text:
#22981 closed feature request (wontfix)
Tweets import plugin tracking ticket
Reported by: | nacin | Owned by: | PeteMall |
Milestone: | Priority: | normal | |
Severity: | normal | Version: | |
Component: | Import | Keywords: | |
Focuses: | Cc: |
This ticket is to track the development of a plugin that can import tweets from a downloaded twitter.com archive. Presumably, such a plugin would be added to the importers list on wp-admin/import.php.
Trac is best when it is used to discuss implementation. If you want to discuss the general idea, please do so on make/core.
Some initial thoughts on implementation:
- It should use the JSON-formatted data that comes with a downloaded tweet archive. The importer should take the entire zip, extract it, and loop through the monthly files. Anything more is an unnecessary burden on the user.
- The plugin should import the tweet as actual content. A filter is good idea, if someone wishes to toggle this to instead insert links to tweets (and thus rely on oEmbed). It should also store the JSON-serialized array of data (directly from 1.1 of Twitter's API) in postmeta.
- It should import posts as a post format. Status makes the most sense; 'link' could also work for links, then there's also 'aside'. The post format to use should be filterable on a tweet-by-tweet basis. The post type to use should be filterable, as a 'tweet' type may be desired.
- It should handle importing an archive over an existing archive, by looking for the existing tweet (probably IDs as a meta key). I don't think deleted tweets should be removed in this process, though.
- Remember that tweet IDs are going to be bigger than 32-bit integers, so they must be treated as strings, and we should not try to set a post ID as we might with other importers. This importer should be tested on a 32-bit environment.
Beyond that, there are other "nice to haves" that would likely be left to plugins of this plugin, given they are beyond the standard role of an importer. Beau Lebens, for example, has done some/all of this already:
- Tagging based on hashtags, and a separate mentions and/or in-reply-to taxonomy.
- Filtering over raw (no-HTML) content to add things like links to hashtags, links in tweets, etc., on display, rather than doing all of this on save. (Should a hashtag link go to the internal tag, or to twitter.com? Maybe the internal tag's description links to twitter.com?)
- A cron to import new tweets using the same importing methods.
One thing I will suggest: decisions, not options. Note I said "filter" a bunch of times, but never the word "option." Not that there won't be a need for any user decision here, but we should make a plugin that works well for the common use cases, and leave the rest to other enterprising developers.
Side note: I am working on acquiring a namespace for the Twitter importer in the wordpress.org plugin repository.
Attachments (6)
Change History (47)
11 years ago
Thanks to Chad Huber (http://twitter.com/chadhuber) for contributing his tweets to the cause. [chadhuber-tweets.zip] is exactly as downloaded from Twitter. Here's a file tree:
index.html (for the HTML application) README.txt (content below) css/ (for the HTML application) data/ (for the HTML application) csv/ (monthly files) js/ tweets/ (monthly files) payload_details.js (number of tweets) tweet_index.js (index of the monthly files) user_details.js (basic user info) img/ (for the HTML application) js/ (for the HTML application) lib/ (for the HTML application)
The readme:
# How to use your Twitter archive data The simplest way to use your Twitter archive data is through the archive browser interface provided in this file. Just double-click `index.html` from the root folder and you can browse your entire history of Tweets from inside your browser. --- In the `data` folder, your Twitter archive is present in two formats: JSON and CSV exports by month and year. * CSV is a generic format that can be imported into many data tools, spreadsheet applications, or consumed simply using a programming language. ## JSON for Developers * The JSON export contains a full representation of your Tweets as returned by v1.1 of the Twitter API. See https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1 for more information. * The JSON export is also used to power the archive browser interface (index.html). * To consume the export in a generic JSON parser in any language, strip the first and last lines of each file. To provide feedback, ask questions, or share ideas with other Twitter developers, join the discussion forums on https://dev.twitter.com.
11 years ago
Aaron and I worked on it yesterday. I'm attaching what we have so far as a patch. The plugin just accepts a zip file and parses the tweets. We are currently working on it and I'll add an updated patch at the end of the day.
11 years ago
Lol, I guess Pete and I were both commenting here at the same time.
I uploaded what we have so that anyone interested can use it as a starting point (twitter-importer.php). So far, like Pete said, it lets you upload the .zip and it parses the json. It doesn't do any actual importing yet (but we're working on it more today).
11 years ago
One other thing: We should probably leverage the cron-based importing code used in the current Blogger and Tumblr importers, as primarily architected (AFAIK) by Otto42.
↓ 8
11 years ago
- Cc andrew@… added
Question: is there any discussion about where these should go? Asides (as a post format), a CPT, give users the option, etc?
I've done some implementations of converting a JSON return into post with various metadata (with the Instagram API, ironically before they announced OMGWTFADS) so it's pretty straight forward. I'd be more than happy to contribute that portion.
11 years ago
- Owner set to PeteMall
- Status changed from new to accepted
Updated plugin imports the tweets and sets the hastags as post tags (props beaulebens).
in reply to:
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↓ 9
11 years ago
Replying to norcross:
Question: is there any discussion about where these should go? Asides (as a post format), a CPT, give users the option, etc?
I think it makes the most sense to make each a post with the format "status" and then add in some filters that could be used to change them to asides or even a CPT.
in reply to:
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↓ 10
11 years ago
Replying to aaroncampbell:
I think it makes the most sense to make each a post with the format "status" and then add in some filters that could be used to change them to asides or even a CPT.
Now we get to have the discussion of "status" vs "aside". In the Twitter Importer I wrote/am running on my site, I opted for asides. The problem is that cogent arguments can be made for both, since it largely depends (I think) on how the individual is using Twitter.
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11 years ago
Replying to beaulebens:
Now we get to have the discussion of "status" vs "aside". In the Twitter Importer I wrote/am running on my site, I opted for asides. The problem is that cogent arguments can be made for both, since it largely depends (I think) on how the individual is using Twitter.
I don't particularly want to have that debate. Mostly because I could easily argue either side. A filter is a given and I don't care which is the default. I chose status because I think more people use Twitter that way, not because it's how I use it. I think the question is: Is there a good enough argument for actually adding an option and allowing the user to choose?
in reply to:
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11 years ago
Replying to aaroncampbell:
Replying to beaulebens:
Now we get to have the discussion of "status" vs "aside".
Is there a good enough argument for actually adding an option and allowing the user to choose?
I can see a few arguments to allowing a choice:
1.) not all themes have post formats enabled
2.) people with larger twitter archives may not want to flood their post area with new content
3.) some people are more particular about content organization than others.
now granted, I fall into all 3 of those scenarios, but I can't be the only person who fits at least one of those criteria.
11 years ago
The option I was talking about would just be "status" vs "aside" for post format.
- Themes that don't support post formats will treat the content as regular posts.
- If you have a large Twitter archive you're importing, it seems like you would want a theme that shows asides or status updates separate from main content. If you don't have that, then you probably expect to have the content in the main area.
- For those really particular about content organization, there are several filters so they can do whatever they want.
wp-twitter-importer.2.zip has the filters I'm talking about.
I'm leaning toward using status, leaving the filter in, and making decisions not options.
11 years ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't post formats show up in RSS? An import would blow out someone's feed unless they had previously disabled that specific format in their theme.
For me, I was going to put it into a CPT (but that's besides the point).
↓ 16
11 years ago
I haven't tested for functionality yet, but an additional filter for post_type in wp-twitter-importer.2.zip, defaulting to post
, would be ideal for maximum extendability.
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11 years ago
Replying to jeremyfelt:
I haven't tested for functionality yet, but an additional filter for post_type in wp-twitter-importer.2.zip, defaulting to
, would be ideal for maximum extendability.
You can set the post type using the twitter-import-post-data
filter, which filters the entire array passed to wp_insert_post()
. Use something like this:
function twitter_import_post_data( $post ) { $post['post_type'] = 'tweet'; return $post; } add_action( 'twitter-import-post-data', array( $this, 'twitter_import_post_data' ) ); add_action( 'twitter-import-post-format', '__return_null' );
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11 years ago
- Cc mike@… added
Although I fear the ship may have already sailed I figure I'd post about an alternate approach per chance it wasn't considered and might be considered instead.
Instead of posts could we instead consider using comments for tweets? Comments model tweets better than posts, and comments already have meta so they can be extended by plugins and themes as needed.
I'd love to use this feature but the idea of dumping 20,000+ posts into a WordPress site that might have less than 100 total real posts causes me a lot of heartache, and I would expect the same might be true for many other advanced users. Just looking at some of the people on this ticket, here's the number of tweets they have to import at this moment:
- petemall - 4033
- otto - 7831
- nacin - 19,436
- me - 21,056
- norcross - 65,583(!)
Having that many extra posts could be a real pain for those who do a lot of debugging at the SQL level, i.e. I could no longer just browse tables but instead would always have to run a query.
We could create a post type of 'twitter_account'
and another post type of 'tweet_period'
and then have the comments associated with the 'tweet_period'
post type where tweet periods could default to maybe 'weekly'
but be configurable via a filter to 'daily'
, 'monthly'
, etc. Then the posts of type 'tweet_period'
could be child posts for 'twitter_account'
posts and we could use comment meta to provide a direct link back from the comment to the parent 'twitter_account'
post ID (or even use the comment_parent
field to point to parent post to reduce joins required, but that approach might be iffy.)
Using comments in this way would allow plugins a lot of built-in flexibility such as theme-able pages for tweet_period
posts without any extra infrastructure to build, and it would allow plugins to work with and segment multiple Twitter accounts in a clean and standard way, and it would obviously keep the wp_posts
table from being overwhelmed with tweets.
I'd be willing to tackle coding this over the weekend if people think it's a worthy approach to consider (assuming I get my current client project complete before then.) I'd hate to code it up though and find zero interest in the approach.
And even if people don't like the idea can we at least make the post storage engine replaceable via hooks so that a plugin could be developed to use comments instead?
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11 years ago
Replying to MikeSchinkel:
Instead of posts could we instead consider using comments for tweets? Comments model tweets better than posts, and comments already have meta so they can be extended by plugins and themes as needed.
I definitely don't agree with this one. I understand that you'd prefer to keep your posts table cleaner (and apparently don't care about your comments table), but I definitely think that tweets are better modeled as a post with the format status
than by anything else offered by default in WordPress (with a post with the format of aside
being a close second).
If you were importing tweet threads instead of a user's timeline, then I could see how the back/forth makes sense as comments (with the original Tweet still being a status post), but when you're importing a timeline I definitely think posts are the way to go.
How's this as a potential solution: We still need to add checks to keep from re-importing Tweets if a user requests another export a month later and imports it. If we do that by using a filter that we hook into, you could use it to short-circuit the post creation:
if ( ! apply_filters( 'twitter-import-tweet-exists', false, $tweet ) ) { // Create post here }
You could use that filter to insert the comment you want and return true. I haven't completely thought through it all, but it seems like something like that would work.
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11 years ago
Replying to aaroncampbell:
I definitely don't agree with this one.
Disappointed, disagree of course, but I respect your position.
but I definitely think that tweets are better modeled as a post with the format status than by anything else offered by default in WordPress (with a post with the format of aside being a close second).
I'd be curious if you could elaborate why? Posts are independent and heavy duty in capability while tweets are dependent on a twitter account are light weight in requirements. Seems like a mismatch to me.
How's this as a potential solution: ...
If it allows a way to bypass adding to posts then that's minimally what I was requesting.
P.S. Ironic note, I didn't include your tweet count in the list because yours was the lowest at only 1533. Wondering if that colors your opinion any?
P.P.S. Huge apologizes to Nacin. As I write this I see your request to discuss how on Make. If after this post you want me to propose it there and make future comments there I will. Again, sorry.
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11 years ago
Replying to MikeSchinkel:
As I write this I see your request to discuss how on Make. If after this post you want me to propose it there and make future comments there I will.
FYI -- comments on the Make post are closed. So I assume that any further idea discussion would have to occur here.
11 years ago
- Cc quicoto added
Looking forward to see this importer.
Regarding the post format I'd vote for "status".
↓ 26
11 years ago
Just imported my Twitter stream using the latest plugin version and it successfully imported 22.5k+ tweets. Awesome!
One suggestion: The plugin states the user should upload the zip, however if you try to upload the CSV directly the import completely blows up. If a zip file is not uploaded the plugin should show a nice error message reminding the user to upload the original zip.
Has there been any discussions around storing the in_reply_to_status_id as metadata? I'm not sure if there's a way to construct the reply URL, but would probably be good to store that data for future use.
I also agree the post format should be status
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11 years ago
I cannot truly express the depth of my hatred for importing tweets into WordPress. That is all.
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11 years ago
- Cc travis@… added
Replying to chriswallace:
I cannot truly express the depth of my hatred for importing tweets into WordPress. That is all.
Why bother posting that here? People are working on something that lots of people would demonstrably appreciate having available, and you show up to quite literally hate on it? Why?
(Unless of course I'm misunderstanding and what you're actually saying is that you hate importing tweets now, and are looking forward to the importer.)
10 years ago
- Component changed from Plugins to Import
Is there anything in the repo for this yet?
10 years ago
Don't think so, but I just downloaded my archive and they apparently changed the format of the ZIP file. The CSV version is now in the root in a single large tweets.csv file, instead of being in monthly files in the data folder.
Also note the readme.txt included in the file says the following:
To consume the export in a generic JSON parser in any language, strip the first and last lines of each file.
This is incorrect, only the first line should be stripped if you wish to parse this file with a json parser. Also note that the json appears to contain far more useful data than the CSV file does, parsing those would likely be preferable.
10 years ago
wp-twitter-importer.3.php is my modification of the last version uploaded by aaroncampbell.
- Removed the dependency on the WP_Importer_Cron (for now, the plugin wasn't really using it anyway). May add this back later, along with checking for duplicates on import and smarter parsing.
- Some start and end functions to speed up the process by turning off the cache invalidation and term/comment counting during the import
- Speed boost by turning off autocommit and manually committing once every 1000 tweets. This isn't the safest thing in the world, but it's a start. The speed boost is substantial. Importing 11,000 tweets went down from ~6 minutes to ~30 seconds.
- Added a filter for the post_type used, in case somebody doesn't want them all to be "post".
Few known problems:
- It's using the WP_Filesystem slightly incorrectly. I'm not sure how to fix this at present because I've never tried to use it with a file upload. Think the order of operations needs to be changed around here. It will work with "direct" mode only at present.
- It's still a bit slow and will run into PHP timeouts. There are some enhancements that can be made for speed, and it can be put into a continuous cron job.
- Turning off autocommit with 'set autocommit = 0' strikes me as potentially bad. Probably need to find a better way.
- Like the other importers, we should probably make a token effort of some kind to download the media "attachments" in the tweets and rejigger the URLs to local ones. Might want to limit this to known domains, like pic.twitter and the like.
10 years ago
This is mostly irrelevant, but may be useful for someone one day: As a weekly downloader of my Twitter archive, I've noticed that certain past tweets disappear and reappear in the data. Not sure if this has any impact on the importer.


