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Dicamba Damage Roars Back for Third Season in a Row
University weed scientists have reported roughly 383,000 acres of soybean injured by a weedkiller called dicamba so far in 2018, according to University of Missouri plant sciences professor, Kevin Bradley.
Dicamba destroys mostly everything in its path except the crops that are genetically engineered (GE) to resist it. The drift-prone chemical can be picked up by the wind and land on neighboring non-target fields. Plants exposed to the chemical are left wrinkled, cupped or stunted in growth.
Bradley, who has extensively tracked the damage caused by dicamba, noted that this is the third growing season in a row where off-target crops and trees have been affected.
During the 2017 crop season—the first year Monsanto's new dicamba-based XtendiMax was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use on the company's Xtend soybeans and cotton—the herbicide reportedly damaged an estimated 3.6 million acres of off-target crops in more than two dozen states.
Similar devastation occurred in 2016, when 10 states reported hundreds of thousands of crop acres adversely impacted by the apparent misuse of older, unapproved versions of the herbicide.
It appears dicamba damage has roared back this summer. Bradley wrote:
"Many growers in [Missouri] have adopted the Xtend trait so they don't experience dicamba injury on their soybean crop for a third season in a row. Since the adoption of the Xtend trait is so high in this area, relatively speaking there seem to be fewer soybean fields with injury this year compared to last. However, just as in the past two seasons, there are still fields of non-Xtend soybean in this area showing injury from one end to the other. More surprising to me than that has been the extent of the trees that are showing symptoms of growth regulator herbicide injury in that part of the state where the adoption of this trait is so high."
Monsanto, DuPont Co. and BASF SE sell new formulations of the herbicide said to be less drift-prone and volatile than older versions when used correctly.
Monsanto's chief technology officer Robert Fraley, who recently announced that he and other top executives are stepping down from the company after Bayer AG's multi-billion dollar takeover, tweeted on June 16 that there were "very few injury reports so far this year" due to the company's efforts to make instructions for proper spraying easier to follow.
However, a Twitter used named @rkbier tweeted back on June 21: "Our fruit trees and tomatoes in our yard are a mile away from the nearest dicamba field and have damage. EVERY acre of [LibertyLink] and [non-GMO] bean on our fields is damaged no matter how far away from dicamba they are. There are BIG problems."
Of the 15 state departments of agriculture that responded to requests for information, only 43 cases of alleged injury are currently under investigation with soybeans, Bradley said in a University of Missouri press release.
Bradley expressed concern about Xtend technology adoption increasing this year and in ensuing years, noting that Monsanto expects 2018 Xtend acres to double from 2017 to 50 million acres in 2018.
DTN reported that the EPA is planning to make a decision by mid-August on whether or not to extend the registrations of XtendiMax, BASF's Engenia and DuPont's FeXapan, which expire Nov. 2018, as Tony Cofer, president of the Association of American Pesticide Control Officials, explained to the website.
"Our goal is to make a regulatory decision in time to inform seed and weed management purchase decisions for the 2019 growing season," an EPA spokesperson also told DTN via email.
Here are the soybean injury numbers, by acres, in individual states, according to the University of Missouri:
- Arkansas 100,000
- Illinois: 150,000
- Indiana: 5,000
- Iowa: 1,200
- Kansas: 100
- Kentucky: 500
- Nebraska: 40
- Missouri: 25,000
- Mississippi: 100,000
- Tennessee: 2,000
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Tara Smith
Fires in the Brazilian Amazon have jumped 84 percent during President Jair Bolsonaro's first year in office and in July 2019 alone, an area of rainforest the size of Manhattan was lost every day. The Amazon fires may seem beyond human control, but they're not beyond human culpability.
Bolsonaro ran for president promising to "integrate the Amazon into the Brazilian economy". Once elected, he slashed the Brazilian environmental protection agency budget by 95 percent and relaxed safeguards for mining projects on indigenous lands. Farmers cited their support for Bolsonaro's approach as they set fires to clear rainforest for cattle grazing.
Bolsonaro's vandalism will be most painful for the indigenous people who call the Amazon home. But destruction of the world's largest rainforest may accelerate climate change and so cause further suffering worldwide. For that reason, Brazil's former environment minister, Marina Silva, called the Amazon fires a crime against humanity.
From a legal perspective, this might be a helpful way of prosecuting environmental destruction. Crimes against humanity are international crimes, like genocide and war crimes, which are considered to harm both the immediate victims and humanity as a whole. As such, all of humankind has an interest in their punishment and deterrence.
Historical Precedent
Crimes against humanity were first classified as an international crime during the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II. Two German Generals, Alfred Jodl and Lothar Rendulic, were charged with war crimes for implementing scorched earth policies in Finland and Norway. No one was charged with crimes against humanity for causing the unprecedented environmental damage that scarred the post-war landscapes though.
Our understanding of the Earth's ecology has matured since then, yet so has our capacity to pollute and destroy. It's now clear that the consequences of environmental destruction don't stop at national borders. All humanity is placed in jeopardy when burning rainforests flood the atmosphere with CO₂ and exacerbate climate change.
Holding someone like Bolsonaro to account for this by charging him with crimes against humanity would be a world first. If successful, it could set a precedent which might stimulate more aggressive legal action against environmental crimes. But do the Amazon fires fit the criteria?
Prosecuting crimes against humanity requires proof of widespread and systematic attacks against a civilian population. If a specific part of the global population is persecuted, this is an affront to the global conscience. In the same way, domestic crimes are an affront to the population of the state in which they occur.
When prosecuting prominent Nazis in Nuremberg, the US chief prosecutor, Robert Jackson, argued that crimes against humanity are committed by individuals, not abstract entities. Only by holding individuals accountable for their actions can widespread atrocities be deterred in future.
The International Criminal Court's Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has promised to apply the approach first developed in Nuremberg to prosecute individuals for international crimes that result in significant environmental damage. Her recommendations don't create new environmental crimes, such as "ecocide", which would punish severe environmental damage as a crime in itself. They do signal, however, a growing appreciation of the role that environmental damage plays in causing harm and suffering to people.
The International Criminal Court was asked in 2014 to open an investigation into allegations of land-grabbing by the Cambodian government. In Cambodia, large corporations and investment firms were being given prime agricultural land by the government, displacing up to 770,000 Cambodians from 4m hectares of land. Prosecuting these actions as crimes against humanity would be a positive first step towards holding individuals like Bolsonaro accountable.
But given the global consequences of the Amazon fires, could environmental destruction of this nature be legally considered a crime against all humanity? Defining it as such would be unprecedented. The same charge could apply to many politicians and business people. It's been argued that oil and gas executives who've funded disinformation about climate change for decades should be chief among them.
Charging individuals for environmental crimes against humanity could be an effective deterrent. But whether the law will develop in time to prosecute people like Bolsonaro is, as yet, uncertain. Until the International Criminal Court prosecutes individuals for crimes against humanity based on their environmental damage, holding individuals criminally accountable for climate change remains unlikely.
This story originally appeared in The Conversation. It is republished here as part of EcoWatch's partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
Naomi Klein: 'We Are Seeing the Beginnings of the Era of Climate Barbarism'
By Natalie Hanman
Why are you publishing this book now?
I still feel that the way that we talk about climate change is too compartmentalised, too siloed from the other crises we face. A really strong theme running through the book is the links between it and the crisis of rising white supremacy, the various forms of nationalism and the fact that so many people are being forced from their homelands, and the war that is waged on our attention spans. These are intersecting and interconnecting crises and so the solutions have to be as well.
The book collects essays from the last decade, have you changed your mind about anything?
When I look back, I don't think I placed enough emphasis on the challenge climate change poses to the left. It's more obvious the way the climate crisis challenges a rightwing dominant worldview, and the cult of serious centrism that never wants to do anything big, that's always looking to split the difference. But this is also a challenge to a left worldview that is essentially only interested in redistributing the spoils of extractivism [the process of extracting natural resources from the earth] and not reckoning with the limits of endless consumption.
What's stopping the left doing this?
In a North American context, it's the greatest taboo of all to actually admit that there are going to be limits. You see that in the way Fox News has gone after the Green New Deal – they are coming after your hamburgers! It cuts to the heart of the American dream – every generation gets more than the last, there is always a new frontier to expand to, the whole idea of settler colonial nations like ours. When somebody comes along and says, actually, there are limits, we've got some tough decisions, we need to figure out how to manage what's left, we've got to share equitably – it is a psychic attack. And so the response [on the left] has been to avoid, and say no, no, we're not coming to take away your stuff, there are going to be all kinds of benefits. And there aregoing to be benefits: we'll have more livable cities, we'll have less polluted air, we'll spend less time stuck in traffic, we can design happier, richer lives in so many ways. But we are going to have to contract on the endless, disposable consumption side.
Do you feel encouraged by talk of the Green New Deal?
