text:
Patty received a Kindle for her birthday a couple of years ago. Not being completely technologically savvy, she finally decided to read a book on it.
There were dotted lines under what seemed to be significant passages, and a message saying, "Click for number of highlighters." Then "31 highlighters" appeared above the passage. It's interesting to know 31 readers found a passage important, but "how does Amazon know how many people highlight a passage?" and "if I highlight a passage, does Amazon know about it?" (The answer is yes, once you turn on the Wi-Fi).
We were recently at a meeting where a participant noted she has a software program that tells her if we open her emails. It even lets her know if we actually read them (or at least if we scroll down).
In the first column we wrote for the Journal-Standard, back in 2010, we quoted Emerson: "Society never advances . . . For everything that is given, something is taken." For all the amazing advances in technology, we have to a large extent given up our privacy. For the luxury of knowing the opinions of other people, we read a book with a corporate computer looking overour shoulder and watching what we highlight.
For the convenience of sending and receiving messages instantaneously, we are subject to a program noting whether we "open the envelope and read through." And of course, we're all familiar with the ads that appear on our computer after we have looked at a website.
The excesses of the National Security Agency have been widely publicized, and whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden have revealed the extent of information gathered by the government and how easily it can be misused. The possibility of another McCarthy-type witch hunt is scary, especially when we remember that as recently as 2008 U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann wanted an investigation conducted on members of Congress to see if any were "anti-American."
And it's not just the government. Corporations and colleges have demanded Facebook and Twitter accounts from prospective hires and students. People have been fired from their jobs because of what they tweeted or wrote on Facebook, and students have been denied admittance to universities.
Not only do governments and corporations know all about us, but all kinds of unscrupulous people can launch new and better scams. We've gotten emails, supposedly from our server, claiming some kind of problem that necessitates our emailing the password so the problem can be fixed.
We've gotten similar emails from "banks" and from "Paypal accounts" also asking for passwords. And of course, we've all gotten those messages from "friends in trouble," who write with "tears in their eyes."
One remedy is to be very careful. Make up passwords that are unusual (they say the worst password is "password"), and don't keep the list on the computer. Be leery of emails whose senders you do not recognize, and verify requests by making phone calls.
We must have safeguards so that information obtained by governments or corporations is not unfairly used against us. "An Open Letter to Washington" in the Dec. 9 New York Times, signed by eight major tech companies including Google and Facebook, urges the government to "make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight."
There should be laws preventing entities from demanding emails or social network accounts without warrants. We will never completely regain our privacy, but we should insist that both government and corporations protect our interests.
Meanwhile, be careful what you write on Facebook.
Chuck and Pat Wemstrom live in rural Mount Carroll. They can be reached at email@example.com.


text:
Design Outsourcer needed a new web page design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 11 designs submitted by 4 freelance designers.
U-Store offer secure storage containers where users can store anything in. They offer storage containers in a secure compound where you can store whatever you need. Customers have 24 hours access to their container and is very secure.
U-store are based in Doncaster, England.
Sole-traders, craftsman, Plumbers, electricians, document storage, households etc
The idea is that they can lockup tools, materials files and househould funrniture etc.
1 brand new refresh for the site http://www.ustoredoncaster.co.uk/
Like it clean looking, graphical, bold. I like the idea of it been clean looking, but relatively simple for people to understand what the business is offering.
Needs to attract visitors - keep to logo colours and push the "£20 per week!"
fixed at approx 960px.
Menu will be similar to http://www.storageking.co.uk both for the top menu and the left menu.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A Smarter Clean
Atlantic Mills' new Interactive, Visual Instructional packaging brings wiping out of the dark ages and shines the spotlight on sanitation. Atlantic Mills is your Partner in Sanitation. We want our message about the benefits of using disposable foodservice wipers and the education on proper use of wiping products and the importance of sanitation in a foodservice facility, to be consistent throughout the supply chain-now it can.
Contact Us
Tel: 800.443.9536


text:
Article: Black Pink Jisoo and Rose "YG bans female and male trainees from being in the same room"
Source: News 1 via Nate
Six bans in their contracts: drinking, smoking, clubbing, driving, plastic surgery, dating
Male trainees eat at 6, female trainees eat at 7 to minimize contact time
1. [+368, -11] Makes sense since they invested so much into training them, they don't want to lose them to unnecessary scandals..
2. [+304, -63] Yeah, YG's sooooo strict that's why Seungri turned out the way he did, right? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
3. [+250, -33] She's pretty and lovely... I especially like that Rose's vocal tone is a type that you don't hear often with idols.
4. [+41, -12] Jisoo needs to go into acting later... she's way too pretty...;;
5. [+40, -5] Since they said it's a new rule, it must be because of a certain group that YG added it
6. [+30, -4] I hope you girls don't end up like 2NE1... don't do whatever Park Bom did
7. [+27, -2] The plastic surgery ban was probably also because of Park Bom. I really like Rose, she's a great dancer and her vocal tone is pretty. Jisoo is super pretty too, just wow.
8. [+18, -6] Yeah I'm sure that smoking ban worked out really well too with all of them smoking marijuana and amphetamine.. but then again, they didn't say there was a drug ban
9. [+18, -6] Why isn't there a drug ban?
10. [+17, -4] Maybe all of YG's stars act up after they debut because they're so strict on them as trainees
Article: Kim Gura tells Black Pink Jisoo, "You have an SM face, not a YG face"
Source: News 1 via Naver
1. [+4,182, -91] I agree... Jisoo's really pretty
2. [+2,323, -99] Wow, Jisoo's gorgeous
3. [+1,597, -88] Jisoo's really just... *thumbs up*!!
4. [+1,441, -81] Not only is she pretty but she seems to have an easygoing personality as well
5. [+326, -38] She's all natural and still so pretty, I'd put her at the top
6. [+271, -25] Jisoo looks like a mix of Tang Wei and Moon Chae Won to me, so pretty
7. [+272, -28] He's right since SM usually guns it for visuals. Jisoo's just way too pretty.
8. [+230, -15] She has a calming and cute/pretty look to her but a beagle-like personality
Source: Nate
1. [+69, -5] Kim Gura's right ㅋㅋ she has the type of face that SM usually goes for
2. [+54, -6] Jisoo's so, so pretty ㅜㅜ I laugh along with her just because she looks so pretty ㅋㅋㅋ totally became a fan..!
3. [+30, -3] I was so captivated by her face ㅋㅋㅋ and her personality seems innocent and easygoing!!
4. [+11, -1] I think she'll get huge soon, she has a face for acting too ㅋㅋㅋ
5. [+5, -1] Jisoo just looks so lovely


