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Top Stories
By Shakir Ladak, CTO at Alpha Insight
Until the financial crisis of 2008-09, the financial services industry had enjoyed almost two decades of unprecedented growth and profitability. It had embraced globalisation with a succession of glittering mega-deals.
Unfortunately, a series of fines and settlements has since highlighted the extent of corporate and operational wrongdoing within the industry, prompting governments and regulators to respond with extensive programmes of reform and further regulation.
In the USA Dodd-Frank came into being in 2010, generating more than 22,000 pages of regulations and requirements. In the UK the 2012 Financial Services Act was responsible for the formation of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Such exacting regulation has resulted in institutions dedicating significant resources to compliance – and to paying off fines for regulatory breaches. JP Morgan, for instance, reached a compliance headcount of 43,000 in 2015 compared with 23,000 in 2011, but has also paid out over $40bn in fines and settlements since 2008.
Even though the effects of the crisis are fading, there are still expectations of more regulation. A survey of global finance compliance officers found that 69 per cent predicted increased requirements and guidance from regulators.
The arrival of RegTech
Following the launch of its Project Innovate in October 2014, the FCA issued a 'Call for Input' on how regulation technology (RegTech) could facilitate the delivery of regulatory requirements and reduce the compliance burden for everyone involved.
In practical terms RegTech seeks to make sense of the large amounts of eclectic data generated within an institution's systems, configuring and generating timely reports, as well as applying analytics in order to optimise information.
Historically, financial institutions have individual IT systems that are often disconnected and unable to communicate adequately. So, while data from such systems has always been available, the challenge has been to interrogate it effectively. Increasingly, new technologies and approaches are being developed to overcome the legacy challenges – and it is this aspect that the FCA has been keen to embrace.
Given that the regulator is highly receptive to the potential benefits of RegTech, institutions ought to start thinking about how they can gain from these advances, despite their willingness to continue investing in their older systems.
A Deloitte report has suggested that RegTech innovation can help institutions satisfy both regulatory and competition requirements in a cost-effective way by deploying agile solutions on legacy systems. This improves compliance reporting as well as providing more monitoring controls. Further investment in analytics technology will enable managers to proactively identify potential issues and be prompted to take remedial action.
Since data and information are at the heart of regulation, and regulators now demand transparency in all areas of the operation, institutions have to provide evidence of how they are approaching compliance. In particular, they must show that key activities have occurred within a process or transaction. They must demonstrate that specified standards have been reached and that the systems have performed correctly. Monitoring and controlling performance are now critical management functions and are increasingly required as part of the compliance framework.
The advances in RegTech mean it is now possible cost-effectively to supply the timely data managers and regulators require, using an agile approach to leverage the varied data outputs from legacy systems. Achieving this, though, requires the RegTech supplier to understand the industry domain and to work with an institution's key people to accurately define the regulatory objectives and targets.
A model that works
Regulations tend to focus on how, why or when 'something' was done, such as the provision of advice, a payment, or the on-boarding of a new client – all processes that follow a specific set of operational instructions or rules.
From a regulatory perspective, such processes normally have to be undertaken within a specified time period, within specified limits, or upon receipt of specified data inputs and so on. But it is for the institution to demonstrate that compliance has been achieved.
Given the speed and complexity of requirements, this is not always straightforward. Yet it is possible to identify the important steps within a business flow – where and when key activities should take place. These are the Service Level Targets (SLTs). If SLTs are not achieved, then it is probable that the specified business flow will be non-compliant.
RegTech uses SLTs as the basis for compliance-fulfillment. The business flow is mapped with its monitoring points and SLTs highlighted. Parameters are set (monitoring points) that enable ongoing monitoring of the flow so that the SLTs are achieved. Visualisation then provides real-time dashboards, with traffic light status and built-in management alerts.
Auditing what has been done is critical. More advanced RegTech solutions not only generate performance reports, but capture target-performance history in a central repository where they are readily accessible.
RegTech has now developed to the point where it can work flawlessly with the current monitoring systems within an institution's IT estate, boosting existing capabilities to produce specific and relevant monitoring of regulatory reporting activities. Inevitably, the cost-benefit is significant.
RegTech – go with the flow
It is, for example, an approach that within the financial services industry, works across more than 100 business flows. It covers everything from SEPA and high-value payments in retail banking, to clearing trades and treasury in investment banking, anti-money laundering (AML), as well as Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and MiFID requirements.
It is vital however, to have domain knowledge and experience for any RegTech project to generate real results and insights. The up-front design and definition work needs to be undertaken in an agile development environment to establish the critical business flow and identifying the key SLTs.
Performance against SLTs is measured, analysed and fine-tuned. The analytics enable the institution's managers to take a much more proactive stance towards compliance, being able to consider or predict probable future impacts based on current or past performance.
This is an important consideration, given the introduction of the Senior Manager Regime from March 2016, making senior staff personally accountable for activities and decisions, even when delegated.
By defining an end-to-end business flow, setting performance targets for key activities, and then monitoring the whole flow in a visualised way, senior managers can produce tangible evidence of process-control as part of any audit activity.
While RegTech should not be viewed as the panacea to all regulatory challenges it certainly provides a significant new range of opportunities for financial institutions and regulators. By harnessing its agile development capability to domain expertise, success in compliance is far easier and more cost-effective.
Top Stories
Trust matters more than ever in an uncertain world
By Zac Cohen, COO, Trulioo
Trust in the time of COVID-19
Perhaps more than ever before, retail and investment banks the world over face a pivotal moment in their evolution, as banking transitions from a digital-first towards a digital-only landscape. The COVID-19 pandemic has put severe restrictions on traditional face-to-face or high street banking and forced sections of society that had previously been resistant to or unable to access digital banking to make the shift. This understandably brings with it significant anxiety and fear.
For an industry that has been striving to rebuild consumer confidence since the global financial crisis of 2008, COVID-19 presents a huge challenge. It needs to foster trust at a time when the world is facing unprecedented levels of uncertainty and stands on the brink of an even more severe global recession.
Without doubt, a thriving digital economy will be critical for the global economy to bounce back quickly and strongly from COVID-19. Therefore building online trust has become critical to our very future.
A billion reasons to protect customers
The global banking system processes more than a billion transactions every day, from transfers and domestic and international payments, to loan approvals and the creation of new accounts. And each one of these transactions represents an opportunity for some sort of financial crime, whether that's money laundering, identity theft, bribery or the financing of terrorism.
The global pandemic has only served to accentuate this level of risk, with new threats emerging on the back of COVID-19, and bad actors looking to exploit new opportunities. In particular, online fraudsters are looking to target people who are using digital services for the first time as a result of the pandemic, often the most vulnerable groups in our society such as the elderly.
Research that we recently conducted in the UK and the U.S. found that concerns about online security are higher within financial services than in any other sector, with more than half of people (51%) reporting that they are 'very concerned' about identity theft when using financial services sites.
Crucially, 90% of people believe that banks have a responsibility to reduce cybercrime through whatever identity verification is necessary.
Building trust from day one
Of course, customers want online banking services to be responsive, intuitive and fast, but it's important to recognise that, first and foremost, people want to know that their money and their personal data are safe.
Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) practices are now essential in enabling banks to not only identify each individual customer, but to build trust across the digital ecosystem more broadly.
Identity verification technology during the onboarding process enables a bank to demonstrate to its customers that it is taking their security seriously from the very outset of the relationship. First impressions count — more than three quarters (77%) of consumers claim that the account opening process can 'make or break' their relationship with a financial services brand.
Banks simply cannot afford anything other than optimal onboarding and identity verification – fail to deliver this and trust is immediately eroded and in many cases, the customer walks away.
On the other hand, where banks do succeed in demonstrating their commitment to security during these first engagements, delivering a fast, secure and seamless account creation process, they are able to develop a more meaningful relationship with their customers. As many as 84% of consumers report having greater trust in financial services brands that use real-time identity verification during the onboarding process and 71% are more likely to share more personal data.
A layered approach to identity verification
In order to provide first-class onboarding processes and establish trust at the outset of the customer journey, banks need to ensure they can deliver relevant and compliant identity checks for customers, dependent on their geography and the type of service or product that they are looking to access. They need to move beyond a 'one size fits all approach' to identity verification, which can lead to cumbersome or unnecessary checks on the one hand, and increased risk on the other.
This is why a digital identity network is so powerful. This is essentially a marketplace of hundreds of data sources, verification processes and tools that leverage network data intelligence to verify and authenticate identities online.
