text:
range of home spas start from S$220 for about 90 mins up.
Check out my review on Flenco's scented products @ Experience The Healing Powers of Dead Sea Minerals!
131 Tanglin Road
#02-17 Tudor Court
Singapore 247942
Telephone: +65 6733 6672
~Happy Birthday Shirley~May God bless U always.Stay healthy & happy.Great spa birthday gift. Luv, Jacinta!ReplyDelete
Jacinta, thks for the lovely note! U stay pretty too!Delete
That is such a fantastic birthday treat! Love the idea of spa party for kids, so much healthier than the trash parties they have.ReplyDelete
Shirl, I'm sure the little kids will all be jumping with joy getting royal treatments :)Delete
WOW !! What a cool treat ... HAPPY BDAY dear :)
Win $40 to spend at LorraineTyne.com !!
❤ StylishByNature.com
SN, thks & have a good day!Delete
Happy birthday my friend you deserve this treat :)
Choc Chip Uru
Uru, thks so much my dear!Delete
Wow, wow, wow!!! What a great way of pampering yourself at the comfort of your own home. I am now all worked up for a spa treatment and wish I can have the same like yours.ReplyDelete
Nava, ain't this such a luxurious session? I'm sure u wish u were here with me. U have fun too, sweetie!Delete
It's never too early to start young huh?! Kids spa party, this is an interesting idea.ReplyDelete
DS, wish I've a daughter now. Lol!Delete
nice post ! maybe we follow each other !? let me know :) Greetings www.yuliekendra.comReplyDelete
Yulie, thks for visiting! Gonna chk u out soon!Delete
Wow what an amazing experience! I love the idea of an at home spa treatment! I think you should own a spa Shirley!!!ReplyDelete
Bess, hahaha! Wish I could have my own spa so I could indulge everyday. Lol!Delete
This is a very cherished Birthday gift you can give your self or loved one. Happy Birthday Shrirley, you just keep adding number to your age, never to your beauty.
Love Ash.
Ash, a very unique one indeed! Thks dear, u're always so adorable!Delete
Happy babeday Shirley! A massage in the comforts of your own home sounds fun and brilliant. No need to brave the jam and stress ourselves up post a pampering massage.ReplyDelete
missyblurkit, I'm sure it's your kind of style as well. Hope you'll find one in your home town too :)Delete
Every time I stop by your blog, I feel like I need to book a spa appointment! Can I tell my hubby that you're to blame :) Looks like a wonderful, pampering experience.ReplyDelete
Liz, that's so fun, isn't it? Hahaha! Naughty, naughty!Delete
Wow! what a great birthday treat you had sis. Happy birthday to you :)ReplyDelete
Michelle, thks dear!Delete
Happy Birthday! Spa treatment at home is a wonderful gift.ReplyDelete
Bal, thks so much dear!Delete
Ahhh.. is so nice to pameper yourself once a while. Happy birthday btw! =)ReplyDelete
SF, it's highly addictive! Hahaha!Delete
Happy Birthday Shirley! What a lovely birthday pampering treatment.ReplyDelete
Trishie, thks sweetie! It was a real treat!Delete
Happy Belated Birthday!ReplyDelete
Kathy, thks sweetie!Delete
happy belated birthday and stay pretty and young always! :)
Latest: Baby White is Camera Shy!
Fish, aw! I love it!Delete
Happy Birthday, Shirley!!! What a treat to be pampered at home and receive such personal care. Sounded like an absolutely lovely day! Ahhhh....ReplyDelete
Kim, Nadia is such a doll & I'm so glad I'm connected with her! Thks, hon!Delete
fantastic pics <3<3 ps:love those trattaments <3ReplyDelete
Antonella, heehee! Thks, darling!Delete
Happy Belated Birthday hehehehe :)ReplyDelete
Edmend, thks dear! Happy to have your warm greetings!Delete
Interesting home spaReplyDelete
Pepper, I'm addicted to massages! ^_^Delete
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text:
Will 'Matter' Matter? Startup Proposes New Model For Long-Form Journalism
from the media-heavyweights-slug-it-out dept
Over the last couple of weeks, there has been growing buzz about Matter, a startup that is proposing a new business model for long-form science journalism and is raising funds on Kickstarter. Their approach is fairly straightforward: each week, they will produce one piece of ultra-high-quality journalism on a science or tech issue, and sell it for 99 cents on as many platforms as possible. It's less a paywall around a publication, and more an attempt to commoditize articles as discrete, sellable objects.Will it work? The big debate has been between Felix Salmon (who likes the idea, and has been quite sanguine on paid content ever since the moderate success of the New York Times paywall) and Stephen Morse (who called Matter a "scam" and its creators "snake oil salesmen"—though he later said those terms were intentional hyperbole). Yesterday, they took to YouTube to hash it out in person:
There are a lot of good points both for and against Matter. For one thing, they've already doubled their $50,000 funding goal on Kickstarter, which at least demonstrates that people are willing to part with their money for something like this—but Kickstarter backers aren't necessarily representative of the broader consumer crowds they will need to court with the actual product. One of Salmon's key points is that since they are raising funds there, instead of going to venture capitalists, their business goals are less daunting: they just need to build something sustainable, not something that will make millions of dollars. The creators have said they don't plan to pull salaries unless the company is a massive hit. They've put a lot of focus on keeping their costs down, so, overall, their financial goals are very different, and a lot more attainable, than the average startup.
On the other hand, as Morse points out, there is plenty of great content out there for free. He doesn't believe there is truly an untapped demand for this kind of content, so Matter won't be able to compete. Salmon thinks the Kickstarter numbers say otherwise. Either way, the question is the same: can Matter produce content that is so good and so unique that people will want to pay for it?
I'm reminded of News Corp.'s iPad-only product The Daily, which launched last year to a lot of hype but quickly began losing engagement and talent. People were asking the same question: could The Daily manage to include such great content that people will need to read it in order to stay in the loop? Obviously, it couldn't.
Matter is more focused than The Daily and is targeting an entirely different audience with a higher standard of journalism, which gives it a leg up in that regard—but I still doubt its potential for one key reason that isn't getting much attention: the sharing barrier. The problem with putting a price tag on online content is that it actually reduces the appeal of that content, because one of the things people value most about good content is the ability to share and discuss it with their social circle. Exclusivity is a minus, not a plus, with most kinds of content (financial news being an exception, which is why most of the more successful paywalls online are on financial sites). Some people will be willing to pay 99 cents for an article, but a lot of them won't be willing to ask their friends to pay too by posting a link on Facebook, Twitter or their blog. Those who do are sure to get a lot of confused replies asking "wait, I have to pay?" Moreover, with a pay-per-article model instead of a subscription model, readers are going to have to decide each week if they want to keep paying. The mental transaction cost of 99 cents may be extremely low, but it adds up when you multiply it like that. These factors are going to make it very difficult to grow and retain their readership.
If Matter streamlines their costs enough, and their content is good enough, it's entirely possible that they can build a small core group of readers that keeps the one-article-a-week model afloat—but if that's the best possible outcome, is this really the best possible approach? Journalism online needs more than small-scale sustainable models, it needs ways to grow and expand, and that is never going to happen without advertising dollars. As Salmon says, Matter is trying to do "something which has historically been extremely rare, in the world of journalism: selling stories to readers, as opposed to selling readers to advertisers", and that means they are tackling the wrong problem. They still plan to include some advertising in the articles, but they should be putting a lot more focus on that side of the equation. There are companies out there that want to support this kind of content, and Matter's low-cost, VC-free model puts them in the perfect position to experiment with innovative sponsorship models—an approach that would be bolstered by opening up the content instead of locking it down, ultimately creating much bigger opportunities to fund quality journalism and turn a profit.
Filed Under: business models, funding, journalism, matter, pricing
Companies: matter

