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How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
"Drop the flashcards—grit, character, and curiosity matter even more than cognitive skills. A persuasive wake-up call."—People
Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter more have to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, optimism, and self-control.
How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators, who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character. Through their stories—and the stories of the children they are trying to help—Tough reveals how this new knowledge can transform young people's lives. He uncovers the surprising ways in which parents do—and do not—prepare their children for adulthood. And he provides us with new insights into how to improve the lives of children growing up in poverty. This provocative and profoundly hopeful book will not only inspire and engage readers, it will also change our understanding of childhood itself.
"Illuminates the extremes of American childhood: for rich kids, a safety net drawn so tight it's a harness; for poor kids, almost nothing to break their fall."—New York Times
"I learned so much reading this book and I came away full of hope about how we can make life better for all kinds of kids."—Slate
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Amostra do livro
How Children Succeed - Paul Tough
First Mariner Books edition 2013
Copyright © 2012 by Paul Tough
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available..
ISBN 978-0-544-10440-2 (pbk.)
Portions of this book first appeared in the New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker.
eISBN 978-0-547-56466-1
For Ellington, who prefers books about dump trucks
In the summer of 2009, a couple of weeks after my son, Ellington, was born, I spent the day in a prekindergarten classroom in a small town in New Jersey. The two events were unrelated—I was visiting room 140 at the Red Bank Primary School not to scope out the class as a new parent but to try to understand it as a journalist. At first glance, the classroom seemed entirely ordinary. The cinder-block walls were painted a cheery yellow; an American flag stood next to the whiteboard. Around the room, four-year-olds were happily engaged in the customary diversions of pre-K students: building towers of Legos and driving trucks through sand tables and piecing together jigsaw puzzles. But as the day progressed, I realized that what was going on in room 140 was in fact quite unusual, in ways both self-evident and subtle. To begin with, the students were remarkably calm and orderly. There were no tears that day, no meltdowns, no tantrums, no fights. Oddly, though, the teacher, a young, dark-haired woman named Ms. Leonardo, didn't seem to be going out of her way to maintain order, or even to guide the children's conduct in any overt fashion. There were no admonitions, no gold stars, no time-outs, no
I like the way Kellianne is paying attention!—indeed, no rewards for good behavior or punishments for bad at all.
The students in room 140 were enrolled in a program called Tools of the Mind, a relatively new kindergarten and prekindergarten curriculum that was created by two educators in Denver and based on an unorthodox theory of child development. Most early-childhood classrooms in the United States today are designed to develop in children a set of specific pre-academic skills, mostly related to deciphering text and manipulating numbers. Tools of the Mind, by contrast, doesn't focus much on reading and math abilities. Instead, all of its interventions are intended to help children learn a different kind of skill: controlling their impulses, staying focused on the task at hand, avoiding distractions and mental traps, managing their emotions, organizing their thoughts. The founders of Tools of the Mind believe that these skills, which they group together under the rubric self-regulation, will do more to lead to positive outcomes for their students, in first grade and beyond, than the traditional menu of pre-academic skills.
Tools of the Mind students are taught a variety of strategies, tricks, and habits that they can deploy to keep their minds on track. They learn to use
private speech: talking to themselves as they do a difficult task (like, say, forming the letter W), to help them remember what step comes next (down, up, down, up). They use
mediators: physical objects that remind them how to complete a particular activity (for instance, the two cards, one with a pair of lips and one with an ear, that signify whose turn it is to read aloud in buddy reading and whose turn it is to listen). Every morning, they fill out
play plans, forms on which they write or draw descriptions of that day's play: I am going to drive the train; I am going to take the dollies to the beach. And they spend long hours engaged in
mature dramatic play: extended, complex make-believe scenarios that the designers of Tools of the Mind believe naturally teach children how to follow rules and regulate impulses.
As I watched the kids in room 140, I found myself thinking, inevitably, about Ellington, the tiny life form cooing and burping and wailing away thirty miles to the north, in our studio apartment in Manhattan. I knew I wanted him to have a happy, successful life, but I didn't really know what, exactly, I meant by that, or just what my wife and I were supposed to be doing to help guide him there. I wasn't alone in my confusion. Ellington was born into a particularly anxious moment in the history of American parenting. And that anxiety had grown especially keen in cities like New York, where the competition over slots in favored preschools verged on the gladiatorial. A pair of economists from the University of California recently dubbed this nationwide contest for early academic achievement the Rug Rat Race, and each year, the race seems to be starting earlier and growing more intense. Two years before Ellington's birth, the Kumon chain of tutoring centers opened New York City's first Junior Kumon franchise, where children as young as two spent their mornings filling out worksheets and completing drills on letter and number recognition.
Age 3 is the sweet spot, Kumon's chief financial officer told a reporter for the New York Times.
But if they're out of a diaper and can sit still with a Kumon instructor for 15 minutes, we will take them.
Ellington would be growing up in a culture saturated with an idea you might call the cognitive hypothesis: the belief, rarely expressed aloud but commonly held nonetheless, that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills—the kind of intelligence that gets measured on IQ tests, including the abilities to recognize letters and words, to calculate, to detect patterns—and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible. The cognitive hypothesis has become so universally accepted that it is easy to forget that it is actually a relatively new invention. You can trace its contemporary rise, in fact, to 1994, when the Carnegie Corporation published Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children, a report that sounded an alarm about the cognitive development of our nation's children. The problem, according to the report, was that children were no longer receiving enough cognitive stimulation in the first three years of life, in part because of the increasing number of single-parent families and working mothers—and so they were arriving in kindergarten unready to learn. The report launched an entire industry of brain-building
zero-to-three products for worried parents. Billions of dollars' worth of books and activity gyms and Baby Einstein videos and DVDs were sold.
The Carnegie findings and the studies that followed in their wake had a powerful effect on public policy, too, as legislators and philanthropists concluded that disadvantaged children were falling behind early on because of insufficient cognitive training. Psychologists and sociologists produced evidence linking the academic underperformance of poor children to a lack of verbal and mathematical stimulation at home and at school. One of the most famous of these studies (which I wrote about in my first book, Whatever It Takes) was conducted by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley, two child psychologists who, beginning in the 1980s, intensively studied a group of forty-two children from professional, working-class, and welfare families in Kansas City. Hart and Risley found that the crucial difference in the children's upbringings, and the reason for the divergence in their later outcomes, boiled down to one thing: the number of words that the children heard from their parents early in life. By age three, Hart and Risley determined, the children raised by professional parents had heard thirty million words spoken to them; the children with parents on welfare had heard just ten million. That shortfall, they concluded, was at the root of the poorer kids' later failures in school and in life.
There is something undeniably compelling about the cognitive hypothesis. The world it describes is so neat, so reassuringly linear, such a clear case of inputs here leading to outputs there. Fewer books in the home means less reading ability; fewer words spoken by parents means a smaller vocabulary for their kids; more math worksheets at Junior Kumon means better math scores. The correlations at times seemed almost comically exact: Hart and Risley calculated that a child who grew up on welfare would need precisely forty-one hours of language-intensive intervention each week in order to close the vocabulary gap with a working-class child.
But in the past decade, and especially in the past few years, a disparate congregation of economists, educators, psychologists, and neuroscientists have begun to produce evidence that calls into question many of the assumptions behind the cognitive hypothesis. What matters most in a child's development, they say, is not how much information we can stuff into her brain in the first few years. What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence. Economists refer to these as noncognitive skills, psychologists call them personality traits, and the rest of us sometimes think of them as character.
For certain skills, the stark calculus behind the cognitive hypothesis—that what matters in developing a skill is starting earlier and practicing more—is entirely valid. If you want to perfect your foul shot, shooting two hundred free throws every afternoon is indeed going to be more helpful than shooting twenty free throws every afternoon. If you're in fourth grade, reading forty books over the summer is going to improve your reading ability more than reading four books. Some skills really are pretty mechanical. But when it comes to developing the more subtle elements of the human personality, things aren't so simple. We can't get better at overcoming disappointment just by working harder at it for more hours. And children don't lag behind in curiosity simply because they didn't start doing curiosity drills at an early enough age. The pathways through which we acquire and lose these skills are certainly not random—psychologists and neuroscientists have learned a lot in the past few decades about where these skills come from and how they are developed—but they are complex, unfamiliar, and often quite mysterious.
This book is about an idea, one that is growing clearer and gathering momentum in classrooms and clinics and labs and lecture halls across the country and around the world. According to this new way of thinking, the conventional wisdom about child development over the past few decades has been misguided. We have been focusing on the wrong skills and abilities in our children, and we have been using the wrong strategies to help nurture and teach those skills. To call this a new school of thought is probably premature. In many cases the researchers adding to this growing store of knowledge are working in isolation. But increasingly, these scientists and educators are finding one another and making connections across the boundaries of academic disciplines. The argument they are piecing together has the potential to change how we raise our children, how we run our schools, and how we construct our social safety net.