text:
BERLIN- Stephen Decatur's girls' varsity soccer team took care of business this week in the second round of the state Class 3A-East region tournament, beating Howard, 2-1, at home on Tuesday to advance in a region suddenly devoid of top seeds.
The Seahawks, seeded third in the region, played a scoreless first half with Howard on a blustery Tuesday afternoon before getting on the board in the second half. During the second half, the Seahawks got goals from Tori Whigham and Liz Rougcher to edge Howard, 2-1, while Ashley DePaul was impressive in goal with 22 saves.
With the win, the Seahawks move on as the highest remaining seed in the region after a run of upsets. Top-seeded River Hill lost to ninth-seeded Atholton, while second-seeded Centennial lost to 10th-seeded Reservoir and third-seeded Bennett lost to fifth-seeded Mt. Hebron. The Seahawks will face Reservoir at home this afternoon in the region semifinals.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Mark Hahn wrote: >[...] > but I ask again: what are the reasons one might prefer using debian? > really, I'm not criticizing it - I really would like to know why it > would matter whether someone (such as ClusterVisionOS (tm)) would use > debian or another distro. Hello, Mark. I've been on a well trodden path from trying out the 'free' version of Scyld under RH6.2, then using openMosix under all versions of RH up to RH9, Fedora up to core2, then Debian Sarge and now Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS with an upgrade to 8.04.1 LTS imminent. As I see it, this has been a developmental journey and also a learning experiencefor me. As others on this thread have admitted, I'm not blind to the ideological objectives of Debian. However, I'm now using a very good commerically supported version of Linux with the what is widely acknowledged to be the largest user and developer community. It's my own experience of trying to do my work under RH/Fedora that's put me off these distro's and I see a BIG divide between 'real' HPC communities using BIG iron, and small Beowulf clusters like mine. I've got to admit that Tim Cutts did influence my decision to try out Debian (thanks, Tim!). I also use the (UK) NERC's Bio-Linux binary deb's and I was also influenced by their decision to change from RH to Debian for Bio-Linux. I can see that other communities use RH for similar reasons, though I should mention that our Beowulf spends a lot of time running quantum chemistry simulations (GAMESS etc.). I've pout up an Ubuntu blue-print for 'biobuntu', which consolidates the work I'm doing on several projects: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/biobuntu I am, of course, familiar with 'other' Biolinuxen and rpm repositories of bioinformatics software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioLinux Having tried out many of these alternatives, I remain convinced that NEBC's Bio-Linux is most appropriate for my work. In particular, the level of support in the form of documentation and training courses provided by NEBC is very good. This means I don't have to reinvent the wheel - Always a good point for any Beowulf-related activity :-) Tony. -- Dr. A.J.Travis, | mailto:ajt at rri.sari.ac.uk Rowett Research Institute, | http://www.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, | phone:+44 (0)1224 712751 Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK. | fax:+44 (0)1224 716687


text:
Holiday Craft How-to: DIY Gift Candles
After a little too much time on Pinterest this past weekend, the wife and I decided to try our hands at making a few DIY gift candles for some of our friends and family. I can't say the project was a complete success (more on that in a minute), but we were able to put a bunch of our saved-up mason and jam jars to good use and ended up with more than a dozen cute gift candles. Not bad, I thought, for a first attempt!
Holiday Craft How-to: DIY Gift Candles Read More 👉


text:
I have a road network (purple), Point files (green) and a beginning point (yellow).
I want to trace the point files based on the road network. Think of the points as telephone poles, but what I want is a map showing telephone lines (line shapefile). There is a numbering scheme for the "telephone poles" but it isn't great and for this instance I would just as well assume they are not numbered.
Does anyone have a solution? One that looks pretty good is just buffering the points and then clipping the road network from the buffers. But I want something more complete. It needs to be automated since there are 12,000 of the "telephone poles"