I feel a tremendous excitement and a sense of relief, that we are finally talking about solutions on the scale of the crisis we face. That we're not talking about a little carbon tax or a cap and trade scheme as a silver bullet. We're talking about transforming our economy. This system is failing the majority of people anyway, which is why we're in this period of such profound political destabilisation – that is giving us the Trumps and the Brexits, and all of these strongman leaders – so why don't we figure out how to change everything from bottom to top, and do it in a way that addresses all of these other crises at the same time? There is every chance we will miss the mark, but every fraction of a degree warming that we are able to hold off is a victory and every policy that we are able to win that makes our societies more humane, the more we will weather the inevitable shocks and storms to come without slipping into barbarism. Because what really terrifies me is what we are seeing at our borders in Europe and North America and Australia – I don't think it's coincidental that the settler colonial states and the countries that are the engines of that colonialism are at the forefront of this. We are seeing the beginnings of the era of climate barbarism. We saw it in Christchurch, we saw it in El Paso, where you have this marrying of white supremacist violence with vicious anti-immigrant racism.
That is one of the most chilling sections of your book: I think that's a link a lot of people haven't made.
This pattern has been clear for a while. White supremacy emerged not just because people felt like thinking up ideas that were going to get a lot of people killed but because it was useful to protect barbaric but highly profitable actions. The age of scientific racism begins alongside the transatlantic slave trade, it is a rationale for that brutality. If we are going to respond to climate change by fortressing our borders, then of course the theories that would justify that, that create these hierarchies of humanity, will come surging back. There have been signs of that for years, but it is getting harder to deny because you have killers who are screaming it from the rooftops.
One criticism you hear about the environment movement is that it is dominated by white people. How do you address that?
When you have a movement that is overwhelmingly representative of the most privileged sector of society then the approach is going to be much more fearful of change, because people who have a lot to lose tend to be more fearful of change, whereas people who have a lot to gain will tend to fight harder for it. That's the big benefit of having an approach to climate change that links it to those so called bread and butter issues: how are we going to get better paid jobs, affordable housing, a way for people to take care of their families?
I have had many conversations with environmentalists over the years where they seem really to believe that by linking fighting climate change with fighting poverty, or fighting for racial justice, it's going to make the fight harder. We have to get out of this "my crisis is bigger than your crisis: first we save the planet and then we fight poverty and racism, and violence against women". That doesn't work. That alienates the people who would fight hardest for change.
This debate has shifted a huge amount in the U.S. because of the leadership of the climate justice movement and because it is congresswomen of colour who are championing the Green New Deal. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaibcome from communities that have gotten such a raw deal under the years of neoliberalism and longer, and are determined to represent, truly represent, the interests of those communities. They're not afraid of deep change because their communities desperately need it.
In the book, you write: "The hard truth is that the answer to the question 'What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?' is: nothing." Do you still believe that?
In terms of the carbon, the individual decisions that we make are not going to add up to anything like the kind of scale of change that we need. And I do believe that the fact that for so many people it's so much more comfortable to talk about our own personal consumption, than to talk about systemic change, is a product of neoliberalism, that we have been trained to see ourselves as consumers first. To me that's the benefit of bringing up these historical analogies, like the New Deal or the Marshall Plan – it brings our minds back to a time when we were able to think of change on that scale. Because we've been trained to think very small. It is incredibly significant that Greta Thunberg has turned her life into a living emergency.
Yes, she set sail for the UN climate summit in New York on a zero carbon yacht ...
Exactly. But this isn't about what Greta is doing as an individual. It's about what Greta is broadcasting in the choices that she makes as an activist, and I absolutely respect that. I think it's magnificent. She is using the power that she has to broadcast that this is an emergency, and trying to inspire politicians to treat it as an emergency. I don't think anybody is exempt from scrutinising their own decisions and behaviours but I think it is possible to overemphasise the individual choices. I have made a choice – and this has been true since I wrote No Logo, and I started getting these "what should I buy, where should I shop, what are the ethical clothes?" questions. My answer continues to be that I am not a lifestyle adviser, I am not anyone's shopping guru, and I make these decisions in my own life but I'm under no illusion that these decisions are going to make the difference.
Some people are choosing to go on birth strikes. What do you think about that?
I'm happy these discussions are coming into the public domain as opposed to being furtive issues we're afraid to talk about. It's been very isolating for people. It certainly was for me. One of the reasons I waited as long as I did to try and get pregnant, and I would say this to my partner all the time – what, you want to have a Mad Max water warrior fighting with their friends for food and water? It wasn't until I was part of the climate justice movement and I could see a path forward that I could even imagine having a kid. But I would never tell anybody how to answer this most intimate of questions. As a feminist who knows the brutal history of forced sterilisation and the ways in which women's bodies become battle zones when policymakers decide that they are going to try and control population, I think that the idea that there are regulatory solutions when it comes to whether or not to have kids is catastrophically ahistorical. We need to be struggling with our climate grief together and our climate fears together, through whatever decision we decide to make, but the discussion we need to have is how do we build a world so that those kids can have thriving, zero-carbon lives?
Over the summer, you encouraged people to read Richard Powers's novel, The Overstory. Why?
It's been incredibly important to me and I'm happy that so many people have written to me since. What Powers is writing about trees: that trees live in communities and are in communication, and plan and react together, and we've been completely wrong in the way we conceptualise them. It's the same conversation we're having about whether we are going to solve this as individuals or whether we are going to save the collective organism. It's also rare, in good fiction, to valorise activism, to treat it with real respect, failures and all, to acknowledge the heroism of the people who put their bodies on the line. I thought Powers did that in a really extraordinary way.
What are you views on what Extinction Rebellion has achieved?
One thing they have done so well is break us out of this classic campaign model we have been in for a long time, where you tell someone something scary, you ask them to click on something to do something about it, you skip out the whole phase where we need to grieve together and feel together and process what it is that we just saw. Because what I hear a lot from people is, ok, maybe those people back in the 1930s or 40s could organise neighbourhood by neighbourhood or workplace by workplace but we can't. We believe we've been so downgraded as a species that we are incapable of that. The only thing that is going to change that belief is getting face to face, in community, having experiences, off our screens, with one another on the streets and in nature, and winning some things and feeling that power.
You talk about stamina in the book. How do you keep going? Do you feel hopeful?
I have complicated feelings about the hope question. Not a day goes by that I don't have a moment of sheer panic, raw terror, complete conviction that we are doomed, and then I do pull myself out of it. I'm renewed by this new generation that is so determined, so forceful. I'm inspired by the willingness to engage in electoral politics, because my generation, when we were in our 20s and 30s, there was so much suspicion around getting our hands dirty with electoral politics that we lost a lot of opportunities. What gives me the most hope right now is that we've finally got the vision for what we want instead, or at least the first rough draft of it. This is the first time this has happened in my lifetime. And also, I did decide to have kids. I have a seven year old who is so completely obsessed and in love with the natural world. When I think about him, after we've spent an entire summer talking about the role of salmon in feeding the forests where he was born in British Columbia, and how they are linked to the health of the trees and the soil and the bears and the orcas and this entire magnificent ecosystem, and I think about what it would be like to have to tell him that there are no more salmon, it kills me. So that motivates me. And slays me.
This story was originally published by The Guardian, and is republished here as part of the Covering Climate Now partnership to strengthen the media's focus on the climate crisis.
- 'The Battle for Paradise': Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism & the ... ›
- Naomi Klein: No Is Not Enough - EcoWatch ›
Should 'Eco-Anxiety' Be Classified as a Mental Illness?
As the climate crisis takes on more urgency, psychologists around the world are seeing an increase in the number of children sitting in their offices suffering from 'eco-anxiety,' which the American Psychological Association described as a "chronic fear of environmental doom," as EcoWatch reported.
Fees on Electric Cars, Influenced by Koch Network, Unfairly Penalize Drivers, Consumer Reports Says
By Ben Jervey
Drivers of electric cars are being unfairly punished by punitive fees in several states, according to a newly published analysis by Consumer Reports. Legislators in 26 states have enacted or proposed special registration fees for electric vehicles (EVs) that the consumer advocacy group found to be more expensive than the gas taxes paid by the driver of an average new gasoline vehicle.
'Americans Are Waking Up': Two Thirds Say Climate Crisis Must Be Addressed
By Oliver Milman
Two-thirds of Americans believe climate change is either a crisis or a serious problem, with a majority wanting immediate action to address global heating and its damaging consequences, major new polling has found.
By Brian Barth
There's something of a civil war brewing in the organic movement.
International Coastal Cleanup Gears up for 'Million-Strong' Turnout Saturday
This coming Saturday, Sept. 21 is the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), the annual Ocean Conservancy event that mobilizes volunteers in more than 100 countries to collect litter from beaches and waterways and record what they find.


