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Source: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
LÉPINE, AMBROISE-DYDIME, farmer, Métis leader, and politician; b. 18 March 1840 in St Boniface (Man.), fifth of the six children of Jean-Baptiste Lépine and Julie Henry; m. there 12 Jan. 1859 Cécile Marion, and they had 14 children, six of whom survived him; d. there 8 June 1923.
Ambroise Lépine's father, an engagé of the Hudson's Bay Company, was born in Saint-Jacques-de-l'Achigan (Saint-Jacques), Lower Canada, to Joseph Chevaudier, dit Lépine, and Marie-Anne Pellerin. His mother, the daughter of an English fur trader and an Indian woman, was a native of Ste Agathe (Man.). Lépine was educated at the Collège de Saint-Boniface. After his marriage to Cécile Marion, who was of French Canadian and Métis descent, the couple began farming in St Boniface on river lot 119. Lépine supplemented his income with freighting and hunting.
There is no evidence that Lépine was politically active prior to 1869, when the forthcoming transfer of Rupert's Land from the HBC to Canada was announced. On his return to the Red River settlement (Man.) on 30 October from a freighting expedition to Fort Pitt (Sask.), he learned that the Métis, led by Louis Riel*, had taken steps to delay the transfer and force the Canadian government to negotiate the terms of union with the colony's inhabitants. Apparently asked by Riel if he was "for or against the Métis," Lépine replied that he was in favour of Métis rights. Riel immediately ordered him, with 14 others, to ride to Pembina (N.Dak.) to turn back the lieutenant governor designate, William McDougall*, at the border. On 7 December, on Riel's orders, he led 100 Métis in the capture of Canadians who were garrisoned in the house of one of their leaders, John Christian Schultz*. On 8 Jan. 1870 Riel's provisional government appointed Lépine adjutant general to administer justice in the settlement. A few weeks later Lépine was also elected to represent St Boniface in a convention of 40 representatives of the settlement and he was subsequently appointed head of the military council, a subcommittee of the convention.
A contemporary speculated that Riel chose Lépine as his military chief because of the respect he commanded among the Métis tripmen and buffalo hunters. The Reverend Roderick George MacBeth* described Lépine as a man of prodigious strength, "standing fully six feet three and built in splendid proportion." Reputedly a skilled plainsman, he was assumed to have been the natural leader of the soldiers of the resistance. This assessment does not bear careful scrutiny, however. There is no evidence that Lépine was a buffalo hunter and in March 1870 diarist Alexander Begg* noted that there was open revolt amongst the Métis over Lépine's conduct. Riel patched up the affair, but ordered him not to be so overbearing. A more convincing explanation for Lépine's advancement in the Riel party involves his loyalty to Riel and their close personal and family ties. Furthermore, Lépine was allied with the Catholic Church and many of Riel's most trusted advisers during 1869–70 were Catholic priests.
In mid February 1870 Lépine and a group of Métis arrested Major Charles Arkoll Boulton* and a number of men after their plan to capture Upper Fort Garry (Winnipeg) aborted. Among the prisoners was Thomas Scott*, whose behaviour soon angered his Métis guards. Riel ordered Scott court martialled on 3 March. As the military leader, Lépine headed the tribunal that tried Scott and found him guilty of rebelling against the government and it was he who declared that Scott should be executed. It was Riel, however, who turned down all pleas to spare Scott's life.
Scott's execution would have profound repercussions for both Riel and Lépine. When they later became fearful about reaction to the execution, especially in Protestant Ontario, they were assured by Bishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché* that an amnesty would be granted covering all the events of the resistance. The arrival of the troops led by Colonel Garnet Joseph Wolseley* on 24 Aug. 1870, along with warnings that their lives were in danger, persuaded Riel and Lépine to flee. They eventually ended up at the Catholic mission of St Joseph (N.Dak.), but over the next year they would move back and forth across the boundary, causing a good deal of excitement in the Red River settlement.
In October 1871 Lépine was chosen captain of the troops from St Boniface who volunteered to defend the settlement against the Fenian invasion led by William Bernard O'Donoghue*. He hoped that these loyal actions would result in amnesty, but it was not forthcoming. Although the government had little interest in bringing him and Riel to trial, fearing the uproar that such a move would cause throughout the country, certain individuals wanted vengeance. Given the increasing danger of their arrest, he and Riel were persuaded by Taché to go into voluntary exile in the United States. Lépine was unhappy there. Alternately bored and afraid for his life, he also worried about the welfare of his family and by May 1873 had resolved to go home.
Back in Manitoba, Lépine returned to his farm. His arrest on 17 September on the charge of murdering Scott was the initiative of two Canadians who had been imprisoned by the Métis during the troubles and it caused a great stir in Manitoba. The trial was delayed several times since the judges were unwilling or unable to decide if the Court of Queen's Bench had jurisdiction to try the case. The matter was settled in June 1874 by the newly appointed provincial chief justice, Edmund Burke Wood*, who released Lépine on $8,000 bail.
The trial, which began on 13 October, lasted until 4 November, when the jury, consisting of six French- and six English-speaking members, returned a verdict of guilty with the recommendation of mercy. Wood, comparing the execution of Scott to a "savage atrocity," sentenced Lépine to death by hanging. The conviction and sentencing elicited great excitement and indignation in Red River and the rest of Canada. Le Nouveau Monde (Montréal) [see Alphonse Desjardins*] demanded that the federal French Canadian ministers secure a pardon or resign their seats, and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec passed a unanimous resolution asking for amnesty. The federal Liberal government of Alexander Mackenzie* turned the matter over to the governor general, Lord Dufferin [Blackwood*], hoping that the intervention of the imperial authorities would be useful in reconciling the Orange faction in Ontario to a policy of clemency. Dufferin eventually decided that Lépine's sentence should be commuted to two years in prison along with the forfeiture of his civil rights. A few months later, in April 1875, both Riel and Lépine were offered an amnesty on the condition that they accept a five-year banishment from Canada. Unlike Riel, Lépine refused the offer, choosing to serve out the balance of his sentence.
After his release from prison on 26 Oct. 1876 Lépine maintained close contact with Riel and Taché and remained active in Manitoba's French-speaking community. In 1871 he had participated in the formation of the Union Saint-Alexandre to protect Métis interests in the new province and in 1878 he was elected vice-president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The following year, when Riel tried to enlist him in the project of uniting the Métis and Indians of the northwest into a confederacy, he travelled to Montana Territory to meet with Riel. Although he spent the winter with the Métis of the region, he took the advice of Taché, who was worried about possible trouble in the northwest, and left before seeing Riel. This decision, and his siding with Taché over the Métis leader, seems to have been a turning-point. From then on he stayed out of Métis politics.
The Lépine family remained in St Boniface until 1882 when they moved to Grande Pointe, nine miles southeast of Winnipeg. After a fire destroyed their farm there in 1891, they settled amongst relatives and friends at Oak Lake. Lépine's prospects did not improve. Poor harvests left his family nearly penniless and English-speaking settlers soon overwhelmed the Métis community. By 1902 he was homesteading near Forget (Sask.), close to his sons. In 1908 his wife, Cécile, died and he moved in with his children.
In 1909 the Winnipeg Evening Telegram reported that Lépine, impecunious, was in Winnipeg and was willing to disclose the location of Thomas Scott's body for money. Lépine at this time also maintained that Roman Catholic priests Jean-Marie-Joseph Lestanc and Noël-Joseph Ritchot* had advised Riel to execute Scott. The church was quick to reject these allegations and silence Lépine, who then denied that he had ever offered to reveal the location of Scott's body. Sometime after 1909 he sold his land near Forget and bought a summer resort in Quibell, Ont., near Lake of the Woods. He lived there with a granddaughter. Shortly before his death Lépine had his civil rights restored and he moved back to St Boniface. He died at the Hôpital de Saint-Boniface in 1923. His funeral was attended by the former premier of the province, Sir Rodmond Palen Roblin*, and other dignitaries and he was buried in the St Boniface cemetery next to Riel.
Ambroise-Dydime Lépine played a major role in the events of 1869–70, but his contribution was of a different order than that of Riel. Not a natural politician or a strategist, Lépine was a loyal follower of Riel and the church. When the interests of Riel and the church began to diverge in 1879, he sided with Taché and the church. He had, he said, risked his life once for the Métis cause and was not willing to do so again. He did continue to work for the Métis in other ways, helping to establish the historical committee of the Union Nationale Métisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba in 1909, which would spearhead the drive to publish Auguste-Henri de Trémaudan's Histoire de la nation métisse dans l'Ouest canadien in 1935.
Arch. de la Soc. Hist. de Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Dossiers généalogiques; Fonds de la Corporation archiépiscopale catholique romaine, sér. Langevin; sér. Taché. NA, RG 15, 1322. PAM, HBCA, E.6/2; MG 3, B19; D1; D2; P 4895, Émile Lépine fonds, file 2. Manitoba Free Press, 9 March 1909. Le Métis (Saint-Boniface), 30 nov. 1872. Winnipeg Evening Telegram, 8, 11 Feb. 1909. Alexander Begg, Alexander Begg's Red River journal and other papers relative to the Red River resistance of 1869–1870, ed. W. L. Morton (Toronto, 1956). Alexander Begg and W. R. Nursey, Ten years in Winnipeg: a narration of the principal events in the history of the city of Winnipeg from the year A.D. 1870 to the year A.D. 1879, inclusive (Winnipeg, 1879). J. M. Bumsted, "The trial of Ambroise Lépine," Beaver (Winnipeg), 77 (1997–98), no.2: 9–19. Can., House of Commons, Select committee on the causes of the difficulties in the North-West Territory in 1869–70, Report (Ottawa, 1874). The Canadian north-west, its early development and legislative records . . . , ed. E. H. Oliver (2v., Ottawa, 1914–15). Dufferin–Carnarvon correspondence, 1874–1878, ed. C. W. de Kiewiet and F. H. Underhill (Toronto, 1955; repr. New York, 1969). J. A. Kerr, "'I helped capture Ambroise Lépine'" Canadian Magazine, 79 (January–May 1933), no.5: 13, 40–41. Constance Kerr Sissons, John Kerr (Toronto, 1946). Denys Lamy, "Ambroise-Didyme Lépine," Les Cloches de Saint-Boniface (Saint-Boniface), 22 (1923): 114–16. R. G. MacBeth, The making of the Canadian west: being the reminiscences of an eye-witness (Toronto, 1898). Preliminary investigation and trial of Ambroise D. Lepine for the murder of Thomas Scott . . . , comp. G. B. Elliott and E. F. T. Brokovski (Montreal, 1874). Louis Riel, The complete writings of Louis Riel, ed. G. F. G. Stanley (5v., Edmonton, 1985). G. F. G. Stanley, Louis Riel (Toronto, 1963).
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Gerhard J. Ens, "LÉPINE, AMBROISE-DYDIME," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 28, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lepine_ambroise_dydime_15E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
Permalink: | http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lepine_ambroise_dydime_15E.html |
Author of Article: | Gerhard J. Ens |
Title of Article: | LÉPINE, AMBROISE-DYDIME |
Publication Name: | Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15 |
Publisher: | University of Toronto/Université Laval |
Year of publication: | 2005 |
Year of revision: | 2005 |
Access Date: | February 28, 2024 |