subset: commoncrawl


text: Blog Of The Nation Do They Make These Things In My Size? April 18, 2011 For a second time, I find myself envying the lives of small children. Last month, I complained about the lost art of adult temper tantrums and now I kind of want the new Bugaboo Donkey, a $1,500 stroller. For myself.


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This is my twist on the Garden Journal album by Terri Burnette. I added my side pockets using a binding strip to make the pockets larger so the photo matts slide a little
easier. I used the same hidden hinge binding system to adhere the pages. For me this is the fastest and easiest way to put an album together.
I used the Raining Cats & Dogs paper collection by Graphic 45 . I love the bold colors used in this collection.
The album itself is built using black card
stock, the patterned paper is inked using Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Brushed Corduroy. I use this color to distress most of the pages in my mini albums. It is a favorite.
I used the chip board pieces from the collection for my embellishments and did some fussy cutting of the pattern sheets to layer. The tags are cut a parts from the collection.
On the cover I colored paper flowers with watercolor markers. These I hot glued on when dry. I am pleased with the outcome. Comments are appreciated. Enjoy!


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text:
Part 2 of 2
Continued from Part 1
I couldn't get into that house when it was empty, because it was never empty. If I had a month to work, something might have come up that got everyone out. Or I could have come up with a trick that'd get them out of the house. But I didn't have a month. I had two more days, maximum.
Maybe it's something wrong with me, that I like to find a clever solution when clever isn't called for. I spent the night tossing and turning, trying to come up with something that'd get me what I wanted, and which would make me feel good about getting it. I didn't.
The next day, half an hour after Sadie Goldberg went out to fix lunch for the Rosens, I went to the door, and I knocked. I heard the footsteps coming up from the basement.
"What now?" said Goldbug, opening the door.
I got my foot in the door, and stuck an automatic in his nose. I hated to do it; if I wanted to make a living sticking guns in kids' faces, I'd have a nicer apartment.
"I've got a problem with the money you gave me," I said.
"What problem," he said, trying for tough, but wobbling. I pushed in, keeping the gun on him, and closed the door behind me.
"I don't like money that smells like jasmine," I said. "It confuses me. Where's your lab?"
"Lab?" he said. "Jasmine? You're crazy; I don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, kid," I said. "I'll look around, see what you're up to, and then leave."
"You want to steal my secrets," he said.
"Yeah," I replied. "Sure. I want to steal your secrets, so that I can live in a palace like this one. Here's the thing; it'll be just as easy for me to steal them if you're dead."
"It won't," he started.
"Shut up!" I yelled, which made him jump. It was like arguing with me from ten years ago, and I hated doing that. If it had been an apartment, rather than a row house, someone would have noticed the noise. Nobody did, and Goldberg noticed that, so he marched down into the basement.
Turned out, the basement was his room, as well as his lab. A stack of dime novels, flimsy shoes and old clothes. And some tools I recognized.
I hadn't been lying when I said I didn't need his help to figure out what he was doing. The tools, the materials, the order in which things were laid out told me what spells he was casting, and how the process was supposed to work. There was a crucible, and a salamander stove, with the channel set up, so that. . . . "Where'd you learn—" I started, and then he hit me with a frying pan. Caught me right on the side of the head. I staggered for a second, stars flashing behind my eyes. Goldbug had the pan up again, took another swing. I stepped back, he missed, fell on the floor.
"Hear O Israel," I said. He tried to get up, still holding the pan. The basement was underground. I took out my pistol and shot his bed. The bang and the shower of feathers got through to him. He put the pan down. "You weigh maybe eighty pounds. You really want to take on a guy with a gun?"
"It's my secret!" he said. "I found it! You have no right—"
I leveled the gun at his forehead. "Right doesn't enter into it," I said. "You come out of the basement when I'm still in the house, I'll kill you."
I went back upstairs, put my gun in my pocket, and checked myself in the hallway mirror. I looked a mess. A frying pan, for God's sake. Kids watch too many movies.
I had found what I was looking for. I got on a train over to Manhattan. I felt like I had gone ahead and cast that spell on the policeman. Hell, I'd rather have loosed the spell than broken what little privacy that kid had; at least the cop deserved it. Magic shapes its user, and life shapes people. Like my father said, decent people don't get pulled into things like this. I did what I needed to do it, but what would I need to do next time?
Not that this thing was done, just yet. I got out at Times Square, and went over to Lindy's. "Good evening, Mister Newman," said Rothstein, as I came in. "Have you resolved the little problem which I set for you already?"
"Mind if I sit?" I asked.
"Please do," he replied.
"The kid can turn lead into gold," I said. "But it's not balanced."
There was some hardening of faces at that, and knowing grins on others. Lansky kept his face from showing anything at all, but the rest thought that I was about to sell a bill of goods. Rothstein just looked impatient. "What do you mean, it's not balanced?"
"It's sort of like . . ." I tried to come up with a good analogy. "It's like a horse race, you know? The odds aren't balanced."
"What," said Legs, "the fuck. Are you talking. About."
I gave him a disgusted look. "Look, you know how when the horses run around and around, there are these numbers called odds, which all the people at the racetrack care about?"
I wasn't endearing myself to the Irishman, but he didn't say anything.
"Some horses have low odds, so if you bet on them, you only get a little money if they win, and some horses have high odds, so if you bet on them, you get a lot of money. Why do you think that is?"
"Some horses are fast," said Legs, "and some horses are slow."
"Not exactly," said Rothstein.
"Right," I said. "Horses with low odds are horses that lots of people are betting on. Horses with high odds are horses not a lot of people bet on. Bookies don't care how fast a horse runs; they just want to get paid."
"An admirable exposition," said Rothstein. "But I'm not sure I see the connection."
"A bookie who doesn't balance his odds," I said. "It looks good, you know—he takes money in, and when the race goes in his favor, he can be pretty flush. But it's not a profitable business."
"So, sometimes it doesn't turn into gold?"
"It's not exactly like horseracing. That's just an example. The gold he makes is real; it's yellow, and shiny, and it feels nice when you touch it. But there's not enough going into the process. It looks for balance. So nobody associated with that gold sees much of a profit, until the gold gets balanced."
Rothstein shook his head. "I still don't understand," he said. "Try a simpler explanation. Pretend that you're talking to Legs." Legs didn't like that joke, which was too bad. I thought it was funny.
"When someone turns lead to gold," I said, "they have to put something into it. Skill, experience, effort, materials, all that. They have to put in enough to make the equations equal. Goldbug isn't doing that. So the gold . . . it takes things, until it balances itself out."
Rothstein gave a short nod, but didn't seem convinced. "The Goldbergs live in a dump in Brownsville," I said. "Goldbug wears patched jackets, and socks that are mostly holes. This is what you expect from someone who can turn lead to gold? And Mr. Lansky—he's got a pigeon on a string who pays two hundred dollars in gold every week. Why would he want to sell you someone like that?"
"You think I was trying to sell—" started Lansky.
"Yeah," said Rothstein.
"Yeah. My point is, the kid has potential. But he's trying to take shortcuts, and getting nowhere. A little instruction, he could—"
"No," said Rothstein. "Meyer, you wanted twenty thousand for the father's debt." Rothstein pulled out the biggest wad of cash I had ever seen. Well, that I had ever seen, since the last time I saw Rothstein pay someone. "You'll take eight and a quarter, and you'll be happy."
Lansky hesitated for a second, then shrugged. "Sure, I'll take it."
Rothstein riffled through the cash in his hand. "Here you go." Then he peeled off some bills for me. "Benny, I said a thousand; that's yours. So long as you don't say word one to that kid about changing his methods. You do that, it's still yours, but I'll have people kill you. You understand?"
"Not entirely," I said. "He'd be worth more if he knew what he was doing."
"People come to me with things," he said. "If I can see a profit in it, I'll do some buying and selling. This kid—this kid I can unload. Someone who looks like he's worth a fortune, but doesn't produce shit? There are a thousand people to whom I'd love to give that sort of present."
Truth is, I did understand. I just didn't like it. "The gold is eating him up," I said. "It's taking parts of him, looking for balance. Five years, maybe ten years—he'll be dead."
"Buddy," said Legs, "he can join the club."
That got a laugh from Rothstein's crowd.
"Well," I said. "You own him now. It's your call, I guess."
"Exactly," he said.
I decided not to argue. I made my way out to the street. Where I loitered for the better part of an hour, until Meyer Lansky came out.
"Mr. Lansky," I said. "Can I have a couple of minutes?"
He shrugged. "Sure, why not." Siegel and another of Lansky's guys pulled up in the big Lincoln. "Hop in."
It wasn't ideal, but I hopped.
"So," I asked. "Good enough?"
"Good enough for what?" asked Lansky.
"Good enough that Rivki Krantz enjoys the fresh air and cool weather of upstate New York, without anything bad happens to her?"
If they wanted to shoot me, I had mailed a letter to a lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska, who I kept on retainer. Nobody knew him—hell, I didn't know him. But every week, I sent a letter. When I died, things would be published which would cause all kinds of upset.
Lansky didn't seem bothered by my accusation. He settled into his seat, straightened the cuffs of his shirt. He was a little guy, but he seemed taller than he had in Lindy's. At a guess, I figured Lansky was about twenty, maybe twenty-two. In Rothstein's shadow, I'd have said eighteen. "Sure," he said. "How'd you figure it was me who sent you that message?"
"Who else would care if I told Rothstein yes or no on the Goldbug?" I said.
Lansky gave a half-smile. "And you found a way to say both. If the kid performs, you said he could. If he doesn't, you said he wouldn't."
I shrugged.
"You could be having this conversation with Rothstein," continued Lansky. "Why me?"
"Because I've told Rothstein what he needed to know. Now it's your turn."
"Hey," said Siegel. "You want me to shut this fellow up?"
"No," said Lansky. "He's got a letter somewhere. So what do I have to know?"
"That maybe I'm a nut. But I'm not a stupid nut."
"Benny," said Lansky. "I think it's you who needs to know some things. My friend Mr. Siegel thinks that you're a fraud. More than that, he thinks that I think that you're a fraud. But you're not a fraud, and you're not a nut."
I didn't say anything. "Here's another thing you need to know. I don't care that you're not a fraud. Rothstein is a gambler, so he's superstitious. More than that, he's excited by superstition. Me, I have an advantage. I have a lack of ambition."
"A lack of ambition?" I asked, seeing as how that was expected of me.
"Exactly. I make money with things I know, with things I understand. I make a lot of money. I don't need to jump in to things I don't understand, to try and make more."
I had to admit, he had a point. "And you're telling me this," I said. "To let me know that if I get between you and money, you'll have me fed to the bears in the circus."
That got a chuckle. "Exactly right," he said.
"Not exactly right," said Siegel. "It'd be the river, same as everybody else. I'm not some kind of body disposal poet."
"Close enough," I said, and they let me off.
It had been an interesting few days, and I had a thousand dollars. The problem was, I had earned it by turning a child over to the slaughter. A horrible child who had hit me in the head with a frying pan.
My father was still awake when I came in, reading something in close-written Aramaic. "What do you want?" he asked. I took out a book, wrapped in paper. It was from my collection, and I hated to let it go. I pushed it across the table. "This is a dangerous thing I'm asking," I said, "but next year or the year after, see that Yidl Goldberg gets this, for Chaim."
He touched it like it was on fire. "This is one of the tools of your trade," he said. "I'd sooner give him poison for his children."
"It's to save the kid's life," I said.
"There are three things," he said, "which it is better to die than transgress. Idolatry, adultery, and murder."
"It's not idolatry," I said. "It has nothing to do idols."
"It's magic."
"Yeah, it's magic."
"And Maimonides—"
"In the Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides says that magic comes close to idolatry," I said. "But he doesn't say it is idolatry. Wounding comes close to murder, but it isn't murder, and as such, it isn't worse than death."
"You still remember," he said. "You've gone away, but it's still there."
I had shifted into rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic, there, in addition to Yiddish, because that's how conversations like that work. So I had to admit that he had a point. "America thief," I said.
"America thief," he replied.
It's a phrase that means, "America, you clever rascal, you're a hell of a place," and which also means, "you take so much away, America." We meant different things by it, we were both right, and there was nothing else to say.
He hadn't touched the book, and hadn't said that he would, and I wasn't going to press it. I gave my dad two hundred bucks, most of which he'd probably give to charity, and I went home.
If Rothstein found out about what I'd done, he'd have my parents killed. He wouldn't, because the part of town he's from, there's a wall between people like me and people like my father. Also, by the time my father passed the book along, Rothstein would probably have forgotten about the whole thing, if he was still alive.
I'd have been better off if I hadn't done anything. Goldbug was never going to like me. But what the hell. Sometimes I do things because I have to, sometimes I do things I don't have to do.


