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Private Security Contractors Try To Shut Down Journalist Using Legal Threats And Claims Of Harassment
from the plausible-deniability:-ur-doing-it-wrong dept
Post-Boston bombing, everyone's talking about surveillance and privacy. Those doing most of the talking seem to think we need more of the former and less of the latter. And there's no getting these legislators and law enforcement officials to shut up about it, either. It almost as if they believe repetition converts false presumptions into incontrovertible facts.
Ryan Gallagher, writing for Slate, finally found someone (actually, several of them) with affinities towards increased surveillance that not only don't want to talk about the issue, but also don't want Gallagher talking about it either.
Gallagher was putting together an article on the upcoming reopening of the Statue of Liberty after its extended post-Hurricane Sandy closure. More to the point, he was curious about the updated surveillance equipment (including state-of-the-art facial recognition software) that would be making its debut at the same time.
A few weeks ago, those involved seemed willing to discuss the new system and point out its impressive features.
In March, Statue of Liberty superintendent Dave Luchsinger told me that plans were underway to install an upgraded surveillance system in time for the reopening. "We are moving forward with the proposal that Total Recall has come up with," he said, adding that "[new] systems are going in, and I know they are state of the art."But when Gallagher attempted to gather a few details about the new facial recognition software (FaceVACS, made by German firm Cognitec and deployed by surveillance contractor Total Recall Corp.), no one seemed willing to provide any clear answers.
"We do work with Cognitec, but right now because of what happened with Sandy it put a lot of different pilots that we are doing on hold," Peter Millius, Total Recall's director of business development, said in a phone call. "It's still months away, and the facial recognition right now is not going to be part of this phase." Then, he put me hold and came back a few minutes later with a different position—insisting that the face-recognition project had in fact been "vetoed" by the Park Police and adding that I was "not authorized" to write about it.That's a rather odd statement. Millius may not be authorized to talk about it, but I highly doubt private security contractors can claim a journalist is not authorized to write about it. They can react to what's written via comments or statements, but telling a writer they can't write about something pretty much guarantees it will be written about.
Millius' bizarre "order" was followed up by an email from Cognitec's marketing manager Elke Oberg. Oberg told Gallagher one day earlier that Cognitec's software would be implemented at the Statue of Liberty. The email he received a day later contained both a denial... and a threat.
Now, Oberg had sent a letter ordering me to "refrain from publishing any information about the use of face recognition at the Statue of Liberty." It said that I had "false information," that the project had been "cancelled," and that if I wrote about it, there would be "legal action."Gallagher also received a nearly identical email from Total Recall Inc., again warning him against publishing any information on the software's on-again, off-again deployment. Even more bizarrely, Millius claimed he would pursue charges of harassment against Gallagher if he persisted in seeking answers to his questions. Representatives for the National Park Service also refused to confirm or deny any software installation.
There's a one-way street in effect here and it's being paved with discarded privacy and civil liberties. These security contractors (and their employers) want to gather as much info as they can, but when pressed for details on their software and devices they respond with diversionary tactics and threats.
The great irony here, of course, is that this is a story about a statue that stands to represent freedom and democracy in the modern world. Yet at the heart of it are corporations issuing crude threats in an attempt to stifle legitimate journalism—and by extension dictate what citizens can and cannot know about the potential use of contentious surveillance tools used to monitor them as they visit that very statue.That's the problem -- one of many -- with the growing surveillance "culture" in America. Lots of private corporations are landing lucrative government contracts to, in essence, spy on American citizens. These companies, and the legislators and law enforcement officials that support them, deploy more and more surveillance technology and expect US citizens to hand over their dwindling privacy without offering any more of a guarantee than a "you're just going to have to trust us" statement. And yet, they provide example after example of how they cannot be trusted with this power.
Furthermore, should surveillance this sensitive really be handled by companies whose reaction to a few questions is to attempt to silence the questioner with legal threats and implausible statements about what he is or isn't "authorized" to write about? What we certainly don't need in this country is another opaque layer of "security" surrounding our public places, especially one created and serviced by two companies with some serious control issues.
Filed Under: boston, ryan gallagher
Companies: slate


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Marine Corps Automotive
Spending time as part of the greatest fighting force ever assembled creates a sense of duty, honor, and pride that you want everyone to know about. The best way to make sure that everyone knows about your affiliation with the Marines is to have it displayed on or in your vehicle. USMC automotive products will help you remember your glory days in the Corps.
Show your Marine Corps Pride with Automotive products from eMarine PX. Great selection of hitch covers, car grill badges, sun shades, car mats, magnets, license plates and license plate frames and a whole lot more.
Get your Marine Corps car accessories below and show your colors. When Semper Fi is more than just 2 words, your vehicle should reflect your service. Order the accessories that show your love for your country and your fellow Marines. Oorah!
Hitch Covers
License Plate Frames
License Plates
USMC Auto Emblems
Auto Magnets
Motorcycle Plate Frames
Miscellaneous Automotive

subset: commoncrawl


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Blocked And Clogged Up Guttering Solutions Longford
Looking for a local and reputable roofing team that can provide a guttering and roofing repair/replacement service ?
Is your guttering blocked or clogged up? Our team has handled numerous callouts with his issue and have many years experience of dealing with issues like this.
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Guttering is critical to any building but if it is not working properly then it can cause endless problems inside your home and these problems eventually over time will prove costly to repair. Mould and damp can set in and the interior of your home will be affected by:
- Musty smells
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We have a number of company based spread out through Shropshire, Staffordshire and the west midlands so we will always be just down the road.
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With 30+ years establisheded service supplier, we have the skills and expertise to complete jobs quickly and efficiently.
We also utilise state-of-the-art equipment to ensure the work is completed to a high standard.
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At the time of completion each job is inspected for quality assurance to confirm that the entire job meets our high standards of excellence. We have repaired hundreds of improperly installed roofs and valleys as well as wall flashing's, chimney flashing's and skylight flashing's.
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We believe that quality workmanship and skill along side traditional building skills keeps our service professional and our customers happy.
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Sticker Forms
by Hygloss
High quality, glossy, self-adhesive stickers let you create pictures and decorative craft projects. Package of three brightly colored sheets of basic shape forms. Acid free.
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USU's IMA Chapter Receives Multiple Awards - October 2013
September 2013
Congratulations to our IMA student chapter who not only received a 2012-2013 Gold Award of Excellence (for the 18th consecutive year), but was selected as one of only four IMA chapters in the nation to receive an Outstanding Student Chapter award for the 2012-13 academic year. In addition, the chapter has the prestigious honor of also being awarded Best Strategic Plan, Best Program & Activities, and Best Communications of all IMA chapters in the nation for the past academic year. For their outstanding performance, chapter officers will receive a $1,000 cash award and trophies at the annual Student Leadership Conference in Charlotte, NC, in November. Frank Shuman has served as chapter advisor for the past 18 years.


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2016-10-04 - We speak to Carmen Folch and Fernando Ballesteros about combining a career with a large family - and their life as Bugaboo pioneers. "Our home life is wonderfully chaotic!"
Carmen Martinez Folch and Fernando Ballester live in Valencia, Spain and are entrepreneurs: Carmen has two high-end opticians and is about to open her third; and Fernando owns a pharmacy. They combine their busy life at work with an even busier life at home, as they have four children: Carmeta (12), Fernando (10), Alicia (7) and Blanca (4). Ten years ago, cutting edge Spanish lifestyle magazine NEO2 wrote an article about families as early adopters to Bugaboo. We hear from one of them a decade later to see how their lives have changed and how they remember their Bugaboo years.
First of all - you both have your own businesses - how do you balance your career with your family?
We have four very active children - and four is quite a lot! So our home life is wonderfully chaotic. As anyone with a large family will tell you, it takes tons of hard work, but it's also incredibly gratifying. But you do need a lot of energy.
We took the plunge and started our family at the same time as both of us were setting up our businesses. Starting your own enterprise is incredibly exciting, but you also need a lot of time, commitment and focus. All of the things you probably don't have when you have young children and babies!
So in the beginning it was quite challenging, but nowadays we are able to balance things much better than in the past. Our businesses have grown and are now established. Once we were able to hire people everything changed as we no longer had to do every single thing ourselves; we became much more flexible. Life is fantastic now but it's taken us a while to get here.
What's your secret to family life?
There is no secret! But we believe it's all about staying true to yourself and your ambitions, being active, getting out and about – for example we've always spent a lot of time outdoors with our family, hiking and walking. Right from the beginning, even when our kids were tiny babies. And we try to have lunch together every single day. That's our special family moment!
So did all four children grow up with Bugaboo?
Absolutely! That's why we call ourselves Bugaboo pioneers: we were there right from the start. We got our first Bugaboo stroller over 10 years ago, for our first daughter Carmeta. That was a Bugaboo Frog, which we loved. Since then we have also had the Bugaboo Cameleon and the Bugaboo Bee. So we're actually a three-stroller family! But if we had to pick our favorite it would definitely be the Bugaboo Cameleon, which we chose because of its design. We saw it in a magazine and instantly fell in love. We still have our Bugaboo Cameleon and we genuinely adore it – this may sound a bit silly, but it's almost like it's part of the family.
What do your children want to be in the future?
Our son wants to be pharmacist like Fernando. So he's inspired by his father which is really cute and makes us quite proud. Although, who knows, he may change his mind yet! Our eldest daughter isn't sure yet, but she loves painting and crafts - and the others all love music, so I think they may do something in the arts. The truth is they don't know yet and they have all the time in the world to work out their own future. We would love them to continue the pioneering family tradition and set up their own businesses like we did… But the most important thing is that they discover their passion and find their own niche in life.
Check out the complete article about these Bugaboo Pioneers in NEO2 (in Spanish).
Interview: Sofía Dos Santos
Family Portrait: Javier Ferrer
Extract (images and text) from "Los pioneros" in Spanish Magazine Neo2 Magazine


