the attention of everyone fully. I told them in advance I would do 10 then record their percentages."
Comment recorded on the 21 October 'Starter of the Day' page by Mr Trainor And His P7 Class(All Girls), Mercy Primary School, Belfast:
"My Primary 7 class in Mercy Primary school, Belfast, look forward to your mental maths starters every morning. The variety of material is interesting and exciting and always engages the teacher and pupils. Keep them coming please."
Comment recorded on the 23 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Judy, Chatsmore CHS:
"This triangle starter is excellent. I have used it with all of my ks3 and ks4 classes and they are all totally focused when counting the triangles."
Comment recorded on the 17 November 'Starter of the Day' page by Amy Thay, Coventry:
"Thank you so much for your wonderful site. I have so much material to use in class and inspire me to try something a little different more often. I am going to show my maths department your website and encourage them to use it too. How lovely that you have compiled such a great resource to help teachers and pupils.
Comment recorded on the 24 May 'Starter of the Day' page by Ruth Seward, Hagley Park Sports College:
"Find the starters wonderful; students enjoy them and often want to use the idea generated by the starter in other parts of the lesson. Keep up the good work"
Comment recorded on the 2 April 'Starter of the Day' page by Mrs Wilshaw, Dunsten Collage,Essex:
"This website was brilliant. My class and I really enjoy doing the activites."
Comment recorded on the 1 February 'Starter of the Day' page by Terry Shaw, Beaulieu Convent School:
"Really good site. Lots of good ideas for starters. Use it most of the time in KS3."
Comment recorded on the i asp?ID_Top 'Starter of the Day' page by Peter Wright, St Joseph's College:
"Love using the Starter of the Day activities to get the students into Maths mode at the beginning of a lesson. Lots of interesting discussions and questions have arisen out of the activities.
Comment recorded on the 10 April 'Starter of the Day' page by Transum, :
"Sorry Mike, because some of the starters link to live data on the Internet there is no CD version. Thanks for your comments."
Probability is a measure of the weight of evidence, and is arrived at through reasoning and inference. In simple terms it is a measure or estimation of likelihood of the occurrence of an event. The word probability comes from the Latin word probabilitas which is a measure of the authority of a witness in a legal case. Some of the earlier mathematical studies of probability were motivated by the desire to be more profitable when gambling. Today however the practical uses of probability theory go far beyond gambling and are used in many aspects of modern life.
Probability Teacher Resources:
Dice and Spinners: Computer generated random numbers for games and probability experiments
Dice Bingo: Choose your own numbers for your bingo card. The caller uses two dice and adds the numbers together.
Greater Than: The teacher has a set of six cards numbered 1 to 6. They are placed face down on the teachers desk so that the teacher can pick up one at random which students then have to fit onto a grid.
Probability Line: Arrange some statements in order according to the probability of them happening.
Probability Words: A visual aid to highlight the vocabulary of probability and to debate the relationship between the given words.
Snail Race: Twelve snails have a race based on the sum of two dice. This is the teachers' version of the race simulation.
Two Dice Possibility Space: An interactive visual aid showing the possibility space obtained when throwing two dice
Great Expectation: An interactive online activity requiring logical thinking and a certain amount of luck to place the digits on the correct side of the inequality sign.
Hi-Low Predictions: A version of the Play Your Cards Right TV show. Calculate the probabilities of cards being higher or lower.
Pin Drop: Estimate the probability of a drawing pin landing point up from experimental data.
Probability: 20 probability questions in an online exercise.
Probability Line: Arrange some statements in order according to the probability of them happening.
Probability Washing Line: Hang out the washing on the line so that the probability words on the t-shirts are in order.
Snail Race: A race between 12 snails. Which snail is most likely to win? This is the students' version of the race simulation.
Tree Diagrams: Calculate the probability of independent and dependent combined events using tree diagrams.
Alternatively, for the more advanced student, there is an ever-growing collection of Exam-Style Questions with worked solutions on the topic of Probability.
Dice Investigation: Throw two dice and multiply the scores. Investigate the different products you can obtain. What about adding? What about using three dice?
Egg boxes: In how many different ways can two eggs be arranged in an egg box?
House Painting: The houses in Mathsland are all three storeys tall. Each storey is painted using one colour. How many ways can the houses be painted.
Predictive Survey: An eight question survey collecting data for an amazing probability experiment.
Traffic Jams: How many ways can three cars be lined up in a traffic jam?
GCSE Probability Part 1: Screencast of probability lesson for Intermediate GCSE Maths.
The Price is Right: How lucky can you get? How many ways are there to arrange the digits 23019? What strategies might a contestant use to get a price from these 5 digits.
Probability External Links:
Links to other websites containing resources for Probability are provided for teachers logged into 'Class Admin'. Subscribing to this service also opens up the opportunity for you to add your own links to this panel.
The activity you are looking for may have been classified in a different way from the way you were expecting. You can search the whole of Transum Maths by using the box below.
Is there anything you would have a regular use for that we don't feature here? Please let us know.
Have today's Starter of the Day as your default homepage. Copy the URL below then select
"I like this topic because it helps one to predict the the future outcomes of most of the events happening in the world , e . g . weather focus."
M. F. Kuali, Mount Fletcher
Do you have any comments? It is always useful to receive feedback and helps make this free resource even more useful for those learning Mathematics anywhere in the world. Click here to enter your comments. | <urn:uuid:a9ec789c-8d6e-4c46-bd6e-390b9fc402ef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.transum.org/Software/SW/Starter_of_the_day/Similar.asp?ID_Topic=30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948591 | 2,840 | 2.625 | 3 |
April 3, 2012
Gray Seals Consume As Much Fish As The Fishing Industry Catches
The grey seals in the Baltic Sea compete for fish with the fishing industry. The seals locally eat about the same quantities of cod, common whitefish, salmon, sea trout and eel as those taken by fishermen. This is the conclusion from research carried out at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Competing with the fishing industryThe grey seals in the Baltic Sea eat largely the same species and the same sizes of fish as those taken by the fishing industry. So even if the amount of fish eaten by seals is small relative to the total amount of fish caught in the Baltic Sea, the seals' dietary habits may have a major impact on the local availability of fish in the areas where they are common.
"If you compare the estimated consumption of fish by grey seals in their main range in Sweden, which is north of the Kalmar Sound, it is of the same order of magnitude as the total catch taken by Swedish professional and leisure fishermen in the same area", says scientist Karl Lundström.
Increasing population of seals
The grey seal was common at the beginning of the 20th century, but was hard hit by hunting and by environmental toxins, and only a remnant remained in the 1970s. However, the seal population has grown continuously since the middle of the 1980s, and this has led conflicts with the fishing industry.
"The conflict has mainly centered on the way in which seals eat from and destroy fishing gear, but as the number of seals has increased the possible competition for food resources has come into focus", says Karl Lundström.
Study of dietary habits
The scientists have studied the dietary habits of the seals in order to understand the role they play on the ecosystem, and how they influence the surroundings. This has been done not only by investigating prey remains in the digestive tracts of the seals but also by analyzing the composition of fatty acids in their blubber. The fatty acid composition in the seals' blubber reflects the composition of fatty acids in the fish species that they eat, and can give an idea of the dietary patterns of the seals over a long period.
It became clear that the diet of grey seals differs between the northern and the southern Baltic. Herring was the most common food eaten by all seals, followed by common whitefish in the Gulf of Bothnia and sprat in the main body of the Baltic Sea. The diet of young seals differed from that of old seals, and the feeding habits of males differed from that of females.
"We have now developed useful methods and created a good starting point for further studies into the dietary habits of seals. We can also investigate the significance they have as fish-eating predators at the top of the marine ecosystem. By combining the methods that I have used with other techniques, it will be possible to increase our knowledge further. More closely focused investigations in particularly interesting regions will also be needed, both for grey seals and ringed seals in the Baltic Sea and for common seals in the Kattegat and Skagerrak area", says Karl Lundström.
This is the first comprehensive investigation into the diet of the grey seal in the Baltic Sea since the 1970s.
On the Net: | <urn:uuid:894479ec-02ce-4923-bd01-1918f2c1d380> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112506730/gray-seals-consume-as-much-fish-as-the-fishing-industry-catches/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969688 | 670 | 3.171875 | 3 |
ON JULY 13, 1787, Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance, one of the greatest achievements of the young American republic. The legislation provided for the government of a huge region then called the Northwest Territory-the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.
....The Northwest Ordinance treated each new territory as a state-in-embryo. Settlers in the territories could establish free governments and write constitutions, and once they had achieved 60,000 inhabitants, they could apply for admission to the Union as new states. Each state would be admitted on an equal basis with all previous states.
This was the first time in the history of the world that the principle of equality was so recognized. American territories would not be colonies, held in perpetual subordination to the "mother" country.
A crucial feature of the Northwest Ordinance was its treatment of religion. The first article stated: "No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory." This enlightened doctrine was little short of revolutionary for its time. No other government had ever laid out such a principle for administering newly acquired territories.
Friday, August 28, 2009
From The American Patriot's Almanac by William J. Bennett and John T.E. Cribb: | <urn:uuid:ea54cf45-dce0-4b8f-b33f-acb1115abb28> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://differenttimedifferentplace.blogspot.com/2009/08/book-quotes-new-governmental-ideas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963112 | 286 | 3.921875 | 4 |
A lesser-known impact basin, Freundlich-Sharonov, is visible in this Digital Terrain Model (DTM) made from LROC WAC stereo images, and darker shades represent lower elevations than brighter shades. The diameter of the orange-colored ring is 595 kilometers or 370 miles. DTM images like these allow scientists to inventory and study the morphologies of lunar basins.
Large impact structures represent important time markers and clues to the early history of the Moon. Unfortunately, older basins may be highly degraded and are sometimes difficult to identify in images. DTMs allow more confident identifications of lunar basins and study of their morphologies. Large numbers of tentatively identified lunar impact basins, thoroughly listed in catalogs, are awaiting verification and detailed investigation of their ages.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was designed to acquire data for landing site certification and to conduct polar illumination studies and global mapping. Operated by Arizona State University, LROC consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single wide-angle camera (WAC). The mission is expected to return over 70 terabytes of image data. | <urn:uuid:1aa0ce28-7413-42aa-8fe4-d5ebfa58374b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13194 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895796 | 260 | 3.25 | 3 |
Pass codes, phone numbers, social security numbers, clothing sizes and addresses. We all have a lot of numbers in our heads, but heart experts at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center say there are five more you need to know to help keep your cardiovascular system healthy.
“These are the numbers doctors use to assess someone’s risk for getting heart disease, both short term and throughout their lifetime,” says Dr. Martha Gulati, director of preventive cardiology and women’s cardiovascular health at Ohio State’s Ross Heart Hospital.
“When you monitor these numbers, you are empowered to work with your doctor to improve your heart health,” she adds.
Gulati says the most important numbers to know are:
Blood pressure – This is the force of blood against the walls of the arteries. It’s measured as two numbers - the systolic pressure, as the heart beats, over the diastolic pressure, as the heart relaxes between beats.
A normal blood pressure is under 120/80. Talk to your doctor if it is higher than that. Simple lifestyle changes can help you lower your blood pressure and potentially avoid medication.
BMI – Body Mass Index is the measurement of your weight for your body surface area and it’s considered a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people.
A recent national survey commissioned by Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center found nearly 2 out of 3 Americans don’t know what’s considered to be a healthy BMI.
Use this BMI calculator to get your number. A BMI less than 18.5 is underweight. Below 25 is normal. A BMI of 25 through 29.9 is overweight, and 30 or higher is considered obese.
“Knowing where you lie within that spectrum is really important because sometimes people will be very accepting of their weight thinking ‘Well, that number sounds reasonable.’ But is it reasonable for their height?” Gulati said.
Waist circumference – Fat that is carried around the abdomen increases the risk of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.
Measure your waist at the belly button, not where your clothing waistband sits.
Gulati says women should be less than 35 inches and men should be less than 40 inches at the waist.
Cholesterol – While the body makes all of the cholesterol it needs, it is also readily found in food. High cholesterol can lead to heart disease and atherosclerosis, or build-up of plaque in the arteries.
Gulati says it’s important to know your total cholesterol number and your low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, number. That’s the bad cholesterol that can cause problems.
A healthy cholesterol number is below 200. A healthy LDL number is below 100.
Blood sugar – This reading tells doctors how much glucose is in the blood.
High levels of blood glucose cause diabetes, which increases the risk for cardiovascular disease. A healthy fasting blood sugar number is under 100 after not eating for eight hours.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, killing about 600,000 Americans each year.
“Information is power,” Gulati said. “If you can reduce any of those numbers, you can lower your overall lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease.” | <urn:uuid:19e7ba7d-2db5-4fa2-8b3c-2ebbd92f5621> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wfmz.com/lifestyle/Life-Lessons/life-lessons-5-numbers-you-should-know/24411982 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938931 | 705 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Unusual eclipse of Saturn's moon Rhea by Dione
The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its only fly-by of Saturn's moon Dione on 11 October 2005. In the process, Cassini captured this image of Dione eclipsing Saturn's moon Rhea.
In the picture above, the distance between Dione and Rhea was roughly 330 000 kilometres. Dione is the second densest moon of Saturn, after Titan. It is probably composed of a rocky core making up one-third of the moon's mass, and the rest is composed of water ice. It is an icy body similar to Tethys and Rhea. Cassini will make a fly-by of Rhea on 26 November 2005. | <urn:uuid:df4f7c08-0e40-4d6a-9768-c8697a3fde49> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/Unusual_eclipse_of_Saturn_s_moon_Rhea_by_Dione/(print) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950095 | 153 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Tax incentives are intended to spur economic growth that would not have otherwise occurred. More specifically, these narrowly targeted tax breaks are usually offered in an attempt to convince businesses to relocate, hire, and/or invest within a state’s borders.
But state and local tax incentives come at an enormous cost. While a comprehensive accounting of these programs is impossible, the best available estimates suggest that states and localities are devoting some $50 billion to tax incentives every year.[i] Unfortunately, despite the enormous expenditures being made on these programs, the evidence suggests that tax incentives are of little benefit to the states and localities that offer them, and that they are actually a drag on national economic growth.
Tax Incentives Face Many Pitfalls
The academic literature indicates that states are significantly limited in their ability to influence business behavior through tax incentives, and that spurring true economic growth through the use of incentives is even more difficult.[ii] Despite the hopes of lawmakers and their constituents, there are simply too many ways in which tax incentives can fail to live up to their stated goals.[iii]
1. Windfall benefits: Tax incentives are rarely the deciding factor in whether a business chooses to hire or invest within a state’s borders. State and local taxes are only a small part of the cost of doing business—about 1.8 percent on average.[iv] Even large tax reductions are therefore of limited impact to a firm’s balance sheet. Based on the “consensus” estimates in the academic literature about the responsiveness of business decisions to taxes, as many as 9 out of 10 hiring and investment decisions subsidized with tax incentives would have occurred even if the incentive did not exist.[v] These large and mostly unavoidable windfall benefits significantly reduce the cost-effectiveness of virtually every tax incentive.
2. Runaway benefits: Given the interconnected nature of the U.S. economy, it is impossible to design a tax incentive so that its benefits remain entirely in-state. Even in the rare cases where tax incentives are the deciding factor in a business’ decision to hire or invest, the incentive’s benefits will quickly leak outside of a state’s borders if, for example, the company purchases equipment manufactured outside of the state. Similarly, current residents may see little benefit from an incentive if the incentivized company hires non-residents to fill its new job openings, especially since bringing in workers from outside the state creates new pressures on government services.[vi] Moreover, given that the federal government allows businesses to deduct many of their state and local tax payments, many tax incentives can actually trigger a federal tax increase for the companies receiving the incentive. Up to a third of the amount that states and localities spend on tax incentives can flow into the federal government’s coffers in this way.[vii]
3. Displacement, not growth: One company’s gain is often another company’s loss. In the case of retail, as much as 90 percent of the apparent direct benefits of tax incentives are offset by losses among the subsidized retailer’s local competitors.[viii] While this figure is likely to be lower for industries serving a more national market, states constantly run the risk of harming existing businesses within their borders when they attempt to give some companies a competitive edge through the use of tax incentives. Local tax incentives are particularly troublesome in this regard, as job or investment growth that one locality might consider “new” is often simply “poached” from another locality in the same state.[ix]
4. Neglected alternatives: The $50 billion in state and local tax incentives offered every year must be paid for somehow, and oftentimes that means reductions in the public services that businesses use every day. The net economic impact of a tax incentive depends critically on how those funds would have otherwise been used. If offering more tax incentives requires spending less on public education, congestion-relieving infrastructure projects, workforce development, police and fire protection, or high technology initiatives at public universities, the overall impact on a state’s economy could actually be negative. While the long-term economic benefits of education and infrastructure investments may not be as flashy as incentive-backed ribbon-cutting ceremonies, these investments are even more fundamental to any successful economy.
5. The wrong signal: While small tax incentives are unlikely to affect business behavior, large tax incentives can harm a state or locality’s reputation. Business owners sometimes interpret the presence of lucrative incentives as a signal that a location may have other serious weaknesses, or that the government is mismanaged or desperate.[x]
A National Perspective
From the perspective of individual states and localities, the evidence regarding the ineffectiveness of tax incentives is fairly clear. Even clearer, however, is the folly of these incentives when viewed from a national perspective. State tax incentives are often described as a zero-sum game in the aggregate, but as the below discussion indicates, the reality is probably even more grim.
1. Zero-sum game: To the extent that state and local tax incentives affect business behavior at all, they are much more likely to reshuffle investment between geographic areas than they are to spur genuinely new economic activity.[xi] But while luring a company away from its current location may be of benefit to the state in which the company relocates, it is clearly of no help to the national economy. In recent years, businesses have become increasingly adept at playing states and localities off of each other in order to extract the most lucrative tax incentive packages possible. This competition sometimes becomes so intense that states have found themselves offering incentives not to spur new growth, but simply to retain the businesses already located within their borders.[xii]
2. Inefficient business decisions: From the perspective of economic efficiency, any tax incentive that actually manages to affect a business’ location decision is likely to be a drag on the national economy. This is because when incentives affect behavior, they do so by encouraging businesses to locate in areas that would not otherwise be optimal—including areas that are located farther away from important markets or infrastructure, or from the best possible employee talent pool. As a result, incentives can cause businesses to consume more energy or infrastructure resources than they otherwise would, and can contribute to excessive sprawl, traffic congestion, pollution, and other negative outcomes. Moreover, in cases where incentives cause a company to abandon a previous facility where public investments have already been made to accommodate it, those investments may be wasted at the old location and must be duplicated at the new one.
3. Weakened economic foundation: As indicated above, the presence of tax incentives can lead to cuts in state and local services that are central to the success of the American economy. If states’ decisions to spend scarce public resources on tax incentives lead to a less educated citizenry or a deterioration in infrastructure quality, the results will be felt throughout the country. A tax incentive civil war is a costly distraction from the country’s economic fundamentals.
Given their extremely limited economic benefits, states and localities should sharply reduce their reliance on tax incentives and should work with neighboring states and the federal government to accomplish this goal. Even the best designed tax incentives suffer from the problems of windfall benefits, out-of-state benefits, and the other pitfalls identified above. To the extent that states and localities insist on continuing to offer incentives, those programs should be redesigned in order to reduce their susceptibility to these common pitfalls, and they should be closely scrutinized in order to weed out or reform the least effective programs. [xiii]
1. Curtail use of tax incentives: Despite their ineffectiveness, unilaterally cutting back on the use of tax incentives can be politically challenging if it creates the impression that elected officials are not doing everything in their power to help their state compete in the national economy. Accordingly, states should seek out opportunities to partner with their neighbors in amicably ending the worst aspects of the tax incentive arms race. Business leaders in the bi-state Kansas City community recently called on their elected officials to do just this, urging that Missouri and Kansas lawmakers work together to end the practice of luring businesses back-and-forth across the state line with expensive incentive packages.[xiv] A more comprehensive version of this sort of agreement would require that states lobby the federal government to get involved, possibly by cutting back on grants in aid to states that do not revise their tax incentive programs to target job creation that it truly new, rather than just “new to the state.”[xv]
2. Improve tax incentive design: Given that tax incentives are unlikely to disappear any time soon, lawmakers should ensure their incentives are designed so as to minimize their vulnerability to the pitfalls identified above. Accomplishing this goal means requiring that the jobs created with tax incentive dollars come with a living wage and benefits so that the employees of subsidized companies do not have to rely on government programs like food stamps and Medicaid to survive. Moreover, the incentives should be targeted toward the localities and regions most in need of an economic boost, and toward areas where adequate transit options exist so that lower-income workers without vehicles can benefit from any new jobs created. All tax incentives should also include a “clawback” provision, or money-back guarantee, where the government recoups the incentive payment if the business fails to live up to its job creation or investment promises.[xvi] Finally, most tax incentives should include a cap on their overall size to ensure that the program doesn’t grow far beyond the amount that lawmakers intended.[xvii]
3. Put remaining incentives under the microscope: Given all the potential pitfalls facing tax incentives, even a comparatively well-designed incentive program can yield disappointing results. Because of this, it’s important to monitor the effects of all incentives on an ongoing basis in order to identify particularly ineffective programs. Accomplishing this goal requires disclosing basic data about the impact of the incentive, including which companies benefited, how many jobs they added, how well those jobs paid, and any other related outcomes.[xviii] But lawmakers should also go beyond basic transparency by mandating systematic and rigorous reviews that attempt to control for problems like windfall benefits and displacement in determining whether the incentive has been of any benefit to the state’s economy. A number of states have recently made meaningful progress in reviewing some of their tax incentives in this manner, but every state still has significant room for improvement.[xix]
[i] Peters, Alan and Peter Fisher. “The Failures of Economic Development Incentives.” Journal of the American Planning Association. Vol. 70, No. 1. Winter 2004.
[ii] Brief of Amici Curiae Economics and Public Policy Professors in Support of Respondents. Daimler-Chrysler Corp. v. Cuno. Supreme Court Nos. 04-1704, 04-1724.
[iii] This discussion draws partly on observations made in: Pew Center on the States. “Evidence Counts: Evaluating State Tax Incentives for Jobs and Growth.” April 2012. Available at: http://www.pewstates.org/research/reports/evidence-counts-85899378806. Harris, Paul R. and Ronald D. Berkebile. “A Financial Analyst’s Toolkit.” Government Finance Review. June 2008. Available at: http://www.pewstates.org/research/reports/evidence-counts-85899378806
[iv] Fisher, Peter et al. “Selling Snake Oil to the States.” Joint report by Good Jobs First and the Iowa Policy Project. November 2012. Available at: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/snakeoiltothestates
[v] Peters, Alan and Peter Fisher. “The Failures of Economic Development Incentives.” Journal of the American Planning Association. Vol. 70, No. 1. Winter 2004. At 32.
[vi] Bartik, Timothy J. “Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Policies?” W.E. Upjohn Institute. 1991.
[vii] A more detailed discussion of the federal offset effect can be found in: ITEP. “How State Tax Changes Affect Your Federal Taxes: A Primer on the ‘Federal Offset’.” August 1, 2011. Available at: http://itep.org/itep_reports/2011/08/how-state-tax-changes-affect-your-federal-taxes-a-primer-on-the-federal-offset.php
[viii] Louisiana Economic Development. “Enterprise Zone Program 2009 Annual Report.” Per RS 51: 1786. March 2010. Available at: http://www.louisianaeconomicdevelopment.com/documents/additional-resources/2009_Annual_Report_Enterprise_Zone.pdf
[ix] Mattera, Philip, et al. “Megadeals: The Largest Economic Development Subsidy Packages Ever Awarded by State and Local Governments in the United States.” Good Jobs First. June 2013. Available at: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals
[x] Therese McGuire of Northwestern University says that executives at 3M “viewed [tax incentives] as not only unfair but also a signal of a weak, if not desperate, government.” See Therese J. McGuire. “State Fiscal Policies and State Economic Growth.” Presentation for the Civic Federation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. April 4, 2013. Similarly, Drs. Alan Peters and Peter Fisher observe that “firms have shown themselves to be wary of basing location decisions on massive incentive offers. Very generous incentives may signal a profligate—and thus, in the longer term, expensive—local government.” See Peters, Alan and Peter Fisher. “The Failures of Economic Development Incentives.” Journal of the American Planning Association. Vol. 70, No. 1. Winter 2004.
[xi] LeRoy, Greg et al. “The Job-Creation Shell Game.” Good Jobs First. January 2013. Available at: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/shellgame. Wilson, Daniel J. “Beggar Thy Neighbor? The In-State vs. Out-of-State Impact of State R&D Tax Credits.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper 08. 2005.
[xii] Bergen, Kathy. “Quinn signs Sears-CME tax breaks into law.” The Chicago Tribune. December 16, 2011. Available at: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-12-16/business/chi-quinn-signs-searscme-tax-breaks-into-law-20111216_1_cme-and-cboe-sears-cme-employee-income-taxes. McIllvaine, Leigh. “Diebold Pushes Ohio Down the ‘PIT’.” Clawback: A blog of Good Jobs First. April 24, 2012. Available at: http://clawback.org/2012/04/24/diebold-pushes-ohio-down-the-pit/.
[xiii] For more on these issues, see: ITEP. “Fighting Back: Accountable Economic Development Strategies.” September 1, 2011. Available at: http://itep.org/itep_reports/2011/09/fighting-back-accountable-economic-development-strategies.php
[xiv] LeRoy, Greg. “K.C. Business Leaders Demand Cease-Fire on Wasteful Job Poaching.” Clawback: A blog of Good Jobs First. April 15, 2011. Available at: http://clawback.org/2011/04/15/1746/
[xv] LeRoy, Greg et al. “The Job-Creation Shell Game.” Good Jobs First. January 2013. Available at: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/shellgame
[xvi] Good Jobs First. “Key Reforms: Clawbacks.” Available at: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/accountable-development/key-reforms-clawbacks
[xvii] Pew Center on the States. “Avoiding Blank Checks: Creating Fiscally Sound State Tax Incentives.” December 2012. Available at: http://www.pewstates.org/research/reports/avoiding-blank-checks-85899433960
[xviii] Guidance on how to accomplish these goals is available in: Good Jobs First. “Model Legislation for Accountability in Economic Development.” Available at: http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/GJF_model_complete.pdf
[xix] Pew Center on the States. “Evidence Counts: Evaluating State Tax Incentives for Jobs and Growth.” April 2012. Available at: http://www.pewstates.org/research/reports/evidence-counts-85899378806. ITEP. “Five Steps Toward a Better Tax Expenditure Debate.” October 1, 2012. Available at: http://itep.org/itep_reports/2012/10/five-steps-toward-a-better-tax-expenditure-debate.php | <urn:uuid:dec02ca5-3ffb-4276-979a-21e8e6c4d0b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.itep.org/itep_reports/2013/08/tax-incentives-costly-for-states-drag-on-the-nation.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930898 | 3,672 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Primitive tools hidden for thousands of years have been unearthed during a project to remove electricity poles in Malham.