text:
12:30 pm
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish "Las Empanadas" This episode features Roberto discussing again with Angela the sale of her apartment in Puerto Rico.G
1:00 pm
Whole Child, The: A Caregiver's Guide to the First Five Years "Building Inner Controls" Guiding children in controlling themselves and finding acceptable ways to express their aggressive feelings. D
1:30 pm
Whole Child, The: A Caregiver's Guide to the First Five Years "Respecting Diversity" How prejudice develops and how to respect cultural differences. D
2:00 pm
Mechanical Universe And Beyond, The "Resonance" Why a swaying bridge collapses with a high wind, and why a wine glass shatters with a higher octave. D
2:30 pm
Mechanical Universe And Beyond, The "Waves" With an analysis of simple harmonic motion and a stroke of genius, Newton extended mechanics to the propagation of sound. D
3:00 pm
Discovering Psychology "Past, Present, and Promise" Introduces psychology as a science that spans many fields of knowledge, from philosophy and anthropology to biochemistry and artificial intelligence, and asks, "What is the nature of human nature?"G
3:30 pm
Discovering Psychology "Understanding Research" An examination of the scientific method of collecting and analyzing data - in the laboratory and in the field - with an emphasis on sharpening critical thinking in the interpretation of research findings.G
4:00 pm
Design Squad "Go-Kart Finale - Part 2" The fastest go-kart will be featured in a magazine article and the contestant with the most total points wins a college scholarship. Part 2 of 2G
4:30 pm
Biz Kid$ "The Biz Kids Challenge" The Biz Kids learn the world of marketing through the "Project Lemonade Challenge." Two teams, two identical lemonade stands. It's up to the kids to decide the price and promotion strategy to sell the most product. D
5:00 pm
Wishbone "A Tale of Two Sitters" This live-action program follows the exploits of Wishbone the dog and his human friends, Joe, David and Samantha through their adventures in their hometown of Oakdale. Wishbone's everyday experiences trigger his imagination and he finds himself in scenes from classic works of literature. In this episode, it is guilt by association when Emily and a friend cut loose and get Wishbone in trouble. D
5:30 pm
Cyberchase "Going Solar" A televised skate-off will decide ultimate naming rights for the new Radopolis skate park. Will it be named after Slider, the ace skateboarder of Cyberspace, or The Hacker, the vainest villain in the virtual universe? When the power mysteriously goes out at the skate park, the CyberSquad and Digit must find a way to turn it back on before the nighttime skateboarding extravaganza. They decide to use solar panels to collect energy during the day that can power the park at night. D
6:00 pm
Martha's Sewing Room "Reverse Bobbinwork" Reverse bobbinwork and embellishments using machine attachments and sewing techniques; Sew Quick, Sew Easy embellished artwork; And Sew On segment on spaghetti edged appliques; Hand embroidered raised fishbone. Guests: Chris Tryon, Kari Mecca, Wendy Schoen. D
6:30 pm
Best of the Joy of Painting "Trail's End" Bob Ross takes you on a journey through an oval painting where an old fence follows a trail to the edge of the woods. D
7:00 pm
Martha Stewart's Cooking School "Roasting" This episode is devoted to roasting, a straightforward and adaptable technique that also works well for meat, fish and chicken. Martha's roast chicken showcases the benefits of this method, with a crisp exterior and moist interior. Because roasting so beautifully concentrates the flavors of the ingredients, it's also well suited to vegetables, and Martha includes a recipe for a delicious roasted root vegetable salad. D
7:30 pm
Cooking with Nick Stellino "Delicious Chicken Dinner" Nick visits the cheese monger and the P-Patch and prepares Chicken Provolone with Tomato Sauce and a Salad with Spinach, Arugula & Shallots. Old school recipes made simple for today's busy home chefs. D
8:00 pm
Hometime "Creekside Home Windows" The HOMETIME team demonstrates the proper techniques for drying in the home and installing windows properly. D
8:30 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Paris: Embracing Life and Art" Rick rides a unicorn into the Middle Ages at the Cluny Museum, takes a midnight Paris joyride in a classic car, and gets an extreme close-up look at heavenly stained glass in Sainte-Chapelle. He goes on a Tombstone pilgrimage at P?re Lachaise Cemetery, and then savors the Parisian caf? scene.G
9:00 pm
Burt Wolf: Travels & Traditions "Belgium" Burt takes a look at Belgium and tours the capital city of Brussels. We'll find out why beer is the national drink and sample one flavored with cherries. We'll discover why the hand of a giant became the symbol of the city of Antwerp and find out why food experts love Belgian cooking. D
9:30 pm
Essential Pepin "Shell-Ebration" Crab Cakes With Avocado Sauce; Oysters Madison; Mussels Poulette; Mussels Gratinee; Clam Fritters. D
10:00 pm
America's Test Kitchen from Cook's Illustrated "Asian Takeout Favorites" Test cook Julia Collin Davison shows host Christopher Kimball how to make the ultimate Sichuan Stir-Fried Pork in Garlic Sauce. Then, equipment expert Adam Ried reveals his pick among blenders in the Equipment Corner. And finally, test cook Bridget Lancaster uncovers the secrets to making perfect Thai-Style Stir-Fried Noodles with Chicken and Broccolini right at home. D
10:30 pm
Sara's Weeknight Meals "A Trip to Brazil W/Leticia Moreinos Schwartz" The flavors of Brazil come alive as Brazilian chef Leticia Moreinos Schwartz takes Sara to some of her favorite bodegas and Brazilian neighborhoods in Connecticut. They return to prepare traditional Salt Cod with Bacon, Onions, Eggs and Potatoes plus Chicken, Shrimp, Peanut and Cashew Stew. D
11:00 pm
Taste This! "Food and Fitness" For this episode, Chef Joe is joined by fitness guru John Basedow. As Chef Joe explores the tasty dishes at a local Argentinean restaurant, John lets the viewers know which dishes can help trim the waistline! Back in the test kitchen, Chef Joe puts his own Argentinean twist on his Roasted Duck recipe, but leave room for the decadent Chocolate Souffle Dessert!. D
11:30 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Paris: Embracing Life and Art" Rick rides a unicorn into the Middle Ages at the Cluny Museum, takes a midnight Paris joyride in a classic car, and gets an extreme close-up look at heavenly stained glass in Sainte-Chapelle. He goes on a Tombstone pilgrimage at P?re Lachaise Cemetery, and then savors the Parisian caf? scene.G


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Learners will investigate how much you can learn about something just by looking at it. In Activity 1, students study aerial photographs to identify geologic features, determine how they differ from one another, and examine the processes involved in... (View More) their formation. In Activity 2, students investigate how remote observations of a planetary surface can be used to create geologic maps. By the end of the lesson, students will understand how data gathered by spacecraft can not only be used to investigate the properties of an object, but also how it was formed, how it has evolved over time, and how it is connected to other objects nearby. Note: The MESSENGER mission to Mercury that is mentioned in this lesson ended operations April 30, 2015. For the latest information about MESSENGER and NASA's solar system missions see the links under Related & Supplemental Resources (right side of this page). (View Less)


text:
valeria needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 73 designs submitted by 21 freelance designers.
BACKGROUND Imotec srl is specialized in personal computers and servers assembly. it's a young and dynamic company looking for new solutions in very compact all in one pc. We work in a high-medium level market even for the kind of customers we involved.
we are since several years Premier Provider Intel (IPP)
1) software houses
2) computer shops
3) public administrations
4) industrial solutions
- our current logo is based on cyan and black. You might try different combinations.
- cool, fresh and catchy logo
- well-balaned, longer rather than taller
- high-quality and high-resolution logo in PSD format
- we'll probably need to easily resize it to a few different sizes
- Something done with boring pre-made logo templates
- Something like the typical Coporate-like logos. We need something nice and innovative
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


text:
JCW necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 161 diseños de 38 diseñadores freelance.
JC Whelan LLC
We are an established internet marketing company providing web design, search engine optimization, and custom database development services for 15 years.
Our clients range in size from small "Mom and Pop" stores to mid-size corporations. We are passionate about our customers and their needs, and view our role as a partnership to help them achieve their goals through web presence on the internet.
We are knowledgable professionals who believe in the importance of problem solving, communication, and accessibility in a relaxed environment.
Our services are for individuals and companies that currently have a website or are in need of one, and is not dependent on company size or industry.
We desire a logo that is clean and simple that will be implemented on our future website (currently under construction) as well as print advertising. The use of a symbol/icon is not necessary. It must be able to print clearly on checks, letterhead, business cards, etc.
We prefer to avoid a formal or "techie" look, but more of a casual feel. Our goal in the near future is to develop a new website to promote our custom database development and signature capture services separately, so this logo will also need to be implemented on that site down the road. This site will have its own design.
Our current website is being scrapped and our new one will have a nature theme. There are some minor image modifications indicated on the attached screenshot that will be made, but for the most part we are keeping the same color and tone. The majority of our work consists of "Organic" or "Natural" search engine optimization, so I'd like to incorporate that concept into our logo.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
SCRAPPING some allowances for opposition councillors could damage local democracy, it has been claimed.
Oxfordshire County Council has cut the special allowances for most Labour councillors, while senior Conservatives will continue to be paid for their roles in running the authority.
This means members of the county council's cabinet continue to receive their "special responsibility allow-ance" (SRA) of £12,565 each year on top of their £8,376 basic allowance but the £2,456 allowance for 10 shadow cabinet members has been removed.
And the allowance for the leader of the opposition has been reduced from £14,660 to £12,565 while that for leader of the council remains unchanged.
Last night Taxpayers' Alliance chief executive Jonathan Isaby said: "Councillors' allowances have risen considerably over the last decade or two, so any attempt to reduce that bill for local council taxpayers is to be welcomed.
"However, the shadow cabinet have an important part to play in scrutinising the actions of the council, so removing their additional allowances altogether has the whiff of the council leadership seeking to reduce the capacity of its opponents to scrutinise them – which is potentially bad news for Oxfordshire residents."
County councillor Liz Brighouse, the Labour leader of the opposition, said: "One of the big problems we have is encouraging people to become councillors and the idea is that people are remunerated for the work they do.
"It is about ensuring that there is transparency and challenge in local democracy."
The recommendations were made by an independent panel made up of representatives from the voluntary sector, the business sector and the public sector.
A spokesman for the council said the total savings would be £10,000.
Council leader Ian Hudspeth said the scrutiny role will still exist. He said: "Anything to do with councillor allowances is always very sensitive because we are aware that it is taxpayers' money and that's why we set up the independent panel."
Councillor Laura Price, shadow cabinet member for adult social care, called for more radical changes to the allowances policy to make greater savings. She said: "There's a concern when you move allowances away from the opposition party because they are there to provide scrutiny."
Cultural and community services shadow cabinet member Susanna Pressel said: "I find it scandalous that several Conservative councillors are getting increased allowances at a time when many people have lost their jobs and wages are being held down."
Councillor John Sanders said he used expenses to subsidise long distance travel costs, stationery and postage stamps. He said: "It's a little bit disappointing that they've chosen to take money off the opposition and not off the cabinet but I'm not particularly worried.
"It doesn't prevent me from doing anything."
John Tanner, shadow cabinet member for policy co-ordination, said Labour spoke out against the changes but voted in favour because they were recommended by an independent panel.
In its report, the panel said the changes had altered the emphasis of the role played by the opposition.
- Councillors receive £8,376.96 a year in basic allowances.
- In the 2012-13 financial year, the county council paid more than £870k in expenses. This included £612k to its 76 members in basic allowances.
- Six councillors did not claim the full amount.
- It also paid out £224k in responsibility expenses for cabinet and shadow cabinet members and £37k in travel and subsidence expenses.
- An allowance of £500 for each locality chairman.
- SRA for chairmen of the planning and regulation committee, audit and governance committee and pension fund committee increased from £2,729 to £5,050.
- SRA of £2,729 to deputy chairman of planning and regulation committee