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James Bond Skyfall Nail Polish | Video
Sneak a Peek at the New James Bond Nail Polish
It's Global James Bond Day, marking 50 years since 007's film debut in Dr. No. And sure, James Bond is suave and debonair, but if you ask us, Bond girls have the most fun on and off screen. To mark next month's release of Skyfall, Bond is back with an unexpected accessory: nail polish. Watch the video to preview OPI's collection of colors, and discover how Bond girls have (and haven't) changed over the years.


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What follows is a modified version of a talk that I, on behalf of The Pro Pinoy Project, delivered last 20 February 2012 at Saint Louis University, Baguio City, as one of the resource speakers for the Digital Technology for Social Change: Creating Impact in a Networked Society seminar series, a project of the British Council Philippines.
My fellow speakers were Niña Terol-Zialcita, Micheline Rama, and JP Alipio. Members of the British Council Global Changemakers network, namely Jecel Censoro, Joseph Mansilla, Anna Oposa, Dwight Ronan, and Ponce Samaniego, also talked about their respective advocacy projects.
Some Notes on Digitizing Social Change
Good morning. Thank you to the British Council Philippines and Saint Louis University for having me here, and to all the participants for the gift of your presence—or your tele-presence, for those of you watching the live stream of this session.
That the Internet has brought about, and will continue to bring about, wide and sweeping changes all over the planet would appear to be a matter already beyond question. In 2006, the print edition of TIME's annual Person of the Year issue bore a shiny, reflective panel on its cover—the reason being that the Person of the Year was "You". Lev Grossman, explaining the choice, wrote that one of the stories of 2006 was a "story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes".
Grossman was referring to the dramatic impact brought about by Web 2.0, an umbrella term, that, following Prashant Sharma, covers online services that were built to facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, crowd-sourcing, and collaboration. And while Grossman did warn against romanticizing Web 2.0—despairing at, among other things, the hatred and the lack of spelling skills that many of its users seemed to have in abundance—he nevertheless asserted that it gave rise to the "opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person".
Regardless of whether "You" was the right pick, it is worth pointing out that succeeding Person of the Year issues saw TIME recognizing people who, without the Internet, might not have otherwise been thus acknowledged. In 2008, the magazine selected Barack Obama, whose successful campaign to be the President of the United States of America was driven in no insignificant way by online support. In 2010, the recognition went to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of an immensely popular social networking company—you may have heard of it: it's called Facebook, and it recently filed for an initial public offering (IPO) worth USD5 billion. Last year, TIME chose "The Protester" in view of the massive demonstrations that—with the help of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, among other tools—were organized and still roil across the globe: in Europe and North America, in the Middle East and North Africa.
Given the theme of this seminar series—"Digital Media for Social Change: Creating Impact in a Networked Society"—it might be the aforementioned protests that spring to mind when we, with an eye to our own history of revolutions, try to imagine what can be done in the Philippines today. Using digital media, can we bring about positive social change? Or—to paraphrase from the preamble of our Constitution, a document which is supposed to be an expression of our collective will as the sovereign Filipino people—using digital media, can we promote the common good? Conserve and develop our patrimony? Share and enjoy the blessings of independence and democracy? Establish a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace?
Yes. Yes, of course. If I didn't believe that, I would never have come before you to speak at this forum. (Incidentally, the girl in the picture has "optimistic" written across her hand in Arabic.) And yet the previous questions were more than merely rhetorical ones. Social change must always be understood as taking place within specific constraints, and especially so when we seek change by digital means in these islands. Such constraints cannot simply be conquered or transcended by sheer force of will—they form part of the unavoidable "social thickness" that must be lived through and negotiated with.
It hardly needs saying that I am not a Luddite: I own a mobile phone, a laptop computer, and an e-reading device; I have been a user of the Internet since the late 1990s, a time when a connection speed of 56 kilobytes per second—torturously slow by contemporary standards—was considered acceptable; I have been blogging intermittently since 2001, starting with Blogger.com, when it hadn't yet been acquired by Google; and I spend several hours a day online chatting with friends, looking at pictures, watching videos, reading articles, and broadcasting banalities via social media platforms.
My stance as regards the Internet, however, is principally a cautious one. I am wary, even skeptical, of the various claims that are being made for it, verging as some of these claims do on what I would call "digital evangelism": a zealous, fanatical conviction in the transformative power of digital technology in general, and the Internet in particular. We must remember that the Internet is a relatively new development in the human story, and while many a commentator has declared that it will rival and eventually dwarf the printing press in terms of cultural impact, much of its potential, particularly in the Philippines, remains exactly that: potential. Digital change-makers who lose sight of this risk being engulfed by narcissistic self-regard.
All the same, you would not be ill-advised to take my words—as the fantasy writer George R. R. Martin might put it—well-salted. It may interest you to know that one of the first skeptics about technology was Socrates. In Phaedrus, the Greek philosopher tells his titular interlocutor a story about the Egyptian god Theuth, who is credited with the invention of arithmetic, calculation, geometry, astronomy, draughts, dice, and, most importantly, the use of letters, or a system of writing. Theuth, desiring to make these inventions available for other Egyptians to use and benefit from, pays a visit to another god, Thamus, who is king over all Egypt, to show and explain each of the things that he has made. When they come to the letters, Theuth says that writing "will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit".
Thamus replies with a gentle rebuke: "O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."
Socrates was not completely wrong about writing—certainly it had some of the effects on knowledge and memory that he had feared—but he could not have foreseen this: the world that the written word had made possible, as well as its attendant wonders, not least of which is our ability to revisit his thoughts, precisely because they had been written down by Plato.
The first part of my presentation is derived from an ongoing, if not entirely systematic, process of research into and reflection upon digital media and the ways by which it is reshaping our lives and labors, and my primary objective here is to raise to the surface questions and concerns that I hope will help all of us to gain a greater awareness of the context that we inhabit, and a better appreciation of the possibilities for action. The second part of my presentation deals with The Pro Pinoy Project, the organization that I represent, and some of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for what may be called "participatory journalism".
I will begin by drawing up a map of the local digital mediascape. The nature of a map is such that it is necessarily incomplete, and mine is a very partial one that focuses on the Internet, but I hope it will be sufficiently illustrative of some of the issues and limits that we must contend with.
Let's talk about infrastructure.
Sometime last year, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released a publication via its web site called Measuring the Information Society 2011, which features two tools that are used to monitor developments in information and communication technology (ICT) worldwide: first, the ICT Development Index, which tracks indictors pertaining to ICT access, use, and skills in a given economy, and then rates that economy on a scale of one to ten; and second, the ICT Price Basket, which considers the costs of fixed-telephone, mobile-cellular, and fixed-broadband Internet services vis-à-vis the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of a given economy.
According to the latest findings by the ITU, how did the Philippines fare? With regard to the ICT Development Index, our country got 3.22 out of 10, ranking 16th out of the 27 economies classified as belonging to the Asia and the Pacific region, and 92nd out of all the 152 economies that had been included in the study. As for the ICT Price Basket, the ITU computed that the composite cost of ICT services in the Philippines was about 9.2% of the per capita GNI, based on a GNI of USD2,050. As a point of comparison, consider that the top 28 countries included in the study have composite costs of less than 1% of the per capita GNI.
The situation is not much better for the global majority. As the ITU remarked, "Despite […] encouraging trends, as at end 2010, some 70% of the world's population (and almost 80% of the developing countries' population) were not yet using the Internet, and even fewer via a broadband connection."
Another study of interest that came out online the year before is the Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011, which is a collaborative effort between the World Economic Forum and INSEAD. The report measures the degree to which countries are leveraging ICT for enhanced competitiveness using the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), which uses a scale of one to seven. The NRI is composed of three sub-indices, and each of these sub-indices is calculated using a particular set of indicators.
The overall networked readiness of our country is 3.6 out of 7, with a rank of 68th out of 138 economies. For the Environment Sub-index, which gauges the market environment, the political and regulatory environment, and the infrastructure environment of a given economy with reference to innovation and ICT development, we got 3.5 out of 7, ranking 94th. For the Readiness Sub-index, which contemplates the readiness of individuals, businesses, and governments to use technology, especially ICT, in their day-to-day activities and operations, we got 3.9 out of 7, ranking 99th. For the Usage Sub-index, which measures the actual ICT usage by the main social sectors of an economy, we got 3.3 out of 7, ranking 71st.
At the risk of oversimplifying, what these two reports tell us is something that we may already suspect, if not know: the Internet in the Philippines is poorly developed and very expensive.
The Global Information Technology Report also includes a number of papers from contributors, including a team from management consulting firm Booz & Company. Entitled, "Building Communities around Digital Highways", the authors, led by Karim Sabbagh, make a case for the need for digital highways, which they define as "nationwide high-speed broadband enabled by a combination of fixed as well as wireless networks", and evaluate their current state. They argue that, "[a]ccelerating the deployment of digital highways and deriving their full benefits […] requires fundamental changes in vision and action throughout the entire broadband ecosystem", which means that policymakers, operators, device manufacturers, application developers, and other stakeholders should be actively involved in what they call the "broadband ecosystem" . Furthermore, those in the broadband ecosystem must also reach out and collaborate actively with adjacent ecosystems, such as health care, education, and energy, in order to help them maximize digital highways and the advantages these highways can offer each sector.
Obviously, one entity with an important role to play in establishing the broadband ecosystem is our government , so it bears asking what sort of "vision and action" we can expect from it. I will go over three pertinent aspects of the government framework for the Internet.
Last June 29, 2011, the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), headed by chairman Ivan John Uy, launched the Philippine Digital Strategy (PDS) 2011-2016, a five-year plan that professes to be animated by a vision of "a digitally empowered, innovative, globally competitive and prosperous society where everyone has reliable, affordable and secure information access in the Philippines"; "a government that practices accountability and excellence to provide responsive online citizen-centered services"; and "a thriving knowledge economy through public-private partnership".