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November 2013 Replication Data Loss Issue
What is the November 2013 Replication Data Loss Issue?
This is an issue, discovered Nov. 18, 2013., which can cause data corruption on a Hot-Standby replica when it is (re-)started, by marking committed transactions as uncommitted. This issue is fixed in the December 5th 2013 update releases.
Hackers mailing list discussion here
What are the symptoms of the issue?
The primary symptom of this corruption is rows that:
- are present on the master, but missing on the replica
- have been deleted on the master still appear to be visible on the replica
- have been updated, and their old versions appear alongside the new, updated versions on the replica
Any of the above issues can cause key and constraint violations on the corrupted table.
Even if the issue has occurred it will often have no visible effect due to correctly set Hint Bits.
Who is at risk for this issue?
Users who:
- are on one of the following PostgreSQL versions: 9.3.0, 9.3.1, 9.2.5, 9.1.10, and 9.0.14. Earlier versions are not affected.
Replicas which:
- Have Hot Standby enabled: hot_standby = on in the configuration
- Use recovery.conf to configure Streaming-Replication, Archive based Replication or PITR
- Have (re-)started the database using any of the affected versions
The likelihood of the issues increases
- by restarting the standby frequently
- by having many short transaction performing write queries at the point the standby was restarted
- by having infrequent checkpoints (high checkpoint_timeout, checkpoint_segments settings)
- when data is never read on the primary
- when having configured full_page_writes = off
When will this be fixed?
The PostgreSQL project released an update release on December 5th which fixes this issue. We strongly advise all users who are using the builtin replication to apply that update. A patch for the issue has been committed to the git branches of all affected versions.
What can I do to prevent this issue until then?
If you are currently using 9.2.4, 9.1.9 or 9.0.13 and use any form of builtin replication do not install the most recent update. Instead, wait for the next update (9.2.6, 9.1.11 and 9.0.15) to come out.
Options for users who have already updated, or are running 9.3, include:
- if you are using 9.2.5, 9.1.10 or 9.0.14, downgrade your replica servers to the prior update release (9.2.4, 9.1.9 or 9.0.13).
- Packages from apt.postgresql.org for these versions can be found at http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/nov2013replicationissue/
- disable read-only access to replicas by setting hot_standby=off until a fixed version has been installed
- start your replica by taking a new base backup with write traffic halted on the master (i.e. a downtime)
- minimize the number of times you restart your replicas
- applying the source code patch which fixes the issue. This requires users to install from source or to build their own packages.
In any case, we recommend that all users who were running streaming replication under one of the affected versions recreate each of their replicas from a fresh base backup, either:
- after downgrading the replica, or
- after applying the patch, or
- after applying the update when it is released, or
- after disabling Hot-Standby by setting hot_standby = off, or
- after stopping write access to the primary
How can I verify whether I already have this corruption?
There is no known way to identify that the issue has affected a standby in the past but comparing the data from the primary with the standby.

subset: commoncrawl


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Disclaimer: The information obtained for this Dean's list is as of May 2018. Any grading updates or revisions after this time will not be recorded on this web report but the designation will be reflected appropriately on a student's academic records (transcript).
Below are links to lists—by school—of TCNJ students whose outstanding academic achievement has placed them on the Dean's List. This list includes only students who have authorized the release of information in accordance with the provisions of FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).
"All degree candidates who complete 3 or more course units [=12 credits] (other than additive credits) in a semester with assigned letter grades and who have earned a 3.5 GPA that semester are eligible to be included in that semester's Dean's List. Pass (P) is not an assigned letter grade and may not be used toward meeting the requirements for the Dean's List."


