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Submitted to: International Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria Workshop
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 5/22/2009 Publication Date: 6/1/2009 Citation: Roberts, D.P., Mckenna, L.F., Buyer, J.S. 2009. Reduced carbon utilization, competitive colonization of the spermosphere, and disease suppression by Enterobacter cloacae [abstract]. International Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria Workshop. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: De Wit Replacement series and disease suppression experiments with a collection of nutritional mutants of E. cloacae 501R3 are being used to determine the role of reduced carbon compounds found in seed exudate during beneficial activities by this bacterium. Mutants A-11, M2, and M43 contain single mini-Tn5 Km insertions in pfkA, sdhA, and aceF, respectively. A-11 was severely impaired in growth on almost all carbohydrates, M2 was severely impaired in growth on almost all amino acids and organic acids, and M43 was severely impaired in growth on almost all carbohydrates, amino acids, and organic acids detected in cucumber seed exudate. Replacement series experiments with 501R3 and A-11 where initial inoculum levels were above carrying capacity, essentially at carrying capacity, and below carrying capacity, indicated that the importance of carbohydrate in cucumber seed exudate for competitive seed colonization decreases with increased initial population size. Preliminary experiments with 501R3 and M2 provided similar results. Initial disease suppression assays comparing A-11 and 501R3 demonstrated that A-11 provided levels of control of Pythium ultimum damping-off of cucumber that were similar to those of the parental strain, 501R3. These experiments suggest a large degree of nutritional flexibility for E. cloacae during beneficial activities in the spermosphere. Future experiments with M2, M43, and additional, partially characterized mutants of 501R3 will be performed to further examine the role of nutritional flexibility in competitive seed colonization and in disease suppression under various conditions in the spermosphere. |


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From D&D Wiki
This material is published under the OGL 1.0a. |
As important as your character's race is, it's (usually) a one-time choice made at the beginning of your character's career. Your selection of class levels, on the other hand, is a recurring decision that is shaped both by personal preference and the realities of the campaign world.
The base character classes in the d20 System cover many of the basic fantasy archetypes, from the raging warrior to the crafty wizard. But the number of character roles imaginable is essentially infinite, and even when factoring in all the prestige class choices available, you may not be able to find the combination of class features that perfectly captures your mental image of your character.
This section presents a wide variety of options that allow you to tweak the existing character classes without completely scrapping them and starting from scratch. Whether they involve swapping out one class feature for another or trying a new twist on an old favorite, these variants allow the players and the DM to retain the familiarity of existing classes while exploring worlds of difference.
With your DM's permission, you can use any one of these variant classes in place of the standard class of the same name. Depending on the campaign world, variant classes may exist side by side with standard classes, or they may replace standard classes entirely. For instance, the DM may decide that all monks must choose a fighting style that reflects their original training, or that all barbarians must choose a totem.
For those who prefer a less specialized approach to character building, the section also includes a trio of "generic" classes that allow players the ability to custom-craft their character's unique identity.
Throughout this section, the term "character class" is used to refer to any class that may be taken by a 1st-level starting character. This includes the classes that appear in the d20 System, as well as any similar class in other products.
Back to Main Page → Variant Rules

subset: commoncrawl


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Exploring the outdoors in Ohio has been an unexpected oasis of new nature for me. I grew up on the flat, sandy, sunny beaches of Saint Petersburg, Florida, swimming in the saltwater and soaking up the sunshine every chance I got. I was raised with an appreciation for nature and the outdoors, and this love of nature has only continued to grow. I spent my early college years jumping around between different majors, ranging from veterinary technology to exercise science, but nothing ever really stuck; nothing felt 'right'. I moved to Ohio in 2011 and in 2016 I found out about Hocking College and their natural resources programs. Outdoor classes, exploring nature? I was sold! I immediately applied and began my studies as a student in the Wildlife Resource Management Program.
Hocking College resides in the Hocking Hills region of Ohio. Living less than two hours away in Columbus I had still only been to the area a couple of times to hike when I started my classes, so everything felt new. There was so much to see, explore and learn and I wanted to absorb as much knowledge as I possibly could. As an avid trail runner, I often joked to my professors that my classes were ruining my runs, in the very best way of course, because I was noticing more and more tiny aspects of nature around me and I of course had to stop and look at each and every thing!
I loved every single class I took, but especially those that took place outdoors on the trails, away from the hustle and bustle of the city and far from the white noise and bright lights of an indoor classroom; dendrology, field biology, and aquatic ecology just to name a few. I began to notice that during each of these classes, no matter the subject matter, I was finding myself more and more so drawn to insects. During dendrology we would be learning about a specific tree but I could be found looking around for tiny beetles and caterpillars on and around these trees. During ornithology we would be learning about a bird and I would find myself wanting to know more about the insect the bird was eating than the bird itself. I have always been drawn to the tiny things; the typically unseen and overlooked, and now here was this entire world unfolding around me that I needed to know more about: insects. I was hooked.
In 2018 I saw a post on Facebook for the Museum of Biological Diversity Open House and figured I would take my daughter to check it out. Before this I had not even known the museum existed. I spent my first year living in Ohio residing in the apartment complex directly behind the Museum of Biological Diversity. I had been so close without even being aware of it, and now I was excited to get a look at what I had unknowingly lived right next door to. I was blown away. I had spent my last few semesters taking pictures of insects I found during my classes and rushing home to spend countless hours searching through field guides and websites trying to identify these creatures and learn more about them ( shown in the four photos above are just a few of the many insects I found and identified), yet I had never even stopped to think about the possibility of studying them as a career path. Yet here it was, the OSU Triplehorn Insect Collection, where students and professionals were studying and working with insects, for a living.
Coming to this open house changed my whole outlook for my educational path and future plans by opening my eyes to a whole new realm of possibilities; I knew I had to find a way to get back in this magical building without waiting a whole year for the next open house! Now in my final semester at Hocking College, I was given the opportunity to do a semester long internship and immediately applied to intern at the Triplehorn Insect Collection.
Throughout my internship here at the Triplehorn Insect Collection I have felt like Charlie entering Willy Wonka's magical world at the Chocolate factory. Every time a new drawer is pulled out I am overwhelmed by the specimens in front of me. Every day there is something new to look at and learn about, and with the collection holding over four million specimens, there is no shortage of drawers to explore. My first few weeks interning I was given specimens to practice pinning and mounting for the display drawers. This was a grueling and fascinating process that has given me a much deeper appreciation for all the time and care that goes into each and every specimen I have ever seen on display in museums.
I was able to practice these skills while also learning about the curation process from start to finish- specimen preservation, pinning, mounting, imaging and databasing. One of the highlights of my time here was that while learning about how to organize and database specimens, I got to work on a drawer of Scarab beetles that lives primarily out west, that I have not yet had the opportunity to see in nature. These specimens (Chrysina beyeri; formerly Plusiotis beyeri) blew my mind; metallic green beetles with the most exquisitely vivid shiny legs. The fact that a creature with these colors even exists in the world is amazing to me, and here I was, getting to handle and examine the beauty of countless specimens such as these.
I am excited to continue onward in my journey through this magical world of insects . I am continuing on as a volunteer for the collection and am hoping to attend Ohio State's entomology program after I graduate from Hocking College in May to pursue a career path in entomology and curation. I feel driven to learn as much as I can so that I am able to inform and excite others around me about the wonders of entomology. My goal is to incite a passion in the general public for these creatures and for nature as a whole. Observing the people around me at this year's open house has just fueled my desire. I watched as awe struck children were handed hissing cockroaches and stick bugs. I saw curiosity being ignited in their eyes and smiles. I observed reluctant parents end up holding these insects after watching their children fearlessly do so, and watched as their faces transitioned from grimacing to relaxed to intrigued. Many people fear the unknown, and events like the museum open house provide the opportunity for people to get an up close and personal look at these living creatures and hopefully leave seeing them from a new perspective. I want to teach others to care about the tiny things; the typically unseen and overlooked, and to appreciate their big place in our world.
About the Author: Jenna Dunham
Jenna is currently in her final semester studying Wildlife Resource Management in the Natural Resources Program at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, and plans to apply to the Ohio State University in the fall to study Entomology and pursue her interest in museum curation.


