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Estherville Mayor Kenny Billings has announced the city's designated day and hours for this year's observance of Halloween's Trick or Treat will be 5:30-7:30 p.m., Tuesday,?Oct. 30.
City residents wanting to treat costumed beggars with goodies need to turn on the front porch light during the two-hour event. Parents are reminded to accompany their children to ensure a safe and enjoyable evening.


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My wife and I ate at a nice, swanky restaurant recently.
We felt like we were eating food that could be served on the Food Network. Which is a far stretch from what we normally eat. I learned what amuse bouche is (I had a pan-seared sea scallop with a slice of grapefruit, in warm vanilla sauce). I had rillette and risotto…both of which I had to Google to know what they were. The food was unbelievably good.
And as impressed as we were with the food, we were equally impressed with the service. 5 things stood out:
- We made our reservations online. We'd never made online reservations for a restaurant before, but this process was incredibly easy. We felt served even before we arrived at the restaurant.
- Our waitress was cross-trained. She served our food, and could also talk us through the complimentary flavors, the local farms where they purchase their meat, and the precise way that each of our dishes was prepared.
- Our waitress wasn't our only server…when we needed something, any server walking by would attend to our needs.
- I got up to use the restroom, and when I returned, my napkin was refolded and placed back on top of the table.
- The chef was feeling generous, and gave us a free tasting of his newest soup.
In short, it felt like the whole evening was about serving us, like we were truly honored guests. And shouldn't we be treated guests like that on Sunday morning in our churches? Do we really offer that same level of service? Because there are lessons to be learned here, whether your church is strong or weak when it comes to your Sunday morning experience.
Principles for serving on Sundays
- Look for ways to surprise your guests with generosity. We paid a lot for our meal, but the fact that we felt served made us think less about the cost, and more about the experience. And if "time is money," then the people visiting your churches are "paying" a lot. Make it worth their time.
- Cross-train your volunteers and staff members. Our waitress cared about our entire experience, not just getting her tip. And healthy team members know that, while their area of service may be primary for them, there's a lot more that goes into a given person's experience on Sundays than just their one area.
- Serve relentlessly and creatively. The whole refolding-the-napkin-when-I-go-to-the-bathroom trick was awesome. And it only took them 10 seconds. But it took intentionality. All of their servers had to keep an eye out for people who stood up to leave their table. And that's what it's going to take to serve people on Sundays, too.
- Prepared in advance to serve well. Serving with this level of class takes planning. It doesn't just happen naturally. You, as staff and leaders, must plan ahead if you want your teams to serve well. Brainstorming, dreaming, and mapping out action plans, is key if you want your guests to feel honored.
- Know that Sundays aren't the first, or last, impression. Our experience may have technically started when we arrived at the restaurant, but it certainly didn't start, or end, there. Taking this into account is important as you're thinking through the message your church is conveying in your community and online.
Think, "What would this look and feel like for a first-time guest?" Let that question propel you to creatively brainstorm with your team.
We've become raving fans of this restaurant.
Are you creating raving fans of your church?
What are you doing to creatively serve your guests?

subset: commoncrawl


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Statement by Attorney General Gregg Renkes
October 4, 2004
Thank you all for being here today. I appreciate the opportunity to speak publicly about matters of concern that have been raised regarding my dealings with companies involved in the development of Alaska's resources.
Today I plan to address the issues that have been raised regarding my involvement with companies that propose to develop the Cook Inlet coal fields in concert with the Taiwanese government. I will also detail the actions I have taken from the very beginning of serving with this administration to disclose my interest in resource development companies in my investment portfolio.
I believe I have been in full compliance with the law and the spirit of the law. When I was appointed Attorney General, in the very first filing of my financial statement required under state law, I disclosed my interest in KFx, as well as other financial interests.
And, every month, I am also required, as a Trustee of Alaska's Permanent Fund, to report any change in my investments. I have willingly and openly reported all of my fmancial interests. I have here with me a copy of my first APOC filing showing my disclosure of my interest in KFx.
So, from the very beginning, I have filed regular APOC reports and monthly disclosures as well.
In addition, I assigned day-to-day responsibility for managing my investment portfolio to a local investment broker in Juneau in order to further distance myself from day-to-day management of my financial affairs.
I was aware of my ownership of KFx stock, even though I had delegated investment decisions to my portfolio manager.
I knew that I could not take any official action which could affect any financial interest in that stock.
Therefore, before providing any assistance to the Governor's Office of International Trade concerning Taiwan's interest in Alaska coal, I disclosed to the Director of the Office of International Trade that I had a potential conflict and drew a line that I could not and did not go beyond. I made it clear to the Director, that in order to avoid any conflict-of-interest, I could not direct, approve or take any official action that might benefit KFx and I did not.
At best, it is conjectural that I could receive any fmancial benefit from the assistance I provided the Director of International Trade. I am comfortable that my involvement in very preliminary government-togovernment trade discussions did not violate the ethics act nor compromise the integrity of the office to which I have been appointed. I believed this when I was asked by the Governor to provide assistance and I believe this now.
Let me give you a little history.
I have worked with Governor Murkowski for 18 years to encourage the development of Alaska's energy resources. I served the Governor while he was Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as Staff Director. In that role I became intimately familiar with Alaska's abundance of resources that could potentially meet the energy needs of countries around the world- especially in the Pacific Rim. In fact, 18 years ago I made a presentation on Alaska's coal at the Pacific Rim Coal Conference in Beijing, China.
After leaving public employment for the private sec t~r in 1998, I was asked by KFx to serve on their technical advisory board. That led to my working as a consultant for the company starting in 1998.
Governor Murkowski has a long history of promoting Alaska trade with Asia and has been a staunch supporter of the developing democracy in Taiwan. This relationship led to the first visit of Taiwan's president to Alaska last October. During that visit the President of Taiwan and the Governor discussed the possibility of Alaska becoming a stable and secure supplier of coal to Taiwan. They discussed the vast Cook Inlet reserves and their potential for development. The Taiwanese were concerned about the quality of the coal resource, indicating that in the past they had determined that the low-energy quality of the coal prohibited its use in Taiwan. The Governor told the Taiwanese that he believed that a technology had been developed that could improve the quality of the coal.
The President of Taiwan offered to send a delegation of Taiwan utility officials to Alaska to learn more about Alaska's coal resources and the technology. The Governor assigned the responsibility for arranging the delegation's visit to his Director of International Trade. Because of my knowledge of Cook Inlet coal resources and my prior experience with KFx technology while I was in the public and the private sectors, the Govemor asked me to assist the director with the delegation's visit and un-guing lrade discussions.
So where are we now?
Let me now describe actions that I will take immediately to cure any potential conflict-of-interest and to ensure that there are no potential conflicts of interest in the future.
First, I am directing my investment counselor to divest all of my stock holdings in KFx. Further, I will donate to charity any profits that may have accrued to my account while in my current job. Therefore I will have received zero - zero- financial benefit from my investments in this company during my service as a ttorney general.
I have also directed that all of my investments be placed in a blind trust where they shall remain during my service as a public official in the Murkowski government. What that does is it removes from me any knowledge, participation or control of my investments.
Second, l asked the Governor, and he has agreed, to remove me from any responsibility or any activity that involves these companies.
Third, as you know I asked the Govemor on Friday to go beyond the administration to seek outside counsel to review and evaluate my actions. l believe this process will remove any lingering doubt about my actions in my capacity as Attomey General. It is absolutely essential that the integrity of the Attorney General's office be preserved and maintained, and this process does just that.
On Friday, when I spoke to the media about the press conference being held today, I indicated that I would take questions. I was informed on Sunday that Governor Murkowski has already named outside counsel and the process for review has already begun. Therefore I a.m unable, and prudence would dictate, that I make no further statements or answer questions that deal with matters under review until such time as counsel completes the process and releases the report to the public.
I appreciate your time here today and I am eager for the expeditious conclusion of this process. I remain convinced that any of the public's questions will be fully addressed and all concerns satisfied. Thank you very much.
# # #


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SAG-AFTRA mourns the passing of former SAG National Board member Fern Persons, who died Sunday in Denver. Persons would have been 102 on July 27.
A working actress all of her life, Persons joined AFTRA on Dec. 5, 1937, and was the fifth member of the SAG Chicago Branch when she joined on August 31, 1953. She was elected to the Chicago Branch Council in 1962 and served for 44 years until 2006, when she stepped down only because she could no longer drive. She also served more than 30 years on the AFTRA Chicago Local Board. Persons was elected to the SAG National Board in 1976, and served on that body until 1998. During that time, from 1977-81, she was elected SAG 5th national vice president. She served as a SAG Regional Branch Division representative on TV/Theatrical and Commercials negotiating committees throughout the 1980s and intermittently through the 1990s.
Finally, as co-chair of the Chicago AFTRA/SAG Seniors Committee from 1984 to 2003, Persons spearheaded many projects designed to increase employment opportunities for senior members. She was the force behind the creation of the AFTRA/SAG Senior Radio Players in 1996, which continues to this day in Chicago as the SAG-AFTRA Senior Radio Players.
Because of Persons' decades of union leadership and contributions to the lives of Chicago actors and broadcasters, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared July 27, 1999 Fern Persons Day. Persons was honored in 2006 with the AFTRA Founders Award and, in 2009, she was awarded SAG's prestigious Howard Keel Award. This past May, Persons donated $100,000 to Chicago's Kaufherr Members Resource Center endowment fund. In appreciation, the KMRC video suite was renamed The Fern Persons Video Suite.