text:
Michael Crichton on Environmentalism
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Posted: 21 December 2008 at 10:34pm
Environmentalism as Religion
Commonwealth Club
San Francisco, CA
September 15, 2003
This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Michael explains why religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect.
I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.
As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today about environmentalism. And in order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment. I believe it is important to act in ways that are sympathetic to the environment, and I believe this will always be a need, carrying into the future. I believe the world has genuine problems and I believe it can and should be improved. But I also think that deciding what constitutes responsible action is immensely difficult, and the consequences of our actions are often difficult to know in advance. I think our past record of environmental action is discouraging, to put it mildly, because even our best intended efforts often go awry. But I think we do not recognize our past failures, and face them squarely. And I think I know why.
I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.
Am I exaggerating to make a point? I am afraid not. Because we know a lot more about the world than we did forty or fifty years ago. And what we know now is not so supportive of certain core environmental myths, yet the myths do not die. Let's examine some of those beliefs.
There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?
And what about indigenous peoples, living in a state of harmony with the Eden-like environment? Well, they never did. On this continent, the newly arrived people who crossed the land bridge almost immediately set about wiping out hundreds of species of large animals, and they did this several thousand years before the white man showed up, to accelerate the process. And what was the condition of life? Loving, peaceful, harmonious? Hardly: the early peoples of the New World lived in a state of constant warfare. Generations of hatred, tribal hatreds, constant battles. The warlike tribes of this continent are famous: the Comanche, Sioux, Apache, Mohawk, Aztecs, Toltec, Incas. Some of them practiced infanticide, and human sacrifice. And those tribes that were not fiercely warlike were exterminated, or learned to build their villages high in the cliffs to attain some measure of safety.
How about the human condition in the rest of the world? The Maori of New Zealand committed massacres regularly. The dyaks of Borneo were headhunters. The Polynesians, living in an environment as close to paradise as one can imagine, fought constantly, and created a society so hideously restrictive that you could lose your life if you stepped in the footprint of a chief. It was the Polynesians who gave us the very concept of taboo, as well as the word itself. The noble savage is a fantasy, and it was never true. That anyone still believes it, 200 years after Rousseau, shows the tenacity of religious myths, their ability to hang on in the face of centuries of factual contradiction.
There was even an academic movement, during the latter 20th century, that claimed that cannibalism was a white man's invention to demonize the indigenous peoples. (Only academics could fight such a battle.) It was some thirty years before professors finally agreed that yes, cannibalism does indeed occur among human beings. Meanwhile, all during this time New Guinea highlanders in the 20th century continued to eat the brains of their enemies until they were finally made to understand that they risked kuru, a fatal neurological disease, when they did so.
More recently still the gentle Tasaday of the Philippines turned out to be a publicity stunt, a nonexistent tribe. And African pygmies have one of the highest murder rates on the planet.
In short, the romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die.
And if you, even now, put yourself in nature even for a matter of days, you will quickly be disabused of all your romantic fantasies. Take a trek through the jungles of Borneo, and in short order you will have festering sores on your skin, you'll have bugs all over your body, biting in your hair, crawling up your nose and into your ears, you'll have infections and sickness and if you're not with somebody who knows what they're doing, you'll quickly starve to death. But chances are that even in the jungles of Borneo you won't experience nature so directly, because you will have covered your entire body with DEET and you will be doing everything you can to keep those bugs off you.
The truth is, almost nobody wants to experience real nature. What people want is to spend a week or two in a cabin in the woods, with screens on the windows. They want a simplified life for a while, without all their stuff. Or a nice river rafting trip for a few days, with somebody else doing the cooking. Nobody wants to go back to nature in any real way, and nobody does. It's all talk-and as the years go on, and the world population grows increasingly urban, it's uninformed talk. Farmers know what they're talking about. City people don't. It's all fantasy.
One way to measure the prevalence of fantasy is to note the number of people who die because they haven't the least knowledge of how nature really is. They stand beside wild animals, like buffalo, for a picture and get trampled to death; they climb a mountain in dicey weather without proper gear, and freeze to death. They drown in the surf on holiday because they can't conceive the real power of what we blithely call "the force of nature." They have seen the ocean. But they haven't been in it.
The television generation expects nature to act the way they want it to be. They think all life experiences can be tivo-ed. The notion that the natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a damn about your expectations comes as a massive shock. Well-to-do, educated people in an urban environment experience the ability to fashion their daily lives as they wish. They buy clothes that suit their taste, and decorate their apartments as they wish. Within limits, they can contrive a daily urban world that pleases them.
But the natural world is not so malleable. On the contrary, it will demand that you adapt to it-and if you don't, you die. It is a harsh, powerful, and unforgiving world, that most urban westerners have never experienced.
Many years ago I was trekking in the Karakorum mountains of northern Pakistan, when my group came to a river that we had to cross. It was a glacial river, freezing cold, and it was running very fast, but it wasn't deep---maybe three feet at most. My guide set out ropes for people to hold as they crossed the river, and everybody proceeded, one at a time, with extreme care. I asked the guide what was the big deal about crossing a three-foot river. He said, well, supposing you fell and suffered a compound fracture. We were now four days trek from the last big town, where there was a radio. Even if the guide went back double time to get help, it'd still be at least three days before he could return with a helicopter. If a helicopter were available at all. And in three days, I'd probably be dead from my injuries. So that was why everybody was crossing carefully. Because out in nature a little slip could be deadly.
But let's return to religion. If Eden is a fantasy that never existed, and mankind wasn't ever noble and kind and loving, if we didn't fall from grace, then what about the rest of the religious tenets? What about salvation, sustainability, and judgment day? What about the coming environmental doom from fossil fuels and global warming, if we all don't get down on our knees and conserve every day?
Well, it's interesting. You may have noticed that something has been left off the doomsday list, lately. Although the preachers of environmentalism have been yelling about population for fifty years, over the last decade world population seems to be taking an unexpected turn. Fertility rates are falling almost everywhere. As a result, over the course of my lifetime the thoughtful predictions for total world population have gone from a high of 20 billion, to 15 billion, to 11 billion (which was the UN estimate around 1990) to now 9 billion, and soon, perhaps less. There are some who think that world population will peak in 2050 and then start to decline. There are some who predict we will have fewer people in 2100 than we do today. Is this a reason to rejoice, to say halleluiah? Certainly not. Without a pause, we now hear about the coming crisis of world economy from a shrinking population. We hear about the impending crisis of an aging population. Nobody anywhere will say that the core fears expressed for most of my life have turned out not to be true. As we have moved into the future, these doomsday visions vanished, like a mirage in the desert. They were never there---though they still appear, in the future. As mirages do.
Okay, so, the preachers made a mistake. They got one prediction wrong; they're human. So what. Unfortunately, it's not just one prediction. It's a whole slew of them. We are running out of oil. We are running out of all natural resources. Paul Ehrlich: 60 million Americans will die of starvation in the 1980s. Forty thousand species become extinct every year. Half of all species on the planet will be extinct by 2000. And on and on and on.
With so many past failures, you might think that environmental predictions would become more cautious. But not if it's a religion. Remember, the nut on the sidewalk carrying the placard that predicts the end of the world doesn't quit when the world doesn't end on the day he expects. He just changes his placard, sets a new doomsday date, and goes back to walking the streets. One of the defining features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts, because they have nothing to do with facts.
So I can tell you some facts. I know you haven't read any of what I am about to tell you in the newspaper, because newspapers literally don't report them. I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn.
I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it. I can tell you that the evidence for global warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever admit. I can tell you the percentage the US land area that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%. I can tell you that the Sahara desert is shrinking, and the total ice of Antarctica is increasing. I can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in Science magazine concluded that there is no known technology that will enable us to halt the rise of carbon dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not solar, not even nuclear. The panel concluded a totally new technology-like nuclear fusion-was necessary, otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts would be a waste of time. They said that when the UN IPCC reports stated alternative technologies existed that could control greenhouse gases, the UN was wrong.
I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis for these views, and I can cite the appropriate journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in the most prestigious science journals, such as Science and Nature. But such references probably won't impact more than a handful of you, because the beliefs of a religion are not dependent on facts, but rather are matters of faith. Unshakeable belief.
Most of us have had some experience interacting with religious fundamentalists, and we understand that one of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves. They never recognize that their way of thinking is just one of many other possible ways of thinking, which may be equally useful or good. On the contrary, they believe their way is the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the business of salvation, and they want to help you to see things the right way. They want to help you be saved. They are totally rigid and totally uninterested in opposing points of view. In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.
I want to argue that it is now time for us to make a major shift in our thinking about the environment, similar to the shift that occurred around the first Earth Day in 1970, when this awareness was first heightened. But this time around, we need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead.
There are two reasons why I think we all need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism.
First, we need an environmental movement, and such a movement is not very effective if it is conducted as a religion. We know from history that religions tend to kill people, and environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s. It's not a good record. Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth---that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric. The effort to promote effective legislation for the environment is not helped by thinking that the Democrats will save us and the Republicans won't. Political history is more complicated than that. Never forget which president started the EPA: Richard Nixon. And never forget which president sold federal oil leases, allowing oil drilling in Santa Barbara: Lyndon Johnson. So get politics out of your thinking about the environment.
The second reason to abandon environmental religion is more pressing. Religions think they know it all, but the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those who are certain are demonstrating their personality type, or their belief system, not the state of their knowledge. Our record in the past, for example managing national parks, is humiliating. Our fifty-year effort at forest-fire suppression is a well-intentioned disaster from which our forests will never recover. We need to be humble, deeply humble, in the face of what we are trying to accomplish. We need to be trying various methods of accomplishing things. We need to be open-minded about assessing results of our efforts, and we need to be flexible about balancing needs. Religions are good at none of these things.
How will we manage to get environmentalism out of the clutches of religion, and back to a scientific discipline? There's a simple answer: we must institute far more stringent requirements for what constitutes knowledge in the environmental realm. I am thoroughly sick of politicized so-called facts that simply aren't true. It isn't that these "facts" are exaggerations of an underlying truth. Nor is it that certain organizations are spinning their case to present it in the strongest way. Not at all---what more and more groups are doing is putting out is lies, pure and simple. Falsehoods that they know to be false.
This trend began with the DDT campaign, and it persists to this day. At this moment, the EPA is hopelessly politicized. In the wake of Carol Browner, it is probably better to shut it down and start over. What we need is a new organization much closer to the FDA. We need an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.
Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better. That's not a good future for the human race. That's our past. So it's time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.
Thank you very much.
A feeling of discouragement when you slip up is a sure sign that you put your faith in deeds. -Ibn 'Ata'llah
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I for one would be interested to know more about his lifestyle, but one can gather Mr. Crichton's crutch was a secularist view of the world from his speeches and writings. I found it interesting that George W. Bush became a fan for his book State of Fear.
Mr. Crichton used real science as fiction to create characters in futuristic doomsday tales and his critics say Mr. Crichton is extending his chaos theory in his novels and films without adequate character development. What the Hollywood story-teller has provided though, is a keen eye to the practices of some folks in the environmental movement. We need people to intellectually and scientifically challenge them to keep the road we're traveling on straight. But to base our entire thought process on the words of Mr. Crichton is a narrow view of the complex world in which we live in. A secular view is probably best described by Imam Zaid Shakir, a renowned scholar of our beautiful religion. May Allah be pleased with him and bless his family.
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful
At the objective level secularism involves the exclusion of religious offices, institutions, and ceremonies from public life. All modern states are thoroughly secularized. This reality also includes the states of the Muslim world as our countries are ruled by elites who have adopted the secular institutional and bureaucratic structure of the Western Kafir state. Even those states, which have undergone some degree of Islamic reform, have done little to alter those structures.
The roots of secularism have been variously identified as emanating from Hellenic rationalism, the civil and communal values of Greco-Roman life, the Renaissance, the Reformation, Calvinism, and most prominently the moral and empirical philosophies spawned by the Enlightenment. Regardless of which of these developments we view as being pivotal in the development of secularism, we must return to one salient fact: Secularism constitutes open rebellion against Allah.
We are informed that the rationale for the creation of the human being is to worship Allah, and that the Islamic polity and the principles, which underlie it, are instituted to facilitate that worship. Hence, Islam is fundamentally anti-secular. Allah informs us in the Qur'an:
I have
only created the Jinn and Humans that they worship Me.
He also informs us that the rejection of that worship involves grave consequences. He says:
turns away from My Remembrance will have a wretched life and
rejects the Remembrance of his Lord, He [Allah] will lead him
Having thus defined secularism, we turn to the second theme introduced by the title of this lecture: secularism's changing face. If we understand that secularism initially involved a struggle between its advocates and the European Church, we can see that it has indeed undergone significant changes. The first major change occurred during the latter 19th Century when the struggle between secularism and the church was replaced by a struggle between two competing versions of secularism: the Marxist/Socialist version and the liberal version. With the victory of the liberal version, a victory finalized by the falling of the "Iron Curtain" and the subsequent demise of the Soviet Union, a set of circumstances was created which led to the return of the debate between secularism and religion. Secularism was to indeed change faces, or more precisely to reveal a new manifestation of an old face.