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Note that the problem faced by the farmer is a silting river, not rising seas. This makes sense because Bangladesh is in fact not sinking into a rising sea, but gaining more land from the deposition of silt running downstream, as illustrated in the figure at the top of this post. The figure comes from research that I cited on Prometheus in July 2008 reporting data on the fact that Bangladesh has been gaining land area:Over his 45 years, Siddique Ur-Rahman, a Bangladeshi rice farmer, has watched as his world has been gradually swallowed by water.
During his youth his family cultivated 7.2 acres along the Kholpotua river, a waterway then so narrow that villagers standing on one bank could call across to those on the other side. But as the riverbed silted up, the waters rose and spread, submerging vast swathes of low-lying paddy land, including Mr Rahman's family's fields.
New data shows that Bangladesh's landmass is increasing, contradicting forecasts that the South Asian nation will be under the waves by the end of the century, experts say.With this as background, consider the illogic behind this passage from the FT article (emphasis added):Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh's landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually.
There are two points to make in response to this argumentation:Today, Mr Rahman and 73 other shell-shocked families from Lebu Bunia live on the narrow finger of the embankment's remains, as do nearly 1m other Aila survivors. Twice each day at high tide, water rushes over their ruined lands – making it impossible for them to rebuild their homes. Each month at full moon the water rises so high it almost engulfs the embankment.
"We feel so weak," Mr Rahman said, surveying the bleak, denuded landscape. "Every day we are suffering. Every day the tide is coming and submerging our lands. We just sit here and think 'what are we going to do? How are we going to cope?' "
Lebu Bunia – with its ruined lands and desperate survivors – offers an alarming glimpse into a possible future if the international community fails to agree a meaningful plan to tackle global warming in the coming months.
1. The situation in Lebu Bunia is not an "alarming glimpse into a possible future" -- it is an "alarming glimpse into a very real present." The people who are suffering the impacts of sedimentation in Bangladesh are actually real people experiencing real suffering today. However, in the climate debate they are reduced to mere symbols in the need to address energy policies in order to reduce the suffering of future generations. Surely we should act to prevent suffering in the distant future, but in this instance, as is typical in discussion of adaptation, nothing much is said about helping those suffering today.
2. In the article there is the suggestion that "if the international community fails to agree [to] a meaningful plan to tackle global warming in the coming months" that the impacts of sea level rise can in fact be avoided for people like Siddique Ur-Rahman. Here is how the article frames the issue (emphasis added):
Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, warns that rising sea levels and accelerated glacier melt from global warming could lead to about 17 per cent of Bangladesh's land area – home to about 35m people – being permanently submerged in the coming decades. That could trigger a migration of unprecedented magnitude – with explosive social consequences – in the Indian subcontinent and beyond.This is just nonsense. What does the data actually say?"Millions of people will be moving. No amount of nuclear submarines will be able to stop that," warns Mr Rahman, who was also a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel peace prize in 2007 for its work on climate change.
In expectation of the human flood, many Bangladeshi academics and activists are already calling for UN protocols to facilitate the international migration of those displaced by the effects of global warming, which they blame largely on the developed world. "I will demand a part of Texas and I will demand part of Florida as part of Bangladesh," said Mr Rahman. "It's your carbon that has displaced these people."
Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the department at the government-owned centre that looks at boundary changes, told AFP sediment which travelled down the big Himalayan rivers — the Ganges and the Brahmaputra — had caused the landmass to increase. . .Far from losing land, Bangladesh has been gaining net land in recent decades due to sedimentation. But even if Bangladesh was being swallowed by a rising sea, could an international agreement in the coming months change the course of sea level rise over "coming decades"? Analyses of the effects of mitigation policies are absolutely clear on this point -- No, it could not.
Sarker said that while rising sea levels and river erosion were both claiming land in Bangladesh, many climate experts had failed to take into account new land being formed from the river sediment."Satellite images dating back to 1973 and old maps earlier than that show some 1,000 square kilometres of land have risen from the sea," Sarker said.
"A rise in sea level will offset this and slow the gains made by new territories, but there will still be an increase in land. We think that in the next 50 years we may get another 1,000 square kilometres of land."
On the question of attribution and effect, can anyone provide a reference to a peer-reviewed study that indicates that if the international community agrees to a meaningful plan to tackle global warming in the coming months that it will have any effect whatsoever on sea levels (Bangladeshi or otherwise) in "coming decades"? I don't think so.
Setting aside questions of science, the climate debate has in many ways lost touch with reality from a policy perspective. If the world wants to help poor Bangladeshi rice farmers who live in vulnerable locations, then we know how to do that. Using the poor suffering today as poster-children for mitigation policies seems exploitive and even immoral. Addressing accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes good sense, as I've often argued, but promising fantasy outcomes -- like arresting rising seas on a time scale of decades -- is pure fiction.
But maybe the climate debate is so important that exploiting poor people and making stuff up is perfectly OK. Only "deniers" would say differently, no? It is all for a just cause, right?
Expect more incoherence on adaptation as the debate gets even more intense in the coming months.


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Katy Perry's Cape Crusade -- The Coverup
Katy Perry's Cape Crusade The Coverup
Katy Perry crossed the line when she showed favoritism for "American Idol" favorite Adam Lambert last week -- and unless you DVR'd the live show, you'll never see her pink Glambert cape again.
If you go on iTunes and purchase Katy's performance from last week's "Idol", the closeup of her silk Glambert billboard has been altered -- you can't even tell there's writing on the cape.
The rest of the video is exactly the same -- we put the two different versions side-by-side so you can see.
Fox and iTunes both declined to comment.


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Louisiana-Lafayette beats Georgia State for Sun Belt crown
NEW ORLEANS -- There's no dodging this now. Louisiana-Lafayette coach Bob Marlin is getting a tattoo.
Before the season, he promised his Ragin' Cajuns he would get some ink if they made the NCAA tournament. And on Sunday, Xavian Rimmer scored a career-high 27 points, and Louisiana-Lafayette rallied from a 9-point deficit in the last three minutes of regulation to force overtime and beat Georgia State 82-81 in the Sun Belt Conference championship game.
"We didn't forget it," UL-Lafayette guard Elfrid Payton said. "He's going to get it. Real soon."
The third-seeded Ragin' Cajuns (23-11) earned an automatic bid to their first NCAA tournament since 2005.
The date for Marlin's trip to the tattoo parlor has not been determined.
"I thought they'd forgotten about it," he said. "They were talking about it this morning. Elfrid is the one that tweeted that out."
Ryan Harrow scored a career-high 37 points for Georgia State but missed an off-balance, driving bank shot in the final seconds. The top-seeded Panthers (25-7) had won 22 of their last 23 games, but were relegated to the NIT with the heartbreaking loss.
"Life isn't necessarily always fair, but you just deal with some of the consequences," coach Ron Hunter said. "This one game, as I just told them, will not be a reflection of what we've accomplished this year."
After tying the score on a putback with 1.4 seconds left in regulation, Lafayette, which grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, took the lead for good, 80-77, with a 6-0 run in overtime that Payton capped off with a layup off a turnover.
Rimmer hit seven 3-pointers to keep the Cajuns within range until its final comeback.
The surge started when Payton hit a 3-pointer after a missed Georgia State free throw to cut the deficit to 70-64 with 2:56 left. Bryant Mbamalu then drove for a layup to make the score 70-66.
After Georgia State scored on Harrow's putback -- its first second-chance points of the game -- Lafayette's Shawn Long had a dunk, Payton converted a layup off a steal and Mbamalu converted his offensive rebound.
Georgia State went up 77-74 in overtime on R.J. Hunter's 3-pointer with 3:00 left but did not get another basket until Harrow's driving layup with 21.4 seconds left. When Rimmer, an 84-percent free throw shooter, missed the front end of a one-and-one 3 seconds later, Georgia State had one final chance to win a game it controlled for most of the second half.
When Harrow's wild attempt failed, he crouched on the floor for a few minutes. Hunter, the Sun Belt Conference player of the year, joined him as the Panthers agonized over one that got away.
Payton had 19 points and six assists for Lafayette. Long added 14 rebounds. Hunter scored 17 for Georgia State but was only 4 of 12 from the field.
"We're a team to watch out for," Payton said. "We can score in so many ways, and now that our defense has picked up these last 11 or 12 games, we can play with anybody."