If there is one person at the hub of this new interdisciplinary network, it is James Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago. Heckman might seem an unlikely figure to be leading a challenge to the supremacy of cognitive skill. He is a classic academic intellectual, his glasses thick, his IQ stratospheric, his shirt pocket bristling with mechanical pencils. He grew up in Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s, the son of a middle manager at a meatpacking company. Neither of his parents was college educated, but they both recognized early on that their son possessed a precocious mind. At the age of eight, Heckman devoured his father's copy of the popular self-help book 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary, and at nine, he saved up his pennies and ordered Mathematics for the Practical Man from the back of a comic book. Heckman turned out to be a natural at math, more at home with equations than with anything or anyone else. As a teenager, for fun, he made a habit of taking long numbers and dividing them in his head into the prime numbers that made up their smallest factors—what mathematicians call resolving into primes. At age sixteen, he told me, when his Social Security number arrived in the mail, the first thing he did was resolve it into primes.
Heckman became a professor of economics, first at Columbia University and then at the University of Chicago, and in 2000 he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for a complex statistical method he had invented in the 1970s. Among economists, Heckman is known for his skill in econometrics, a particularly arcane type of statistical analysis that is generally incomprehensible to anyone except other econometricians. I sat in on several of Heckman's graduate classes, and though I did my best to keep up, most of the lectures were, for a layman like me, all but impossible to follow, thick with bewildering equations and phrases like generalized Leontief functions and Hicks-Slutsky substitution elasticity that made me want to put my head down on my desk and just close my eyes.
Although Heckman's techniques may seem impenetrable, the subjects he has chosen to focus on are anything but obscure. In the years since winning the Nobel, Heckman has used the clout and cachet the honor brought him not to cement his reputation within his field but to expand his pursuits, and his influence, into new areas of study that he previously knew little or nothing about, including personality psychology, medicine, and genetics. (He actually has a copy of Genetics for Dummies on his overstuffed office bookshelves, wedged in between two thick texts of economic history.) Since 2008, Heckman has been convening regular invitation-only conferences populated by equal numbers of economists and psychologists, all engaged in one way or another with the same questions: Which skills and traits lead to success? How do they develop in childhood? And what kind of interventions might help children do better?
Heckman oversees a group of two dozen mostly foreign-born graduate students and researchers scattered across a couple of buildings on the Chicago campus; they refer to their tribe, only half jokingly, as Heckmanland. Together, they're always working on several projects at once, and when Heckman talks about his work, he jumps from one topic to another, equally excited by the monkey study in Maryland, the twin study in China, and his collaboration with a philosopher down the hall on the true nature of virtue. (In one conversation with Heckman, I asked him to explain how the various strands of his research fit together. Afterward, as his assistant was walking me out, she turned to me and said,
If you find out, let us know.)
The transformation of Heckman's career has its roots in a study he undertook in the late 1990s on the General Educational Development program, better known as the GED program, which was at the time becoming an increasingly popular way for high-school dropouts to earn the equivalent of high-school diplomas. In many quarters, it was seen as a tool to level the academic playing field, to give low-income and minority students, who were more likely to drop out of high school, an alternative route to college.
The GED's growth was founded on a version of the cognitive hypothesis: the belief that what schools develop, and what a high-school degree certifies, is cognitive skill. If a teenager already has the knowledge and the smarts to graduate from high school, he doesn't need to waste his time actually finishing high school. He can just take a test that measures that knowledge and those skills, and the state will certify that he is, legally, a high-school graduate, as well prepared as any other high-school graduate to go on to college or other post-secondary pursuits. It is an attractive notion, especially to young people who can't stand high school, and the program has expanded rapidly since its introduction, in the 1950s. At the high-water mark, in 2001, more than a million young people took the test, and nearly one in every five new high-school
graduates was actually a GED holder. (The figure is now about one in seven.)
Heckman wanted to examine more closely the idea that young people with GEDs were just as well prepared for further academic pursuits as high-school graduates. He analyzed a few large national databases, and he found that in many important ways, the premise was entirely valid. According to their scores on achievement tests, which correlate closely with IQ, GED recipients were every bit as smart as high-school graduates. But when Heckman looked at their path through higher education, he discovered that GED recipients weren't anything like high-school graduates. At age twenty-two, Heckman found, just 3 percent of GED recipients were enrolled in a four-year university or had completed some kind of post-secondary degree, compared to 46 percent of high-school graduates. In fact, Heckman discovered that when you consider all kinds of important future outcomes—annual income, unemployment rate, divorce rate, use of illegal drugs—GED recipients look exactly like high-school dropouts, despite the fact that they have earned this supposedly valuable extra credential, and despite the fact that they are, on average, considerably more intelligent than high-school dropouts.
From a policy point of view, this was a useful finding, if a depressing one: In the long run, it seemed, as a way to improve your life, the GED was essentially worthless. If anything, it might be having a negative overall effect by inducing young people to drop out of high school. But for Heckman, the results also posed a confounding intellectual puzzle. Like most economists, Heckman had believed that cognitive ability was the single most reliable determinant of how a person's life would turn out. Now he had discovered a group—GED holders—whose good test scores didn't seem to have any positive effect on their lives.
What was missing from the equation, Heckman concluded, were the psychological traits that had allowed the high-school graduates to make it through school. Those traits—an inclination to persist at a boring and often unrewarding task; the ability to delay gratification; the tendency to follow through on a plan—also turned out to be valuable in college, in the workplace, and in life generally. As Heckman explained in one paper:
Inadvertently, the GED has become a test that separates bright but nonpersistent and undisciplined dropouts from other dropouts. GED holders, he wrote,
are 'wise guys' who lack the ability to think ahead, persist in tasks, or to adapt to their environments.
What the GED study didn't give Heckman was any indication of whether it was possible to help children develop those so-called soft skills. His search for an answer to that question led him, almost a decade ago, to Ypsilanti, Michigan, an old industrial town west of Detroit. In the mid-1960s, in the early days of the War on Poverty, a group of child psychologists and education researchers undertook an experiment there, recruiting low-income, low-IQ parents from the town's black neighborhoods to sign up their three- and four-year-old kids for the Perry Preschool. The recruited children were divided randomly into a treatment group and a control group. Children in the treatment group were admitted to Perry, a high-quality, two-year preschool program, and kids in the control group were left to fend for themselves. And then the children were tracked—not just for a year or two, but for decades, in an ongoing study that is intended to follow them for the rest of their lives. The subjects are now in their forties, which means that researchers have been able to trace the effects of the Perry intervention well into adulthood.
The Perry Preschool Project is famous in social science circles, and Heckman had encountered it, glancingly, several times before in his career. As a case for early-childhood intervention, the experiment had always been considered something of a failure. The treatment children did do significantly better on cognitive tests while attending the preschool and for a year or two afterward, but the gains did not last, and by the time the treatment children were in the third grade, their IQ scores were no better than the control group's. But when Heckman and other researchers looked at the long-term results of Perry, the data appeared more promising. It was true that the Perry kids hadn't experienced lasting IQ benefits. But something important had happened to them in preschool, and whatever it was, the positive effects resonated for decades. Compared to the control group, the Perry students were more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to be employed at age twenty-seven, more likely to be earning more than twenty-five thousand dollars a year at age forty, less likely ever to have been arrested, and less likely to have spent time on welfare.
Heckman began to rummage more deeply into the Perry study, and he learned that in the 1960s and 1970s, researchers had collected some data on the students that had never been analyzed: reports from teachers in elementary school rating both the treatment and the control children on
personal behavior and
social development. The first term tracked how often each student swore, lied, stole, or was absent or late; the second one rated each student's level of curiosity as well as his or her relationships with classmates and teachers. Heckman labeled these noncognitive skills, because they were entirely distinct from IQ. And after three years of careful analysis, Heckman and his researchers were able to ascertain that those noncognitive factors, such as curiosity, self-control, and social fluidity, were responsible for as much as two-thirds of the total benefit that Perry gave its students.
The Perry Preschool Project, in other words, worked entirely differently than everyone had believed. The goodhearted educators who set it up in the sixties thought that they were creating a program to raise the intelligence of low-income children; they, like everyone else, believed that was the way to help poor kids get ahead in America. Surprise number one was that they created a program that didn't do much in the long term for IQ but did improve behavior and social skills. Surprise number two was that it helped anyway—for the kids in Ypsilanti, those skills and the underlying traits they reflected turned out to be very valuable indeed.