In the new debate between secularism and religion, Islam emerged as the standard bearer of religion. The reason for this is that Islam is, as admitted by Ernest Gellner, Zbigniew Brezinski and other leading Western intellectuals, the last true, or normative religion. The current secularist assault against Islam is thus assuming the intensity that characterized the earlier attack on Christianity. It is our contention that the origin of this assault lies in the rebellion of Satan against Allah, and his subsequent declaration of war against the descendants of Adam. The Qur'an describes that declaration in the following words:
you have caused me to stray, I'm going to lie waiting to ambush them [humankind]
along your Straight Path. I'm going to assault them from in front, from
behind, from the right and from the left; and you won't find most of them
thankful [for you blessings].
It is interesting to note that the earliest Muslim commentators as producing all of the psychological and behavioral traits that characterize the contemporary secular individual have understood this assault of Satan. Ibn Kathir relates the following passage in his commentary on this verse:
'Ali ibn
Abi Talha relates from Ibn 'Abbas (May be Pleased with them both) that
When one views the damage which has been wrought by secularism in the Christian world, and the nature of the damage which is currently manifesting itself in the Muslim world, one can readily see the accuracy of Ibn 'Abbas' explanation. In the Muslim world, the reality of a life after death seems the furthest thing from many people's mind. The obsession with the World, which drives Muslim participation in a new globalized consumer culture, is too clear to warrant further comment. Increasingly large numbers of Muslims feel deprived if growing arrays of labels and logos aren�t plastered over their clothing. The confusion in the Din is apparent in the expanding ranks of the religiously noncommitted, and the increasing pettiness of the issues being vehemently argued by the committed. The appeal of sin can be gauged by the ubiquitous nature of the satellite dishes which adorn the rooftops of houses throughout the Muslim world and the increased viewing of soft and hard pornography which those dishes facilitate.
The need for an Islamic response to an increasingly pervasive secularism is all too clear. The destructiveness of man's effort to orchestrate the social, economic and political life of society has to be arrested if we are to conceive of a meaningful future for this planet. At the individual level, the insecurity, rootlessness, and anomie resulting from the elimination of religiously informed traditional institutions provides the conditions which encourage gangs, ethnically-based hate groups, and an oftentimes violence-prone religious fundamentalism. The legions of willing recruits for extreme Zionist groups, ultraconservative armed militias in the American Midwest, chauvinistic Hindu nationalism, and increasingly inflexible "Jihad" groups in the Muslim world are all the direct or indirect result of secularism.
At the family level, the disintegration of traditionally ascribed roles, rights, and responsibilities for men, women, and children is leading to stresses that many families cannot survive. In the Muslim community, the familial stability which made spouse and child abuse rare occurrences has given way to a volatile instability whose presence can be gauged by the rapidly escalating numbers of battered women, homeless children, and divorces.
Environmentally, secularist ideals have led to what Professor 'Abd al-Hakim Murad has referred to as the "gang rape" of the planet. The toxic byproducts of an ill-conceived developmental model poison our land, air, and the seas. Untreated sewage chokes and defiles our rivers and streams. Whole communities in coastal areas are rendered economically unviable due to overfishing so severe that in some areas even the hardy, once abundant codfish has disappeared. Even in remote areas of the planet which are presented by the tourist industry as "island paradises" the destructiveness of man's economic hubris is all too clear.
In Oahu, the most populous of the Hawaiian islands, a ceiling of smog hovers over the densely populated downtown area and the airport/American Air Force base during still summer days. Beaches are often closed due to sewage spills. The countryside is littered with garbage dumps and junkyards. Large areas of the island have been transformed into treeless wastelands, abandoned by the pineapple industry, which has moved on to greener pastures in the Philippines and elsewhere. What few forested areas remain rapidly disappearing as developers throw up acres of new "ticky tacky" condominiums. Keeping golf courses green uses up a disproportionate percentage of available fresh water, while pesticide residues from those same golf courses poisons scarce ground water.
The above-mentioned victory of the liberal version of secularism has meant the victory of what Francis Fukuyama, one of the leading advocates of that version, refers to as free market capitalism and liberal democracy. These twin forces have worked to ensure that the ethics of profit replace the ethics of the Prophets (Allah's Peace and Blessings be upon them). Corporate profits determine if potentially privatized schools will teach children to think or to mindlessly consume. Profits determine if our rivers and lakes are swimmable. Profit determines if genetically engineered food grown in warehouses will eliminate the small farmer throughout the "developing" world just as corporate greed and agribusiness giants have practically eliminated the family farm in America. Furthermore, the relentless pursuit of profit has been the primary impetus behind the oppressive provisions of the recent Uruguay Round of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and the associated WTO (World Trade Organization). This will allow massive transnational corporations to dump cheaply produced junk food, junk products, and a junk culture on any nation of the world, with the right to declare any opposition to that process -no matter how principled that opposition- as an impediment to free trade.
In terms of liberal democracy, the corrupt implications of this arrangement are epitomized by one of its leading philosophical schools -deconstruction. This school elevates a form of literary criticism and linguistic analysis to inform social action. It posits that just as language is the product of a set of subjectively experienced "deep structures" which don't admit the existence of any universal referents for meaningful objective knowledge, so too social and political reality is subjectively formed and experienced. Hence, there are no universal or objective referents for meaningful transcending social or political action. Whatever, social or political action does unfold in this intellectual climate, unfolds along fragmented ethnic, cultural or gender lines. The spiritual strength and philosophical principles necessary to challenge the destructive hegemony of transnational capitalism disappear before they are created leaving both pseudo-liberated woman and a growing array of multicuturalisms united by a single unchallengeable characteristic: consumerism.
This dangerous school of thought, of which the more fundamentalist wing of our current Islamic reform is in many ways an unwitting agent, eliminates the possibility of meaningful social and political action leaving a void in the human soul which is filled by consumerism. It is no accident that McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken, two symbols of the emerging global consumer culture, have appeared in Mecca, the Holiest place in Islam, under the auspices of the most fundamentalist of all Muslim governments. Taken to it logical end, this consumerism will destroy the Earth.
Islam obviously opposes this arrangement. Although deconstructionalists don't admit the existence of universal principles such as tolerance or compassion, which make ethnic, cultural and gender politics possible, Islam contains no such internal contradiction. Let us consider one of numerous examples. Allah declares in His Noble Book:
What is
wrong with you that you don't fight in the way of Allah and the oppressed;
Assisting the weak, working to eliminate oppression, and protecting the defenseless are higher principles the knowledge of which is made possible by the existence of an ultimate, objective reality from which all else derives its existence, and upon which all else depends for its continued existence -Allah. Hence, Islam admits an ultimate reality. It admits a higher purpose to life, the worship of Allah. It similarly presents a set of principles and ideals that serve as the basis for meaningful collective action.
Reflecting on the state of the world, one cannot help but be struck by the penetrating words of Allah in His Glorious Book:
has appeared in the land and sea because of what the hands of men have
wrought [by their sinful recklessness] This is so that We may give them
a taste of what they have done, in order that they may return [to the
way of Divine Guidance].
If man is to return to the way of the Divine, it will be the Muslims who will lead that return. Islam presents a viable critique of contemporary atheistic thought and it is also the only major socio-religious force with a viable ecological philosophy. The thoughtless abuse and waste which characterizes our contemporary secular world is roundly condemned by the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Allah declares in the Qur'an:
Eat and
drink from the provision of Allah and don't go through the Earth working
Son of
Adam! Adorn yourselves at every place of prayer; eat, and drink, but don't
Allah says concerning the mercy which His Messenger (Allah's Peace and Blessings be upon him) exemplified:
We have
only sent you as a mercy to all the Worlds.
It is interesting to note that in the opening chapter of the Qur'an, Al-Fatiha, after mentioning his Lordship over all creation, Allah immediately mentions the vastness of His Mercy. He says, "Al-Hamdu lillahi Rabb al-'Alamin, Al-Rahman Al-Rahim (All Praise is for Allah the Lord of All the Worlds, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful). Allah similarly reminds humanity that all living creatures comprise organized communities which have many of the basic rights possessed by humans. He says:
is no creature on the Earth, nor any bird flying upon its wings, except
that it
Muslims must honor the rights of those creatures as part of our custodianship over the Earth. However, petty little Islamic groups cannot exercise that custodianship. If Muslims are to provide badly needed direction for humanity we will have to transcend the divisions, which in many cases are the byproducts of the ill-conceived schemes of small men. In his insightful book, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century, Zbigniew Brzenski clearly implies that Islam can potentially offer a viable socio-political alternative for humanity. However, that Islamic alternative is generally unknown because unlike the failed communist alternative it hasn't been articulated at the state level. Such an articulation must occur before Islam can respond seriously to the challenge of secularism.
In order for Islam to be a viable international actor, state or nonstate, Muslims will have to move beyond the petty political divisions which have afflicted the Ummah for much of the past century. In the West, we will have to prevent the emerging "Traditionalist-Salafi" division from becoming a fundamental, irreconcilable split. One way to do this is to define Ahli al-Sunnah w'al-Jama'ah as broadly and as inclusively as possible, instead of the narrow, exclusive definitions, which dominate current discourse. One such definition is provided by Tahir al-Bagdadi (d. 429 AH) in his book, al-Farq bayn al-Firaq (The Difference Between the Sects). He mentions Ahl al-Sunnah w'al-Jama'ah as being comprised of eight basic groups. These groups accommodate all of the orientations, which serve as the basis for the thought of informed Traditionalists and Salafis. He then mentions an objective standard (Dabit) which distinguishes these eight groups from the adherents of the sects such as the Khawarij, M'utazilah, and others. Adopting such a broad view, which represents the best of a rich academic tradition, is essential if we are to move forward as a unified community.
I have chosen to close by emphasizing the need for Muslim unity because the tremendous challenges confronting humanity and our Ummah require our collective action. Secularism, doesn't have to be the enduring socio-political legacy of humanity. Islam, as we have tried to show, offers something a lot better to humanity, to a ravaged Earth, and her creatures. It is up to us Muslims to demonstrate to humanity through our unity, our love, our spiritual elevation, our sacrifice, our living, and our dying that Islam is truly the "solution." If we can understand and take up the challenges of the day humanity will be able to see the first rays of a new dawn after a long, dark, and difficult night.
Zaid Shakir
Edited by love - 24 December 2008 at 2:34pm
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This begs the question: Who cares what his religous views are and what the hell does it have to do with his argument? I will answer: Absolutely nothing. You are trying to obfuscate the point with a "strawman".
Completely irrelevant. Who cares?
Although that is interesting, and maybe a sign that he became wise to the scam being played out by the modern day environmentalist movement, but again, irrelevant.
Once again, irrelevant. Who cares? How is this related to what he stated?
Of course, some in the movement but not you or your visionaries. With all due repsect, this is a typical reply from an environmentalist: It is the other guys who are the irraitonal ones, me and my bunch are the sane ones, so one should not generalize.
It may be in your "opinion" that you feel Michael Chrichton is narrow in his thinking, but you have yet to argue why he is wrong. In fact, I would say that he is right on the money in describing the movement. I did not see any errors in anything he stated.
Once again Love, with all due respect, who cares what Zaid SHakir thinks of secularism? In fact, secularism has nothing to do with the views of Michael Chriton. Zaid Shakir is not a known authority on science, the science (or non science) of environmentalism, the environmentalist movement, or even on Michael Chriton. Furthermore, whether or not Michael Chriton is a secularist is completely off topic and irrelevant, as it does not change the facts and argument presented by Michael Chriton (in other words, it (his conclusions) is not dependent upon him being a secularist or not).
What you posted by Zaid Shakir has no bearing on the topic here in this thread or on the views of Michael Chriton.
Good night Love.
A feeling of discouragement when you slip up is a sure sign that you put your faith in deeds. -Ibn 'Ata'llah
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Good night Andalus.
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The $500,000 Housecleaning
When a Virginia couple discovered their townhouse was infested with mold it was the start of an arduous, expensive multiyear cleanup. Sanette Tanaka joins Lunch Break with a look at the renovation and how homeowners can protect themselves from the same headache. Photo: Steven Voss for The Wall Street Journal.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... ay ay ay ay ... the ... key ... to stop all this fabric at three thousand square foot ... house McLean Virginia ... the the the the ... I ... also know that black girl ... that wants the arduous hike here in the city amenities ... it is all ... bright and worst BCS three bedroom three ... bathroom ... house that is hitting the waves in ... one of the pharmacy ... it is but with a rich countries that it's a little pop ... of course the market ... the actor and see if it still marvel periods ... just a monster ... adjusted for the home ... briefly ... it gets in ... trouble the ABC costs for countries that the South and I think she dollar ... if furniture that needs to be ordered in the park but it is ... the ... best Apple has all the U S ... after five years that I love that somebody had to think of ... that to happen ... five years almost ... the entire slate of his begins I went back home I wanna know what the rest of us can do ... to avoid the same headache is is is my ... worst nightmare as the home owner Synnex Nakba joins us right now Misek and a house burning down ... here you have like mold in your house is ... her riffic Haugen this couple even suspect they have probably the first place since anime TNS the white with Agnes that one can say ... that ... it had successful surgery that she sighed trouble breathing ... fish he caught me is an old problem ... and there was ... and there was I how common is its final home game in the sense of that it's important that thinks every home has at least a little tenable ... only about forty seven percent of those homes ... that have more that could present a problem ... small balcony dormant for years seem to have this knowledge you need to be the loneliest and concerts to route away so if you have ... a see you again or if you happen have appetite week hearing write like that you really ... after the molds half million dollars for the renovation all the remediation they had to do me next is much is is it that the health costs the beginning for them on ... how much to the test costs of people out there saying I want someone to real test in my home for the Guiness family cockpit thousand ICD the Catholic seems like a lot but keep in mind that prevent ... six hundred and seven thousand colleagues to get rid of the more than to clean everything and ... that I know that she protests on the market due to start with those opposing it's like a little bit of a property can move on to the bigger Kazakh really would begin a family they opened up their while to make adult everywhere and every story of a five storey home