text:
Long before the Arabs brought Islam to Central Asia in the mid-seventh century CE, Buddhism had flourished there for hundreds of years. It was particularly prominent along the Silk Route, which carried trade between India and Han China, and led from both to Byzantium and to the Roman Empire. Let us briefly outline the early spread of Buddhism to this part of the world so that we might appreciate better the historical background that Islam encountered.
In terms of current geographic areas, the early Buddhist regions of Central Asia included at various times:
(1) Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir,
(2) the northern Pakistani mountain valleys such as Gilgit,
(3) Pakistani Punjab, including the Swat Valley, and eastern Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush Mountains,
(4) the Amu Darya River Valley to the north of the Hindu Kush, including both Afghani Turkistan to the south of the Amu Darya and southern West Turkistan (southeastern Uzbekistan and southern Tajikistan) to the north of the river,
(5) northeastern Iran and southern Turkmenistan,
(6) the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, namely central West Turkistan (eastern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan),
(7) the area to the north of the Syr Darya, namely northern West Turkistan (Kyrgyzstan and eastern Kazakhstan),
(8) southern Xinjiang (Sinkiang) in the Peoples' Republic of China, namely southern East Turkistan, both to the north and south of the Taklamakan Desert around the periphery of the Tarim Basin,
(9) northern Xinjiang, between the Tianshan (T'ian-shan) and Altai Mountains,
(10) the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Qinghai (Ch'ing-hai), southeastern Gansu (Kan-su), western Sichuan (Sze-ch'uan), and northwestern Yunnan (Yün-nan), all in the Peoples' Republic of China,
(11) Inner Mongolia, in the Peoples' Republic of China, the Republic of Mongolia (Outer Mongolia), and the Buryat Republic in Siberia, Russia.
The historical names for these areas were:
- Kashmir, with its capital at Srinagar,
- Gilgit,
- Gandhara, with its major cities being Takshashila on the Pakistani Punjab side of the Khyber Pass and Kabul on the Afghani side, with Swat being called Oddiyana
- Bactria, spanning the Oxus River Valley, with its center at Balkh, near modern-day Mazar-i-Sharif,
- Parthia, later Khorasan, with its main city at Merv, and sometimes its portion in southern Turkmenistan referred to as Margiana,
- Sogdia, later Ma Wara'an-Nahr, between the Oxus and the Jaxartes Rivers, with its main centers, going roughly from west to east, at Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, and Ferghana,
- no specific name, but with its main center at Suyab to the south of Lake Issyk Kul,
- no specific name, but with the main oasis city-states along the southern rim of the Tarim Basin, going from west to east, being Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, and Niya, and along the northern rim, Kucha, Karashahr, and Turfan (Qocho), and with the two routes joining in the east at Dunhuang (Tun-huang),
- Dzungaria, with the main city at its eastern gateway across the Tianshan Mountains from Turfan being Beshbaliq (Beiting, Pei-t'ing), near present-day Urumqi,
- Tibet, with its capital at Lhasa,
- Mongolia.
Although some of these names changed several times over the course of history, we shall limit ourselves to this one set to avoid confusion. We shall refer to the area of the Peoples' Republic of China excluding Gansu, Inner Mongolia, the ethnic Tibetan regions, Manchuria, and the southern hill tribe areas as "Han China," the homeland of the ethnic Han people. We shall use the term " northern India" to refer primarily to the Gangetic Plain, not including within it Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Indian Punjab, Rajasthan, or any states of the Republic of India east of West Bengal. By "Iran," we mean the areas currently within the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran and, by "Arabs," the people of the entire Arabian Peninsula and southern Iraq.
West and East Turkistan
Although there are several traditions concerning the dates of Shakyamuni Buddha, most Western scholars accept that he lived between 566 and 486 BCE. He originally taught in the central part of the Gangetic Plain of northern India. Slowly his followers spread his message to the surrounding areas, where monastic communities of monks and nuns soon arose. In this way, Buddhism gradually developed into an organized religion, preserving and transmitting orally the teachings of Buddha.
Buddhism initially spread from northern India to Gandhara and Kashmir in the middle of the third century BCE through the efforts of the Mauryan King Ashoka (ruled 273 – 232 BCE). Two centuries later, it made its first inroads into both West and East Turkistan (Turkistan) when it expanded from Gandhara to Bactria and from Kashmir to Khotan during the first century BCE. It also had passed, by that time, from Kashmir to Gilgit and from northern India to present-day Sindh and Baluchistan in southern Pakistan, through eastern Iran and on to Parthia. According to traditional Buddhist histories, two merchants from Bactria were among the direct disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha. However, there is no evidence of their having established Buddhism in their homeland at that early stage.
By the first century CE, Buddhism had penetrated deeper into West Turkistan, spreading from Bactria to Sogdia. During that century, it also expanded further along the southern rim of the Tarim Basin, passing from Gandhara and Kashmir to Kashgar, and from Gandhara, Kashmir, and Khotan to the kingdom of Kroraina at Niya. Kroraina was abandoned to the desert in the fourth century and most of its citizens relocated in Khotan.
During the second century CE, Buddhism reached the northern rim of the Tarim Basin as well, passing from Bactria to the Tocharian people of Kucha and Turfan. According to some sources, the Tocharians there were descendents of the Yuezhi, a Caucasian people who spoke an ancient western Indo-European language. In the second century BCE, one group of the Yuezhi, later known as the Tocharians, had migrated to the west and settled in Bactria. Consequently, Eastern Bactria became known as "Tocharistan". Despite sharing the same name, no political connection existed, however, between the Tocharians of Eastern Bactria and the Tocharians of Kucha and Turfan.
There was an Iranian cultural presence in many of these regions of West and East Turkistan, particularly in Bactria, Sogdia, Khotan, and Kucha. Consequently, Central Asian Buddhism came to incorporate Zoroastrian features to varying degrees. Zoroastrianism was the ancient religion of Iran. The shared Zoroastrian elements appeared both in the Sarvastivada form of Hinayana Buddhism that flourished in Bactria, Sogdia, and Kucha, as well as in the Mahayana Buddhism that came to predominate in Khotan.
Han China
The Han Chinese maintained military garrisons in the oasis city-states of the Tarim Basin from the first century BCE to the second century CE. Buddhism, however, did not spread to Han China until after these colonies had regained their independence.
Starting in the middle of the second century CE, Buddhism came to Han China first from Parthia. Its spread was subsequently expanded by monks from the other Buddhist lands of Central Asia, as well as northern India and Kashmir. Central Asian and north Indian monks helped the Han Chinese translate Sanskrit and Gandhari Prakrit texts into Chinese, although the Central Asians themselves at first preferred these original Indian versions for their personal use. With constant exposure to international caravans visiting them along the Silk Route, most were comfortable with foreign languages. In the course of their translation work for the Han Chinese, however, the Central Asians never transmitted Zoroastrian elements. Han Chinese Buddhism, instead, took on many Daoist (Taoist) and Confucian cultural traits.
During the Six Dynasties Period (220-589 CE), Han China split into many short-lived kingdoms, divided roughly between north and south. A succession of mostly non-Han Chinese dynasties – early predecessors of the Turks, Tibetans, Mongols, and Manchus – invaded and ruled the north, while the south maintained more traditional Han Chinese civilization. Buddhism in the north was devotionally oriented and subservient to the whims of government control, while in the south it was independent and emphasized philosophical enquiry.
Due to the influence of Daoist and Confucian ministers jealous of government support of Buddhist monasteries, the Indian religion suffered suppression in two of the northern Chinese kingdoms between 574 and 579. Wendi, however, who reunified Han China after three and a half centuries of fragmentation and founded the Sui Dynasty (589 – 618), called himself a Buddhist universal emperor (Skt. chakravartin). Declaring that his rule (589 – 605) would turn China into a Buddhist "Pure Land" paradise, he revived the Indian faith to new heights. Although several early emperors of the Tang Dynasty (T'ang) (618- 906) favored Daoism, they also continued supporting Buddhism.
The Eastern and Western Turk Empires
From the beginning of the fifth century, the Ruanruan people ruled a vast empire centering in Mongolia and stretching from Kucha to the borders of Korea. They adopted a blend of the Iranian-influenced Khotanese and Tocharian forms of Buddhism and introduced it to Mongolia. The Old Turks, living in Gansu within the Ruanruan domain, overthrew the latter in 551. The Old Turk Empire they established split into an eastern and western division within two years.
The Eastern Turks ruled Mongolia and continued the Ruanruan form of Khotanese/Tocharian Buddhism found there, combining it with northern Han Chinese elements. They translated many Buddhist texts into the Old Turk language from a variety of Buddhist tongues with the help of monks from northern India, Gandhara, and Han China, but particularly from the Sogdian community in Turfan. As the principal merchants of the Silk Route, the Sogdians produced monks who were natural polyglots.
The main character of Old Turk Buddhism was its appeal to common people, incorporating within Buddha's entourage many popular, locally worshiped deities, including both traditional shamanic, Tengrian, and Zoroastrian ones. Tengrism was the traditional pre-Buddhist belief system of the various peoples of the Mongolian steppes.
The Western Turks at first ruled Dzungaria and northern West Turkistan. In 560, they captured the western portion of the Silk Route from the White Huns (Hephthalites) and migrated progressively to Kashgar, Sogdia, and Bactria, establishing a certain presence in Afghani Gandhara as well. In the course of their expansion, many of their people adopted the Buddhist faith, specifically the forms found in the regions they conquered.
The Situation of Buddhism in West Turkistan at the Advent of the Western Turks