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Useful sites for educators
Calling All Writers: Introducing Figment
May 16, 2011
Figment is an online community for teens and young-adults to create, discover, and share new reading and writing. Figment enables its users to read amateur and professional content and create their own unfiltered creative writing to share with their peers on web and mobile networks. Since launching in December, Figment has more than 35,000 registered users and more than 75,000 individual pieces of writing. Check it out here!

subset: commoncrawl


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Muscle Mustangs & Fast FordsFeatured Vehicles
Valerie Clements - One Quick Chick
Valerie Clements is the sweetheart of NMRA Renegade
Drag racing is a male-dominated sport, but more females have made their mark doing the quarter-mile dance than in any other form of motorsports.
It's no shock when a young all-American girl comes along and shows the guys how it's done, but it's always exciting to see a lady mix it up in NMRA or any other action.
Since her entrance into the NMRA scene in 2012, Valerie Clements, a South Carolina native, has been a force since she landed herself behind the wheel of a Renegade Mustang. Not only does she race (and win) in her SCT-sponsored ride—this 2012 NMRA Rookie of the Year is a full-time Clemson University engineering student to boot. That's right; she's more than just a pretty face with 116 octane running through her veins.
Valerie began her 10-year career racing Junior Dragsters at the young age of eight with her crew chief and dad, Alton Clements, by her side. This little lady was bred to love the rush of ripping down the quarter-mile, but high 7s in the eighth-mile in a junior dragster is a far cry from the serious power and pressure of the Renegade class.
The years of racing as a child sparked a deep passion that would turn into something that neither Valerie, nor her family, could have anticipated. When an opportunity arose to purchase a race-ready Team Z-built rolling 2005 Mustang chassis from a veteran racer, the Clements family jumped on it—only then did the wrenches started turning on what is now one of the sharpest-looking and fastest Mustangs to grace the Renegade circuit.
After acquiring the perfect chassis, it came down to putting together a winning combination with a built engine and transmission that are up for the task of 8-second e.t.'s. With the help of her brother, Alton Clements Jr., her dad, and the crew, they conjured up a unique engine combo that would prove itself a success all the way to the winner's circle.
The crew summoned respected modular engine builder Tim Matherly of MV Performance in Winder, Georgia, for the best Four-Valve Terminator engine build available.
Previously a small 281 cubes, they stroked it to 310 cubic inches with 9.5:1 compression and loaded it with the best power-loving components available. Custom headers built by Fast Forward Race Cars breathe life into this champ of an S197 Stang, and provide the undeniable jaw-chattering growl that can only come from a modular engine of this magnitude. Inside you'll find Comp Cams custom roller cams, Manley rods—and aren't diamonds a girl's best friend? Why naturally, Diamond pistons, that is! It takes more than a shiny rock to get the attention of this racer chick.
The power adder of choice is boost—and lots of it—from a massive Vortech YSi air-to-air intercooled supercharger yielding a stout 26 psi. Valerie chose a Turbo 400 transmission for longevity and consistency, and it's clear that the combination is working like a well-oiled machine. Keeping it all in the family, Valerie's brother tuned the standalone Big Stuff 3 fuel system, which is fed by Weldon pumps. In addition to tuning his sister's Pony, Alton, Jr. races his own super-quick Fox-body at some NMRA and NMCA events. No sibling rivalry there! Valerie will be the first to say that she couldn't do it without the help and knowledge of her brother.
In the Renegade class, suspension can make or break you and the Clements crew didn't skimp on anything. Underneath this Stallion is a Ford 9-inch rear end, Strange axles, Afco rear shocks, AJE and Team Z control arms, and Koni shocks and struts up front. Wilwood brakes give Valerie the stopping power needed when wheeling a freight train like this down from speed.
For traction, Mickey Thompson tires sit where the rubber meets the road. And are you ready for this? Her best elapsed time is a strong 8.36 at 163 mph with an astounding 1.21 60-foot. That takes major gusto and it's no wonder she's running with the big dogs.
She still maintains a humble spirit and reverence for her pavement-scorching Renegade powerplant, especially after her losing control resulted in a brush with the wall last season. Valerie told us, "Honestly, I'm still a little nervous after all this time. I have respect for the car for sure and you don't want to be too confident." When asked what she was most proud of when considering the whole Renegade racing experience as a whole, she was most proud of her team and gave them the credit for the work put in while she is busy with her school obligations.
"I would like to thank my dad and my brother for all of the time and hard work they put into the car as well as my mom, Janet, for her support and work. They are the 'power house' that keeps the car running awesome every race. Other crew guys include Brent Weston, Bill Gillen and Devin DeAngelis," Valerie explained.
In 2013, she took her first Renegade win against some fierce competitors (technically at the Atlanta event). Though the event was rained delayed, it was continued at the next event in Maryland. The sweetest part of the story is that she was actually racing on 7 cylinders, and still ended up in the winner's circle.
The 2014 season brings some exciting changes Valerie's way, as she takes on a new sponsor—Watson Racing near Detroit, Michigan, better known for its part in building the Cobra Jet and other race Mustangs. Watson is providing the Clements' team with a new '14 Mustang chassis ready for a new look and winning season with Valerie in the driver's seat. Girls can race and win, and Valerie has the recipe of a winner—we can't wait to see what the 2014 season brings her way.


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Published Jul 1, 2014
Put your best face forward. Who do you trust to make you glow?
Not all salons are created equal. Some pamper you, others bring cutting... see the Top 5 →
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Who wouldn't feel passionate about a massage? Tell us who's best at... see the Top 5 →
Fun in the sun can be overrated. Who makes you look naturally radiant? see the Top 5 →
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Unwanted hair can be such a hassle to get rid of. Where do you go to get... see the Top 5 →
The 2014 Dallas A-List awards are based on more than 38,000 votes from local North Texas-area experts.


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Uterine fibroids are noncancerous (benign) growths that develop in the
muscular wall of the uterus. Some can be as small as a pea, while others
can be as large as a cantaloupe. About 20 to 80 percent of women develop
fibroids by the time they reach age 50. Fibroids are most common in women
in their 40s and early 50s. Not all women with fibroids have symptoms.
Women who do have symptoms often find fibroids hard to live with. Some
have pain and heavy menstrual bleeding. Fibroids also can put pressure
on the bladder, causing frequent urination, or the rectum, causing rectal
pressure. Should the fibroids get very large, they can cause the abdomen
(stomach area) to enlarge, making a woman look pregnant.
There are several factors that can increase a woman's risk of developing fibroids:
While fibroids do not always cause symptoms, their size and location can
lead to problems for some women, including:
Fibroids typically improve after menopause when the level of estrogen decreases
dramatically. However, menopausal women who are taking supplemental estrogen
may not experience relief of symptoms.
Uterine fibroids often can be detected during a pelvic examination. Ultrasound
may also be performed. In some cases, a flexible scope may be inserted
through the vagina into the uterus to view inside (a "hysteroscopy").
This procedure is well tolerated using a local anesthetic.
The decision as to whether or not Uterine Fibroid Embolization (UFE) is
an appropriate treatment will be made after referral to the Interventional
Radiologist by the patient's primary care physician, gynecologist
or self-referral. A consultation and thorough explanation of the risks
and benefits of the procedure will be made between the patient and Interventional
Radiologist, utilizing pre-procedure diagnostic tools, including pelvic
ultrasound and/or CT/MRI studies.
The procedure is done with angiography assistance in the Interventional
Radiology department using intravenous medication to make our patients
"sleepy and relaxed". A catheter is placed through the femoral
artery in the groin area and is passed into the artery that supplies blood
flow to the uterus and the uterine fibroid. The Interventional Radiologist
will inject small particles (made of a gelatin-based material) that will
move into the arteries that supply the fibroid. The particles stop the
blood flow to the fibroid and over time will cause it to shrink in size.
The advantages to UFE include:
After the procedure is completed, patients are transferred to a holding
room for approximately 1 hour. Most patients will experience moderate
pelvic pain and cramping. There also may be nausea and possible fever.
The pain and nausea will be controlled with intravenous medications, and
a pump (PCA) that allows self-administration of the medications. After
the initial period of bed rest, usually 4-6 hours, patients are allowed
to get out of bed. Most symptoms improve by the next morning.
After discharge, most patients will have periodic moderate to severe cramping
for a few days. Pain medication will be prescribed to control these symptoms.
Most women feel better within a few days. Patients are asked to take it
easy for a few days, with no heavy lifting. Two weeks of pelvic rest and
off work for a few days are also recommended.
On average about 80-85 percent of women have almost total or total relief
of pain and other symptoms caused by uterine fibroids. Up to 1 percent
of women have injury to the uterus from the procedure, possible resulting
in the necessity of a hysterectomy. Some women experience menopause after
the procedure. Results about getting pregnant after the procedure is inconclusive.


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Mini Quilt Monday
I'm thinking of taking the next few weeks and working on some mini quilts. I would like to tackle a type of block or quilting style in each that I have not done before. What do you think? Anyone want to join me?
This mini is just such a quilt. I've done a bit of hand stitching, but not "official" embroidery from a pattern in a quilt until now. These adorable animals are patterns purchased from Penguin and Fish. They are great for newbies, with the most complicated stitch being a chain stitch and french knot.
X-Ray Fish
This mini quilt is a baby gift finished just in time for a friend. I don't think she reads my blog...or at least I hope not!
The blocks are made up of brightly colored squares from my stash. The embroidery has been done on Kona Ash. Each square measures 8" finished.
I added a thin white border around the center section and then Riley Blake's Feeling Groovy stripes as a thicker border. The binding is from Lizzy House's 1001 Peeps. I think the bright colors will be perfect for this special baby as she grows. :)
The back is a fabric I bought awhile back at Ikea. I just really like the feminine but modern look.
I quilted this a few different ways. First I quilted straight lines 1/4" on each side of the nine center block seams, backstitching at the start and finish. Then I went completely around the white sashing and rainbow sashing. Hopefully the below photo shows what I'm talking about a bit better.
Overall I'm really happy with this mini quilt! I hope the new future owner takes a liking to it as well. :)


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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wall Street was set to open higher on Tuesday after a long holiday weekend, as stock futures rose in the wake of a move by the People's Bank of China to inject cash into big banks. Johnson & Johnson and Verizon Communications Inc. both reported earnings.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average US:DJH4 rose 87 points, or 0.54%, to 16,467, while those for the S&P 500 US:SPH4 added 6.9 points to 1,841.20. Futures for the Nasdaq-100 index US:NDH4 jumped 18.25 points, or 0.5%, to 3,603.
There is no data on the calendar for Tuesday, but a column by The Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath, saying the Federal Reserve is on track to trim its bond-buying program at its Jan. 28-29 meeting could attract some attention.
Analysts said futures got a lift after the People's Bank of China said it provided emergency funding support for commercial banks as they gear up to meet demands for cash ahead of the Lunar New Year. The news lifted Hong Kong stocks as well as European stocks.
"This has reassured both the Chinese market and equity markets generally. However, with debt rising rapidly, it is no surprise that investors are increasingly worried that the Chinese economy is not as robust as originally forecast and will not deliver the level of growth required," commented Rebecca O'Keeffe, head of investment at stockbroker Interactive Investor, in a note.
While U.S. traders were out Monday, a report out of China showed weak growth in the country's industrial output. Other data showed China GDP rose 7.7% in the October-December quarter from a year ago, which was below the 7.8% recorded in the prior quarter, but still slightly better than economists expected.
U.S. markets were closed Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Stocks closed mostly lower on Friday after downbeat results from Intel Corp. INTC, -0.89% and General Electric Co. GE, +0.97%. But technology stocks were a stand-out last week, with stock futures showing the sector may continue to get a bid on Tuesday.
Earnings may fill the data void. Ahead of the bell, blue chip Johnson & Johnson JNJ, +0.27% reported fourth-quarter earnings of $1.24 per share, beating expectations of $1.20, excluding special items. Shares were up slightly in premarket. Verizon, Delta, IBM are stocks to watch Tuesday
Another Dow component, Verizon VZ, -0.78% said it swung to a fourth-quarter profit of $1.76 per share and adjusted earnings were 66 cents a share. Shares were up 0.9% in premarket.
Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL, +0.96% shares climbed 2.7% Tuesday after the firm reported adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of 65 cents per share, compared to analyst estimates of 63 cents, according to a FactSet poll.
Forest Laboratories Inc. US:FRX swung to a fiscal third-quarter and shares rose 6.1% in premarket.
After the closing bell, International Business Machines Corp. IBM, +0.03% and Texas Instruments Inc. TXN, -0.47% are due to report. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Lenovo Group Ltd. is in talks to buy IBM's low-end server business, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Shares of Apple Inc. AAPL, -1.94% could be in focus after analysts at Société Générale cut their rating on the company to hold from buy, citing worries about iPhone sales and a cheaper mix that involves the iPhone 5C.
Within other markets, oil prices edged up and gold drifted lower, while the dollar DXY, -0.46% traded mostly higher.
More must-reads from MarketWatch:
'Sloppy' market turns to consumer, tech earnings
3 risks that could crash the market