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Related Resource
Elevation Data for Floodplain Mapping (February 2007)Report in Brief
Floodplain maps serve as the basis for determining whether homes or buildings require flood insurance under the National Flood Insurance Program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Approximately $650 billion in insured assets are now covered under the program. Under a funded mandate from Congress, FEMA is modernizing floodplain maps to better serve the program. However, concerns have been raised to Congress as to the adequacy of the "base map" information available to support floodplain map modernization. The National Research Council initiated this study to advise Congress and the nation on this issue. The report concludes that there is sufficient two-dimensional "base map imagery" available from digital orthophotos (aerial and satellite photographs similar to those viewed on Google Earth) to meet FEMA's flood map modernization goals. However, the three-dimensional "base elevation data" that are needed to determine whether a building should have flood insurance are not adequate. FEMA needs land surface elevation data that are about ten times more accurate than data currently available for most of the nation. The report recommends that new, high-accuracy digital elevation data be collected nationwide using laser measurements from aircraft (lidar technology). The new data should be input into the National Elevation Dataset that the U.S. Geological Survey maintains for use in support of flood map modernization and other applications. (*This report was titled Base Map Inputs for Floodplain Mapping in prepublication release.)


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Swan Girl Art Print Poster
Swan Girl Art Print Poster
Swan Girl A3 Poster Print on Silk Matte Quality 170 gsm Paper.
Sizing. A3 Print with white border and artist logo. 297 x 420 mm 11.7 x 16.5 inches.
Packaged with sturdy backing cardboard and plastic protective envelope and wrapped in gift tissue.
Please click on Photos to zoom in and see details and framed display.
(please note. does not come with wooden frame)
Add To Cart


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Price War: Walmart Is Latest to Drop Price of iPhone 5c
(NEW YORK) -- The iPhone 5c price drop war is on. After Best Buy announced Thursday that it was planning to offer Apple's iPhone 5c for $50 with a two-year contract -- nearly half of Apple's $99 price -- Walmart has announced that it will offer the phone for $45.
"This is what we do -- low prices is what we do," Sarah Spencer McKinney, director of corporate communications for Walmart, told ABC News. "As a price leader, we are always looking for ways to surprise our customers with low prices and disrupt the competition."
McKinney told ABC News to expect the price to remain at $45 throughout the holiday season. The deal began on Friday and is only available to customers in stores who sign a two-year contract on the handset.
While both Walmart and Best Buy maintain that this is just a deal to drive attention to the iPhone 5c, the price drop comes as the higher-end iPhone 5s has been sold out at various stores. The 5s has a faster processor, better camera and a new fingerprint reader embedded in the home button.
Apple declined to comment on the Best Buy or Walmart deals or on the specific sales numbers of the iPhone 5c.
"I think the 5c has gotten overshadowed and, given that the 5s isn't available everywhere, this is a way to get people excited about the latest and greatest Apple product," Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, told ABC News.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
ACS and Alpha Rae Denied Reasonable Accommodation and Fired Employee With Known Physical Limitations, Federal Agency Charged
INDIANAPOLIS – Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS), the company under contract with the State of Indiana to operate many of Indiana's public benefits programs, will pay $55,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.
The EEOC had charged in its suit (Civil Action No. 1:11-cv-00015-PPS-RBC in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division) that ACS and Alpha Rae Personnel, Inc., the staffing firm that supports the company, violated federal law by refusing to accommodate an employee's known disabilities and by terminating her assignment to ACS instead.
Such conduct violates the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement.
A consent decree agreed to by the EEOC, ACS and Alpha Rae and entered by the court requires that for the next three years ACS and Alpha Rae take action to track and respond appropriately to requests for accommodation, post and distribute a policy of non-discrimination, train its employees on non-discrimination and report to the EEOC on progress in this area.
"Although we recently celebrated the 20-year anniversary of the ADA, some employers still make the serious mistake of basing job placement decisions on a person's disabilities," said EEOC Regional Attorney Laurie Young. "This settlement will send a message to all employers that failure to reasonably accommodate disabilities will not be tolerated, and this agency will take all necessary steps to ensure compliance with equal employment opportunity laws."
The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination. Further information is available at www.eeoc.gov.


text: Postdoctoral Training Approval Page ContentAnnouncement: The AOA, ACGME and AACOM have agreed to a single accreditation system for graduate medical education programs in the U.S., with AOA-accredited training programs transitioning to ACGME accreditation between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2020. Read more and view Frequently Asked Questions. Osteopathic postdoctoral training programs are recognized throughout the United States in federal and state laws, rules and regulations. As the only accrediting agency for osteopathic graduate medical education, the AOA reviews and approves all training standards, establishes general policy, and reviews and approves all postdoctoral training programs. Program Site Reviews Inspection documents for AOA-approved postdoctoral training programs. View the documents. Specialty Standards Basic standards and inspection workbooks for AOA Postdoctoral Training Programs, organized by specialty college. Internship standards are listed separately. View the standards. Postdoctoral Training Councils Council on Postdoctoral Training The COPT is a representative body composed of members from AOA affiliate organizations created to assure that postdoctoral training programs are operating within approved standards, rules and regulations, and are providing educational training satisfactory to the public interest. Read the Handbook of the Council on Postdoctoral Training. Program and Trainee Review CouncilThe primary responsibilities of the PTRC are to serve as the decision making body for AOA-approved internship, residency, fellowship and subspecialty training programs and for individual training approvals. In this capacity, actions of the PTRC are final. The Council also serves as an advisory body on policy to the COPT. View the Handbook of the Program and Trainee Review Council. Council on Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training InstitutionsThe COPTI is the initial review body for OPTI accreditation and makes recommendations to the BOE for final action. Learn more by viewing the OPTI Accreditation Handbook. Related Links Postdoctoral Training Contact Inquiries concerning changes to documents and requests for current or archived documents should be sent to the AOA Division of Postdoctoral Training at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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|St. Vincent 1900 Census - William Ash, Enumerator
[Click to enlarge]
Census Population Counts:
1880 - 489
1890 - 507
1900 - 256
1910 - 328
1920 - 343
1930 - 304
1940 - 327
1950 - 272
1960 - 217
1970 - 177
1980 - 141
1990 - 116
I don't remember where I ran across the census figures for St. Vincent through the years, but since then I have often wondered why the dramatic decrease in population from 1890 to 1900, compared to other fluctuations up or down? It definitely wasn't because of crop failures; according to this source record from the time, things were going well in that department:
Having heard that crops were poor outside the Red River valley and that many would leave as soon as threshing was over, 1 walked and drove through Pembina, Walsh, Cavalier and Towner counties, North Dakota, and Kittson county, Minnesota, but found that generally the farmers in that vicinity were not suffering, and that their yield was so much better for 1890 than in preceding years that most of them would remain. - From Sessional Papers of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, Vol. 4.After that, there are changes both up and down fairly steady for a half century, then when 1960 hits, the steady decline began.
According to Rural Depopulation, the region in which St. Vincent is located - the Great Plains - has been experiencing depopulation "...more prevalent and more severe" than in any other region in the United States. In fact, the Great Plains is "...home to 304 of the country's 662 depopulating rural counties." On top of that, "...populations in rural counties in the Great Plains are significantly smaller than populations in...other depopulating regions, and the population density (people per square mile) is substantially less." That last statistic is the most disheartening, because low population makes viability of more and more small communities impossible.
Whatever the cause, the Great Plains of which we are a part, has been at a crossroads for a long time. People living here recognized this, and have been working hard to find new ways to keep their communities alive and healthy. Are we headed towards becoming the American Outback? Only time will tell...