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Atlantic Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Announces Two Patent Issuances for Its Tamper-Resistant Pharmaceutical Platform
ATLANTA, Dec. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlantic Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced that new patents have been issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) relating to its tamper-resistant SMART/Script™ drug delivery platform. U.S. Patent Nos. 8,187,636 and 8,349,362 contain claims that cover Atlantic's proprietary tamper-resistant platform which are designed to resist dose dumping of orally delivered opioids and may sequester and reduce drug release of a drug that has been subjected to a variety of physical methods of tampering. The technology can be applied to immediate as well as sustained release drug candidates.
"We believe SMART/Script™ is a unique technology that may have a significant effect on prescription drug abuse and misuse," said Anthony Soscia, President of Atlantic Pharmaceuticals. "These patents further add to our intellectual property portfolio and provide us with extensive coverage until 2028 for our novel, tamper-resistant technology."
About SMART/Script™
SMART/Script™ (SMART, Simple, controllable, resistant, insoluble, physical trap), a novel, patented drug delivery platform, was designed to prevent easy drug extraction and to deter the abuse of medications via known routes of abuse, including chewing, snorting, and injecting. Orally delivered tamper-prone pharmaceuticals are frequently subjected to abuse and misuse via chewing and swallowing or crushing and either snorting or injecting the resultant powdered drug. A product formulated with SMART/Script™ however, resists dose dumping in water or alcohol and can be used with a broad range of opioids and non-opioids in immediate or extended release forms. SMART/Script™ is also unique among competitive technologies in that physical tampering of the dosage form may reduce the release rate of the drug from the dosage when subject to certain forms of physical tampering as opposed to increasing it.
About Atlantic Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Atlantic Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company using its patented technology to produce novel therapeutics that resist attempts at tampering and may be useful to reduce abuse of certain prescription drugs. Based on the Company's proprietary technology, SMART/Script™, Atlantic is developing a pipeline of tamper-resistant opioids that are nearing pivotal testing.
The Company's lead SMART/Script™ candidate, ATLP-02, is an immediate release formulation of oxycodone that is in development and will be covered by the issued patents. In addition, these patents will also cover other product candidates being formulated using the SMART/Script™ technology. The Company finalized a Pre-Investigational New Drug Meeting with the FDA in March of 2011 for ATLP-02. SMART/Script™ has also been recognized as a leading technology that may potentially decrease tampering with medication by the Center for Lawful Access and Abuse Deterrence. Please visit atlanticpharma.com for more information.
Anthony Soscia,
This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.
SOURCE Atlantic Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Web Site: http://atlanticpharma.com
Posted: December 2012


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|Cochrane, Alberta
|High School:
As a Sophomore in 2002-03: Received the Sixth Player Award as she provided the Bears a spark off the bench...Played in 23 games, starting 8...Fifth on the team in scoring with 7.4 per game and third in rebounding with 4.2 per contest...Scored a career-high 22 points and a career-high ten rebounds versus Penn on 2/15...Posted ten boards against Drake on 11/30 as well...Helped led the team to a 71-66 victory over Columbia on 2/1, netting a team-high 18 points on 7-12 shooting.
As a Freshman in 2001-02: Played in 25 of 27 games contributing valuable minutes off the bench as a backup center...Averaged 3.3 points and 2.7 rebounds per game...Recorded a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds in a heartbreaking 58-56 loss at Cornell (1/11/02)...Posted 9 points and 8 rebounds at Rhode Island (11/20/01).
High School: A graduate of Cochrane High School...Lettered in basketball all four years...Also lettered in volleyball, track and badminton...Named Athlete of the Year at Cochrane High her freshman and senior years...Member of Alberta juvenile women's basketball team her junior year and Alberta junior team as a senior...Invited to All-Canada Nike Camp as a sophomore and junior...Scored 42 points in a game her junior year...Averaged 22.9 points and 12.9 rebounds per game her senior year...Played for the Alberta Junior women's basketball team. In 2001...Provincial Champion in shot put and discus as a junior and senior...Four-year honor roll student.
Personal: Holly Elizabeth Robertson, daughter of Patrick and Della Robertson...Has two sisters Heather (25) and Robyn (23)...Named to the Canadian Women's University Team, competing in the World University Games in Daegu, Korea in the summer of 2003...Concentrating in Human Biology.
Career Highs:
Points: : 27, vs. Harvard (2/28/04)
Rebounds: 11, vs. Cornell (1/11/02)
Assists: 2, vs. Dartmouth (2/27/04)
Steals: 2, two times
Blocks: 3, nine times
2003-2004 Season Highs:
Points: 27, vs. Harvard (2/28/04)
Rebounds: 10, three times
Assists: 2, vs. Dartmouth (2/27/04)
Steals: 2, two times
Blocks: 3, five times


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Europe and Israel: Will It Get Worse?
Seth Mandel
European foreign ministries are still reacting furiously to the Israeli government's preliminary zoning steps in what is known as the E-1 corridor around Jerusalem. It is unlikely that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning to move the project, initiated by Yitzhak Rabin, any closer than that to actually putting a shovel in the ground. In all likelihood, Netanyahu was simply sending a signal in the ongoing tussle over symbolic declarations of sovereignty.
European governments profoundly misunderstand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Mideast in general, and they may have misinterpreted a signal for a plan of action. But their overreaction was followed by even more overreaction, and threats of more to come. Haaretz reports:
"I don't think there is enthusiasm around the European Union…about economic sanctions in Europe on Israel. I don't believe there would be anywhere near a consensus nor is that our approach. We continue to try to bring both sides back to negotiations," [British Foreign Secretary William] Hague said.
"Nevertheless, if there is no reversal of the decision that has been announced, we will want to consider what further steps European countries should take," he said.
I don't know what Hague would officially consider a "reversal," and I don't think he does either. But it's interesting to know that the Ehud Olmert peace plan crosses the EU's red line. As Jonathan wrote, Olmert's peace plan also called for Israel to keep E-1 and Ma'ale Adumim (plus some area around it) and to connect Ma'ale Adumim securely to Jerusalem. But just as the EU probably doesn't know what it means by a "reversal" of the zoning decision, perhaps it doesn't know that every Israeli government supports Israeli sovereignty over E-1.
Does the E-1 controversy mean Israel's red lines and Europe's red lines are incompatible? It seems that way, and that's a larger problem than a spat over settlements. Some clarity on the part of European leaders would probably help, rather than summoning Israeli ambassadors for a tongue lashing every time Netanyahu does something that his predecessors did too. The Guardian's Ian Black agrees. He took to the pages of his newspaper to whack Israel over the issue and encourage European leaders to outline their own vision for peace.
What would such a plan look like? Unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose), Black doesn't say. He seems to hint at support for sanctions, but the result of his column is a demand for more vague threats. You'll notice that the common denominator between Black and the eurocrats he criticizes is that they both equate "peace" with punishing Israel.
But, contra Ian Black, the EU may have offered all the clarity Israel needed here. No peace plan that would be acceptable to the Israeli people would be acceptable to the EU. That's something for Netanyahu to keep in mind (though he probably doesn't have to be reminded to) as he is told repeatedly by those looking to save Israel from itself to mollify the Europeans. He cannot. The question going forward is how hard he'll try.