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Here is part eleven of my overview of our FSM CD catalog—which titles are sold out, which are getting low (including exact quantities) and which would be around for some time to come. Go here for The Early Years, Volume 5 (2002), Volume 6 (2003), Volume 7 (2004), Volume 8 (2005), Volume 9 (2006), Volume 10 (2007), Volume 11 (2008), Volume 12 (2009) and Volume 13 (2010) reports.
Vol. 14, No. 1: The Big Bus (Shire): We have pressed 2,000 copies of which some 1150 are still in stock. This was another of our early picks from Paramount Pictures, an over-the-top action-comedy-parody score by David Shire. David was thrilled to get it released, and as with All the President's Men we used his New York engineer, Martin Erskine, to remix the 16-track multis. One slight wrinkle was that the score was recorded both at Paramount and at The Burbank Studios (Warner Bros.) and the two stages had diametrically opposite aesthetics (lots of reverb at Paramount vs. dry as a bone at Burbank) to match in the mix. This CD has not sold well, probably because the film is not well known, but the score is a hoot. It was a disaster-spoof precursor to Airplane! except completely not funny. Okay—I'm being mean, I know it has its fans, among them our very good friend at Paramount, Jeff Cava, who has been extraordinarily helpful on all our Paramount projects. I went out of my way to add the insane "Oriental Lounge" piano performances by Murphy Dunne (the single most funny part of the movie) which was hard because the only master source was the film's mono music stem. I considered hiring Murphy to re-record his performances but it was too expensive. I enjoyed talking and corresponding with him and will gladly steal a line he often used in his emails to me: "Keep me deformed." I found that funny.
Vol. 14, No. 2: Rich and Famous/One Is a Lonely Number (Delerue/Legrand): We made 2,000 copies and have 645 in stock—no further copies will be pressed. (The license has expired and besides, we have no more artwork on hand.) Rich and Famous is a gorgeous score by Georges Delerue. The origin of this CD starts a few years ago when, one day, I was visiting the Archival Mastering dept. at Warner Bros. (on another project) who handle most of our master tape requests at the studio. On a stack of boxes were ½'' master tapes to Rich and Famous—hello, I say, what's this? They were being pulled and transferred for the Universal France 4CD Georges Delerue collection, so I piggybacked onto the work to do our CD of the complete score. Rich and Famous is fairly short so I struggled for a couple of years for a score to pair with it from the M-G-M library…there were no other Delerue scores, so I chose a romantic score by another Frenchman (Michel Legrand), One Is a Lonely Number, for a little-seen soaper starring Trish Van Devere (Mrs. George C. Scott at the time). Funny trivia: it bombed as One Is a Lonely Number so they tried to re-release it as Two Is a Happy Number—nice try! It has lovely music by Legrand including one of his characteristic songs.
Vol. 14, No. 3: I Spy, Vol. 2—The LPs (Hagen): We have pressed 1,500 copies of which 643 are in stock. This follow-up to our 2002 CD of original television soundtracks to I Spy (down to 254 copies) was a long time coming. Earle Hagen recorded two LPs of I Spy music during the run of the series which, unlike most TV soundtrack albums, were faithful to the television arrangements. In fact, with their extended versions of the episode and character themes (and terrific stereo sound), the LPs are arguably better musical representations of the wonderfulness that is Earle's work on I Spy than the actual television recordings. The first LP was distributed by Warner Bros. Records but the rights reverted to Earle (today, his estate). The second LP, however, was and is owned by Capitol Records (EMI)—which is why we did not release the LPs as our first I Spy CD back in 2002. You see, dear reader, at the time, the major labels (Warner Bros., Universal, Sony, EMI–Capitol) all had prohibitive "minimums" if you wanted to sublicense an entire album—you had to commit to 5,000 or even 10,000 units. Some would not license entire albums at all. Yikes! One of the few benefits to the utter collapse of the record business has been that these minimums are now negotiable to a point where they are workable for soundtrack reissues (1,500–3,000 units). So this CD was licensed from the Hagen estate (for the Vol. 1 LP) and EMI (Vol. 2). Sadly, neither Earle nor Robert Culp (who penned or, rather, dictated a foreword to me for the liner notes for our first CD) are around anymore...that was the only thing that made this follow-up CD bittersweet. There didn't seem to be a lot of interest in this CD but I hope people take a moment to listen to the sound clips. I always loved the Tokyo theme with its 5/4 groove and Japanese flourishes. Earle's gorgeous "Voice in the Wind" (turned into a song with lyrics by Gene Lees, though not recorded here vocally) has the peculiar historical oddity of superficially (and completely coincidentally) resembling the end credits theme to Dexter—at least to my addled brain—so after every episode of Dexter I find myself humming "The Voice in the Wind." I Spy was both a product of its time and vastly ahead of its time with its innovative location photography, character interplay (Culp and Bill Cosby) and sizzling, world-flavored orchestral-jazz scores by Hagen and Hugo Friedhofer.
Vol. 14, No. 4: Telefon/Hide in Plain Sight (Schifrin/Rosenman): We have pressed 1,500 copies of and have 373 in stock. Telefon is a 1978 action-suspense score by Lalo Schifrin for the Soviet-spy thriller starring Charles Bronson. Unlike Lalo's '60s scores, this one is more symphonic suspense than jazz-funk-pop; the score has its fans and I was happy to release it. (Just today a buddy of mine, appropo of nothing, started saying, "I must kill the Queen"—from The Naked Gun, of course. I said, "You won't believe this, but there was an actual entire movie based on that, not as a joke.") Hide in Plain Sight (to fill out the CD) is a short Leonard Rosenman suspense score to a little-known mob-related film starring (and directed by) James Caan. Caan didn't even want a score, or so he has said, but the studio foisted one upon him, and I find Rosenman's lengthy "Finale" one of his classic pieces of triumphant Americana.
Vol. 14, No. 5: Robinson Crusoe on Mars (Van Cleave): We have made 1,500 copies and have 299 in stock. This is still under license and we will make more when necessary. This is the kind of score that thrills me to be able to release it: we had it complete, in stereo and in great condition, and it is a cult sci-fi favorite that was the subject of several message board threads over the years. Maybe the posts were from forty people—or from two people who posted twenty times apiece (hi Charles Thaxton!)—but it was a thrill to be able to release this. The music is so evocative and emblematic of its period that even though I didn't grow up on this film, I feel a kinship with those who did. Maybe you don't know your Van Cleave from a hole in the ground but the music casts a wonderful, eerie mood about space travel that, alas, hard science has since disproven…I dimly remember those glorious days from my early childhood (though even then, hard reality was setting in) when we were so naive to think we would inevitably travel to the stars, and soon. I would definitely put this alongside scores like Fantastic Voyage, The Omega Man, The Illustrated Man, THX 1138 and Logan's Run as sci-fi classics that represent the best of our FSM Silver Age brand.
Vol. 14, No. 6: The Homecoming/Rascals and Robbers (Goldsmith/Horner): We made 2,000 copies and have 378 in stock. (We'll make more!) See my blurb about Hunters Are for Killing from last column for the long story about the several CBS titles—including The Homecoming—that took a decade to release. The Homecoming is the pilot TV movie for The Waltons, and the only Waltons soundtrack with surviving music masters (sorry to say). It's a wonderful, lyrical Goldsmith effort, though it does not feature the familiar Waltons theme (which he wrote later for the series). The score is quite short, so we found a pairing from the CBS library: Rascals and Robbers, a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn-derived tale that James Horner scored immediately prior to Star Trek II…and you'll be able to tell! (Did Huck get captured by Khan?) Listening to early Horner is amazing—true, the classical influences are all too apparent, but he came to film as a fully formed composer, so talented and astonishingly accurate in his cinematic taste. Rascals and Robbers we found at UCLA complete and in stereo. This is a pretty nifty CD if I do say so myself.
Vol. 14, No. 7: Kenner/More Than a Miracle (Piccioni): We made 1,500 copies and have 877 in stock. Italian film music is a subculture all its own and as I did not grow up with the material it has taken me some time to learn it. But the more I hear of Piero Piccioni the more I like—somehow Italian composers and Piccioni in particular have a way of making everything in their scores so wonderfully melodic...not just the themes but the basslines, countermelodies, everything! This 3CD set was a long time coming: I have to introduce Claudio Fuiano, an Italian soundtrack CD collector and producer…is there an Italian word for "mensch"? Claudio and his friend Daniel Winkler have generously provided stills, information and even master tapes for our occasional FSM CDs of Italian scores (notably Morricone efforts like Navajo Joe and The Five Man Army). I can't thank the two of them enough for their generous assistance and enthusiasm! In the early 2000s Claudio had the master tapes from Piero Piccioni (before the composer passed away) of Kenner and I tried to make a connection for him to license it from Warner Bros., who own the movie—but it didn't work out. A few years later we revisited the project as a potential FSM title with Claudio producing, and we added More Than a Miracle, as Claudio had access to the original soundtrack masters from Piccioni's family. It swelled to a 3CD set which was probably in production for some seven years. It hasn't sold very well—I blame the obscurity of the pictures—but it's lovely music and I'm glad we did it.
Vol. 14, No. 8: Testament (Horner): We have made 2,000 copies and have 647 in stock—these are all that will be pressed. Testament is the "other" nuclear holocaust drama from 1983 (besides The Day After), and I confess it seems so devastating I never worked up the courage to watch it. Originally produced for PBS, it was released theatrically by Paramount, and features a lovely, haunting and intimate score by James Horner for a chamber ensemble. The soundtrack had been bootlegged at least once; for our official CD, we went back to the film mixes on the 32-track 1'' 3M masters (which can only be transferred by Walt Disney Imagineering—see the liner notes to Intrada's CD of The Black Hole). The CD is rather short at 31 minutes—this is all that Horner recorded—and while I usually like to pair short scores with other projects for longer CDs...I'm sorry, I'm not sticking some unrelated movie onto a nuclear holocaust score. What should it have been, Testament paired with Bernstein's Trading Places? If you only have a bootleg, I hope you buy our official disc, which is longer and sounds better. This is a wonderful, poetic score by the preternaturally gifted Horner.
Vol. 14, No. 9: The Comedians/Hotel Paradiso (Rosenthal): We made 1,200 copies and have 608 in stock. These two Laurence Rosenthal scores have been out before (on a Chapter III CD of the LP masters) but I wanted to do the complete version of The Comedians (in much better sound quality) as the ½'' masters were at Warner Bros. (not always the case for M-G-M movies scored in England in the 1960s—see Humphrey Searle's The Haunting, or for that matter Hotel Paradiso, for which we had to use the same album master). I first heard The Comedians on Rosenthal's 2CD promo in the 1990s and really liked the Haitian percussion and children's choir coupled with Rosenthal's elegant symphonic writing. When we were producing this 2CD set, originally disc one was going to be the complete score of The Comedians, and disc two the album programs. John Takis was working closely with Rosenthal for the liner notes, and reported back to us that Larry (Laurence) was concerned that the complete score was not playing that well for him as a musical experience (a typical problem for complete and chronological presentations). So here is an example of how much I have learned how to be a CD producer over the last 15 years: in lieu of panicking ("do we have to drop cues!!?") I said just switch the discs, and put the album versions on disc one. We did and Larry liked it—problem solved! I have to say a few words about Larry, who has a summer home on Martha's Vineyard (where I grew up) and I have by coincidence run into him and his family on the ferry boat during a few of my visits home (what are the odds?)—you will seldom find a more gracious, articulate and friendly man! I'm a fan, musically and personally. (Although he did scold me years ago when I asked about the rumor that he was hired for Return of a Man Called Horse because the studio confused him with Leonard Rosenman, who scored the original. He asked if I really thought Irvin Kershner was so ignorant as not to know the difference between them? I sheepishly conceded the point and resolved not to be such a dumb-ass, though it hasn't quite taken, I'm afraid.)
Vol. 14, No. 10: The Belle of New York (Mercer/Warren): We have made 1,200 copies and have 651 in stock—these are all that will be produced. This was an easy production in that the master was produced several years ago by George Feltenstein for his Turner-Rhino musicals line but only released on iTunes—all we had to do was add liner notes and create the physical packaging. (There is one other title like this, Deep in My Heart, that hopefully another label will get to—I started work on a 2CD version, longer than the iTunes release, but didn't have time to finish it.)
Vol. 14, No. 11: Pretty Maids All in a Row (Schifrin): We have made 1,500 copies and have 672 in stock—these are all that will be produced. I love this score from Lalo Schifrin's "weird" period (his word), with its mélange of jazz-pop, avant garde, The Osmonds (really) and, above all, an eerie sensuality for one of the strangest Hollywood productions you will ever see. Pretty Maids All in a Row has to be seen to be believed (or better yet—don't!). I think Jeff Bond put it best in the liner notes that the movie doesn't just seem to come from another time, but another dimension. Let's just say putting Gene Roddenberry (screenwriter) and Roger Vadim (director) together for the purpose of artfully exploring teen sexuality was rather like leaving a couple of addicts in a room full of high-grade cocaine. And who should play the gym coach lothario who is seducing and murdering his nubile female students? Yes, Rock Hudson, of course—can this get any stranger? Check out Lalo's great combination of harp and Fender Rhodes in "Check Your Queen"—so beautiful and haunting!
Vol. 14, No. 12: Days of Heaven (Morricone): We made 2,500 and have 160 in stock, but we'll keep this in print—what a masterpiece! So many CDs feel like they take a piece out of your hide to push them across the finish line—but then you hear a theme like this and remember instantly why it is all worth it. I made a beeline for this as soon as we started working with Paramount, though it involved a "trackdown" as the album rights are with Pacific Arts Entertainment (Michael Nesmith's company) who released the LP in 1978 due to a relationship with the film's recently deceased producer, Bert Schneider. Fortunately Pacific Arts was receptive and I worked out a sub-license. This was a complicated project, however: Morricone's score was recorded in Italy and Paramount had the 16-track multis as well as three- and four-track mixes on ½'' tape. We decided to use the mixes, as they were very artfully done, but there was a tonnage of material: not only alternate versions of cues, but alternate mixes of alternate cues (favoring one instrument or another, dropping the melody, etc.). It was simply not practical to present everything, so I came up with the 2CD set that we released: disc one has the LP program, followed by the actual cues heard in the movie, followed by on disc two an entire "fantasy sequence" of the Morricone score (irrespective of the picture). Late in the production I noticed a glitch on one of the mixes which was not on the LP, and decided to remix that cue (or a fragment thereof) from the 16-track—it turned out that the glitch was from one of the keyboard channels. (I won't tell you which cue!) What a gorgeous score by the Maestro...when I told Jeff Bond (liner note writer) we were doing this CD, he practically jumped out of his chair—"You know I played that at my wedding, right?" Needless to say, he was enthused. Here's some fun trivia: I reviewed the written Morricone score at Paramount and discovered one of the ways in which the Maestro has been able to do so many films over his career—he often has one manuscript which functions for multiple cues. Some people may have told you he just records a bunch of music and lets the filmmakers track it—that's not true, or at least typically not true. He scores everything to picture. But what he does is reuse cues by having one manuscript (say, the love theme) serve as the score for multiple cues—say 2M1 would be bars 1-10, 20-end, dropping the trumpet, in a certain tempo, while 5M2 would be a different number of bars with a different combination and different tempo—and on and on. Everything is written, but the cues are multi-purposed from one manuscript. Interesting. It turned out that the Doug Kershaw track, "Swamp Dance," had an incomplete paper trail from the LP, so I did a new license with Kershaw's label at the time, Warner Bros. Records, and found Kershaw via his Facebook page to ask permission—I love social media! The very last thing I did was license the "Aquarium" track which for some reason (never found out why) was a Vox Turnabout recording on the LP, not the Deutsche Grammophon performance (which is in a faster tempo) as heard in the film. I was seconds from using the Vox Turnabout version—then I thought, why not get the real one? So I licensed the film version from Universal Music. This is funny: on the Universal (Deutsche Grammophon) master, "Aquarium" is on the same track as another movement from "Carnival of the Animals." I explained to the Universal licensing agent that I needed to crop the track so that it used just "Aquarium." I was told, "You can't just chop up our track to make a new version of it!" And I said, "Sure I can—watch me!" Maybe I didn't say that, but I wanted to. Let's just say I was persistent, and we got it worked out. So this album was a long time coming and very well received, and I'm glad!
Vol. 14, No. 13: The Great Santini (Bernstein): We made 1,500 copies and have 802 in stock. We did this CD because it's a great Elmer Bernstein score, for one, but I was trying to impress an executive at WaterTower Music, the new in-house label at Warner Bros. I tried to show off by prioritizing The Great Santini (a favorite film of his) as we got up and running with a new administration at Warner Bros. For some reason, the best scores to dramatic films circa 1980 (this, North Dallas Forty, Whose Life Is It Anyway?) sell 700 units, then die on the marketplace. Oh well—I'm glad we got this one done. The last track, "Inauguration," started out as a complete mystery. Bernstein had written this piece for the inauguration of a friend of his as chancellor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and used the end of one of the Great Santini recording sessions to make a recording—only we didn't know what it was. We thought it was some unknown, unused Santini cue! We got in touch with Bernstein's orchestrator, David Spear, and via David and USC's Ned Comstock (home of Bernstein's papers and personal collection) sleuthed out the piece's identity. But I guarantee you—half the boutique labels out there would not have known how to do this. They would have just called it an unused cue from The Great Santini.
Vol. 14, No. 14: Not With My Wife, You Don't! Vol. 2—Original Soundtrack (Williams): We have made 1,500 copies and have 630 in stock. When we did an earlier CD of the record version of Not With My Wife, You Don't! (coupled with Duning's Any Wednesday) we had been told that the original soundtrack performance was lost. This was not the case—I think it simply was being migrated from one archive to another at Warner Bros. and didn't know up in the inventory. So we wanted to revisit this title because any John(ny) Williams is worth releasing, and this one has his crazy song with Johnny Mercer, "Big Beautiful Ball." We got quite a lot of "Johnny" Williams released on FSM, from comedies, early dramatic scores and television—what a tremendous talent, and it's so fascinating to hear how his style evolved from the '60s through the blockbuster era.
Vol. 14, No. 15: The Space Children/The Colossus of New York (Van Cleave): We have made 1,500 copies and have 832 in stock. This was our follow-up to Robinson Crusoe on Mars, which didn't sell as well (in part because the sound quality isn't as good). The Space Children has some eerie, cool Novachord, while The Colossus of New York is a unique sci-fi score in that it was written for three pianos. Fred Steiner collaborated with Van Cleave on these and other Paramount scores and I reviewed the orchestrations to see which composer handled which cue: they usually split the orchestrations half and half. What is not clear to me is if Steiner's orchestrations were based on sketches by Van Cleave, or if he ghostwrote the cues using Van Cleave's themes. (No sketches were available.)
Retrograde 80130: Gremlins (Goldsmith): We have made 5,000 units (so far) and will keep this in print as long as we can. We released this around the time I announced my decision to close down the FSM label with CD #250 (coming up in a few months)...and this was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. It's almost too soon for me to recount the whole sad story, and there isn't any particular exciting anecdote, just a slow, steady plod of licensing hell getting Universal Music Group (who own the album rights due to the 1984 Geffen soundtrack) and Warner Bros. (who own the film) to communicate. There were executives on both sides who departed their respective company, after which I had to restart the project with his or her successor—blech! It felt like trying to work with a government after the previous heads of state were deposed—nobody was happy as to what they inherited and felt obligated (i.e. pressured by me) to resolve...but to their credit, they did it. Mike Matessino and Neil Bulk handled the master with Bruce Botnick and it sounds like a million bucks. I think I need another year or two before I can vent fully how long and frustrating this project was—and by the end of it I literally decided to quit having a record label. At least there's a happy ending in how wonderfully the CD turned out, and I shouldn't be a Debbie Downer as this CD was a huge project for us that was very well received. Hard to believe they left Gizmo in the car off the original LP (a "mini-LP" that pleased no one), but you can hear it now.
Vol. 14, No. 16: Nightwatch/Killer by Night (Williams/Q. Jones): We have made 2,000 copies and have 917 in stock. This was the last of the 1960s-70s CBS titles that took a decade to produce (see The Homecoming, above). It probably did not help sales that Nightwatch is not only an old TV show—and a pilot at that—but a TV pilot that only aired once and is available nowhere on video. (If anyone reading this has seen it outside of our production staff, please post in the comments, I'm curious!) We found a copy at the Paley Center for Media and with CBS' permission were able to get a screener on DVD. It is a shame this is out of circulation because it is a very innovative and hard-edged police procedural directed by Robert Altman on location in Chicago and the Midwest, with a terse, pulsating score by Williams—I wish they would release it on DVD. While the underscore exists only in mono, we found three-track stereo reels of the main title and format music. Having lived with the music for a decade (unable to release it) it was killing me people couldn't hear how cool it is—listen to this proto-Close Encounters passage. We filled out the CD with Quincy Jones's TV movie score to Killer by Night (aka City by Night), which is stylistically different, but close enough with the urban and the night and the crime thing.
Vol. 14, No. 17: Frantic (Morricone): We have made 2,000 copies and have 360 in stock. This late-'80s Morricone thriller sold better than expected—I thought it would stiff, but it's been quite popular. The Harrison Ford-Roman Polanski film has always been a favorite of mine, thanks to Polanski's unmistakable directorial sensibility, and the first of Ford's white-collar everyman action heroes. But I didn't think anyone else cared. The Elektra CD was long out of print so we were able to release the old CD program plus a bonus section of the Morricone cues as heard in the film. It's funny: something like "Airport" is just a shorter version of the action music in the garage, but l want it anyway! The bonus tracks took quite a bit of time to unearth and license at Warner Bros.—like Gremlins, I started this with one studio administration at WB and finished it with another. There were no music masters per se, only cut-up mag tracks edited to picture—and no paperwork at all. We ordered a bunch of boxes of mag from the out-of-state vault where all of this material is stored and I spent an evening with a Warner Bros. engineer identifying the score tracks vs. the source cues. He was very helpful and experienced, and he (inadvertantly) paid me a great compliment about a half hour in when he said, "Oh, I see—you know exactly what you're looking for!" He was a real pro and I appreciated his help and nice words. If FSM CDs are good at all it's because I have been able to recruit and maintain a team of skilled and above-average collaborators—from engineers to liner note writers to art director Joe Sikoryak—who function at a very high level.
Next Time: Vol. 15 (2012) CDs—then we're done!