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Weather Watch: Downsloping and a Temporary Bristol Desert
On the day before Thanksgiving, I awoke to see about what I expected to see outside - a couple of inches of wet snow.
The accumulation in East Middlebury was a bit less than forecast, but not surprisingly so. As we set off to drive to Connecticut to visit family, slushy snow was falling, with about two inches of accumulation. Along the Route 7 corridor, all the way to Rutland, snow accumulation ranged from a trace to three inches. Ludlow, a snowy town in the heart of the Green Mountains, had picked up near a foot of snow. As we headed east and dropped in elevation, I expected that snowfall totals would decrease. Instead, they remained quite high - all the way along Route 103 into Rockingham, there was at least 6 inches of snow accumulation. Even more surprising, I learned from a friend that Orwell and other parts of western Addison County also picked up about 6 inches of snow. East Middlebury seems to bear the brunt of most storms, but this time we were mostly skipped. What happened?
In this part of the world, storms tend to move from west to east. This means that everything from summer thunderstorms to chilly October cold fronts to midwinter Alberta Clippers tend to slam the west-facing slopes of the Green Mountains with heavy rain or snow. Precipitation on the side of the mountains facing the wind tends to be much higher than in the Champlain Valley. Nor'easters follow a different pattern as they move into Vermont from the southeast, but often include a period of wind from the north that can funnel rain or snow right into the Champlain Valley. It seems that every storm crossing the continent finds its way to our little town.
Last week's storm was a bit different. It brought winds straight out of the east. As the air descended out of the Green Mountains into the Champlain Valley, in a process called downsloping, the normally-stormy western slopes of the Green Mountains became warmer and drier than their surroundings. During this particular storm we were in a 'rain shadow'. It was almost as if Bristol, East Middlebury, and Brandon were in a temporary, localized desert. The least snowy spot in the region was actually Underhill - in this case Mount Mansfield actually sheltered its western slopes from the storm.
Wind rarely comes straight from the east during storms, so our region's temporary desert usually doesn't show up. The rains of this week certainly did not avoid East Middlebury. Rain and snow forecast for the next seven days don't look like they will be blown in on an east wind either, so I'm not sure when we'll see the return of our temporary localized desert climate.
Click here to see a more detailed version of the snow totals map posted above.
Charlie Hohn is a recent graduate of the UVM Field Naturalist graduate program. He has been closely watching the weather ever since he was a child in southern California. Charlie will be posting occasional blog posts here about Addison County weather. He also maintains a blog about water at slowwatermovement.blogspot.com.


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I burned through this game
It took me about 34.5 hours to beat the game beginning to end and along the way any skepticism I had about purchasing the game was abolished. The gameplay and innovation were on the same level and higher than smaller projects I had enjoyed. There were no bugs such as those found in Blackguard or voice acting fails such as in Two Worlds Two. The gameplay was tough enough to keep me on my seat at an advanced setting but doable such that I could power through it.
by Paul Fischer, USA - Nov 22nd 2017


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In all its history, the American West never saw a more unlikely band of pioneers than the four hundred-odd who were camped on the bank of the Iowa River at Iowa City in early June, 1856. They were not colorful—only improbable. Looking for the brown and resolute and weather-seasoned among them, you would have seen instead starved cheeks, pale skins, bad teeth, thin chests, all the stigmata of unhealthy work and inadequate diet. There were more women than men, more children under fifteen than either. One in every ten was past fifty, the oldest a woman of seventy-eight; there were widows and widowers with six or seven children. They looked more like the population of the poor farm on a picnic than like pioneers about to cross the plains.
Most of them, until they were herded from the crowded immigrant ship and loaded into the cars and rushed to the end of the Rock Island Line and dumped here at the brink of the West, had never pitched a tent, slept on the ground, cooked outdoors, built a campfire. They had not even the rudimentary skills that make frontiersmen. But as it turned out, they had some of the stuff that makes heroes.
Mainly Englishmen from the depressed collieries and mill towns… they were the casualties of the industrial revolution, life's discards, to whom Mormonism had brought its irresistible double promise of a new start on earth and a guaranteed Hereafter. They did not differ in any essential, unless perhaps in their greater poverty, from hundreds and thousand who had started for Zion before them. But their intention was more brash—was so impudent it was almost sublime. Propertyless, ill-equipped, untried and untrained, they were not only going to Zion, they were gong to walk there, nearly fourteen hundred miles, having their belongings on handcarts. (Stegner , pp 221-2)
For studying the handcart pioneers, this book is a must. Stegner has a way of writing which is very nice and so I would recommend this book. However I would overlook some of his work with regards to background, and take it as his listening to the wrong sources, or deciding incorrectly who is the most neutral.


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Guillaume Gaudet
Chrysler in SohoAbout this photograph
« Whilst going up Mercer Street, in the area of Soho in Manhattan, the Chrysler Building can be made out. The autumnal end of day light that day particularly highlighted the skyscraper?s sparkling roof. It contrasts with the street lamps and the forged iron fire escapes dating from the 19 th century, the signature of Manhattan?s historic area. The ?John Lennon, the New York Years? exhibition poster recalls that in the ?70?s Soho was the ultra trendy area for the current artists. » GGRead more Read less
|Standard Delivery
|Classic, Colorful
|Giant, Collector, Exception
Guillaume Gaudet is a commercial and editorial photographer based in New York. He developed a taste for travel and discovering new cultures from his childhood, which he spent living in several different countries, including Spain, Argentina, and Germany. After a career in public relations in Paris, he moved to New York in 2007. As soon as he arrived, he fell in love with this bustling city. He has always been passionate about photography and the urban landscape and melting pot atmosphere of the Big Apple has become an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. Through a particular lighting, architecture or slice of life, he strives to capture in each of his photos a little piece of the soul of the city and its energy.