The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) is working with Electricity North West, which manages and owns the region’s power network, to reduce the visual impact of overhead powerlines and electricity poles on the National Trust’s Malham Moor Estate by laying the cables underground.
And dozens of prehistoric flints were found during the first phase of the £300,000 project, which will remove 23 electricity poles and replace overhead powerlines with 2.2km of underground cable.
Work was temporarily put on hold while archaeology students from Bradford University carried out an investigation under the supervision of Dr Randolph Donahue.
Mark Newman, the National Trust’s consultant archaeologist, said: “The excavations have provided wonderful evidence of how the Yorkshire Dales have been attracting visitors for thousands of years.
“We knew that Malham Tarn was an ideal summer hunting ground in the Mesolithic period particularly, because of the number of wildfowl on the water and the range of good-quality grazing that attracted game around the tarn.
“It was a summer hunting camp – a site that was visited again and again over the course of thousands of years. The hunters lived very sustainably and used materials extremely sparingly so the majority of the items Dr Donahue’s team found were tiny parts of small flint tools.
“There will be another phase of work when we go along and see what else is uncovered. We really value the support we have received from the national park authority and from Electricity North West in a project that is going to enhance the landscape and tell us more about its past.”
Mike Dugdale, programme delivery manager for Electricity North West, said: “Whenever we’re putting cables underground in an area known for its rich history we check for any important archaeological artefacts. These prehistoric findings are an exciting and important discovery.
“We put the project on hold until investigations were carried out, but we’re planning to start work again by March.”
The power project forms part of a £5.4m five-year scheme to remove overhead electricity lines identified as being most visually intrusive within the national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty in the North West.
Tom Harland, the YDNPA’s planning policy officer, said: “The main aim of the scheme is to reduce the visual impact that electricity lines have on the landscape.
“However, we also have to weigh up the potential impact of the work on archaeological features, wildlife and local people. In this case, the work has helped to improve our understanding of some very important archaeological sites and to choose a route for the trench that avoids them.” | <urn:uuid:dad27ca9-bf8b-424d-9ed6-09782590e69f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/news/10199626.Primitive_hunting_tools_found_during_work_in_Malham/?ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950156 | 585 | 2.546875 | 3 |
In life, there are always two sides to a coin, and the same applies to the world of modern operating systems. Closed source operating systems lack an independent code review most of the time, so you cannot quite pin your finger on what is happening, which means backdoors that have been included in the device – whether through malicious intent or otherwise, might be a way that an attacker is able to cause issues for the user. Paul Kocialkowski, a developer for a fully free/open version of Android, has mentioned that he discovered a backdoor which has been included in some of the devices from the Samsung Galaxy family.
Kocialkowski commented on how he discovered a Samsung program which ran in the background, and this program was bound to the communications processor, allowing the modem to remotely read, write, and delete files on the user’s phone storage. Other Samsung devices also offered this program enough rights to gain access to as well as make modifications to the user’s personal data.
Kocialkowski mentioned, “Provided that the modem runs proprietary software and can be remotely controlled, that backdoor provides remote access to the phone’s data, even in the case where the modem is isolated and cannot access the storage directly.”
Hopefully Samsung will respond to this backdoor sooner rather than later. | <urn:uuid:61825c87-6372-4d02-bdbb-7611c5db6d3d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/03/developer-samsung-galaxy-devices-have-a-backdoor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962794 | 266 | 2.625 | 3 |
10105 Frank Bennett Fiske
In the Frank Bennett Fiske Collection, there are letters to James McLaughlin, Fiske's sister, who was a teacher, and others who lived on the Standing Rock Reservation. There is also research on various tribes and reservations throughout the northern Midwest. Fiske was a photographer.
10313 James McLaughlin
The James McLaughlin Papers cover his time as the Indian agent on both the Fort Totten and Standing Rock Reservations. The papers include letters about Sitting Bull, assimilation, the Ghost Dance, and other issues he dealt with as the Indian agent. Land patents and documentation of citizenship are also included.
10691 Roy Johnson and Louis Pfaller
In Box 37 Folder 1 of the Roy Johnson and Louis Pfaller Collection, there is research on Sitting Bull, James McLaughlin, and the Ghost Dance. There are many newspaper clippings about these three subjects.
20403 George H. Bingenheimer
Bingenheimer was an agent at Standing Rock before James McLaughlin. This collection contains letters negotiating a treaty and various Indian attacks on forts throughout Dakota Territory.
20479 United States Office of Indian Affairs – Standing Rock Agency
In the early reservation period on the Great Plains, BIA agents ran the agencies on the reservations. In this folder, there is a book of outgoing letters from the BIA agent on the Standing Rock Reservation. The letters provide information about hostile Indians and the process of assimilation on the reservation. The BIA agent also tracked how many Indians had ponies on the reservation.
80069 John M. Carigan
This is Carigan's appointment as agent at Standing Rock Indian Reservation after James McLaughlin.
Barrett, Carole. "One Bull: A Man of Good Understanding." North Dakota History, Fall 1999: 3-16
This article describes the importance of One Bull to Sitting Bull. Barrett describes the meaning of Sitting Bull to the Lakota people. She also tells of the death of Sitting Bull. This article recalls the early reservation period and discusses James McLaughlin and the Indian Claims Commission.
Clow, Richard L. ""A Flagrant Outrage": James McLauglin, Indian Country, and Illegal Bison Hunting." North Dakota History, Summer and Fall 2004: 2-18.
This article discusses James McLaughlin and his role in the buffalo hunting of Dakota Territory.
Finding Aids on Early Reservation Era in North Dakota:
612 East Boulevard Ave.
Bismarck, North Dakota 58505
State Museum and Store: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. M-F; Sat. & Sun. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
We are closed New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
State Archives: 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. M-F, except state holidays; 2nd Sat. of each month, 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
State Historical Society offices: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. M-F, except state holidays. | <urn:uuid:ef1f2efd-7e49-40f4-8543-5449656d48a3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.history.nd.gov/nhdinnd/turningpoints/BIAagents.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899825 | 644 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Definition of sea scallop
: a large deep-water scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) of the Atlantic coast of North America that is harvested commercially for food
First Known Use of sea scallop
Rhymes with sea scallop
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up sea scallop? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). | <urn:uuid:0c2dff42-02fa-4930-a09c-0d2d3c275579> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sea%20scallop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872773 | 91 | 2.53125 | 3 |
He’s back on Earth, as we all know, and the medical evaluations have begun. Astronaut Scott Kelly spent 340 days on the International Space Station while his twin brother remained home, it has given NASA the unique opportunity to contrast the effects space has on an astronaut’s body in comparison to the changes that would take place during the same time period spent on Earth. The biggest difference so far? Scott Kelly grew 2-inches taller while on the ISS, and is now designated the taller brother.
Before going to space, Scott Kelly and his twin were the same height, but nearly a year in the low gravity environment allowed Kelly to stretch out, literally. In a statement to CNN recently, NASA said, “Astronauts get taller in space as the spine elongates.”
Unfortunately, his height change is only temporary. Said Williams, “[Astronauts] return to preflight height after a short time back on Earth.” It's a unique experience, getting to grow substantially taller and spend a short while like that before slowly shrinking back down to 'normal.'
Kelly and his twin Mark are part of NASA’s ‘Twins Study’ — data from the study will help NASA better understand what kind of health changes humans face in space, and will contribute toward ways to address those issues. Things like aging and mental illness are two concerns about long-term space living, and addressing them is essential to further NASA's humans-on-Mars goal. | <urn:uuid:ae401f78-eed9-4149-92a0-e5998f7aa0dd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.slashgear.com/astronaut-scott-kelly-grew-2-inches-while-on-iss-03430222/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951535 | 307 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Navajo coal plant pollution and Grand Canyon haze subject to hearing
Leaders of several Indian nations urged a House subcommittee Tuesday to stall plans to tighten emission standards at the Navajo Generating Station in northeastern Arizona, which is partly owned by Los Angeles' Department of Water & Power.
Tribal leaders said they depend on the plant for coal sales, royalties, lease fees, employment and water rights. The plant powers the Central Arizona Project, a system of more than 300 miles of pipelines, aqueducts and pumping stations that supplies about 80% of the state's water users, predominantly in Tucson and Phoenix.
Leroy Shingoitewa, chairman of the Hopi tribal council, warned the congressional panel that closure of the plant would make the Hopi "a ward of the nation."
The Navajo Generating Station and Four Corners power plants are the top source of pollutants among power plants west of the Mississippi River. The Environmental Protection Agency is pushing for retrofits that would lower emissions and reduce haze that often obscures views of the nearby Grand Canyon.
The EPA is scheduled to decide this summer whether to require pollution controls for the plant, one of the biggest sources of nitrogen oxide emissions in the country.
"Our job is to decide, 'Are the parks adequately protected?' " said Colleen McKaughan, associate director of the EPA's air division in San Francisco. "And if they're not, does the facility need additional pollution controls?"
Testimony is continuing before a joint subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee.
-- Geoff Mohan
Photo: The Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, as seen from Lake Powell. Credit: Joe Cavaretta / Associated Press | <urn:uuid:e1af771d-c1d8-4e41-8d6c-6b95dd8536ae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/05/navajo-coal-plant-pollution-and-grand-canyon-haze-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938544 | 344 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Gettysburg Address: Americans still find the Civil War relevant to today’s politics
Today is the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, his speech about a war that more than half of Americans say is still relevant to modern day U.S. politics.
Four and a half months after the pivotal battle at Gettysburg, a Union victory achieved at a high cost of life on both sides, President Lincoln came to the battlefield on Nov. 19, 1863 to dedicate a cemetery to those who died there. His remarks of a little over two minutes are considered to be among the great speeches delivered by an American leader.
When the country marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War in 2011, a Pew Research Center survey found that 56% of Americans still looked on the war as relevant to American politics and political life. About four-in-ten (39%) regarded it as important historically, but with little political relevance today.
About half (48%) of Americans believe the main cause of the war as mainly about states’ rights, while 38% said it was mainly about slavery. Another 9% said both were main reasons.
One legacy of the Civil War that had echoed in American politics into this century was the controversy over the display of the Confederate flag. In South Carolina, the official display of the flag atop the State House was a source of heated political and racial controversy for years. In 2000, a compromise was reached in which the flag was removed from the capitol and a similar flag was raised at the South Carolina Confederate Solider Monument on the State House grounds.
Three-in-ten Americans said they had a negative reaction when they saw a Confederate flag displayed while 9% had a positive reaction. About six-in-ten (58%) said they had neither a positive or negative reaction.
Category: Daily Number
Bruce Drake is a senior editor at Pew Research Center. | <urn:uuid:8a7ce357-912d-4034-a80f-094bd2cc966d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/11/19/gettysburg-address-americans-still-find-the-civil-war-relevant-to-todays-politics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970375 | 391 | 3.546875 | 4 |
I met Eugene Fama in his office at the Booth School of Business. I began by pointing out that the efficient markets hypothesis, which he promulgated in the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies, had come in for a lot of criticism since the financial crisis began in 1987, and I asked Fama how he thought the theory, which says prices of financial assets accurately reflect all of the available information about economic fundamentals, had fared.
Eugene Fama: I think it did quite well in this episode. Stock prices typically decline prior to and in a state of recession. This was a particularly severe recession. Prices started to decline in advance of when people recognized that it was a recession and then continued to decline. There was nothing unusual about that. That was exactly what you would expect if markets were efficient.
Many people would argue that, in this case, the inefficiency was primarily in the credit markets, not the stock market—that there was a credit bubble that inflated and ultimately burst.
I don’t even know what that means. People who get credit have to get it from somewhere. Does a credit bubble mean that people save too much during that period? I don’t know what a credit bubble means. I don’t even know what a bubble means. These words have become popular. I don’t think they have any meaning.
I guess most people would define a bubble as an extended period during which asset prices depart quite significantly from economic fundamentals.
That’s what I would think it is, but that means that somebody must have made a lot of money betting on that, if you could identify it. It’s easy to say prices went down, it must have been a bubble, after the fact. I think most bubbles are twenty-twenty hindsight. Now after the fact you always find people who said before the fact that prices are too high. People are always saying that prices are too high. When they turn out to be right, we anoint them. When they turn out to be wrong, we ignore them. They are typically right and wrong about half the time.
Are you saying that bubbles can’t exist?
They have to be predictable phenomena. I don’t think any of this was particularly predictable.
Is it not true that in the credit markets people were getting loans, especially home loans, which they shouldn’t have been getting?
That was government policy; that was not a failure of the market. The government decided that it wanted to expand home ownership. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were instructed to buy lower grade mortgages.
But Fannie and Freddie’s purchases of subprime mortgages were pretty small compared to the market as a whole, perhaps twenty or thirty per cent.
(Laughs) Well, what does it take?
Wasn’t the subprime mortgage bond business overwhelmingly a private sector phenomenon involving Wall Street firms, other U.S. financial firms, and European banks?
Well, (it’s easy) to say after the fact that things were wrong. But at the time those buying them didn’t think they were wrong. It isn’t as if they were naïve investors, or anything. They were all the big institutions—not just in the United States, but around the world. What they got wrong, and I don’t know how they could have got it right, was that there was a decline in house prices around the world, not just in the U.S. You can blame subprime mortgages, but if you want to explain the decline in real estate prices you have to explain why they declined in places that didn’t have subprime mortgages. It was a global phenomenon. Now, it took subprime down with it, but it took a lot of stuff down with it.
So what is your explanation of what happened?
What happened is we went through a big recession, people couldn’t make their mortgage payments, and, of course, the ones with the riskiest mortgages were the most likely not to be able to do it. As a consequence, we had a so-called credit crisis. It wasn’t really a credit crisis. It was an economic crisis.
But surely the start of the credit crisis predated the recession?
I don’t think so. How could it? People don’t walk away from their homes unless they can’t make the payments. That’s an indication that we are in a recession.
So you are saying the recession predated August 2007, when the subprime bond market froze up?
Yeah. It had to, to be showing up among people who had mortgages. Nobody who’s doing mortgage research—we have lots of them here—disagrees with that.
So what caused the recession if it wasn’t the financial crisis?
(Laughs) That’s where economics has always broken down. We don’t know what causes recessions. Now, I’m not a macroeconomist so I don’t feel bad about that. (Laughs again.) We’ve never known. Debates go on to this day about what caused the Great Depression. Economics is not very good at explaining swings in economic activity.
Let me get this straight, because I don’t want to misrepresent you. Your view is that in 2007 there was an economic recession coming on, for whatever reason, which was then reflected in the financial system in the form of lower asset prices?
Yeah. What was really unusual was the worldwide fall in real estate prices.
So, you get a recession, for whatever reason, that leads to a worldwide fall in house prices, and that leads to a financial collapse…
Of the mortgage market…What’s the reality now? Everybody talks about a credit crisis. The variance of stock returns for the market as a whole went up to, like, sixty per cent a year—the Vix measure of volatility was running at about sixty per cent. What that implies is not a credit market crisis. It would be stupid for anybody to give credit in those circumstances, because the probability that any borrower is going to be gone within a year is pretty high. In an efficient market, you would expect that debt would shorten up. Any new debt would be very short-term until that volatility went down.
But what is driving that volatility?
(Laughs) Again, its economic activity—the part we don’t understand. So the fact we don’t understand it means there’s a lot of uncertainty about how bad it really is. That creates all kinds of volatility in financial prices, and bonds are no longer a viable form of financing.
And all that is consistent with market efficiency?
Yes. It is exactly how you would expect the market to work.
Taking a somewhat broader view, the usual defense of financial markets is that they facilitate investment, facilitate growth, help to allocate resources to their most productive uses, and so on. In this instance, it appears that the market produced an enormous amount of investment in real estate, much of which wasn’t warranted…
After the fact…There was enormous investment across the board: it wasn’t just housing. Corporate investment was very high. All forms of investment were very high. What you are really saying is that somewhere in the world people were saving a lot—the Chinese, for example. They were providing capital to the rest of the world. The U.S. was consuming capital like it was going out of sight.
Sure, but the traditional Chicago view has been that the financial markets do a good job of allocating that capital. In this case it, they didn’t—or so it appears.
(Pauses) A lot of mortgages went bad. A lot of corporate debt went bad. A lot of debt of all sorts went bad. I don’t see how this is a special case. This is a problem created by a general decline in asset prices. Whenever you get a recession, it turns out that you invested too much before that. But that was unpredictable at the time.
There were some people out there saying this was an unsustainable bubble…
Right. For example, (Robert) Shiller was saying that since 1996.
Yes, but he also said in 2004 and 2005 that this was a housing bubble.
O.K., right. Here’s a question to turn it around. Can you have a bubble in all asset markets at the same time? Does that make any sense at all? Maybe it does in somebody’s view of the world, but I have a real problem with that. Maybe you can convince me there can be bubbles in individual securities. It’s a tougher story to tell me there’s a bubble in a whole sector of the market, if there isn’t something artificial going on. When you start telling me there’s a bubble in all markets, I don’t even know what that means. Now we are talking about saving equals investment. You are basically telling me people are saving too much, and I don’t know what to make of that.
In the past, I think you have been quoted as saying that you don’t even believe in the possibility of bubbles.
I never said that. I want people to use the term in a consistent way. For example, I didn’t renew my subscription to The Economist because they use the world bubble three times on every page. Any time prices went up and down—I guess that is what they call a bubble. People have become entirely sloppy. People have jumped on the bandwagon of blaming financial markets. I can tell a story very easily in which the financial markets were a casualty of the recession, not a cause of it.
That’s your view, correct?
I spoke to Richard Posner, whose view is diametrically opposed to yours. He says the financial crisis and recession presents a serious challenge to Chicago economics.
Er, he’s not an economist. (Laughs) He’s an expert on law and economics. We are talking macroeconomics and finance. That is not his area.
So you wouldn’t take what he says seriously?
I take everything he says seriously, but I don’t agree with him on this one. And I don’t think the people here who are more attuned to these areas agree with him either.
His argument is that the financial system brought down the economy, and not vice versa.
Well then, you can say that about every recession. Even if you believe that, which I don’t, I wonder how many economists would argue that the world wasn’t made a much better place by the financial development that occurred from 1980 onwards. The expansion of worldwide wealth—in developed countries, in emerging countries—all of that was facilitated, in my view, to a large extent, by the development of international markets and the way they allow saving to flow to investments, in its most productive uses. Even if you blame this episode on financial innovation, or whatever you want to blame, would that wipe out the previous thirty years of development?
What about here in Chicago—has there been a lot of discussion about all this, the financial crisis, and what it means, and so on?
Lots of it. Typical research came to a halt. Everybody got involved.
Everybody’s got a cure. I don’t trust any of them. (Laughs.) Even the people I agree with generally. I don’t think anybody has a cure. The cure is to a different problem. The cure is to a new problem that we face—the “too-big-to-fail” problem. We can’t do without finance. But if it becomes the accepted norm that the government steps in every time things go bad, we’ve got a terrible adverse selection problem.
So what is the solution that problem?
The simple solution is to make sure these firms have a lot more equity capital—not a little more, but a lot more, so they are not playing with other people’s money. There are other people here who think that leverage is an important part of they system. I am not sure I agree with them. You talk to Doug Diamond or Raghu Rajan, and they have theories for why leverage in financial institutions has real uses. I just don’t think that those effects are as important as they think they are.
Let’s say the government did what you recommend, and forced banks to hold a lot more equity capital. Would it then also have to restructure the industry, say splitting up the big banks, as some other experts have recommended?
No. If you think about it…I’m a student of Merton Miller, after all. In the Modigliani-Miller view of the world, it’s only the assets that count. The way you finance them doesn’t matter. If you decide that this type of activity should be financed more with equity than debt, that doesn’t particularly have adverse effects on the level of activity in that sector. It is just splitting the risk differently.
Some people might say one of the big lessons of the crisis is that the Modigliani-Miller theory doesn’t hold. In this case, the way that things were financed did matter. People and firms had too much debt.
Well, in the Modigliani-Miller world there are zero transaction costs. But big bankruptcies have big transaction costs, whereas if you’ve got a less levered capital structure you don’t go into bankruptcy. Leverage is a problem…
The experiment we never ran is, suppose the government stepped aside and let these institutions fail. How long would it have taken to have unscrambled everything and figured everything out? My guess is that we are talking a week or two. But the problems that were generated by the government stepping in—those are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. Now, maybe it would have been horrendous if the government didn’t step in, but we’ll never know. I think we could have figured it out in a week or two.
So you would have just let them…
Let them all fail. (Laughs) We let Lehman fail. We let Washington Mutual fail. These were big financial institutions. Some we didn’t let fail. To me, it looks like there was not much rhyme or reason to it.
What about Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson’s argument that if they hadn’t taken action to save the banks the whole financial system would have come crashing down?
Maybe it would have—for a week or two. But it pretty much stopped for a week or two anyway. The credit markets stopped for more than a week or two. But I think that was really a function of increased uncertainty about the future.
Did you think this at the time—that the government should let the banks fail?
Yeah—let ‘em, let ‘em. Because the failures of, like, Washington Mutual and Wachovia—other banks came swooping in to pick up their deposits and their other good assets. Of, course, they didn’t want their bad assets, but that’s the nature of bankruptcy. The activities that these banks were engaged in would have continued.
Why do you think the government didn’t just step back and let it happen? Was the government in hock to Wall Street, as many have claimed?
No. I think the government, Bernanke…Bob Lucas, I shouldn’t quote Bob Lucas, but what he says is “not on my watch.” That, basically, there is just a high degree of risk aversion on the part of people currently in government. They don’t want to be blamed for bad outcomes, so they are willing to do bad things to avoid them. I think Bernanke has been the best of the performers.
Back to Chicago economics. Is there still anything distinctive about Chicago, or have the rest of the world and Chicago largely converged, which is what Richard Posner thinks?
The rest of the world got converted to the notion that markets are pretty good at allocating resources. The more extreme of the left-leaning economists got blown away by the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Socialism had its sixty years, and it failed miserably. In that way, Chicago theory prospered. Milton Friedman and George Stigler were fighting that battle pretty much alone in the old days. Now it is pretty general. An experience like we’ve had rehabilitates the remnants of the old socialist gang. (Laughs) Unfortunately, they seem to be in control of the government, at this point.
In the old days, a person like (Richard) Thaler would have had trouble getting a job here. But that was a period of time when Chicago economics was basically under attack the world over. There was a kind of a bunker mentality. But now we’ve become more confident. Now, our only criterion is we want the best people who do whatever they do. As long as they are honest about it, and they respect other people’s work, and we respect their work, great.
I know the business school has a lot of diversity, but is that also true of the university economics department?
Sure. John List is over there. He’s a behavioral economist. Steve Levitt is a very unusual type of economist. His brand of economics, which is an extension of Gary’s is taking over microeconomics.
I spoke to Becker. His view is that what remains distinctive about Chicago is its degree of skepticism toward the government.
Right—that’s true even of Dick (Thaler). I think that is just rational behavior. (Laughs) It took people a long time to realize that government officials are self-interested individuals, and that government involvement in economic activity is especially pernicious because the government can’t fail. Revenues have to cover costs—the government is not subject to that constraint.
So you don’t accept the view, which Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and others have put forward, that what has happened represents a rehabilitation of government action—that the government prevented a catastrophe?
Krugman wants to be the czar of the world. There are no economists that he likes. (Laughs)
And Larry Summers?
What other position could he take and still have a job? And he likes the job.
What is your view on regulating Wall Street? Do we need more of it?
I think it is inevitable, if you accept the view that the government will bail out the biggest firms if they get into trouble. But I don’t think it will work. Private companies are very good at inventing ways around the regulations. They will find ways to do things that are in the letter of the regulations but not in the spirit. You are not going to be able to attract the best people to be regulators.
That sounds like an old-fashioned Chicago argument—skepticism about regulation.
Yes. We have Ragu (Rajan), Doug Diamond—they are as good banking people as there are in the world. I have been listening to them for six months, and I would not trust them to write the regulations. In the end, there is so much uncertainty, and so much depends on how people will react to certain things that nobody knows what good regulation would be at this point. That is what is scary about government bailouts of big institutions.
So what should we do? If the President called you tomorrow and said, “Gene, I don’t think our way is working. What should we do?” How would you respond?
I don’t know if these are even the big issues of the time. I think that what is going on in health care could end up being more important. I don’t think we are going down the right road there. Insurance is not the solution: it’s the problem. Making the problem more widespread is not going to solve it.
When all this (the financial crisis) started, I joined the debate. Then I stepped back and said, I’m really not comfortable with my insights into what the best way of proceeding is. Let me sit back and listen to people. So I listened to all the experts, local and otherwise. After a while, I came to the conclusion that I don’t know what the best thing to do it, and I don’t think they do either. (Laughs) I don’t think there is a good prescription. So I went back and started doing my own research.
Couldn’t we just ban further bailouts, passing a constitutional amendment if necessary? That would be in line with your views, wouldn’t it?
Right, but is that credible? It’s very difficult to explain how A.I.G. issued all the credit default swaps it issued if people didn’t think the government was going to step in and bail them out. Government pledged, in any case, have little credibility. But that one—I think it’s pretty sure that we they couldn’t live up to it.
What will be financial crisis’s legacy for the subject of economics? Will there be big changes?
I don’t see any. Which way is it going to go? If I could have predicted that, that’s the stuff I would have been working on. I don’t see it. (Laughs) I’d love to know more about what causes business cycles.
What lessons have you learned from what happened?
Well, I think the big sobering thing is that maybe economists, like the population as a whole, got lulled into thinking that events this large couldn’t happen any more—that a recession this big couldn’t happen any more. There’ll be a lot of work trying to figure out what happened and why it happened, but we’ve been doing that with the Great Depression since it happened, and we haven’t really got to the bottom of that. So I don’t intend to pursue that. I used to do macroeconomics, but I gave (it) up long ago.