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This post is to announce the forming of a new group in Colorado. We will mainly be investigating ghosts/hauntings, with other paranormal occurrences to follow in the future. Feel free to join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/capir/ to keep up with the news. Web page coming soon, it will be announced here when complete.
New Group in CO
Started by Gyrfalcon , Oct 07 2002 12:13 PM
3 replies to this topic
Posted 07 October 2002 - 12:13 PM
Posted 07 October 2002 - 12:44 PM
Sounds cool, cant wait to see the site
"Who Forted?" Magazine!The 'Net's Greatest 'Zine About Weird Stuff!
Posted 04 November 2002 - 12:23 PM
We have a webpage now, it's still in its infancy. if you have any suggestions for things I haven't thought of yet, let me know. http://agesago.150m.com/capir.html
We will be posting some investigation results soon!
Gyr ;D
We will be posting some investigation results soon!
Gyr ;D
Posted 06 October 2003 - 09:23 PM
I have just moved to colorodo from pennsylvania and I am looking for a group to do paranormal research with in this area. If you are looking for more members I would like to hear from you. Thanks
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Things are going according to plan for the future of the X-Men film universe... at least according to my thoughts on what we'd see from Fox Studios going forward. As expected, Bryan Singer is back in the fold and will be directing the prequel X-Men: First Class, and X-Men Origins: Magneto is seemingly even less likely to happen than before.
While some X-Men fans were hopeful of the second X-Men Origins film following the history of the master of magnetism, to me it was the least likely of the projects in development to happen. Not only would such a project require a re-cast of the title character, which would never please the full fanbase, but it would therefore be less bankable since the actors would be new to the franchise. Magneto was cool for the X-Men trilogy but would moviegoers buy into him as the lead with Sir Ian McKellen not playing him?
A Magneto origins feature would have been about a his younger self meeting a young Professor X (also re-cast) and their developing relationship before the formulation of the X-Men. While it may have been a great story on paper, we know that there would of course be an infusion of mutant characters who don't belong into the film to make it a flashy blockbuster affair and we don't need that.
David Goyer was signed last summer to write and possibly direct the Magneto spinoff but since then, plans for said film have been put on hold. Goyer's original idea for the story of the Magneto film was as follows:
"The storyline will heavily involve Professor X, the wheelchair-using X-Men leader. That character was a soldier in the allied force that liberated the concentration camps. The professor meets Magneto after the war and while they bond over the realization that they are alike in their special powers, their differences soon turn them into enemies."
Since X-Men Origins: Wolverine debuted to big box office numbers (though we can't say the same for its critical reception), a growing number of X-Men films have been pushed into development. Skip forward to the Blu-ray release of the Wolverine origin movie, and producer Lauren Shuler Donner discussed the main four X-projects in development: Wolverine 2, X-Men: First Class, X-Men Origins: Magneto and Deadpool. First Class and Magneto were already being written by Josh Schwartz and Goyer respectively and a Deadpool spinoff was dependent on the reception of Ryan Reynolds' cameo in the Wolverine movie.
At the time, Donner said that Magneto was low on the priority list:
"David Goyer has written a brilliant script. It starts in the concentration camps and has Magneto coming out of there. But you know, I'm not sure that film is going to be made. The studio has a wealth of potential stories, and they have to stand back and decide which ones to make. And Magneto, I think, is at the back of the queue. Maybe it'll get made in five years – who knows? I can tell you that Ian McKellen won't be playing the character the whole way through. We used Lola technology in X-Men 3 to de-age Ian and Patrick for one scene, but it's very expensive. To do that for a two-hour movie would be prohibitive financially. And to find a younger actor to fill Ian's shoes, that's pretty daunting. It's not easy."
As we know, Deadpool was greenlit and they're bringing in writers (possibly the writers behind Zombieland) to handle that film; Wolverine 2 was pushed ahead and is being written by Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), and the most recent development of course was the confirmation of Bryan Singer taking the helm of First Class and writer Jamie Moss brought on board to pen the script. Add to that the fact that Donner is in the early stages of also planning a possible X-Men 4 and New Mutants movies and there's no room for Magneto anytime soon with all of these fresh new projects introducing new characters, large casts and plenty of cross-over opportunity.
There's only so many resources to go around and from Fox's perspective, which have more potential to not only bank the most coin, but spawn new franchises?


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Spare Room Turned Into Creative Multimedia Library
Family homes are not only oasis of comfort ad meeting spaces, but can also hold exceptional spaces like this Multimedia Library. Located in a home in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil, this innovative digital room design belongs to the creative minds of Brazilian architects YTA. What was once a spare room became a space where materials intertwine to create a set of juxtaposed layers. Concrete slabs are covered here and there by wooden boards irregularly climbing up the walls while the pipe lighting system adds drama through light. Although the material choice tends towards industrial, the technological features are not to be underrated – "Technology here is in favor of the user, allowing him to control his whole environment (audio, video, lighting, temperature, safety) through a tablet, as well as connecting him to the world through online navigation." Memorabilia and vintage details are present in this warm space, next to magazines and books proving their irreplaceable nature. Raw materials were used to define a technological environment – do you like the outcome?


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Wow guys in here are pretty small! I'm right on cue with my 5'11" 175lbs body it seems.
Where are the 6'9 guys?
I am 6'2" and played PG...but that was 12 long years ago for the first V at school lol
6'1 PF, 26 years old, now at 270 but that is all added on as i started working behind a desk and had a baby taking up all my normal gym time. I was always around the 220-240 lbs range. Played all my high school and university ball at PF. But i play in a Mens league now and play anywhere from 2-5.
I've always been a "point forward", undersized big, but with a lot of strength and a solid wide stance. 3 point range is streaky, but from anywhere iinside of 17 feet i'm clutch. On the defensive end i'm a hound dog and use most of my energy there. I try to play without fouling, but I get away with a lot of $hit. I also lead the division in blocks 2 years ago. It helps that as a rule, Canadian's are not tall.
SG/SF paintball game, but I play football more. Use to play LB/SS in the Simi-pros (Brooklyn Chargers) and earned a shot to tryout for the Jets practice squad. I never went because I was shot in the left arm the following week over some unrelated jealousy BS. Them damn crabs in the barrel...
6'0 200 pounds and all I play is power forward. Im a white guy with a goatee and my main strength is rebounding and under the basket play so obviously I get called Kevin Love.
My 3 point shot isnt that good at all anymore, I have a weird shot where my leg kicks out so I get abused for it haha. Play pickup games every Wednesday, love to ball.
Poster formerly known as LJ4President
I Miss You Pat.
Signature created by AmareforPresident
lol, now weighing in at about 230. Playing a lot faster but still mostly in the low post. I was more of a face up PF ala. Amar'e but I've been working on back to the basket moves and my hop-step.
Trying to get my weight down to ~200 lbs. It will be harder to defend the biggest guys in my league (6'6 280) at that weight but I will be more effective overall on the court. Teams often like to but me on the wing as I can drain long 2's and cut quick enough to the basket to get good position and hold a seal, but my perimeter defense sucks (something else to work on).
New season starts up in October.
I dunno I'm undersized for a PF but i get loads of boards and led my league in blocks. I was playing at like 260-270lbs but lost a lot of weight recently (down to 225-ish) With a low center of gravity I was able to stay on my feet and use positioning skills to box out the bigger guys. Lots of over the back fouls drawn. Deceptively quick feet and hands made me valuable on defense, but my offensive output hasn't materialized on the team I was playing with. Trying out with a new team this fall.
I play PF or C in league, but really I can play SF if they needed me to because I'll cut and slash, I'll drain the mid range, I'll swat the shots for you.
But I haven't been in game shape since 2001, so my production has been limited in the last few seasons. My last season was by far my best, because it coincided with me starting to lift the weights, and I benefited a lot from that, I was able to set picks now and grab more boards, and more difficult to move from my spot, but now I am today much further along and I am planning my comeback to the B-League in Winter, 2012. By then I should be in beastly shape and I expect to drop:
14 points, grab 6 boards, shoot maybe 50%, 65% from free throws, and I will swat AT least 2 shots.
This is going to be the 45 MJ double nickel season.
Oh and I had a stress fracture in the last season I played, that's why I had to cut it short, but I was dropping something like 5 points, 4 boards, maybe 0.8 swats per game, but I was playing solid D, so that's why NOW, with the game shape, I'm gonna be a revelation in league.
I'm trying to be like the Jeremy Lin of the B League.