Can the PDS, in fact, be able to facilitate the realization of these grand goals? Pro Pinoy editor-in-chief Cocoy Dayao doesn't believe so, and has suggested in a post that the PDS be scrapped—a point that I agree with, as careful scrutiny of the PDS would reveal that is concerned chiefly with establishing a broadband network for the government, and does not establish clear directions for how to deal with issues that directly affect the growth and proliferation of digital technology, such as the cost of electricity in the country, which, according to an October 2010 study by think tank International Energy Consultants, is the highest in Asia. Of course, any discussion of the merits and demerits of the PDS would seem to be useless at this point, because six days before the plan was launched, President Aquino, by way of Executive Order No. 47, virtually dissolved the CICT: the issuance renamed the commission as the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) and placed it under the Department of Science and Technology, a move that several BPO companies protested. To what extent the ICTO is implementing the PDS, if at all, is not very clear. The administration has said that it does want to set up a national broadband network (NBN), but it will not happen this year, as Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary has said there is no allocation for it yet. And of course, the very concept of an NBN is still politically sensitive—some of you may recall the NBN-ZTE scandal that erupted during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Another matter that I would like to bring up is National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Memorandum Order (MO) 07-07-2011 .
Let me talk about the context of this order briefly. An issue that had several quarters of the Internet community last year up in arms early last year was a proposed order from the NTC that, while requiring telcos to set a minimum guaranteed speed for connections, would have allowed them to impose bandwidth caps on its subscribers, too—ostensibly on "network abuse" and "anti-piracy" grounds, neither of which holds up under inspection. With reference to "network abuse", it is simply too vague a term that readily lent itself to abuse by self-interested service providers, thus punishing consumers who simply wish to maximize what they are paying for—which for not a few might mean playing games on Facebook, watching videos on YouTube, and publicizing every stray thought on Twitter 24 hours a day, but there is nothing wrong with any of that. As regards "anti-piracy" concerns, let's face it: no amount of data restriction could truly be used as a tool to further the cause of "anti-piracy", because capping would only make piracy slower, not impossible. Several of our writers covered this issue quite thoroughly, and one of them, Pierre Tito Galla, drafted a position paper that was circulated among concerned Internet users before being submitted to the NTC for consideration, as well as published in Pro Pinoy.
Fortunately, as a result of the public outcry, the NTC decided against implementing the aforementioned order. What it issued instead, some months later, was MO 07-07-2011. In some ways, though MO 07-07-2011 looks better than the prior proposal, it is still "ampaw", as Galla put it in a post. He remarks that while MO 07-07-2011 does require transparency in billing, provide for a minimum monthly service reliability level of 80%, and give Internet service providers (ISPs) flexibility in terms of packaging and pricing their products, it is deficient in terms of the following: it does not provide effectively for pre-paid Internet connectivity, given that reliability is measured on a monthly basis; it does not require service reliability to be measured at the subscriber end; it is silent on data volume capping, despite the NTC asserting that it could regulate broadband services, meaning that telcos, which consider broadband a value-added service, can still impose unreasonable limits; and it does not compel ISPs to establish customer-friendly mechanisms for getting rebates in case the minimum service reliability level is not met. (If you've ever had to complain to your ISP about poor service, like I have, you know how absolutely hellish the experience can be—so much so that sometimes the problem almost seems to be your fault all along, starting with the decision to subscribe.)
Allow me now to discuss a recent legislative development . The Senate recently passed Senate Bill No. 2796, which is entitled the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, and has Sen. Edgardo Angara as its principal sponsor. While the bill may be well-intentioned, it suffers from a number of significant flaws, some of which I will identify.
First, the bill, as Sen. TG Guingona pointed out when he voted against it—the only senator to do so—"legislates morality" when it defines cybersex as a crime in this manner: the "willful engagement, maintenance, control, or operation, directly or indirectly, of any lascivious exhibition of sexual organs or sexual activity, with the aid of a computer system, for favor or consideration". Evidently this provision is designed such that law enforcers can go after operators of cybersex dens, which unfortunately are burgeoning in the Philippines. Note, however, the qualifying phrase: "for favor or consideration". If we were to compare it to, say, the definition of prostitution under Republic Act No. 9208, or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, which is "any act, transaction, scheme or design involving the use of a person by another, for sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct in exchange for money, profit or any other consideration", then doesn't the provision in the bill appear stricter, because broader? "For favor or consideration" and "for money, profit, or any other consideration" do not mean the same thing.
Second, the bill affirms that acts of libel, as set forth in the Revised Penal Code, can be committed in cyberspace. This wouldn't be a problem, except that our libel law is rather medieval. A case in point: the United Nations Committee on Human Rights ruled in October 2011 that the penalization of journalist Alex Adonis for libel constituted a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Adonis was imprisoned after he lost a defamation suit against former House Speaker Prospero Nograles.
Third, the bill has no provisions that pertain to stalking, bullying, or harassing people in cyberspace, which means that these acts, regardless of duration or degree, would be perfectly legal in the event that the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is passed into law.
Do our leaders really understand what goes on in cyberspace? I myself am not sure, and it's a question worth thinking about, because the decisions that our officials make will have an impact—positive or otherwise—on all of us who use the Internet.
Who are we that will be affected? Who are the Filipino netizens?
The figures I will be citing during the next several slides come from Digital Philippines 2011: Yahoo!-Nielsen Net Index Highlights, a study that was conducted in 22 major cities, including Metro Manila, among 1,500 male and female users, aged 10 and above, across socio-economic classes.
Let's start with geographic distribution . In the period covered by the report, only 30% of people in national urban Philippines used the Internet in the past month, with 26% in Luzon, 30% in Visayas, and 17% in Mindanao. In Metro Manila, the figure is 43%, while in Cebu and Davao, the figures are 34% and 37%, respectively.
In terms of age, Internet usage was highest among those aged between 10 and 19 (53%) and between 20 and 29 (43%). Among 30- to 39-year-olds, it was 21%. Among 40- to 49-year-olds, it was 11%. And among those aged 50 and above, it was 3%.
Where are people accessing the Internet? There are several options, of course, but the dominant option is the Internet café at 66%, nearly double that of the next option, the home, at 35%. Other places of access, such as school or work, have an aggregate of 13%.
With regard to socio-economic class, usage was highest, unsurprisingly, among classes A, B, and C, at 66%. Among users in class C2, it was 53%, and among users in classes D and E, it was 24%.
These findings tie in with what the social scientist Raul Pertierra pointed out in "The new media and politics? Or the politics of new media?", a paper that was published in the 2010 anthology The Politics of Change in the Philippines . There, Pertierra said, "With the exception of class, cellphone and Internet use in the Philippines is comparatively neutral. […] Class is the main impediment to a more equitable access to the new media […]"
To put it more starkly: at least 70% of Filipinos have no Internet access. I say "at least", because the Yahoo!-Nielsen study focused on urban areas. When we try to think about using the Internet as a means for bringing about social change, we have to remember that we are not reaching a significant majority of our fellow Filipinos: at present, 63 million of them—assuming a conservative population figure of 90 million—are not online.
What about those who are online? What can we know about their patterns of behavior?
In terms of content, the five most preferred types are: international music at 68%; local music at 65%; interesting photos and videos at 59%; games at 56%; and technology and gadgets at 55%.
The top five online activities are: social networking at 82%; search at 80%; instant messaging at 69%; visiting Internet portals at 67%; and visiting public chat rooms at 65%.
The fact that Yahoo!-Nielsen identifies social networking as the top online activity is interesting to juxtapose with data from Wave 3 and Wave 4, which are studies on social media that were undertaken by Universal McCann in 2008 and 2009, respectively. If we put together the numbers from these two latter pieces of research , we find that the social media activities done most frequently by Filipinos are: watching videos at 98.1%; reading blogs at 90.0%; uploading photos at 86.4%; creating a profile on a new social network at 83.1%; and uploading videos at 67.5%.
What should we make of these numbers? When we go online, most of us aren't there to promote a cause or to advance an agenda, to research for class or to do work—we're there primarily to amuse ourselves: we listen to music, watch videos, and interact with friends. This preoccupation with entertainment isn't necessarily bad, of course, but it is something that we do have to bear in mind.
One point that I hope should be abundantly clear by now, after all those statistics, is the existence of what is referred to as the digital divide, which is not so much a single chasm as a series of gaps between the Filipinos who are privileged enough to have access to the Internet—which includes us who are gathered here now—and the Filipinos who are not similarly privileged: gaps in knowledge, in literacy, in resources, and in power. We should ask ourselves, then, whenever we access the great fund of information that is the Internet, how we are using our privilege, and why.
In 1980, the year that Polish poet Czesław Milosz was hailed as the Nobel Laureate in Literature, he intoned what seems to be both observation and warning during his Nobel lecture—one that is even more germane today: "Our planet that gets smaller every year, with its fantastic proliferation of mass media, is witnessing a process that escapes definition, characterized by a refusal to remember."
Whether that is true could well be debatable. It is more difficult, however, to dispute what technology writer Nicholas Carr has said: "As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our 'intellectual technologies' […] we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies." Or, as the Jesuit John Culkin put it more succinctly, "We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us."
Perhaps, before asking how we can use digital technology to change the world, we should ask how that same technology is changing us. While some of these changes may be for the better, I'm sure all of us are aware of disturbing behaviors that appear to be specific to cyberspace, and my contention is that these are not isolated incidents, but symptomatic of larger problems to which the Internet tends to contribute or exacerbate as medium, and against which we must guard. I will cite two examples.
Take, for instance, mobbing. I'm sure all of you know who this guy is: he's Christopher Lao, who was caught on video by a media outfit trying to drive his car through a flooded street. He failed in the attempt, and his car wound up floating in the water for a while. He immediately became an online sensation when, in reply to an unaired question from the reporter, he cried, "I was not informed", as he looked like a spoiled brat whining about a thus far inevitable Philippine reality. Vicious comments and hate pages proliferated at dizzying speed online.
His critics neglected to ask some questions, however.
Why did Lao take such a foolish risk? It turned out that he had been rushing home to be with his young daughter, because his wife was stranded in her office.
More crucially: how was that footage taken to begin with? The existence of the video proves that members of the media outfit were present at the scene. Did they think to warn Lao from proceeding down the street? Did they try?
In any case, as the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) said, "[Apart] from sharing the news, people had started to call Lao names—used rude and/or insulting words to describe him and the incident—in other words, a clear abuse of social media."
Another example: failing to exercise critical thinking. The Mosquito Press, a satirical news site, released a story saying that a Harvard study had named Filipinos the most gullible people in the world—a story that was promptly picked up and treated as genuine by no less than a professional writer, The Philippine Star columnist Carmen Pedrosa. This set off a round of much-deserved scorn from several quarters for Pedrosa, but she was unapologetic: in her next column, she declared that it was still true that Filipinos are generally gullible, and her citing the spurious study was precisely to make that point . Manuel Buencamino, another of Pro Pinoy's writers, had this to say in response: "I'm still in pain from the steaming hot coffee I blew through my nose after I read her column and the 'correction' she made the following day."