This marketplace approach lets businesses get a more holistic view of risk and then apply whichever verification layers are needed to provide assurance and build trust.
For example, a bank may only need to perform a basic KYC check when onboarding a customer with an established government ID number or driving license. If that same customer then wants to take out a loan, the bank would need to run other verification checks to create a higher level of assurance. And if the bank wants to onboard a customer whose only form of digital identity is a name tied to their mobile phone number, it would likewise build up assurance through multiple verification and authentication layers — for instance, ID document verification, which captures images from a person's ID document and assesses its validity, combined with biometric authentication, which compares a selfie photo (taken and sent through the mobile phone) with the photo on an ID document.
With such a layered approach to identity verification, banks have complete flexibility and choice to apply the most appropriate identity checks at every stage of the customer journey, meaning that they can manage and optimise customer experience while minimising risk and ensuring compliance against a rapidly changing regulatory backdrop.
Building a global ecosystem of trust for the digital economy
To build and maintain online trust in such a complex and diverse environment is extremely challenging for banks.
Indeed, despite rapid digitisation across all sectors and regions, the internet continues to suffer from a lack of a critical identity layer that would solve many of these complex problems. While there are layers of protocols and methodologies for transporting data over networks, there is no protocol for transporting assurance. In online transactions, then, there is no standardized way to establish that an individual is who they say they are — the essence of identity.
Clearly this needs to change in order to drive trust, digital access and financial inclusion.
A digital identity network provides banks with the assurance they need in these turbulent times, protecting both themselves and their customers from fraud and delivering seamless customer experiences. In particular, it allows banks to enter new markets and reach new customers who have previously been marginalised or excluded from the digital economy, with confidence. In this way, digital identity can become a great equalizer, enabling more people to access and enjoy the benefits of a digital economy, built on trust.
Top Stories
Workforce Diversity Matters To Our ESG Evaluation
We believe the limited representation of Black voices in key decision-making processes prevents companies from reaping the benefits of a diverse workforce. It also exposes companies' reputations to allegations of discrimination, as shown by recent calls on social media to boycott certain businesses after apparently racist behavior of employees were captured on video and shared. As such, we believe companies need to be deliberate in how they recruit, hire, and develop Black talent if they want to achieve a sustainable and diverse workforce, thereby improving ESG performance.
As part of our social assessment in the ESG Evaluation, we assess how effective a company is at developing a productive and inclusive workforce. Key indicators include employee retention and turnover rates, labor standards, pay, benefits, and rewards. We also assess whether fair labor standards are entrenched across the value chain. Moreover, we evaluate an entity's preparedness to respond to long-term risks and opportunities, including from changing demographics and social patterns. We assess the extent to which decision-making demonstrates the company's commitment to its long-term strategy and sustainability, as well as its success at building an inclusive workplace culture. These practices are particularly important given the presence of systemic racism, which continues to disadvantage Black people in corporate environments, particularly in the U.S.
U.S. workplaces have yet to achieve equal opportunity for people of different races, and policies have so far not fully addressed the widespread issue of racism. According to the Center of Public Integrity and the Washington Post, from 2010 to 2017, one million discrimination complaints were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Office Commission. More than 30% of these cases related to racial discrimination.
Labour Market Outcomes Are Rooted In Systemic Racism
The Black community has long been subject to civil and human injustices that have contributed to a vicious cycle of low educational attainment, high unemployment, and concentrated poverty. This has made it difficult for Black people to enter the workforce, advance in higher wage work, and accumulate generational wealth. Poverty serves as a systemic hurdle to Black employees because it creates barriers to higher educational attainment, thereby limiting their ability to procure employment and financial opportunities that would enable wealth accumulation. In 2018, the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that Black Americans have the second-highest poverty rate in the U.S. (after Native Americans, another highly marginalized group). The study also highlighted a striking wealth disparity; while the median net worth of a white household in 2016 was $103,000, for Black households it was only $9,200 (see chart 1).
Chart 1
Yet, structural hurdles and enduring biases have also historically disadvantaged Black jobseekers, regardless of educational attainment. In the U.S., only 31% of Black employees are in management or professional positions, and a low proportion is in upper management positions (see chart 2).
Chart 2
Black Employees are largely underrepresented in management and professional occupations
Educational attainment of the labor force, age and above in the U.S.
What's more, Black employees are often held to higher standards than their white counterparts. A 2015 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Black workers receive extra scrutiny in the workplace, leading to lower wages, slower promotions, and sometimes even job loss. This legacy may also create an additional barrier to career advancement, which is apparent in the low proportion of Black employees in upper management positions. Of the Fortune 500 companies, Black employees only account for 3.2% of executive and senior management and only 0.8% of CEOs (four in total) are Black (see chart 3).
Chart 3
Diversity And Inclusion Policies Are Only The First Step
In our opinion, D&I programs are an important mechanism for improving racial equity in the workplace. They aim to link a company's strategies, mission, and business practices in a way that supports demographic differences among talent and enables an environment in which all employees are empowered to contribute their unique views and perspectives. As D&I programs have evolved, they've begun to encompass initiatives such as targeted recruitment, diversity education and training, career development, mentoring, and grievance procedures. Done well, D&I programs offer several business benefits, from improved productivity to innovation, which help boost a company's ESG performance by helping it anticipate changing consumer preferences and consumption patterns.
Several studies have investigated the link between diverse workforces and a firm's financial performance. According to a 2020 McKinsey & Co study, companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 36% more likely to show financial returns that exceed the national industry median. Another study by sociologist Cedric Herring, during his time at the University of Illinois, Chicago, found that companies with the highest racial diversity were able to generate nearly 15x more sales revenue than firms with the lowest levels of racial diversity. Herring suggests that racial diversity is the most important predictor of a company's competitive positioning, and a better indicator of sales revenue and customer attainment than a company's size, years in business, and overall employee headcount. Diversity has also been linked to increased innovation potential. Studies show that diversity supports, enhanced creativity, more informed decision-making, increased capacity for innovation, improved customer acquisition, stronger revenue-generating potential, and better talent management.
Analyzing Diversity Remains A Challenge
Where available, we analyze a company's ethnic diversity metrics as one indicator for a diverse workforce. Businesses tend to focus mainly on the workforce composition and on recruiting employees from different identity groups, including race, gender, age, culture, cognition, and education. Social equality activists are increasingly demanding that companies release diversity statistics, thereby holding them accountable for persisting race gaps.
Although transparency practices are improving, the availability of data is a persistent issue. According to the U.K.'s Business in the Community (BITC) Race at Work 2018 Scorecard report, only 11% of employers report ethnicity and pay data. In France, a race-neutral policy approach to education and employment stands in contrast to that in other European countries. It is illegal for employers or institutions in France to ask about someone's race or ethnicity. The intent of this was to avoid discrimination. However, in 2006, more than 25 years after the 1978 law prohibiting the collection of ethnic data, a poll by research company TNS-Sofres showed that more than half of France's black adults said they had experienced racial discrimination. Furthermore, companies more frequently report strictly on percentages of minority employees without commenting, directly or otherwise, on the positions they occupy. This can mask some disparities in terms of job level, promotions, or lack of diversity in certain roles.
We also take into consideration companies' strategies to increase diversity including quotas, targets, or affirmative action policies. Over the past few years, several European countries have proposed or implemented diversity quotas for boards of companies, principally to increase female participation. The U.S. state of California followed suit in 2018, while legislation is pending in other states. Although still controversial, quotas have helped increase the number of women on boards. Similar policies on ethnic diversity are largely missing. In the U.K., the 2017 Parker Review set a voluntary target for FTSE100 boards to have at least one director from an ethnic minority group by 2021. The Review's 2020 update shows some progress but not full compliance with the recommendations.
Regardless of the approach a company takes to increase workforce diversity, it is clear that quality data is a necessary ingredient of an effective diversity strategy. As such, we believe transparency at all levels of the organization is imperative for companies to solidify the trust and loyalty of their employees, suppliers, and shareholders. In turn, this will help boost productivity and strengthen the potential for innovation, thereby supporting ESG performance.