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• schmaltz •
Pronunciation: shmahlts • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass
Meaning: 1. Rendered goose or chicken fat, though it originally meant the fat from any animal. 2. Maudlin sentimentality.
Notes: Although schmaltz is not usually taken from ham, it does come from hamming it up, playing the audience, resorting to romantic claptrap. The adjective for this noun is schmaltzy and, if you need to separate the senses of this word, the noun schmaltziness refers only to the second sense above.
In Play: When candidates for public office begin telling you about their families and add the family dog to the picture, we are being fed schmaltz straight from the pot: "Ralph's speech started out bad enough, then ended with some schmaltz about giving candy to kids when he was fighting in Grenada." Elevator music is notoriously schmaltzy: Jackie Gleason was popular in the 1950s for his schmaltzy 'mood music', played by a huge orchestra heavy with strings.
Word History: Today's Good Word is yet another gift from Yiddish, this time shmalts, taken from German Schmalz "rendered animal fat". The German word comes from the verb schmelzen "to melt". This word has a Fickle S (which became SCH in German), an S that comes and goes for reasons of its own. The same root shows up in Latin without the S in mollis "soft", which we can see in words like emollient, mollify, and mollusk. We find it in English without the S, too, in melt, meld, and mild. (It is like falling in the schmaltz jar when Carol DeBaets sends us wonderful Good Words like today's.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!