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Our Fitness Blog
6 Reasons to Love the Gym
A lot of us have a love-hate relationship with the gym. We know we have to go, but for some of us, we dread walking through those doors. We need to find a way to love going to the gym so that we look forward to our fitness routines. This can help us stay motivated and easily achieve our goals much faster. So, how can we change our attitude about the gym? Here are just a few reasons to keep in mind when you start dreading your visit to the gym.
Socialize with people who have your same goals. This is the perfect place to become connected with others who are striving to do the same thing you are. They can become your fitness buddies, motivate you to work harder and offer you support in times of need.
Exercise year round. It can be fun exercising outside but sometimes the seasons just don't agree with this. You may have allergies that act up at a certain time. The rain, cold or heat can also dampen your outside workout plans. Weather can be fickle in many places but if you visit the gym, you can always workout no matter what the weather is doing outside.
Access to professionals. If you are a fitness newbie or trying to switch up your routine, you may need expert help. Most gyms give you access to a personal trainer that can help walk you through your fitness routine and even design it just for you. If you do need help, do not hesitate to ask the gym employees for help. They are a great perk that comes along with your gym membership.
Access to different types of equipment. Some of us may be afraid to try new things, but by trying new or different types of exercises, you can workout your entire body and easily achieve an overall toned look. You can achieve a more effective workout by adding in some variety and seeking the guidance needed on how to successfully perform these moves.
Meal planning help. Most gyms are now realizing that in order to help their members reach their goals, they need to offer them assistance with meal planning. Many gyms now have an onsite nutritional team that can map out the perfect meals tailored to help their members become healthier.
Guidance from a trainer. Some gyms have a trainer that can assist you in properly performing any new or difficult exercises you are trying to learn. Most gyms charge extra for a trainer, but there are some brands that actually have the trainer included in your workout at no extra cost. 9Round Fitness is one of them.
The gym can be a scary place that many of us are afraid to visit. However, we can easily start to look forward to going to the gym. All we have to do is change our attitudes and how we view our gym visits. Then we may actually begin to see just how much fun going to the gym can truly be.