Back to the efficient markets hypothesis. You said earlier that it comes out of this episode pretty well. Others say the market may be good at pricing in a relative sense—one stock versus another—but it is very bad at setting absolute prices, the level of the market as a whole. What do you say to that?
People say that. I don’t know what the basis of it is. If they know, they should be rich men. What better way to make money than to know exactly about the absolute level of prices.
So you still think that the market is highly efficient at the overall level too?
Yes. And if it isn’t, it’s going to be impossible to tell.
For the layman, people who don’t know much about economic theory, is that the fundamental insight of the efficient market hypothesis—that you can’t beat the market?
Right—that’s the practical insight. No matter what research gets done, that one always looks good.
What about the findings that long periods of high returns are followed by long periods of low returns?
Now, there is no evidence of that…The expected return on stocks is just a price—the price people require to bear the market risk. Like any price, it should vary from time to time, and maybe it should vary in predictable ways. I’ve done a lot of work purporting to show there’s a little bit of predictability in overall market returns, but that branch of the literature has so many statistical problems there’s not a lot of agreement.
The problem is that, almost surely, expected returns vary through time because of risk aversion—wealth, everything else varies through time. But measuring that requires that you have a good variable for tracking (risk aversion) or good models for tracking it. We don’t have that. The way that people do it, including me, is by using kind of ad hoc variables to pick it up. All the argument centers on whether what’s picked up by these variables is really what’s there, or whether it is just kind of a statistical fluke. There’s a whole issue of the Review of Financial Studies with people arguing very vociferously on both sides of that. When that happens, you know that none of the results are very reliable.
Do you and Dick Thaler discuss this stuff when you are playing golf?
Sure. We don’t want to discuss his golf game, that’s for sure.
Has the advance of all this behavioral stuff, behavioral finance, made you rethink anything?
Yes, sure. I’ve always said they are very good at describing how individual behavior departs from rationality. That branch of it has been incredibly useful. It’s the leap from there to what it implies about market pricing where the claims are not so well-documented in terms of empirical evidence. That line of research has survived the market test. More people are getting into it.
But you are skeptical about the claims about how irrationality affects market prices?
It’s a leap. I’m not saying you couldn’t do it, but I’m an empiricist. It’s got to be shown.
Thanks very much. Finally, before I go, what about Paul Krugman’s recent piece in the New York Times Magazine, in which he attacked Chicago economics and the efficient markets hypothesis. What did you think of it?
(Laughs) My attitude is this: if you are getting attacked by Krugman, you must be doing something right. | <urn:uuid:99dc4902-a130-4308-ba9e-9819cc4b5280> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.newyorker.com/rational-irrationality/interview-with-eugene-fama | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975857 | 5,446 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Getting young children to write can be a difficult, tooth-pulling kind of task. Whether they’re still scribblers, or are printing their name, try these ideas to help make this important developmental skill interesting and fun!
1. Never let ‘em see you sweat (but do let ‘em see you write).
Young children rarely need to be shown how to talk on a play telephone or push buttons on a computer. Why? They see adults do it all the time. Make your writing tasks — big or small — visible to them.
Write thank-you notes and birthday cards in their presence. When appropriate, let them write or draw on the card as well. Make it a practice to have them sign their name on cards that are sent on behalf of your family. In the beginning, it may only be random marks, or an alphabet letter or two. Don’t worry; the recipient will love the personal touch.
Sit next to them as you write down appointments or other information on your calendar, or even when jotting down a reminder to yourself on a piece of paper.
2. “Enlist” their writing.
Let your child add their own items to the family grocery list, or write down items as you say them aloud.
Provide each child with his or her own to do list, and post it next to your own. Garage sales, thrift stores, and the bargain section of bookstores are good places to find inexpensive magnetic pads that can be placed on the refrigerator.
3. Give them natural opportunities to develop fine motor skills.
Simple tasks like tearing paper, unwrapping shrink wrap (such as the kind you find on products at the store), and peeling off stickers are all great exercises for developing dexterity in preschoolers.
While you’re working in the kitchen, give them two or three different kinds of dry beans to sort by color or size in small-size muffin tins. For a bigger challenge, have them use large, plastic tweezers (like the kind found in science sets, or play doctors’ kits) to sort the beans.
4. Put away the lead.
Sometimes, pencils just aren’t as fun as all the other things children can use to draw, write, and color. Expose them to a variety of marking tools.
Let them write with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. Put markers, pencils, and crayons together in a container and let them choose what they would like to use when drawing or writing. White and fluorescent chalk looks really cool on black construction paper. In the winter, show them how to make big letters and words in the snow using a big stick.
5. Become a label-maker.
Label your child’s drawings by writing the name of the object beside the picture. If they’ve drawn a picture of an event, make it a practice to write out what they tell you about it.
6. The hands have it: using finger paint and shaving cream.
Finger painting can be so much fun for kids, and since most of it is washable, it doesn’t have to be a hard-to-clean mess! Let them swirl, draw, and make all the curly-q’s they want while stepping in occasionally and teaching them how to write their name in the paint.
Spray a dollop of shaving cream on a washable surface. Smooth it out with your hand, and let your child practice writing their alphabet letters and numbers. They can also practice drawing shapes. When they’re finished, wipe up the sudsy “mess” with a damp cloth. The cream won’t hurt their clothes, your surface will be clean, and the room will have a fresh scent!
Use a journaling book, sketch pad, or simple spiral notebook to journal your day with your children. Take a few minutes to talk about the day, writing down in just a few sentences what your child remembers. Draw simple pictures for some of the words to help the ideas stand out to your child (like a pictograph).
Information and Resources
Encouraging Young Children’s Writing contains useful information for parents about the development of drawing and writing in children. | <urn:uuid:824e8f48-df3e-4e57-ad17-578588df7562> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://parentingsquad.com/helping-kids-writing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935937 | 886 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Memorial Day is thought of as the start of summer. Cabins are opened for the season. Docks are put in, ready for fishing and swimming. Boats are prepped for boating, fishing, and skiing.
These certainly are wonderful activities, but Memorial Day’s true purpose in its establishment should not be forgotten.
I asked my students how they spent their Memorial Day weekends. The majority enjoyed the days relaxing, watching movies, and grilling. Yes, there were a few who attended a Memorial Day service or parade. One student shared that his family annually visits a cemetery where his deceased great-grandparents are buried.
Memorial Day has become not only a day to remember and honor our veterans, but also our other loved ones who have passed away. It is a day set aside to pay tribute and to remember.
Each Memorial Day, my family and I attend our local Memorial Day service. Two of our children are now old enough to participate in the honors of playing in the marching band. A solo trumpet plays taps. The large band rings out “God Bless America.” General Logan’s orders are recited. A serviceman speaks about duty and honor. Local deceased veterans’ roll call is made. The service begins and ends in prayer.
This is what Memorial Day was established for. Following the Civil War, General Logan ordered that the graves of fallen soldiers be decorated.
Some soldiers have given up their lives in the cause for freedom. Servicemen were, and are willing to do this for their fellow countrymen and women. All soldiers and veterans give up a piece of themselves in their service. They will be forever affected by their service time.
As my family and I, who included my brother and brother-in-law, visited the cemetery where loved ones are buried, we spoke of cherished memories. We paid respect to others who were buried in the same cemetery and shared stories of the individuals.
My brother-in-law recalled his old Legion baseball days and awarding the Most Valuable Player award one year to their biggest fan instead of a player. That man made an impact on him, and wouldn’t he be glad that this is how he is remembered, even many years after his death.
We found the gravestones of our great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles. This instigated stories of how the family farm came to be.
My brother-in-law’s father was a veteran who served in World War II. His father had one brother, thus one brother was allowed to stay home and help with the farm, and the other was off to war. His father was off to war.
This is what Memorial Day is about. Remembering and sharing these remembrances with the next generation to carry on the stories. This Memorial Day is gone, but it is never too late to share remembrances. Take the time to do so with loved ones. Pass on the history and the stories. | <urn:uuid:1238ac22-36f0-4d1a-bbb8-555b2682620c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2013/columns/js060313.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981948 | 615 | 2.78125 | 3 |
THE LENS OF GENDER
The Lens of Gender
Excerpted from The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future by Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards. Reprinted Courtesy of Cambridge University Press.
Beginning in the 1970s, the lens of gender brought into sharp focus a psychology so wedded to patriarchy that the omission of women from its research studies had, for the most part, not been seen, or if seen, had not been considered consequential. It was an omission "so obvious that no one noticed," to borrow a phrase from Arundhati Roy's novel, The God of Small Things. That it turned out to be no small thing was the discovery of subsequent research that began with women but quickly extended to girls, to young boys, and to a reconsideration of what had been taken as true about men.88 Women, enjoined by patriarchy to be selfless, to be responsive to others but to silence themselves, were holding up, it turned out, half of the sky. The long-standing and vaunted divisions between mind and body, reason and emotion, self and relationships, culture and nature, when viewed through the lens of gender turned out to be deeply gendered, reflecting the binaries and hierarchies of a patriarchal culture. Mind, reason, self, and culture were considered masculine and were elevated above body, emotion, relationships, and nature, seen as feminine and like women at once idealized and devalued. These splits revealed a chasm in human nature, a systematic distortion or deformation of both men's and women's natures. The consequence was an argument over which half was better – the masculine or the feminine part – but more deeply, a recognition that the problem lay in the paradigm itself.
In the classical manner of scientific advances, the discrepant data proved most informative, the evidence that did not fit the reigning patriarchal construction. Thus women's voices were privileged in informing psychologists about aspects of the human condition that by being tagged feminine and associated with women had been at once ignored and devalued. A paradigm shift followed from this research, joining what had been cast asunder. Whereas in the old paradigm, women were seen as emotional not rational, as having relationships but no self, and men, conversely, were considered rational insofar as they were unemotional, autonomous in their sense of self, the new paradigm in its reframing undid the splits. But the old patriarchal values crept back in: "feminine” qualities were taken as modifiers of "masculine” strengths – hence, "emotional intelligence," "relational self," and most recently, "the feeling brain.” And perhaps, more significantly, the history was rewritten, losing the origins of these insights in the different voices of women: different because they were resisting these splits in asserting the relational nature of all human experience. The insight that without voice there is no relationship and without relationship voice recedes into silence became the key to unlocking a paradigm that was falsely gendered, false in its representation of human nature and also human development. As the paradigm shift released voices in both women and men that previously could not be heard or understood, the early insights of Freud were retrieved along with those of Ferenczi and Suttie in a reframing of psychology which came increasingly to focus on the phenomenon of dissociation and the study of trauma. Studies of women, of babies and mothers, and new studies of men led to a remapping of development as starting not from separation but from relationship. 89 And in their light, the requisites for love and the consequences of traumatic loss became clear. All of this work laid the foundation for the psychology we explore in this book.
But it was studies of girls that illuminated more radically a critical intersection in development where psychology came into tension with the requisites of patriarchy, its gender norms and roles and values. The research highlighted what previously had been taken as part of the natural course of development and showed it to be a process of initiation, the induction of the psyche into patriarchy. The finding that most arrested attention, and one that consequently was often buried, was that girls in entering adolescence showed signs of a resistance, not to growing up but to losing their minds, as one thirteen-year-old put it. The crisis was one of relationship, and the resistance was to the split between voice and relationship. Paradoxically, girls were discovering that their honest voices were jeopardizing their relationships, not only their personal relationships but also their relationship with the culture they were entering as adolescents: secondary school, sexual relationships, economic and social opportunities. The initiation into patriarchy required a sacrifice of relationship, a sacrifice of love.90
The trajectory of this resistance was informative, along with the various meanings of the word itself: resistance in the sense of resistance to disease; resistance as political resistance – speaking truth to power; and resistance in its psychoanalytic connotation as a reluctance to discover one's thoughts and feelings, to know what one knows. Longitudinal studies following girls from childhood to adolescence charted a trajectory whereby a healthy resistance to losing voice and thereby losing relationship turned into a political resistance, a protest against the structures of patriarchy, including the equation of selflessness with feminine goodness, and where political resistance when it could find no channel for expression turned into dissociation or various forms of indirect speech and self-silencing. Hence the depression, the eating disorders, and the various forms of psychological distress that seemed visited on girls at adolescence. When Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire tells Eunice that she could not believe her sister and go on living with her husband, she captured the dilemma of women in patriarchy. It was necessary not to believe or to know what was happening in order to join a culture that mandated repression, where, as in Tennessee Williams's play, the streetcar named desire led to the insane asylum.
It is hard now to capture that first elation in discovering that we have within ourselves, within our very nature, the capacities for voice and relationship that are the foundation for love and for democratic societies. In the course of the initiation into patriarchy, girls would come to label an honest voice stupid (or bad or wrong or crazy), and boys would come to see their relational desires and intelligence as babyish, as associated with women and thereby unmanly. And yet, the striking finding of the research with adolescent girls and with four-and five-year-old boys was the evidence of a resistance that was associated with psychological health, a resistance that made trouble in the sense of challenging the necessity or the value of losses that had been taken as in the very nature of things or seen as sacrifices to be made in the interest of growing up and finding one's place in society.
In the 1990s, these insights from studies in developmental psychology were joined by discoveries in neurobiology, heralded by the publication of Antonio Damasio's widely acclaimed book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (1994). As developmental research had revealed the splits between self and relationships to signal a traumatic disruption of human connection, so neurological studies revealed the split between reason and emotion to signal trauma or injury to the brain. We had, we learned, been wedded to a false story about ourselves, through a process illuminated in Damasio's second book: The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (1999). Exploring the neurological foundations of consciousness, Damasio distinguished core consciousness or a core sense of self from what he described as the "autobiographical self,” the self that is wedded to a story about itself. We are wired neurologically to register our experience from moment to moment in our bodies and in our emotions, like a film running continually inside us, and our awareness of watching this film extends this core consciousness or core sense of self through time and history, leading to memory and to identity. Thus in our bodies and our emotions we register the music, the feeling of what happens.
It can be seen as a sign of the times, the persistence of suspicions regarding the subject of gender or perhaps an incipient recognition of what we come to see when looking through a gender lens, that research as brilliant as that of Damasio and other neuroscientists working at the forefront of their field has been strikingly silent about gender with the exception of scanning their findings for evidence of differences that serve for the most part to reinforce old stereotypes or lend them a seemingly naturalistic grounding. But some of the most illuminating current research, notably studies of trauma, has called into question the sharp division between nature and culture by showing the effects of their interactions. These findings take us back to the Studies on Hysteria; as psychic pain could convert into physical pain, so trauma can alter neurophysiology.
By bringing the lens of gender to Damasio's distinction between a core self, grounded in the body and emotions, and an autobiographical self, wedded to a story about itself, it becomes possible to understand in new ways the process of an initiation that weds us to a false story about ourselves. Here again the research on girls was instructive, underscoring Apuleius's insight that women can play a crucial role in resisting the Love Laws of patriarchy by challenging the objectification of women, the idealization and denigration, and above all, the prohibitions on seeing and speaking that keep women from trusting or saying what they know through experience about men and love.
A gender lens then hones the perception that this ability in women re?ects their different position with respect to initiation into the demands of patriarchy, typically imposed earlier on boys. Because the initiation into its codes and scripts of manhood and womanhood tends to occur at adolescence for girls rather than around the ages of four and five, because it is in adolescence rather than early childhood that girls are pressed to incorporate a father's voice as the voice of moral authority and to live by the law of the father, girls have more resources to resist the trauma, the loss of voice and the dissociation. In fighting for real relationship, women are joined by men who similarly are moved to resist patriarchal constraints on love. It is in this sense that adolescence becomes a second chance for boys, when sexual desire and more intimate relationships with girls may lead them to reveal what they have repressed or hidden, their own intimate voices, their tenderness, their desire for love. And thus to challenge patriarchal constructions of manhood.
As Elisabeth Young-Bruehl observes in a recent essay, Suttie indicated how Freud's bias "against recognizing the mother-infant 'love reciprocity' . . . put [him] in harmony with the sexist 'law of the father' bias of patriarchal culture generally," resulting in what Suttie described as "the 'specially inexorable repression,' the grudge against mothers and a mind-blindness for love, equal and opposite to the mind-blindness and repugnance that many of his opponents had for sex.” Yet because relationality has the deep place in human psychology that it does, resistance has the appeal and hold on it that it does. Young-Bruehl "identifies a taboo – the antifeminist taboo on tenderness – in the heart of psychoanalysis and sees psychoanalysis's history as a struggle over that taboo."91
The tenacity of this struggle, the forces marshaled on both sides within psychoanalysis and more generally within the human sciences, along with the incoherence of much of the argument suggest once again that what is at stake are not competing positions within a single framework but a shift in the paradigm, a change in the framework. With this shift, what previously was seen as a resistance to separation or maturation appears instead as a resistance to loss or trauma. The importance of the new research in developmental psychology and neurobiology thus lies in the challenges it poses to the underlying assumptions of the psychology on which patriarchy rests and relies. More specifically, what was taken as human nature or the natural or ideal course of development can now be seen as a distortion of both our nature and our development, a distortion that bears some of the hallmarks of injury or trauma.
We end with the insight that our ability to love and live with a sense of psychic wholeness hinges on our ability to resist wedding ourselves to the gender categories of patriarchy. That this capacity for resistance is grounded in our neurobiology only highlights the importance of a devel¬opmental psychology that provides us with an accurate map with which to chart our course. Once we see where we have come from, we also can recognize more clearly the alternative routes we might follow – one marked by Oedipus and leading to the birth of tragedy, one by the resistance of Psyche and Cupid leading to love and the birth of pleasure. It is thus that we join Damasio in the optimism of his most recent book, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and The Feeling Brain (2003). Advances in the human sciences have brought us to the point where we can alleviate some of the causes of human suffering, and this guarded optimism suggests that we have within ourselves the capacity to pursue not only life and liberty but also happiness.
Patriarchy's error lies in wedding us, men and women alike, to a false story about human nature and then characterizing our resistance to this story as a sign of pathology or sin. The long-standing divisions of mind from body, thought from emotion, and self from relationships enforce a kind of moral slavery in that they erode a resistance grounded in the core self and cause us to lose touch with our experience. Damasio's research demonstrated how the severing of thought from emotion leaves the capacity for deductive reasoning intact (the ability to deduce thought from thought) but impairs our capacity to navigate the human social world, which depends on an integration of thought and emotion. The associative methods of psychoanalysis were able to break through dissociations that were psychologically induced and/or culturally enforced, leading to a release of voice and a recovery of relational capacities, and imbuing psychoanalysis with a liberatory potential. But it is by looking through a gender lens that we are able to see the problem whole: not as a problem of women or men, or of women versus men, but rather a problem with the framework we have used in thinking about these questions. The artists to whom we now turn anticipated these insights, serving as early warning signals. Their associative methods broke through dissociation and allowed them to see the framework.
* * *
Excerpted from The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future by Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards. Reprinted Courtesy of Cambridge University Press. * * *
Related links at Feminist.com:
Conversation with Carol Gilligan | <urn:uuid:765c9205-6d4b-4ff8-bee0-6c095d914dcc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/lensofgender.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967754 | 3,031 | 2.6875 | 3 |
I'm learning algorithm theory and the teacher asked a question that confuses me.
Do $A$ and $B$ exist such that $A$ is not truth-table reducible to $B$, but $B$ is truth-table reducible to $A$?
Following Brian M. Scott's hint I post this as an answer.
The question is probably just an exercise in thinking about the definition.
Take $A$ an undecidable language on an alphabet with $n$ elements (assume it does not contain $\epsilon$ the empty word), or the corresponding subset of $\mathbb N$ by interpreting words as $n$-ary expansions. $A$ may be formulas provable with Peano's axioms for arithmetic. In this case Gödel numbering of formulas gives a second way of viewing $A$ as a set of natural numbers. Gödel and Turing proved $A$ is not decidable: there is no Turing machine that stops for all input (word in the alphabet $A$ is encoded in) with the right answer, 1 if the input is in $A$ and 0 if not. (Remark: The language is recursively enumerable so there is a TM which accepts all and only words in $A$, but then it will not stop on some input -which therefore is not in $A$, but this machine will not tell.)
Take $B$ a decidable language, for instance all nonempty words, or the empty set.
Now $B$ truth-table-reduces to $A$ simply outputing the easily-computed (without calling on the oracle) answer, i.e. always accepting in the first example of $B$ above. But $A$ does not so reduce to $B$ because truth-table calls to computable oracles can be implemented as Turing machines, by adding the TM working to output oracle answers for $B$ and the truth-table call procedure, to a putative TM deciding $A$ with $B$ as oracle. This would give a TM deciding $A$, and we know this is impossible. | <urn:uuid:eebe506f-8894-4067-881e-5dd6b46f6e7d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/145378/truth-table-reduction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918296 | 444 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Although protractors began to appear in practical geometry textbooks in the 18th century, it was not until the turn of the 20th century that they were used systematically in mathematics teaching in American schools. Some protractors were small and inexpensive, intended for purchase and use by individual students. These might be made from new materials, such as plastic. Other protractors for educational use were oversized, designed for teachers to provide demonstrations of concepts at the blackboard. Two protractors in the collection were manufactured in Japan and displayed at the 1876 World's Fair to help demonstrate the modernization of education in that nation.
"Protractors - School " showing 1 items.
- By the 20th century, the makers of drawing instruments transitioned to new and inexpensive materials, particularly for objects intended for student use. This semicircular xylonite protractor is divided by half-degrees and marked by tens from 0° to 180° in both the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. An upside-down T marks the origin point. The maker's mark forms a circle to the left of the origin point: KEUFFEL & ESSER Co (/) N.Y. Above the origin point is the K&E product number (1868) and diameter in inches (6). The company logo, the top half of an eagle, is to the right of the origin point. Underneath the logo are the words TRADE MARK. There is a hole just above the maker's mark to the left of the origin point. Perhaps the hole enabled the owner to store the protractor in a notebook.
- K&E marketed this protractor at least as early as 1909. It was intended to replace protractors made of horn. By 1936, K&E gave the instrument a new product number, 1276-6. This example of the protractor is yellowed and slightly warped.
- Alfred John Betcher (1887–1971) used this protractor, perhaps at the University of Minnesota (1906) or at West Point (1907–1911). He was commissioned as a captain, served at posts in New York, Vermont, and Kentucky, and retired in 1939 at the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1940, he was elected mayor of Canajoharie, N.Y.
- Reference: Catalogue of Keuffel & Esser (New York, 1909), 214. Biographical information in accession file.
- Currently not on view
- date made
- Keuffel & Esser Co.
- ID Number
- accession number
- catalog number
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center | <urn:uuid:9ff5c701-0423-45ea-9659-fc452adb2520> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/protractors/protractors?ogmt_page=protractors-school&edan_start=0&ogmt_view=list&edan_fq=name%3A%22Keuffel+%26+Esser+Co.%22 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937869 | 555 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Bringing children of different conditions to enjoy basic rights of children’s rights.
Poor children living in remote areas facing difficulties enjoy equal right to access to basic education for their intellectual, social and cultural development. The ones in forced labor are liberated for schooling.
Young orphans not attending school get vocational training and receive a capital to begin their preferable small enterprise for their livelihood.
Children with disabilities have full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedom on equal basis with other children, access to education, then integrated in formal school, vocational training and life skills.
Children are protected against illicit use of narcotic drugs and prevented from being instrument for trafficking of such substances.
Orphan children of aids families receive food support allowing them to continue their learning. The ones ending their vocational training get a capital to start their small business, a bridge for a new life with dignity.
Landmine victims and other disabled people are empowered by managerial, technical and life skills training, then provided with
professional kits to start their business, for a better standing of life.
Rural women and girls are fixed in their rural community to reduce emigration by empowerment with practical knowledge of women rights of human rights, enabling them to run their business with financial power for good life standing of the family that can support their children’s learning. | <urn:uuid:841d546a-bdc6-4785-9036-e5bfc2cee51b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://oecbtb.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96359 | 267 | 3.53125 | 4 |
All things being equal, we should have read the Book of Ruth on Pesach. After all, the events in the story take place at the season of the barley harvest (Ruth 1:22), which occurs at Pesach time, not Shavu’ot.
But because the story can be seen as an allegory of the Children of Israel leaving Egypt behind and reaching Sinai – the locale of the Shavu’ot Revelation – our tradition wisely fits the Book into the Shavu’ot services.
Let’s ask what happens in Ruth’s life.
She comes from an idolatrous background, like the people of Israel in Egypt. She has become acquainted with Jews and Judaism by virtue of her contacts with her husband’s family. She chooses to throw in her lot with Jews and Judaism, to say, “Your people will be my people: your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16-17), which is the theme of Shavuot when Israel and God make a covenant binding them together, one to the other.
She knows that being a Jew will not be easy, but she makes a commitment that at first sight seems rash but it grows on her, so that in the end Judaism is good for her and she is good for Judaism.
Indeed, she becomes the ancestor of King David (Ruth 4:22), and the whole future of the Jewish story is made possible because of her self-redemption – truly an allegory of all that matters in Shavu’ot. | <urn:uuid:9d6c96d4-30ec-488b-8c80-93199fdfa313> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oztorah.com/2012/05/ruth-as-an-allegory/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96529 | 326 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Many people will not have any symptoms when they first become infected with HIV. They may, however, have a flu-like illness within a month or two after exposure to the virus. This illness may include
These symptoms usually disappear within a week to a month and are often mistaken for those of another viral infection. During this period, people are very infectious, and HIV is present in large quantities in genital fluids.
More persistent or severe symptoms may not appear for 10 years or more after HIV first enters the body in adults, or within 2 years in children born with HIV infection. This period of asymptomatic infection varies greatly in each person. Some people may begin to have symptoms within a few months, while others may be symptom-free for more than 10 years.
Even during the asymptomatic period, the virus is actively multiplying, infecting and killing cells of the immune system. The virus can also hide within infected cells and be inactive. The most obvious effect of HIV infection is a decline in the number of CD4 positive T (CD4+) cells found in the blood -- the immune system's key infection fighters. The virus slowly disables or destroys these cells without causing symptoms.
As the immune system becomes more debilitated, a variety of complications start to take over. For many people, the first signs of infection are large lymph nodes, or swollen glands, that may be enlarged for more than 3 months. Other symptoms often experienced months to years before the onset of AIDS include
Some people develop frequent and severe herpes infections that cause mouth, genital, or anal sores, or a painful nerve disease called shingles. Children may grow slowly or get sick frequently.