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CAIR pressures National Review to nix ads
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Posted: 01 April 2005 at 6:35am
CAIR pressures National Review to nix ads
A controversial Muslim lobby group pressured a leading conservative magazine to remove its Internet sale of two books about the Islamic prophet Muhammad, calling the titles "virulently anti-Muslim" and "Islamophobic."
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations – which has seen three of its former employees indicted on federal terrorism charges – said National Review's decision to stop selling "The Life and Religion of Mohammed" and "The Sword of the Prophet" came after hundreds of concerned Muslims contacted the magazine and the Boeing Co., one of the magazine's advertisers.
"We would like to thank all those who took the time to contact both National Review and Boeing to defend Islam and the Prophet Muhammad from defamation," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.
In its lobby campaign, CAIR complained that the promo National Review posted for "The Life and Religion of Mohammed" said the book exposes "the ugly truth about the founder of the world's most violent religion."
The promo touts the book as a "guide into the dark mind of Mohammed." It says the author "explains why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet, and reveals the true sources of his 'revelations.'"
The author of the book, according to the review, writes, "Mohammed posed as the apostle of God ... while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God's holy name to sanction his evil deeds. ... Mohammed again and again justified his rapine and licentiousness with new 'divine revelations.'"
The other book, "The Sword of the Prophet," is described as, "What Muslims, multiculturalists, and the media hope you never find out about Islam." The magazine's review claims the book "gives us the unvarnished, 'politically incorrect' truth about Islam -- including the shocking facts about its founder, Mohammed; its rise through bloody conquest; its sanctioning of theft, deceit, lust and murder."
Awad sent a letter to Boeing CEO James A. Bell, saying, "I would therefore respectfully request that Boeing address the concerns of Muslims worldwide by withdrawing its advertising support from a magazine that actively promotes anti-Muslim hate."
CAIR explained that Boeing had a full back-page ad in the latest issue of National Review and recently accounced delivery of the first two Boeing 777-300ER airplanes to Emirates Airlines, the official carrier of the Muslim Gulf state, United Arab Emirates.
Scholar and author of books about Islam and terrorism, Robert Spencer, said in a column for FrontPage Magazine that he wrote the ad for "The Life and Religion of Mohammed."
"CAIR's campaign was revealing of what CAIR wants Americans to know -- and not to know -- about Islam and Muhammad," Spencer said.
He believes CAIR "did succeed in intimidating NR into withdrawing the book, along with Serge Trifkovic's 'Sword of the Prophet.'"
Spencer wrote on his weblog Jihad Watch, however, that after a discussion with National Review editor Rich Lowry, he "can see how this might not be a straight capitulation."
"It is important sometimes to choose one's battles, and although NR and I might not always agree about which battles to fight and which ones to let go by, I respect the good work they have done in raising awareness of jihad terror, and am confident they will do more in the future," Spencer said.
Spencer pointed out he did not write the ad copy for "The Life and Religion of Mohammed" for National Review. He said he received no remuneration from sales of the book by National Review or anyone else.
"My stand on this issue was not motivated by anything but annoyance at the fact that CAIR is trying to demonize truth-tellers about Islam," he said.
Spencer noted that CAIR's Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper fumed about "The Life and Religion of Mohammed," saying "this anti-Muslim screed is the literary equivalent of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and should not be promoted by a publication that has any sense of decency. The National Review must clarify its position on Islamophobic hate speech and offer a public apology for promoting a book that so viciously attacks the faith of one-fifth of the world's population." Hooper added that "anti-Muslim rhetoric often leads to discrimination and even violence."
But Spencer contends the book is not "anti-Muslim hate literature," noting it was written more than 80 years ago by Fr. J. L. Menezes, a Roman Catholic priest who served as a missionary in India.
"I have read it, and there is nothing inflammatory or inciteful in it; in fact, it is suffused with a pastoral love for Muslims," Spencer said.
Spencer argued: "The author, as a Christian priest, obviously did not accept Muhammad's claim to be a prophet. If it is Islamophobic hate literature for a book to explain 'why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet,' then the Christian faith itself is Islamophobic and hateful."
The book doesn't say anything false about Muhammad, Spencer maintains, noting that everything reported about his life comes from Muslim sources.
"CAIR may differ with Fr. Menezes's assessment of this material, but it can't very well deny its existence," Spencer said. "Muslim apologists try to justify Muhammad's marriages, battles, and killings in various ways, but it would be the height of chutzpah to deny they took place at all. Would CAIR, in contrast, paint for us a picture of Muhammad the Rotarian?"
Spencer added, "Now that CAIR has succeeded in intimidating NR into silence and getting them to drop this book, it will be a victory for those who don't want Americans to know the uncomfortable details about Muhammad that are in the book. Unfortunately, however, jihad terrorists around the world today know these elements of the life of Muhammad quite well, and are imitating them. Ignorance of them on the part of Americans will only make us more vulnerable."
As WorldNetDaily reported, CAIR recently succeeded in convincing Fox television to air a disclaimer along with an episode of the series "24," which breaks current entertainment-media convention by depicting terrorists as Muslims.
CAIR said it sent representatives to meet Jan. 12 with network officials because it was concerned that the series' portrayal of a Muslims family as a terrorist "sleeper cell" may "cast a shadow of suspicion over ordinary American Muslims and could increase Islamophobic stereotyping and bias."
Edited by Angel
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text:
Nelson Mandela Passes Away At 95-Years-Old
The Associated Press reports that Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black President and the leader of the opposition against apartheid has passed away.
South Africa's President made the live television announcement.
R.I.P. to one of our world's most inspirational leaders.
One of the commendable things to note about Mandela for a publication like Instinct: Nelson Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 and led the fight for freedom, justice and equality. With the 1996 constitution, South Africa was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, and in 2010 South Africa was the fifth country in the world, and the first in Africa, to legalize same-sex marriage.
"A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity" - Nelson Mandela


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Syrian warplanes bomb Damascus suburbs
By The Associated Press
This article was published November 21, 2012 at 8:05 a.m.
BEIRUT Syrian warplanes bombed Damascus suburbs and rebel-held areas in the country's north Wednesday as the government blasted the European Union for endorsing a newly formed opposition coalition.
The raids struck several eastern suburbs of the Syrian capital and the strategic northern city of Maaret al-Numan, a key supply route linking Damascus and the commercial hub of Aleppo, said two activist groups.
Both the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees also reported violence elsewhere in Syria.
The state-run news agency, SANA, said the army continued its pursuit of "terrorists" — a government term for rebel fighters — in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen, inflicting casualties on the enemy. The report also said that attackers targeted a mosque in Daraya suburb.
Syria's conflict broke out in March 2011 with an uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts. The crisis has since morphed into a civil war, with scores of rebel groups across the country fighting government troops. Nearly 40,000 people have been killed in the 20 months of unrest, according to activists.
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Thursday , March 06, 2014 - 11:56 AM
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — The decades-long rift that separated Little League Baseball's founder from his beloved program once seemed as wide as the distance from home plate to straightaway center field.
Those differences appear to have finally been put to rest.
More than 20 years after the death of founder Carl Stotz, his family has loaned artifacts to Little League's museum that tell stories of how the most well-known youth sports organizations in the world came to be.
The first home plate, hand-carved by Stotz out of a piece of black rubber, used in the first Little League in 1939. The first catcher's mask. The first first-base bag, sewn by Stotz's sister.
"I don't know if you can ever fully say that you're healed from something that has lasted so long," Little League president Stephen Keener said last week at a news conference announcing the new additions at the museum in South Williamsport. "What I would say is that we have a terrific relationship today with the Stotz family."
A relationship slowly repaired especially over the last 15 years. A statue of Stotz was dedicated in 2001 on the grounds of the sprawling Little League complex, which is home to the World Series each August.
Keener called the family's loan of memorabilia, and the museum exhibit, an important step.
"We've certainly come a long way," he said.
Stotz's daughter, Karen Stotz Myers, represented the family in announcing the exhibit at the renovated museum, which is scheduled to re-open in June. "I know that my father was really not bitter," she said. "His main goal in his whole life was that boys get a chance to play baseball, and that happened."
It certainly did.
According to Little League, more than 30 million people in more than 100 countries have played small ball. More than 170,000 teams just started swinging the bats this season.
It began with an idea by Stotz 75 years ago. The first pitch for the very first league was thrown the following summer on June 6, 1939, on a dusty diamond in Williamsport. Out of that first game, Little League grew in popularity.
With that popularity grew a need for financing. Little League became incorporated in the late 1940s, with a board of directors, legally taking it out of Stotz's hands.
Simmering differences about the direction of the program came to a boil after Peter J. McGovern, a U.S. Rubber executive from Detroit, took over as the organization's president in 1952.
A messy split spilled into the courts. Stotz severed ties with Little League in 1956, returning to his very first league — though a court order prohibited him from using the term "Little League" anymore. In the book, "Play Ball!" written by now-Little League vice president Lance Van Auken, Stotz Myers said her father settled out of court because he didn't want to drag his friends into the legal entanglement.
Stotz, who later went on to serve as a tax collector, stayed in Williamsport, where he raised his family. He had many loyal, local supporters and hard feelings in the community lingered for decades.
While Stotz Myers said the rift did affect the family.
"For many years, Little League didn't acknowledge that he was the founder," Stotz Myers said after the museum news conference. "When my children started to play Little League (locally) their friends told them they were liars when they said (Stotz) started Little League."
Stotz died in 1992. A new era of goodwill seemingly started in the late 1990s after current president Keener struck up a relationship with the family. At about the same time, Little League, which was now headquartered across the Susquehanna River in South Williamsport, was considering doubling its field for the World Series from eight to 16 teams, and building a second stadium.
Plans were made to erect a statue to honor Stotz. Though he never visited the current home of the World Series in South Williamsport, his wife, Grayce Stotz, dedicated the statue at the complex in 2001. Mrs. Stotz died in 2006.
Then, Little League decided to renovate its museum two years ago. In talking with Little League, Stotz Myers thought it was an appropriate time to share items in her father's collection with the museum.
The room where Stotz's memorabilia will be on display includes a black-and-white picture of Stotz, in front of a microphone at an on-field ceremony, with the caption: "The sole founder of Little League shapes the program."
Grayce Stotz is honored too for her contributions to Little League. Among other items to be displayed include a whistle used by Stotz to call the first tryouts, and an early drawing of Little League's keystone emblem.
Stotz Myers credited Keener and Van Auken with taking proactive roles in promoting her father's legacy.
"Seeing the home plate, the base," she said, "reminds me of how much Little League was, and still is, a family affair."
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Flu Season
ONU Health Center Hours
Sunday 3 p.m. - 11 p.m.
Monday - Thursday 7:30 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Friday 7:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Closed on Saturday
This year's flu season has been severe and according to the Center For Disease control, may not yet have peaked. The following information is provided by the CDC inform and educate the public on the influenza virus. Students who feel as though they may have the flu are encouraged to contact the ONU Health Center.
What is influenza (also called flu)?
The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat and lungs. It can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death. The best way to prevent the flu is by getting a flu vaccine each year.
Signs and symptoms of flu
People who have the flu often feel some or all of these signs and symptoms:
- Fever* or feeling feverish/chills
- Cough
- Sore throat
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Muscle or body aches
- Headaches
- Fatigue (very tired)
- Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.
*It's important to note that not everyone with flu will have a fever.
How flu spreads
Most experts believe that flu viruses spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby. Less often, a person might also get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth, eyes or possibly their nose. It is very important to wash your hands often with soap and warm water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Period of contagiousness
You may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick. Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning one day before symptoms develop and up to five to seven days after becoming sick. Some people, especially young children and people with weakened immune systems, might be able to infect others for an even longer time.
How serious is the flu?
Flu is unpredictable and how severe it is can vary widely from one season to the next depending on many things, including:
- what flu viruses are spreading,
- how much flu vaccine is available
- when vaccine is available
- how many people get vaccinated, and
- how well the flu vaccine is matched to flu viruses that are causing illness.
Certain people are at greater risk for serious complications if they get the flu. This includes older people, young children, pregnant women and people with certain health conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), and persons who live in facilities like nursing homes.
Flu seasons are unpredictable and can be severe. Over a period of 30 years, between 1976 and 2006, estimates of flu-associated deaths in the United States range from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people.
Complications of flu
Complications of flu can include bacterial pneumonia, ear infections, sinus infections, dehydration, and worsening of chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure, asthma or diabetes.
Preventing seasonal flu: Get vaccinated
The single best way to prevent the flu is to get a flu vaccine each season. The ONU Health Center is still administering flu vaccinations.
About two weeks after vaccination, antibodies develop that protect against influenza virus infection. Flu vaccines will not protect against flu-like illnesses caused by non-influenza viruses. The seasonal flu vaccine protects against the three influenza viruses that research suggests will be most common.
When to get vaccinated against seasonal flu
Yearly flu vaccination should begin in September, or as soon as vaccine is available, and continue throughout the flu season which can last as late as May. This is because the timing and duration of flu seasons vary. While flu season can begin early as October, most of the time seasonal flu activity peaks in January, February or later.
Who should get vaccinated?
Everyone 6 months and older should get a flu vaccine each year. This recommendation has been in place since February 24, 2010 when CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted for "universal" flu vaccination in the U.S. to expand protection against the flu to more people. While everyone should get a flu vaccine each flu season, it's especially important that certain people get vaccinated either because they are at high risk of having serious flu-related complications or because they live with or care for people at high risk for developing flu-related complications.
If you have questions about whether you should get a flu vaccine, consult your health care provider.