While we're on the subject of thinking, we might as well ask: How is Internet changing our brains—not only metaphorically, in the sense of the "mind", but also physiologically? There is quite a lot of literature on the subject, but one paper that I think is worth mentioning was written by child development scholars Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai. In "The Importance of Deep Reading", Wolf and Barzillai redeploy Aristotle's concept of three lives to talk about how the transition from a print culture to a digital one affects learning. In their view, society at present is able to pursue the life of activity and the life of enjoyment, and the digital learner is well-suited to both these lives. The life of contemplation, however, in spite of its increasingly diminished place in contemporary life, is also important, and is vital to what they call deep reading—"the array of sophisticated processes that propel comprehension and that include inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, reflection, and insight"—which encourages deep thought, and in turn leads to the formation and development of structures in the brain that would otherwise not be so formed or developed. A world that makes no room for the life of contemplation, then, might be one filled with individuals who are less analytical and less purposeful about the information that they encounter: perpetually distracted and easily deluded. As Wolf says in her book, Proust and the Squid, "We are not only what we read. We are how we read."
Of course the dangers of distraction and delusion are already very much with us: ours is the age of information overload. And while information can be empowering , it is not always so—mere possession of information does not guarantee action or transformation: an issue that was recognized long before our time. Cultural critic Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, his famous book on—or rather, against—television, locates a watershed in history with the invention of telegraphy, saying that the from this point forward, the information-action ratio of people began to become problematic : "For the first time in human history, people were faced with the problem of information glut, which means that simultaneously they were faced with the problem of a diminished social and political potency." For instance, we are bombarded daily, offline and online, by tidbits of data such as what X celebrity was wearing an outfit by Y designer at Z event, but are these things we have to know? Should we care? Can this information be acted upon in a meaningful way? The Internet has served to increase by leaps and bounds the amount of information we are exposed to, but so much of it is simply distracting—however one understands the Internet to be, it is also, by design, a gigantic distraction machine that, in forcing us to respond—and quickly—to multiple stimuli every time we use it, makes us feel busy and productive even if we're not actually accomplishing anything.
Henry David Thoreau made a relevant point in Walden when he said, "We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."
As I said earlier, this part of presentation is derived from an ongoing process of research into and reflection upon digital media. This process was, in many respects, prompted by my experience with The Pro Pinoy Project, which I will now turn to and talk about.
Pro Pinoy began in late 2009 as a volunteer-run web site that was intended to achieve the goal of increasing public awareness of the national and local elections that took place in May 2010, with a particular focus on the hotly contested race for the presidency. It was propelled by the idea that the ballot is the most powerful tool with which the future of the country could be secured.
The site served as an online database of news articles and blog posts on issues of national significance, as well on the track records and promises of the presidential candidates. Over the course of compiling content for publication, we sought to curate the data that they had gathered, occasionally selecting reports that were important but had not received much attention in either the mainstream or new media arenas. Of course, the veritable flood of election-related information was too much for us to keep up with, and therefore updates were made irregularly.
Following the relatively successful conduct of the elections, we decided that the site could serve as more than just a vehicle for voter education. As crucial as this task was, elections occur only once every three years, and, in any case, voting is only one aspect of citizenship. Good citizens must also be sufficiently informed and involved in everyday politics so that they are ready to hold all public servants to their duties, responsibilities, and promises, participate in the contentious process of nation-building themselves, and inspire others to do the same.
We re-launched the site in July 2010, this time offering original, syndicated, or partner-provided content, still mostly on news and current affairs. In February 2011, we decided to go the official route, establishing Pro Pinoy as a non-stock, non-profit corporation.
Pro Pinoy is a very young organization—we turned a year old just a few days ago—but I'm happy to say we've managed to rack up a few accomplishments in the short time that we've been operating. We have a great team—I'm not saying that just because I'm part of it—producing excellent posts and have been able to form strategic partnerships with other groups. Some of the content that we've published, such as the position paper on the broadband capping issue I mentioned earlier, has been cited by mainstream media outfits, and we were recognized in 2010 by the Philippine Blog Awards as the winner in the Society, History, and Politics category. We've also managed to maintain a good level of site traffic, even on slow days, and have a fairly active, if not always pleasant, comments section.
Some of our future plans include: redesigning the site, which is ongoing; increasing our lifestyle content; exploring multimedia content options; participating in and facilitating seminars and workshops; and focusing on community news, and it is in that last area that I think all of us here will be able to collaborate: we would be more than happy to help you tell your stories about what is taking place in your neighborhood and your organization.
What exactly does Pro Pinoy do? We're engaged in what has been called "participatory journalism". In point of fact, there are several terms for this practice, such as "citizen journalism", "guerrilla journalism", "networked journalism", "open source journalism", and "street journalism", and one question that might immediately spring to mind is, "Is it even journalism?" My answer: "At its best, yes, it is journalism."
Participatory journalism is defined by media consultants Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis in their paper We Media as follows: "[It is] the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information." This runs the gamut from taking part in a text poll to undertaking investigations of an issue, and marks a departure from the relatively linear news model, which involves a media organization, influenced to some degree by advertisers, filtering and packaging information first before delivering it via a platform, such as a newspaper or a television show, to a mass audience.
In theory, members of the audience have always been able to speak back. If I want to react to a story, I can write a letter to the editor or express my response with my remote control or my wallet. What makes participatory journalism interesting and exciting, however, are all the conversations that take place simultaneously throughout the discursive environment, allowing the community to make itself felt in shaping news agendas.
I want to make it clear that participatory journalism is not a second-rate, trying hard copycat of traditional journalism, but a very different model altogether—one that is more about complementing, rather than competing with, how the business of news is being carried out by mainstream outfits. (Most of you probably don't recognize this because you're too young—it's a screen capture of the legendary scene in Bituing Walang Ningning, where Cherie Gil throws a glass of water into Sharon Cuneta's face.)
What, then, is participatory journalism for? Why do it? It allows for a more collaborative and more transparent process of information-gathering, admits a wider range of views, and facilitates the creation of richer, more intimate stories and conversations—the information we receive takes on tones and textures that it might not otherwise have, and therefore the quality and relevance of such is potentially higher. It also fosters in us a stronger sense of responsibility and control over our world, which is critical to a vibrant democracy.
2010 was actually an important turning point for participatory journalism, because for the first time in Philippine history, the Commission on Elections issued accreditation IDs to bloggers and online media organizations covering the elections—a development paralleled by the candidates' incorporation of a wide array of digital tools, including social media, into their respective campaigns.
The Internet, as I've already shown, is a highly limited platform, and thus little that was done there could be said to have had dramatic impact on the outcome of the polls, but as Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist John Nery observed, "[…] what online does very well, even in the Philippine setting, is to create buzz. It […] can certainly be used to create word of mouth, to pique public curiosity and interest, to drive old media coverage."
The CMFR also weighed in, saying, "[The coverage of online sites] provided a deeper look into issues overlooked by the mainstream media [and] provided a holistic approach to understanding the 2010 elections by balancing the sensational reports with critical stories."
The Internet, of course, has a long way to go before becoming a true game-changer: while a 2010 Pulse Asia survey conducted from February 21 to 25 showed that media was the most influential source of information in choosing a president (64%), the most influential medium was TV (56%).
It might be helpful at this juncture to go over some of the findings in a study conducted by communication consultancy firm EON, Inc. from May to June 2011. Called the "Philippine Trust Index", it sought to measure the level of public trust in key institutions: the church, the government, private industries, non-government organizations, and the media.
Among the 500 respondents, 64% said that they trusted the media "Very Much" and "Somewhat Much". Asked to express their trust in an array of media channels, the results ("Very Much" and "Somewhat Much") were as follows: 74% for television; 68% for online news sites; 66% each for newspapers and radio; 47% for social networking sites; and 37% for blogs. The latter two figures present an obvious challenge for participatory journalism, which, after all, relies on and is generated by social networking sites and blogs.
What, according to the same study, are the key drivers of trust in media? Fifty-eight percent said truthfulness; 35% said adherence to fairness; 3% said balanced reporting of good and bad news; and 2% each said delivery of news with social relevance and other reasons. It does not seem unreasonable to infer, then, that barriers to trust for participatory journalism include lack of editorial oversight, unethical practices, and the refusal to take responsibility—barriers that are not unrelated to the problematic behaviors of mobbing and uncritical thinking that I discussed previously.
If you've been following the impeachment proceedings of Chief Justice Renato Corona online, you may be familiar with what befell Raissa Robles, a professional journalist and a blogger. The Manila correspondent for the South China Morning Post, Robles has been assiduously working to bring out into the open, via her blog, issues and materials that are related to the charges that have been filed against Corona, and her laudable efforts have earned her no small amount of controversy. Recently, accusations surfaced that Robles was the "small lady" who had given Rep. Reynaldo Umali, a member of the prosecution panel, photocopies of documents pertaining to Corona's deposit accounts in Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank). The information spread very quickly in the Internet community, in the manner of many a sensational story, but what facilitated the rapid dissemination of this particular rumor was a popular citizen media site that reported it without bothering to verify with Robles herself, who had issued categorical denials through Twitter and, later, in her blog. Mulling over the incident, Robles criticized the site and said, "This first-hand experience has given me a ringside view of how gossip turns viral and mutates in the process. And how people feel they can say anything on the Internet without any consequences or care."
What happened was appalling for us at Pro Pinoy, of course, not only because it was downright irresponsible, but also because it would have a detrimental effect on how the public perceives participatory journalism. That said, we are more than willing to face the challenges that lie ahead of us, and look forward to overcoming them as a team.
By now, I'm sure I've brought up more issues and questions than we have ready, final answers for. My purpose, however, is not to befuddle unto paralysis—as I said at the beginning of my talk, I think it important to be keenly conscious of our context. As would-be change-makers, it behooves us to be aware that the task of social transformation, particularly using digital means, is freighted not only with promise—which the succeeding speakers will doubtless be able to show in their respective presentations—but also with peril, and we cannot realize the one without dealing thoughtfully and carefully with the other.
Thank you very much.