For centuries before the migration of the Western Turks, Buddhism had been flourishing in central and southern West Turkistan under the successive rule of the Graeco-Bactrians, Shakas, Kushans, Persian Sassanids, and the White Huns. The Han Chinese pilgrim to India, Faxian (Fa-hsien), traveling in this area between 399 and 415, had reported it filled with active monasteries. However, when the Western Turks arrived in this region a century and a half later, they found Buddhism in a weakened state, particularly in Sogdia. It had apparently declined during the period of White Hun rule.
The White Huns were, for the most part, staunch supporters of Buddhism. In 460, for example, their ruler had sent a shred from Buddha's robe as a reliquary offering from Kashgar to one of the northern Chinese courts. However, in 515, the White Hun king, Mihirakula, had instigated a persecution of Buddhism, purportedly under the influence of jealous Manichaean and Nestorian Christian factions in his court. The worst damage was in Gandhara, Kashmir, and the western part of northern India, but also extended to Bactria and Sogdia on a more limited scale.
In approximately 630, when the next notable Han Chinese pilgrim to India, Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang), visited Samarkand, the Western Turk capital in Sogdia, he found that although there were many lay Buddhist followers, the local Zoroastrians were hostile toward them. The two main Buddhist monasteries were empty and closed. In 622, however, several years before Xuanzang's visit to Samarkand, its Western Turk ruler, Tongshihu Qaghan, had formally adopted Buddhism under the guidance of Prabhakaramitra, a visiting northern Indian monk. Xuanzang encouraged the king to reopen the deserted monasteries near the city and to construct even more.
The king and his successors followed the Chinese monk's advice and built several new monasteries in Sogdia – not only in Samarkand, but in the Ferghana valley and present-day western Tajikistan as well. They also spread a blend of the Sogdian and Kashgari forms of Buddhism to northern West Turkistan. There, they built new monasteries in the Talas River Valley in present-day southern Kazakhstan, the Chu River Valley in northwestern Kyrgyzstan, and in Semirechiye in southeastern Kazakhstan near present-day Almaty.
In contrast to Sogdia, Xuanzang reported the flourishing of many Buddhist monasteries in Kashgar and Bactria, the other major areas controlled by the Western Turks. Kashgar had hundreds of monasteries and ten thousand monks, while in Bactria the numbers were more modest. The greatest monastery of the entire region was Nava Vihara (Nawbahar, Nowbahar) in Balkh, the main city of Bactria. It served as the principal center of higher Buddhist learning for all of Central Asia, with satellite monasteries in Bactria and Parthia, also called navaviharas.
Run like a university, Nava Vihara admitted only monks who had already composed scholarly texts. It was famous for its stunningly beautiful Buddha statues, draped with luxurious silk robes and lavishly adorned with magnificent jewel ornaments, in accordance with local Zoroastrian custom. It had particularly close links with Khotan, to which it sent many teachers. According to Xuanzang, Khotan at the time had a hundred monasteries with five thousand monks.
The Decline of the Western Turks
By the middle of the seventh century, the Western Turk control of these areas in West and East Turkistan began to wane. First, the Turks lost Bactria to the Turki Shahis, another Turkic Buddhist people who were ruling Gandhara. Xuanzang had found the situation of Buddhism in Gandhara worse than that in Bactria, despite the Western Turks' having established a monastery in Kapisha, not far to the north of Kabul, in 591. The main monastery on the Kabul side of the Khyber Pass, Nagara Vihara, just south of modern-day Jalalabad, housed the skull relic of the Buddha and was one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in the Buddhist world. Its monks, however, had become materialistic and were charging pilgrims a gold coin each to view the relic. There were no centers of study in the entire region.
On the Punjabi side, the monks preserved merely the monastic rules of discipline and had hardly any understanding of the Buddhist teachings. In the Swat Valley (Oddiyana), for example, Xuanzang found many of the monasteries in ruins and, in those still standing, the monks merely performing rituals to gain protection and powers from supernatural beings. There was no longer any tradition of study or meditation.
An earlier Han Chinese traveler, Songyun (Sung-yün), had visited Swat in 520, five years after Mihirakula's persecution. He had reported that the monasteries were still flourishing at that time. The White Hun ruler apparently did not implement his anti-Buddhist policy very strongly in the more remote regions of his realm. The subsequent decline of the monasteries in Swat was due to several severe earthquakes and floods that occurred during the century between the two Chinese pilgrims' visits. With the mountainous valley impoverished and trade through Gilgit to East Turkistan cut off, the monasteries had lost almost all their economic support and contact with other Buddhist cultures. Local superstitious beliefs and shamanic practices had then blended with what was left of Buddhist understanding.
In 650, the Western Turk Empire shrank further with the loss of Kashgar to the Han Chinese, who had been expanding their empire since the founding of the Tang Dynasty in 618. Before gaining control of Kashgar, the Tang forces had taken Mongolia from the Eastern Turks and then the city-states along the northern rim of the Tarim Basin. In face of the growing Han threat and the inability of the weak Western Turks to defend them, Kashgar and independent Khotan on the southern rim peacefully submitted.
During the second quarter of the seventh century, the Tibetans unified their country. King Songtsen-gampo (Srong-btsan sgam-po, r. 617 – 649) established an empire that stretched from northern Burma to the borders of Han China and Khotan. It included Nepal as a vassal state, which at this time was limited to the Kathmandu Valley. After establishing his empire, Songtsen-gampo introduced Buddhism into his country in the late 640s. This was on an extremely limited scale, however, blending various aspects from Han China, Nepal, and Khotan. As the Tibetans expanded their territory, they captured Kashgar from Tang China in 663 and, in the same year, established their rule in Gilgit and the Wakhan Corridor connecting western Tibet with eastern Bactria.
Gangetic India
Buddhism had coexisted harmoniously with Hinduism and Jainism on the Gangetic Plain of northern India from the earliest times. Since the fourth century CE, the Hindus regarded Buddha as one of the ten incarnations (Skt. avatara) of their supreme god, Vishnu. On a popular level, many Hindus saw Buddhism as another form of their own religion. Emperors of the First Gupta Period (320 – 500) frequently patronized temples, monasteries, and teachers of both persuasions. They built numerous Buddhist monastic universities where philosophical debate flourished, the most famous being Nalanda in present-day central Bihar. They also allowed other Buddhist countries access to the pilgrimage sites within their realm. Emperor Samudragupta, for example, gave permission for the Sri Lankan king, Meghavanna (r. 362 – 409), to build the Mahabodhi Monastery at Vajrasana (modern Bodh Gaya), where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
The White Huns ruled Gandhara and the western part of northern India for almost the entire sixth century. Mihirakula's destruction of monasteries extended as far as Kaushambi, a short distance to the west of modern-day Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. With the beginning of the Second Gupta Period (late sixth century – 750), its emperors strove to repair the damage. However, Xuanzang still found many monasteries to the west of Kaushambi in ruins when he visited. Those in Magadha to the east, however, such as Nalanda and Mahabodhi, were still flourishing.
Emperor Harsha (r. 606 – 647), the strongest Gupta patron of Buddhism, kept a thousand monks from Nalanda at his imperial court. He venerated Buddhism to such a high degree that he reportedly touched Xuanzang's feet in the traditional Hindu show of respect when he first met with the Han Chinese monk.
In 647, Arjuna, an anti-Buddhist minister, overthrew Harsha and briefly usurped Gupta rule. When he mistreated a visiting Han Chinese pilgrim, Wang Xuance (Wang Hsüan-tse), and had most of his party robbed and killed, the monk, who was also an envoy of the Tang emperor, Taizung (T'ai-tsung, r. 627-650), escaped to Nepal. There, he requested the help of the Tibetan emperor, Songtsen-gampo, who, in 641, had married the Tang Emperor's daughter, Princess Wencheng (Wen-ch'eng). With the help of his Nepali vassals, the Tibetan ruler overthrew Arjuna and reestablished Gupta rule. Subsequently, Buddhism continued to enjoy a favored status in northern India.
Kashmir and Nepal
In Kashmir and Nepal, as in northern India, Buddhism also flourished in primarily Hindu states. Xuanzang reported that Buddhism in Kashmir had mostly recovered from Mihirakula's persecution, especially with support from the founder of the currently new Karkota Dynasty (630 – 856).
Nepal, on the other hand, had escaped White Hun rule. The rulers of the Licchavi Dynasty (386 - 750) maintained unbroken support of Buddhism. In 643, the Tibetan emperor, Songtsen-gampo, ousted Vishnagupta, a usurper to this dynasty, and restored King Narendradeva, the pretender to the Nepali throne, who had been receiving asylum in Tibet. This incident, however, had little impact on the state of Nepali Buddhism in the Kathmandu Valley. Songtsen-gampo subsequently married Princess Bhrkuti, King Narendradeva's daughter, cementing ties between the two countries.
Buddhism was found, then, in almost all parts of Central Asia when the Muslim Arabs arrived in the middle of the seventh century. It was the strongest in Bactria, Kashmir, and the Tarim Basin, was popular but at a low level of understanding in Gandhara and Mongolia, had just been introduced into Tibet, and was enjoying a recent revival in Sogdia. It was not, however, the exclusive faith of the area. There were also Zoroastrians, Hindus, Nestorian Christians, Jews, Manichaeans, and followers of shamanism, Tengrism, and other indigenous, nonorganized systems of belief. Bordering Central Asia, Buddhism was strong in Han China, Nepal, and northern India, where its adherents lived peacefully with Daoists, Confucianists, Hindus, and Jains.
On the eve of the Muslim Arab arrival in Central Asia, the Turki Shahis ruled Gandhara and Bactria, while the Western Turks controlled Sogdia and parts of northern West Turkistan. The Tibetans held Gilgit and Kashgar, while Tang China controlled the rest of the Tarim Basin as well as Mongolia. The Eastern Turks of Mongolia were temporarily held in abeyance during a short interim period of Han Chinese rule.