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Scientists Find Minor Flu Strains Pack Bigger Punch
Findings reveal an ability of minor strains to elude current vaccines and spread the virus in ways not previously known
Image credit: Cynthia Goldsmith Content Providers(s): CDC/ Dr. Terrence Tumpey, Wikimedia CommonsMinor variants of flu strains, which are not typically targeted in vaccines, carry a bigger viral punch than previously realized, a team of scientists has found. Its research, which examined samples from the 2009 flu pandemic in Hong Kong, shows that these minor strains are transmitted along with the major strains and can replicate and elude immunizations.
"A flu virus infection is not a homogeneous mix of viruses, but, rather, a mix of strains that gets transmitted as a swarm in the population," explains Elodie Ghedin, a professor in New York University's Department of Biology and College of Global Public Health. "Current vaccines target the dominant strains, because they are the ones that seem to infect the largest number of individuals. But our findings reveal an ability of minor strains to elude these vaccines and spread the virus in ways not previously known."
The other co-authors of the paper, which appears in the journal Nature Genetics, included: Leo Poon, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong; Tim Song, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine at the time of the study and now a computational biologist at NYU; and researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute, the University of Sydney, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai.
Related article: Researchers Find That Influenza Has an Achilles' Heel
It's long been known that the Influenza A virus is marked by a high level of genetic diversity. However, our knowledge largely stems from the dominant strain, which vaccines aim to combat. Less understood is the diversity of the minor strains and how it passes between individuals—thus revealing these strains' ability to spread the virus.
The scientists aimed to determine how many viral particles are transmitted when afflicted with the flu as well as the number of them able to replicate when they transmit.
To examine this phenomenon, Ghedin, part of NYU's Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, and her colleagues performed whole genome deep sequencing of upper nasal cavity swabs taken from confirmed 2009 Hong Kong flu cases and from their household contacts.
Using sophisticated sequencing methods, the team could not only identify variants in flu strains, but also quantify what was being transmitted between infected individuals.
Their results showed that, as expected, most carried the dominant virus—H1N1 or H3N2. But, in addition, all carried minor strains and variants of the major and minor strains. What was surprising was how readily these variants were transmitted across the studied individuals.
Related article: Flu Study, On Hold, Yields New Vaccine Technology
"The combination of unique data, sequencing approaches and mathematical methods create a nuanced picture of the transmission of diversity during a pandemic," notes study co-author Benjamin Greenbaum, an assistant professor at the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
"We were able to look at the variants and could link individuals based on these variants," adds Ghedin. "What stood out was also how these mixes of major and minor strains were being transmitted across the population during the 2009 pandemic—to the point where minor strains became dominant."
The research was supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health (T32 EB009403), the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (HHS-N272201400006C), the National Institutes of Health (HHS-N266200700005C), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-N272200900007C), the National Institute of General Medical Science (U54 GM088491, U54 GM088558), and an NHMRC Australia Fellowship AF30.


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Book by Joshua Kurlantzick (Council on Foreign Relations) on "The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government": "Since the end of the Cold War, most political theorists have assumed that as countries develop economically, they will also become more democratic—especially if a vibrant middle class takes root. The triumph of democracy, once limited to a tiny number of states and now spread across the globe, has been considered largely inevitable.
In Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Representative Government, CFR Fellow for Southeast Asia Joshua Kurlantzick identifies forces that threaten democracy and shows that conventional wisdom has blinded world leaders to a real crisis. "Today a constellation of factors, from the rise of China to the lack of economic growth in new democracies to the West's financial crisis, has come together to hinder democracy throughout the developing world," he writes. "Absent radical and unlikely changes in the international system, that combination of antidemocratic factors will have serious staying power."
Kurlantzick pays particular attention to the revolt of middle class citizens, traditionally proponents of reform, who have turned against democracy in countries such as Venezuela, Pakistan, and Taiwan. He observes that countries once held up as model new democracies, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic, have since curtailed social, economic, and political freedoms. Military coups have grabbed power from Honduras to Thailand to Fiji. The number of representative governments has fallen, and the quality of democracy has deteriorated in many states where it had been making progress, including Russia, Kenya, Argentina, and Nigeria.
The renewed strength of authoritarian rule, warns Kurlantzick, means that billions of people around the world continue to live under repressive regimes."


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OCEAN CITY – The new Ocean City Dog Playground may have opened with little fanfare Dec. 3, but the park has met success during its early stages, with 42 passes sold during the first weeks of operation, according to the city.
At a Recreation and Parks Commission meeting this week, Tom Shuster, director of Recreation and Parks, reported that the Dog Playground was doing well so far and receiving positive feedback.
In the six weeks since the Dog Playground opened and became the town's only official dog park, 42 passes have been sold, bringing in $1,807, "which is pretty good when you roll something out in the winter," Shuster said. The Dog Playground is located on a rectangular plot of land along 94th Street just behind the existing tennis courts and children's playground.
So far the majority of passes sold have been annual, resident passes, with three dog owners purchasing non-resident, annual passes. A number of weekly passes were also sold during the holidays.
The current price for a dog park pass is $50 for an annual resident pass, $100 for an annual non-resident pass, and $15 for a weekly pass. The weekly pass requires a $5 deposit that is reimbursed when the dog park pass is returned, making the weekly pass essentially $10. Free, one-day trial passes have also been made available, giving people the option to test out the new park before purchasing a one-year pass. All passes must be obtained from Northside Park, and entrance to the park is only accessible with the use of the pass.
The dog park consists of two areas, one for little dogs weighing 28 pounds or less, and one for larger dogs weighing more than 28 lbs. The park is open from dusk till dawn, with the entrance to the park controlled by an electronic scanning device. The scanning device not only controls the hours of operation, but also checks an identification card to make sure the user is registered and has paid their fees.
"The system that we have, it's a very effective and efficient system," Shuster said, explaining that the automated gates alleviate the strain of having a staff member at the park at all times to monitor access. The gate access can be monitored and controlled from Northside Park and the gates can even be opened and closed from there.
"We can produce a daily report of people coming and going into the park," Shuster said, noting that the report can monitor if people are letting others into the park.
To read the entire story, and many others, see The Dispatch's online version on Friday as well as its hardcopy edition, which can be found in more than 100 outlets in the Greater Ocean City area.


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Returning Ronaldo nudges Madrid past United
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Article summary
Manchester United FC 1-2 Real Madrid CF (agg: 2-3)
Cristiano Ronaldo settled the tie in the visitors' favour after Luka Modrić, with United down to ten men following the dismissal of Nani, had equalised.
Article top media content
Article body
Cristiano Ronaldo made a dream return to Old Trafford as he scored the goal that sent Real Madrid CF into the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals at the expense of his old team.
The Portuguese international, the recipient of such a warm ovation before kick-off as the stadium announcer welcomed him back, scored the close-range goal that completed Madrid's turnaround after substitute Luka Modrić had cancelled out the lead given Manchester United FC by a Sergio Ramos own goal early in the second half.
United's hopes were not helped by the dismissal of Nani for a high challenge on Álvaro Arbeloa with the score at 1-0, and Madrid duly made the ten men pay to complete a memorable week that had already included two victories over FC Barcelona.
It was United who had the better of an absorbing opening period. Sir Alex Ferguson had raised eyebrows before kick-off by leaving Wayne Rooney out of his lineup, yet Danny Welbeck, starting behind Robin van Persie, certainly justified his inclusion. The evergreen Ryan Giggs also featured, lasting the duration of his 1,000th competitive appearance for United.
Welbeck's direct running asked questions of the Madrid defence and he should really have had a goal in the 21st minute when Nemanja Vidić headed against the near post and the ball dropped to the young England forward, who rolled it straight to Diego López. Another chance came his way when López parried a Van Persie shot, but the goalkeeper saved well from Welbeck's follow-up strike.
At the other end, Ángel Di María sent Gonzalo Higuaín clear on the left side of the penalty box, but David de Gea made the block. Although Higuaín put the ball in the net from the ensuing corner, the referee had already blown for an infringement.
United's breakthrough came three minutes into the second half when Arbeloa failed to clear after Welbeck and Van Persie had both gone close. Nani punished him at once, crossing for Welbeck, who got a touch before Sergio Ramos turned the ball past López.
Madrid were a goal down and had lost Di María to injury, but after Nani's 56th-minute dismissal José Mourinho sent on Modrić. The Croatia midfielder soon delivered the equaliser, collecting a pass some 20 metres from goal, stepping outside Michael Carrick and bending a shot in off De Gea's left-hand post.
Three minutes later, Ronaldo made it two. Mesut Özil's lovely back-heel gave Higuaín a crossing opportunity and he flashed the ball across goal, with Ronaldo arriving at the far post to turn it in. As in Madrid, he tempered his celebrations out of respect for his former employers. United's heads did not drop, though, and López made a trio of fine stops, with substitute Rooney also hooking over. At the other end, Kaká hit a post and De Gea denied Ronaldo a second, but Madrid's job was already done.