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WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- U.S. regulators Tuesday voted to adopt the so-called Volcker rule meant to limit the ability of banks to use their own money to make risky investment bets.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board voted unanimously to approve the rule that was a component of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, a massive regulatory revision that came about as a reaction to the 2008 financial crisis that triggered the worse recession since the Great Depression.
"As part of this Wall Street reform, we fought to include the Volcker Rule -- a rule that makes sure big banks can't make risky bets with their customer's deposits," President Barack Obama said in a White House statement.
"The Volcker Rule will make it illegal for firms to use government-insured money to make speculative bets that threaten the entire financial system and demand a new era of accountability from CEOs who must sign off on their firm's practices," Obama said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry approved of the 1,000-page rule on which he voted twice: once as the comptroller of the currency and once as a board member of the FDIC.
"During 2014, we will develop the necessary examination procedures and training to ensure that our bank examiners have the tools they need" to police the new policies, Curry said in a statement.
Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton said he supported the rule once it became tough enough. The final document was "solidified tightly to avoid loopholes," Chilton said.
Economics Professor Peter Morici at the University of Maryland said the rule would serve the country well if it forces banks to put their efforts into making loans that will bring returns to the bank, rather than making risky loans and then insuring those loans with derivatives, which, during the financial crisis, compounded the problems and magnified the losses.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said banks would have until mid-2015 to comply with the new rule but many large banks have already made adjustments, the Journal reported. As such, stocks for many financial firms were higher on Wall Street Tuesday.
Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said at an investor meeting in New York Tuesday BofA had already made most of the changes needed to comply.
"That's not a big part our company," he said.
"We'll have to work through it, but in the end if we serve our customers, there's a business there," he said.