In the course of reporting this book, I spent a lot of time discussing success and skills with a variety of economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists, many of whom were linked to James Heckman by one or two degrees of separation. But what grounded their research for me, what brought it to life and gave it meaning, was a different kind of reporting that I was doing at the same time, in public schools and pediatric clinics and fast-food restaurants, where I was talking with young people whose lives embodied and illustrated, in one way or another, the complex question of which children succeed and how.
Take Kewauna Lerma. When I met her, in the winter of 2010, she was living on the South Side of Chicago—not too far, as it turned out, from the University of Chicago campus where Heckman spent his days. Kewauna had been born on the South Side, into poverty, seventeen years earlier, the second daughter of a mother who had her first child, Kewauna's older sister, when she was still a teenager. Kewauna had a rootless, unsettled childhood. When she was a baby, her mother moved the family to Mississippi, then to Minnesota, then back to Chicago as she drifted in and out of relationships and in and out of trouble. When things were bad, the family spent periods in shelters or bouncing from one friend's couch to another's. Sometimes Kewauna's great-grandmother would take the kids for a while and let Kewauna's mother try to sort out her life on her own.
"I didn't really have a family family,
Kewauna told me the first time we spoke. We were sitting in a coffee shop in the Kenwood neighborhood. It was the middle of a harsh Chicago winter, and the windows were fogged over. Kewauna has dark skin, big, sympathetic eyes, and straight, dark hair, and she sat forward, warming her hands on a foam-topped mug of hot chocolate. I was scattered all over the place, no father, with my grandma sometimes. It was all messed up. Jacked up."
Growing up, Kewauna said, she hated school. She never learned to read well, and in elementary school she fell farther and farther behind each year, getting in trouble, skipping class, and talking back to teachers. When she was in sixth grade, living outside of Minneapolis, she collected seventy-two referrals for poor behavior by the middle of the year, and so she was assigned to the slow class. She hated that too. A few weeks before the end of the year, she was kicked out of school for fighting.
When I met Kewauna, I had been reporting for several years on children growing up in poverty, and I had heard plenty of stories like hers. Every unhappy family may be unhappy in its own way, but in families that stay trapped in poverty for generations, the patterns can become depressingly familiar, a seemingly endless cycle of absent or neglectful parents, malfunctioning schools, and bad decisions. I knew how stories like Kewauna's generally turned out. Girls with her history, whatever their good intentions, usually drop out of high school. They get pregnant while they are still teenagers. Then they struggle to raise families on their own, and before long, their own children are sliding down the same slope to failure.
But somewhere along the way, Kewauna's life took a different turn. Just before her sophomore year of high school, a few weeks after Kewauna was arrested for the first time, for scuffling with a police officer, Kewauna's mother told her that she wanted to have a talk. Kewauna knew it was serious, because her great-grandmother was there, too, the one member of her family Kewauna had always respected. The two women sat Kewauna down, and her mother uttered one of the hardest sentences for any parent to say:
I don't want you to end up like me. The three of them talked for hours, discussing the past and the future, digging up some long-buried secrets. Kewauna's mother said she recognized the path that Kewauna was on: She also had been kicked out of school as a teenager; she, too, had been arrested for fighting with the police. But the next chapter of Kewauna's story, her mom said, could be a different one. She could avoid unplanned pregnancies, unlike her mother. She could go to college, unlike her mother. She could have a career, unlike her mother.
Kewauna's mom cried through practically the whole conversation, but Kewauna herself never shed a tear. She just listened. She wasn't sure what to think. She didn't know if she could change, and she didn't know if she wanted to. When she got back to school, though, she started to pay more attention in class. In freshman year, she had run around with a rough crowd, girls into gangs and boys into drugs and everyone into skipping school. Now she pulled herself away from those friends, spending more time alone, doing homework and thinking about her future. At the end of her freshman year, her GPA was a miserable 1.8. By the middle of her sophomore year, it had climbed to 3.4.
That February, her English teacher encouraged her to apply for an intensive three-year college-prep program that had recently been introduced at the school. Kewauna applied, and she was accepted, and the support the program gave her made her work even harder. When I met her, she was in the middle of her junior year. Her GPA was 4.2, and she was preoccupied with the question of which colleges to apply to.
The first two chapters really popped and I had high hopes for the rest of his book. The impact of adverse childhood experiences and poverty felt right on point. I also really believe in attachment theory; without a solid beginning most individuals will struggle in life. The idea that a solid attachment can be a protective factor when it comes to poverty and adversity is also a theory that makes a lot of sense. Tough did a great job laying this foundation for the book.
Unfortunately he veers off into the KIPP charter schools and character education. These chapters have some positives and negatives. I did appreciate how Tough focused on kids living in affluence and in poverty. Both populations do benefit from persistence and perseverance as would anyone. However, most public schools don't have the resources or the longer days for extra support that a KIPP school can allow. For me, KIPP is a poor example for a program that can work in any public school setting.
Personally, I don't like the word 'grit'; for me it is a spin-off of the Protestant Work Ethic- pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Most people in today's educational reform movement believe that all kids can succeed in our current educational system. And after we test them some more, we will be able to prove just that!
It is much easier to pull yourself up when the structural inequalities in our country are in your favor. It is much more difficult to suceed facing obstacles such as unemployment, discrimination and being in a school that isn't clean or safe. I think Tough and I can agree on that.
The last few chapters on college success were sobering. Even if kids make it to this point, very few can remain for the four years and walk away with a degree. A book by Tough on just this topic would definitely be interesting.


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Wake Forest downs No. 2 Miami, 80-65
AP Sports Writer
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – C.J. Harris scored 23 points and Wake Forest beat No. 2 Miami 80-65 on Saturday to snap the Hurricanes' 14-game winning streak.
Codi Miler-McIntyre added 15 points while Harris was 5 for 5 from 3-point range to lead the Demon Deacons (12-14, 5-9 Atlantic Coast Conference).
They shot 54 percent, led by double figures for the entire second half and reeled off 12 straight points to pull away for their biggest victory under third-year coach Jeff Bzdelik.
Durand Scott had all 17 of his points in the second half for the Hurricanes (22-4, 13-1), the last of the schools in the six BCS conferences to get its first league loss.
Shane Larkin added 13 points, Trey McKinney Jones had 11 and Kenny Kadji finished with 10, but Miami was outrebounded 36-35 by the younger, smaller Demon Deacons.
Still, the Hurricanes clawed back into the game with an 18-8 run that started late in the first half and ended on Scott's jumper with 14 1/2 minutes left that made it 46-41.
He added a layup 2 minutes later to pull Miami to 50-45, and it looked as if the Hurricanes were going to find a way to keep their charmed run rolling.
But two possessions later, Harris turned a turnover into a fast-break dunk that started a 12-0 run that put the Demon Deacons on the fast track to their biggest victory since they knocked off then-No. 1 Duke four years ago when they were in the top five themselves.
As the final seconds ticked away, Harris and Travis McKie – two of the three available non-freshmen on scholarship – exchanged a flying chest-bump before the Wake Forest students rushed the court for the second time in little over a month.
After that last run, Miami didn't get closer than 11 while Wake Forest pulled away late to bring a surprisingly lopsided end to the best start to ACC play since the 1998-99 Duke team went 16-0 in the league.
McKie finished with 10 rebounds and five blocked shots for the Demon Deacons, who – after two years of being one of the ACC's worst teams – have transformed themselves into a tough out in home conference games.
They improved to 5-2 against ACC foes at Joel Coliseum. The losses – to Duke and Georgia Tech – are by a combined six points.
They thoroughly outplayed the Hurricanes from start to finish, hitting shots from all over the court against a Miami team that was perhaps fatigued after gutting out its last three wins by a combined 12 points.
Harris hit three 3-pointers during a 2-minute stretch of a 28-8 run that put Wake Forest up 19 on the Hurricanes – who hadn't trailed by more than 13 in any ACC game.
Arnaud William Adala Moto's fast-break layup with just over a minute before the break put the Demon Deacons up 42-23.
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VANCOUVER, BC – Vancouver Whitecaps FC will make trips to Casa Grande, Arizona and Portland, Oregon as part of their 2014 preseason camp before kicking off their 40th anniversary season on March 8 against New York Red Bulls at BC Place.
Whitecaps FC players will report for the start of camp and medical testing on January 25 before a week of on-field training in Vancouver.
"It's one of the most exciting parts of the year for everyone at the club," said Whitecaps FC president Bob Lenarduzzi. "We're very happy that Grande Sports World complex has welcomed us back for a fifth year and we're excited to be participating in the Rose City Invitational for the first time. It was important for us to keep our preseason close to home to give supporters and media an opportunity to attend."
For the fifth consecutive year, the 'Caps will travel south for an extended stay at the Grande Sports World as part of their preseason training camp. The 10-day trip, from February 3 to 12, will include a non-gated preseason friendly on February 10 against Houston Dynamo in Tucson, Arizona. Additional matches will be confirmed at a later date.