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Daily Tip : August 31, 2007
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Your daily Green Tip will return on Tuesday, September 4th.
Next time you peel your oranges, tangerines or citrus fruits, instead of
tossing the peels or composting immediately, place in a small dish and leave in
your bathroom for fresh and fragrant natural potpourri.
-- Submitted by
Nina Zimm
Receive these Tips in your inbox Monday through Friday by signing up here.


text:
Being able to keep ideas simple and clean without loosing the variety of usability and functionality is the most important thing in times of complexity and diversity we are in these days.
A simple approach is often a better way to maintain software, to make processes faster and more reliable and to keep up with the fast growing needs.
It is not always the easiest way to go. You need to know a lot about existing techniques and possibilities and be creative enough to be able to simplify things.
I've been working for over 20 years in web development, graphic- and web-design.
While doing my every day jobs and developing web pages and web solutions I've been working on some experiments to extend my skills and to develop debugging-tools and programming helpers.
Some of them are also published and available through open-source channels (e.g. GitHub, Chrome Web Store®).
Peter Dematté
Mail: email@example.com
LinkedIn: see my LinkedIn profile
GitHub: see my GitHub account


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There have been rumors floating around the Internet concerning a new Nokia Lumia-series smartphone running the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 GDR3 operating system. Called the Nokia Lumia 1520, the 6-inch smartphone will reportedly be announced at an event in New York on September 26.
The Lumia 1520 features a similar aesthetic to the existing Lumia phones, including beveled edges and a polycarbonate body. The 6-inch smartphone is dominated by a large 1080p display on the front and a PureView camera on the rear capable of taking simultaneous 5MP (supersampled) and 16MP photos.
Twitter user @evleaks suggests that the smartphone is coming on September 26th.
Internally, the Lumia 1520 is powered by a 28nm HPm Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC with four Krait 400 CPU cores clocked at up to 2.3 GHz, an Adreno 330 GPU, and 4G LTE modem. Other specifications include 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and a microSD card slot for adding additional storage space.
The rumored Lumia 1520 compared to a Sony Xperia handset. Via The Verge.
On the software side of things, Nokia is using Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 GDR3 operating system and adding their own Bittersweet shimmer firmware on top. The new firmware adds improved multitasking, custom ringtones, a driving mode that silences calls and text messages when connected to a car via Bluetooth, and an additional column of live tiles on the Start screen among other features.
In all, the Lumia 1520 looks to be an impressive bit of kit, especially for a Windows Phone smartphone. Considering Windows Phone at least seems to be more efficient than the other mobile operating systems (it is able to do more with less hardware in terms of user interface and OS performance), the new Nokia smartphone – with beefy hardware similar to high end Android phones – should be quite speedy!
The device is rumored to be announced on September 26, 2013 where the specifications and pricing should be officially revealed. Hopefully the phone is as powerful as the rumors suggest!