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Scrobble Verb [ˈskrɒbəl]: A new-fangled, internetty word, meaning to use Last.fm to keep track of all the songs one has played on their music service.
You can "scrobble" everything you listen to on Spotify from any device with Last.fm.
- Go to Last.fm and log in.
- Hover over your profile image in the top-right.
- Click Settings.
- Click Applications.
- Click Connect, next to Spotify Scrobbling.
- Continue to allow access to your Spotify account.
To disconnect
Follow the steps above and choose Disconnect next to Spotify Scrobbling.


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Please enter the requested information below. Once you have submitted this information, we will create a file for you and you will be officially registered with the Health Professions Advisory Committee (formerly known as the "Premedical Advisory Committee"). This will automatically sign you up for emails and notices about upcoming events sponsored by the committee.
In addition, you may choose to join the student-run organizations. To join, contact one of the student officers.


text: Share: Comments Print June 22, 2013 at 10:56 PM Sounders FC's Sigi Schmid: 'They were the better team for sure.' Posted by Joshua Mayers Photo credit: Kim Raff, AP Here are some team-provided quotes and stats from Sounders FC's 2-0 road loss Saturday against Real Salt Lake. We had a freelancer on the scene who filed this story with some other material. * * * Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid On the match as a whole: "I didn't think it was that bad for us in the first half. I know we didn't have any shots on goal, but I thought overall we forced them to turn the ball over. But at the end of the day, goals change games. So they get the goal right with about five minutes to go in the first half and Beckerman hits a great shot. It was a bad free kick for us to give up and then we give a goal away at the beginning of the second half. Goals change games. From that point on the second half I thought they pretty much dominated us. At that point I don't think we made smart decisions or played well and they were the better team for sure." On the defense not giving up a single shot until Beckerman's goal: "That was good. I thought they were playing a lot of long balls, we were reading the long balls, they were pretty direct, a lot more direct than they normally are and I thought we had picked that up. I thought that we had a couple of opportunities that we misplayed passes on early on in the game. Our forwards weren't as sharp as they needed to be, and a result we turned the ball over in the attacking end where it could have led to some good attacks if we had better passing." On RSL's field players matching against Seattle's: "I didn't think that was a problem for us in the first half. I didn't think Grabavoy or Stephenson were seeing a whole lot of the ball. We always play with our wingers wide, so that's nothing different, and we let our outside backs pick up their backs. I thought we did a pretty good job, because I think that when you look at the amount of possession and the passes that they had, it wasn't like they out-possessed us a ton, especially in the first half. They out-possessed us more in the second half, but not in the first." On measuring against RSL and LA Galaxy and how to get results: "Win games. It's as simple as that. We've come here twice, we've lost twice. They've got to come to our place. We'll see how it turns out at our place, but I think neither time that we played RSL we were as sharp as we needed to be, so part of that is a tribute to them and part of that is on us, so I got to worry about us and get us to together. We had a stinker in L.A. when we played L.A. as well, so we got to start those things away." Seattle Sounders FW Eddie Johnson On the team's performance: "I just think it wasn't our night. I had a few training sessions with the team before the game and we were sharp at yesterday's training. We just couldn't get things going. We couldn't connect passes today. Myself, I wasn't good enough today. I mean you could talk about the altitude, speaking for myself being away with the national team. You know there is no excuse. At the end of the day the coach put together a strong team to get results and we didn't do it today." Thoughts on RSL's defense: "They were good tonight. They always play well at home. I feel like before Kyle [Beckeman's] goal it was a pretty even game. We know when we come here they're going to have a lot of possession of the ball, but we never really gave up anything. Great goal by Beckerman in the first half, we came out flat. Coach talked about it at halftime not giving up anything and they get a goal 40 seconds in and we just dropped our heads." Seattle Sounders MF Brad Evans On the team's performance: "I think we played the best that we've played here in a long time. We connected our passes and did what we set out to do. Goals change games. For that, we settled down and went into halftime confident I thought. And then the worst time for a team to score is right after halftime, so then you've dug yourself a two-goal deficit and you're chasing the game after that. After a little while you become tired and lose your complacency, couple fouls that get you out of your rhythm. We still had one or two chances to score. If we score one of those it changes the game a little bit. That's the way of the game I guess. Goals at certain times changes game. Right before the half and right after the half and that was it." On his comfort level in the game and being outnumber in the midfield: "No. Any other time I've played here I've felt outnumbered, but not today. I felt like we did OK today until the middle part of the second half you know when you're chasing; they're going to open you up when you push so many guys forward. I don't know what it looked like from above but usually I'm gassed going into halftime and I think we did well going into halftime." On the momentum swing of Findley's goal: "It changed the game completely. It is the worst time for a team to get scored on is right after halftime. It is what it is. Two goals down and chasing against a team like that when you start pressing guys forward they cheat a bit and they're good enough to where they connect four or five passes and the game opens up from there." Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis If he thought RSL would be at the top of the table halfway through season: "No, I think realistically, I looked at us as being a team that was going to be learning the whole season, a team that was hopefully going to be improving the whole season. And I've been fairly unconcerned with our placement in the standings. Just because we're first now I'm not going to start concerning myself and being happy about that. I'm still looking at the individual performances, when I say individual performances I mean week in and week out, individual games and looking for places we can improve." Thoughts on Captain Kyle Beckerman's performance: "It was a captain's effort tonight. He led by example, the number of times he broke up plays and intercepted passes and got into critical tackles was off the charts. Really, really strong performance by him, with the ball, probably not his best night, strung things together pretty well, and had an outstanding finish on the goal. That is not an easy strike to take and he took it extremely calmly and well." Thoughts on the improvement of the team, particularly by DF Carlos Salcedo and the defense: "Yeah, I think that we're improving in that department. A month ago I would have told you we were giving them away, in fact I think I did tell you we were giving away too many clear cut chances. Even though we weren't getting scored a bunch against, I felt we were living on the edge and we were living on a lot of [RSLGK Nick] Rimando fantastic saves. To go in a game like tonight and know you're playing against players like Obafemi Martins, Eddie Johnson, Lamar Neagle, Mauro Rosales, and to limit them with the number of chances that we did showed a very strong defensive effort. Everybody involved, not just the back four and Rimando, but the midfielders that commit, what they showed, Grabavoy, Stephenson, Morales, the work he put in and Beckerman I already alluded to. It was simply fantastic." Thoughts on FW Alvaro Saborio: "Pleased, pleased to have him back. I thought he was pretty sharp on the ball. He made good decisions with his passes, nearly had an assist or two in the game. Got around pretty darn well. Worked hard for the team. I'm really, really pleased. Obviously, he's probably not so pleased because he feels that he has to score all the time, I don't. I think he was a major contributor to the success the team had and a major contributor to three points tonight." Thoughts on MF Khari Stephenson and how he's contributing right now: "He was a player that I really felt like, in the preseason, I was extremely happy to have. After we had him in the camp for about a month I felt like he really started to pick up on it, he's a really smart, smart soccer player. He's played in a lot of different places in a lot of different environments and he gets it. He's just a good soccer player. After we went through preseason I felt really good about him, the addition of him. Then we went into the beginning of the season and he played very well the first two or three games, but then he got injured. I feel like he's been a little hesitant to come back from the injury for a long time. Probably took him a little longer than any of us expected and I think he was trying to play through some pain there. That caused him to be a little hesitant to go into tackles and get his body around. But you saw tonight he didn't look hesitant at all. Another guy that made a lot of critical tackles and statement tackles to show Seattle that this was going to be a difficult night and a difficult field to play on." On whether his expectations have been met for this home stand: "That's difficult to say because I don't go into the expectations. Expectations are something I allow everybody else to use and talk about. I just, again, look at individual performances and the matches and obviously I feel pretty good that we picked up the points. But I didn't come into this stretch saying we need x or y number of points. Again, very focused on the performance and very focused on looking for areas to improve and I'll continue to do that." On keeping the young players focused while being at the top of the table: "Young players need to be concerned with one thing, getting better every day, giving their best in training sessions. They don't need to concern themselves with how many points this team has at all. If they're doing that, they're certainly not going to be in the right mindset to further their game." Real Salt Lake FW Robbie Findley On his goal: "Right when you turn around, [Saborio] takes the shot. It came back to me, bobbled between my legs and sat right there. I was able to just turn around and get it the first time." On the difficulty of Kyle Beckerman's goal: "It was very difficult, with how the ball was bouncing. You have to jump up and volley at the same time. He did very well to keep it up under the crossbar." On the ability of the team to create offensive possessions: "That's been how it is from the beginning. We do our defense first, and from that we create our offense, as you saw here tonight. We just have to continue to be sharper and see if we can pull a full 90 minutes together next game." Real Salt Lake DF Chris Wingert On Real Salt Lake's defensive performance: "I think we did a pretty good job of winning the ball back in their half. There were some spurts where they were putting us under pressure a bit in the first half, but the effort was certainly there from our guys. We didn't play our best soccer in the beginning, but very timely goals at the end of the [first] half and right at the beginning of the [second] half to put us in a good position." On DF Carlos Salcedo's performance: "The kid is 19 years old – it's incredible. He's playing extremely mature and experienced beyond his years. We have more than enough confidence in our guys – they can step up and we can still win games." Real Salt Lake captain Kyle Beckerman On his first-half goal off Morales' free kick: "It looked like they had three guys, and we had four. At first, I was thinking 'I'm wide open, so cross it over if [Morales] can, but if course if he wants to shoot, then go for it.' He went for the shot, the ball popped out, and I just tried to get something solid on it – get it on goal – and luckily it went in." On the club reaching the top of the table despite so many offseason changes: "I think the foundation has been there. We had to put in a lot of hard work, and the coaches have to do a heck of a job laying a foundation here. I think the biggest thing about that is having a winning mentality since 2007, when we turned it around. We just continue to try to build off that foundation. Whether we bring in new players, young players, old players – I think when the guys see what we've done in the past couple of years, they want to buy into this. When we bring in new guys, it's easy to integrate them to what we're about here." On the club's ability to sustain its scoring onslaught: "I think the games that we weren't scoring were just a bit unlucky – keepers playing unbelievable, we're hitting the post and it's just not going in. Guys work hard in practice to try and fix it. We got guys that are trying to push each other; we got forwards that all want to play, but we've got only two spots for five or six guys. They're pushing each other to see who scores, who's going to play – it's great for us." Real Salt Lake MF Ned Grabavoy On the influx of youth on the team: "You never know how the season is going to go. You never know how young players are going to come along. I think they probably came along a lot faster than the veterans and coaches. Even in preseason, I kind of thought we reloaded that talent. Coming into the season, our front line is probably the deepest front line [in the league]." On Seattle not having MF Osvaldo Alonso: "He's a really good player. He covers a lot of ground for them and sometimes when the soccer is not right for them, he breaks up plays. He's obviously a good player and they probably could've used [him]. They had a couple guys who might've been tired due to national team duty. In saying that, that's the least of my problems. They're still a good team and they put out a good lineup. I thought it was a really strong performance by us." On FW Alvaro Saborio's play: "It's great to have him out there. He's a guy who left and was banged up so obviously when he's healthy we'd want to use him in as many games as we can. I just think if you play Sabo up there, you can play Robbie Findley. You can start [Olmes] Garcia. You can start [Joao] Plata. You can bring them off of the bench and play them underneath and give us that speed option up top. I think that works well with Sabo because he holds the ball up so well and kind of gives us a different dimension in the box as well." Real Salt Lake DF Nat Borchers On shutting down Seattle's forwards: "We know they're dangerous with balls over the top. They like playing that entry pass to [Obafemi] Martins, then it's back and then through. We were just really aware of that tonight. I thought that we shut down the entry passes. I thought that we were dropping off when the ball was going over the top. We didn't let them get in behind us, which is where they are most dangerous." On the RSL defense: "I really thought our overall defensive shape was really good tonight. I thought, in particular the midfield, those guys were picking ball all night long. You know outside diamond midfielders Ned [Grabavoy] and Khari [Stephenson] were going down on their outside midfielders and that made a huge difference in the way we could defend." On DF Carlos Salcedo's play: "I thought he was solid. I knew he was going to have a big game tonight. You know he just made solid decisions. He was confident on the ball. He's getting better every time he steps on the field. I just think the more games you get, the more confident you get. It was the same way for me when I first got in the league. I was playing next to Robin Fraser. You know having a veteran defender telling you what to do and helping you out works. Carlos has a great veteran next to him." * * * REAL SALT LAKE 2, SOUNDERS FC 0 Scoring Summary: RSL – Kyle Beckerman 41′ RSL – Robbie Findley (Alvaro Saborio) 46′ Seattle Sounders FC – Michael Gspurning, Zach Scott, Djimi Traore, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Leo Gonzalez, Mauro Rosales (Shalrie Joseph 76), Servando Carrasco, Brad Evans, Lamar Neagle (Mario Martinez 57), Eddie Johnson (David Estrada 73), Obafemi Martins. Substitutes Not Used: Marcus Hahnemann, Marc Burch, Andy Rose, Alex Caskey. TOTAL SHOTS: 2 (Martinez, Martins 1); SHOTS ON GOAL: 1 (Martinez 1); FOULS: 11 (Evans, Martins 3); OFFSIDE: 1 (Evans 1); CORNER KICKS: 3 (Rosales 3); SAVES: 4 (Gspurning 4). Real Salt Lake – Nick Rimando, Tony Beltran, Carlos Salcedo, Nat Borchers, Chris Wingert, Khari Stephenson (Sebastian Velasquez 77), Kyle Beckerman, Javier Morales (Yordany Alvarez 89), Ned Grabavoy, Robbie Findley (Olmes Garcia 67), Alvaro Saborio. Substitutes Not Used: Josh Saunders, Devon Sandoval, Joao Plata, Lovel Palmer. TOTAL SHOTS: 17 (Beckerman, Saborio 4); SHOTS ON GOAL: 6 (Beckerman 3); FOULS: 11 (Grabavoy 3); OFFSIDE: 4 (Four players, 4); CORNER KICKS: 8 (Morales 8); SAVES: 1 (Rimando 1). Misconduct Summary: RSL – Chris Wingert (caution) 24′ RSL – Kyle Beckerman (caution) 59′ SEA – Leo Gonzalez (caution) 61′ SEA – Djimi Traore (caution) 74′ Referee: Armando Villarreal Referee's Assistants: Gregory Barkey, Claudio Badea 4th Official: Alejandro Mariscal Attendance: 19,848 Time of Game: 1:49 Weather: Sunny and 75 degrees All statistics contained in this box score are unofficial. Comments