Following just over a week in Vancouver, Whitecaps FC will participate in the 2014 Rose City Invitational at JELD-WEN Field in Portland, Oregon. The 'Caps and host Timbers will be joined by Western Conference rival San Jose Earthquakes as well as Jamaican club Portmore United FC, a five-time National Premier League champion and four-time winner of the Jamaica Football Federation Champions Cup.
The tournament will consist of three doubleheaders at JELD-WEN Field, with Vancouver and Portmore United FC kicking off the round-robin format on February 23 at 2:30 p.m. PT. Next up, Whitecaps FC will meet the Earthquakes on February 26 at 5 p.m. PT before concluding the tournament against the hosts on March 1 at 5 p.m. PT.
Rose City Invitational
- Sunday, February 23: Whitecaps FC vs. Portmore United FC at 2:30 p.m.; Portland Timbers vs. San Jose Earthquakes at 5 p.m.
- Wednesday, February 26: San Jose Earthquakes vs. Whitecaps FC at 5 p.m.; Portland Timbers vs. Portmore United FC at 7:30 p.m.
- Saturday, March 1: Portmore United FC vs. San Jose Earthquakes at 2:30 p.m.; Portland Timbers vs. Whitecaps FC at 5 p.m.
Individual tickets, which allow entry into both matches, start at $13 and go on sale to the public starting Friday, Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. PT online at www.portlandtimbers.com or by calling 1-888-736-6849; the JELD-WEN Field box office will be closed. Three-game tournament ticket packages, starting at $33, will also be available for purchase online. Group tickets are available by contacting the Timbers ticket office at (503) 553-5555.
Whitecaps FC's fourth season in MLS will get underway on March 8 against defending Supporters Shield winners New York Red Bulls at BC Place.
Important dates:
January 16 – MLS SuperDraft in Philadelphia, PA
January 25 – Players report for Medical Day
January 26 – First on-field training session in Vancouver, BC
February 2 – Travel to Casa Grande, AZ
February 10 – Houston Dynamo vs. Whitecaps FC at 9 a.m. PT at Kino Sports Complex
February 12 – Travel to Vancouver, BC
February 21 – Travel to Portland, OR
February 23 – Whitecaps FC vs. Portmore United FC at 2:30 p.m. at JELD-WEN Field
February 26 – San Jose Earthquakes vs. Whitecaps FC at 5 p.m. at JELD-WEN Field
March 1 – Portland Timbers vs. Whitecaps FC at 5 p.m. JELD-WEN Field
March 2 – Travel to Vancouver, BC
March 8 – Home Opener
Whitecaps FC 2014 season tickets start at just $349, subject to applicable fees. The 'Caps are also offering a flexible range of ticket products, including half-season tickets ($244), 5-packs ($149), student season tickets ($199), and a youth soccer half-season ticket ($100). For more information on all Whitecaps FC ticket options, call 604.669.9283 ext. 2 or visit whitecapsfc.com/tickets.


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Benioff's Social Proof
Feb 28, 2013 5:00 AM PT
Salesforce came to New York this week for its annual winter meeting with customers. The company had two goals: test new ideas, and gather customer input.
The event was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for a relatively small group -- less than 1,000 -- rather than at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, which can accommodate the maintenance facilities for a squadron of F18s. Intimacy, it was hoped, would drive better discussions.
Salesforce has been beating the social CRM drum pretty hard for the last two years. So right on schedule, Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff decided to reshuffle the deck. On Tuesday, Benioff introduced new messaging and a new prescription for companies wanting to get social.
Two years is about the shelf life of an idea like social for Salesforce. You only need to do a little archaeology to recall the changes over the company's life span -- from hosted to on-demand to SaaS to cloud computing to social -- to see what I mean. Benioff, however, is not changing the message just for fun; there is a serious purpose behind it.
Social was a catch-all phrase designed to grab the attention of early adopters. By my research, that's been very successful. Our data shows that executive decision makers in the enterprise and in smaller companies all understand that social is the next big thing. It will definitely reduce costs and boost revenues by a few points.
For enterprise class companies, that means real money. That's a message that early adopters have received, and Salesforce has some great names to prove its point: General Electric, Toyota, Burberry's and many others.
The Evolution of Social Business
The next step for a company in Salesforce's position is to leverage the early success by now enlisting the early majority. That's the next level of big companies that want to adopt new technology to capture some of the cost abatement and profits experienced by the early adopters.
The only hitch is that the early majority buyer typically wants more proof. Whereas the early adopter might have a C-level sponsor, the early majority will have a vice president or similar title making the charge. These people need proof, because they need to convince higher-ups that they should get some budget for the new gizmo.
Again, our research shows that the people in the early majority demographic are not sold yet. They might be leaning, but they also have questions: How do I do this? What are the security and legal ramifications? Which business processes are affected? And which ones should I start with?
Questions like these don't get answered with social pixie dust, which is why the second iteration of the social message largely does away with social as a term, replacing it with the more concrete How to Become a Customer Company.
Now we're cooking with gas. Becoming a more customer-centric company is an idea that's been around in various permutations, and is readily digestible by the target audience because it offers a more concrete deliverable. In discussing what it means to be a customer company, you can't pass go without checking in at better profits, lower costs and better customer retention.
I think Salesforce's efforts for the rest of the year -- through Dreamforce in December -- will continue to flesh out what it means to be a customer company.
Commonsense Suggestions for Success
One of the failures of most social messaging so far has been its single-minded approach: Buy our product and your problems are over! Few people buy into that idea, but that's where the market is at the moment. To his credit, Benioff has compiled a hefty list of things you can do -- with or without his products, though they do make life easier -- to get to customer nirvana.
In his New York presentation, Benioff unveiled a list of eight commonsense things you need to do to get to the new goal, including implementing technologies that enable a company to:
- Listen to every customer
- Engage on every channel
- Sell as a team
- Service customers everywhere
- Create communities
- Connect with partners
- Connect your products
- Deliver apps everywhere
Without going into elaborate detail on each, let me focus on connecting your products, which I believe will become the next big thing for social or customer companies.
You may have heard of this referred to by other phrases, such as the Internet of Things, and that's apt. There is huge potential in providing a better overall customer experience by paying more attention to the things that customers buy, rather than bothering them all the time with former NYC mayor Ed Koch's famous question: How am I doing?
If devices have relatively inexpensive sensors built into them that connect to the Internet and send a steady stream of performance data, then vendors will have the information they need and a legitimate reason for contacting customers.
A message such as "We think your engine will fail in a month or two" might not be what you want to hear. If this outreach, however, keeps you from being stranded or missing an important event, then with that message your vendor may successfully transition from an adversarial position of trying to sell you something else to a real partner in a relationship.
CRM bliss is made of such things.
To recap events at Salesforce in New York this week: New messaging, bigger ideas and pushing the ball forward to further improve the vendor-customer relationship, while offering the potential to reduce business friction and boost profits.


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NH emergency officials: Take precautions before and during storm
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) � New Hampshire emergency management officials are encouraging residents to limit their travel when the state gets hit by a major winter storm Friday.
Perry Plummer of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department says there's still uncertainty about the exact track of the storm. But he said it seems certain that New Hampshire will get heavy snowfall, especially in the southern part of the state.
He said there may also be high wind gusts that could cause scattered power outages.
Plummer encouraged people to stock up on emergency supplies, monitor weather reports, check on the well-being of relatives and neighbors, especially the elderly.


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CSU players not surprised at All-America honor for Cougars safety
ALBUQUERQUE — From what Colorado State players have seen on film of Washington State senior free safety Deone Bucannon, the Rams were not surprised by his selection this week as an Associated Press first-team All-American.
Bucannon, 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, led the Cougars during the 2013 regular season with 109 tackles and five interceptions. As a junior, he recorded 106 tackles and four picks.
At least one NFL mock draft rates him as a first-round draft choice next spring and the first safety to be selected.
CSU (7-6) and Washington State (6-6) will be matched up Saturday in the New Mexico Bowl (noon, ESPN).
"He's a big, physical guy," CSU junior wideout Charles Lovett said. "He comes up and lays the hammer.
"He looks great. He passes the 'eye test.' He has great feet. He's an all-around great player."
CSU coach Jim McElwain said the Rams offense must account for Bucannon at all times.
McElwain added that in studying game film of WSU's defense, it's a joy as a football coach to see "a guy like that show up around the ball" so often.


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Students and Teachers and the Benedictine Way
by Dr. Hilary Thimmesh, OSB
Sister Emmanuel Renner, Sister Mary Reuter, and Abbot John Klassen have written "Catholic, Benedictine Values in an Educational Environment," a 24-page essay that is being widely discussed on our campuses. Environment is a key word in their title. They highlight the moral climate you can expect on a monastic campus: inner awareness of God's presence, respect-even reverence-for one another, a sense of the common good, a shared sense of mission, stability and frugality as key conditions for growth and stewardship.