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Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health (CCHS)
Detailed information for 2012
Record number:
The purpose of the Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health (CCHS - Mental Health) is to collect information about mental health status, access to and perceived need for formal and informal services and supports, functioning and disability, and covariates.
Data release - September 18, 2013
The survey will provide a comprehensive look at mental health with respect to who is affected by selected mental disorders as well as positive mental health. It will also examine access to and utilization of formal and informal mental health care services and supports. It will look at how people are functioning regardless of whether they have a mental health problem.
The objectives of the Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health are:
(1) To assess the mental health status of Canadians on both illness and positive mental health continuums through selected mental and substance disorders, mental health problems, and well-being;
(2) To assess timely, adequate, and appropriate access to and utilization of formal and informal mental health services and supports as well as perceived needs;
(3) To assess functioning, ability and disability in relation to mental health and illness;
(4) To examine links between mental health and social, demographic, geographic, and economic variables or characteristics (covariates); and
(5) To evaluate changes in patterns of mental health, service use, and functioning from the 2002 CCHS on Mental Health and Well-being.
The data collected from the survey will be used by Statistics Canada, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, federal and provincial departments, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, as well as universities, pharmaceutical companies, and mental health services and support providers to fill data gaps in understanding mental health. Policy makers and researchers will use this information to develop policies and programs that properly meet the mental health needs of Canada's population. The media will use this information and thus help raise general awareness about health, an issue of concern to all.
Reference period: The reference period varies by module. Questions are asked about the time of collection, past week, past month, past year, and lifetime.
- Health
- Health care services
- Lifestyle and social conditions
- Mental health and well-being
- Prevention and detection of disease
Data sources and methodology
Target population
The Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health covers the population 15 years of age and over living in the ten provinces. Excluded from the survey's coverage are: persons living on reserves and other Aboriginal settlements; full-time members of the Canadian Forces and the institutionalized population. Altogether, these exclusions represent about 3% of the target population.
The Mental Health and Access to Care Survey (MHACS) covers the population 15 years of age and over as of March 1, 2022 living in the ten provinces. Excluded from the survey's coverage are: persons living on reserves and other Aboriginal settlements, full-time members of the Canadian Forces, and persons living in collective dwellings, such as institutional residences.
Instrument design
The Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health (CCHS - Mental Health) questionnaire was developed by Statistics Canada in collaboration with stakeholders from Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Provincial Health Ministries, an expert advisory group consisting of specialists from Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, and academic experts. Content was chosen using the following set of criteria:
- Issues identified as data gaps from the stakeholder consultations
- Significant number of people affected by the targeted issue
- Significant impact on family, community, and health care costs
- Data has potential for health improvement with policy intervention
- Issues identified as priority for the support/development of programs and policy, surveillance requirements and/or research
- Comparability with previous cycle of CCHS Mental Health survey
The CCHS - Mental Health questions are designed for computer-assisted interviewing (CAI), meaning that, as the questions were developed, the associated logical flow into and out of the questions was programmed. This includes specifying the type of answer required, the minimum and maximum values, on-line edits associated with the question and what to do in case of item non-response.
In collaboration with Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Centre, the questionnaire was subjected to two phases of qualitative testing, which took place in March and July of 2010 and consisted of one-on-one interviews. The objective was to evaluate respondent reactions to and understanding of the survey, as well as their willingness to respond to the questions. The qualitative testing was also used to obtain estimates for the various sections' time.
A pilot survey was conducted in April 2011. The pilot survey for the Canadian Community Health Survey on Mental Health tested survey content, methodology, computer applications, interviewer procedures, reference material and data processing techniques in preparation for the main survey collection.
This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.
Sample Size and Allocation
To provide reliable estimates at the provincial level, and given the budget allocated to the survey, a sample of 27,500 respondents was desired. The goal was to produce reliable estimates by province for four age groups (15-24, 25-44, 45-64 and 65+) and by sex.
Because provinces vary greatly in population size and reliable estimates were required both at national and provincial levels, a two-step strategy was used to allocate the sample to the provinces. First, 125 sample units were allocated to each domain of interest (8 age/sex groups) in each province. The remaining 17,500 units were allocated to the provinces using a power allocation method with power q=0.7, based on the estimated population aged 15 and over in each province. The total sample size of any given province was found by adding the sizes obtained in the two steps.
Sample sizes were enlarged before data collection to take into account out-of-scope and vacant dwellings and anticipated non-response. A total raw sample of 43,030 dwelling was therefore selected.
Sample Design
A three-stage design was used to select the sample of respondents for the 2012 CCHS - Mental Health. First, geographical areas called clusters were selected. Households were then selected within each sampled cluster and, finally, one respondent per household was randomly selected.
The CCHS - Mental Health used the area frame designed for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) as its area frame. Thus, the sampling plan of the LFS had to be considered in selecting the CCHS dwelling sample. The LFS plan is a complex two stage stratified design in which each stratum is formed of clusters. The LFS first selects clusters using a sampling method with a probability proportional to size (PPS). In the second stage, dwelling lists are prepared for each cluster and a systematic sample of dwellings, or households, is selected from these lists.
Once the dwelling sample had been chosen, the next step was to select a member in each household. Upon visiting a selected dwelling, the household composition was obtained. One respondent was then selected at random among all eligible respondents using various selection probabilities based on age and household composition.
Data sources
Data collection for this reference period: 2012-01-02 to 2012-12-31
Responding to this survey is voluntary.
Data are collected directly from survey respondents.
Collection for the Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health took place between January 2012 and December 2012. Over the collection period, a total of 25,113 valid interviews were conducted using a type of computer-assisted interviewing (CAI) called computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI).
Computer-assisted interviewing (CAI) offers two main advantages over other collection methods. First, computer-assisted interviewing offers case management system and data transmission functionality. Second, computer-assisted interviewing allows for custom interviews for every respondent based on their individual characteristics and survey responses.
Before the start of each collection period, introductory letters and brochures explaining the purpose of the survey were sent to the sampled households. These explained the importance of the survey and provided examples of how the CCHS - Mental Health data would be used.
Units selected from the area frame were interviewed by decentralized field interviewers using CAPI. CAPI interviewers were trained to make an initial personal contact with each sampled dwelling. Most interviews (87%) were conducted in person.
Interviewers were instructed to make all reasonable attempts to obtain interviews. Numerous repeat visits to the dwelling were made at different times on different days. In May 2012, to facilitate interviewing efficiency and to improve response rate, interviewers were authorized to make initial contact by telephone when possible in order to collect household information, select the respondent, and set an appointment for an interview. If the respondent was available at that time, they were offered the option to complete the interview immediately over the phone. No proxy interviews were permitted for this survey.
For individuals who at first refused to participate in the survey, a letter was sent from the nearest Statistics Canada Regional Office to the respondent, stressing the importance of the survey and the household's collaboration. This was followed by a second visit (or call) from a senior interviewer, a project supervisor or another interviewer to try to convince respondent of the importance of participating in the survey.
The CCHS - Mental Health sample was divided into six non-overlapping two-month collection periods. Regional collection offices were instructed to use the first 4 weeks of each collection period to resolve the majority of the sample, with the next 4 weeks being used to finalise the remaining sample and to follow up on outstanding non-response cases. Cases initially coded to "No contact" or "Absent for duration of survey" were resent in an additional collection period from November 1 to December 30, 2012.
View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .
Error detection
Most editing of the data was performed at the time of the interview by the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) application. It was not possible for interviewers to enter out-of-range values and flow errors were controlled through programmed skip patterns. For example, the CAPI application ensured that questions that did not apply to the respondent were not asked.
In response to some types of inconsistent or unusual reporting, warning messages were invoked but no corrective action was taken at the time of the interview. Where appropriate, edits were instead developed to be performed after data collection at Head Office. Inconsistencies were usually corrected by setting one or both of the variables in question to "not stated".
Pre-coded answer categories were supplied for all suitable variables. Interviewers were trained to assign the respondent's answers to the appropriate category.
In the event that a respondent's answer could not be easily assigned to an existing category, several questions also allowed the interviewer to enter a long-answer text in the "Other-specify" category. Following collection, all such questions were reviewed in head office processing. For some of these questions, write-in responses were coded into one of the existing listed categories if the write-in information duplicated a listed category.
Finally, selected health indicators underwent a validation process after final microdata files are produced. Estimates for all geography levels by sex and by age groups were compared to estimates from the annual CCHS and/or the 2002 CCHS - Mental Health and Well-being. This process allows confirmation that estimates of key indicators are acceptable.
The household income variable was imputed for the CCHS-Mental Health. Missing values due to either respondent refusal or respondent's lack of knowledge of household income were completed using statistical techniques. The main variable of interest was INC_3: 'Total household income - best estimate' but all variables that were derived based on income were also affected. The income variables along with an imputation flag (INCFIMP4) indicating which values were imputed are provided on the data file.
The personal income of some respondents was also imputed to correct for a problem with the CAPI application. People who didn't live alone and reported no source of personal income were not asked for their personal income, as should have been the case. Based on patterns observed from the annual CCHS and on their household income, a personal income was assigned to these persons, 95% of them receiving an income of zero. An imputation flag (INCFIMP5) indicating which values were imputed is provided on the data file.
Sample Weighting
In order for estimates produced from survey data to be representative of the covered population and not just the sample itself, users must incorporate the survey weights into their calculations. A survey weight is given to each person included in the final sample, that is, the sample of persons having responded to the survey. This weight corresponds to the number of persons in the entire population that the respondent represents. Seven separate adjustments are part of the weighting strategy.
1. Initial weight
2. Removal of out-of-scope units
3. Household non-response
4. Creation of person level weight
5. Person non-response
6. Winsorization
7. Calibration
The final CCHS - Mental Health weight can be found on the data file with the variable name WTS_M.
Sampling variability
In order to determine the quality of an estimate, the variance must be calculated. Because the CCHS - Mental Health uses a multi-stage survey design, there is no simple formula that can be used to calculate variance estimates. Therefore, an approximation method is needed. Coefficient of variation, standard deviation and confidence intervals can then be calculated from the variance. The bootstrap re-sampling method used in the survey involves the selection of simple random samples known as replicates, and the calculation of the variation between the estimates from replicate to replicate. In each stratum, a simple random sample of (n-1) of the n clusters is selected with replacement to form a replicate. Note that since the selection is with replacement, a cluster may be chosen more than once. In each replicate, the survey weight for each record in the (n-1) selected clusters is recalculated using the same steps as for the main weight to obtain the final bootstrap weights. The entire process (selecting simple random samples and recalculating the weights) is repeated 500 times to produce 500 bootstrap weights for each respondent. To obtain the bootstrap variance estimator, the point estimate for each of the 500 samples must be calculated. The standard deviation of these estimates is the bootstrap variance estimator.
A macro program called Bootvar was developed by Statistics Canada to give users easy access to the bootstrap method. The Bootvar program is available in SAS and SPSS formats, and is made up of macros that calculate the variances of totals, ratios and differences between ratios, as well as linear and logistic regressions.
The bootstrap weights are considered confidential and thus, are not available on the Public Use Microdata File (PUMF). In order to supply coefficients of variation that will be applicable to a wide variety of categorical estimates produced from a PUMF and that can be readily accessed by the user, a set of Approximate Sampling Variability Tables is produced. These "look-up" tables allow the user to obtain an approximate coefficient of variation based on the size of the estimate calculated from the survey data. All coefficients of variation in the Approximate Sampling Variability Tables are approximate and, therefore, unofficial.
Quality evaluation
To ensure the survey met its objectives (see "Survey Description"), the CCHS - Mental Health content was developed based on a multi-stage consultation process. A Steering Committee and an Advisory Board comprised of authorities from the provincial and territorial Ministries of Health, the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as an Expert Advisory group with representatives from Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Mood Disorders Society of Canada, and academic experts determined the concepts and focus. Experts and stakeholders advised on the selection of content and provided recommendations on appropriate and proven collection instruments and indices. The resulting data are recognized as valid measures of concepts such as depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, alcohol and drug abuse and dependence, positive mental health, childhood maltreatment, and perceived need for mental health care services.
Throughout the collection process, control and monitoring measures were put in place and corrective action was taken to minimize non-sampling errors. These measures included response rate evaluation, monitoring of non-item non-response, and reported, non-reported data evaluation and on site observation of interviews.
Once processing steps were completed, three data validation steps were undertaken. First, a validation program was run in order to compare estimates for the health indicators taken from the common content with the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health, the annual Canadian Community Health Survey, and the General Social Survey. This validation was performed by age group, sex, and province. Significant differences are examined further to find any anomalies in data.
Also, the work of analysts who use the CCHS data to publish analytical articles on specific themes allows for an in-depth look at many variables of the survey and represents a very effective way to find error.
Last, an external validation step was also part of the validation process. Share files were sent before release to provincial and federal partners for a two-week examination period. They could then scrutinize the data and inform Statistics Canada of any concerns or anomalies related to data quality.
Disclosure control
Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.
The public use microdata files (PUMF) are developed from the master files using a technique that balances the need to ensure respondent confidentiality with the need to produce the most useful data possible at the provincial or regional level. The PUMF must meet stringent security and confidentiality standards required by the Statistics Act before they are released for public access. To ensure that these standards have been achieved, each PUMF goes through a formal review and approval process by an executive committee of Statistics Canada. Variables most likely to lead to identification of an individual are deleted from the data file or are collapsed to broader categories. Some values of indirect identifiers (mostly socio-demographic variables) were suppressed.
Users requiring access to information excluded from the microdata files may purchase custom tabulations, or access the master files through the Research Data Centres program or the Remote Access program. Outputs are vetted for confidentiality before being given to users.
Estimates in the main body of a statistical table are rounded to the nearest hundred units using the normal rounding technique. If the first or only digit dropped is zero to four, the last digit retained is not changed. If the first or only digit dropped is five to nine, the last digit retained is raised by one. Marginal sub-totals and totals in statistical tables are derived from their corresponding unrounded components and then are rounded themselves to the nearest 100 units using normal rounding methods. Averages, proportions, rates and percentages are computed from unrounded components (for example, numerators and/or denominators) and then are rounded themselves to one decimal using normal rounding. In normal rounding to a single digit, if the final or only digit dropped is zero to four, the last digit retained is not changed. If the first or only digit dropped is five to nine, the last digit retained is increased by one. Sums and differences of aggregates (or ratios) are derived from their corresponding unrounded components and then are rounded themselves to the nearest 100 units (or the nearest one decimal) using normal rounding. Under no circumstances are unrounded estimates, published or otherwise, released. Unrounded estimates imply greater precision than actually exists.
Revisions and seasonal adjustment
This methodology does not apply to this survey.
Data accuracy
Response rates
In total, 36,443 of the selected units in the CCHS - Mental Health were in-scope for the survey. Out of these, 29,088 households agreed to participate in the survey, resulting in an overall household-level response rate of 79.8%. Among these responding households, 29,088 individuals (one per household) were selected to participate in the survey, out of which a response was obtained for 25,113 individuals, resulting in an overall person-level response rate of 86.3%. At the Canada level, this yields a combined (household and person) response rate of 68.9% for the CCHS - Mental Health. Table 8.1 provides response rates by province and age group.
Sampling errors
Since it is an unavoidable fact that estimates from a sample survey are subject to sampling error, sound statistical practice calls for researchers to provide users with some indication of the magnitude of this sampling error. The basis for measuring the potential size of sampling errors is the standard deviation of the estimates derived from survey results. However, due to the large variety of estimates that can be produced from a survey, the standard deviation of an estimate is usually expressed relative to the estimate to which it pertains. This resulting measure, known as the coefficient of variation (CV) of an estimate, is obtained by dividing the standard deviation of the estimate by the estimate itself and is expressed as a percentage of the estimate.
Statistics Canada commonly uses CV results when analyzing data and urges users producing estimates from the CCHS - Mental Health data files to do so as well.
Non-sampling errors
Over a large number of observations, randomly occurring errors will have little effect on estimates derived from the survey. However, errors occurring systematically will contribute to biases in the survey estimates. Considerable time and effort was devoted to reducing non-sampling errors in the CCHS - Mental Health. Quality assurance measures were implemented at each step of data collection and processing to monitor the quality of the data.
A major source of non-sampling errors in surveys is the effect of non-response on survey results. The extent of non-response varies from partial non-response (failure to answer one or a few questions) to total non-response. Partial non-response to the CCHS - Mental Health was minimal; once the questionnaire was started, it tended to be completed with very little non-response. Total non-response occurred either because a person refused to participate in the survey or because the interviewer was unable to contact the selected person. Total non-response was handled by adjusting the weight of persons who responded to the survey to compensate for those who did not respond. Non-response to any particular question (item non-response) is generally low, but may be higher in some modules for various reasons.
For more details on data accuracy measures and response rates, please refer to the User Guide documents. To obtain a copy of this documentation contact Client Services ((613-951-1746; fax: 613-951-0792; email@example.com).
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Well well, today the NYT Style section has a piece on the quirky old SkyMall Catalogue. It is full of funny things! How many times do you imagine the "LOLSkymall Catalogue" story's been written?
Let's find out using the power of Lexis-Nexis!
"SkyMall Catalogue": 476 stories since 1990
"SkyMall Catalogue Funny": 18 stories
"SkyMall Catalogue Weird": 18 stories
"SkyMall Catalogue Junk": 6 stories
"SkyMall Catalogue Symbol": 25 stories
Enough! Even I've written a SkyMallLOL Catalogue story, back a couple years ago when it was edgy.