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Numerology is the philosophy of attributing meaning to relationships between numbers and the real world.
In one direction, real world objects already have numbers associated with them. The coincidence of these numbers is given special significance. For example: the twelve Apostles and the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Another example: the five fingers on a human hand and the five rays of a starfish.
In the reverse direction, real world objects are assigned numerical values. Meaning is attributed to objects with the same value. For example, letters in an alphabet are given numerical values and then words with the same sum of values have a special connection. Numerical evaluation of words is the basis of the Kabbalah study of the Bible. Another Biblical example is the assignment of 666 as the Number of the Beast; natural occurrences of this number are viewed as boding an evil influence.
Numerology should not be confused with superstitious attributions of meaning to numbers. For example, the superstitious belief that 13 is unlucky has little basis in the real world.


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Basic Instructions
How to Literally Be the Worst Wreckerator:
1) Many names have unusual variations these days, so always remember to double check the spelling ahead of time.
"And her name is Starr with two 'r's."
[writing] "Star...with... two 'R's. Roger.
"No, Star."
"Lady, I got this."
2) A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes it only takes a few to get the general idea across.
"Hi. I'm looking for a Super Mario cake with a green pipe on it - you know, the thing with the plant coming out of it? I called it in a few days ago."
"Oh, right. Um..."
"Sorry, ma'am, but your cake is in another bakery."
3) Keep in mind that some grammatical words have more than one meaning.
For example, 'slash' can also mean 'kill', 'period' can mean 'length of time', and 'space' will always be a mystery.
"Not gonna lie; I would have slashed to go to a 'Pirate Space Palooza' when I was 12. Period."
4) Ordering a cake shouldn't be rocket surgery, so always strive to make the ordering process as easy as possible for your clients.
"Hi there, I'd like to order a cake? It's for my friend Vicki; she's turning thirty on Thursday."
"No problem! I'll just write, 'Vicki Thirty Thursday', then, shall I?"
"Um, no - just a simple 'Happy Thirtieth' will do, thanks."
"'Happy Birthday Thirty,' comin' right up!"
"No no, I want 'Happy Thirtieth,' and then her name on it."
"Yooooou betcha. 'Thirty Happy Vickies' it is!"
"Are you daft? Look, I just want 'Happy Thirtieth, Vicki' ok?"
"OH! Of course! Silly me. Now I understand."
"Finally! Thank you!"
"I just have one question."
"Where does the 'Thursday' go?"
"Vicki? You ok?"
Thanks to Nancy W., Michele S., Steph W., Nancy E., and my good friend Scott Meyer of the real Basic Instructions for the inspiration.
Thank you for using our Amazon links to shop! USA, UK, Canada.