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My good friends at Spillt here in Denver, Colorado recently created this promotional piece for the anual 2013 Paper Fashion Show. It's a local show that has been running several years now but this is far and away the best promo-spot I've ever seen created for it. Excellent job guys.
Client: Art Directors Club Denver
Direction, Design, Animation: Curt Cooper
Animation: Brian Long
Text/Logo: Ryan Bramwell


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Your building logo sign is your biggest brand ambassador. The purpose of a logo sign is to attract customers and help them find your location, but it should also say something about your brand and what makes you special. The more you can infuse your brand personality and connect with clients, the more impactful the sign.
The dimensional effect of channel letters adds energy and movement, capturing the attention of pedestrians and motorists.
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Color matching is a vital aspect of branding. While the channel letter itself is made out of durable aluminum to capture your signature font and text style, the colors you use should match the colors in all other branding. Consumers have a deep emotional connection to color, and it is often the first thing they recognize about your brand. We ensure consistency to increase the impact and performance of your channel letter sign.
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We want to help your Commerce City, CO area business look more professional and attract more traffic to your doors. Get in touch to get started on custom signs and graphics.


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When a Black public figure openly disagrees with President Obama, White people listen—often giving said Black person a platform to speak even louder. Consider the latest GOP hand-rub: the media-hyped ideological showdown between President Obama and Dr. Benjamin Carson, Sr. (the subject of the movie Gifted Hands, based on his book of the same name).
After Carson expressed opinions on tax and healthcare policy that differ from President Obama's at last month's National Prayer Breakfast, he was vaulted to the GOP shortlist for President in 2016. Fox News personality Sean Hannity told the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins he would vote for Carson in a heartbeat should he choose to run.
Though Carson says he is a registered Independent, he was invited to speak at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, sharing the podium with Republican and Tea Party leadership including former candidates for President Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, and onetime VP-hopeful Sarah Palin. Controversial radio personality Rush Limbaugh praised Carson as "everything Obama pretended to be from 2004 to 2008: post-racial, post-partisan, a healer".
Ironically, in many ways, Carson is everything the GOP likely hoped Michael Steele would be when they elected him the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, in the same year as Obama's historic victory. Or what they hoped Herman Cain would be when he contested for the Republican nomination for President last year. Or the impact they hoped actress Stacey Dash would have when she came out in support of the Republican Presidential ticket.
The rapt attention America pays when African-American leaders openly criticize each other, or Black people in general, is bigger than the GOP. When Rainbow Coalition leader Jesse Jackson, Sr., not realizing his mic was on, famously groused that Obama was "talking down to black people"; the clip went viral on-air and online across liberal and conservative outlets. Likewise, scholar Cornel West and PBS host Tavis Smiley's sharp critiques of Obama have drawn lots of ink; as have Obama's own sermons about the absence of Black fathers, and Bill Cosby's assertion that African-American communities take responsibility without blaming the White man.
This phenomenon is nothing new. The same was the case when 19th Century intellectuals Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois sharply disagreed on how to solve America's race problem; and when Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X presented opposing strategies for winning equal rights in the 1960s.
At the heart of this giddy fascination with Black on Black criticism is the culture of tokenism that continues to plague America—and the power that comes with being recognized as the singular voice for Black people. A recent New York Times piece tracks the rise of the Obamas alongside the trajectory of Jesse Jackson's family, quoting a one-time Obama aide as saying "[The Jacksons] were the biggest thing in African-American politics… they got eclipsed [by the Obamas]."
The thinking seems to be that there can be only one or two Blacks who represent the race. Anyone who makes the Oedipal venture to topple this order breaks out into his or her own celebrity—or is crushed by other Black people under an avalanche of labels such as traitor, Uncle Tom, or hater.
West and Smiley were castigated for their critiques, while African-Americans pilloried Stacey Dash for her support of Mitt Romney. But Dash's opposition also had some benefit. The actress, who had just departed her role on VH1's Single Ladies, was invited to discuss her opposing views on Piers Morgan, one of CNN's highest-rated shows.
The idea that a united front is more important than acknowledging internal divisions is something the Black community continues to grapple with. "Airing our dirty laundry" is seen as one of the biggest sins precisely because it often serves to feed the agendas of those who have little interest in seeing the racial balance of power equalize.
That said, the quest to elevate African-American ideological opponents only underscores Martin Luther King Jr.'s message: it's a mistake to confuse the color of a person's skin with the content of their character. It's not an anomaly that King and X, DuBois and Washington, or West, Smiley, Dash, Carson, and Obama don't agree on everything. Newsflash, African-Americans aren't in lockstep on every issue—no group is—and we can't be lumped into the same category. America is just going to have to let the token go.