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May 2010 (Volume 19, Number 5)
In a busy meeting on April 18, APS Council did more than just approve the addendum to the climate change statement. Among other highlights of the meeting, they approved an amendment to the APS Constitution that would, if adopted, create 4 International Councilors. They also approved an expansion and renovation of the APS editorial office building in Ridge, New York, that would add more than 50% to the current space.
Last year, the APS Committee on International Scientific Affairs (CISA) recommended the creation of International Councillors, noting that 21% of APS membership resides outside the US (this rises to about 25% if one looks at the non-student component of membership). APS Director of International Affairs Amy Flatten developed this idea in a Back Page in the January APS News. The matter was referred to the APS Constitution and Bylaws Committee, chaired by Jeff Urbach of Georgetown. They recommended eliminating the current International Councilor, who serves a 2-year term, and replacing 4 of the 8 General Councilors with International Councilors, who would be required to come from outside the US. These new International Councilors would serve 4-year terms; each year, the APS membership would elect one International Councilor and one General Councilor, instead of the 2 General Councilors that they now elect. The APS Nominating Committee would be responsible for recruiting candidates for International Councilor, paying due attention to geographic diversity.
Urbach said that this arrangement is preferable to simply instructing the nominating committee to include international candidates among those running for General Councilor, because people tend to vote for candidates they are familiar with, thereby giving the domestic nominees an a priori advantage that would preclude the election of an appropriate number of international representatives.
Now that Council has passed this amendment, the text will be printed in a forthcoming issue of APS News, and will appear on the ballot for the Society election this summer. If approved by two-thirds of those voting, the amendment will become part of the APS Constitution.
The Ridge expansion is motivated by the inexorable rise in the number of manuscripts submitted to APS journals, which is now running in excess of 3% per year. The current space is inadequate to house the personnel needed to process the manuscripts and manage the editorial process. Because the facility is located in the Long Island pine barrens, the footprint of the building cannot be arbitrarily extended. Consequently, the plan is to add 18,000 square feet by building a second storey. Careful scheduling will allow this construction to take place while work goes on in the building, without need for temporary relocation to another site.
In addition to the expansion, APS President Curtis Callan remarked that it is also important to renovate and redesign the entire space. He pointed out that the nature of scholarly publishing is changing rapidly, and that APS has to be on the leading edge of these developments. This requires a staff with an increased level of sophistication, which calls for an improved working environment that is not predicated on the old paper-based model of journal publication.
A project management firm and an architectural firm have been engaged, and, in the wake of Council approval, bids for construction are set to go out in June. If all goes as anticipated, construction will start in the late summer of 2010 and will be completed sometime in 2011.
APS encourages the redistribution of the materials included in this newspaper provided that attribution to the source is noted and the materials are not truncated or changed.
Editor: Alan Chodos


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National Public Seating's 24" x 60" Science Table supports both lab experiments and research report writing. Students can stash science books and written materials in the two spacious book compartments. The apron and legs are constructed of solid ash hardwood, and the tabletop comes standard in scratch-resistant laminate. Upgrade to a chemical resistant laminate or phenolic resin top for an additional charge. Legs are bolted to the tabletop with 13-gauge steel corner braces for added strength and stability. Rubber leg boots protect against moisture or chemical spills, and adjustable glides provide accurate leveling. National Public Seating Science Tables are MAS Certified Green and backed by a ten-year warranty.
Key Features
- Tabletop comes in high-pressure laminate, chemical-resistant laminate or phenolic resin
- Solid hardwood apron and legs
- Includes two spacious book compartments
- Legs are bolted via steel corner braces
- Liquid-proof protective rubber boots
- Adjustable glides for accurate leveling
- Tabletop Material: High-pressure laminate, chemical-resistant laminate or phenolic resin
- Leg/Apron Material: Solid ash hardwood w/ 13-gauge steel corner braces
- Width: 24"
- Length: 60"
- Height: 30"
- Assembly Required: Yes
- Estimated Lead Time: Ships within 1 - 2 business days
- Shipping Method: Freight
- Weight: 100.00 pounds
Selecting Table Tops
When selecting a table top it is important to understand how the table will be used. National Public Seating offers three different top surfaces to accommodate a variety of settings.
High Pressure Laminate is widely used for student science tables. It offers an excellent work surface that wears exceptionally well under normal use. Edges of top are finished with vandal resistant T-molding. Corners have 1-3/4" radius. Color: black.
Chemical-Resistant Laminate incorporates the decorative features of high pressure laminate into a durable, chemical resistant surfacing material. It has outstanding chemical resistance, plus significantly better NEMA wear value than competitive laminates. Color: black.
Phenolic Resin is a composite thermo-fused under heat and pressure to form a solid black chemical resistant composite throughout the entire thickness of the top. Phenolic Resin will not stain or etch when exposed to most chemical solvents. Color: black.


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The world of e-sports was rattled this past week when an organization vying to become its governing body drew anger for organizing gender-divided tournaments.
Here's a quick breakdown of what happened: Until last week, the International e-Sports Federation (IeSF), a South Korea-based organization that seeks to get e-sports recognized as a "true sport," had rules that divided an upcoming tournament into separate men's and women's divisions. Separate but not equal: There weren't female equivalents for all the games being played in the men's division.
When an IeSF qualifying tournament in Finland for the digital card game Hearthstone was made open only to "Finnish male players" because of those rules, the Internet took notice. Players reacted, opinions were had, and Reddit posts were made.
The IeSF responded to the uproar quickly and changed its rules in an emergency session last week. In a statement, the company's board said all tournaments that had previously been set aside as a strictly male division were now "open to all." They retained the female-only tournaments, however, citing "the importance of providing female gamers with ample opportunities to compete in e-Sports — currently a male-dominated industry."
Why Divide Men From Women In E-Sports?
The original, intended goal for the gender-divided tournaments, the IeSF says, was to help advance its goal of legitimizing e-sports. Part of that effort was to comply with international sports regulations as it seeks membership into SportAccord, an organization that unites numerous international sports federations. Its rules state that a sport must "actively encourage women to participate."
Alex Lim, IeSF's general manager of international affairs, told gaming website Polygon that it was with this in mind that the organization decided to approach its tournaments like traditional sports, which are often divided into men's and women's divisions.
Gender division in physical sports may be commonplace, but for games that don't rely on physical prowess, those divisions are hard to justify. The World Chess Federation, for example, is a member of SportAccord. While there are women's divisions available, the chess World Championship and its qualifying competitions are open to all.
When it comes to e-sports, critics of gender division say there is no advantage gained in StarCraft II, Hearthstone or any other competitive video game simply by being male. The new rules adopted by the IeSF are closer to the World Chess Federation's model.
"As we strive to do the best we can to promote e-sports as a true sport beyond any barriers, mistakes might happen along the way, but it is our duty as a community of e-sports fans and enthusiasts to learn from those mistakes and to make sure they remain in the past," Lim said.
What's The Big Deal About Being A 'True Sport'?
With tournaments already reaching multimillion-dollar prize pools, pro players being granted "athlete visas" and even a college offering e-sports scholarships, you might wonder why it would be so important for e-sports organizations to be recognized as a "true sport."
IeSF's stated mission is to become the governing body of e-sports, a position yet unfilled as e-sports increase in popularity.
When the IeSF submitted its application to SportAccord last year, it said membership would also "prepare the ground for e-sports players in the world where they can share benefits which have been privileges of athletes in general sports."
Considering how far e-sports have already come, it's unclear to what additional benefits and privileges they are referring. Membership in SportAccord, however, would give IeSF the power to establish referees and player certification and promote competition standards.
And as with most competitions, larger prizes and greater rewards open the door to cheating, unregulated tournaments or perhaps even doping (the IeSF became an official signatory of the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2013) — all issues a governing body could rein in.
What do you think? Should e-sports be recognized as a "true sport" for purposes of establishing a governing body? If you can't see the poll below, click this link to answer.
Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.


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SEATTLE — Washington state's unemployment rate is 6.4 percent, the lowest it has been in more than five years.
The state Employment Security Department said Wednesday that Washington added 3,800 jobs between December and January. Washington's unemployment rate is below the national rate of 6.6 percent for January. Washington's adjusted rate for December was 6.7 percent.
State officials say the strongest growth was in private sector jobs. Over the past year, the private sector has added 58,700 jobs, while government jobs have grown by an estimated 2,700 jobs.
The January 2013 unemployment in Washington was 7.3 percent.
Washington's unemployment rate rose as high as 10.2 percent at the start of 2010 but has been falling steadily ever since. The state says some 222,000 people are still looking for work.
State officials say the unemployment rate in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area of Western Washington has dropped to 5.2 percent.
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Sir Uvedale Price, 1st Baronet
Our editors will review what you've submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- Born:
- 1747
- Died:
- Sept. 14, 1829, Foxley, Herefordshire, Eng. (aged 82)
- Subjects Of Study:
- landscape architecture
- picturesque
Sir Uvedale Price, 1st Baronet (born 1747—died Sept. 14, 1829, Foxley, Herefordshire, Eng.) British landscape designer and, with the writer-artist William Gilpin and Richard Payne Knight, one of the chief aestheticians of the Picturesque movement in landscaping.
Price was a wealthy country squire, Knight his friend and neighbour; both were enthusiastic amateur landscape designers and critics of the prevailing trend. The Picturesque movement was openly launched in 1794 with Knight's didactic poem "The Landscape," protesting the values of some established practitioners, and Price's "An Essay on the Picturesque."
Price was particularly contemptuous of the style popularized by the late Lancelot "Capability" Brown, who eventually came to be regarded as one of the foremost English masters of garden design. Brown's approach was to create a simple, balanced composition, using a small number of natural elements—a grove of trees, a pond, the slight curve of a hill. Price, in contrast, favoured a profusion of detail and praised the "accidents" of nature—a withered tree, a half-submerged branch breaking the glassy surface of a pool. Brown's designs were tranquil and relatively formal; Price's gardens were wild, dramatic, and unkempt. Garden design being referred to at the time as "improvement of grounds," Price was accused by his critics of "improving by neglect and accident"; Price and Knight together were scornfully called "the wild improvers."
In his "Essay," Price considered the Picturesque in two aspects: first as a category of aesthetic values alongside the Beautiful and the Sublime (which had already been embraced by Brown); and second, as a quality of nature per se, one that ought to be looked for in actual practice and preserved or enhanced when found. Price's most extreme pronouncements argued that gardens should imitate landscape paintings and that the purpose of the gardener, like that of the painter, was to improve upon nature.
A lifelong Whig, Price was created a baronet in 1828.