This article was provided by U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It is a part of the publication Understanding HIV/AIDS. | <urn:uuid:a2a016ea-113f-45f6-b1ca-88aad0892a50> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thebody.com/content/art49258.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954634 | 375 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Increasing and Decreasing Functions
Definition of Increasing and Decreasing
We all know that if something is increasing then it is going up and if it is decreasing it is going down. Another way of saying that a graph is going up is that its slope is positive. If the graph is going down, then the slope will be negative. Since slope and derivative are synonymous, we can relate increasing and decreasing with the derivative of a function. First a formal definition.
How does this relate to derivatives? Recall that the derivative is the limit
f(x2) - f(x1)
If x1 < x2, then the denominator will be positive. If also f(x1) < f(x2), then the numerator will be positive, hence the derivative will be positive. On the other hand if f(x1) > f(x2), then the numerator will be negative and the derivative will be negative. this leads us to the following theorem.
Examples and Critical Numbers
Determine the values of x where the function
f(x) = 2x3 + 3x2 - 12x + 7
We first take the derivative
f '(x) = 6x2 + 6x - 12
To determine where the derivative is positive and where it is negative, find the roots. Factor to get
6(x2 + x - 2) = 6(x - 1)(x + 2)
Hence the change in sign can occur when
x = 1 and x = -2
Now create some test values
The derivative is positive outside of [-2,1] and is negative inside of [-2,1]. We can conclude that f is increasing outside of [-2,1] and decreasing inside of [-2,1]. The graph is shown below.
We saw that the values of x such that the derivative is 0 was of special interest. Other points where there could be a change from increasing to decreasing is where the derivative is undefined.
We call c a critical number if either f '(c) = 0 or f '(c) is undefined.
Determine where the function below is increasing and where it is decreasing.
Since f(x) is not continuous at x = 1, it is also not differentiable there. Hence x = 1 is a critical point. To find other critical points, we take a derivative. It is helpful to use negative exponents instead of fractions here.
f '(x) = [2(x - 1) -1 + 18x]' = -2(x - 1) -2 + 18 = 0
18 = 2(x - 1) -2 Divide by 2 and multiplying by (x - 1)2
9(x - 1)2 = 1 Take the square root of both sides
3(x - 1) = 1 or 3(x - 1) = -1
x = 4/3 or x = 2/3
This gives us three critical points
x = 2/3 x = 1 and x = 4/3
Now construct a table and determine positive intervals and negative intervals
-2(x - 1) -2 + 18
We can conclude that f is increasing for values of x less than 2/3 and values of x greater then 4/3. f is decreasing for values between 2/3 and 4/3 excluding x = 1. A graph of f is shown below.
The weight (in pounds of a newborn infant during its first three months of life can be modeled by
W = 1/3 t3 + 5/2 t2 - 19/6 t + 8
where t is measured in months. Determine when the infant was gaining weight and when it was losing weight.
We are asked to find when the function is increasing and when it is decreasing. We have
W' = t2 + 5t - 19/6
Using the quadratic formula or a calculator we get
0.56 or -5.56
Since the domain is stated to be between 0 and 3, we use only 0.56. Now construct a table
Hence the function is increasing for t greater than 0.56 and decreasing for t smaller than 0.56
We can conclude that the infant was losing weight for the first 0.56 months of its life and then began gaining weight afterwards at least up to the third month. | <urn:uuid:3fe00824-da3f-46d2-b31b-e635c15a02c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ltcconline.net/greenl/courses/115/applications/increaseDecrease.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928336 | 908 | 4.0625 | 4 |
The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind by Justin Pollard
This readable history documents the astonishing number of scientific and intellectual contributions made by the ancient Egyptian city.
Dreams of Iron and Steel: Seven Wonders of the Nineteenth Century, from the Building of the London Sewers to the Panama Canal by Deborah Cadbury
An engrossing tale of the personal and collective efforts behind the engineering feats of the 19th century that ranged from London’s sewers – eradicating cholera – to the U.S. transcontinental railroad.
The Judgment of Paris: the Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King
A colorful chronicle of the turbulent decade leading up to the 1st Impressionist exhibition in 1874, touching on worldwide changes in politics, technology and notions of the individual.
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild
The co-founder of Mother Jones magazine gives a thrilling account of an eighteenth century grass roots campaign to end slavery in the vast British empire.
Paige, University Branch | <urn:uuid:acdc9373-95ec-46a0-bbe4-a6acffa4a046> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/shelftalk/2010/08/09/about-time-history-of-the-mind/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.857682 | 236 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Why did the Lord ask Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice?
The text gives only one answer: the Lord was testing Abraham (Gen. 22:1). But why was the test necessary? The biblical context—in a sense, the full story of Abraham—is most important for a proper understanding of this story.
1. Immediate Context: Scholars have observed a relation between Genesis 22 and the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21:1-20. Ishmael and Isaac are both removed from Abraham's family, there is a journey, both are about to die, both are rescued by God, etc. Notice also that the story of Hagar and Ishmael is placed in the middle of the story of Abimelech. This story was introduced in Genesis 20:1-18, interrupted by Genesis 21:1-20, and concluded in chapter 21:22-34. Genesis 20-22 forms one basic literary unit.
2. Significance of the Context: The stories of Abraham and Abimelech, Hagar and Ishmael, have one thing in common: they both reveal Abraham's lack of trust in the Lord and God's apparent indifference to it.
Because of Abraham's lie, Abimelech questioned the Lord's justice and integrity (Gen. 20:4-6) and the righteousness of the patriarch (verse 9). Yet the Lord said to the king that Abraham was His prophet and that Abraham should pray for the king in order that the king might be forgiven.
The second story witnesses to the infidelity of Abraham—his attempt to fulfill the divine promise on his own—and God's faithfulness in giving him the gift of the son, Isaac, through Sarah. Once more God seems to be indifferent to the sin of His servant. In fact, one could conclude that Abraham had broken the covenant he made with the Lord (Gen. 17:1, 2).
3. The Purpose of the Test: The resolution of the problems described in the previous chapters is found in Genesis 22. The Lord decided to "test" Abraham. This verb is used to indicate something imperceptible that is going to be made known; the hidden will be revealed. The test will reveal the true self, the person as he or she really is with respect to God (e.g., Ex. 16:4; Deut. 8:2).
Indeed, at the end of the story the angel of the Lord said to Abraham, "Now I know . . ." Since the Lord knew from the beginning that Abraham was a faithful servant (Gen. 18:19), through this revelation God intended to share with others what He already knew. It served to vindicate Him and His servant.
4. The Nature of the Test: To understand God's request to Abraham we must remember that Isaac was a gift from God, the result of a miracle. The patriarch's future as the mediator of God's blessing to the nations was dependent on Isaac. By asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God was telling the prophet that the covenant relationship had come to an end. He was requesting that the gift be given back to Him. Abraham, because of his sin, did not deserve it; the Lord was rejecting him.
But the test reveals the true depth of the patriarch's faith and commitment to the Lord. His confidence in the Lord was so firm that he was willing to relinquish the gift, to cast himself into the arms of a merciful God and trust in His forgiving grace: "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son," he said (Gen. 22:8, NIV). To the servants he asserted, "Stay here. . . . We will worship and then we will come back to you" (verse 5, NIV). In the darkness of hopelessness and desperation his faith in the Lord held him. He seems to be saying, "Even if there's no future for me, I will still serve the Lord and wait on Him."
The Lord provided a substitute for Isaac, a future for Abraham. The blood of a sacrificial victim was poured out, Abraham was forgiven, and the covenant was renewed (verses 15-18). God revealed Himself as the one who does not condone sin and yet is merciful.
In the experience of Abraham we see Him providing a substitute, His Son, for our sins. If we find ourselves on the road of hopelessness, the Lord has still provided for us a wonderful future. | <urn:uuid:07b40f62-b6c4-4035-8f0a-23bcd78e38d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.org/materials/bible-interpretation-hermeneutics/why-did-god-ask-abraham-offer-his-son | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965239 | 926 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Researchers in the UK camp at Antarctica have been quite excited these last few days. The team was able to discover a lake deep under the ice layers and had been preparing to dig through the ice to reach that lake. The best part about this is that the lake has been isolated for the last 100,000 years.
Such isolation of more than 100,000 years has lent the researchers a hope that they will be able to find new types of organisms in the lake. Organisms usually evolve based on their circumstances and thus, given the special circumstances in this underground lake, they may have developed unique features.
Researchers intend to dig through the 3 kilometers of ice using high-pressure jet of heated water. The water that will be used in drilling through the ice will be heated up to 90 degrees Celsius. However, the venture is quite risky too.
After boring through the ice and reaching the lake surface, researchers will have to sterilize it with intense ultraviolet light and then collect samples from it. They will have a mere 24 hours to accomplish this before the ice starts freezing yet again.
Chris Hill is leading the team on this venture and when he was asked as to what was the riskiest part of the experiment, he said ‘everything.’ You can get a more intimate feel of the project by watching the video below:
Buy Cheapest Related Product From Amazon.com
| « Previous
Birds Tweet Online Using A Special Keyboard
| Next »
Google Protests Over Publishers’ Demands To Pay For Google News Content | <urn:uuid:8b31a956-dc82-4ba6-96eb-892108656bfe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thetechjournal.com/science/researchers-gear-up-to-dig-into-3km-ice-to-reach-100k-years-old-organisms.xhtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954601 | 312 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Anodised aluminium components or profiles can have a ‘natural’ or ‘colour’ finish.
Anodising is an electro-chemical process, which physically alters
the surface of the metal to produce a tough oxide layer on the surface.
Anodic Film Thickness
Anodising can have a varied processing time, which varies the thickness:
Anodising as an electrochemical process produces a protective aluminium
oxide film, not all alloys are recommended for anodising.
Anodising will give a high quality finish plus producing a finished product that will have excellent corrosive resistance and will not chip or peel off. Aluminium that has been anodised generally has a very long life span.
Normal anodising colours and finishes include gold, silver, black, natural, and satin. Other colours can be supplied.
Extrusions, or components can also be polished before anodising to give a bright reflective coating that has a long life. | <urn:uuid:a7a5761c-6aff-4c55-9658-1920e150f6a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.capalex.co.uk/Anodising.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909792 | 203 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Purpose of the Proclamation
The proclamation did not reflect Lincoln's desired solution for the slavery problem. He continued to favor gradual emancipation, to be undertaken voluntarily by the states, with federal compensation to slaveholders, a plan he considered eminently just in view of the common responsibility of North and South for the existence of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was chiefly a declaration of policy, which, it was hoped, would serve as an opening wedge in depleting the South's great manpower reserve in slaves and, equally important, would enhance the Union cause in the eyes of Europeans, especially the British.
At home it was duly hailed by the radical abolitionists, but it cost Lincoln the support of many conservatives and undoubtedly figured in the Republican setback in the congressional elections of 1862. This was more than offset by the boost it gave the Union abroad, where, on the whole, it was warmly received; in combination with subsequent Union victories, it ended all hopes of the Confederacy for recognition from Britain and France. Doubts as to its constitutionality were later removed by the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Sections in this article:
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History | <urn:uuid:e449dec9-67a7-45f2-b793-519ea4b903e2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/emancipation-proclamation-purpose-proclamation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966784 | 269 | 4.3125 | 4 |
Side-by-side black and white photographs of President Calvin Coolidge and Vice-President Charles Dawes in jugate style.
The Whitehead & Hoag Co. Buttons, Badges, Novelties and Signs. Union Bug. Newark, N.J.
Soft spoken and at times reclusive, Calvin Coolidge ascended to the presidency after Warren G. Harding's untimely death in 1923. When "Silent Cal" addressed Congress on December 6th, 1923, his speech was the first presidential address to be broadcast over the radio. Initially, Americans did not know what to make of Coolidge, but he won the Republican presidential nomination in June, 1924 with former brigadier general, Charles Dawes, nominated as his vice president. His opponents in the 1924 election, Democrats John Davis and Charles Bryan, lost by a wide margin. Coolidge and Dawes carried every northern and western state except Wisconsin.
Coolidge suffered a personal tragedy on the campaign trail when he son unexpectedly died. Coolidge withdrew, and did not seek another term as president after his 1924 victory. Coolidge lived out his remaining years in Northampton, Massachusetts. He died in early 1933 of coronary thrombosis. | <urn:uuid:4972293c-7627-454f-9b81-dbcd6e09a05a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://buttonmuseum.org/buttons/coolidge-dawes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967817 | 246 | 2.625 | 3 |
Even though our area is subject to earthquakes on an infrequent basis, some areas of Maryland are at moderate risk for earthquakes. Earthquakes strike without warning so it's important to prepare in advance if one were to occur.
Before an earthquake:
- Make sure items, fixtures, and shelving are firmly attached to walls.
- Identify safe places inside your home for when an earthquake begins, including under a sturdy piece of furniture. Stay away from windows, mirrors, or places where items could fall from shelves.
- Identify safe places outside away from buildings, power lines, trees, and overpasses.
- Check your emergency kit regularly.
During an earthquake:
- Take cover under a table or sturdy piece of furniture and hold on until the shaking stops.
- If you are in your bed when an earthquake starts, stay in bed and put your pillow over your head.
- Do not use elevators.
- If outdoors, move to an open area away from power lines or buildings and stay there until the shaking stops.
- If in a vehicle, stop safely away from buildings, overpasses, and power lines.
- If you are trapped under debris, cover your mouth with your clothing and tap on a pipe or wall so rescuers can locate you.
Following an earthquake:
- Listen to the radio for any further instructions.
Be sure and sign up for Alert Montgomery, in advance, so you will receive any important updates.
For more information on preparing for earthquakes, visit Ready.gov | <urn:uuid:dee779b9-d1ca-4112-aa68-df367eae9c1a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OEMHS/hazards/natural/earthquakes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919364 | 315 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Rick Roush says he remembers coming out of the classroom when he was a graduate student at the University of California-Davis in the 1970s and finding the air filled with ash.
“You could almost count on that at some point in the fall you would have all this ash just raining down on campus,” he says. “Of course, people began to realize that the ash was coming from burning straw in rice fields.”
In most cases like this, the public becomes concerned about the impact of such activities on air quality. Then, public interest groups begin to file lawsuits or seek legislation. And, finally, state agencies are forced to implement strict regulations aimed at heading off such practices.
“They still burn some of the straw, but the amount of rice acreage being burned off has been greatly reduced because of some regulatory efforts and voluntary actions on the part of the rice industry,” said Roush, director of the University of California's Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program.
“It took a while to get there, and it took some compromise on the part of the rice industry itself, but we now have people plowing the stubble back in. At the same time, the industry is becoming known for its efforts to provide sustainable habitat for birds.
“It's a perfect example of turning a sow's ear into a silk purse,” he said. “What had all the earmarks of a potential disaster is now being seen as an environmental plus for the industry.”
Need planning now
Roush says other segments of California agriculture should start deciding how they can get out ahead of another air quality issue — emissions of volatile organic compounds or VOCs — to avoid the potential loss of a number of important agricultural chemicals.
“The Department of Pesticide Regulation has made a key policy decision that is likely to affect access to a wide range of pesticides and even plant growth regulators across California,” he told members of the California Association of Pest Control Advisers (CAPCA) at their annual meeting in Reno, Nev.
“To meet regulatory demands, DPR is planning to require changes in many liquid formulations of agrochemicals, especially emulsifiable concentrates (ECs). In some cases, this may mean that registrations for some products will be dropped in California. PCAs can help reduce the impacts of these proposed changes.”
Roush admits to being a little biased in his belief that industry members can make a difference in regulatory matters. That comes from working in Australia for eight years before returning to California to lead the state's IPM effort two-and-a-half years ago.
“When I was in Australia, we approached regulatory issues somewhat differently than here in California,” he said. “A lot of Australians realize they don't have a lot of political clout in agriculture anymore, if they ever did.
“The rice industry, the cotton industry, the vegetable industry, the citrus industry, the wine industry, they all have to try to anticipate what their environmental problems are going to be, find a solution and go to the government and propose regulations so they will adopt rules that will work and make sure the enforcement people are well schooled.”
Roush says volatile organic compounds are becoming an increasing concern because their emissions and nitrogen oxide react with sunlight to create ozone. The federal Clean Air Act requires California to reduce the emissions of VOCs in geographic areas (non-attainment areas) that do not meet ozone standards.
“Ozone is regulated under California's State Implementation Plan because of the Clean Air Act,” says Roush. “If the SIP requirements are not met by deadlines, a Federal Implementation Plan could be imposed and California could lose federal highway funds.”
California's Department of Pesticide Regulation has already been sued by one public interest coalition over VOC emissions levels in the San Joaquin Valley, which is currently classified as a non-attainment area.
Pesticides ranked sixth in the list of sources of volatile organic compounds in the San Joaquin Valley in 2004 (behind livestock waste, primarily dairy cattle, light and medium duty trucks, light duty passenger cars, prescribed burning and oil and gas production. But farm chemicals make an easy target for regulators.
“For some agrochemicals, the inert ingredients include VOCs,” said Roush. “This includes some EC formulations of pesticides, some plant growth regulators like gibberellins and some defoliants.”
These account for about 37 percent of the VOCs from pesticides in the San Joaquin Valley with about 49 percent of the remainder coming from fumigants.
Chlorpyrifos (Lorsban), avermectin, pyriproxyfen (Esteem), sethoxydim (Poast), fenarimol (Rubigan) and endosulfan (EC) products have emission potentials or EPs of 35 to 60 percent. (The latter is the fraction a product is assumed to contribute to VOCs.)
“There can be a wide range of emissions potentials among EC formulations of the same active ingredient,” Roush notes. “For many active ingredients, liquid concentrates, solutions or wettable powders have much lower EPs. Some gibberellic acid formulations have an EP of 94 percent, but others, soluble powder, liquid concentrates among them, have EPs of 6 percent or less.”
To achieve compliance in the San Joaquin Valley, DPR aims to require pesticide manufacturers to reduce the VOC content of liquid EC formulations of 20 to 30 percent. This includes products used anywhere in California, not just in the SJV.
“In other words, pesticides that have an emissions potential of more than 20 to 30 percent of their weight will either have to be reformulated or lose registration unless there are legitimate reasons why reformulation cannot be done,” he said. “This will likely affect hundreds of products.”
That's where PCAs come in, says Roush.
“Given the broad implications for the many crops grown in California, it would be prudent to begin considering the impacts on production and investigating alternatives to EC formulations, including non-ECs with the same active ingredients,” he notes.
DPR will start the process with a mandatory data call-in for emission potential data for all “suspect” formulations. Using its re-evaluation authority, DPR will then work with registrants and pesticide users over the next four years to implement changes in product formulations.
“It may be possible to obtain exemptions where there is a specific need for economic, pest management or environmental reasons,” he said. “PCAs can help document these situations.”
They can also help in other ways.
Roush is working with researchers to conduct an economic analysis of the impact of the potential regulatory changes to help provide evidence for any arguments about changing policies to reduce the cost of the changes to growers.
Second, many suspect formulations may be replaced with others. Members of the citrus industry, for example, have indicated they can use non-EC formulations of Gibberellic acid and dispense with the high EP formulations. Other farmers may be able to change the timing of fumigant applications or reduce dependence on those products.
Asks for concerns
“Please contact me if you have concerns about particular products for specific pests and commodities,” said Roush. “Not only would it be very helpful to pass this kind of information along to me for further collation, you will be doing your growers a great service by recommending such substitutions whenever possible.
“You can help us identify crops and pests for which pesticide substitutions are either possible or risky and implement voluntary changes where possible.”
Roush provided CAPCA members with a lengthy list of products that might be subject to reformulation that don't have E or EC in their names. More information can be obtained on the Statewide IPM Web site: www.ipm.ucdavis.edu. | <urn:uuid:5610d028-d99a-40e2-95c4-91996a62e36e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://westernfarmpress.com/turn-voc-win-win-pcas-urged | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00132-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945917 | 1,701 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Wabash, Ind. — Carl Eppley's 11-acre experiment created a lot of local curiosity. He heard reports of people looking at his fields. The talk at the local grain elevator, Mr. Eppley recalls, ''was something else.'' Even he was surprised at his success.
But after that first harvest in 1979, this north central Indiana farmer began to reap the benefits of a different way of farming.
It is called conservation tillage - and has been touted for some time as one solution to the nation's severe soil erosion problem. US Agriculture Secretary John Block has said it ''may be our best single hope for bringing excessive soil erosion under control.''
Every year, 3 billion tons of soil erodes from all cultivated United States cropland, according to preliminary data released last month by the US Agriculture Department's National Resources Inventory division. Water erosion causes an average acre of cultivated land to lose 4.8 tons of soil per year. Another 3.3 tons is lost to wind, the survey shows.
But observers are buoyed by the increased use of conservation tillage among farmers.
''It can do great things, provided you don't exceed the limitations,'' says William C. Moldenhauer, research leader of the National Soil Erosion Laboratory in West Lafayette, Ind.
Some form of the practice was used on 31 percent of the nation's cropland last year, according to a new survey by the Conservation Tillage Information Center in Fort Wayne, Ind.
''We think it's on the upswing,'' says Jim Lake, the center's field office corrdinator. This year, he says, conservation tillage will be used on 35 percent of the nation's cropland. And in 10 to 15 years, a conservative estimate would put the figure at 50 percent, he says.
What makes conservation tillage farmers so different? They leave untouched a lot of the stalks and stubble from previous crops, contradicting the wisdom of conventional row-crop farmers, who would plow under those remains.
It is that debris that made people so curious about Eppley's fields those first years.
''It's awfully hard for a (conventional) farmer to see all that,'' he concedes. He recalls an older farmer telling him: ''I never felt so sorry for a man in all my life.''
Eppley says he became interested in conservation tillage after agronomists found severe soil compaction on his 500-acre farm - apparently from too much heavy machinery riding over his land.
Then, in the fall of 1978, the Wabash County Soil and Water Conservation District acquired ridge tilling equipment and the next year set up several demonstration plots on farmers' land. It was the first such district to do so in the nation. One of those demonstration plots was Eppley's 11-acre parcel of corn.
''When the corn came up, I was never so surprised in my life,'' he recalls. Next year, he tried the technique on soybeans as well. By 1981, he had his own ridge tiller and was completely sold on the system.
Ridge till is one form of conservation tillage. Eppley's fields are a series of ridges about 8 inches high. When he began planting his corn last week, his equipment merely skimmed about 11/2 inches of soil off the top of the ridges to plant the seeds. Instead of hiring two or three farmhands as he used to do, he now does all the work himself. And he needs less machinery than conventional farmers.
His yields, meanwhile, have improved - especially in corn. His five-year average for five fields was 155 bushels per acre of corn with the ridge till, he says. His average for conventional farming was only 137 bushels.
The advantages of ridge till are especially noticeable in years with abnormal moisture, he says. During wet seasons, the ridges hold the water and don't allow it to run off and erode soil. In dry years, the water that falls is absorbed by the debris of previous crops and not allowed to evaporate.
There are a few drawbacks, observers say. Land with steep slopes requires additional measures to fight erosion, Mr. Moldenhauer says.
There has also been concern that the systems require more herbicides to control weeds than conventional practices, Mr. Lake says.
But a new study by his center found that farmers in northeastern Indiana, southeastern Michigan, and northwestern Ohio used only 4 percent more herbicides than conventional practices.
Eppley adds that financing problems may keep some interested farmers from getting the necessary equipment for conservation tillage this year. But he says he sees increasing interest among farmers.
''It's going to come,'' he says, surveying the ridged field closest to his home. ''The time is way past for farmers to start realizing what they've been doing to the soil all these years.'' | <urn:uuid:73e0d656-986c-4a09-998f-0a270f9f2edc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0510/051024.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967231 | 1,013 | 3.09375 | 3 |
When Does Zero Not Equal Zero?
Such incidents attract a lot of attention, but most leaks are well-hidden somewhere deep inside the equipment and piping that cover the grounds of a power or petrochemical plant. These valves gradually eat away at performance and profits, a problem that is particularly critical with severe service isolation valves (SSIV). These issues, however, are preventable by using properly designed valves that allow zero leakage. The problem is that zero leakage does not always mean zero leakage. The usual definition actually means acceptably slow leakage internally, with no visible external leakage. But by applying the best available technology and adopting new standards, zero can equal zero, both internally and externally.
SSIVs are isolation valves that are used in high energy conditions including elevated temperatures and/or elevated pressures. They are used for numerous applications throughout power plants. (See sidebar for “Uses of SSIVs in Power Generation.”) These temperatures and pressures exceed the normal operational limits of thermoplastic seals, so the seal needs to be made by the metal components of the valve. This requires precision manufacturing beyond the standards generally applied to valves that can use a flexible or compressible gasket to provide the seal. Further complicating the matter, the fluids involved may contain some solid content or abrasive materials that erode the seal surfaces, thereby producing leakage paths.
With SSIVs, the cost of the leakage is far greater than the cost of the valve. High temperatures and pressures coupled with erosive substances entrained in the fluid means that even minor leaks can grow into major ones. This results in unscheduled shutdowns and frequent equipment repair or replacement as well as wasted fuel/process liquids. To protect people from injury and equipment from damage, it is essential to achieve zero leakage with SSIVs.
Like other valves, leakage can be either internal or external. It isn’t difficult to discover external leaks: you can see the cloud of steam escaping, for instance. Internal leaks are entirely different. Take an isolation valve on a bypass line between the boiler and the steam turbine that redirects steam to the condenser. Any leakage though that SSIV lowers generator output while increasing fuel consumption. Since leakage is internal, it may only show up as a gradually increasing heat rate, requiring additional fuel expenditures and accompanying emissions remediation expenses to produce the same amount of electricity. The cost of replacing a faulty valve, on the other hand, is minimal compared to the lost output.
Keep in mind that there can be hundreds or thousands of SSIVs in a power plant. The overall losses are not from a single leaky valve, but the aggregate losses from each of them leaking a tiny amount. Together they add up to millions of Btu never reaching the turbines. Zero leakage SSIVs can typically improve a plant’s heat rate performance from 1% to 2%, to as high as 5% to 6%.