The Emphasis Must Be On Inclusion
Recruiting ethnic minorities does not necessarily translate into an environment that's free of discrimination, allowing each employee an equal opportunity to advance. In our opinion, employers with a culture that tolerates discriminatory practices and microaggression are vulnerable to productivity lapses, decreased innovation, and lower creativity. Therefore, we believe the success of D&I initiatives appears to hinge on the inclusion side of the equation, which should ensure employees feel their contributions are appreciated and full participation is encouraged. According to author and inclusion strategist Verna Myers, Vice President of Inclusion Strategy at
Netflix, "Diversity is about being invited to the party. Inclusion is about being asked to dance." Analyzing inclusion practices could provide better insight into how companies manage more covert forms of discrimination associated with microaggression. In a U.S. national survey of over 3,700 office workers conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), 58% of black respondents said they have encountered racism at the workplace. According to the NORC, workplace prejudice often shows up in subtle ways, through microaggression, typically during employee interactions through comments that proliferate Black stereotypes. Examples include referring to Black employees as intimidating, or unprofessional because of their hairstyles, thus creating a situation in which these employees are perceived as "not right" for the job. Such a toxic environment can go undetected by senior management, particularly when people of color are underrepresented at the workplace and in management positions. Many instances of discrimination also likely go unreported, making it even more difficult to expose covert forms of racism in corporate culture. In some cases, microaggression could ultimately result in higher staff turnover rates, one of the factors that informs a company's Social Profile in our ESG Evaluation.
Many corporate leaders have committed additional resources to D&I programs in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. However, the success of these programs lies in how they resonate with employees. Literature on this topic suggests that achieving true inclusion requires a shift in the organizational culture to acknowledge the value of different backgrounds, expose conscious and unconscious biases, and create an atmosphere of respect and empathy. Managers, in particular, play a crucial role in employee development and are therefore important stakeholders in supporting racial inclusion. However, many are not necessarily inclined to reflect on or talk about racial discrimination, and without a business culture that fosters inclusion, meaningful change is unlikely to result.
Companies have started promoting conversations with Black employees to better understand their experiences, which we believe is a starting point. Ultimately, achieving a sustainable diverse workforce and addressing system racism will require continued leadership and accountability. A 2018 Boston Consulting Group study of more than 1,700 companies in eight countries, across different industries and sizes, found that five key factors help diversity to flourish:
- Participative leadership: managers support employee contributions;
- Strategic priority: top management and the CEO clearly demonstrate support for diversity; – Frequent communication: free and open communication is encouraged within teams;
- Culture of openness to new ideas: employees feel that they can express their perspectives without fear of retaliation; and
- Fair employment practices: employees with equal roles achieve equal pay, and companies enact robust anti-discrimination policies.
Looking To The Future
The Black Lives Matter movement has ignited a broader awareness of racism in society that has put the corporate sector in the spotlight. We believe companies' diversity track records will be increasingly scrutinized, making a diverse and inclusive workforce a reputational imperative. In our view, more corporate entities will treat the challenge of workplace diversity as they would any other existential risk, and therefore gather the right information, including opting into voluntary diversity initiatives, to make the most informed choices.
A Call To Action: The Race At Work Charter
In collaboration with the U.K. government, the BITC established the 2018 Race at Work Charter detailing five actions all employers, regardless of sector, could undertake to further support diversity and inclusion. Since the Charter's inception, more than 100 companies have added their signatures, including the National Grid, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank. By joining this initiative, companies are committing to taking meaningful action against discrimination in the workplace. The five actions are to:
- Appoint an executive sponsor for race.
- Report ethnicity data metrics and monitor progress.
- Commit, at the Board level, to zero tolerance of harassment and bullying.
- Clearly state that promoting equality in the workplace is the responsibility of all managers.
- Take meaningful action to support the career progression of ethnic minorities.
The success of a company's D&I efforts will be reflected in several indicators, including: the proportion of Black employees in the workforce overall, also in management and leadership positions; and the pay gap between employees in similar roles. Large, technologically advanced companies will likely be among the first to back their D&I commitments with meaningful targets and report regularly on progress. In the end, an effective, inclusive framework that supports long-lasting diversity and ESG goals depends on sound communication and ongoing commitment of employees at all levels of the organization.
Related Research
- Environmental, Social, And Governance: Why Corporations' Responses To George Floyd Protests Matter, July 23, 2020
- The ESG Pulse: Social Factors Could Drive More Rating Actions As Health And Inequality Remain In Focus, July 16, 2020
- Environmental, Social, And Governance Evaluation Analytical Approach, June 17, 2020
- Environmental, Social, And Governance: How We Apply Our ESG Evaluation Analytical Approach: Part 2, June 17, 2020
- How We Apply Our ESG Evaluation Analytical Approach: Part 2, June 17, 2020
- People Power: COVID-19 Will Redefine Workforce Dynamics In The Post-Pandemic Era, June 4, 2020
- The ESG Lens on COVID-19, Part 2: How Companies Deal with Disruption, April 28, 2020
- COVID 19: A Test Of The Stakeholder Approach, April 21, 2020
- The ESG Lens On COVID-19, Part 1, April 20, 2020
- How To Navigate The ESG Risk Atlas, April 11, 2019
- How We Apply Our ESG Evaluation Analytical Approach, April 10, 2019
- The ESG Advantage: Exploring Links To Corporate Financial Performance, April 8, 2019
External Research
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/business/discrimination-complaint-outcomes/
- https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters#
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000312240907400203
- https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_uk/news/2020/02/ey-parker-review-2017-report-final.pdf – https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_uk/news/2020/02/ey-parker-review-2020-report-final.pdf
- https://www.talentinnovation.org/_private/assets/BeingBlack-KeyFindings-CTI.pdf
- https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation
- https://www.bitc.org.uk/race-at-work-charter-signatories/
Top Stories
What is loneliness and how can you manage it?
By Iris Schaden Your Business and Personal Coach
A mere century ago, almost no one lived alone. Today, many do and it is not unusual. The recent lockdowns and isolation periods have amplified feelings of loneliness. But why do we feel lonely? Why do our bodies experience social pain? Learn about what we can do to improve our situation, prevent chronic loneliness and minimise the tremendous impact it has on our health.
Solitude and choosing to be alone can be bliss. Over the last sixty years the number of people living alone has increased in developed countries by more than 50 percent. In countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, it is very common for people to live alone. But this does not translate into higher levels of self–reported loneliness. Many people have friends or family they can interact with on a regular basis.
However, it is important to recognise that this choice is different to loneliness, which can be a state of profound distress. Loneliness is a purely subjective and individual experience that can be felt by anyone, no matter their social, educational, gender or age demographic. Humankind are social creatures by nature – we struggle without it – and social connections are important to our health and emotional wellbeing.
Loneliness is a problem when we feel that no place is home; when we are in a group and we still feel social separation; when we spend time with our family but we feel like we don't belong; or when we lose a relationship and struggle to adjust. It is a growing phenomenon in modern times, a by-product of our individualism, long-distance study and career opportunities or time-consuming work commitments.
The pandemic, with its required isolation and social distancing, has added additional stress to many households, but feelings of loneliness or adverse effects of social isolation are particularly prevalent in one-person households and young people aged 12–25. According to a study by VicHealth, even before COVID-19 young adults and adolescents reported high levels of loneliness, social isolation, social anxiety and depressive symptoms. Additionally, it is men who tend to report higher levels of loneliness than women.
Reported loneliness is on the rise. In 2017 and 2018 former US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared 'an epidemic of loneliness,' and the UK appointed a Minister of Loneliness. In these two countries, one in five adults reported that they often or always feel alone; in Australia, it was one in four adults. And this was before COVID-19, which makes us realise the mental and emotional impact lockdown has on individuals.
What happens to our bodies when we experience loneliness?
Neuroscientists, such as John Cacioppo, identify loneliness as 'a state of hypervigilance whose origins lie among our primate ancestors and in our own hunter-gatherer past'. Our ancestors needed to belong to an intimate social group to survive. Cacioppo explains that our bodies respond to being alone, or being with strangers, as though we were in a dangerous situation.
Separation from other people (the group) triggers a fight-flight-or-freeze response and we feel social pain. While physical pain is primarily a sensory experience, social pain is the emotional state that comes from the distress of being lonely. Like the bodily sensation of hunger, it alerts us to a need, but instead of food the need is social interaction.
Loneliness generates anxiety: our breathing quickens, our heart races, our blood pressure rises and we struggle to sleep or sleep well. If we don't pay attention, over time we start to act more fearful, defensive and self-involved. All of these actions drive others away and tend to stop those experiencing loneliness from doing what would benefit them the most: reaching out to others. It is a vicious cycle and one that is especially challenging for older and younger individuals.
Tactics to help cope with feelings of loneliness.
To belong is to feel at home in a place or situation where you feel included, comfortable and connected with others. In his assessment, Vivek H. Murthy wrote, 'To be at home is to be known … You can feel at home with friends, or at work, or in a college dining hall, or at church, or in Yankee Stadium, or at your neighbourhood bar. Loneliness is the feeling that no place is home.' Having relocated to different cities and countries and re-establishing my life over and over again, I can certainly say that loneliness can be a challenge.