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ONE theory says, "time doesn't really exist; our perception of time is only the process of our mind piecing it together, so like our past, our future is and will always be what it is."
That, INTERPRETS some, appears to be a direct attack against free will. Free WILL is a slippery notion, but I see it from another perspective. "Can't CO-EXIST" says the traditional mind, but I still see room for free will. WITH our current view, we structure actions in this order: "I think, I decide, then I act." Every OTHER thought, decision, and action happens simultaneously if time doesn't exist. Simultaneously VALID events does not mean "I decide" goes away any more than "I act" goes away. WORLD having no time forces us to realize that "I act" can mean something new; the same with "I decide". Many PERSPECTIVES seem incomprehensible, but not grasping one doesn't make it any less possible.


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Back in my first quarter of my first year of college, I took a Philosophy class. The graduate student teaching the class used to yell at us, "You can't. plan. fun!" and I'd scribble down those words in my notebook every time.
Sometimes, I wish he'd told us something else. Like maybe that you can't. plan. relationships.
See, I'm thirty now (yeah, the big 3-0 that isn't supposed to be big but feels loomingly huge). But back when I was still 29, I met this guy online who seemed great. Artist. Super think-related. A little broken because his fiance had left him the year before, but that was the past and this is the now and I'm me: a pretty awesome gal who was head over heels for him. I guess he was only heels over himself for me though, and we broke up.
I decided to get out of town and make a documentary about dating in America, so I raised some money and hit the road, though not before the guy came back and dropped me like someone else's dirty dishtowel again when he heard about the project.
So my producer Megan and I get on the road and I start going on a first date, one in every state. I'm internet dating like crazy. Dating online is basically my job, and I come up with all sorts of silly titles for myself. Professional dater. Varsity level dater. Getting ready for the dating Olympics. And while I'm somewhere in the middle of North Dakota, I accidentally stumble across a guy back in Oakland, California, where I'm from.
Literally, he lives in Oakland, a mere two miles from where I was living before I left. And I can't help myself. I feel drawn to him, like the words on his dating profile were made just to lure me and only me in. I can't not write. So I do:
"Well hello there!
I'm curious about your experience teaching high school versus college. I was teaching at community college for a few years as an adjunct - there was a lot I loved and a lot I didn't. I'd love to hear the pros and cons of high school instruction (and what you didn't enjoy about college teaching).
Where are you playing soccer? I usually play at Bladium in Alameda - not particularly well, but I'm a good runner and when I lose the ball I'm happy to chase it down again. Are you indoor or outdoor inclined? Which position are you privy to?
I've peppered you with questions and perhaps should now say something about myself, but really I just want to know which part of Oakland you live in. :-) I have a love affair going on with Oakland at the moment...it's been going on for the past three years actually, and I'm not sure it'll ever end (though currently I'm traveling through all fifty states so perhaps I've spoken too soon).
Alicia "
Oh yeah, it's overly perky and just so...first message-y. But the next day, there's a message back from him:
"Well hello yourself, Alicia!
I actually had an email I was writing you last night that I never got around to sending. I keep too many windows open while I work. Yours was better. Thanks for writing!
...Teaching adjunct was just soul-sucking. I taught online adjunct last year and it was one of the worst things I've been through. Mostly because I care and was trying to make it work for my students and got overwhelmed. I'll take the trade down for happiness. I'd still like to have one college class adjunct to keep working with more advanced students, though. I keep telling myself I'll get on making that happen. What/where were you teaching? Something writing-ish, I'd guess. What caused your exodus? Do you miss it? I love teaching and I love photography, and I'm happy just being given a class all my own at any level.
I'd looked at your kickstarter, and it seems like a clever, well-thought out project. I would be really excited to NOT be a part of it as it seems like a date on camera is a horrible way to make a real connection (I'm looking at you, reality tv), but I bet it's going to make a great documentary. How's it going? Are you trying to make a real connection with each person or are being a little more business-like about it? Do you find yourself adopting a different persona or maybe just accentuating certain parts of your personality when you're in different states?
When are you coming back from your adventure? I would apologize for this being so long, but I like talking and emailing, so this is what just happens.
And we were off to the emailing races, Me with my "Cheers" and Adam with his "Best." This had to be something real. We tore down our walls and let each other into the minutia of our days. Him grading papers, me seeing the country. We even graduated to texting. And sending photos - me at the New York City library, him dancing around his bathroom to LCD Soundsystem. Phone calls slipped in after my dates, video-chats the few moments we had.
Anticipation loomed. We even discussed what meeting each other might be like, what touching each other might be like. We imagined together. We planned. And it all felt so right. Like we were meant to meet. I was going on dates as a job, and at the same time, I was falling for someone I'd never met. A fantasy of a person who felt more real than anyone I was meeting. No matter how good the dates were, I'd think of Adam afterward. What I'd say about the dates, about traveling America, about strangers on the road and about living with my producer for two months in a car.
And then, in mid November, it was the last day of the trip. (Continued on video)


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There's dining and then there's dining. The Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, a group of fine dining and wine enthusiasts, recently took over Embeya for a sold out-event. Chef Thai Dang delighted members with dishes such as monkfish with sweet potato, spaghetti squash and Thai coconut-infused curry; as well as veal cheeks with hard boiled quail eggs, shallots and Thai chili. It's safe to say that this is a dinner few who attended will soon forget. Photography by Galdones Photography


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- May 14, 2013
State of the US Online Retail Economy Q1 2013
The growth in online retail is continuing to outpace offline. In the first quarter of 2013, e-commerce grew +13%, while corresponding offline retail grew at only +1%. In this presentation, Comscore Chairman & Co-Founder Gian Fulgoni and Comscore VP of Marketing & Insights Andrew Lipsman provide a full analysis of key retail trends seen in the first quarter of the year. Topics discussed include mobile and multi-platform activity, alternate shipping methods, the potential impact of a federal online sales tax and overviews of retail and product categories.
Here is a preview of the insights shared in this presentation:
- Consumer sentiment improved slightly from January, with 40% of respondents now viewing the economy as 'poor' - an improvement of nine points versus Q1 2012.
- Free shipping continues to be the number one feature for consumers shopping online – nearly half of respondents chose it as the 'most important' service/factor offered by online retailers.
- Mobile & Multi-Platform Commerce are on the rise - 11% of all digital retail commerce is now coming from mobile platforms.
Media RatingsUnderstand audiences and their media consumption across TV, digital, and cross-platform.
Learn More


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EMPORIA, Kan. (WIBW) -- The Kansas Board of Regents announced Friday morning that Dr. Michael Shonrock will be Emporia State University's 16th President.
(excerpts from Board of Regents offical release)
Michael D. Shonrock, Ph.D., has served as a Senior Vice President and an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Leadership at Texas Tech University. He began his higher education administration career at Texas Tech University in 1990. He has held various leadership positions with increasing levels of responsibility and oversight in the area of Enrollment Management, Student Affairs, and Auxiliary Services. Dr. Shonrock earned a B.S. and M.S. from Western Illinois University, his Ed.S. from Pittsburg State University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.
"Accepting the Presidency of ESU represents a coming home," said Shonrock. "Karen and I are excited and honored to become part of the ESU and Emporia communities, and citizens of the great state of Kansas. ESU has a proud past and I look forward to helping shape the future of this institution with the help of the outstanding members of the ESU family."
The announcement of Shonrock as the 16th President of ESU comes after seven months of work by the ESU Presidential Search Committee. Members of the committee received public recognition for their efforts at the announcement.
Shonrock replaces Michael Lane, who resigned effective June 30, 2011.