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From: civilwarhome.com
The first removal of helpless wounded from the battle-field was usually effected by hand-litters, of which the number issued during the war exceeded fifty thousand. There were a number of patterns used, of which the best weighed twenty-four pounds, was quickly collapsible when not required, and possessed legs, which made its temporary use as a cot readily possible. Many wounded were also removed by their comrades on extemporized litters made by passing poles or muskets through the sleeves of coats which were then buttoned over them; or these supports were rolled in the edges of blankets, and litters thus formed. Hurdles, gates, window shutters, and ladders, with brush and hay thrown over them, were also used. Poles interlaced with rope or wire were employed. Hammock litters were made by swinging the wounded man in a blanket with its ends lashed to a single pole. The Indian travels, a frame on two long poles dragged after a horse, their front ends being supported by the saddle and tied together with a breast-strap, was also used. The ordinary "chair seat," as made by children at play, was frequently employed to remove wounded over shorter distances. Mule-litters and cacolets, the latter chairlike affairs swung on each side of the mule's back, were suggested and some were provided, but seem to have been little used. They were specially intended for rough country where wheeled vehicles could not readily go. Wounded able to walk were expected to make their own way back to the surgeon, with or without assistance.
But the transportation results achieved in these ways were usually possible only over short distances. The organization of the medical service made no provision for removal of the wounded from the regimental collecting-points to hospital facilities further to the rear. There were no sanitary organizations in reserve, available to assist near the firing-line where their service might be needed, or to bridge with their succor, care, and transportation, the often tremendous gap between the relief stations of the regimental surgeons and the general hospitals, usually far in rear. Frequently surgeons with some regiments in action were overwhelmed by the number of casualties in their organizations, while others might be idly waiting with commands held in reserve. The need for organizations to play the part of intermediaries was obvious, but for some occult reason failed to appeal at first to those who had the direction of general military affairs in charge. The lack of such specially equipped and trained organizations resulted in a vast amount of suffering during the first eighteen months of the war, and gave rise to much criticism of the Medical Department which the latter in nowise deserved.
A carefully matured plan for the organization of a hospital corps, to belong to the Medical Department and take over work which was at that time being inefficiently done by some sixteen thousand enlisted men detailed from the line of the army, was submitted to the Secretary of War on August 21, 1862, but failed of adoption as a result of the opposition of General Halleck, general-in-chief. An appeal was then made as follows:
September 7,1862.
Secretary of War.
SIR : I have the honor to ask your attention to the frightful state of disorder existing in the arrangement for removing the wounded from the field of battle. The scarcity of ambulances, the want of organization, the drunkenness and incompetency of the drivers, the total absence of ambulance attendants are now working their legitimate results-results which I feel I have no right to keep from the knowledge of the department. The whole system should be under the charge of the Medical Department. An ambulance corps should be organized and set in instant operation. . . . Up to this date six hundred wounded still remain on the battlefield, in consequence of an insufficiency of ambulances and the want of a proper system for regulating their removal in the Army of Virginia. Many have died of starvation ; many more will die in consequence of exhaustion, and all have endured torments which might have been avoided. I ask, sir, that you will give me your aid in this matter ; that you will interpose to prevent a recurrence of such consequences as have followed the recent battle-consequences which will inevitably ensue on the next important engagement if nothing is done to obviate them.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
This letter was returned with an endorsement from General Halleck, reiterating his continued disapproval of the whole plan of medical organization, in the face of which opposition in high places, no further steps at army headquarters could, for the time, be taken.
But in the mean time, medical officers of independent commands had been endeavoring to improve conditions within the immediate jurisdiction of their commanders, and in the Army of the Potomac, Medical Director Letterman had convinced General McClellan, perhaps the ablest organizer in the Northern forces, of the need for some special provision for the first aid and transportation of wounded. On August 2, 1862, General McClellan issued an order embodying Medical Director Letterman's plan, which was not only the first of its kind but so complete and practical as to have since served as the basis for the organization of the medical service in the field in all the armies of the world. The order need not be here further discussed than to mention that it organized an ambulance corps with animals, transportation, personnel, and supplies complete, to be used for succoring and transporting sick and wounded men, " and for nothing else."
The advantages of this organization became speedily manifest, and at the battle of Antietam, in the following month, it gave admirable service. Of its operation in the battle of Fredericksburg, Surgeon Charles O'Leary, medical director of the Sixth Corps, said in his official report:
" During the engagements of the 13th, the ambulances being guided and governed with perfect control and with a precision rare even in military organizations, the wounded were brought without any delay or confusion to the hospitals of their respective divisions. Not a single item provided for the organization of the field-hospitals suffered the slightest derangement, and the celerity with which the wounded were treated, and the system pervading the whole Medical Department, from the stations in the field selected by the assistant surgeons with the regiments to the wards where the wounded were transferred from the hands of the surgeons to be attended by the nurses, afforded the most pleasing contrast to what we had hitherto seen during the war. . . ."
In the operations at the time of the battle of Chancellorsville in the following May, the Sixth Corps charged and took Marye's Heights behind the town of Fredericksburg. The medical director of the corps, in his report, says : " The charge was made at I P. M.. ; the heights were taken, and in less than half an hour we had over eight hundred wounded. Two hours after the engagement, such was the celerity and system with which the ambulances worked, the whole number of wounded were within the hospitals under the care of nurses."
In the battle of Gettysburg the ambulance organization was intact, and such was the perfection of its administration, that, on the early morning of the 4th of July, the day after the battle ended, not one wounded man of the great number who had fallen was left on the ground. The inspector-general of the army himself reported this interesting fact from personal examination.
The success of the plan under McClellan induced Grant to adopt it in the Army of the Tennessee, in an order dated March 30, 1863. Finally, Congress tardily passed an act, approved by the President on March 11, 1864, establishing a uniform system of ambulance service throughout the military forces. After it was once established, the value of this ambulance organization in the saving of life, suffering, and tears cannot be overestimated.
The ambulances were of a number of types, two- and four-wheeled. The former were soon found intolerable from their incessant rocking motion. The four-wheeled type was issued in various forms, successive models designed to avoid the demonstrated defects of their predecessors being issued. The Rucker ambulance was the final development toward the end of the war and gave much satisfaction. In a general way, it was the prototype of the improved ambulance now used in our army. One great fault of all these four-wheeled ambulances was their excessive weight in relation to their transportation capacity. After every great battle, any available supply wagons were used to supplement the ambulances. These were springless, but, with their floors well bedded with brush and hay, were made very comfortable for the wounded placed in them, while their canvas tilts served admirably to screen against rain and sun.
The medical-transport service in battle, as finally perfected, worked about as follows: The medical officers of regiments accompanied their organizations into action and established stations as near the firing-line as possible and usually at a sheltered point, with ready access from both front and rear. Hither the wounded resorted or were conveyed as the situation permitted, had their wounds dressed, and were set aside or started for the field hospital, if able to walk.
As soon as possible the ambulance corps came up and took over the helpless wounded, freeing the regimental surgeons and enabling them to accompany their organizations to the front or rear. If the ambulance train could not reach the places where the wounded were lying, it was halted at the nearest practicable point, and the ambulance corps went forward and removed the wounded to the ambulances by means of litters.
The ambulance train then removed the wounded to the field-hospitals, the service of which is later discussed and of which there was one to each division, where more elaborate professional treatment was received. These field-hospitals were usually located just beyond the range of artillery fire. Sometimes several of them were established close together, and if tactical conditions permitted, they would be brought up and established on an occupied battlefield, thereby saving the time and suffering incident to removal of the wounded therefrom.
After reaching the field-hospitals and receiving the necessary attention to fit them for further transportation, the wounded were removed as soon as possible to the great base and general hospitals, which at one time aggregated two hundred and five in number.
In continuance of the work of the ambulance service, the railroads and steamships were brought into use. Sometimes conditions permitted trains to be run close to the scene of action and to receive wounded almost on the battlefield itself. This was the first war of great magnitude in which railroads were so employed.
The hospital trains were under the control of the Medical Department. The surgeon in charge was the sole head. Some were made up of passenger-cars which were regularly equipped or constructed by the railroad companies for the better care of wounded; some were hastily improvised at the front from ordinary freight-cars, merely emptied of the supplies which they had brought up and in which the wounded were merely laid on beds of boughs, hay, or straw. Between the two extremes there were all varieties of arrangements. Some cars were fitted with bunks; others with stanchions and supports, upon which litters were laid or suspended, jarring being taken by springs or rubber. These trains often included special cars arranged and used as kitchens, storerooms, dispensaries, and surgeries. From the completeness of their resources, the better type of them was practically a hospital on wheels.
Frequently the sick and wounded were easiest and best removed by water, particularly in the vicinity of the Atlantic coast and in sections of the Mississippi watershed. But all transport vessels were under control of the Quartermaster's Department, which ordinarily gave the greatest preference and importance to its own duties, until higher authority, roused by the justice of the appeals, ordered a number of steamers placed under the exclusive control of the medical officers. These varied in type from ordinary freight-boats and transports returning empty, to the finest type of speedy, capacious steamers, completely remodeled into floating hospitals. Some of these hospital boats were planned for the care of four hundred or more patients. One old hulk was fitted up after the battle of Shiloh, with accommodations for a thousand men, and used as a receiving and forwarding hospital for the fleet of river hospital steamers. The latter were kept continually on the move, and a single such steamer is recorded to have removed 12,299 sick and wounded in the space of seventeen months. This steamer hospital service was a new departure in military affairs and was a matter of gradual development to the end of the war, when it had become most complete as to equipment and administrative efficiency. All the boats used for hospital purposes were ultimately assigned officially to the use of the Medical Department, either for the trip or-in the case of specially equipped steamers-indefinitely. The surgeon in charge was in complete control of the boat and its movements, except in respect to the details of navigation. The system worked so successfully as to be continued during the Spanish War, and is part of the regulations at the present time.
Source: "Photographic History of the Civil War" Volume IV, Article By Edward L. Munson, M.D., Major, Med United States Army.