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Nebraska Cornhuskers Head Coach Chair
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Extra padded seat for maximum comfort
Tilt Tension Adjustment & Single Lever Seat Height Control with Locking Mechanism.
Be the envy in the Office or the Block.
A must have for any sports fan, student or alumni.
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Shipping Information for Nebraska Cornhuskers Head Coach Chair
Please allow one to two weeks for delivery via UPS.
Typically ships within 2-3 business days.
Warranty Details
Warranty Information for Nebraska Cornhuskers Head Coach Chair
The Nebraska Cornhuskers Head Coach Chair carries a 90 day manufacturer's warranty against defective parts.


text: Dan "Shoe" Hsu has been writing some excellent pieces on the Sore Thumbs blog about the "behind the scenes" life of a video game journalist. (Mentally quote the word journalist if you want to make yourself feel better! -Ed.) The former Electronic Gaming Monthly editor in chief has recently been very blunt about the touchier subjects in games writing — accusations of bribery, the ethics of junkets, etc. — but now, it's the PR side's turn. An anonymous guest blogger from an unnamed "Big Publisher" explains the dirty details of games PR, from the "banning" of editors and media outlets, to the financial arrangements publishers make with magazines and web sites to exchange coverage for good reviews, exclusives for the best reviews."Any good PR people working for a game publisher understand what a developer goes through, and should fight hard to get the game looked at by journalists fairly," Anonymous Guy writes. "This is not to say a bad game should get a free pass, but every game should be given a fair appraisal, with considerations made for target market and price." Anonymous also writes that "there aren't that many good game journalists" and that developers — just like publishers — hold many writers in high contempt. Present gaming blog excluded, I'm quite sure. What I'm not so quite sure about, is whether I agree with the assessment that those working in the game media "are living off the blood sweat and tears of creative people who love games and regularly work 100 hours weeks." I've known more than a few folks on the press side who pour their heart and soul and time into their jobs for inequivalent compensation. It's a fascinating, potentially eye-rolling read, should you care that much about the integrity of the industry and game writing in general. Fortunately, I feel like most of the accusations and uncomfortable situations are alien to me, as our particular circumstances aren't exactly like those of bigger print publications and web sites that employ dozens of writers, editors, designers and layers of management. The lazy part, though. I can relate to that. From the perspective of a game publisher [Sore Thumbs]


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I'm going to come clean about a recent addiction.
Don't worry, it's not drugs or smoking or cheap vodka. But my doctor still might not approve. You see, a few months ago I discovered my local co-op got fresh almond croissants delivered everyday from Cannelle Patisserie, easily one of the best pastry shops in New York. They are big and filled with almond paste and flakey in the best way possible. I can't get enough of them.
On a good week, I'd get one or two for breakfast and be done with it. During weaker periods, I'd succomb to three or four in a week. Self control, at least when it comes to croissants, is not my strongest quality.
In an effort to prevent my diet from being way too carb-heavy, I've been experimenting with some healthy lunches that aren't rice- or noodle-based. Or rather, wheat-noodle-based. I still like the thought of having noodles, so why not just make them out of vegetables instead?
(This was also partly influenced by a recent conversation with my friend Justin, who has gone gluten-free and says he has never felt better. I'm not going gluten-free, but maybe more vegetables in place of wheat would make me feel less sluggish day-to-day.)
And so I've gotten into the habit of making zucchini noodles, with a sauce similar to the ones I make for soba and other cold noodles. I just use a vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into wide ribbons, briefly cook them, and toss them with a sesame oil, soy sauce (you can also opt for gluten-free soy sauce), and rice vinegar mixture.
To make the dish more filling, I pan-fry some tofu with ginger in a skillet to top off the noodles. Carrots add some nice color, plus they are also easy to julienne, but you can also toss in some chopped kale or boy choy or sliced raw radishes. I also sometimes add nori strips (sliced from nori snack packs) on top for some umami oomph, but you can leave them out if you choose.
Plus, because the noodles can be eaten at room temperature or cold, they're fantastic for the upcoming summer, which promises to be long and muggy. Make a big batch for the week, eat it straight out of the fridge, and feel less guilty about your morning pastry habits! (Or so I tell myself.)
Zucchini Noodles with Pan-fried Tofu
Serves 2 to 3
- 3 large zucchini
- 1 large carrot, peeled
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce (can substitute gluten-free soy sauce)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 1 pound (1 block) extra-firm tofu
- 1 to 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
- 1/2 tablespoon minced or grated ginger
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon white sesame seeds
- Nori strips, optional (I bought nori snack packs and sliced the sheets into thin strips)
- With a vegetable peeler, slice the zucchini into wide ribbons. (I rotate the zucchini every 2 or 3 slices so the ribbons get a nice thin strip of dark green along the edges.) With a julienne or vegetable peeler, slice the carrot into strips.
- In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the zucchini and cook for about 1 minute. Drain, rinse under cold water, and drain well. Transfer to a large bowl and toss with half of the soy sauce mixture, reserving the other half. Transfer the tossed zucchini noodles to a large serving dish.
- Drain and rinse the tofu, then cut into flat, bite-sized pieces. Blot the tofu all around with a paper towel (drying the tofu helps it pan-fry better.)
- In a large skillet, add half the cooking oil. Working in two batches, pan-fry the tofu until golden brown and a little bit crispy on the outside, about 3 minutes per side. Add the ginger to cook for about 30 seconds after the second batch has gotten crispy. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Top the noodles with the carrot and tofu and drizzle the remainder of the soy sauce mixture on top. (If all the tofu doesn't fit, you can also put any extras in another dish to be served on the side) Sprinkle the sesame seeds and nori strips on top and serve.


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GOP frets over Alabama contender
Tuesday's special primary runoff for an Alabama congressional seat is heading toward a photo finish — and emerging as a potential black eye for the Republican establishment forces that have converged on the race.
Despite a fierce, last-minute push from House GOP leaders and the business community to supply cash and endorsements to Bradley Byrne, public polling shows the former state senator in a tight race with Dean Young, a flame-throwing tea party contender with a penchant for controversial remarks.
Story Continued Below
A Wednesday poll conducted by the Republican consulting firm Cygnal showed Young, a wealthy real estate investor, with a 43.2 percent to 40.2 percent lead over Byrne among likely voters. Sixteen percent of those surveyed said they were undecided. The results were within the survey's 3 percentage point margin of error.
( Also on POLITICO: GOP identity crisis plays out in Ala.)
The two candidates are competing for the 1st Congressional District seat of Republican ex-Rep. Jo Bonner, who resigned in August to take a position at the University of Alabama System. Byrne and Young finished atop a crowded Sept. 24 primary field. Whoever wins the runoff is expected to easily secure the conservative district in the December general election.
Many people in Washington and Alabama political circles still view Byrne as the favorite: He has raised more than twice as much money as Young, is getting backup from several outside groups, and has a far more sophisticated campaign operation than his opponent.
( Also on POLITICO: Byrne, Young head to Ala. runoff)
But to some, the survey confirmed what many of Byrne's supporters had feared all along: that Young — through his hard-nosed conservative rhetoric — was tapping a vein of support in the deep red, Mobile-area district. Firing up the district's most conservative voters — those most likely to turn out in what is expected to be a low turnout, off-year special election — is harder for the more low-key Byrne to do.
"I think it's a close race. It's always been Bradley's to lose, but I think it's tightened in the last few weeks. Dean, if anything, embodies people's anger at the Obama administration," said Jerry Lathan, an Alabama Republican Party vice chairman. "It's the same thing we're seeing across the country, where someone is seen as the angry insurgent and they get traction."
In an interview this week, Byrne declined to directly address the poll but said he is confident he's in the lead.
"I think we're ahead, but it's a turnout race," he told POLITICO. "But we always knew it was a turnout race."
Should Young win, it would come as a shock to the business and Washington power brokers who've rushed to Byrne's aid during the final days of the race. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent about $200,000 on Byrne's behalf, and the group Ending Spending, funded by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, has poured in around $75,000 on TV and radio ads boosting him.
Others backing Byrne with campaign money include House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), as well as dozens of Washington-based political action committees, including the National Association of Homebuilders, Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association.
Young, meanwhile, is relying on a grass-roots organization to pull him over the finish line.
The largesse reflects a widespread concern in GOP and business circles over Young, and a desire to strike back against the tea party members whose push to defund Obamacare in the budget fight led to the government shutdown.


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Your Premier Kia Dealership near Vancouver, BC
Every so often, an automotive brand comes along and changes everything you thought you knew about style, performance, and value. Kia vehicles combine the best of all these aspects, and so much more. If you're looking to explore the Lower Mainland in a truly exceptional way, choose Kia. Kia West is proud to be the premier Kia dealership near Vancouver for new adventures, and bigger smiles. Stop by today, and discover a car dealership in Coquitlam that truly goes above and beyond.
Your next journey begins on our lot, where you'll find an impressive inventory of new Kia SUVs, crossovers, and cars, each loaded with the latest and greatest in automotive innovation. Whether you're looking for the nimble handling and exceptional efficiency of a sedan, the versatility and style of a crossover, or the adventure-ready performance of a spacious SUV, Kia West has got you covered. And if you're looking to maximize value with a wallet-friendly "well-travelled" vehicle, our stunning selection of quality pre-owned vehicles has something for everyone. Our friendly and enthusiastic sales team will match you with the vehicle that checks off all the right boxes. At Kia West, we believe in giving our customers the power of choice!
We are an award winning dealership with an award winning lineup!
Find Your Kia Today!
At Kia West, we're proud to be more than great vehicles. Whether you're browsing, taking a test drive, exploring your financing options, picking the perfect part, installing a brand-new set of winter tires, or visiting the experts in our service department to restore that "like new" feeling to your vehicle, you can count on exceptional customer service every time. You'll find a complete dedication to your happiness in every department at Kia West. If you're looking for a fresh, modern approach to car buying, as well as vehicles that represent the very best in value, visit our convenient car dealership in Coquitlam today! Your dream Kia might be closer than you think.