How can we combat the feelings of loneliness and the anxiety that comes with it, before it becomes chronic and we find ourselves even more isolated over time?
The first step in moving forward is acknowledging how you feel. Give those feelings a name with a specific timeframe; for example, today I feel alone or since I've been in lockdown, I have felt alone or since I lost my partner, I feel disconnected and lost. By doing this, we focus on the present and do not label our entire existence as lonely.
My personal strategy is to go outside if the loneliness gets too 'heavy'; connect with other people through looks and smiles (even under a face mask our eyes can smile); call friends and family regularly; or schedule a brunch or glass of wine with friends (in person or video chat).
Practising random acts of kindness and gratitude, for others and ourselves, is another very effective and very positive way of bringing us back into the present moment and improving our overall wellbeing. Energy flows where our focus goes. It takes effort and sometimes it is indeed easier to just give in and watch a light-hearted movie on the couch. And that's fine too!
If you are ever experiencing loneliness, I recommend exercising your social muscles and also seeking support. Remember that your feelings are normal as we are biologically fine-tuned to being with and interacting with others. However, you will need to make changes to avoid jeopardising your health. Once loneliness becomes chronic it becomes self-sustained and you will begin exhibiting defensive behaviour. As a defence mechanism, loneliness makes you assume the worst of others and you (your brain) become hypersensitive to social signals that might be interpreted as hostile towards you, when in reality people might just be trying to help you.
Large studies have shown that feeling lonely has a tremendous impact on your health: it can make you age quicker, cause dementia to advance faster, weaken your immune system and lead to anxiety and depression. Many people turn to substance abuse which only serves to numb the symptoms, rather than treat the source. And while you can find so much information online, knowing is not enough. Remember that reaching out for help is not a sign of weakness but one of strength. So please reach out to your network, talk to your health professional or get in contact with me.
There are different ways to improve your overall wellbeing. Let's discuss.
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text:
I know what temporary HP do: they provide a buffer, while leaving the original state of the character intact (if you receive temp HP while bloodied, you don't stop being bloodied, for example).
What I want to know is what do they represent, and if there's a general way of roleplaying them. The question arose because normal HP already represent more than just health (-2 hp doesn't imply a wound, say), and so Temp HP seem a bit redundant on the RP side of the equation.
I can understand particular cases: "A sudden favor from Moradin leaves you feeling better than you can remember, prime for battle" == +6 temp HP over your top HP, but the general case, if any, eludes me. I'd also like to know the rationalization for adding them into the game, but that's a bonus.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
It's been three weeks since our Presidential change of regime down here in the old Anahuac, albeit the steps taken in the five previous months were a show of what it is beggining now. I opened this thread over here since this is a subject that has been going for a very long time. First, due to us being colonial subjects to the Spanish Crown, being obliged to be serfs on our own country... I remember that in the 1767 decree that the Spanish Crown used to expell the Jesuist Priests it read "Los subditos del gran Monarca que ocupa el trono de España deben saber que nacieron para callar y obedecer y no para discurrir ni opinar en los altos asuntos del gobierno." (The subjects of the great Monarch that occupies the Spanish Throne must know that they were born to remain silent ant obey, not to discuss or having an opinion on the high affairs of government.), later, we were subdued under the power of the Catholic church, that dared to condemn those that attempted to fight invasions and wars against our independence as a country. If that wasn't enough we were under two authoritaian regimes, a 34 year long dictatorship and a 70 year long single party regime, both with mixed results.
This serf mentallity, that was imposed since the Spanish Conquest, arises every now and then within the Spanish Speaking Countries, namely, those that were part of the Spanish Empire. We have aspired to be independent and prosperous countries since the 1500s, but culturally we were formed under a subject ideollogy, be it in our government form or in the religious culture. By now it is impossible to name a Spanish speaking country that has not been at some time or another under an authoritarian regime, or that hasn't flirted with the ideas of Marxism, Socialism or Comunism...
The idea that we were opening to the world, to use our background and the resilence learnt throug decades of crisis sorting, could help us compete as equals to almost any other society in this planet. The idea that finally we were ready to overcome our ostracism, to finally cut the ties that prevented us to emerge as a prosperous and trascendent economy was strong enough that many of us really beleived that this century was finally going to be our golden century.
It seems that the enchant of the paternallistic ideas that held us back in the 70's not only arised again, they are back stronger and more twisted than when they were applied the last time. We thought that the opening on the democracy and the economy, built with independent institutions and support to enterpeneurship were ideas that would keep us away from the mediocre regimes that aspired to turn our country into "Leaders of the Third World"...
As I said before. This is just the beginning. It was good to be taken into account as newcomers to the developed world... Now if you excuse us, we are retreating back to the ostracism that the miopy of our current government seems to be taking us to.
Thanks for your attention.
* Edit due to unnecesary text at the bottom, grammar correction and to add a disclaimer. *
This is solely the opinion of the person behind ocelotl nickname. Feel free to move this thread to wherever it seems better positioned.


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1. mending - noun
· garments that must be repaired
Hypernym(s): garment
2. mending - noun
· the act of putting something in working order again
Synonym(s): repair, fix, fixing, fixture, mend, reparation
Hypernym(s): improvement
3. mend - verb
· restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken; "She repaired her TV set"; "Repair my shoes please"
Synonym(s): repair, fix, bushel, doctor, furbish_up, restore, touch_on
Hypernym(s): better, improve, amend, ameliorate, meliorate
4. mend - verb
· heal or recover; "My broken leg is mending"
Synonym(s): heal
Hypernym(s): better, improve, ameliorate, meliorate
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about meApril Fools ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn't' seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.
Come Together – Primal Scream
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Anonymity for political activists?
Shortly after 10 a.m. on Wednesday, after decisions are released, the Supreme Court will hear one hour of oral argument in John Doe # 1, et al., v. Reed, et al. (09-559). Arguing for the ballot measure proponents will be James Bopp, Jr., of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom in Terre Haute, Ind., and for Washington State officials will be the state's Attorney General, Robert M. McKenna, of Olympia. This is the only case scheduled for argument that day and, unless another case is given unusually expedited treatment later in the Term, this will be the last case argued this Term.
The Supreme Court has sometimes found it necessary to provide anonymity for political activists. The scope of that protection will be tested anew as the Court examines a plea by signers of a petition supporting a ballot measure that they, too, may need to keep their identities secret in order to avoid retaliation, perhaps even a violent response from their opposition. The new case arises in the volatile contact of same-sex marriage.
"Transparency," one might say, is a new buzz word in American politics and government. But a buzz word that goes all the way back to the ratification drive for the Constitution — the authors of the Federalist Papers, and their adversaries — is "anonymity." In an age when information travels at warp speed, via the Internet, it is more and more difficult to keep private facts private. But, in that same age, political accountability is often easier to maintain. In a new case that, symbolically, a "John Doe I" and a "John Doe II" have put before the Court, the Justices will find themselves navigating between those Digital Age realities. In the process, they may have to decide what part of the political process, when citizens seek to take government into their own hands, should be shielded from mass media exposure.
On the one hand, individuals who sign petitions to get a policy measure on an election ballot are legislators, in a sense. Like actual members of legislatures who drop a new bill into the hopper, they lay before the legislature their idea for a good new policy — except, in their case, the "legislature" is actually all of the voters who will cast ballots in an initiative or referendum. But, in another sense, they are like voters themselves, signing a petition as if they were casting a vote for a policy measure, and thus expressing a political belief. Real legislators don't get anonymity for proposing bills, but political activists promoting a cause at the polls have some right of privacy, as the Court has made clear in such decisions as McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission in 1995 and Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation in 1999.
About half of the states — twenty-four in all — now have a process for citizen-driven legislation, through an initiative process or a referendum process. At any given time, somewhere in the Nation, a ballot measure organization is circulating petitions for signatures, promoting a cause, or opposing one. It thus is obvious that the constitutional rules that govern that process have widespread impact. Whether those rules should be altered, or reinforced, when the identity of petition signers can be uploaded to the Internet in a matter of seconds, and then distributed as rapidly, is what the Court now faces in a case originating in Washington State.
The Court signaled its interest in this case soon after the current Term opened last October, when the Court temporarily blocked state officials in Washington from publicly disclosing the names and addresses of individuals who had signed petitions promoting a ballot measure — Referendum 71.