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Madden NFL 13 correctly predicts Ravens to win Super Bowl XLVII
If I were a gambling man I would start using EA's Madden franchise as the basis of my bets. For the eighth time in ten years, the Madden NFL simulation correctly predicted the Super Bowl winner.
Last week, in their annual tradition, EA simulated the Super Bowl, with the Baltimore Ravens defeating the San Francisco 49ers 27 to 24. Of course, for those who tuned in to the game, you'll realize the prediction was scary accurate. The Ravens beat the 49ers by the same margin of victory, 34 to 31, to win Super Bowl XLVII.
While the game didn't play out exactly how the Madden NFL 13 simulation predicted, there were a few notable similarities. For instance, the game correctly called for Ravens' QB Joe Flacco to earn the MVP award. It also correctly predicted that both Baltimore wide receiver Anquan Boldin and San Francisco running back Frank Gore would score touchdowns.
It gets scarier though. The simulation almost completely nailed 49ers' Colin Kaepernick's complete statline. The game predicted a statline of 18 completions on 29 pass attempts with a touchdown and interception. Amazingly, Kapernick went 16 for 28 with a touchdown and interception. As for that one interception, Madden prophesied that Baltimore safey Ed Reed would get it -- and he did!
Last year Madden was correct in its prediction that the New York Giants would beat the New England Patriots. Although the score was a little off, some of the stats were scary accurate. Pretty amazing. The next time you accuse EA of not delivering an accurate or realistic game in Madden, remember the Super Bowl. Eight of the past ten is no fluke.


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The adverb is an endangered species in Modern English. One should neither wring one's hands nor weep on hearing this news. In the course of the last thousand years, English has shed most of its ancient endings, so that one more loss does not matter. Some closely related Germanic languages have advanced even further. For example, in German, schnell is both "quick" and "quickly," and gut means "good" and well," even though wohl, a cognate of Engl. well, exists. Everybody, at least in American English, says: "Do it real quick." Outside that phrase, which has become an idiom, adverbs are fine: he is really quick and does everything quickly. During his visit to Minneapolis after the collapse of the bridge, President Bush said: "We want to get this bridge rebuilt as quick as possible." This is not a Bushism: few people would have used quickly here despite the fact that my computer highlighted the word and suggested the form with -ly.
Adverbs come from many sources. Some are ossified forms of nouns in the genitive or the dative (Old English had four cases). Such is, for example, whilom "once, formerly," which Byron spells with an -e at the beginning of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: "Whilome in Albion isle there dwelt a youth." The same ending occurs in seldom. It comes from the dative plural. In nowadays, -s is the ending of the old genitive, though we are apt to take it for the plural. An adverb may have no ending at all: consider oft, an archaic doublet of often. But the most common feature of adverbs is the suffix -ly: slow / slowly, and so forth. Unfortunately, the use of this suffix is inconsistent. In Old English, some adverb could be formed from adjectives by adding -e: wid "wide" versus wide "widely." If an adjective ended in –lik "like," the corresponding adverb had –like. In Middle English, final -e was dropped. As a result, many adjectives and adverbs merged. This is why long is ambiguous: a long day (adjective), and it lasted long (adverb). Sore, now an adjective, can function as an adverb, though this usage is archaic (I was sore afraid; they are sore oppressed; Childe Harold was sore given to revel and ungodly glee). Today we associate -ly with adverbs; yet adjectives having it are plentiful: consider brotherly, elderly, monthly, homely, westerly, and even likely. Monthly is an adjective in monthly payments, and an adverb in I am paid monthly. To confuse the already significant confusion, some words behave in an unpredictable manner. He works hard on his projects and he hardly works at all puzzle beginning students of English. In Old English, the distinction was clear: heard, adjective, versus hearde, adverb. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives many examples of hardly "firmly, with an effort, rigorously," as in "what is made is slowly, hardly, and earnestly earned" (1840); citations with hardly "barely" do not antedate the middle of the 16th century. Contrary to expectation, late is both an adverb and an adjective, whereas lately is only an adverb. Pretty has a partner (prettily), but it has become a reinforcing adverb. We say: "The show was pretty dull, and the reception was pretty boring."
Still another factor that makes the line between adjectives and adverbs blurry is the rivalry of such constructions as the moon was shining brightly and the sun shines bright. In the first case, brightly modifies the verbal form (how was the moon shining?); in the second, it is the sun that is bright, though the idea in both statements is the same. Usage is capricious, and analogy sometimes works for us and sometimes doesn't. A celestial body can shine bright and brightly, a rose smells sweet or sweetly, but a remark can sound only clever, not cleverly. A man looks stupid when he puts his foot in his mouth and looks stupidly at the mess he has created.
Individual cases are hard to explain, and valid generalizations are hardly earned, but the tendency is obvious: adverbs are on the retreat in Modern English. Do it real quick has become the norm. We want to get this bridge rebuilt as quick as possible is a borderline case (quickly seems to be more appropriate). But it is enough to listen to the people around us, to observe adjectives replacing adverbs. A boy of ten comments on the speech of a person with an accent: "You are talking funny." As ill luck would have it, the adverb funnily is rare, so that the boy had little choice. To a conservative taste he did it real good is a bit too much, but I fully realized what odds adverbs are facing only when I read in an undergraduate paper: "She sings beautiful." On the same day I heard: "She is fragile and walks slow." Another century or so, and the difference between those who speak good and those who speak bad will disappear. When that day comes, what will happen to the following exchange between Lady Bracknell and her nephew? "Good-afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. –I am feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. –That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together." It looks as though adjectives and adverbs also prefer to part company.
Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins…And How We Know Them. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears here each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to [email protected]; he'll do his best to avoid responding with "origin unknown."


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Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Pinto has written!
Author Pinto's Book Reviews
The Chosen
Carnelian's father was in exile, but is recalled to preside over the selection of one of the dying emperor's two sons as next emperor. Carnelian is heir to one of the most powerful lords in an opressive and sadistic society, but has been brought up by slaves who he has always regarded as family. He has to watch as his old home is torn apart, most of his household are abandoned to starvation, his half brothers are treated as slaves or killed by oth...
The Standing Dead
Osidian, emperor elect, and Carnelian, son of ruling Lord Suth, have been kidnapped and sent to their deaths as slaves. They pass into the hands of tomb robbers then raiders while Carnelian tries to keep injured Osidian alive as they run from their enemies in the Guarded land. Osidian shows some of the talents of Lords of Osrakum and begins to establish a reputation as a warrior amongst the plainsmen who have captured them. Carnelian uses memories of his...


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Even before Mohammed Merah-a 23 year old French punk and part time garage mechanic turned jihadi—died in a hail of bullets in Toulouse, the horrific affair had already become the focus of France's current heated presidential campaign.
No one benefited more from the crisis than President
Nicholas Sarkozy, for whom law and order has always been a calling card. But after
acting admirably presidential during the most ghastly moments of the crisis,
calling for national unity and a temporary halt to electioneering, once Merah
had been disposed of, Sarkozy abruptly reverted to the erratic manner that has
also been his hallmark over the years.
He announced his intention to present legislation to the
French parliament making it a crime for people to travel abroad for terrorist
indoctrination or consult jihadist Web sites.
Predictably Sarkozy's tough proposal immediately drew fire
from a wide range of critics.
As I argue in another
blog, the president's proposals are precipitous, and, above all, a dangerous
threat to French civil liberties. Punishing people who –for whatever
reason—choose to read the contents of certain proscribed Internet sites, would,
in effect, oblige France to create a new category of law enforcers—very much
akin to the "Thought Police" so terrifyingly
portrayed by George Orwell in 1984.
France already has enough laws on the books to deal with the
terrorist threat without crippling its democratic traditions.
Another tack taken by Sarkozy, this time to hobble his
opponents on the left, is to wrap himself in the national flag and maintain -as
Sarkozy immediately did--that it is despicable for anyone to blame French
society for the outrageous actions of Mohammed Merah and the obscene rampage in
Sarkozy's challenge is a blatant attempt to sweep France's
enormous social problems—particularly the integration of the country's 5-6
million immigrants of Islamic origin--under the carpet, at least during the
election campaign. It was also a
bet that, with the French, outraged by the events of the past few days, would turn against any attempts by
Sarkozy's opponents to take up the issue of integration at this time.
Indeed Sarkozy's theme was immediately amplified by four
deputies from his UMP who called
for revision of the French Code of Nationality. They're after regulations that would
make it easier to dispatch the hordes of delinquents and trouble-makers in the
banlieues, like Mohammed Merah, ("scum" Sarkozy once famously called them) back
to the lands of their forefathers.
After all, the UMP deputies argue, the only thing about
Merah " that was French were his identity papers".
The statement is absurd. As the leftist "Liberation"
editorialized this morning,
"Merah is certainly a monster, but a French monster and
monsters also reveal the fabric of a country. For how many generations can a
child born French be sent back to his Algerian origins, and for how many
generations will the origin of his ancestors make him a foreigner in the
country that is his?"
For further background, readers might be interested in other
recent blogs I've written over the
past few days on Mohammed Merah and the slaughter in Toulouse.