LOSS OF POWER AND PROFITS
To see how that impacts the bottom line, let us consider two scenarios, a 1,000 MW coal plant (annual fuel cost $150,000,000) and a 1,000 MW natural gas plant (annual fuel cost $300,000,000), each with 1,000 SSIVs. Those valves together, since they provide imperfect seals, cost the plant about 3% of its efficiency, adding $4,500,000 to the price tag for operating the coal plant and $9,000,000 to the gas plant. Given an average replacement cost of $4,500 per SSIV, it would cost $4,500,000 to replace all valves — a payback period of 12 months for coal and six months for natural gas. Following the 80/20 rule, if you replace 20% of the valves and eliminate 80% of the leakage, the replacement cost for 200 valves would be $900,000, and the payback time would be three months at the coal plant and 1.5 months at the natural gas plant. These figures do not include the additional benefits of increased output, reduced emissions, smaller amounts of downtime, and lower repair costs.
The losses cited above may seem extreme at first glance, but is validated by other well-established research in areas, such as leakage through an orifice in a pressurized pipeline, as well as heat and pressure losses in steam traps. Per the ANSI/FCI 70-2 leakage specification, a Class V valve should have a maximum seat leakage of 5 x 10-4 ml per minute of water per inch of seat diameter per psi differential (5 x 10-12 m3 per second of water per mm of seat diameter per bar differential). Buying Class V valves, therefore, would seem to eliminate the leakage losses. However, those standards apply only at the point of installation. Over time, the continuous steam leakage past the plug seat erodes the seal, causing steam cutting and wire drawing. What was once a Class V valve evolves into a Class IV, then Class III or Class II. To try to seal against the high pressures (a 2 in. ANSI 4500 globe valve is subject to up to 19,623 pounds of force), a hammer-blow handwheel is sometime used. This method uses up to ten times greater torque to drive the plug against the seat, but the method can damage the valve parts and won’t stop leakage through an eroded seal. Additional damage comes from vibration, flashing, cavitation, and internal erosion.
CREATING A NEW STANDARD
Just as utilities must apply best available control technologies (BACT) to eliminate excess emissions, so should they adopt best available isolation technology (BAIT) design features to eliminate the problem of erosion and gradually rising losses. Here, for example, are some of the elements that make up BAIT for ball valves.
• An integral seat – The integral seat is part of the valve body rather than a slip-in seat ring. A slip in provides a leak passage behind the seat, which doesn’t exist with an integral seat.
• High-strength belleville seat springs – Belleville springs are cone-shaped washers that apply a constant high thrust to create a mechanical preload on the ball and seat, and on the packing. By stacking several of the washers, you can increase the deflection while keeping the load on each washer constant. Use of Inconel 718 produces a high tensile strength (155,000 psi) with a high yield strength (125,000 psi) and high creep strength. This allows a seat spring compression of several hundred psi to fully position the ball against the seat, preventing ball misalignment or vibration and restricting particles from entering and damaging the seal.
• Full alignment/positioning of ball and seat
• RAM™ hardfacing – Rocket applied metallic (RAM) is a high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) coating process that uses a hot, high-velocity gas jet to spray a coating of molten particles on to the ball and seat surfaces. Traditionally, disks and seats of carbon, alloy, or stainless steel are hardfaced by welding on an overlay of Stellite©, a cobalt-chromium allow with good wear and corrosion resistance properties. However, above 800ºF, Stellite becomes soft and subject to heavy wear and tear, and galling of the valve seating surfaces. RAM is both harder than Stellite and maintains its hardness at high temperatures. At room temperature, RAM 31 has a Rockwell C hardness of 72, vs. 39.8 for Stellite 6. At 1,400ºF, RAM has a Rockwell C hardness of 62, compared to just 8 for Stellite. RAM is also self-repairing in operation, so over 1,000,000 valve cycles are possible.
• Mate lapping of ball and seat – The ball and seat must be precisely mated to each other to form a perfect seal. This is accomplished by lapping the ball and integrals seat for several hours on a rotating fixture. The final step involves using a 3-micron diamond compound and moving the ball in a figure eight motion.
• Blowout-proof stem – a typical valve stem is externally inserted and uses a slip-on collar held in place by a pin. A blowout-proof stem is internally inserted and has an integral shoulder rather than a collar. Since it is internally retained, it is 100% blowout proof.
Adopting BAIT makes it possible to actually achieve absolute zero leakage on SSIV. Therefore, it is time for a new valve classification that goes beyond the FCI 70-2 Class VI standard. Class VII would be zero visible leakage for three minutes using the ValvTechnologies VQP-10 hydro test and VQP-10 gas test.
With this new standard, zero means zero, not something that we hope comes pretty close. TB
Kevin Hunt is president and owner of ValvTechnologies.
Uses of SSIV'S in Power Generation
• Above & Below Seat Drains
• Ash Handling
• Attemporator Spray Control
• Boiler Drains
• Boiler Feed Pump Isolation
• Continuous Boiler Blowdown
• Electronic Relief
• Feedwater Heater Drains
• Feedwater Isolation
• Instrument Isolation
• Main Steam Stop
• Seal Steam Regulators
• Sight / Gauge Glass Drains
• Soot Blower Regulators
• Startup Vents
• Steam Dump
• Turbine Bypass Systems
• Turbine Drain
Combined Cycle Power
• Gas Turbine Fuel Supply
• Fuel Gas Heat Exchanger
• BFP Recirc & Isolation
• BFP Discharge Isolation
• BFP Turbine Above & Below Seat Drains
• Main Steam Drains
• Main Steam Stop Before & After Seat Drains
• Main Steam Turbine Isolation, Double Block and Bleed
• Main Steam Attemporator
/ Superheat Spray Isolation
• Turbine Drains
• Extraction Steam Isolation
• LP Header Economizer Drains & Vents
• HP Header Ecomomizer Drains & Vents
• IP Steam Drum Drains & Vents
• Steam Drum Gauge / Sight Glass Isolation
• Superheater Header Drains & Vents
• HRSG Hot Reheat & Main Steam Isolation
• Electronic Relief Valve
• Main Steam Start-up Vent
• Main Steam Attemporator / Superheat Spray Isolation
• Boiler Feedwater
• Circulating Water System
• Component Cooling
• Condensate Extraction
• Condensate Cooling Water
• Emergency Feedwater
• Fire Protection System
• HP Safety Injection
• HP & LP Heater Drains
• Heat Exchanger Vent & Drains
• Main Steam System Isolation Drain & Vent
• Power Operated Relief Valve (PORV)
• Pressurizer Drain & Vent
• Rad Waste System
• Reactor Coolant Pump Drain & Vent
• Reactor Head Vents
• Reactor Water Cooling Vents & Drains
• Safety Injection System
• Secondary System Isolation Drain & Vent
• Service Water System Isolation
• Steam Generator System
• Turbine Bypass
• Turbine Drain & Vent | <urn:uuid:ff4abd2c-ee7a-473f-9a1f-b2ca08828065> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.esmagazine.com/articles/95269-when-does-zero-not-equal-zero?WT.rss_f=Heating+%26+Boilers&WT.rss_a=When+Does+Zero+Not+Equal+Zero%3F&WT.rss_ev=a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896153 | 2,347 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Genetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in living organisms. It is generally considered a field of biology, but it intersects frequently with ...
Genetics and Homosexuality: Are People Born Gay?
Contrary to media portrayals, a link between genetics and homosexuality is not certain. Many initial, poorly designed studies have been contradicted by more recent ...
HOME - deCODE genetics
deCODE genetics is a global leader in analysing and understanding the human genome. Using its unique expertise and population resources, deCODE has discovered genetic ...
Classical Genetics Simulator
What is CGS? Classical Genetics Simulator (CGS) is a web-based application that allows biology students to apply lessons in Mendelian genetics to real-world situations.
APA format: Genetic Science Learning Center (2014, June 10) Learn Genetics. Learn.Genetics. Retrieved June 25, 2016, from http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
genetics of IQ - WIRED
Zhao Bowen is leading a multimillion-dollar research effort to solve a genetic mystery: What makes some people so smart? And how can we make more of them?
Genetics - Awesome Science Teacher Resources
Activities. Try this middle school activity for teaching genetics and environmental science called "Toothpick Fish" . Have students do this "An Inventory of My Traits ...
Study: Mixed-race people have identity problems. - White ...
A British report has found that mixed-race people have the greatest risk of suffering from mental health problems, in many cases because they are unhappy being mixed ...
DNA Extraction - Learn Genetics
DNA Extraction. DNA is extracted from human cells for a variety of reasons. With a pure sample of DNA you can test a newborn for a genetic disease, analyze forensic ...
Journal home : Nature Genetics
Nature Genetics publishes the very highest quality research in genetics. It encompasses genetic and functional genomic studies on human traits and on other model ... | <urn:uuid:3b2aacc0-6ca6-4617-9ede-200bd99fd96e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webdirectory.com.np/Category/People_Who_Study_Genetics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877252 | 420 | 3.03125 | 3 |
For any Muslims considering joining any given Muslim nation's space program, they should know that the trip to the Red Planet could also mean a trip to eternal damnation, as reported by the internet news portal Arutz Sheva (Israel National News) on Feb. 20, 2014.
In an official Islamic Fatwa (religious ruling) sanctioned by the government of the über-oil rich United Arab Emirates (UAE), any Muslim seeking to either initially strive to reach Mars or even one day to colonize the planet would be considered haram ("forbidden") under Islam's sharia law.
Islamic imams and religious scholars led by Professor Dr. Farooq Hamada of the UAE's General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment (GAIAE) have officially ruled:
Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam.
By taking such a dangerous trip astronauts were taking unacceptable risks: If they ended up dead, they would suffer the same punishment in the Hereafter meted out to those who commit suicide - namely, an eternity in Hell.
Since its founding in 2008, the GAIAE has issued over 2 million various fatwas.
The ruling comes in the wake of the Mars One program recently reaching out to the entire world for volunteers to take place in their private enterprise endeavor to not only reach Mars by 2025, but to also establish a permanent colony.
As noted, the Mars One organization has stated that at least 500 Saudis and other Arabs "are among the 200,000 applicants for a seat on the first Mars missions."
Nations with at least a sizable Muslim minority of their population that also have official space exploration organizations include the following:
- Saudi Arabia
- United Kingdom | <urn:uuid:7167e028-4a21-4810-a907-7a30c901d7fc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/fatwa-mars-bound-muslims-will-end-up-hell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932796 | 359 | 2.515625 | 3 |
My grandmother raised ten kids. She was pregnant or nursing for almost twenty years straight. She had twelve pregnancies, eight biological children who grew to be adults, and adopted two more kids on top of all that. She did the laundry all day, every day. She made gallons of soup and pickles from scratch and jam from the garden she kept in the backyard. And every night after dinner, she sat at the kitchen table with her older daughters and smoked a well-deserved cigarette.
There is no doubt in my mind that what my grandma did for all those years was work. Hard work: physically demanding, mentally taxing labor that contributed to society in a tangible way. I have a father, nine aunts and uncles, and an enormous number of cousins as evidence. And yet, no one ever paid her for it. As far as I know, no one ever even talked about paying her for it. Her work wasn’t part of the GDP, and no one questioned that she should be the one in charge of running the house rather than my grandfather.
Sixty years before my grandmother was cooking for a small army of children, there was a group of women who thought the tasks often dismissed as chores should be taken seriously as skilled labor. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, well-known for writing the feminist classic he Yellow Wallpaper, also penned an entire book suggesting an economic strategy to pay women for their work in the home and outlining the necessity of communal approaches to housework. She promoted collective laundries and community ovens, and wrote utopian fiction about a world where women of all classes were freed from the inefficiencies and mundanities of housework. Lucy Salmon, a social historian at Vassar, fervently advocated for basic labor rights for domestic servants, including an eight-hour workday, decent wages, and respect for domestic work and the workers who did it. Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman admitted to MIT, conducted scientific experiments seeking solutions to malnutrition, and created methodologies for testing water to make sure it was safe to drink.
These women were part of a group of Progressive reformers and first-wave feminists who imagined the home as a sphere of social change. They were also some of the key figures in a movement we have come to associate mostly with snickerdoodles and crocheted doilies: Home Economics.
Home Economics has changed tremendously over the 20th century since the days of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ellen Swallow Richards, and Lucy Salmon. After World War I, the impulse for social reform gave way to a new emphasis on individualism, and the field of home economics followed suit. Home economists focused on improving methods of homemaking within the private home, increasingly relying on scientific efficiency and consumer goods. The academic discipline became institutionalized and commercialized—professional home economists worked for food corporations as nutritional consultants, taught courses in schools that promoted “American” ideas of domestic culture, and largely disappeared from the spheres of policy, culture, and activism.
By the 70s, Home Economics had been almost completely detached from its political roots. In 1972, feminist activist and writer Robin Morgan began a speech to the American Home Economics Association by saying, “As a radical feminist, I am here addressing the enemy.” For many feminists of Morgan’s generation, Home Economics was a primary location of oppression, a systematized way to keep women from exploring roles outside the home. As the discipline of Home Economics morphed, its roots as a movement interested in re-imagining domestic spaces were forgotten, and the lessons and innovations from an early period of innovation and radical imagination were largely lost.
Now, more than 100 years after the term “Home Economics” was coined, we are still haunted by many of the same problems the original group of reformers were attempting to confront: lack of childcare options, the de-valuing of care work, a consumer society that is not connected to how goods are made, unfair labor conditions for domestic workers, gender inequity, and hunger and malnutrition. These problems hit us hardest in our daily lives, in our most personal moments and spaces, and prompt questions that can feel mundane, private, and outside of political and social conversations. Who will do the dishes tonight? What will my child eat? Just how clean does my house have to be? Who will take care of my dying parent? Feminist scholars from Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Silvia Federici have shown us that it is essential to grapple with these issues publicly and as part of a larger conversation about social change.
As one of the curators at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, I have had the opportunity to help design a conversation around this topic, bringing together activists, artists, scholars, and community members on the forefront of thinking about these questions and problems. Their work makes up what the Museum calls “21st Century Home Economics,” an exhibit that grapples with domestic issues as they relate to race, class, gender, immigration, environmental sustainability, and global justice.
The exhibit re-invigorates the category of home economics as an idea conceived of by Progressive feminist reformers in the early 20th century, and puts that history into dialogue with groups and ideas that might not immediately imagine themselves as home economists. The Chicago Coalition of Household Workers is part of the national struggle of domestic workers fighting for a very similar set of basic labor rights that Lucy Salmon advocated for in 1897. They are co-curating a group of artifacts to illuminate the nature of care work, the particular struggles domestic workers face, and the way that this work is crucial to the functioning of society. Artist Carole Frances Lung (aka Frau Fiber) is creating a gallery-based sewing project that transforms old t-shirts into objects of use and beauty. This installation animates notions that are as pertinent today as they were for the first generation of Home Economists—efficiency, sustainability, and craft. Food service workers around Chicago will be brought into the exhibit as experts on school lunch through audio pieces created by youth at Street-Level Youth Media over the next six months, helping to imagine new avenues for change in the ever-present fight for health and wellness in public schools. Finally, groups organizing around accessibility to quality childcare will show possible points of change in a problem that women and families have faced consistently since the rise of industrial labor—determining how to create time for community, family, and work. By putting these different topics and themes into the same room, the Hull-House Museum seeks to create a space of conversation between objects, people, history, and ideas in the hopes of developing categories of change and meaning.
When the Hull-House Museum undertook this project, one of the first questions we asked as a staff was a basic one—who took care of the domestic space in the Hull-House Settlement? The answer illuminated how often the voices associated with domestic space go unheard, and how the museum as a cultural and historical space has an opportunity and an obligation to provide amplification for these stories.
Both in the historical and popular imagination, the story of the Hull-House Settlement begins when Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr moved into the Hull mansion on Chicago’s near west side to start what would become a international center of social reform and cultural innovation. But, they did not move in alone. Mary Keyser, a housekeeper and crucial contributor to Hull-House Settlement, moved in as well. For the next six years, Mary Keyser ran the household and shouldered the work of domestic life so that other residents could do the wide range of work that made Hull-House a crucial space for democracy.
Keyser’s story is one example of how work that takes place in domestic space has been undervalued as labor and largely forgotten in conventional historical narratives. As we bring Mary Keyser into the museum through artifacts and photographs, we will literally make her life more visible, and provide an opportunity for visitors to engage with her as an historical actor.
We hope also to provide an opportunity for visitors to see the work of those who engage in invisible labor today, both in the exhibition space and in their own lives. We all have people who do care work for us, including mothers, lunch ladies, nannies, house cleaners, friends, and partners. These are the people in our lives, people like my grandmother, who labor behind closed doors to do invisible care labor, or as the Domestic Workers Alliance calls it, “the work that makes all work possible.” | <urn:uuid:9871bf66-ff79-4a70-9b26-d90f2717caba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://areachicago.org/home-economics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971641 | 1,741 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Bald Eagle Information
Bald eagle information - all about the bald eagle and its life in the wild.What it eats, where it lives, their breeding, babies, and nesting.
The Bald Eagle our National Bird is the only unique eagle in North America. Its' scientific name signifies a sea(halo)eagle(aeetos)with a white(leukos) head. At one time the word bald meant white not hairless.
The Bald Eagle is found over most of North America, from Alaska and Canada to Northern Mexico. There are an estimated 50,000 Bald Eagles in the United States with 80 percent found in Alaska.
Bald Eagles have 7,000 feathers like hair and nails, are made of Keratin. The feathers trap air to insulate birds against the cold, and protect them against rain. Most Bald Eagles migrate South in winter and return North in the Spring to nest. The Bald Eagles’ lifting power is 4 to 5 pounds, and they feed on carrion (dead, decaying flesh), and fish.
A typical Bald Eagle nest is 5 feet in diameter, and they use the same nest year after year. Over the years some nests can become as much as 9 feet in diameter, and weigh 2 tons.
A Bald Eagle reaches sexual maturity at around 4 or 5 years of age, and they mate for life. However if one dies the other will not hesitate to accept a new mate. During breeding season both birds protect the nest territory from other eagles and predators.
Mating season varies greatly by region. In the South it's generally from late September to November, while in the Great Plains and Mountain West it is January to March. In Alaska it lasts from March to April.
The Bald Eagle lays 1-3 eggs. Five to ten days after a successful copulation the female lays a speckled off white or buff colored egg about the size of a goose egg. The second a few days later, followed by a possible third. Incubation time for theese eggs are 35 days. One parent is always on the nest during incubation. The nesting cycle from the time parents build the nest, and the young are on their own is about 20 weeks.
Baby Eaglets grow rapidly, they add one pound every 4-5 days. 10-13 days after hatching the eaglet takes its first flight. Approximately 40 percent of the eaglets do not survive their first flight. Once young eaglets have fledged( acquired necessary feathers for flight) they remain around the nest for 4-5 weeks. 6-9 weeks after fledging eaglets leave the nesting area.
Bald Eagles can fly up to 30 miles an hour, and live to be about 30 years old. | <urn:uuid:25e69e0b-d71b-4fb8-8d54-85eed718af1a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.allsands.com/science/animals/science/animals/baldeagleinfor_swb_gn.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943941 | 566 | 3.484375 | 3 |
AMES, Iowa – With a little planning, homeowners who enjoy picking ripe, juicy fruit from their own trees can successfully grow fruit trees, such as apples, pears, plums and cherries – even homeowners with only small yard space. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach horticulture specialists share information about selecting pear, plum and apricot varieties. To have additional questions answered, contact the Hortline at 515-294-3108 or email@example.com.
Selecting the proper planting site is critical when planting fruit trees in the home landscape. While fruit trees can be grown on a wide variety of soils, good soil drainage is imperative. Apples and other fruit trees do not tolerate wet soils. Fruit trees planted in poorly drained soils often die within a few years of planting. Most fruit trees grow well in fertile soils with a pH of 6.0 to 7.5. Because of space restrictions, planting sites are often limited in the home landscape. Fruit trees require full sun. Select a site that receives at least six hours of direct sun each day. Avoid shady sites near large trees.
Dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees are produced by grafting or budding the desired variety (cultivar) onto a dwarfing rootstock. Most standard-size fruit trees eventually get 25 to 30 feet tall. Dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees are much smaller. Fruit trees grown on dwarfing rootstocks typically grow 10 to 15 feet tall.
Dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees are easier to maintain (prune, spray, harvest, etc.), fit better into small home landscapes and produce fruit sooner after planting than standard-size trees. However, some dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees have poor root anchorage, so they may need to be supported with a stake or trellis.
Fruit trees purchased from nurseries and garden centers are usually 1- to 2-year-old plants. The length of time from planting to fruit bearing varies with the species of fruit, the cultivar and whether the tree is dwarf or standard.
Apple and pear trees grown on dwarf or semi-dwarf rootstocks will come into bearing at a much earlier age than trees grown on standard-size rootstocks. Rootstocks have little effect on the bearing age of other fruit trees.
The average bearing age of fruit trees is
Apples and pears possess excellent winter hardiness and can be successfully grown throughout Iowa. Hardy sour (tart) cherry, plum and apricot cultivars can be grown throughout the state. Sweet cherries and peaches perform best in southern Iowa as they are not reliably hardy in northern and central portions of the state. A publication listing recommended fruit cultivars for Iowa is available from the Extension Online Store or downloaded here, Fruit Cultivars for Iowa.
In regards to fruit trees, there are two types of pollination. Self-pollination occurs when the pollen is transferred from the anther to the stigma on the same flower, from another flower on the same tree or from a flower on another tree of the same cultivar. Self-pollinated trees are said to be self-fruitful. Many trees cannot produce fruit from their own pollen and are considered self-unfruitful. These trees require cross-pollination for fruit set. Cross-pollination is the transfer of pollen from one tree to the flower of a genetically different tree or cultivar.
To ensure a good crop, two or more cultivars (of the same type of tree) must be planted when planting self-unfruitful trees. Only a single tree needs to be planted when planting self-fruitful fruit trees.
Apples and pears are self-unfruitful. Most European plums are self-fruitful. However, hybrid plums are self-unfruitful and require another hybrid cultivar for cross-pollination. Sour (tart) cherries are self-fruitful. Most sweet cherries are self-unfruitful. Peaches are self-fruitful. The apricot cultivars ‘Moongold’ and ‘Sungold’ are self-unfruitful. Plant at least one of each to ensure a good crop. | <urn:uuid:88ec7679-c63d-4bf7-b4bf-d1a08ea44a49> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.extension.iastate.edu/article/yard-and-garden-growing-fruit-trees | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944315 | 878 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.
by Wayne Martino and Bronwyn Mellor
|Grades||9 – 12|
Gendered Fictions helps students explore how fiction and nonfiction texts construct gender by encouraging readers to take up "gendered" reading positions that support or challenge particular versions of masculinity and femininity.
Martino, Wayne and Bronwyn Mellor. 2000. Gendered Fictions. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Students analyze dialogue tags used with male and female characters in a book they have read. They then evaluate the message the dialogue tags convey about gender roles. | <urn:uuid:c912c55b-27c4-44dc-8aad-182be7a08e4b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/professional-library/gendered-fictions-30401.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.782738 | 156 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Rev. Alban Butler (171173). Volume VII: July. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
St. Sisoes or Sisoy, Anchoret in Egypt
AFTER the death of St. Antony, St. Sisoes was one of the most shining lights of the Egyptian deserts. He was an Egyptian by birth. Having quitted the world from his youth, he retired to the desert of Sceté, and lived some time under the direction of abbot Hor. The desire of finding a retreat yet more unfrequented induced him to cross the Nile and hide himself in the mountain where St. Antony died some time before. The memory of that great mans virtues being still fresh, wonderfully supported his fervour. He imagined he saw him, and heard the instructions he was wont to deliver to his disciples; and he strained every nerve to imitate his most heroic exercises; the austerity of his penance, the rigour of his silence, the almost unremitting ardour of his prayer, insomuch that the reputation of his sanctity became so illustrious as to merit the full confidence of all the neighbouring solitaries. Some even came a great distance to be guided in the interior ways of perfection; and, in spite of the pains he took he was forced to submit his love of silence and retreat to the greater duty of charity. He often passed two days without eating, and was so rapt in God that he forgot his food, so that it was necessary for his disciple Abraham to remind him that it was time to break his fast. He would sometimes be even surprised at the notice, and contend that he had already made his meal; so small was the attention he paid to the wants of his body.1 His prayer was so fervent that it often passed into ecstacy. At other times his heart was so inflamed with divine love, that, scarce able to support its violence, he only obtained relief from his sighs, which frequently escaped without his knowledge, and even against his will.2 It was a maxim with him, that a solitary ought not to choose the manual labour which is most pleasing to him.3 His ordinary work was making baskets. He was tempted one day as he was selling them, to anger; instantly he threw the baskets away and ran off. By efforts like these to command his temper he acquired a meekness which nothing could disturb. His zeal against vice was without bitterness; and when his monks fell into faults, far from affecting astonishment or the language of reproach, he helped them to rise again with a tenderness truly paternal.4 When he once recommended patience and the exact observance of rules, he told the following anecdote: Twelve monks, benighted on the road, observed that their guide was going astray. This, for fear of breaking their rule of silence, they forbore to notice, thinking within themselves that at daybreak he would see his mistake and put them in the right road. Accordingly, the guide discovering his error, with much confusion, was making many apologies; when the monks being now at liberty to speak, only said, with the greatest good humour: Friend, we saw very well that you went out of your road; but we were then bound to silence. The man was struck with astonishment, and very much edified at this answer expressive of such patience and strictness of observance.5
Some Arians had the impudence to come to his mount, and utter their heresy before his disciples. The saint, instead of an answer, desired one of the monks to read St. Athanasiuss treatise against Arianism, which at once stopped their mouths and confounded them. He then dismissed them with his usual good temper. St. Sisoes was singularly devoted to humility; and in all his advices and instructions to others, held constantly before their eyes this most necessary virtue. A recluse saying to him one day, Father, I always place myself in the presence of God; he replied, It would be much more your advantage to place yourself below every creature, in order to be securely humble. Thus, while he never lost sight of the divine presence, it was ever accompanied with the consciousness of his own nothingness and misery.6 Make yourself little, said he to a monk, renounce all sensual satisfactions, disengage yourself from the empty cares of the world, and you will find true peace of mind.7 To another, who complained that he had not yet arrived at the perfection of St. Antony, he said: Ah! if I had but one only of that great mans feelings, I would be all one flame of divine love.8 Notwithstanding his extraordinary mortifications, they appeared so trifling in his mind, that he called himself a sensual man, and would have every one else to be of the same opinion.9 If charity for strangers sometimes constrained him to anticipate dinner-hour, at another season, by way of indemnification, he protracted his fast, as if his body were indebted to so laudable a condescension.10 He dreaded praise so much, that in prayer, as was his custom, with his hands lifted up to heaven, when sometimes he apprehended observation, he would suddenly drop them down. He was always ready to blame himself, and saw nothing praiseworthy in others which did not serve him for an occasion to censure his own lukewarmness.11 On a visit of three solitaries wanting instruction, one of them said; Father, what shall I do to shun hell-fire? He made no reply. And for my part, added another, how shall I escape the gnashing of teeth, and the worm that never dies? What also will become of me, concluded the third, for every time I think on utter darkness I am ready to die with fear. Then the saint breaking silence, answered: I confess that these are subjects which never employ my thoughts, and as I know that God is merciful, I trust he will have compassion on me. You are happy, he added, and I envy your virtue. You speak of the torments of hell, and your fears on this account must be powerful guards against the admission of sin. Alas! then, it is I should exclaim, What shall become of me? I, who am so insensible as never even to reflect on the place of torments destined to punish the wicked after death. Undoubtedly this is the reason I am guilty of so much sin. The solitaries retired much edified with this humble reply.12 The saint said one time, I am now thirty years praying daily that my Lord Jesus may preserve me from saying an idle word, and yet I am always relapsing. This could only be the language which humility dictates; for he was singularly observant of the times of retirement and silence, and kept his cell constantly locked to avoid interruption, and always gave his answers to those who asked his advice in the fewest words.13 The servant of God, worn out with sickness and old age, yielded at last to his disciple Abrahams advice, and went to reside awhile at Clysma, a town on the border, or at least in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea.14 Here he received a visit from Ammon, or Amun, abbot of Raithe, who, observing his affliction for being absent from his retreat, endeavoured to comfort him by representing that his present ill state of health wanted the remedies which could not be applied in the desert. What do you say, returned the saint, with a countenance full of grief, was not the ease of mind I enjoyed there every thing for my comfort? He was not at ease till he returned to his retreat, where he finished his holy course. The solitaries of the desert assisting at his agony, heard him, as Rufinus relates, cry out: Behold, abbot Antony, the choir of prophets and the angels come to take my soul. At the same time his countenance shone, and being some time interiorly recollected with God, he cried out anew, Behold! our Lord comes for me. At the instant he expired, his cell was perfumed with a heavenly odour.15 He died about the year 429, after a retreat of at least sixty-two years in St. Antonys Mount. His feast is inserted in the Greek Menologies on the 6th of July; and in some of the Latin Calendars on the 4th of the same month. See Rosweide, Cotelier, Tillemont, t. 12, p. 453, and the Bollandists ad diem 6 Julii, t. 2, p. 280.