Referendum 71 was about the rights of couples involved in so-called "domestic partnerships" — a status often recognized for same-sex couples who are not allowed to get married. In 2007, the Washington legislature had created domestic partnerships, to be formally registered with the state. That status was open to a same-sex couple or, alternatively, to a couple with one member who was at least sixty-two years old. Two years later, the legislature passed a new law — Bill 5688 — that became known popularly as the "everything but marriage" law. It extended to domestic partners all of the legal rights that married couples have (without authorizing actual marriage for same-sex couples). It became law with the governor's signature in May 2009.
A group that opposes gay marriage, and equivalent rights for same-sex couples, Project Marriage Washington, decided to challenge the new law by testing it in a citizen referendum, Referendum 71. Focusing on the parking lots of heavily trafficked stores, like WalMart and Target, the group gathered more than enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.
Under state law, signers of petitions for ballot measures must include their name, home address, city and county of residence, and their signature. As an option, they can include their e-mail address. When the signatures are counted by state officials, to decide if there are enough, observers may be present, representing both those who approve and those who oppose the measure at issue. For many years, state officials took the position that the petitions were not to be disclosed publicly. However, the current Secretary of State, Sam Reed, considers them to be public records, and thus open for public inspection under state public records law.
Two groups favoring such disclosure are KnowThyNeighbor and WhoSigned. They sought copies of the Referendum 71 signed petitions, with the specific aim of putting them online, to identify the supporters of the measure. They expected, the groups' leaders said, that the disclosure would lead to a "personal and uncomfortable conversation" with those who favored Referendum 71 and thus wanted the new domestic partner law scuttled. Project Marriage Washington, joined by anonymous supporters of the measure, sued, and a federal judge blocked the release of the petitions. The Ninth Circuit Court, however, applying what is called "middle level scrutiny," found that disclosure would not violate any First Amendment rights of speech, association or belief of the backers of Referendum 71. The signatures, the Circuit Court noted, had been gathered in public places, so others could see who supporters were. And, it added, the state made no promise of confidentiality of their identities. Disclosure, it concluded, would help prevent fraud in the referendum process, and contribute to public awareness of those who, by signing a petition, "have taken action that has direct legislative effect."
The Supreme Court. over the sole dissenting vote of Justice John Paul Stevens, put release of the petitions on hold, and, two weeks later, on November 3, Referendum 71 went before Washington's voters. A "yes" vote would keep the domestic partnership law, a "no" vote would wipe out off the books. The "yes" vote prevailed, by a 53.1 to 46.9 percent margin.
Because potential disclosure of the signers' private information had only been put on hold temporarily, Project Marriage Washington and two anonymous signers filed the case in the Supreme Court two days after the balloting.
Petition for Certiorari
Project Marriage Washington and the two "John Does" asked the Court to decide two technical legal questions, but they amount to a plea for full constitutional protection for the privacy of personal identifying information, as well as political beliefs, of petition-signers. First, they urged the Court to impose the most rigorous constitutional standard — "strict scrutiny" — to any compelled public disclosure of their identities and beliefs. That test is whether such disclosure serves a "compelling" government interest, and whether the disclosure is a "narrowly tailored" way to serve any such interest. Second, they argued that the disclosure ordered in this case cannot satisfy that standard, so a final court order against release of the petitions would be justified. What is at stake, the petition argued, was not simply the privacy of their identifying information, but also the fact of their support for a political position — in other words, an expression of their political beliefs and of the political alignment they seek to join.
Under Washington law, the petition argued, the names of and other information about petition signers are disclosed to state officials only for the limited purpose of ensuring that there are enough valid signatures to get a referendum measure on the ballot, and to allow verification of the signatures. The filing also contended that state courts have ruled that petitions are not public records.
Privacy of the records — and thus anonymity for the signers — is necessary, the petition contended, because there is "a growing amount of evidence" that proponents of ballot measures such as Referendum 71, opposing gay rights, are targets for death threats and other forms of violent retaliation. And, summoning up a new technology argument, the petition said that the ease of uploading information to electronic databases, with wide and nearly instant distribution, raises significantly the prospect for retaliation against ballot measure proponents.
The state of Washington urged the Court to pass up review of the case. It noted that the Ninth Circuit had not explained its decision on release by the time the Supreme Court had blocked that release, but had now done so, and it argued that the final reasoning employed by the Circuit Court showed that it was not in conflict with any other decision of an appeals court, and that there is no confusion among the appeals courts about the question.
On the merits, the state contended that there is no compelled disclosure to the public of the signers' identifying information. The state public records law only applies to the government, and only requires disclosure of government records, the state said. Moreover, the state's opposition said that public disclosure has already occurred, when the signers put their signatures on a petition in a public place, open to observation by others. Once they perform that act, the state contended, they have left only a very limited "associational" interest. And the state argued that release of ballot measure petitions has been occurring for years, across the country, and yet this is the first case in which privacy for the signers has been raised.
Review of the case also was opposed by Washington Families Standing Together, a group that favored the domestic partner law and had intervened in the case at the Ninth Circuit. It argued, as the state did, that there is simply no dispute among federal appeals courts about the issue at stake. And, the group contended, this case is not a proper one to raise the issue, because "the record is notably incomplete" and "procedurally complicated." (Another group in the court below, the Washington Coalition for Open Government, waived its right to respond to the petition.)
Two days before the Court was scheduled to consider the Doe petition at the January 15 Conference, the Court, by a 5-4 vote, sent a signal that a majority was concerned about the threat of retaliation if there were widespread publicity surrounding the supporters of ballot measures against same-sex marriage. The Court ordered a halt for a federal judge's plan permitting televised coverage of the trial in San Francisco of the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, banning gay marriage n that state. Part of the majority's reasoning for doing so was that Proposition 8 backers, some of whom would be called to the witness stand during the trial, had demonstrated that their identification with that controversial measure had led to "incidents of past harassment." Donors to pro-Proposition 8 groups, the Court's opinion said, had received "death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance."
Whether or not that perception had any influence on the Court in the Referendum 71 case, the Court promptly granted review of the case at the first opportunity, on January 15. The Court expedited the case on its docket, to assure a ruling during the current Term. Its October order temporarily blocking release of the petition signers' information is to remain in effect until the Justices reach a final decision.
Merits Briefs
Picking up on the Court's earlier expression of concern about retaliation against gay-marriage foes and their political activity, and seizing upon the high level of publicity surrounding the dispute over California's Proposition 8, five of the first six pages of the Referendum 71 group's merits brief are devoted to threats against Proposition 8 supporters. The brief, indeed, opened with this sentence: "This case arose in the wake of events in California." The recitation included the profanity used in some of the threats, presumably to add to their authenticity.
When it began discussing the legal merits of the case, the brief used fervent language. At the core of the case, it argued, "lies the First Amendment question of whether, when the sovereign people seek to put a referendum on the ballot, they may be constitutionally compelled to publicly disclose identifying information about themselves, their association, and their belief that a measure should be on the ballot or whether any state interests are satisfied by private disclosure to the government."
Under Washington law, the brief said, ballot supporters are compelled to speak at three levels "" at the time they sign petitions, when they submit petitions to state officials to be canvassed, and when public disclosure is ordered. The first two levels, it said, do not involve any fear of intimidation or any waiver of rights. It is at the third level, public disclosure, where "there is serous concern over both loss of privacy and intimidation.
Recalling the cases of voter intimidation in the Ku Klux Klan era in the nineteenth century, the Referendum 71 supporters' brief argued that violence used to control elections has been one of the two great evils against republican government, along with corruption. The state of Washington, in defending public disclosure of petition signers, the brief said, "argues corruption and downplays intimidation."
Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed's merits brief leaned heavily on the argument that, when citizens sign a referendum petition, "they are exercising the same legislative power as the elected Washington Legislature, having reserved this power in the state constitution. Signing a referendum petition is a legally operative act." Once such petitions succeed with citizen signers, it noted, state officials have no choice but to conduct an election, and the law that is being referred for citizen approval is suspended in the meantime. A petition signer, it went on, is like a member of the legislature who seconds a motion. "In a legislative body, if there is no second, the motion fails," it commented, adding: "When Washington's citizens legislate directly, if there are not enough signatures, the measure will not qualify to the ballot."
Moreover, the state's merits brief contended that signing a referendum is not like making a speech, or engaging in "expressive conduct" of the kind that enjoys broad First Amendment protection. Rather, it said, a signer has no control over the content of the petition; that is dictated by state law and by the sponsor's choice. Signing a petition is not like circulating handbills about elections, a process that the distributor controls, or about the process of actually circulating the petition, which is a form of core political speech, the state contended. Since the act of signing is not an act of political expression, disclosure of the petition's signers can be judged by a standard of less rigor than strict scrutiny, Reed argued.