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We know, we know, you've heard this all before… but we're serious this time! Promise. We've totally overhauled the show format, brought along the world-famous DJ Clue to help host and produce, and we've got some kick-ass celebrities lined up! In this first episode, we've got interviews with Kim Kardashian, Carmelo Anthony, and Mary J. Blige. Carmelo doesn't know what social networks are, Kim Kardashian loves her Curve, and Mary J. sends over a million emails a month on her BlackBerry. Hot stuff, right? Make sure you check out the full episode below. Big big shout out to TeleNav for sponsoring the show, and make sure y'all check back in every couple weeks — we're going in!
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Three keys for Tigers vs. A's in AL Division Series
DETROIT -- The Tigers go into their American League Division Series rematch with the A's knowing they can take a must-win game in Oakland. Justin Verlander took care of that last year. They know they can win regular games in Oakland, too, having taken two of three at the Coliseum on their only West Coast trip of the season in April.
Their most recent matchup in late August at Comerica Park, however, threw all that history out of whack. The A's came within an inning of a four-game sweep. They also gave the Tigers a lot to think about if they met up in October.
Tigers manager Jim Leyland didn't forget.
"We know Oakland real good," Leyland said. "They beat up on us real good at Comerica Park last time we saw them, so we're obviously going to have to do a better job of making good pitches. They hit some good pitches and they hit some real bad pitches, and we're going to have to do a better job of pitching them."
There's a lot more the Tigers have to do to get by the A's once more. The A's earned home-field advantage in this series for a reason, just as the Tigers fell from a brief dance with the league's best record in early September to the third seed.
Here's a look at three keys for the Tigers to get their momentum back and start another run toward the World Series:
1. Lean on the rotation
This seems obvious. Detroit, after all, boasted the best statistics of any AL rotation in nearly every major category, including three 200-strikeout pitchers on the same team for just the third time in history, the first since the 1969 Astros. However, it's more complex than that.
The A's pounded Tigers pitchers so hard at Comerica Park in August that Leyland wondered aloud once the series was over whether Oakland hitters were onto their signs. All four Tigers starters in that series were knocked out after five innings, three of them having thrown more than 100 pitches. A's hitters put the ball in air and pounded Detroit starters with extra-base hits. It was an aggressive approach from Oakland, and it worked.
The Tigers don't just need effective starts from their vaunted rotation. With Bruce Rondon and Phil Coke both dealing with arm issues, Detroit appears unlikely to have the depth in middle and setup relief that it would've hoped for. Both Al Alburquerque and Drew Smyly, the relievers expected to pick up the extra workload, have to be watched carefully for overuse.
2. Don't let Jed Lowrie become a Tiger killer
Sure, Coco Crisp has the potential to torment the Tigers from the leadoff spot, and Josh Donaldson is an AL Most Valuable Player Award candidate for a reason. The real damage Oakland did in Detroit in August, however, came from Lowrie, the former utility infielder who has taken hold of the third spot in Oakland's lineup. He went 8-for-17 at Comerica Park, with a home run, four doubles, five runs scored and six RBIs. He then batted .283 with 17 RBIs in September.
Part of Lowrie's success comes from Crisp and Donaldson getting on base ahead of him. Hold down those two and Lowrie's RBI chances dry up. But even with those two at the top, no other AL playoff team gave up anywhere near the damage to Lowrie that Detroit did. He's a .350 career hitter against current Tigers pitchers, and nine of his 21 hits have gone for extra bases.
3. Get a win early on the road
The Tigers have had an abundance of success in the postseason without home-field advantage in any series the last couple of years, but for the most start, it starts with stealing a win on the road early. When they beat Oakland in five games in last year's ALDS, they actually hosted the first two games before going on the road for the final three. This year, the Division Series is back to a 2-2-1, so losing the first two on the road would put them on the brink of elimination by the time they return to Detroit.
Despite the season-ending series sweep in Miami, Detroit is a much better team on the road than it was last year, with a pitching staff that boasts two frontline starters who were statistically better on the road than at home this season in Max Scherzer and Verlander. They appear likely to start the first two games; one of them needs to step up and take some pressure off the home end of the series.


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Posted by Editor on 10/5/98
Final Adrenalin Race Report
(courtesy Janet R.)
It's 5:00 pm, west coast time, as the sun begins to set on the 1998 season for the Kokanee 24 Hrs of Adrenalin series. The seventh and final race of the season is over and what a race it was. For starters, it was located in sunny southern California near Palm Springs. But don't let the California part fool you. The temps overnight here hovered around zero degrees celcius as almost 300 people rode for almost 12 hours hours of night riding in this picturesque desert mountain location. The host site was the Desert Sun Centre located in Idyllwild, a quaint town about 2 hours outside of Los Angeles and nestled in the San Jacintas Mountain Range.
For those of you who know about the 24 Hrs of Adrenalin format, please skip down a paragraph. For new comers...here's the quick and dirty on the race format. Teams get together to race off-road for a full 24 hours. There a variety of categories to meet your fitness levels and desire for pain (solo, 2 person, 4 person, 5 person and corporate teams of 6-10). The race starts at noon Saturday with a LeMans style running start before riders pick up their bikes to head out on a course that is usually between 16-18 km in length. Riders carry a baton and when they come through the transition area, they pass off the baton to the next rider and on it goes. The winners are determined by the most number of laps in the least amount of time over the 24 hour period. The race is over at noon on the Sunday.
And now for some race highlights! The course here was simply marvelous! This was the first time these trails have ever been used for a race although the locals have kept it a well ridden secret. Cheers to the local folks (Ralph and crew) who designed the course that was described to me as relentless (in that there were no easy cruising areas) yet provided a taste of everything you could hope to ride in this area (desert trails, mountain pine trees and rocky mountain climbs) while still leaving room for both experienced mountain bikers and novices to enjoy a great race.
Quick Notes:
*Animal spottings include 1 mountain lion, many bunny rabbits, lots of woodpeckers and blue jays and of course, squirrels.
*Team VeloNerd rode the entire race with real nerdy clothing and tacky ties. It was always a spectator higlight to guess what awful outfit might come out next.
*Although most participants were Americans....there was one Canadian in the crowd. Thanks for making the trip down!
And now for the race standings:
Notes: Pat placed first in our first race of the season in Northern California (Laguna Seca) and second at our recent race in Silver Star, BC. He missed out on first here by only 10 minutes after making up almost one hour of time! Hats off to Pat!
1. Bernard Hug, San Diego 19 laps 24:00
2. Pat Norwil, Mazama, WA 19 laps 24:10
3. Randy Wolfe, Palm Desert 18 laps
1. Patty Struve, Truckee 13 laps 24:05
2. Wendy Skean, Mountain Center 10 laps
3. Zu Schramm, North Vancouver 10 laps
1. Go Hard or Go Home, San Bernardino 23 laps
2. Beer Sounds Good, Canoga Park 21 laps
3. Al La Sa, Capitola 14 laps
Notes: A member of the second place team was also winner of the fastest lap time clocking in at 44 minutes. Most other teams averaged around one hour.
1. The Back Alley Cats, Temecula 27 laps
2. 2 B Ammounced, La Quinta 26 laps
3. Team Cycology, San Diego 24 laps
5 PERSON OPEN AGE CATEGORIES (Add up ages of all five members and fit into one of the categories below:
Notes: The first place team was also the overall course winner logging in the most number of laps.
1. Team Universal Cycles, Studio City 27 laps 24:30
2. Bike USA, San Diego 24 laps
3. Diego Francisco, Encinitas 24 laps
Notes: Only 19 minutes separated first and second.
1. Team With No Name, Hemet 25 laps
2. Back Alley Mountain Cats, Temecula 25 laps
3. Mountain Bike Central.com 24 laps
1. Woodcrest Bikes, Moreno Valley 23 laps
2. Back Alley Mountain Bikes, Temecula 22 laps
3. Ten Tired Testicles, Rancho Mirage 21 laps
You guessed it......
1. Back Alley Mountain Bike Women, Temecula 19 laps
CORPORATE (6-10 riders)
A really close race here througout the entire 24 hour period where only 4 minutes separated second and third place.
1. Mission Cyclery, Chula Vista 25 laps
2. CBF Racing, Moorpark 25 laps
3. Idyllwild Psycolers, Idyllwild 25 laps
Thanks to those of you who have tuned into our many race updates this season. We and Canadian Cyclist appreciate your visitations! For more information on the 24 Hrs of Adrenalin races, check out our cool web site at www.trilife.com and remember, until next season, 'trilife or die'!
Canadian Wins Ironman
Well, it may not exactly be cycling in its purest sense, but Canadians were at the forefront of the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawaii yesterday. Canadian Peter Reid won the men's race in a time of 8:24:20. Belgian Luc Van Lierde finished second (8:31:57) and Lother Leder of Germany was third (8:32:57). In the women's race, Natasha Badmann of Switzerland won (9:24:16), Canadian Lori Bowden was second (9:27:19), and Fernanda Keller of Brazil third (9:28:29). Defending women's champion Heather Fuhr of Canada finished 5th.
Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top |


