text:
The primary objective of the School of Mathematics TIFR has been to carry out research at the highest level in Mathematics. The need to continue such research cannot be over-emphasized. It has of late become a danger that the technologically advanced countries want to have all basic research done on their soil. The claim is that `ivory tower' or `blue sky' research is not affordable for developing countries like India. This is a false notion. If India hopes to retain (and advance) its position in the world then its control over its own culture and technology is essential. Basic research in Mathematics is a big component in this. It is an area in which India has taken the lead in the long distant past and there continues to be a strong tradition of talent and admiration for this area among Indians. If this activity is not supported on Indian soil then our talents in this area will form part of a brain drain---a phenomenon which is already quite harmful to Indian Science and Technology. Hence the first point in the Vision of the Mathematics in the year 2020:
The School of Mathematics,TIFR is one of the strongest research groups in Mathematics in the world in 2020. It attracts the best Mathematical talent in the country and the world for research and study.
One of the objectives of the TIFR was that it should spread the culture of good scientific research all over the country--the filtering down effect. Partly due to the difficulties involved in setting up a centre to begin with and also partly due to entrenched forces which pulled in other directions this has not happened. However, we now see that a number of sister institutions like MatScience, Madras and MRI, Allahabad are also growing to be good centres for mathematical research. This should continue and the cooperation between these institutes should also grow. Hence the second point in the Vision of Mathematics in the year 2020:
There are a number of Research centres around the country where excellent research in Mathematics is being done. The joint conference (and its proceedings) held by these institutes is eagerly awaited by people around the world.
In a similar vein the job of teaching and exposition is one area where the School of Mathematics, TIFR has not contributed much as yet. Now that its strength has built up over the years it can make a dent here too. There are already schools every year where members of the School teach some of the important and interesting concepts in Mathematics. This program should expand to include Lecture series, Graduate texts and Quality improvement programs. Hence the third point in the Vision of Mathematics in the year 2020:
There are a number of universities where one can obtain a quality education in mathematics in 2020. The teachers in these universities are scholars with wide interests---no recent mathematical development is entirely outside their reach. Every year one of the top researchers from the research institutes comes to these institutes to give a course on some currently expanding area. Lecture notes from these course are published as a regular series.
One of the disturbing aspects of Mathematics education in India and also the rest of the world is that of the lack of mathematical sophistication in the education provided to non-mathematicians. Most of the mathematics taught to non-mathematicians centers around the developments of the previous century. Engineers are often taught to use mathematics like a black-box. Recent developments in Theoretical Physics, Computer Science and Engineering areas have shown that this is an erroneous approach. Thus it is important that the non-mathematical community be brought up-to-date on recent developments in mathematics---not only `Applied Mathematics' but even `Pure Mathematics'. Towards this purpose is the final point in the Vision of Mathematics in the year 2020:
Every year a number of mathematicians and non-mathematicians gather to discuss some aspect of current mathematics. There are courses by mathematicians on the developments in these areas while the non-mathematicians provide intuitive understanding for some of the concepts from a physical/engineering perspective.
Of course some of these goals may sound too ambitious but it won't hurt to try to achieve them.


text:
DETROIT -- Investors in General Motors probably feel like it's time for a Santa Claus rally.
GM's stock sat at $20.70 at Thursday's close, about 39 percent below the price of its November 2010 initial public offering.
Its market capitalization of $32.4 billion roughly matches its cash reserves.
Thirteen of the 18 Wall Street analysts who cover GM recommend buying the shares.
Those factors all point to a cheap stock with upside. But one of those analysts says it could be a "value trap."
Investors intrigued by GM's beaten-up stock price should carefully weigh a few key risks that still hang over the automaker, J.P. Morgan analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note to investors last week. (It's a bit of a devil's advocate take: Jonas still recommends buying GM shares because of their potential to soar.)
The risks include:
- GM is leaning heavily on North America and China for its profits while losing money in South America and Europe, where GM is facing more restructuring costs.
- The disappointing fourth-quarter profit forecast that GM issued last month suggests that the automaker's profitability remains somewhat volatile and unpredictable (though, to be fair, that's mostly because of the fluid situation in Europe).
- GM's profit margins could be pressured by higher vehicle-launch costs next year, and pricing could cool after this year's big gains.
GM's profitability and share price next year hinge largely on two points: whether U.S. light-vehicle sales hit at least 13 million units and whether the European debt crisis is defused, Jonas says.
The first point looks favorable for GM. U.S. sales in 2012 are forecast at 13 million to 14 million, according to 11 independent analysts. That would be up from estimated 2011 sales of about 12.7 million or slightly more.
Resolution of the European debt problem is more iffy.
Jonas sums up the risks this way:
"GM remains our top pick in U.S. autos because of a risk/reward we believe is asymmetrically skewed to the upside," he writes. "But the road ahead in 2012 will remain bumpy."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Shonda Brooks needed a new web page design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 63 designs submitted by 13 freelance designers.
ElderServe Health
ElderServe Health is a brand new innovative and caring New York State health program that keeps frail elderly people as healthy and independent as possible. Our nurses work with the patient's physician to tailor a care program of highest quality services that meets their particular needs and helps them Live Well.
We have a 99Designs logo and now need a website that conveys caring, compassion, quality and a good life!!
Frail elderly people and their adult children of all cultures - we will serve people who speak English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Korean, creole, and other languages -- and we have staff from these cultures and are sensitive the cultural norms,.
We need two designs - the Home Page and a back page. Colors should be deep or bright, not pastel or pale and type larger than usual because pale colors and small type are hard for the elderly to see.
Our logo (from 99designs) is attached. We would like some red and gold in the site, because red means good health and gold signifies wealth in many Asian cultures. We want the site to be very easy to understand/use so it appeals to a group that is not expert at using the web. We would like pictures of happy elderly people of both sexes and multiple ethnicities (Chinese, Russian, Spanish, African-American, etc.)
We don't have any idea about how the page should be organized and are seeking your creative ideas.
We also attach specific information about the navigation and facts we will need. Please submit a design!!!


text:
The Foundation works in close partnership with Yale University Press and the Yale Center for International and Area Studies to sponsor books, articles, lectures, and other publications and presentations, with the goal of clarifying the domestic and foreign policy choices facing the United States in the years ahead.
Together with Yale University Press, the Foundation sponsors the Future of American Democracy series of books by some of America�s foremost thinkers. The books in the series present a new, balanced, centrist approach to examining the challenges American democracy has faced in the past and must overcome in the years ahead. The first five books in the series were published in 2006 and 2007.
In both its research and education efforts, the Foundation is committed to applying the highest standards of scholarship in a balanced, nonpartisan fashion in the expectation that careful and fair-minded analysis of public policy issues will enable the American public to move beyond the partisan approaches seen in recent years and secure sensible, centrist solutions to our policy challenges.


text:
Doctors Test Fitness Regimes for 'Industrial Athletes'
Cardiac rehab programs are customizing safe but rigorous workouts for "industrial athletes" –- those with demanding physical jobs, as well as for patients with active lifestyles. Laura Landro and Dr. Jenny Adams join Lunch Break. Photo: Baylor Hospital.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... we have programs are customizing sink but we were so what counsel him tossed real athletes ... those with demanding physical job you need to get back to work as well as for patients with active lifestyles ... they want to resume as soon as possible Laura Landro will Street gentle strongest man on the site as well as talk to Jenny Adams senior researcher ... at bail on Bastille Hospital in Dallas ... Laura let me start with you ... based on your story by describing somebody on a treadmill in Scooby Kenya yes it seems the ... excuse that range it definitely didn't look strains to visit once and wonderful video of it that basically they are looking to ... put someone backing sheet to do the things you have to do is a scuba instructor after major heart procedure and you don't get the Dodd what the authentic tanking went to rescue someone go up and down steps that they're basically what they've done is create ... a workout that suits the activities that that person's can have to get back to work in this case it's can be done ... I'm that ... that was specific to skidded off the design so if if I was to have positive I would have to wear the stupid kid I don't think that now the keyword Fireman or policeman or an ... auto mechanic if ... you look at all of those ... physical manual jobs in the ways that they can simulate what they have to do in order to go back to work and do those things without ... how often Mr. seems to come on let's get let's go to talk to Jenny Adams and Dallas ... don't talk to an analyst with the benefits of doing so was ... well we should use personalized exercise programs ... so we asked occasions the goals when they come into cardiac rehab and then we try to work with high intensity training ... and specific activities to get them back to their clients ... now ... what one other things said that we want one when somebody has gone said the Raiders of the mill too soft by ... Ike and then aam does this help with us ... well the times when you have some sort of ... problem you lose your comments ... and you also can have that troubles leader medications even a possible blood pressure is using every means so ... what we're trying to do is NSA same minutes monitored by a physician and nurses in exercise physiology is islet ... the patients work as hard as they can perhaps Martin and I wanna get out ... into the world and sells NSA same ... why we can make sure that their vital signs and confidence ... increases in delays legal counsel for ... either the jobs that are entities that are ... ready to go ... Laura let me bring bring you again what with this stuff that looks expensive and looks like that is very ... very good if you can afford it ... the problem with the reimbursement rates for and Credit rehabilitation you seen some centers close to scale back ... the problem was that they weren't being reimburse a higher levels of Medicare but actually that's ... improving and next year Medicare may be paying more ... to the starting to recognize a couple things first of all hostels are also a lot of pressure to decrease readmissions ... within thirty days of say a heart attack ... so I think the reason is that we can put that in him and none of the white if you if you get discharged from hospital writer wanna see you again right many days ... because they don't want you to be Obel because they ... were great and that's mostly from ... the ... bottom line is that what they're finding is that ... you'll save when in the long run I think if you get people to keep people at the hospital obviously don't want them to ... die for drop dead after their parts or treat there ... the idea is that now that the cost of doing this ... I is use ... has benefited in reducing cost positions reducing ... their problems and how down the road ... and that it puts people back to work any Mr. young people people apart from Sina forties fifties sixties ... know again Jenny well worked with Iran and cleaning Tyson went on disability they wanna get back to work ... and and Jenny got back to you ... if this is really good is good for everybody and ... over longer time costs last week and see this everywhere ... house right now we're each program we often on a program like this Nenad states that we are hoping to you ... to get the idea out so the other cardiac rehab to incorporate this time of the program into their their hospital setting ... interesting stuff well my beloved talk to Jenny patterns from buying with the balance we appreciate time ... how we pursue some as always Laura Landro ... and thank you very much