The Reed brief also contended that, even though the Referendum 71 signers were claiming that they were only raising a challenge to disclosure of identities in their own case, they actually were making a much broader challenge to any disclosure at any time during any initiative, recall, or candidate nomination process, as well as any referendum, thus arguing against any state public records application to such information.
Like the state, the intervening group, the Washington Coalition for Open Government, argued in its merits brief that the Referendum 71 signers were seeking "sweeping relief," in an attempt to use the Constitution to compel the state of Washington to permit them "to operate the state legislative process in secrecy. There is no right, fundamental or otherwise, to secrecy in the legislative process.No part of the United States Constitution provides for direct popular legislation, and the drafters of the First Amendment expressly decided not to include such a right, or the protection of such a right, within the First Amendment."
The other intervening group, Washington Families Standing Together, made essentially a states' rights argument in its merits brief. States that permit citizen-driven legislative efforts, that brief asserted, are free to control the process. Every state that has such a process, except one (California), makes petition or referendum petitions subject to public disclosure, it commented. Signing such a petition, it added, is neither a private nor an anonymous act, and is entitled, at most, to only middle-level First Amendment protection.
Among amici, the argument for anonymity drew the greater support, numerically (sixteen briefs to nine). Much of that support (though not all) comes from such high-visibility conservative or libertarian groups as the American Center for Law and Justice, Institute for Justice, and Cato Institute. It also draws the support, as would be expected, from Proposition 8 backers in California. Liberal groups, like the Brennan Center for Justice, entered the case in the middle, supporting neither side but urging the Court to take care not to interfere with public disclosure of money in political activity.
Twenty-three states, arguing for state authority to act against fraud in elections, lead the amici supporting Washington State. Also on that side of the case is a wide array of news organizations, arguing the need for access to public records, including election records, as well as online publishers, and a group of gay rights organizations.
The Court, perhaps, has tipped its hand in the case, not only by its order in October, temporarily protecting the Washington signers' privacy, but also by its 5-4 ruling in January in the Proposition 8 TV trial coverage ruling. But both of those actions tend largely to exhibit sympathy for the argument that opponents of gay marriage do face threats and other forms of harassment or outright violence. That sentiment, perhaps, cannot be translated directly into a conclusion that signing a petition is a form of protected political speech.
The Court has never before analyzed, as it must in this case, just exactly what occurs "" in a constitutional sense "" when a citizen writes a signature, and enters personal information, on a political petition. The Referendum 71 case presents that issue very directly, with the signers making a vigorous argument that it is a purely expressive form of political speech, while those favoring public disclosure of petitions make an equally vigorous argument that the role of citizen as legislative sponsor is no different from that of an elected lawmaker. To side with the former and against the latter, the Court would have to make a sizeable constitutional leap from past rulings on electoral anonymity. Perhaps some of the Justices voted to grant review of the case precisely anticipating that they might well do just that. The briefing, though, has sharpened the issue, far more than did the content submitted to the Court prior to the October order and that presented before review was granted.
For a Court that has recently shown, especially in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in January, that it reads the First Amendment expansively in the context of election campaigns, there may be little hesitancy now in deciding the Referendum 71 case by lengthening that trend, to elevate the constitutional significance of signing a political petition. Much may be revealed on this score at oral argument.
Whether the Court will see this case as a test of the Constitution's role in mediating the heavy political controversy, being waged across the country, over gay rights, is unclear at this point. That controversy, to be sure, has a bearing on the intimidation issue that is so central to the Referendum 71 signers' case.
However, just as central to the other side's argument is a plea for open government, coupled with a plea for state control of their own initiative and referendum processes. Choosing between those two conflicting approaches to the case may be difficult, indeed.


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Post-harvest herbicide application provides an additional opportunity to manage problematic weed species including winter annuals, biennials, and perennials, said University of Illinois associate professor of weed science Aaron Hager.
"Be sure to scout fields before making any application to determine what weeds are present and if their densities are high enough to warrant treatment," he advised. "Many herbicides used prior to or after crop planting/emergence can be used in the fall, but not all herbicides are labeled for fall application. Also, some herbicides approved for fall application have application timing restrictions."
Herbicides that do not have much soil-residual activity (for example, 2,4-D or glyphosate) should be applied after the majority of winter annual species have emerged. A mid- to late-October application might be more effective than one in early October. However, if the fall application will include a herbicide with soil-residual activity, it can be applied earlier.
Horseweed/marestail (Conyza canadensis) populations are increasing in minimum and no-tillage cropping systems across much of the southern two-thirds of Illinois. Horseweed completes its life cycle in one year, but unlike many other annual species, it may exist as a winter or summer annual.
Winter annual horseweed populations typically emerge in the fall, within a few days or weeks after seed is dispersed from the parent plant. In northern Illinois, most horseweed has a winter annual life cycle. A substantially higher proportion of spring emergence occurs in areas (approximately) south of Interstate 70. Both winter and summer annual life cycles can be found across central Illinois.
With the increasing prevalence of horseweed, including glyphosate-resistant populations, fall herbicide applications may work better than spring applications. Glyphosate alone may not provide adequate control no matter when applied, but a higher application rate of products (such as 2,4-D) can be used in fall than in spring.
"We do not recommend fall herbicide applications as a method to provide residual control of summer annual weed species," Hager said.
Applying soil-residual herbicides fairly close to, instead of several weeks (or months) prior to, planting can improve control of summer annual species, such as waterhemp. If a soil-residual herbicide will be part of a fall herbicide application, use an application rate that will provide control of winter annuals throughout the rest of 2012. "We recommend against increasing the application rate with the idea of controlling summer annual species next spring," Hager said.


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Michael Barrett misses the Cubs and pines to catch on with them again some day. Yes, even if Carlos Zambrano is still wearing Cubbie Blue.
Michael Barrett misses the Cubs and pines to catch on with them again some day. Yes, even if Carlos Zambrano is still wearing Cubbie Blue. "I felt fortunate every day I put on that uniform," said Barrett, who was traded to San Diego last June 20 - only 19 days after the headstrong catcher famously brawled with baseball's most mercurial pitcher. "Cubs fans go from generation to generation, and it's cool to be a part of that. If you develop even a passing relationship with a person whose great-great-grandfather was a diehard Cubs fan, it will change your outlook on what it means to be a Cubs player. Every day, you're watched by a million people who care so deeply it's hard to describe. To play for that team was a dream come true." He then smiled and said: "I tell you, to put that uniform on again, I'd fight anyone - in a heartbeat." During three-plus seasons with the Cubs, Barrett was a streaky hitter whose catching skills came under constant scrutiny. Though friendly and seemingly mild-mannered, he had a short fuse that was easily ignited. And who knows what he was thinking that fateful June 1 day when, after he and Zambrano went at it in the dugout, Michael followed Cra-Z into the clubhouse. (He wouldn't discuss specifics about the incident.) Despite his warts, Barrett was popular in Cubbieland. Why? Because he never cheated the fans. And, of course, because he sucker-punched A.J. Pierzynski. "Cubs fans aren't fooled by imitators," he said. "They know when a player gives his heart." Entering the final year of his contract last spring, Barrett half-expected to get traded. When he put his face in front of Zambrano's fist, that sealed the deal. The Cubs dumped a solid offensive catcher for a stiff named Rob Bowen, who would be cut less than a month later. It was classic addition-by-subtraction for the Cubs, who went on to win the division title. "Getting Zambrano back on track had to be their first priority," Barrett said. "He already had faced so many challenges, with his contract situation and his rough start, and the last thing the club needed was Carlos facing another challenge. It wouldn't be fair to the manager to have to say, 'I can't catch Barrett today because Zambrano's pitching.' "Lou Piniella told me he was confident I could handle Zambrano, but he just didn't want to take a chance. I knew then I was as good as gone. I was getting paid too much money to sit on the bench twice a week or more." Piniella, an emotional brawler back when he played, said this week he was "only initially" reluctant to use Barrett as Zambrano's catcher. "I thought time would heal," Piniella said, "so there was no sense rushing that combination." These days, Lou can't heap enough praise on Barrett's replacement, rookie Geovany Soto. Still, the manager said: "I really like Michael. He's a good guy. I didn't push for a trade." After the fight, Zambrano insisted he could pitch to Barrett. Nearly nine months later, he's still saying nice things about his former assault-and-batterymate: "Believe me, I love Michael. I mean it when I say he's my brother, no matter what happened last year. He was good to me." Statistically, Michael was good FOR Carlos, too. Working almost exclusively with Barrett from 2004 to 2006, Zambrano's 3.14 ERA was seventh-best in the majors. "I'm not taking a lot of credit, but I will take a little," Barrett said. "I know it's difficult for people to remember the big picture of our relationship because all they'll remember is the fight, but I do think I played a role in his development. "Handling Carlos was not easy - and I'm not even talking about his emotions, although that was a factor. It had more to do with his pitch selection and the movement on his pitches. "Look, you couldn't catch Zambrano for three years and not go at it with him - verbally, physically, whatever. Some of the craziest things in my career happened with him on the mound. Cubs fans will remember Zambrano forever. He's hilarious and passionate. Fun. And a little crazy. "You walk away shaking your head and saying, 'Oh, that Carlos.' I tell you, I don't regret being his catcher for one second." Barrett probably won't have a similar relationship with any San Diego pitcher. He struggled after the trade - zero homers and 12 RBIs in three months for a team that choked away a playoff spot - and now is competing with Josh Bard for playing time. Having signed a one-year contract, he believes he could be dealt again this season. (Note to Michael: Don't bet on a return to Cubbieland.) "The second half of the season didn't go as he had hoped, but we know there's a good player in there," Padres manager Bud Black said. "It's tough when you come over in the middle of the year to a new staff that was pitching extremely well with the catchers we had. This spring gives him a great opportunity to get to know the guys." The guys include three ex-Cubs: Greg Maddux, Glendon Rusch and Mark Prior. In Chicago, Prior and Maddux preferred Henry Blanco and Paul Bako to Barrett. "Being a catcher is like being a quarterback," Barrett said. "It seems there's always a controversy." Controversy? Mild-mannered Michael Barrett? Not a chance. Mike Nadel (firstname.lastname@example.com) is the Chicago sports columnist for GateHouse News Service. Read his blog, The Baldest Truth, at www.thebaldesttruth.com.