That is a sketchy summary of a few main ideas in their paper. I mention it to recommend it, but also to note that the monastic tradition yields further values that have a bearing on how and why we learn and teach.
You can, for instance, think of the contemplative dimension of monastic life. What does contemplation mean for students and teachers? Thoughtful? Not superficial? Focused? Poets are contemplative. They see things closely. "I'll tell you how the Sun rose-" says Emily Dickinson, "A Ribbon at a time-." People of a contemplative bent sense the weight and texture of things. "We believe that the Divine presence is everywhere," says Benedict. "Let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices." It's a good rule for thinkers, whether lecturing or discussing or writing: to respect the mind-one's own, one's listeners'-and the power to express oneself thoughtfully. Philosophers, mathematicians, political scientists, every discipline and field of learning can find a home and encouragement in this fundamental monastic quality.
Peace. Monasteries traditionally foster peace. Many have the motto "Pax" at the front door. In the monastic context, peace is not a passive condition. It doesn't happen because for the moment nobody is angry at anybody. It doesn't result from the absence of contention. Rather it is the result of constructive forces in society: people working together, accepting a shared mission, or, more accurately, accepting their individual roles in a cooperative endeavor. Peace doesn't just happen. It is built by people taming their impulse to self-aggrandizement with a healthy humility. Peace is the result of teaching, health care, social work, the administration of justice. Monasteries model such forces in care for their own elderly and infirm, for visitors, retreat makers, students.
Benedictines traditionally sought to maintain their communities by their own efforts as far as possible. Doing so manifested a positive attitude toward work. "When they live by the labor of their hands," says Benedict, "then they are really monks." In our culture this principle translates into a responsible approach to meeting one's own needs and the needs of others in our care. It does not disdain doing the ordinary tasks that keep a place in good running order, whether it's making the soup or doing the laundry or scrubbing the bathroom. It values skill at every level of achievement and takes delight in the accomplishments of others. It is not competitive; rather, cooperation gets high marks. So does sufficiency, or rather the ability to recognize when one has enough.
These are a few central characteristics of Benedictine life-call them values if you will-that easily translate into values for students and teachers wherever they may be, but that are particularly persuasive in a Benedictine environment.


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This week, the President established a new, national monument in honor of Cesar Chavez, declared Fire Prevention Week, and sat down with Diane Sawyer, while the White House honored educational innovators and 4-H and FFA Champions of Change.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Hispanic America's Turn
Air Date: October 5, 2012
Univision's Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas on Hispanic influence and power in America.
State Department Briefing
Air date: October 11, 2012
Victoria Nuland gave the daily State Department briefing. She announced that the new Charge D'Affaires Lawrence Pope was on the ground in Libya and she then fielded questions about the Benghazi attack, in which the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
Victoria Nuland gave the daily State Department briefing. She announced that the new Charge D'Affaires Lawrence Pope was on the ground in Libya and she then fielded questions about the Benghazi attack, in which the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
Today in History: October 12th
Highlights of this day in history: Columbus lands in Americas; USS Cole bombed in Yemen; Soviet leader Khrushchev bangs shoe at UN; Blast rips Bali nightclub; Opera's Luciano Pavarotti born; Singer John Denver dies in plane crash.
Debate Fact Check: Biden, Ryan Bend Some Truths
Sources:YouTubeNational JournalC-Span
CBSThe Washington PostPolitifactCNN
By Zach Toombs
Anchor: Zach Toombs
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Biden Goes on Offensive at VP Debate
Sources:CNNSlateThe WeekThe Atlantic
By Zach Toombs
Anchor: Zach Toombs
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Malala Yousafzai: 'Successful' Surgery Removes Bullet
Sources:CNNGuardianNBC NewsNew York Times
By John O'Connor
Anchor: Logan Tittle
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Hezbollah Claims It Sent Drone Shot Down Over Israel
Sources:CNNCouncil on Foreign Relations
The New York Times
By Harumendhah Helmy
Anchor: Lauren Zima
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
BBC Denies Cover-Up of Savile 'Abuse'
He was a British institution, a flamboyant TV host who raised millions for charity. But a year after his death, Jimmy Savile's reputation has been destroyed by a series of allegations of sex abuse. And the company he worked for, the BBC, has been forced to defend itself against accusations that it tried to cover up the scandal. In December it decided not to broadcast an investigation into the charges. Al Jazeera's Tim Friend reports from London.
Turkey Says Syrian Plane 'Carried Russian-Made Munitions'
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said munitions for the Syrian military were on board a plane forced to land on Wednesday. The Syrian passenger plane was travelling from Moscow to Damascus - but was intercepted by the Turkish air-force Russia's arms export agency has denied it had any cargo on the jet. Al Jazeera's Hyder Abbasi reports.
U.S. Cracks Down on Criminal Gang MS-13
For the first time, the US government has listed a street gang as an international criminal organisation. Mara Salvatrucha -- better known as MS-13 -- is considered one of the fastest growing criminal networks in the world with thousands of members across the US and Latin America. At least 30 thousand of its members trade in drugs, kidnapping, human smuggling, blackmail and assassinations throughout Central America and Mexico. But another 8,000 MS-13 followers are believed to operate in the US, that's where the group originated among young refugees in the streets of Los Angeles. Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports from Washington.
Bangladesh Scientists Decode Fungus DNA
The country is one of the world's largest exporters of the fiber jute, and scientists have just decoded the DNA of a fungus which destroys it. Finding a cure to the fungus could increase the production of jute by 30 per cent. 40 million Bangladeshis, most of them farmers, depend on the plant. Once treated, the natural fiber is exported across the world. It's used to make heavy duty bags in South America, rugs in the Middle East, and the American automobile industry increasingly uses the natural fiber over synthetic alternatives to carpet and pad the interiors of cars. Al Jazeera's Nicolas Haque reports from Narsingdi, Bangladesh.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
White House Praises Malala Yousufzai on First Annual International Day of the Girl
Carney: "As We Pray for Malala's Recovery, We Honor Her Bravery"
The following statement was issued today by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
On this first International Day of the Girl, the United States reaffirms our abiding commitment to promoting the rights and status of girls here in the United States and around the world. We know that when girls have access to education and health care, are safe from violence, and have equal opportunities to reach their full potential, families and communities are more likely to thrive and countries are more likely to prosper. That is why the Obama Administration has worked to ensure access to quality health care for all our young people; to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls, including human trafficking; and to promote gender equity in education, including in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields.
We are reminded of the urgency of this work by the outrageous attack this week by the Pakistani Taliban on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai. Malala's courage and determination as a champion for girls' education and opportunity stands in stark contrast to the cowards who seek to silence her. Like so many Pakistanis and people of goodwill around the world, the American people are shocked by this deplorable shooting of a girl who was targeted because she dared to attend school, and we reaffirm our commitment to working with the Pakistani people toward a future that delivers progress, justice and peace to all its citizens.
As we pray for Malala's recovery, we honor her bravery, we celebrate the accomplishments of girls here in the United States and throughout the world, and we salute the leadership of all those working to advance gender equality. On this International Day of the Girl, we pledge to carry on our work and keep advancing our shared vision of a world where our daughters enjoy the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons.
Julian Zelizer on the Vice Presidential Debate
Julian Zelizer talked about the historical significance of vice presidential debates, and he responded to telephone calls and electronic communications. He discussed the 2012 vice presidential debate in comparison with prior years, and the influence on vice presidential candidates on prior elections, and he previewed the evening's debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Representative Paul Ryan.
NYS Agencies Now Providing Free Language Access Services
Governor Cuomo: "New York State Government Needs to be Able to Serve All of its Residents No Matter What Language They Speak"
New York State agencies are now providing free language interpretation in six major non-English languages, helping all New Yorkers have access to vital government services.
On October 6, 2011, Governor Cuomo signed Executive Order No. 26 that directed state agencies that provide direct services to the public to increase their foreign language access to help the approximately 2.5 million New Yorkers deemed to have Limited English Proficiency (LEP).
On October 6, 2011, Governor Cuomo signed Executive Order No. 26 that directed state agencies that provide direct services to the public to increase their foreign language access to help the approximately 2.5 million New Yorkers deemed to have Limited English Proficiency (LEP).
As of October 10, state agencies are now equipped to provide free interpretation in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Korean and Haitian Creole, the six non-English languages spoken by the majority of the LEP community in New York, according to the U.S. Census.
Agencies also have translated essential documents, forms and written notices of rights into those six languages.
"New York State government needs to be able to serve all of its residents no matter what language they speak," said Governor Cuomo.