This saint must not be confounded with two other Sisoes, who lived in the same age. One, surnamed the Theban, lived at Calamon, in the territory of Arsinoe. Another had his cell at Petra. It is of Sisoes the Theban that the following passage is related, though some authors by mistake have ascribed it to St. Sisoes of Sceté. A certain recluse having received some offence, went to Sisoes to tell him that he must have revenge. The holy old man conjured him to leave his revenge to God, to pardon his brother, and forget the injury he had received. But seeing that his advice had no weight with him, At least, said he, let us both join in an address to God; then standing up, he prayed thus aloud: Lord, we no longer want your care of our interests or your protection, since this monk maintains that we can and ought to be our own avengers. This extraordinary petition exceedingly moved the poor recluse, and throwing himself at the saints feet, he begged his pardon, protesting that from that moment he would forget he had ever been injured.16 This holy man loved retirement so much that he delayed not a moment even in the church after the mass to hasten to his cell. This was not to indulge self-love or an affected singularity, but to shun the danger of dissipation, and enjoy in silence and prayer the sweet conversation of God; for at proper seasons, especially when charity required it, he was far from being backward in giving himself to the duties of society. Such was his self-denial that he seldom or ever ate bread. However, being invited one time by the neighbouring solitaries to a small repast, in condescension, and to show how little he was guided by self-will, observing that it would be agreeable, I will eat, said he, bread, or any thing you lay before me.17 See Bulteau, Hist. Mon. dOrient, l. 1, c. 3, n. 7, p. 56. Tillemont, t. 12, and Pinius, one of the continuators of Bollandus, on the 6th July. | <urn:uuid:9b4e7225-2ccc-4f88-9dfc-7cea8f702e2c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bartelby.net/210/7/043.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989622 | 2,248 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The WRC has created South
Africa’s first water-focused graphic novel series.
The novel, aimed at children aged 11-15, follows the adventures of the
Thirsty Three, namely Royston, Mpho and Steyn, as they uncover the value
of clean water and the role played by water science. The first
installment of the proposed series includes an introduction to the
WRC as a unique South African organization and its
function to assist government in fulfilling its mandate to providing
sustainable services to South African communities. It is envisaged that
this graphic novel series can go a long way towards sharing the South
African water story with a new generation of South Africans in a
language that they can identify with.
Issue 1: The Thirsty Three -
The mystery of impure water
Issue 2: The Thirsty Three -
The pollution puzzle | <urn:uuid:524d8dcd-a12e-4a79-b6b2-bfd93b3c46ee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wrc.org.za/Pages/comicbook.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949355 | 187 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Q: We are having a problem with our dough growing in the cooler.
A: There are a number of things that can result in the dough “blowing” in the cooler. The first cause could be excessive amounts of yeast in the dough. Most pizza doughs perform best when the yeast level is at or near 1 percent compressed yeast –– this equates to .5 percent active dry yeast, or 0.375 percent instant active dry yeast.
You might also check your dough’s finished temperature. If you are using a refrigerated dough management procedure –– which allows you to use the dough over a three day period of time from the cooler –– a good target, finished dough temperature is in the 80 F to 85 F range if using a walk-in cooler, or 70 F to 75 F if you’re using a reach-in cooler. If your finished dough temperature is higher than this, it becomes difficult to effectively cool the dough to a point where the rate of fermentation can be sufficiently lowered to allow for holding the dough for any extended period of time.
The finished dough temperature is controlled by the temperature of the water that you add to the dough. In some locations, your tap water temperature may be sufficiently cold to give you a finished dough temperature within the targeted temperature range, but if this isn’t possible, then you will need to use colder water. The easiest way to get colder water is by storing it in the cooler, at least overnight. This should effectively get your water temperature down to the 40 to 45 F range. You can then replace a portion or all of the dough water with the refrigerated water to achieve the desired finished dough temperature you’re looking for.
In some cases, such as stores with only a reach-in cooler, this won’t be possible, so the correct course of action to get colder water is to add ice to your water. When adding ice, be sure to replace the water on a pound for pound basis for ice. Don’t use a volumetric measure for the ice as it has a significantly different density than water. I recommend that you begin by replacing one pound of water with one pound of ice. Be sure to use flaked ice rather than cube ice as the cube ice, which will not melt sufficiently fast to work in this application. Keep increasing/adjusting the amount of ice added until the finished dough temperature falls within the desired temperature range.
Another thing that can cause the dough to blow is failure to take the dough directly to the cooler after scaling, balling and boxing. For some, it is a common practice to allow the dough to set out at room temperature for a period of time before we begin scaling and balling it. This practice can lead to the dough fermenting, and changing in density (becoming less dense) before the dough actually goes to the cooler. The less dense dough is significantly more difficult to cool uniformly. It is a better insulator and, as such, it may never cool to a point where it will be sufficiently stable in the cooler to allow it to be held for any period of time without blowing. Normally, when the dough blows under these circumstances, the reaction is to reduce the yeast level to a point where the dough doesn’t blow, but this now introduces a whole new problem –– in many cases, the dough now has a yeast level so low that it cannot support the weight of the topping ingredients during baking, and it may collapse, or not rise sufficiently to give the desired, light, airy internal crumb structure. In all too many cases, a gum line develops just under the sauce that will be next to impossible to resolve until we get the yeast level back up to where it needs to be. But, then the dough blows again. Now you can see why reducing the yeast level is not the correct action to take when the dough blows.
Failure to cross stack the dough boxes can also lead to blowing the dough. When first placed into the cooler, the dough boxes should be placed in a cross stacked pattern to allow the warmer air to escape from the dough boxes. This results in a significant improvement in the efficiency of cooling the dough balls. In cases where a walk-in cooler isn’t available and only a reach-in is used, there isn’t room in the cabinet to cross stack the dough boxes, but they can be placed into the cooler with the ends off set, resulting in open, exposed ends on each box, allowing for the escape of the warm air from the boxes.
Even with cross-stacking, you must allow enough time for the dough to be cooled before you seal the boxes closed.
We have found that if the dough balls weigh 16 ounces or less, the dough boxes should be allowed to remain cross-stacked for at least two hours. If the dough balls are between 17 and 24 ounces, they should remain cross stacked for at least 2½ hours. Because the dough still hasn’t come down in temperature to that of your cooler within these times, it is important to be consistent with the cross stack time employed. For example, if your dough ball weight is 10 ounces, and you’re using a cross stack time of two hours, that’s fine, but be sure to use that cross stack time consistently. Keep in mind, though, that these are only recommendations. Since all coolers are not created equally, you may need to adjust the cross stack times from those given above, and this is perfectly acceptable — just be sure to be consistent and always use the same cross stack time that you’ve found correct for your dough ball weight.
Another factor to consider occurs during the dough-making process. Due to traffic in and out of the cooler during the busier parts of the day, our coolers typically work harder, and operate at a slightly higher temperature than they do during the late night hours after the store is closed, or when business slacks off a bit. For this reason, I don’t recommend making the dough during the day, or even during the early evening hours. Instead, I recommend making dough a couple hours prior to closing, when the cooler will be operating more efficiently. By the time you’re ready to go home, you can down stack the dough boxes just before turning the lights off. While we’re on the topic of coolers, if you don’t already have them, consider installing plastic strip curtains over the door. Tests have shown that they will improve the operating efficiency of your cooler by as much as 15 percent.?
Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas. | <urn:uuid:6a924a6d-83b1-4754-8616-b9641704b655> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pizzatoday.com/industry-news/2010-november-dough-doctor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944393 | 1,373 | 2.515625 | 3 |
ANSI Common Lisp 1 Introduction
1.2 Organization of the Document
This is a reference document, not a tutorial document. Where possible and convenient, the order of presentation has been chosen so that the more primitive topics precede those that build upon them; however, linear readability has not been a priority.
This document is divided into chapters by topic. Any given chapter might contain conceptual material, dictionary entries, or both.
Defined names within the dictionary portion of a chapter are grouped in a way that brings related topics into physical proximity. Many such groupings were possible, and no deep significance should be inferred from the particular grouping that was chosen. To see defined names grouped alphabetically, consult the index. For a complete list of defined names, see Section 1.9 Symbols in the COMMON-LISP Package.
In order to compensate for the sometimes-unordered portions of this document, a glossary has been provided; see Chapter 26 Glossary. The glossary provides connectivity by providing easy access to definitions of terms, and in some cases by providing examples or cross references to additional conceptual material.
For information about notational conventions used in this document, see Section 1.4 Definitions.
For information about conformance, see Section 1.5 Conformance.
For information about data types, see Chapter 4 Types and Classes. Not all types and classes are defined in this chapter; many are defined in chapter corresponding to their topic--for example, the numeric types are defined in Chapter 12 Numbers. For a complete list of standardized types, see Figure 4.2.3 Type Specifiers. | <urn:uuid:c09ad763-0809-4d10-a592-20de42274e0d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://franz.com/support/documentation/8.2/ansicl/section/organiza.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.868261 | 329 | 2.84375 | 3 |
The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution. Eiffel originally planned to build the tower in Barcelona, for the Universal Exposition of 1888, but those responsible at the Barcelona city hall thought it was a strange and expensive construction, which did not fit into the design of the city. After the refusal of the Consistory of Barcelona, Eiffel submitted his draft to those responsible for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where he would build his tower a year later, in 1889. The tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889, and opened on May 6. Three hundred workers joined together 18,038 pieces of puddled iron (a very pure form of structural iron), using two and a half million rivets, in a structural design by Maurice Koechlin. The risk of accident was great, for unlike modern skyscrapers the tower is an open frame without any intermediate floors except the two platforms. However, because Eiffel took safety precautions, including the use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died.
Critiques | Translate
linask (2930) 2008-11-16 13:25
This is good example how usual tourist spot can be photographed in an unusual way.
dlx (71) 2008-11-16 13:26
Interesting composition for such a classical object, Assi. The Eiffel Tower must be one of the most photographed constructions in the world, but your picture shows that there is still room for creativity.
Well done !
mesutilgim (95038) 2008-11-16 13:27
Normally the Eiffel Tower in Paris is not one of my favorites there, but here you have managed a perfect pov, with the yellow leaf in foreground which creates a perfect graphism.
Soft nice colors and very good usefull notes.
TFS and best regards
Sistercosmo (242) 2008-11-16 13:37
wonderful pov you've chosen with that beautiful leaf in the f/g! Nice details with the boats and the Europe stars on the tower. The sky is overexposed, but when I was in Paris, I had the same problem. You can't pick your weather! Great shot!
adoski21 (60) 2008-11-16 13:40
An interesting composition. POV is magnificent, the leaf gives an Autumn touch.
Nessie (918) 2008-11-16 13:45
Very interesting composition, nice idea! Weldone asival! Have a nice week!
Nessie tomorrow :-)
Zoom53 (699) 2008-11-16 13:51
Very_beautifull, withdraw, one, photograph, you, celebrate, and, success, wish, .
mvinagre (853) 2008-11-16 13:53
Leaf in foreground is perfect gives a great impact.Good colors,POV and notes
naznaz567 (344) 2008-11-16 14:25
A very creative capture of this old favorite as others have mentioned. I think it could have used a tad bit more contrast, but still very successful.
toni_al (15875) 2008-11-16 15:29
Une variante a cette image serait faire la mise au poit sur la feuille avec un diaf 2.8 et laisser la tour de façon sugerée.
Mais c'est une bonne idée
sowmyav82 (9) 2008-11-17 2:13
Very nice POV.
devimeuxbe (58557) 2008-11-17 7:40
excellent composition and idea.
You have found a different way to show the eiffel tower.
ThierryA (6686) 2008-11-17 9:32
More picture of Eiffel tower on TE but your photo is very well composed with this automn touch. Very nice !
Have a good evening,
Leonie (8809) 2008-11-18 3:47
A very nice composition and tribute to autumnal atmosphere! Nice colours, well done!
I_WanderingSoul (686) 2008-11-18 3:56
You have used the available resources to create a stunning image!
The little orange leaf makes all the difference.
Very well seen.
Kirych (2707) 2008-11-19 5:00
Wonderful idea with orange leaf on the foreground!
Best regards, Tanya.
Yves-triga (5149) 2008-11-21 3:47
bel effet,et cette feuille morte qui nous fait penser que nous sommes bien en automne.
Robert1969 (7160) 2011-04-25 12:09
This picture is a great example for a lots of people:
Keep it simple(less is more), use a intresting POV and a point of view and use a great composition and light.....My compliments.
- Copyright: Assi Dvilanski (asival) (5307)
- Genre: Places
- Medium: Color
- Date Taken: 2008-11-16
- Categories: Architecture
- Camera: Canon 400D (Digital Rebel XTi), 18-55 Canon I EF-S f/3.5-5.5
- Exposure: f/11, 1/10 seconds
- More Photo Info: view
- Photo Version: Original Version
- Date Submitted: 2008-11-16 13:20
- Favorites: 1 [view] | <urn:uuid:1cae11fb-2ad2-4ed6-90fc-0e156a6f617a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/France/North/Ile-de-France/Paris/photo989693.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.830499 | 1,216 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Old-Time Jamaican Instruments
As our motto boast, we truly are "Out of Many, One People". And so, our musical instruments are no different.
If you have already read the history of Jamaica or the culture of Jamaica, you would have learnt about our unique blend of cultures and traditions.
We inherited instruments
dating back as far as the Arawaks, the early inhabitants. Of course,
been a predominantly black population (over 90%), the majority of our
muscial instruments are originated from Africa, but we have invaluable
input from the Chineese, Indians, Syrians and the Europeans- all of whom
played integral roles in our historical development.
The arawaks contributed at least six (6) musical instruments. These include the:
- Large Drums
- The Flute
Including one made of bone! Although not much was said of what type of animal, especially since the animals in Jamaica were all small. It
is theorized that perhaps the said bone was that of the Caribs, their
enemies who were thought to be much fiercer than the arawaks.
- Aeolian Harps
- Tabors (small drums)
was evidently as small drum.
- Timbrells or Tambourines
The African Descendants
Our African ancestors contributed quite a lot. These may be categorized into four classes:
- Percussions (Drums)
Drums varied in shape, size, according to to tribal fashionGumbieBarrel Shaped, about 6 ft in length. Made form pieces of hallow trees.GoombahA hollow block of wood.
GoombayA rustic drum formed from the truck of a hallow tree.All covered with skins of goats or sheep.
- String (Rough Guitars)
fair variety made of wood or gourds. Eg. Fiddles, Bangils, banjar – has
little to do with the banjo of today, bender- probably so name because
it was made of a stick bent bow shaped and kept thus by a slip of dried grass.
- Wind (Flutes)
The only was discovered then was the Coromantee flute, named after the fierced Coromantee African tribe.
- Non Descript (Rude Instruments)
There is the Jenkoving- two jars with medium size mouth over which the performer brought down their hands and the Kitty-Katty, a flat piece of board on which they beat with two sticks. Rattles or boxes or small sized calabashes, filled with pebbles or Indian shot seeds were also used.
they were made with a handle and were shaken by the hand of the
performer used or sometime, at other times they were tied to legs or
wrist and as they dance or sang, making a noisy accompaniment.There was also the Rookaw – two jagged sticks.
Although also African descendants, the maroons were singled out because their independence.
They have many musical instrument but their ‘national’ instrument is the Abeng.
made from the cow’s horn and can safely be assumed that it did not come
from the aboriginal period, as the cow was introduced in Jamaica by the Spaniards sometime after 1509.
is made of 8 or 9 inches of the small end of the cow’s horn. A
sufficient part of the tip is taken off leaving a small hole about the size of a pea.
On the concave side of the horn and close to the smaller end,an oblong opening or mouth-hole is made.
This is about ¼ of an inch wide and about an inch in length.
is also use a drum called Toombah, a large piece of the trumpet tree,
hallowed out. Three strings are then stretched across.
vast majority of these are primitive, very primitive, but no doubt they
set the stage for today's complex and elaborate musical instruments.
By the way, particularly in our traditional mento music, the Banjo, Guitar, Marimba or Rhumba box, and double bass percussion instruments such as triangles, pieces of iron, empty sardine cans, as well as forks and graters are also used - even today!
The music and musical instrument of Jamaica by Astley Clerk, published in 1913.
Diverse Hamilton, http://www.diversehamilton.ca/americanCommunity/jamaican.html
Still, lots to share with you from Jamaica, don't miss these informative pages:
Back to Top of Jamaican Instruments
Back to Top of Jamaican Instruments
Return to Jamaica Culture from Jamaican Instruments
Return to My Island Jamaica Homepage from Jamaican Instruments
Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/myislandjamaica
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/myislandjamaica
Thanks For Reading!
Like What You Just Read?
Please join me in my effort to share the beauty and uniqueness of Jamaica with the world. You can do so by sharing this insightful narrative on the social media of your choice and ask others to do the same (BELOW).
We have a cherry list of top Jamaican companies that might be able to help you. Please click here to see them, our preferred partners and site sponsors.
Top Of Page
Get Exclusive Updates & Tips!
You are also welcome to join my special friends list and receive exclusive updates (like this), tips, trivia and stories from lovers of Jamaica!
I'll Gift You A FREE COPY of my eBook, 101 Intriguing Facts About Jamaica - just for subscribing!
Just enter your email & name below: | <urn:uuid:67240fea-4b11-4fe4-843d-e7b5bf5825e3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.my-island-jamaica.com/jamaican_instruments.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947912 | 1,192 | 3.25 | 3 |
What Is Macular Edema?
Macular edema is swelling or thickening of the eye's macula, the part of your eye responsible for detailed, central vision.
The macula is a very small area at the center of the retina—a thin layer of light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye. Light rays are focused onto the retina, where they are transmitted to the brain and interpreted as the images you see. It is the macula that is responsible for your pinpoint vision, allowing you to read, sew or recognize a face.
Macular edema develops when blood vessels in the retina are leaking fluids. The macula does not function properly when it is swollen. Vision loss may be mild to severe, but in many cases, your peripheral (side) vision remains.
Macular edema is often a complication of diabetic retinopathy, and is the most common form of vision loss for people with diabetes—particularly if it is left untreated. | <urn:uuid:d42c2882-7098-4424-81c0-99a1389e4674> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.aao.org/eye-health/diseases/what-is-macular-edema | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935212 | 200 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Nearly all evidence of adult neurogenesis in mammals is limited to the hippocampus, and no one is sure what those new neurons do, if anything. Until scientists establish that new, functioning nerves also appear in the cerebral cortex, where higher thoughts are processed, Rakic and others remain skeptical that adult neurogenesis makes much difference to actual brain function. "We start life with a lot of uneducated neurons, but at some point they all become college graduates," he says. "With neurogenesis in the cerebral cortex, you would have neurons that never went to elementary school. New cells would erode all your memories. You would give up all you have labored to acquire."
Elizabeth Gould, a Princeton University neurobiologist who found neurogenesis in the marmoset and other adult primates, argues that the new nerve cells must be useful. "I can’t believe that nature would go to all the trouble of creating thousands of new cells a day to no purpose," she says. "The body is not profligate with its resources."
Nottebohm says the aging brain probably has to develop nerve cells to learn new things. "The brain runs out of memory space," he says. "Everyone past 50 knows that. If we remembered everything, we’d be in overload."
With the same zeal he showed when he first confounded the received wisdom, Nottebohm began new work with blackcapped chickadees in the mid-1990s. One of the American bird species to weather the northern winter, chickadees subsist in that season on seeds and other foods they’ve hidden in trees. Nottebohm found that come autumn, the birds grow new cells in a brain center dealing with spatial memory, the capacity to navigate and find things. The added brainpower helps the chickadees pinpoint their hidden troves months later, Nottebohm says.
Such insight wins admiration. "Fernando has always been ahead of everybody," says Gould. "So far ahead that people for a long time were not able to accept his findings as interesting or important. Now they’re coming around." | <urn:uuid:30e2c2a3-ad9d-4791-afc7-c2e7c2fe9da8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/birdbrain-breakthrough-64765165/?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96837 | 440 | 3.296875 | 3 |
African Americans and students with disabilities are suspended at “hugely disproportionate rates,” according to a report by a group called the Discipline Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative.
Higher rates of misbehavior don’t explain higher suspension rates, said Russell J. Skiba, a professor at Indiana University and director of the collaborative. He pointed to other factors such as classroom management, diversity of teaching staff, administrative processes, characteristics of student enrollment and school climate.
Suspending disruptive students doesn’t help their classmates, the report argues.
One oft-repeated justification for frequent suspensions is that schools must be able to remove the “bad” students so that “good” students can learn. . . . when schools serving similar populations were compared across the state of Indiana, and poverty was controlled for, those schools with relatively low suspension rates had higher, not lower test scores
Troubled kids hurt the whole class responds Education Next, citing two recent studies.
Domino Effect found children from “troubled families, as measured by family domestic violence,” are much more likely misbehave and be suspended.
We find also that an increase in the number of children from troubled families reduces peer student math and reading test scores and increases peer disciplinary infractions and suspensions… in many cases, a single disruptive student can indeed influence the academic progress made by an entire classroom of students.
A Philadelphia study by Penn researchers found that “in schools with a high concentration of children with ‘risk factors,’ the academic performance of all children – not just those with disadvantages – was negatively affected.”
The collaborative would respond that suspension isn’t the only way to prevent troubled kids from disrupting their classes. Researchers recommend “some restorative justice programs and prevention programs that call for more student-teacher engagement.”
Fordham’s Mike Petrilli is “very nervous” about making it harder to discipline students. “This push to make it harder to suspend students is going to have a chilling effect on teaching and learning.” | <urn:uuid:a453169a-c9b0-41c7-bbcf-d51340113398> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.joannejacobs.com/tag/misbehavior/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957368 | 438 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Today, I am adding two more pages to this blog, pages which I hope will prove helpful with respect to your Irish family history research.
The page entitled 'Civil Registration Districts' is quite simply the list issued by the General Register Office, a list which offers a complete enumeration of the civil registration districts covered in the Birth, Marriage, and Death registers of the GRO.
The page entitled 'Geographical & Political Designations' is offered for purposes of clarification, and when you take a look at it you will fully understand what I mean. Recently, a friend of mine travelling around the southwest coast of Ireland risked a pummelling in a small country pub when he referred to the Irish as British. Although you may never find yourself in such a spot, it is always good to have an understanding of the difference between geographical and political designations with respect to Ireland. Knowledge of these designations is very helpful in terms of family history research, since you may encounter them on various documents in the search for your Irish ancestors.
As always, continued good luck to you with your research.
- Ár dTeaghlach: Our Family
- Faces of Family History
- Finding Irish Ancestors: Research Aids
- Interviewing Family
- Civil Registration Information & Districts
- Geographical & Political Designations
- The Act of Union Black List 1800/1801
- 'Orphans' List of 1847 - The Great Famine
- 17 Tips + 1 for Family History/Genealogy Research in Ireland
- Latin Terms
- Pinterest & Instagram
- Tuesday's Tips
- Copyright and Disclosures
- About Me | <urn:uuid:85e39c5d-15f3-4879-9949-94a2857a9c1d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thesearchforanneandmichael.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-pages-civil-registration-districts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929302 | 339 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Agrilus biguttatus (two spotted oak buprestid, TSOB) is an iridescent blue or bronze-green beetle, with white spots on its wing-cases. TSOB is native to the UK, and was formerly thought of as a rare, vulnerable species. Today, it appears to be increasingly common, and is causing concern because of its links with Acute oak decline. Although the beetles are difficult to observe in their natural habitat, it is possible to identify the D-shaped exit holes that are formed as the beetles emerge from the bark.