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The scene on the ground is "utter pandemonium." People are dying out there, and we still don't know what we are fighting. The new trailer for XCOM: Enemy Unknown from Firaxis shows off the need to train good soldiers to keep your team's casualties to a minimum.
You'll be able to take command of your forces on October 9 on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but keep in mind that the turn-based perspective won't be quite as riveting as the flashy action you see in the trailer. The gameplay, however, should be just as intense.
BOOM video 13665


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Fuller Seminary Celebrates Presidential Inauguration of Dr. Mark Labberton
PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Fuller Seminary, one of the world's largest multi-denominational seminaries, celebrates the inauguration of new president, Dr. Mark Labberton, Wednesday, November 6th, at First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.
A luncheon on the Fuller campus includes a welcome to Mark and Janet Labberton from Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard. An afternoon academic symposium at First United Methodist Church, "Windows on the Church in the World: A U.S. and Global Panel" features world-renowned Christian leaders.
The fifth president in the evangelical seminary's 66-year history, Dr. Labberton has served at Fuller since 2009 as the Lloyd John Ogilvie Associate Professor of Preaching. Prior to Fuller, Dr. Labberton served for 16 years as senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, CA.
Dr. Labberton earned a Master of Divinity degree at Fuller, and a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Cambridge, England. A frequent lecturer and preacher throughout the world, Labberton has authored: First Things: A Theology of the World, the Church, the Pastor, and the Sermon (2013); The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor: Seeing Others Through the Eyes of Jesus (2010) and The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice (2007).
"I am honored to have this opportunity to work with faculty, students, staff, alumni, and our Board to further Fuller's leadership in seminary education and its global outreach," said Dr. Labberton, who succeeds Dr. Richard J. Mouw, who served as Fuller's president since 1993.
Among the priorities for Dr. Labberton's presidency is that Fuller Seminary serve as a leader in providing 21st century seminary education that responds effectively to the needs of a changing church and world.
Ranked as a leading seminary in the world, Fuller focuses on strong academic scholarship, a steadfast biblical faith, and a diverse environment. With students from 112 denominations and 75 countries across the globe, Fuller prepares more than 4,200 men and women each year through graduate-level schools of theology, intercultural studies, and psychology. More than 40,000 Fuller alumni serve in churches, mission organizations, counseling, and other vocations in 120 countries.
With its main campus in Pasadena, Fuller has seven regional campuses, and online study programs that are available throughout the world. For more information, www.fuller.edu
Contact: Fred Messick, Associate Vice President of Public Affairs (626) 695-6141
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Move over, Michael Moore: The new rock star of the left has arrived. She is Naomi Klein, a 38-year-old Canadian writer and journalist whose 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, was greeted with rave reviews and became an international bestseller. She has been hailed by British political philosopher John Gray in the Guardian and by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in the New York Times. In February, she became the first winner of England's new £50,000 Warwick Prize for Writing. A long, mostly flattering, though occasionally skeptical profile in the New Yorker, published in December, called her "the most visible and influential figure on the American left--what Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky were thirty years ago."
Klein's basic message comes down to this: Capitalism is evil, countless crimes have been committed in its name, and much of the foreign policy of the United States and its allies in recent decades has been driven by the twin forces of greed and free-market fanaticism. Even some people sympathetic to Klein's critique of free-market economic doctrine, such as Stiglitz, concede that her analysis is oversimplified. Clearly, her many admirers are not deterred.
The thesis of The Shock Doctrine is that, since market-oriented, government-cutting reforms tend to be highly unpopular, they can only be imposed by coercion and stealth; the marketeers' tactic is to either take advantage of a terrible crisis (natural disaster or war) or help create one, the better to impose their agenda on the lost and confused masses. Klein deduces this nefarious strategy from an uncontroversial statement by the late Milton Friedman in the introduction to a reprint of his book Capitalism and Freedom: "Only a crisis--actual or perceived--produces real change." Throw in Friedman's later comment that Hurricane Katrina, albeit "a tragedy," was "also an opportunity" to rebuild New Orleans's dysfunctional school system with more focus on private and charter schools, and there you have it: Champions of laissez-faire are ghouls who feed on human suffering.
Everywhere Klein looks, from the war in Iraq to the downfall of communism to the 1973 military coup in Chile to the tsunami in Indonesia, she sees this sinister pattern. And she sees something even more sinister: a link between the free marketeers' use of mass shock to tear down faulty institutions and remake society, and bizarre CIA-funded experiments in the 1950s conducted by psychiatrist Ewen Cameron--nicknamed "Dr. Shock"--designed to "unmake and erase faulty minds" by electric or drug-induced shocks and then rebuild the patient's personality. The free-market reformer and the torturer are spiritual twins.
Yes, this really is as kooky as it sounds. Klein's argument frequently lapses from standard left-wing polemic into sheer weirdness. Thus, she finds it telling that Guantánamo Bay detainees scheduled for release were allowed time in a room where they could watch movies on DVD, eat pizza and hamburgers, and "chill out." In Klein's reading, "that was actually the plan"--break the prisoners down through abuse, then fill their emptied minds with American junk culture and junk food. On a grander scale, Klein suggests that the Bush administration deliberately fostered chaos in Iraq after the invasion, since a smooth transition to Iraqi self-government would have inhibited privatization and other free-market reforms in the service of world corporate dominance--never mind that Klein herself acknowledges the eventual abandonment of many free-market reforms in Iraq.
Klein's grasp of economics is tenuous at best. She thinks corporate welfare is consistent with Milton Friedman's doctrines. She declares, in all seriousness, that Chicago-school laissez-faire ideology is uniquely prone to breeding corruption because it praises greed and self-enrichment. (One has to wonder if Klein has heard of public choice theory, which holds that excessive government involvement in the economy is bad precisely because, among other things, greedy officials are likely to promote regulations that serve their interests rather than the public good.)
Since its publication, The Shock Doctrine has been subjected to several withering critiques. Writing in the New Republic last July, senior editor Jonathan Chait, no fan of "absolutist free-market ideology," dismissed Klein's one-track polemic as "perfect nonsense." The most detailed analysis, by Swedish intellectual historian Johan Norberg in a Cato Institute briefing paper, uncovers numerous inaccuracies and distortions in Klein's tome.
Thus, Klein seeks to link Friedman to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and to demonstrate that imposing Chicago School reforms was the real agenda behind the 1973 coup. But in making this argument, Norberg shows, she fudges the fact that economic liberalization was initially opposed by the junta and began only several years later.
Particularly devastating is Norberg's dissection of Klein's attempt to recast the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China as an anticapitalist uprising. In reality, the protesters' demands focused on political issues, particularly free speech; the participants included both supporters and opponents of market-oriented economic reform. Among Communist party elders, most of those who sent in the tanks to crush the peaceful demonstration opposed economic liberalization, which they blamed for the unrest--while the strongest supporter of market reforms, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, was sympathetic to the protesters. (After the crackdown, Zhao was deposed and placed under house arrest.) While Klein portrays the Tiananmen massacre as a means of terrorizing the populace into submission to radical market reforms, Norberg points out that reforms were actually stalled for several years afterwards.
In September, Klein posted a response to her critics on her website--demonstrating in abundance the very sins that those critics have pointed out. Norberg charges that Klein cherry-picks data to support her claim that free-market reforms cause impoverishment; in reply, Klein cites more cherry-picked data on unemployment and poverty in several countries in various years. Both Norberg and Chait accuse Klein of lumping together her villains under the catch-all label "neoconservative." Klein retorts that she never applied this label to Friedman--and then goes on to quote a passage from her book that lumps together the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute as leaders of the "neoconservative" movement. Of course, Cato (where I hold an unpaid position as a research associate) is in no sense "neoconservative" and forcefully opposed the war in Iraq, which Klein sees as the ultimate application of "the shock doctrine."
Economist Anders Åslund of the Peterson Institute told me in an email exchange that Klein's "favorite trick is to take a brief quotation out of context and make it mean the opposite of what the writer or speaker meant"; and that, too, is on display in Klein's attempted self-defense. To back up her claim that NATO military action in the former Yugoslavia was intended primarily (you guessed it) to force the new nations of the Balkans to submit to Friedmanism, Klein calls as her witness former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. In a foreword to a 2005 book on the Balkan crisis, Talbott wrote, "As nations throughout the region sought to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the opposite direction.??.??.??. It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform--not the plight of the Kosovar Albanians--that best explains NATO's war."