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I love soft, fluffy and thick rolled cake with sugar-minus butter cream. Well, the sweetness of butter cream in this cake was just nice to me but not sweet enough for T, who has really sweet, sweet tooth. He thought even the steamed sweet potato tasted sweeter than butter cream. How can?
For the sponge cake sheet, I used 250 grams of plain sponge cake mix and added two heap tablespoons of matcha. And, prepared according to the instruction on the packaging. I suppose you can use any of your favourite sponge cake recipe for this cake so I will include here only the butter cream recipe I tried.
60 g granulated sugar
15 g water
35 g egg white (from one egg) 150 g butter, diced and chilled
- Bring together sugar and water in a saucepan, simmer till thick but pourable.
- Beat egg white till medium peaks then pour in hot syrup in a stream while beating.
- Continue beating the egg white till cooled.
- Slowly add in diced butter and margarine and whisk till light and fluffy.
- Store in airtight container or cover mixing bowl with cling wrap and keep in the refrigerator till needed.
Cook's notes:
- Butter cream made with the mixture of butter and margarine (block type) is stiffer compared to 100% butter. And, vegetable shortening produced even stiffer frosting and whiter colour.
- It can be kept in the freezer, thaw till the spreadable stage when needed.


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If you're a casual fan entering this year's Super Bowl between the Saints and Colts, you may be unaware of the Saints rallying cry of WHO DAT? You'd best get used to it, because you will here it 9,000 times between now and Sunday, I assure you.
Saints fans have long assumed that their WHO DAT? was something that belonged to them, and to the city of New Orleans as a whole. But the NFL, until Tuesday, saw things a bit differently. They aggressively pursued a trademark of that phrase, and demanded that vendors cease selling merchandise with that phrase not officially licensed by the NFL.
Naturally, this struck some as a bit mean-spirited. Extremely mean-spirited. Petty and downright sleazy, actually. And so the NFL has officially retreated on its stance. From USA Today's Michael McCarthy:
Louisiana politicians took the offensive, painting the NFL as a corporate bully trying to cash in on a fan term that really belonged to a city and community still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
On Tuesday night, the NFL appeared to bow to pressure by admitting, in writing, it did not have exclusive rights to the "Who Dat" phrase, fleur-de-lis symbol or the Saints black and gold team colors.
This is not the first time the NFL has tried to stomp its feet around to trademark something. In 2007, they gave up on trying to trademark the phrase Big Game for anyone using the phrase to reference the Super Bowl. In 2009 they gave up on banning churches from holding Super Bowl parties.
I think what's going on is obvious here. The NFL is trying to monopolize the English language, and the only way to stop them is to make sure you publicly call them greedy jerks to cause them to retreat.
Saints fans successfully got the NFL to back off. I suggest you follow their example when the NFL tries charging you for that DEFENSE! sign you brought into the stadium.


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What is your favorite NYC Italian Restaurant?
After a couple of days of not so quiet contemplation, as well as some serious Italian restaurant eating, I have decided that Babbo
is my favorite Italian restaurant in NYC. Why? Because of how I feel when I eat there. Babbo has the greatest vibe and the best energy of any restaurant I know, Italian or not. I feel great as soon as I walk in the door, even when I'm confronted by a crush of people at the bar and on occasion a less than warm and gracious welcome. I feel I'm smack dab in the middle of something both energizing and transportive. I have eaten at Babbo dozens of times, and the food is full of gusto and energy and panache as well. The pastas, the sweetbreads, the skirt steak (is it still on the menu?), the lamb chops, and even the desserts (not normally the strongest suit of an Italian restaurant) are almost always satisfying, earthy, a little bit showy, and extremely delicious. I don't even mind the music, though it can get way too loud late at night, because Mario generally has very good taste in jazz and rock. Though it's never quiet in Babbo, you can almost always carry on a conversation with your tablemates without raising your voice. I have heard people complain about their meal at Babbo (the food and the overall experience), but for my money it defines what contemporary Italian dining is in NYC right now. 110 Waverly Pl. (just east of sixth avenue) 212-777-0303.
My other top four:
Esca fantastic raw seafood creations (called crudo), exemplary pastas (I'm partial to the one with sea urchin and crabmeat), and deceptively simple, fresher than fresh, grilled, sauteed and baked fish main courses. 402 W. 43rd St. (just west of ninth avenue) 212-562-7272.
Teodora: Chef Giancarlo Quaddalti is from Bologna, so when you go to Teodora have the lasagna. It's the real thing. Teodora really feels Italian, from the cooking to the vibe to the Italian being spoken at many tables. 141 E.57th St. (just east of Lexington Ave.) 212-826-7101
Del Posto Inoteca The casual side of Del Posto, the Inoteca's cooking is a little more soulful and significantly cheaper than its big brother. They even have chicken cacciatoria on the menu. Great nibbles, pastas, salads, meat dishes like a pork loin with fig salad, juicy skirt steak, just food you want to eat. They only take reservations there the same day, and when I went the other night, there were a number of empty tables, In other words, you can get in without speed-dialing. 85 Tenth Ave. (between 15th and 16th streets, 212-497-8090)
L'Impero Scott Conant's cabrito (goat) is reason enough to go to L'Impero, and he has a fantastic way with pastas and starters as well. 45 Tudor City Pl., 212-599-5045.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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I know an extraordinary amount of things most people would find trivial, boring or shocking. For instance I can discuss, in depth, tertiary yaws, those microscopic survivors from the Cenozoic Era that bore into the soft tissue of human feet and cause spontaneous amputation of the toes; I can give a scientific dissertation on how a basket of discarded tomato, potato and eggplant peels, when treated with 2-4-6 dimethyloxytropinone could make every man, woman and child in a small town hallucinate and swing from street lights, and I know far more than I care to about the sexual appetites of some of America's favorite rock stars. It's not what you think, but I'm sworn to secrecy.
My formal education has taken me from being able to read a book by myself at the age of three, play Rachmaninoff's piano Concerto in D Sharp Minor when I was nine, come close to flunking my senior year of high school and finish college after two aborted attempts. None of the teachers I encountered along the way made much of an impression on me or imparted anything of real value, except for my college journalism professor. He forced me, against my will, to compose my thoughts at the keyboard and then to convey them in an inverted pyramid style, skills for which I am forever grateful.
My informal education is full of unorthodox and often outrageous teachers who taught me how to corner a 2000-pound, three-liter, rear engine car at 120 miles-per-hour without losing control; how to tether myself to a helicopter in flight, sit on the landing skids and take pictures without falling off and how to hang by one arm from the back of a moving train, then hoist myself successfully back on board. Unfortunately, none of my instructors are still among the living.