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Below are some of the more popular Cable and Satellite TV providers for Wynot, NE 68792. All of these plans can be replaced with the proper DTV antenna and possibly a streaming service or two. If you do the math, dropping any of these guys will save you a ton of money. For instance, I saved over $1,400 during my first year!
Dish Network
Available channels: 330+
Available channels: 315+


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Dumb Or Smart Move? Man Finds Bag with $140K Then Returns The Loot In Cali
Last month, resident Eli Estrada found a bag of unmarked $20 bills, totaling $140,000, which had fallen off a Brinks armored truck. Even though he was in debt, he returned the money. CBS reports&IP=126.96.36.199
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
6: Valuing Diversity in Learners
Examine the Topic
Now that you have read the research and viewed the video discussion on working with diverse learners, you will examine the topic further by looking at ways to address the needs of different types of learners that you may have in your class.
A. Strategies for Working With Diverse LearnersIn the following interactive activity, you will have the opportunity to read about four categories of learners that may be part of a typical foreign language classroom: heritage language learners, students with learning disabilities, students with different learning styles, and students in different levels. For each category of learners, you will do the following:
B. Reflect on the ActivityAfter comparing the sample answers with your strategies for working with diverse learners, reflect on the following questions:
Next > Put It Into Practice
|6: Valuing Diversity in Learners >
Introduction | Before You Watch | Analyze the Video
Examine the Topic | Put It Into Practice | Action Research Project | Reflect on Your Learning
Resources | Library Videos Chart | Printouts | Assignments
Foreign Languages Workshop Home | © | About This Workshop | Glossary | Site Map
© Annenberg Foundation 2017. All rights reserved. Legal Policy


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LG unveils K30 with Snapdragon 425
NOMU M8 is the most stylish rugged phon
Blackview BV9700 Pro is a battery beast while gaming
Computers & Tablets
Car Electronics
Hardware Components
Google Nexus 4 8GB - Specification, Features.
Phones Specs
>> Google Nexus 4 8GB
Secret codes
General Information Google Nexus 4 8GB
Operating System:
Is an operating system for smartphones, tablets, PDAs, or other mobile devices. While computers such as the typical laptop are mobile, the operating systems usually used on them are not considered mobile ones as they were originally designed for bigger stationary desktop computers that historically did not have or need specific "mobile" features. Mobile operating systems combine features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use; usually including, and most of the following considered essential in modern mobile systems; a touchscreen, cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS mobile navigation, camera, video camera, speech recognition, voice recorder, music player, near field communication and infrared blaster.
Android v4.2 (Jelly Bean)
SIM Slot(s):
Single SIM, GSM
SIM Size:
SIM1: Micro
3G: Available, 2G: Available
Body Google Nexus 4 8GB
133.9 (H) x 68.7 (W) x 9.1 (T) mm
139 grams
Black White
Display Google Nexus 4 8GB
Screen Size:
Is the physical size of the area where pictures and videos are displayed. The size of a screen is usually described by the length of its diagonal, which is the distance between opposite corners, usually in inches.
4.7 inches
Screen Resolution:
The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by different factors in cathode ray tube (CRT), flat-panel display which includes liquid-crystal displays, or projection displays using fixed picture-element (pixel) arrays.
768 x 1280 pixels
Pixel Density:
Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measurement of the pixel density (resolution) of an electronic image device, such as a computer monitor or television display, or image digitizing device such as a camera or image scanner. Horizontal and vertical density are usually the same, as most devices have square pixels, but differ on devices that have non-square pixels.
318 ppi
Display Type:
Touch Screen:
Capacitive Touchscreen, Multi-touch
Performance Google Nexus 4 8GB
Mobile phones run on so-called embedded chipsets, which are designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints. They are embedded as part of the complete device including hardware and mechanical parts.
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064
A mobile processor is found in mobile computers and cellphones. A CPU chip is designed for portable computers, it is typically housed in a smaller chip package, but more importantly, in order to run cooler, it uses lower voltages than its desktop counterpart and has more "sleep mode" capability. A mobile processor can be throttled down to different power levels or sections of the chip can be turned off entirely when not in use. Further, the clock frequency may be stepped down under low processor loads. This stepping down conserves power and prolongs battery life.
Quad core, 1.5 GHz, Krait
Adreno 320
Random-access memory (RAM) is a form of computer data storage. A random-access memory device allows data items to be accessed (read or written) in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory.
Memory Google Nexus 4 8GB
Internal Memory:
A reference is distinct from the data itself. Typically, for references to data stored in memory on a given system, a reference is implemented as the physical address of where the data is stored in memory or in the storage device. For this reason, a reference is often erroneously confused with a pointer or address, and is said to "point to" the data.
Expandable Memory:
Camera Google Nexus 4 8GB
Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Basically, resolution quantifies how close lines can be to each other and still be visibly resolved. Resolution units can be tied to physical sizes (e.g. lines per mm, lines per inch), to the overall size of a picture (lines per picture height, also known simply as lines, TV lines, or TVL), or to angular subtenant. Line pairs are often used instead of lines; a line pair comprises a dark line and an adjacent light line.
Exmor-R CMOS image sensor
LED Flash
Image Resolution:
3264 x 2448 Pixels
ISO control
Shooting Modes:
Continuos Shooting, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR)
Camera Features:
4 x Digital Zoom, Digital image stabilization, Touch to focus
Video Recording:
1920x1080 @ 30 fps
Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Basically, resolution quantifies how close lines can be to each other and still be visibly resolved. Resolution units can be tied to physical sizes (e.g. lines per mm, lines per inch), to the overall size of a picture (lines per picture height, also known simply as lines, TV lines, or TVL), or to angular subtenant. Line pairs are often used instead of lines; a line pair comprises a dark line and an adjacent light line.
Battery Google Nexus 4 8GB
Battery capacity:
Batteries convert chemical energy directly to electrical energy. A battery consists of some number of voltaic cells. Each cell consists of two half-cells connected in series by a conductive electrolyte containing anions and cations.
2100 mAh
Not User Replaceable:
Up to 15 Hours(3G) / Up to 11.9 Hours(2G)
Standby Time:
Up to 390 Hours(3G) / Up to 564 Hours(2G)
Wireless Charging:
Connectivity Google Nexus 4 8GB
SIM Size:
SIM1: Micro
Network Support:
3G Bands: UMTS 1900 / 2100 / 850 / 900 MHz
2G Bands: GSM 1800 / 1900 / 850 / 900 MHz
3G Speed: HSDPA 42.2 Mbit/s , HSUPA 5.76 Mbit/s
Wi-Fi (or WiFi) is a local area wireless computer networking technology that allows electronic devices to connect to the network, mainly using the 2.4 gigahertz (12 cm) UHF and 5 gigahertz (6 cm) SHF ISM radio bands.
Wi-Fi 802.11, a/b/g/n/n 5GHz
Wi-Fi Features:
Wi-Fi Direct, Mobile Hotspot
Bluetooth is a wireless technology for exchanging data over short distances. The chip can be plugged into computers, digital cameras and mobile phones.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.
with A-GPS, Glonass
USB Connectivity:
microUSB 2.0
Multimedia Google Nexus 4 8GB
FM Radio:
A loudspeaker is simply a device that converts electrical energy into sound that is amplified so that it can be heard from a greater distance than the original sound would allow. There is no difference in usage of the terms speaker and loudspeaker and both are often used interchangeably. Some loudspeakers are capable of producing sounds over a wide range of frequencies and some are only made to reproduce certain frequencies.
Audio Jack:
3.5 mm
Special Features Google Nexus 4 8GB
Other Sensors:
Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, Barometer, Compass, Gyroscope
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The Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation is conducting a clinical trial on stem cell therapy for autoimmune diseases (Autoimmune Bullous Skin Disorders such as pemphigus and pemphigoid are included).
The Division of Immunotherapy is laboratory and clinic based, utilizing methods that allow the safe isolation, manipulation and preservation of population of stem cells and immune cells for therapeutic purposes.
Currently DIAD collaborates with the Divisions of Rheumatology, Nephrology, Gastroenterology and Hematology/Oncology, and the Departments of Neurology and Transplant Surgery in innovation approaches and active protocols for the treatment of severe lupus, amyloidosis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and post transplant Lymphoproliferative disorders and cancers.
The Division invites inquires from physicians who would like to apply hematopoietic stem cells or immune cells toward innovative approaches to disease management and organ regeneration.
Northwestern's Clinical Areas and Conditions page


text: Dick Kelley was considered the greatest two-way defenseman in Boston State College ice hockey history. He started all 70 games at right defense for the Warriors, was a mainstay on the power play and penalty kill units for his entire career and was named the team's Most Valuable Player as a senior. Kelley burst onto the scene as a sophomore, helping Boston State to a 16-9-1 record and an NAIA Final Four appearance after defeating Salem State College for the Eastern Regional title. Kelley set school-records that season in points and assists for defensemen with 28 and 21, respectively, and was named All-East as well as All-New England. The annual Codfish Bowl tournament became a showcase for Kelley, being named to the All-Tournament team three times for the champion Warriors and was named Co-MVP for the 1969 classic. Kelley was also named to the 35th Anniversary All-Time All-Tournament squad. An ECAC Player of the Week recipient in all three of his campaigns, he finished fourth all-time among Boston State defensemen with 57 points on 18 goals and 39 assists and was the career leader among blueliners with four game-winning tallies. Kelley was also a member of the Boston State College Athletic Council for three years and graduated in 1970. Kelley went on to obtain his masters degree from BSC in 1974 and also served time with the United States Army National Guard. He continued his hockey career in the New England Amateur Hockey League for five years and saw two seasons of action in the Southern New England Amateur Hockey League as well. Kelley remained in the sport in a coaching capacity as well, leading Beaver Country Day School from 1971-73 and Concord-Carlisle High School from 1978-81 and compiled a 63-32-4 coaching mark for an impressive .657 winning percentage. He also served as a coach for various hockey schools and was a coach for the USA Hockey High School All-Star team that toured Sweden and Finland.


text:
Welcome to Stars & Stripes USA-11
We have two separate sites for you. SAIL USA-11 or TEAM USA-11
Please select the site below to enter
SAIL USA-11 is designed for
individuals or groups of up to 25 passengers that would like to join us
TEAM USA-11 with Annie Gardner is designed for Corporate
Teambuilding for groups of almost any size.
We have recently purchased a new America's Cup racing yacht that will join Stars & Stripes USA-11 in San Diego around December, 2009
For information about our new boat you can click on the Il Moro logo above to be redirected


text:
How to Use
Click here for Photo Analysis Worksheet.
* The illustration on this screen has a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi), and therefore will print poorly. You can obtain a high quality version of this illustration, but be aware that the file may take as much as 35 seconds to load with a 28.8K modem.