If you're wondering how this proves Klein's point, the answer is that it doesn't. Obviously, Talbott is referring to the Milosevic regime's general rejection of Western values, among them ethnic diversity and political freedom; moreover, in the next paragraph he adds that "only a decade of death, destruction and Milosevic brinksmanship pushed NATO to act." Yet the mere mention of economic reform is enough to trigger Klein's monomania. Ironically, Talbott also points out that most leaders of NATO powers were not right-wing hawks but heads of "socially progressive, economically centrist governments"--an observation that reads like an eerily prescient rebuttal to Klein.
The Shock Doctrine's account of economic and political reform in Russia is a striking example of fuzzy facts and muddled thinking. In Klein's telling, nascent Russian democracy was sacrificed on the altar of the market--by Boris Yeltsin, when he shelled the rebellious Russian parliament to crush its, and the people's, resistance to his radical free-market reforms. Klein compares this event to Pinochet's coup.
There are a few things wrong with this narrative. First, at the time of the showdown with parliament in October 1993, Yeltsin was hardly a champion of radical economic reform: In December 1992, he had replaced his pro-market prime minister, Yegor Gaidar, with "centrist" Viktor Chernomyrdin, a career bureaucrat with strong links to the Soviet-era industrial sector who quickly began pumping money into moribund enterprises, causing hyperinflation.
Second, as to suppressing democracy, most Russians in 1993 supported their elected president over the parliament. Klein dismisses as "a propaganda exercise" a nonbinding referendum earlier that year in which voters expressed confidence in Yeltsin. Yet polls after the October crisis found that a strong majority of Russians blamed the violence either on the parliamentary leaders or on Communist/nationalist extremists; half approved of Yeltsin's use of force to restore order, while fewer than a third disapproved. (Opinion would shift in later years as Yeltsin's popularity plummeted.)
Klein's chronicle of the conflict itself is riddled with errors and evasions. She glosses over the fact that violence was started not by Yeltsin but by the parliament's defenders--who, she admits, included "proto-fascist nationalists"--when they attempted to seize the Ostankino television tower. Her main source, Russian left-wing activist Boris Kagarlitsky, tells her that "some people in the crowd were armed, but most were not." Yet a recent article in the Russian weekly New Times by journalist Yevgenia Albats--who agrees that the shelling of the parliament was a tragic turning point for Russian democracy--speaks of "a crazed mob armed with machine guns and rifles." Klein cites as fact a death toll of 500, without mentioning that this estimate is based on rumor or that the official figure stands at about 150. And while she dramatically asserts that "following the coup, Russia was under unchecked dictatorial rule," she throws in only as an afterthought that "civil liberties were soon restored."
There is no question that economic reform under Yeltsin fell far short of success. But Klein's depiction of a country raped and pillaged by a gang of Friedman Mini-Me's is ludicrously off base. It is true that, after the events of October 1993, advocates of free-market reform were brought back into the government--briefly. The two leading reformers, Gaidar and Boris Fedorov, quit in January 1994, and Chernomyrdin--who declared, "Market romanticism is over"--was back in charge. Privatization and price liberalization notwithstanding, Russia in the 1990s was very far from having a market economy. Private ownership and sale of land remained heavily restricted. Business was strangled by cumbersome, byzantine taxes and regulations, corrupt bureaucracies, and lack of effective protection for property rights.
That Russians suffered much hardship during the early 1990s is also undisputed. Yet Klein's analysis consistently downplays the extent to which hardship predated reform. Thus, the drop in life expectancy began under communism--except for a small blip in the mid-1980s, linked to a crackdown on alcohol consumption. Homelessness, which Klein portrays as a post-Soviet phenomenon, was widely discussed in the newly liberated Soviet press with the advent of glasnost in the late 1980s.
Klein's ultimate proof of the misery caused by privatization is that the number of people below the official poverty line in the Russian Federation rose from 2 million in 1989 to 74 million in the mid-1990s. But Soviet poverty data are of dubious value--in fact, they were widely questioned by glasnost-era Soviet experts--while statistics from the Yeltsin years almost certainly missed a lot of unreported income. Nor does Klein mention the fact that by 1990, with the Soviet command economy in free fall, Russia was plagued by severe shortages; in the words of Russian satirist Viktor Shenderovich, "The Soviet regime still existed but the food had already run out." The market-based reforms, however painful, probably prevented a far worse collapse.
Who is Naomi Klein? The New Yorker profile by Larissa MacFarquhar answers that question in unwittingly revealing ways. Klein is a second-generation red-diaper baby, the grandchild of American Communists who eventually underwent a bitter disillusionment. Her father was a Vietnam war protester who moved to Canada with his wife-to-be, an activist filmmaker, to avoid the draft; her mother later became part of a Canadian taxpayer-funded feminist film studio and made documentaries on left-wing causes.
In view of Klein's obsession with the idea that capitalism's evil gurus use trauma to force change on unwilling populations, it is perhaps ironic that her own change into an activist was precipitated by traumatic experiences. As a teenager, Klein rebelled against her hippie, toy-gun-banning parents. According to MacFarquhar, "two catastrophic events erased her animus toward her parents and their politics." First, when she was 17, her mother suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed for months. Then, in Klein's first year of college, her feminist consciousness was jolted awake when a woman-hating gunman shot 14 female engineering students in Montreal.
As far as her own ideology goes, Klein repudiates "authoritarian Communism," always with that qualifier. While she asserts that she is not against "all forms of market systems," just "fundamentalist" ones, her idea of non-fundamentalist markets includes not only free universal health care but "a large segment of the economy--such as a national oil company--held in state hands." Politically, she is of the hard left. In a recent article in the Nation, Klein urged a "boycott, divest, sanction" strategy toward Israel, similar to the measures against apartheid South Africa; she also revealed that she personally was boycotting Israel, having the Israeli edition of The Shock Doctrine published by a small press "deeply involved with the anti-occupation movement" and donating the proceeds to its work. (As author Ronald Radosh noted on his blog, Klein's position is not even one of moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas: She singles out Israel as the sole villain.) In the New Yorker profile, she faults her husband, fellow leftist Avi Klein, for being "too quick to reject revolutionary movements": "I don't fetishize guerrilla violence, but I think there are situations where people are justified in taking up arms."
Indeed, the vindication of the far left is the not-so-hidden agenda of The Shock Doctrine. Klein tells the left that its ideas did not fail with the fall of the Soviet Union and the apparent triumph of democratic capitalism but were defeated by trickery and force. She claims to be all in favor of accountability for the crimes of communism--but only as long as supporters of market capitalism are forced into a similar reckoning for crimes she regards as equal. And since the capitalists are unlikely to repent, the obvious conclusion is that the left need feel no shame over its past support for tyranny and mass murder: Its opponents, whether "neoconservative" or libertarian, are just as bad.
Not surprisingly, the left, from London (where Klein is a frequent contributor to the Guardian) to Hollywood, loves the message and the messenger. According to actor Tim Robbins, Klein's tome is "so revelatory .??.??. that it could very well prove a catalyst, a watershed, a tipping point in the movement for economic and social justice."
Could it? Paradoxically, the end of the Bush era may dim Klein's star, now that loathing of the administration is no longer a rallying point. Yet her "disaster polemics" (in Norberg's apt phrase) could have considerable appeal at a time when conventional wisdom asserts that the economic crisis has turned the market into the new "God that failed." The Shock Doctrine is already showing up on syllabi, from a course on "The Neo-Colonial Present" at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to an Advanced Placement high-school English class in the Dallas Independent School District. The demand for Klein as a speaker, on campuses and at such venues as the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, has skyrocketed since the Wall Street crash--which, she proclaims, "should be for Friedmanism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for authoritarian Communism, an indictment of an ideology."
That brings us to the final irony of Naomi Klein. The woman who accuses her free-market bogeymen of "pray[ing] for crisis the way drought-struck farmers pray for rain" and using other people's suffering for ideological and often financial gain, is basking in the present crisis as she trots the globe making speeches. "This is a progressive moment: It's ours to lose," she tells the New Yorker. (Apparently, the new progressive American president agrees--though Klein, who in the New Yorker dismisses Obama as just another status quo politician, undoubtedly finds his proposed expansion of the welfare state insufficiently audacious.)
Nor is this the first time Klein has delighted in misery-causing shocks to the system. The most "inspiring" political moment of her life, by her account to MacFarquhar, came in turmoil-stricken Buenos Aires in 2002. "They had thrown out four presidents in two weeks, and they had no idea what to do," Klein rhapsodized. "Every institution was in crisis. The politicians were hiding in their homes. When they came out, housewives attacked them with brooms." As Harvard political economist Dani Rodrik pointed out, these fond memories are of a time when Argentina experienced "more than a doubling of the share of population in extreme poverty."
Shock doctor, heal thyself.
Cathy Young is a contributing editor to Reason magazine.