text:
House Of Repz - U Gotta Love Us (Produced By DJ Premier)
Video for House Of Repz "U Gotta Love Us" produced by DJ Premier coming soon on vinyl.
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


text:
BobbySaini necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 34 diseños de 9 diseñadores freelance.
Bhangra Blowout 18
Bhangra Blowout™ is an international intercollegiate South Asian dance competition featuring a high-energy style of dance. Bhangra is a style of music and dance that originates from the region of Punjab, which lies within Northern India and Pakistan.
Quite simply, Bhangra can be described as an exciting and beat-intensive music and dance style that has existed for centuries. It currently enjoys growing popularity worldwide. Since its conception in 1993, Bhangra Blowout™ has become an annual tradition that has grown from a local cultural show to one of the most anticipated South Asian events in North America. This event has one of the largest impacts on the student and young adult demographic within the South Asian community.
Being one of the largest South Asian events in the country, Bhangra Blowout™ continues to attract crowds from around the world. Bhangra Blowout™ has surpassed any and all expectations each successive year. The event fulfills its anticipation as one of the largest events in the history of the George Washington University and one of the largest student run South Asian events of its kind in the United States. In recent years, Bhangra Blowout™ has received national recognition from world-renowned publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Forbes Magazine, and various local cable TV networks.
Washington DC based young professionals and families.
Tech Savvy individuals
Basically, the logo should be simple, eye-catching, and easy to read.
Design must include:
- DC Skyline in the background (this can be seen on the previous logo attached)
- Dancing man in traditional attire. (can be seen on previous logo attached)
- Must contain the words Bhangra Blowout 18
Design Style:
- We are aiming for a classy yet modern web 2.0ish look
- The logo will be used on Tshirts, banners, posters, stickers, etc. It needs to be easy to read!
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
Full of random (and oftentimes useless) information. I will kick your butt at Trivial Pursuit.
If you can't go 5 minutes without checking Facebook on your phone, we're probably not a good match. However, if you enjoy having thought-provoking conversation and aren't afraid of the occasional spirited debate, give me a shout!
Flirthut is a completely free dating site where people like you meet other people looking for a relationship, love or just friends. You can message jilljo650 by signing in or registering.Find out more about us » Join us for free and get searching for your match


text:
Price: $109.00
Product ID : P004-B155
E-mail to a friend
Please complete this form.
All fields are required.
Western Red Cedar bird feeder with mounted dog on peak. House measures 11 1/2" x 7" X 10". Feeder hopper is designed to keep bird feed dry. Dog measures 11 1/2" in length. Hand painted. Made in USA.
This product generally ships within 1-2 weeks.
Order online or call 1-207-843-0440 or 1-800-255-5025
Please note: Bird feed is NOT included with purchase of this bird feeder.
Keywords: bird feeder, bird feeders


text:
I've missed blogging so I'm dipping my toes into the water again with a post that might be helpful during these trying times - a kind of public service. Lately stories about the new healthcare laws and how insurers are scramblin' to cut - reinstate or adapt coverage have dominated the news. The problems have been particularly difficult here in some parts of the south because the medical terminology is so . . . different. As a writer, decipherin' language is important, so with some help from the internet I'm gonna take a brief break from Pirates, GALLOWS POINT & general storytellin' to explain the lingo so y'all can cogitate on it a spell.
Benign - What you be, after you be eight.
Artery - The study of paintings
Bacteria - Back door to the cafeteria
Barium - what doctors do when patients die
Cesarean section - a neighborhood in Rome
Cat scan - searching for kitty
Cauterize - made eye contact with her
Coma- a punctuation mark
D & C - Where Washington is
Dilate - to live long
Enema - Not a friend
Fester - quicker than someone else
Fibula - a small lie
GI series - world series of military baseball
Hangnail - what you hang your coat on
Impotent - distinguished, well-known
Labor pain - getting hurt at work
Medical staff - a doctor's cane
Morbid - a higher offer
Nitrates - cheaper than day rates
Node - I knew it
Outpatient - a person who has fainted
Pap Smear - A fatherhood test
Pelvis - second cousin to Elvis
Post Operative - a letter carrier
Recovery room - place to do upholstery
Rectum - darn near killed him
Secretion - hiding something
Seizure - a Roman emperor
Tablet - a small table
Terminal Illness - getting sick at the airport
Tumor - one plus one more
Urine - opposite of you're out
Varicose - nearby / close by


text:
May 22, 2011
Heidi braids and stripes
24 comments:
iubesc bluza, ce frumoasa e! :)ReplyDelete
trebuie sa vorbim, am tot fost ocupata cu teste, teste, teste, of, parca nu se mai termina.
bombonele de fistic pentru olivicaa :D
That blouse is just perfect!ReplyDelete
Your top is so pretty and I love the braid across your hair.ReplyDelete
Doesn't that hairdo make you feel special? I really love it!ReplyDelete
And the blouse is gorgeous!
Wooow, cat de tare e bluza! Manecile alea sunt geniale, la fel si funda de la gat! Ma declar invidioasa:PReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 22, 2011 at 1:01 PM
wonderful shoes! and I love the braids!ReplyDelete
Great look! Really love the blouse.ReplyDelete
I love this stripped pussy bow blouse ! Best thrifted item I've seen on your blog so far. How did you manage to braid your hair like that? You look really good with this hairstyle, it suits you.ReplyDelete
Have a great Sunday ^ _ ^
love your blouse!absolutely gorgeous girl! imi place muuuult coafura a-la Iulia Timoshenko!pupicei, darling!ReplyDelete
love the heidi-braids <3 They look amazing on your fiery hair.ReplyDelete
alexandra @
i love the blouse and im obsessed w your hair color!!ReplyDelete
<3 steffy
Steffys Pros and Cons
Stunning and colorful look!ReplyDelete
Lovely look, that blouse suits you so well,I love the colors and the contrast with your hair :DReplyDelete
De unde iti iei tu toate lucrurile astea vintage asa superbe? Eu niciodata nu gasesc nimic prin Bucuresti! Imi place tare mult si cum ti-ai facut parul!ReplyDelete
P.S: Ai un premiu pe blogul meu!
Love the way you gathered your hair! Great outfit!ReplyDelete
you look awesomeee, and your blouse is just divine:**ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 23, 2011 at 7:00 PM
love the blouse :)ReplyDelete
and the way you wear you hair :)
indeed such a great effect! perfect blouse you have there:xReplyDelete
shoes are very nice!ReplyDelete
Ce outfit minunat si relaxat! Imi place ca ai folosit mai multe culori tari in acelasi timp fara sa dea neaparat impresia de "color block". E o combinatie reusita ;)ReplyDelete
the blouse looks divine! I love the colour of the shoes!ReplyDelete
you look gorgeous!ReplyDelete
Wow love the shirt. SO cute!! :)ReplyDelete


text:
As the premier cardio vascular program in the Rio Grande Valley, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance provides a wide range of diagnostic and interventional procedures for the treatment of cardiac and peripheral vascular disease.
Five state-of-the-art cath labs and one of the Valley's best-trained cardiac teams allows us to provide efficient and compassionate scheduled service from 6:00 AM until to 5:00 PM, and emergency cardiac service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Our staff includes some of the area's finest cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, and specially trained cardiac nurses and technicians. Their efforts are supported by an array of advanced imaging services such as CT scan, MRI, and ultrasound, enabling a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
Doctors Hospital at Renaissance
5501 S. McColl Rd. Edinburg Texas 78539 | (956) 362-8677 | 956-DOCTORS
As required by the 2012 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment; Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment;
Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program; Physician Self-Referral; and Patient Notification Requirements
in Provider Agreements final rule, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, Ltd is disclosing that it is seeking an expansion
exception under Section 6001 of the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
Doctors Hospital at Renaissance proudly meets the federal definition of a "physician-owned hospital" (42 CFR § 489.3). As required by law, a list of the hospital's physician owners and investors is available at here. DHR, Ltd. and its affiliated entities comply with applicable Federal civil rights laws and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.


text:
Duh!?! Unless you'd rather use WordPress, LiveJournal, Scribd, or Blurb.
Bonzoi is the future in publishing, so why not start here? The choice is yours.
Bonzoi is home to every reader, writer, author, illustrator or photographer.
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Join the growing community of authors, readers, photographers and publishers. See who's looking for you and what you're writing about.
Start publishing for Free now. Go Bonzoi!
Bonzoi is a brain space for thought, reaction, and real-time author collaboration.
Built on the same great technology as Netflix, Bonzoi is the place for real time collaboration
in the cloud.
Bonzoi as an open book publishing platform for successful and struggling authors, writers and publishers who are also looking for just those people.
Showcase and collaborate your writing effort with similar minded people just like you today!
Create digitally interactive compilations like novels, journals, scrapbooks, and more.
Your story reaches out to millions of interested readers in an interactive eBook in the Bonzoi Cloud.
Bonzoi welcomes all kinds of literary work including fiction, comic books, story writing,
biography, poetry writing and much more on our multi-author collaborative platform.
How do we help you in publishing a novel or scrapbook?
With Bonzoi you earn 100% Author Royalty, with no hidden costs.
At Bonzoi, multiple authors collaborate together for a common cause.
Multiple authors publish their work on a single platform that
reduces the risk of every author and saves a lot of time.
Bonzoi helps you to self publish books in an electronic and interactive book (eBook) format
that is accessible to readers' across the world via mobile, laptop, PC, tablets, etc.
By publishing a book with Bonzoi, you ultimately earn a status of becoming a BragBooks Author.
Have you ever wanted to write your own book? Have you ever wanted to write a book
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An Author, is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to
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Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any literary or text-graphical
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Bring your story to life with colorful illusrtrations.
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A publisher may be either a single user or a private publishing house or company
that seeks the pre- and post-productions of textual and graphical intellectual property
retained with full ownership by respective and affiliated authors, illustrators,
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Built on the same great technology as Netflix,
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Built on the same great technology as Netflix,
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It's Totally Free!
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text:
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.
In this letter to Christopher Arms, Rudolphus Dickenson tells his friend of an incident involving both violence and mischief that occurred while he was attending Yale. This type of rowdy (and sometimes dangerous) behavior was common in the world of the college undergraduate in the early republic. Dickenson also reports on hearing news of the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, remarking that Hamilton was the greatest "law character" in America. It is interesting to note that the two political parties celebrated the Fourth of July separately, rather than jointly. Dickenson's reference to the navy of the Isle of Deerfield must be a private joke.
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"HYMN - For Fourth July--1826"
Toasts for Independence
"Temperance in Schools" article from Gazette and Mercury newspaper
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In this activity, students build a basic understanding of how a sling psychrometer is used to determine relative humidity and learn how to read a chart to determine this relationship. In addition, the student will become familiar with the concept of... (View More) dew point. Materials need to conduct the investigation include two thermometers, a wooden dowel, wood screw, two washers, a section of plastic straw, and a hollow shoelace. The resource includes background information, teaching tips and questions to guide student discussion. This is chapter 11 of Meteorology: An Educator's Resource for Inquiry-Based Learning for Grades 5-9. The guide includes a discussion of learning science, the use of inquiry in the classroom, instructions for making simple weather instruments, and more than 20 weather investigations ranging from teacher-centered to guided and open inquiry investigations. (View Less)
Materials Cost: $5 - $10 per group of students


text:
Four Ears, Six Hands
new internationalist
issue 202 - December 1989
Four ears, six hands
John van Nostrand and Michael Wellwood arrived in Africa
as disillusioned architects. By the time they returned to Canada their
approach to their craft had been utterly transformed.
There is a sixteenth-century caricature of 'The Architect' which depicts an extraordinary personage with four eyes and six hands. More than 400 years later, this image rings true in two senses. First, for such critics of contemporary architecture as Prince Charles and his followers, who see the modern architect as some kind of monster wreaking havoc on the historic city and countryside. But it rings true for architects as well as their critics in the sense that the essence of their work lies somewhere between 'seeing' and 'making'. And if you added a couple of extra ears it might sum up even better the qualities Western architects need most if they are to practise their trade in the Third World.
Over the past decade our firm, based in Toronto. has been actively engaged in a wide variety of projects in Africa. We have upgraded squatter sites in Botswana and Lesotho; we have designed schools, clinics and markets in these two countries and Uganda; and we have been involved with a series of emergency shelter, sanitation and water supply projects in Ghana, Sudan and Tanzania. And what we have learned has called into question our whole approach to the practice of architecture.In the mid-1970s we were a disillusioned firm of young architects poised on the brink of self-destruction. We had spent four years planning a new town for 250.000 people to be built outside Toronto only for the Government to opt instead for the firm that designed the British new town of Milton Keynes. Their plan simply reinforced the colonial grid pattern Canada had inherited from the British 150 years earlier. Our frustration at boiling point, we grabbed the opportunity to leave and work in Africa.
We travelled to Botswana to work on the upgrading' of Old Naledi, an illegal settlement of 12,000 people on the outskirts of the capital Gaborone. It made up a quarter of the city's population but only a tenth of its area. We were looking forward to a simple project - unfettered by local bureaucracy and far from the problems of inherited colonial legacy.
The idea, we were informed, was to transform Old Naledi into a 'bona-fide' extension of the newly established capital. We were handed a proposed plan for the project which consisted of a grid pattern of roads and services, similar to that of not only the rest of Gaborone but also many of our new Canadian towns. We were warned that Old Naledi would be unlike any of the 'slums' we had experienced at home. We would encounter dire poverty, complete unemployment, high rates of crime and a chaotic urban infrastructure. Finally, we were put in touch with the Government's co-ordinating planner, newly arrived in Botswana from his previous posting with (wait for it) the Milton Keynes Development Agency.
By now we were somewhat suspicious. We felt the need to have a good look at Old Naledi to ensure that the proposed plan made some sense. We managed to convince our funding agency to allow for this before we actually began work.
The next six months of using our eyes and ears ended up as a learning process that spread over the entire three-year period of the project - and it completely reversed the original plan. We discovered that far from being a chaotic slum Old Naledi had a well-established order with residents already hard at work at improving and upgrading their community. How people felt about their community was reflected in the names people gave to the different wards that made up Old Naledi: Self-Trial, At Peace with Each Other, Place of the Morula Tree, Land of Milk and Honey, Mutual Sympathy, Do It Yourself, The Tribes, Those Who Have Suffered, and Tranquility. The care and affection people felt for their communities taught us a lesson that has been repeated in almost every other project we have been asked to undertake in Africa.
Things were never as simple as they seemed at first. Take unemployment. Far from being unemployed, the majority of the residents of Old Naledi were engaged in a myriad of economic activities. These were difficult for the government to identify, let alone quantify, because they were part of the informal sector. People worked at making beer, trading, fixing cars and appliances, selling fruit and vegetables, as well as preparing food. While there was certainly poverty - either older people living alone or newly arrived single-parent families - it was clear that most families had developed active personal economies which were rapidly improving,
What appeared at first to be a chaos of jumbled streets and arbitrary building styles was only chaotic when compared with the orderly layout of the rest of Gaborone. In fact, the Tswana people who live in Old Naledi have a long tradition of urban experience. They are used to establishing large tribal towns ranging in size from 30,000 to 50,000 persons. The residents of Old Naledi brought with them a sophisticated and ordered idea of what living together was all about, and this simply did not take the form of a neat grid. Planning for the new capital had not allowed for the host of laborers, clerks, vendors, hawkers and maintenance staff required to support it.
Six months of watching and listening convinced us that Old Naledi was already a thriving, highly sophisticated urban community - and one which in many ways responded better to contemporary economic and social conditions in Botswana than did the rest of Gaborone, Its residents were certainly not looking for architects to restructure it. On the contrary, they were looking for assistance which had very little to do with the formal practice of architecture - help in making what was already there work better.
They wanted a programme which would legitimize their land holdings and allow them to invest in permanent housing; they needed a decent system of water supply, better sanitation, access to building loans and mortgages; and they were keen on the construction of new schools, a clinic and a market.
One Old Naledian, 45-year-old Ruth Chiwawa, felt this upgrading was a success because it 'made things legal.. gave more fresh air... and gave people the opportunity to build what they want'. For Ruth, who built her own house with her husband, Old Naledi was a good place to live for 'resourceful people'.
This discovery of the importance of what already exists has guided most of our work in Africa since Old Naledi. In the illegal suburbs of Dar-es-Salaam, we were told that there was no sanitation and were asked to develop a low-cost system. We learned that in fact, the great majority of families had already built pit latrines and what made most sense was a programme for the upgrading of the latrine system. In Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, we were asked to prepare a new plan for the upgrading of a large, uncontrolled district of the city. But like Old Naledi, the residents were already hard at work upgrading their own community. Our best strategy was to lend a hand.
The lessons we learned in Africa have had considerable influence on our approach to architecture and planning in Canada. When we returned from Botswana in the early 1980s, we were struck by the extent of Toronto's homelessness crisis - over 10,000 officially without shelter. Many were sleeping outdoors or 'squatting' in a variety of temporary accommodations.
We spent over a year talking to the staff and the almost 200 men at the Fred Victor Mission in the city's downtown core. The men were sleeping in bunkbeds crammed into four or five dormitories the Mission had available on a night-by-night basis. These men were caught in the same vicious circle as the residents of Old Naledi - without an address you couldn't find a job and without a job you couldn't afford a place. So we worked with the staff and a small group of residents in developing designs for a new building which provides each resident with a permanent and private bedroom as well as access to a shared living-room and kitchen. The building also houses a clinic, a recreation club and a restaurant to serve the larger homeless population in the city.
Our experience has challenged us to rethink the very meaning of architecture and human settlement. Now we are comfortable as a creature with four eyes and an extra set of ears. We realize that these are critical appendages for the practising architect because the success of any project is directly proportional to your understanding of what people need. We have given up Grand Design. For this is the turn of the twentieth century, and unlike the sixteenth century, architects do not work exclusively for kings or queens, or even princes.
One can't help but suffer a bit of culture shock as a foreign architect in Africa. Take our current job helping to rehabilitate the market system in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The first time you go to Owino Market you cannot help but be overwhelmed. You are buffeted about by shoppers taking home the day's food, by porters carrying huge piles of matoke (bananas) in wooden wheelbarrows or the frame for a couch strapped to a bicycle. Merchandise is stacked higher than it is possible to stack; little towers of potatoes, charcoal and bananas. And the strongest impression of all is the deafening cacophony produced by hundreds of men beating discarded sheets of corrugated metal into suitcases, pots, and charcoal braziers that would not be out of place in an industrial design exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Then it begins to rain. Hard and heavy, as it usually rains in Kampala. The market begins to flood. The drainage ditches overflow and the downpour turns the red clay into mud in which you slip around as if you were on a floor of grease. Both buyers and sellers crowd under what shelter they can find. When the deluge subsides vendors try to repair the damage to their good and sheds, and people resume the slippery ballet of buying and selling in the mud.
It isn't hard to figure out what works here and how it might be improved. The market goes on at a healthy pace in spite of everything: the rain, the lack of clean water and sanitary facilities, even the lack of money in the Ugandan economy. One is tempted to be romantic and think that here - where there are so few resources and yet so much resourcefulness - would be the best place to be if a nuclear holocaust were to come.
And the lesson for an architect is the same as for a Ugandan government struggling to reconstruct a country battered by some 20 years under the despotism of Idi Amin and Milton Obote - if you are to get anywhere you have to tap the talent and optimism of ordinary people. If the people who work there are involved in the day-to day running of the market, this will diminish both costs and bureaucracy. And if the market works well everyone from the farmer to the children eating their dinners back home benefit.
The best way to design buildings is to find out what people build for themselves and then copy them, while aiming at an overall form of organization that works better. A lot of the work can be done by local people with a few construction skills. The first problem here was to get rid of the rain. When we were first commissioned to redesign Kampala's markets we thought that a hard surface over the entire site would work best. But we soon realized that although this might keep the ground from turning to mud it did little to keep the water off the people and their merchandise. So we added roofs.
Beneath the roofs we designed the walls dividing shops to double as security barriers, cutting costs. And both these and the fittings and finishes could be built either by the vendors themselves or by small contractors they hire. This is basic carpentry and masonry, and gives the vendors the maximum freedom to do what they want. In addition it creates an economic spin-off for local contractors - and reduces the reliance on foreign technology.
Returning to the West at the end of the project is another culture shock. One sees afresh the profligacy of our own cities and the wastefulness of our systems. Our wealth - and the safety net our bureaucracies provide - allows us to be lazy and unimaginative in dealing with our problems.
John van Nostrand and Michael Wellwood
This article is from
the December 1989 issue
of New Internationalist.
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by Amanda Card
Whether it was Al Gore's environmental film or state governments' eco-initiatives, local townships are paying more attention to the potentially ominous roar of Mother Nature.
With an extensive recycling program, a solar commitment by the township's school district and a green-minded Parks and Recreation Department, Whitemarsh is ahead of the curve on moving towards a greener environment – addressing at-home needs as much as township programs.
Long gone are the days of separating paper from plastic. Whitemarsh Township offers single-stream recycling, a convenient time-saver for eco-friendly neighbors. Aside from the typical prohibition of pizza boxes, single-stream recycling enables residents to dispose of their degradable recyclables into one container.
"We do have a pretty large recycling program," said E. J. Lee, assistant township manager.
That they do. Whitemarsh goes above and beyond the typical call to green conservation and offers residents an outlet for unwanted computers and other electronics. Unlike some townships who host monthly – or yearly – "e-waste" collections, Whitemarsh's "Whitemarsh Living" magazine advertises safe recycling of "computers, monitors, printers, microwaves, video recorders, stereos, telephones and DVD players" on a daily basis. Materials can be taken to the Township Building during regular business hours, Monday through Friday.
Parks and Recreation also contributes by running annual sneaker recycling programs. Each year, the township recycles 15 to 25 pairs of sneakers to Nike regrind centers. There, the soles of the sneakers are recycled into playground material.
"We've been recycling the sneakers for a number of years now," said Doug Knauss, director of Parks and Recreation.
The township also offers programs teaching locals why certain household items, like CFL light bulbs are dangerous to dispose of with the rest of the garbage.
"The mercury in the bulbs can contaminate the soil of landfills," Knauss added.
Whitemarsh also advertises the use of safer electricity using the environmentally preferred, high efficiency rated halogen bulbs. The township and Philadelphia Electric Co. together promote incentives for companies to use green electricity and efficient energy alternatives.
"The Recreator," Whitemarsh's local newsletter also showcases the community's other upcoming programs including the November Compost Workshop. "Composting with Worms" introduces families to the benefit and ease of composting, a healthy and eco-driven mode of food disposal.
Whether you've never composted or have one already installed in your yard, "Composting with Worms" offers a learning environment.
"We try to make sure that each workshop is conducted by someone with a good understanding of how that program works," Lee said.
For a mere $15 a family, attending residents will learn the importance of composting and are encouraged to come as a group.
"Bring the whole family," Lee said. "It's a family effort, so teaching everyone in one place is important. It helps when everyone will be involved."
Going solar
The Township's environmental enthusiasm can be found in the school district as well. Last year, Colonial School District entered into a new division of eco-friendly education.
This past April, board members unanimously approved the addition of solar panels to schools in the Colonial District. Times Herald reporter Jenny DeHuff reported that Colonial contracted with Tangent Energy Solutions, of Kennett Square, under the supervision of Dave Turner, the company's CEO.
According to DeHuff, during meetings with local companies to perform the desired solar panel upgrade, Turner said that the carbon dioxide this displaced "could have been produced by 112 cars in a year … and will save the school district approximately $1.5 million over the course of a 20-year period."
The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development explained the logistics of the installation: "The cumulative 700-kilowatt system will include a 440-kilowatt rooftop device for Colonial Middle School and a 265-kilowatt system for Colonial Elementary School. The system will generate approximately $880,000 kilowatt hours of energy annually, which could save the district nearly $110,000 in energy costs every year."
Colonial plans to educate its students and residents by providing websites with information on the functionality and efficiency of solar panels.
To further the township's environmental awareness and education, Colonial kicked off the first Eco-Fest, a community gathering at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.
"Partnership between the township and school district was very successful [and] we were able to reach beyond the Whitemarsh boundaries," Knauss said .
The inaugural year likely will not be the last. Lee said that so long as people are interested, "Eco-fest will run again."
Knauss supported Lee's anticipation of a future Eco-Fest. The Parks and Recreation Department was one of the main supporters of last year's Eco-Fest, so Knauss had no hesitation in saying, "We're planning on doing it again in 2012."
"We'll be sitting down in the near future to start planning," Knauss said.
Contributors to Eco-Fest were local companies that were "green in business practice or green in what they offer," Knauss explained. Such companies will again be included in upcoming plans.
Greener spaces
Whitemarsh Officials' priority for increasing accessibility to greener lifestyles is reflected in township decisions. Battered by a depleting economy, parks and recreation departments are likely to face sharpest budget cuts in areas that are not so ecologically aware. The vast green space available to Whitemarsh residents, however, keeps park improvement and accessibility a high priority for township officials.
With five spacious parks in their township, Whitemarsh residents often experience the pleasure of the great outdoors. From sporting events at the athletic fields to neighborhood basketball games and trail wanderings, township parks offer endless weekend enjoyment.
Currently, Whitemarsh Township plans to improve the accessibility and activities of Leeland Park, at North Lane and Jones Street. Leeland formerly offered a T-ball field, two basketball courts and picnic tables. According to "Whitemarsh Living" magazine, renovation plans "include a new basketball court, a bocce court, horseshoe pits, a porous asphalt walking path, two rain gardens and a seating plaza with bathrooms."
"My goal as we have gone through renovations is to be the good neighbor – to make sure the park is enjoyable for them too," Knauss said. "Storm runoff is a growing concern in the community, so we're reducing the possible runoff due to additions we're making to the park."
The township experimented with porous asphalt before. Koontz Park, the newest addition to Whitemarsh's recreation places, was built with porous asphalt trails and, according to Knauss, was successful in decreasing runoff from storms.
As technology continues to make advances in improving eco-friendly programs, Whitemarsh will continue to take on new challenges to raise green awareness. The process of keeping up with new cost effective preservation concepts is "an ongoing leaning process," Knauss stressed.
"We're more aware of the world around us," he said. "Just by preserving and reducing our carbon footprint in the area, [that knowledge] helps tremendously. Not that it's unique, but that's important."
Amanda Card is editor of the Arcadia University student newspaper and an intern with the Local this fall. Look for her coverage of Whitemarsh Township here and online at chestnuthilllocal.com.


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ETSU senior wins third career award - all for March
MACON, Ga. (April 7, 2010) - For the third time in her career, ETSU's Sinead O'Sullivan (Galway, Ireland) captured an Atlantic Sun Women's Golfer of the Month award. Like her previous two honors, she won for her play during the month of March.
The senior posted two top five finishes during March. Her month opened with a tie for third at the Northern Migration Invitational. She concluded play by tying for fourth at the Pinehurst Challenge. In six rounds, the business management major carded three rounds of par or better as she finished the month posting a 73.2 stroke average.
O'Sullivan enters next week's Atlantic Sun Women's Golf Championships second on the ETSU squad with a 75.2 stroke average for the year. In each of the last two years, she has finished inside the top 10 at the A-Sun Championships - one of only four players to have accomplished this feat.


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The dog days of summer can be great for traveling. But if you want to enrich the experience, grab your smartphone and load up on a few great apps before you hit the road.
If you are driving, be sure to have the GasBuddy app front and center. (Operated by your helpful spouse, of course – don't do this while driving!) This app uses your smartphone's GPS device to pinpoint your location and gives you the rundown of service station gas prices.
You simply push the gas tank icon in the center of the home screen that says "Find Gas Near Me". Instantly, the list pops up. You can sort the list by price or distance. It also tells you when the price was last updated. However, be aware that the prices listed are always for cash payment, so know when you arrive you'll be paying a little bit more to use your credit card. This is a great app that saves money and is fun to use. I use it all the time, even when I'm not traveling very far. It's so simple and it gives me a bit of a rush when I find the cheapest gas on my route.
As you move onto the road of fun and frolic and your journey involves a hotel stay, you might want to think about downloading LodgeNet.
How many times have you checked into your hotel room, picked up the TV remote and start flipping through channels trying to find a particular station, only to discover it's taking what seems like eternity to find it?
"I know USA must be on here, so I can watch Suits," my husband says fumbling with the remote. "Where is it? Do you know?" he shouts to me, while I'm in the bathroom.
"Just a minute," I say before I stand in front of the TV scrolling through all of the stations. "I don't know, there are a million stations here, I can't find it," I say tossing the remote back to him.
That was last month. Not anymore. Now I have LodgeNet -a mobile app that lets travelers connect with their in-room TV, the hotel information services, and the local attractions and restaurants. It's free and available on iPhone, iPad and Android.
You essentially turn your smartphone into a hotel TV remote control. And since all the information is on your smartphone, you can check out the listings while you're relaxing by the pool, in the gym, or in the park. For serious travelers, there's an option that costs $0.99 per year. It allows subscribers to load up to three days of television programming on their smartphones, so you can plan your TV time in advance.
LodgeNet spokespeople say that their stats show that 98% of hotel guests watch TV in their rooms, and 57% want programming on their mobile phones.
LodgNet is available in most major hotel chains and in 600,000 rooms in the U.S. and Canada. After you download the free app you can check hotel listings and the Lodgenet icon appears next to those with the service.
Now that your TV viewing schedule is set, and your car is full of fuel, you'll probably be ready for entertainment. So be sure to download Yelp to earn about area restaurants, bars, coffee shops, drug stores or other entertainment venues.
The first time I used the app was while on a recent business trip to San Jose, CA. Our group was wandering around sightseeing and craving Mexican food. We entered "restaurants Mexican" from the drop down list and found more than 40 choices. The Filter/Sort screen was wonderful, allowing us to narrow our results by distance, price, neighborhood, now open and features such as "Hot & New" or "Offering a Deal."
The app also allows a peek into the restaurant from the street. In the upper right hand corner of the home page is a button called "monocle" and if you press it, it scans inside the building.
There are lots more travel apps out there, but these were recently recommended by some 50+ readers. What are your favorites?
Do you have an app you'd like to recommend? Leave me a comment in the section below.


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- How to lose 192 pounds in 7 seconds (Progress video)
- Spin me right round, baby (3-D Progress photos)
- Graph
- Stats
How to lose 192 pounds in 7 seconds
Spin me right round, baby
I was born weighing 8 pounds 5 ounces, but eventually tipped the scales at 372 pounds before losing almost 200 pounds through diet and exercise. I am a designer/programmer/geek, so I couldn't resist making 3-D interactive objects of myself during the weight loss progress. Every few months I took pictures of myself from several angles, dropped them into a Flash component I created, and wham, bam – you can check out my fat ass from 8 different directions. Click and drag any image of me below to spin me right round, like a record, baby. You can make your own 3-D progress photos by using this tutorial.
If you don't have Flash installed in your web browser, you can view my far less cool images only progress page.
Fancy Dress Editions
These images weren't part of my regularly scheduled weigh-ins. THey are just pictures of me all prettied up for some weddings.
Below is a graph of my weight loss from January 2005 to March 2007. The purple line represents my actual weight and the red line represents the rate of loss I was aiming for.
Click on the graph for a larger image.
Height: 5'9″
Starting Weigh-in: 372 lbs
Final Weigh-in: 179 lbs
Goal Weight:
160 180 lbs
Total Loss: 193 lbs
Starting BMI: 54.9
Final BMI: 26.4
BMI Lost: 28.5
Percent Weight Lost: 51.9%
Fastest Mile: 9:30
Fastest 5K: 31:17
Fastest 10K: 1:07:00
Fastest 15K: 1:45:14
Fastest Half-Marathon: 2:33:26
Final update: 7-2-08
Mission accomplished!


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Nashville, TN (PRWEB) January 24, 2013
Super Speed Wash, an exterior express carwash with 10 locations throughout Middle Tennessee has recently upgraded their wash chemicals to become a "Beyond Green" certified carwash facility.
All Super Speed Wash locations now exclusively use Blue Coral Beyond Green chemicals as part of a commitment to use only products that clean and protect customer vehicles while reducing or eliminating the release of specific compounds into the air and water.
The chemicals used by Super Speed Wash are designed to minimize the impact on the environment. Super Speed Wash's carwash chemicals are free of phosphates, butyls, NPEs and hydrofluoric acid -- harmful chemicals that are still used by many car washes today.
The Beyond Green certification signifies that Super Speed Wash is taking conscious steps toward minimizing the company's impact on the environment. With the help of Blue Coral, the company is able to safeguard the environment while still delivering clean and shiny vehicles.
Through the use of water-saving recapture programs and energy-saving processes that limit electrical use, Super Speed Wash has worked for years to operate an environmentally sustainable business by incorporating products, processes, and developments that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
In addition to the Beyond Green certification, Super Speed Wash is also a certified WaterSavers carwash, which means the company prevents water pollution by routing wash water through treatment prior to its return to the environment, and by using less than 40 gallons of water per car washed (less than the average washing machine).
Super Speed Wash's computer-operated tunnel systems use only the water each car requires, resulting in as much as a 90% reduction in water versus driveway and parking lot car washing. The company recaptures the water that other reverse-osmosis rinse systems typically waste -- up to 1,500 gallons per day, per location.
The carwash company has invested heavily in Variable Frequency Drives that conserve energy through computer management of high-powered motors. Additionally, Super Speed Wash has replaced power-hungry lighting fixtures with more efficient florescent and LED fixtures through all their Nashville area carwash locations.
Finally, Super Speed Wash helps their customers do their part to improve the environment by providing recycling bins at all locations.
Visit our web site to learn more.
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10350725.htm


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About 200 people rallied on Sunday at Franklin Field in Dorchester to support the relatives of five people who were killed last week in Boston, including three women who were gunned down in a car, and to urge residents to work together to make their neighborhoods safer.
Some at the rally, dubbed Shake the City by the organizers, called on residents in areas that are often afflicted by violence to inform community leaders of possible criminal activity before it happens, in an effort to prevent bloodshed.
"We must look at what it is that we're doing to ourselves," said Milton Jones, operations director at the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Dorchester. "You could have called me and said, 'Hey, Milt, listen, I know dude 'bout to do this, that or the other thing, maybe you can help out.' And maybe I can."
Jones also criticized people who express hostility about passing along information to police investigating homicides.
"Get that language about snitching out of your vocabulary," he said. "It means absolutely nothing. What that means is, allow our kids to die. Allow our children to die because you don't want to say, 'Look, I saw a blue and red car go down the street.' "
The rally came one week after Genevieve Philip, Sharrice Perkins, and Kristen Lartey, all 22, were fatally shot as they sat in a parked car on Harlem Street in Dorchester. A fourth woman, whom police have not identified, was also shot but survived.
Joanne Paul-Joassainte of Hyde Park, one of Philip's aunts, echoed Jones's sentiments during a brief interview at the rally.
"If I knew something, it would be 911, here's my name," she said. "We keep protecting the killers."
Another of Philip's aunts, Shirley Paul-Philip of Dorchester, said everyone must take a stand against violence in the city.
"This needs to stop," she said. "Because the pain is unbearable."
No arrests have been made in the case.
A police spokeswoman said on Sunday that there were no updates available, except that the investigation is ongoing. Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said last week that investigators believe the attack was probably gang-related and that one of the women was targeted, though he did not say which one.
Two men, Jemald Allen, 34, and Rashad Lesley-Barnes, 24, were also killed last week in separate attacks in Roslindale and Roxbury, respectively. Police have made no arrests in those cases, either.
Minister Rodney Muhammad of the Nation of Islam urged the crowd to help foster a climate of mutual respect among neighbors.
He added that doing so is especially vital in communities of color, areas that he said are often neglected by political leaders.
"What time is it? It's unity time," Muhammad said.
Another speaker, City Councilor Ayanna Pressley, highlighted what she said is a trend of young women becoming involved in violent crime.
"They're not just teasing each other in the hallways anymore, doing cyberbullying," Pressley said. "And many of them are in unhealthy relationships with young men that are gang-affiliated. We have got to be honest about that."
She also said that she wished that the crowd, which was predominantly African-American, had been more diverse.
"Because violence doesn't just belong to black and brown people because we're disproportionately impacted by it," she said.
"Every life that is saved, as a city we can share in that collective victory. But for every life that is lost we need to share in that collective burden and responsibility."Travis Andersen can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.


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Of Magix and Mechanix:
A LDD Forum Game
One half was controlled by the Mechanix, master engineers who create robotic creations to do menial or dangerous tasks.
The other half was controlled by the Magix, mages and wizards who summon hellish abominations who obey their creators every command.
The war grew to such a scale that it tore the planet in half.
The last thing the Mechanix and the Magix ever worked together on was the giant chain that hooked the two halves together, making sure that the two halves didn't drift apart to their doom.
Now, war continues, perhaps forever. Only time will tell who will be the victor...
TLDR: Big planet, one half controlled by engineers called Mechanix, other half controlled by wizards called Magix. Big war occurs, planet splits in half, and both halves are connected by big chain. War continues, the end.
How it works:
NOTE: The custom Squad rules have been abolished, there will soon be a replacement!
None yet...
Tankaris with his Golem Army:
dilanski, controlling the Nation of Forgewrat'th:


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Twilight Wish Foundation-Illinois Chapter Twilight Wish Foundation-Illinois Chapter
Here's a sample of our volunteer opportunities:VIEW AS
Mission Statement
Our mission, "t o honor and enrich the lives of deserving elders through wish granting celebrations connecting generations"
· Twilight Wish Foundation, Inc., was founded in July 2003 in Bucks County, PA. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization dedicated to honoring the underserved senior community. Our mission, "t o honor and enrich the lives of deserving elders through wish granting celebrations connecting generations" was developed to acknowledge younger generations remember and care about elders; to provide comfort and joy and provide "shining moment" experiences by granting wishes to seniors 68 and older that cannot make their own wishes come true during their twilight years; we inspire hope and significantly improve the mental well being of the elder population. Building awareness and advocacy through educating younger generations to be caring and philanthropic towards older adults is a fundamental goal of the foundation. Twilight Wish engages local organizations, schools, churches, networking organizations, senior volunteers (including RSVP) and corporations among others to donate, sponsor and organize individual wish grantings to deserving individuals who need it the most.
This information
Might be out of date
Do you work for this organization?
Request administrator status and update its information!


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Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC reported U.S. sales increases for April, building on the first sweep of market share gains by all three domestic automakers in the first quarter of any year in two decades.
Ford sales of cars and light trucks rose 18% to 211,984, the Dearborn, Michigan-based company said today in a statement. Deliveries for Chrysler, majority owned by Fiat SpA, climbed 11% to 156,698. The average estimates of 11 analysts in a survey by Bloomberg were for gains of 17% by Ford and 10% by Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler.
For the first time since 1993, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors Co. pulled off a sweep in the first three months of a year, with all three gaining U.S. market share in 2013's first quarter. Analysts' estimates call for all three to post bigger sales gains in April than Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which may test the resilience of U.S. automakers' advances as they increasingly benefit from a weakening yen.
"Detroit should celebrate while they can because the race is tight," Michelle Krebs, an analyst for auto researcher Edmunds.com, said in an interview. "The Japanese have a yen advantage right now, and we could start seeing them use that in pricing and in extra marketing."
U.S. light-vehicle sales probably climbed 11% in April to 1.31 million, the average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The annualized industry sales rate, adjusted for seasonal trends, may have risen to 15.2 million, the average of 17 estimates, from 14.1 million a year earlier. That would keep the market on pace for its best year since 2007.
Ford rose 1% to $13.74 at 9:46 a.m. in New York trading. GM slipped 0.3% to $30.74.
Ram, Jeep
Deliveries for Chrysler, the third-largest U.S. automaker, have increased 37 consecutive months, the longest stretch in the company's records that date back to 1985. The automaker said earlier this week that first-quarter net income slid 65% in part because introducing the new Ram Heavy Duty truck and Jeep Grand Cherokee and Compass SUVs raised costs and reduced output.
"You should see a substantial improvement in numbers" starting this quarter, Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of Chrysler and Fiat, said of U.S. sales on an April 29 conference call. "Now that the launch issues in connection with the Grand Cherokee and the Ram Heavy Duty are behind us, the big issue for us now is to execute flawlessly on the launch of the Cherokee."
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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I cooked for two persons, but have some leftover in the pot. T is a small eater, so I supposed this recipe is just enough for two persons. I used blended curry spices from Indian spices stall, I can guess by the colour and aroma that there are chili, curry and turmeric. Oh well, they mixed in front of me ya. There was another spice, yellow-brownish in colour I think it was cumin but not very sure. Perhaps next time I should ask the lady boss. Hope she will let me know? So, for this recipe I left out that spice, no cumin in the pantry.
- Heat oil in wok on low heat, fry eggplant till lightly browned. Set aside for later use.
- In the same wok, stir in belacan and fried till aroma is released. Stir in blended ingredients and sauté till it turned light brown.
- Bring together curry powder, chili powder and turmeric powder in a small bowl, and then add a bit of water to make smooth paste.
- Add in curry paste into wok and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes, or until the oil is separated from the paste.
- Add in curry leaves and lemongrass. Stir for another 1 minute or so. Add in water and bring to boil on medium heat.
- Add in fish head, all vegetables and tofu puff. Once the fish is cooked, add salt to taste and the rest of coconut milk. Bring to boil then remove from heat, garnish and serve hot with steamed rice.


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One sunny afternoon in Lancaster, an hour's drive north of Los Angeles in the Antelope Valley, Angel Mendez woke from an afternoon nap to a sound outside the 7-by-7-foot makeshift shack he called home. It was close to 1 p.m., and his fiancée, Jennifer Garcia, was resting next to him on a futon, pregnant with their fourth child.
Mendez, 30, and Garcia, 27, were living without their children one step above homelessness in the squalid, rat-infested backyard of Paula Hughes, Mendez's high school friend. The longtime couple had fallen on very hard times during the punishing recession that hammered the high desert, and they were broke.
On Oct. 1, 2010, life was about to get much worse.
Unknown to them, Sheriff's Deputy Christopher Conley, a member of a specialized unit set up by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca at the Lancaster station and given the ill-chosen name COPS HIT — for "Community-Oriented Policing Services High-Impact Team" — was about to enter their shack. With Conley was Deputy Jennifer Pederson, also a COPS HIT team member.
The deputies did not have a search warrant and did not announce themselves to Mendez and Garcia, who were not wanted for any crime and did not remotely match the description of the big, white man the officers sought.
Conley opened the shack door with his department-issued 9mm semiautomatic Beretta drawn. Mendez, who had on the bed a Daisy Powerline rifle-style BB gun that he used for shooting rats, sat up and moved the BB gun to the floor. Conley opened fire. A bullet ripped into Mendez's right forearm, passed through it and struck his right leg — proof, his attorneys today say, that he was reaching down to put the BB gun on the floor when shot.
"I didn't even know it was them," Mendez later told Sheriff's Homicide Sgt. Robert Gray. "They didn't say 'police'! They didn't say 'freeze'! They didn't say 'drop the weapon'! They said nothing, sir."
Conley and Pederson fired at will, peppering the couple with 14 more bullets, one of which struck the seven-months-pregnant Garcia in the right upper back and shattered her collarbone. Mendez was critically injured, hit multiple times in his right leg, arm, back and side; blood poured from his wounds. Weeks later, his badly fractured right leg, whose key arteries had been sliced in half, had to be amputated.
In a disturbing videotape taken minutes after the shooting, as a paramedic worked to stop the bleeding, police can be clearly heard pressuring Mendez to say he'd pointed the BB gun at Conley. Mendez begs the people around him, "Oh, please, don't let me die, sir!" then turns his head toward neighbor Charles Green, who is witnessing the drama, and tells Green: "I never pointed the gun at him, Charlie!"
From the moment he was shot, Mendez has maintained that he did not point his BB gun at Conley — that he was moving it to the floor. Conley told Baca's Internal Affairs Bureau investigators he saw a rifle barrel aimed at him and opened fire.
"I thought he was going to kill me," Conley told Sheriff's IAB Sgt. Patrick Kim, "and I thought he got the jump on me and I was done. So I thought, 'Here's my chance to live.' "
The horrific incident happened too far from the Los Angeles urban core to earn more than a few sentences in the media taken from the Sheriff's Department website. L.A. Weekly was among the few that bothered to report that a federal lawsuit had been filed by Mendez against L.A. County, Conley and Pederson, alleging use of excessive force and that Mendez's constitutional rights had been violated.
A four-day, no-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald wrapped up weeks ago in downtown Los Angeles, and his verdict is expected anytime.
But police experts and watchdogs, including the American Civil Liberties Union, are questioning every aspect of the shootings — the events that set the Lancaster COPS HIT deputies on edge leading up to the shooting, the shooting itself and Baca's internal findings that the shooting was "in policy."
Critics suggest the Mendez case is further proof that Sheriff Lee Baca, who has come under withering attack for repeatedly failing to prevent his deputies from abusing and harassing jail inmates, is losing control of a department some see as a cowboy-style organization rather than a modern law enforcement agency.
Prominent civil rights attorney Samuel Paz, who has won many police-brutality lawsuits, says Baca's deputies "think they don't have to worry about being investigated because the top guys [Baca and his command staff] tell them they have free rein."
Paz cites a 2012 report by the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence produced by such heavyweight civic leaders as Rev. Cecil Murray, Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell and former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos R. Moreno, which found serious problems.
Peter Eliasberg, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, says the Mendez-Garcia shooting is "definitely" cause for alarm. Under Baca, nearly all deputies must first serve in L.A. County's troubled jails, which Eliasberg says teaches young deputies a "force-first mentality." He believes deputies bring their jail-bred machismo to street patrols, creating unwarranted incidents such as the Angel Mendez tragedy.
Tom Parker, former head of the FBI's Los Angeles office, who read an internal affairs report by Baca's department and a report by the Los Angeles County District Attorney, questions almost every aspect of the Mendez shooting, calling it "a mess from the get-go." Baca's report, he says, was "kind of a whitewash ... which is very typical of the Sheriff's Department" in 2010 and 2011.
Baca spokesman Steve Whitmore says talk of deputies running amok is "absolutely not true" and defends Baca's internal investigation as thorough. "Where's the cover-up?" a defiant Whitmore asks.
Michael Gennaco, chief attorney at the county's Office of Independent Review, who acts as a Sheriff's watchdog, says there were no signs of a cover-up and no red flags went up for him. He "concurred" that the shooting was not out of policy. If something comes up as a result of the Mendez lawsuit, Gennaco says, "I may want to re-examine."
Deputy DA Rosa Alarcon, of the District Attorney's Justice System Integrity Division, tells the Weekly she's comfortable with Conley's explanation that Mendez pointed his rifle-like BB gun at him and the deputy squeezed off 10 gunshots in self-defense. Pederson, who fired five rounds from her 9mm Beretta, says she was coming to her partner's aid.
"We thought it was a very straightforward case," Alarcon says. "The statements [by the deputies] were very consistent. So there were no red flags."
But Gerald Ryckman, a partner on the case with David Drexler, Mendez's attorney, says neither the district attorney nor Baca's internal affairs team conducted a thorough bullet-trajectory investigation to test Mendez's contention that Conley shot his arm as he reached down to place the BB gun on the floor.
"No one did the science," he says. "That speaks volumes about what was really going on here."
Garcia and Mendez declined to discuss their harrowing experience. But Ryckman says, "They shoot Mr. Mendez and what happens? They start a massive cover-up machine. It's shocking."
One recent day, a petite woman with missing teeth and darkly tanned skin is holding a yard sale in front of Paula Hughes' home on 18th Street West in Lancaster. Hughes is out of town in Las Vegas, but the woman, who doesn't give her name, is watching Hughes' home for her in this working-class high desert neighborhood.
She remembers hearing about the shooting of Angel Mendez and Jennifer Garcia in the shack in the backyard but doesn't want to say much more than that — other than to describe L.A. County Sheriff's deputies in Lancaster as "kind of aggressive." Says the woman, "They come off as if everyone's a punk."Across the street, Bridget Coss, an affable, smiling blonde who lives in a well-maintained ranch house with her husband, clearly remembers Oct. 1, 2010. "The cops had the street blocked off," she says, "so I couldn't get in with my groceries. I wasn't happy about that."
Until the Mendez incident, Coss says, the street was quiet — and she had no idea that Mendez and Garcia lived in desperate conditions behind Hughes' home. "How was the officer supposed to know [Mendez] had a BB gun?" Coss asks. "I think they were just doing their jobs."
The Antelope Valley has proved to be an unusually thorny problem for Sheriff's deputies just doing their jobs.
On March 27, an L.A. County jury found that another of Baca's deputies, Scott Sorrow, used excessive force. Sorrow shot 15-year-old William Fetters in the back in 2009 after ordering Fetters to drop a toy gun on the ground in Palmdale. The jury awarded the teenager $1.1 million.
The year Mendez was gunned down, Special Counsel Merrick Bobb, a county-paid watchdog over the Sheriff's Department, found that deputies engaged in "overzealous use" of "obstruction" charges to justify arresting black people in Lancaster. While African Americans make up 19 percent of Lancaster's population, 64 percent of those accused of obstruction were black. Bobb wrote of being "troubled" by that.
The next year, 2011, was a controversial one for the Sheriff's Department in the area. The Weekly reported that nuisance-abatement teams set up by County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, and frequently led by Sheriff's deputies, were aggressively policing the back-country homes of residents — often the elderly or minorities — to ferret out building code or land use violations. Arriving armed, the teams created an intense backlash by truckers, retirees and others among the region's independent desert rats.
That same year, Lancaster deputies were federally investigated for using discriminatory practices against mostly poor black and Latino Lancaster residents of government-subsidized, Section 8 rental housing. Civil rights leaders, with help from Public Counsel Law Center, sued Lancaster and the Sheriff's Department for "constant surveillance and harassment" of Section 8 recipients, claiming that police "often initiated 'compliance checks' at Section 8 tenants' homes intended solely to harass and intimidate." (In a settlement, Baca's department agreed to back off.)
That year, personal-injury attorney Drexler filed the federal lawsuit against L.A. County and deputies Conley and Pederson for shooting Angel Mendez. Drexler and Ryckman say Mendez's Fourth Amendment right to a reasonable expectation of privacy was violated when deputies entered his home without a warrant and failed to announce their presence. They claim Mendez was the victim of excessive force, resulting in "catastrophic injuries and damages."
"What was shocking was that people who are downtrodden are treated to a different style of justice," Ryckman says. "It's not important if it's a mansion or a shack. It's just a matter of an expectation of privacy."
They await a verdict from U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald, hoping to win millions for their client.
Baca spokesman Whitmore says, "Lawsuits don't tell the whole story, and this one certainly doesn't. He was pointing a BB gun at the deputies, and that's why he was shot."
As expected, the battling sides don't agree on various facts. But certain intriguing details have emerged in investigations by the Sheriff's Department and Drexler and Ryckman.
The day of the shooting, deputies from the Lancaster station's COPS HIT unit and its equally dubiously titled Target-Oriented Policing (TOP) team gathered outside an Albertsons market on 20th Street West. A court document quotes Sgt. Greg Minster as saying deputies "got some info" that Ronnie O'Dell, a big, white parolee and known drug user, had been spotted at Albertsons following a weeks-long search for him.
Ryckman tells the Weekly that O'Dell had skipped out on his drug-rehab program and been pulled over in his vehicle by deputies but had bolted on foot, leaving a toddler behind. After that, according to the Sheriff's Department, deputies sought O'Dell for "felony child endangerment" and violating his parole but couldn't find him.
The Sheriff's Department labeled O'Dell "armed and dangerous." That was a somewhat dramatic description, probably inspired by the fact that he'd eluded deputies and raised their ire. O'Dell's arrest record showed no violence in his long history of drug possession, DUIs and driving without a license.
Minster and his deputies — including Conley and Pederson — swarmed Albertsons. But they didn't find O'Dell. While still at the supermarket, they got a tip that he might be at a nearby residence. In a deposition, Sheriff's Deputy Claudia Rissling testified that her informant claimed to have spotted someone looking like O'Dell riding a bike on 18th Street West near Paula Hughes' home. Rissling informed the COPS HIT and TOPS deputies that two people lived in a shack behind Hughes' home. According to Mendez's attorney, Drexler, Rissling even "identified Angel and Jennifer by name." Rissling said her informant told her that O'Dell could also be at Rose Larsen's house down the block from Hughes'. Minster later described Larsen's and Hughes' homes as "dope houses."
So Conley, Pederson, Minster and deputies Billy Cox and Veronica Ramirez headed to Hughes' home, just three minutes from Albertsons. Another team went to Larsen's home.
According to a Sheriff's Department document, the Community-Oriented Policing Services Bureau to which COPS HIT is assigned is "highly specialized" and provides "prevention, intervention and suppression law enforcement services" to Sheriff's stations. Under the bureau, the High-Impact Team, or HIT, handles "quality-of-life issues," serves warrants, "independently" canvases areas and conducts "saturation patrol." In essence, they are troubleshooters. Conley and Pederson were part of COPS HIT.
Capt. Robert J. Tubbs, who commands the COPS bureau, declined to talk with the Weekly. But Eugene O'Donnell, a police-procedures expert at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, says teams such as COPS HIT and TOPS can be troublesome.
"When you establish specialized units," O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor, says "you have to be careful that there's not spin-off. You had that problem with the Los Angeles Police Department, where the supervision [was] lax" toward the anti-gang CRASH unit, leading to the Rampart scandal. "People are looking for stuff that's not always there."
ACLU's Eliasberg says the COPS HIT moniker — created by Lee Baca's brass — only underscores the department's over-aggressiveness. "Why would you call yourself that?" a dismayed Eliasberg asks. "Are you going to call yourself an assassination team? We don't want our police to be 'hit teams.' There's no good that comes out of it, branding yourself in a very aggressive way."
As young recruits, COPS HIT deputies Conley and Pederson had both worked at Baca's North Facility jail at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, where a former prisoner told the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence that he underwent seven strip searches after an inmate riot and was handcuffed and left naked in a shower for six hours. The commission found that Baca's jailers often used humiliation tactics.
As Conley and Pederson arrived at Hughes' home that afternoon, Conley later told investigators, their job was to clear the backyard. Meanwhile, Minster, Cox and Ramirez went to Hughes' front door, banging on it with a rock and demanding entry, according to videotaped testimony from neighbor Charles Green.
Hughes refused to open her door to deputies, Green said, so the deputies used a "battering ram" on her front door. They had no search warrant, but she finally let them in. Ronnie O'Dell wasn't there, nor did police find a cache of drugs.
According to a Sheriff's report, Conley and Pederson meanwhile approached the tiny backyard shack constructed of plywood, with an air conditioner protruding from its side. Conley told investigators he opened the door without identifying himself, saw the "barrel of a rifle" pointed at him and yelled "Gun!" He explained, "I started firing and backing away almost like instinct."
More than six months later, on April 19, Sgt. Patrick Kim asks Conley, "How much time passed between the time you saw the suspect and the time you fired your weapon?"
Conley responds, "Maybe 15 seconds."
That's more than enough time for a deputy to shout "Freeze! Police!" and take cover. When asked about this anomaly, Deputy DA Alarcon couldn't recall it. She tells the Weekly, "I reviewed everything that was provided to me. It appeared to be a thorough and complete investigation."
On May 25, about eight months after the shooting, Alarcon concluded that Conley and Pederson "acted in lawful self-defense."
As Conley unloaded his gun toward Mendez and Garcia, Pederson later told investigators, she feared for Conley's life and fired off five rounds from her 9mm Beretta.
Deputies Cox and Ramirez and Sgt. Minster, who'd been dealing with Paula Hughes, moved toward the sound of erupting gunfire. Cox then spotted Hughes' German shepherd mix, took aim and killed the pet with one bullet. "A dog ran out snarling, ran at me," Cox later told Sheriff's Homicide Sgt. Gray. "I shot it once. It went down immediately to the ground."
It was a gruesome scene. Conley ordered the critically injured Mendez and Garcia to get out of the shack. Bleeding and almost certainly heading into shock, Mendez was made to crawl out and was quickly surrounded by deputies. Paramedics arrived, ripping off his clothes to tend his wounds.
As Mendez lay on the ground, nude and severely wounded, Minster videotaped him. Minster can be heard trying to get Mendez to say that he'd pointed his BB gun at Conley. Filled with terror, Mendez repeatedly says he did not point his BB gun at Conley.
"One more time," Minster says. "Why'd you point the gun at my deputies?"
"I didn't, sir," Mendez cries out. He tells Minster the BB gun was "on my bed, and I went to move it, sir, so I could get up. Sir, I'm not a bad guy." He repeatedly says he's "sorry," which Sheriff's investigators and Deputy DA Alarcon intently focused on in their reports.
Mendez and Garcia were taken to Antelope Valley Hospital. The next day, Oct. 2, as Mendez fought back fears that his badly pulverized right leg would be amputated, Sheriff's Homicide sergeants Gray and Marty Rodriguez questioned him. According to a transcript, Rodriguez assures Mendez that he's "not in any custody."
But a Sheriff's incident report later showed that the department immediately saw Mendez as a suspect. In that Oct. 1 incident report, Mendez is accused of "assault with deadly weapon ... on a peace officer" and "brandish[ing a] firearm in a peace officer's presence."
Conley and Pederson are portrayed as Angel Mendez's victims.
During the hospital interview, Mendez again apologizes. But as Gray and Rodriguez encourage him to say he pointed the BB gun at Conley, Mendez rebuffs them: "I did not aim it at them, sir" and insists he doesn't know anyone named Ronnie O'Dell. Mendez says, "I was, like, 'No, please, stop, don't shoot me!' And they shot again and again and again after I dropped everything."
Mendez and Garcia, who had criminal records, are not model citizens. They were both convicted in February 2008 of "misdemeanor willful cruelty to a child," according to the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. A month later, Mendez was convicted of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance.
Shortly after the shooting, Garcia, who later married Mendez, tells investigators that she used to abuse meth but got sober in 2008. She admits that Mendez still uses drugs, telling investigator Rodriguez, "I can't keep somebody clean."
The Sheriff's Department charged Mendez with pointing "an imitation firearm," but then–District Attorney Steve Cooley's office declined to prosecute. Deputy DA James Garrison, who heads the Justice System Integrity Division, says there was insufficient evidence he'd committed a crime. After the Sheriff's Executive Force Review Committee cleared Conley and Pederson, Capt. Tubbs ordered the deputies to undergo "tactics" training and to review the incident.
Ryckman is outraged. "They just storm these places and do whatever the hell they want," he says. "We're lucky we didn't end up with two people dead."
About 20 miles outside Lancaster next to Highway 14, a huge billboard announces that personal-injury lawyer R. Rex Parris has won $921 million in verdicts and settlements. Parris, who is also the mayor of Lancaster, was first elected in 2008 as a law-and-order man. But he got into hot water with civil rights leaders by strongly supporting the armed Sheriff's deputies who entered apartments to check for Section 8 housing violations.
Parris, an imposing man with a full, white beard, has made local and national headlines several times. He once said Lancaster was "growing a Christian community" and proposed playing bird chatter on loudspeakers on a main thoroughfare to spruce up the town. When L.A. Weekly contacted Parris about the Mendez case, he described the incident as "tragic" but wouldn't comment further.
Throughout L.A. County, small cities like Lancaster, West Hollywood and Compton pay the Sheriff to provide police services. Baca spokesman Whitmore says there's a "combined" and "community" effort between these towns and the Sheriff as to how deputies carry out their work.
Catherine Lhamon, an attorney with Public Counsel, the nation's largest pro bono law firm, says Parris "declared a war on Section 8," and deputies acted as his muscle. Her firm sued Lancaster and the Sheriff's Department and won a settlement.
Before the lawsuit, she says, 74 percent of the city's Section 8 investigations involved deputies. In L.A. County, the figure is only 8 percent. "It was aberrant how involved [the deputies] were," Lhamon says. She notes that Parris and the Sheriff's Department have now made a "radical transformation." The mayor even apologized at a press conference for his past statements and actions concerning Section 8.
Yet several police experts and watchdogs are not convinced, given events such as the shooting in the backyard shack, that Baca has a grip on things. In its blistering report, the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence deemed Baca's response to excessive force in the jails "insufficient" and noted a "failure of leadership" at the top.
Civil rights attorney Paz points to findings by the commission that Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, Baca's recently departed right-hand man, urged deputies to "work in the gray area'" and "undermined the credibility of Internal Affairs Bureau on more than one occasion."
Paz says Sheriff's Department leaders were "reinforcing" the unwritten policy that supervisors should let deputies "do their jobs as they see fit." That, he says, "encourages violence."
Paz now is assisting in a federal lawsuit involving Kenneth Rivera III, who was killed in Lynwood in 2012 by a Sheriff's deputy who shot him in the back.
Tom Parker, the former head of L.A.'s FBI office, read the Sheriff's and L.A. County District Attorney reports on the Mendez shooting, as well as David Drexler's opening statement at trial. He has come to suspect that COPS HIT and TOP were engaged in the "very common" practice of "testi-lying" after a bad shoot.
Parker is a retired 24-year veteran of the FBI whose distinguished career included undercover investigations, police corruption and brutality cases and investigations of agent-involved shootings. Last year, the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara gave him a Heroes of Justice Award for his work on criminal-justice reform.
Parker says police sometimes lie about "drug houses" to justify unjustifiable searches. But he has even more fundamental doubts than that in the Angel Mendez case. He questions whether a deputy ever saw big, white Ronnie O'Dell at Albertsons or whether the purported informant even existed.
"From that point forward," Parker says, referring to the deputies' huddle outside Albertsons, "there's really faulty police procedures happening here." Nobody saw O'Dell leave Albertsons, so the deputies were not in a "hot pursuit" to Paula Hughes' home. Nor was there any clear and immediate threat to the public.
Parker says, "Without a warrant or substantial probable cause ... you don't have a right to go into the backyard and search through buildings, never mind the shack." He says the killing of Paula Hughes' German shepherd was wrong. "If you've got no right to be on the property, you've got no right to shoot the dog."
Professor O'Donnell agrees that if there's not an emergency, "You need to have a warrant to go into someone's house." But he notes that due to institutional pressures, officers and their commanders often feel they can't admit they were wrong.
O'Donnell adds, "If you can't be truthful, then what are your reports going to say?"
Parker explains, "If you operate from the premise that [police] had no right to be there, that damages the self-protection aspect of the shooting. ... Angel and Jennifer are innocent victims in this situation."
O'Donnell says it's also "interesting" that Mendez was not prosecuted for pointing an imitation gun. "He basically didn't do a crime," the professor says. "He was sitting in his home."
O'Donnell says the deputies had a hard-to-beat explanation for firing 15 bullets into a 7-by-7-foot shack. "Cops are almost always going to win the main issue, which is the guy had a gun."
Parker says he believes it's possible that some deputies were interested in looking for illegal drug activity at the homes of Larsen and Hughes and weren't out to find Ronnie O'Dell at all. He says the Sheriff's version of events simply doesn't pass his smell test.
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Baca spokesman Whitmore says, "You can paint the picture that everyone's in cahoots, which is fine. ... But when everything is said and done, [Mendez] caused the shooting."
The men representing Angel Mendez before Judge Fitzgerald have been working on the case for two years, but they still get outraged over the Sheriff's and district attorney's investigations. Drexler says of the DA's office, "They don't do any independent investigation" and he criticizes the Justice System Integrity Division's weighty name as "a misnomer."
For Ryckman, the halfhearted effort he saw made by police oversight authorities to determine what really happened that day haunts him the most. "As it goes up this chain of command," he says, "it's constantly rubber-stamped."
Contact Patrick Range McDonald at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Preserved: Apple Blackberry Thyme Jam
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By the beginning of April, I am so over winter food. I'm bored with braises and roasts, sick of hot chocolate, and entirely done with root vegetables. But here in New York, the farmers' markets and produce aisles are still bereft of the ingredients I crave: tender rhubarb, baby artichokes, and slim stalks of asparagus. Not to mention berries, which won't be here for what seems like eons.
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Try this jam with hearty, whole grain breads, bran muffins, or use it as a glaze for pork tenderloin.
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About the Author: Lucy Baker is a food writer and the author of The Boozy Baker: 75 Recipes for Spirited Sweets and Edible DIY: Simple, Giftable Recipes to Savor and Share. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son, and dachshund.
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Boys' Life Magazine
From MeritBadgeDotOrg
|It has been suggested that this be merged with Boys' Life.
From: BSA Boy's Life page
In Boys' Life magazine you'll get news, nature, sports, history, stories, science, comics, and Scouting. A special edition is published just for Cub Scouts, so you can read stories and articles for your age and rank.
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The Boys' Life web site (http://www.boyslife.org) has information about the current issue, games to play, projects to download, and more. There's even a form you can download to subscribe. But remember that youth members can get a special subscription price—so if you're already in Cub Scouting, contact your local council to subscribe.