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Monday, December 12, 2011
Monday Motorsports News Continually Updated
It's a strange time of the year. Twitter is moving all kinds of motorsports information as is Facebook. It's been my suggestion that all true NASCAR fans get on Twitter as soon as possible. There is little doubt that this simple and free technology is changing the motorsports communications dynamic from top to bottom.
Here are some of the items in the news today:
The NASCAR on FOX production team is gathering for their two-day annual meeting in the Charlotte, NC area. Chris Myers and Larry McReynolds both asked NASCAR fans on Twitter to offer suggestions they would then bring up at the meeting. Nice touch.
It was a NASCAR vs. IndyCar showdown at the Indy Karting Classic on Sunday. The feature event streamed online by the 3 Wide Life bunch featured go-karts racing indoors on concrete at the Canseco Fieldhouse in Indy. Click here to read the story.
Sports Business Journal just released the new "50 Most Influential" people in sports. NASCAR Chairman Brian France is at #17, up slightly from last year. No other motorsports executive is on the list. Click here to see the entire list.
Still working hard to get details on the CBS airing of the 2012 Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals. The date being mentioned is January 28, but no response yet from the production group. Click here for the event website. This is a big off-season meeting for all kinds of motorsports personalities centered on racing USAC midgets on dirt inside the Oklahoma Fairgrounds exhibition building.
While in the past, NASCAR relied on the network producing the race telecast for on-track replays, it appears that things are about to change. NASCAR and a company called Telestream have just made a deal for something new.
"The instant replay system that Telestream will be providing NASCAR next season will enable our officials to perform their jobs in an even more efficient and time-sensitive manner," said Robin Pemberton in a media release. "Having instant access to that many camera angles featuring such high quality video will be a terrific addition to our race weekends."
Telestream's new Replay multichannel video player combines with its Pipeline HD video capture system to provide instant capture and display of 18 high definition 720p camera feeds. This allows race officials to instantly see detailed information to make rapid decisions about on-track aspects of the race.
One key point jumped out from the release. This news system gives NASCAR officials in Race Control the ability to view on-track incidents through synchronized multiple camera angle displays, including time-stamped track status metadata – in real time or on-demand. That should be a great assist with on-track incidents that in the past used the TV feed as the only source of content.
Bob Pockrass at Scene Daily reports that unofficially the Daytona 500 start time will be 1PM for next year. This has been an issue in the past. Pockrass also reminds fans this year the race is one week later than usual due to pressure from the NFL and the Super Bowl. Click here to read Bob's story.
We will be updating new links and stories all day long as this off-season Monday continues. Happy to have your comments on these topics of NASCAR TV/media questions.
17 comments:
- GinaV24 said...
I wonder if I tweet Myers and ask him to ask Fox to let him drop the "dumb" act, if he'd bring that up.
I think it would be an improvement - on other sports broadcasts, he's obviously knowledgeable and after 11 years, the act is stale.
Interesting about the real time cameras -- maybe they should let the fans see it too!
- December 12, 2011 at 12:54 PM
- Anonymous said...
Thanks for the updates JD. Can always count on you to keep us informed. Biggest issue for next year is two Waltrip's. One is enough, but both? Enjoy the off season.
- December 12, 2011 at 3:46 PM
- Buschseries61 said...
Any idea who is taking over SPEED after Nickell? And was this change anticipated as part of a major overhaul? (#blazergate / Marianela Pereyra)
- December 12, 2011 at 3:51 PM
- CRZ said...
Bob Pockrass retweeted this tweet from Sports Business Daily's Tripp Mickle: "Speed President Hunter Nickell has resigned. Fox will name a replacement for the motorsports netwk later this week. More in SBD Closing Bell"
Uh oh?
- December 12, 2011 at 3:52 PM
- West Coast Kenny said...
@FoxNASCAR Production Team: Many of us here have a wish list for Santa Fox. Here is mine:
1) More wide shots. There's a lot going on during a race, and showing us only the leader or leaders doesn't tell the story nearly as well as wide shots. Early in your race, show us close-ups so we can get used to the different paint schemes/wraps that change from race to race.
Then later in the race, go to wider shots. You can use close-ups as punctuation, to refresh our memories of who it is, then cut back to the wider shot.
Don't be afraid to show us battles in the middle of the leaderboard. Please remember that nearly every driver has a fan base, and even if a driver is a field-filler, he might be our second- or third-favorite. Following on that thought...
2) Please give a close-up and thirty seconds to a minute of information about every car in the field. Don't worry about the start 'n' parks, they haven't earned it. As I just said, I think every one of us has a second- and third-favorite driver.
I realize it's not your duty, but for the general health of NASCAR, it would also help if those sponsors of the other cars saw their logos on your broadcast from time to time. A healthy NASCAR is good for all of us.
3) Towards the end of the race, find some way to tell us the pit stop status of the leaders. I think a small box in the upper right listing the leaders, what lap they last stopped, and what they took. Something like this:
14 Tony Stewart 4 tires, Lap 220
99 Carl Edwards 2 tires, Lap 230
This will let us all put on our imaginary crew chief or team engineer hat and try to strategize when the next stop will be coming. Even the most casual fans understand the urgency of the situation and they can see how the handling goes away the further a team goes without changing all four tires.
Please, Santa Fox. WestCoastKenny has been a good boy. Please don't leave me a lump of coal in my stocking.
@CRZ: Is it too big a wish that the new Speed President be our very own John Daly?
- December 12, 2011 at 4:09 PM
- 52 yr. fan said...
I bet not one of those 18 High Def
cameras will be able to find the
debris when the right time comes.
- December 12, 2011 at 4:45 PM
- Vicky D said...
52 yr old - you got that right! Wow my word verification is "house"!
- December 12, 2011 at 5:14 PM
- AncientRacer said...
I am on Twitter, and so am a Twit, JD. But I do not turn it on much. So much dross comes over it and the way I figure it life is real short.
Tom Colicchio replies to me when I tweet him, though, and so do you so when I actually have something to say I will log on.
I know this makes no sense, but neither does twitter. Really. :)
- December 12, 2011 at 5:16 PM
- Roland said...
So Hunter Nickel and Patti Wheeler are gone. Is this good? I guess. Maybe now we can get some decent programming. The ratings for this channel this time of year have got to be astronomically low, and it could be easily fixed if they would hire some people who have their heads on straight. Of course I say that knowing this is Fox sports, and the channel is run by David Hill, so I know the odds of this happening are lower than the odds of Phil Parson's team actually running past lap 20 in a race.
- December 12, 2011 at 5:55 PM
- Buschseries61 said...
Patti Wheeler gone too? I have a bad feeling about this.
- December 12, 2011 at 6:10 PM
- FloridaMatt said...
So was Nickell a promoter of the so-called reality junk, or did he leave because of it?
And what's the source for Wheeler leaving?
verification word: sumboos
- December 12, 2011 at 6:31 PM
- Anonymous said...
"It's been my suggestion that all true NASCAR fans get on Twitter as soon as possible."
Since 2007 my son and I have not missed watching a race, granted sometimes I had to DVR it. I have no desire to Twitter. I consider myself a lover of technology, but no desire to Twitter. I also consider my son and I true fans of NASCAR and nobody is going to convince me I'm not.
I've been a NY Giants fan for years...huge fan...but, I have no desire to be on Twitter and following info about the Giants. I still think I'm a true fan.
- December 12, 2011 at 7:16 PM
- West Coast Kenny said...
@True Fan,
Two of the common misconceptions about Twitter is that you have to have an account to read tweets and that you have to give up your privacy to use Twitter.
You don't need to have an account, but it's much easier to gather the tweets if you do. But if you simply want to read tweets from a person or program, just type Twitter.com/And-The-Twitter-Name/ and you can read it. The advantage to having an account is you can choose who to follow and their tweets are driven to your account. You can choose to read as many or as few as you choose. Most days I never check my Twitter feed.
One of the major advantages of Twitter is you get news a lot faster. For example, when it's raining close to the track, sometimes the announcers won't tell you. I had one tell me that he won't mention it because his network knows people will switch away even before it happens.
If you know rain is coming, then some odd pit strategies might all of a sudden make sense.
Like J.D., I invite you to go to Twitter.com during a race and type in the hashtag #NASCAR and see what the search brings you. A lot of it will be junk, but some things will be useful, and you might find you like it.
You are welcome to follow me, but I don't write much. But you can go to my account (or anyone else's) and see who we follow. You'll find drivers, announcers, WAGs, and beat writers.
WCK aka KennFong1
- December 12, 2011 at 7:38 PM
- Charlie said...
I have twitter. To read what someone is twitting you have to follow them. When you get on twitter you don't all of a sudden have all these millions of tweets to read. You pick who you follow. I follow a few football players, a few Nascar drivers and a couple misc. people.
I don't tweet back to anyone I follow much. I use twitter more like news headlines.
If you haven't tried twitter you could find out a lot about Nascar by just following one person - John Daly. His twitter account is @TheDalyPlanet. What JD does is he gets lots of tweets from people all over and if he gets one he thinks may interest his followers he retweets it.
I follow JD and his tweets keep me up to date about what is going on. Some of his tweets have links you can click on to learn more.
He does a super job picking the news for me.
- December 12, 2011 at 7:50 PM
- Anonymous said...
I don't follow TWITTER nor do I tweet.Others say that NASCAR is not getting younger people to watch the televised races cuz they are so into online opportunites,and some on here are proposing that I and others like me tweet instead of watching the televised racing.I'll continue to read JAYSKI and TDP,but NOT interested in wasting my time on the internet following some persons tweets.I've dropped out of some forums cuz it was just to much b.s. to keep up with.
- December 12, 2011 at 11:59 PM
- Anonymous said...
I'm one of those who resisted Twitter, and Facebook for a long time. But have begun to embrace it.
You can follow interesting people and groups, get news quickly, or leads to interesting stories.
No having to watch TV shows which are mostly fluff, with no real information.
By the time something makes it on television, it isn't news anymore. The world has moved on.
Times are changing rapidly, and television is on the verge of becoming as outmoded as the print media.
- December 14, 2011 at 10:05 AM
- Anonymous said...
My wish is for the fans to have more of a presence in the coverage of races. Get into the stands and ask the fans what they think. Get out into the campgrounds, and not just the high-brow infield. Cover the insane parties that go on. Show us the fun! NASCAR is more than a sport, it's a LIFESTYLE. Sadly, we'll never get more than goobers holding signs during Trackside because the suits are afraid. Afraid of what the fans will say on camera, how they look, how they speak, etc. They sure thank us a lot during the year end banquet, but they work awfully hard at keeping fans at arms length the rest of the year. Anyone who thinks Twitter is changing that is fooling themselves.
- December 14, 2011 at 12:23 PM


text:
Jorts (that's jean shorts, for the non-portmanteau savvy) get a bad rap for being the laziest, least sophisticated, dowdiest clothing item around. But whatever the stigma, we think otherwise.
When worn sloppily, denim cut-offs only make lazy outfits look more lazy… but with some careful styling tips, they can add some insouciance to your carefully crafted outfits, and take the hard edge off what would otherwise be a try-too-hard outfit.
Take the word back with us: Here are six brilliant ways to make jorts jorgeous.