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| December 17, 2008, 3:36 pm
It's official: Andrew Raycroft will start against the Lightning in Tampa tomorrow night. Peter Budaj will start the game on the pine following his spotty performance against the Flyers. I think that goal by Mike Richards that bounced in after hanging in the air for a couple of seconds really burned Tony Granato's hide. This is his punishment for Boods.
Darcy Tucker and Ben Guite will also return to the lineup against Tampa
Bay. Pick up tomorrow's print Denver Post for more details.


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Parks, beaches ready for the holiday
Updated 10:26 am, Friday, May 24, 2013
Along the shore this weekend, "sandy" will revert to its benign, pre-storm meaning, with nearly all beaches and parks restored and ready for the unofficial start of summer.
From Milford to Greenwich, most of the damage caused by the October 29 superstorm has been repaired, and all state parks and forests will open for the season this weekend.
A number of area towns plan parades, including on Sunday: Ansonia and Stamford at noon, Milford and Monroe at 2 p.m. and Greenwich at 5. Monday parades include Danbury at 9:30 a.m., Trumbull, Fairfield and Norwalk at 10 and Oxford at 11.
The weather, though, could put a damper on the Memorial Day weekend activities.
Rain is likely on-and-off through Sunday morning, the National Weather Service said, with breaks of sun and clouds on Monday. The temperatures will be a bit lower than they were for much of the week, with the high Saturday struggling to make it out of the 50s, the NWS says.
Four shoreline state parks -- Silver Sands, Sherwood Island, Rocky Neck and Harkness Memorial -- needed repairs before they could reopen, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection officials said.
A bathroom roof at Sherwood Island in Westport and a section of boardwalk at Silver Sands in Milford had to be rebuilt, and sand blown from the beach onto roads and parking lots had to be swept up and replaced.
Lifeguards are still being hired for some parks, officials said Thursday. The lifeguards are among the 500 to 600 seasonal employees being added. Lifeguards are assigned to 11 designated swimming areas within 23 state parks, DEEP spokesman Dwayne Gardner said.
"Lifeguards at state parks are on duty from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. We are still recruiting qualified guards for the 2013 season in some locations," Gardner said.
The more than 1,400 campsites in 13 state parks, from Hammonassett Beach in Madison to Kettletown in Southbury and Kent Falls are available beginning Saturday, and the DEEP's 115 boat launches are open.
The department has developed a smartphone app for park visitors who want directions and up-to-date information, and visitors to most facilities will be greeted by large banners honoring the centennial of the state park system.
The price of a season pass to all state parks has not increased from last year -- $67 for state residents and $112 for non-resident -- and daily visitors can pay parking fees with their credit cards at many facilities, Gardner said.
"The 2013 summer season promises to be one of the very best in the history of our park system," said DEEP Commissioner Daniel C. Esty.
"As we head into the celebration of the centennial of our parks, it is more attractive than ever for families to get out and have fun in the outdoors," Esty said.
Getting there will cost a little less this Memorial Day than it did a year ago, said Fran Mayko, a spokeswoman for the AAA of Southern New England. More than 11 percent of New England residents will be on the road at some point during the holiday period, Mayko said in a news release.
They'll be paying about 7 cents a gallon less for gas than they did a year ago, Mayko said. A gallon of regular gas averages $3.87 in the greater Bridgeport area, she said, while the state average is $3.79.
Drivers won't be dodging a lot of orange traffic cones. Department of Transportation officials said that all maintenance and construction activities on major expressways will be suspended from 6 a.m. Friday through 6 a.m. on Tuesday.
Connecticut Transit buses will operate on a Sunday schedule Monday, and Metro-North Railroad will operate special "getaway'' trains on Friday, beginning at 12:04 p.m., to carry Connecticut and suburban New York residents home to start the long weekend.
On Memorial Day, trains will operate a Sunday schedule, with one extra train departing New Haven at 7:47 p.m., according to the railroad's web site.
Most connecting services, though, will not operate on Monday.
email@example.com, 203-330-6326, http://twitter.com/FrankJuliano


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A joint initiative between the American Immigration Council and AILA seeks to change the playing field for immigrants facing deportation.
Learn more about AILA's official statements on immigration issues.Read Now
AILA Doc. No. 13072659 | Dated July 26, 2013
By Ted Ruthizer
Way back in the late 1970s I met a young lawyer who decided that it was a great opportunity for a U.S. immigration lawyer to be based in London. I scoffed at the notion and thought there was no way someone could support a practice on the other side of the Atlantic. How wrong I was. Ed was the first U.S. immigration lawyer to move full-time to London, and he paved the way for Richard Goldstein and many other AILA members to follow in his footsteps. Not only was Ed a pioneer, but he was such a quick study in immigration law that he became indispensable to me and to countless others in the AILA community with his considered and very thoughtful advice and guidance on cases over the years.
Ed and I had several things in common - we were both Long Island boys, and we both did our undergraduate work in Pennsylvania (Ed at Bucknell and me at Lafayette), and we both attended law schools in New York (Ed at Fordham and me at Columbia), and we both started our careers as starry-eyed idealists working for the Legal Aid Society. Ed was a few years older, but when I graduated from law school and began at the Criminal Appeals Bureau of Legal Aid, I took on some case files that bore Ed's name from having worked on there a few years earlier. Whenever we spoke, we would fondly reminisce about former colleagues there and their foibles. Ed was a sharp social critic who could size people up after meeting them for only a few minutes.
In the early years of Ed's practice in London, he enjoyed an "Of Counsel" relationship with my then law firm of Mailman & Ruthizer. And Ed provided wonderful services to our British clients who had visa issues at the American Embassy. He not only knew the people in the NIV Unit, he really understood their concerns and what issues could be overcome by skillful advocacy and diligent client preparation so that the visa interviews went smoothly and had no unpleasant surprises. As the years passed, the "Of Counsel" relationship ended, and I moved on to another law firm. But our bond was cemented. I visited Ed on trips to London, we had an occasional dinner together, and he was always both great company and a wise counselor. In the decades since that first meeting, Ed built a reputation for providing superb representation to a wide range of clients, ranging from most famous fashion models, legendary rock musicians, film and theater directors, corporate chieftains, and the many not-so-famous British and other foreign nationals who needed immigration law services at the highest level.
Ed died way too soon of a massive heart attack. But he will be remembered very warmly by all of the many friends and colleagues who had interactions with him over the past 35 years. And I can still picture Ed standing outside one of the large program rooms at each AILA annual conference schmoozing with the best of them, telling wonderful stories, and attracting a big crowd of AILA members playing hooky from the program inside to share in the pearls of wisdom and wit emanating from Ed's lips. Farewell, Ed.
By Gary Endelman
It was a Friday night in Washington D.C. at the AILA National Conference and I was moderating a panel on citizenship when this tall distinguished gentleman walked casually to the microphone and announced to myself and my co-panelists, who included Alan James, then Chair of the Board of Appellate Review and the late and sorely missed Carmen DiPlacido of the State Department's Office of Consular Review and Inter-Agency Liaison, that he was going to become a British citizen and was doing so with the intent of keeping his US citizenship. My introduction to Ed Gudeon! Ed went on at some length mixing humor with erudition, injecting both laughter and learning into a crowd that, by then, needed both in large doses. Over the next 20+ years, I came to work with Ed closely and often on a number of complex and complicated cases never failing to benefit from his wise counsel, his warm friendship, his vast legal scholarship and his refusal never to take himself too seriously. More than anyone else I have ever known, Ed remained comfortable in his own skin, street smart and book learned, unwilling to tolerate pomposity in any form, and always remembering people at heart were decent and deserving of kindness. We would often laugh, exchange memories of our Jewish mothers, share gossip and the law mixed up with a warmth and genuineness that always made you feel good when you hung up. He had a gift for friendship and I shall long be thankful for the sound of his laughter, the magic of his smile and the pleasure of his company.
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 13072659.
American Immigration Lawyers Association
1331 G Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
Copyright © 1993-2018
American Immigration Lawyers Association.