"Today our agencies are ready to provide assistance in the foreign languages that are spoken by most non-English speakers in our state. With the implementation of this executive order I am proud to say we are making state government truly work for the many diverse cultures and communities that have made their home in New York."
According to the United States Census Bureau, almost 22% of New Yorkers were born outside of the U.S. and almost 30% speak a language at home other than English. Immigrants make up over 27% of New York's workforce.
In New York City, immigrants make up more than one-third (37%) of the population and almost one-half (46%) of the workforce.
The Governor's language access directive requires each agency to conduct a language reassessment at least every two years to determine if additional languages will be needed.
Theo Oshiro from Make the Road New York and a member of The New York State Language Access Coalition noted, "Thanks to Governor Cuomo, millions of New Yorkers will now have equal access to crucial services, programs and benefits in a language they understand. This is a great triumph for the immigrant population." Members of the coalition include Make the Road New York, Center for Popular Democracy, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Legal Services NYC, Minkwon Center for Community Action and New York Immigration Coalition.
"Governor Cuomo's Executive Order opens doors for many immigrants new to the state and those who have limited English proficiency. We believe that language will no longer be an impediment to access government resources for Asian Americans and immigrants throughout New York," stated Steve Choi from MinKwon Center.
Katherine Terenzi from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest added, "For all those that have come and made New York their home, the Executive Order has made it possible for residents to communicate effectively with state government."
For more information about Language Access, visit the Department of Labor's website at http://labor.ny.gov/
Translated versions of this announcement are available below:
Today in History: October 11th
Highlights of this day in history: Congress OK's U.S. military force against Iraq; Former President Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace Prize; Anita Hill accuses Supreme Court pick Clarence Thomas; Second Vatican Council opens; 'SNL' premieres.
Top Newsy Headlines: Yemeni Security Official Killed
Sources:BBCWGTQAl JazeeraWTKR
By Logan Tittle
Anchor: Logan Tittle
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Romney Criticized for 'Flip-Flopping' Abortion Comments
Sources:Talking Points MemoWHDHABCPolitico
Des Moines RegisterDes Moines Register
By Shanley Reynolds
Anchor: Lauren Zima
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Plane Incident Marks New Low in Syria-Turkey Relations
A Syrian passenger plane has taken off from Ankara after it was detained by Turkish authorities. The government said it was carrying suspicious materials, but has yet to say what those were. The incident marks a new low in relations between the two countries. Al Jazeera's Mereana Hond reports.
Child Marriages Common in Afghanistan
The UN marks Thursday as International Day of the Girl Child. The focus this year is on ending child marriages. In Afghanistan, the practice is illegal under the law but still very common. Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse has been speaking to one woman who was forced into a marriage at the age of 11.
U.S. Congress Holds Hearing on Libya Attack
Diplomatic security for the US mission in Benghazi was "a struggle" and security teams in Libya were drawn down ahead of last month's fatal attack, the former head of a US security team in Libya has told lawmakers. "The security in Benghazi was a struggle and remained a struggle throughout my time there," Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday. The hearing was Congress' first on the September assault that killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan reports from Washington.
Shell to Face Dutch Court Over Nigeria Spills
Four Nigerian farmers are taking on Royal-Dutch Shell saying pollution from oil extraction has damaged the crops and fish farms they depend upon. Civil court proceedings are now under way at the Hague. Al Jazeera's Gerald Tan explains how the outcome of the case could set a precedent for standards in global environmental responsibility.
Japan Heavily Invested in Myanmar
Japan is taking the lead in helping the nation of Myanmar overcome its economic problems. Tokyo has already agreed to waive billions of dollars in debt, and is helping Myanmar pay back loans. And it's expected to ask other nations to contribute - as the IMF and World Bank meet in the Japanese capital. Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay has more.
Bitter-Sweet Outcome for Pussy Riot
A Russian appeal court has freed one of the members of the Pussy Riot group. Two other women will serve out their two year jail terms. All three were convicted of hooliganism after staging a controversial performance in a Moscow cathedral. Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports from Moscow.
Maoists Call for Bollywood Ban in Nepal
A breakaway faction of the ruling the Communist party in Nepal has called for a boycott of Indian films and banned cinema owners from screening them. They claim Bollywood films have dual negative impacts on Nepali culture and economy. The popular films, they say, show negative depictions of Nepali people and keep locals from patronizing locally-created cinema. Al Jazeera's Subina Shrestha reports from Kathmandu.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Lloyd Strayhorn: 'According to Numerology, Biden Will Win the Debate'
Renowned Astro-Numerologist Reveals Stunning Facts and Similarities Between the 2008 and 2012 Vice Presidential Candidates and Debates
The following was noted in a previous From The G-Man article on Strayhorn.
"Born and raised in Harlem, New York, the incomparable Lloyd Strayhorn is a proud resident of what he calls "a community of change". Strayhorn attended Public Schools 133 and 68 in Harlem and later graduated from George Washington High School. Ultimately, he received a bachelor's degree in Sociology from Virginia Union University.
Shortly after graduating college, Strayhorn returned to New York and worked at Harper's Bazaar Magazine, CBS Radio and Television and Connecticut General Life Insurance Company. His diverse media background and intense work ethic led him to the offices of Inner-City Broadcasting Company. It was here that he developed a loyal following as a radio personality and served as a spiritual guide for millions of listeners for more than 25 years.
From the time he launched his career, Strayhorn devoted himself to his fans and mission by freely giving his time to lecture at numerous elementary and high schools and rehab centers. Always using numerology as a backdrop, he continues to encourage everyone to become better by seizing control of his or her actions, lives and careers. He has authored three popular books, including the best-selling "Numbers and You", and wrote numerous magazine and newspaper articles on numerology."
The G-Man recently spoke with Strayhorn and asked him to forecast the upcoming vice presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and challenger Paul Ryan. The segment was conceived, directed, edited, produced and written by The G-Man.
Lloyd Strayhorn can be reached at (800) 581-4401 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Lloyd Strayhorn can be reached at (800) 581-4401 or email@example.com.
Allen and Dunford Nominated for New Posts
General John Allen
Statement by President Obama
Statement by President Obama
I am proud to nominate General John Allen as the next Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and Commander of U.S. European Command. For more than a year, General Allen has served with distinction as the Commander of U.S. Forces and NATO International Security Assistances Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan, seeing us through a critical period in our military efforts and in Afghanistan's transition. I have personally relied on his counsel and am grateful for his devotion to our national security and to the safety of the men and women with whom he serves. Under General Allen's command, we have made important progress towards our core goal of defeating Al Qaeda and ensuring they can never return to a sovereign Afghanistan. Working with our Afghan partners and international civilians, the forces under General Allen's command have moved forward with a transition to Afghan Security Forces, who will take the lead for security across the country next year.
General Joseph Dunford
Very difficult work remains ahead in Afghanistan and to lead those efforts for the United States and NATO-ISAF, I will nominate General Joseph Dunford as the new ISAF Commander (COMISAF). General Dunford currently serves as the Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and I have full confidence in his extensive experience, strategic leadership and vision. If confirmed by the Senate, he will lead our forces through key milestones in our effort that will allow us to bring the war to a close responsibly as Afghanistan takes full responsibility for its security.
If confirmed by the Senate, General Allen will replace Admiral Jim Stavridis as the SACEUR in the Spring. During his tenure in Afghanistan, General Allen established his credibility with our NATO allies and ISAF partners as a strong and effective military leader. I would also like to thank Admiral Stavridis for his steadfast service on behalf of the United States and NATO. He has played a critical role in helping to make NATO a stronger Alliance and ensuring we have the capabilities and partnerships to meet the challenges of the next century.
Teenage Rights Activist Shot in Pakistan
Malala Yusufzai, a 14-year-old education rights activist, has been shot and injured while on her way home from school in Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley region of northwest Pakistan. She was with one other girl, taking a school van home following an examination at the Khushal public school, witnesses told Al Jazeera. Unidentified men stopped the vehicle, asking if it was the transport from Khushal school. When told that it was, one man asked: "Where is Malala?" As she was identified, the assailant reportedly drew a pistol and shot Yusufzai in the head and the neck. Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reports.
Brennan Meets with Senior Libyan Officials
John Brennan
Statement by National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor
Statement by National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor
Today, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan met with senior Libyan officials, including President Magariaf, in Tripoli. Mr. Brennan, on behalf of President Obama, expressed support for Libya's ongoing government formation and transition to democracy and accepted condolences for the tragic deaths of four Americans in Benghazi last month.
The two sides discussed the continuing investigation into the Benghazi attacks, including specific additional steps Libya can take to better assist the U.S. in ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice. Both sides reaffirmed their strong commitment to countering terrorism and violent extremism. Mr. Brennan encouraged Libyan officials to move quickly on refining their policies and advancing government capabilities in the security and justice sectors, and urged Libya to take full and timely advantage of specific offers of assistance from the United States and other international partners.