text: Convex Spherical Mirrors feature a polished plano second surface and convex first surface. Used primarily for increasing an imaging system's field of view, convex mirrors create a virtual, upright image. Shorter focal lengths provide wider fields of view, while longer focal lengths provide less distortion. The Enhanced Aluminum coating is ideal for applications in the visible spectrum, while Protected Gold provides excellent reflection throughout the NIR, MWIR, and LWIR spectra.


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The recent severe floods in Colorado could end up costing homeowners, businesses and local governments nearly $2 billion, according to Eqecat, a firm that conducts loss estimates for the insurance industry.
But unlike many other natural disasters, the firm and an insurance trade group agree that a high percentage of the losses will not be covered by insurance.
Eqecat estimates that the storm cost homeowners about $900 million in both damage and expenses associated with evacuations. Businesses and local governments are likely to be hit with an additional $1 billion in costs.
Related: CNN's coverage of Colorado flooding
Flood damage is not covered by private insurers. Instead, it is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But Tom Larsen, senior vice president of of Eqecat, said that because very many of the homes damaged by the flooding are not in flood plains, the number of people with flood coverage is very low.
"NFIP is usually only taken when it's mandatory by a mortgage lender," he said. "In coastal areas, which are susceptible to hurricanes, there's a high concentration. That's why the payout from those storms is so much greater. But the percentage of insurance in this one is going to be a very low number."
Mike Barry, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, agrees with Larsen's estimate about how few homeowners and businesses affected by the disaster are covered by flood insurance. And he said local governments generally do not have coverage either.
Related: Colorado flooding may unleash fracking fluid
The Institute's listings of the most expensive disasters shows the NFIP paid a record $16.3 billion in claims for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and $7.1 billion last year for Superstorm Sandy.
Barry said even without insurance, homeowners and businesses in disaster areas will be eligible for federal help, including grants and low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration. Local governments may also be able to get some assistance from Washington once it is approved by Congress. Already, the Department of Transportation has committed $35 million to Colorado for road and bridge repairs.


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Don't miss it!
Monday, January 03, 2011
Paris Carrousel
Don't miss it!
25 comments:
- Cristina in Argentina8:16 PM
Hi, Carol!!, Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!
Love your Carrousel post today. Actually I love carrousels.
Here, in Argentina we call them CALESITAS, and the ring is called SORTIJA. We had wonderful artists working as calesitas makers, the most important were the SEQUALINO BROTHERS. They also built calesitas for uruguay,
Brazil, Chile, Paraguay. I had the pleasure to meet them long ago
( now they all passed away ) while working at an antique shop. They
were so nice and humble, even though they were already famous.
Unfortunately the factory closed in 1984.
All the best for you and Bear.
Cristina This is a wonderful post! I have no idea why, but I love carrousels. My wife, however, hates them. She saw a Twilight Zone episode that had a carrousel horse in it, and as she was young at the time, it really scared her. She said she cringes every time she sees one. I, on the other hand, would love to have an antique horse in our living room. I think it would be so magical! Man. Maybe I'm weird!
ReplyDeleteYou're not weird in the least Bill!
Carrousel horses are highly collectible examples of American folk art and quite pricey if you can even find one anymore outside a museum. I must have seen that Twilight Zone program with your wife, since I find them a bit scary. They seem imbued with an inner life that is quite fierce. Give me Bambi!
and Dumbo :)


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These services include, but are not limited to: Intake and Assessment, Pre-Trial Supervision, Probation Supervision, Programs and Referrals, and Probation Violations/Sanctions Conferences. The department supervises all juvenile probation and all adults placed on supervision for misdemeanor/gross misdemeanor offenses. In Itasca County the Minnesota Department of Corrections supervises all felony probation and supervised release (parole) cases. Minnesota Statute 244.19 specifically outlines the appointment, compensation, and powers and duties with respect to our probation officers, learn more about statute 244.19 by visiting the Office of the Revisor of Statutes website.
Misdemeanors are offenses that are punishable by up to 90 days in jail. The lowest-level Driving Under the Influence is an example.
Gross Misdemeanors are offenses that are punishable by up to a year in jail. Repeat DUI offenses, or a DUI with an elevated blood-alcohol level, are examples.
Felonies are crimes that are punishable by more than a year in jail. The lowest-level felony offenses are punishable by a year and 1 day. In Itasca County, these cases are supervised by the Minnesota Department of Corrections, for more information contact them by phone at 218-322-2920.


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At In-Cosmetics in Barcelona, Spain, Gattefossé will introduce an Asian shrub extract that stimulates microcirculation for improved skin radiance. Gatuline Radiance (INCI: Not Provided), is a fruit extract of Evodia rutaecarpa, a fast-growing shrub in Asia. The extract boosts microcirculation to restore a healthy look to skin and maintain an even skin tone.
Through an in vivo Doppler laser measurement, the extract was shown to increase blood flow to skin. It has been tested in vivo versus a placebo under normal conditions of use. In addition to boosting microcirculation, the extract improves texture and luminosity.
The extract can be used in skin care for both men and women of every age. It is recommended in facial skin care and makeup applications, but can also be formulated into anti-aging, moisturizing, whitening and energizing skin care. In addition, its microcirculation activity can be adapted to address cellulite or hair loss.


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Friday January 20, 2012Clearer picture of defence buy
KUALA LUMPUR: The Defence Ministry has explained the supposed RM3bil increase for the purchase of six navy patrol vessels in an unprecedented meeting with Pakatan Rakyat MPs.
Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said they were also open to the setting up of a Parliamentary Oversight Committee on its procurement as suggested by the Opposition, but would leave it to the House to decide.
This was also agreed in principle by representatives from the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club (BNBBC), who also attended the more than two-hour meeting held at the ministry here yesterday.
Dr Zahid, accompanied by the navy, army and air force chiefs, explained to the MPs that the procurement price of the vessels was not increased from RM6bil to RM9bil as alleged, but was actually spread across the 10th Malaysia Plan (RM6bil) and the 11th Malaysia Plan (RM3bil).
The vessels are known as Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).
"The main purpose of the discussion was to address the misinterpretation and misperception.
"We were transparent in our explanation. There is no cover-up. We invited the BNBBC as they deserved to know as well," Dr Zahid said after the meeting on defence-related issues at his ministry.
Pakatan's delegation was headed by DAP's Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua, who has been vocal about allegations involving certain defence procurements.
The meeting is a follow-up to Dr Zahid's invitation for Pakatan MPs to personally visit his ministry to get an actual view of current issues that have been raised including the LCS purchase and allegations and weaknesses in the purchase of submarines and aircraft.
Pua, who pointed out that the RM6bil was previously stated as the ceiling price for the purchase of the six LCS, said they had the right as MPs to clarify and ask questions to ensure procurements were made according to needs and were value for money.
"We welcome today's discussion and hope the ministry will continue to be transparent and that the Oversight Committee can be set up soon to address matters that are unclear," he said.
This blog will be a repository of the postings of a military nature from my other blog and new ones since then, especially about the Malaysian Military in particular. Hopefully such knowledge about the hardworking men and women who tirelessly work for the security of Malaysia will be acknowledged and appreciated in this way. "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - Winston Churchill
Friday, January 20, 2012
Who Says There Is No Transparency
With the Parliamentary briefing by the Ministry Of Defence Chiefs to the BNBBC and PR MPs on the purchase of the Littoral Combat Ship purchase price and other allegations, I really hope that all the spin on such defence purchases will stop or it really shows you politikuses are just making political capital without any sincerity.
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There is no better way to show your clients and employees that you care than with health and safety promotional products. By choosing to give out imprinted health and safety items, you show that you truly value their health and wellbeing. You can rest assured that these custom health and safety promotional items will be used because they are highly useful items that people need, many on a daily basis. Recipients will see that you are an organization that they can depend upon and trust.
Our miscellaneous section of custom printed promotional health and safety products is stocked with assorted items that can easily be printed with your corporate logo, company name and business contact information. Choose the product that best fits your brand image, and we can help you personalize it to match your marketing campaign!