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But Comic Sans still makes you look stupid.
This does seem counter-intuitive: when I lay out text I try to make it as easy to read as possible to avoid getting in the way of absorbing the content...
I think it's obvious (heh heh) that it forces you to think about the content in order to read it, when using a font which requires no conscious thought to process results in more flow with less processing and thus less retention. Perhaps future systems will sense the user's level of interest and change fonts dynamically to keep them learning.
Now there's a disturbing thought! B^>
Pay no attention to 'WindWraith'. You're doing it right.
*shakes fist at 'WindWraith' for discouraging good behavior/mindset*
I envy youth and their good eyesight. Hell, I miss my own good eyesight when I was younger!
As an 'older than dirt, had to fight dinosaurs on my ten mile trek[one way] UPHILL, in a blizzard/sandstorm- both ways! to school everyday' crowd, I appreciate your efforts and way of thinking about web page design.
As an avid reader, I appreciate good text fonts both in real paper books, and various forms of e-books.
Tri-focal lenses, macular degeneration, and just plain old age changes your perspective and outlook!
I frequently read some comments here regarding screen resolution[and similar], and am struck with both amusement and envy. I seem to ask myself EVERY time two questions anymore:
How do they even see/distinguish crap that small?
Why are they going through that hassle?
Damn, I'm REALLY getting old!
BTW, if you are reading this reply, 'WindWraith', please take the comment as 'tongue-in-cheek' humour/sarcasm.
You do provide a valid and insightful comment about memories, IMHO.
Oh yeah, obligatory...
Hey you young punks, get off my lawn!
I think it's obvious (heh heh) that it forces you to think about the content in order to read it
This is why I program exclusively in brainfuck [wikipedia.org] and ObjectiveC.
I think it's obvious (heh heh) that it forces you to think about the content in order to read it, when using a font which requires no conscious thought to process results in more flow with less processing and thus less retention. Perhaps future systems will sense the user's level of interest and change fonts dynamically to keep them learning.
And perhaps my future computer program marketed to college kids will forcefully change all fonts back to Times New Roman, through OCR if need be.
Makes sense actually, the more effort you use on it, the easier for you to remember.
It's like you don't remember all your trips to your job except that one time you had a stomachache or were very sleepy or stuff like that.
"Damn, this whole text about was a pain to read!"
Because it seems counter-intuitive, I really liked the following sentence:
...Keen to see if their findings actually worked in practice..."
Often times we see studies done in labs and, because it doesn't look reasonable to us, we quickly dismiss it by saying "Well, it would never work in real life." Here, at least, they tried it in real life. It's not a long-term study, so there are still shortcomings, but it's better than the usual Social Studies experiments.
Time to format those TPS reports with wing-dings...
I'd like to know the long term effect of this. What if the brain develops a better comprehension of the hard-to-read fonts, rendering all the re-printing meaningless?
Indeed. Try reading some illuminated manuscript. Assuming you know the language already, and you know the idioms of the day and common abbreviations, you'd still have a hard time reading it. And yet scholars are really pretty good at reading that stuff.
Heck, go back 150 years to some engineering documentation. It's pretty hard to read, sometimes.
Even reading something your parents or grandparents wrote a few decades ago can be difficult, yet it was their natural handwriting.
Lets just write all text books in captchas.
Forget typing it, the poor lil bastards have to try and read it, line after line.
If this information is really correct then that will make them all geniuses.
It's not correct.
"MedlinePlus and the National Institutes of Health define dyslexia as "a reading disability resulting from the inability to process graphic symbols".[20]"
s0 Y0u hAVE g0T t0 bE kIDdINg mE tHAT A sCRAmbLED foNT HElps YOu t0 lEARN.
It's not correct.
"MedlinePlus and the National Institutes of Health define dyslexia as "a reading disability resulting from the inability to process graphic symbols".[20]"
s0 Y0u hAVE g0T t0 bE kIDdINg mE tHAT A sCRAmbLED foNT HElps YOu t0 lEARN.
I think the point is that it helps someone focus. When they see a font they're used to (or hear a familiar voice), it's easy to attempt to function on auto-pilot while really thinking about something else. When faced with something new (but familiar), the brain needs more focus, and a double-check to make sure that the signal was interpreted correctly, so you're thinking about the message to make sure you heard/read correctly. I wonder if making people wear earmuffs or noise cancellation headgear would i
IANAScientist, but this still feels like one of those "flawed studies" that someone meta-reported on lately. To me the distinction feels something like if it's a *clear* cool variant, it would help you focus, but if it's obfuscating, it increases Teal Deer effects as well as basic comprehension problems. I completely hated my calculus class with the chinese grad student. Awesome young guy, but his accent was unbelieveable. However, I overcame a lifetime of not being able to navigate within 2 years of listen
When they see a font they're used to (or hear a familiar voice), it's easy to attempt to function on auto-pilot while really thinking about something else.
And when you're reading "death of a salesman" or any other "classic", that's the right way to do it: in from one ear, out from another, then go consult the Internet on what interpretations you're supposed to regurgitate to get a good number.
On the other hand, if you're reading physics or some other real subject, there's enough formulas to force your atte
I scared that you think "The da Vinci Code" is a textbook, or even something which might be used in English Literature classes. Very scared.
Something doesn't have to be old to be good. There are plenty of good, well-written modern books that are vastly more relevant to a modern American child than Jane Austen's novels about people living a different kind of life in a different country in a different century.
However, "The Da Vinci Code" is not a good book. It is extremely poorly written. Things like that have no place in schools.
Pedant: He's not alcoholic. He was addicted to pain killers.
Eddie Izzard, however, once described us as being two nations separated by a common language and a lot of fish. Far more complete.
Don't forget _Peter's Friend's_, btw, another great Laurie/Fry collaboration movie (also including Brannaugh and many other great actors - and Tony Slattery).
Sounds like an improvement to me. Better than "The Grapes of Wrath" for sure. At least your average high school student might actually READ "The da Vinci Code".
Sounds like an improvement to me. Better than "The Grapes of Wrath" for sure. At least your average high school student might actually READ "The da Vinci Code".
But your average high school student might actually BELIEVE "The da Vinci Code". I'd rather have them believe "The Grapes of Wrath".
I read "The Grapes of Wrath", but I found the plot to be highly improbable.
Can you honestly say it's any worse than the shit they actually try to pass off as worthwhile in English class? Moby Dick? The Scarlet Letter?
I'm trying to remember what we read in English classes. Some Beowulf (with translation into Modern English), some Chaucer, lots of Shakespeare, Silas Marner, To Kill a Mockingbird. And I can honestly say that what I've read by Dan Brown (which doesn't include The da Vinci Code, because I quit after a few paragraphs) was definitely worse.
Modern popular fiction (excluding romance novels) is pretty good, with popularity being a fair measure of entertainment value. If it's modern and mandatory reading in an English class, it's pretty much guaranteed to be crap pushing some PC viewpoint. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of fairly good modern fiction is the unnecessary use of rude language.
Modern writers have largely benefitted from the mistakes of hundreds of years of fiction. Old books, with rare exceptions, are boring. The stuff that's come t
i can't see if the school study was a long term one or not. and i think it's relevant for the conclusion.
Instead of skimming, you are forced to actually read every word.
Skimming is for getting an idea of what to expect to learn. Reading is for the actual learning.
Yes, I had history textbooks with unreadable tiny font. No, it didn't make me a master of history, it just made me sleepy as I struggled to stay focussed AND fight the tiny font. Not much of it made its way into my brain, as I soon fell asleep.
No idea how I passed the exam, I wouldn't be able to tell you what was in those books.
... not to mention those places were the author(s) were clearly unable to articulate an idea.
If you have to reread a phrase 20 times, and it's NOT because of some jargon you've never seen before... the editor failed to do their job.
That is very true, with the exception of course being if the author intentionally articulated an idea poorly, for some reason. Perhaps he is writing about different writing styles, and is giving an example of something hard to understand. Perhaps the author wants the sentence to be hard to parse for some other reason, such as part of some sort of riddle.
But in general, You should not need to re-read a sentence more than a time or two to understand it. A good exception, as you point out, is obviously if the
You fell asleep because you were bored. You need to learn to speed-read.
Nothing is ever a surprise to the Slashdot crowd when they publish a study on it. Except, of course, when "correlation != causation!!!!!".
I happen to find this extremely counter-intuitive.
I happen to find this extremely counter-intuitive.
I knew you would.
Skimming is for getting an idea of what to expect to learn.
I agree with what you meant. I find myself affected by this phenomenon as well.
When you have education/knowledge, it becomes easy to fill in the blanks.
The human mind is under a two-edged sword.
It is our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness.
We can adapt and overcome, but we can also become adapted to some of the most fscked conditions.
I rationalise it as 'survival instinct'/evolution.
A very good point.
As someone who normally reads every word, regardless of the content, I'd be really interested in seeing the results of a study adjusted for this. Take two groups: one composed of individuals who skim as a matter of habit, and the other which habitually reads "slowly" - ie, they do read every word, with regularity.
Yes, reading every word is slower, but if reading the text is a worthwhile venture to begin with, you might as well read the whole thing. This goes for novels and technical (IT, h
I wenodr if the smae appiles to the good ol' "the frsit and lsat ltteer of ervey wrod are in tcat thuogh the rset of the wrod is scrmblaed" mhetod.
The caveat is that all of those with English as a second language would likely die trying to read a textbook.
Instead of skimming, you are forced to actually read every word.
EXACTLY. I wonder if this is a counter example to the speed reading claims.
So will be be running all learning material through CAPTCHA generator ?
That word [wikipedia.org]. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You comment shows that you should change the font on your browser to something less readable, since you completely missed the part about the research done on highschool children with actual real world material.
Certainly on the font sample presented on the BBC site, the Arial font version was a lot *harder* to read because it was all crushed up without enough leading.
Lots of people can remember things that were written in fancy script, like parts of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution*.
Come to think of it, this bodes well for my kid's lousy writing - people will at least remember what she wrote, once they decipher it.
*Exception made for Christine O'Donnell
Come to think of it, this bodes well for my kid's lousy writing
That'll be an advantage if she wants to go to med school.
Well yeah, they do things differently in Germany.
Speak for yourself. I can hardly pick out the start and ends of words in that chicken scratch.
> Lots of people can remember things that were written in fancy script,
> like parts of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution*.
However, they do not learn it by reading the versions of the US constitution that are written in fancy script. They usually learn it by reading a it in a textbook that is set in a fairly standard font.
Slashdot please allow me to post in Wingdings font and Symbol font. Posting in Italics TT does not make it not hard enough to read.
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There are a few more questions to answer. (1) How long did subjects spend reading the Comic Sans documents vs. the Arial documents? If they spent more time reading the Comic Sans documents, that could explain the difference. (2) If they spent longer reading the Comic Sans versions, what was their net learning productivity after factoring the additional time in? (3) Could novelty explain the effect by obtaining greater attention? If we reprinted all textbooks in Comic Sans and similar fonts from hell, would
Arial? Verdana, my friend. Arial is a cheap whore compared to the lady Verdana. Guess why Arial was created by Microsoft originally?
It wasn't created by Microsoft. It was originally made for IBM by Monotype in the early 80s, when it was known as Sonoran Sans (similarly, Times New Roman was originally called Sonoran Serif). Microsoft then licensed these from Monotype and renamed them Arial and TNR, respectively. But don't let little facts get in the way of your hatred of Microsoft.
Wait until your 50. The only thing small fonts do is make your head burn out in 2 hours, and oh yeah that DTV Channel Master, I can't read a damn thing unless I am two feet away from the set. But your test was 18 yr old kids, they'll have perfect vision and be awake three days at a time. The whole premise here is BS , next you'll be telling us Graffiti Fonts are the best for working with the asm disassembler..
If you want to target the young and cause anyone over 50 to skip to some other web site, the answer is simple: use a small font size and minimal contrast between the lettering and its background. 'font-size: 0.7em; color: #444; background-color: #000;' should just about do it.
Ok, what about having to read all courses in illegible fonts. will the time allotted suffice?
It's rather obvious that slowing down the reading gives better retention, this fact is well known within psychology and cognitive science. But using this method of slowing students down may impact their overall score, as they don't have time to read everything they are supposed to.
110 out of 100 in history, 5 out of 100 in psychology because you only managed to read the first chapter..
bu7 i g07 b4d gr4d35 w|-|3|\| i 4pp1i3d my k|\|0w13dg3.
This is why I insist on doing all of my reading in Runic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet [wikipedia.org]
Is why I write all my emails in Wingdings...
Everything I know I've learned from Wired magazine.
This totally explains why academics love the shit text that comes out of LaTeX (not the layout; it's fine -- I'm talking about that awful default font).
...there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. - George Jacob Holyoake