Finally, Mr. Brennan reinforced U.S. support and commitment to the Libyan people and their leaders as they undertake the hard work of governance and reform necessary to build a new Libya.
Cuomo Appoints Allison Gollust as Director of Communications
Appointee Served as Senior Vice President of NBC News Communications
On October 9, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the appointment of Allison Gollust to serve as Director of Communications. She will replace Richard A. Bamberger, who has served in the position since January 1, 2011.
"It is an honor to welcome Allison to our team and I thank her for bringing her talents to New York state government," said Governor Cuomo.
"Allison is a consummate professional who has a wealth of experience in communications and management. Her extraordinary work ethic, intellect and dedication will be essential to this position and I look forward to working with her."
"Since Rich started at the Attorney General's office in 2008, he has been a vital member of a team that has delivered for the people of the state of New York. There is no doubt he will be missed. I thank him for his dedication, public service and friendship," Governor Cuomo added.
"The opportunity to join the Governor and his team to build on the tremendous success they have already achieved in transforming the state is one that I truly could not pass up," stated Ms. Gollust.
"Communication in this day and age moves at a lightning pace and serves a critical role in informing the public. I look forward to working with the administration to continue spreading the Governor's message of a new New York throughout the state."
"It has been my great honor and privilege to serve with such a dedicated public servant as Governor Cuomo. What started out as a one-year endeavor has lasted for four years, and that is a testament to the compelling work that the Governor and his team are doing on behalf of New Yorkers everywhere," noted Mr. Bamberger.
"Allison will be a great addition to the administration and I wish her the best of luck. The Governor's mission has always been to hire the best and the brightest to serve the people of New York, and Allison is one of them. Governor Cuomo has been a mentor and friend and I thank him for the opportunity to have worked beside him."
Gollust began her career as a reporter and producer in Denver, Colorado. Following her work as a journalist, Ms. Gollust became the director of communications and spokeswoman for Major League Soccer and then joined NBC Universal where she worked most recently as the executive vice president of Corporate Communications.
Gollust was responsible for communications policies and strategic positioning of NBC Universal's global assets, content, and executives and oversaw the company's domestic and international media strategy and execution, executive communications, internal communications, corporate philanthropy, and community relations.
In addition, she served as the chief spokesperson for NBC Universal.
From 2005 to 2009, Gollust served as senior vice president of NBC News Communications. In that role, she was chief spokesperson for NBC News and had oversight of communications at NBC's 24-hour cable news channel, MSNBC; the leading global brand in business news, CNBC; and the Weather Channel. She oversaw all internal and external communications for NBC News and its programming, including Today, Nightly News with Brian Williams, Dateline, and Meet the Press.
From 2002 to 2005, Gollust held the position of vice president of NBC News Communications.
In the course of her tenure at NBC News, Gollust was responsible for managing communications strategy around three major network anchor transitions, including the appointment of David Gregory following the tragic death of Tim Russert in 2008, and the transitions from Katie Couric to Meredith Vieira at Today in 2006, and from Tom Brokaw to Brian Williams at NBC Nightly News in 2004.
Gollust joined NBC News Communications in November 1998, as senior publicist for Today, serving as chief spokesperson for the broadcast, as well as sole publicist and spokesperson for anchors Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. Prior to her tenure with Today, she was a publicist in NBC's Corporate Communications division, where she oversaw corporate and philanthropic events, as well as handled internal communications.
Gollust resides in New York City with her husband and two daughters.
Mr. Bamberger will remain with the administration to assist in the transition.
Senator Schumer on U.S. Tax Policy
Senator Chuck. Schumer (D-NY) talked about tax policy and the 2012 elections. In his remarks he rejected the idea of cutting tax rates, arguing that addressing the deficit should instead be the focus. He further said the top rate should rise as scheduled to 39.6 percent for the 2013 tax year.
Today in History: October 10th
Highlights of this day in history: Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns; Imperial rule ends in China; Achille Lauro hijackers forced to land; Movie legend Orson Welles dies; Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi born; Actor Christopher Reeve dies.
Swastikas, Protests Greet Germany's Merkel in Greece
Sources:ITVBBCRTThe Guardian
By Christina Hartman
Anchor: Christina Hartman
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Pussy Riot Appeals, One Member Freed
NATO Warns Syria: Keep Fighting Out of Turkey
Sources:CBSBBCAl JazeeraFox News
The Christian Science Monitor
By Zach Toombs
Anchor: Zach Toombs
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Mexico Says Body of Drug Kingpin 'Snatched'
Mexico says its forces have killed one of the nation's most feared drug lords. But now in a bizarre twist - the body of suspected Zetas gang leader Heriberto Lazcano has been stolen from a funeral home. Al Jazeera's Adam Rayney reports from Mexico City.
France and Spain to Discuss Economic Crisis
The leaders of France and Spain are due to meet in Paris to discuss their failing economies - and the Eurozone crisis. France is Spain's biggest trading partner, but as Spanish building projects grind to a halt, workers are crossing the border to find employment. Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from Spain.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Will Obama's Poll Decline Finally Break the Silence on Climate?
A Special Guest Commentary by Renowned Activist Ted Glick
Future Hope column, October 9, 2012
Will Obama's Poll Decline Finally Break the Silence on Climate?
By Ted Glick
Four years ago, when Barack Obama was running against John McCain for the Presidency and when the climate crisis was not as severe as it has become, both Obama and McCain were in agreement that 1) it existed and 2) action should be taken on it. As importantly, they both spoke about this issue throughout the campaign.
Obama's program back then, put forward in early August 2008, projected 1 million plug-in hybrid cars by 2015, a commitment to energy efficiency, investing in an upgrade of the national utility grid, weatherizing one million homes annually, a 100% auction—with no freebies for polluters--of carbon emission permits, and a goal of 5 million new green jobs. He consistently incorporated language in his speeches for the US to advance wind and solar, to "heal the planet."
Compared to then-President George Bush, these were important, if limited, steps in the right direction, and Obama and the Democrats have made efforts, with some success, to move most of these and other clean energy programs forward.
But when it comes to talking about the much-worse, deepening climate crisis in 2012, Obama has essentially censored himself. It is stunning, and deeply disturbing, that this is happening, given events just this year like record heat and widespread drought and a new record for Arctic ice melt. Some climate scientists who have been studying the Arctic for many years believe that it is possible that before the next Presidential election in 2016, the Arctic could be ice-free during the last month of summer.
What is baffling about Obama's silence is that polling shows consistently that taking action on climate is a winner politically. A poll of likely voters just last month conducted by Yale and George Mason University found these striking results:
"Most undecided likely voters (80%) believe that global warming is happening, while only 3% say it is not happening – which is very similar to likely Obama voters (86% and 4%, respectively).
"Two out of three Undecideds (65%) say that if global warming is happening, it is mostly human caused, the same as likely Obama voters (65%).
"Though few likely voters say global warming is the "single-most important" issue to them in this election, majorities of both likely Obama voters (75%) and Undecideds (61%) say it will be one of several important issues determining their vote for President.
"Undecideds as well as likely Obama voters say that President Obama (64% and 61% respectively) and Congress (72% and 78%) should be "doing more" about global warming."
For several months many climate and environmental groups have tried to break the silence on climate in the Presidential election campaign, so far without success. An on-line petition effort, www.climatesilence.org, was recently launched. Over 150,000 people signed a petition to Jim Lehrer to get him to ask a question on climate in the first debate, without success.
But in retrospect, I wonder what would have happened even if Lehrer had asked such a question. Given Obama's, and Romney's, respective first debate performances, there's a good chance they both would have said little of substance, done all they could to keep this from becoming a major issue.
Obama's debate performance, as indicated by polls released over the last several days, show that Obama has pretty much lost the lead he had been slowly developing prior to the debate. All signs point to a very close election that, as of now, could go either way.
In that context, and given the results of the Yale/George Mason and other prior polls, it sure seems like it would be to Obama's benefit that he regain his voice on climate. It's true that, like debating, this is something that he's not used to. He hasn't been talking about climate for years, literally. Ever since the failed Copenhagen climate conference in late 2009, Obama has rarely mentioned the issue, and when he has said something that's all that it has been, a mention.
But our current President does have a history of coming off the ropes with strength and passion when it has to do with his political standing or possible election defeat. If he and his campaign advisors finally realize that publicly speaking up for action to address the climate crisis is the right thing to do politically, maybe that will be what breaks the silence and, indeed, plays a key role in getting Obama elected.
It's a shame if this ends up being what causes it, but given our desperate climate reality, it's something to be welcomed. The planet, its people and all forms of life need a President who doesn't make jokes about but who has a vision, however cloudy, of a time when the "rise of the oceans begins to slow and our planet begins to heal."