All in all, the variety of subject matter to which I've been exposed, as well as my learning curve, has failed to fit the profile of any standard curriculums. I am just now learning how to be still in the moment, how to talk to a mother I've had for nearly 60 years and how to recognize and give thanks for my many blessings. Before James died, my life was fuller and calmer than it had ever been. I had a husband who nurtured and loved me more than either one of my parents and who, daily, showed me the meaning of true character.
I've learned how to relate to women, to have girlfriends I look forward to spending time with and to talk about feelings, as opposed to power-to-weight ratios and return on investments. No longer am I looking for approval from, or am anchored by, the man in my life, and I've finally learned to live what most people call a "normal life." I've learned what real love is, the giving of self, the grace of God, come to terms with the duplicity of man and I've realized that ego can be all encompassing.
Cancer has been one of my greatest teachers. Aside from giving me an up close and personal look at mortality, it has nurtured the deepest parts of my spiritual side; made me realize that while I'll never have the mother I want, I can be the daughter she needs, and it's helped me separate the people who matter from those who don't. Cancer has made me more compassionate than I thought possible, has made me cry over something as simple as an apple pie and and made me determined to live my life out loud.
What are the most profound lessons you've learned in your life? Has life or cancer changed you; has it made you less judgmental and more open to try new things, or has it made you more fearful of the future? Since we don't know whether we have a day, or a decade, I hope you postpone death by living; eat pie; extend a hand; put yourself out there in ways that make you uncomfortable and become acquainted with God.


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MultiMon Taskbar Pro: A Second Taskbar for Dual-Monitor Setups
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by PCWorld's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
Generic Company Place Holder MultiMon Taskbar PRO
MultiMon Taskbar Pro lets you place a simple horizontal taskbar on your secondary monitor. It comes with five color schemes, ranging from "Classic Gray Style" all the way to Windows 7. No matter what color scheme you choose, the application always feels like the Windows XP taskbar: Each application gets a wide button with a tiny icon and a long text label.
Actually, some applications get more than one button: This happened with to me with Zhorn Software's Stickies, which I use to place sticky notes on my monitor. These notes never appear on the Windows taskbar, but MultiMon Taskbar Pro decided to give each one its own taskbar tile, quickly filling up the secondary taskbar.
In terms of memory, MultiMon Taskbar Pro is very thrifty, taking up just over 2MB of RAM. It features a few extras beyond the taskbar: When you hover over the taskbar of an active window, an arrow button appears, pointing at the other monitor. Click the button, and the window hops over to the next monitor. Unlike the rest of MultiMon, this button is well integrated with the Windows 7 Aero interface, and feels right at home.
Another extra feature is the clipboard menu integrated into the taskbar. This menu shows a log of text copied into the clipboard--not just the most recent copy operation. Clicking a line from the log puts it back into the clipboard, in plain-text form (all formatting is lost). This feature introduces privacy concerns, because it exposes your clipboard history to anyone who has access to your desktop. Fortunately, it can be disabled.
The best thing about MultiMon Taskbar Pro is its generous site licensing policy: For a one-time $850 fee, any organization can install the application on all of its computers, worldwide, with no limitations whatsoever.
For a single user, MultiMon Taskbar Pro retails for $28. This is not as attractive: For $25, you could get DisplayFusion Pro, which does much more than MultiMon Taskbar Pro. Its taskbar looks like the real Windows 7 taskbar, for one, and it manages dual-screen wallpapers, too.
If you are looking for a multi-monitor taskbar for your organization, MultiMon Taskbar Pro may be a good fit. Individual users might want to shop around.
--Erez Zukerman
Generic Company Place Holder MultiMon Taskbar PRO
Improve your PC's view with this full-featured program to enhance multiple monitors.
- Lean memory footprint
- Does not visually integrate with Windows 7
- Cannot be moved
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Lesson Goals
Mrs. Leiker's 'Lesson Goals' allow for adaptability to meet immediate needs of the students and to create a dynamic and evolving environment in the classroom using a mix of instructional methods to keep things interesting and to allow for differentiated learning. This allows Mrs. Leiker more opportunities to use the methods and standards listed to the right (such us UDL, student-centered and adaptive learning). Mrs. Leiker's courses take place in a Blended Learning Environment described as: "In blended learning classrooms, you'll see not textbooks, but digital content. You'll see students moving away from the 'right answer' and moving to how they can apply what they're learning–that's a huge shift, It's focusing more on critical thinking and on students being aware of what they're learning." (from eSchoolNews)
Week of: May 6, 2019
For the BEST indication of what we are doing in each course INCLUDING links to assignments missing/submitted, use your student's log in to Moodle (Link at Left) or iTunes U (Accounting only) on their iPad.
Mrs. Leiker's Lessons Also Include:
Students in Mrs. Leiker's courses are using 21st Century Skills to complete projects related to real world topics and issues that require collaboration, communication & critical thinking. Mrs. Leiker teaches using participatory learning where students are directly involved and participate in their learning instead of being spoke at or simply observers of knowledge.
Mrs. Leiker encourages learning by doing. Similar to the Maker Movement (in particular in computer programming), she believes that the creation of real school and community connected projects, students can truly find a niche in their talents and peak their interest and passion in a subject and career. As written in Wikipedia: the 'Maker culture' emphasises learning-through-doing (constructivism) in a social environment. It's been dubbed as the 'DIY' in class. Maker culture emphasises informal, networked, peer-led, and shared learning motivated by fun and self-fulfilment. Community interaction and knowledge sharing are often mediated through networked technologies, with websites and social media tools forming the basis of knowledge repositories and a central channel for information sharing and exchange of ideas, and focussed through social meetings in shared spaces. Maker culture has attracted the interest of educators concerned about students' disengagement from STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in formal educational settings. Maker culture is seen as having the potential to contribute to a more participatory approach and create new pathways into topics that will make them more alive and relevant to learners.
Mrs. Leiker's courses incorporate Student-Centered Learning in numerous ways. Rather than a traditional approach to teaching, Student-Centered Teaching makes students active rather than passive learners. These methods shift the focus of activity from the teacher to the learners. Projects in this format assure positive interdependence and individual accountability. Students are presented with challenges (problems and projects) and learn the course material in the context of addressing the challenges. This discovery and problem-based learning methodology has repeatedly been shown to be superior to the traditional teacher-centered approach to instruction.
Mrs. Leiker is integrating adaptive learning methods into her courses using technology. In adaptive learning, technology can be programmed and used to interactively modify lessons, quizzes, tests and assignments to accommodate the learning level and style of the student. In this way, students can have a truly tailored education in order to best learn the concepts presented. With the availability of technology, this method is surely going to revolutionize education in time.
Mrs. Leiker's courses are flexible and naturally designed to incorporate Universal Design for Learning. All students have equal opportunities to learn through various methods. Mrs. Leiker's students are encouraged to communicate their learning style via edmodo registration and are allowed opportunities to turn in work at a pace that works for them. All resources, assignments and projects from Mrs. Leiker's courses are available online from any web enabled device and include many different multimedia forms of presentation. Mrs. Leiker also provides retests on every assessment in the course to assure that students have sufficient opportunities to master the material. Use the button link above or the video below for more information about UDL.


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Beautiful wallpaper images free download: You could download and use these pictures absolutely freely as wallpapers for your computer, tablet or smartphone. Fine art photography - Extending the limits of the soul. Copyright © 2015 Dina Shvayakova & Andrew Karpov. All rights reserved.
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Monitor and manage components, parameters, and dependent regions, and issue IMS Type 1 and Type 2 commands.
Keep on top of the CSL Resource Manager (RM), IMS Coupling Facility (CF) and IMS Shared Queues structures.
Build a custom dashboard that enables you to check the overall health of your IMS systems at a glance.
Record command input and output messages from all sources – together with MTO messages – in the same history database.
Affinity routing gives you more control over where transactions should be processed. Get direct control over the shared message queue workload balance to better manage availability.


text: Committed to providing quality service, our Medical Imaging Center ensures patient comfort and accurate test results. Our imaging suites and patient prep areas have been thoughtfully designed to enhance your experience with more comfort and privacy, too. We value your time, using technological advancements and efficiencies, while keeping individual care and respect at the forefront of every visit. Tell your doctor you want to schedule your next exam at HSHS St. Joseph's Hospital. To learn more, call (618) 651-2790.