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Incoming Gov. Rick Scott should fold the three agencies now overseeing environmental protection, growth management and transportation into a single agency called the Department of Growth Leadership, according to a report Monday from a transition team he appointed.
Scott should also abolish some longstanding growth-management rules and block local governments such as Hillsborough County from enforcing their own, more restrictive regulations protecting wetlands from development, according to the report from the committee, which is chaired by a former developer.
Scott's regulatory reform transition team contended that getting the Legislature to approve merging the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Community Affairs next year would reshape how the state deals with development.
And that's just the start. Other agencies could be integrated as well, such as the state's regional planning councils, the water management districts, even the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Currently those agencies are mired in "regulatory mistrust, competition, duplication and conflict," the committee warned in a series of slides released Monday by Scott's team. In fact, one slide says the DEP had gone from a mission of "protection" in the 1970s to one of "suppression" in the 2000s -- even though that was during the two terms of business-friendly Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.
The result of the current setup, according to the transition team report, was a host of woes including urban sprawl and overbuilding. That argument "doesn't seem to match very well with the actual facts," said Charles Pattison of 1,000 Friends of Florida, a pro-growth management activist group.
The Regulatory Reform Transition Team is chaired by Chris Corr, vice president for planning, design and development the global builder and designer AECOM. In the 1990s Corr helped develop the 5,000-acre town of Celebration for the Walt Disney Corp. He then served until 2008 as vice president of the St. Joe Co., which spent the past decade transforming its Panhandle pine forests into a series of residential and commercial developments.
Two other former St. Joe executives, Peter Rummell and Billy Buzzett, also serve on the committee. The environmental subcommittee is chaired by Doug Manson, a Tampa lawyer who a lawyer who has represented utilities and bottled water companies.
-- Craig Pittman


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Thursday, March 10, 2011
Treasure Chest Thursday-Frances' Locket
This is one of my favorite things. It was a pendant my grandmother owned and it was given to me when all the odds and ends of their household were being cleaned up after my grandfather died. I don't know the story behind it, but there is a photo of my grandmother, Frances, on one side and my grandfather, Riley on the other. It unscrews at the top to slide in the photos between two half-spheres of glass.
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The lights are on
Warning: Spoilers ahead. If you've been keeping up with BioShock Infinite and Burial at Sea Episode 1, you know that Elizabeth is trapped far under the sea in Fontaine's Department Store. The shining beacon of commerce has been converted into a prison for dissidents by Andrew Ryan, and splicing seems to be the number one hobby.
In this new trailer, we see this watery tomb through Elizabeth's eyes. The man with brogue will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played the original BioShock. If you can't piece it together though, there's a giveaway at the end.
BioShock Infinite Burial At Sea: Episode Two does not yet have a release date. For more on BioShock Infinite, check out our review of the game and Burial at Sea: Episode One.
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|Mushroom "Giblet" Gravy
April, 2005
Makes 8 cups / Part of our November 1997 story "Southern Revival: A Vegan Thanksgiving," this rich sauce won raves from an Ohio reader who says she fixes it every holiday.
2-1/2 cups diced onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon sea salt
5 cups diced white mushrooms
1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
3 cups plain soy milk
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 cups water
1. In a stockpot, sauté onions with oil and garlic for 5 minutes. Add herbs and salt; increase heat to medium-high. Cook for 1 minute.
2. Add mushrooms, tamari or soy sauce, and soy milk. Bring to a high simmer, but do not boil.
3. In a medium bowl, mix flour and water to a smooth consistency. Slowly stir mixture into the pot, whisking or stirring constantly until thickened, about 3–4 minutes.
4. Reduce heat to low and let gravy simmer for another 5 minutes.
PER SERVING (1/4 cup): 31 cal, 40% fat cal, 1g fat, 0g sat fat, 0mg chol, 1g protein, 4g carb, 1g fiber, 191mg sodium


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The Navajo Nation Council on Tuesday begins considering a proposed new budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Budget proposals include using $2.9 million from a personnel fund to reinstate 40-hour work weeks for Navajo Area Agency on Aging workers who work additional hours.
The Daily Times reports that about a third of the money for the $571.6 million budget would come from tribal revenues and about two-thirds from federal, state and private funding.
Tribal law requires the council to approve a budget in place 20 days before Sept. 30, the end of the current budget year.
Budget and Finance Committee chairman LoRenzo Bates says council consideration of the budget is on schedule to meet the deadline.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Submission + - iPhone Cure for Vertigo (ottawacitizen.com)
vleky writes: This is thinking outside the box... or head. Dr. Matthew Bromwich of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario has written an iPhone app to help doctor's with the Epley manoeuvre to cure some forms of vertigo. The patient places the iPhone against the forehead and the app leads the doctor through the manoeuvre. Actually his first attempt at the app sounds more fun. In it the iPhone hung from the front of a baseball cap the patient wore and the patient tried to keep a ball centred in a twisting tube by moving their head. Winning the game meant the manoeuvre had been successfully completed and the vertigo cured.


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Brandon McCarthy and Javier Lopez spoke at a recent SABR conference about the player side of analytics. This quote from McCarthy is kind of disheartening, when asked about Stats in the Clubhouse:
You can download the entire presentation at the link above. It is just over an hour long.McCarthy: "If it's not cut-and-dried, and here's the answer, it's hard to take that out into a team atmosphere. We know that on-base percentage is a better measure of a hitter than batting average, but you still talk with players and try explain that concept to them, and they still think it's batting average. So it's especially hard to tell someone this is why this defender isn't as good because these numbers are saying so. It's very hard to describe and break down. So until those numbers are more easily explained, more practical, something you could show somebody, it's pretty hard to take this discussion much further than some kind of a cute side thing."


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Rants on Cycling and on Life:
Photos of people and bicycles that pass in front of my camera
oh yeh, thats smart. no helmet, flip flops, under dupont. jerry rigged single speed. probably no lock ring on the cog, just lock tight. doesnt know how to skid anyway. brilliant.the cheat
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Hello, my name is Charlie and I am looking to develop an open source web control panel for Linux. I need help designing it and making it work how it should. I also need testers who are willing to test it. Please email me if you are interested at firstname.lastname@example.com.
This is the github page: https://github.com/OpenWebServer/OpenWebServer


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How to be a patriot
Tomorrow is Patriot Day, the day we commemorate September 11 and its victims. The name of "Patriot Day" to mark 9/11 has me thinking about what it means to be a patriotic American in today's world.
Our Independence Day makes me think of freedom and the rights of the individual within a democracy. Patriot Day, meanwhile, makes me think of solidarity with and pride for one's community and country. The balance between these two--rights and responsibility, independence and solidarity, individual and community--is an amazing aspect of our country. It also is echoed in Catholic social teaching and the teaching of other faiths.
This balance is particularly important to remember this season. Rosh Hashanah started sunset Wednesday (also the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary), and the Jewish High Holy Days continue until Yom Kippur on Sept. 18. Last night's sunset market the beginning of Eid-al-Fitr, the three-day celebration at the end of Ramadan.
Meanwhile, we have a fringe church threatening to burn Qur'ans, debates about a Muslim community center, and in less reported news, the folks from Westboro Baptist Church in Chicago suburbs to protest Rosh Hashanah [1]. (The link is from a Northwestern University publication, but they also showed up to other Skokie and Evanston locations [2].)
As we celebrate Patriot Day this year, we can't let patriotism outweigh independence as it did in the immediate aftermath of September 11. We protect the right for people to celebrate their holy days, build mosques, burn Qur'ans, and even protest against all of these things.
To be a patriot means to stand with Americans in all their diversity, such as New York Neighbors for American Values [3] are doing tonight or the Northwestern students counterprotesting WBC did the other day. It means allowing for individuality and uniqueness but also gathering together for dialogue [4].
Eid Mubarak to our Muslim neighbors. (Take a look at this website to get to know some American Muslims.) [5]
L'shanah tovah to our Jewish neighbors.
Happy Birthday, Mary.
And God bless all Americans, especially the families of September 11 victims.