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If you're like me, then all the uproar in the news the past few days has you asking the hard questions about our society.
Specifically, what the heck is "Sharknado," and why is everyone talking about it?
Well, after extensive research*, I've determined that a sharknado is what happens when one of these:
(*I watched the trailer.)
... picks up some of these:
... and dumps them on a group of D-list actors in the midst of painfully-scripted relationship woes.
This is all, of course, due to climate change.
Now, you might expect a tornado dumping the ocean's contents onto dry land to look like this:
Saddest. Birthday cake. EVER.
But happily Hollywood has set the record straight by revealing it would actually look like this:
Only with more chainsaws. And explosions. And bad one-liners. ("Give 'em a hand!")
There are also plenty of bombs being thrown from helicopters because - why didn't I think of this? - the D-list actors have to shoot the sharks out of the sky:
Pew pew, monkey fighters!
If you're starting to think this just might be the greatest movie ever made, then I should warn you that the sharks do NOT come with frickin' laser beams on their heads. (Sorry, Dr. Evil.)
However, it does "star" Tara Reid, so those of us who haven't seen it yet can still hold out hope for a happy ending.
Don't worry; I have it on good authority she went in there with a chainsaw.
Thanks to Ted S., Jennifer M., Liz B., Boo, Thia S., & Marley Y. for the classic "fish-out-of-water" tale.


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The famous Nortada wind and the beautiful bay of Cascais will form a spectacular combination and the perfect backdrop for the world's best sailors to take centre stage. Over 1,600 athletes from 75 nations are set to battle for eleven World Championship titles and Olympic qualification in the biggest-ever event for the Olympic Classes and one of the highlights of ISAF's Centenary year.
All Media wishing to attend the Championships will require accreditation. The Media Accreditation application form is available online at the Championship website www.cascaisworlds2007.com and should be completed by 31 May. After 31 May, on-site accreditations only will be available.
About The 2007 ISAF Worlds
The 2007 ISAF Sailing World Championships will take place from 28 June-13 July in Cascais, Portugal. 'The Wind Is Calling' is the official motto for the 2007 Worlds. The Championships are the principal qualification regatta for the 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition, with 75% of all national places to be decided.
For all the news on the ISAF Sailing World Championships 2007 CLICK HERE.