Ted Glick has been a climate activist since 2004 and a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. Past writings and other information can be found at http://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on twitter at http://twitter.com/jtglick.
Bill Moyers Essay: Honoring a Fallen Soldier's Plea
Moyers and Company
Air Date: October 5, 2012
Bill Moyers shares the story of a young U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan, arguing it's time our presidential candidates decisively address the price of our presence there.
Foreign Policy and the 2012 Presidential Election
Susan Glasser talked about the role of foreign policy issues in the 2012 election. She answered questioned from viewers. Topics included presidential candidate Mitt Romney's previous day speech on foreign policy, the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Today in History: October 9th
Highlights of this day in history: Guerrilla leader Che Guevara executed in Bolivia; Anthrax-laced letters sent to Capitol Hill; Achille Lauro hijackers surrender; Andrei Sakharov wins Nobel Peace Prize; Musician John Lennon born.
Top Newsy Headlines: N. Korea Says U.S. is in Missile Range
Baumgartner Set To Skydive from The Edge of Space
Sources:Channel 4WPTVBay News 9
CTV NewsFox News
By Shanley Reynolds
Anchor: Zach Toombs
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart 'Rumble' in Debate
By Danny Matteson
Anchor: Candice Aviles
Video courtesy of Newsy.com
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WASHINGTON — IF you can't spell it, you can't get it.
President Obama pulled a Quayle Thursday night at a White House performance by the women of soul and muffed the title of Aretha Franklin's anthem. "R-S-P-E-C-T," he said, looking a bit confused and eliciting laughter.
When Patti LaBelle took the stage, she told Obama, "Baby, you've got swag."
Swag and respect are exactly what the president needs. He's got a swag gap with Russia. His administration, after belatedly figuring out what was going on in Ukraine, is improvising as the uber-swaggering Vladimir Putin once more rolls in with tanks anywhere he likes.
But the president is severely constrained in how he can respond, given that the Europeans are reluctant to be very punitive because they're worried about their energy supplies and have to play nice with the bully on their borders.
He's doing what seems appropriate at this point — putting a ban on U.S. visas, imposing financial sanctions on "individuals and entities" responsible for Russia's invasion of Crimea, and trying to horse-whisper the Botoxed, bare-chested man on horseback whose eyes read "K.G.B.," as John McCain likes to say.
The right wing seems risible, swooning over Pooty-Poot, as W. dubbed Putin. They gleefully claim the Russian strongman is Carterizing Obama and act huffy that the only one parachuting into Kiev is John Kerry. "What are you going to do, send the 101st Airborne into Crimea?" says Terry McCarthy, the president of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. "The way Republicans are dumping on the president, saying anything short of Armageddon shows that he's weak, is silly. It's kind of shocking that foreign policy, which used to be nonpartisan, now becomes partisan so quickly."
Speaker John Boehner said congressional Republicans were "trying to give the president tools that he might employ that would strengthen his hand in dealing with this very difficult problem."
More calculating conservatives pounced. Trying to rehabilitate himself, Marco Rubio told a CPAC audience here that America must "stand up to the spread of totalitarianism."
Sarah Palin, who seems ever more viperish, deployed her Yoda syntax with Sean Hannity: "People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates."
Actually, the jeans the president wore in the Oval Office, talking to Putin on the phone last weekend, looked good.
And his Russia response is a positive contrast with Syria, where Obama came across as naval-gazing and feckless when he dithered and then drew a "red line" against Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons. He was still explaining to the press why he had decided on military action while Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the Brits were yanking the rug out from under him.
The place where Obama really looks weak right now is at home.
Even after Democrats changed the filibuster rule and rigged the game in the Senate to get nominees through on a majority vote, the White House got whacked over its nominee to lead the Justice Department's civil rights division.
Bryan Cranston has said he hopes Obama comes to see his new L.B.J. play on Broadway to learn a little about horse-trading. The sooner, the better. The president and Harry Reid upended the entire Senate to get people like Debo Adegbile through, and they couldn't get him through — and in the area of civil rights, so crucial to Obama's legacy.
Obama called the defeat "a travesty," but the White House seemed oblivious to the fact that they were putting Democratic senators in red states in a squeeze between the Fraternal Order of Police and civil rights groups. Adegbile had worked on an N.A.A.C.P. legal team that filed a Supreme Court brief in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a writer and former Black Panther convicted in the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal called himself a political prisoner and turned into such an international cause célèbre that a Paris suburb named a street for him.
If Obama was determined to choose Adegbile, his team needed to sell him adeptly and promptly. But Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said there were still "open wounds" about Faulkner in his state, and by the time Casey and six other Democrats began to run away, it was too late.
It also didn't help Obama's swag that Reid and Nancy Pelosi peremptorily declared the president's trade agenda D.O.A. for this session, showing that he doesn't have the juice to override them on a key part of his economic plan. If the president doesn't get it together, he's headed for a big, bad midterm "thumpin' " in the memorable word of W., who experienced one six years into his reign.
It's tricky for Democrats: Obama is unpopular, so they want to distance themselves from him in the tough races in red states. But the more they run away from him, the weaker he looks and the more unpopular he gets. (Gallup has his approval rating dropping to 41 percent, a danger zone for Democrats running for re-election.)
If the Republicans win the Senate, they'll get in and find out they can't pass legislation either. Then they'll look bad just in time to help make a Democratic presidential candidate look good.


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Senior Reporter
Tom is a technology reporter for ZDNet.com, writing about all manner of security and open-source issues.Tom had various jobs after leaving university, including working for a company that hired out computers as props for films and televisio…n, and a role turning the entire back catalogue of a publisher into e-books.Tom eventually found that journalism was for him, and after a period of freelancing, landed a job as security reporter for ZDNet UK. He covers the security beat, writing about everything from hacking and cybercrime to threats and mitigation. He also focuses on open source and emerging technologies, all the while trying to cut through greenwash.
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Carter uses his height and a high release point to get a good downward angle on his pitches. His fastball typically sits in the 91-93 range and he has a good curveball that has become more consistent.
July 13, 2009
Dexter Carter scouting report
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"The quality of our work would not be as good without CRS. And it would take hours to get the work done without CRS."
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BOULDER, CO - October 3, 2005
Webroot Software, Inc., the leading provider of anti-spyware software and other security technologies for the enterprise and consumers, today announced an upcoming webinar that will detail the corporate findings of the company's second quarterly State of Spyware report. The free webinar is scheduled for this Wednesday, October 5th at 11:00 am MDT. Those interested in attending may register online.
As the only comprehensive report on spyware, the Webroot State of Spyware report is an in-depth review and analysis of the impact of spyware, adware and unwanted software on consumers and enterprises. The upcoming webinar will emphasize enterprise report data collected from the second quarter of this year including infection rates, geographical origins, top threats, legislation and recent incidents associated with spyware.
"The first State of Spyware report issued in May armed businesses and consumers with the information needed to take a more proactive stance against spyware, but the battle has only just begun," said Richard Stiennon, vice president of threat research at Webroot and webinar co-moderator. "This latest webinar will provide market data from our second State of Spyware report revealing how spyware developers have redoubled their efforts to create and deploy new tactics and technology to speed the proliferation of spyware."
During the webinar, Stiennon along with Jeff Hughes, director or product marketing, will present concise data showing the continued growth of the spyware industry through expanded distribution channels and increased sophistication of new spyware programs. They will also highlight specific corporate spyware incidents as well as an alarming rise in the amount of spyware on corporate machines - a 19% increase during the last quarter alone. Webinar attendees will be allowed to submit questions online during the session.
Webroot's State of Spyware report is released on a quarterly basis.


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right to make information changes from time to time without notice or obligation.
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Although descriptions are believed to be correct, accuracy of this site, or any outside sites
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I finally made the move to a self-hosted WordPress blog. Come check out the new digs!
Until I figure out how to import all my old stuff into the new blog (the current export file exceeds the maximum size for the Import tool), you can look up the old content on this site. For new embloggenings, head over to http://www.munchkinwrangler.com.


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Important Note
You MUST contact your bank and tell them to allow all the Charges made on the Release Day "11/8/2018" cause you want to buy some things online, as tons of our orders were getting declined by banks because of security features
Air Force 1 Low Supreme x Comme des Garcons
Release Date: 11/8/2018
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You only pay if we secure your pair, so you have nothing to lose.
You can purchase multiple Slots but you'll need to provide different: Address, Payment methods, emails, name and phone number for each order.
There is a slight chance that we could get you multiple shoes.
You can not cancel an order, all sales are final.
Order confirmations will be sent to our email and we will be forward them to the customers
By purchasing this slot the Customer AGREES to these Policies and will be charged for the slot.