text: Rosalia washed, baked bread and coffee cake. Bertille was on the sick list this morning but at this writing is pretty fair. Papa & Rosalia were out at Henry's twice today to get corn wheat. Mr. Philip Braun was here tonight to get something on the pump. We found one egg today. Bertille baked a cake today. Bertille ironed today.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
For a sale to be a market value (arm's length) sale, the seller and buyer must be unrelated. The seller must be willing (but not under pressure) to buy. The property must be on the market for a reasonable length of time. The payment must be in cash or its equivalent, and the financing must be typical for that type of property.
Show All Answers
Homestead exemptions are filed in the tax assessor's office in lieu of the tax commissioners office. Documentation of ownership is required. Verification of income is required for elderly exemptions. Call the tax assessors office at (706) 517-1400 ext. 2 for full details. Regular homestead exemptions may be filed online, but due to income verification you will need to come into the office or mail in elderly exemptions. A homestead freeze exemption is available after having a homestead for one year. Apply for the freeze in the office.
Other manufactured homes, such as rental units, will purchase a decal / sticker between January 1 and May 1 each year.
All manufactured homes are valued using the NADA Valuation Book unless the taxpayer files a return and meets the requirements to put the home on as a permanent structure.
The intent of code section 48-5-42.1 Personal Property Tax Exemption for Property Valued at $7,500 or Less, is to exempt from the payment of ad valorem taxation certain tangible personal property in which the tax due does not exceed the reasonable cost of administering and collecting the tax. All tangible personal property of a taxpayer, except motor vehicles, trailers, and mobile homes, shall be exempt from all ad valorem taxation if the actual fair market value of the total amount of taxable tangible personal property owned by the taxpayer within the county, as determined by the board of tax assessors, does not exceed $7,500.
For example, one-story houses may be in more demand than two-story houses or vice versa. Older homes in the same area may be rising in value more slowly than newer homes. Among the numerous factors to be considered that will cause values to differ are location, condition, size, quality, number of baths, a finished or unfinished basement, garages, and many others. However, higher assessments do not necessarily translate into higher taxes.
For commercial type rental properties, the income and expenses could be considered.
Examples of typical items that may increase the assessed value of your property include adding rooms or a garage, brick or vinyl siding, substantial modernization of kitchens or baths, central air conditioning, fireplaces, or extensive remodeling.
The property tax is part of a well-balanced revenue system. It is a more stable source of money than sales and income taxes because it does not fluctuate when communities have economic recessions.
As Murray County governments continue to upgrade schools, public safety, infrastructure improvements, and quality of life, your property values rise. Some of the windfall benefits you receive are recaptured by the property tax.


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Now that summer is over, dry, sun and wind damaged hair could probably benefit from deep conditioning. Badger's Seabuckthorn Hair Oil may just do the trick by restoring hair's natural balance. This column will review the ingredient listing for claims substantiation and functionality.
This is a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Certified Organic product; therefore, at least 95% of the ingredients must be certified organic, the formula may not contain certain synthetics, and the formula must not include preservatives.
The carrier oils in this formula are organic jojoba, sunflower and apricot oil. Most likely, any ingredient listed after the apricot kernel oil is present in the formula at 1% or less. No claims are made for the two most predominant oils—jojoba and sunflower—although as emollients they moisturize and add shine. Apricot oil is lightweight and helps to seal and smooth the hair's cuticle. Pomegranate oil is rich in antioxidants, but the claim that it "promotes regeneration and strengthening of hair" is probably not a clinically substantiated claim.
Seabuckthorn berry, known as "the holy fruit of the Himalayas," has been cherished by native Tibetans for centuries for its nutritional and medicinal value. The C02 extracts of seabuckthorn and rosehip are rich in vitamins B, C, E, and K, beta-carotene, essential omega fatty acids and antioxidants. While the claim for aiding in "collagen production" is irrelevant to hair condition, there may be a benefit from promoting hair strength and elasticity and restoring healthy hair.
The scent is imparted by the essential oils of lavender, sweet orange and rose geranium. Natural vitamin E is an antioxidant and helps protect the product from rancidity.


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Ask.com has announced this morning the launch of an upgraded version of Ask Sponsored Listings with improvements based on advertiser feedback and a new API to allow search marketers to create customized tools.
Here are some of the new features:
• Daily Budgeting
• Variable Refill Amount
• Hourly Billable Data
• Bulk Upload Enhancements
• Dashboard Reports
Looks like Ask is stepping up in the world and with 66% year over year growth in searches (2005 to 2006) according to Nielsen/Netratings, there's a lot more overall search market share left to take from MSN and AOL.
Barry provides these links to more info: Program details and a "ASL 2.0 Webinar".


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With partial views across the River Thames this spacious two bedroom apartment is set on the fourth floor of this delightful riverside development. With accommodation comprising; reception room with access to a river facing balcony, separate kitchen, master bedroom with access to river facing balcony and en-suite shower room, second bedroom & main bathroom. The apartment also benefits from a loft for storage and a secure covered parking space.
The apartment is in need of some cosmetic attention but would make for a fantastic home, pied-a-terre or investment property.
Services charge: 2 payments of 1.127 Pounds per year £1127


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- Home
- Departments
- Human Resources
- Employee Benefits
- Life Insurance
Life Insurance
If you are like most people, you want to make sure that your loved ones are adequately provided for should something happen to you. The City provides basic term life insurance at no cost to the employee. Additionally, employees, who do not smoke, will also be eligible for an additional $20,000 benefit at no cost. The cost and level of benefits is dependent on the collective bargaining agreement covering the employee, employee status (e.g. full-time, part-time) as well as ordinances, and Civil Service Rules (Municipal Code).
Voluntary Life Insurance
Voluntary Life Insurance offers coverage for you, your spouse or your child(ren) at different benefit levels.
Eligible newly hired employees may purchase voluntary employee life insurance without having to go through Medical Underwriting, also known as Evidence of Insurability (EOI), up to the Guaranteed Issue amount of $50,000. Units can be purchased in increments of $10,000, not to exceed a maximum of $500,000.
Voluntary Spouse Life Insurance
Eligible newly hired employees may purchase voluntary spouse life insurance without having to go through Medical Underwriting, also known as Evidence of Insurability (EOI), up to the Guaranteed Issue amount of $25,000.
Employees must participate in the employee voluntary plan for spouse to participate.
Dependent Child(ren) Life Insurance
Employees must participate in the employee voluntary plan for dependent children to participate.
For eligible unmarried children, from birth up to age 20, or up to age 24 if a full-time student, you can select from 3 benefit amounts:
Option 1: $1,000
Option 2: $5,000
Option 3: $10,000
Beneficiary Designation
Life insurance proceeds are payable for death from any cause to the beneficiaries. Employees can designate or very easily update the beneficiaries on-line. It is important to keep beneficiary forms updated.
Long Term Disability Insurance
At no cost to benefit eligible employees, the City provides Long Term Disability (LTD) Insurance, which pays you a percentage of your gross monthly earnings if you become disabled due to illness or a non-work related injury.


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Kiva and Financial Access Institute (FAI), a consortium of leading development economists focused on substantially expanding access to quality financial services for low-income individuals, are partnering to bring you a three week educational series on the difference facets of microfinance! The full versions of these articles and the series are available on the FAI website.
This week's blog is a basic introduction to the subject of microsavings. Check out the past 101 blog on microcredit and up next week is microinsurance!
When we think about poor people and the role that microfinance plays in their lives we tend to think of microcredit, or small loans. But there's another financial service that is as equally important to the poor: savings. You might be surprised those who earn so little are able to save, but they can, and they do.
What are microsavings?
Microsavings is a subset of microfinance, and refers to ways "unbanked" individuals (those traditionally excluded from formal financial services) can accumulate useful sums of money. It might be difficult to believe that people who live on small incomes have anything left over to put away. But it turns out that even households with meager sources of income highly value having a safe place to save and accumulate money – and will go to great lengths to do so. But saving isn't always easy. Because the sums accumulated are small, it takes time for a useful sum of money to be built. As a result, other pressing needs may take precedence over savings, making it difficult to accumulate a usefully large sum.
Why do people want to save?
Poor households want to save for some of the same basic reasons that we do: for retirement, sending their kids to school, making large future purchases and to hedge against any type of future uncertainty, like an illness or bad harvest season. Through talking to poor households, researchers discovered that they often used savings for big life events (like funerals and weddings), emergencies (like an illness), opportunities to buy assets that store value for old age (like land and gold), to pay off debt, and to invest in small businesses.
So how do they save?
Some households may have access to a savings account with a microfinance institution (MFI) or a bank. But many don't have access to formal financial services. Instead, they may use informal ways of saving such as giving money to a neighbor to hold for them, hiding cash in a "safe" place in their home or joining a savings clubs in which members pool together small sums of money to help accumulate a larger sum. In other instances, deposit collectors gather cash from women in a neighborhood, hold it for them and return it at the end of the month after charging a fee for the service.
Obstacles to saving
Informal savings mechanisms can be risky and unreliable. What if the neighbor holding your money steals it? What if your husband discovers the money under the mattress and takes his buddies out for night on the town with it? Informal ways of saving can also be expensive, as in the case of the deposit collector who actually charges you a fee to save. They also don't guard against temptation in the same way that having your money in the bank does. For example, if you have the urge to buy a new sari or a cup of tea, you're probably more likely to raid your savings from under the mattress than if it's safely in the bank.
Better ways to save
MFIs and other financial institutions can help households save by understanding what kind of savings products are needed: reliable, convenient and flexible.
For more information on the importance of microsavings and how they occur on the ground you can watch this video series in which Stuart Rutherford, co-author of Portfolios of the Poor and founder of SafeSave Bangladesh, discusses important factors in the design of savings (and other financial) products for the poor.