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In February of 2012, as the Obama administration sought to placate the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) objections to contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act, a new wrinkle in the debate took observers by surprise. Anthony Picarello, the USCCB's general counsel, protested that exemptions and accommodations for churches and religious charities didn't go far enough. "If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell," Picarello said, "I'd be covered by the mandate."
This was the first time one of the religious objectors to the proposed regulation had raised the prospect of an exemption for for-profit, corporate entities. "We thought it was laughable at the time," says Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has filed amicus briefs in support of the government's position in lawsuits later brought by for-profit companies. "I'm not laughing anymore."
Last month, in the first appellate decision in these cases, the Tenth Circuit ruled in favor of arts-and-crafts chain Hobby Lobby and its affiliated chain of Christian bookstores, Mardel. The court found that corporations have the standing to sue under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and have free-exercise rights under the First Amendment. "A religious individual may enter the for-profit realm intending to demonstrate to the marketplace that a corporation can succeed financially while adhering to religious values," a majority of the court's full en banc panel of eight judges wrote. "As a court, we do not see how we can distinguish this form of evangelism from any other."
Conservatives were elated. "What the Tenth Circuit did en banc is extraordinarily significant for this case and the prosecution of all the other [Health and Human Services] mandate cases," says Kyle Duncan, counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Hobby Lobby. The question of whether a for-profit business has a right to sue under RFRA and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, said Duncan, was the "key question" in the case. "From our point of view," he added, "it was a very, very significant win."
The Anatomy of a Legal Challenge
Most observers agree that the legal questions raised in the Hobby Lobby case will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. While it is not clear which of the 33 cases brought by businesses against the government will reach the highest court, the legal claims are the same. Three other federal appeals courts, the Third, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits, heard oral arguments around the same time as the Hobby Lobby argument, but have not yet ruled. The Eighth and D.C. Circuits will hear cases in the fall.
But the Hobby Lobby case has been one of the most closely watched of the 33 business lawsuits against the government. The chain, based in Oklahoma, has over 500 stores nationwide, with 13,000 full-time employees on its insurance plan. Unlike other for-profit plaintiffs, many of which are small local businesses, including heating and air-conditioning contractors, cabinet makers, and Bible publishers, Hobby Lobby is a well-known Bible belt brand. Its case has become a cause célèbre among conservative activists for its "bold stand for religious freedom," in the words of Concerned Women for America. Last month, Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition awarded the company's president the Courage in Business Leadership Award.
Hobby Lobby's billionaire founder and CEO, David Green, and its president, Green's son Steve, have promoted themselves as patriotic Christians who serve God through their business endeavors. Their lawsuit speaks to religious conservatives who have been swept up in activism by politicians and clerics claiming that laws protecting women's rights to reproductive health, or legal equality for LGBT people amount to government "persecution," imposing "unprecedented" threats to their religious freedom—and by extension, they claim, the very survival of their businesses. Their lawsuit, and the story of their "Christian" business, is part of a narrative that religious conservatives and Republican lawmakers have pushed since Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, unwittingly made Sandra Fluke a star after excluding her testimony from a hearing on whether the Obama administration "has trampled on freedom of religion."
The Greens, who declined to be interviewed for this article, say the success of the Hobby Lobby case is God rewarding their faithfulness. In a speech last year to the Great Commission World Summit, a group that gathers businessmen and women to raise money for global evangelizing organization International Cooperating Ministries, David Green, who now has a net worth of $4.5 billion, recounted his company's humble beginnings. In 1970, he and his wife Barbara borrowed $600 and began making miniature picture frames in their Oklahoma City home. Two years later, they opened the first Hobby Lobby store. For the past 40 years, "we have tried to run our business in a way that would be pleasing to our savior," Green said. In 2012, the company had $3 billion sales. "To God be the glory," said Green. "I feel God's anointing on my life and in my work."
"Using business and businessmen to proliferate certain moral 'norms'" says Darren Grem, a historian at the University of Mississippi and author of the forthcoming book, Corporate Revivals: A Business History of Born-Again America. "was vital for the construction of evangelicalism as we now know it." In that narrative, Grem adds, "business is sacred" and the state is the "enemy" of "godly forms of consumerism: the local business or large-scale 'Christian' corporation."
At issue in Hobby Lobby's lawsuit is far more than whether its employees will have coverage for all 20 methods of birth control Department of Health and Human Services regulations require employers to cover free of co-pays and deductibles. The suit, and others like it, is asking the courts to recognize for-profit corporations as entities with religious consciences that can be, in the legal parlance of RFRA, "substantially burdened" by government regulations.
The burden, Hobby Lobby argued, and the Tenth Circuit agreed, is that the government will impose fines of $100 per employee per day for failing to comply with the coverage requirement, potentially totaling $475 million in fines per year. That, the court found, amounted to a "Hobson's choice," forcing Hobby Lobby to choose between "catastrophic fines or violating its religious beliefs."
Duncan maintained that the notion of a corporation having religious-freedom rights was "not a novel proposition," but admitted there were no cases "squarely on point." The vociferous dissents in Tenth Circuit's 168-page opinion point to the conflicting legal theories that in all likelihood will be sorted out by the Supreme Court. The Tenth Circuit's chief judge, Mary Beck Briscoe, excoriated the majority for finding that the operation of a successful for-profit corporation could be seen as a "form of evangelism," effectively deeming them "faith-based businesses" entitled to free-exercise rights. That, Briscoe contended, "is nothing short of a radical revision of First Amendment law, as well as the law of corporations."
Corporate plaintiffs, including Hobby Lobby, have argued that the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which recognized free-speech rights for corporations, bolstered their claim that corporations have rights under the Free Exercise Clause. But Marty Lederman, a professor at Georgetown University Law School and an expert on religious-freedom issues, said that the free-speech ruling does not translate to the free exercise context. "It's not at all obvious that a for-profit corporation can be injured in that way—a corporation doesn't have a conscience, or religious obligations," Lederman said.
Unlike Catholic plaintiffs, which oppose covering all methods of birth control, Hobby Lobby is refusing only to cover intrauterine devices and the emergency contraceptives Ella and Plan B, which they claim are abortifacients. Hobby Lobby says that its deeply held religious conviction is that "life begins at conception." Because, it claims (contrary to medical evidence), emergency contraception and IUDs can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, it considers these drugs and devices "abortifacients." (Conservative activists have taken to calling the contraception coverage requirement the "abortion pill" or "abortion drug" mandate.)
Dr. Anne Davis, Consulting Medical Director to Physicians for Reproductive Health (PRH), which filed an amicus brief in the case, says that the "essence of their argument is that they believe that pregnancy occurs at fertilization. No major medical organization endorses that idea." Rather, she says, a pregnancy test is not positive until implantation has occurred.
The emergency contraceptives Ella and Plan B do not interfere with implantation, but rather with ovulation, says Davis. The copper IUD can be used for conventional or emergency contraception, but "it's spermicidal. So the sperm don't make it past the uterus." There is, as PRH noted in its brief, some evidence that the copper IUD may alter the endometrial lining, thus preventing implantation. But, Davis says, frequently fertilized eggs never implant, for unknown reasons, so to attribute a failure to implant to the remote possibility that it was caused by the IUD misses the point.