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The Washington Redskins announced today that they have named Bradford Banta as Assistant Special Teams Coach, Shane Day as Assistant Offensive Line/Offensive Quality Control Coach and Jake Peetz as Offensive Quality Control Coach.
In addition, the team announced that it will retain Aubrey Pleasant, who will serve as Defensive Quality Control Coach in 2014 after serving as Offensive Assistant for the Redskins last season.
The moves finalize the Redskins' coaching staff for the 2014 season.
Banta spent the last six seasons with the Detroit Lions in various coaching capacities. From 2012-13, Banta served as the Lions' assistant linebackers coach and from 2008-11, he served as the assistant special teams coach.
Over the 2010-12 seasons, Banta helped John Wendling tie for first in the NFL in special teams tackles (51).
Under Banta in 2011, kicker Jason Hanson finished with 126 points, the fourth-best single-season total in Lions history.
In 2010, the Lions' kick return unit was the third-most improved unit in the NFL in kickoff return average with 3.5 more yards per return than in 2009.
Detroit also had the NFL's 10th-most significant improvement in punt return average in 2010 (8.8 avg. in 2009, 12.1 avg. in 2010).
Detroit had the fourth-most improved kickoff coverage unit, allowing an average of 2.7 less yards per each kick return in 2010.
Before joining the Lions as a coach in 2008, Banta spent the 2007 season as a tight ends coach for the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
He played for 11 seasons in the NFL as a tight end and long snapper for the Indianapolis Colts (1994-99), New York Jets (2000), Detroit Lions (2001-03) and Buffalo Bills (2004).
Banta, 43, is a native of Baton Rouge, La. He was a four-time letter-winner and two-year starter at tight end at the University of Southern California from 1989-93.
Day joins the Redskins with 13 years of coaching experience across the high school, collegiate and professional levels.
Day is a veteran of five NFL seasons, assisting the San Francisco 49ers in a quality control role from 2007-09 and coaching quarterbacks for the Chicago Bears from 2010-11.
Day spent the last two seasons as the quarterbacks coach for the University of Connecticut.
In Chicago, Day helped the Bears to an 11-5 record in 2010, securing an NFC North championship and an NFC Championship Game appearance.
That season, the Bears posted the fifth-best yards-per-attempt average in the NFC (7.29).
Prior to his time with the Bears, Day spent three seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, helping the team's quarterbacks in 2007, running backs in 2008 and offensive line in 2009.
During Day's time in San Francisco, running back Frank Gore gained 3,258 rushing yards, fifth-most in the NFL in that three-year span.
Day was an offensive quality control coach at Michigan in 2005-06. Among his duties in Ann Arbor were the evaluation of quarterback recruits and the development of the quarterbacks already in the program.
Day helped the Wolverines earn a berth in the 2007 Rose Bowl against USC.
Day entered coaching as an assistant at Auburn Riverside H.S. in Auburn, Wash. from 2001-04.
Before becoming a coach, Day was a two-sport athlete at Rhodes College, playing baseball in addition to playing wide receiver on the school's football team.
He earned his degree from Kansas State in 1999.
Peetz spent the 2013 season as an analyst for the football program at the University of Alabama, helping the Crimson Tide to an 11-2 record.
Alabama spent the first 13 weeks of the season as the nation's top-ranked team and currently boasts the nation's top recruiting class for 2014, according to Rivals.com.
Peetz spent five seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2008-12. He initially joined the Jaguars as a scouting assistant in May 2008 and later being named the team's BLESTO scout in June 2010.
In 2012, the team named Peetz as an offensive assistant, helping Cecil Shorts (55 receptions for 979 yards with seven touchdowns) and 2012 first-round pick Justin Blackmon (64 receptions for 865 yards with five touchdowns) become the first Jaguars receiver duo since 2001 to have 800-plus receiving yards.
Blackmon led all NFL rookies in receiving yards and tied for most receptions while setting franchise single-season rookie records for catches, yards, average per reception and touchdowns.
Peetz began his college coaching career in 2006 at Santa Barbara City College, where he served as the safeties
coach and strength & conditioning coordinator. He served as offensive staff assistant at UCLA in 2007.
Peetz earned his bachelor's degree in December 2005 while playing football at the University of Nebraska.
Peetz, a walk-on, served in a reserve role in the Husker secondary and on special teams. Peetz was one of the most active student-athletes off the field, twice being named to the Brook Berringer Citizenship Team for his extensive community outreach work.
Peetz, 30, is a native of O'Neill, Neb.
Pleasant, 27, spent the 2011-12 seasons as a defensive assistant at Michigan before joining the Redskins as an offensive assistant in 2013. He is a native of Flint, Mich.
1989-93: Tight End, University of Southern California
1994-99: Tight End/Long Snapper, Indianapolis Colts
2000: Tight End/Long Snapper, New York Jets
*2001-03: * Tight End/Long Snapper, Detroit Lions
2004: Tight End/Long Snapper, Buffalo Bills
2007: Tight Ends Coach, Tennessee-Chattanooga
2008-11: Assistant Special Teams Coach, Detroit Lions
2012-13: Assistant Linebackers Coach, Detroit Lions
2001: Wide Receivers Coach, Auburn (Wash.) Riverside H.S.
2002: Quarterbacks Coach, Auburn (Wash.) Riverside H.S.
2003-04: Quarterbacks/Offensive Coordinator, Auburn Riverside H.S.
*2005-06: * Offensive Quality Control, Michigan
2007-09: Offensive Quality Control, San Francisco 49ers
2010-11: Quarterbacks Coach, Chicago Bears
2012-13: Quarterbacks Coach, UConn
2014: Assistant Offensive Line/Offensive Quality Control, Redskins
2002: Student Assistant, Strength & Conditioning, Nebraska
2003-05: Long Snapper/Cornerback, Nebraska
2006: Safeties/Strength & Conditioning, Santa Barbara City College
2007: Offensive Staff Assistant, UCLA
2008-09: Scouting Assistant, Jacksonville Jaguars
2010-11: BLESTO Scout, Jacksonville Jaguars
2012: Offensive Assistant, Jacksonville Jaguars
*2013: * Analyst, Alabama
2014: Offensive Quality Control, Washington Redskins
*2005-08: * Safety, Wisconsin
2010: Defensive Backs Coach, Grand Blanc H.S. (Mich.)
2011-12: Defensive Assistant, Michigan
2013: Offensive Assistant, Washington Redskins
2014: Defensive Quality Control, Washington Redskins