Forest Research is investigating TSOB’s lifecycle and distribution, and the role that the beetle plays in acute oak decline. We aim to determine:
- The role of temperature in the development of the beetle, and the duration of its lifecycle
- The potential impacts of climate change on the beetle’s life cycle and distribution
- Whether TSOB may be involved in the transmission of pathogenic bacteria between or within trees
- When oak trees become suitable for larval development
Distribution and ecological status in the UK
Although formerly considered rare, TSOB seems to be increasingly common in the UK. The beetle shares a similar distribution to acute oak decline, and this is one reason it is thought to be implicated in the decline.
Take a look at further inforamtion about TSOB's distribution and ecological status.
Lifecycle and damage to trees
Damage to trees occurs when the larvae feed on the vascular tissues in the inner bark, creating galleries. TSOB’s D-shaped exit holes and larval galleries are frequently found on trees showing symptoms of acute oak decline.
Find out more about TSOB's lifecycle and damage to trees. | <urn:uuid:02114c11-166c-486c-b359-b64a619b367a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/INFD-7B3D3R | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949999 | 357 | 3.671875 | 4 |
Season of Smoke: Changing Climate Leads To Bigger, Smokier Wildfires
SEATTLE -- Each fire season is a roll of the dice.
Some years lightning strikes more often. Other years soggy summers keep big burns at bay.
This year more than 4,000 wildfires burned almost a million acres across the Northwest. That might sound like a lot, but it falls below the 10-year average. In the last decade, only one year has had fewer fires than this year.
Scientists are quick to point out that no single fire season can be attributed to changes in the global climate, but as summers in the western half of the United States become drier and warmer, the chances of bigger, longer smokier fire seasons is expected to increase.
A recent Harvard University study has found that by 2050 the wildfire season for the western United States will be about three weeks longer and be up to twice as smoky because of changes connected to global warming. And specifically in the Pacific Northwest, the area burned during the month of August could increase by 65 percent.
“Warmer and drier summers -- that’s the right climate recipe for large regional fire years,” says University of Idaho climatologist John Abatzoglou, who studies regional impacts of climate change and how humans will be affected. “Under a changing climate, the likelihood of seeing conditions conducive to these large regional fire years are going to increase dramatically.”
With larger, longer-lasting wildfires, air quality is projected to suffer. Based on the amount of on-the-ground biomass available to be burned, researchers expect to see wildfire smoke increase in the Northwest between 40-100 percent in the coming decades.
Wildfire smoke is made up of tiny organic and black carbon particles that are a fraction of the diameter of a human hair. These microscopic particles can travel deep into the lungs and even cross over into the bloodstream. Inhaling those fine particles isn’t good for anyone, not even healthy people. Smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, leading to coughing, headaches, scratchy throats and runny noses. And for some people, wildfire smoke can be life threatening. It can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks and even strokes.
Wildfire smoke is already one of the biggest drivers of degrading air quality throughout the Northwest. Over the past few months, wildfires have created hazardous and smoky conditions, and clouds of smoke as big as thunderheads billowed over communities in Southern Oregon and Central Idaho.
More than 50,000 acres of forest burned in August in Southern Oregon. Dense wildfire smoke caused particle pollution to reach unhealthy levels for more than a week straight in communities like Merlin and Grants Pass. The Red Cross handed out more than 20,000 respirator masks there to help people avoid breathing smoke from wildfires that burned near the Rogue River. Hospitals reported a 15-20 percent increase in people admitted to the emergency room with breathing problems.
Similar conditions plagued Eastern Washington in the fall of 2012. Lightning strikes started 100 fires that burned more than 200,000 acres, causing the highest smoke concentrations ever recorded in several Washington communities, according to the Washington Department of Ecology.
In Wentachee, Wash. last year air pollution was monitored at levels considered hazardous by the EPA for 14 days. More than 50,000 masks were distributed to help prevent smoke inhalation. And during that time, hospitals across the eastern half of the state reported average of 14 percent increase in visits from people whose chief complaint was difficulty breathing.
Since the 1980s, the overall number of wildfires and the amount of acres burned in the United States has increased steadily. As the climate has warmed, snow melts earlier and dry periods have lengthened both of which favor fire conditions, says Jennifer Pierce, a professor in the Geosciences Department at Boise State University, studies the history of fire going back hundreds and thousands of years.
But Pierce points out that even after you account for fire suppression, climate change is still a factor. Places like Yellowstone National Park, which have experienced larger wildfires in recent decades, never had active fire suppression.
“It’s pretty remarkable when you put all the data together and the cause of those large fires is overwhelmingly climate,” Pierce says.
When Idaho journalist Rocky Barker reported on large wildfires in the 1980s, he had no way of knowing that he was at the beginning of what he would later recognize as a generation of large fires and longer fire seasons. To Barker, the fire that kicked it all off was 1988 fire in Yellowstone National Park, which burned more than 150,000 acres a day in late August and early September.
Back then that kind of extreme fire behavior was unusual, Barker says. Now it’s become much more common.
In the decades since, Barker has seen communities hit repeatedly with fires that were so big that residents have been required to evacuate. And the impact of smoke from wildfires also drives people away.
“Living in a season of smoke is really hard. Last summer and this summer I’ve been in communities where people just didn’t go to work because it was just too smoky,” says Barker, author of the book, Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America. “I don’t think people can even fathom yet how much change fire is going to continue to bring on us.”
Story by Katie Campbell with additional reporting by Amelia Templeton and Aaron Kunz. Video by Aaron Kunz and Katie Campbell. Wildfire acres burned chart built by Sarah Strunin.
Read our entire series, “Symptoms Of Climate Change:”
Wednesday: Scientists say hotter temperatures will bring about more fire seasons that are longer, drier, and likelier to fill the air with smoke that can make breathing more difficult. | <urn:uuid:72984e54-b63d-45d5-be1b-69be9e8467b6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ijpr.org/post/season-smoke-changing-climate-leads-bigger-smokier-wildfires | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960636 | 1,199 | 3.578125 | 4 |
A Search Engine with Ears
Imagine a music search engine that asks you to type in words like "acoustic guitars" or "electronica with female vocals" and then returns songs that fit. Electrical engineers and computer scientists at the Jacobs School have created this kind of system. They think of it as "Google for music."
Lift up the "hood" of the new search engine and you find algorithms for labeling music that are based on audio signal processing and statistical modeling. You also find a video game. In fact, you find a whole series of short Web-based video games built primarily by Jacobs School students. The games lead players to label songs with words and will soon make their debut on Facebook.
When lots of players label a particular song with the same word, this word-song combination gets used to train and improve the automated song-labeling system that is the backbone of the new search engine and the brainchild of the Jacobs school team.
"While the games are crucial for our research and our search engine, they are also a lot of fun and socially intense. You can even IM with other players," says Gert Lanckriet, leader of the project and a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Doug Turnbull, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and one of the masterminds behind the music search engine, hopes the project "will provide exposure for the countless talented musicians that almost no-one has ever heard of."
This hope is not farfetched: their automated song labeler, called a "computer audition system," is capable of annotating an unlimited number of songs with words that describe how the songs actually sound. And once the songs are labeled, famous and obscure "blues songs with tambourines" alike will come back when that's what you type into the new search.
Of course, the songs have to be annotated before they can be indexed by the search engine. To help get lesser known music into the system, the team is setting up a Web site where bands can upload their own songs for annotation.
One of the bands that will surely upload songs is The Audition Laboratory. The guitar player - Luke Barrington - is one of the key members of the music search engine team and an electrical engineering Ph.D. candidate at the Jacobs School.
|Jacobs grad student Luke Barrington plays a video game created to capture the song-word information the team needs to train its new music search engine.|
News Release: Online Game Feeds Music Search Engine Project »
Website: Semantic Annotation and Retrieval »
Website: Gert Lanckriet's Web page »
Website: Doug Turnbull's Web page »
Website: Luke Barrington's Web page »
Website: The Audition Laboratory band » | <urn:uuid:9877eed2-1ecc-465a-97cd-489dca8f850d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/pulse/spring2008/research2.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944077 | 578 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Also called uraninite, a dense, brown, black, or greenish mineral,
the most important source of uranium, radium,
and polonium. The composition of pitchblende
varies between UO2 and UO2.6; thorium, lead, and helium are also present. The blackish and lustrous ore occurs in several varieties: crystallized varieties are called uranianite, massive varieties are called pitchblende. Both varieties are found around the world in veins (often quartz and silver) Principal deposits in Zaire, Bohemia, at Great Bear
Lake, Canada, and in the Mountain States. Hardness 5–6; relative density 6.5–8.5 (pitchblende), 8–10 (uranianite).
AND PLANETARY SCIENCE | <urn:uuid:1e962d9f-4119-403c-8806-841659393114> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/pitchblende.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91371 | 169 | 3.375 | 3 |
From 11:00PM PDT on Friday, July 1 until 5:00AM PDT on Saturday, July 2, the Shmoop engineering elves will be making tweaks and improvements to the site. That means Shmoop will be unavailable for use during that time. Thanks for your patience!
The GED is a test that can prove you have more smarts and
skills—and yeah, more incentive, too—than 40% of graduating high school
seniors. It‘ a seven-hour test covering Social Studies, Science, Math, Language
Arts, and Writing…pretty much everything covered in high school (minus sex ed,
gym, and complicated between-class hallway rules).
Passing the test means you’ve earned a GED certification
which is looked at by many schools and employers as an equivalent to a high
school diploma. So, the bright side is that you have the chance to earn an
equivalent certification in seven hours instead of four years. Quite the
There are a few cons here.
Lots of employers(including Uncle Sam) and schools don’t look at the GED as equivalent to a
diploma and raise the admissions or hiring standards for GED holders because
they haven’t earned a four-year diploma. Again, not really fair.
Combine thatwith the con that even though they earn more than folks without a diploma, GED
holders still earn significantly less than high school grads, unless they go on
to higher education. But remember, sometimes those places of higher education
require that diploma so…
You left high school a long time ago and don’t have the option to return to earn your diploma.
A diploma means you did it. You successfully sat through all
those classes, passed the tests (at least most of them), and survived freshman
hazing, sophomore malaise, an overloaded junior year, and senioritis. A diploma
is your ticket to higher wages and is a key credential for applying to jobs or
This diploma, this seemingly thin, letter-sized piece of paper (usually not parchment—sorry), is the baseline for pursuing highereducation or getting a job. Colleges and employers are going to look at a high
school diploma and know that you had the smarts and persistence to stick with
high school for four years.
For those who like money, having a diploma is going to earn you an average of ten grand more per year than someone who didn’tfinish high school. On that note, if you do stay in high school, you may want
to go ahead and take that Financial Intelligence elective.
Four years can seem like an eternity, especially when viewed
from the back of the Geometry classroom. It’s a whole lot of work to earn a
You want to up your chances of earning a decent salary,
getting a better job, joining the military, or getting into just about any type
"A high school diploma is not something you’ll regret. If nothing else, it’ll look nice on your wall." | <urn:uuid:e9c9e9d2-473f-4392-abb2-f0d5fd1c879a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.shmoop.com/college/ged-vs-high-school-diploma.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950941 | 645 | 3 | 3 |
From Our 2010 Archives
Scientists See Serious Health Risks in Gulf Oil Spill
Latest Mental Health News
Repiratory, Mental Health Problems Among the Dangers From Exposure to Oil
Reviewed By Laura J. Martin, MD
Aug. 16, 2010 -- The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico poses serious health risks for the people who are working to clean it up and others who venture into the coastal area, scientists say in a commentary in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Some components of oil called volatile organic compounds may cause respiratory irritation and nervous system disorders, according to the commentary by Gina M. Solomon, MD, MPH, and Sarah Janssen, MD, PhD, MPH, both of the University of California, San Francisco.
Skin contact with oil and dispersants may cause dermatitis and increase the risk of skin infections, the authors say.
Those at risk include fishermen, cleanup workers, volunteers, and members of communities along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the authors write.
According to the commentary, seafood, including fish and shellfish, may become contaminated by hydrocarbons from the oil. Trace amounts of cadmium, mercury, and lead in oil can accumulate in the tissues of fish over time, posing a health hazard with ingestion.
Their article, posted online Aug. 16, will appear in print in the Sept. 8 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The scientists say the goal of their commentary is to inform doctors and people in coastal communities about both immediate and long-term risks posed by toxic vapors, oil slicks, tar balls, and contaminated seafood.
"The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is well known as an ecological disaster, but what is less known is the risk to human health caused by oil contamination," the authors say. "We want to reach the volunteers, clean-up workers, fishermen, medical specialists, and community members with practical information about the impact to their health from these chemicals."
"With correct information, we hope they can protect themselves and seek treatment if they don't feel well," the scientists write.
How to Avoid Medical Problems From Oil Spill
Among other things, the authors say workers may need protective equipment such as hats, gloves, boots, coveralls, safety goggles, and respirators, in some cases. They offer this advice:
The authors say public health concerns are short term and long term and that the main worries are about air quality, skin irritation, seafood safety, and mental health.
The authors cite health data collected from previous oil spill disasters in Alaska, Spain, Korea, and Wales. These included information on respiratory problems, DNA alterations, anxiety, depression, psychological stress, neurological impairment, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) linked to those incidents.
The authors note that more than 300 people, mostly cleanup workers, sought medical attention in the early months after the Gulf spill. Problems for which people sought help included headaches, dizziness, nausea, chest pain, vomiting, coughing, and difficulty breathing.
Solomon says that officials in Louisiana are trying to track health complaints but that it's necessary to keep in mind that the 300 reported cases were from one state, and within just a few months.
The Gulf Coast region, however, is very large, with many coastal communities, so she says it's important "that we do whatever we can to help everyone impacted by this disaster."
"Clinicians should be aware of and look for evidence of toxicity from exposures to oil and to oil and related chemicals," says Janssen. "Symptomatic patients should be asked about occupation and location of residence, and the physical examination should focus on the skin, respiratory tract, and neurological system."
Impacts of Previous Spills
The authors write that after the huge oil spill caused by the Exxon Valdez in 1989, 1,811 claims for workers' compensation were filed by people involved in cleanup operations.
A survey of the health status of workers 14 years after the incident found "a greater prevalence of symptoms of chronic airway disease among workers with high oil exposures," the authors write. Also, they add, some people were still reporting neurological problems when that survey was done.
DNA damage was found in workers involved in an oil spill in Spain in 2002. A mental health survey of 599 local residents a year after the Exxon Valdez spill found that people who were exposed were 3.6 times more likely to have anxiety disorder, 2.9 times more likely to have PTSD, and 2.1 times more likely to score high on scales for clinical depression.
SOURCES: News release, University of California, San Francisco. | <urn:uuid:1114934b-8b04-40d2-8ba4-f346da0bba2c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=118961 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966496 | 955 | 3.046875 | 3 |
STREETS OF KINGSTON
Brewing up a new world order
'A Country Tavern near Cobourg, Canada West, 1849,' by Harriet Clench (Canadian). From the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Upper Canadians of the 19th century took their beer seriously, and the evolution of the brewing business mirrored the development of a young nation.
Could James Morton (1808-1864) have ever imagined, watching flames devour his Kingston Brewing Company in 1835, that he would rise again to mark his name on a Kingston Street?
By the 1840s, Morton had risen again. On the strength of Morton’s Proof, famous throughout Upper Canada, his early industrial activities in the 1840s and 1850s added vigor and strength to the town’s economy. He came to Kingston in the position of apprentice to Thomas Molson (1791-1863), a role associated with a fast-fading economy and traditional society.
He reached the pinnacle of his career as a representative of a new social order, a fledgling industrialist, holding workers’ futures in his own hands. His brewing and distilling operations “employed about a hundred men, and fattened a thousand head of cattle in the year,” according to historian Allen Sneath. The workers' cottages still standing between the addresses of 271-279 King St. West had housed Morton’s labour force.
The object of his industry, called at one point Kingston’s Brewing Company, sheds light into the art, mystery, science and politics of drinking in Upper Canada.
Upper Canadian brewing and distilling enterprises originated in the province’s nascent economy right alongside “tanneries, woolen mills, wood-working establishments, paper-making plants, blacksmith and wheelwright shops,” according to historian Gerald Craig. You could find all these industries in any given local economy.
Apparently Upper Canadians considered beers and distilled-liquors as needful and materially basic as shoes, paper and cartwheels.
Indeed, tavern culture burned brightly in Upper Canada, and in Kingston in particular. It even flamed dangerously. In 1843 the Chronicle and Gazette (write historians Brian S. Osborne and Donald Swainson) reported that “a traveler ... walking through the Town, [would] be led almost irresistibly to the conclusion, that one of the great staple trades of the place, was that of retailing drams, so large is the proportion of taverns in every quarter of the Town to the number of houses occupied for other purposes.”
A decade earlier, travel writer and sometime York resident Anna Bronwell Jameson (later Murphy) (1794-1860) claimed that, commercial newsrooms excepted, “absolutely the only place of assembly or amusement, [were] the taverns and low drinking-houses.”
Brewers and distillers had ready customers, and Kingston had a Kingston Brewing Company from the late-18th century. Joseph Forsyth and John Denison began the first one in Kingston in 1793-4 on Lot C, bestowing the name of Brewery to the nearby street (now Rideau Street).
In 1824, a shareholder in the Brewery since 1797 referred to it as the Kingston Brewing Company. Philip Wenz (or Wentz) and Jacob Bajus took it over in 1826. It burned to the ground in 1835. Rebuilt in stone, it continued on well into the 19th century.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, competition brewed.
Thomas Dalton (1782-1840) had arrived in 1817 and set up his own Kingston Brewing Company, probably on the west half of the waterfront Lot 22, perfectly situated to benefit from a nearby spring.
In 1818 Dalton set out to acquaint Kingstonian customers with his fine brew and he advertised in the Gazette “a mild beer,” “a wholesome and agreeable beverage, at as moderate a rate as could reasonably be desired.”
In 1819 Dalton advertised in the Chronicle “a rich flavoured ale,” which was “an extra strong bodied Ale [ to ] satisfy the most fastidious critic.” Kingstonians knew their beer, it would seem. And Dalton managed to please the fastidious palate.
Kingstonians offered enough patronage to support several breweries; conditions seemed prime to Thomas Molson. He arrived in 1824 and bought property from Captain Murney along West Street: it had a deep-water dock and a small brewery, perfect for the scion of the successful Montreal brewing family. Molson got to work right away. He advertised in the Kingston Chronicle to farmers asking them to supply him with “Barley, Charcoal, Hops, Cordwood, Lime, Sand, Brick, some pine and oak Timber.”
Molson would supply the art and the science. He promised an “establishment on the London plan, the whole machinery of which he had already received from London,” he said. He had been to London on research trips.
Magill, a historian of Upper Canadian brewers, opines that Dalton’s operation was “the largest and most prosperous establishment of its kind in the province.”
Dalton’s involvement with the failed Bank of Upper Canada, however, seriously hampered his business. In 1831, creditors seized his brewery. That was also the year Thomas Molson’s operations at Captain Murney’s old brewery went up in flames. So Molson bought the Dalton business and continued operations as his family wove itself more deeply into Kingston life.
That was also the year, 1831, that James Morton, his apprenticeship completed, went into partnership with Robert Drummond to establish their own brewery. According to historian Ian Bowering, it was on the site of the John Tett Centre, and according to historian Magill, it was the first brewery on Lot 21. Morton and Drummond also took the now-unused name “Kingston Brewing Company.”
In 1833, Molson’s new establishment (the former Dalton property on Lot 22) burned to the ground. Molson rebuilt in 1834 and returned to normal operations. But a restlessness overtook him and he traveled frequently. His wife in Kingston grew exasperated, not least with their 10-year old Martha, an “ungovernable” girl, only happy playing in the brewery. In 1835, Thomas Molson and family returned to the Molson business in Montreal.
In this same year, 1835, fire destroyed John Morton’s establishment and he took a lease on Molson’s establishment until he could restore his own business.
The confusing, impossible genealogy of the Kingston Brewing Company helps us untangle the place of brewing in Upper Canada’s development.
The descriptive and thus easily transferable quality of the Kingston Brewing Company name sheds a bit of light on the art of brewing as it had developed. Originally a woman’s task in the middle ages, it came more and more into a male-dominated world of artisanal craft. Recipes and techniques varied greatly, and the products were intensely local and seasonal. Water quality and the length of the cold season made the output somewhat uncertain.
The Molson family, probably like many other brewers who founded dynasties in this era— Sleeman, Oland, O’Keefe, Keith, Carling and Labatt —began to regularize and standardize their product. But before the skills to produce a distinctive product (or brand, to think about it in modern terms) could really take hold, a brewery was just as notable for the community it served—town or nation. Hence, the transferability of Kingston Brewing Company name.
Thomas Dalton, in particular, viewed his work as a solid contribution to the community—not just to the provinces’ pleasure, but its hard-nosed economic development. His beer ads were nothing like you see on TV today. They were disquisitions in colonial economics.
In 1819, for example, he adverted that he did not think it “amiss to remind the Famers (who are the mass of the people) that if they wish their grain to command Cash, they must absolutely make malt Liquor their common beverage, and thus support the Canadian Brewers instead of the West Indian Distillers. It is of serious consequence, both to themselves and to the whole country, that they should adopt so praiseworthy a resolution.”
The replacement of rum by beer after the abolition of the slave trade in 1833 raised the price of rum and helped Alexander Keith establish his brewery in Halifax.
Breweries bought local grain, supported local families, and in return invested in the town and hinterland transportation infrastructure.
Dalton’s move into print media, as editor and proprietor of the Patriot and Farmer’s Monitor, provided an equal and alternative outlet to his community-building brewing enterprise. He entered with full force into the political fray of the day, advocating for the Reform cause in Upper Canada, for which his beer had stood as a symbol.
A reformer friend of his called his brew “Dalton’s Unsophisticated,” saying the beer was its own proof of quality, a quality that other brewers in Upper Canada took as a standard, according to Magill. It was unsophisticated in the sense that it was home-grown, but also in the sense that there was no sophistry, no mystery or obfuscation in Dalton’s art. Time and time again he produced a good beer. So did the other brewers.
Science now invaded a millennial old art and mystery. Consider the Molson path to brewing success. John Molson Sr. (1763-1836) returned from a trip to England, with a copy of John Richardson’s 1777 work Theoretical Hints on An Improved Practice of Brewing Malt-Liquors; Including Some Strictures on the Nature and Properties of Water, Malt, and Hops; The Doctrine of Fermentation; the Agency of Air; the Effects of Heat and Cold on fermented Liquors, &c. &c.
Richardson aimed to obviate “unaccountable difficulties” upon which “the common brewer dwelt” “in a business practiced with seeming ease, even by old women.”
His pamphlet promised to be more than a collection of “ jumbled together” “recipes, in the style and manner of a cookery-book, or family physician, but with somewhat less efficacy.”
The idea was to learn to brew a good beer reliably, using objective knowledge and techniques that could produce a certain result.
Nice for the customers. Nice for the brewers too, to be able to sell and market a recognizable product. But it was more than that. It was a social and political revolution.
In the 1820s and 1830s on both sides of the Atlantic a reform movement arose, informed by Liberal and Whig principles. Reformers and Whigs wanted an end to backroom deals of the old traditional order—of the organic Tory world where power operated unseen, unconscious, and unchallenged—in favour of a government that operated according to the observed, transparent and predictable laws of nature.
A revolution in government was afoot, and every tavern-going, beer-appreciating Upper Canadian knew it. A new order beckoned from the pints of reliably good local beers. It beckoned from the newspapers. Tensions were on the rise like heat accumulating in the malt-house kiln. As a good brewer knows, it is possible to rise again from the flames. “Like Phoenix, from my ashes rise,” said Dalton in 1823.
Dr. Sarah Katherine Gibson is a graduate of Queen’s University and has taught history at McGill, Dalhousie and Carleton universities. She lives in Gatineau, Que. | <urn:uuid:51829b06-3502-4061-9f1d-2b64d0642dc6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thewhig.com/2012/07/29/brewing-up-a-new-world-order | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971762 | 2,508 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Dementia life expectancy varies from one patient to another. There are some people who have slow progressing conditions while others may suffer from fast acting Alzheimer’s disease. This disease eventually leads to death from severe symptoms associated with the final stages of dementia. Some symptoms can lead to the ultimate decline of health which prevents the patient’s body to sustain itself.
Losing your cognitive skills is a problem most ageing people have. There are also some patients who may suffer from very poor memory or reduced mental abilities as a side-effect of a past or current illness. In many cases people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease gradually. There are 7 stages of dementia that may start without obvious symptoms such as forgetfulness or reduced learning abilities.
On average, people who suffer from Alzheimer’s related dementia usually live 4 and a half years after being diagnosed. There are also other factors that affect dementia life expectancy such as the age of the patient at the time of diagnosis and existing health problems such as heart problems and other serious life-threatening diseases. A few patients may last 10 years.
The second stage of this disease may involve minor cognitive decline. Patients may start forgetting where they have placed car keys, their eyeglasses, and forget names and simple words. At this stage, even friends or relatives will not notice that something is not right. The third phase indicates a mild form of forgetfulness that is noticeable to family members and friends.
The fourth phase involves a moderate decline of cognitive abilities. A medical check-up can reveal the presence of dementia at this stage. Planning dinner or performing simple mathematical tasks such as counting backwards become challenging. The patient may appear subdued during social gatherings. The fifth stage includes symptoms such as forgetting home addresses or the name of the school the patient graduated from.
The sixth level of Alzheimer’s will involve severe decline in cognitive abilities such as forgetting the name of their spouse. Most parts of their past personal history cannot be remembered. This is the time when Alzheimer symptoms are obvious, even to complete strangers. Common things that a patient may do are wearing underwear over daytime clothes or using mismatched shoes.
The final stages of dementia, the sixth and seventh, are marked with significant loss of bodily functions such as urine incontinence. Patients need help to feed, dress and groom themselves. Personality changes are defined and behaviour is repetitious. This is the point when someone with Alzheimer’s disease tends to get lost and have difficulty recognising their own face.
Dementia life expectancy becomes shorter once the last stage is reached. Symptoms in the seventh stage are severe. Patients will lose the ability to be responsive to their surroundings. They will have difficulty in controlling movements and need help to stand or sit properly. Speech may become unrecognizable, muscles go rigid, and it will be difficult to swallow food and water which leads to malnourishment and decline of general health. Death eventually follows soon afterwards even with proper care. | <urn:uuid:30cf8cf4-7551-4664-a0bf-410fbe3136ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://stagesofdementia.org/dementia-life-expectancy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960597 | 600 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Ammophila thread-waisted wasp
The Ammophila thread-waisted wasp is a long, black and red-orange wasp with a thin waist, or pedicel, connecting its abdomen and thorax, and long hind legs. Its body design resembles a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter, an adaptation having a practical purpose-- this solitary wasp is a caterpillar hunter, designed to carry loads of caterpillars to feed its offspring. It looks similar to male Podalonia cutworm wasps.