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What to bring to this bloggers picnic get together? A 99.99 Cent White Wine Tasting, of course. The Chef struck white liquid gold at his local 99.99c only Store yesterday; an abundance of wine "Deals of the Day". There are 5 different white wines to choose from right now -- from "Yelcho" Chilean Sauvignon Blanc to "Lindon Estates" North Coast (California) Chardonnay. For the wine winning results you have to watch the Chef's wine tasting video. Special 99 thanks to hosts Arron "The Proc" Proctor and Frazgo, the brave blogging 99.99 cent wine tasters and Monrovia's Aztec Hotel and Brass Elephant for hosting the event.
Reviewed white wines are: Yelcho, Chilean Sauvignon Blanc - Queen of Hearts, Los Alamos Chardonnay - Linden Estates, North Coast Chardonnay - Thirsty Fish, Central Coast Chardonnay.
Play it here. The video runs 4 minutes 45 seconds.
Kelly -- West Coast Grrlie Blather (grrl.wordpress.com)
JSF -- valley-of-the-shadow.blogspot.com
Frazgo -- frazgomeanders.blogspot.com and frazgofeasting.blogspot.com
Arron "The Proc" Proctor
Go here to embed or view video at youtube.


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Note: As of July 2016, the E-Government Toolkit is no longer updated.
General E-Government Services Checklist
- Determine user's service needs through the reference query.
- Determine what type of form or service is needed to access local, state, federal or commercial site.
- Determine where information can be found or if it exists.
- Determine the information and computer competency level of user through querying.
- Encourage information/computer-literate users to access services and proceed without help.
- Determine how much help is needed if it is determined that the user has low literacy and/or computer skills. Consider whether the person can use a mouse, type, use a computer, comprehend information they need to access, etc.
- Refer users to other library locations that can provide one-on-one help if necessary.
- Inform users that computers are public and that they need to exit correctly to protect any private information they have entered and close the browser and all programs before logging off the computer.
Federal E-Government Services
The federal government has been at the forefront of developing and implementing E-Government solutions. These range from the familiar online Internal Revenue Service tax forms and filing options to Social Security Administration application forms and more recently include electronic passport applications. In addition, the federal government has embraced E-Government as an educational tool particularly in providing online education programs for new immigrants seeking citizenship and for K-12 support programs within the Department of Education.
Federal E-Government services have become ubiquitous, but few libraries have actually developed policies or procedures for implementing or supporting these services. The suggestions below and throughout this Toolkit are intended to assist in getting such planning underway allowing library staff to provide a quality experience for users.
As the opportunities to interact directly with federal agencies have expanded, so too has the demand for libraries to provide support for these interactions. In order to effectively provide patrons with access to these services libraries should consider the following:
- Is there a nearby Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) participant that can offer guidance or training about federal electronic resources such as the Federal Digital System, Catalog of Government Publications, Metalib, Ask-a-Librarian: Government Information Online, and AskGPO? Locate the closest FDLP. Federal Depository Libraries have knowledge of and experience with a wide range of government publications and Federal e-government information resources including often hard find or obscure government material. These publications and resources can help library patrons identify their representatives in congress, discover legislation that the members of congress are sponsoring or cosponsoring, how their representatives are voting on legislation, discover Federal agencies, learn how to use Federal agencies' e-government services, and much more. Many of these resources are located on GPO's FDsys and, in addition, the dedicated and supportive network information professionals of the Federal Depository Library Program are available to help researchers.
- Determine if the library will focus on only a specific category of services – the "collection development" approach – or will interactions with any federal entity be supported?
- How will technology to support federal E-Government services be developed? Will it be subsumed under existing costs, or will there be a need for additional equipment and/or tools. Are there grants or funding from federal agencies for libraries to support access to federal E-Government services?
- How will privacy issues be dealt with? What mechanisms are already in place on public computers to facilitate privacy protection?
- Are there federal or state laws that will affect how information transmitted to or from federal agencies is stored?
- Invite local federal agency employees to a conference at your library to provide demonstrations and workshops on how to use their E-Government website. For example, a library in a rural farming community might consider inviting representatives from the Department of Agriculture to discuss services on their site. Or a library could partner with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services which has produced a series of materials to help library staff assist users of online immigration services. (See: http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/G-1112.pdf )
- Are there ways to work with local advocacy groups to develop educational programs for the community that will introduce available E-Government resources? For example, the League of Women Voters might be enlisted during an election year to discuss voting and campaign resources. Or local advocates for the aged might assist area senior services organizations to design training and support for seniors needing to choose a Medicare Part B plan.
State E-Government Services through State Libraries and Other State Agencies
- Offer to have the library act as the voice of the state's E-Government services.
- Volunteer the Reference/Research Department to answer phone calls (e.g., Ask a Librarian link on the portal home page) relating to E-Government questions about state agencies and services.
- Determine who manages the E-Government portal, whether there is a board or a department managing the site, whether it is possible for a library staff member to become a member of the board and/or attend meetings to understand the work of the board or department and the demands it is facing.
- Work with the E-Government administrative body to offer content suggestions, webpage edits, and other ideas that will make the web portal easier for librarians and the public to navigate.
- Instruct reference staff to keep logs of requests for information that they cannot find or had difficulty finding.
- Help provide better services by offering suggestions for driving more users or business to the library's website and encouraging competition for awards for the best of the web.
- Invite state E-Government reference experts to offer demonstrations and take them on the road to other public libraries in the state. Invite portal employees to the state library conference to provide demos and workshops on how to use the E-Government website.
- Negotiate for free or reduced fees for specific applications that will benefit the library in return for efforts on behalf of state government.
- Offer to test applications that are being considered for state E-Government use that will also benefit the library and negotiate for free or reduced fees for these applications if they are accepted.
Sample State E-Government Effort:
E-Government Services through Public Libraries
Public libraries are essential providers of E-Government services and resources. In areas hit by natural disasters, they are on the front line assisting users in filing government claims. With the increase in unemployment in 2009 and 2010, more people than ever are using free public library computers to file for benefits, use library resources to access information about jobs and complete online employment applications. Many of these users are unfamiliar with computers and online resources. Government agencies refer individuals specifically to their local public libraries for help. ALA has produced a document titled: "Public Libraries and E-Government Services," ( https://connect.ala.org/viewdocument?DocumentKey=50EB81BB-8750-4904-9E85-43CB56336F37 ) which describes how public libraries are implementing various strategies to best serve their community with E-Government services.
- Guide to Public Access Computing Resources – Collection of articles on setting up PCs for public use, security and maintenance, wireless networks, time and print management, policies and programs
- Sample Public Library E-Government webpages:
- Pasco County Library System E-Government Tools Page http://pascolibraries.org/egovtools.shtml
- New South Wales Public Libraries & E-Government www.sl.nsw.gov.au/services/public_libraries/publications/docs/egov.pdf
E-Government Services through Academic and Special Libraries
Academic libraries focus their services on their primary user groups including faculty, students, and institutional staff. These particular user groups often have specific types of E-Government service needs. For example, many students may need assistance with online filing of tax or voter registration forms. Faculty and staff may need assistance with submitting grant applications or accessing research data. Providing support for these types of services has long been part of academic libraries' role on college and university campuses and has not changed as these services have moved into the online environment.
Some academic libraries may be challenged by requests to provide support for E-Government services to those outside of their primary users groups. Computer access and security policies may limit access to citizens without an institutional affiliation. Some libraries may have difficulty providing the level of assistance some citizens may need to access E-Government services.
It is imperative that academic libraries assess these challenges and create policies that clearly define the access and level of service that will be provided to non-affiliated users of E-Government services. Factors that may influence access policies include:
- Is the library a member in the Federal Depository Library Program or a state or local government depository program? If so, programs usually require libraries to provide access and support for citizens accessing E-Government services.
- Does the academic institution receive government-funded grants that may require citizen access to institutional resources?
- Is the academic institution interested in fostering local community relations? If so, providing access and support for E-Government services to non-affiliated local community members may be beneficial to those efforts.
- Is the public library in the academic institution's local community well supported and able to provide support for citizen access to E-Government services? Understanding public library policies and resources can assist academic librarians in making good referrals and may influence how they shape their own access policies.
E-Government Services through School Libraries
School teachers and students use school libraries for E-Government services including filing No Child Left Behind "highly qualified" reports and teacher certification forms, researching government programs and communicating with government agencies. Other potential uses include financial aid applications for college and researching national service opportunities. School Librarians instruct students and classroom teachers about the information and services available through E-Government resources. They also collaborate with classroom teachers to integrate E-Government resources into the curriculum.
Examples of E-Government Services and Forms
Used by the Public in Libraries
- Information by Topic
http://www.usa.gov/ - Job Applications for Federal Jobs:
Federal Job Listings
Federal Job Forms - Federal Disaster Assistance
Federal Emergency Management Agency - Medicare prescription drug coverage plans
Medicaid & Medicare
Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder - Immigration information and forms on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
http://www.uscis.gov/ - Naturalization Information
http://www.uscitizenship.info/ - Department of Family and Children Programs
http://www.aphsa.org/Links/links-state.asp - Veterans Administration
- Student Aid http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/index.jsp
- Federal Bureau of Prisons – Locate an inmate
- All 50 State Governments & Agencies
http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/State_and_Territories.shtml - Voters Registration
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting/Register.shtml - Job Applications for State Government
http://www.thejobpage.gov/statelocal.asp - National Center for State Courts
State Courts Website
Local government information may be found on local sites in various cities, counties and jurisdictions.
- Applications for jobs for local government
http://www.governmentjobs.com - Examples of local E-Government Services
http://www.cobbcountyga.gov/egov.htm (Cobb County, GA)
http://www.fresno.gov/Government/eGov/Default.htm (Fresno, CA)
http://lawrenceks.org/egov (Lawrence, KS) - Legal Information & Forms: