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The following is the second in a two-part series on Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. For part one, please click here.
In Coming Apart, Charles Murray begins by describing white America on the eve of the Kennedy assassination—a unified society where everyone watched the same three networks, few people had children out of wedlock or got divorced, neighbors didn't need to lock their doors, and most folks felt themselves to be middle class. Murray wields the symbolic power of the rupture that ripped America on November 22, 1963, to suggest a parallel break in our economic lives. He contrasts a notional working-class neighborhood, "Fishtown," with "Belmont," home to the most affluent 5 percent. Since 1963, he reports, our coherent world has given way to cultural and economic fragmentation. America "is coming apart at the seams."
Murray baits his trap with descriptive material that reads like an American Prospect article, quoting Robert Reich's "secession of the successful," Robert Putnam's dismay at the erosion of "social capital," and the class-skewed decline in civic participation documented by Theda Skocpol and others in these pages.
Then comes the pivot, inverting cause and effect. The rich got even richer, he claims, because of both their virtuous behavior and "the increasing market value of brains." As the economy becomes more complex, rewards go to those "who can navigate through labyrinths" of new complexity. And with global scale, "the bigger the stakes, the greater the value of marginal increments in skills."
Wait a minute. While some of the new concentrated wealth has indeed gone to people like Steve Jobs who invented very useful stuff, much of the increased largesse at the top went to the finaglers of Wall Street. Their brainpower caused losses running into the trillions of dollars for everyone else. The fact that some of these miscreants had paydays in the billions is testament to the market's failure, not its success.
At the next tier down, those who make merely in the tens of millions, much of the upward income shift reflects the use of intellect to rig the rules. The disconnect between executive pay and performance is one of the best-documented findings in the business literature. Today's CEOs get about 350 times the pay of the average worker, rather than the 40 times that used to be normal. Moving down to incomes only in the single-digit millions (but still in the top 1 percent), are university presidents and hospital administrators so much smarter that they now command seven-figure salaries—or are they just better at gaming the system? At different points in the book, Murray is oddly on both sides of this argument. In a final chapter that reads like a set of civic afterthoughts, he chides the "unseemly" behavior of executives who manipulate corporate pay, contradicting his own earlier claims of earned inequality.
Murray's analysis of the values of "the New Lower Class" is even more far-fetched than his treatment of the new rich. He deploys cherry-picked statistics and selective time periods to contend that crime has risen in lower-class Fishtown while it has been constant or falling for six decades in affluent Belmont. His fable uses a mélange of data on incarceration, probation, and arrests to avoid simply crediting the most notable trend of all—the sharply declining rates of violent crime since the late 1980s. Working-class neighborhoods are generally much safer places to live today than they were in the 1970s. The drop in crime is all the more remarkable given the diminishing rewards of honest work.
Murray also ducks the immense increase, since the 1980s, in elite misbehavior such as financial fraud and the misuse of offshore tax havens. A standard Murray evasion is studied bewilderment and false modesty in the face of flagrant evidence that contradicts his argument. "To what extent is the subprime mortgage story indicative of broader rot within the American business community … ?" he wonders. "This is a question for which I have been unable to find good answers." (Translation: This is a question whose obvious answer blows away my hypothesis.)
The truth is that even when Wall Street executives escaped criminal prosecution, they shamelessly enriched themselves at the expense of clients. Yet Murray is telling us with a straight face that integrity correlates with affluence. If you believe this, I have a mortgage-backed security to sell you.
Another whopper: Income declined among the white working class because of a loss of "industriousness." Murray points to the lower rate of labor-force participation among males, the dwindling number of average hours worked in working-class towns, and the higher rate of unemployment. But the standout labor-market trends over the past three decades include the increased number of annual hours worked by the median family; a minimum wage that has lagged behind inflation; and millions reporting that they are seeking full-time work but can only find part-time jobs.
Murray might have addressed a class schism that is real and troubling—the split between most of hard-working America and a new underclass, whose emblem is the rural epidemic of crystal meth. Had he addressed that genuine but contained problem, he could not have maintained that the vast majority of working-class Americans are suffering due to their own deficiencies.
Murray's larger narrative collapses when you remember that history did not begin in 1963. Over the previous century, the income distribution bounced around many times, reflecting shifts in macroeconomic conditions, political power, and public policy. To accept Murray's basic hypothesis that income inequality mirrors relative shifts in virtue and market valuation of brainpower, you would have to believe the following: In the Gilded Age, the rich got a lot smarter and the poor less diligent. Then, in the more egalitarian Progressive Era, the rich temporarily got stupider and the poor more industrious. In the Roaring Twenties, an age as unequal as our own, the rich (whose schemes led to the crash of 1929) were briefly even more intelligent, then either a lot dumber or more indolent. By World War II, people who were lazy or dim in 1939 somehow got smart and conscientious by 1942 as the economy returned to full employment.
Murray plays fast and loose with comparative sociology as well as history. While most surveys confirm that people report greater levels of life satisfaction in the more egalitarian democracies of Northern Europe, Murray contends that American happiness must be more authentic because our contentment is rooted in deeper virtues. Europe's "short workweeks and frequent vacations" are symptomatic not of a more balanced society but of the fact that in Europe "the idea of work as self-actualization has vanished." Tell that to a well-trained, highly skilled, decently compensated German technician. Murray concludes with this astonishingly dismissive leap: "Europeans have broadly come to believe that humans are a collection of activated chemicals." For them, life has no higher purpose than to "while away the time between birth and death as pleasantly as possible." So much for European art, music, literature, science, industry, and self-governance.
What makes the book disarming is Murray's professed concern for the well-being of the collectivity. When he is not wielding forensic data to insist that rich and poor both earn the fruits of their behavior, he is fretting that a hermetically sealed elite has lost its sense of noblesse oblige. But his civic alarms yield no useful remedies.
Every once in a while the scholarly mask slips, and we get an undigested belch of raw prejudice. The trouble with a lot of low-income workers, he writes, is that they "can't hold a job." Trying to improve the income distribution is a hopeless cause, unless we want to put taxes back to a "91 percent top rate," which would cause "reduced productivity" and a "major brain drain" (presumably to those benighted European lands with high taxes).
All of Murray's books display the same basic modus operandi: Begin by professing sympathy for pathologies usually decried by liberals. Blame moral or intellectual deficiencies rather than the effects of poverty itself. Distort or omit data that don't fit. Warn that interventionist policy harms the groups it means to help. As Albert O. Hirschman wrote in The Rhetoric of Reaction, this is a formula that dates back at least to the Dickensian workhouse and Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, with its warnings about spoiling the needy. Hirschman quotes Edward Bulwer-Lytton, writing in 1833: "The Poor-laws, formed to relieve the distressed, have been the arch-creator of distress." Hirschman notes the similarity to Murray's contention more than 150 years later in Losing Ground: "We tried to provide more for the poor and produced more poor instead."
Contra Murray, the poor still take the early bus. They still try to hold their families together. Take an honest look at what low-income America endures, and you will see the heroism of everyday life amid dwindling economic rewards. If the behavior of the working class is not always up to that of the moral beacons of Park Avenue, it's because of the corrosive effect of poverty itself, not the other way around. John Keats had it right:
Love in a hut, with water and a crust / Is—Love forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.


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If you're seriously researching your Jewish roots then you probably already know about the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF), but for those who are just getting started or for those who may not know how to fully utilize it, I wanted to point out this critical resource and explain what it can and cannot do.
We are pleased to announce that blogger and family historian Philip Trauring has joined the JewishGen blog.
Many of you already know Philip as the author of the Blood and Frogs: Jewish Genealogy and More (http://www.bloodandfrogs.com) web site, which looks to teach general genealogical techniques with a focus on applying them to Jewish genealogy. He is also the Gesher Galicia town historian for Kanczuga, and is the founder of a new branch (in formation) of the Israel Genealogical Society in Modi'in.
His first series of articles, "JewishGen Basics," will describe the various tools and resources on JewishGen (many of them recently updated) and how they can best be used to perform research.
The JGFF is a database on JewishGen, and what it does it simple – it lets you find other researchers searching for the same surnames and towns as you. This is particularly important if you have a very common last name (try researching Cohen without knowing which town your family came from) or if you have a unique surname but don't yet know from which town your family originated.
|The JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) web site entrance
On the next screen you add the name Silberman and the town Tyszowce, Poland. When you enter a town that is in JewishGen's database, a small icon should show up next to the town name indicating it has been found. You can enter a town that is not in their system, but chances are if you're entering a town where there was a Jewish community, then it's in there and you should double-check your spelling (and that you're using the post-WWII name and country). As with all resources on the JewishGen site, all towns are referred to by their post WWII names and countries. Thus even though the Yiddish spelling of the town name of Tyszowce might be Tishevitz, and the town was once part of the Russian Empire, it is always referred to by the current name and country, so you should enter Tyszowce, Poland.
The JGFF system can also sometimes correct the names you enter, so pay attention once you've added a town name and country. For example, let's say the second town you want to enter is Vienna. By accident you select Vienna, Australia. JGFF will actually correct this entry to Wien, Austria, which is the modern name of the city (used in Austria) and the correct country.
|Adding one surname to two towns in JGFF
It's also important to recognize what the JGFF cannot do. It doesn't list individual relative names, so there's no way to immediately know when searching if the person who has listed a particular name/town combo is related to you. The JGFF is also reliant on the individuals who make up its members to update their information, and sometimes people change their e-mail addresses and forget to update the JGFF. If that's the case and you try to send them an e-mail, you will not reach them. You will also find that some of the members are deceased, and when a particular member dies, if you know the person, you can tell the people who run the JGFF and they will mark that account as deceased, so the information doesn't go away, but people will know not to try to contact the person.
JGFF has several levels of privacy, so you can show you name, your address, etc. or you can just show your researcher number and make the people send you an e-mail to find out who you are. This sounds great, unless the person who didn't show their name changes their e-mail address or dies, and there is no way to know that they have an account on JGFF to change. In general, I would suggest when setting up your JewishGen account to show your name, so in case someone wants to reach you, they can Google you as well if necessary. This isn't an official policy of JewishGen obviously, just my personal recommendation to make it easier for researchers to contact you. Another reason to include your name is that when presented with many results, researchers will in many cases contact only a small portion of the researchers in their search results, and it may be that they choose to contact the people with names attached to their accounts first, or only contact people with the same last name as they are researching. My point is that you will increase your chances of being contacted by including your name in your listing.
Different people have different strategies on how to use JGFF. You can put up to 100 name/town combos into the system, so you have some flexibility. You can stay minimal and just put the names and towns you know relatives were born into, or you can add many different variations for the names, and you can choose to add towns that may be wrong, but you think your family may have lived. If you find a reference in your research to a town you didn't know about, you can add the name/town combo in case someone comes across the same piece of information, even if you have no real proof that your family lived there. Remember that the JGFF is not a definitive listing of where families lived, it is only a list of where people are researching their families. This is an important distinction.
In the same vein, I recommend putting in as many variations of the last name as you're comfortable with, as it seems some people are very strict with spellings or they may search using 'exact' spelling instead of 'sounds like' and thus like Cohn and Cohen might be the same family, if you wrote Cohen and they searched for Cohn, they wouldn't find anything. In order to take into consideration these types of searchers, I recommend adding variations to the names.
For example, using Silberman as an example again, a common variation is Silverman. In addition, in Poland the name may have been Zylberman. You don't know what piece of information a researcher might have when doing their search. They may know the name was Zylberman in Poland but not know it later changed to Silberman. Thus, putting in surname variations can help insure your entry is found by everyone searching for your family.
|Adding surname variations to JGFF
As you research your family and find new names and towns, you should be constantly updating your listings on the JGFF. You never know when someone is going to search the JGFF and if you don't post a connection (like you find your great-grandmother's last name and birth town) you may miss someone else searching for the same combination. In my own experience, I added a name and town of a relative that I had known about for a long time but had forgotten to post to the JGFF, and within a couple of months I received an inquiry from someone who turned out to be my fourth cousin, and who lived just two minutes away from me!
In short, if you're researching your Jewish family members, use JGFF and use it often.
Philip Trauring is the author of Blood and Frogs: Jewish Genealogy and More, a site where you can find out about general genealogy techniques and how to apply them to your Jewish genealogy. Philip can also be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/bloodandfrogs.

subset: commoncrawl


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DAC Collection Object Information
A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscapes,
From A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscapes
Lift-ground aquatint and engraving on paper
The set consists of lift-ground aquatints and engravings; current DAC cataloging reflects that group-level recording of medium.
Edition: From the set of 43 prints with two boxes and slipcase
Accession number: 19126.96.36.199
Purchase funds, 1960
Provenance / Collectors' marks: Berthold Wolpe, London
Bibliography: Wilton, Print Collector's Quarterly, vol. 8 (1980), p. 61; George L. McKenna, Art by Chance: Fortuitous Impressions (Kansas City, MO: Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, 1989), cat. no. 178.
Work Type: print
Related Works: Other sets exist at the British Museum, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yale University Library, Rare Book Department (Collection of Ray Murphy)
Keywords: Click a term to find other records with the same keyword.
This object is in the following image group(s):


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Our booking engine will search for all available Standard Car Rentals in Smithers in real time and return results of the best prices for the dates selected. We compare the prices form all major car rental suppliers to offer you a wide range of Standard Cars. You will find examples of the Standard Car group range below, but for a full offer and availability please use the Instant Quote form. Please note that availability for Standard Car in Smithers Airport is limited and we advise booking a few months in advance to reserve the most popular Standard Car vehicles. You can cancel your reservation free of charge so book now to secure your Standard Car hire.
This sporty, air-conditioned automatic is the perfect choice for smaller groups or families. It is spacious enough to accommodate 4 passengers and 2 pieces of luggage comfortably.
4 Passenger, 2 Baggage, 2/4 Doors, Air Conditioning, Automatic Transmission
Fuel consumption: 32.5 m/g
CO2 emission: 209 g/km
There is plenty of room for everyone in this sporty 5 door, air-conditioned estate. This vehicle is the perfect choice for larger groups or families, seating 5 passengers and 7 pieces of luggage comfortably.
5 Passenger, 7 Baggage, 5 Doors, Air Conditioning, Manual Transmission
Fuel consumption: 48.4 m/g
CO2 emission: 159 g/km
With room for 5 passengers and 5 pieces of luggage, this air-conditioned automatic is ideal for those looking to arrive in style at their destination.
5 Passenger, 5 Baggage, 4-5 Doors, Air Conditioning
Fuel consumption: 23.7 m/g
CO2 emission: 282 g/km
Make the right impression with this sleek and stylish, air-conditioned automatic. With room for 5 passengers and 6 pieces of luggage, it's perfect for those who want to arrive at their destination in comfort.
5 Passenger, 4 Baggage, 4-5 Doors, Air Conditioning, Automatic Transmission
Fuel consumption: 19.9 km/l
CO2 emission: 158 g/km


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Some people watch clips of shooter video games, marveling at each amazing gunshot. Some watch replays of races. Let us enjoy a more refined batch of video game victories. Checkmates. In computer chess.
These checkmates occurred at Gameknot.com, an online chess site which offers a mesmerizing and seemingly infinite reel of recorded checkmates. Our version here shows several of them, slowed down so you can better observe the climactic action. Plus, we've got Beethoven, to keep it classy.


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County fair season is kicking off in my area of the country. I firmly believe that 4-H and FFA are two of the greatest youth programs out there, and that the county fair is truly a community-forming event for rural America. It's a celebration of not only agriculture's traditional rural lifestyle but also the values it embodies.
Perhaps I overestimate the value of youth programs, but I have seen the difference these programs make, not only in our lives but those of our kids. Still, I'm always amazed at the level that the community will support these programs and I have to believe it's because they all see the value, too.
Most of us tend to get choked up when we hear the national anthem and see the flag being carried around the rodeo arena. I don't want to compare it to the emotions that a fluttering flag generates, but I have to admit that every time I see a funnel cake I can't help but think of a county fair, and the role it plays in rural America.
Perhaps the real challenge is how we can create that connection with agriculture and our values to the millions of our fellow citizens who never have the opportunity to attend and experience a county fair.


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Campus Compact
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Community College National Center for Community Engagement
Corporation for National Community Service
"By maintaining a sound system of education you produce citizens of good character, and citizens of sound character"- Plato
"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight"- Thomas Jefferson
About the Board and the Center:
Democracy requires citizens who, as "sovereigns", can make sound decisions about public issues. Yet current communication and problem-solving approaches often prove counterproductive. There are also important "disconnects" between citizens many of whom have withdrawn from political engagement. Solving the serious and complex problems that the United States faces, which do not always have technical solutions, calls for working through paradoxes and competing values that will require tough choices. Facing them and developing solutions requires productive collaboration from an engaged and reinvigorated citizenry.
BCC's Civic Engagement Advisory Board (CEAB), which was reactivated in 2006, and BCC's Center for Civic Engagement recognize the need for the community to become re-engaged. As stated its By-Laws the objectives of the Civic Engagement Advisory Board, and by extension the Center, are: "to promote and foster political deliberation and involvement in the public square of the Southern Tier. It collaborates with community partners to foster knowledge, skills, attitudes and dispositions, which contribute to civic discourse and engagement."
Some of the CEAB's activities, accomplishments, and collaborative endeavors:
Current Board Members…
Contact Us:
The Civic Engagement Advisory Board works very closely with SUNY Broome's newly created Civic Engagement Center located in the Science Building, room 104. You can contact the Civic Engagement Center by just stopping by or by calling 607-778-5494 or 607-778-5042.
To reach the Advisory Board you may contact any of the Board members or the Center.
Submit suggestions and comments
Top 10 Reading List
Key Aspects of Deliberative Discussion
Appraising the Efficacy of Civic Education at the Community College
Hope Unraveled: The People's Retreat and Our Way Back by Richard Harwood
Make Hope Real: How We Can Accelerate Change for the Public Good by Richard Harwood
Democratizing Deliberation: A Political Theory Anthology edited by Derek Barker, Noelle McAfee, and David McIvor
Democracy and Civic Engagement: Implications for Teacher Preparation and a National Agenda for Inquiry
Educating Students for Political Engagement: A Guide to Implementation and Assessment for Colleges and Universities by Johnny Goldfinger and John W Presley, Editors
Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Responsible Political Engagement by Anne Colby, Elizabeth Beaumont, Thomas Ehrlich and Josh Corngold
Civic Responsibility and Higher Education edited by Thomas Ehrlich
Event Announcements:


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If they don't it won't be for a lack of opportunity. Saturday afternoon in an 81-51 loss to Florida Gulf Coast in Atlantic Sun action at Allen Arena the Lady Bisons freshmen put in some prime time. It was the first loss at Allen Arena for the Lady Bisons this season.
For the second game in a row freshman Clair Waggener started for the Lady Bisons. All five freshmen played in double figures in minutes with three playing 20 or more minutes.
"Hopefully, they are getting some confidence," said Bennett. "They still make freshmen mistakes. They are making a good effort. They are trying to do what we want them to do."
Freshman forward Chelsea Burroughs led the Lady Bisons with 16 points, a season-and-career high. She hit six-of-10 shots from the field, including three-of-five 3-point attempts.
Sophomore forward Cree Nix added 11 points for the Lady Bisons. Nix, with a game-high seven rebounds, led the Lady Bisons on the board for the third time in the last four games.
"Chelsea has really practiced hard," said Bennett. "She has done a lot of good things over the past two or three weeks. We thought we would give her more of an opportunity to play and she played very, very well.
"She was getting good pressure on the ball. She was doing some good things defensively. Offensively, she was being aggressive. She took her shot. She took the ball to the basket some. She looked to the pass the ball. She had an outstanding game for us."
It was the first time this season that Burroughs had hit a shot from the field. She had one point heading into the Florida Gulf Coast game.
"I don't know what it is, but somehow Chelsea has become a different player," said Bennett. "Maybe it is just a matter of her getting familiar with our system and getting comfortable or maybe she has stepped up her intensity level. She is a different player than she was a month ago."
Post player Brittany Duerk led all freshmen in court time with 26 minutes. Burroughs played 22 minutes. Guard Anna Bowers was on the court for 20 minutes. Forward Leah McAlister played 14 minutes. Waggener, hit with a couple of fouls early in the game, played 10 minutes.
"Clair was trying really hard to get open and displacing the player behind her a little bit," said Bennett. "Her offensive game is improving. We haven't seen it in game situations much, but we are seeing it in practice."
Sophomore guard Jenna Bartsokas, the seventh leading scorer in the Atlantic Sun, hit only one-of-10 attempts from the field. Senior forward Jilian Partin was hit with three charging fouls and managed only two points on five shots.
The Lady Bisons hit 20-of-52 shots from the field for a 38.5 percent rate. Florida Gulf Coast connected on 26-of-60 shots for 43.3 percent.
"We really struggled shooting the ball," said Bennett. "Some of the players who usually do very well had trouble shooting. We were trying to make plays, but things weren't falling for us.
"We played them well the start of both halves. At some point they frustrated us with ball pressure. We got to where we were playing out of control. We weren't patient. We have to be more patient to get the shots we want."
Florida Gulf Coast placed four players in double figures. Kelsey Jacobson scored a game-high 17 points. Courtney Chihil added 12 points while Chelsea Lyles chipped in with 11 and Brittany Brown added 10.
The Lady Bisons are 2-10, 0-3. Florida Gulf Coast is 9-2, 2-1 in the conference.
Stetson is the next foe for the Lady Bisons Monday night at Allen Arena. Stetson, 5-7, 2-1 in the A-Sun, lost 63-60 at Belmont Saturday afternoon.
"This is a quick turnaround," said Bennett. "Stetson is playing with a lot of confidence. They upset Florida Gulf Coast at Stetson. It will be a tough game."


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We invite you to partner with Barclay to advance the College's mission of preparing students in a Bible-centered environment for effective Christian life, service, and leadership. Your gifts directly support student scholarships, building projects, athletic programs, and many other resources that allow Barclay to continue to provide excellence in Christian education.
We value our relationships with donors of the College. We thank God for His faithfulness and your sacrificial generosity, without which the unique benefits of a Barclay education would be impossible.
If you have any questions about giving to Barclay College, please contact Larry Lewis by phone (620.862.5252) or email.
Choose where you would like your donation to go at Barclay College.


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Building an Enduring Environmental Movement
On World Environment Day, Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2013calls for a new course of action for the environmental movemen.
Washington, D.C.—Fractured, underfunded, and on the defensive, the environmental movement must rethink the way it functions if it hopes to bring about a truly sustainable future. Most environmental groups continue to advocate from a defensive standpoint, many have begun to accept large donations from corporations that undermine their visions and efforts, and the majority of these environmental groups are lacking a holistic approach to the issues they face.
In Worldwatch Institute's recent publication State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?, co-director andcontributing author Erik Assadourian argues that environmentalism will require a dramatic reboot if the movement is going to reverse Earth's rapid ecological transformation and help bring about a sustainable human civilization.
Over the past few decades, environmentalism has become increasingly splintered, with groups focusing on specific niches such as conservation, climate change, and land degradation.
"By looking at the issues with such narrow lenses, advocates are failing to fully comprehend the need for a whole-system solution," said Assadourian. "As a result, the environmental movement has been focused on short-term fixes rather than addressing root causes—namely societal fixation on growth and consumerism—and short-term solutions alone will not bring about a sustainable society."
In his chapter "Building an Enduring Environmental Movement," Assadourian suggests looking to the traditions of missionary religions as a guide for recreating a stronger and more successful environmental movement:
A Deeper Environmentalism. In order to profoundly affect individuals and influence them to change the way they live their lives, environmentalists must create a more comprehensive philosophy—complete with ethics, human's purpose, cosmology, a theodicy, exemplars, and stories of redemption. In calling for a deeper environmentalism, Assadourian posits that as well as mobilizing short-term political engagement, environmentalists should focus on offering deeper opportunities to engage—from weekly gatherings filled with stories of celebration and hope to frequent opportunities to celebrate, mourn, and collaborate with their communities.
The Potential of Missionary Movements. A large part of religious philosophies' success has been a powerful, timeless vision supported with beautiful stories and committed advocates—but equally important has been the promise of immediate assistance—the offering of food, clothing, education, livelihoods, medical care, even a community. If the environmental movement were to follow this lead—providing ecocentric social services—eco-philosophies could be spread to much larger numbers, through schools, health clinics and hospitals, homeless shelters, community libraries, community lenders, and other essential institutions.
From Vision to Reality. By building community through social services, environmentalism would broaden its influence and therefore help to change social, cultural, economic, and political norms to recognize humanity's utter dependence on the planet and shift our relationship to reflect this. These efforts could also seed a new population of pioneers to drive resistance to the modern industrial socioeconomic model and create a workable alternative to this.
The hope is that this bold reboot of environmentalism will help us prevent civilizational collapse by establishing a new set of philosophical, ethical, and cultural norms that bring about a life-sustaining civilization, or what eco-philosopher Joanna Macy has called "the Great Turning." Or if that is impossible at this late stage, Assadourian writes, it could at least prevent our great-great-great-great-great grandchildren from reinventing our same cultural and economic mistakes—offering them instead an eco-centric philosophy to rebuild civilization on the ashes of our global consumer culture.
Worldwatch'sState of the World 2013, released in April 2013, addresses how sustainability should be measured, how we can attain it, and how we can prepare if we fall short. The concluding section, of which the above mentioned chapter is part, also includes deeper explorations of how to prepare ourselves for the emergency, examining necessary changes in education, governance, and economics.
Notes to Editors:
To interview Erik Assadourian and for review copies of State of the World 2013, please contact Supriya Kumar at firstname.lastname@example.com
About the Worldwatch Institute:
Worldwatch is an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues. The Institute's State of the World report is published annually in more than a dozen languages. For more information, visit www.worldwatch.org.


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James Arthur Triumphs on the X Factor
27 Dec, 2012, 07:00 GMT
LONDON, December 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
On Sunday 16th December James Arthur sang his way into TV history by winning the ninth series of the X Factor. He now joins such exceptional talents as Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke amongst those who have emerged from the show, and thus won the £1million recording contract courtesy of Simon Cowell's SyCo records.
James was able to see off powerful-voiced Jahméne Douglas and unexpected crowd-favourite Christopher Maloney with strong performances of "Feeling Good" and "Make You Feel My Love", a duet with his mentor Nicole Scherzinger. From now on, he will be working hard to imitate Leona Lewis' soaring career, rather than Steve Brookstein's which plummeted, Icarus-like, soon after he won the competition.
So far the signs are looking hopeful, as James's debut single "Impossible" immediately broke X Factor records, clocking up 490,000 downloads within the first day. XFactornatics will be eager to snap up this single, and many are already looking forward to when all of the contestants go on tour next year. But for fans worried about getting their fix- never fear! There are a range of follow-up programmes planned to track how the contestants are getting on since the show finished.
Turning from what you've been watching to where you've been watching it, CSL sofas have been offering some incredible deals on their elegant range of sofas in the run-up to Christmas. CSL have long been engaged with the X Factor, covering the competition on their social channels and choosing the X Factor app and TV slot for the first release of their newest advertisements.
For those looking to find reduced sofas online, CSL's specialists should definitely be the first port of call. With sofas to suit any taste, they are the obvious choice! Just as James Arthur provides top-quality music, so CSL provide top quality sofas...at the right price. So why not check their range of deals this Christmas?
Need some sofa inspiration? Why not visit our new YouTube channel to see our full range of videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/cslsofas. Or to find out more about our incredible range of sofas log on to http://www.csl-sofas.co.uk or visit one of our sofa stores, for example:
PR Contact:
Sophie Spencer
Blackpool Sofa Store
Oxford Square


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George Clooney and his father were arrested today during a protest outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington.
The actor said he has asked President Barack Obama to engage China on stopping a humanitarian crisis in that part of Africa.
The protesters accuse Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir of provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains in the county's border region with South Sudan.
Clooney, his father, Nick Clooney, and others were arrested after being warned three times not to cross a police line outside the embassy. Those taken into custody included civil rights leaders Ben Jealous, Martin Luther King III, and actor and comedian Dick Gregory.
Several members of Congress also were arrested. They were handcuffed and placed into a US Secret Service van.
Clooney was released several hours later after paying a $100 (€76.62) fine.
The arrests came after Clooney met this week with Mr Obama, testified in the Senate and attended a state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Clooney said before he was arrested that he could only hope to draw attention to the crisis in Sudan but that he did not know if any progress had been made. He said he was impressed, though, with Mr Obama's engagement on the issue.
"It's amazing to sit down with a world leader who knows all of the intricacies of what's going on in Sudan," he said.
The actor said he asked Mr Obama to involve China more in pushing for a solution in Sudan. A YouTube video Clooney recently posted online from his trip to Sudan appears to show a Chinese-made missile being used against the Nuba community.
Clooney said international leaders need to "follow the money" flowing to Sudan's leaders to expose corruption.
"This is a moment where we have a chance to do something because if we don't, in the next three to four months, there's going to be a real humanitarian disaster," Clooney said before his arrest.
The situation is urgent, he said, because the upcoming rainy season would block transportation of food aid to the area.
Clooney said he did not know if his actions would make a difference but that he at least wanted to make more people aware.
"It's such a silly thought to think you're actually succeeding in any of this," he said. "But if it's loud enough and you keep making it loud enough at the very least people will know about it, and you can't say we didn't know. That's the first step."


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President Barack Obama is often criticized for weak international leadership, most recently in relations with Russia and the current crisis in Ukraine. Sen. John McCain, for instance—just one of many critics who have joined the attack— described the Obama administration's unwillingness to supply military hardware to the provisional Ukrainian government as "yet another sign of weakness."
But there is a difference between being a strong leader and being a wise leader. Self-consciously strong leaders—those who are intent on dominating the policy process both domestically and internationally—are too easily tempted into overreaction, especially militarily, at times of crisis. Obama, thankfully, has managed to avoid that.
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What the rest of the world would rather see in the American presidency—and what is in America's best interest—is not strong leadership but enlightened leadership. Think back to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when President John F. Kennedy rejected advice to bomb Soviet ships bound for Cuba and to destroy the missile sites that had been constructed there. Although the United States ultimately convinced the Soviet Union to withdraw its nuclear missiles from the island, the Americans also made concessions, promising they would not attempt to remove the Castro regime by force and pledging to withdraw American missiles from Turkey. As part of the settlement, it was agreed that this latter concession would not be publicized. It would, moreover, occur after an interval just long enough to suggest that it was not a concession to Soviet demands. So while the myth was that only Khrushchev had blinked, in reality Kennedy had been sensible enough to blink too, rather than risk catastrophic nuclear war. This was enlightened leadership; Kennedy won the public relations battle, but the agreement the Americans and the Soviets hammered out was a genuine compromise.
Obama's caution in foreign affairs comes as a welcome change after the naive optimism of President George W. Bush and the debacle of the invasion of Iraq, which diminished America's reputation internationally and especially in the Arab and the Islamic world. However bad a situation is in any nominally Islamic country, there are scant grounds for imagining that an American military intervention would bring lasting peace rather than new enmities, with much of the animus directed against the United States. Obama's avoidance of direct military intervention in Libya or in Syria and his preference for dialogue with Iran, rather than an attack on that country, constitute prudent leadership—even if, as his critics on the right have pointed out, these positions do not wrap him in the mantle of a strong leader.
Similarly, Obama should not be faulted for attempting to improve the poor U.S.-Russia relations he inherited, beginning with his oddly named 2009 "reset." Obama and his advisers were mistaken, though, in their belief that Dmitry Medvedev had a significantly different outlook from Vladimir Putin and that, as president, Medvedev would be the preeminent Russian decision-maker. In reality, Putin was the patron and Medvedev the client, and the job-swap between the two men did not alter that fact.
That the "reset" ended in failure—with Putin's return to the presidency, prompt crackdown on opposition and recent takeover of the Crimea—is a result not just of the Obama administration's misreading of Moscow. It was a consequence of Western policy toward Russia from the early 1990s onwards. At the end of the Cold War a more enlightened American leadership would have brought Russia into new security structures that would have made NATO, and not only the Warsaw Pact, obsolete. Instead, the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, endorsed by President Bill Clinton and continued by Bush, had the effect on Russia that prescient critics—not least, George Kennan—warned it would produce.
When Kennedy was trying to defuse the Cuban missile crisis, he put himself in Nikita Khrushchev's shoes and considered how he would react to America's proposals if he were the Soviet leader. But no matter how often Washington assured the Kremlin that NATO's enlargement was not intended to threaten Russia, that expansion and Bush's later withdrawal of the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were perceived in Moscow as hostile. Within the United States this may have looked like strong leadership, but the divide between Washington and Moscow only deepened. American leaders at the time would have been better off following Kennedy's example, putting themselves in the Russians' shoes—imagining, for instance, what the U.S. response would have been if the Warsaw Pact had remained intact and, say, Mexico or Canada decided to join it.


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Swimming Pool Blog
by Rob Cox, June 12, 2011
How to Save Money around the Swimming Pool
Lots of ways to spend money around the pool, no doubt about it. There are also ways to economize around the pool, make better use of resources which also results in a smaller footprint or impact of owning a pool. That's a win-win-win!
Swimming pools can be expensive to maintain and operate. There are some shortcuts to reduce your pool maintenance expenses. Lowering pool ownership costs, and reducing these barriers to ownership is a big part of what we try to do at poolcenter.com.
We think that swimming pools should be affordable to maintain, and fortunately, they are! Here's some tips of reducing the cost of pool maintenance. If you have your own tips, please share below in the comment box!
Save Water around the pool:
- Avoid draining the pool of water, if at all possible, or drain and refill only a portion of the pool water.
- Cartridge filters, which are not backwashed, use less than 1/4 of the water needed to backwash a sand or DE pool filter.
- Use of a solar cover or liquid solar blanket or automatic pool covers greatly reduce evaporation loss, which can be as much as 1/4" per day.
Fix any leaks that occur in the skimmers, pool liner or around the filter pump.
Save Electricity around the pool:
- Run the filter pump as little as possible. Reduce until water becomes hazy, then increase filter run time by 4 hours per day.
- Keeping balanced water and proper filter operation can reduce the hours needed to run the pool pump.
- Install LED pool light bulbs, lifetime bulbs with colors and very low energy usage.
- Run pool cleaner booster pumps as little as possible. Most pools need only 2-4 hrs daily.
Save on Pool Chemicals:
- Pool covers, solar blankets and even wind blocks reduce evaporation of your pool chemicals.
- Chlorine should be "stabilized" with Cyanuric Acid. It's like sunblock for the chlorine molecule.
- Salt systems, chlorine generators reduce the amount of tablet production, transport, storage, use.
- Balanced pool water, and a lower pH will extend the efficacy of your chlorine, saving chlorine.
- Algae problems? Try a phosphate remover chemical to reduce chlorine demand.
- Shocking pool when chloramine levels are >.3ppm will increase your chlorine efficacy.
- DE powder can be rationed by "bumping" the filter 2-3 times before doing a full backwash. A bump is simply a short, 15 second backwash. Usually, this will lower the pressure for a few days to a few weeks, increasing the length of time between full backwash.
Save on Pool Heating Costs:
- Turn it down! Lowering your pool heater thermostat by just 1 degree, can save as much as 10% in fuel cost.
- Turn off the pool heater when you will not be using the pool for several days.
- Use of a solar blanket, automatic cover or liquid solar blanket dramatically reduces heat loss.
- Switch to solar pool heat (free) or consider a pool heat pump ($1 per day).
- Disconnecting the pressure switch wire is a slick way to prevent unauthorized pool heater use.
Save Costly Pool Repairs:
- If you have a salt chlorine generator, use a good cleaner on your salt cell regularly to extend the life.
- Keep your pump motor dry, cool and well ventilated.
- Keep a clean pool heater, use a winter pool heater cover and clean annually.
- Make prompt repairs to tile and coping grout, expansion joint caulking.
- Keep pool water balanced to avoid problems with your pool liner or plaster finish.
Winterize properly if you need to, and in all areas, be prepared to run the pump all night long when temperatures are forecast to be below 32 F. Water expands when it freezes!
What tips do you have to reduce chemical, electrical costs? Or saving on pool heating costs or the cost of tap water. How have you economized in recent years, finding ways to reduce the overall cost of pool ownership? Or for my dear readers in the pool industry, share your tips from some of the many pools maintained.


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Need a fake student card or a fake Quebec driver's license? Nothing could be easier. Many websites offer personalized identity cards for any province of Canada or US state.
They go as far as guarantee absolute quality: scannable barcode, hologram, UV printing. Prices vary between 20 USD and 100 USD.
The phenomenon does not seem to worry the authorities excessively. The RCMP, the SQ and the SPVM all know about these sites and no one keeps an official report on seized fake identity cards.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Center can only act if a consumer complains. A situation that worries, but does not surprise the head of the economic crime program at the Faculty of Continuing Education of the University of Montreal, Messaoud Abda:
"How can I initiate a case if I do not have a complaint? Of course, we can be pro-active, but if we look at the scope of the crimes that police forces must cover in these days, the priority is not at this level [...] class C offense is the identity theft that is a problem and especially in financial transactions where people can get loans, using more serious documents such as passports, and therefore live off the credit of a person or a name that is not theirs. "
After spending two minutes in front of a CEGEP in Montreal, a 17-year-old student admitted to regularly using a fake McGill student card to go out to bars or buy liquor at the convenience store.
"It's my picture, my real name, but it's not my true age. I am 19 years old. I have never been refused entry with this card. And I went to check it on the McGill website, it looked exactly the same," says the minor who wishes to remain anonymous.
However, she never tried her luck at the SAQ or casino. At the Casino de Montréal, security has identified 74 types of fake Quebec identity cards in circulation, which is twice as much as last year.
The Casino de Montréal even has an expert in fake ID cards that constantly updates his knowledge on the different subtleties of manufacturing, including hologram pictures.
"On the Internet, if you take the time to surf, you can find a lot of amazing stuff for every niche and sphere of interest. So, of course, the Internet is a mine of incredible information!" - explains his spokesman, Patrice Léger-Bourgoin. No wonder yougsters go straight to Google with "how to get a fake ID" question.
The Société des alcools du Québec does not have any figures to identify the problem.
On the other hand, in Ontario, the LCBO - which is the liquor company - is well aware of the phenomenon, but its employees do not have the power to seize ID cards that seem to be false.
Nevertheless, they still refused more than 270,000 transactions last year because of suspicion about the age of customers.


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Edge-disjoint graph decompositions of complete graphs and of complete multipartite graphs lie on the border of design theory and graph theory. In this talk I will survey some of the more recent results on edge-disjoint decompositions of complete multipartite graphs into subgraphs such as cycles and paths. This will include consideration of some of the properties which such decompositions may have, and some open problems in the area will also be included.
The reality of the Earth's motion, as proclaimed by Copernicus, quickly proved contentious. Accepted by Kepler, disputed by theologians (Lutheran and Catholic alike), veiled in suggestions of mere convenience, adopted and explained by Newton as a consequence of universal gravitation, parent of the notion of force-what is involved in accepting as true that the Earth goes round the Sun? This talk traces these debates from the early 1600s to the time of Poincaré.
The regulation of dynamics in several bacterial operons has been the object of intense research, and it is now clear that mathematical modeling of these systems is able to give both qualitative and quantitative insight into experimental data on these dynamics at both the single cell and population level. This talk will discuss the nature of the bistability observed in the (inducible) lac operon, and the possible occurrence of oscillatory dynamics in the trp operon.
In 1906, Frobenius and Schur proved the following basic theorem on the representation theory of finite groups: let V be an irreducible representation of the finite group G over the complex numbers C. Then there are only three possibilities:
A group G is called totally orthogonal if all V are of type (1); equivalently, all representations of G are real. For example, it is known that any finite real reflection group is totally orthogonal.
In the last ten years Frobenius and Schur's result has been extended to finite dimensional Hopf algebras. In addition explicit results are known about the representations of certain Hopf algebras which may be constructed from finite groups, such as the Drinfel'd double D(G).
In this talk we will survey this recent work.
Bose-Einstein condensation was predicted by Einstein in 1925 and was experimentally discovered 70 years later. This discovery was followed by a flurry of activity in the physics community with many new experiments and with attempts to construct a theory of the newly discovered state of matter. In this talk I will review some recent rigorous results in the subject and outline open problems.
The equivalence of the sharp Sobolev inequality and the Euclidean isoperimetric inequality is an amazing connection between analysis and geometry. The connection can be strengthened. This leads to new sharp Sobolev inequalities that are affine and stronger than classical Sobolev inequalities. The crucial new geometric inequality needed is a recently established Lp affine isoperimetric inequality that is stronger than the Euclidean isoperimetric inequality. One technical tool involved is the solution of a Monge-Ampere equation-the p-Minkowski problem of convex bodies.


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Friday, April 17, 2009
20 Random Things About My Family Tree
1. One of my distant ancestors was the pastor of a Brooklyn church that my husband occasionally attended as a little boy with his grandfather (not the same building, I imagine, but still…).
2. Among all the Baptists, Presbyterians, and a handful of Methodists in my family tree, I was surprised to find some Quakers.
3. My great-grandfather Hiram Brinlee Jr.'s oldest child was born in 1864, and his youngest child was born in 1908 (from different wives).
4. My great-great-grandfather Joseph Madison Carroll Norman's oldest child was born in 1856 and his youngest child was born in 1898 (he had three wives and 26 or 27 children).
5. My great-great-grandfather Hiram Brinlee Sr. and his brother George Brinlee were tried for murder during the days of the Republic of Texas.
6. My (I don't know how-many-times-great) Uncle Micajah Clark surveyed Thomas Jefferson's land.
7. My (?6g) grandfather Isaac Norman's land was surveyed by George Washington.
8. My great-great-great-granduncle Collin McKinney was one of the framers of the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.
9. The above-mentioned George Brinlee, from my father's side, served under General Edward H. Tarrant, a distant relation on my mother's side of the family.
10. I am related to Samuel Clemens through the Moorman family (not through either of my Clemens lines as far as I know).
11. I am related to John C. Calhoun through my Hamilton/Calhoun line.
12. Three great-grandfathers, two great-great grandfathers, and a slew of 2g and 3g uncles served in the Civil War. There may have been additional relatives from the Smith line who also served, but since Lizzie Smith is my big brick wall, I do not know who they are.
13. My great-grandfather Hiram Brinlee's first wife was Dicey Caroline Boone, a great-granddaughter of Daniel Boone.
14. There are an awful lot of clergymen among my ancestors. My family and I are quite surprised at this.
15. One of my mother's sisters had the nickname "Wreck" because it was said that she make wrecks of all her boyfriends.
16. The parents of Clarence Brinlee (my subject for A Noble Life), James Edward Brinlee and Mary Ann Sims, were first cousins.
17. Two of my first cousins once removed, Guy Leon "Square" Brinlee and Vernon Argos "Bun" Brinlee, were locally famous eccentrics. They would not hunt or kill animals not would they allow them to be killed on their farm property. They never had their house wired for electricity. They led colorful lives with several different interesting professions that I hope to tell about in a future post. There was also a rumor that "Bun" actually got married at one point when his parents ("Hoss" and Myrtie Brinlee) were out of town, but was too afraid to tell his parents, so he just returned home and never mentioned it. I believe I may have found out who he married and hope to get more of the story.
18. Several members of previous generations in my husband's family were apparently "connected." (Points to anyone who knows what that means. Hint: His family is from New York and New Jersey.)
19. One of my husband's grand-uncles was a well-known pianist who died young. There are still piano roll records of him playing the piano.
20. There were Tennessee moonshiners in my older half-brother's Roberts and Phillips lines. One of them was a bigamist and served on both sides in the Civil War (his 300-page service record contains witnesses' statements to that effect).
4 comments:
I must admit, I do enjoy these little tidbits from your family tree. Makes for good reading.ReplyDelete
Greta, please feel free to contact me. As a child growing up in North Texas, I knew Bun and Square (a/k/a Squire) very well. I was one of VERY few kids who was allowed to fish behind their place or even go up to the house and visit with them. There are MANY things I can tell you about them...I even remember drinking from the well just off the back porch. RichardReplyDelete
Richard - I would love to contact you, but I do not have an e-mail address for you. I hope you see my response here! You can contact me at gmkoehl plus "at" plus gmail.com. I am definitely interested in learning more about Bun and Square!ReplyDelete
Greta, knowing the security of gmail you will need to add my email addy to your address book...she took my 1 dog at yahoo..no spaces between...and check you spam folder to see if you have others from me there...RichardReplyDelete


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Cassis Lace Off Shoulder Top
- Poly blend
- Adjustable shoulder straps
- Cut-out shoulders
- Scalloped trim
- Revolve Style No. GYLI-WS66
- Manufacturer Style No. 612T4911
- Modeled in size S.
- Model Measurements: Height 5'9", Waist 24", Bust 32", Hips 34"
- Size Guide
Los Angeles based designer and creative director of GREYLIN, Dora Lim began her infatuation with fashion at a young age while growing up in Brazil. The inspiration for GREYLIN evolved from her international travels, discovering unknown elements, childhood memories of Brazil, abstract textiles, and interior design. Intermixing timeless everyday classics with bold patterns and colors were the driving principles behind Dora's contemporary line GREYLIN. Melding perfectly crafted silhouettes with unique prints and colors, Greylin provides women with a line that remains timeless throughout seasons at an obtainable price.
If an item you would like to purchase is out of stock, you can place a Special Order Inquiry. REVOLVE will then check the availability and obtain an approximate arrival date for the item, if available. Typically, it takes up to 3-4 weeks to verify this information.
Placing a Special Order Inquiry is absolutely free and there is no obligation to follow through with a purchase.
- You will be notified by email once we receive the item.
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- Your card will ONLY be charged when your order is shipped.
- Availability is not guaranteed.


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After a long hiatus and long hours of deliberation to decide the fate of my sanctuary, i'm finally back. Not that anyone was really waiting with bated breath for the floodgates to open, but whatever.
Although I havent really written anything since my last post (i'm not into not posting my writings), a lot of things have changed. And whatever I've written has been for some objective, or for some premeditated reason - so unlike blogging, which is writing down one's whims, one's fancy and all that jazz that cant be explained by reasoning. Writing as a tech editor for the recently launched NOW Magazine will never give the creative satisfaction that blogging could give. And yet its not for creative satisfaction alone that i used to or will blog. There were so many things this place gave me that nobody else could. It opened me up as a person, and taught me to lay myself bare to all and sundry, without worrying too much about the reactions. It feels like I'd improved and reached a pinnacle in my writing skills with blogging- which culminated as a 6 on 6 in GMAT essays. It gave me new friends - some of the best people i've ever known. And it gave me a patient ear when there was no1 else who'd listen - and just a mention of this fact can never do enough justice to it.
How can I then just abandon it and leave it to rot? How could I have even though of pushing the delete button? Even though I dont have much or almost no time in my posession, I wanna keep this place alive with all that I have to give. I dont know what the future will be like, and something tells me I'm gonna need this place real bad some day.
I'm out of college and there's a whole new world is waiting out there with a whole new bunch of experiences - in different cities, under different skies. All of it worth capturing in my journal, my blog - coz if tomorrow never comes, I dont wanna be swept away into unwritten pages of history... Atleast some1 will live on to tell my story, and maybe even say the things that I never could n never would!!
Once bitten, twice shy... not anymore...!
After a long hiatus and long hours of deliberation to decide the fate of my sanctuary, i'm finally back. Not that anyone was really waiting with bated breath for the floodgates to open, but whatever.
Posted by Aupsy-The cOOlest One!! at 12:56 AM 6 comments


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Hey Arnold! Those are the famous two words that started every show whenever Hey Arnold came on. I said that I was going to submit my second installment of the two characters that I will be giving you lessons on today. So, Having said all that let me introduce you to this lesson on "how to draw Gerald from Hey Arnold, step by step". His full name is "Gerald Martin Johanssen" and he is the best friend to Arnold. He kind of reminds me of one of the two guys from the hip hop band "Kid n' Play". The guy he reminds me of is Kid. He is the one that had that wicked high squared shaped afro that he was recognized by, and popular for. Anyway, Gerald is a cool character and he is wicked funny. He has known Arnold since forever, and together they make a perfect team. One of my favorite episodes was when Arnold taught Gerald how to ride a bike. That was great. Helga is also part of the duo, although they more or less try and stay away from her because she can be real annoying. Sometimes Helga will tease Gerald by calling him " tall hair boy". Another consistent thing about Gerald is that he is always seen wearing a red long sleeve shirt with the numbers "33" on the front. Other than him being a cool, smart diplomat, this nine year old really knows how to win a debate. I think you Hey Arnold fans will love this lesson on "how to draw Gerald, step by step". I will return with some more drawing fun so try and stay tuned in for an exciting day. Peace peeps and happy drawing!
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Sometimes I think that we it is our fear of dying that keeps so afraid to acknowledge illness. Nina Planck talks about Gina Mallet in her book Real Food: What to Eat and Why. Mallet has a wonderful quote:
Mallet writes, "a new philosophy emerged, based on the notion that death could be delayed, perhaps even cheated if a person monitored every single piece of food she ate."
I believe that in today's world we also think that if we just eat right and exercise right not only can we delay or perhaps cheat death we can also delay or cheat sickness. Death is inevitable. Sickness to a degree is also inevitable. If our body is balanced there will be days when it doesn't function at 100 percent. Therefore those days that it is not could be considered a day of sickness. Why do we so fear it?


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Updates/Changes to Customer Service Efforts
The following is a detailed summary of what has been going on behind the scenes and in some cases not so behind the scenes.... * Dealer cuts: Over the last year I have been restructuring the way we operate. In late May/early June I came to the realization that we hadn't achieved all of the efficiencies that I had anticipated. As a result I concluded that we were unable to support such a "large" dealer network. Although it personally pained me to do so we had to cut some of our dealers in order to give me the breathing room needed to increase our capacity. Ironically this meant cutting our most productive dealers, Milwatches and Gnomon. I would like to make it clear that I did not end their dealerships because they had done anything wrong. Quite the contrary, they were both exemplary dealers and I will continue to recommend them. What it came down to was basic mathematics, I just couldn't create enough slack in our production schedule to hire and train more staff if I had to continue to supply them watches at wholesale prices. We will of course honor the warranties of any watches they have in stock or sold since our partnerships ended. Epaulet in New York and Urtid of Sweden continue to operate as Mk II dealers.
* Phone inquiries: I am sorry to say that we had to end the practice of taking inquiries by phone. That is to say if you have an urgent problem and you leave us a voice mail we will respond by e-mail or via the ticket system and by phone if necessary but we can only field general questions via the CRM portal. I do apologize for the inconvenience this will cause some customers and realize that this will turn off other prospective customers. Given that I have more work than hours in the day I have to budget my own time with an iron fist. E-mail enables me to manage my time more efficiently. I understand that this means leaving "money on the table" so to speak but its better to serve our current clientele better and grow into a service level that will enable us to consistently serve the customers that we can reach but can not help at this time.
* New web site and upgrades to the E-boutique: I hope that everyone is adjusting to the new layout and finding the new web sites are easier to use and more informative. The new sites follow a general trend in online retailing by creating what is termed a "brand" site that is separate from the web store. I am not certain why other companies do it but we structured out web sites this way for technical reasons. Ultimately I hope that the information people need will be easier to find and updated more consistently. The new brand site is the reason why we have been able to do a better job of producing more timely updates and more informative content. Without it I would still be coding web pages manually with the updates backing up because I was stuck wondering why the second bullet point won't left justify properly. That having been said I expect that the brand site will finally look like what we envisioned after a few more revisions during the remainder of this month.
* Size of the Watch Collection: Although the selection on the E-boutique right now is relatively sparse this reflects an artificial shortage. We are trying to control the number of models available at any given time in order to manage our lead times more effectively. One can expect at least the same number of new watches in a given year but launched sequentially rather than all at one time.
* CRM portal: Even after running the system for a little more than a year we are still learning how to fully utilize the software. Fortunately the software is good enough that we were effective from day 1 but we are still making adjustments in how we deploy it to get the most out of it. It's been quite an adjustment for me personally because organizing everything in a virtual space requires a different logic. I am at heart the kind of person that would be more comfortable covering all of the walls with white boards and working that way. However on this scale and in this day and age it would be ridiculous to essentially work the way they kept track of Spitfires in the Battle of Britain.
On balance we are more responsive than we have been in the past and the "ticket system", as impersonal as it may sound, is enabling us to better tailor our efforts to each individual customer's needs. To be perfectly honest, over the last 6 months, we have dropped the ball on a few customers but the situation has been steadily improving. If one compares what it was like to interact with us 18 months ago to today you would be forgiven for thinking it was an entirely different company.
* Project software: We have been using Project planning software now for the last month or so and it's been a cruel mistress. Operating with the software has been eye opening in that it has helped me make better decisions and get a better feel for our productivity. We are trying to work down our lead times as quickly as possible while trying to ship the Kingstons as quickly as possible. Balancing these two priorities has been very difficult but so far we are still on track to finish delivery of the first 200 Kingstons by year-end, although not necessarily before Christmas.
If you made it all the way down to the bottom of this post congratulations are in order. These kinds of posts are neither fun to write nor read but I hope that you come away with the conclusion that we are responding to customer feedback and will continue to work earnestly towards providing our customers with a more rewarding experience.


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Malia wrote:I am happy to report that I just got my first paper back from my first class in the Master's program and I received an A! Huzzah
dks wrote:Yes, my angle is pretty formless right now, but it's having to do with Clarke's Academy and its direct influence on Keats's life and work. I think since I went back into the classroom, I sort of gravitated toward his education and its profound, reverberating effects on him. My directing professor told me to begin researching 19th C. private schools (like Harrow). Trouble is, I'm having problems finding handy information about Clarke's. The biographers only dedicate a handful of pages to the school--perhaps because it's closed and there is not a fidgeting plethora of information out there on it? I have resolved to visit Enfield when I go to London in January. I'll be going to Dublin, too, for a couple of days. I'll be researching. Any info any of you have in the way of book recs would be damned helpful.
Malia wrote:I am happy to report that I just got my first paper back from my first class in the Master's program and I received an A! Huzzah
AhDistinctly wrote:I've been thinking about this, Denise. Most schools, when they close, move their documents/archives to another institution. A few well-placed questions to archivists in the area may give you some of the information you desire. And as a researcher, you may be able to get access to the archives and study the docs first-hand. Just a thought.
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The Customer Experience: The New Gold Rush (Part 1)
There was a time when making good products was sufficient to succeed in the business world, but that is no longer the case. While making good products (or services)—things that people want and value, of a quality they expect and at a price point they are willing to pay—remains essential to the value proposition, it's just table stakes today. What customers want are "experiences."
So what is an "experience," and why are customers' expectations of that experience different from those of the past?
While we have always provided customers with "experiences," the term has taken on a whole new meaning. To miss the subtlety of this shift (actually, it's not that subtle at all!) could spell disaster for many companies.
Let's start by considering what influences a customer's experience. For me, experience is a simple balancing act:
What I expected to get vs. What I perceived I received
Delivering an experience in the past was fairly straightforward. I will use a fictitious scenario involving a can of soda to illustrate my points.
Suppose that I promise to supply you with a can of soda that has 50 bubbles per square inch. You buy and drink that soda, and as long as the bubbles per square inch are approximately 50, you are happy. If you detect fewer than than 50 bubbles per square inch, you are unhappy and probably won't buy my soda again. If you perceive there are significantly more bubbles, you are delighted and recommend my soda to all your friends. It's a simple, tried-and-trusted process of customer satisfaction.
In this case, the experience consisted of a few key elements: the soda, the can (its look and feel), the ambiance of the store where you purchased it, the friendliness of the server, and so forth. But also consider what influenced both sides of the equation above:
- What I expected = the advertising that promised 50 bubbles per square inch
- What I perceive I received = my tasting the product and "counting" the bubbles
Now let's consider a customer's experience in today's hyperconnected, social-media-driven world. Today, both sides of the equation are influenced by a whole world of participants—literally!
- What I expected = the advertising that promised 50 bubbles per square inch, web-based product reviews, my social-media network, information regarding your company and its work practices, and so on.
- What I perceive I received = my tasting the product and "counting" the bubbles, add-on products and services (the third-party can holder, the free bubble-counting app), feedback from my social-media friends, etc.
My point is, both sides of the experience equation are heavily influenced by today's hyperconnectivity. In the past, my expectations of that soda were almost entirely based on the advertising to which I was exposed. You told me it had 50 bubbles per square inch and I had no way of determining if 50 bubbles was typical, above, or below standard for soda. I had to take your word for it that your description of "the best soda in the world, with more bubbles per square inch than any other soda" was accurate.
That's not the case today.
In my next blog, I will discuss how to approach the customer experience in our hyperconnected world.
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4 Comments
It is important that we have effective communication skills to truly established what you call attention to in the "Perceived & Expected" aspect of your post. I find that too many times we perceive that the client did receive what was expected, but was hoping for even more.
Gorgeous post and nice information…!I'll am excited for The New Gold Rush (Part 2). thanks for sharing..!
As a consumer, I definitely agree 100%


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November 03, 2003
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Prof. Grinblatt served as a visiting position professor at the Wharton School from 1987-1989 and worked as a vice president for Salomon Brothers, Inc. from 1989-1990. He also consults on finance issues for various corporations, law firms, investment management firms and financial institutions.
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President Barack Obama surprised many by deciding to turn to Congress for approval before he fires missiles at Syria, but his decision makes sense. When proposing military action that almost nobody wants to wage, it is best to find someone with whom to share the blame.
That hasn't been easy, especially after British Parliament voted against joining in Obama's proposed strikes to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is alleged to have ordered the killing of civilians with chemical weapons. Horrendous as that outrage has been, experts agree that there are no good options for the United States. The best that Obama can hope for is the best of bad options. That means, no matter what he does, a lot of people aren't going to like it.
Most Americans don't like it already, polls show. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found nearly six in 10 Americans opposed to missile strikes, with opposition shared by demographic majorities across party, racial and ethnic lines by double-digit margins.
The divided public reflects divisions in Congress. Although House Republican leaders broke their usual pattern of resistance to support the president, the Syria debate has split lawmakers into about a half-dozen unusual factions and coalitions.
Antiwar Democrats coalesce with anti-Obama Republicans. Hawkish Republicans like John McCain have joined hawkish Democrats who want more aggressive military policy and even regime change. Isolationist Republicans like Rand Paul would rather stay home. And there's the usual Obamaphobic Republicans who want anything that will help the president to fail.
All of which leads me to resurrect an old question: Would Sen. Obama have voted for President Obama's war?
In a speech at a Chicago antiwar rally in October 2002 that would prove pivotal to his 2008 presidential rise, Obama, than an Illinois state senator, famously made a case against President George W. Bush's Iraq War that describes why so many oppose his proposed Syria attack.
He did not oppose all wars, he forcefully pointed out, but he opposed "a dumb war. A rash war." No question that Saddam Hussein was "a brutal man," said Obama, "... who butchers his own people to secure his own power." But Obama also pointed out, Saddam "... poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States."
"(A)n invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East," Obama said, "and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida."
The circumstances in Syria are different. Iraq, for example, did not have the weapons of mass destruction that our bogus intelligence reports said they did. By contrast, on Aug. 21 a poison-gas attack in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria's capital, killed more than 1,400 civilians.
But the "clear rationale, "clear goals and "strong international support" that separates smart policy from "dumb" wars is lacking. The errors that led to the tragic war in Iraq and a general war weariness throughout the West have raised the standards of proof that Obama has to meet to wage new military in the Middle East, based on Syria's brutal use of banned weapons.
In more than three hours of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on whether to authorize the use of military force against Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left a lot of important questions unanswered.
They expressed much greater certainty about the quality of the intelligence that confirmed Syria's chemical weapons attacks than about what might happen after the proposed missile strikes were conducted.
A lack of action would embolden Iran and other dangerous regimes, Kerry argued, but all three became rather vague about questions of possible mission creep after the initial operation was conducted.
Gen. Dempsey tried to push back against fears of mission creep, an unexpected expansion beyond original goals. But experience in past wars shows how unpredictably the waging of a "limited" military action breaks the expected limits. What happens, for example, if our bombing strikes a chemical weapons compound and endangers civilians? Will we need American military boots on the ground to secure it?
Team Obama did not want to speculate about that. But those are the kind of questions that I think Sen. Obama would have asked.
(Clarence Page is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Email responses may be sent to firstname.lastname@example.com.)


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New Website for Manufacturer of Tube End-Forming Machinery and Tooling
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Thursday, October 1, 2009
Manchester Tool & Die, North Manchester, NH, which supplies tube end-forming machines and tooling with capacity to 3-in. OD, has a new website at www.manchestertoolanddie.com. View product details and specifications, including options and advanced features, and download
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Convention warfare: Why Dems won
It's fashionable to say that conventions don't matter. And it's true that it's been a generation and a half since the last time there was genuine drama in real time (that was 1980 in Detroit, with its near-miss with the Reagan-Ford "dream ticket").
They do matter, though. Maybe not in the way Detroit did, or Chicago in 1968 did, or Los Angeles in 1960 did. But impressions are created amid confetti and cable coverage that reach political civilians (another way of describing normal Americans) that, together with the autumn debates, tend to clarify — and even decide — presidential elections.
Story Continued Below
Which is why Republicans should be particularly glum this weekend. The further Democrats progressed into their convention this week in Charlotte, N.C., the more glaring the shortcomings of last week's GOP convention became. By the time the last of the confetti fell on the Democratic convention floor, it became frustratingly clear that the most compelling speaker in Tampa, Fla., had been Clint Eastwood's chair.
These sort of observations that I make in the middle of a convention swoon always drive campaign surrogates and party hacks crazy. When I dismissed John Kerry's 2004 acceptance speech as rushed and sweaty, the crowd booed angrily and a fellow journalist threatened to climb across the table and punch me. Cooler heads would prevail the next morning when the Boston Globe's legendary writer Tom Oliphant wrote the same thing in his column.
A few months later, Republicans like me struggled through one of the worst debate performances since James Stockdale famously asked who and where he was. George W. Bush's 2004 performance wasn't quite as bad as Perot's running mate in 1992, but Bush 43 seemed at a loss for words during the first round of questions and then even more flummoxed after he asked for extra time.
With the added time, the president jutted his shoulder, blinked his eyes rapidly and cocked his head before saying "It's hard … it's hard." Sen. Kerry won that first debate going away. I said so on air immediately following the debate and advised Mr. Bush to stay home for the final two debates if he could do no better. According to a top campaign official, Mrs. Bush gave her chastened husband similar advice that same night.
Many of those same Republicans are in no mood to hear how badly their party was outperformed by the Democrats this week during the prime-time performances that millions of Americans watched.