This solitary species of wasp prefers hairless caterpillars to feed its larva. It stings its prey to paralyze it, so the food stays fresh but unable crawl away. The wasp will fly its immobilized prey to a shallow ground nest, lay an egg on it and cover the hole. The wasp may have several nest holes, and remembering their locations, can return to re-open and provision them with more food. Its offspring hatches, consumes its hosts for weeks before gorging and killing them, and pupates underground before emerging in mid to late summer as a lone adult.
Adult wasps feed on flower nectar. The pictured wasp was roughly two inches long and was found feeding on the nectar of rabbitbrush flowers. It ranges throughout the United States and southern Canada, preferring to inhabit open areas.
» Other eastern Washington Wasps | <urn:uuid:a953ac8b-dcf3-4055-b476-1bc94a8c573d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washington/animals/insects/wasps/thread-waisted-wasp.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949764 | 291 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Decision making-what would Jesus do?
In this story Jesus has been interacting with the religious of Israel, but now he turns his attention to those who would claim they want to follow him. He tells those who "were travelling with him" that there are costs to discipleship. We need to assess these costs and this he illustrates in two parables: building a tower, and going to war. Count the cost!
He is saying you have to consider the costs before making any decision.
The cost of discipleship
Jesus' statement "whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me", Luke 9:23 is behind these parables. Instead of self-reliance, a disciple must rely on a following Jesus whose credentials are anything but convincing! A daily faith-reliance on a crucified messiah (v27) comes with a cost, A seeker needs to consider this cost before taking up the day-by-day faith. Jesus forces the potential disciple to abandon self-reliance for a dependent reliance on God.
Parable - on building a tower, v28-30. The two short illustrative parables support the contention that there is no point following Jesus without first recognizing the cost demanded of a disciple. If we are not willing to pay the full price, then there is no point starting out on the journey. None of us would be so silly as to not first sit down and calculate if we can complete the building project. It is probably a watch tower, but possibly any farm building.
Sit down and estimate and calculate the expense then asks yourself the question, will you be able to complete the project? Or you may incurr ridicule.
And having laid the foundations the foundations you may be unable to finish the building?
Parable - on going to war, v31-32. Who would be so foolish as to undertake a war, without first gauging whether success is possible? Under normal circumstances no sensible person would. Consider the cost - if it is not possible to win the war, then accept the reality and go for peace. As the old saying goes; don't start what you can't finish.
Obviously no king would be so stupid as to go to war without first making sure he can win. To fight against another king will he not first sit down and consider and deliberate whether he is able to oppose the one coming against him? If he is not able to win, then he will send a delegation, having sent an ambassador. By sending a representative he requests terms for peace.
What would Jesus do? He would go on record against people who act in the name of God to hurt others. He'd stand up against crusaders parading with signs that venomously attack and label others. And he'd speak out against those who profit from the oppressed but who claim their God is full of compassion.
So what would Jesus do? He would seek God for the strength and wisdom to make the right decision. The consequences we meet today are a result of the decisions we made yesterday. And the decisions we make today will determine our happiness tomorrow. Notice how Jesus made life-changing decisions.
Jesus chose. The key word in making decisions is to “choose.” We are not what we are today by accident. We are the sum total of all the decisions we have made in our lives, plus those times we did not make decisions. We arrive where we are in life by decisions and non-decisions, and we are responsible for both. Therefore, it makes sense to be like Jesus and control our lives and destinies as much as possible by choosing to choose.
Jesus withdrew. When we make decisions, we have to withdraw. Jesus withdrew from the world so He could spend time in prayer. He went alone to think His way through decisions. He spent time alone in prayer before every major decision or circumstance in His life and ministry on earth. What Jesus did is no different than what we also must do if we are going to made the right decisions in life.
Jesus prayed. If Jesus who was God felt it necessary to spend time in prayer, how can we do otherwise? As we make decisions, we should first of all ask God for the wisdom that He can give (James 1:5).
Jesus obeyed. Jesus said, “A good decision had to be in line with God’s will, which is found in God’s Teachings. We need to study the Scriptures and seek God in prayer to discern Gods will. | <urn:uuid:7b233995-44e0-4dba-8645-f745cd5bdcd5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greeneaster.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973464 | 933 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Videos and Illustrations
26 months Mars is opposite the Sun in our nighttime sky.
Since 1995, Mars has been at such an "opposition"
with the Sun seven times. A color composite from each
of the seven Hubble opposition observations has been assembled
in this mosaic to showcase the beauty and splendor that
is The Red Planet.
mosaic of all seven globes of Mars shows relative variations
in the apparent angular size of Mars over the years. Mars
was the closest in 2003 when it came within 35 million miles
(56 million kilometers) of Earth. The part of Mars that
is tilted towards the Earth also shifts over time, resulting
in the changing visibility of the polar caps. Clouds and
dust storms, as well as the size of the ice caps, can change
the appearance of Mars on time scales of days, weeks, and
months. Other features of Mars, such as some of the large
dark markings, have remained unchanged for centuries.
illustration shows the relative positions of Earth and
Mars at the last seven Martian oppositions from 1995 through
2007. Opposition occurs when the Sun and Mars are on exact
opposite sides of Earth, resulting in a full-phase for
Mars, similar to a full moon. The images of Mars show
the planet's apparent relative size at each opposition,
as viewed by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
Orbits of the inner planets are to scale.
Mosaic and Opposition Illustration by Zolt Levay (STScI) | <urn:uuid:69eb7614-fac1-4479-b8a3-fb196131c644> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://heritage.stsci.edu/2007/45/supplemental.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90421 | 320 | 3.765625 | 4 |
The Odd CarScience brain teasers require understanding of the physical or biological world and the laws that govern it.
A man is driving his car and he sees the car in front of him is leaking a lot of water onto the road from his exhaust pipe. The man signals the driver in front of him to pull over, and then goes up to him and informs the driver his car is leaking. The driver looks at him with a grin and explains.
What is the man's reason that his car is leaking water?
HintLet's say that if the gas prices rose to above ten dollars a litre, he wouldn't be concerned too much.
AnswerThe driver's response is that he drives a hydrogen cell car. This is a new type of car that uses hydrogen to power it, and the exhaust product is water.
See another brain teaser just like this one...
Or, just get a random brain teaser
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of
which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Back to Top | <urn:uuid:608d7783-8e5e-485f-b4b5-f9c48626bc55> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.braingle.com/brainteasers/11084/the-odd-car.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980721 | 223 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Approximately 200,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year and about 30,000 will die of their disease, according to the CDC.
Options including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation can be overwhelming, so how do you choose the right treatment for you? One man found hope after receiving a bleak prognosis.
Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in men today. It surpasses even the number of breast cancer cases diagnosed in women. Now, a non-invasive targeted therapy developed and offered in Sarasota is helping doctors pinpoint the smallest and most difficult to reach tumors with radiation.
When Bruce Scott was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he was told that he had only six to eighteen months to live. That was more than five years ago.
He sought the help of Dr. Michael Dattoli of Dattoli Cancer Center, who customized a plan involving brachytherapy and DART or Dynamic Adaptive Radiation Therapy. DART is a non-invasive treatment that hones in on the tumor while sparing the surrounding healthy tissue. "Your particular plan, your particular map, if you will, for where these beams go is made just for you, and then that map is programmed into a computer," says Scott.
DART technology not only pinpoints the tumor, but stays focused on the target even when it moves within the body.
Scott says there was no pain associated with the actual radiation treatment, and that other than a loss of appetite and some fatigue from the medication there were minimal side effects.
He says that based upon his original diagnosis he wouldn’t be here. His most recent check-up at Dattoli finds him cancer free, and we wish him well. | <urn:uuid:646c0f13-1d4f-4f58-888d-1877ad900350> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/health_smart/new-therapy-for-prostate-cancer/article_46d34498-c325-11e2-be7c-001a4bcf6878.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972403 | 350 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Finding the Y coordinate with the X coordinate
OK so this is a bit confusing to explain for me, so I drew a little diagram:
Say we have someone walking up a hill, but only know:
-Their X coordinate
-The X/Y of the bottom of the hill
-The X/Y of the top of the hill
Could someone give me a little equation to find their Y coordinate?
Sorry if this is painfully obvious, but I do not have a very good math background. Also, sorry if this is in the wrong forum. | <urn:uuid:459040d7-e51a-4285-b481-7eb56c51b882> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/algebra/98005-finding-y-coordinate-x-coordinate-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894198 | 115 | 2.984375 | 3 |
John Milton: Poet, Priest and Prophet
Bold numbers in square brackets mark the beginning of a new page in
the original printed edition of John Milton: Poet, Priest and Prophet
(London: Macmillan, 1979).
Also: At the end of this document there are hypertext links out to other
parts of the book, as well as back to John Spencer Hill's Home Page.
Christopher, Scott, and
[ix] This book began, now nearly a decade ago, as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto. Believing that Milton's sense of divine calling was central to an understanding of much that he wrote, I set out to explore the growth of his vocational awareness and to demonstrate, if I could, how this conviction of special election might provide a conceptual framework for his entire literary production and a background against which to set his several careers as poet, "priest", prophet and pamphleteer. The more familiar I became with his works, the more clear it seemed to me that divine vocation was a unifying theme throughout, although its emphasis changes and it acquires a spiritual and psychological complexity in the later works that is absent in the early material. I was struck by the fact that the early poetry up to and including Lycidas, despite its technical virtuosity and apparent assurance of tone, was tentative and essentially experimental, for Milton was engaged both in defining his role as poet-priest and in practising flight on his fledgling Pegasus. I sensed, too, that the truly decisive events later in his life were less immediately personal than national, less to be associated with his marriage failure and blindness than with his commitment to what he saw as England's divinely ordained destiny and the (consequently) traumatic experience of the Restoration in 1660. From the early 1640s, when he entered the controversy over episcopacy, Milton believed that his private calling was inextricably linked with and subservient to the national mission, and he came progressively to identify himself within the tradition of Old Testament prophecy. Now, for someone who had served for twenty years as the spokesman of national calling and had expended his divinely entrusted talents in the defence of theocratic republicanism, the Restoration made vocational reassessment inevitable; and this reassessment is reflected, I was convinced, in the poems that Milton published in 1667 and 1671. A concern with vocation is omnipresent in the last three poems, and I felt certain that in some [x] way the protagonists in these works--all of whom undergo vocational trials--provided Milton with correlatives for his own experience and enabled him, especially in the cases of Samson and the postlapsarian Adam, to achieve emotional calm and vocational redefinition as he traced in their spiritual growth his own gradual return to divine favour, rising phoenix-like from the smouldering ashes of the Puritan experiment.
Although my view of Milton's career and the place of divine vocation in his works remains substantially unaltered, the final product bears little resemblance in many ways to the original dissertation. While much of the material which appeared in the thesis reappears here, it has been considerably reworked and reorganised. Further reading has often enabled me to sharpen and extend the argument; and, at the same time, I have benefited greatly from the energies of Milton's critics, whose writings over the past ten years have deepened my appreciation of his achievement. I regret that Christopher Hill's Milton and the English Revolution (Faber, 1977) reached me too late to be taken into consideration; it is, I think, an important study, and a knowledge of it would have enabled me to exclude some of the historical material which perhaps makes my third chapter seem now somewhat too digressive.
Like everyone who writes on Milton I am indebted to the Miltonists whose insights form the foundation and much of the superstructure of my own approach. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, it is, I suppose, inevitable that two such critics should be A. S. P. Woodhouse and Arthur E. Barker; but I owe a great deal, too, to such readers as E. M. W. Tillyard, Joseph H. Summers, Barbara K. Lewalski, Stanley E. Fish, Michael Fixler and others whose names appear in the notes at the end of this volume. Still other debts are of a more immediately personal nature. Professor W. J. Barnes of Queen's University (Canada) prompted my initial interest in Milton and helped to focus my early speculations about the role of vocation in the last poems. Professor H. R. MacCallum of the University of Toronto supervised the project as it took shape in the form of a dissertation; his deep understanding of Milton and his benevolent criticism of my work have saved me, both then and since, from innumerable errors of fact and judgement. I am grateful also to several friends and colleagues at the University of Western Australia who graciously set aside their own work to read the typescript at various [xi] stages of its development and to offer their suggestions: Mr D. A. Ormerod, Dr T. H. Gibbons and Dr C. J. Wortham. Special thanks are due to Dr Richard D. Jordan of the University of Melbourne, a friend and fellow Miltonist, who read through much of the final typescript with minute attention; his advice, although I have not always followed it, has been invaluable. My greatest debt, however, is to my family. My wife has experienced the writing of this book along with me and it could never have been completed without her constant sympathy and support; and our children, to whom the work is dedicated, have yielded precedence to Milton with a patience and understanding at which I can only marvel.
Early versions of portions of this book have already appeared in print. Chapters 1 and 2 are based on my paper "Poet-Priest: Vocational Tension in Milton's Early Development" which was published in Milton Studies, ed. James D. Simmonds, VIII (1975), 4I-69. Similarly, Chapter 5 is based on an article entitled "Vocation and Spiritual Renovation in Samson Agonistes" which appeared in Milton Studies, II (I970), 149-74. Finally, I wish to thank the Yale University Press for permission to quote from Complete Prose Works of John Milton, general editor Don M. Wolfe (1953-*), and also Longmans, Green and Co Ltd for permission to quote from The Poems of John Milton, edited by John Carey and Alastair Fowler (1968). For the sonnets, however, I have used Milton's Sonnets, ed. E. A. J. Honigmann (London: Macmillan, 1966).
28 April 1978 | <urn:uuid:12c0fc1d-5615-4f0f-8b9f-20b4383b9bb4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/iemls/postprint/jhill-milt/jm-pref.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974241 | 1,394 | 2.640625 | 3 |
African soil crisis threatens food security, says study
- 4 December 2014
- From the section Science & Environment
Neglecting the health of Africa's soil will lock the continent into a cycle of food insecurity for generations to come, a report has warned.
The publication by the Montpellier Panel said the problem needed to be given a higher priority by aid donors.
It added that soil degradation was also hampering economic development, costing the continent's farmers billions of dollars in lost income.
The study has been published ahead of the 2015 international year of soils.
The Montpellier Panel - made up of agricultural, trade and ecology experts from Europe and Africa - warned that land degradation reduced soil fertility, leading to lower crop yields and increased greenhouse gas emissions.
"In Africa, the impacts are substantial where 65% of arable land, 30% of grazing land and 20% of forests are already damaged," it observed.
Panel chairman Sir Prof Gordon Conway, from Imperial College London, told BBC News: "We spend a lot of time talking about crops and we spend a lot of time talking about livestock. We have big debates about all kinds of agriculture, yet we tend to ignore that it all depends on soils."
He added that recent measurements had shown that soil degradation levels across the continent were very high.
"Serious land degradation [accounts for] about a quarter of land area of sub-Saharan Africa - it is a vast area," he said.
"There are about 180 million people who are living on land that is in some way or another degraded. It is really very severe."
The problem threatened food production in a region that was already experiencing very low crop yields, he explained.
"The average yield in sub-Saharan Africa is about one tonne per hectare. In India, it is about two-and-a-half tonnes, while in China it is more than three tonnes per hectare.
"So in Africa, we have the combination of land degradation, poor yields and a growing population."
Sir Gordon described the issue as a "crisis of land degradation and soil management", adding: "We have got to do something about it".
The panel made a number of recommendations, including:
- Strengthening political support for land management
- Increase financial support for investment in land and soil management
- Attribute a value to land degradation
- Create incentives, especially sure land rights
- Build on existing knowledge and resources
The report said the panel's members believed that soil was the "cornerstone of food security and agricultural development and its care, restoration, enhancement and conservation should intuitively become a major global priority".
Sir Gordon added: "Africa already imports US $40bn worth of food each year, it is an enormous amount. If we do not produce more food in Africa, that will get worse and worse, and the continent will suffer as a result.
"Secondly, if we do not pay attention to land degradation in Africa then the land itself will continue to degrade and that will further reduce the yields we are getting at the moment.
"We know what you have to do to improve the quality of soil, but the big challenge is providing the funds and making sure that there are incentives for farmers.
"Farmers will not invest in their land unless they have land tenure. In many cases, they cannot afford to invest in their land so there needs to be public money available.
"In South-East Asia, the great irrigation schemes that have provided much of the food security in the region were publicly funded." | <urn:uuid:5b2f548f-1ecc-4191-8fad-1f3e9ed2c341> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30277514 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95875 | 734 | 3.21875 | 3 |
“ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH”, Wilfred Owen
The First World War was a military conflict which took place mostly in Europe from 1914 to 1918. It is clear that it left millions dead and shaped the modern world.
There were two powers: the Allied Powers, led by France, Russia, the British Empire, and later, Italy and the United States, and the Central Powers, led by Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire.
World War I created a decisive break with the old world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, which was modified by the mid-19th century’s nationalistic revolutions. The outcomes of World War I would be important factors in the development of World War II 21 years later.
After World War I, a big amount of poets started to write about it. Those poets were called “war poets”, more of whom had been soldiers. So, they wrote about their experiences of the war.
There was probably at least as much poetry written on the German side of the Western Front, but it was in English poetry in which the war poem became an established genre which was highly popular among the population.
One of the most important war poets was Wilfred Owen, together with his friend Siegfried Sassoon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_poets)
So, the First World War produced some of the most gifted and progressive authors, poets and artist of a generation, each channelling their individual and collective experiences into their chosen art form. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/remembrance/poetry/wwone.shtml)
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born the 18th of March 1983 at Plas Wilmot, in Shropshire, of mixed English and Welsh ancestry. After the dead of his grandfather, the family was forced to move to lodgings in the back streets of Birkenhead. He was educated at the Birkenhead Institute and at Shrewsbury Technical School. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_owen)
From the age of nineteen Owen wanted to be a poet and immersed himself in poetry, being especially impressed by Keats and Shelley. But he wrote almost no poetry of importance until he saw action in France in 1917.
On 21st of October 1915 he enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles. He was in training at Hare Hall Camp in Essex during the next seven months. In January 1971 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant with The Manchester Regimen. After some traumatic experiences, which included leading his platoon into battle and getting trapped for three days in shell-hole, Owen was diagnosed as suffering from shell shock and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. It was there where he met his friend Siegfried Sassoon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_owen)
In July of 1918, Owen returned to active service in France, although he might have stayed on home-duty indefinitely. His decision was almost wholly the result of Sassoon’s being sent back to England. Sassoon was violently opposed to the idea of Owen returning to the trenches. Aware of his attitude, Owen did not inform him of his action until he was once again in France. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_owen)
Seven days later the war was over Owen’s parents, Susan and Tom, received the telegram announcing their son’s death as the chuch bells were ringing out in celebration. (http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owena.htm)
As part of his therapy at the hospital, his doctor encouraged him to translate his experiences into poetry. Owen’s most famous poems are “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_owen)
3. “ANTHEM OF THE DOOMED YOUTH”
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
--Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
By: Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
4. ANALYSIS OF THE POEM: “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
Wilfred Owen only published six poem during his life, three of them in “Hydra”, the hospital magazine he edited. So, his reputation grew rapidly after his death, when his friend Sassoon collected and edited his “Poems” in 1920. Among the best known are “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.
Known for his abrasive and heart-wrenching depictions of war, Wilfred Owen is known for going right to the heart of the reader through his poetry to evoke his or her raw emotions. In the poem, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, he once again finds the shortest and most abrupt descriptions he possibly can to describe soldiers being slaughtered on the battlefield. (http://www.warpoetry.co.uk.owena.htm).
He is not only describing his die, but also how they die: with indifference among them. There is no emotion for each man, whose death will also mean little until their bodies are taken home to be laid to rest among their families.
Related to the structure of the poem, we can say that this poem is a variation of the Elizabethan sonnet. Owen has divided the fourteen lines of this sonnet into two stanzas, the break coming at the end of the line 8. As is the case with the Elizabethan sonnets, this poem has ten syllables of iambic pentameters, because there are five feet, and each foot contains a short syllable followed by a long one.
The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFFE /GG, which differs slightly from the classical Elizabethan sonnets, whose rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF / GG. (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soneto#El_soneto_en_lengua_inglesa).
By using a sonnet for the structure of his poem, Wilfred Owen introduces a touch of irony, because the conventional function of the sonnet is love, and this poem is sort of anti-love, I mean, the young soldiers have to spend their time in the trenches. So, their lives are wasted and, overall, the lives of their loved ones at home are also ruined. (http://www.1914-18.co.uk/owen/anthem.htm)
Talking about the tone, we must say that the poet depicts a strong anger at the futility of war, because he is an anti-war poet.
If we read the poem, we can observe that in the first octet Owen makes a catalogue of the sound of war, the weapons of destructions such as “guns” (line 2), “rifles” (line 3) and “shells” (line 7), which are linked to religious imagery such as “orisons” (line 4), “bells” (line 5), “prayers” (line 5). In contrast, in the second stanza the poem talks about the other side of a war: the families of those who die in the war.
As we have said before, Wilfred Owen is an anti-war poet, since he is suffering from being in the first line of the trenches. So, his aim is to show through the use of shock images how inhuman war is. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_owen)
We can see these grotesque images, for example, in the first line, when he makes a simile showing how the soldiers are no more important than cattle which are lead to the slaughter without felling (“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”).
Throughout the poem, Wilfred Owen uses a lot of comparisons, one of these is the simile between a typical funeral in a church and what would happen to a soldier killed in battle (http://www.warpoetry.co.uk.owena.htm). For example, he compares the church bells with the noise of a gun-fire; the prayers with the rapid rifle fire; the choirs with the wailing of shells; the candles head by altar boys with the lights of the sky reflected in the dead eyes of the soldiers…
Related to the title, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, we have to say that it is definitely ironic on using the juxtaposition of “anthem”, which is associated with praise and triumph, with “doomed”, which means certain demise.
In my opinion, through doing this, Owen shocks the reader and introduces them into the theme of the poem, the death of soldiers, and gets the audience to question themselves the war. Moreover, I think that the word “youth” accentuates his message of the wrong of the war.
Wilfred Owen uses various literary devices through this poem. Firstly, the title itself has a significant use of assonance: “doomed youth”. In my opinion, the sound is intended to be long and melancholic. Secondly, repetition is used in the poem to make it seem monotonous. Finally, by using personification, Owen makes the enemies’ guns seem evil and monstrous. I think that this can cause us to feel some of the emotions felt in the trenches.
Related to the final couplet, its syntax implies that this “drawing-down of blinds” (line 14), along with the “tenderness of patient minds” (line 13) stands in place of the flowers that would adorn a funeral or a grave, and flowers, like blinds, close as night falls. This silent grieving stands in stark contrast with the noise and violence of the battlefield not only in mood but also in meaning: instead of representing a poor parody of the rites of burial, this grieving transcends more outward observance, replacing ritual with a deeply felt and lasting interior observance.
After World War I, a big amount of poets started to write about it. Those poets were called “war poets”, more of whom had been soldiers. So, they wrote about their experiences of the war. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_poets)
One of the most important war poets was Wilfred Owen, whose most important poems are “Dulce et Decorum est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”. Wilfred Owen was an anti-war poet, since he had been suffering from being in the first lines of the trenches. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_poets)
So, in the poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, Wilfred Owen asks what burial rites will be offered for the soldiers who die on the battlefields of World War I and argues that in place of normal funeral, these men will receive, initially, a parody of funeral rites, encated by noise of guns, and later the more authentic rites of mourning supplied by the enduring grief of a family and friends at home.
To end this essay about the poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, I want to give my opinion. I didn’t know that poem, and when I found it on the internet I thought that my essay had to be about it. It is a very beautiful and sentimental poem. In my opnion Wilfred Owen was one of the doomed youth he speas of in this poem, because he survived through for years of World War I to be killed during the last week of the war.
So, I recommend that poem to everyone, because it concentrates very well on the horror of war and especially in the death of young men on the front line. Moreover, all that is said through this poem, is true! | <urn:uuid:1892fc44-98d4-4321-a530-252c90439c0c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mural.uv.es/horpla/owen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967124 | 2,702 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Danish architecture student Konrad Wójcik has come up with a very modern and unique way for people to live in the suburbs of large cities, with minimal impact on the natural habitat. At the heart of his so-called “Primeval Symbiosis” plan are tree shaped houses that have a tiny footprint and very little environmental impact on the forests where they could be built. In his design, he drew inspiration from trees and the way animals use them as shelters. His tree houses are powered by renewable energy, while they also fertilize soil, clean the air, provide shade, and have natural ventilation.
The houses Wójcik proposes are pine shaped and stand on a tree trunk-like pillar high above the ground. One side of such a house would be covered in solar panels to produce all the needed power for the home. The homes would also be equipped with a heat pump, which takes in energy from the ground. The planned houses would also be fitted with a bio-digester, which would turn waste on site into even more energy. The pine shaped living area would also be fitted with large windows to let in huge amounts of natural light and minimize the need for electric light, as well as let in plenty of fresh air.
The frame of the homes Wójcik proposes would be built solely from wood, engineered in a way to be able to support the entire house. Since his main goal was sustainable and environmentally friendly design, he decided to not use any steel or cement in the construction process. The timber pole used to support the house and raise it above the ground would be able to bear the entire weight of the house. The entire home can also be recycled once it is no longer needed.
Each of Wójcik’s houses would be comprised of four tiny floors and is designed to be occupied by two people, though up to four occupants could fit inside. The interior of the home, such as furniture and walls, would be constructed from reusable materials. While the tiny houses would make for great vacation homes, they could also serve as regular homes for environmentally conscious individuals.
Part of Wójcik’s novel plan is to locate these homes in forests near big cities, so that they could form a sort of sustainable suburb. He imagines the homes to be placed in the forests with enough distance between the units to give the occupants a sense of privacy. According to Wójcik, the biggest challenge to building a community of such houses is not the engineering, but finding a way to fit all the needed sustainability features onto such a small space. He’s currently looking for a developer to help him bring his vision to life. | <urn:uuid:9d470615-7fd7-4e92-bbbc-d6ec1f3e12f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jetsongreen.com/2014/03/homes-existing-as-one-with-nature.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982915 | 552 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.