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Paul Delaney, a former reporter and editor at theNew York Times
When I heard the historic announcement from Times Square the other day, that America's top newspaper had named a woman as executive editor, my thoughts drifted back to the 1972-1981 decade at the paper, and the words of Dickens — almost cliche nowadays — seemed apt: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
The New York Times, where I spent most of my career, appointed Jill Abramson to lead the newsroom. Her No. 2 will be Dean Baquet, named managing editor. It will be the first time the two top positions at the 160-year-old newspaper have been filled by a woman and a black man. That is a groundbreaking team.
The monumental change deserves more attention than the relatively subdued reaction it received. It also deserves more background and history, coming nearly three decades after women and minorities settled separate discrimination lawsuits against the paper. To my mind, the promotions represented the culmination of that legal action.
The suits, by minorities in 1972, and women two years later, accused the Times' newsroom managers of favoring white men in hiring, promotion, beat assignments and wages. At the time, not one black had risen above the position of reporter, and the highest-ranking women worked in "women's news" and covered social events.
The decade of litigation was a period of unprecedented high tension at the paper. While women were united in their effort, there was much division among minorities, and the entire episode took a heavy toll on us. My promotion as the first black editor on a news desk certainly was a result of the legal action and agitation, as were those of a few more, including Gerald Boyd, who eventually rose to managing editor in 2001, a very important first. But the protracted battle divided minorities in such a way that the unity and cohesion of that period seemed lost for good.
My late colleague Nan Robertson skillfully and beautifully chronicled the problems of women at the Times in her book, The Girls in the Balcony. Women greatly outnumbered blacks, and we were aware that their progress would far outdistance ours, immediately and in the future. Nevertheless, we did not let that bother us; during the litigations, both groups worked at being good allies and supported each other, and there was never rancor.
Our case was originally called a "black" suit, although the name-plaintiff, Benilda Rosario, was black Puerto Rican and proud of it, and another plaintiff was Morgan Jin, Chinese, who boasted of his admiration of Mao Zedong as he passed out Maoist literature to baffled young blacks. The name was changed to "minority" for obvious reasons.
Class Issues
Serious divisions in our ranks surfaced early, before the 1972 filing. The five plaintiffs — the other three were African Americans Don Barker, Wanda Jones and Conrad West — worked in commercial departments, advertising and circulation, and there was resistance — nay, outright refusal — by newsroom professionals to join in.
That class and ethnic tension went on for five years, until the attorneys for the plaintiffs, in 1977, enlisted Roger Wilkins, an editorial board member, and me, as a new editor, to lobby our fellow journalists to participate. They felt that if the two of us signed on, others would; plus, management would finally take the case seriously. The lawyers were correct on both counts. Eventually 16 of us signed on as witnesses, joining the plaintiffs as willing to testify against the Times at trial.
The strongest resistance came from Tom Johnson, the senior black reporter, who told the group that he could resolve any complaints directly with Executive Editor A.M. (Abe) Rosenthal. We considered that insulting, akin to the plantation rule of one slave designated by the master to speak on behalf of all. Nathaniel Sheppard, another reporter, was so upset with Johnson that he looked him in the eye and remarked, "Tom, I am so disappointed. I used to have the highest respect for you. Now I don't."
The tension among us percolated from then on, to final settlement in 1981. Our frequent meetings to discuss progress became more and more contentious as we argued over every move by the company; for example, we turned down as insulting the first settlement offer by the Times: $100,000. Some in the group wanted to accept and get it over with. I thought the white women made a mistake in accepting a $300,000 settlement, but they gained more than money.
An Unhappy Settlement
Even the offer we eventually approved — some $2 million and promises of change — was deemed inadequate by some of us. As I noted in my upcoming memoir, I felt our "group was coming apart, as the days and weeks rolled by slowly. I reluctantly agreed to the lawyers' suggestion to take the offer out of fear of a great implosion." Benilda Rosario was so upset that she termed the settlement "a joke and stormed out of the room.
"We were about to kill each other near the conclusion of the legal procedure, which should have been a time of celebration ... some of us hardly spoke to each other afterwards," I wrote.
In fact, our seven-person steering committee went so far out of the way to try to satisfy the named plaintiffs that our lawyers threatened to disassociate themselves from us, feeling that our process to divide the money was unfairly weighted in favor of the plaintiffs and the 16 who had agreed to be witnesses in the case. We went back to the drawing board.
The final meeting of the class, to announce the terms of the agreement, was notable in that it attracted a large group of Latinos, employees few of us had seen before. One black colleague grumbled to me, "Where'd all those Puerto Ricans come from?" My conclusion: "No one cheered; no one was happy." One surprise for me during the decade: There was no tension between the races and sexes in the newsroom over the lawsuits.
But for the most part, the Times met the terms of the agreement. I was on committees that monitored and enforced them. We established training positions for reporters and copy editors, set up a scholarship to fund tuition for several students and increased money for an already-existing tuition-refund program. Management also agreed that reporters on the metropolitan desk and new hires would be given the opportunity to spend at least one year on 10 important beats, like City Hall, politics and courts.
The paper stepped up its minority recruitment, spending several hundred thousand dollars adding more blacks, Hispanics and Asians (even one Native American, a first). In the early 1980s, there were only two Hispanics on the reporting staff: Juan de Onis in Latin America and Alfonso Narvaez on metro, and one photographer, Lee Romero. In addition, there was no retaliation against the litigants, as some feared. In fact, several, including Benilda Rosario, were given promotions.
The Outcome
The quick change in tone, effort and pace was ordered by the publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger, and his son and successor, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. The elder Sulzberger set up several affirmative action committees throughout the company, including its affiliates and small papers and television stations. His son increased the pace, personally leading the push to improve the paper's numbers. He became chairman of the diversity committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
However successful the recruitment campaign, there were some bumps, and lessons learned. A few white reporters were reluctant to participate, for example, in mentoring minority summer interns. They simply did not support affirmative action. Managers didn't press those who did not wish to be mentors, since there were enough other white volunteers.
I believe the changes made during the decades following the settlements led directly to the promotions of Abramson and Baquet. First, Times management selected Gerald Boyd for upward mobility, from reporter to metro editor to managing editor, and then chose Abramson and Baquet for ascension, all very talented journalists who deserved their rewards.
Boyd, unfortunately, along with executive editor Howell Raines, was a victim of the Jayson Blair plagiarism and fake-stories scandals and was forced out in 2003. Baquet was then placed in a position to move up, as national editor and then Washington editor (bureau chief) — and to keep a black on the masthead, the Washington editor, for the first time, was given the additional title of assistant managing editor.
Abramson, in her initial speech to her staff, gave due credit to those women on whose shoulders she stood to rise to the top, which was appropriate. They included Nan Robertson and columnist Maureen Dowd. Baquet could not do likewise because he has not endeared himself to his black colleagues. A self-described New Orleans Creole, he has no connections to black journalists' organizations and once avoided attending a dinner that honored black winners of Pulitzer Prizes — he is the only winner (1988, for investigative reporting at the Chicago Tribune) not in an official photo. Nonetheless, black journalists I've talked to fully support him in his new capacity.
I wish I could say the Times is leading the way. But other publications got there first, putting women and blacks in top positions. But the moves send an important message to the profession, and that is significant in an age where new media are leading us back to the 1950s, or worse, when it comes to diversity.
Copyright 2020 The Root. To see more, visit .


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From now until Christmas the iPad iBooks version of The Crowd, the Critic, and the Muse by Michael Gungor is free. I haven't finished it yet, but what I've read is great. It's been a both thought provoking and funny look at how we are all creative. The iPad version is also full of great visuals and audio to accompany it.
From the Publisher:
"We are all creators. Whether or not we create is not up to us. We are human, and creating is what we do. Every interaction, movement, and decision is creativity at work. We are all artists. We all order creation around us into the world that we want to make."–Michael Gungor
In The Crowd, the Critic, and the Muse, Michael Gungor takes an uncompromising–and humorous–look at our creative selves and the world that we have fashioned around us. Through story and reflection, Gungor shows how our deepest beliefs and assumptions about the universe affect how we order creation.
An award-winning, globetrotting musician, Gungor also reveals his personal journey as an artist and creator, a tale of moving from innocence to wisdom, from simplicity to complexity and back again, a tale of leaving home and
returning in a new, better, and more creative way.