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|The Score Artists @ Work Member Directory Premier Partners Seminar Downloads SCL Videos NY Home Forum Ambassador Program Mentor Program Hall of Fame In Memoriam Lifetime Achievement Emerging Composer
Ronnie Minder in the race to be considered for a 2017 Academy Award Nomination
Ronnie Minder is one of four Australian contenders in the race to be considered for a 2017 Academy Award Nomination. His score for 'The Legend of Ben Hall' is shortlisted in the 'Original Score' Category. http://www.oscars.org/news/145-original-scores-2016-oscar-race


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Area motorcycle enthusiasts interested in enhancing their knowledge about safe driving are invited to enroll in upcoming Motorcycle Safety Training classes offered through Owens Community College's Workforce and Community Services. The classes will occur through October.
The College's Motorcycle Safety Training is the only basic motorcycle-rider course offered in Wood County and is one of only 21 permanent training locations in Ohio. Owens' motorcycle safety training is a three-day course, which occurs on Thursday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays.
Motorcycle Ohio is regarded as the premier motorcycle safety and education program in the state, having enhanced the riding skills of over 115,000 motorcyclists since its founding in 1987. The organization has 21 permanent training locations throughout Ohio and one mobile program, as well as a fleet of 450 training motorcycles, helmets and over 250 instructors. Motorcycle Ohio's Basic Rider Course or "Riding and Street Skills" was first made available to the public in 1988, while the Experienced Rider Course was added in 1992. An Instructor Preparation Course is available for experienced motorcyclists interested in becoming a Motorcycle Ohio instructor.
The Basic Rider Course requires 16 hours of educational learning. Four hours will occur within a classroom at the Center for Emergency Preparedness, Perrysburg Township. Classroom topics will include introduction to motorcycling, preparing to ride and street strategies. The final 12 hours will be held as part of practice riding sessions at Owens' 250 feet by 500 feet defensive driving pad adjacent to the Fire Science and Law Enforcement Center in Perrysburg Township. The practice riding sessions will feature educational training within the areas of motorcycle familiarization, limited-space maneuvers, using the friction zone, negotiating curves, obstacles and lane changes, avoiding hazards and matching gears to speed, among other topics.
Attendees will be provided with motorcycles, helmets and a student workbook. Individuals must show proof of a Motorcycle Endorsement on their driver's license or a valid Temporary Motorcycle permit in order to participate.
The cost to participate in the class is only $50. Space is limited to 12 riders per class. For additional information, contact the College's Workforce and Community Services at (567) 661-7357 or 1-800-GO-OWENS, Ext. 7357. Individuals can register online at www.motorcycle.ohio.gov.
Owens Community College is an accredited two-year, state-assisted institution of higher education that has served Northwest Ohio since 1965. With a commitment to providing small classes, personal attention and unmatched affordability, the College serves the diverse academic needs of credit and non-credit students on the Toledo-area and Findlay-area campuses, as well as at the Arrowhead Park Learning Center in Maumee and the Learning Center at The Source in downtown Toledo. Owens offers associate degrees that transfer to baccalaureate degrees in the Arts and Sciences and over 130 technical program areas in Agriculture, Business, Health Sciences, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Skilled Trades, and Engineering and Transportation Technologies. For more information, visit www.owens.edu.
- Owens Community College | Toledo, OH
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All the empty handed kata I practice have specific places where the student is supposed to kiai. Practically speaking, kiai means to yell, but the larger idea is to focus and project energy, strengthen the body, and startle the attacker. The kanji for kiai are the same as in Ai-ki-do but in reversed order. Ki means energy and ai means to coordinate.
A student visited me once. At the correct place in Naihanchi Shodan, he yelled out "kiai!" I mean that be actually yelled the word "kiai." I thought it was a bit humerous and it turned out that his sensei had learned the kata from a book and had taken the command to "kiai" literally.
There are different types of kiai. When we yell (as in the two kiai in Naihanchi Shodan), we say something like "a" (like the letter "A"), "to", "yo", "ho", or any number of sounds. The sound does not matter. However, it is important to keep the mouth closed or nearly so. Yelling with the mouth wide open is an invitation to injury. You could bite your tongue, your jaws could crash together, your teeth could break, or someone could poke a weapon (such as a bo) into your mouth.
It is funny when you see a Karate celebrity on the cover of a magazine, obviously delivering a loud kiai with his or her mouth wide open. It is a bit like Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. Every time he drew his Japanese sword you could hear the sound of metal ("swing"), just like a western sword. Japanese swords simply don't make that sound. Ideally, the draw is silent. The sound was almost certainly an added sound effect. A kiai is not a sound effect. It is a sound and energy technique.
When you kiai loudly, you should project it to the far side of the dojo (the opposite wall). It should have a piercing character. In fact, Sensei Morio Higaonna told me that the word for kiai in Hogen in yagi which literally means "voice arrow."
But not all kiai are loud. A kiai can be silent. The body will compress but no sound can be heard. Or the kiai can be more like a hissing sound during which time the air is squeezed from the lungs. We do this a lot in the Kishaba Juku form of Shorin-Ryu. The compression coincides with the use of the koshi and the creation and transfer of power.
Squeezing out the air during a technique is exceptionally important. A person who does not do so looks a bit like a half filled jug of water sloshing around. A person who holds in his breath is also more susceptible to injury, both from strain (the blood pressure will rise) and the possibility of explosive release (assisted by a well placed and timed punch).
Why do kata have one, two or even several specifically placed kiai? It think that it simply for kiai practice and theatrics. You could kiai all the time, none of the time, or selectively. In my dojo, we often do not kiai (yell). It really does not matter as long as the student knows how and when to do so.
In tournaments, a kiai might be very impressive. A student could even flunk a test in some dojo if he or she failed to kiai at the right place. Some dojo teach kata in an extremely rigid manner -- the idea being that all students must be able to do the same kata in exactly the same way, including the kiai.
When I studied Aikido under Sensei Sadao Yoshioka, he occassionally spoke about Kiai Jutsu, the used of kiai as a weapon. He said that his first sensei, Yukiso Yamamoto, was one of only a handful of students who learned this in Japan. Yamamoto Sensei was a Ju Jutsu/Judo instructor before converting to Aikido when Sensei Koichi Tohei visited Hawaii.
I am not sure where I learned this, but I was taught to visualize drawing in all of the energy (ki) of the Universe behind you and projecting it in a narrow beam in front of you. The energy was supposed to project from your eyes, as well as via your voice.
Except for startling someone, I never saw a kiai have a physical effect absent physical contact. I suppose it is possible, but I doubt that it would be as reliable as a simple punch. I believe that the benefits of kiai are purely physical.
I did hear stories, however, of my Aikido Sensei killing a gekko (small lizard) with a kiai. He may have also killed or stunned a cat. But I did not see this. I know that I almost killed my aunt when I was a child. She was walking down some steps in front of her house and I was hiding in the bushes. When she got close I jumped out and yelled! I was told that I almost gave her a heart attack. I was not a Karate student at that time.
Kiai can also refer to one's strength. We say that a person with a strong kiai is capable of doing anything. But we must also interact with the world around us. Thus Aikido Sensei Gary Omori told me that he was always taught "First kiai, then maai." Maai refers to your interaction or spacing.
Even though it can be an almost trivial aspect of kata, the kiai is actually a very interesting practice in the martial arts. In Karate, I think that the Hogen term "yagi" best captures the feeling I get during a kiai. I wish that there was also a kiai term for "breath squeeze out."
Perhaps we could call Karate... Kiaite or even Yagidi (Voice, Arrow, Hand). Hmmm. I like that better than "Empty Hand."
Charles C. Goodin
All the empty handed kata I practice have specific places where the student is supposed to kiai. Practically speaking, kiai means to yell, but the larger idea is to focus and project energy, strengthen the body, and startle the attacker. The kanji for kiai are the same as in Ai-ki-do but in reversed order. Ki means energy and ai means to coordinate.
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Monday, April 10, 2006