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Editor's note: This is the introductory installment of a new column about the crucial relationship between marketing and R&D, written by two industry professionals who have seen the best of what can happen when these departments really work together.
Introducing Sal and Nancy
In describing our relationship to colleagues, we often use the term "symbiotic," resulting in puzzled looks. What we mean is that this "mutually beneficial relationship of two dissimilar biological organisms" pretty much sums us up: It is our dissimilarities that are initially the most apparent.
Sal, the male in our relationship, is a true research and development scientist whose credo, "Facts Rule," guides his behavior and approach to the beauty and consumer goods business. Highly rational, analytical and intellectual, he is firmly rooted in reality, and is quite certain that God is in the details.
Nancy, the female in our relationship, is a type-A marketeer who favors the big picture, and whose right brain tendencies—intuitive, conceptual, creative—explain her love affair with the beauty category. A touch of analytical reasoning brings great relief to her male partner.
Surprisingly, we work and play well together. Let us introduce each other: Salvador: My partner, Nancy McDonald, is president of McDonald Marketing, and was born and bred in the beauty and fragrance business. Working with some of the best and brightest at Clinique, Elizabeth Arden/Unilever and Avon, she expanded her marketing skills through a wide array of consulting projects, partnering with Cosmedicine, L'Oréal, Bath & Body Works, Penhaligon, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Gerber, Mustela and Kiss My Face. Nancy prides herself on using her accumulated insights to consistently innovate the world of cosmetics.
Nancy: My partner, Salvador Pliego, has worked for a few companies you may know including: Unilever, Clairol, Procter & Gamble and Bath & Body Works. Having worked throughout the U.S. and Latin America has given him a strong international perspective on the beauty business. Currently senior director of technical customer service and R&D for the Americas at Kemira, Sal now has the opportunity to combine his considerable consumer and beauty product expertise with supplier side support and savvy. Sal has now closed the cosmetics cycle.
If We Can Do It…
Nancy: We are both beauty-centric and passionate about this business. As you'll soon see, this devotion generates both facts and strong opinions on just how this amazing industry should behave.
Salvador: Our own symbiosis will soon become clear: We are totally reliant on this partnership. Why? In the course of our respective careers, we have each learned a valuable lesson. The critical partnership between two seemingly disparate groups—R&D and marketing—has a clear-cut benefit: the breakthrough concept, the pioneering technology, and yes, the magic that very often leads to astounding success.
Nancy: I've always been in awe of science. It's factual, consistently reinventing and updating thinking via empirical data in combination with a healthy level of speculation. As a professional, I had always relied upon R&D to ensure seamless technical development and achieve the appropriate aesthetics for each and every product. However, I really wised up during my tenure at Unilever. Their renowned global Innovation Centers were open to marketeers to roam freely, gain exposure to the latest, greatest thinking and discoveries, and participate in forums to build in-depth knowledge and expertise. These dynamics, this strong partnership, would consistently result in state-of-the-art concepts and products.
Salvador: Working for such expert, well-integrated companies as Unilever, Clairol, Procter & Gamble and Bath & Body Works cultivated my talents in interacting directly with diverse marketing groups. I respected and appreciated marketing's intuitive perspective and business acumen. I understood the importance of marketing in injecting consistent newness and imagination into our industry. I knew it wasn't easy to put together the creative concepts behind the products to make them successful in the competitive marketplace. However, to be extremely honest, I found that they are not always an easy group to deal with. Many times I wondered: What are they doing? Are they not capable of combining just a little bit of left-brain rationality with their right brain flakiness? They just don't get it: it's just not the big picture. To ensure a product's successful launch, you can't just take a formula from the shelf, throw in some fragrance and color and ship it. It has to go through the development/technical cycle, which includes formula screening, stability, fragrance compatibility, micro, etc. My own life-altering experience with marketing came when I worked at Unilever in Mexico. The marketing person I worked with formed a true partnership between us. She was willing and able to learn and respect the science behind the launches. The lines of communication were always open and we rolled up our sleeves, together, in the lab making batches. I guess Unilever was a good school for both Nancy and me.
Wake-up Call
Nancy and Sal: These experiences woke us up to the respect, understanding, open communication and strong sense of partnership required in the relationship between marketing and R&D. This relationship must be established and nurtured at the beginning of the project and fortified throughout the development cycle to deliver perfect results. As you can see, our partnership is based upon mutual respect for our individual—and very different—personalities and areas of expertise. Like all "couples," we often have similar points of view: Sometimes we agree to disagree, and at other times we can get quite vehement about our opposing perspectives. In all cases, however, we work hard to maintain the positive, synergistic and symbiotic relationship that is a necessity for the most magical of lotions and potions. We consider our relationship—the marriage of marketing to R&D—to also be uniquely magical.
So, What's Happened to the Magic ?
Nancy: This dynamic industry is losing heart. It is time for the beauty industry to re-group, re-evaluate and re-energize. This applies not only to marketing and R&D teams, but beyond to each and every one of us who calls this business their own. We have simply got to muster the courage to take action and re-invigorate the entire beauty category.
Salvador: I'm not sure about the industry's heart, but unique and exciting product innovation is certainly becoming rare. This is even more unfortunate as interesting technologies are continually opening themselves up to us. Fortunately, every so often a beauty visionary or even a major beauty company launches a truly imaginative product. But then everyone jumps on that particular horse … after it's proclaimed a winner, of course. It doesn't have to be like that, because science and technology are at their peak, and the low-hanging fruit is there for the taking.
Nancy: I totally agree. A perfect example of the magical combination of imagination and science is Bare Escentuals, brought to you by the lovely and talented Leslie Blodgett. She took a solid idea and gave it an astounding marketing spin, like turning straw into gold.
Salvador: Nancy, that's key to "getting it." Leslie's idea was an awesome marketing coup. By ensuring that her brilliant concept fused with a great formula, fostered no doubt by her R&D team, she gave a facelift to cosmetic ingredients that have been successfully used in makeup foundations for years. She combined her vision with proven science.
Nancy: A pretty perfect combo. She turned this dynamic into spectacular success, using her imagination to capture the imagination of countless customers. This is exactly what we're talking about. As Bare Escentuals' Mineral Makeup sales have continued to explode, however, making notable headlines in the process, there have been more than 612 competitive mineral makeup introductions in the past 18 months, according to Datamonitor's Productscan Online. 612! Where's the vision and the magic in that?
Salvador: You may be reacting a little harshly, Nancy, but your assessment is correct. The hard fact is that beauty products do not represent a fundamental, physiological human need.
Nancy: More importantly, Sal, they do fulfill a real emotional need. The appeal of beauty and fragrance products resides in the realm of the imagination, in the human spirit. When that imagination, that spirit are combined with the power of technology and ingredients, you finally start pressing the right buttons out there.
Salvador: So, to the reader I say "What are you waiting for?" Each day, novel and exciting ingredients are emerging from the world's laboratories, and older ingredients already in the market have ripened with time and have been re-invented with age. Take reliable retinol, for example. There are now submicron technologies that allow us to stabilize it, use it and get the most out of it. I am hereby challenging marketeers to partner with your R&D teams to leverage this wealth of technology. Together, we can recapture consumers' imagination. Marketing and R&D are not competitive adversaries. We need to ensure that we work together as true partners in the product development process. Certainly, every product can't achieve the amazing heights of Bare Escentuals, but it's a sure bet that it will enhance any product's success quotient. Regardless of who or what sparks it, the recipe remains flawless: A brilliant, imaginative marketing idea combined with a breakthrough, imaginative ingredient or technology courtesy of our partners in R&D. Wave the magic wand and presto! Now we're pulling a rabbit out of the hat.
Nancy: I couldn't have said it better myself. Well … perhaps differently.
Nancy McDonald is president of McDonald Marketing. Salvador Pliego is senior director of technical customer service and R&D for the Americas at Kemira.


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