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Bakery PSA
As an insomniac I naturally despise setting the clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time. I mean, suddenly I'm a whole hour lazier than I was before. Granted, the fact that this requires absolutely no effort on my part IS pretty sweet, but still.
Anyway, it occurred to me that we should use this annoying occasion to not only remind everyone to change out the batteries in their smoke detectors, but also to change out any cake displays they may have lying about. You know, in case you have something like this in your living room window:
Or this:
Looks like something you'd find in the abandoned town of Pripyat, doesn't it? All it needs is a little singed teddy bear lying next to it. So sad.
This Wreck is also the lucky recipient of Jen's Unsolicited Rant of the Day:
"Attention bakery persons: this is a display cake, meant to advertise your product, is it not? Because I could almost forgive the two giant blobby flowers on a soccer cake, the fallen players, and the thick coating of dust, but you know where I draw the line? THE RIBBON. Seriously, you couldn't take an extra 5 seconds to put the ribbon overlap in the back? Really? Do you want me to write an entire sentence in italics? Well, do ya?!?"
They could also use this time to weed out the mysterious stains:
And I dunno, maybe all the stuff from 1999?
*Related Wreckage: The Displays That Time Forgot


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Category: Info
Four Musicians
A Tale of Four Musicians
It's raining in St. Louis Park, and on Hestia Abeyesekera's front porch, a cat with luxuriant fur strides across the keys of an upright piano. I sit down to play it. Of the five pianos in the house, Hestia's students prefer this one. The keys are lightweight (the seventh from the right sags like a droopy eyelid), so the kids' small fingers can press them down easily.
"Speak the notes aloud as you play them to keep time," says Romayne Abeyesekera, Hestia's daughter and a teacher at her mother's Kinderhaus of Musik, based out of the house. "We don't use metronomes."
They don't use regular notation, either. I'm playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Like their students, I haven't played piano before. And, thankfully, like the cat, I don't need to read music to know how—just a better sense of rhythm.
I align my fingers over a section of keys, as if to demonstrate "home row."
"These fingers," Romayne gestures to my ring fingers, "are four." Simple enough. My middle and pointer fingers become three and two, respectively. A book in front of me notates the melody using just these numbers. As I play, I say which pair of fingers is playing: "four, three, two, three, four four four … "
Romayne points to the book: this version ends in three notes—"two two two."
I didn't notice because my ear knew the song. My brain knew the fingerings. I just played.
Hestia, who wrote a book that was one of a four-part series, The Brainway Piano Series, watches me succeed after mere seconds of teaching. This is the point of the method, which comes from the Montessori school. "You learn music like you learn a language," Hestia says. "A two-year-old child saying, 'mama,' 'papa'—they don't know how to read that. Only later on do they find the symbols for what they are saying."
In the same way, I learned the keys before I knew "Oh, that's a C I played," as Hestia puts it.
This means Hestia and her daughter teach children who can't read sentences, let alone sheet music. Hestia, 83, still teaches 10 students at Kinderhaus of Musik. She has been honored by the World's Who's Who of Women for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Education.
It's hard, then, to imagine an 11-year-old Hestia bored at piano lessons in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Back then, she took two-hour train rides to and from her lessons. At home—if her father wasn't around—she played boogie-woogie by ear.
Even today, Hestia doesn't quite recall how she chose music instead of following her father's footsteps into law.
She looks out the window. She remembers excelling in the rigorous performance exams that landed her in the U.S. in the early 1970s, teaching Montessori in Edina before moving to St. Louis Park. Looking back further, she remembers music all over the mansion where she grew up. She remembers standing out of the way, in the corner, enchanted, while older houseguests played boogie-woogie on the piano.
Today, her students perform her calypso-flavored take on Beethoven's Für Elise. They syncopate complex, hopping rhythms before they can read notes.
Her legacy aligns with another local talent's, insofar as both found music in the world rather than in the classroom. Hestia brought it here from Sri Lanka, and St. Louis Park producer, jazz guitarist and music teacher Don Strong carried it from Queens, New York.
Don Strong
After a couple martinis, Strong's father, a violinist, would pick up his trumpet, on which he was self-taught. He wasn't bad, but suffice it to say that when Strong had to choose an instrument in the fourth grade, presented with the choice between that trumpet and an old plywood guitar, he chose the guitar.
He figured music was in his genes, but it hurt his fingers to play. And he just wasn't interested. His first guitar teacher, an ex-Marine drill sergeant, once told Strong, "When you were little, I didn't think you would ever get it."
Then something clicked. As an English and music major at Wesleyan University, Strong zeroed in on jazz composition. What were the elements of a song that, say, could enrapture young Hestia as she listened to her friends play boogie-woogie?
In the mid-1980s, Def Jam hired Strong as a freelance songwriter. He produced modern, contemporary urban music in the style of Prince, early Madonna and Michael Jackson.
Eventually, another snag: Strong realized "to succeed as a writer-producer, you needed to be thick as thieves with everybody there … and I didn't feel comfortable with that." So he "stopped trying to run with the wolves in Manhattan."
After a stint teaching music in Harlem and on an Indian reservation, Strong and his wife, who works in health care, looked at Minnesota for work. They chose St. Louis Park because it is near both the cities and nature.
Now Strong teaches songwriting classes and produces the work of rising local artists at his St. Louis Park-based studio, Alteratio Creative Space. He produced Chastity Brown's first album, Do the Best You Can, in 2007, while also managing Brown, Minneapolis's very own banjo-playing soul singer. This year, Minneapolis singer-songwriter Mayyadda released an EP, eightynine, after Strong met her at an open-mic at restaurant and music venue Moto-i.
Strong cuts across genres as a producer—from Mayyadda's soul-inflected folk to the Bob Dylan-inspired country on Dave Dvorak's recent full-length album, Things You Cannot Measure.
Strong, who also studied screenwriting, compares producing to directing. "If you're a film director, you have to interpret and bring creative vision to whatever the screenwriter wrote."
That means for Mayyadda's song "Same Room," Strong encouraged her to beat-box (a technique of percussing with vocals) in lieu of using instrumental percussion. He thought it would complement the song's hip-hop-sounding chord progression. Beat-boxing wasn't in her wheelhouse, but she enjoyed it, he says.
Likewise, Strong pushed Dvorak to include a James Brown-like horn section in a track, "Clumsy," where Dvorak couldn't hear it at first.
"It's like in sports," Strong says. "The producer is the coach, the musicians and the artists are team players. The coach has an idea—how we're going play this game. But you need talented people who can execute those ideas."
Strong fostered that kind of team effort in the Twin Cities when he started a Meetup group in 2014 called Songwriters Circle through which he met Dvorak. Convening monthly, the group has already released a compilation album called Let Them Sing.
Tim Mahoney & Lara Dietrich
St. Louis Park singer-songwriter Tim Mahoney remembers the days when vocal artists featured on Strong's Let Them Sing would have had a fairly straightforward shot at putting out albums of their own.
A bootstrap musician, Mahoney went from fronting a band with his friends at Minnetonka High School to selling out the Cabooze in 1996—a crowd of 1,500 people there to hear his original material. "Nowadays, that just doesn't happen," he says, adding that The Cabooze books national headliners.
From his time as a contestant on NBC's The Voice, Mahoney learned how to play the game. Where some might have griped about artistic integrity, Mahoney realized that in this market of Spotify and YouTube and Pandora, where so much music is available all the time, that televised platform can only help.
Still, when it comes down to it, he connects to St. Louis Park, where he's lived for 20 years. It's close to RiverRock Studios in Minneapolis. He gets to be grand marshal in St. Louis Park parades. He knows his neighbors.
But if that increasingly competitive music marketplace—that "running with the wolves" mentality—has at last caught up to Minnesota, local music teacher Lara Dietrich might have an answer.
When Dietrich thinks about what drew her away from jazz and deeper into orchestral music, she describes her own experience of a sense of community within an orchestra that sounds ideal, utopian, impossible: where every individual is needed and appreciated just as much as the next—"whether you're playing first trombone or third," she says.
I might know only "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano, but I've played both of those trombone parts myself.
Sitting in the sunlit front room of her Maestoso Music Studio, where she teaches trombone and piano, Dietrich jokes with me about the "trombone personality type" after she compares the feeling of playing in a group to that of playing sports—similar to the way Strong described making music.
Way back in the 1940s, Hestia found the bug that so many find in boogie-woogie: an exciting, individual spark that draws people in. Dietrich found it, too. But now, like Hestia, she values the chance to act inside a community.
Just a few blocks from Maestoso, in fact, sits St. Louis Park High School. Sometimes, after school gets out, students will walk straight over for lessons. Hestia could tell you, it certainly beats a two-hour train ride.