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CFCU Community Credit Union in Ithaca, N.Y., has named Michael D'Angelo as its new vice president of member experience. He most recently had been vice president/director of eastern regional sales director at Xceed Financial Credit Union in Rochester, N.Y.
First New York Federal Credit Union in Albany, N.Y., has promoted Mark Milanese to chief information officer. He joined First New York in 1999 as director of management information systems in 1999, after nearly 20 years at Ballston Spa National Bank, and was later promoted to vice president of information technology.
Charter Oak Federal Credit Union in Groton, Conn., said Michael Ballirano, manager of the Montville and Niantic branches, has been named the new chairman of the Montville Division of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut.
NASCUS has announced that President/CEO Mary Martha Fortney plans to retire. She joined NASCUS in 1993 as director of accreditation and communications and has been its president/CEO for the past 11 years. A successor is expected to be named this fall.
Align Credit Union in Lowell, Mass., has named Maureen Couture an assistant vice president of home financing and business development. Couture has more than 20 years of banking experience, including 17 at local credit unions. She most recently was a senior mortgage originator at Jeanne D'Arc Credit Union in Lowell.
Riverfront Federal Credit Union in Reading, Pa., has hired Tim McLeod as its new president/CEO. He had been chief operating officer at Singing River Federal Credit Union in Moss Point, Miss., and succeeds Vincent Paolini, who retired as CEO/president in January after serving Riverfront in various capacities for 19 years.
ORNL Federal Credit Union in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has hired Tommy Smith as vice president of brand, marketing and communications strategy. He previously had worked in brand management and business development for Dell Inc. in Austin, Texas, and Dublin, Ireland, as well as with FedEx and his own company, TW Small Business Solutions, which served 10 Knoxville-area nonprofits and small businesses.
Commonwealth Credit Union in Frankfort, Ky., said John Scott has retired from the Board of Directors after 36 years of service, the past 25 as chairman.
Chartway Federal Credit Union in Virginia Beach, Va., has elected three members to its Board of Directors. They are Wayne Foshay, current chairman, along with George Sauer and Bob Cook. All three are Navy veterans.
Mark McCoy has joined Summit Credit Union in Madison, Wis., as mortgage loan originator for its Stoughton, Wis., branch set to open in late May or early June. McCoy has more than 20 years of home mortgage and refinancing experience, most recently as a home mortgage consultant for Wells Fargo for the past 15 years.
Indiana Members Credit Union in Indianapolis has announced the retirement of Jane Pollock, senior accounting specialist, and Fernando Espinal, systems operator. Pollock had joined IMCU in 1978 in the collections department. Espinal had been in the information systems department for more than 20 years.
Credit Union ONE in Ferndale, Mich., has hired Lillian Lorenzi as vice president of marketing. She has extensive marketing and communications experience and is currently a board member for IABC-Detroit. Amy Ghannam also recently joined Credit Union ONE as chief member experience officer. She has more than 14 years of financial services experience, most recently as senior vice president of retail for PNC Bank.
Dow Chemical Employees' Credit Union in Midland, Mich., has elected its 2014 Board of Directors and committee members. The board comprises Duncan Stuart, chairperson, along with Gary McGuire, Michael Kapp, Mark Fenske, Perry Holmon, Bob Kasprzyk, Lisa McKenney and William Weideman. The Supervisory Committee is chaired by Michael Pisarczyk and includes Mark Gandy and Greg Grocholski. The Credit Committee is chaired by Beth Allsop and includes Dave Born, Mark Larsen and Kathy Jo Nogaski.
Numerica Credit Union in Spokane Valley, Wash., has promoted Manuel Hochheimer to director of corporate business development. Hochheimer has 12 years of financial service experience and joined Numerica in 2012. Solarity Credit Union in Yakima, Wash., has hired Jim Webb as vice president of retail lending. Webb has more than 23 years of experience in lending, sales and operations and had previously worked at Wells Fargo, Conseco, Bank One and Old Kent Bank.
School Employees Credit Union of Washington in Seattle has hired Jon Labonite as vice president of administration. Labonite has more than 14 years of financial services industry experience, including with Seattle-Northwest Securities Corp., CUNA Mutual Group and Morgan Stanley.
Robert Chavez has been promoted to president/CEO of Sandia Laboratory Federal Credit Union in Albuquerque, N.M. He had been executive vice president and chief operating officer since 2002 and succeeds the retiring Christopher Jillson.


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3. Gently stir through the peas and remove from the heat. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes.
4. Remove bay leaves and serve the rice in bowls, sprinkled with fried shallots.
Recipe adapted from Super Food Ideas
Ingredients, including rice, bay leaves, lots of butter, chicken stock, garlic, ginger and fried shallots/onions.
This rice turned out surprisingly fluffy considering it's made in a saucepan rather than a rice cooker.
It's also incredibly tasty (that's all the butter in it), and would make a good side dish in a banquet.


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Announced yesterday that we've added a second date to our Mobile Socials at SXSW. We're riding social twice. The first ride is on Saturday with Tweet House and arrives at Mellow Johnnys. The second is on Sunday and that's around Austin with Social Cycling ATX and Tern.
At SXSW
For 5 years, +Bike Hugger has represented the intersection of bikes, technology and culture at SXSW. You're welcome to join us for our annual social ride(s) with SXSW attendees and locals.
We'll ride, blog, and party.
Event Details are here and on Facebook please RSVP.
Meet Spot, Route
The meet spot and route are subject to change. Watch for updates from us as the dates get closer.


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For me, it is St. Patrick's Day when the Montauk Friends of Erin hold their parade, as they will on Sunday. It has always been a big day, from the very beginning of our family life. In my memory the weather back in the '70s was always perfect, the floats lively and sometimes hilarious, and the crowds well behaved. My first husband, Everett, promoted the parade in the days when it wasn't yet as well known up the Island as it is today, and he made sure the kids had a good spot for viewing.
After his death in 1980, the Friends of Erin, knowing how much he liked the parade, planted a few shadbush trees on Montauk's Main Street in his memory. In the '80s, having become editor of The Star myself, I started being invited to take a place on the reviewing stand. It was the only formal occasion at which I rubbed non-official shoulders publically with local politicos, and I loved every minute of it.
Our editor's creed was and is to stay on the sidelines where organizations are concerned, so that we could be objective in our reporting. At the parade, though, we were a part of it all.
I would be up there waving away with some of Montauk's old-timers: Mary Gosman for one, Frank Borth for another. By that time, Eddie V. Ecker Sr., a former East Hampton Town supervisor, had become the master of ceremonies. He was tenured in the position for years, and was a jolly and welcoming M.C. He seemed to know exactly what and who everything and everyone was — either in the parade or just passing by in the crowd. I would recognize his voice and his laugh today if he were still alive.
In those days, after the parade was over, I would join friends or Star reporters and head to a couple of the Montauk bars where the various bagpipe bands always make the rounds. How could that not be fun? These bars, like the Montauket, were outside my usual social routes. If there was a lot of drinking going on, it didn't bother any of us. Droves of young people had started to come out on the train to make merry at, during, and after the parade, but it never seemed to get out of hand.
The crowds have gotten larger and unrulier in recent years, as we all know, and so the Friends of Erin will, for the first time, start the parade this Sunday at more family-friendly 10 a.m., instead of the traditional 12:30 p.m. The idea is to thwart the marauding. Godspeed to the Friends of Erin!
The next generation heads our family contingent at the parade now. My son David really got in the spirit a few years ago, creating a terrific East Hampton Star float featuring lobsters on roller skates and in a giant boiling pot. With a little help, he made fantastic lobster costumes, both adult and child-size. They weren't green, but they sure were Montauk. Some of the fake claws and the red lobster heads are still knocking around. Occasionally, one of the grandkids will pop out of a doorway with red antennas bobbing.
Why, exactly, is the St. Patrick's Day parade in Montauk always so much fun? Why are my memories of it so happy — fine weather and hearty laughs? I certainly can't pretend to be Irish. It may be that when I was a student at Bayonne High School, in New Jersey, a singular and exciting St. Patrick's experience imprinted itself in me. I was one of the twirlers, and we were invited to be in the Manhattan parade. That year, I had been made a drum majorette and positioned out front. (I was promoted because I was shorter than everyone else, I'm afraid, not because I was particularly skilled with a baton.) I remember that we were really cold that March day, in our short skirts and bare legs, but that it didn't matter. We had a ball as we marched down Fifth Avenue.