"They've got people hypnotized into thinking that fertilization is pregnancy," says Davis. "You can believe whatever you want, you can have your own beliefs about what these things mean to you," but "these are not abortifacients."
The Tenth Circuit zeroed in on PRH's statement that one of the devices in question, the copper IUD, could change conditions for implantation. "We need not wade into scientific waters here," the court wrote in a footnote, "given the above-noted agreement that some of the challenged devices function in a manner that Hobby Lobby and Mardel find morally problematic."
"Biblical Principles"
Hobby Lobby's overt religiosity—beyond the piety of its owners—seemed to further persuade the court of its need for legal protection. Its stores close on Sundays to allow workers time for family and church. The company pays above federally mandated minimum wage, currently $14 per hour for full-time employees and $9.50 per hour for part-time employees. Every Christmas, Easter, and Fourth of July, the company takes out newspaper advertisements proclaiming belief in Jesus Christ as lord and savior, America's founding as a Christian nation, and evangelizing non-believers.
But a Christian foundation for a company does not always translate to the workplace. Charity Carney, a historian who has studied mega-churches, worked at the Nacadoches, a Texas Hobby Lobby location in the summer of 2011, when she was between teaching jobs. She says that although the stores are officially closed on Sundays, "they keep employees for as long as they need to"— including on Sundays and weeknights past closing time—in order to stock shelves or ready merchandise for the next day. Carney's employment at Hobby Lobby came to an abrupt end when she refused, after working a 12-hour day, to stay into the night to help set up Christmas ornaments. The manager "basically told me if I left I shouldn't come back," Carney says.
Every staff meeting, Carney says, began with a reading from the Bible and a prayer. The employee handbook, which she said was kept in the store but not distributed to employees, included biblical references.
Despite the company's religious bent, Carney also described an atmosphere of sexual harassment, with employees photographing women's backsides with their cell phones and laughing about it, as well as a "culture of crude talk," which she says management turned a "blind eye" to.
Through a spokesperson, Hobby Lobby said, "To our knowledge, we have not received any formal complaints of this nature from this store, which would give us an opportunity to fully investigate the situation. If she would like to file a formal complaint, we will certainly address any policy violations. It is not our practice to discuss personnel issues."
In his 2005 book, More Than A Hobby: How a $600 Start Up Became America's Home & Craft Superstore, which Carney says was heavily marketed in her store, the elder Green paints a nostalgic picture of his down-home company that grew in part because of the dedication of its employees.
He devotes a chapter to explaining why the company minimally uses computers, and doesn't use barcodes and scanners for merchandise: "We insist that computers remain our servants, not our masters." Carney said cashiers must input prices by hand, and check a list of sale items in order to give the customer the right price, a process she described as "really inefficient."
"Truth" in a Vacant Strip Mall
Beyond their stores, and beyond the elder Green's unmatched generosity to evangelical causes, Steve Green, Hobby Lobby's president, has launched an ambitious project to protect and preserve the Bible, biblical education, and what conservative evangelicals call a "Christian worldview." In his 2011 book, Faith in America: The Powerful Impact of One Company Speaking Out Boldly, Green endorses the idea that there is "biblical truth" that conflicts with other ways of looking at the world. "[I]t isn't really possible to just coexist and get along," he writes. "Truth isn't inclusive. It's exclusive."
In a speech earlier this year after receiving the National Bible Association's John M. Templeton Biblical Values Award, Green discussed his plan to develop a public-school Bible curriculum. "This nation is in danger because of its ignorance of what God has taught. ... If we don't know it, our future is going to be very scary."
Last year, through a $50 million grant from the National Christian Foundation, one of the largest donor-advised funds in the country, a non-profit formed by the Greens purchased the Washington Design Center in Washington, D.C., for a future Bible museum that will house Green's collection of biblical artifacts and texts, which he claims is the largest private collection in the world.
Currently, part of Green's collection is on display in a traveling exhibition called "Passages," which is housed in a box store strip mall on a forlorn stretch of Colorado Springs, Colorado, sandwiched between a two vacant stores and a Bargain Mart.
Inside, an array of artifacts, including several scraps of the Dead Sea Scrolls, are displayed alongside kitsch. One moment you can look through a glass case at some of the earliest editions of the King James Bible, in pristine condition. The next, you can see a talking mechanical wax figure of William Tyndale, who was executed by King Henry VIII for translating the Bible into English and distributing it to the masses. About to be burned at the stake, the figure prays that the people "read the translation of the Bible I died for."
While claiming to be an ecumenical history of the Bible, the exhibit takes a distinctly Protestant view, focusing largely on the martyrdom of Reformation figures like Tyndale, Martin Luther, and even Anne Boleyn, a mechanical figure of whom proclaims, "As I await my fate, all I ask is to cling to my Tyndale New Testament."
Although the exhibit does contain Jewish relics, including numerous Torah scrolls, the one room dedicated to Jewish persecution during pogroms and the Holocaust is treated as a cautionary tale for Christians. An introductory video at the start of the exhibit lists the Holocaust room as one of the five "must-sees" in the museum. That room "poses the most alarming what-if," the narrators say, hinting at the themes of the conservative campaign for "religious liberty," of which the contraception lawsuits are a part. "What if the biblical books and scrolls in Passages were relics of people that no longer existed?" the narrators ask. "No churches, no temples, none of the hospitals, schools, or charities they support, that promote freedom, well-being and human dignity?"
Courts and Legislators Weigh In
While it's widely thought that one of the business cases will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court to challenge the contraception coverage mandate, congressional Republicans aren't waiting for the Court to rule. They've introduced the Health Care Conscience Rights Act, which would, among other things, create an exemption for any religious objector to contraception coverage, whether for-profit or non-profit. The bill was promoted last month at a forum on the "Fight to Preserve Religious Liberty" at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which featured its House co-sponsors, Representatives Joe Pitts, a Republican from Pennsylvania; Diane Black, a Republican from Tennessee; and Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey. While the bill has 180 co-sponsors in the House, its prospects in the Senate are considerably weaker. As a result, Pitts said there that Majority Leader Eric Cantor was receptive to a plan to attach the bill to a "must-pass" piece of legislation like a continuing resolution for appropriations or raising the debt ceiling limit.
Should the Supreme Court uphold the Tenth Circuit's holding in Hobby Lobby's case, or a similar one from another appeals court, "it could have significant implications for religious liberty cases and for corporate law," Lederman said, cautioning that "it's still very uncertain how the questions will be framed if and when the Court takes on the issue." The ACLU's Melling said that such a ruling, along with a future passage of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, for example, which would bar discrimination against LGBT people, could lead to challenges that an employer's religious beliefs should relieve them from complying with the law.
But Chief Judge Briscoe sounded a more urgent alarm in her dissent. The majority's "ultimate holding, which is unprecedented," she wrote, "is sufficiently ambiguous that neither the majority nor anyone else can confidently predict where it may lead." For Hobby Lobby, however, the path is clear. As Steve Green writes in his book, "It is time for our nation to make a decision on what direction it is going to take": to serve God or to "turn to the other gods."
This report was supported by a 2012 Knight Grant for Reporting on Religion and American Public Life. The Knight Grants are a program of the University of Southern California's Knight Program in Media and Religion.