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However, I do love interesting labels.
At a political fundraiser some years ago, I couldn't help giggling at the frog on the label of a Toad Hollow Vineyard Chardonnay (1995). The bartender was kind enough to set aside an empty bottle which, until the other day, has been residing on a shelf in my dining room.
Naturally I can't personally vouch for the quality of Toad Hollow's wines, but the fact that the vineyard was founded in 1994 and is still in business says it takes wine making seriously enough to have won several awards in spite of its whimsical labels, like the one at right for its crisp and fruity sparkling Risqué made from 100% Mauzac.
Labels as whimsical (and enchanting) as the story of its founding.
According to the "history" on THV's website, Toad Hollow was the brainchild of two old friends named Dr. Toad and The Dancing Badger who had "retired, more or less" to a Hollow overlooking the Russian River near Healdsburg, Calif.:
"This natural pairing—Dr. Toad, a man known around the neighborhood as one who could sell sand to a Sheik, as well as a consummate storyteller…he would be in charge of marketing; while Mr. Badger, a gentleman extraordinaire, who had honed his palate during visits to chateaux, whilst dancing for kings…would craft the wine."If you don't live in the Healdsburg area, THV wines are sold in stores in some U.S. metropolitan cities; they can also be ordered on the website. But if like me you aren't a wine drinker, you can wow friends and family with THV's funky labels via posters, T-shirts and caps available at the online General Store.
Toad Hollow Vineyard
The Legend of Toad Hollow Vineyard
TVH General Store
Have a great day!


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Celebrating illustration, design, cartoon and comic art of the mid-20th century.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
NORMAN ROCKWELL'S ILLUSTRATIONS FOR THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Part 2
Illustration #3
When I first saw this illustration, I was a little puzzled as to what was going on. Of course, a story illustration is often most effective when it entices the reader to read the story without revealing too much. And, perhaps that was Rockwell's motive in choosing this unusual scene in the story.
The odd looking dark spot on the floor is a "hair-ball, which he (Jim) had took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it". Jim is listening for the hair-ball to talk to him. The composition shows a stove top and a strong vertical stove pipe that quickly lead us up to Jim and Huck.
The diagonal lines of the floor boards also direct our eye towards the main subject matter. Rockwell often showed small portions of background props. In this painting they are bleeding out of the top of the illustration, but identifying a general location. His color scheme is primarily warm muted neutral tones with a few small red accents in key areas.
The limited colors add to the mood of the event, eliminating any visual distraction that might reduce the focus on Jim, Huck and the hairball. With the support of Mark Twain's detailed writing and his own well honed insight and knowledge, Rockwell felt very comfortable portraying period illustrations, and identifying with the common people in America was his stock and trade.
Illustration #4
This illustration has some of the vertical characteristics (floor boards, chair back and chair legs) that the last illustration had.. but less pronounced. The black cat functions similar to the previous black stove. It anchors the entire scene within the vertical page. This time Rockwell only showed two structural props, the two chairs. The background is simply a dark tone gradating into the light floor boards. He resists even showing the molding or corner where the wall meets the floor.. breaking it down to just the important essentials of the scene.
For each scene, Rockwell carefully evaluated as to what elements to include and what to leave out. Notice the stripes on the red dress and a suggestion of a white print on the green dress, which gives variety to otherwise all solid tones.
The angle of the slats on the back of the rocker follows the angle of the women's head, which is looking directly at the focal point. The top of the bonnet, forearm and the straight vertical line of Huck's back (who is dressed as a girl), are effective horizontal and vertical directional lines that also lead us to the focal point.
And, the character of Huck's bare feet is a telltale clue at his attempt at looking like a girl.
Again Rockwell weaves together a tight knit composition, which all elements, color, tones, patterns and shapes fit together into a functional solid composition. Virtually all these illustrations are quite loose and painterly in the foreground and background areas, centering our attention at the all-important and more defined focal point.
* Tom Watson is a retired West Coast illustrator, art director and educator. He has been a frequent contributor to Today's Inspiration and his storyboard work for film was a subject of a post on my other blog, Storyboard Central.
This week's images are © MBI/Heritage Press, 1940 and are used with the permission of the Norman Rockwell Museum. This past summer the museum featured the grand opening of a traveling exhibition, American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell.
Stephanie Plunkett, Chief Curator of the Museum would like readers to know that the Museum does travel an exhibition of signed lithographic prints from the Tom and Huck series to other museums and cultural centers. Stephanie writes, "We do have two upcoming bookings for that exhibition that are listed below, so perhaps your readers will have the opportunity to visit if they live in the region."
Here is the information about the traveling exhibition:
Norman Rockwell's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale-Davie, Florida
November 14, 2009 through January 29, 2010
Averitt Center for the Arts, Statesboro, Georgia
March 12, 2010 through May 7, 2010
"It also might be interesting to note that the original paintings for the series are in the collection of the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Missouri. The originals are beautiful. A study from the series will be on view in our upcoming exhibition, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, which opens on November 7, 2009."
12 comments:
- Charlie Allen10:39 PM
Great blog this week, Tom, on NR. He was not America's best known and loved illustrator (or artist) by chance. The contrast between so-called 'modern art' and artists with Rockwell....and many of the other illustrators (I'm thinking N.C. Wyeth at present)....is overwhelming. The difference.... Rockwell and the other great illustrators communicated. They brought words and the abstract to life....they brought characters, scenes, and locations to life....something outside of themselves to which viewers and readers can enjoy and relate. Most of 'fine art' and 'modern art' fails at this. Probably have my 'tang toungled' here....but that's my 'penguin state of mind'ReplyDelete
Charlie, I couldn't agree with you more. Seems that what a relatively small amount of quality traditional paintings I see, is in small pockets.. although, I'm hearing there is an ever growing return to literal painting that people can easily understand and relate to. I hope so.ReplyDelete
Tom Watson
Hi Tom, I actually have the "Huck Threads a Needle" as a three part set along with "Huck and Miss Mary Jane" and "The Duke and the Dauphin". These look like originals from The Heritage Press, New York. They are still in their original sleeve. If you would like to contact me, let me know via this blog. Thank you.ReplyDelete
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Penalties/Charges for tickets issued from Dhakka/Delhi/Mumbay/Kabul to travel PK International sectors
Effective 8th March 2016 till Further Notice
|COB Charges
|USD 35/- (One COB is free of charge in either Direction if change is made beyond 07 days of flight departure)
|No-Show Charges
|Originating Segment (For travel from Dhakka/Delhi/Mumbay/Kabul)
|Return Segment (For travel to Dhakka/Delhi/Mumbay/Kabul)
|Applicable within four hours of flight departure or after flight departure
|Charge USD 50/-
|Charge USD 50/-
|Refund Charges
|Fully Unutilized ticket
|Half/Partially Utilized tickets
|In case ticket is FULLY UNUTILIZED
|In case Ticket is Half/Partially Utilized i.e. one or more segments have been travelled by the passenger,
|In case ticket is FULLY UNUTILIZED USD 35/- will be charged as refund charges
|In case Ticket is Half/Partially Utilized i.e. one or more segments have been travelled by the passenger, One way fare of the travelled segment/segments plus USD 35/- will be charged as refund charges.
- The above charges apply only for tickets issued in Dhakka/Delhi/Mumbay/Kabul and travel originating from Dhakka/Delhi/Mumbay/Kabul.
- Charge(s)/Penalty(ies) apply to adult, child and infant (occupying a seat).
- Charge(s)/Penalty(ies) shall be levied in addition to any applicable difference of fare that may be due to change of seasonality, class of travel or any other reason.
- Refund not applicable on remaining flight(s) if ticket is utilized out of sequence.
- Charges will be Waived in case of death of passenger (official documents required)
- Void Charges: Not applicable.
- Above Conditions /Penalties apply both on tickets issued by PIA offices and agents.
- In case of applicability of More than one penalty, only one penalty/charge which ever is higher will be payable.
- Change of Booking Charges on International Tickets will not be applicable in case of any Change in Reservation on Pure Domestic Sector within Pakistan.
- These Changes will be applicable through out the year.
- No-show charges will apply after flight departure.