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A lawyer for detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay has been invited to speak at McHenry County College as part of an ongoing discussion series hosted by a student peace group.
Marc D. Falkoff, a criminal law professor at Northern Illinois University, is scheduled to speak about a book of detainee poetry titled "Poems from Guantanamo: Where is the world to save us from torture?" at 7 p.m. Dec. 3 at the college's conference center, 8900 Route 14 in Crystal Lake.
Falkoff edited the book of poetry and served as the principal lawyer in representing the unlawful detainment action of 17 Guantanamo detainees, according to a news release from the Student Peace Action Network.
The subject matter is especially timely given recent talks of transferring Guantanamo detainees to an underused prison in the Northwestern Illinois city of Thomson, SPAN action coordinator Molly McQueen said.
The lecture is free and open to the public.


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Two Football Players Earn CC HonorsTwo Muhlenberg football players were honored by the Centennial Conference for their play in 38-18 win against Susquehanna.
Sunday, October 6, 2013 11:29 AM
Junior linebacker Jeremey Thomas was named defensive player of the week, and junior kick returner Cody Geyer was named co-special teams player of the week.
Thomas (left) had five tackles for loss among his seven stops for a Muhlenberg defensive unit that allowed only 144 yards, nine first downs and three points (15 of the points were scored against the offense and special teams). One of his tackles for loss was a sack that forced a fumble on a third-down play, and he also intercepted a pass.
Thomas is third in the CC with 9½ tackles for loss and is tied for sixth with 3½ sacks. He is one of three players in the league to have forced two fumbles this season.
Geyer (right) returned six kicks for 174 yards and made the game-changing play, an 82-yard punt return with the Mules trailing 5-0 in the second quarter to set up the go-ahead touchdown. He set a school record by averaging 35.0 yards on four punt returns and amassed 265 all-purpose yards, the most by a Muhlenberg player since 2003.
Geyer is second in the CC with his average of 20.2 yards on punt returns; his 242 yards on punt returns at the midpoint of the season are already the most by a Mule since 2005. He also ranks second in the CC in yards per catch (21.9).


text: Legacy Emanuel's commitment to the community As Legacy Emanuel began its second century of service to the community, it was past time for us to formally address the demolition of the North Albina neighborhood and the relocation of residents and businesses as part of an urban renewal program in the 1970s. While the hospital did not conduct the demolition or relocation, it was done largely on its behalf. This process, and the way in which it was carried out, is one of many injustices that were inflicted on the African-American community in years past. The 100th year of service of Emanuel to the community has been a fitting time to reconcile this unfortunate chapter in its history with its present and future of service. Today, we operate what was then called Emanuel Hospital. We are not the same organization, but we now own both its name and its legacy. It falls to us to acknowledge what happened. We certainly cannot fully understand the pain and sense of loss of those affected, but we have heard it and we are saddened by it. We are saddened by the loss of what was once a thriving and diverse community. We honor the generosity of spirit of those who shared their stories with us so that we might better understand. We cannot undo what was done, and we cannot restore the lost neighborhood. We are determined, however, to honor the memory of the neighborhood and the lives of its people. We have created a comprehensive, thoroughly researched, detailed history of the events and the disruption caused to those who were relocated. You can view the report here. Also, historical source materials are available to historians and researchers. We have established an exhibit commemorating the neighborhood, in a publicly accessible space on our campus. We pledge to continue to be the good neighbor and community partner that present-day Emanuel has been. We are offering and committing to a process by which the community can be involved as we consider the future development of the Legacy Emanuel campus. We do this because it is the right thing to do. Part of healing is acknowledging past wrongs and and ensuring that they are never repeated. By reconciling with the past, we can create the future ─ together.